"Does he support her?" the Judge asked.

"Sends her plenty of money. She always seems to have enough, even when he doesn't write. He'll be coming one of these days—and then we'll get the thing straight, but in the meantime there ain't any use in asking Mary."

He brought out the bag of corn-cakes and fed the dogs. They were a well-bred crew and took their share in turn, sitting in a row and going through the ceremony with an air of enjoying not only the food but the attention they attracted from the two men.

"Of course," said Mr. Flippin as he gathered up the lunch things, "I'm saying to you what I wouldn't say to another soul. Mary's my girl, and she's all right. But I naturally have the feelings of a father."

The Judge stretched himself on the grass, and pulled his hat over his eyes. "Girls are queer, and if that Dalton thinks he can court my Becky——" He stopped, and spoke again from under his hat, "Oh, what's the use of worrying, Bob, on a day like this?"

The Judge always napped after lunch, and Bob Flippin, stretched beside him, lay awake and watched the stream slip by in a sheet of silver, he watched a squirrel flattened on the limb above him, he watched the birds that fluttered down to the pools to bathe, he watched the buzzards sailing high above the hills.

And presently he found himself watching his own daughter Mary, as she came along the opposite bank of the stream.

She was drawing Fiddle-dee-dee in a small red cart and was walking slowly.

She walked well. Country-born and country-bred, there was nothing about her of plodding peasant. All her life she had danced with the Bannisters and the Beauforts. Yet she had never been invited to the big balls. When the Merriweathers gave their Harvest Dance, Mary and her mother would go over and help bake the cakes, and at night they would sit in the gallery of the great ballroom and watch the dancers, but Mary would not be asked out on the floor.

Seeing the Judge asleep, Mary stopped and beckoned from the other side.

Flippin rose and made his way across the stream, stepping from stone to stone.

"Mother wants you to come right up to the Watermans', Father. Mrs. Waterman is to have an operation, and you are to direct the servants in fitting up a room for the surgeons. The nurse will tell you what to do."

Mr. Flippin rubbed his face with his handkerchief. "I don't like to wake the Judge."

"I'll stay here and tell him," Mary said. "And you can send Calvin down to carry the basket."

She was standing beside him, and suddenly she laid her cheek against his arm. "I love you," she said, "you are a darling, Daddy."

He patted her cheek. "That sounds like my little Mary."

"Don't I always sound like your little Mary?"

"Not always."

"Well—I've had things on my mind." Her blue eyes met his, and she flushed a bit. "Not things that I am sorry for, but things that I am worried about. But now—well, I am very happy in my heart, Daddy."

He smiled down at her. "Have you heard from T. Branch?"

"Yes, by wireless——"

He looked his astonishment. "Wireless?"

"Heart-wireless, Daddy. Didn't you get messages that way when you were young—from Mother?"

"How do I know? It's been twenty-five years since then, and we haven't had to send messages. We've just held on to each other's hands, thank God." He bent and kissed her. "You stay and tell the Judge, Mary. He'll sleep for a half-hour yet; he's as regular as the clock."

His own two dogs followed him, but the Judge's beagles lay with their noses on their paws at their master's feet. Now and then they snapped at flies but otherwise they were motionless.

Before the half hour was up Fiddle-dee-dee fell asleep, and the Judge waking, saw on the other side of a stream propped against the gray old oak, the young mother cool in her white dress, her child in her arms.

"Father had to go," she told him, and explained the need; "he'll send Calvin for the basket."

"I can carry my own basket, Mary; I'm not a thousand years old."

"It isn't that. But you've never carried baskets, Judge."

The Judge chuckled. "You say that is if it were an accusation."

"It isn't. Only some of us seem born to carry baskets and others are born to—let us carry them." Her smile redeemed her words from impertinence.

"Are you a Bolshevik, Mary?"

"No. I believe in the divine rights of kings and—Judges. I'd hate to see you carry a basket. It would rob you of something—just as I would hate to see a king without his crown or a queen without her scepter."

"Oh, Mary, Mary, your father has never said things like that to me."

"He doesn't feel them. Father believes in The God of Things as They are——"

"And don't you?"

"I believe in you," she rose and carrying her sleeping child, crossed the stream on the stones as easily as if she carried no burden; "you know I believe in you, don't you—and in all the Bannisters?"

It was said so lightly that he took it lightly. No one was so touchy as the Judge about his dignity if it were disregarded. But here was little Mary smiling up at him and telling him that he was a king with a crown and she liked it.

"Well, well. Let's sit down, Mary."

"Fish, if you want to, and I'll watch."

He baited his hook and cast his line into the stream. It had a bobbing red cork which fascinated Fiddle-dee-dee. She tried to wade out and get it, and had to be held by her very short skirts lest she drown in the attempt.

"So I'm a confounded autocrat," the Judge chuckled. "Nobody ever said that to me before, but maybe some of them have been thinking it."

"Maybe they have," said Mary gravely, "but they haven't really cared. Having the Bannisters at Huntersfield is like the English having a Victoria or an Edward or a George at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor; it adds flavor to their—democracy——"

"Mary—who's been saying all this to you?" he demanded.

"My husband."

"Truelove Branch?"

She nodded.

"I'd like to meet him, by Jove, I'd like to meet him. He has been teaching his wife to poke fun at her old friend——"

She faced him fearlessly. "I'm not poking fun. I—I'd hate to have the Bannisters lose one little bit of their beautiful traditions. I—I—— Some day I'm going to teach little Fiddle those traditions, and tell her what it means when—when people have race back of them. You see, I haven't it, Judge, but I know what it's worth."

He was touched by her earnestness. "My dear Mary," he said, "I wish my own grandson looked at it that way. His letters of late have been very disturbing."

A little flush crept into her cheeks. "Disturbing?"

"He writes that we Americans have got to fit our practice to our theories. He says that we shout democracy and practice autocracy. That we don't believe that all men are free and equal, and that, well, in your words, Mary—we let other people carry our baskets."

Mary was smiling to herself. "You are glad he is coming home?"

"Truxton? Yes. On Saturday."

"Becky told me. She rode over to get Mother to help Mandy."

"I am going to have a lot of people to dine the day he arrives," said the Judge, "and next week there'll be the Merriweathers' ball. He will have a chance to see his old friends."

"Yes," said Mary, "he will."

They talked a great deal about Truxton after that.

"I wish he bore the Bannister name," said the Judge. "Becky is the only Bannister."

After the death of her husband Mrs. Beaufort had come to live with the Judge. Truxton's boyhood had been spent on the old estate. The Judge's income was small, and Truxton had known few luxuries. Like the rest of the boys of the Bannister family he was studying law at the University. He and Randy had been classmates, but had gone into different branches of the service.

"When he comes back," the Judge told Mary, "he must show the stuff he is made of. I can't have him selling cars around the county like Randy Paine."

"Well, Randy has sold a lot of them," said Mary. "Father has given him an order——"

"You don't mean to say that Bob Flippin is going to buy a car——"

"He is."

"He didn't dare tell me," the Judge said; "what's he going to do with his horses?"

"Keep them," said Mary serenely; "the car is for Mother—she's going to drive it herself."

The Judge, with a vision of Mollie Flippin's middle-aged plumpness upon him, exclaimed: "You don't mean that your mother is going to—drive a car?"

"Yes," said Mary, "she is."

"I would as soon think of Claudia——"

"No," said Mary, "Mrs. Beaufort will never drive her own car. She has the coachman habit, and if she ever gets a car, there'll be a man at the wheel."

She brought the conversation back to Truxton. "Do you remember how we had a picnic here years ago, Mother packed the lunch, and Truxton ate up all the raspberry tarts?"

"He loved tarts," said the Judge, "and chocolate cake. Well, well, I shall be glad to see him."

"Perhaps—perhaps when he gets here you'll be disappointed."

"Why," sharply, "why should I?"

Mary did not answer. She stood up with Fiddle in her arms. "Calvin's coming for the basket," she said, "and I shall have to go up on the other side—I left the cart."

She said "good-bye" and crossed by the stepping-stones. The Judge wound up his fishing tackle. The day's sport resulted in three small "shiners." But he had enjoyed the day—there had been the stillness and the sunlight, and the good company of Bob Flippin and his daughter Mary.

The dogs followed, and Mary from the other side of the stream watched the little procession, Calvin in the lead with the load, the Judge straight and slim with his fluff of white hair, the three little dogs paddling on their short legs.

"Judge Bannister of Huntersfield," said Mary Flippin. Then she raised Fiddle high in her arms. "Say Granddad, Fiddle," she whispered, "say Granddad."

II

The Flippin farmhouse was wide and rambling. It had none of the classic elegance of the old Colonial mansions, but it had a hall in the middle with the sitting-room on one side and on the other an old-fashioned parlor with a bedroom back of it. The dining-room was back of the sitting-room, and beyond that was the kitchen, and a succession of detached buildings which served as dairy, granary, tool-house and carriage house in the old fashion. There was much sunlight and cleanliness in the farmhouse, and beauty of a kind, for the Flippins had been content with simple things, and Mary's taste was evidenced in the restraint with which the new had been combined with the old. She and her mother did most of the work. It was not easy in these days to get negroes to help. Daisy, the mulatto, had come down for the summer, but they had no assurance that when the winter came they could keep her. Divested of her high heels and city affectations, Daisy was just a darkey, of a rather plain, comfortable, efficient type. When Mary went in, she was getting supper.

"Has Mother come, Daisy?"

"No, Miss, she ain', an' yo' Poppa ain' come. An' me makin' biscuits."

"Your biscuits are always delicious, Daisy."

"An' me and John wants to go to the movies, Miss Mary. An' efen the supper is late."

"You can leave the dishes until mornin', Daisy."

Mary smiled and sighed as she went on with Fiddle to her own room. The good old days of ordered service were over.

She went into the parlor bedroom. It was the one which she and Fiddle occupied. She bathed and dressed her baby, and changed her own frock. Then she entered the long, dim parlor. There was a family Bible on the table. It was a great volume with steel engravings. It had belonged to her father's father. In the middle of the book were pages for births and deaths. The records were written legibly but not elegantly. They went back for two generations. Beyond that the Flippins had no family tree.

Mary had seen the family tree at Huntersfield. It was rooted in aristocratic soil. There were Huguenot branches and Royalist branches—D'Aubignes and Moncures, Peytons and Carys, Randolphs and Lees. And to match every name there was more than one portrait on the walls of Huntersfield.

Mary remembered a day when she and Truxton Beaufort had stood in the wide hall.

"A great old bunch," Truxton had said.

"If they were my ancestors I should be afraid of them."

"Why, Mary?"

"Oh, they'd expect so much of me."

"Oh, that," Truxton said airily, "who cares what they expect?"

Mr. and Mrs. Flippin came home in time for supper. The nurse had arrived and the surgeons would follow in the morning. "It's dreadful, Mary," Mrs. Flippin said, "to see her poor husband; money isn't everything. And he loves her as much as if they were poor."

Daisy washed the dishes in a perfect whirl of energy, donned her high-heeled slippers and her Washington manner, and went off with John. It was late that night when Mrs. Flippin went out to find Mary busy.

"My dear," she said, "what are you doing?"

Mary was rolling out pastry, with ice in a ginger-ale bottle. "I am going to make some tarts. There was a can of raspberries left—and—and well—I'm just hungry for—raspberry tarts, Mother."

III

It was the Judge who told Becky that Dalton had not gone. "Mrs. Waterman is very ill, and they are all staying down."

Becky showed no sign of what the news meant to her, but that night pride and love fought in the last ditch. It seemed to Becky that with Dalton at King's Crest the agony of the situation was intensified.

"Oh, why should I care?" she kept asking herself as she sat late by her window. "He doesn't. And I have known him only three weeks. Why should he count so much?"

She knew that he counted to the measure of her own constancy. "I can't bear it," she said over and over again pitifully, as the hours passed. "I think I shall—die."

It seemed to her that she wanted more than anything in the whole wide world to see him for a moment—to hear the quick voice—to meet the sparkle of his glance.

Well, why not? If she called him—he would come. She was sure of that. He was staying away because he thought that she cared. And he didn't want her to care. But he was not really—cruel—and if she called him——

She wandered around the room, stopping at a window and going on, stopping at another to stare out into the starless night. There had been rain, and there was that haunting wet fragrance from the garden. "I must see him," she said, and put her hand to her throat.

She went down-stairs. Everybody was in bed. There was no one to hear. Her grandfather's room was over the library; Mandy and Calvin slept in servants' quarters outside. To-morrow the house would be full of ears—and it would be too late.

A faint light burned in the lower hall. The stairway swept down from a sort of upper gallery, and all around the gallery and on the stairs and along the lower hall were the portraits of Becky's dead and gone ancestors.

They were really very worth-while ancestors, not as solid and substantial perhaps as those whose portraits hung in the Meredith house on Main Street in Nantucket, but none the less aristocratic, with a bit of dare-devil about the men, and a hint of frivolity about the women—with a pink coat here and a black patch there, with the sheen of satin and the sparkle of jewels—a Cavalier crowd, with the greatest ancestor of all in his curly wig and his sweeping plumes.

They stared at Becky as she went down-stairs, a little white figure in her thin blue dressing-gown, her bronze hair twisted into a curly topknot, her feet in small blue slippers.

The telephone was on a small table under the portrait of the greatest grandfather. He had a high nose, and a fine clear complexion, and he looked really very much alive as he gazed down at Becky.

She found the King's Crest number. It was a dreadful thing that she was about to do. Yet she was going to do it.

She reached for the receiver. Then suddenly her hand was stayed, for it seemed to her that into the silence her greatest grandfather shouted accusingly:

"Where is your pride?"

She found herself trying to explain. "But, Grandfather——"

The clamour of other voices assailed her:

"Where is your pride?"

They were flinging the question at her from all sides, those gentlemen in ruffles, those ladies in shining gowns.

Becky stood before them like a prisoner at the bar—a slight child, yet with the look about her of those lovely ladies, and with eyes as clear as those of the old Governor who had accused her.

"But I love him——"

It was no defense and she knew it. Not one of those lovely ladies would have tried to call a lover back, not one of them but would have died rather than show her hurt. Not one of those slender and sparkling gentlemen but would have found swords or pistols the only settlement for Dalton's withdrawal at such a moment.

And she was one of them—one of that prideful group. There came to her a sense of strength in that association. What had been done could be done again. Other women had hidden broken hearts. Other women had held their heads high in the face of disappointment and defeat. There were traditions of the steadfastness of those smiling men and women. Some day, perhaps, she would have her portrait painted, and she would be—smiling.

She had no fear now of their glances, as she passed them on the stairs, as she met them in the upper hall. What she had to bear she must bear in silence, and bear it like a Bannister.



CHAPTER IX

"T. BRANCH"

I

Dalton felt that Fate had played a shabby trick. He had planned a graceful exit and the curtain had stuck; he had wanted to run away, and he could not. Flora was very ill, and it was, of course, out of the question to desert Oscar.

Madge had been sent for. She was to arrive on the noon train. He had promised Oscar that he would drive down for her. The house was in a hubbub. There were two trained nurses, and a half-dozen doctors. The verdict was unanimous, Flora could not be moved, and an operation was imperative.

And in the meantime there was the thought of Becky beating at his heart. With miles between them, the thing would have been easy. Other interests would have crowded her out. But here she was definitely within reach—and he wanted her. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted Madge, more than he had ever wanted any other woman. There had been a sweetness about her, a dearness.

He thought it over as he lay in bed waiting for his breakfast. Since waking, he had led Kemp a life of it.

"Of all the fools," he said, when at last the tray came.

"Anything the matter, sir?"

George lifted a silver cover. "That's not what I ordered."

"You said a kidney omelette, sir."

"I wanted the kidney broiled—not in a messy sauce. Take it away."

"I'll get you another."

"I don't want another. Take it away." He flung his napkin on the tray and turned his face to the wall. "I've got a headache. Tell Waterman that if he asks for me, that I've told you to go down and meet Miss MacVeigh."

Kemp stood and looked at the figure humped up under the light silk cover. He had long patience. He might have been a stick or stone under his master's abuse. But he was not a stick or a stone. It seemed too that suddenly his soul expanded. No man had ever called him a fool, and he had worn a decoration in France. He knew what he was going to do. And for the first time in many months he felt himself a free man.

George's decision to have Kemp meet Madge had been founded on the realization that it would be unbearably awkward if he should pass Becky on the road. She had sent back his pendant without a word, and there was no telling how she was taking it. If the thing were ever renewed—and his mind dwelt daringly on that possibility, explanations would be easy—but he couldn't make explanation if she saw him first in a car with another woman.

It was thus that Madge, arriving on the noon train, found Kemp waiting for her. Kemp was very fond of Miss MacVeigh. She was not a snob and there were so many snobs among Dalton's friends. She talked to him as if he were a man and not a mechanical toy. Dalton, on the other hand, treated his valet as if he were a marionette to be pulled by strings, an organ controlled by stops, or a typewriter operated by keys.

Major Prime had come down on the same train. Randy, driving Little Sister, was there to meet him.

"It is good to get back," the Major said. "I've been homesick."

"We missed you a lot. Yesterday we had a barbecue, and you should have been here——"

"I wanted to be, Randy. I hope you are not going to turn me out with the rest of the boarders when you roll in affluence."

"Affluence, nothing—but I sold two cars yesterday——"

"Not bad for a poet."

"It is a funny sort of game," said Randy soberly; "all day I run around in this funny little car, and at night I think big thoughts and try to put them on paper."

He could not tell the Major that the night before his thoughts had not been the kind to put on paper. He had been in a white fury. He knew that if he met Dalton nothing could keep him from knocking him down. He felt that a stake and burning fagots would be the proper thing, but, failing that, fists would do. Yet, there was Becky's name to be considered. Revenge, if he took it, must be a subtle thing—his mind had worked on it in the darkness of the night.

Kemp was helping Madge into the Waterman car. "Who is she?" the Major asked. "She came down on my train."

"Miss MacVeigh. Mrs. Waterman is very ill. There is to be an operation at once."

"I watched her on the train," the Major confessed as he and Randy drove off. "She read all the way down, and smiled over her book. I saw the title, and it was 'Pickwick Papers.' Fancy that in these days. Most young people don't read Dickens."

"Well, she isn't young, is she?"

"Not callow, if that's what you mean, you ungallant cub. But she is young in contrast to a Methuselah like myself."

Kemp had to look after Miss MacVeigh's trunks, so Randy's little car went on ahead. Thus again Fate pulled wires, or Providence. If the big car had had the lead Madge would have gone straight as an arrow to Hamilton Hill. But as it happened, Little Sister barred the way to the open road.

II

The two cars had to pass the Flippins. Mrs. Flippin and Mary were baking cakes for the feast at Huntersfield. Mrs. Flippin was to go over in the afternoon and help Mandy, and to-morrow Truxton and his mother would arrive.

"The Judge is like a boy," said Mrs. Flippin; "he's so glad to have Truxton home."

"Perhaps he won't be so glad when he gets here——"

"Why not?" Mrs. Flippin turned and stared at her daughter.

Mary was seeding raisins, wetting her fingers now and then in a glass of water which stood on a table by her side. "Well, Truxton may be changed—most of the men are, aren't they?"

"Is Randy Paine changed?"

"Yes, Mother."

"How?"

"He's a grown-up."

"Well, he needed to grow, and it wouldn't hurt Truxton either."

"But if Truxton has grown up and wants his own way—the Judge won't like it. The Judge has always ruled at Huntersfield."

"Well, he supports Truxton; why shouldn't he?"

A bright flush stained Mary's skin. "Truxton has his officer's pay now."

"He won't have it when he gets out of the Army."

Mary rose and went to the stove. She came back with a kettle and poured boiling water over a dish of almonds to blanch them.

"We ought to have made this fruit cake a week ago to have it really good," she said, and shelved the subject of Truxton Beaufort.

"It will be good enough as it is," said Mrs. Flippin; "there isn't anybody in the county that can beat me when it comes to baking cakes."

"Where's Fiddle," Mary said, suddenly; "can you see her from the window, Mother?"

Mrs. Flippin could not.

"Well, she's probably sailing her celluloid fish in the chickens' water pan," said Mary; "I'll go out and look her up in a minute."

But Fiddle was not sailing celluloid fish. Columbus-like she had decided that there were wider seas than the water pan. Once upon a time her grandmother had taken her to the bottom of the hill, and at the bottom of the hill there had been a lot of water, and Fiddle had walked in it with her bare feet, and had splashed. She had liked it much better than the chickens' pan.

So she had picked up her three celluloid fish and had trotted down the path. She wore her pink rompers, and as she bobbed along she was like a mammoth rose-petal blown by the wind.

At the foot of the hill she came upon a little brown stream. It was just a thread of a stream, very shallow with a lot of big flat stones. Fiddle walked straight into it, and the clear water swept over her toes. She put in her little fish, and quite unexpectedly, they swam away. She followed and came to where the stream was spanned by a rail-fence which separated the Flippin farm from the road. The lowest rail was about as high above the stream as her own fast-beating heart. She ducked under it and discovered one of her fish whirling in a small eddy. It was a red fish and she was very fond of it. She made a sudden grab, caught it, lost her balance and sat down in the water. After the first shock, she found that she liked it. The other fish had continued on their journey towards the river. Perhaps some day they would come to the sea. Fiddle forgot them. She held the little red fish fast and splashed the water with her heels.

Now on each side of the water was a road, which went up a hill each way, so that cars coming down, put on speed to go up, and forded the stream which was a mere thread of water except after high rains.

Randy was talking to the Major as he came down the hill. He did not see Fiddle until he was almost upon her. He was driving at high speed, and there was only a second in which to jam things down and pull things up and stop the car.

Kemp was behind him. He was not prepared for Randy's sudden stop. He swerved sharply to the left, slammed into a telegraph pole—and came back to life to find somebody bending over him. "Who is looking after the lady, sir?" he managed to murmur.

"Young Paine and Mr. Flippin are carrying her to the house. You are cut a bit. Let me tie up your head." The Major gave efficient first aid and after that Kemp got to his feet painfully. "Is Miss MacVeigh badly hurt?"

"She is conscious, and not in great pain. I'm not much of a prop to lean on, but I think we can make that hill together."

They climbed slowly, the man of crutches and the man with the bound-up head.

"It's like a little bit of over there, Kemp, isn't it?"

"Yes it is, sir—many's the time I've seen them helping each other—master and man."

When they got to the house, they found Madge on the sofa, and Mrs. Flippin bending over her. "My husband has gone for the doctor," she told the Major. "I think the blood comes from her hand; she must have put it up to save her face."

"I bent my head," murmured Madge, "and my hat was broad. Think what might have happened if I had worn a little hat."

She had started the sentence lightly but she stopped with a gasp of pain. "Oh—my foot——" she said, "the pain—is—dreadful——"

The Major drew up a chair, and handed his crutches to Randy. "If you'll let us take off your shoe, it might help till the doctor comes."

She fainted dead away while they did it, and came back to life to find her foot bandaged, and her uncut hand held in the firm clasp of the man with the crutches. He was regarding her with grave gray eyes, but his face lighted as she looked up at him.

"Drink this," he told her. "The doctor is on the way, and I think it will help the pain until he comes."

She liked his voice—it had a deep and musical quality. She was glad he was there. Something in his strength seemed to reach out to her and give her courage.

When the pain began again, he gave her another drink from the glass, and when she drifted off, she came back to the echo of a softly-whistled tune.

"I beg your pardon," the Major said as she opened her eyes; "it is a bad habit that I permit myself when I have things on my mind. My men said they always knew by the tune I whistled the mood I was in. And that there was only one tune they were afraid of."

"What was that?"

"'Good-night, Ladies——'" He threw back his head and laughed. "When I began on that they knew it was all up with them——"

She tried to laugh with him, but it was a twisted grin. "Oh," she said and began to tremble. She saw his eyes melt to tenderness. "Oh, you poor little thing."

She was conscious after that of the firm hand which held hers. The deep voice which soothed. Through all that blinding agony she was conscious of his call to courage—she wondered if he had called his men like that—over there——

When the doctor came, he shook his head. "We'd better keep her here. She is in no condition to be moved to Hamilton Hill, not over these roads. Can you make room for her, Mrs. Flippin?"

"She can have my room," said Mary; "Fiddle and I can go up-stairs——"

They moved Madge, and Mrs. Flippin and Mary got her to bed. The Major sat in the sitting-room and talked to Randy, and as he talked he held Madge's hat in his hand. It had a brim of straw and a crown of mauve silk. The Major, turning it round and round on a meditative finger, thought of the woman who had worn it. She was a pretty woman, a very oddly pretty woman.

"Is she related to Mrs. Waterman, Kemp?" he asked.

"No, sir. But she's been there all summer. And then she went away, and they sent for her because Mrs. Waterman is ill."

Randy rather indiscreetly flung out, "It seems as if the trail of that Waterman crowd is over our world. I suppose we shall have to get the news of this up to them somehow."

"I can telephone Mr. Dalton, sir."

"Is Dalton still there?"

"Yes, sir. And he had a headache this morning, and stayed in bed, or he would have been in the car, sir——"

Randy wished bloodthirstily that Dalton had been in the car. Why couldn't Dalton have been smashed instead of Madge?

"I might call up Mr. Waterman instead of Mr. Dalton," Kemp suggested. "If Mr. Dalton's in bed, he'll hate to be disturbed."

"Are you afraid of him, Kemp?"

Kemp's honest eyes met Randy's burning glance. "No, I am not afraid. I am leaving his service, sir."

They stared at him. "Leaving his service, why?" Randy demanded.

"He called me a fool this morning. And I am not a fool, sir."

"What made him say that?" Randy asked, with interest.

"He ordered a kidney omelette for breakfast, and I brought it, and he wouldn't eat it, and blamed me. I am willing to serve any man, but not without self-respect, sir."

"What are you going to do now, Kemp?" the Major asked.

"Find a better man to work for."

"It won't be hard," Randy interpolated.

"Work for me," said the Major.

Kemp was eager——! "For you, sir?"

"Yes. I need somebody to be legs for me—I'm only half a man. The place is open for you if you want it."

"I shall want it in a week," said Kemp; "I shall have to give him notice."

"There will be three musketeers in the old Schoolhouse, Paine. We have all seen service."

"It will be the best thing that ever happened to me, sir," said Kemp ecstatically, "to know that I can wait on a fighting man." He swung down the hall to the telephone as if he marched to the swirl of pipes.

"Isn't Dalton a brute?" said Randy.

"He that calleth his brother a fool——" mused the Major. He was still turning the mauve hat in his hands. "It is queer," he said unexpectedly, "how some women make you think of some flowers. Did you notice everything Miss MacVeigh wore was lilac—and there's the perfume of it about her things——"

"Becky's a rose," said Randy, "from her own garden. She's as fresh and sweet," his voice caught. "Oh, hang Dalton," he said, "I hate the whole tribe of them——"

Kemp came back to say that Oscar Waterman would be down at once. He insisted that Miss MacVeigh should be brought up to Hamilton Hill.

"He must talk with the doctor."

"He is bringing a doctor of his own. One who came down for Mrs. Waterman."

Randy picked up his hat. "I'm going home. The same house won't hold us——"

Kemp was discreet. "Can I help you with your car, sir?"

"I'll come over later and look at it." Randy, escaping by the back way, walked over the hills.

The Major stayed, and was in the sitting-room with the county doctor when the others arrived.

Dr. Dabney, the county doctor, was not old. He rode to hounds and he enjoyed life. But he was none the less a good doctor and a wise one. Waterman's physician confirmed the diagnosis. It would be very unwise to move Miss MacVeigh.

"But she can't stay here," said Dalton.

"Why not?"

"She can't be made comfortable." Dalton surveyed the Flippin sitting-room critically. He was aware that Mr. Flippin was in the doorway, and that Mrs. Flippin and Mary could not fail to catch his words. But he did not care who heard what he said. All was wrong with his world. It was bad enough to have Flora ill, but to have Madge out of commission would be to forge another chain to hold him to Hamilton Hill.

"She can be made very comfortable here," said Dr. Dabney. "Mrs. Flippin is a famous housekeeper. And anyone who has ever slept in that east room in summer knows that there is nothing better."

Dalton ignored him. "What do you think?" He turned to the Washington doctor. "What do you think?"

"I think it best not to move her. We can send a nurse, and with Dr. Dabney on the case, she will be in good hands."

"The only trouble is," said Dr. Dabney, unexpectedly, "that we may impose too much on Mrs. Flippin's hospitality."

"We will pay——" said Dalton with a touch of insolence.

From the doorway, Mr. Flippin answered him. "We don't want pay—— Neighbors don't ask for money when they—help out——"

There was a fine dignity about him. He was a rough farmer in overalls, but Dalton would never match the simple grace of his fine gesture of hospitality.

The Major, who had been silent, now spoke up. "You are having more than your share of trouble, Mr. Waterman. First your wife, and now your guest."

"Oh, I am, I am," said Oscar, brokenly. "I don't see what I've done to deserve it."

He was a pathetic figure. Whatever else he lacked, he loved his wife. If she died—he felt that he could not bear it. For the first time in his life Oscar faced a situation in which money did not count. He could not buy off Death—all the money in the world would not hold back for one moment the shadow of the Dark Angel from his wife's door.

III

The window of the east room looked out on the old orchard. There was a screened door which opened upon a porch and a stretch of lawn beyond which was the dairy.

Within the room there was a wide white bed, and a mahogany dresser with a scarf with crocheted trimming, above the dresser was an old steel engraving of Samson destroying the temple. The floor was spotless, a soft breeze shook the curtains. Madge, relieved from pain and propped on her pillows, watched a mother cat who with her kittens sat just outside the door.

She was a gray cat with white paws and breast, not fat at the moment but with a comfortable well-fed look. She alternately washed herself and washed her offspring. There were four of them, a rollicking lot not easy to keep in order.

"Aren't they—ripping?" Madge said to Mary.

"They always come up on the step about this time in the afternoon; they are waiting for the men to bring the milk to the dairy."

A little later Madge saw the men coming—two of them, with the foaming pails. The mother cat rose and went to meet them. Her tail was straight up, and the kittens danced after her.

"They will get a big dish of it, and then they will go around to the kitchen door to wait for supper and the table scraps. And after that Bessie will coax the kittens out to the barn and go hunting for the night."

"Is that her name—Bessie?"

"Yes, there has always been a Bessie-cat here. And we cling to old customs."

"I like old customs," said Madge, "and old houses."

After a little she asked, "Who makes the butter?"

"I do. It's great fun."

"Oh, when I am well, may I help?"

"You——?" Mary came over and stood looking down at her; "of course you may help. But perhaps you wouldn't like it."

"I am sure I should. And I don't think I am going to get well very soon——"

Mary was solicitous. "Why not?"

"I don't want to get well. I want to stay here. I think this place is—heavenly."

Mary laughed. "It is just a plain farmhouse. If you want the show places you should go to Huntersfield and King's Crest——"

"I want just this. Do you know I am almost afraid to go to sleep for fear I shall wake up and find it a—dream——"

A little later, she asked, "Are those apples in the orchard ripe?"

"Yes."

"May I have one?"

"The doctor may not want you to have it," said her anxious nurse.

"Just to hold in my hand," begged Madge.

So Mary picked a golden apple, and when the doctor came after dark, he found the room in all the dimness of shaded lamplight, and the golden girl asleep with that golden globe in her hand.

Up-stairs the mulatto girl, Daisy, was putting Fiddle-dee-dee to sleep.

"You be good, and Daisy gwine tell you a story."

Fiddle liked songs better. "Sing 'Jack-Sam bye.'"

Daisy, without her corsets and in disreputable slippers, settled herself to an hour of ease. She had the negro's love of the white child, and a sensuous appreciation of the pleasant twilight, the bedtime song, the rhythm of the rocking-chair.

"Well, you lissen," she said, and rocked in time to the tune.

Bye, oh, bye, little Jack-Sam, bye. Bye, oh, bye, my baby, When you wake, you shall have a cake— And all the pretty little horses—

Her voice was low and pleasant, with queer, quavering minor cadences. But Fiddle-dee-dee was not sleepy.

"'Tory," she begged, when the song was ended.

So Daisy told the story of the three bears. Fiddle was too young to fully comprehend, but she liked the sound of Daisy's voice at the climaxes, "Who's been sittin' in my chair?" and "Who's been sleepin' in my bed?" and "Who's been eatin' my soup?" Daisy was dramatic or nothing, and she entered into the spirit of her tale. It was such an exciting performance altogether that Fiddle was wider awake than ever when the story was finished.

"Ain' you evah gwine shut yo' eyes?"

"Daisy, sing," said Fiddle.

"I'se sung twel my th'oat's dry," said Daisy. And just then Mary came in. "Isn't she asleep, Daisy?—I'll take her. Bannister's John is down-stairs and wants to see you."

"Well, I ain' wantin' to see him," Daisy tossed her head; "you jus' take Miss Fiddle whilst I goes down and settles him. I ain' dressed and I ain' ready, Miss Mary. You jes' look at them feet." She stuck them out for inspection. Her shoes were out at the toes and down at the heels. "This ain' my comp'ny night." As she went down-stairs, her voice died away in a querulous murmur.

Mary, with her child in her arms, sat by the window and looked out upon the quiet scene. There was faint rose in the sky, and a silver star. But while she watched the rose faded.

Fiddle, warm and heavy in her arms, slept finally. Then Mary took off her dress and donned a thin white kimono. She let down her hair and braided it——

There was no light in the room, and her mother, coming up, asked softly, "Are you there?"

"Yes."

"Fiddle asleep?"

"Yes, Mother."

Mrs. Flippin found her way to the window and sat down. "The nurse is here, and a lot of clothes and things just came over for Miss MacVeigh from Hamilton Hill. Mary, I wish you could see them."

"I shall in the morning, Mother."

"The nurse got her into a satin nightgown before I came up, with nothing but straps for sleeves—but she looked like a Princess——"

"Aren't you tired to death, dear?"

Mrs. Flippin laughed. "Me? I like it. I am sorry to have Miss MacVeigh hurt, but having her in the house with all those pretty things and people coming and going is better than a circus."

Mary laughed a little. "You are such a darling—making the best of things——"

"Well, making the best is the easiest way," said Mrs. Flippin. "I ain't taking any credit, Mary."

"You've had a hard day. You'd better go to bed."

"I'll have a harder one to-morrow. Nothing would do but I must go back to Huntersfield. Mandy's off her head, and the Judge wants the whole house turned upside down for Truxton."

"And Truxton comes—on the noon train."

"Yes."

There was a long silence. Then Mary said in a queer voice, "Mother, I've got to tell you something—to-night——"

"You ain't got anything to tell me, honey."

"But I have—something—I should have told you—months ago."

"There isn't anything you can tell me that I don't know."

"Mother——"

"Girls can't fool their mothers, Mary. Do you think that when Fiddle grows up, she is going to fool you?"

IV

The next morning Mr. Flippin was at the foot of the stairs when his daughter came down.

"So you lied to me, Mary."

She shook her head, "No."

"You said his name was Truelove Branch."

"He is my true love, Father. And his name is T. Branch—Truxton Branch Beaufort."

"What do you think the Judge is going to say about this?"

"He is going to hate it. He is going to think that your daughter isn't good enough for his grandson."

"You are good enough for anybody, Mary. But this wasn't the right way."

"It was the only way. Didn't Mother tell you that he begged me to let him write to you and go to the Judge, and I wouldn't?"

"Why not?"

"I wanted to have him here, so that we might face it together."

"Your mother says she guessed it long ago. But she didn't say anything. Talking might make it worse."

"Talking would have made it worse, Dad. We had done it—and I'd do it again," there was a lift of her head, a light in her eyes, "but it hasn't been easy—to know that you wondered—that other people wondered. But it wouldn't have been any better if I had told. Truxton had to be here to make it right if he could."

"Why didn't he come a-runnin' to you as soon as he got on this side?"

"He couldn't. His orders kept him in New York, and he wanted me to come. But I wouldn't. I made him ask his mother. I could spare him for three weeks,—he will be mine for the rest of his life—and he is to tell her before they get here."

"I wouldn't have had it happen for a thousand dollars," said troubled Bob Flippin. "I've always done everything on the square with the Judge."

"I know," said Mary, with the sudden realization of how her act had affected others, "I know. That's the only thing I am sorry about. But—I don't believe the Judge would be so silly as to let anything I did make any difference about you——"

"Where are you going to live?"

For the first time Mary's air of assurance left her. "He is hoping his grandfather will want us at Huntersfield——"

"He can keep on a-hoping," said Bob Flippin. "I know the Judge."

Mary flared. "We can find a little house of our own——"

Her father laid his hand on her shoulder. "Look at me, daughter," he said, and turned her face up to him. "Our house is yours, Mary," he said. "I don't like the way you did it, and I hate to think what will happen when the Judge finds out. But our home is yours, and it's your husband's. As long as you like to stay——"

And now Mary sobbed—a little slip of a thing in her father's arms. All the long months she had kept her secret, holding it safe in her heart, dreading yet longing for the moment when she could tell the world that she was the wife of Truxton Beaufort, whom she had adored from babyhood.

"I would have married him, Dad, if—if I had had to tramp the road."

Truxton came on the noon train. He drove at once to Huntersfield with his mother, was embraced by the Judge, kissed Becky, and suddenly disappeared.

"Where's he gone?" the Judge asked, irritably. "Where has he gone, Claudia?"

"He will be back in time for lunch," said Mrs. Beaufort. "May I speak to you in the library, Father?"

Becky, from the moment of her aunt's arrival, had known that something was wrong. She had expected to see Mrs. Beaufort glowing with renewed youth, radiant. Instead, she looked as if a blight had come upon her, shrivelled—old. When she smiled it was without joy; she was dull and flat.

It was a half hour before Aunt Claudia came out from the library. "My dear," she said, finding Becky still on the porch, "I have something to tell you. Will you go up-stairs with me?—I—think I should like to—lie down——"

Becky put a strong young arm about her and they went up together.

"It's—it's about Truxton," Aunt Claudia said, prone on the couch in her room. "Becky—he's married——"

"Married?"

"Married, my dear. He did not tell me until—last night. He wanted me to be happy—as long as I could. He's a dear boy, Becky—but—he's married——" She went on presently with an effort. "He has been married over two years—and, Becky—he has married—Mary Flippin."

"Aunt Claudia——"

"He married her in Petersburg—before he went to France with the first ambulance corps. They decided not to tell anyone. Mary took Truxton's middle name. When the baby came, Truxton was wild to write us, but Mary—wouldn't. She felt if he was here when it was told that we would forgive him—— If anything—happened to him—she didn't want him to die feeling that we had—blamed him—— I must say that Mary—was wise—but—to think that my son has married—Mary Flippin."

"Mary's a dear," said Becky stoutly.

"Yes," Aunt Claudia agreed, "but not a wife for my son. I had such hopes for him, Becky. He could have married anybody."

Becky knew the kind of woman that Aunt Claudia had wanted Truxton to marry—one whose ancestors were like those whose portraits hung in the hall at Huntersfield—a woman with a high-held head—a woman whose family traditions paralleled those of the Bannisters and Beauforts.

"Then Fiddle is Truxton's child."

"And I am a grandmother, Becky. Mrs. Flippin and I are grandmothers——" She said it with a sort of bitter mirth.

"What did Grandfather say?"

"I left him—raging. It was—very hard on me. I had hoped—he would make it easy. He declares that Mary Flippin shan't step inside of his front door. That he is going to recall all the invitations that he had sent out for to-night. I tried to show him that now that the thing is done—we might as well—accept it. But he wouldn't listen. If he keeps it up like this, I don't want Truxton to come back—to lunch. I had hoped that he might bring Mary with him—— She's his wife, Becky—and I've got to love her——"

"Aunt Claudia," Becky came over and put her arms about the pitiful black figure, "you are the best sport—ever——"

"No, I'm not," but Aunt Claudia kissed her, and for a moment they clung together; "you mustn't make me cry, Becky."

But she did cry a little, wiping her eyes with her black-bordered handkerchief, and saying all the time, "He's my son, Becky. I—I can't put him away from me——"

"He loved her," said Becky, with a catch of her breath. "I—I think that counts a great deal, Aunt Claudia."

"Yes, it does. And they did no wrong. They were only foolish children."

"If anyone was to blame," she went on steadily, "it was Truxton. He had been brought up a—gentleman. He knew what was expected of a man of his birth and breeding. Secrecy is never honorable and I told him—last night—that I was sorry to be less proud of my son than of the men who had gone before him."

"Did you tell him that?"

"Yes. If pride of family means anything, Becky, it means holding on to the finest of your traditions. If you break the rules—you are a little less fine—a little less worthy——"

What a stern little thing she was. Yet one felt the stimulus of her strength. "Aunt Claudia," said Becky, tremulously, "if I could only be as sure of things as you are——"

"What things?"

"Of right and wrong and all the rest of it."

"I don't know what you mean by all the rest. But right is right, and wrong is wrong, my dear. There is no half-way, in spite of all the sophistries with which people try to salve their consciences."

She stopped, and plunged again into the discussion of her problem. "I must telephone to Truxton—he mustn't come—not until his grandfather asks him, Becky."

"He is coming now," said Becky, who sat by the window. "Look, Aunt Claudia."

Tramping up the hill towards the second gate was a tall figure in khaki. Resting like a rose-petal on one shoulder was a mite of a child in pink rompers.

"He is bringing Fiddle with him," Becky gasped. "Oh, Aunt Claudia, he is bringing Fiddle."

Aunt Claudia rose and looked out—— "Well," she said, "let her come. She's his child. If Father turns them out, I'll go with them."

Truxton saw them at the window and waved. "Shall we go down?" Becky said.

"No—wait a minute. Father's in the hall." Aunt Claudia stood tensely in the middle of the room. "Becky, listen over the stair rail to what they are saying."

"But——"

"Go on," Aunt Claudia insisted; "there are times when—one breaks the rules, Becky. I've got to know what they are saying——"

The voices floated up. Truxton's a lilting tenor——

"Are you going to forgive us, Grandfather?"

"I am not the grandfather of Mary Flippin's child," the Judge spoke evidently without heat.

"You are the grandfather of Fidelity Branch Beaufort," said Truxton coolly; "you can't get away from that——"

"The neighborhood calls her Fiddle Flippin," the Judge reminded him.

"What's in a name?" said Truxton, and swung his baby high in the air. "Do you love your daddy, Fiddle-dee-dee?"

"'Ess," said Fiddle, having accepted him at once on the strength of sweet chocolate, and an adorable doll.

"What are they saying?" whispered Aunt Claudia, still tense in the middle of the room.

"Hush," Becky waved a warning hand.

"There is," said the Judge, in a declamatory manner, "everything in a name. The Bannisters of Huntersfield, the Paines of King's Crest, the Randolphs of Cloverdale, do you think these things don't count, Truxton?"

"I think there's a lot of rot in it," said young Beaufort, "when we were fighting for democracy over there——"

The shot told. "Democracy has nothing to do with it——"

"Democracy," said Truxton, "has a great deal to do with it. The days of kings and queens are dead, they have married each other for generations and have produced offspring like—William of Germany. Class assumptions of superiority are withered branches on the tree of civilization. Mary is as good as I am any day."

"You wrote things like this," said the Judge, interested in spite of himself, and loving argument.

"I wrote them because I believed them. I am ready to apologize for not telling you of my marriage before this. I have no apologies to make for my wife——

"I have no apologies to make for my wife," Truxton repeated. "I fought for democratic ideals. I am practising them. Mary is a lady. You must admit that, Grandfather."

"I do admit it," said the Judge slowly, "in the sense that you mean it. But in the county sense? Do you think the Merriweathers will ask her to their ball? Do you think Bob Flippin will dine with my friends to-night?"

"I don't think he will expect to dine with you, Grandfather. I think if you ask him, he will refuse. But if you take your friendship from him it will break his heart——"

"Who said I would take my friendship away from Bob Flippin?"

"He is afraid—you may——"

"Because you married Mary?"

"Yes."

The Judge was breathing hard. "Whom does he think I'd go fishing with?"

"Do you think he'll want to go fishing with you if you cast off Mary?"

The Judge had a vision of life without Bob Flippin. On sunshiny days there would be no one to cut bait for him, no one to laugh with him at the dogs as they sat waiting for their corn-cakes, no one to listen with flattering attention to his old, old tales.

It had not occurred to him that Bob Flippin, too, might have his pride.

He sat down heavily in a porch chair.

"Go and get Mary," he exploded; "bring her here. The thing is done. The milk is spilled. And there's no use crying over it. And if you think you two young people can separate me and Bob Flippin——"

Mrs. Beaufort and Becky came down presently, to find the old man gazing, frowning, into space.

"I have told him to bring Mary, Claudia, but I must say that I am bitterly disappointed."

"Mary is a good little thing, Father." Aunt Claudia's voice shook.

The old man looked up at her. "It is hardest for you, my dear. And I have helped to make it hard."

He reached out his hand to her. She took it. "He is my son—and I love him——"

"And I love you, Claudia."

"May I get the blue room ready?"

The blue room was the bridal chamber at Huntersfield; kept rather sacredly at other times for formal purposes.

"Do as you please. The house is yours, my dear."

And so that night the lights of the blue room shone on Fiddle Flippin and her new grandmother.

"Do you think she would let me put her to bed?" Mrs. Beaufort had asked Mary.

"If you will sing, 'Jack-Sam Bye.'"

Mary pulled the last little garment from the pink plump body, and Fiddle, like a rosy Cupid, counted her toes gleefully in the middle of the wide bed.

"I told Truxton," Mary said suddenly, "that he might not want to call her 'Fiddle.' The whole neighborhood says 'Fiddle Flippin.'"

"It is a dear little name," Aunt Claudia was bending adoringly over the baby, "but Fidelity is better—Fidelity Branch Beaufort——"

"I want her to be as proud of her name as I am," Mary's voice had a thrilling note. "It is a great thing to know that my child has in her the blood of all those wonderful people whose portraits hang in the hall. I want her to be worthy of her name."

She could have said nothing better. Aunt Claudia's face was lighted by the warmth in her heart. "Such a lot of ancestors for one little fat Fidelity," she said; "put on her nightgown, Mary, and I'll rock her to sleep."



CHAPTER X

A GENTLEMAN'S LIE

I

Becky was not well. Aunt Claudia, perceiving her listlessness, decided that she needed a change. Letters were written to the Nantucket grandfather, and plans made for Becky's departure. She was to spend a month on the island, come back to Boston to the Admiral's big old house on the water-side of Beacon Street, and return to Huntersfield for Christmas.

Becky felt that it was good of everybody to take so much trouble. She really didn't care in the least. She occupied herself steadily with each day's routine. She bent her head over the fine embroidery of a robe she was making for Mary. She cut the flowers for the vases and bowls, she recited nursery rhymes to Fiddle, entrancing that captious young person with "Oranges and Lemons" and "Lavender's Blue." She read aloud to the Judge, planned menus for Aunt Claudia, and was in fact such an angel in the house that Truxton, after three days of it, protested.

"Oh, what's the matter with Becky, Mums?"

"Why?"

"She hasn't any pep."

"I know."

"Isn't she well?"

"I have tried to have her see a doctor. But she won't. She insists that she is all right——"

"She is not. She is no more like the old Becky than champagne is like—milk—— Becky was the kind that—went to your head—Mums. You know that—sparkling."

"I have wondered," Mrs. Beaufort said, slowly, "if anything happened while I was away."

"What could happen——"

His mother sighed. "Nothing, I suppose——" She let it go at that. Her intuitions carried her towards the truth. She had learned from Mandy and the Judge that Dalton had spent much time at Huntersfield in her absence. Becky never mentioned him. Her silence spoke eloquently, Mrs. Beaufort felt, of something concealed. Becky was apt to talk of things that interested her. And there had been no doubt of her interest in Dalton before her aunt had gone away.

Randy, coming often now to Huntersfield, had his heart torn for his beloved. No one except himself knew what had happened, and the knowledge stirred him profoundly. He held that burning torches and a stake were none too good for Dalton. He sighed for the old days in Virginia when gentlemen settled such matters in the woods at dawn, with pistols, seconds, a shot or two. Farther back it would have been an affair of knives and tomahawks—Indian chiefs in a death struggle.

But neither duels nor death struggles were in the modern mode, nor would any punishment which he might inflict on Dalton help Becky in this moment of deep humiliation. He knew her pride and the hurt that had come to her, he knew her love, and the deadly inertia which had followed the loss of illusion.

Randy's love was not a selfish love. In that tense moment of Becky's confession on the day of the barbecue, his own hopes had died. The boy in him had died, too, and he had reached the full stature of a man. He wanted to protect and shield—he was all tenderness. He felt that he would dare anything, do anything, if he could bring back to Becky the dreams of which Dalton robbed her.

Night after night he sat in his room up-stairs in the old Schoolhouse, and wrote on "The Trumpeter Swan." It was an outlet for his pent-up emotions, and something of the romance which was denied him, something of the indignation which stirred him, something of the passions of love and revenge which fought within him, drove his pen onward, so that his little tale took on color and life. Crude, perhaps, in form, it was yet a song of youth and patriotism. It was Randy's call to his comrades. There was to be no compromise. They must make men look up and listen—to catch the sound of their clear note. The ideals which had made them fight brutality and greed were living ideals. They were not to be doffed with their khaki and overseas caps. Their country called, the whole world called, for men with faith and courage. There was no place for pessimism, no place for materialism, no place for sordidness.

His hero was, specifically, a man who had come back from the fighting, flaming with the thought of his high future. He had found the world smiling and unconcerned. It was this world which needed to listen to the call of trumpets—high up——

The chapters in which he wrote of love—for there was a woman in the story—were more beautiful than Randy realized. It was of a boy's love that he told—delicately. It was his own story of love denied, yet enriching a life.

Yet—because man cannot live up always to the measure of his own vision, there came often between Randy and the written page the image of George Dalton, smiling and insolent. And he would lay down his pen, and lean his head on his hand, and gaze into space, and sometimes he would speak out in the silence. "I will make him suffer."

It was in one of these moments that he saw how it might be done. "He would let fruit drop to the ground and rot if no other man wanted it," he analyzed keenly, "but if another man tried to pick it up, he would fight for it."

Dalton was still at King's Crest. Mrs. Waterman had not responded satisfactorily to the operation. The doctors had grave doubts as to her recovery. Madge was convalescing at the Flippins'.

Randy had been content, hitherto, to receive bulletins indirectly from both of the invalids. But on the morning following the birth of his great idea he rode on horseback to King's Crest. He looked well on horseback, and in his corduroys, with a soft shirt and flowing tie, a soft felt hat, he was at his best.

He found George and Oscar on the west terrace, shaded by blue and white-striped awnings, with a macaw, red and blue on a perch—a peacock glimmering at the foot of the steps—and the garden blazing beyond.

There were iced drinks in tall glasses—a litter of cigarettes on smoking-stands, magazines and newspapers on the stone floors, packs of cards on a small table. Oscar, hunched up in a high-backed Chinese chair, was white and miserable. George looked bored to extinction.

Randy, coming in, gave a clear-cut impression of strength and youth.

"Mother sent some wine jelly for Mrs. Waterman," he said to Oscar. "It was made from an old recipe, and she thought it might be different. And there were some hundred-leaved roses from our bush. I gave them to your man."

Oscar brightened. He was grateful for the kindness of these queer neighbors of his who would have nothing to do with him and his wife when they were well, and who had seemed to care not at all for his money. But who, now that sickness had come and sorrow, offered themselves and their possessions unstintedly.

"I'll go and see that Flora gets them," he said. "She hasn't any appetite. She's—it's rather discouraging——"

Randy, left alone with Dalton, was debonair and delightful. George, looking at him with speculative eyes, decided that there was more to this boy than he would have believed. He had exceedingly good manners and an ease that was undeniable. There was of course good blood back of him. And in a way it counted. George knew that he could never have been at ease in old clothes in the midst of elegance.

It was Randy who spoke first of Becky. Dalton's heart jumped when he heard her name. Night after night he had ridden towards Huntersfield, only to turn back before he reached the lower gate. Once he had ventured on foot as far as the garden, and in the hush had called softly, "Becky." But no one had answered. He wondered what he would have done if Becky had responded to his call. "I am not going to be fool enough to marry her," he told himself, angrily, yet knew that if he played the game with Becky there could be no other end to it.

Randy said, quite naturally, that Becky was going away. To Nantucket. He asked if George had been there.

"Once, on Waterman's yacht. It's quaint—but a bit spoiled by summer people——"

"Becky doesn't know the summer people. Her great-grandparents were among the first settlers, and the Merediths have never sold the old home."

"She is a pretty little thing," George said. "And she's buried down here."

"I shouldn't call it exactly—buried."

George, with his eyes on the peacock, smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

Randy smiled and his eyes, too, were on the peacock. He was thinking that there were certain points of resemblance between the gorgeous bird and Dalton. They glimmered in the sunlight and strutted a bit——

He came back to say easily, "Has Becky told you of our happiness——"

George gave him a startled glance. "Happiness?"

"We are to be married when she comes back—at Christmas."

"Married——"

"Yes," coolly, "it was rather to be expected, you know. We played together as children—our fathers played together—our grandfathers—our great-grandfathers."

A cold wave seemed to sweep over George. So this young cub would have her beauty!

"Aren't you rather young——?" he demanded, "and what have you to give her?"

"Love," said Randy calmly, "a man's respect for her goodness and worth—for her innocence. She's a little saint in a shrine."

"Is she?" Georgie-Porgie asked, and smiled to himself; "few women are that."

After Randy had gone George Dalton walked the floor. He knew innocence when he saw it, and he knew that Randy had told the truth. Becky Bannister was as white as the doves that were fluttering down to the garden pool to drink. He had never cared particularly for innocence. But he cared for Becky. He knew now that he cared tremendously. Randy had made him know it. It had not seemed so bad to think of Becky as breaking her heart and waiting for a word from him. It seemed very bad, indeed, when he thought of her as married to Randy.

He felt that, of course, she did not love Randy; that he, Georgie-Porgie, had all that she had to give—— But woman-like, she had taken this way to get back at him. He wondered if she had sent Randy.

Up and down the terrace he raged like a lion. He wanted to show that cub—oh, if he might show him——!

Randy had known that he would rage, and as he rode home he had the serene feeling that he had stuck a splinter in George's flesh.

Oscar Waterman joined George on the terrace, but noticed nothing. His mind was full of Flora. "I am sorry young Paine went so soon. I wanted to thank him. Flora can't eat the jelly, but it was good of them to send it. She can't eat anything. She's worse, George. I don't know how I am going to stand it."

George was in no mood for condolence. Yet he was not quite heartless. "Look here," he said, "you mustn't give up."

"George, if she dies," Oscar said, wildly, "what do you think will happen to me? I never planned for this. I planned for a good time. I thought maybe that when we were old—one of us might go. But it wouldn't be fair to take her now—and leave me."

"I have given her—everything——" he went on. "I—I think I've been a good husband. I have always loved her a lot, George, you know that."

He was a plain little man, but at this moment he gained something of dignity. And there was this to say for him, that what he felt for Flora was a deeper emotion than George had ever known.

"The doctor says the crisis comes to-night. I am not going to bed. I couldn't sleep. George—I've been wondering if I oughtn't to call in—some kind of clergyman—to see her."

"People don't, nowadays, do they?" George asked rather uncomfortably.

"Well, I don't see why they shouldn't. There ought to be somebody to pray for Flora."

There was, it developed upon inquiry, a little old rector who lived not far away. George went for him in his big car.

The little man, praying beside Flora's gorgeous bed, felt that this was the hundredth sheep who had wandered and was found. The other ninety and nine were safely in the fold. He had looked after the spiritual condition of the county for fifty years. There had been much to discourage him, but in the main if they strayed they came back.

He prayed with fervor, the fine old prayers of his church.

"Look down from heaven, we humbly beseech thee, with the eyes of mercy upon this child now lying upon the bed of sickness: Visit her, O Lord, with thy salvation; deliver her in thy good appointed time from bodily pain, and save her soul for thy mercies' sake; that, if it shall be thy pleasure to prolong her days here on earth, she may live for thee, and be an instrument of thy glory, by serving thee faithfully, and doing good in her generation; or else receive her into those heavenly habitations, where the souls of those who sleep in the Lord Jesus enjoy perpetual rest and felicity."

Flora, lying inert and bloodless, opened her eyes. "Say it again," she whispered. "Say it again."

II

Randy rode straight from Hamilton Hill to Huntersfield. He found Becky in the Bird Room. She had her head tied up in a white cloth, and a big white apron enveloped her. She was as white as the whiteness in which she was clad, and there were purple shadows under her eyes. The windows were open and a faint breeze stirred the curtains. The shade of the great trees softened the light to a dim green. After the glare of Oscar's terrace it was like coming from a blazing desert to the bottom of the sea.

There was a wide seat under a window which looked out towards the hills. Becky sat down on it. "Everybody is out," she said, "except Aunt Claudia. She is taking a nap up-stairs."

"I didn't come to see everybody, Becky. I came to see you."

"I am glad you came. I can rest a bit."

"You work as hard as if you had to do it."

She leaned back against the green linen cushions of the window seat and looked up at him. "I do have to do it. There is nobody else. Mandy is busy, and, anyhow, Grandfather doesn't like to have the servants in here. And neither do I—— It is almost as if the birds were alive—and loved me."

Randy hugged his knee and meditated. "But there are lots of rich women who wouldn't dust a room."

She made a gesture of disdain. "Oh, that kind of rich people."

"What kind?"

"The kind that aren't used to their money. Who think ladies—are idle. Sister Loretto says that is the worst kind—the awful kind. She talked to me every day about it. She said that money was a curse when people used it only for their ease. Sister Loretto hates laziness. She had money herself before she took her vows, but now she works every hour of the day and she says it brings her happiness."

Randy shook his head. "Most of us need to play around a bit, Becky."

"Do we? I—I think most women would be better off if they were like Sister Loretto."

"They would not. Stop talking rot, Becky, and take that thing off your head. It makes you look like a nun."

"I know. I saw myself in the glass. I don't mind looking like a nun, Randy."

"Well, I mind. Turn your head and I'll take out that pin."

"Don't be silly, Randy."

He persisted. "Keep still while I take it out——"

He found the pin and unwound the white cloth. "There," he said, drawing a long breath, "you look like yourself again. You were so—austere, you scared me, Becky."

He was again hugging his knees. "When are you going away?"

"On the twenty-ninth. I shall stay over until next week for the Merriweathers' ball."

"I didn't know whether you would feel equal to it."

"I shall go on Mary's account. It will be her introduction to Truxton's friends, and if I am there it will be easier for her. She has a lovely frock, jade green tulle with a girdle of gold brocade. It came down for me with a lot of other clothes, and it needed only a few changes for her to wear it."

"You will be glad to get away?"

"It will be cooler—and I need the change. But it is always more formal up there—they remember that I have money. Here it is forgotten."

"I wish I could forget it."

"Why should you ever think of it?" she demanded with some heat. "I am the same Becky with or without it."

"Not quite the same," he was turning his hat in his hand. Then, raising his eyes and looking at her squarely, he said what he had come to say, "I have—I have just been to see Dalton, Becky."

A wave of red washed over her neck, touched her chin, her cheeks. "I don't see what that has to do with me."

"It has a great deal to do with you. I told him you were going to marry me."

The wave receded. She was chalk-white.

"Randy, how dared you do such a thing?"

"I dared," said Randy, with tense fierceness, "because a man like Dalton wants what other men want. He will think about you a lot, and I want him to think. He won't sleep to-night, and I want him to stay awake. He will wonder whether you love me, and he will be afraid that you do—and I want him to be afraid."

"But it was a lie, Randy. I am not going to marry you."

"Do you think that I meant that——? That I am expecting anything for myself?"

"No," unsteadily, her slender body trembling as if from cold, "but what did you mean?"

"I told you. Dalton's got to come back to you and beg—on his knees—and he will come when he thinks you are mine——"

"I don't want him to come. And when you talk like that it makes me feel—smirched——"

Dead silence. Then, "It was a gentleman's lie——"

"Gentlemen do not lie. Go to him this minute, Randy, and tell him that it isn't true."

"Give me three days, Becky. If in that time he doesn't try to see you or call you up, I'll go—— But give me three days."

She wavered. "What good will it do?"

He caught up her cold little hands in his. "You will have a chance to get back at him. And when you stick in the knife, you can turn it—until it hurts."

III

It was while the family at Huntersfield were at dinner that the telephone rang. Calvin answered, and came in to say that Miss Becky was wanted. She went listlessly. But the first words over the wire stiffened her.

It was George's voice, quick imploring. Saying that he had something to tell her. That he must see her——

"Let me come, Becky."

"Of course."

"You mean that I—may——?"

"Why not?"

He seemed to hesitate. "But I thought——"

Her laugh was light and clear. "I must get back to my dinner. I have only had my soup. And I am simply—starving——"

It was not what he had expected. Not in the least. As he hung up the receiver he was conscious too of a baffled feeling that Becky had, in a sense, held the reins of the situation.

In spite of her famished condition, Becky did not at once go to the dining-room. She called up King's Crest, and asked for Randy.

She wanted to know, she said, whether he had anything on for the evening. No? Then could he come over and bring the boarders? Oh, as many of them as would come. And they would dance. She was bored to death. Her laugh was still clear and light, and Randy wondered.

Then she went back to the dinner table and ate the slice of lamb which the Judge had carved for her. She ate mint sauce and mashed potatoes, she ate green corn pudding, and a salad, and watermelon. Her cheeks were red, and Aunt Claudia felt that Becky was looking much better. For how could Aunt Claudia know that everything that Becky ate was like sawdust to her palate. She found herself talking and laughing a great deal, and Truxton teased her.

After dinner she went up-stairs with Mary and showed her a new way to do her hair, and found an entrancing wisp of a frock for Mary to wear.

"It will be great fun having the boarders from King's Crest. There are a lot of young people of all kinds—and not many of them our kind, Mary."

Mary smiled at her. "I am not quite your kind, am I?"

"Why not? And oh, Mary, you are happy, happy. And you are lovely with your hair like that, close to your head and satin-smooth."

Mary, surveying herself in the glass, gave an excited laugh. "Do you know when I married Truxton I never thought of this?"

"Of what?" Becky asked.

"Of pretty clothes—and dances—and dinners. I just knew that he—loved me, and that he had to leave me. But I don't suppose I could make the world believe it."

"Truxton believes it, doesn't he, Mary?"

"Yes."

"And I believe it. And what do you care for the others? It is what we know of ourselves, Mary," she drew a quick breath. "It is what we know of ourselves——"

Becky was wearing the simple frock of pale blue in which George had seen her on that first night when he came to Huntersfield.

"Aren't you going to change?" Mary asked.

"No. It is too much trouble." Becky was in front of the mirror. Her pearls caught the light of the candles. Her bronze hair was a shining wave across her forehead. "It is too much trouble," she said, again, and turned from the mirror.

She had a dozen frocks that had come in the rosy hamper—frocks that would have made the boarders open their eyes. Frocks that would have made Dalton open his. But Becky had the feeling that this was not the moment for lovely clothes. She felt that she would be cheapened if she decked herself for George.

When the two girls went down-stairs Truxton was waiting for his wife. "I thought you would never come," he said. He drew her within the circle of his arm, and they went out into the garden. The Judge and Mrs. Beaufort were on the porch. Becky sat on the step and leaned her head against Aunt Claudia's knee.

"What in the world made you ask all those people over, Becky?" the Judge demanded.

"Oh, they're great fun, Grandfather, and I felt like it."

"Have you planned anything for them to eat, Claudia?"

"Watermelons. Calvin has put a lot of them in the spring."

The stars were thick overhead. Becky looked up at them and relaxed a little. Since Dalton had spoken to her over the wire she had gone through the motions of doing normal things. She had eaten and talked, and now she was sitting quite still on the step while Aunt Claudia smoothed her hair, and the Judge talked of things to eat.

But shut up within her was a clock which ticked and never stopped. "He will come—when he thinks—you are mine—— He will come—when he thinks—you are mine——"

Randy and his mother arrived in Little Sister, with two of the boarders for good measure in the back seat. They had dropped Major Prime at Flippins', where he was to make a call on Madge MacVeigh. He had promised to come later, however, if Randy would drive over and get him.

The rest of the boarders were packed variously into their cars and the surrey, and as soon as they arrived they proceeded to occupy the lawn and the porch, and to overflow the garden. They made a great deal of pleasant noise about it, and the white gowns of the women, and the white flannels of the men gave an impressionistic effect of faint blue against the deeper blue of the night.

Within the house, the rugs were up in the drawing-room, the library, the dining-room, and the wide hall; there sounded, presently, the tinkling music of the phonograph, and there was the unceasing movement of white-clad figures which seemed to float in a golden haze.

Becky danced a great deal, with Randy, with the younger boarders, and with the genial gentleman. She laughed with an air of unaffected gayety. And she felt that her heart stopped beating, when at last she looked up and saw Dalton standing in the door.

She at once went towards him, and gave him her hand. "I wonder if you know everybody?"

Her clear eyes met his without self-consciousness. He attempted a swagger. "I don't want to know everybody. How do they happen to be here?"

"I asked them. And they are really very nice."

He did not see the niceness. He had thought to find her in the setting which belonged to her beauty. The silent night, the fragrance of the garden, the pale statues among the trees, and himself playing the game with a greater sense of its seriousness than ever before.

Throughout the evening George watched for a chance to see Becky alone. Without conspicuously avoiding him, she had no time for him. He complained constantly. "I want to talk to you. Run away with me, Becky—and let these people go."

"It isn't proper for a hostess to leave her guests."

"Are you trying to—punish me?"

"For what?"

So—she too was playing——! She had let him come that he might see her—indifferent.

Becky had danced with George once, and with Randy three times. George had protested, and Becky had said, "But I promised him before you came——"

"You knew I was coming?"

"Yes."

"You might have kept a few——"

She seemed to consider that. "Yes, I might. But not from Randy——"

At last he said to her, "I have been out in the garden. There is a star shining in the little pool where the fishes are. I want you to see the star."

It was thus he had won her. He had always seen stars shining in little pools, or a young moon rising from a rosy bed. But it had never meant anything. She shook her head. "I should like to see your little star. But I haven't time."

"Are you afraid to come?"

"Why should I be?"

"Well, there's Love—in the garden," he was daring—his sparkling eyes tried to hold hers and failed.

She was looking straight beyond him to where Randy stood by a window, tall and thin with his Indian profile, and his high-held head.

"We are going to have watermelons in a minute," was her romantic response to Dalton's fire. "You'd better stay and eat some."

"I don't want to eat. And if you aren't afraid you'll come."

Calvin and Mandy and their son, John, with Flippins' Daisy, had assembled the watermelons on a long table out-of-doors. Above the table on the branch of a tree was hung an old ship's lantern brought by Admiral Meredith to his friend, the Judge. It gave a faint but steady light, and showed the pink and green and white of the fruit, the dusky faces of the servants as they cut and sliced, and handed plates to the eager and waiting guests.

Becky, standing back in the shadows with Randy by her side, watched the men surge towards the table, and retire with their loads of lusciousness. Grinning boys were up to their ears in juice, girls, bare-armed and bare-necked, reached for plates held teasingly aloft. It was all rather innocently bacchanal—a picture which for Becky had an absolutely impersonal quality. She had entertained her guests as she had eaten her dinner, outwardly doing the normal and conventional thing, while her mind was chaotic. This jumble of people on the lawn seemed unreal and detached. The only real people in the world were herself and Dalton.

"How did you happen to ask us?" Randy was saying.

"Because I wanted you——"

"That doesn't explain it. It has something to do with Dalton——"

"He said he was coming—and I wanted a crowd."

"Were you afraid to see him alone?"

"He says that I am."

"When did he say it?"

"Just now. He's in the garden, Randy."

"Waiting for you?"

"He says that he is waiting."

Randy gave a quick exclamation. "Surely you won't go."

"Why not? I've got to turn—the knife——"

He groaned. "So this is what I've let you in for——"

"Well, I shall see it through, Randy."

"Becky, don't go to him in the garden."

"Why not?"

"The whole thing is wrong," the boy said, slowly. "I lied to give you your opportunity, and now, I'd rather die than think of you out there——"

"Then you don't trust me, Randy?"

"My dear, I do. But I don't trust—him."

IV

George had known that she would come. Yet when he saw the white blur of her gown against the blackness of the bushes, his heart leaped. All through the ages men have waited for women in gardens—"She is coming, my own, my sweet——" and farther back, "Make haste, my beloved," and in the beginning, as Mandy could have told, a serpent waited.

Dalton was not, of course, a serpent. He was merely a very selfish man, who had always had what he wanted, and now he wanted Becky. He was still, perhaps, playing the game, but he was playing it in dead earnest with Randy as his opponent and Becky the prize.

She recognized a new note in his voice and was faintly disturbed by it.

"So you are not afraid?"

"No."

She sat down on the bench. Behind them was the pale statue of Diana, the pool was at their feet with its little star.

"Why should I be afraid?" she asked.

"You are trying to shut me out of your heart, Becky—and you are afraid I may try to—open the door."

"Silly," she said, clearly and lightly, but with a sense of panic. Oh, why had she come? The darkness seemed to shut her in; his voice was beating against her heart——

He was saying that he loved her, loved her. Did she understand? That he had been miserable? His defense was masterly. He played on her imagination delicately, as if she were a harp, and his fingers touched the strings. He realized what a cad he must have seemed. But she was a saint in a shrine—it will be seen that he did not hesitate to borrow from Randy. She was a saint in a shrine, and well, he knelt at her feet—a sinner. "You needn't think that I don't know what I have done, Becky. I swept you along with me without a thought of anything serious in it for either of us. It was just a game, sweetheart, and lots of people play it, but it isn't a game now, it is the most serious thing in life."

There is no eloquence so potent as that which is backed by genuine passion. Becky coming down through the garden had been so sure of herself. She had felt that pride would be the rock to which she would anchor her resistance to his enchantments. Yet here in the garden——

"Oh, please," she said, and stood up.

He rose, too, and towered above her. "Becky," he said, hoarsely, "it's the real thing—for me——"

His spell was upon her. She was held by it—drawn by it against her will. Her cry was that of a frightened and fascinated bird.

He bent down. His face was a white circle in the dark, but she could see the sparkle of his eyes. "Kiss me, Becky."

"I shall never kiss you again."

"I love you."

"Love," she said, with a sort of tense quiet, "does not kiss and run away."

"My heart never ran away. I swear it. Marry me, Becky."

He had never expected to ask her. But now that he had done it, he was glad.

She was swayed by his earnestness, by the thought of all he had meant to her in her dreams of yesterday. But to-day was not yesterday, and George was not the man of those dreams. Yet, why not? There was the quick laughter, with its new ring of sincerity, the sparkling eyes, the Apollo head.

"Marry me, Becky."

Beyond the pool which reflected the little star was the dark outline of the box hedge, and beyond the hedge, the rise of the hill showed dark against the dull silver of the sky—a shadow seemed to rise suddenly in that dim brightness, the tall thin shadow of a man with a clear-cut profile, and a high-held head!

Becky drew a sharp breath—then faced Dalton squarely. "I am going to marry Randy."

His laugh was triumphant——

"Do you think I am going to let you? You are mine, Becky, and you know it. You are mine——"

V

Randy, having made a record run with Little Sister to the Flippins', had brought back Major Prime. When he returned Becky had disappeared. He looked for her, knowing all the time that she had gone down into the garden to meet Dalton. And he had brought Dalton back to her, he had given him this opportunity to plead his cause, had given him the incentive of a man of his kind to still pursue; he had, as he had said, let Becky in for it, and now he was raging at the thought.



Nellie Custis, padding at his heels, had known that something disturbed him. He walked restlessly from room to room, from porch to porch, across the lawn, skirted the garden, stopped now and then to listen, called once when he saw a white figure alone by the big gate, "Becky!"

Nellie knew who it was that he wanted. And at last she instituted a search on her own account. She went through the garden, passed the pool, found Becky's feet in blue slippers, and rushed back to her master with an air of discovery.

But Randy would not follow her. He must, he knew, set a curb on his impatience. He walked beyond the gate, following the ridge of the hill to the box hedge. He was not in the least aware that his shadow showed up against the silver of the sky. Perhaps Fate guided him to the ridge, who knows? At any rate, it seemed so afterwards to Becky, who felt that the shadow of Randy against the silver sky was the thing that saved her.

She gave the old Indian cry, and he answered it.

His shadow wavered on the ridge. He was lost for a moment against the blackness of the hedge, and emerged on the other side of the pool.

"Randy," she was a bit breathless, "here we are. Mr. Dalton and I. I saw you on the ridge. You have no idea how tall your shadow seemed——"

She was talking in that clear light voice which was not her own. Dalton said sullenly, "Hello, Paine." And Randy's heart was singing, "She called me."

The three of them walked to the house together. Becky had insisted that she must go back to her guests. George left them at the step. He was for the moment beaten. As he drove his car madly back to King's Crest, he tried to tell himself that it was all for the best. That he must let Becky alone. He would be a fool to throw himself away on a shabby slender slip of a thing because she had clear eyes and bronze hair.

But it was not because of her slenderness and clear eyes and bronze hair that Becky held him, it was because of the force within her which baffled him.

The guests were leaving. They had had the time of their lives. They packed themselves into their various cars, and the surrey, and shouted "good-bye." The Major stayed and sat on the lawn to talk to the Judge and Mrs. Beaufort. Mary and Truxton ascended the stairs to the Blue Room, where little Fiddle slept in the Bannister crib that had been brought down from the attic.

Becky and Randy went into the Bird Room and sat under the swinging lamp. "I have something to tell you, Randy," Becky had said, and as in the days of their childhood the Bird Room seemed the place for confidences.