Thanks to the formidable size of Jerry's training partners, we had managed to avoid the reporters at the Garden, and when we reached Jerry's house we gave instructions to the butler to admit no one and answer no questions. Christopher, now Jerry's valet, we took upstairs with us and got the boy ready for bed. As the telephone bell began ringing with queries from the morning newspapers, I disconnected the wire and we were left in peace. A warm bath and a drink of brandy did wonders both for Jerry's appearance and his spirits, and at last we got him to bed. But he could not sleep, and so we sat at his bedside and talked to him until far into the night, Jerry propped up on his pillows, his bad eye comically decorated with a part of his morning's steak.
By dint of persuasion and a promise to stay all night at last we got the boy to sleep and went to bed. I think Jack was rather glad to be beyond the reach of the parental ire, and my own wish was to be near Jerry now, to help him on the morrow to readjust his mind to his disappointment, and do what other service I could to save him from the results of his folly.
The morning papers brought the evidences of it in vivid scare heads upon their first pages and detailed accounts of the whole affair, written by their best men, who gave Jerry, I am glad to say, the credit that was his due, calling him "the new star in pugilistic circles," "the coming heavyweight champion," and the yellowest of them, the one that had unmasked Jim Robinson the afternoon before, came out with an offer to back Jerry Benham for five thousand dollars against Jack Clancy or any other heavyweight except the Champion. Jerry read the articles in silence, a queer smile upon his face and at last shoved the papers aside.
"Nice of those chaps, very, considering the way I've treated 'em, but it's no go. I've finished."
Jack had ventured out to brave the storm and I sat quietly, scarcely daring to hope that I had heard correctly.
"I'm done, Roger," he repeated. "No more fights for me. I staked everything on science and head-work. I failed. He got me—somewhere that hurt like the devil—and I saw red. I don't remember much after that except that I was as much of a brute as he was. I failed, Roger, failed miserably. The fellow that can't hold his temper has no business in the ring."
His voice was heavy, like his manner, weary, disappointed, and as he threw off his dressing gown I saw that his left arm was hideously discolored from wrist to shoulder.
"Does it hurt?" I asked.
"What? Oh, my arm. No. But I'm sore inside of me Roger, my mind I mean. To do a thing like that, and fail—that's what hurts. Because I hadn't will enough—"
"You're in earnest, then," I asked, "about not fighting again?"
"Yes. I'm through—for good." And then boyishly, "But I didn't quit, Roger, did I?"
"I think any unprejudiced observer will admit that you didn't quit," I said. "Clancy, I'm sure, knows better than anybody."
"Good old Clancy. He was a sight—but he squared things. I saw that knockout coming, but I couldn't move for the life of me. My arms wouldn't come up. By George—that was a wallop! Oh well," he sighed, "the better man won. I'm satisfied."
I helped him into his clothes and we went down to breakfast. He examined his letters quickly and put them aside with an air of disappointment, and then asked if there had been any telephone calls, seeming much put out when I told him my reasons for disconnecting the instrument.
"Oh, it doesn't matter—Beastly nuisance, those reporters—" He looked over at me and grinned sheepishly. "Nice morning reading for Ballard, Senior! It was a rotten trick to play on him, though. He didn't deserve all this. I wouldn't wonder if he didn't speak to me now. I deserve that, I think. He cost me ten thousand cold. I'm in disgrace. I'll never be able to square myself—never."
When he got up from the breakfast table he caught a glimpse of his face in a mirror. "I am a sight. The lip is going down nicely, but the eye! Looks like an overripe tomato against a wall. Pretty sort of a phiz to go calling on a lady with."
"You're going visiting?"
"Yes, Marcia and I are going up to the country together. You'll have to go along."
"Thanks," I said, "but I've some matters to attend to here."
"I say, Roger," he went on quickly examining himself anew in the mirror; "I've got to get hold of Flynn. There's a chap in the Bowery who makes a business of painting eyes." And he went off to the telephone where I heard him making the arrangement.
With Jerry restored to partial sanity my duty at the town house was ended. Reporters still came to the door, but were turned away, and, seeing that I could be of no further use, I made my adieux and took my way downtown.
If no man is a hero to his valet, surely no boy can be a hero to his tutor, and I may as well admit that glorious as Jerry's defeat had been, I had ceased to reckon him among the perfect creations of this world. Nowhere, I think, have I hailed Jerry as a hero. I have not meant to place him upon a pedestal. At the Manor, before he came to New York, he did no wrong, because the things that were good were pleasant to him and because original sin—Eheu! I was beginning to wonder! Original sin! John Benham had ignored its existence and I had thought him wise. What was original sin? And if its origin was not within, where did it originate and how? If the boy had already been inoculated with the germ of sin, was he conscious of it? And did he yield to it voluntarily or unconsciously or both? And if unconscious of sin, was he morally responsible for its commission? These and many other vexed theological questions flitted anxiously through my mind and brought me to a careful scrutiny of Jerry's acts as I knew them. To engage in a prize fight, whatever the prize, whether money or merely the love of woman, if a venial, was not a mortal sin. To be sure, anger was a mortal sin and Jerry had yielded to it. Such fighting as Jerry had done, was not and could not by dint of argument become a part of any philosophy that I had taught him. He had sinned. He would sin again. As Miss Gore had said, my dream castle was tottering—it had tottered and was falling. Jerry, my Perfect Man, at the first contact with the world felt the contagion of its innate depravity and corruption. The more I thought of Jerry's character, his ingenuous belief in the good of all things, the more it seemed to me that it was only a question of the strength of Jerry's spiritual health to resist the ravages of spiritual disease. You see, already I had thrown my philosophy to the winds. For where I had once planned that Jerry should go through fire unscorched, it was now merely become a question of the amount of his scorching.
I bade Jack good-by, after hearing of the bad quarter-hour he had spent with Ballard, Senior, downtown, and made my way to my train for Horsham Manor in no very happy frame of mind. Had I known what new phase of Jerry's character was soon to be revealed to me, God knows I should have been still more unhappy. Jerry was not at the Manor when I arrived there. For some reasons best known to Marcia Van Wyck and himself it had been decided to stay for awhile longer in town, and it was not until over a month later that Jerry arrived bag and baggage in his machine with Christopher. He greeted me cheerfully enough, but I was not quite satisfied with his appearance. The marks of his fight with Clancy had almost, if not quite, disappeared, and while he had taken on much of his normal weight, he had little color and his eyes were dull. He smoked cigarettes constantly, lighting one from another, and on the afternoon and evening of the day of his arrival, sat moodily frowning at vacancy, or walked aimlessly about, his mind obviously upon some troublesome or perplexing matter. I could not believe that Clancy's victory had cast this shadow upon his spirit, but I asked no questions. He ordered wine for dinner, a thing he had never done before at the Manor, save on a few occasions when we had had guests, and drank freely of both sherry and champagne, finishing after his coffee with some neat brandy, which he tossed off with an air of familiarity that gave me something of a shock. He invited me to join him and when I refused seemed to find amusement in twitting me about my abstemious habits.
"Come along now, just a nip of brandy, Roger. 'Twill make your blood flow a bit faster. No? Why not, old Dry-as-dust? Conscientious scruples? A dram is as good as three scruples. Come along, just a taste."
"Brandy was made for old dotards and young idiots. I'm neither."
"Oh, very well, here's luck!" and he drank again, setting the glass down and drawing a deep breath of satisfaction. And then with a laugh. "An idiot! I suppose I am. Good thing to be an idiot, Roger. Nothing expected of you. Nobody disappointed."
"You're talking nonsense," I said sternly.
"Nonsense! I differ from you there, old top," he laughed. "The true philosophy of life is the one that brings the greatest happiness. Self-expression is my motto, wherever it leads you. I fight, I play, I smoke, I drink because those are the things my particular ego requires."
"Ah! You're happy?"
"'Happiness,' old Dry-as-dust, as our good friend Rasselas puts it, 'is but a myth.' I have ceased listening with credulity to the whispers of fancy or pursuing with eagerness the phantoms of hope. They're not for me. To live in the thick of life and take my knockouts or give them—Reality! I'm up against it at last,—real people, real thoughts, real trials, real problems—I want them all. I'm going to drink deep, deep."
He reached for the brandy bottle again, but I whisked it away and rose.
"You're a d——d jackass," I said, storming down at where he sat from my indignant five feet eight.
His brow lowered and his jaw shot forward unpleasantly. "A jackass," I repeated firmly, still holding the neck of the brandy bottle.
He glared at me a moment longer, then he slowly sank back into his chair, his features relaxing, and burst into a laugh.
"Roger, you improve upon acquaintance. All these years you've concealed from me a nice judgment in the use of profanity. A d——d jackass! Hardly Hegelian, but neat, Roger, and most beautifully appropriate. A jackass, I am. Also as you have remarked, an idiot. You see, there's no argument. I admit the soft impeachment. But I won't drink again just now; so set the brandy bottle down like a good fellow and we will talk as one gentleman to another."
I saw that I had brought him for the moment to his senses, and obeyed, sitting resolutely silent with folded arms, waiting for him to go on. He took a pipe from his pocket rather sheepishly, then filled and lighted it.
"You are a good sort, Roger," he said at last, with an embarrassment that contrasted strangely with the bombast of a moment ago. "I—I'm glad you did that. I think you're about the only person in the world I'd have taken it from. But I haven't drunk much. I couldn't get to be much of a drunkard in three weeks, could I?" He smiled his boyish smile and disarmed me.
"But why drink at all?" I asked quietly.
"Oh, I don't know. It's such an easy way to be jolly. Everybody does it. You can't seem to go anywhere without somebody sticking a glass under your nose. It's part of the social formula. There's no harm in it, in reason."
"Jerry," I said sternly. "You've begun wrong. I don't know whether it's my fault or not, but you seem to be hopelessly twisted in your view of life. You're floundering. Of course it's none of my business. I've done what I was paid to do, and you've got to work things out in your own way. If you want to drink yourself maudlin, that's your privilege. I can move out, but while I'm here in this house I'm not going to sit idly by while you make a fool of yourself."
He puffed on his pipe a moment in silence, eyeing the table leg.
"I am a fool," he said soberly at last. And then after a pause, "I don't know what the trouble has been exactly, unless I've taken people too literally; and that's your fault, Roger. White with you was always white and black was black. You taught me to say what I thought and to believe that other people said what they thought. That was a mistake."
"You forget," I said, "that I wasn't brought here to teach you worldliness. But you can't say that I didn't warn you against it."
He had gotten up and now paced the room with long strides.
"Futile, Roger! Absolutely futile. In my heart even then, I think, I believed you narrow. You see, I'm frank. A few months in the world hasn't changed my opinion. But I do want to think straight." And then with a sigh as he paused alongside of me, "It's very perplexing sometimes."
I knew what he was thinking about and whom, but he would not speak.
"You have thought me narrow, Jerry, because I laid my life and yours along pleasant byways and ignored the beaten track. I've never told you why the world had grown distasteful to me. I think you ought to know. It may be worth something to you. The old story, always new—a girl, pretty, insincere. I was just out of the University, with a good education, some prospects, but no money. We became engaged. She was going to wait for me until I got a good professorship. But she didn't. In less than a year, without even the formality of breaking the engagement, she suddenly married a man who had money, a manufacturer of gas engines in Taunton, Massachusetts. I won't go into the details. They're rather sickening from this distance. But I thought you might like to know why I've never particularly cared to trust women."
"I supposed," he said, thoughtfully, "it might have been something like that. Women are queer. You think you know them, and then—" He paused, confession hovering on his lips, but some delicacy restrained him.
"Women, Jerry, are the flavoring of society; I regret that I have a poor digestion for sauces. I hope yours will be better."
He laughed. "Poor Roger; was she very pretty?"
"I can't remember. Probably. Calf love seldom considers anything else—prettiness! Yes she was pretty."
"How old were you?"
"Older than you Jerry—and wiser."
He was silent. Once I thought he was about to speak, but he refrained, and when he deftly turned the topic, I knew that any chance I might have had to help him had passed. I understood, of course, and I could not help respecting his delicacy. Jerry was in for some hard knocks, I feared, harder ones than Clancy had given him.
He went to bed presently and I sat by the lamp alternately reading and thinking of Jerry, comparing him with myself in that long-distant romance of my own. They were not unlike, these two women, pretty little self-worshipers, born to deceit and chicanery, with clever talents for concealing their ignorance, hiding the emptiness of their hearts with pretty tricks of coquetry. But Marcia was the more dangerous, a clean body and an unclean mind. A half-virgin! I would have given much to know what had recently passed between Marcia and Jerry. If there was any way to bring about a disillusionment—
As though in answer to my enigma, at this moment Christopher came down from Jerry's room on his way below stairs. I stopped him and taking him into my study closed the door.
"You're very fond of Master Jerry, Christopher?" I asked.
"Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Canby."
"So am I, Christopher. I think you know that, don't you?"
"Why, yes, sir. You've been a father to 'im, sir. Nobody knows that better than me, sir."
"We'd both go through fire and water for him, wouldn't we, Christopher?"
"Oh, yes, sir; an' if you please, sir, what with these prize fighters at the Manor an' all, I rather think we 'ave, sir."
I smiled.
"A bad business, but over for good, I think, Christopher. But there are other things, worse in a way—"
I paused, scrutinizing the man's homely, impassive face.
"Did Master Jerry do much drinking before he went into training, Christopher?"
"A little, what any gentleman would, out in the world, sir."
"You've noticed it since the fight?"
He hesitated. Loyalty was bred in his bone.
"Yes, sir."
"You know, Christopher, that I've spent my life trying to make Jerry a fine man?"
"You 'ave, sir. It's a pity—the—the drink. But it can't 'ave much of a 'old on 'im yet, sir."
"Then you have noticed?"
"Yes, sir."
"When did he begin?"
He paused a moment.
"I think it was the day after the fight, that very night, to be hexact, sir."
"I see. The night after the fight. He spent the evening out and when he came home, was he intoxicated?"
"Not then, no, sir. But 'e'd been drinkin', just mildly lit—in a manner o' speakin' sir, not drunk, but gay and kind o' sarcastic-like; not like Master Jerry 'imself, sir."
"Had he been with some other gentlemen during the evening?"
"No, sir. 'E 'ad been callin' on a lady, but stopped at 'is club on the way around—"
"What lady?"
"I—I—"
"You may speak freely, Christopher. Miss Van Wyck?"
"I—I think so, sir. They 'ad an appointment."
"I see. And did he drink again that night?"
"A few brandies—yes, sir. Ye see, sir, it got to him quick-like—breakin' training so suddent."
"I understand. And you put him to bed."
"Yes, sir, in a manner o' speakin' I did, sir."
"When did you notice his drinking again?"
"Not for some days, sir."
"And what then?"
"The same thing happened again, sir."
"I see." I paced the floor silently, my inclination to question further struggling against my sense of the fitness of things. Was not Christopher, after all, a friend as well as a servant, a well-tried friend of Jerry's clan? "Did you connect the fact of Master Jerry's drinking with his visits to the lady I have mentioned, Christopher?" I asked in a moment.
He paused a moment scratching his head in perplexity, and then blurted forth without reserve.
"I'm glad you've spoken, Mr. Canby. I'm not given to talkin' over Master Jerry's private affairs, sir, but it's all in the family, like, though I wouldn't 'ave Master Jerry know—"
"Master Jerry will not know."
"Well, Mr. Canby, if you'd ask my hopinion, sir, I'd say that this young lady—sayin' no names, sir—is doin' no good to Master Jerry. She's always got 'im fussed, sir, an' irritable. 'E's not like 'imself—not like 'imself at all, sir. Why, Mr. Canby, I'm not the kind as listens behind keyholes, sir, but one night last week when she comes to the 'ouse in New York to visit 'im—"
"Ah, she came to the house?"
"Yes, sir, alone, sir, at night; a most unproper thing for a nice girl to do, sir, if I must say it, Mr. Canby. I couldn't 'elp 'earin' in the next room, or seein' for the matter of that. Master Jerry is out of 'is 'ead about 'er, an' no mistake, sir. I could 'ear 'is voice soft-like an she indifferent, leadin' 'im on, a-playin' with 'im, sir. Seemed to me like she was sweet an' mad-like by turns. She's a strange one, Mr. Canby, an' if the matter goes no further I'd like to say, sir, that I've no fancy for such doin's in a lady."
"Nor I, Christopher. You heard what she said?"
"I couldn't 'elp, some of it. 'Twas about the fight, sir. 'But you lost,' says she again and again when 'e speaks to 'er soft-like. 'You lost. You let that ugly gorilla'—them's 'er words, sir, speakin' o' Clancy—'you let that gorilla beat you, you, my fightin' god.' I remember the words, sir, 'er hexact words, sir, she said them again and again. Queer talk for a drawin' room, Mr. Canby, in a lady's mouth, an' Master Jerry talkin' low all the time and tellin' her he loved 'er—not darin' even to touch 'er 'and, sir, an' lookin' at her pleadin' like; 'im with his soft eyes, 'im with 'is great strength an' manhood, like a child before 'er, not even touchin' 'er, sir, with 'er temptin' and tantalizing." He broke off with a shrug. "'Tis a queer world, sir, where them that calls themselves ladies comes a visitin' gentlemen alone at night, an' goes away clean with a laugh on their lips. A gentleman Master 'Jerry is, sir, too good for the likes o' her." The man paused and looked toward the door with a startled air. "I 'ave no business sayin' what's in my mind, even to you, Mr. Canby. You'll not tell 'im, sir?"
"No. I'm glad you've spoken. You've said nothing of this—to anyone?"
"I'd cut my tongue out first, sir," he muttered, wagging his head.
I led the way to the door and opened it.
"I like her no better than you, Christopher. Something must be done—something—It's too bad—"
"Good night, sir," he said.
"Good night, Christopher."
There was something particularly brutal to me in hearing this estimate of Marcia Van Wyck's visit to Jerry through the lips of a servant. And yet I felt no remorse at encouraging the confession. Good Christopher was not brilliant, and only the most obvious of things impressed him, but he had seen, and like me, had judged. And his judgment was even more damning than mine, for Christopher was an amicable person, who doddered along, accepting life as it came, too weary for enmities, or too well trained to show them. It must have been at the cost of a severe wrench to his habits and traditions that he had dared to speak so freely. Good old Christopher! Ten years of the monastic life had narrowed your vision and mine, but they had made that vision singularly clear.
During that night in my hours of wakefulness before sleep came, I studied Jerry's infatuation from every angle. I feared for him. The moment of awakening was approaching, and then? Whatever the hidden weaknesses in his moral fiber, thus suddenly subjected to strain, he was not one to be lightly dealt with by man or woman. He was gentle, soft, if you please, childlike with those he loved, but there was dangerous mettle in him not to be tampered with by trickery or guile. Christopher had shown me with his uncompromising bluntness what I had merely suspected; the girl loved danger and saw it in Jerry's eyes, fascinated by the imminence of peril that lurked in his innocence. A strange passion, calculating, cold, abnormal. And Jerry loved this girl—adored her, as though she were a sacred vessel, a fragile thing, that would break in his fingers! I began to hope that he would break her (and to fear it), crush her and discover her emptiness.
The morrow brought a resolve to visit Briar Hills. Except for the afternoons when Jerry fished, he went there daily. He was delighted at my wish to accompany him. We drove over in the motor in the flush of the afternoon, Jerry blithe again, I silent, wondering at the inexhaustible springs of youth, forgetting that it was merely May and Jerry on his way to the woman he loved.
The house was full of guests for the week-end, but Marcia Van Wyck, with an air of hospitality that quite took me aback, welcomed me warmly, confessed herself much honored by this mark of my attention and took me to see her garden. Oh, she was clever. Spring flowers, youth, grace, the sweetness of the warm, scented paths, her symbolic white frock to set the scene for innocence. But I understood her now. Two could play at her game.
"It was wonderful of you to come, Mr. Canby," she purred. "So kind, so neighborly."
"It's really a great pleasure, I'm sure," I said with a show of gallantry. "A lovely spot! Blossoms. I wondered where you got them for your cheeks."
She flashed a quick glance at me, wholly humorous.
"For that speech, you shall have a bud for your lapel." And she plucked and fastened it, her face very close to mine. She gave me a moment of intense discomfort which was only half embarrassment. She had planned well. She was a part of the purity and sweetness of this lovely summer garden. Guile and she were miles asunder.
"Thanks," I muttered, smelling the blossom with some ostentation.
"Then we're going to be friends?" she queried archly.
"I'm not aware that we were ever anything else," I replied easily.
"Come now, Mr. Canby. You know we haven't always understood each other. I'm sure each of us has been frightfully jealous of the other. Isn't it so?"
"Jealous! I? Of you, Miss Van Wyck?"
"Don't let's misunderstand again. I'm frightfully cheerful this afternoon. It mightn't happen again for weeks. I couldn't quarrel with fate itself. You did want Jerry to carry your doctrines out into the world with him, didn't you?"
"I'm not aware—"
"And I discovered him far too stodgy to endure. It wasn't so much that your philosophy and mine differed as the difference they made in Jerry. And so we clashed. I won."
I was silent.
"Didn't I, Mr. Canby?" she persisted, in her gentlest tone.
"Jerry is out of my hands, Miss Van Wyck," I managed coolly.
"And in mine?"
"Yes, in yours," after a pause.
She laughed softly.
"What do you suppose I'm going to do with him?"
The glamour of youth in a garden, her rare humor and the cloudless day—I had managed well so far, but she pressed me hard. Jerry was no chattel to be bandied carelessly. I felt my body stiffening.
"Jerry is very sweet, Mr. Canby," she went on with that softness of voice that I had grown to understand. "He does anything, everything that I ask him to. It really is a great responsibility. Human judgment is so fallible, especially a woman's. Suppose I asked him to become a nihilist or President, or even both."
D—- the vixen. She was making game of me. But I struggled to hold my temper, taking her literally.
"Nihilism? Political or moral, Miss Van Wyck? To one of your means, the first would be inconvenient; to one of your affections, the other dangerous."
She flashed a narrow glance at me. "Touchée. I like the thrust from cover, but I can parry. Suppose that I said that I would relinquish Jerry."
"I'm not sure that you can," I replied coolly.
Our glances met again. She knew that I read her.
"Nothing is impossible to intelligence. I could send him away tomorrow, today—"
"But he would come back."
"You frighten me," she said, shuddering prettily.
"That is precisely what I wish to do," I went on stolidly.
"Threats!"
I shrugged. "You underestimate him, that's all."
"Perhaps. You know, Mr. Canby, that you improve vastly on acquaintance. If you were younger—" She paused and looked at me slantwise.
"Ingenuous, handsome, a fighting god—!"
I could have bitten out my tongue the moment I had spoken the words, and the dark look she shot at me as she flashed around gave a measure of her latent deviltry.
"Jerry told you that!" she said in tones half-suppressed.
"No."
"He did."
"No. But I know. I haven't watched for a month for nothing. I'm not a child, Miss Van Wyck."
"What are you?" she taunted.
"A prophet. Jerry is no woman's plaything. Let him be. You don't know him as I do. I warn you."
She suddenly went into a fit of laughter, meant to ruffle my dignity.
"Off with my head! If you knew how much you remind me of the Queen in 'Alice in Wonderland'!"
"I'm sorry you won't take me seriously."
"I can't," she laughed again. "You're too absurd to be tragic."
"Perhaps we had better be going toward the house," I remarked.
She moved slowly along, her back eloquent of disdain. But she paused for a moment to let me join her.
"You see? I've tried. You won't be friendly."
"My advice is friendly—"
"I never follow advice. We're enemies. It is written."
I shrugged. Impolite I may have been, but there was no use mincing matters. My preposterous embassy had failed. As we neared the house she left me on the lawn and turned to where Jerry and the others were moving toward the tennis courts.
"You'll find Miss Gore upon the veranda," she smiled over her shoulder with careless gayety. She was extraordinary. But I'm sure that never before had I hated the girl as at that moment. Thoughtfully I made my way to the veranda and Miss Gore.
"Well," she said cheerfully as I sank into a chair, "you are friends again?"
"No."
"It's really too bad. I think you take life too seriously, Mr. Canby."
"Perhaps." I remained silent. She worked at her embroidery frame for a moment as though to attune herself to my mood and then:
"Briar Hills can't hope for a visit which hasn't an ulterior purpose. What is it?"
As usual she wasted no words and smiled benignly, a comfortable motherly smile at once quizzical and forgiving.
"I did want to see you," I put in awkwardly. "It has been a long time—"
"I'll spare you the necessity for explanations. You're here to tell me that Jerry is drinking and to find out why. Isn't that so?"
I could only stare at her in wonder at her intuitions, and made some remark which she chose to disregard.
"As I predicted, the disease is passing," she said quietly, "but it's leaving Marcia first. Three weeks ago Jerry was a god to Marcia. Last week she showed signs of disenchantment. This week she is plainly bored."
"I guessed as much. But why?"
She shrugged her shoulders expressively, but having gone so far I was not there to waste words.
"I know. Her idol fell in Madison Square Garden, a bone-and-muscle idol, Miss Gore."
She remained silent, examining her embroidery with a critical eye.
"You know that that is true," I asserted.
"Idols are as easily made as shattered for Marcia. She may adore him again next week."
"I hope not. It would be a pity."
"I agree with you," she said quietly. "It would be a pity."
I said nothing for a moment, watching her slim fingers weaving to and fro.
"I have just warned her," I said.
The fingers moved slowly, then stopped and lowered the embroidery frame to her lap. Her wide gaze was full upon me.
"You—what?"
"I warned her."
"Against what?"
"Against Jerry."
She straightened and a sound came from her throat.
"You—"
She gave a short laugh. "You'll pardon me, Mr. Canby, but I was on the point of calling you a fool."
"I warned her," I muttered. "Jerry isn't like other men. She's playing with fire."
"And don't you know that that is the very worst thing you could have done, for Jerry—for her?"
"I hadn't meant to do exactly that. She angered me."
"She would. Her idea of existence isn't yours. And if you don't mind my saying so, I think you're wasting your time on the possible chance of making Jerry appear ridiculous to her, to us all. Your guardianship is hardly flattering to his intelligence or his character. You can't help matters. Whatever the crisis, it is bound to come, the sooner the better for Jerry and for her. My good man, can't you see?"
I had realized my futility already, and it was not pleasant to have it shown me through another's eyes. Nor did I relish her calling me her "good man," but curiously enough when she had finished I made no reply. And so I sat meekly, Miss Gore resuming her embroidery.
"It is a pity that he cares for no other girls. There's Margaret Laidlaw, pretty, attractive, feminine, and Sarah Carew, handsome, sportive, masculine. One would think he'd find a choice between them and they both like him. But no, he has eyes in his head for Marcia only. A moment ago when he was talking to them, his gaze was on the flower-garden. Has he never cared for any other women? Who was the girl who got inside the wall last year, Mr. Canby?"
Una! I had forgotten her. But I shook my head.
"I meddle no more, Miss Gore. I've learned a lesson. Jerry must work out his own salvation."
"It's merely a suggestion. Think it over."
After awhile I rose, pleading the need of exercise and begging her to make my excuses to Marcia, I set out for the Manor. But instead of taking the longer road to the lodge gate, when I reached the wall I turned to the left into the footpath along which I had come that night with the girl Una, reaching the Sweetwater and crawling under the broken grille to the rocks where she and Jerry had met. I sat for awhile on the brink of the stream, watching the tangling reflections in the tiny current. Una! Somehow the place reminded me of Una Habberton, a sanctuary for quiet thoughts; the pools below me, her eyes reflecting the clear heavens; the intonation of the rill, her voice; the cheerful birdnotes, her joy of life; the dignity of the tall trees, her sanity. Less than a year ago I had turned her out of this garden, fearing for the boy the first woman he had seen, and to my ascetic mind because a woman, a minx. I eyed the broken grille regretfully and then suddenly rose and started hurriedly toward the Manor, the new thought drumming in my mind.
A fool's mission? Perhaps, and yet I resolved to take it. I put some things into a bag and, telling Christopher that Jerry wasn't to expect me home that night, I caught an evening train to the city.
It was not difficult to reach her by telephone, for I found her at the house in Washington Square. She did not recall my voice or my name, and only when I said that I had been Jerry Benham's tutor, did she remember. It was a personal matter, I explained, having to do with Mr. Benham, and at that she consented to see me. I left the telephone booth at the hotel perspiring freely, aware for the first time of the awkwardness and delicacy of my undertaking. But I dined and changed into my blue serge suit, one that I had bought upon the occasion of my last visit to town, and at half past eight presented myself in the Habberton drawing-room. In the moments before she appeared, I sat ill at ease, my eyes taking in every detail of the well-ordered room, the cool gray walls, the family portraits, the old-fashioned ornaments upon table and mantel, aware, in spite of myself, that I was warm at the collar, impatient for the interview to begin, yet fearful for it.
I was watching the folding doors at the end of the room when she startled me by appearing silently almost at my elbow. The lights were dim, but I could see that her face wore no smile of greeting and as I rose she did not offer me her hand.
"Mr. Canby," she said politely, indicating a chair, "won't you sit down?"
"Er—thanks," I said. My throat was dry. I hoped she would not make it too difficult for me. Meanwhile I saw her eyeing me narrowly as though the possibility had just occurred to her that I might have come to ask for money. She waited a moment for me to speak, but I found it difficult to begin.
"Mr. Benham sent you to me?" she asked at last very coolly.
"Er—not exactly," I stammered. "Mr. Benham did not send me, but I—I'm here in his interest."
"Yes?"
The rising inflection on the monosyllable could hardly have been called encouraging.
"The circumstance of our first meeting," I ventured again with an assumption of ease that I was far from feeling—"its duration was so brief that I feared you wouldn't remember me."
Her neck stiffened ever so slightly.
"You surely did not come here," she said icily, "merely to discuss the circumstances of our first meeting."
"N—no, not at all, at least, not altogether, Miss Habberton. But I—I couldn't help hoping—" here I tried to smile—a ghastly one at best—"I couldn't help hoping that you had managed to forgive me for performing a very unpleasant duty."
"If you will please come as quickly as possible to the object of your visit—"
"I—I will. If you'll be a little patient with me."
She averted her head, but said nothing.
"I think you know, Miss Habberton, that I've given the last eleven years of my life to Jerry. He has been like a younger brother to me and I have done what I could to develop him physically, mentally, morally, to successful manhood. I had hoped under ideal conditions to produce—"
"I fail to see, Mr. Canby—"
"Please bear with me a moment longer. I think you may have realized last year what Jerry was. You saw him then, a creature with the body and intelligence of a man and the heart of a child. He was what I had made him. From my point of view he was flawless, as nearly perfect as you will find a man in this—"
"Without temptations," she put in quickly, the first encouraging sign of her interest.
"I had built my hopes as I had built his body and mind and character, sure that contact with the world would only refine and strengthen him."
She shook her head. "You do not know the world as I do. It was a dream. I could have told you so then, last summer."
"You—you have seen the papers—the accounts of—?"
"I don't see how I could very well help seeing them," she said smiling. "He began his battle with the world bravely at least."
"My only hope is that you haven't misjudged him in that affair. All his life he has cared for boxing—"
"I can't see what difference my judgment of him can make one way or the other. He has done much, is doing much for the people I'm interested in. Of course, you know of that. But as to his private life—that is something with which, of course, I can have no concern."
"I am sorry to hear you say that. I thought perhaps that as a friend—"
"Mr. Benham understands my interest in him, I think," she paused and averted her head, one small foot tapping the floor impatiently. "I cannot see where this conversation is leading us. I beg that you will be explicit."
"I was counting on your interest, for he values your good opinion more I think than that of anyone in the world."
Her foot ceased tapping and she bent forward, one elbow on her knee, her head lowered thoughtfully.
"What do you want, Mr. Canby?" she asked abruptly.
"Your help."
"Mine!"
"Yes, your help. Jerry needs it—"
"He did not ask—?"
"No. I haven't consulted Jerry—"
"Then I—"
"Please listen. If Jerry's future means anything to you, you will do what you can. Jerry has—has gotten into bad company—he is slipping, Miss Habberton—slipping down. I don't know whose the fault is, his father's for his idealism, or mine for my selfish delight in the experiment of his education, but Jerry is failing us. You see, I'm telling you all. I have given up. A dream, you have called it. It was a dream; but I can't see him fail without an effort to help him. When a man centers all his hopes in life on one ambition, its failure is tragic. You see I'm humble. It has cost me something to come to you. I hope you understand what it means."
My appeal had reached her, for I think she realized how seldom such a person as I could be moved to emotion.
"But I—how can I help?" she asked.
"Will you listen and not think me visionary? Jerry cares for you. To him you have made a different appeal from that of any other woman in the world. You were the first. You stirred him. You may not be aware. In his mind you stand for everything that is clean and noble. In his heart, I know—I have not studied Jerry all these years for nothing—he has a shrine there—for you, Miss Habberton. You will always be Una, the first. I hope you will forgive me and believe me. It is necessary that you should."
She smiled at me gently.
"You are very much in earnest, Mr. Canby. I can forgive much to one of your sincerity. But doesn't it seem to you a curious conversation?"
"I had hoped you cared enough—"
"And if I did, do you think anything would give you the right to come to me without Mr. Benham's permission and speak of—"
"You must let me finish," I demanded. "You are kind, charitable. Trying to save people from themselves is your life work. I merely bring you a soul to save, a friend in danger. Can you refuse, refuse him? Jerry is drinking. It has not been for long, but he is in trouble. He has gotten beyond his depth—a woman—Oh, don't misunderstand me! It is mental, a strange attraction, weird, Jerry doesn't understand at all. He's bewitched, but she is slowly brutalizing him, his mind I mean. Don't you understand?"
"Yes, I think so," she muttered. "It is not a new situation. But I—no friend, man or girl, could avail in a case like that." She paused a moment clasping and unclasping her hands. I waited.
"Who is this—this woman?" she blurted out at last.
I hesitated.
"A lady. You—you put me at a disadvantage."
"What is her name?" she insisted.
"Marcia Van Wyck," I muttered.
"Marcia! Surely—" She stopped. A look of bewilderment came over her face, ending with a frown of perplexity.
"No," she murmured. "He wouldn't understand Marcia. I—" And then with a gasp, "And you want me to interfere? Mr. Canby, I—"
"Just a moment, please. I ask nothing that you cannot do. I have thought of a plan. We are alone at the Manor. I ask you to meet Jerry as you met him there last summer along by the Sweetwater. I am going to arrange to have him fish up the stream on Saturday afternoon. Will you come, Miss Habberton, come to the wall and meet him there inside the broken grille? I know his mind. It is curiously affected by facts of association. It is the only thing. I have—"
The words died on my lips as she rose, her slim figure straight in its sudden dignity, and I knew that I had failed.
"Your proposal is preposterous, Mr. Canby," she said coolly, moving toward the door.
"You refuse?"
"Of course. I am sorry if Mr. Benham has failed, is failing his friends, but the thing that you suggest is impossible." She put out her hand in token of dismissal.
"And you won't reconsider? Let me come to see you tomorrow, the next day. Is it so much that I ask?"
"Good night, Mr. Canby."
"You do not care enough?"
"Good night."
I bowed over her fingers silently.
Then I took up my hat. There was nothing left to do.
Had I not been obsessed with the desire at all costs to divert the unhappy tide of Jerry's infatuation, I must have known that no girl such as Una Habberton could lend herself as accessory to a plan like mine. I had had evidence enough that she cared for Jerry in a tender, almost a motherly way, and while I had been unsuccessful in my mission, I now saw no reason to change my opinion. Indeed, in my hotel room that night, the more I thought of the interview the more convinced I was that whatever modesty deterred her, it was the very fact of her caring so much that made the thing impossible to her. Her air of indifference, carefully assumed, had not hidden the rapid rise and fall of her breast at the confession of my fears. The inquietude of her manner, the curiosity which had permitted me to finish my story, were proof convincing that her interests in Jerry were more than ordinarily involved, and the more I thought of her attitude the more I wondered at my own temerity.
A brazen minx I had once thought her, but tonight in her plain white frock and sober conventional surroundings she seemed to show something of the quiet poise of a nurse or a nun. She seemed to exemplify the thought that the ideal woman is both wood-nymph and madonna. By contrast to the Nietzschian intriguer I had left that morning at Briar Hills, she was a paragon of all virtues. Nietzsche! The philosopher of the sty! Freud, his runt!
When, the following morning, I found Jack Ballard in his apartment at eleven (as usual fastening his cravat) I told him of the unfortunate end to my ventures, but he only laughed at me.
"My dear Pope," he said, "you are suffering from a severe attack of paternomania. If you don't mind my saying so, you're making a prodigious ass of yourself and of Jerry. If I were the boy, I'd pack you out bag and baggage. Imagine it! Put yourself in his place. Would you like any meddling in your little affairs of gallantry?" And he laughed aloud at his joke. I scowled at him, but passed the absurd remark in dignified silence.
"If it were an affair of gallantry!" I said at last, "I could forgive him that, and her. But this—it's mere milk and water and he thinks it's the nectar of the gods. The pity of it!"
"A pity, yes. But who is responsible? Not Jerry, surely. He's what you've made him," Jack paused expressively. "Does he—?" he began and paused. I read his meaning.
"No," I said.
"Um! Knowledge will come like a thunderclap to Jerry. Then—look out!"
I agreed with him.
"But Jerry's amatory ventures are none of your business, Pope," he went on. "Let the boy go the limit. He has got to do it. It won't hurt him. I told you that Marcia would help him cut his eye-teeth. She's doing it in approved modern fashion, without instruments or gas. He'll recover. Let 'em alone. I'll tell you what to do. Just put your precious dialectics in cold storage awhile—they'll keep; nobody'll thaw 'em out unless you do—and take a trip to 'Frisco."
"Frisco or not, I meddle no more."
"Frankenstein!" he laughed again. "The monster is getting away from you."
"If you're going to be facetious—"
"There are times when nothing else is possible. This is one of 'em. Brace up, old boy. All's lost but hope and that's going soon. You go home and take a pill. You're yellow. Perhaps I'll come up for the week-end for Marcia's party, you know,—if you'll promise to have the beds well-aired. I'm sure they're reminiscent of Jerry's pugs. Going? Oh, very well. Love to Jerry. And remember, old top, that a man is as heaven made him and sometimes a great deal worse."
This was the comforting reflection I took with me to the train that afternoon. But I was now resigned. I had done what I could and failed. The only thing left, it seemed, was to reconcile myself to the situation, seek a friendship with Marcia and await the débâcle.
I made, of course, no mention of the object of my visit to New York and Jerry gave me no confidences. He went to town Tuesday and Wednesday, returned tired and sullen. And the next night after a long period alone in the study in which I had managed at last to get my mind on my work, I found Jerry in the dining-room quite drunk with the brandy bottle beside him. He was ugly and disposed to be quarrelsome, but I got him to bed at last, suffering myself no graver damage than a bruised biceps where his great fingers had grasped me. Jack Ballard's remark about Frankenstein was no joke. That night a monster Jerry was; from the bottom of my heart I pitied him.
I argued with Jerry in the morning, pleaded with him and threatened to leave the Manor, but he was so contrite, so earnest in his promises of reformation that I couldn't find it in my heart to go. I proposed a trip to Europe, but he refused.
"Not now, Roger," he demurred. "I've got to stay here now. Just stick around with me for awhile, won't you, old chap?"
"Will you stop drinking?" I asked.
"Brandy?"
"Everything."
"H—m. You're the devil of a martinet."
"Will you?"
It was the supreme test of what remained of my influence over him. His head ached, I'm sure, for he looked a wreck. I watched his face anxiously. He went to the table, took a cigarette from the box and lighted it deliberately. Then turning, faced me with a smile, and offered his hand.
"Yes," he said. "Old Dry-as-dust, I will."
"A promise? You've never broken one, Jerry."
"A promise, Roger. I—I think I'm getting a little glimmering of sense. A promise. I'll keep it."
"Thank God, for that," I said, in so fervent a tone that the boy smiled at me.
"Good old Roger! You're a brick," he said. "Friendship, after all, is the greatest thing in the world." He turned his head and walked to the window and looked out, assuming an air of unconcern which I knew hid some deep-seated emotion. I, too, was silent. It was a fine moment for us both.
He turned into the room after awhile with an air of gayety.
"We're going to have a party, Roger."
"Ah, when?"
"Marcia's giving a dance tomorrow night, people from all over, and I'll have a few of 'em here in the afternoon—for tea out at the cabin. Sort of a picnic. Some of 'em are bringing rods to try the early fishing. Rather jolly, eh? I'll tell Poole and Christopher—"
I confessed myself much pleased with this arrangement and thanked my stars that Una had refused me. It was the day I had wanted her. Indeed, since Jerry's promise, life at the Manor had suddenly taken a different complexion. A new hope was born in me. Jerry would keep that promise. I was sure of it.
I will come as rapidly as possible to the extraordinary happenings of that Saturday afternoon, which as much as any other event in this entire history, portrays the mutability of the feminine mind. I had gone out to the cabin to see that everything was in order, and Jerry was to follow later, while a few of the men fished up stream, Marcia and some of her guests driving in motors to the upper gate, cutting across to the cabin through the woods. Christopher had cleared the cabin and he and Poole had brought the eatables and set a table. The two days that had passed since Jerry had given me his promise had been cheerful ones for the boy. I had not seen Miss Gore, but for aught I knew Marcia Van Wyck might have been adoring Jerry again. I did not care what her mood was. All would come right, for Jerry had given me a promise and he would not break it. The arrangements within the cabin having been completed, I went outside and wandered a short way down the path toward the stream, sat on a rock and became at once engaged in my favorite woodland game of counting birdcalls. Thrushes and robins, warblers, sparrows, finches, all engaged in the employment that Jerry had described as "hopping around a bit," or chirping, calling, singing until the air was melodious with sound. The birdman's surprise, a new note differing from the others, a loud clear gurgling song, brought me to my feet and I went on down the path listening. It was different from the note of a wren which it resembled, that of a Lincoln sparrow, I was sure, a rarity at the Manor, only one specimen of which Jerry possessed. But midway in my pursuit of the elusive bird I saw movement in the path in front of me and I caught a glimpse of leather leggins and a skirt. In a moment all thought of my Lincoln sparrow was gone from my head. At first I thought the visitor one of Jerry's guests, but as she approached, butterfly net in hand, I saw that it was Una Habberton. So great was my surprise at seeing her that I stood, mouth open, stupidly staring. But she was laughing at me.
"You're a nice one," she was saying. "Here I am a trespasser through the grille and not a soul to greet me."
"You came," I muttered inanely.
"Obviously; since here I am. It's Saturday, isn't it?"
"Yes. But—" I paused.
"But what?"
"You said you wouldn't come."
"Oh," she laughed. "I merely changed my mind—my privilege, you know. I was a trifle stale. I thought it would do me good. But you don't seem in the least glad to see me."
I was—delighted. Joy was one of the things that made me dumb.
"I was just trying to realize—er—Won't you sit down? On a rock, I mean. Jerry's somewhere about. He'll be along in a minute."
The possible effect on Una of Jerry's guests, who also might be along in a minute, was just beginning to bewilder me.
"He's fishing?"
"He was to meet me at the cabin. He'll be along presently. It will be a wonderful surprise. Suppose we hadn't been out here at all?"
"I was prepared to go all the way to the house. Nice of me, wasn't it? You know I promised Jerry some day I'd come to see his collection."
"He'll be delighted—Ho! There's his whistle now." I sounded the familiar call on my fingers and moved toward the cabin, but she stopped me.
"You're not to leave me, Mr. Canby, or I'll go."
"Why?"
"A chance meeting would have been different. This is premeditation. Don't leave me. Do you hear!"
I nodded and when Jerry came in sight I called him. He appeared in the path, a basket of wine in one hand, a fishing rod in the other.
"Hello, Roger," he shouted and then paused, setting the basket down.
"I didn't know—"
"A surprise, Jerry!"
"Why, it's Una!" he cried. "Una! What on earth—?"
"I was butterflying, and wandered through." She laughed. "I told you to have that railing mended."
"The necessity for that is past," he laughed gayly. "Oh, it's jolly good to see you."
He took her by both hands and held her off from him examining her delightedly.
"It seems like yesterday. I'm not sure it isn't yesterday that you broke in and I was going to throw you over the wall. Imagine it! You! You're just the same—so different from the sober little mouse of Blank Street. I believe you have on the very same clothes, the same gaiters—"
"Naturally. Do you think I'm a millionaire?"
Three was a crowd. I would have given my right hand to have transported the cabin and all the gay people expected there to the ends of the earth. In a moment the woods would be full of them. I was at a loss what to do, for when they came the bird would take flight, but Jerry seemed to have forgotten everything but the girl before him. It was a real enthusiasm and happiness that he showed, the first in weeks.
"So you expected to slip in and out without being caught, did you?" Jerry was saying. "Pretty sort of a friend, you are! You might at least have let a fellow know you were going to be in this part of the world; where are you staying?"
"I don't see how that's the slightest concern of yours," she said demurely.
"The same old Una!" cried Jerry delightedly. "Always making game of a fellow. Do sit down again and let's have a chat. It seems ages since I've seen you. How's the day nursery coming on? Did you get the last check? I meant to stop in and see the plans. I couldn't, though," he frowned a little. "Something turned up. Business, you know."
"Jerry is busy," I put in mischievously, as I sat down beside them. "He worked Tuesday and Wednesday this week."
"Aren't you afraid of injuring your health, Jerry?" she asked sweetly. "I hope you're not working too hard."
He frowned and then burst into laughter.
"Roger's a chump. He sits staring at a sheet of foolscap all day and thinks he's working. I do work, though. I'm reorganizing a railroad," he finished proudly.
"How splendid! I'm sure it needs it. Railroads are the most disorganized and disorganizing—"
"And I'm engaged in a freight war with a rival steamship company. It's perfectly bully. I've got 'em backed off the map. We're carrying stuff for almost nothing and they're howling for help." He had taken out his pipe and was lighting it. "I'm going to buy 'em out," he finished. "But you don't want to hear about me. What are—"
"I do. Of course"—and she exchanged a quick glance with me. "Of course, I see a little about you in the papers—your interest in athletics—"
"Oh, I say, Una," he cried, flushing a dark red. "It's not fair to—"
"I'm fearfully interested," she persisted calmly. "You know it's actually gotten me into the habit of the sporting page. 'Walloping' Houligan and 'Scotty' Smith, the Harlem knock-out artist, are no longer empty names for me. They're real people with jabs and things."
"It's not kind of you—"
"I've been waiting breathlessly for your next encounter. I hope it's with 'Scotty.' It would be so much more of an achievement to win from a real knock-out artist—"
"Stop it, Una," he cried painfully. "I forbid you—"
"Do you mean," she asked innocently, "that you don't like to discuss—"
"I—I'd rather talk of something else," he stammered. "I've stopped boxing."
"Why?" wide-eyed. "The newspapers were wild about you. It was a fluke, wasn't it—Clancy 'getting' you in the ninth?"
"No," he muttered sullenly, "he whipped me fairly."
"Really. I'm awfully sorry. When one sets one's heart upon a thing—"
"Will you be quiet, Una?" he cried impetuously. "I won't have you talking this way, of these things. I—I was jollied into the thing. I mean," with a glance at me, "I never thought of the consequences. It—it was only a lark. I'm out of it, for good."
"Oh!" she said in a subdued tone, her gaze upon a distant tree-trunk. "It's too bad."
Whatever she meant by that cryptic remark, Jerry looked most uncomfortable. Her irony had cut him to the quick, and her humor had flayed his quivering sensibilities. That he took it without anger argued much for the quality of the esteem in which he held her. Another person, even I, in similar circumstances, would have courted demolition. Secretly, I was delighted. She had struck just the right note. He still writhed inwardly, but he made no effort at unconcern. I think he was perfectly willing that she should be a witness of his self-abasement.
"I was an idiot, Una, a conceited, silly fool. I deserve everything you say. I think it makes me a little happier to hear you say it, because if you weren't my friend you'd have kept quiet."
"I haven't said anything," she remarked urbanely. "And of course it's none of my affair."
"But it is," he was insisting.
I had risen, for along the path some people were coming. Jerry and Una, their backs being turned, were so absorbed in their conversation that they did not hear the rustle of footsteps, but when I rose they glanced at me and saw my face. I would have liked to have spirited them away, but it was too late. I made out the visitors now, Marcia, Phil Laidlaw, Sarah Carew and Channing Lloyd. I saw a change come in Jerry's face, as though a gray cloud had passed over it. Una started up, butterfly-net in hand, and glanced from one to the other of us, a question in her eyes, her face a trifle set.
"Oh, here you are," Marcia's soft voice was saying. "It seemed ages getting here."
Jerry took charge of the situation with a discretion that did the situation credit.
"Marcia, you know Miss Habberton—Miss Van Wyck."
"Of course," they both echoed coolly. Marcia examining Una impertinently, Una cheerfully indifferent.
"Miss Habberton and I were after butterflies," said Jerry, "but she has promised to stop for tea."
"I really ought to be going, Jerry," said Una.
"But you can't, you know, after promising," said Jerry with a smile.
The introductions made, the party moved on toward the cabin, Miss Habberton and I bringing up the rear.
"I could kill you for this," she whispered to me and the glance she gave me half-accomplished her wish.
"It isn't my fault," I protested. "I didn't know they were coming until yesterday—and you know you said—"
"Well, you ought to have warned me. I've no patience with you—none."
"But, my dear child—"
"I feel like a fool—and it's your fault."
"But how could I—?"
"You ought to have known."
Women I knew were not reasonable beings, but I expected better things than this of Una. I followed meekly, aware of my insufficiency. I felt sorry if Una was uncomfortable, but I had seen enough of her to know that she was quite able to cope with any situation in which she might be placed. Marcia with Jerry had gone on ahead and I saw that, while the girl was talking up at him, Jerry walked with his head very erect. The situation was not clear to Marcia. I will give her the credit of saying that she had a sense of divination which was little short of the miraculous. It must have puzzled her to find Una here if, as I suspected. Jerry made her the confidante of all his plans, present and future—Una Habberton, the girl who had ventured alone within the wall, the account of whose visit had once caused a misunderstanding between them. The thought of Una's visit I think must have always been a thorn in Marcia's side, for Jerry's strongest hold on Marcia's imagination was nurtured by the thought that she, Marcia, was the first, the only woman that Jerry had ever really known. And here was her forgotten and lightly esteemed predecessor sporting with Jerry in the shade!
In the cabin we made a gay party. Una, I am sure, in spite of her cheerful pretense with Phil Laidlaw, had a woman's intuition of Marcia's antagonism. Jerry joined and chatted in Una's group for a moment, but I could see that he had lost something of his buoyancy. I watched Marcia keenly. Though absorbed apparently in the pouring of the tea, a self-appointed prerogative which she had assumed with something of an air—(meant, I am sure, for Una)—her narrowly veiled eyes lost no detail of any happening in Una's group, and her ears, I am sure, no detail of its conversation. Subtle glances, stolen or portentous, shot between them, and Jerry, poor lad, wandered from one to the other like some great ship becalmed in a tropic sea aware of an impending tempest, yet powerless to prevent its approach.
Una Habberton, I would like to say, had recovered her composure amazingly. Phil Laidlaw was an old acquaintance whom she very much liked and in a while they were chatting gayly, exchanging reminiscences with such a rare degree of concord and amusement that it seemed to matter little to either of them who else was in the room. But Una, I think, in spite of this abstraction, missed nothing of Marcia's slightest glances. She said nothing more of going. It seemed almost as though, war having tacitly been declared, she was on her mettle for the test whatever it was to be. I had not misjudged her. She knew Marcia Van Wyck, and what she did not know she suspected, and by the light of that knowledge (and that suspicion) had a little of contempt for her.