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Title: T. Tembarom

Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett

Release Date: February, 2001  [Etext #2514]
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T. TEMBAROM

by Frances Hodgson Burnett




CHAPTER I:


The boys at the Brooklyn public school which he attended did not know 
what the "T." stood for. He would never tell them. All he said in 
reply to questions was: "It don't stand for nothin'. You've gotter 
have a' 'nitial, ain't you?" His name was, in fact, an almost 
inevitable school-boy modification of one felt to be absurd and 
pretentious. His Christian name was Temple, which became "Temp." His 
surname was Barom, so he was at once "Temp Barom." In the natural 
tendency to avoid waste of time it was pronounced as one word, and 
the letter p being superfluous and cumbersome, it easily settled 
itself into "Tembarom," and there remained. By much less inevitable 
processes have surnames evolved themselves as centuries rolled by. 
Tembarom liked it, and soon almost forgot he had ever been called 
anything else.

His education really began when he was ten years old. At that time 
his mother died of pneumonia, contracted by going out to sew, at 
seventy-five cents a day, in shoes almost entirely without soles, 
when the remains of a blizzard were melting in the streets. As, after 
her funeral, there remained only twenty-five cents in the shabby 
bureau which was one of the few articles furnishing the room in the 
tenement in which they lived together, Tembarom sleeping on a cot, 
the world spread itself before him as a place to explore in search of 
at least one meal a day. There was nothing to do but to explore it to 
the best of his ten-year-old ability.

His father had died two years before his mother, and Tembarom had 
vaguely felt it a relief. He had been a resentful, domestically 
tyrannical immigrant Englishman, who held in contempt every American 
trait and institution. He had come over to better himself, detesting 
England and the English because there was "no chance for a man there,"
and, transferring his dislikes and resentments from one country to 
another, had met with no better luck than he had left behind him. 
This he felt to be the fault of America, and his family, which was 
represented solely by Tembarom and his mother, heard a good deal 
about it, and also, rather contradictorily, a good deal about the 
advantages and superiority of England, to which in the course of six 
months he became gloomily loyal. It was necessary, in fact, for him 
to have something with which to compare the United States unfavorably.
The effect he produced on Tembarom was that of causing him, when he 
entered the public school round the corner, to conceal with 
determination verging on duplicity the humiliating fact that if he 
had not been born in Brooklyn he might have been born in England. 
England was not popular among the boys in the school. History had 
represented the country to them in all its tyrannical rapacity and 
bloodthirsty oppression of the humble free-born. The manly and 
admirable attitude was to say, "Give me liberty or give me death"--
and there was the Fourth of July.

Though Tembarom and his mother had been poor enough while his father 
lived, when he died the returns from his irregular odd jobs no longer 
came in to supplement his wife's sewing, and add an occasional day or 
two of fuller meals, in consequence of which they were oftener than 
ever hungry and cold, and in desperate trouble about the rent of 
their room. Tembarom, who was a wiry, enterprising little fellow, 
sometimes found an odd job himself. He carried notes and parcels when 
any one would trust him with them, he split old boxes into kindling-
wood, more than once he "minded" a baby when its mother left its 
perambulator outside a store. But at eight or nine years of age one's 
pay is in proportion to one's size. Tembarom, however, had neither 
his father's bitter eye nor his mother's discouraged one. Something 
different from either had been reincarnated in him from some more 
cheerful past. He had an alluring grin instead--a grin which curled 
up his mouth and showed his sound, healthy, young teeth,--a lot of 
them,--and people liked to see them.

At the beginning of the world it is only recently reasonable to 
suppose human beings were made with healthy bodies and healthy minds. 
That of course was the original scheme of the race. It would not have 
been worth while to create a lot of things aimlessly ill made. A 
journeyman carpenter would not waste his time in doing it, if he knew 
any better. Given the power to make a man, even an amateur would make 
him as straight as he could, inside and out. Decent vanity would 
compel him to do it. He would be ashamed to show the thing and admit 
he had done it, much less people a world with millions of like proofs 
of incompetence. Logically considered, the race was built straight 
and clean and healthy and happy. How, since then, it has developed in 
multitudinous less sane directions, and lost its normal straightness 
and proportions, I am, singularly enough, not entirely competent to 
explain with any degree of satisfactory detail. But it cannot be 
truthfully denied that this has rather generally happened. There are 
human beings who are not beautiful, there are those who are not 
healthy, there are those who hate people and things with much waste 
of physical and mental energy, there are people who are not unwilling 
to do others an ill turn by word or deed, and there are those who do 
not believe that the original scheme of the race was ever a decent 
one.

This is all abnormal and unintelligent, even the not being beautiful, 
and sometimes one finds oneself called upon passionately to resist a 
temptation to listen to an internal hint that the whole thing is 
aimless. Upon this tendency one may as well put one's foot firmly, as 
it leads nowhere. At such times it is supporting to call to mind a 
certain undeniable fact which ought to loom up much larger in our 
philosophical calculations. No one has ever made a collection of 
statistics regarding the enormous number of perfectly sane, kind, 
friendly, decent creatures who form a large proportion of any mass of 
human beings anywhere and everywhere--people who are not vicious or 
cruel or depraved, not as a result of continual self-control, but 
simply because they do not want to be, because it is more natural and 
agreeable to be exactly the opposite things; people who do not tell 
lies because they could not do it with any pleasure, and would, on 
the contrary, find the exertion an annoyance and a bore; people whose 
manners and morals are good because their natural preference lies in 
that direction. There are millions of them who in most essays on life 
and living are virtually ignored because they do none of the things 
which call forth eloquent condemnation or brilliant cynicism. It has 
not yet become the fashion to record them. When one reads a daily 
newspaper filled with dramatic elaborations of crimes and 
unpleasantness, one sometimes wishes attention might be called to 
them --to their numbers, to their decencies, to their normal lack of 
any desire to do violence and their equally normal disposition to 
lend a hand. One is inclined to feel that the majority of persons do 
not believe in their existence. But if an accident occurs in the 
street, there are always several of them who appear to spring out of 
the earth to give human sympathy and assistance; if a national 
calamity, physical or social, takes place, the world suddenly seems 
full of them. They are the thousands of Browns, Joneses, and 
Robinsons who, massed together, send food to famine-stricken 
countries, sustenance to earthquake-devastated regions, aid to 
wounded soldiers or miners or flood-swept homelessness. They are the 
ones who have happened naturally to continue to grow straight and 
carry out the First Intention. They really form the majority; if they 
did not, the people of the earth would have eaten one another alive 
centuries ago. But though this is surely true, a happy cynicism 
totally disbelieves in their existence. When a combination of 
circumstances sufficiently dramatic brings one of them into 
prominence, he is either called an angel or a fool. He is neither. He 
is only a human creature who is normal.

After this manner Tembarom was wholly normal. He liked work and 
rejoiced in good cheer, when he found it, however attenuated its form.
He was a good companion, and even at ten years old a practical 
person. He took his loose coppers from the old bureau drawer, and 
remembering that he had several times helped Jake Hutchins to sell 
his newspapers, he went forth into the world to find and consult him 
as to the investment of his capital.

"Where are you goin', Tem?" a woman who lived in the next room said 
when she met him on the stairs. "What you goin' to do?"

"I'm goin' to sell newspapers if I can get some with this," he 
replied, opening his hand to show her the extent of his resources.

She was almost as poor as he was, but not quite. She looked him over 
curiously for a moment, and then fumbled in her pocket. She drew out 
two ten-cent pieces and considered them, hesitating. Then she looked 
again at him. That normal expression in his nice ten-year-old eyes 
had its suggestive effect.

"You take this," she said, handing him the two pieces. "It'll help 
you to start."

"I'll bring it back, ma'am," said Tem. "Thank you, Mis' Hullingworth."

In about two weeks' time he did bring it back. That was the beginning.
He lived through all the experiences a small boy waif and stray 
would be likely to come in contact with. The abnormal class treated 
him ill, and the normal class treated him well. He managed to get 
enough food to eat to keep him from starvation. Sometimes he slept 
under a roof and much oftener out-of-doors. He preferred to sleep out-
of-doors more than half of the year, and the rest of the time he did 
what he could. He saw and learned many strange things, but was not 
undermined by vice because he unconsciously preferred decency. He 
sold newspapers and annexed any old job which appeared on the horizon.
The education the New York streets gave him was a liberal one. He 
became accustomed to heat and cold and wet weather, but having sound 
lungs and a tough little body combined with the normal tendencies 
already mentioned, he suffered no more physical deterioration than a 
young Indian would suffer. After selling newspapers for two years he 
got a place as "boy" in a small store. The advance signified by 
steady employment was inspiring to his energies. He forged ahead, and 
got a better job and better pay as he grew older. By the time he was 
fifteen he shared a small bedroom with another boy. In whatsoever 
quarter he lived, friends seemed sporadic. Other boy's congregated 
about him. He did not know he had any effect at all, but his effect, 
in fact, was rather like that of a fire in winter or a cool breeze in 
summer. It was natural to gather where it prevailed.

There came a time when he went to a night class to learn stenography. 
Great excitement had been aroused among the boys he knew best by a 
rumor that there were "fellows" who could earn a hundred dollars a 
week "writing short." Boyhood could not resist the florid splendor of 
the idea. Four of them entered the class confidently looking forward 
to becoming the recipients of four hundred a month in the course of 
six weeks. One by one they dropped off, until only Tembarom remained, 
slowly forging ahead. He had never meant anything else but to get on 
in the world--to get as far as he could. He kept at his "short," and 
by the time he was nineteen it helped him to a place in a newspaper 
office. He took dictation from a nervous and harried editor, who, 
when he was driven to frenzy by overwork and incompetencies, found 
that the long-legged, clean youth with the grin never added fuel to 
the flame of his wrath. He was a common young man, who was not marked 
by special brilliancy of intelligence, but he had a clear head and a 
good temper, and a queer aptitude for being able to see himself in 
the other man's shoes--his difficulties and moods. This ended in his 
being tried with bits of new work now and then. In an emergency he 
was once sent out to report the details of a fire. What he brought 
back was usable, and his elation when he found he had actually "made 
good" was ingenuous enough to spur Galton, the editor, into trying 
him again.

To Tembarom this was a magnificent experience. The literary 
suggestion implied by being "on a newspaper" was more than he had 
hoped for. If you have sold newspapers, and slept in a barrel or 
behind a pile of lumber in a wood-yard, to report a fire in a street-
car shed seems a flight of literature. He applied himself to the 
careful study of newspapers--their points of view, their style of 
phrasing. He believed them to be perfect. To attain ease in 
expressing himself in their elevated language he felt to be the 
summit of lofty ambition. He had no doubts of the exaltation of his 
ideal. His respect and confidence almost made Galton cry at times, 
because they recalled to him days when he had been nineteen and had 
regarded New York journalists with reverence. He liked Tembarom more 
and more. It actually soothed him to have him about, and he fell into 
giving him one absurd little chance after another. When he brought in 
"stuff" which bore too evident marks of utter ignorance, he actually 
touched it up and used it, giving him an enlightening, ironical hint 
or so. Tembarom always took the hints with gratitude. He had no 
mistaken ideas of his own powers. Galton loomed up before him a sort 
of god, and though the editor was a man with a keen, though wearied, 
brain and a sense of humor, the situation was one naturally 
productive of harmonious relations. He was of the many who 
unknowingly came in out of the cold and stood in the glow of 
Tembarom's warm fire, or took refuge from the heat in his cool breeze.
He did not know of the private, arduous study of journalistic style, 
and it was not unpleasing to see that the nice young cub was 
gradually improving. Through pure modest fear or ridicule, Tembarom 
kept to himself his vaulting ambition. He practised reports of fires, 
weddings, and accidents in his hall bedroom.

A hall bedroom in a third-rate boarding-house is not a cheerful place,
but when Tembarom vaguely felt this, he recalled the nights spent in 
empty trucks and behind lumber-piles, and thought he was getting 
spoiled by luxury. He told himself that he was a fellow who always 
had luck. He did not know, neither did any one else, that his luck 
would have followed him if he had lived in a coal-hole. It was the 
concomitant of his normal build and outlook on life. Mrs. Bowse, his 
hard-worked landlady, began by being calmed down by his mere bearing 
when he came to apply for his room and board. She had a touch of 
grippe, and had just emerged from a heated affray with a dirty cook, 
and was inclined to battle when he presented himself. In a few 
minutes she was inclined to battle no longer. She let him have the 
room. Cantankerous restrictions did not ruffle him.

"Of course what you say GOES," he said, giving her his friendly grin. 
"Any one that takes boarders has GOT to be careful. You're in for a 
bad cold, ain't you?"

"I've got grippe again, that's what I've got," she almost snapped.

"Did you ever try Payson's 'G. Destroyer'? G stands for grippe, you 
know. Catchy name, ain't it? They say the man that invented it got 
ten thousand dollars for it. 'G. Destroyer.' You feel like you have 
to find out what it means when you see it up on a boarding. I'm just 
over grippe myself, and I've got half a bottle in my pocket. You 
carry it about with you, and swallow one every half-hour. You just 
try it. It set me right in no time."

He took the bottle out of his waistcoat pocket and handed it to her. 
She took it and turned it over.

"You're awful good-natured,"--She hesitated,--"but I ain't going to 
take your medicine. I ought to go and get some for myself. How much 
does it cost?"

"It's on the bottle; but it's having to get it for yourself that's 
the matter. You won't have time, and you'll forget it."

"That's true enough," said Mrs. Bowse, looking at him sharply. "I 
guess you know something about boarding-houses."

"I guess I know something about trying to earn three meals a day--or 
two of them. It's no merry jest, whichever way you do it."




CHAPTER II


When he took possession of his hall bedroom the next day and came 
down to his first meal, all the boarders looked at him interestedly. 
They had heard of the G. Destroyer from Mrs. Bowse, whose grippe had 
disappeared. Jim Bowles and Julius Steinberger looked at him because 
they were about his own age, and shared a hall bedroom on his floor; 
the young woman from the notion counter in a down-town department 
store looked at him because she was a young woman; the rest of the 
company looked at him because a young man in a hall bedroom might or 
might not be noisy or objectionable, and the incident of the G. 
Destroyer sounded good-natured. Mr. Joseph Hutchinson, the stout and 
discontented Englishman from Manchester, looked him over because the 
mere fact that he was a new-comer had placed him by his own rash act 
in the position of a target for criticism. Mr. Hutchinson had come to 
New York because he had been told that he could find backers among 
profuse and innumerable multi- millionaires for the invention which 
had been the haunting vision of his uninspiring life. He had not been 
met with the careless rapture which had been described to him, and he 
was becoming violently antagonistic to American capital and 
pessimistic in his views of American institutions. Like Tembarom's 
father, he was the resentful Englishman.

"I don't think much o' that chap," he said in what he considered an 
undertone to his daughter, who sat beside him and tried to manage 
that he should not be infuriated by waiting for butter and bread and 
second helpings. A fine, healthy old feudal feeling that servants 
should be roared at if they did not "look sharp" when he wanted 
anything was one of his salient characteristics.

"Wait a bit, Father; we don't know anything about him yet," Ann 
Hutchinson murmured quietly, hoping that his words had been lost in 
the clatter of knives and forks and dishes.

As Tembarom had taken his seat, he had found that, when he looked 
across the table, he looked directly at Miss Hutchinson; and before 
the meal ended he felt that he was in great good luck to be placed 
opposite an object of such singular interest. He knew nothing about 
"types," but if he had been of those who do, he would probably have 
said to himself that she was of a type apart. As it was, he merely 
felt that she was of a kind one kept looking at whether one ought to 
or not. She was a little thing of that exceedingly light slimness of 
build which makes a girl a childish feather-weight. Few girls retain 
it after fourteen or fifteen. A wind might supposably have blown her 
away, but one knew it would not, because she was firm and steady on 
her small feet. Ordinary strength could have lifted her with one hand,
and would have been tempted to do it. She had a slim, round throat, 
and the English daisy face it upheld caused it to suggest to the mind 
the stem of a flower. The roundness of her cheek, in and out of which 
totally unexpected dimples flickered, and the forget-me-not blueness 
of her eyes, which were large and rather round also, made her look 
like a nice baby of singularly serious and observing mind. She looked 
at one as certain awe-inspiring things in perambulators look at one--
with a far and clear silence of gaze which passes beyond earthly 
obstacles and reserves a benign patience with follies. Tembarom felt 
interestedly that one really might quail before it, if one had 
anything of an inferior quality to hide. And yet it was not a 
critical gaze at all. She wore a black dress with a bit of white 
collar, and she had so much soft, red hair that he could not help 
recalling one or two women who owned the same quantity and seemed 
able to carry it only as a sort of untidy bundle. Hers looked 
entirely under control, and yet was such a wonder of burnished 
fullness that it tempted the hand to reach out and touch it. It 
became Tembarom's task during the meal to keep his eyes from turning 
too often toward it and its owner.

If she had been a girl who took things hard, she might have taken her 
father very hard indeed. But opinions and feelings being solely a 
matter of points of view, she was very fond of him, and, regarding 
him as a sacred charge and duty, took care of him as though she had 
been a reverentially inclined mother taking care of a boisterous son. 
When his roar was heard, her calm little voice always fell quietly on 
indignant ears the moment it ceased. It was her part in life to act 
as a palliative: her mother, whose well-trained attitude toward the 
ruling domestic male was of the early Victorian order, had lived and 
died one. A nicer, warmer little woman had never existed. Joseph 
Hutchinson had adored and depended on her as much as he had harried 
her. When he had charged about like a mad bull because he could not 
button his collar, or find the pipe he had mislaid in his own pocket, 
she had never said more than "Now, Mr. Hutchinson," or done more than 
leave her sewing to button the collar with soothing fingers, and 
suggest quietly that sometimes he DID chance to carry his pipe about 
with him. She was of the class which used to call its husband by a 
respectful surname. When she died she left him as a sort of legacy to 
her daughter, spending the last weeks of her life in explaining 
affectionately all that "Father" needed to keep him quiet and make 
him comfortable.

Little Ann had never forgotten a detail, and had even improved upon 
some of them, as she happened to be cleverer than her mother, and had,
indeed, a far-seeing and clear young mind of her own. She had been 
called "Little Ann" all her life. This had held in the first place 
because her mother's name had been Ann also, and after her mother's 
death the diminutive had not fallen away from her. People felt it 
belonged to her not because she was especially little, though she was 
a small, light person, but because there was an affectionate humor in 
the sound of it.

Despite her hard needs, Mrs. Bowse would have faced the chance of 
losing two boarders rather than have kept Mr. Joseph Hutchinson but 
for Little Ann. As it was, she kept them both, and in the course of 
three months the girl was Little Ann to almost every one in the house.
Her normalness took the form of an instinct which amounted to genius 
for seeing what people ought to have, and in some occult way filling 
in bare or trying places.

"She's just a wonder, that girl," Mrs. Bowse said to one boarder 
after another.

"She's just a wonder," Jim Bowles and Julius Steinberger murmured to 
each other in rueful confidence, as they tilted their chairs against 
the wall of their hall bedroom and smoked. Each of the shabby and 
poverty-stricken young men had of course fallen hopelessly in love 
with her at once. This was merely human and inevitable, but realizing 
in the course of a few weeks that she was too busy taking care of her 
irritable, boisterous old Manchester father, and everybody else, to 
have time to be made love to even by young men who could buy new 
boots when the old ones had ceased to be water-tight, they were 
obliged to resign themselves to the, after all, comforting fact that 
she became a mother to them, not a sister. She mended their socks and 
sewed buttons on for them with a firm frankness which could not be 
persuaded into meaning anything more sentimental than a fixed habit 
of repairing anything which needed it, and which, while at first 
bewildering in its serenity, ended by reducing the two youths to a 
dust of devotion.

"She's a wonder, she is," they sighed when at every weekend they 
found their forlorn and scanty washing resting tidily on their bed.

In the course of a week, more or less, Tembarom's feeling for her 
would have been exactly that of his two hall-bedroom neighbors, but 
that his nature, though a practical one, was not inclined to any 
supine degree of resignation. He was a sensible youth, however, and 
gave no trouble. Even Joseph Hutchinson, who of course resented 
furiously any "nonsense" of which his daughter and possession was the 
object, became sufficiently mollified by his good spirits and ready 
good nature to refrain from open conversational assault.

"I don't mind that chap as much as I did at first," he admitted 
reluctantly to Little Ann one evening after a good dinner and a 
comfortable pipe. "He's not such a fool as he looks."

Tembarom was given, as Little Ann was, to seeing what people wanted. 
He knew when to pass the mustard and other straying condiments. He 
picked up things which. dropped inconveniently, he did not interrupt 
the remarks of his elders and betters, and several times when he 
chanced to be in the hall, and saw Mr. Hutchinson, in irritable, 
stout Englishman fashion, struggling into his overcoat, he sprang 
forward with a light, friendly air and helped him. 'He did not do it 
with ostentatious politeness or with the manner of active youth 
giving generous aid to elderly avoirdupois. He did it as though it 
occurred to him as a natural result of being on the spot.

It took Mrs. Bowse and her boarding-house less than a week definitely 
to like him. Every night when he sat down to dinner he brought news 
with him- news and jokes and new slang. Newspaper-office anecdote and 
talk gave a journalistic air to the gathering when he was present, 
and there was novelty in it. Soon every one was intimate with him, 
and interested in what he was doing. Galton's good-natured patronage 
of him was a thing to which no one was indifferent. It was felt to be 
the right thing in the right place. When he came home at night it 
became the custom to ask him questions as to the bits of luck which 
befell him. He became " T. T." instead of Mr. Tembarom, except to 
Joseph Hutchinson and his 'daughter. Hutchinson called him Tembarom, 
but Little Ann said " Mr. Tembarom " with quaint frequency when she 
spoke to him.

"Landed anything to-day, T. T. ? " some one would ask almost every 
evening, and the interest in his relation of the day's adventures 
increased from week to week. Little Ann never asked questions and 
seldom made comments, but she always listened attentively. She had 
gathered, and guessed from what she had gathered, a rather definite 
idea of what his hard young life had been. He did not tell pathetic 
stories about himself, but he and Jim Bowles and Julius Steinberger 
had become fast friends, and the genial smoking of cheap tobacco in 
hall bedrooms tends to frankness of relation, and the various ways in 
which each had found himself "up against it" in the course of their 
brief years supplied material for anecdotal talk.

"But it's bound to be easier from now on," he would say. "I've got 
the 'short' down pretty fine - not fine enough to make big money, but 
enough to hold down a job with Galton. He's mighty good to me. If I 
knew more, I believe he'd give me a column to take care of--Up-town 
Society column perhaps. A fellow named Biker's got it. Twenty per. 
Goes on a bust twice a month, the fool. Gee! I wish I had his job!"

Mrs. Bowse's house was provided with a parlor in which her boarders 
could sit in the evening when so inclined. It was a fearsome room, 
which, when the dark, high-ceilinged hall was entered, revealed 
depths of dingy gloom which appeared splashed in spots with 
incongruous brilliancy of color. This effect was produced by richly 
framed department-store chromo lithographs on the walls, aided by 
lurid cushion-covers, or "tidies" representing Indian maidens or 
chieftains in full war paint, or clusters of poppies of great 
boldness of hue. They had either been Christmas gifts bestowed upon 
Mrs. Bowse or department-store bargains of her own selection, 
purchased with thrifty intent. The red-and-green plush upholstered 
walnut chairs arid sofa had been acquired by her when the bankruptcy 
of a neighboring boarding-house brought them within her means. They 
were no longer very red or very green, and the cheerfully hopeful 
design of the tidies and cushions had been to conceal worn places and 
stains. The mantelpiece was adorned by a black-walnut-and-gold-framed 
mirror, and innumerable vases of the ornate ninety-eight-cents order. 
The centerpiece held a large and extremely soiled spray of artificial 
wistaria. The end of the room was rendered attractive by a tent-like 
cozy-corner built of savage weapons and Oriental cotton stuffs long 
ago become stringy and almost leprous in hue. The proprietor of the 
bankrupt boarding-house had been "artistic." But Mrs. Bowse was a 
good-enough soul whose boarders liked her and her house, and when the 
gas was lighted and some one played "rag-time" on the second-hand 
pianola, they liked the parlor.

Little Ann did not often appear in it, but now and then she came down 
with her bit of sewing,--she always had a "bit of sewing,"--and she 
sat in the cozy-corner listening to the talk or letting some one 
confide troubles to her. Sometimes it was the New England widow, Mrs. 
Peck, who looked like a spinster school-ma'am, but who had a married 
son with a nice wife who lived in Harlem and drank heavily. She used 
to consult with Little Ann as to the possible wisdom of putting a 
drink deterrent privately in his tea. Sometimes it was Mr. Jakes, a 
depressed little man whose wife had left him, for no special reason 
he could discover. Oftenest perhaps it was Julius Steinberger or Jim 
Bowles who did their ingenuous best to present themselves to her as 
energetic, if not successful, young business men, not wholly unworthy 
of attention and always breathing daily increasing devotion. 
Sometimes it was Tembarom, of whom her opinion had never been 
expressed, but who seemed to have made friends with her. She liked to 
hear about the newspaper office and Mr. Galton, and never was 
uninterested in his hopes of "making good." She seemed to him the 
wisest and most direct and composed person he had ever known. She 
spoke with the broad, flat, friendly Manchester accent, and when she 
let drop a suggestion, it carried a delightfully sober conviction 
with it, because what she said was generally a revelation of logical 
mental argument concerning details she had gathered through her 
little way of listening and saying nothing whatever.

"If Mr. Biker drinks, he won't keep his place," she said to Tembarom 
one night. "Perhaps you might get it yourself, if you persevere."

Tembarom reddened a little. He really reddened through joyous 
excitement.

"Say, I didn't know you knew a thing about that," he answered. 
"You're a regular wonder. You scarcely ever say anything, but the way 
you get on to things gets me."

"Perhaps if I talked more I shouldn't notice as much," she said, 
turning her bit of sewing round and examining it. "I never was much 
of a talker. Father's a good talker, and Mother and me got into the 
way of listening. You do if you live with a good talker."

Tembarom looked at the girl with a male gentleness, endeavoring to 
subdue open expression of the fact that he was convinced that she was 
as thoroughly aware of her father's salient characteristics as she 
was of other things.

"You do," said Tembarom. Then picking up her scissors, which had 
dropped from her lap, and politely returning them, he added anxiously:
"To think of you remembering Biker! I wonder, if I ever did get his 
job, if I could hold it down?"

"Yes," decided Little Ann; "you could. I've noticed you're that kind 
of person, Mr. Tembarom."

"Have you?" he said elatedly. "Say, honest Injun?"

"Yes."

"I shall be getting stuck on myself if you encourage me like that," 
he said, and then, his face falling, he added, "Biker graduated at 
Princeton."

"I don't know much about society," Little Ann remarked,-- "I never 
saw any either up-town or down-town or in the country, --but I 
shouldn't think you'd have to have a college education to write the 
things you see about it in the newspaper paragraphs."

Tembarom grinned.

"They're not real high-brow stuff, are they," he said. "'There was a 
brilliant gathering on Tuesday evening at the house of Mr. Jacob 
Sturtburger at 79 Two Hundredth Street on the occasion of the 
marriage of his daughter Miss Rachel Sturtburger to Mr. Eichenstein. 
The bride was attired in white peau de cygne trimmed with duchess 
lace.'"

Little Ann took him up. "I don't know what peau de cygne is, and I 
daresay the bride doesn't. I've never been to anything but a village 
school, but I could make up paragraphs like that myself."

"That's the up-town kind," said Tembarom. "The down-town ones wear 
their mothers' point-lace wedding-veils some-times, but they're not 
much different. Say, I believe I could do it if I had luck."

"So do I," returned Little Ann.

Tembarom looked down at the carpet, thinking the thing over. Ann went 
on sewing.

"That's the way with you," he said presently: "you put things into a 
fellow's head. You've given me a regular boost, Little Ann."

It is not unlikely that but for the sensible conviction in her voice 
he would have felt less bold when, two weeks later, Biker, having 
gone upon a "bust " too prolonged, was dismissed with-out benefit of 
clergy, and Galton desperately turned to Tembarom with anxious 
question in his eye.

"Do you think you could take this job?" he said.

Tembarom's heart, as he believed at the time, jumped into his throat.

"What do you think, Mr. Galton?" he asked.

"It isn't a thing to think about," was Galton's answer.	 "It's a 
thing I must be sure of."

"Well," said Tembarom, "if you give it to me, I'll put up a mighty 
hard fight before I fall down."

Galton considered him, scrutinizing keenly his tough, long-built body,
his sharp, eager, boyish face, and especially his companionable grin.

"We'll let it go at that," he decided. "You'll make friends up in 
Harlem, and you won't find it hard to pick up news. We can at least 
try it."

Tembarom's heart jumped into his throat again, and he swallowed it 
once more. He was glad he was not holding his hat in his hand because 
he knew he would have forgotten himself and thrown it up into the air.

"Thank you, Mr. Galton," he said, flushing tremendously. "I'd like to 
tell you how I appreciate your trusting me, but I don't know how. 
Thank you, sir."

When he appeared in Mrs. Bowse's dining-room that evening there was a 
glow of elation about him and a swing in his entry which attracted 
all eyes at once. For some unknown reason everybody looked at him, 
and, meeting his eyes, detected the presence of some new exultation.

"Landed anything, T. T.?" Jim Bowles cried out. "You look it."

"Sure I look it," Tembarom answered, taking his napkin out of its 
ring with an unconscious flourish. "I've landed the up-town society 
page--landed it, by gee!"

A good-humored chorus of ejaculatory congratulation broke forth all 
round the table.

"Good business!" "Three cheers for T. T.!" "Glad of it!" "Here's 
luck!"
said one after another.

They were all pleased, and it was generally felt that Galton had 
shown sense and done the right thing again. Even Mr. Hutchinson 
rolled about in his chair and grunted his approval.

After dinner Tembarom, Jim Bowles, and Julius Steinberger went up-
stairs together and filled the hall bedroom with clouds of tobacco-
smoke, tilting their chairs against the wall, smoking their pipes 
furiously, flushed and talkative, working themselves up with the 
exhilarated plannings of youth. Jim Bowles and Julius had been down 
on their luck for several weeks, and that "good old T. T." should 
come in with this fairy-story was an actual stimulus. If you have 
never in your life been able to earn more than will pay for your food 
and lodging, twenty dollars looms up large. It might be the beginning 
of anything.

"First thing is to get on to the way to do it," argued Tembarom. "I 
don't know the first thing. I've got to think it out. I couldn't ask 
Biker. He wouldn't tell me, anyhow."

"He's pretty mad, I guess," said Steinberger.

"Mad as hops," Tembarom answered. "As I was coming down-stairs from 
Galton's room he was standing in the hall talking to Miss Dooley, and 
he said: `That Tembarom fellow's going to do it! He doesn't know how 
to spell. I should like to see his stuff come in.' He said it loud, 
because he wanted me to hear it, and he sort of laughed through his 
nose."

"Say, T. T., can you spell?" Jim inquired thoughtfully.

"Spell? Me? No," Tembarom owned with unshaken good cheer. "What I've 
got to do is to get a tame dictionary and keep it chained to the leg 
of my table. Those words with two m's or two l's in them get me right 
down on the mat. But the thing that looks biggest to me is how to 
find out where the news is, and the name of the fellow that'll put me 
on to it. You can't go up a man's front steps and ring the bell and 
ask him if he's going to be married or buried or have a pink tea."

"Wasn't that a knock at the door?" said Steinberger.

It was a knock, and Tembarom jumped up and threw the door open, 
thinking Mrs. Bowse might have come on some household errand. But it 
was Little Ann Hutchinson instead of Mrs. Bowse, and there was a 
threaded needle stuck into the front of her dress, and she had on a 
thimble.

"I want Mr. Bowles's new socks," she said maternally. "I promised I'd 
mark them for him."

Bowles and Steinberger sprang from their chairs, and came forward in 
the usual comfortable glow of pleasure at sight of her.

"What do you think of that for all the comforts of a home?" said 
Tembarom. "As if it wasn't enough for a man to have new socks without 
having marks put on them! What are your old socks made of anyhow--
solid gold? Burglars ain't going to break in and steal them."

"They won't when I've marked them, Mr. Tembarom," answered Little Ann,
looking up at him with sober, round, for-get-me-not blue eyes, but 
with a deep dimple breaking out near her lip; "but all three pairs 
would not come home from the wash if I didn't."

"Three pairs!" ejaculated Tembarom. "He's got three pairs of socks! 
New? That's what's been the matter with him for the last week. Don't 
you mark them for him, Little Ann. 'Tain't good for a man to have 
everything."

"Here they are," said Jim, bringing them forward. "Twenty-five marked 
down to ten at Tracy's. Are they pretty good?"

Little Ann looked them over with the practised eye of a connoisseur 
of bargains.

"They'd be about a shilling in Manchester shops," she decided, "and 
they might be put down to sixpence. They're good enough to take care 
of."

She was not the young woman who is ready for prolonged lively 
conversation in halls and at bedroom doors, and she had turned away 
with the new socks in her hand when Tembarom, suddenly inspired, 
darted after her.

"Say, I've just thought of something," he exclaimed eagerly. "It's 
something I want to ask you."

"What is it?"

"It's about the society-page lay-out." He hesitated. "I wonder if 
it'd be rushing you too much if --say," he suddenly broke off, and 
standing with his hands in his pockets, looked down at her with 
anxious admiration, "I believe you just know about everything."

"No, I don't, Mr. Tembarom; but I'm very glad about the page. 
Everybody's glad."

One of the chief difficulties Tembarom found facing him when he 
talked to Little Ann was the difficulty of resisting an awful 
temptation to take hold of her--to clutch her to his healthy, 
tumultuous young breast and hold her there firmly. He was half 
ashamed of himself when he realized it, but he knew that his venial 
weakness was shared by Jim Bowles and Steinberger and probably others.
She was so slim and light and soft, and the serious frankness of her 
eyes and the quaint air of being a sort of grown-up child of 
astonishing intelligence produced an effect it was necessary to 
combat with.

"What I wanted to say," he put it to her, "was that I believe if 
you'd just let me talk this thing out to you it'd do me good. I 
believe you'd help me to get somewhere. I've got to fix up a scheme 
for getting next the people who have things happening to them that I 
can make society stuff out of, you know. Biker didn't make a hit of 
it, but, gee! I've just got to. I've got to."

"Yes," answered Little Ann, her eyes fixed on him thoughtfully; 
"you've got to, Mr. Tembarom."

"There's not a soul in the parlor. Would you mind coming down and 
sitting there while I talk at you and try to work things out? You 
could go on with your marking."

She thought it over a minute.

"I'll do it if Father can spare me," she made up her mind. "I'll go 
and ask him."

She went to ask him, and returned in two or three minutes with her 
small sewing-basket in her hand.

"He can spare me," she said. "He's reading his paper, and doesn't 
want to talk."

They went down-stairs together and found the room empty. Tembarom 
turned up the lowered gas, and Little Ann sat down in the cozy-corner 
with her work-basket on her knee. Tembarom drew up a chair and sat 
down opposite to her. She threaded a needle and took up one of Jim's 
new socks.

"Now," she said.

"It's like this," he explained. "The page is a new deal, anyhow. 
There didn't used to be an up-town society column at all. It was all 
Fifth Avenue and the four hundred; but ours isn't a fashionable paper,
and their four hundred ain't going to buy it to read their names in 
it. They'd rather pay to keep out of it. Uptown's growing like smoke, 
and there's lots of people up that way that'd like their friends to 
read about their weddings and receptions, and would buy a dozen 
copies to send away when their names were in. There's no end of women 
and girls that'd like to see their clothes described and let their 
friends read the descriptions. They'd buy the paper, too, you bet. 
It'll be a big circulation-increaser. It's Galton's idea, and he gave 
the job to Biker because he thought an educated fellow could get hold 
of people. But somehow he couldn't. Seems as if they didn't like him. 
He kept getting turned down. The page has been mighty poor-- no 
pictures of brides or anything. Galton's been sick over it. He'd been 
sure it'd make a hit. Then Biker's always drinking more or less, and 
he's got the swell head, anyhow. I believe that's the reason he 
couldn't make good with the up-towners."

"Perhaps he was too well educated, Mr. Tembarom," said Little Ann. 
She was marking a letter J in red cotton, and her outward attention 
was apparently wholly fixed on her work.

"Say, now," Tembarom broke out, "there's where you come in. You go on 
working as if there was nothing but that sock in New York, but I 
guess you've just hit the dot. Perhaps that was it. He wanted to do 
Fifth Avenue work anyway, and he didn't go at Harlem right. He put on 
Princeton airs when he asked questions. Gee! a fellow can't put on 
any kind of airs when he's the one that's got to ask."

"You'll get on better," remarked Little Ann. "You've got a friendly 
way and you've a lot of sense. I've noticed it."

Her head was bent over the red J and she still looked at it and not 
at Tembarom. This was not coyness, but simple, calm absorption. If 
she had not been making the J, she would have sat with her hands 
folded in her lap, and gazed at the young man with undisturbed 
attention.

"Have you?" said Tembarom, gratefully. "That gives me another boost, 
Little Ann. What a man seems to need most is just plain twenty-cents-
a-yard sense. Not that I ever thought I had the dollar kind. I'm not 
putting on airs."

"Mr. Galton knows the kind you have. I suppose that's why he gave you 
the page." The words, spoken in the shrewd-sounding Manchester accent,
were neither flattering nor unflattering; they were merely impartial.

"Well, now I've got it, I can't fall down," said Tembarom. "I've got 
to find out for myself how to get next to the people I want to talk 
to. I've got to find out who to get next to."

Little Ann put in the final red stitch of the letter J and laid the 
sock neatly folded on the basket.

"I've just been thinking something, Mr. Tembarom," she said. "Who 
makes the wedding-cakes?"

He gave a delighted start.

"Gee!" he broke out, "the wedding-cakes!"

"Yes," Little Ann proceeded, "they'd have to have wedding-cakes, and 
perhaps if you went to the shops where they're sold and could make 
friends with the people, they'd tell you whom they were selling them 
to, and you could get the addresses and go and find out things."

Tembarom, glowing with admiring enthusiasm, thrust out his hand.

"Little Ann, shake! " he said. " You've given me the whole show, just 
like I thought you would. You're just the limit."

"Well, a wedding-cake's the next thing after the bride," she answered.

Her practical little head had given him the practical lead. The mere 
wedding-cake opened up vistas. Confectioners supplied not only 
weddings, but refreshments for receptions and dances. Dances 
suggested the "halls" in which they were held. You could get 
information at such places. Then there were the churches, and the 
florists who decorated festal scenes. Tembarom's excitement grew as 
he talked. One plan led to another; vistas opened on all sides. It 
all began to look so easy that he could not understand how Biker 
could possibly have gone into such a land of promise, and returned 
embittered and empty-handed.

"He thought too much of himself and too little of other people," 
Little Ann summed him up in her unsevere, reasonable voice. "That's 
so silly."

Tembarom tried not to look at her affectionately, but his voice was 
affectionate as well as admiring, despite him.

"The way you get on to a thing just in three words!" he said. "Daniel 
Webster ain't in it."

"I dare say if you let the people in the shops know that you come 
from a newspaper, it'll be a help," she went on with ingenuous 
worldly wisdom. "They'll think it'll be a kind of advertisement. And 
so it will. You get some neat cards printed with your name and Sunday 
Earth on them."

"Gee!" Tembarom ejaculated, slapping his knee, "there's another! You 
think of every darned thing, don't you?"

She stopped a moment to look at him.

"You'd have thought of it all yourself after a bit," she said. She 
was not of those unseemly women whose intention it is manifestly to 
instruct the superior man. She had been born in a small Manchester 
street and trained by her mother, whose own training had evolved 
through affectionately discreet conjugal management of Mr. Hutchinson.

"Never you let a man feel set down when you want him to see a thing 
reasonable, Ann," she had said. "You never get on with them if you do.
They can't stand it. The Almighty seemed to make 'em that way. 
They've always been masters, and it don't hurt any woman to let 'em 
be, if she can help 'em to think reasonable. Just you make a man feel 
comfortable in his mind and push him the reasonable way. But never 
you shove him, Ann. If you do, he'll just get all upset-like. Me and 
your father have been right-down happy together, but we never should 
have been if I hadn't thought that out before we was married two 
weeks. Perhaps it's the Almighty's will, though I never was as sure 
of the Almighty's way of thinking as some are."

Of course Tembarom felt soothed and encouraged, though he belonged to 
the male development which is not automatically infuriated at a 
suspicion of female readiness of logic.

"Well, I might have got on to it in time," he answered, still trying 
not to look affectionate, "but I've no time to spare. Gee! but I'm 
glad you're here!"

"I sha'n't be here very long." There was a shade of patient regret in 
her voice. "Father's got tired of trying America. He's been 
disappointed too often. He's going back to England."

"Back to England!" Tembarom cried out forlornly, "Oh Lord! What shall 
we all do without you, Ann?"

"You'll do as you did before we came," said Little Ann.

"No, we sha'n't. We can't. I can't anyhow." He actually got up from 
his chair and began to walk about, with his hands thrust deep in his 
pockets.

Little Ann began to put her first stitches into a red B. No human 
being could have told what she thought.

"We mustn't waste time talking about that," she said. "Let us talk 
about the page. There are dressmakers, you know. If you could make 
friends with a dressmaker or two they'd tell you what the wedding 
things were really made of. Women do like their clothes to be 
described right."




CHAPTER III


His work upon the page began the following week. When the first 
morning of his campaign opened with a tumultuous blizzard, Jim Bowles 
and Julius Steinberger privately sympathized with him as they dressed 
in company, but they heard him whistling in his own hall bedroom as 
he put on his clothes, and to none of the three did it occur that 
time could be lost because the weather was inhuman. Blinding snow was 
being whirled through the air by a wind which had bellowed across the 
bay, and torn its way howling through the streets, maltreating people 
as it went, snatching their breath out of them, and leaving them 
gaspingly clutching at hats and bending their bodies before it. 
Street-cars went by loaded from front to back platform, and were 
forced from want of room to whizz heartlessly by groups waiting 
anxiously at street corners.

Tembarom saw two or three of them pass in this way, leaving the 
waiting ones desperately huddled together behind them. He braced 
himself and whistled louder as he buttoned his celluloid collar.

"I'm going to get up to Harlem all the same," he said. "The 'L' will 
be just as jammed, but there'll be a place somewhere, and I'll get 
it."

His clothes were the outwardly decent ones of a young man who must 
perforce seek cheap clothing-stores, and to whom a ten-dollar "hand-
me-down" is a source of exultant rejoicing. With the aid of great 
care and a straight, well-formed young body, he managed to make the 
best of them; but they were not to be counted upon for warmth even in 
ordinarily cold weather. His overcoat was a specious covering, and 
was not infrequently odorous of naphtha.

"You've got to know something about first aid to the wounded if you 
live on ten per," he had said once to Little Ann. "A suit of clothes 
gets to be an emergency-case mighty often if it lasts three years."

"Going up to Harlem to-day, T. T.?" his neighbor at table asked him 
as he sat down to breakfast.

"Right there," he answered. "I've ordered the limousine round, with 
the foot-warmer and fur rugs."

"I guess a day wouldn't really matter much," said Mrs. Bowse, good-
naturedly. "Perhaps it might be better to-morrow."

"And perhaps it mightn't," said Tembarom, eating "break-fast-food" 
with a cheerful appetite. "What you can't be stone-cold sure of to-
morrow you drive a nail in to-day."

He ate a tremendous breakfast as a discreet precautionary measure. 
The dark dining-room was warm, and the food was substantial. It was 
comfortable in its way.

"You'd better hold the hall door pretty tight when you go out, and 
don't open it far," said Mrs. Bowse as he got up to go. "There's wind 
enough to upset things."

Tembarom went out in the hall, and put on his insufficient overcoat. 
He buttoned it across his chest, and turned its collar up to his ears.
Then he bent down to turn up the bottoms of his trousers.

"A pair of arctics would be all to the merry right here," he said, 
and then he stood upright and saw Little Ann coming down the 
staircase holding in her hand a particularly ugly tar-tan-plaid 
woolen neck-scarf of the kind known in England as a "comforter."

"If you are going out in this kind of weather," she said in her 
serene, decided little voice, "you'd better wrap this comforter right 
round your neck, Mr. Tembarom. It's one of Father's, and he can spare 
it because he's got another, and, besides, he's not going out."

Tembarom took it with a sudden emotional perception of the fact that 
he was being taken care of in an abnormally luxurious manner.

"Now, I appreciate that," he said. "The thing about you. Little Ann, 
is that you never make a wrong guess about what a fellow needs, do 
you?"

"I'm too used to taking care of Father not to see things," she 
answered.

"What you get on to is how to take care of the whole world --initials 
on a fellow's socks and mufflers round his neck." His eyes looked 
remarkably bright.
	
"If a person were taking care of the whole world, he'd have a lot to 
do," was her sedate reception of the remark. "You'd better put that 
twice round your neck, Mr. Tembarom."

She put up her hand to draw the end of the scarf over his shoulder, 
and Tembarom stood still at once, as though he were a little boy 
being dressed for school. He looked down at her round cheek, and 
watched one of the unexpected dimples reveal itself in a place where 
dimples are not usually anticipated. It was coming out because she 
was smiling a small, observing smile. It was an almost exciting thing 
to look at, and he stood very still indeed. A fellow who did not own 
two pairs of boots would be a fool not to keep quiet.

"You haven't told me I oughtn't to go out till the blizzard lets up," 
he said presently.

"No, I haven't, Mr. Tembarom," she answered. "You're one of the kind 
that mean to do a thing when they've made up their minds. It'll be a 
nice bit of money if you can keep the page."

"Galton said he'd give me a chance to try to make good," said 
Tembarom. "And if it's the hit he thinks it ought to be, he'll raise 
me ten. Thirty per. Vanastorbilts won't be in it. I think I'll get 
married," he added, showing all his attractive teeth at once.

"I wouldn't do that," she said. "It wouldn't be enough to depend on. 
New York's an expensive place."

She drew back and looked him over. "That'll keep you much warmer," 
she decided. "Now you can go. I've been looking in the telephone-book 
for confectioners, and I've written down these addresses." She handed 
him a slip of paper.

Tembarom caught his breath.

"Hully gee!" he exclaimed, "there never were TWO of you made! One 
used up all there was of it. How am I going to thank you, anyhow!"

"I do hope you'll be able to keep the page," she said. "I do that, Mr.
Tembarom."

If there had been a touch of coquetry in her earnest, sober, round, 
little face she would have been less distractingly alluring, but 
there was no shade of anything but a sort of softly motherly anxiety 
in the dropped note of her voice, and it was almost more than flesh 
and blood at twenty-five could stand. Tembarom made a hasty, 
involuntary move toward her, but it was only a slight one, and it was 
scarcely perceptible before he had himself in hand and hurriedly 
twisted his muffler tighter, showing his teeth again cheerily.

"You keep on hoping it all day without a let-up," he said. "And tell 
Mr. Hutchinson I'm obliged to him, please. Get out of the way, Little 
Ann, while I go out. The wind might blow you and the hat-stand up-
stairs."

He opened the door and dashed down the high steps into the full blast 
of the blizzard. He waited at the street corner while three 
overcrowded cars whizzed past him, ignoring his signals because there 
was not an inch of space left in them for another passenger. Then he 
fought his way across two or three blocks to the nearest "L" station. 
He managed to wedge himself into a train there, and then at least he 
was on his way. He was thinking hard and fast, but through all his 
planning the warm hug of the tartan comforter round his neck kept 
Little Ann near him. He had been very thankful for the additional 
warmth as the whirling snow and wind had wrought their will with him 
while he waited for the cars at the street corner. On the "L" train 
he saw her serious eyes and heard the motherly drop in her voice as 
she said, "I do hope you'll be able to keep the page. I do that, Mr. 
Tembarom." It made him shut his hands hard as they hung in his 
overcoat pockets for warmth, and it made him shut his sound teeth 
strongly.

"Gee! I've got to!" his thoughts said for him. "If I make it, perhaps 
my luck will have started. When a man's luck gets started, every 
darned thing's to the good."

The "L" had dropped most of its crowd when it reached the up-town 
station among the hundredth streets which was his destination. He 
tightened his comforter, tucked the ends firmly into the front of his 
overcoat, and started out along the platform past the office, and 
down the steep, iron steps, already perilous with freezing snow. He 
had to stop to get his breath when he reached the street, but he did 
not stop long. He charged forth again along the pavement, looking 
closely at the shop-windows. There were naturally but few passers-by, 
and the shops were not important-looking; but they were open, and he 
could see that the insides of them looked comfortable in contrast 
with the blizzard-ruled street. He could not see both sides of the 
street as he walked up one side of the block without coming upon a 
confectioner's. He crossed at the corner and turned back on the other 
side. Presently he saw that a light van was standing before one place,
backed up against the sidewalk to receive parcels, its shuddering 
horse holding its head down and bracing itself with its forelegs 
against the wind. At any rate, something was going on there, and he 
hurried forward to find out what it was. The air was so thick with 
myriads of madly flying bits of snow, which seemed whirled in all 
directions in the air, that he could not see anything definite even a 
few yards away. When he reached the van he found that he had also 
reached his confectioner. The sign over the window read "M. Munsberg, 
Confectionery. Cakes. Ice-Cream. Weddings, Balls and Receptions."

"Made a start, anyhow," said Tembarom.

He turned into the store, opening the door carefully, and thereby 
barely escaping being blown violently against a stout, excited, 
middle-aged little Jew who was bending over a box he was packing. 
This was evidently Mr. Munsberg, who was extremely busy, and even the 
modified shock upset his temper.

"Vhere you goin'?" he cried out. "Can't you look vhere you're goin'?"

Tembarom knew this was not a good beginning, but his natural mental 
habit of vividly seeing the other man's point of view helped him 
after its usual custom. His nice grin showed itself.

"I wasn't going; I was coming," he said. "Beg pardon. The wind's 
blowing a hundred miles an hour."

A good-looking young woman, who was probably Mrs. Munsberg, was 
packing a smaller box behind the counter. Tembarom lifted his hat, 
and she liked it.

"He didn't do it a bit fresh," she said later. "Kind o' nice." She 
spoke to him with professional politeness.

"Is there anything you want?" she asked.

Tembarom glanced at the boxes and packages standing about and at 
Munsberg, who had bent over his packing again. Here was an occasion 
for practical tact.

"I've blown in at the wrong time," he said. "You're busy getting 
things out on time. I'll just wait.. Gee! I'm glad to be inside. I 
want to speak to Mr. Munsberg."

Mr. Munsberg jerked himself upright irascibly, and broke forth in the 
accent of the New York German Jew.

"If you comin' in here to try to sell somedings, young man, joost you 
let that same vind vat blew you in blow you right out pretty quick. 
I'm not buyin' nodings. I'm busy."

"I'm not selling a darned thing," answered Tembarom, with undismayed 
cheer.

"You vant someding?" jerked out Munsberg.

"Yes, I want something," Tembarom answered, " but it's nothing any 
one has to pay for. I'm only a newspaper man." He felt a glow of 
pride as he said the words. He was a newspaper man even now. "Don't 
let me stop you a minute. I'm in luck to get inside anywhere and sit 
down. Let me wait."

Mrs. Munsberg read the Sunday papers and revered them. She also knew 
the value of advertisement. She caught her husband's eye and 
hurriedly winked at him.

"It's awful outside. 'T won't do harm if he waits--if he ain't no 
agent," she put in.

"See," said Tembarom, handing over one of the cards which had been 
Little Ann's businesslike inspiration.

"T. Tembarom. New York Sunday Earth," read Munsberg, rather 
grudgingly. He looked at T. Tembarom, and T. Tembarom looked back at 
him. The normal human friendliness in the sharp boyish face did it.

"Vell," he said, making another jerk toward a chair, "if you ain't no 
agent, you can vait."

"Thank you," said Tembarom, and sat down. He had made another start, 
anyhow.

After this the packing went on fast and furious. A youth appeared 
from the back of the store, and ran here and there as he was ordered. 
Munsberg and his wife filled wooden and cardboard boxes with small 
cakes and larger ones, with sandwiches and salads, candies and 
crystallized fruits. Into the larger box was placed a huge cake with 
an icing temple on the top of it, with silver doves adorning it 
outside and in. There was no mistaking the poetic significance of 
that cake. Outside the blizzard whirled clouds of snow-particles 
through the air, and the van horse kept his head down and his 
forelegs braced. His driver had long since tried to cover him with a 
blanket which the wind continually tore loose from its fastenings, 
and flapped about the creature's sides. Inside the store grew hot. 
There was hurried moving about, banging of doors, excited voices, 
irascible orders given and countermanded. Tembarom found out in five 
minutes that the refreshments were for a wedding reception to be held 
at a place known as "The Hall," and the goods must be sent out in 
time to be ready for the preparations for the wedding supper that 
night.

"If I knew how to handle it, I could get stuff for a column just 
sitting here," he thought. He kept both eyes and ears open. He was 
sharp enough to realize that the mere sense of familiarity with 
detail which he was gaining was material in itself. Once or twice he 
got up and lent a hand with a box in his casual way, and once or 
twice he saw that he could lift some-thing down or up for Mrs. 
Munsberg, who was a little woman. The natural casualness of his way 
of jumping up to do the things prevented any suspicion of 
officiousness, and also prevented his waiting figure from beginning 
to wear the air of a superfluous object in the way. He waited a long 
time, and circumstances so favored him as to give him a chance or so. 
More than once exactly the right moment presented itself when he 
could interject an apposite remark. Twice he made Munsberg laugh, and 
twice Mrs. Munsberg voluntarily addressed him.

At last the boxes and parcels ware all carried out and stored in the 
van, after strugglings with the opening and shutting of doors, and 
battlings with outside weather.

When this was all over, Munsberg came back into the store, knocking 
his hands together and out of breath.

"Dot's all right," he said. " It'll all be there plenty time. 
Vouldn't have fell down on that order for tventy-vive dollars. Dot 
temple on the cake was splendid. Joseph he done it fine."

"He never done nothin' no finer," Mrs. Munsberg said. "It looked as 
good as anything on Fift' Avenoo."

Both were relieved and pleased with themselves, their store, and 
their cake-decorator. Munsberg spoke to Tembarom in the manner of a 
man who, having done a good thing, does not mind talking about it.

"Dot was a big order," he remarked.

"I should smile," answered Tembarom. "I'd like to know whose going to 
get outside all that good stuff. That wedding-cake took the tart away 
from anything I've ever seen. Which of the four hundred's going to 
eat it?"

"De man vot ordered dot cake," Munsberg swaggered, "he's not got to 
vorry along on vun million nor two. He owns de biggest brewery in New 
York, I guess in America. He's Schwartz of Schwartz & Kapfer."

"Well, he 's got it to burn!" said Tembarom.

"He's a mighty good man," went on Munsberg. " He's mighty fond of his 
own people. He made his first money in Harlem, and he had a big fight 
to get it; but his own people vas good to him, an' he's never forgot 
it. He's built a fine house here, an' his girls is fine girls. De 
vun's goin' to be married to-night her name's Rachel, an' she's goin' 
to marry a nice feller, Louis Levy. Levy built the big entertainment-
hall vhere the reception's goin' to be. It's decorated vith two 
thousand dollars' worth of bride roses an' lilies of de valley an' 
smilax. All de up-town places vas bought out, an' den Schwartz vent 
down Fift' Avenoo."

The right moment had plainly arrived.

"Say, Mr. Munsberg," Tembarom broke forth, "you're giving me just 
what I wanted to ask you for. I'm the new up-town society reporter 
for the Sunday Earth, and I came in here to see if you wouldn't help 
me to get a show at finding out who was going to have weddings and 
society doings. I didn't know just how to start."

Munsberg gave a sort of grunt. He looked less amiable.

"I s'pose you're used to nothin' but Fift' Avenoo," he said.

Tembarom grinned exactly at the right time again. Not only his good 
teeth grinned, but his eyes grinned also, if the figure may be used.

"Fifth Avenue!" he laughed. "There's been no Fifth Avenue in mine. 
I'm not used to anything, but you may bet your life I'm going to get 
used to Harlem, if you people'll let me. I've just got this job, and 
I'm dead stuck on it. I want to make it go."

"He's mighty different from Biker," said Mrs. Munsberg in an 
undertone.

"Vhere's dod oder feller?" inquired Munsberg. "He vas a dam fool, dot 
oder feller, half corned most de time, an' puttin' on Clarence airs. 
No one was goin' to give him nothin'. He made folks mad at de start."

"I've got his job," said Tembarom, "and if I can't make it go, the 
page will be given up. It'll be my fault if that happens, not 
Harlem's. There's society enough up-town to make a first-class page, 
and I shall be sick if I can't get on to it."

He had begun to know his people. Munsberg was a good- natured, 
swaggering little Hebrew.

That the young fellow should make a clean breast of it and claim no 
down-town superiority, and that he should also have the business 
insight to realize that he might obtain valuable society items from 
such a representative confectioner as M. Munsberg, was a situation to 
incite amiable sentiments.

"Vell, you didn't come to de wrong place," he said. "All de biggest 
things comes to me, an' I don't mind tellin' you about 'em. 'T ain't 
goin' to do no harm. Weddings an' things dey ought to be wrote up, 
anyhow, if dey're done right. It's good for business. Vy don't dey 
have no pictures of de supper- tables? Dot'd be good."

"There's lots of receptions and weddings this month," said Mrs. 
Munsberg, becoming agreeably excited. "And there's plenty handsome 
young girls that'd like their pictures published.

"None of them have been in Sunday papers before, and they'd like it. 
The four Schwartz girls would make grand pictures. They dress 
splendid, and their bridesmaids dresses came from the biggest place 
in Fift' Avenoo."

"Say," exclaimed Tembarom, rising from his chair, "I'm in luck. Luck 
struck me the minute I turned in here. If you'll tell me where 
Schwartz lives, and where the hall is, and the church, and just 
anything else I can use, I'll go out and whoop up a page to beat the 
band." He was glowing with exultation. "I know I can do it. You've 
started me off."

Munsberg and his wife began to warm. It was almost as though they had 
charge of the society page themselves. There was something 
stimulating in the idea. There was a suggestion of social importance 
in it. They knew a number of people who would be pleased with the 
prospect of being in the Sunday Earth. They were of a race which 
holds together, and they gave not only the names and addresses of 
prospective entertainers, but those of florists and owners of halls 
where parties were given.

Mrs. Munsberg gave the name of a dressmaker of whom she shrewdly 
guessed that she would be amiably ready to talk to a society-page 
reporter.

"That Biker feller," she said, "got things down all wrong. He called 
fine white satin 'white nun's-veiling,' and he left out things. Never 
said nothing about Miss Lewishon's diamond ring what her grandpa gave 
her for a wedding-present. An' it cost two hundred and fifty."

"Well, I'm a pretty big fool myself," said Tembarom, "but I should 
have known better than that."

When he opened the door to go, Mrs. Munsberg called after him:

"When you get through, you come back here and tell us what you done. 
I'll give you a cup of hot coffee."

He returned to Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house so late that night that 
even Steinberger and Bowles had ended their day. The gas in the hall 
was turned down to a glimmering point, and the house was silent for 
the night. Even a cat who stole to him and rubbed herself against his 
leg miauwed in a sort of abortive whisper, opening her mouth wide, 
but emitting no sound. When he went cautiously up the staircase he 
carried his damp overcoat with him, and hung it in company with the 
tartan muffler close to the heater in the upper hall. Then he laid on 
his bedside table a package of papers and photographs.

After he had undressed, he dropped heavily into bed, exhausted, but 
elate.

"I'm dog-tired," he said, "but I guess I've got it going."  And 
almost before the last word had uttered itself he fell into the deep 
sleep of worn-out youth.




CHAPTER IV


Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house began to be even better pleased with him 
than before. He had stories to tell, festivities to describe, and 
cheerful incidents to recount. The boarders assisted vicariously at 
weddings and wedding receptions, afternoon teas and dances, given in 
halls. "Up-town" seemed to them largely given to entertainment and 
hilarity of an enviably prodigal sort. Mrs. Bowse's guests were not 
of the class which entertains or is entertained, and the details of 
banquets and ball-dresses and money-spending were not uncheering 
material for conversation. Such topics suggested the presence and 
dispensing of a good deal of desirable specie, which in floating 
about might somehow reach those who needed it most. The impression 
was that T. Tembarom was having "a good time." It was not his way to 
relate any incidents which were not of a cheering or laughter-
inspiring nature. He said nothing of the times when his luck was bad, 
when he made blunders, and, approaching the wrong people, was met 
roughly or grudgingly, and found no resource left but to beat a 
retreat. He made no mention of his experiences in the blizzard, which 
continued, and at times nearly beat breath and life out of him as he 
fought his way through it. Especially he told no story of the morning 
when, after having labored furiously over the writing of his "stuff" 
until long after midnight, he had taken it to Galton, and seen his 
face fall as he looked over it. To battle all day with a blizzard and 
occasional brutal discouragements, and to sit up half the night 
tensely absorbed in concentrating one's whole mental equipment upon 
the doing of unaccustomed work has its effect. As he waited, Tembarom 
unconsciously shifted from one foot to another, and had actually to 
swallow a sort of lump in his throat.

"I guess it won't do," he said rather uncertainly as Galton laid a 
sheet down.

Galton was worn out himself and harried by his nerves.

"No, it won't," he said; and then as he saw Tembarom move to the 
other foot he added, "Not as it is."

Tembarom braced himself and cleared his throat.

"If," he ventured--" well, you've been mighty easy on me, Mr Galton--
and this is a big chance for a fellow like me. If it's too big a 
chance--why--that's all. But if it's anything I could change and it 
wouldn't be too much trouble to tell me--"

"There's no time to rewrite it," answered Galton. "It must be handed 
in to-morrow. It's too flowery. Too many adjectives. I've no time to 
give you--" He snatched up a blue pencil and began to slash at the 
paper with it. "Look here-- and here--cut out that balderdash--cut 
this--and this-- oh,--" throwing the pencil down,--"you'd have to cut 
it all out. There's no time." He fell back in his chair with a 
hopeless movement, and rubbed his forehead nervously with the back of 
his hand. Ten people more or less were waiting to speak to him; he 
was worn out with the rush of work. He believed in the page, and did 
not want to give up his idea; but he didn't know a man to hand it to 
other than this untrained, eager ignoramus whom he had a queer 
personal liking for. He was no business of his, a mere stenographer 
in his office with whom he could be expected to have no relations, 
and yet a curious sort of friendliness verging on intimacy had 
developed between them.

"There'd be time if you thought it wouldn't do any harm to give me 
another chance," said Tembarom. "I can sit up all night. I guess I've 
caught on to what you DON'T want. I've put in too many fool words. I 
got them out of other papers, but I don't know how to use them. I 
guess I've caught on. Would it do any harm if you gave me till to-
morrow?"

"No, it wouldn't," said Galton, desperately. "If you can't do it, 
there's no time to find another man, and the page must be cut out. 
It's been no good so far. It won't be missed. Take it along."

As he pushed back the papers, he saw the photographs, and picked one 
up.

"That bride's a good-looking girl. Who are these others? Bridesmaids? 
You've got a lot of stuff here. Biker couldn't get anything." He 
glanced up at the young fellow's rather pale face. "I thought you'd 
make friends. How did you get all this?"

"I beat the streets till I found it," said Tembarom. "I had luck 
right away. I went into a confectionery store where they make wedding-
cakes. A good-natured little Dutchman and his wife kept it, and I 
talked to them--"

"Got next?" said Galton, grinning a little.

"They gave me addresses, and told me a whole lot of things. I got 
into the Schwartz wedding reception, and they treated me mighty well. 
A good many of them were willing to talk. I told them what a big 
thing the page was going to be, and I--well, I said the more they 
helped me the finer it would turn out. I said it seemed a shame there 
shouldn't be an up-town page when such swell entertainments were 
given. I've got a lot of stuff there."

Galton laughed.

"You'd get it," he said. "If you knew how to handle it, you'd make it 
a hit. Well, take it along. If it isn't right tomorrow, it's done 
for."

Tembarom didn't tell stories or laugh at dinner that evening. He said 
he had a headache. After dinner he bolted upstairs after Little Ann, 
and caught her before she mounted to her upper floor.

"Will you come and save my life again?" he said. "I'm in the tightest 
place I ever was in in my life."

"I'll do anything I can, Mr. Tembarom," she answered, and as his face 
had grown flushed by this time she looked anxious. "You look 
downright feverish."

"I've got chills as well as fever," he said. "It's the page. It seems 
like I was going to fall down on it."

She turned back at once.

"No you won't, Mr. Tembarom," she said "I'm just right-down sure you 
won't."

They went down to the parlor again, and though there were people in 
it, they found a corner apart, and in less than ten minutes he had 
told her what had happened.

She took the manuscript he handed to her.

"If I was well educated, I should know how to help you," she said, 
"but I've only been to a common Manchester school. I don't know 
anything about elegant language. What are these?" pointing to the 
blue-pencil marks.

Tembarom explained, and she studied the blue slashes with serious 
attention.

"Well," she said in a few minutes, laying the manuscript down, "I 
should have cut those words out myself if--if you'd asked me which to 
take away. They're too showy, Mr. Tembarom."

Tembarom whipped a pencil out of his pocket and held it out.

"Say," he put it to her, "would you take this and draw it through a 
few of the other showy ones?"

"I should feel as if I was taking too much upon myself," she said. "I 
don't know anything about it."

"You know a darned sight more than I do," Tembarom argued. "I didn't 
know they were showy. I thought they were the kind you had to put in 
newspaper stuff."

She held the sheets of paper on her knee, and bent her head over them.
Tembarom watched her dimples flash in and out as she worked away 
like a child correcting an exercise. Presently he saw she was quite 
absorbed. Sometimes she stopped and thought, pressing her lips 
together; sometimes she changed a letter. There was no lightness in 
her manner. A badly mutilated stocking would have claimed her 
attention in the same way.

"I think I'd put 'house' there instead of 'mansion' if I were you," 
she suggested once.

"Put in a whole block of houses if you like," he answered gratefully. 
"Whatever you say goes. I believe Galton would say the same thing."

She went over sheet after sheet, and though she knew nothing about it,
she cut out just what Galton would have cut out. She put the papers 
together at last and gave them back to Tembarom, getting up from her 
seat.

"I must go back to father now," she said. "I promised to make him a 
good cup of coffee over the little oil-stove. If you'll come and 
knock at the door I'll give you one. It will help you to keep fresh 
while you work."

Tembarom did not go to bed at all that night, and he looked rather 
fagged the next morning when he handed back the "stuff" entirely 
rewritten. He swallowed several times quite hard as he waited for the 
final verdict.

"You did catch on to what I didn't want," Galton said at last. "You 
will catch on still more as you get used to the work. And you did get 
the 'stuff,'"

"That--you mean--that goes?" Tembarom stammered.

"Yes, it goes," answered Galton. "You can turn it in. We'll try the 
page for a month."

"Gee! Thank the Lord!" said Tembarom, and then he laughed an excited 
boyish laugh, and the blood came back to his face. He had a whole 
month before him, and if he had caught on as soon as this, a month 
would teach him a lot.

He'd work like a dog.

He worked like a healthy young man impelled by a huge enthusiasm, and 
seeing ahead of him something he had had no practical reason for 
aspiring to. He went out in all weathers and stayed out to all hours. 
Whatsoever rebuffs or difficulties he met with he never was even on 
the verge of losing his nerve. He actually enjoyed himself 
tremendously at times. He made friends; people began to like to see 
him. The Munsbergs regarded him as an inspiration of their own.

"He seen my name over de store and come in here first time he vas 
sent up dis vay to look for t'ings to write," Mr. Munsberg always 
explained. "Ve vas awful busy--time of the Schwartz vedding, an' dere 
vas dat blizzard. He owned up he vas new, an' vanted some vun vhat 
knew to tell him vhat vas goin' on. 'Course I could do it. Me an' my 
vife give him addresses an' a lot of items. He vorked 'em up good. 
Dot up-town page is gettin' first-rate. He says he don' know vhat 
he'd have done if he hadn't turned up here dot day."

Tembarom, having "caught on" to his fault of style, applied himself 
with vigor to elimination. He kept his tame dictionary chained to the 
leg of his table--an old kitchen table which Mrs. Bowse scrubbed and 
put into his hall bedroom, overcrowding it greatly. He turned to 
Little Ann at moments of desperate uncertainty, but he was man enough 
to do his work himself. In glorious moments when he was rather sure 
that Galton was far from unsatisfied with his progress, and Ann had 
looked more than usually distracting in her aloof and sober 
alluringness,-- it was her entire aloofness which so stirred his 
blood,--he sometimes stopped scribbling and lost his head for a 
minute or so, wondering if a fellow ever COULD "get away with it" to 
the extent of making enough to--but he always pulled himself up in 
time.

"Nice fool I look, thinking that way!" he would say to himself. 
"She'd throw me down hard if she knew. But, my Lord! ain't she just a 
peach!"

It was in the last week of the month of trial which was to decide the 
permanency of the page that he came upon the man Mrs. Bowse's 
boarders called his "Freak." He never called him a "freak" himself 
even at the first. Even his somewhat undeveloped mind felt itself 
confronted at the outset with something too abnormal and serious, 
something with a suggestion of the weird and tragic in it.

In this wise it came about:

The week had begun with another blizzard, which after the second day 
had suddenly changed its mind, and turned into sleet and rain which 
filled the streets with melted snow, and made walking a fearsome 
thing. Tembarom had plenty of walking to do. This week's page was his 
great effort, and was to be a "dandy." Galton must be shown what 
pertinacity could do.

"I'm going to get into it up to my neck, and then strike out," he 
said at breakfast on Monday morning.

Thursday was his most strenuous day. The weather had decided to 
change again, and gusts of sleet were being driven about, which added 
cold to sloppiness. He had found it difficult to get hold of some 
details he specially wanted. Two important and extremely good-looking 
brides had refused to see him because Biker had enraged them in his 
day. He had slighted the description of their dresses at a dance 
where they had been the observed of all observers, and had worn 
things brought from Paris. Tembarom had gone from house to house. He 
had even searched out aunts whose favor he had won professionally. He 
had appealed to his dressmaker, whose affection he had by that time 
fully gained. She was doing work in the brides' houses, and could 
make it clear that he would not call peau de cygne "Surah silk," nor 
duchess lace "Baby Irish." But the young ladies enjoyed being 
besought by a society page. It was something to discuss with one's 
bridesmaids and friends, to protest that "those interviewers" give a 
person no peace. "If you don't want to be in the papers, they'll put 
you in whether you like it or not, however often you refuse them." 
They kept Tembarom running about, they raised faint hopes, and then 
went out when he called, leaving no messages, but allowing the 
servant to hint that if he went up to Two Hundred and Seventy-fifth 
Street he might chance to find them.

"All right," said Tembarom to the girl, delighting her by lifting his 
hat genially as he turned to go down the steps. "I'll just keep going.
The Sunday Earth can't come out without those photographs in it. I 
should lose my job."

When at last he ran the brides to cover it was not at Two Hundred and 
Seventy-fifth Street, but in their own home, to which they had 
finally returned. They had heard from the servant-girl about what the 
young gentleman from the Sunday Earth had said, and they were 
mollified by his proper appreciation of values. Tembarom's dressmaker 
friend also proffered information.

"I know him myself," she said, "and he's a real nice gentle-manlike 
young man. He's not a bit like Biker. He doesn't think he knows 
everything. He came to me from Mrs. Munsberg, just to ask me the 
names of fashionable materials. He said it was more important than a 
man knew till he found out" Miss Stuntz chuckled.

"He asked me to lend him some bits of samples so he could learn them 
off by heart, and know them when he saw them. He's got a pleasant 
laugh; shows his teeth, and they're real pretty and white; and he 
just laughed like a boy and said: 'These samples are my alphabet, 
Miss Stuntz. I'm going to learn to read words of three syllables in 
them.'"

When late in the evening Tembarom, being let out of the house after 
his interview, turned down the steps again, he carried with him all 
he had wanted--information and photographs, even added picturesque 
details. He was prepared to hand in a fuller and better page than he 
had ever handed in before. He was in as elated a frame of mind as a 
young man can be when he is used up with tramping the streets, and 
running after street-cars, to stand up in them and hang by a strap. 
He had been wearing a new pair of boots, one of which rubbed his heel 
and had ended by raising a blister worthy of attention. To reach the 
nearest "L" station he must walk across town, through several 
deserted streets in the first stages of being built up, their vacant 
lots surrounded by high board fencing covered with huge advertising 
posters. The hall bedroom, with the gas turned up and the cheap, red-
cotton comfort on the bed, made an alluring picture as he faced the 
sleety wind.

"If I cut across to the avenue and catch the 'L,' I'm bound to get 
there sometime, anyhow," he said as he braced himself and set out on 
his way.

The blister on his heel had given him a good deal of trouble, and he 
was obliged to stop a moment to ease it, and he limped when he began 
to walk again. But he limped as fast as he could, while the sleety 
rain beat in his face, across one street, down another for a block or 
so, across another, the melting snow soaking even the new boots as he 
splashed through it. He bent his head, however, and limped steadily. 
At this end of the city many of the streets were only scantily built 
up, and he was passing through one at the corner of which was a big 
vacant lot. At the other corner a row of cheap houses which had only 
reached their second story waited among piles of bricks and frozen 
mortar for the return of the workmen the blizzard had dispersed. It 
was a desolate-enough thoroughfare, and not a soul was in sight. The 
vacant lot was fenced in with high boarding plastered over with 
flaring sheets advertising whiskies, sauces, and theatrical ventures. 
A huge picture of a dramatically interrupted wedding ceremony done in 
reds and yellows, and announcing in large letters that Mr. Isaac 
Simonson presented Miss Evangeline St. Clair in "Rent Asunder," 
occupied several yards of the boarding. As he reached it, the heel of 
Tembarom's boot pressed, as it seemed to him, a red-hot coal on the 
flesh. He had rubbed off the blister. He was obliged to stop a moment 
again.

"Gee whizz!" he exclaimed through his teeth, "I shall have to take 
my boot off and try to fix it."

To accomplish this he leaned against the boarding and Miss Evangeline 
St. Clair being "Rent Asunder" in the midst of the wedding service. 
He cautiously removed his boot, and finding a hole in his sock in the 
place where the blister had rubbed off, he managed to protect the raw 
spot by pulling the sock over it. Then he drew on his boot again.

"That'll be better," he said, with a long breath.

As he stood on his feet again he started involuntarily. This was not 
because the blister had hurt him, but because he had heard behind him 
a startling sound.

"What's that?" broke from him. "What's that?"

He turned and listened, feeling his heart give a quick thump. In the 
darkness of the utterly empty street the thing was unnatural enough 
to make any man jump. He had heard it between two gusts of wind, and 
through another he heard it again - an uncanny, awful sobbing, broken 
by a hopeless wail of words.

"I can't remember! I can't- remember! 0 my God !"

And it was not a woman's voice or a child's; it was a man's, and 
there was an eerie sort of misery in it which made Tembarom feel 
rather sick. He had never heard a man sobbing before. He belonged to 
a class which had no time for sobs. This sounded ghastly.

"Good Lord!" he said, "the fellow's crying! A man!"

The sound came directly behind him. There was not a human being in 
sight. Even policemen do not loiter in empty streets.

"Hello!" he cried. "Where are you?"

But the low, horrible sound went on, and no answer came. His physical 
sense of the presence of the blister was blotted out by the abnormal 
thrill of the moment. One had to find out about a thing like that- 
one just had to. One could not go on and leave it behind 
uninvestigated in the dark and emptiness of a street no one was 
likely to pass through. He listened more intently. Yes, it was just 
behind him.

"He's in the lot behind the fence," he said. "How did he get there?"

He began to walk along the boarding to find a gap. A few yards 
farther on he came upon a broken place in the inclosure - a place 
where boards had sagged until they fell down, or had perhaps been 
pulled down by boys who wanted to get inside. He went through it, and 
found lie was in the usual vacant lot long given up to rubbish. When 
he stood still a moment he heard the sobbing again, and followed the 
sound to the place behind the boarding against which he had supported 
himself when he took off his boot.

A man was lying on the ground with his arms flung out. The street 
lamp outside the boarding cast light enough to reveal him. Tembarom 
felt as though he had suddenly found himself taking part in a 
melodrama,-" The Streets of New York," for choice,-though no 
melodrama had ever given him this slightly shaky feeling. But when a 
fellow looked up against it as hard as this, what you had to do was 
to hold your nerve and make him feel he was going to be helped. The 
normal human thing spoke loud in him.

"Hello, old man!" he said with cheerful awkwardness. "What's hit you?"

The man started and scrambled to his feet as though he were 
frightened. He was wet, unshaven, white and shuddering, piteous to 
look at. He stared with wild eyes, his chest heaving.

"What's up?" said Tembarom.

The man's breath caught itself.

"I don't remember." There was a touch of horror in his voice, though 
he was evidently making an effort to control him-self. "I can't - I 
can't remember." "What's your name? You remember that?" Tembarom put 
it to him.

"N-n-no !" agonizingly. "If I could! If I could!"

"How did you get in here?"

"I came in because I saw a policeman. He wouldn't understand. He 
would have stopped me. I must not be stopped. I MUST not."

"Where were you going? " asked Tembarom, not knowing what else to say.

"Home! My God! man, home!" and he fell to shuddering again. He put 
his arm against the boarding and dropped his head against it. The low,
hideous sobbing tore him again.

T. Tembarom could not stand it. In his newsboy days he had never been 
able to stand starved dogs and homeless cats. Mrs. Bowse was taking 
care of a wretched dog for him at the present moment. He had not 
wanted the poor brute,--he was not particularly fond of dogs,-- but 
it had followed him home, and after he had given it a bone or so, it 
had licked its chops and turned up its eyes at him with such abject 
appeal that he had not been able to turn it into the streets again. 
He was unsentimental, but ruled by primitive emotions. Also he had a 
sudden recollection of a night when as a little fellow he had gone 
into a vacant lot and cried as like this as a child could. It was a 
bad night when some "tough" big boys had turned him out of a warm 
corner in a shed, and he had had nowhere to go, and being a friendly 
little fellow, the unfriendliness had hit him hard. The boys had not 
seen him crying, but he remembered it. He drew near, and put his hand 
on the shaking shoulder.

"Say, don't do that," he said. "I'll help you to remember."

He scarcely knew why he said it. There was something in the situation 
and in the man himself which was compelling. He was not of the tramp 
order. His wet clothes had been decent, and his broken, terrified 
voice was neither coarse nor nasal. He lifted his head and caught 
Tembarom's arm, clutching it with desperate fingers.

"Could you?" he poured forth the words. "Could you? I'm not quite mad.
Something happened. If I could be quiet! Don't let them stop me! My 
God! my God! my God! I can't say it. It's not far away, but it won't 
come back. You're a good fellow; if you're human, help me! help me! 
help me!" He clung to Tembarom with hands which shook; his eyes were 
more abject than the starved dog's; he choked, and awful tears rolled 
down his cheeks. "Only help me," he cried--"just help, help, help--
for a while. Perhaps not long. It would come back." He made a 
horrible effort. "Listen! My name--I am--I am--it's--"

He was down on the ground again, groveling. His efforts had failed. 
Tembarom, overwrought himself, caught at him and dragged him up.

"Make a fight," he said. "You can't lie down like that. You've got to 
put up a fight. It'll come back. I tell you it will. You've had a 
clip on the head or something. Let me call an ambulance and take you 
to the hospital."

The next moment he was sorry he had said the words, the man's terror 
was so ill to behold. He grew livid with it, and uttered a low animal 
cry.

"Don't drop dead over it," said Tembarom, rather losing his head. "I 
won't do it, though what in thunder I'm going to do with you I don't 
know. You can't stay here."

"For God's sake!" said the man. "For God's sake!" He put his shaking 
hand on Tembarom again, and looked at him with a bewildered scrutiny. 
"I'm not afraid of you," he said; "I don't know why. There's 
something all right about you. If you'll stand by me--you'd stand by 
a man, I'd swear. Take me somewhere quiet. Let me get warm and think."

"The less you think now the better," answered Tembarom. "You want a 
bed and a bath and a night's rest. I guess I've let myself in for it. 
You brush off and brace yourself and come with me."

There was the hall bedroom and the red-cotton comfort for one night 
at least, and Mrs. Bowse was a soft-hearted woman. If she'd heard the 
fellow sobbing behind the fence, she'd have been in a worse fix than 
he was. Women were kinder-hearted than men, anyhow. The way the 
fellow's voice sounded when he said, "Help me, help me, help me!" 
sounded as though he was in hell. "Made me feel as if I was bracing 
up a chap that was going to be electrocuted," he thought, feeling 
sickish again. "I've not got backbone enough to face that sort of 
thing. Got to take him somewhere."

They were walking toward the "L" together, and he was wondering what 
he should say to Mrs. Bowse when he saw his companion fumbling under 
his coat at the back as though he was in search of something. His 
hands being unsteady, it took him some moments to get at what he 
wanted. He evidently had a belt or a hidden pocket. He got something 
out and stopped under a street light to show it to Tembarom. His 
hands still shook when he held them out, and his look was a curious, 
puzzled, questioning one. What he passed over to Tembarom was a roll 
of money. Tembarom rather lost his breath as he saw the number on two 
five-hundred-dollar bills, and of several hundreds, besides twenties, 
tens, and fives.

"Take it--keep it," he said. "It will pay."

"Hully gee!" cried Tembarom, aghast. "Don't go giving away your whole 
pile to the first fellow you meet. I don't want it."

"Take it." The stranger put his hand on his shoulder, the abject look 
in his eyes harrowingly like the starved dog's again.

"There's something all right about you. You'll help me."

"If I don't take it for you, some one will knock you upon the head 
for it." Tembarom hesitated, but the next instant he stuffed it all 
in his pocket, incited thereto by the sound of a whizzing roar.

"There's the 'L' coming," he cried; "run for all you're worth." And 
they fled up the street and up the steps, and caught it without a 
second to spare.




CHAPTER V


At about the time Tembarom made his rush to catch the "L" Joseph 
Hutchinson was passing through one of his periodical fits of 
infuriated discouragement. Little Ann knew they would occur every two 
or three days, and she did not wonder at them. Also she knew that if 
she merely sat still and listened as she sewed, she would be doing 
exactly what her mother would have done and what her father would find 
a sort of irritated comfort in. There was no use in citing people's 
villainies and calling them names unless you had an audience who would 
seem to agree to the justice of your accusations.

So Mr. Hutchinson charged up and down the room, his face red, and his 
hands thrust in his coat pockets. He was giving his opinions of 
America and Americans, and he spoke with his broadest Manchester 
accent, and threw in now and then a word or so of Lancashire dialect 
to add roughness and strength, the angrier a Manchester man being, the 
broader and therefore the more forcible his accent. "Tha" is somehow a 
great deal more bitter or humorous or affectionate than the mere 
ordinary "You" or "Yours."

"'Merica," he bellowed - "dang 'Merica! I says - an' dang 'Mericans. 
Goin' about th' world braggin' an' boastin' about their sharpness an' 
their open-'andedness. 'Go to 'Merica,' folks'll tell you, 'with an 
invention, and there's dozens of millionaires ready to put money in 
it.' Fools!"

"Now, Father," - Little Ann's voice was as maternal as her mother's 
had been, - "now, Father, love, don't work yourself up into a passion. 
You know it's not good for you." "I don't need to work myself up into 
one. I'm in one. A man sells everything he owns to get to 'Merica, an' 
when he gets there what does he find? He canna' get near a 
millionaire. He's pushed here an scuffled there, an' told this chap 
can't see him, an' that chap isn't interested, an' he must wait his 
chance to catch this one. An' he waits an' waits, an' goes up in 
elevators an' stands on one leg in lobbies, till he's broke' down an' 
sick of it, an' has to go home to England steerage."

Little Ann looked up from her sewing. He had been walking furiously 
for half an hour, and had been tired to begin with. She had heard his 
voice break roughly as he said the last words. He threw himself 
astride a chair and, crossing his arms on the back of it, dropped his 
head on them. Her mother never allowed this. Her idea was that women 
were made to tide over such moments for the weaker sex. Far had it 
been from the mind of Mrs. Hutchinson to call it weaker. "But there's 
times, Ann, when just for a bit they're just like children. They need 
comforting without being let to know they are being comforted. You 
know how it is when your back aches, and some one just slips a pillow 
under it in the right place without saying anything. That's what women 
can do if they've got heads. It needs a head."

Little Ann got up and went to the chair. She began to run her fingers 
caressingly through the thick, grizzled hair.

"There, Father, love, there!" she said. "We are going back to England, 
at any rate, aren't we? And grandmother will be so glad to have us 
with her in her cottage. And America's only one place."

"I tried it first, dang it!" jerked out Hutchinson. "Every one told me 
to do it." He quoted again with derisive scorn: "'You go to 'Merica. 
'Merica's the place for a chap like you. 'Merica's the place for 
inventions.' Liars!"

Little Ann went on rubbing the grizzled head lovingly.

"Well, now we're going back to try England. You never did really try 
England. And you know how beautiful it'll be in the country, with the 
primroses in bloom and the young lambs in the fields." The caressing 
hand grew even softer. "And you're not going to forget how mother 
believed in the invention; you can't do that."

Hutchinson lifted his head and looked at her.

"Eh, Ann," he said, "you are a comfortable little body. You've got a 
way with you just like your poor mother had. You always say the right 
thing to help a chap pull himself together. Your mother did believe in 
it, didn't she?"

She had, indeed, believed in it, though her faith was founded more 
upon confidence in "Mr. Hutchinson" than in any profound knowledge of 
the mechanical appliance his inspiration would supply. She knew it had 
something important to do with locomotive engines, and she knew that 
if railroad magnates would condescend to consider it, her husband was 
sure that fortune would flow in. She had lived with the "invention," 
as it was respectfully called, for years.

"That she did," answered Little Ann. "And before she died she said to 
me: 'Little Ann,' she said, 'there's one thing you must never let your 
father do. You must never let him begin not to believe in his 
invention. Your father's a clever man, and it's a clever invention, 
and it'll make his fortune yet. You must remind him how I believed in 
it and how sure I was.'"

Hutchinson rubbed his hands thoughtfully. He had heard this before, 
but it did him good to hear it again.

"She said that, did she?" he found vague comfort in saying. "She said 
that?"

"Yes, she did, Father. It was the very day before she died."

"Well, she never said anything she hadn't thought out," he said in 
slow retrospection. "And she had a good head of her own. Eh, she was a 
wonderful woman, she was, for sticking to things. That was th' 
Lancashire in her. Lancashire folks knows their own minds."

"Mother knew hers," said Ann. "And she always said you knew yours. 
Come and sit in your own chair, Father, and have your paper."

She had tided him past the worst currents without letting him slip 
into them.

"I like folks that knows their own minds," he said as he sat down and 
took his paper from her. "You know yours, Ann; and there's that 
Tembarom chap. He knows his. I've been noticing that chap." There was 
a certain pleasure in using a tone of amiable patronage. "He's got a 
way with him that's worth money to him in business, if he only knew 
it."

"I don't think he knows he's got a way," Little Ann said. "His way is 
just him."

"He just gets over people with it, like he got over me. I was ready to 
knock his head off first time he spoke to me. I was ready to knock 
anybody's head off that day. I'd just had that letter from Hadman. He 
made me sick wi' the way he pottered an' played the fool about the 
invention. He believed in it right enough, but he hadn't the courage 
of a mouse. He wasn't goin' to be the first one to risk his money. 
Him, with all he has! He's the very chap to be able to set it goin'. 
If I could have got some one else to put up brass, it'd have started 
him. It's want o' backbone, that's the matter wi' Hadman an' his lot."

"Some of these days some of them 're going to get their eyes open," 
said Little Ann, "and then the others will be sorry. Mr. Tembarom says 
they'll fall over themselves to get in on the ground floor."

Hutchinson chuckled.

"That's New York," he said. "He's a rum chap. But he thinks a good bit 
of the invention. I've talked it over with him, because I've wanted to 
talk, and the one thing I've noticed about Tembarom is that he can 
keep his mouth shut."

"But he talks a good deal," said Ann.

"That's the best of it. You'd think he was telling all he knows, and 
he's not by a fat lot. He tells you what you'll like to hear, and he's 
not sly; but he can keep a shut mouth. That's Lancashire. Some folks 
can't do it even when they want to."

"His father came from England."

"That's where the lad's sense comes from. Perhaps he's Lancashire. He 
had a lot of good ideas about the way to get at Hadman."

A knock at the door broke in upon them. Mrs. Bowse presented herself, 
wearing a novel expression on her face. It was at once puzzled and not 
altogether disagreeably excited.

"I wish you would come down into the dining-room, Little Ann." She 
hesitated. " Mr. Tembaron's brought home such a queer man. He picked 
him up ill in the street. He wants me to let him stay with him for the 
night, anyhow. I don't think he's crazy, but I guess he's lost his 
memory. Queerest thing I ever saw. He doesn't know his name or 
anything."

"See here," broke out Hutchinson, dropping his hands and his paper on 
his knee, "I'm not going to have Ann goin' down stairs to quiet 
lunatics."

"He's as quiet as a child," Mrs. Bowse protested. "There's something 
pitiful about him, he seems so frightened. He's drenched to the skin."

"Call an ambulance and send him to the hospital," advised Hutchinson.

"That's what Mr. Tembarom says he can't do. It frightens him to death 
to speak of it. He just clings to Mr. Tembarom sort of awful, as if he 
thinks he'll save his life. But that isn't all," she added in an 
amazed tone; "he's given Mr. Tembarom more than two thousand dollars."

"What!" shouted Hutchinson, bounding to his feet quite unconsciously.

"What!" exclaimed Little Ann.

"Just you come and look at it," answered Mrs. Bowse, nodding her head. 
"There's over two thousand dollars in bills spread out on the table in 
the dining-room this minute. He had it in a belt pocket, and he 
dragged it out in the street and would make Mr. Tembarom take it. Do 
come and tell us what to do."

"I'd get him to take off his wet clothes and get into bed, and drink 
some hot spirits and water first," said Little Ann. "Wouldn't you, 
Mrs. Bowse?"

Hutchinson got up, newspaper in hand.

"I say, I'd like to go down and have a look at that chap myself," he 
announced.

"If he's so frightened, perhaps--" Little Ann hesitated.

"That's it," put in Mrs. Bowse. "He's so nervous it'd make him worse 
to see another man. You'd better wait, Mr. Hutchinson."

Hutchinson sat down rather grumpily, and Mrs. Bowse and Little Ann 
went down the stairs together.

"I feel real nervous myself," said Mrs. Bowse, "it's so queer. But 
he's not crazy. He's quiet enough."

As they neared the bottom of the staircase Little Ann could see over 
the balustrade into the dining-room. The strange man was sitting by 
the table, his disordered, black-haired head on his arm. He looked 
like an exhausted thing. Tembarom was sitting by him, and was talking 
in an encouraging voice. He had laid a hand on one of the stranger's. 
On the table beside them was spread a number of bills which had 
evidently just been counted.

"Here's the ladies," said Tembarom.

The stranger lifted his head and, having looked, rose and stood 
upright, waiting. It was the involuntary, mechanical action of a man 
who had been trained among gentlemen.

"It's Mrs. Bowse again, and she's brought Miss Hutchinson down with 
her. Miss Hutchinson always knows what to do," explained Tembarom in 
his friendly voice.

The man bowed, and his bewildered eyes fixed themselves on Little Ann.

"Thank you," he said. "It's very kind of you. I--I am-- in great 
trouble."

Little Ann went to him and smiled her motherly smile at him.

"You're very wet," she said. "You'll take a bad cold if you're not 
careful. Mrs. Bowse thinks you ought to go right to bed and have 
something hot to drink."

"It seems a long time since I was in bed," he answered her.

"I'm very tired. Thank you." He drew a weary, sighing breath, but he 
didn't move his eyes from the girl's face. Perhaps the cessation of 
action in certain cells of his brain had increased action in others. 
He looked as though he were seeing something in Little Ann's face 
which might not have revealed itself so clearly to the more normal 
gaze.

He moved slightly nearer to her. He was a tall man, and had to look 
down at her.

"What is your name?" he asked anxiously. "Names trouble me."

It was Ann who drew a little nearer to him now. She had to look up, 
and the soft, absorbed kindness in her eyes might, Tembarom thought, 
have soothed a raging lion, it was so intent on its purpose.

"My name is Ann Hutchinson; but never you mind about it now," she 
said. "I'll tell it to you again. Let Mr. Tembarom take you up-stairs 
to bed. You'll be better in the morning." And because his hollow eyes 
rested on her so fixedly she put her hand on his wet sleeve.

"You're wet through," she said. "That won't do."

He looked down at her hand and then at her face again.

"Help me," he pleaded, "just help me. I don't know what's happened. 
Have I gone mad? "

"No," she answered; "not a bit. It'll all come right after a while; 
you'll see."

"Will it, will it?" he begged, and then suddenly his eyes were full of 
tears. It was a strange thing to see him in his bewildered misery try 
to pull himself together, and bite his shaking lips as though he 
vaguely remembered that he was a man. "I beg pardon," he faltered: "I 
suppose I'm ill."

"I don't know where to put him," Mrs. Bowse was saying half aside; 
"I've not got a room empty."

"Put him in my bed and give me a shake-down on the floor," said 
Tembarom. "That'll be all right. He doesn't want me to leave him, 
anyhow."

He turned to the money on the table.

"Say," he said to his guest, "there's two thousand five hundred 
dollars here. We've counted it to make sure. That's quite some money. 
And it's yours--"

The stranger looked disturbed and made a nervous gesture.

"Don't, don't!" he broke in. "Keep it. Some one took the rest. This 
was hidden. It will pay."

"You see he isn't real' out of his mind," Mrs. Bowse murmured 
feelingly.

"No, not real' out of it," said Tembarom. "Say,"--as an inspiration 
occurred to him, --"I guess maybe Miss Hutchinson will keep it. Will 
you, Little Ann? You can give it to him when he wants it."

"It's a good bit of money," said Little Ann, soberly; "but I can put 
it in a bank and pay Mrs. Bowse his board every week. Yes, I'll take 
it. Now he must go to bed. It's a comfortable little room," she said 
to the stranger, "and Mrs. Bowse will make you a hot milk-punch. 
That'll be nourishing."

"Thank you," murmured the man, still keeping his yearning eyes on her. 
"Thank you."

So he was taken up to the fourth floor and put into Tembarom's bed. 
The hot milk-punch seemed to take the chill out of him, and when, by 
lying on his pillow and gazing at the shakedown on the floor as long 
as he could keep his eyes open, he had convinced himself that Tembarom 
was going to stay with him, he fell asleep.

Little Ann went back to her father carrying a roll of bills in her 
hands. It was a roll of such size that Hutchinson started up in his 
chair and stared at the sight of it.

"Is that the money?" he exclaimed. "What are you going to do with it? 
What have you found out, lass?"

"Yes, this is it," she answered. "Mr. Tembarom asked me to take care 
of it. I'm going to put it in the bank. But we haven't found out 
anything."




CHAPTER VI


His was the opening incident of the series of extraordinary and 
altogether incongruous events which took place afterwards, as it 
appeared to T. Tembarom, like scenes in a play in which he had become 
involved in a manner which one might be inclined to regard humorously 
and make jokes about, because it was a thousand miles away from 
anything like real life. That was the way it struck him. The events 
referred to, it was true, were things one now and then read about in 
newspapers, but while the world realized that they were actual 
occurrences, one rather regarded them, when their parallels were 
reproduced in books and plays, as belonging alone to the world of pure 
and highly romantic fiction.

"I guess the reason why it seems that way," he summed it up to 
Hutchinson and Little Ann, after the worst had come to the worst, "is 
because we've not only never known any one it's happened to, but we've 
never known any one that's known any one it's happened to. I've got to 
own up that it makes me feel as if the fellows'd just yell right out 
laughing when they heard it."

The stranger's money had been safely deposited in a bank, and the 
stranger himself still occupied Tembarom's bedroom. He slept a great 
deal and was very quiet. With great difficulty Little Ann had 
persuaded him to let a doctor see him, and the doctor had been much 
interested in his case. He had expected to find some signs of his 
having received accidentally or otherwise a blow upon the head, but on 
examination he found no scar or wound. The condition he was in was 
frequently the result of concussion of the brain, sometimes of 
prolonged nervous strain or harrowing mental shock. Such cases 
occurred not infrequently. Quiet and entire freedom from excitement 
would do more for such a condition than anything else. If he was 
afraid of strangers, by all means keep them from him. Tembarom had 
been quite right in letting him think he would help him to remember, 
and that somehow he would in the end reach the place he had evidently 
set out to go to. Nothing must be allowed to excite him. It was well 
he had had money on his person and that he had fallen into friendly 
hands. A city hospital would not have been likely to help him greatly. 
The restraint of its necessary discipline might have alarmed him.

So long as he was persuaded that Tembarom was not going to desert him, 
he was comparatively calm, though sunk in a piteous and tormented 
melancholy. His worst hours were when he sat alone in the hall 
bedroom, with his face buried in his hands. He would so sit without 
moving or speaking, and Little Ann discovered that at these times he 
was trying to remember. Sometimes he would suddenly rise and walk 
about the little room, muttering, with woe in his eyes. Ann, who saw 
how hard this was for him, found also that to attempt to check or 
distract him was even worse. When, sitting in her father's room, which 
was on the other side of the wall, she heard his fretted, hurried 
pacing feet, her face lost its dimpled cheerfulness. She wondered if 
her mother would not have discovered some way of clearing the black 
cloud distracting his brain. Nothing would induce him to go down to 
the boarders' dining-room for his meals, and the sight of a servant 
alarmed him so that it was Ann who took him the scant food he would 
eat. As the time of her return to England with her father drew near, 
she wondered what Mr. Tembarom would do without her services. It was 
she who suggested that they must have a name for him, and the name of 
a part of Manchester had provided one. There was a place called 
Strangeways, and one night when, in talking to her father, she 
referred to it in Tembarom's presence, he suddenly seized upon it.

"Strangeways," he said. "That'd make a good-enough name for him. Let's 
call him Mr. Strangeways. I don't like the way the fellows have of 
calling him 'the Freak.'"

So the name had been adopted, and soon became an established fact.

"The way I feel about him," Tembarom said, "is that the fellow's not a 
bit of a joke. What I see is that he's up against about the toughest 
proposition I've ever known. Gee! that fellow's not crazy. He's worse. 
If he was out-and-out dippy and didn't know it, he'd be all right. 
Likely as not he'd be thinking he was the Pope of Rome or Anna Held. 
What knocks him out is that he's just right enough to know he's wrong, 
and to be trying to get back. He reminds me of one of those chaps the 
papers tell about sometimes--fellows that go to work in livery-stables 
for ten years and call themselves Bill Jones, and then wake up some 
morning and remember they're some high-browed minister of the gospel 
named the Rev. James Cadwallader."

When the curtain drew up on Tembarom's amazing drama, Strangeways had 
been occupying his bed nearly three weeks, and he himself had been 
sleeping on a cot Mrs. Bowse had put up for him in his room. The 
Hutchinsons were on the point of sailing for England--steerage--on the 
steamship Transatlantic, and Tembarom was secretly torn into 
fragments, though he had done well with the page and he was daring to 
believe that at the end of the month Galton would tell him he had 
"made good" and the work would continue indefinitely.

If that happened, he would be raised to "twenty-five per" and would be 
a man of means. If the Hutchinsons had not been going away, he would 
have been floating in clouds of rose color. If he could persuade 
Little Ann to take him in hand when she'd had time to "try him out," 
even Hutchinson could not utterly flout a fellow who was making his 
steady twenty-five per on a big paper, and was on such terms with his 
boss that he might get other chances. Gee! but he was a fellow that 
luck just seemed to chase, anyhow! Look at the other chaps, lots of 
'em, who knew twice as much as he did, and had lived in decent homes 
and gone to school and done their darned best, too, and then hadn't 
been able to get there! It didn't seem fair somehow that he should run 
into such pure luck.

The day arrived when Galton was to give his decision. Tembarom was 
going to hand in his page, and while he was naturally a trifle 
nervous, his nervousness would have been a hopeful and not unpleasant 
thing but that the Transatlantic sailed in two days, and in the 
Hutchinson's rooms Little Ann was packing her small trunk and her 
father's bigger one, which held more models and drawings than 
clothing. Hutchinson was redder in the face than usual, and indignant 
condemnation of America and American millionaires possessed his soul. 
Everybody was rather depressed. One boarder after another had wakened 
to a realization that, with the passing of Little Ann, Mrs. Bowse's 
establishment, even with the parlor, the cozy-corner, and the second-
hand pianola to support it, would be a deserted-seeming thing. Mrs. 
Bowse felt the tone of low spirits about the table, and even had a 
horrible secret fear that certain of her best boarders might decide to 
go elsewhere, merely to change surroundings from which they missed 
something. Her eyes were a little red, and she made great efforts to 
keep things going.

"I can only keep the place up when I've no empty rooms, "she had said 
to Mrs. Peck, "but I'd have boarded her free if her father would have 
let her stay. But he wouldn't, and, anyway, she'd no more let him go 
off alone than she'd jump off Brooklyn Bridge."

It had been arranged that partly as a farewell banquet and partly to 
celebrate Galton's decision about the page, there was to be an oyster 
stew that night in Mr. Hutchinson's room, which was distinguished as a 
bed-sitting-room. Tembarom had diplomatically suggested it to Mr. 
Hutchinson. It was to be Tembarom's oyster supper, and somehow he 
managed to convey that it was only a proper and modest tribute to Mr. 
Hutchinson himself. First-class oyster stew and pale ale were not so 
bad when properly suggested, therefore Mr. Hutchinson consented. Jim 
Bowles and Julius Steinberger were to come in to share the feast, and 
Mrs. Bowse had promised to prepare.

It was not an inspiring day for Little Ann. New York had seemed a 
bewildering and far too noisy place for her when she had come to it 
directly from her grandmother's cottage in the English village, where 
she had spent her last three months before leaving England. The dark 
rooms of the five-storied boarding-house had seemed gloomy enough to 
her, and she had found it much more difficult to adjust herself to her 
surroundings than she could have been induced to admit to her father. 
At first his temper and the open contempt for American habits and 
institutions which he called "speaking his mind" had given her a great 
deal of careful steering through shoals to do. At the outset the 
boarders had resented him, and sometimes had snapped back their own 
views of England and courts. Violent and disparaging argument had 
occasionally been imminent, and Mrs. Bowse had worn an ominous look. 
Their rooms had in fact been "wanted" before their first week had come 
to an end, and Little Ann herself scarcely knew how she had tided over 
that situation. But tide it over she did, and by supernatural effort 
and watchfulness she contrived to soothe Mrs. Bowse until she had been 
in the house long enough to make friends with people and aid her 
father to realize that, if they went elsewhere, they might find only 
the same class of boarders, and there would be the cost of moving to 
consider. She had beguiled an armchair from Mrs. Bowse, and had re-
covered it herself with a remnant of crimson stuff secured from a 
miscellaneous heap at a marked-down sale at a department store. She 
had arranged his books and papers adroitly and had kept them in their 
places so that he never felt himself obliged to search for any one of 
them. With many little contrivances she had given his bed-sitting-room 
a look of comfort and established homeliness, and he had even begun to 
like it.

"Tha't just like tha mother, Ann," he had said. "She'd make a railway 
station look as if it had been lived in."

Then Tembarom had appeared, heralded by Mrs. Bowse and the G. 
Destroyer, and the first time their eyes had met across the table she 
had liked him. The liking had increased. There was that in his boyish 
cheer and his not-too-well-fed-looking face which called forth 
maternal interest. As she gradually learned what his life had been, 
she felt a thrilled anxiety to hear day by day how he was getting on. 
She listened for details, and felt it necessary to gather herself 
together in the face of a slight depression when hopes of Galton were 
less high than usual. His mending was mysteriously done, and in time 
he knew with amazed gratitude that he was being "looked after." His 
first thanks were so awkward, but so full of appreciation of 
unaccustomed luxury, that they almost brought tears to her eyes, since 
they so clearly illuminated the entire novelty of any attention 
whatever.

"I just don't know what to say," he said, shuffling from one foot to 
another, though his nice grin was at its best. "I've never had a woman 
do anything for me since I was ten. I guess women do lots of things 
for most fellows; but, then, they're mothers and sisters and aunts. I 
appreciate it like--like thunder. I feel as if I was Rockefeller, Miss 
Ann."

In a short time she had become "Little Ann" to him, as to the rest, 
and they began to know each other very well. Jim Bowles and Julius 
Steinberger had not been able to restrain themselves at first from 
making slangy, yearning love to her, but Tembarom had been different. 
He had kept himself well in hand. Yes, she had liked T. Tembarom, and 
as she packed the trunks she realized that the Atlantic Ocean was 
three thousand miles across, and when two people who had no money were 
separated by it, they were likely to remain so. Rich people could 
travel, poor people couldn't. You just stayed where things took you, 
and you mustn't be silly enough to expect things to happen in your 
class of life--things like seeing people again. Your life just went 
on. She kept herself very busy, and did not allow her thoughts any 
latitude. It would vex her father very much if he thought she had 
really grown fond of America and was rather sorry to go away. She had 
finished her packing before evening, and the trunks were labeled and 
set aside, some in the outside hall and some in the corner of the 
room. She had sat down with some mending on her lap, and Hutchinson 
was walking about the room with the restlessness of the traveler whose 
approaching journey will not let him settle himself anywhere.

"I'll lay a shilling you've got everything packed and ready, and put 
just where a chap can lay his hands on it," he said.

"Yes, Father. Your tweed cap's in the big pocket of your thick top-
coat, and there's an extra pair of spectacles and your pipe and 
tobacco in the small one."

"And off we go back to England same as we came!" He rubbed his head, 
and drew a big, worried sigh. "Where's them going?" he asked, pointing 
to some newly laundered clothing on a side table. "You haven't 
forgotten 'em, have you?"

"No, Father. It's just some of the young men's washing. I thought I'd 
take time to mend them up a bit before I went to bed."

"That's like tha mother, too--taking care of everybody. What did these 
chaps do before you came?"

"Sometimes they tried to sew on a button or so themselves, but oftener 
they went without. Men make poor work of sewing. It oughtn't to be 
expected of them."

Hutchinson stopped and looked her and her mending over with a touch of 
curiosity.

"Some of them's Tembarom's?" he asked.

Little Ann held up a pair of socks.

"These are. He does wear them out, poor fellow. It's tramping up and 
down the streets to save car-fare does it. He's never got a heel to 
his name. But he's going to be able to buy some new ones next week."

Hutchinson began his tramp again.

"He'll miss thee, Little Ann; but so'll the other lads, for that 
matter."

"He'll know to-night whether Mr. Galton's going to let him keep his 
work. I do hope he will. I believe he'd begin to get on."

"Well,"--Hutchinson was just a little grudging even at this 
comparatively lenient moment,--"I believe the chap'll get on myself. 
He's got pluck and he's sharp. I never saw him make a poor mouth yet."

"Neither did I," answered Ann.

A door leading into Tembarom's hall bedroom opened on to Hutchinson's. 
They both heard some one inside the room knock at it. Hutchinson 
turned and listened, jerking his head toward the sound.

"There's that poor chap again," he said. "He's wakened and got 
restless. What's Tembarom going to do with him, I'd like to know? The 
money won't last forever."

"Shall I let him in, Father? I dare say he's got restless because Mr. 
Tembarom's not come in."

"Aye, we'll let him in. He won't have thee long. He can't do no harm 
so long as I'm here."

Little Ann went to the door and opened it. She spoke quietly.

"Do you want to come in here, Mr. Strangeways?"

The man came in. He was clean, but still unshaven, and his clothes 
looked as though he had been lying down. He looked round the room 
anxiously.

"Where has he gone?" he demanded in an overstrung voice. "Where is 
he?" He caught at Ann's sleeve in a sudden access of nervous fear. 
"What shall I do if he's gone?"

Hutchinson moved toward him.

"'Ere, 'ere," he said, "don't you go catchin' hold of ladies. What do 
you want?"

I've forgotten his name now. What shall I do if I can't remember?" 
faltered Strangeways.

Little Ann patted his arm comfortingly.

"There, there, now! You've not really forgotten it. It's just slipped 
your memory. You want Mr. Tembarom--Mr. T. Tembarom."

"Oh, thank you, thank you. That's it. Yes, Tembarom. He said T. 
Tembarom. He said he wouldn't throw me over."

Little Ann led him to a seat and made him sit down. She answered him 
with quiet decision.

"Well, if he said he wouldn't, he won't. Will he, Father?"

"No, he won't." There was rough good nature in Hutchinson's admission. 
He paused after it to glance at Ann. "You think a lot of that lad, 
don't you, Ann?"

"Yes, I do, Father," she replied undisturbedly. "He's one you can 
trust, too. He's up-town at his work," she explained to Strangeways. 
"He'll be back before long. He's giving us a bit of a supper in here 
because we're going away."

Strangeways grew nervous again.

"But he won't go with you? T. Tembarom won't go?"

"No, no; he's not going. He'll stay here," she said soothingly. He had 
evidently not observed the packed and labeled trunks when he came in. 
He seemed suddenly to see them now, and rose in distress.

"Whose are these? You said he wasn't going?"

Ann took hold of his arm and led him to the corner.

"They are not Mr. Tembarom's trunks," she explained. "They are 
father's and mine. Look on the labels. Joseph Hutchinson, Liverpool. 
Ann Hutchinson, Liverpool."

He looked at them closely in a puzzled way. He read a label aloud in a 
dragging voice.

"Ann Hutchinson, Liverpool. What's--what's Liverpool?

"Oh, come," encouraged Little Ann, "you know that. It's a place in 
England. We're going back to England."

He stood and gazed fixedly before him. Then he began to rub his 
fingers across his forehead. Ann knew the straining look in his eyes. 
He was making that horrible struggle to get back somewhere through the 
darkness which shut him in. It was so painful a thing to see that even 
Hutchinson turned slightly away.

"Don't!" said Little Ann, softly, and tried to draw him away.

He caught his breath convulsively once or twice, and his voice dragged 
out words again, as though he were dragging them from bottomless 
depths.

"Going--back--to--England--back to England--to England."

He dropped into a chair near by, his arms thrown over its back, and 
broke, as his face fell upon them, into heavy, deadly sobbing--the 
kind of sobbing Tembarom had found it impossible to stand up against. 
Hutchinson whirled about testily.

"Dang it!" he broke out, "I wish Tembarom'd turn up. What are we to 
do?" He didn't like it himself. It struck him as unseemly.

But Ann went to the chair, and put her hands on the shuddering 
shoulder, bending over the soul-wrung creature, the wisdom of 
centuries in the soft, expostulatory voice which seemed to reach the 
very darkness he was lost in. It was a wisdom of which she was wholly 
unaware, but it had been born with her, and was the building of her 
being.

"'Sh! 'S-h-h!" she said. "You mustn't do that. Mr. Tembarom wouldn't 
like you to do it. He'll be in directly. 'Sh! 'Sh, now!" And simple as 
the words were, their soothing reached him. The wildness of his sobs 
grew less.

"See here," Hutchinson protested, "this won't do, my man. I won't have 
it, Ann. I'm upset myself, what with this going back and everything. I 
can't have a chap coming and crying like that there. It upsets me 
worse than ever. And you hangin' over him! It won't do."

Strangeways lifted his head from his arms and looked at him.

"Aye, I mean what I say," Hutchinson added fretfully.

Strangeways got up from the chair. When he was not bowed or slouching 
it was to be seen that he was a tall man with square shoulders. 
Despite his unshaven, haggard face, he had a sort of presence.

"I'll go back to my room," he said. "I forgot. I ought not to be 
here."

Neither Hutchinson nor Little Ann had ever seen any one do the thing 
he did next. When Ann went with him to the door of the hall bedroom, 
he took her hand, and bowing low before her, lifted it gently to his 
lips.

Hutchinson stared at him as he turned into the room and closed the 
door behind him.

"Well, I've read of lords and ladies doin' that in books," he said, 
"but I never thought I should see a chap do it myself."

Little Ann went back to her mending, looking very thoughtful.

"Father," she said, after a few moments, "England made him come near 
to remembering something."

"New York'll come near making me remember a lot of things when I'm out 
of it," said Mr. Hutchinson, sitting down heavily in his chair and 
rubbing his head. "Eh, dang it! dang it!"

"Don't you let it, Father," advised Little Ann. "There's never any 
good in thinking things over."

"You're not as cheerful yourself as you let on," he said. "You've not 
got much color to-day, my lass."

She rubbed one cheek a little, trying to laugh.

"I shall get it back when we go and stay with grandmother. It's just 
staying indoors so much. Mr. Tembarom won't be long now; I'll get up 
and set the table. The things are on a tray outside."

As she was going out of the room, Jim Bowles and Julius Steinberger 
appeared at the door.

"May we come in?" Jim asked eagerly. "We're invited to the oyster 
stew, and it's time old T. T. was here. Julius and me are just getting 
dippy waiting up-stairs to hear if he's made good with Galton."

"Well, now, you sit down and be quiet a bit, or you'll be losing your 
appetites," advised Ann.

"You can't lose a thing the size of mine," answered Jim, "any more 
than you could lose the Metropolitan Opera-house."

Ann turned her head and paused as though she were listening. She heard 
footsteps in the lower hall.

"He's coming now," she announced. "I know his step. He's tired. Don't 
go yet, you two," she added as the pair prepared to rush to meet him. 
"When any one's that tired he wants to wash his face, and talk when 
he's ready. If you'll just go back to your room I'll call you when 
I've set the table."

She felt that she wanted a little more quiet during the next few 
minutes than she could have if they remained and talked at the top of 
elated voices. She had not quite realized how anxiously she had been 
waiting all day for the hour when she would hear exactly what had 
happened. If he was all right, it would be a nice thing to remember 
when she was in England. In this moderate form she expressed herself 
mentally. "It would be a nice thing to remember." She spread the cloth 
on the table and began to lay out the plates. Involuntarily she found 
herself stopping to glance at the hall bedroom door and listen rather 
intently.

"I hope he's got it. I do that. I'm sure he has. He ought to."

Hutchinson looked over at her. She was that like her mother, that 
lass!

"You're excited, Ann," he said.

"Yes, Father, I am--a bit. He's--he's washing his face now." Sounds of 
splashing water could be heard through the intervening door.

Hutchinson watched her with some uneasiness.

"You care a lot for that lad," he said.

She did not look fluttered. Her answer was quite candid.

"I said I did, Father. He's taking off his boots."

"You know every sound he makes, and you're going away Saturday, and 
you'll never see him again."

"That needn't stop me caring. It never did any one any harm to care 
for one of his sort."

"But it can't come to anything," Hutchinson began to bluster. "It 
won't do--"

"He's coming to the door, he's turning the handle," said Little Ann.

Tembarom came in. He was fresh with recent face-washing, and his hair 
was damp, so that a short lock curled and stood up. He had been up-
town making frantic efforts for hours, but he had been making them in 
a spirit of victorious relief, and he did not look tired at all.

"I've got it!" he cried out the moment he entered. "I've got it, by 
jingo! The job's mine for keeps."

"Galton's give it to you out and out?" Hutchinson was slightly excited 
himself.

"He's in the bulliest humor you ever saw. He says I've done first-
rate, and if I go on, he'll run me up to thirty."

"Well, I'm danged glad of it, lad, that I am!" Hutchinson gave in 
handsomely. "You put backbone into it."

Little Ann stood near, smiling. Her smile met Tembarom's.

"I know you're glad, Little Ann," he said. "I'd never have got there 
but for you. It was up to me, after the way you started me."

"You know I'm glad without me telling you," she answered. "I'm 
RIGHTDOWN glad."

And it was at this moment that Mrs. Bowse came into the room.

"It's too bad it's happened just now," she said, much flustered. 
"That's the way with things. The stew'll spoil, but he says it's real 
important."

Tembarom caught at both her hands and shook them.

"I've got it, Mrs. Bowse. Here's your society reporter! The best-
looking boarder you've got is going to be able to pay his board 
steady."

"I'm as glad as can be, and so will everybody be. I knew you'd get it. 
But this gentleman's been here twice to-day. He says he really must 
see you."

"Let him wait," Hutchinson ordered. "What's the chap want? The stew 
won't be fit to eat."

"No, it won't," answered Mrs. Bowse; "but he seems to think he's not 
the kind to be put off. He says it's more Mr. Tembarom's business than 
his. He looked real mad when I showed him into the parlor, where they 
were playing the pianola. He asked wasn't there a private room where 
you could talk."

A certain flurried interest in the manner of Mrs. Bowse, a something 
not usually awakened by inopportune callers, an actual suggestion of 
the possible fact that she was not as indifferent as she was nervous, 
somewhat awakened Mr. Hutchinson's curiosity.

"Look here," he volunteered," if he's got any real business, he can't 
talk over to the tune of the pianola you can bring him up here, 
Tembarom. I'll see he don't stay long if his business isn't worth 
talkin' about. He'll see the table set for supper, and that'll hurry 
him."

"Oh, gee I wish he hadn't come!" said Tembarom. "I'll just go down and 
see what he wants. No one's got any swell private business with me."

"You bring him up if he has," said Hutchinson. "We'd like to hear 
about it."

Tembarom ran down the stairs quickly.

No one had ever wanted to see him on business before. There was 
something important-sounding about it; perhaps things were starting up 
for him in real earnest. It might be a message from Galton, though he 
could not believe that he had at this early stage reached such a 
distinction. A ghastly thought shot a bolt at him, but he shook 
himself free of it.

"He's not a fellow to go back on his word, anyhow," he insisted.

There were more boarders than usual in the parlor. The young woman 
from the notion counter had company; and one of her guests was playing 
"He sut'nly was Good to Me" on the pianola with loud and steady tread 
of pedal.

The new arrival had evidently not thought it worth his while to commit 
himself to permanency by taking a seat. He was standing not far from 
the door with a businesslike-looking envelop in one hand and a pince-
nez in the other, with which Tembarom saw he was rather fretfully 
tapping the envelop as he looked about him. He was plainly taking in 
the characteristics of the room, and was not leniently disposed toward 
them. His tailor was clearly an excellent one, with entirely correct 
ideas as to the cut and material which exactly befitted an elderly 
gentleman of some impressiveness in the position, whatsoever it 
happened to be, which he held. His face was not of a friendly type, 
and his eyes held cold irritation discreetly restrained by 
businesslike civility. Tembarom vaguely felt the genialities of the 
oyster supper assume a rather fourth-rate air.

The caller advanced and spoke first.

"Mr. Tembarom?" he inquired.

"Yes," Tembarom answered, "I'm T. Tembarom."

"T.," repeated the stranger, with a slightly puzzled expression. "Ah, 
yes; I see. I beg pardon."

In that moment Tembarom felt that he was looked over, taken in, summed 
up, and without favor. The sharp, steady eye, however, did not seem to 
have moved from his face. At the same time it had aided him to realize 
that he was, to this well-dressed person at least, a too exhilarated 
young man wearing a ten-dollar "hand-me-down."

"My name is Palford," he said concisely. "That will convey nothing to 
you. I am of the firm of Palford & Grimby of Lincoln's Inn. This is my 
card."

Tembarom took the card and read that Palford & Grimby were 
"solicitors," and he was not sure that he knew exactly what 
"solicitors" were.

"Lincoln's Inn?" he hesitated. "That's not in New York, is it?"

"No, Mr. Tembarom; in London. I come from England."

"You must have had bad weather crossing," said Tembarom, with amiable 
intent. Somehow Mr. Palford presented a more unyielding surface than 
he was accustomed to. And yet his hard courtesy was quite perfect.

"I have been here some weeks."

"I hope you like New York. Won't you have a seat?"

The young lady from the notion counter and her friends began to sing 
the chorus of "He sut'nly was Good to Me" with quite professional 
negro accent.

"That's just the way May Irwin done it," one of them laughed.

Mr. Palford glanced at the performers. He did not say whether he liked 
New York or not.

"I asked your landlady if we could not see each other in a private 
room," he said. "It would not be possible to talk quietly here."

"We shouldn't have much of a show," answered Tembarom, inwardly 
wishing he knew what was going to happen. "But there are no private 
rooms in the house. We can be quieter than this, though, if we go up 
stairs to Mr. Hutchinson's room. He said I could bring you."

"That would be much better," replied Mr. Palford.

Tembarom led him out of the room, up the first steep and narrow flight 
of stairs, along the narrow hall to the second, up that, down another 
hall to the third, up the third, and on to the fourth. As he led the 
way he realized again that the worn carpets, the steep narrowness, and 
the pieces of paper unfortunately stripped off the wall at intervals, 
were being rather counted against him. This man had probably never 
been in a place like this before in his life, and he didn't take to 
it.

At the Hutchinsons' door he stopped and explained:

"We were going to have an oyster stew here because the Hutchinsons are 
going away; but Mr. Hutchinson said we could come up."

"Very kind of Mr. Hutchinson, I'm sure."

Despite his stiffly collected bearing, Mr. Palford looked perhaps 
slightly nervous when he was handed into the bed-sitting-room, and 
found himself confronting Hutchinson and Little Ann and the table set 
for the oyster stew. It is true that he had never been in such a place 
in his life, that for many reasons he was appalled, and that he was 
beset by a fear that he might be grotesquely compelled by existing 
circumstances to accept these people's invitation, if they insisted 
upon his sitting down with them and sharing their oyster stew. One 
could not calculate on what would happen among these unknown 
quantities. It might be their idea of boarding-house politeness. And 
how could one offend them? God forbid that the situation should 
intensify itself in such an absurdly trying manner! What a bounder the 
unfortunate young man was! His own experience had not been such as to 
assist him to any realistic enlightenment regarding him, even when he 
had seen the society page and had learned that he had charge of it.

"Let me make you acquainted with Mr. and Miss Hutchinson," Tembarom 
introduced. "This is Mr. Palford, Mr. Hutchinson."

Hutchinson, half hidden behind his newspaper, jerked his head and 
grunted:

"Glad to see you, sir."

Mr. Palford bowed, and took the chair Tembarom presented.

"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Hutchinson, for allowing me to come to 
your room. I have business to discuss with Mr. Tembarom, and the 
pianola was being played down-stairs--rather loudly."

"They do it every night, dang 'em! Right under my bed," growled 
Hutchinson. "You're an Englishman, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"So am I, thank God! " Hutchinson devoutly gave forth.

Little Ann rose from her chair, sewing in hand.

"Father'll come and sit with me in my room," she said.

Hutchinson looked grumpy. He did not intend to leave the field clear 
and the stew to its fate if he could help it. He gave Ann a protesting 
frown.

"I dare say Mr. Palford doesn't mind us," he said. "We're not 
strangers."

"Not in the least," Palford protested. "Certainly not. If you are old 
friends, you may be able to assist us."

"Well, I don't know about that," Hutchinson answered, "We've not known 
him long, but we know him pretty well. You come from London, don't 
you? "

"Yes. From Lincoln's Inn Fields."

"Law?" grunted Hutchinson.

"Yes. Of the firm of Palford & Grimby."

Hutchinson moved in his chair involuntarily. There was stimulation to 
curiosity in this. This chap was a regular top sawyer--clothes, way of 
pronouncing his words, manners, everything. No mistaking him--old 
family solicitor sort of chap. What on earth could he have to say to 
Tembarom? Tembarom himself had sat down and could not be said to look 
at his ease.

"I do not intrude without the excuse of serious business," Palford 
explained to him. "A great deal of careful research and inquiry has 
finally led me here. I am compelled to believe I have followed the 
right clue, but I must ask you a few questions. Your name is not 
really Tembarom, is it?"

Hutchinson looked at Tembarom sharply.

"Not Tembarom? What does he mean, lad?"

Tembarom's grin was at once boyish and ashamed.

"Well, it is in one way," he answered, "and it isn't in another. The 
fellows at school got into the way of calling me that way,--to save 
time, I guess,--and I got to like it. They'd have guyed my real name. 
Most of them never knew it. I can't see why any one ever called a 
child by such a fool name, anyhow."

"What was it exactly?"

Tembarom looked almost sheepish.

"It sounds like a thing in a novel. It was Temple Temple Barholm. Two 
Temples, by gee! As if one wasn't enough!"

Joseph Hutchinson dropped his paper and almost started from his chair. 
His red face suddenly became so much redder that he looked a trifle 
apoplectic.

"Temple Barholm does tha say?" he cried out.

Mr. Palford raised his hand and checked him, but with a suggestion of 
stiff apology.

"If you will kindly allow me. Did you ever hear your father refer to a 
place called Temple Barholm?" he inquired.

Tembarom reflected as though sending his thoughts backward into a 
pretty thoroughly forgotten and ignored past. There had been no reason 
connected with filial affection which should have caused him to recall 
memories of his father. They had not liked each other. He had known 
that he had been resented and looked down upon as a characteristically 
American product. His father had more than once said he was a "common 
American lad," and he had known he was.

"Seems to me," he said at last, "that once when he was pretty mad at 
his luck I heard him grumbling about English laws, and he said some of 
his distant relations were swell people who would never think of 
speaking to him,--perhaps didn't know he was alive,--and they lived in 
a big way in a place that was named after the family. He never saw it 
or them, and he said that was the way in England--one fellow got 
everything and the rest were paupers like himself. He'd always been 
poor."

"Yes, the relation was a distant one. Until this investigation began 
the family knew nothing of him. The inquiry has been a tiresome one. I 
trust I am reaching the end of it. We have given nearly two years to 
following this clue."

"What for?" burst forth Tembarom, sitting upright.

"Because it was necessary to find either George Temple Barholm or his 
son, if he had one."

"I'm his son, all right, but he died when I was eight years old," 
Tembarom volunteered. "I don't remember much about him."

"You remember that he was not an American?"

"He was English. Hated it; but he wasn't fond of America."

"Have you any papers belonging to him?"

Tembarom hesitated again.

"There's a few old letters--oh, and one of those glass photographs in 
a case. I believe it's my grandfather and grandmother, taken when they 
were married. Him on a chair, you know, and her standing with her hand 
on his shoulder."

"Can you show them to me?" Palford suggested.

"Sure," Tembarom answered, getting up from his seat "They're in my 
room. I turned them up yesterday among some other things."

When he left them, Mr. Palford sat gently rubbing his chin. Hutchinson 
wanted to burst forth with questions, but he looked so remote and 
acidly dignified that there was a suggestion of boldness in the idea 
of intruding on his reflections. Hutchinson stared at him and breathed 
hard and short in his suspense. The stiff old chap was thinking things 
over and putting things together in his lawyer's way. He was entirely 
oblivious to his surroundings. Little Ann went on with her mending, 
but she wore her absorbed look, and it was not a result of her work.

Tembarom came back with some papers in his hand. They were yellowed 
old letters, and on the top of the package there was a worn 
daguerreotype-case with broken clasp.

"Here they are," he said, giving them to Palford. "I guess they'd just 
been married," opening the case. "Get on to her embroidered collar and 
big breast-pin with his picture in it. That's English enough, isn't 
it? He'd given it to her for a wedding-present. There's something in 
one of the letters about it."

It was the letters to which Mr. Palford gave the most attention. He 
read them and examined post-marks and dates. When he had finished, he 
rose from his chair with a slightly portentous touch of professional 
ceremony.

"Yes, those are sufficiently convincing. You are a very fortunate 
young man. Allow me to congratulate you."

He did not look particularly pleased, though he extended his hand and 
shook Tembarom's politely. He was rigorously endeavoring to conceal 
that he found himself called upon to make the best of an extremely bad 
job. Hutchinson started forward, resting his hands on his knees and 
glaring with ill-suppressed excitement.

"What's that for?" Tembarom said. He felt rather like a fool. He 
laughed half nervously. It seemed to be up to him to understand, and 
he didn't understand in the least.

"You have, through your father's distant relationship, inherited a 
very magnificent property--the estate of Temple Barholm in 
Lancashire," Palford began to explain, but Mr. Hutchinson sprang from 
his chair outright, crushing his paper in his hand.

"Temple Barholm!" he almost shouted, "I dunnot believe thee! Why, it's 
one of th' oldest places in England and one of th' biggest. Th' Temple 
Barholms as didn't come over with th' Conqueror was there before him. 
Some of them was Saxon kings! And him--" pointing a stumpy, red finger 
disparagingly at Tembarom, aghast and incredulous--"that New York lad 
that's sold newspapers in the streets--you say he's come into it?"

"Precisely." Mr. Palford spoke with some crispness of diction. Noise 
and bluster annoyed him. "That is my business here. Mr. Tembarom is, 
in fact, Mr. Temple Temple Barholm of Temple Barholm, which you seem 
to have heard of."

"Heard of it! My mother was born in the village an' lives there yet. 
Art tha struck dumb, lad!" he said almost fiercely to Tembarom. "By 
Judd! Tha well may be!"

Tembarom was standing holding the back of a chair. He was pale, and 
had once opened his mouth, and then gulped and shut it. Little Ann had 
dropped her sewing. His first look had leaped to her, and she had 
looked back straight into his eyes.

"I'm struck something," he said, his half-laugh slightly unsteady. 
"Who'd blame me?"

"You'd better sit down," said Little Ann. "Sudden things are 
upsetting."

He did sit down. He felt rather shaky. He touched himself on his chest 
and laughed again.

"Me!" he said. "T. T.! Hully gee! It's like a turn at a vaudeville."

The sentiment prevailing in Hutchinson's mind seemed to verge on 
indignation.

"Thee th' master of Temple Barholm! " he ejaculated. "Why, it stood 
for seventy thousand pound' a year!"

"It did and it does," said Mr. Palford, curtly. He had less and less 
taste for the situation. There was neither dignity nor proper 
sentiment in it. The young man was utterly incapable of comprehending 
the meaning and proportions of the extraordinary event which had 
befallen him. It appeared to present to him the aspect of a somewhat 
slangy New York joke.

"You do not seem much impressed, Mr. Temple Barholm," he said.

"Oh, I'm impressed, all right," answered Tembarom, "but, say, this 
thing can't be true! You couldn't make it true if you sat up all night 
to do it."

"When I go into the business details of the matter tomorrow morning 
you will realize the truth of it," said Mr. Palford. "Seventy thousand 
pounds a year--and Temple Barholm--are not unsubstantial facts."

"Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, my lad--that's what it 
stands for!" put in Mr. Hutchinson.

"Well," said Tembarom, "I guess I can worry along on that if I try 
hard enough. I mayn't be able to keep myself in the way I've been used 
to, but I've got to make it do."

Mr. Palford stiffened. He did not know that the garish, flippant-
sounding joking was the kind of defense the streets of New York had 
provided Mr. Temple Barholm with in many an hour when he had been a 
half-clad newsboy with an empty stomach, and a bundle of unsold 
newspapers under his arm.

"You are jocular," he said. "I find the New Yorkers are given to being 
jocular--continuously."

Tembarom looked at him rather searchingly. Palford wouldn't have found 
it possible to believe that the young man knew all about his distaste 
and its near approach to disgust, that he knew quite well what he 
thought of his ten-dollar suit, his ex-newsboy's diction, and his 
entire incongruousness as a factor in any circumstances connected with 
dignity and splendor. He would certainly not have credited the fact 
that though he had not the remotest idea what sort of a place Temple 
Barholm was, and what sort of men its long line of possessors had 
been, he had gained a curious knowledge of their significance through 
the mental attitude of their legal representative when he for a moment 
failed to conceal his sense of actual revolt.

"It seems sort of like a joke till you get on to it," he said. "But I 
guess it ain't such a merry jest as it seems."

And then Mr. Palford did begin to observe that he had lost his color 
entirely; also that he had a rather decent, sharp-cut face, and 
extremely white and good young teeth, which he showed not 
unattractively when he smiled. And he smiled frequently, but he was 
not smiling now.




CHAPTER VII


In the course of the interview given to the explaining of business and 
legal detail which took place between Mr. Palford and his client the 
following morning, Tembarom's knowledge of his situation extended 
itself largely, and at the same time added in a proportionate degree 
to his sense of his own incongruity as connected with it. He sat at a 
table in Palford's private sitting-room at the respectable, old-
fashioned hotel the solicitor had chosen - sat and listened, and 
answered questions and asked them, until his head began to feel as 
though it were crammed to bursting with extraordinary detail.

It was all extraordinary to him. He had had no time for reading and no 
books to read, and therefore knew little of fiction. He was entirely 
ignorant of all romance but such as the New York papers provided. This 
was highly colored, but it did not deal with events connected with the 
possessors of vast English estates and the details of their habits and 
customs. His geographical knowledge of Great Britain was simple and 
largely incorrect. Information concerning its usual conditions and 
aspects had come to him through talk of international marriages and 
cup races, and had made but little impression upon him. He liked New 
York - its noise, its streets, its glare, its Sunday newspapers, with 
their ever-increasing number of sheets, and pictures of everything on 
earth which could be photographed. His choice, when he could allow 
himself a fifty-cent seat at the theater, naturally ran to productions 
which were farcical or cheerfully musical. He had never reached 
serious drama, perhaps because he had never had money enough to pay 
for entrance to anything like half of the "shows" the other fellows 
recommended. He was totally unprepared for the facing of any kind of 
drama as connected with himself. The worst of it was that it struck 
him as being of the nature of farce when regarded from the normal New 
York point of view. If he had somehow had the luck to come into the 
possession of money in ways which were familiar to him, - to "strike 
it rich" in the way of a "big job" or "deal," - he would have been 
better able to adjust himself to circumstances. He might not have 
known how to spend his money, but he would have spent it in New York 
on New York joys. There would have been no foreign remoteness about 
the thing, howsoever fantastically unexpected such fortune might have 
been. At any rate, in New York he would have known the names of places 
and things.

Through a large part of his interview with Palford his elbow rested on 
the table, and he held his chin with his hand and rubbed it 
thoughtfully. The last Temple Temple Barholm had been an eccentric and 
uncompanionable person. He had lived alone and had not married. He had 
cherished a prejudice against the man who would have succeeded him as 
next of kin if he had not died young. People had been of the opinion 
that he had disliked him merely because he did not wish to be reminded 
that some one else must some day inevitably stand in his shoes, and 
own the possessions of which he himself was arrogantly fond. There 
were always more female Temple Barholms than male ones, and the 
families were small. The relative who had emigrated to Brooklyn had 
been a comparatively unknown person. His only intercourse with the 
head of the house had been confined to a begging letter, written from 
America when his circumstances were at their worst. It was an ill-
mannered and ill-expressed letter, which had been considered 
presuming, and had been answered chillingly with a mere five-pound 
note, clearly explained as a final charity. This begging letter, which 
bitterly contrasted the writer's poverty with his indifferent 
relative's luxuries, had, by a curious trick of chance which preserved 
it, quite extraordinarily turned up during an examination of 
apparently unimportant, forgotten papers, and had furnished a clue in 
the search for next of kin. The writer had greatly annoyed old Mr. 
Temple Barholm by telling him that he had called his son by his name - 
"not that there was ever likely to be anything in it for him." But a 
waif of the New York streets who was known as "Tem" or "Tembarom" was 
not a link easily attached to any chain, and the search had been long 
and rather hopeless. It had, however, at last reached Mrs. Bowse's 
boarding-house and before Mr. Palford sat Mr. Temple Temple Barholm, a 
cheap young man in cheap clothes, and speaking New York slang with a 
nasal accent. Mr. Palford, feeling him appalling and absolutely 
without the pale, was still aware that he stood in the position of an 
important client of the firm of Palford & Grimby. There was a section 
of the offices at Lincoln's Inn devoted to documents representing a 
lifetime of attention to the affairs of the Temple Barholm estates. It 
was greatly to be hoped that the crass ignorance and commonness of 
this young outsider would not cause impossible complications.

"He knows nothing! He knows nothing!" Palford found himself forced to 
exclaim mentally not once, but a hundred times, in the course of their 
talk.

There was - this revealed itself as the interview proceeded - just one 
slight palliation of his impossible benightedness: he was not the kind 
of young man who, knowing nothing, huffily protects himself by 
pretending to know everything. He was of an unreserve concerning his 
ignorance which his solicitor felt sometimes almost struck one in the 
face. Now and then it quite made one jump. He was singularly free from 
any vestige of personal vanity. He was also singularly unready to take 
offense. To the head of the firm of Palford & Grimby, who was not 
accustomed to lightness of manner, and inclined to the view that a 
person who made a joke took rather a liberty with him, his tendency to 
be jocular, even about himself and the estate of Temple Barholm, was 
irritating and somewhat disrespectful. Mr. Palford did not easily 
comprehend jokes of any sort; especially was he annoyed by cryptic 
phraseology and mammoth exaggeration. For instance, be could not in 
the least compass Mr. Temple Barholm's meaning when he casually 
remarked that something or other was "all to the merry"; or again, 
quite as though he believed that he was using reasonable English 
figures of speech, "The old fellow thought he was the only pebble on 
the beach." In using the latter expression he had been referring to 
the late Mr. Temple Barholm; but what on earth was his connection with 
the sea-shore and pebbles? When confronted with these baffling 
absurdities, Mr. Palford either said, "I beg pardon," or stiffened and 
remained silent.

When Tembarom learned that he was the head of one of the oldest 
families in England, no aspect of the desirable dignity of his 
position reached him in the least.

"Well," he remarked, "there's quite a lot of us can go back to Adam 
and Eve."

When he was told that he was lord of the manor of Temple Barholm, he 
did not know what a manor was.

"What's a manor, and what happens if you're lord of it?" he asked.

He had not heard of William the Conqueror, and did not appear moved to 
admiration of him, though he owned that he seemed to have "put it 
over."

"Why didn't he make a republic of it while he was about it?" he said. 
"But I guess that wasn't his kind. He didn't do all that fighting for 
his health."

His interest was not alone totally dissevered from the events of past 
centuries; it was as dissevered from those of mere past years. The 
habits, customs, and points of view of five years before seemed to 
have been cast into a vast waste-paper basket as wholly unpractical in 
connection with present experiences.

"A man that's going to keep up with the procession can't waste time 
thinking about yesterday. What he's got to do is to keep his eye on 
what's going to happen the week after next," he summed it up.

Rather to Mr. Palford's surprise, he did not speak lightly, but with a 
sort of inner seriousness. It suggested that he had not arrived at 
this conclusion without the aid of sharp experience. Now and then one 
saw a touch of this profound practical perception in him.

It was not to be denied that he was clear-headed enough where purely 
practical business detail was concerned. He was at first plainly 
rather stunned by the proportions presented to him, but his questions 
were direct and of a common-sense order not to be despised.

"I don't know anything about it yet," he said once. "It's all Dutch to 
me. I can't calculate in half-crowns and pounds and half pounds, but 
I'm going to find out. I've got to."

It was extraordinary and annoying to feel that one must explain 
everything; but this impossible fellow was not an actual fool on all 
points, and he did not seem to be a weakling. He might learn certain 
things in time, and at all events one was no further personally 
responsible for him and his impossibilities than the business concerns 
of his estate would oblige any legal firm to be. Clients, whether 
highly desirable or otherwise, were no more than clients. They were 
not relatives whom one must introduce to one's friends. Thus Mr. 
Palford, who was not a specially humane or sympathetic person, 
mentally decided. He saw no pathos in this raw young man, who would 
presently find himself floundering unaided in waters utterly unknown 
to him. There was even a touch of bitter amusement in the solicitor's 
mind as he glanced toward the future.

He explained with detail the necessity for their immediate departure 
for the other side of the Atlantic. Certain legal formalities which 
must at once be attended to demanded their presence in England. 
Foreseeing this, on the day when he had finally felt himself secure as 
to the identity of his client he had taken the liberty of engaging 
optionally certain state-rooms on the Adriana, sailing the following 
Wednesday.

"Subject of course to your approval," he added politely. "But it is 
imperative that we should be on the spot as early as possible." He did 
not mention that he himself was abominably tired of his sojourn on 
alien shores, and wanted to be back in London in his own chambers, 
with his own club within easy reach.

Tembarom's face changed its expression. He had been looking rather 
weighted down and fatigued, and he lighted up to eagerness.

"Say," he exclaimed, "why couldn't we go on the Transatlantic on 
Saturday?"

"It is one of the small, cheap boats," objected Palford.

"The accommodation would be most inferior."

Tembarom leaned forward and touched his sleeve in hasty, boyish 
appeal.

"I want to go on it," he said; "I want to go steerage."

Palford stared at him.

"You want to go on the Transatlantic! Steerage!" he ejaculated, quite 
aghast. This was a novel order of madness to reveal itself in the 
recent inheritor of a great fortune.

Tembarom's appeal grew franker; it took on the note of a too crude 
young fellow's misplaced confidence.

"You do this for me," he said. "I'd give a farm to go on that boat. 
The Hutchinsons are sailing on it - Mr. and Miss Hutchinson, the ones 
you saw at the house last night."

"I - it is really impossible." Mr. Palford hesitated. "As to steerage, 
my dear Mr. Temple Barholm, you - you can't."

Tembarom got up and stood with his hands thrust deep in his pockets. 
It seemed to be a sort of expression of his sudden hopeful excitement.

"Why not " he said. "If I own about half of England and have money to 
burn, I guess I can buy a steerage passage on a nine-day steamer."

"You can buy anything you like," Palford answered stiffly. "It is not 
a matter of buying. But I should not be conducting myself properly 
toward you if I allowed it. It would not be - becoming."

"Becoming!" cried Tembarom, "Thunder! It's not a spring bat. I tell 
you I want to go just that way."

Palford saw abnormal breakers ahead. He felt that he would be glad 
when be had landed his charge safely at Temple Barholm. Once there, 
his family solicitor was not called upon to live with him and hobnob 
with his extraordinary intimates.

"As to buying," he said, still with marked lack of enthusiasm, 
"instead of taking a steerage passage on the Transatlantic yourself, 
you might no doubt secure first-class state-rooms for Mr. and Miss 
Hutchinson on the Adriana, though I seriously advise against it."

Tembarom shook his head.

"You don't know them," he said. "They wouldn't let me. Hutchinson's a 
queer old fellow and he's had the hardest kind of luck, but he's as 
proud as they make 'em. Me butt in and offer to pay their passage 
back, as if they were paupers, just because I've suddenly struck it 
rich! Hully gee! I guess not. A fellow that's been boosted up in the 
air all in a minute, as I have, has got to lie pretty low to keep 
folks from wanting to kick him, anyhow. Hutchinson's a darned sight 
smarter fellow than I am, and he knows it--and he's Lancashire, you 
bet." He stopped a minute and flushed. "As to Little Ann," he said--
"me make that sort of a break with HER! Well, I should be a fool."

Palford was a cold-blooded and unimaginative person, but a long legal 
experience had built up within him a certain shrewdness of perception. 
He had naturally glanced once or twice at the girl sitting still at 
her mending, and he had observed that she said very little and had a 
singularly quiet, firm little voice.

"I beg pardon. You are probably right. I had very little conversation 
with either of them. Miss Hutchinson struck me as having an 
intelligent face."

"She's a wonder," said Tembarom, devoutly. "She's just a wonder."

"Under the circumstances," suggested Mr. Palford, "it might not be a 
bad idea to explain to her your idea of the steerage passage. An 
intelligent girl can often give excellent advice. You will probably 
have an opportunity of speaking to her tonight. Did you say they were 
sailing to-morrow?"

To-morrow! That brought it so near that it gave Tembarom a shock. He 
had known that they sailed on Saturday, and now Saturday had become 
to-morrow. Things began to surge through his mind--all sorts of things 
he had no time to think of clearly, though it was true they had darted 
vaguely about in the delirious excitement of the night, during which 
he had scarcely slept at all. His face changed again, and the appeal 
died out of it. He began to look anxious and restless.

"Yes, they're going to-morrow," he answered.

"You see," argued Mr. Palford, with conviction, "how impossible it 
would be for us to make any arrangements in so few hours. You will 
excuse my saying," he added punctiliously, "that I could not make the 
voyage in the steerage."

Tembarom laughed. He thought he saw him doing it.

"That's so," he said. Then, with renewed hope, he added, "Say, I 'm 
going to try and get them to wait till Wednesday."

"I do not think--" Mr. Palford began, and then felt it wiser to leave 
things as they were. "But I'm not qualified to give an opinion. I do 
not know Miss Hutchinson at all."

But the statement was by no means frank. He had a private conviction 
that he did know her to a certain degree. And he did.




CHAPTER VIII


There was a slight awkwardness even to Tembarom in entering the 
dining-room that evening. He had not seen his fellow boarders, as his 
restless night had made him sleep later than usual. But Mrs. Bowse had 
told him of the excitement he had caused.

"They just couldn't eat," she said. "They could do nothing but talk 
and talk and ask questions; and I had waffles, too, and they got 
stone-cold."

The babel of friendly outcry which broke out on his entry was made up 
of jokes, ejaculations, questions, and congratulatory outbursts from 
all sides.

"Good old T. T.!" "Give him a Harvard yell! Rah! Rah! Rah!" "Lend me 
fifty-five cents?" "Where's your tiara?" "Darned glad of it!" "Make us 
a speech!"

"Say, people," said Tembarom, "don't you get me rattled or I can't 
tell you anything. I'm rattled enough already."

"Well, is it true?" called out Mr. Striper.

"No," Tembarom answered back, sitting down. "It couldn't be; that's 
what I told Palford. I shall wake up in a minute or two and find 
myself in a hospital with a peacherino of a trained nurse smoothing 
'me piller.' You can't fool ME with a pipe-dream like this. Palford's 
easier; he's not a New Yorker. He says it IS true, and I can't get out 
of it."

"Whew! Great Jakes!" A long breath was exhaled all round the table.

"What are you, anyhow?" cried Jim Bowles across the dishes.

Tembarom rested his elbow on the edge of the table and began to check 
off his points on his fingers.

"I'm this, he said: "I'm Temple Temple Barholm, Esquire, of Temple 
Barholm, Lancashire, England. At the time of the flood my folks 
knocked up a house just about where the ark landed, and I guess 
they've held on to it ever since. I don't know what business they went 
into, but they made money. Palford swears I've got three hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars a year. I wasn't going to call the man a liar; 
but I just missed it, by jings!"

He was trying to "bluff it out." Somehow he felt he had to. He felt it 
more than ever when a momentary silence fell upon those who sat about 
the table. It fell when he said "three hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars a year." No one could find voice to make any remark for a few 
seconds after that.

"Are you a lord--or a duke?" some one asked after breath had recovered 
itself.
	
"No, I'm not," he replied with relief. "I just got out from under 
that; but the Lord knows how I did it."

"What are you going to do first? " said Jim Bowles.

"I've got to go and 'take possession.' That's what Palford calls it. 
I've been a lost heir for nearly two years, and I've got to show 
myself."

Hutchinson had not joined the clamor of greeting, but had grunted 
disapproval more than once. He felt that, as an Englishman, he had a 
certain dignity to maintain. He knew something about big estates and 
their owners. He was not like these common New York chaps, who 
regarded them as Arabian Nights tales to make jokes about. He had 
grown up as a village boy in proper awe of Temple Barholm. They were 
ignorant fools, this lot. He had no patience with them. He had left 
the village and gone to work in Manchester when he was a boy of 
twelve, but as long as he had remained in his mother's cottage it had 
been only decent good manners for him to touch his forehead 
respectfully when a Temple Barholm, or a Temple Barholm guest or 
carriage or pony phaeton, passed him by. And this chap was Mr. Temple 
Temple Barholm himself! Lord save us!

Little Ann said nothing at all; but, then, she seldom said anything 
during meal-times. When the rest of the boarders laughed, she ate her 
dinner and smiled. Several times, despite her caution, Tembarom caught 
her eye, and somehow held it a second with his. She smiled at him when 
this happened; but there was something restless and eager in his look 
which made her wish to evade it. She knew what he felt, and she knew 
why he kept up his jokes and never once spoke seriously. She knew he 
was not comfortable, and did not enjoy talking about hundreds of 
thousands a year to people who worked hard for ten or twenty "per." 
To-morrow morning was very near, she kept thinking. To-morrow night 
she would be lying in her berth in the steerage, or more probably 
taking care of her father, who would be very uncomfortable.

"What will Galton do? " Mr. Striper asked.

"I don't know," Tembarom answered, and he looked troubled. Three 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year might not be able to give 
aid to a wounded society page.

"What are you going to do with your Freak? " called out Julius 
Steinberger.

Tembarom actually started. As things had surged over him, he had had 
too much to think over. He had not had time to give to his strange 
responsibility; it had become one nevertheless.

"Are you going to leave him behind when you go to England?"

He leaned forward and put his chin on his hand.

"Why, say," he said, as though he were thinking it out, "he's spoken 
about England two or three times. He's said he must go there. By 
jings! I'll take him with me, and see what'll happen."

When Little Ann got up to leave the room he followed her and her 
father into the hall.

"May I come up and talk it over with you?" he appealed. "I've got to 
talk to some one who knows something about it. I shall go dotty if I 
don't. It's too much like a dream."

"Come on up when you're ready," answered Hutchinson. "Ann and me can 
give you a tip or two."

"I'm going to be putting the last things in the trunks," said Ann, 
"but I dare say you won't mind that. The express'll be here by eight 
in the morning."

"0 Lord!" groaned Tembarom.

When he went up to the fourth floor a little later, Hutchinson had 
fallen into a doze in his chair over his newspaper, and Ann was 
kneeling by a trunk in the hall, folding small articles tightly, and 
fitting them into corners. To Tembarom she looked even more than usual 
like a slight child thing one could snatch up in one's arms and carry 
about or set on one's knee without feeling her weight at all. An 
inferior gas-jet on the wall just above her was doing its best with 
the lot of soft, red hair, which would have been an untidy bundle if 
it had not been hers.

Tembarom sat down on the trunk next to her.

"0 Little Ann!" he broke out under his breath, lest the sound of his 
voice might check Hutchinson's steady snoring. "0 Little Ann!"

Ann leaned back, sitting upon her small heels, and looked up at him.

"You're all upset, and it's not to be wondered at, Mr. Temple 
Barholm," she said.

"Upset! You're going away to-morrow morning! And, for the Lord's sake, 
don't call me that!" he protested.

"You're going away yourself next Wednesday. And you ARE Mr. Temple 
Barholm. You'll never be called anything else in England.

"How am I going to stand it?" he protested again. "How could a fellow 
like me stand it! To be yanked out of good old New York, and set down 
in a place like a museum, with Central Park round it, and called Mr. 
Temple Temple Barholm instead of just 'Tem' or 'T. T.'! It's not 
natural."

"What you must do, Mr. Temple Barholm, is to keep your head clear, 
that's all," she replied maturely.

"Lord! if I'd got a head like yours!"

She seemed to take him in, with a benign appreciativeness, in his 
entirety.

"Well, you haven't," she admitted, though quite without disparagement, 
merely with slight reservation. "But you've got one like your own. And 
it's a good head--when you try to think steady. Yours is a man's head, 
and mine's only a woman's."

"It's Little Ann Hutchinson's, by gee!" said Tembarom, with feeling.

"Listen here, Mr. Tem--Temple Barholm," she went on, as nearly 
disturbed as he had ever seen her outwardly. "It's a wonderful thing 
that's happened to you. It's like a novel. That splendid place, that 
splendid name! It seems so queer to think I should ever have talked to 
a Mr. Temple Barholm as I've talked to you."

He leaned forward a little as though something drew him.

"But"--there was unsteady appeal in his voice--"you have liked me, 
haven't you, Little Ann?"

Her own voice seemed to drop into an extra quietness that made it 
remote. She looked down at her hands on her lap.

"Yes, I have liked you. I have told Father I liked you," she answered.

He got up, and made an impetuous rush at his goal.

"Then--say, I'm going in there to wake up Mr. Hutchinson and ask him 
not to sail to-morrow morning."

"You'd better not wake him up," she answered, smiling; but he saw that 
her face changed and flushed. "It's not a good time to ask Father 
anything when he's just been waked up. And we HAVE to go. The express 
is coming at eight."

"Send it away again; tell 'em you're not going. Tell 'em any old 
thing. Little Ann, what's the matter with you? Something's the matter. 
Have I made a break?"

He had felt the remoteness in her even before he had heard it in her 
dropped voice. It had been vaguely there even when he sat down on the 
trunk. Actually there was a touch of reserve about her, as though she 
was keeping her little place with the self-respecting propriety of a 
girl speaking to a man not of her own world.

"I dare say I've done some fool thing without knowing it. I don't know 
where I'm at, anyhow," he said woefully.

"Don't look at me like that, Mr. Temple Barholm," she said--"as if I 
was unkind. I--I'm NOT."

"But you're different," he implored. "I saw it the minute I came up. I 
ran up-stairs just crazy to talk to you,--yes, crazy to talk to you--
and you--well, you were different. Why are you, if you're not mad?"

Then she rose and stood holding one of her neatly rolled packages in 
her hand. Her eyes were soft and clear, and appealed maternally to his 
reason.

"Because everything's different. You just think a bit," she answered.

He stared at her a few seconds, and then understanding of her dawned 
upon him. He made a human young dash at her, and caught her arm.

"What!" he cried out. "You mean this Temple Barholm song and dance 
makes things different? Not on your life! You're not the girl to work 
that on me, as if it was my fault. You've got to hear me speak my 
piece. Ann--you've just got to!"

He had begun to tremble a little, and she herself was not steady; but 
she put a hand on his arm.

"Don't say anything you've not had time to think about," she said.

"I've been thinking of pretty near nothing else ever since I came 
here. Just as soon as I looked at you across the table that first day 
I saw my finish, and every day made me surer. I'd never had any 
comfort or taking care of,--I didn't know the first thing about it,--
and it seemed as if all there was of it in the world was just in YOU."

"Did you think that?" she asked falteringly.

"Did I? That's how you looked to me, and it's how you look now. The 
way you go about taking care of everybody and just handing out solid 
little chunks of good sense to every darned fool that needs them, why-
-" There was a break in his voice--"why, it just knocked me out the 
first round." He held her a little away from him, so that he could 
yearn over her, though he did not know he was yearning. "See, I'd 
sworn I'd never ask a girl to marry me until I could keep her. Well, 
you know how it was, Ann. I couldn't have kept a goat, and I wasn't 
such a fool that I didn't know it. I've been pretty sick when I 
thought how it was; but I never worried you, did I?"

"No, you didn't."

"I just got busy. I worked like--well, I got busier than I ever was in 
my life. When I got the page SURE, I let myself go a bit, sort of 
hoping. And then this Temple Barholm thing hits me."

"That's the thing you've got to think of now," said Little Ann. "I'm 
going to talk sensible to you."

"Don't, Ann! Good Lord! DON'T!"

"I MUST." She put her last tight roll into the trunk and tried to shut 
the lid. "Please lock this for me."

He locked it, and then she seated herself on the top of it, though it 
was rather high for her, and her small feet dangled. Her eyes looked 
large and moist like a baby's, and she took out a handkerchief and 
lightly touched them.

"You've made me want to cry a bit," she said, "but I'm not going to."

"Are you going to tell me you don't want me?" he asked, with anxious 
eyes.

"No, I'm not."

"God bless you!" He was going to make a dash at her again, but pulled 
himself up because he must. "No, by jings!" he said. "I'm not going to 
till you let me."

"You see, it's true your head's not like mine," she said reasonably. 
"Men's heads are mostly not like women's. They're men, of course, and 
they're superior to women, but they're what I'd call more fluttery-
like. Women must remind them of things."

"What--what kind of things?"

"This kind. You see, Grandmother lives near Temple Barholm, and I know 
what it's like, and you don't. And I've seen what seventy thousand 
pounds a year means, and you haven't. And you've got to go and find 
out for yourself."

"What's the matter with you coming along to help me?"

"I shouldn't help you; that's it. I should hold you back. I'm nothing 
but Ann Hutchinson, and I talk Manchester-- and I drop my h's."

"I love to hear you drop your little h's all over the place," he burst 
forth impetuously. "I love it."

She shook her head.

"The girls that go to garden-parties at Temple Barholm look like those 
in the `Ladies' Pictorial', and they've got names and titles same as 
those in novels."

He answered her in genuine anguish. He had never made any mistake 
about her character, and she was beginning to make him feel afraid of 
her in the midst of his adoration.

"What do I want with a girl out of a magazine?" he cried. "Where 
should I hang her up?"

She was not unfeeling, but unshaken and she went on:

"I should look like a housemaid among them. How would you feel with a 
wife of that sort, when the other sort was about?"

"I should feel like a king, that's what I should feel like," he 
replied indignantly.

"I shouldn't feel like a queen. I should feel MISERABLE."

She sat with her little feet dangling, and her hands folded in her 
lap. Her infantile blue eyes held him as the Ancient Mariner had been 
held. He could not get away from the clear directness of them. He did 
not want to exactly, but she frightened him more and more.

"I should be ashamed," she proceeded. "I should feel as if I had taken 
an advantage. What you've got to do is to find out something no one 
else can find out for you, Mr. Temple Barholm."

"How can I find it out without you? It was you who put me on to the 
wedding-cake; you can put me on to other things."

"Because I've lived in the place," she answered unswervingly. "I know 
how funny it is for any one to think of me being Mrs. Temple Barholm. 
You don't."

"You bet I don't," he answered; "but I'll tell you what I do know, and 
that's how funny it is that I should be Mr. Temple Barholm. I've got 
on to that all right, all right. Have you?"

She looked at him with a reflection that said much. She took him in 
with a judicial summing up of which it must be owned an added respect 
was part. She had always believed he had more sense than most young 
men, and now she knew it.

"When a person's clever enough to see things for himself, he's 
generally clever enough to manage them," she replied.

He knelt down beside the trunk and took both her hands in his. He held 
them fast and rather hard.

"Are you throwing me down for good, Little Ann?" he said. "If you are, 
I can't stand it, I won't stand it."

"If you care about me like that, you'll do what I tell you," she 
interrupted, and she slipped down from the top of her trunk. "I know 
what Mother would say. She'd say, 'Ann, you give that young man a 
chance.' And I'm going to give you one. I've said all I'm going to, 
Mr. Temple Barholm."

He took both her elbows and looked at her closely, feeling a somewhat 
awed conviction.

" I - believe - you have," he said.

And here the sound of Mr. Hutchinson's loud and stertorous breathing 
ceased, and he waked up, and came to the door to find out what Ann was 
doing.

"What are you two talking about?" he asked. "People think when they 
whisper it's not going to disturb anybody, but it's worse than 
shouting in a man's ear."

Tembarom walked into the room.

"I've been asking Little Ann to marry me," he announced, "and she 
won't."

He sat down in a chair helplessly, and let his head fall into his 
hands.

"Eh!" exclaimed Hutchinson. He turned and looked at Ann disturbedly. 
"I thought a bit ago tha didn't deny but what tha'd took to him?"

"I didn't, Father," she answered. "I don't change my mind that quick. 
I - would have been willing to say 'Yes' when you wouldn't have been 
willing to let me. I didn't know he was Mr. Temple Barholm then."

Hutchinson rubbed the back of his head, reddening and rather 
bristling.

"Dost tha think th' Temple Barholms would look down on thee?"

"I should look down on myself if I took him up at his first words, 
when he's all upset with excitement, and hasn't had time to find out 
what things mean. I'm--well, I 'm too fond of him, Father."

Hutchinson gave her a long, steady look.

"You are? " he said.

"Yes, I am."

Tembarom lifted his head, and looked at her, too.

"Are you?" he asked.

She put her hands behind her back, and returned his look with the calm 
of ages.

"I'm not going to argue about it," she answered. "Arguing's silly."

His involuntary rising and standing before her was a sort of 
unconscious tribute of respect.

"I know that," he owned. "I know you. That's why I take it like this. 
But I want you to tell me one thing. If this hadn't happened, if I'd 
only had twenty dollars a week, would you have taken me?"

"If you'd had fifteen, and Father could have spared me, I'd have taken 
you. Fifteen dollars a week is three pounds two and sixpence, and I've 
known curates' wives that had to bring up families on less. It 
wouldn't go as far in New York as it would in the country in England, 
but we could have made it do--until you got more. I know you, too, Mr. 
Temple Barholm."

He turned to her father, and saw in his florid countenance that which 
spurred him to bold disclosure.

"Say," he put it to him, as man to man, "she stands there and says a 
thing like that, and she expects a fellow not to jerk her into his 
arms and squeeze the life out of her! I daren't do it, and I'm not 
going to try; but--well, you said her mother was like her, and I guess 
you know what I'm up against."

Hutchinson's grunting chuckle contained implications of exultant 
tenderness and gratified paternal pride.

"She's th' very spit and image of her mother," he said, "and she had 
th' sense of ten women rolled into one, and th' love of twenty. You 
let her be, and you're as safe as th' Rock of Ages."

"Do you think I don't know that?" answered Tembarom, his eyes shining 
almost to moisture. "But what hits me, by thunder! is that I've lost 
the chance of seeing her work out that fifteen-dollar-a-week 
proposition, and it drives me crazy."

"I should have downright liked to try it," said Little Ann, with 
speculative reflection, and while she knitted her brows in lovely 
consideration of the attractive problem, several previously unknown 
dimples declared themselves about her mouth.

"Ann," Tembarom ventured, "if I go to Temple Barholm and try it a year 
and learn all about it---"

"It would take more than a year," said Ann.

"Don't make it two," Tembarom pleaded. "I'll sit up at night with wet 
towels round my head to learn; I'll spend fourteen hours a day with 
girls that look like the pictures in the `Ladies' Pictorial', or 
whatever it is in England; I'll give them every chance in life, if 
you'll let me off afterward. There must be another lost heir 
somewhere; let's dig him up and then come back to little old New York 
and be happy. Gee! Ann,"--letting himself go and drawing nearer to 
her,-- "how happy we could be in one of those little flats in Harlem!"

She was a warm little human thing, and a tender one, and when he came 
close to her, glowing with tempestuous boyish eagerness, her eyes grew 
bluer because they were suddenly wet, and she was obliged to move 
softly back.

"Yes," she said; "I know those little flats. Any one could---" She 
stopped herself, because she had been going to reveal. what a home a 
woman could make in rooms like the compartments in a workbox. She knew 
and saw it all. She drew back a little again, but she put out a hand 
and laid it on his sleeve.

"When you've had quite time enough to find out, and know what the 
other thing means, I'll do whatever you want me to do," she said. "It 
won't matter what it is. I'll do it."

"She means that," Hutchinson mumbled unsteadily, turning aside. "Same 
as her mother would have meant it. And she means it in more ways than 
one."

And so she did. The promise included quite firmly the possibility of 
not unnatural changes in himself such as young ardor could not 
foresee, even the possibility of his new life withdrawing him entirely 
from the plane on which rapture could materialize on twenty dollars a 
week in a flat in Harlem.




CHAPTER IX


Type as exotic as Tembarom's was to his solicitor naturally suggested 
problems. Mr. Palford found his charge baffling because, according to 
ordinary rules, a young man so rudimentary should have presented no 
problems not perfectly easy to explain. It was herein that he was 
exotic. Mr. Palford, who was not given to subtle analysis of 
differences in character and temperament, argued privately that an 
English youth who had been brought up in the streets would have been 
one of two or three things. He would have been secretly terrified and 
resentful, roughly awkward and resentful, or boastfully delighted and 
given to a common youth's excitedly common swagger at finding himself 
suddenly a "swell."

This special kind of youth would most assuredly have constantly 
thought of himself as a "swell" and would have lost his head 
altogether, possibly with results in the matter of conduct in public 
which would have been either maddening or crushing to the spirit of a 
well-bred, mature-minded legal gentleman temporarily thrust into the 
position of bear-leader.

But Tembarom was none of these things. If he was terrified, he did not 
reveal his anguish. He was without doubt not resentful, but on the 
contrary interested and curious, though he could not be said to bear 
himself as one elated. He indulged in no frolics or extravagances. He 
saw the Hutchinsons off on their steamer, and supplied them with fruit 
and flowers and books with respectful moderation. He did not conduct 
himself as a benefactor bestowing unknown luxuries, but as a young man 
on whom unexpected luck had bestowed decent opportunities to express 
his friendship. In fact, Palford's taste approved of his attitude. He 
was evidently much under the spell of the slight girl with the 
Manchester accent and sober blue eyes, but she was neither flighty nor 
meretricious, and would have sense enough to give no trouble even when 
he naturally forgot her in the revelations of his new life. Her father 
also was plainly a respectable working-man, with a blunt Lancashire 
pride which would keep him from intruding.

"You can't butt in and get fresh with a man like that," Tembarom said. 
"Money wouldn't help you. He's too independent."

After the steamer had sailed away it was observable to his solicitor 
that Mr. Temple Barholm was apparently occupied every hour. He did not 
explain why he seemed to rush from one part of New York to another and 
why he seemed to be seeking interviews with persons it was plainly 
difficult to get at. He was evidently working hard to accomplish 
something or other before he left the United States, perhaps. He asked 
some astutely practical business questions; his intention seeming to 
be to gain a definite knowledge of what his future resources would be 
and of his freedom to use them as he chose.

Once or twice Mr. Palford was rather alarmed by the tendency of his 
questions. Had he actually some prodigious American scheme in view? He 
seemed too young and inexperienced in the handling of large sums for 
such a possibility. But youth and inexperience and suddenly inherited 
wealth not infrequently led to rash adventures. Something which 
Palford called "very handsome" was done for Mrs. Bowse and the 
boarding-house. Mrs. Bowse was evidently not proud enough to resent 
being made secure for a few years' rent. The extraordinary page was 
provided for after a large amount of effort and expenditure of energy.

"I couldn't leave Galton high and dry," Tembarom explained when he 
came in after rushing about. "I think I know a man he might try, but 
I've got to find him and put him on to things. Good Lord! nobody 
rushed about to find me and offer me the job. I hope this fellow wants 
it as bad as I did. He'll be up in the air." He discovered the where-
abouts of the young man in question, and finding him, as the youngster 
almost tearfully declared, "about down and out," his proposition was 
met with the gratitude the relief from a prospect of something 
extremely like starvation would mentally produce. Tembarom took him to 
Galton after having talked him over in detail.

"He's had an education, and you know how much I'd had when I butted 
into the page," he said. "No one but you would have let me try it. You 
did it only because you saw--you saw--"

"Yes, I saw," answered Galton, who knew exactly what he had seen and 
who found his up-town social representative and his new situation as 
interesting as amusing and just touched with the pathetic element. 
Galton was a traveled man and knew England and several other countries 
well.

"You saw that a fellow wanted the job as much as I did would be likely 
to put up a good fight to hold it down. I was scared out of my life 
when I started out that morning of the blizzard, but I couldn't afford 
to be scared. I guess soldiers who are scared fight like that when 
they see bayonets coming at them. You have to."

"I wonder how often a man finds out that he does pretty big things 
when bayonets are coming at him," answered Galton, who was actually 
neglecting his work for a few minutes so that he might look at and 
talk to him, this New York descendant of Norman lords and Saxon kings.

"Joe Bennett had been trying to live off free-lunch counters for a 
week when I found him," Tembarom explained. "You don't know what that 
is. He'll go at the page all right. I'm going to take him up-town and 
introduce him to my friends there and get them to boost him along."

"You made friends," said Galton. "I knew you would."

"Some of the best ever. Good-natured and open-handed. Well, you bet! 
Only trouble was they wanted you to eat and drink everything in sight, 
and they didn't quite like it when you couldn't get outside all the 
champagne they'd offer you."

He broke into a big, pleased laugh.

"When I went in and told Munsberg he pretty near threw a fit. Of 
course he thought I was kidding. But when I made him believe it, he 
was as glad as if he'd had luck himself. It was just fine the way 
people took it. Tell you what, it takes good luck, or bad luck, to 
show you how good-natured a lot of folks are. They'll treat Bennett 
and the page all right; you'll see."

"They'll miss you," said Galton.

"I shall miss them," Tembarom answered in a voice with a rather 
depressed drop in it.

"I shall miss you," said Galton.

Tembarom's face reddened a little.

"I guess it'd seem rather fresh for me to tell you how I shall miss 
you," he said. "I said that first day that I didn't know how to tell 
you how I--well, how I felt about you giving a mutt like me that big 
chance. You never thought I didn't know how little I did know, did 
you?" he inquired almost anxiously.

"That was it--that you did know and that you had the backbone and the 
good spirits to go in and win," Galton replied. "I'm a tired man, and 
good spirits and good temper seem to me about the biggest assets a man 
can bring into a thing. I shouldn't have dared do it when I was your 
age. You deserved the Victoria Cross," he added, chuckling.

"What's the Victoria Cross?" asked Tembarom.

"You'll find out when you go to England."

"Well, I'm not supposing that you don't know about how many billion 
things I'll have to find out when I go to England."

"There will be several thousand," replied Galton moderately; "but 
you'll learn about them as you go on."

"Say," said Tembarom, reflectively, "doesn't it seem queer to think of 
a fellow having to keep up his spirits because he's fallen into three 
hundred and fifty thousand a year? You wouldn't think he'd have to, 
would you?"

"But you find he has?" queried Galton, interestedly.

Tembarom's lifted eyes were so honest that they were touching.

"I don't know where I'm at," he said. "I'm going to wake up in a new 
place--like people that die. If you knew what it was like, you 
wouldn't mind it so much; but you don't know a blamed thing. It's not 
having seen a sample that rattles you."

"You're fond of New York?"

"Good Lord! it's all the place I know on earth, and it's just about 
good enough for me, by gee! It's kept me alive when it might have 
starved me to death. My! I've had good times here," he added, flushing 
with emotion. "Good times-- when I hadn't a whole meal a day!"

"You'd have good times anywhere," commented Galton, also with feeling. 
"You carry them over your shoulder, and you share them with a lot of 
other people."

He certainly shared some with Joe Bennett, whom he took up-town and 
introduced right and left to his friendly patrons, who, excited by the 
atmosphere of adventure and prosperity, received him with open arms. 
To have been the choice of T. Tembarom as a mere representative of the 
EARTH would have been a great thing for Bennett, but to be the choice 
of the hero of a romance of wildest opulence was a tremendous send-
off. He was accepted at once, and when Tembarom actually "stood for" a 
big farewell supper of his own in "The Hall," and nearly had his hand 
shaken off by congratulating acquaintances, the fact that he kept the 
new aspirant by his side, so that the waves of high popularity flowed 
over him until he sometimes lost his joyful breath, established him as 
a sort of hero himself.

Mr. Palford did not know of this festivity, as he also found he was 
not told of several other things. This he counted as a feature of his 
client's exoticism. His extraordinary lack of concealment of things 
vanity forbids many from confessing combined itself with a quite 
cheerful power to keep his own counsel when he was, for reasons of his 
own, so inclined.

"He can keep his mouth shut, that chap," Hutchinson had said once, and 
Mr. Palford remembered it. "Most of us can't. I've got a notion I can; 
but I don't many's the time when I should. There's a lot more in him 
than you'd think for. He's naught but a lad, but he is na half such a 
fool as he looks."

He was neither hesitant nor timid, Mr. Palford observed. In an 
entirely unostentatious way he soon realized that his money gave 
things into his hands. He knew he could do most things he chose to do, 
and that the power to do them rested in these days with himself 
without the necessity of detailed explanation or appeal to others, as 
in the case, for instance, of this mysterious friend or protege whose 
name was Strangeways. Of the history of his acquaintance with him 
Palford knew nothing, and that he should choose to burden himself with 
a half-witted invalid --in these terms the solicitor described him--
was simply in-explainable. If he had asked for advice or by his manner 
left an opening for the offering of it, he would have been most 
strongly counseled to take him to a public asylum and leave him there; 
but advice on the subject seemed the last thing he desired or 
anticipated, and talk about his friend was what he seemed least likely 
to indulge in. He made no secret of his intentions, but he frankly 
took charge of them as his own special business, and left the rest 
alone.

"Say nothing and saw wood," Palford had once been a trifle puzzled by 
hearing him remark casually, and he remembered it later, as he 
remembered the comments of Joseph Hutchinson. Tembarom had explained 
himself to Little Ann.

"You'll understand," he said. " It is like this. I guess I feel like 
you do when a dog or a cat in big trouble just looks at you as if you 
were all they had, and they know if you don't stick by them they'll be 
killed, and it just drives them crazy. It's the way they look at you 
that you can't stand. I believe something would burst in that fellow's 
brain if I left him. When he found out I was going to do it he'd just 
let out some awful kind of a yell I'd remember till I died. I dried 
right up almost as soon as I spoke of him to Palford. He couldn't see 
anything but that he was crazy and ought to be put in an asylum. Well, 
he's not. There're times when he talks to me almost sensible; only 
he's always so awful low down in his mind you're afraid to let him go 
on. And he's a little bit better than he was. It seems queer to get to 
like a man that's sort of dotty, but I tell you, Ann, because you'll 
understand --I've got to sort of like him, and want to see if I can 
work it out for him somehow. England seems to sort of stick in his 
mind. If I can't spend my money in living the way I want to live,--
buying jewelry and clothes for the girl I'd like to see dressed like a 
queen--I'm going to do this just to please myself. I'm going to take 
him to England and keep him quiet and see what'll happen. Those big 
doctors ought to know about all there is to know, and I can pay them 
any old thing they want. By jings! isn't it the limit--to sit here and 
say that and know it's true!"

Beyond the explaining of necessary detail to him and piloting him to 
England, Mr. Palford did not hold himself many degrees responsible. 
His theory of correct conduct assumed no form of altruism. He had 
formulated it even before he reached middle age. One of his fixed 
rules was to avoid the error of allowing sympathy or sentiment to 
hamper him with any unnecessary burden. Natural tendency of 
temperament had placed no obstacles in the way of his keeping this 
rule. To burden himself with the instruction or modification of this 
unfortunately hopeless young New Yorker would be unnecessary. 
Palford's summing up of him was that he was of a type with which 
nothing palliative could be done. There he was. As unavoidable 
circumstances forced one to take him,--commonness, slanginess, 
appalling ignorance, and all,--one could not leave him. Fortunately, 
no respectable legal firm need hold itself sponsor for a "next of kin" 
provided by fate and the wilds of America.

The Temple Barholm estate had never, in Mr. Palford's generation, been 
specially agreeable to deal with. The late Mr. Temple Temple Barholm 
had been a client of eccentric and abominable temper. Interviews with 
him had been avoided as much as possible. His domineering insolence of 
bearing had at times been on the verge of precipitating unheard-of 
actions, because it was almost more than gentlemanly legal flesh and 
blood could bear. And now appeared this young man.

He rushed about New York strenuously attending to business concerning 
himself and his extraordinary acquaintances, and on the day of the 
steamer's sailing he presented himself at the last moment in an 
obviously just purchased suit of horribly cut clothes. At all events, 
their cut was horrible in the eyes of Mr. Palford, who accepted no cut 
but that of a West End tailor. They were badly made things enough, 
because they were unconsidered garments that Tembarom had barely found 
time to snatch from a "ready-made" counter at the last moment. He had 
been too much "rushed" by other things to remember that he must have 
them until almost too late to get them at all. He bought them merely 
because they were clothes, and warm enough to make a voyage in. He 
possessed a monster ulster, in which, to Mr. Palford's mind, he looked 
like a flashy black-leg. He did not know it was flashy. His 
opportunities for cultivating a refined taste in the matter of 
wardrobe had been limited, and he had wasted no time in fastidious 
consideration or regrets. Palford did him some injustice in taking it 
for granted that his choice of costume was the result of deliberate 
bad taste. It was really not choice at all. He neither liked his 
clothes nor disliked them. He had been told he needed warm garments, 
and he had accepted the advice of the first salesman who took charge 
of him when he dropped into the big department store he was most 
familiar with because it was the cheapest in town. Even when it was no 
longer necessary to be cheap, it was time-saving and easy to go into a 
place one knew.

The fact that he was as he was, and that they were the subjects of 
comment and objects of unabated interest through-out the voyage, that 
it was proper that they should be companions at table and on deck, 
filled Mr. Palford with annoyed unease.

Of course every one on board was familiar with the story of the 
discovery of the lost heir. The newspapers had reveled in it, and had 
woven romances about it which might well have caused the deceased Mr. 
Temple Barholm to turn in his grave. After the first day Tembarom had 
been picked out from among the less-exciting passengers, and when he 
walked the deck, books were lowered into laps or eyes followed him 
over their edges. His steamer-chair being placed in a prominent 
position next to that of a pretty, effusive Southern woman, the mother 
of three daughters whose eyes and eyelashes attracted attention at the 
distance of a deck's length, he was without undue delay provided with 
acquaintances who were prepared to fill his every moment with 
entertainment.

"The three Gazelles," as their mother playfully confided to Tembarom 
her daughters were called in Charleston, were destructively lovely. 
They were swaying reeds of grace, and being in radiant spirits at the 
prospect of "going to Europe," were companions to lure a man to any 
desperate lengths. They laughed incessantly, as though they were 
chimes of silver bells; they had magnolia-petal skins which neither 
wind nor sun blemished; they had nice young manners, and soft moods in 
which their gazelle eyes melted and glowed and their long lashes 
drooped. They could dance, they played on guitars, and they sang. They 
were as adorable as they were lovely and gay.

"If a fellow was going to fall in love," Tembarom said to Palford, 
"there'd be no way out of this for him unless he climbed the rigging 
and dragged his food up in a basket till he got to Liverpool. If he 
didn't go crazy about Irene, he'd wake up raving about Honora; and if 
he got away from Honora, Adelia Louise would have him `down on the 
mat.'" From which Mr. Palford argued that the impression made by the 
little Miss Hutchinson with the Manchester accent had not yet had time 
to obliterate itself.

The Gazelles were of generous Southern spirit, and did not surround 
their prize with any barrier of precautions against other young 
persons of charm. They introduced him to one girl after another, and 
in a day or two he was the center of animated circles whenever he 
appeard. The singular thing, however, was that he did not appear as 
often as the other men who were on board. He seemed to stay a great 
deal with Strangeways, who shared his suite of rooms and never came on 
deck. Sometimes the Gazelles prettily reproached him. Adelia Louise 
suggested to the others that his lack of advantages in the past had 
made him feel rather awkward and embarrassed; but Palford knew he was 
not embarrassed. He accepted his own limitations too simply to be 
disturbed by them. Palford would have been extremely bored by him if 
he had been of the type of young outsider who is anxiouus about 
himself and expansive in self-revelation and appeals for advice; but 
sometimes Tembarom's air of frankness, which was really the least 
expansive thing in the world and revealed nothing whatever, besides 
concealing everything it chose, made him feel himself almost 
irritatingly baffled. It would have been more natural if he had not 
been able to keep anything to himself and had really talked too much.




CHAPTER X


The necessary business in London having been transacted, Tembarom went 
north to take possession of the home of his forefathers. It had rained 
for two days before he left London, and it rained steadily all the way 
to Lancashire, and was raining steadily when he reached Temple 
Barholm. He had never seen such rain before. It was the quiet, unmoved 
persistence of it which amazed him. As he sat in the railroad carriage 
and watched the slanting lines of its unabating downpour, he felt that 
Mr. Palford must inevitably make some remark upon it. But Mr. Palford 
continued to read his newspapers undisturbedly, as though the 
condition of atmosphere surrounding him were entirely accustomed and 
natural. It was of course necessary and proper that he should 
accompany his client to his destination, but the circumstances of the 
case made the whole situation quite abnormal. Throughout the centuries 
each Temple Barholm had succeeded to his estate in a natural and 
conventional manner. He had either been welcomed or resented by his 
neighbors, his tenants, and his family, and proper and fitting 
ceremonies had been observed. But here was an heir whom nobody knew, 
whose very existence nobody had even suspected, a young man who had 
been an outcast in the streets of the huge American city of which 
lurid descriptions are given. Even in New York he could have produced 
no circle other than Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house and the objects of 
interest to the up-town page, so he brought no one with him; for 
Strangeways seemed to have been mysteriously disposed of after their 
arrival in London.

Never had Palford & Grimby on their hands a client who seemed so 
entirely alone. What, Mr. Palford asked himself, would he do in the 
enormity of Temple Barholm, which always struck one as being a place 
almost without limit. But that, after all, was neither here nor there. 
There he was. You cannot undertake to provide a man with relatives if 
he has none, or with acquaintances if people do not want to know him. 
His past having been so extraordinary, the neighborhood would 
naturally be rather shy of him. At first, through mere force of custom 
and respect for an old name, punctilious, if somewhat alarmed, 
politeness would be shown by most people; but after the first calls 
all would depend upon how much people could stand of the man himself.

The aspect of the country on a wet winter's day was not enlivening. 
The leafless and dripping hedges looked like bundles of sticks; the 
huge trees, which in June would be majestic bowers of greenery, now 
held out great skeleton arms, which seemed to menace both earth and 
sky. Heavy-faced laborers tramped along muddy lanes; cottages with 
soaked bits of dead gardens looked like hovels; big, melancholy cart-
horses, dragging jolting carts along the country roads, hung their 
heads as they splashed through the mire.

As Tembarom had known few persons who had ever been out of America, he 
had not heard that England was beautiful, and he saw nothing which led 
him to suspect its charms. London had impressed him as gloomy, dirty, 
and behind the times despite its pretensions; the country struck him 
as "the limit." Hully gee! was he going to be expected to spend his 
life in this! Should he be obliged to spend his life in it. He'd find 
that out pretty quick, and then, if there was no hard-and-fast law 
against it, him for little old New York again, if he had to give up 
the whole thing and live on ten per. If he had been a certain kind of 
youth, his discontent would have got the better of him, and he might 
have talked a good deal to Mr. Palford and said many disparaging 
things.

"But the man was born here," he reflected. "I guess he doesn't know 
anything else, and thinks it's all right. I've heard of English 
fellows who didn't like New York. He looks like that kind."

He had supplied himself with newspapers and tried to read them. Their 
contents were as unexciting as the rain-sodden landscape. There were 
no head-lines likely to arrest any man's attention. There was a lot 
about Parliament and the Court, and one of them had a column or two 
about what lords and ladies were doing, a sort of English up-town or 
down-town page.

He knew the stuff, but there was no snap in it, and there were no 
photographs or descriptions of dresses. Galton would have turned it 
down. He could never have made good if he had done no better than 
that. He grinned to himself when he read that the king had taken a 
drive and that a baby prince had the measles.

"I wonder what they'd think of the Sunday Earth," he mentally 
inquired.

He would have been much at sea if he had discovered what they really 
would have thought of it. They passed through smoke-vomiting 
manufacturing towns, where he saw many legs seemingly bearing about 
umbrellas, but few entire people; they whizzed smoothly past drenched 
suburbs, wet woodlands, and endless-looking brown moors, covered with 
dead bracken and bare and prickly gorse. He thought these last great 
desolate stretches worse than all the rest.

But the railroad carriage was luxuriously upholstered and comfortable, 
though one could not walk about and stretch his legs. In the 
afternoon, Mr. Palford ordered in tea, and plainly expected him to 
drink two cups and eat thin bread and butter. He felt inclined to 
laugh, though the tea was all right, and so was the bread and butter, 
and he did not fail his companion in any respect. The inclination to 
laugh was aroused by the thought of what Jim Bowles and Julius would 
say if they could see old T. T. with nothing to do at 4:30 but put in 
cream and sugar, as though he were at a tea-party on Fifth Avenue.

But, gee! this rain did give him the Willies. If he was going to be 
sorry for himself, he might begin right now. But he wasn't. He was 
going to see this thing through.

The train had been continuing its smooth whir through fields, wooded 
lands, and queer, dead-and-alive little villages for some time before 
it drew up at last at a small station. Bereft by the season of its 
garden bloom and green creepers, it looked a bare and uninviting 
little place. On the two benches against the wall of the platform a 
number of women sat huddled together in the dampness. Several of them 
held children in their laps and all stared very hard, nudging one 
another as he descended from the train. A number of rustics stood 
about the platform, giving it a somewhat crowded air. It struck 
Tembarom that, for an out- of-the-way place, there seemed to be a good 
many travelers, and he wondered if they could all be going away. He 
did not know that they were the curious element among such as lived in 
the immediate neighborhood of the station and had come out merely to 
see him on his first appearance. Several of them touched their hats as 
he went by, and he supposed they knew Palford and were saluting him. 
Each of them was curious, but no one was in a particularly welcoming 
mood. There was, indeed, no reason for anticipating enthusiasm. It 
was, however, but human nature that the bucolic mind should bestir 
itself a little in the desire to obtain a view of a Temple Barholm who 
had earned his living by blacking boots and selling newspapers, 
unknowing that he was "one o' th' gentry."

When he stepped from his first-class carriage, Tembarom found himself 
confronted by a very straight, clean-faced, and well-built young man, 
who wore a long, fawn-colored livery coat with claret facings and 
silver buttons. He touched his cockaded hat, and at once took up the 
Gladstone bags. Tembarom knew that he was a footman because he had 
seen something like him outside restaurants, theaters, and shops in 
New York, but he was not sure whether he ought to touch his own hat or 
not. He slightly lifted it from his head to show there was no ill 
feeling, and then followed him and Mr. Palford to the carriage waiting 
for them. It was a severe but sumptuous equipage, and the coachman was 
as well dressed and well built as the footman. Tembarom took his place 
in it with many mental reservations.

"What are the illustrations on the doors?" he inquired.

"The Temple Barholm coat of arms," Mr. Palford answered. "The people 
at the station are your tenants. Members of the family of the stout 
man with the broad hat have lived as yeoman farmers on your land for 
three hundred years."

They went on their way, with more rain, more rain, more dripping 
hedges, more soaked fields, and more bare, huge-armed trees. CLOP, 
CLOP, CLOP, sounded the horses' hoofs along the road, and from his 
corner of the carriage Mr. Palford tried to make polite conversation. 
Faces peered out of the windows of the cottages, sometimes a whole 
family group of faces, all crowded together, eager to look, from the 
mother with a baby in her arms to the old man or woman, plainly 
grandfather or grandmother--sharp, childishly round, or bleared old 
eyes, all excited and anxious to catch glimpses.

"They are very curious to see you," said Mr. Palford. "Those two 
laborers are touching their hats to you. It will be as well to 
recognize their salute."

At a number of the cottage doors the group stood upon the threshold 
and touched foreheads or curtsied. Tembarom saluted again and again, 
and more than once his friendly grin showed itself. It made him feel 
queer to drive along, turning from side to side to acknowledge 
obeisances, as he had seen a well-known military hero acknowledge them 
as he drove down Broadway.

The chief street of the village of Temple Barholm wandered almost 
within hailing distance of the great entrance to the park. The gates 
were supported by massive pillars, on which crouched huge stone 
griffins. Tembarom felt that they stared savagely over his head as he 
was driven toward them as for inspection, and in disdainful silence 
allowed to pass between them as they stood on guard, apparently with 
the haughtiest mental reservations.

The park through which the long avenue rolled concealed its beauty to 
the unaccustomed eye, showing only more bare trees and sodden 
stretches of brown grass. The house itself, as it loomed up out of the 
thickening rain-mist, appalled Tembarom by its size and gloomily gray 
massiveness. Before it was spread a broad terrace of stone, guarded by 
more griffins of even more disdainful aspect than those watching over 
the gates. The stone noses held themselves rigidly in the air as the 
reporter of the up-town society page passed with Mr. Palford up a 
flight of steps broad enough to make him feel as though he were going 
to church. Footmen with powdered heads received him at the carriage 
door, seemed to assist him to move, to put one foot before the other 
for him, to stand in rows as though they were a military guard ready 
to take him into custody.

Then he was inside, standing in an enormous hall filled with 
furnishings such as he had never seen or heard of before. Carved oak, 
suits of armor, stone urns, portraits, another flight of church steps 
mounting upward to surrounding galleries, stained-glass windows, 
tigers' and lions' heads, horns of tremendous size, strange and 
beautiful weapons, suggested to him that the dream he had been living 
in for weeks had never before been so much a dream. He had walked 
about as in a vision, but among familiar surroundings. Mrs. Bowse's 
boarders and his hall bedroom had helped him to retain some hold over 
actual existence. But here the reverently saluting villagers staring 
at him through windows as though he were General Grant, the huge, 
stone entrance, the drive of what seemed to be ten miles through the 
park, the gloomy mass of architecture looming up, the regiment of 
liveried men-servants, with respectfully lowered but excitedly curious 
eyes, the dark and solemn richness inclosing and claiming him--all 
this created an atmosphere wholly unreal. As he had not known books, 
its parallel had not been suggested to him by literature. He had 
literally not heard that such things existed. Selling newspapers and 
giving every moment to the struggle for life or living, one did not 
come within the range of splendors. He had indeed awakened in that 
other world of which he had spoken. And though he had heard that there 
was another world, he had had neither time nor opportunity to make 
mental pictures of it. His life so far had expressed itself in another 
language of figures. The fact that he had in his veins the blood of 
the Norman lords and Saxon kings may or may not have had something to 
do with the fact that he was not abashed, but bewildered. The same 
factor may or may not have aided him to preserve a certain stoic, 
outward composure. Who knows what remote influences express themselves 
in common acts of modern common life? As Cassivellaunus observed his 
surroundings as he followed in captive chains his conqueror's 
triumphal car through the streets of Rome, so the keen-eyed product of 
New York pavement life "took in" all about him. Existence had forced 
upon him the habit of sharp observance. The fundamental working law of 
things had expressed itself in the simple colloquialism, "Keep your 
eye skinned, and don't give yourself away." In what phrases the 
parallel of this concise advice formulated itself in 55 B.C. no 
classic has yet exactly informed us, but doubtless something like it 
was said in ancient Rome. Tembarom did not give himself away, and he 
took rapid, if uncertain, inventory of people and things. He remarked, 
for instance, that Palford's manner of speaking to a servant was 
totally different from the manner he used in addressing himself. It 
was courteous, but remote, as though he spoke across an accepted chasm 
to beings of another race. There was no hint of incivility in it, but 
also no hint of any possibility that it could occur to the person 
addressed to hesitate or resent. It was a subtle thing, and Tembarom 
wondered how he did it.

They were shown into a room the walls of which seemed built of books; 
the furniture was rich and grave and luxuriously comfortable. A fire 
blazed as well as glowed in a fine chimney, and a table near it was 
set with a glitter of splendid silver urn and equipage for tea.

"Mrs. Butterworth was afraid you might not have been able to get tea, 
sir," said the man-servant, who did not wear livery, but whose 
butler's air of established authority was more impressive than any 
fawn color and claret enriched with silver could have encompassed.

Tea again? Perhaps one was obliged to drink it at regular intervals. 
Tembarom for a moment did not awaken to the fact that the man was 
speaking to him, as the master from whom orders came. He glanced at 
Mr. Palford.

"Mr. Temple Barholm had tea after we left Crowly," Mr. Palford said. 
"He will no doubt wish to go to his room at once, Burrill."

"Yes, sir," said Burrill, with that note of entire absence of comment 
with which Tembarom later became familiar. "Pearson is waiting."

It was not unnatural to wonder who Pearson was and why he was waiting, 
but Tembarom knew he would find out. There was a slight relief on 
realizing that tea was not imperative. He and Mr. Palford were led 
through the hall again. The carriage had rolled away, and two footmen, 
who were talking confidentially together, at once stood at attention. 
The staircase was more imposing as one mounted it than it appeared as 
one looked at it from below. Its breadth made Tembarom wish to lay a 
hand on a balustrade, which seemed a mile away. He had never 
particularly wished to touch balustrades before. At the head of the 
first flight hung an enormous piece of tapestry, its forest and 
hunters and falconers awakening Tembarom's curiosity, as it looked 
wholly unlike any picture he had ever seen in a shop-window. There 
were pictures everywhere, and none of them looked like chromos. Most 
of the people in the portraits were in fancy dress. Rumors of a New 
York millionaire ball had given him some vague idea of fancy dress. A 
lot of them looked like freaks. He caught glimpses of corridors 
lighted by curious, high, deep windows with leaded panes. It struck 
him that there was no end to the place, and that there must be rooms 
enough in it for a hotel.

"The tapestry chamber, of course, Burrill," he heard Mr. Palford say 
in a low tone.

"Yes, sir. Mr. Temple Barholm always used it."

A few yards farther on a door stood open, revealing an immense room, 
rich and gloomy with tapestry-covered walls and dark oak furniture. A 
bed which looked to Tembarom incredibly big, with its carved oak 
canopy and massive posts, had a presiding personality of its own. It 
was mounted by steps, and its hangings and coverlid were of embossed 
velvet, time-softened to the perfection of purples and blues. A fire 
enriched the color of everything, and did its best to drive the 
shadows away. Deep windows opened either into the leafless boughs of 
close-growing trees or upon outspread spaces of heavily timbered park, 
where gaunt, though magnificent, bare branches menaced and defied. A 
slim, neat young man, with a rather pale face and a touch of anxiety 
in his expression, came forward at once.

"This is Pearson, who will valet you," exclaimed Mr. Palford.

"Thank you, sir," said Pearson in a low, respectful voice. His manner 
was correctness itself.

There seemed to Mr. Palford to be really nothing else to say. He 
wanted, in fact, to get to his own apartment and have a hot bath and a 
rest before dinner.

"Where am I, Burrill?" he inquired as he turned to go down the 
corridor.

"The crimson room, sir," answered Burrill, and he closed the door of 
the tapestry chamber and shut Tembarom in alone with Pearson.




CHAPTER XI


For a few moments the two young men looked at each other, Pearson's 
gaze being one of respectfulness which hoped to propitiate, if 
propitiation was necessary, though Pearson greatly trusted it was not. 
Tembarom's was the gaze of hasty investigation and inquiry. He 
suddenly thought that it would have been "all to the merry" if 
somebody had "put him on to" a sort of idea of what was done to a 
fellow when he was "valeted." A valet, he had of course gathered, 
waited on one somehow and looked after one's clothes. But were there 
by chance other things he expected to do,--manicure one's nails or cut 
one's hair,--and how often did he do it, and was this the day? He was 
evidently there to do something, or he wouldn't have been waiting 
behind the door to pounce out the minute he appeared, and when the 
other two went away, Burrill wouldn't have closed the door as solemnly 
as though he shut the pair of them in together to get through some 
sort of performance.

"Here's where T. T. begins to feel like a fool," he thought. "And 
here's where there's no way out of looking like one. I don't know a 
thing."

But personal vanity was not so strong in him as healthy and normal 
good temper. Despite the fact that the neat correctness of Pearson's 
style and the finished expression of his neat face suggested that he 
was of a class which knew with the most finished exactness all that 
custom and propriety demanded on any occasion on which "valeting" in 
its most occult branches might be done, he was only "another fellow," 
after all, and must be human. So Tembarom smiled at him.

"Hello, Pearson," he said. "How are you?"

Pearson slightly started. It was the tiniest possible start, quite 
involuntary, from which he recovered instantly, to reply in a tone of 
respectful gratefulness:

"Thank you, sir, very well; thank you, sir."

"That's all right," answered Tembarom, a sense of relief because he'd 
"got started" increasing the friendliness of his smile. "I see you got 
my trunk open," he said, glancing at some articles of clothing neatly 
arranged upon the bed.

Pearson was slightly alarmed. It occurred to him suddenly that perhaps 
it was not the custom in America to open a gentleman's box and lay out 
his clothes for him. For special reasons he was desperately anxious to 
keep his place, and above all things he felt he must avoid giving 
offense by doing things which, by being too English, might seem to 
cast shades of doubt on the entire correctness of the customs of 
America. He had known ill feeling to arise between "gentlemen's 
gentlemen" in the servants' hall in the case of slight differences in 
customs, contested with a bitterness of feeling which had made them 
almost an international question. There had naturally been a great 
deal of talk about the new Mr. Temple Barholm and what might be 
expected of him. When a gentleman was not a gentleman,--this was the 
form of expression in "the hall,"--the Lord only knew what would 
happen. And this one, who had, for all one knew, been born in a 
workhouse, and had been a boot-black kicked about in American 
streets,--they did not know Tembarom,--and nearly starved to death, 
and found at last in a low lodging-house, what could he know about 
decent living? And ten to one he'd be American enough to swagger and 
bluster and pretend he knew everything better than any one else, and 
lose his temper frightfully when he made mistakes, and try to make 
other people seem to blame. Set a beggar on horseback, and who didn't 
know what he was? There were chances enough and to spare that not one 
of them would be able to stand it, and that in a month's time they 
would all be looking for new places.

So while Tembarom was rather afraid of Pearson and moved about in an 
awful state of uncertainty, Pearson was horribly afraid of Tembarom, 
and was, in fact, in such a condition of nervous anxiety that he was 
obliged more than once furtively to apply to his damp, pale young 
forehead his exceedingly fresh and spotless pocket-handkerchief.

In the first place, there was the wardrobe. What COULD he do? How 
could he approach the subject with sufficient delicacy? Mr. Temple 
Barholm had brought with him only a steamer trunk and a Gladstone bag, 
the latter evidently bought in London, to be stuffed with hastily 
purchased handkerchiefs and shirts, worn as they came out of the shop, 
and as evidently bought without the slightest idea of the kind of 
linen a gentleman should own. What most terrified Pearson, who was of 
a timid and most delicate-minded nature, was that having the workhouse 
and the boot-blacking as a background, the new Mr. Temple Barholm 
COULDN'T know, as all this had come upon him so suddenly. And was it 
to be Pearson's calamitous duty to explain to him that he had NOTHING, 
that he apparently KNEW nothing, and that as he had no friends who 
knew, a mere common servant must educate him, if he did not wish to 
see him derided and looked down upon and actually "cut" by gentlemen 
that WERE gentlemen? All this to say nothing of Pearson's own well-
earned reputation for knowledge of custom, intelligence, and deftness 
in turning out the objects of his care in such form as to be a 
reference in themselves when a new place was wanted. Of course 
sometimes there were even real gentlemen who were most careless and 
indifferent to appearance, and who, if left to themselves, would buy 
garments which made the blood run cold when one realized that his own 
character and hopes for the future often depended upon his latest 
employer's outward aspect. But the ulster in which Mr. Temple Barholm 
had presented himself was of a cut and material such as Pearson's most 
discouraged moments had never forced him to contemplate. The limited 
wardrobe in the steamer trunk was all new and all equally bad. There 
was no evening dress, no proper linen,--not what Pearson called 
"proper,"-- no proper toilet appurtenances. What was Pearson called 
upon by duty to do? If he had only had the initiative to anticipate 
this, he might have asked permission to consult in darkest secrecy 
with Mr. Palford. But he had never dreamed of such a situation, and 
apparently he would be obliged to send his new charge down to his 
first dinner in the majestically decorous dining-room, "before all the 
servants," in a sort of speckled tweed cutaway, with a brown necktie.

Tembarom, realizing without delay that Pearson did not expect to be 
talked to and being cheered by the sight of the fire, sat down before 
it in an easy-chair the like of which for luxurious comfort he had 
never known. He was, in fact, waiting for developments. Pearson would 
say or do something shortly which would give him a chance to "catch 
on," or perhaps he'd go out of the room and leave him to himself, 
which would be a thing to thank God for. Then he could wash his face 
and hands, brush his hair, and wait till the dinner-bell rang. They'd 
be likely to have one. They'd have to in a place like this.

But Pearson did not go out of the room. He moved about behind him for 
a short time with footfall so almost entirely soundless that Tembarom 
became aware that, if it went on long, he should be nervous; in fact, 
he was nervous already. He wanted to know what he was doing. He could 
scarcely resist the temptation to turn his head and look; but he did 
not want to give himself away more entirely than was unavoidable, and, 
besides, instinct told him that he might frighten Pearson, who looked 
frightened enough, in a neat and well-mannered way, already. Hully 
gee! how he wished he would go out of the room!

But he did not. There were gently gliding footsteps of Pearson behind 
him, quiet movements which would have seemed stealthy if they had been 
a burglar's, soft removals of articles from one part of the room to 
another, delicate brushings, and almost noiseless foldings. Now 
Pearson was near the bed, now he had opened a wardrobe, now he was 
looking into the steamer trunk, now he had stopped somewhere behind 
him, within a few yards of his chair. Why had he ceased moving? What 
was he looking at? What kept him quiet?

Tembarom expected him to begin stirring mysteriously again; but he did 
not. Why did he not? There reigned in the room entire silence; no soft 
footfalls, no brushing, no folding. Was he doing nothing? Had he got 
hold of something which had given him a fit? There had been no sound 
of a fall; but perhaps even if an English valet had a fit, he'd have 
it so quietly and respectfully that one wouldn't hear it. Tembarom 
felt that he must be looking at the back of his head, and he wondered 
what was the matter with it. Was his hair cut in a way so un-English 
that it had paralyzed him? The back of his head began to creep under 
an investigation so prolonged. No sound at all, no movement. Tembarom 
stealthily took out his watch--good old Waterbury he wasn't going to 
part with --and began to watch the minute-hand. If nothing happened in 
three minutes he was going to turn round. One--two-- three--and the 
silence made it seem fifteen. He returned his Waterbury to his pocket 
and turned round.

Pearson was not dead. He was standing quite still and resigned, 
waiting. It was his business to wait, not to intrude or disturb, and 
having put everything in order and done all he could do, he was 
waiting for further commands--in some suspense, it must be admitted.

"Hello!" exclaimed Tembarom, involuntarily.

"Shall I get your bath ready, sir?" inquired Pearson. "Do you like it 
hot or cold, sir?"

Tembarom drew a relieved breath. He hadn't dropped dead and he hadn't 
had a fit, and here was one of the things a man did when he valeted 
you--he got your bath ready. A hasty recollection of the much-used, 
paint-smeared tin bath on the fourth floor of Mrs. Bowse's boarding-
house sprang up before him. Everybody had to use it in turn, and you 
waited hours for the chance to make a dash into it. No one stood still 
and waited fifteen minutes until you got good and ready to tell him he 
could go and turn on the water. Gee whizz!

Being relieved himself, he relieved Pearson by telling him he might 
"fix it" for him, and that he would have hot water.

"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir," said Pearson, and silently left the 
room.

Then Tembarom got up from his chair and began to walk about rather 
restlessly. A new alarm seized him. Did Pearson expect to WASH him or 
to stand round and hand him soap and towels and things while he washed 
himself?

If it was supposed that you hadn't the strength to turn the faucets 
yourself, it might be supposed you didn't have the energy to use a 
flesh-brush and towels. Did valeting include a kind of shampoo all 
over?

"I couldn't stand for that," he said. "I'd have to tell him there'd 
been no Turkish baths in mine, and I'm not trained up to them. When 
I've got on to this kind of thing a bit more, I'll make him understand 
what I'm NOT in for; but I don't want to scare the life out of him 
right off. He looks like a good little fellow."

But Pearson's duties as valet did not apparently include giving him 
his bath by sheer physical force. He was deft, calm, amenable. He led 
Tembarom down the corridor to the bath-room, revealed to him stores of 
sumptuous bath-robes and towels, hot- and cold-water faucets, sprays, 
and tonic essences. He forgot nothing and, having prepared all, mutely 
vanished, and returned to the bedroom to wait--and gaze in troubled 
wonder at the speckled tweed cutaway. There was an appalling 
possibility--he was aware that he was entirely ignorant of American 
customs--that tweed was the fashionable home evening wear in the 
States. Tembarom, returning from his bath much refreshed after a warm 
plunge and a cold shower, evidently felt that as a costume it was all 
that could be desired.

"Will you wear--these, sir,--this evening?" Pearson suggested.

It was suggestive of more than actual inquiry. If he had dared to hope 
that his manner might suggest a number of things! For instance, that 
in England gentlemen really didn't wear tweed in the evening even in 
private. That through some unforeseen circumstances his employer's 
evening-dress suit had been delayed, but would of course arrive to-
morrow!

But Tembarom, physically stimulated by hot and cold water, and relief 
at being left alone, was beginning to recover his natural buoyancy.

"Yes, I'll wear 'em," he answered, snatching at his hairbrush and 
beginning to brush his damp hair. It was a wooden-backed brush that 
Pearson had found in his Gladstone bag and shudderingly laid in 
readiness on the dressing-table. "I guess they're all right, ain't 
they?"

"Oh, quite right, sir, quite," Pearson ventured--"for morning wear."

"Morning?" said Tembarom, brushing vigorously. "Not night?"

"Black, sir," most delicately hinted Pearson, "is--more usual--in the 
evening--in England." After which he added, "So to speak," with a 
vague hope that the mollifying phrase might counteract the effect of 
any apparently implied aspersion on colors preferred in America.

Tembarom ceased brushing his hair, and looked at him in good-natured 
desire for information.

"Frock-coats or claw-hammer?" he asked. Despite his natural anxiety, 
and in the midst of it, Pearson could not but admit that he had an 
uncondemnatory voice and a sort of young way with him which gave one 
courage. But he was not quite sure of "claw-hammer."

"Frock-coats for morning dress and afternoon wear, sir," he ventured. 
"The evening cut, as you know, is--"

"Claw-hammer. Swallow-tail, I guess you say here," Tembarom ended for 
him, quite without hint of rancor, he was rejoiced to see.

"Yes, sir," said Pearson.

The ceremony of dressing proved a fearsome thing as it went on. 
Pearson moved about deftly and essayed to do things for the new Mr. 
Temple Barholm which the new Mr. Temple Barholm had never heard of a 
man not doing for himself. He reached for things Pearson was about to 
hand to him or hold for him. He unceremoniously achieved services for 
himself which it was part of Pearson's manifest duty to perform. They 
got into each other's way; there was even danger sometimes of their 
seeming to snatch things from each other, to Pearson's unbounded 
horror. Mr. Temple Barholm did not express any irritation whatsoever 
misunderstandings took place, but he held his mouth rather close-shut, 
and Pearson, not aware that he did this as a precaution against open 
grinning or shouts of laughter as he found himself unable to adjust 
himself to his attendant's movements, thought it possible that he was 
secretly annoyed and regarded the whole matter with disfavor. But when 
the dressing was at an end and he stood ready to go down in all his 
innocent ignoring of speckled tweed and brown necktie, he looked 
neither flurried nor out of humor, and he asked a question in a voice 
which was actually friendly. It was a question dealing with an 
incident which had aroused much interest in the servants' hall as 
suggesting a touch of mystery.

"Mr. Strangeways came yesterday all right, didn't he?" he inquired.

"Yes, sir," Pearson answered. "Mr. Hutchinson and his daughter came 
with him. They call her `Little Ann Hutchinson.' She's a sensible 
little thing, sir, and she seemed to know exactly what you'd want done 
to make him comfortable. Mrs. Butterworth put him in the west room, 
sir, and I valeted him. He was not very well when he came, but he 
seems better to-day, sir, only he's very anxious to see you."

"That's all right," said Tembarom. "You show me his room. I'll go and 
see him now."

And being led by Pearson, he went without delay.




CHAPTER XII


The chief objection to Temple Barholm in Tembarom's mind was that it 
was too big for any human use. That at least was how it struck him. 
The entrance was too big, the stairs were too wide, the rooms too 
broad and too long and too high to allow of eyes accustomed to hall 
bedrooms adjusting their vision without discomfort. The dining-room in 
which the new owner took his first meal in company with Mr. Palford, 
and attended by the large, serious man who wore no livery and three 
tall footmen who did, was of a size and stateliness which made him 
feel homesick for Mrs. Bowse's dining-room, with its two hurried, 
incompetent, and often-changed waitresses and its prevailing friendly 
custom of pushing things across the table to save time. Meals were 
quickly disposed of at Mrs. Bowse's. Everybody was due up-town or 
down-town, and regarded food as an unavoidable, because necessary, 
interference with more urgent business. At Temple Barholm one sat half 
the night-- this was the impression made upon Tembarom--watching 
things being brought in and taken out of the room, carved on a huge 
buffet, and passed from one man to another; and when they were brought 
solemnly to you, if you turned them down, it seemed that the whole 
ceremony had to be gone through with again. All sorts of silver 
knives, forks, and spoons were given to one and taken away, and half a 
dozen sorts of glasses stood by your plate; and if you made a move to 
do anything for yourself, the man out of livery stopped you as though 
you were too big a fool to be trusted. The food was all right, but 
when you knew what anything was, and were inclined to welcome it as an 
old friend, it was given to you in some way that made you get rattled. 
With all the swell dishes, you had no butter-plate, and ice seemed 
scarce, and the dead, still way the servants moved about gave you a 
sort of feeling that you were at a funeral and that it wasn't decent 
to talk so long as the remains were in the room. The head-man and the 
foot-men seemed to get on by signs, though Tembarom never saw them 
making any; and their faces never changed for a moment. Once or twice 
he tried a joke, addressing it to Mr. Palford, to see what would 
happen. But as Mr. Palford did not seem to see the humor of it, and 
gave him the "glassy eye," and neither the head-man nor the footmen 
seemed to hear it, he thought that perhaps they didn't know it was a 
joke; and if they didn't, and they thought anything at all, they must 
think he was dippy. The dinner was a deadly, though sumptuous, meal, 
and long drawn out, when measured by meals at Mrs. Bowse's. He did not 
know, as Mr. Palford did, that it was perfect, and served with a 
finished dexterity that was also perfection.

Mr. Palford, however, was himself relieved when it was at an end. He 
had sat at dinner with the late Mr. Temple Barholm in his day, and had 
seen him also served by the owners of impassive countenances; but he 
had been aware that whatsoever of secret dislike and resentment was 
concealed by them, there lay behind their immovability an acceptance 
of the fact that he represented, even in his most objectionable 
humors, centuries of accustomedness to respectful service and of 
knowledge of his right and power to claim it. The solicitor was keenly 
aware of the silent comments being made upon the tweed suit and brown 
necktie and on the manner in which their wearer boldly chose the wrong 
fork or erroneously made use of a knife or spoon. Later in the 
evening, in the servants' hall, the comment would not be silent, and 
there could be no doubt of what its character would be. There would be 
laughter and the relating of incidents. Housemaids and still-room 
maids would giggle, and kitchen-maids and boot-boys would grin and 
whisper in servile tribute to the witticisms of the superior servants.
	
After dinner the rest of the evening could at least be spent in talk 
about business matters. There still remained details to be enlarged 
upon before Palford himself returned to Lincoln's Inn and left Mr. 
Temple Barholm to the care of the steward of his estate. It was not 
difficult to talk to him when the sole subject of conversation was of 
a business nature.

Before they parted for the night the mystery of the arrangements made 
for Strangeways had been cleared. In fact, Mr. Temple Barholm made no 
mystery of them. He did not seem ignorant of the fact that what he had 
chosen to do was unusual, but he did not appear hampered or 
embarrassed by the knowledge. His remarks on the subject were entirely 
civil and were far from actually suggesting that his singular conduct 
was purely his own business and none of his solicitor's; but for a 
moment or so Mr. Palford was privately just a trifle annoyed. The 
Hutchinsons had traveled from London with Strangeways in their care 
the day before. He would have been unhappy and disturbed if he had 
been obliged to travel with Mr. Palford, who was a stranger to him, 
and Miss Hutchinson had a soothing effect on him. Strangeways was for 
the present comfortably installed as a guest of the house, Miss 
Hutchinson having talked to the housekeeper, Mrs. Butterworth, and to 
Pearson. What the future held for him Mr. Temple Barholm did not seem 
to feel the necessity of going into. He left him behind as a subject, 
and went on talking cheerfully of other things almost as if he had 
forgotten him.

They had their coffee in the library, and afterward sat at the 
writing-table and looked over documents and talked until Mr. Palford 
felt that he could quite decorously retire to his bedroom. He was glad 
to be relieved of his duties, and Tembarom was amiably resigned to 
parting with him.

Tembarom did not go up-stairs at once himself. He sat by the fire and 
smoked several pipes of tobacco and thought things over. There were a 
lot of things to think over, and several decisions to make, and he 
thought it would be a good idea to pass them in review. The quiet of 
the dead surrounded him. In a house the size of this the servants were 
probably half a mile away. They'd need trolleys to get to one, he 
thought, if you rang for them in a hurry. If an armed burglar made a 
quiet entry without your knowing it, he could get in some pretty rough 
work before any of the seventy-five footmen could come to lend a hand. 
He was not aware that there were two of them standing in waiting in 
the hall, their powdered heads close together, so that their whispers 
and chuckles could be heard. A sound of movement in the library would 
have brought them up standing to a decorous attitude of attention 
conveying to the uninitiated the impression that they had not moved 
for hours.

Sometimes as he sat in the big morocco chair, T. Tembarom looked grave 
enough; sometimes he looked as though he was confronting problems 
which needed puzzling out and with which he was not making much 
headway; sometimes he looked as though he was thinking of little Ann 
Hutchinson, and not infrequently he grinned. Here he was up to the 
neck in it, and he was darned if he knew what he was going to do. He 
didn't know a soul, and nobody knew him. He didn't know a thing he 
ought to know, and he didn't know any one who could tell him. Even the 
Hutchinsons had never been inside a place like Temple Barholm, and 
they were going back to Manchester after a few weeks' stay at the 
grandmother's cottage.

Before he had left New York he had seen Hadman and some other fellows 
and got things started, so that there was an even chance that the 
invention would be put on its feet. He had worked hard and used his 
own power to control money in the future as a lever which had proved 
to be exactly what was needed.

Hadman had been spurred and a little startled when he realized the 
magnitude of what really could be done, and saw also that this slangy, 
moneyed youth was not merely an enthusiastic fool, but saw into 
business schemes pretty sharply and was of a most determined 
readiness. With this power ranging itself on the side of Hutchinson 
and his invention, it was good business to begin to move, if one did 
not want to run a chance of being left out in the cold.

Hutchinson had gone to Manchester, and there had been barely time for 
a brief but characteristic interview between him and Tembarom, when he 
rushed back to London. Tembarom felt rather excited when he remembered 
it, recalling what he had felt in confronting the struggles against 
emotion in the blunt-featured, red face, the breaks in the rough 
voice, the charging up and down the room like a curiously elated bull 
in a china shop, and the big effort to restrain relief and gratitude 
the degree of which might seem to under-value the merits of the 
invention itself.

Once or twice when he looked serious, Tembarom was thinking this over, 
and also once or twice when he grinned. Relief and gratitude 
notwithstanding, Hutchinson had kept him in his place, and had not 
made unbounded efforts to conceal his sense of the incongruity of his 
position as the controller of fortunes and the lord of Temple Barholm, 
which was still vaguely flavored with indignation.

When he had finished his last pipe, Tembarom rose and knocked the 
ashes out of it.

"Now for Pearson," he said.

He had made up his mind to have a talk with Pearson, and there was no 
use wasting time. If things didn't suit you, the best thing was to see 
what you could do to fix them right away --if it wasn't against the 
law. He went out into the hall, and seeing the two footmen standing 
waiting, he spoke to them.

"Say, I didn't know you fellows were there," he said. "Are you waiting 
up for me? Well, you can go to bed, the sooner the quicker. Good 
night." And he went up-stairs whistling.

The glow and richness and ceremonial order of preparation in his 
bedroom struck him as soon as he opened the door. Everything which 
could possibly have been made ready for his most luxurious comfort had 
been made ready. He did not, it is true, care much for the huge bed 
with its carved oak canopy and massive pillars.

"But the lying-down part looks about all right," he said to himself.

The fine linen, the soft pillows, the downy blankets, would have 
allured even a man who was not tired. The covering had been neatly 
turned back and the snowy whiteness opened. That was English, he 
supposed. They hadn't got on to that at Mrs. Bowse's.

"But I guess a plain little old New York sleep will do," he said. 
"Temple Barholm or no Temple Barholm, I guess they can't change that."

Then there sounded a quiet knock at the door. He knew who it would 
turn out to be, and he was not mistaken. Pearson stood in the 
corridor, wearing his slightly anxious expression, but ready for 
orders.

Mr. Temple Barholm looked down at him with a friendly, if unusual, 
air.

"Say, Pearson," he announced, "if you've come to wash my face and put 
my hair up in crimping-pins, you needn't do it, because I'm not used 
to it. But come on in."

If he had told Pearson to enter and climb the chimney, it cannot be 
said that the order would have been obeyed upon the spot, but Pearson 
would certainly have hesitated and explained with respectful delicacy 
the fact that the task was not "his place." He came into the room.

"I came to see, if I could do anything further and--" making a 
courageous onslaught upon the situation for which he had been 
preparing himself for hours--"and also--if it is not too late--to 
venture to trouble you with regard to your wardrobe." He coughed a 
low, embarrassed cough. "In unpacking, sir, I found--I did not find--"

"You didn't find much, did you?" Tembarom assisted him.

"Of course, sir," Pearson apologized, "leaving New York so hurriedly, 
your--your man evidently had not time to-- er--"

Tembarom looked at him a few seconds longer, as if making up his mind 
to something. Then he threw himself easily into the big chair by the 
fire, and leaned back in it with the frankest and best- natured smile 
possible.

"I hadn't any man," he said. "Say, Pearson," waving his hand to 
another chair near by, "suppose you take a seat."

Long and careful training came to Pearson's aid and supported him, but 
he was afraid that he looked nervous, and certainly there was a lack 
of entire calm in his voice.

"I--thank you, sir,--I think I'd better stand, sir."

"Why?" inquired Tembarom, taking his tobacco-pouch out of his pocket 
and preparing to fill another pipe.

"You're most kind, sir, but--but--" in impassioned embarrassment--"I 
should really PREFER to stand, sir, if you don't mind. I should feel 
more--more at 'ome, sir," he added, dropping an h in his agitation.

"Well, if you'd like it better, that's all right," yielded Mr. Temple 
Barholm, stuffing tobacco into the pipe. Pearson darted to a table, 
produced a match, struck it, and gave it to him.

"Thank you," said Tembarom, still good-naturedly. "But there are a few 
things I've GOT to say to you RIGHT now."

Pearson had really done his best, his very best, but he was terrified 
because of the certain circumstances once before referred to.

"I beg pardon, sir," he appealed, "but I am most anxious to give 
satisfaction in every respect." He WAS, poor young man, horribly 
anxious. "To-day being only the first day, I dare say I have not been 
all I should have been. I have never valeted an American gentleman 
before, but I'm sure I shall become accustomed to everything QUITE 
soon--almost immediately."

"Say," broke in Tembarom, "you're 'way off. I'm not complaining. 
You're all right."

The easy good temper of his manner was so singularly assuring that 
Pearson, unexplainable as he found him in every other respect, knew 
that this at least was to be depended upon, and he drew an almost 
palpable breath of relief. Something actually allured him into 
approaching what he had never felt it safe to approach before under 
like circumstances--a confidential disclosure.

"Thank you, sir: I am most grateful. The--fact is, I hoped especially 
to be able to settle in place just now. I--I'm hoping to save up 
enough to get married, sir."

"You are?" Tembarom exclaimed. "Good business! So was I before all 
this"--he glanced about him--"fell on top of me."

"I've been saving for three years, sir, and if I can know I'm a 
permanency--if I can keep this place--"

"You're going to keep it all right," Tembarom cheered him up with. "If 
you've got an idea you're going to be fired, just you forget it. Cut 
it right out."

"Is--I beg your pardon, sir," Pearson asked with timorous joy, "but is 
that the American for saying you'll be good enough to keep me on?"

Mr. Temple Barholm thought a second.

"Is 'keep me on' the English for 'let me stay'?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then we're all right. Let's start from there. I'm going to have a 
heart-to-heart talk with you, Pearson."

"Thank you, sir," said Pearson in a deferential murmur. But if he was 
not dissatisfied, what was going to happen?

"It'll save us both trouble, and me most. I'm not one of those clever 
Clarences that can keep up a bluff, making out I know things I don't 
know. I couldn't deceive a setting hen or a Berlin wool antimacassar."

Pearson swallowed something with effort.

"You see, I fell into this thing KERCHUNK, and I'm just RATTLED--I'm 
rattled." As Pearson slightly coughed again, he translated for him, 
"That's American for 'I don't know where I'm at'."

"Those American jokes, sir, are very funny indeed," answered Pearson, 
appreciatively.

"Funny!" the new Mr. Temple Barholm exclaimed even aggrievedly. "If 
you think this lay-out is an American joke to me, Pearson, there's 
where you're 'way off. Do you think it a merry jest for a fellow like 
me to sit up in a high chair in a dining-room like a cathedral and not 
know whether he ought to bite his own bread or not? And not dare to 
stir till things are handed to him by five husky footmen? I thought 
that plain-clothes man was going to cut up my meat, and slap me on the 
back if I choked."

Pearson's sense of humor was perhaps not inordinate, but unseemly 
mirth, which he had swallowed at the reference to the setting hen and 
the Berlin wool antimacassar, momentarily got the better of him, 
despite his efforts to cough it down, and broke forth in a hoarse, 
ill-repressed sound.

"I beg pardon, sir," he said with a laudable endeavor to recover his 
professional bearing. "It's your--American way of expressing it which 
makes me forget myself. I beg pardon."

Tembarom laughed outright boyishly.

"Oh, cut that out," he said. "Say, how old are you?"

"Twenty-five, sir."

"So am I. If you'd met me three months ago, beating the streets of New 
York for a living, with holes in my shoes and a celluloid collar on, 
you'd have looked down on me. I know you would."

"Oh, no, sir," most falsely insisted Pearson.

"Oh, yes, you would," protested Tembarom, cheerfully. "You'd have said 
I talked through my nose, and I should have laughed at you for 
dropping your h's. Now you're rattled because I'm Mr. Temple Temple 
Barholm; but you're not half as rattled as I am."

"You'll get over it, sir, almost immediately," Pearson assured him, 
hopefully.

"Of course I shall," said Tembarom, with much courage. "But to start 
right I've got to get over YOU."

"Me, sir?" Pearson breathed anxiously.

"Yes. That's what I want to get off my chest. Now, first off, you came 
in here to try to explain to me that, owing to my New York valet 
having left my New York wardrobe behind, I've not got anything to 
wear, and so I shall have to buy some clothes."

"I failed to find any dress-shirts, sir," began Pearson, hesitatingly.

Mr. Temple Barholm grinned.

"I always failed to find them myself. I never had a dress-shirt. I 
never owned a suit of glad rags in my life."

"Gl--glad rags, sir?" stammered Pearson, uncertainly.

"I knew you didn't catch on when I said that to you before dinner. I 
mean claw-hammer and dress-suit things. Don't you be frightened, 
Pearson. I never had six good shirts at once, or two pair of shoes, or 
more than four ten-cent handkerchiefs at a time since I was born. And 
when Mr. Palford yanked me away from New York, he didn't suspect a 
fellow could be in such a state. And I didn't know I was in a state, 
anyhow. I was too busy to hunt up people to tell me, because I was 
rushing something important right through, and I couldn't stop. I just 
bought the first things I set eyes on and crammed them into my trunk. 
There, I guess you know the most of this, but you didn't know I knew 
you knew it. Now you do, and you needn't be afraid to hurt my feelings 
by telling me I haven't a darned thing I ought to have. You can go 
straight ahead."

As he leaned back, puffing away at his pipe, he had thrown a leg over 
the arm of his chair for greater comfort, and it really struck his 
valet that he had never seen a gentleman more at his ease, even one 
who WAS one. His casual candidness produced such a relief from the 
sense of strain and uncertainty that Pearson felt the color returning 
to his face. An opening had been given him, and it was possible for 
him to do his duty.

"If you wish, sir, I will make a list," he ventured further, "and the 
proper firms will send persons to bring things down from London on 
appro."

"What's 'appro' the English for?"

"Approval, sir."

"Good business! Good old Pearson!"

"Thank you, sir. Shall I attend to it to-night, to be ready for the 
morning post?"

"In five minutes you shall. But you threw me off the track a bit. The 
thing I was really going to say was more important than the clothes 
business."

There was something else, then, thought Pearson, some other unexpected 
point of view.

"What have you to do for me, anyhow?"

"Valet you, sir."

"That's English for washing my face and combing my hair and putting my 
socks on, ain't it?"

"Well, sir, it means doing all you require, and being always in 
attendance when you change."

"How much do you get for it?"

"Thirty shillings a week, sir."

"Say, Pearson," said Tembarom, with honest feeling, "I'll give you 
sixty shillings a week NOT to do it."

Calmed though he had felt a few moments ago, it cannot be denied that 
Pearson was aghast. How could one be prepared for developments of such 
an order?

"Not to do it, sir!" he faltered. "But what would the servants think 
if you had no one to valet you?"

"That's so. What would they think?" But he evidently was not dismayed, 
for he smiled widely. "I guess the plainclothes man would throw a fit."

But Pearson's view was more serious and involved a knowledge of not 
improbable complications. He knew "the hall" and its points of view.

"I couldn't draw my wages, sir," he protested. "There'd be the 
greatest dissatisfaction among the other servants, sir, if I didn't do 
my duties. There's always a--a slight jealousy of valets and ladies'-
maids. The general idea is that they do very little to earn their 
salaries. I've seen them fairly hated."

"Is that so? Well, I'll be darned! " remarked Mr. Temple Barholm. He 
gave a moment to reflection, and then cheered up immensely.

"I'll tell you how we'll fix it. You come up into my room and bring 
your tatting or read a newspaper while I dress." He openly chuckled. 
"Holy smoke! I've GOT to put on my shirt and swear at my collar-
buttons myself. If I'm in for having a trained nurse do it for me, 
it'll give me the Willies. When you danced around me before dinner--"

Pearson's horror forced him to commit the indiscretion of 
interrupting.

"I hope I didn't DANCE, sir," he implored. "I tried to be extremely 
quiet."

"That was it," said Tembarom. "I shouldn't have said danced; I meant 
crept. I kept thinking I should tread on you, and I got so nervous 
toward the end I thought I should just break down and sob on your 
bosom and beg to be taken back to home and mother."

"I'm extremely sorry, sir, I am, indeed," apologized Pearson, doing 
his best not to give way to hysterical giggling. How was a man to keep 
a decently straight face, and if one didn't, where would it end? One 
thing after another.

"It was not your fault. It was mine. I haven't a thing against you. 
You're a first-rate little chap."

"I will try to be more satisfactory to-morrow."

There must be no laughing aloud, even if one burst a blood- vessel. It 
would not do. Pearson hastily confronted a vision of a young footman 
or Mr. Burrill himself passing through the corridors on some errand 
and hearing master and valet shouting together in unseemly and wholly 
incomprehensible mirth. And the next remark was worse than ever.

"No, you won't, Pearson," Mr. Temple Barholm asserted. "There's where 
you're wrong. I've got no more use for a valet than I have for a pair 
of straight-front corsets."

This contained a sobering suggestion.

"But you said, sir, that--"

"Oh, I'm not going to fire you," said Tembarom, genially. "I'll 'keep 
you on', but little Willie is going to put on his own socks. If the 
servants have to be pacified, you come up to my room and do anything 
you like. Lie on the bed if you want to; get a jew's-harp and play on 
it--any old thing to pass the time. And I'll raise your wages. What do 
you say? Is it fixed?"

"I'm here, sir, to do anything you require," Pearson answered 
distressedly; "but I'm afraid--"

Tembarom's face changed. A sudden thought had struck him.

"I'll tell you one thing you can do," he said; "you can valet that 
friend of mine."

"Mr. Strangeways, sir?"

"Yes. I've got a notion he wouldn't mind it." He was not joking now. 
He was in fact rather suddenly thoughtful.

"Say, Pearson, what do you think of him?"

"Well, sir, I've not seen much of him, and he says very little, but I 
should think he was a GENTLEMAN, sir."

Mr. Temple Barholm seemed to think it over.

"That's queer," he said as though to himself. "That's what Ann said." 
Then aloud, "Would you say he was an American?"

In his unavoidable interest in a matter much talked over below stairs 
and productive of great curiosity Pearson was betrayed. He could not 
explain to himself, after he had spoken, how he could have been such a 
fool as to forget; but forget himself and the birthplace of the new 
Mr. Temple Barholm he did.

"Oh, no, sir," he exclaimed hastily; "he's QUITE the gentleman, sir, 
even though he is queer in his mind." The next instant he caught 
himself and turned cold. An American or a Frenchman or an Italian, in 
fact, a native of any country on earth so slighted with an 
unconsciousness so natural, if he had been a man of hot temper, might 
have thrown something at him or kicked him out of the room; but Mr. 
Temple Barholm took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at him with a 
slow, broadening smile.

"Would you call me a gentleman, Pearson?" he asked.

Of course there was no retrieving such a blunder, Pearson felt, but--

"Certainly, sir," he stammered. "Most--most CERTAINLY, sir."

"Pearson," said Tembarom, shaking his head slowly, with a grin so 
good-natured that even the frankness of his words was friendly humor 
itself--"Pearson, you're a liar. But that doesn't jolt me a bit. I 
dare say I'm not one, anyhow. We might put an 'ad' in one of your 
papers and find out."

"I--I beg your pardon, sir," murmured Pearson in actual anguish of 
mind.

Mr. Temple Barholm laughed outright.

"Oh, I've not got it in for you. How could you help it?" he said. Then 
he stopped joking again. "If you want to please ME," he added with 
deliberation, "you look after Mr. Strangeways, and don't let anything 
disturb him. Don't bother him, but just find out what he wants. When 
he gets restless, come and tell me. If I'm out, tell him I'm coming 
back. Don't let him worry. You understand--don't let him worry."

"I'll do my best--my very best, sir," Pearson answered devoutly. "I've 
been nervous and excited this first day because I am so anxious to 
please--everything seems to depend on it just now," he added, daring 
another confidential outburst. "But you'll see I do know how to keep 
my wits about me in general, and I've got a good memory, and I have 
learned my duties, sir. I'll attend to Mr. Strangeways most 
particular."

As Tembarom listened, and watched his neat, blond countenance, and 
noted the undertone of quite desperate appeal in his low voice, he was 
thinking of a number of things. Chiefly he was thinking of little Ann 
Hutchinson and the Harlem flat which might have been "run" on fifteen 
dollars a week.

"I want to know I have some one in this museum of a place who'll 
UNDERSTAND," he said--"some one who'll do just exactly what I say and 
ask no fool questions and keep his mouth shut. I believe you could do 
it."

"I'll swear I could, sir. Trust me," was Pearson's astonishingly 
emotional and hasty answer.

"I'm going to," returned Mr. Temple Barholm. "I've set my mind on 
putting something through in my own way. It's a queer thing, and most 
people would say I was a fool for trying it. Mr. Hutchinson does, but 
Miss Hutchinson doesn't."

There was a note in his tone of saying "Miss Hutchinson doesn't" which 
opened up vistas to Pearson--strange vistas when one thought of old 
Mrs. Hutchinson's cottage and the estate of Temple Barholm.

"We're just about the same age," his employer continued, "and in a 
sort of way we're in just about the same fix."

Their eyes looked into each other's a second; but it was not for 
Pearson to presume to make any comment whatsoever upon the possible 
nature of "the fix." Two or three more puffs, and Mr. Temple Barholm 
spoke again.

"Say, Pearson, I don't want to butt in, but what about that little 
bunch of calico of yours--the one you're saving up for?"

"Calico, sir?" said Pearson, at sea, but hopeful. Whatsoever the new 
Mr. Temple Barholm meant, one began to realize that it was not likely 
to be unfriendly.

"That's American for HER, Pearson. 'Her' stands for the same thing 
both in English and American, I guess. What's her name and where is 
she? Don't you say a word if you don't want to."

Pearson drew a step nearer. There was an extraordinary human 
atmosphere in the room which caused things to begin to go on in his 
breast. He had had a harder life than Tembarom because he had been 
more timid and less buoyant and less unselfconscious. He had been 
beaten by a drunken mother and kicked by a drunken father. He had gone 
hungry and faint to the board school and had been punished as a dull 
boy. After he had struggled into a place as page, he had been bullied 
by footmen and had had his ears boxed by cooks and butlers. Ladies'-
maids and smart housemaids had sneered at him, and made him feel 
himself a hopeless, vulgar little worm who never would "get on." But 
he had got on, in a measure, because he had worked like a slave and 
openly resented nothing. A place like this had been his fevered hope 
and dream from his page days, though of course his imagination had not 
encompassed attendance on a gentleman who had never owned a dress-
shirt in his life. Yet gentleman or no gentleman, he was a Temple 
Barholm, and there was something about him, something human in his 
young voice and grin and queer, unheard-of New York jokes, which 
Pearson had never encountered, and which had the effect of making him 
feel somehow more of a man than his timorous nature had ever allowed 
of his feeling before. It suggested that they were both, valet and 
master, merely masculine human creatures of like kind. The way he had 
said "Miss Hutchinson" and the twinkle in his eye when he'd made that 
American joke about the "little bunch of calico"! The curious fact was 
that thin, neat, white-blooded-looking Pearson was passionately in 
love. So he took the step nearer and grew hot and spoke low.

"Her name is Rose Merrick, sir, and she's in place in London. She's 
lady's-maid to a lady of title, and it isn't an easy place. Her lady 
has a high temper, and she's economical with her servants. Her maid 
has to sew early and late, and turn out as much as if she was a whole 
dressmaking establishment. She's clever with her needle, and it would 
be easier if she felt it was appreciated. But she's treated haughty 
and severe, though she tries her very best. She has to wait up half 
the night after balls, and I'm afraid it's breaking her spirit and her 
health. That's why,--I beg your pardon, sir," he added, his voice 
shaking--"that's why I'd bear anything on earth if I could give her a 
little home of her own."

"Gee whizz!" ejaculated Mr. Temple Barholm, with feeling. "I guess you 
would!"

"And that's not all, sir," said Pearson. "She's a beautiful girl, sir, 
with a figure, and service is sometimes not easy for a young woman 
like that. His lordship--the master of the house, sir,--is much too 
attentive. He's a man with bad habits; the last lady's-maid was sent 
away in disgrace. Her ladyship wouldn't believe she hadn't been 
forward when she saw things she didn't like, though every one in the 
hall knew the girl hated his bold ways with her, and her mother nearly 
broke her heart. He's begun with Rose, and it just drives me mad, sir, 
it does!"

He choked, and wiped his forehead with his clean handkerchief. It was 
damp, and his young eyes had fire in them, as Mr. Temple Barholm did 
not fail to observe.

"I'm taking a liberty talking to you like this, sir," he said. "I'm 
behaving as if I didn't know my place, sir."

"Your place is behind that fellow, kicking him till he'll never sit 
down again except on eider-down cushions three deep," remarked Mr. 
Temple Barholm, with fire in his eyes also. "That's where your place 
is. It's where mine would be if I was in the same house with him and 
caught him making a goat of himself. I bet nine Englishmen out of ten 
would break his darned neck for him if they got on to his little ways, 
even if they were lordships themselves."

"The decent ones won't know," Pearson said. "That's not what happens, 
sir. He can laugh and chaff it off with her ladyship and coax her 
round. But a girl that's discharged like that, Rose says, that's the 
worst of it: she says she's got a character fastened on to her for 
life that no respectable man ought to marry her with."

Mr. Temple Barholm removed his leg from the arm of his chair and got 
up. Long-legged, sinewy, but somewhat slouchy in his badly made tweed 
suit, sharp New York face and awful American style notwithstanding, he 
still looked rather nice as he laid his hand on his valet's shoulder 
and gave him a friendly push.

"See here," he said. "What you've got to say to Rose is that she's 
just got to cut that sort of thing out--cut it right out. Talking to a 
man that's in love with her as if he was likely to throw her down 
because lies were told. Tell her to forget it --forget it quick. Why, 
what does she suppose a man's FOR, by jinks? What's he FOR?"

"I've told her that, sir, though of course not in American. I just 
swore it on my knees in Hyde Park one night when she got out for an 
hour. But she laid her poor head on the back of the bench and cried 
and wouldn't listen. She says she cares for me too much to--"

Tembarom's hand clutched his shoulder. His face lighted and glowed 
suddenly.

"Care for you too much," he asked. "Did she say that? God bless her!"

"That's what I said," broke in Pearson.

"I heard another girl say that--just before I left New York--a girl 
that's just a wonder," said his master. "A girl can be a wonder, can't 
she?"

"Rose is, sir," protested Pearson. "She is, indeed, sir. And her eyes 
are that blue--"

"Blue, are they? " interrupted Tembarom. "I know the kind. I'm on to 
the whole thing. And what's more, I'm going to fix it. You tell Rose--
and tell her from me--that she's going to leave that place, and you're 
going to stay in this one, and--well, presently things'll begin to 
happen. They're going to be all right--ALL RIGHT," he went on, with 
immensely convincing emphasis. "She's going to have that little home 
of her own." He paused a moment for reflection, and then a sudden 
thought presented itself to him. "Why, darn it!" he exclaimed, "there 
must be a whole raft of little homes that belong to me in one place or 
another. Why couldn't I fix you both up in one of them?"

"Oh, sir!" Pearson broke forth in some slight alarm. He went so fast 
and so far all in a moment. And Pearson really possessed a neat, well-
ordered conscience, and, moreover, "knew his place." "I hope I didn't 
seem to be expecting you to trouble yourself about me, sir. I mustn't 
presume on your kindness."

"It's not kindness; it's--well, it's just human. I'm going to think 
this thing over. You just keep your hair on, and let me do my own 
valeting, and you'll see I'll fix it for you somehow."

What he thought of doing, how he thought of doing it, and what Pearson 
was to expect, the agitated young man did not know. The situation was 
of course abnormal, judged by all respectable, long-established 
custom. A man's valet and his valet's "young woman" were not usually 
of intimate interest. Gentlemen were sometimes "kind" to you--gave you 
half a sovereign or even a sovereign, and perhaps asked after your 
mother if you were supporting one; but--

"I never dreamed of going so far, sir," he said. "I forgot myself, I'm 
afraid."

"Good thing you did. It's made me feel as if we were brothers." He 
laughed again, enjoying the thought of the little thing who cared for 
Pearson "too much" and had eyes that were "that blue." "Say, I've just 
thought of something else. Have you bought her an engagement-ring 
yet?"

"No, sir. In our class of life jewelry is beyond the means."

"I just wondered," Mr. Temple Barholm said. He seemed to be thinking 
of something that pleased him as he fumbled for his pocket-book and 
took a clean banknote out of it. "I'm not on to what the value of this 
thing is in real money, but you go and buy her a ring with it, and I 
bet she'll be so pleased you'll have the time of your life."

Pearson taking it; and recognizing its value in UNreal money, was 
embarrassed by feeling the necessity of explanation.

"This is a five-pound note, sir. It's too much, sir, it is indeed. 
This would FURNISH THE FRONT PARLOR." He said it almost solemnly.

Mr. Temple Barholm looked at the note interestedly.

"Would it? By jinks!" and his laugh had a certain softness of 
recollection. "I guess that's just what Ann would say. She'd know what 
it would furnish, you bet your life!"

"I'm most grateful, sir," protested Pearson, "but I oughtn't to take 
it. Being an American gentleman and not accustomed to English money, 
you don't realize that--"

"I'm not accustomed to any kind of money," said his master. "I'm 
scared to be left alone in the room with it. That's what's the matter. 
If I don't give some away, I shall never know I've got it. Cheer up, 
Pearson. You take that and buy the ring, and when you start 
furnishing, I'll see you don't get left."

"I don't know what to say, sir," Pearson faltered emotionally. "I 
don't, indeed."

"Don't say a darned thing," replied Mr. Temple Barholm. And just here 
his face changed as Mr. Palford had seen it change before, and as 
Pearson often saw it change later. His New York jocular irreverence 
dropped from him, and he looked mature and oddly serious.

"I've tried to sort of put you wise to the way I've lived and the 
things I HAVEN'T had ever since I was born," he said, "but I guess you 
don't really know a thing about it. I've got more money coming in 
every year than a thousand of me would ever expect to see in their 
lives, according to my calculation. And I don't know how to do any of 
the things a fellow who is what you call `a gentleman' would know how 
to do. I mean in the way of spending it. Now, I've got to get some fun 
out of it. I should be a mutt if I didn't, so I'm going to spend it my 
own way. I may make about seventy-five different kinds of a fool of 
myself, but I guess I sha'n't do any particular harm."

"You'll do good, sir,--to every one."

"Shall I?--said Tembarom, speculatively. "Well, I'm not exactly 
setting out with that in my mind. I'm no Young Men's Christian 
Association, but I'm not in for doing harm, anyway. You take your 
five-pound note--come to think of it, Palford said it came to about 
twenty- five dollars, real money. Hully gee! I never thought I'd have 
twenty-five dollars to GIVE AWAY! It makes me feel like I was Morgan."

"Thank you, sir; thank you," said Pearson, putting the note into his 
pocket with rapt gratitude in his neat face. "You --you do not wish me 
to remain--to do anything for you?"

"Not a thing. But just go and find out if Mr. Strangeways is asleep. 
If he isn't and seems restless, I'll come and have a talk with him."

"Yes, sir," said Pearson, and went at once.




CHAPTER XIII


In the course of two days Mr. Palford, having given his client the 
benefit of his own exact professional knowledge of the estate of 
Temple Barholm and its workings and privileges as far as he found them 
transferable and likely to be understood, returned to London, 
breathing perhaps something like a sigh of relief when the train 
steamed out of the little station. Whatsoever happened in days to 
come, Palford & Grimby had done their most trying and awkward duty by 
the latest Temple Barholm. Bradford, who was the steward of the 
estate, would now take him over, and could be trusted to furnish 
practical information of any ordinary order.

It did not appear to Mr. Palford that the new inheritor was 
particularly interested in his possessions or exhilarated by the 
extraordinary turn in his fortunes. The enormity of Temple Barholm 
itself, regarded as a house to live in in an everyday manner, seemed 
somewhat to depress him. When he was taken over its hundred and fifty 
rooms, he wore a detached air as he looked about him, and such remarks 
as he made were of an extraordinary nature and expressed in terms 
peculiar to America. Neither Mr. Palford nor Burrill understood them, 
but a young footman who was said to have once paid a visit to New 
York, and who chanced to be in the picture-gallery when his new master 
was looking at the portraits of his ancestors, over-hearing one 
observation, was guilty of a convulsive snort, and immediately made 
his way into the corridor, coughing violently. From this Mr. Palford 
gathered that one of the transatlantic jokes had been made. That was 
the New York idea--to be jocular. Yet he had not looked jocular when 
he had made the remark which had upset the equilibrium of the young 
footman. He had, in fact, looked reflective before speaking as he 
stood and studied a portrait of one of his ancestors. But, then, he 
had a trick of saying things incomprehensibly ridiculous with an 
unmoved expression of gravity, which led Palford to feel that he was 
ridiculous through utter ignorance and was not aware that he was 
exposing the fact. Persons who thought that an air of seriousness 
added to a humorous remark were especially annoying to the solicitor, 
because they frequently betrayed one into the position of seeming to 
be dull in the matter of seeing a point. That, he had observed, was 
often part of the New York manner--to make a totally absurdly 
exaggerated or seemingly ignorance-revealing observation, and then 
leave one's hearer to decide for himself whether the speaker was an 
absolute ignoramus and fool or a humorist.

More than once he had somewhat suspected his client of meaning to "get 
a rise out of him," after the odious manner of the tourists described 
in "The Innocents Abroad," though at the same time he felt rather 
supportingly sure of the fact that generally, when he displayed 
ignorance, he displayed it because he was a positive encyclopedia of 
lack of knowledge.

He knew no more of social customs, literature, and art than any other 
street lad. He had not belonged to the aspiring self-taught, who 
meritoriously haunt the night schools and free libraries with a view 
to improving their minds. If this had been his method, he might in one 
sense have been more difficult to handle, as Palford had seen the 
thing result in a bumptiousness most objectionable. He was markedly 
not bumptious, at all events.

A certain degree of interest in or curiosity concerning his ancestors 
as represented in the picture-gallery Mr. Palford had observed. He had 
stared at them and had said queer things --sometimes things which 
perhaps indicated a kind of uneducated thought. The fact that some of 
them looked so thoroughly alive, and yet had lived centuries ago, 
seemed to set him reflecting oddly. His curiosity, however, seemed to 
connect itself with them more as human creatures than as historical 
figures.

"What did that one do?" he inquired more than once. "What did he 
start, or didn't he start anything?"

When he disturbed the young footman he had stopped before a dark man 
in armor.

"Who's this fellow in the tin overcoat?" he asked seriously, and 
Palford felt it was quite possible that he had no actual intent of 
being humorous.

"That is Miles Gaspard Nevil John, who fought in the Crusades with 
Richard Coeur de Lion," he explained. "He is wearing a suit of armor." 
By this time the footman was coughing in the corridor.

"That's English history, I guess," Tembarom replied. "I'll have to get 
a history-book and read up about the Crusades."

He went on farther, and paused with a slightly puzzled expression 
before a boy in a costume of the period of Charles II.

"Who's this Fauntleroy in the lace collar?" he inquired. "Queer!" he 
added, as though to himself. "I can't ever have seen him in New York." 
And he took a step backward to look again.

"That is Miles Hugo Charles James, who was a page at the court of 
Charles II. He died at nineteen, and was succeeded by his brother 
Denzel Maurice John."

"I feel as if I'd had a dream about him sometime or other," said 
Tembarom, and he stood still a few seconds before he passed on. 
"Perhaps I saw something like him getting out of a carriage to go into 
the Van Twillers' fancy-dress ball. Seems as if I'd got the whole show 
shut up in here. And you say they're all my own relations?" Then he 
laughed. "If they were alive now!" he said. "By jinks!"

His laughter suggested that he was entertained by mental visions. But 
he did not explain to his companion. His legal adviser was not in the 
least able to form any opinion of what he would do, how he would be 
likely to comport himself, when he was left entirely to his own 
devices. He would not know also, one might be sure, that the county 
would wait with repressed anxiety to find out. If he had been a minor, 
he might have been taken in hand, and trained and educated to some 
extent. But he was not a minor.

On the day of Mr. Palford's departure a thick fog had descended and 
seemed to enwrap the world in the white wool. Tembarom found it close 
to his windows when he got up, and he had dressed by the light of tall 
wax candles, the previous Mr. Temple Barholm having objected to more 
modern and vulgar methods of illumination.

"I guess this is what you call a London fog," he said to Pearson.

"No, not exactly the London sort, sir," Pearson answered. "A London 
fog is yellow--when it isn't brown or black. It settles on the hands 
and face. A fog in the country isn't dirty with smoke. It's much less 
trying, sir."

When Palford had departed and he was entirely alone, Tembarom found a 
country fog trying enough for a man without a companion. A degree of 
relief permeated his being with the knowledge that he need no longer 
endeavor to make suitable reply to his solicitor's efforts at 
conversation. He had made conversational efforts himself. You couldn't 
let a man feel that you wouldn't talk to him if you could when he was 
doing business for you, but what in thunder did you have to talk about 
that a man like that wouldn't be bored stiff by? He didn't like New 
York, he didn't know anything about it, and he didn't want to know, 
and Tembarom knew nothing about anything else, and was homesick for 
the very stones of the roaring city's streets. When he said anything, 
Palford either didn't understand what he was getting at or he didn't 
like it. And he always looked as if he was watching to see if you were 
trying to get a joke on him. Tembarom was frequently not nearly so 
much inclined to be humorous as Mr. Palford had irritably suspected 
him of being. His modes of expression might on numerous occasions have 
roused to mirth when his underlying idea was almost entirely serious. 
The mode of expression was merely a result of habit.

Mr. Palford left by an extremely early train, and after he was gone, 
Tembarom sat over his breakfast as long as possible, and then, going 
to the library, smoked long. The library was certainly comfortable, 
though the fire and the big wax candles were called upon to do their 
best to defy the chill, mysterious dimness produced by the heavy, 
white wool curtain folding itself more and more thickly outside the 
windows.

But one cannot smoke in solitary idleness for much more than an hour, 
and when he stood up and knocked the ashes out of his last pipe, 
Tembarom drew a long breath.

"There's a hundred and thirty-six hours in each of these days," he 
said. "That's nine hundred and fifty-two in a week, and four thousand 
and eighty in a month--when it's got only thirty days in it. I'm not 
going to calculate how many there'd be in a year. I'll have a look at 
the papers. There's Punch. That's their comic one."

He looked out the American news in the London papers, and sighed 
hugely. He took up Punch and read every joke two or three times over. 
He did not know that the number was a specially good one and that 
there were some extremely witty things in it. The jokes were about 
bishops in gaiters, about garden-parties, about curates or lovely 
young ladies or rectors' wives and rustics, about Royal Academicians 
or esthetic poets. Their humor appealed to him as little and seemed as 
obscure as his had seemed to Mr. Palford.

"I'm not laughing my head off much over these," he said. "I guess I'm 
not on to the point."

He got up and walked about. The "L" in New York was roaring to and fro 
loaded with men and women going to work or to do shopping. Some of 
them were devouring morning papers bearing no resemblance to those of 
London, some of them carried parcels, and all of them looked as though 
they were intent on something or other and hadn't a moment to waste. 
They were all going somewhere in a hurry and had to get back in time 
for something. When the train whizzed and slackened at a station, some 
started up, hastily caught their papers or bundles closer, and pushed 
or were pushed out on the platform, which was crowded with other 
people who rushed to get in, and if they found seats, dropped into 
them hastily with an air of relief. The street-cars were loaded and 
rang their bells loudly, trucks and carriages and motors filled the 
middle of the thoroughfares, and people crowded the pavements. The 
store windows were dressed up for Christmas, and most of the people 
crowded before them were calculating as to what they could get for the 
inadequate sums they had on hand.

The breakfast at Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house was over, and the 
boarders had gone on cars or elevated trains to their day's work. Mrs. 
Bowse was getting ready to go out and do some marketing. Julius and 
Jim were down-town deep in the work pertaining to their separate 
"jobs." They'd go home at night, and perhaps, if they were in luck, 
would go to a "show" somewhere, and afterward come and sit in their 
tilted chairs in the hall bedroom and smoke and talk it over. And he 
wouldn't be there, and the Hutchinsons' rooms would be empty, unless 
some new people were in them. Galton would be sitting among his 
papers, working like mad. And Bennett--well, Bennett would be either 
"getting out his page," or would be rushing about in the hundredth 
streets to find items and follow up weddings or receptions.

"Gee!" he said, "every one of them trying their best to put something 
over, and with so much to think of they've not got time to breathe! 
It'd be no trouble for THEM to put in a hundred and thirty-six hours. 
They'd be darned glad of them. And, believe me, they'd put something 
over, too, before they got through. And I'm here, with three hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars a year round my neck and not a thing to 
spend it on, unless I pay some one part of it to give me lessons in 
tatting. What is tatting, anyhow?

He didn't really know. It was vaguely supposed to imply some intensely 
feminine fancy-work done by old ladies, and used as a figure of speech 
in jokes.

"If you could ride or shoot, you could amuse yourself in the country," 
Palford had said.

"I can ride in a street-car when I've got five cents," Tembarom had 
answered. " That's as far as I've gone in riding --and what in thunder 
should I shoot?"

"Game," replied Mr. Palford, with chill inward disgust. "Pheasants, 
partridges, woodcock, grouse--"

"I shouldn't shoot anything like that if I went at it," he responded 
shamelessly. "I should shoot my own head off, or the fellow's that 
stood next to me, unless he got the drop on me first."

He did not know that he was ignominious. Nobody could have made it 
clear to him. He did not know that there were men who had gained 
distinction, popularity, and fame by doing nothing in particular but 
hitting things animate and inanimate with magnificent precision of 
aim.

He stood still now and listened to the silence.

"There's not a sound within a thousand miles of the place. What do 
fellows with money DO to keep themselves alive?" he said piteously. 
"They've got to do SOMETHING. Shall I have to go out and take a walk, 
as Palford called it? Take a walk, by gee!"

He couldn't conceive it, a man "taking a walk" as though it were 
medicine--a walk nowhere, to reach nothing, just to go and turn back 
again.

"I'll begin and take in sewing," he said, "or I'll open a store in the 
village--a department store. I could spend something on that. I'll ask 
Pearson what he thinks of it-- or Burrill. I'd like to see Burrill if 
I said that to him."

He decided at last that he would practise his "short" awhile; that 
would be doing something, at any rate. He sat down at the big writing-
table and began to dash off mystic signs at furious speed. But the 
speed did not keep up. The silence of the great room, of the immense 
house, of all the scores of rooms and galleries and corridors, closed 
in about him. He had practised his "short" in the night school, with 
the "L" thundering past at intervals of five minutes; in the newspaper 
office, with all the babel of New York about him and the bang of 
steam-drills going on below in the next lot, where the foundation of a 
new building was being excavated; he had practised it in his hall 
bedroom at Mrs. Bowse's, to the tumultuous accompaniment of street 
sounds and the whizz and TING-A-LING of street-cars dashing past, and 
he had not been disturbed. He had never practised it in any place 
which was silent, and it was the silence which became more than he 
could stand. He actually jumped out of his chair when he heard 
mysterious footsteps outside the door, and a footman appeared and 
spoke in a low voice which startled him as though it had been a 
thunderclap.

"A young person with her father wants to see you, sir," he announced. 
"I don't think they are villagers, but of the working-class, I should 
say."

"Where are they?"

"I didn't know exactly what to do, sir, so I left them in the hall. 
The young person has a sort of quiet, determined way--"

"Little Ann, by gee!" exclaimed Tembarom with mad joy, and shot out of 
the room.

The footman--he had not seen Little Ann when she had brought 
Strangeways--looked after him and rubbed his chin.

"Wouldn't you call that a rummy sort for Temple Barholm?" he said to 
one of his fellows who had appeared in the hall near him.

"It's not my sort," was the answer. "I'm going to give notice to old 
Butterworth."

Hutchinson and Little Ann were waiting in the hall. Hutchinson was 
looking at the rich, shadowy spaces about him with a sort of proud 
satisfaction. Fine, dark corners with armored figures lurking in them, 
ancient portraits, carved oak settles, and massive chairs and 
cabinets--these were English, and he was an Englishman, and somehow 
felt them the outcome of certain sterling qualities of his own. He 
looked robustly well, and wore a new rough tweed suit such as one of 
the gentry might tramp about muddy roads and fields in. Little Ann was 
dressed in something warm and rough also, a brown thing, with a little 
close, cap-like, brown hat, from under which her red hair glowed. The 
walk in the cold, white fog had made her bloom fresh, soft-red and 
white-daisy color. She was smiling, and showing three distinct 
dimples, which deepened when Tembarom dashed out of the library.

"Hully gee!" he cried out, "but I'm glad to see you!"

He shook hands with both of them furiously, and two footmen stood and 
looked at the group with image-like calm of feature, but with 
curiously interested eyes. Hutchinson was aware of them, and 
endeavored to present to them a back which by its stolid composure 
should reveal that he knew more about such things than this chap did 
and wasn't a bit upset by grandeur.

"Hully gee!" cried Tembarom again, "how glad I am! Come on in and sit 
down and let's talk it over."

Burrill made a stately step forward, properly intent on his duty, and 
his master waved him back.

"Say," he said hastily, "don't bring in any tea. They don't want it. 
They're Americans."

Hutchinson snorted. He could not stand being consigned to ignominy 
before the footmen.

"Nowt o' th' sort," he broke forth. " We're noan American. Tha'rt 
losing tha head, lad."

"He's forgetting because he met us first in New York," said Little 
Ann, smiling still more.

"Shall I take your hat and cane, sir?" inquired Burrill, unmovedly, at 
Hutchinson's side.

"He wasn't going to say anything about tea," explained Little Ann as 
they went into the library. "They don't expect to serve tea in the 
middle of the morning, Mr. Temple Barholm."

"Don't they?" said Tembarom, reckless with relieved delight. "I 
thought they served it every time the clock struck. When we were in 
London it seemed like Palford had it when he was hot and when he was 
cold and when he was glad and when he was sorry and when he was going 
out and when he was coming in. It's brought up to me, by jinks! as 
soon as I wake, to brace me up to put on my clothes--and Pearson wants 
to put those on."

He stopped short when they reached the middle of the room and looked 
her over.

"O Little Ann!" he breathed tumultuously. "0 Little Ann!"

Mr. Hlutchinson was looking about the library as he had looked about 
the hall.

"Well, I never thought I'd get inside Temple Barlholm in my day," he 
exclaimed. "Eh, lad, tha must feel like bull in a china shop."

"I feel like a whole herd of 'em," answered Tembarom. Hutchinson 
nodded. He understood.

"Well, perhaps tha'll get over it in time," he conceded, "but it'll 
take thee a good bit." Then he gave him a warmly friendly look. "I'll 
lay you know what Ann came with me for to-day." The way Little Ann 
looked at him--the way she looked at him!

"I came to thank you, Mr. Temple Barholm," she said--"to thank you." 
And there was an odd, tender sound in her voice.

"Don't you do it, Ann," Tembarom answered. "Don't you do it."

"I don't know much about business, but the way you must have worked, 
the way you must have had to run after people, and find them, and make 
then listen, and use all your New York cleverness--because you ARE 
clever. The way you've forgotten all about yourself and thought of 
nothing but father and the invention! I do know enough to understand 
that, and it seems as if I can't think of enough to say. I just wish I 
could tell you what it means to me." Two round pearls of tears brimmed 
over and fell down her cheeks. "I promised mother FAITHFUL I'd take 
care of him and see he never lost hope about it," she added, "and 
sometimes I didn't know whatever I was going to do."

It was perilous when she looked at one like that, and she was so 
little and light that one could have snatched her up in his arms and 
carried her to the big arm-chair and sat down with her and rocked her 
backward and forward and poured forth the whole thing that was making 
him feel as though he might explode.

Hutchinson provided salvation.

"Tha pulled me out o' the water just when I was going under, lad. God 
bless thee!" he broke out, and shook his hand with rough vigor. "I 
signed with the North Electric yesterday."

"Good business!" said Tembarom. "Now I'm in on the ground floor with 
what's going to be the biggest money-maker in sight."

"The way tha talked New York to them chaps took my fancy," chuckled 
Hutchinson. "None o' them chaps wants to be the first to jump over the 
hedge."

"We've got 'em started now," exulted Tembarom.

"Tha started 'em," said Hutchinson, "and it's thee I've got to thank."

"Say, Little Ann," said Tembarom, with sudden thought, "who's come 
into money now? You'll have it to burn."

"We've not got it yet, Mr. Temple Barholm," she replied, shaking her 
head. "Even when inventions get started, they don't go off like sky-
rockets."

"She knows everything, doesn't she?" Tembarom said to Hutchinson. 
"Here, come and sit down. I've not seen you for 'steen years."

She took her seat in the big arm-chair and looked at him with softly 
examining eyes, as though she wanted to understand him sufficiently to 
be able to find out something she ought to do if he needed help.

He saw it and half laughed, not quite unwaveringly.

"You'll make me cry in a minute," he said. " You don't know what it's 
like to have some one from home and mother come and be kind to you."

"How is Mr. Strangeways?" she inquired.

"He's well taken care of, at any rate. That's where he's got to thank 
you. Those rooms you and the housekeeper chose were the very things 
for him. They're big and comfortable, and 'way off in a place where no 
one's likely to come near. The fellow that's been hired to valet me 
valets him instead, and I believe he likes it. It seems to come quite 
natural to him, any how. I go in and see him every now and then and 
try to get him to talk. I sort of invent things to see if I can start 
him thinking straight. He's quieted down some and he looks better. 
After a while I'm going to look up some big doctors in London and find 
out which of 'em's got the most plain horse sense. If a real big one 
would just get interested and come and see him on the quiet and not 
get him excited, he might do him good. I'm dead stuck on this stunt 
I've set myself--getting him right. It's something to work on."

"You'll have plenty to work on soon," said Little Ann. "There's a lot 
of everyday things you've got to think about. They may seem of no 
consequence to you, but they ARE, Mr. Temple Barholm."

"If you say they are, I guess they are," he answered. "I'll do 
anything you say, Ann."

"I came partly to tell you about some of them to-day," she went on, 
keeping the yearningly thoughtful eyes on him. It was rather hard for 
her, too, to be firm enough when there was so much she wanted to say 
and do. And he did not look half as twinkling and light-heartedly 
grinning as he had looked in New York.

He couldn't help dropping his voice a little coaxingly, though Mr. 
Hutchinson was quite sufficiently absorbed in examination of his 
surroundings.

"Didn't you come to save my life by letting me have a look at you, 
Little Ann--didn't you?" he pleaded.

She shook her wonderful, red head.

"No, I didn't, Mr. Temple Barholm," she answered with Manchester 
downrightness. " When I said what I did in New York, I meant it. I 
didn't intend to hang about here and let you--say things to me. You 
mustn't say them. Father and me are going back to Manchester in a few 
days, and very soon we have to go to America again because of the 
business."

"America!" he said. "Oh, Lord!" he groaned. "Do you want me to drop 
down dead here with a dull, sickening thud, Ann? "

"You're not going to drop down dead," she replied convincedly. "You're 
going to stay here and do whatever it's your duty to do, now you've 
come into Temple Barholm."

"Am I?" he answered. "Well, we'll see what I'm going to do when I've 
had time to make up my mind. It may be something different from what 
you'd think, and it mayn't. Just now I'm going to do what you tell me. 
Go ahead, Little Ann."

She thought the matter over with her most destructive little air of 
sensible intentness.

"Well, it may seem like meddling, but it isn't," she began rather 
concernedly. "It's just that I'm used to looking after people. I 
wanted to talk to you about your clothes."

"My clothes?" he replied, bewildered a moment; but the next he 
understood and grinned. "I haven't got any. My valet--think of T. T. 
with a valet!--told me so last night."

"That's what I thought," she said maternally." I got Mrs. Bowse to 
write to me, and she told me you were so hurried and excited you 
hadn't time for anything."

"I just rushed into Cohen's the last day and yanked a few things off 
the ready-made counter."

She looked him over with impersonal criticism.

"I thought so. Those you've got on won't do at all."

Tembarom glanced at them.

"That's what Pearson says."

"They're not the right shape," she explained. "I know what a 
gentleman's clothes mean in England, and--" her face flushed, and 
sudden, warm spirit made her speak rather fast-- "I couldn't ABIDE to 
think of you coming here and--being made fun of--just because you 
hadn't the right clothes."

She said it, the little thing, as though he were hers--her very own, 
and defend him against disrespect she WOULD. Tembarom, being but young 
flesh and blood, made an impetuous dart toward her, and checked 
himself, catching his breath.

"Ann," he said, "has your grandmother got a dog?"

"Y-e-s," she said, faltering because she was puzzled.

"How big is he?"

"He's a big one. He's a brindled bulldog. Why?"

"Well," he said, half pathetic, half defiant, "if you're going to come 
and talk to me like that, and look like that, you've got to bring that 
bull along and set him on me when I make a break; for there's nothing 
but a dog can keep me where you want me to stay--and a big one at 
that."

He sat down on an ottoman near her and dropped his head on his hands. 
It was not half such a joke as it sounded.

Little Ann saw it wasn't and she watched him tenderly, catching her 
breath once quickly. Men had ways of taking some things hard and 
feeling them a good bit more than one would think. It made trouble 
many a time if one couldn't help them to think reasonable.

"Father," she said to Hutchinson.

"Aye," he answered, turning round.

"Will you tell Mr. Temple Barholm that you think I'm right about 
giving him his chance?"

"Of course I think she's right," Hutchinson blustered, "and it isn't 
the first time either. I'm not going to have my lass married into any 
family where she'd be looked down upon."

But that was not what Little Ann wanted; it was not, in fact, her 
argument. She was not thinking of that side of the situation.

"It's not me that matters so much, Father," she said; "it's him."

"Oh, is it?" disagreed Hutchinson, dictatorially. "That's not th' road 
I look at it. I'm looking after you, not him. Let him take care of 
himself. No chap shall put you where you won't be looked up to, even 
if I AM grateful to him. So there you have it."

"He can't take care of himself when he feels like this," she answered. 
"That's WHY I'm taking care of him. He'll think steadier when he's 
himself again." She put out her hand and softly touched his shoulder.

"Don't do that," she said. "You make me want to be silly." There was a 
quiver in her voice, but she tried to change it. "If you don't lift 
your head," she added with a great effort at disciplinarian firmness, 
"I shall have to go away without telling you the other things."

He lifted his head, but his attempt at a smile was not hilarious.

"Well, Ann," he submitted, " I've warned you. Bring along your dog."

She took a sheet of paper out of one of the neat pockets in her rough, 
brown coat.

"I just wrote down some of the very best tailors' addresses --the very 
best," she explained. "Don't you go to any but the very best, and be a 
bit sharp with them if they're not attentive. They'll think all the 
better of you. If your valet's a smart one, take him with you."

"Yes, Ann," he said rather weakly. "He's going to make a list of 
things himself, anyhow."

"That sounds as if he'd got some sense." She handed him the list of 
addresses. "You give him this, and tell him he must go to the very 
best ones."

"What do I want to put on style for?" he asked desperately. "I don't 
know a soul on this side of the Atlantic Ocean."

"You soon will," she replied, with calm perspicacity. "You've got too 
much money not to."

A gruff chuckle made itself heard from Hutchinson's side of the room.

"Aye, seventy thousand a year'll bring th' vultures about thee, lad."

"We needn't call them vultures exactly," was Little Ann's tolerant 
comment; "but a lot of people will come here to see you. That was one 
of the things I thought I might tell you about."

"Say, you're a wonder!"

"I'm nothing of the sort. I'm just a girl with a bit of common sense--
and grandmother's one that's looked on a long time, and she sees 
things. The country gentlemen will begin to call on you soon, and then 
you'll be invited to their houses to meet their wives and daughters, 
and then you'll be kept pretty busy."

Hutchinson's bluff chuckle broke out again.

"You will that, my lad, when th' match-making mothers get after you. 
There's plenty on 'em."

"Father's joking," she said. Her tone was judicially unprejudiced. 
"There are young ladies that--that'd be very suitable. Pretty ones and 
clever ones. You'll see them all."

"I don't want to see them."

"You can't help it," she said, with mild decision. "When there are 
daughters and a new gentleman comes into a big property in the 
neighborhood, it's nothing but natural that the mothers should be a 
bit anxious."

"Aye, they'll be anxious enough. Mak' sure o' that," laughed 
Hutchinson.

"Is that what you want me to put on style for, Little Ann?" Tembarom 
asked reproachfully.

"I want you to put it on for yourself. I don't want you to look 
different from other men. Everybody's curious about you. They're ready 
to LAUGH because you came from America and once sold newspapers."

"It's the men he'll have to look out for," Hutchinson put in, with an 
experienced air. "There's them that'll want to borrow money, and them 
that'll want to drink and play cards and bet high. A green American 
lad'll be a fine pigeon for them to pluck. You may as well tell him, 
Ann; you know you came here to do it."

"Yes, I did," she admitted. "I don't want you to seem not to know what 
people are up to and what they expect."

That little note of involuntary defense was a dangerous thing for 
Tembarom. He drew nearer.

"You don't want them to take me for a fool, Little Ann. You're 
standing up for me; that's it."

"You can stand up for yourself, Mr. Temple Barholm, if you're not 
taken by surprise," she said confidently. "If you understand things a 
bit, you won't be."

His feelings almost overpowered him.

"God bless your dear little soul!" he broke out. "Say, if this goes 
on, that dog of your grandmother's wouldn't have a show, Ann. I should 
bite him before he could bite me."

"I won't go on if you can't be sensible, Mr. Temple Barholm. I shall 
just go away and not come back again. That's what I shall do." Her 
tone was that of a young mother.

He gave in incontinently.

"Good Lord! no!" he exclaimed. "I'll do anything if you'll stay. I'll 
lie down on the mat and not open my mouth. Just sit here and tell me 
things. I know you won't let me hold your hand, but just let me hold a 
bit of your dress and look at you while you talk." He took a bit of 
her brown frock between his fingers and held it, gazing at her with 
all his crude young soul in his eyes. "Now tell me," he added.

"There's only one or two things about the people who'll come to Temple 
Barholm. Grandmother's talked it over with me. She knew all about 
those that came in the late Mr. Temple Barholm's time. He used to hate 
most of them."

"Then why in thunder did he ask them to come?"

"He didn't. They've got clever, polite ways of asking themselves 
sometimes. He couldn't bear the Countess of Mallowe. She'll come. 
Grandmother says you may be sure of that."

"What'll she come for?"

Little Ann's pause and contemplation of him were fraught with 
thoughtfulness.

"She'll come for you," at last she said.

"She's got a daughter she thinks ought to have been married eight 
years ago," announced Hutchinson.

Tembarom pulled at the bit of brown tweed he held as though it were a 
drowning man's straw.

"Don't you drive me to drink, Ann," he said. "I'm frightened. Your 
grandmother will have to lend ME the dog."

This was a flightiness which Little Ann did not encourage.

"Lady Joan--that's her daughter--is very grand and haughty. She's a 
great beauty. You'll look at her, but perhaps she won't look at you. 
But it's not her I'm troubled about. I'm thinking of Captain Palliser 
and men like him."

"Who's he?"

"He's one of those smooth, clever ones that's always getting up some 
company or other and selling the stock. He'll want you to know his 
friends and he'll try to lead you his way."

As Tembarom held to his bit of her dress, his eyes were adoring ones, 
which was really not to be wondered at. She WAS adorable as her soft, 
kind, wonderfully maternal girl face tried to control itself so that 
it should express only just enough to help and nothing to disturb.

"I don't want him to spoil you. I don't want anything to make you--
different. I couldn't bear it."

He pulled the bit of dress pleadingly.

"Why, Little Ann?" he implored quite low.

"Because," she said, feeling that perhaps she was rash-- "because if 
you were different, you wouldn't be T. Tembarom; and it was T. 
Tembarom that--that was T. Tembarom," she finished hastily.

He bent his head down to the bit of tweed and kissed it.

"You just keep looking after me like that," he said, "and there's not 
one of them can get away with me."

She got up, and he rose with her. There was a touch of fire in the 
forget-me-not blue of her eyes.

"Just you let them see--just you let them see that you're not one they 
can hold light and make use of." But there she stopped short, looking 
up at him. He was looking down at her with a kind of matureness in his 
expression. "I needn't be afraid," she said. "You can take care of 
yourself; I ought to have known that."

"You did," he said, smiling; "but you wanted to sort of help me. And 
you've done it, by gee! just by saying that thing about T. Tembarom. 
You set me right on my feet. That's YOU."

Before they went away they paid a visit to Strangeways in his remote, 
undisturbed, and beautiful rooms. They were in a wing of the house 
untouched by any ordinary passing to and fro, and the deep windows 
looked out upon gardens which spring and summer would crowd with 
loveliness from which clouds of perfume would float up to him on days 
when the sun warmed and the soft airs stirred the flowers, shaking the 
fragrance from their full incense-cups. But the white fog shut out to-
day even their winter bareness. There were light and warmth inside, 
and every added charm of rich harmony of deep color and comfort made 
beautiful. There were books and papers waiting to be looked over, but 
they lay untouched on the writing-table, and Strangeways was sitting 
close to the biggest window, staring into the fog. His eyes looked 
hungry and hollow and dark. Ann knew he was "trying to remember" 
something.

When the sound of footsteps reached his ear, he turned to look at 
them, and rose mechanically at sight of Ann. But his expression was 
that of a man aroused from a dream of far-off places.

"I remember you," he said, but hesitated as though making an effort to 
recall something.

"Of course you do," said Little Ann. "You know me quite well. I 
brought you here. Think a bit. Little--Little--"

"Yes," he broke forth. "Of course, Little Ann! Thank God I've not 
forgotten." He took her hand in both his and held it tenderly. "You 
have a sweet little face. It's such a wise little face!" His voice 
sounded dreamy.

Ann drew him to his chair with a coaxing laugh and sat down by him.

"You're flattering me. You make me feel quite shy," she said. "You 
know HIM, too," nodding toward Tembarom.

"Oh, yes," he replied, and be looked up with a smile. "He is the one 
who remembers. You said you did." He had turned to Tembarom.

"You bet your life I do," Tembarom answered. "And you will, too, 
before long."

"If I did not try so hard," said Strangeways, thoughtfully. "It seems 
as if I were shut up in a room, and so many things were knocking at 
the doors--hundreds of them--knocking because they want to be let in. 
I am damnably unhappy-- damnably." He hung his head and stared at the 
floor. Tembarom put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a friendly 
shake.

"Don't you worry a bit," he said. "You take my word for it. It'll all 
come back. I'm working at it myself." Strangeways lifted his head.

"You are the one I know best. I trust you." But there was the 
beginning of a slight drag in his voice. "I don't always --quite 
recollect--your name. Not quite. Good heavens! I mustn't forget that."

Little Ann was quite ready.

"You won't," she said, "because it's different from other names. It 
begins with a letter--just a letter, and then there is the name. 
Think."

"Yes, yes," he said anxiously.

Little Ann bent forward and fixed her eyes on his with concentrated 
suggestion. They had never risked confusing him by any mention of the 
new name. She began to repeat letters of the alphabet slowly and 
distinctly until she reached the letter T.

"T," she ended with much emphasis--"R. S. _T_."

His expression cleared itself.

"T," he repeated. "T--Tembarom. R, S, T. How clever you are!"

Little Ann's gaze concentrated itself still more intently.

"Now you'll never forget it again," she said, "because of the T. 
You'll say the other letters until you come to it. R, S, T."

"T. Tembarom," he ended relievedly. "How you help me!" He took her 
hand and kissed it very gently.

"We are all going to help you," Ann soothed him, "T. Tembarom most of 
all."

"Say," Tembarom broke out in an aside to her, "I'm going to come here 
and try things on him every day. When it seems like he gets on to 
something, however little a thing it is, I'm going to follow it up and 
see if it won't get somewhere."

Ann nodded.

"There'll be something some day," she said. "Are you quite comfortable 
here?" she asked aloud to Strangeways.

"Very comfortable, thank you," he answered courteously. "They are 
beautiful rooms. They are furnished with such fine old things. This is 
entirely Jacobean. It's quite perfect." He glanced about him. "And so 
quiet. No one comes in here but my man, and he is a very nice chap. I 
never had a man who knew his duties better."

Little Ann and Tembarom looked at each other.

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised," she said after they had left the 
room, "if it wouldn't be a good thing to get Pearson to try to talk to 
him now and then. He's been used to a man-servant."

"Yes," answered Tembarom. "Pearson didn't rattle HIM, you bet your 
life."




CHAPTER XIV


He could not persuade them to remain to take lunch with him. The 
firmness of Hutchinson's declination was not unconnected with a 
private feeling that "them footmen chaps 'u'd be on the lookout to see 
the way you handled every bite you put in your mouth." He couldn't 
have stood it, dang their impudence! Little Ann, on her part, frankly 
and calmly said, "It wouldn't DO." That was all, and evidently covered 
everything.

After they had gone, the fog lifted somewhat, but though it withdrew 
from the windows, it remained floating about in masses, like huge 
ghosts, among the trees of the park. When Tembarom sat down alone to 
prolong his lunch with the aid of Burrill and the footmen, he was 
confronted by these unearthly shapes every time he lifted his eyes to 
the window he faced from his place at the table. It was an outlook 
which did not inspire to cheerfulness, and the fact that Ann and her 
father were going back to Manchester and later to America left him 
without even the simple consolation of a healthy appetite. Things were 
bound to get better after a while; they were BOUND to. A fellow would 
be a fool if he couldn't fix it somehow so that he could enjoy 
himself, with money to burn. If you made up your mind you couldn't 
stand the way things were, you didn't have to lie down under them, 
with a thousand or so "per" coming in. You could fix it so that it 
would be different. By jinks! there wasn't any law against your giving 
it all to the church but just enough to buy a flat in Harlem out-
right, if you wanted to. But you weren't going to run crazy and do a 
lot of fool things in a minute, and be sorry the rest of your life. 
Money was money. And first and foremost there was Ann, with her round 
cheeks flushed and her voice all sweet and queer, saying, "You 
wouldn't be T. Tembarom; and it was T. Tembarom that--that was T. 
Tembarom."

He couldn't help knowing what she had begun to say, and his own face 
flushed as he thought of it. He was at that time of life when there 
generally happens to be one center about which the world revolves. The 
creature who passes through this period of existence without watching 
it revolve about such a center has missed an extraordinary and 
singularly developing experience. It is sometimes happy, often 
disastrous, but always more or less developing. Speaking calmly, 
detachedly, but not cynically, it is a phase. During its existence it 
is the blood in the veins, the sight of the eyes, the beat of the 
pulse, the throb of the heart. It is also the day and the night, the 
sun, the moon, and the stars, heaven and hell, the entire universe. 
And it doesn't matter in the least to any one but the creatures living 
through it. T. Tembarom was in the midst of it. There was Ann. There 
was this new crazy thing which had happened to him--"this fool thing," 
as he called it. There was this monstrous, magnificent house,--he knew 
it was magnificent, though it wasn't his kind,--there was old Palford 
and his solemn talk about ancestors and the name of Temple Barholm. It 
always reminded him of how ashamed he had been in Brooklyn of the 
"Temple Temple" and how he had told lies to prevent the fellows 
finding out about it. And there was seventy thousand pounds a year, 
and there was Ann, who looked as soft as a baby,--Good Lord! how soft 
she'd feel if you got her in your arms and squeezed her!--and yet was 
somehow strong enough to keep him just where she wanted him to stay 
and believed he ought to stay until "he had found out." That was it. 
She wasn't doing it for any fool little idea of making herself seem 
more important: she just believed it. She was doing it because she 
wanted to let him "have his chance," just as if she were his mother 
instead of the girl he was clean crazy about. His chance! He laughed 
outright--a short, confident laugh which startled Burrill exceedingly.

When he went back to the library and lighted his pipe he began to 
stride up and down as he continued to think it over.

"I wish she was as sure as I am," he said. "I wish she was as sure of 
me as I am of myself--and as I am of her." He laughed the short, 
confident laugh again. "I wish she was as sure as I am of us both. 
We're all right. I've got to get through this, and find out what it's 
best to do, and I've got to show her. When I've had my chance good and 
plenty, us two for little old New York! Gee! won't it be fine!" he 
exclaimed imaginatively. "Her going over her bills, looking like a 
peach of a baby that's trying to knit its brows, and adding up, and 
thinking she ought to economize. She'd do it if we had ten million." 
He laughed outright joyfully. "Good Lord! I should kiss her to death!"

The simplest process of ratiocination would lead to a realization of 
the fact that though he was lonely and uncomfortable, he was not in 
the least pathetic or sorry for himself. His normal mental and 
physical structure kept him steady on his feet, and his practical and 
unsentimental training, combining itself with a touch of iron which 
centuries ago had expressed itself through some fighting Temple 
Barholm and a medium of battle-axes, crossbows, and spears, did the 
rest.

"It'd take more than this to get me where I'd be down and out. I'm 
feeling fine," he said. "I believe I'll go and 'take a walk,' as 
Palford says."

The fog-wreaths in the park were floating away, and he went out 
grinning and whistling, giving Burrill and the footman a nod as he 
passed them with a springing young stride. He got the door open so 
quickly that he left them behind him frustrated and staring at each 
other.

"It wasn't our fault," said Burrill, gloomily. "He's never had a door 
opened for him in his life. This won't do for me."

He was away for about an hour, and came back in the best of spirits. 
He had found out that there was something in "taking a walk" if a 
fellow had nothing else to do. The park was "fine," and he had never 
seen anything like it. When there were leaves on the trees and the 
grass and things were green, it would be better than Central Park 
itself. You could have base-ball matches in it. What a cinch it would 
be if you charged gate-money! But he supposed you couldn't if it 
belonged to you and you had three hundred and fifty thousand a year. 
You had to get used to that. But it did seem a fool business to have 
all that land and not make a cent out of it. If it was just outside 
New York and you cut it up into lots, you'd just pile it up. He was 
quite innocent--calamitously innocent and commercial and awful in his 
views. Thoughts such as these had been crammed into his brain by life 
ever since he had gone down the staircase of the Brooklyn tenement 
with his twenty-five cents in his ten-year-old hand.

The stillness of the house seemed to have accentuated itself when he 
returned to it. His sense of it let him down a little as he entered. 
The library was like a tomb--a comfortable luxurious tomb with a 
bright fire in it. A new Punch and the morning papers had been laid 
upon a table earlier in the day, and he sat down to look at them.

"I guess about fifty-seven or eight of the hundred and thirty- six 
hours have gone by," he said. "But, gee! ain't it lonesome!"

He sat so still trying to interest himself in "London Day by Day" in 
the morning paper that the combination of his exercise in the fresh 
air and the warmth of the fire made him drowsy. He leaned back in his 
chair and closed his eyes without being aware that he did so. He was 
on the verge of a doze.

He remained upon the verge for a few minutes, and then a soft, 
rustling sound made him open his eyes.

An elderly little lady had timidly entered the room. She was neatly 
dressed in an old-fashioned and far-from-new black silk dress, with a 
darned lace collar and miniature brooch at her neck. She had also 
thin, gray side-ringlets dangling against her cheeks from beneath a 
small, black lace cap with pale-purple ribbons on it. She had most 
evidently not expected to find any one in the room, and, having seen 
Tembarom, gave a half-frightened cough.

"I--I beg your pardon," she faltered. "I really did not mean to 
intrude--really."

Tembarom jumped up, awkward, but good-natured. Was she a kind of 
servant who was a lady?

"Oh, that's all right," he said.

But she evidently did not feel that it was all right. She looked as 
though she felt that she had been caught doing something wrong, and 
must properly propitiate by apology.

"I'm so sorry. I thought you had gone out--Mr. Temple Barholm."

"I did go out--to take a walk; but I came in."

Having been discovered in her overt act, she evidently felt that duty 
demanded some further ceremony from her. She approached him very 
timidly, but with an exquisite, little elderly early-Victorian manner. 
She was of the most astonishingly perfect type, though Tembarom was 
not aware of the fact. The manner, a century earlier, would have 
expressed itself in a curtsy.

"It is Mr. Temple Barholm, isn't it? " she inquired.

"Yes; it has been for the last few weeks," he answered, wondering why 
she seemed so in awe of him and wishing she didn't.

"I ought to apologize for being here," she began.

"Say, don't, please!" he interrupted. "What I feel is, that it ought 
to be up to me to apologize for being here."

She was really quite flurried and distressed.

"Oh, please, Mr. Temple Barholm!" she fluttered, proceeding to explain 
hurriedly, as though he without doubt understood the situation. "I 
should of course have gone away at once after the late Mr. Temple 
Barholm died, but--but I really had nowhere to go--and was kindly 
allowed to remain until about two months ago, when I went to make a 
visit. I fully intended to remove my little belongings before you 
arrived, but I was detained by illness and could not return until this 
morning to pack up. I understood you were in the park, and I 
remembered I had left my knitting-bag here." She glanced nervously 
about the room, and seemed to catch sight of something on a remote 
corner table. "Oh, there it is. May I take it?" she said, looking at 
him appealingly. "It was a kind present from a dear lost friend, and--
and--" She paused, seeing his puzzled and totally non-comprehending 
air. It was plainly the first moment it had dawned upon her that he 
did not know what she was talking about. She took a small, alarmed 
step toward him.

"Oh, I BEG your pardon," she exclaimed in delicate anguish. "I'm 
afraid you don't know who I am. Perhaps Mr. Palford forgot to mention 
me. Indeed, why should he mention me? There were so many more 
important things. I am a sort of distant--VERY distant relation of 
yours. My name is Alicia Temple Barholm."

Tembarom was relieved. But she actually hadn't made a move toward the 
knitting-bag. She seemed afraid to do it until he gave her permission. 
He walked over to the corner table and brought it to her, smiling 
broadly.

"Here it is," he said. "I'm glad you left it. I'm very happy to be 
acquainted with you, Miss Alicia."

He was glad just to see her looking up at him with her timid, refined, 
intensely feminine appeal. Why she vaguely brought back something that 
reminded him of Ann he could not have told. He knew nothing whatever 
of types early-Victorian or late.

He took her hand, evidently to her greatest possible amazement, and 
shook it heartily. She knew nothing whatever of the New York street 
type, and it made her gasp for breath, but naturally with an allayed 
terror.

"Gee!" he exclaimed whole-heartedly, "I'm glad to find out I've got a 
relation. I thought I hadn't one in the world. Won't you sit down?" He 
was drawing her toward his own easy-chair. But he really didn't know, 
she was agitatedly thinking. She really must tell him. He seemed so 
good tempered and--and DIFFERENT. She herself was not aware of the 
enormous significance which lay in that word "different." There must 
be no risk of her seeming to presume upon his lack of knowledge.

"It is MOST kind of you," she said with grateful emphasis, "but I 
mustn't sit down and detain you. I can explain in a few words--if I 
may."

He positively still held her hand in the oddest, natural, boyish way, 
and before she knew what she was doing he had made her take the chair-
-quite MADE her.

"Well, just sit down and explain," he said. "I wish to thunder you 
would detain me. Take all the time you like. I want to hear all about 
it--honest Injun."

There was a cushion in the chair, and as he talked, he pulled it out 
and began to arrange it behind her, still in the most natural and 
matter-of-fact way--so natural and matter-of-fact, indeed, that its 
very natural matter-of-factedness took her breath away.

"Is that fixed all right?" he asked.

Being a little lady, she could only accept his extraordinary 
friendliness with grateful appreciation, though she could not help 
fluttering a little in her bewilderment.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, Mr. Temple Barholm," she said.

He sat down on the square ottoman facing her, and leaned forward with 
an air of making a frank confession.

"Guess what I was thinking to myself two minutes before you came in? I 
was thinking, `Lord, I'm lonesome--just sick lonesome!' And then I 
opened my eyes and looked-- and there was a relation! Hully gee! I 
call that luck!"

"Dear me!" she said, shyly delighted. "DO you, Mr. Temple Barholm--
REALLY?"

Her formal little way of saying his name was like Ann's.

"Do I? I'm tickled to death. My mother died when I was ten, and I've 
never had any women kin-folks."

"Poor bo--" She had nearly said "Poor boy!" and only checked the 
familiarity just in time--" Poor Mr. Temple Barholm!"

"Say, what are we two to each other, anyhow?" He put it to her with 
great interest.

"It is a very distant relationship, if it is one at all," she 
answered. "You see, I was only a second cousin to the late Mr. Temple 
Barholm, and I had not really the SLIGHTEST claim upon him." She 
placed pathetic emphasis on the fact. "It was most generous of him to 
be so kind to me. When my poor father died and I was left quite 
penniless, he gave me a--a sort of home here."

"A sort of home?" Tembarom repeated.

"My father was a clergyman in VERY straitened circumstances. We had 
barely enough to live upon--barely. He could leave me nothing. It 
actually seemed as if I should have to starve --it did, indeed." There 
was a delicate quiver in her voice. "And though the late Mr. Temple 
Barholm had a great antipathy to ladies, he was so--so noble as to 
send word to me that there were a hundred and fifty rooms in his 
house, and that if I would keep out of his way I might live in one of 
them."

"That was noble," commented her distant relative.

"Oh, yes, indeed, especially when one considers how he disliked the 
opposite sex and what a recluse he was. He could not endure ladies. I 
scarcely ever saw him. My room was in quite a remote wing of the 
house, and I never went out if I knew he was in the park. I was most 
careful. And when he died of course I knew I must go away."

Tembarom was watching her almost tenderly.

"Where did you go?"

"To a kind clergyman in Shropshire who thought he might help me."

"How was he going to do it?"

She answered with an effort to steady a somewhat lowered and 
hesitating voice.

"There was near his parish a very nice--charity,"--her breath caught 
itself pathetically,--"some most comfortable almshouses for decayed 
gentlewomen. He thought he might be able to use his influence to get 
me into one." She paused and smiled, but her small, wrinkled hands 
held each other closely.

Tembarom looked away. He spoke as though to himself, and without 
knowing that he was thinking aloud.

"Almshouses!" he said. "Wouldn't that jolt you!" He turned on her 
again with a change to cheerful concern. "Say, that cushion of yours 
ain't comfortable. I 'm going to get you another one." He jumped up 
and, taking one from a sofa, began to arrange it behind her 
dexterously.

"But I mustn't trouble you any longer. I must go, really," she said, 
half rising nervously. He put a hand on her shoulder and made her sit 
again.

"Go where?" he said. "Just lean back on that cushion, Miss Alicia. For 
the next few minutes this is going to be MY funeral."

She was at once startled and uncomprehending. What an extraordinary 
expression! What COULD it mean?

"F--funeral?" she stammered.

Suddenly he seemed somehow to have changed. He looked as serious as 
though he was beginning to think out something all at once. What was 
he going to say?

"That's New York slang," he answered. "It means that I want to explain 
myself to you and ask a few questions."

"Certainly, certainly, Mr. Temple Barholm."

He leaned his back against the mantel, and went into the matter 
practically.

"First off, haven't you ANY folks?" Then, answering her puzzled look, 
added, "I mean relations."

Miss Alicia gently shook her head.

"No sisters or brothers or uncles or aunts or cousins?"

She shook her head again.

He hesitated a moment, putting his hands in his pockets and taking 
them out again awkwardly as he looked down at her.

"Now here's where I'm up against it," he went on. "I don't want to be 
too fresh or to butt in, but--didn't old Temple Barholm leave you ANY 
money?"

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "Dear me! no! I couldn't possibly EXPECT such 
a thing."

He gazed at her as though considering the situation. "Couldn't you?" 
he said.

There was an odd reflection in his eyes, and he seemed to consider her 
and the situation again.

"Well," he began after his pause, "what I want to know is what you 
expect ME to do."

There was no unkindness in his manner, in fact, quite the contrary, 
even when he uttered what seemed to Miss Alicia these awful, 
unwarranted words. As though she had forced herself into his presence 
to make demands upon his charity! They made her tremble and turn pale 
as she got up quickly, shocked and alarmed.

"Oh, nothing! nothing! nothing WHATEVER, Mr. Temple Barholm!" she 
exclaimed, her agitation doing its best to hide itself behind a fine 
little dignity. He saw in an instant that his style of putting it had 
been "'way off," that his ignorance had betrayed him, that she had 
misunderstood him altogether. He almost jumped at her.

"Oh, say, I didn't mean THAT!" he cried out. "For the Lord's sake! 
don't think I'm such a Tenderloin tough as to make a break like that! 
Not on your life!"

Never since her birth had a male creature looked at Miss Alicia with 
the appeal which showed itself in his eyes as he actually put his arm 
half around her shoulders, like a boy begging a favor from his mother 
or his aunt.

"What I meant was--" He broke off and began again quite anxiously, 
"say, just as a favor, will you sit down again and let me tell you 
what I did mean?"

It was that natural, warm, boyish way which overcame her utterly. It 
reminded her of the only boy she had ever really known, the one male 
creature who had allowed her to be fond of him. There was moisture in 
her eyes as she let him put her back into her chair. When he had done 
it, he sat down on the ottoman again and poured himself forth.
	
"You know what kind of a chap I am. No, you don't, either. You mayn't 
know a thing about me; and I want to tell you. I'm so different from 
everything you've ever known that I scare you. And no wonder. It's the 
way I've lived. If you knew, you'd understand what I was thinking of 
when I spoke just now. I've been cold, I've been hungry, I've walked 
the wet streets on my uppers. I know all about GOING WITHOUT. And do 
you expect that I am going to let a--a little thing like you--go away 
from here without friends and without money on the chance of getting 
into an almshouse that isn't vacant? Do you expect that of me? Not on 
your life! That was what I meant."

Miss Alicia quivered; the pale-purple ribbons on her little lace cap 
quivered.

"I haven't," she said, and the fine little dignity was piteous, "a 
SHADOW of a claim upon you." It was necessary for her to produce a 
pocket- handkerchief. He took it from her, and touched her eyes as 
softly as though she were a baby.

"Claim nothing!" he said. "I've got a claim on YOU. I'm going to stake 
one out right now." He got up and gesticulated, taking in the big room 
and its big furniture. "Look at all this! It fell on me like a 
thunderbolt. It's nearly knocked the life out of me. I'm like a lost 
cat on Broadway. You can't go away and leave me, Miss Alicia; it's 
your duty to stay. You've just GOT to stay to take care of me." He 
came over to her with a wheedling smile. "I never was taken care of in 
my life. Just be as noble to me as old Temple Barholm was to you: give 
me a sort of home."

If a little gentlewoman could stare, it might be said that Miss Alicia 
stared at him. She trembled with amazed emotion.

"Do you mean--" Despite all he had said, she scarcely dared to utter 
the words lest, after all, she might be taking for granted more than 
it was credible could be true. "Can you mean that if I stayed here 
with you it would make Temple Barholm seem more like HOME? Is it 
possible you--you mean THAT?"

"I mean just that very thing."

It was too much for her. Finely restrained little elderly gentlewoman 
as she was, she openly broke down under it.

"It can't be true!" she ejaculated shakily. "It isn't possible. It is 
too--too beautiful and kind. Do forgive me! I c-a-n't help it." She 
burst into tears.

She knew it was most stupidly wrong. She knew gentlemen did not like 
tears. Her father had told her that men never really forgave women who 
cried at them. And here, when her fate hung in the balance, she was 
not able to behave herself with feminine decorum.

Yet the new Mr. Temple Barholm took it in as matter-of- fact a manner 
as he seemed to take everything. He stood by her chair and soothed her 
in his dear New York voice.

"That's all right, Miss Alicia," he commented. "You cry as much as you 
want to, just so that you don't say no. You've been worried and you're 
tired. I'll tell you there's been two or three times lately when I 
should like to have cried myself if I'd known how. Say," he added with 
a sudden outburst of imagination, "I bet anything it's about time you 
had tea."

The suggestion was so entirely within the normal order of things that 
it made her feel steadier, and she was able to glance at the clock.

"A cup of tea would be refreshing," she said. "They will bring it in 
very soon, but before the servants come I must try to express--"

But before she could express anything further the tea appeared. 
Burrill and a footman brought it on splendid salvers, in massive urn 
and tea-pot, with chaste, sacrificial flame flickering, and wonderful, 
hot buttered and toasted things and wafers of bread and butter 
attendant. As they crossed the threshold, the sight of Miss Alicia's 
small form enthroned in their employer's chair was one so obviously 
unanticipated that Burrill made a step backward and the footman almost 
lost the firmness of his hold on the smaller tray. Each recovered 
himself in time, however, and not until the tea was arranged upon the 
table near the fire was any outward recognition of Miss Alicia's 
presence made. Then Burrill, pausing, made an announcement entirely 
without prejudice:

"I beg pardon, sir, but Higgins's cart has come for Miss Temple 
Barholm's box; he is asking when she wants the trap."

"She doesn't want it at all," answered Tembarom. "Carry her trunk up-
stairs again. She's not going away."

The lack of proper knowledge contained in the suggestion that Burrill 
should carry trunks upstairs caused Miss Alicia to quail in secret, 
but she spoke with outward calm.

"No, Burrill," she said. "I am not going away."

"Very good, Miss," Burrill replied, and with impressive civility he 
prepared to leave the room. Tembarom glanced at the tea-things.

"There's only one cup here," he said. "Bring one for me."

Burrill's expression might perhaps have been said to start slightly.

"Very good, sir," he said, and made his exit. Miss Alicia was 
fluttering again.

"That cup was really for you, Mr. Temple Barholm," she ventured.

"Well, now it's for you, and I've let him know it," replied Tembarom.

"Oh, PLEASE," she said in an outburst of feeling--"PLEASE let me tell 
you how GRATEFUL--how grateful I am!"

But he would not let her.

"If you do," he said, "I'll tell you how grateful _I_ am, and that'll 
be worse. No, that's all fixed up between us. It goes. We won't say 
any more about it."

He took the whole situation in that way, as though he was assuming no 
responsibility which was not the simple, inevitable result of their 
drifting across each other--as though it was only what any man would 
have done, even as though she was a sort of delightful, unexpected 
happening. He turned to the tray.

"Say, that looks all right, doesn't it?" he said. "Now you are here, I 
like the way it looks. I didn't yesterday."

Burrill himself brought the extra cup and saucer and plate. He wished 
to make sure that his senses had not deceived him. But there she sat 
who through years had existed discreetly in the most unconsidered 
rooms in an uninhabited wing, knowing better than to presume upon her 
privileges--there she sat with an awed and rapt face gazing up at this 
new outbreak into Temple Barholm's and "him joking and grinning as 
though he was as pleased as Punch."




CHAPTER XV


To employ the figure of Burrill, Tembarom was indeed "as pleased as 
Punch." He was one of the large number of men who, apart from all 
sentimental relations, are made particularly happy by the kindly 
society of women; who expand with quite unconscious rejoicing when a 
woman begins to take care of them in one way or another. The 
unconsciousness is a touching part of the condition. The feminine 
nearness supplies a primeval human need. The most complete of men, as 
well as the weaklings, feel it. It is a survival of days when warm 
arms held and protected, warm hands served, and affectionate voices 
soothed. An accomplished male servant may perform every domestic 
service perfectly, but the fact that he cannot be a woman leaves a 
sense of lack. An accustomed feminine warmth in the surrounding daily 
atmosphere has caused many a man to marry his housekeeper or even his 
cook, as circumstances prompted.

Tembarom had known no woman well until he had met Little Ann. His 
feeling for Mrs. Bowse herself had verged on affection, because he 
would have been fond of any woman of decent temper and kindliness, 
especially if she gave him opportunities to do friendly service. 
Little Ann had seemed the apotheosis of the feminine, the warmly 
helpful, the subtly supporting, the kind. She had been to him an 
amazement and a revelation. She had continually surprised him by 
revealing new characteristics which seemed to him nicer things than he 
had ever known before, but which, if he had been aware of it, were not 
really surprising at all. They were only the characteristics of a very 
nice young feminine creature.

The presence of Miss Alicia, with the long-belated fashion of her 
ringlets and her little cap, was delightful to him. He felt as though 
he would like to take her in his arms and hug her. He thought perhaps 
it was partly because she was a little like Ann, and kept repeating 
his name in Ann's formal little way. Her delicate terror of presuming 
or intruding he felt in its every shade. Mentally she touched him 
enormously. He wanted to make her feel that she need not be afraid of 
him in the least, that he liked her, that in his opinion she had more 
right in the house than he had. He was a little frightened lest 
through ignorance he should say things the wrong way, as he had said 
that thing about wanting to know what she expected him to do. What he 
ought to have said was, "You're not expecting me to let that sort of 
thing go on." It had made him sick when he saw what a break he'd made 
and that she thought he was sort of insulting her. The room seemed all 
right now that she was in it. Small and unassuming as she was, she 
seemed to make it less over-sized. He didn't so much mind the 
loftiness of the ceiling, the depth and size of the windows, and the 
walls covered with thousands of books he knew nothing whatever about. 
The innumerable books had been an oppressing feature. If he had been 
one of those "college guys" who never could get enough of books, what 
a "cinch" the place would have been for him--good as the Astor 
Library! He hadn't a word to say against books,--good Lord! no;--but 
even if he'd had the education and the time to read, he didn't believe 
he was naturally that kind, anyhow. You had to be "that kind" to know 
about books. He didn't suppose she-- meaning Miss Alicia--was learned 
enough to make you throw a fit. She didn't look that way, and he was 
mighty glad of it, because perhaps she wouldn't like him much if she 
was. It would worry her when she tried to talk to him and found out he 
didn't know a darned thing he ought to.

They'd get on together easier if they could just chin about common 
sort of every-day things. But though she didn't look like the Vassar 
sort, he guessed that she was not like himself: she had lived in 
libraries before, and books didn't frighten her. She'd been born among 
people who read lots of them and maybe could talk about them. That was 
why she somehow seemed to fit into the room. He was aware that, timid 
as she was and shabby as her neat dress looked, she fitted into the 
whole place, as he did not. She'd been a poor relative and had been 
afraid to death of old Temple Barholm, but she'd not been afraid of 
him because she wasn't his sort. She was a lady; that was what was the 
matter with her. It was what made things harder for her, too. It was 
what made her voice tremble when she'd tried to seem so contented and 
polite when she'd talked about going into one of those "decayed alms- 
houses." As if the old ladies were vegetables that had gone wrong, by 
gee! he thought.

He liked her little, modest, delicate old face and her curls and her 
little cap with the ribbons so much that he smiled with a twinkling 
eye every time he looked at her. He wanted to suggest something he 
thought would be mighty comfortable, but he was half afraid he might 
be asking her to do something which wasn't "her job," and it might 
hurt her feelings. But he ventured to hint at it.

"Has Burrill got to come back and pour that out?" he asked, with an 
awkward gesture toward the tea-tray. "Has he just GOT to?"

"Oh, no, unless you wish it," she answered. "Shall--may I give it to 
you?"

"Will you?" he exclaimed delightedly. "That would be fine. I shall 
feel like a regular Clarence."

She was going to sit at the table in a straight-backed chair, but he 
sprang at her.

"This big one is more comfortable," he said, and he dragged it forward 
and made her sit in it. "You ought to have a footstool," he added, and 
he got one and put it under her feet. "There, that's all right."

A footstool, as though she were a royal personage and he were a 
gentleman in waiting, only probably gentlemen in waiting did not jump 
about and look so pleased. The cheerful content of his boyish face 
when he himself sat down near the table was delightful.

"Now," he said, "we can ring up for the first act."

She filled the tea-pot and held it for a moment, and then set it down 
as though her feelings were too much for her.

"I feel as if I were in a dream," she quavered happily. "I do indeed."

"But it's a nice one, ain't it? " he answered. "I feel as if I was in 
two. Sitting here in this big room with all these fine things about 
me, and having afternoon tea with a relation! It just about suits me. 
It didn't feel like this yesterday, you bet your life!"

"Does it seem--nicer than yesterday?" she ventured. "Really, Mr. 
Temple Barholm?"

"Nicer!" he ejaculated. "It's got yesterday beaten to a frazzle."

It was beyond all belief. He was speaking as though the advantage, the 
relief, the happiness, were all on his side. She longed to enlighten 
him.

"But you can't realize what it is to me," she said gratefully, "to sit 
here, not terrified and homeless and--a beggar any more, with your 
kind face before me. Do forgive me for saying it. You have such a kind 
young face, Mr. Temple Barholm. And to have an easy-chair and 
cushions, and actually a buffet brought for my feet! " She suddenly 
recollected herself. "Oh, I mustn't let your tea get cold," she added, 
taking up the tea-pot apologetically. "Do you take cream and sugar, 
and is it to be one lump or two?"

"I take everything in sight," he replied joyously, "and two lumps, 
please."

She prepared the cup of tea with as delicate a care as though it had 
been a sacramental chalice, and when she handed it to him she smiled 
wistfully.

"No one but you ever thought of such a thing as bringing a buffet for 
my feet--no one except poor little Jem," she said, and her voice was 
wistful as well as her smile.

She was obviously unaware that she was introducing an entirely new 
acquaintance to him. Poor little Jem was supposed to be some one whose 
whole history he knew.

"Jem?" he repeated, carefully transferring a piece of hot buttered 
crumpet to his plate.

"Jem Temple Barholm," she answered. "I say little Jem because I 
remember him only as a child. I never saw him after he was eleven 
years old."

"Who was he?" he asked. The tone of her voice, and her manner of 
speaking made him feel that he wanted to hear something more.

She looked rather startled by his ignorance. "Have you-- have you 
never heard of him?" she inquired.

"No. Is he another distant relation?"

Her hesitation caused him to neglect his crumpet, to look up at her. 
He saw at once that she wore the air of a sensitive and beautifully 
mannered elderly lady who was afraid she had made a mistake and said 
something awkward.

"I am so sorry," she apologized. "Perhaps I ought not to have 
mentioned him."

"Why shouldn't he be mentioned?"

She was embarrassed. She evidently wished she had not spoken, but 
breeding demanded that she should ignore the awkwardness of the 
situation, if awkwardness existed.

"Of course--I hope your tea is quite as you like it--of course there 
is no real reason. But--shall I give you some more cream? No? You see, 
if he hadn't died, he--he would have inherited Temple Barholm."

Now he was interested. This was the other chap.

"Instead of me?" he asked, to make sure. She endeavored not to show 
embarrassment and told herself it didn't really matter--to a 
thoroughly nice person. But--

"He was the next of kin--before you. I'm so sorry I didn't know you 
hadn't heard of him. It seemed natural that Mr. Palford should have 
mentioned him."

"He did say that there was a young fellow who had died, but he didn't 
tell me about him. I guess I didn't ask. There were such a lot of 
other things. I'd like to hear about him. You say you knew him?"

"Only when he was a little fellow. Never after he grew up. Something 
happened which displeased my father. I'm afraid papa was very easily 
displeased. Mr. Temple Barholm disliked him, too. He would not have 
him at Temple Barholm."

"He hadn't much luck with his folks, had he?" remarked Tembarom.

"He had no luck with any one. I seemed to be the only person who was 
fond of him, and of course I didn't count."

"I bet you counted with him," said Tembarom.

"I do think I did. Both his parents died quite soon after he was born, 
and people who ought to have cared for him were rather jealous because 
he stood so near to Temple Barholm. If Mr. Temple Barholm had not been 
so eccentric and bitter, everything would have been done for him; but 
as it was, he seemed to belong to no one. When he came to the vicarage 
it used to make me so happy. He used to call me Aunt Alicia, and he 
had such pretty ways." She hesitated and looked quite tenderly at the 
tea-pot, a sort of shyness in her face. "I am sure," she burst forth, 
"I feel quite sure that you will understand and won't think it 
indelicate; but I had thought so often that I should like to have a 
little boy--if I had married," she added in hasty tribute to 
propriety.

Tembarom's eyes rested on her in a thoughtfulness openly touched with 
affection. He put out his hand and patted hers two or three times in 
encouraging sympathy.

"Say," he said frankly, "I just believe every woman that's the real 
thing'd like to have a little boy--or a little girl--or a little 
something or other. That's why pet cats and dogs have such a cinch of 
it. And there's men that's the same way. It's sort of nature."

"He had such a high spirit and such pretty ways," she said again. "One 
of his pretty ways was remembering to do little things to make one 
comfortable, like thinking of giving one a cushion or a buffet for 
one's feet. I noticed it so much because I had never seen boys or men 
wait upon women. My own dear papa was used to having women wait upon 
him--bring his slippers, you know, and give him the best chair. He 
didn't like Jem's ways. He said he liked a boy who was a boy and not 
an affected nincompoop. He wasn't really quite just." She paused 
regretfully and sighed as she looked back into a past doubtlessly 
enriched with many similar memories of "dear papa." "Poor Jem! Poor 
Jem!" she breathed softly.

Tembarom thought that she must have felt the boy's loss very much, 
almost as much as though she had really been his mother; perhaps more 
pathetically because she had not been his mother or anybody's mother. 
He could see what a good little mother she would have made, looking 
after her children and doing everything on earth to make them happy 
and comfortable, just the kind of mother Ann would make, though she 
had not Ann's steady wonder of a little head or her shrewd 
farsightedness. Jem would have been in luck if he had been her son. It 
was a darned pity he hadn't been. If he had, perhaps he would not have 
died young.

"Yes," he answered sympathetically, "it's hard for a young fellow to 
die. How old was he, anyhow? I don't know."

"Not much older than you are now. It was seven years ago. And if he 
had only died, poor dear! There are things so much worse than death."

"Worse!"

"Awful disgrace is worse," she faltered. She was plainly trying to 
keep moisture out of her eyes.

"Did he get into some bad mix-up, poor fellow?" If there had been 
anything like that, no wonder it broke her up to think of him.

It surely did break her up. She flushed emotionally.

"The cruel thing was that he didn't really do what he was accused of," 
she said.

"He didn't?"

"No; but he was a ruined man, and he went away to the Klondike because 
he could not stay in England. And he was killed--killed, poor boy! And 
afterward it was found out that he was innocent--too late."

"Gee!" Tembarom gasped, feeling hot and cold. "Could you beat that for 
rotten luck! What was he accused of?"

Miss Alicia leaned forward and spoke in a whisper. It was too dreadful 
to speak of aloud.

"Cheating at cards--a gentleman playing with gentlemen. You know what 
that means."

Tembarom grew hotter and colder. No wonder she looked that way, poor 
little thing!

"But,"--he hesitated before he spoke,--"but he wasn't that kind, was 
he? Of course he wasn't."

"No, no. But, you see,"--she hesitated herself here,--"everything 
looked so much against him. He had been rather wild." She dropped her 
voice even lower in making the admission.

Tembarom wondered how much she meant by that.

"He was so much in debt. He knew he was to be rich in the future, and 
he was poor just in those reckless young days when it seemed unfair. 
And he had played a great deal and had been very lucky. He was so 
lucky that sometimes his luck seemed uncanny. Men who had played with 
him were horrible about it afterward."

"They would be," put in Tembarom. " They'd be sore about it, and bring 
it up."

They both forgot their tea. Miss Alicia forgot everything as she 
poured forth her story in the manner of a woman who had been forced to 
keep silent and was glad to put her case into words. It was her case. 
To tell the truth of this forgotten wrong was again to offer 
justification of poor handsome Jem whom everybody seemed to have 
dropped talk of, and even preferred not to hear mentioned.

"There were such piteously cruel things about it," she went on. "He 
had fallen very much in love, and he meant to marry and settle down. 
Though we had not seen each other for years, he actually wrote to me 
and told me about it. His letter made me cry. He said I would 
understand and care about the thing which seemed to have changed 
everything and made him a new man. He was so sorry that he had not 
been better and more careful. He was going to try all over again. He 
was not going to play at all after this one evening when he was 
obliged to keep an engagement he had made months before to give his 
revenge to a man he had won a great deal of money from. The very night 
the awful thing happened he had told Lady Joan, before he went into 
the card-room, that this was to be his last game."

Tembarom had looked deeply interested from the first, but at her last 
words a new alertness added itself.

"Did you say Lady Joan? " he asked. " Who was Lady Joan?"

"She was the girl he was so much in love with. Her name was Lady Joan 
Fayre."

"Was she the daughter of the Countess of Mallowe?"

"Yes. Have you heard of her?"

He recalled Ann's reflective consideration of him before she had said, 
"She'll come after you." He replied now: "Some one spoke of her to me 
this morning. They say she's a beauty and as proud as Lucifer."

"She was, and she is yet, I believe. Poor Lady Joan--as well as poor 
Jem!"

"She didn't believe it, did she?" he put in hastily. "She didn't throw 
him down?"

"No one knew what happened between them afterward. She was in the 
card-room, looking on, when the awful thing took place."

She stopped, as though to go on was almost unbearable. She had been so 
overwhelmed by the past shame of it that even after the passing of 
years the anguish was a living thing. Her small hands clung hard 
together as they rested on the edge of the table. Tembarom waited in 
thrilled suspense. She spoke in a whisper again:

"He won a great deal of money--a great deal. He had that uncanny luck 
again, and of course people in the other rooms heard what was going 
on, and a number drifted in to look on. The man he had promised to 
give his revenge to almost showed signs of having to make an effort to 
conceal his irritation and disappointment. Of course, as he was a 
gentleman, he was as cool as possible; but just at the most exciting 
moment, the height of the game, Jem made a quick movement, and--and 
something fell out of his sleeve."

"Something," gasped Tembarom, "fell out of his sleeve!"

Miss Alicia's eyes overflowed as she nodded her beribboned little cap.

"It"--her voice was a sob of woe--"it was a marked card. The man he 
was playing against snatched it and held it up. And he laughed out 
loud."

"Holy cats! " burst from Tembarom; but the remarkable exclamation was 
one of genuine horror, and he turned pale, got up from his seat, and 
took two or three strides across the room, as though he could not sit 
still.

"Yes, he laughed--quite loudly," repeated Miss Alicia, "as if he had 
guessed it all the time. Papa heard the whole story from some one who 
was present."

Tembarom came back to her rather breathless.

"What in thunder did he do--Jem?" he asked.

She actually wrung her poor little hands.

"What could he do? There was a dead silence. People moved just a 
little nearer to the table and stood and stared, merely waiting. They 
say it was awful to see his face--awful. He sprang up and stood still, 
and slowly became as white as if he were dying before their eyes. Some 
one thought Lady Joan Fayre took a step toward him, but no one was 
quite sure. He never uttered one word, but walked out of the room and 
down the stairs and out of the house."

"But didn't he speak to the girl?"

"He didn't even look at her. He passed her by as if she were stone."

"What happened next?"

"He disappeared. No one knew where at first, and then there was a 
rumor that he had gone to the Klondike and had been killed there. And 
a year later--only a year! Oh, if he had only waited in England!--a 
worthless villain of a valet he had discharged for stealing met with 
an accident, and because he thought he was going to die, got horribly 
frightened, and confessed to the clergyman that he had tucked the card 
in poor Jem's sleeve himself just to pay him off. He said he did it on 
the chance that it would drop out where some one would see it, and a 
marked card dropping out of a man's sleeve anywhere would look black 
enough, whether he was playing or not. But poor Jem was in his grave, 
and no one seemed to care, though every one had been interested enough 
in the scandal. People talked about that for weeks."

Tembarom pulled at his collar excitedly.

"It makes me sort of strangle," he said. "You've got to stand your own 
bad luck, but to hear of a chap that's had to lie down and take the 
worst that could come to him and know it wasn't his--just KNOW it! And 
die before he's cleared! That knocks me out."

Almost every sentence he uttered had a mystical sound to Miss Alicia, 
but she knew how he was taking it, with what hot, young human sympathy 
and indignation. She loved the way he took it, and she loved the 
feeling in his next words

"And the girl--good Lord!--the girl?"

"I never met her, and I know very little of her; but she has never 
married."

"I'm glad of that," he said. "I'm darned glad of it. How could she?" 
Ann wouldn't, he knew. Ann would have gone to her grave unmarried. But 
she would have done things first to clear her man's name. Somehow she 
would have cleared him, if she'd had to fight tooth and nail till she 
was eighty.

"They say she has grown very bitter and haughty in her manner. I'm 
afraid Lady Mallowe is a very worldly woman. One hears they don't get 
on together, and that she is bitterly disappointed because her 
daughter has not made a good match. It appears that she might have 
made several, but she is so hard and cynical that men are afraid of 
her. I wish I had known her a little--if she really loved Jem."

Tembarom had thrust his hands into his pockets, and was standing deep 
in thought, looking at the huge bank of red coals in the fire-grate. 
Miss Alicia hastily wiped her eyes.

"Do excuse me," she said.

"I'll excuse you all right," he replied, still looking into the coals. 
"I guess I shouldn't excuse you as much if you didn't" He let her cry 
in her gentle way while he stared, lost in reflection.

"And if he hadn't fired that valet chap, he would be here with you 
now--instead of me. Instead of me," he repeated.

And Miss Alicia did not know what to say in reply. There seemed to be 
nothing which, with propriety and natural feeling, one could say.

"It makes me feel just fine to know I'm not going to have my dinner 
all by myself," he said to her before she left the library.

She had a way of blushing about things he noticed, when she was shy or 
moved or didn't know exactly what to say. Though she must have been 
sixty, she did it as though she were sixteen. And she did it when he 
said this, and looked as though suddenly she was in some sort of 
trouble.

"You are going to have dinner with me," he said, seeing that she 
hesitated--"dinner and breakfast and lunch and tea and supper and 
every old thing that goes. You can't turn me down after me staking out 
that claim."

"I'm afraid--" she said. "You see, I have lived such a secluded life. 
I scarcely ever left my rooms except to take a walk. I'm sure you 
understand. It would not have been necessary even if I could have 
afforded it, which I really couldn't--I'm afraid I have nothing-- 
quite suitable--for evening wear."

"You haven't!" he exclaimed gleefully. "I don't know what is suitable 
for evening wear, but I haven't got it either. Pearson told me so with 
tears in his eyes. It never was necessary for me either. I've got to 
get some things to quiet Pearson down, but until I do I've got to eat 
my dinner in a tweed cutaway; and what I've caught on to is that it's 
unsuitable enough to throw a man into jail. That little black dress 
you've got on and that little cap are just 'way out of sight, they're 
so becoming. Come down just like you are."

She felt a little as Pearson had felt when confronting his new 
employer's entire cheerfulness in face of a situation as exotically 
hopeless as the tweed cutaway, and nothing else by way of resource. 
But there was something so nice about him, something which was almost 
as though he was actually a gentleman, something which absolutely, if 
one could go so far, stood in the place of his being a gentleman. It 
was impossible to help liking him more and more at every queer speech 
he made. Still, there were of course things he did not realize, and 
perhaps one ought in kindness to give him a delicate hint.

"I'm afraid," she began quite apologetically. "I'm afraid that the 
servants, Burrill and the footmen, you know, will be--will think--"

"Say," he took her up, " let's give Burrill and the footmen the 
Willies out and out. If they can't stand it, they can write home to 
their mothers and tell 'em they've got to take 'em away. Burrill and 
the footmen needn't worry. They're suitable enough, and it's none of 
their funeral, anyhow."

He wasn't upset in the least. Miss Alicia, who, as a timid dependent 
either upon "poor dear papa" or Mr. Temple Barholm, had been secretly, 
in her sensitive, ladylike little way, afraid of superior servants all 
her life, knowing that they realized her utterly insignificant 
helplessness, and resented giving her attention because she was not 
able to show her appreciation of their services in the proper manner--
Miss Alicia saw that it had not occurred to him to endeavor to 
propitiate them in the least, because somehow it all seemed a joke to 
him, and he didn't care. After the first moment of being startled, she 
regarded him with a novel feeling, almost a kind of admiration. 
Tentatively she dared to wonder if there was not something even 
rather--rather ARISTOCRATIC in his utter indifference.

If be had been a duke, he would not have regarded the servants' point 
of view; it wouldn't have mattered what they thought. Perhaps, she 
hastily decided, he was like this because, though he was not a duke, 
boot-blacking in New York notwithstanding he was a Temple Barholm. 
There were few dukes as old of blood as a Temple Barholm. That must be 
it. She was relieved.

Whatsoever lay at the root of his being what he was and as he was, he 
somehow changed the aspect of things for her, and without doing 
anything but be himself, cleared the atmosphere of her dread of the 
surprise and mental reservations of the footmen and Burrill when she 
came down to dinner in her high-necked, much-cleaned, and much-
repaired black silk, and with no more distinguishing change in her 
toilet than a white lace cap instead of a black one, and with "poor 
dear mamma's" hair bracelet with the gold clasp on her wrist, and a 
weeping-willow made of "poor dear papa's" hair in a brooch at her 
collar.

It was so curious, though still "nice," but he did not offer her his 
arm when they were going into the dining-room, and he took hold of 
hers with his hand and affectionately half led, half pushed, her along 
with him as they went. And he himself drew back her chair for her at 
the end of the table opposite his own. He did not let a footman do it, 
and he stood behind it, talking in his cheerful way all the time, and 
he moved it to exactly the right place, and then actually bent down 
and looked under the table.

"Here," he said to the nearest man-servant, "where's there a 
footstool? Get one, please," in that odd, simple, almost aristocratic 
way. It was not a rude dictatorial way, but a casual way, as though he 
knew the man was there to do things, and he didn't expect any time to 
be wasted.

And it was he himself who arranged the footstool, making it 
comfortable for her, and then he went to his own chair at the head of 
the table and sat down, smiling at her joyfully across the glass and 
silver and flowers.

"Push that thing in the middle on one side, Burrill," he said. "It's 
too high. I can't see Miss Alicia."

Burrill found it difficult to believe the evidence of his hearing.

"The epergne, sir? " he inquired.

"Is that what it's called, an apern? That's a new one on me. Yes, 
that's what I mean. Push the apern over."

"Shall I remove it from the table, sir?" Burrill steeled himself to 
exact civility. Of what use to behave otherwise? There always remained 
the liberty to give notice if the worst came to the worst, though what 
the worst might eventually prove to be it required a lurid imagination 
to depict. The epergne was a beautiful thing of crystal and gold, a 
celebrated work of art, regarded as an exquisite possession. It was 
almost remarkable that Mr. Temple Barholm had not said, "Shove it on 
one side," but Burrill had been spared the poignant indignity of being 
required to "shove."

"Yes, suppose you do. It's a fine enough thing when it isn't in the 
way, but I've got to see you while I talk, Miss Alicia," said Mr. 
Temple Barholm. The episode of the epergne-- Burrill's expression, and 
the rigidly restrained mouths of Henry and James as the decoration was 
removed, leaving a painfully blank space of table-cloth until Burrill 
silently filled it with flowers in a low bowl--these things 
temporarily flurried Miss Alicia somewhat, but the pleased smile at 
the head of the table calmed even that trying moment.

Then what a delightful meal it was, to be sure! How entertaining and 
cheerful and full of interesting conversation! Miss Alicia had always 
admired what she reverently termed "conversation." She had read of the 
houses of brilliant people where they had it at table, at dinner and 
supper parties, and in drawing-rooms. The French, especially the 
French ladies, were brilliant conversationalists. They held "salons" 
in which the conversation was wonderful--Mme. de Stael and Mme. 
Roland, for instance; and in England, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, 
Sydney Smith, and Horace Walpole, and surely Miss Fanny Burney, and no 
doubt L. E. L., whose real name was Miss Letitia Elizabeth Landon--
what conversation they must have delighted their friends with and how 
instructive it must have been even to sit in the most obscure corner 
and listen!

Such gifted persons seemed to have been chosen by Providence to 
delight and inspire every one privileged to hear them. Such privileges 
had been omitted from the scheme of Miss Alicia's existence. She did 
not know, she would have felt it sacrilegious to admit it even if the 
fact had dawned upon her, that "dear papa" had been a heartlessly 
arrogant, utterly selfish, and tyrannical old blackguard of the most 
pronounced type. He had been of an absolute morality as far as social 
laws were concerned. He had written and delivered a denunciatory 
sermon a week, and had made unbearable by his ministrations the 
suffering hours and the last moments of his parishioners during the 
long years of his pastorate. When Miss Alicia, in reading records of 
the helpful relationship of the male progenitors of the Brontes, Jane 
Austen, Fanny Burney, and Mrs. Browning, was frequently reminded of 
him, she revealed a perception of which she was not aware. He had 
combined the virile qualities of all of them. Consequently, brilliancy 
of conversation at table had not been the attractive habit of the 
household; "poor dear papa" had confined himself to scathing criticism 
of the incompetence of females who could not teach their menials to 
"cook a dinner which was not a disgrace to any decent household." When 
not virulently aspersing the mutton, he was expressing his opinion of 
muddle-headed weakness which would permit household bills to mount in 
a manner which could only bring ruin and disaster upon a minister of 
the gospel who throughout a protracted career of usefulness had sapped 
his intellectual manhood in the useless effort to support in silly 
idleness a family of brainless and maddening fools. Miss Alicia had 
heard her character, her unsuccessful physical appearance, her mind, 
and her pitiful efforts at table-talk, described in detail with a 
choice of adjective and adverb which had broken into terrified 
fragments every atom of courage and will with which she had been 
sparsely dowered.

So, not having herself been gifted with conversational powers to begin 
with, and never having enjoyed the exhibition of such powers in 
others, her ideals had been high. She was not sure that Mr. Temple 
Barholm's fluent and cheerful talk could be with exactness termed 
"conversation." It was perhaps not sufficiently lofty and 
intellectual, and did not confine itself rigorously to one exalted 
subject. But how it did raise one's spirits and open up curious 
vistas! And how good tempered and humorous it was, even though 
sometimes the humor was a little bewildering! During the whole dinner 
there never occurred even one of those dreadful pauses in which dead 
silence fell, and one tried, like a frightened hen flying from side to 
side of a coop, to think of something to say which would not sound 
silly, but perhaps might divert attention from dangerous topics. She 
had often thought it would be so interesting to hear a Spaniard or a 
native Hindu talk about himself and his own country in English. 
Tembarom talked about New York and its people and atmosphere, and he 
did not know how foreign it all was. He described the streets--Fifth 
Avenue and Broadway and Sixth Avenue--and the street-cars and the 
elevated railroad, and the way "fellows" had to "hustle" "to put it 
over." He spoke of a boarding-house kept by a certain Mrs. Bowse, and 
a presidential campaign, and the election of a mayor, and a quick-
lunch counter, and when President Garfield had been assassinated, and 
a department store; and the electric lights, and the way he had of 
making a sort of picture of everything was really instructive and, 
well, fascinating. She felt as though she had been taken about the 
city in one of the vehicles the conductor of which described things 
through a megaphone.

Not that Mr. Temple Barholm suggested a megaphone, whatsoever that 
might be, but he merely made you feel as if you had seen things. Never 
had she been so entertained and enlightened. If she had been a 
beautiful girl, he could not have seemed more as though in amusing her 
he was also really pleasing himself. He was so very funny sometimes 
that she could not help laughing in a way which was almost unladylike, 
because she could not stop, and was obliged to put her handkerchief up 
to her face and wipe away actual tears of mirth.

Fancy laughing until you cried, and the servants looking on!

Once Burrill himself was obliged to turn hastily away, and twice she 
heard him severely reprove an overpowered young footman in a rapid 
undertone.

Tembarom at least felt that the unlifting heaviness of atmosphere 
which had surrounded him while enjoying the companionship of Mr. 
Palford was a thing of the past.

The thrilled interest, the surprise and delight of Miss Alicia would 
have stimulated a man in a comatose condition, it seemed to him. The 
little thing just loved every bit of it--she just "eat it up." She 
asked question after question, sometimes questions which would have 
made him shout with laughter if he had not been afraid of hurting her 
feelings. She knew as little of New York as he knew of Temple Barholm, 
and was, it made him grin to see, allured by it as by some illicit 
fascination. She did not know what to make of it, and sometimes she 
was obliged hastily to conceal a fear that it was a sort of Sodom and 
Gomorrah; but she wanted to hear more about it, and still more.

And she brightened up until she actually did not look frightened, and 
ate her dinner with an excellent appetite.

"I really never enjoyed a dinner so much in my life," she said when 
they went into the drawing-room to have their coffee. "It was the 
conversation which made it so delightful. Conversation is such a 
stimulating thing!"

She had almost decided that it was "conversation," or at least a 
wonderful substitute.

When she said good night to him and went beaming to bed, looking 
forward immensely to breakfast next morning, he watched her go up the 
staircase, feeling wonderfully normal and happy.

"Some of these nights, when she's used to me," he said as he stuffed 
tobacco into his last pipe in the library--"some of these nights I'm 
darned if I sha'n't catch hold of the sweet, little old thing and hug 
her in spite of myself. I sha'n't be able to help it." He lit his 
pipe, and puffed it even excitedly. "Lord!" he said, "there's some 
blame' fool going about the world right now that might have married 
her. And he'll never know what a break he made when he didn't."




CHAPTER XVI


A fugitive fine day which had strayed into the month from the 
approaching spring appeared the next morning, and Miss Alicia was 
uplifted by the enrapturing suggestion that she should join her new 
relative in taking a walk, in fact that it should be she who took him 
to walk and showed him some of his possessions. This, it had revealed 
itself to him, she could do in a special way of her own, because 
during her life at Temple Barholm she had felt it her duty to "try to 
do a little good" among the villagers. She and her long-dead mother 
and sister had of course been working adjuncts of the vicarage, and 
had numerous somewhat trying tasks to perform in the way of improving 
upon "dear papa's" harrying them into attending church, chivying the 
mothers into sending their children to Sunday-school, and being 
unsparing in severity of any conduct which might be construed into 
implying lack of appreciation of the vicar or respect for his 
eloquence.

It had been necessary for them as members of the vicar's family--
always, of course, without adding a sixpence to the household bills--
to supply bowls of nourishing broth and arrowroot to invalids and to 
bestow the aid and encouragement which result in a man of God's being 
regarded with affection and gratitude by his parishioners. Many a 
man's career in the church, "dear papa" had frequently observed, had 
been ruined by lack of intelligence and effort on the part of the 
female members of his family.

"No man could achieve proper results," he had said, "if he was 
hampered by the selfish influence and foolishness of his womenkind. 
Success in the church depends in one sense very much upon the conduct 
of a man's female relatives."

After the deaths of her mother and sister, Miss Alicia had toiled on 
patiently, fading day by day from a slim, plain, sweet-faced girl to a 
slim, even plainer and sweeter-faced middle-aged and at last elderly 
woman. She had by that time read aloud by bedsides a great many 
chapters in the Bible, had given a good many tracts, and bestowed as 
much arrowroot, barley-water, and beef-tea as she could possibly 
encompass without domestic disaster. She had given a large amount of 
conscientious, if not too intelligent, advice, and had never failed to 
preside over her Sunday-school class or at mothers' meetings. But her 
timid unimpressiveness had not aroused enthusiasm or awakened 
comprehension. "Miss Alicia," the cottage women said, "she's well 
meanin', but she's not one with a head." "She reminds me," one of them 
had summed her up, "of a hen that lays a' egg every day, but it's too 
small for a meal, and 'u'd never hatch into anythin'."

During her stay at Temple Barholm she had tentatively tried to do a 
little "parish work," but she had had nothing to give, and she was 
always afraid that if Mr. Temple Barholm found her out, he would be 
angry, because he would think she was presuming. She was aware that 
the villagers knew that she was an object of charity herself, and a 
person who was "a lady" and yet an object of charity was, so to speak, 
poaching upon their own legitimate preserves. The rector and his wife 
were rather grand people, and condescended to her greatly on the few 
occasions of their accidental meetings. She was neither smart nor 
influential enough to be considered as an asset.

It was she who "conversed" during their walk, and while she trotted by 
Tembarom's side looking more early-Victorian than ever in a neat, 
fringed mantle and a small black bonnet of a fashion long decently 
interred by a changing world, Tembarom had never seen anything 
resembling it in New York; but he liked it and her increasingly at 
every moment.

It was he who made her converse. He led her on by asking her questions 
and being greatly interested in every response she made. In fact, 
though he was quite unaware of the situation, she was creating for him 
such an atmosphere as he might have found in a book, if he had had the 
habit of books. Everything she told him was new and quaint and very 
often rather touching. She related anecdotes about herself and her 
poor little past without knowing she was doing it. Before they had 
talked an hour he had an astonishing clear idea of "poor dear papa" 
and "dearest Emily" and "poor darling mama" and existence at Rowcroft 
Vicarage. He "caught on to" the fact that though she was very much 
given to the word "dear,"--people were "dear," and so were things and 
places,--she never even by chance slipped into saying "dear Rowcroft," 
which she would certainly have done if she had ever spent a happy 
moment in it.

As she talked to him he realized that her simple accustomedness to 
English village life and all its accompaniments of county surroundings 
would teach him anything and everything he might want to know. Her 
obscurity had been surrounded by stately magnificence, with which she 
had become familiar without touching the merest outskirts of its 
privileges. She knew names and customs and families and things to be 
cultivated or avoided, and though she would be a little startled and 
much mystified by his total ignorance of all she had breathed in since 
her birth, he felt sure that she would not regard him either with 
private contempt or with a lessened liking because he was a vandal 
pure and simple.

And she had such a nice, little, old polite way of saying things. 
When, in passing a group of children, he failed to understand that 
their hasty bobbing up and down meant that they were doing obeisance 
to him as lord of the manor, she spoke with the prettiest apologetic 
courtesy.

"I'm sure you won't mind touching your hat when they make their little 
curtsies, or when a villager touches his forehead," she said.

"Good Lord! no," he said, starting. "Ought I? I didn't know they were 
doing it at me." And he turned round and made a handsome bow and 
grinned almost affectionately at the small, amazed party, first 
puzzling, and then delighting, them, because he looked so 
extraordinarily friendly. A gentleman who laughed at you like that 
ought to be equal to a miscellaneous distribution of pennies in the 
future, if not on the spot. They themselves grinned and chuckled and 
nudged one another, with stares and giggles.

"I am sorry to say that in a great many places the villagers are not 
nearly so respectful as they used to be," Miss Alicia explained. "In 
Rowcroft the children were very remiss about curtseying. It's quite 
sad. But Mr. Temple Barholm was very strict indeed in the matter of 
demanding proper respectfulness. He has turned men off their farms for 
incivility. The villagers of Temple Barholm have much better manners 
than some even a few miles away."

"Must I tip my hat to all of them?" he asked.

"If you please. It really seems kinder. You--you needn't quite lift 
it, as you did to the children just now. If you just touch the brim 
lightly with your hand in a sort of military salute--that is what they 
are accustomed to."

After they had passed through the village street she paused at the end 
of a short lane and looked up at him doubtfully.

"Would you--I wonder if you would like to go into a cottage," she 
said.

"Go into a cottage?" he asked. "What cottage? What for?"

He had not the remotest idea of any reason why he should go into a 
cottage inhabited by people who were entire strangers to him, and Miss 
Alicia felt a trifle awkward at having to explain anything so wholly 
natural.

"You see, they are your cottages, and the people are your tenants, 
and--"

"But perhaps they mightn't like it. It might make 'em mad," he argued. 
"If their water-pipes had busted, and they'd asked me to come and look 
at them or anything; but they don't know me yet. They might think I 
was Mr. Buttinski."

"I don't quite--" she began. "Buttinski is a foreign name; it sounds 
Russian or Polish. I'm afraid I don't quite understand why they should 
mistake you for him."

Then he laughed--a boyish shout of laughter which brought a cottager 
to the nearest window to peep over the pots of fuchsias and geraniums 
blooming profusely against the diamond panes.

"Say," he apologized, "don't be mad because I laughed. I'm laughing at 
myself as much as at anything. It's a way of saying that they might 
think I was 'butting in' too much-- pushing in where I wasn't asked. 
See? I said they might think I was Mr. Butt-in-ski! It's just a bit of 
fool slang. You're not mad, are you?"

"Oh, no!" she said. "Dear me! no. It is very funny, of course. I'm 
afraid I'm extremely ignorant about--about foreign humor" It seemed 
more delicate to say "foreign" than merely "American." But her gentle 
little countenance for a few seconds wore a baffled expression, and 
she said softly to herself, "Mr. Buttinski, Butt-in--to intrude. It 
sounds quite Polish; I think even more Polish than Russian."

He was afraid he would yell with glee, but he did not. Herculean 
effort enabled him to restrain his feelings, and present to her only 
an ordinary-sized smile.

"I shouldn't know one from the other," he said; "but if you say it 
sounds more Polish, I bet it does."

"Would you like to go into a cottage?" she inquired. "I think it might 
be as well. They will like the attention."

"Will they? Of course I'll go if you think that. What shall I say?" he 
asked somewhat anxiously.

"If you think the cottage looks clean, you might tell them so, and ask 
a few questions about things. And you must be sure to inquire about 
Susan Hibblethwaite's legs."

"What?" ejaculated Tembarom.

"Susan Hibblethwaite's legs," she replied in mild explanation. "Susan 
is Mr. Hibblethwaite's unmarried sister, and she has very bad legs. It 
is a thing one notices continually among village people, more 
especially the women, that they complain of what they call `bad legs.' 
I never quite know what they mean, whether it is rheumatism or 
something different, but the trouble is always spoken of as `bad legs' 
And they like you to inquire about them, so that they can tell you 
their symptoms."

"Why don't they get them cured?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. They take a good deal of medicine when they 
can afford it. I think they like to take it. They're very pleased when 
the doctor gives them `a bottle o' summat,' as they call it. Oh, I 
mustn't forget to tell you that most of them speak rather broad 
Lancashire."

"Shall I understand them?" Tembarom asked, anxious again. "Is it a 
sort of Dago talk?"

"It is the English the working-classes speak in Lancashire. 'Summat' 
means 'something.' 'Whoam' means 'home.' But I should think you would 
be very clever at understanding things."

"I'm scared stiff," said Tembarom, not in the least uncourageously; 
"but I want to go into a cottage and hear some of it. Which one shall 
we go into?"

There were several whitewashed cottages in the lane, each in its own 
bit of garden and behind its own hawthorn hedge, now bare and wholly 
unsuggestive of white blossoms and almond scent to the uninitiated. 
Miss Alicia hesitated a moment.

"We will go into this one, where the Hibblethwaites live," she 
decided. "They are quite clean, civil people. They have a naughty, 
queer, little crippled boy, but I suppose they can't keep him in order 
because he is an invalid. He's rather rude, I'm sorry to say, but he's 
rather sharp and clever, too. He seems to lie on his sofa and collect 
all the gossip of the village."

They went together up the bricked path, and Miss Alicia knocked at the 
low door with her knuckles. A stout, apple-faced woman opened it, 
looking a shade nervous.

"Good morning, Mrs. Hibblethwaite," said Miss Alicia in a kind but 
remote manner. "The new Mr. Temple Barholm has been kind enough to 
come to see you. It's very good of him to come so soon, isn't it?"

"It is that," Mrs. Hibblethwaite answered respectfully, looking him 
over. "Wilt tha coom in, sir?"

Tembarom accepted the invitation, feeling extremely awkward because 
Miss Alicia's initiatory comment upon his goodness in showing himself 
had "rattled" him. It had made him feel that he must appear 
condescending, and he had never condescended to any one in the whole 
course of his existence. He had, indeed, not even been condescended 
to. He had met with slanging and bullying, indifference and brutality 
of manner, but he had not met with condescension.

"I hope you're well, Mrs. Hibblethwaite," he answered. "You look it."

"I deceive ma looks a good bit, sir," she answered. "Mony a day ma 
legs is nigh as bad as Susan's."

"Tha 'rt jealous o' Susan's legs," barked out a sharp voice from a 
corner by the fire.

The room had a flagged floor, clean with recent scrubbing with 
sandstone; the whitewashed walls were decorated with pictures cut from 
illustrated papers; there was a big fireplace, and by it was a hard-
looking sofa covered with blue- and-white checked cotton stuff. A boy 
of about ten was lying on it, propped up with a pillow. He had a big 
head and a keen, ferret-eyed face, and just now was looking round the 
end of his sofa at the visitors. "Howd tha tongue, Tummas! " said his 
mother. "I wunnot howd it," Tummas answered. "Ma tongue's th' on'y 
thing about me as works right, an' I'm noan goin' to stop it."

"He's a young nowt," his mother explained; "but, he's a cripple, an' 
we conna do owt wi' him."

"Do not be rude, Thomas," said Miss Alicia, with dignity.

"Dunnot be rude thysen," replied Tummas. "I'm noan o' thy lad."

Tembarom walked over to the sofa.

"Say," he began with jocular intent, "you've got a grouch on, ain't 
you?"

Tummas turned on him eyes which bored. An analytical observer or a 
painter might have seen that he had a burning curiousness of look, a 
sort of investigatory fever of expression.

"I dunnot know what tha means," he said. "Happen tha'rt talkin' 
'Merican?"

"That's just what it is," admitted Tembarom. " What are you talking?"

"Lancashire," said Tummas. "Theer's some sense i' that."

Tembarom sat down near him. The boy turned over against his pillow and 
put his chin in the hollow of his palm and stared.

"I've wanted to see thee," he remarked. "I've made mother an' Aunt 
Susan an' feyther tell me every bit they've heared about thee in the 
village. Theer was a lot of it. Tha coom fro' 'Meriker?"

"Yes." Tembarom began vaguely to feel the demand in the burning 
curiosity.

"Gi' me that theer book," the boy said, pointing to a small table 
heaped with a miscellaneous jumble of things and standing not far from 
him. "It's a' atlas," he added as Tembarom gave it to him. "Yo' con 
find places in it." He turned the leaves until he found a map of the 
world. "Theer's 'Meriker," he said, pointing to the United States. 
"That theer's north and that theer's south. All th' real 'Merikens 
comes from the North, wheer New York is."

"I come from New York," said Tembarom.

"Tha wert born i' th' workhouse, tha run about th' streets i' rags, 
tha pretty nigh clemmed to death, tha blacked boots, tha sold 
newspapers, tha feyther was a common workin'-mon-- and now tha's coom 
into Temple Barholm an' sixty thousand a year."

"The last part's true all right," Tembarom owned, "but there's some 
mistakes in the first part. I wasn't born in the workhouse, and though 
I've been hungry enough, I never starved to death--if that's what 
`clemmed' means."

Tummas looked at once disappointed and somewhat incredulous.

"That's th' road they tell it i' th' village," he argued.

"Well, let them tell it that way if they like it best. That's not 
going to worry me," Tembarom replied uncombatively.

Tummas's eyes bored deeper into him.

"Does na tha care?" he demanded.

"What should I care for? Let every fellow enjoy himself his own way."

"Tha'rt not a bit like one o' th' gentry," said Tummas. "Tha'rt quite 
a common chap. Tha'rt as common as me, for aw tha foine clothes."

"People are common enough, anyhow," said Tembarom. "There's nothing 
much commoner, is there? There's millions of 'em everywhere -- 
billions of 'em. None of us need put on airs."

"Tha'rt as common as me," said Tummas, reflectively. "An' yet tha owns 
Temple Barholm an' aw that brass. I conna mak' out how th' loike 
happens."

"Neither can I; but it does all samee."

"It does na happen i' 'Meriker," exulted Tummas. "Everybody's equal 
theer."

"Rats!" ejaculated Tembarom. "What about multimillionaires?"

He forgot that the age of Tummas was ten. It was impossible not to 
forget it. He was, in fact, ten hundred, if those of his generation 
had been aware of the truth. But there he sat, having spent only a 
decade of his most recent incarnation in a whitewashed cottage, 
deprived of the use of his legs.

Miss Alicia, seeing that Tembarom was interested in the boy, entered 
into domestic conversation with Mrs. Hibblethwaite at the other side 
of the room. Mrs. Hibblethwaite was soon explaining the uncertainty of 
Susan's temper on wash-days, when it was necessary to depend on her 
legs.

"Can't you walk at all?" Tembarom asked. Tummas shook his head. "How 
long have you been lame?"

"Ever since I wur born. It's summat like rickets. I've been lyin' here 
aw my days. I look on at foak an' think 'em over. I've got to do 
summat. That's why I loike th' atlas. Little Ann Hutchinson gave it to 
me onct when she come to see her grandmother."

Tembarom sat upright.

"Do you know her?" he exclaimed.

"I know her best o' onybody in th' world. An' I loike her best."

"So do I," rashly admitted Tembarom.

"Tha does?" Tummas asked suspiciously. "Does she loike thee?"

"She says she does." He tried to say it with proper modesty.

"Well, if she says she does, she does. An' if she does, then yo an' 
me'll be friends." He stopped a moment, and seemed to be taking 
Tembarom in with thoroughness. "I could get a lot out o' thee," he 
said after the inspection.

"A lot of what?" Tembarom felt as though he would really like to hear.

"A lot o' things I want to know about. I wish I'd lived th' life tha's 
lived, clemmin' or no clemmin'. Tha's seen things goin' on every day 
o' thy loife."

"Well, yes, there's been plenty going on, plenty," Tembarom admitted.

"I've been lying here for ten year'," said Tummas, savagely. "An' I've 
had nowt i' th' world to do an' nowt to think on but what I could mak' 
foak tell me about th' village. But nowt happens but this chap gettin' 
drunk an' that chap deein' or losin' his place, or wenches gettin' 
married or havin' childer. I know everything that happens, but it's 
nowt but a lot o' women clackin'. If I'd not been a cripple, I'd ha' 
been at work for mony a year by now, 'arnin' money to save by an' go 
to 'Meriker."

"You seem to be sort of stuck on America. How's that?"

"What dost mean?"

"I mean you seem to like it."

"I dunnot loike it nor yet not loike it, but I've heard a bit more 
about it than I have about th' other places on th' map. Foak goes 
there to seek their fortune, an' it seems loike there's a good bit 
doin'."

"Do you like to read newspapers?" said Tembarom, inspired to his query 
by a recollection of the vision of things "doin'" in the Sunday Earth.

"Wheer'd I get papers from?" the boy asked testily. "Foak like us 
hasn't got th' brass for 'em."

"I'll bring you some New York papers," promised Tembarom, grinning a 
little in anticipation. "And we'll talk about the news that's in them. 
The Sunday Earth is full of pictures. I used to work on that paper 
myself."

"Tha did?" Tummas cried excitedly. "Did tha help to print it, or was 
it th' one tha sold i' th' streets?"

"I wrote some of the stuff in it."

"Wrote some of th' stuff in it? Wrote it thaself ? How could tha, a 
common chap like thee?" he asked, more excited still, his ferret eyes 
snapping.

"I don't know how I did it," Tembarom answered, with increased cheer 
and interest in the situation. " It wasn't high-brow sort of work."

Tummas leaned forward in his incredulous eagerness.

"Does tha mean that they paid thee for writin' it--paid thee?"

"I guess they wouldn't have done it if they'd been Lancashire, 
"Tembarom answered." But they hadn't much more sense than I had. They 
paid me twenty-five dollars a week-- that's five pounds."

"I dunnot believe thee," said Tummas, and leaned back on his pillow 
short of breath.

"I didn't believe it myself till I'd paid my board two weeks and 
bought a suit of clothes with it," was Tembarom's answer, and he 
chuckled as he made it.

But Tummas did believe it. This, after he had recovered from the 
shock, became evident. The curiosity in his face intensified itself; 
his eagerness was even vaguely tinged with something remotely 
resembling respect. It was not, however, respect for the money which 
had been earned, but for the store of things "doin'" which must have 
been required. It was impossible that this chap knew things undreamed 
of.

"Has tha ever been to th' Klondike ? " he asked after a long pause.

"No. I've never been out of New York."

Tummas seemed fretted and depressed.

"Eh, I'm sorry for that. I wished tha'd been to th' Klondike. I want 
to be towd about it," he sighed. He pulled the atlas toward him and 
found a place in it.

"That theer's Dawson," he announced. Tembarom saw that the region of 
the Klondike had been much studied. It was even rather faded with the 
frequent passage of searching fingers, as though it had been pored 
over with special curiosity.

"There's gowd-moines theer," revealed Tummas. "An' theer's welly newt 
else but snow an' ice. A young chap as set out fro' here to get theer 
froze to death on th' way."

"How did you get to hear about it?"

"Ann she browt me a paper onet." He dug under his pillow, and brought 
out a piece of newspaper, worn and frayed and cut with age and usage. 
"This heer's what's left of it." Tembarom saw that it was a fragment 
from an old American sheet and that a column was headed "The Rush for 
the Klondike."

"Why didna tha go theer?" demanded Tummas. He looked up from his 
fragment and asked his question with a sudden reflectiveness, as 
though a new and interesting aspect of things had presented itself to 
him.

"I had too much to do in New York," said Tembarom. "There's always 
something doing in New York, you know."

Tummas silently regarded him a moment or so.

"It's a pity tha didn't go," he said." Happen tha'd never ha' coom 
back."

Tembarom laughed the outright laugh.

"Thank you," he answered.

Tummas was still thinking the matter over and was not disturbed.

"I was na thinkin' o' thee," he said in an impersonal tone. "I was 
thinkin' o' t' other chap. If tha'd gon i'stead o' him, he'd ha' been 
here i'stead o' thee. Eh, but it's funny." And he drew a deep breath 
like a sigh having its birth in profundity of baffled thought.

Both he and his evident point of view were "funny" in the Lancashire 
sense, which does not imply humor, but strangeness and the 
unexplainable. Singular as the phrasing was, Tembarom knew what he 
meant, and that he was thinking of the oddity of chance. Tummas had 
obviously heard of "poor Jem" and had felt an interest in him.

"You're talking about Jem Temple Barholm I guess," he said. Perhaps 
the interest he himself had felt in the tragic story gave his voice a 
tone somewhat responsive to Tummas's own mood, for Tummas, after one 
more boring glance, let himself go. His interest in this special 
subject was, it revealed itself, a sort of obsession. The history of 
Jem Temple Barholm had been the one drama of his short life.

"Aye, I was thinkin' o' him," he said. "I should na ha' cared for th' 
Klondike so much but for him."

"But he went away from England when you were a baby."

"Th' last toime he coom to Temple Barholm wur when I wur just born. 
Foak said he coom to ax owd Temple Barholm if he'd help him to pay his 
debts, an' th' owd chap awmost kicked him out o' doors. Mother had 
just had me, an' she was weak an' poorly an' sittin' at th' door wi' 
me in her arms, an' he passed by an' saw her. He stopped an' axed her 
how she was doin'. An' when he was goin' away, he gave her a gold 
sovereign, an' he says, `Put it in th' savin's-bank for him, an' keep 
it theer till he's a big lad an' wants it.' It's been in th' savin's-
bank ever sin'. I've got a whole pound o' ma own out at interest. 
There's not many lads ha' got that."

"He must have been a good-natured fellow," commented Tembarom. "It was 
darned bad luck him going to the Klondike."

"It was good luck for thee," said Tummas, with resentment.

"Was it?" was Tembarom's unbiased reply. "Well, I guess it was, one 
way or the other. I'm not kicking, anyhow."

Tummas naturally did not know half he meant. He went on talking about 
Jem Temple Barholm, and as he talked his cheeks flushed and his eyes 
lighted.

"I would na spend that sovereign if I was starvin'. I'm going to leave 
it to Ann Hutchinson in ma will when I dee. I've axed questions about 
him reet and left ever sin' I can remember, but theer's nobody knows 
much. Mother says he was fine an' handsome, an' gentry through an' 
through. If he'd coom into th' property, he'd ha' coom to see me again 
I'll lay a shillin', because I'm a cripple an' I canna spend his 
sovereign. If he'd coom back from th' Klondike, happen he'd ha' towd 
me about it." He pulled the atlas toward him, and laid his thin finger 
on the rubbed spot. "He mun ha' been killed somewheer about here," he 
sighed. "Somewheer here. Eh, it's funny."

Tembarom watched him. There was something that rather gave you the 
"Willies" in the way this little cripple seemed to have taken to the 
dead man and worried along all these years thinking him over and 
asking questions and studying up the Klondike because he was killed 
there. It was because he'd made a kind of story of it. He'd enjoyed it 
in the way people enjoy stories in a newspaper. You always had to give 
'em a kind of story; you had to make a story even if you were telling 
about a milk-wagon running away. In newspaper offices you heard that 
was the secret of making good with what you wrote. Dish it up as if it 
was a sort of story.

He not infrequently arrived at astute enough conclusions concerning 
things. He had arrived at one now. Shut out even from the tame drama 
of village life, Tummas, born with an abnormal desire for action and a 
feverish curiosity, had hungered and thirsted for the story in any 
form whatsoever. He caught at fragments of happenings, and colored and 
dissected them for the satisfying of unfed cravings. The vanished man 
had been the one touch of pictorial form and color in his ten years of 
existence. Young and handsome and of the gentry, unfavored by the 
owner of the wealth which some day would be his own possession, 
stopping "gentry-way" at a cottage door to speak good-naturedly to a 
pale young mother, handing over the magnificence of a whole sovereign 
to be saved for a new-born child, going away to vaguely understood 
disgrace, leaving his own country to hide himself in distant lands, 
meeting death amid snow and ice and surrounded by gold-mines, leaving 
his empty place to be filled by a boot-black newsboy--true there was 
enough to lie and think over and to try to follow with the help of 
maps and excited questions.

"I wish I could ha' seen him," said Tummas. "I'd awmost gi' my 
sovereign to get a look at that picture in th' gallery at Temple 
Barholm."

"What picture?" Tembarom asked. "Is there a picture of him there?"

"There is na one o' him, but there's one o' a lad as deed two hundred 
year' ago as they say wur th' spit an' image on him when he wur a lad 
hissen. One o' th' owd servants towd mother it wur theer."

This was a natural stimulus to interest and curiosity.

"Which one is it? Jinks! I'd like to see it myself. Do you know which 
one it is? There's hundreds of them."

"No, I dunnot know," was Tummas's dispirited answer, "an' neither does 
mother. Th' woman as knew left when owd Temple Barholm deed."

"Tummas," broke in Mrs. Hibblethwaite from the other end of the room, 
to which she had returned after taking Miss Alicia out to complain 
about the copper in the "wash-'us'--" "Tummas, tha'st been talkin' 
like a magpie. Tha'rt a lot too bold an' ready wi' tha tongue. Th' 
gentry's noan comin' to see thee if tha clacks th' heads off theer 
showthers."

"I'm afraid he always does talk more than is good for him," said Miss 
Alicia. "He looks quite feverish."

"He has been talking to me about Jem Temple Barholm," explained 
Tembarom. "We've had a regular chin together. He thinks a heap of poor 
Jem."

Miss Alicia looked startled, and Mrs. Hibblethwaite was plainly 
flustered tremendously. She quite lost her temper.

"Eh," she exclaimed, "tha wants tha young yed knocked off, Tummas 
Hibblethwaite. He's fair daft about th' young gentleman as--as was 
killed. He axes questions mony a day till I'd give him th' stick if he 
wasna a cripple. He moithers me to death."

"I'll bring you some of those New York papers to look at," Tembarom 
said to the boy as he went away.

He walked back through the village to Temple Barholm, holding Miss 
Alicia's elbow in light, affectionate guidance and support, a little 
to her embarrassment and also a little to her delight. Until he had 
taken her into the dining-room the night before she had never seen 
such a thing done. There was no over- familiarity in the action. It 
merely seemed somehow to suggest liking and a wish to take care of 
her.

"That little fellow in the village," he said after a silence in which 
it occurred to her that he seemed thoughtful, "what a little freak he 
is! He's got an idea that there's a picture in the gallery that's said 
to look like Jem Temple Barholm when he was a boy. Have you ever heard 
anything about it? He says a servant told his mother it was there."

"Yes, there is one," Miss Alicia answered. "I sometimes go and look at 
it. But it makes me feel very sad. It is the handsome boy who was a 
page in the court of Charles II. He died in his teens. His name was 
Miles Hugo Charles James. Jem could see the likeness himself. 
Sometimes for a little joke I used to call him Miles Hugo."

"I believe I remember him," said Tembarom. "I believe I asked Palford 
his name. I must go and have a look at him again. He hadn't much 
better luck than the fellow that looked like him, dying as young as 
that."




CHAPTER XVII


Form, color, drama, and divers other advantages are necessary to the 
creation of an object of interest. Presenting to the world none of 
these assets, Miss Alicia had slipped through life a scarcely remarked 
unit. No little ghost of prettiness had attracted the wandering eye, 
no suggestion of agreeable or disagreeable power of self-assertion had 
arrested attention. There had been no hour in her life when she had 
expected to count as being of the slightest consequence. When she had 
knocked at the door of the study at Rowcroft Vicarage, and "dear papa" 
had exclaimed irritably: "Who is that? Who is that?" she had always 
replied, "It is only Alicia."

This being the case, her gradual awakening to the singularity of her 
new situation was mentally a process full of doubts and sometimes of 
alarmed bewilderments. If in her girlhood a curate, even a curate with 
prominent eyes and a receding chin, had proposed to her that she 
should face with him a future enriched by the prospect of being called 
upon to bring up a probable family of twelve on one hundred and fifty 
pounds a year, with both parish and rectory barking and snapping at 
her worn-down heels, she would have been sure to assert tenderly that 
she was afraid she was "not worthy."  This was the natural habit of 
her mind, and in the weeks which followed the foggy afternoon when 
Tembarom "staked out his claim" she dwelt often upon her unworthiness 
of the benefits bestowed upon her.

First the world below-stairs, then the village, and then the county 
itself awoke to the fact that the new Temple Temple Barholm had "taken 
her up." The first tendency of the world below-stairs was to resent 
the unwarranted uplifting of a person whom there had been a certain 
luxury in regarding with disdain and treating with scarcely veiled 
lack of consideration. To be able to do this with a person who, after 
all was said and done, was not one of the servant class, but a sort of 
lady of birth, was not unstimulating. And below-stairs the sense of 
personal rancor against "a 'anger-on" is strong. The meals served in 
Miss Alicia's remote sitting-room had been served at leisure, her tea 
had rarely been hot, and her modestly tinkled bell irregularly 
answered. Often her far from liberally supplied fire had gone out on 
chilly days, and she had been afraid to insist on its being relighted. 
Her sole defense against inattention would have been to complain to 
Mr. Temple Barholm, and when on one occasion a too obvious neglect had 
obliged her to gather her quaking being together in mere self- respect 
and say, "If this continues to occur, William, I shall be obliged to 
speak to Mr. Temple Barholm," William had so looked at her and so ill 
hid a secret smile that it had been almost tantamount to his saying, 
"I'd jolly well like to see you."

And now! Sitting at the end of the table opposite him, if you please! 
Walking here and walking there with him! Sitting in the library or 
wherever he was, with him talking and laughing and making as much of 
her as though she were an aunt with a fortune to leave, and with her 
making as free in talk as though at liberty to say anything that came 
into her head! Well, the beggar that had found himself on horseback 
was setting another one galloping alongside of him. In the midst of 
this natural resentment it was "a bit upsetting," as Burrill said, to 
find it dawning upon one that absolute exactness of ceremony was as 
much to be required for "her" as for "him." Miss Alicia had long felt 
secretly sure that she was spoken of as "her" in the servants' hall. 
That businesslike sharpness which Palford had observed in his client 
aided Tembarom always to see things without illusions. He knew that 
There was no particular reason why his army of servants should regard 
him for the present as much more than an intruder; but he also knew 
that if men and women had employment which was not made hard for them, 
and were well paid for doing, they were not anxious to lose it, and 
the man who paid their wages might give orders with some certainty of 
finding them obeyed. He was "sharp" in more ways than one. He observed 
shades he might have been expected to overlook. He observed a certain 
shade in the demeanor of the domestics when attending Miss Alicia, and 
it was a shade which marked a difference between service done for her 
and service done for himself. This was only at the outset, of course, 
when the secret resentment was felt; but he observed it, mere shade 
though it was.

He walked out into the hall after Burrill one morning. Not having yet 
adjusted himself to the rule that when one wished to speak to a man 
one rang a bell and called him back, fifty times if necessary, he 
walked after Burrill and stopped him.

"This is a pretty good place for servants, ain't it?" he said.

"Yes, sir."

"Good pay, good food, not too much to do?"

"Certainly, sir," Burrill replied, somewhat disturbed by a casualness 
which yet suggested a method of getting at something or other.

"You and the rest of them don't want to change, do you?"

"No, sir. There is no complaint whatever as far as I have heard."

"That's all right." Mr. Temple Barholm had put his hands into his 
pockets, and stood looking non-committal in a steady sort of way. 
"There's something I want the lot of you to get on to--right away. 
Miss Temple Barholm is going to stay here. She's got to have 
everything just as she wants it. She's got to be pleased. She's the 
lady of the house. See?"

"I hope, sir," Burrill said with professional dignity, "that Miss 
Temple Barholm has not had reason to express any dissatisfaction."

"I'm the one that would express it--quick," said Tembarom. "She 
wouldn't have time to get in first. I just wanted to make sure I 
shouldn't have to do it. The other fellows are under you. You've got a 
head on your shoulders, I guess. It's up to you to put 'em on to it. 
That's all."

"Thank you, sir," said Burrill.

His master went back into the library smiling genially, and Burrill 
stood still a moment or so gazing at the door he closed behind him.

Be sure the village, and finally circles not made up of cottagers, 
heard of this, howsoever mysteriously. Miss Alicia was not aware that 
the incident had occurred. She could not help observing, however, that 
the manners of the servants of the household curiously improved; also, 
when she passed through the village, that foreheads were touched 
without omission and the curtseys of playing children were prompt. 
When she dropped into a cottage, housewives polished off the seats of 
chairs vigorously before offering them, and symptoms and needs were 
explained with a respectful fluency which at times almost suggested 
that she might be relied on to use influence.

"I'm afraid I have done the village people injustice," she said 
leniently to Tembarom. "I used to think them so disrespectful and 
unappreciative. I dare say it was because I was so troubled myself. 
I'm afraid one's own troubles do sometimes make one unfair."

"Well, yours are over," said Tembarom. "And so are mine as long as you 
stay by me."

Never had Miss Alicia been to London. She had remained, as was 
demanded of her by her duty to dear papa, at Rowcroft, which was in 
Somersetshire. She had only dreamed of London, and had had fifty-five 
years of dreaming. She had read of great functions, and seen pictures 
of some of them in the illustrated papers. She had loyally endeavored 
to follow at a distance the doings of her Majesty,-- she always spoke 
of Queen Victoria reverentially as "her Majesty,"--she rejoiced when a 
prince or a princess was born or christened or married, and believed 
that a "drawing-room" was the most awe-inspiring, brilliant, and 
important function in the civilized world, scarcely second to 
Parliament. London--no one but herself or an elderly gentlewoman of 
her type could have told any one the nature of her thoughts of London.

Let, therefore, those of vivid imagination make an effort to depict to 
themselves the effect produced upon her mind by Tembarom's casually 
suggesting at breakfast one morning that he thought it might be rather 
a good "stunt" for them to run up to London. By mere good fortune she 
escaped dropping the egg she had just taken from the egg-stand.

"London!" she said. "Oh!"

"Pearson thinks it would be a first-rate idea," he explained. "I guess 
he thinks that if he can get me into the swell clothing stores he can 
fix me up as I ought to be fixed, if I'm not going to disgrace him. I 
should hate to disgrace Pearson. Then he can see his girl, too, and I 
want him to see his girl."

"Is--Pearson--engaged?" she asked; but the thought which was repeating 
itself aloud to her was "London! London!"

"He calls it 'keeping company,' or 'walking out,'" Tembarom answered. 
"She's a nice girl, and he's dead stuck on her. Will you go with me, 
Miss Alicia?"

"Dear Mr. Temple Barholm," she fluttered, "to visit London would be a 
privilege I never dreamed it would be my great fortune to enjoy--
never." 	

"Good business!" he ejaculated delightedly. "That's luck for me. It 
gave me the blues--what I saw of it. But if you are with me, I'll bet 
it'll be as different as afternoon tea was after I got hold of you. 
When shall we start? To-morrow?"

Her sixteen-year-old blush repeated itself.

"I feel so sorry. It seems almost undignified to mention it, but--I 
fear I should not look smart enough for London. My wardrobe is so very 
limited. I mustn't," she added with a sweet effort at humor, "do the 
new Mr. Temple Barholm discredit by looking unfashionable."

He was more delighted than before.

"Say," he broke out, "I'll tell you what we'll do: we'll go together 
and buy everything 'suitable' in sight. The pair of us'll come back 
here as suitable as Burrill and Pearson. We'll paint the town red."

He actually meant it. He was like a boy with a new game. His sense of 
the dreariness of London had disappeared. He knew what it would be 
like with Miss Alicia as a companion. He had really seen nothing of 
the place himself, and he would find out every darned thing worth 
looking at, and take her to see it-- theaters, shops, every show in 
town. When they left the breakfast-table it was agreed upon that they 
would make the journey the following day.

He did not openly refer to the fact that among the plans for their 
round of festivities he had laid out for himself the attending to one 
or two practical points. He was going to see Palford, and he had made 
an appointment with a celebrated nerve specialist. He did not discuss 
this for several reasons. One of them was that his summing up of Miss 
Alicia was that she had had trouble enough to think over all her 
little life, and the thing for a fellow to do for her, if he liked 
her, was to give her a good time and make her feel as if she was at a 
picnic right straight along--not let her even hear of a darned thing 
that might worry her. He had said comparatively little to her about 
Strangeways. His first mention of his condition had obviously made her 
somewhat nervous, though she had been full of kindly interest. She was 
in private not sorry that it was felt better that she should not 
disturb the patient by a visit to his room. The abnormality of his 
condition seemed just slightly alarming to her.

"But, oh, how good, how charitable, you are!" she had murmured.

"Good," he answered, the devout admiration of her tone rather puzzling 
him. "It ain't that. I just want to see the thing through. I dropped 
into it by accident, and then I dropped into this by accident, and 
that made it as easy as falling off a log. I believe he's going to get 
well sometime. I guess I kind of like him because he holds on to me so 
and believes I'm just It. Maybe it's because I'm stuck on myself."

His visit to Strangeways was longer than usual that afternoon. He 
explained the situation to him so that he understood it sufficiently 
not to seem alarmed by it. This was one of the advances Tembarom had 
noticed recently, that he was less easily terrified, and seemed 
occasionally to see facts in their proper relation to one another. 
Sometimes the experiments tried on him were successful, sometimes they 
were not, but he never resented them.

"You are trying to help me to remember," he said once. "I think you 
will sometime."

"Sure I will," said Tembarom. "You're better every day."

Pearson was to remain in charge of him until toward the end of the 
London visit. Then he was to run up for a couple of days, leaving in 
his place a young footman to whom the invalid had become accustomed.

The visit to London was to Miss Alicia a period of enraptured 
delirium. The beautiful hotel in which she was established, the 
afternoons at the Tower, the National Gallery, the British Museum, the 
evenings at the play, during which one saw the most brilliant and 
distinguished actors, the mornings in the shops, attended as though 
one were a person of fortune, what could be said of them? And the 
sacred day on which she saw her Majesty drive slowly by, glittering 
helmets, splendid uniforms, waving plumes, and clanking swords 
accompanying and guarding her, and gentlemen standing still with their 
hats off, and everybody looking after her with that natural touch of 
awe which royalty properly inspires! Miss Alicia's heart beat rapidly 
in her breast, and she involuntarily made a curtsey as the great lady 
in mourning drove by. She lost no shade of any flavor of ecstatic 
pleasure in anything, and was to Tembarom, who knew nothing about 
shades and flavors, indeed a touching and endearing thing.

He had never got so much out of anything. If Ann had just been there, 
well, that would have been the limit. Ann was on her way to America 
now, and she wouldn't write to him or let him write to her. He had to 
make a fair trial of it. He could find out only in that way, she said. 
It was not to be denied that the youth and longing in him gave him 
some half-hours to face which made him shut himself up in his room and 
stare hard at the wall, folding his arms tightly as he tilted his 
chair.

There arrived a day when one of the most exalted shops in Bond Street 
was invaded by an American young man of a bearing the peculiarities of 
which were subtly combined with a remotely suggested air of knowing 
that if he could find what he wanted, there was no doubt as to his 
power to get it. What he wanted was not usual, and was explained with 
a frankness which might have seemed unsophisticated, but, singularly, 
did not. He wanted to have a private talk with some feminine power in 
charge, and she must be some one who knew exactly what ladies ought to 
have.

Being shown into a room, such a feminine power was brought to him and 
placed at his service. She was a middle-aged person, wearing 
beautifully fitted garments and having an observant eye and a 
dignified suavity of manner. She looked the young American over with a 
swift inclusion of all possibilities. He was by this time wearing 
extremely well-fitting garments himself, but she was at once aware 
that his tailored perfection was a new thing to him.

He went to his point without apologetic explanation.

"You know all the things any kind of a lady ought to have," he said--
"all the things that would make any one feel comfortable and as if 
they'd got plenty? Useful things as well as ornamental ones?"

"Yes, sir," she replied, with rising interest. "I have been in the 
establishment thirty years."

"Good business," Tembarom replied. Already he felt relieved. "I've got 
a relation, a little old lady, and I want her to fix herself out just 
as she ought to be fixed. Now, what I'm afraid of is that she won't 
get everything she ought to unless I manage it for her somehow 
beforehand. She's got into a habit of-- well, economizing. Now the 
time's past for that, and I want her to get everything a woman like 
you would know she really wants, so that she could look her best, 
living in a big country house, with a relation that thinks a lot of 
her."

He paused a second or so, and then went further, fixing a clear and 
astonishingly shrewd eye upon the head of the department listening to 
him.

"I found out this was a high-class place," he explained. "I made sure 
of that before I came in. In a place that was second or third class 
there might be people who'd think they'd caught a 'sucker' that would 
take anything that was unloaded on to him, because he didn't know. The 
things are for Miss Temple Barholm, and she DOES know. I shall ask her 
to come here herself to-morrow morning, and I want you to take care of 
her, and show her the best you've got that's suitable." He seemed to 
like the word; he repeated it--"Suitable," and quickly restrained a 
sudden, unexplainable, wide smile.

The attending lady's name was Mrs. Mellish. Thirty years' experience 
had taught her many lessons. She was a hard woman and a sharp one, but 
beneath her sharp hardness lay a suppressed sense of the perfect in 
taste. To have a customer with unchecked resources put into her hands 
to do her best by was an inspiring incident. A quiver of enlightenment 
had crossed her countenance when she had heard the name of Temple 
Barholm. She had a newspaper knowledge of the odd Temple Barholm 
story. This was the next of kin who had blacked boots in New York, and 
the obvious probability that he was a fool, if it had taken the form 
of a hope, had been promptly nipped in the bud. The type from which he 
was furthest removed was that of the fortune-intoxicated young man who 
could be obsequiously flattered into buying anything which cost money 
enough.

"Not a thing's to be unloaded on her that she doesn't like," he added, 
"and she's not a girl that goes to pink teas. She's a--a--lady --and 
not young--and used to quiet ways."

The evidently New York word "unload" revealed him to his hearer as by 
a flash, though she had never heard it before.

"We have exactly the things which will be suitable, sir," she said. "I 
think I quite understand." Tembarom smiled again, and, thanking her, 
went away still smiling, because he knew Miss Alicia was safe.

There were of course difficulties in the way of persuading Miss Alicia 
that her duty lay in the direction of spending mornings in the most 
sumptuous of Bond Street shops, ordering for herself an entire 
wardrobe on a basis of unlimited resources. Tembarom was called upon 
to employ the most adroitly subtle reasoning, entirely founded on his 
"claim" and her affectionate willingness to give him pleasure.

He really made love to her in the way a joyful young fellow can make 
love to his mother or his nicest aunt. He made her feel that she 
counted for so much in his scheme of enjoyment that to do as he asked 
would be to add a glow to it.

"And they won't spoil you," he said. "The Mellish woman that's the 
boss has promised that. I wouldn't have you spoiled for a farm," he 
added heartily.

And he spoke the truth. If he had been told that he was cherishing her 
type as though it were a priceless bit of old Saxe, he would have 
stared blankly and made a jocular remark. But it was exactly this 
which he actually clung to and adored. He even had a second private 
interview with Mrs. Mellish, and asked her to "keep her as much like 
she was" as was possible.

Stimulated by the suppressed touch of artistic fervor, Mrs. Mellish 
guessed at something even before her client arrived; but the moment 
she entered the showroom all was revealed to her at once. The very 
hint of flush and tremor in Miss Alicia's manner was an assistance. 
Surrounded by a small and extremely select court composed of Mrs. 
Mellish and two low-voiced, deft-handed assistants, it was with a fine 
little effort that Miss Alicia restrained herself from exterior 
suggestion of her feeling that there was something almost impious in 
thinking of possessing the exquisite stuffs and shades displayed to 
her in flowing beauty on every side. Such linens and batistes and 
laces, such delicate, faint grays and lavenders and soft-falling 
blacks! If she had been capable of approaching the thought, such 
luxury might even have hinted at guilty splendor.

Mrs. Mellish became possessed of an "idea" To create the costume of an 
exquisite, early-Victorian old lady in a play done for the most 
fashionable and popular actor manager of the most "drawing-room" of 
West End theaters, where one saw royalty in the royal box, with 
bouquets on every side, the orchestra breaking off in the middle of a 
strain to play "God Save the Queen," and the audience standing up as 
the royal party came in -- that was her idea. She carried it out, 
steering Miss Alicia with finished tact through the shoals and rapids 
of her timidities. And the result was wonderful; color,--or, rather, 
shades, -- textures, and forms were made subservient by real genius. 
Miss Alicia -- as she was turned out when the wardrobe was complete -- 
might have been an elderly little duchess of sweet and modest good 
taste in the dress of forty years earlier. It took time, but some of 
the things were prepared as though by magic, and the night the first 
boxes were delivered at the hotel Miss Alicia, on going to bed, in 
kneeling down to her devotions prayed fervently that she might not be 
"led astray by fleshly desires," and that her gratitude might be 
acceptable, and not stained by a too great joy "in the things which 
corrupt."

The very next day occurred Rose. She was the young person to whom 
Pearson was engaged, and it appeared that if Miss Alicia would make up 
her mind to oblige Mr. Temple Barholm by allowing the girl to come to 
her as lady's-maid, even if only temporarily, she would be doing a 
most kind and charitable thing. She was a very nice, well-behaved 
girl, and unfortunately she had felt herself forced to leave her place 
because her mistress's husband was not at all a nice man. He had shown 
himself so far from nice that Pearson had been most unhappy, and Rose 
had been compelled to give notice, though she had no other situation 
in prospect and her mother was dependent on her. This was without 
doubt not Mr. Temple Barholm's exact phrasing of the story, but it was 
what Miss Alicia gathered, and what moved her deeply. It was so cruel 
and so sad! That wicked man! That poor girl! She had never had a 
lady's-maid, and might be rather at a loss at first, but it was only 
like Mr. Temple Barholm's kind heart to suggest such a way of helping 
the girl and poor Pearson.

So occurred Rose, a pretty creature whose blue eyes suppressed 
grateful tears as she took Miss Alicia's instructions during their 
first interview. And Pearson arrived the same night, and, waiting upon 
Tembarom, stood before him, and with perfect respect, choked.

"Might I thank you, if you please, sir," he began, recovering himself-
-"might I thank you and say how grateful--Rose and me, sir--" and 
choked again.

"I told you it would be all right," answered Tembarom. "It is all 
right. I wish I was fixed like you are, Pearson."

When the Countess of Mallowe called, Rose had just dressed Miss Alicia 
for the afternoon in one of the most perfect of the evolutions of Mrs. 
Mellish's idea. It was a definite creation, as even Lady Mallowe 
detected the moment her eyes fell upon it. Its hue was dull, soft 
gray, and how it managed to concede points and elude suggestions of 
modes interred, and yet remain what it did remain, and accord 
perfectly with the side ringlets and the lace cap of Mechlin, only 
dressmaking genius could have explained. The mere wearing of it gave 
Miss Alicia a support and courage which she could scarcely believe to 
be her own. When the cards of Lady Mallowe and Lady Joan Fayre were 
brought up to her, she was absolutely not really frightened; a little 
nervous for a moment, perhaps, but frightened, no. A few weeks of 
relief and ease, of cheery consideration, of perfectly good treatment 
and good food and good clothes, had begun a rebuilding of the actual 
cells of her.

Lady Mallowe entered alone. She was a handsome person, and 
astonishingly young when considered as the mother of a daughter of 
twenty-seven. She wore a white veil, and looked pink through it. She 
swept into the room, and shook hands with Miss Alicia with delicate 
warmth.

"We do not really know each other at all," she said. "It is 
disgraceful how little relatives see of one another."

The disgrace, if measured by the extent of the relationship, was not 
immense. Perhaps this thought flickered across Miss Alicia's mind 
among a number of other things. She had heard "dear papa" on Lady 
Mallowe, and, howsoever lacking in graces, the vicar of Rowcroft had 
not lacked an acrid shrewdness. Miss Alicia's sensitively self-
accusing soul shrank before a hasty realization of the fact that if he 
had been present when the cards were brought up, he would, on glancing 
over them through his spectacles, have jerked out immediately: "What 
does the woman want? She's come to get something." Miss Alicia wished 
she had not been so immediately beset by this mental vision.

Lady Mallowe had come for something. She had come to be amiable to 
Miss Temple Barholm and to establish relations with her.

"Joan should have been here to meet me," she explained. "Her 
dressmaker is keeping her, of course. She will be so annoyed. She 
wanted very much to come with me."

It was further revealed that she might arrive at any moment, which 
gave Miss Alicia an opportunity to express, with pretty grace, the 
hope that she would, and her trust that she was quite well.

"She is always well," Lady Mallowe returned. "And she is of course as 
interested as we all are in this romantic thing. It is perfectly 
delicious, like a three- volumed novel."

"It is romantic," said Miss Alicia, wondering how much her visitor 
knew or thought she knew, and what circumstances would present 
themselves to her as delicious.

"Of course one has heard only the usual talk one always hears when 
everybody is chattering about a thing," Lady Mallowe replied, with a 
propitiating smile. "No one really knows what is true and what isn't. 
But it is nice to notice that all the gossip speaks so well of him. No 
one seems to pretend that he is anything but extremely nice himself, 
notwithstanding his disadvantages."

She kept a fine hazel eye, surrounded by a line which artistically 
represented itself as black lashes, steadily resting on Miss Alicia as 
she said the last words.

"He is," said Miss Alicia, with gentle firmness, "nicer than I had 
ever imagined any young man could be--far nicer."

Lady Mallowe's glance round the luxurious private sitting-room and 
over the perfect "idea" of Mrs. Mellish was so swift as to be almost 
imperceptible.

"How delightful!" she said. "He must be unusually agreeable, or you 
would not have consented to stay and take care of him."

"I cannot tell you how HAPPY I am to have been asked to stay with him, 
Lady Mallowe," Miss Alicia replied, the gentle firmness becoming a 
soft dignity.

"Which of course shows all the more how attractive he must be. And in 
view of the past lack of advantages, what a help you can be to him! It 
is quite wonderful for him to have a relative at hand who is an 
Englishwoman and familiar with things he will feel he must learn."

A perhaps singular truth is that but for the unmistakable nature of 
the surroundings she quickly took in the significance of, and but for 
the perfection of the carrying out of Mrs. Mellish's delightful idea, 
it is more than probable that her lady-ship's manner of approaching 
Miss Alicia and certain subjects on which she desired enlightenment 
would have been much more direct and much less propitiatory. 
Extraordinary as it was, "the creature"--she thought of Tembarom as 
"the creature"-- had plainly been so pleased with the chance of being 
properly coached that he had put everything, so to speak, in the 
little old woman's hands. She had got a hold upon him. It was quite 
likely that to regard her as a definite factor would only be the part 
of the merest discretion. She was evidently quite in love with him in 
her early-Victorian, spinster way. One had to be prudent with women 
like that who had got hold of a male creature for the first time in 
their lives, and were almost unaware of their own power. Their very 
unconsciousness made them a dangerous influence.

With a masterly review of these facts in her mind Lady Mallowe went on 
with a fluent and pleasant talk, through the medium of which she 
managed to convey a large number of things Miss Alicia was far from 
being clever enough to realize she was talking about. She lightly 
waved wings of suggestion across the scene, she dropped infinitesimal 
seeds in passing, she left faint echoes behind her-- the kind of 
echoes one would find oneself listening to and trying to hear as 
definitely formed sounds. She had been balancing herself on a 
precarious platform of rank and title, unsupported by any sordid 
foundation of a solid nature, through a lifetime spent in London. She 
had learned to catch fiercely at straws of chance, and bitterly to 
regret the floating past of the slightest, which had made of her a 
finished product of her kind. She talked lightly, and was sometimes 
almost witty. To her hearer she seemed to know every brilliant 
personage and to be familiar with every dazzling thing. She knew well 
what social habits and customs meant, what their value, or lack of 
value, was. There were customs, she implied skilfully, so established 
by time that it was impossible to ignore them. Relationships, for 
instance, stood for so much that was fine in England that one was 
sometimes quite touched by the far-reachingness of family loyalty. The 
head of the house of a great estate represented a certain power in the 
matter of upholding the dignity of his possessions, of caring for his 
tenantry, of standing for proper hospitality and friendly family 
feeling. It was quite beautiful as one often saw it. Throughout the 
talk there were several references to Joan, who really must come in 
shortly, which were very interesting to Miss Alicia. Lady Joan, Miss 
Alicia heard casually, was a great beauty. Her perfection and her 
extreme cleverness had made her perhaps a trifle difficile. She had 
not done--Lady Mallowe put it with a lightness of phrasing which was 
delicacy itself-- what she might have done, with every exalted 
advantage, so many times. She had a profound nature. Here Lady Mallowe 
waved away, as it were, a ghost of a sigh. Since Miss Temple Barholm 
was a relative, she had no doubt heard of the unfortunate, the very 
sad incident which her mother sometimes feared prejudiced the girl 
even yet.

"You mean--poor Jem!" broke forth involuntarily from Miss Alicia's 
lips. Lady Mallowe stared a little.

"Do you call him that?" she asked. "Did you know him, then?"

"I loved him," answered Miss Alicia, winking her eyes to keep back the 
moisture in them, "though it was only when he was a little boy."

"Oh," said Lady Mallowe, with a sudden, singular softness, "I must 
tell Joan that."

Lady Joan had not appeared even after they had had tea and her mother 
went away, but somehow Miss Alicia had reached a vaguely yearning 
feeling for her and wished very much the dressmaker had released her. 
She was quite stirred when it revealed itself almost at the last 
moment that in a few weeks both she and Lady Mallowe were to pay a 
visit at no great distance from Temple Barholm itself, and that her 
ladyship would certainly arrange to drive over to continue her 
delightful acquaintance and to see the beautiful old place again.

"In any case one must, even if he lived in lonely state, pay one's 
respects to the head of the house. The truth is, of course, one is 
extremely anxious to meet him, and it is charming to know that one is 
not merely invading the privacy of a bachelor," Lady Mallowe put it.

"She'll come for YOU," Little Ann had soberly remarked.

Tembarom remembered the look in her quiet, unresentful blue eyes when 
he came in to dinner and Miss Alicia related to him the events of the 
afternoon.




CHAPTER XVIII


The spring, when they traveled back to the north, was so perceptibly 
nearer that the fugitive soft days strayed in advance at intervals 
that were briefer. They chose one for their journey, and its clear 
sunshine and hints at faint greenness were so exhilarating to Miss 
Alicia that she was a companion to make any journey an affair to rank 
with holidays and adventures. The strange luxury of traveling in a 
reserved first-class carriage, of being made timid by no sense of 
unfitness of dress or luggage, would have filled her with grateful 
rapture; but Rose, journeying with Pearson a few coaches behind, 
appeared at the carriage window at every important station to say, "Is 
there anything I may do for you, ma'am?" And there really never was 
anything she could do, because Mr. Temple Barholm remembered 
everything which could make her comfort perfect. In the moods of one 
who searches the prospect for suggestions as to pleasure he can give 
to himself by delighting a dear child, he had found and bought for her 
a most elegant little dressing-bag, with the neatest of plain-gold 
fittings beautifully initialed. It reposed upon the cushioned seat 
near her, and made her heart beat every time she caught sight of it 
anew. How wonderful it would be if poor dear, darling mama could look 
down and see everything and really know what happiness had been 
vouchsafed to her unworthy child!

Having a vivid recollection of the journey made with Mr. Palford, 
Tembarom felt that his whole world had changed for him. The landscape 
had altered its aspect. Miss Alicia pointed out bits of freshening 
grass, was sure of the breaking of brown leaf-buds, and more than once 
breathlessly suspected a primrose in a sheltered hedge corner. A 
country-bred woman, with country-bred keenness of eye and a country-
bred sense of the seasons' change, she saw so much that he had never 
known that she began to make him see also. Bare trees would be thick- 
leaved nesting-places, hedges would be white with hawthorn, and hold 
blue eggs and chirps and songs. Skylarks would spring out of the 
fields and soar into the sky, dropping crystal chains of joyous 
trills. The cottage gardens would be full of flowers, there would be 
poppies gleaming scarlet in the corn, and in buttercup-time all the 
green grass would be a sheet of shining gold.

"When it all happens I shall be like a little East-Sider taken for a 
day in the country. I shall be asking questions at every step," 
Tembarom said. "Temple Barholm must be pretty fine then."

"It is so lovely," said Miss Alicia, turning to him almost solemnly, 
"that sometimes it makes one really lose one's breath."

He looked out of the window with sudden wistfulness.

"I wish Ann--" he began and then, seeing the repressed question in her 
eyes, made up his mind.

He told her about Little Ann. He did not use very many words, but she 
knew a great deal when he had finished. And her spinster soul was 
thrilled. Neither she nor poor Emily had ever had an admirer, and it 
was not considered refined for unsought females to discuss "such 
subjects." Domestic delirium over the joy of an engagement in families 
in which daughters were a drug she had seen. It was indeed inevitable 
that there should be more rejoicing over one Miss Timson who had 
strayed from the fold into the haven of marriage than over the ninety-
nine Misses Timson who remained behind. But she had never known 
intimately any one who was in love-- really in love. Mr. Temple 
Barholm must be. When he spoke of Little Ann he flushed shyly and his 
eyes looked so touching and nice. His voice sounded different, and 
though of course his odd New York expressions were always rather 
puzzling, she felt as though she saw things she had had no previous 
knowledge of--things which thrilled her.

"She must be a very--very nice girl," she ventured at length. "I am 
afraid I have never been into old Mrs. Hutchinson's cottage. She is 
quite comfortably off in her way, and does not need parish care. I 
wish I had seen Miss Hutchinson."

"I wish she had seen you," was Tembarom's answer.

Miss Alicia reflected.

"She must be very clever to have such--sensible views," she remarked.

If he had remained in New York, and there had been no question of his 
inheriting Temple Barholm, the marriage would have been most suitable. 
But however "superior" she might be, a vision of old Mrs. Hutchinson's 
granddaughter as the wife of Mr. Temple Barholm, and of noisy old Mr. 
Hutchinson as his father-in-law was a staggering thing.

"You think they were sensible?" asked Tembarom. "Well, she never did 
anything that wasn't. So I guess they were. And what she says GOES. I 
wanted you to know, anyhow. I wouldn't like you not to know. I'm too 
fond of you, Miss Alicia." And he put his hand round her neat glove 
and squeezed it. The tears of course came into her tender eyes. 
Emotion of any sort always expressed itself in her in this early-
Victorian manner.

"This Lady Joan girl," he said suddenly not long afterward, "isn't she 
the kind that I'm to get used to--the kind in the pictorial magazine 
Ann talked about? I bought one at the news-stand at the depot before 
we started. I wanted to get on to the pictures and see what they did 
to me."

He found the paper among his belongings and regarded it with the 
expression of a serious explorer. It opened at a page of illustrations 
of slim goddesses in court dresses. By actual measurement, if regarded 
according to scale, each was about ten feet high; but their long 
lines, combining themselves with court trains, waving plumes, and 
falling veils, produced an awe-inspiring effect. Tembarom gazed at 
them in absorbed silence.

"Is she something like any of these?" he inquired finally.

Miss Alicia looked through her glasses.

"Far more beautiful, I believe," she answered. "These are only 
fashion-plates, and I have heard that she is a most striking girl."

"A beaut' from Beautsville!" he said. "So that's what I'm up against! 
I wonder how much use that kind of a girl would have for me."

He gave a good deal of attention to the paper before he laid it aside. 
As she watched him, Miss Alicia became gradually aware of the 
existence of a certain hint of determined squareness in his boyish 
jaw. It was perhaps not much more than a hint, but it really was 
there, though she had not noticed it before. In fact, it usually hid 
itself behind his slangy youthfulness and his readiness for any good 
cheer.

One may as well admit that it sustained him during his novitiate and 
aided him to pass through it without ignominy or disaster. He was 
strengthened also by a private resolve to bear himself in such a 
manner as would at least do decent credit to Little Ann and her 
superior knowledge. With the curious eyes of servants, villagers, and 
secretly outraged neighborhood upon him, he was shrewd enough to know 
that he might easily become a perennial fount of grotesque anecdote, 
to be used as a legitimate source of entertainment in cottages over 
the consumption of beans and bacon, as well as at great houses when 
dinner-table talk threatened to become dull if not enlivened by some 
spice. He would not have thought of this or been disturbed by it but 
for Ann. She knew, and he was not going to let her be met on her 
return from America with what he called "a lot of funny dope" about 
him.

"No girl would like it," he said to himself. "And the way she said she 
'cared too much' just put it up to me to see that the fellow she cares 
for doesn't let himself get laughed at."

Though he still continued to be jocular on subjects which to his valet 
seemed almost sacred, Pearson was relieved to find that his employer 
gradually gave himself into his hands in a manner quite amenable. In 
the touching way in which nine out of ten nice, domesticated American 
males obey the behests of the women they are fond of, he had followed 
Ann's directions to the letter. Guided by the adept Pearson, he had 
gone to the best places in London and purchased the correct things, 
returning to Temple Barholm with a wardrobe to which any gentleman 
might turn at any moment without a question.

"He's got good shoulders, though he does slouch a bit," Pearson said 
to Rose. "And a gentleman's shoulders are more than half the battle."

What Tembarom himself felt cheered by was the certainty that if Ann 
saw him walking about the park or the village, or driving out with 
Miss Alicia in the big landau, or taking her in to dinner every 
evening, or even going to church with her, she would not have occasion 
to flush at sight of him.

The going to church was one of the duties of his position he found 
out. Miss Alicia "put him on" to that. It seemed that he had to 
present himself to the villagers "as an example." If the Temple 
Barholm pews were empty, the villagers, not being incited to 
devotional exercise by his exalted presence, would feel at liberty to 
remain at home, and in the irreligious undress of shirt-sleeves sit 
and smoke their pipes, or, worse still, gather at "the Hare and 
Hounds" and drink beer. Also, it would not be "at all proper" not to 
go to church.

Pearson produced a special cut of costume for this ceremony, and 
Tembarom walked with Miss Alicia across the park to the square-towered 
Norman church.

In a position of dignity the Temple Barholm pews over-looked the 
congregation. There was the great square pew for the family, with two 
others for servants. Footmen and house-maids gazed reverentially at 
prayer-books. Pearson, making every preparation respectfully to 
declare himself a "miserable sinner" when the proper moment arrived, 
could scarcely re- strain a rapid side glance as the correctly cut and 
fitted and entirely "suitable" work of his hands opened the pew-door 
for Miss Alicia, followed her in, and took his place.

Let not the fact that he had never been to church before be counted 
against him. There was nothing very extraordinary in the fact. He had 
felt no antipathy to church-going, but he had not by chance fallen 
under proselyting influence, and it had certainly never occurred to 
him that he had any place among the well- dressed, comfortable-looking 
people he had seen flocking into places of worship in New York. As far 
as religious observances were concerned, he was an unadulterated 
heathen, and was all the more to be congratulated on being a heathen 
of genial tendencies.

The very large pew, under the stone floor of which his ancestors had 
slept undisturbedly for centuries, interested him greatly. A recumbent 
marble crusader in armor, with feet crossed in the customary manner, 
fitted into a sort of niche in one side of the wall. There were carved 
tablets and many inscriptions in Latin wheresoever one glanced. The 
place was like a room. A heavy, round table, on which lay prayer-
books, Bibles, and hymn-books, occupied the middle. About it were 
arranged beautiful old chairs, with hassocks to kneel on. Toward a 
specially imposing chair with arms Miss Alicia directed, him with a 
glance. It was apparently his place. He was going to sit down when he 
saw Miss Alicia gently push forward a hassock with her foot, and kneel 
on it, covering her face with her hands as she bent her head. He 
hastily drew forth his hassock and followed her example.

That was it, was it? It wasn't only a matter of listening to a sermon; 
you had to do things. He had better watch out and see that he didn't 
miss anything. She didn't know it was his first time, and it might 
worry her to the limit if he didn't put it over all right. One of the 
things he had noticed in her was her fear of attracting attention by 
failing to do exactly the "proper thing." If he made a fool of himself 
by kneeling down when he ought to stand up, or lying down when he 
ought to sit, she'd get hot all over, thinking what the villagers or 
the other people would say. Well, Ann hadn't wanted him to look 
different from other fellows or to make breaks. He'd look out from 
start to finish. He directed a watchful eye at Miss Alicia through his 
fingers. She remained kneeling a few moments, and then very quietly 
got up. He rose with her, and took his big chair when she sat down. He 
breathed more freely when they had got that far. That was the first 
round.

It was not a large church, but a gray and solemn impression of dignity 
brooded over it. It was dim with light, which fell through stained-
glass memorial windows set deep in the thick stone walls. The silence 
which reigned throughout its spaces seemed to Tembarom of a new kind, 
different from the silence of the big house. The occasional subdued 
rustle of turned prayer-book leaves seemed to accentuate it; the most 
careful movement could not conceal itself; a slight cough was a 
startling thing. The way, Tembarom thought, they could get things 
dead-still in English places!

The chimes, which had been ringing their last summons to the tardy, 
slackened their final warning notes, became still slower, stopped. 
There was a slight stir in the benches occupied by the infant school. 
It suggested that something new was going to happen. From some unseen 
place came the sound of singing voices-- boyish voices and the voices 
of men. Tembarom involuntarily turned his head. Out of the unseen 
place came a procession in white robes. Great Scott! every one was 
standing up! He must stand up, too. The boys and men in white garments 
filed into their seats. An elderly man, also in white robes, separated 
himself from them, and, going into his special place, kneeled down. 
Then he rose and began to read:

"When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness--"

Tembarom took the open book which Miss Alicia had very delicately 
pushed toward him. He read the first words,--that was plain sailing,--
then he seemed to lose his place. Miss Alicia turned a leaf. He turned 
one also.

"Dearly beloved brethren--"

There you were. This was once more plain sailing. He could follow it. 
What was the matter with Miss Alicia? She was kneeling again, 
everybody was kneeling. Where was the hassock? He went down upon his 
knees, hoping Miss Alicia had not seen that he wasn't going to kneel 
at all. Then when the minister said "Amen," the congregation said it, 
too, and he came in too late, so that his voice sounded out alone. He 
must watch that. Then the minister knelt, and all the people prayed 
aloud with him. With the book before him he managed to get in after 
the first few words; but he was not ready with the responses, and in 
the middle of them everybody stood up again. And then the organ 
played, and every one sang. He couldn't sing, anyhow, and he knew he 
couldn't catch on to the kind of thing they were doing. He hoped Miss 
Alicia wouldn't mind his standing up and holding his book and doing 
nothing. He could not help seeing that eyes continually turned toward 
him. They'd notice every darned break he made, and Miss Alicia would 
know they did. He felt quite hot more than once. He watched Miss 
Alicia like a hawk; he sat down and listened to reading, he stood up 
and listened to singing; he kneeled, he tried to chime in with "Amens" 
and to keep up with Miss Alicia's bending of head and knee. But the 
creed, with its sudden turn toward the altar, caught him unawares, he 
lost himself wholly in the psalms, the collects left him in deep 
water, hopeless of ever finding his place again, and the litany 
baffled him, when he was beginning to feel safe, by changing from 
"miserable sinners" to "Spare us Good Lord" and "We beseech thee to 
hear us." If he could just have found the place he would have been all 
right, but an honest anxiety to be right excited him, and the fear of 
embarrassing Miss Alicia by going wrong made the morning a strenuous 
thing. He was so relieved to find he might sit still when the sermon 
began that he gave the minister an attention which might have marked 
him, to the chance beholder, as a religious enthusiast.

By the time the service had come to an end the stately peace of the 
place had seemed to sink into his being and become part of himself. 
The voice of the minister bestowing his blessing, the voices of the 
white-clothed choir floating up into the vaulted roof, stirred him to 
a remote pleasure. He liked it, or he knew he would like it when he 
knew what to do. The filing out of the choristers, the silent final 
prayer, the soft rustle of people rising gently from their knees, 
somehow actually moved him by its suggestion of something before 
unknown. He was a heathen still, but a heathen vaguely stirred.

He was very quiet as he walked home across the park with Miss Alicia.

"How did you enjoy the sermon? " she asked with much sweetness.

"I 'm not used to sermons, but it seemed all right to me," he 
answered. "What I've got to get on to is knowing when to stand up and 
when to sit down. I wasn't much of a winner at it this morning. I 
guess you noticed that."

But his outward bearing had been much more composed than his inward 
anxiety had allowed him to believe. His hesitations had not produced 
the noticeable effect he had feared.

"Do you mean you are not quite familiar with the service?" she said. 
Poor dear boy! he had perhaps not been able to go to church regularly 
at all.

"I'm not familiar with any service," he answered without prejudice." I 
never went to church before."

She slightly started and then smiled.

"Oh, you mean you have never been to the Church of England," she said.

Then he saw that, if he told her the exact truth, she would be 
frightened and shocked. She would not know what to say or what to 
think. To her unsophisticated mind only murderers and thieves and 
criminals NEVER went to church. She just didn't know. Why should she? 
So he smiled also.

"No, I've never been to the Church of England," he said.




CHAPTER XIX


The country was discreetly conservative in its social attitude. The 
gulf between it and the new owner of Temple Barholm was too wide and 
deep to be crossed without effort combined with immense mental 
agility. It was on the whole, much easier not to begin a thing at all 
than to begin it and find one must hastily search about for not too 
noticeable methods of ending it. A few unimportant, tentative calls 
were made, and several ladies who had remained unaware of Miss Alicia 
during her first benefactor's time drove over to see what she was like 
and perhaps by chance hear something of interest. One or two of them 
who saw Tembarom went away puzzled and amazed. He did not drop his 
h's, which they had of course expected, and he was well dressed, and 
not bad-looking; but it was frequently impossible to understand what 
he was talking about, he used such odd phrases. He seemed good natured 
enough, and his way with little old Miss Temple Barholm was really 
quite nice, queer as it was. It was queer because he was attentive to 
her in a manner in which young men were not usually attentive to 
totally insignificant, elderly dependents.

Tembarom derived an extremely diluted pleasure from the visits. The 
few persons he saw reminded him in varying degrees of Mr. Palford. 
They had not before seen anything like his species, and they did not 
know what to do with him. He also did not know what to do with them. A 
certain inelasticity frustrated him at the outset. When, in obedience 
to Miss Alicia's instructions, he had returned the visits, he felt he 
had not gone far.

Serious application enabled him to find his way through the church 
service, and he accompanied Miss Alicia to church with great 
regularity. He began to take down the books from the library shelves 
and look them over gravely. The days gradually ceased to appear so 
long, but he had a great deal of time on his hands, and he tried to 
find ways of filling it. He wondered if Ann would be pleased if he 
learned things out of books.

When he tentatively approached the subject of literature with Miss 
Alicia, she glowed at the delightful prospect of his reading aloud to 
her in the evenings-- "reading improving things like history and the 
poets."

"Let's take a hack at it some night," he said pleasantly.

The more a fellow knew, the better it was for him, he supposed; but he 
wondered, if anything happened and he went back to New York, how much 
"improving things" and poetry would help a man in doing business.

The first evening they began with Gray's " Elegy," and Miss Alicia 
felt that it did not exhilarate him; she was also obliged to admit 
that he did not read it very well. But she felt sure he would improve. 
Personally she was touchingly happy. The sweetly domestic picture of 
the situation, she sitting by the fire with her knitting and he 
reading aloud, moved and delighted her. The next evening she suggested 
Tennyson's "Maud." He was not as much stirred by it as she had hoped. 
He took a somewhat humorous view of it.

"He had it pretty bad, hadn't he?"' he said of the desperate lover.

"Oh, if only you could once have heard Sims Reeves sing 'Come into the 
Garden, Maud'!" she sighed. "A kind friend once took me to hear him, 
and I have never, never forgotten it."

But Mr. Temple Barholm notably did not belong to the atmosphere of 
impassioned tenors.

On still another evening they tried Shakspere. Miss Alicia felt that a 
foundation of Shakspere would be "improving" indeed. They began with 
"Hamlet."

He found play-reading difficult and Shaksperian language baffling, but 
he made his way with determination until he reached a point where he 
suddenly grew quite red and stopped.

"Say, have you read this?" he inquired after his hesitation.

"The plays of Shakspere are a part of every young lady's education," 
she answered; "but I am afraid I am not at all a Shaksperian scholar."

"A young lady's education?" he repeated. "Gee whizz!" he added softly 
after a pause.

He glanced over a page or so hastily, and then laid the book down.

"Say," he suggested, with an evasive air, "let's go over that 'Maud' 
one again. It's--well, it's easier to read aloud."

The crude awkwardness of his manner suddenly made Miss Alicia herself 
flush and drop a stitch in her knitting. How dreadful of her not to 
have thought of that!

"The Elizabethan age was, I fear, a rather coarse one in some 
respects. Even history acknowledges that Queen Elizabeth herself used 
profane language." She faltered and coughed a little apologetic cough 
as she picked up her stitch again.

"I bet Ann's never seen inside Shakspere," said Tembarom. Before 
reading aloud in the future he gave some previous personal attention 
to the poem or subject decided upon. It may be at once frankly 
admitted that when he read aloud it was more for Miss Alicia's 
delectation than for his own. He saw how much she enjoyed the 
situation.

His effect of frankness and constant boyish talk was so inseparable 
from her idea of him that she found it a puzzling thing to realize 
that she gradually began to feel aware of a certain remote reserve in 
him, or what might perhaps be better described as a habit of silence 
upon certain subjects. She felt it marked in the case of Strangeways. 
She surmised that he saw Strangeways often and spent a good deal of 
time with him, but he spoke of him rarely, and she never knew exactly 
what hours were given to him. Sometimes she imagined he found him a 
greater responsibility than he had expected. Several times when she 
believed that he had spent part of a morning or afternoon in his room, 
he was more silent than usual and looked puzzled and thoughtful. She 
observed, as Mr. Palford had, that the picture-gallery, with its 
portraits of his ancestors, had an attraction. A certain rainy day he 
asked her to go with him and look them over. It was inevitable that 
she should soon wander to the portrait of Miles Hugo and remain 
standing before it. Tembarom followed, and stood by her side in 
silence until her sadness broke its bounds with a pathetic sigh.

"Was he very like him?" he asked.

She made an unconscious, startled movement. For the moment she had 
forgotten his presence, and she had not really expected him to 
remember.

"I mean Jem," he answered her surprised look. "How was he like him? 
Was there--" he hesitated and looked really interested--"was he like 
him in any particular thing?"

"Yes," she said, turning to the portrait of Miles Hugo again. "They 
both had those handsome, drooping eyes, with the lashes coming 
together at the corners. There is something very fascinating about 
them, isn't there? I used to notice it so much in dear little Jem. You 
see how marked they are in Miles Hugo."

"Yes," Tembarom answered. "A fellow who looked that way at a girl when 
he made love to her would get a strangle-holt. She wouldn't forget him 
soon."

"It strikes you in that way, too?" said Miss Alicia, shyly. "I used to 
wonder if it was--not quite nice of me to think of it. But it did seem 
that if any one did look at one like that--" Maidenly shyness overcame 
her. "Poor Lady Joan!" she sighed.

"There's a sort of cleft in his chin, though it's a good, square 
chin," he suggested. "And that smile of his--Were Jem's--?"

"Yes, they were. The likeness was quite odd sometimes-- quite."

"Those are things that wouldn't be likely to change much when he grew 
up," Tembarom said, drawing a little closer to the picture. "Poor Jem! 
He was up against it hard and plenty. He had it hardest. This chap 
only died."

There was no mistaking his sympathy. He asked so many questions that 
they sat down and talked instead of going through the gallery. He was 
interested in the detail of all that had occurred after the ghastly 
moment when Jem had risen from the card-table and stood looking 
around, like some baited dying animal, at the circle of cruel faces 
drawing in about him. How soon had he left London? Where had he gone 
first? How had he been killed? He had been buried with others beneath 
a fall of earth and stones. Having heard this much, Tembarom saw he 
could not ask more questions. Miss Alicia became pale, and her hands 
trembled. She could not bear to discuss details so harrowing.

"Say, I oughtn't to let you talk about that," he broke out, and he 
patted her hand and made her get up and finish their walk about the 
gallery. He held her elbow in his own odd, nice way as he guided her, 
and the things he said, and the things he pretended to think or not to 
understand, were so amusing that in a short time he had made her 
laugh. She knew him well enough by this time to be aware that he was 
intentionally obliging her to forget what it only did her harm to 
remember. That was his practical way of looking at it.

"Getting a grouch on or being sorry for what you can't help cuts no 
ice," he sometimes said. "When it does, me for getting up at daybreak 
and keeping at it! But it doesn't, you bet your life on that."

She could see that he had really wanted to hear about Jem, but he knew 
it was bad for her to recall things, and he would not allow her to 
dwell on them, just as she knew he would not allow himself to dwell on 
little Miss Hutchinson, remotely placed among the joys of his beloved 
New York.

Two other incidents besides the visit to Miles Hugo afterward marked 
that day when Miss Alicia looked back on it. The first was his 
unfolding to her his plans for the house-party, which was 
characteristic of his habit of thinking things over and deciding them 
before he talked about them.

"If I'm going to try the thing out, as Ann says I must," he began when 
they had gone back to the library after lunch, "I've got to get going. 
I'm not seeing any of those Pictorial girls, and I guess I've got to 
see some."

"You will be invited to dine at places," said Miss Alicia, -- 
"presently," she added bravely, in fact, with an air of greater 
conviction than she felt.

"If it's not the law that they've got to invite me or go to jail," 
said Tembarom, "I don't blame 'em for not doing it if they're not 
stuck on me. And they're not; and it's natural. But I've got to get in 
my fine work, or my year'll be over before I've 'found out for 
myself,' as Ann called it. There's where I'm at, Miss Alicia--and I've 
been thinking of Lady Joan and her mother. You said you thought they'd 
come and stay here if they were properly asked."

"I think they would," answered Miss Alicia with her usual delicacy. "I 
thought I gathered from Lady Mallowe that, as she was to be in the 
neighborhood, she would like to see you and Temple Barholm, which she 
greatly admires."

"If you'll tell me what to do, I'll get her here to stay awhile," he 
said, "and Lady Joan with her. You'd have to show me how to write to 
ask them; but perhaps you'd write yourself."

"They will be at Asshawe Holt next week," said Miss Alicia, "and we 
could go and call on them together. We might write to them in London 
before they leave."

"We'll do it," answered Tembarom. His manner was that of a practical 
young man attacking matter-of-fact detail. "From what I hear, Lady 
Joan would satisfy even Ann. They say she's the best-looker on the 
slate. If I see her every day I shall have seen the blue-ribbon 
winner. Then if she's here, perhaps others of her sort'll come, too; 
and they'll have to see me whether they like it or not--and I shall 
see them. Good Lord!" he added seriously, "I'd let 'em swarm all over 
me and bite me all summer if it would fix Ann."

He stood up, with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and looked 
down at the floor.

"I wish she knew T. T. like T. T. knows himself," he said. It was 
quite wistful.

It was so wistful and so boyish that Miss Alicia was thrilled as he 
often thrilled her.

"She ought to be a very happy girl," she exclaimed.

"She's going to be," he answered, "sure as you're alive. But whatever 
she does, is right, and this is as right as everything else. So it 
just goes."

They wrote their letters at once, and sent them off by the afternoon 
post. The letter Miss Alicia composed, and which Tembarom copied, he 
read and reread, with visions of Jim Bowles and Julius looking over 
his shoulder. If they picked it up on Broadway, with his name signed 
to it, and read it, they'd throw a fit over it, laughing. But he 
supposed she knew what you ought to write.

It had not, indeed, the masculine touch. When Lady Mallowe read it, 
she laughed several times. She knew quite well that he had not known 
what to say, and, allowing Miss Alicia to instruct him, had followed 
her instructions to the letter. But she did not show the letter to 
Joan, who was difficult enough to manage without being given such 
material to comment upon.

The letters had just been sent to the post when a visitor was 
announced--Captain Palliser. Tembarom remembered the name, and 
recalled also certain points connected with him. He was the one who 
was a promoter of schemes--"One of the smooth, clever ones that get up 
companies," Little Ann had said.

That in a well-bred and not too pronounced way he looked smooth and 
clever might be admitted. His effect was that of height, finished 
slenderness of build, and extremely well-cut garments. He was no 
longer young, and he had smooth, thin hair and a languidly observant 
gray eye.

"I have been staying at Detchworth Grange," he explained when he had 
shaken hands with the new Temple Barholm and Miss Alicia. "It gave me 
an excellent opportunity to come and pay my respects."

There was a hint of uncertainty in the observant gray eye. The fact 
was that he realized in the space of five minutes that he knew his 
ground even less than he had supposed he did. He had not spent his 
week at Detchworth Grange without making many quiet investigations, 
but he had found out nothing whatever. The new man was an ignoramus, 
but no one had yet seemed to think him exactly a fool. He was not 
excited by the new grandeurs of his position and he was not ashamed of 
himself. Captain Palliser wondered if he was perhaps sharp--one of 
those New Yorkers shrewd even to light-fingeredness in clever 
scheming. Stories of a newly created method of business dealing 
involving an air of candor and almost primitive good nature--an 
American method--had attracted Captain Palliser's attention for some 
time. A certain Yankee rawness of manner played a part as a factor, a 
crudity which would throw a man off guard if he did not recognize it. 
The person who employed the method was of philosophical non-
combativeness. The New York phrase was that "He jollied a man along." 
Immense schemes had been carried through in that way. Men in London, 
in England, were not sufficiently light of touch in their jocularity. 
He wondered if perhaps this young fellow, with his ready laugh and 
rather loose-jointed, casual way of carrying himself, was of this 
dangerous new school.

What, however, could he scheme for, being the owner of Temple 
Barholm's money? It may be mentioned at once that Captain Palliser's 
past had been such as had fixed him in the belief that every one was 
scheming for something. People with money wanted more or were 
privately arranging schemes to prevent other schemers from getting any 
shade the better of them. Debutantes with shy eyes and slim figures 
had their little plans to engineer delicately. Sometimes they were 
larger plans than the uninitiated would have suspected as existing in 
the brains of creatures in their 'teens, sometimes they were mere 
fantastic little ideas connected with dashing young men or innocent 
dances which must be secured or lovely young rivals who must be 
evaded. Young men had also deft things to do-- people to see or not to 
see, reasons for themselves being seen or avoiding observation. As 
years increased, reasons for schemes became more numerous and 
amazingly more varied. Women with daughters, with sons, with husbands, 
found in each relationship a necessity for active, if quiet, 
manoeuvering. Women like Lady Mallowe--good heaven! by what schemes 
did not that woman live and have her being--and her daughter's--from 
day to day! Without money, without a friend who was an atom more to be 
relied on than she would have been herself if an acquaintance had 
needed her aid, her outwardly well-to-do and fashionable existence was 
a hand-to-hand fight. No wonder she had turned a still rather 
brilliant eye upon Sir Moses Monaldini, the great Israelite financier. 
All of these types passed rapidly before his mental vision as he 
talked to the American Temple Barholm. What could he want, by chance? 
He must want something, and it would be discreet to find out what it 
chanced to be.

If it was social success, he would be better off in London, where in 
these days you could get a good run for your money and could swing 
yourself up from one rung of the ladder to another if you paid some 
one to show you how. He himself could show him how. A youngster who 
had lived the beastly hard life he had lived would be likely to find 
exhilaration in many things not difficult to purchase. It was an odd 
thing, by the way, the fancy he had taken to the little early- 
Victorian spinster. It was not quite natural. It perhaps denoted 
tendencies--or lack of tendencies--it would also be well to consider. 
Palliser was a sufficiently finished product himself to be struck 
greatly by the artistic perfection of Miss Alicia, and to wonder how 
much the new man understood it.

He did not talk to him about schemes. He talked to him of New York, 
which he had never seen and hoped sometime shortly to visit. The 
information he gained was not of the kind he most desired, but it 
edified him. Tembarom's knowledge of high finance was a street lad's 
knowledge of it, and he himself knew its limitations and probable 
unreliability. Such of his facts as rested upon the foundation of 
experience did not include multimillionaires and their resources.

Captain Palliser passed lightly to Temple Barholm and its 
neighborhood. He knew places and names, and had been to Detchworth 
more than once. He had never visited Temple Barholm, and his interest 
suggested that he would like to walk through the gardens. Tembarom 
took him out, and they strolled about for some time. Even an alert 
observer would not have suspected the fact that as they strolled, 
Tembarom slouching a trifle and with his hands in his pockets, Captain 
Palliser bearing himself with languid distinction, each man was 
summing up the other and considering seriously how far and in what 
manner he could be counted as an asset.

"You haven't been to Detchworth yet?" Palliser inquired.

"No, not yet," answered Tembarom. The Granthams were of those who had 
not yet called.

"It's an agreeable house. The Granthams are agreeable people."

"Are there any young people in the family? " Tembarom asked.

"Young people? Male or female? " Palliser smilingly put it. Suddenly 
it occurred to him that this might give him a sort of lead.

"Girls," said Tembarom, crudely--" just plain girls."

Palliser laughed. Here it was, perhaps.

"They are not exactly 'plain' girls, though they are not beauties. 
There are four Misses Grantham. Lucy is the prettiest. Amabel is quite 
tremendous at tennis."

"Are they ladies?" inquired Tembarom.

Captain Palliser turned and involuntarily stared at him. What was the 
fellow getting at?

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," he said.

The new Temple Barholm looked quite serious. He did not, amazing to 
relate, look like a fool even when he gave forth his extraordinary 
question. It was his almost business-like seriousness which saved him.

"I mean, do you call them Lady Lucy and Lady Amabel?" he answered.

If he had been younger, less hardened, or less finished, Captain 
Palliser would have laughed outright. But he answered without self-
revelation.

"Oh, I see. You were asking whether the family is a titled one. No; it 
is a good old name, quite old, in fact, but no title goes with the 
estate."

"Who are the titled people about here?" Tembarom asked, quite 
unabashed.

"The Earl of Pevensy at Pevensy Park, the Duke of Stone at Stone 
Hover, Lord Hambrough at Doone. Doone is in the next county, just over 
the border."

"Have they all got daughters?"

Captain Palliser found it expedient to clear his throat before 
speaking.

"Lord Pevensy has daughters, so has the duke. Lord Hambrough has three 
sons."

"How many daughters are there--in a bunch?" Mr. Temple Barholm 
suggested liberally.

There Captain Palliser felt it safe to allow himself to smile, as 
though taking it with a sense of humor.

"'In a bunch' is an awfully good way of putting it," he said. "It 
happens to apply perhaps rather unfortunately well; both families are 
much poorer than they should be, and daughters must be provided for. 
Each has four. 'In a bunch' there are eight: Lady Alice, Lady Edith, 
Lady Ethel, and Lady Celia at Stone Hover; Lady Beatrice, Lady 
Gwynedd, Lady Honora, and Lady Gwendolen at Pevensy Park. And not a 
fortune among them, poor girls!"

"It's not the money that matters so much," said the astounding 
foreigner, "it's the titles."

Captain Palliser stopped short in the garden path for a moment. He 
could scarcely believe his ears. The crude grotesqueness of it so far 
got the better of him that if he had not coughed he would have 
betrayed himself.

"I've had a confounded cold lately," he said. "Excuse me; I must get 
it over."

He turned a little aside and coughed energetically.

After watching him a few seconds Tembarom slipped two fingers into his 
waistcoat pocket and produced a small tube of tablets.

"Take two of these," he said as soon as the cough stopped. "I always 
carry it about with me. It's a New York thing called 'G. Destroyer.' G 
stands for grippe."

Palliser took it.

"Thanks. With water? No? Just dissolve in the mouth. Thanks awfully." 
And he took two, with tears still standing in his eyes.

"Don't taste bad, do they?" Mr. Temple Barholm remarked encouragingly.

"Not at all. I think I shall be all right now. I just needed the 
relief. I have been trying to restrain it."

"That's a mistake," said Tembarom. They strolled on a pace or so, and 
he began again, as though he did not mean to let the subject drop. 
"It's the titles," he said, "and the kind. How many of them are good-
lookers?"

Palliser reflected a moment, as though making mental choice.

"Lady Alice and Lady Celia are rather plain," he said, "and both of 
them are invalidish. Lady Ethel is tall and has handsome eyes, but 
Lady Edith is really the beauty of the family. She rides and dances 
well and has a charming color."

"And the other ones," Tembaron suggested as he paused--"Lady Beatrice 
and Lady Gwynedd and Lady Honora and Lady Gwendolen."

"You remember their names well," Palliser remarked with a half-laugh.

"Oh, I shall remember them all right," Tembarom answered. "I earned 
twenty-five per in New York by getting names down fine."

"The Talchesters are really all rather taking. Talchester is Lord 
Pevensy's family name," Palliser explained. "They are girls who have 
pretty little noses and bright complexions and eyes. Lady Gwynedd and 
Lady Honora both have quite fascinating dimples."

"Dimples!" exclaimed his companion. "Good business."

"Do you like dimples particularly?" Palliser inquired with an 
impartial air.

"I'd always make a bee-line for a dimple," replied Mr. Temple Barholm. 
"Clear the way when I start."

This was New York phrasing, and was plainly humorous; but there was 
something more than humor in his eye and smile--something hinting 
distantly at recollection.

"You'll find them at Pevensy Park," said Palliser.

"What about Lady Joan Fayre?" was the next inquiry.

Palliser's side glance at him was observant indeed. He asked himself 
how much the man could know. Taking the past into consideration, Lady 
Joan might turn out to be a subject requiring delicate handling. It 
was not the easiest thing in the world to talk at all freely to a 
person with whom one desired to keep on 
good terms, about a young woman supposed still to cherish a tragic 
passion for the dead man who ought to stand at the present moment in 
the person's, figuratively speaking, extremely ill-fitting shoes.

"Lady Joan has been from her first season an undeniable beauty," he 
replied.

"She and the old lady are going to stay at a place called Asshawe 
Holt. I think they're going next week," Tembarom said.

"The old lady?" repeated Captain Palliser.

"I mean her mother. The one that's the Countess of Mallowe."

"Have you met Lady Mallowe?" Palliser inquired with a not wholly 
repressed smile. A vision of Lady Mallowe over-hearing their 
conversation arose before him.

"No, I haven't. What's she like?"

"She is not the early- or mid-Victorian old lady," was Palliser's 
reply. "She wears Gainsborough hats, and looks a quite possible eight 
and thirty. She is a handsome person herself."

He was not aware that the term "old lady" was, among Americans of the 
class of Mrs. Bowse's boarders, a sort of generic term signifying 
almost anything maternal which had passed thirty.

Tembarom proceeded.

"After they get through at the Asshawe Holt place, I've asked them to 
come here."

"Indeed," said Palliser, with an inward start. The man evidently did 
not know what other people did. After all, why should he? He had been 
selling something or other in the streets of New York when the thing 
happened, and he knew nothing of London.

"The countess called on Miss Alicia when we were in London," he heard 
next. "She said we were relations."

"You are--as we are. The connection is rather distant, but it is near 
enough to form a sort of link."

"I've wanted to see Lady Joan," explained Tembarom. "From what I've 
heard, I should say she was one of the 'Lady's Pictorial' kind."

"I am afraid--" Palliser's voice was slightly unsteady for the moment-
-"I have not studied the type sufficiently to know. The 'Pictorial' is 
so exclusively a women's periodical."

His companion laughed.

"Well, I've only looked through it once myself just to find out. Some 
way I always think of Lady Joan as if she was like one of those 
Beaut's from Beautsville, with trains as long as parlor-cars and 
feathers in their heads--dressed to go to see the queen. I guess she's 
been presented at court," he added.

"Yes, she has been presented."

"Do they let 'em go more than once?" he asked with casual curiosity.

"Confound this cough!" exclaimed Captain Palliser, and he broke forth 
again.

"Take another G," said Tembarom, producing his tube. "Say, just take 
the bottle and keep it in your pocket"

When the brief paroxysm was over and they moved on again, Palliser was 
looking an odd thing or so in the face. "I always think of Lady Joan" 
was one of them. "Always" seemed to go rather far. How often and why 
had he "always thought"? The fellow was incredible. Did his sharp, 
boyish face and his slouch conceal a colossal, vulgar, young ambition? 
There was not much concealment about it, Heaven knew. And as he so 
evidently was not aware of the facts, how would they affect him when 
he discovered them? And though Lady Mallowe was a woman not in the 
least distressed or hampered by shades of delicacy and scruple, she 
surely was astute enough to realize that even this bounder's dullness 
might be awakened to realize that there was more than a touch of 
obvious indecency in bringing the girl to the house of the man she had 
tragically loved, and manoeuvering to work her into it as the wife of 
the man who, monstrously unfit as he was, had taken his place. Captain 
Palliser knew well that the pressing of the relationship had meant 
only one thing. And how, in the name of the Furies! had she dragged 
Lady Joan into the scheme with her?

It was as unbelievable as was the new Temple Barholm himself. And how 
unconcerned the fellow looked! Perhaps the man he had supplanted was 
no more to him than a scarcely remembered name, if he was as much as 
that. Then Tembarom, pacing slowly by his side, hands in pockets, eyes 
on the walk, spoke:

"Did you ever see Jem Temple Barholm? " he asked.

It was like a thunderbolt. He said it as though he were merely 
carrying his previous remarks on to their natural conclusion; but 
Palliser felt himself so suddenly unadjusted, so to speak, that he 
palpably hesitated.

"Did you?" his companion repeated.

"I knew him well," was the answer made as soon as readjustment was 
possible.

"Remember just how he looked?"

"Perfectly. He was a striking fellow. Women always said he had 
fascinating eyes."

"Sort of slant downward on the outside corners--and black eyelashes 
sorter sweeping together?"

Palliser turned with a movement of surprise.

"How did you know? It was just that odd sort of thing."

"Miss Alicia told me. And there's a picture in the gallery that's like 
him."

Captain Palliser felt as embarrassed as Miss Alicia had felt, but it 
was for a different reason. She had felt awkward because she had 
feared she had touched on a delicate subject. Palliser was embarrassed 
because he was entirely thrown out of all his calculations. He felt 
for the moment that there was no calculating at all, no security in 
preparing paths. You never know where they would lead. Here had he 
been actually alarmed in secret! And the oaf stood before him 
undisturbedly opening up the subject himself.

"For a fellow like that to lose a girl as he lost Lady Joan was pretty 
tough," the oaf said. "By gee! it was tough!"

He knew it all--the whole thing, scandal, tragically broken marriage, 
everything. And knowing it, he was laying his Yankee plans for getting 
the girl to Temple Barholm to look her over. It was of a grossness one 
sometimes heard of in men of his kind, and yet it seemed in its 
casualness to out-leap any little scheme of the sort he had so far 
looked on at.

"Lady Joan felt it immensely," he said.

A footman was to be seen moving toward them, evidently bearing a 
message. Tea was served in the drawing-room, and he had come to 
announce the fact.

They went back to the house, and Miss Alicia filled cups for them and 
presided over the splendid tray with a persuasive suggestion in the 
matter of hot or cold things which made it easy to lead up to any 
subject. She was the best of unobtrusive hostesses.


Palliser talked of his visit at Detchworth, which had been shortened 
because he had gone to "fit in" and remain until a large but uncertain 
party turned up. It had turned up earlier than had been anticipated, 
and of course he could only delicately slip away.

"I am sorry it has happened, however," he said, "not only because one 
does not wish to leave Detchworth, but because I shall miss Lady 
Mallowe and Lady Joan, who are to be at Asshawe Holt next week. I 
particularly wanted to see them."

Miss Alicia glanced at Tembarom to see what he would do. He spoke 
before he could catch her glance.

"Say," he suggested, "why don't you bring your grip over here and 
stay? I wish you would."

"A grip means a Gladstone bag," Miss Alicia murmured in a rapid 
undertone.

Palliser replied with appreciative courtesy. Things were going 
extremely well.

"That's awfully kind of you," he answered. "I should like it 
tremendously. Nothing better. You are giving me a delightful 
opportunity. Thank you, thank you. If I may turn up on Thursday I 
shall be delighted."

There was satisfaction in this at least in the observant gray eye when 
he went away.




CHAPTER XX


Dinner at Detchworth Grange was most amusing that evening. One of the 
chief reasons -- in fact, it would not be too venturesome to say THE 
chief reason -- for Captain Palliser's frequent presence in very good 
country houses was that he had a way of making things amusing. His 
relation of anecdotes, of people and things, was distinguished by a 
manner which subtly declined to range itself on the side of vulgar 
gossip. Quietly and with a fine casualness he conveyed the whole 
picture of the new order at Temple Barholm. He did it with wonderfully 
light touches, and yet the whole thing was to be seen -- the little 
old maid in her exquisite clothes, her unmistakable stamp of timid 
good breeding, her protecting adoration combined with bewilderment; 
the long, lean, not altogether ill-looking New York bounder, with his 
slight slouch, his dangerously unsophisticated-looking face, and his 
American jocularity of slang phrase.

"He's of a class I know nothing about. I own he puzzled me a trifle at 
first," Palliser said with his cool smile. "I'm not sure that I've 
'got on to him' altogether yet. That's an expressive New York phrase 
of his own. But when we were strolling about together, he made 
revelations apparently without being in the least aware that they were 
revelations. He was unbelievable. My fear was that he would not go 
on."

"But he did go on?" asked Amabel. "One must hear something of the 
revelations."

Then was given in the best possible form the little drama of the talk 
in the garden. No shade of Mr. Temple Barholm's characteristics was 
lost. Palliser gave occasionally an English attempt at the 
reproduction of his nasal twang, but it was only a touch and not 
sufficiently persisted in to become undignified.

"I can't do it," he said. "None of us can really do it. When English 
actors try it on the stage, it is not in the least the real thing. 
They only drawl through their noses, and it is more than that."

The people of Detchworth Grange were not noisy people, but their 
laughter was unrestrained before the recital was finished. Nobody had 
gone so far as either to fear or to hope for anything as undiluted in 
its nature as this was.

"Then he won't give us a chance, the least chance," cried Lucy and 
Amabel almost in unison. "We are out of the running."

"You won't get even a look in--because you are not 'ladies,'" said 
their brother.

"Poor Jem Temple Barholm! What a different thing it would have been if 
we had had him for a neighbor!" Mr. Grantham fretted.

"We should have had Lady Joan Fayre as well," said his wife.

"At least she's a gentlewoman as well as a 'lady,'" Mr. Grantham said. 
"She would not have become so bitter if that hideous thing had not 
occurred."

They wondered if the new man knew anything about Jem. Palliser had not 
reached that part of his revelation when the laughter had broken into 
it. He told it forthwith, and the laughter was overcome by a sort of 
dismayed disgust. This did not accord with the rumors of an almost 
"nice" good nature.

"There's a vulgar horridness about it," said Lucy.

"What price Lady Mallowe!" said the son. "I'll bet a sovereign she 
began it."

"She did," remarked Palliser; "but I think one may leave Mr. Temple 
Barholm safely to Lady Joan." Mr. Grantham laughed as one who knew 
something of Lady Joan.

"There's an Americanism which I didn't learn from him," Palliser 
added, "and I remembered it when he was talking her over. It's this: 
when you dispose of a person finally and forever, you 'wipe up the 
earth with him.' Lady Joan will 'wipe up the earth' with your new 
neighbor."

There was a little shout of laughter. "Wipe up the earth" was entirely 
new to everybody, though even the country in England was at this time 
by no means wholly ignorant of American slang.

This led to so many other things both mirth-provoking and serious, 
even sometimes very serious indeed, that the entire evening at 
Detchworth was filled with talk of Temple Barholm. Very naturally the 
talk did not end by confining itself to one household. In due time 
Captain Palliser's little sketches were known in divers places, and it 
became a habit to discuss what had happened, and what might possibly 
happen in the future. There were those who went to the length of 
calling on the new man because they wanted to see him face to face. 
People heard new things every few days, but no one realized that it 
was vaguely through Palliser that there developed a general idea that, 
crude and self-revealing as he was, there lurked behind the outward 
candor of the intruder a hint of over-sharpness of the American kind. 
There seemed no necessity for him to lay schemes beyond those he had 
betrayed in his inquiries about "ladies," but somehow it became a 
fixed idea that he was capable of doing shady things if at any time 
the temptation arose. That was really what his boyish casualness 
meant. That in truth was Palliser's final secret conclusion. And he 
wanted very much to find out why exactly little old Miss Temple 
Barholm had been taken up. If the man wanted introductions, he could 
have contrived to pick up a smart and enterprising unprofessional 
chaperon in London who would have done for him what Miss Temple 
Barholm would never presume to attempt. And yet he seemed to have 
chosen her deliberately. He had set her literally at the head of his 
house. And Palliser, having heard a vague rumor that he had actually 
settled a decent income upon her, had made adroit inquiries and found 
it was true.

It was. To arrange the matter had been one of his reasons for going to 
see Mr. Palford during their stay in London.

"I wanted to fix you--fix you safe," he said when he told Miss Alicia 
about it. "I guess no one can take it away from you, whatever old 
thing happens."

"What could happen, dear Mr. Temple Barholm?" said Miss Alicia in the 
midst of tears of gratitude and tremulous joy. "You are so young and 
strong and--everything! Don't even speak of such a thing in jest. What 
could happen?"

"Anything can happen," he answered, "just anything. Happening's the 
one thing you can't bet on. If I was betting, I'd put my money on the 
thing I was sure couldn't happen. Look at this Temple Barholm song and 
dance! Look at T. T. as he was half strangling in the blizzard up at 
Harlem and thanking his stars little Munsberg didn't kick him out of 
his confectionery store less than a year ago! So long as I'm all 
right, you're all right. But I wanted you fixed, anyhow."

He paused and looked at her questioningly for a moment. He wanted to 
say something and he was not sure he ought. His reverence for her 
little finenesses and reserves increased instead of wearing away. He 
was always finding out new things about her.

"Say," he broke forth almost impetuously after his hesitation, "I wish 
you wouldn't call me Mr. Temple Barholm."

"D-do you?" she fluttered. "But what could I call you?"

"Well," he answered, reddening a shade or so, "I'd give a house and 
lot if you could just call me Tem."

"But it would sound so unbecoming, so familiar," she protested.

"That's just what I'm asking for," he said--"some one to be familiar 
with. I'm the familiar kind. That's what's the matter with me. I'd be 
familiar with Pearson, but he wouldn't let me. I'd frighten him half 
to death. He'd think that he wasn't doing his duty and earning his 
wages, and that somehow he'd get fired some day without a character."

He drew nearer to her and coaxed.

"Couldn't you do it?" he asked almost as though he were asking a favor 
of a girl. "Just Tem? I believe that would come easier to you than T. 
T. I get fonder and fonder of you every day, Miss Alicia, honest 
Injun. And I'd be so grateful to you if you'd just be that 
unbecomingly familiar."

He looked honestly in earnest; and if he grew fonder and fonder of 
her, she without doubt had, in the face of everything, given her whole 
heart to him.

"Might I call you Temple -- to begin with?" she asked. "It touches me 
so to think of your asking me. I will begin at once. Thank you -- 
Temple," with a faint gasp. "I might try the other a little later."

It was only a few evenings later that he told her about the flats in 
Harlem. He had sent to New York for a large bundle of newspapers, and 
when he opened them he read aloud an advertisement, and showed her a 
picture of a large building given up entirely to "flats."

He had realized from the first that New York life had a singular 
attraction for her. The unrelieved dullness of her life -- those few 
years of youth in which she had stifled vague longings for the joys 
experienced by other girls; the years of middle age spent in the 
dreary effort to be "submissive to the will of God," which, honestly 
translated, signified submission to the exactions and domestic 
tyrannies of "dear papa" and others like him -- had left her with her 
capacities for pleasure as freshly sensitive as a child's. The 
smallest change in the routine of existence thrilled her with 
excitement. Tembarom's casual references to his strenuous boyhood 
caused her eyes to widen with eagerness to hear more. Having seen 
this, he found keen delight in telling her stories of New York life -- 
stories of himself or of other lads who had been his companions. She 
would drop her work and gaze at him almost with bated breath. He was 
an excellent raconteur when he talked of the things he knew well. He 
had an unconscious habit of springing from his seat and acting his 
scenes as he depicted them, laughing and using street-boy phrasing:

"It's just like a tale," Miss Alicia would breathe, enraptured as he 
jumped from one story to another. "It's exactly like a wonderful 
tale."

She learned to know the New York streets when they blazed with heat, 
when they were hard with frozen snow, when they were sloppy with 
melting slush or bright with springtime sunshine and spring winds 
blowing, with pretty women hurrying about in beflowered spring hats 
and dresses and the exhilaration of the world-old springtime joy. She 
found herself hurrying with them. She sometimes hung with him and his 
companions on the railing outside dazzling restaurants where scores of 
gay people ate rich food in the sight of their boyish ravenousness. 
She darted in and out among horses and vehicles to find carriages 
after the theater or opera, where everybody was dressed dazzlingly and 
diamonds glittered.

"Oh, how rich everybody must have seemed to you--how cruelly rich, 
poor little boy!"

"They looked rich, right enough," he answered when she said it. "And 
there seemed a lot of good things to eat all corralled in a few 
places. And you wished you could be let loose inside. But I don't know 
as it seemed cruel. That was the way it was, you know, and you 
couldn't help it. And there were places where they'd give away some of 
what was left. I tell you, we were in luck then."

There was some spirit in his telling it all--a spirit which had surely 
been with him through his hardest days, a spirit of young mirth in 
rags--which made her feel subconsciously that the whole experience 
had, after all, been somehow of the nature of life's high adventure. 
He had never been ill or heart-sick, and he laughed when he talked of 
it, as though the remembrance was not a recalling of disaster.

"Clemmin' or no clemmin'. I wish I'd lived the loife tha's lived," 
Tummas Hibblethwaite had said.

Her amazement would indeed have been great if she had been told that 
she secretly shared his feeling.

"It seems as if somehow you had never been dull," was her method of 
expressing it.

"Dull! Holy cats! no," he grinned. "There wasn't any time for being 
anything. You just had to keep going."

She became in time familiar with Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house and 
boarders. She knew Mrs. Peck and Mr. Jakes and the young lady from the 
notion counter (those wonderful shops!). Julius and Jem and the hall 
bedroom and the tilted chairs and cloud of smoke she saw so often that 
she felt at home with them.

"Poor Mrs. Bowse," she said, "must have been a most respectable, 
motherly, hard-working creature. Really a nice person of her class." 
She could not quite visualize the "parlor," but it must have been warm 
and comfortable. And the pianola--a piano which you could play without 
even knowing your notes--What a clever invention! America seemed full 
of the most wonderfully clever things.

Tembarom was actually uplifted in soul when he discovered that she 
laid transparent little plans for leading him into talk about New 
York. She wanted him to talk about it, and the Lord knows he wanted to 
talk about himself. He had been afraid at first. She might have hated 
it, as Palford did, and it would have hurt him somehow if she hadn't 
understood. But she did. Without quite realizing the fact, she was 
beginning to love it, to wish she had seen it. Her Somerset vicarage 
imagination did not allow of such leaps as would be implied by the 
daring wish that sometime she might see it.

But Tembarom's imagination was more athletic.

"Jinks! wouldn't it be fine to take her there! The lark in London 
wouldn't be ace high to it."

The Hutchinsons were not New Yorkers, but they had been part of the 
atmosphere of Mrs. Bowse's. Mr. Hutchinson would of course be rather a 
forward and pushing man to be obliged to meet, but Little Ann! She did 
so like Little Ann!  And the dear boy did so want, in his heart of 
hearts, to talk about her at times. She did not know whether, in the 
circumstances, she ought to encourage him; but he was so dear, and 
looked so much dearer when he even said "Little Ann," that she could 
not help occasionally leading him gently toward the subject.

When he opened the newspapers and found the advertisements of the 
flats, she saw the engaging, half-awkward humorousness come into his 
eyes.

"Here's one that would do all right," he said--"four rooms and a bath, 
eleventh floor, thirty-five dollars a month."

He spread the newspaper on the table and rested on his elbow, gazing 
at it for a few minutes wholly absorbed. Then he looked up at her and 
smiled.

"There's a plan of the rooms," he said. "Would you like to look at it? 
Shall I bring your chair up to the table while we go over it 
together?"

He brought the chair, and side by side they went over it thoroughly. 
To Miss Alicia it had all the interest of a new kind of puzzle. He 
explained it in every detail. One of his secrets had been that on 
several days when Galton's manner had made him hopeful he had visited 
certain flat buildings and gone into their intricacies. He could 
therefore describe with color their resources--the janitor; the 
elevator; the dumb-waiters to carry up domestic supplies and carry 
down ashes and refuse; the refrigerator; the unlimited supply of hot 
and cold water, the heating plan; the astonishing little kitchen, with 
stationary wash-tubs; the telephone, if you could afford it,-- all the 
conveniences which to Miss Alicia, accustomed to the habits of 
Rowcroft Vicarage, where you lugged cans of water up-stairs and down 
if you took a bath or even washed your face; seemed luxuries 
appertaining only to the rich and great.

"How convenient! How wonderful! Dear me! Dear me!" she said again and 
again, quite flushed with excitement. "It is like a fairy-story. And 
it's not big at all, is it?"

"You could get most of it into this," he answered, exulting. "You 
could get all of it into that big white-and gold parlor."

"The white saloon?"

He showed his teeth.

"I guess I ought to remember to call it that," he said, "but it always 
makes me think of Kid MacMurphy's on Fourth Avenue. He kept what was 
called a saloon, and he'd had it painted white."

"Did you know him?" Miss Alicia asked.

"Know him! Gee! no! I didn't fly as high as that. He'd have thought me 
pretty fresh if I'd acted like I knew him. He thought he was one of 
the Four Hundred. He'd been a prize-fighter. He was the fellow that 
knocked out Kid Wilkens in four rounds." He broke off and laughed at 
himself. "Hear me talk to you about a tough like that!" he ended, and 
he gave her hand the little apologetic, protective pat which always 
made her heart beat because it was so "nice."

He drew her back to the advertisements, and drew such interesting 
pictures of what the lives of two people--mother and son or father and 
daughter or a young married couple who didn't want to put on style-- 
might be in the tiny compartments, that their excitement mounted 
again.

This could be a bedroom, that could be a bedroom, that could be the 
living-room, and if you put a bit of bright carpet on the hallway and 
hung up a picture or so, it would look first-rate. He even went into 
the matter of measurements, which made it more like putting a puzzle 
together than ever, and their relief when they found they could fit a 
piece of furniture he called "a lounge" into a certain corner was a 
thing of flushing delight. The "lounge," she found, was a sort of cot 
with springs. You could buy them for three dollars, and when you put 
on a mattress and covered it with a "spread," you could sit on it in 
the daytime and sleep on it at night, if you had to.

From measurements he went into calculations about the cost of things. 
He had seen unpainted wooden tables you could put mahogany stain on, 
and they'd look all you'd want. He'd seen a splendid little rocking-
chair in Second Avenue for five dollars, one of the padded kind that 
ladies like. He had seen an arm-chair for a man that was only seven; 
but there mightn't be room for both, and you'd have to have the 
rocking-chair. He had once asked the price of a lot of plates and cups 
and saucers with roses on them, and you could get them for six; and 
you didn't need a stove because there was the range.

He had once heard Little Ann talking to Mrs. Bowse about the price of 
frying-pans and kettles, and they seemed to cost next to nothing. He'd 
looked into store windows and noticed the prices of groceries and 
vegetables and things like that--sugar, for instance; two people 
wouldn't use much sugar in a week--and they wouldn't need a ton of tea 
or flour or coffee. If a fellow had a mother or sister or wife who had 
a head and knew about things, you could "put it over" on mighty 
little, and have a splendid time together, too. You'd even be able to 
work in a cheap seat in a theater every now and then. He laughed and 
flushed as he thought of it.

Miss Alicia had never had a doll's house. Rowcroft Vicarage did not 
run to dolls and their belongings. Her thwarted longing for a doll's 
house had a sort of parallel in her similarly thwarted longing for "a 
little boy."

And here was her doll's house so long, so long unpossessed! It was 
like that, this absorbed contriving and fitting of furniture into 
corners. She also flushed and laughed. Her eyes were so brightly eager 
and her cheeks so pink that she looked quite girlish under her lace 
cap.

"How pretty and cozy it might be made, how dear!" she exclaimed. "And 
one would be so high up on the eleventh floor, that one would feel 
like a bird in a nest."

His face lighted. He seemed to like the idea tremendously.

"Why, that's so," he laughed. "That idea suits me down to the ground. 
A bird in a nest. But there'd have to be two. One would be lonely. 
Say, Miss Alicia, how would you like to live in a place like that?"

"I am sure any one would like it--if they had some dear relative with 
them."

He loved her "dear relative," loved it. He knew how much it meant of 
what had lain hidden unacknowledged, even unknown to her, through a 
lifetime in her early-Victorian spinster breast.

"Let's go to New York and rent one and live in it together. Would you 
come?" he said, and though he laughed, he was not jocular in the usual 
way. "Would you, if we waked up and found this Temple Barholm thing 
was a dream?"

Something in his manner, she did not know what, puzzled her a little.

"But if it were a dream, you would be quite poor again," she said, 
smiling.

"No, I wouldn't. I'd get Galton to give me back the page. He'd do it 
quick--quick," he said, still with a laugh. "Being poor's nothing, 
anyhow. We'd have the time of our lives. We'd be two birds in a nest. 
You can look out those eleventh- story windows 'way over to the Bronx, 
and get bits of the river. And perhaps after a while Ann would do - 
like she said, and we'd be three birds."

"Oh!" she sighed ecstatically. "How beautiful it would be! We should 
be a little family!"

"So we should," he exulted. "Think of T. T. with a family!" He drew 
his paper of calculations toward him again. "Let's make believe we're 
going to do it, and work out what it would cost - for three. You know 
about housekeeping, don't you? Let's write down a list."

If he had warmed to his work before, he warmed still more after this. 
Miss Alicia was drawn into it again, and followed his fanciful plans 
with a new fervor. They were like two children who had played at make-
believe until they had lost sight of commonplace realities.

Miss Alicia had lived among small economies and could be of great 
assistance to him. They made lists and added up lines of figures until 
the fine, huge room and its thousands of volumes melted away. In the 
great hall, guarded by warriors in armor, the powdered heads of the 
waiting footmen drooped and nodded while the prices of pounds of 
butter and sugar and the value of potatoes and flour and nutmegs were 
balanced with a hectic joy, and the relative significance of dollars 
and cents and shillings and half-crowns and five-cent pieces caused 
Miss Alicia a mild delirium.

By the time that she had established the facts that a shilling was 
something like twenty-five cents, a dollar was four and twopence, and 
twenty-five dollars was something over five pounds, it was past 
midnight.

They heard the clock strike the half-hour, and stopped to stare at 
each other.

Tembarom got up with yet another laugh.

"Say, I mustn't keep you up all night," he said. "But haven't we had a 
fine time - haven't we? I feel as if I'd been there."

They had been there so entirely that Miss Alicia brought herself back 
with difficulty.

"I can scarcely believe that we have not," she said. "I feel as if I 
didn't like to leave it. It was so delightful." She glanced about her. 
"The room looks huge," she said--"almost too huge to live in."

"Doesn't it?" he answered. "Now you know how I feel." He gathered his 
scraps of paper together with a feeling touch. "I didn't want to come 
back myself. When I get a bit of a grouch I shall jerk these out and 
go back there again."

"Oh, do let me go with you!" she said. "I have so enjoyed it."

"You shall go whenever you like," he said. "We'll keep it up for a 
sort of game on rainy days. How much is a dollar, Miss Alicia?"

"Four and twopence. And sugar is six cents a pound."

"Go to the head," he answered. "Right again."

The opened roll of newspapers was lying on the table near her. They 
were copies of The Earth, and the date of one of them by merest chance 
caught her eye.

"How odd!" she said. "Those are old papers. Did you notice? Is it a 
mistake? This one is dated" She leaned forward, and her eye caught a 
word in a head-line.

"The Klondike," she read. "There's something in it about the 
Klondike." He put his hand out and drew the papers away.

"Don't you read that," he said. "I don't want you to go to bed and 
dream about the Klondike. You've got to dream about the flat in 
Harlem."

"Yes," she answered. "I mustn't think about sad things. The flat in 
Harlem is quite happy. But it startled me to see that word."

"I only sent for them--because I happened to want to look something 
up," he explained. "How much is a pound, Miss Alicia?"

"Four dollars and eighty-six cents," she replied, recovering herself.

"Go up head again. You're going to stay there."

When she gave him her hand on their parting for the night he held it a 
moment. A subtle combination of things made him do it. The 
calculations, the measurements, the nest from which one could look out 
over the Bronx, were prevailing elements in its make-up. Ann had been 
in each room of the Harlem flat, and she always vaguely reminded him 
of Ann.

"We are relations, ain't we?" he asked.

"I am sure we often seem quite near relations--Temple." She added the 
name with very pretty kindness.

"We're not distant ones any more, anyhow," he said. "Are we near 
enough--would you let me kiss you good night, Miss Alicia?"

An emotional flush ran up to her cap ribbons.

"Indeed, my dear boy--indeed, yes."

Holding her hand with a chivalric, if slightly awkward, courtesy, he 
bent, and kissed her cheek. It was a hearty, affectionately grateful 
young kiss, which, while it was for herself, remotely included Ann.

"It's the first time I've ever said good night to any one like that," 
he said. "Thank you for letting me."

He patted her hand again before releasing it. She went up-stairs 
blushing and feeling rather as though she had been proposed to, and 
yet, spinster though she was, somehow quite understanding about the 
nest and Ann.




CHAPTER XXI


Lady Mallowe and her daughter did not pay their visit to Asshawe Holt, 
the absolute, though not openly referred to, fact being that they had 
not been invited. The visit in question had merely floated in the air 
as a delicate suggestion made by her ladyship in her letter to Mrs. 
Asshe Shaw, to the effect that she and Joan were going to stay at 
Temple Barholm, the visit to Asshawe they had partly arranged some 
time ago might now be fitted in.

The partial arrangement itself, Mrs. Asshe Shaw remarked to her eldest 
daughter when she received the suggesting note, was so partial as to 
require slight consideration, since it had been made "by the woman 
herself, who would push herself and her daughter into any house in 
England if a back door were left open." In the civilly phrased letter 
she received in answer to her own, Lady Mallowe read between the lines 
the point of view taken, and writhed secretly, as she had been made to 
writhe scores of times in the course of her career. It had happened so 
often, indeed, that it might have been imagined that she had become 
used to it; but the woman who acted as maid to herself and Joan always 
knew when "she had tried to get in somewhere" and failed.

The note of explanation sent immediately to Miss Alicia was at once 
adroit and amiable. They had unfortunately been detained in London a 
day or two past the date fixed for their visit to Asshawe, and Lady 
Mallowe would not allow Mrs. Asshe Shawe, who had so many guests, to 
be inconvenienced by their arriving late and perhaps disarranging her 
plans. So if it was quite convenient, they would come to Temple 
Barholm a week earlier; but not, of course, if that would be the least 
upsetting.

When they arrived, Tembarom himself was in London. He had suddenly 
found he was obliged to go. The business which called him was 
something which could not be put off. He expected to return at once. 
It was made very easy for him when he made his excuses to Palliser, 
who suggested that he might even find himself returning by the same 
train with his guests, which would give him opportunities. If he was 
detained, Miss Alicia could take charge of the situation. They would 
quite understand when she explained. Captain Palliser foresaw for 
himself some quiet entertainment in his own meeting with the visitors. 
Lady Mallowe always provided a certain order of amusement for him, and 
no man alive objected to finding interest and even a certain 
excitement in the society of Lady Joan. It was her chief 
characteristic that she inspired in a man a vague, even if slightly 
irritated, desire to please her in some degree. To lead her on to talk 
in her sometimes brilliant, always heartlessly unsparing, fashion, 
perhaps to smile her shade of a bitter smile, gave a man something to 
do, especially if he was bored. Palliser anticipated a possible chance 
of repeating the dialogue of "the ladies," not, however, going into 
the Jem Temple Barholm part of it. When one finds a man whose idle 
life has generated in him the curiosity which is usually called 
feminine, it frequently occupies him more actively than he is aware or 
will admit.

A fashionable male gossip is a curious development. Palliser was, upon 
the whole, not aware that he had an intense interest in finding out 
the exact reason why Lady Mallowe had not failed utterly in any 
attempt to drag her daughter to this particular place, to be flung 
headlong, so to speak, at this special man. Lady Mallowe one could run 
and read, but Lady Joan was in this instance unexplainable. And as she 
never deigned the slightest concealment, the story of the dialogue 
would no doubt cause her to show her hand. She must have a hand, and 
it must be one worth seeing.

It was not he, however, who could either guess or understand. The 
following would have been his summing up of her: "Flaringly handsome 
girl, brought up by her mother to one end. Bad temper to begin with. 
Girl who might, if she lost her head, get into some frightful mess. 
Meets a fascinating devil in the first season. A regular Romeo and 
Juliet passion blazes up--all for love and the world well lost. All 
London looking on. Lady Mallowe frantic and furious. Suddenly the 
fascinating devil ruined for life, done for. Bolts, gets killed. Lady 
Mallowe triumphant. Girl dragged about afterward like a beautiful 
young demon in chains. Refuses all sorts of things. Behaves 
infernally. Nobody knows anything else."

Nobody did know; Lady Mallowe herself did not. From the first year in 
which Joan had looked at her with child consciousness she had felt 
that there was antagonism in the deeps of her eyes. No mother likes to 
recognize such a thing, and Lady Mallowe was a particularly vain 
woman. The child was going to be an undeniable beauty, and she ought 
to adore the mother who was to arrange her future. Instead of which, 
she plainly disliked her. By the time she was three years old, the 
antagonism had become defiance and rebellion. Lady Mallowe could not 
even indulge herself in the satisfaction of showing her embryo beauty 
off, and thus preparing a reputation for her. She was not cross or 
tearful, but she had the temper of a little devil. She would not be 
shown off. She hated it, and her bearing dangerously suggested that 
she hated her handsome young mother. No effects could be produced with 
her.

Before she was four the antagonism was mutual, and it increased with 
years. The child was of a passionate nature, and had been born 
intensely all her mother was not, and intensely not all her mother 
was. A throw-back to some high-spirited and fiercely honest ancestor 
created in her a fury at the sight of mean falsities and dishonors. 
Before she was old enough to know the exact cause of her rage she was 
shaken by it. She thought she had a bad temper, and was bad enough to 
hate her own mother without being able to help it. As she grew older 
she found out that she was not really so bad as she had thought, 
though she was obliged to concede that nothing palliative could be 
said about the temper. It had been violent from the first, and she had 
lived in an atmosphere which infuriated it. She did not suppose such a 
thing could be controlled. It sometimes frightened her. Had not the 
old Marquis of Norborough been celebrated through his entire life for 
his furies? Was there not a hushed-up rumor that he had once thrown a 
decanter at his wife, and so nearly killed her that people had been 
asking one another in whispers if a peer of the realm could be hanged. 
He had been born that way, so had she. Her school-room days had been a 
horror to her, and also a terror, because she had often almost flung 
ink-bottles and heavy rulers at her silly, lying governesses, and once 
had dug a pair of scissors into one sneaking old maid fool's arm when 
she had made her "see red" by her ignoble trickeries. Perhaps she 
would be hanged some day herself. She once prayed for a week that she 
might be made better tempered, --not that she believed in prayer,--and 
of course nothing came of it.

Every year she lived she raged more furiously at the tricks she saw 
played by her mother and every one who surrounded her; the very 
servants were greater liars and pilferers than any other servants. Her 
mother was always trying to get things from people which they did not 
want to give her. She would carry off slights and snubs as though they 
were actual tributes, if she could gain her end. The girl knew what 
the meaning of her own future would be. Since she definitely disliked 
her daughter, Lady Mallowe did not mince matters when they were alone. 
She had no money, she was extremely good looking, she had a certain 
number of years in which to fight for her own hand among the new 
debutantes who were presented every season. Her first season over, the 
next season other girls would be fresher than she was, and newer to 
the men who were worth marrying. Men like novelty. After her second 
season the debutantes would seem fresher still by contrast. Then 
people would begin to say, "She was presented four or five years ago." 
After that it would be all struggle,--every season it would be worse. 
It would become awful. Unmarried women over thirty-five would speak of 
her as though they had been in the nursery together. Married girls 
with a child or so would treat her as though she were a maiden aunt. 
She knew what was before her. Beggary stared them both in the face if 
she did not make the most of her looks and waste no time. And Joan 
knew it was all true, and that worse, far worse things were true also. 
She would be obliged to spend a long life with her mother in cheap 
lodgings, a faded, penniless, unmarried woman, railed at, taunted, 
sneered at, forced to be part of humiliating tricks played to enable 
them to get into debt and then to avoid paying what they owed. Had she 
not seen one horrible old woman of their own rank who was an example 
of what poverty might bring one to, an old harpy who tried to queen it 
over her landlady in an actual back street, and was by turns fawned 
upon and disgustingly "your ladyshiped" or outrageously insulted by 
her landlady?

Then that first season! Dear, dear God! that first season when she met 
Jem! She was not nineteen, and the facile world pretended to be at her 
feet, and the sun shone as though London were in Italy, and the park 
was marvelous with flowers, and there were such dances and such 
laughter!

And it was all so young--and she met Jem! It was at a garden-party at 
a lovely old house on the river, a place with celebrated gardens which 
would always come back to her memory as a riot of roses. The frocks of 
the people on the lawn looked as though they were made of the petals 
of flowers, and a mad little haunting waltz was being played by the 
band, and there under a great copper birch on the green velvet turf 
near her stood Jem, looking at her with dark, liquid, slanting eyes! 
They were only a few feet from each other,--and he looked, and she 
looked, and the haunting, mad little waltz played on, and it was as 
though they had been standing there since the world began, and nothing 
else was true.

Afterward nothing mattered to either of them. Lady Mallowe herself 
ceased to count. Now and then the world stops for two people in this 
unearthly fashion. At such times, as far as such a pair are concerned, 
causes and effects cease. Her bad temper fled, and she knew she would 
never feel its furious lash again.

With Jem looking at her with his glowing, drooping eyes, there would 
be no reason for rage and shame. She confessed the temper to him and 
told of her terror of it; he confessed to her his fondness for high 
play, and they held each other's hands, not with sentimental youthful 
lightness, but with the strong clasp of sworn comrades, and promised 
on honor that they would stand by each other every hour of their lives 
against their worst selves.

They would have kept the pact. Neither was a slight or dishonest 
creature. The phase of life through which they passed is not a new 
one, but it is not often so nearly an omnipotent power as was their 
three-months' dream.

It lasted only that length of time. Then came the end of the world. 
Joan did not look fresh in her second season, and before it was over 
men were rather afraid of her. Because she was so young the freshness 
returned to her cheek, but it never came back to her eyes.

What exactly had happened, or what she thought, it was impossible to 
know. She had delicate, black brows, and between them appeared two 
delicate, fierce lines. Her eyes were of a  purplish-gray, "the color 
of thunder," a snubbed admirer had once said. Between their black 
lashes they were more deeply thunder-colored. Her life with her mother 
was a thing not to be spoken of. To the desperate girl's agony of 
rebellion against the horror of fate Lady Mallowe's taunts and 
beratings were devilish. There was a certain boudoir in the house in 
Hill Street which was to Joan like the question chamber of the 
Inquisition. Shut up in it together, the two went through scenes which 
in their cruelty would have done credit to the Middle Ages. Lady 
Mallowe always locked the door to prevent the unexpected entrance of a 
servant, but servants managed to hover about it, because her ladyship 
frequently forgot caution so far as to raise her voice at times, as 
ladies are not supposed to do.

"We fight," Joan said with a short, horrible laugh one morning--"we 
fight like cats and dogs. No, like two cats. A cat-and-dog fight is 
more quickly over. Some day we shall scratch each other's eyes out."

"Have you no shame?" her mother cried.

"I am burning with it. I am like St. Lawrence on his gridiron. 'Turn 
me over on the other side,'" she quoted.

This was when she had behaved so abominably to the Duke of Merthshire 
that he had actually withdrawn his more than half-finished proposal. 
That which she hated more than all else was the God she had prayed to 
when she asked she might be helped to control her temper.

She had not believed in Him at the time, but because she was 
frightened after she had stuck the scissors into Fraulein she had 
tried the appeal as an experiment. The night after she met Jem, when 
she went to her room in Hill Street for the night, she knelt down and 
prayed because she suddenly did believe. Since there was Jem in the 
world, there must be the other somewhere.

As day followed day, her faith grew with her love. She told Jem about 
it, and they agreed to say a prayer together at the same hour every 
night. The big young man thought her piety beautiful, and, his voice 
was unsteady as they talked. But she told him that she was not pious, 
but impious.

"I want to be made good," she said. "I have been bad all my life. I 
was a bad child, I have been a bad girl; but now I must be good."

On the night after the tragic card-party she went to her room and 
kneeled down in a new spirit. She knelt, but not to cover her face, 
she knelt with throat strained and her fierce young face thrown back 
and upward.

Her hands were clenched to fists and flung out and shaken at the 
ceiling. She said things so awful that her own blood shuddered as she 
uttered them. But she could not--in her mad helplessness--make them 
awful enough. She flung herself on the carpet at last, her arms 
outstretched like a creature crucified face downward on the cross.

"I believed in You!" she gasped. "The first moment you gave me a 
reason I believed. I did! I did! We both said our prayer to You every 
night, like children. And you've done this--this--this!" And she beat 
with her fists upon the floor.

Several years had passed since that night, and no living being knew 
what she carried in her soul. If she had a soul, she said to herself, 
it was black--black. But she had none. Neither had Jem had one; when 
the earth and stones had fallen upon him it had been the end, as it 
would have been if he had been a beetle.

This was the guest who was coming to the house where Miles Hugo smiled 
from his frame in the picture-gallery--the house which would to-day 
have been Jem's if T. Tembarom had not inherited it.

Tembarom returned some twenty-four hours after Miss Alicia had 
received his visitors for him. He had been "going into" absorbing 
things in London. His thoughts during his northward journey were 
puzzled and discouraged ones. He sat in the corner of the railway 
carriage and stared out of the window without seeing the springtime 
changes in the flying landscape.

The price he would have given for a talk with Ann would not have been 
easy to compute. Her head, her level little head, and her way of 
seeing into things and picking out facts without being rattled by what 
didn't really count, would have been worth anything. The day itself 
was a discouraging one, with heavy threatenings of rain which did not 
fall.

The low clouds were piles of dark-purple gray, and when the sun tried 
to send lances of ominous yellow light through them, strange and lurid 
effects were produced, and the heavy purple-gray masses rolled 
together again. He wondered why he did not hear low rumblings of 
thunder.

He went to his room at once when he reached home. He was late, and 
Pearson told him that the ladies were dressing for dinner. Pearson was 
in waiting with everything in readiness for the rapid performance of 
his duties. Tembarom had learned to allow himself to be waited upon. 
He had, in fact, done this for the satisfying of Pearson, whose 
respectful unhappiness would otherwise have been manifest despite his 
efforts to conceal it. He dressed quickly and asked some questions 
about Strangeways. Otherwise Pearson thought he seemed preoccupied. He 
only made one slight joke.

"You'd be a first-rate dresser for a quick-change artist, Pearson," he 
remarked.

On his way to the drawing-room he deflected from the direct path, 
turning aside for a moment to the picture-gallery because for a reason 
of his own he wanted to take a look at Miles Hugo. He took a look at 
Miles Hugo oftener than Miss Alicia knew.

The gallery was dim and gloomy enough, now closing in in the purple-
gray twilight. He walked through it without glancing at the pictures 
until he came to the tall boy in the satin and lace of Charles II 
period. He paused there only for a short time, but he stood quite near 
the portrait, and looked hard at the handsome face.

"Gee!" he exclaimed under his breath, "it's queer, gee!"

Then he turned suddenly round toward one of the big windows. He turned 
because he had been startled by a sound, a movement. Some one was 
standing before the window. For a second's space the figure seemed as 
though it was almost one with the purple-gray clouds that were its 
background. It was a tall young woman, and her dress was of a thin 
material of exactly their color--dark-gray and purple at once. The 
wearer held her head high and haughtily. She had a beautiful, stormy 
face, and the slender, black brows were drawn together by a frown. 
Tembarom had never seen a girl as handsome and disdainful. He had, 
indeed, never been looked at as she looked at him when she moved 
slightly forward.

He knew who it was. It was the Lady Joan girl, and the sudden sight of 
her momentarily "rattled" him.

"You quite gave me a jolt," he said awkwardly, and knowing that he 
said it like a "mutt." "I didn't know any one was in the gallery."

"What are you doing here?" she asked. She spoke to him as though she 
were addressing an intruding servant. There was emphasis on the word 
"you."

Her intention was so evident that it increased his feeling of being 
"rattled." To find himself confronting deliberate ill nature of a 
superior and finished kind was like being spoken to in a foreign 
language.

"I--I'm T. Tembarom." he answered, not able to keep himself from 
staring because she was such a "winner" as to looks.

"T. Tembarom?" she repeated slowly, and her tone made him at once see 
what a fool he had been to say it.

"I forgot," he half laughed. "I ought to have said I'm Temple 
Barholm."

"Oh!" was her sole comment. She actually stood still and looked him up 
and down.

She knew perfectly well who he was, and she knew perfectly well that 
no palliative view could possibly be taken by any well-bred person of 
her bearing toward him. He was her host. She had come, a guest, to his 
house to eat his bread and salt, and the commonest decency demanded 
that she should conduct herself with civility. But she cared nothing 
for the commonest, or the most uncommon, decency. She was thinking of 
other things. As she had stood before the window she had felt that her 
soul had never been so black as it was when she turned away from Miles 
Hugo's portrait--never, never. She wanted to hurt people. Perhaps Nero 
had felt as she did and was not so hideous as he seemed.

The man's tailor had put him into proper clothes, and his features 
were respectable enough, but nothing on earth could make him anything 
but what he so palpably was. She had seen that much across the gallery 
as she had watched him staring at Miles Hugo.

"I should think," she said, dropping the words slowly again, "that you 
would often forget that you are Temple Barholm."

"You're right there," he answered. "I can't nail myself down to it. It 
seems like a sort of joke."

She looked him over again.

"It is a joke," she said.

It was as though she had slapped him in the face, though she said it 
so quietly. He knew he had received the slap, and that, as it was a 
woman, he could not slap back. It was a sort of surprise to her that 
he did not giggle nervously and turn red and shuffle his feet in 
impotent misery. He kept quite still a moment or so and looked at her, 
though not as she had looked at him. She wondered if he was so thick-
skinned that he did not feel anything at all.

"That's so," he admitted. "That's so." Then he actually smiled at her. 
"I don't know how to behave myself, you see," he said. "You're Lady 
Joan Fayre, ain't you? I'm mighty glad to see you. Happy to make your 
acquaintance, Lady Joan."

He took her hand and shook it with friendly vigor before she knew what 
he was going to do.

"I'll bet a dollar dinner's ready," he added, "and Burrill's waiting. 
It scares me to death to keep Burrill waiting. He's got no use for me, 
anyhow. Let's go and pacify him."

He did not lead the way or drag her by the arm, as it seemed to her 
quite probable that he might, as costermongers do on Hampstead Heath. 
He knew enough to let her pass first through the door; and when Lady 
Mallowe looked up to see her enter the drawing-room, he was behind 
her. To her ladyship's amazement and relief, they came in, so to 
speak, together. She had been spared the trying moment of assisting at 
the ceremony of their presentation to each other.




CHAPTER XXII


In a certain sense she had been dragged to the place by her mother. 
Lady Mallowe had many resources, and above all she knew how to weary 
her into resistlessness which was almost indifference. There had been 
several shameless little scenes in the locked boudoir. But though she 
had been dragged, she had come with an intention. She knew what she 
would find herself being forced to submit to if the intruder were not 
disposed of at the outset, and if the manoeuvering began which would 
bring him to London. He would appear at her elbow here and there and 
at every corner, probably unaware that he was being made an offensive 
puppet by the astute cleverness against which she could not defend 
herself, unless she made actual scenes in drawing-rooms, at dinner-
tables, in the very streets themselves. Gifted as Lady Mallowe was in 
fine and light-handed dealing of her cards in any game, her stakes at 
this special juncture were seriously high. Joan knew what they were, 
and that she was in a mood touched with desperation. The defenselessly 
new and ignorant Temple Barholm was to her mind a direct intervention 
of Providence, and it was only Joan herself who could rob her of the 
benefits and reliefs he could provide. With regard to Lady Joan, 
though Palliser's quoted New Yorkism, "wipe up the earth," was unknown 
to her, the process she had in mind when she left London for 
Lancashire would have been well covered by it. As in feudal days she 
might have ordered the right hand of a creature such as this to be 
struck off, forgetting that he was a man, so was she capable to-day of 
inflicting upon him any hurt which might sweep him out of her way. She 
had not been a tender-hearted girl, and in these years she was 
absolutely callous. The fellow being what he was, she had not the 
resources she might have called upon if he had been a gentleman. He 
would not understand the chills and slights of good manners. In the 
country he would be easier to manage than in town, especially if 
attacked in his first timidity before his new grandeurs. His big house 
no doubt frightened him, his servants, the people who were of a class 
of which he knew nothing. When Palliser told his story she saw new 
openings. He would stand in servile awe of her and of others like her. 
He would be afraid of her, to begin with, and she could make him more so.

But though she had come to alarm him so that he would be put to 
absolute flight, she had also come for another reason. She had never 
seen Temple Barholm, and she had discovered before they had known each 
other a week that it was Jem's secret passion. He had loved it with a 
slighted and lonely child's romantic longing; he had dreamed of it as 
boy and man, knowing that it must some time be his own, his home, and 
yet prevented by his uncle's attitude toward him from daring to act as 
though he remembered the fact. Old Mr. Temple Barholm's special humor 
had been that of a man guarding against presumption.

Jem had not intended to presume, but he had been snubbed with 
relentless cruelty even for boyish expressions of admiration. And he 
had hid his feeling in his heart until he poured it out to Joan. To-
day it would have been his. Together, together, they would have lived 
in it and loved every stone of it, every leaf on every great tree, 
every wild daffodil nodding in the green grass. Most people, God be 
thanked! can forget. The wise ones train themselves beyond all else to 
forgetting.

Joan had been a luckless, ill-brought-up, passionate child and girl. 
In her Mayfair nursery she had been as little trained as a young 
savage. Since her black hour she had forgotten nothing, allowed 
herself no palliating moments. Her brief dream of young joy had been 
the one real thing in her life. She absolutely had lain awake at night 
and reconstructed the horror of Jem's death, had lived it over again, 
writhing in agony on her bed, and madly feeling that by so doing she 
was holding her love close to her life.

And the man who stood in the place Jem had longed for, the man who sat 
at the head of his table, was this "thing!" That was what she felt him 
to be, and every hurt she could do him, every humiliation which should 
write large before him his presumption and grotesque unfitness, would 
be a blow struck for Jem, who could never strike a blow for himself 
again. It was all senseless, but she had not want to reason. Fate had 
not reasoned in her behalf. She watched Tembarom under her lids at the 
dinner-table.

He had not wriggled or shuffled when she spoke to him in the gallery; 
he did neither now, and made no obvious efforts to seem unembarrassed. 
He used his knife and fork in odd ways, and he was plainly not used to 
being waited upon. More than once she saw the servants restrain 
smiles. She addressed no remarks to him herself, and answered with 
chill indifference such things as he said to her. If conversation had 
flagged between him and Mr. Palford because the solicitor did not know 
how to talk to him, it did not even reach the point of flagging with 
her, because she would not talk and did not allow it to begin. Lady 
Mallowe, sick with annoyance, was quite brilliant. She drew out Miss 
Alicia by detailed reminiscences of a visit paid to Rowlton Hall years 
before. The vicar had dined at the hall while she had been there. She 
remembered perfectly his charm of manner and powerful originality of 
mind, she said sweetly. He had spoken with such affection of his 
"little Alicia," who was such a help to him in his parish work.

"I thought he was speaking of a little girl at first," she said 
smilingly, "but it soon revealed itself that 'little Alicia' was only 
his caressing diminutive."

A certain widening of Miss Alicia's fascinated eye, which could not 
remove itself from her face, caused her to quail slightly.

"He was of course a man of great force of character and-- and 
expression," she added. "I remember thinking at the time that his 
eloquent frankness of phrase might perhaps seem even severe to 
frivolous creatures like myself. A really remarkable personality."

"His sermons," faltered Miss Alicia, as a refuge, "were indeed 
remarkable. I am sure he must greatly have enjoyed his conversations 
with you. I am afraid there were very few clever women in the 
neighborhood of Rowlton."

Casting a bitter side glance on her silent daughter, Lady Mallowe 
lightly seized upon New York as a subject. She knew so much of it from 
delightful New Yorkers. London was full of delightful New Yorkers. She 
would like beyond everything to spend a winter in New York. She 
understood that the season there was in the winter and that it was 
most brilliant. Mr. Temple Barholm must tell them about it.

"Yes," said Lady Joan, looking at him through narrowed lids, "Mr. 
Temple Barholm ought to tell us about it."

She wanted to hear what he would say, to see how he would try to get 
out of the difficulty or flounder staggeringly through it. Her mother 
knew in an instant that her own speech had been a stupid blunder. She 
had put the man into exactly the position Joan would enjoy seeing him 
in. But he wasn't in a position, it appeared.

"What is the season, anyhow?" he said. "You've got one on me when you 
talk about seasons."

"In London," Miss Alicia explained courageously, "it is the time when 
her Majesty is at Buckingham Palace, and when the drawing-rooms are 
held, and Parliament sits, and people come up to town and give balls."

She wished that Lady Mallowe had not made her remark just at this 
time. She knew that the quietly moving servants were listening, and 
that their civilly averted eyes had seen Captain Palliser smile and 
Lady Joan's curious look, and that the whole incident would form 
entertainment for their supper- table.

"I guess they have it in the winter in New York, then, if that's it," 
he said. "There's no Buckingham Palace there, and no drawing-rooms, 
and Congress sits in Washington. But New York takes it out in suppers 
at Sherry's and Delmonico's and theaters and receptions. Miss Alicia 
knows how I used to go to them when I was a little fellow, don't you, 
Miss Alicia?" he added, smiling at her across the table.

"You have told me," she answered. She noticed that Burrill and the 
footmen stood at attention in their places.

"I used to stand outside in the snow and look in through the windows 
at the people having a good time," he said. "Us kids that were selling 
newspapers used to try to fill ourselves up with choosing whose plate 
we'd take if we could get at it. Beefsteak and French fried potatoes 
were the favorites, and hot oyster stews. We were so all-fired 
hungry!"

"How pathetic!" exclaimed Lady Mallowe. "And how interesting, now that 
it is all over!"

She knew that her manner was gushing, and Joan's slight side glance of 
subtle appreciation of the fact exasperated her almost beyond 
endurance. What could one do, what could one talk about, without 
involving oneself in difficulties out of which one's hasty retreat 
could be effected only by gushing? Taking into consideration the 
awkwardness of the whole situation and seeing Joan's temper and 
attitude, if there had not been so much at stake she would have 
received a summoning telegram from London the next day and taken 
flight. But she had been forced to hold her ground before in places 
she detested or where she was not wanted, and she must hold it again 
until she had found out the worst or the best. And, great heaven! how 
Joan was conducting herself, with that slow, quiet insultingness of 
tone and look, the wicked, silent insolence of bearing which no man 
was able to stand, however admiringly he began! The Duke of Merthshire 
had turned his back upon it even after all the world had known his 
intentions, even after the newspapers had prematurely announced the 
engagement and she herself had been convinced that he could not 
possibly retreat. She had worked desperately that season, she had 
fawned on and petted newspaper people, and stooped to little things no 
one but herself could have invented and which no one but herself knew 
of. And never had Joan been so superb; her beauty had seemed at its 
most brilliant height. The match would have been magnificent; but he 
could not stand her, and would not. Why, indeed, should any man? She 
glanced at her across the table. A beauty, of course; but she was 
thinner, and her eyes had a hungry fierceness in them, and the two 
delicate, straight lines between her black brows were deepening.

And there were no dukes on the horizon. Merthshire had married almost 
at once, and all the others were too young or had wives already. If 
this man would take her, she might feel herself lucky. Temple Barholm 
and seventy thousand a year were not to be trifled with by a girl who 
had made herself unpopular and who was twenty-six. And for her own 
luck the moment had come just before it was too late--a second 
marriage, wealth, the end of the hideous struggle. Joan was the 
obstacle in her path, and she must be forced out of it. She glanced 
quickly at Tembarom. He was trying to talk to Joan now. He was trying 
to please her. She evidently had a fascination for him. He looked at 
her in a curious way when she was not looking at him. It was a way 
different from that of other men whom she had watched as they 
furtively stared. It had struck her that he could not take his eyes 
away. That was because he had never before been on speaking terms with 
a woman of beauty and rank.

Joan herself knew that he was trying to please her, and she was asking 
herself how long he would have the courage and presumption to keep it 
up. He could scarcely be enjoying it.

He was not enjoying it, but he kept it up. He wanted to be friends 
with her for more reasons than one. No one had ever remained long at 
enmity with him. He had "got over" a good many people in the course of 
his career, as he had "got over" Joseph Hutchinson. This had always 
been accomplished because he presented no surface at which arrows 
could be thrown. She was the hardest proposition he had ever come up 
against, he was thinking; but if he didn't let himself be fool enough 
to break loose and get mad, she'd not hate him so much after a while. 
She would begin to understand that it wasn't his fault; then perhaps 
he could get her to make friends. In fact, if she had been able to 
read his thoughts, there is no certainty as to how far her temper 
might have carried her. But she could see him only as a sharp-faced, 
common American of the shop-boy class, sitting at the head of Jem 
Temple Barholm's table, in his chair.

As they passed through the hall to go to the drawing-room after the 
meal was over, she saw a neat, pale young man speaking to Burrill and 
heard a few of his rather anxiously uttered words.

"The orders were that he was always to be told when Mr. Strangeways 
was like this, under all circumstances. I can't quiet him, Mr. 
Burrill. He says he must see him at once."

Burrill walked back stiffly to the dining-room.

"It won't trouble HIM much to be disturbed at his wine," he muttered 
before going. "He doesn't know hock from port."

When the message was delivered to him, Tembarom excused himself with 
simple lack of ceremony.

"I 'll be back directly," he said to Palliser. "Those are good 
cigars." And he left the room without going into the matter further.

Palliser took one of the good cigars, and in taking it exchanged a 
glance with Burrill which distantly conveyed the suggestion that 
perhaps he had better remain for a moment or so. Captain Palliser's 
knowledge of interesting detail was obtained "by chance here and 
there," he sometimes explained, but it was always obtained with a 
light and casual air.

"I am not sure," he remarked as he took the light Burrill held for him 
and touched the end of his cigar--"I am not quite sure that I know 
exactly who Mr. Strangeways is."

"He's the gentleman, sir, that Mr. Temple Barholm brought over from 
New York," replied Burrill with a stolidity clearly expressive of 
distaste.

"Indeed, from New York! Why doesn't one see him?"

"He's not in a condition to see people, sir," said Burrill, and 
Palliser's slightly lifted eyebrow seeming to express a good deal, he 
added a sentence, "He's not all there, sir."

"From New York, and not all there. What seems to be the matter?" 
Palliser asked quietly. "Odd idea to bring a lunatic all the way from 
America. There must be asylums there."

"Us servants have orders to keep out of the way," Burrill said with 
sterner stolidity. "He's so nervous that the sight of strangers does 
him harm. I may say that questions are not encouraged."

"Then I must not ask any more," said Captain Palliser. "I did not know 
I was edging on to a mystery."

"I wasn't aware that I was myself, sir," Burrill remarked, "until I 
asked something quite ordinary of Pearson, who is Mr. Temple Barholm's 
valet, and it was not what he said, but what he didn't, that showed me 
where I stood."

"A mystery is an interesting thing to have in a house," said Captain 
Palliser without enthusiasm. He smoked his cigar as though he was 
enjoying its aroma, and even from his first remark he had managed not 
to seem to be really quite addressing himself to Burrill. He was 
certainly not talking to him in the ordinary way; his air was rather 
that of a gentleman overhearing casual remarks in which he was only 
vaguely interested. Before Burrill left the room, however, and he left 
it under the impression that he had said no more than civility 
demanded, Captain Palliser had reached the point of being able to 
deduce a number of things from what he, like Pearson, had not said.




CHAPTER XXIII


The man who in all England was most deeply submerged in deadly boredom 
was, the old Duke of Stone said with wearied finality, himself. He had 
been a sinful young man of finished taste in 1820; he had cultivated 
these tastes, which were for literature and art and divers other 
things, in the most richly alluring foreign capitals until finding 
himself becoming an equally sinful and finished elderly man, he had 
decided to marry. After the birth of her four daughters, his wife had 
died and left them on his hands. Developing at that time a tendency to 
rheumatic gout and a daily increasing realization of the fact that the 
resources of a poor dukedom may be hopelessly depleted by an expensive 
youth passed brilliantly in Vienna, Paris, Berlin, and London, when it 
was endurable, he found it expedient to give up what he considered the 
necessities of life and to face existence in the country in England. 
It is not imperative that one should enter into detail. There was 
much, and it covered years during which his four daughters grew up and 
he "grew down," as he called it. If his temper had originally been a 
bad one, it would doubtless have become unbearable; as he had been 
born an amiable person, he merely sank into the boredom which 
threatens extinction. His girls bored him, his neighbors bored him, 
Stone Hover bored him, Lancashire bored him, England had always bored 
him except at abnormal moments.
	
"I read a great deal, I walk when I can," this he wrote once to a 
friend in Rome. "When I am too stiff with rheumatic gout, I drive 
myself about in a pony chaise and feel like an aunt in a Bath chair. I 
have so far escaped the actual chair itself. It perpetually rains 
here, I may mention, so I don't get out often. You who gallop on white 
roads in the sunshine and hear Italian voices and vowels, figure to 
yourself your friend trundling through damp, lead-colored Lancashire 
lanes and being addressed in the Lancashire dialect. But so am I 
driven by necessity that I listen to it gratefully. I want to hear 
village news from villagers. I have become a gossip. It is a wonderful 
thing to be a gossip. It assists one to get through one's declining 
years. Do not wait so long as I did before becoming one. Begin in your 
roseate middle age."

An attack of gout more severe than usual had confined him to his room 
for some time after the arrival of the new owner of Temple Barholm. He 
had, in fact, been so far indisposed that a week or two had passed 
before he had heard of him. His favorite nurse had been chosen by him, 
because she was a comfortable village woman whom he had taught to lay 
aside her proper awe and talk to him about her own affairs and her 
neighbors when he was in the mood to listen. She spoke the broadest 
possible dialect,--he liked dialect, having learned much in his youth 
from mellow-eyed Neapolitan and Tuscan girls,--and she had never been 
near a hospital, but had been trained by the bedsides of her children 
and neighbors.

"If I were a writing person, she would become literature, impinging 
upon Miss Mitford's tales of 'Our Village,' Miss Austen's varieties, 
and the young Bronte woman's 'Wuthering Heights.' Mon Dieu! what a 
resource it would be to be a writing person!" he wrote to the Roman 
friend.

To his daughters he said:

"She brings back my tenderest youth. When she pokes the fire in the 
twilight and lumbers about the room, making me comfortable, I lie in 
my bed and watch the flames dancing on the ceiling and feel as if I 
were six and had the measles. She tucks me in, my dears--she tucks me 
in, I assure you. Sometimes I feel it quite possible that she will 
bend over and kiss me."

She had tucked him in luxuriously in his arm-chair by the fire on the 
first day of his convalescence, and as she gave him his tray, with his 
beef tea and toast, he saw that she contained anecdotal information of 
interest which tactful encouragement would cause to flow.

"Now that I am well enough to be entertained, Braddle," he said, "tell 
me what has been happening."

"A graidely lot, yore Grace," she answered; "but not so much i' Stone 
Hover as i' Temple Barholm. He's coom!"

Then the duke vaguely recalled rumors he had heard sometime before his 
indisposition.

"The new Mr. Temple Barholm? He's an American, isn't he? The lost heir 
who had to be sought for high and low-- principally low, I 
understand."

The beef tea was excellently savory, the fire was warm, and relief 
from two weeks of pain left a sort of Nirvana of peace. Rarely had the 
duke passed a more delightfully entertaining morning. There was a 
richness in the Temple Barholm situation, as described in detail by 
Mrs. Braddle, which filled him with delight. His regret that he was 
not a writing person intensified itself. Americans had not appeared 
upon the horizon in Miss Mitford's time, or in Miss Austen's, or in 
the Brontes' the type not having entirely detached itself from that of 
the red Indian. It struck him, however, that Miss Austen might have 
done the best work with this affair if she had survived beyond her 
period. Her finely demure and sly sense of humor would have seen and 
seized upon its opportunities. Stark moorland life had not encouraged 
humor in the Brontes, and village patronage had not roused in Miss 
Mitford a sense of ironic contrasts. Yes, Jane Austen would have done 
it best.

That the story should be related by Mrs. Braddle gave it extraordinary 
flavor. No man or woman of his own class could have given such a 
recounting, or revealed so many facets of this jewel of entertainment. 
He and those like him could have seen the thing only from their own 
amused, outraged, bewildered, or cynically disgusted point of view. 
Mrs. Braddle saw it as the villagers saw it--excited, curious, 
secretly hopeful of undue lavishness from "a chap as had nivver had 
brass before an' wants to chuck it away for brag's sake," or somewhat 
alarmed at the possible neglecting of customs and privileges by a 
person ignorant of memorial benefactions. She saw it as the servants 
saw it--secretly disdainful, outwardly respectful, waiting to discover 
whether the sacrifice of professional distinction would be balanced by 
liberties permitted and lavishness of remuneration and largess. She 
saw it also from her own point of view--that of a respectable cottage 
dweller whose great-great-grandfather had been born in a black-and-
white timbered house in a green lane, and who knew what were "gentry 
ways" and what nature of being could never even remotely approach the 
assumption of them. She had seen Tembarom more than once, and summed 
him up by no means ill-naturedly.

"He's not such a bad-lookin' chap. He is na short-legged or turn-up-
nosed, an' that's summat. He con stride along, an' he looks healthy 
enow for aw he's thin. A thin chap nivver looks as common as a fat un. 
If he wur pudgy, it ud be a lot more agen him."

"I think, perhaps," amiably remarked the duke, sipping his beef tea, 
"that you had better not call him a `chap,' Braddle. The late Mr. 
Temple Barholm was never referred to as a `chap' exactly, was he?"

Mrs. Braddle gave vent to a sort of internal-sounding chuckle. She had 
not meant to be impertinent, and she knew her charge was aware that 
she had not, and that he was neither being lofty or severe with her.

"Eh, I'd 'a'loiked to ha' heard somebody do it when he was nigh," she 
said. "Happen I'd better be moindin' ma P's an' Q's a bit more. But 
that's what this un is, yore Grace. He's a `chap' out an' out. An' 
theer's some as is sayin' he's not a bad sort of a chap either. 
There's lots o' funny stories about him i' Temple Barholm village. He 
goes in to th' cottages now an' then, an' though a fool could see he 
does na know his place, nor other people's, he's downreet open-handed. 
An' he maks foak laugh. He took a lot o' New York papers wi' big 
pictures in 'em to little Tummas Hibblethwaite. An' wot does tha think 
he did one rainy day? He walks in to the owd Dibdens' cottage, an' 
sits down betwixt 'em as they sit one each side o' th' f're, an' he 
tells 'em they've got to cheer him up a bit becos he's got nought to 
do. An' he shows 'em th' picter-papers, too, an' tells 'em about New 
York, an' he ends up wi' singin' 'em a comic song. They was frightened 
out o' their wits at first, but somehow he got over 'em, an' made 'em 
laugh their owd heads nigh off."

Her charge laid his spoon down, and his shrewd, lined face assumed a 
new expression of interest.

"Did he! Did he, indeed!" he exclaimed. "Good Lord! what an 
exhilarating person! I must go and see him. Perhaps he'd make me laugh 
my `owd head nigh off.' What a sensation! "

There was really immense color in the anecdotes and in the side views 
accompanying them; the routing out of her obscurity of the isolated, 
dependent spinster relative, for instance. Delicious! The man was 
either desperate with loneliness or he was one of the rough-diamond 
benefactors favored by novelists, in which latter case he would not be 
so entertaining. Pure self-interest caused the Duke of Stone quite 
unreservedly to hope that he was anguished by the unaccustomedness of 
his surroundings, and was ready to pour himself forth to any one who 
would listen. There would be originality in such a situation, and one 
could draw forth revelations worth forming an audience to. He himself 
had thought that the volte-face such circumstances demanded would 
surely leave a man staring at things foreign enough to bore him. This, 
indeed, had been one of his cherished theories; but the only man he 
had ever encountered who had become a sort of millionaire between one 
day and another had been an appalling Yorkshire man, who had had some 
extraordinary luck with diamond-mines in South Africa, and he had been 
simply drunk with exhilaration and the delight of spending money with 
both hands, while he figuratively slapped on the back persons who six 
weeks before would have kicked him for doing it.

This man did not appear to be excited. The duke mentally rocked with 
gleeful appreciation of certain things Mrs. Braddle detailed. She 
gave, of course, Burrill's version of the brief interview outside the 
dining-room door when Miss Alicia's status in the household bad been 
made clear to him. But the duke, being a man endowed with a subtle 
sense of shades, was wholly enlightened as to the inner meaning of 
Burrill's master.

"Now, that was good," he said to himself, almost chuckling. "By the 
Lord! the man might have been a gentleman."

When to all this was added the story of the friend or poor relative, 
or what not, who was supposed to be "not quoite reet i' th' yed," and 
was taken care of like a prince, in complete isolation, attended by a 
valet, visited and cheered up by his benefactor, he felt that a boon 
had indeed been bestowed upon him. It was a nineteenth century 
"Mysteries of Udolpho" in embryo, though too greatly diluted by the 
fact that though the stranger was seen by no one, the new Temple 
Barholm made no secret of him.

If he had only made a secret of him, the whole thing would have been 
complete. There was of course in the situation a discouraging 
suggestion that Temple Barholm MIGHT turn out to be merely the 
ordinary noble character bestowing boons.

"I will burn a little candle to the Virgin and offer up prayers that 
he may NOT. That sort of thing would have no cachet whatever, and 
would only depress me," thought his still sufficiently sinful Grace.

"When, Braddle, do you think I shall be able to take a drive again?" 
he asked his nurse.

Braddle was not prepared to say upon her own responsibility, but the 
doctor would tell him when he came in that afternoon.

"I feel astonishingly well, considering the sharpness of the attack," 
her patient said. "Our little talk has quite stimulated me. When I go 
out,"--there was a gleam in the eye he raised to hers,--" I am going 
to call at Temple Barholm."

"I knowed tha would," she commented with maternal familiarity. "I 
dunnot believe tha could keep away."

And through the rest of the morning, as he sat and gazed into the 
fire, she observed that he several times chuckled gently and rubbed 
his delicate, chill, swollen knuckled hands together.

A few weeks later there were some warm days, and his Grace chose to go 
out in his pony carriage. Much as he detested the suggestion of "the 
aunt in the Bath chair," he had decided that he found the low, 
informal vehicle more entertaining than a more imposing one, and the 
desperation of his desire to be entertained can be comprehended only 
by those who have known its parallel. If he was not in some way 
amused, he found himself whirling, with rheumatic gout and seventy 
years, among recollections of vivid pictures better hung in galleries 
with closed doors. It was always possible to stop the pony carriage to 
look at views--bits of landscape caught at by vision through trees or 
under their spreading branches, or at the end of little green-hedged 
lanes apparently adorned with cottages, or farm-houses with ricks and 
barn-yards and pig-pens designed for the benefit of Morland and other 
painters of rusticity. He could also slacken the pony's pace and draw 
up by roadsides where solitary men sat by piles of stone, which they 
broke at leisure with hammers as though they were cracking nuts. He 
had spent many an agreeable half-hour in talk with a road-mender who 
could be led into conversation and was left elated by an extra 
shilling. As in years long past he had sat under chestnut-trees in the 
Apennines and shared the black bread and sour wine of a peasant, so in 
these days he frequently would have been glad to sit under a hedge and 
eat bread and cheese with a good fellow who did not know him and whose 
summing up of the domestic habits and needs of "th' workin' mon" or 
the amiabilities or degeneracies of the gentry would be expressed, 
figuratively speaking, in thoughts and words of one syllable. The 
pony, however, could not take him very far afield, and one could not 
lunch on the grass with a stone-breaker well within reach of one's own 
castle without an air of eccentricity which he no more chose to assume 
than he would have chosen to wear long hair and a flowing necktie. 
Also, rheumatic gout had not hovered about the days in the Apennines. 
He did not, it might be remarked, desire to enter into conversation 
with his humble fellow-man from altruistic motives. He did it because 
there was always a chance more or less that he would be amused. He 
might hear of little tragedies or comedies,-- he much preferred the 
comedies,--and he often learned new words or phrases of dialect 
interestingly allied to pure Anglo-Saxon. When this last occurred, he 
entered them in a notebook he kept in his library. He sometimes 
pretended to himself that he was going to write a book on dialects; 
but he knew that he was a dilettante sort of creature and would really 
never do it. The pretense, however, was a sort of asset. In dire 
moments during rains or foggy weather when he felt twinges and had 
read till his head ached, he had wished that he had not eaten all his 
cake at the first course of life's feast, that he had formed a habit 
or so which might have survived and helped him to eke out even an 
easy-chair existence through the last courses. He did not find 
consolation in the use of the palliative adjective as applied to 
himself. A neatly cynical sense of humor prevented it. He knew he had 
always been an entirely selfish man and that he was entirely selfish 
still, and was not revoltingly fretful and domineering only because he 
was constitutionally unirritable.

He was, however, amiably obstinate, and was accustomed to getting his 
own way in most things. On this day of his outing he insisted on 
driving himself in the face of arguments to the contrary. He was so 
fixed in his intention that his daughters and Mrs. Braddle were 
obliged to admit themselves overpowered.

"Nonsense! Nonsense!" he protested when they besought him to allow 
himself to be driven by a groom. "The pony is a fat thing only suited 
to a Bath chair. He does not need driving. He doesn't go when he is 
driven. He frequently lies down and puts his cheek on his hand and 
goes to sleep, and I am obliged to wait until he wakes up."

"But, papa, dear," Lady Edith said, "your poor hands are not very 
strong. And he might run away and kill you. Please do be reasonable!"

"My dear girl," he answered, "if he runs, I shall run after him and 
kill him when I catch him. George," he called to the groom holding the 
plump pony's head, "tell her ladyship what this little beast's name 
is."

"The Indolent Apprentice, your Grace," the groom answered, touching 
his hat and suppressing a grin.

"I called him that a month ago," said the duke. "Hogarth would have 
depicted all sorts of evil ends for him. Three weeks since, when I was 
in bed being fed by Braddle with a spoon, I could have outrun him 
myself. Let George follow me on a horse if you like, but he must keep 
out of my sight. Half a mile behind will do."

He got into the phaeton, concealing his twinges with determination, 
and drove down the avenue with a fine air, sitting erect and smiling. 
Indoor existence had become unendurable, and the spring was filling 
the woods.

"I love the spring," he murmured to himself. "I am sentimental about 
it. I love sentimentality, in myself, when I am quite alone. If I had 
been a writing person, I should have made verses every year in April 
and sent them to magazines-- and they would have been returned to me."

The Indolent Apprentice was, it is true, fat, though comely, and he 
was also entirely deserving of his name. Like his Grace of Stone, 
however, he had seen other and livelier days, and now and then he was 
beset by recollections. He was still a rather high, though slow, 
stepper--the latter from fixed preference. He had once stepped fast, 
as well as with a spirited gait. During his master's indisposition he 
had stood in his loose box and professed such harmlessness that he had 
not been annoyed by being taken out for exercise as regularly as he 
might have been. He had champed his oats and listened to the repartee 
of the stable-boys, and he had, perhaps, felt the coming of the spring 
when the cuckoo insisted upon it with thrilling mellowness across the 
green sweeps of the park land. Sometimes it made him sentimental, as 
it made his master, sometimes it made him stamp his small hoofs 
restlessly in his straw and want to go out. He did not intend, when he 
was taken out, to emulate the Industrious Apprentice by hastening his 
pace unduly and raising false hopes for the future, but he sniffed in 
the air the moist green of leafage and damp moss, massed with yellow 
primroses cuddling in it as though for warmth, and he thought of other 
fresh scents and the feel of the road under a pony's feet.

Therefore, when he found himself out in the world again, he shook his 
head now and then and even tossed it with the recurring sensations of 
a pony who was a mere boy and still slight in the waist.

"You feel it too, do you? " said the duke. "I won't remind you of your 
years."

The drive from Stone Hover to the village of Temple Barholm was an 
easy one, of many charms of leaf-arched lanes and green- edged road. 
The duke had always had a partiality for it, and he took it this 
morning. He would probably have taken it in any case, but Mrs. 
Braddle's anecdotes had been floating through his mind when he set 
forth and perhaps inclined him in its direction.

The groom was a young man of three and twenty, and he felt the spring 
also. The horse he rode was a handsome animal, and he himself was not 
devoid of a healthy young man's good looks. He knew his belted livery 
was becoming to him, and when on horseback he prided himself on what 
he considered an almost military bearing. Sarah Hibson, farmer 
Hibson's dimple-chinned and saucy-eyed daughter, had been "carryin' on 
a good bit" with a soldier who was a smart, well-set-up, impudent 
fellow, and it was the manifest duty of any other young fellow who had 
considered himself to be "walking out with her" to look after his 
charges. His Grace had been most particular about George's keeping far 
enough behind him; and as half a mile had been mentioned as near 
enough, certainly one was absolved from the necessity of keeping in 
sight. Why should not one turn into the lane which ended at Hibson's 
farm-yard, and drop into the dairy, and "have it out wi' Sarah?"

Dimpled chins and saucy eyes, and bare, dimpled arms and hands patting 
butter while heads are tossed in coquettishly alluring defiance, made 
even "having it out" an attractive and memory-obscuring process. Sarah 
was a plump and sparkling imp of prettiness, and knew the power of 
every sly glance and every dimple and every golden freckle she 
possessed. George did not know it so well, and in ten minutes had lost 
his head and entirely forgotten even the half-mile behind.

He was lover-like, he was masterful, he brought the spring with him; 
he "carried on," as Sarah put it, until he had actually out-distanced 
the soldier, and had her in his arms, kissing her as she laughed and 
prettily struggled.

"Shame o' tha face! Shame o' tha face, George!" she scolded and 
dimpled and blushed. "Wilt tha be done now? Wilt tha be done? I'll 
call mother."

And at that very moment mother came without being called, running, red 
of face, heavy-footed, and panting, with her cap all on one side.

"Th' duke's run away! Th' duke's run away!" she shouted. "Jo seed him. 
Pony got freetened at summat-- an' what art doin' here, George Bind? 
Get o' thy horse an' gallop. If he's killed, tha 'rt a ruined man."

There was an odd turn of chance in it, the duke thought afterward. 
Though friskier than usual, the Indolent Apprentice had behaved 
perfectly well until they neared the gates of Temple Barholm, which 
chanced to be open because a cart had just passed through. And it was 
not the cart's fault, for the Indolent Apprentice regarded it with 
friendly interest. It happened, however, that perhaps being absorbed 
in the cart, which might have been drawn by a friend or even a distant 
relative, the Indolent Apprentice was horribly startled by a large 
rabbit which leaped out of the hedge almost under his nose, and, worse 
still, was followed the next instant by another rabbit even larger and 
more sudden and unexpected in its movements. The Indolent Apprentice 
snorted, pawed, whirled, dashed through the open gateway,--the duke's 
hands were even less strong than his daughter had thought,--and 
galloped, head in air and bit between teeth, up the avenue, the low 
carriage rocking from side to side.

"Damn! Damn!" cried the duke, rocking also. "Oh, damn! I shall be 
killed in a runaway perambulator!"

And ridiculous as it was, things surged through his brain, and once, 
though he laughed at himself bitterly afterward, he gasped "Ah, 
Heloise;" as he almost whirled over a jagged tree-stump; gallop and 
gallop and gallop, off the road and through trees, and back again on 
to the sward, and gallop and gallop and jerk and jolt and jerk, and he 
was nearing the house, and a long-legged young man ran down the steps, 
pushing aside footmen, and was ahead of the drunken little beast of a 
pony, and caught him just as the phaeton overturned and shot his grace 
safely though not comfortably in a heap upon the grass.

It was of course no trifle of a shock, but its victim's sensations 
gave him strong reason to hope, as he rolled over, that no bones were 
broken. The following servants were on the spot almost at once, and 
took the pony's head.

The young man helped the duke to his feet and dusted him with masterly 
dexterity. He did not know he was dusting a duke, and he would not 
have cared if he had.

"Hello," he said, "you're not hurt. I can see that. Thank the Lord! I 
don't believe you've got a scratch."

His grace felt a shade shaky, and he was slightly pale, but he smiled 
in a way which had been celebrated forty years earlier, and the charm 
of which had survived even rheumatic gout.

"Thank you. I'm not hurt in the least. I am the Duke of Stone. This 
isn't really a call. It isn't my custom to arrive in this way. May I 
address you as my preserver, Mr. Temple Barholm?"




CHAPTER XXIV


Upon the terrace, when he was led up the steps, stood a most perfect 
little elderly lady in a state of agitation much greater than his own 
or his rescuer's. It was an agitation as perfect in its femininity as 
she herself was. It expressed its kind tremors in the fashion which 
belonged to the puce silk dress and fine bits of collar and 
undersleeve the belated gracefulness of which caused her to present 
herself to him rather as a figure cut neatly from a book of the styles 
he had admired in his young manhood. It was of course Miss Alicia, who 
having, with Tembarom, seen the galloping pony from a window, had 
followed him when he darted from the room. She came forward, looking 
pale with charming solicitude.

"I do so hope you are not hurt," she exclaimed. "It really seemed that 
only divine Providence could prevent a terrible accident."

"I am afraid that it was more grotesque than terrible," he answered a 
shade breathlessly.

"Let me make you acquainted with the Duke of Stone, Miss Alicia," 
Tembarom said in the formula of Mrs. Bowse's boarders on state 
occasions of introduction. "Duke, let me make you acquainted, sir, 
with my--relation--Miss Alicia Temple Barholm."

The duke's bow had a remote suggestion of almost including a kissed 
hand in its gallant courtesy. Not, however, that Early Victorian 
ladies had been accustomed to the kissing of hands; but at the period 
when he had best known the type he had daily bent over white fingers 
in Continental capitals.

"A glass of wine," Miss Alicia implored. "Pray let me give you a glass 
of wine. I am sure you need it very much."

He was taken into the library and made to sit in a most comfortable 
easy-chair. Miss Alicia fluttered about him with sympathy still 
delicately tinged with alarm. How long, how long, it had been since he 
had been fluttered over! Nearly forty years. Ladies did not flutter 
now, and he remembered that it was no longer the fashion to call them 
"ladies." Only the lower-middle classes spoke of "ladies." But he 
found himself mentally using the word again as he watched Miss Alicia.

It had been "ladies" who had fluttered and been anxious about a man in 
this quite pretty way.

He could scarcely remove his eyes from her as he sipped his wine. She 
felt his escape "providential," and murmured such devout little 
phrases concerning it that he was almost consoled for the grotesque 
inward vision of himself as an aged peer of the realm tumbling out of 
a baby-carriage and rolled over on the grass at the feet of a man on 
whom later he had meant to make, in proper state, a formal call. She 
put her hand to her side, smiling half apologetically.

"My heart beats quite fast yet," she said. Whereupon a quaintly novel 
thing took place, at the sight of which the duke barely escaped 
opening his eyes very wide indeed. The American Temple Barholm put his 
arm about her in the most casual and informally accustomed way, and 
led her to a chair, and put her in it, so to speak.

"Say," he announced with affectionate authority, "you sit down right 
away. It's you that needs a glass of wine, and I'm going to give it to 
you."

The relations between the two were evidently on a basis not common in 
England even among people who were attached to one another. There was 
a spontaneous, every-day air of natural, protective petting about it, 
as though the fellow was fond of her in his crude fashion, and meant 
to take care of her. He was fond of her, and the duke perceived it 
with elation, and also understood. He might be the ordinary bestower 
of boons, but the protective curve of his arm included other things. 
In the blank dullness of his unaccustomed splendors he had somehow 
encountered this fine, delicately preserved little relic of other 
days, and had seized on her and made her his own.

"I have not seen anything as delightful as Miss Temple Barholm for 
many a year," the duke said when Miss Alicia was called from the room 
and left them together.

"Ain't she great?" was Tembarom's reply. "She's just great."

"It's an exquisite survival of type," said the duke. "She belongs to 
my time, not yours," he added, realizing that "survival of type" might 
not clearly convey itself.

"Well, she belongs to mine now," answered Tembarom. "I wouldn't lose 
her for a farm."

"The voice, the phrases, the carriage might survive,- they do in 
remote neighborhoods, I suppose--but the dress is quite delightfully 
incredible. It is a work of art," the duke went on. She had seemed too 
good to be true. Her clothes, however, had certainly not been dug out 
of a wardrobe of forty years ago.

"When I went to talk to the head woman in the shop in Bond Street I 
fixed it with 'em hard and fast that she was not to spoil her. They 
were to keep her like she was. She's like her little cap, you know, 
and her little mantles and tippets. She's like them," exclaimed 
Tembarom.

Did he see that? What an odd feature in a man of his sort! And how 
thoroughly New Yorkish it was that he should march into a fashionable 
shop and see that he got what he wanted and the worth of his money! 
There had been no rashness in the hope that the unexplored treasure 
might be a rich one. The man's simplicity was an actual complexity. He 
had a boyish eye and a grin, but there was a business-like line about 
his mouth which was strong enough to have been hard if it had not been 
good-natured.

"That was confoundedly clever of you," his grace commented heartily--
"confoundedly. I should never have had the wit to think of it myself, 
or the courage to do it if I had. Shop-women make me shy."

"Oh, well, I just put it up to them," Tembarom answered easily.

"I believe," cautiously translated the duke, "that you mean that you 
made them feel that they alone were responsible."

"Yes, I do," assented Tembarom, the grin slightly in evidence. "Put it 
up to them's the short way of saying it."

"Would you mind my writing that down?" said the duke. "I have a fad 
for dialects and new phrases." He hastily scribbled the words in a 
tablet that he took from his pocket. "Do you like living in England?" 
he asked in course of time.

"I should like it if I'd been born here," was the answer.

"I see, I see."

"If it had not been for finding Miss Alicia, and that I made a promise 
I'd stay for a year, anyhow, I'd have broken loose at the end of the 
first week and worked my passage back if I hadn't had enough in my 
clothes to pay for it." He laughed, but it was not real laughter. 
There was a thing behind it. The situation was more edifying than one 
could have hoped. "I made a promise, and I'm going to stick it out," 
he said.

He was going to stick it out because he had promised to endure for a 
year Temple Barholm and an income of seventy thousand pounds! The duke 
gazed at him as at a fond dream realized.

"I've nothing to do," Tembarom added.

"Neither have I," replied the Duke of Stone.

"But you're used to it, and I'm not. I'm used to working 'steen hours 
a day, and dropping into bed as tired as a dog, but ready to sleep 
like one and get up rested."

"I used to play twenty hours a day once," answered the duke, "but I 
didn't get up rested. That's probably why I have gout and rheumatism 
combined. Tell me how you worked, and I will tell you how I played."

It was worth while taking this tone with him. It had been worth while 
taking it with the chestnut-gathering peasants in the Apennines, 
sometimes even with a stone-breaker by an English roadside. And this 
one was of a type more unique and distinctive than any other--a fellow 
who, with the blood of Saxon kings and Norman nobles in his veins, had 
known nothing but the street life of the crudest city in the world, 
who spoke a sort of argot, who knew no parallels of the things which 
surrounded him in the ancient home he had inherited and in which he 
stood apart, a sort of semi-sophisticated savage. The duke applied 
himself with grace and finished ability to drawing him out. The 
questions he asked were all seemingly those of a man of the world 
charmingly interested in the superior knowledge of a foreigner of 
varied experience. His method was one which engaged the interest of 
Tembarom himself. He did not know that he was not only questioned, 
but, so to speak, delicately cross-examined and that before the end of 
the interview the Duke of Stone knew more of him, his past existence 
and present sentiments, than even Miss Alicia knew after their long 
and intimate evening talks. The duke, however, had the advantage of 
being a man and of cherishing vivid recollections of the days of his 
youth, which, unlike as it had been to that of Tembarom, furnished a 
degree of solid foundation upon which go to build conjecture.

"A young man of his age," his grace reflected astutely, "has always 
just fallen out of love, is falling into it, or desires vaguely to do 
so. Ten years later there would perhaps be blank spaces, lean years 
during which he was not in love at all; but at his particular period 
there must be a young woman somewhere. I wonder if she is employed in 
one of the department stores he spoke of, and how soon he hopes to 
present her to us. His conversation has revealed so far, to use his 
own rich simile, 'neither hide nor hair' of her."

On his own part, he was as ready to answer questions as to ask them. 
In fact, he led Tembarom on to asking.

"I will tell you how I played" had been meant. He made a human 
document of the history he enlarged, he brilliantly diverged, he 
included, he made pictures, and found Tembarom's point of view or lack 
of it gave spice and humor to relations he had thought himself tired 
of. To tell familiar anecdotes of courts and kings to a man who had 
never quite believed that such things were realities, who almost found 
them humorous when they were casually spoken of, was edification 
indeed. The novel charm lay in the fact that his class in his country 
did not include them as possibilities. Peasants in other countries, 
plowmen, shopkeepers, laborers in England--all these at least they 
knew of, and counted them in as factors in the lives of the rich and 
great; but this dear young man--!

"What's a crown like? I'd like to see one. How much do you guess such 
a thing would cost--in dollars?"

"Did not Miss Temple Barholm take you to see the regalia in the Tower 
of London? I am quite shocked," said the duke. He was, in fact, a 
trifle disappointed. With the puce dress and undersleeves and little 
fringes she ought certainly to have rushed with her pupil to that seat 
of historical instruction on their first morning in London, 
immediately after breakfasting on toast and bacon and marmalade and 
eggs.

"She meant me to go, but somehow it was put off. She almost cried on 
our journey home when she suddenly remembered that we'd forgotten it, 
after all."

"I am sure she said it was a wasted opportunity," suggested his grace.

"Yes, that was what hit her so hard. She'd never been to London 
before, and you couldn't make her believe she could ever get there 
again, and she said it was ungrateful to Providence to waste an 
opportunity. She's always mighty anxious to be grateful to Providence, 
bless her!"

"She regards you as Providence," remarked the duke, enraptured. With a 
touch here and there, the touch of a master, he had gathered the whole 
little story of Miss Alicia, and had found it of a whimsical 
exquisiteness and humor.

"She's a lot too good to me," answered Tembarom. "I guess women as 
nice as her are always a lot too good to men. She's a kind of little 
old angel. What makes me mad is to think of the fellows that didn't 
get busy and marry her thirty-five years ago."

"Were there--er--many of 'em?" the duke inquired.

"Thousands of 'em, though most of 'em never saw her. I suppose you 
never saw her then. If you had, you might have done it."

The duke, sitting with an elbow on each arm of his chair, put the tips 
of his fine, gouty fingers together and smiled with a far-reaching 
inclusion of possibilities.

"So I might," he said; "so I might. My loss entirely-- my abominable 
loss."

They had reached this point of the argument when the carriage from 
Stone Hover arrived. It was a stately barouche the coachman and 
footman of which equally with its big horses seemed to have hastened 
to an extent which suggested almost panting breathlessness. It 
contained Lady Edith and Lady Celia, both pale, and greatly agitated 
by the news which had brought them horrified from Stone Hover without 
a moment's delay.

They both ascended in haste and swept in such alarmed anxiety up the 
terrace steps and through the hall to their father's side that they 
had barely a polite gasp for Miss Alicia and scarcely saw Tembarom at 
all.

"Dear Papa!" they cried when he revealed himself in his chair in the 
library intact and smiling. "How wicked of you, dear! How you have 
frightened us!"

"I begged you to be good, dearest," said Lady Edith, almost in tears. 
"Where was George? You must dismiss him at once. Really--really--"

"He was half a mile away, obeying my orders, "said the duke. "A groom 
cannot be dismissed for obeying orders. It is the pony who must be 
dismissed, to my great regret; or else we must overfeed him until he 
is even fatter than he is and cannot run away."

Were his arms and legs and his ribs and collar-bones and head quite 
right? Was he sure that he had not received any internal injury when 
he fell out of the pony-carriage? They could scarcely be convinced, 
and as they hung over and stroked and patted him, Tembarom stood aside 
and watched them with interest. They were the girls he had to please 
Ann by "getting next to," giving himself a chance to fall in love with 
them, so that she'd know whether they were his kind or not. They were 
nice-looking, and had a way of speaking that sounded rather swell, but 
they weren't ace high to a little slim, redheaded thing that looked at 
you like a baby and pulled your heart up into your throat.

"Don't poke me any more, dear children. I am quite, quite sound," he 
heard the duke say. "In Mr. Temple Barholm you behold the preserver of 
your parent. Filial piety is making you behave with shocking 
ingratitude."

They turned to Tembarom at once with a pretty outburst of apologies 
and thanks. Lady Celia wasn't, it is true, "a looker," with her narrow 
shoulders and rather long nose, but she had an air of breeding, and 
the charming color of which Palliser had spoken, returning to Lady 
Edith's cheeks, illuminated her greatly.

They both were very polite and made many agreeably grateful speeches, 
but in the eyes of both there lurked a shade of anxiety which they 
hoped to be able to conceal. Their father watched them with a wicked 
pleasure. He realized clearly their well-behaved desire to do and say 
exactly the right thing and bear themselves in exactly the right 
manner, and also their awful uncertainty before an entirely unknown 
quantity. Almost any other kind of young man suddenly uplifted by 
strange fortune they might have known some parallel for, but a newsboy 
of New York! All the New Yorkers they had met or heard of had been so 
rich and grand as to make them feel themselves, by contrast, mere 
country paupers, quite shivering with poverty and huddling for 
protection in their barely clean rags, so what was there to go on? But 
how dreadful not to be quite right, precisely right, in one's 
approach--quite familiar enough, and yet not a shade too familiar, 
which of course would appear condescending! And be it said the 
delicacy of the situation was added to by the fact that they had heard 
something of Captain Palliser's extraordinary little story about his 
determination to know "ladies." Really, if Willocks the butcher's boy 
had inherited Temple Barholm, it would have been easier to know where 
one stood in the matter of being civil and agreeable to him. First 
Lady Edith, made perhaps bold by the suggestion of physical advantage 
bestowed by the color, talked to him to the very best of her ability; 
and when she felt herself fearfully flagging, Lady Celia took him up 
and did her very well-conducted best. Neither she nor her sister were 
brilliant talkers at any time, and limited by the absence of any 
common familiar topic, effort was necessary. The neighborhood he did 
not know; London he was barely aware of; social functions it would be 
an impertinence to bring in; games he did not play; sport he had 
scarcely heard of. You were confined to America, and if you knew next 
to nothing of American life, there you were.

Tembarom saw it all,--he was sharp enough for that,--and his habit of 
being jocular and wholly unashamed saved him from the misery of 
awkwardness that Willocks would have been sure to have writhed under. 
His casual frankness, however, for a moment embarrassed Lady Edith to 
the bitterest extremity. When you are trying your utmost to make a 
queer person oblivious to the fact that his world is one unknown to 
you, it is difficult to know where do you stand when he says

"It's mighty hard to talk to a man who doesn't know a thing that 
belongs to the kind of world you've spent your life in, ain't it? But 
don't you mind me a minute. I'm glad to be talked to anyhow by people 
like you. When I don't catch on, I'll just ask. No man was ever 
electrocuted for not knowing, and that's just where I am. I don't 
know, and I'm glad to be told. Now, there's one thing. Burrill said 
'Your Ladyship' to you, I heard him. Ought I to say it, er oughtn't I?"

"Oh, no," she answered, but somehow without distaste in the momentary 
stare he had startled her into; "Burrill is--"

"He's a servant," he aided encouragingly. "Well, I've never been a 
butler, but I've been somebody's servant all my life, and mighty glad 
of the chance. This is the first time I've been out of a job."

What nice teeth he had! What a queer, candid, unresentful creature! 
What a good sort of smile! And how odd that it was he who was putting 
her more at her ease by the mere way in which he was saying this 
almost alarming thing! By the time he had ended, it was not alarming 
at all, and she had caught her breath again.

She was actually sorry when the door opened and Lady Joan Fayre came 
in, followed almost immediately by Lady Mallowe and Captain Palliser, 
who appeared to have just returned from a walk and heard the news.

Lady Mallowe was most sympathetic. Why not, indeed? The Duke of Stone 
was a delightful, cynical creature, and Stone Hover was, despite its 
ducal poverty, a desirable place to be invited to, if you could manage 
it. Her ladyship's method of fluttering was not like Miss Alicia's, 
its character being wholly modern; but she fluttered, nevertheless. 
The duke, who knew all about her, received her amiabilities with 
appreciative smiles, but it was the splendidly handsome, hungry-eyed 
young woman with the line between her black brows who engaged his 
attention. On the alert, as he always was, for a situation, he 
detected one at once when he saw his American address her. She did not 
address him, and scarcely deigned a reply when he spoke to her. When 
he spoke to others, she conducted herself as though he were not in the 
room, so obviously did she choose to ignore his existence. Such a 
bearing toward one's host had indeed the charm of being an interesting 
novelty. And what a beauty she was, with her lovely, ferocious eyes 
and the small, black head poised on the exquisite long throat, which 
was on the verge of becoming a trifle too thin! Then as in a flash he 
recalled between one breath and another the quite fiendish episode of 
poor Jem Temple Barholm--and she was the girl!

Then he became almost excited in his interest. He saw it all. As he 
had himself argued must be the case, this poor fellow was in love. But 
it was not with a lady in the New York department stores; it was with 
a young woman who would evidently disdain to wipe her feet upon him. 
How thrilling! As Lady Mallowe and Palliser and the others chattered, 
he watched him, observing his manner. He stood the handsome creature's 
steadily persistent rudeness very well; he made no effort to push into 
the talk when she coolly held him out of it. He waited without 
external uneasiness or spasmodic smiles. If he could do that despite 
the inevitable fact that he must feel his position uncomfortable, he 
was possessed of fiber. That alone would make him worth cultivating. 
And if there were persons who were to be made uncomfortable, why not 
cut in and circumvent the beauty somewhat and give her a trifle of 
unease? It was with the light and adroit touch of accustomedness to 
all orders of little situations that his grace took the matter in 
hand, with a shade, also, of amiable malice. He drew Tembarom adroitly 
into the center of things; he knew how to lead him to make easily the 
odd, frank remarks which were sufficiently novel to suggest that he 
was actually entertaining. He beautifully edged Lady Joan out of her 
position. She could not behave ill to him, he was far too old, he said 
to himself, leaving out the fact that a Duke of Stone is a too 
respectable personage to be quite waved aside.

Tembarom began to enjoy himself a little more. Lady Celia and Lady 
Edith began to enjoy themselves a little more also. Lady Mallowe was 
filled with admiring delight. Captain Palliser took in the situation, 
and asked himself questions about it. On her part, Miss Alicia was 
restored to the happiness any lack of appreciation of her "dear boy" 
touchingly disturbed. In circumstances such as these he appeared to 
the advantage which in a brief period would surely reveal his 
wonderful qualities. She clung so to his "wonderful qualities" because 
in all the three-volumed novels of her youth the hero, debarred from 
early advantages and raised by the turn of fortune's wheel to 
splendor, was transformed at once into a being of the highest 
accomplishments and the most polished breeding, and ended in the third 
volume a creature before whom emperors paled. And how more than 
charmingly cordial his grace's manner was when he left them!

"To-morrow," he said, "if my daughters do not discover that I have 
injured some more than vital organ, I shall call to proffer my thanks 
with the most immense formality. I shall get out of the carriage in 
the manner customary in respectable neighborhoods, not roll out at 
your feet. Afterward you will, I hope, come and dine with us. I am 
devoured by a desire to become more familiar with The Earth."




CHAPTER XXV


It was Lady Mallowe who perceived the moment when he became the 
fashion. The Duke of Stone called with the immense formality he had 
described, and his visit was neither brief nor dull. A little later 
Tembarom with his guests dined at Stone Hover, and the dinner was 
further removed from dullness than any one of numerous past dinners 
always noted for being the most agreeable the neighborhood afforded. 
The duke managed his guest as an impresario might have managed his 
tenor, though this was done with subtly concealed methods. He had 
indeed a novelty to offer which had been discussed with much 
uncertainty of point of view. He presented it to an only languidly 
entertained neighborhood as a trouvaille of his own choice. Here was 
drama, here was atmosphere, here was charm verging in its character 
upon the occult. You would not see it if you were not a collector of 
such values.

"Nobody will be likely to see him as he is unless he is pointed out to 
them," was what he said to his daughters. "But being bored to death,--
we are all bored,--once adroitly assisted to suspect him of being 
alluring, most of them will spring upon him and clasp him to their 
wearied breasts. I haven't the least idea what will happen afterward. 
I shall in fact await the result with interest."

Being told Palliser's story of the "Ladies," he listened, holding the 
tips of his fingers together, and wearing an expression of deep 
interest slightly baffled in its nature. It was Lady Edith who related 
the anecdote to him.

"Now," he said, "it would be very curious and complicating if that 
were true; but I don't believe it is. Palliser, of course, likes to 
tell a good story. I shall be able to discover in time whether it is 
true or not; but at present I don't believe it."

Following the dinner party at Stone Hover came many others. All the 
well-known carriages began to roll up the avenue to Temple Barholm. 
The Temple Barholm carriages also began to roll down the avenue and 
between the stone griffins on their way to festive gatherings of 
varied order. Burrill and the footmen ventured to reconsider their 
early plans for giving warning. It wasn't so bad if the country was 
going to take him up.

"Do you see what is happening?" Lady Mallowe said to Joan. "The man is 
becoming actually popular."

"He is popular as a turn at a music hall is," answered Joan. "He will 
be dropped as he was taken up."

"There's something about him they like, and he represents what 
everybody most wants. For God's sake! Joan, don't behave like a fool 
this time. The case is more desperate. There is nothing else--
nothing."

"There never was," said Joan, " and I know the desperateness of the 
case. How long are you going to stay here?"

"I am going to stay for some time. They are not conventional people. 
It can be managed very well. We are relatives."

"Will you stay," inquired Joan in a low voice, "until they ask you to 
remove yourself?"

Lady Mallowe smiled an agreeably subtle smile.

"Not quite that," she answered. "Miss Alicia would never have the 
courage to suggest it. It takes courage and sophistication to do that 
sort of thing. Mr. Temple Barholm evidently wants us to remain. He 
will be willing to make as much of the relationship as we choose to 
let him."

"Do you choose to let him make as much of it as will establish us here 
for weeks--or months?" Joan asked, her low voice shaking a little.

"That will depend entirely upon circumstances. It will, in fact, 
depend entirely upon you," said Lady Mallowe, her lips setting 
themselves into a straight, thin line.

For an appreciable moment Joan was silent; but after it she lost her 
head and whirled about.

"I shall go away," she cried.

"Where?" asked Lady Mallowe.

"Back to London."

"How much money have you?" asked her mother. She knew she had none. 
She was always sufficiently shrewd to see that she had none. If the 
girl had had a pound a week of her own, her mother had always realized 
that she would have been unmanageable. After the Jem Temple Barholm 
affair she would have been capable of going to live alone in slums. As 
it was, she knew enough to be aware that she was too handsome to walk 
out into Piccadilly without a penny in her pocket; so it had been just 
possible to keep her indoors.

"How much money have you?" she repeated quietly. This was the way in 
which their unbearable scenes began--the scenes which the servants 
passing the doors paused to listen to in the hope that her ladyship 
would forget that raised voices may be heard by the discreet outsider.

"How much money have you?" she said again.

Joan looked at her; this time it was for about five seconds. She 
turned her back on her and walked out of the room. Shortly afterward 
Lady Mallowe saw her walking down the avenue in the rain, which was 
beginning to fall.

She had left the house because she dared not stay in it. Once out in 
the park, she folded her long purple cloak about her and pulled her 
soft purple felt hat down over her brows, walking swiftly under the 
big trees without knowing where she intended to go before she 
returned. She liked the rain, she liked the heavy clouds; she wore her 
dark purples because she felt a fantastic, secret comfort in calling 
them her mourning --her mourning which she would wear forevermore.

No one could know so well as herself how desperate from her own point 
of view the case was. She had long known that her mother would not 
hesitate for a moment before any chance of a second marriage which 
would totally exclude her daughter from her existence. Why should she, 
after all, Joan thought? They had always been antagonists. The moment 
of chance had been looming on the horizon for months. Sir Moses 
Monaldini had hovered about fitfully and evidently doubtfully at 
first, more certainly and frequently of late, but always with a 
clearly objecting eye cast askance upon herself. With determination 
and desire to establish a social certainty, astute enough not to care 
specially for young beauty and exactions he did not purpose to submit 
to, and keen enough to see the advantage of a handsome woman with 
bitter reason to value what was offered to her in the form of a 
luxurious future, Sir Moses was moving toward action, though with 
proper caution. He would have no penniless daughters hanging about 
scowling and sneering. None of that for him. And the ripest apple upon 
the topmost bow in the highest wind would not drop more readily to his 
feet than her mother would, Joan knew with sharp and shamed burnings.

As the rain fell, she walked in her purple cloak, unpaid for, and her 
purple hat, for which they had been dunned with threatening insults, 
and knew that she did not own and could not earn a penny. She could 
not dig, and to beg she was ashamed, and all the more horribly because 
she had been a beggar of the meaner order all her life. It made her 
sick to think of the perpetual visits they had made where they were 
not wanted, of the times when they had been politely bundled out of 
places, of the methods which had been used to induce shop-keepers to 
let them run up bills. For years her mother and she had been walking 
advertisements of smart shops because both were handsome, wore clothes 
well, and carried them where they would be seen and talked about. Now 
this would be all over, since it had been Lady Mallowe who had managed 
all details. Thrown upon her own resources, Joan would have none of 
them, even though she must walk in rags. Her education had prepared 
her for only one thing--to marry well, if luck were on her side. It 
had never been on her side. If she had never met Jem, she would have 
married somebody, since that would have been better than the 
inevitable last slide into an aging life spent in cheap lodgings with 
her mother. But Jem had been the beginning and the end.

She bit her lips as she walked, and suddenly tears swept down her 
cheeks and dripped on to the purple cloth folded over her breast.

"And he sits in Jem's place! And every day that common, foolish stare 
will follow me!" she said.

He sat, it was true, in the place Jem Temple Barholm would have 
occupied if he had been a living man, and he looked at her a good 
deal. Perhaps he sometimes unconsciously stared because she made him 
think of many things. But if she had been in a state of mind admitting 
of judicial fairness, she would have been obliged to own that it was 
not quite a foolish stare. Absorbed, abstracted, perhaps, but it was 
not foolish. Sometimes, on the contrary, it was searching and keen.

Of course he was doing his best to please her. Of all the "Ladies," it 
seemed evident that he was most attracted by her. He tried to talk to 
her despite her unending rebuffs, he followed her about and endeavored 
to interest her, he presented a hide-bound unsensitiveness when she 
did her worst. Perhaps he did not even know that she was being icily 
rude. He was plainly "making up to her" after the manner of his class. 
He was perhaps playing the part of the patient adorer who melted by 
noble long-suffering in novels distinguished by heroes of humble origin.

She had reached the village when the rain changed its mind, and 
without warning began to pour down as if the black cloud passing 
overhead had suddenly opened. She was wondering if she would not turn 
in somewhere for shelter until the worst was over when a door opened 
and Tembarom ran out with an umbrella.

"Come in to the Hibblethwaites cottage, Lady Joan," he said. "This 
will be over directly."

He did not affectionately hustle her in by the arm as he would have 
hustled in Miss Alicia, but he closely guarded her with the umbrella 
until he guided her inside.

"Thank you," she said.

The first object she became aware of was a thin face with pointed chin 
and ferret eyes peering at her round the end of a sofa, then a sharp 
voice.

"Tak' off her cloak an' shake th' rain off it in th' wash 'us'," it 
said. "Mother an' Aunt Susan's out. Let him unbutton it fer thee."

"I can unbutton it myself, thank you," said Lady Joan. Tembarom took 
it when she had unbuttoned it. He took it from her shoulders before 
she had time to stop him. Then he walked into the tiny "wash 'us" and 
shook it thoroughly. He came back and hung it on a chair before the 
fire.

Tummas was leaning back in his pillows and gazing at her.

"I know tha name," he said. "He towd me," with a jerk of the head 
toward Tembarom.

"Did he?" replied Lady Joan without interest.

A flaringly illustrated New York paper was spread out upon his sofa. 
He pushed it aside and pulled the shabby atlas toward him. It fell 
open at a map of North America as if through long habit.

"Sit thee down," he ordered.

Tembarom had stood watching them both.

"I guess you'd better not do that," he suggested to Tummas.

"Why not? " said the boy, sharply. "She's th' wench he was goin' to 
marry. It's th' same as if he'd married her. If she wur his widder, 
she'd want to talk about him. Widders allus wants to talk. Why 
shouldn't she? Women's women. He'd ha' wanted to talk about her."

"Who is `he'?" asked Joan with stiff lips.

"The Temple Barholm as' 'd be here if he was na."

Joan turned to Tembarom.

"Do you come here to talk to this boy about HIM?" she said. "How dare you!"

Tummas's eyes snapped; his voice snapped also.

"He knew next to nowt about him till I towd him," he said. "Then he 
came to ax me things an' foind out more. He knows as much as I do now. 
Us sits here an' talks him over."

Lady Joan still addressed Tembarom.

"What interest can you have in the man who ought to be in your place?" 
she asked. "What possible interest?"

"Well," he answered awkwardly, "because he ought to be, I suppose. 
Ain't that reason enough?"

He had never had to deal with women who hated him and who were angry 
and he did not know exactly what to say. He had known very few women, 
and he had always been good- natured with them and won their liking in 
some measure. Also, there was in his attitude toward this particular 
woman a baffled feeling that he could not make her understand him. She 
would always think of him as an enemy and believe he meant things he 
did not mean. If he had been born and educated in her world, he could 
have used her own language; but he could use only his own, and there 
were so many things he must not say for a time at least.

"Do you not realize," she said, "that you are presuming upon your 
position--that you and this boy are taking liberties?"

Tummas broke in wholly without compunction.

"I've taken liberties aw my loife," he stated, "an' I'm goin' to tak' 
'em till I dee. They're th' on'y things I can tak', lyin' here 
crippled, an' I'm goin' to tak' 'em."

"Stop that, Tummas! " said Tembarom with friendly authority. "She 
doesn't catch on, and you don't catch on, either. You're both of you 
'way off. Stop it!"

"I thought happen she could tell me things I didn't know," protested 
Tummas, throwing himself back on his pillows. "If she conna, she 
conna, an' if she wunnot, she wunnot. Get out wi' thee!" he said to 
Joan. "I dunnot want thee about th' place."

"Say," said Tembarom, "shut up!"

"I am going," said Lady Joan and turned to open the door.

The rain was descending in torrents, but she passed swiftly out into 
its deluge walking as rapidly as she could. She thought she cared 
nothing about the rain, but it dashed in her face and eyes, taking her 
breath away, and she had need of breath when her heart was beating 
with such fierceness.

"If she wur his widder," the boy had said.

Even chance could not let her alone at one of her worst moments. She 
walked faster and faster because she was afraid Tembarom would follow 
her, and in a few minutes she heard him splashing behind her, and then 
he was at her side, holding the umbrella over her head.

"You're a good walker," he said, "but I'm a sprinter. I trained 
running after street cars and catching the 'L' in New York."

She had so restrained her miserable hysteric impulse to break down and 
utterly humiliate herself under the unexpected blow of the episode in 
the cottage that she had had no breath to spare when she left the 
room, and her hurried effort to escape had left her so much less that 
she did not speak.

"I'll tell you something," he went on. "He's a little freak, but you 
can't blame him much. Don't be mad at him. He's never moved from that 
corner since he was born, I guess, and he's got nothing to do or to 
think of but just hearing what's happening outside. He's sort of crazy 
curious, and when he gets hold of a thing that suits him he just holds 
on to it till the last bell rings."

She said nothing whatever, and he paused a moment because he wanted to 
think over the best way to say the next thing.

"Mr. James Temple Barholm "--he ventured it with more delicacy of 
desire not to seem to "take liberties" than she would have credited 
him with--"saw his mother sitting with him in her arms at the cottage 
door a week or so after he was born. He stopped at the gate and talked 
to her about him, and he left him a sovereign. He's got it now. It 
seems a fortune to him. He's made a sort of idol of him. That's why he 
talks like he does. I wouldn't let it make me mad if I were you."

He did not know that she could not have answered him if she would, 
that she felt that if he did not stop she might fling herself down 
upon the wet heather and wail aloud.

"You don't like me," he began after they had walked a few steps 
farther. "You don't like me."

This was actually better. It choked back the sobs rising in her 
throat. The stupid shock of it, his tasteless foolishness, helped her 
by its very folly to a sort of defense against the disastrous wave of 
emotion she might not have been able to control. She gathered herself 
together.

"It must be an unusual experience," she answered.

"Well, it is--sort of," he said, but in a manner curiously free from 
fatuous swagger. "I've had luck that way. I guess it's been because 
I'd GOT to make friends so as I could earn a living. It seems sort of 
queer to know that some one's got a grouch against me that--that I 
can't get away with."

She looked up the avenue to see how much farther they must walk 
together, since she was not "a sprinter" and could not get away from 
him. She thought she caught a glimpse through the trees of a dog-cart 
driven by a groom, and hoped she had not mistaken and that it was 
driving in their direction.

"It must, indeed," she said, "though I am not sure I quite understand 
what a grouch is."

"When you've got a grouch against a fellow," he explained 
impersonally, "you want to get at him. You want to make him feel like 
a mutt; and a mutt's the worst kind of a fool. You've got one against 
me."

She looked before her between narrowed lids and faintly smiled--the 
most disagreeable smile she was capable of. And yet for some too 
extraordinary reason he went on. But she had seen men go on before 
this when all the odds were against them. Sometimes their madness took 
them this way.

"I knew there was a lot against me when I came here," he persisted. "I 
should have been a fool if I hadn't. I knew when you came that I was 
up against a pretty hard proposition; but I thought perhaps if I got 
busy and SHOWED you--you've got to SHOW a person--"

"Showed me what?" she asked contemptuously.

"Showed you--well--me," he tried to explain.

"You!"

"And that I wanted to be friends," he added candidly.

Was the man mad? Did he realize nothing? Was he too thick of skin even 
to see?

"Friends! You and I?" The words ought to have scorched him, pachyderm 
though he was.

"I thought you'd give me a chance--a sort of chance--"

She stopped short on the avenue.

"You did?"

She had not been mistaken. The dog-cart had rounded the far-off curve 
and was coming toward them. And the man went on talking.

"You've felt every minute that I was in a place that didn't belong to 
me. You know that if the man that it did belong to was here, you'd be 
here with him. You felt as if I'd robbed him of it--and I'd robbed 
you. It was your home--yours. You hated me too much to think of 
anything else. Suppose-- suppose there was a way I could give it back 
to you--make it your home again."

His voice dropped and was rather unsteady. The fool, the gross, 
brutal, vulgar, hopeless fool! He thought this was the way to approach 
her, to lead her to listen to his proposal of marriage! Not for a 
second did she guess that they were talking at cross purposes. She did 
not know that as he kept himself steady under her contemptuousness he 
was thinking that Ann would have to own that he had been up against it 
hard and plenty while the thing was going on.

"I'm always up against it when I'm talking to you," he said. "You get 
me rattled. There's things I want to talk about and ask you. Suppose 
you give me a chance, and let us start out by being sort of friends."

"I am staying in your house," she answered in a deadly voice, "and I 
cannot go away because my mother will not let me. You can force 
yourself upon me, if you choose, because I cannot help it; but 
understand once for all that I will not give you your ridiculous 
chance. And I will not utter one word to you when I can avoid it."

He was silent for a moment and seemed to be thinking rather deeply. 
She realized now that he saw the nearing dog-cart.

"You won't. Then it's up to me," he said. Then with a change of tone, 
he added, "I'll stop the cart and tell the man to drive you to the 
house. I'm not going to force myself on you, as you call it. It'd be 
no use. Perhaps it'll come all right in the end."


He made a sign to the groom, who hastened his horse's pace and drew up 
when he reached them.

"Take this lady back to the house," he said.

The groom, who was a new arrival, began to prepare to get down and 
give up his place.

"You needn't do that," said Tembarom.

"Won't you get up and take the reins, sir?" the man asked uncertainly.

"No. I can't drive. You'll have to do it. I'll walk."

And to the groom's amazement, they left him standing under the trees 
looking after them.

"It's up to me," he was saying. "The whole durned thing's up to me."




CHAPTER XXVI


The  neighborhood of Temple Barholm was not, upon the whole, a 
brilliant one. Indeed, it had been frankly designated by the casual 
guest as dull. The country was beautiful enough, and several rather 
large estates lay within reach of one another, but their owners were 
neither very rich nor especially notable personages. They were of 
extremely good old blood, and were of established respectability. None 
of them, however, was given to entertaining house parties made up of 
the smart and dazzlingly sinful world of fashion said by moralists to 
be composed entirely of young and mature beauties, male and female, 
capable of supplying at any moment enlivening detail for the divorce 
court--glittering beings whose wardrobes were astonishing and whose 
conversations were composed wholly of brilliant paradox and sparkling 
repartee.

Most of the residents took their sober season in London, the men of 
the family returning gladly to their pheasants, the women not 
regretfully to their gardens and tennis, because their successes in 
town had not been particularly delirious. The guests who came to them 
were generally as respectable and law-abiding as themselves, and 
introduced no iconoclastic diversions. For the greater portion of the 
year, in fact, diners out were of the neighborhood and met the 
neighborhood, and were reduced to discussing neighborhood topics, 
which was not, on the whole, a fevered joy. The Duke of Stone was, 
perhaps, the one man who might have furnished topics. Privately it was 
believed, and in part known, that he at least had had a brilliant, if 
not wholly unreprehensible, past. He might have introduced enlivening 
elements from London, even from Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and Rome; but 
the sobering influence of years of rheumatic gout and a not entirely 
sufficing income prevented activities, and his opinions of his social 
surroundings were vaguely guessed to be those of a not too lenient 
critic.

"I do not know anything technical or scientific about ditch- water," 
he had expressed himself in the bosom of his family. "I never analyzed 
it, but analyzers, I gather, consider it dull. If anything could be 
duller than ditch-water, I should say it was Stone Hover and its 
surrounding neighborhood." He had also remarked at another time: "If 
our society could be enriched by some of the characters who form the 
house parties and seem, in fact, integral parts of all country society 
in modern problem or even unproblem novels, how happy one might be, 
how edified and amused! A wicked lady or so of high, or extremely low, 
rank, of immense beauty and corruscating brilliancy; a lovely 
creature, male or female, whom she is bent upon undoing--"

"Dear papa!" protested Lady Celia.

"Reproach me, dearest. Reproach me as severely as you please. It 
inspires me. It makes me feel like a wicked, dangerous man, and I have 
not felt like one for many years. Such persons as I describe form the 
charm of existence, I assure you. A ruthless adventuress with any kind 
of good looks would be the making of us. Several of them, of different 
types, a handsome villain, and a few victims unknowing of their fate, 
would cause life to flow by like a peaceful stream."

Lady Edith laughed an unseemly little laugh--unseemly, since filial 
regret at paternal obliquity should have restrained it.

"Papa, you are quite horrible," she said. "You ought not to make your 
few daughters laugh at improper things."

"I would make my daughters laugh at anything so long as I must doom 
them to Stone Hover--and Lady Pevensy and Mrs. Stoughton and the 
rector, if one may mention names," he answered. "To see you laugh 
revives me by reminding me that once I was considered a witty person--
quite so. Some centuries ago, however; about the time when things were 
being rebuilt after the flood."

In such circumstances it cannot be found amazing that a situation such 
as Temple Barholm presented should provide rich food for conversation, 
supposition, argument, and humorous comment.

T. Tembarom himself, after the duke had established him, furnished an 
unlimited source of interest. His household became a perennial fount 
of quiet discussion. Lady Mallowe and her daughter were the members of 
it who met with the most attention. They appeared to have become 
members of it rather than visitors. Her ladyship had plainly elected 
to extend her stay even beyond the period to which a fond relative 
might feel entitled to hospitality. She had been known to extend 
visits before with great cleverness, but this one assumed an 
established aspect. She was not going away, the neighborhood decided, 
until she had achieved that which she had come to accomplish. The 
present unconventional atmosphere of the place naturally supported 
her. And how probable it seemed, taking into consideration Captain 
Palliser's story, that Mr. Temple Barholm wished her to stay. Lady 
Joan would be obliged to stay also, if her mother intended that she 
should. But the poor American--there were some expressions of 
sympathy, though the situation was greatly added to by the feature --
the poor American was being treated by Lady Joan as only she could 
treat a man. It was worth inviting the whole party to dinner or tea or 
lunch merely to see the two together. The manner in which she managed 
to ignore him and be scathing to him without apparently infringing a 
law of civility, and the number of laws she sometimes chose to sweep 
aside when it was her mood to do so, were extraordinary. If she had 
not been a beauty, with a sort of mystic charm for the male creature, 
surely he would have broken his chains. But he did not. What was he 
going to do in the end? What was she going to do? What was Lady 
Mallowe going to do if there was no end at all? He was not as unhappy-
looking a lover as one might have expected, they said. He kept up his 
spirits wonderfully. Perhaps she was not always as icily indifferent 
to him as she chose to appear in public. Temple Barholm was a great 
estate, and Sir Moses Monaldini had been mentioned by rumor. Of course 
there would be something rather strange and tragic in it if she came 
to Temple Barholm as its mistress in such singular circumstances. But 
he certainly did not look depressed or discouraged. So they talked it 
over as they looked on.

"How they gossip! How delightfully they gossip!" said the duke. "But 
it is such a perfect subject. They have never been so enthralled 
before. Dear young man! how grateful we ought to be for him!"

One of the most discussed features of the case was the duke's own 
cultivation of the central figure. There was an actual oddity about 
it. He drove from Stone Hover to Temple Barholm repeatedly. He invited 
Tembarom to the castle and had long talks with him--long, comfortable 
talks in secluded, delightful rooms or under great trees on a lawn. He 
wanted to hear anecdotes of his past, to draw him on to giving his 
points of view. When he spoke of him to his daughters, he called him 
"T. Tembarom," but the slight derision of his earlier tone modified 
itself.
	
"That delightful young man will shortly become my closest intimate," 
he said. "He not only keeps up my spirits, but he opens up vistas. 
Vistas after a man's seventy-second birthday! At times I could clasp 
him to my breast."

"I like him first rate," Tembarom said to Miss Alicia. "I liked him 
the minute he got up laughing like an old sport when he fell out of 
the pony carriage."

As he became more intimate with him, he liked him still better. 
Obscured though it was by airy, elderly persiflage, he began to come 
upon a background of stability and points of view wholly to be relied 
on in his new acquaintance. It had evolved itself out of long and 
varied experience, with the aid of brilliant mentality. The old peer's 
reasons were always logical. He laughed at most things, but at a few 
he did not laugh at all. After several of the long conversations 
Tembarom began to say to himself that this seemed like a man you need 
not be afraid to talk things over with--things you didn't want to 
speak of to everybody.

"Seems to me," he said thoughtfully to Miss Alicia, "he's an old 
fellow you could tie to. I've got on to one thing when I've listened 
to him: he talks all he wants to and laughs a lot, but he never gives 
himself away. He wouldn't give another fellow away either if he said 
he wouldn't. He knows how not to."

There was an afternoon on which during a drive they took together the 
duke was enlightened as to several points which had given him cause 
for reflection, among others the story beloved of Captain Palliser and 
his audiences.

"I guess you've known a good many women," T. Tembarom remarked on this 
occasion after a few minutes of thought. "Living all over the world as 
you've done, you'd be likely to come across a whole raft of them one 
time and another."

"A whole raft of them, one time and another," agreed the duke. "Yes."

"You've liked them, haven't you?"

"Immensely. Sometimes a trifle disastrously. Find me a more absolutely 
interesting object in the universe than a woman --any woman--and I 
will devote the remainder of my declining years to the study of it," 
answered his grace.

He said it with a decision which made T. Tembarom turn to look at him, 
and after his look decide to proceed.

"Have you ever known a bit of a slim thing"--he made an odd embracing 
gesture with his arm--"the size that you could pick up with one hand 
and set on your knee as if she was a child"--the duke remained still, 
knowing this was only the beginning and pricking up his ears as he 
took a rapid kaleidoscopic view of all the "Ladies" in the 
neighborhood, and as hastily waved them aside--"a bit of a thing that 
some way seems to mean it all to you--and moves the world?" The 
conclusion was one which brought the incongruous touch of maturity 
into his face.

"Not one of the `Ladies,"' the duke was mentally summing the matter 
up. "Certainly not Lady Joan, after all. Not, I think, even the young 
person in the department store."

He leaned back in his corner the better to inspect his companion 
directly.

"You have, I see," he replied quietly. "Once I myself did." (He had 
cried out, "Ah! Heloise!" though he had laughed at himself when he 
seemed facing his ridiculous tragedy.)

"Yes," confessed T. Tembarom. "I met her at the boarding-house where I 
lived. Her father was a Lancashire man and an inventor. I guess you've 
heard of him; his name is Joseph Hutchinson."

The whole country had heard of him; more countries, indeed, than one 
had heard. He was the man who was going to make his fortune in America 
because T. Tembarom had stood by him in his extremity. He would make a 
fortune in America and another in England and possibly several others 
on the Continent. He had learned to read in the village school, and 
the girl was his daughter.

"Yes," replied the duke.

"I don't know whether the one you knew had that quiet little way of 
seeing right straight into a thing, and making you see it, too," said 
Tembarom.

"She had," answered the duke, and an odd expression wavered in his 
eyes because he was looking backward across forty years which seemed a 
hundred.

"That's what I meant by moving the world," T. Tembarom went on. "You 
know she's RIGHT, and you've got to do what she says, if you love 
her."

"And you always do," said the duke--"always and forever. There are 
very few. They are the elect."

T. Tembarom took it gravely.

"I said to her once that there wasn't more than one of her in the 
world because there couldn't be enough to make two of that kind. I 
wasn't joshing either; I meant it. It's her quiet little voice and her 
quiet, babyfied eyes that get you where you can't move. And it's 
something else you don't know anything about. It's her never doing 
anything for herself, but just doing it because it's the right thing 
for you."

The duke's chin had sunk a little on his breast, and looking back 
across the hundred years, he forgot for a moment where he was. The one 
he remembered had been another man's wife, a little angel brought up 
in a convent by white-souled nuns, passed over by her people to an 
elderly vaurien of great magnificence, and she had sent the strong, 
laughing, impassioned young English peer away before it was too late, 
and with the young, young eyes of her looking upward at him in that 
way which saw "straight into a thing" and with that quiet little 
voice. So long ago! So long ago!

"Ah! Heloise!" he sighed unconsciously.

"What did you say?" asked T. Tembarom. The duke came back.

"I was thinking of the time when I was nine and twenty," he answered. 
"It was not yesterday nor even the day before. The one I knew died 
when she was twenty-four."

"Died!" said Tembarom. "Good Lord!" He dropped his head and even 
changed color. "A fellow can't get on to a thing like that. It seems 
as if it couldn't happen. Suppose--" he caught his breath hard and 
then pulled himself up-- "Nothing could happen to her before she knew 
that I've proved what I said--just proved it, and done every single 
thing she told me to do."

"I am sure you have," the duke said.

"It's because of that I began to say this." Tembarom spoke hurriedly 
that he might thrust away the sudden dark thought. "You're a man, and 
I'm a man; far away ahead of me as you are, you're a man, too. I was 
crazy to get her to marry me and come here with me, and she wouldn't."

The duke's eyes lighted anew.

"She had her reasons," he said.

"She laid 'em out as if she'd been my mother instead of a little red-
headed angel that you wanted to snatch up and crush up to you so she 
couldn't breathe. She didn't waste a word. She just told me what I was 
up against. She'd lived in the village with her grandmother, and she 
knew. She said I'd got to come and find out for myself what no one 
else could teach me. She told me about the kind of girls I'd see-- 
beauties that were different from anything I'd ever seen before. And 
it was up to me to see all of them--the best of them."

"Ladies?" interjected the duke gently.

"Yes. With titles like those in novels, she said, and clothes like 
those in the Ladies' Pictorial. The kind of girls, she said, that 
would make her look like a housemaid. Housemaid be darned!" he 
exclaimed, suddenly growing hot. "I've seen the whole lot of them; 
I've done my darndest to get next, and there's not one--" he stopped 
short. "Why should any of them look at me, anyhow?" he added suddenly.

"That was not her point," remarked the duke. "She wanted you to look 
at them, and you have looked." T. Tembarom's eagerness was inspiring 
to behold.

"I have, haven't I?" he cried. "That was what I wanted to ask you. 
I've done as she said. I haven't shirked a thing. I've followed them 
around when I knew they hadn't any use on earth for me. Some of them 
have handed me the lemon pretty straight. Why shouldn't they? But I 
don't believe she knew how tough it might be for a fellow sometimes."

"No, she did not," the duke said. "Also she probably did not know that 
in ancient days of chivalry ladies sent forth their knights to bear 
buffeting for their sakes in proof of fealty. Rise up, Sir Knight!" 
This last phrase of course T. Tembarom did not know the poetic 
significance of.

To his hearer Palliser's story became an amusing thing, read in the 
light of this most delicious frankness. It was Palliser himself who 
played the fool, and not T. Tembarom, who had simply known what he 
wanted, and had, with businesslike directness, applied himself to 
finding a method of obtaining it. The young women he gave his time to 
must be "Ladies" because Miss Hutchinson had required it from him. The 
female flower of the noble houses had been passed in review before him 
to practise upon, so to speak. The handsomer they were, the more 
dangerously charming, the better Miss Hutchinson would be pleased. And 
he had been regarded as a presumptuous aspirant. It was a situation 
for a comedy. But the "Ladies" would not enjoy it if they were told. 
It was also not the Duke of Stone who would tell them. They could not 
in the least understand the subtlety of the comedy in which they had 
unconsciously taken part. Ann Hutchinson's grandmother curtsied to 
them in her stiff old way when they passed. Ann Hutchinson had gone to 
the village school and been presented with prizes for needlework and 
good behavior. But what a girl she must be, the slim bit of a thing 
with a red head! What a clear-headed and firm little person!

In courts he had learned to wear a composed countenance when he was 
prompted to smile, and he wore one now. He enjoyed the society of T. 
Tembarom increasingly every hour. He provided him with every joy.

Their drive was a long one, and they talked a good deal. They talked 
of the Hutchinsons, of the invention, of the business "deals" Tembarom 
had entered into at the outset, and of their tremendously encouraging 
result. It was not mere rumor that Hutchinson would end by being a 
rich man. The girl would be an heiress. How complex her position would 
be! And being of the elect who unknowingly bear with them the power 
that "moves the world," how would she affect Temple Barholm and its 
surrounding neighborhood?

"I wish to God she was here now! " exclaimed Tembarom, suddenly.

It had been an interesting talk, but now and then the duke had 
wondered if, as it went on, his companion was as wholly at his ease as 
was usual with him. An occasional shade of absorption in his 
expression, as if he were thinking of two things at once despite 
himself, a hint of restlessness, revealed themselves occasionally. Was 
there something more he was speculating on the possibility of saying, 
something more to tell or explain? If there was, let him take his 
time. His audience, at all events, was possessed of perceptions. This 
somewhat abrupt exclamation might open the way.

"That is easily understood, my dear fellow," replied the duke.

"There's times when you want a little thing like that just to talk 
things over with, just to ask, because you--you're dead sure she'd 
never lose her head and give herself away without knowing she was 
doing it. She could just keep still and let the waves roll over her 
and be standing there ready and quiet when the tide had passed. It's 
the keeping your mouth shut that's so hard for most people, the not 
saying a darned thing, whatever happens, till just the right time."

"Women cannot often do it," said the duke. "Very few men can."

"You're right," Tembarom answered, and there was a trifle of anxiety 
in his tone.

"There's women, just the best kind, that you daren't tell a big thing 
to. Not that they'd mean to give it away--perhaps they wouldn't know 
when they did it--but they'd feel so anxious they'd get--they'd get--"

"Rattled," put in the duke, and knew who he was thinking of. He saw 
Miss Alicia's delicate, timid face as he spoke.

T. Tembarom laughed.

"That's just it," he answered. "They wouldn't go back on you for 
worlds, but--well, you have to be careful with them."

"He's got something on his mind," mentally commented the duke. "He 
wonders if he will tell it to me."

"And there's times when you'd give half you've got to be able to talk 
a thing out and put it up to some one else for a while. I could do it 
with her. That's why I said I wish to God that she was here."

"You have learned to know how to keep still," the duke said. "So have 
I. We learned it in different schools, but we have both learned."

As he was saying the words, he thought he was going to hear something; 
when he had finished saying them he knew that he would without a 
doubt. T. Tembarom made a quick move in his seat; he lost a shade of 
color and cleared his throat as he bent forward, casting a glance at 
the backs of the coachman and footman on the high seat above them.

"Can those fellows hear me?" he asked.

"No," the duke answered; "if you speak as you are speaking now."

"You are the biggest man about here," the young man went on. "You 
stand for everything that English people care for, and you were born 
knowing all the things I don't. I've been carrying a big load for 
quite a while, and I guess I'm not big enough to handle it alone, 
perhaps. Anyhow, I want to be sure I'm not making fool mistakes. The 
worst of it is that I've got to keep still if I'm right, and I've got 
to keep still if I'm wrong. I've got to keep still, anyhow."

"I learned to hold my tongue in places where, if I had not held it, I 
might have plunged nations into bloodshed," the duke said. "Tell me 
all you choose."

As a result of which, by the time their drive had ended and they 
returned to Stone Hover, he had told him, and, the duke sat in his 
corner of the carriage with an unusual light in his eyes and a flush 
of somewhat excited color on his cheek.

"You're a queer fellow, T. Tembarom," he said when they parted in the 
drawing-room after taking tea. "You exhilarate me. You make me laugh. 
If I were an emotional person, you would at moments make me cry. 
There's an affecting uprightness about you. You're rather a fine 
fellow too, 'pon my life." Putting a waxen, gout-knuckled old hand on 
his shoulder, and giving him a friendly push which was half a pat, he 
added, "You are, by God!"



And after his guest had left him, the duke stood for some minutes 
gazing into the fire with a complicated smile and the air of a man who 
finds himself quaintly enriched.

"I have had ambitions in the course of my existence-- several of 
them," he said, "but even in over-vaulting moments never have I 
aspired to such an altitude as this--to be, as it were, part of a 
melodrama. One feels that one scarcely deserves it."




CHAPTER XXVII


"Mr.Temple Barholm seems in better spirits," Lady Mallowe said to 
Captain Palliser as they walked on the terrace in the starlight dusk 
after dinner.

Captain Palliser took his cigar from his mouth and looked at the 
glowing end of it.

"Has it struck you that he has been in low spirits?" he inquired 
speculatively. "One does not usually connect him with depression."

"Certainly not with depression. He's an extraordinary creature. One 
would think he would perish from lack of the air he is used to 
breathing--New York air."

"He is not perishing. He's too shrewd," returned Palliser. "He mayn't 
exactly like all this, but he's getting something out of it."

"He is not getting much of what he evidently wants most. I am out of 
all patience," said Lady Mallowe.

Her acquaintance with Palliser had lasted through a number of years. 
They argued most matters from the same basis of reasoning. They were 
at times almost candid with each other. It may be acknowledged, 
however, that of the two Lady Mallowe was the more inclined to verge 
on self-revelation. This was of course because she was the less clever 
and had more temper. Her temper, she had, now and then, owned bitterly 
to herself, had played her tricks. Captain Palliser's temper never did 
this. It was Lady Mallowe's temper which spoke now, but she did not in 
the least mind his knowing that Joan was exasperating her beyond 
endurance. He knew the whole situation well enough to be aware of it 
without speech on her part. He had watched similar situations several 
times before.

"Her manner toward him is, to resort to New York colloquialisms, `the 
limit,'" Palliser said quietly. "Is it your idea that his less good 
spirits have been due to Lady Joan's ingenuities? They are ingenious, 
you know."

"They are devilish," exclaimed her mother." She treads him in the mire 
and sails about professing to be conducting herself flawlessly. She is 
too clever for me," she added with bitterness.

Palliser laughed softly.

"But very often you have been too clever for her," he suggested. "For 
my part, I don't quite see how you got her here."

Lady Mallowe became not almost, but entirely, candid.

"Upon the whole, I don't quite know myself. I believe she really came 
for some mysterious reason of her own."

"That is rather my impression," said Palliser. "She has got something 
up her sleeve, and so has he."

"He!" Lady Mallowe quite ejaculated the word. "She always has. That's 
her abominable secretive way. But he! T. Tembarom with something up 
his sleeve! One can't imagine it."

"Almost everybody has. I found that out long years ago," said 
Palliser, looking at his cigar end again as if consulting it. "Since I 
arrived at the conclusion, I always take it for granted, and look out 
for it. I've become rather clever in following such things up, and I 
have taken an unusual interest in T. Tembarom from the first."

Lady Mallowe turned her handsome face, much softened by an enwreathing 
gauze scarf, toward him anxiously.

"Do you think his depression, or whatever it is, means Joan?" she 
asked.

"If he is depressed by her, you need not be discouraged," smiled 
Palliser. "The time to lose hope would be when, despite her 
ingenuities, he became entirely cheerful. But," he added after a 
moment of pause, "I have an idea there is some other little thing."

"Do you suppose that some young woman he has left behind in New York 
is demanding her rights?" said Lady Mallowe, with annoyance. "That is 
exactly the kind of thing Joan would like to hear, and so entirely 
natural. Some shop-girl or other."

"Quite natural, as you say; but he would scarcely be running up to 
London and consulting Scotland Yard about her," Palliser answered.

"Scotland Yard!" ejaculated his companion. "How in the world did you 
find that out?"

Captain Palliser did not explain how he had done it. Presumably his 
knowledge was due to the adroitness of the system of "following such 
things up."

"Scotland Yard has also come to him," he went on. "Did you chance to 
see a red-faced person who spent a morning with him last week?"

"He looked like a butcher, and I thought he might be one of his 
friends," Lady Mallowe said.

"I recognized the man. He is an extremely clever detective, much 
respected for his resources in the matter of following clues which are 
so attenuated as to be scarcely clues at all."

"Clues have no connection with Joan," said Lady Mallowe, still more 
annoyed. "All London knows her miserable story."

"Have you--" Captain Palliser's tone was thoughtful, "--has any one 
ever seen Mr. Strangeways?"

"No. Can you imagine anything more absurdly romantic? A creature 
without a memory, shut up in a remote wing of a palace like this, as 
if he were the Man with the Iron Mask. Romance is not quite compatible 
with T. Tembarom."

"It is so incongruous that it has entertained me to think it over a 
good deal," remarked Palliser. "He leaves everything to one's 
imagination. All one knows is that he isn't a relative; that he isn't 
mad, but only too nervous to see or be seen. Queer situation. I've 
found there is always a reason for things; the queerer they are, the 
more sure it is that there's a reason. What is the reason Strangeways 
is kept here, and where would a detective come in? Just on general 
principles I'm rather going into the situation. There's a reason, and 
it would be amusing to find it out. Don't you think so?"

He spoke casually, and Lady Mallowe's answer was casual, though she 
knew from experience that he was not as casual as he chose to seem. He 
was clever enough always to have certain reasons of his own which 
formulated themselves into interests large and small. He knew things 
about people which were useful. Sometimes quite small things were 
useful. He was always well behaved, and no one had ever accused him of 
bringing pressure to bear; but it was often possible for him to sell 
things or buy things or bring about things in circumstances which 
would have presented difficulties to other people. Lady Mallowe knew 
from long experience all about the exigencies of cases when "needs 
must," and she was not critical. Temple Barholm as the estate of a 
distant relative and T. Tembarom as its owner were not assets to deal 
with indifferently. When a man made a respectable living out of people 
who could be persuaded to let you make investments for them, it was 
not an unbusinesslike idea to be in the position to advise an 
individual strongly.

"It's quite natural that you should feel an interest," she answered. 
"But the romantic stranger is too romantic, though I will own Scotland 
Yard is a little odd."

"Yes, that is exactly what I thought," said Palliser.

He had in fact thought a good deal and followed the thing up in a 
quiet, amateur way, though with annoyingly little result. Occasionally 
he had felt rather a fool for his pains, because he had been led to so 
few facts of importance and had found himself so often confronted by 
T. Tembarom's entirely frank grin. His own mental attitude was not a 
complex one. Lady Mallowe's summing up had been correct enough on the 
whole. Temple Barholm ought to be a substantial asset, regarded in its 
connection with its present owner. Little dealings in stocks--
sometimes rather large ones when luck was with him-- had brought 
desirable returns to Captain Palliser throughout a number of years. 
Just now he was taking an interest in a somewhat imposing scheme, or 
what might prove an imposing one if it were managed properly and 
presented to the right persons. If T. Tembarom had been sufficiently 
lured by the spirit of speculation to plunge into old Hutchinson's 
affair, as he evidently had done, he was plainly of the temperament 
attracted by the game of chance. There had been no reason but that of 
temperament which could have led him to invest. He had found himself 
suddenly a moneyed man and had liked the game. Never having so much as 
heard of Little Ann Hutchinson, Captain Palliser not unnaturally 
argued after this wise. There seemed no valid reason why, if a vague 
invention had allured, a less vague scheme, managed in a more 
businesslike manner, should not. This Mexican silver and copper mine 
was a dazzling thing to talk about. He could go into details. He had, 
in fact, allowed a good deal of detail to trail through his 
conversation at times. It had not been difficult to accomplish this in 
his talks with Lady Mallowe in his host's presence. Lady Mallowe was 
always ready to talk of mines, gold, silver, or copper. It happened at 
times that one could manage to secure a few shares without the actual 
payment of money. There were little hospitalities or social 
amiabilities now and then which might be regarded as value received. 
So she had made it easy for Captain Palliser to talk, and T. Tembarom 
had heard much which would have been of interest to the kind of young 
man he appeared to be. Sometimes he had listened absorbedly, and on a 
few occasions he had asked a few questions which laid him curiously 
bare in his role of speculator. If he had no practical knowledge of 
the ways and means of great mining companies, he at least professed 
none. At all events, if there was any little matter he preferred to 
keep to himself, there was no harm in making oneself familiar with its 
aspect and significance. A man's arguments, so far as he himself is 
concerned, assume the character with which his own choice of 
adjectives and adverbs labels them. That is, if he labels them. The 
most astute do not. Captain Palliser did not. He dealt merely with 
reasoning processes which were applicable to the subject in hand, 
whatsoever its nature. He was a practical man of the world--a 
gentleman, of course. It was necessary to adjust matters without 
romantic hair-splitting. It was all by the way.

T. Tembarom had at the outset seemed to present, so to speak, no 
surface. Palliser had soon ceased to be at all sure that his social 
ambitions were to be relied on as a lever. Besides which, when the old 
Duke of Stone took delighted possession of him, dined with him, drove 
with him, sat and gossiped with him by the hour, there was not much 
one could offer him. Strangeways had at first meant only eccentricity. 
A little later he had occasionally faintly stirred curiosity, and 
perhaps the fact that Burrill enjoyed him as a grievance and a mystery 
had stimulated the stirring. The veriest chance had led him to find 
himself regarding the opening up of possible vistas.

From a certain window in a certain wing of the house a much-praised 
view was to be seen. Nothing was more natural than that on the 
occasion of a curious sunset Palliser should, in coming from his room, 
decide to take a look at it. As he passed through a corridor Pearson 
came out of a room near him.

"How is Mr. Strangeways to-day?" Palliser asked.

"Not quite so well, I am afraid, sir," was the answer.

"Sorry to hear it," replied Palliser, and passed on.

On his return he walked somewhat slowly down the corridor. As he 
turned into it he thought he heard the murmur of voices. One was that 
of T. Tembarom, and he was evidently using argument. It sounded as if 
he were persuading some one to agree with him, and the persuasion was 
earnest. He was not arguing with Pearson or a housemaid. Why was he 
arguing with his pensioner? His voice was as low as it was eager, and 
the other man's replies were not to be heard. Only just after Palliser 
had passed the door there broke out an appeal which was a sort of cry.

"No! My God, no! Don't send me away? Don't send me away!"

One could not, even if so inclined, stand and listen near a door while 
servants might chance to be wandering about. Palliser went on his way 
with a sense of having been slightly startled.

"He wants to get rid of him, and the fellow is giving him trouble," he 
said to himself. "That voice is not American. Not in the least." It 
set him thinking and observing. When Tembarom wore the look which was 
not a look of depression, but of something more puzzling, he thought 
that he could guess at its reason. By the time he talked with Lady 
Mallowe he had gone much further than he chose to let her know.




CHAPTER XXVIII


The popularity of Captain Palliser's story of the "Ladies" had been 
great at the outset, but with the passage of time it had oddly waned. 
This had resulted from the story's ceasing to develop itself, as the 
simplest intelligence might have anticipated, by means of the only 
person capable of its proper development. The person in question was 
of course T. Tembarom. Expectations, amusing expectations, of him had 
been raised, and he had singularly failed in the fulfilling of them. 
The neighborhood had, so to speak, stood upon tiptoe,--the feminine 
portion of it, at least,--looking over shoulders to get the first 
glimpses of what would inevitably take place.

As weeks flew by, the standing on tiptoe became a thing of the past. 
The whole thing flattened out most disappointingly. No attack whatever 
was made upon the "Ladies." That the Duke of Stone had immensely taken 
up Mr. Temple Barholm had of course resulted in his being accepted in 
such a manner as gave him many opportunities to encounter one and all. 
He appeared at dinners, teas, and garden parties. Miss Alicia, whom he 
had in some occult manner impressed upon people until they found 
themselves actually paying a sort of court to her, was always his 
companion.

"One realizes one cannot possibly leave her out of anything," had been 
said. "He has somehow established her as if she were his mother or his 
aunt--or his interpreter. And such clothes, my dear, one doesn't 
behold. Worth and Paquin and Doucet must go sleepless for weeks to 
invent them. They are without a flaw in shade or line or texture." 
Which was true, because Mrs. Mellish of the Bond Street shop had 
become quite obsessed by her idea and committed extravagances Miss 
Alicia offered up contrite prayer to atone for, while Tembarom, simply 
chortling in his glee, signed checks to pay for their exquisite 
embodiment. That he was not reluctant to avail himself of social 
opportunities was made manifest by the fact that he never refused an 
invitation. He appeared upon any spot to which hospitality bade him, 
and unashamedly placed himself on record as a neophyte upon almost all 
occasions. His well-cut clothes began in time to wear more the air of 
garments belonging to him, but his hat made itself remarked by its 
trick of getting pushed back on his head or tilted on side, and his 
New York voice and accent rang out sharp and finely nasal in the midst 
of low-pitched, throaty, or mellow English enunciations. He talked a 
good deal at times because he found himself talked to by people who 
either wanted to draw him out or genuinely wished to hear the things 
he would be likely to say.

That the hero of Palliser's story should so comport himself as to 
provide either diversion or cause for haughty displeasure would have 
been only a natural outcome of his ambitions. In a brief period of 
time, however, every young woman who might have expected to find 
herself an object of such ambitions realized that his methods of 
approach and attack were not marked by the usual characteristics of 
aspirants of his class. He evidently desired to see and be seen. He 
presented himself, as it were, for inspection and consideration, but 
while he was attentive, he did not press attentions upon any one. He 
did not make advances in the ordinary sense of the word. He never 
essayed flattering or even admiring remarks. He said queer things at 
which one often could not help but laugh, but he somehow wore no air 
of saying them with the intention of offering them as witticisms which 
might be regarded as allurements. He did not ogle, he did not simper 
or shuffle about nervously and turn red or pale, as eager and awkward 
youths have a habit of doing under the stress of unrequited 
admiration. In the presence of a certain slightingness of treatment, 
which he at the outset met with not infrequently, he conducted himself 
with a detached good nature which seemed to take but small account of 
attitudes less unoffending than his own. When the slightingness 
disappeared from sheer lack of anything to slight, he did not change 
his manner in any degree.

"He is not in the least forward," Beatrice Talchester said, the time 
arriving when she and her sisters occasionally talked him over with 
their special friends, the Granthams, "and he is not forever under 
one's feet, as the pushing sort usually is. Do you remember those rich 
people from the place they called Troy--the ones who took Burnaby for 
a year--and the awful eldest son who perpetually invented excuses for 
calling, bringing books and ridiculous things?"

"This one never makes an excuse," Amabel Grantham put in.

"But he never declines an invitation. There is no doubt that he wants 
to see people," said Lady Honora, with the pretty little nose and the 
dimples. She had ceased to turn up the pretty little nose, and she 
showed a dimple as she added: "Gwynedd is tremendously taken with him. 
She is teaching him to play croquet. They spend hours together."

"He's beginning to play a pretty good game," said Gwynedd. "He's not 
stupid, at all events."

"I believe you are the first choice, if he is really choosing," Amabel 
Grantham decided. "I should like to ask you a question."

"Ask it, by all means," said Gwynedd.

"Does he ever ask you to show him how to hold his mallet, and then do 
idiotic things, such as managing to touch your hand?"

"Never," was Gwynedd's answer. "The young man from Troy used to do it, 
and then beg pardon and turn red."

"I don't understand him, or I don't understand Captain Palliser's 
story," Amabel Grantham argued. "Lucy and I are quite out of the 
running, but I honestly believe that he takes as much notice of us as 
he does of any of you. If he has intentions, he 'doesn't act the 
part,' which is pure New York of the first water."

"He said, however, that the things that mattered were not only titles, 
but looks. He asked how many of us were 'lookers.' Don't be modest, 
Amabel. Neither you nor Lucy are out of the running," Beatrice amiably 
suggested.

"Ladies first," commented Amabel, pertly. There was no objection to 
being supported in one's suspicion that, after all, one was a 
"looker."

"There may be a sort of explanation," Honora put the idea forward 
somewhat thoughtfully. "Captain Palliser insists that he is much 
shrewder than he seems. Perhaps he is cautious, and is looking us all 
over before he commits himself."

"He is a Temple Barholm, after all," said Gwynedd, with boldness. 
"He's rather good looking. He has the nicest white teeth and the most 
cheering grin I ever saw, and he's as 'rich as grease is,' as I heard 
a housemaid say one day. I'm getting quite resigned to his voice, or 
it is improving, I don't know which. If he only knew the mere A B C of 
ordinary people like ourselves, and he committed himself to me, I 
wouldn't lay my hand on my heart and say that one might not think him 
over."

"I told you she was tremendously taken with him," said her sister. 
"It's come to this."

"But," said Lady Gwynedd, "he is not going to commit himself to any of 
us, incredible as it may seem. The one person he stares at sometimes 
is Joan Fayre, and he only looks at her as if he were curious and 
wouldn't object to finding out why she treats him so outrageously. He 
isn't annoyed; he's only curious."

"He's been adored by salesladies in New York," said Honora, "and he 
can't understand it."

"He's been liked," Amabel Grantham summed him up. "He's a likable 
thing. He's even rather a dear. I've begun to like him myself."

"I hear you are learning to play croquet," the Duke of Stone remarked 
to him a day or so later. "How do you like it?"

"Lady Gwynedd Talchester is teaching me," Tembarom answered. "I'd 
learn to iron shirt-waists if she would give me lessons. She's one of 
the two that have dimples," he added, reflection in his tone. "I guess 
that'll count. Shouldn't you think it would?"

"Miss Hutchinson?" queried the duke.

Tembarom nodded.

"Yes, it's always her," he answered without a ray of humor. "I just 
want to stack 'em up."

"You are doing it," the duke replied with a slightly twisted mouth. 
There were, in fact, moments when he might have fallen into fits of 
laughter while Tembarom was seriousness itself. "I must, however, call 
your attention to the fact that there is sometimes in your manner a 
hint of a businesslike pursuit of a fixed object which you must beware 
of. The Lady Gwynedds might not enjoy the situation if they began to 
suspect. If they decided to flout you,--'to throw you down,' I ought 
to say--where would little Miss Hutchinson be?"

Tembarom looked startled and disturbed.

"Say," he exclaimed, "do I ever look that way? I must do better than 
that. Anyhow, it ain't all put on. I'm doing my stunt, of course, but 
I like them. They're mighty nice to me when you consider what they're 
up against. And those two with the dimples,--Lady Gwynned and Lady 
Honora, are just peaches. Any fellow might"--he stopped and looked 
serious again--"That's why they'd count," he added.

They were having one of their odd long talks under a particularly 
splendid copper beech which provided the sheltered out-of-door corner 
his grace liked best. When they took their seats together in this 
retreat, it was mysteriously understood that they were settling 
themselves down to enjoyment of their own, and must not be disturbed.

"When I am comfortable and entertained," Moffat, the house steward, 
had quoted his master as saying, "you may mention it if the castle is 
in flames; but do not annoy me with excitement and flurry. Ring the 
bell in the courtyard, and call up the servants to pass buckets; but 
until the lawn catches fire, I must insist on being left alone."

"What dear papa talks to him about, and what he talks about to dear 
papa," Lady Celia had more than once murmured in her gently remote, 
high-nosed way, "I cannot possibly imagine. Sometimes when I have 
passed them on my way to the croquet lawn I have really seen them both 
look as absorbed as people in a play. Of course it is very good for 
papa. It has had quite a marked effect on his digestion. But isn't it 
odd!"

"I wish," Lady Edith remarked almost wistfully, "that I could get on 
better with him myself conversationally. But I don't know what to talk 
about, and it makes me nervous."

Their father, on the contrary, found in him unique resources, and this 
afternoon it occurred to him that he had never so far heard him 
express himself freely on the subject of Palliser. If led to do so, he 
would probably reveal that he had views of Captain Palliser of which 
he might not have been suspected, and the manner in which they would 
unfold themselves would more than probably be illuminating. The duke 
was, in fact, serenely sure that he required neither warning nor 
advice, and he had no intention of offering either. He wanted to hear 
the views.

"Do you know," he said as he stirred his tea, "I've been thinking 
about Palliser, and it has occurred to me more than once that I should 
like to hear just how he strikes you?"

"What I got on to first was how I struck him," answered Tembarom, with 
a reasonable air. "That was dead easy."

There was no hint of any vaunt of superior shrewdness. His was merely 
the level-toned manner of an observer of facts in detail.

"He has given you an opportunity of seeing a good deal of him," the 
duke added. "What do you gather from him-- unless he has made up his 
mind that you shall not gather anything at all?"

"A fellow like that couldn't fix it that way, however much he wanted 
to," Tembarom answered again reasonably. "Just his trying to do it 
would give him away."

"You mean you have gathered things?"

"Oh, I've gathered enough, though I didn't go after it. It hung on the 
bushes. Anyhow, it seemed to me that way. I guess you run up against 
that kind everywhere. There's stacks of them in New York--different 
shapes and sizes."

"If you met a man of his particular shape and size in New York, how 
would you describe him?" the duke asked.

"I should never have met him when I was there. He wouldn't have come 
my way. He'd have been on Wall Street, doing high-class bucket-shop 
business, or he'd have had a swell office selling copper-mines--any 
old kind of mine that's going to make ten million a minute, the sort 
of deal he's in now. If he'd been the kind I might have run up 
against," he added with deliberation, "he wouldn't have been as well 
dressed or as well spoken. He'd have been either flashy or down at 
heel. You'd have called him a crook."

The duke seemed pleased with his tea as, after having sipped it, he 
put it down on the table at his side.

"A crook?" he repeated. "I wonder if that word is altogether 
American?"

"It's not complimentary, but you asked me," said Tembarom. "But I 
don't believe you asked me because you thought I wasn't on to him."
	
"Frankly speaking, no," answered the duke. "Does he talk to you about 
the mammoth mines and the rubber forests?"

"Say, that's where he wins out with me," Tembarom replied admiringly. 
"He gets in such fine work that I switch him on to it whenever I want 
cheering up. It makes me sorter forget things that worry me just to 
see a man act the part right up to the top notch the way he does it. 
The very way his clothes fit, the style he's got his hair brushed, and 
that swell, careless lounge of his, are half of the make-up. You see, 
most of us couldn't mistake him for anything else but just what he 
looks like--a gentleman visiting round among his friends and a million 
miles from wanting to butt in with business. The thing that first got 
me interested was watching how he slid in the sort of guff he wanted 
you to get worked up about and think over. Why, if I'd been what I 
look like to him, he'd have had my pile long ago, and he wouldn't be 
loafing round here any more."

"What do you think you look like to him?" his host inquired.

"I look as if I'd eat out of his hand," Tembarom answered, quite 
unbiased by any touch of wounded vanity. "Why shouldn't I? And I'm not 
trying to wake him up, either. I like to look that way to him and to 
his sort. It gives me a chance to watch and get wise to things. He's a 
high-school education in himself. I like to hear him talk. I asked him 
to come and stay at the house so that I could hear him talk."

"Did he introduce the mammoth mines in his first call?" the duke 
inquired.

"Oh, I don't mean that kind of talk. I didn't know how much good I was 
going to get out of him at first. But he was the kind I hadn't known, 
and it seemed like he was part of the whole thing--like the girls with 
title that Ann said I must get next to. And an easy way of getting 
next to the man kind was to let him come and stay. He wanted to, all 
right. I guess that's the way he lives when he's down on his luck, 
getting invited to stay at places. Like Lady Mallowe," he added, quite 
without prejudice.

"You do sum them up, don't you?" smiled the duke.

"Well, I don't see how I could help it," he said impartially. "They're 
printed in sixty-four point black-face, seems to me."

"What is that?" the duke inquired with interest. He thought it might 
be a new and desirable bit of slang. "I don't know that one."

"Biggest type there is," grinned Tembarom. "It's the kind that's used 
for head-lines. That's newspaper-office talk."

"Ah, technical, I see. What, by the way, is the smallest lettering 
called?" his grace followed up.

"Brilliant," answered Tembarom.

"You," remarked the duke, "are not printed in sixty-four-point black-
face so far as they are concerned. You are not even brilliant. They 
don't find themselves able to sum you up. That fact is one of my 
recreations."

"I'll tell you why," Tembarom explained with his clearly unprejudiced 
air. "There's nothing much about me to sum up, anyhow. I'm too sort of 
plain sailing and ordinary. I'm not making for anywhere they'd think 
I'd want to go. I'm not hiding anything they'd be sure I'd want to 
hide."

"By the Lord! you're not!" exclaimed the duke.

"When I first came here, every one of them had a fool idea I'd want to 
pretend I'd never set eyes on a newsboy or a boot-black, and that I 
couldn't find my way in New York when I got off Fifth Avenue. I used 
to see them thinking they'd got to look as if they believed it, if 
they wanted to keep next. When I just let out and showed I didn't care 
a darn and hadn't sense enough to know that it mattered, it nearly 
made them throw a fit. They had to turn round and fix their faces all 
over again and act like it was 'interesting.' That's what Lady Mallowe 
calls it. She says it's so 'interesting!'"

"It is," commented the duke.

"Well, you know that, but she doesn't. Not on your life! I guess it 
makes her about sick to think of it and have to play that it's just 
what you'd want all your men friends to have done. Now, Palliser--" he 
paused and grinned again. He was sitting in a most casual attitude, 
his hands clasped round one up-raised knee, which he nursed, balancing 
himself. It was a position of informal ease which had an air of 
assisting enjoyable reflection.

"Yes, Palliser? Don't let us neglect Palliser," his host encouraged 
him.

"He's in a worse mix-up than the rest because he's got more to lose. 
If he could work this mammoth-mine song and dance with the right 
people, there'd be money enough in it to put him on Easy Street. 
That's where he's aiming for. The company's just where it has to have 
a boost. It's just GOT to. If it doesn't, there'll be a bust up that 
may end in fitting out a high-toned promoter or so in a striped 
yellow-and-black Jersey suit and set him to breaking rocks or playing 
with oakum. I'll tell you, poor old Palliser gets the Willies 
sometimes after he's read his mail. He turns the color of ecru baby 
Irish. That's a kind of lace I got a dressmaker to tell me about when 
I wrote up receptions and dances for the Sunday Earth. Ecru baby 
Irish--that's Palliser's color after he's read his letters."

"I dare say the fellow's in a devil of a mess, if the truth were 
known," the duke said.

"And here's 'T. T.,' hand-made and hand-painted for the part of the 
kind of sucker he wants." T. Tembarom's manner was almost sympathetic 
in its appreciation. "I can tell you I'm having a real good time with 
Palliser. It looked like I'd just dropped from heaven when he first 
saw me. If he'd been the praying kind, I'd have been just the sort 
he'd have prayed for when he said his `Now-I-lay-me's' before he went 
to bed. There wasn't a chance in a hundred that I wasn't a fool that 
had his head swelled so that he'd swallow any darned thing if you 
handed it to him smooth enough. First time he called he asked me a lot 
of questions about New York business. That was pretty smart of him. He 
wanted to find out, sort of careless, how much I knew--or how little."

The duke was leaning back luxuriously in his chair and gazing at him 
as he might have gazed at the work of an old master of which each line 
and shade was of absorbing interest.

"I can see him," he said. "I can see him."

"He found out I knew nothing," Tembarom continued. "And what was to 
hinder him trying to teach me something, by gee! Nothing on top of the 
green earth. I was there, waiting with my mouth open, it seemed like."

"And he has tried--in his best manner?" said his grace.

"What he hasn't tried wouldn't be worthy trying," Tembarom answered 
cheerfully. "Sometimes it seems like a shame to waste it. I've got so 
I know how to start him when he doesn't know I'm doing it. I tell you, 
he's fine. Gentlemanly --that's his way, you know. High-toned friend 
that just happens to know of a good thing and thinks enough of you in 
a sort of reserved way to feel like it's a pity not to give you a 
chance to come in on the ground floor, if you've got the sense to see 
the favor he's friendly enough to do you. It's such a favor that it'd 
just disgust a man if you could possibly turn it down. But of course 
you're to take it or leave it. It's not to his interest to push it. 
Lord, no! Whatever you did his way is that he'd not condescend to say 
a darned word. High-toned silence, that's all."

The Duke of Stone was chuckling very softly. His chuckles rather broke 
his words when he spoke.

"By--by--Jove!" he said. "You--you do see it, don't you? You do see 
it."

Tembarom nursed his knee comfortably.

"Why," he said, "it's what keeps me up. You know a lot more about me 
than any one else does, but there's a whole raft of things I think 
about that I couldn't hang round any man's neck. If I tried to hang 
them round yours, you'd know that I would be having a hell of a time 
here, if I'd let myself think too much. If I didn't see it, as you 
call it, if I didn't see so many things, I might begin to get sorry 
for myself. There was a pause of a second. "Gee!" he said, "Gee! this 
not hearing a thing about Ann!--"


"Good Lord! my dear fellow," the duke said  hastily, "I know. I know."

Tembarom turned and looked at him.

"You've been there," he remarked. "You've been there, I bet."

"Yes, I've been there," answered the duke. "I've been there--and come 
back. But while it's going on--you have just described it. A man can 
have a hell of a time."

"He can," Tembarom admitted unreservedly. "He's got to keep going to 
stand it. Well, Strangeways gives me some work to do. And I've got 
Palliser. He's a little sunbeam."

A man-servant approaching to suggest a possible need of hot tea 
started at hearing his grace break into a sudden and plainly 
involuntary crow of glee. He had not heard that one before either. 
Palliser as a little sunbeam brightening the pathway of T. Tembarom, 
was, in the particular existing circumstances, all that could be 
desired of fine humor. It somewhat recalled the situation of the 
"Ladies" of the noble houses of Pevensy, Talchester, and Stone 
unconsciously passing in review for the satisfaction of little Miss 
Hutchinson. Tembarom laughed a little himself, but he went on with a 
sort of seriousness

"There's one thing sure enough. I've got on to it by listening and 
working out what he would do by what he doesn't know he says. If he 
could put the screws on me in any way, he wouldn't hold back. It'd be 
all quite polite and gentlemanly, but he'd do it all the same. And 
he's dead-sure that everybody's got something they'd like to hide--or 
get. That's what he works things out from."

"Does he think you have something to hide--or get?" the duke inquired 
rather quickly.

"He's sure of it. But he doesn't know yet whether it's get or hide. He 
noses about. Pearson's seen him. He asks questions and plays he ain't 
doing it and ain't interested, anyhow."

"He doesn't like you, he doesn't like you," the duke said rather 
thoughtfully. "He has a way of conveying that you are far more subtle 
than you choose to look. He is given to enlarging on the fact that an 
air of entire frankness is one of the chief assets of certain 
promoters of huge American schemes."

Tembarom smiled the smile of recognition.

"Yes," he said, "it looks like that's a long way round, doesn't it? 
But it's not far to T. T. when you want to hitch on the connection. 
Anyhow, that's the way he means it to look. If ever I was suspected of 
being in any mix-up, everybody would remember he'd said that."

"It's very amusin'," said the duke. " It's very amusin'."

They had become even greater friends and intimates by this time than 
the already astonished neighborhood suspected them of being. That they 
spent much time together in an amazing degree of familiarity was the 
talk of the country, in fact, one of the most frequent resources of 
conversation. Everybody endeavored to find reason for the situation, 
but none had been presented which seemed of sufficiently logical 
convincingness. The duke was eccentric, of course. That was easy to 
hit upon. He was amiably perverse and good-humoredly cynical. He was 
of course immensely amused by the incongruity of the acquaintance. 
This being the case, why exactly he had never before chosen for 
himself a companion equally out of the picture it was not easy to 
explain. There were plow-boys or clerks out of provincial shops who 
would surely have been quite as incongruous when surrounded by ducal 
splendors. He might have got a young man from Liverpool or Blackburn 
who would have known as little of polite society as Mr. Temple 
Barholm; there were few, of course, who could know less. But he had 
never shown the faintest desire to seek one out. Palliser, it is true, 
suggested it was Tembarom's "cheek" which stood him in good stead. The 
young man from behind the counter in a Liverpool or Blackburn shop 
would probably have been frightened to death and afraid to open his 
mouth in self-revelation, whereas Temple Barholm was so entirely a 
bounder that he did not know he was one, and was ready to make an ass 
of himself to any extent. The frankest statement of the situation, if 
any one had so chosen to put it, would have been that he was regarded 
as a sort of court fool without cap or bells.

No one was aware of the odd confidences which passed between the 
weirdly dissimilar pair. No one guessed that the old peer sat and 
listened to stories of a red-headed, slim-bodied girl in a dingy New 
York boarding-house, that he liked them sufficiently to encourage 
their telling, that he had made a mental picture of a certain look in 
a pair of maternally yearning and fearfully convincing round young 
eyes, that he knew the burnished fullness and glow of the red hair 
until he could imagine the feeling of its texture and abundant warmth 
in the hand. And this subject was only one of many. And of others they 
talked with interest, doubt, argument, speculation, holding a living 
thrill.

The tap of croquet mallets sounded hollow and clear from the sunken 
lawn below the mass of shrubs between them and the players as the duke 
repeated.

"It's hugely amusin'," dropping his "g," which was not one of his 
usual affectations.

"Confound it!" he said next, wrinkling the thin, fine skin round his 
eyes in a speculative smile, "I wish I had had a son of my own just 
like you."

All of Tembarom's white teeth revealed themselves.

"I'd have liked to have been in it," he replied, "but I shouldn't have 
been like me."

"Yes, you would." The duke put the tips of his fingers delicately 
together. "You are of the kind which in all circumstances is like 
itself." He looked about him, taking in the turreted, majestic age and 
mass of the castle. "You would have been born here. You would have 
learned to ride your pony down the avenue. You would have gone to Eton 
and to Oxford. I don't think you would have learned much, but you 
would have been decidedly edifying and companionable. You would have 
had a sense of humor which would have made you popular in society and 
at court. A young fellow who makes those people laugh holds success in 
his hand. They want to be made to laugh as much as I do. Good God! how 
they are obliged to be bored and behave decently under it! You would 
have seen and known more things to be humorous about than you know 
now. I don't think you would have been a fool about women, but some of 
them would have been fools about you, because you've got a way. I had 
one myself. It's all the more dangerous because it's possibility 
suggesting without being sentimental. A friendly young fellow always 
suggests possibilities without being aware of it.

"Would I have been Lord Temple Temple Barholm or something of that 
sort?" Tembarom asked.

"You would have been the Marquis of Belcarey," the duke replied, 
looking him over thoughtfully, "and your name would probably have been 
Hugh Lawrence Gilbert Henry Charles Adelbert, or words to that 
effect."

"A regular six-shooter," said Tembarom.

The duke was following it up with absorption in his eyes.

"You'd have gone into the Guards, perhaps," he said, "and drill would 
have made you carry yourself better. You're a good height. You'd have 
been a well-set-up fellow. I should have been rather proud of you. I 
can see you riding to the palace with the rest of them, sabres and 
chains clanking and glittering and helmet with plumes streaming. By 
Jove! I don't wonder at the effect they have on nursery-maids. On a 
sunny morning in spring they suggest knights in a fairytale."

"I should have liked it all right if I hadn't been born in Brooklyn," 
grinned Tembarom. "But that starts you out in a different way. Do you 
think, if I'd been born the Marquis of Bel--what's his name--I should 
have been on to Palliser's little song and dance, and had as much fun 
out of it?"

"On my soul, I believe you would," the, duke answered. "Brooklyn or 
Stone Hover Castle, I'm hanged if you wouldn't have been YOU."




CHAPTER XXIX


After this came a pause. Each man sat thinking his own thoughts, 
which, while marked with difference in form, were doubtless subtly 
alike in the line they followed. During the silence T. Tembarom looked 
out at the late afternoon shadows lengthening themselves in darkening 
velvet across the lawns.

At last he said:

"I never told you that I've been reading some of the 'steen thousand 
books in the library. I started it about a month ago. And somehow 
they've got me going."

The slightly lifted eyebrows of his host did not express surprise so 
much as questioning interest. This man, at least, had discovered that 
one need find no cause for astonishment in any discovery that he had 
been doing a thing for some time for some reason or through some 
prompting of his own, and had said nothing whatever about it until he 
was what he called "good and ready." When he was "good and ready" he 
usually revealed himself to the duke, but he was not equally expansive 
with others.

"No, you have not mentioned it," his grace answered, and laughed a 
little. "You frequently fail to mention things. When first we knew 
each other I used to wonder if you were naturally a secretive fellow; 
but you are not. You always have a reason for your silences."

"It took about ten years	to kick that into me--ten good years, I 
should say." T. Tembarom looked as if he were looking backward at many 
episodes as he said it. "Naturally, I guess, I must have been an 
innocent, blab-mouthed kid. I meant no harm, but I just didn't know. 
Sometimes it looks as if just not knowing is about the worst disease 
you can be troubled with. But if you don't get killed first, you find 
out in time that what you've got to hold on to hard and fast is the 
trick of 'saying nothing and sawing wood.'"

The duke took out his memorandum-book and began to write hastily. T. 
Tembarom was quite accustomed to this. He even repeated his axiom for 
him.

"Say nothing and saw wood," he said. "It's worth writing down. It 
means 'shut your mouth and keep on working.'"

"Thank you," said the duke. "It is worth writing down. Thank you."

"I did not talk about the books because I wanted to get used to them 
before I began to talk," Tembarom explained. "I wanted to get 
somewhere. I'd never read a book through in my life before. Never 
wanted to. Never had one and never had time. When night came, I was 
dog-tired and dog-ready to drop down and sleep."

Here was a situation of interest. A young man of odd, direct 
shrewdness, who had never read a book through in his existence, had 
plunged suddenly into the extraordinarily varied literary resources of 
the Temple Barholm library. If he had been a fool or a genius one 
might have guessed at the impression made on him; being T. Tembarom, 
one speculated with secret elation. The primitiveness he might reveal, 
the profundities he might touch the surface of, the unexpected ends he 
might reach, suggested the opening of vistas.

"I have often thought that if books attracted you the library would 
help you to get through a good many of the hundred and thirty-six 
hours a day you've spoken of, and get through them pretty decently," 
commented the duke.

"That's what's happened," Tembarom answered. "There's not so many now. 
I can cut 'em off in chunks."

"How did it begin?"

He listened with much pleasure while Tembarom told him how it had 
begun and how it had gone on.

"I'd been having a pretty bad time one day. Strangeways had been 
worse--a darned sight worse--just when I thought he was better. I'd 
been trying to help him to think straight; and suddenly I made a 
break, somehow, and must have touched exactly the wrong spring. It 
seemed as if I set him nearly crazy. I had to leave him to Pearson 
right away. Then it poured rain steady for about eight hours, and I 
couldn't get out and `take a walk.' Then I went wandering into the 
picture-gallery and found Lady Joan there, looking at Miles Hugo. And 
she ordered me out, or blamed near it."

"You are standing a good deal," said the duke.

"Yes, I am--but so is she." He set his hard young jaw and nursed his 
knee, staring once more at the velvet shadows. "The girl in the book I 
picked up--" he began.

"The first book? " his host inquired.

Tembarom nodded.

"The very first. I was smoking my pipe at night, after every one else 
had gone to bed, and I got up and began to wander about and stare at 
the names of the things on the shelves. I was thinking over a whole 
raft of things--a whole raft of them--and I didn't know I was doing 
it, until something made me stop and read a name again. It was a book 
called `Good-by, Sweetheart, Good-by,' and it hit me straight. I 
wondered what it was about, and I wondered where old Temple Barholm 
had fished up a thing like that. I never heard he was that kind."

"He was a cantankerous old brute," said the Duke of Stone with candor, 
"but he chanced to be an omnivorous novel-reader. Nothing was too 
sentimental for him in his later years."

"I took the thing out and read it," Tembarom went on, uneasily, the 
emotion of his first novel-reading stirring him as he talked. "It kept 
me up half the night, and I hadn't finished it then. I wanted to know 
the end."

"Benisons upon the books of which one wants to know the end!" the duke 
murmured.

Tembarom's interest had plainly not terminated with "the end." Its 
freshness made it easily revived. There was a hint of emotional 
indignation in his relation of the plot.

"It was about a couple of fools who were dead stuck on each other--
dead. There was no mistake about that. It was all real. But what do 
they do but work up a fool quarrel about nothing, and break away from 
each other. There was a lot of stuff about pride. Pride be damned! 
How's a man going to be proud and put on airs when he loves a woman? 
How's a woman going to be proud and stick out about things when she 
loves a man? At least, that's the way it hit me."

"That's the way it hit me--once," remarked his grace.

"There is only once," said Tembarom, doggedly.

"Occasionally," said his host. "Occasionally."

Tembarom knew what he meant.

"The fellow went away, and neither of them would give in. It's queer 
how real it was when you read it. You were right there looking on, and 
swallowing hard every few minutes-- though you were as mad as hops. 
The girl began to die--slow --and lay there day after day, longing for 
him to come back, and knowing he wouldn't. At the very end, when there 
was scarcely a breath left in her, a young fellow who was crazy about 
her himself, and always had been, put out after the hard-headed fool 
to bring him to her anyhow. The girl had about given in then. And she 
lay and waited hour after hour, and the youngster came back by 
himself. He couldn't bring the man he'd gone after. He found him 
getting married to a nice girl he didn't really care a darn for. He'd 
sort of set his teeth and done it--just because he was all in and down 
and out, and a fool. The girl just dropped her head back on the pillow 
and lay there, dead! What do you think of that?" quite fiercely. "I 
guess it was sentimental all right, but it got you by the throat."

"'Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye,"' his grace quoted. "First-class 
title. We are all sentimental. And that was the first, was it?"

"Yes, but it wasn't the last. I began to read the others. I've been 
reading them ever since. I tell you, for a fellow that knows nothing 
it's an easy way of finding out a lot of things. You find out what 
different kinds of people there are, and what different kinds of ways. 
If you've lived in one place, and been up against nothing but earning 
your living, you think that's all there is of it--that it's the whole 
thing. But it isn't, by gee!" His air became thoughtful. "I've begun 
to kind of get on to what all this means"--glancing about him--"to you 
people; and how a fellow like T. T. must look to you. I've always sort 
of guessed, but reading a few dozen novels has helped me to see WHY 
it's that way. I've yelled right out laughing over it many a time. 
That fellow called Thackeray--I can't read his things right straight 
through-- but he 's an eye-opener."

"You have tried nothing BUT novels?" his enthralled hearer inquired.

"Not yet. I shall come to the others in time. I'm sort of hungry for 
these things about PEOPLE. It's the ways they're different that gets 
me going. There was one that stirred me all up--but it wasn't like 
that first one. It was about a man "--he spoke slowly, as if searching 
for words and parallels --"well, I guess he was one of the early 
savages here. It read as if they were like the first Indians in 
America, only stronger and fiercer. When Palford was explaining things 
to me he'd jerk in every now and then something about 'coming over 
with the Conqueror' or being here 'before the Conqueror.' I didn't 
know what it meant. I found out in this book I'm telling about. It 
gave me the whole thing so that you SAW it. Here was this little 
country, with no one in it but these first savage fellows it'd always 
belonged to. They thought it was the world." There was a humorous 
sense of illumination in his half-laugh. "It was their New York, by 
jings," he put in. "Their little old New York that they'd never been 
outside of! And then first one lot slams in, and then another, and 
another, and tries to take it from them. Julius Caesar was the first 
Mr. Buttinski; and they fought like hell. They were fighters from 
Fightersville, anyhow. They fought each other, took each other's 
castles and lands and wives and jewelry--just any old thing they 
wanted. The only jails were private ones meant for their particular 
friends. And a man was hung only when one of his neighbors got mad 
enough at him, and then he had to catch him first and run the risk of 
being strung up himself, or have his head chopped off and stuck up on 
a spike somewhere for ornament. But fight! Good Lord! They were at it 
day and night. Did it for fun, just like folks go to the show. They 
didn't know what fear was. Never heard of it. They'd go about shouting 
and bragging and swaggering, with their heads hanging half off. And 
the one in this book was the bulliest fighter of the lot. I guess I 
don't know how to pronounce his name. It began with H."

"Was it Hereward the Wake, by chance?" exclaimed his auditor. 
"Hereward the Last of the English?"

"That's the man," cried Tembarom.

"An engaging ruffian and thief and murderer, and a touching one also," 
commented the duke. "You liked him?" He really wanted to know.

"I like the way he went after what he wanted to get, and the way he 
fought for his bit of England. By gee! When he went rushing into a 
fight, shouting and boasting and swinging his sword, I got hot in the 
collar. It was his England. What was old Bill doing there anyhow, darn 
him! Those chaps made him swim in their blood before they let him put 
the thing over. Good business! I'm glad they gave him all that was 
coming to him--hot and strong."

His sharp face had reddened and his voice rose high and nasal. There 
was a look of roused blood in him.

"Are you a fighter from Fightersville?" the duke asked, far from 
unstirred himself. These things had become myths to most people, but 
here was Broadway in the midst of them unconsciously suggesting that 
it might not have done ill in the matter of swinging "Brain-Biter" 
itself. The modern entity slipped back again through the lengthened 
links of bygone centuries--back until it became T. Tembarom once more-
- casual though shrewd; ready and jocular. His eyes resumed their dry 
New York humor of expression as they fixed themselves on his wholly 
modern questioner.

"I'll fight," he said, "for what I've got to fight for, but not for a 
darned thing else. Not a darned thing."

"But you would fight," smiled the duke, grimly. "Did you happen to 
remember that blood like that has come down to you? It was some drop 
of it which made you `hot in the collar' over that engaging savage 
roaring and slashing about him for his `bit of England."'

Tembarom seemed to think it out interestedly.

"No, I did not," he answered. "But I guess that's so. I guess it's so. 
Great Jakes! Think of me perhaps being sort of kin to fellows just 
like that. Some way, you couldn't help liking him. He was always 
making big breaks and bellowing out `The Wake! The Wake!' in season 
and out of season; but the way he got there--just got there!"

He was oddly in sympathy with "the early savages here," and as 
understandingly put himself into their places as he had put himself 
into Galton's. His New York comprehension of their berserker furies 
was apparently without limit. Strong partizan as he was of the last of 
the English, however, he admitted that William of Normandy had "got in 
some good work, though it wasn't square."

"He was a big man," he ended. "If he hadn't been the kind he was I 
don't know how I should have stood it when the Hereward fellow knelt 
down before him, and put his hands between his and swore to be his 
man. That's the way the book said it. I tell you that must have been 
tough--tough as hell!"
	
From "Good-bye, Sweetheart" to "Hereward the Last of the English" was 
a far cry, but he had gathered a curious collection of ideas by the 
way, and with characteristic everyday reasoning had linked them to his 
own experiences.

"The women in the Hereward book made me think of Lady Joan," he 
remarked, suddenly.

"Torfreda? " the duke asked.

He nodded quite seriously.

"She had ways that reminded me of her, and I kept thinking they must 
both have had the same look in their eyes--sort of fierce and hungry. 
Torfreda had black hair and was a winner as to looks; but people were 
afraid of her and called her a witch. Hereward went mad over her and 
she went mad over him. That part of it was 'way out of sight, it was 
so fine. She helped him with his fights and told him what to do, and 
tried to keep him from drinking and bragging. Whatever he did, she 
never stopped being crazy about him. She mended his men's clothes, and 
took care of their wounds, and lived in the forest with him when he 
was driven out."

"That sounds rather like Miss Hutchinson," his host suggested, "though 
the parallel between a Harlem flat and an English forest in the 
eleventh century is not exact."

"I thought that, too," Tembarom admitted. "Ann would have done the 
same things, but she'd have done them in her way. If that fellow had 
taken his wife's advice, he wouldn't have ended with his head sticking 
on a spear."

"Another lady, if I remember rightly," said the duke.

"He left her, the fool! " Tembarom answered. "And there's where I 
couldn't get away from seeing Lady Joan; Jem Temple Barholm didn't go 
off with another woman, but what Torfreda went through, this one has 
gone through, and she's going through it yet. She can't dress herself 
in sackcloth, and cut off her hair, and hide herself away with a bunch 
of nuns, as the other one did. She has to stay and stick it out, 
however bad it is. That's a darned sight worse. The day after I'd 
finished the book, I couldn't keep my eyes off her. I tried to stop 
it, but it was no use. I kept hearing that Torfreda one screaming out, 
`Lost! Lost! Lost!' It was all in her face."

"But, my good fellow," protested the duke, despite feeling a touch of 
the thrill again, "unfortunately, she would not suspect you of looking 
at her because you were recalling Torfreda and Hereward the Wake. Men 
stare at her for another reason."

"That's what I know about half as well again as I know anything else," 
answered Tembarom. He added, with a deliberation holding its own 
meaning, "That's what I'm coming to."

The duke waited. What was it he was coming to?

"Reading that novel put me wise to things in a new way. She's been 
wiping her feet on me hard for a good while, and I sort of made up my 
mind I'd got to let her until I was sure where I was. I won't say I 
didn't mind it, but I could stand it. But that night she caught me 
looking at her, the way she looked back at me made me see all of a 
sudden that it would be easier for her if I told her straight that she 
was mistaken."

"That she is mistaken in thinking--?"

"What she does think. She wouldn't have thought it if the old lady 
hadn't been driving her mad by hammering it in. She'd have hated me 
all right, and I don't blame her when I think of how poor Jem was 
treated; but she wouldn't have thought that every time I tried to be 
decent and friendly to her I was butting in and making a sick fool of 
myself. She's got to stay where her mother keeps her, and she's got to 
listen to her. Oh, hell! She's got to be told!"

The duke set the tips of his fingers together.

"How would you do it?" he inquired.

"Just straight," replied T. Tembarom. "There's no other way."

From the old worldling broke forth an involuntary low laugh, which was 
a sort of cackle. So this was what he was coming to.

"I cannot think of any devious method," he said, "which would make it 
less than a delicate thing to do. A beautiful young woman, whose host 
you are, has flouted you furiously for weeks, under the impression 
that you are offensively in love with her. You propose to tell her 
that her judgment has betrayed her, and that, as you say, `There's 
nothing doing.'"

"Not a darned thing, and never has been," said T. Tembarom. He looked 
quite grave and not at all embarrassed. He plainly did not see it as a 
situation to be regarded with humor.

"If she will listen--" the duke began.

"Oh, she'll listen," put in Tembarom. "I'll make her."

His was a self-contradicting countenance, the duke reflected, as he 
took him in with a somewhat long look. One did not usually see a face 
built up of boyishness and maturity, simpleness which was baffling, 
and a good nature which could be hard. At the moment, it was both of 
these last at one and the same time.

"I know something of Lady Joan and I know something of you," he said, 
"but I don't exactly foresee what will happen. I will not say that I 
should not like to be present."

"There'll be nobody present but just me and her," Tembarom answered.




CHAPTER XXX


The visits of Lady Mallowe and Captain Palliser had had their 
features. Neither of the pair had come to one of the most imposing 
"places" in Lancashire to live a life of hermit-like seclusion and 
dullness. They had arrived with the intention of availing themselves 
of all such opportunities for entertainment as could be guided in 
their direction by the deftness of experience. As a result, there had 
been hospitalities at Temple Barholm such as it had not beheld during 
the last generation at least. T. Tembarom had looked on, an interested 
spectator, as these festivities had been adroitly arranged and managed 
for him. He had not, however, in the least resented acting as a sort 
of figurehead in the position of sponsor and host.

"They think I don't know I'm not doing it all myself," was his easy 
mental summing-up. "They've got the idea that I'm pleased because I 
believe I'm It. But that's all to the merry. It's what I've set my 
mind on having going on here, and I couldn't have started it as well 
myself. I shouldn't have known how. They're teaching me. All I hope is 
that Ann's grandmother is keeping tab."

"Do you and Rose know old Mrs. Hutchinson?" he had inquired of Pearson 
the night before the talk with the duke.

"Well, not to say exactly know her, sir, but everybody knows of her. 
She is a most remarkable old person, sir." Then, after watching his 
face for a moment or so, he added tentatively, "Would you perhaps wish 
us to make her acquaintance for-- for any reason?"

Tembarom thought the matter over speculatively. He had learned that 
his first liking for Pearson had been founded upon a rock. He was 
always to be trusted to understand, and also to apply a quite unusual 
intelligence to such matters as he became aware of without having been 
told about them.

"What I'd like would be for her to hear that there's plenty doing at 
Temple Barholm; that people are coming and going all the time; and 
that there's ladies to burn--and most of them lookers, at that," was 
his answer.

How Pearson had discovered the exotic subtleties of his master's 
situation and mental attitude toward it, only those of his class and 
gifted with his occult powers could explain in detail. The fact exists 
that Pearson did know an immense number of things his employer had not 
mentioned to him, and held them locked in his bosom in honored 
security, like a little gentleman. He made his reply with a polite 
conviction which carried weight.

"It would not be necessary for either Rose or me to make old Mrs. 
Hutchinson's acquaintance with a view to informing her of anything 
which occurs on the estate or in the village, sir," he remarked. "Mrs. 
Hutchinson knows more of things than any one ever tells her. She sits 
in her cottage there, and she just knows things and sees through 
people in a way that'd be almost unearthly, if she wasn't a good old 
person, and so respectable that there's those that touches their hats 
to her as if she belonged to the gentry. She's got a blue eye, sir--"

"Has she?" exclaimed Tembarom.

"Yes, sir. As blue as a baby's, sir, and as clear, though she's past 
eighty. And they tell me there's a quiet, steady look in it that ill-
doers downright quail before. It's as if she was a kind of judge that 
sentenced them without speaking. They can't stand it. Oh, sir! you can 
depend upon old Mrs. Hutchinson as to who's been here, and even what 
they've thought about it. The village just flocks to her to tell her 
the news and get advice about things. She'd know."

It was as a result of this that on his return from Stone Hover he 
dismissed the carriage at the gates and walked through them to make a 
visit in the village. Old Mrs. Hutchinson, sitting knitting in her 
chair behind the abnormally flourishing fuchsias, geraniums, and 
campanula carpaticas in her cottage-window, looked between the banked-
up flower-pots to see that Mr. Temple Barholm had opened her wicket-
gate and was walking up the clean bricked path to her front door. When 
he knocked she called out in the broad Lancashire she had always 
spoken, "Coom in!" When he entered he took off his hat and looked at 
her, friendly but hesitant, and with the expression of a young man who 
has not quite made up his mind as to what he is about to encounter.

"I'm Temple Temple Barholm, Mrs. Hutchinson," he announced.

"I know that," she answered. "Not that tha looks loike th' Temple 
Barholms, but I've been watchin' thee walk an' drive past here ever 
since tha coom to th' place."

She watched him steadily with an astonishingly limpid pair of old 
eyes. They were old and young at the same time; old because they held 
deeps of wisdom, young because they were so alive and full of 
question.

"I don't know whether I ought to have come to see you or not," he 
said.

"Well, tha'st coom," she replied, going on with her knitting. "Sit 
thee doun and have a bit of a chat."

"Say!" he broke out. "Ain't you going to shake hands with me?" He held 
his hand out impetuously. He knew he was all right if she'd shake 
hands.

"Theer's nowt agen that surely," she answered, with a shrewd bit of a 
smile. She gave him her hand. "If I was na stiff in my legs, it's my 
place to get up an' mak' thee a curtsey, but th' rheumatics has no 
respect even for th' lord o' th' manor."

"If you got up and made me a curtsey," Tembarom said, "I should throw 
a fit. Say, Mrs. Hutchinson, I bet you know that as well as I do."

The shrewd bit of a smile lighted her eyes as well as twinkled about 
her mouth.

"Sit thee doun," she said again.

So he sat down and looked at her as straight as she looked at him.

"Tha 'd give a good bit," she said presently, over her flashing 
needles, "to know how much Little Ann's tow'd me about thee."

"I'd give a lot to know how much it'd be square to ask you to tell me 
about her," he gave back to her, hesitating yet eager.

"What does tha mean by square?" she demanded.

"I mean `fair.' Can I talk to you about her at all? I promised I'd 
stick it out here and do as she said. She told me she wasn't going to 
write to me or let her father write. I've promised, and I'm not going 
to fall down when I've said a thing."

"So tha coom to see her grandmother?"

He reddened, but held his head up.

"I'm not going to ask her grandmother a thing she doesn't want me to 
be told. But I've been up against it pretty hard lately. I read some 
things in the New York papers about her father and his invention, and 
about her traveling round with him and helping him with his business."

"In Germany they wur," she put in, forgetting herself. "They're havin' 
big doin's over th' invention. What Joe 'u'd do wi'out th' lass I 
canna tell. She's doin' every bit o' th' managin' an' contrivin' wi' 
them furriners--but he'll never know it. She's got a chap to travel 
wi' him as can talk aw th' languages under th' sun."

Her face flushed and she stopped herself sharply.

"I'm talkin' about her to thee!" she said. "I would na ha' believed o' 
mysen'."

He got up from his chair.

"I guess I oughtn't to have come," he said, restlessly. "But you 
haven't told me more than I got here and there in the papers. That was 
what started me. It was like watching her. I could hear her talking 
and see the way she was doing things till it drove me half crazy. All 
of a sudden, I just got wild and made up my mind I'd come here. I've 
wanted to do it many a time, but I've kept away."

"Tha showed sense i' doin' that," remarked Mrs. Hutchinson. "She'd not 
ha' thowt well o' thee if tha'd coom runnin' to her grandmother every 
day or so. What she likes about thee is as she thinks tha's got a 
strong backbone o' thy own."

She looked up at him over her knitting, looked straight into his eyes, 
and there was that in her own which made him redden and feel his pulse 
quicken. It was actually something which even remotely suggested that 
she was not--in the deeps of her strong old mind--as wholly unswerving 
as her words might imply. It was something more subtle than words. She 
was not keeping him wholly in the dark when she said "What she likes 
about thee." If Ann said things like that to her, he was pretty well 
off.

"Happen a look at a lass's grandmother--when tha conna get at th' lass 
hersen--is a bit o' comfort," she added. "But don't tha go walkin' by 
here to look in at th' window too often. She would na think well o' 
that either."

"Say! There's one thing I'm going to get off my chest before I go," he 
announced, "just one thing. She can go where she likes and do what she 
likes, but I'm going to marry her when she's done it--unless something 
knocks me on the head and finishes me. I'm going to marry her."

"Tha art, art tha?" laconically; but her eyes were still on his, and 
the something in their depths by no means diminished.

"I'm keeping up my end here, and it's no slouch of a job, but I'm not 
forgetting what she promised for one minute! And I'm not forgetting 
what her promise means," he said obstinately.

"Tha'd like me to tell her that?" she said.

"If she doesn't know it, you telling her wouldn't cut any ice," was 
his reply. "I'm saying it because I want you to know it, and because 
it does me good to say it out loud. I'm going to marry her."

"That's for her and thee to settle," she commented, impersonally.

"It is settled," he answered. "There 's no way out of it. Will you 
shake hands with me again before I go?"

"Aye," she consented, "I will."

When she took his hand she held it a minute. Her own was warm, and 
there was no limpness about it. The secret which had seemed to conceal 
itself behind her eyes had some difficulty in keeping itself wholly in 
the background.

"She knows aw tha' does," she said coolly, as if she were not suddenly 
revealing immensities. "She knows who cooms an' who goes, an' what 
they think o' thee, an' how tha gets on wi' 'em. Now get thee gone, 
lad, an' dunnot tha coom back till her or me sends for thee."



Within an hour of this time the afternoon post brought to Lady Mallowe 
a letter which she read with an expression in which her daughter 
recognized relief. It was in fact a letter for which she had waited 
with anxiety, and the invitation it contained was a tribute to her 
social skill at its highest watermark. In her less heroic moments, she 
had felt doubts of receiving it, which had caused shudders to run the 
entire length of her spine.

"I'm going to Broome Haughton," she announced to Joan.

"When?" Joan inquired.

"At the end of the week. I am invited for a fortnight."

"Am I going?" Joan asked.

"No. You will go to London to meet some friends who are coming over 
from Paris."

Joan knew that comment was unnecessary. Both she and her mother were 
on intimate terms with these hypothetical friends who so frequently 
turned up from Paris or elsewhere when it was necessary that she 
should suddenly go back to London and live in squalid seclusion in the 
unopened house, with a charwoman to provide her with underdone or 
burnt chops, and eggs at eighteen a shilling, while the shutters of 
the front rooms were closed, and dusty desolation reigned. She knew 
every detail of the melancholy squalor of it, the dragging hours, the 
nights of lying awake listening to the occasional passing of belated 
cabs, or the squeaks and nibbling of mice in the old walls.

"If you had conducted yourself sensibly you need not have gone," 
continued her mother. "I could have made an excuse and left you here. 
You would at least have been sure of good food and decent comforts."

"After your visit, are we to return here?" was Lady Joan's sole reply.

"Don't look at me like that," said Lady Mallowe. "I thought the 
country would freshen your color at least; but you are going off more 
every day. You look like the Witch of Endor sometimes."

Joan smiled faintly. This was the brandishing of an old weapon, and 
she understood all its significance. It meant that the time for 
opportunities was slipping past her like the waters of a rapid river.

"I do not know what will happen when I leave Broome Haughton," her 
mother added, a note of rasped uncertainty in her voice. "We may be 
obliged to come here for a short time, or we may go abroad."

"If I refuse to come, would you let me starve to death in Piers 
Street?" Joan inquired.

Lady Mallowe looked her over, feeling a sort of frenzy at the sight of 
her. In truth, the future was a hideous thing to contemplate if no 
rescue at all was in sight. It would be worse for her than for Joan, 
because Joan did not care what happened or did not happen, and she 
cared desperately. She had indeed arrived at a maddening moment.

"Yes," she snapped, fiercely.
	
And when Joan faintly smiled again she understood why women of the 
lower orders beat one another until policemen interfere. She knew 
perfectly well that the girl had somehow found out that Sir Moses 
Monaldini was to be at Broome Haughton, and that when he left there he 
was going abroad. She knew also that she had not been able to conceal 
that his indifference had of late given her some ghastly hours, and 
that her play for this lagging invitation had been a frantically bold 
one. That the most ingenious efforts and devices had ended in success 
only after such delay made it all the more necessary that no straw 
must remain unseized on.

"I can wear some of your things, with a little alteration," she said. 
"Rose will do it for me. Hats and gloves and ornaments do not require 
altering. I shall need things you will not need in London. Where are 
your keys?"

Lady Joan rose and got them for her. She even flushed slightly. They 
were often obliged to borrow each other's possessions, but for a 
moment she felt herself moved by a sort of hard pity.

"We are like rats in a trap," she remarked. "I hope you will get out."

"If I do, you will be left inside. Get out yourself! Get out 
yourself!" said Lady Mallowe in a fierce whisper.

Her regrets at the necessity of their leaving Temple Barholm were 
expressed with fluent touchingness at the dinner-table. The visit had 
been so delightful. Mr. Temple Barholm and Miss Alicia had been so 
kind. The loveliness of the whole dear place had so embraced them that 
they felt as if they were leaving a home instead of ending a 
delightful visit. It was extraordinary what an effect the house had on 
one. It was as if one had lived in it always--and always would. So few 
places gave one the same feeling. They should both look forward--
greedy as it seemed--to being allowed some time to come again. She had 
decided from the first that it was not necessary to go to any extreme 
of caution or subtlety with her host and Miss Alicia. Her method of 
paving the way for future visits was perhaps more than a shade too 
elaborate. She felt, however, that it sufficed. For the most part, 
Lady Joan sat with lids dropped over her burning eyes. She tried to 
force herself not to listen. This was the kind of thing which made her 
sick with humiliation. Howsoever rudimentary these people were, they 
could not fail to comprehend that a foothold in the house was being 
bid for. They should at least see that she did not join in the 
bidding. Her own visit had been filled with feelings at war with one 
another. There had been hours too many in which she would have been 
glad--even with the dingy horrors of the closed town house before her-
-to have flown from the hundred things which called out to her on 
every side. In the long-past three months of happiness, Jem had 
described them all to her--the rooms, gardens, pleached walks, 
pictures, the very furniture itself. She could enter no room, walk in 
no spot she did not seem to know, and passionately love in spite of 
herself. She loved them so much that there were times when she yearned 
to stay in the place at any cost, and others when she could not endure 
the misery it woke in her-- the pure misery. Now it was over for the 
time being, and she was facing something new. There were endless 
varieties of wretchedness. She had been watching her mother for some 
months, and had understood her varying moods of temporary elation or 
prolonged anxiety. Each one had meant some phase of the episode of Sir 
Moses Monaldini. The people who lived at Broome Haughton were 
enormously rich Hebrews, who were related to him. They had taken the 
beautiful old country-seat and were filling it with huge parties of 
their friends. The party which Lady Mallowe was to join would no doubt 
offer opportunities of the most desirable kind. Among this special 
class of people she was a great success. Her amazingly achieved 
toilettes, her ripe good looks, her air of belonging to the great 
world, impressed themselves immensely.

T. Tembarom thought he never had seen Lady Joan look as handsome as 
she looked to-night. The color on her cheek burned, her eyes had a 
driven loneliness in them. She had a wonderfully beautiful mouth, and 
its curve drooped in a new way. He wished Ann could get her in a 
corner and sit down and talk sense to her. He remembered what he had 
said to the duke. Perhaps this was the time. If she was going away, 
and her mother meant to drag her back again when she was ready, it 
would make it easier for her to leave the place knowing she need not 
hate to come back. But the duke wasn't making any miss hit when he 
said it wouldn't be easy. She was not like Ann, who would feel some 
pity for the biggest fool on earth if she had to throw him down hard. 
Lady Joan would feel neither compunctions nor relentings. He knew the 
way she could look at a fellow. If he couldn't make her understand 
what he was aiming at, they would both be worse off than they would be 
if he left things as they were. But--the hard line showed itself about 
his mouth--he wasn't going to leave things as they were.

As they passed through the hall after dinner, Lady Mallowe glanced at 
a side-table on which lay some letters arrived by the late post. An 
imposing envelope was on the top of the rest. Joan saw her face light 
as she took it up.

"I think this is from Broome Haughton," she said. "If you will excuse 
me, I will go into the library and read it. It may require answering 
at once."

She turned hot and cold, poor woman, and went away, so that she might 
be free from the disaster of an audience if anything had gone wrong. 
It would be better to be alone even if things had gone right. The 
letter was from Sir Moses Monaldini. Grotesque and ignoble as it 
naturally strikes the uninitiated as seeming, the situation had its 
touch of hideous pathos. She had fought for her own hand for years; 
she could not dig, and to beg she was not ashamed; but a time had come 
when even the most adroit begging began to bore people. They saw 
through it, and then there resulted strained relations, slight 
stiffness of manner, even in the most useful and amiable persons, lack 
of desire to be hospitable, or even condescendingly generous. Cold 
shoulders were turned, there were ominous threatenings of icy backs 
presenting themselves. The very tradesmen had found this out, and 
could not be persuaded that the advertisement furnished by the fact 
that two beautiful women of fashion ate, drank, and wore the articles 
which formed the items in their unpaid bills, was sufficient return 
for the outlay of capital required. Even Mrs. Mellish, when graciously 
approached by the "relative of Miss Temple Barholm, whose perfect 
wardrobe you supplied," had listened to all seductions with a civil 
eye fixed unmovedly and had referred to the "rules of the 
establishment." Nearer and nearer the edge of the abyss the years had 
pushed them, and now if something did not happen--something--
something--even the increasingly shabby small house in town would 
become a thing of the past. And what then? Could any one wonder she 
said to herself that she could have beaten Joan furiously. It would 
not matter to any one else if they dropped out of the world into 
squalid oblivion--oh, she knew that--she knew that with bitter 
certainty!--but oh, how it would matter to them!--at least to herself. 
It was all very well for Mudie's to pour forth streams of sentimental 
novels preaching the horrors of girls marrying for money, but what 
were you to do--what in heaven's name were you to do? So, feeling 
terrified enough actually to offer up a prayer, she took the 
imposingly addressed letter into the library.

The men had come into the drawing-room when she returned. As she 
entered, Joan did not glance up from the book she was reading, but at 
the first sound of her voice she knew what had occurred.

"I was obliged to dash off a note to Broome Haughton so that it would 
be ready for the early post," Lady Mallowe said. She was at her best. 
Palliser saw that some years had slipped from her shoulders. The 
moment which relieves or even promises to relieve fears does 
astonishing things. Tembarom wondered whether she had had good news, 
and Miss Alicia thought that her evening dress was more becoming than 
any she had ever seen her wear before. Her brilliant air of social 
ease returned to her, and she began to talk fluently of what was being 
done in London, and to touch lightly upon the possibility of taking 
part in great functions. For some time she had rather evaded talk of 
the future. Palliser had known that the future had seemed to be 
closing in upon her, and leaving her staring at a high blank wall. 
Persons whose fortunate names had ceased to fall easily from her lips 
appeared again upon the horizon. Miss Alicia was impressed anew with 
the feeling that she had known every brilliant or important personage 
in the big world of social London; that she had taken part in every 
dazzling event. Tembarom somehow realized that she had been afraid of 
something or other, and was for some reason not afraid any more. Such 
a change, whatsoever the reason for it, ought to have had some effect 
on her daughter. Surely she would share her luck, if luck had come to 
her.

But Lady Joan sat apart and kept her eyes upon her book. This was one 
of the things she often chose to do, in spite of her mother's 
indignant protest.

"I came here because you brought me," she would answer. "I did not 
come to be entertaining or polite."

She was reading this evening. She heard every word of Lady Mallowe's 
agreeable and slightly excited conversation. She did not know exactly 
what had happened; but she knew that it was something which had buoyed 
her up with a hopefulness which exhilarated her almost too much--as an 
extra glass of wine might have done. Once or twice she even lost her 
head a little and was a trifle swaggering. T. Tembarom would not 
recognize the slip, but Joan saw Palliser's faint smile without 
looking up from her book. He observed shades in taste and bearing. 
Before her own future Joan saw the blank wall of stone building itself 
higher and higher. If Sir Moses had capitulated, she would be counted 
out. With what degree of boldness could a mother cast her penniless 
daughter on the world? What unendurable provision make for her? Dare 
they offer a pound a week and send her to live in the slums until she 
chose to marry some Hebrew friend of her step-father's? That she knew 
would be the final alternative. A cruel little smile touched her lips, 
as she reviewed the number of things she could not do to earn her 
living. She could not take in sewing or washing, and there was nothing 
she could teach. Starvation or marriage. The wall built itself higher 
and yet higher. What a hideous thing it was for a penniless girl to be 
brought up merely to be a beauty, and in consequence supposably a 
great lady. And yet if she was born to a certain rank and had height 
and figure, a lovely mouth, a delicate nose, unusual eyes and lashes, 
to train her to be a dressmaker or a housemaid would be a stupid 
investment of capital. If nothing tragic interfered and the right man 
wanted such a girl, she had been trained to please him. But tragic 
things had happened, and before her grew the wall while she pretended 
to read her book.

T. Tembarom was coming toward her. She had heard Palliser suggest a 
game of billiards.

"Will you come and play billiards with us?" Tembarom asked. "Palliser 
says you play splendidly."

"She plays brilliantly," put in Lady Mallowe. "Come, Joan."

"No, thank you," she answered. "Let me stay here and read."

Lady Mallowe protested. She tried an air of playful maternal
reproach because she was in good spirits. Joan saw Palliser 
smiling quietly, and there was that in his smile which suggested
to her that he was thinking her an obstinate fool.

"You had better show Temple Barholm what you can do," he remarked. 
"This will be your last chance, as you leave so soon. You ought never 
let a last chance slip by. I never do."

Tembarom stood still and looked down at her from his good height. He 
did not know what Palliser's speech meant, but an instinct made him 
feel that it somehow held an ugly, quiet taunt.

"What I would like to do," was the unspoken crudity which passed 
through his mind, "would be to swat him on the mouth. He's getting at 
her just when she ought to be let alone."

"Would you like it better to stay here and read?" he inquired.

"Much better, if you please," was her reply.

"Then that goes," he answered, and left her.

He swept the others out of the room with a good-natured promptness 
which put an end to argument. When he said of anything "Then that 
goes," it usually did so.




CHAPTER XXXI


When she was alone Joan sat and gazed not at her wall but at the 
pictures that came back to her out of a part of her life which seemed 
to have been lived centuries ago. They were the pictures that came 
back continually without being called, the clearness of which always 
startled her afresh. Sometimes she thought they sprang up to add to 
her torment, but sometimes it seemed as if they came to save her from 
herself--her mad, wicked self. After all, there were moments when to 
know that she had been the girl whose eighteen-year-old heart had 
leaped so when she turned and met Jem's eyes, as he stood gazing at 
her under the beech-tree, was something to cling to. She had been that 
girl and Jem had been--Jem. And she had been the girl who had joined 
him in that young, ardent vow that they would say the same prayers at 
the same hour each night together. Ah! how young it had been--how 
YOUNG! Her throat strained itself because sobs rose in it, and her 
eyes were hot with the swell of tears.

She could hear voices and laughter and the click of balls from the 
billiard-room. Her mother and Palliser laughed the most, but she knew 
the sound of her mother's voice would cease soon, because she would 
come back to her. She knew she would not leave her long, and she knew 
the kind of scene they would pass through together when she returned. 
The old things would be said, the old arguments used, but a new one 
would be added. It was a pleasant thing to wait here, knowing that it 
was coming, and that for all her fierce pride and fierce spirit she 
had no defense. It was at once horrible and ridiculous that she must 
sit and listen--and stare at the growing wall. It was as she caught 
her breath against the choking swell of tears that she heard Lady 
Mallowe returning. She came in with an actual sweep across the room. 
Her society air had fled, and she was unadornedly furious when she 
stopped before Joan's chair. For a few seconds she actually glared; 
then she broke forth in a suppressed undertone:

"Come into the billiard-room. I command it!"

Joan lifted her eyes from her book. Her voice was as low as her 
mother's, but steadier.

"No," she answered.

"Is this conduct to continue? Is it?" Lady Mallowe panted.

"Yes," said Joan, and laid her book on the table near her. There was 
nothing else to say. Words made things worse.

Lady Mallowe had lost her head, but she still spoke in the suppressed 
voice.

"You SHALL behave yourself!" she cried, under her breath, and actually 
made a passionate half-start toward her. "You violent-natured virago! 
The very look on your face is enough to drive one mad!"

"I know I am violent-natured," said Joan. "But don't you think it wise 
to remember that you cannot make the kind of scene here that you can 
in your own house? We are a bad-tempered pair, and we behave rather 
like fishwives when we are in a rage. But when we are guests in other 
people's houses--"

Lady Mallowe's temper was as elemental as any Billingsgate could 
provide.

"You think you can take advantage of that!" she said. "Don't trust 
yourself too far. Do you imagine that just when all might go well for 
me I will allow you to spoil everything?"

"How can I spoil everything?"

"By behaving as you have been behaving since we came here--refusing to 
make a home for yourself; by hanging round my neck so that it will 
appear that any one who takes me must take you also."

"There are servants outside," Joan warned her.

"You shall not stop me!" cried Lady Mallowe.

"You cannot stop yourself," said Joan. "That is the worst of it. It is 
bad enough when we stand and hiss at each other in a stage whisper; 
but when you lose control over yourself and raise your voice--"

"I came in here to tell you that this is your last chance. I shall 
never give you another. Do you know how old you are?"

"I shall soon be twenty-seven," Joan answered. "I wish I were a 
hundred. Then it would all be over."

"But it will not be over for years and years and years," her mother 
flung back at her. "Have you forgotten that the very rags you wear are 
not paid for?"

"No, I have not forgotten." The scene was working itself up on the old 
lines, as Joan had known it would. Her mother never failed to say the 
same things, every time such a scene took place.

"You will get no more such rags--paid or unpaid for. What do you 
expect to do? You don't know how to work, and if you did no decent 
woman would employ you. You are too good-looking and too bad-
tempered."

Joan knew she was perfectly right. Knowing it, she remained silent, 
and her silence added to her mother's helpless rage. She moved a step 
nearer to her and flung the javelin which she always knew would strike 
deep.

"You have made yourself a laughing-stock for all London for years. You 
are mad about a man who disgraced and ruined himself."

She saw the javelin quiver as it struck; but Joan's voice as it 
answered her had a quality of low and deadly steadiness.

"You have said that a thousand times, and you will say it another 
thousand--though you know the story was a lie and was proved to be 
one."

Lady Mallowe knew her way thoroughly.

"Who remembers the denials? What the world remembers is that Jem 
Temple Barholm was stamped as a cheat and a trickster. No one has time 
to remember the other thing. He is dead--dead! When a man's dead it's 
too late."

She was desperate enough to drive her javelin home deeper than she had 
ever chanced to drive it before. The truth--the awful truth she 
uttered shook Joan from head to foot. She sprang up and stood before 
her in heart-wrung fury.

"Oh! You are a hideously cruel woman!" she cried. "They say even 
tigers care for their young! But you--you can say that to _me_. 'When 
a man's dead, it's too late.'"

"It _is_ too late--it IS too late!" Lady Mallowe persisted. Why had 
not she struck this note before? It was breaking her will: "I would 
say anything to bring you to your senses."

Joan began to move restlessly to and fro.

"Oh, what a fool I am!" she exclaimed. "As if you could understand--as 
if you could care!"

Struggle as she might to be defiant, she was breaking, Lady Mallowe 
repeated to herself. She followed her as a hunter might have followed 
a young leopardess with a wound in its flank.

"I came here because it _is_ your last chance. Palliser knew what he 
was saying when he made a joke of it just now. He knew it wasn't a 
joke. You might have been the Duchess of Merthshire; you might have 
been Lady St. Maur, with a husband with millions. And here you are. 
You know what's before you--when I am out of the trap."

Joan laughed. It was a wild little laugh, and she felt there was no 
sense in it.

"I might apply for a place in Miss Alicia's Home for Decayed 
Gentlewomen," she said.

Lady Mallowe nodded her head fiercely.

"Apply, then. There will be no place for you in the home I am going to 
live in," she retorted.

Joan ceased moving about. She was about to hear the one argument that 
was new.

"You may as well tell me," she said, wearily.

"I have had a letter from Sir Moses Monaldini. He is to be at Broome 
Haughton. He is going there purposely to meet me. What he writes can 
mean only one thing. He means to ask me to marry him. I'm your mother, 
and I'm nearly twenty years older than you; but you see that I'm out 
of the trap first."

"I knew you would be," answered Joan.

"He detests you," Lady Mallowe went on. "He will not hear of your 
living with us--or even near us. He says you are old enough to take 
care of yourself. Take my advice. I am doing you a good turn in giving 
it. This New York newsboy is mad over you. If he hadn't been we should 
have been bundled out of the house before this. He never has spoken to 
a lady before in his life, and he feels as if you were a goddess. Go 
into the billiard-room this instant, and do all a woman can. Go!" And 
she actually stamped her foot on the carpet.

Joan's thunder-colored eyes seemed to grow larger as she stared at 
her. Her breast lifted itself, and her face slowly turned pale. 
Perhaps--she thought it wildly--people sometimes did die of feelings 
like this.

"He would crawl at your feet," her mother went on, pursuing what she 
felt sure was her advantage. She was so sure of it that she added 
words only a fool or a woman half hysteric with rage would have added. 
"You might live in the very house you would have lived in with Jem 
Temple Barholm, on the income he could have given you."

She saw the crassness of her blunder the next moment. If she had had 
an advantage, she had lost it. Wickedly, without a touch of mirth, 
Joan laughed in her face.

"Jem's house and Jem's money--and the New York newsboy in his shoes," 
she flung at her. "T. Tembarom to live with until one lay down on 
one's deathbed. T. Tembarom!"

Suddenly, something was giving way in her, Lady Mallowe thought again. 
Joan slipped into a chair and dropped her head and hidden face on the 
table.

"Oh! Mother! Mother!" she ended. "Oh! Jem! Jem!"

Was she sobbing or trying to choke sobbing back? There was no time to 
be lost. Her mother had never known a scene to end in this way before.

"Crying!" there was absolute spite in her voice. "That shows you know 
what you are in for, at all events. But I've said my last word. What 
does it matter to me, after all? You're in the trap. I'm not. Get out 
as best you can. I've done with you."

She turned her back and went out of the room--as she had come into it-
-with a sweep Joan would have smiled at as rather vulgar if she had 
seen it. As a child in the nursery, she had often seen that her 
ladyship was vulgar.

But she did not see the sweep because her face was hidden. Something 
in her had broken this time, as her mother had felt. That bitter, 
sordid truth, driven home as it had been, had done it. Who had time to 
remember denials, or lies proved to be lies? Nobody in the world. Who 
had time to give to the defense of a dead man? There was not time 
enough to give to living ones. It was true--true! When a man is dead, 
it is too late. The wall had built itself until it reached her sky; 
but it was not the wall she bent her head and sobbed over. It was that 
suddenly she had seen again Jem's face as he had stood with slow-
growing pallor, and looked round at the ring of eyes which stared at 
him; Jem's face as he strode by her without a glance and went out of 
the room. She forgot everything else on earth. She forgot where she 
was. She was eighteen again, and she sobbed in her arms as eighteen 
sobs when its heart is torn from it.
	
"Oh Jem! Jem!" she cried. "If you were only in the same world with me! 
If you were just in the same world!"

She had forgotten all else, indeed. She forgot too long. She did not 
know how long. It seemed that no more than a few minutes had passed 
before she was without warning struck with the shock of feeling that 
some one was in the room with her, standing near her, looking at her. 
She had been mad not to remember that exactly this thing would be sure 
to happen, by some abominable chance. Her movement as she rose was 
almost violent, she could not hold herself still, and her face was 
horribly wet with shameless, unconcealable tears. Shameless she felt 
them--indecent--a sort of nudity of the soul. If it had been a servant 
who had intruded, or if it had been Palliser it would have been 
intolerable enough. But it was T. Tembarom who confronted her with his 
common face, moved mysteriously by some feeling she resented even more 
than she resented his presence. He was too grossly ignorant to know 
that a man of breeding, having entered by chance, would have turned 
and gone away, professing not to have seen. He seemed to think--the 
dolt!--that he must make some apology.

"Say! Lady Joan!" he began. "I beg your pardon. I didn't want to butt 
in."

"Then go away," she commanded. "Instantly--instantly!"

She knew he must see that she spoke almost through her teeth in her 
effort to control her sobbing breath. But he made no move toward 
leaving her. He even drew nearer, looking at her in a sort of 
meditative, obstinate way.

"N-no," he replied, deliberately. "I guess--I won't."

"You won't?" Lady Joan repeated after him. "Then I will."

He made a stride forward and laid his hand on her arm.

"No. Not on your life. You won't, either--if I can help it. And you're 
going to LET me help it."

Almost any one but herself--any one, at least, who did not resent his 
very existence--would have felt the drop in his voice which suddenly 
struck the note of boyish, friendly appeal in the last sentence. 
"You're going to LET me," he repeated.

She stood looking down at the daring, unconscious hand on her arm.

"I suppose," she said, with cutting slowness, "that you do not even 
_know_ that you are insolent. Take your hand away," in arrogant 
command.

He removed it with an unabashed half-smile.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "I didn't even know I'd put it there. It 
was a break--but I wanted to keep you."

That he not only wanted to keep her, but intended to do so was 
apparent. His air was neither rough nor brutal, but he had ingeniously 
placed himself in the outlet between the big table and the way to the 
door. He put his hands in his pockets in his vulgar, unconscious way, 
and watched her.

"Say, Lady Joan!" he broke forth, in the frank outburst of a man who 
wants to get something over. "I should be a fool if I didn't see that 
you're up against it--hard! What's the matter?" His voice dropped 
again.

There was something in the drop this time which--perhaps because of 
her recent emotion--sounded to her almost as if he were asking the 
question with the protecting sympathy of the tone one would use in 
speaking to a child. How dare he! But it came home to her that Jem had 
once said "What's the matter?" to her in the same way.

"Do you think it likely that I should confide in you?" she said, and 
inwardly quaked at the memory as she said it.

"No," he answered, considering the matter gravely. "It's not likely--
the way things look to you now. But if you knew me better perhaps it 
would be likely."

"I once explained to you that I do not intend to know you better," she 
gave answer.

He nodded acquiescently.

"Yes. I got on to that. And it's because it's up to me that I came out 
here to tell you something I want you to know before you go away. I'm 
going to confide in you."

"Cannot even you see that I am not in the mood to accept confidences?" 
she exclaimed.

"Yes, I can. But you're going to accept this one," steadily. "No," as 
she made a swift movement, "I'm not going to clear the way till I've 
done."

"I insist!" she cried. "If you were--"

He put out his hand, but not to touch her.

"I know what you're going to say. If I were a gentleman--Well, I'm not 
laying claim to that--but I'm a sort of a man, anyhow, though you 
mayn't think it. And you're going to listen."

She began to stare at him. It was not the ridiculous boyish drop in 
his voice which arrested her attention. It was a fantastic, 
incongruous, wholly different thing. He had suddenly dropped his 
slouch and stood upright. Did he realize that he had slung his words 
at her as if they were an order given with the ring of authority?

"I've not bucked against anything you've said or done since you've 
been here," he went on, speaking fast and grimly. "I didn't mean to. I 
had my reasons. There were things that I'd have given a good deal to 
say to you and ask you about, but you wouldn't let me. You wouldn't 
give me a chance to square things for you--if they could be squared. 
You threw me down every time I tried!"

He was too wildly incomprehensible with his changes from humanness to 
folly. Remembering what he had attempted to say on the day he had 
followed her in the avenue, she was inflamed again.

"What in the name of New York slang does that mean?" she demanded.

"Never mind New York," he answered, cool as well as grim. "A fellow 
that's learned slang in the streets has learned something else as 
well. He's learned to keep his eyes open. He's on to a way of seeing 
things. And what I've seen is that you're so doggone miserable that--
that you're almost down and out."

This time she spoke to him in the voice with the quality of deadliness 
in it which she had used to her mother.

"Do you think that because you are in your own house you can be as 
intrusively insulting as you choose?" she said.

"No, I don't," he answered. "What I think is quite different. I think 
that if a man has a house of his own, and there's any one in big 
trouble under the roof of it--a woman most of all--he's a cheap skate 
if he don't get busy and try to help--just plain, straight help."

He saw in her eyes all her concentrated disdain of him, but he went 
on, still obstinate and cool and grim.

"I guess 'help' is too big a word just yet. That may come later, and 
it mayn't. What I'm going to try at now is making it easier for you--
just easier."

Her contemptuous gesture registered no impression on him as he paused 
a moment and looked fixedly at her.

"You just hate me, don't you?" It was a mere statement which couldn't 
have been more impersonal to himself if he had been made of wood. 
"That's all right. I seem like a low-down intruder to you. Well, 
that's all right, too. But what ain't all right is what your mother 
has set you on to thinking about me. You'd never have thought it 
yourself. You'd have known better."

"What," fiercely, "is that?"

"That I'm mutt enough to have a mash on you."

The common slangy crassness of it was a kind of shock. She caught her 
breath and merely stared at him. But he was not staring at her; he was 
simply looking straight into her face, and it amazingly flashed upon 
her that the extraordinary words were so entirely unembarrassed and 
direct that they were actually not offensive.

He was merely telling her something in his own way, not caring the 
least about his own effect, but absolutely determined that she should 
hear and understand it.

Her caught breath ended in something which was like a half-laugh. His 
queer, sharp, incomprehensible face, his queer, unmoved voice were too 
extraordinarily unlike anything she had ever seen or heard before.

"I don't want to be brash--and what I want to say may seem kind of 
that way to you. But it ain't. Anyhow, I guess it'll relieve your 
mind. Lady Joan, you're a looker--you're a beaut from Beautville. If I 
were your kind, and things were different, I'd be crazy about you--
crazy! But I'm not your kind--and things are different." He drew a 
step nearer still to her in his intentness. "They're this different. 
Why, Lady Joan! I'm dead stuck on another girl!"

She caught her breath again, leaning forward.

"Another--!"

"She says she's not a lady; she threw me down just because all this 
darned money came to me," he hastened on, and suddenly he was 
imperturbable no longer, but flushed and boyish, and more of New York 
than ever. "She's a little bit of a quiet thing and she drops her h's, 
but gee--! You're a looker --you're a queen and she's not. But Little 
Ann Hutchinson-- Why, Lady Joan, as far as this boy's concerned"--and 
he oddly touched himself on the breast--"she makes you look like 
thirty cents."

Joan quickly sat down on the chair she had just left. She rested an 
elbow on the table and shaded her face with her hand. She was not 
laughing; she scarcely knew what she was doing or feeling.

"You are in love with Ann Hutchinson," she said, in a low voice.

"Am I?" he answered hotly. "Well, I should smile!" He disdained to say 
more.

Then she began to know what she felt. There came back to her in 
flashes scenes from the past weeks in which she had done her worst by 
him; in which she had swept him aside, loathed him, set her feet on 
him, used the devices of an ingenious demon to discomfit and show him 
at his poorest and least ready. And he had not been giving a thought 
to the thing for which she had striven to punish him. And he plainly 
did not even hate her. His mind was clear, as water is clear. He had 
come back to her this evening to do her a good turn--a good turn. 
Knowing what she was capable of in the way of arrogance and villainous 
temper, he had determined to do her--in spite of herself--a good turn.

"I don't understand you," she faltered.

"I know you don't. But it's only because I'm so dead easy to 
understand. There's nothing to find out. I'm just friendly --friendly-
-that's all."

"You would have been friends with me! " she exclaimed. "You would have 
told me, and I wouldn't let you! Oh!" with an impulsive flinging out 
of her hand to him, "you good --good fellow!"

"Good be darned! " he answered, taking the hand at once.

"You are good to tell me! I have behaved like a devil to you. But oh! 
if you only knew!"

His face became mature again; but he took a most informal seat on the 
edge of the table near her.

"I do know--part of it. That's why I've been trying to be friends with 
you all the time." He said his next words deliberately. "If I was the 
woman Jem Temple Barholm had loved wouldn't it have driven me mad to 
see another man in his place--and remember what was done to him. I 
never even saw him, but, good God! "--she saw his hand clench itself-- 
"when I think of it I want to kill somebody! I want to kill half a 
dozen. Why didn't they know it couldn't be true of a fellow like that!"

She sat up stiffly and watched him.

"Do--you--feel like that--about him?"

"Do I!" red-hotly. "There were men there that knew him! There were 
women there that knew him! Why wasn't there just one to stand by him? 
A man that's been square all his life doesn't turn into a card-sharp 
in a night. Damn fools! I beg your pardon," hastily. And then, as 
hastily again: "No, I mean it. Damn fools!"

"Oh!" she gasped, just once.

Her passionate eyes were suddenly blinded with tears. She caught at 
his clenched hand and dragged it to her, letting her face drop on it 
and crying like a child.

The way he took her utter breaking down was just like him and like no 
one else. He put the other hand on her shoulder and spoke to her 
exactly as he had spoken to Miss Alicia on that first afternoon.

"Don't you mind me, Lady Joan," he said. "Don't you mind me a bit. 
I'll turn my back. I'll go into the billiard- room and keep them 
playing until you get away up-stairs. Now we understand each other, 
it'll be better for both of us."

"No, don't go! Don't!" she begged. "It is so wonderful to find some 
one who sees the cruelty of it." She spoke fast and passionately. "No 
one would listen to any defense of him. My mother simply raved when I 
said what you are saying."

"Do you want "--he put it to her with a curious comprehending of her 
emotion--"to talk about him? Would it do you good?"

"Yes! Yes! I have never talked to any one. There has been no one to 
listen."

"Talk all you want," he answered, with immense gentleness. "I'm here."

"I can't understand it even now, but he would not see me!" she broke 
out. "I was half mad. I wrote, and he would not answer. I went to his 
chambers when I heard he was going to leave England. I went to beg him 
to take me with him, married or unmarried. I would have gone on my 
knees to him. He was gone! Oh, why? Why?"

"You didn't think he'd gone because he didn't love you?" he put it to 
her quite literally and unsentimentally. "You knew better than that?"

"How could I be sure of anything! When he left the room that awful 
night he would not look at me! He would not look at me!"

"Since I've been here I've been reading a lot of novels, and I've 
found out a lot of things about fellows that are not the common, 
practical kind. Now, he wasn't. He'd lived pretty much like a fellow 
in a novel, I guess. What's struck me about that sort is that they 
think they have to make noble sacrifices, and they'll just walk all 
over a woman because they won't do anything to hurt her. There's not a 
bit of sense in it, but that was what he was doing. He believed he was 
doing the square thing by you--and you may bet your life it hurt him 
like hell. I beg your pardon--but that's the word--just plain hell."

"I was only a girl. He was like iron. He went away alone. He was 
killed, and when he was dead the truth was told."

"That's what I've remembered "--quite slowly--"every time I've looked 
at you. By gee! I'd have stood anything from a woman that had suffered 
as much as that."

It made her cry--his genuineness--and she did not care in the least 
that the tears streamed down her cheeks. How he had stood things! How 
he had borne, in that odd, unimpressive way, insolence and arrogance 
for which she ought to have been beaten and blackballed by decent 
society! She could scarcely bear it.

"Oh! to think it should have been you," she wept, "just you who 
understood!"

"Well," he answered speculatively, "I mightn't have understood as well 
if it hadn't been for Ann. By jings! I used to lie awake at night 
sometimes thinking `supposing it bad been Ann and me!' I'd sort of 
work it out as it might have happened in New York--at the office of 
the Sunday Earth. Supposing some fellow that'd had a grouch against me 
had managed it so that Galton thought I'd been getting away with money 
that didn't belong to me--fixing up my expense account, or worse. And 
Galton wouldn't listen to what I said, and fired me; and I couldn't 
get a job anywhere else because I was down and out for good. And 
nobody would listen. And I was killed without clearing myself. And 
Little Ann was left to stand it--Little Ann! Old Hutchinson wouldn't 
listen, I know that. And it would be all shut up burning in her big 
little heart--burning. And T. T. dead, and not a word to say for 
himself. Jehoshaphat!"--taking out his handkerchief and touching his 
forehead--"it used to make the cold sweat start out on me. It's doing 
it now. Ann and me might have been Jem and you. That's why I 
understood."

He put out his hand and caught hers and frankly squeezed it--squeezed 
it hard; and the unconventional clutch was a wonderful thing to her.

"It's all right now, ain't it?" he said. "We've got it straightened 
out. You'll not be afraid to come back here if your mother wants you 
to." He stopped for a moment and then went on with something of 
hesitation: "We don't want to talk about your mother. We can't. But I 
understand her, too. Folks are different from each other in their 
ways. She's different from you. I'll--I'll straighten it out with her 
if you like."

"Nothing will need straightening out after I tell her that you are 
going to marry Little Ann Hutchinson," said Joan, with a half-smile. 
"And that you were engaged to her before you saw me."

"Well, that does sort of finish things up, doesn't it?" said T. 
Tembarom.

He looked at her so speculatively for a moment after this that she 
wondered whether he had something more to say. He had.

"There's something I want to ask you," he ventured.

"Ask anything."

"Do you know any one--just any one--who has a photo-- just any old 
photo--of Jem Temple Barholm?"

She was rather puzzled.

"Yes. I know a woman who has worn one for nearly eight years. Do you 
want to see it?"

"I'd give a good deal to," was his answer.

She took a flat locket from her dress and handed it to him.

"Women don't wear lockets in these days." He could barely hear her 
voice because it was so low. "But I've never taken it off. I want him 
near my heart. It's Jem!"

He held it on the palm of his hand and stood under the light, studying 
it as if he wanted to be sure he wouldn't forget it.

"It's--sorter like that picture of Miles Hugo, ain't it?" he 
suggested.

"Yes. People always said so. That was why you found me in the picture-
gallery the first time we met."

"I knew that was the reason--and I knew I'd made a break when I butted 
in," he answered. Then, still looking at the photograph, "You'd know 
this face again most anywhere you saw it, I guess."

"There are no faces like it anywhere," said Joan.

"I guess that's so," he replied. "And it's one that wouldn't change 
much either. Thank you, Lady Joan."

He handed back the picture, and she put out her hand again.

"I think I'll go to my room now," she said. "You've done a strange 
thing to me. You've taken nearly all the hatred and bitterness out of 
my heart. I shall want to come back here whether my mother comes or 
not--I shall want to."

"The sooner the quicker," he said. "And so long as I'm here I'll be 
ready and waiting."

"Don't go away," she said softly. "I shall need you."

"Isn't that great?" he cried, flushing delightedly. "Isn't it just 
great that we've got things straightened so that you can say that. 
Gee! This is a queer old world! There's such a lot to do in it, and so 
few hours in the day. Seems like there ain't time to stop long enough 
to hate anybody and keep a grouch on. A fellow's got to keep hustling 
not to miss the things worth while."

The liking in her eyes was actually wistful.

"That's your way of thinking, isn't it?" she said. "Teach it to me if 
you can. I wish you could. Good-night." She hesitated a second. "God 
bless you!" she added, quite suddenly--almost fantastic as the words 
sounded to her. That she, Joan Fayre, should be calling down devout 
benisons on the head of T. Tembarom--T. Tembarom!

Her mother was in her room when she reached it. She had come up early 
to look over her possessions--and Joan's--before she began her 
packing. The bed, the chairs, and tables were spread with evening, 
morning, and walking-dresses, and the millinery collected from their 
combined wardrobes. She was examining anxiously a lace appliqued and 
embroidered white coat, and turned a slightly flushed face toward the 
opening door.

"I am going over your things as well as my own," she said. "I shall 
take what I can use. You will require nothing in London. You will 
require nothing anywhere in future. What is the matter?" she said 
sharply, as she saw her daughter's face.

Joan came forward feeling it a strange thing that she was not in the 
mood to fight--to lash out and be glad to do it.

"Captain Palliser told me as I came up that Mr. Temple Barholm had 
been talking to you," her mother went on. "He heard you having some 
sort of scene as he passed the door. As you have made your decision, 
of course I know I needn't hope that anything has happened."

"What has happened has nothing to do with my decision. He wasn't 
waiting for that," Joan answered her. "We were both entirely mistaken, 
Mother."

"What are you talking about?" cried Lady Mallowe, but she temporarily 
laid the white coat on a chair. "What do you mean by mistaken?"

"He doesn't want me--he never did," Joan answered again. A shadow of a 
smile hovered over her face, and there was no derision in it, only a 
warming recollection of his earnestness when he had said the words she 
quoted: "He is what they call in New York `dead stuck on another 
girl."'

Lady Mallowe sat down on the chair that held the white coat, and she 
did not push the coat aside.

"He told you that in his vulgar slang!" she gasped it out. "You--you 
ought to have struck him dead with your answer."

"Except poor Jem Temple Barholm," was the amazing reply she received, 
"he is the only friend I ever had in my life."




CHAPTER XXXII


It was business of serious importance which was to bring Captain 
Palliser's visit to a close. He explained it perfectly to Miss Alicia 
a day or so after Lady Mallowe and her daughter left them. He had 
lately been most amiable in his manner toward Miss Alicia, and had 
given her much valuable information about companies and stocks. He 
rather unexpectedly found it imperative that he should go to London 
and Berlin to "see people"--dealers in great financial schemes who 
were deeply interested in solid business speculations, such as his 
own, which were fundamentally different from all others in the 
impeccable firmness of their foundations.

"I suppose he will be very rich some day," Miss Alicia remarked the 
first morning she and T. Tembarom took their breakfast alone together 
after his departure. "It would frighten me to think of having as much 
money as he seems likely to have quite soon."

"It would scare me to death," said Tembarom. She knew he was making a 
sort of joke, but she thought the point of it was her tremor at the 
thought of great fortune.

"He seemed to think that it would be an excellent thing for you to 
invest in--I'm not sure whether it was the India Rubber Tree Company, 
or the mahogany forests or the copper mines that have so much gold and 
silver mixed in them that it will pay for the expense of the digging--
" she went on.

"I guess it was the whole lot," put in Tembarom.

"Perhaps it was. They are all going to make everybody so rich that it 
is quite bewildering. He is very clever in business matters. And so 
kind. He even said that if I really wished it he might be able to 
invest my income for me and actually treble it in a year. But of 
course I told him that my income was your generous gift to me, and 
that it was far more than sufficient for my needs."

Tembarom put down his coffee-cup so suddenly to look at her that she 
was fearful that she had appeared to do Captain Palliser some vague 
injustice.

"I am sure he meant to be most obliging, dear," she explained. "I was 
really quite touched. He said most sympathetically and delicately that 
when women were unmarried, and unaccustomed to investment, sometimes a 
business man could be of use to them. He forgot"--affectionately--
"that I had you."

Tembarom regarded her with tender curiosity. She often opened up 
vistas for him as he himself opened them for the Duke of Stone.

"If you hadn't had me, would you have let him treble your income in a 
year?" he asked.

Her expression was that of a soft, woodland rabbit or a trusting 
spinster dove.

"Well, of course, if one were quite alone in the world and had only a 
small income, it would be nice to have it wonderfully added to in such 
a short time," she answered. "But it was his friendly solicitude which 
touched me. I have not been accustomed to such interested delicacy on 
the part of--of gentlemen." Her hesitance before the last word being 
the result of training, which had made her feel that it was a little 
bold for "ladies" to refer quite openly to "gentlemen."

"You sometimes read in the newspapers," said Tembarom, buttering his 
toast, "about ladies who are all alone in the world with a little 
income, but they're not often left alone with it long. It's like you 
said--you've got me; but if the time ever comes when you haven't got 
me just you make a dead-sure thing of it that you don't let any 
solicitous business gentleman treble your income in a year. If it's an 
income that comes to more than five cents, don't you hand it over to 
be made into fifteen. Five cents is a heap better--just plain five."

"Temple!" gasped Miss Alicia. "You--you surely cannot mean that you do 
not think Captain Palliser is--sincere!"

Tembarom laughed outright, his most hilarious and comforting laugh. He 
had no intention of enlightening her in such a manner as would lead 
her at once to behold pictures of him as the possible victim of 
appalling catastrophes. He liked her too well as she was.

"Sincere?" he said. "He's sincere down to the ground --in what he's 
reaching after. But he's not going to treble your income, nor mine. If 
he ever makes that offer again, you just tell him I'm interested, and 
that I'll talk it over with him."

"I could not help saying to him that I didn't think you could want any 
more money when you had so much," she added, "but he said one never 
knew what might happen. He was greatly interested when I told him you 
had once said the very same thing yourself."

Their breakfast was at an end, and he got up, laughing again, as he 
came to her end of the table and put his arm around her shoulders in 
the unconventional young caress she adored him for.

"It's nice to be by ourselves again for a while," he said. "Let us go 
for a walk together. Put on the little bonnet and dress that are the 
color of a mouse. Those little duds just get me. You look so pretty in 
them."

The sixteen-year-old blush ran up to the roots of her gray side-
ringlets. Just imagine his remembering the color of her dress and 
bonnet, and thinking that anything could make her look pretty! She was 
overwhelmed with innocent and grateful confusion. There really was no 
one else in the least like him.

"You do look well, ma'am," Rose said, when she helped her to dress. 
"You've got such a nice color, and that tiny bit of old rose Mrs. 
Mellish put in the bonnet does bring it out."

"I wonder if it is wrong of me to be so pleased," Miss Alicia thought. 
"I must make it a subject of prayer, and ask to be aided to conquer a 
haughty and vain-glorious spirit."

She was pathetically serious, having been trained to a view of the 
Great First Cause as figuratively embodied in the image of a gigantic, 
irascible, omnipotent old gentleman, especially wrought to fury by 
feminine follies connected with becoming headgear.

"It has sometimes even seemed to me that our Heavenly Father has a 
special objection to ladies," she had once timorously confessed to 
Tembarom. "I suppose it is because we are so much weaker than men, and 
so much more given to vanity and petty vices."

He had caught her in his arms and actually hugged her that time. Their 
intimacy had reached the point where the affectionate outburst did not 
alarm her.

"Say!" he had laughed. "It's not the men who are going to have the 
biggest pull with the authorities when folks try to get into the place 
where things are evened up. What I'm going to work my passage with is 
a list of the few 'ladies' I've known. You and Ann will be at the head 
of it. I shall just slide it in at the box-office window and say, 
'Just look over this, will you? These were friends of mine, and they 
were mighty good to me. I guess if they didn't turn me down, you 
needn't. I know they're in here. Reserved seats. I'm not expecting to 
be put with them but if I'm allowed to hang around where they are 
that'll be heaven enough for me.'"

"I know you don't mean to be irreverent, dear Temple," she gasped. "I 
am quite sure you don't! It is--it is only your American way of 
expressing your kind thoughts. And of course"--quite hastily--"the 
Almighty must understand Americans--as he made so many." And half 
frightened though she was, she patted his arm with the warmth of 
comfort in her soul and moisture in her eyes. Somehow or other, he was 
always so comforting.

He held her arm as they took their walk. She had become used to that 
also, and no longer thought it odd. It was only one of the ways he had 
of making her feel that she was being taken care of. They had not been 
able to have many walks together since the arrival of the visitors, 
and this occasion was at once a cause of relief and inward rejoicing. 
The entire truth was that she had not been altogether happy about him 
of late. Sometimes, when he was not talking and saying amusing New 
York things which made people laugh, he seemed almost to forget where 
he was and to be thinking of something which baffled and tried him. 
The way in which he pulled himself together when he realized that any 
one was looking at him was, to her mind, the most disturbing feature 
of his fits of abstraction. It suggested that if he really had a 
trouble it was a private one on which he would not like her to 
intrude. Naturally, her adoring eyes watched him oftener than he knew, 
and she tried to find plausible and not too painful reasons for his 
mood. He always made light of his unaccustomedness to his new life; 
but perhaps it made him feel more unrestful than he would admit.

As they walked through the park and the village, her heart was greatly 
warmed by the way in which each person they met greeted him. They 
greeted no one else in the same way, and yet it was difficult to 
explain what the difference was. They liked him-- really liked him, 
though how he had overcome their natural distrust of his newsboy and 
bootblack record no one but himself knew. In fact, she had reason to 
believe that even he himself did not know--had indeed never asked 
himself. They had gradually begun to like him, though none of them had 
ever accused him of being a gentleman according to their own 
acceptance of the word. Every man touched his cap or forehead with a 
friendly grin which spread itself the instant he caught sight of him. 
Grin and salute were synchronous. It was as if there were some 
extremely human joke between them. Miss Alicia had delightedly 
remembered a remark the Duke of Stone had made to her on his return 
from one of their long drives.

"He is the most popular man in the county," he had chuckled. "If war 
broke out and he were in the army, he could raise a regiment at his 
own gates which would follow him wheresoever he chose to lead it--if 
it were into hottest Hades."

Tembarom was rather silent during the first part of their walk, and 
when he spoke it was of Captain Palliser.
	
"He's a fellow that's got lots of curiosity. I guess he's asked you 
more questions than he's asked me," he began at last, and he looked at 
her interestedly, though she was not aware of it.

"I thought--" she hesitated slightly because she did not wish to be 
critical--"I sometimes thought he asked me too many."

"What was he trying to get on to mostly?"

"He asked so many things about you and your life in New York--but 
more, I think, about you and Mr. Strangeways. He was really quite 
persistent once or twice about poor Mr. Strangeways."

"What did he ask?"

"He asked if I had seen him, and if you had preferred that I should 
not. He calls him your Mystery, and thinks your keeping him here is so 
extraordinary."

"I guess it is--the way he'd look at it," Tembarom dropped in.

"He was so anxious to find out what he looked like. He asked how old 
he was and how tall, and whether he was quite mad or only a little, 
and where you picked him up, and when, and what reason you gave for 
not putting him in some respectable asylum. I could only say that I 
really knew nothing about him, and that I hadn't seen him because he 
had a dread of strangers and I was a little timid."

She hesitated again.

"I wonder," she said, still hesitating even after her pause, "I wonder 
if I ought to mention a rather rude thing I saw him do twice?"

"Yes, you ought," Tembarom answered promptly; "I've a reason for 
wanting to know."

"It was such a singular thing to do--in the circumstances," she went 
on obediently. "He knew, as we all know, that Mr. Strangeways must not 
be disturbed. One afternoon I saw him walk slowly backward and forward 
before the west room window. He had something in his hand and kept 
looking up. That was what first attracted my attention--his queer way 
of looking up. Quite suddenly he threw something which rattled on the 
panes of glass--it sounded like gravel or small pebbles. I couldn't 
help believing he thought Mr. Strangeways would be startled into 
coming to the window."

Tembarom cleared his throat.

"He did that twice," he said. "Pearson caught him at it, though 
Palliser didn't know he did. He'd have done it three times, or more 
than that, perhaps, but I casually mentioned in the smoking-room one 
night that some curious fool of a gardener boy had thrown some stones 
and frightened Strangeways, and that Pearson and I were watching for 
him, and that if I caught him I was going to knock his block off--
bing! He didn't do it again. Darned fool! What does he think he's 
after?"

"I am afraid he is rather--I hope it is not wrong to say so --but he 
is rather given to gossip. And I dare say that the temptation to find 
something quite new to talk about was a great one. So few new things 
happen in the neighborhood, and, as the duke says, people are so 
bored--and he is bored himself."

"He'll be more bored if he tries it again when he comes back," 
remarked Tembarom.

Miss Alicia's surprised expression made him laugh.

"Do you think he will come back?" she exclaimed. "After such a long 
visit?"

"Oh, yes, he'll come back. He'll come back as often as he can until 
he's got a chunk of my income to treble--or until I've done with him."

"Until you've done with him, dear?" inquiringly.

"Oh! well,"--casually--"I've a sort of idea that he may tell me 
something I'd like to know. I'm not sure; I'm only guessing. But even 
if he knows it he won't tell me until he gets good and ready and 
thinks I don't want to hear it. What he thinks he's going to get at by 
prowling around is something he can get me in the crack of the door 
with."

"Temple"--imploringly--"are you afraid he wishes to do you an injury?"

"No, I'm not afraid. I'm just waiting to see him take a chance on it," 
and he gave her arm an affectionate squeeze against his side. He was 
always immensely moved by her little alarms for him. They reminded 
him, in a remote way, of Little Ann coming down Mrs. Bowse's staircase 
bearing with her the tartan comforter.

How could any one--how could any one want to do him an injury? she 
began to protest pathetically. But he would not let her go on. He 
would not talk any more of Captain Palliser or allow her to talk of 
him. Indeed, her secret fear was that he really knew something he did 
not wish her to be troubled by, and perhaps thought he had said too 
much. He began to make jokes and led her to other subjects. He asked 
her to go to the Hibblethwaites' cottage and pay a visit to Tummas. He 
had learned to understand his accepted privileges in making of cottage 
visits by this time; and when he clicked any wicket-gate the door was 
open before he had time to pass up the wicket-path. They called at 
several cottages, and he nodded at the windows of others where faces 
appeared as he passed by.

They had a happy morning together, and he took her back to Temple 
Barholm beaming, and forgetting Captain Palliser's existence, for the 
time, at least. In the afternoon they drove out together, and after 
dining they read the last copy of the Sunday Earth, which had arrived 
that day. He found quite an interesting paragraph about Mr. Hutchinson 
and the invention. Little Miss Hutchinson was referred to most 
flatteringly by the writer, who almost inferred that she was 
responsible not only for the inventor but for the invention itself. 
Miss Alicia felt quite proud of knowing so prominent a character, and 
wondered what it could be like to read about oneself in a newspaper.

About nine o'clock he laid his sheet of the Earth down and spoke to 
her.

"I'm going to ask you to do me a favor," he said. "I couldn't ask it 
if we weren't alone like this. I know you won't mind."

Of course she wouldn't mind. She was made happier by the mere idea of 
doing something for him.

"I'm going to ask you to go to your room rather early," he explained. 
"I want to try a sort of stunt on Strangeways. I'm going to bring him 
downstairs if he'll come. I'm not sure I can get him to do it; but 
he's been a heap better lately, and perhaps I can."

"Is he so much better as that?" she said. "Will it be safe?"

He looked as serious as she had ever seen him look--even a trifle more 
serious.

"I don't know how much better he is," was his answer. "Sometimes you'd 
think he was almost all right. And then--! The doctor says that if he 
could get over being afraid of leaving his room it would be a big 
thing for him. He wants him to go to his place in London so that he 
can watch him."

"Do you think you could persuade him to go?"

"I've tried my level best, but so far--nothing doing."

He got up and stood before the mantel, his back against it, his hands 
in his pockets.

"I've found out one thing," he said. "He's used to houses like this. 
Every now and again he lets something out quite natural. He knew that 
the furniture in his room was Jacobean - that's what he called it - 
and he knew it was fine stuff. He wouldn't have known that if he'd 
been a piker. I'm going to try if he won't let out something else when 
he sees things here - if he'll come."

"You have such a wonderfully reasoning mind, dear," said Miss Alicia, 
as she rose. "You would have made a great detective, I'm sure."

"If Ann had been with him," he said, rather gloomily, "she'd have 
caught on to a lot more than I have. I don't feel very chesty about 
the way I've managed it."

Miss Alicia went up-stairs shortly afterward, and half an hour later 
Tembarom told the footmen in the hall that they might go to bed. The 
experiment he was going to make demanded that the place should be 
cleared of any disturbing presence. He had been thinking it over for 
sometime past. He had sat in the private room of the great nerve 
specialist in London and had talked it over with him. He had talked of 
it with the duke on the lawn at Stone Hover. There had been a flush of 
color in the older man's cheek-bones, and his eyes had been alight as 
he took his part in the discussion. He had added the touch of his own 
personality to it, as always happened.

"We are having some fine moments, my good fellow," he had said, 
rubbing his hands. "This is extremely like the fourth act. I'd like to 
be sure what comes next."

"I'd like to be sure myself," Tembarom answered. "It's as if a flash 
of lightning came sometimes, and then things clouded up. And sometimes 
when I am trying something out he'll get so excited that I daren't go 
on until I've talked to the doctor."

It was the excitement he was dubious about to-night. It was not 
possible to be quite certain as to the entire safety of the plan; but 
there might be a chance - even a big chance - of wakening some cell 
from its deadened sleep. Sir Ormsby way had talked to him a good deal 
about brain cells, and he had listened faithfully and learned more 
than he could put into scientific English. Gradually, during the past 
months, he had been coming upon strangely exciting hints of curious 
possibilities. They had been mere hints at first, and had seemed 
almost absurd in their unbelievableness. But each one had linked 
itself with another, and led him on to further wondering and 
exploration. When Miss Alicia and Palliser had seen that he looked 
absorbed and baffled, it had been because he had frequently found 
himself, to use his own figures of speech, "mixed up to beat the 
band." He had not known which way to turn; but he had gone on turning 
because he could not escape from his own excited interest, and the 
inevitable emotion roused by being caught in the whirl of a melodrama. 
That was what he'd dropped into--a whacking big play. It had begun for 
him when Palford butted in that night and told him he was a lost heir, 
with a fortune and an estate in England; and the curtain had been 
jerking up and down ever since. But there had been thrills in it, 
queer as it was. Something doing all the time, by gee!

He sat and smoked his pipe and wished Ann were with him because he 
knew he was not as cool as he had meant to be. He felt a certain 
tingling of excitement in his body; and this was not the time to be 
excited. He waited for some minutes before he went up-stairs. It was 
true that Strangeways had been much better lately. He had seemed to 
find it easier to follow conversation. During the past few days, 
Tembarom had talked to him in a matter-of-fact way about the house and 
its various belongings. He had at last seemed to waken to an interest 
in the picture-gallery. Evidently he knew something of picture-
galleries and portraits, and found himself relieved by his own 
clearness of thought when he talked of them.

"I feel better," he said, two or three times. "Things seem clearer--
nearer."

"Good business!" exclaimed Tembarom. "I told you it'd be that way. 
Let's hold on to pictures. It won't be any time before you'll be 
remembering where you've seen some."

He had been secretly rather strung up; but he had been very gradual in 
approaching his final suggestion that some night, when everything was 
quiet, they might go and look at the gallery together.

"What you need is to get out of the way of wanting to stay in one 
place," he argued. "The doctor says you've got to have a change, and 
even going from one room to another is a fine thing."

Strangeways had looked at him anxiously for a few moments, even 
suspiciously, but his face had cleared after the look. He drew himself 
up and passed his hand over his forehead.

"I believe - perhaps he is right," he murmured.

"Sure he's right!" said Tembarom. "He's the sort of chap who ought to 
know. He's been made into a baronet for knowing. Sir Ormsby Galloway, 
by jings! That's no slouch of a name Oh, he knows, you bet your life!"

This morning when he had seen him he had spoken of the plan again. The 
visitors had gone away; the servants could be sent out of sight and 
hearing; they could go into the library and smoke and he could look at 
the books. And then they could take a look at the picture-gallery if 
he wasn't too tired. It would be a change anyhow.

To-night, as he went up the huge staircase, Tembarom's calmness of 
being had not increased. He was aware of a quickened pulse and of a 
slight dampness on his forehead. The dead silence of the house added 
to the unusualness of things. He could not remember ever having been 
so anxious before, except on the occasion when he had taken his first 
day's "stuff" to Galton, and had stood watching him as he read it. His 
forehead had grown damp then. But he showed no outward signs of 
excitement when he entered the room and found Strangeways standing, 
perfectly attired in evening dress.

Pearson, setting things in order at the other side of the room, was 
taking note of him furtively over his shoulder. Quite in the casual 
manner of the ordinary man, he had expressed his intention of dressing 
for the evening, and Pearson had thanked his stars for the fact that 
the necessary garments were at hand. From the first, he had not 
infrequently asked for articles such as only the resources of a 
complete masculine wardrobe could supply; and on one occasion he had 
suddenly wished to dress for dinner, and the lame excuses it had been 
necessary to make had disturbed him horribly instead of pacifying him. 
To explain that his condition precluded the necessity of the usual 
appurtenances would have been out of the question. He had been angry. 
What did Pearson mean? What was the matter? He had said it over and 
over again, and then had sunk into a hopelessly bewildered mood, and 
had sat huddled in his dressing-gown staring at the fire. Pearson had 
been so harrowed by the situation that it had been his own idea to 
suggest to his master that all possible requirements should be 
provided. There were occasions when it appeared that the cloud over 
him lifted for a passing moment, and a gleam of light recalled to him 
some familiar usage of his past. When he had finished dressing, 
Pearson had been almost startled by the amount of effect produced by 
the straight, correctly cut lines of black and white. The mere change 
of clothes had suddenly changed the man himself--had "done something 
to him," Pearson put it. After his first glance at the mirror he had 
straightened himself, as if recognizing the fault of his own carriage. 
When he crossed the room it was with the action of a man who has been 
trained to move well. The good looks, which had been almost hidden 
behind a veil of uncertainty of expression and strained fearfulness, 
became obvious. He was tall, and his lean limbs were splendidly hung 
together. His head was perfectly set, and the bearing of his square 
shoulders was a soldierly thing. It was an extraordinarily handsome 
man Tembarom and Pearson found themselves gazing at. Each glanced 
involuntarily at the other.

"Now that's first-rate! I'm glad you feel like coming," Tembarom 
plunged in. He didn't intend to give him too much time to think.

"Thank you. It will be a change, as you said," Strangeways answered. 
"One needs change."

His deep eyes looked somewhat deeper than usual, but his manner was 
that of any well-bred man doing an accustomed thing. If he had been an 
ordinary guest in the house, and his host had dropped into his room, 
he would have comported himself in exactly the same way.

They went together down the corridor as if they had passed down it 
together a dozen times before. On the stairway Strangeways looked at 
the tapestries with the interest of a familiarized intelligence.

"It is a beautiful old place," he said, as they crossed the hall. 
"That armor was worn by a crusader." He hesitated a moment when they 
entered the library, but it was only for a moment. He went to the 
hearth and took the chair his host offered him, and, lighting a cigar, 
sat smoking it. If T. Tembarom had chanced to be a man of an 
analytical or metaphysical order of intellect he would have found, 
during the past month, many things to lead him far in mental argument 
concerning the weird wonder of the human mind--of its power where its 
possessor, the body, is concerned, its sometime closeness to the 
surface of sentient being, its sometime remoteness. He would have 
known--awed, marveling at the blackness of the pit into which it can 
descend--the unknown shades that may enfold it and imprison its 
gropings. The old Duke of Stone had sat and pondered many an hour over 
stories his favorite companion had related to him. What curious and 
subtle processes had the queer fellow not been watching in the closely 
guarded quiet of the room where the stranger had spent his days; the 
strange thing cowering in its darkness; the ray of light piercing the 
cloud one day and seeming lost again the next; the struggles the 
imprisoned thing made to come forth-- to cry out that it was but 
immured, not wholly conquered, and that some hour would arrive when it 
would fight its way through at last. Tembarom had not entered into 
psychological research. He had been entirely uncomplex in his 
attitude, sitting down before his problem as a besieger might have sat 
down before a castle. The duke had sometimes wondered whether it was 
not a good enough thing that he had been so simple about it, merely 
continuing to believe the best with an unswerving obstinacy and 
lending a hand when he could. A never flagging sympathy had kept him 
singularly alive to every chance, and now and then he had 
illuminations which would have done credit to a cleverer man, and 
which the duke had rubbed his hands over in half-amused, half- touched 
elation. How he had kept his head level and held to his purpose!

T. Tembarom talked but little as he sat in his big chair and smoked. 
Best let him alone and give him time to get used to the newness, he 
thought. Nothing must happen that could give him a jolt. Let things 
sort of sink into him, and perhaps they'd set him to thinking and lead 
him somewhere. Strangeways himself evidently did not want talk. He 
never wanted it unless he was excited. He was not excited now, and had 
settled down as if he was comfortable. Having finished one cigar he 
took another, and began to smoke it much more slowly than he had 
smoked his first. The slowness began to arrest Tembarom's attention. 
This was the smoking of a man who was either growing sleepy or sinking 
into deep thought, becoming oblivious to what he was doing. Sometimes 
he held the cigar absently between his strong, fine fingers, seeming 
to forget it. Tembarom watched him do this until he saw it go out, and 
its white ash drop on the rug at his feet. He did not notice it, but 
sat sinking deeper and deeper into his own being, growing more remote. 
What was going on under his absorbed stillness? Tembarom would not 
have moved or spoken "for a block of Fifth Avenue," he said 
internally. The dark eyes seemed to become darker until there was only 
a pin's point of light to be seen in their pupils. It was as if he 
were looking at something at a distance--at a strangely long distance. 
Twice he turned his head and appeared to look slowly round the room, 
but not as normal people look-- as if it also was at the strange, long 
distance from him, and he were somewhere outside its walls. It was an 
uncanny thing to be a spectator to.

"How dead still the room is!" Tembarom found himself thinking.

It was "dead still." And it was a queer deal sitting, not daring to 
move--just watching. Something was bound to happen, sure! What was it 
going to be?

Strangeways' cigar dropped from his fingers and appeared to rouse him. 
He looked puzzled for a moment, and then stooped quite naturally to 
pick it up.

"I forgot it altogether. It's gone out," he remarked.

"Have another," suggested Tembarom, moving the box nearer to him.

"No, thank you." He rose and crossed the room to the wall of book- 
shelves. And Tembarom's eye was caught again by the fineness of 
movement and line the evening clothes made manifest. "What a swell he 
looked when he moved about like that! What a swell, by jings!"

He looked along the line of shelves and presently took a book down and 
opened it. He turned over its leaves until something arrested his 
attention, and then he fell to reading. He read several minutes, while 
Tembarom watched him. The silence was broken by his laughing a little.

"Listen to this," he said, and began to read something in a language 
totally unknown to his hearer. "A man who writes that sort of thing 
about a woman is an old bounder, whether he's a poet or not. There's a 
small, biting spitefulness about it that's cattish."

"Who did it?" Tembarom inquired softly. It might be a good idea to 
lead him on.

"Horace. In spite of his genius, he sometimes makes you feel he was 
rather a blackguard."

"Horace!" For the moment T. Tembarom forgot himself. "I always heard 
he was a sort of Y.M.C.A. old guy--old Horace Greeley. The Tribune was 
no yellow journal when he had it."

He was sorry he had spoken the next moment. Strangeways looked 
puzzled.

"The Tribune," he hesitated. "The Roman Tribune?"

"No, New York. He started it--old Horace did. But perhaps we're not 
talking of the same man."

Strangeways hesitated again.

"No, I think we're not," he answered politely.

"I've made a break," thought Tembarom. "I ought to have kept my mouth 
shut. I must try to switch him back."

Strangeways was looking down at the back of the book he held in his 
hand.

"This one was the Latin poet, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65 B. C. You 
know him," he said.

"Oh, that one!" exclaimed Tembarom, as if with an air of immense 
relief. "What a fool I was to forget! I'm glad it's him. Will you go 
on reading and let me hear some more? He's a winner from Winnersville-
- that Horace is."

Perhaps it was a sort of miracle, accomplished by his great desire to 
help the right thing to happen, to stave off any shadow of the wrong 
thing. Whatsoever the reason, Strangeways waited only a moment before 
turning to his book again. It seemed to be a link in some chain slowly 
forming itself to drag him back from his wanderings. And T. Tembarom, 
lightly sweating as a frightened horse will, sat smoking another pipe 
and listening intently to "Satires" and "Lampoons," read aloud in the 
Latin of 65 B. C.

"By gee!" he said faithfully, at intervals, when he saw on the 
reader's face that the moment was ripe. "He knew it all-- old Horace--
didn't he?"

He had steered his charge back. Things were coming along the line to 
him. He'd learned Latin at one of these big English schools. Boys 
always learned Latin, the duke had told him. They just had to. Most of 
them hated it like thunder, and they used to be caned when they didn't 
recite it right. Perhaps if he went on he'd begin to remember the 
school. A queer part of it was that he did not seem to notice that he 
was not reading his own language.

He did not, in fact, seem to remember anything in particular, but went 
on quite naturally for some minutes. He had replaced Horace on the 
shelf and was on the point of taking down another volume when he 
paused, as if recalling something else.

"Weren't we going to see the picture-gallery?" he inquired. "Isn't it 
getting late? I should like to see the portraits."

"No hurry," answered T. Tembarom. "I was just waiting till you were 
ready. But we'll go right away, if you like."

They went without further ceremony. As they walked through the hall 
and down the corridors side by side, an imaginative person might have 
felt that perhaps the eyes of an ancient darkling portrait or so 
looked down at the pair curiously: the long, loosely built New Yorker 
rather slouching along by the soldierly, almost romantic figure which, 
in a measure, suggested that others not unlike it might have trod the 
same oaken floor, wearing ruff and doublet, or lace jabot and sword. 
There was a far cry between the two, but they walked closely in 
friendly union. When they entered the picture-gallery Strangeways 
paused a moment again, and stood peering down its length.

"It is very dimly lighted. How can we see?" he said.

"I told Pearson to leave it dim," Tembarom answered. "I wanted it just 
that way at first."

He tried--and succeeded tolerably well--to say it casually, as he led 
the way ahead of them. He and the duke had not talked the scheme over 
for nothing. As his grace had said, they had "worked the thing up." As 
they moved down the gallery, the men and women in their frames looked 
like ghosts staring out to see what was about to happen.

"We'll turn up the lights after a while," T. Tembarom explained, still 
casually. "There's a picture here I think a good deal of. I've stood 
and looked at it pretty often. It reminded me of some one the first 
day I set eyes on it; but it was quite a time before I made up my mind 
who it was. It used to drive me half dotty trying to think it out."

"Which one was it?" asked Strangeways.

"We're coming to it. I want to see if it reminds you of any one. And I 
want you to see it sudden." "It's got to be sudden," he had said to 
the duke. "If it's going to pan out, I believe it's got to be sudden." 
"That's why I had the rest of 'em left dim. I told Pearson to leave a 
lamp I could turn up quick," he said to Strangeways.

The lamp was on a table near by and was shaded by a screen. He took it 
from the shadow and lifted it suddenly, so that its full gleam fell 
upon the portrait of the handsome youth with the lace collar and the 
dark, drooping eyes. It was done in a second, with a dramatically 
unexpected swiftness. His heart jumped up and down.

"Who's that?" he demanded, with abruptness so sharp-pitched that the 
gallery echoed with the sound. "Who's that?"

He heard a hard, quick gasp, a sound which was momentarily a little 
horrible, as if the man's soul was being jerked out of his body's 
depths.

"Who is he?" he cried again. "Tell me."

After the gasp, Strangeways stood still and stared. His eyes were 
glued to the canvas, drops of sweat came out on his forehead, and he 
was shuddering. He began to back away with a look of gruesome 
struggle. He backed and backed, and stared and stared. The gasp came 
twice again, and then his voice seemed to tear itself loose from some 
power that was holding it back.

"Th--at!" he cried. "It is--it--is Miles Hugo!"

The last words were almost a shout, and he shook as if he would have 
fallen. But T. Tembarom put his hand on his shoulder and held him, 
breathing fast himself. Gee! if it wasn't like a thing in a play!

"Page at the court of Charles the Second," he rattled off. "Died of 
smallpox when he was nineteen. Miles Hugo! Miles Hugo! You hold on to 
that for all your worth. And hold on to me. I'll keep you steady. Say 
it again."

"Miles Hugo." The poor majestic-looking fellow almost sobbed it. 
"Where am I? What is the name of this place?"

"It's Temple Barholm in the county of Lancashire, England. Hold on to 
that, too--like thunder!"

Strangeways held the young man's arm with hands that clutched. He 
dragged at him. His nightmare held him yet; Tembarom saw it, but 
flashes of light were blinding him.

"Who"--he pleaded in a shaking and hollow whisper--"are you?"

Here was a stumper! By jings! By jings! And not a minute to think it 
out. But the answer came all right--all right!

"My name's Tembarom. T. Tembarom." And he grinned his splendid grin 
from sheer sense of relief. "I'm a New Yorker--Brooklyn. I was just 
forked in here anyhow. Don't you waste time thinking over me. You sit 
down here and do your durndest with Miles Hugo."




CHAPTER XXXIII


Tembarom did not look as though he had slept particularly well, Miss 
Alicia thought, when they met the next morning; but when she asked him 
whether he had been disappointed in his last night's experiment, he 
answered that he had not. The experiment had come out all right, but 
Strangeways had been a good deal worked up, and had not been able to 
sleep until daylight. Sir Ormsby Galloway was to arrive in the 
afternoon, and he'd probably give him some- thing quieting. Had the 
coming downstairs seemed to help him to recall anything? Miss Alicia 
naturally inquired. Tembarom thought it had. He drove to Stone Hover 
and spent the morning with the duke; he even lunched with him. He 
returned in time to receive Sir Ormsby Galloway, however, and until 
that great personage left, they were together in Mr. Strangeways' 
rooms.

"I guess I shall get him up to London to the place where Sir Ormsby 
wants him," he said rather nervously, after dinner. "I'm not going to 
miss any chances. If he'll go, I can get him away quietly some time 
when I can fix it so there's no one about to worry him."

She felt that he had no inclination to go much into detail. He had 
never had the habit of entering into the details connected with his 
strange charge. She believed it was because he felt the subject too 
abnormal not to seem a little awesome to her sympathetic timidity. She 
did not ask questions because she was afraid she could not ask them 
intelligently. In fact, the knowledge that this unknown man was living 
through his struggle with his lost past in the remote rooms of the 
west wing, almost as though he were a secret prisoner, did seem a 
little awesome when one awoke in the middle of the dark night and 
thought of it.

During the passage of the next few weeks, Tembarom went up to London 
several times. Once he seemed called there suddenly, as it was only 
during dinner that he told her he was going to take a late train, and 
should leave the house after she had gone to bed. She felt as though 
something important must have happened, and hoped it was nothing 
disturbing.

When he had said that Captain Palliser would return to visit them, her 
private impression, despite his laugh, had been that it must surely be 
some time before this would occur. But a little more than three weeks 
later he appeared, preceded only half an hour by a telegram asking 
whether he might not spend a night with them on his way farther north. 
He could not at all understand why the telegram, which he said he had 
sent the day before, had been delayed.

A certain fatigued haggardness in his countenance caused Miss Alicia 
to ask whether he had been ill, and he admitted that he had at least 
not been well, as a result of long and too hurried journeys, and the 
strenuousness of extended and profoundly serious interviews with his 
capitalist and magnates.

"No man can engineer gigantic schemes to success without feeling the 
reaction when his load drops from his shoulders," he remarked.

"You've carried it quite through?" inquired Tembarom.

"We have set on foot one of the largest, most substantially 
capitalized companies in the European business world," Palliser 
replied, with the composure which is almost indifference.

"Good!" said Tembarom cheerfully.

He watched his guest a good deal during the day. He was a bad color 
for a man who had just steered clear of all shoals and reached the 
highest point of success. He had a haggard eye as well as a haggard 
face. It was a terrified eye when its desperate determination to hide 
its terrors dropped from it for an instant, as a veil might drop. A 
certain restlessness was manifest in him, and he talked more than 
usual. He was going to make a visit in Northumberland to an elderly 
lady of great possessions. It was to be vaguely gathered that she was 
somewhat interested in the great company--the Cedric. She was a 
remarkable old person who found a certain agreeable excitement in 
dabbling in stocks. She was rich enough to be in a position to regard 
it as a sort of game, and he had been able on several occasions to 
afford her entertainment. He would remain a few days, and spend his 
time chiefly in telling her the details of the great scheme and the 
manner in which they were to be developed.

"If she can play with things that way, she'll be sure to want stock in 
it," Tembarom remarked.

"If she does, she must make up her mind quickly," Palliser smiled, "or 
she will not be able to get it. It is not easy to lay one's hands on 
even now."

Tembarom thought of certain speculators of entirely insignificant 
standing of whom he had chanced to see and hear anecdotes in New York. 
Most of them were youths of obscure origin who sold newspapers or 
blacked boots, or "swapped" articles the value of which lay in the 
desire they could excite in other persons to possess them. A popular 
method known as "bluff" was their most trusted weapon, and even at 
twelve and fifteen years of age Tembarom had always regarded it as 
singularly obvious. He always detested "bluff," whatsoever its 
disguise, and was rather mystified by its ingenious faith in itself.

"He's got badly stung," was his internal comment as he sucked at his 
pipe and smiled urbanely at Palliser across the room as they sat 
together. "He's come here with some sort of deal on that he knows he 
couldn't work with any one but just such a fool as he thinks I am. I 
guess," he added in composed reflectiveness, "I don't really know how 
big a fool I do look."

Whatsoever the deal was, he would be likely to let it be known in 
time.

"He'll get it off his chest if he's going away to-morrow," decided 
Tembarom. "If there's anything he's found out, he'll use it. If it 
doesn't pan out as he thinks it will he'll just float away to his old 
lady."

He gave Palliser every chance, talking to him and encouraging him to 
talk, even asking him to let him look over the prospectus of the new 
company and explain details to him, as he was going to explain them to 
the old lady in Northumberland. He opened up avenues; but for a time 
Palliser made no attempt to stroll down them. His walk would be a 
stroll, Tembarom knew, being familiar with his methods. His aspect 
would be that of a man but little concerned. He would be capable of a 
slightly rude coldness if he felt that concern on his part was in any 
degree counted as a factor. Tembarom was aware, among other things, 
that innocent persons would feel that it was incumbent upon them to be 
very careful in their treatment of him. He seemed to be thinking 
things over before he decided upon the psychological moment at which 
he would begin, if he began. When a man had a good deal to lose or to 
win, Tembarom realized that he would be likely to hold back until he 
felt something like solid ground under him.

After Miss Alicia had left them for the night, perhaps he felt, as a 
result of thinking the matter over, that he had reached a foothold of 
a firmness at least somewhat to be depended upon.

"What a change you have made in that poor woman's life!" he said, 
walking to the side-table and helping himself to a brandy and soda. 
"What a change!"

"It struck me that a change was needed just about the time I dropped 
in," answered his host.

"All the same," suggested Palliser, tolerantly, "you were immensely 
generous. She wasn't entitled to expect it, you know."

"She didn't expect anything, not a darned thing," said Tembarom. "That 
was what hit me."

Palliser smiled a cold, amiable smile. His slim, neatly fitted person 
looked a little shrunken and less straight than was its habit, and its 
slackness suggested itself as being part of the harry and fatigue 
which made his face and eyes haggard under his pale, smooth hair.

"Do you purpose to provide for the future of all your indigent 
relatives even to the third and fourth generation, my dear chap?" he 
inquired.

"I won't refuse till I'm asked, anyhow," was the answer.

"Asked!" Palliser repeated. "I'm one of them, you know, and Lady 
Mallowe is another. There are lots of us, when we come out of our 
holes. If it's only a matter of asking, we might all descend on you."

Tembarom, smiling, wondered whether they hadn't descended already, and 
whether the descent had so far been all that they had anticipated.

Palliser strolled down his opened avenue with an incidental air which 
was entirely creditable to his training of himself. T. Tembarom 
acknowledged that much.

"You are too generous," said Palliser. "You are the sort of fellow who 
will always need all he has, and more. The way you go among the 
villagers! You think you merely slouch about and keep it quiet, but 
you don't. You've set an example no other landowner can expect to live 
up to, or intends to. It's too lavish. It's pernicious, dear chap. I 
have heard all about the cottage you are doing over for Pearson and 
his bride. You had better invest in the Cedric."

Tembarom wanted him to go on, if there was anything in it. He made his 
face look as he knew Palliser hoped it would look when the 
psychological moment came. Its expression was not a deterrent; in 
fact, it had a character not unlikely to lead an eager man, or one who 
was not as wholly experienced as he believed he was, to rush down a 
steep hill into the sea, after the manner of the swine in the parable.

Heaven knew Palliser did not mean to rush, and was not aware when the 
rush began; but he had reason to be so much more eager than he 
professed to be that momentarily he swerved, despite himself, and 
ceased to be casual.

"It is an enormous opportunity," he said--"timber lands in Mexico, you 
know. If you had spent your life in England, you would realize that 
timber has become a desperate necessity, and that the difficulties 
which exist in the way of supplying the demand are almost insuperable. 
These forests are virtually boundless, and the company which controls 
them--"

"That's a good spiel!" broke in Tembarom.

It sounded like the crudely artless interruption of a person whose 
perceptions left much to be desired. T. Tembarom knew what it sounded 
like. If Palliser lost his temper, he would get over the ground 
faster, and he wanted him to get over the ground.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," he replied rather stiffly.

"There was a fellow I knew in New York who used to sell type-writers, 
and he had a thing to say he used to reel off when any one looked like 
a customer. He used to call it his 'spiel.'"

Palliser's quick glance at him asked questions, and his stiffness did 
not relax itself.

"Is this New York chaff?" he inquired coldly.

"No," Tembarom said. "You're not doing it for ten per. He was"

"No, not exactly," said Palliser. "Neither would you be doing it for 
ten per if you went into it." His voice changed. He became slightly 
haughty. "Perhaps it was a mistake on my part to think you might care 
to connect yourself with it. You have not, of course, been in the 
position to comprehend such matters."

"If I was what I look like, that'd stir me up and make me feel bad," 
thought T. Tembarom, with cheerful comprehension of this, at least. 
"I'd have to rush in and try to prove to him that I was as accustomed 
to big business as he is, and that it didn't rattle me. The way to do 
it that would come most natural would be to show I was ready to buy as 
big a block of stock as any other fellow."

But the expression of his face did not change. He only gave a half- 
awkward sort of laugh.

"I guess I can learn," he said.

Palliser felt the foothold become firmer. The bounder was interested, 
but, after a bounder's fashion, was either nervous or imagined that a 
show of hesitation looked shrewd. The slight hit made at his 
inexperience in investment had irritated him and made him feel less 
cock-sure of himself. A slightly offended manner might be the best 
weapon to rely upon.

"I thought you might care to have the thing made clear to you," he 
continued indifferently. "I meant to explain. You may take the chance 
or leave it, as you like, of course. That is nothing to me at this 
stage of the game. But, after all, we are as I said, relatives of a 
sort, and it is a gigantic opportunity. Suppose we change the subject. 
Is that the Sunday Earth I see by you on the table?" He leaned forward 
to take the paper, as though the subject really were dropped; but, 
after a seemingly nervous suck or two at his pipe, Tembarom came to 
his assistance. It wouldn't do to let him quiet down too much.

"I'm no Van Morganbilt," he said hesitatingly, "but I can see that 
it's a big opportunity--for some one else. Let's have a look over the 
prospectus again."

Palliser paused in his unconcerned opening of the copy of the Sunday 
Earth. His manner somewhat disgustedly implied indecision as to 
whether it was worth while to allow oneself to be dropped and taken up 
by turns.

"Do you really mean that?" he asked with a certain chill of voice.

"Yes. I don't mind trying to catch on to what's doing in any big 
scheme."

Palliser did not lay aside his suggestion of cold semi-reluctance more 
readily than any man who knew his business would have laid it aside. 
His manner at the outset was quite perfect. His sole ineptitude lay in 
his feeling a too great confidence in the exact quality of his 
companion's type, as he summed it up. He did not calculate on the 
variations from all type sometimes provided by circumstances.

He produced his papers without too obvious eagerness. He spread them 
upon the table, and coolly examined them himself before beginning his 
explanation. There was more to explain to a foreigner and one unused 
to investment than there would be to a man who was an Englishman and 
familiar with the methods of large companies, he said. He went into 
technicalities, so to speak, and used rapidly and lightly some 
imposing words and phrases, to which T. Tembarom listened attentively, 
but without any special air of illumination. He dealt with statistics 
and the resulting probabilities. He made apparent the existing 
condition of England's inability to supply an enormous and unceasing 
demand for timber. He had acquired divers excellent methods of stating 
his case to the party of the second part.

"He made me feel as if a fellow had better hold on to a box of matches 
like grim death, and that the time wasn't out of sight when you'd have 
to give fifty-seven dollars and a half for a toothpick," Tembarom 
afterwards said to the duke.

What Tembarom was thinking as he listened to him was that he was not 
getting over the ground with much rapidity, and that it was time 
something was doing. He had not watched him for weeks without learning 
divers of his idiosyncrasies.

"If he thought I wanted to know what he thinks I'd a heap rather NOT 
know, he'd never tell me," he speculated. "If he gets a bit hot in the 
collar, he may let it out. Thing is to stir him up. He's lost his 
nerve a bit, and he'll get mad pretty easy."

He went on smoking and listening, and asking an unenlightened question 
now and then, in a manner which was as far from being a deterrent as 
the largely unilluminated expression of his face was.

"Of course money is wanted," Palliser said at length. "Money is always 
wanted, and as much when a scheme is a success as when it isn't. Good 
names, with a certain character, are wanted. The fact of your 
inheritance is known everywhere; and the fact that you are an American 
is a sort of guaranty of shrewdness."

"Is it?" said T. Tembarom. "Well," he added slowly, "I guess Americans 
are pretty good business men."

Palliser thought that this was evolving upon perfectly natural lines, 
as he had anticipated it would. The fellow was flattered and pleased. 
You could always reach an American by implying that he was one of 
those who specially illustrate enviable national characteristics.

He went on in smooth, casual laudation:

"No American takes hold of a scheme of this sort until he knows jolly 
well what he's going to get out of it. You were shrewd enough," he 
added significantly, "about Hutchinson's affair. You `got in on the 
ground floor' there. That was New York forethought, by Jove!"

Tembarom shuffled a little in his chair, and grinned a faint, pleased 
grin.

"I'm a man of the world, my boy--the business world," Palliser 
commented, hoping that he concealed his extreme satisfaction. "I know 
New York, though I haven't lived there. I'm only hoping to. Your air 
of ingenuous ignorance is the cleverest thing about you," which 
agreeable implication of the fact that he had been privately observant 
and impressed ought to have fetched the bounder if anything would.

T. Tembarom's grin was no longer faint, but spread itself. Palliser's 
first impression was that he had "fetched" him. But when he answered, 
though the very crudeness of his words seemed merely the result of his 
betrayal into utter tactlessness by soothed vanity, there was 
something--a shade of something-- not entirely satisfactory in his 
face and nasal twang.

"Well, I guess," he said, "New York DID teach a fellow not to buy a 
gold brick off every con man that came along."

Palliser was guilty of a mere ghost of a start. Was there something in 
it, or was he only the gross, blundering fool he had trusted to his 
being? He stared at him a moment, and saw that there WAS something 
under the words and behind his professedly flattered grin--something 
which must be treated with a high hand.

"What do you mean?" he exclaimed haughtily. "I don't like your tone. 
Do you take ME for what you call a `con man'?"

"Good Lord, no!" answered Tembarom; and he looked straight at Palliser 
and spoke slowly. "You're a gentleman, and you're paying me a visit. 
You could no more try on a game to do me in my own house than--well, 
than I could TELL you if I'd got on to you if I saw you doing it. 
You're a gentleman."

Palliser glared back into his infuriatingly candid eyes. He was a far 
cry from being a dullard himself; he was sharp enough to "catch on" to 
the revelation that the situation was not what he had thought it, the 
type was more complex than he had dreamed. The chap had been playing a 
part; he had absolutely been "jollying him along," after the New York 
fashion. He became pale with humiliated rage, though he knew his only 
defense was to control himself and profess not to see through the 
trick. Until he could use his big lever, he added to himself.

"Oh, I see," he commented acridly. "I suppose you don't realize that 
your figures of speech are unfortunate."

"That comes of New York streets, too," Tembarom answered with 
deliberation. "But you can't live as I've lived and be dead easy--not 
DEAD easy."

Palliser had left his chair, and stood in contemptuous silence.

"You know how a fellow hates to be thought DEAD easy"-- Tembarom 
actually went to the insolent length of saying the words with a touch 
of cheerful confidingness--"when he's NOT. And I'm not. Have another 
drink."

There was a pause. Palliser began to see, or thought he began to see, 
where he stood. He had come to Temple Barholm because he had been 
driven into a corner and had a dangerous fight before him. In 
anticipation of it he had been following a clue for some time, though 
at the outset it had been one of incredible slightness. Only his 
absolute faith in his theory that every man had something to gain or 
lose, which he concealed discreetly, had led him to it. He held a card 
too valuable to be used at the beginning of a game. Its power might 
have lasted a long time, and proved an influence without limit. He 
forbore any mental reference to blackmail; the word was absurd. One 
used what fell into one's hands. If Tembarom had followed his lead 
with any degree of docility, he would have felt it wiser to save his 
ammunition until further pressure was necessary. But behind his 
ridiculous rawness, his foolish jocularity, and his professedly candid 
good humor, had been hidden the Yankee trickster who was fool enough 
to think he could play his game through. Well, he could not.

During the few moments' pause he saw the situation as by a 
photographic flashlight. He leaned over the table and supplied himself 
with a fresh brandy and soda from the tray of siphons and decanters. 
He gave himself time to take the glass up in his hand.

"No," he answered, "you are not `dead easy.' That's why I am going to 
broach another subject to you."

Tembarom was refilling his pipe.

"Go ahead," he said.

"Who, by the way, is Mr. Strangeways?"

He was deliberate and entirely unemotional. So was T. Tembarom when, 
with match applied to his tobacco, he replied between puffs as he 
lighted it:

"You can search me. You can search him, too, for that matter. He 
doesn't know who he is himself."

"Bad luck for him!" remarked Palliser, and allowed a slight pause 
again. After it he added, "Did it ever strike you it might be good 
luck for somebody else?"

"Somebody else?" Tembarom puffed more slowly, perhaps because his pipe 
was lighted.

Palliser took some brandy in his soda.

"There are men, you know," he suggested, "who can be spared by their 
relatives. I have some myself, by Jove!" he added with a laugh. "You 
keep him rather dark, don't you?"

"He doesn't like to see people."

"Does he object to people seeing him? I saw him once myself."

"When you threw the gravel at his window?"

Palliser stared contemptuously.

"What are you talking about? I did not throw stones at his window," he 
lied. "I'm not a school-boy."

"That's so," Tembarom admitted.

"I saw him, nevertheless. And I can tell you he gave me rather a 
start."

"Why?"

Palliser half laughed again. He did not mean to go too quickly; he 
would let the thing get on Tembarom's nerves gradually.

"Well, I'm hanged if I didn't take him for a man who is dead."

"Enough to give any fellow a jolt," Tembarom admitted again.

"It gave me a `jolt.' Good word, that. But it would give you a bigger 
one, my dear fellow, if he was the man he looked like."

"Why?" Tembarom asked laconically.

"He looked like Jem Temple Barholm."

He saw Tembarom start. There could be no denying it.

"You thought that? Honest?" he said sharply, as if for a moment he had 
lost his head. "You thought that?"

"Don't be nervous. Perhaps I couldn't have sworn to it. I did not see 
him very close."

T. Tembarom puffed rapidly at his pipe, and only, ejaculated:

"Oh!"

"Of course he's dead. If he wasn't,"--with a shrug of his shoulders,-- 
"Lady Joan Fayre would be Lady Joan Temple Barholm, and the pair would 
be bringing up an interesting family here." He looked about the room, 
and then, as if suddenly recalling the fact, added, "By George! you'd 
be selling newspapers, or making them--which was it?--in New York!"

It was by no means unpleasing to see that he had made his hit there. 
T. Tembarom swung about and walked across the room with a suddenly 
perturbed expression.

"Say," he put it to him, coming back, "are you in earnest, or are you 
just saying it to give me a jolt?"

Palliser studied him. The American sharpness was not always so keen as 
it sometimes seemed. His face would have betrayed his uneasiness to 
the dullest onlooker.

"Have you any objection to my seeing him in his own room?" Palliser 
inquired.

"It does him harm to see people," Tembarom said, with nervous 
brusqueness. "It worries him."

Palliser smiled a quiet but far from agreeable smile. He enjoyed what 
he put into it.

"Quite so; best to keep him quiet," he returned. "Do you know what my 
advice would be? Put him in a comfortable sanatorium. A lot of stupid 
investigations would end in nothing, of course, but they'd be a 
frightful bore."

He thought it extraordinarily stupid in T. Tembarom to come nearer to 
him with an anxious eagerness entirely unconcealed, if he really knew 
what he was doing.

"Are you sure that if you saw him close you'd KNOW, so that you could 
swear to him?" he demanded.

"You're extremely nervous, aren't you?" Palliser watched him with 
smiling coolness. "Of course Jem Temple Barholm is dead; but I've no 
doubt that if I saw this man of yours, I could swear he had remained 
dead--if I were asked."

"If you knew him well, you could make me sure. You could swear one way 
or another. I want to be SURE," said Tembarom.

"So should I in your place; couldn't be too sure. Well, since you ask 
me, I COULD swear. I knew him well enough. He was one of my most 
intimate enemies. What do you say to letting me see him?"

"I would if I could," Tembarom replied, as if thinking it over. "I 
would if I could."

Palliser treated him to the far from pleasing smile again.

"But it's quite impossible at present?" he suggested. "Excitement is 
not good for him, and all that sort of thing. You want time to think 
it over."

Tembarom's slowly uttered answer, spoken as if he were still 
considering the matter, was far from being the one he had expected.

"I want time; but that's not the reason you can't see him right now. 
You can't see him because he's not here. He's gone."

Then it was Palliser who started, taken totally unaware in a manner 
which disgusted him altogether. He had to pull himself up.

"He's gone!" he repeated. "You are quicker than I thought. You've got 
him safely away, have you? Well, I told you a comfortable sanatorium 
would be a good idea."

"Yes, you did." T. Tembarom hesitated, seeming to be thinking it over 
again. "That's so." He laid his pipe aside because it had gone out.

He suddenly sat down at the table, putting his elbows on it and his 
face in his hands, with a harried effect of wanting to think it over 
in a sort of withdrawal from his immediate surroundings. This was as 
it should be. His Yankee readiness had deserted him altogether.

"By Jove! you are nervous!" Palliser commented. "It's not surprising, 
though. I can sympathize with you." With a markedly casual air he 
himself sat down and drew his documents toward him. "Let us talk of 
something else," he said. He preferred to be casual and incidental, if 
he were allowed. It was always better to suggest things and let them 
sink in until people saw the advantage of considering them and you. To 
manage a business matter without open argument or too frank a display 
of weapons was at once more comfortable and in better taste.

"You are making a great mistake in not going into this," he suggested 
amiably. "You could go in now as you went into Hutchinson's affair, 
`on the ground floor.' That's a good enough phrase, too. Twenty 
thousand pounds would make you a million. You Americans understand 
nothing less than millions."

But T. Tembarom did not take him up. He muttered in a worried way from 
behind his shading hands, "We'll talk about that later."

"Why not talk about it now, before anything can interfere?" Palliser 
persisted politely, almost gently.

Tembarom sprang up, restless and excited. He had plainly been planning 
fast in his temporary seclusion.

"I'm thinking of what you said about Lady Joan," he burst forth. "Say, 
she's gone through all this Jem Temple Barholm thing once; it about 
half killed her. If any one raised false hopes for her, she'd go 
through it all again. Once is enough for any woman."

His effect at professing heat and strong feeling made a spark of 
amusement show itself in Palliser's eye. It struck him as being 
peculiarly American in its affectation of sentiment and chivalry.

"I see," he said. "It's Lady Joan you're disturbed about. You want to 
spare her another shock, I see. You are a considerate fellow, as well 
as a man of business."

"I don't want her to begin to hope if--"

"Very good taste on your part." Palliser's polite approval was 
admirable, but he tapped lightly on the paper after expressing it. "I 
don't want to seem to press you about this, but don't you feel 
inclined to consider it? I can assure you that an investment of this 
sort would be a good thing to depend on if the unexpected happened. If 
you gave me your check now, it would be Cedric stock to-morrow, and 
quite safe. Suppose you--"

"I--I don't believe you were right--about what you thought." The 
sharp- featured face was changing from pale to red. "You'd have to be 
able to swear to it, anyhow, and I don't believe you can." He looked 
at Palliser in eager and anxious uncertainty. "If you could," he 
dragged out , "I shouldn't have a check-book. Where would you be 
then?"

"I should be in comfortable circumstances, dear chap, and so would you 
if you gave me the money to-night, while you possess a check-book. It 
would be only a sort of temporary loan in any case, whatever turned 
up. The investment would quadruple itself. But there is no time to be 
lost. Understand that."

T. Tembarom broke out into a sort of boyish resentment.

"I don't believe he did look like him, anyhow," he cried. "I believe 
it's all a bluff." His crude-sounding young swagger had a touch of 
final desperation in it as he turned on Palliser. "I'm dead sure it's 
a bluff. What a fool I was not to think of that! You want to bluff me 
into going into this Cedric thing. You could no more swear he was like 
him than --than I could."

The outright, presumptuous, bold stripping bare of his phrases 
infuriated Palliser too suddenly and too much. He stepped up to him 
and looked into his eyes.

"Bluff you, you young bounder!" he flung out at him. "You're losing 
your head. You're not in New York streets here. You are talking to a 
gentleman. No," he said furiously, "I couldn't swear that he was like 
him, but what I can swear in any court of justice is that the man I 
saw at the window was Jem Temple Barholm, and no other man on earth."

When he had said it, he saw the astonishing dolt change his expression 
utterly again, as if in a flash. He stood up, putting his hands in his 
pockets. His face changed, his voice changed.

"Fine!" he said. "First-rate! That's what I wanted to get on to."




CHAPTER XXXIV


After this climax the interview was not so long as it was interesting. 
Two men as far apart as the poles, as remote from each other in mind 
and body, in training and education or lack of it, in desires and 
intentions, in points of view and trend of being, as nature and 
circumstances could make them, talked in a language foreign to each 
other of a wildly strange thing. Palliser's arguments and points of 
aspect were less unknown to T. Tembarom than his own were to Palliser. 
He had seen something very like them before, though they had developed 
in different surroundings and had been differently expressed. The 
colloquialism "You're not doing that for your health" can be made to 
cover much ground in the way of the stripping bare of motives for 
action. This was what, in excellent and well-chosen English, Captain 
Palliser frankly said to his host. Of nothing which T. Tembarom said 
to him in his own statement did he believe one word or syllable. The 
statement in question was not long or detailed. It was, of course, 
Palliser saw, a ridiculously impudent flinging together of a farrago 
of nonsense, transparent in its effort beyond belief. Before he had 
listened five minutes with the distinctly "nasty" smile, he burst out 
laughing.

"That is a good `spiel,' my dear chap," he said. "It's as good a 
`spiel' as your typewriter friend used to rattle off when he thought 
he saw a customer; but I'm not a customer."

Tembarom looked at him interestedly for about ten seconds. His hands 
were thrust into his trousers pockets, as was his almost invariable 
custom. Absorption and speculation, even emotion and excitement, were 
usually expressed in this unconventional manner.



"You don't believe a darned word of it," was his sole observation.

"Not a darned word," Palliser smiled. "You are trying a `bluff,' which 
doesn't do credit to your usual sharpness. It's a bluff that is 
actually silly. It makes you look like an ass."

"Well, it's true," said Tembarom; "it's true."

Palliser laughed again.

"I only said it made you look like an ass," he remarked. "I don't 
profess to understand you altogether, because you are a new species. 
Your combination of ignorance and sharpness isn't easy to calculate 
on. But there is one thing I have found out, and that is, that when 
you want to play a particular sharp trick you are willing to let 
people take you for a fool. I'll own you've deceived me once or twice, 
even when I suspected you. I've heard that's one of the most 
successful methods used in the American business world. That's why I 
only say you look like an ass. You are an ass in some respects; but 
you are letting yourself look like one now for some shrewd end. You 
either think you'll slip out of danger by it when I make this 
discovery public, or you think you'll somehow trick me into keeping my 
mouth shut."

"I needn't trick you into keeping your mouth shut," Tembarom 
suggested. "There's a straightway to do that, ain't there?" And he 
indelicately waved his hand toward the documents pertaining to the 
Cedric Company.

It was stupid as well as gross, in his hearer's opinion. If he had 
known what was good for him he would have been clever enough to ignore 
the practical presentation of his case made half an hour or so 
earlier.

"No, there is not," Palliser replied, with serene mendacity. "No 
suggestion of that sort has been made. My business proposition was 
given out on an entirely different basis. You, of course, choose to 
put your personal construction upon it."

"Gee whiz!" ejaculated T. Tembarom. "I was 'way off, wasn't I?"

"I told you that professing to be an ass wouldn't be good enough in 
this case. Don't go on with it," said Palliser, sharply.

"You're throwing bouquets. Let a fellow be natural," said Tembarom.

"That is bluff, too," Palliser replied more sharply still. "I am not 
taken in by it, bold as it is. Ever since you came here, you have been 
playing this game. It was your fool's grin and guffaw and pretense of 
good nature that first made me suspect you of having something up your 
sleeve. You were too unembarrassed and candid."

"So you began to look out," Tembarom said, considering him curiously, 
"just because of that." Then suddenly he laughed outright, the fool's 
guffaw.

It somehow gave Palliser a sort of puzzled shock. It was so hearty 
that it remotely suggested that he appeared more secure than seemed 
possible. He tried to reply to him with a languid contempt of manner.

"You think you have some tremendously sharp `deal' in your hand," he 
said, "but you had better remember you are in England where facts are 
like sledge-hammers. You can't dodge from under them as you can in 
America. I dare say you won't answer me, but I should like to ask you 
what you propose to do."

"I don't know what I'm going to do any more than you do," was the 
unilluminating answer. "I don't mind telling you that."

"And what do you think he will do?"

"I've got to wait till I find out. I'm doing it. That was what I told 
you. What are you going to do?" he added casually.

"I'm going to Lincoln's Inn Fields to have an interview with Palford & 
Grimby."

"That's a good enough move," commented Tembarom, "if you think you can 
prove what you say. You've got to prove things, you know. I couldn't, 
so I lay low and waited, just like I told you."

"Of course, of course," Palliser himself almost grinned in his 
derision. "You have only been waiting."

"When you've got to prove a thing, and haven't much to go on, you've 
got to wait," said T. Tembarom--"to wait and keep your mouth shut, 
whatever happens, and to let yourself be taken for a fool or a horse- 
thief isn't as gilt-edged a job as it seems. But proof's what it's 
best to have before you ring up the curtain. You'd have to have it 
yourself. So would Palford & Grimby before it'd be stone-cold safe to 
rush things and accuse a man of a penitentiary offense."

He took his unconventional half-seat on the edge of the table, with 
one foot on the floor and the other one lightly swinging.

"Palford & Grimby are clever old ducks, and they know that much. Thing 
they'd know best would be that to set a raft of lies going about a man 
who's got money enough to defend himself, and to make them pay big 
damages for it afterward, would be pretty bum business. I guess they 
know all about what proof stands for. They may have to wait; so may 
you, same as I have."

Palliser realized that he was in the position of a man striking at an 
adversary whose construction was of India-rubber. He struck home, but 
left no bruise and drew no blood, which was an irritating thing. He 
lost his temper.

"Proof!" he jerked out. "There will be proof enough, and when it is 
made public, you will not control the money you threaten to use."

"When you get proof, just you let me hear about it," T. Tembarom said. 
"And all the money I'm threatening on shall go where it belongs, and 
I'll go back to New York and sell papers if I have to. It won't come 
as hard as you think."

The flippant insolence with which he brazened out his pretense that he 
had not lied, that his ridiculous romance was actual and simple truth, 
suggested dangerous readiness of device and secret knowledge of power 
which could be adroitly used.

"You are merely marking time," said Palliser, rising, with cold 
determination to be juggled with no longer. "You have hidden him away 
where you think you can do as you please with a man who is an invalid. 
That is your dodge. You've got him hidden somewhere, and his friends 
had better get at him before it is too late."

"I'm not answering questions this evening, and I'm not giving 
addresses, though there are no witnesses to take them down. If he's 
hidden away, he's where he won't be disturbed," was T. Tembarom's 
rejoinder. "You may lay your bottom dollar on that."

Palliser walked toward the door without speaking. He had almost 
reached it when he whirled about involuntarily, arrested by a shout of 
laughter.

"Say," announced Tembarom, "you mayn't know it, but this lay-out would 
make a first-rate turn in a vaudeville. You think I'm lying, I look 
like I'm lying, I guess every word I say sounds like I'm lying. To a 
fellow like you, I guess it couldn't help but sound that way. And I'm 
not lying. That's where the joke comes in. I'm not lying. I've not 
told you all I know because it's none of your business and wouldn't 
help; but what I have told you is the stone-cold truth."

He was keeping it up to the very end with a desperate determination 
not to let go his hold of his pose until he had made his private 
shrewd deal, whatsoever it was. At least, so it struck Palliser, who 
merely said:

"I 'm leaving the house by the first train to-morrow morning." He 
fixed a cold gray eye on the fool's grin.

"Six forty-five," said T. Tembarom. "I'll order the carriage. I might 
go up myself."

The door closed.


Tembarom was looking cheerful enough when he went into his bedroom. He 
had become used to its size and had learned to feel that it was a good 
sort of place. It had the hall bedroom at Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house 
"beaten to a frazzle." There was about everything in it that any man 
could hatch up an idea he'd like to have. He had slept luxuriously on 
the splendid carved bed through long nights, he had lain awake and 
thought out things on it, he had lain and watched the fire-light 
flickering on the ceiling, as he thought about Ann and made plans, and 
"fixed up" the Harlem flat which could be run on fifteen per. He had 
picked out the pieces of furniture from the Sunday Earth advertisement 
sheet, and had set them in their places. He always saw the six-dollar 
mahogany-stained table set for supper, with Ann at one end and himself 
at the other. He had grown actually fond of the old room because of 
the silence and comfort of it, which tended to give reality to his 
dreams. Pearson, who had ceased to look anxious, and who had acquired 
fresh accomplishments in the form of an entirely new set of duties, 
was waiting, and handed him a telegram.

"This just arrived, sir," he explained. "James brought it here because 
he thought you had come up, and I didn't send it down because I heard 
you on the stairs."

"That's right. Thank you, Pearson," his master said.

He tore the yellow envelop, and read the message. In a moment Pearson 
knew it was not an ordinary message, and therefore remained more than 
ordinarily impassive of expression. He did not even ask of himself 
what it might convey.

Mr. Temple Barholm stood still a few seconds, with the look of a man 
who must think and think rapidly.

"What is the next train to London, Pearson?" he asked.

"There is one at twelve thirty-six, sir," he answered. "It's the last 
till six in the morning. You have to change at Crowley."

"You're always ready, Pearson," returned Mr. Temple Barholm. "I want 
to get that train."

Pearson was always ready. Before the last word was quite spoken he had 
turned and opened the bedroom door.

"I'll order the dog-cart; that's quickest, sir," he said. He was out 
of the room and in again almost immediately. Then he was at the 
wardrobe and taking out what Mr. Temple Barholm called his "grip," but 
what Pearson knew as a Gladstone bag. It was always kept ready packed 
for unexpected emergencies of travel.

Mr. Temple Barholm sat at the table and drew pen and paper toward him. 
He looked excited; he looked more troubled than Pearson had seen him 
look before.

"The wire's from Sir Ormsby Galloway, Pearson," he said.

"It's about Mr. Strangeways. He's done what I used to be always 
watching out against: he's disappeared."

"Disappeared, sir!" cried Pearson, and almost dropped the Gladstone 
bag. "I beg pardon, sir. I know there's no time to lose." He steadied 
the bag and went on with his task without even turning round.

His master was in some difficulty. He began to write, and after 
dashing off a few words, stopped, and tore them up.

"No," he muttered, "that won't do. There's no time to explain." Then 
he began again, but tore up his next lines also.

"That says too much and not enough. It'd frighten the life out of 
her."

He wrote again, and ended by folding the sheet and putting it into an 
envelop.

"This is a message for Miss Alicia," he said to Pearson. "Give it to 
her in the morning. I don't want her to worry because I had to go in a 
hurry. Tell her everything's going to be all right; but you needn't 
mention that anything's happened to Mr. Strangeways."

"Yes, sir," answered Pearson.

Mr. Temple Barholm was already moving about the room, doing odd things 
for himself rapidly, and he went on speaking.

"I want you and Rose to know," he said, "that whatever happens, you 
are both fixed all right--both of you. I've seen to that."

"Thank you, sir," Pearson faltered, made uneasy by something new in 
his tone. "You said whatever happened, sir--"

"Whatever old thing happens," his master took him up.

"Not to you, sir. Oh, I hope, sir, that nothing--"

Mr. Temple Barholm put a cheerful hand on his shoulder.

"Nothing's going to happen that'll hurt any one. Things may change, 
that's all. You and Rose are all right, Miss Alicia's all right, I'm 
all right. Come along. Got to catch that train."'

In this manner he took his departure.

Miss Alicia had from necessity acquired the habit of early rising at 
Rowcroft vicarage, and as the next morning was bright, she was 
clipping roses on a terrace before breakfast when Pearson brought her 
the note.

"Mr. Temple Barholm received a telegram from London last night, 
ma'am," he explained, "and he was obliged to take the midnight train. 
He hadn't time to do any more than leave a few lines for you, but he 
asked me to tell you that nothing disturbing had occurred. He 
specially mentioned that everything was all right."

"But how very sudden!" exclaimed Miss Alicia, opening her note and 
beginning to read it. Plainly it had been written hurriedly indeed. It 
read as though he had been in such haste that he hadn't had time to be 
clear.





Dear little Miss Alicia:

I've got to light out of here as quick as I can make it. I can't even 
stop to tell you why. There's just one thing-- don't get rattled, Miss 
Alicia. Whatever any one says or does, just don't let yourself get 
rattled.

Yours affectionately,

T. TEMBAROM.





"Pearson," Miss Alicia exclaimed, again looking up, "are you sure 
everything is all right?"

"That was what he said, ma'am. `All right,' ma'am."

"Thank you, Pearson. I am glad to hear it."

She walked to and fro in the sunshine, reading the note and rereading 
it.

"Of course if he said it was all right, it was all right," she 
murmured. "It is only the phrasing that makes me slightly nervous. Why 
should he ask me not to get rattled?" The term was by this time as 
familiar to her as any in Dr. Johnson's dictionary. "Of course he 
knows I do get rattled much too easily; but why should I be in danger 
of getting rattled now if nothing has happened?" She gave a very small 
start as she remembered something. "Could it be that Captain Palliser-
- But how could he? Though I do not like Captain Palliser."

Captain Palliser, her distaste for whom at the moment quite agitated 
her, was this morning an early riser also, and as she turned in her 
walk she found him coming toward her.

"I find I am obliged to take an early train to London this morning," 
he said, after their exchange of greetings. "It is quite unexpected. I 
spoke to Mr. Temple Barholm about it last night."

Perhaps the unexpectedness, perhaps a certain suggestion of 
coincidence, caused Miss Alicia's side ringlets to appear momentarily 
tremulous.

"Then perhaps we had better go in to breakfast at once," she said.

"Is Mr. Temple Barholm down?" he inquired as they seated themselves at 
the breakfast-table.

"He is not here," she answered. "He, too, was called away 
unexpectedly. He went to London by the midnight train."

She had never been so aware of her unchristian lack of liking for 
Captain Palliser as she was when he paused a moment before he made any 
comment. His pause was as marked as a start, and the smile he indulged 
in was, she felt, most singularly disagreeable. It was a smile of the 
order which conceals an unpleasant explanation of itself.

"Oh," he remarked, "he has gone first, has he?"

"Yes," she answered, pouring out his coffee for him. "He evidently had 
business of importance."

They were quite alone, and she was not one of the women one need 
disturb oneself about. She had been browbeaten into hypersensitive 
timidity early in life, and did not know how to resent cleverly 
managed polite bullying. She would always feel herself at fault if she 
was tempted to criticize any one. She was innocent and nervous enough 
to betray herself to any extent, because she would feel it rude to 
refuse to answer questions, howsoever far they exceeded the limits of 
polite curiosity. He had learned a good deal from her in the past. Why 
not try what could be startled out of her now? Thus Captain Palliser 
said:

"I dare say you feel a little anxious at such an extraordinarily 
sudden departure," he suggested amiably. "Bolting off in the middle of 
the night was sudden, if he did not explain himself."

"He had no time to explain," she answered.

"That makes it appear all the more sudden. But no doubt he left you a 
message. I saw you were reading a note when I joined you on the 
terrace."

Lightly casual as he chose to make the words sound, they were an 
audacity he would have known better than to allow himself with any one 
but a timid early-Victorian spinster whose politeness was 
hypersensitive in its quality.

"He particularly desired that I should not be anxious," she said. "He 
is always considerate."

"He would, of course, have explained everything if he had not been so 
hurried?"

"Of course, if it had been necessary," answered Miss Alicia, nervously 
sipping her tea.

"Naturally," said Captain Palliser. "His note no doubt mentioned that 
he went away on business connected with his friend Mr. Strangeways?"

There was no question of the fact that she was startled.

"He had not time enough," she said. "He could only write a few lines. 
Mr. Strangeways?"

"We had a long talk about him last night. He told me a remarkable 
story," Captain Palliser went on. "I suppose you are quite familiar 
with all the details of it?"

"I know how he found him in New York, and I know how generous he has 
been to him."

"Have you been told nothing more?"

"There was nothing more to tell. If there was anything, I am sure he 
had some good reason for not telling me," said Miss Alicia, loyally. 
"His reasons are always good."

Palliser's air of losing a shade or so of discretion as a result of 
astonishment was really well done.

"Do you mean to say that he has not even hinted that ever since he 
arrived at Temple Barholm he has strongly suspected Strangeways' 
identity--that he has even known who he is?" he exclaimed.

Miss Alicia's small hands clung to the table-cloth.

"He has not known at all. He has been most anxious to discover. He has 
used every endeavor," she brought out with some difficulty.

"You say he has been trying to find out?" Palliser interposed.

"He has been more than anxious," she protested. "He has been to London 
again and again; he has gone to great expense; he has even seen people 
from Scotland Yard. I have sometimes almost thought he was assuming 
more responsibility than was just to himself. In the case of a 
relative or an old friend, but for an entire stranger--Oh, really, I 
ought not to seem to criticize. I do not presume to criticize his 
wonderful generosity and determination and goodness. No one should 
presume to question him."

"If he knows that you feel like this--" Palliser began.

"He knows all that I feel," Miss Alicia took him up with a pretty, 
rising spirit. "He knows that I am full of unspeakable gratitude to 
him for his beautiful kindness to me; he knows that I admire and 
respect and love him in a way I could never express, and that I would 
do anything in the world he could wish me to do."

"Naturally," said Captain Palliser. "I was only about to express my 
surprise that since he is aware of all this he has not told you who he 
has proved Strangeways to be. It is a little odd, you know."

"I think "--Miss Alicia was even gently firm in her reply --"that you 
are a little mistaken in believing Mr. Temple Barholm has proved Mr. 
Strangeways to be anybody. When he has proof, he will no doubt think 
proper to tell me about it. Until then I should prefer--"

Palliser laughed as he finished her sentence.

"Not to know. I was not going to betray him, Miss Alicia. He evidently 
has one of his excellent reasons for keeping things to himself. I may 
mention, however, that it is not so much he who has proof as I 
myself."

"You!" How could she help quite starting in her seat when his gray 
eyes fixed themselves on her with such a touch of finely amused 
malice?

"I offered him the proof last night, and it rather upset him," he 
said. "He thought no one knew but himself, and he was not inclined to 
tell the world. He was upset because I said I had seen the man and 
could swear to his identity. That was why he went away so hurriedly. 
He no doubt went to see Strangeways and talk it over."

"See Mr. Strangeways? But Mr. Strangeways--" Miss Alicia rose and rang 
the bell.

"Tell Pearson I wish to see him at once," she said to the footman.

Palliser took in her mood without comment. He had no objection to 
being present when she made inquiries of Pearson.

"I hear the wheels of the dog-cart," he remarked. "You see, I must 
catch my train."

Pearson stood at the door.

"Is not Mr. Strangeways in his room, Pearson?" Miss Alicia asked.

"Mr. Temple Barholm took him to London when he last went, ma'am," 
answered Pearson. "You remember he went at night. The doctor thought 
it best."

"He did not tell you that, either?" said Palliser, casually.

"The dog-cart is at the door, sir," announced Pearson.

Miss Alicia's hand was unsteady when the departing guest took it.

"Don't be disturbed," he said considerately, "but a most singular 
thing has happened. When I asked so many questions about Temple 
Barholm's Man with the Iron Mask I asked them for curious reasons. 
That must be my apology. You will hear all about it later, probably 
from Palford & Grimby."

When he had left the room Miss Alicia stood upon the hearth- rug as 
the dog-cart drove away, and she was pale. Her simple and easily 
disturbed brain was in a whirl. She could scarcely remember what she 
had heard, and could not in the least comprehend what it had seemed 
intended to imply, except that there had been concealed in the 
suggestions some disparagement of her best beloved.

Singular as it was that Pearson should return without being summoned, 
when she turned and found that he mysteriously stood inside the 
threshold again, as if she had called him, she felt a great sense of 
relief.

"Pearson," she faltered, "I am rather upset by certain things which 
Captain Palliser has said. I am afraid I do not understand."

She looked at him helplessly, not knowing what more to say. She wished 
extremely that she could think of something definite.

The masterly finish of Pearson's reply lay in its neatly restrained 
hint of unobtrusively perceptive sympathy.

"Yes, Miss. I was afraid so. Which is why I took the liberty of 
stepping into the room again. I myself do not understand, but of 
course I do not expect to. If I may be so bold as to say it, Miss, 
whatever we don't understand, we both understand Mr. Temple Barholm. 
My instructions were to remind you, Miss, that everything would be all 
right."

Miss Alicia took up her letter from the table where she had laid it 
down.

"Thank you, Pearson," she said, her forehead beginning to clear itself 
a little. "Of course, of course. I ought not to-- He told me not to-- 
get rattled," she added with plaintive ingenuousness, "and I ought not 
to, above all things."

"Yes, Miss. It is most important that you should not."




CHAPTER XXXV


The story of the adventures, experiences, and journeyings of Mr. 
Joseph Hutchinson, his daughter, and the invention, if related in 
detail, would prove reading of interest; but as this is merely a study 
of the manner in which the untrained characteristics and varied 
limitations of one man adjusted or failed to adjust themselves to 
incongruous surroundings and totally unprepared-for circumstances, 
such details, whatsoever their potential picturesqueness, can be 
touched upon but lightly. No new idea of value to the world of 
practical requirements is presented to the public at large without the 
waking of many sleeping dogs, and the stirring of many snapping fish, 
floating with open ears and eyes in many pools. An uneducated, 
blustering, obstinate man of one idea, having resentfully borne 
discouragement and wounded egotism for years, and suddenly confronting 
immense promise of success, is not unlikely to be prey easily 
harpooned. Joseph Hutchinson's rebound from despair to high and well-
founded hope made of him exactly what such a man is always made by 
such rebound. The testimony to his genius and judgment which 
acknowledgment of the value of his work implied was naturally, in his 
opinion, only a proper tribute which the public had been a bull-headed 
fool not to lay at his feet years before. So much time lost, and so 
much money for it, as well as for him, and served 'em all damned well 
right, he said. If Temple Barholm hadn't come into his money, and 
hadn't had more sense than the rest of them, where would they all have 
been? Perhaps they'd never have had the benefit of the thing he'd been 
telling them about for years. He prided himself immensely on the 
possession of a business shrewdness which was an absolute defense 
against any desire on the part of the iniquitous to overreach him. He 
believed it to be a peculiarly Lancashire characteristic, and kept it 
in view constantly.

"Lancashire's not easy to do," he would say hilariously, "Them that 
can do a Lancashire chap has got to look out that they get up early in 
the morning and don't go to bed till late."

Smooth-mannered and astute men of business who knew how to make a man 
talk were given diffuse and loud-voiced explanations of his methods 
and long-acknowledged merits and characteristics. His life, his 
morals, and his training, or rather lack ot it, were laid before them 
as examples of what a man might work himself up to if "he had it in 
him." Education didn't do it. He had never been to naught but a 
village school, where he'd picked up precious little but the three 
R's. It had to be born in a man. Look at him! His invention promised 
to bring him in a fortune like a duke's, if he managed it right and 
kept his eyes open for sharpers. This company and that company were 
after him, but Lancashire didn't snap up things without going into 
'em, and under 'em, and through 'em, for the matter of that.

The well-mannered gentlemen of business stimulated him greatly by 
their appreciative attention. He sometimes lost his head a trifle and 
almost bullied them, but they did not seem to mind it. Their 
apparently old- time knowledge of and respect for Lancashire business 
sagacity seemed invariably a marked thing. Men of genius and powerful 
character combined with practical shrewdness of outlook they 
intimated, were of enormous value to the business world. They were to 
be counted upon as important factors. They could see and deal with 
both sides of a proposal as those of weaker mind could not.

"That they can," Hutchinson would admit, rolling about in his chair 
and thrusting his hands in his pockets. "They've got some bottom to 
stand on." And he would feel amenable to reason.

Little Ann found her duties and responsibilities increasing daily. 
Many persons seemed to think it necessary to come and talk business, 
and father had so much to think of and reason out, so that he could be 
sure that he didn't make any mistakes. In a quiet, remote, and 
darkened corner of her mind, in which were stored all such things as 
it was well to say little or nothing about, there was discreetly kept 
for reference the secretly acquired knowledge that father did not know 
so much about business ways and business people as he thought he did. 
Mother had learned this somewhat important fact, and had secluded it 
in her own private mental store-room with much affectionate delicacy.

"Father's a great man and a good man, Ann love," she had confided to 
her, choosing an occasion when her husband was a hundred miles away, 
"and he IS right-down Lancashire in his clever way of seeing through 
people that think themselves sharp; but when a man is a genius and 
noble-minded he sometimes can't see the right people's faults and 
wickedness. He thinks they mean as honest as he does. And there's 
times when he may get taken in if some one, perhaps not half as clever 
as he is, doesn't look after him. When the invention's taken up, and 
everybody's running after him to try to cheat him out of his rights, 
if I'm not there, Ann, you must just keep with him and watch every 
minute. I've seen these sharp, tricky ones right-down flinch and quail 
when there was a nice, quiet-behaved woman in the room, and she just 
fixed her eye steady and clear-like on them and showed she'd took in 
every word and was like to remember. You know what I mean, Ann; you've 
got that look in your own eye."

She had. The various persons who interviewed Mr. Hutchinson became 
familiar with the fact that he had an unusual intimacy with and 
affection for his daughter. She was present on all occasions. If she 
had not been such a quiet and entirely unobtrusive little thing, she 
might have been an obstacle to freedom of expression. But she seemed a 
childish, unsophisticated creature, who always had a book with her 
when she waited in an office, and a trifle of sewing to occupy herself 
with when she was at home. At first she so obliterated herself that 
she was scarcely noticed; but in course of time it became observed by 
some that she was curiously pretty. The face usually bent over her 
book or work was tinted like a flower, and she had quite magnificent 
red hair. A stout old financier first remarked her eyes. He found one 
day that she had quietly laid her book on her lap, and that they were 
resting upon him like unflinching crystals as he talked to her father. 
Their serenity made him feel annoyed and uncomfortable. It was a sort 
of recording serenity. He felt as though she would so clearly remember 
every word he had said that she would be able to write it down when 
she went home; and he did not care to have it written down. So he 
began to wander somewhat in his argument, and did not reach his 
conclusions.

"I was glad, Father, to see how you managed that gentleman this 
afternoon," Little Ann said that night when Hutchinson had settled 
himself with his pipe after an excellent dinner.

"Eh?" he exclaimed. "Eh?"

"The one," she exclaimed, "that thought he was so sure he was going to 
persuade you to sign that paper. I do wonder he could think you'd 
listen to such a poor offer, and tie up so much. Why, even I could see 
he was trying to take advantage, and I know nothing in the world about 
business."

The financier in question had been a brilliant and laudatory 
conversationalist, and had so soothed and exhilarated Mr. Hutchinson 
that such perils had beset him as his most lurid imaginings could 
never have conceived in his darkest moments of believing that the 
entire universe had ceased all other occupation to engage in that of 
defrauding him of his rights and dues. He had been so uplifted by the 
admiration of his genius so properly exhibited, and the fluency with 
which his future fortunes had been described, that he had been huffed 
when the arguments seemed to dwindle away. Little Ann startled him, 
but it was not he who would show signs of dismay at the totally 
unexpected expression of adverse opinion. He had got into the habit of 
always listening, though inadvertently, as it were, to Ann as he had 
inadvertently listened to her mother.

"Rosenthal?" he said. "Are you talking about him?"

"Yes, I am," Little Ann answeered, smiling approvingly over her bit of 
sewing. "Father, I wish you'd try and teach me some of the things you 
know about business. I've learned a little by just listening to you 
talk; but I should so like to feel as if I could follow you when you 
argue. I do so enjoy hearing you argue. It's just an education."

"Women are not up to much at business," reflected Hutchinson. "If 
you'd been a boy, I'd have trained you same as I've trained myself. 
You're a sharp little thing, Ann, but you're a woman. Not but what a 
woman's the best thing on earth," he added almost severely in his 
conviction--"the best thing on earth in her place. I don't know what 
I'd ever have done without you, Ann, in the bad times."

He loved her, blundering old egotist, just as he had loved her mother. 
Ann always knew it, and her own love for him warmed all the world 
about them both. She got up and went to him to kiss him, and pat him, 
and stuff a cushion behind his stout back.

"And now the good times have come," she said, bestowing on him two or 
three special little pats which were caresses of her own invention, 
"and people see what you are and always have been, as they ought to 
have seen long ago, I don't want to feel as if I couldn't keep up with 
you and understand your plans. Perhaps I've got a little bit of your 
cleverness, and you might teach me to use it in small ways. I've got a 
good memory you know, Father love, and I might recollect things people 
say and make bits of notes of them to save you trouble. And I can 
calculate. I once got a copy of Bunyan's `Pilgrim's Progress' for a 
prize at the village school just for sums."

The bald but unacknowledged fact that Mr. Hutchinson had never 
exhibited gifts likely to entitle him to receive a prize for "sums" 
caused this suggestion to be one of some practical value. When 
business men talked to him of per cents., and tenth shares or net 
receipts, and expected him to comprehend their proportions upon the 
spot without recourse to pencil and paper, he felt himself grow hot 
and nervous and red, and was secretly terrified lest the party of the 
second part should detect that he was tossed upon seas of horrible 
uncertainty. T. Tembarom in the same situation would probably have 
said, "This is the place where T. T. sits down a while to take breath 
and count things up on his fingers. I am not a sharp on arithmetic, 
and I need time--lots of it."

Mr. Hutchinson's way was to bluster irritatedly.

"Aye, aye, I see that, of course, plain enough. I see that." And feel 
himself breaking into a cold perspiration. "Eh, this English climate 
is a damp un," he would add when it became necessary to mop his red 
forehead somewhat with his big clean handkerchief.

Therefore he found it easy to receive Little Ann's proposition with 
favor.

"There's summat i' that," he acknowledged graciously, dropping into 
Lancashire. "That's one of the little things a woman can do if she's 
sharp at figures. Your mother taught me that much. She always said 
women ought to look after the bits of things as was too small for a 
man to bother with."

"Men have the big things to look after. That's enough for anybody," 
said Little Ann. "And they ought to leave something for women to do. 
If you'll just let me keep notes for you and remember things and 
answer your letters, and just make calculations you're too busy to 
attend to, I should feel right-down happy, Father."

"Eh!" he said relievedly, "tha art like thy mother."

"That would make me happy if there was nothing else to do it," said 
Ann, smoothing his shoulder.

"You're her girl," he said, warmed and supported.

"Yes, I'm her girl, and I'm yours. Now, isn't there some little thing 
I could begin with? Would you mind telling me if I was right in what I 
thought you thought about Mr. Rosenthal's offer?"

"What did you think I thought about it?" He was able to put 
affectionate condescension into the question.

She went to her work-basket and took out a sheet of paper. She came 
back and sat cozily on the arm of his chair.

"I had to put it all down when I came home," she said. "I wanted to 
make sure I hadn't forgotten. I do hope I didn't make mistakes."

She gave it to him to look at, and as he settled himself down to its 
careful examination, she kept her blue eyes upon him. She herself did 
not know that it was a wonderful little document in its neatly jotted 
down notes of the exact detail most important to his interests.

There were figures, there were calculations of profits, there were 
records of the gist of his replies, there were things Hutchinson 
himself could not possibly have fished out of the jumbled rag-bag of 
his uncertain recollections.

"Did I say that?" he exclaimed once.

"Yes, Father love, and I could see it upset him. I was watching his 
face because it wasn't a face I took to."

Joseph Hutchinson began to chuckle--the chuckle of a relieved and 
gratified stout man.

"Tha kept thy eyes open, Little Ann," he said. "And the way tha's put 
it down is a credit to thee. And I'll lay a sovereign that tha made no 
mistakes in what tha thought I was thinking."

He was a little anxious to hear what it had been. The memorandum had 
brought him up with a slight shock, because it showed him that he had 
not remembered certain points, and had passed over others which were 
of dangerous importance. Ann slipped her warm arm about his neck, as 
she nearly always did when she sat on the arm of his chair and talked 
things over with him. She had never thought, in fact she was not even 
aware, that her soft little instincts made her treat him as the big, 
good, conceited, blundering child nature had created him.

"What I was seeing all the time was the way you were taking in his 
trick of putting whole lots of things in that didn't really matter, 
and leaving out things that did," she explained. "He kept talking 
about what the invention would make in England, and how it would make 
it, and adding up figures and per cents. and royalties until my head 
was buzzing inside. And when he thought he'd got your mind fixed on 
England so that you'd almost forget there was any other country to 
think of, he read out the agreement that said `All rights,' and he was 
silly enough to think he could get you to sign it without reading it 
over and over yourself, and showing it to a clever lawyer that would 
know that as many tricks can be played by things being left out of a 
paper as by things being put in."

Small beads of moisture broke out on the bald part of Joseph 
Hutchinson's head. He had been first so flattered and exhilarated by 
the quoting of large figures, and then so flustrated and embarrassed 
by his inability to calculate and follow argument, and again so 
soothed and elated and thrilled by his own importance in the scheme 
and the honors which his position in certain companies would heap upon 
him, that an abyss had yawned before him of which he had been wholly 
unaware. He was not unaware of it now. He was a vainglorious, ignorant 
man, whose life had been spent in common work done under the 
supervision of those who knew what he did not know. He had fed himself 
upon the comforting belief that he had learned all the tricks of any 
trade. He had been openly boastful of his astuteness and experience, 
and yet, as Ann's soft little voice went on, and she praised his 
cleverness in seeing one point after another, he began to quake within 
himself before the dawning realization that he had seen none of them, 
that he had been carried along exactly as Rosenthal had intended that 
he should be, and that if luck had not intervened, he had been on the 
brink of signing his name to an agreement that would have implied a 
score of concessions he would have bellowed like a bull at the thought 
of making if he had known what he was doing.

"Aye, lass," he gulped out when he could speak--"aye, lass, tha wert 
right enow. I'm glad tha wert there and heard it, and saw what I was 
thinking. I didn't say much. I let the chap have rope enow to hang 
himself with. When he comes back I'll give him a bit o' my mind as'll 
startle him. It was right-down clever of thee to see just what I had 
i' my head about all that there gab about things as didn't matter, an' 
the leavin' out them as did--thinking I wouldn't notice. Many's the 
time I've said, `It is na so much what's put into a contract as what's 
left out.' I'll warrant tha'st heard me say it thysen."

"I dare say I have," answered Ann, "and I dare say that was why it 
came into my mind."

"That was it," he answered. "Thy mother was always tellin' me of 
things I'd said that I'd clean forgot myself."

He was beginning to recover his balance and self-respect. It would 
have been so like a Lancashire chap to have seen and dealt shrewdly 
with a business schemer who tried to outwit him that he was gradually 
convinced that he had thought all that had been suggested, and had 
comported himself with triumphant though silent astuteness. He even 
began to rub his hands.

"I'll show him," he said, "I'll send him off with a flea in his ear."

"If you'll help me, I'll study out the things I've written down on 
this paper," Ann said, "and then I'll write down for you just the 
things you make up your mind to say. It will be such a good lesson for 
me, if you don't mind, Father. It won't be much to write it out the 
way you'll say it. You know how you always feel that in business the 
fewer words the better, and that, however much a person deserves it, 
calling names and showing you're angry is only wasting time. One of 
the cleverest things you ever thought was that a thief doesn't mind 
being called one if he's got what he wanted out of you; he'll only 
laugh to see you in a rage when you can't help yourself. And if he 
hasn't got what he wanted, it's only waste of strength to work 
yourself up. It's you being what you are that makes you know that 
temper isn't business."

"Well," said Hutchinson, drawing a long and deep breath, "I was almost 
hot enough to have forgot that, and I'm glad you've reminded me. We'll 
go over that paper now, Ann. I'd like to give you your lesson while 
we've got a bit o' time to ourselves and what I've said is fresh in 
your mind. The trick is always to get at things while they're fresh in 
your mind."

The little daughter with the red hair was present during Rosenthal's 
next interview with the owner of the invention. The fellow, he told 
himself, had been thinking matters over, had perhaps consulted a 
lawyer; and having had time for reflection, he did not present a mass 
of mere inflated and blundering vanity as a target for adroit aim. He 
seemed a trifle sulky, but he did not talk about himself diffusely, 
and lose his head when he was smoothed the right way. He had a set of 
curiously concise notes to which he referred, and he stuck to his 
points with a bulldog obstinacy which was not to be shaken. Something 
had set him on a new tack. The tricks which could be used only with a 
totally ignorant and readily flattered and influenced business amateur 
were no longer in order. This was baffling and irritating.

The worst feature of the situation was that the daughter did not read 
a book, as had seemed her habit at other times. She sat with a tablet 
and pencil on her knee, and, still as unobtrusively as ever, jotted 
down notes.

"Put that down, Ann," her father said to her more than once. "There's 
no objections to having things written down, I suppose?" he put it 
bluntly to Rosenthal. "I've got to have notes made when I'm doing 
business. Memory's all well enough, but black and white's better. No 
one can go back of black and white. Notes save time."

There was but one attitude possible. No man of business could resent 
the recording of his considered words, but the tablet and pencil and 
the quietly bent red head were extraordinary obstacles to the fluidity 
of eloquence. Rosenthal found his arguments less ready and his methods 
modifying themselves. The outlook narrowed itself. When he returned to 
his office and talked the situation over with his partner, he sat and 
bit his nails in restless irritation.

"Ridiculous as it seems, outrageously ridiculous, I've an idea," he 
said, "I've more than an idea that we have to count with the girl."

"Girl? What girl?"

"Daughter. Well-behaved, quiet bit of a thing, who sits in a corner 
and listens while she pretends to sew or read. I'm certain of it. 
She's taken to making notes now, and Hutchinson's turned stubborn. You 
need not laugh, Lewis. She's in it. We've got to count with that girl, 
little female mouse as she looks."

This view, which was first taken by Rosenthal and passed on to his 
partner, was in course of time passed on to others and gradually 
accepted, sometimes reluctantly and with much private protest, 
sometimes with amusement. The well-behaved daughter went with 
Hutchinson wheresoever his affairs called him. She was changeless in 
the unobtrusiveness of her demeanor, which was always that of a 
dutiful and obedient young person who attended her parent because he 
might desire her humble little assistance in small matters.

"She's my secretary," Hutchinson began to explain, with a touch of 
swagger. "I've got to have a secretary, and I'd rather trust my 
private business to my own daughter than to any one else. It's safe 
with her."

It was so safe with her steady demureness that Hutchinson found 
himself becoming steady himself. The "lessons" he gave to Little Ann, 
and the notes made as a result, always ostensibly for her own security 
and instruction, began to form a singularly firm foundation for 
statement and argument. He began to tell himself that his memory was 
improving. Facts were no longer jumbled together in his mind. He could 
better follow a line of logical reasoning. He less often grew red and 
hot and flustered.

"That's the thing I've said so often--that temper's got naught to do 
wi' business, and only upsets a man when he wants all his wits about 
him. It's the truest thing I ever worked out," he not infrequently 
congratulated himself. "If a chap can keep his temper, he'll be like 
to keep his head and drive his bargain. I see it plainer every day o' 
my life."




CHAPTER XXXVI


It was in the course of the "lessons" that he realized that he had 
always argued that the best way to do business was to do it face to 
face with people. To stay in England, and let another chap make your 
bargains for you in	 France or Germany or some other outlandish 
place, where frog-eating foreigners ran loose, was a fool's trick. 
He'd said it often enough. "Get your eye on 'em, and let them know 
you've got it on them, and they'd soon find out they were dealing with 
Lancashire, and not with foreign knaves and nincompoops." So, when it 
became necessary to deal with France, Little Ann packed him up neatly, 
so to speak, and in the role of obedient secretarial companion took 
him to that country, having for weeks beforehand mentally confronted 
the endless complications attending the step. She knew, in the first 
place, what the effect of the French language would be upon his 
temper: that it would present itself to him as a wall deliberately 
built by the entire nation as a means of concealing a deep duplicity 
the sole object of which was the baffling, thwarting, and undoing of 
Englishmen, from whom it wished to wrest their honest rights. Apoplexy 
becoming imminent, as a result of his impotent rage during their first 
few days in Paris, she paid a private visit to a traveler's agency, 
and after careful inquiry discovered that it was not impossible to 
secure the attendance and service of a well-mannered young man who 
spoke most of the languages employed by most of the inhabitants of the 
globe. She even found that she might choose from a number of such 
persons, and she therefore selected with great care.

"One that's got a good temper, and isn't easy irritated," she said to 
herself, in summing up the aspirants, "but not one that's easy-
tempered because he's silly. He must have plenty of common sense as 
well as be willing to do what he's told."

When her father discovered that he himself had been considering the 
desirability of engaging the services of such a person, and had, 
indeed already, in a way, expressed his intention of sending her to 
"the agency chap" to look him up, she was greatly relieved.

"I can try to teach him what you've taught me, Father," she said, "and 
of course he'll learn just by being with you."

The assistant engaged was a hungry young student who had for weeks, 
through ill luck, been endeavoring to return with some courage the 
gaze of starvation, which had been staring him in the face.

His name was Dudevant, and with desperate struggles he had educated 
himself highly, having cherished literary ambitions from his infancy. 
At this juncture it had become imperative that he should, for a few 
months at least, obtain food. Ann had chosen well by instinct. His 
speech had told her that he was intelligent, his eyes had told her 
that he would do anything on earth to earn his living.

From the time of his advent, Joseph Hutchinson had become calmer and 
had ceased to be in peril of apoplectic seizure. Foreign nations 
became less iniquitous and dangerous, foreign languages were less of a 
barrier, easier to understand. A pleasing impression that through 
great facility he had gained a fair practical knowledge of French, 
German, and Italian, supported and exhilarated him immensely.

"It's right-down wonderful how a chap gets to understand these 
fellows' lingo after he's listened to it a bit," he announced to Ann. 
"I wouldn't have believed it of myself that I could see into it as 
quick as I have. I couldn't say as I understand everything they say 
just when they're saying it; but I understand it right enough when 
I've had time to translate like. If foreigners didn't talk so fast and 
run their words one into another, and jabber as if their mouths was 
full of puddin', it'd be easier for them as is English. Now, there's 
`wee' and `nong.' I know 'em whenever I hear 'em, and that's a good 
bit of help."

"Yes," answered Ann, "of course that's the chief thing you want to 
know in business, whether a person is going to say `yes' or `no.'"

He began to say "wee" and "nong" at meals, and once broke forth "Passy 
mor le burr" in a tone so casually Parisian that Ann was frightened, 
because she did not understand immediately, and also because she saw 
looming up before her a future made perilous by the sudden 
interjection of unexpected foreign phrases it would be incumbent upon 
her and Dudevant to comprehend instantaneously without invidious 
hesitation.

"Don't you understand? Pass the butter. Don't you understand a bit o' 
French like that?" he exclaimed irritatedly. "Buy yourself one o' 
these books full of easy sentences and learn some of 'em, lass. You 
oughtn't to be travelin' about with your father in foreign countries 
and learnin' nothin'. It's not every lass that's gettin' your 
advantages."

Ann had not mentioned the fact that she spent most of her rare leisure 
moments in profound study of phrase-books and grammars, which she kept 
in her trunk and gave her attention to before she got up in the 
morning, after she went to her room at night, and usually while she 
was dressing. You can keep a book open before you when you are 
brushing your hair. Dudevant gave her a lesson or so whenever time 
allowed. She was as quick to learn as her father thought he was, and 
she was desperately determined. It was really not long before she 
understood much more than "wee and nong" when she was present at a 
business interview.

"You are a wonderful young lady," Dudevant said, with that well-known 
yearning in his eyes. "You are most wonderful."

"She's just a wonder," Mrs. Bowse and her boarders had said. And the 
respectful yearning in the young Frenchman's eyes and voice were well 
known to her because she had seen it often before, and remembered it, 
in Jem Bowles and Julius Steinberger. That this young man had without 
an hour of delay fallen abjectly in love with her was a circumstance 
with which she dealt after her own inimitably kind and undeleterious 
method, which in itself was an education to any amorous youth.

"I can understand all you tell me," she said when he reached the point 
of confiding his hard past to her. "I can understand it because I knew 
some one who had to fight for himself just that way, only perhaps it 
was harder because he wasn't educated as you are."

"Did he--confide in you?" Dudevant ventured, with delicate hesitation. 
"You are so kind I am sure he did, Mademoiselle."

"He told me about it because he knew I wanted to hear," she answered. 
"I was very fond of him," she added, and her kind gravity was quite 
unshaded by any embarrassment. "I was right-down fond of him."

His emotion rendered him for a moment indiscreet, to her immediate 
realization and regret, as was evident by his breaking off in the 
midst of his question.

"And now--are you?"

"Yes, I always shall be, Mr. Dudevant."

His adoration naturally only deepened itself as all hope at once 
receded, as it could not but recede before the absolute pellucid truth 
of her.

"However much he likes me, he will get over it in time. People do, 
when they know how things stand," she was thinking, with maternal 
sympathy.

It did him no bitter harm to help her with her efforts at learning 
what she most needed, and he found her intelligence and modest power 
of concentration remarkable. A singularly clear knowledge of her own 
specialized requirements was a practical background to them both. She 
had no desire to shine; she was merely steadily bent on acquiring as 
immediately as possible a comprehension of nouns, verbs, and phrases 
that would be useful to her father. The manner in which she applied 
herself, and assimilated what it was her quietly fixed intention to 
assimilate, bespoke her possession of a brain the powers of which 
being concentrated on large affairs might have accomplished almost 
startling results. There was, however, nothing startling in her 
intentions, and ambition did not touch her. Yet, as she went with 
Hutchinson from one country to another, more than one man of affairs 
had it borne in upon him that her young slimness and her silence 
represented an unanticipated knowledge of points under discussion 
which might wisely be considered as a factor in all decisions for or 
against. To realize that a soft-cheeked, child-eyed girl was an 
element to regard privately in discussions connected with the sale of, 
or the royalties paid on, a valuable patent appeared in some minds to 
be a situation not without flavor. She was the kind of little person a 
man naturally made love to, and a girl who was made love to in a 
clever manner frequently became amenable to reason, and might be 
persuaded to use her influence in the direction most desired. But such 
male financiers as began with this idea discovered that they had been 
led into errors of judgment through lack of familiarity with the 
variations of type. One personable young man of title, who had just 
been disappointed in a desirable marriage with a fortune, being made 
aware that the invention was likely to arrive at amazing results, was 
sufficiently rash to approach Mr. Hutchinson with formal proposals. 
Having a truly British respect for the lofty in place, and not being 
sufficiently familiar with titled personages to discriminate swiftly 
between the large and the small, Joseph Hutchinson was somewhat unduly 
elated.

"The chap's a count, lass," he said. "Tha'u'd go back to Manchester a 
countess."

"I've heard they're nearly all counts in these countries," commented 
Ann. "And there's countesses that have to do their own washing, in a 
manner of speaking. You send him to me, Father."

When the young man came, and compared the fine little nose of Miss 
Hutchinson with the large and bony structure dominating the 
countenance of the German heiress he had lost, also when he gazed into 
the clearness of the infantile blue eyes, his spirits rose. He felt 
himself en veine; he was equal to attacking the situation. He felt 
that he approached it with alluring and chivalric delicacy. He almost 
believed all that he said.

But the pellucid blueness of the gaze that met his was confusingly 
unstirred by any shade of suitable timidity or emotion. There was 
something in the lovely, sedate little creature, something so 
undisturbed and matter of fact, that it frightened him, because he 
suddenly felt like a fool whose folly had been found out.

"That's downright silly," remarked Little Ann, not allowing him to 
escape from her glance, which unhesitatingly summed up him and his 
situation. "And you know it is. You don't know anything about me, and 
you wouldn't like me if you did. And I shouldn't like you. We're too 
different. Please go away, and don't say anything more about it. I 
shouldn't have patience to talk it over."

"Father," she said that night, "if ever I get married at all, there's 
only one person I'm going to marry. You know that." And she would say 
no more.

By the time they returned to England, the placing of the invention in 
divers countries had been arranged in a manner which gave assurance of 
a fortune for its owners on a foundation not likely to have 
established itself in more adverse circumstances. Mr. Hutchinson had 
really driven some admirable bargains, and had secured advantages 
which to his last hour he would believe could have been achieved only 
by Lancashire shrewdness and Lancashire ability to "see as far through 
a mile-stone as most chaps, an' a bit farther." The way in which he 
had never allowed himself to be "done" caused him at times to chuckle 
himself almost purple with self-congratulation.

"They got to know what they was dealing with, them chaps. They was 
sharp, but Joe was a bit sharper," he would say.

They found letters waiting for them when they reached London.

"There's one fro' thy grandmother," Hutchinson said, in dealing out 
the package. "She's written to thee pretty steady for an old un."

This was true. Letters from her had followed them from one place to 
another. This was a thick one in an envelop of good size.

"Aren't tha going to read it? " he asked.

"Not till you've had your dinner, Father. You've had a long day of it 
with that channel at the end. I want to see you comfortable with your 
pipe."

The hotel was a good one, and the dinner was good. Joseph Hutchinson 
enjoyed it with the appetite of a robust man who has had time to get 
over a not too pleasant crossing. When he had settled down into a 
stout easy-chair with the pipe, he drew a long and comfortable breath 
as he looked about the room.

"Eh, Ann, lass," he said, "thy mother 'd be fine an' set up if she 
could see aw this. Us having the best that's to be had, an' knowin' we 
can have it to the end of our lives, that's what it's come to, tha 
knows. No more third-class railway-carriages for you and me. No more 
`commercial' an' `temperance' hotels. Th' first cut's what we can 
have--th' upper cut. Eh, eh, but it's a good day for a man when he's 
begun to be appreciated as he should be."

"It's a good day for those that love him," said Little Ann. "And I 
dare say mother knows every bit about it."

"I dare say she does," admitted Hutchinson, with tender lenience. "She 
was one o' them as believed that way. And I never knowed her to be 
wrong in aught else, so I'm ready to give in as she was reet about 
that. Good lass she was, good lass."

He had fallen into a contented and utterly comfortable doze in his 
chair when Ann sat down to read her grandmother's letter. The old 
woman always wrote at length, giving many details and recording 
village events with shrewd realistic touches. Throughout their 
journeyings, Ann had been followed by a record of the estate and 
neighborhood of Temple Barholm which had lacked nothing of atmosphere. 
She had known what the new lord of the manor did, what people said, 
what the attitude of the gentry had become; that the visit of the 
Countess of Mallowe and her daughter had extended itself until 
curiosity and amusement had ceased to comment, and passively awaited 
results. She had heard of Miss Alicia and her reincarnation, and knew 
much of the story of the Duke of Stone, whose reputation as a "dommed 
clever owd chap" had earned for him a sort of awed popularity. There 
had been many "ladies." The new Temple Barholm had boldly sought them 
out and faced them in their strongholds with the manner of one who 
would confront the worst and who revealed no tendency to flinch. The 
one at Stone Hover with the "pretty color" and the one with the 
dimples had appeared frequently upon the scene. Then there had been 
Lady Joan Fayre, who had lived at his elbow, sitting at his table, 
driving in his carriages with the air of cold aloofness which the 
cottagers "could na abide an' had no patience wi'." She had sometimes 
sat and wondered and wondered about things, and sometimes had flushed 
daisy-red instead of daisy-pink; and sometimes she had turned rather 
pale and closed her soft mouth firmly. But, though she had written 
twice a week to her grandmother, she had recorded principally the 
successes and complexities of the invention, and had asked very few 
questions. Old Mrs. Hutchinson would tell her all she must know, and 
her choice of revelation would be made with a far-sightedness which 
needed no stimulus of questioning. The letter she had found awaiting 
her had been long on its way, having missed her at point after point 
and followed her at last to London. It looked and felt thick and solid 
in its envelop. Little Ann opened it, stirred by the suggestion of 
quickened pulse-beats with which she had become familiar. As she bent 
over it she looked sweetly flushed and warmed.



Joseph Hutchinson's doze had almost deepened into sleep when he was 
awakened by the touch of her hand on his shoulder. She was standing by 
him, holding some sheets of her grandmother's letter, and several 
other sheets were lying on the table. Something had occurred which had 
changed her quiet look.

"Has aught happened to your grandmother?" he asked.

"No, Father, but this letter that's been following me from one place 
to another has got some queer news in it."

"What's up, lass? Tha looks as if summat was up."

"The thing that's happened has given me a great deal to think of," was 
her answer. "It's about Mr. Temple Barholm and Mr. Strangeways."

He became wide-awake at once, sitting up and turning in his chair in 
testy anxiety.

"Now, now," he exclaimed, "I hope that cracked chap's not gone out an' 
out mad an' done some mischief. I towd Temple Barholm it was a foolish 
thing to do, taking all that trouble about him. Has he set fire to th' 
house or has he knocked th' poor lad on th' head?"

"No, he hasn't, Father. He's disappeared, and Mr. Temple Barholm's 
disappeared, too."

"Disappeared?" Hutchinson almost shouted. "What for, i' the Lord's 
name?"

"Nobody knows for certain, and people are talking wild. The village is 
all upset, and all sorts of silly things are being said."

"What sort o' things?"

"You know what servants at big houses are--how they hear bits of talk 
and make much of it," she explained. "They've been curious and 
chattering among themselves about Mr. Strangeways from the first. It 
was Burrill that said he believed he was some relation that was being 
hid away for some good reason. One night Mr. Temple Barholm and 
Captain Palliser were having a long talk together, and Burrill was 
about--"

"Aye, he'd be about if he thought there was a chance of him hearing 
summat as was none of his business," jerked out Hutchinson, irately.

"They were talking about Mr. Strangeways, and Burrill heard Captain 
Palliser getting angry; and as he stepped near the door he heard him 
say out loud that he could swear in any court of justice that the man 
he had seen at the west room window--it's a startling thing, Father--
was Mr. James Temple Barholm." For the moment her face was pale.

Hereupon Hutchinson sprang up.

"What!" His second shout was louder than his first. "Th' liar! Th' 
chap's dead, an' he knows it. Th' dommed mischief-makin' liar!"

Her eyes were clear and speculatively thoughtful, notwithstanding her 
lack of color.

"There have been people that have been thought dead that have come 
back to their friends alive. It's happened many a time," she said. "It 
wouldn't be so strange for a man that had no friends to be lost in a 
wild, far-off place where there was neither law nor order, and where 
every man was fighting for his own life and the gold he was mad after. 
Particularly a man that was shamed and desperate and wanted to hide 
himself. And, most of all, it would be easy, if he was like Mr. 
Strangeways, and couldn't remember, and had lost himself."

As her father listened, the angry redness of his countenance moderated 
its hue. His eyes gradually began to question and his under jaw fell 
slightly.

"Si' thee, lass," he broke out huskily, "does that mean to say tha 
believes it?"

"It's not often you can believe what you don't know," she answered. "I 
don't know anything about it. There's just one thing I believe, 
because I know it. I believe what grandmother does. Read that."

She handed him the final sheet of old Mrs. Hutchinson's letter. It was 
written with very black ink and in an astonishingly bold and clear 
hand. It was easy to read the sentences with which she ended.



There's a lot said. There's always more saying than doing. But it's 
right-down funny to see how the lad has made hard and fast friends 
just going about in his queer way, and no one knowing how he did it. I 
like him myself. He's one of those you needn't ask questions about. If 
there's anything said that isn't to his credit, it's not true. There's 
no ifs, buts, or ands about that, Ann.



Little Ann herself read the words as her father read them.

"That's the thing I believe, because I know it," was all she said.

"It's the thing I'd swear to mysel'," her father answered bluffly. 
"But, by Judd--"

She gave him a little push and spoke to him in homely Lancashire 
phrasing, and with some soft unsteadiness of voice.

"Sit thee down, Father love," she said, "and let me sit on thy knee."

He sat down with emotional readiness, and she sat on his stout knee 
like a child. It was a thing she did in tender or troubled moments as 
much in these days as she had done when she was six or seven. Her 
little lightness and soft young ways made it the most natural thing in 
the world, as well as the prettiest. She had always sat on his knee in 
the hours when he had been most discouraged over the invention. She 
had known it made him feel as though he were taking care of her, and 
as though she depended utterly on him to steady the foundations of her 
world. What could such a little bit of a lass do without "a father"?

"It's upset thee, lass," he said. "It's upset thee."

He saw her slim hands curl themselves into small, firm fists as they 
rested on her lap.

"I can't bear to think that ill can be said of him, even by a wastrel 
like Captain Palliser," she said. "He's MINE."

It made him fumble caressingly at her big knot of soft red hair.

"Thine, is he?" he said. "Thine! Eh, but tha did say that just like 
thy mother would ha' said it; tha brings the heart i' my throat now 
and again. That chap's i' luck, I can tell him--same as I was once."

"He's mine now, whatever happens," she went on, with a firmness which 
no skeptic would have squandered time in the folly of hoping to shake. 
"He's done what I told him to do, and it's ME he wants. He's found out 
for himself, and so have I. He can have me the minute he wants me--the 
very minute."

"He can?" said Hutchinson. "That settles it. I believe tha'd rather 
take him when he was i' trouble than when he was out of it. Same as 
tha'd rather take him i' a flat in Harlem on fifteen dollar a week 
than on fifteen hundred."

"Yes, Father, I would. It'd give me more to do for him."

"Eh, eh," he grunted tenderly, "thy mother again. I used to tell her 
as the only thing she had agen me was that I never got i' jail so she 
could get me out an' stand up for me after it. There's only one thing 
worrits me a bit: I wish the lad hadn't gone away."

"I've thought that out, though I've not had much time to reason about 
things," said Little Ann. "If he's gone away, he's gone to get 
something; and whatever it happens to be, he'll be likely to bring it 
back with him, Father."




CHAPTER XXXVII


Old Mrs. Hutchinson's letter had supplied much detail, but when her 
son and grand-daughter arrived in the village of Temple Barholm they 
heard much more, the greater part of it not in the least to be relied 
upon.

"The most of it's lies, as folks enjoys theirsels pretendin' to 
believe," the grand- mother commented. "It's servants'-hall talk and 
cottage gossip, and plenty made itself up out o' beer drunk in th' 
tap-room at th' Wool Park. In a place where naught much happens, 
people get into th' way 'o springin' on a bit o' news, and shakin' and 
worryin' it like a terrier does a rat. It's nature. That lad's given 
'em lots to talk about ever since he coom. He's been a blessin' to 
'em. If he'd been gentry, he'd not ha' been nigh as lively. Th' 
village lads tries to talk through their noses like him. Little Tummas 
Hibblethwaite does it i' broad Lancashire."

The only facts fairly authenticated were that the mysterious stranger 
had been taken away very late one night, some time before the 
interview between Mr. Temple Barholm and Captain Palliser, of which 
Burrill knew so much because he had "happened to be about." When a 
domestic magnate of Burrill's type "happens to be about" at a crisis, 
he is not unlikely to hear a great deal. Burrill, it was believed, 
knew much more than he deigned to make public. The entire truth was 
that Captain Palliser himself, in one of his hasty appearances in the 
neighborhood of Temple Barholm, had bestowed a few words of cold 
caution on him.

"Don't talk too much," he had said. "Proof is required before talk is 
safe. The American was sharp enough to say that to me himself. He was 
sharp enough, too, to keep his man hidden. I was the only person that 
saw him who could have recognized him, and I saw him by chance. 
Palford & Grimby require proof. We are in search of it. Servants will 
talk; but if you don't want to run the risk of getting yourself into 
trouble, don't make absolute statements."

This had been a disappointment to Burrill, who had seen himself 
developing in magnitude; but he was a timid man, and therefore felt it 
wise to convey his knowledge merely through the conviction carried by 
a dignified silence after his first indiscreet revelation of having 
"happened to be about" had been made. It would have been some solace 
to him to intimate to Miss Alicia by his bearing and the manner of his 
services that she had been discovered, so to speak, in the character 
of a sort of accomplice; that her position was a perilously uncertain 
one, which would probably end in utter downfall, leaving her in her 
old and proper place as an elderly, insignificant, and unattractive 
poor relation, without a feature to recommend her. But being, as 
before remarked, a timid man, and recalling the interview between 
himself and his employer held outside the dining-room door, and having 
also a disturbing memory of the sharp, cool, boyish eye and the tone 
of the casual remark that he had "a head on his shoulders" and that it 
was "up to him to make the others understand," it seemed as well to 
restrain his inclinations until the proof Palford & Grimby required 
was forthcoming.

It was perhaps the moderate and precautionary attitude of Palford & 
Grimby, during their first somewhat startled though reserved interview 
with Captain Palliser, which had prevented the vaguely wild rumors 
from being regarded as more than villagers' exaggerated talk among 
themselves. The "gentry," indeed, knew much less of the cottagers than 
the cottagers knew of the gentry; consequently events furnishing much 
excitement among the village people not infrequently remained unheard-
of by those in the class above them. A story less incredible might 
have been more considered; but the highly colored reasons given for 
the absence of the owner of Temple Barholm would, if heard of, have 
been more than likely to be received and passed over with a smile.

The manner of Mr. Palford and also of Mr. Grimby during the 
deliberately unmelodramatic and carefully connected relation of 
Captain Palliser's singular story, was that of professional gentlemen 
who for reasons of good breeding were engaged in restraining outward 
expression of conviction that they were listening to utter nonsense. 
Palliser himself was aware of this, and upon the whole did not wonder 
at it in entirely unimaginative persons of extremely sober lives. In 
fact, he had begun by giving them some warning as to what they might 
expect in the way of unusualness.

"You will, no doubt, think what I am about to tell you absurd and 
incredible," he had prefaced his statements. "I thought the same 
myself when my first suspicions were aroused. I was, in fact, inclined 
to laugh at my own idea until one link connected itself with another."

Neither Mr. Grimby nor Mr. Palford was inclined to laugh. On the 
contrary, they were extremely grave, and continued to find it 
necessary to restrain their united tendency to indicate facially that 
the thing must be nonsense. It transcended all bounds, as it were. The 
delicacy with which they managed to convey this did them much credit. 
This delicacy was equaled by the moderation with which Captain 
Palliser drew their attention to the fact that it was not the thing 
likely-to-happen on which were founded the celebrated criminal cases 
of legal history; it was the incredible and almost impossible events, 
the ordinarily unbelievable duplicities, moral obliquities and 
coincidences, which made them what they were and attracted the 
attention of the world. This, Mr. Palford and his partner were 
obviously obliged to admit. What they did not admit was that such 
things never having occurred in one's own world, they had been 
mentally relegated to the world of newspaper and criminal record as 
things that could not happen to oneself. Mr. Palford cleared his 
throat in a seriously cautionary way.

"This is, of course, a matter suggesting too serious an accusation not 
to be approached in the most conservative manner," he remarked.

"Most serious consequences have resulted in cases implying libelous 
assertions which have been made rashly," added Mr. Grimby. "As Mr. 
Temple Barholm intimated to you, a man of almost unlimited means has 
command of resources which it might not be easy to contend with if he 
had reason to feel himself injured."

The fact that Captain Palliser had in a bitterly frustrated moment 
allowed himself to be goaded into losing his temper, and "giving away" 
to Tembarom the discovery on which he had felt that he could rely as a 
lever, did not argue that a like weakness would lead him into more 
dangerous indiscretion. He had always regarded himself as a careful 
man whose defenses were well built about him at such crises in his 
career as rendered entrenchment necessary. There would, of course, be 
some pleasure in following the matter up and getting more than even 
with a man who had been insolent to him; but a more practical feature 
of the case was that if, through his alert observation and shrewd aid, 
Jem Temple Barholm was restored to his much-to-be-envied place in the 
world, a far from unnatural result would be that he might feel 
suitable gratitude and indebted-ness to the man who, not from actual 
personal liking but from a mere sense of justice, had rescued him. As 
for the fears of Messrs. Palford & Grimby, he had put himself on 
record with Burrill by commanding him to hold his tongue and stating 
clearly that proof was both necessary and lacking. No man could be 
regarded as taking risks whose attitude was so wholly conservative and 
non-accusing. Servants will gossip. A superior who reproves such 
gossip holds an unattackable position. In the private room of Palford 
& Grimby, however, he could confidently express his opinions without 
risk.

"The recognition of a man lost sight of for years, and seen only for a 
moment through a window, is not substantial evidence," Mr. Grimby had 
proceeded. "The incident was startling, but not greatly to be relied 
upon."

"I knew him." Palliser was slightly grim in his air of finality. "He 
was a man most men either liked or hated. I didn't like him. I 
detested a trick he had of staring at you under his drooping lids. By 
the way, do you remember the portrait of Miles Hugo which was so like 
him?"

Mr. Palford remembered having heard that there was a certain portrait 
in the gallery which Mr. James Temple Barholm had been said to 
resemble. He had no distinct recollection of the ancestor it 
represented.

"It was a certain youngster who was a page in the court of Charles the 
Second and who died young. Miles Hugo Charles James was his name. He 
is my strongest clue. The American seemed rather keen the first time 
we talked together. He was equally keen about Jem Temple Barholm. He 
wanted to know what he looked like, and whether it was true that he 
was like the portrait."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Palford and Grimby, simultaneously.

"It struck me that there was something more than mere curiosity in his 
manner," Palliser enlarged. "I couldn't make him out then. Later, I 
began to see that he was remarkably anxious to keep every one from 
Strangeways. It was a sort of Man in the Iron Mask affair. Strangeways 
was apparently not only too excitable to be looked at or spoken to, 
but too excitable to be spoken of. He wouldn't talk about him."

"That is exceedingly curious," remarked Mr. Palford, but it was not in 
response to Palliser. A few moments before he had suddenly looked 
thoughtful. He wore now the aspect of a man trying to recall something 
as Palliser continued.

"One day, after I had been to look at a sunset through a particular 
window in the wing where Strangeways was kept, I passed the door of 
his sitting-room, and heard the American arguing with him. He was 
evidently telling him he was to be taken elsewhere, and the poor devil 
was terrified. I heard him beg him for God's sake not to send him 
away. There was panic in his voice. In connection with the fact that 
he has got him away secretly--at midnight-it's an ugly thing to 
recall."

"It would seem to have significance." Grimby said it uneasily.

"It set me thinking and looking into things," Palliser went on. 
"Pearson was secretive, but the head man, Burrill, made casual 
enlightening remarks. I gathered some curious details, which might or 
might not have meant a good deal. When Strangeways suddenly appeared 
at his window one evening a number of things fitted themselves 
together. My theory is that the American--Tembarom, as he used to call 
himself --may not have been certain of the identity at first, but he 
wouldn't have brought Strangeways with him if he had not had some 
reason to suspect who he was. He daren't lose sight of him, and he 
wanted time to make sure and to lay his plans. The portrait of Miles 
Hugo was a clue which alarmed him, and no doubt he has been following 
it. If he found it led to nothing, he could easily turn Strangeways 
over to the public charge and let him be put into a lunatic asylum. If 
he found it led to a revelation which would make him a pauper again, 
it would be easy to dispose of him."

"Come! Come! Captain Palliser! We mustn't go too far!" ejaculated Mr. 
Grimby, alarmedly. It shocked him to think of the firm being dragged 
into a case dealing with capital crime and possible hangmen! That was 
not its line of the profession.

Captain Palliser's slight laugh contained no hint of being shocked by 
any possibilities whatever.

"There are extremely private asylums and so-called sanatoriums where 
the discipline is strict, and no questions are asked. One sometimes 
reads in the papers of cases in which mild-mannered keepers in 
defending themselves against the attacks of violent patients are 
obliged to use force--with disastrous results. It is in such places 
that our investigations should begin."

"Dear me! Dear me!" Mr. Grimby broke out. "Isn't that going rather 
far? You surely don't think--"

"Mr. Tembarom's chief characteristic was that he was a practical and 
direct person. He would do what he had to do in exactly that 
businesslike manner. The inquiries I have been making have been as to 
the whereabouts of places in which a superfluous relative might be 
placed without attracting attention."

"That is really astute, but--but--what do you think, Palford?" Mr. 
Grimby turned to his partner, still wearing the shocked and disturbed 
expression.

"I have been recalling to mind a circumstance which probably bears 
upon the case," said Mr. Palford. "Captain Palliser's mention of the 
portrait reminded me of it. I remember now that on Mr. Temple 
Barholm's first visit to the picture-gallery he seemed much attracted 
by the portrait of Miles Hugo. He stopped and examined it curiously. 
He said he felt as if he had seen it before. He turned to it once or 
twice; and finally remarked that he might have seen some one like it 
at a great fancy-dress ball which had taken place in New York."

"Had he been invited to the ball?" laughed Palliser.

"I did not gather that," replied Mr. Palford gravely. "He had 
apparently watched the arriving guests from some railings near by--or 
perhaps it was a lamp-post--with other news-boys."

"He recognized the likeness to Strangeways, no doubt, and it gave him 
what he calls a 'jolt,'" said Captain Palliser. "He must have 
experienced a number of jolts during the last few months."

Palford & Grimby's view of the matter continued to be marked by 
extreme distaste for the whole situation and its disturbing and 
irritating possibilities. The coming of the American heir to the 
estate of Temple Barholm had been trying to the verge of extreme 
painfulness; but, sufficient time having lapsed and their client 
having troubled them but little, they had outlived the shock of his 
first appearance and settled once more into the calm of their 
accustomed atmosphere and routine. That he should suddenly reappear 
upon their dignified horizon as a probable melodramatic criminal was a 
fault of taste and a lack of consideration beyond expression. To be 
dragged-into vulgar detective work, to be referred to in news-papers 
in a connection which would lead to confusing the firm with the 
representatives of such branches of the profession as dealt with 
persons who had committed acts for which in vulgar parlance they might 
possibly "swing," if their legal defenders did not "get them off," to 
a firm whose sole affairs had been the dealing with noble and ancient 
estates, with advising and supporting personages of stately name, and 
with private and weighty family confidences. If the worst came to the 
worst, the affair would surely end in the most glaring and odious 
notoriety: in head-lines and daily reports even in London, in 
appalling pictures of every one concerned in every New York newspaper, 
even in baffled struggles to keep abominable woodcuts of themselves--
Mr. Edward James Palford and Mr. James Matthew Grimby--from being 
published in sensational journalistic sheets! Professional duty 
demanded that the situation should be dealt with, that investigation 
should be entered into, that the most serious even if conservative 
steps should be taken at once. With regard to the accepted report of 
Mr. James Temple Barholm's tragic death, it could not be denied that 
Captain Palliser's view of the naturalness of the origin of the 
mistake that had been made had a logical air.

"In a region full of rioting derelicts crazed with the lawless 
excitement of their dash after gold," he had said, "identities and 
names are easily lost. Temple Barholm himself was a derelict and in a 
desperate state. He was in no mood to speak of himself or try to make 
friends. He no doubt came and went to such work as he did scarcely 
speaking to any one. A mass of earth and debris of all sorts suddenly 
gives way, burying half-a-dozen men. Two or three are dug out dead, 
the others not reached. There was no time to spare to dig for dead 
men. Some one had seen Temple Barholm near the place; he was seen no 
more. Ergo, he was buried with the rest. At that time, those who knew 
him in England felt it was the best thing that could have happened to 
him. It would have been if his valet had not confessed his trick, and 
old Temple Barholm had not died. My theory is that he may have left 
the place days before the accident without being missed. His mental 
torment caused some mental illness, it does not matter what. He lost 
his memory and wandered about--the Lord knows how or where he lived; 
he probably never knew himself. The American picked him up and found 
that he had money. For reasons of his own, he professed to take care 
of him. He must have come on some clue just when he heard of his new 
fortune. He was naturally panic-stricken; it must have been a big blow 
at that particular moment. He was sharp enough to see what it might 
mean, and held on to the poor chap like grim death, and has been 
holding on ever since."

"We must begin to take steps," decided Palford & Grimby. "We must of 
course take steps at once, but we must begin with discretion."

After grave private discussion, they began to take the steps in 
question and with the caution that it seemed necessary to observe 
until they felt solid ground under their feet. Captain Palliser was 
willing to assist them. He had been going into the matter himself. He 
went down to the neighborhood of Temple Barholm and quietly looked up 
data which might prove illuminating when regarded from one point or 
another. It was on the first of these occasions that he saw and warned 
Burrill. It was from Burrill he heard of Tummas Hibblethwaite.

"There's an impident little vagabond in the village, sir," he said, 
"that Mr. Temple Barholm used to go and see and take New York 
newspapers to. A cripple the lad is, and he's got a kind of craze for 
talking about Mr. James Temple Barholm. He had a map of the place 
where he was said to be killed. If I may presume to mention it, sir," 
he added with great dignity, "it is my opinion that the two had a good 
deal of talk together on the subject."

"I dare say," Captain Palliser admitted indifferently, and made no 
further inquiry or remark.

He sauntered into the Hibblethwaite cottage, however, late the next 
afternoon.

Tummas was in a bad temper, for reasons quite sufficient for himself, 
and he regarded him sourly.

"What has tha coom for?" he demanded. "I did na ask thee."

"Don't be cheeky!" said Captain Palliser. "I will give you a sovereign 
if you'll let me see the map you and Mr. Temple Barholm used to look 
at and talk so much about."

He laid the sovereign down on the small table by Tummas's sofa, but 
Tummas did not pick it up.

"I know who tha art. Tha'rt Palliser, an' tha wast th' one as said as 
him as was killed in th' Klondike had coom back alive."

"You've been listening to that servants' story, have you?" remarked 
Palliser. "You had better be careful as to what you say. I suppose you 
never heard of libel suits. Where would you find yourself if you were 
called upon to pay Mr. Temple Barholm ten thousand pounds' damages? 
You'd be obliged to sell your atlas."

"Burrill towd as he heard thee say tha'd swear in court as it was th' 
one as was killed as tha'd seen."

"That's Burrill's story, not mine. And Burrill had better keep his 
mouth shut," said Palliser. "If it were true, how would you like it? 
I've heard you were interested in 'th' one as was killed.'"

Tummas's eyes burned troublously.

"I've got reet down taken wi' th' other un," he answered. "He's noan 
gentry, but he's th' reet mak'. I--I dunnot believe as him as was 
killed has coom back."

"Neither do I," Palliser answered, with amiable tolerance. "The 
American gentleman had better come back himself and disprove it. When 
you used to talk about the Klondike, he never said anything to make 
you feel as if he doubted that the other man was dead?"

"Not him," answered Tummas.

"Eh! Tummas, what art tha talkin' about?" exclaimed Mrs. 
Hibblethwaite, who was mending at the other end of the room. "I heerd 
him say mysel, `Suppose th' story hadn't been true an' he was alive 
somewhere now, it'd make a big change, would na' it?' An' he laughed."

"I never heerd him," said Tummas, in stout denial.

"Tha's losin' tha moind," commented his mother. "As soon as I heerd 
th' talk about him runnin' away an' takin' th' mad gentleman wi' him I 
remembered it. An' I remembered as he sat still after it and said nowt 
for a minute or so, same as if he was thinkin' things over. Theer was 
summat a bit queer about it."

"I never heerd him," Tummas asserted, obstinately, and shut his mouth.

"He were as ready to talk about th' poor gentleman as met with th' 
accident as tha wert thysel', Tummas," Mrs. Hibblethwaite proceeded, 
moved by the opportunity offered for presenting her views on the 
exciting topic. "He'd ax thee aw sorts o' questions about what tha'd 
found out wi' pumpin' foak. He'd ax me questions now an' agen about 
what he was loike to look at, an' how tall he wur. Onct he axed me if 
I remembered what soart o' chin he had an' how he spoke."

"It wur to set thee goin' an' please me," volunteered Tummas, 
grudgingly. "He did it same as he'd look at th' map to please me an' 
tell me tales about th' news-lads i' New York."

It had not seemed improbable that a village cripple tied to a sofa 
would be ready enough to relate all he knew, and perhaps so much more 
that it would be necessary to use discretion in selecting statements 
of value. To drop in and give him a sovereign and let him talk had 
appeared simple. Lads of his class liked to be listened to, enjoyed 
enlarging upon and rendering dramatic such material as had fallen into 
their hands. But Tummas was an eccentric, and instinct led him to 
close like an oyster before a remote sense of subtly approaching 
attack. It was his mother, not he, who had provided information; but 
it was not sufficiently specialized to be worth much.

"What did tha say he'd run away fur?" Tummas said to his parent later. 
"He's not one o' th' runnin' away soart."

"He has probably been called away by business," remarked Captain 
Palliser, as he rose to go after a few minutes' casual talk with Mrs. 
Hibblethwaite. "It was a mistake not to leave an address behind him. 
Your mother is mistaken in saying that he took the mad gentleman with 
him. He had him removed late at night some time before he went 
himself."

"Tak tha sov'rin'," said Tummas, as Palliser moved away. "I did na 
show thee th' atlas. Tha did na want to see it."

"I will leave the sovereign for your mother," said Palliser. "I'm 
sorry you are not in a better humor."

His interest in the atlas had indeed been limited to his idea that it 
would lead to subjects of talk which might cast illuminating side-
lights and possibly open up avenues and vistas. Tummas, however, 
having instinctively found him displeasing, he had gained but little.

Avenues and vistas were necessary --avenues through which the steps of 
Palford and Grimby might wander, vistas which they might explore with 
hesitating, investigating glances. So far, the scene remained 
unpromisingly blank. The American Temple Barholm had simply 
disappeared, as had his mysterious charge. Steps likely to lead to 
definite results can scarcely be taken hopefully in the case of a 
person who has seemed temporarily to cease to exist. You cannot 
interrogate him, you cannot demand information, whatsoever the 
foundations upon which rest your accusations, if such accusation can 
be launched only into thin air and the fact that there is nobody to 
reply to --to acknowledge or indignantly refute them--is in itself a 
serious barrier to accomplishment. It was also true that only a few 
weeks had elapsed since the accused had, so to speak, dematerialized. 
It was also impossible to calculate upon what an American of his class 
and peculiarities would be likely to do in any circumstances whatever.

In private conference, Palford and Grimby frankly admitted to each 
other that they would almost have preferred that Captain Palliser 
should have kept his remarkable suspicions to himself, for the time 
being at least. Yet when they had admitted this they were confronted 
by the disturbing possibility--suggested by Palliser--that actual 
crime had been or might be committed. They had heard unpleasant 
stories of private lunatic asylums and their like. Things to shudder 
at might be going on at the very moment they spoke to each other. 
Under this possibility, no supineness would be excusable. Efforts to 
trace the missing man must at least be made. Efforts were made, but 
with no result. Painful as it was to reflect on the subject of the 
asylums, careful private inquiry was made, information was quietly 
collected, there were even visits to gruesomely quiet places on 
various polite pretexts.

"If a longer period of time had elapsed," Mr. Palford remarked several 
times, with some stiffness of manner, "we should feel that we had more 
solid foundation for our premises."

"Perfectly right," Captain Palliser agreed with him, "but it is lapse 
of time which may mean life or death to Jem Temple Barholm; so it's 
perhaps as well to be on the safe side and go on quietly following 
small clues. I dare say you would feel more comfortable yourselves."

Both Mr. Palford and Mr. Grimby, having made an appointment with Miss 
Alicia, arrived one afternoon at Temple Barholm to talk to her 
privately, thereby casting her into a state of agonized anxiety which 
reduced her to pallor.

"Our visit is merely one of inquiry, Miss Temple Barholm," Mr. Palford 
began. "There is perhaps nothing alarming in our client's absence."

"In the note which he left me he asked me to--feel no anxiety," Miss 
Alicia said.

"He left you a note of explanation? I wish we had known this earlier!" 
Mr. Palford's tone had the note of relieved exclamation. Perhaps there 
was an entirely simple solution of the painful difficulty.

But his hope had been too sanguine.

"It was not a note of explanation, exactly. He went away too suddenly 
to have time to explain."

The two men looked at each other disturbedly.

"He had not mentioned to you his intention of going?" asked Mr. 
Grimby.

"I feel sure he did not know he was going when he said good-night. He 
remained with Captain Palliser talking for some time." Miss Alicia's 
eyes held wavering and anxious question as she looked from one to the 
other. She wondered how much more than herself her visitors knew. "He 
found a telegram when he went to his room. It contained most 
disquieting news about Mr. Strangeways. He--he had got away from the 
place where--"

"Got away!" Mr. Palford was again exclamatory. "Was he in some 
institution where he was kept under restraint?"

Miss Alicia was wholly unable to explain to herself why some quality 
in his manner filled her with sudden distress.

"Oh, I think not! Surely not! Surely nothing of that sort was 
necessary. He was very quiet always, and he was getting better every 
day. But it was important that he should be watched over. He was no 
doubt under the care of a physician in some quiet sanatorium."

"Some quiet sanatorium!" Mr. Palford's disturbance of mind was 
manifest. "But you did not know where?"

"No. Indeed, Mr. Temple Barholm talked very little of Mr. Strangeways. 
I believe he knew that it distressed me to feel that I could be of no 
real assistance as--as the case was so peculiar."

Each perturbed solicitor looked again with rapid question at the 
other. Miss Alicia saw the exchange of glances and, so to speak, broke 
down under the pressure of their unconcealed anxiety. The last few 
weeks with their suggestion of accusation too vague to be met had been 
too much for her.

"I am afraid--I feel sure you know something I do not," she began. "I 
am most anxious and unhappy. I have not liked to ask questions, 
because that would have seemed to imply a doubt of Mr. Temple Barholm. 
I have even remained at home because I did not wish to hear things I 
could not understand. I do not know what has been said. Pearson, in 
whom I have the greatest confidence, felt that Mr. Temple Barholm 
would prefer that I should wait until he returned."

"Do you think he will return?" said Mr. Grimby, amazedly.

"Oh!" the gentle creature ejaculated. "Can you possibly think he will 
not? Why? Why?"

Mr. Palford had shared his partner's amazement. It was obvious that 
she was as ignorant as a babe of the details of Palliser's 
extraordinary story. In her affectionate consideration for Temple 
Barholm she had actually shut herself up lest she should hear anything 
said against him which she could not refute. She stood innocently 
obedient to his wishes, like the boy upon the burning deck, awaiting 
his return and his version of whatsoever he had been accused of. There 
was something delicately heroic in the little, slender old thing, with 
her troubled eyes and her cap and her quivering sideringlets.

"You," she appealed, "are his legal advisers, and will be able to tell 
me if there is anything he would wish me to know. I could not allow 
myself to listen to villagers or servants; but I may ask you."

"We are far from knowing as much as we desire to know," Mr. Palford 
replied.

"We came here, in fact," added Grimby, "to ask questions of you, Miss 
Temple Barholm."

"The fact that Miss Temple Barholm has not allowed herself to be 
prejudiced by village gossip, which is invariably largely unreliable, 
will make her an excellent witness," Mr. Palford said to his partner, 
with a deliberation which held suggestive significance. Each man, in 
fact, had suddenly realized that her ignorance would leave her 
absolutely unbiased in her answers to any questions they might put, 
and that it was much better in cross-examining an emotional elderly 
lady that such should be the case.

"Witness!" Miss Alicia found the word alarming. Mr. Palford's bow was 
apologetically palliative.

"A mere figure of speech, madam," he said.

"I really know so little every one else doesn't know." Miss Alicia's 
protest had a touch of bewilderment in it. What could they wish to ask 
her?

"But, as we understand it, your relations with Mr. Temple Barholm were 
most affectionate and confidential."

"We were very fond of each other," she answered.

"For that reason he no doubt talked to you more freely than to other 
people," Mr. Grimby put it. "Perhaps, Palford, it would be as well to 
explain to Miss Temple Barholm that a curious feature of this matter 
is that it--in a way--involves certain points concerning the late Mr. 
Temple Barholm."

Miss Alicia uttered a pathetic exclamation.

"Poor Jem--who died so cruelly!"

Mr. Palford bent his head in acquiescence.

"Perhaps you can tell me what the present Mr. Temple Barholm knew of 
him--how much he knew?"

"I told him the whole story the first time we took tea together," Miss 
Alicia replied; and, between her recollection of that strangely happy 
afternoon and her wonder at its connection with the present moment, 
she began to feel timid and uncertain.

"How did it seem to impress him?"

She remembered it all so well--his queer, dear New York way of 
expressing his warm-hearted indignation at the cruelty of what had 
happened.

"Oh, he was very much excited. He was so sorry for him. He wanted to 
know everything about him. He asked me what he looked like."

"Oh!" said Palford. "He wanted to know that?"

"He was so full of sympathy," she replied, her explanation gaining 
warmth. "When I told him that the picture of Miles Hugo in the gallery 
was said to look like Jem as a boy, he wanted very much to see it. 
Afterward we went and saw it together. I shall always remember how he 
stood and looked at it. Most young men would not have cared. But he 
always had such a touching interest in poor Jem."

"You mean that he asked questions about him--about his death, and so 
forth?" was Mr. Palford's inquiry.

"About all that concerned him. He was interested especially in his 
looks and manner of speaking and personality, so to speak. And in the 
awful accident which ended his life, though he would not let me talk 
about that after he had asked his first questions."

"What kind of questions?" suggested Grimby.

"Only about what was known of the time and place, and how the sad 
story reached England. It used to touch me to think that the only 
person who seemed to care was the one who --might have been expected 
to be almost glad the tragic thing had happened. But he was not."

Mr. Palford watched Mr. Grimby, and Mr. Grimby gave more than one 
dubious and distressed glance at Palford.

"His interest was evident," remarked Palford, thoughtfully. "And 
unusual under the circumstances."

For a moment he hesitated, then put another question: "Did he ever 
seem--I should say, do you remember any occasion when he appeared to 
think that--there might be any reason to doubt that Mr. James Temple 
Barholm was one of the men who died in the Klondike?"

He felt that through this wild questioning they had at least reached a 
certain testimony supporting Captain Palliser's views; and his 
interest reluctantly increased. It was reluctant because there could 
be no shadow of a question that this innocent spinster lady told the 
absolute truth; and, this being the case, one seemed to be dragged to 
the verge of depths which must inevitably be explored. Miss Alicia's 
expression was that of one who conscientiously searched memory.

"I do not remember that he really expressed doubt," she answered, 
carefully. "Not exactly that, but--"

"But what?" prompted Palford as she hesitated. "Please try to recall 
exactly what he said. It is most important."

The fact that his manner was almost eager, and that eagerness was not 
his habit, made her catch her breath and look more questioning and 
puzzled than before.

"One day he came to my sitting-room when he seemed rather excited," 
she explained. "He had been with Mr. Strangeways, who had been worse 
than usual. Perhaps he wanted to distract himself and forget about it. 
He asked me questions and talked about poor Jem for about an hour. And 
at last he said, `Do you suppose there's any sort of chance that it 
mightn't be true--that story that came from the Klondike?' He said it 
so thoughtfully that I was startled and said, `Do you think there 
could be such a chance--do you?' And he drew a long breath and 
answered, `You want to be sure about things like that; you've got to 
be sure.' I was a little excited, so he changed the subject very soon 
afterward, and I never felt quite certain of what he was really 
thinking. You see what he said was not so much an expression of doubt 
as a sort of question."

A touch of the lofty condemnatory made Mr. Palford impressive.

"I am compelled to admit that I fear that it was a question of which 
he had already guessed the answer," he said.

At this point Miss Alicia clasped her hands quite tightly together 
upon her knees.

"If you please," she exclaimed, "I must ask you to make things a 
little clear to me. What dreadful thing has happened? I will regard 
any communication as a most sacred confidence."

"I think we may as well, Palford?" Mr. Grimby suggested to his 
partner.

"Yes," Palford acquiesced. He felt the difficulty of a blank 
explanation. "We are involved in a most trying position," he said. "We 
feel that great discretion must be used until we have reached more 
definite certainty. An extraordinary--in fact, a startling thing has 
occurred. We are beginning, as a result of cumulative evidence, to 
feel that there was reason to believe that the Klondike story was to 
be doubted--"

"That poor Jem--!" cried Miss Alicia.

"One begins to be gravely uncertain as to whether he has not been in 
this house for months, whether he was not the mysterious Mr. 
Strangeways!"

"Jem! Jem!" gasped poor little Miss Temple Barholm, quite white with 
shock.

"And if he was the mysterious Strangeways," Mr. Grimby assisted to 
shorten the matter, "the American Temple Barholm apparently knew the 
fact, brought him here for that reason, and for the same reason kept 
him secreted and under restraint."

"No! No!" cried Miss Alicia. "Never! Never! I beg you not to say such 
a thing. Excuse me--I cannot listen! It would be wrong--ungrateful. 
Excuse me!" She got up from her seat, trembling with actual anger in 
her sense of outrage. It was a remarkable thing to see the small, 
elderly creature angry, but this remarkable thing had happened. It was 
as though she were a mother defending her young.

"I loved poor Jem and I love Temple, and, though I am only a woman who 
never has been the least clever, I know them both. I know neither of 
them could lie or do a wicked, cunning thing. Temple is the soul of 
honor."

It was quite an inspirational outburst. She had never before in her 
life said so much at one time. Of course tears began to stream down 
her face, while Mr. Palford and Mr. Grimby gazed at her in great 
embarrassment.

"If Mr. Strangeways was poor Jem come back alive, Temple did not know-
-he never knew. All he did for him was done for kindness' sake. I--I--
" It was inevitable that she should stammer before going to this 
length of violence, and that the words should burst from her: "I would 
swear it!"

It was really a shock to both Palford and Grimby. That a lady of Miss 
Temple Barholm's age and training should volunteer to swear to a thing 
was almost alarming. It was also in rather unpleasing taste.

"Captain Palliser obliged Mr. Temple Temple Barholm to confess that he 
had known for some time," Mr. Palford said with cold regret. "He also 
informed him that he should communicate with us without delay."

"Captain Palliser is a bad man." Miss Alicia choked back a gasp to 
make the protest.

"It was after their interview that Mr. Temple Barholm almost 
immediately left the house."

"Without any explanation whatever," added Grimby.

"He left a few lines for me," defended Miss Alicia.

"We have not seen them." Mr. Palford was still as well as cold. Poor 
little Miss Alicia took them out of her pocket with an unsteady hand. 
They were always with her, and she could not on such a challenge seem 
afraid to allow them to be read. Mr. Palford took them from her with a 
slight bow of thanks. He adjusted his glasses and read aloud, with 
pauses between phrases which seemed somewhat to puzzle him.



"Dear little Miss Alicia:

"I've got to light out of here as quick as I can make it. I can't even 
stop to tell you why. There's just one thing--don't get rattled, Miss 
Alicia. Whatever any one says or does, don't get rattled.

"Yours affectionately,

"T. TEMBAROM."



There was a silence, Mr. Palford passed the paper to his partner, who 
gave it careful study. Afterward he refolded it and handed it back to 
Miss Alicia.

"In a court of law," was Mr. Palford's sole remark, "it would not be 
regarded as evidence for the defendant."

Miss Alicia's tears were still streaming, but she held her ringleted 
head well up.

"I cannot stay! I beg your pardon, I do indeed!" she said. "But I must 
leave you. You see," she added, with her fine little touch of dignity, 
"as yet this house is still Mr. Temple Barholm's home, and I am the 
grateful recipient of his bounty. Burrill will attend you and make you 
quite comfortable." With an obeisance which was like a slight curtsey, 
she turned and fled.

In less than an hour she walked up the neat bricked path, and old Mrs. 
Hutchinson, looking out, saw her through the tiers of flower-pots in 
the window. Hutchinson himself was in London, but Ann was reading at 
the other side of the room.

"Here's poor little owd Miss Temple Barholm aw in a flutter," remarked 
her grandmother. "Tha's got some work cut out for thee if tha's going 
to quiet her. Oppen th' door, lass."

Ann opened the door, and stood by it with calm though welcoming 
dimples.

"Miss Hutchinson "--Miss Alicia began all at once to realize that they 
did not know each other, and that she had flown to the refuge of her 
youth without being at all aware of what she was about to say. "Oh! 
Little Ann!" she broke down with frank tears. "My poor boy! My poor 
boy!"

Little Ann drew her inside and closed the door.

"There, Miss Temple Barholm," she said. "There now Just come in and 
sit down. I'll get you a good cup of tea. You need one."




CHAPTER XXXVIII


The Duke of Stone had been sufficiently occupied with one of his 
slighter attacks of rheumatic gout to have been, so to speak, out of 
the running in the past weeks. His indisposition had not condemned him 
to the usual dullness, however. He had suffered less pain than was 
customary, and Mrs. Braddle had been more than usually interesting in 
conversation on those occasions when, in making him very comfortable 
in one way or another, she felt that a measure of entertainment would 
add to his well-being. His epicurean habit of mind tended toward 
causing him to find a subtle pleasure in the hearing of various 
versions of any story whatever. His intimacy with T. Tembarom had 
furnished forth many an agreeable mental repast for him. He had had T. 
Tembarom's version of himself, the version of the county, the version 
of the uneducated class, and his own version. All of these had had 
varying shades of their own. He had found a cynically fine flavor in 
Palliser's version, which he had gathered through talk and processes 
of exclusion and inclusion.

"There is a good deal to be said for it," he summed it up. "It's 
plausible on ordinary sophisticated grounds. T. Tembarom would say, 
`It looks sort of that way."'

As Mrs. Braddle had done what she could in the matter of expounding 
her views of the uncertainties of the village attitude, he had 
listened with stimulating interest. Mrs. Braddle's version on the 
passing of T. Tembarom stood out picturesquely against the background 
of the version which was his own--the one founded on the singular 
facts he had shared knowledge of with the chief character in the 
episode. He had not, like Miss Alicia, received a communication from 
Tembarom. This seemed to him one of the attractive features of the 
incident. It provided opportunity for speculation. Some wild 
development had called the youngster away in a rattling hurry. Of what 
had happened since his departure he knew no more than the villagers 
knew. What had happened for some months before his going he had 
watched with the feeling of an intelligently observant spectator at a 
play. He had been provided with varied emotions by the fantastic 
drama. He had smiled; he had found himself moved once or twice, and he 
had felt a good deal of the thrill of curious uncertainty as to what 
the curtain would rise and fall on. The situation was such that it was 
impossible to guess. Results could seem only to float in the air. One 
thing might happen; so might another, so might a dozen more. What he 
wished really to attain was some degree of certainty as to what was 
likely to occur in any case to the American Temple Barholm.

He felt, the first time he drove over to call on Miss Alicia, that his 
indisposition and confinement to his own house had robbed him of 
something. They had deprived him of the opportunity to observe shades 
of development and to hear the expressing of views of the situation as 
it stood. He drove over with views of his own and with anticipations. 
He had reason to know that he would encounter in the dear lady 
indications of the feeling that she had reached a crisis. There was a 
sense of this crisis impending as one mounted the terrace steps and 
entered the hall. The men-servants endeavored to wipe from their 
countenances any expression denoting even a vague knowledge of it. He 
recognized their laudable determination to do so. Burrill was 
monumental in the unconsciousness of his outward bearing.

Miss Alicia, sitting waiting on Fate in the library, wore precisely 
the aspect he had known she would wear. She had been lying awake at 
night and she had of course wept at intervals, since she belonged to 
the period the popular female view of which had been that only the 
unfeeling did not so relieve themselves in crises of the affections. 
Her eyelids were rather pink and her nice little face was tired.

"It is very, very kind of you to come," she said, when they shook 
hands. "I wonder "--her hesitance was touching in its obvious appeal 
to him not to take the wrong side,--"I wonder if you know how deeply 
troubled I have been?"

"You see, I have had a touch of my abominable gout, and my treasure of 
a Braddle has been nursing me and gossiping," he answered. "So, of 
course I know a great deal. None of it true, I dare say. I felt I must 
come and see you, however."

He looked so neat and entirely within the boundaries of finished and 
well-dressed modernity and every-day occurrence, in his perfectly 
fitting clothes, beautifully shining boots, and delicate fawn gaiters, 
that she felt a sort of support in his mere aspect. The mind connected 
such almost dapper freshness and excellent taste only with 
unexaggerated incidents and a behavior which almost placed the stamp 
of absurdity upon the improbable in circumstance. The vision of 
disorderly and illegal possibilities seemed actually to fade into an 
unreality.

"If Mr. Palford and Mr. Grimby knew him as I know him --as--as you 
know him--" she added with a faint hopefulness.

"Yes, if they knew him as we know him that would make a different 
matter of it," admitted the duke, amiably. But, thought Miss Alicia, 
he might only have put it that way through consideration for her 
feelings, and because he was an extremely polished man who could not 
easily reveal to a lady a disagreeable truth. He did not speak with 
the note of natural indignation which she thought she must have 
detected if he had felt as she felt herself. He was of course a man 
whose manner had always the finish of composure. He did not seem 
disturbed or even very curious--only kind and most polite.

"If we only knew where he was!" she began again. "If we only knew 
where Mr. Strangeways was!"

"My impression is that Messrs. Palford & Grimby will probably find 
them both before long," he consoled her. "They are no doubt exciting 
themselves unnecessarily."

He was not agitated at all; she felt. it would have been kinder if he 
had been a little agitated. He was really not the kind of person whose 
feelings appeared very deep, being given to a light and graceful 
cynicism of speech which delighted people; so perhaps it was not 
natural that he should express any particular emotion even in a case 
affecting a friend--surely he had been Temple's friend. But if he had 
seemed a little distressed, or doubtful or annoyed, she would have 
felt that she understood better his attitude. As it was, he might 
almost have been on the other side--a believer or a disbeliever--or 
merely a person looking on to see what would happen. When they sat 
down, his glance seemed to include her with an interest which was 
sympathetic but rather as if she were a child whom he would like to 
pacify. This seemed especially so when she felt she must make clear to 
him the nature of the crisis which was pending, as he had felt when he 
entered the house.

"You perhaps do not know"--the appeal which had shown itself in her 
eyes was in her voice--"that the solicitors have decided, after a 
great deal of serious discussion and private inquiry in London, that 
the time has come when they must take open steps."

"In the matter of investigation?" he inquired.

"They are coming here this afternoon with Captain Palliser to--to 
question the servants, and some of the villagers. They will question 
me," alarmedly.

"They would be sure to do that,"--he really seemed quite to envelop 
her with kindness--"but I beg of you not to be alarmed. Nothing you 
could have to say could possibly do harm to Temple Barholm." He knew 
it was her fear of this contingency which terrified her.

"You do feel sure of that?" she burst forth, relievedly. "You do--
because you know him?"

"I do. Let us be calm, dear lady. Let us be calm."

"I will! I will!" she protested. "But Captain Palliser has arranged 
that a lady should come here--a lady who disliked poor Temple very 
much. She was most unjust to him."

"Lady Joan Fayre?" he suggested, and then paused with a remote smile 
as if lending himself for the moment to some humor he alone detected 
in the situation.

"She will not injure his cause, I think I can assure you."

"She insisted on misunderstanding him. I am so afraid--"

The appearance of Pearson at the door interrupted her and caused her 
to rise from her seat. The neat young man was pale and spoke in a 
nervously lowered voice.

"I beg pardon, Miss. I beg your Grace's pardon for intruding, but--"

Miss Alicia moved toward him in such a manner that he himself seemed 
to feel that he might advance.

"What is it, Pearson? Have you anything special to say?"

"I hope I am not taking too great a liberty, Miss, but I did come in 
for a purpose, knowing that his Grace was with you and thinking you 
might both kindly advise me. It is about Mr. Temple Barholm, your 
Grace--" addressing him as if in involuntary recognition of the fact 
that he might possibly prove the greater support.

"Our Mr. Temple Barholm, Pearson? We are being told there are two of 
them." The duke's delicate emphasis on the possessive pronoun was 
delightful, and it so moved and encouraged sensitive little Pearson 
that he was emboldened to answer with modest firmness:

"Yes,--ours. Thank you, your Grace."

"You feel him yours too, Pearson?" a shade more delightfully still.

"I--I take the liberty, your Grace, of being deeply attached to him, 
and more than grateful."

"What did you want to ask advice about?"

"The family solicitors. Captain Palliser and Lady Joan Fayre and Mr. 
and Miss Hutchinson are to be here shortly, and I have been told I am 
to be questioned. What I want to know, your Grace, is--" He paused, 
and looked no longer pale but painfully red as he gathered himself 
together for his anxious outburst--"Must I speak the truth?"

Miss Alicia started alarmedly.

The duke looked down at the delicate fawn gaiters covering his fine 
instep. His fleeting smile was not this time an external one.

"Do you not wish to speak the truth, Pearson?"

Pearson's manner could have been described only as one of obstinate 
frankness.

"No, your Grace. I do not! Your Grace may misunderstand me--but I do 
not!"

His Grace tapped the gaiters with the slight ebony cane he held in his 
hand.

"Is this "--he put it with impartial curiosity--"because the truth 
might be detrimental to our Mr. Temple Barholm?"

"If you please, your Grace," Pearson made a firm step forward, "what 
is the truth?"

"That is what Messrs. Palford & Grimby seem determined to find out. 
Probably only our Mr. Temple Barholm can tell them."

"Your Grace, what I'm thinking of is that if I tell the truth it may 
seem to prove something that's not the truth."

"What kinds of things, Pearson?" still impartially.

"I can be plain with your Grace. Things like this: I was with Mr. 
Temple Barholm and Mr. Strangeways a great deal. They'll ask me about 
what I heard. They'll ask me if Mr. Strangeways was willing to go away 
to the doctor; if he had to be persuaded and argued with. Well, he had 
and he hadn't, your Grace. At first, just the mention of it would 
upset him so that Mr. Temple Barholm would have to stop talking about 
it and quiet him down. But when he improved--and he did improve 
wonderfully, your Grace--he got into the way of sitting and thinking 
it over and listening quite quiet. But if I'm asked suddenly--"

"What you are afraid of is that you may be asked point-blank questions 
without warning?" his Grace put it with the perspicacity of 
experience.

"That's why I should be grateful for advice. Must I tell the truth, 
your Grace, when it will make them believe things I'd swear are lies--
I'd swear it, your Grace."

"So would I, Pearson." His serene lightness was of the most baffling, 
but curiously supporting, order. "This being the case, my advice would 
be not to go into detail. Let us tell white lies--all of us--without a 
shadow of hesitancy. Miss Temple Barholm, even you must do your best."

"I will try--indeed, I will try!" And the Duke felt her tremulously 
ardent assent actually delicious.

"There! we'll consider that settled, Pearson," he said.

"Thank you, your Grace. Thank you, Miss," Pearson's relieved gratitude 
verged on the devout. He turned to go, and as he did so his attention 
was arrested by an approach he remarked through a window.

"Mr. and Miss Hutchinson are arriving now, Miss," he announced, 
hastily.

"They are to be brought in here," said Miss Alicia.

The duke quietly left his seat and went to look through the window 
with frank and unembarrassed interest in the approach. He went, in 
fact, to look at Little Ann, and as he watched her walk up the avenue, 
her father lumbering beside her, he evidently found her aspect 
sufficiently arresting.

"Ah!" he exclaimed softly, and paused. "What a lot of very nice red 
hair," he said next. And then, "No wonder! No wonder!"

"That, I should say," he remarked as Miss Alicia drew near, "is what I 
once heard a bad young man call `a deserving case.'"

He was conscious that she might have been privately a little shocked 
by such aged flippancy, but she was at the moment perturbed by 
something else.

"The fact is that I have never spoken to Hutchinson," she fluttered. 
"These changes are very confusing. I suppose I ought to say Mr. 
Hutchinson, now that he is such a successful person, and Temple--"

"Without a shadow of a doubt!" The duke seemed struck by the happiness 
of the idea. "They will make him a peer presently. He may address me 
as 'Stone' at any moment. One must learn to adjust one's self with 
agility. `The old order changeth.' Ah! she is smiling at him and I see 
the dimples."

Miss Alicia made a clean breast of it.

"I went to her--I could not help it! " she confessed. "I was in such 
distress and dare not speak to anybody. Temple had told me that she 
was so wonderful. He said she always understood and knew what to do."

"Did she in this case?" he asked, smiling.

Miss Alicia's manner was that of one who could express the extent of 
her admiration only in disconnected phrases.

"She was like a little rock. Such a quiet, firm way! Such calm 
certainty! Oh, the comfort she has been to me! I begged her to come 
here to-day. I did not know her father had returned."

"No doubt he will have testimony to give which will be of the greatest 
assistance," the duke said most encouragingly. "Perhaps he will be a 
sort of rock."

"I--I don't in the least know what he will be!" sighed Miss Alicia, 
evidently uncertain in her views.

But when the father and daughter were announced she felt that his 
Grace was really enchanting in the happy facility of his manner. He at 
least adjusted himself with agility. Hutchinson was of course 
lumbering. Lacking the support of T. Tembarom's presence and 
incongruity, he himself was the incongruous feature. He would have 
been obliged to bluster by way of sustaining himself, even if he had 
only found himself being presented to Miss Alicia; but when it was 
revealed to him that he was also confronted with the greatest 
personage of the neighborhood, he became as hot and red as he had 
become during certain fateful business interviews. More so, indeed.

"Th' other chaps hadn't been dukes;" and to Hutchinson the old order 
had not yet so changed that a duke was not an awkwardly impressive 
person to face unexpectedly.
	
The duke's manner of shaking hands with him, however, was even touched 
with an amiable suggestion of appreciation of the value of a man of 
genius. He had heard of the invention, in fact knew some quite 
technical things about it. He realized its importance. He had 
congratulations for the inventor and the world of inventions so 
greatly benefited.

"Lancashire must be proud of your success, Mr. Hutchinson." How 
agreeably and with what ease he said it!

"Aye, it's a success now, your Grace," Hutchinson answered, "but I 
might have waited a good bit longer if it hadn't been for that lad an' 
his bold backing of me."

"Mr. Temple Barholm?" said the duke.

"Aye. He's got th' way of making folks see things that they can't see 
even when they're hitting them in th' eyes. I'd that lost heart I 
could never have done it myself."

"But now it is done," smiled his Grace. "Delightful!"

"I've got there--same as they say in New York--I've got there," said 
Hutchinson.

He sat down in response to Miss Alicia's invitation. His unease was 
wonderfully dispelled. He felt himself a person of sufficient 
importance to address even a duke as man to man.

"What's all this romancin' talk about th' other Temple Barholm comin' 
back, an' our lad knowin' an' hidin' him away? An' Palliser an' th' 
lawyers an' th' police bein' after 'em both?"

"You have heard the whole story?" from the duke.

"I've heard naught else since I come back."

"Grandmother knew a great deal before we came home," said Little Ann.

The duke turned his attention to her with an engaged smile. His look, 
his bow, his bearing, in the moment of their being presented to each 
other, had seemed to Miss Alicia the most perfect thing. His fine eye 
had not obviously wandered while he talked to her father, but it had 
in fact been taking her in with an inclusiveness not likely to miss 
agreeable points of detail.

"What is her opinion, may I ask?" he said. "What does she say?"

"Grandmother is very set in her ways, your Grace." The limpidity of 
her blue eye and a flickering dimple added much to the quaint 
comprehensiveness of her answer. "She says the world's that full of 
fools that if they were all killed the Lord would have to begin again 
with a new Adam and Eve."

"She has entire faith in Mr. Temple Barholm--as you have," put forward 
his Grace.

"Mine's not faith exactly. I know him," Little Ann answered, her tone 
as limpid as her eyes.

"There's more than her has faith in him," broke forth Hutchinson. 
"Danged if I don't like th' way them village chaps are taking it. 
They're ready to fight over it. Since they've found out what it's come 
to, an' about th' lawyers comin' down, they're talkin' about gettin' 
up a kind o' demonstration."

"Delightful!" ejaculated his Grace again. He leaned forward. "Quite 
what I should have expected. There's a good deal of beer drunk, I 
suppose."

"Plenty o' beer, but it'll do no harm." Hutchinson began to chuckle. 
"They're talkin' o' gettin' out th' fife an' drum band an' marchin' 
round th' village with a calico banner with `Vote for T. Tembarom' 
painted on it, to show what they think of him."

The duke chuckled also.

"I wonder how he's managed it?" he laughed. "They wouldn't do it for 
any of the rest of us, you know, though I've no doubt we're quite as 
deserving. I am, I know."

Hutchinson stopped laughing and turned on Miss Alicia.

"What's that young woman comin' down here for?" he inquired.

"Lady Joan was engaged to Mr. James Temple Barholm," Miss Alicia 
answered.

"Eh! Eh!" Hutchinson jerked out. "That'll turn her into a wildcat, 
I'll warrant. She'll do all th' harm she can. I'm much obliged to you 
for lettin' us come, ma'am. I want to be where I can stand by him."

"Father," said Little Ann, "what you have got to remember is that you 
mustn't fly into a passion. You know you've always said it never did 
any good, and it only sends the blood to your head."

"You are not nervous, Miss Hutchinson?" the duke suggested.

"About Mr. Temple Barholm? I couldn't be, your Grace. If I was to see 
two policemen bringing him in handcuffed I shouldn't be nervous. I 
should know the handcuffs didn't belong to him, and the policemen 
would look right-down silly to me."

Miss Alicia fluttered over to fold her in her arms.

"Do let me kiss you," she said. "Do let me, Little Ann!"

Little Ann had risen at once to meet her embrace. She put a hand on 
her arm.

"We don't know anything about this really," she said. "We've only 
heard what people say. We haven't heard what he says. I'm going to 
wait." They were all looking at her,-- the duke with such marked 
interest that she turned toward him as she ended. "And if I had to 
wait until I was as old as grandmother I'd wait--and nothing would 
change my mind."

"And I've been lying awake at night!" softly wailed Miss Alicia.




CHAPTER XXXIX


It was Mr. Hutchinson who, having an eye on the window, first 
announced an arriving carriage.

"Some of 'em's comin' from the station," he remarked. "There's no 
young woman with 'em, that I can see from here."

"I thought I heard wheels." Miss Alicia went to look out, agitatedly. 
"It is the gentlemen. Perhaps Lady Joan--" she turned desperately to 
the duke. "I don't know what to say to Lady Joan. I don't know what 
she will say to me. I don't know what she is coming for, Little Ann, 
do keep near me!"

It was a pretty thing to see Little Ann stroke her hand and soothe 
her.

"Don't be frightened, Miss Temple Barholm. All you've got to do is to 
answer questions," she said.

"But I might say things that would be wrong--things that would harm 
him."

"No, you mightn't, Miss Temple Barholm. He's not done anything that 
could bring harm on him."

The Duke of Stone, who had seated himself in T. Tembarom's favorite 
chair, which occupied a point of vantage, seemed to Mr. Palford and 
Mr. Grimby when they entered the room to wear the aspect of a sort of 
presidiary audience. The sight of his erect head and clear-cut, ivory-
tinted old face, with its alert, while wholly unbiased, expression, 
somewhat startled them both. They had indeed not expected to see him, 
and did not know why he had chosen to come. His presence might mean 
any one of several things, and the fact that he enjoyed a reputation 
for quite alarming astuteness of a brilliant kind presented elements 
of probable embarrassment. If he thought that they had allowed 
themselves to be led upon a wild-goose chase, he would express his 
opinions with trying readiness of phrase.

His manner of greeting them, however, expressed no more than a lightly 
agreeable detachment from any view whatsoever. Captain Palliser felt 
this curiously, though he could not have said what he would have 
expected from him if he had known it would be his whim to appear.

"How do you do? How d' you do?" His Grace shook hands with the amiable 
ease which scarcely commits a man even to casual interest, after which 
he took his seat again.

"How d' do, Miss Hutchinson?" said Palliser. "How d' do, Mr. 
Hutchinson? Mr. Palford will be glad to find you here."

Mr. Palford shook hands with correct civility.

"I am, indeed," he said. "It was in your room in New York that I first 
saw Mr. Temple Temple Barholm."

"Aye, it was," responded Hutchinson, dryly.

"I thought Lady Joan was coming," Miss Alicia said to Palliser.

"She will be here presently. She came down in our train, but not with 
us."

"What--what is she coming for?" faltered Miss Alicia.

"Yes," put in the duke, "what, by the way, is she coming for?"

"I wrote and asked her to come," was Palliser's reply. "I have reason 
to believe she may be able to recall something of value to the inquiry 
which is being made."

"That's interesting," said his Grace, but with no air of participating 
particularly. She doesn't like him, though, does she? Wouldn't do to 
put her on the jury."

He did not wait for any reply, but turned to Mr. Palford.

"All this is delightfully portentous. Do you know it reminds me of a 
scene in one of those numerous plays where the wrong man has murdered 
somebody--or hasn't murdered somebody--and the whole company must be 
cross-examined because the curtain cannot be brought down until the 
right man is unmasked. Do let us come into this, Mr. Palford; what we 
know seems so inadequate."

Mr. Palford and Mr. Grimby each felt that there lurked in this manner 
a possibility that they were being regarded lightly. All the 
objections to their situation loomed annoyingly large.

"It is, of course, an extraordinary story," Mr. Palford said, "but if 
we are not mistaken in our deductions, we may find ourselves involved 
in a cause celebre which will set all England talking."

"I am not mistaken," Palliser presented the comment with a short and 
dry laugh.

"Tha seems pretty cock-sure!" Hutchinson thrust in.

"I am. No one knew Jem Temple Barbolm better than I did in the past. 
We were intimate--enemies." And he laughed again.

"Tha says tha'll swear th' chap tha saw through th' window was him?" 
said Hutchinson.

"I'd swear it," with composure.

The duke was reflecting. He was again tapping with his cane the gaiter 
covering his slender, shining boot.

"If Mr. Temple Temple Barholm had remained here his actions would have 
seemed less suspicious?" he suggested.

It was Palliser who replied.

"Or if he hadn't whisked the other man away. He lost his head and 
played the fool."

"He didn't lose his head, that chap. It's screwed on th' right way--
his head is," grunted Hutchinson.

"The curious fellow has a number of friends," the duke remarked to 
Palford and Grimby, in his impartial tone. "I am hoping you are not 
thinking of cross-examining me. I have always been convinced that 
under cross-examination I could be induced to innocently give evidence 
condemnatory to both sides of any case whatever. But would you mind 
telling me what the exact evidence is so far? "

Mr. Palford had been opening a budget of papers.

"It is evidence which is cumulative, your Grace," he said. "Mr. Temple 
Temple Barholm's position would have been a far less suspicious one--
as you yourself suggested--if he had remained, or if he hadn't 
secretly removed Mr.--Mr. Strangeways."

"The last was Captain Palliser's suggestion, I believe," smiled the 
duke. "Did he remove him secretly? How secretly, for instance?"

"At night," answered Palliser. "Miss Temple Barholm herself did not 
know when it happened. Did you?" turning to Miss Alicia, who at once 
flushed and paled.

"He knew that I was rather nervous where Mr. Strangeways was 
concerned. I am sorry to say he found that out almost at once. He even 
told me several times that I must not think of him--that I need hear 
nothing about him." She turned to the duke, her air of appeal plainly 
representing a feeling that he would understand her confession. "I 
scarcely like to say it, but wrong as it was I couldn't help feeling 
that it was like having a--a lunatic in the house. I was afraid he 
might be more--ill--than Temple realized, and that he might some time 
become violent. I never admitted so much of course, but I was."

"You see, she was not told," Palliser summed it up succinctly.

"Evidently," the duke admitted. "I see your point." But he seemed to 
disengage himself from all sense of admitting implications with entire 
calmness, as he turned again to Mr. Palford and his papers.

"You were saying that the exact evidence was--?"

Mr. Palford referred to a sheet of notes.

"That--whether before or shortly after his arrival here is not at all 
certain--Mr. Temple Temple Barholm began strongly to suspect the 
identity of the person then known as Strangeways--"

Palliser again emitted the short and dry laugh, and both the duke and 
Mr. Palford looked at him inquiringly.

"He had `got on to' it before he brought him," he answered their 
glances. "Be sure of that."

"Then why did he bring him?" the duke suggested lightly.

"Oh, well," taking his cue from the duke, and assuming casual 
lightness also, "he was obliged to come himself, and was jolly well 
convinced that he had better keep his hand on the man, also his eye. 
It was a good-enough idea. He couldn't leave a thing like that 
wandering about the States. He could play benefactor safely in a house 
of the size of this until he was ready for action."

The duke gave a moment to considering the matter--still detachedly.

"It is, on the whole, not unlikely that something of the sort might 
suggest itself to the criminal mind," he said. And his glance at Mr. 
Palford intimated that he might resume his statement.

"We have secured proof that he applied himself to secret 
investigation. He is known to have employed Scotland Yard to make 
certain inquiries concerning the man said to have been killed in the 
Klondike. Having evidently reached more than suspicion he began to 
endeavor to persuade Mr. Strangeways to let him take him to London. 
This apparently took some time. The mere suggestion of removal threw 
the invalid into a state of painful excitement--"

"Did Pearson tell you that? " the duke inquired.

"Captain Palliser himself in passing the door of the room one day 
heard certain expressions of terrified pleading," was Mr. Palford's 
explanation.

"I heard enough," Palliser took it up carelessly, "to make it worth 
while to question Pearson--who must have heard a great deal more. 
Pearson was ordered to hold his tongue from the first, but he will 
have to tell the truth when he is asked."

The duke did not appear to resent his view.

"Pearson would be likely to know what went on," he remarked. "He's an 
intelligent little fellow."

"The fact remains that in spite of his distress and reluctance Mr. 
Strangeways was removed privately, and there our knowledge ends. He 
has not been seen since--and a few hours after, Captain Palliser 
expressed his conviction, that the person he had seen through the West 
Room window was Mr. James Temple Barholm, Mr. Temple Temple Barholm 
left the house taking a midnight train, and leaving no clue as to his 
where-abouts or intentions."

"Disappeared! " said the duke. "Where has he been looked for?"

The countenance of both Mr. Palford and his party expressed a certain 
degree of hesitance.

"Principally in asylums and so-called sanatoriums," Mr. Grimby 
admitted with a hint of reluctance.

"Places where the curiosity of outsiders is not encouraged," said 
Palliser languidly. "And where if a patient dies in a fit of mania 
there are always respectable witnesses to explain that his case was 
hopeless from the first."

Mr. Hutchinson had been breathing hard occasionally as he sat and 
listened, and now he sprang up uttering a sound dangerously near a 
violent snort.

"Art tha accusin' that lad o' bein' black villain enough to be ready 
to do bloody murder?" he cried out.

"He was in a very tight place, Hutchinson," Palliser shrugged his 
shoulders as he said it. "But one makes suggestions at this stage--not 
accusations."

That Hutchinson had lost his head was apparent to his daughter at 
least.

"Tha'd be in a tight place, my fine chap, if I had my way," he flung 
forth irately. "I'd like to get thy head under my arm."

The roll of approaching wheels reached Miss Alicia.

"There's another carriage," was her agitated exclamation. "Oh, dear! 
It must be Lady Joan!"

Little Ann left her seat to make her father return to his.

"Father, you'd better sit down," she said, gently pushing him in the 
right direction. "When you can't prove a thing's a lie, it's just as 
well to keep quiet until you can." And she kept quiet herself, though 
she turned and stood before Palliser and spoke with clear 
deliberateness. "What you pretend to believe is not true, Captain 
Palliser. It's just not true," she gave to him.

They were facing and looking at each other when Burrill announced Lady 
Joan Fayre. She entered rather quickly and looked round the room with 
a sweeping glance, taking them all in. She went to the duke first, and 
they shook hands.

"I am glad you are here! " she said.

"I would not have been out of it, my dear young lady," he answered, 
"`for a farm' That's a quotation."

"I know," she replied, giving her hand to Miss Alicia, and taking in 
Palliser and the solicitors with a bow which was little more than a 
nod. Then she saw Little Ann, and walked over to her to shake hands.

"I am glad you are here. I rather felt you would be," was her 
greeting. "I am glad to see you."

"Whether tha 'rt glad to see me or not I'm glad I'm here," said 
Hutchinson bluntly. "I've just been speaking a bit o' my mind."

"Now, Father love!" Little Ann put her hand on his arm.

Lady Joan looked him over. Her hungry eyes were more hungry than ever. 
She looked like a creature in a fever and worn by it.

"I think I am glad you are here too," she answered.

Palliser sauntered over to her. He had approved the duke's air of 
being at once detached and inquiring, and he did not intend to wear 
the aspect of the personage who plays the unpleasant part of the 
pursuer and avenger. What he said was:

"It was good of you to come, Lady Joan."

"Did you think I would stay away?" was her answer. "But I will tell 
you that I don't believe it is true."

"You think that it is too good to be true?"

Her hot eyes had records in them it would have been impossible for him 
to read or understand. She had been so torn; she had passed through 
such hours since she had been told this wild thing.

"Pardon my not telling you what I think," she said. "Nothing matters, 
after all, if he is alive!"

"Except that we must find him," said Palliser.

"If he is in the same world with me I shall find him," fiercely. Then 
she turned again to Ann. "You are the girl T. Tembarom loves?" she put 
it to her.

"Yes, my lady."

"If he was lost, and you knew he was on the earth with you, don't you 
know that you would find him?"

"I should know he'd come back to me," Little Ann answered her. "That's 
what--" her small face looked very fine as in her second of hesitation 
a spirited flush ran over it, "that's what your man will do," quite 
firmly.

It was amazing to see how the bitter face changed, as if one word had 
brought back a passionate softening memory.

"My man!" Her voice mellowed until it was deep and low. "Did you call 
T. Tembarom that, too? Oh, I understand you! Keep near me while I talk 
to these people." She made her sit down by her.

"I know every detail of your letters." She addressed Palliser as well 
as Palford & Grimby, sweeping all details aside. "What is it you want 
to ask me?"

"This is our position, your ladyship," Mr. Palford fumbled a little 
with his papers in speaking. "Mr. Temple Temple Barholm and the person 
known as Mr. Strangeways have been searched for so far without result. 
In the meantime we realize that the more evidence we obtain that Mr. 
Temple Temple Barholm identified Strangeways and acted from motive, 
the more solid the foundation upon which Captain Palliser's conviction 
rests. Up to this point we have only his statement which he is 
prepared to make on oath. Fortunately, however, he on one occasion 
overheard something said to you which he believes will be 
corroborative evidence."

"What did you overhear?" she inquired of Palliser.

Her tone was not pacific considering that, logically, she must be on 
the side of the investigators. But it was her habit, as Captain 
Palliser remembered, to seem to put most people on the defensive. He 
meant to look as uninvolved as the duke, but it was not quite within 
his power. His manner was sufficiently deliberate.

"One evening, before you left for London, I was returning from the 
billiard-room, and heard you engaged in animated conversation with--
our host. My attention was arrested, first because--" a sketch of a 
smile ill-concealed itself, "you usually scarcely deigned to speak to 
him, and secondly because I heard Jem Temple Barholm's name."

"And you--?" neither eyes nor manner omitted the word listened.

But the slight lift of his shoulders was indifferent enough.

"I listened deliberately. I was convinced that the fellow was a 
criminal impostor, and I wanted evidence."

"Ah! come now," remarked the duke amiably. "Now we are getting on. Did 
you gain any?"

"I thought so. Merely of the cumulative order, of course," Palliser 
answered with moderation. "Those were early days. He asked you," 
turning to Lady Joan again, "if you knew any one--any one--who had any 
sort of a photograph of Jem. You had one and you showed it to him!"

She was quite silent for a moment. The hour came back to her--the 
extraordinary hour when he had stood in his lounging fashion before 
her, and through some odd, uncivilized but absolutely human force of 
his own had made her listen to him --and had gone on talking in his 
nasal voice until with one common, crude, grotesque phrase he had 
turned her hideous world upside down--changed the whole face of it--
sent the stone wall rising before her crumbling into dust, and seemed 
somehow to set her free. For the moment he had lifted a load from her 
the nature of which she did not think he could understand--a load of 
hatred and silence. She had clutched his hand, she had passionately 
wept on it, she could have kissed it. He had told her she could come 
back and not be afraid. As the strange episode rose before her detail 
by detail, she literally stared at Palliser.

"You did, didn't you?" he inquired.

"Yes," she answered.

Her mind was in a riot, because in the midst of things which must be 
true, something was false. But with the memory of a myriad subtle 
duplicities in her brain, she had never seen anything which could have 
approached a thing like that. He had made her feel more human than any 
one in the world had ever made her feel--but Jem. He had been able to 
do it because he was human himself--human. "I'm friendly," he had said 
with his boy's laugh--"just friendly."

"I saw him start, though you did not," Palliser continued. "He stood 
and studied the locket intently."

She remembered perfectly. He had examined it so closely that he had 
unconsciously knit his brows.

"He said something in a rather low voice," Palliser took it up. "I 
could not quite catch it all. It was something about `knowing the face 
again.' I can see you remember, Lady Joan. Can you repeat the exact 
words?"

He did not understand the struggle he saw in her face. It would have 
been impossible for him to understand it. What she felt was that if 
she lost hold on her strange belief in the honesty of this one decent 
thing she had seen and felt so close to her that it cleared the air 
she breathed, it would be as if she had fallen into a bottomless 
abyss. Without knowing why she did it, she got up from her chair as if 
she were a witness in a court.

"Yes, I can," she said. "Yes, I can; but I wish to make a statement 
for myself. Whether Jem Temple Barholm is alive or dead, Captain 
Palliser, T. Tembarom has done him no harm."

The duke sat up delicately alert. He had evidently found her worth 
looking at and listening to from the outset.

"Hear! Hear!" he said pleasantly.

"What were the exact words?" suggested Palliser.

Miss Alicia who had been weeping on Little Ann's shoulder --almost on 
her lap--lifted her head to listen. Hutchinson set his jaw and 
grunted, and Mr. Palford cleared his throat mechanically.

"He said," and no one better than herself realized how ominously 
"cumulative" the words sounded, "that a man would know a face like 
that again--wherever he saw it."

"Wherever he saw it!" ejaculated Mr. Grimby.

There ensued a moment of entire pause. It was inevitable. Having 
reached this point a taking of breath was necessary. Even the duke 
ceased to appear entirely detached. As Mr. Palford turned to his 
papers again there was perhaps a slight feeling of awkwardness in the 
air. Miss Alicia had dropped, terror smitten, into new tears.

The slight awkwardness was, on the whole, rather added to by T. 
Tembarom--as if serenely introduced by the hand of drama itself--
opening the door and walking into the room. He came in with a matter-
of-fact, but rather obstinate, air, and stopped in their midst, 
looking round at them as if collectedly taking them all in.

Hutchinson sprang to his feet with a kind of roar, his big hands 
plunging deep into his trousers pockets.

"Here he is! Danged if he isn't!" he bellowed. "Now, lad, tha let 'em 
have it!"

What he was to let them have did not ensue, because his attitude was 
not one of assault.

"Say, you are all here, ain't you!" he remarked obviously. "Good 
business!"

Miss Alicia got up from the sofa and came trembling toward him as one 
approaches one risen from the dead, and he made a big stride toward 
her and took her in his arms, patting her shoulder in reproachful 
consolation.

"Say, you haven't done what I told you--have you?" he soothed. "You've 
let yourself get rattled."

"But I knew it wasn't true," she sobbed. "I knew it wasn't."

"Of course you did, but you got rattled all the same." And he patted 
her again.

The duke came forward with a delightfully easy and--could it be almost 
jocose?--air of bearing himself. Palford and Grimby remarked it with 
pained dismay. He was so unswerving in his readiness as he shook 
hands.

"How well done of you!" he said. "How well arranged! But I'm afraid 
you didn't arrange it at all. It has merely happened. Where did you 
come from?"

"From America; got back yesterday." T. Tembarom's hand-shake was a 
robust hearty greeting. "It's all right."

"From America!" The united voices of the solicitors exclaimed it.

Joseph Hutchinson broke into a huge guffaw, and he stamped in 
exultation.

"I'm danged if be has na' been to America!" he cried out. "To 
America!"

"Oh!" Miss Alicia gasped hysterically, "they go backward and forward 
to America like--like lightning!"

Little Ann had not risen at his entrance, but sat still with her hands 
clasped tightly on her lap. Her face had somehow the effect of a 
flower gradually breaking into extraordinary bloom. Their eyes had 
once met and then she remained, her soul in hers which were upon him, 
as she drank in every word he uttered. Her time had not yet come.

Lady Joan had remained standing by the chair, which a few moments 
before her manner had seemed to transform into something like a 
witness stand in a court of justice. Her hungry eyes had grown 
hungrier each second, and her breath came and went quickly. The very 
face she had looked up at on her last talk with T. Tembarom--the oddly 
human face--turned on her as he came to her. It was just as it had 
been that night --just as commonly uncommon and believable.

"Say, Lady Joan! You didn't believe all that guff, did you--You 
didn't?" he said.

"No--no--no! I couldn't!" she cried fiercely.

He saw she was shaking with suspense, and he pushed her gently into a 
chair.

"You'd better sit down a minute. You're about all in," he said.

She might have been a woman with an ague as she caught his arm, 
shaking it because her hands themselves so shook.

"Is it true?" was her low cry. "Is he alive--is he alive?"

"Yes, he's alive." And as he answered he drew close and so placed 
himself before her that he shielded her from the others in the room. 
He seemed to manage to shut them out, so that when she dropped her 
face on her arms against the chair-back her shuddering, silent sobbing 
was hidden decently. It was not only his body which did it, but some 
protecting power which was almost physically visible. She felt it 
spread before her.

"Yes, he's alive," he said, "and he's all right--though it's been a 
long time coming, by gee!"

"He's alive." They all heard it. For a man of Palliser's make to stand 
silent in the midst of mysterious slowly accumulating convictions that 
some one--perilously of his own rarely inept type--was on the verge of 
feeling appallingly like a fool--was momentarily unendurable. And 
nothing had been explained, after all.

"Is this what you call `bluff' in New York?" he demanded. "You've got 
a lot to explain. You admit that Jem Temple Barholm is alive?" and 
realized his asinine error before the words were fully spoken.

The realization was the result of the square-shouldered swing with 
which T. Tembarom turned round, and the expression of his eyes as they 
ran over him.

"Admit!" he said. "Admit hell! He's up-stairs," with a slight jerk of 
his head in the direction of the ceiling.

The duke alone did not gasp. He laughed slightly.

"We've just got here. He came down from London with me, and Sir Ormsby 
Galloway." And he said it not to Palliser but to Palford and Grimby.

"The Sir Ormsby Galloway?" It was an ejaculation from Mr. Palford 
himself.

T. Tembarom stood square and gave his explanation to the lot of them, 
so to speak, without distinction.

"He's the big nerve specialist. I've had him looking after the case 
from the first--before I began to suspect anything. I took orders, and 
orders were to keep him quiet and not let any fool butt in and excite 
him. That's what I've been giving my mind to. The great stunt was to 
get him to go and stay at Sir Ormsby's place." He stopped a moment and 
suddenly flared forth as if he had had about enough of it. He almost 
shouted at them in exasperation. "All I'm going to tell you is that 
for about six months I've been trying to prove that Jem Temple Barholm 
was Jem Temple Barholm, and the hardest thing I had to do was to get 
him so that he could prove it himself." He strode over to the hearth 
and rang a bell. "It's not my place to give orders here now," he said, 
"but Jem commissioned me to see this thing through. Sir Ormsby'll tell 
you all you want to hear."

He turned and spoke solely to the duke.

"This is what happened," he said. "I dare say you'll laugh when you 
hear it. I almost laughed myself. What does Jem do, when he thinks 
things over, but get some fool notion in his head about not coming 
back here and pushing me out. And he lights out and leaves the 
country--leaves it--to get time to think it over some more."

The duke did not laugh. He merely smiled--a smile which had a shade of 
curious self-questioning in it.

"Romantic and emotional--and quite ridiculous," he commented slowly. 
"He'd have awakened to that when he had thought it out `some more.' 
The thing couldn't be done."

Burrill had presented himself in answer to the bell, and awaited 
orders. His Grace called Tembarom's attention to him, and Tembarom 
included Palliser with Palford and Grimby when he gave his gesture of 
instruction.

"Take these gentlemen to Sir Ormsby Galloway, and then ask Mr. Temple 
Barholm if he'll come down-stairs," he said.

It is possible that Captain Palliser felt himself more irritatingly 
infolded in the swathing realization that some one was in a ridiculous 
position, and it is certain that Mr. Palford felt it necessary to 
preserve an outwardly flawless dignity as the duke surprisingly left 
his chair and joined them.

"Let me go, too," he suggested; "I may be able to assist in throwing 
light." His including movement in Miss Alicia's direction was 
delightfully gracious and friendly. It was inclusive of Mr. Hutchinson 
also.

"Will you come with us, Miss Temple Barholm?" he said. "And you too, 
Mr. Hutchinson. We shall go over it all in its most interesting 
detail, and you must be eager about it. I am myself."

His happy and entirely correct idea was that the impending entrance of 
Mr. James Temple Barholm would "come off" better in the absence of 
audience.

Hutchinson almost bounced from his chair in his readiness. Miss Alicia 
looked at Tembarom.

"Yes, Miss Alicia," he answered her inquiring glance. "You go, too. 
You'll get it all over quicker."

Rigid propriety forbade that Mr. Palford should express annoyance, but 
the effort to restrain the expression of it was in his countenance. 
Was it possible that the American habit of being jocular had actually 
held its own in a matter as serious as this? And could even the most 
cynical and light-minded of ducal personages have been involved in its 
unworthy frivolities? But no one looked jocular--Tembarom's jaw was 
set in its hard line, and the duke, taking up the broad ribbon of his 
rimless monocle to fix the glass in his eye, wore the expression of a 
man whose sense of humor was temporarily in abeyance.

"Are we to understand that your Grace--?"

"Yes," said his Grace a trifle curtly, "I have known about it for some 
time."

"But why was nobody told?" put in Palliser.

"Why should people be told? There was nothing sufficiently definite to 
tell. It was a waiting game." His Grace wasted no words. "I was told. 
Mr. Temple Barholm did not know England or English methods. His idea--
perhaps a mistaken one--was that an English duke ought to be able to 
advise him. He came to me and made a clean breast of it. He goes 
straight at things, that young fellow. Makes what he calls a `bee 
line.' Oh! I've been in it--I 've been in it, I assure you."

It was as they crossed the hall that his Grace slightly laughed.

"It struck me as a sort of wild-goose chase at first. He had only a 
ghost of a clue--a mere resemblance to a portrait. But he believed in 
it, and he had an instinct." He laughed again. "The dullest and most 
unmelodramatic neighborhood in England has been taking part in a 
melodrama--but there has been no villain in it--only a matter-of-fact 
young man, working out a queer thing in his own queer, matter-of-fact 
way."

When the door closed behind them, Tembarom went to Lady Joan. She had 
risen and was standing before the window, her back to the room. She 
looked tall and straight and tensely braced when she turned round, but 
there was endurance, not fierceness in her eyes.

"Did he leave the country knowing I was here--waiting?" she asked. Her 
voice was low and fatigued. She had remembered that years had passed, 
and that it was perhaps after all only human that long anguish should 
blot things out, and dull a hopeless man's memory.

"No," answered Tembarom sharply. "He didn't. You weren't in it then. 
He believed you'd married that Duke of Merthshire fellow. This is the 
way it was: Let me tell it to you quick. A letter that had been 
wandering round came to him the night before the cave-in, when they 
thought he was killed. It told him old Temple Barholm was dead. He 
started out before daylight, and you can bet he was strung up till he 
was near crazy with excitement. He believed that if he was in England 
with plenty of money he could track down that cardsharp lie. He 
believed you'd help him. Somewhere, while he was traveling he came 
across an old paper with a lot of dope about your being engaged."

Joan remembered well how her mother had worked to set the story 
afloat--how they had gone through the most awful of their scenes--
almost raving at each other, shut up together in the boudoir in Hill 
Street.

"That's all he remembers, except that he thought some one had hit him 
a crack on the head. Nothing had hit him. He'd had too much to stand 
up under and something gave way in his brain. He doesn't know what 
happened after that. He'd wake up sometimes just enough to know he was 
wandering about trying to get home. It's been the limit to try to 
track him. If he'd not come to himself we could never have been quite 
sure. That's why I stuck at it. But he DID come to himself. All of a 
sudden. Sir Ormsby will tell you that's what nearly always happens. 
They wake up all of a sudden. It's all right; it's all right. I used 
to promise him it would be--when I wasn't sure that I wasn't lying." 
And for the first time he broke into the friendly grin--but it was 
more valiant than spontaneous. He wanted her to know that it was "all 
right."

"Oh!" she cried, "oh! you--"

She stopped because the door was opening.

"It's Jem," he said sharply. "Ann, let's go." And that instant Little 
Ann was near him.

"No! no! don't go," cried Lady Joan.

Jem Temple Barholm came in through the doorway. Life and sound and 
breath stopped for a second, and then the two whirled into each 
other's arms as if a storm had swept them there.

"Jem!" she wailed. "Oh, Jem! My man! Where have you been?"

"I've been in hell, Joan--in hell!" he answered, choking, --"and this 
wonderful fellow has dragged me out of it."

But Tembarom would have none of it. He could not stand it. This sort 
of thing filled up his throat and put him at an overwhelming 
disadvantage. He just laid a hand on Jem Temple Barholm's shoulder and 
gave him an awkwardly friendly push.

"Say, cut me out of it!" he said. "You get busy," his voice rather 
breaking. "You've got a lot to say to her. It was up to me before;--
now, it's up to you."

Little Ann went with him into the next room.



The room they went into was a smaller one, quiet, and its oriel 
windows much overshadowed by trees. By the time they stood together in 
the center of it Tembarom had swallowed something twice or thrice, and 
had recovered himself. Even his old smile had come back as he took one 
of her hands in each of his, and holding them wide apart stood and 
looked down at her.

"God bless you, Little Ann," he said. "I just knew I should find you 
here. I'd have bet my last dollar on it."

The hands he held were trembling just a little, and the dimples 
quivered in and out. But her eyes were steady, and a lovely increasing 
intensity glowed in them.

"You went after him and brought him back. He was all wrought up, and 
he needed some one with good common sense to stop him in time to make 
him think straight before he did anything silly," she said.

"I says to him," T. Tembarom made the matter clear; "`Say, you've left 
something behind that belongs to you! Comeback and get it.' I meant 
Lady Joan. And I says, `Good Lord, man, you're acting like a fellow in 
a play. That place doesn't belong to me. It belongs to you. If it was 
mine, fair and square, Little Willie'd hang on to it. There'd be no 
noble sacrifice in his. You get a brace on.'"

"When they were talking in that silly way about you, and saying you'd 
run away," said Little Ann, her face uplifted adoringly as she talked, 
"I said to father, `If he's gone, he's gone to get something. And 
he'll be likely to bring it back.'"

He almost dropped her hands and caught her to him then. But he saved 
himself in time.

"Now this great change has come," he said, "everything will be 
different. The men you'll know will look like the pictures in the 
advertisements at the backs of magazines--those fellows with chins and 
smooth hair. I shall look like a chauffeur among them."

But she did not blench in the least, though she remembered whose words 
he was quoting. The intense and lovely femininity in her eyes only 
increased. She came closer to him, and so because of his height had to 
look up more.

"You will always make jokes--but I don't care. I don't care for 
anything but you," she said. "I love your jokes; I love everything 
about you: I love your eyes--and your voice --and your laugh. I love 
your very clothes." Her voice quivered as her dimples did. "These last 
months I've sometimes felt as if I should die of loving you."

It was a wonderful thing--wonderful. His eyes--his whole young being 
had kindled as he looked down drinking in every word.

"Is that the kind of quiet little thing you are?" he said.

"Yes, it is," she answered firmly.

"And you're satisfied--you know, who it is I want?-- You're ready to 
do what you said you would that last night at Mrs. Bowse's?"

"What do you think?" she said in her clear little voice.

He caught her then in a strong, hearty, young, joyous clutch.

"You come to me, Little Ann. You come right to me," he said.




CHAPTER XL


Many an honest penny was turned, with the assistance of the romantic 
Temple Barholm case, by writers of paragraphs for newspapers published 
in the United States. It was not merely a romance which belonged to 
England but was excitingly linked to America by the fact that its hero 
regarded himself as an American, and had passed through all the 
picturesque episodes of a most desirably struggling youth in the very 
streets of New York itself, and had "worked his way up" to the proud 
position of society reporter "on" a huge Sunday paper. It was 
generally considered to redound largely to his credit that refusing 
"in spite of all temptations to belong to other nations," he had been 
born in Brooklyn, that he had worn ragged clothes and shoes with holes 
in them, that he had blacked other people's shoes, run errands, and 
sold newspapers there. If he had been a mere English young man, one 
recounting of his romance would have disposed of him; but as he was 
presented to the newspaper public every characteristic lent itself to 
elaboration. He was, in fact, flaringly anecdotal. As a newly elected 
President who has made boots or driven a canal-boat in his 
unconsidered youth endears himself indescribably to both paragraph 
reader and paragraph purveyor, so did T. Tembarom endear himself. For 
weeks, he was a perennial fount. What quite credible story cannot be 
related of a hungry lad who is wildly flung by chance into immense 
fortune and the laps of dukes, so to speak? The feeblest imagination 
must be stirred by the high color of such an episode, and stimulated 
to superb effort. Until the public had become sated with reading 
anecdotes depicting the extent of his early privations, and dwelling 
on illustrations which presented lumber-yards in which he had slept, 
and the facades of tumble-down tenements in which he had first beheld 
the light of day, he was a modest source of income. Any lumber-yard or 
any tenement sufficiently dilapidated would serve as a model; and the 
fact that in the shifting architectural life of New York the actual 
original scenes of the incidents had been demolished and built upon by 
new apartment-houses, or new railroad stations, or new factories 
seventy-five stories high, was an unobstructing triviality. Accounts 
of his manner of conducting himself in European courts to which he had 
supposedly been bidden, of his immense popularity in glittering 
circles, of his finely democratic bearing when confronted by emperors 
surrounded by their guilty splendors, were the joy of remote villages 
and towns. A thrifty and young minor novelist hastily incorporated him 
in a serial, and syndicated it upon the spot under the title of 
"Living or Dead." Among its especial public it was a success of such a 
nature as betrayed its author into as hastily writing a second 
romance, which not being rendered stimulating by a foundation of fact 
failed to repeat his triumph.

T. Tembarom, reading in the library at Temple Barholm the first 
newspapers sent from New York, smiled widely.

"You see they've got to say something, Jem," he explained. "It's too 
big a scoop to be passed over. Something's got to be turned in. And it 
means money to the fellows, too. It's good copy."

"Suppose," suggested Jem, watching him with interest, "you were to 
write the facts yourself and pass them on to some decent chap who'd be 
glad to get them."

"Glad!" Tembarom flushed with delight. "Any chap would be'way up in 
the air at the chance. It's the best kind of stuff. Wouldn't you mind? 
Are you sure you wouldn't?" He was the warhorse snuffing battle from 
afar.

Jem Temple Barholm laughed outright at the gleam in his eyes.

"No, I shouldn't care a hang, dear fellow. And the fact that I 
objected would not stop the story."

"No, it wouldn't, by gee! Say, I'll get Ann to help me, and we'll send 
it to the man who took my place on the Earth. It'll mean board and 
boots to him for a month if he works it right. And it'll be doing a 
good turn to Galton, too. I shall be glad to see old Galton when I go 
back."

"You are quite sure you want to go back?" inquired Jem. A certain glow 
of feeling was always in his eyes when he turned them on T. Tembarom.

"Go back! I should smile! Of course I shall go back. I've got to get 
busy for Hutchinson and I've got to get busy for myself. I guess 
there'll be work to do that'll take me half over the world; but I'm 
going back first. Ann's going with me."

But there was no reference to a return to New York when the Sunday 
Earth and other widely circulated weekly sheets gave prominence to the 
marriage of Mr. Temple Temple Barholm and Miss Hutchinson, only child 
and heiress of Mr. Joseph Hutchinson, the celebrated inventor. From a 
newspaper point of view, the wedding had been rather unfairly quiet, 
and it was necessary to fill space with a revival of the renowned 
story, with pictures of bride and bridegroom, and of Temple Barholm 
surrounded by ancestral oaks. A thriving business would have been done 
by the reporters if an ocean greyhound had landed the pair at the dock 
some morning, and snap-shots could have been taken as they crossed the 
gangway, and wearing apparel described. But hope of such fortune was 
swept away by the closing paragraph, which stated that Mr. and Mrs. 
Temple Barholm would "spend the next two months in motoring through 
Italy and Spain in their 90 h. p. Panhard."

It was T. Tembarom who sent this last item privately to Galton.

"It's not true," his letter added, "but what I'm going to do is 
nobody's business but mine and my wife's, and this will suit people 
just as well." And then he confided to Galton the thing which was the 
truth.

The St. Francesca apartment-house was a very new one, situated on a 
corner of an as yet sparsely built but rapidly spreading avenue above 
the "100th Streets"--many numbers above them. There was a frankly 
unfinished air about the neighborhood, but here and there a "store" 
had broken forth and valiantly displayed necessities, and even 
articles verging upon the economically ornamental. It was plainly 
imperative that the idea should be suggested that there were on the 
spot sources of supply not requiring the immediate employment of the 
services of the elevated railroad in the achievement of purchase, and 
also that enterprise rightly encouraged might develop into being equal 
to all demands. Here and there an exceedingly fresh and clean "market 
store," brilliant with the highly colored labels adorning tinned soups 
and meats and edibles in glass jars, alluringly presented itself to 
the passer-by. The elevated railroad perched upon iron supports, and 
with iron stairways so tall that they looked almost perilous, was a 
prominent feature of the landscape. There were stretches of waste 
ground, and high backgrounds of bits of country and woodland to be 
seen. The rush of New York traffic had not yet reached the streets, 
and the avenue was of an agreeable suburban cleanliness and calm. 
People who lived in upper stories could pride themselves on having 
"views of the river." These they laid stress upon when it was hinted 
that they "lived a long way uptown."

The St. Francesca was built of light-brown stone and decorated with 
much ornate molding. It was fourteen stories high, and was supplied 
with ornamental fire-escapes. It was "no slouch of a building." 
Everything decorative which could be done for it had been done. The 
entrance was almost imposing, and a generous lavishness in the way of 
cement mosaic flooring and new and thick red carpet struck the eye at 
once. The grill-work of the elevator was of fresh, bright blackness, 
picked out with gold, and the colored elevator-boy wore a blue livery 
with brass buttons. Persons of limited means who were willing to 
discard the excitements of "downtown" got a good deal for their money, 
and frequently found themselves secretly surprised and uplifted by the 
atmosphere of luxury which greeted them when they entered their red-
carpeted hall. It was wonderful, they said, congratulating one another 
privately, how much comfort and style you got in a New York apartment-
house after you passed the "150ths."

On a certain afternoon T. Tembarom, with his hat on the back of his 
head and his arms full of parcels, having leaped off the "L" when it 
stopped at the nearest station, darted up and down the iron stairways 
until he reached the ground, and then hurried across the avenue to the 
St. Francesca. He made long strides, and two or three times grinned as 
if thinking of something highly amusing; and once or twice he began to 
whistle and checked himself. He looked approvingly at the tall 
building and its solidly balustraded entrance-steps as he approached 
it, and when he entered the red-carpeted hall he gave greeting to a 
small mulatto boy in livery.

"Hello, Tom! How's everything?" he inquired, hilariously. "You taking 
good care of this building? Let any more eight-room apartments? You've 
got to keep right on the job, you know. Can't have you loafing because 
you've got those brass buttons."

The small page showed his teeth in gleeful appreciation of their 
friendly intimacy.

"Yassir. That's so," he answered. "Mis' Barom she's waitin' for you. 
Them carpets is come, sir. Tracy's wagon brought 'em 'bout an hour 
ago. I told her I'd help her lay 'em if she wanted me to, but she said 
you was comin' with the hammer an' tacks. 'Twarn't that she thought I 
was too little. It was jest that there wasn't no tacks. I tol' her 
jest call me in any time to do anythin' she want done, an' she said 
she would."

"She'll do it," said T. Tembarom. "You just keep on tap. I'm just 
counting on you and Light here," taking in the elevator-boy as he 
stepped into the elevator, "to look after her when I'm out."

The elevator-boy grinned also, and the elevator shot up the shaft, the 
numbers of the floors passing almost too rapidly to be distinguished. 
The elevator was new and so was the boy, and it was the pride of his 
soul to land each passenger at his own particular floor, as if he had 
been propelled upward from a catapult. But he did not go too rapidly 
for this passenger, at least, though a paper parcel or so was dropped 
in the transit and had to be picked up when he stopped at floor 
fourteen.

The red carpets were on the corridor there also, and fresh paint and 
paper were on the walls. A few yards from the elevator he stopped at a 
door and opened it with a latch-key, beaming with inordinate delight.

The door opened into a narrow corridor leading into a small apartment, 
the furniture of which was not yet set in order. A roll of carpet and 
some mats stood in a corner, chairs and tables with burlaps round 
their legs waited here and there, a cot with a mattress on it, 
evidently to be transformed into a "couch," held packages of 
bafflingly irregular shapes and sizes. In the tiny kitchen new pots 
and pans and kettles, some still wrapped in paper, tilted themselves 
at various angles on the gleaming new range or on the closed lids of 
the doll-sized stationary wash-tubs.

Little Ann had been very busy, and some of the things were unpacked. 
She had been sweeping and mopping floors and polishing up remote 
corners, and she had on a big white pinafore-apron with long sleeves, 
which transformed her into a sort of small female chorister. She came 
into the narrow corridor with a broom in her hand, her periwinkle-blue 
gaze as thrilled as an excited child's when it attacks the arrangement 
of its first doll's house. Her hair was a little ruffled where it 
showed below the white kerchief she had tied over her head. The warm, 
daisy pinkness of her cheeks was amazing.

"Hello!" called out Tembarom at sight of her. "Are you there yet? I 
don't believe it."

"Yes, I'm here," she answered, dimpling at him.

"Not you!" he said. "You couldn't be! You've melted away. Let's see." 
And he slid his parcels down on the cot and lifted her up in the air 
as if she had been a baby. "How can I tell, anyhow?" he laughed out. 
"You don't weigh anything, and when a fellow squeezes you he's got to 
look out what he's doing."

He did not seem to "look out" particularly when he caught her to him 
in a hug into which she appeared charmingly to melt. She made herself 
part of it, with soft arms which went at once round his neck and held 
him.

"Say!" he broke forth when he set her down. "Do you think I'm not glad 
to get back?"

"No, I don't, Tem," she answered, "I know how glad you are by the way 
I'm glad myself."

"You know just everything!" he ejaculated, looking her over, "just 
every darned thing--God bless you! But don't you melt away, will you? 
That's what I'm afraid of. I'll do any old thing on earth if you'll 
just stay."

That was his great joke,--though she knew it was not so great a joke 
as it seemed,--that he would not believe that she was real, and 
believed that she might disappear at any moment. They had been married 
three weeks, and she still knew when she saw him pause to look at her 
that he would suddenly seize and hold her fast, trying to laugh, 
sometimes not with entire success.

"Do you know how long it was? Do you know how far away that big place 
was from everything in the world?" he had said once. "And me holding 
on and gritting my teeth? And not a soul to open my mouth to! The old 
duke was the only one who understood, anyhow. He'd been there."

"I'll stay," she answered now, standing before him as he sat down on 
the end of the "couch." She put a firm, warm-palmed little hand on 
each side of his face, and held it between them as she looked deep 
into his eyes. "You look at me, Tem--and see."

"I believe it now," he said, "but I shan't in fifteen minutes."

"We're both right-down silly," she said, her soft, cosy laugh breaking 
out. "Look round this room and see what we've got to do. Let's begin 
this minute. Did you get the groceries?"

He sprang up and began to go over his packages triumphantly.

"Tea, coffee, sugar, pepper, salt, beefsteak," he called out.

"We can't have beefsteak often," she said, soberly, "if we're going to 
do it on fifteen a week."

"Good Lord, no!" he gave back to her, hilariously. "But this is a 
Fifth Avenue feed."

"Let's take them into the kitchen and put them into the cupboard, and 
untie the pots and pans." She was suddenly quite absorbed and 
businesslike. "We must make the room tidy and tack down the carpet, 
and then cook the dinner."

He followed her and obeyed her like an enraptured boy. The wonder of 
her was that, despite its unarranged air, the tiny place was already 
cleared and set for action. She had done it all before she had swept 
out the undiscovered corners. Everything was near the spot to which it 
belonged. There was nothing to move or drag out of the way.

"I got it all ready to put straight," she said, "but I wanted you to 
finish it with me. It wouldn't have seemed right if I'd done it 
without you. It wouldn't have been as much OURS."

Then came active service. She was like a small general commanding an 
army of one. They put things on shelves; they hung things on hooks; 
they found places in which things belonged; they set chairs and tables 
straight; and then, after dusting and polishing them, set them at a 
more imposing angle; they unrolled the little green carpet and tacked 
down its corners; and transformed the cot into a "couch" by covering 
it with what Tracy's knew as a "throw" and adorning one end of it with 
cotton-stuffed cushions. They hung little photogravures on the walls 
and strung up some curtains before the good-sized window, which looked 
down from an enormous height at the top of four-storied houses, and 
took in beyond them the river and the shore beyond. Because there was 
no fireplace Tembarom knocked up a shelf, and, covering it with a 
scarf (from Tracy's), set up some inoffensive ornaments on it and 
flanked them with photographs of Jem Temple Barholm, Lady Joan in 
court dress, Miss Alicia in her prettiest cap, and the great house 
with its huge terrace and the griffins.

"Ain't she a looker?" Tembarom said of Lady Joan. "And ain't Jem a 
looker, too? Gee! they're a pair. Jem thinks this honeymoon stunt of 
ours is the best thing he ever heard of-- us fixing ourselves up here 
just like we would have done if nothing had ever happened, and we'd 
HAD to do it on fifteen per. Say," throwing an arm about her, "are you 
getting as much fun out of it as if we HAD to, as if I might lose my 
job any minute, and we might get fired out of here because we couldn't 
pay the rent? I believe you'd rather like to think I might ring you 
into some sort of trouble, so that you could help me to get you out of 
it."

That's nonsense," she answered, with a sweet, untruthful little face. 
"I shouldn't be very sensible if I wasn't glad you COULDN'T lose your 
job. Father and I are your job now."

He laughed aloud. This was the innocent, fantastic truth of it. They 
had chosen to do this thing--to spend their honey-moon in this 
particular way, and there was no reason why they should not. The 
little dream which had been of such unattainable proportions in the 
days of Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house could be realized to its fullest. 
No one in the St. Francesca apartments knew that the young honey-
mooners in the five-roomed apartment were other than Mr. and Mrs. T. 
Barholm, as recorded on the tablet of names in the entrance. 
Hutchinson knew, and Miss Alicia knew, and Jem Temple Barholm, and 
Lady Joan. The Duke of Stone knew, and thought the old-fashionedness 
of the idea quite the last touch of modernity.

"Did you see any one who knew you when you were out?" Little Ann 
asked.

"No, and if I had they wouldn't have believed they'd seen me, because 
the papers told them that Mr. and Mrs. Temple Barholm are spending 
their honeymoon motoring through Spain in their ninety-horse-power 
Panhard."

"Let's go and get dinner," said Little Ann.

They went into the doll's-house kitchen and cooked the dinner. Little 
Ann broiled steak and fried potato chips, and T. Tembarom produced a 
wonderful custard pie he had bought at a confectioner's. He set the 
table, and put a bunch of yellow daisies in the middle of it.

"We couldn't do it every day on fifteen per week," he said. "If we 
wanted flowers we should have to grow them in old tomato-cans."

Little Ann took off her chorister's-gown apron and her kerchief, and 
patted and touched up her hair. She was pink to her ears, and had 
several new dimples; and when she sat down opposite him, as she had 
sat that first night at Mrs. Bowse's boarding-house supper, Tembarom 
stared at her and caught his breath.

"You ARE there?" he said, "ain't you?"

"Yes, I am," she answered.

When they had cleared the table and washed the dishes, and had left 
the toy kitchen spick and span, the ten million lights in New York 
were lighted and casting their glow above the city. Tembarom sat down 
on the Adams chair before the window and took Little Ann on his knee. 
She was of the build which settles comfortably and with ease into soft 
curves whose nearness is a caress. Looked down at from the fourteenth 
story of the St. Francesca apartments, the lights strung themselves 
along lines of streets, crossing and recrossing one another; they 
glowed and blazed against masses of buildings, and they hung at 
enormous heights in mid-air here and there, apparently without any 
support. Everywhere was the glow and dazzle of their brilliancy of 
light, with the distant bee hum of a nearing elevated train, at 
intervals gradually deepening into a roar. The river looked miles 
below them, and craft with sparks or blaze of light went slowly or 
swiftly to and fro.

"It's like a dream," said Little Ann, after a long silence. "And we 
are up here like birds in a nest."

He gave her a closer grip.

"Miss Alicia once said that when I was almost down and out," he said. 
"It gave me a jolt. She said a place like this would be like a nest. 
Wherever we go,--and we'll have to go to lots of places and live in 
lots of different ways,--we'll keep this place, and some time we'll 
bring her here and let her try it. I've just got to show her New 
York."

"Yes, let us keep it," said Little Ann, drowsily, "just for a nest."

There was another silence, and the lights on the river far below still 
twinkled or blazed as they drifted to and fro.

"You are there, ain't you?" said Tembarom in a half-whisper.

"Yes--I am," murmured Little Ann.

But she had had a busy day, and when he looked down at her, she hung 
softly against his shoulder, fast asleep.





End of Project Gutenberg Etext of T. Tembarom by Frances Hodgson Burnett

