Unleavened Bread

THE STRUGGLE

CHAPTER I.

Littleton had not expected that Selma would accede to his request to be married at once, but he was delighted at her decision. He had uttered his wish in sincerity, for there was really no reason for waiting, and by an immediate marriage they would escape the tedium of an engagement during which they could hope to see each other but rarely. He was able to support a wife provided they were to live simply and economically. He felt sure that Selma understood his circumstances and was no less ready than he to forego luxuries in order that they might be all in all to each other spiritually as husband and wife. Besides he had hopes that his clientage would continue to grow so that he would be able to provide all reasonable comforts for his new home. Consequently he drove up from the station in New York with a light heart, fondly pointing out to his wife this and that building and other objects of interest. He mistook her pensive silence for diffidence at the idea of descending suddenly on another woman's home—a matter which in this instance gave him no concern, for he had unlimited confidence in Pauline's executive ability and her tendency not to get ruffled. She had been his good angel, domestically speaking, and, indeed, in every way, since they had first begun to keep house together, and it had rather amused him to let fall such a bombshell as the contents of his telegram upon the regularity of her daily life.

"Don't be nervous, darling," he said gayly. "You will find Pauline bubbling over with joy at our coming, and everything arranged as though we were expected to live there all our lives."

Selma looked at him blankly and then remembered. She was not feeling nervous, and Pauline was not in her thoughts. She had been lost in her own reflections—lost in the happy consciousness of the contrast between her new and her old husband, and in the increasing satisfaction that she was actually in New York. How bright and busy the streets looked! The throng of eager passers and jostling vehicles against the background of brilliant shop-windows bewildered and stimulated her. She was saying to herself that here was the place where she was suited to live, and mutely acknowledging its superiority to Benham as a centre of life. This was a rash, swift conclusion, but Selma prided herself on her capacity to arrive at wise judgments by rapid mental processes. So absorbed was she in the glittering, stirring panorama that Wilbur's efforts at enlightenment were practically wasted. She was in no humor for details; she was glorying in the exalted impression which the whole vivid scene produced upon her.

His remark caused her to realize that they must be near their destination. She had no misgivings on the score of her own reception, but she was interested and curious to see Pauline, this wonderful sister of whom Wilbur was so fond and so proud. Then her husband cried, "Here we are!" and in another moment she found herself in the hearty embrace of a large, comely woman who met her at the door. This of course must be Pauline. Selma was just a little shocked by the fervor of the greeting; for though she delighted in rapid intimacies, unexpected liberties with her person were contrary to her conceptions of propriety. Still it was delightful to be welcomed so heartily. She returned the embrace warmly but with dignity, and allowed herself to be convoyed into the house arm in arm with her new relation who seemed, indeed, to be bubbling over with joy. It was not until they were in the same room that Selma could get a good look at her.

Pauline Littleton was fine looking rather than pretty. She was tall and substantial, with an agreeable face, an intelligent brow, a firm yet sweet mouth, and steady, honest eyes which now sparkled with pleasure. Her physique was very different from her brother's. Selma noticed that she was taller than herself and only a little shorter than Wilbur. She had Wilbur's smile too, suggesting a disposition to take things humorously; but her expression lacked the poetic cast which made him so attractive and congenial to herself and excused the existence of the lighter vein. Selma did not admire women who were inclined to be stout. She associated spareness of person with high thinking, and an abundance of flesh as an indication of material or commonplace aims. She reflected that Pauline was presumably business-like and a good house-keeper, and, very likely, an industrious teacher in her classes, but she set her down in her mind as deficient in the finer sensibilities of the spirit belonging to herself and Wilbur. It was instinctive with Selma to form a prompt estimate of every one she met, and it was a relief to her to come to the agreeable conclusion that there was nothing in her sister-in-law's appearance to make her discontented with herself. This warmed her heart at once toward Pauline. To be sure Pauline manifested the same sort of social grace which distinguished Mrs. Hallett Taylor, but Selma, though she still regarded this with suspicion, for the reason that she had not yet become mistress of it, was secretly content to know that she had married into a family which possessed it. Altogether she was agreeably impressed by her scrutiny of her new sister, who, in her opinion, would not be an irritating rival either in looks or character, and yet who was a pleasing and sufficiently serious-minded person—in short just the sort of sister-in-law which she yearned to have.

Pauline, on her part, was duly fascinated by the delicate and inspiring beauty of her brother's wife. She understood at once why Wilbur had chosen her in preference to any one of his own circle. Selma obviously symbolized by her grave, tense, thin face the serious ideals of living and womanhood, which had been dear to his meditation as a youth and a part of his heritage from his New England ancestors. It made her joyous to feel that he had found a wife who would be a constant source of inspiration to him, for she knew that Wilbur would not be happy with any one who fell short of his ideal as to what a woman should be. She knew her brother well, and she understood how deeply in earnest he was to make the most of his life, and what an exalted vision he entertained as to the possibilities for mutual sympathy and help between husband and wife.

Partly as a consequence of their limited means, partly owing to absorption in their respective studies and interests, the Littletons, though of gentle stock, lived simple lives according to New York standards. They were aware of the growth of luxury resulting from the accumulation of big fortunes since the war. As an architect, Wilbur saw larger and more elaborate public and private buildings being erected on every side. As a house-keeper and a woman with social interests, Pauline knew that the power of money was revolutionizing the public taste in the matter of household expenditure; that in the details of domestic life there was more color and more circumstance, and that people who were well-to-do, and many who were not, were requiring as daily comforts all sorts of things to which they had been unaccustomed. But though they both thus knew vaguely that the temper of society had changed, and that sober citizens and their wives, who, twenty years before, would have prated solemnly against a host of gay, enlivening or pretty customs as incompatible with American virtue, were now adopting these as rapidly as money could procure them—the brother and sister had remained comparatively unaffected by the consequences of the transformation scene. Certainly their home had. It was old-fashioned in its garniture and its gentility. It spoke of a day, not so many years before, when high thinking had led to blinking where domestic decoration was concerned, and people had bought ugly wooden and worsted things to live with because only the things of the spirit seemed of real importance. Still time, with its marvellous touch, has often the gift of making furniture and upholstery, which were hideous when bought, look interesting and cosey when they have become old-fashioned. In this way Pauline Wilbur's parlor was a delightful relic of a day gone by. There was scarcely a pretty thing in it, as Wilbur himself well knew, yet, as a whole, it had an atmosphere—an atmosphere of simple unaffected refinement. Their domestic belongings had come to them from their parents, and they had never had the means to replenish them. When, in due time, they had realized their artistic worthlessness, they had held to them through affection, humorously conscious of the incongruity that two such modern individuals as themselves should be living in a domestic museum. Then, presto! friends had begun to congratulate them on the uniqueness of their establishment, and to express affection for it. It had become a favorite resort for many modern spirits—artists, literary men, musicians, self-supporting women—and Pauline's oyster suppers, cooked in her grandmother's blazer, were still a stimulus to high thinking.

So matters stood when Selma entered it as a bride. Her coming signified the breaking up of the household and the establishment. Pauline had thought that out in her clear brain over night since receiving Wilbur's telegram. Wilbur must move into a modern house, and she into a modern flat. She would keep the very old things, such as the blazer and some andirons and a pair of candlesticks, for they were ancient enough to be really artistic, but the furniture of the immediate past, her father and mother's generation, should be sold at auction. Wilbur and she must, if only for Selma's sake, become modern in material matters as well as in their mental interests.

Pauline proceeded to unfold this at the dinner-table that evening. She had heard in the meanwhile from her brother, the story of Selma's divorce and the explanation of his sudden marriage; and in consequence, she felt the more solicitous that her sister-in-law's new venture should begin propitiously. It was agreed that Wilbur should make inquiries at once about houses further uptown, and that his present lease from year to year should not be renewed. She said to Selma:

"You have saved us from becoming an old-fashioned bachelor and maid. Our friends began to leave this neighborhood five years ago, and there is no one left. We are surrounded by boarding-houses and shops. We were comfortable, and we were too busy to care. But it would never do for a young married couple to begin house-keeping here. You must have a brand new house uptown, Selma. You must insist on that. Don't be alarmed, Wilbur. I know it will have to be small, but I noticed the other day several blocks of new houses going up on the side streets west of the Park, which looked attractive and cheap."

"I will look at them," said Wilbur. "Since you seem determined not to live with us, and we are obliged to move, we will follow the procession. But Selma and I could be happy anywhere." He turned from his sister to her as he spoke with a proud, happy look.

Selma said nothing to mar his confidence. She had no intention of living either with Pauline or in their present house, and she felt that her sister-in-law had shown good sense in recognizing that neither was possible. She necessarily had vague ideas as to New York houses and locations, but she had seen enough in her drive from the station to understand that it was a wonderful and decorative place. Although her experience of Benham had taught her that some old things—such as Mrs. Hallett Taylor's gleanings from Europe—were desirable, she associated new things with progress—especially American progress. Consequently the Littleton household possessions had puzzled her, for though she thought them ugly, she was resolved not to commit herself too hastily. But now that Pauline had sounded a note of warning, the situation was clear. They had suffered themselves to fall behind the times, and she was to be her husband's good angel by helping him to catch up with them. And it was evident that Pauline would be her ally. Selma for the first time asked herself whether it might be that Wilbur was a little visionary.

Meanwhile he was saying: "Pauline is right, Selma. I had already asked myself if it would not be fairer to you to move uptown where we should be in the van and in touch with what is going on. Pauline is gently hinting to you that you must not humor me as she has done, and let me eat bread and milk out of a bowl in this old curiosity shop, instead of following in the wake of fashion. She has spoiled me and now she deserts me at the critical moment of my life. Selma, you shall have the most charming modern house in New York within my means. It must be love in a cottage, but the cottage shall have the latest improvements—hot and cold water, tiles, hygienic plumbing and dados."

"Bravo!" said Pauline. "He says I have spoiled him, Selma. Perhaps I have. It will be your turn now. You will fail to convert him as I have failed, and the world will be the better for it. There are too few men who think noble thoughts and practice them, who are true to themselves and the light which is in them through thick and thin. But you see, he admits himself that he needs to mix with the world a little more. Otherwise he is perfect. You know that perhaps, already, Selma. But I wish to tell it to you before him. Take care of him, dear, won't you?"

"It was because I felt that his thoughts were nobler than most men's that I wished to marry him," Selma replied, seraphically. "But I can see that it is sensible to live where your friends live. I shall try not to spoil him, Pauline." She was already conscious of a mission which appealed to her. She had been content until now in the ardor of her love to regard Wilbur as flawless—as in some respects superior to herself; but it was a gratification to her to detect this failing, and to perceive her opportunity for usefulness. Surely it was important for her husband to be progressive and not merely a dreamer.

Littleton looked from one to the other fondly. "Not many men are blessed with the love of two such women," he said. "I put myself in your hands. I bow my neck to the yoke."

In New York in the early seventies the fashionable quarter lay between Eighth and Fortieth Streets, bounded on either side by Fourth and Sixth Avenues. Central Park was completed, but the region west of it was, from the social stand-point, still a wilderness, and Fifth Avenue in the neighborhood of Twenty-third Street was the centre of elegant social life. Selma took her first view of this brilliant street on the following day on her way to hunt for houses in the outlying district. The roar and bustle of the city, which thrilled yet dazed her, seemed here softened by the rows of tall, imposing residences in brown stone. Along the sunny sidewalks passed with jaunty tread an ever-hurrying procession of stylishly clad men and women; and along the roadbed sped an array of private carriages conducted by coachmen in livery. It was a brilliant day, and New Yorkers were making the most of it.

Selma had never seen such a sight before. Benham faded into insignificance in comparison. She was excited, and she gazed eagerly at the spectacle. Yet her look, though absorbed, was stern. This sort of thing was unlike anything American within her personal experience. This avenue of grand houses and this procession of fine individuals and fine vehicles made her think of that small section of Benham into which she had never been invited, and the thought affected her disagreeably.

"Who are the people who live in these houses?" she asked, presently.

Littleton had already told her that it was the most fashionable street in the city.

"Oh, the rich and prosperous."

"Those who gamble in stocks, I suppose." Selma wished to be assured that this was so.

"Some of them," said Littleton, with a laugh. "They belong to people who have made money in various ways or have inherited it—our well-to-do class, among them the first families in New York, and many of them our best citizens."

"Are they friends of yours?"

Littleton laughed again. "A few—not many. Society here is divided into sets, and they are not in my set. I prefer mine, and fortunately, for I can't afford to belong to theirs."

"Oh!"

The frigidity and dryness of the exclamation Littleton ascribed to Selma's intuitive enmity to the vanities of life.

"You mustn't pass judgment on them too hastily," he said. "New York is a wonderful place, and it's likely to shock you before you learn to appreciate what is interesting and fine here. I will tell you a secret, Selma. Every one likes to make money. Even clergymen feel it their duty to accept a call from the congregation which offers the best salary, and probing men of science do not hesitate to reap the harvest from a wonderful invention. Yet it is the fashion with most of the people in this country who possess little to prate about the wickedness of money-getters and to think evil of the rich. That proceeds chiefly from envy, and it is sheer cant. The people of the United States are engaged in an eager struggle to advance themselves—to gain individual distinction, comfort, success, and in New York to a greater extent than in any other place can the capable man or woman sell his or her wares to the best advantage—be they what they may, stocks, merchandise, law, medicine, pictures. The world pays well for the things it wants—and the world is pretty just in the long run. If it doesn't like my designs, that will be because they're not worth buying. The great thing—the difficult thing to guard against in the whirl of this great city, where we are all striving to get ahead—is not to sell one's self for money, not to sacrifice the thing worth doing for mere pecuniary advantage. It's the great temptation to some to do so, for only money can buy fine houses, and carriages and jewels—yes, and in a certain sense, social preferment. The problem is presented in a different form to every man. Some can grow rich honestly, and some have to remain poor in order to be true to themselves. We may have to remain poor, Selma mia." He spoke gayly, as though that prospect did not disturb him in the least.

"And we shall be just as good as the people who own these houses." She said it gravely, as if it were a declaration of principles, and at the same moment her gaze was caught and disturbed by a pair of blithe, fashionably dressed young women gliding by her with the quiet, unconscious grace of good-breeding. She was inwardly aware, though she would never acknowledge it by word or sign, that such people troubled her. More even than Mrs. Taylor had troubled her. They were different from her and they tantalized her.

At the same moment her husband was saying in reply, "Just as good, but not necessarily any better. No—other things being equal—not so good. We mustn't deceive ourselves with that piece of cant. Some of them are frivolous enough, and dishonest enough, heaven knows, but so there are frivolous and dishonest people in every class. But there are many more who endeavor to be good citizens—are good citizens, our best citizens. The possession of money gives them the opportunity to become arbiters of morals and taste, and to seek culture under the best advantages. After all, an accumulation of money represents brains and energy in some one. Look at this swell," he continued, indicating an attractive looking young man who was passing. "His grandfather was one of the ablest men in the city—an intelligent, self-respecting, shrewd, industrious, public-spirited citizen who made a large fortune. The son has had advantages which I have never had, and I happen to know that he is a fine fellow and a very able one. If it came to comparisons, I should be obliged to admit that he's a more ornamental member of society than Jones, Brown, or Robinson, and certainly no less useful. Do I shock you—you sweet, unswerving little democrat of the democrats?"

It always pleased Selma to be called endearing names, and it suited her in her present frame of mind to be dubbed a democrat, for it did not suit her to be painfully realizing that she was unable, at one brilliant swoop, to take her place as a leader in social influence. Somehow she had expected to do this, despite her first difficulties at Benham, for she had thought of New York as a place where, as the wife of Littleton, the architect, she would at once be a figure of importance. She shook her head and said, "It's hard to believe that these people are really in earnest; that they are serious in purpose and spirit." Meanwhile she was being haunted by the irritating reflection that her clothes and her bearing were inferior to those of the women she was passing. Secretly she was making a resolve to imitate them, though she believed that she despised them. She put her hand through her husband's arm and added, almost fiercely, as she pressed closer to him, "We needn't trouble our heads about them, Wilbur. We can get along without being rich and fashionable, you and I. In spite of what you say, I don't consider this sort of thing American."

"Get along? Darling, I was merely trying to be just to them; to let you see that they are not so black as they're painted. We will forget them forever. We have nothing in common with them. Get along? I feel that my life will be a paradise living with you and trying to make some impression on the life of this big, striving city. But as to its not being American to live like these people—well you know they are Americans and that New York is the Mecca of the hard-fisted sons of toil from all over the country who have made money. But you're right, Selma. Those who go in for show and extravagance are not the best Americans—the Americans whom you and I believe in. Sometimes I get discouraged when I stop to think, and now I shall have you to keep me steadfast to our faith."

"Yes, Wilbur. And how far from here are we to live?"

"Oh, a mile or more. On some side street where the land is cheap and the rent low. What do we care for that, Selma mia?"

CHAPTER II.

Shortly before Selma Littleton took up her abode in New York, Miss Florence, or, as she was familiarly known, Miss Flossy Price, was an inhabitant of a New Jersey city. Her father was a second cousin of Morton Price, whose family at that time was socially conspicuous in fashionable New York society. Not aggressively conspicuous, as ultra fashionable people are to-day, by dint of frequent newspaper advertisement, but in consequence of elegant, conservative respectability, fortified by and cushioned on a huge income. In the early seventies to know the Morton Prices was a social passport, and by no means every one socially ambitious knew them. Morton Price's great-grandfather had been a peddler, his grandfather a tea merchant, his father a tea merchant and bank organizer, and he himself did nothing mercantile, but was a director in diverse institutions, representing trusts or philantrophy, and was regarded by many, including himself, as the embodiment of ornamental and admirable citizenship. He could talk by the hour on the degeneracy of state and city politics and the evil deeds of Congress, and was, generally speaking, a conservative, fastidious, well-dressed, well-fed man, who had a winning way with women and a happy faculty of looking wise and saying nothing rash in the presence of men. Some of the younger generation were apt, with the lack of reverence belonging to youth, to speak of him covertly as "a stuffed club," but no echo of this epithet had ever reached the ear of his cousin, David Price, in New Jersey. For him, as for most of the world within a radius of two hundred miles, he was above criticism and a monument of social power.

David Price, Miss Flossy's father, was the president of a small and unprogressive but eminently solid bank. Respectable routine was his motto, and he lived up to it, and, as a consequence, no more sound institution of the kind existed in his neighborhood. He and his directors were slow to adopt innovations of any kind; they put stumbling blocks in the path of business convenience whenever they could; in short, David Price in his humble way was a righteous, narrow, hide-bound retarder of progress and worshipper of established local custom. Therefore it was a constant source of surprise and worry to him that he should have a progressive daughter. There were four other children, patterns of quiet, plodding conservatism, but—such is the irony of fate—the youngest, prettiest, and his favorite, was an independent, opinionated young woman, who seemed to turn a deaf ear to paternal and maternal advice of safest New Jersey type. In her father's words, she had no reverence for any thing or any body, which was approximately true, for she did not hesitate to speak disrespectfully even of the head of the house in New York.

"Poppa," she said one day, "Cousin Morton doesn't care for any of us a little bit. I know what you're going to say," she added; "that he sends you two turkeys every Thanksgiving. The last were terribly tough. I'm sure he thinks that we never see turkeys here in New Jersey, and that he considers us poor relations and that we live in a hole. If one of us should call on him, I know it would distress him awfully. He's right in thinking that this is a hole. Nothing ever happens here, and when I marry I intend to live in New York."

This was when she was seventeen. Her father was greatly shocked, especially as he suspected in his secret soul that the tirade was true in substance. He had been the recipient of Thanksgiving turkeys for nearly twenty years on the plea that they had been grown on the donor's farm in Westchester county, and he had seen fit to invite his fellow-directors annually to dine off one of them as a modest notice that he was on friendly terms with his aristocratic New York cousin. But in all these twenty years turkeys had been the only medium of intercourse between them. David Price, on the few occasions when he had visited New York, had not found it convenient to call. Once he had walked by on the other side of Fifth avenue and looked at the house, but shyness and the thought that he had no evening clothes in his valise had restrained him from ringing the doorbell.

"You do your cousin Morton great injustice—great injustice, Florence," he answered. "He never forgets to send the turkeys, and as to the rest of your speech, I have only to say that it is very disrespectful and very foolish. The next time I go to New York I will take you to call on your cousins."

"And what would I say to them? No thank you, poppa." The young woman shook her head decisively, and then she added, "I'm not going to call on them, until I'm fit to. There!"

The ambiguity of this remark gave Mr. Price the opportunity to say that, in view of her immediate shortcomings, it was a wise conclusion, but he knew what she really meant and was distressed. His feeling toward his cousin, though mildly envious, did not extend to self-depreciation, nor had it served to undermine his faith in the innate dignity and worth of New Jersey family life. He could not only with a straight face, but with a kindling eye inveigh against the perils of New York fashionable life, and express gratification that no son or daughter of his had wandered so far from the fold. It distressed him to think that Florence should be casting sheep's eyes at the flesh-pots of Gotham, and so failing to appreciate the blessings and safety of a quiet American home.

Miss Flossy continued to entertain and to express opinions of her own, and as a result became socially interesting. At eighteen, by her beauty, her engaging frankness and lack of self-consciousness, she spread havoc among the young men of her native city, several of whom offered her marriage. But marriage was far from her thoughts. Life seemed too interesting and she wished to see the world. She was erect and alert looking, with a compact figure of medium height, large brown eyes and rich red hair, and a laughing mouth; also an innocent demeanor, which served to give her, by moonlight, the effect of an angel. She succeeded in visiting Bar Harbor, where she promptly became a bright particular star among the galaxy of young women who at that period were establishing the reputation of the summer girl. She continued to be a summer girl for four seasons without injury to her own peace of mind. At the end of the fourth summer she appeared on close scrutiny to be a little worn, and her innocent air seemed a trifle deliberate. She returned to her home in New Jersey in not quite her usual spirits. In fact she became pensive. She had seen the world, and lo! she found it stuffed with sawdust. She was ready to settle down, but the only man with whom she would have been willing to settle had never asked her. He was the brother of one of the girls who had been forbidden by her mother to stay out in canoes with young men after nine at night. The rumor had reached Flossy that this same mother had referred to her in "the fish pond" at Rodick's as "that dreadful girl." It would have pleased her after that to have wrung an offer of marriage from the son and heir, who knew her cousins, the Morton Prices, and to whom she would have been willing to engage herself temporarily at all events. He was very devoted; they stayed out in his canoe until past midnight; he wrote verses to her and told her his innermost thoughts; but he stopped there. He went away without committing himself, and she was left to chew the cud of reflection. It was bitter, not because she was in love with him, for she was not. In her heart she knew he bored her a little. But she was piqued. Evidently he had been afraid to marry "that dreadful girl." She was piqued and she was sad. She recognized that it was another case of not being fit. When would she be fit? What was she to do in order to become fit—fit like the girl who was not allowed to stay on the water after nine o'clock? She had ceased to think of the young man, but the image of his sister haunted her. How stylish she was, yet how simple and quiet! "I wonder," thought Flossy to herself, "if I could ever become like her." The reflection threw her into a brown study in which she remained for weeks, and during which she refused the hand of a staid and respectable townsman, who, in her father's words, was ready to take her with all her follies. David Price was disappointed. He loved this independent daughter, and he had hopes that her demure and reticent deportment signified that the effervescence of youth had evaporated. But it was only an effort on Flossy's part to imitate the young man's sister.

At this juncture and just when she was bored and dispirited by the process, Gregory Williams appeared on the scene. Flossy met him at a dancing party. He had a very tall collar, a very friendly, confident, and (toward her) devoted manner, and good looks. It was whispered among the girls that he was a banker from New York. He was obviously not over thirty, which was young for a banker, but so he presently described himself to Flossy with hints of impending prosperity. He spoke glibly and picturesquely. He had a convincing eloquence of gesture—a wave of the hand which suggested energy and compelled confidence. He had picked her out at once to be introduced to, and sympathy between them was speedily established. Her wearing, as a red-headed girl, a white horse in the form of a pin, in order to prevent the attention of the men to whom she talked from wandering, delighted him. He said to himself that here was a girl after his own heart. He had admired her looks at the outset, but he gazed at her now more critically. He danced every dance with her, and they sat together at supper, apart from everybody else. Flossy's resolutions were swept away. That is, she had become in an instant indifferent to the fact that the New York girl she had yearned to imitate would not have made herself so conspicuous. Her excuse was that she could not help herself. It was a case of genuine, violent attraction, which she made no effort to straggle against.

The attraction was violent on both sides. Gregory Williams was not seeking to be married. He had been, until within six months, a broker's clerk, and had become a banker on the strength of ten thousand dollars bequeathed to him by a grandmother. He and a clerk from another broker's office, J. Willett VanHorne, had recently formed a partnership as Williams & VanHorne, Bankers and Dealers in Stocks and Bonds. He was not seeking to be married, but he intended to be married some day, and it was no part of his scheme of life to deny himself anything he wished. Support a wife? Of course he could; and support her in the same grandiose fashion which he had adopted for himself since he had begun business on his own account. He had chosen as a philosophy of life the smart paradox, which he enjoyed uttering, that he spent what he needed first and supplied the means later; and at the same time he let it be understood that the system worked wonderfully. He possessed unlimited confidence in himself, and though he was dimly aware that a very small turn of the wheel of fortune in the wrong direction would ruin him financially, he chose to close his eyes to the possibilities of disaster and to assume a bold and important bearing before the world. He had implicit faith in his own special line of ability, and he appreciated the worth of his partner, VanHorne. He had joined forces with VanHorne because he knew that he was the opposite of himself—that he was a delving, thorough, shrewd, keen office man—and able too. How genuinely able Williams did not yet know. He himself was to be the showy partner, the originator of schemes and procurer of business, the brilliant man before the world. So there was some method in his madness. And with it all went a cheery, incisive, humorous point of view which was congenial and diverting to Flossy.

He went away, but he came back once—twice—thrice in quick succession. On business, so he said casually to Mr. and Mrs. Price, but his language to their daughter was a declaration of personal devotion. It remained for her to say whether she would marry him or no. Of one thing she was sure without need of reflection, that she loved him ardently. As a consequence she surrendered at once, though, curiously enough, she was conscious when she permitted him to kiss her with effusion that he was not the sort of man she had intended to marry—that he was not fit in her sense of the word. Yet she was determined to marry him, and from the moment their troth was plighted she found herself his eager and faithful ally, dreaming and scheming on their joint account. She would help him to succeed; they would conquer the world together; she would never doubt his ability to conquer it. And in time—yes, in time they would make even the Morton Prices notice them.

And so after some bewildered opposition on the part of Mr. Price, who was alternately appalled and fascinated by the magniloquent language of his would-be son-in-law, they were married. Flossy gave but a single sign to her husband that she understood him and recognized what they really represented. It was one evening a few months after they had set up housekeeping while they were walking home from the theatre. They had previously dined at Delmonico's, and the cost of the evening's entertainment, including a bottle of champagne at dinner, their tickets and a corsage bouquet of violets for Flossy, had been fifteen dollars. Flossy wore a resplendent theatre hat and fashionable cape—one of the several stylish costumes with which her husband had hastened to present her, and Gregory was convoying her along the Avenue with the air of a man not averse to have the world recognize that they were a well set up and prosperous couple. Flossy had put her arm well inside his and was doing her best to help him produce the effect which he desired, when she suddenly said:

"I wonder, Gregory, how long it will be before we're really anybody. Now, of course, we're only make believe swell."

Gregory gave an amused laugh. "What a clever little woman! That's just what we are. We'll keep it a secret, though, and won't advertise it to the world."

"Mum's the word," she replied, giving his arm a squeeze. "I only wished you to know that I was not being fooled; that I understood."

Fate ordained that the Williamses and the Littletons should take houses side by side in the same block. It was a new block, and at first they were the sole occupants. Williams bought his house, giving a mortgage back to the seller for all the man would accept, and obtaining a second mortgage from a money lender in consideration of a higher rate of interest, for practically the remaining value. He furnished his house ornately from top to bottom in the latest fashion, incurring bills for a portion of the effects, and arranging to pay on the instalment plan where he could not obtain full credit. His reasoning was convincing to himself and did not alarm Flossy, who was glad to feel that they were the owners of the house and attractive furniture. It was that the land was sure to improve in value before the mortgage became due, and as for the carpets and curtains and other outlays, a few points in the stock market would pay for them at any time.

Wilbur Littleton did not possess the ready money to buy; consequently he took a lease of his new house for three years, and paid promptly for the furniture he bought, the selection of which was gradual. Gregory Williams had a marvellous way of entering a shop and buying everything which pleased his eye at one fell swoop, but Wilbur, who desired to accomplish the best æsthetic effects possible consistent with his limited means, trotted Selma from one shop to another before choosing. This process of selecting slowly the things with which they were to pass their lives was a pleasure to him, and, as he supposed, to Selma. She did enjoy keenly at first beholding the enticing contents of the various stores which they entered in the process of procuring wall-papers, carpets, and the other essentials for house-keeping. It was a revelation to her that such beautiful things existed, and her inclination was to purchase the most showy and the most costly articles. In the adornment of her former home Babcock had given her a free hand. That is, his disposition had been to buy the finest things which the shopkeepers of Benham called to his attention. She understood now that his taste and the taste of Benham, and even her's, had been at fault, but she found herself hampered now by a new and annoying limitation, the smallness of their means. Almost every thing was very expensive, and she was obliged to pass by the patterns and materials she desired to possess, and accept articles of a more sober and less engaging character. Many of these, to be sure, were declared by Wilbur to be artistically charming and more suitable than many which she preferred, but it would have suited her better to fix on the rich upholstery and solid furniture, which were evidently the latest fashion in household decoration, rather than go mousing from place to place, only at last to pick up in the back corner of some store this or that object which was both reasonably pretty and reasonably cheap. When it was all over Selma was pleased with the effect of her establishment, but she had eaten of the tree of knowledge. She had visited the New York shops. These, in her capacity of a God-fearing American, she would have been ready to anathematize in a speech or in a newspaper article, but the memory of them haunted her imagination and left her domestic yearnings not wholly satisfied.

Wilbur Littleton's scheme of domestic life was essentially spiritual, and in the development of it he felt that he was consulting his wife's tastes and theories no less than his own. He knew that she understood that he was ambitious to make a name for himself as an architect; but to make it only by virtue of work of a high order; that he was unwilling to become a time-server or to lower his professional standards merely to make temporary progress, which in the end would mar a success worth having. He had no doubt that he had made this clear to her and that she sympathized with him. As a married man it was his desire and intention not to allow his interest in this ambition to interfere with the enjoyment of the new great happiness which had come into his life. He would be a professional recluse no longer. He would cast off his work when he left his office, and devote his evenings to the æsthetic delights of Selma's society. They would read aloud; he would tell her his plans and ask her advice; they would go now and then to the theatre; and, in justice to her, they would occasionally entertain their friends and accept invitations from them. With this outlook in mind he had made such an outlay as would render his home attractive and cosey—simple as became a couple just beginning life, yet the abode of a gentleman and a lover of inspiring and pretty things.

As has been mentioned, Littleton was a Unitarian, and one effect of his faith had been to make his point of view broad and straightforward. He detested hypocrisy and cant, subterfuge and self-delusion. He was content to let other people live according to their own lights without too much distress on their account, but he was too honest and too clear-headed to be able to deceive himself as to his own motives and his own conduct. He had no intention to be morbid, but he saw clearly that it was his privilege and his duty to be true to both his loves, his wife and his profession, and that if he neglected either, he would be so far false to his best needs and aspirations. Yet he felt that for the moment it was incumbent on him to err on the side of devotion to his wife until she should become accustomed to her new surroundings.

The problem of the proper arrangement and subdivision of life in a large city and in these seething, modern times is perplexing to all of us. There are so many things we would like to do which we cannot; so many things which we do against our wills. We are perpetually squinting at happiness, but just as we get a delightful vision before our eyes we are whisked off by duty or ambition or the force of social momentum to try a different view. Consequently our perennial regret is apt to be that we have seen our real interests and our real friends as in a panorama, for a fleeting moment, and then no more until the next time. For Littleton this was less true than for most. His life was deep and stable rather than many-sided. To be sure his brain experienced, now and then, the dazing effects of trying to confront all the problems of the universe and adapt his architectural endeavors to his interpretation of them; and he knew well the bewildering difficulties of the process of adjusting professional theories to the sterile conditions which workaday practice often presented. But this crowding of his mental canvas was all in the line of his life purpose. The days were too short, and sometimes left him perplexed and harassed by their rush; yet he was still pursuing the tenor of his way. The interest of marriage was not, therefore, in his case a fresh burden on a soul already laden with a variety of side pursuits. He was neither socially nor philanthropically active; he was not a club man, nor an athletic enthusiast; he was on no committees; he voted on election days, but he did not take an active part in politics. For Selma's sake all this must be changed; and he was glad to acknowledge that he owed it to himself as well as to her to widen his sympathies.

As a first step in reform he began to leave his office daily at five instead of six, and, on Saturdays, as soon after two as possible. For a few months these brands of time snatched from the furnace of his professional ardor were devoted to the shopping relative to house-furnishing. When that was over, to walking with Selma; sometimes as a sheer round of exercise in company, sometimes to visit a print-shop, exhibition of pictures, book-store, or other attraction of the hour. But the evening was for him the ideal portion of the day; when, after dinner was done, they made themselves comfortable in the new library, their living room, and it became his privilege to read aloud to her or to compare ideas with her regarding books and pictures and what was going on in the world. It had been a dream of Littleton's that some day he would re-read consecutively the British poets, and as soon as the furniture was all in place and the questions of choice of rugs and chairs and pictures had been settled by purchase, he proposed it as a definite occupation whenever they had nothing else in view. It delighted him that Selma received this suggestion with enthusiasm. Accordingly, they devoted their spare evenings to the undertaking, reading aloud in turn. Littleton's enunciation was clear and intelligent, and as a happy lover he was in a mood to fit poetic thoughts to his own experience, and to utter them ardently. While he read, Selma knew that she was ever the heroine of his imagination, which was agreeable, and she recognized besides that his performance in itself was æsthetically attractive. Yet in spite of the personal tribute, Selma preferred the evenings when she herself was the elocutionist. She enjoyed the sound of her own voice, and she enjoyed the emotions which her utterance of the rhythmic stanzas set coursing through her brain. It was obvious to her that Wilbur was captivated by her reading, and she delighted in giving herself up to the spirit of the text with the reservations appropriate to an enlightened but virtuous soul. For instance, in the case of Shelley, she gloried in his soaring, but did not let herself forget that fire-worship was not practical; in the case of Byron, though she yielded her senses to the spell of his passionate imagery, she reflected approvingly that she was a married woman.

But Littleton appreciated also that his wife should have the society of others beside himself. Pauline introduced her promptly to her own small but intelligent feminine circle, and pending Pauline's removal to a flat, the Saturday evening suppers were maintained at the old establishment. Here Selma made the acquaintance of her husband's and his sister's friends, both men and women, who dropped in often after the play and without ceremony for a weekly interchange of thought and comradeship. Selma looked forward to the first of these occasions with an eager curiosity. She expected a renewal of the Benham Institute, only in a more impressive form, as befitted a great literary centre; that papers would be read, original compositions recited, and many interesting people of both sexes perform according to their specialties. She confidently hoped to have the opportunity to declaim, "Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" "Curfew must not ring to-night," or some other of her literary pieces.

Therefore, it was almost a shock to her that the affair was so informal, and that the company seemed chiefly occupied in behaving gayly—in making sallies at each other's expense, which were greeted with merriment. They seemed to her like a lot of children let loose from school. There were no exercises, and no allusion was made to the attainments of the various guests beyond an occasional word of introduction by Pauline or Wilbur; and this word was apt to be of serio-comic import. Selma realized that among the fifteen people present there were representatives of various interesting crafts—writers, artists, a magazine editor, two critics of the stage, a prominent musician, and a college professor—but none of them seemed to her to act a part or to have their accomplishments in evidence, as she would have liked. Every one was very cordial to her, and appeared desirous to recognize her as a permanent member of their circle, but she could not help feeling disappointed at the absence of ceremony and formal events. There was no president or secretary, and presently the party went into the dining-room and sat around a table, at either end of which Pauline and Wilbur presided over a blazer. Interest centred on the preparation of a rabbit and creamed oysters, and pleasant badinage flew from tongue to tongue. Selma found herself between the magazine editor and a large, powerfully built man with a broad, rotund, strong face, who was introduced to her as Dr. Page, and who was called George by every one else. He had arrived late, just as they were going in to supper, and his appearance had been greeted with a murmur of satisfaction. He had placed himself between Pauline and her, and he showed himself, to Selma's thinking, one of the least dignified of the company.

"My dear Mrs. Littleton," he said, with a counterfeit of great gravity, "you are now witnessing an impressive example of the politeness of true friendship. There are cynics who assert that the American people are lacking in courtesy, and cast in our teeth the superiority of Japanese manners. I wish they were here to-night. There is not a single individual present, male or female, married or single, who does not secretly cherish the amiable belief that he or she can cook things on a blazer better than any one else. And yet we abstain from criticism; we offer no suggestions; we accept, without a murmur, the proportions of cheese and beer and butter inflicted upon us by our hostess and her brother, and are silent. We shall even become complimentary later. Can the Japanese vie with this?"

The contrast between his eager, grave gaze, and the levity of his words, puzzled Selma. He looked interesting, but his speech seemed to her trivial and unworthy of the occasion. Still she appreciated that she must not be a spoil-sport, and that it was incumbent on her to resign herself to the situation, so she smiled gayly, and said: "I am the only one then not suffering from self-restraint. I never made a Welsh rabbit, nor cooked on a blazer." Then, in her desire for more serious conversation, she added: "Do you really think that we, as a people, are less polite than the Japanese?"

The doctor regarded her with solemn interest for an instant, as though he were pondering the question. As a matter of fact, he was thinking that she was remarkably pretty. Then he put his finger on his lips, and in a hoarse whisper, said, "Sh! Be careful. If the editorial ear should catch your proposition the editorial man would appropriate it. There!" he added, as her left-hand neighbor bent toward them in response to the summons, "he has heard, and your opportunity to sell an idea to the magazine is lost. It is all very fine for him to protest that he has heard nothing. That is a trick of his trade. Let us see now if he will agree to buy. If he refuses, it will be a clear case that he has heard and purloined it. Come, Dennison, here's a chance for a ten thousand-word symposium debate, 'Are we, as a nation, less polite than the Japanese?' We offer it for a hundred and fifty cash, and cheap at the price."

Mr. Dennison, who was a keen-eyed, quiet man, with a brown, closely-cut beard, had paused in his occupation of buttering hot toast for the impending rabbit, and was smiling quizzically. "If you have literary secrets to dispose of, Mrs. Littleton, let me warn you against making a confidant of Dr. Page. Had you spoken to me first, there is no knowing what I might have—"

"What did I tell you?" broke in the doctor. "A one hundred and fifty-dollar idea ruthlessly appropriated. These editors, these editors!"

It was tantalizing to Selma to be skirting the edge of themes she would have enjoyed to hear treated seriously. She hoped that Mr. Dennison would inquire if she really wrote, and at least he would tell her something about his magazine and literary life in New York. But he took up again his task of buttering toast, and sought to interest her in that. Presently she was unable to resist the temptation of remarking that the editorship of a magazine must be one of the most interesting of all occupations; but he looked at her with his quizzical smile, and answered:

"Between you and me, Mrs. Littleton, I will confide to you that a considerable portion of the time it is a confounded bore. To tell the truth, I much prefer to sit next to you and butter toast."

This was depressing and puzzling to Selma; but after the consumption of the rabbit and the oysters there was some improvement in the general tone of the conversation. Yet, not so far as she was concerned. Mr. Dennison neglected to confide to her the secrets of his prison house, and Dr. Page ruthlessly refused to discuss medicine, philosophy, or the Japanese. But here and there allusion was made by one or another of the company to something which had been done in the world of letters, or art, or music, which possessed merit or deserved discouragement. What was said was uttered simply, often trenchantly and lightly, but never as a dogma, or with the solemnity which Mrs. Earle had been wont to impart to her opinions. Just as the party was about to break up, Dr. Page approached Selma and offered her his hand. "It is a great pleasure to me to have met you," he said, looking into her face with his honest eyes. "A good wife was just what Wilbur needed to insure him happiness and a fine career. His friends have great confidence in his ability, and we intrust him to you in the belief that the world will hear from him—and I, for one, shall be very grateful to you."

He spoke now with evident feeling, and his manner suggested the desire to be her friend. Selma admired his large physique and felt the attraction of his searching gaze.

"Perhaps he did need a wife," she answered with an attempt at the sprightliness which he had laid aside. "I shall try not to let him be too indifferent to practical considerations."

CHAPTER III.

"Who is Dr. Page?" asked Selma of her husband when they left the house.

"One of our best friends, and one of the leading physicians in the city. The energy of that man is tireless. He is absorbed in his profession. The only respite he allows himself are these Saturday evenings, and his devotion to his little son who has hip disease. He told me to-night that he had finished his day's work only just before he came in. What did you think of him? He likes to tease."

"Then he is married?"

"He is a widower."

"He seems interested in you. He was good enough to say that he thought you needed a wife."

"Then he must have admired you, Selma. Poor fellow! I wish he might have that happiness himself. I'll tell you a secret: He has desired to marry Pauline for years. They are devoted friends—but until now that is all. His wife was an actress—a handsome creature. Two years after they were married she ran away with another man and left him. Left him with one little boy, a cripple, on whom he lavishes all the love of his big nature."

"How dreadful!"

"Yes, it is a sad story. That was ten years ago. He was very young and the woman was very beautiful. It has been the making of him, though, in one way. He had the pride and confidence of ability, but he lacked sympathy. His experience and the appealing presence of his son have developed his nature and given him tenderness. He has not been imbittered; he has simply become gentle. And how he works! He is already famous in his profession."

"Does Pauline care for him?"

"I don't know her feelings. I am sure she is fond of him, and admires him. I fancy, though, that she hesitates to renounce her own ambitions. As you are aware, she is greatly interested in her classes, and in matters pertaining to the higher education of women. George Page knew her at the time of his marriage. I do not mean that he paid her serious attention then, but he had the opportunity to ask her instead of the other. Now, when she has become absorbed in her life-work, she would naturally decline to give it up unless she felt sure that she could not be happy without him."

"I would not marry him if I were she," said Selma. "He has given his best to the other woman. He is the one at fault, not Pauline. Why should she sacrifice her own career in order to console him?"

"She might love him sufficiently to be willing to do so, Selma. Love makes women blind to faults. But poor George was scarcely at fault. It was a misfortune."

"He made his choice and was deceived. It would be weak of her to give up her own life merely because he is lonely. We modern women have too much self-respect for that. Love is love, and it is not to be trifled with."

"Yes, love is love," murmured Littleton, "and I am happy in mine."

"That is because neither of us has loved before, you foolish boy. But as to this evening, it wasn't at all what I expected. Are your friends always like that?"

Littleton laughed. "Did they seem to you frivolous and undignified, then?"

"Almost. They certainly said nothing serious."

"It is their holiday—their evening out. They have to be serious during the rest of the week—busy with problems and cares, for they are a set of hard workers. The stress of life is so rigorous and constant here in New York that we have learned not to take our pleasure sadly. When you become accustomed to their way you will realize that they are no less serious at heart because they frolic now and then."

Selma was silent a moment; then she said, "That reminds me; have you found out about our next-door neighbors yet?"

"He is a banker named Williams, I believe."

"I saw his wife pass the window this morning. She was beautifully dressed. They must be rich."

"I dare say."

"But they live in the same style of house as ours."

"Bankers have mysterious ways of making money. We cannot compete with those."

"I suppose not. I was thinking that she had the same manner as some of your friends this evening, only more pronounced. She stopped to speak to some one just in front of the house, so I could observe her. I should think she was frivolous, but fascinating. That must be the New York manner, and, consequently, she may be very much in earnest."

"It isn't given to every woman to be attractive all the time just because she looks in earnest, as it is to you, dearest. But you musn't be too severe on the others."

"On the contrary, I think I shall like Mrs. Williams. She may teach us to be practical. You know that is what your friends would like to have me help you to be, Wilbur."

"Then they did talk a word or two of sense?"

"They said that. Do you think it is true that you are visionary?"

"It is your duty to tell me so, Selma, when you think it, just as I have told you that we can afford to laugh now and then. Come, begin."

"I haven't been your wife long enough yet. I shall know better by the end of another six months."