ZELDA DAMERON


[Illustration: _Zelda_]




  ZELDA
  DAMERON

  _By_
  MEREDITH NICHOLSON
  Author of The Main Chance

  _With Drawings by_
  JOHN CECIL CLAY

  INDIANAPOLIS
  THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
  PUBLISHERS




  COPYRIGHT 1904
  THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

  OCTOBER


  PRESS OF
  BRAUNWORTH & CO.
  BROOKLYN, N. Y.




  To the Memory of
  My Father,
  A Captain of Volunteers
  In the Great War




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                     PAGE

       I THE RETURN OF ZELDA DAMERON             1

      II OLD, UNHAPPY, FAR-OFF THINGS           20

     III ZELDA RECEIVES A VISITOR               33

      IV MR. MERRIAM MAKES SUGGESTIONS          40

       V A POLITE REQUEST FOR MONEY             54

      VI THE LOBSTER                            60

     VII A PRAYER FOR DIVINE GRACE              73

    VIII OLIVE MERRIAM                          80

      IX A NICE LITTLE FELLOW                   96

       X THE RIVER ROAD                        104

      XI OVERHEARD BY EZRA DAMERON             113

     XII JACK BALCOMB’S PLEASANT WAYS          121

    XIII A REHEARSAL OF “DECEIVERS EVER”       136

     XIV AN ATTACK OF SORE THROAT              146

      XV J. ARTHUR BALCOMB RETREATS            157

     XVI IN OLIVE’S KITCHEN                    170

    XVII DAMERON BLOCK, 1870                   177

   XVIII ZELDA LIFTS A BURDEN                  189

     XIX THE PATOKA FLATS                      205

      XX TWO GENTLEMEN BECOME ACQUAINTED       214

     XXI “I BELIEVE I’M IN LOVE”               224

    XXII RODNEY MERRIAM EXPLAINS               233

   XXIII BRIGHTER VISTAS                       245

    XXIV ONLY ABOUT DREAMS                     255

     XXV A NEW ATTITUDE                        273

    XXVI AN AUGUST NIGHT ADVENTURE             286

   XXVII MR. BALCOMB’S EASY CONSCIENCE         295

  XXVIII AMICABLE INTERVIEWS                   310

    XXIX ZELDA FACES A CRISIS                  323

     XXX “I WISH YOU WOULD NOT LIE TO ME”      333

    XXXI FACE TO FACE                          343

   XXXII IN SEMINARY SQUARE                    355

  XXXIII THE FIRST OF OCTOBER                  364

   XXXIV A NEW UNDERSTANDING                   375

    XXXV A SETTLING OF ACCOUNTS                390

   XXXVI WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE                 400




ZELDA DAMERON




ZELDA DAMERON




CHAPTER I

THE RETURN OF ZELDA DAMERON

“She’s like Margaret; she’s really one of us,” remarked Mrs. Forrest to
her brother. “She carries herself as Margaret did in her girlhood, and
she’s dark, as we all are.”

“I hope she’s escaped the Dameron traits; they’re unattractive,” said
Rodney Merriam. “She’s taller than Margaret; but Margaret was bent at
the last,--bent but not quite broken.”

Mrs. Forrest and Zelda Dameron, her niece, who were just home from a
five years’ absence abroad, had, so to speak, stepped directly from
the train into Mrs. Carr’s drawing-room. The place was full of women,
old and young, and their animated talk blended in a great murmur,
against which the notes of a few stringed instruments in the hall above
struggled bravely.

Mrs. Carr was forcing the season a trifle--it was near the end of
September--but the dean of a famous college for women had come to
town unexpectedly, and it was not Mrs. Carr’s way to let heat or cold
interfere with her social inclinations. Mrs. Forrest and her brother
had ceased talking to watch their niece. The girl’s profile was
turned to them, and the old gentleman noted the good points of her
face and figure. She was talking to several other girls, and it seemed
to him that they showed her a deference. Mrs. Forrest was eager for
her brother’s approval, and Rodney Merriam was anxious to be pleased;
for the girl was of his own blood, and there were reasons why her
home-coming was of particular interest to him.

Rodney Merriam was annoyed to find that he must raise his voice to
make his sister hear him, and he frowned; but there was a quaver about
his lips and a gentle look in his black eyes. He was a handsome old
gentleman, still erect and alert at sixty. His air of finish and repose
seemed alien, and he was, indeed, a departure from the common types of
the Ohio Valley. Yet Rodney Merriam was born within five minutes’ walk
of where he stood.

Zelda turned from her companions suddenly, followed by their laughter
at something she had been describing. She crossed swiftly to her uncle
with a happy exclamation:

“This is indeed an occasion! Behold my long-lost uncle!” She seized his
hands eagerly. “We mustn’t be introduced; but you’d never know me!”

She looked at him admiringly. Their eyes met almost at a level and the
eyes were very like.

“I’m afraid that is so! And you are Zelda--our little Zee!”

“Quite that! We must be acquainted! Perhaps we shall be friends, who
knows? Aunt Julia promised to arrange it,--and I’m not used to being
disappointed.”

Zelda was a name that had been adopted in the Merriam family long ago,
though no one knew exactly how. Now and then some one sought in the
Bible for light on the significance of the name and sought in vain;
but there always remained for such the consoling reflection that Zelda
sounded like the Old Testament anyhow. Zelda Dameron’s grandmother
Merriam, for whom she was named, had always been called Zee. There
had been something abrupt and inadvertent about Mrs. Merriam that
the single syllable seemed to express. A great many people had never
known that old Roger Merriam’s wife’s name was Zelda, so generally was
Zee applied to her even in her old age. And in like manner the same
abbreviation was well adapted to the definition and description of her
granddaughter. Margaret Dameron’s child had been called Little Zee
while her grandmother lived, and until her aunt had taken her away; and
now, on her reappearance in Mariona, she was quite naturally spoken of
as Zee Dameron, which seemed appropriate and adequate.

Her voice was unusually deep, but it was clear and sweet. She was
very dark, like themselves, as Mrs. Forrest had said. There was a
wistfulness in the girl’s eyes that touched Rodney Merriam by the
suggestion of her dead mother, the sister that had been the pride of
the Merriams. Mrs. Forrest watched her brother curiously. She had
speculated much about this meeting, and had planned it for her own
house. But her brother had been away from town on her arrival a week
before. Rodney Merriam was away from home a great deal; his comings
and goings were always unexpected. He had reached Mariona at noon from
a trip into Canada, and had gone to Mrs. Carr’s in pursuit of his
sister. Mrs. Forrest understood perfectly that her brother had come to
Mrs. Carr’s tea chiefly that he might casually, and without apparent
interest, inspect his niece. He was a Merriam, and the Merriams did
things differently, as every one in Mariona knew. Rodney Merriam was
wary of entanglements with his relatives; he had broken with most of
them, and he did not intend to be bored by any new ones if he could
help it. He and Mrs. Forrest were, it was said in Mariona, the only
Merriams who could safely be asked to the same table, or who were not
likely to cause embarrassment if they met anywhere. He had not spoken
to Ezra Dameron, Zelda’s father, for ten years, and the name Dameron
was an offense in his nostrils; but the girl was clearly a Merriam; she
was the child of his favorite sister, and he hoped it would be possible
to like her.

“Yes, we shall be friends--much more than friends,” he said kindly.

“You must come and see me; Aunt Julia has graduated me, and I’m back on
my native heath to stay. I shall come to see you. I used to like your
house very much, Uncle Rodney. It’s a trifle austere, as I remember,
but we can change all that.”

There was a subdued mirth in her that pleased him; it had been a
conclusion of his later years that young girls lacked spirit and humor;
they were dull and formal, and talked inanely to old people. Zelda
promised better things, and he was relieved.

“Come and tell me what you have learned in distant lands,--and I’ll
tell you what to forget! I’m not sure that your Aunt Julia has been a
safe preceptress. And as you’re going to live in Mariona I must, as the
saying is, ‘put you on’.”

“That isn’t right. You should say, ‘put you next,’--a young American
told me so in Paris.”

“Maybe my slang isn’t up to date. I’ll accept the Paris amendment. Was
the young man handsome?”

“Not very. He was introducing threshing machines into France. Can you
imagine Millet doing an American thresher with cowed peasants grouped
about it? How perfectly impossible it would be, _mon oncle_!”

Teas in Mariona were essentially feminine, but a few young men had
appeared, and one of them now came toward the trio.

“Here’s Morris Leighton; I want you to know him, Zee,” said Rodney
Merriam.

Merriam greeted the young man cordially, and said as he introduced him:

“Mr. Leighton’s getting to be an old citizen, Julia. It isn’t his fault
if you don’t know him.”

“I don’t know any one any more,” said Mrs. Forrest, plaintively. “I’ve
been away so much. But I’m going to stay at home now. They say the
malaria isn’t troublesome in Indiana any more.”

“Not half as bad as in your chosen Italy,” her brother answered.

“And it doesn’t seem new here at all,--the buildings down-town really
look old,” said Zelda.

“The town’s old enough; it’s ancient; it’s older even than I am!”

“He’s very young to be an uncle,” declared Leighton. “He’s really the
youngest man we have. If you’re the long-exiled niece, I must confess
my amazement, Miss Dameron. I had the impression that you weren’t grown
up.”

“That wasn’t fair, Uncle Rodney. You ought to have prepared the way for
me better than that.”

“You’ll do very well for yourself. I’ll walk down with you when you go,
Morris.”

Merriam moved away through the crowd, followed by his sister, who
wished to get him aside to question him. She had planned that her
brother should now share her responsibility; she saw that he liked the
girl; but this would not serve unless she caught him with his guard
still down and compelled him to admit it.

“You know Uncle Rodney very well, don’t you?” said Zelda to Leighton.
“It must be very well, because I’ve already heard that; so I may grow
jealous. I’d forgotten he was so splendid. He was always my hero,
though. When I was a little girl I used to sit on a trunk in his garret
and watch him fence with a German fencing master. It was great fun.
Uncle Rodney was much better than the master, and I applauded all his
good points.”

“The applause was certainly worth working for. I sometimes fence with
Mr. Merriam myself. I assure you that his hand and eye have not lost
their cunning. But we lack spectators!”

“I’m too big for the trunk now, so you’ll have to get along. Is that
all you do,--play at fighting?”

“No; when my adversary gets tired, he talks to me.”

“Oh! he’s tired, then, before the conversation begins. Perhaps it’s
safer--that way!”

She hesitated before speaking the last words of her sentences with an
effect that was amusing.

“I’m a pretty bad fencer; I wasn’t prepared for that.”

“It’s wise always to be on guard. They teach that, I think, in the
schools.”

“I wish you’d tell me something to say to the guest of honor. Is she a
Protestant deaconess, a temperance reformer, an educator, or what? I
have to say something to her before I go.”

“Quite between ourselves, I don’t know what she is,” said Zelda,
“and I don’t care; but if my judgment is worth anything, her
things--clothes--the _tout ensemble_--are charming. You might tell
her we like her raiment and ask for a card to her tailor. There are
some old ladies over there that I remember dimly,--I must go and speak
to them. Please say a good word to Uncle Rodney about me, if you
can--conscientiously.”

She left him with a quick little nod and slipped away into the crowd.

Morris Leighton’s social adventures had not lacked variety, as a young
western American’s experiences may go. He knew a good deal about girls,
or thought he did; and while a young man is still under thirty the
delusion serves all the purposes of actual knowledge. Rodney Merriam
had often spoken to Leighton of Zelda Dameron’s home-coming, but with
his habitual reserve in referring to family matters. There was, of
course, no reason why he should have made any point of discussing his
niece with a young man who had never seen her. The Merriams were not
like the usual run of simple, wholesome, bread-and-butter folk who gave
the social and intellectual note to Mariona; and Morris, in his slight
knowledge of all of them except Rodney, doubtless thought them much
more unusual than they were.

His eyes followed Zelda, and in a moment he caught a glimpse of her
profile. He had been wondering of whom she reminded him; and as he
joined a group of young women who were stranded in a corner, he
suddenly remembered. There flashed before him, vividly, a portrait
that hung in Rodney Merriam’s house in Seminary Square. It was natural
to attribute all manner of romance to Rodney Merriam; and Leighton
had accepted the local tradition of an unfortunate early love affair
which had, as many people held, affected the whole current of Merriam’s
life. But the mystery that Morris had constructed from the quaint old
portrait of the dark lady with gentle eyes was now dispelled. The dark
lady was clearly Rodney Merriam’s sister, and the mother of Zelda
Dameron. The talk of the young women did not interest Morris, and he
kept glancing about in search of Zelda. He could not find her, and this
vexed him so that he gave the wrong reply to a question one of the
young women put to him; and they laughed at him disconcertingly.

Zelda Dameron’s return to Mariona was more of an event than she
herself understood. The Merriams were an interesting family; they
were, indeed, one of the first families. There were Merriams about
whom people laughed cynically; but Mrs. Forrest did not belong to this
faction, nor did Rodney Merriam, of whom most people stood in awe.
There had been much speculation, in advance of Zelda’s coming, as to
her probable course when she should return to Mariona with her aunt.
Many had predicted that she would not go to live with her father--that
Mrs. Forrest and Rodney Merriam would save her from that; but Zelda was
already domiciled in her father’s house. The word had gone forth that
she was very foreign. Many who spoke to her this afternoon merely to
test for themselves the truth of this report decided that her clothes,
at least, had the accent of Paris.

Mrs. Forrest led her brother to an alcove of Mrs. Carr’s library, and
sent him to bring a cup of tea to her there. She was afraid to wait for
a better opportunity; she must take advantage of his first impression
at once. He brought what was offered at the buffet in the dining-room,
and gave her his serious attention.

“This isn’t quite the place I should have chosen for a reunion after
three years,” he began. “Where was it I saw you last? Geneva? I believe
it was. The girl is very handsome. I suppose you found your house in
good order. And Zee went with you without any trouble? That’s as it
should be.”

“But, Rodney, she isn’t with me! I couldn’t persuade her--”

“You mean to say that--”

“She has gone to her father; she wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Rodney Merriam’s face darkened.

“Gone to her father, has she? It’s a mistake. I’m disappointed; but
it’s my fault. I didn’t know you were coming so soon, or I should
have met you in New York. I wanted to make sure she had shaken him
off,--that she had forgotten him, if possible.”

“Well, she hadn’t, and you couldn’t have done anything if you had met
us. She had written to him all the time we were away, and he had always
acknowledged her letters. I suppose there may be something in the
filial instinct one reads of in books.”

“It’s possible,”--and Merriam smiled a trifle grimly. “Of course, she
hasn’t decided yet. She’ll change her mind about him. A few days with
Ezra Dameron will be enough.”

He was greatly annoyed. He had looked forward for a year to Zelda’s
home-coming. He had planned to save her from the ignominy of contact
with her father; and now he had failed completely through an absence
which he could not justify in his own conscience. There had been no
very good reason why he should go to the Muskoka Lakes just at the time
he had chosen, except that there was nothing else to do; and his sister
had sent him no preliminary hint of her immediate return. He felt that,
between them, he and Mrs. Forrest had made a sorry mess of it.

“She’s gone home. That fact is settled,” said Mrs. Forrest, glad that
the worst had now been made known to him.

The music ceased, and Rodney Merriam could talk without shouting.

“Oh! I’ll fix that,” he said. “I’ll get her away from him.”

“I should be very glad to have you try,”--and Mrs. Forrest smiled
slightly. Though she feared her brother’s displeasure, she nevertheless
found a secret joy in his fallibility. He was not tolerant of other
people’s errors, and it was gratifying to know that matters did not
always run smoothly for him any more than for other human beings.

“If I were you,” she said presently, “I shouldn’t try to do anything
about it. Zelda is not a child. We have no right to assume that Ezra
won’t treat her well. And her father’s house is the proper place for
her. We know that he’s an unpleasant person, but many of his fellow
townsmen think him a paragon of virtue. Between us, we ought to manage
to keep her a good deal to ourselves.”

“I don’t like it! I don’t like it at all!”

“But you’d better make the best of it. It wasn’t so easy to arrange as
you think, and the situation has embarrassments either way. We don’t
know her father. It’s been many a day since I set eyes on him.”

“Well, you may be right,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “Now
that you’ve given her to him, I suppose I’ll have to take a hand,” said
Merriam, with frank displeasure. “I’ll have to renew my acquaintance
with that blackguard. I really suppose I’ll have to call on him, or I
might meet him accidentally, in the street, or at the bank. I might
make a study of his habits and then lie in wait. I should like to give
an accidental air to the meeting, to save my self-respect as far as
possible.”

There was in Merriam’s voice an even, hard tone that was not wholly
pleasant; but his sister laughed.

“I suppose I might give a reconciliation dinner,” she said. “We might
as well go into it deep while we are about it.”

Merriam shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t push matters too fast. I don’t
remember Ezra as a good dinner man.”

He rested his arm upon a low book-case, looking down at his sister as
she talked and drank her tea. It was quiet in their corner; the murmur
of talk in the other rooms reached them faintly. Several times other
guests came to the door and looked in on them and went away wondering,
or perhaps saying to their friends that Mrs. Forrest and her brother,
old Rodney Merriam, were holding a family council in the library, and
that very likely it was about Zee Dameron.

“I’ve never asked you about her money,” said Mrs. Forrest. “There ought
to be a good deal of it. I hope our stay abroad didn’t cut into it too
much--”

“It didn’t cut into it at all. I think I told you when you went away
with Zee that I should care for the expenses. I really intended telling
Ezra that he must pay the bills; but I waited until after you had gone,
and then it seemed much easier to pay them myself than to see him. She
has just so much more money coming to her, and I only hope she’ll get
it.”

“That’s like you, Rodney. I’ve never talked to her about her money. She
thinks her father paid the bills. Her money’s safe enough. Ezra isn’t
exactly a spend-thrift!”

“No, the brute! I hope he’ll give her enough to eat now.”

“Her going there is only an experiment; I shan’t be surprised if she
gives it up. We must stand by her, Rodney. We haven’t any of our own.
And she’s worth it,--worth it even for her own sake if it weren’t for--”

“Yes, certainly. She needs no apology. You’ve done very well. She does
you credit. You may count on me for anything I can do for her,--or
for you,” he added cordially. “I’m glad you’re at home again, and I’d
hoped to get some cheer out of Zee. I’m tired of wandering; and I even
get tired of myself and my own house. I wish I had your eternal youth,
Julia!”

She was short and stout, and there was infinite good-nature in her dark
face. She was an indolent woman, who had always taken life easily. Her
hair, once very black, was now whitening fast. She had been abroad in
the world a good deal, and knew where the best shops were in Vienna and
Paris, Munich and Dresden; and she cared more about Italian politics
than the politics of her own country. It was reported periodically
that Julia Forrest, who had long been a widow, was about to marry some
titled foreigner, but while these rumors always proved untrue, they
served to keep alive the traditional interesting qualities of the
Merriams.

“I’ll take you home if you’re ready,” said Mrs. Forrest, when, after
some further talk, they returned to the drawing-room. “Zelda’s father
is coming for her.”

“Thanks; but I’m going to walk down with Leighton, if I can find him.”

“Who is he?--should I remember him?--the name--”

“You never saw him before; but--he’s the son of his father. It’s the
same name. He’s a youngster I’ve picked up. The boy came here from the
country to go into the law. He’s a graduate of Tippecanoe College--my
college and his father’s.”

“He’s very good-looking; is he anything else?”

“I hope so; I think so. I’ll send him around to pay his respects. He
must know you.”

It was nearly six o’clock, and a procession of women was coming down
the stairs to Mrs. Carr’s front door, as Rodney Merriam and Morris
Leighton left the house with Mrs. Forrest and Zelda. The waiting
carriages made a long line in the street.

“How gay it looks! The old town really has a metropolitan air at last.
A tea--with men present--it’s almost beyond belief!”

“The town’s not so bad, Julia; and it’s a nice comfortable place for
one’s old age. You’d better get reconciled.”

Mrs. Forrest’s carriage had drawn up to the curb and Leighton shut her
into it.

“Be sure to come to my house to-morrow, Zee,” she called to the girl.

“Miss Dameron’s carriage!”

A shabby vehicle emerged from the line and came forward. Zelda and
Leighton were talking animatedly together; and Merriam watched the
approaching carriage with interest, standing back from the curb. It was
a box-like, closed carriage of an old pattern, drawn by one horse, with
the driver mounted on a low seat in front. Leighton opened the door.

“Shall I say home?” Morris asked, as the girl gathered up her skirts
and stepped in.

“You needn’t trouble yourself,” said the driver, sharply. He was
muffled in a heavy coat, though the air was warm, and as the carriage
door closed, he struck his horse with the reins and drove rapidly away.

“Sorry I made a mistake,” said Leighton to Merriam, as they turned
toward the city.

“It was her father,” said Merriam.

“Yes; I hadn’t noticed him.”

They walked slowly toward the city, the man of sixty and the man
of twenty-five. Mariona was proud of High Street, which was, so to
speak, the equator from which the local social latitude was reckoned.
The maples that overhung it were not the product of haste, but stood
for the foresight of remote yesterdays in which the early comers had
planted hopefully for the to-morrows that had now arrived. New-fallen
leaves were crisp under foot, and the sound of sweepers at work on
walks and lawns and the keen tang of leaf-smoke proclaimed the reign
of autumn to urban senses. There were not, in the whole length of the
street, a dozen houses that were worth considering architecturally, but
while there was nowhere luxury, there was everywhere comfort; and the
main thing in life is not, after all, to make a show.

Mariona is, to be frank about it, the capital of an Ohio Valley
state whose vote in national elections--never “reliably” the asset
of any party--has long been essential to the winner in the electoral
college. Its early settlers were drawn from two distinct types at the
sea-board,--from Virginia and North Carolina on the one hand, from the
Middle States and New England on the other. The new type thus formed
had sent a king’s host to die in the Civil War; but in civic matters it
was, in the usual American fashion, long-suffering and slow to wrath,
and continued so to the yesterday of which this tale is written.

The Merriams had come out of New England, and they had come early,
when Mariona was still a village in the wilderness and long before the
first railroad had connected it with the Ohio. The original Merriam had
left a large family when he died. He was a man of ability, and if his
children had not all prospered, it was through no fault of his own;
for it was clear from an examination of the county records that he had
in early days owned, or held liens upon, much of the soil of Mariona.
Old Roger Merriam had been dead many years, but of his children four
remained. Of these Rodney Merriam had never married; Mrs. Forrest was
a widow and childless; and they were the only Merriams whose names
ever appeared among the society items of the Mariona papers. Another
son of Roger Merriam was a merchant, and still another had been a
lawyer. They had spent the money left them by their father, and owing
to difficulties whose origin Mariona had forgotten, these brothers had
broken with each other. Rodney Merriam had dropped both of them in
disgust at their quarrel, and Mrs. Forrest, as usual, followed Rodney’s
lead; so it had come to pass that the house of Merriam was divided
against itself, and as far as the appraisement of Mariona went, the
better half stood.

Rodney Merriam had never done any of the things which the men and
women of his generation had expected him to do; he had, on the other
hand, done many things that seemed utterly inexplicable. He had, like
most men of his generation in Mariona, served in the Civil War; but
the easiest known way of irritating Rodney Merriam was to give him a
military title. He had a particularly stony stare for the person who
called him colonel; the individual who dared to call him general was
in danger of his life. At the close of the war Merriam disappeared for
two years, and no one knew where he spent that period, though there
were stories afloat that he had continued his soldiering in one part
of the world or another. When he reappeared, he gave no account of
himself; and after a year, in which he renewed old acquaintances and
friendships, he again left Mariona, to return after Sedan, followed by
a generally credited story that he had fought on the losing side in the
Franco-Prussian War.

The fact that elderly men in Mariona usually dressed in black did not
deter Rodney Merriam from wearing, when he pleased, the extreme thing
in English tweeds; he had a weakness for bright scarfs and tied them
well. He owned a great variety of walking-sticks, and used them in a
certain order known only to himself. He never in any circumstances
carried an umbrella; he never rode in a street car, and he never
talked business. Before the lean years of the seventies, when most of
his family connections lost their money, he reduced all his property,
except the High Street house, to cash, which he invested in England.

Rodney Merriam had driven his father’s cows to pasture through upper
High Street, and he felt a proprietary interest in the whole of the
exclusive mile that lay between Mrs. Carr’s residence and the business
district. It was his influence that kept the street free from asphalt;
the new-comers who had extended the thoroughfare and carried its
sacred name far countryward might have anything they liked; but he had
drawn a dead line within which wooden blocks should forever prevail.
He walked or rode every day the full length of the block-paved part
of the street, for he loved the town--the old town, as he called it,
though the state itself had not reached its centenary--with a love that
is possible only in those who have been linked to the beginnings of a
community. No matter how many of his townsmen held otherwise, there
was, after all, a good deal of sentiment in Rodney Merriam.

Merriam’s plain brick house faced south on Seminary Square, a pretty
park in which there had once been an academy in the boyhood days of
Rodney Merriam. There was a plot of grass at the front and side of his
house, which was inclosed by an iron fence.

“You’d better come in and stay to dinner,” said the old gentleman to
Morris Leighton, as they reached the gate. “The jump from a live tea to
a solitary dinner is almost too abrupt for me.”

He drew out his latch-key and opened the door, and Leighton followed
him into the hall.

“I mustn’t stop; I must bolt my bite down-town and go to work.”

Merriam put aside his coat and hat and went into the library. The
ceilings of the house were high and the hall was wide. The woodwork was
black walnut. The library was clearly a man’s abiding-place; its deep
leather chairs and broad heavy table suggested the furniture of a club.
Here again was black walnut--table, chairs and book-cases, as though
the great trees of the mixed forests that had once stood on the site of
the town had turned into furniture so that they might, even with a loss
of dignity, prolong the tenure of their native soil.

Leighton turned over the periodicals that lay on the table.

“You saw my niece up there, didn’t you?” asked Merriam, peering into
his tobacco jar.

“Yes; oh, yes!” The question was superfluous, as Rodney Merriam had
himself introduced Leighton to Zelda Dameron; and Merriam was not
forgetful. Leighton threw down the magazine whose table of contents he
had been scanning.

“She’s stunning, isn’t she? I wasn’t quite prepared for it.”

“Of course she’s stunning. I’d like to know what you expected. She’s
the finest girl in the world!”

“I can’t deny it. I suppose she’ll be about a good deal from now on. I
hope you’ll allow me to break a lance in her behalf.”

“It can probably be arranged, if you’re good. You’d better cultivate
Mrs. Forrest. She’s a friend worth having. You know Zee’s father when
you see him?”

“Yes; Mr. Carr’s his lawyer. He comes to the office once a month, at
least. He’s an odd sort, isn’t he? He has a standing appointment with
Mr. Carr for the first of every month, and he’s always there when the
curtain rises.”

“I believe Ezra always was an early bird. You’d better stay to dinner,
Morris.”

A Japanese boy in a white jacket appeared at the door and bowed jerkily
from the hips.

“No, thanks; the poor barrister must work when he gets a chance. I’ll
be around soon, though, to get the story of your adventures in Canada.”

“I suppose I must harden my heart against you. There’ll be a lobster as
usual, Sunday evening. Good night.”

Merriam heard the click of the iron gate as he stood meditating. Then
he took up a bit of paper from his table and wrote:

“October 1; see Ezra.”

The Japanese boy bowed again in the door, and Rodney Merriam went out
to his lonely dinner.




CHAPTER II

OLD, UNHAPPY, FAR-OFF THINGS


“The cost of living is high, very high.”

“Yes, father; I know that things cost, of course.”

“I have lived on very little while you were away, Zee. With one servant
it’s possible to keep down expenses. Servants are ruinous. And I’m not
rich, Zee, like your Aunt Julia and Uncle Rodney.”

“I want to do just what you would have me do, in everything. It was
kind and generous of you to let me stay away so long. I know my
expenses abroad must have been a great tax on you.”

Ezra Dameron looked quickly at his daughter.

“Yes, to be sure, Zee, to be sure. Mariona is a simple place and your
sojourn abroad has hardly fitted you for our homely ways. You’ll
find that things are done very differently here. But of course you
will accommodate yourself to the conditions. And you’ll find the
house quite comfortable. It’s a little old-fashioned, but it was your
grandfather’s, and it rarely happens nowadays that a girl lives in the
same house her mother was born in. Of course any little changes that
you want to make will be all right; but you must practise economy.”

They were studying each other with a shrewd sophistication on the
father’s side; with anxious wonder on the part of the girl. She
knew little of her father. Even the memory of her mother had grown
indistinct. The thing that had always impressed her about her father
was his seeming age; she remembered him from her childhood as an old
man, who came and went on errands which had seemed unrelated to her own
life. The house had stood in a large tract when Zelda went away, but
this had shrunk gradually as Ezra Dameron divided the original Merriam
acres and sold off the lots. The front door of the homestead was now
only a few feet from the new cement walk on what was called Merriam
Street, in honor of Zelda’s grandfather. Sun and wind had peeled the
paint from the brick walls and the green of the blinds had faded to a
dull nondescript.

The house, without its original setting of trees and grass, was somber
and ugly. A few cedars remained, but they only intensified the gloom
of the place. The house had been built like a fortress and was old
before the Civil War. It was a large house, or had been considered so,
with several levels of floors marking the additions that had been made
from time to time by the elder Merriam. There was a small iron balcony
in front, opening from the upper windows; but it seemed ridiculous
now that it hung over the public walk. At the rear there was a broad
wooden gallery with pillars rising to the second story. A high board
fence surrounded the back of the lot, as though to guard from further
encroachment the few feet of earth that remained of the ampler acres of
a bygone day. The house had fallen to Mrs. Dameron in the division of
Roger Merriam’s estate, and she had willed it to her daughter, making
it part of the property held in trust for Zelda by her father.

Mrs. Forrest liked the good things of life and spent her money
generously to get them. She avoided discomfort at any cost, and Zelda’s
ideas of living had naturally been derived in a considerable degree
from her aunt. The transition from their pleasant quarters in Dresden,
Florence and Paris to the grim living-room in Merriam Street was too
abrupt. A wave of loneliness swept over the girl as she sat with her
father in the stiff sitting-room, before the cramped little grate where
a heap of burning anthracite gleamed like a single hot coal. Back of
them was a table, covered with a faded felt cloth, and on it lay a few
newspapers, a magazine, a religious weekly, and an old copy of the
Bible, in which Ezra Dameron read a chapter twice a day. He was ill at
ease now as he talked to his daughter. He felt that she was a stranger
who had come to break in upon the orderly course of his life. He had
believed sometimes during her absence that he needed her, that he was
lonely and wished to have her back; but the photographs that she had
sent home had not prepared him for the change in her. He had expected a
child to return, but here was a woman, with a composure, a poise, that
were disconcerting. Even her voice, her way of speaking, troubled him.
She had tried to tell him fully of her life while away, to create the
atmosphere of it for him; but she had only widened the margin between
what he could know and what he could not be made to understand.

[Illustration: _Mrs. Forrest_]

The girl felt for a moment that she could not stay, that it was more
than she could bear. Her fingers were clasped upon her knees. She
sat very straight in a hard unyielding chair that seemed to share
the austerity of the whole house. She wished at that moment to
escape--there was no other word for it--and run away to her aunt
or uncle. Why were they alone here, these two, she and this difficult
old man? Why had she not gone to Mrs. Forrest’s to live? It had grown
suddenly colder at sundown and the wind swept dolorously through the
cedars that brushed the side of the house. Why did not some one come?
Why did not her uncle come for her? Carriages passed now and then with
the smart beat of hoofs on the asphalt, so near that the sounds might
have come from a remote room of the dreary house.

“Your aunt probably told you something of your business affairs,--of
the trusteeship.”

Her thoughts had been far away; he watched her with a shrewd smile as
she turned quickly toward him.

“Oh, no! Aunt Julia never discussed it; but I remember that she told me
once I had some property. I know nothing more--except that there is a
trusteeship--whatever that is!” And she laughed.

“Yes; it was a very wise idea of your mother’s in providing for you.
She always maintained her separate estate. She inherited some property
from her father,--you may have known.”

“No, I didn’t know, but I always supposed grandfather Merriam was rich.”

“I never touched your mother’s property at all; never a cent,” the old
man went on. He did not know what Mrs. Forrest might have told Zelda.
He was dropping down his plummet to measure her ignorance. Zelda knew
nothing; and she cared very little. Her wants had always been provided
for without any trouble on her part. Mrs. Forrest indulged herself, and
she had indulged Zelda. Ezra Dameron was wondering just what Rodney
Merriam and Mrs. Forrest would expect him to do for the girl. His
position as her father had been anomalous ever since his wife died, ten
years ago. The Merriams had taken his daughter away from him at once
and then they had sent her out of the country, and now that they had
brought her back he was not without curiosity as to what their attitude
toward him would be.

“The trusteeship will not be terminated for a year--on your
twenty-first birthday, unless you should marry before the end of that
time. This is always an emergency to look forward to; but I trust you
will be in no hurry to leave me.”

He looked at her again in his quick, nervous way. His voice showed the
first hint of the whine of senility.

Zelda laughed abruptly.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?--the getting married. I honestly hadn’t thought
of it before. I don’t know any young men. We didn’t meet any men abroad
except very old ones. Aunt Julia was afraid the young men weren’t
respectable!”

“There’s nothing like being careful where young men are concerned.
There are many bad ones about these days. The temptations of modern
life are increasing fast. A young girl can have no idea of them.”

“Who’s afraid?” she said, and laughed again.

He tried to laugh; he was making an effort to be friendly, to
accommodate himself to his daughter’s ways, to understand her if he
could.

The girl rose and walked restlessly about the room, picking up and
throwing down the papers on the table; and then she examined several
steel engravings on the walls. She had been at home a week, but the
place was still unfamiliar.

A plate of apples had been placed on the table, and presently the old
man took a knife and began paring one carefully. The girl paused in
her restless wandering about the room, and turned to watch him. He had
ceased trying to talk to her. There was something of pathos in his
bent figure as he sat peeling the apple. She watched him silently,
touched by his weight of years, and the feeling of loneliness left
her suddenly. It had seemed hard and difficult at first, but it was
only a kind of homesickness; this was home, and this was her father.
There were things about him that moved her pity. His clothes were
scrupulously neat; his linen was clean and his collar was carefully
turned down over a high cravat, suggesting the stock of another time.
His gray hair was long, and fell down on his coat, but it was carefully
brushed.

Zelda went over and stood by him, and he looked up at her and
smiled,--an impersonal, martyr-like smile.

“They look good, father. If you don’t mind I’ll get a knife and try
one. It’s been a long time since I ate an apple.”

She brought herself a plate and knife from the pantry, and sat down
near him. A gentler impulse had taken hold of her. She owed her father
honor and respect; he was an old man, and at his age men were entitled
to their whims. She won him to a more companionable mood than she had
known in him before.

“I remember, father, a queer old table service that used to be
here,--very heavy pieces, with a curious, big flower pattern. I haven’t
seen it about anywhere; but I haven’t done much looking. Probably Polly
knows where it is.”

“To be sure. I seem to remember it. It’s probably in the attic. The
attic’s full of things.”

“I should like to explore it. I remember attics very pleasantly from my
youth. There was Uncle Rodney’s. He always had the most curious things
in his garret.”

“Yes, yes. Rodney is a very strange man.”

He looked at her sharply; evidently the girl did not understand
the idiosyncrasies of the family relationship. Julia Forrest, his
sister-in-law, was a more discreet woman than he had imagined.

“But about the attic,--I’ll give you the basket of keys, Zee, just
as your mother left it. There is probably much rubbish that ought to
be thrown away. No doubt there are things that might be given to the
poor.” He bowed his head almost imperceptibly, as though in humble
acknowledgment of all the beatitudes. Zelda took his plate and he rose
and left the room. He walked lightly, and with an elastic step that was
out of keeping with his appearance of age.

“I’ll be back in a moment,” he called, and he went up stairs, returning
presently, carrying a small basket filled with keys.

“These are yours, my daughter,” he said, and waved his hand with a
little touch of manner.

“Oh, so many!” She poured the keys upon the table. There were half a
hundred of them, of many kinds and sizes; and they were all tagged with
little bits of ivory, on which their several uses were written clearly
in ink.

“Your mother was very methodical,--very painstaking--”

He shook his head and turned to the fire, as though to hide any show of
feeling.

Zelda was turning the keys over in her hand, and she did not look
at him. A mist had come into her eyes. She remembered the dark woman
who had been so gentle and patient with her childhood. They used to
walk together in the old pasture; and they carried their books to a
seat that had been built under a great beech where her mother read the
quaint tales and old ballads that were her delight. These were the only
happy memories she had kept of her mother--the times under the beech,
with which her father was not associated.

“I’m sure it’s your time to go to bed, father. You mustn’t let me break
in on your ways.” Zelda walked over to him and put her hands on his
shoulders. “I want to be very good to you, father; and I know we’ll
live here very happily. You won’t mind me much--when you get used to
me!”

She touched his forehead with her lips.

“Thank you, thank you,”--and there was a helpless note in his voice.

She turned away from him quickly, restored the keys to the basket and
ran with it to her room.

The next morning she was down to his seven o’clock breakfast in the
cold, forbidding dining-room. She was very gay and made him talk a
great deal to her. He had been up for an hour at work in the barn,
where he cared for his own horse. He carried the morning newspaper to
the table, as he had done for years.

“This will never do, father! You must talk to me and help me to learn
the American breakfast habit. I’ll be lonesome if you read at the
table.”

His thoughts seemed far away; he had long been out of practice in the
amenities and graces, and the morning had brought him once more face
to face with this change in his life. The place across the table had
been empty for so many years that he resented the appearance there of
this slender dark girl, pouring his coffee with an ease that puzzled
and even touched him. There had been another girl like her, in the
long ago, and this was her child. The resemblance between mother and
daughter was so marked that he grew uneasy as he pondered it; he made
a pretense of holding up his newspaper to shut out the girl, and when
he dropped it Zelda was waiting for him, her elbows on the table, her
hands clasped under her chin.

“Oh, pardon me!” he exclaimed, rising hastily.

As she helped him into his overcoat her hand touched a hammer he
carried in his pocket with a miscellaneous assortment of nails, for use
in repairing the small properties he owned in many parts of town, and
she drew the implement forth and inspected it at arm’s length.

“Why, father! What on earth is this?”

The nails jingled, and she made a dive into the pocket and drew forth a
handful.

“Why, you’ve forgotten to empty your pockets! You mustn’t go about with
this hardware in your clothes.”

He reached for the things, a little shamefacedly.

“You don’t understand. I need them to make trifling repairs, you know.”
He smiled, and she put the things back into his pockets, still laughing
at him.

“I must go about with you. I can carry the hammer. Maybe you will let
me drive a nail once in a while, if I’m good.”

He drew out a faded silk handkerchief and began twisting it about his
throat, but Zelda took it from him and adjusted it carefully under his
coat collar; and she brushed his old brown derby hat with a whisk
broom that lay on the hall table.

He suffered her ministrations with his patient smile, into which he
tried to throw something of a look of pride; and when she had set the
hat squarely on his head, she drew back and regarded him critically and
then kissed him on the cheek.

“Now be sure to come home to luncheon always. You didn’t come yesterday
and it was lonely. I must get Polly to show me the way to the grocery.
I don’t intend to let her be the boss. I’m sure she’s been abusing you
all these years.”

“Oh, in time you will come to it. Polly will do very well, and you
oughtn’t to be bothered with such things. I--I usually buy the
groceries myself. One of my tenants is a grocer and--and--he does a
little better for me!”

“Oh, to be sure. You must do it in your own way, father.” There was a
note of disappointment in her voice, and he would have liked to concede
something to her, but he did not know how.

He turned to the door and went out, and she watched him hurry down the
street.

She roamed idly about the house, going finally to the kitchen, where
the colored woman told her that orders for the remaining meals of the
day had been given by her father. Polly viewed Zelda with admiration,
but she did not ask advice, and Zelda continued her wanderings, going
finally to the attic with the key-basket.

The place was pitch dark when she threw open the door, and as there
was no way of lighting it, she went down and brought several old glass
candlesticks from the parlor. The attic was a great low room extending
over the whole of the house. It was unplastered and the cobwebs of
many years hung from the rafters. Boxes and barrels abounded. Bunches
of herbs, long dried, and garden tools hung here and there; in a
corner an old saddle was suspended by one stirrup. Pieces of furniture
covered with cloths were distributed under the eaves, their draperies
heavy with dust, and the light of the candles gave them a spectral
appearance. Zelda went about peering at the labels that had been tacked
carefully to every article. Here, then, was something to do--something
that had even a touch of adventure; and she went for water and a broom
and sprinkled and swept the floor.

There were several trunks of her mother’s clothing and Zelda peered
into these bravely. Her mother had arranged them thus shortly before
her death. The girl was touched by their nice order; they were folded
many times in tissue paper and were sweet with lavender. There stole
again into her heart a sense of loneliness, of separation from the
past to which these plaintive things belonged; and there lay beneath
everything a wonder and awe, as of one who entered with another’s key
some strange, dark chamber of life. A sob clutched her throat as she
ran her fingers caressingly over the parcels at the top of a small
brass-bound trunk that contained little trinkets for the toilet-table.
Unlike the other boxes she had opened, this had evidently been packed
in haste. One flat packet had been crowded into the top, and the lid
had crushed it, so that the paper wrapping had fallen aside. It held
a small address book, bound in red leather; and Zelda ran the leaves
through her fingers, noting the names of persons who were her mother’s
friends. “Margaret Dameron” was written on one of the fly leaves. The
book had been intended as a register of visits, begun at the threshold
of her married life; but, from appearances, it had been abandoned soon
as an address book. At the back, where the ink was fresher and of a
different kind, some of the pages were filled. The girl carried the
book close to the shrouded table where her candles stood and opened it.

  “_This is to you, Julia or Rodney. They have told me to-day that I
  am going to die; but I have known it for a long time. The end is
  nearer than they think it is; and I am going to set down here an
  appeal that I can not bring myself to make to either of you directly.
  It is about Zelda. I think she will be like us. God grant it may be
  so. I know what I hope her future may be; but I dare not plan it. My
  own--you know that I planned my own. * * * Save her, as you tried
  to save me from myself, if it should be necessary. She is very dear
  and gentle; but she has our pride. I can see it growing day by day.
  They say that we Merriams are hard and proud; but she will never be
  hard. Do for her what you would have done for me. Do not let him
  kill the sweetness and gentleness in her. Keep her away from him if
  you can; but do not let her know what I have suffered from him. I
  have arranged for him to care for the property I have to leave her,
  so that she may never feel that I did not trust him. He will surely
  guard what belongs to her safely. * * * Perhaps I was unjust to him;
  it may have been my fault; but if she can respect or love him I wish
  it to be so._”

Zelda read on. There were only a few pages of this appeal, but the
words sank into her consciousness with the weight of lead. She was to
be saved from her father, if need be, by her aunt and uncle; but she
must not know what this dead woman, her mother, had suffered at his
hands. There was the heartache of years in the lines; they had not been
written to her, but fate had brought them under her eyes. She closed
the book, clasping it in her hands, and stared into the dark area
beyond the candlelight. Her mind was busily reconstructing the life of
her mother, of whom she knew so little. The book that she held, with
its pitiful plea for her own security and happiness, opened a new world
to her; her mother’s words brought the past before her vividly and sent
her thoughts into the future with a fierce haste of transition.

This was her home-coming and this was home! She forgot for the moment
that she had friends anywhere; she felt herself a stranger in her
native city, in the house where she was born. Her heart went out to
her mother, across a distance that was vaster than any gulf of time,
for there was added the greater void that sympathy and love would have
filled if mother and child might have touched hands to-day.

Her fingers came upon the broken wrapper that had fallen from the
little book. She lifted it to the light and read:

“_Private. For brother Rodney or sister Julia._”




CHAPTER III

ZELDA RECEIVES A VISITOR


The front door-bell rang--it was an old-fashioned contrivance, on a
wire, and pealed censoriously--and Zelda thrust the book back into the
trunk and ran to the second-floor landing to listen. Polly, the colored
maid-of-all-work, admitted Mrs. Forrest warily, though Mrs. Forrest was
a woman for whom doors were usually flung wide.

“Good morning, Aunt Julia! Welcome to your ancestral home! Come on up!”
Zelda called from the top of the stairs. “Leave the door open, Polly,
so Mrs. Forrest can see the way.”

There was something reluctant and difficult about the Dameron front
door. It swung open so close to the newel post that ingress was
difficult, and when you were once in, the hall was a narrow, dark and
inhospitable place.

“What on earth are you doing, Zee?” demanded Mrs. Forrest, gathering up
her skirts and beginning the ascent.

“I’m cleaning house a little. The steps are rather steep, but it’s
nothing when you get used to it.” Zelda bent over the railing and
contemplated her aunt critically.

“I’m not sure that your clothes will do for these upper regions.”
Zelda looked down commandingly. She had twisted a handkerchief round
her head; a big gingham apron and a dusting cloth in her hand bore
further testimony to her serious intentions.

“I suppose you won’t kiss me in these togs, beloved; it _would_ be
unseemly.”

“My dear Zee, this will never do!” And Mrs. Forrest, having reached the
second floor, surveyed her niece with disapproval.

“Do you mean the clothes?” asked Zelda, putting her hand to her turban.
“I flattered myself that I looked rather well. I’m exploring the
garret. I’m not really doing anything but poke about; and it’s great
fun, raking in the dust of the past--a very remote past, too!”

Mrs. Forrest sniffed contemptuously.

“I’m sure there are stunning antiques up here that beat anything you
ever saw. I’ve only touched the crust. Better come up and look it over.
Oh, Polly,”--the old colored woman lingered below--“you needn’t wait.
It’s around this way, auntie, if you’re rested enough. Those lodgings
we had in Florence last winter were three flights up, and we didn’t
mind a bit. You see, father gave me a basket of old keys and told me to
rummage anywhere I liked. I never expected to find anything so much fun
as this. Take your hand off the rail there, and save your gloves,--I’m
going to dust it soon. And here we are! Don’t the candles give a fine
touch? Lamps up here would be sacrilegious. It’s been swept, and
there’s a place over there on that box where you can sit down without
spoiling your clothes. If you’re very good, I might let you read some
of your old love-letters. There’s a lot of them--”

“Don’t be silly; of course they’re not mine.”

“Some of the gentlemen would probably like to have them back--to read
to their children,” persisted Zelda, who liked to plague her aunt.

“This is a horrible hole, Zee. You must go right down.” Mrs. Forrest
was staring about frowningly.

“I might read a few extracts to help you remember,--”

A trunk stood within the arc of the candle’s flame. It was filled with
old papers and letters, and Zelda flung up the lid to pique her aunt’s
curiosity.

“Don’t trouble! You must burn all these old things. Your grandfather
never destroyed anything, and your mother kept all he left. Old letters
ought never to be kept; they’re dangerous. I’m about settled myself.
I came in to see how you’re getting on, Zee. What kind of a cook have
you?”

Zelda hesitated. “Oh, she’s very good; very good indeed,” she declared
with sudden ardor.

“Black?”

“Yes, black. There isn’t any other kind here, is there? I don’t
remember any other kind,” Zelda added vaguely, as though making an
effort to recall the complexion of domestic service in Mariona.

“The blacks are not inevitable. I have Swedes. You remember, I had our
consul at Stockholm get them for me. Your Uncle Rodney has two Japanese
who do everything. How many of these blacks does your father keep?”

“Well, there’s Aunt Polly,” Zelda answered slowly.

“Is she the slattern that let me in?”

“Yes, but don’t call names; she’s a dear old soul. You mustn’t talk
that way about her. She’s devoted to me.”

“I should think she would be.”

“Thank you, very kindly.” And then, as if recalling the list of
servants with difficulty: “There’s the cook! Did I mention her?”

“What’s she like?”

“A good deal like Polly. Yes, very much like her.”

“Can she cook?”

“Oh yes; well enough. Father’s tastes are very simple; and you know I
never did eat much.”

“I don’t remember anything of the kind. Most of our family are hard to
please.”

“I’ve heard that Uncle Rodney is an epicure. I hope he’ll invite me
down to dinner very soon.”

“It’s possible that he may. His home is perfectly managed; he runs it
like a club; a club is a man’s idea of Heaven, they say: anything, when
you ring; no apologies and no questions asked.”

“It sounds attractive. Just think of being able to command chocolates
by pushing a button!”

“Well, you have a housemaid?”

“Yes; there’s a housemaid.”

“Black?”

“Yes,--a good deal like Polly,” answered Zee, cheerfully.

“What else do you keep?”

“There’s the laundress. She’s like Polly, too,--the same dusky race.
They all look alike to me.”

“They use chemicals,” observed Mrs. Forrest. “All American laundresses
use chemicals. What else?”

“There’s a man. He’s Polly’s grandfather or uncle--something like that.
He’s a general utility, and only comes on call.”

“Better get rid of the whole lot.”

“In time, of course. I’m going to see what I can do with this old
furniture first.”

“You’d better buy what you need new. I never had any patience with
this idea of gathering up old rubbish just because it’s old. And then
there’s the microbe theory; it sounds reasonable and there’s probably a
good deal in it.”

“Horrors! The garret’s probably full. Perhaps there are some in those
love-letters.” Zelda laughed; her mirth was seemingly spontaneous, and
bubbled up irrelevantly.

“If there’s anything of mine up here, for heaven’s sake burn it right
away. And now clean yourself up and come out with me. You must show
yourself or people won’t know you’re in town. And come home to luncheon
with me afterward.”

“I’d like to, Aunt Julia, but I really mustn’t. Father comes home to
luncheon.”

“Oh, he does, does he? Well, he has had a good many meals alone and the
shock wouldn’t kill him.”

“He’s perfectly splendid! He’s just as kind and thoughtful as can be. I
didn’t know that anybody’s father could be so nice.”

Mrs. Forrest rose and swept the garret disapprovingly with her
lorgnette; and there may have been an excess of disapproval that was
meant for something else. Julia Forrest was a woman without sentiment,
for there are such in the world. The lumber-room did not interest her,
and she was anxious to get out into the sunlight. She was too indolent
by nature to have much curiosity: she was not a woman who spent all her
rainy days poring over lavender-scented trifles and weeping over old
letters. She was born in this old house, and she had played as a girl
in the wooded pasture that once lay east of it. Her father’s fields
were now forty-foot lots, through which streets had been cut, and
the houses that had been built up thickly all about were of a formal
urban type. The Merriam homestead was to Julia Forrest merely an old,
shabby and uncomfortable house, whose plumbing was doubtless highly
unsanitary. She had been married there; her father and mother had died
there; but the place meant nothing to her beyond the fact that it was
now her niece’s home. It occurred to her that she ought to see Zelda’s
room, to be sure the girl was comfortable; but Zelda did not invite her
in when they reached the second floor.

“The letters were beautiful; they wrote lovely letters in those days,”
Zelda persisted ironically. “I wish I could have some half as nice.”

“Do get your things, Zee; it’s fine outdoors and the outing will do you
good.”

“I’m very sorry, but I can’t go this morning, _ma tante_. I have a lot
to do. I’ll be freer after a little.”

“You’re foolish, very foolish. When shall I see you, then?”

“I’ll be along late in the afternoon sometime.”

“And then stop to dinner--”

“Very sorry; but father will expect me. It doesn’t seem quite kind to
forsake him--when he’s so nice to me.”

“I suppose not; but bring him along. We’re all an unsociable lot. They
say the Merriams and their connections are queer--I don’t like the
word. Your uncle and I want you to raise the fallen reputation of the
family. Do be conventional, whatever you do.”

“Oh, I shall be that,--commonplace even.”

“Don’t come down in those clothes!” Mrs. Forrest was descending the
stairs.

“All right, Aunt Julia. Good-by!”

When the front door had closed, Zelda sat down on the stairs and
laughed softly to herself.

“Oh, Polly,” she called.

The black woman shuffled slowly into the hall and looked up gravely at
the girl.

“Polly, I wish to see the footman the moment he returns to the house.
And the butler’s work is very unsatisfactory; I shall have to let him
go. And please say to the cook that there will be pie for dinner until
further notice,--apple-pie with cheese. And the peasants,--they will
be received by My Majesty on the lawn at five as usual, and largess
will be distributed. Will you execute these commissions at once, Polly?
Stand not on the order of your going--” She laughed down at the amazed
colored woman and then ran swiftly up stairs.

She did not pause until she reached the candle-lighted table in the
garret and knelt before it, with her face against her mother’s little
book, and sobbed as though her heart would break.




CHAPTER IV

MR. MERRIAM MAKES SUGGESTIONS


The law offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr were tucked away in the
rear of an old building that stood at the apex of a triangle formed by
Jefferson Street and Commonwealth Avenue. The firm had been tenants
of the same rooms for so many years that any outward sign of their
occupancy had ceased to be necessary. There was, to be sure, a battered
tin sign at the entrance, but its inscription could be read only by
persons who remembered it from bygone days. The woodwork in the series
of low rooms occupied by the firm had once been white, but it was now
yellow, as though from years of intimacy with dusty file-boxes and
law sheep. The library, the quaintest and quietest place in town, was
marked by a pleasing twilight of antiquity. Across the hall the private
rooms of the several partners were distinguished by their domestic
atmosphere, to which the locust-trees that brushed the windows and the
grained wooden mantels contributed.

Knight and Kittredge had been prominent in state politics during and
immediately following the Civil War. They were dead now, but Carr, who
had left politics to his partners, survived, and he had changed nothing
in the offices. The private rooms of the dead members of the firm were
still as they had been, though Morris Leighton, the chief clerk, and
the students who always overran the place now made use of them. Knight,
Kittredge and Carr had been considered invincible in the old days; and
Carr was still the best lawyer in the state, and the one whose name
was most frequently subscribed to the appearance docket of the Federal
Court. There were other lawyers who said that he was not what he had
been; but they were not the sort whose opinion creates public sentiment
or affects the ruling of courts. For though Michael Carr was a mild
little man, with a soft voice and brown eyes that might have been the
pride of any girl, he was a formidable antagonist. The students in the
office affectionately referred to him among themselves as “A. D.,”
which, being interpreted, meant Annotated Digest--a delicate reference
to the fact that Michael Carr was able to cite cases from memory, by
title and page, in nearly every series of decisions that was worth
anything.

In the old days it had been the custom of the members of the firm of
Knight, Kittredge and Carr to assemble every morning at eight o’clock
in the library for a brief discussion of the news of the day, or for
a review of the work that lay before them. The young men who were
fortunate enough to be tolerated in the offices had always enjoyed
these discussions immensely, for Governor Kittredge and Senator Knight
had known men and manners as well as the law; and Michael Carr knew
Plato and the Greek and Latin poets as he knew the way home.

These morning conferences were still continued in Morris Leighton’s
day, though Knight and Kittredge had long been gone. It might be
a topic from the day’s news that received attention, or some new
book--Michael Carr was a persistent novel reader--or it might be even
a bit of social gossip that was discussed. Mr. Carr was a man of
deliberate habits, and when he set apart this half-hour for a talk
with his young men, as he called them, it made no difference that the
president of a great railway cooled his heels in the outer office while
the Latin poets were discussed in the library, or that other dignified
Caucasians waited while negro suffrage was debated. Mr. Carr did not
like being crowded. He knew how to crowd other people when there was
need; but it pleased him sometimes to make other people wait.

Ezra Dameron was waiting for him this morning, for it was the first
of October; and on the first of every month Ezra Dameron went to the
offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr to discuss his personal affairs.
He was of an economical turn, and he made it a point to combine as
many questions as possible in a single consultation. His relations
with the offices were of long standing and dated back to a day when
Knight, Kittredge and Carr were a new firm and Ezra Dameron was a
young merchant whom people respected, and whose prospects in life were
bright. There had been a time when he was pointed to as a handsome
man; but that was very long ago, and he was not an attractive object
now, as he moved restlessly about Michael Carr’s private room. He
carried a packet of papers in one hand and he walked now and then to a
window, whose panes were small and old-fashioned, and looked out upon
the locust-trees in the little court. He was clean-shaven, as always.
His beak-like nose had given him in his youth an air of imperiousness
that was now lacking; it combined with his thin lips and restless
gray eyes to give an impression of cruelty. From one pocket of his
overcoat the handle of the hammer protruded; and the other bulged with
the accompanying nails. There were people who held that his inoffensive
carpentry was an affectation, and that he practised it merely to
enhance his reputation for penuriousness, a reputation which, the same
people said, he greatly enjoyed.

While Ezra Dameron waited for Michael Carr, Rodney Merriam was walking
slowly from his house in Seminary Square down High Street to Jefferson,
swinging his stick, and gravely returning the salutations of friends
and acquaintances. In Mariona, where men of leisure are suspicious
characters, it was easy to take Rodney Merriam’s peculiarities far too
seriously. When he was at home he lived quietly, as became a gentleman,
and those who tried to find something theatrical in his course of life
were doomed to disappointment. He was, perhaps, amused to know that his
fellow townsmen puzzled over him a good deal and convinced themselves
that he was a strange and difficult man,--but that, after all, he was a
Merriam, and what could one expect! He usually knew what he was about,
however, and when he started for a place he reached it without trouble.
Thus he came presently to the offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr.
He stepped into the reception-room and found it empty. The door into
the library was closed but he could hear Carr’s voice; and he knew
that the lawyer was holding one of those morning talks with his clerks
and students that Morris Leighton had often described. He looked about
with interest and then crossed the hall. The doors of the three private
offices were closed, but he turned the knob of the one marked in small
black letters “Mr. Carr,” and went in.

Ezra Dameron was still looking out of the window when the door was
flung open. He supposed Carr had come, and having been gazing out into
the sunny court, his sight did not accommodate itself at once to the
dim light of the little room.

“Ah, Mr. Carr--” he began.

“Good morning, Ezra,” said Rodney Merriam, blandly. Dameron knew the
voice before he recognized his brother-in-law, and after a second’s
hesitation he advanced with a great air of cordiality.

“Why, Rodney, what brings you into the haunts of the law? I thought you
were a man who never got into trouble. I’m waiting for Mr. Carr. I have
a standing appointment with him this same day every month--excepting
Sundays, of course.”

“So I have understood. I don’t want to see Mr. Carr, however; I want to
see you.”

Dameron glanced at his brother-in-law anxiously. He had believed
Merriam’s appearance to be purely accidental, and he was not agreeably
disappointed to find that he had been mistaken. He looked at the little
clock on Carr’s desk, and was relieved to find that the lawyer would
undoubtedly appear in a few minutes.

“I should be glad, at any other time, Rodney, but Mr. Carr is very
particular about his appointments.”

“I have heard so, Ezra. What I have to say to you will not interfere
with your engagement with Mr. Carr.”

Merriam stood with his back to the little grate-fire, holding his hat
and stick in his hand.

“As near as I can remember, Ezra, it has been ten years since I enjoyed
a conversation with you.”

“Better let the old times go,--I--I--am willing to let them go, Rodney.”

“And on that last occasion, if my memory serves me, I believe I told
you that you were an infernal scoundrel.”

“You were very violent, very unjust; but let it all go, Rodney. I
treasure no unkind feelings.”

“I think, to be more exact, that I called you a damned cur,” Merriam
went on, “and it would be a source of real annoyance to me to have you
think for a moment that I have changed my mind. I want to have a word
with you about Zelda. She has chosen to go to live with you--”

“Very loyal, very noble of her. I’m sure I appreciate it.”

“I hope you do. She doesn’t understand what a contemptible hound you
are, and I don’t intend to tell her. And you may be quite sure that her
Aunt Julia will never tell her how you treated her mother,--how you
made her life a curse to her. I don’t want you to think that because I
have let you alone these ten years I have forgotten or forgiven you.
I wouldn’t trust you to do anything that demanded the lowest sense of
honor or manhood.”

There was no sign of anger or even resentment in Ezra’s face. His
inevitable smile died away in a sickly grin, but he said nothing.

“With this little preface I think you will understand that what I have
sought you out for is not to ask favors but to give orders, in view of
Zee’s return.”

“But Rodney, Rodney,--that matter needs no discussion. I shall hope
to make my daughter happy in her father’s house--I am her natural
protector--”

“You are, indeed; but a few instructions from me will be of great
assistance, Ezra.”

Dameron sat down, changing his position restlessly several times, so
that the loose nails in his pockets jingled.

“To begin with,” Merriam continued, “I want you to understand that the
first time I hear you have mistreated that girl or in any way made
her uncomfortable I shall horsewhip you in front of the post-office.
The second time I shall cowhide you in your own house, and the third
offense I shall punish either by shooting you or taking you out and
dropping you into the river, I haven’t fully decided which. I expect
you to provide generously for her out of the money her mother left her.
If you haven’t squandered it there ought to be a goodly sum by this
time.”

“I fear she has acquired expensive tastes abroad. Julia always spent
money wastefully.”

Dameron smiled and shook his head deprecatingly, with his air of
martyrdom. When Merriam shifted from one foot to the other, Dameron
started uneasily.

“You ugly hypocrite, talking about expensive tastes! I suppose you
have let everybody you know imagine that it has been your money that
has kept Zee abroad. It’s like you, and you’re certainly a consistent
beast. As I was saying, I mean that you shall treat her well, not
according to your own ideas, but mine. I want you to brace up and try
to act or look like a white man. You’ve got to keep enough servants in
that old shell of yours to take care of it. You must be immensely rich
by this time. You haven’t spent any money for twenty years; and you’ve
undoubtedly profited well in your handling of what Margaret left Zee.
That was like Margaret, to make you trustee of her child’s property,
after the dog’s life you had led her! You may be sure that it wasn’t
because she had any confidence in you, but because she had borne with
you bravely, and it was like her to make an outward show of respect
for you from the grave. And I suppose she hoped you might be a man at
last for the girl’s sake. The girl’s her mother over again; she’s a
thoroughbred. And you--I suppose God tolerates you on earth merely to
make Heaven more attractive.”

Merriam at no time raised his voice; the Merriams were a low-spoken
family; and when Rodney Merriam was quietest he was most dangerous.

Voices could be heard now across the hall. The morning conference was
at an end; and Michael Carr crossed to his room at twenty-five minutes
before nine, and opened the door in the full knowledge that Ezra
Dameron was waiting for him. Many strange things had happened in the
offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr; but Michael Carr had long ago
formed the habit of seeing everything and saying nothing.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said affably, and shook hands with both
men.

“I have just been warning Ezra against overwork,” said Merriam,
composedly, and without changing his position. “At Ezra’s age a man
ought to check himself; he ought to let other people use the hammer and
drive the nails.”

“Rodney always had his little joke,” said Dameron, and laughed a dry
laugh that showed his teeth in his very unpleasant smile.

“Don’t be in a hurry, Rod,” said Carr.

“Oh, I’m just roaming about, Mike. I find that a morning walk helps my
spirits.”

And Merriam wished both gentlemen a satisfactory disposition of their
business. It was, of course, a perfectly natural thing for him to drop
into a law office on a pleasant October morning and, meeting there a
connection of his family, hold converse with him on matters of common
interest. Michael Carr was not, however, a dull man, and he understood
perfectly that Rodney Merriam had decided to resume diplomatic
relations with Ezra Dameron; and he rightly guessed the reason to be
the return of Margaret Dameron’s daughter to her father’s house.

Merriam found Morris Leighton at work in the library. The young man
threw down his book in surprise as the old gentleman darkened the door.

“The date shall be printed in red ink on the office wall! I never
expected to see you here!”

“It may never happen again, my boy. I rarely cross Jefferson Street,
except on my way to the station. Is this all you have to do, read
books? I sometimes wish I had been a lawyer. Nothing to do but read
and write; it’s the easiest business there is. I really think it’s
easier than preaching, and it’s safer. My father set me apart for the
ministry. He was a good man, but a poor guesser.”

“Mr. Carr would like to see you; I’d be glad to call him,--except that
this is his morning with Mr. Dameron.”

“To be sure it is; but don’t trouble yourself. I’ve seen both of them,
anyhow.”

“Oh!”

“I just happened in and found Mr. Dameron waiting; so I amused him
until Mr. Carr appeared. You still have your historic morning round-up
here, I suppose. There are two things that you young gentlemen will
undoubtedly derive from Mr. Carr,--good manners and sound literary
tastes.”

“That’s so; but how about the law?”

“The law isn’t important. My friend Stanley down here knows the law,
they say; but if that’s so, it’s clearly a business for stupid men.
He’s built up a reputation by solemnly twirling his glasses and looking
wise at the judges. Bah! And yet he fools a great many people; there
are some who think he knows more than Carr, simply because he always
wears a frock coat. You know he got his walk from Judge Paget. Paget
was wounded in the war and had a little limp. Stanley has always tried
to imitate him as far as a man without brains can imitate a man with
good ones. Stanley’s clumsy shuffle is Judge Paget’s limp as near as
Stanley can do it. My dear boy, look solemn, get eye-glasses as soon as
possible and twirl them on a black ribbon, having at the same time a
far-away look in your eyes. It’s effective; there’s millions in it!”

“That sounds easy. But Mr. Carr has started me on another line. He
insists that it’s all work; and he seems to practise what he preaches.”

Merriam glanced at the somber shelves and shrugged his shoulders.

“Maybe Carr’s right. I think he’s right in most things. How soon is he
going to take you into partnership?”

“Never, probably. As head clerk he can make me do work that I might
want to dodge if I were a partner.”

“Well, he will treat you right. Don’t get restless. The law is changing
fast. It has ceased to be a profession nowadays; it’s a business. But
somebody’s got to write the briefs that win the cases, just as Carr
does, and you’d better get in the line of succession.”

Leighton leaned far back in the cane-bottomed chair--there was never a
decent chair in the offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr--and clasped
his hands about his head. A sudden look of liking leaped into Rodney
Merriam’s eyes. That lounging pose, the long nervous hands clasped
behind the head; the steady gray eyes, the straight nose, firm jaw and
humorous kind mouth--all suggested to Merriam other years when there
was another Morris Leighton, who wore a blue uniform and drilled his
battery to a degree of efficiency that made him a marked man in the
Army of the Tennessee.

“I don’t think you will ever want to dodge work or anything else,
Morris. That is, if you’re as much like your father inside as out,
you won’t be a dodger. Your father was a gentleman, and the tribe is
getting scarce.”

Merriam continued talking for an hour, apparently without motive; but
he was listening, nevertheless, for signs of life from Michael Carr’s
private office.

Mr. Carr was heard presently in the outer hall, and Merriam rose, as
though he suddenly remembered an appointment.

“Don’t forget the lobster, Sunday night, as usual,” he said; “and don’t
forget what I told you about looking up Mrs. Forrest. She’s been
around a bit and knows a few things. Well, gentlemen,”--to Carr and
Dameron who were exchanging the last words of their interview in the
hall--“I hope you’ve parted on good terms. Going, Ezra? Then I’ll walk
down the street with you a little way.”

He took Dameron’s arm and the two men descended to Jefferson Street,
which was crowded with shoppers at this hour. Merriam thrust his hand
under his brother-in-law’s arm and they walked along with an appearance
of intimacy, just as Merriam had planned they should. People turned to
look at them, the erect, handsome old man with his shining silk hat,
and his bent companion in the faded brown overcoat and dingy derby.

Merriam was exchanging reminiscences of old Seminary days with Dameron.
There was, in the long retrospect, extra-territorial ground where these
two men could meet without friction. Ezra Dameron knew well enough
that his brother-in-law had deliberately planned this meeting and in
his heart he resented being carried down Jefferson Street merely that
the public might be advised of the fact that two of its citizens were
once more on friendly terms after a long period of enmity. But he was
a martyr; he had always been a martyr to the insolence of the arrogant
Merriam family, and he found a certain hypocritical satisfaction in
being abused.

The two men paused at the corner of Wabash Street, where an old hotel
was making way for a new structure, and they watched the workmen for a
few minutes, commenting on the changes that had latterly removed many
landmarks.

“Well, Ezra, no doubt you’re a busy man, as you always used to be, and
anxious to get back to work.”

“I have a few repairs to make on some of my little properties.” The
purr in Ezra Dameron’s voice was irritating, but Merriam had succeeded
in his undertaking of the morning and wished to end the interview
amicably. He had outlined a program for Ezra Dameron’s guidance and
advertised a reconciliation. Ezra Dameron bored him immensely, and he
now wished to be rid of him.

“Don’t forget those little points that I suggested, Ezra. It may
encourage you to know that I have my eye on you. Good morning.”

Dameron struck off at a rapid pace toward the southern end of town, and
Merriam retraced his steps in Jefferson Street to High.

“I’m a stranger in my own town,” Merriam reflected.

He mailed a letter at the post-office and walked slowly homeward. The
federal building with its fort-like walls was doomed. Already its
successor was building farther up-town. Perhaps it was just as well so,
for the men who were identified in Rodney Merriam’s mind with the old
post-office had gone or were going fast. For years after the great war,
the federal office-holders had been veteran soldiers. Even the federal
judge,--the judge with the brown eyes and the limp that was due to a
rebel bullet,--the judge who narrowly missed being president of the
United States,--had been one of Grant’s generals. The marshal of the
district, a noble military figure to the end of his days, had been a
major-general of distinction; and the pension agent, a sturdy German
with a tremendous power of invective, who had learned his English by
reading Shakespeare, was remembered as one of “Pap” Thomas’s best
brigadiers. And there was the district attorney of the old days,--a
gentle and winning spirit, who was something of a poet, too. He had
been a major at twenty, with a record for gallantry that would read
like a chapter of romance, if it could be put on paper. Even the
court crier was no longer a crippled veteran, hobbling to his seat on
crutches; and there was now an ex-confederate captain in the marshal’s
office! The only outpost held by any of the old military coterie was
the post-office itself, where a sturdy veteran of both the Mexican and
Civil wars still held his own.

But of Rodney Merriam’s intimates none remained. All were gone, those
familiar militant spirits, and Rodney Merriam mourned them as a man who
has never known a woman’s love or the touch of children’s hands mourns
the men that have meant most to him in his life. He could no longer sit
in the deep leather chairs in the grim old building when the afternoon
light grew dim in the deep embrasured windows, and gossip of bygone
days, for the old rooms were occupied now by men whom Merriam did not
know; and so far as he was concerned his friends had no successors.

He went home, and after he had made himself comfortable, he stood for a
while looking out upon the new flat across the street, which had lately
cut off his view, swearing at it in a very pleasant tone of voice.




CHAPTER V

A POLITE REQUEST FOR MONEY


“About your allowance, Zee, I haven’t fixed it yet. So many matters
have been pressing me. But of course if you need anything----”

“Yes, father, I’m glad you spoke of it. I really should like a little
money.”

He looked at her in his quick, furtive way. He was disappointed; he had
expected her to disavow any needs.

“I didn’t suppose,” he said, dropping his eyes to his plate, and
cutting a bit of bacon deliberately--“I didn’t suppose you would
require any money for yourself as yet. There are so many trunks of
your clothes up stairs”--he smiled indulgently--“you can hardly need
anything at present.”

“Clothes? No, I don’t believe I do need any clothes at present. It
wasn’t clothes that I had in mind.”

“Oh!”

“I don’t need anything to wear just now. But I should like some money
of my own to spend. A thousand dollars will run me for a little while.”

He glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes while he continued to
manipulate his knife and fork. He really thought she might be jesting;
but she was stirring her coffee absent-mindedly, and did not look at
him.

“May I trouble you for a little more coffee, Zelda?”

He watched her pour it and add the sugar and cream. They were testing
each other in the light of a new attitude that had been established
between them, unconsciously on his part, but with studied care on hers.
She had felt, for a few days following her morning in the garret, that
her position in her father’s house was intolerable; that she could not
go on with it. But this had yielded before a new feeling of pride and
courage that had risen in her. The message her mother had left--a real
testament it was, thrown back from the very shadow of death--wakened in
her a sense of duty and obligation that was fantastic. She would not,
she said to herself, be less brave than her mother; so she had made
her resolve; she would not forsake her father for her mother’s sister
and brother; she would be true to the example of her mother, who had
suffered much and kept her sorrow to herself.

At twenty we do not look very far ahead; and Zelda Dameron thought
it easy to act a part. Her mother’s life had been ruined; her father
had the power to make her own life equally a drag and burden; but she
would not have it so. She would play her youth against his age, and
triumph; and this first encounter between them touching money gave her
an opportunity. It was his vulnerable point and she saw that she had
reached it. She had heard from her aunt that the estate her father
held for her was worth about four hundred thousand dollars; and the
income from this was sufficient, she knew, to give her much more than
the comforts of life. So she had asked for a thousand dollars as an
experiment; and she debated the matter with her father in an amiable
spirit of recklessness well calculated to annoy him.

“We were speaking of your allowance,” he began again. “You named a
large sum--a very large sum. May I ask what you want with so much? I’d
rather pay a certain amount to your credit at the bank every month; but
so large an amount--it would be ample for a year, I should say.”

“No,” Zelda began slowly. “I don’t think it would be enough for a year,
father. You see, in the first place I must have a decent horse.”

“Eh, what? A horse? Why, we have a very good horse and carriage. The
horse is very good. I bought it only a few weeks ago to be ready for
your return.”

“Yes, that was nice of you; but I don’t care much for a carriage. I
like a runabout that I can drive myself; and a horse--what do you call
it, a combination horse--that will do for me to ride, too. I know the
ancient in the barn. It isn’t quite up to the mark. I want a horse to
ride and drive; and you know a plow horse won’t do for that.”

“But you’d need an attendant,” he went on forbearingly. “A girl can’t
ride alone in the city. It wouldn’t be becoming. You’d better give up
the idea. There are many other forms of amusement and exercise.”

“Oh, I think I can manage that. Very likely Uncle Rodney will ride with
me sometimes. And I’m quite grown up, you know.”

“Your Uncle Rodney, my dear,” he began, and shook his head and
smiled in a grieved, sorrowful way. “He’s hardly a good adviser in
these things. Rodney is an excellent man, but he’s never had any
responsibilities in life. He’s always done exactly what he pleased
without consulting any one. You mustn’t let him persuade you into
extravagances. He and your aunt are a good deal alike in their wasteful
ways.”

“I suppose they do get what they want. They’re awfully nice, though.
They’re perfect dears. And I must say, father, that they’ve never said
a thing to me about horses. That’s my own wilfulness and extravagance.”

He laughed and smiled at her with his mirthless smile.

“There’s a lot of trickery in the horse business. You’d better let me
get the horse for you, if you really want one.”

“Oh, never! Half the fun would be to buy my own.”

“But these horse dealers!”--he shrugged his shoulders. “A girl must not
deal with them.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to buy my horse here. I’ll go to Kentucky where the
good horses come from and buy my charger there. You see, Mrs. Carr
has friends in Lexington. She was telling me wonderful things of the
country down there. It would be great fun to go. Why, maybe you’d go
with me!”

“No! no!”

Ezra Dameron sank back in his chair. He was baffled and perplexed.
This demand for money had come unexpectedly. He had underestimated the
girl’s intelligence, for he had never hinted to her that the property
he held in trust was large. On the other hand he had several times
implied quite pointedly that it was necessary for them to exercise
the greatest economy. He challenged for the first time her apparent
simplicity and frankness. She was deeper perhaps than he had imagined;
it was wholly possible that she was asking for this sum of money
merely to draw him out. It might be that she wished a refusal in order
to demand an accounting of her property. He feared Rodney Merriam, and
he thought it quite possible that his brother-in-law had suggested this
course of procedure; for he believed Merriam to be a subtle and crafty
man. Zelda was very probably acting under her uncle’s instructions; but
he would not be caught by any net spread by Rodney Merriam. The amount
was large, to be sure, but it was no breaking matter; he would give it
to the girl graciously. He suffered her to talk of other matters as he
pondered, and he said, after he had risen to go:

“I shall stop at the bank and open an account for you this morning. I
believe you said a thousand dollars. Of course you weren’t serious. But
I’m disposed to be generous. I will call it five hundred dollars.”

He inclined his body slightly. There was in him a formal courtesy,
or the mockery of courtesy. He could give a fine touch to an ignoble
thing, if need be; or he could yield to an importunity in a way that
brought him becoming martyrdom.

Zelda went with him to the door, as she had begun to do on the first
morning after her return, and rendered him those little offices that
women have ordained as part of the minor ritual of their service of
love.

She watched him as he walked rapidly away from the house without
looking back. She was already half-ashamed of herself for having
demanded money of him; yet there was a cry in her blood for war, for
contest, that this little triumph of the breakfast-table did not
satisfy; but as she watched him disappear at the corner pity again
possessed her heart.

An occupant of one of the new houses over the way came out to go to his
appointed labors of the day. His wife and two little children followed
him, and the family gathered about a flower bed in the plot of ground
by their doorstep and discussed the frost that had blighted their
plants. The comments of the children rang out in droll trebles; and
they delayed their father with many clutches and embraces as he started
away. Zelda watched them with a new pain in her heart. The shouts of
the children to their father touched a need of her own, and she turned
away into the house with a sob in her throat and tears gathering in her
eyes.




CHAPTER VI

THE LOBSTER


“It’s burning, I think,” suggested Zelda.

“You ought to keep stirring,” said Mrs. Forrest.

“It’s usually served hot,” remarked Leighton. “That’s what the books
say.”

The successful chafing-dish cook must be a good actor also. If the
wicks work badly, he must smile at his audience while his fingers burn;
or he must be able to tell an amusing story while the alcohol, which
is always spreading in places where it should not be, ignites grandly
until the table resembles a prairie fire. When the finished rabbit
pulls away from the spoon like taffy, and hardens in long strings in
the air, only an operator possessing unusual dramatic powers can turn
the tragedy into comedy.

“Your advice is neither asked nor desired,” Rodney Merriam said, in
scorn of his critics. “I’ve been under fire before.”

“You seem to be over it just now,” remarked Zelda, who sat nearest him
with her elbows on the table.

“They have smokeless powder now; maybe they’ll have fireless chafing
dishes next,” said Morris.

A spot of alcohol in the far corner of the tray had suddenly risen in a
thin flame, giving point to Leighton’s remark.

“Young people are terribly nervous these days,” remarked Merriam,
stifling the blaze imperturbably.

“‘Myself when young--’” hummed Zelda. “We’re never really old until we
begin to lament the past. But you’re doing it charmingly, uncle, with
quite a touch,--_avec empressement_.” She raised her arm and drew an
imaginary straight line in the air with the points of her fingers.

“It’s a way I have. I’m glad you appreciate it,”--and Merriam nodded to
the Japanese boy to put the plates within reach. The lobster diffused a
cheering aroma through the air as the old gentleman served it.

“It’s delicious. It’s a credit to Mr. _à la Newberg_,” said Zelda, as
she tasted it.

“It’s very indigestible, isn’t it, Rodney?” asked Mrs. Forrest,
guardedly.

“It is, Julia. The best authorities place it next to ten-penny nails
for indigestibility. But it’s good; and it’s better to die than to live
lobsterless. Morris, that bottle of ale is yours.”

Rodney Merriam had an eye for effects and he thought his guests fitted
very well into his dining-room. The furniture was all massive; the
walls were decorated in bright red; and the silver on the sideboard
and the crystal in the quaint old cabinet in the corner added to the
charm of the room. There was no jarring note; the whole house was
irreproachably clean; but a man’s house always has rigid lines. It
is ordained of Heaven that women shall possess certain things, and
the home touch is a feminine gift, that no man has ever been able to
impart, charm he never so wisely and spend he never so lavishly.

A New York friend who once spent a week with Rodney Merriam in Seminary
Square said on leaving that the house was as good as a club; that
the only thing he had missed was the signing of checks for what he
ordered. Men regard a club as paradise brought to earth, not because
they escape there from things feminine or can command a cool siphon by
ringing a bell; but because they like full swing at a club kitchen. It
is a heart-breaking thing in any man’s life when he knows to a moral
certainty that the roast on Monday, week after week, will be beef; that
on Tuesday it will be fowl, while Wednesday will bring mutton with
capers, and so on, to the regular Saturday evening corned beef. It is
not that he dislikes any one of these things; it’s their inevitableness
that causes his brow to darken and all the griefs of a busy day to
becloud his table talk. For the stomachs of men are children and like
to be surprised.

Rodney Merriam enjoyed his little party. It was going well, without
effort on his part. He led his guests from the dining-room to the
library, where a fire of hickory wood had just been lighted.

“There’s a parlor in this house, but the less you say about it the
better,” said Merriam. “I found it here when I bought the house and I
have never had the nerve to change it.”

“This is better,--much more intimate and homelike. I like it, Uncle
Rodney. You may graciously invite me again,” said Zelda.

“I know a trick worth two of being invited. I just come. I suggest my
method as having advantages;” and Leighton smiled at her.

“Yes. One is helpless against intruders,” declared Merriam; “privacy
is a lost art. But I must except present company. All I have--anything
you see--is yours to command, Zee. Better throw away that cigarette and
have a cigar, Morris.”

“He’s in a generous mood to-night,” said Leighton to Zelda. “It’s well
to seize and appropriate his worldly goods when he offers them. He’s
offered you the house and given me a cigar.”

“I’m nothing if not polite,” declared Merriam. “But I don’t see what
you’re complaining of, Morris. You haven’t lost your latch-key, have
you?”

“No. But I wish to be sure that Miss Dameron understands how difficult
you are.”

“Does that mean that you have to work hard to pay for the latch-key? Of
course the compensations are sufficient,” observed Zelda.

“I’m not ashamed of the pains I took to get it. On the whole I think
the labor flatters my good taste.”

“Oh, that!”

She was looking at Morris steadily and nodded her head gravely. The
emphasis on the pronoun was very slight, but it was enough to carry a
hint of impertinence.

Merriam and his sister were observing the young people from different
points of view. The former was anxious for Leighton to impress Mrs.
Forrest and Zelda favorably. Mrs. Forrest, on the other hand, watched
the girl with an admiration that was not wholly void of anxiety.
People usually laughed at what Zelda said, but Mrs. Forrest was not
altogether sure in her own mind as to the quality of the girl’s humor;
or perhaps she thought the amusement that Zelda created was merely
another instance of the ease with which a pretty girl can carry off
a situation. She wondered whether her brother had brought Zelda and
Morris Leighton together with a purpose; but she saw no reason for
suspecting him. It was natural that her brother should have taken up
the son of an old friend; she knew that he was kind and generous; and
Morris was a very presentable young man. He crossed the room now, and
began talking more particularly to her, though still including the
others. He was very straightforward and cordial. He spoke of Mariona
social matters with an irony that had no unkindness in it; and when he
appealed to her brother for corroboration there was a genuine respect
under his joking.

“I’m not a social animal,” Merriam remarked. “I’ve stopped going out.
If you could go to a friend’s house and hear talk that had sense or wit
in it, I’d be glad to leave my slippers and go about. But every house
nowadays is a museum of devices for making a row. You no sooner get
your hat off than your host turns on a hideous, automatic, perfectly
tireless device that squeals and roars like a circus calliope. The
devil’s in the things and they never run down. The other evening I went
to Carr’s, thinking I’d have a quiet evening, and he--Mike Carr--had
the effrontery to turn loose an infernal machine that squealed out
Hamlet’s soliloquy and vilely murdered it, so that I wouldn’t hear it
again--not if Edwin Booth came back to life and offered to give it in
this very room! But,--we can have better entertainment here. There’s
the parlor and a piano. Let there be music.”

“Your piano is probably impossible,” suggested Mrs. Forrest.

“It’s not my fault if it isn’t in tune. I had a man at work on it all
day yesterday.”

“I suppose there are books of music. We usually require something of
the kind,” said Zelda.

“Um--you ought to have brought your own.”

“Not, I hope, without being urged in advance!”

“There are some things here, I think,” said Morris, “if you will let
me show you the way. Mr. Merriam’s music probably dates back to the
_Kathleen Mavourneen_ period.”

“It was a good period, children; don’t speak slightingly of it.”

The old gentleman was lighting a fresh cigar at the mantel. Leighton
and Zelda crossed the hall together.

“Shall we stay here?” Merriam asked his sister. “The chairs over there
are pretty bad.”

The piano itself was not visible, but when the girl sat down by it her
profile was turned toward them.

Leighton opened a cabinet of old music, and drew out the sheets for
Zelda while they discussed the songs, which were all of a sentimental
sort that had long been out of favor.

“I really don’t see how they could have done it,” said Zelda. “I
suppose young women in those days were more courageous, or sentimental,
or something. Perhaps we have changed for the worse.”

“I shouldn’t like to admit it.”

“I have heard that lawyers never admit anything,” she said, musingly,
scanning the songs as Morris held them up for her.

“You’re conceding a good deal when you intimate that I’m a lawyer. But
you’re hard to please--about the music, I mean!”

“Never mind,” she said. “I’ve thought of something;” and she struck
suddenly the prelude of a song.

It was a swift rushing melody in which a gay mood had been imprisoned
with an exquisite art, and the girl’s voice caught it up and sang it
into life. She gave the little Provençal song in the patois; but the
words did not matter. It was a song of spring, which the melody told
without their aid.

Leighton was standing by her and the sudden out-leaping of the song
laid a spell upon him. There was something delightfully joyous and
spontaneous in it--as though it were a newly created thing that would
always remain in the world, now that a voice had been found for it. He
knew nothing of music and the finish of the girl’s singing was wasted
on him; but the spirit with which she gave the chansonnette amazed him.
He had felt that there was a kind of languor in her, an impression
created by her way of speaking; but her singing voice dispelled the
illusion. There was in her prayer to the spirit of spring a strange new
note of passion that struck into his heart and thrilled it.

The song ended as abruptly as it began. The house was very still, save
that the voices of Mrs. Forrest and her brother were heard across the
hall. Leighton waited; it was not for him to profane the silence into
which such melody had gone.

Rodney Merriam looked at his sister inquiringly.

“You never told me--”

“That it was like that? It is wonderful. I never dared try to tell
you. I never understood it myself. Technically it is not so good, her
teachers say; but the girl’s self gets into it and carries her away. I
sometimes wonder whether it is quite right to encourage her. A girl’s
soul ought to be shielded--”

Mrs. Forrest paused in her helpless way.

“Her soul will take care of itself, I think,” said Rodney Merriam.

Zelda turned abruptly to Morris.

“Just once more, if you can stand it. Don’t say a word! But I rarely
sing anything unless I try a certain piece for my own satisfaction.
It’s for bigger voices than mine. _Dreams_--you know--a study for
_Tristan and Isolde_. I really hope you won’t like it at all, for I
want it all to myself, no matter how badly I do it. Go on talking,” she
called to the others across the hall; “this isn’t a stunt,--it’s just
my own little meditation.”

She bent her head with an air of preoccupation for a moment, her face
wholly serious, before she began:

  “Say, oh say, what wondrous dreamings--”

She did not turn at once when the song was done, but sat for a moment
very still. She rose smiling.

“Well, there has been music--of a kind, _mon oncle_. Don’t you fiddle
or do something, Mr. Leighton? I oughtn’t to be made the only victim.
No! Nothing more from me! That is always my _finale_.”

Rodney Merriam had come into the room and he took her cheeks between
his hands and kissed her on the forehead.

“I wish I could say it, dear. It’s too much--too much--to think of, and
a little kid like you!”

The tears glistened in his eyes, but he smiled happily; it did not
often happen in Rodney Merriam’s life that a smile caught tears on his
dark face.

“Dear Uncle Rodney,” she said, and rested her hands on his shoulders.

“Let’s get out of this,” said the old gentleman. “The place is sacred
to your singing hereafter.” He led the way into the library and poked
the fire until it crackled and leaped into the chimney in the way that
he liked it.

“We must go home,” Mrs. Forrest announced presently.

“Nonsense,” growled her brother, who had reached the tranquillity of
his fireside pipe and hated to be disturbed.

“Yes; I promised father to be home at ten, and he will stay up for
me,” Zelda answered brightly, and rose to go. She went up stairs for
her wraps and was down at once. Leighton, who had gone to call Mrs.
Forrest’s carriage, met her in the hall. Merriam had waited for his
sister at the foot of the stairs and stood talking to her there.

Zelda was drawing on her gloves. Morris had never consciously watched
this process before, and he followed her movements with the wonder that
is always awakened in a young man by this sort of feminine legerdemain.

“I didn’t say anything about your singing--” began Morris.

“I noticed it!”

“But that was because I couldn’t. It was beautiful beyond any words of
mine to tell you.”

He was speaking earnestly; he was a very earnest fellow, and his gray
eyes were honest and friendly. It was always easy to laugh off the
compliments of people who did not mean them; but he clearly was not of
that kind.

“I’m glad you liked it,” she said simply. “What’s the name of that
animal?” She indicated a great head that hung on the wall above them.

“That’s a moose-head. Your uncle has a fondness for the moose, and goes
after one occasionally.”

“And gets it? I’m sure Uncle Rodney always gets what he goes for.
That’s my opinion of him.”

“Your faith isn’t misplaced. Whether it’s a moose or billiards, or a
bout at fencing, he’s always sure to score.”

“Where do you keep _your_ moose, Mr. Leighton?”

She asked the question with a disconcerting directness, and he answered
soberly.

“I haven’t any place to put my moose, so I haven’t caught him yet.”

“Oh--that!”

“And they’re expensive,--time--money.”

“I suppose so. Still, I think I should get a moose. Oh, Aunt Julia, we
really must--”

“Yes; I’m ready.”

“Father was very sorry he couldn’t come,” said Zelda, to her uncle.
“But he always goes to church Sunday evening. He asked me to explain.”

“It’s too bad he couldn’t come. I didn’t think of church. I thought
Sunday night church wasn’t done any more.”

“Father’s a creature of habit, I find. He always goes,--and to prayer
meeting, and to all those things.”

“Ah, very likely. I suppose he doesn’t insist on the prayer meetings
for you.”

“No, but I’ve volunteered! I’m to begin next Thursday night. I’m sure I
shall enjoy them.”

Merriam looked at her gravely. When she spoke in this way, softly,
with her lingering, caressing note at the end of sentences, he did
not know what to make of her. He was half disposed to believe she was
chaffing him; for she was too clever to be deceived by her father,--for
very long, at least. Rodney Merriam was expecting daily that she would
throw him over and cease trying to make the best of him and his ugly,
forbidding home. His wrath rose every time he reviewed the situation
and Zelda’s reply just now had sent a wave of hot blood to his face.
But she was a Merriam, he remembered. She put her arms about his neck
and kissed him good night.

Morris went with them to the carriage. Mrs. Forrest had brought Zelda
and was taking her home. Merriam waited for Morris in the library.

“Sit down, lad,” said the old gentleman; “don’t begin running away.”

“Very good. I want to leave you comfortable; but I must be going--”

“Going? No! I refuse to be left here alone yet.”

The Japanese boy brought whisky and water, and the old man scolded
Morris for taking Scotch, which he pronounced a barbarous liquor, unfit
for Americans.

“Well?” he said finally, slowly sipping his own whisky.

“It was a great evening,” said Morris.

“Um. How did you get on with my sister?”

“All right, I hope. She asked me to call. I liked her particularly.”

“That’s good. But for heaven’s sake don’t call on Sunday afternoons,
when she sleeps; and don’t ask her how she likes things. She likes most
things, but it bores her to be asked. She has a lot of sense,--do you
understand? And if she takes a fancy to you, she’ll do a lot for you.”

Leighton laughed. “Don’t embarrass me that way. I can’t work two people
at once in the same family,--and I’m working you.”

“Oh, you are, are you? Bah! That whisky has a green streak in it
somewhere.”

He set down his glass and put the tips of his fingers together, resting
his elbows on the arms of the chair. Then with sudden energy he roared:

“I don’t see why you don’t like her.”

“Mrs. Forrest? Of course I like her. I just said so.”

“I heard you. I’m not talking about Mrs. Forrest. Why weren’t you
decent to my niece? I brought her here so that you could get acquainted
with her. I was fool enough to think you had some sense--some social
instinct, some idea of good manners, but you acted like a perfect
damned clam.”

“I am very sorry,” said Morris, sitting forward in his chair. “I don’t
know what you expected. I did my poor level best.”

“And it was damned poor, sir, I’d have you know.”

Morris was trying hard not to laugh. The old gentleman glared at him
fiercely. There was a moment’s silence, and then Leighton said, very
quietly:

“She is charming,--more than that. There is something very unusual
about her. I knew that before she sang; and her singing sets her apart
from all the world.”

Merriam’s face changed slowly. He was listening carefully. He had used
his bluster to draw Morris out. He assumed now an air of indifference
as Leighton went on:

“I didn’t know that singing could be like that. I don’t believe I ever
heard anybody sing before! There was something strange about it--almost
uncanny--in what seemed to lie back of it.”

“You noticed it--you felt it?”

Merriam rose and walked back and forth before the fire, with his hands
thrust deep into his trousers pockets.

“A savage would feel it. It was as though--”

The old man paused suddenly and glared at Morris.

“Yes, it was like what?” he demanded impatiently.

“Like the cry of a soul in pain. No! you can’t tell what it was; but it
hurt. It was as though a child had suddenly gained the power to tell of
a deep, heart-breaking grief in a great way.”

“Yes,” Merriam said; and then he added very softly: “Yes, it was like
that.”

They sat together until late, talking of many things; but they did not
refer again to Zelda Dameron.




CHAPTER VII

A PRAYER FOR DIVINE GRACE


Mariona had not, when the Twentieth Century dawned, quite broken with
all its traditions. It was still considered bad form to display wealth
if you had it; and honest poverty still had sincere admirers among the
first citizens. It was better to have had a grandfather who “settled”
in the thirties than to be possessed of much money. There had been a
time when it was not respectable to stay away from church,--when only
here and there some persons, usually called “queer,” habitually refused
the offices of religion. But the old churches had begun to follow their
congregations up-town on the very sensible theory that the individual
church is much like any other institution that depends on public
support,--it must make itself easy for the public to find.

So, many people continued to go to church in Mariona,--the old
element of the community from force of habit and later comers because
their neighbors did, which is not to say that all were not moved by
religious impulses of the sincerest sort. Though we may not love our
neighbors as ourselves in the strictest sense of the commandment we
nevertheless like to appear well in their eyes. The sight of Wiggins
and Mrs. Wiggins going to church in their best clothes and of the
Wiggins children, equally splendid, going to Sunday-school, is well
calculated to awaken in the Morgansons over the way a worthy ambition
to be equally virtuous and splendid. Copeland, the lawyer who never
practised, had announced the dictum that in Mariona, to be respectable,
a man must pay pew rent and own a lot in Beech Hill cemetery; and
Copeland’s dicta were entitled to the respectful attention of all men.

Ezra Dameron was of the old order. He still attended all the services
of the Central Presbyterian Church, of which he had been a member for
forty years. He had held nearly all the offices in the giving of the
congregation at one time or another, beginning in his young manhood as
secretary of the Sunday-school and gradually rising to be an elder,
a position of dignity and honor in the communion, which he held for
twenty years. He had lately refused further election, on the plea of
advancing years; but he continued a most faithful member of the Central
Church, where his pew was under the very shadow of the pulpit.

The hypocrite is not a lovable character; and yet we may sometimes
condemn him with an excess of zeal. It is something gained when a bad
man realizes, no matter how ignobly, that he must deceive the outer
world in order to be countenanced; the only weakness of his position
being that he can not wholly deceive himself, though he may go far
toward doing so. Ezra Dameron had begun to deteriorate in his young
manhood and his pettiness and sordidness had grown steadily. Through
many years he had submitted the other cheek and worn a grieved and
wounded air, as though the world were using him harshly. His wife’s
family had not understood him; they had taken his daughter away from
him; and now that they had educated her according to their own ideas,
they had flung her back upon him, with an injunction to take good care
of her lest fierce penalties be visited upon him. He was a martyr,
he told himself; and his vision was marred by that form of spiritual
myopia which cuts man off from honest self-examination.

Ezra Dameron leaned upon his church--not in a spiritual so much as
a social sense. It afforded him the only opportunity he cared for
of appearing before his fellows clothed in his old broadcloth coat,
that was a veritable garment of righteousness. He was a man of little
imagination, but to walk down the long aisle to his pew during the
playing of the voluntary, and to hear the hymns and the more ambitious
efforts of the choir, and then to settle back for the sermon--these
simple experiences touched him, much as a summer breeze plays upon the
leafy crest of a rough old tree without communicating any motion to the
trunk.

“I usually go to prayer meeting,” said Ezra Dameron to Zelda, one
Thursday evening shortly after her home-coming.

“Yes, father.”

She hesitated a moment. She had gone to church with him on Sunday as
a matter of course, and she debated now whether to offer to go to the
prayer meeting. Her decision was formed suddenly.

“Your mother usually went with me,” her father said.

“I don’t remember. But I should like to go. I shall be ready whenever
you are.”

“I shall be glad to have you go when you like. Of course a young woman
often has conflicting engagements. Don’t feel bound to go when more
tempting things present themselves. I find a certain rest in a mid-week
hour of praise and meditation.”

He bowed his head a trifle, as was his way in saying something he
wished to make impressive.

“Yes; I should think that would be so,” said Zelda.

They walked together to the church, where the prayer meeting was held
in the Sunday-school room. There were not more than twenty people
present, most of them elderly persons. A few young people came, but
Zelda did not know them. One was the president of the Christian
Endeavor Society; the others were teachers in the Sunday-school.

The pastor, the Reverend Arthur Martin, was a young man, without
perceptible phylactery of his calling. He wore a gray sack-coat and
a blue four-in-hand tie, and was very good-looking. He read from
the Bible and prayed. A hymn followed, and everybody sang, except
Zelda. An old gentleman--one of the elders--commented on the passage
of Scripture; then prayer was offered by another member of the
congregation. The services were simple and unpretentious and had the
interest of novelty for Zelda.

It had not occurred to her that her father would participate; he sat
deep in meditation during an interval of silence in the room. Presently
the minister said:

“Mr. Dameron, please lead in prayer.”

The old man rose slowly in his place and after a moment began to
speak, his head lifted, his eyes open and gazing at a spot on the wall
beyond the minister’s head. Zelda’s heart beat fast. The experience
was wholly new and dismaying. She felt oppressed, suffocated, as she
bowed her head and clasped her hands in her lap. Her father’s voice
struck strange upon her ears as he made his petition. He seemed in a
way transformed and uplifted: the words of his prayer were singularly
well chosen as he expressed thanks to God for many blessings. He asked
the divine mercy for the sick and for all who walked in the valley of
the shadow of death. He prayed that they might be safely restored to
health, or, if God willed it, received into the heavenly kingdom. Help
was invoked for the church and all other agencies of mercy; for the
pastor in his labors, and the Sunday-school, the very foundation and
hope of the church.

“Now we especially beg Thy heavenly light upon the parents of this
congregation. We thank Thee for the priceless gift of our children.
Guide us in Thy infinite wisdom that we may lead them aright. Make us
gentle, make us merciful, make us patient, that in all our labors for
them we may fall into no error. For the little children, for the young
men and women of this household of faith, we beg Thy tenderest care,
O merciful Father, for through them Thou wilt lead us to Thy heavenly
kingdom at last.”

His participation through many years in these services had given Ezra
Dameron an easy facility in speaking of divine things. The phraseology
of prayer came naturally to his lips; in public devotions a mood of
exaltation fell on him; there was a kind of intoxication in this hour
in which he found an opportunity for the expression of his faith. These
weekly experiences touched his vanity; he knew that his prayers and
his testimonies of personal experience were a feature of the Thursday
night meetings; a long line of pastors had spoken to him of his
beautiful gift in prayer.

Zelda heard her father’s voice with a kind of awe. Prayer still held
for her a mystery; she had been taught to pray by her mother, and she
had carried through the years a feeling of trust and faith in a power
not her own, but it was unrelated to sects or creeds. She had gone to
countless churches while abroad,--but chiefly in the tourist’s spirit
of adventure. The Merriams had been Presbyterians originally, but as a
family they no longer had any unity of religious faith. Mrs. Forrest
had married an Episcopalian, and when in Mariona she went at Easter
and Christmas to the ivy-clad, stone Gothic church that stood in the
shadow of the monument. Rodney Merriam attended no church. When asked
as to his religion he always said he was a Roman Catholic, and as he
and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Mariona dined together now and then,
there were people in town who really believed that Merriam was a Roman
communicant.

After another hymn and a benediction the meeting closed. The minister
shook hands with Zelda and expressed his pleasure at seeing her; a
number of others spoke to her. Some of them looked at her curiously,
seeing on their own ground a young woman who was much talked about, and
whom they might not have an opportunity of meeting in any other way.
The minister’s wife, a bright-faced young woman, introduced herself to
Zelda.

“It’s a joy to see a new face at prayer meeting,” she said. “It seems
to be an institution for the tried and faithful. I admit that I never
went until I was married.”

“I think I shall come often,” Zelda replied passively.

The pastor’s wife was very pretty. She had just come to town from
another city, and her fall street-gown was of a fresh and bride-like
quality.

“You are the one that sings?” said Mrs. Martin. “I’m just beginning to
get acquainted here; but I’ve heard that about you.”

“I’m one of a million amateurs--that’s all,” replied Zelda.

She walked home with her father, who talked chiefly of the church and
its work and the fine promise of the young minister. Zelda said little.
Her father was inexplicable to her; but he had begun to fascinate
her curiously. She had always accepted the relationships of life as
a matter of course. Decency, order, fidelity, were all essential to
the ordinary trend of life. “Honor thy father and thy mother” was
a commonplace; but to-night she challenged it, as she walked home
from prayer meeting by the side of Ezra Dameron. And after she had
gone to her room, she wondered about him and saw and heard him again
petitioning Heaven. If it had not been for her mother’s testimony she
could have believed in him.




CHAPTER VIII

OLIVE MERRIAM


Zelda’s days ran on now much like those of other girls in Mariona.
Between Mrs. Forrest and Mrs. Carr, she was well launched socially, and
her time was fully occupied. She overhauled the house and changed its
furnishings radically,--while her father blinked at the expenditures.
Rodney Merriam, dropping in often to chaff Zelda about her neglect of
himself and to beg a little attention, rejoiced at the free way in
which she contracted bills. The old mahogany from the garret fitted
into the house charmingly. The dingy walls were brightened with new
papers; the old carpets were taken up, the floors stained, to save the
trouble of putting down hardwood, and rugs bought.

Some of the Mariona merchants, finding Ezra Dameron’s name entered on
their ledgers for the first time in years, marveled; but after they had
seen Zelda, often with her aunt or uncle, making purchases, they were
not anxious about the accounts contracted in Dameron’s name. A girl
who could spend money with so little flourish but with so fine an air
in demanding exactly what she wanted, received their best attention
without question. No one had ever denied Zelda Dameron anything in her
life; and she had formed the habit of asking for things in a way that
made denial impossible. When her aunt complained that the shopkeepers
wouldn’t do anything for her, Zelda brought them to time by telephone.
She knew by experience that her aunt’s methods were ineffective.
Zelda’s way was to ask quite casually that the shades she had bought be
hung the same day, as any other time would be inconvenient; and no one
ever seemed to have the heart to disappoint her.

Ezra Dameron’s greatest shock was the installing of the telephone in
his house; but every one else in Mariona, so Zelda assured him, had
one; and it would undoubtedly be of service to her in many ways. Her
real purpose was to place herself in communication with her aunt and
uncle, whose help she outwardly refused but secretly leaned on.

Zelda did not disturb the black woman in the kitchen, though she
employed a housemaid to supplement her services; but she labored
patiently to correct some of the veteran Polly’s distressing faults.
Polly was a good cook in the haphazard fashion of her kind. She could
not read, so that the cook-books which Zelda bought were of no use
to her. She shook her head over “book cookin’,” but Zelda, who dimly
remembered that her mother had spent much time in the kitchen, bought
a supply of aprons and gave herself persistently to culinary practice.
Or, she sat and dictated to Polly from one of the recipe books while
that amiable soul mixed the ingredients; and then, after the necessary
interval of fear and hope, they opened the oven door and peered in
anxiously upon triumph or disaster.

The horse was duly purchased at Lexington, on an excursion planned and
managed by Mrs. Carr. They named the little Hambletonian Xanthippe,
which Zelda changed to Zan, at her uncle’s suggestion. It was better,
he said, not to introduce any more of the remoter letters of the
alphabet into the family nomenclature; and as they already had Z it
would be unwise to add X. Moreover, it was fitting that Zee should own
Zan!

The possession of the pretty brown mare and a runabout greatly
increased Zelda’s range of activities. Her uncle kept a saddle
horse and he taught her how to ride and drive. He also, under Ezra
Dameron’s very eyes, had the old barn reconstructed, to make a proper
abiding-place for a Kentucky horse of at least decent ancestry, and
employed a stable-boy.

Zelda became daily more conscious of her father’s penurious ways, that
were always cropping out in the petty details of the housekeeping. One
evening when he thought himself unobserved, she saw him walking down
the front stairway, avoiding the carpet on the treads with difficult
care. Zelda did not at first know what he was doing; but she soon found
this to be only one of his many whimsical economies. He overhauled
the pantry now and then, making an inventory of the amount of flour,
sugar and coffee in stock, and he still did a part of the marketing.
Zelda had given the black stable-boy orders that Zan was to be fed
generously; and when she found that her father was giving contrary
directions she said nothing, but connived with the boy in the purchase
of hay and corn to make good the deficiency caused by her indulgence.

Late one afternoon she drove to a remote quarter of town in pursuit of
a laundress that had failed her. She concluded her errand and turned
Zan homeward, but lost her way in seeking to avoid a railway track
on which a line of freight cars blocked her path. She came upon a
public school building, which presented a stubborn front to a line of
shops and saloons on the opposite side of a narrow street. Two boys
were engaged in combat on the sidewalk at the school-house entrance,
surrounded by a ring of noisy partizans. A young woman, a teacher,
Zelda took her to be, hurried toward the scene of trouble from the
school-house door, and at her approach the ring of spectators dispersed
in disorder, leaving the combatants alone, vainly sparring for an
advantage before they, too, yielded the field. Zelda unconsciously
drew in her horse to watch the conclusion of matters. The young woman
stepped between the antagonists without parley, catching the grimy
fists of one of the boys in her hands, while the other took to his
heels amid the jeers of the gallery. Zelda heard the teacher’s voice
raised in sharp reprimand as she dismissed the lad with a wave of her
hand that implied an authority not to be gainsaid.

“Pardon me--” Zelda brought her horse to the curb--“but I’ve lost my
way. Can you tell me--”

The young teacher paused.

“Please don’t come back--” began Zelda.

The girl stepped to the curb and described the easiest way across town.
She was small and trim of figure and had very blue eyes.

“Thank you,” said Zelda, and Zan started forward.

“You are Miss Dameron,” the teacher said hesitatingly.

“Yes.” Zelda turned toward her in surprise.

“It’s been a long time since I saw you,--as many as a dozen years.” The
girl smiled and Zelda smiled, too.

“I wish I could remember. I’m sorry, but won’t you help me?”

“It was when you were a little girl--so was I, but I was older--and
my mother took me to see your mother, and we played, you and I, that
is, in the yard, while our mothers talked. You wore a red dress and I
thought you were very grand.”

The blue eyes were looking into the dark ones. There was a moment of
hesitation and scrutiny. Then Zelda put out her hand.

“You are my cousin. Olive--is it--Merriam?--please don’t tell me that
isn’t right!”

“Yes; that is just right.”

Zan, meanwhile, was pawing the dirty street impatiently.

“I’m going to take you home, if you’re ready to go, Cousin Olive.
I’m badly lost and don’t remember the way you told me to go. It’s so
exciting meeting a long-lost cousin!”

Olive Merriam debated an instant, in which she surveyed her new-found
cousin doubtfully. She had started home when the battle at the
school-house door gave her pause. There was no excuse for refusing.
Zelda had gathered up the reins, and waited.

“Do come! Zan isn’t dangerous--and neither am I.”

“Thank you. I’ll have to come now to show that I’m not afraid.”

The boys lingered at a safe distance, and as Zelda drove past them at
the corner, several of them snatched off their caps and grinned, and
Olive Merriam called good night to them.

As Zelda followed the route indicated by her cousin, she was busy
trying to find a lost strand of family history that proved elusive.
She did not at all remember her mother’s brother, Thomas Merriam. She
had never heard her aunt or uncle speak of the relationship, and she
surmised, now that she thought of it, that here must be another of
those breaks in the family connection that had already revealed ragged
edges. It was growing late, and she put Zan to her best paces, until
presently they came out upon a broad paved thoroughfare which offered
an open course to Jefferson Street.

“That’s better,” said Zelda. “I’m sure I should never have found the
way out alone. I don’t believe I was ever down there before.”

“Probably not. It isn’t considered highly fashionable.”

“It looks interesting, though,” said Zelda, remembering that this girl
spent her days there at the school-house in the slums. “And I liked the
boys.”

“I like them,” said Olive. “But I don’t get a chance at them. I have
girls only. I teach--” she laughed in a cheery way that warmed Zelda’s
heart--“I teach what they call domestic science.”

“That sounds very serious.”

“But it isn’t; it’s just cooking!”

“Cooking!” The runabout grazed the fender of a trolley car while the
motorman stared and swore as he pounded his gong. They were crossing
Jefferson Street where High intersects it. The traffic was always
congested here at this hour, and the crowd and noise caused Zan to
prick up her ears and toss her head. A stalwart policeman stationed in
the middle of the street dodged in an undignified fashion and waved his
club after them threateningly.

“You may let me out here anywhere,” said Olive, “and I’ll take the car.”

“Not unless you’re frightened. Please let me drive you home. I haven’t
the least idea where that is, so if I’m going wrong--”

“It’s Harrison Street.” She described the route. “You’re taking a lot
of trouble about me.”

“No. It’s the other way around. I’d never have seen the court-house
clock again if it hadn’t been for you. And then--” they approached a
cross street, and Zelda checked the flight of Zan and bent forward to
see whether the coast was clear--“and then”--she loosened the rein and
the animal sped forward again--“I’ve been looking awfully hard for a
friend, Cousin Olive, and I want you!”

Olive’s blue eyes, that gazed straight ahead over Zan’s back, filled
with tears.

“It’s a dreadful thing in this world to be lonesome--lonesome--
lonesome!”

Zelda seemed to be talking to herself. She snapped her whip and Zan’s
nimble feet struck the asphalt sharply in response.

“You are kind--but you don’t understand--a lot of things,” said Olive
Merriam. “You and I can’t be friends. There are reasons--”

“I don’t care for any reasons,” said Zelda.

“But they’re not my reasons--they’re other people’s! That’s our house
there, where the shades are up and a light is in the window.”

“I don’t care what other people say about anything,”--and Zelda brought
Zan to a stand at the curb in front of Olive’s door.

“I’d ask you to stop--” began Olive.

“I’m _going_ to stop,” said Zelda--“to see you quite on your threshold.
Zan stands without hitching, usually. I’ll take my chances.”

Harrison is only a street in miniature. It lies not far from the heart
of town, but so hidden away and with so little communication with the
outer world that the uninitiated have difficulty in finding it. It is
only a block long, and breathes an air of inadvertence,--of having
strayed away from the noise of the city to establish for itself an
abode of peace. A poet--the poet that all the people love--wrote a
song about it that made it the most famous street in Mariona. The
houses there are chiefly one-story-and-a-half cottages, and in one of
these, which was saved from intrusive eyes in summer by a double line
of hollyhocks, and which had at its back door at seasonable times a
charming old-fashioned garden, lived Olive Merriam and her mother.

Olive threw open the door and Zelda stepped into a sitting-room--the
house had no hall--where a coal fire burned cozily in a grate. The room
ran the length of the house; the woodwork was white; the floor was
pine, stained a dull red and covered with rugs made of old carpet. A
student lamp with a green shade stood on a table in the center of the
room. There were magazines and books on the table, and shelves in the
corners held other books. An elderly woman looked up from the paper
she had been reading as the door opened. A cane lay on the floor beside
her and told the story of the lines of pain in her face.

“Mother, this is Zelda Dameron. She has brought me home,” said Olive.

“She didn’t want me to at all, but I made her let me,” said Zelda,
crossing the room and taking Mrs. Merriam’s hand.

The woman bent her eyes--they were blue like Olive’s--upon the girl
with a grave questioning.

“You are Margaret’s daughter--you are Ezra Dameron’s daughter,” she
said.

“Yes; and I didn’t know about you at all until I found Olive to-day.
And I didn’t know that any Merriams anywhere lived in a house like
this. Why, it’s a home!”

Olive had brought a chair for Zelda, and stood watching her mother
anxiously.

“Please--I’m going--but tell me--that I may come back again.”

There was something so sincere and wistful in Zelda’s tone as she
spoke, standing between the firelight and the lamplight; something,
too, in the glance of appeal she gave the little room, that broke down
the antagonism in Mrs. Merriam’s eyes. She put out her hand again.

“Yes; I hope you will come. We shall be glad to see you.”

“_Et vous?_” Zelda turned to Olive with a quick gesture. “You must say
it, too!”

“Certainly--Cousin Zelda! Saturday or Sunday, always--in the
afternoons.”

“Saturday--that’s three days to wait--please don’t forget! Good night!”

Olive followed Zelda to the steps, and saw the runabout turn in the
narrow street and whirl away. She watched it until Zelda’s erect
figure passed like a flash under the electric light at the corner and
disappeared into the dark beyond.

“What miracle is this?” asked Mrs. Merriam of Olive. “Nothing short of
a miracle would account for it.”

“I met her down at the school-house. She had lost her way and asked
me how to find Jefferson Street. I called her by name,--she seemed to
remember me, and then she insisted on bringing me home. She seemed
rather pitiful; she said she was lonesome and wanted a friend.”

Olive sat down on a stool at her mother’s feet. She was afraid to show
too much interest in this new-found cousin. Her mother was clearly
puzzled and troubled; the moment was difficult; but she felt that it
was important to determine their future relations with Zelda Dameron
now.

“She is so very like her mother. It gave me a shock to see her.
Margaret had that same impulsive way. In any one else it would have
seemed strained and theatrical, but no one ever thought of it in
Margaret. Every one always said, when she did anything a little odd,
that it was just like Margaret Dameron. Your father hadn’t any of that;
he wasn’t like the rest of the Merriams. He tried to be on good terms
with Ezra Dameron, though Ezra never appreciated it; and the rest of
them dropped us for countenancing him. But Zelda,--what do you think of
her?”

“She didn’t give me time to think. She charmed me! I never saw anybody
like her in the world. She has such an air of mystery,--that doesn’t
seem just the word, but I don’t know what to call it. She’s adorable!
And when we were driving along in the dark and she said she was
‘lonesome, lonesome, lonesome,’ just that way, it made me cry.”

“I’ve heard that she has gone to live with her father. They can have
nothing in common. She will hardly be happy with him.”

“I should think not! I can’t imagine her living with him. Yes,--I can
imagine her doing anything!”

“I believe I can, too,” said Mrs. Merriam, smiling. “And if she’s
disposed to be friendly we mustn’t repel her.”

“No one could refuse an appeal like hers. I’m only afraid she’ll never
come back. She’s like a fairy princess. I don’t remember that anything
so interesting ever happened to me before. But I must come down to the
realities and go and get tea.”

Zelda appeared in a rain-storm early Saturday afternoon. Olive had
spent the morning at a teachers’ meeting and hurried through luncheon
to be prepared for Zelda in case she should come. Zelda appeared afoot,
wrapped in a long rain-coat.

“Don’t be alarmed about me! I’m neither sugar, salt nor anybody’s
honey. I never had a cold in my life,” she declared, as the two women
exclaimed at her drenched appearance. Olive helped her out of the coat
and bore it away to the kitchen, and then took Zelda to her own room,
where there was more white woodwork, with draperies of pink and white
in the dormer-windows.

“I know; I see through it all; you didn’t really want me to fix my
dripping locks, but to see this. Isn’t it too good to be true? It’s
like a little room I had once at a place in Italy, only better. It’s
very bad form to look; but I’m looking.” Zelda went about peering at
pictures, touching draperies swiftly with her hands; and at Olive’s
dresser she availed herself of comb and brush and restored her hair
with a few strokes. “Now, Cousin Olive, I don’t know what girls have to
say to each other when they’re all alone. This is a new experience. So
you begin.”

She took a rocking-chair that was covered with chintz of the same
pattern as the curtains, and faced Olive, who sat down in a little
window seat where there were cushions that matched the chintz. The room
was small and cozy. The rain beat on the shingles overhead and against
the windows with a soothing monotony.

“Mine are the brief and simple annals of the poor,” said Olive.

“That sounds like poetry. I don’t know any poetry. Tell me”--Zelda bent
forward in her chair and dropped her voice to a whisper--“tell me,
Cousin Olive, are you educated?”

Olive laughed aloud.

“I’m sorry to admit it, but I went to Drexel Institute, where they
teach girls to be practical; I didn’t go for fun; I went for business.
They teach the useful arts, and I learned, among other things, to be
humble.”

“I don’t believe you learned humility. Maybe humility was,--what do
they call it,--a snap course?”

“I’m not sure that I learned it,” said Olive.

“You must get over it if you did. Now, go on, and don’t let me
interrupt you any more.”

“Then I came home and began to teach in the public schools what they
call, as I told you, domestic science,--which means cooking.”

“Wonderful!”

“Not very. Nothing could be simpler. They’re trying it on to see how
it goes; so there’s a certain responsibility in my work. It will mean
a lot to the children of the poor if they can learn how to do things
decently and in order; and if I don’t make my slum cooking go the
powers will cut it off. I thought for a while about becoming a trained
nurse, though mother protested against it. But I was cured of that. I
went down to St. Luke’s Hospital to see if they would take me. The boss
nurse, whatever they call her, looked me over and asked if I wanted to
learn nursing because I had been disappointed in love! Think of it! It
seems that many girls do go in for it when they’ve been disappointed.
But that didn’t apply to me; so they refused to take me because I was
so little. I suppose I _am_ rather undersized,” said Olive, ruefully.
“I should like to be a nurse. The girls look so stunning in their
uniform. But that’s all there is about me. Mother is often ill and
never very strong. We live alone here and don’t see many people and
nothing ever happens.”

“It seems to me that a good deal happens. Now nothing really ever does
happen to me. And I’m most shamelessly ignorant. They didn’t send me
to school; my Aunt Julia kept me moving. I’ve lived in a trunk so long
that it seems to me the lid is always crowding down on top of my head.”

She shrugged her shoulders and put up her hands as though to protect
herself from an imaginary trunk-lid.

“Oh, but to see things and places and people!”

“But you _don’t_ see them,--when you’re traveling with your aunt! Then
you go boldly into a beautiful city and are taken in a closed carriage
to a hotel, or worse yet, a _pension_, and you are warned not to speak
to any one, particularly to any one that looks interesting, for the
interesting people usually have something wrong with them. _Isn’t_ it
strange that the interesting people are always wicked? I know that from
personal experience.”

Olive was listening to her cousin’s talk with a happy light in her eyes
and the smile that forever hovered about her pretty mouth.

“It isn’t so funny, I would have you know! to be dragged around, always
in a carriage, mind you, to look at only the most respectable ruins,
and statues of people that labored for some noble cause and had so
little sense they lost their heads. I worked for weeks in Paris before
Aunt Julia would let me see Napoleon’s tomb. And all because his
domestic life was not what it should be! As though that mattered, when
he made those silly old dynasties over there gasp for breath.”

Zelda’s voice,--its depth and music, and the elusive disappearing note
in it, wove an enchantment for Olive. Her own life had been colorless
and practical; but she had her dreams, and her cousin Zelda seemed a
realization of some of them.

“Anything is better than not going at all!”

“Maybe so. But I had tutors--queer people that came to teach me French
and German. That was odious, most odious.”

“I’m sure you know a lot. You can’t help knowing a lot.”

“I don’t know a thing,--not a single blessed thing. And if you won’t
tell any one--if you will let this be an awful secret between you and
me, a compact to end only with death,--I’ll confide to you that I don’t
care! I’m very, very wicked, Cousin Olive. I always want to do things
I’m told not to. When my dear charming father--he’s perfectly dear and
lovely--talks to me about politics and tells me that the Republicans
stand for the holy principles on which this glorious republic was
founded, I decide at once that I’m a Democrat. George Washington
must have been an awful bore. If the English weren’t the dullest and
stupidest people in the world they would have whipped him out of his
boots. Now, don’t you see what an impossible person I am? My father’s
the kindest, best man in the world,--he’s always so thoughtful,--always
doing things for me, and yet sometimes his very goodness makes this
same kind of wickedness rise up in me! Some day, some day, Cousin
Olive, I’m going to be good myself; but just now goodness,--goodness
makes me very tired. And now,” she went on with a change of manner and
waiting for no comment from her intent and puzzled listener, “would you
mind telling me how you get white woodwork like this? Do you have to
get the plumber or whatever-his-name-is to do that?”

“The way I did that,” said Olive, “was to take twenty-five cents down
to a shop where they sell paint all ready for the feminine hand to
apply, and buy a can of it and do the painting myself. It’s rather fun.”

“Perfectly delicious! My room is all black walnut, and I loathe it. And
things like these,” she indicated the curtains,--“how do you find them?”

“I’ll tell you my system, but it won’t appeal to you. I go to the
cheapest shop in town, where no carriages ever stop at the front door,
and where the women go in with their market baskets. I ask to see the
cheapest chintz they have; and then I pick out the least ugly stuff in
the bunch and carry it home.”

“Tremendous! It isn’t polite at all for me to be asking; but Aunt Julia
is as ignorant as I am. She sends her maid to do her shopping.”

“That’s real luxury.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s no fun at all. You can’t imagine what it means to
me to learn a little about how human beings live. Ever since I grew up
I’ve lived on the outside of things, and I’m tired of it.”

“You ought to be very happy,” said Olive.

“That’s what I detest about things,--the _oughts_. That’s why the
_oughtn’ts_ seem so attractive. But you won’t mind, will you, all this
queer rigmarole of mine? Please don’t tell your mother,--I want her to
like me, too, and she never could if she knew what wild ideas I have.”

“We like you very much, Cousin Zelda,” said Olive, gravely. She rose
from her seat and crossed to where Zelda stood and put her hands on her
cousin’s shoulders. Zelda seemed to look down on Olive from an ampler
ether; but her little kinswoman offered anchorage and security. She
brushed the soft light hair from Olive’s brow caressingly and bent and
kissed her.

“We understand, don’t we?” she said happily, stepping back and catching
both her cousin’s hands.

“And now,” said Olive, “Let us go down and make some tea and drink to
the compact.”




CHAPTER IX

A NICE LITTLE FELLOW


Rodney Merriam and Morris Leighton walked up High Street to the
Tippecanoe Club, which occupied a handsome old brick mansion that had
been built by one of the Merriams who had afterward lost his money.
Merriam usually went there late every afternoon to look over the
newspapers, and to talk to the men who dropped in on their way home. He
belonged also to the Hamilton, a much larger and gayer club that rose
to the height of five stories in the circular plaza about the soldiers’
monument at the heart of the city; but he never went there, for it was
noisy and full of politics. Many young men fresh from college belonged
to the Tippecanoe, and Merriam liked to talk to them. He was more
constant to the club than Morris, though they often went there together.

A number of men were sitting about the fireplace in the lounging-room.
The lazily blazing logs furnished the only light.

A chorus of good evenings greeted the two men in unmistakable
cordiality, and the best chair in the room was pushed toward Rodney
Merriam.

“Mr. Merriam, Captain Pollock; and Mr. Leighton.”

A young man rose and shook hands with the new-comers. Merriam did not
know most of the group by name. He had reached the age at which it
seems unnecessary to tax the memory with new burdens. It was, he held,
good club manners to speak to all the men you meet in a club, whether
you know them or not. The youngsters at the Tippecanoe were for the
greater part college graduates, just starting out in the world and
retaining a jealous hold of their youth through the ties of the club.

“The Arsenal’s got to go. They’re going to sell it and build a post
farther out in the country,” announced one of the group. “It’s all
settled at Washington to-day.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It’s another landmark gone,” said Merriam.

“Good for the town, though,” said a voice in the dark.

“Everything that’s unpleasant is,” declared the old gentleman.

Merriam’s tipple had been brought. It was bourbon whisky, off the wood.
A keg of it was sent to him by a friend in Louisville every Christmas.
As Merriam was occasionally away from town for a year or two at a
time the kegs accumulated, so he kept one at the club, and when his
order was whisky a bottle was always ready for him. Once when these
youngsters had thought to practise deceit by substituting a bottle of
the usual club rye for his private tipple, he had detected it by the
smell before tasting; for there were a good many things that Rodney
Merriam knew, and the difference between Pennsylvania rye and Kentucky
bourbon was not the least of them.

“The ordnance people move out in a day or two,” continued the voice in
the dark, “and a company of infantry will be here to hold things down
until the sale is made. Captain Pollock has been assigned to lay off
the lines of the new fort.”

Merriam was holding his glass up to the light in his lean brown
fingers. The name of the young man he had been introduced to had
touched a chord of memory; and he continued to hold his glass before
him so that he could see the clear amber of the liquor in the
firelight. He was thinking very steadily and very swiftly. The soft
voice of Pollock rose in the shadow almost at his elbow.

“If it isn’t _lèse-majesté_ I’d like to say that I’m sorry the
department is making the change. The Arsenal grounds are beautiful. I
shouldn’t think the people of Mariona would want to change the place
at all, even to get a large post. I envy all the fellows who have had
stations here in the past.”

“They have been mighty good fellows,” said Rodney Merriam. “I’ve known
most of them--all Civil War veterans, and men we have been glad to know
here in town. So Major Congrieve will have to move on! He’s a good
fellow and we’ll miss him, but he’s near the retiring age.”

“He’ll retire next year,” said the same voice. It was our southern
American voice, soft and well modulated, with the Italian _a_ that the
South has preserved inviolate.

Merriam had not drained his glass. He continued to speak, without
turning his head.

“Those are hard words, young gentlemen,--retiring age. It’s a polite
way of saying shelf. I’m on the shelf myself, and it’s dusty.”

[Illustration: _Morris Leighton_]

“Never!” protested Leighton. “The rest of us are sliding on the
banana skins of time--how is that?--right into the grave; while you
stand by like the god of youth and mock us.”

Merriam saluted them with his glass and drank it out.

“Captain Pollock has been telling us about the Philippines,” said
another one of the group. “We’ve been trying to find out whether he’s
an imperialist or how about it, but he won’t tell.”

“That shows his good judgment,” said Merriam.

“It shows that I want to keep my job,” declared Pollock, cheerfully.
“And I’ll be cashiered now for certain, if I don’t get back to the
Arsenal. Major Congrieve expects me for dinner.”

Baker, who had brought Pollock to the club, shook himself out of his
chair and the others rose.

“I’ll see that you find your way back to the reservation,” said Baker.

“That’s very kind of you. And I’m glad to have met you, Mr. Merriam.”

It was the soft voice again, and as they went out into the hall,
Merriam looked at the owner of it with interest. He was a slim young
fellow, with friendly blue eyes, brown hair, and a slight mustache.
His carriage was that of the drilled man. West Point does not give a
degree in the usual academic sense; but she writes something upon her
graduates that is much more useful for purposes of identification.
Frank Pollock had been the shortest man in his class; but his scant
inches were all soldierly. The young men with whom he had spent an
hour at the Tippecanoe Club had been gathered up by Baker, who had met
Pollock somewhere and taken a fancy to him. They all left the club
together except Merriam and Leighton, who went to the newspaper room.
But Merriam stared at the evening paper without reading it, and when he
got up to go presently, he stopped at the club register which lay open
on a desk in the hall. He put on his eye-glasses and scanned the page.
The ink was fresh on the last signature:

  FRANK POLLOCK, U. S. A.

Rodney Merriam then walked toward his own house, tapping the sidewalk
abstractedly with his stick.

The next morning he called for his horse early. He kept only one horse,
for he never drove; but he rode nearly every day when it was fair. His
route was usually out High Street toward the country; but to-day he
rode down-town through the monument plaza and then struck east over
the asphalt of Jefferson Street, where a handsome old gentleman of
sixty, riding a horse that was remembered with pride at Lexington, was
not seen every day. Rodney Merriam was thinking deeply this morning,
and the sharp rattle of his horse’s hoofs on the hard pavement did not
annoy him as it usually did.

Arsenal is a word that suggests direful things, but the Arsenal that
had been maintained through many peaceful years at Mariona, until the
town in its growth leaped over the government stone walls and extended
the urban lines beyond it, was really a pretty park. The residences
of the officers and several massive storehouses were, at least,
inoffensive to the eye. The native forest trees were aglow with autumn
color, and laborers were collecting and carrying away dead leaves.

Merriam brought his horse to a walk as he neared the open gates. A
private came out of the little guard-house and returned Merriam’s
salute. The man gazed admiringly after the military figure on the
thoroughbred, though he had often seen rider and horse before, and he
knew that Mr. Merriam was a friend of Major Congrieve, the commandant.
The soldier continued to stare after Rodney Merriam, curious to see
whether the visitor would bring his hand to his hat as he neared the
flag that flapped high overhead. He was not disappointed; Rodney
Merriam never failed to salute the colors, even when he was thinking
hard; and he was intent upon an idea this morning.

The maid who answered the bell was not sure whether Major Congrieve was
at home; he had been packing, she said; but the commandant appeared at
once and greeted his caller cordially.

Major Congrieve was a trifle stout, but his gray civilian clothes made
the best of a figure that was not what it had been. He was bald, and
looked much better in a hat than without it.

“You’ll pardon me for breaking in on your packing. I merely came to
register a kick. I don’t seem to know any of the local news any more
until it’s stale. I’ve just heard that the Arsenal has been sold and I
want to say that it’s an outrage to tear this place to pieces.”

“It is too bad; but I don’t see what you are going to do about it. I’ve
already got my walking papers. The incident is closed as far as I am
concerned.”

“To give us an active post in exchange for the Arsenal is not to do
us a kindness. We’ve got used to you gentlemen of the ordnance. Your
repose has been an inspiration to the community.”

“No irony! The town has always been so good to me and mine that we’ve
had no chance for repose.”

“But the Spanish War passed over and never touched you. I don’t believe
the powers at Washington knew you were here.”

“Oh yes, they did. They wired me every few hours to count the old guns
in the storehouse, until I knew every piece of that old scrap iron by
heart. If we’d used those old guns in that war, the row with Spain
would have been on a more equal basis.”

“I suppose it would,” said Merriam, who was thinking of something else.
“But I’m sorry you’re going to leave. We never quite settled that
little question about Shiloh; and I’m convinced that you’re wrong about
the Fitz-John Porter case.”

“Well, posterity will settle those questions without us. And would you
mind walking over to the office with me--”

“Bless me, I must be going! This was an unpardonable hour for a call.”

“Not in the least; only I’ve another caller over there--Pollock, of the
quartermaster’s department, who has been sent out to take charge of the
new post site. He’s a nice chap; you must know him.”

“I’ll be very glad, some other time,” said Merriam. “Which way does he
come from?”

“He’s a southern boy. Father was a Johnny Reb. Another sign that the
war is over and the hatchet buried.”

“Pollock, did you say? Tennessee family? I seem to remember the name.”

“I think so. Yes. I’m sure. I looked him up in the register.”

Merriam tapped his riding boot with the whip he had kept in his hand.

“Yes; the war’s over,” he said, “our war. There’s been another since,
but it’s preposterous to call that Spanish dress-parade and target
practice war.”

The two men went out together, and Major Congrieve twitted Merriam
about the thoroughbred’s pedigree.

“I’ll see you again before you go. Luncheon to-morrow at the Tippecanoe
Club? That is well. Good morning!”

As Merriam rode out toward the street, Captain Pollock came from one of
the storehouses and walked briskly across the grounds in the direction
of the office. A curve in the path brought him face to face with Rodney
Merriam, who saluted him with his right hand.

“Good morning, Mr. Merriam!” and the young officer lifted his hat.

Captain Pollock’s eyes followed the horseman to the gate.

“I don’t know who you are, Mr. Merriam, or what you do,” he reflected,
“but the sight of that horse makes me homesick.”

“He’s a nice little fellow,” Merriam was saying to himself, as he
passed the gate and turned toward the city. “He’s a nice little fellow;
and so was his father!”

As the thoroughbred bore him rapidly back to town, Rodney Merriam
several times repeated to himself abstractedly: “He’s a nice little
fellow!”




CHAPTER X

THE RIVER ROAD


Rodney Merriam’s efforts to manage Zelda had not thus far been wholly
satisfactory. He might, under ordinary circumstances, have submitted
to what seemed to be the inevitable, but he had never in his life
tamely accepted defeat. He could not take the forts by storm; he
would lay siege to them, and so he planned a long campaign. Zelda’s
intractability was as annoying as it was charming. He scolded her, and
she laughed at him; he gave orders and she disobeyed. He appealed to
her pride by declaring that the town was gossiping about her, and she
replied that being talked about was better than being ignored. She
twitted him freely about his air of mystery and asked him questions
so frankly impertinent that it was easy for him to parry them. There
seemed to be an ill-defined line between the child and the woman; and
he was never quite sure on which side of this faint boundary she stood.

Merriam liked to ride with her, and they explored many highways and
byways in the bright fall days. She forgot the dull house and her
strange father in the company of Rodney Merriam, whose own youth
revived in her company.

They came one bright blue afternoon in late October to “the river
road,” as it was called. It rose at one point to a considerable height
for this flat country, and when they reached it to-day they drew up
their horses as usual to enjoy the view. The soft wind that came out
of the south and fanned their faces might have been a wind of May. The
woodland back of them was glorious with autumn color,--deep red and
gold dominant, but with a single tree standing forth here and there in
unbroken green. A stake-and-rider fence inclosed the wood and crept on
down the road. On the other side lay the bluff, and below it the river
with its broad bed and sadly depleted channel. Across the stream stood
a group of sycamores, and beyond them lay farms, at peace in the clear,
still afternoon.

Zelda and her uncle reined in their horses and viewed the tranquil
beauty of the scene with satisfaction. Farm hands were clearing a bit
of land farther down-stream and their voices rose in the quiet air.
Merriam suggested that the men were skirmishers and that an army lay
behind them and would soon swing into view.

“What a place this is for a little artillery work,” he continued.
“Those fellows are marching up the river--foolish too, to get caught in
a place like that, with a bluff on one side and a river on the other.”

“But they could cross the river,--the gentlemen on horseback, whatever
you call them.”

“Cavalry, my child.”

“Beg pardon, sir!” She lifted her hand to her riding hat. “It’s an
awfully poor little stream. The foot soldiers could walk across.”

“There’s a courier now, just riding down to the water.”

Merriam pointed across the river. A horseman appeared there suddenly,
glancing up and down the little valley. He had left the town road and
followed a faint fisherman’s trail to the water.

“He’d be an easy mark for a sharp-shooter,” Merriam remarked.

“Too easy. There wouldn’t be anything very splendid in murdering a man
that way. You have to slay them in bunches to make it glorious. He’s
probably a farmer looking for his cows.”

“Wrong again. He’s in proper riding clothes, I should say.”

“He’s going to spoil them, _I_ should say!”

The horseman had forced his reluctant mount to the water’s edge.

“He’s actually going to cross!”

Merriam looked down with a professional eye. The horse was acting
badly, and the rider was urging it with voice and spur. In a moment the
splashing of the water could be heard plainly by the spectators. The
stream was of uneven depth, and the horse lost its footing for a few
yards but swam boldly on.

“By Jove! That fellow knows his business,” ejaculated Merriam.

The rider had got out of the stirrups and was standing on his saddle
crouching low over the horse, which for a minute was submerged.

“He must be a circus performer,” declared Zelda.

“No; the government has a school on the Hudson where they teach tricks
like that.”

“Oh, a West Pointer! But what’s he doing here?”

“Let’s get out of this,” said the old gentleman, tightening the hold on
his reins and ignoring her question.

He had been watching the horseman closely and his keen old eyes had
recognized an acquaintance.

“Not run from the enemy! I am surprised at you, _mon oncle_!”

“Come on,” he said, over his shoulder.

But Zelda smiled at him.

“Maybe he’s good-looking,” she observed. “And then, we ought to help
him find his cattle.”

Merriam rode on and she followed. The rider was now out of sight under
the bluff, but they could hear his horse’s hoofs on the low sandy
shore. Merriam knew the locality perfectly. There was no way of getting
up the bluff at this point, he was sure; but he did not care to meet
Captain Pollock, and he walked his horse smartly along the road.

“You might let me see him,” said Zelda, riding at his side. “I’d like
to know a man who could ride like that.”

“Humph! I could do it myself.”

“I shan’t dare you; I really think you might try it,--such is the
vanity of age.”

At the side of the road nearest the river was a thin low growth of
bushes. Suddenly there was a crash in the scanty hedge just ahead of
the two riders and a clatter of broken clods that rolled down with a
lively thump.

Merriam drew up with an exclamation as Captain Pollock drove his horse
over the edge of the bluff into the road directly in their path. The
animal’s flanks still dripped and it was blowing hard from the climb.

“Pardon me!” said Captain Pollock, smiling. He backed his panting horse
to the edge of the road and lifted his hat. His riding boots were wet
from their contact with water, but he was calm and unruffled.

“Good afternoon,” Merriam replied curtly.

“I hope I didn’t startle you, Mr. Merriam. I didn’t know that there was
any one up here. I was trying to find a new road home.”

He looked from Zelda to her uncle inquiringly.

“This pike leads directly into town,” said Merriam, pointing over his
shoulder. “Good day, sir!”

He spurred his horse forward, Zelda following; and in a moment Captain
Pollock was staring blankly at the blur of dust that enveloped them.

“Well, my dear uncle,” began Zelda, when they had turned a bend in the
road, “I’d like an explanation of this very amazing conduct.”

She brought her horse to a walk and touched her uncle’s arm with her
riding whip.

“What’s the matter?” asked Merriam.

“Don’t try to play the innocent! Why didn’t you introduce me to that
courier? You hurried me off as though he were the basest of all earth’s
creatures, instead of--”

“Instead of what?”

“Why, instead of an exceedingly handsome young man. He’s about the best
I’ve seen.”

“He is, is he?”

“That’s what I said! Don’t compel me to be impertinent. He had very
nice blue eyes; and when he took off his hat his head was very good. I
quite liked the way he parted his hair. He was really stunning and I’d
have liked to be introduced. But what is his name?”

Merriam was looking straight over his horse’s head and pretended that
he did not hear.

“Well, sir?”

“I don’t know the fellow,” said the old gentleman, shortly.

“Oh! He seemed to know you.”

“Humph! It was very unnecessary.”

“He addressed you respectfully by your proper name. You were very
impolite to him. He had all the marks of a gentleman.”

“I don’t know all the people that call me by name;” and Rodney Merriam
ended the conversation by bringing his horse to a gallop.

When they parted presently at Zelda’s door, Rodney Merriam had
forgotten the incident of the meeting on the river road, or he
pretended that he had, when Zelda said with a fine air of inadvertence:

“Of course, I’ll meet him sometime, somewhere, as the song says.”

“What’s that?” demanded her uncle.

He had turned his horse to leave, and she stood on the sidewalk
stroking Zan’s pretty nose.

“I said that I’d probably meet the chevalier sooner or later.”

“You shall do nothing of the kind,” declared the old gentleman,
testily, and he rode off with considerable haste toward his own stable.

Frank Pollock was a good deal puzzled by Rodney Merriam’s action on the
river road. He did not question that the old gentleman had recognized
him; even if he had not, strangers passing on the highway in this part
of the world usually saluted one another. Pollock was a fellow whose
amiability had always made friends for him; he had been petted to the
spoiling point by men and women in different parts of the republic, and
as he watched Rodney Merriam and Zelda Dameron gallop away from him his
face grew crimson. Pollock had not seen Zelda Dameron before, but he
assumed that she was a relative of Rodney Merriam’s,--a fact which he
deplored as the dust from their horses was driven back upon him.

It was, however, ordained by the powers that the meeting in the highway
between Pollock and Zelda should not be their last. Mrs. Michael Carr
had already discovered the young officer. She always discovered new
people in town and was not happy until she had summoned them to her
board. Her round table seated eight people comfortably, and she much
preferred this small number to the twenty that were possible. Wishing
to see Zelda at closer range, she made a small dinner--quite _en
famille_--and bade Zelda and Pollock, the Copelands, Mrs. Forrest and
Morris Leighton to her board. Michael Carr was fond of talk; to say
that he was himself a conversationalist was not making too much of it.
He even enjoyed the surprise of coming down to his drawing-room and
finding utter strangers there,--often persons whom Mrs. Carr had met in
the many clubs and societies of which she was a member.

“I am almost afraid to suggest that we may have met before,” said
Pollock to Zelda, when they were seated at the table.

“I didn’t suppose a soldier was ever afraid,” replied Zelda,
non-committally.

“I intimated,” repeated Pollock, “that I had seen you before. If you
wish to ignore the fact--”

“Oh, I shouldn’t do that. I remember--the horse--perfectly!”

“Thank you!”

“And you ride pretty well!”

“Again thanks! I had a dim impression that you rode well yourself. But
you and your escort seemed anxious to cast a cloud of dust upon your
merits. My glimpse was only fleeting.”

“Let me see. We did go off rather hastily. Oh yes! You frightened our
horses; I remember now! We had paused to admire the landscape when you
burst upon us suddenly and put our steeds to flight.”

They laughed at this ingenuous explanation and paused to heed a bit of
by-play between their hostess and Copeland on the labor question. Every
one contributed to the talk until the hostess, who professed radical
views, changed the subject.

“Colonel Merriam is your--”

“Mr. Merriam, please. He’s my uncle. He doesn’t allow any one to call
him colonel.”

“I beg your pardon, and his! He’s unique if he doesn’t care for a
title. He was an officer, wasn’t he, in the Civil War?”

“He was something; but he never mentions it.” Then brightly, with her
frankest air: “You may have met him during the war.”

“Thank you, immensely! My enemies have always charged me with extreme
youth. I am grateful beyond any words for the years you credit me with!
But we were rebels. Please don’t be shocked; my people were all rebels.”

“How delightful! I don’t believe I ever saw one before. How did the war
come out? Oh yes! We whipped you, didn’t we?”

“That’s conceded, I believe. I wasn’t born for a decade after it was
all over, or I’d never have surrendered. But the government forgave us
and let me go to West Point; so here we all are again, and I’m glad of
it!”

Frank Pollock was undoubtedly a very agreeable young man, and Zelda
Dameron liked him. When he said good night he asked if he might call on
her, and Zelda said yes, certainly, though she remembered her uncle’s
treatment of Captain Pollock on the river road very well. She knew
of no reason why she should not be polite to Captain Pollock, whose
manners and conversation were quite to her liking. If her uncle knew
any real reason why Captain Pollock was not a proper person for her to
know, he might say so.




CHAPTER XI

OVERHEARD BY EZRA DAMERON


“As a community we are nearly one hundred years old. We are an
enlightened and prosperous people. Ours is a city of homes,--a city in
which every man, no matter how humble, may have his own fireside; a
city in which the American element has always dominated; a city finely
expressive of the best in our native soil. Shame be upon us if we fail
in these endeavors to aid and protect the unfortunate among us! And
this appeal I speak not primarily for the societies here represented,
but for the founders of our commonwealth,--in the name of the
sincere and devoted men and women who planned this city and laid its
foundations broad and deep, that we who follow them need never waver or
hesitate or doubt in doing the work we find to do.”

Such was the close of an address given by Morris Leighton at the annual
meeting of the Mariona Organized Charity Society. The society was
facing several serious financial problems and this public meeting had
been called at the Grand Opera House early in the fall, that support
might be asked for the winter’s work. Michael Carr was president of the
society and he had appointed Leighton to make this address, wishing, as
he told the board of directors, to interest the younger generation in
the work which the elders had carried on for so long that the public
had grown tired of seeing and hearing them. Leighton was an effective
speaker, and Carr had assigned him to this address with confidence that
the society’s appeal would be spoken in a way to impress the large
audience that always attended the society’s meetings.

A few evenings later Morris called on Zelda. It was now November and
winter’s skirmish line had reached Mariona. A fire blazed in the grate
of the parlor, which Zelda’s care had now brightened in many ways.
She had found in the garret a handsome brass lamp, decorated with a
fringe of crystals, and this became well an old table, which had been
transferred from its traditional place in the center of the room to a
more effective spot between the windows. Mr. Dameron shook hands with
Leighton, whom he had seen often in the office of Knight, Kittredge and
Carr, and several times at home. He had expected that young men would
come to call on his daughter, now that she had returned to his roof,
for this was the way of things in Mariona, and he wished Zelda to have
the same liberty and the same advantages that other girls enjoyed.
If her uncle and aunt expected him to deal churlishly with the girl
and make a prisoner of her he would not gratify them. And there was a
particular reason why Leighton’s appearance at the house interested
him, for, with him as with Mrs. Forrest and Rodney Merriam, the young
man’s name carried a certain suggestion which, in Ezra Dameron’s case,
was not wholly pleasant.

Ezra Dameron had a sense of the proprieties, and he sat down and
talked to Leighton amiably. There was a wide margin between a social
and a business acquaintance; and Ezra Dameron studied Michael Carr’s
chief clerk with interest in the few minutes that intervened before
Zelda came down. There was a strange light in the old man’s eyes
as he watched them greet each other. He went out presently to the
sitting-room, and before his own fire he pondered long as the voices in
the parlor stole out to him.

“I believe this is my fourth appearance, but Mrs. Forrest said I might
come; and I hope I may refer confidently to your uncle.”

“I suppose you have to get some sort of permit to leave him for an
evening. He never asks _me_ for evenings alone.”

“It’s his natural gallantry. He’s afraid he might not prove
sufficiently interesting by himself. Quite possibly he’s afraid of you!”

“I have always understood that he wasn’t afraid of anything.”

“I think he’s a little afraid of inaction. He hates very much the idea
of having nothing to do but to take care of himself. He has been about
so much,--always, let us say, looking for the moose!”

Zelda smiled at this reference to their talk at her uncle’s house.
Zelda had been often in Morris’s mind since his first sight of her at
Mrs. Carr’s tea. He had speculated and wondered about her, as a young
man will about any girl he meets who appeals to his imagination. Carr,
in speaking to him from time to time of matters connected with Ezra
Dameron’s business, had let fall his own impression of the old man; and
while he always spoke with entire respect and loyalty of his client,
Leighton understood that Dameron’s business had grown irksome to the
lawyer. Morris knew, too, that Dameron’s reputation in the community
was not enviable; and he had heard the gossip occasioned by Zelda’s
return, with its note of misgiving as to the girl’s future.

Zelda was decidedly not an object of pity, but the knowledge that
every one was praising her piqued him, and he found himself anxious
to find her wanting. Her hair was carried up from her forehead in the
prevailing mode; there was no special distinction in that. Her dark
eyes were fine; but he knew other girls with dark hair and eyes; and he
had seen other girls move with the same ease and grace,--at least, he
told himself that he had. She wore a plain house-gown with trimmings
in orange, and an orange ribbon at her throat. He had certainly looked
upon finer raiment. But he hated himself for thus making an inventory;
for in the end he knew that he was sure of nothing save that she was
Zelda Dameron, and that she interested and puzzled him in curious ways.

“I heard your speech,” said Zelda.

“Then I hope you were moved to give of your substance to the poor.”

“Well, I haven’t contributed anything yet.”

“Oh!”

Leighton’s speech had been praised generously by his friends, and the
newspapers had said a good word for it. One of them was carrying an
extract from it in large black type in a conspicuous place at the head
of its editorial page. He was aware that he awakened in Zelda Dameron a
certain antagonism; she did not approve of him. He was not conceited,
but her attitude irritated him.

“You have a very good voice for speaking.” Then, after a pause--“My
uncle says so.”

“Thank you!”

“And I’ll say, on my own account, that you don’t make gestures,--trying
to get things out of the air, like a _prestidigitateur_. I haven’t
heard many speeches, but most of the orators I have heard have been
tiresome.”

“And--?”

“Oh, you weren’t so dreadfully tiresome! I have heard a great many that
were far more depressing. But there was one thing that occurred to me--”

“Pray tell me the worst!”

“It seemed to me, as you stood there talking to that theater full of
solemn people, that you must be awfully good; and I felt almost sorry
for you.”

She said this with her eyes bent upon him seriously, and his face
flushed. He replied quickly:

“Of course it was assumed. It was a necessity, a part of the game, as
we may say. I had been cast for the part, and had to give the best
imitation possible.”

“To be sure. I suppose we all have to play a part sometimes,” she said.
Her words carried no sympathy, but seemed to express a conviction about
which there was no debating, one way or another.

He said nothing, feeling uneasy and uncertain of his ground. She waited
a moment and then went on:

“There are things I should like to do if I were good, awfully good. I
should like to go about among the poor with little baskets of jelly,
and bottles of home-made currant wine, and some real home-made bread
of my own baking, and bestow them upon the worthy poor; but I never
could make up my mind to do it. I think the idea of giving tickets to
tramps, so they may go to the charity society office for inspection
before they are given a chance to saw a cord or two of wood before
breakfast, is hideously un-Christian. I don’t like your idea of making
a business of philanthropy.”

“It isn’t my idea,” said Leighton. “Please don’t identify me with all
that you don’t like about organized charities.”

“No; I shan’t; but the idea suggested itself that we ought to do better
for the tramps than that. Just imagine, Mr. Leighton, how _you_ would
feel if _you_ rang a door-bell,--suppose you were to ring ours!--and
some one would thrust a ticket through a crack and beg you to run along
and pass an examination somewhere before you could hope for a crust of
bread!”

Leighton laughed.

“I think in your case I should keep the ticket as a souvenir.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t be my case; it would be the maid’s. She keeps the
tickets.”

“So that to get a dime I should have to see you.”

“I’m afraid so; and I should have to ask you whether you intended
to buy bread or drink with it. They always do,--the scientific
philanthropists. Then they can report their observations to some dreary
headquarters somewhere for tabulation. I think I should always tell my
tramps to buy good whisky; they say it’s so much more wholesome than
bad bread!”

“I’ve been told so, too, if you are appealing to me!”

“But _everything_ in your speech wasn’t bad! You spoke quite nobly of
the founders of the city. I felt a thrill for my grandfather. I suppose
you have always lived here, too.”

In the living-room Ezra Dameron had put down his newspapers and was
reading his Bible. Leighton could see him plainly from where he sat,
beyond Zelda’s shoulder. Her father’s profile was as sharp and hard
as though it were cut in granite. It made a curious, incongruous
background for the graceful head, with its crown of dead black hair,
the soft curving cheeks, and the deep, serious eyes of the girl.

“No; we are country folk. My father came from Mills County,--there
weren’t really any mills there to speak of, but a great educator of
that name lived there in the early days. My father lived here for a
while after the war, but he was glad to get back to Tippecanoe. My
mother still lives there. I went to Tippecanoe College, and now here I
am; and so you have the story of my life! Perhaps I shall go back, too,
just as my father did,--if I can’t find the moose!”

“I have heard that the country about Tippecanoe is very pretty.”

“Yes; I like the town. My father and your uncle went to the college,
and I followed them, all unworthily. I go back very often,--it is
really home, you know, my mother being there.”

“I hardly know what life in a town of that sort may be like. I suppose
everything takes its color from the college.”

“Yes, in a great measure. Tippecanoe is a little old-fashioned and
quaint. I always felt that my father missed an opportunity sometime in
his life, but I never knew when or how; and I have no right to think
so.”

Ezra Dameron, with the old Bible on his knees, raised his eyes and
stared into the fire as these words caught and held his attention. He
remembered Morris Leighton’s father very well, and he smiled grimly
as he watched the hickory logs burning and reconstructed for himself
certain pages of his own life. There had been a man that Margaret
Merriam had loved, and would have married, if her pride had not
betrayed her into an estrangement; but it was her pride that had given
her into his own hands. He heard the son of Morris Leighton talking to
his daughter,--to Margaret Dameron’s daughter,--and the fact gave him
a certain pleasure. He continued to stare into the fire, with the old
leather-bound Bible open on his lean knees. The girl was his own and
she should not be given to Morris Leighton’s son. He should take care
of that. And he nodded to himself as he turned the leaves of his Bible.




CHAPTER XII

JACK BALCOMB’S PLEASANT WAYS


There comes a time in the life of young men when their college
fraternity pins lie forgotten in the collar-button box and the spiking
of freshmen ceases to be a burning issue. Tippecanoe was one of the
few freshwater colleges that barred women; but this was not its only
distinction, for its teaching was sound, its campus charming and the
town of which it was the chief ornament a quiet place noted from the
beginning of things for its cultivated people.

It is no longer so very laudable for a young man to pay his way through
college; and Morris Leighton had done this easily and without caring
to be praised or martyrized for doing so. He had enjoyed his college
days; he had been popular with town and gown; and he had managed to get
his share of undergraduate fun while leading his classes. He had helped
in the college library; he had twisted the iron letter-press on the
president’s correspondence late into the night; he had copied briefs
for a lawyer after hours; but he had pitched for the nine and hustled
for his “frat,” and he had led class rushes with ardor and success.

He had now been for several years in the offices of Knight, Kittredge
and Carr at Mariona, only an hour’s ride from Tippecanoe; and he still
kept in touch with the college. Michael Carr fully appreciated a
young man who took the law seriously and who could sit down in a court
room on call mornings, when need be, and turn off a demurrer without
paraphrasing it from a text-book.

Mrs. Carr, too, found Morris Leighton useful, and she liked him,
because he always responded unquestioningly to any summons to fill up a
blank at her table; and if Mr. Carr was reluctant at the last minute to
attend a lecture on “Egyptian Burial Customs,” Mrs. Carr could usually
summon Morris Leighton by telephone in time to act as her escort.
Young men were at a premium in Mariona, as in most other places, and
it was something to have one of the species, of an accommodating turn,
and very presentable, within telephone range. Mrs. Carr was grateful,
and so, it must be said, was her husband, who did not care to spend
his evenings digging up Egyptians that had been a long time dead, or
listening to comic operas. It was through Mrs. Carr that Leighton came
to be well known in Mariona; she told her friends to ask him to call,
and there were now many homes besides hers that he visited.

It sometimes occurred to Morris Leighton that he was not getting ahead
in the world very fast. He knew that his salary from Carr was more than
any other young lawyer of his years earned by independent practice; but
it seemed to him that he ought to be doing better. He had not drawn
on his mother’s small resources since his first year at college; he
had made his own way--and a little more--but he experienced moments of
restlessness in which the difficulties of establishing himself in his
profession loomed large and formidable.

An errand to a law firm in one of the fashionable new buildings that
had lately raised the Mariona skyline led him one afternoon past the
office of his college classmate, Jack Balcomb. “J. Arthur Balcomb”
was the inscription on the door, “Suite B, Room 1.” Leighton had seen
little of Balcomb for a year or more, and his friend’s name on the
ground-glass door arrested his eye.

Two girls were busily employed at typewriters in the anteroom, and one
of them extended a blank card to Morris and asked him for his name. The
girl disappeared into the inner room and came back instantly followed
by Balcomb, who seized Morris’s hand, dragged him in and closed the
door.

“Well, old man!” Balcomb shouted. “I’m glad to see you. It’s downright
pleasant to have a fellow come in occasionally and feel no temptation
to take his watch. Sink into yonder soft-yielding leather and allow me
to offer you one of these plutocratic perfectos. Only the elect get
these, I can tell you. In that drawer there I keep a brand made out of
car waste and hemp rope, that does very well for ordinary commercial
sociability. Got a match? All right; smoke up and tell me what you’re
doing to make the world a better place to live in, as old Prexy used to
say at college.”

“I’m digging at the law, at the same old stand. I can’t say that I’m
flourishing like Jonah’s gourd, as you seem to be.”

Morris cast his eyes over the room, which was handsomely furnished.
There was a good rug on the floor and the desk and table were of heavy
oak; an engraving of Thomas Jefferson hung over Balcomb’s desk, and
on the opposite side of the room was a table covered with financial
reference books.

“Well, I tell you, old man,” declared Balcomb, “you’ve got to fool
all the people all the time these days to make it go. Those venerable
whiskers around town whine about the good old times and how a young
man’s got to go slow but sure. There’s nothing in it; and they wouldn’t
be in it either, if they had to start in again; no siree!”

“What is your game just now, Jack, if it isn’t impertinent? It’s hard
to keep track of you. I remember very well that you started in to learn
the wholesale drug business.”

“Oh tush! don’t refer to that, an thou lovest me! That is one of the
darkest pages of my life. Those people down there in South High Street
thought I was a jay, and they sent me out to help the shipping clerk.
Wouldn’t that jar you! Overalls,--and a hand truck. Wow! I couldn’t get
out of that fast enough. Then, you know, I went to Chicago and spent a
year in a broker’s office, and I guess I learned a few up there. Oh,
rather! They sent me into the country to sell mining stock and I made
a record. They kept the printing presses going overtime to keep me
supplied. Say, they got afraid of me; I was too good!”

He stroked his vandyke beard complacently, and flicked the ash from his
cigar.

“What’s your line now? Real estate, mortgages, lending money to the
poor? How do you classify yourself?”

“You do me a cruel wrong, Morris, a cruel wrong. You read my sign on
the outer wall? Well, that’s a bluff. There’s nothing in real estate,
_per se_, as old Doc Bridges used to say at college. And the loan
business has all gone to the bad,--people are too rich; farmers are
rolling in real money and have it to lend. There was nothing for little
Willie in petty brokerages. I’m scheming--promoting--and I take my
slice off of everything that passes.”

“That certainly sounds well. You’ve learned fast. You had an ambition
to be a poet when you were in college. I think I still have a few
pounds of your verses in my traps somewhere.”

Balcomb threw up his head and laughed in self-pity.

“I believe I _was_ bitten with the literary tarantula for a while, but
I’ve lived it down, I hope. Prexy used to predict a bright literary
future for me in those days. You remember, when I made Phi Beta Kappa,
how he took both my hands and wept over me. ‘Balcomb,’ he says, ‘you’re
an honor to the college.’ I suppose he’d weep again, if he knew I’d
only forgotten about half the letters of the Greek alphabet,--left
them, as one might say, several thousand parasangs to the rear in my
mad race for daily sustenance. Well, I may not leave any vestiges on
the sands of time, but, please God, I shan’t die hungry,--not if I keep
my health. Dear old Prexy! He was a nice old chump, though a trifle
somnolent in his chapel talks.”

“Well, we needn’t pull the planks out of the bridge we’ve crossed on. I
got a lot out of college that I’m grateful for. They did their best for
us,” said Morris.

“Oh, yes; it was well enough, but if I had it to do over, Tippecanoe
wouldn’t see me; not much! It isn’t what you learn in college, it’s the
friendships you make and all that sort of thing that counts. A western
man ought to go east to college and rub up against eastern fellows.
The atmosphere at the freshwater colleges is pretty jay. Fred Waters
left Tippecanoe and went to Yale and got in with a lot of influential
fellows down there,--chaps whose fathers are in big things in New York.
Fred has a fine position now, just through his college pull, and first
thing you know, he’ll pick up an heiress and be fixed for life. Fred’s
a winner all right.”

“He’s also an ass,” said Leighton. “I remember him of old.”

“An ass of the large gray and long-eared species,--I’ll grant you that,
all right enough; but look here, old man, you’ve got to overlook the
fact that a fellow occasionally lifts his voice and brays. Man does not
live by the spirit alone; he needs bread, and bread’s getting hard to
get.”

“I’ve noticed it,” replied Leighton, who had covered all this ground
before in talks with Balcomb and did not care to go into it further.

“And then, you remember,” Balcomb went on, in enjoyment of his own
reminiscences, “I wooed the law for a while. But I guess what I learned
wouldn’t have embarrassed Chancellor Kent. I really had a client once.
I didn’t see a chance of getting one any other way, so I hired him. He
was a coon. I employed him for two dollars to go to the Grand Opera
House and buy a seat in the orchestra when Sir Henry Irving was giving
_The Merchant of Venice_. He went to sleep and snored and they threw
him out with rude, insolent, and angry hands after the second act; and
I brought suit against the management for damages, basing my claim
on the idea that they had spurned my dusky brother on account of his
race, color and previous condition of servitude. The last clause was
a joke. He had never done any work in his life, except for the state.
He was a very sightly coon, too, now that I recall him. The show was,
as I said, _The Merchant of Venice_, and I’ll leave it to anybody if
my client wasn’t at least as pleasing to the eye as Sir Henry in his
Shylock togs. I suppose if it had been _Othello_, race feeling would
have run so high that Sir Henry would hardly have escaped lynching.
Well, to return. My client got loaded on gin about the time the case
came up on demurrer and gave the snap away, and I dropped out of the
practice to avoid being disbarred. And it was just as well. My landlord
had protested against my using the office at night for poker purposes,
so I passed up the law and sought the asphodel fields of promotion.
_Les affaires font l’homme_, as old Professor Garneau used to say at
college. So here I am; and I’m glad I shook the law. I’d got tired of
eating coffee and rolls at the Berlin bakery three times a day.

“Why, Morris, old man,” he went on volubly, “there were days when
the loneliness in my office grew positively oppressive. You may
remember that room I had in the old Adams and Harper Block? It gave
upon a courtyard where the rats from a livery stable came to disport
themselves on rainy days. I grew to be a dead shot with the flobert
rifle; but lawsy, there’s mighty little consideration for true merit
in this world! Just because I winged a couple of cheap hack horses one
day, when my nerves weren’t steady, the livery people made me stop,
and one of my fellow tenants in the old rookery threatened to have me
arrested for conducting a shooting gallery without a license. He was a
dentist, and he said the snap of the rifle worried his victims.”

The two typewriting machines outside clicked steadily. Some one knocked
at the door.

“Come in!” shouted Balcomb.

One of the typewriter operators entered with a brisk air of business
and handed a telegram to Balcomb, who tore it open nonchalantly. As
he read it, he tossed the crumpled envelope over his shoulder in an
absent-minded way.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed, slapping his leg as though the news were
important. Then, to the girl, who waited with note-book and pencil in
hand: “Never mind; don’t wait. I’ll dictate the answer later.”

“How did it work?” he asked, turning to Leighton, who had been looking
over the books on the table.

“How did what work?”

“The fake. It was a fake telegram. That girl’s trained to bring in a
message every time I have a caller. If the caller stays thirty minutes,
it’s two messages,--in other words I’m on a fifteen-minute schedule.
I tip a boy in the telegraph office to keep me supplied with blanks.
It’s a great scheme. There’s nothing like a telegram to create the
impression that your office is a seething caldron of business. Old
Prexy was in town the other day. I don’t suppose he ever got a dose of
electricity in his life unless he had been sorely bereft of a member of
his family and was summoned to the funeral baked meats. Say, he must
have thought I had a private wire!”

Leighton sat down and fanned himself with his hat.

“You’ll be my death yet. You have the cheek of a nice, fresh, new
baggage check, Balcomb.”

“Your cigar isn’t burning well, Morris. Won’t you try another? No? I
like my guests to be comfortable.”

“I’m comfortable enough. I’m even entertained. Go ahead and let me see
the rest of the show.”

“Oh, we haven’t exactly a course of stunts here. Those are nice
girls out there. I’ve broken them of the chewing gum habit, and
they can answer anxious inquiries at the door now without danger of
strangulation.”

“They seem speedy on the machine. Your correspondence must be something
vast!”

“Um, yes. It has to be. Every cheap skate of a real estate man keeps
one stenographer. My distinction is that I keep two. They’re easy
advertising. Now that little one in the pink shirt-waist that brought
in the message from Mars a moment ago is a wonder of intelligence. Do
you know what she’s doing now?”

“Trying to break the machine I should guess, from the racket.”

“Bah! It’s the Lord’s Prayer.”

“You mean it’s a sort of prayer machine.”

“Not on your life. Maude hasn’t any real work to do just now and she’s
running off the Lord’s Prayer. I know by the way it clicks. When she
strikes ‘our daily bread’ the machine always gives a little gasp. See?
The rule of the office is that they must have some diddings doing
all the time. The big one with red hair is a perfect marvel at the
Declaration of Independence. She’ll be through addressing circulars in
a little while and will run off into ‘All men are created equal’--a
blooming lie, by the way--without losing a stroke.”

“You _have_ passed the poetry stage, beyond a doubt. But I should think
the strain of keeping all this going would be wearing on your sensitive
poetical nature. And it must cost something.”

“Oh, yes!” Balcomb pursed his lips and stroked his fine soft beard.
“But it’s worth it. I’m not playing for small stakes. I’m looking for
Christmas trees. Now they’ve got their eyes on me. These old Elijahs
that have been the bone and sinew of the town for so long that they
think they own it, are about done for. You can’t sit in a bank here any
more and look solemn and turn people down because your corn hurts or
because the chinch bugs have got into the wheat in Dakota or the czar
has bought the heir apparent a new toy pistol. You’ve got to present a
smiling countenance to the world and give the glad hand to everybody
you’re likely to need in your business. I jolly everybody!”

“That comes easy for you; but I didn’t know you could make an asset of
it.”

“It’s part of my working capital. Now you’d better cut loose from old
man Carr and move up here and get a suite near me. I’ve got more than I
can do,--I’m always needing a lawyer,--organizing companies, legality
of bonds, and so on. Dignified work. Lots of out-of-town people come
here and I’ll put you in touch with them. I threw a good thing to Van
Cleve only the other day. Bond foreclosure suit for some fellows in the
East that I sell stuff to. They wrote and asked me the name of a good
man. I thought of you--old college days and all that--but Van Cleve
had just done me a good turn and I had to let him have it. But you’d
better come over. You’ll never know the world’s in motion in that musty
old hole of Carr’s. You get timid and afraid to go near the water by
staying on shore so long. But say, Morris, you seem to be getting along
pretty well in the social push. Your name looks well in the society
column. How do you work it, anyhow?”

“Don’t expect me to give the snap away. The secret’s valuable. And I’m
not really inside; I am only peering through the pickets!”

“Tush! Get thee hence! I saw you in a box at the theater the other
night,--evidently Mrs. Carr’s party. There’s nothing like mixing
business with pleasure. Ah me!”

He yawned and stroked his beard and laughed, with a fine showing of
white teeth.

“I don’t see what’s pricking you with small pins of envy. You were
there with about the gayest crowd I ever saw at a theater; and it
looked like your own party.”

“Don’t say a word,” implored Balcomb, putting out his hand. “Members
of the board of managers of the state penitentiary, their wives, their
cousins and their aunts. Say, weren’t those beauteous whiskers! My eye!
Well, the evening netted me about five hundred plunks, and I got to
see the show and to eat a good supper in the bargain. Some reformers
were to appear before them that night officially, and my friends wanted
to keep them busy. I was called into the game to do something,--hence
these tears. Lawsy! I earned my money. Did you see those women?--about
two million per cent. pure jay!”

“You ought to cut out that sort of thing; it isn’t nice.”

“Oh, you needn’t be so virtuous. Carr keeps a whole corps of rascals to
spread apple-butter on the legislature corn-bread.”

“You’d better speak to him about it. He’d probably tell Mrs. Carr to
ask you to dinner right away.”

“Oh, that will come in time. I don’t expect to do everything at once.
You may see me up there sometime; and when you do, don’t shy off like
a colt at the choo-choos. By the way, I’d like to be one of the bright
particular stars of the Dramatic Club if you can fix it. You remember
that amateur theatricals are rather in my line.”

“I do. At college you were one of the most persistent Thespians we had,
and one of the worst. But let social matters go. You haven’t told me
how to get rich quick yet. I haven’t had the nerve to chuck the law as
you have.”

“Well,” continued Balcomb, expansively, “a fellow has got to take what
he can when he can. One swallow doesn’t make a summer; one sucker
doesn’t make a spring; so we must catch the birdling _en route_ or
_en passant_, as our dear professor of modern languages used to try
to get us to remark. Say, between us old college friends, I cleared
up a couple of thousand last week just too easy for any use. You know
Singerly, the popular undertaker,--Egyptian secret of embalming,
lady and gentleman attendants, night and day,--always wears a spray
of immortelles in his lapel and a dash of tuberose essence on his
handkerchief. Well, Singerly and I operated together in the smoothest
way you ever saw. Excuse me!” He lay back and howled. “Well, there was
an old house up here on High Street just where it begins to get good;
very exclusive--old families and all that. It belonged to an estate,
and I got an option on it just for fun. I began taking Singerly up
there to look at it. We’d measure it, and step it off, and stop and
palaver on the sidewalk. In a day or two those people up there began
to take notice and to do me the honor to call on me. You see, my boy,
an undertaking shop--even a fashionable one--for a neighbor, isn’t
pleasant; it wouldn’t add, as one might say, to the _sauce piquante_ of
life; and as a reminder of our mortality--a trifle depressing, as you
will admit.”

He took the cigar from his mouth and examined the burning end of it
thoughtfully.

“I sold the option to one of Singerly’s prospective neighbors for the
matter of eleven hundred. He’s a retired wholesale grocer and didn’t
need the money.”

“Seems to me you’re cutting pretty near the deadline, Jack. That’s not
a pretty sort of hold-up. You might as well take a sandbag and lie in
wait by night.”

“Great rhubarb! You make me tired. I’m not robbing the widow and the
orphan, but a fat old Dutchman who doesn’t ask anything of life but his
sauerkraut and beer.”

“And you do! You’d better give your ethical sense a good tonic before
you butt into the penal code.”

“Come off! I’ve got a better scheme even than the Singerly deal. The
school board’s trying to locate a few schools in up-town districts.
Very undesirable neighbors. I rather think I can make a couple of turns
there. This is all strictly _inter nos_, as Professor Morton used to
say in giving me, as a special mark of esteem, a couple of hundred
extra lines of Virgil to keep me in o’ nights.”

He looked at his watch and gave the stem-key a few turns before
returning it to his pocket.

“You’ll have to excuse me, old man. I’ve got a date with Adams, over
at the Central States Trust Company. He’s a right decent chap when you
know how to handle him. I want to get them to finance a big apartment
house scheme. I’ve got an idea for a flat that will make the town sit
up and gasp.”

“Don’t linger on my account, Jack. I only stopped in to see whether you
kept your good spirits. I feel as though I’d had a shower bath. Come
along.”

Several men were waiting to see Balcomb in the outer office and he
shook hands with all of them and begged them to come again, taking care
to mention that he had been called to the Central States Trust Company
and had to hurry away.

He called peremptorily to the passing elevator-car to wait, and as he
and Leighton squeezed into it, he continued his half of an imaginary
conversation in a tone that was audible to every passenger.

“I could have had those bonds, if I had wanted them; but I knew
there was a cloud on them--the county was already over its legal
limit. I guess those St. Louis fellows will be sorry they were so
enterprising--here we are!”

And then in a lower tone to Leighton: “That was for old man Dameron’s
benefit. Did you see him jammed back in the corner of the car? Queer
old party and as tight as a drum. When I can work off some assessable
and non-interest bearing bonds on him, it’ll be easy to sell Uncle
Sam’s Treasury a gold brick. They say the old man has a daughter who is
finer than gold; yea, than much fine gold. I’m going to look her up, if
I ever get time. You’d better come over soon and pick out an office.
_Verbum sat sapienti_, as our loving teacher used to say. So long!”

Leighton walked back to his office in good humor and better contented
with his own lot.




CHAPTER XIII

A REHEARSAL OF “DECEIVERS EVER”


“Well, I butted in all right,” said Balcomb, cheerfully. “I suppose
you’re saying to yourself that it’s another case of the unfailing
Balcomb cheek. Welladay! as Prexy used to say in the good old
summer-time of our college days. The good Lord has to give everybody
something, and if he gave me an asbestos-lined, Bessemer-covered
outside to my face, it’s not my fault.”

“You’re a peach, Jack, and no mistake, as I’ve said before. I wish I
had your nerve,--”

“But say, they just _had_ to have me in this show! It proves how every
little thing helps as we toil onward and upward. You know I was tenor
on the glee club at college, and you’ll remember that when we came over
to town and gave that concert for the benefit of the athletic fund I
was a winner, all right. Well, I’m going to throw my whole immortal
soul into this thing,--”

“You’ll leave an aching void if you do.”

“Thanks, kindly. As I was saying, I’m going to do myself and Mrs. Carr
proud. She’s one of the grandest women we ever had in this state. Most
of these women that preside at meetings are N. G. They haven’t any
sense of humor. But Mrs. Carr knows that all this woman’s suffrage
business is so much Thomas Rot. She works her sisters just for fun,
and they never catch on a little bit. She just has to be president of
things, and she’s an ornament to the community, by gum.”

Leighton thanked his stars that Mrs. Carr had discovered her tenor
without his help. He and Balcomb were standing in the Carr library,
where the last undress rehearsal of _Deceivers Ever_ was about to
begin. Leighton, who was stage manager, also sang in the chorus,
which appeared in one act as foresters and in the other as soldiers.
Mrs. Carr always had a reason for everything she did. Her reason for
insisting that the Dramatic Club, of which she was the president,
should give a comic opera was thoroughly adequate, for at this time she
was exploiting a young musician who had lately appeared in Mariona, and
who was not, let it be remembered, a mere instructor in vocal music,
but a composer as well. He was a very agreeable young man, who wished
to build up a permanent orchestra in Mariona, and Mrs. Carr was backing
this project with her accustomed enthusiasm. Nothing could help matters
forward so well as a social success for Max Schmidt. He had written an
opera, which many managers had declined for the reason that the music
was too good and the book too bad.

_Deceivers Ever_ was the name of the work, and Mrs. Carr was preparing
to produce an abridged version of it on the night before Thanksgiving.
The scene was set in Germany, and there were six men--the gay
deceivers--all of them officers in the army. The chief girl character
was the daughter of a new commandant of a post, but at a ball given in
his honor she changed places with her maid, and no end of confusion
resulted. Mrs. Carr had urged Zelda to take the principal rôle, and
Zelda had consented, with the understanding that Olive Merriam was to
be elected a member of the club and given a part in the opera. Zelda
saw only perfection in Olive; she declared that Olive’s voice was far
superior to her own; and so Olive, who had never moved in the larger
currents of Mariona social life, found herself unexpectedly enrolled in
the Dramatic Club and a member of the cast of _Deceivers Ever_.

While Leighton and Balcomb stood talking in the library, Herr
Schmidt, in the drawing-room, lectured the rest of the company in his
difficult English. He now fell upon the piano with a crash and nodded
to Zelda, who began one of her solos. When this had been sung to his
satisfaction, the director called for Olive and Captain Pollock.

Pollock was greatly liked by the people he had begun to know in
Mariona. The men about the Tippecanoe Club had the reputation of
scrutinizing new-comers a little superciliously, in the way of old
members of a small club, who resent the appearance of strangers at the
lounging-room fireside. But Pollock fitted into places as though he had
always been used to them. He told a good story or he sang a song well,
when called on to do something at the grill-room Saturday nights. Mrs.
Carr had given him one of the best parts in the opera.

The young officer and Olive carried off with great animation a dialogue
in song into which Herr Schmidt had been able to get some real humor.

“You haven’t told me how much you like my cousin,” said Zelda to
Leighton, when he sat down by her in an interval of parley between the
director and Mrs. Carr. “I expect something nice.”

“Nothing could be easier. She’s a great hit! She’s a discovery! She’s
an ornament to society!”

“Humph! That sounds like sample sentences from a copy-book. A man with
a reputation as an orator to sustain ought to be able to do better than
that.”

“Not having such a reputation--”

“Not even thinking one has--”

“Oh, I’m conceited, am I?”

“I hadn’t thought of it before, but no doubt it’s true,” said Zelda,
looking across the room to where Jack Balcomb was talking with his
usual vivacity to a girl in the chorus whom he had never met before.
He was perfectly at ease, as though leaning against grand pianos in
handsome drawing-rooms and talking to pretty girls had always been his
mission in life.

Morris did not follow Zelda’s eyes; he was watching her face gravely.
He had tried in many ways to please her, but she maintained an attitude
toward him that was annoying, to say the least.

“There’s Mr. Balcomb over there,” Zelda remarked casually. “He sings
divinely, doesn’t he? Don’t you think he sings divinely?” and she
looked at Morris suddenly, with a provoking air of gravity.

“I’m sure he was a De Reszke in some former incarnation,” said Morris,
savagely.

“That was just what I was thinking, only I hadn’t the words to express
it,” said Zelda, with a mockery of joy at finding they were in accord.

“I’m glad, then, that we can agree about something, even when we’re
both undoubtedly wrong.”

“I don’t like to think that I can be wrong,” said Zelda. “And it isn’t
in the least flattering for you to suggest such a thing. I shall have
to speak to my Uncle Rodney about you.”

“Any interest you may take in me will be appreciated. I had not hoped
that you would--”

“Would what?” she asked, when he hesitated.

“I’ve forgotten now what we were talking about.”

“That is really most flattering! Oh, Mr. Balcomb.”

Jack had crossed the room, giving what he called the cheering jolly to
several young women on the way, and he turned quickly:

“At your service, Miss Dameron,”--and he bowed impressively.

“Mr. Leighton is crazy about your singing. He is just waiting for a
chance to congratulate you. But he’s very unhappy to-night. Words fail
him.” And she shook her head and looked into Balcomb’s grinning face as
though this were a great grief between them.

“What kind of a jolly is this? I say, Morris, you look like first and
second grave-digger done into one. We’re not playing _Hamlet_ now. But
I can tell you, Miss Dameron, that when Brother Leighton--he belongs
to my frat, hence the brother--did Hamlet over at our dear old alma
mater, the gloom that settled down on that township could have been cut
up into badges of mourning enough to have supplied Spain through her
little affair with these states. That’s Walt Whitman,--‘these states.’
Do you know, I was Ophelia to his Hamlet, and if I do say it myself, I
was a sweet thing in Ophelias.”

“I don’t doubt you were, Mr. Balcomb,” said Zelda.

“There was just one thing lacking in your impersonation,” declared
Leighton: “you ought to have been drowned in the first scene of the
first act to have made it perfect.”

“No violence, gentlemen, I beg of you!” And Zelda hurried across the
room to where Herr Schmidt was assembling the principals.

“Say, that girl has got the art of stringing down fine. She seems
to have you going all right. You look like twenty-nine cents at a
thirty-cent bargain counter. But you take it too hard. I wish she’d
string me! They’re never so much interested as when they throw you on
your face and give you the merry tra la. I tell you I’ve had experience
with the sect all right, and I know!”

“Yes, I remember your flirtations with the girls that waited on table
at the college boarding-house. You had a very cheering way with them.”

Balcomb’s eyes were running restlessly over the groups of young people.
He was appraising and fixing them in his mind as he talked. His joy in
being among them,--these representative young people of the city, whose
names he knew well from long and diligent perusal of the personal and
society column of the daily papers,--amused Leighton; but the fellow’s
self-satisfaction irritated him, too.

“What? Yes!” and Balcomb turned to him again. “I wouldn’t have you
think for a minute that the past’s blood-rusted key has any horrors for
me. I’ll bet you I did raise the high perpendicular hand to those poor
orphans as they passed the pickled pigs’ feet and the stewed rhubarb
at Mrs. Fassett’s boarding-house. And I’m glad I did. My office in the
world is to make two cheerful jays where none has been before. Say,
that little Merriam girl is a most delicious peach, isn’t she? Miss
Dameron’s cousin or something of the kind. About as much alike as the
Queen of Sheba and Come into the Garden Maud! I’m going to play up
to that little girl; but say, I don’t care for that strutting little
captain. I’ve got to cut him out. These West Pointers always did make
me tired. Think the earth is theirs and the fullness thereof; and I’m
unalterably opposed to militarism, social and political.”

Morris said nothing, and Balcomb went on, in his usual breathless
fashion:

“I must cultivate Mrs. Carr. She’s certainly a good thing. I really
think she rates me above par owing to a strong position I took with her
a few evenings ago _ad interim_, so to speak, while Dutchy Schmidt got
mad and talked through his hair. The strong position, as I was saying,
was apropos of Ibsen. When I remarked, quite casually, that Ibsen was
the great soul photographer, you should have seen her eyes light up!
I have visions of being much seen in these parlors hereafter. I guess
Mike, the hubbyhub, isn’t so much on soul himself, but she has him
hypnotized, all right. Just look at that sawed-off Pollock playing up
to my girl! The infinitesimal projectile of dynastic imperialism! I see
his finish. Ah! Watch me lift my velvety tenor.”

Herr Schmidt whirled on the piano stool and glared in Balcomb’s
direction through his shaggy mane; and the young promoter sprang into
the middle of the floor and began acting and singing with the utmost
_sang-froid_. He was easily the best man in the company, and Mrs. Carr
was delighted with the spirit that he brought to rehearsals.

The chorus had been drilled apart, and this was the first time Morris
had heard the principals sing. He had joined the chorus under protest,
but Mrs. Carr had insisted and when he learned that Zelda was to be
the star it had not been difficult to comply. She began now one of her
songs, as Gretchen, the commandant’s daughter:

  “O deep dark woods of fatherland,
    Thy boughs stretch high above;
  O whispering wind in woodlands deep,
    Thy voice is all of love.”

Until to-night, he had not heard her sing since the evening of Rodney
Merriam’s lobster, and he felt again the thrill that her voice had
awakened in him then. She stood within the circle that the others of
the company made for her, and he fancied that a great distance lay
between her and every other human thing. When a contralto voice is
pure and true, it is one of the surest vehicles of passion there is in
the world. It has a gathering power that seems to sweep all before it;
it touches the heights but never lets go of the depths; it becomes,
when it rises greatly, something that is not of this world and that
yet speaks of every joy and every grief that the world has known. It
was a song of farewell,--the song of a girl singing to her lover who
was going away to war; and it seemed to Morris Leighton that it was a
good-by to everything that a girl might know and hold good.

When the last notes died away, Balcomb stepped out at the director’s
nod and began the answering song. Balcomb usually amused Morris; but
the fellow struck upon him discordantly now. Zelda was laughing at
Balcomb’s antics as he began to sing with fervor and a real sense of
the dramatic requirements. As he neared the end, where Zelda and he
sang together the duet that ended the first half of the opera, Zelda
put up her hands, and he took them, gazing into her eyes with a fine
lover-like air. Their voices soared into the climax without a break,
while the director threw himself into strange contortions as he struck
the last bars leading to the high note which they gained and held
perfectly.

The dress rehearsal was fixed for the next night.

“It simply can’t fail!” declared Mrs. Carr to Leighton. “Miss Dameron
could carry it alone if every one else should break down.”

“That is altogether true,” said Morris. He was glaring at Balcomb,
whose joy in being a member of the cast was hard to bear.

Copeland, the lawyer who never practised, joined Leighton and twitted
him for appearing so gloomy. Copeland and his wife were on the
committee that had _Deceivers Ever_ in charge.

“I’ll give you anything I own, if you will tell me how I came to be on
this committee,” said Copeland.

“It wouldn’t be right to take the money. It’s too easy. You’re in
because Mrs. Carr asked you to be in,” replied Morris.

“Yes; and that damned Ogden boy has got typhoid fever, and I’m going to
sing the raging father’s part. I’m an awful ass, Leighton. If there’s a
larger or more industrious, hard-working ass anywhere than I am--” At
this point Jack Balcomb made himself conspicuous by laughing out in a
harsh discordant tone at something Herr Schmidt had said. “I take it
all back,” said Copeland, sadly. “I’ll admit myself,--regretfully, but
still I’ll admit,--that J. Arthur Balcomb can give me a big handicap
and still beat me. At the risk of appearing unduly humble I’ll say that
I never started in his class.”




CHAPTER XIV

AN ATTACK OF SORE THROAT


On the morning of the day set for the Dramatic Club’s most ambitious
entertainment, Zelda Dameron lay in bed with blankets piled high about
her and a piece of red flannel wrapped ostentatiously around her
throat. For the first time since she came home she had failed to appear
at the breakfast-table, and Polly climbed to her room and surveyed her
critically.

“I’m afraid it’s diphtheria,” said Zelda, hoarsely, putting her hand
to the red flannel. “You must telephone to Mrs. Carr right away that
I wish to see her immediately. And when she comes bring her right up
here.”

“Yes, Miss Zee,” said the black woman, turning away in alarm.

“And Polly,”--Zelda’s face convulsed with pain and she sat up in bed
and coughed violently,--“don’t alarm father. Tell him I’m not very
sick. And Polly--when Mrs. Carr comes don’t let her fall and break her
neck on the stairs. Pull down all the shades and light those candles on
the dressing-table.”

She lay back, gathering the collar of a pink bath-robe about her throat.

“Don’t I look awfully sick, Polly? It would be dreadful to die, and
me so young. And, Polly,”--she waited for a moment as though in deep
thought--“Polly,”--her voice rang out clear, and she waved a hand to
the colored woman,--“you may go and telephone Mrs. Carr and then bring
me,”--she assumed her hoarse whisper again,--“bring me a cup of coffee,
a plate of toast and a jar of marmalade. A doctor, say you, Polly
Apollo? Not if I know myself!”--and she hummed in a perfectly natural
voice:

  “Myself when young did eagerly frequent
  Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
    About it and about: but evermore
  Came out by the same door where in I went.”

In an hour Mrs. Carr’s station wagon was at the door of the Dameron
house. The president of the Dramatic Club heard Polly’s solemn whisper
that “Miss Zee was ‘pow’ful sick’” and she ran up the dark narrow
stairway with a speed that brought her in undignified breathlessness to
Zelda’s room, where the star of the Dramatic Club cast lay coughing.
The odor of camphor filled the room, which was not surprising, as Zelda
had soaked her handkerchief from a bottle of spirits of camphor only a
few moments before and swung it in the air the better to distribute its
aroma.

“My dear child, what on earth does this mean?”--and Mrs. Carr rushed
upon the bed and peered down on the invalid.

“My throat; it’s perfectly terrible! I must have taken cold at the
rehearsal last night.” Zelda sat up in bed, looking very miserable and
speaking with difficulty, while she pointed vaguely to a chair.

“This is a calamity,--it’s a positive tragedy.”

“I’m sorry. I’m ever so ashamed of myself. My throat feels like a
nutmeg grater.”

“Ugh!” and Mrs. Carr shuddered. “What does the doctor say?”

“Doctor? I wouldn’t have one of them come near me for anything. I had
an attack like this once before--in Paris--and I know exactly what to
do. I have always kept the prescription the French doctor gave me.”

“But what can we do? You’ve simply got to go through the play to-night,
some way.”

“I hope so, I hope so,” said Zelda, in a tone that was without hope.

“Even if you can’t sing, you’ll have to speak the lines. It’s too late
now for a postponement.”

“Yes; if my fever goes down, I can speak the lines somehow. I’m afraid
there’s fever with the cold.”

“Then you must see the doctor. You must not trifle with yourself.”

“No, no: I beg of you, no! I don’t know any doctor here and a stranger
would only be a nuisance. I’ll be better. I don’t like being a trouble;
and I’ll come anyhow, dead or alive.”

“That’s the right spirit; you’ve simply got to appear. We’d never hear
the last of it if we failed.”

“Yes, I know. Would you mind drawing that shade a trifle lower? That’s
better.”

Zelda opened her eyes wide and stared about her dejectedly.

[Illustration: _Mrs. Carr_]

“I’ll tell you what I might do. Something’s just occurred to me. You
know Christine’s part is much lighter than Gretchen’s. If Olive would
consent to trade with me,--” She broke into a fit of violent coughing.
“My! I wish my chest didn’t hurt so. What was I saying? Oh, yes! about
that other part,--if Olive would exchange with me, I think I might
carry Christine’s part through. She can sing Gretchen as well as I
can--”

“Certainly not; it’s impossible. And hers is a soprano part, anyhow.”

“Oh, that’s easy,”--another fit of coughing--“the range is not so very
different. That won’t be any trouble.”

“It would take days to do it!” said Mrs. Carr, with a groan.

Zelda lay back on the pillows and pressed the camphor-soaked
handkerchief to her nose.

“That’s the only way out of it that I see. If Olive will trade with
me, I think I can go ahead; but I can’t do the work of my own part.
Gretchen is on the stage all the time. You’d better telephone Professor
Schmidt at once. He can have a rehearsal with Olive; but you’d better
go to see her. She’s at home to-day,--the Thanksgiving vacation has
begun. If she’ll do it--and you tell her she must--I’ll try to take her
part.”

“But it can’t be done,--so suddenly,--the change will throw all the
rest out.”

Mrs. Carr threw up her hands helplessly.

“Please don’t make me feel any worse,” begged Zelda, piteously. “I’m
ever so sorry on your account. And I’ll do the best I can,--honestly I
will. And do find Olive and tell her to come over and see me. Tell her
to bring her Christine dresses with her. We’ll have to trade costumes
and make them suit.”

Mrs. Carr rose as one who will not bow to circumstances.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t fail me! I shall be utterly ruined if we
don’t make this go some way.”

“I know,--I know,--I shall certainly be on hand, if they have to
bring me in a box,”--and Zelda sighed and coughed again as though her
dissolution were imminent.

Mrs. Carr brought Olive back and dropped her at the Dameron door with
solemn injunctions to be sure that Zelda was produced at the Athenæum
at seven o’clock; then she went with her troubles to Professor Schmidt.

Olive appeared at Zelda’s door bearing a suit-case in her hand. A groan
greeted her, as she paused in the doorway, blinking in the dim light of
the room.

“Oh, Zee!”

Another moan, followed by a racking cough, and Zelda’s arms beat the
covers as though in an agony of pain.

“Olive, have you come? I thought you would never get here!” and Zelda
moaned. “Here I am all alone in the house and nobody to do anything for
me. I didn’t think you would treat me that way,--and your own flesh and
blood, too.”

Olive dropped the suit-case and drew near the bed.

“I’m burning with fever,” moaned Zelda. “It’s typhoid pneumonia, I’m
sure. I read of it in the papers. Maybe it’s contagious. Most likely
they will put a red sign on the front door so no one can get in.”

She extended her hand to Olive, who took it solicitously.

“You poor dear! When did you first feel it coming on?”

“Oh, I haven’t been well for several days, but I tried to bear up. I’m
so miserable I don’t know what to do.”

“Mrs. Carr didn’t think you were so sick. She said you wouldn’t have a
doctor.”

“No, I’m afraid of them. Hand me that bottle--can you find it?--on the
table there. I can’t bear to face the light. That’s it, I think. Yes,
that will do, thank you. Please look at those candles. I’m sure they’re
dripping all over everything.”

She took the bottle which Olive handed her, clutching it nervously as
though her hope of life lay in it.

Olive had thrown off her coat and hat.

“Sit down, Olive, will you? If you are cold you’d better stand over the
register. I’m simply burning up myself.” Zelda succumbed to a fit of
coughing. “Have you the music, and the Christine dress? I hate awfully
to disappoint Mrs. Carr, and I told her I thought I might carry your
part. It isn’t so heavy as Gretchen’s. She’s going to arrange with Herr
Schmidt. You’ll have to sing my part. It will do just as well for a
soprano. The soprano is always the star, anyhow. You know that as well
as I do,” she added petulantly, as though the subject were one of long
contention between them.

“It’s horrible. It’s perfectly ghastly,” declared Olive. “I can’t sing
it. I can’t sing, anyhow; and this whole show rests on you. You simply
must sing your part! About all I had hoped to do was to skip around and
do the light fantastic soubrette business like a little goose. To think
of my attempting to sing Gretchen,--”

Olive spoke with a fierce animation as the enormity of the proposed
change slowly dawned upon her.

“You can do it as well as I can--better! I’d be a perfect wooden
Indian as Gretchen. I have almost as much animation as an iron hitching
post. It’s either that or I won’t appear at all, and they can go to the
North Pole for all me. I’m merely proposing the change as a favor to
Mrs. Carr. Your liking it doesn’t matter. You’ve _got_ to like it.”

“But the words,--I might hum the airs,--but I don’t know the words of
your part.”

“Nor I yours; but they will come to you. You’ll have a chance to
rehearse the part. My sewing things are on the table. We’ll fix up the
duds first. About three inches off my first act skirt and a little out
of the back and you’ll have it. Do you see the sewing basket anywhere?”

“The whole idea is preposterous. My things can’t be made to fit you,”
said Olive, opening the suit-case.

“We needn’t fix those things of yours for me after all,” declared
Zelda, suddenly. “I bought a Tyrolese peasant costume once on a time,
and here’s my chance to use it. It’s the ideal thing for Christine.”

“But Zee--” began Olive.

“Please don’t make me talk. It’s unkind. I’ll need all my strength for
to-night,”--and Zelda lay back and watched her cousin with languid
interest. Olive kept up a fire of protest as she set herself to the
task of changing the Gretchen costume. She had been taken aback by the
suddenness of Zelda’s attack and the necessity for prompt action.

Olive looked up suddenly, holding Gretchen’s gown in one hand and a
pair of scissors in the other.

“This is all absurd, Zee Dameron. You can’t put me off as you did Mrs.
Carr. I’m going to telephone for the doctor at once.”

“No, no, no! I tell you I have plenty of medicine. I’ll not let a
doctor cross the threshold.”

She held up the bottle that Olive had handed her.

“It’s a French doctor’s prescription for just this trouble. It’s fine.
I’ve taken quarts of it.”

Olive went to the bed, snatched the bottle and held it to her nose.

“Violet water! A French medicine! You fraud, you awful, shameless
fraud!”

“Please don’t abuse me! My chest, oh-h-h!”

“Zelda Dameron, you are no more sick than I am! No person could get as
sick as you are pretending to be in a few hours. You were as well as
anybody at midnight, and you went through the rehearsal splendidly.
Don’t try any tricks on me--”

Zelda sat up again and folded her arms. A smile twitched the corners
of her mouth; then she began to speak and fell into another fit of
coughing, burying her face in the blankets and seeming unable to
recover herself.

“Oh-h-h! it has got me again!” and she shook first with the vigor of
her cough and then with laughter. Olive seized her and forced her back
on the pillows.

“I’m going away! I’m going home! I don’t intend to have you make a guy
of me in such a way as this.” Olive seemed about to cry, and Zelda
laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks.

“I must say that your hilarity is decidedly unbecoming,” said Olive,
with dignity. “Mrs. Carr may forgive you, but I never shall,--never!”

Zelda’s mirth rose again at the mention of Mrs. Carr.

“Theodosia would certainly be consumed with rage. Oh, me!”

She sat up in bed and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Please get me a
handkerchief from that bureau,--top drawer on your right. This thing
smells vilely of camphor. And please don’t take your doll rags and go
home. I’m going to be good. Honestly; I’ll be all right in a minute.”

Olive did as Zelda bade her, and returned to the bedside of the invalid
with unrelenting condemnation.

“Please don’t look at me that way, Olive. I didn’t mean to laugh; but
it _is_ funny. And when you look so hurt and dignified I can’t help it.
But we’ve traded parts, anyhow. Don’t say a word. I have reasons,--of
state, as they say in romantic drama,--and nothing can alter my
determination. It’s either change parts or I won’t go at all. We’ve had
that thing pounded into us for a month--it seems years to me--and every
word of Max Schmidt’s opera is beaten into the brains of every one of
us. I believe I could sing the tenor’s part; and you could, too. There
are only two or three of Gretchen’s songs that you need go over at
all,--”

“But I won’t! I won’t lend myself to any such thing--”

“Olive, how dare you say won’t to me! _I’m_ saying it; and two people
can’t _won’t_ at the same time. My reasons are sound; my decision
is final! I haven’t soaked myself with camphor here in the dark for
nothing. I mean business. So don’t ask me any questions.”

“But think of the chagrin of the rest of the cast! Don’t you know this
whole thing is built around _you_? The idea of me, little old me,
trying to sing a part that people expect to hear you in.”

“Cousin Olive, I’m deeper than I look. I have particular reasons, most
particular, for making this change. Please be a good girl and help me.
If you knew, if you only knew,--”

“I’m sure there’s fraud in it somewhere. But--”

“But you’ll do exactly what I tell you, like a nice little girl, to
please your loving cousin.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Olive, reluctantly. Zelda smoothed back her hair
from her forehead and threw the long black braid over her shoulder.

“And now will you kindly--I’m treating you as though you were a
maid-of-all-work--will you be kind and forgiving enough to throw me
that other bath-wrapper from the closet--it’s a queer-looking pink
thing--this one is smothering me--and I’ll be obliged to you. Then we
can go to work.”

Zelda brushed her hair at the dressing-table, breaking out occasionally
into a fit of laughing. She rose suddenly in the majesty of the
bath-wrapper and sang one of Christine’s songs with animation, waving
her hairbrush in the air:

  “Again, O love, through peaceful hills
    To lift the song.
  Again the willing labor sweet,
    The toil, the rest;
  Once more, O love, we turn with hopeful hearts
    To home and rest!

“Fräulein”--she broke off abruptly in an imitation of Professor
Schmidt’s voice and manner--“Fräulein, dot ist most luffly. Only ven
you say ‘Vonce more, O luff,’ you should droop your eyes, Fräulein,
shoost like dot!”

Olive watched her cousin wonderingly.

“Zee Dameron,” she said gravely, “I sometimes wonder whether you are
not acting all the time.”

“Please don’t, please don’t say that.” And there was a sad note in
Zelda’s voice. “But now let us go down and run over these charming
classics of Herr Schmidt’s on the piano. We can shift his characters,
if he can’t!”




CHAPTER XV

J. ARTHUR BALCOMB RETREATS


The Providence that protects children and drunkards also extends a
saving hand to amateur theatricals. _Deceivers Ever_ was presented,
with no more delays and slips than usually befall amateur performances,
before an audience that tested the capacity of the Athenæum. It was a
great occasion for Mrs. Carr, as she had undoubtedly taken the Dramatic
Club when its life was ebbing fast and made a living thing of it. She
sat in the wings holding the prompt-book and prepared for any fate; and
it must be confessed that in her heart she held anything but Christian
feelings toward Zelda Dameron.

The change in the cast had excited much comment both in the audience
and on the stage. Zelda appeared behind the scenes with divers bottles
and a convincing air of invalidism, but she coached Olive cheerfully in
their dressing-room.

“I can’t do it; I can’t do it. I’ll kill the show,” declared Olive.

“Don’t be foolish. You are going to make the hit of your life,” said
Zelda, assuringly, coughing a little. “Please don’t make me talk.
There’s the overture now. One minute--there--now don’t fall over your
train. You really look the duchess,”--and Zelda gently impelled her
cousin toward the stage. The chorus was on its last note, and Professor
Schmidt, very red in the face, caught Olive with his eye, and reached
across the fiery arc of the footlights with his bow, to draw her
forward.

The programs had been printed with the part of Gretchen assigned to
Miss Dameron, and when Olive appeared and was identified with the
leading rôle, the applause, that began generously, died away, and there
was a flutter of paper as the audience sought to identify the singer.

Olive’s voice was in no sense great, but it was good, and she rose to
the occasion in a way that made Zelda happy. Zelda’s green riding-habit
became Olive charmingly. She was a very pretty girl and she sang
her song to the foresters with the dignity of the great lady she
impersonated.

Mrs. Carr sighed with relief over the prompt-book as she saw that the
girl was really meeting the requirements. When Olive turned and met
Balcomb, after dismissing the chorus to their work in the forest, there
was a hearty hand-clapping that drowned their spoken colloquy.

Zelda, as Christine the maid, now entered, after singing off stage, and
sought to induce Gretchen to return home. The greeting that had been
waiting for Zelda lost nothing by delay. The audience was mystified by
the change of parts, but it continued to be pleased as the girls sang
their duet. Zelda sang well enough, though Mrs. Carr wondered, as she
proceeded, that any one with a throat as sore as Zelda’s had been could
sing at all. It was clear to the director that Zelda was holding back.
She could easily have drowned Olive, as he knew well enough, but the
voice of the little duchess dominated. The professor glared fiercely at
Zelda and swung his bow with prodigious force as though to compel her
to lift her voice, but she was utterly oblivious, and it was Olive who
carried off the honors of the duet.

Balcomb made a decided hit as the hero. When Leighton, in his own
capacity as high private, saluted him, he really felt a thrill of
admiration for Jack. Pollock, who appeared as another of the deceivers,
was unknown to many of the audience, but his singing was adequate for
all purposes, and his flirtation with my lady’s maid behind Olive and
Balcomb, who were planning an elopement, was amusing and not overacted.

The quartet that ended the act went smoothly, and the curtain came
down in the erratic and halting manner of amateur theatrical curtains,
upon an unqualified success. There were calls and recalls; and when
Herr Schmidt was obliged to rise in his seat of authority and make a
speech, he took the opportunity to explain that, owing to a slight
indisposition, Miss Dameron had not felt equal to singing the part of
Gretchen, but had exchanged with Miss Merriam; and he was sure that
this had been fortunate, for the audience was made to realize that the
cast contained two stars not differing one from another in glory.

The second part was not less successful. Copeland, the lawyer who never
practised, but who sometimes sang, shared the laurels as the haughty
and outraged father, and the choral pieces went capitally.

There was, however, one slight occurrence that nobody understood--an
obscure incident of the performance that mystified the cast and not a
few of the audience. It came in the singing of a little song written
for the part of Christine, the least pretentious musically of all the
lyrics in the opera. It was Zelda’s last solo--a little song of the
wanderer, the peasant girl, lost from her mistress, and straying alone
in the forest. The words were poor, as the art of words goes, but in
singing them Zelda forgot herself,--forgot that in a mood of quixotism
she had deliberately chosen second place.

  “I call no hearth my own,”

she began. There were three verses; and Herr Schmidt, leading her with
the violin, felt that at last he was coming into his own. Leighton,
standing among the chorus, knew again the exquisite pain that the
girl’s voice wrought in him. He knew by the tensity of the hush that
fell upon the audience that the song’s appeal was not to himself alone.
The professor beamed with joy as the full, deep notes rose in the hall;
and he threw down his violin at the end and joined in the applause.
And as the hand-clapping continued after Zelda had turned to take up
her dialogue, she came smiling down to the footlights, made a sweeping
courtesy, and pointed to her throat as she shook her head at the
professor, to explain that there could be no encore.

When Mrs. Carr exchanged congratulations with Professor Schmidt at the
end--an end marked by tumultuous applause following the _grand finale_
by the whole company--almost her first words were:

“Was that girl’s throat really sore or not?”

And Herr Schmidt lifted his eyes heavenward and shrugged his shoulders,
but refused to commit himself.

Mrs. Forrest and Rodney Merriam were in the audience; Zelda’s father
had declined to attend.

“Let us speak to Zee and then escape,” said Merriam to his sister, as
the chairs were being pushed back for the dance that was to follow the
play. A few older people were there and they formed a little colony by
themselves. Zelda came out presently from the dressing-room, with her
arms full of flowers that had been passed across the footlights, and
she bore Olive Merriam with her.

“Don’t be afraid; not in the least afraid,” Zelda said to her cousin as
she hastened across the hall to her aunt and uncle.

“Please don’t,” urged Olive. “It isn’t kind to me.”

“No danger at all; they’re all perfectly amiable when you know how to
manage them.”

“Aunt Julia, this is a real compliment! Thanks very much. This is Olive
Merriam. And, Uncle Rodney, here’s the star, to whom I expect you to
say something particularly nice. Mr. Merriam, Miss Merriam,”--and Zelda
smiled as the old gentleman bowed low over the hand of his brother’s
daughter.

“Olive Merriam,” said Zelda, “is my cousin and my very dearest friend.”

Olive was not afraid. She smiled at Rodney Merriam; and there was
something very winning in Olive Merriam’s smile. Zelda looked demurely
at her aunt, who seemed alarmed lest something unpleasant might happen;
but Rodney Merriam laughed, half at finding himself caught, and half at
the sight of Olive Merriam’s blue eyes, her glowing cheeks with their
furtive dimples and the fair hair that Zelda was now compelling her to
wear in the prevailing mode.

“I am delighted; I am proud of you,” he declared quite honestly.

“I think--I may say that I reciprocate,” replied Olive. “I haven’t seen
you for a long time--Uncle Rodney--except at a distance.”

“Altogether my fault and my loss! I trust that the distance may be
considerably lessened hereafter.”

A number of people were watching this by-play with keen interest.
Something had surely happened among the Merriams. It had been many
years since so many members of the family had been seen together at any
social gathering.

“There’s a draft somewhere,” said Mrs. Forrest, suddenly. “We must be
going, Rodney. And now, Zelda, don’t stay out all night. Mrs. Carr
is going to take you home. You’ll be sure to be sick if you’re not
careful. And”--Zelda was looking at her aunt intently--“Miss Merriam,
I do hope you will come to see me. I never go anywhere, you know. And
please remember me to your mother.”

“And pray remember me, also,” said Rodney Merriam, feeling Zelda’s eyes
upon him.

“Oh, Zee,” said her uncle, in a low tone; “it was all fine; but how did
Pollock come to be in the show?--I don’t care to have you know him.”

“Of course I shall know him.”

“But I prefer.”

“Please don’t prefer! I’m having a little fun to-night, and I can’t be
serious at all. Some other time, _mon oncle_--good night!”

“What do you think of that girl?” asked Mrs. Forrest, when she was
alone with her brother in their carriage.

“I think she’s very pretty, if you refer to Olive Merriam, and has nice
manners,” was his reply.

“There seems to be no way of checking Zelda’s enthusiasms.”

“There is not,”--and Rodney Merriam found a cigar in his pocket and
began chewing the end of it; and there was a smile on his face which
his sister could not see in the dark; but it was not at all unkind.

“I hope that girl won’t take advantage of Zee’s kindness,” said Mrs.
Forrest, as her brother left her at her door.

“I shouldn’t worry about her if I were you.”

“I certainly shan’t; but you were always down on her father.”

“I was always a good deal of a fool, too,” said Rodney Merriam; and he
refused to be taken home in his sister’s carriage, but walked homeward
from her door through High Street, beating the walk reflectively with
his stick.

At the Athenæum Zelda was enjoying herself unreservedly. Her cousin
Olive had been presented to a representative Mariona audience in a way
that had commanded attention, and Zelda was thoroughly happy over it.
She did not care in the least what people might say about the healing
of old wounds among the Merriams, or about the general disappointment
over her own singing,--she had cared for nothing but to get through her
part decently. Her chief pleasure in _Deceivers Ever_ was in throwing
the principal rôle to Olive; and it gave her the only unalloyed joy of
her home-coming to see Olive established socially on a footing that
was, she told herself, as firm as her own.

She stood talking to Captain Pollock between dances. Pollock was the
least bit sensitive about his height--and a shadow fell on his usually
serene spirit at finding that he must tilt his head the merest trifle
to talk to Zelda Dameron.

“How does it feel to be a real angel?” he asked.

“I’m not bright at puzzles; you’ll have to tell me.”

“I’ve heard of heroism on the battle-field and I’ve seen men do some
fine things; but you have broken all the records.”

He spoke with feeling. She knew well enough what he meant, but she said
with cheerful irrelevancy:

  “Have you ever been in Timbuctoo,
    Your fortunes to pursue there?
  Sir, if you have, you doubtless know
    The singular things they do there.”

“That reminds me of Lewis Carroll and my lost youth.”

“It ought to remind you of my little cousin over there. It’s hers.
She’s always writing jingles like that.”

“She’s certainly a wonder. As I tried to say a bit ago, you did a
gallant thing in changing parts as you did. You might have broken up
the show; but we all got through in some way. Your throat’s a lot
better now, isn’t it?” he added ironically. “But in seeking your own
most unselfish ends you certainly played a most extraordinary trick
on the audience and the poor struggling cast. Now there’s a young man
standing right back of me, talking to some one whose voice I don’t
identify, who must have been considerably injured by the change of
stars.”

He referred to Balcomb, who was much swollen with pride by his success
in the opera, and who was talking in his usual breathless fashion to a
young friend from the country whom he had asked to witness his triumph.
Beyond Pollock’s head Zelda could see Balcomb’s profile, though she
could not hear him.

“She’s a regular piece, that girl. I was scared to death for fear
she’d throw me in that duet--we’d never sung it together--but I
carried it through all right. She’s that stunning Miss Dameron’s
cousin. She’s rather stuck on me, I’m afraid,--I’ve done little things
for her,--theater and so on, but I’ll have to cut it all out. She’s
amusing, but I can’t afford to have her misunderstand my attentions.
When a fellow finds that he’s got a girl down fine she ceases to be
interesting. It’s the pursuit that’s amusing; but when they begin to
expect something--Cunning? well, I should say!”

Pollock heard him distinctly, and he shut his eyes two or three times
in a quick way that he had when angry, though he kept on talking to
Zelda about the evening’s performance.

“I’m afraid you’re jealous of Mr. Balcomb. He got more applause than
anybody.”

“He deserved all he got for making such a monkey of himself.”

“He’s a man of courage; he probably thought he could afford to do it.”

“All of that?” said Pollock.

“A rising young man,” continued Zelda.

“A person, I should say, of most egregious and monumental gall,”--and
Zelda laughed at his earnestness. She had not heard Balcomb’s remark
about her cousin, but she knew he had said something that irritated
Pollock. The young officer left her quickly when Leighton came up for
the dance that had now begun.

Pollock found Balcomb in a moment. The promoter was standing at the
side of the hall, his eyes nervously searching for a girl with whom he
had engaged the dance.

“Mr. Balcomb,” said Pollock at his elbow, “may I speak to you a moment?”

“Certainly,” said Balcomb, in his usual amiable fashion. “Only I’m
engaged for this dance and have lost my partner.”

“That’s my own fix,” declared Pollock, “but my errand is brief. Let us
step out here.”

He led the way to a door opening upon the main stairway of the building
and they paused there, Pollock with his back to the door, facing
Balcomb. He carried one glove in his hand and was very trim and erect
in his evening clothes.

“Mr. Balcomb, I was so unfortunate as to overhear your conversation of
a moment ago--with some one I didn’t know, but that doesn’t matter--in
which you referred to a young lady--a young lady who came here to-night
under your escort, in terms that a gentleman would not use.”

“As a confessed eavesdropper I don’t believe it is necessary for you
to say anything further,” said Balcomb, with heat, and he took a step
toward the door of the assembly-room.

Pollock touched him on the shoulder with the tips of his fingers, very
lightly. Balcomb was half a head taller and much bulkier, but the tips
of Pollock’s fingers seemed to carry a certain insistence, and Balcomb
drew back.

“I shall hold you responsible for this, you--”

“I certainly hope you will. As I was saying, you referred to a young
lady, who was here under your protection, in terms which no one but a
contemptible cur would use of a woman--”

Balcomb’s arm went up and he struck at Pollock with his fist.

The officer stood as he had been, but the glove in his right hand
slapped smartly upon Balcomb’s face, and Balcomb took an involuntary
step backward down the stairway.

“In the part of the country that I came from, Mr. Balcomb,” Pollock
continued in an easy conversational tone, “we do very unpleasant things
to bright and captivating people of your stripe”--he took another step
forward, and Balcomb, a little white in the face, retreated again--“but
in this instance”--Pollock lifted his left hand to his shadowy mustache
and gave it a twist; he took another step and Balcomb yielded before
him--“I shall let you off with unwarranted leniency.”

Balcomb, forced another step downward, had grown red with fury, and
again struck at Pollock, but with the result that Balcomb stumbled and
retreated two steps instead of one, reaching a landing. With this more
secure footing he gained courage.

“You little cur, you little--” he blustered, drawing his face down so
that he could glare into Pollock’s eyes.

“Yes,” said Pollock, calmly; “I have been called little before; so
that your statement lacks novelty. As I was saying,”--and he leaned
against the stair-rail with the tips of the fingers of his gloved hand
thrust into his trousers pocket, and holding the other glove in his
right hand,--“I haven’t time now to go into the matter further, but I
am always at your service. It will give me great pleasure to make your
excuses to Miss Merriam, or to any other friends you may be leaving
behind you--owing to an illness that made it necessary for you to
leave--suddenly. Now you will oblige me by continuing on down to the
coat room--unattended. There are probably some gentlemen below there
that I should very much dislike having to explain matters to.”

Balcomb leaped lightly forward as though to make a rush for the door of
the assembly-room.

“Try that again,” said Pollock, seizing him by the collar, and throwing
him back, “and I’ll drop you over the banister.”

“You damned little--”

“You have said that before, Mr. Balcomb, without the damn; but the
addition isn’t important. Run along now, like a good boy. I advise you
to turn around and go down in a becoming manner,--that’s the idea!”

Some men had entered the lower hall from the smoking-room, and Balcomb
greeted them cheerily as he turned and went below as though to join
them. Pollock stood above waiting for Balcomb to reappear, and as he
waited he resumed his glove and buttoned it with care. The waltz was
nearly over, but he stood there leaning against the stair-rail and
beating time to the music with his foot, until he saw Balcomb come out
of the coat room clad for the street. When Balcomb looked up, Pollock
waved his hand to him graciously, and turned and went back into the
hall.

“Miss Merriam,” he said, bowing before Olive, “I very much regret
to present Mr. Balcomb’s compliments and to say that he has been
unexpectedly called away--pressing business--and he asked me to do
myself the honor to see that you don’t get lost. This is our dance.”




CHAPTER XVI

IN OLIVE’S KITCHEN


Olive went from the kitchen to the front door and received Zelda, all
aglow from a rapid walk through the cold crisp November air.

“It’s the wrong time, of course,” said Zelda. “I’m always coming at the
wrong time.”

“It’s always the right time,” declared Olive. “But you’ll have
to excuse me for a few minutes. This is Thanksgiving Day and my
headquarters are in the kitchen. There’s a new magazine or two--help
yourself.”

“I’m not using your house as a free reading-room. I dodged church,
so I could come and see you. Let me come out and talk. I like your
clothes,”--and she put aside her wraps, surveying Olive admiringly.

“Come on, then. I’m making bread,”--and Olive led the way to the
kitchen.

“She’s making bread, after all the glory of her début! It’s just like
the interviews with great artists that we read in the newspapers.
They’re always planting garden-seed or canning fruit, when the reporter
calls.”

“If I were you, I shouldn’t refer to last night, after the trick you
played on me. You carried it all off with such a rush! I don’t know yet
how I came to let you do it.”

“You shouldn’t talk that way to your poor sick cousin. My throat is
still very painful,”--and Zelda put up her hand and coughed desperately.

“That will do, thank you! You can’t stay in the kitchen unless you’ll
be good.”

Olive’s kitchen was, as she said herself, the best room in the house.
Her own paint brush had made it white, and table, range, draining
boards were up to date. It was a model kitchen, according to Olive’s
own ideas, which were so attractive that shortly after her return from
college she had written them down in a series of articles for a paper
devoted to the interests of women. Pretty things do not cost any more
than ugly ones, she held; and there was no reason why the piano should
not be kept in the kitchen, if its owner could use it there to the best
advantage.

“I hate to give up a single thing,” Olive had declared to Zelda,
“except blacking the stove. I’d like to draw the line there.”

“I wish Polly knew how to make a kitchen look like this,--or that I
did! May I sit here? Go on now and talk. Aren’t you afraid of mussing
your apron?”

Olive was rolling up her sleeves, which she had pulled down before
answering the bell. She wore the costume of her teaching office--a
blue and white cotton dress. She tied on a white apron, at which Zelda
exclaimed mockingly.

“It’s in your honor, Lady Zee; and you know that a soiled gingham apron
can’t get any more _soileder_ than a white one.”

“You look mighty useful, Olive Merriam, considering how frivolous you
were last night. I have a new glory now,--I’m Olive Merriam’s cousin.
I expected to find a line of carriages at the door when I came, but
I suppose they’re afraid to come on a holiday. What are you doing to
those pans? Butter? I didn’t know you had to do that. I wonder if Polly
knows! Hers always burn on the bottom, but I let it go because it’s
better burnt than underdone. As I was saying, you certainly made Papa
Schmidt’s opera go tremendously.”

“I oughtn’t really to speak to you. I forgot in my joy at seeing you
that I had resolved to give you up forever. If I hadn’t had baking to
do, I should have gone to bed and stayed in bed all day. You have put
me in a nice box, haven’t you? I might have had some friends if you
hadn’t played that trick on me.”

She turned, balancing a symmetrical ball of dough in one hand, and
leaned against the kitchen table.

“You look perfectly charming in that make-up,” remarked Zelda,
composedly. “And with that strange object in your hand you might pose
as Liberty delighting the world. What were you saying? Oh, yes! You are
going to cast me off and be done with me.” And then, as though speaking
with a great effort, and clasping her hands at her throat to ease its
pain: “My throat isn’t really strong yet. The little I did last night
must have strained it. So don’t harass me!”

“I’d like to laugh at you, but I can’t. Everybody thinks I persuaded
you to let me take the chief part in the opera to put myself before the
public. I’m ashamed of myself! I ought to have refused to go ahead,
when I saw that you were making me,--as they say in books,--your
plaything. If I had been known to anybody it would have been different;
but as it was--”

She bent down with the bread pan and Zelda opened the oven door for her.

“Polly always slams the door. Isn’t that right?”

“No, it’s noisy; and it doesn’t do the bread any good.”

“Such wisdom! I must tell Polly that. Now, what are you going to do?
I suppose I ought to go. Aunt Julia’s neuralgia is very bad, and I
must go to see her. Uncle Rodney and father and I are going there for
dinner--a real Hoosier Thanksgiving dinner.”

“I haven’t forgiven you yet, but you may stay here and watch me bake a
pie, if you like.”

“Pie! How exciting! There’s a rolling-pin in that. Let me do the
rolling. I’ve always been crazy to work a roller and Polly won’t let
me!”

“Well, there’s another apron in the closet. You may get that and put it
on. It’s effective, too,” she added, as Zelda drew the apron over her
short walking skirt and tied the strings at her waist. “I don’t think
I can ever believe you again, after yesterday; but assuming that you
sometimes tell the truth, tell me, honestly, did you ever make a pie?”

“Humiliating though it be, I must confess that I never, never did,”
replied Zelda. “It’s the rolling that I’m interested in. Where do you
keep the machine you do it with?”

“We are going to make this pie in a perfectly orderly manner. The
rolling-pin comes in later; but we put all the things handy we’re going
to need. You can weigh the butter, if you will be good. And you may
measure the flour if you won’t spill it on the floor. Now you may work
this up into dough. You’re doing splendidly.”

Olive sat down and mingled a lecture on pastry-cooking with a
discussion of the opera of the evening before, until she was ready to
intrust Zelda with the rolling-pin. The bell rang as Zelda seized the
coveted implement and set to work.

“The postman, no doubt; you keep things going, while I answer the
bell,”--and Olive ran away.

She was gone several minutes, and came back a little flushed from her
encounter.

“Letters?” asked Zelda, without turning round.

“No,” said Olive. “It was a caller.”

“Well, you got rid of her pretty quickly, I must say.”

“It wasn’t her; it was a him,” said Olive, inspecting Zelda’s work.

“Why didn’t you bring him in?” asked Zelda.

“I didn’t think he would be any help about the pie, so I sent him off.”

“Name, please?” and Zelda wheeled about, holding the rolling-pin poised
between her hands.

“It was Mr. Balcomb. You needn’t look at me that way. He came on an
errand.”

“Did some one send him with a note; or does he deliver parcels? I
should think he would make a capital boy to deliver parcels,--he’s so
sudden-like!”

“I don’t think you’re fair to him,” said Olive. “He’s a poor young man
who has his own way to make.”

“I’m sorry, Cousin Olive, but he doesn’t look pathetic to me. I don’t
want to seem to be meddling, but that young man irritates me beyond any
words.”

“You’ll never get it rolled out thin if you don’t keep right on,” said
Olive.

Zelda laughed and bore down heavily on the dough.

“Please forgive me--please, Cousin Olive; but Mr. Balcomb makes me
think of pie crust some way--or pie crust makes me think of him. I
rarely eat pie, so I’m not overworked thinking of him. He’s so thin and
crisp. You could roll him out and make a nice apple tart of him. Why,
Olive Merriam!”

Tears had sprung suddenly to Olive’s eyes, and Zelda dropped the
rolling-pin and ran to her.

“You poor dear, I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in the world. Tell me
you forgive me!”

“I’m silly, and I know you’ll think things--go on now with that
crust--there are the pans all ready--but Mr. Balcomb has been very kind
to me. He has taken me to the theater sometimes, and sent me things. So
I think you’re not fair to him.”

“Well,” said Zelda, “if he’s nice to you there isn’t anything else to
be said--not a word. Do you drop it over the pan like that,--no, let
_me_ have the knife and I’ll cut it. So!”--and she set down the pan and
viewed its lining of crust with satisfaction.

“He came,” said Olive, with dignity, “to say how sorry he was to
have to run off last night, but that he was called away on an urgent
business matter and had to go down to his office to meet some people
who had come from out of town unexpectedly. And I told him it was all
right and please to go away, as I was busy.”

“He certainly says some funny things,” Zelda went on, palliatingly,
“and he was fine in the show. His antics were as good as any
professional’s.”

“He can be awfully funny,” said Olive. “And now we’ll make some tarts
out of the rest of that crust and use up some canned raspberries that
are there on the shelf.”

“I’m so very sorry I spoke that way about tarts,” said Zelda, with real
contrition; “but we’ll call them the tarts of peace.”

“I wasn’t a bit hurt,” pleaded Olive, “and I don’t care what you say;
only he _has_ been kind.”

“Then let his life be spared!” said Zelda, dramatically. “And now let’s
make tarts, though we be hanged for it.”

A little later, while they awaited results from the oven and again
discussed the opera, Olive remarked naïvely:

“I suppose you have your reasons for treating him that way.”

“Whom, what way?”

“Mr. Leighton; you snub him every chance you get.”

“Well, he ought to be snubbed; he thinks that because he and uncle are
good friends that he’s my assistant guardian or something like that.
This old-family-friend business makes me tired.”

“Well, of course, Captain Pollock isn’t an old family friend.”

“No; that’s one thing in his favor; and another is that he’s amusing. I
like men to be amusing.”

“I suppose they _are_ better so!”

“You amazing child, it’s the whole thing; don’t you know that?”

“I know that you don’t think anything of the kind, Zelda Dameron,”
declared Olive.




CHAPTER XVII

DAMERON BLOCK, 1870


When Zelda asked her father one day where his office was, he answered
evasively that it was in the Dameron Block. This was an old-fashioned
office building, with a basement and a short stairway leading to the
main corridor. It was no longer fashionable, as the better class of
lawyers and real estate brokers had sought buildings of a later type
that offered electric lights and elevators. The Dameron Block faced the
court-house square, and was the habitat of divers small attorneys and
real estate men. In the basement below, a justice of the peace sat in
judgment next door to a musty old book-shop, where the proprietor, a
quaint figure with a great mop of iron-gray hair, sold pens and paper
and legal blanks to Dogberry Row, as this quarter of the street was
called.

Zelda strayed into this thoroughfare by chance one winter afternoon
shortly before Christmas and was arrested by the sight of some old
books in the bookseller’s window. The venerable bookseller came out
into the basement area and spoke to her of the books, holding a volume
meanwhile, with his forefinger closed upon the page he had been
reading. Yes; he kept French books, he said, and she went into the shop
and looked over his shelves of foreign books.

“There is very little demand for them,” he said. “Some of these are
rare. Here is a little volume of Hugo’s poems; very rare. I should
be glad if you would take it for a dollar,--any of these poets for a
dollar. But of course I can only offer. It is for you to decide.”

He took down other volumes, with praise for every one but with shy
apology for offering them.

“I shall take the Hugo,” said Zelda, presently.

He wrapped it for her carefully, even regretfully, and held the packet
for a moment, caressing it with his hands, while she produced a dollar
from her purse and took it from him.

“Call again. I have been here for twenty years; Congdon, Dameron Block.”

“Yes, Dameron Block,” repeated Zelda.

The constables and loungers on the sidewalk in front of the justice’s
court stared at her as she came out and glanced for a moment at the
upper windows of the building. A galvanized iron sign at the eaves bore
the name “Dameron Block, 1870,” in letters that had long since lost the
false aspect of stone given to them originally by gray paint.

Zelda went into the dim entrance and read the miscellaneous signs that
were tacked there. One of them was inscribed “E. Dameron, Room 8”; and
passing on she presently came to a frosted-glass door, where the same
legend was repeated. It was late in the afternoon; possibly her father
would go home with her, she thought, and turned the knob.

She entered a dark room on a courtway, evidently used as a place of
waiting; there was another room beyond, reached by a door that stood
half-open. Her father was engaged; his voice rose from the inner room;
and she took a chair by the outer door of the waiting-room. She looked
about the place curiously. On a long table lay in great disorder many
odds and ends--packages of garden-seed under dust that afforded almost
enough earth to sprout them; half a dozen fence pickets tied together
with a string; and several strata of old newspapers. On the floor in
a corner lay a set of harness in a disreputable state of disrepair;
and pasted on the walls were yellowed sheets of newspapers containing
tables of some sort. Zelda did not know what these were, though any one
of the loafers on the curbstone could have enlightened her as to their
character,--they were the official advertisements of the sales of tax
titles. Ezra Dameron always “talked poor,” and complained of the burden
of taxes and street improvements; but he had been the chief buyer of
tax titles in the county.

“I’m sure that I’ve been very lenient, very lenient indeed,” Ezra
Dameron was saying. “I have, in fact, considered it a family matter,
calling for considerate treatment, on the score of my friendship with
your husband. If it had been otherwise, I should have been obliged
long ago to take steps--steps toward safeguarding the interests--the
interests of my trust, I should say.

“But another extension of two years would be sufficient for me to pay.
I wish very much for Olive not to know that her schooling was paid
for with borrowed money. She gives me all she earns. Her position is
assured, and I am putting aside something every month to apply on the
debt. We owe nothing else.”

“But two of these notes are already in default, Mrs. Merriam. I have
incurred obligations on the strength of them. A woman can’t understand
the requirements and exactions of business.”

“I am sorry, very sorry, Mr. Dameron. All I ask is this extension. It
can’t be a large matter to you!”

“I regret more than I can tell you that it is impossible. If it were
myself,--if it were my own money that I advanced you, I could perhaps
be less insistent, but as it is, this money belongs to another,--in
fact, it is part of my daughter’s estate. She is perfectly helpless,
utterly ignorant of business; it is necessary for me to exercise the
greatest care in administering her affairs. It is a sacred trust, Mrs.
Merriam, a sacred trust from her dear mother.”

“I came to-day,” said the woman’s voice, apologetically, “hoping that
payment could be deferred.”

“Yes, to be sure; it’s wise to be forehanded. But the loan must be paid
at the maturity of the last note, in May. I must close my wife’s estate
very soon. I have timed all my loans to that end.”

The purring voice stole through the anteroom, where Zelda sat forward
in her chair, listening with parted lips and wonder and pain in her
eyes. The book in her lap fell to the bare floor, making a sharp
clatter that startled her. She gave a little gasp and reached for it,
scarcely stooping, so intent were her eyes on the door of the inner
room; and when she had regained it, she ran into the hall and down the
steps to the street.

She turned west toward the gray shaft of the monument and round it,
past the little Gothic church, to High Street. She felt a great
yearning for sympathy, for some one to whom she could confess her
misery and heartache. It was growing dark, and when she reached her
uncle’s house, the lights shone brightly in his library. She knew he
was there, and that she could, at a word, make his house her home and
shake herself free forever from her father. She was always rebuffing
and thwarting her Uncle Rodney in his efforts to help her. But at the
gate she paused with her hand on the catch. The Japanese boy opened the
front door just then to pick up the evening paper, and the hall light
fell upon the steps invitingly. But she hurried on. The lights in the
houses mocked her; here were homes in a city of homes, and she was
as homeless and friendless as though she walked in a wilderness. She
came to Mrs. Forrest’s house. There, too, a welcome awaited her; but
the thought of the overheated rooms, of the cheerless luxury in which
her aunt lived, stifled her. She felt no temptation to make any appeal
there.

Her pride rose again; she would not break under a burden her mother
had borne; and with this thought in her heart, she turned into a side
street that led to her father’s house and walked slowly homeward.

Without putting aside her wraps she dropped a match into the kindling
in the fireplace of the living-room, and waited until the flames leaped
into the throat of the chimney. Polly was in the dining-room, showing
a new assistant how to lay the table for the evening meal, and she
came to the folding doors and viewed Zelda with the interest that the
girl always had for her. Polly was Zelda’s slave, and she went about
half the day muttering and chuckling over what seemed to her Zelda’s
unaccountable whims.

“Polly,” said Zelda, “this is Julius Cæsar’s birthday,--or Napoleon
Bonaparte’s or the Duke of Argyle’s--do you understand?”

The black woman showed all her teeth in appreciation.

“And we’ll have out the candlesticks,--those very high ones; and you
may use that gold-banded china and the real cut glass. And mind,--some
terrible thing will happen to you, if you let that new weird young
thing out there break a single piece. _Comprenez-vous?_ Yes? Then you
may return to your enchantments. But mind you, no trifling with your
sacred trust! Let those sweet potatoes _sauté_ approximate, if they do
not fully realize, perfection. And as for that duck--the dear little
thing--pray remember that roasting does not mean incineration. You may
go now.”

Polly departed chuckling and Zelda went to her room.

Her father was reading his newspaper by the fireplace when she came
in upon his startled gaze an hour later. She had arrayed herself in a
white silk evening gown. He had never before seen her dressed so at
their family dinner-table. The long skirt added to her height. Her hair
was caught up from her forehead in an exaggeration of the prevailing
mode.

“Good evening, father! I thought I’d dress up to-night just for fun,
and to get the crinkles out of my things. Isn’t this gown a perfect
love? It’s real Parisian.”

She swept past, the rich silk brushing him, and then,--Polly having
appeared at the door with her eyes staring from her head,--

“Now let us feast while we may,” she said.

She passed before him into the dining-room with an inclination of her
head and to her place.

The old man had not spoken and he sat down with painstaking care,
finding apparently some difficulty in drawing in his chair. He bowed
his head for the silent grace he always said, and raised his eyes with
a look of sweet resignation to the girl.

“We are dining _en fête_, father,” Zelda began hastily. “I felt that
we must be gay to-night,--something seemed to be in the air,--and I
thought it well to celebrate. It’s funny, isn’t it, how every day must
be an anniversary of something! I’m sure something noble and cheerful
must have happened on this day a hundred years ago. Where _do_ you
buy celery? I wish you’d tell them that it’s perfectly dreadful; this
to-day is as tough as wire.”

Nothing in the old house ever escaped his sharp eyes. The old china
with its gold band, and the cut glass that had not known service for
years struck him at once.

Ezra Dameron did not understand much about human nature, though like
all cunning people he thought he did. It was beginning to dawn upon
him that Zelda was deeper than he had imagined. Perhaps, he said to
himself, she was as shrewd and keen as himself; or, he asked again, was
she not playing some deep rôle,--even laying a trap for him? He did
not know that the moods of a girl are as many as the moods of the wind
and sea. He remembered that his wife had been easily deceived. He had
crushed the mother; but this girl would not so easily be subdued. The
candles made a soft light upon the table. He lifted his eyes furtively
to see whether the gas in the chandelier overhead was lighted; and was
relieved to note that the extravagance of the candles was not augmented
there. He drew his bony fingers across the table-cloth, feeling its
texture critically. He knew that it had been taken from a forbidden
shelf of the linen closet. Clearly his rule over the ancient Polly was
at an end.

Zelda had little idea of the things that interested her father. He read
the morning and evening newspapers through every day except Sunday.
The Sunday papers he did not take. He subscribed for several religious
newspapers of his denomination, and these, too, he read and pondered.
Zelda knew nothing of his own family. He was the only member of it that
lived in the state. His correspondence was carried on from his office,
and the only letters that the postman left at the Dameron house were
the envelopes that poured in steadily, bearing invitations for Zelda,
an occasional foreign letter from some friend she had made abroad, and
on the first of the month, bills for her own purchases at the shops.
She always found it difficult to talk to her father; to-night she felt
strangely inclined to say something that would vex him.

The maid went about the table in white apron and cap and waited on them
with a grin on her face.

“Won’t you take some more of the apple sauce, father? Angeline, the
apple sauce. Those were superb apples that came in from the farm the
other day, father. I suppose the farm really pays for itself,--you are
always sending in nice things from there.”

“Oh, not at all! Everything I raise is very costly, very costly.”

He looked at her suspiciously. At any mention of money or expense he
put himself on guard.

“But the tenant you have out there must make his living--”

“Not at all. I can show you my books. I keep a faithful account; it’s
been a loss each year since I took it.” He spoke defensively, in spite
of himself.

“Oh, please don’t show me any accounts! They must be very, very
depressing;” and she shrugged her shoulders.

“To be sure! to be sure! quite that!” He laughed with a real heartiness.

“I suppose many people have troubles about money,” she went on. “Making
both ends meet, I think they call it.”

“To be sure, Zee. God’s poor are always with us.”

She bent over suddenly and inspected the handle of a spoon intently.

“But when people can’t pay--rents, mortgages, whatever their troubles
are--then what do they do?”

“The balance must be struck in some way. A debt is a debt. A creditor
is entitled to his pay. It is the law of the land.”

“The law; yes, I suppose there is the law. But there aren’t any laws
for the poor, are there? I heard that--in France. And the peasants over
there didn’t look as though they had any laws on their side.”

“It’s very different here; quite different. We are all poor here. This
is God’s great republic of the poor, as one of our poets has said.”

“That sounds well, but I’m afraid it’s only poetry,” said Zelda,
soberly. And then, smoothing her crumbs into a little heap for the girl
to brush away:

“In anything that you have--or I have--we shall deal very kindly with
poor people, shan’t we?”

His restless fingers were playing with his coffee spoon and his eyes
were on the table-cloth. He looked up now and met Zelda’s gaze bent
gravely upon him.

“Yes, what we have--what we have--” there was a slight stress on the
pronoun, as though he wished to emphasize the fact of their common
interests--“we must use--as God would have us.”

He nodded his head back and forth, with a far look in his eyes that was
intended to express spiritual exaltation. It was not Zelda’s purpose to
disclose the fact of her visit to his office; she had gone as far as
she dared. He had begun to interest her, not so much as a person who
had any claim on her affection, but as a curious character--even as an
eccentric and untrustworthy character in a story; yet she felt toward
him somewhat as a parent may feel toward a deformed child, conscious,
indeed, of a moral deformity that fascinated her.

“Yes, of course; I am sure that we want to do right,” she said, with
the slightest accent on the pronoun, in imitation of his own manner of
the moment before.

When they returned to the living-room he tended the fire; and when he
took up his paper nervously, from habit, he put it down again, and
began to talk. Almost for the first time since Zelda’s return, he
showed an interest in her foreign experiences, and led her to speak of
them. And she exerted herself to be entertaining. He had supposed that
Mrs. Forrest would prejudice Zelda against him during the years in
which she had kept the girl away; but his daily scrutiny had discovered
no trace of disrespect or contempt in her attitude toward him.

The striking resemblance between Margaret Dameron and her daughter
impressed him to-night; but there were puzzling differences. He was
conscious of depths in Zelda that he could not fathom. During her
recital of the story of a mishap that had befallen her aunt and herself
at a carnival in Rome, it occurred to him that she was showing him this
graciousness to-night in the hope of wresting money from him. He lost
interest and turned to his newspaper abruptly. Zelda picked up the book
she had purchased at Congdon’s shop and fell to reading; and after he
had turned his paper restlessly for half an hour, he rose to go to bed.

It had been on her tongue several times to ask him boldly about the
debt of Olive’s mother, even if it should be necessary to confess that
she had overheard his conversation with Mrs. Merriam; but this might
cause an unpleasant scene. No great haste was necessary, she judged;
and so she waited. She could probably persuade her aunt or uncle to
help her in the matter when the time came, if no other way should occur
to her.

“Good night, father!”

She rose and watched him from the room; but he did not look at her
again.

“Good night, daughter,” he said, a little vaguely, as though he had
forgotten her existence.

No one came and she sat looking steadily at the dying fire. The
thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts, says the poet; but their
natural habitat should be a realm of light and peace and not
dark vales of uncertainty and doubt. When she went at last to her
room, the old cedars outside her windows were moaning softly. She
found a satisfaction in bolting her door, and then she drew from
her writing-table the little book, tied with its faded ribbon, and
opened it to the charge her mother had written,--those last pitiful
words,--and read them over and over again, until they seemed to be
audible whispers in the room:

“_Perhaps I was unjust to him; it may have been my fault; but if she
can respect or love him I wish it to be so._”

She lay awake staring into the dark for half the night, with tearless
eyes, one hand clasping the little book under her pillow.




CHAPTER XVIII

ZELDA LIFTS A BURDEN


Copeland, the lawyer who never practised, knew Mariona pretty well,
and he was responsible for the remark that while women in High Street
continued to admonish their maids from second-story windows as to the
relation between employer and employee, there was no manner of use in
trying to be a city.

Mariona was still a good deal of a village and gossip spread through
its streets like news in the Sudan. But it must be said that the
Mariona gossips who had been expecting an explosion among the Merriams
since Zelda Dameron came home were greatly disappointed. Zelda’s life
differed in no important particular from that of other girls of her
circle. She lived with her father, which was wholly proper; she went
about to luncheons, teas and balls and derived amusement from them in
a perfectly normal, natural way; she had a voice, and when she was
asked to sing, she sang; and she struck every one as being thoroughly
unaffected and amiable. It became known that she could tell a story,
and her reputation among girls as a _raconteur_ soon dimmed that which
her singing had earned for her. A girls’ luncheon in Mariona, as
elsewhere, is a function where a dozen girls, more or less, assemble
to eat unwholesome combinations of food to the accompaniment of rapid
exclamations about nothing in particular. Zelda gained a hearing at
first because she was a new girl in town, but her audience was assured
when it became known that she could tell a story.

She told her stories with the gravity that is second nature in the
born story-teller; and her fund of anecdotes of personal misadventure
was seemingly inexhaustible. Her account of the way in which she and
her aunt had been ushered by mistake into a train bearing a royal
funeral party at Berlin, and of how an aged duke had worked himself
into a state of apoplexy in trying to determine just who the Americans
were; and of how, finally, when a countess and her daughter, for whom
the Americans had been mistaken, were missed, the train was carried
back to the Berlin station,--this incident related with trifling but
illuminative details,--of how the people looked, of the yells of the
duke to his servant not to forget the lunch basket; the grim rage of
the master of ceremonies when he discovered that Zelda and her aunt had
been put aboard by mistake,--made a story that convulsed her auditors.

Zelda saw much of Morris during the winter. He went often to the old
house in Merriam Street in spite of the fact that he assured himself
constantly that she did not interest him more than other girls. She
continued to delight in plaguing him, particularly before her uncle,
who learned, however, not to praise Morris to Zelda. Mrs. Forrest
pretended to be a diligent chaperon, but Mariona social affairs did
not amuse her, and she went out very little. Frequently Merriam took
Zelda to the theater; now and then he connived with Morris to the
end that Olive should be asked, and the four would go afterward for a
supper at Merriam’s house. Zelda brought Olive more and more into touch
with her own life. She knew no happier day than Christmas, when Mrs.
Forrest,--not, however, without urging,--gave a family dinner to which
Ezra Dameron, Olive and her mother sat down at the same board, with
Rodney presiding. There were times when Zelda’s courage failed,--when
the shadow of her mother’s unhappiness fell darkly upon her; but she
made no sign to the world. So the winter passed, and in the first
bright wistful days she went forth with Zan to find the spring.

“I have not heard you speak of your aunt and uncle of late,” said Ezra
Dameron to Zelda one day, after she had been for an outing with Olive.

“I saw Aunt Julia this afternoon. She isn’t well; she suffers a great
deal.”

“She doesn’t look like a sick woman. She was always quite robust.”

“_She’s_ robust enough, but her nerves aren’t. She has asked me to go
away with her again,--she likes going about, and she has planned to
visit a number of summer places.”

“If you don’t go, what will she do?” and the old man looked at Zelda
with a gleam of humor in his small gray eyes.

“Well, I have asked her to come to the farm.”

A smile crossed Ezra Dameron’s face.

“I am very glad you did. It would be a capital arrangement.”

“But she won’t come. She does not like that sort of thing. She likes to
be where there’s something doing.”

“Yes, yes; a worldly woman; a very worldly woman,”--and Dameron wagged
his head as he buttered his roll. He was silent for several minutes,
and when he spoke it was in a tone of kindness.

“And so you are coming with me, Zelda? I had hoped you would. I have
wished it so much that I have not pressed you to commit yourself. I
knew that your aunt would be likely to offer something more attractive
than a summer at The Beeches.”

“Yes, father; of course I shall go with you. I have never had any other
intention.”

“You are very good to me, Zee. I am grateful to you for many things. An
old man is very poor company for a young girl. I had feared that you
might not be satisfied here. Your uncle and aunt have never treated me
fairly. We have nothing in common. I am glad to find that they have not
estranged you and me; the paternal relation is a very beautiful one;
very beautiful.”

The black maid was changing their plates, and Zelda rested her arms
on the edge of the table and looked at him with deep, searching eyes.
She knew instantly when he passed from words that represented honest
feeling to his more usual note of hypocrisy.

“Your mother,” the old man continued, and she started, for he had
rarely mentioned her mother; “your mother was a very gentle woman. She
had none of your uncle’s violence--Rodney is very violent--and she was
not a worldly woman like your Aunt Julia. She had her fling. She had
enjoyed a gay youth, but with marriage she settled down. She was an
admirable woman--an admirable woman.” He grew pensive as he stirred his
coffee. He started slightly when he looked up and found Zelda’s eyes
bent gravely upon him. She said nothing, and he went on.

“You are very like your mother. You have her looks--and she was very
beautiful; but she had not quite--your spirit. No; she was a more
subdued type. I could always understand your mother; but I am not
always sure that I understand you, Zee. But you are very kind. I am
very proud to have you here with me.”

She rose and walked into the living-room. He always waited for her to
pass, bowing his stooped figure slightly; and to-night he smiled at
her; but she passed swiftly and did not look at him. There were times
when it was impossible for her to speak to him.

Her father had spoken often during the winter of the farm. Zelda’s
willingness to go there was a great relief to him; and when she
suggested that she should like to ask Olive to spend the whole of her
vacation with them he made no objection. He knew that she saw Olive
frequently; Zee had asked her cousin to the house for meals several
times since the Dramatic Club episode, and her father had treated Olive
with his usual formal courtesy. The main thing with Ezra Dameron was to
keep Zelda away from her aunt and uncle; and it flattered his vanity
that she remained with him so steadfastly and took apparently so filial
an interest in his happiness and comfort.

Zelda went to Olive at once with her invitation.

“I’d be delighted, of course, Zee; but you mustn’t make it hard for me
to refuse. This is my busy summer; we have to move!”

“Oh!” said Zelda.

“We’re mortgaged; that’s the trouble with us; we’re not only
mortgaged, but we can’t pay! So we hope to find another house somewhere
and get out of the way.”

It was the first reference Olive had made to any financial difficulty,
and she tried to pass it off lightly.

“I suppose,” said Zelda, who was thinking very hard, “that one simply
has to have a mortgage; just as though it were measles or croup or
scarlet fever.”

“Oh, mortgages aren’t at all serious--not necessarily fatal--if you
don’t take cold or expose yourself before it’s over.”

“How does one contract a mortgage?” said Zelda. “Are there microbes?”

“I caught mine at college,” said Olive. “We blew our substance on
education. I just found it out recently. Mother has been carrying the
burden of it all by herself. The subject isn’t pleasant. Let us talk of
something else.”

“Where do you keep your mortgage?” asked Zelda, half-seriously. “How
does one get at the beast?”

“Ours seems to be in a bank just at present,” answered Olive, evasively.

“That sounds formidable. But it’s too bad that you have to move.
Harrison Street is the most charming street in town. I can’t think of
you as living anywhere else except in this pretty house.”

“You’ll have to, for we move almost at once, as they say in stories.”

Zelda’s father continued to pay a sum every month to her credit at the
bank, and money matters were rarely or never mentioned between them.
She did not understand how anxious he was to avoid any clash with
Rodney Merriam over the management of her property; and she did not
appreciate the smallness of the sum he gave her compared with the full
amount her property should have earned. Zelda was spoken of in Mariona
as an heiress, and it was the general belief that she would have not
only the property left her by her mother, but the large estate which
Ezra Dameron had been accumulating through many years. There, too, were
Mrs. Forrest and Rodney Merriam, who were childless; both were rich by
local standards.

When, one afternoon a week later, she decided to speak to her father
about Olive’s perplexity, she went to his office in the Dameron Block
and made no effort to conceal the fact that she had come on business.
Her father was poring over his accounts as she stood suddenly on the
threshold of the private room.

“Why, Zee, what brings you here?” he exclaimed.

The sight of her gave him a shock, as she had been in his mind;
the book over which he had been poring was the cash book of his
trusteeship. He marked his place with a scrap of paper and turned to
her.

“I came on an errand,” said Zelda. “I don’t think your housekeeping is
well done,” she added, glancing about the room.

“It serves me very well,” said the old man. “Business is only to be
considered as business.”

“I suppose that’s a warning; but I really came on a little business,
father.”

“Oh!” He had no idea that she had ever visited the office before. He
thought on the instant that she had come for money.

“I have just heard that Olive Merriam and her mother are in
trouble,--that is, money trouble.”

He looked at her quickly, and searched her with his sharp eyes. The
Merriams had been trading on Zelda’s friendship, he decided, and he
smiled to himself as he settled back in his chair, determined to thwart
any quixotic plan that Zelda might broach in their behalf.

“I imagine that they have very little--very little,” he said.

“I know nothing of their affairs; but I have just learned that they
expect to move, and when I asked Olive why, she said they owed a debt
they couldn’t pay.”

“They live on Harrison Street. I have seen the place. It’s a very
comfortable cottage, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It’s a charming little house. But it’s their things; it’s what Olive
is and does that makes it attractive. Do you happen to know what this
debt is?” she asked. He thought there might be a pitfall here and he
answered at once:

“Yes; I hold the mortgage. It’s in the bank for collection.”

“She didn’t tell me that you held it. She said a bank had it. The money
was borrowed to pay Olive’s way through school. Did you know that was
the way of it?”

“I think perhaps Mrs. Merriam said so.”

“If she said so of course that was the reason. She is a very good
woman; quite fine, I think.”

“Certainly. I didn’t mean to imply that she had not been quite frank
with me. But people are sometimes tempted by their necessities into
slight prevarications.”

He smiled and chuckled at his own wisdom in having learned this great
fact in human nature.

“Mrs. Merriam has a debt to pay, and if she can’t pay it she will lose
the house,” continued Zelda. “The debt is to you.”

“To me as trustee,” he corrected.

“Is it, then, something of mine, father?”

Dameron bowed his head.

“Your surmise is quite correct. I hold, as trustee for you, several
notes, given by Mrs. Merriam. They’re now in default and in the bank
for collection.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know that earlier, father. I wish you had told
me. I have been seeing a good deal of my Cousin Olive. I like her
immensely; I have been to her house familiarly, and she has been to see
me pretty often, when she could get away from her work. I didn’t know,
of course, that I was even remotely their creditor. The situation isn’t
exactly comfortable, now that I know it.”

“I’m sorry that the matter should have risen; but there is no reason
why they should transfer their burdens to your shoulders, Zee.”

“I hope you understand that they have never mentioned this subject or
hinted that they owed you or me. I only know that they feel they must
leave the house. I fancy that they are being pushed by the bank--to pay
the money.”

“The bank has, of course, no alternative in the matter. It’s their
business to collect.” And this fact seemed to give Ezra Dameron
pleasure.

“But if the owner of the note doesn’t want to push the people who made
the debt,--”

“It is very bad business to carry overdue paper. New notes have to be
given in such cases.”

It was clear to Zelda that her father had no sympathy with her liking
for the Merriams or her wish to help them in their difficulty. She was
sure that she could manage in some way to stop the pressure that was
being brought to bear on them, and she hoped to do it through her
father without going to her uncle, who would, she knew, give her any
money she might ask, after he had made a row about it. But it pleased
her to carry the matter through with her father.

“What is the amount, father?”

“Two thousand dollars,--with interest; with accumulated interest.”

Zelda smiled in relief. She could comprehend two thousand dollars.

“And how much is the house worth?”

“About five thousand, possibly. But there is no market for such
property just at present. The trend of real estate is all in another
direction.”

“Then they’d better stay there, if no one would want the house. I’m
sure _we_ can’t move.”

The old man smiled patronizingly.

“You don’t understand business, my child. It is well that your affairs
are in trust. I have lent a good deal of money for you, and I am proud
to say that I have never lost a cent, principal or interest.”

“I’m sure you have done the best that could be done for me, but now
I’m going to ask a favor. I want to carry this loan, if it has to be
carried, personally. I want you to make it over to me, and then take it
out of my allowance, or charge it to me in the trusteeship. I suppose
I might buy it of you,--that would be more businesslike; but I haven’t
more than two hundred dollars. Maybe you’d sell it to me for that,
father, as a special favor?”

The old man shook his head and laughed.

“It is to guard you against just such philanthropy that I am your
trustee. You had better know nothing of these things, Zee.”

“But my own aunt and cousin! I hope all my money isn’t lent to my
relatives.”

“No; relatives are poor pay,” said the old man, and he rubbed his hands
together and chuckled; but he was pondering the matter seriously.
At that moment he really needed all the money he could accumulate,
and he had every intention of bringing suit on the Merriam notes and
foreclosing the mortgage; but, after all, the amount was small, and
it was better to let Zelda have her way than to risk an appeal to her
uncle, who might take it into his head to ask embarrassing questions
about the condition of the trusteeship. Ezra Dameron had gone his own
way so long that the idea of submitting his affairs to the scrutiny of
another was altogether repugnant to him.

“My dear child, your kindness of heart pleases me. It is a very
beautiful Christian spirit that prompts you to help carry another’s
burdens.”

He bent his head slightly; he was afraid to refuse to grant Zelda’s
wish; but perhaps in permitting her to help her unfortunate relatives
he would gain the favor of Heaven.

“I will draw the notes from the bank and let the matter rest for the
present, Zee, if you very much wish it.”

“If that will save them further trouble, that will do.”

“I shall give the bank notice in a day or two,” said Dameron,
reluctantly. He wished that Zelda would go. He did not at all like the
idea of having her visit him in his office, and to-day he was engrossed
with important computations. He wished to be rid of her, but she rose
so suddenly that he was startled.

“Why, father, I couldn’t think of troubling you with a thing of this
sort when you’re doing it as a favor to me! What bank is it? The
one where I keep my account? Oh, I know them over there. I’m going
down that way anyhow, and I’ll tell them you don’t want those notes
collected. Thank you ever so much.”

“No, no; I’ll have to see about it personally. You mustn’t interfere
in the matter at all!” he almost shouted at her. But she had no idea
of trusting him, and she walked straight toward the door, at which she
turned.

“It’s splendid of you to let me do it. And please don’t be late for
dinner again to-night. It’s a new trick of yours, and Polly doesn’t
like it at all. Good-by.”

Two thousand dollars looked smaller to Ezra Dameron now than ever
before in his life. His thoughts were with larger matters than mortgage
loans. It was better to drop the Merriam loan altogether than to invite
a scrutiny of the affairs of his trusteeship, he reflected; and Zelda
had hardly reached the street before he was again deep in his figures.

Zelda went directly to the bank and sought Burton, the cashier, whom
she had met several times at parties. He gave her a seat by his desk
near the front window. He was sure that she had come to solicit for a
charity, and she was so handsome that he rather enjoyed his peril.

“I have come from my father to speak about a business matter. He is
very sorry that he can’t come himself. There are some notes here for
collection, given by Mrs. Thomas Merriam to my father. He thought,
or--I mean, they were to have been collected, but it was all a mistake
about them. He wished me to say that nothing was to be done.”

“Excuse me one moment, Miss Dameron.”

He went to the note-teller’s cage and brought the notes, which were
pinned to the mortgage.

“Your father wishes nothing done in the matter?” he asked, laying the
slips of paper before Zelda.

“No,” she answered slowly, eying the notes curiously. “I suppose I may
as well take them with me,--to save my father the trouble of coming for
them.”

“That’s a little--irregular, I suppose,” said the young man,
doubtfully, but he laughed.

“I suppose it is,” said Zelda, “but father was very anxious that
nothing should be done, so I’ll just take them along. Your bank is so
big that some one might forget a little thing like this.”

The young man hesitated and was lost. Zelda crumpled the papers between
her gloved fingers and closed her fist upon them.

“There’s something else I have intended speaking to you about,” she
said, dismissing the notes carelessly. “You haven’t had any nice new
money in your bank for a long time, Mr. Burton. And old bills are
perfectly horrible. I shouldn’t think people would stand it--these old,
worn-out bills. Suppose a new bank should start up with a lot of new
money--you wouldn’t last a day.”

The cashier laughed; Miss Dameron had a reputation for saying amusing
and unexpected things.

“I’ll ask the teller to keep a fresh supply for you. We don’t want to
lose your account, Miss Dameron.”

“Thank you, so much. And if father should come in please tell him I
have the notes. I might miss him, you know.”

The cashier found a moment of leisure in which to speak to the
president, an elderly gentleman with a well-trimmed beard and a
fondness for red scarfs.

“There’s something doing in the Dameron family,” Burton announced.

“Has the old man murdered the girl or is he just torturing her to
prolong the agony?” said the president.

“The girl’s all right. She has the whip hand.”

“She may think she has; but he’s a keen one, is Ezra.”

“Miss Dameron was just in to get those notes of Thomas Merriam’s widow
we have for collection. The old man told me yesterday to go ahead
and collect them without delay. The daughter came in this afternoon
and said her father was very anxious that Mrs. Merriam should not be
disturbed. He was even so worried about it that he sent Miss Dameron
around to get the notes. I imagine he was troubled to death about it.”

The cashier thrust his hands into his pockets and grinned.

“I suppose she gave you a receipt for the notes.”

“No. One doesn’t ask Miss Dameron for receipts,” replied the cashier.
“I’d have given her all the government bonds in the vault if she had
asked for them.”

“You speak as though you were sorry she hadn’t.”

“I guess the old man has met his match,” said the cashier. “Miss
Dameron has struck up an intimacy with her cousin, Olive Merriam, whose
mother owes E. Dameron, Esquire, money. When E.’s daughter heard the
money was to be collected she told him it was no good and pulled him
off. And being a bright young woman she came around herself for the
notes. She’s on to the old man like a million of brick.”

“Well,” said the president, conservatively, “he’s an old customer of
ours. We must not lose him.”

“That would be a real loss,” said the cashier. “The daughter comes in
once a week to cash a check, and I couldn’t bear to part with that. The
sight of her coming in in that sweepy, on-wings-from-heaven way of hers
lifts my spirit like a cocktail.”

“You have it bad,” said the president. “If you’re going to that
clearing-house meeting you’d better skip.”

Zelda locked the mortgage and notes in her own desk, with no intention
of giving them to her father, unless he should demand them. When he
came home in the evening he seemed to be lost in meditation, and after
a silent meal he studied his papers while Zelda sat and read.

She had no longer the consolation of the open fire, which, though an
ugly thing of coal, had nevertheless made many of the winter evenings
tolerable. The open windows now admitted the street noises, and the
cries of the neighborhood children at play stole into the room. There
was something stifling in her life; she felt sometimes that she could
not breathe. She sat for long with a book in her hands, but with her
eyes upon the wall; and, as she was thus lost in her thoughts, she was
aware suddenly that her father’s eyes were bent upon her.

“Oh, Zee,” he said when she turned to him, “what was it you asked me
to-day about Mrs. Merriam’s loan? I have been so occupied that I don’t
quite remember what we decided to do about it.”

There was a senile quaver in his voice; but she knew that he did not
speak the truth.

“You said you would withdraw the notes from the bank, and you let me go
to explain about it. I brought the papers home and put them away in my
desk.”

“Yes, yes; I believe that was it. Yes; to be sure. So you have the
notes. Well, you’d better hand them to me,--quite at your convenience.”

“Certainly, father.”

He was satisfied and turned again to his endless computations.




CHAPTER XIX

THE PATOKA FLATS


Jack Balcomb, walking through an alley that ran parallel with Jefferson
Street, marked the unmistakable figure of Ezra Dameron ahead of him.
This alley was called Ruby Street for no reason that any one knew. It
was lined with the rear doors of Jefferson Street shops on one side
and those of jobbing houses on the other, and, as it was narrow, its
traffic was usually congested. A few saloons were squeezed into corners
here and there and in one large room opening directly on the alley a
dealer in margins maintained an office.

Balcomb paused a moment to watch Dameron, who dodged in and out among
trucks, horses and hurrying pedestrians with quick, eager steps.

“I bet a dollar you’re going for a drink,” Balcomb remarked under his
breath; but the old man passed a saloon and went on. He seemed to be
in haste, and Balcomb stepped into the middle of the alley and watched
him, until he reached the broker’s office, which he entered without
looking around.

Balcomb whistled. “Worse than drink,” he reflected, and went up to his
own office.

Balcomb’s mind seethed with schemes these days. He sought to give an
air of seriousness to his business by carrying in the daily press an
advertisement which read, “J. Arthur Balcomb, Investment Broker,” and
he inscribed the same legend on his stationery. The solid business men
of Mariona regarded him a little warily; but he had carried through
several enterprises with considerable dash, and, as he cultivated
the reporters, his name frequently appeared in the newspapers. The
building of interurban trolley lines was bringing the surrounding
towns more and more into touch with the capital. The country banker
and the small capitalist were now much seen in the streets of Mariona.
They were learning the lingo of metropolitan business; many of
them had found it convenient to enroll themselves as non-resident
members of the Commercial Club, and Jack Balcomb’s office proved a
pleasant rendezvous. Here they could use his stenographers, and the
long-distance telephone was theirs to command. The banks and trust
companies were a trifle large for these interurban capitalists; but
Jack Balcomb accommodated himself to great and small. Prosperous
farmers, who were finding it pleasant to run into the capital, now
that the street car passed their door, learned much from Balcomb, who
had the rosy imagination and sublime zeal that they lacked. Balcomb
had organized the Patoka Land and Improvement Company to give the
interurbanites a chance to taste the sweets of large enterprises.

Balcomb found a group of men waiting for him in his office and he sent
them into his private room while he dictated in a loud tone to one of
his stenographers. It was a letter to a famous Wall Street banking
house and referred in large figures to a certain or uncertain bond deal
which, from the terms of the letter, the New York house and Balcomb
were carrying on together. It was, to be sure, a letter that would
never encumber the mails, but this made no difference to Balcomb, who
gave it what he called the true commercial literary finish.

He left the stenographers to themselves with the solemn injunction that
he was not to be disturbed; then he entered his private office briskly
and was soon talking breathlessly to half a dozen auditors.

“We haven’t merely to crowd in every modern improvement, gentlemen;
we’ve got to anticipate improvements! There’s nothing so stale and
unprofitable as an old flat. The crowd follows the newest thing. We
must have novel features,--all we can get. If it’s likely to be a good
thing to pipe the house for buttermilk, all right; we’ll fix it that
way. If roof gardens are getting common we’ll not have any. Just at
present I’m for a library on the top floor, with splashing fountains
concealed by palms in the center; and a ball-room with a stage where
they can have amateur theatricals and a big Christmas tree and that
sort of thing. It’ll waste room, of course, but we’ll make the tenants
pay for it. Rent it? Well, I guess yes! We’ll get tired of putting
names on the waiting list!”

He stood with a pile of architect’s sketches before him, disclosing to
his associates of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company his scheme
for an ideal flat. Jack Balcomb always wore good clothes; they added to
his air of plausibility. His Vandyke beard was certainly becoming and
his brown eyes were handsome, albeit a trifle restless and unsteady.

“Now,” said Balcomb, standing away from the drawings, “I don’t want you
gentlemen to drop dead of heart disease or any little thing like that;
but I’ve got my principal idea to spring.”

He produced a box of cigars and passed it round and then carried a
lighted match from one to the other with deferential courtesy. He liked
to make them wait--to tease their curiosity. He lighted his own cigar
deliberately and smoothed the blue prints on the table carefully as he
continued:

“You gentlemen will admit that there are plenty of apartment houses
down-town. Every old corner is getting one. Every lone widow in the
community takes her life insurance money and blows it into a flat and
thinks it safer than government bonds. But I’ve got an idea worth two
of the best of them. I wish to thunder we could copyright it, it’s so
good.”

He let a dreamy look come into his eyes while the grave incorporators
of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company smoked and listened. He had
dropped the “we” in a casual way, but it had reached the right spot in
the breasts of the interurbanites.

“It’s up to us to do something new; and it has struck me that a
ten-story flat, with every comfort and luxury provided, located away
from the heat and dirt of the city, but accessible by car-line--not
more than twenty minutes from the monument--is the thing we’re looking
for. Instead of gazing out on smoke-stacks our tenants will look down
on trees! Does it sound good to you?”

His audience smoked on quietly and Balcomb continued. They liked to
hear him talk. He was an attractive figure as he leaned against the
wall with his hands in his pockets.

“We can afford to give them some green grass to look at by going out
of town. Babies, pianos and dogs are excluded from all well-regulated
flats, but if we should be a little tolerant toward babies an acre of
God’s green earth would be a great thing for them. Just see how it
grows on you, gentlemen! Now, in the same connection we’d run an ideal
dairy a little farther out, to give the tenants real cream and butter
like their mothers used to make. Say, I don’t see how the down-town
flats will do any business after we get going! If anybody asks
questions about the milk we can prove it was good by the cows!”

He laughed and they all grinned in sympathy with his plan and in
admiration of his genius.

“But where are you going to get all this?” asked Van Cleve, his
attorney, who frequently acted as interlocutor at such meetings.

“That’s not so easy. You’ve got to get on the best street and on a good
car-line, and you’ve got to go north. Remember, there’s a park system
going out that way right up the creek. A park system and a boulevard
would be worth millions to us. There are only two or three sites
possible and the best of all is the corner where High Street crosses
Ripple Creek. It looks awful good to me anywhere along there. Twenty
minutes from Jefferson Street, gentlemen; all the comforts of the city;
all the joys of the country. Now--” with a change of tone, “this is
all strictly _inter nos_, as Doc Bridges used to say at college. This
is our scheme and we don’t want a lot of little real estate fakirs
crossing our trail. If I may be a bit confidential and philosophical,
I’ll warn you against three classes of men--plumbers, real estate
agents and preachers in plug hats and shining alpaca coats who handle
a line of Arizona mining stock on the side.”

They all laughed and he sat down to give them a chance to ask him
questions. Up to a certain point he always did all the talking; but
he knew when to quit. He submitted himself to their cross-examination
graciously. They were simple, hard-headed men, and he answered them
patiently and carefully. He had accumulated a great fund of data
relating to the life of such structures as he proposed building: the
cost of maintenance; the heating and lighting questions and the matter
of service. Much of this was wholly new to the country capitalists; it
was novel and it was interesting and there was a glamour about it that
charmed them.

“You’ll go over to the club for luncheon, gentlemen,” he said, when the
whistles blew at twelve o’clock and several of his syndicate drew out
their watches,--“with me,” he added. “We’ll go about one.”

Most of them were used to dinner at twelve at home and they were
hungry; but luncheon at the club was in keeping with their new
development, and they waited patiently until young Midas should be
ready to lead them.

After seeing them fed at the Commercial Club he parted with them, with
the understanding that he was to search for a proper site for the
Patoka Flats, as the apartment house was to be called, and report on
a day fixed. He returned to his office for a further conference with
Van Cleve, his lawyer. The flat project was uppermost in Balcomb’s
mind, and he was bent on pushing it through. His interurbanites had
already subscribed for considerable stock and he was reasonably sure of
getting all the money he needed. Times were good; there was plenty of
capital seeking investment, and the incorporators of the Patoka Land
and Improvement Company were men of considerable influence in their
several communities.

“I say, Van Cleve,” remarked Balcomb to the lawyer, “we’re going to
make a big winner out of this. Some of the things I’ve put through are
jolly rotten; but this flat scheme is away up and out of sight the best
thing I ever tackled.”

“Those farmers are stuck on it, all right,” said Van Cleve. “You
certainly know how to blow hot air.”

Van Cleve had come to town to practise law, and had fallen in with
Balcomb at a boarding-house where they both lived. Balcomb had taken
soundings in the shallow waters of Van Cleve’s intellect and he
had decided that the young man would prove useful. Van Cleve had a
retreating chin, a corn-silk mustache and pale-blue, near-sighted eyes;
but he had an allowance from his father, which in some degree minimized
these disadvantages. The elder Van Cleve was a banker in an Ohio River
town and Balcomb was cultivating country bankers, with whom he was
building up business in the sale and purchase of securities.

“There’s only one place for that flat,” remarked Balcomb, musingly.
“That’s old Dameron’s place on the creek at High Street. The malaria is
all drained out of there now and it’s getting more valuable every day.
The extension of the park system along the creek and the building of
the boulevard will give the region a whirl. It’s only a country-town
idea that apartment houses must be built on the court-house square;
but we’ll show them, all right.”

He opened a plat book and pointed out to Van Cleve the location of the
Dameron ground.

“I suppose the old man will throw a fit when I ask him for a price on
the strip. Everybody seems to be afraid of Ezra Dameron; but I’m not
half as much afraid of him as I am of his daughter, who’s a pleasant
rest for tired eyes, all right. Ezra’s a queer old party, with a chilly
manner and an alluring smile; but I rather flatter myself that I know
how to handle difficult customers.”

“I guess you can handle them if anybody can,” said Van Cleve,
admiringly.

“I’ve mastered a few--just a few--of the arts of persuasion. In fact,
I prefer a tough case--something that gives a little resistance. It’s
more satisfactory.”

Balcomb stretched himself and yawned. He was not averse to Van Cleve’s
admiration, but sunned himself in it.

“I’ll drop around and see the old man just about now. There’s nothing
like keeping things going after you get started. Let me consider.
I’m not sure just what shade of gloves I ought to put on for this
interview. Perhaps ox-blood red would do just as well as anything.”

There was a file case in the corner, with many drawers bearing neat
labels inscribed with such titles as “Greene County Coal”; “Cement
Reports”; “Bank Statements”, and “U. S. Treasurer”. He pulled out
a drawer labeled “U. S. Treasurer” and carelessly turned over its
contents--several pairs of gloves in a variety of shades.

“Rather a neat thing in chiffonniers,” he remarked.

Van Cleve was staring at him in amazement. He never ceased to wonder at
Balcomb.

“This, my friend, is designed for the edification of rubbernecks. The
titles are rather impressive, and they are not all a sham. But if
you’re in a hurry to change your necktie at any time come in, old man,
and try on one of mine. You’ll find an assortment of new spring shades
under ‘Missouri Zinc.’”

Van Cleve grinned his appreciation.

“You ought to have gone on the stage, Balcomb. Your province is art,
not commerce.”

“Don’t worry, my dear young friend from the banks of _La Belle
Rivière_. Now before I go on my perilous journey to see the ancient
Dameron--”

He pulled out a drawer labeled “Kentucky Central R. R.”

“This is no deception at all,” he continued, as he took out a
bottle of whisky and a glass. “It’s from Kentucky; it’s for central
application,”--tapping his chest--“and it’s rare rye. On the water
wagon? I don’t often indulge myself; but it’s well to prepare oneself
before going up against a hard frost. Now”--his manner changing--“we’ve
got to increase our capital stock; you’d better get busy in the
intervals of your engrossing professional duties and do something real
noble in that line.”

He gave Van Cleve a memorandum of what he wanted and walked out
briskly, disposing of several callers who waited in the outer office,
where the typewriters rattled tirelessly.




CHAPTER XX

TWO GENTLEMEN BECOME ACQUAINTED


In a town like Mariona the tradition of riches is almost as good as
the proved fact. It had been said for years that Ezra Dameron was the
possessor of great wealth. How, indeed, could he be otherwise, when
he was a miser and never spent any money? Old Roger Merriam had died
one of the richest men in the state, and in dividing his property he
had favored his daughters, so that Mrs. Forrest and Mrs. Dameron had
received larger shares than their brothers. Copeland, the lawyer who
never practised, possessed a great fund of useful information, and
he estimated the value of Margaret Dameron’s estate at four hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, and Copeland was a conservative man. Ezra
Dameron’s personal estate was popularly supposed to be equally large,
but this was something that no one knew anything about.

Ezra Dameron had been called a hard man. There was an uncharitable
smile that went usually with the mention of his name. The friends of
the Merriams said that he was an ugly blackguard; but there were people
who did not admire the Merriams, and these were inclined to the belief
that his wife’s family had misjudged and mistreated him. His way of
living was not attractive to sane, reasonable people, but if he chose
to shut himself off from the usual currents of human enjoyment he was
the loser and it was his affair.

Ezra Dameron had long been content to lend money on mortgages, to
buy and sell real estate and to invest in tax titles; but he had in
recent years widened his field, through curious circumstances. He had
held in his strong-box for a decade several hundred shares of stock
in a western railway company that had never paid any dividends. The
property had been absorbed by a great system with the result that the
market value of the stock doubled instantly. As a result Dameron’s
attitude toward the world of finance centered in Wall Street altered
considerably. He became a close student of the stock list as printed
in the daily newspapers. He procured copies of the annual financial
statements of a number of railways and pored over them in his office.
The tendency of prices was upward; political conditions, which he had
always studied carefully, seemed favorable to a long-continued period
of good times. He kept the stock he had, but bought more, chiefly among
low-priced securities, buying outright through his bank. The stock in
every case was bought in his own name as trustee; and he deposited it
in his strong-box and watched the value of his holdings rise steadily.

He began to feel himself in touch with large matters. His ownership
of this stock added fresh zest to life, and he experienced a thrill
of pleasure as he contemplated his investments. He entered his
transactions with scrupulous care in his account books; and his time,
which had previously been given wholly to the care of real estate
and mortgages, he began to divide, giving a large share of it to the
study of the markets. He found that he could learn the daily stock
quotations in advance of their publication in the afternoon newspapers
by visiting the offices of a broker, who provided a large room with
comfortable seats for his patrons and chalked the quotations on a
bulletin board. He was free to visit the place when he liked; no one
appeared to know him and no questions were asked. He continued this
course for a year with growing interest. His life had been singularly
free from excitement; but here was a game that he could watch as a calm
spectator and with no danger to himself. Then the newspapers began to
be filled with stories of the great fortunes that were made daily in
Wall Street. The railroads had never before been so prosperous; there
was a wail all over the land because there were not cars enough to
handle the country’s business.

It was a great game, and Ezra Dameron watched the blackboard with
increasing fascination, enjoying the gossip of the broker’s office,
where the other habitués learned to know him, and confided to him their
successes. They were poor men who had not money with which to purchase
stock outright, yet they, too, found it possible to take advantage of
the general prosperity. The idea pleased Dameron; he construed it as
an evidence of the Providence of God, who was dispensing riches to all
the faithful. He gradually reasoned himself into the belief that it was
foolish to purchase and pay for stocks in full when a mere memorandum
of ownership, based on the identical property and the same market,
would greatly multiply his increase. He knew from his own observations
in the broker’s office that it was an easy matter to make purchases
on margins; he had witnessed thousands of such transactions at the
cashier’s window. Nothing could be simpler; in no way could a dollar
be invested to so good advantage.

He came slowly to the conclusion that it was absurd to buy shares
outright when it was possible to gain all the advantage of a rising
market by carrying a multiplied number of shares on margin. He
argued himself into this belief gradually. He experienced the common
misfortune of the beginner at games of chance; he was extremely
successful. This he believed to be the result of his sagacity and
shrewdness in studying the internal character of his investments,
refusing to believe that he was profiting merely by a general upward
tendency perceptible in every branch of trade.

At first he put aside only a small amount of money for use in
speculation, but he increased this gradually,--almost unconsciously.
He grew afraid to be seen so much in the broker’s offices; he could
no longer throw an air of inadvertence about his visits there, for he
found himself spending whole days before the bulletin board. A number
of his houses were placarded for rent, but the gambler’s passion had
entered into his blood. He had traveled little, but now the magnitude
of the country’s transportation interests struck him in a new light; he
studied the maps of railways and pictured in his dreams the thousands
of manufactories and the plains of corn and wheat in the West that were
back of every share of stock in the great systems.

But it was best that no one should know at home that he was investing
his money in these ways, and he next opened an account with a large
brokerage firm in Chicago, and subscribed to a Chicago daily newspaper
that he might the better keep in touch with the market. His cunning
in hiding his steps on the perilous sands of speculation kept pace
with the growth of his passion for the game. He made deposits with
the brokers in cash drawn from the Mariona National Bank and sent by
express to Chicago. He even alternated his use of the express companies.

When Jack Balcomb went to see Dameron about the plot of ground known
as the creek strip, the old man was poring over a crop bulletin. His
callers either came to collect or to confess their inability to pay,
and as Dameron had never seen Balcomb before, he concluded at once that
the young man was a collector. People who came to pay him were not
usually so well appareled.

Balcomb stood for a moment in the door of the anteroom, drawing the
glove from his right hand.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Dameron. My name is Balcomb.” He advanced and
placed a visiting card on the dingy green cover of Dameron’s desk.

Dameron picked up the card and inspected it without looking at his
caller. Book agents often carried plain visiting cards and left their
sample cases in the hall. Ezra Dameron classified Balcomb as belonging
to their species.

“I have the honor to know your daughter slightly, Mr. Dameron.”

“That is possible,” said the old man, dryly, still not looking up.

“Yes, sir; I was fortunate enough to be associated with her in one of
the Dramatic Club plays.”

“Humph!” and Ezra Dameron’s eyes wandered back to his papers. He was
computing the possibility of a crop shortage, and Balcomb’s visit was
ill-timed.

“I have no time to-day, sir; I’m very busy. I don’t care to buy
anything,” he said.

His eyes returned to the tables he had been studying. Heavy rains had
injured the corn in Nebraska, and he was speculating as to the effect
of this on the railways that traversed that region.

“Pardon me,” said Balcomb, whose eyes had swept the contents of the
bare room comprehensively, “but I didn’t come to sell anything. I see
that you are busy and I should like to make an appointment with you for
some other time.”

Dameron raised his eyes and looked Balcomb over carefully. Jack Balcomb
was undeniably a presentable young man, as he stood with his head bent
deferentially, holding his hat and glove in one hand. If he was not a
collector or a book agent, he probably wished to borrow money. Just now
Ezra Dameron had no money to lend.

“My time is much taken, but I have never found it profitable to defer
interviews. What is it you want?”

A chair stood near Dameron’s desk, but it was covered with papers, and
he made no effort to clear it for his caller. It was, in fact, one of
Dameron’s rules never to ask callers to sit down. Most of his visitors
came with tales of woe, and he had found that people in trouble are
voluble.

“My business is serious,” said Balcomb, imperturbably, “and I should
not like to take it up when you are busy.”

“We will take it up now or not at all.”

The old man was still bent over the table with his pencil poised in his
hand. His glasses were pinched low down on his long thin nose, and he
looked over them at Balcomb very coldly.

“I don’t want you to be in haste in considering--”

“You needn’t trouble yourself. There will be no delay whatever. It
is my practice, sir, to pass on questions as they rise.” And Dameron
tapped the table impatiently with his pencil.

“Very well,” said Balcomb, smiling amiably. “I wish to know whether you
will put a price on that piece of ground you own on High Street near
the creek. I have a description in my pocket, if you care to refresh
your memory.”

“I know the piece perfectly. It is not for sale.”

“I understand that, Mr. Dameron. It is pretty well understood in
Mariona that Mr. Dameron rarely sells real estate. That’s quite in
keeping with my own ideas.”

Balcomb rested one of his highly polished shoes on a round of the chair
and smiled agreeably at Ezra Dameron.

“You flatter me,” said the old man, dryly. “May I ask who sent you
here?”

“Certainly, sir. I represent no one but myself. I never employ agents.
I prefer to do business at first hand.”

“Then I’m sure your business is well cared for,” said Dameron.

Balcomb grinned respectfully at the old man’s irony.

“I am fairly prosperous,” he said, and Dameron looked him over again.
The market had been uncertain for several days. The bears had been
making a raid, and he had lost some money,--not very much, to be
sure,--but still the steady gains of several prosperous weeks had been
wiped out. But he was confident of a reaction. He had of late paid
little attention to the property which Balcomb had mentioned, and his
thoughts turned upon it.

“Have you ever been here before?”

“No, sir.”

“What do you want with that property?”

“I’m not at liberty to state at present.”

“Then you’re not really your own master after all, but negotiating for
other parties.”

“Not at all. As I told you, I represent no one but myself. But I don’t
propose telling you what I expect to do with that ground; my ideas are
worth something to me.”

“You rather imply that you don’t trust me;” and the old man smiled and
drew his hand across his face.

“Not further,” said Balcomb, pleasantly, “than I could throw an
elephant by the tail.”

The old man scrutinized Balcomb with new interest, drawing lines on a
blotter with his pencil.

“You’re insulting,” he said, but without irritation.

“No,” said Balcomb, “I’m just frank. I’m merely saying to you what
everybody else thinks. I make a point of being frank. I’ve found that
it pays.”

“You’re evidently a very observing young man. You don’t consider that
my reputation in the community is of the first order,--is that what you
mean?” And the old man continued to make marks on the blotter.

“You’ve caught it exactly. I don’t recall just now that I ever heard
any one say a good word for you. You asked the question and I have
answered you.”

“You certainly are a frank young man;” and Dameron brought the tips of
his fingers together, and examined Jack Balcomb more critically. The
promoter’s bold air pleased him.

“What piece of property was it you mentioned?” he asked with a feigned
air of forgetfulness.

“You have made a fair sketch of it on that blotter,” said Balcomb,
grinning. “That triangle is unmistakable,--that’s the creek there on
the uneven side.”

Dameron looked down at the blotter over which his pencil had been
traveling unconsciously. He had indeed sketched an outline of the plot
of ground, and he looked up at Balcomb with a shrewd smile.

“You are a clever young man,--a very clever young man. I am glad to
enjoy your acquaintance. You may go now.”

He resettled his glasses on his nose and picked up his pencil. The
interview had ceased to interest him, and he would sustain his dignity
by dismissing Balcomb as though the young man were a school-boy.

Balcomb laughed and slapped his leg.

“Do you know, I like you! I think we’re going to do some business
together some day. They told me you were a terrible frost, and I guess
you are too many for the most of them. Not many men know how to carry
on a trade, but you have the right idea. Always turn a man down on a
first interview; that’s one of my own principles.”

[Illustration: _Ezra Dameron_]

Balcomb drew on his glove, not in the least disturbed by Dameron’s
renewed absorption in his figures. He bent forward far enough to see
that the old man was studying a statistical table. He knew the table
well enough, because it was of a type that was circulated freely
by a local broker, whose name was printed at the top of the sheet in
red ink, and the sight of it and Dameron’s deep interest in it pleased
Balcomb immensely. He felt that he had made a capital beginning. He was
not ready to buy the site for the Patoka Plats just yet, but there was
no question in his mind but that he should have an opportunity to buy a
little later on. He knew that when a man of Dameron’s age and character
begins to fail the failure is often very rapid. He smoothed his gloves
carefully as he looked down on Dameron’s figure drooping over the
table, contemplating him with something of the satisfaction with which
a young buzzard watches an old horse stumbling about a pasture and
making ready to die.

“My address is printed on the card, if you should care to see me before
I come back. Please don’t do anything until you hear from me. I have
that sentence printed on all my stationery!”

Dameron shook his head impatiently and continued to study his figures
without looking up. But when he heard the outer door close and knew
that Balcomb had gone he leaned back in his chair and brought his hands
together in their familiar attitude of prayer; and he sat thus until
dark, dreaming many dreams.




CHAPTER XXI

“I BELIEVE I’M IN LOVE”


Olive’s trunks went to the farm with Zelda’s. Mrs. Merriam had gone
East to visit a sister, and Zelda settled Olive’s plans immediately.
Zelda’s refusal to make the rounds of the eastern summer resorts with
Mrs. Forrest caused that excellent woman an immense amount of trouble.
She therefore demanded that her brother should accompany her, and he
finally agreed to go. Rodney Merriam scolded Zelda roundly for refusing
to go with them, and when she disclosed the fact that Olive was to
spend the summer with her at the farm, he said things in his anger
which he regretted when he had gone home to the solace of his old
clothes, his slippers and his pipe.

Ezra Dameron was now so deeply absorbed in his speculations that
he paid less and less heed to the details of his own household. He
permitted Zelda to make the transfer from Merriam Street to the farm
with few hints from himself; he no longer meddled with the marketing,
and he rarely if ever admonished Polly as to the necessity for economy.
He treated Olive with perfect courtesy, though Zelda’s liking for her
cousin had deprived him of the use of two thousand dollars; but in
pleasing his daughter and preventing possible inquiry into her estate
by her uncle, it had been worth what it cost. He knew, too, that
with a companion at the farm Zelda was more likely to be contented.
His hours in the city were long and he needed all his time for
thought,--for planning new moves and studying the intricacies of the
great game. Its fascination grew on him. He fancied that he had become
expert in detecting causes and effects; he believed his judgment to be
infallible. He would make himself rich, rich; and he would pay Zelda
generously for the use of the trustee’s fund that he was using; yes,
and she in due time should have all that he made for himself,--and it
should be a greater fortune than her own.

Ezra Dameron had bought The Beeches at foreclosure sale, several years
before, at half its value. An interurban car-line now passed within
a short distance of the gate and made the farm readily accessible
from the city, so that the investment had already been justified.
The cottage was not visible from the highway, but was reached by an
irregular private road, that wound in and out among beeches and maples
to the front door. At the side of the cottage a steep declivity ran
down suddenly to a brook that murmured pleasantly. The house had been
placed with a nice regard for the trees of the original woodland,
which crowded up close on every hand. Beyond the ravine, and reached
by a rustic bridge, were the barns and cribs that marked the practical
farming character of the estate.

Zelda and Olive sat on the veranda and looked out upon an afternoon
landscape sweet with mid-June. They had just swung a hammock between
two posts in a shady corner, and Olive was testing its comfort and
security, swinging herself back and forth with the tips of her boots
touching the floor.

“Who’ll come?” asked Olive.

“There’s a squirrel now,” said Zelda. “And that woodpecker up there
declines to be ignored.”

“I wasn’t referring to the fauna, flora and reptilia of the place. I
was speaking of human beings.”

“Oh! I suppose Uncle Rodney will come. Aunt Julia doesn’t drag him away
for a while. Aunt Julia may come, though it isn’t likely. Driving over
dusty Hoosier roads doesn’t exactly suit her.”

“I wasn’t speaking of relatives, either,” said Olive, lifting her eyes
to the blasted sycamore, where the woodpecker was at his carpentry.

“Mr. J. Arthur Balcomb? You’d better get rid of J. Arthur before that
little army man catches him in your society. Some very tragic thing
will happen if you are not careful.”

“I should hate to have Mr. Balcomb killed. I love to hear him talk.”

“You’d still hear him if he were dead,--death could never stop a flow
like his,” observed Zelda.

“I didn’t have him in mind; but I suppose he’s likely to appear. You’ll
suffer him to sit on the veranda occasionally, I hope. I shouldn’t dare
ask him into the house.”

“Our country silver is only plated,” said Zelda. “I’m not afraid.”

“That’s unkind of you. I fancy Mr. Leighton never stole any spoons in
his life.”

“I suppose I ought to blush and seem embarrassed; but I shall
disappoint you,” said Zelda, turning away, however, and looking at the
blue sky beyond the tree-tops. “I’m not at all sure that Mr. Leighton
will favor us. I don’t remember that I asked him to come. He’s always
very busy; industry’s one of his chief merits.”

“Poor young man! I suppose he’ll die of overwork--or of unrequited
love,” suggested Olive.

“He isn’t in love with me, if that’s what you’re hinting at so darkly.
He thinks he has to be polite to me on Uncle Rodney’s account.”

“Of course, we all know that Uncle Rodney would like to be the good
uncle of the story-books and make a match between you. Morris Leighton
is his protégé. He wants you and Mr. Leighton to spend his money when
he’s gone. Everybody knows that.”

“I hope everybody does know it; the more people you disappoint the more
fun! He’s a good young man.”

“Zelda Dameron, why do you speak of goodness and of good people in that
way? It’s grown noticeable. One would think you the wickedest person
in the world to hear you talk. And yet you are the kindest girl--the
best-hearted person that I ever knew!”

Olive continued to swing herself back and forth. There were many things
about Zelda that mystified her; but she had asked a question that had
been often in her mind and heart.

“One might think, to hear you talk, that you really would like to turn
all the beatitudes upside down,” she added.

“I’m queer; I’m a Merriam; that’s what’s the matter with me. I suppose
all the sins that you might have had, and all the rest of the family,
are concentrated in me.”

Zelda was looking out through the woodland, with her eyes away from
Olive, and she spoke dolefully. Her cousin’s question had surprised
her. She wished no one to know how her heart revolted against the
goodness of the world; she must be very careful lest some one should
guess her secret.

She welcomed just then the sight of her uncle’s figure approaching
through the trees.

“Your prayer is answered, Olive. Some one is coming and it looks very
much like our uncle.” She waved her hand to the old gentleman, who was
beating his way with his stick through the underbrush.

Zelda placed a chair for him.

“Why didn’t you tell me about that jungle? When you said it was a
quarter of a mile from the interurban, I didn’t know you were joking.
And bad luck to your interurban cars, anyhow.”

They offered him things to eat, drink and smoke.

“I should like a little whisky and water. I suppose you have the water.”

“And we have the whisky, too.” Zelda brought a decanter and a glass and
watched him expectantly as he poured a quantity. Olive, too, leaned
forward with a twinkle in her eyes.

Merriam smelled the whisky carefully; then he held up the glass and
tipped it, noting the thickness of the reddish fluid, which left a
distinct trace on the side of the tumbler. He raised it to his lips and
sipped it critically, while his eyes looked far off into some unknown
haven of Arcadia. He next poured a drop into his palm and watched it
evaporate, saying nothing. Then he drained the glass and placed it on
the flat arm of the chair.

“How did you do it?” he demanded.

“Do what, _mon oncle_?”

“Get that whisky?”

“Why, it’s just any old medicine-chest stuff, isn’t it?”

“Not much it isn’t! Where did you get it?”

“Grocery or drug store, possibly.”

“Where did you get it?”--his tone was fierce now.

Zelda and Olive exchanged glances and lifted their voices in laughter.

“Somebody’s been in my cellar. There’s no mistaking that stuff!”

“I’ve lost a bet,” said Zelda, mournfully. “I’m almost afraid to tell
you that I made a bet against you.”

“Of course you would bet against me.”

“It was with Mr. Leighton. I said it was all bosh about your being able
to tell; that it was all alike, and all very disagreeable, and that
nobody really knew. He said you kept some of your favorite tipple, that
some man in Kentucky gave you, at the club. So he brought a bottle out
here for us to test you with. The least you can do is to pay my bet for
me. I don’t believe we stipulated what I should give him.”

“I’ll fix that. I’ll give him a bottle of this unpurchasable stuff. He
deserves it for his loyalty.”

“But,” said Zelda, “he couldn’t use it! He’s so very good. Really good
and proper people like Mr. Leighton never touch whisky.”

“Zee, don’t be silly. Olive Merriam, your cousin is given to
foolishness. I hope you can show her the light of a little sweet
reasonableness. She’s getting worse.”

“It’s wonderful how well she hides her real feelings,” said Olive. “But
here comes that little soldier on horseback.”

Pollock was riding up to the house on his nimble-footed sorrel. He had
been to the city and was returning to the quarters he had established
in a dwelling on one of the farms lately bought by the government for
the new post, which lay only a few miles from The Beeches.

He swung to the ground and advanced to the railing with the rein in his
left hand, his gray fedora hat in his right, and saluted them all.

Rodney Merriam sat forward in his chair, bending his keen gaze on
Pollock. The girls had already nodded to the officer most amiably,
but Rodney frowned and shook his head. Many things had irritated him
to-day. The walk from the car to the Dameron house had tired him; he
was not wholly pleased to find Olive Merriam installed with Zelda
at the farm-house, though he knew that he should find her there;
and Zelda’s slighting remark about Morris Leighton had added to his
annoyance. And now Pollock, who had been in Washington for several
months, had reappeared in Mariona.

“How dare he come here?” asked Rodney, half-aloud.

“It doesn’t take a very big dare, for we have expressly asked him,”
answered Zelda, as Pollock walked around to the veranda steps.

“He’s a little fellow,” reflected Merriam, under his breath. Pollock
came up the steps, shaking hands with Zelda and Olive. As the young
man turned toward him with hand outstretched, Rodney Merriam feigned
not to see it, but bowed stiffly. Pollock brought himself a chair from
the hall, as Zelda bade him, and sat down; but Rodney Merriam remained
standing.

“Zee, I beg of you take good care of that bottle. You may tell Morris
when you see him that I’ll pay the bet for you. But don’t you bet
against your uncle again.”

His manner irritated Zelda. She had never seen him discourteous to any
one before, and his refusal to take Captain Pollock’s hand was uncalled
for; and it was not to be excused on the ground of her uncle’s age, for
he was in full possession of his faculties. She did not know whether he
was trying to hint to her that whisky was not to be passed to a young
man who called on her, or whether he had wished merely to suggest to
Captain Pollock the fact that Morris Leighton was on intimate terms in
the household. The maid came and carried the decanter into the house.

“You may be sure that your precious fluid will not be disturbed,” said
Zelda, coldly.

“There ought to be a car in fifteen minutes, so I’ll go as I came.”

“Pardon me, sir,” said Pollock, rising, “I should be delighted if you
would ride my horse in. I should like to know what you think of him;
and I’ll call for him to-morrow.”

“Thank you, but it’s too hot to ride. I much prefer the car, sir,”
replied Rodney, stiffly, without looking at the young man.

The situation was not comfortable. Pollock flushed slightly and the
young women tried to hide their surprise under a cheery farewell to
their uncle. Zelda hesitated a moment, then ran down the steps and
walked with him along the winding road and out of sight of the veranda.

“I suppose I’ll miss the car,” observed Merriam, irascibly.

“You ought to miss it! Why did you treat Captain Pollock so shabbily?”

“I don’t like him,” replied Merriam, grimly. “I warned you last
winter not to have anything to do with him. You must drop him. Do you
understand?”

“I certainly do not. I’m sorry you don’t like him; I like him--better
than anybody.”

“Then stop it right now; stop it; stop it!” And the old gentleman beat
the road with his stick until the gravel flew.

“I’m not going to do anything of the kind,” said Zelda. “I’ll even tell
you a secret,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I believe
I’m in love with him! You’ll miss your car if you don’t hurry. If you
had been good, I should have driven you in. Good-by.”




CHAPTER XXII

RODNEY MERRIAM EXPLAINS


Captain Frank Pollock was, as many people had said at different times
and in divers places, a little fellow; but there was a good deal of
decision in his make-up. He walked to Rodney Merriam’s house the next
afternoon with an exaggeration of his usual alert dignity.

The Japanese boy said that Mr. Merriam was at home, and he took
Pollock’s card and asked him to have a seat in the library. Pollock
stood, however, in the middle of the room, with a general effect of
parade rest, holding his hat and stick.

It is usually possible to tell, when you have rung a door-bell, just
what happens after you have been announced. Some one looks at your
card and smiles or frowns, or possibly mutters surprise, agreeable
or otherwise. In the case of a woman, there must be an interval of
self-inspection in the mirror,--an adjustment of ribbons, a stroke or
two with comb and brush. In the case of a man, he may, if the demand
upon him warrant it, smooth his hair, adjust his tie, and put aside his
slippers and dressing-gown. And these things, if you are waiting below,
you dramatize for yourself, just as though you had followed your card
to its destination.

Rodney Merriam was lying on a wide couch in his upstairs sitting-room
when Pollock’s card was brought to him. He held before him the London
_Times_, a journal which he read through conscientiously every day; but
he was not particularly interested in the Eastern question just now. He
was brooding over Zelda’s affairs, which did not please him at all; and
the prospect of making the rounds of eastern summer resorts with Mrs.
Forrest did not cheer him by anticipation. When the boy appeared at the
door, Merriam said, without looking up:

“If it’s Mr. Leighton, I’ll see him here.”

“No, sir; it’s another gentleman,” said the boy, producing Pollock’s
card.

Merriam raised his head and read the card; he then took his pipe out of
his mouth and sat up.

“Put out my coat and shoes, and tell the gentleman I’ll be down in a
moment.”

When the boy had gone he went to a bronze jar that stood on the mantel
and knocked his ashes into it. He put on a pair of low shoes and a blue
serge sack-coat, and before he left the room he stood on the threshold
a moment, thinking deeply.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered, in the agreeable tone in which he always
swore to himself; and then he went down stairs.

“Good afternoon, Captain Pollock,” he said courteously, taking a step
toward his caller, but Pollock stood perfectly rigid and did not move.

“Please be seated, Captain. I am quite at your service.”

Merriam stood by his desk, his hand resting upon it.

“Mr. Merriam,” began Pollock, “I was introduced to you by a gentleman
in your own club several months ago.”

“That is correct.”

“I have met you a number of times since,--I needn’t specify. Within a
week you have refused to speak to me at the club; and yesterday, at Mr.
Dameron’s house, you acted toward me in an extraordinary way, to say
the least.”

Merriam nodded affirmatively.

“As I am likely to meet you, here and there, at the club, perhaps at
houses of your friends, I have taken the liberty of asking you what I
have done to offend you. I resent being cut before my friends by a man
whom they have a right to assume I know.”

“I fear that you exaggerate, Captain Pollock. I doubt whether cutting a
man’s acquaintance can be construed as an insult.”

“That is a matter of opinion, sir. I choose to take it that you have
deliberately snubbed me, and, among other people, before your nieces,
Miss Dameron and Miss Merriam, only yesterday afternoon. If I am not
fit to enjoy your acquaintance, I am not a fit person for them to know.
I have come, sir, to ask an explanation of your singular conduct. I am
not in the habit of being treated in this fashion by a man of any age.”

His effort to be respectful in his anger showed a quality of character
that touched the old man, who looked at the erect, uncompromising
figure with liking in spite of himself.

“I am not in the habit of giving reasons for things I do, Captain
Pollock, and it would pain me very much to be obliged to explain why I
may have seemed to treat you with discourtesy. I beg of you to dismiss
the matter as one of the aberrations, let us say, of old age. I am
considerably your senior. My liking you or not liking you is not an
important matter,--unless, well, it is conceivable that some situation
might arise in which it might become important.”

“As a mysterious character in this community you may act as you please
with your townspeople; but you can’t do it with me! I’m not a child,
and I don’t propose to be treated like a baby. I want to know what I
have done to offend you.”

Pollock jerked out his words fiercely and glared at Merriam, who
regarded him with grave patience.

“You will pardon me if I sit down, Captain Pollock,”--and Merriam
dragged a chair forward and sank into it, while Pollock remained
standing and glaring at him. “Nothing can be gained from me by bluster.
You are in my house, by your own invitation!”

“Quite so! There was no other way of seeing you. I did not care to stop
you in the street, and you have already made it impossible for me to
speak to you in your club. I hope this explanation is satisfactory.”

“Entirely. Pray have a seat, to oblige me.”

Pollock sat down reluctantly. The house was very quiet; it was a hot
day and the air in the room was tense.

“Captain,” said the old gentleman, quietly, with his black eyes resting
kindly on the visitor, “I regret very much that you have come to me
with this question--”

“I’ve no doubt you do, sir,--” began Pollock, hotly.

“--because,” Merriam continued, paying no heed to the interruption,
“you have never in the world done anything to offend me,--not in the
slightest. As far as I know, you are a gentleman beyond any question,
and worthy of the highest consideration in all places.”

“Then, sir,--”

“Please wait! I regret very much that I should have been led by
a feeling, which I should prefer not to explain, into treating
you discourteously. A man of my age should have better control of
himself,--better manners, if you will.”

He raised his right hand and stared at the palm quite unconsciously. It
was a habit of his when thoughtful.

Pollock felt his anger cooling under the old gentleman’s composure.
There was something fine in it, that impressed him in spite of himself.
Moreover, his curiosity was piqued. He had expected to call, demand
an explanation and retire, after giving the old gentleman in Seminary
Square a piece of his mind. He had not the slightest idea that Rodney
Merriam had any particular reason for slighting him; though it had
occurred to him that as a self-appointed guardian of Zelda Dameron,
Merriam might have seen in him a possible suitor and sought to
eliminate him from the possibilities by treating him contemptuously.

Merriam had finished inspecting his hand and he dropped it upon his
knee and met Pollock’s eyes again.

“I should very much prefer to dismiss this matter. As I have said, I
have no grievance against you personally. I am perfectly willing to
apologize and to meet you in a friendly spirit. To repeat, I have let
an old prejudice get the better of my good sense. I trust this will be
satisfactory.”

“Not a bit of it, sir,” snapped Pollock, with fresh asperity. “If you
haven’t anything against me personally, I should like to know what you
are hinting about so darkly. Your air is insufferable! We may as well
go to the bottom of this now and here. I’m not a child, as I have said
before!”

Merriam smiled in a perplexed sort of way. He had spoken the truth. He
was heartily sorry for what he had done. Pollock’s presence in town
had annoyed him greatly; and the young man’s friendly relations with
Zelda had really angered and distressed him. But here sat Pollock
before him, in his own house, demanding an explanation to which he was
entitled by all the rules that govern social intercourse. Merriam was
uncomfortable, and he disliked being made uncomfortable. He had not
often been cornered; and Pollock’s demand threw him back again into the
past in which he had of late been living all too much.

“If I should refuse to talk to you--”

“You shan’t do anything of the kind! Your evasion and mysterious hints
are all of a piece with your whole attitude toward me, and I am not
going to stand it!”

Merriam bowed his head and was thoughtful for a moment. Then he raised
his eyes again. Pollock had risen and taken a quick turn across the
floor; but he sat down again, when he saw that Merriam was about to
speak.

“My dear sir, I trust that it will be quite enough to say that your
name is one that is associated with an unpleasant incident in my life.
It doesn’t concern you at all. It was a matter between your father and
myself.”

Pollock was on his feet again with a leap.

“You are mad or a fool! What in the devil are you driving at? I don’t
suppose you ever saw my father in your life. He’s been dead fifteen
years!”

“Quite that,” said the colonel. “I could, from my papers here, give you
the exact date if it were important. Your father and I were somewhat
acquainted,--during the Civil War,--and the recollection is unpleasant.
I beg you to drop the matter. I am an old man--”

“You are mad, you are perfectly mad!” declared Pollock, his voice
ringing out in the room. “You not only insult me, but you drag my dead
father into this romance. If you didn’t like my seeing your nieces, why
in the devil didn’t you say so in a straight manly way and not invent
a lot of fanciful tales to back you up? It’s wholly possible that you
knew my father. He was a man of honor! His name is a good one in his
own state. I am proud of it. And it ought to count something for me
that I am an officer in the army that he fought against. I would warn
you, sir, that my father’s name is a sacred thing to me!”

“I’m sure that is so, Captain Pollock. And that’s why I beg of you to
accept an apology and let me alone.”

The old man spoke very earnestly, and with an undoubted sincerity; but
Pollock blazed at him furiously:

“Unless you want to be branded as a liar, you will tell me what this is
before I leave the house. There’s a place where a man’s age ceases to
be his protection.”

Then Rodney Merriam’s manner changed.

“Please be seated, and don’t, I beg of you, alarm the servants. I’m
going to tell you what this trouble is, and before I begin I want
to apologize for doing so. And when I finish,--it will take but a
moment,--I’m going to apologize to you again. I am sixty years old,
Captain Pollock, and I don’t remember that I ever apologized to
any one before. The most comfortable thing a man can have is a bad
memory. My trouble is that I never forget anything. It was after we
had captured Donelson. I had been sent back here to Mariona, my home,
on an errand to the governor, who was having a devil of a time of it,
fighting Copperheads and getting troops into the field. The old railway
station down here was a horrible sight the night the Donelson prisoners
were brought in. Many of them were sick and they were taken from the
cars and laid out on the floor until they could be carried to Camp
Burnside, which had been turned into a rebel prison.

“I was down looking over the prisoners when I struck a little chap who
was badly used up. He said his name was Hamilton. He was a Confederate
private, but evidently a man of education and breeding. He was on fire
with fever, and the whole situation at the station was so forbidding
that I got permission to take him to my father’s house. That’s where
Mr. Dameron lives now. The officer in charge of the prisoners was a
friend of mine; and when he let me take Hamilton away, as a favor,
I gave my personal pledge that he should be delivered at the prison
whenever they wanted him.

“At home we took a fancy to Hamilton. He was up and about the house
in a couple of weeks. I gave him some of my civilian clothes so that
he could go down into town. There seemed to be nothing unusual about
him. He was a forlorn young fellow,--a prisoner, far from home, and my
father and the rest of them at the house liked him. We used to call him
our little rebel.

“Then one day there was the devil to pay. My friend, the commandant at
the prison, sent a guard to the house to arrest Hamilton, but he had
disappeared. We learned then that he was all kinds of a bad lot,--a
dangerous spy who had been captured at Donelson purely by accident,
but he had turned his capture and illness to good advantage. Mariona
was the headquarters of a daring band of southern sympathizers, and
Hamilton had established lines of communication with the leaders. There
was a scheme afoot to assassinate the governor, and he was to have done
the act. His line of retreat to the Ohio had been carefully arranged.

“Hamilton had warning of the discovery of the plot,--there was a
Copperhead behind every loyal man here in those days--and got away
safely. But you can see that, having vouched for him and harbored him,
I was put in a nice position with the authorities. I offered to submit
to arrest, but they wouldn’t have it. The governor sent for me and
after giving me a good drubbing--he had known me all my life and rubbed
it in hard--he told me to go and find Hamilton.

“I was captain of artillery and my chances of advancement were good;
but I resigned my commission and spent a year looking for him. He
became notorious as a spy, who slipped in and out of our lines with
astounding daring. He found out that I was after him, and we used to
exchange compliments at long range. As I think of it now I got a good
deal of fun out of the chase, and”--the old man smiled--“I fancy the
other fellow did, too.

“The story is long and it wouldn’t interest you. I never caught him. I
went once into a circle of men in the Galt House at Louisville where
he sat. I thought I had him sure, but he jumped up and bolted, I
following. We had a mad run for it there in the street, but he got
away. He gave me this”--and Merriam threw up his hands. The sleeve and
cuff slipped back from his right arm, showing an old bullet scar on the
wrist; and the old gentleman eyed the spot for a moment reflectively.

“He gave me that,” he said, and smiled. “Hamilton’s real name was
Pollock--your father;”--and Merriam bent his keen gaze on the young
man before him. “I think I may be pardoned for not caring greatly for
the family. That business ruined my career in the army. There are a
great many things that might have been different, if I hadn’t seriously
compromised myself in that matter. The contemptible thing was the abuse
of hospitality and confidence. I probably saved the man’s life; and he
betrayed us all in the most infamous fashion possible.”

Pollock rose abruptly. He had listened with a puzzled look on his face
to Rodney Merriam’s recital. He laughed now, the nervous laugh of
relief.

“This man was a spy, sent out by the Confederate War Department on
special errands for the Confederate president. Is that right?” he asked.

“That is correct. He became one of the best known spies in the South.
I have no objection to him on that account. But he served me a scurvy
trick,--I ought to forget it, I suppose, but, as I tell you, I’m an old
man, and I look backward a good deal. Your father served me a nasty
trick and your presence here has reminded me of it very disagreeably.”

“That man, Mr. Merriam, was no more my father than you are.”

“I can hardly be mistaken. Your father was a Confederate officer,--he
was a Tennessee man--”

“He was all that, sir. He was an engineer on duty at Richmond
throughout the war and was never a scout or spy in his life. If you had
been as careful as you pretend to be in looking up his record you would
have found that out.”

“But the name? It is your name.”

The old man was greatly annoyed and perplexed, and he rose now slowly
and stood facing the young officer.

“Frank Pollock, the spy, was a remote cousin of my father’s. I don’t
believe father ever had any acquaintance with him. I was named for
another connection of the family, who wasn’t a Pollock at all. Your man
Pollock got into a lot of scrapes after the war. I’ll even grant you
that he wasn’t quite reputable. If you wish to verify what I say I’ll
refer you to a hundred men in Knoxville,--Richmond,--Memphis,--Atlanta,
who knew my father and who knew of this other man, too. Do you want my
references?”

He was a little fellow and he was angry; but he was a gentleman, too,
and, seeing that Rodney Merriam was really surprised, he relented
toward the old soldier, who had thrust his hands into the side pockets
of his coat, looking as foolish as it is possible for a fine old
gentleman to look.

“Captain Pollock,” he blurted out suddenly, “I haven’t a doubt that
you are telling the truth. I don’t care whose son you are, I like you
anyhow!” And then snatching his hands from his pockets he held them out
to Pollock, demanding with a gruff kindness, “Will you shake hands with
me?”

“Certainly, Mr. Merriam!”

A few hours later the usual crowd lounged in the smoking-room of the
Tippecanoe Club. Pollock had just finished telling a story when Rodney
Merriam appeared in the doorway. The old gentleman advanced upon the
little group, returning their greetings and thanking them all for the
proffer of their seats.

“Gentlemen,” he said, standing by his chair, “I wish to make you an
explanation. Owing to an unfortunate misunderstanding, due wholly to my
own stupidity, I recently showed Captain Pollock a slight in this club.
I wish to make the amplest possible expiation,--”

“This is wholly unnecessary,” exclaimed Pollock, rising. “This is
wholly uncalled for, Mr. Merriam.”

“I wish to say before all of you,” Merriam continued, “that I was
wholly in the wrong, and that Captain Pollock is a gentleman, who is an
honor to his friends and to his profession.”

He put out his hand and Pollock grasped it.

“Leighton,” said Merriam, “you are nearest the bell. Give it a punch,
won’t you?”

And be it said for the Tippecanoe Club, that no one of the ten men
present ever spoke of this incident outside its doors. It was no one’s
affair what happened between Rodney Merriam and the army officer; it
sufficed that an old man had made the _amende honorable_ in a way that
impressed ten young men deeply.

And the next day, in the same spirit of scrupulous honor, Rodney
Merriam sought his nieces at The Beeches and made his peace with them.




CHAPTER XXIII

BRIGHTER VISTAS


It was now full summer, and when it is hot in Mariona it is very hot
indeed. The old locusts in the court back of the law offices of Knight,
Kittredge and Carr were green again and venturesome robins paused there
now and then to challenge Opinion and Precedent. There was not much for
unattached young men to do when their day’s work was done. The roof
garden of the Hamilton Club offered itself to those who cared for that
sort of thing, or were zealous in the eternal politics of the place,
from which, save for the roof garden, there was no escape. Or, a man
with an evening on his hands might sit on the lawn about the Tippecanoe
Club, or, better still, with a crony or two, on the balcony that opened
from the second story, where trees shut you in with the stars, and the
music, not of spheres, but of the mechanical piano in the flat next
door. It was possible to obtain there a mint julep compounded under
the direction of an alumnus of the University of Virginia,--a julep
that was happily calculated to lift the smothered, withered spirit
beyond the stars to undiscovered ports of Heaven. You were at perfect
liberty to whisper at the Tippecanoe, as you might not at the Hamilton,
the name of Jefferson; or you might quote Robert Browning or Richard
Cobden without subjecting yourself to fine or imprisonment.

There was the Country Club, another refuge, where college boys sang in
dark corners of the veranda, after a hard day of golf or tennis; or
danced the two-step with sun-browned summer girls. But the Country Club
did not appeal to Morris just now. Zelda did not frequent the club,
and the pretty, gray-eyed golf-champion with whom in other summers he
had played many a round, bowed a little superciliously now when she
passed him in her electric runabout. She did not salute him with a
jangle of the gong as had been her pleasant habit in the genial days
of their comradeship. Nor did the bands in the glittering beer-gardens
tempt him; for there is something not wholly edifying in the passing
spectacle of every one and every one’s cook.

Morris Leighton, lingering long after office hours in the dingy old
library, found the robin’s mournful vesper note solacing. None of the
possible midsummer night diversions appealed to him; he would not even
go up to the Tippecanoe Club for dinner lest some one should break in
upon what he felt to be his mood. He was reveling in that state of mind
in which the young rather enjoy being melancholy. Zelda Dameron snubbed
him persistently--consistently; and Morris was just now persuading
himself that there was nothing left for him but to lose himself in
his work. This is always an interesting stage, at which a young man’s
fancy, interrupted in its flights elsewhere, lightly turns to thoughts
of labor; and Morris was picturing to himself a long and successful,
though austere, life, in which one face and one voice should haunt him.
He was engaged in this sort of agreeable speculation when Mr. Carr,
who had been attending a conference of railroad officials at one of the
hotels, came in unexpectedly, and found his chief clerk engaged in the
profitable pastime of reading decisions of the highest courts in the
land without the slightest notion of what they were about.

“That you, Morris? I thought every one had gone. I want that English
decision you had yesterday in the Transcontinental case.”

“It’s here on the table,” said Morris.

He lighted the gas in the brackets on the wall--they were old and
had lost their pristine shine--and when the jets were lighted they
spurted out queer shapes of flame, in the absurd manner of decrepit
gas-fixtures.

“Thanks, Morris, I’ll take the book home with me. I’m not sure but that
we should lay particular stress on that case.”

“It’s certainly a strong one.”

Carr pushed his panama hat back from his forehead and sat down and read
the page that Morris indicated.

“That’s it! Those old chaps over there still know some law, don’t they?”

He closed the book and drew his hand across the back of it in a way
that was habitual. He liked a book,--you knew it from the way he picked
one up and handled it. Students in the offices of Knight, Kittredge
and Carr who threw books about or left them open, face down, were not
likely to stay long.

“Judge Armstrong of the Appellate Court said a pleasant word to me
about your argument in the Mayberry case yesterday.”

“That’s cheering. I hope he’ll decide our way.”

“There’s no use in worrying about that. He said yours was one of the
best oral arguments he had ever heard. He asked you some questions,
didn’t he?”

Carr looked at Morris with the twinkle in his brown eyes that was his
only outward manifestation of mirth.

“He did, indeed. He stopped me when I reached my most telling point,
and asked me whether our supreme court hadn’t reversed itself in
a decision I was citing. I knew it hadn’t and answered him pretty
promptly,--perhaps I was too cocky about it.”

“Not a bit of it! He would like that. He was feeling you to see how
much confidence you had in your case. He belongs to the old school of
lawyers, who believe in making every case you take the passion of your
life. You evidently made a good impression. It pleased me very much to
have him speak to me about you.”

“Thank you.”

It was not often that Michael Carr’s praise was as direct as this.

“You will have been here four years the first of July.”

“Yes,--thanks to your tolerance.”

“You are the best clerk we ever had in the office, Morris. You are a
good lawyer,--you are a lawyer after my own heart. I’ll have a hard
time finding a clerk to take your place. Do you understand?”

Morris did not understand. The idea of losing his salary as clerk was
not cheering.

“I’m going to check up,” said the old gentleman, settling back in
his chair. “I’m sixty-four years old. I haven’t had any substantial
vacation worth mentioning for twenty years. I’m getting to a time of
life where a man has to think about the end of his days. Our old sign
over the entrance has fallen down, and I take it as a hint that we
need a new one. I have had a sentiment about keeping the name of the
old firm; but it’s misleading to the new generation. I’m tired of the
people that come in here and ask for the dead members. It’s hardly fair
to subject their memories to that kind of treatment. We must drop the
old name.”

“I should hate to see it go,” said Morris. “I’ve always been
particularly proud to answer for the firm at roll-call on rule
mornings.”

“I’m glad you feel that way about it. You never saw Knight or
Kittredge, did you? I’m sure you didn’t. They were great men. There are
no men like them at our bar.” And Michael Carr drew his hand gently
across the book that lay in his lap, and was silent for a moment.

“Do you think you want to live here, Morris? Are you satisfied with the
town?”

“It’s the only one I know. I think a man’s chances are as good here as
anywhere.”

“I think so, too,” said Carr, reflectively. “I have had it in mind for
some time to make you a full partner, changing the name to Carr and
Leighton,--if you are agreeable. Don’t thank me; it’s purely selfish.
You have been virtually a partner for a year. At this bar a law clerk
doesn’t usually do the things that I have set you to doing. I’ve been
glad of your help, and it will add to your influence with the courts to
get away from the clerkship; and in the end that helps me.”

“The clerkship has been a great thing for me; I am in no mood for
spurning it.” Morris’s heart was beating uncomfortably fast. He had
never expected this. The best he had hoped for was a partnership with
some young man at the bar. It was wholly like Michael Carr, though, to
declare his intention in this way. The time and place seemed fitting.
Morris loved the dim old rooms. He has a better office now,--for the
old building has vanished, and the law library that was assembled
through so many years by Knight, Kittredge and Carr is now established
on the top floor of a ten-story building, where there are electric
lights and steam heat.

“You don’t have to thank me for anything, Morris. If you must express a
little gratitude, give it all to Rodney Merriam. It was he that brought
you to me. I’ll have to thank him on my own account.”

“You are the best friend any young man ever had,” said Morris,
feelingly.

“I prefer not to say anything about this change until the first of
July. I’m going abroad then. Mrs. Carr has planned an extensive trip.
I’ve never been over there and I suppose I may as well see it all at
once, as we Americans get the credit for doing. We shall go to England
and Scotland first, and then work our way south with the season. I’m
going to leave you a full measure of work to do while I’m gone.”

“Some of your clients will object. I should hate to see you losing
business on my account.”

“We can afford to lose a few and still have enough. I have a few
clients that I shouldn’t mind losing. Old friends, many of them, who
don’t want legal advice as much as friendly counsel.”

“There are some of them that you have to be pretty patient with.”

“Yes; there is Ezra Dameron. His business is worth little if anything.
He’s always afraid some one will get the advantage of him. I don’t
believe he trusts even me.”

“He’s a picturesque client, but not profitable, I imagine.”

“No; he’s not profitable. But I’ve always done whatever he had to do.
He’s a poor lot, Ezra Dameron. I suppose Mr. Merriam never speaks of
him to you?”

“Never a word.”

“That’s quite characteristic. He hates him like poison, but he has
never intimated as much to me. The Merriams have been at outs with
one another for years. I believe the trouble began when Ezra Dameron
married Margaret Merriam. They were opposed to it.”

“He looks and acts the part of the traditional stage miser. His hammer
and nails are part of his make-up.”

“He’s not attractive, to say the least. The only good thing I know
about him is that his daughter stands by him. We all supposed that
of course she would quit him after a few months; but she seems to be
a Merriam. They are the real thing. Her mother stood by Ezra to the
very last. She never let the family know if she suffered. She was
a beautiful woman. She carried herself with a royal air. You don’t
remember her?”

“No, I never saw her. I’ve seen a portrait of her at Mr. Merriam’s. Her
daughter must be very like her.”

“Yes; they are very like. But there’s a difference; I haven’t made out
what it is. I think Mrs. Dameron hadn’t quite the same spirit; there
was a heart-breaking resignation in her. It got into her face as she
grew older; but the girl hasn’t it.”

The talk drifted into a channel that Carr had not premeditated, but its
direction suited his mood and the hour and place. He had thrown one
short leg over the other and rested at ease in spite of the fact that
it was now past his dinner hour.

“Mrs. Dameron’s will caused a good deal of wonder and gossip when she
died. She had deliberately chosen to carry her faith in her husband
beyond the grave. You’ve seen the will?”

“Yes; the law students here make a study of it.”

“As an example of what a will oughtn’t to be? Well; it was all regular
enough. I prepared it myself. It’s sound enough legally; but foolish
otherwise. She wished to make it quite clear that she trusted her
husband. She had a quixotic idea that, in turning over all her property
to him for the use of their daughter, she was putting a prop under
him to make him stand. He ought to have a pretty good property to
turn over to her at the termination of the trust. That comes,--let me
see,--that comes on Zelda’s twenty-first birthday,--I think it’s next
fall sometime. I suppose you don’t happen to know when Miss Dameron’s
birthday comes?”

Michael Carr’s eyes twinkled, and he looked at Leighton with the smile
the world has for a suspected lover.

“No,” said Leighton, laughing, “I don’t know.”

“Well,” said Michael Carr, rising and thrusting the book under his arm,
“I hope you may know one of these days,--if you want to. Mrs. Carr and
I are both interested in seeing you settled. My wife takes a good deal
of stock in you,--not to say that I don’t! And we have decided that
this would be a happy arrangement. The father-in-law would leave a
good deal to be desired; but that wouldn’t be a consideration.”

“I like the idea,” said Leighton; “but you’ve set the mark too high.”

“Never give up the ship, young man. Demurrers are not necessarily
fatal.”

“I didn’t say that I’d filed my petition yet,” said Morris.

“Better not wait too long,--or you may lose jurisdiction. And there’s
always a statute of limitations that operates in such matter. Are you
going home to dinner with me?”

“No, thank you; I can’t. I wish I could make you understand how much
I appreciate your kindness to me. It isn’t that I’ve learned some
law,--it’s the countless other things that you have done for me since I
came here.”

The old gentleman had walked to the door to get away from Morris’s
thanks, but he turned, with his rare smile.

“Are you keeping up your Horace? An ode once a day! I haven’t missed
mine for forty years. There’s that particularly delightful one--the
sixteenth--I recommend it to you,--the daughter more charming than her
charming mother. A word to the wise! Good night, my boy!”

When Morris heard the outer door close he sat down and thrust his hands
into his trousers pockets and indulged in dreams. He made a practice
of writing once a week to his mother, and he wrote her a letter now,
telling her of his stroke of fortune. “It is almost too good to be
true,” the letter ran. “I’m twenty-six years old, and I’m to be the
partner of the best lawyer in the state, something that I never
expected. I know you will be glad. I only regret that father isn’t here
to rejoice with us.”

He left the office with a quick step and a light heart, and walked to
the post-office to mail his letter. He had known many lonely hours
since moving to Mariona. He glanced up and down Jefferson Street as he
crossed it. The lights, the noisy trolley cars, the great illuminated
signs had all stood to him for loneliness; but he noted them to-night
with a different spirit. He had been for five years an unimportant
member of the community, winning respect from many; working hard,
but enjoying his labor, and he felt a new courage. He had received a
high mark of favor from the first lawyer at the Mariona bar; his name
was to be linked with that of an historic law firm, and with a new
elasticity of spirit he trod the familiar path from the old office to
the federal building, where the United States Court sat. He wondered
what his friend, the clerk of the court, would say when he heard of
the new partnership; and the pleasant thought of the firm name of Carr
and Leighton as it would appear in the court records caused Morris to
parley chaffingly with a belated newsboy who sold him a paper at the
post-office door.

He carried the paper to a table in a hotel restaurant where he
sometimes got his meals, and opened it to the interurban time-table. It
was seven o’clock. He could eat his supper, go to his rooms to change
his clothes, and reach the Damerons’ by half-past eight. His mood of
depression passed, but there still lingered in his heart the sense of
longing, the need for sympathy, that an honest, clean love brings to
the heart of a man.




CHAPTER XXIV

ONLY ABOUT DREAMS


The wide windows of the heavy interurban car were open and the air of
the summer night beat in gratefully upon him. Morris felt increasingly
at peace with himself and all the world. His thoughts leaped agilely
from peak to peak of possibility and achievement. He would be a
lawyer; he would continue, as he had begun, a serious student of his
profession. And there was Zelda! The thought of her was very sweet,--it
had never been so sweet as it was to-night, and her name repeated
itself over and over again in his memory. There was no vista of the
future through which he did not see her. In all the world there was
no one like her,--no one comparable to her. He recited his lover’s
alphabet of her charms and graces--the deep melody of her voice, the
baffling mystery of her dark eyes; her ease of speech and grace of
manner; the slender fingers of her eloquent hands. And a year ago he
had known not one of these things, not one!

His hat was suddenly tipped forward over his eyes by some one who had
entered the car at the last stop before the long straight run into the
country.

“Hail, Demetrius, master of all the arts, and faithful priest at the
altar of Hymen, move over and let a fellow pilgrim sit down!”

It was Balcomb, with his unfailing high spirits and undeniable claim
upon the attention.

“Hello, Jack! What are you up to?” demanded Morris, with inner
reluctance, making room for Balcomb beside him.

“What am I up to? Well, I like that! I guess this road is a common
carrier all right, all right; and I bet a dollar we’re headed for the
same happy port.”

Balcomb was dressed, as usual, in the latest style. His straw hat with
its blue ribbon and his two-button double-breasted sack-coat were in
the latest mode. He carried an overcoat of covert cloth on his arm and
was further burdened with a parcel, wrapped in paper of bird’s-egg blue
and tied with silver string.

“Sweets for the sweet! Carrying coals to Newcastle,--honey to the
beehive! Ah me! I nearly broke my neck making that car. I shall lodge
a complaint with the company to-morrow. I honestly think I have lost
a lung. I had to stop to see a customer of mine who’s staying at the
Imperial. Business and pleasure, all in one shot. I paid for these
priceless confections, though,--sold a chunk of stock in my new flat
company to an ancient jay from Bartholomew County.”

“How’s that flat scheme coming on?”

“Like a runaway trolley on a down grade. It’s going to be a high
persimmon all right.”

“I don’t doubt it; but you’d better be cautious. Flats are being much
overdone.”

“I haven’t applied for a guardian, my son. My wagon’s hitched to the
more prosperous planets. You remember what old Prexy used to say at
college,--‘Hitch your wagon to a star, but keep your feet on solid
earth.’ I only use part of that advice,--the first half, I may say.
The earth is only good at so much per front foot. Read your answer in
the stars,--that’s my motto. And to make sure things don’t get crowded,
I say with Walt Whitman, ‘I would not have the constellations any
nearer.’ No, by gum!”

“I’m glad to see that you still pump the well of English undefiled.
It’s commendable in you.”

“Thanks, my brother. In sign of greeting, I raise high the
perpendicular hand. That’s Walt, you remember. But say, you look a
little grumpy this evening. You don’t show the spirit of a man who is
going cheerfully to tell his love, but rather the air of one who lets
concealment, like the worm in the peach, make free lunch of his damask
cheek.”

Leighton always hated himself for laughing at Balcomb, whose loquacity
was so cheap that it was pathetic. Everything Balcomb knew he used
constantly. At the college to which he referred in terms of raillery
or contempt he had picked the nearest and gaudiest flowers; but he
wore them all in an amazing bouquet that did not fail to impress many
of his acquaintances as the real bloom of learning. Leighton was not
at all glad to see Balcomb to-night. His friend’s eternal freshness
palled upon him. But it did not occur to Balcomb that Leighton might
not be delighted to have him for a traveling companion. He thought his
conversation was shortening the distance for Leighton. Balcomb had been
making social history fast. He had, in his own phrase, “butted in”; and
since the performance of _Deceivers Ever_, he had been included in most
of the gatherings of the Dramatic Club circle.

“I say, old man,” he began abruptly, as the car skimmed through a strip
of woodland, “just between old college friends, what’s your game,
anyhow? Which is it?”

“Which is what?” demanded Leighton, who had been enjoying a moment with
his own thoughts, while Balcomb stared out upon the darkling landscape.

“Which girl, I mean? There are two out here.”

Leighton took off his hat and laughed.

“I haven’t decided yet,” he said presently, with an irony that was
quite lost on Balcomb. “I’m a good fellow, though, and I’ll take the
one you leave.”

“Miss Dameron’s certainly a peach dumpling, all right. But say, the
little cousin’s a gem of purest ray serene. She ain’t so stand-offish,
some way, as her cousin; she jollies easier.”

“I think I’ve noticed that;”--and the irony this time was meant for
himself.

“They say olives are a cultivated taste,” persisted Balcomb; “but
lawsy, I knew right away that girl was a good thing. And, my God! to
think that she has to teach a lot of grimy little muckers how to cook.
There’s something wrong in the divine economy, as Prexy used to say,
when such a thing is possible.”

“It is too bad, isn’t it? But I don’t think you need be sorry for her.”

“Hell, no! She’s as proud as Lucifer. Here’s our stop.”

The two men jumped out into the highway and started for the Dameron
farm.

[Illustration: _Olive_]

“I think a man ought to marry early,” Balcomb announced, as they
tramped along the road. “There’s nothing like a woman and a home to
put snap into a man,” he continued nobly. “A man fools away a whole
lot of money in his bachelor days. Doing social stunts is expensive.
Have you any idea what my carriage bill was last March? Eighty-four
dollars! I honestly believe it would pay me to own a hack. But, I say,
the man who will drag a girl to the theater in a street car is fit
for treason, stratagems and the stone pile. It ain’t enough to put
’em on four wheels when it’s snowing; no, I make a specialty of hacks
under the starry hosts of heaven, and eke the pale and haughty moon.
There’s no better way than that to get solid with a girl. There are
some that put their faith in bonbons and a new novel now and then; but
there isn’t a girl in Mariona to-night that wouldn’t rather go to see
a good show in comfort than do anything else under the sun. Damn that
June-bug! it nearly choked the life out of me. I say, about hacks,
don’t give it away, but I’ve just got a transfer company pass,--Wilson,
the president, and I are pretty thick, and I do a little quiet work for
the company occasionally. I helped ’em beat the vehicle tax before the
council last winter, and I have an annual now that gives me power of
life and death over all the company’s rolling stock night and day. And
you bet I won’t use it or anything!”

Leighton’s silence did not disturb Balcomb; he talked for the joy it
gave him. They reached the Dameron gate and followed the winding path
toward the veranda.

“Ahoy, O bower of beauty!” Balcomb called cheerily when they were
within hailing distance of the veranda. “Friends draw near bringing
tidings.”

On the veranda, as Balcomb’s voice smote upon the air, two girls fell
on each other’s necks in mock ecstasy of grief.

“They’re there, all right,” announced Balcomb.

“If you yell at them again, they’ll undoubtedly bolt,” said Leighton,
whose thoughts since they had left the car had been far away from
Balcomb’s babble.

“If you’re not afraid of the June-bugs, we’ll stay here,” said Zelda,
when she and Olive had shaken hands with the men.

“There’s nothing better; it’s the center of the universe right here,”
Balcomb declared. “I brought some poison for the June-bugs with me. I
will place it on yonder rail, lest we forget, lest we forget.”

This was Balcomb’s happy idea of minimizing the value of his gift. He
was relieved to find that Pollock was not there, and as it was past the
usual calling hour in the latitude and longitude of Mariona, the army
officer was not likely to appear. Ever since the unpleasant incident
on the stairway at the Athenæum building, Balcomb had been in the
undignified attitude of dodging Captain Pollock, though he had said,
during Pollock’s absence from town, exceedingly cruel things about the
officer.

Mr. Dameron came out and shook hands with the young men, addressing a
few words to each. Balcomb had called upon him repeatedly in reference
to the purchase of the tract of land on the creek, but without
encouragement. Dameron had just been wondering how he could communicate
with the promoter without seeking him directly, and this call gave him
an opportunity.

“By the way, Mr. Balcomb,” said the old man, pleasantly, “sometime
when you are passing, I’d be glad if you’d call at my office. There’s
a matter of mutual interest that I’d like to speak to you about. A
beautiful night, gentlemen. Very much cooler here than in the city,
as you may have noticed.” And he went down the steps and out upon the
highway for his usual evening walk.

“A remarkable man, your father, Miss Dameron. He’s quite the ideal
business man of the old school,” said Balcomb. “We youngsters are
quicker on the trigger, but our aim isn’t so sure. No siree; your
father is an ideal business man.”

He had spoken impressively. He would, in his own language, “make
himself solid” when he had a chance. Leighton was talking to Olive, and
Balcomb set about entertaining Zelda, with whom he had seldom enjoyed a
tête-à-tête.

“This is one of my ideas,--to own a farm. It’s in the blood, I guess.
My people were all farmers,--not, I hope, in the sense of our slang
usage,--ahem!--but tillers of the soil. I don’t know that any of
my people ever came out of the green, green wood to buy the green,
green goods--you know how those old ballads run--we studied ’em at
college--but I guess I’d be pretty hard to catch. Yes, a country place
is the right thing. You must have a hundred acres here. Well, old Bill
Thompson couldn’t swing it. He went crazy on fancy cattle and blew
his money on ’em hard. A man’s got to make his pile in town before he
can go in for fancy stock. You know what Senator Proctor, of Vermont,
said to his guests,--a lot of swells from Washington. ‘Champagne or
milk,’ he said at table, at his farm up in the Green Mountain state.
‘Champagne or milk, take your choice, gentlemen; one costs me just as
much as the other.’ I have a number of city friends who sport country
places,--estates, I ought to say, and they tell me a farm eats up
money like a strawstacker. But the idea is immense. Getting back to
nature,--that’s me all over.”

He ran on monotonously. He was anxious to make an impression at once
without relinquishing the floor.

“I suppose you and Miss Merriam do a lot of reading out here. What are
the books one ought to talk about?”

“We don’t read much--except the cook-books,” replied Zelda.

“Ha! ha! That is rich,--from the great Miss Dameron, too. I like that!
I suppose as a matter of fact you really spend every morning with the
classics.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but our mornings are spent with
cook-books. My cousin is writing a cook-book and we’re reading all the
old ones to be sure hers is all new. It’s delightfully exciting.”

“Wouldn’t that jar one? I say, I want to speak right now for an
autograph copy of the first edition of that book.”

“Olive will be delighted,” said Zelda. “It’s designed, you know, for
the _very_ young.”

“Oh, I say, but that flew up and hit me! Did you hear that, Morris? I
wish you would persuade Miss Dameron to spare my life. She’s trying her
sharpest ax on me!”

“How unnecessary!” observed Morris, “and what a waste of the ax.”

“There it goes again. Everybody has it in for me! Oh, well! My time
will come!”

It came in an unexpected way. Captain Pollock was riding up the
driveway. He was on very good terms at The Beeches, and had been told
that while there were lights there was a hope of finding some one at
home.

“Here comes another messenger bearing tidings,” said Balcomb, in his
most cheerful note. “I hope it isn’t bad news.”

“No; it’s Captain Pollock. That horse of his is a beauty, isn’t it? I
wish he would trade with me,” answered Zelda.

“Horse-trading is a science, better let it alone,” declared Balcomb.

He jumped up, fumbling for his watch, which he could not see in the
dark of the veranda, but he made a pretense of looking at it.

“Leighton, if we’re going to catch that nine-fifty car we’ve got to
hustle. I have to see a man at the Imperial before he goes to bed. Good
night, Miss Dameron; good night, Miss Merriam. Not going, Leighton? All
right, I’ll see you later.”

He walked to the other end of the veranda, found his hat and coat,
and bowed himself to the steps, keeping up a running fire of talk to
the last. Pollock was tying his horse to a post at the side of the
driveway, but Balcomb hurried past him without speaking.

Leighton groaned inwardly at the sight of Pollock, whom he liked well
enough ordinarily. He did not understand the reason for Balcomb’s
hurried flight, so that the humor of the situation did not strike him.

“You may have Mr. Balcomb’s seat there by the railing, if you like,”
said Zelda to Pollock.

“You do me too much honor,” said the officer, as he shook hands with
Leighton.

“Oh, I don’t know!” and Olive’s imitation of Balcomb’s intonation was
so true to life that they all laughed.

“I don’t see why any one should laugh,” said Zelda.

“I’m sure I don’t,” declared Pollock. He put back his arm against the
railing, knocking down the box of candy that Balcomb had left behind
him.

“Ah, I beg everybody’s pardon!”

“You should beg Mr. Balcomb’s pardon. He contributed that to our
evening’s enjoyment.”

“How nice of him! It seems to be intact. I suppose I may as well
prepare it for circulation.”

“Mr. Balcomb’s feelings might be hurt if he came back,” suggested Zelda.

“He won’t come back; I’ll wager another box he won’t,” replied the
officer, blandly, as he fumbled with the string. “Miss Dameron,
permit me,--I’m sure they’re delicious. Chocolates, I fancy, from the
bouquet,--and, Miss Merriam, you will not decline. Mr. Leighton, a
little candy now and then is relished by the wisest men. I propose Mr.
Balcomb’s health, to be eaten sitting and in silence.”

“It isn’t polite to treat the gift of a parting guest in that way,”
protested Olive. “I’m surprised at you, Captain Pollock.”

“My manners are something execrable. I beg all your pardons. Now, as
we have been refreshed through Mr. Balcomb’s generosity, I move that
we take advantage of the fine night--the moon is just getting over the
trees--to take a little walk up the highway. Please don’t say no!”

“The idea has merit,” affirmed Leighton, with cheerful alacrity.

“There are no Indians,” said Pollock, as the young women hesitated.

“If you’re sure,” said Zelda, “we’ll risk it.”

The girls gathered up their light wraps and they all set off down the
driveway.

“If you will be good, Miss Dameron, you may feed one of Mr. Balcomb’s
chocolates to my charger,” said Pollock, gravely.

“Unkind, most unkind! I’ll do nothing of the sort.”

When a man is in love, he becomes a master of harmless deceit and
subterfuge. Morris Leighton had sought Zelda Dameron to-night with a
great hope in his heart. He did not intend to miss a chance to talk to
her alone, if he could help it. He had taken her wrap from her, and
purposely dropped it; and he seemed to have difficulty in finding it,
although it was a white thing that one could not miss in the moonlight,
unless one were blind. But Zelda paused when they reached Pollock’s
horse, which whinnied and put out its nose to her in a friendly way.

“He used to bite at me when I first knew him; but he’s getting quite
friendly,” said Zelda; and she patted the animal’s pretty neck and
bent and took the forefoot that he raised for a hand-shake. Leighton’s
spirit sank at the suggestion of an apparent comradeship between
Pollock and Zelda. She was on good terms with his horse even; and
Morris Leighton had no horse! Army men always delighted women; a
civilian really had little chance against a soldier. But Morris’s
spirit rose as Pollock and Olive walked away together.

“It’s too bad that Mr. Balcomb hurried away so. He must be a busy man.”

“I suppose he is,” said Leighton.

“You and he are great friends, aren’t you?”

“We have been acquainted a long time,” replied Morris, guardedly.

“Oh!” murmured Zelda, in a note that carried contrition so deep that
Leighton laughed.

“I didn’t mean what you thought I did. We were in college together; and
there’s a tradition that college friendships are lasting ones. The fact
is that Jack and I don’t see much of each other.”

As they reached the road, which lay white in the moonlight, Ezra
Dameron came toward them, walking slowly, hat in hand, and the two
watched him--his queer shuffling walk, his head bent, his gray hair
touched with the silver of the moonlight.

“Won’t you come with us, father?” said Zelda, as they met in the road.

“No; no, thank you, Zee. I have had my little constitutional. Don’t go
too far,--there may be malaria abroad.”

Leighton looked furtively at Zelda. She had greeted her father kindly,
happily; but there was something repellent in Ezra Dameron. Leighton
never felt it more than to-night. That such a girl should have a father
so wretched seemed impossible; but the thought quickened his love for
her. There was something fine in her conduct toward her father; her
unfailing gentleness and patience with him had impressed Leighton from
the time of her home-coming. She made a point of speaking of him often
and always with respect. Leighton was well aware that no one else, with
the single exception of Michael Carr, ever spoke of Ezra Dameron in
anything but derision. Rodney Merriam never mentioned him at all, which
was doubtless the safer way.

Farther along the road Pollock and Olive were tentatively singing a
popular song of the hour.

“Sing it all,--don’t pick at it that way,” called Zelda.

“Sing it yourself, if you don’t like it,” came back the answer from
Olive.

“There is only one song that I should care to hear to-night,” said
Leighton, after a moment of silence.

“Only one,--when there are such worlds of songs? Nothing will do me
but a symphony played out there in the corn-field,--hidden away so you
couldn’t see the fiddles or the kettle-drum man.”

“That’s a large order. I should be content with less,--or more!”

“The one song,--what would you command?”

“It’s the only song that ever meant a great deal to me.”

“Oh, I know! One of Herr Schmidt’s from his great operatic triumph of
last winter. Your taste is only fair, then.”

“It goes back a little farther than that. It’s _Träume_,--_Tristan and
Isolde_, wasn’t it? Do you remember?”

“I have heard it sung, beautifully, in Berlin,” she said evasively.

“I never did. But I heard you sing it once, and it has haunted me.”

“Music sometimes has a way of doing that; but not Wagner usually. You
must be one of his disciples. I wonder if I remember how that song
goes.”

She ran over a few bars of it lightly.

“Is that the one?” she asked. “Yes; it is about dreams.”

“That is the one I meant. It is the most wonderful thing in the world!”

“I never thought very much about the words. The words of German songs
are often very foolish.”

“After they’re translated. Which means that they oughtn’t to be
translated. But I’ll admit that my German’s about all gone, except the
words of this song.”

“Your hold on the language must be pretty slight then,”--and she
laughed carelessly.

“My hold on everything is slight,--except for the song.”

“That’s very curious,” she said, in matter-of-fact tones, “if you never
heard it but once. And it’s only about dreams anyhow!”

“Yes, it’s only about dreams--a dream; but it’s the sweetest dream in
the world, it means--”

“A dream!” and she laughed again, but it was a mirthless little laugh.

He paused and looked out over the moonlit corn-field; his heart was
beating fast. She felt for a moment that she must turn and fly from
him; but he started forward again and she followed.

“It is more than a dream. I am building upon it as though it were a
veritable rock.”

“A dream--to build the real upon? The architects of fate don’t like
that plan, do they?”

“They have to like it,--for happy people are doing it every day, and a
good many people escape calamity.”

“It hadn’t struck me so; there seem to be a good many unhappy people in
the world.”

She spoke a little forlornly, and then, before he could take advantage
of her tone, “But I suppose it’s unprofitable to discuss such things.
And as your friend Mr. Balcomb says, ‘I have no kick coming.’ Slang
_is_ very expressive, isn’t it?”

“But we must hold to our dreams,” he said soberly.

“I suppose we must, even though they are things of air that only lead
us astray. I didn’t think you were sentimental. I’m afraid I can’t
sympathize exactly, for sentiment was left out of me utterly;” and she
hated herself for the bravado with which she spoke.

“I can’t believe that! Every one has it. I’m a thoroughly practical
person, and yet I have my dreams,--my dream!”

Olive and Pollock were singing again. They were far in advance and
their voices stole softly upon the night.

Zelda stopped to listen. Her heart was in a tumult of happiness and
wonder. The splendor of the moonlight upon the fields about them, the
gloomy shadow of the woodland beyond, the man beside her hesitating,
yet ready to tell her of his love. There stole across her spirit the
tremulous awe of a girl to whom love has come for the first time as it
can never come again.

Leighton drew close to her.

“Zelda,” he said, “Zelda!”

“No. Oh, no! You must not!” she cried.

“I love you, Zelda!” he said.

“No; you must not say it!” And there was a sob that caught her throat.

“You are the dream. It is too sweet; I can not lose it,--I must not.”

Olive and Pollock called to them ironically.

“Answer them, please,” she said, and Leighton spoke to them.

Zelda put her hand to her throat with a quick gesture, then dropped it.

“You have talked of dreams and love,” she said hurriedly, but with a
lingering note of contempt on the last word that stung him as though
she had struck him in the face.

“Dreams and love,” she repeated. “I wonder what love is!”

She laughed suddenly with a bitterness that he remembered for many a
day.

“We’re coming,” she called, and hastened away toward her cousin and
Pollock who waited, idling and trying their voices, and chaffing each
other over their failure to carry a tune.

“We have gone far enough, Olive,” she said. “Let us go back now.”

They began retracing their steps, Zelda walking beside Pollock, to whom
she talked with unusual vivacity. She did not speak to Leighton again
until the two young men said good night at the veranda.

“What did you treat him that way for?” demanded Olive, facing Zelda in
the hall as soon as the door closed.

“What are you talking about, _ma petite cousine_? The moon must have--”

“It wasn’t the moon! You said something unkind to Mr. Leighton. He
walked back to the house with me without saying a word. You shouldn’t
treat a man that way, even if you are my cousin,--a fine, splendid
fellow like Morris Leighton!”

“You foolish, sentimental young thing, what on earth has got into you?
Mr. Leighton talked to me about Wagner,--I think it was Wagner, and he
didn’t interest me a bit. I’m going to bed.”

She went to her room and closed and locked the door. Then she drew back
the curtains and looked out upon the night. Through an opening in the
trees she saw Pollock and Leighton standing together in the highway
outside the gate. Pollock had walked out leading his horse and he stood
for greater ease in talking to Leighton. The men were clearly outlined,
for it was as light as day. Suddenly they shook hands; then they lifted
their hats to each other. Pollock mounted his horse and rode off
rapidly countryward, and Leighton turned toward the interurban station.

It was Leighton’s solitary figure that Zelda’s eyes followed. She saw
him pause just at the edge of a strip of woodland, glance toward the
house, and then walk slowly away, while her eyes still rested on the
spot where she had seen him last.

It was a sweet thing to know that Morris Leighton loved her. She had
felt that it would come sometime; it was one of the inevitable things;
and his reference to her singing, to the dream, had thrilled her with
an exquisite delight. Any woman might be proud of a love like his; yet
she had treated it lightly, almost insolently; and a good woman might
not lightly thrust aside the love of a good man!

She was still gazing with unseeing eyes upon the moonlit world when
Olive came to the door, tried it and found it locked.

“Wait a minute!” called Zelda, and she crossed the room and opened the
door.

“Please, Cousin Zee, I came to beg forgiveness. I didn’t mean to scold
you,--about anything!”

Zelda drew her in, and put her arms about her.

“There’s no one as fine and dear as you in all the world, Olive. I’m
sorry I spoke to you as I did. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. And I
was wrong! I am always wrong; I’m made wrong, that’s what’s the matter
with me!”

And her dark eyes peered pitifully into Olive’s blue ones.

“Please don’t think I would meddle in your affairs, Zee. I was just
sorry for Mr. Leighton, that’s all. He’s so fine and strong and
good,--and he seemed so dejected, or I thought he did.”

“Oh, it’s the goodness; it’s the goodness that I _hate_!” cried Zelda.
“Please go,--I don’t know what I mean,” and she thrust Olive into the
hall and closed the door.




CHAPTER XXV

A NEW ATTITUDE


There are a number of things that an attorney and counselor at law
is likely to do when distracted. Morris Leighton was convinced that
the universe in general was out of joint and he did not care who
suffered. He rebuked the stenographer sharply about an error that crept
into a demurrer he had dictated, which was not her fault at all, but
Leighton’s; and the discovery that he had, with his own hand, addressed
an important letter to Portland, Maine, that should have gone to
Portland, Oregon, did not tend to ease his spirit; nor did he lift the
burden that lay upon his soul by scolding the office boy for complicity
in the loss of the letter, when the boy was neither physically nor
morally responsible.

He was quite confident that he should never see Zelda Dameron any more.
He knew she would not care, and he tried to assure himself that it made
no difference to him, but without any great degree of success. He was
lonely, for Rodney Merriam had accompanied Mrs. Forrest to Saratoga, a
place which the Merriams had visited in days gone by, and which Mrs.
Forrest wished to see again--she so expressed herself--before she died.
Rodney Merriam had departed in a low state of mind, for he declared to
Morris in confidence that if there was any choice between the place of
eternal punishment and Saratoga it was not in favor of Saratoga.

So Zelda had gone out of Morris’s life and Rodney Merriam, his best
friend, had left town, and he abused the fates that had ordained his
own presence in Mariona when it had suddenly become a hateful spot to
him; or, in the way of young men who find the path of love difficult,
he thought it had.

While in this frame of mind he walked down Jefferson Street one July
morning on his way to the office of the clerk of the Supreme Court.
He was sure that he did not think of Zelda Dameron any more and he
was congratulating himself on the ease with which he had forgotten
her, when he saw, hitched at the curb just ahead of him, Zan, with
the runabout. There was a book-shop near at hand,--a real book-shop,
with a big fireplace and many pleasant corners. Morris being, as has
been said, bound for the State House, remembered suddenly that he was
particularly anxious to see the midsummer number of a certain magazine.
The doors of the book-shop stood wide open; Zan was hitched outside;
the moment seemed opportune for a study of the periodical counter, so
Morris entered.

Very likely if Zelda should prove to be there, she would not speak
to him; she had certainly used him ill; she had always dealt harshly
with him; and the remembrance of her treatment of him at their last
interview rankled. But he walked down the long aisle of the shop, under
the pleasant delusion that he was looking for a magazine, whereas he
was looking for the owner of Zan. At the periodical counter a clerk
told him the old story, that they were just out of the magazine he
sought, and he answered that they need not trouble to get it. As a
matter of fact he always read it at the Tippecanoe Club and had not the
slightest wish to buy it. Zelda was clearly not there and he started
out, abusing the shop for never having anything he wanted,--or, at
least, he thought it was the shop that aroused his indignation, whereas
his spirit was in rebellion against himself.

Near the door there was a long bench where you might take down a book
and read, if you liked; and sitting in a corner, and looking very
cool and collected sat Olive Merriam, a book in her hand and a smile
of interest on her face. The interest was wholly centered in the
book, for it was Olive’s way to make the most of the passing moment;
and she was as completely lost in the volume she held in her hand as
though she were in her own room at home. She made a pretty picture in
the corner--an altogether charming picture--the slight, fair-haired
girl against the dark wood and black leather of the bench. If he
couldn’t see Zelda the sight of Olive was the next best thing. They had
undoubtedly driven into town together; Zelda was probably not far away.
Morris would not, of course, have spoken to Zelda had she been there
instead of Olive; but Olive was always approachable and amiable. Yet he
felt a trifle conscious as he stopped and bade Zelda Dameron’s cousin
good morning.

“It’s too bad to disturb you; you have an appearance of comfort that
rests the soul.”

“Generously spoken! I’m waiting; and while I wait I may as well be
cool.”

“Oh, you’re waiting,” said Morris, irrelevantly.

Olive looked up at him innocently, and asked:

“Yes; aren’t you--for the same person?”

“No; I was just passing--I had an errand in here.”

“I’m glad you did,” declared Olive, soberly. “I think we should always
do our errands. Zee and I are doing a few this morning.”

“Oh yes; you and Miss Dameron. I thought I recognized Zan at the door.”

“It was very discerning of you, to be sure; and then--you thought of
your errand!” and Olive held up her book and scanned the gilt top with
minute care. When she looked at him he was laughing and she laughed,
too. “Let’s be serious,” she said. “I don’t believe I understand your
tactics. You’ll have to get better--as Mr. Balcomb would say. You’re
what he’d call a rank quitter.”

Morris made a wry face.

“I thank you for the diagnosis. I suppose we’re referring to the same
thing.”

“Or person. Undoubtedly. And I may as well be quite frank with you.
They have all told me how talented you are; but I really don’t see it.
It’s a good thing you’ve quit; you couldn’t have made it anyhow. I
warned her against you in the beginning, and I rarely make mistakes.”

He had begun the day humbly and her mild flagellation was grateful to
his bruised spirit.

“You’re the pride of the bar, aren’t you?” she asked sweetly.

“Now you’re touching me where I’m sensitive. You can afford to be
merciful.”

“Only to the deserving. You’ve always rather flattered yourself that
you were quick of apprehension and all that sort of thing,--that you
took in a situation without having it forced upon you. You’ve had just
such conceit, Mr. Leighton, and it hasn’t been justified by the facts.”

“I’ll admit everything you could charge against me; but what can I do?
I did my best.”

“Which wasn’t very good, I must say. You weary me beyond words, Mr.
Leighton!”

They both laughed at her earnestness.

“If I were you I shouldn’t face her here; and she will be here in a
minute. You’d better go. If you should care enough for our good opinion
to come out to see us--please note the plurals--I’ll see if I can do
anything for you. But you have neither tact nor judgment. And you’re
certainly an awful lot of trouble.”

He smiled cheerfully. He felt that under her irony she really meant to
be encouraging.

“I think I’ll come out to-night, if you don’t mind,” said Morris.

“Oh, suit yourself! Don’t put yourself out for anything in the world.
But”--and Olive hesitated and looked at Morris searchingly--“you’re
very slow of comprehension or you might know that--that she has other
burdens to bear--besides you! And now I’m sorry I said that to you, for
it isn’t fair to her; so please run on and don’t be foolish any more.”

She dropped her eyes to her book and did not look at him again.

Morris went to the State House but Zelda was in his thoughts all day.
He knew Olive well enough to understand that she wished him to know
that Zelda’s way was not all clear; and he at once conjectured that
it must be her father who was the cause of her trouble. He was as
angry with himself as even Olive could have wished for having sulked
since Zelda rebuffed him. He could not imagine how much Olive knew of
what had occurred the last time he visited the farm; but she clearly
meant to encourage him in her own somewhat unsatisfactory way. As he
speculated upon the matter, the wish to aid Zelda, if he could, took
possession of him to the exclusion of all other thoughts of her; and
evening found him bound for the farm, behind a very fair livery horse.
The possibility of meeting Balcomb again was not to be risked.

When he reached the farm-house Mr. Dameron was sitting on the veranda
with Zelda and Olive. After discussing the heat of the city and the
lower temperature of the country for a few minutes he went into the
house.

“I have some papers to study. I never quite free myself of business.
Do so when you are young, Mr. Leighton--you’ll not have an opportunity
later on.”

He bowed and walked with his shuffling step across the veranda and into
the house. Olive did most of the talking now that the young people
were alone. She wished to create as much cheer as possible before
disappearing; and she lingered until there was hardly a possibility
that any one else would come,--unless it should be Pollock, and
Pollock, she said to herself, was a wise young man who knew well enough
that two are company and three are not. She rose abruptly.

“Zelda, I haven’t written to mother for a week. I must get busy--as
Mr. Leighton’s old college friend says, or I can’t mail my letter
to-morrow. Please don’t notice my absence. If you hear a sound of
murder inside it will be I--fighting June-bugs.”

It was pleasant on the veranda. The night was one of stars, the moon
that had shone upon Leighton’s previous visit having gone the way of
old moons. Insects fretted the dark with their dissonances. The air
was heavy with the sweetness and languor of a midsummer night. Far
away, through the trees, a soft light crept silently; it was steady
and strong and seemed to cut a path for itself. There was something
weird and unearthly about it, as it lighted here and there some new
bit of landscape; but presently a low rumble began to accompany it
and explained away its mystery. It was an interurban car’s powerful
electric headlight marking a ghostly right of way across farms and
through woodlands.

“Not bad, that,” said Leighton when the light had disappeared.

“No. It makes our nights more interesting. We can follow the headlight
for miles from our upper windows. It suggests a goblin stealing across
the country with a bull’s-eye lantern.”

“Looking for what?”

“Other goblins, I should think.”

The talk of ghosts seemed ominous and Leighton changed the subject. She
seemed to him more baffling than ever--a part of the night’s mystery.

“I had a brief note from Mr. Merriam to-day. He seems to be taking his
Saratoga rather sadly.”

“Aunt Julia hasn’t written me at all. She feels that I’ve basely
deserted her. Uncle Rodney writes to me every day or two to tell me how
charming it is, and how many perfectly lovely young women he meets. He
does that to increase my sorrow in staying at home.”

“We’ll have to confront him with our respective letters, your cheerful
one and mine in a doleful key, when he comes back.”

“Dear Uncle Rodney! He can be just as disagreeable to me as he pleases.
I believe I’d rather have him scold me than have the praise of most
people,” said Zelda.

Olive had not warned her of Morris’s coming, but her cousin’s plea of
letter-writing as an excuse for going indoors was not wholly sincere,
as Zelda knew. But there was no escaping this talk with Morris Leighton
on the veranda, and she began with sudden energy to speak rapidly of
many irrelevant and frivolous things. It was not an easy matter to meet
thus a man who a fortnight before had declared himself her lover. She
did not try to-night her old manner of chaffing him almost to the point
of impudence; she had no heart for that now. And she felt moreover his
manliness and strength; there was an appeal in her heart that almost
cried to him. She talked of the past winter; of the Dramatic Club; of
the drolleries of Herr Schmidt, and of the people who had fled the town
for the summer, and all with a gaiety that did not ring true.

Her father came out presently, evidently absorbed in thought, and went
down the walk without speaking to them. They heard the beat of his
stick beyond the gate as he followed the country road that lay between
his corn-fields. The sight of him was proving an increasing trial to
her, for she felt day by day the burden of the task she had assumed
in living with him. The contact with him grew more irksome. His ways
grew increasingly strange. He was pressing all his debtors, and some of
them came to the house to beg for time. She overheard several of these
interviews in which her father had been unyielding in his cloyingly
sweet way. If he had been an open criminal, it would have been easier
to bear. If only her mother had not left that last injunction! But that
poor pitiful prayer was never out of her thoughts:

“_Perhaps I was unjust to him; it may have been my fault; but if she
can respect or love him I wish it to be so._”

She was not aware of the interval of silence that lay like a gulf
between her and Morris, so intent was she upon her own thoughts. Then
he began as though continuing the discussion of a subject just dropped.

“I didn’t come again at once because it was easier not to. But I have
come to repeat that what I said then is still true--truer than it was
then.”

“Please don’t, please don’t!” A pitiful little sob broke from her and
wrung his heart. But he went on.

“That is what I came to say. I have thought that perhaps I did not say
just what I meant,--that I did not make you understand.”

She was silent and he added:

“It is a man’s right to tell a woman that he loves her.”

“I suppose it is,” said Zelda, hurriedly; “but I ask you, if you are my
friend,--if you care to be anything to me, not to talk of things that
only trouble me.”

“And I suppose,” said Leighton, not heeding her, “that a woman will be
as kind to him as she can, whether the idea pleases her or not. Women
are naturally kind-hearted,--at least, they have that reputation.”

“You flatter us,” said Zelda, coldly.

“It must be pleasant occasionally to be arbitrary,--to do things a
little extraordinary just because we dare,” he persisted.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about;” but she liked to
have him speak to her so.

“For instance,” he went on, “suppose we are to take part in amateur
theatricals,--suppose, for example, we are assigned the principal
part. We rehearse and do finely, and are about to make the hit of
our lives. Then it occurs to us suddenly that one of our friends--or
relatives--say a cousin--never has had the same chance that we have
had, and we decide to give her additional prominence and obscure
ourselves a little, all in her interest; and we go ahead and do it,
even though it is a shock to a whole lot of people. And I suppose
you thought all the time that nobody guessed what you were doing. So
sometimes it may please a woman,--she may be the noblest and fairest of
women,--to play a part--and you--?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you are talking about, Mr. Leighton,” she
answered. “I have looked upon you as a friend, and after you had been
moved by the moonlight to say things that were not--wholly friendly and
that were distasteful to me, I should think that in ordinary decency
you would not refer to the matter again.”

“I’m sorry to offend, but if you thought it was the moonlight--”

“I don’t care what it was!”

“If you don’t care what it was,--sun, moon or stars, then you make my
task all the greater. I think you don’t quite understand about me. You
recommended that I get the moose--”

“Please forgive all that,” she begged in real contrition. “You have no
right to quote me against myself. You imply that I was--”

“Flirting? Nothing of the kind. You suggested last winter that I was
immensely conceited and you intimated in the friendliest possible
way that there were fields I hadn’t conquered. It was wholesome and
stimulating and I thanked you in my heart for taking the trouble to
tell me.”

“Well, you didn’t get the moose, did you?” and she laughed.

“No; but I won a case in the Supreme Court,” he declared in a droll
tone, at which both laughed; and she felt easier.

“I can’t accept the substitute,” she said. “A moose is a moose; and the
Supreme Court doesn’t sound very amusing to me. If you had really been
interested I should have had the moose-head long ago. But you are not
chivalrous. You have lost an opportunity. I wasn’t worth the trouble.
And now I believe I am tired of this. Let us change the subject.”

“Certainly not!” he exclaimed, so cheerfully that they both laughed at
his alacrity.

He had spoken with a decisive confidence and authority that was part of
his new attitude toward her. He had no intention of losing her; but he
must wait; and meanwhile she should understand.

“I am not going to make myself a nuisance to you, but what I have said
I am likely to repeat almost at any time; and some day, whether you
will or not, you shall listen to me. And meanwhile I shall be, if you
will, your friend and very obedient servant. You see, you already think
me conceited; Miss Merriam has told me that _she_ thinks so,--and I’m
giving you real reason for thinking so. And now, let us talk of other
things!”

She was silent under the shadow of the vines and he spoke in a
different key as he turned to things that were of no importance
whatever. The step of Ezra Dameron sounded once more down the road and
they heard the gate close after him; and soon the gravel crunched under
his feet near at hand.

He came up leaning heavily on his stick, breathing hard, for the night
was still and hot.

Leighton rose and placed a chair for him.

“You’d better rest here before going in,” said Zelda, very kindly.

“And tell us how the corn looks,” added Morris.

Dameron stood at the edge of the veranda looking up at the heavens
abstractedly, seemingly forgetful of their presence. He turned suddenly.

“The corn--the corn--who spoke of the corn?” he demanded. And then,
half-aloud to himself, passing the two young people as though ignorant
of their presence, “The corn, the corn, the beautiful corn!”

The vines about the veranda made a dark screen back of Zelda, shutting
out the faint starlight and the lights of the house. She sat in a low
chair with her hands clasping its rough arms, and it was well that her
eyes could not be seen, for there had come into them a look of sorrow
and weariness and fear that is best not seen in the eyes of a girl.

Morris was not wholly dull or stupid. Olive, sitting up stairs with a
book which she was not reading, would have thought well of him, if she
had heard. He rattled on amiably about the future of the Dramatic Club,
in which he was not the least interested.

“Next winter we must be sure to try a vaudeville show. It will be a lot
easier than the opera. People who are as solemn as owls are usually
delighted to black up and do specialty acts. I believe I’d do a black
face myself--to renew my youth.”

Zelda’s slim hands had dropped from the arms of the chair; and her
spirit was at ease again. Perhaps Morris understood! Her gratitude went
out to him bountifully.

“It’s absurd--talking of amateur theatricals in the dead of summer; but
_my_ family aren’t Quakers; so I don’t practise silence!” Morris rose
hastily and seized his hat and gloves.

“You needn’t have mentioned it; I had noticed it!” she said; then she
laughed happily, and went quickly into the house.




CHAPTER XXVI

AN AUGUST NIGHT ADVENTURE


Captain Pollock had gone into town to mail a report to his chief,
and he rode homeward through the starry August night in a tranquil
frame of mind. It made not the slightest difference to Frank Pollock,
U.S.A., that the powers were dilatory in beginning work on the new
post; and an elaborate correspondence with headquarters which might,
under ordinary circumstances, have proved vexatious, did not trouble
him in the least. He was hardly likely to be transferred under the
existing circumstances, and if there was anything that pleased him just
now it was the privilege of remaining unmolested at his farm-house
headquarters. For it was the easiest matter in the world to ride over
to the Dameron farm, where Zelda was always very kind to him and where
Olive Merriam called him openly an assassin and charged him with
responsibility for all the evils of the military establishment, about
which, to be sure, she knew very little.

As he neared the farm-house he saw that its lights were not yet
extinguished, but showed cozily through the trees.

“I wish I had a little nerve,” he reflected. “If I had I should not
linger outside the wicket.” He let his horse walk by the gate as
the lights teased his eyes, glowing plainly for a moment and then
disappearing; and he hummed to himself:

  “‘Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
    May weep, but never see;
  A night of memories and sighs
    I consecrate to thee.’”

“‘These wakeful eyes’--Frank Pollock, whose are they, I pray?” he
reflected. “Songs are foolish things. I never saw one yet that really
expressed my feeling. I wonder if Mr. Jack Balcomb is there with
his sublime nerve. I shall have to punch his head at the earliest
opportunity, bad luck to him! Or perhaps it is my young friend, Mr.
Leighton, Bachelor of Laws, who is lingering there in the bower of
beauty. If it be so, then may he remain forever a bachelor of laws and
of all things visible and invisible. Get up, Ajax.”

The horse sprang to a gallop. Pollock had passed the line of fence
that marked the boundaries of the Dameron house and turned and glanced
back. As he settled again into the saddle something rustled oddly in
the corn-field at his right. It was dim starlight and there was no wind
stirring; yet directly at his right hand something was moving the corn.

“Mr. Dameron doesn’t take care of his fences. I’d better get that cow
out for him.”

Pollock swung himself from the saddle and the horse stood perfectly
quiet, while his master jumped the ditch at the side of the road and
peered over the fence.

A voice rose suddenly, quite near at hand:

  “‘Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves;
  We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.’”

It was the low voice of a man singing to himself,--a quavering, senile
voice.

Pollock climbed upon the stake-and-rider fence and watched and
listened. Some one was walking through the corn with irregular step,
chanting in a strained, high voice.

The charred stump of an old tree rose almost as high as the corn and
presently, as Pollock watched and listened, the figure of the singer
reached and clambered upon it. Pollock sprang down among the corn and
crept closer. There was something weird and fascinating in the chant
that continued to rise from the solitary figure on the stump. The
outline of a man was now quite clearly defined,--an unquiet figure,
that moved its arms fantastically, and once or twice, as the refrain
ceased, it laughed in a harsh way.

Pollock had drawn quite near between the tall ranks of corn.

“‘We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.’ Ha, ha, ha!
Rejoicing; yes, it shall be with rejoicing!”

There was no mistaking the figure or the voice now. Dameron’s sharp
features were plainly distinguishable. He was without his hat; he
sat stiffly on the tree-stump, with his shoulders erect and his legs
barely touching the ground. Suddenly he raised his long arms toward the
heavens as though in supplication:

“Make it grow; make the corn grow, O merciful heavens! Then I shall be
rich. I shall be very rich. And Zelda, she shall be rich, too. O corn,
O beautiful corn!”

His shoulders drooped and he seemed about to collapse. Then he
straightened himself with sudden energy.

  “Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves;
  We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.”

He leaped from the stump and sprang out into the corn, darting so near
to Pollock that the young man barely slipped away from him.

“No! No! I say there is too much corn! Too much, I say! Millions and
millions of bushels in the world! There is too much; too much! I shall
lose my money, my daughter’s money, if there is any more! I must
trample it down; trample it down!”

He began threshing about, waving his arms wildly and breaking down the
stalks. Then he started with a quick step, as though he were marching,
through a narrow aisle between two rows, chanting meanwhile in a voice
so low that Pollock barely heard him:

  “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
  He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
  He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
            His truth is marching on.”

Pollock followed him, hardly knowing what to do. It was inconceivable
that Ezra Dameron was drunk, but at any rate something was wrong, and
Pollock felt a certain responsibility for him.

“Poor girl; that poor girl!” the young man muttered.

The strange noise ahead of him ceased abruptly, and Pollock drew nearer
until he saw that the old man knelt and clasped several stalks of corn
in his arms. His voice rose tremulously and was hardly audible; he was
praying, but the only words that Pollock heard were “the corn, the
corn,” constantly repeated.

Then Ezra Dameron’s voice rose with unwonted strength as he repeated in
a shrill pipe:

“There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the
mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the
city shall flourish like grass of the earth.”

The old man collapsed, pitched forward and lay very still; the stalks
of corn released from his arms sprang back to their places with a
lingering rustle and whisper.

Pollock drew nearer until he stood by the prostrate figure of the old
man, who lay on his face, with his arms flung out.

“Mr. Dameron! Mr. Dameron!”

There was no response, and Pollock pushed aside the corn-stalks and
bent down.

“Are you ill? Are you hurt?”

Dameron lay quiet on the ground, which was hard from the August
drought. Pollock felt of his hands and found them warm. He brought the
limp figure to a sitting posture and repeated again the old man’s name.

“The corn; the corn!” came in a guttural whisper, and Dameron found
command of himself and tried to rise.

“Wait a moment; you are ill; you must rest a bit,” said Pollock.

Dameron turned his head from side to side and put one tremulous hand
to his throat with a helpless gesture.

“The corn; the corn! Who are you? Say, who are you?” And he caught hold
of Pollock’s coat lapels and tried to lift himself by them.

“It’s Pollock. Don’t be alarmed. You are ill. I will help you back to
the house.”

“Thank you; thank you. But I need no help. I was walking; just walking.
I am quite well.”

He seemed to regain his strength suddenly and stood up, leaning heavily
upon Pollock.

“Yes, you are Captain Pollock. I remember you very well, sir,--very
well, sir. I’m quite surprised to see you.”

“I was afraid you were ill,” said Pollock, standing back, while Dameron
shook himself and beat the dirt from his clothing.

“You seem to be all right. I thought you were sick. I heard you from
the road as I was passing.”

“You heard me? Yes. I was looking at the field. I am very fond of
walking at night. It’s quieting to the nerves. Yes. My physician
recommended it. I suppose, at your age, and in your profession, you are
not troubled with nerves. You are very fortunate. I must go back to the
house. They will be alarmed if I am gone too long.”

He started off briskly toward the road down a long lane of corn,
Pollock following him, surprised at his quick recovery.

“The night is fine,” said the old man, tramping over the clods and
brushing swiftly through the corn-stalks. “The August nights are
beautiful in these parts. This is the season of the shooting stars.
Ah,--there is one now,”--and he pointed to the glittering vault where a
meteor shot silently athwart the heavens, leaving a faint, soft light
behind.

“That was a fine one,” said Pollock.

“Verily, it was, sir.” The old man continued, standing with head
uplifted following the track of the star, and he repeated with unction:
“‘O ye stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him
forever.’ That,” he added, “is in the Apocrypha, as you doubtless
remember.”

Then he turned and hurried on, Pollock following and with difficulty
keeping at his heels.

When they reached the fence Dameron climbed it spryly and dropped down
on the other side near Pollock’s horse.

“You will allow me to walk to the house with you; you must be very
tired,” said Pollock, mystified by the old man’s strange behavior.

“No; oh, no! I am very well. You are quite mistaken in thinking me ill.
I frequently walk abroad at night. I was merely looking at the corn.
I’m away all day so that I have little time for inspecting the farm.”

“Your corn-field is very handsome. I pass it frequently,” said Pollock,
still mystified.

“Yes; the soil is rich. Now, you must go on your way. I’m sorry to have
troubled you, but I’m feeling very well. Never better in my life.”

But Pollock continued at his side. It was only a few rods to the wagon
gate and he persisted until they reached it.

Two figures were coming down the driveway and paused inside the gate.
Zelda had missed her father when they prepared to close the house for
the night, and she and Olive had gone out to look for him.

“Is that you, father?”

“Yes, my daughter. The night is glorious, isn’t it?”

Then taking Pollock by the arm he whispered: “Pray say nothing about
our meeting. I will explain that. You meant kindly enough, but you were
mistaken.”

Pollock spoke to the young women cheerily and waited for Dameron to
make some sign.

“I was walking up the road,” the old man explained, “and Mr. Pollock
came by and stopped to talk to me. We were commenting on the superb
beauty of the heavens. And did you see that meteor a moment ago? It was
the finest of the season.”

“No; we didn’t see it,” said Zelda. “We have been in the house all the
evening.”

“Yes; you girls leave it to practical fellows like Mr. Pollock and me
to go star-gazing,” said her father, jauntily.

Zelda had opened the gate. Pollock declined her invitation to come up
to the house.

“It must be quite late,” he said. “And I have a horse down the road
somewhere. Good night. Good night, Mr. Dameron.”

He went slowly back to where his horse was cropping the grass at the
roadside.

“If I’d been drinking I’d be sure I had ’em,” he reflected half-aloud.
“But I haven’t been. The old man seemed to be as sober as a judge
when I picked him up. And he was certainly unusually polite after we
started back through the corn. I hope he won’t have another attack and
murder those girls in their beds. He’s a deep one. He carried off that
situation at the gate like an actor. Of course, I shan’t mention his
performance in the corn-field,--not much, my brother!”

Pollock swung himself into the saddle and turned his horse for a moment
toward the Dameron house. He lifted his hat sweepingly and bowed low in
the saddle.

“Good night, ladies!” Then he swung his horse homeward and went forward
at a gallop, singing as he rode under the stars:

  “‘Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
    May weep, but never see;
  A night of memories and sighs
    I consecrate to thee.’”

He was a little fellow,--and there was much of the heart of a boy in
him.




CHAPTER XXVII

MR. BALCOMB’S EASY CONSCIENCE


Ezra Dameron had never been happier than during this summer. His life
had run for years an eventless course; his interests had been small and
he had been content to have them so. But since the gambler’s passion
had fixed its gyves upon him he had become a changed being. He walked
with a quicker step; his drooping shoulders grew erect; he was a new
man, living in a new paradise that folly was constructing for him.
He enjoyed the farm greatly, rising betimes to direct the work of
his laborers. He permitted Zelda to drive him in her runabout to the
interurban station--a concession in itself significant of a greater
deference to the comfort and ease of living.

Jack Balcomb’s flat scheme had hung fire during the spring, with only
half the stock of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company sold; but
Balcomb had taken it up again, determined to carry it through. Dameron
always insisted, when Balcomb approached him, that he did not care to
sell the tract on the creek which the promoter coveted; but he never
rebuffed Balcomb entirely. It had occurred to Dameron that Balcomb
might be of use to him. The young man was, moreover, a new species,
who talked of large affairs in an intimate way that fell in well with
Dameron’s new ideas of business, and he accepted Balcomb at as high a
valuation as he ever placed upon any one.

Balcomb was quick to act on the hint given unexpectedly by Dameron at
the farm. He called at once at the dingy office in the Dameron Block.
It was a hot midsummer morning and Balcomb was a pleasing object as
he appeared at the door of Ezra Dameron’s private office. Balcomb
had lately fallen under the spell of a New York tailor who solicited
business among Mariona young men, and his figure lent itself well to
metropolitan treatment. The blue silk socks that filled the margin
between his half-shoes and gray trousers expressed a fastidious taste,
and his negligée shirt matched them exactly. Having discarded a
waistcoat for greater comfort in the hot weather, he wore his watch in
the outer pocket of his coat, with a bit of chain and the key of the
Phi Beta Kappa Society showing.

“Good morning, Mr. Dameron. Your office is positively cool. You ought
to advertise it--the coolest place in the city. That’s what I’d do if
I had it. I have a south exposure, cheerful in winter, but ghastly in
summer. These inside rooms are the only thing, after all; and they’re
cheaper. We youngsters can still sit with profit at the feet of our
elders.”

He eyed a decrepit chair by Dameron’s desk, sat down in it with
misgivings, and fanned himself with his straw hat, whose blue ribbon,
it may be said, was of exactly the same tint as his shirt and socks.

“You are very prompt, Mr. Balcomb. I trust my chance word of the other
night hasn’t put you to inconvenience.”

“Don’t worry about me! I flatter myself that I know when to go and
when to come, and a word from a man of your standing is enough for a
novice like me. There’s a disposition all along the line to crowd out
old men, but I tell you, Mr. Dameron, we’ve got a lot to learn from the
senior class. I flatter myself that I have among my friends some of the
grandest old men in the state, and I’m proud of it.”

“A worthy sentiment,--a very worthy sentiment, Mr. Balcomb.”

“I consider, Mr. Dameron, that anything I may be able to do for you is
to my credit. It looks well to the public for a young tyro in business
to win the confidence of one of the conservatives. Doctor Bridges, over
at Tippecanoe--you know the doctor?--”

“I know him very well, indeed.”

Doctor Bridges, the president of Tippecanoe College, was a venerable
Presbyterian minister, widely beloved for his many virtues. Dameron’s
face lighted at the mention of the name. Balcomb saw that he had struck
the right note and continued volubly:

“Well, sir, I was the doctor’s secretary in my junior and senior years,
and I shall always feel that I learned more from that venerable old
patriarch than from my books. The doctor used to say to me in that
sweet, winning way of his: ‘Balcomb,’ he would say, ‘be honest, be
just.’ Over and over again he would repeat those words, and they got to
be a sort of rule of life with me. It’s wonderful how many places they
fit. I tell you, sir,”--and a quaver crept into his voice--“a young
man’s temptations these days are mighty hard to deal with. Half a dozen
times I’ve seen places where I could have fixed myself for life by
doing things--promoting schemes and all that--that most any business
man would call legitimate. But every time the doctor’s dear old face
has risen up before me and I’ve heard that admonition of his, ‘Balcomb,
be honest, be just,’ and it lost me money; but I guess it saved my
conscience.”

Dameron listened sympathetically to this recital, nodding his head
gravely from time to time.

“Doctor Bridges is a splendid man, a man of great spiritual power.
I consider myself fortunate in having had him for my friend these
forty-odd years.”

“Well,” said Jack, with an air of suddenly wakening to present duty; “I
didn’t come here to take up your time with reminiscences.”

“I have enjoyed your remarks very much,” said Dameron, who had not,
indeed, heard a great deal of what Balcomb said. He was thinking of
his own enterprises, and of his present need of money to maintain his
margins. He wished to make use of Balcomb without committing himself to
the sale of the strip on the creek. That was a valuable piece of land;
it was increasing rapidly in value, and even in his extremity Ezra
Dameron had no thought of fooling it away. But Balcomb’s airiness and
persistence had made their impression on Dameron. He did not realize
it, but he and the young promoter had much in common. They belonged to
different eras and yet there was a certain affinity between them.

“Mr. Balcomb,” said Dameron, tipping himself back in his chair, “you
have suggested to me the possibility of selling a strip of land I hold
as trustee out here on the creek. As I have told you before, I do not
care to sell at this time. I have, however, some lots southwest of
town, also a part of a trust, which I have about decided to dispose of.
Several factories have been built in the neighborhood, and the lots
are already in demand by mechanics who wish to build themselves homes.
I have declined to sell them separately, as most of those people wish
to pay a little at a time, and I don’t care to sell in that way. I am
at an age, Mr. Balcomb, when I don’t like to accept promises for the
future. Do I make myself clear?”

“Certainly, Mr. Dameron,” said Balcomb, with a note of sympathy that
was almost moist with tears.

“But if you can manage this and sell those lots so as to bring me cash
I shall be willing to pay you a commission,--the usual commission.”

“In other words,” said Balcomb, “you wish me to find purchasers for the
lots and sell them out so as to bring you the money in a lump. How much
do you want for them?”

“I think for the corner lots I should get twelve hundred and fifty
dollars each; the inside lots I hold to be worth a thousand. But we’ll
say fifty thousand for all.”

There was an inquiry in his words and his eyes questioned Balcomb in
a way that made the young man wonder. It is not the part of what is
known as a good trader to show anxiety, and the old man’s tone and
look were not wasted on Balcomb. The young fellow knew a great many
things about human nature, and ever since he had seen Ezra Dameron
enter the broker’s office he had set the old man down as a fraud. The
reason Dameron gave for turning the lots over to him to sell was hardly
convincing. Balcomb was nothing if not suspicious, and it occurred
to him at once that Dameron was in straits; and at the same moment he
began to devise means for turning the old man’s necessities to his own
advantage.

“Here is a plat of the property. Suppose you study the matter over and
let me know whether you care to attempt the sale.”

“As you wish, Mr. Dameron. I’ll come in, say, to-morrow at this hour.”

“Very well,” said Dameron, coldly. “I don’t want you to undertake the
matter unless you can handle it in bulk.”

The Dameron addition of fifty lots was an inheritance from old Roger
Merriam, Zelda Dameron’s grandfather. It had been a part of Margaret
Dameron’s share of her father’s estate, and was held by Ezra Dameron
in trust for Zelda. Manufacturing interests had lately carried
improvements that way, but Dameron’s efforts to sell lots had not
been successful, as his prices were high and the menace of expensive
improvements gave pause to the working people who were the natural
buyers. Then Dameron had become interested in larger matters than
the peddling of lots, and he had given no serious thought to selling
until he felt the need of obtaining more ready money for use in his
speculations.

As Balcomb turned to go a boy came in with a telegram. It was from
the brokers in Chicago through whom Dameron was trading in grain. The
market had opened wildly on news that the drought had done little
actual damage to the corn crop. An hour later he was advised that his
margins had been wiped out; he made them good from funds he was now
carrying in Chicago and ordered the sale of unimpeachable securities
to replenish his account.

Dameron, whose mind was singularly prosaic, had of late been reading
into his speculations a certain poetic quality, though he did
not suspect it. He had never been a farmer and had only the most
superficial knowledge of farming. Yet he had studied all summer long
the growth of the corn in his own fields at The Beeches. He had
reckoned the rainfall of the region and compared it with the figures
given in books of statistics for other years. He covered hundreds of
sheets of paper during the long summer days with computations, and
played with them as a boy with the knack of rhyming plays at tagging
rhymes. He cherished first the idea that the year would be marked by
excessive rainfalls which would be detrimental to the corn crop, and
when the government bulletins failed to bear him out in this he assured
himself that the year would be marked by late frosts that would destroy
the crop over a wide area. He proved to his own satisfaction, by means
of the tables he had compiled, that dollar corn was inevitable.

This idea took a strong hold upon his imagination. It was fascinating,
the thought of playing a great game in which the sun and winds
and clouds of heaven were such potent factors. There was a keen
satisfaction in the fact that he could study the whole matter from the
secure vantage ground of his own office, and that when he went home at
night, there it was across the road from his own gate, under his eye,
the beloved corn, tall and rustling, beautiful and calm, but waiting
for the hand of the destroyer. Even this, his own, should perish, and
yet he was accumulating scraps of paper that called for thousands of
bushels of corn at a time when it would grieve many short-sighted men
sorely to deliver it to him.

An enormous conceit was bred in him and he fed it upon his
dreams,--dreams of power. The Chicago broker sent him prognostications
and forecasts which the old man threw away in disgust. They were fools,
all of them. He asked no man’s suggestions; they were afraid of him,
he assured himself, when the reports were contrary to his own ideas;
and when they coincided with his own notions he flattered himself that
they proved his own wisdom. He made good his margins as fast as called
on, but continued to buy October corn, basing his purchases on a short
crop. Always it was corn, corn, corn!

He waited patiently for Balcomb to report, for if he could get fifty
thousand dollars more to put into corn his triumph would be all the
greater. He waited feverishly for the hour which the promoter had set
and when Balcomb appeared he could scarcely conceal his impatience.
He had just learned by consulting the files of old newspapers at the
public library that there was a certain periodicity in the fall of
frosts. There seemed to him every reason for thinking that early frosts
were to be expected and he was anxious to increase his investment in
October contracts. It was the greatest opportunity of a lifetime; to
lose it was to miss a chance that a wise Providence would hardly again
put into his hands.

There was a gleam of excitement in the old man’s eyes which Balcomb did
not fail to note. He found a pleasure in playing with Ezra Dameron,
the hard old reprobate who had always exacted the last ounce of flesh.
He quoted again from Doctor Bridges, imputing to that gentleman
sentiments that were original in Balcomb’s fertile brain, though none
the less noble for being purely fictitious. Balcomb enjoyed his own
skill at lying, and it was a high testimony to the promoter’s powers
that Ezra Dameron believed a good deal that Balcomb told him. When
Balcomb mentioned casually that he had been president of the Y. M. C.
A. at college the old man’s heart warmed to him.

“Well, sir,” said Balcomb, presently, after he had given a résumé of
one of Doctor Bridges’ Easter sermons, “I’ve been thinking over your
proposition about the lots, and I’m sorry--”

The old man’s face fell and Balcomb inwardly rejoiced that his victim
was so easily played upon.

“--sorry,” Balcomb continued, “that I can’t do anything in the matter--”

He paused and made a feint of dropping his hat to continue the suspense
as long as possible.

“--along the lines you indicated the other day.”

“Oh, yes, to be sure! I remember that it was rather a large
proposition,” said Dameron, recovering himself and smiling in tolerance
of Balcomb’s failure.

“Yes; the sale of those lots means time and work, and, as I understood
you, you wished to avoid both. Well, I don’t blame you. I feel myself
that I should prefer to have some other fellow tackle the job.
These mechanics can’t pay more than a hundred or so dollars a year
on property. I have friends who went through that in the building
associations of blessed memory.”

“I don’t believe I need any information on the subject,” said Dameron,
indifferently. “If you can’t handle the lots--”

“I haven’t said that, Mr. Dameron. What I said was that I couldn’t do
it in the way you indicated. It would take a long time to sell those
fifty lots on payments to working people. But I have a better plan. I
propose selling them in a bunch.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the old man, non-committally, though his face flushed
with returning hope.

“Yes. Large bunches are more in my line. But my friends that I may
possibly interest can’t carry them for their health or yours or mine.
You’ll have to make a good easy price on them if we do any business.
There are only two or three factories in that neighborhood and there
may never be any more. And they’re getting ready to stick a whole lot
of fancy street improvements down there. It may cost a thousand dollars
to stop that,”--and Balcomb grinned cheerfully.

“I can’t countenance any irregular dealing,” said the old man, severely.

“Of course, you can’t! You’re going to turn that over to me. It isn’t
regular, but, as the saying is, it’s done! You’ve got to see a man that
knows a man that knows another man that has the ear of the Board of
Public Works. There’s nothing in it to make a Christian gentleman shy.
_I_ see only the first man!” And Balcomb laughed his cheerful, easy
laugh and stroked his beard.

“Now, Mr. Dameron, I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars for those lots
as they lie. That’s cash.”

There was no mistaking the gleam that lighted the old man’s eyes.

“Who’s your purchaser?” he asked.

“I think I’ve mentioned to you the Patoka Land and Improvement
Company. We’ve decided not to confine ourselves to our flat scheme
alone. We’re going to handle big real estate schemes wherever we see
anything good enough and big enough to make it worth while. That
wasn’t our intention at first, but I’ve persuaded our people to see it
that way. All the big fortunes in this country have been made in real
estate, and the possibilities haven’t been exhausted yet. If we can hit
a fair price, we’ll take your lots and work them off in our own way;
but I shouldn’t bother with the thing at all if it weren’t that I hope
to get that creek strip from you.”

“Who are in your company?” asked the old man. His need for cash was
great, but he tried to conceal his anxiety, and he was really curious
to know who were behind Balcomb.

The promoter reeled off a long list of names, most of them unknown to
Dameron, but Balcomb’s ready explanation imparted stability to all of
them. There were half a dozen country bankers and a number of men who
were or had been state officers.

“You seem to have drawn largely on the country,” remarked the old man,
dryly.

“You are quite right, I did. It’s easier. There’s lots of money in
these country banks that’s crying for investment. I know a lot of
business houses right here in our jobbing district that go to the
country for their loans. These old Mariona bankers have never got over
the panic of seventy-three. Every time they make a loan they make an
enemy. A man whose credit is A1 doesn’t like to have to go over his
past and the history of his wife’s relations even unto the third and
fourth generation every time he borrows a few thousand dollars. Not
much!”

Dameron laughed, a little uneasily, but he laughed. Two years before he
would have shuddered at such heresy.

“Well,” said Balcomb, rising, “you think over the matter and let me
know whether you care to sell. I’ll give you one thousand dollars for
an option on the creek strip at sixty thousand. I’ll see you in a few
days.”

“No! No!” The old man’s voice rose querulously. Delays were dangerous.
If Balcomb could do it he must effect the sale at once.

“The figure I named yesterday,” began Dameron.

“--is out of the question,” said Balcomb, with finality.

“Then nine hundred dollars apiece for the block of lots.”

“Perfectly absurd.” And Balcomb turned toward the door.

The old man rose and rested against his desk heavily. His bent figure
was wholly pitiful; the claw-like fingers on which he leaned trembled
so that his thin, worn body shook.

“Suppose you name a figure, Mr. Balcomb,” he said, with a pathetic
attempt at jauntiness.

“I am authorized to close at twenty thousand cash; and my commission
comes out of that. We’ll say fifteen hundred commission. But I am not
anxious to buy at that price,--it’s quite immaterial to me. What I want
is the option.”

“I have better use for the money; yes, I can use it to advantage,” said
Dameron, as though he were pondering the matter gravely and seeking to
justify himself.

Balcomb took a step toward him.

“In other real estate, by the terms of the trust,” he said, smiling in
an insinuating way.

“Yes; yes, of course,” said Dameron, hastily.

“And there’s the order of court.”

“To be sure,--there’s an order of court required by the terms of the
trust. I suppose you wouldn’t mind waiting a little for that. The trust
expires in a few weeks,--I prefer to go to the judge with the whole
settlement at once.”

“But you prefer not to go to the judge to ask his approval of
this particular deed. All right. The abstract needn’t show these
requirements,--our attorney will not be particular. I’ll fix that for
you.”

“Yes, you can arrange that, I suppose,” said the old man, weakly. He
was trembling now, visibly, and his voice shook.

“That will be worth five hundred more,--as special commission and
guaranty that you won’t forget the court’s approval,” said Balcomb,
coolly.

“No, oh, no!” wailed the old man. “I’m giving it away. You are taking
unfair advantage. I am not well--I am not quite myself to-day.”

He sank into his chair, breathing hard; but he recovered instantly and
smiled at Balcomb with an effort.

“I’m not a man to back out when I have pledged my word,” he said
grandly. “A trade’s a trade.” And Balcomb grinned.

“Now, one other thing, Mr. Dameron. I’ll be square with you and tell
the truth. I’ve got to have the option on the creek strip. My people
are not a bit crazy to buy lots like these, but our apartment scheme is
a big thing, and to get your strip of ground out there on the creek
bank we’re willing to buy these lots of yours,--just, as the fellow
said, to show there’s no hard feeling.”

“At seventy-five thousand for the creek strip. Not a cent less. It’s
a part of the trust. It’s my daughter’s. I shall not give it away.
There are only a few weeks more in which I shall have any right to
sell,--and--and I have had another offer,” he ended weakly.

“Quite likely; but it isn’t so easy to get so much cash on short
notice. And there’s the difficulty of finding other real estate to
reinvest the money in, and the order of court and all that.”

Balcomb stroked his beard and eyed his prey. He dropped the suggestion
about the reinvestment of the proceeds in real estate merely to show
his acquaintance with the terms of the trust. It amused him to remember
Ezra Dameron’s old reputation as a hard customer. He was proving, in
Balcomb’s own phrase, almost too easy.

“We’ll call it twenty thousand, then, for the block of lots,” said the
old man, smiling and rubbing his hands.

“Very well,” said Balcomb, “with two thousand as my fee in the matter;
and an option to buy the creek strip at sixty thousand.”

The old man stared at him with a sudden malevolent light in his eyes,
but he said with exaggerated dignity:

“Very well, Mr. Balcomb.”

Dameron drew from his desk an abstract of title covering the Roger
Merriam addition. It was in due form, the work of a well-known title
company. Balcomb took it and ran his eye through its crisp pages.

“You’ll take care of us on this order of court matter if I pass it for
the present,” said Balcomb.

“I’m a man of my word,” declared Ezra Dameron.

So the next afternoon a deed was filed with the county recorder,
conveying the block of lots to the Patoka Land and Improvement Company,
Ezra Dameron receiving eighteen thousand dollars as consideration and
J. Arthur Balcomb two thousand dollars as commission. Opportunities to
make two thousand so easily were not to be put aside, and Balcomb’s
conscience troubled him not at all over the transaction. Van Cleve, the
vice-president and attorney, did exactly what Balcomb, the treasurer,
told him to do without question; and when Balcomb expressed himself as
satisfied that the court’s approval would be forthcoming shortly when
the whole estate was settled, and that meanwhile the deed should be
recorded, Van Cleve readily acquiesced. Balcomb told his associates
that it was the only way in which Dameron would give the option.

Balcomb did not, of course, tell his associates that he was accepting a
commission from Dameron; for there were times when J. Arthur Balcomb’s
volubility gave way to reticence of the austerest kind. He plumed
himself upon at last having secured at sixty thousand dollars an option
on the creek strip, where the ideal apartment house was to be built;
and he sent notices to his directors of a meeting to consider plans for
building. The fact that the company had just bought, through his shrewd
agency, something like fifty thousand dollars’ worth of lots for twenty
thousand would, he told Van Cleve, “look good to the jays,” and it did.




CHAPTER XXVIII

AMICABLE INTERVIEWS


The lawyer who never practised reached the Tippecanoe Club every
week-day at exactly thirty minutes past twelve o’clock. Within five
minutes he had usually taken one sip from a martini cocktail, dry,
after which he was ready to discuss the news of the day for ten or
fifteen minutes before going to the grill-room for luncheon. A good
figure of a man was Copeland. He had steady brown eyes in which a keen
humor lurked, and his hair that had once been black was now white;
but he was still young and the snowy cap over his dark features was
becoming. In a frock coat Copeland would have graced the Senate or the
president’s cabinet table.

He had telephoned Leighton to meet him one day near the end of
September and Morris came in as Copeland finished his cocktail.

“Nothing? You reject my offer? It’s better so at your age. When I was
in the practice,--”

“That was in the day,” said Morris, “when a law library in these parts
meant the state decisions, a few text-books and a jug of peach brandy
behind the stove. Our Supreme Court has held--”

“Our Supreme Court,” began Copeland in his crisp, level tone, “is
supreme in nothing so much as in its own stupidity. They have
established precedents in torts that are utterly opposed to the best
English decisions. Why, sir--”

Leighton grinned and Copeland changed the subject abruptly. This matter
of the idiocy of the Supreme Court was a joke of long standing between
Copeland and his friends at the bar. They were forever mailing him
catalogues of law books and abstracts of curious decisions from legal
periodicals for his edification. He really read law for diversion and
enjoyed particularly suits involving the duties and obligations of
common carriers.

Copeland, whom Leighton greatly admired, was a man of serious habits
and pleasant fancies. He had, for example, a way of whistling when
angry or annoyed,--a curiously mournful whistle that was gloomy
with foreboding, and heavy with the sorrow of the world. He had
begun life as the credit man of the corporation of which he was now
president, which may explain his gravity. He was himself the originator
of the plausible dictum that the credit man in a refrigerator
factory--Copeland’s ice-boxes were sold in twenty states--suffers
necessarily from intellectual chilblains. Copeland spoke in a dry,
tart way that lent weight to his dicta, whether he was talking at the
club or addressing the directors of his company. He was thoroughly
self-contained and with emotions that never got out of bounds. About
once a month he received and declined an offer of the presidency of
some bank or trust company. A business man who is a good fellow, and
who, moreover, can say no to his best friend without offense, names his
own salary in this golden age of commerce.

Copeland continued to speak with characteristic crispness.

“I have a customer up in the country who has made the acquaintance of
your particular friend, Mr. Jack Balcomb. Do you follow me?”

“Your customer must be a man of parts. Balcomb does not cultivate
people unless he sees something pretty good in them.”

“I believe that is correct. Well, my customer, whose name is Jennings,
has bought some stock in what is known as the Patoka Land and
Improvement Company, of which Balcomb is treasurer and one thing and
another. There’s a lawyer up there in his building--”

“Van Cleve,” suggested Leighton.

“That’s the chap. His eyes look like a bowl of clam broth. He’s the
attorney for the company. The reason he holds the job is not difficult
to determine. His father is a banker down here on the river somewhere
and is well-to-do. Balcomb, I understand, is teaching Van Cleve how
things are done in large cities.”

“He’s a competent teacher. Go on.”

“Yes; but graduate work is a little stiff for a beginner.”

“We needn’t take that up now. Where do I come in?”

“Somewhat as follows: A client of your office is also in the game to
a certain extent. I refer to Ezra Dameron, that genial, warm-hearted,
impulsive old fossil. They tell me on the quiet that he’s been
monkeying with options. He’s selling this company the old Roger Merriam
property south of town at half its value and he’s given them an
option on his strip of land out here on the creek. You know Balcomb’s
scheme. He’s going to build an ideal flat out here at the edge of
town,--fountains playing everywhere, roof gardens, native forest
trees,--it’s a delightful prospect. Dameron’s corner is a great place
for it. It makes no difference whether the scheme is practicable or
not. Balcomb makes it sound awfully good. It’s been written up in the
newspapers most seductively. It’s so good that only the elect can get
in.”

“I know Balcomb and his habits of thought. How much is he paying
Dameron for that property?”

“Balcomb has an option at sixty thousand. Jennings told me that the
stock-holders had already paid in most of their money so that the
purchase could be made at once. The price is amazingly low. He must
be hard up. Balcomb tells Jennings and the rest of them that he
bought those lots merely to be able to get that creek strip; but it’s
a bargain and they’ll make a good thing out of the lots. But what’s
the matter with Ezra? I thought perhaps Carr’s relations with Dameron
were such that this information would interest you. The property is
part of the Margaret Dameron trusteeship and I hope Miss Dameron will
get all she’s entitled to. I believe that’s the most curious will
that was ever probated in our county,” Copeland continued, with the
exaggerated gravity with which he talked of legal matters. “But that
woman certainly had an extraordinary faith in her husband. Nobody
else in this township would trust Ezra Dameron round the corner with
a hot base-burner. But Mrs. Dameron was as proud as Lucifer. She was
a Merriam and she must have thought that by leaving her property to
Ezra in trust for their daughter she would put a corner-stone under his
honor. But the trusteeship expires on the first of October and the old
man is selling property at a ridiculous figure to a nasty little crook.
It looks rather queer, doesn’t it?”

“Dameron must have had something of his own; he had his wife’s property
to play with and if he hasn’t done well with it it’s his own fault. I’m
sorry that he has fallen into Balcomb’s hands.”

“Oh, well; you can’t make a silk purse out of a sardine’s tail,”
observed Copeland, reflectively. “And I fear that Ezra is a sardine.”

“Excuse me,”--and Copeland went suddenly to the window and looked out
over the tops of the maples in the club yard.

“What are you looking for--an answer in the stars?”

“No; there’s a big Chicago jobber in town to-day--sells more ice-boxes
than any man in the business, and I was taking note of the weather
signs. He’s a high sky man. You can’t do anything with him on a cloudy
day. You see, I’m selling for next year’s delivery, and I need a bright
sunny day for that chap. A little warmth in the air is a powerful
reminder that summer is coming. Of course you _can_ sell refrigerators
in the dead of winter, but you need a hot room to do it in. We keep
our office at a temperature of eighty degrees all winter, so that
when we catch a buyer, we create a sort of torrid zone for him. It
helps business, but occasionally one dies of pneumonia from subsequent
exposure. However, in such cases of mortality our Supreme Court has
held--”

“Well, you can file a brief, old man. We have this other business on
hand now.”

They went in to their luncheon and when they came out into the club
office Copeland scanned the bulletin board as he felt in his pocket for
a cigar.

“J. Arthur Balcomb,” he read from one of the applications for
membership that had just been posted. Then he looked at Leighton.

“Is that your autograph, or is it forged?”

“It’s mine. He asked me to indorse for him; and I didn’t have the sand
to refuse. He’s been trying to break in for several years.”

“That’s all right. I will save you any embarrassment.” And Copeland
took a penknife from his pocket, and pried out the tacks by which the
application was fastened to the board, then folded the paper very
carefully into a long strip.

“Ashes to ashes,” he said solemnly, and held the paper over the cigar
lighter until it flamed. Then he lighted his cigar with it, puffing
slowly until the flame crept to his fingers.

“Thank you,” said Morris. “It will save me the trouble of speaking to
the committee.”

When Morris reached his office, he found a first draft of Margaret
Dameron’s will, written in lead pencil on a faded piece of manila
paper, in Carr’s small regular hand. Leighton had come upon it once in
cleaning out an old desk, and he had put it among his own papers as an
interesting specimen of Carr’s handiwork. He unfolded the sheets now
and examined intently the form of the will. The terms were clear and
unequivocal; he noted the change of word and phrase here and there, in
every case an improvement in the interest of directness and clarity.
There was no question as to the meaning of the will. Real estate was
not to be sold except by permission of the court; and proceeds were
to be reinvested in other realty. There was good sense in the idea,
but had Dameron sold the Roger Merriam addition entire to the Patoka
Company without referring the sale to the court?

The question must be answered, and he went to the court-house and asked
permission of the recorder to look at the deed from Ezra Dameron,
trustee, to the Patoka Land and Improvement Company. It was in the
hands of a clerk for transcribing, but Morris was allowed to examine
it. It was written in Dameron’s hand, and had been copied from a
printed form of trustee’s deed. The consideration was twenty thousand
dollars, the receipt of which was duly acknowledged. Leighton was a
lawyer and he felt a lawyer’s disgust with the situation that the case
presented. Dameron was clearly in serious need of ready money or he
would not be selling real estate at a ridiculous figure. It was also
patent that in his necessity he had turned to Balcomb as a man who
would not scruple at oblique practices.

Morris went the next day to the office of a title company where he
was acquainted and waited while the secretary made up a list of the
property held by Ezra Dameron, trustee. He found that the sale of the
Roger Merriam addition, which had just been reported, left the creek
property, The Beeches and the old Merriam homestead the only realty
remaining in the trust.

“I thought Mr. Dameron was a heavy real estate owner,” remarked Morris.

“That’s a popular superstition,” said the secretary; “but he’s sold
it off rapidly during the past two years. He owns nothing personally,
and he has been converting his daughter’s property very fast. I hope
there’s nothing wrong about it.”

“I don’t know. Are you sure he hasn’t been buying other real estate?
Something of the kind is required by the terms of his wife’s will.”

“Not in this county at least.” The secretary was silent for a moment.
“It would be a delicious irony if Ezra were to turn up broke, wouldn’t
it?” he said, grinning.

“That depends on the point of view,” remarked Morris.

He decided to go direct to Dameron and speak to him of the defect in
the deed, more from curiosity as to what the old man would say than
with any idea of helping the situation. It was an unwarrantable act on
his part, considered professionally or personally; but he justified
himself on the score of the old relationship between Carr and Dameron.
Carr was out of reach; Leighton did not even know his exact address at
this time. And there was old Rodney Merriam, his best friend, and there
was Zelda!

Dameron sat at his desk with a mass of papers before him as Leighton
entered. The old man wore a serious air, to which the mass of papers
contributed. They were in fact merely the outgrowth of his dreams,--his
efforts to reduce dreams to tangible problems in mathematics.

A puzzled look crossed Dameron’s face as he raised his eyes and
regarded Leighton dreamily. Then suddenly, as though just recalling
Leighton, he smiled and rose from his chair.

“My dear Mr. Leighton, this is a rare honor; I am delighted to see you,
sir.”

He had never greeted Leighton so cordially before.

“Pardon me, Mr. Dameron, I have come on an impertinent errand.”

“I can’t imagine it,” said the old man, graciously.

“But I do so on the score of your old friendship with Mr. Carr. He is
absent or I should have referred the subject of my errand to him.”

“I appreciate your kindness. Pray be seated.” The old man sat down,
still smiling, and he brought the tips of his fingers together with his
characteristic gesture.

“Thank you; but I can’t stop. As I said before, my errand is a trifle
impertinent. You undoubtedly have your own counsel,--in Mr. Carr’s
absence.”

“Myself! I have enjoyed Mr. Carr’s advice through so many years that
I feel I have a fair knowledge of the law. We have both,”--and he
indicated Morris by a gesture--“we have both enjoyed the instruction of
an excellent preceptor,” and he bowed over his hands. “Well, sir!”

“I have just happened to learn of a deed given by you to the Patoka
Land and Improvement Company for a block of lots lying south of town.
Of course, it is a pure oversight, but you neglected to get an order of
court, approving the sale. I thought I would mention it to you. It is a
sale of some importance. And now I am sure you will pardon me.”

Morris turned toward the door, but the old man rose and extended his
hand.

“Ah,” he began, with a droll air of coquetry, “we _have_ had the
same preceptor! You have a capital eye, Mr. Leighton. I quite admire
it in you; and I thank you. I am aware of the provision you indicate.
But I have provided for it. The judge is away from home just now and
the gentlemen to whom I have sold were anxious to get title without
delay. It doesn’t look quite regular, I admit. My duties as trustee are
nearly at an end. Only a few days more of responsibility. We will make
a new deed if necessary,--but the purchaser will be protected. We are
all--all honorable men!”

“Very good, sir; I am sorry to have disturbed you,”--and Leighton went
out. Dameron’s manner had been odd; the old man had frequently spoken
to him at home, but usually with cold formality; but his greeting a
moment before had been with exuberant cordiality. Morris had never
quite made Dameron out, and he was not satisfied with an explanation
that the poorest lawyer at the Mariona bar would reject instantly. And
the old man had deliberately lied about the absence of the judge of the
court, whom Morris had seen but a few hours before.

Morris had often thought of the old man during the past year as of
a gray shadow that haunted Zelda Dameron, grim and despicable but
inevitably linked to the girl’s life. He must save Zelda from the
consequences of her father’s acts if he could. It was out of the
question for him to approach her with a warning against her father; but
he would go to her uncle; and he walked directly to Rodney Merriam’s
house in Seminary Square.

As the door closed on Leighton, Dameron went to an adjoining office and
asked a neighbor’s errand boy to carry a note for him. He scrawled a
few words bidding Balcomb come to the Dameron Block at once on urgent
business.

The bubble that Ezra Dameron had blown upon the air was near the end
of its perilous voyage. His dream of corn at a dollar a bushel--a
dream wrought of the filmiest shadows--was dispelled. The danger of a
great destruction of corn by mid-September frosts had passed. A member
of the Chicago firm of brokers through whom he had been trading, had
called that day, having paid a visit to Mariona merely to see what
manner of man it was who had cast money upon the waters so prodigally,
maintaining a fantastic dream of values at the expense of a small
fortune.

“This year--this year--the elements were against us, my dear sir;
but another year all will be well. There shall be no corn in Egypt,”
declared Dameron, shaking his head sagely.

And the broker went away mystified, but fully believing that another
man had gone mad over the great game. The contracts for October
delivery which Ezra Dameron had been carrying had availed him nothing.
Throughout the vast areas of the corn belt the security of the golden
yield was assured. The crop was enormous; there was no more chance of
corn going to a dollar than of the sun and moon reversing their places
and functions in the heavens.

Leighton’s call had made Dameron uneasy. He had squandered his own
property months before; and now Zelda’s estate was largely dissipated;
and he faced the necessity of rendering an account of his stewardship
within a few hours. Leighton undoubtedly knew something of the
transactions by which the real estate held by Ezra Dameron, trustee,
had been sold; and if Leighton knew, then Rodney Merriam, who was at
home again, would undoubtedly know at once. He must save himself; a
plan had formed in his mind by which he could hide his duplicity and
put off for a year--perhaps forever--the fact that the greater part of
Zelda’s property was gone. But first he must get into his own hands
the option he had given Balcomb for the sale of the creek strip. The
sale had hung fire unexpectedly; but he rejoiced that this property had
been saved until the last; he firmly believed that he should ultimately
bring back to the empty treasury the money he had thrown away; but
while he waited he must study more minutely the conditions that created
prices. In a short while, all would be well again; but he must retain
his hold upon what remained of Zelda’s property. Capital would be
necessary for his future operations. The creek strip must be saved and
held for a greater price than the option carried.

Balcomb came in looking a trifle annoyed.

“I wish you wouldn’t send for me at the busiest hour of my busiest day,
Mr. Dameron. I suppose you want to know about the purchase of the creek
strip. Well, we’re not quite ready to close it to-day. That’s a big
scheme and all our money isn’t paid in yet.”

“Then the option,--I must have back the option at once.” And the old
man spoke in a peremptory tone that was in marked contrast with the
mildly insistent note he had of late been using.

“Not at all, sir. That is a thirty-day option and has ten days longer
to run.”

“To be sure; but the trust expires to-morrow; I had no right to bind
the estate beyond my trusteeship. To-morrow is my daughter’s birthday.
My administration of her affairs is ended. I must trouble you to give
me the paper.”

“Not much, I won’t! We’ve been delayed for a few days; but you’ve got
to carry out the deal. That was part of the consideration when we
took your lots; and moreover you accepted money on the option. The
trusteeship doesn’t cut any ice. Of course, your daughter is morally,
if not legally, bound by your acts. I can’t stop any longer. Before
the tenth of October we’ll be ready to close, and meanwhile you’ll
please be good enough to remember that approval of the sale of those
lots. Some of these people we’re selling to may be silly enough to have
the title looked into,--and I don’t want any nonsense about it. You
remember I fixed all that with my company to please you,--merely to
get that option. My own hands are clean, you understand, if anything
happens. Good day, Mr. Dameron.”

“But wait,--I can’t do it; I must have that option--” began Dameron,
and there was a pitiful whine in his voice; but Balcomb went out and
slammed the door.

J. Arthur Balcomb had enjoyed a successful year. Things were running
smoothly with him; he had no doubt in the world that he could enforce
his option on the creek strip of land whenever he wished. He knew Zelda
Dameron, and he was quite convinced that she was not a girl to avoid
obligations incurred by her father.




CHAPTER XXIX

ZELDA FACES A CRISIS


Morris expected Rodney Merriam to manifest wrath and indignation at the
recital of Ezra Dameron’s ill-doing, but the old gentleman in Seminary
Square listened in silence, and at the end, with something more than
his usual urbanity, asked Morris to have a cigar. He filled a cob pipe
for himself, however, and this was always a sign, Morris had observed,
of inward perturbation.

“Well, what are we going to do about it?” asked Merriam, presently.

“That’s the rub--there’s not much of anything that you can do. The
trust is a wide-open thing. He isn’t required to report to anybody and
he gives no bond; but he must get the court’s approval before he sells
anything; and then he must reinvest the money in other realty. It is
significant that he has been selling at desperate prices toward the end
of his trusteeship. He must be hard up.”

Merriam had never spoken of his brother-in-law to Leighton except in
terms of respect, and he hesitated now.

“My sister’s idea in making that will,” he began quietly, “was to deal
generously with a blackguard. It was her pride. She had made a mistake.”

He paused and the blood rushed to his face. He was checking his wrath
with difficulty.

“He had ruined her life. We were all opposed to her marrying Ezra
Dameron; but she was not a child, but a grown woman. She left her
property to Zelda through him; and she wouldn’t admit to the rest of
us, even at the end, that she did not trust him. She doubtless thought
his avarice would protect her child.”

He blurted this out fiercely, with a certain shamefacedness, and then
paused abruptly and stared at Leighton. Why, he asked himself, was he
speaking thus to the son of Morris Leighton!

The situation angered him and his wrath kindled again as his memory
swept the past; but he controlled himself, and bent forward in his
chair.

“Morris, I’m not at all surprised or disappointed in him. I have never,
at any time since Zee came home, had the slightest idea that her
father would ever be able to turn over her property. I’ve been curious
to know just what excuse he would offer for failing to settle on the
day appointed. And I have hoped that he would fail,--that’s the truth
about it. I have hoped that if he were to prove himself a thief I might
get Zee to leave him. It hasn’t, perhaps, been creditable to my sense
of Christian duty that I have felt so; but I have wanted to get that
reptile at my mercy. I should like to show him mercy; it would be a
revenge worth living for,--to be merciful to that ugly hypocrite. Now,
just what has Ezra been doing?”

And as the old man relighted his pipe, its bowl spurted angry flashes.

“He’s been speculating in one thing and another. I don’t know to what
extent, but that’s what Copeland tells me. He has a way of knowing
things, you know. It was he that told me of the sale of those lots.”

Merriam threw back his head and laughed in a very disagreeable way.

“A gambler! Ezra a gambler! Well, I’ll be damned! I suppose, Morris,
that where a doctor knows that a man has inherited some sort of poison
that lies dormant in the blood, he constantly expects it to manifest
itself. He can’t tell just how it will break out, but he knows that it
will come; and some day he sees the first signs of it, probably with
a satisfaction in the thought that the business of nature proceeds so
inexorably. That’s the way I have felt about Ezra Dameron. I knew the
yellow streak was in him and that it would show up some day; but I’ll
be damned if I thought the bucket shops would get him.” And Rodney
Merriam laughed again in a way that made Leighton uncomfortable.

“Now, Morris, if you have anything to propose, we’ll consider it.”

“As near as I can make out, all the property that Mr. Dameron will be
able to turn over to his daughter will be the farm out here and the old
homestead and the creek property. He sold the Dameron Block about two
months ago. He has sold the original holdings and he has not bought any
other real property with the money, as the will provided. There is, you
know, no penalty for a non-performance of the obligations of the trust.
His needs have undoubtedly grown quite recently, for he has been doing
business with Balcomb,--fooling away the property. Maybe he’s insane!”

“Don’t be a fool; he’s sane enough; he’s a thief, that’s all!” declared
Rodney, irascibly.

“If Miss Dameron wished to take advantage of her rights she might have
this last sale set aside. I will undertake to do that.”

“And a nice lot of publicity we’d get out of it, too. No, sir, we won’t
do that sort of business. My family has lived in this town a good many
years; and some of us have been fools, and some of us have failed; but
Zelda has the right key. She’s pitched it pretty high; but we’ll keep
it at the same note, if we can. How much did he get for those lots?”

“Twenty thousand dollars; but no doubt my friend Balcomb kept a
handsome commission. I’ll rather enjoy settling with him.”

“He’s one of the jewels produced by our college, isn’t he?”

“He was the bright particular star of my class. He was well fitted
by nature to be a clerk in a rural general store, or more likely, a
barker for a circus side-show or the advance agent for a hair tonic.
His education ruined him. He has the smooth facility of the superficial
mind,--even showed some literary gift, and wrote the best essays in the
class.”

“I know the type. A short horse, soon curried.”

“There’s the option on that piece of ground out on the creek. It might
possibly be binding on Miss Dameron after the trusteeship has been
closed. Balcomb’s pretty smooth, and if the old man is in straits, you
can’t tell what he’ll do.”

“Let him blow it all in, Morris. I shall be disappointed if there’s a
cent left. He can have the money. I want the girl!”

[Illustration: _Rodney Merriam_]

“Balcomb is undoubtedly swindling his associates in the land company;
they are quite likely to squeal. Balcomb wouldn’t hesitate about
throwing the blame for any irregularity on Dameron.”

“Let him do it. What do we care for Dameron!”

“But I thought you wanted to avoid a scandal, for Miss Dameron’s
sake,--for all your sakes.”

“Yes; to be sure,” responded Merriam, more tamely. “Balcomb’s pretty
crooked, I’ve no doubt, but he couldn’t have taught Ezra Dameron any
cussedness. You needn’t try to mitigate this thing.”

“You know I’m not trying to. I want to do the best thing and the right
thing. You are not anxious for publicity.”

“Most certainly not.”

“We’ve got to approach Miss Dameron, and tell her the whole matter. It
is not a pleasant thing to do, but if we get her help--if that should
seem the best way--”

They were deeply engrossed and did not hear the bell or the Japanese
boy opening the front door.

“Uncle Rodney!”

Both men sprang to their feet. Zelda stood in the library door.

“Glad to see you, Zee,” said her uncle, quietly.

She looked from one to the other and nodded to Morris.

“You don’t look so awfully glad, I must say. If I’ve come in upon a
conspiracy I’ll take myself off. The gloom here is so thick you could
grow mushrooms in it.”

“I’m glad you happened in, Zee. There’s something I wish to speak to
you about. We may as well discuss it now; and if it’s agreeable to you,
I should like Mr. Leighton to stay. It’s a legal matter that we may
want him to advise us about.”

“You have a serious air. I hope you haven’t been breaking any laws, you
two. Certainly, Mr. Leighton may stay.”

“Sit down, Morris,” said Merriam, deliberately.

Zelda had taken a chair in the corner away from the smoldering fire,
and Merriam found the chair that he liked least, with an unformed idea
that such self-immolation fitted him better for an unpleasant task. He
did not begin immediately, and while he collected his thoughts Zelda
watched him with amusement.

“If you knew how funny you look, Uncle Rodney, I’m sure you’d laugh.
And you seem a little ultra-serious, too, Mr. Leighton. Please, uncle,
don’t scold me!”

“Yes. Yes, to be sure,” said Merriam, absent-mindedly, and Leighton and
Zelda exchanged a smile.

“I want to speak to you about your property. There are some things
connected with your affairs that you must know.”

“But father attends to everything--you’ll certainly waste your talents
on me. Do let us talk of something cheerful.”

But her uncle went on now, and she listened attentively.

“You know that your property, what your mother had and wished to give
to you, was left in trust. Your father is the trustee.”

“Yes, I know that.”

She bent forward in her chair, her hands clasped in her lap. She was
wholly composed and heedful.

“Your father’s powers have been absolute. He is not required to give
an accounting to any one--except, of course, to you, when he turns over
the property on your birthday--that is, to-morrow.”

“Yes, I believe to-morrow is the first of October. I understand
perfectly that mother wished me to know that she trusted father,--as
she expected me to trust him. That is all very simple.”

There was a little sting in this, as though she knew what was coming
and wished to warn her uncle to desist. He shot a sharp glance at the
girl from his black eyes and went on, patiently and kindly.

“That is all very well. Everything was left to your father’s
discretion, but there were a few minor requirements. In case he should
sell real estate, he was to get the approval of the court; and he was
to buy other real estate with whatever he realized.”

“That’s probably important, but not amusing. I really dropped in to
ask what you were going to give me for my birthday. I’m almost sorry I
came.”

“Your father has sold some of the real estate--”

“Of course. You escape a lot of trouble by not having real estate, so
father says,--taxes and all that. But once more, pardon me!”

The color was dying out of her face and she twisted her fingers
together nervously. Her heart was beating fiercely. It had come at
last,--this hour in which she must face an attack upon her father. She
had known that it would come, and she knew that she should meet it.
It angered her that the terms her uncle used were unfamiliar. Law and
business were unknown worlds to her. She again followed her uncle’s
recital closely; he was speaking with a sharp precision that he had
never used before in talking to her.

“Your father has sold a great deal of your property,” he repeated; “and
it appears that through neglect,”--he hesitated--“or forgetfulness, the
court’s approval was not secured in at least one case. Of course, this
can be corrected.”

He waited, to study his ground a little, and he glanced at Leighton, as
though to make sure that the young man had not deserted him.

“Father is a little forgetful sometimes,” said Zelda. “He isn’t a young
man, you must remember.” The sympathy with which she spoke made Merriam
uncomfortable; and Leighton moved uneasily. It was not a pleasant
task,--that of telling a young woman that her father was a rascal.

“But while the order of court can be procured and injury to the
purchaser prevented, there is another side of the matter that we must
consider.”

“Yes, uncle,”--and she smiled a little forlornly. She knew that she
should meet the blow bravely when it fell; but it hurt her now to feel
her uncle’s kindness.

“It hurts me,--Zelda, it hurts me more than I can tell you, to have to
say that all is not quite clear about this transaction. Your father has
sold at an extraordinary price. I fear that he is in difficulties. In
this real estate matter you have your remedy. It is of this that I wish
to speak particularly. It is only right that I should protect you if I
can.”

“You are very kind; you are always good to me, Uncle Rodney.”

“The failure to get the court’s approval of the sale of the real estate
makes it possible for us to save it--this one piece, maybe, though
nearly all the rest is gone--to get it back, perhaps. The situation
is not agreeable. Your father received the money and I am afraid he
has made--at least we are led to suspect--that he has made--ill use
of it. But we may find it possible to set this sale aside, or get an
additional sum from the purchaser,--”

Merriam was looking intently at the floor as he spoke these sentences.
He was aware suddenly that Zelda had risen and crossed the room until
she stood before him, with flaming cheeks and flashing eyes. He
unconsciously rose and drew away from her. It seemed to Leighton that
the air in the room grew tense. The girl stood between the two men, her
lips parted, one hand on the back of a chair.

“Uncle Rodney, I never thought that you would--insult me--in your own
house--under the pretense of kindness! I should like to know what you
gentlemen mean, and what you think I am--that I should listen to such
things from you! To think that I should be willing to take advantage
of the law to defraud some one, on the theory that my father was
defrauding me--stealing from me, I suppose you mean!”

“Zee, one moment--”

“No, sir! I shall hear no more from you. I never want to see you
again,--either of you!” She had spoken brokenly, and the last three
words came slowly, with a kind of hiss. “But before I go, I wish to say
something to you, to ease your feelings of pity for me. It was by my
request--and by my order--that father sold that property; and he gave
_me_ the money--do you understand?--gave _me_ the money for it--and I
have spent it--_all of it!_”

She was gone so quickly that the front door slammed on her last word,
as though to add to the contempt that it carried.

Merriam ran into the hall, calling her name, but when he opened the
door the iron gate was swinging violently, and she was walking rapidly
away. Leighton seized his coat and hat in the hall and sped after her.

“Bring her back!” the old man roared after him.

“Miss Dameron, I’m sorry: I am sure--”

“Will you kindly stop following me?” she said, wheeling upon Morris,
and then she turned and continued her flight; but Morris followed.
Zelda continued straight ahead and did not look back or speak to him
again, though she knew that he was behind her.

She continued up High Street to a cross-town thoroughfare that led
to the old Merriam house. There was something wholly uncompromising
in her walk; and her spirit, Morris declared to himself, was equally
unyielding. Her assumption of responsibility for her father’s acts had
amazed him, and in the cool air of the autumn evening he debated with
himself as to how much, if anything, she really knew of Ezra Dameron’s
affairs. It was a fine thing for her to have swept aside her uncle’s
charges, and her words repeated themselves over and over again in his
mind with thrilling effect. If it was merely a blind defense, to give
her time for thought or inquiry, she had managed it with amazing dash.

When she reached the old house, Zelda ran up the steps, and pulled the
bell. She did not turn her head, but Leighton stood, feeling the least
bit foolish, until the door opened and Zelda disappeared within.




CHAPTER XXX

“I WISH YOU WOULD NOT LIE TO ME”


Zelda had carried in her heart for weeks the fear of some such
disclosure as that which she had just heard from her uncle. In her
ignorance of business, she had not even vaguely guessed what had taken
so strong a hold upon her father. He had acted strangely during the
long summer, but she had attributed his vagaries to the infirmity of
years. His curious conduct in the country the night she met him with
Pollock had troubled her greatly, but she had spoken of it to no one.
He had seemed himself again. He had, indeed, treated her with something
more than his habitual deference since their return to town.

Zelda went at once to the living-room where her father usually sat with
his newspaper at this hour, but he had not come home; and she went up
to her own room, glad of a respite. She had acted her part so long; she
had defended him in her own heart and by her own acts; she had even
sought to clothe him in her thoughts with something of the dignity, the
nobility even, of honorable age; but this was now at an end. It was
clear that a crisis had been reached; and while the purely business
aspect of the situation did not trouble her at all, she felt that her
relations with her father could never again be the same. She had been
shielding him, not only from the contempt of her kindred, but from her
own distrust as well; and now that this was at an end, she went slowly
to her room with a new feeling of isolation in her heart.

She made a light and put aside her hat and coat with the studied care
that we give to little things in our perplexities. Then she unlocked
the drawer of her desk in which she kept her mother’s book. It opened
at the page that had meant so much to her, that had been her guide and
her command, and she pondered the sentences anew. When she heard her
father come in she went down in her street dress, with the little book
in her pocket, slowly and with no plan formed.

Dameron was on his knees before the living-room fire, and he started
slightly when he heard her step.

“It’s much cooler, Zee. We came in from the country just in time.”

“Yes, it is chilly to-night. It must be nearly time for heavy frosts.”

“Frost? Yes; it is time for a great frost. Yes; a deadly frost is due.
I am watching it; I am watching it,”--and he seemed to forget himself
for a moment and she looked at him wonderingly, not knowing what he
meant.

He stood with his back to the flame, his hands behind him, and regarded
Zelda warily, in a way that had grown habitual of late.

“Where have you been, Zee?” he asked.

“I went down to Zimmer’s to look at some pictures they are showing
there; and on my way home I stopped at Uncle Rodney’s.”

“Ah, yes; your Uncle Rodney. I haven’t seen him since he came home. I
trust he’s quite well.”

“Yes; he’s always well.”

“I believe that is so; but the life he has led is conducive to a
tranquil old age. He has led a life of ease, with no responsibilities.”

This was Dameron’s usual attitude toward his brother-in-law; there
was nothing to be gained by defending her uncle, and Zelda turned the
conversation into other channels. She had enjoyed her summer in many
ways and to mention the farm was always to give her father pleasure. He
followed her talk with relief. He saw with satisfaction that she was
simply dressed; he was afraid of her when she came to the table arrayed
in splendor, as she sometimes did, quite unaccountably.

He did not seek the evening paper with his wonted eagerness when they
returned to the sitting-room after dinner, but continued talking.

“There are some business matters that I should like to speak of
to-night, Zee.”

“Very well, father.”

“I have deferred this as long as possible, feeling that you would not
care to be troubled about business--even your own. I fully sympathize
with a woman’s dislike of it.”

He had brought his fingers to their apex and was speaking in a
pleasant, conciliatory tone.

“I’m sure I have no wish to learn business, father.”

“Quite right; you are a wise girl, Zee. A home-keeping heart is best
for a woman. One of our ministers was asked, many years ago, what he
thought of the movement for the emancipation of women. And he said
that his answer would be the answer of Abraham when the Lord asked him
where Sara was,--‘Behold, in the tent.’”

“I suppose the tent may have been a little lonely at times,” suggested
Zelda; and Dameron smiled and rubbed his hands.

“As to your own affairs, the trusteeship established by your dear
mother is nearly at an end. It expires by the limitations of your
mother’s will on your twenty-first birthday, that is, to-morrow.”

“Yes; I believe that is so.”

He looked at her quickly; he found her composure disquieting. Perhaps
Rodney Merriam had been giving her counsel!

“As we have just said,--and I was glad to find you agreeing with me,--a
woman does well to let business alone. There is an immense amount of
detail connected with an estate,--even a comparatively small one, like
your mother’s. There are many accounts to keep. I have kept them for
years in my own way. I am not an expert accountant, but I hope that my
work is accurate. At any time that you would like to examine the books,
I should be glad to aid you,--”

“Thank you,--yes, of course,” said Zelda, hurriedly. She had been
thinking of other things; but she now fixed her attention upon what her
father was saying.

“I have thought, Zee, that perhaps you would like to continue this
trusteeship. No one else understands the nature of the property so well
as I. I have given the best years of my life to studying it. The burden
is a considerable one for my years. I am nearing seventy; nearing the
three-score and ten of the scriptural allotment,--but if you would
like to have me go on, I should be willing to do so. Your dear mother
gave me her entire confidence; it would please me if I could feel that
your own trust in me was equally great.”

His appeal to her mother’s memory sickened her. She must have a little
time to consider. She saw no reason for haste in perfecting this new
arrangement, and she resolved to do nothing without consulting her
uncle.

“I suppose there is no hurry about it, father. It would be just as well
for me to go over the whole matter at the time of the change.” She
spoke carelessly, but a bitterness had begun to creep into her heart.
The contempt that she had smothered for a year now ceased to be a
smoldering ember and leaped into flame.

“I wished to propose that myself,” he replied, smiling. “And I will
tell you now what I had expected to conceal until your birthday, of
a little gift I am making you. I have placed two thousand dollars to
your credit at the bank. It is subject to your check. It is from my
own estate, of course. I should hardly make you a present of your own
money.”

He rose and paused for a moment, smiling down on her, and she lifted
her eyes to his.

“You are very kind; it is a handsome gift; but I think we’d better
put it into the new trusteeship. Then I shall not be tempted into
extravagances.”

He had expected some exuberant expression of pleasure; but she had
spoken coldly, and her manner troubled him. He took from the table a
brown paper parcel and opened it, carefully untying the knot in the
tape which had fastened it.

“I think you have never seen a copy of your mother’s will, Zee,--unless
perhaps your Uncle Rodney has shown it to you.”

“No; I have never seen it,” she answered.

He unfolded a copy of the last will and testament of Margaret Dameron
carefully, and then refolded it lengthwise to remove the creases for
greater convenience in examining it. He proceeded with an exaggerated
deliberation. A man likes to mystify a woman about business matters;
his own wisdom grows refulgent in the dark recesses of her ignorance.

“You had better ask the maid to excuse you if any one calls.”

She went to the kitchen and spoke to Polly. The telephone was on the
second floor, and she pondered a moment as to whether she should not
call her uncle. She prolonged her visit to the kitchen, talking to the
colored woman to give herself time to think. She had grown fond of
Polly and felt a grateful security in the knowledge that the woman was
in the house.

Dameron read his wife’s will through, and Zelda listened attentively,
though few of the terms meant anything to her, and the numbers of
lots and the names of additions, divisions and subdivisions were only
rigmarole. Her father paused now and then to make some comment on an
item, explaining more fully what was meant.

Either her uncle had deceived her or her father was lying; and she
knew that her uncle had told the truth. The situation cleared for her
slowly. His request for a continuation of the trusteeship veiled his
wish to keep her affairs in his own hands, without a break. It was a
clever plan and in an impersonal way she admired his audacity.

“You understand,” her father continued, “that the personal
property--that means stocks, bonds and so on--was to be sold and the
proceeds reinvested as I saw fit. It was necessary to change most of
it--I had no option in the matter. Your grandfather, Zee, had been
one of the early railroad builders in this part of the country, and
the original small independent lines have all been merged into great
systems. It should be a matter of pride to you that your grandfather
was a man so far-seeing and progressive. But now, his children and
their children derive the benefit. I recall,”--he dropped his paper
and looked at Zelda with a reminiscential air--“I recall that a
representative in Congress from our state was defeated for reëlection
back in the forties for voting an appropriation to aid Morse in his
experiments with the telegraph. They charged him with wasting the
people’s money. But times change, and men change with them!”

He sighed, and the thin leaves of his copy of the will rustled in his
fingers as he sought the place where he had dropped his reading. He
lingered over the words that described the nature of the trust. They
were very sweet to him, because they were at once a justification of
himself and a refutation of the slanders of his wife’s family. He knew,
too, that they gave emphasis to the suggestion that he was now making
to Zelda, that she renew the trusteeship. He wished to put this as much
as possible in the light of a favor to the girl.

“I am very sorry that my friend and counsel, Mr. Carr, is absent, as I
should like to have him prepare the new deed of trust. He is a man of
the highest probity. He is the ablest lawyer at our bar. You understand
that.”

“Yes; I know that he is a very able man.”

His joy in the knowledge that Michael Carr was far away in Italy at
this moment did not compensate for his anxiety at Zelda’s seeming
indifference. But he must not falter; he could not afford to lose now.
He continued with increasing deliberation.

“In Mr. Carr’s absence I have not thought it wise to take another
attorney into our confidence. I have prepared a deed of trust myself.
I copied from some of the best models. Such deeds are rather common
nowadays and I have consulted a number, the work of sound lawyers,
that are on record in our county offices. I have enumerated all the
property that is set forth in your mother’s will, with the difference
that I have given proper designations to items that have changed in the
natural course of things. Shall I read the deed?”

“Yes, please,” said Zelda. “I should like to hear it.”

He had, as he said, copied the form of a trust deed that was well-known
among local lawyers. As a trust deed it was absolutely above reproach,
save only that neither the property as described nor any equivalent for
the bulk of it was any longer in existence as a part of the estate of
Margaret Merriam Dameron.

Zelda sat inert, listening to the recital, as her father read with
deliberation and with due regard for the sonorous legal phrases. He
even read through the notarial certificate; and then he drew off his
glasses and settled back in his chair with a satisfied air. He hoped
that Zelda would discuss some of the provisions, or ask questions, so
that he might be assured that she suspected nothing.

“No doubt it all sounds very tedious to you, Zee, dear. But these
things are necessary. I have carefully weighed every word in that deed.
Its provisions are wise,--very wise, and safeguard the interests of the
beneficiary very strongly. Yes; it is an excellent piece of work,--but
of course I take no credit for it. I have merely given you the benefit
of the work of others,--all very competent men.”

Zelda said nothing. He rose and fumbled with the pen and ink that lay
on the table by the inkstand, while he waited for her to speak. The
silence grew oppressive; the girl had always responded quickly in their
talk. He turned, holding the pen in his hand.

“I suggest that you look the paper over before signing, Zee.”

He held the paper toward her, but she shook her head.

“Very well. I have read it to you carefully; and you can, of course,
have a copy at any time. It is perfectly proper for you to sign
to-night,--the day before your birthday; you can acknowledge it before
a notary to-morrow.”

He was smiling, but he held the pen toward her with a hand that shook
perceptibly.

Repulsion and pity struggled for the mastery as she pondered, looking
away from him into the fire. She felt that she could never meet his
eyes again; but she seemed to see them in the flames, the small gray
eyes that were so full of cunning and avarice. It was his deceit, his
effort to play upon her credulity, that stung her now into a fierce
contempt. She rose and turned toward him.

“I wish you would not lie to me, Ezra Dameron,” she said quietly, with
even the suggestion of a caress upon the syllables of his name.




CHAPTER XXXI

FACE TO FACE


The room was very still after she had spoken. Her father did not start
or look directly at her, but, after an interval of silence, he lifted
his eyes slowly until they met hers.

“You have lied to me,” Zelda repeated in the same passionless voice,
speaking as though she were saying some commonplace thing. “I
understand perfectly well why you wish to continue this trusteeship.
I shall be very glad to do what you ask; only we must understand each
other frankly. You must tell me the truth.”

He shrank down slowly into his chair, but his eyes did not leave her
face. His hands had ceased trembling, and he was quite himself.

“You don’t know,--you can’t know the enormity of what you are saying,
Zee. It must be some horrible joke.” He drew his hand across his eyes
as though to dispel a vision. “I have dealt with you generously,
considerately,--and this--you can not mean what you say.”

He waited as though he expected some word of contrition; but she still
stood with her eyes fastened on him, and there was no kindness in them.

“I have sought your own good. I have supposed you would be gratified to
continue--the trust--reposed in me--by your mother.”

“If you speak to me of my mother again I shall find some way of
punishing you,” she said, and there was still no passion in her voice.

“I suppose that when you are ready you will tell me what this
means--why you have turned against me in this way,” he began with a
simulation of anger. And then changing to a conciliatory tone: “Tell
me what it is that troubles you, Zee. I had hoped that you were very
happy here. I had flattered myself through the summer that ours was a
happy home. But if there is any way in which I have erred I am heartily
sorry.”

He bowed his head as though from the weight of his penitence, but he
was glad to escape her eyes. When he looked up again, he found her gaze
still bent upon him. He picked up the fallen pen and placed it on the
table beside the paper which he had asked her to sign.

“You are a tremendous fraud,” she said, with a smile in which there was
no mirth or pity. “You are immensely clever, and I suppose that because
I have some of your evil blood in me, I am a little bit clever, too.”

He rose in real anger and cried hoarsely:

“Zee! You forget yourself; you must be mad!”

“I am growing sane,” she answered. “I have been mad for a year, but
my reason has come back to me. I do not forget myself or that you are
my father; but I remember, too, that you are an evil man and that you
drove my mother into her grave. You killed her, with your pettiness and
your hypocrisy; you are just as much her murderer as though you had
slain her with a knife. But I beg of you, do not think that you can
play the same tactics with me. I don’t ask for the money that you have
squandered. It isn’t your being a thief that I hate; it’s your failure
to be a man! It’s the thought that you would betray the trust of the
dead--of my dead mother--that’s what I hate you for!”

He took a step toward her menacingly.

“You are either a fool or mad. You shall not talk to me so! You
have been listening to lies--infamous lies. Rodney Merriam has been
poisoning your mind against me. I shall hold him responsible; I shall
make him suffer. He has gone too far, too far. I shall have the law
upon him.”

She had rested her arm on the mantel-shelf, and she now leaned upon it,
but did not draw away from him as his eyes blazed into hers.

“You had better sit down,” she said without flinching. “I suppose
you used to talk to my mother this way and that you succeeded in
frightening her. But I am not afraid of you, Ezra Dameron. If you think
you can browbeat me into signing your deed, you have mistaken me. I was
never less scared in my life.”

When she spoke his name it slipped from her tongue lingeringly, and
fell upon him like a lash. In addressing him so, she cast off the idea
of kinship utterly; there was no tie of blood between them; and he
was simply a mean old man, despicable and contemptible, standing on
the brink of a pit that he had dug for himself, and feeling the earth
crumbling beneath his feet.

She went on, with no break in the impersonal tone to which her words
had been pitched in the beginning.

“You have so little sense of honor,--you are so utterly devoid of
anything that approaches honor and decency,--the hypocrisy in you is so
deep, that you can’t imagine that a man like my uncle would never seek
to prejudice me against you--my own father. Neither my uncle nor my
aunt has ever said a single unkind word to me of you. My aunt asked me
to go to live with her when we came home; but I refused to do it. And
I’m glad I did. This closer acquaintance has given me an opportunity
that was--in one of your hypocritical phrases--quite providential, of
learning you as though you were a child’s primer. You have been a very
bitter lesson, Ezra Dameron! My mother never rebelled, never lifted her
voice against you, and you supposed I should prove quite as easy; but
you see how mistaken you are!”

“This is a game--a plot to trap me. But it shall fail. My own child
shall not mock me.”

His old eyes gleamed angrily and his bent shoulders straightened; but
his hands were tremulous. He rested one of them on the mantel and drew
close to her again; but she went on relentlessly.

“Please sit down. I have something more to say to you. I have gone over
it in my heart a thousand times in this year of deceit. I believe I
have grown a good deal like you. It has been a positive pleasure for me
to act a part,--shielding you from the eyes of people who were anxious
for a breach between us. I know as I walk the streets and people say,
‘There is Ezra Dameron’s daughter,’ that they all pity me. They have
expected me to leave you. They have wondered that I should go on living
with you when every child in the community sneers at the sight of you
or the mention of your name.”

“Shame on you! Shame on you! This is beyond the pardon of God!”

“I suppose it _is_ a shameless thing to be saying to you; but I haven’t
finished yet. And you had better sit down. You are an old man and I
respect your years even though you are Ezra Dameron.”

His hand that lay on the mantel was trembling so that it beat the black
slate shelf uncontrollably. She waited, with the patience of a parent
in dealing with an erring child, until he turned and sat down.

“There _was_ some one that told me--that warned me against you. I had
hoped that it would never be necessary to tell you; but it gives me a
keener happiness than I dare try to express to tell you now.”

“Yes; yes; some liar,--an infamous liar,” he muttered, and he looked at
her with a sudden hope in his face. When he should learn who had come
between him and this girl he would exhaust the possibilities of revenge.

Zelda read the meaning of his look and she smiled a little, and stepped
to the table and turned up the lamp, and put his glasses within reach
of his hand.

“I shall not trust myself to tell you. I shall let you read for
yourself a few words, written by one who was not a liar.”

He watched her as she drew out the little red book, her talisman and
her guide. He turned it over curiously and then read, at the place
where she had opened:

“_They have told me to-day that I am going to die; but I have known
it for a long time. * * * Do for her what you would have done for
me. Do not let him kill the sweetness and gentleness in her. Keep her
away from him if you can; but do not let her know what I have suffered
from him. I have arranged for him to care for the property I have to
leave her, so that she may never feel that I did not trust him. He will
surely guard what belongs to her safely. * * * Perhaps I was unjust to
him; it may have been my fault; but if she can respect or love him I
wish it to be so._”

“You see there is no question of lying here. I found this--in a trunk
of mother’s, in the garret--quite accidentally, a few days after I came
home. It was intended for Uncle Rodney or Aunt Julia and not for me.”

He was silent for a moment, staring at the page before him and refusing
to meet her eyes.

She sat down and watched him across the table. Suddenly he laughed
shrilly, and slapped his hands together in glee.

“I might have known it; I might have known it! This is delightful; this
is rich beyond anything!” His mirth increased, and he rocked back and
forth, chuckling and beating his knees with his hands.

“Zee, Zee, my child,” he began amiably; “I am glad this has happened.
I am glad that there is an opportunity for me to right myself in your
eyes. I could not have asked anything better.”

He began to nod his head as was his way when pleased by the thought of
something he was about to say.

“Zee, the animus of this is clear. Your mother hated me,--”

“You needn’t tell me that! Her own testimony is enough, pitiful enough.”

“But the reason, the reason! I should never have told you. I have hoped
to keep it in my own bosom,--my lifelong shame and grief. But your
mother, your mother played me a base trick, the basest a woman can
play. She married me, loving another man. And I suffered, O God, how I
suffered for it!”

He lifted his head and raised his hands to heaven.

A sob leaped in her throat and tears sprang in her eyes as she rose and
bent toward him over the table.

“If you mention her again I shall punish you, Ezra Dameron.”

He did not heed her, but began speaking with a haste his tongue had
rarely known. The smile that forever haunted his lips vanished.

“She loved another man when she married me. I knew it well enough; but
I was glad to marry her on any terms. She was a beautiful woman,--a
very beautiful woman;” and the anger died suddenly from his eyes and
voice. Zelda wondered whether he was really touched by the thought of
her mother or whether the little flame of passion had merely burned
out. As he continued speaking she listened, as though he had been an
actor impersonating a part, and doing it ill, so that he presented no
illusion to her eyes. She was thinking, too, of her own future; of the
morrow in which she must plan her life anew. She thought of Morris
Leighton now, and with an intenseness that made her start when her
father spoke his name.

“You have been a better daughter to me than I could have asked. An
inscrutable Providence has ordered things strangely, but--” and he
chuckled and wagged his head, “but,--very wisely and satisfactorily. I
suppose your Uncle Rodney thought a marriage between you and his young
friend Leighton would be an admirable arrangement; but you have done as
I would have you do in rejecting him. Ah, I understood,--I was watching
you--I knew that you were leading him on to destroy him.”

“I should like to know what right you have to speak to me of such a
matter in such a tone. He is a gentleman.”

“He is; he is, indeed;” and Dameron laughed harshly. “He is a gentleman
beyond any doubt; but you refused him, just as I knew you would. The
force of heredity is very strong. You are a dutiful daughter; you even
anticipated my wishes. Your conduct is exemplary. I am delighted.”

“I think you are mad,” said Zelda, looking at him wonderingly. She
had begun to feel the strain of events of the few hours since she had
gone to her uncle’s house; she was utterly weary and her father’s
strange manner had awakened a fear in her. Perhaps he was really mad.
She walked toward the door; but he was timing his climax with a shrewd
cunning.

“When your mother was engaged to Morris Leighton, the elder,”--and he
paused, knowing that she had turned quickly and was staring at him with
wonder and dread in her eyes,--“when your mother was engaged to this
young man’s father,” he repeated, “your uncle was greatly pleased. But
she was not so easily caught!”

“You ought to know that I believe nothing you say,--not a word!” But in
her heart she felt a foreboding that this might be true.

“You should ask your uncle; or your Aunt Julia. Possibly we three are
the only people that remember. I should like to have you quite sure
about it, now that you have decided not to marry the son,”--and he
laughed with ugly glee.

The front door-bell rang out harshly, and the old man sprang up:

“You are not at home; you must see no one.”

Polly’s step was heard in the back hall.

“Never mind, Polly. I’ll answer the door,” said Zelda. The sight of any
other face than that of her father would be a relief; but it was nine
o’clock, an hour at which no one ever called. She expected nothing more
than a brief parley with a messenger boy.

“Pardon me, Miss Dameron--”

Leighton stood on the step with his hat in his hand. He had been
wandering about the streets since he left her, afraid to return to
report to Rodney Merriam. He had passed the Dameron house a dozen
times, held to the neighborhood by a feeling that Zelda might need his
protection; and he finally stopped and rang in a tumult of hope that he
might see her again and reassure himself of her safety. As he stepped
into the hall, he saw Ezra Dameron peering at him from the living-room
door.

“Good evening, Mr. Dameron,” said Leighton. The old man turned back to
the table and his papers without reply; but he listened intently.

“I was passing,” said Leighton, truthfully, “and I remembered a message
that Mrs. Copeland gave me for you this afternoon, and I’m sorry to say
I forgot about it until now.”

He looked at her, smiling; she understood well enough why he had come.

“Please put off your coat and come in. We are alone, father and I,
having a quiet evening at home!”

“Thank you; I can’t stop; but Mrs. Copeland wished me to ask you to
come in to-morrow afternoon. She has an unexpected guest,--a friend
from Boston,--and you know she likes everybody to appreciate her
friends!”

“Thank you, very much. I shall come if I possibly can.”

She knew that Mrs. Copeland had intrusted Leighton with no such
message, for she was on telephonic terms with Zelda, and Morris
Leighton was of rather heroic proportions for an errand boy.

“Mrs. Copeland would never forgive me if I forgot,” said Morris,
wishing to prolong his moment at the door.

“I shall come if I can,” said Zelda, raising her voice slightly, so
that her father might hear.

“And I apologize again for disturbing you. But I feared Mrs. Copeland’s
wrath;” and Morris grinned rather foolishly.

“You are a faithful messenger, and I thank you very much,” said Zelda,
formally; but when the door closed on him and she heard his step on the
walk the tears sprang to her eyes in her joy at the thought that he had
remembered!

When she went back to her father he was poring over his papers at the
table.

“It was that Leighton fellow,” he said, looking up.

“Yes; it was Mr. Leighton,” said Zelda.

“I don’t like him,” said Dameron, sharply.

“I’m very sorry,” said Zelda.

“I don’t like him,” the old man repeated; and he did not raise his
eyes, but kept them upon the papers.

“What dreadful liars we are, you and I, Ezra Dameron,” she said, going
back to her old post by the mantel.

“You have used language to me that is infamous, blasphemous, from a
child to a father.”

“Very likely,” she said; “but I can’t discuss these things with you any
further.”

Leighton’s appearance had broken the spell; it had given her new
courage and assurance, though it had not lifted the burden from her
heart. Her father was loath to part with her; there was the extension
of the trusteeship to be effected; he was about to make an appeal to
her, to throw himself on her mercy, when she said, half-turning to go:

“You need not be afraid--I will sign your deed. And I have not the
slightest idea of holding you to account for any of your acts.
Only,--only,”--and her eyes filled and her voice broke,--“only you must
never speak my mother’s name to me again!”

“Yes; yes; I understand,” he said absently; though it was clear that he
did not know what she meant.

She turned and looked at him musingly, with a composure that was
complete; but a barrier in her heart broke down suddenly.

“My girlhood, the beautiful ignorance of life, has all gone now. It
began to go as soon as I came home to live with you; but I wish--I
wish--it had not gone--so wretchedly, so cruelly. Good night.”

She spoke with difficulty, and he saw that she was deeply moved; and
even after the rustle of her skirts had died away in the hall above he
stood looking after her, and listening and wondering. Then he opened a
bundle of papers containing his computations and bent over them in deep
absorption.

“She will sign it; she will sign it,” he repeated, though he did not
raise his head.

When twelve o’clock struck he went to the front doorstep and looked up
through the boughs of the cedars to the great host of stars. He gazed
long, muttering as though at prayer, while the night wind blew upon him
until he was chilled.

“The frost, the frost, it will cut it down, the corn, the corn, the
beautiful corn! But it is too late, too late!”

He went in and closed the door, muttering, “The corn! the corn!”




CHAPTER XXXII

IN SEMINARY SQUARE


At midnight Leighton sat in the old house in Seminary Square debating
the situation with Rodney Merriam.

“What we said to her here this afternoon evidently failed to arouse
her. She either doesn’t understand, or she doesn’t care.”

“She understands perfectly,” said Merriam; “but it’s quite like her to
wish to shield him. Her mother did it before her. It’s a shame for the
money to have gone so; but it was inevitable, and I’m glad it’s over
now.”

“If it _is_ over--something might be saved for her.”

“We’ll let it all go. She’d better be a beggar than have her father
published as a felon. Whatever I have shall be hers; and there’s my
sister, with no one else to care for. The dread of her father’s doing
something to disgrace her and all of us has hung over me all the year;
I’m glad we’ve reached a crisis. She is like her mother; yes; she is
like Margaret. Ah, Morris! it seems to me that I have seen nothing but
failure in this world.”

Morris was silent. Rodney Merriam was growing old and the thought of it
touched him deeply, for Rodney Merriam was his best friend, a comrade,
an elder brother, who stood to him for manliness and courage, much as
Carr represented in his eyes scholarship and professional attainment.

“You never saw Zelda’s mother?” asked Merriam, presently.

“No.”

“You never knew anything of her life?”

“No,” said Leighton. The old man’s head was bent and he did not look at
Leighton; but the young man saw that he was moved by some memory.

“Your father and my sister were once engaged to be married,” said
Merriam, still not looking up. He was silent for an interval.

“I never knew,” said Leighton. “I never had the slightest idea of it.”

“I knew you did not know; and Zee does not know, and she mustn’t know.
It’s too bad, Morris, that we can’t order our lives as they should be.
Mine is a failure. I am sixty years old; and I am not only a failure,
but the people I have tried to help I have injured.” He spoke bitterly.

“No, no; you must not talk so. If you have done half as much for any
one else as for me,--”

“I have done nothing for you,--or for Zee, and I have tried to help
her. I have wanted--I have wanted very much for you to care for each
other. It’s like an echo of an old story. All that I ask now is that
you will bear me no ill will when I have gone. I have done the best I
could.”

“Please don’t! There’s no reason why you shouldn’t stay in the world
for many years to come.”

“We don’t say ‘many years’ when we have passed sixty. Your father was
my intimate friend, Morris. We were boys together at college,--it’s
your college and mine, too. I’m glad you went there. Your father would
have liked it so. Some of the fellows who taught us, taught you. When
you saw them you saw gentlemen and scholars. They gave up the chance
of greater things to stay there among the elms and maples of the old
campus. God never made finer gentlemen!

“Your father and I were seniors at Tippecanoe when the Civil War came.
Your father rose from the ranks to be a colonel. My own affairs didn’t
prosper; but that’s all over now,”--and the old man sighed. “After the
war it didn’t seem worth while to go back to school, but your father
finished, and stayed there in Tippecanoe where he was born, and studied
law. I tried the law here, but it wouldn’t go; the war had spoiled
me--I failed there, as everywhere. My father died and left me enough
to live on, and a little more; so I’ve never done a single thing to my
credit from beginning to end.”

He was speaking brokenly, in a way that was new to him. He felt
helplessly about on the table for the safety match-holder, and Leighton
sprang up and handed him a light,--something that he had never before
felt that he dare do. No one ever held Rodney Merriam’s coat for him,
any more than one patted him on the back.

“At the end of our war, the Maximilian affair was on in Mexico and I
wanted to have a hand in it. When I came back your father had moved
here. He was an ambitious man. There was every likelihood of his taking
a high place at the bar; and he had, too, a taste for politics. He
could hardly have failed to receive substantial rewards, for everything
went to the soldiers in those days. Then he met my sister. She was the
youngest member of our family,--only a girl at the end of the war. She
was a very beautiful woman, Morris. She and Zee are much alike; but
Zee has marked traits of her own. I don’t quite account for them. Her
mother was a quick-witted woman, well educated for her day. Zee is more
a woman of the world than her mother was and she has more spirit.”

Merriam opened a drawer in his table and drew out a miniature painted
on porcelain. He put on his spectacles and studied it intently for a
moment before handing it to Leighton.

“The old-fashioned way of wearing the hair makes a difference; but to
all intents and purposes this is Zee. As Margaret was our youngest, we
had a little different feeling about her. I had--I was the oldest--and
the rest of them had. She had known no trouble; she was light of
heart,--the brightest and cheeriest girl in town; and there seemed no
reason why she should not marry happily and never know care or trouble.
It was understood in the family that they were to be married, though
there was never any formal announcement. Your father meanwhile was
establishing himself. Then Margaret went East to visit a friend of
hers. That was thirty years ago. I was going to Washington to appear
before an army board that was investigating some claims that grew out
of the war, and I went with her and left her in New York. We made a
fine lark of the trip. When I left her with her friends I said, ‘Don’t
forget Morris; he’s back there working for you.’

“My errand in Washington kept me longer than I expected. Margaret went
home alone finally, and when I got back, a little later, I found that
it was all off between her and your father. The girl had never been
away from home before, and the people she visited put her through
lively paces. It was easy to admire her, and the admiration from
strangers went to her head. Mariona wasn’t very gay in those days,
and Margaret had missed a good deal of the social life that she was
entitled to.”

The old man paused, lost in thought, and Morris was glad of the
silence. He was trying to construct for himself the past,--to see his
father as Rodney Merriam had painted him, and to see, too, Margaret
Merriam as she had been when his father knew and loved her.

Merriam was feeling about for matches,--a sign that he was ready to
resume; and Morris again struck a light for him.

“There’s no use going into it. She stopped writing to your father
without any warning that she had changed. She was completely carried
away with the excitement of her New York experiences. Morris came to
Washington and asked me what to do, and I sent him to New York to see
her and fix it up; but it did no good. She was not ready to settle
down yet a while, she told him. I supposed it would all come right,
for I had faith in her. She was a true-hearted, gentle woman, but she
was proud and headstrong; and your father had his pride, too. I don’t
blame him for taking it hard. He closed his office here and went back
to Tippecanoe. I don’t believe they ever saw each other again. When she
came home she was her old self; she had been having her fling, and she
didn’t understand that the same glamour hadn’t blinded all of us.

“She really expected your father to meet her on the old footing. She
had cared for him a great deal, and it was the first great shock of
her life to find that a man whose heart she had trifled with did not
seek her again when she was ready for him. But it had cut into him
deep; your father took things hard. It was temperamental, I suppose. I
was a loser, too, in all this. I lost the first and best friend I ever
had. I rarely saw him after that. He stayed close to the old college
town. He made himself its best lawyer. He was sent to the legislature
and Congress. He went just so far in politics and then stopped. I
always had an idea that he was merely testing his powers. He wanted to
see what he could do; and finding that he could make it go, he decided
that it wasn’t worth the candle.”

Merriam rose, threw away his cigar and filled his pipe.

“It doesn’t seem quite square to be telling you this. I had never
expected to tell you. I shouldn’t be telling you now if it hadn’t
been,--if it hadn’t been--”

He crossed to where Morris sat and put his hand on the young man’s
shoulder.

“Yes; I know,” said Morris,--“please don’t say it;” knowing that it was
of Zelda that Merriam was thinking.

“My sister never let us know by any conscious sign that she had any
regrets. There was a great spirit in her. She was a thoroughbred. She
was a wonderful woman. But as the years passed, I think she tired of
the strain of playing a part. Your father was getting on; his name was
a good deal in the newspapers in those days. Then suddenly came the
news of his marriage. You know all this. Your mother was a Maryland
woman whom he met in Washington. Up to that time I think Margaret
always thought he would come back to her. She had offers to marry
repeatedly, but she stayed at home up there in the old house until our
father and mother died. I always had the curse,--the _Wanderlust_. I
sometimes wake up in the morning, even now, with a mad sort of hunger
to be moving. I’ve put all my maps in the garret. The very sight of one
makes me want to pack my trunk. But I’m getting old and I don’t want to
be shipped home in a box.

“I’ll finish my story. I went away for a long trip late in the
seventies, and when I got back my sister was about to be married,--to
Ezra Dameron. He had lived here for a good many years. He was one
of those psalm-singing fellows who build their lives on the church,
and have a smile for everybody. I had never known him well--he is
somewhat my senior--and was much older than my sister. He was a
fairly presentable man in those days,--the old clothes and hatchet
and nails came later. He had an established business and was an
eminently respectable citizen. You know the rest of the story. My
mind’s wandering to-night. I’m getting old and I don’t see anything
very cheerful ahead and mighty little that’s pleasant behind. I’m a
failure,--only, I hope, not a very conspicuous one. I never tried very
hard. But at times I’ve had some fun.”

“You are hard on yourself. It’s a bad frame of mind to get into.”

“But the frame’s hung,--and the picture isn’t attractive. One of these
days the wire will break and the whole thing will go to smash.” And the
old man laughed at the conceit.

“My father told me once that you were the finest man he had ever known.
I remember it very well. I was a kid at the time, playing one afternoon
on the hillside over at Tippecanoe, where we lived. It was Fourth of
July, the first one I remember much about. Father got out his sword for
me to play with; he told me you had given it to him.”

“He hadn’t forgotten?” and Merriam smiled in a gentle, sweet way that
made something very like tears come into Leighton’s eyes. “He hadn’t
forgotten?” the old man repeated. “God! It was after Shiloh,--and that
was yesterday!”

“He talked about you often. The war had meant a great deal to him. But
I could never get him to talk to me about himself. I used to ask him
for war stories, but he always put me off.”

“Most of the old fellows who really saw service felt that way, Morris.
War isn’t funny. It’s what Sherman said it was! Now, I’ve said things
to you, my boy, that I never meant to say to any one. I hope you won’t
think hard of me for telling you of your father and my sister. But ever
since I’ve known you, I’ve thought about it constantly,--your mother
may know about Margaret Merriam. It was like your father to tell her. I
have never seen your mother, but I hope that sometime I may know her.
I may get over to commencement with you next year. They’ve put up a
tablet for the Tippecanoe men who went to the war. And our names are in
the big monument down here. It’s glory enough!”

“Yes, I hope you will go over to Tippecanoe with me sometime. Mother
will be glad to see you.” He hesitated a moment, and added, the words
coming slowly:

“My mother is the dearest woman in the world. She has made every
sacrifice for me. I feel guilty these days about not having her here
with me; but that will come later. You know I always go over to spend
every other Sunday with her. If I prosper I’ll have a house here some
day, so we can be together.”

“I’m not afraid but that you will do what is right. You are the son of
your father. I don’t believe you take things as hard as he did. Don’t
do it. And don’t remember what I have told you to-night. It’s a queer
story. And it hasn’t any moral at all. Your father missed something out
of his life,--the fine ardor of his younger manhood, maybe. But he had
your mother and he had you. It wasn’t he that was punished.”

He was silent a moment, and then blurted out:

“What does Zelda think of Pollock?”

“I don’t know!” Morris rose and walked the length of the room.

“What does she think of you, then?” demanded Merriam, looking directly
at Morris.

“I think she hates me,” said Morris. He turned and left the house
abruptly, leaving the old man alone with his memories.




CHAPTER XXXIII

THE FIRST OF OCTOBER


The old Dameron house had known much of the pain and joy of life.
Merriams had been born and had died there; but the tumult of spirit
that shook it on the last night of September was of a new and
disquieting order.

Zelda closed the door and sat down at her desk by the window. She went
over the interview with her father sentence by sentence, with surprise
that she could remember so well; and a kind of terror possessed her,
now that she saw the hideousness of it all. One sentence rang in her
head over and over again, like a tolling bell; and she could see at
every repetition the angry light that had flashed in her father’s eyes:

“_I wish you would not lie to me, Ezra Dameron!_”

She doubted whether she had really said it; but it continued to taunt
her. She tested her memory by omitting his name at the end; but back
it came again and again; and the name with its deep insult, its ugly
disavowal of their kinship, was always the climax of every sentence.

“_Ezra Dameron!_”

In her memory it rose at the end just as it had risen and clung in
the room below as she had spoken it. It seemed to her that it must be
ringing across the night; and it was all wrong, wrong, wrong! She
bowed her head in her hands and wept.

She grew calm again as the night wore on. It seemed that she had been
there in the dark room for an eternity when she heard a clock strike
midnight in one of the lower rooms. She threw up a shade and looked
out, finding in the lights of the streets and houses a grateful contact
with the outer world. In a house that she identified she saw a light
in the room of a girl she knew very well; and she fell to wondering
about this friend, whose father was a well-known man of affairs,--whose
name none spoke but to praise. She felt the sob coming into her throat,
and drew down the blind as though to shut out the mockery the thought
awakened of her own father.

“_I wish you would not lie to me, Ezra Dameron!_”

She threw herself on the bed and lay for long, dreaming, wondering. She
thought of every place she had ever been, of every one she knew; and
little things long forgotten sped past in the running flood-tide of
memory.

At last she found a point of rest for her spirit. She needed help, and
it was her right to demand it of her uncle. She had led a false life
out of devotion to her mother’s memory, that no one might say that she
had been weak where her mother had been strong; but it was at an end
now. It would be a simple matter to leave the house at an early hour in
the morning and go to her uncle’s door, or she could summon him to come
to her; and while she debated which course she should adopt she fell
asleep.

The first gray light of the autumn morning was breaking when she awoke,
chilled and numbed. She was very tired from lying cramped in her
clothes on the bed, but she arranged the pillows on a couch, and lay
down on it, drawing a comforter about her.

Her thoughts found new channels. She watched the eastern window whiten
slowly and listened to the first tentative notes of traffic in the
street. She had been trying to avoid thinking of Morris Leighton, but
the thought of him was sweet in her heart. He had offered her his love
and she had repelled him, not as a woman may, with an honest denial,
but in a spirit of hard rejection of all that life and love meant. As
the dawn grew her thoughts sought little harbors of security and peace
that her love for him made; and she fell asleep as a child will, when
it has known a hurt in its little world, but finds oblivion at last
under the soothing touch of loving hands.

She woke as the little French clock in her room chimed seven, and as
she lay for a moment taking account of her surroundings, she heard a
step in the hall outside her door. It was her father; he stood by her
door an instant listening, and then passed on slowly to the stairway.

“_I wish you would not lie to me, Ezra Dameron!_”

The hateful words came back to her again! She had failed! This was the
thought that the morning brought; and as she rose from the couch her
mother’s book, with its fateful words, fell on the floor.

She caught it up and pressed it against her face.

“Mother! O mother!” she whispered. “Yes; I have failed; I have failed,”
she said.

And with the sense of failure dominant in her mind she made ready for
the day. It was her birthday; she was twenty-one, and that was very
old!

By the time she was ready to go down stairs to meet her father she saw
the whole matter in what seemed to her a sane, reasonable spirit; she
was even tranquil, as she sat for a moment at her dressing-table, her
hands clasped before her, pondering her course. She had put on a cloth
street-gown, and fastened a black stock at her throat. The little book
lay beside her and she carried it to her desk and put it away in the
drawer, where she had kept it since the morning a year ago, when it had
first fallen under her eyes in the garret. She had been false to its
charge; but that was past. She had failed; but she would begin again.

Her heart heat fast as she went down stairs. Her father sat in the
sitting-room as he always did, waiting for her to come to breakfast;
but as she stood upon the threshold, whence she had often called her
good morning, he did not look up from the newspaper with his usual
smile. She was touched by the pathos of his figure. He seemed older,
more shrunken; his profile, as the early light gave it to her, was less
hard. His lean cheeks had the touch of color they always wore in the
morning from his careful shaving, and his long hair was brushed back
with something more than its usual uncompromising smoothness. A certain
primness and rigidity in him which had often vexed her, struck only her
pity now.

“Father!”

He rose and turned toward her with a pathetic appeal in his eyes.

“Good morning, Zee,” he said. Habit was strong in him and they usually
went to breakfast as soon as she came down. He took a step now toward
the dining-room.

“Father, I wish to speak to you a moment,” she said kindly; and he
paused.

“I am sorry for what happened last night. I was not quite myself; I
said things that will always trouble me if you--unless you can forgive
me. I was wrong,--about everything. You must let me help, if I can help
you,--in any way.”

He said nothing, but stared at her.

“What angered me was that you weren’t quite frank, father. I didn’t
care about the money. It wasn’t that--but if things haven’t gone well
with you, I wish to share the burden. No,--I mean it,--that I am
sorry,--let us be quite good friends again.”

She went up to him quickly and took his hand.

“Father,” she said.

“Zee, my little girl,--my little girl,” he began brokenly, touching her
cheeks with trembling hands.

“Yes, father,” she said, wishing to help him.

“I have been very wicked; I have led a bad life. I must not harm you; I
am not fit--”

“You are my father,” she said, and touched his forehead with her lips,
wondering at herself.

She led him to the table and talked to him brightly on irrelevant
matters. The situation was now in her own hands and she would not fail
again. She usually visited the kitchen after breakfast to make her list
for the grocer; but this morning she went back to the sitting-room with
her father. The autumn morning was cool, and she bent and lighted the
fire.

“Now,” she said, rising quickly and smiling at him, “there are those
bothersome business matters that we were talking about last night. I
wish to sign that paper--”

He shook his head.

“You can’t do it, Zee. You have lighted the fire with it.” The deed had
been torn to pieces and thrown upon the kindling in the grate,--half
had already been destroyed.

“That is probably just as well. We shall make a new one,” she said,
in a matter-of-course tone. “I wish you would tell me, so that I may
understand, just what it is that has happened.”

“It’s a long story. I thought I should be able to make a great fortune
for you. It was my greed,--my greed.”

“Let us not use ugly words about ourselves, father. A great many people
lose their money. It isn’t so terribly tragic. Only,--there mustn’t be
any further trouble.”

“What I proposed about the deed was purely selfish--to shield myself.
It is a grave matter--I have betrayed you--I have betrayed your
mother’s trust. I have robbed you.”

“I haven’t been robbed, father, and I don’t intend that anybody shall
use such words to me. We shall make the deed; no one need ever know
that anything has happened.”

“You are kind; you are more than generous, Zee; but I was mad when I
asked you to re-create the trust last night. I am a bad man; I must
face my sins; I have lived a lying, evil life. I am a thief, worse than
a thief.”

“My father can’t be a thief,” she said.

“I am a thief,--your uncle will see that I am punished. And it will be
better so,--if only I did not drag you down, smirch your name.”

Her strength,--her readiness to meet the situation grew as she saw his
weakness.

“How bad is it, father; have we anything left? Don’t be afraid to tell
me. It’s concealment you must avoid. If we haven’t a thing--”

Her tone reassured him; he lifted his head with more courage.

“This house--the place in the country--they are free. They are yours
to-day. My investments,”--he hesitated and blinked at the word--“they
can not come back to injure you.”

“Then this house and the farm are still ours.”

“They are yours, not mine. I have wasted so much! It was a
fortune,--nearly half a million dollars when I began throwing it away.”

“I don’t believe that’s very much. When you haven’t a million
you’re,--you’re not in it!” and she laughed. “The loss of anything else
isn’t worth crying over. And then, you might have made a great deal
more out of it.”

He flinched, knowing how culpable he was; but her generosity and
kindness were lifting his spirit.

“I have given an option on a piece of ground--you may know it--out by
the creek, and have received a thousand dollars on account of it. It
may be binding on you. It grew out of my necessity. It is not fair for
me to talk to you of these things at all. You should take advice of
some one else,--just as though there were no sort of tie between us.”

“We are not going to do it that way,” said Zelda, decisively. “We are
going to understand this between ourselves. Now this strip of ground
that has been practically sold. What is there about that?”

“The money should be returned, or offered to them. Balcomb was managing
it--”

“Mr. Jack Balcomb?--then of course it wasn’t regular.”

“It was my fault, Zee.”

“I don’t believe it. He was contriving a pitfall,--that is what might
have been expected of him. And he came to our house and pretended to be
our friend!”

“Yes; he pretended that; but I pretended much more. Deceit is something
that feeds on itself.”

He repeated the words, “It feeds on itself,” as though he found
satisfaction in them. He was quite willing now to yield everything to
Zelda’s hands. The very way in which she asked questions was a relief
to him.

“Mr. Balcomb gave you a thousand dollars to bind a bargain--is that
what they call it?--for the sale of the creek strip. I think I
understand that. But are there debts,--are there other things that must
be paid? And if we still have two houses we can get money for them. We
must face the whole matter now,--please keep nothing back.”

“I have told you everything. I have squandered your money in
speculations,--gambling is the name for it; but I have kept the farm
and this house, untouched. Everything else has gone and I have given an
option for the sale of that strip of ground on the creek. And I sold a
block of lots belonging to you, in an irregular way. I could not sell
property without an order of court--that was required by your mother’s
will; but my necessities were great, and Balcomb arranged an abstract
to suit himself--but I let him do it. I am the guilty one; it is my
crime.”

“Let us not use unpleasant words. It’s my birthday. I’m quite grown up
and you must let me help--or find help!”

“Yes; but not Rodney; not your uncle,” he said hurriedly. “He is
violent, very violent. He would have no mercy on me. And I am an old
man, and broken, very badly broken.”

He settled back in his chair despairingly.

“I shall have to tell Uncle Rodney; but you need have no fear of him, I
promise you that.”

“He is very violent,--he and I have never been friends.”

“You imagine that. I shall take care of him. He and I understand each
other perfectly,” she added, and smiled to herself.

“Mr. Carr is your lawyer, isn’t he?” she asked.

“Yes; but he has been away. I took advantage of his absence to do
things he would never have countenanced.”

“There is Mr. Leighton.”

“No, no, not that man!” She had tried to avoid any reference to the
interview of the night before, but the mention of Leighton’s name
brought the whole wretched scene clearly before her again. It was he,
more than her uncle, that she relied on.

“I’m sorry you feel toward him as you do, father. I believe that we
might trust him. I look upon him as a friend.”

Ezra Dameron was weak and the talk was wearying him. He closed his eyes
and rested his head on the back of the chair, moving it from side to
side restlessly.

He was silent for a moment; then he brought his eyes to bear on her.

“Zee,” he began haltingly,--“Zee, I’m sorry I spoke of him as I did. I
was quite out of my senses. He is a fine, manly fellow.”

“Don’t trouble about anything, father,” she said, and went to her room
for her wraps.

Ezra Dameron was beaten and he was not heroic in defeat. He was stunned
by the failure of his gambling operations. He had lived so entirely
in dreams for a year that it was difficult for him to realize the
broad daylight of a workaday world. Echoes of the harsh things that
had passed between him and the child of his own blood but a few hours
before still haunted him. She had summoned the apparition of her dead
mother and had called him a liar; and he had insulted her in the
harshest terms he knew; but he was now leaning upon her helplessly.
He did not know, and he could not understand, the motives that were
prompting her. He had thrown away her money, and she did not arraign
him for it; she was even devising means of covering up his ill-doings;
and the fact that one could overlook and pardon the loss of a fortune
was utterly beyond his comprehension.

When she came down, her father was still sitting as she had left him,
with a look of unutterable dejection on his face.

“You won’t go out to-day,--of course!”

“What? No! no! My business is over. If they come for me they will find
me here,--here--at home,” he said wearily.

His smile, the smile that had been hard to bear, was gone.

“Try to cheer up,” she said, resting her hand on his shoulder for a
moment. “Don’t talk to anybody about business of any kind. I’m going
down to uncle’s; and you needn’t be afraid of him, or of anybody.”

She went to the telephone and called her uncle’s number.

“Tell Mr. Merriam that Miss Dameron is coming to his house at once,”
she said to the Japanese boy who answered.




CHAPTER XXXIV

A NEW UNDERSTANDING


Rodney Merriam opened the door and greeted Zelda cheerily.

“Am I not the early bird?” she demanded, walking into the library and
flinging at its owner her usual comment on its eternal odor of tobacco.

“I’ve been here early in the morning and late at night, _mon oncle_,
and it’s always the same. I’m glad to see a cigar this morning. It’s
the pipe that I protest against. You’re sure to have a tobacco heart if
you keep it up.”

“You’re a trifle censorious, as usual,” said Merriam, looking at her
keenly. “How can I earn your praise? Do you confer a medal for good
conduct,--I’d like one with a red ribbon.”

“I shan’t buy the ribbon till you show signs of improvement. I had
hoped that you would congratulate me in genial and cheering words. It’s
my birthday, I would have you know.”

“At my age,--”

“You’ve said that frequently since we got acquainted.”

“As I was saying, at my age, birthdays don’t seem so dreadfully
important. But I congratulate you with all my heart,” he added
sincerely, and with the touch of manner that was always charming in him.

“Thank you. And if you have--any gifts?”

He marveled at her. He had rarely seen her more cheerful, more
mockingly herself; and he was proud of her. He had told her a few hours
before that her father was a scoundrel, and she had left his house in a
rage. She could now come back as though nothing had happened. She was a
Merriam, he said to himself, and his heart warmed to her anew.

He drew out the drawer of his desk.

“Of course I haven’t any gift for you; but there’s some rubbish
here--hardly worth considering--that I wish you’d carry away with you.”

He took out a little jeweler’s box and handed it to her.

“I’ve rarely been so perturbed,” she said. “May I open it now, or must
I wait till I get home,--as they used to tell me when I was younger.”

“If you’re interested in an old man’s taste, you may open it. I’m
prepared to see you disappointed, so you needn’t pretend you like it.”

She bent over the gift with the eagerness of a child, and pressed the
catch. A string of pearls fell into her lap and she exclaimed over them
joyously:

“Rubbish, did you say? Verily, I, that was poor, am rich!”

She threw the chain about her neck and ran it through her fingers
hurriedly; then she brushed the white hair from Rodney Merriam’s
forehead and kissed him.

[Illustration: _Zelda_]

“You dear: you delicious old dear! I know you hate to be thanked--”

“But I can stand being kissed. Put those things away now; and don’t
forget to take care of them. You can give them to your granddaughter on
her wedding day.”

“I can’t imagine doing anything so foolish. I can see myself cutting
her off without a pearl.”

The suggestion of poverty carried an irony to the mind of both. Her
father was a rascal, who had swindled her out of practically all of
her fortune. He was a lying hypocrite, Merriam said to himself; and
here was his daughter as calm and cheerful as though there were no such
thing as unhappiness in the world. His admiration and affection rose to
high tide as he played with the pipe that lay by his hand on the table.

“Smoke it if you like,” said Zelda. “This curse of habit, how it does
take hold of a man! But a man who gives pearls away in bunches,--well,
he may make a smoke-house of his castle if he likes.”

“The smoke-house suggestion isn’t pleasant, my child. Pearls are spoken
of usually as being cast before animals whose ultimate destination is
the smoke-house. Please be careful of your language.”

“I don’t care to be roasted or smoked. I have come to talk business and
I wish you to deal graciously with me, as becomes the noblest uncle in
the world in dealing with his young and wayward niece.”

He filled the pipe from a jar, and she grew grave, watching him press
the crinkled bits of dusky gold into the bowl, for now she must talk
of her father and her own affairs seriously. The light of the match
flamed up and lit the stern lines of Rodney Merriam’s fine old face.
He threw the stick into a tray.

“Yes, Zee,” he said very kindly.

“I’m sorry if I seemed a little--precipitate--yesterday. But it was all
new and strange. And I have known that you did not like father. You
will overlook whatever I did and said yesterday, won’t you?”

There was a note of real distress in her voice.

“It’s a good plan to begin the world over every morning. I want to help
you in any way I can, Zee. I began at the wrong end yesterday. The
fault was all mine!”

“Father and I have had a long talk about his business. He approached
it last night on his own account. I have told him that I was coming to
you.”

“Yes; it is better to have told him that.”

She felt quite at her ease, and his kindness encouraged her.

“Father has met with misfortune. He has told me frankly about it: he
speculated with the money that belonged to me--and the money is all
gone.”

“Yes; I am not surprised.”

“There is the house we live in and the farm,--they are still free. He
says they belong to me.”

“If he has not pledged them for debt in any way, they pass to your
possession to-day. They are yours now.”

“Yes; I understand about that. This is my fateful birthday;” and she
smiled.

He smoked in silence, wondering at her.

“But there are some things that are not quite right. Father has told me
about them. There is something about an order of court, which affects
a piece of property that he has sold through this Mr. Balcomb. Father
takes all the blame for that. I suppose that is what you wished to tell
me last night. But I’m glad I heard it from father. I hope you will
not be hard on him. He has talked to me in an honorable spirit that,
that--I respect very much.”

The sob was again seeking a place in her throat and her eyes
filled, but she looked straight at her uncle till the old man grew
uncomfortable, and stared at the bronze bust of Abraham Lincoln on the
mantel and wished that all men were honest, and all women as fine as
this girl.

“Uncle Rodney, I wish to protect father fully in every way from any
injury that might come to him for what he has done. I understand
perfectly that it was a large sum of money that he lost; but he is an
old man and he was doing the best he could.”

The color climbed into Merriam’s face and he smoked furiously. The idea
that Ezra Dameron had done the best he could, when he had sunk to the
level of a common gambler, wakened the wrath against his brother-in-law
that was always slumbering in his heart.

“Zee!” he exclaimed, suddenly appearing through his cloud of
smoke,--“Zee, he isn’t worth it!”

“Please don’t!”--and the sob clutched her throat again--“I didn’t come
to ask what it was worth; but to get you to help me.”

“Yes. Yes; to be sure. It must be done your way,” he replied quickly.

“But it’s the right way. Now I want you to tell me what to do. People
have bought property of my father, and he failed to get the approval
of the court. I’m not sure that it was his fault,--it must have been
Mr. Balcomb’s way of doing it. But it makes no difference, and father
takes all the blame. Now a title given in this way is not right,--is
that what you say?”

“We say usually that titles are good or bad,”--and he smiled at her.

“But there must be a way of making this good.”

“Yes; perhaps several ways. That is for a lawyer. You are the only
person that could take advantage of an omission of that sort, I
suppose.”

“That is what I wish to know. And it wouldn’t be very much trouble to
make it right.”

“We must ask a lawyer. Morris understands about it. He is considered a
good man in the profession. The advantage of calling on him is that he
is a friend and knows Balcomb.”

“I told father I might ask Mr. Leighton to help us.”

Rodney looked at her quickly. Ezra Dameron, Zelda his daughter, and
Morris Leighton! The combination suggested unhappy thoughts.

“Morris is coming up this morning. He said eleven, and he’s usually
on time. That’s one of the good things about Morris. He keeps his
appointments!”

“I imagine he would. Uncle Rodney, I’m going to ask you something.
It may seem a little queer, but everything in the world is a little
queer. Did you ever know--was there anything,”--it was the sob again
and she frowned hard in an effort to keep back the tears--“I mean about
mother--and Mr. Leighton’s father?”

The blood mounted again to the old man’s cheek, and he bent toward her
angrily.

“Did he throw that at you? Did Ezra Dameron, after all your mother
suffered from him, insult you with that?”

“Please don’t! Please don’t!” and she thrust a hand toward him
appealingly. “I used to see the word _past_ in books and it meant
nothing to me. But now it seems that life isn’t to-day at all; it’s
just a lot of yesterdays!”

The old man walked to the window and back.

“It was your mother’s mistake; but it must not follow you. When did
your father tell you this?”

“Yesterday,--last night. I had provoked him. It is all so hideous,
please never ask me about it--what happened at the house--but he told
me about that.”

“He’s a greater dog than I thought he was; and now he has thrown
himself on your mercy! I’ve a good mind to say that we won’t help him.
Morris’s father was a gentleman and a scholar; and Morris is the finest
fellow in the world.”

“Yes; but please don’t scold! It won’t help me any.”

“No; I can’t ever scold anybody. My hands are always tied. I’m old and
foolish. Talk about the past coming back to trouble us! You have no
idea what it means at my age; it’s the past, the past, the past! until
to-day is eternally smothered by it.”

He cast himself into his chair; and she laughed at him--a laugh of
relief. His anger had usually amused her by its lack of reason; it gave
her now a momentary respite from her own troubles.

“I’ve never got anything in the world that I wanted. Here I hoped that
you and Morris might hit it off--”

“Please don’t,--”

“But you wouldn’t have it; you’ve treated him most shabbily.”

“I shouldn’t think he would have told you anything about it,” she said
with dignity.

“Of course he didn’t tell me anything about it! Don’t you think I know
things without being told?”

“I don’t envy you the faculty,” she said, with a sigh. “I’m not going
to look for trouble. It all comes my way anyhow.”

Her tone of despair touched his humor and he laughed and filled his
pipe again; then the bell rang and he went to open the door for Morris.

“Morris,” he began at once, “we can omit the preliminaries this
morning. Mr. Dameron’s trusteeship has expired. His daughter is
entitled to the property left her by her mother, or its equivalent.
There has been a sale of property that is not quite regular, and--”

“We wish to make it quite legal,--quite perfect,” said Zelda.

“And we wish to avoid publicity. We must keep out of the newspapers.”

“I understand,” said Morris.

Zelda had purposely refrained from mentioning her father’s own plan of
continuing himself as trustee to hide the fact of his malfeasance; but
with Morris present, she felt that her uncle was easier to manage.

“We have agreed to continue the trusteeship, just as it has been.
Father and I have had a perfect understanding about it.”

“No! no! we won’t do it that way,” shouted Merriam.

But Zelda did not look at him. Her eyes appealed to Morris and he
understood that in anything that was done, Ezra Dameron must be
shielded; and the idea of hiding Dameron’s irregularities struck him as
reasonable and necessary.

“You can give your father a power of attorney to cover everything he
has left of yours if you wish it,” said Morris.

“I won’t hear to it; it’s a farce; it’s playing with the law,” declared
Rodney.

“Uncle Rodney, I’m glad the law can be played with. There’s more sense
in it than I thought there was. You will do it for me that way, won’t
you--please? And there are some people who have paid father for an
option on what he calls the creek property. I wish to protect them,
too.”

“You needn’t do that,” said Morris. “We can repudiate the option
probably. It’s not your affair, as the law views it.”

“But I wish to make it my affair. I wish to do it, right away. I’ve
heard that important things can’t be done right away, but these things
must be,”--and she smiled at Morris and then at her uncle.

“You understand, Zee, that if you give this power of attorney you are
brushing away any chance to get back this money.”

“Yes; perfectly. And now, Mr. Leighton, how long will it take?”

Morris looked at Merriam as though for his approval.

“Uncle agrees, of course, Mr. Leighton. You needn’t ask him,”--and the
two men laughed. There was no making the situation tragic when the
person chiefly concerned refused to have it so. She had accepted the
loss of the bulk of her fortune and the fact of her father’s perfidy
without a quaver. She seemed, indeed, to be in excellent spirits, and
communicated her cheer to the others.

“If this is final--” began Morris.

“Of course it’s final,” said Zee.

“I’ll come back here at four o’clock and you can sign the power of
attorney if you wish. But there’s one thing I’m going to do--on my own
responsibility, if necessary. I’m going to get back that option on the
creek strip that Mr. Dameron gave my friend Balcomb. Balcomb’s a bad
lot, and I’m not disposed to show him any mercy.”

“I’d rather you didn’t--if my father pledged himself to sell--”

“Let Morris do it his way,” begged Merriam. “You may be sure Balcomb
won’t lose anything.”

“I’m afraid he won’t,” said Leighton, and left them.

“Sit down, Zee,” said Merriam, as Zelda rose.

“I must go back to father,--you can imagine that these things haven’t
added to his happiness.”

“Humph!” and Rodney folded his arms and regarded Zelda thoughtfully.

“I wish you wouldn’t say ‘humph!’ to me, _mon oncle_! It isn’t polite.”

“Zee,” said the old gentleman, kindly; “what do you intend doing? I
suppose you have no plans,--but you must let me make some for you.”

“Of course I have plans; they are all perfected, and they are charming.
There’s no use in talking to you about them. I’ve given you enough
trouble.”

“I hope you’ll give me more! As long as my troubles are confined to you
I’ll try to bear them.”

“Oh sir, thank you,--as the young thing always says to the good fairy
uncle in the story-books. Well, as you seem sympathetic I’ll tell you.
You remember that little Harrison Street house where Olive lived?
Well, they owed father some money and the house was mortgaged. Olive
wouldn’t let me release the mortgage,--or whatever they call it; but
it’s the dearest house in town. Olive and her mother are going to move
into a flat. I loved that house the first time I stepped inside of
it. Well, I’m going to sell the farm and the old house where we live,
and anything else we happen to have, and move to Harrison Street; and
I’m going to give music lessons; and I can get a place to sing in a
church whenever I please. I’ve had offers, in fact. It’s all perfectly
rosy and beautiful,--” and she stretched out her arms and played an
ascending scale of felicity in the air with her fingers. “Perhaps,
sometimes, you will come over to see us in the new place!”

“Zee, I have sometimes hoped that you had a slight feeling of affection
for me;” and Rodney Merriam’s face grew severe.

“How you do flatter yourself! Go on!”

“And I want you to do something for me.”

“If it’s sensible I’ll consider it.”

“I want you to go home and pack up and come down here to live with me.
And I beg of you don’t talk about giving music lessons and moving to
that Harrison Street hovel,--even as fun it doesn’t amuse me. Come now,
be a sensible girl. How soon can you move?”

“You seem to be addressing me in the singular number. There are two of
us to plan for.”

Her lips quivered and the tears came to her eyes. Here was the old
question of her father, that had been a vexation all the long year
through. If only she might be suffered to manage her affairs alone!

“Please let me go! You have been so kind to me--I should hate awfully--”

“But Zee,--we must be reasonable. You are young, and your way must be
made as easy as possible--for the road’s a tough one at best. It seems
a hard thing to say, but your father is no proper companion for you. I
can arrange for him in some way; but I owe it to you, to your mother’s
memory, to keep you apart. I haven’t anything else to do but care for
your happiness; and your father doesn’t fit into any imaginable scheme
of life for you.”

Zee laughed.

“Please don’t imagine schemes of life for me. I have one of my own, and
it’s quite enough. And my mother,--”

“Yes, your mother, Zee.”

“My mother--was a good woman, wasn’t she, Uncle Rodney?”

“She was a wonderful woman, Zee.”

“And she did what she thought was right, didn’t she?”

“She certainly did.”

“And do you think--is it reasonable to believe--that she would be
pleased to know that I had abandoned father because he had been
unfortunate, even criminal, if you will have it so? Do you think, Uncle
Rodney, that to leave him in his old age would be quite in keeping with
your own idea of chivalry? I’m sorry to know that you would propose
such a thing. I should like to have your help, but I don’t want it on
any such terms,--on any terms.”

She spoke very quietly and waited patiently for anything further that
he might have to say. The clock on the mantel struck twelve and across
the town the whistles were blowing lustily the noon hour. Merriam
lifted his clenched right hand slowly and opened and shut it several
times, then dropped it to his knee.

“Zee,” he said, “you shall do it your own way,”--he smiled--“with a few
exceptions. You are right about it. Your mother would like you to stand
by your father. I can’t even say what is in my heart about him; but I
had counted on--having you--now--for myself.”

And the old man’s face twitched from the stress of inner conflict.
Zelda crossed to his chair and threw her arms about him.

“Dear Uncle Rodney!” she cried, and then sprang away, drawing him up by
his hands.

“I’m going to be a lot nicer to you than I ever was before,” she
declared. “And you will help me to be good!”

“There are two or three things that I want you to do for me, Zee. I ask
you as a favor,--as a very great favor.”

“It’s going to be something hard,--but go on!”

“Let me be your banker. And don’t begin teaching or making yourself
ridiculous in other ways. I have enough, and I want you to begin having
the benefit of it now. And I should like you to keep the old house
up there, for a while, at least. My father built it, and I was born
there--and your mother--and you! I should hate to have it pass to a
stranger, in my day. And another thing. You’ve done a beautiful but
not a very sensible thing in continuing your father in charge of your
business--what’s left of it; but you’d better let me--consult with him
about matters.”

“But you won’t--scold, or be disagreeable?”

He smiled at her words, which seemed ridiculous when applied to the
squandering of a comfortable fortune, under circumstances that did not
appeal to his pity.

“I’m not going to be hard on your father. My enemies have always
escaped me. I suppose it’s because I’m so amiable.”

There was a pathos in his figure as he stood, quite free from his
chair, his hands thrust into the side pockets of his coat, his
shoulders a trifle drooped, and the half-smile upon his face marking
still his inner reluctance.

“Zee,” he said, and he swayed a little, and put out his hand and rested
his finger-tips on the table,--“Zee, you are the finest girl in the
world. I wish you would tell your father that I shall be up to see him
soon. And don’t worry about what I shall say to him. You can be there
if you like.”

He followed her to the step, looking after her as she walked swiftly
away, kissing her fingers to him from the corner.

Across the street, in Seminary Square, the wind was driving the
leaves hither and thither aimlessly in the warm October sunshine,
and it stole across to Rodney Merriam and played with his fine white
hair. The branches of the park trees were so thinned now that he
could see clearly the bulky foundation of the new post-office. He
sighed at the thought of the changes that must come, watched the
procession of automobiles and wagons in High Street, and glanced at the
uncompromising lines of the overshadowing flat whose presence never
ceased to annoy him.

Then he anathematized it under his breath and went in and abused the
Japanese boy because luncheon was not ready.




CHAPTER XXXV

A SETTLING OF ACCOUNTS


“Good-by, and hail my fancy!” shouted Balcomb as Leighton entered the
promoter’s office. “Excuse my quotation from Whitman, the good gray
poet; but you always suggest bright college years, the dearest, best of
life to me, Demetrius.”

“I don’t want to suggest anything to you, Balcomb. I’ve come to talk
seriously about an unpleasant matter.”

“The devil you have! You’ve certainly brought a death’s-head with you.”

“You always had the seeds of scoundrelism in you. I had hoped they
wouldn’t sprout; but the sprouts are in full bloom.”

“Sprouts don’t bloom; but we’ll pass that with the gloomy silence it
deserves,” said Balcomb, imperturbably lighting a cigarette.

“You’ve been taking advantage of Mr. Dameron. You’ve played upon his
necessities and got a block of lots away from him for nothing. You’ve
also got an option from him on the strip of land out there on the creek
where you propose putting up that flat you’ve been talking about.
While you were planning this you were going to his house, where his
daughter received you with courtesy. And I suppose that, in a way, I
was responsible for you. I rather let it be inferred that you were
a good fellow, and I allowed you to mention that we had been friends
in college, though I knew all the time that you were a blackguard. I
really think Miss Dameron might forgive you for involving her father in
disgrace, but I don’t think she would ever overlook your attentions to
her cousin at a time when you were plotting to swindle a member of the
family.”

“You are a fool,” said Balcomb. “I’m not responsible for old man
Dameron’s morals, am I? He was crazy to get money and came to me
because he knew I had some snap and could get cash for his lots. He
lied to me about it all along. You can’t charge me with notice of all
the private history of the Dameron family. I didn’t know about the
trusteeship until I took the deed. I was just as surprised as anybody
when I found it out.”

Leighton smiled at Balcomb’s tone of outraged innocence.

“You’re such a cheerful rogue I don’t believe you really appreciate the
fact that there are limits to human enterprise. Now your interurban
friends are jays, aren’t they?”

“They are, my brother. They are the genus _cyanocitta cristata_, or
common blue jay, and mighty fine types, I can tell you that.” He
slapped his thigh in joy at the thought.

“You are a depraved beast,” declared Leighton. “It seems a shame to
disturb your peace of mind; but I came here to talk business. Now, your
agricultural friends, when you sprang this lot purchase, asked about
the title to the real estate, didn’t they? If they didn’t they are not
the farmers I take them for.”

“Your confidence is not misplaced. They did, and they quite satisfied
themselves about it.”

“They wanted to see an abstract of title.”

“They certainly did, old man. You’re a regular mind reader.”

“They asked for an abstract of title,” continued Leighton, “and you
gave them one, didn’t you?”

“Please don’t mention it, an thou lovest me. They nearly wore out the
damned thing studying it.”

“I have seen a copy of the original at the abstracter’s office.”

“Awfully keen of you, I’m sure,” said Balcomb, amiably. “I tell you,
you’re a credit to the bar, Morris. You do honor to your preceptor.”

He bowed mockingly, but he was growing a trifle anxious and fingered
the papers on his table nervously.

“The abstract, as I was saying, consisted of a good many pages. And
there was a certain page forty-two, where a will was set forth, in due
form, when you got the document from the abstract office; but when your
friend Van Cleve made his report on it for your rural syndicate that
particular page was missing, and another, bearing the same page number,
but with certain points of the Margaret Merriam will omitted, was
substituted. That is quite correct, isn’t it?”

“You may search me! If there’s anything crooked about that abstract
it’s not on me, you can bet your life. But say, you’re getting
insulting. Now, I’ll tell you something, Leighton, as long as you’ve
come to me in this friendly spirit,--this old-college-friendly spirit.
I’ve been all over this thing in my mind. I’m not the twittering little
birdling you think I am, to fix up a fake abstract and work it off
on a lot of reubs. I didn’t order that abstract made; I didn’t have a
damned thing to do with it. You seem to think that because there’s a
beneficiary of the fifteenth amendment in the cordwood, I must be there
somewhere, dressed up like a minstrel first part; but you’re a dead
loser. I’m prepared to prove that that abstract of title was ordered by
your Uncle Ezra Dameron, and that he gave it to me with his own hands.
I guess you’ll have to admit that my reputation in this community is
about as good as your Uncle Ezra’s. Now, it wounds my pride to have you
talking to me as though I were the traditional villain of our modern
melodrama, that you have cornered with a merry ‘Ha, ha! base churl, at
last I have tracked thee to thy lair!’ No, darling, you can’t catch
me on fly paper--not while my wits are in good working order. If you
can see how to save Miss Dameron’s money without getting her dear old
papa into the mulligatawney all well and good; but if you’re trying to
bring me within the long, lean arm of the penal code you’ll have to get
better. It’s your Uncle Ezra that you’re looking for.”

“We’re going to protect the stock-holders of your company whose money
has gone into the Roger Merriam lots,” continued Leighton. “I honestly
think I could set aside the sale; but we’ll be generous and straighten
the title for you.”

“I rather guess you will, or Uncle Ezra wears the stripes.”

“I don’t think I’d say much about the stripes, with that abstract in
Harry Copeland’s possession. You know Copeland is rather a persistent
fellow, and one of his rural friends is in your company.”

“The devil he is!” But Balcomb batted his eyes uneasily.

“Now give me that option; it isn’t any good, anyhow; but I’ll feel more
comfortable to have it out of your hands.”

“You’re welcome to it,” replied Balcomb, fiercely. “The old man’s
crooked, and the idea of his being swindled by me or anybody else is
funny, as you’d see if you weren’t trying to be his son-in-law. The old
fool is playing the bucket shops--”

“I’m in a hurry. Give me the option and get busy about it.”

One of the typewriters came in with a card.

“Excuse me, Mr. Balcomb, but the gentleman said he couldn’t wait,”--and
Balcomb rose from the iron safe before which he was bending and
snatched the card.

“Tell him I’m engaged. Tell him I don’t want to see him anyhow,” yelled
Balcomb, in a voice that was perfectly audible to the waiting caller in
the anteroom.

“Here,” he said to Leighton, in the same tone of fury, “here’s your
damned option. Give me back the thousand I paid Dameron and go to hell!”

“Now I want you to give me a check for that money you wrung from Mr.
Dameron--”

“I didn’t wring any money from him, you yelping ape. I _paid_ him
money. You don’t seem to understand this transaction.”

“I understand it perfectly. You reported to your company that twenty
thousand would buy that group of lots; you took that amount of money
from them, gave Mr. Dameron eighteen thousand and put the rest in your
pocket as commission. It sounds well, doesn’t it?”

“_He_ isn’t making any kick, is he? I bet he isn’t. He was perfectly
satisfied. He needed money and was glad to sell at any price. I did him
a great service.” And Balcomb thrust his thumbs into the armholes of
his waistcoat with the air of a man who is ready and anxious to face
the world on any charge.

“Jack, you will write me a check for that money--your commission, as
you call it, deducting the one thousand that was paid for this option,
or I’ll make Mariona too hot to hold you.”

“This is blackmail, and, by God! I won’t submit to it,” shouted Balcomb.

“Maybe so, and you can get redress later if it is. I want your
check--whether it’s any good or not.”

“I’ll give you half of it if the old man’s beefing,” said Balcomb,
after a minute’s reflection.

“All--right away--quick!”

Leighton rose and stood with his hands thrust into his pockets while
Balcomb turned to his desk and wrote the check.

The girl outside was heard debating with the caller, who refused to be
denied.

The door opened suddenly and Leighton, with the check and option in his
hand, looked up to see Captain Pollock standing within the partition,
his little stick, as usual, under his arm.

“Leighton,” he said quite imperturbably, “I’m awfully sorry to disturb
you, but I’m really glad you’re here. In fact, I thought for a moment
of going to your office to ask you to come with me--to call on our
gifted friend.”

“You get out of here, you damned little--”

“My dear Mr. Balcomb, you’ve called me little before, and other people
have called me little, and I can’t help it any more than you can help
being a contemptible, lying scoundrel--”

Balcomb made a rush for him, but the captain thrust his stick forward
and Balcomb seemed, rather ridiculously, to have impaled himself upon
it.

“Stand back, Balcomb,” commanded Leighton, and as Balcomb tried again
to reach Pollock, Leighton stepped between them.

“I quite agree with you, Pollock, that Balcomb is a bad lot, but this
isn’t the right place for a scrap.”

“I don’t care whether it is or not,” snapped Pollock. “I’m going to
muss him up. He’s lied about me; he’s tried to blacken my reputation--”

“You’re a fool,” shouted Balcomb. “I’ve never mentioned you--I
_wouldn’t_ mention you.”

“You wouldn’t, wouldn’t you? I should like to know what you meant by
writing a letter to the War Department charging me with being drunk
here in one of the clubs,--a club, you lying blackguard, that you never
were in in your life,--that you couldn’t get inside of to save your
neck. You charged me with being drunk and raising a row in that club;
and you hinted that I was in collusion with contractors at work on the
army post. You don’t deny it, do you?”

“I do, indeed! I never wrote any letter to the War Department on any
subject!”

Pollock laughed and took a step toward him.

“Don’t you deny what I tell you before Mr. Leighton! I have the letter
here in my pocket. It was sent to me direct by my chief, the very
hour it reached him. I suppose you thought they would telegraph my
discharge immediately when they got an anonymous letter like that.
I’ve a good notion to break your neck right here.”

He was a little fellow, but he seemed suddenly to take on heroic
proportions. He whipped open his tightly buttoned coat and drew out an
envelope.

“Here’s a letter--do you dare tell me you didn’t write it--an unsigned
typewritten letter to the quartermaster-general. I knew instantly where
it had come from.”

“I never saw it before; it’s a put-up job,” declared Balcomb, though
not in a tone that carried conviction.

“My chief sent it to me,” continued Pollock, “with his indorsement,
‘Better find this fellow and punch his head.’ And now, by the great
Lord Harry, I’m going to obey orders!”

Balcomb ducked under Leighton’s arm and bolted for the door, but as his
hand found the knob Pollock seized him by the collar and flung him back
against the ground-glass partition with a force that shook it.

“Leighton,” said Pollock in his blandest tones, as he held Balcomb
against the partition at the end of his stick, “I’ve told you, and
probably some of the adjoining tenants have heard me, that Mr. Balcomb
is a liar. I wish to add now that he is a coward. Stand up!” he
commanded, letting his stick fall, and Balcomb, thus released, made
another rush for the door, only to be seized again by the little
captain.

Leighton had tried up to this time to keep a straight face, but Balcomb
was so clearly frightened to the point of panic that Morris sat down
and laughed. Pollock, however, was as grave as an adjutant on parade,
and he continued to address Leighton:

“He is a contemptible coward, and I want to warn him before a witness
that if he ever appears at any place where I am--I don’t care where or
when--I’ll rise and proclaim him. Now get out before I break my stick
on you!”

He turned away from Balcomb, who seized the moment to dart into the
anteroom, where the two young women stood huddled together, and
began giving them orders with a great deal of unnecessary vehemence.
Leighton and Pollock followed at once, passing through the anteroom at
a leisurely pace set by Pollock. At the outer door the captain paused,
lifted his hat with a mockery of courtesy to Balcomb’s back, and
remarked in a pleasant tone:

“Good day, Mr. Balcomb. If you should ever need anything in my line
please give me the pleasure of a call.”

“Sutler’s clerk!” screamed Balcomb. Pollock made a feint of turning
back suddenly and Balcomb darted into his private office and slammed
the door.

Leighton leaned against the elevator shaft outside and laughed
until the corridors rang and sedate tenants came out to see who was
disturbing the peace. He laughed at Balcomb’s anxiety to keep out of
Pollock’s way, and he laughed now at Pollock, who joined him, wearing a
look of outraged dignity that was altogether out of proportion to his
size.

“He called me a sutler’s clerk,” said the captain, twisting his
mustache.

“Then he ducked. His insults don’t cut very deep.”

“I owe you an apology,” said Pollock, when they had reached the street,
“for running in on you that way; but I had to tell the chap I knew
about his lying letter the hour I got it.”

“It’s his busy day. I was there on a similar errand,” said Leighton.
“He’s a dangerous person--not in the way of personal violence,”--and
they both laughed--“but as an intriguing scoundrel.”

“Say, old man,”--they paused on the corner and Pollock cleared his
throat once or twice and struck a trolley pole with his stick as he
hesitated. “You don’t think she’s interested in him, do you?”

“Which she are you talking about?”

“I mean Miss Merriam. He’s been about with her a good deal. I just
wondered.” And the captain seemed both perplexed and embarrassed as he
continued to tap the pole.

“Miss Merriam is a very bright young woman, and bright young women are
not easily deceived,” replied Morris.

“You really think they’re not? Well, I devoutly _hope_ they’re not; but
I believe I’ll ask her.”

“I think I’d ask her,” said Morris, significantly.

And Captain Frank Pollock walked up-town with a look of determination
on his face.




CHAPTER XXXVI

WHEN DREAMS COME TRUE


“I think I have begun to live,” said Zelda the next afternoon.

She sat in the parlor at home, talking to her Uncle Rodney.

Her father was out walking about the neighborhood. He had not been
down-town since the crisis in his affairs, which had left him much
broken. He had been disposed to accept his brother-in-law’s kind
offices warily at first, but Zelda had reassured him as to her uncle’s
friendly intentions, and it was a relief to him to be able to shift the
responsibility of adjusting his affairs to other shoulders.

To all intents and purposes nothing had changed, and beyond the
short-lived gossip of business men who knew him personally, Ezra
Dameron’s losses passed unnoticed. Olive, who was Zelda’s closest
friend, never knew just what had happened. Zelda merely told her cousin
that her father had gone through some business trouble, but that it
had all been straightened out again. Mrs. Forrest knew even less than
this; there was, Rodney Merriam said, no manner of use in discussing
the loss of Zelda’s fortune with his sister, and talking about family
matters was a bore anyhow. Rodney was surprised at his own amiable
acceptance of the situation; but it had resulted in linking him closer
to Zelda’s life; she was dependent on him now as she might never have
been otherwise; and as for Ezra Dameron, he was a pitiful object, whose
punishment was doubtless adequate. It was possible for Rodney Merriam
to sit in the parlor of the old house in which he had been born, and
talk to Zelda with an ease and pleasure that he had not known since she
came home and went to her father instead of going to live with her aunt
or with himself, which would have been the sensible thing for her to do.

“I think I have begun to live,” repeated Zelda.

“I hope you are happy, Zee. To be happy’s the main thing. There is
nothing else in the wide world that counts; and I say it, whose life
has been a failure.”

“You shouldn’t talk so! You must remember that I’m letting you be good
to me, kinder and more helpful than any one ever was before to anybody,
just because you said you couldn’t be happy any other way.”

“Yes; I’m going to lead a different life,” he said ironically. “It
doesn’t pay to cherish the viper of enmity in one’s bosom. But I
suppose there’s a certain fun in hating people, even though you never
get a chance to even up with them.”

“You still have a little lingering paganism in you, _mon oncle_. But
it’s disappearing. Olive tells me that you and Captain Pollock have
quite hit it off. You certainly were nasty to him. He ought to have
called you out and made you fight for the snubbings you gave him.”

“Bah! I’m a little absent-minded, that’s all.” But Merriam smiled when
he remembered Pollock. “By the way, I’ve accepted his invitation for
to-morrow afternoon to drive out to the post site with him, I believe
you are asked? And Olive and Morris? Which wing of our family is
Pollock trying to break into, will you kindly tell me? He has shown you
rather marked attention, it seems to me.”

“You are quite likely to have a niece in the army. I fancy that it’s
all arranged; of course, it’s been Olive all the time. She hasn’t told
me yet,--but she doesn’t have to tell me!”

“You don’t say! I had no idea of it. I was troubled last winter for
fear--”

“It was foolish of you. I flattered myself for an absurd little while,”
she added mockingly, “that he might see something pleasing in me; but,
alas and alack! Olive stole him away from me, and she didn’t have very
hard work doing it, either. But you will help me to start Olive off
happily, won’t you? You know there’s nobody to do anything for her
except us. I think she ought to have a church wedding, and you could
give the bride away and Aunt Julia could have a wedding breakfast or a
large reception for her--all to show the community that we Merriams are
really a united family. Maybe Olive will have a military wedding! The
prospect is positively thrilling. In any event, you will do your very
nicest for her, won’t you?”

“I don’t see any way out of it,” he said, in a tone that was wholly
kind. “Olive is a pretty girl and a sensible one. If she’s going to be
married, I’ll let you buy my wedding present for her. Good-by.”

It rained the next day and Pollock telephoned to the members of his
party that the excursion would be postponed. Zelda hoped that Olive
would come up to the house, and when the bell rang she thought it was
her cousin and called to the black Angeline, who still acted as Polly’s
assistant, to bring Miss Merriam directly up stairs. But it was Morris
Leighton whom the girl announced.

“I’ll be down in a moment,” she said, but she waited, sitting at the
table, where she had so often pondered great and little matters during
the year, a troubled look upon her face, considering many things. The
fact that her mother and Morris’s father had once been lovers, as
blurted out by her father in his rage and confirmed by her uncle, had
impressed her profoundly; she was not a morbid girl, but there seemed
something uncanny in the story, and she had determined that Morris
should never again speak words of love to her. It was all too pitiful;
she had no right to any happiness that Morris might bring her; and here
again her mother’s memory seemed to follow and lay a burden upon her.
She was sorry that she had not asked the maid to excuse her, but it was
too late and she went down to the parlor with foreboding in her heart.

Morris was standing at the window watching the rain beat upon the
asphalt in the narrow street outside. He turned quickly as he heard her
step.

“You are a brave man to venture out in a storm like this! Of course,
you knew that our excursion is off? Captain Pollock telephoned that
we’d wait until a better day.”

“I understood so. But I was keyed to vacation pitch and I thought you
wouldn’t mind if I came,--if I didn’t stay very long.”

“Oh, of course,--if you don’t stay very long; but you needn’t
stand--all the time!”

“You wouldn’t have had me keep my office a dreary afternoon like this.
It’s rather cheerless in our office on rainy days, I should like you to
know.”

“But I’ve heard that the office is picturesque. You ought to give a tea
or do something of that sort, so that the rest of us, who daren’t go
down otherwise, may see it.”

“You should make the suggestion to Mr. Carr when he gets home. It would
have weight coming from you.”

“I can’t imagine it! The firm would probably lose all its clients if a
social function were held there.”

“I see that you’re not really interested in us; you’re afraid of the
microbes. I suppose our old office must have a lot of them.”

They both laughed at the inanity of their talk. The room was chilly,
and she rose and found the matches on the mantel.

“No! I can’t allow you,” she said. “I superintend the laying of these
pyres--I know exactly where the paper is--behold!”

The flame leaped suddenly through the light kindling, and as she
watched it he felt that her interest in it was the simple unaffected
interest of a child. Her dark-red gown enhanced her faint color; he
accused the slight black velvet line that crept here and there over
the cloth of trying to match her hair and eyes; then he turned his
attention to her hands,--that were, he told himself, like swift little
birds in their quickness and certainty.

Her father came to the door and hesitated.

“Won’t you come and share our fire, father?” Zelda asked.

“No, oh, no! I’m quite busy. It’s a very bad day, Mr. Leighton.” He
turned and they presently heard him climbing the stairs to his room.

It was very still in the parlor, and the wind outside sobbed through
the old cedars in accompaniment to the splash of the rain. It was very
sweet to her to know that Morris was so near; there was in his presence
in the house at this unwonted hour of the day a suggestion of something
intimate and new. She was looking away from him into the fire when he
rose and drew close to her.

“I have come to ask you to do something for me,” he said. “I want you
to sing me the song--my song--the one that means--so much--that means
everything.”

“I can’t, I can’t! Please don’t ask me,”--and she clenched her hands
upon her knees.

“You hurt me once,--when you knew you did, when you wished me to be
hurt, when I spoke to you of the song,--of my song,--of our song! But
I want you to sing it to me now, Zee, and if you can sing it and then
tell me that you don’t care,--that you don’t know what love is,--then I
shall never again speak to you--of love--or anything.”

“No; I don’t know--the song. I can’t sing it,--ever again!”

“Is it because you are afraid,--is that it? You can’t wound me now by
anything that you may say; but if you will sing me the song and then
tell me that your word will always be no, then I shall go away, Zee,
and I shall never trouble you again.”

She remembered, as she listened with her head bowed over her hands, the
first time she had heard his voice, that was deep and strong. It was
only a year ago, in Mrs. Carr’s drawing-room.

She rose and walked away and looked out through the window upon the
rain-swept street; she saw the wet leaves clinging in the walk; it was
a desolate picture; and something of the outer dolor, the change of the
year, touched her.

“I can’t sing your song--any song!” and she turned to him suddenly
with laughter in her eyes. “My throat is very painful,” she added and
laughed.

He did not smile, but took a step nearer.

“Is the reason because you are afraid? I must know,--I have waited a
long time to know.”

“Some other time,--when the sun is shining, then I may sing it,” she
said, her eyes upon the window.

“Then if you won’t sing it,--if you are afraid of it,--then you mean
for me to believe--”

“Nothing!”

“But I won’t be thrown off so easily, Zee,” he said, as though he had
always addressed her so. “You may as well take me seriously,--”

“I’m not--” and mirth lighted her eyes--“I’m not taking you at all!”

“Zee,”--and he drew still nearer, so that he could have put out his
hand and touched her.

“Please,” she begged, grave again, “please forget all about the
song,--and me! I wish you to,--very much. There are reasons,--a great
many reasons,--why you must forget all about the song you liked, and
everything that I may--suggest to you. Won’t you believe me,--please?”

“There can’t be any reasons that make any difference.”

“You can be kind if you will,” she said, “and merciful.”

“There is a reason; there is myself! I’m not fit to call your name or
to stand near you. I have little to offer; but I love you, Zee,”--and
the sincerity of his plea touched her, so that she did not speak for a
moment, but stood staring at the rain-beaten pane with eyes that saw
nothing.

“You could spare me--if you would,” she said.

“I would give my life for you,” he answered steadily, unyieldingly.
“But I can’t let you put me aside,--for any idle fears or doubts. You
must tell me what troubles you; you have not told me that you did not
care. I shall not go until you tell me what it is that weighs against
me. I have a right to one or the other.”

She looked at him suddenly; it would be easy to say that she did not
care; but her eyes filled at the thought, and she turned to the window
again. The beat of hoofs upon the hard street struck upon her with a
sense of the world’s vastness and the wind in the cedars sang like a
mournful prophet of the coming winter. She could not tell him that he
meant nothing to her, when he meant so nearly all; but if she should
set up a barrier, it might be enough and he would go.

“You know we have had trouble,--that my father has met with
losses,--and he needs me. My duty is here; that must be a sufficient
reason.”

“No,” he said instantly, “that is not a reason at all, Zee. You are
doing for your father all that you could be asked to do,--and I should
not ask you to do less.”

“I must do all I can,” she said. “There must be no question of loyalty.
And now,”--she turned to him smiling,--“it’s very disagreeable
outside; let us be cheerful indoors.”

“Zee,” he began gravely, “I’m not so easily dismissed as that. There’s
something that I want to say, that I shouldn’t dare say to you, if I
did not love you. I knew months ago that you were showing a cheerful
face to the world while you suffered.”

“Please, oh, please!” and she lifted her hands to her face. “It is not
kind! You must not!”

“You made light of things that you knew were good; you said things
often that you did not mean; but you were brave and strong and fine. I
understood it, Zee. But now that is all out of the way. There is no use
in thinking about it any more.”

“No; but you must know that I talked to you as I did because,--oh,
because I hated goodness! I tried to hate it! It was because--father--
but I mustn’t--speak of it.”

“I understand all about that, Zee.”

“But I am very old,”--she went on pitifully; “I am very old, and my
girlhood--it all went away from me last year--and every day I had to
act a part, and I did so many foolish things,--you must have thought--”

“That I loved you, Zee,” he declared, refusing to meet her on the
ground she sought.

“The sweetest thing in the world,” she said, “must be--not to know--of
evil; not to know!” and there was the pent-up heartache of a year in
the sigh that broke from her.

“Yes; it was all too bad, Zee; but we’ll find better things ahead--I’m
sure of it.”

She was not ready to look into the future. Her mind was still busy with
the year that had just ended.

“I said so many things that I did not mean, sometimes, and I was
hard--on you, when you meant to be kind; but I’m sorry now.”

“You _were_ a little hard on me now and then, but I think I liked it.
Some day I shall laugh about it.”

“I don’t see how you ever could,” she declared severely.

“I was thinking of the moose,” he answered, smiling down on her. “It
was your idea that I lacked enterprise; I wasn’t the venturesome knight
you had hoped to see. You liked to make me humble by setting goals for
me in new fields that you knew well enough I could never reach. That
was the way of it, wasn’t it, Zee?”

“It was very foolish of me. I really never meant anything at all about
the moose--and things like that.”

“Don’t take it back! I’m still going to get the moose or his
equivalent. I’m going to do something quite large and fine before I
give up the fight, only I want you to make it worth while.”

He rested one hand on the back of a chair; the other was dropped
lightly into the pocket of his coat. His gray eyes, when she looked up
at him, were steady and kind. He had not the appearance of a defeated
man. She had once heard Mr. Carr say that Morris Leighton was a fellow
who “got things done,” and the remembrance of this did not reassure her.

“I hope--I know--you will be a successful man,” she said slowly, “and
now let us be good friends.”

She turned as though to sit down and be quit of a disagreeable topic
forever, but he drew a step nearer and took her hands.

“Zee,”--and the smile was all gone from his eyes--“there isn’t any such
easy escape for you. Your reasons are no reasons. You have said all
that there is to say, haven’t you? But you haven’t said that you do not
love me. If you will say that I shall go away, and if that is so I must
know it now.”

She struggled to free her hands, but he held them tight. She drew away
from him, her face very white.

Suddenly she raised her eyes and looked at him.

“You must let me go. I can’t tell you why; but there can be nothing
between you and me.”

“I love you, Zee,” he said steadily. “You must let me help you,--if
there is any new trouble,--if your father has met some new difficulty--”

“Oh, you don’t understand! It isn’t father--alone--I mean. I can’t tell
you--I can’t speak of it--it was my mother--and your father--their
unhappy story; but there is a fate in these things! It’s not that I
don’t believe in you; it’s because I have grown afraid of happiness!
And it is all so strange, that you and I should meet here and that I
should have hurt you last summer--maybe--as my mother hurt your father.
And that was before I knew their story.”

“We must not think of them and what they did; we must think of
ourselves. I know the story of your mother and my father. Your uncle
told me, quite recently.”

“Yes; Uncle Rodney knew.”

“And now that is all there is of that and you haven’t alarmed me a
particle, Zee.”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” she faltered.

“I love you, Zee,” he said, simply and sincerely, as a man speaks who
does not use words lightly. He put his arms about her and drew her
close to him. The tears sprang into his eyes as he saw how wholly she
yielded her girl’s heart to him and how little there remained to win.
He felt her breath, broken with happy little sobs, against his face.

“We have our own life to live, Zee; there is no fate that is stronger
than love,” he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

Midnight had struck. The rain had ceased and the autumn stars looked
down benignly upon the world. It was very still in the Dameron house.
Zelda sat dreaming before her table, her mother’s little book lying
closed before her. A new heaven and a new earth had dawned for her
on the day just ended and in her heart there was peace. She rose and
lighted a candle and went down through the silent old house, carrying
the book in her hand. In the parlor a few coals still burned fitfully
in the fireplace and she knelt before it, holding the book against her
cheek. Then she poised it above the flames, hesitated a moment and let
it fall where the embers were brightest. She watched the leather and
paper curl and writhe until they ceased to be distinguishable, and
still her eyes rested for a moment upon the place where they had been.

She rose and held the candle close to a photograph of her mother that
stood upon the mantel and studied it wistfully.

“Mother, dear little mother!” she whispered. “Morris!”

Then with a smile of happy content showing in the soft light of the
candle, she went out into the dark hall and up the long stair to her
room.




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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.