The vote was put. There was no dissenting voice. The strike was done, and Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, was victor.

Men clustered about Dulac, wringing his hands, speaking words of comfort with voices that broke, and the number of those who turned away with tears was greater than of those whose eyes could remain dry.

Dulac spoke. "We'll try again—men.... We'll start to get ready—to- day—for another—fight."

Then, hurriedly, blindly, he forced his way through them and made his way out of the hall. Grief, the heaviness of defeat, was all that he could feel now. Bitterness would come in its time.

Dulac was a soul without restraints, a soul in eternal uproar. His life had been one constant kicking against the pricks, and when they hurt his feet he was not schooled to stifle the cry of pain. He could not endure patiently and in silence; the tumult of his suffering must have an outlet.

Now was the time for an overwrought, overtired man, clothed in no restraint, to try what surcease was to be found in the bottom of a glass. But Dulac was not a drinking man. So he walked. As he walked bitterness awoke, and he cursed under his breath. Bitterness increased until it was rage, and, as man is so constituted that rage must have a definite object, Dulac unconsciously sought a man who would symbolize all the forces that had defeated him—and he chose Bonbright Foote. He chose Bonbright the more readily because he hated the boy for personal reasons. If Dulae and Bonbright had met at this moment there would have happened events which would have delighted the yellower press. But they did not meet. Bonbright was safe in Lightener's purchasing department, learning certain facts about brass castings.

So Dulac walked and walked, and lashed himself into rage. Rage abated and became biting disappointment and unspeakable heaviness of heart. Again rage would be conjured up only to ebb again and to flood again as the hours went by.

There is an instinct in man which, when his troubles become too weighty to bear alone, sends him to a woman. Perhaps this is the survival of an idea implanted in childhood when baby runs to mother for sure comfort with broken doll or bruised thumb. It persists and never dies, so that one great duty, one great privilege, one great burden of womankind is to give ear to man's outpourings of his woes, and to offer such comfort as she may....

Dulac was drawn to Ruth.

This time she did not try to close the door against him. His first words made that impossible.

"I'm—beaten," he said, dully.

His flamboyance, his threatricality, was gone. He was no longer flashily masterful, no longer exotically fascinating. He sagged.... He was just a soul-weary, disappointed man, looking at her out of hollow, burning eyes. He had spent himself magnificently into bankruptcy. His face was the face of a man who must rest, who must find peace.... Yet he was not consciously seeking rest or peace. He was seeking her.... Seeking her because he craved her, and seeking her to strike at her husband, who had become a symbol of all the antagonists he had been fighting.

His appearance disarmed her; her fear of him and herself was lured away by the appearance of him. She felt nothing but sympathy and tenderness and something of wonder that he—Dulac the magnificent— should be brought to this pass. So she admitted him, regardless even of the lateness of the afternoon hour.

He followed her heavily and sank into a chair.

"You're sick," she said, anxiously.

He shook his head. "I'm—beaten," he repeated, and in truth beaten was what he looked, beaten and crushed.... "But I'll—try again," he said, with a trace of the old gleam in his eyes.

She clasped and unclasped her hands, standing before him, white with the emotions that swayed her.... Here was the man she loved in his bitterest, darkest moment—and she was barred away from him by unwelcome barriers. She could not soothe him, she could not lighten his suffering with the tale of her love for him, but she must remain mute, holding out no hand to ease his pain.

"I came for you," he said, dully.

"No," she said.

"Ruth—I need you—now...." This man, who had wooed her boldly, had demanded her masterfully, now was brought to pleading. He needed her. It was plain that he did need her, and, realizing it, she saw the danger of it. It was a new, a subtle attack, and it had taken her unawares.

"I can't.... I can't.... I mustn't..." she said, breathlessly.

"I must have you," he said, with dead simplicity, as one states a bare, essential fact. Then Bonbright was visualized before him, and rage flooded once more. "He sha'n't keep you!... You're mine—you were mine first.... What is he to you? I'm going to take you away from him.... I can do THAT...."

He was less dangerous so. Perhaps instinct told him, for his passion stilled itself, and he became tired, pitiful again.

"We've got a right to be happy," he said, in his tired voice. "You're not happy—and I'm—beaten.... I want you—I need you.... You'll come with me. You've got to come with me."

She was moved, swayed. He needed her.... She had cheated Bonbright in the beginning. She was not his wife.... He had none of her love, and she believed this man had it wholly.... She had wronged Bonbright all she could wrong him—what would this matter? It was not this that was wrong, but the other—the marrying without love.... And she, too, was beaten. She had played her game and lost, not going down to defeat fighting as Dulac had gone down, but futilely, helplessly. She had given herself for the Cause—to no profit.... And her heart yearned for peace, for release.

"I'm his wife," she said, still struggling flutteringly.

"You're MY wife." He lifted his arms toward her, and she swayed, took a step toward him—a step toward the precipice. Suddenly she stopped, eyes startled, a deeper pallor blighting her face—for she heard Bonbright's step on the stairs.... She had forgotten the lateness of the hour.

"Oh'." she said.

"What is it?"

"HE is—here."

She was awakened by the shock of it, and saw, saw clearly. She had stood upon the brink—and HE had come in time.... And then she was afraid.

Neither of them spoke. Dulac got to his feet, his breath coming audibly, and so they waited.

Bonbright opened the door. "Ruth," he called, putting what pretense of gayety he could into his voice. "You've got company. The chronic visitor is here." He was playing his game bravely.

She did not answer.

"Ruth," he called again, and then stood in the door. She could not see him, but she felt his presence, felt his silence, felt the look of surprise changing to suspicion that she knew must be in his eyes.

For a moment he stood motionless, not comprehending. Then the attitude of his wife and of Dulac spoke eloquently, and he whitened.

"I don't understand," he said. The words were meaningless, pointless, perhaps, but they stabbed Ruth to the heart. She turned to him, saw him step forward slowly, looking very tall, older than she had ever known him. He had drawn within himself, and there manifested itself his inheritance from his ancestors. He was like his father, but with an even more repressed dignity than was his father's.

"You don't understand," snarled Dulac. "Then I'll tell you. I'm glad you came.... I'm after your wife. She's going away with me."

"No.... No..." Ruth whispered.

"Be still.... She's mine, Foote—and always was. You thought she was yours—well, she's one thing you can't have. I'm going to tell you why she married you...."

Ruth cried out in incoherent fright, protesting.

"She married you to use you.... Not even for your money. She married you because her heart was with the men your kind is grinding down. ... She saw you were the kind of man a woman could twist around her finger—and you owned five thousand men.... Get the idea?... She was going to do things for them—with you. You were nothing but a button she would push. So she married you—and you cheated her.... So she's done with you. You can't give what she paid for, and she's going away with me.... She LOVES me. She was promised to marry me—when she saw what she could do with you—and I let her go.... If she could give, so could I.... But I loved her and she loved me—and we're going away."

It was true. Bonbright knew it was true, but he would not admit his belief until he had confirmation from his wife's lips.

"Is this true?" he asked, quietly.

She was shaking with sobs, crouching against the wall.

"Don't be afraid," Bonbright said again, in a strange, quiet, courteous voice. "Is it true?"

"Yes," she whispered, for she could not lie with his eyes upon her.

"I knew there was—something," he said, with a little halt in his voice.... That was all. He did not look at Dulac, but stood looking at her for a moment steadily, almost with grave inquiry.... She looked from him to Dulac. Subconsciously she compared them.... Bonbright did not speak again, but turned slowly and walked steadily out of the room.... Ruth heard the outer door close behind him and knew he was gone.... Gone!

Dulac laughed shortly. "That settled HIM," he said. "Now you'll come."

She stood regarding him as she might have regarded some strangely endowed person she had never seen before. Then with a sudden, passionate vehemence she burst out upon him:

"Never.... Never.... I'll never go with you. I'm his wife—his wife.... Oh, what have you done?... I hate you—I hate you! Don't ever dare—come near me again.... I hate you...."

She turned and fled to her room and locked the door. Though he knocked and called, though he pleaded and threatened, she made no reply, but sat dry-eyed, on her bed, until she heard him go away raging....



CHAPTER XXV

Hilda Lightener's electric stopped before the apartment house where Bonbright Foote lived, and Hilda alighted. She ignored bell and speaking tube and ran upstairs to Bonbright's door, on which she knocked as a warning. Then she opened the door and called: "It's me. Anybody home?"

Nobody replied. She called again, and walked into the little living room where Ruth and Bonbright and Dulac had faced one another an hour before.... She called again. This time she heard a sound, muffled, indistinct, but recognizable as a sob.

"Ruth!" she called, and went to the bedroom door. Now she could hear Ruth within, sobbing alarmingly.

"Ruth Foote," said Hilda, "what's the matter?... Where's Bonbright?... I'm coming in."

She opened the door, saw Ruth outstretched on the bed, face buried in her pillow, sobbing with a queer, startling dryness. It was not the sob of a woman in an attack of nerves, not the sob of a woman merely crying to rest herself, nor the sob of a bride who has had a petty quarrel with her husband. It was different, alarmingly different. There was despair in it. It told of something seriously awry, of stark tragedy.

Hilda's years were not many, but her intuition was sure. She did not demand explanations, did not command Ruth to stop crying and tell what ailed her, but sat down quietly on the bed and stroked the sobbing girl's hair, crooning over her softly. "There!... There!..."

Gradually the tenseness, the dry, racking, tearing quality of Ruth's sobs, softened, ameliorated. Presently she was crying, quietly, pitifully.... Hilda breathed with relief. She did not know that for an hour Ruth had sat on the edge of her bed, still, tearless, staring blindly before her—her soul drying up and burning within her for lack of tears. She had been unable to cry. She had uttered no sound until Hilda's voice came in to her. Then she had thrown herself prone in that paroxysm of wrenching sobs....

"There!... There!..." Hilda crooned.

Ruth's hand crept out fumblingly, found Hilda's dress, and clutched it. Hilda laid her warm hand over Ruth's cold fingers—and waited.

"He's—gone," Ruth sobbed, presently.

"Never mind, honey.... Never mind, now."

Ruth mumbled incoherently. After a time she raised herself on her arms and crouched beside Hilda, who put her arms around her and held her close, as she would have held a troubled child.

"You'll—despise me," Ruth whispered.

"I guess not." Hilda pressed Ruth's slenderness against her more robust body reassuringly. "I don't despise folks, as a rule.... Want to talk now?"

She saw that the time for speech had come.

"He won't come back.... I saw it in his eyes."

"Who won't come back, dear?"

"Bonbright." Ruth drew a shuddering breath. Then haltingly, whimperingly, sobs interrupting, she talked. She could not tell it fast enough. It must be told, her mind must be relieved, and the story, pent up so long within her, rushed forth in a flood of despairing, self-accusing words. It came in snatches, fragments, as high lights of suffering flashed upon her mind. She did not start at the beginning logically and carry through—but the thing as a whole was there. Hilda had only to sort it and reassemble it to get the pitiful tale complete.

"You—you don't mean you married Bonbright like some of those Russian nihilist persons one hears about—just to use him and your position— for some socialist or anarchist thing? You're not serious, Ruth?... Such things aren't."

"I—I'd do THAT again," she said. "It was right—to do that—for the good of all those men.... It's not that—but the rest—not keeping to my bargain—and—Dulac. I would have—gone with him."

Hilda shook her head. "Not farther than the door," she said. "You couldn't—not after Bonbright has been such—such an idiotic angel about you."

"I would have—THEN."

"But you wouldn't now?"

"I—I can't bear to THINK of him...."

"Um!..." Hilda's expressive syllable was very like her father's. It was her way of saying, "I see, and I'll bet you don't see, and I'm not surprised particularly, but you'll be surprised when you find it out." It said all that—to Hilda's satisfaction.

"He's been gone hours," Ruth said, plaintively, and Hilda understood her to refer to Bonbright.

"Time he was coming back, then," she said.

"He—won't come back—ever.... You don't know him the way I do." There was something very like jealousy in Ruth's tone. "He's good— and gentle—but if he makes up his mind—If he hadn't been that way do you think he could have lived with me the way he HAS?"

"He must have loved you a heap," Hilda said, enviously.

"He did.... Oh, Hilda, it wasn't wrong to marry him for what I did. ... I hadn't any right to consider him—or me. I hadn't, had I?"

"I don't belong," said Hilda. "If I wasn't a wicked capitalist I might agree with you—MAYBE. I'm not going to scold you for it— because you THOUGHT it was right, and that always makes the big difference.... You thought you were doing something splendid, didn't you—and then it fizzled. It must have been tough—I can get that part of it.... To find you'd married him and couldn't get out of it —and that he didn't have any thousands of men to—tinker with.... Especially when you loved Mr. Dulac." Hilda added the last sentence with shrewd intent.

"I don't love him—I don't.... If you'd seen him—and Bonbright..."

"But you did love him," Hilda said, severely Ruth nodded dumbly.

"You're sure Bonbright won't come back?"

"Never," said Ruth.

"Then you'd better go after him."

Ruth did not answer. She was calmer now, more capable of rational thought. What SHOULD she do? What was to be done with this situation?... Her brief married life had been a nightmare with a nightmare's climax; she could not bear a return to that. Her husband was gone. She was free of him, free of her dread of the day when she must face realities with him.... And Bonbright—she felt certain he would not want her to run after him, that, somehow, it would lower her even farther in his eyes if she did so. There was a certain dignity attaching to him that she dared not violate, and to run after him would violate it. There would, of necessity, be a scene. She would have to explain, beg, promise—lie. She did not believe she could lie to him again—nor that she could make him believe a lie. ... Pretense between them had become an impossibility.... She wanted him to know she had not gone with Dulac, would not go with Dulac. It seemed to her she could not bear to have him think THAT of her. She had made his love impossible, but she craved his respect. That was all.... She was freed from him—and it was better so. The phase of it that she did not analyze was why her heart ached so. She did not study into that.

"I don't want him—back," she said to Hilda. "It would be just like it was—before."

"What ARE you going to do, then? You've got to do something."

"I don't know.... Why must I do something? Why can't I just wait— and let him do what—whatever is done?"

"Because—if I know anything about Bonbright—he won't do a thing. ... He'll just step aside quietly and make no fuss. I'm afraid he's— hurt. And he's been hurt so much before."

"I'm—sorry." The words sounded weak, ineffectual. They did not express her feelings, her remorse, her self-accusation.

"Sorry?... You haven't cut a dance with him, you know, or kept him waiting while you did your hair.... You've more or less messed up his life. Yes, you have. There isn't any use mincing words. Your motives may have been lofty and noble and all that sort of thing— from your point of view. But HIS point of view is what I'm thinking about now.... Sorry!"

"Don't scold. I can't—bear it. I can't bear anything more.... Please go away. I know you despise me. Leave me alone. Go away..."

"I'll do nothing of the kind. You're all upset, and you deserve a heap more than scolding.... But I like you." Hilda was always direct. "You're more or less of a little idiot, with your insane notions and your Joan of Arc silliness, but I like you. You're not fit to be left alone. I'm in charge.... So go and dabble cold water on your eyes, so you don't look like Nazimova in the last act, and come along with. me. We'll take a drive, and then I'm coming back to stay all night with you.... Yes, I am," she said, with decision, as Ruth started to object. "You do what I say."

Hilda drove Ruth to her own house. "I've got to tell mother I'm going to stay with you," she said. "Will you come in?"

"No—please," Ruth answered.

"I won't be but a jiffy, then." And Hilda left Ruth alone in the electric. Alone! Suddenly Ruth was afraid of being alone. She was thankful for Hilda, thankful Hilda was going to see her through.

Hilda's father and mother were in the library.

"Thought you were going some place with Bonbright and his wife," said Malcolm Lightener.

"Dad," said Hilda, with characteristic bluntness and lack of preface, "they're in a dickens of a mess."

"Bonbright?"

"And Ruth."

"Huh!..." Lightener's grunt seemed to say that it was nothing but what he expected. "Well—go ahead."

Hilda went ahead. Her father punctuated her story with sundry grunts, her mother with exclamations of astonishment and sorrow. Hilda told the whole story from the beginning, and when she was done she said: "There it is. You wouldn't believe it. And, dad, Bonbright Foote's an angel. A regular angel with wings."

"Sometimes it's mighty hard to tell the difference between an angel and a damn fool," said Lightener. "I suppose you want me to mix into it. Well, I won't."

"You haven't been asked," said Hilda. "I'm doing the mixing for this family. I just came to tell you I am going to stay all night with Ruth—and to warn you not to mix in. You'd do it with a sledge hammer. I don't suppose it's any use telling you to keep your hands off—for you won't. But I wish you would."

"You'll get your wish," he said.

"I won't," she answered.

"Poor Bonbright," Mrs. Lightener said, "it does seem as if about every misfortune had happened to him that can happen.... And he can't go to his mother for sympathy."

"He isn't the kind to go to anybody for sympathy," said Lightener.

"Then don't you go to him with any," said Hilda.

"I told you I wasn't going to have anything to do with it."

"I haven't any patience with that girl," said Mrs. Lightener. "Such notions! Wherever did she get them?... It's all a result of this Votes for Women and clubs studying sociology and that. When I was a girl—"

"You wore hoop skirts, mammy," said Hilda, "and if you weren't careful when you sat down folks saw too much stocking.... Don't go blaming Ruth too much. She thought she was doing something tremendous."

"I calc'late she was," said Malcolm Lightener, "when you come to think of it.... Too bad all cranks can't put the backbone they use in flub dub to some decent use. I sort of admire 'em."

"Father!" expostulated Mrs. Lightener.

"You've got to. They back their game to the limit.... This little girl did.... Tough on Bonbright, though."

Hilda walked to the door; there she stopped, and said over her shoulder: "Tell you what I think. I think she's mighty hard in love with him—and doesn't know it."

"Rats!" said her father, elegantly.

At that moment Bonbright was writing a letter to his wife. It was a difficult letter, which he had started many times, but had been unable to begin as it should be begun.... He did not want to hurt her; he did not want her to misunderstand; so he had to be very clear, and write very carefully what was in his heart. It was a sore heart, but, strangely, there was no bitterness in it toward Ruth. He found that strange himself, and marveled at it. He did not want to betray his misery to her—for that would hurt her, he knew. He did not want to accuse. All he wanted to do was to do what he could to set matters right for her. For him matters could never be set right again. It was the end.... The way of its coming had been a shock, but that the end had come was not such a shock. He perceived now that he had been gradually preparing himself for it. He saw that the life they had been living could have ended in nothing but a crash of happiness.... He admitted now that he had been afraid of it almost since the beginning....

"My Dear Ruth," he wrote. Then he stopped again, unable to find a beginning.

"I am writing because that will be easier for both of us," he wrote— and then scratched it out, for it seemed to strike a personal note. He did not want to be personal, to allow any emotion to creep in.

"It is necessary to make some arrangements," he began once more. That was better. Then, "I know you will not have gone away yet." That meant away with Dulac, and she would so understand it. "I hope you will consent to stay in the apartment. Everything there, of course, is yours. It is not necessary for us to discuss money. I will attend to that carefully. In this state a husband must be absent from his wife for a year before she can be released from him. I ask you to be patient for that time." That was all of it. There was nothing more to say. He read it, and it sounded bald, cold, but he could not better it.

At the end he wrote, "Yours sincerely," scratched it out, and wrote, "Yours truly," scratched that out, and contented himself by affixing merely his name. Then he copied the whole and dispatched it to his wife by messenger.

It arrived just after Ruth and Hilda returned.

"It's from him," said Ruth.

"Open it, silly, and see what he says."

"I'm afraid...."

Hilda stamped her foot. "Give it to me, then," she said.

Ruth held the note to her jealously. She opened it slowly, fearfully, and read the few words it contained.

"Oh..." she said, and held it out to Hilda. She had seen nothing but the bareness, the coldness of it.

"It's perfect," said Hilda. "It's BONBRIGHT. He didn't slop over—he was trying not to slop over, but there's love in every letter, and heartache in every word of it.... And you couldn't love him. Wish I had the chance."

"You—you will have," said Ruth, faintly.

"If I do," said Hilda, shortly, "you bet I WON'T WASTE it."



CHAPTER XXVI

Hilda knew her father. He could not keep his hands off any matter that interested him, and most matters did interest him. He had grown to have an idea that he could take hold of almost any sort of tangle or enterprise or concern and straighten it out. Probably it was because he was so exceedingly human.... Therefore he was drawn irresistibly to his purchasing department and to Bonbright Foote.

"Young man," he said, gruffly, "what's this I hear?"

Bonbright looked up inquiringly.

"Come over here." Lightener jerked his head toward a private spot for conversation. "About you and that little girl," he said.

"I would rather not talk about it," said Bonbright, slowly.

"But I'm going to talk about it. It's nonsense...."

Bonbright looked very much like his father; tall, patrician, coldly dignified. "Mr. Lightener," he said, "it is a thing we will not mention—now or later." Seven generations contributed to that answer and to the manner of it. It was final. It erected a barrier past which even Malcolm Lightener could not force his way, and Lightener recognized it.

"Huh!..." he grunted, nonplused, made suddenly ill at ease by this boy. For a moment he looked at Bonbright, curiously, appraisingly, then turned on his heel and walked away.

"Young spriggins put me in my place," he said to Mrs. Lightener that evening. "I wish I knew how to do it—valuable. Made me feel like he was a total stranger and I'd been caught in his hen house.... That Bonbright Foote business isn't all bad by a darn sight."

From that day Bonbright tried to work himself into forgetfulness. Work was the only object and refuge of his life, and he gave himself to it wholly. It was interesting work, and it kept him from too much thinking about himself.... If a man has ability and applies himself as Bonbright did, he will attract notice. In spite of his identity Bonbright did attract notice from his immediate superiors. It was more difficult for him, being who he was, to win commendation than it would have been for an unmarked young man in the organization. That was because even the fairest-minded man is afraid he will be tempted into showing favoritism—and so withholds justice.... But he forced it from his laborers—not caring in the least if he had it or not. And word of his progress mounted to Malcolm Lightener.

His craving for occupation was not satisfied with eight hours a day spent in the purchasing department. It was his evenings that he feared, so he filled them with study—study of the manufacture of the automobile. Also he studied men. Every noon saw him in the little hash house; every evening, when he could arrange it so, saw him with some interested employee, boss, department boss, or somebody connected with Malcolm Lightener's huge plant, pumping them for information and cataloguing and storing it away in his mind. He tried to crowd Ruth out of his mind by filling it so full of automobile there would be no room for her.... But she hid in unexpected crannies, and stepped forth to confront him disconcertingly.

Gradually the laboring men changed their attitude toward him and tolerated him. Some of them even liked him. He listened to their talk, and tried to digest it. Much he saw to call for his sympathy, much that they considered vital he could not agree with; he could not, even in a majority of things, adapt his point of view to theirs. For he was developing a point of view.

On that evening when he had gone down to see what a mob was like he had no point of view, only curiosity. He had leaned neither toward his father's striking employees nor against them.... His attitude was much the same now—with a better understanding of the problems involved. He was not an ultracapitalist, like his father, nor a radical like Dulac.... One thing he believed, and that was in the possibility of capital and labor being brought to see through the same eyes. He believed the strife between them, which had waged from time immemorial, was not necessary, and could be eliminated.... But as yet he had no cure for the trouble.

He did not lean to socialism. He was farther away from that theory than he was from his father's beliefs. He belonged by training and by inheritance to the group of employers of labor and utilizers of capital.... Against radicalism he had a bitter grievance. Radicalism had given him his wife—for reasons which he heard expressed by laboring men every day. He had no patience with fanaticism; on the other hand, he had little patience with bigotry and intolerance. His contact with the other side was bringing no danger of his conversion. ... But he was doing what he never could have done as heir apparent to the Foote dynasty—he was asserting in thought his individuality and forming individual opinions.... His education was being effectively rounded out.

News of the wrecking of Bonbright's domestic craft came to his father quickly, carried, as might have been anticipated, by Hangar.

"Your son is not living with his wife, Mr. Foote," Rangar announced.

"Indeed!" said Mr. Foote, concealing both surprise and gratification under his habitual mask of suave dignity. "That, I fear, was to have been anticipated.... Have you the particulars?"

"Only that she is living in their apartment, and he is boarding with one of the men in his department at Lightener's."

"Keep your eye on him, Rangar—keep your eye on him. And report."

"Yes, sir," said Rangar, not himself pleased by the turn affairs had taken, but resolved to have what benefit might lie thereabouts. His resentment was still keen to keep him snapping at Bonbright's heels.

The breach between himself and his son had been no light blow to Mr. Foote. It threatened his line. What was to become of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, with no heir to hand the business over to when his hands could drop it? He wanted his son, not as a father wants his son, but because a Bonbright Foote VII was requisite. He had hoped for this thing that had happened; indeed, had felt confident it would happen, and that he would have Bonbright back unencumbered, purged of nonsense.

He spoke of it with satisfaction to his wife when he returned to his home that afternoon to take up the important matter of adding to the manuscript of his philosophical biography of the Marquis Lafayette.

"Perhaps I should see Bonbright," he suggested.

"No," said Mrs. Foote. "He must come to you. He's got to have all his wildness crushed out of him. He'll come. He must have had enough of it before this."

But Bonbright did not come, showed no signs of coming, and Mr. Foote grew impatient, so impatient that he disregarded his wife's advice. He could not bring his pride to allow him to seek out Bonbright in person, but sent Rangar as his ambassador.

Rangar found Bonbright in his room, reading a book devoted to the ailments of the internal-combustion engine, and acquitted himself of his mission with that degree of diplomacy which his desire for success dictated.

"Well?" said Bonbright, as the door opened to admit the ambassador.

"Your father sent me, Mr. Foote."

"Yes."

"He has heard that—er—the marriage which caused your—er— estrangement has ended as he feared."

Bonbright arose slowly and walked toward Rangar, who appeared in two minds whether to remain or to depart to other places.

"Tell my father," Bonbright said, "that I can appreciate his satisfaction. Tell him also that if he has anything to say to me to say it in person.... That is all."

"Your father—"

"That is all," repeated Bonbright, and Rangar made up his mind. He slammed the door after him.

In the morning he reported to Mr. Foote, who compressed his lips at the recitation of his son's words. Let his son come to him, then, when he had eaten his fill of husks.

But Bonbright did not come. After several days had elapsed Mr. Foote considered his duty, and interpreted it to impel him to call in person upon his son—clothed in dignity and with the demeanor of outraged parenthood. Mrs. Foote was not privy to the project.

He met his son descending the steps of the house where he boarded. Bonbright could not have evaded his father if he would. He stopped and waited for his father to speak.

"I have come to talk to you, Bonbright," he said, severely.

"Very well, sir," Bonbright said.

"I have come, not from inclination or delight in an interview which must be distasteful to both of us, but because I believe it my duty to point out the thanklessness of your conduct and to see if you cannot be brought to a proper sense of your obligations."

"Our ideas of my obligations are rather far apart, sir."

"They shouldn't be. You're a mere boy—my son. You should derive your ideas from me until you are capable of formulating correct ideas yourself."

"I'm afraid we can never agree on that," said Bonbright, patiently.

"Your marriage has ended the way such marriages are fated to end," said Mr. Foote.

"We will not discuss that, please," said Bonbright.

"You made your own bed—"

"And am not complaining about the discomfort of it."

"It is essential that you return to your duty. Your unpleasant experience is over. You are old enough to understand your position as my son, and the responsibilities and duties of it. You are Bonbright Foote VII and the future head of our family. I am being very patient and lenient with you.... You have defied me openly, but I am willing to overlook that, and I am sure your mother will overlook your conduct toward her, providing you return to your place in a frame of mind proper for my son. I think you understand what that is."

"Perfectly, sir. It means to be jammed back in a mold that will turn me out to the family pattern. It means a willingness to give up thinking for myself and accept YOUR thoughts and shape my life by them. It means being a figurehead as long as you live and a replica of yourself when you are gone. That's it, isn't it?"

"That is it," said Mr. Foote, shortly. "You are rid of that woman. ... I am willing to give you another chance."

Bonbright's hold upon himself was firm. "If you wish to continue this conversation you will not speak in that way of my wife. Let me make that very clear.... As to coming back to the office—there is nothing under heaven that would bring me back to what I escaped from. Nothing.... If I were ever to come it would have to be on terms of my own making, and you would never agree to them. And whatever terms you agreed to I should not come until you and mother—both of you— went to my wife and made the most complete apology for the thing you did to her in the theater that night.... I am not thinking of myself. I am thinking of her. My mother and father passed my wife and myself on our wedding night, in a public place, and refused to recognize us.... It was barbarous." Bonbright's voice quivered a trifle, but he held himself well in hand. "That apology must come before anything else. After you have made it, we will discuss terms."

"You—you—" Mr. Foote was perilously close to losing his dignity.

"No," said Bonbright; "on second thought, we will not discuss terms. You can have my final reply now.... You have nothing to give me that will take the place of what I have now. I will not come back to you. Please understand that this is final."

Mr. Foote was speechless. It was moments before he could speak; then it was to say, in a voice that trembled with rage: "In the morning I shall make my will—and your name will not appear in it except as a renegade son whom I have disowned..., Probably you regarded the property as under entail and that it would come to you after me.... For six generations it has gone from father to son. You shall never touch a penny of it."

"I prefer it that way, sir."

Mr. Foote glared at his son in quite unrestrained, uncultured rage, and, whirling on his heel, strode furiously away. Bonbright looked after him curiously.

"I wonder how the thing missed out with me," he thought. "It worked perfectly six generations—and then went all to smash with me.... Probably I'd have been a lot happier...."

It had been a month since he saw Ruth. He had not wanted to see her; the thought of seeing her had been unbearable. But suddenly he felt as if he must see her—have a glimpse of her. He must see how she looked, if she had changed, if she were well.... He knew it would bring refreshed suffering. It would let back all he had rigidly schooled himself to shut out—but he must see her.

He set his will against it and resolutely walked away from the direction in which her apartment lay, but the thing was too strong for him. As a man surrenders to a craving which he knows will destroy him, yet feels a relief at the surrender, he turned abruptly and walked the other way.

The apartment in which they had lived was on the second floor of a small apartment house. He passed it on the opposite side of the street, looking covertly upward at the windows. There was a light within. She was there, but invisible. Only if she should step near the window could he see her.... Again and again he passed, but she did not appear. Finally he settled himself guiltily in the shadows, where he could watch those windows, and waited—just for that distant sight of her. There was a lamp on the table before the window. Before she retired she would have to come to shut it off.... He waited for that. He would then see her for a second, perhaps.

At last she came, and stood an instant in the window—just a blur, with the light behind her, no feature distinguishable, yet it was her—her. "Ruth..." he whispered, "Ruth...." Then she drew down the shade and extinguished the light.

For a moment he stood there, hands opened as if he would have stretched them out toward her. Then he turned and walked heavily away. He had seen her, but It had not added to his happiness. He had seen her because he must see her.... And by that he knew he must see her again and again and again. He knew it. He knew he would stand there in the shadows on innumerable nights, watching for that one brief second of her presence.... And she loved another man. In a year she would be free to marry Dulac!

He returned to his room and to his book on the ailments of internal- combustion engines; but it was not their diagrams his eyes saw, but only a featureless blur that represented a girl standing in an upper window—-forever beyond his reach....



CHAPTER XXVII

Malcolm Lightener's plant, huge as it was, could not meet the demands of the public for the car he manufactured. Orders outran production. New buildings had been under construction, but before they were completed and equipped their added production was eaten up and the factory was no nearer to keeping supply abreast with demand than it had been in the beginning.

Lightener was forced to make contracts with other firms for parts of his cars. From one plant he contracted for bodies, from another for wheels. He urged Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, to increase their production of axles by ten thousand a year—and still dealers in all parts of the country wrote and telephoned and telegraphed for more cars—more cars.

Hitherto Lightener had made his own engines complete. From outside manufactories he could obtain the other essential parts, but his own production of engines held him back. The only solution for the present was to find some one to make engines to his specifications, and he turned to Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. Whatever might be said of the Foote methods, their antiquity, their lack of modern efficiency, they turned out work whose quality none might challenge— and Malcolm Lightener looked first to quality.

He reached his determination at noon, while he was eating his luncheon, and to Mrs. Lightener's amazement sprang up from the table and lunged out of the room without so much as a glance at her or a word of good-by. In some men of affairs this might not be remarkable, but in Malcolm Lightener it was remarkable. Granite he might be; crude in his manner, perhaps, more dynamic than comfortable, but in all the years of his married life he had never left the house without kissing his wife good-by.

He drove his runabout recklessly to his office, rushed into the engineering department, and snatched certain blue prints and specifications from the files. He knew costs down to the last bolt or washer on the machine he made, and it was the work of minutes only to determine what price he could afford to pay for the engines he wanted.

His runabout carried him to the entrance to Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, and he hurried up the stairs to the office.

"Mr. Foote in?" he snapped.

"Just returned, Mr. Lightener."

"Want to see him—right off—quick."

"Yes, sir."

The girl at the switchboard called Mr. Foote and informed him.

"He says to step right in, sir," she said, and before she was done speaking Lightener was on his way down the corridor.

Mr. Foote sat coldly behind his desk. He held no kindness for Malcolm Lightener, for Lightener had befriended Bonbright in his recalcitrancy. Lightener had made it possible for the boy to defy his father. Lightener's wife and daughter had openly waged society war against his wife in behalf of his son's wife.... But Mr. Foote was not the man to throw away an enormous and profitable business because of a personal grudge.

Lightener paused for no preliminaries.

"Foote," he said, "I want ten thousand engines complete. You can make 'em. You've got room to expand, and I can give you approximate figures on the costs. You make good axles and you can make good engines. What d'you think about it?"

Mr. Foote shrugged his shoulders. "It doesn't attract me."

"Huh!... You can have that plant up in six months. I'll give you a contract for five years. Two years' profits will pay for the plant. Don't know what your profits are now, but this ought to double them. ... Doesn't half a million a year extra profit make you think of anything?"

"Mr. Lightener, this business was originally a machine shop. It has grown and developed since the first Bonbright Foote founded it. I am the first to deviate in any measure from the original plan, and I have done so with doubt and reluctancy. I have seen with some regret the manufacturing of axles overshadow the original business—though it has been profitable, I admit. But I shall go no farther. I am not sure my father and my grandfather would approve of what I have done. I know they would not approve of other changes.... More money does not attract me. This plant is making enough for me. What I want is more leisure. I wish more time to devote to a certain literary labor upon which I have been engaged..."

"Literary flub-dub," said Lightener. "I'm offering you half a million a year on a silver platter."

"I don't want it, sir.... I am not a young man. I have not been in the best of health—owing, perhaps, to worries which I should not have been compelled to bear.... I am childless. With me Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, comes to an end. Upon my death these mills close, the business is to be liquidated and discontinued. Do I make myself clear?... I am not interested in your engines."

"What's that you said?" Lightener asked. "Childless? Wind up this business? You're crazy, man."

"I had a son, but I have one no longer.... In some measure I hold you responsible for that. You have taken sides with a disobedient son against his father..."

"And you've treated a mighty fine son like a dog," said Lightener, harshly.

"I have done my duty.... I do not care to discuss it with you. The fact I want to impress is that my family becomes extinct upon my death. My wife will be more than amply provided for. I may live ten years or twenty years—but I shall live them in such comfort as I can obtain.... Is there anything else you wish to talk to me about?"

It was a dismissal, and Malcolm Lightener was not used to being dismissed like a troublesome book agent.

"Yes," he said, getting to his feet. "There is something, and I'll be short and sweet about it. You have a son, and if I'm any judge, he's about four times the man his father is. You don't want him!... Well, I do. I want him in my business, and he won't lose such a lot by the change. It's your ledger that shows the loss, and don't you forget it. You did what you could to warp him out of shape—and because he wouldn't be warped you kicked him out. Maybe the family ends with you, but a new Foote family begins with him, and it won't be any cut- and-dried, ancestor-ridden outfit, either. One generation of his kind will be worth more to this country than the whole six of yours.... I hope you live to see it."

Lightener stuffed his blue prints and specifications into his pocket and left the office truculently. Once more in his own office he summoned a boy.

"Fetch Mr. Foote from the purchasing department," he said.

Malcolm Lightener was acting on impulse again. He had no clear idea why he had sent for Bonbright, nor just what he should say when the boy came—but he wanted to talk to him. Lightener was angry—angry because Bonbright's father had rejected his proposition to manufacture engines; more angry at the way Mr. Foote had spoken concerning his son. In the back of Lightener's mind was the thought that he would show a Foote.... Just what he would show him was not determined.

Bonbright came in. He was not the Bonbright of six months before. The boy in him was gone, never to return. He had lost none of his old look of breeding, of refinement, of blood—but he had lost that air which rich young men bear about with them. It is an air, not of carelessness, precisely, but of absence of care; a sort of nonchalance, bred of lack of responsibilities and of definite ambitions. It is an air that makes one think of them that they would fit better into the scenery of a country club or a game of golf than into an office where men strain their intelligence and their bodies to attain important aims. This was gone with his boyishness. In its place was an alertness, an awakeness, born of an interest in affairs. His eyes were the eyes of a man who concentrated much, and was keenly interested in the object of his concentration. His movements were quicker. He seemed to see and catalogue more of what was going on about him. If one had seen him then for the first time, the impression received would have been that here was a very busy young man who was worth watching. There was something aggressive about him. He looked competent.

One could not question that his new life had improved him, but it had not made him happy. It would be absurd to say that he looked sad. A boy of his age cannot look sad continually, unless sadness is a pose with him, which he is enjoying very much indeed. But Bonbright was no poser.... And he did not look happy. There were even times when there was a worn, haggard look about his eyes when he came down in the morning. This was when he had allowed himself to think too much.

"Just came from your father's office," said Lightener. "I offered him a chance to clean up half a million a year—and he turned it down... because his great-grandfather might not like it."

Bonbright understood perfectly. He knew how his father would do such a thing. Lightener's statement seemed to call for no reply, so he made none.

"I wanted to look at you," said Lightener, "to make sure you aren't anything like him.... But you ARE like him. You stand like him and you look like him—only you don't. If I thought you'd grow to think the way he does I'd send you to the cashier for your pay, in a second. But I don't believe it." He scowled at Bonbright. "No, by Jove! you don't LOOK it."

"I don't think father and I are much alike," said Bonbright, slowly.

Lightener switched the subject. "You ought to know considerable about this business. Been here six months. From what I hear you've picked up quite a lot outside of office hours."

"I've been studying hard. It gave me something to do."

"Darn it all, why couldn't you and Hilda have taken to each other!..." Lightener stopped, and stared at his desk. Perhaps it was not too late yet. Bonbright's marriage had been no success; Bonbright was young; and it was not thinkable that he would not recover from that wound in time to marry again. Of course he would.... Then why should he not marry Hilda? Not the least reason in the world. In the affair Bonbright was guiltless—merely unfortunate. The thing was worth bearing in mind. Perhaps something might be done; at any rate, he would talk it over with his wife.

"I want you to put in another six months learning this business," he said. "If you pan out I'll have a job for you.... I haven't heard of your falling down any place yet.... Know what I told your father? He said the Foote family ended with him—became extinct. Well, I said the family just started with you, and that one generation of your kind was worth the whole six of his. And I hoped he lived to see it."

"Somehow I can't feel very hard toward father, Mr. Lightener. Sometimes I'm—sorry for him. To him it's as bad as if I'd been born with a hunchback. Worse, maybe, because, hunchback and all, I might have been the sort he wanted.... He doesn't understand, that's it. I can understand him—so I don't have any hard feelings-except on HER account.... He said the family was extinct?"

"Yes."

"I guess it is," said Bonbright. "The family, as he thought of it, meant something that went on and on as he and his ancestors went.... Yes, it's extinct. I don't know why I was different from them, but I was. Always. I'm glad."

"He must be worth five millions, anyhow, maybe more."

"I don't know," said Bonbright.

"You won't get a cent of it, from what he says."

"I suppose not.... No, I won't get a cent."

"You don't make much fuss about it."

"I had that out with myself six months ago. It was hard to give it up.... Nobody wants to be poor when he can be rich. If it hadn't been for Ruth I suppose I should have been there yet—pretty well made over to fit by this time."

As Bonbright and Malcolm Lightener talked, Mr. Foote sat in his office, his head upon his desk, one arm stretched out across the blotter, the other shielding his face. He did not move....

After Malcolm Lightener left the room he had sat for a time staring at the door. He did not feel well. He was troubled. None but himself knew how deep was his disappointment, his bitterness, because of his son's failure to stand true to his type. It was not the grief of a father at the loss of a son; it was the suffering of a man whose supreme motive is the carrying on of family and of family traditions. He had just told Lightener the family became extinct with his passing. Now he reaffirmed it, and, reaffirming it, he felt the agony of ultimate affliction.

Six generations the family and the family's business had endured honorably according to its beliefs and tenets; with the sixth generation it ended because of the way-wardness of a boy—his boy!

Mr. Foote felt a trifle dizzy, a bit oppressed. He leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. He would go home for the day as soon as the dizziness passed, he said to himself.... It passed. He opened his eyes and leaned toward his desk, but he stopped suddenly, his right hand flying to his breast. There was a sudden pain there; such a pain as he had never experienced before. It was near his heart. With each heartbeat there came a twisting stab of agony. Presently the spasm passed, and he sank back, pale, shaking, his forehead damp with clammy moisture.... He tried to pull himself together. Perhaps it would be best to summon some one, but he did not want to do that. To have an employee find him so would be an invasion of his dignity. Nobody must see him. Nobody must know about this....

The spasm returned-departed again, leaving him gasping for breath. ... It would come again. Something told him it would come again-once more. He KNEW.... A third time it would come, but never again.

He forced himself to rise. He would meet it standing. For the honor of the Foote family he would meet it on his feet, looking into its eyes. He would not shrink and cringe from it, but would face it with dignity as a Foote should face it, uttering no cry of pain or fear. It was a dignified moment, the most dignified and awful of his life. ... Five generations were looking on to see how he met it, and he was conscious of their eyes. He stared before him with level eyes, forcing a smile, and waited the seconds there remained to wait.

It was coming. He could feel its first approach, and drew himself up to the fullness of his slender height. Never had he looked so much a Foote as in that instant, never had he so nearly approached the ideal he had set for himself—for he knew.

The spasm came, but it tore no cry from him. He stood erect, with eyes that stared straight before him fearlessly until they became sightless. He held his head erect proudly.... Then he sighed, relaxed into his chair, and lay across his desk, one arm outstretched, the other protecting his face....

The telephone on Malcolm Lightener's desk rang.

"Hello!" said Lightener. "What is it? Who?... Yes, he's right here." He looked up to Bonbright. "Somebody wants to speak to you."

Bonbright stepped to the instrument. "Yes," he said, "this is Bonbright Foote.... Who is it? Rangar?..." Suddenly he turned about and faced Malcolm Lightener blankly. He fumbled with the receiver for its hook. "My father is dead," he said, in a hushed voice. "They just found him—at his desk...."



CHAPTER XXVIII

Ruth had continued to live in the apartment. It had not been her intention to do so. From the moment of reading Bonbright's succinct note she was determined to go back to the little cottage and to her mother. But she put it off for a day, then for another day, and days grew into weeks and months. "To-morrow I'll move," she told herself each night, but next day she was no nearer to uprooting herself than she had been the day before.

She gave herself no reasons for remaining. If she had been asked for a reason she might have said it was because Dulac still boarded with her mother. He had not left the city with the breaking of the strike, but had remained. He had remained because he had asked the union he represented to let him remain and had been able to show them reasons for granting his request. He wanted to stay on the ground to work quietly underground, undoing the harm that had been done by the strike; quietly proselyting, preaching his gospel, gaining strength day by day, until he should have reared an organization capable of striking again. The courage of the man was unquenchable.... And he wanted to be near Ruth. Just as he had set his will to force Bonbright Foote, Incorporated, to bow to the will of the men, so he had set his will to force Ruth to bow to his will.... So he remained and labored.

But his presence at her mother's was not the real reason that impelled Ruth to continue in the home Bonbright had made for her. It was something more intangible. She found the thought of leaving that spot unendurable, but she did not, dared not, seek in her heart for what made it unendurable.

For a week she scarcely ventured outside the door; then the loneliness, the lack of occupation, drove her out. She must be busy, for when she sat idly in a room her thoughts became torture. There were many sides to her affliction. First in her mind she placed the failure of her great project. She had wrecked her life for it without accomplishment. Second in the rank of her griefs stood the fact that she had been on the point of giving herself to Dulac. She would have gone with him, disregarding convention, breaking her vows of marriage. For that she despised herself... despised herself the more because she knew now that she did not love Dulac, that she had never loved Dulac. That discovery had shocked and shaken her, and when she thought of what might have happened if she had gone with him a numbness of horror crept over her, leaving her cold and trembling. ... She would have gone, and she did not love him. She would not have known she did not love him until it was too late to draw back... and then she would have lived, but her soul would have died!

She accused herself bitterly for mistaking glamour for love. She knew now that Dulac had called from her nothing deeper than a foolish, girlish fascination. His personality, his work, his enthusiasm had enmeshed her, blinded her—and she had mistaken her feelings for love! Of this she was certain.... There were moments when she felt she must tell Bonbright. Once she actually took writing materials to do so, but she did not tell him.... She wanted him to know, because, she thought, it would be a sort of vindication in his eyes. But she was wrong. She wanted him to know for quite another reason than that.

Third in the order of her griefs was the consciousness that she had caused Bonbright grief. She dealt ungently with herself because of it, for Bonbright had not deserved it at her hands. She could appreciate how good he had been to her, how solicitous, how patient, how tender. If a man ever deserved well of a woman, he deserved it. She told herself that a hundred times daily. She remembered small thoughtfulnesses which had been a part of his daily conduct to her. She recalled small forbearances. She pictured to herself the life they had lived together, and saw how it was only the character of her husband that had made it possible at all.... And in the end he had not uttered one word of censure; had not even looked at her with just anger.... There had been no pretense about him, no labored effort to be kind. He had simply been himself.

These were her thoughts; this is how she remembered him....

The house was unbearably lonely. As evening approached she found herself more than once listening for Bonbright's step on the stairs and his hand on the door.... At such times she cried. She puzzled herself. She did not understand why she should be so lonely, nor why the expectation of Bonbright's step—with quick awakening to the knowledge that no foot of his would ever sound at her door again— should bring her tears.... She knew she should have been glad, relieved. With Bonbright she had lived in daily dread. She had not loved him, and the fear that his restraint would break, that he would force his love upon her, had made her days a ghastly dream.... She should be crying out with the joy and relief of his removal. But she felt no relief, felt no joy.... She could not understand it.

If Hilda Lightener, who came often and stayed long, had asked her if she missed Bonbright or were lonely without him, she would have denied it hotly. But Hilda did not ask.... Ruth did not ask that question of herself. She knew she was lonely, miserable, and she thought she knew why—but Bonbright's absence had nothing to do with it.

Hilda watched, she did not talk about Bonbright, for she saw her task was to help Ruth over these first few days. Her suspicions were her own, but, being a woman, she understood the baffling psychology of another woman and what harm a premature word might work.... If the thing she believed were true, then time would bring its realization to Ruth. Ruth must discover the truth for herself....

"I can't stand this," Ruth said one evening. "I can't bear to stay here alone in these rooms. If there were work enough to keep me busy —but there's nothing."

"If you'd only go the places I ask you to," said Hilda.

"I don't want to meet people—your sort of people. They must know what has happened.... I couldn't have them looking at me with their catty, curious eyes."

"Most of them would be very kind," Hilda said.

"No.... I'm going to work. I'm going to find a place and work...."

"But—" Hilda wondered what Bonbright would think of that. She imagined he would not like it.

"I know what you were going to say. He wouldn't want me to. Maybe he wouldn't—but if he knew he'd let me do it. I tell you I've got to, Hilda."

"You've got to decide for yourself," Hilda admitted, so Ruth became a job hunter, and because intelligent stenographers are by no means as plentiful as daisies in a July field, she was not long in finding employment.... From that day life was easier. She found her wages were ample to support herself and pay the rent of her apartment. Ample, in that they sufficed. There was no surplus. So she folded and put away the weekly checks she received from Bonbright. She did not send them back to him because, to her mind, that would have been a weekly slap in his face. But she would not cash them. There was a difference to her; probably there was a real difference.

Of a Sunday Ruth often went driving with Hilda, and Hilda noticed how closely her companion watched the sidewalks, how she scrutinized the passing crowds. It was as though Ruth were trying to catch sight of somebody.... While daylight lasted Hilda saw that Ruth was drawn to her windows to sit looking down at the street. Once Hilda ventured dangerously.

"Why do you always sit there watching folks go by?" she asked.

Ruth turned and looked at her strangely. "I—why, I don't know," she said.

Of herself Ruth rarely mentioned Bonbright; never unless in some recollection of him, or if Hilda meddled with some portion of the household that had been peculiarly Bonbright's. As, for instance:

"Why don't you move that leather chair out of the other bedroom?" Hilda asked. "It's doing no good there and it looks mighty comfortable."

"That was HIS chair," Ruth said, quickly. "He used to sit there and read after—after I had gone to bed."

Once Ruth asked for news of Bonbright. After that Hilda brought her news voluntarily. Not too frequently, but often enough according to her notion. Betweentimes she gave Ruth plenty of time to wonder what was happening to her husband. Ruth knew Hilda saw him often. She wondered if they talked about her, and what they said, but that she never asked, nor did Hilda refer to such conversations. Indeed, these were few and sparing, for Bonbright could not be made to talk about his wife—even to her. But she gave Bonbright news of Ruth just as she gave Ruth news of Bonbright.

Sometimes Hilda tormented Ruth with set purpose.

"Bonbright looks mighty thin," she said. "I think he's working too hard. If he keeps it up he'll make himself sick."

"Oh..." said Ruth—nothing more, but for the rest of that Sunday she was quiet—very quiet.

Once Hilda found Ruth in a passion of tears, and when she sought the reason she learned that Ruth had met Dulac on the street, face to face, and that he had spoken to her. He had told Ruth that he was staying in the city because of her; that he would not go without her. ... He had been careless of listening ears, not concealing his emotions.

"Well, he didn't hurt you, did he?"

"No," said Ruth.

"You weren't afraid of him?"

"No."

"You—didn't want to go away with him?"

"No.... No...."

"Then what are you making all the fuss about? He can't carry you off"

'HE might have seen us together," said Ruth. "And—and it made me— remember—that horrid afternoon."

"What if Bonbright did see you together? Don't you suppose Bonbright thinks you are seeing him? Of course he does. What else would he think? Naturally he supposes you are going to have your divorce when the year is up, and marry Mr. Dulac." Hilda was merciless.

"Does he think that? Are you sure?"

Hilda shrugged her shoulders.

"He mustn't think it," Ruth said, affrightedly. "Why, he—If he thought that—"

"If he thought that—what?"

Ruth bit her lips and turned away. "Nothing," she said. Then: "Can't you let him know?... Not tell him, you know, but—sort of let him understand."

"If I can see a good chance," Hilda said; but in her mind was the resolution that she would never see the chance.

"Does he—seem cheerful?" Ruth asked. "It's been quite a long time now—months.... He—must have gotten over—caring for me now. Do you think so?" Her voice was anxious, pleading.

Hilda could not hold out against that appeal. "No, silly, he hasn't. He isn't that sort.... It's too bad."

"Yes—it's too bad," said Ruth, but it was not sympathy that put the tiny thrill into her voice.

"He's just a boy.... He can't go on all his life loving a girl that doesn't want him. Some day he's going to fall in love again. It's natural he should."

"Has he—Do you think—"

"No, I haven't seen any signs of it yet.... And I'd be jealous if he did. I think I could manage to fall in love with him myself if—"

"—he wasn't tied to me," interrupted Ruth, with a little whimper. "I—I wish he knew—about Mr. Dulac.... He wouldn't think so—hard of me, maybe... if he knew I didn't—never did—love Mr. Dulac...."

"The only thing that would make any difference to him would be to know that you loved him," said Hilda.

Ruth had no answer, but she was saying to herself, with a sort of secret surprise: "If I loved him.... If I loved him...." Presently she spoke aloud: "You won't be angry with me, Hilda?... You won't misunderstand, but—but won't you please—go away?... Please.... I— I don't want to see anybody. I want to be alone."

"Well, of all things!" said Hilda. But she was not offended. Her resemblance to her father was very faint indeed, at that moment. She looked more like her mother, softer, more motherly. She put on her hat and went away quietly. "Poor Bonbright!" she was thinking. Then: "It's come to her.... She's got a hint of it. It will come now with a rush...."

Ruth sat in her chair without movement. "If I loved him..." she said, aloud, and then repeated it, "... loved him...." She was questioning herself now, asking herself the meaning of things, of why she had been lonely, of why she had sat in her window peering down into the street—and she found the answer. As Hilda had said in her thoughts, it was coming with a rush.... She was frightened by it, dared not admit it.... She dared not admit that the biggest, weightiest of her woes was that she no longer had Bonbright with her; that she was lonesome for him; that her heart had been crying out for him; that she loved him! She dared not admit that. It would be too bitter, too ironically bitter.... If she loved him now she had loved him then! Was her life to be filled with such ironies—? Was she forever to eat of Dead Sea fruit?

Did she love Bonbright? At last she dared to put the question squarely.... Her answer came quickly. "Oh, I do... I do!" she cried, aloud. "I love him...." A surge of happiness welled up from her heart at the words. "I love him," she repeated, to hear the sound of them again.

The happiness was of short life. "I love him—but it's too late.... It's always too late," she sobbed. "I've lost him.... He's gone. ..."

The girl who could give herself to a man she did not love for the Cause was not weak; she did not lack resolution, nor did she lack the sublimity of soul which is the heritage of women. She had lost her happiness; she had wrecked her life, and until this moment there seemed no possibility of recovering anything from the wreckage.... But she loved.... There was a foundation to build from. If she had been weak, a waverer, no structure could have risen on the foundation; it must have lain futile, accusing. But there was strength in her, humility, a will that would dare much, suffer much, to fight its way to peace.

"If he loves me still," she thought; and there hope was born.

"If I go to him.... If I tell him—everything?" she asked herself, and in asking made her resolution. She would venture, she would dare, for her happiness and for his. She would go, and she would say: "Bonbright, I love you.... I have never loved anybody but you.... You must believe me." He would believe her, she knew. There was no reason why he should not believe her. There was nothing for her to gain now by another lie. "I'll make him believe," she said, and smiled and cried and smiled again. "Hilda will tell me where he lives and I'll go to him—now...."

At that instant Hilda was coming to her, was on the stairs, and Hilda looked grave, troubled. She walked slowly up the stairs and rapped on the door. "Ruth," she called, "it's Hilda.... May I come in now?"

Ruth ran to the door and threw it open. "Come in.... Come in." Her voice was a song. "Oh, Hilda..."

"Honey," said Hilda, holding her at arm's length, '-his father is dead. They found him dead just after noon...."

"Oh!..." said Ruth. It was an instant before the full significance of this news was shown to her. Then she clutched Hilda with terror- stricken fingers. "No.... No!..." she cried. "It can't be.... It mustn't be...."

"Why—what is it? I—I didn't think you'd take it like this...."

"I love him.... I love Bonbright," Ruth said, in a blank, dead voice. "I was going to him.... I was going to tell him... and he would have believed. But now—-he wouldn't believe. He would think I came—because his father was dead—because he—he was what I thought he was when I married him.... Don't you see? He'd think I was coming to him for the same reason.... He'd think I was willing to give myself to him—for that...."

Hilda took the slight form in her arms and rocked her to and fro, while she thought.... "Yes," she said, sorrowfully, "you can't go to him now.... It would look—oh, why couldn't his father have made a will, as he was going to?... If he'd left his old money to charity or something.... We thought he had.... But there has been no will. Everything is Bonbright's...."

"I'm always—too—late..." Ruth said, quietly.



CHAPTER XXIX

Bonbright was in his own home again—in the house that had been his father's, and that was now his. He stood in the room that had been his since babyhood. He had not thought to stand there again, nor did he know that the room and the house were his own. He had come from the shops but a half hour before; had come from that room where his father lay across his desk, one arm outstretched, the other shielding his face. There had been no time to think then; no time to realize. ... What thought had come to him was one of wonder that the death of his father could mean so little to him. Shock he felt, but not grief. He had not loved his father. Yet a father is a vital thing in a son's life. Bonbright felt this. He knew that the departing of a father should stand as one of the milestones of life, marking a great change. It marked no change for him. Everything would go on as it had gone—even on the material side. It was inevitable that he should remember his father's threat to disinherit him. Now the thing had come—and it made little difference, for Bonbright had laid out his life along lines of his own.... His father would be carried to the grave, would disappear from the scene—that was all.

He saw that the things were done which had to be done, and went home to his mother, dreading the meeting. He need not have dreaded it, for she met him with no signs of grief. If she felt grief she hid it well. She was calm, stately, grave—but her eyes were not red with weeping nor was her face drawn with woe. He wondered if his father meant as little to his father's wife as it did to his father's son. It seemed so. There had been no affectionate passage between Bonbright and his mother. She had not unbent to him. He had hardly expected her to, though he had been prepared to respond....

Now he was in his room with time to think—and there was strangely little to think of. He had covered the ground already. His father was dead. When Bonbright uttered that sentence he had covered the episode completely. That was it—it was an EPISODE.

A servant came to the door.

"Mr. Richmond wishes to speak with you on the phone, Mr. Bonbright," the man said, and Bonbright walked to the instrument. Richmond had been his father's counsel for many years.

"Bonbright?" asked Mr. Richmond.

"Yes."

"I have just had the news. I am shocked. It is a terrible thing."

"Yes," said Bonbright.

"I will come up at once—if you can see me. The death of a man like your father entails certain consequences which cannot be considered too soon. May I come?"

"If you think it is necessary," said Bonbright.

"It is necessary," said Mr. Richmond.

In twenty minutes Richmond was announced and Bonbright went to meet him in the library. Richmond extended his hand with the appropriate bearing for such an occasion. His handshake was a perfect thing, studied, rehearsed, just as all his life was studied and rehearsed. He had in stock a manner and a handshake and a demeanor which could be instantly taken off the shelf and used for any situation which might arise. Richmond was a ready man, an able man. On the whole, he was a good man, as men go, but cut and dried.

"Your father was a notable man," he declared. "He will be missed."

Bonbright bowed.

"There will be a great deal for you to look after," said the lawyer, "so I will be brief. The mass of detail can wait—until after—er— until you have more leisure."

"I think, Mr. Richmond, it is my mother you wish to see, not myself. I thought you would understand my position. I am surprised that you do not, since you have been so close to my father.... My father and I did not agree on matters which both of us considered vital. There were differences which could not be abridged. So I am here merely as his son, not as his successor in any way."

"I don't understand."

"My father," said Bonbright, with a trace of impatience, "disowned me, and—disinherited, I believe, is the word—disinherited me."

"Oh no! No!... Indeed no! You are laboring under a misapprehension. ... You are mistaken. I am glad to be able to relieve your mind on that point. Nothing of the sort was done. I am in a position to know. ... I will admit your father discussed such action, but the matter went no farther. Perhaps it was his intention to do as you say, but he put it off.... He seemed to have a prejudice against making a will. As a matter of fact, he died intestate..."

"You mean—"

"I mean that your father's wealth—and it was considerable, sir—will be disposed of according to the statutes of Descent and Distribution. In other words, having failed to dispose of his property by testament, the law directs its disposition. With the exception of certain dower rights the whole vests in yourself."

Here was something to think of. Here was a new and astounding set of circumstances to which he must adapt himself.... He experienced no leap of exultation. The news left him cold. Queerly, his thoughts in that moment were of Ruth and of her great plan.

"If she had waited..." he thought.

No, he was glad she had not waited. He did not want her that way.... It was not her he wanted, but her love. He thought bitterly that he would willingly exchange all that had become his for that one possession. He could have anything—everything—he wanted now but that....

"I am glad to be able to give you such news," said Mr. Richmond.

"I was thinking of something else," said Bonbright.

Richmond looked at the young man obliquely. He had heard that Bonbright was queer. This rumor seemed not without foundation. Richmond could not comprehend how a young man could think of anything else when he had just learned that he was several tunes a millionaire.

"Sit down," said Bonbright. "This, of course, makes a difference."

Richmond seated himself, and drew documents from his green bag. For half an hour he discussed the legal aspects of the situation and explained to Bonbright what steps must be taken at once.

"I think that is all that will be necessary to-day," he said, finally.

"Very well.... There is no reason why affairs may not go on for a couple of days as they are—as if father were alive?"

"No, I see no reason why they should not."

"Very well, then.... Will you see to it? The—the funeral will be on Saturday. Monday I shall be in the office."

"I hope you will call upon me for any assistance or advice you find necessary.... Or for any service of whatsoever nature.... Good afternoon.... Will you convey my sympathy to Mrs. Foote?"

The rest of that day, and of the days that followed it, Bonbright was trying to find the answer to the question, What does this mean to me? and to its companion question, What shall I do with it?

One paper Richmond had left in Bonbright's hands, as Richmond's predecessors had left it in the hands of preceding Bonbright Footes. It was a copy of the will of the first Bonbright Foote, and the basic law, a sort of Salic law, a family pragmatic sanction for his descendants, through time and eternity. It laid upon his descendants the weight of his will with respect to the conduct of the business of Bonbright Foote, Incorporated. Five generations had followed it faithfully, deviating only as new conditions made deviation necessary. It was all there, all set forth minutely. Bonbright could visualize that first of his line from the reading of it—and he could visualize his father. His father was the sort of man that will would create.... He considered himself. He was not off that piece....

His father had tried to press him in the family mold, and he remembered those unbearable days. Now, from his remote grave the first Bonbright Foote reached out with the same mold and laid his hands on the hope of the line.... Bonbright read the words many times. His was the choice to obey or to disobey, to remain an individual, distinct and separate from all other individuals since the world began, or to become the sixth reincarnation of Bonbright Foote I.... The day following his father's burial he chose, not rashly in haste, nor without studied reason. To others the decision might not have seemed momentous; to Bonbright it was epoch-marking. It did mark an epoch in the history of the Foote family. It was the Family's French Revolution. It was Martin Luther throwing his inkpot at the devil—and overturning the ages.

Bonbright's decision required physical expression. Most human decisions require physical expression to give them effect. He had a feeling as though six disembodied Bonbright Footes stood about in an agony of anxiety, watching to see what he would do as he took the emblematical paper in his hands. He tore it very slowly, tore it again and again into ribbons and into squares, and let them flutter into his wastebasket.... If others had been present to assert that they heard a groan he would not have denied it, for the ancestors were very real to him then... their presence was a definite fact.

"There..." he said. The king was dead. Long live the king!

It was after that he had his talk with his mother. Perhaps he was abrupt, but he dreaded that talk. Perhaps his diplomacy was faulty or lacking. Perhaps he made mistakes and failed to rise to the requirements of the conditions and of his relationship with her. He did his best.

"Mother," he said, "we must talk things over."

She sat silently, waiting for him to speak.

"Whatever you wish," he said, "I shall do... if I can."

"There is a qualification?" she said.

"Suppose you tell me what you want done," he said.

"I want you to come to your senses and realize your position," she said, coldly. "I want you to get rid of that woman and, after a decent interval, marry some suitable girl...."

"I was discussing your affairs, mother, not mine. We will not refer to my wife."

"All I want," she said, "is what I am entitled to as your father's widow."

"This house, of course," he said. "You will want to stay here. I want you to stay here."

"And you?"

"I prefer to live as I am."

"You mean you do not care to come back here?"

"Yes."

"You must. I insist upon it. You have caused scandal enough now.... People would talk."

"Mother, we might as well understand each other at once. I am not Bonbright Foote VII. Let that be clear. I am Bonbright Foote. I am myself, an individual. The old way of doing things is gone.... Perhaps you have heard of the family law—the first Bonbright's will. ... I have just torn it up."

She compressed her lips and regarded him with hostility. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

"I suppose I must make the best of it. I realize I am powerless." She realized it fully in that moment; realized that her son was a man, a man with force and a will, and that it would be hopeless to try to bring him to submit to her influence. "There is nothing for us to discuss. I shall ask for what I need...."

"Very well," he said, not coldly, not sharply, but sorrowfully. There was no need to try to approach nearer to his mother. She did not desire it. In her the motherly instinct did not appear. She had never given birth to a son; what she had done was to provide her husband with an heir, and, that being done, she was finished with the affair. ...

He went from his mother to his own room, where he sat down at his desk and wrote a brief letter to his wife. It was not so difficult to compose as the other one had been, but it was equally succinct, equally barren of emotion. Yet he was not barren of emotion as he wrote it.

MY DEAR RUTH [he said],-My father is dead. This makes a very material change in my financial condition, and the weekly sum I have been sending you becomes inadequate. Hereafter a suitable check will be mailed you each week until the year expires. At that time I shall make a settlement upon you which will be perfectly satisfactory. In the meantime, should you require anything, you have but to notify me, or, if you prefer, notify Mr. Manley Richmond, who will attend to it immediately.

This letter he mailed himself.... Not many days later it was returned to him with "Not Found" stamped upon it in red ink. Bonbright fancied there must be some error, so he sent it again by messenger. The boy returned to report that the apartment was vacant and that no one could furnish the present address of the lady who had occupied it. Bonbright sent to Ruth's mother, who could only inform him that Ruth had gone away, she did not know where, and such goings- on she never saw, and why she should be asked to bear more than she had borne was a mystery..—

There was but one conclusion for Bonbright. Ruth had been too impatient to wait for the year to expire and had gone away with Dulac....

Hilda could have corrected that belief, but he did not see Hilda, had not seen her, for his new duties and new problems and responsibilities occupied him many more hours a day than any labor union or legislature would have permitted an employee to be required to work. His hours of labor did not stop with the eighth nor with the tenth.... There were days when they began with daylight and continued almost to daylight again.

Ruth had gone with Dulac.... She was hidden away. Not even Hilda Lightener knew where she was, but Hilda knew why she had gone.... There is an instinct in most animals and some humans which compels them to hide away when they suffer wounds. Hilda knew Ruth had crept away because she had suffered the hardest to bear of all wounds—and crushing of hope....

She had gone the morning after Bonbright's father died, leaving no word but that she was going, and she had not gone far. It is simple to lose oneself in a city. One may merely move to the next ward and be lost to one's friends. Only chance will cause a meeting, and Ruth was determined to guard against that chance.

She found a cheap, decent boarding house, among laboring people; she found a new position... that was all. She had to live; to continue was required of her, but it must be among strangers. She could face existence where there were no pitying eyes; where there was none to remind her of her husband.... She hid away with her love, and coddled it and held it up for herself to see. She lived for it. It was her life.... Even at her darkest moment she was glad she loved. She devoted herself wholly to that love which had been discovered just too late—which was not the wise nor the healthful thing to do, as any physician could have informed her.