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Title: Harriet and the Piper
       (Norris Volume XI)

Author: Kathleen Norris

Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5006]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on April 8, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARRIET AND THE PIPER ***




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THE WORKS OF KATHLEEN NORRIS

HARRIET AND THE PIPER

VOLUME XI



TO

DANIEL WEBB NYE

DEAR MAKER OF BOOKS AND FRIENDS




HARRIET AND THE PIPER




CHAPTER I


Richard Carter had called the place "Crownlands," not to please
himself, or even his wife. But it was to his mother's newly born
family pride that the idea of being the Carters of Crownlands made
its appeal. The estate, when he bought it, had belonged to a
Carter, and the tradition was that two hundred years before it had
been a grant of the first George to the first of the name in
America. Madame Carter, as the old lady liked to be called,
immediately adopted the unknown owner into a vague cousinship,
spoke of him as "a kinsman of ours," and proceeded to tell old
friends that Crownlands had always been "in the family."

It was a home hardly deserving of the pretentious name, although
it was beautiful enough, and spacious enough, for notice, even
among the magnificent neighbours that surrounded it. It was of
creamy brick, colonial in design, and set in splendid lawns and
great trees on the bank of the blue Hudson. White driveways
circled it, great stables and garages across a curve of green
meadows had their own invisible domain, and on the shining highway
there was a full mile of high brick fence, a marching line of
great maples and sycamores, and a demure lodge beside the mighty
iron gates.

Much of this was as Richard Carter had found it five years ago,
but about the house, inside and out, his wife had made changes,
had lent the place something of her own individuality and charm.
It was Isabelle Carter who had visualized the window-boxes and the
awnings, the walks where emerald grass spouted between the bricks,
the terrace with its fat balustrade and shallow marble steps
descending to the river. Great stone jars, spilling the brilliant
scarlet of geraniums, flanked the steps, and the shadows of the
mighty trees fell clear and sharp across the marble. And on a soft
June afternoon, sitting in the silence and the fragrance with
boats plying up and down the river, and birds twittering and
flashing at the brim of the fountain, one might have dreamed one's
self in some forgotten Italian garden rather than a short two
hours' trip away from the busiest and most congested city of the
world.

On one of the wide benches that were placed here and there on the
descending terraces, in the late hours of an exquisite summer
afternoon, a man and a woman were sitting. They had strolled
slowly from the tennis court, where half-a-dozen young persons
were violently exercising themselves in the sunshine, with the
vague intention of reaching the tea table, on the upper level. But
here, in the clear shade, Isabelle Carter had suddenly seated
herself, and Anthony Pope, her cavalier, had thrown himself on the
steps at her feet.

She was a woman worthy of the exquisite setting, and in her richly
coloured gown, against the clear cream of the marble, the new
green of the trees and lawns, and the brilliant hues of the
flowers, she might well have turned an older head than that of the
boy beside her. Brunette, with smooth cheeks deeply touched with
rose, black eyes, and a warmly crimson mouth that could be at once
provocative and relentless, she glowed like a flower herself in
the sweet and enervating heat of the summer's first warm day. She
wore a filmy gown of a dull cream colour, with daring great
poppies in pink and black and gold embroidered over it; her lacy
black hat, shadowing her clear forehead and smoke-black hair, was
covered with the soft pink flowers. She was the tiniest of women,
and the little foot, that, in its transparent silk stocking and
buckled slipper, was close to Anthony's hand, was like a child's.

The man was twice her size, and as dark as she, earnest, eager,
and to-day with a troubled expression clouding his face. It was to
banish that look, if she might, that Isabelle had deliberately
stopped him here.

She had been behaving badly toward him, and in her rather
irresponsible and shallow way she was sorry for it. Isabelle was a
famous flirt, her husband knew it, everyone knew it. There was
always some man paying desperate court to her, and always half-a-
dozen other men who were eager to be in his place. Now it was a
painter, now a singer, now one of the men of her husband's
business world. They sent her orchids and sweets, and odd bits of
jewellery, and curious fans and laces, and pictures and brasses,
and quaint pieces of china. They sent her tremendously significant
letters, just the eloquent word or two, the little oddity of date
or signature or paper that was to impress her with an
individuality, or with the depth of a passion. Isabelle lived for
this, went from one adventure to another with the naive confidence
of a woman whose husband smiles upon her playing, and whose
position is impregnable.

But this boy, this Anthony, was different. In the first place he
was young, he was but twenty-six. In the second place he was, or
had been, her own son's closest friend. Ward Carter was twenty-
two, and his mother nineteen years older.

Yes, she was forty-one, although neither she nor her mirror
admitted it readily. Anthony, she thought, must realize it. He
must realize that his feeling for her was unthinkable, not to say
absurd. It had taken her by surprise, this last conquest. She had
known the boy only a few weeks. Ward had brought him home for a
visit, at Easter, but Isabelle, besides admiring his unusual
beauty and identifying him with the Pope fortune, had paid him
small attention. She had been absorbed then in the wretched
conclusion of the Foster affair. Derrick Foster had been
distressing and annoying her unmercifully. After the warm and
delightful friendship of several months, after luncheons and teas,
opera and concerts in the greatest harmony, Derrick Foster had had
the daring, the impudence, to imply--to insinuate--

Well, Isabelle had gotten rid of him, although she could not yet
think of him without scarlet colour in her cheeks. And it had been
on a particularly trying afternoon, when the unshed tears of anger
and hurt pride had been making her fine eyes heavier and more
mysterious than usual, that this nice boy, this handsome friend of
Ward, had gone riding with her, and had shown such charming
sympathy for her dark mood. They had had tea at the Country Club,
and Tony, as she had begun at once to call him, had been
wonderfully amusing and soothing. Isabelle, when they came back to
the house, had turned impulsively in the hall, had laid her small
hand, in its dashing gauntlet, upon his big shoulder.

"You've carried me over an ugly bog, Little Boy!" she had said. "I
like you--such a lot!"

That was six weeks ago, but in those short six weeks the little
boy that she had patronized had entirely upset her preconceived
ideas of him. He was young, and he was absurd, but he did not know
it, and Isabelle began to feel the difficulty of keeping the whole
world from discovering it before he did. He made no secret of his
passion. He came straight to her in any company; he never looked
at anybody else. The young girls to whom she introduced him bored
him, he was rude to them. To her own daughter Nina, seventeen
years old, his attitude was almost paternal; he ignored Ward as if
their friendship had never been. Toward Richard Carter, who was
pleasantly hospitable toward the lad, he showed an icy and
trembling politeness.

Isabelle saw now that she had made a mistake. She should have
killed this affair at the very beginning. Tony was not like the
older men, willing to play the game with just a little scorching
of fingers. Appearances meant nothing to Tony, and she had let the
play go too far now to convince him that she did not return
something of his feeling.

Indeed, to her own amazement, his fire kindled fire in return.
When he was not at Crownlands she could laugh at him, even though
her thoughts were full of him. But when he was there, life to her
was more radiant, more full, more glowing with colour and
fragrance. The books he touched, the chair he had at breakfast,
his young, lithe body in its golfing knickerbockers, or his sleek
black head above the dull black of evening wear, haunted her
oddly. He troubled her, but she had neither quite the power nor
quite the desire to banish him.

She looked down at him now, content to be alone with her and at
her feet, and a hundred mixed emotions stirred her. His feeling
for her was not only pitiable and absurd in him, but it was
rapidly reaching the point when it would make her absurd and
pitiable, too. Nina, instinctively scenting the affair, had
already expressed herself as "hating that idiot"; Ward had
scowled, of late, at the mere mention of Tony's name. Even her
husband, the patient Richard, seeing the youth ensconce himself
firmly beside her in the limousine, had had aside his mild
comment: "Is this young man a fixture in our family, dear?"

"You should be playing tennis, Tony," said Isabelle.

"Tennis!" He laughed; there was a slight movement of his broad
shoulders.

"I think Miss Betty Allen was a little disappointed," the woman
pursued. A look of distaste crossed Anthony's face.

"Please--CHERIE!" he begged.

There was a silence brimming with sweetness and colour. Tony laid
his hand against her knee, groped until her own warm, smooth
fingers were in his own.

"Does Mr. Carter play golf to-morrow?" he asked, presently.

"I suppose so!"

"And you--what do you do?"

"Oh, I have a full day! People to lunch, friends of Madame Carter-
"

The boy laughed triumphantly.

"I knew you'd say that!" he said. "Now, I'll tell YOU about to-
morrow. You and I are going to slip away, at about one o'clock,
and go off in the gray car. We'll go up to--well, somewhere, and
we'll have our lunch under the trees. I'll have Hansen pack us
something at the club. We'll be back at about four, for the tea
callers, and they may have you until I come back for dinner. After
dinner we'll walk on the terrace--as we did two wonderful,
wonderful nights ago, and perhaps--" His voice had fallen to a
rich and tender note, his eyes were rapt. "Perhaps," he said,
"just before we go in, at the end of the terrace, you'll look up
at the stars again--"

"Tony!" Isabelle interrupted, her face brilliant with colour. "My
dear boy--my dear boy, listen to me--"

"Well?" he asked, looking up, as she paused.

"My dear," she said, with difficulty, "think where this is going
to end."

He jerked his head impatiently.

"Oh, if you are going to begin THAT again!"

"My dear, I have to begin that again! In all reason--in all
REASON----"

"Isabelle, what in God's name has reason to do with it!" He knelt
before her, and caught her hands, and Isabelle had a terrified
fear that Ward, or Nina, or any one else, might start up or down
the terrace steps and see him. "The instant you realize what you
and I are to each other, my darling," he said, "you begin to talk
of reason. Love isn't reason, Cherie. It's the divinest unreason
in the world! Cherie, there's never been another woman for me;
there never will be! It's nothing to me that there are obstacles--
I love them--I glory in them! I can't live without you; I don't
want to! You're frightened now, you don't know how we can manage
it. But I'll find the way. The only thing that matters is that you
must belong to me--you SHALL belong to me--as I to you in every
fibre of my being--"

"Tony--for Heaven's sake--!" Isabelle was in an agony. Somebody
was approaching. He had gotten to his feet, and was gloomily
staring at the river, when Nina Carter, followed by a great white
Russian hound, came flying down the steps.

"Mother--" Nina, a tall, overgrown girl, with spectacles on her
straight nose, and straight, light-brown hair in thick braids,
stopped short and gave her mother's companion a look of withering
distaste. "Mother," she began again, "aren't you coming up for
tea? Granny's there, and the others, from tennis, and Mrs. Bellamy
telephoned that she's bringing some people over, and there's
nobody there but Granny and me!"

Nina was like her New England father, conscientious, serious,
gravely condemnatory of the lax and the unconventional.

"Ask Betty Allen to pour," said Mrs. Carter, regaining her
composure rapidly, and assuming the air of hostess at once.

"Betty went home for a tub," Nina explained. "She's coming back.
But, Mother," she added, with a faintly reproachful and whining
intonation, "really, you ought to be there--"

Mrs. Carter knew this as well as Nina. But she found the child
extremely trying in this puritanical mood. Granting that this
affair with Tony did her, Isabelle, small credit, at least it was
not for Nina to sit in judgment. Rebellious, Isabelle fondled the
loving nose of the hound with a small, brown, jewelled hand, and
glanced dubiously at Tony's uncompromising back.

"Trot back, Nina love," said she to her daughter, cheerfully, "and
ask Miss Harriet to come out and pour. I'll be there directly.
We'll come right up. Run along!"

To Nina, in this ignominious dismissal, there was sweet. She
adored "Miss Harriet," the Miss Field who had been her governess
and her mother's secretary for the three happiest years of Nina's
somewhat sealed young life. It would be "fun" to have Miss Field
pour. Nina leaped obediently up the steps, with a flopping of
thick braids and the scrape of sturdy shoes, and the sweet summer
world was in silence again.

Isabelle sat on, stroking the hound, her soul filled with
perplexity. The shadows were lengthening, the shafts of sunlight
more bold and clear. The hound, surprised at the silence, whined
faintly.

"I wish it might have been Nina!" Isabelle said. Anthony's
eloquent back gave her sudden understanding of his fury. She got
up, and went noiselessly toward him, and she felt a shudder shake
him as she slipped her hand into his arm. "Ah, please, Tony," she
pleaded, "what can I do?"

"Nothing!" he answered, suddenly pliant. "Nothing, of course." And
he turned to her a boyish face stern with pain. "Of course you can
do nothing, Cherie. I'm not such a--such a FOOL--"his voice broke
angrily--"that I can't see that! Come on, we'll go up and have
tea--with the Bellamys. And I--I'll be going to-night. I'll say
good-bye to you now--and perhaps you'll be good enough to make my
good-byes to the others--"

The youthfulness of it did not rob it of real dignity. Isabelle,
wretchedly mounting the steps beside him, felt her heart contract
with real pain. He would go away--it would all be over and
forgotten in a few weeks--and yet, how she longed to comfort him,
to make him happy again!

She looked obliquely at his set face, and what she saw there made
her feel ashamed.

 On the bright level of the upper terrace tea was merrily in
progress. In the streaming afternoon light the scene was
strikingly cheerful and pretty: the wide wicker chairs with their
gay cretonne cushions, the over-shadowing green trees in heavy
leaf, the women's many-coloured gowns and the men's cool whites
and grays. On the broad white balustrade Isabelle's great peacock
was standing, with his tail fanned to its amazing breadth; two
maids, in their crisp black and white, were coming and going with
silver and china on their trays.

Miss Field had duly come down to preside, and all was well.
Isabelle, as she dropped into a chair, gave a sigh of relief;
everyone was amused and absorbed and happy. Everyone, that is,
except the magnificent and sharp-eyed old lady who sat, regally
throned, near her, and favoured her immediately with a
dissatisfied look. Old Madame Carter had her own good reasons for
being angry, and she never spared any one available from a
participation in her mood.

She was remarkably handsome, even at seventy-five; with a crown of
puffed white hair, gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and an erect and finely
preserved figure. Her silk gown flowed over her knees, and formed
a rich fold about her shining slippers; a wide lace scarf was
about her shoulders, and she wore an old-fashioned watchchain of
heavy braided gold, and a great many handsome pins and rings. Her
voice was theatrically deep and clear, and her manner vigorous and
impressive.

"Well, my dear, your friends were naturally wondering what
important matter kept their hostess away from her guests," she
began. Isabelle had not been her daughter-in-law for more than
twenty years for nothing. She shrugged and smiled carelessly, with
an indifferent glance at the group. Ward's friends, the tennis-
players, and old Doctor and Mrs. Potter and their niece, from next
door. Nobody here of any especial importance!

"Harriet is managing very nicely," Isabelle said, contentedly, as
Tony, with a sombre face and averted eyes, brought her her tea.

"So Ward seems to think," observed Ward's grandmother with
acidity. Isabelle laughed indifferently. Her son, slender and
tall, and with something of her own eagerness and fire in his
sunburned young face, was beside Miss Field, who talked to him in
a quiet aside while she busied herself with cups and spoons.

"Perfectly safe there!" Isabelle said.

"I should hope so!" old Madame Carter remarked, pointedly. "At
least if there's any of OUR blood in his veins--but of course he's
all Slocum. They used to say of my Aunt Georgina that she never
married because the only man she ever loved was beneath her
socially--"

Isabelle knew all about Aunt Georgina, and she looked wearily
away. Tony, sighing elaborately, drew upon himself the old lady's
fire.

"Why don't you go over and join the young people, Mr. Pope?" she
asked, pleasantly. "Isabelle and I can manage very well without a
cavalier. You're tired, Isabelle--I can always tell it. Be glad
that you're too young to know what that means, Mr. Pope. Go over
there--there's a chair next to Nina. What shall we suspect him of,
Isabelle--a quarrel with pretty Miss Allen?--if he avoids the
young people, and looks like such a thunder-cloud."

Isabelle sighed patiently.

"The Bellamys are coming in for awhile," she observed, with
deliberate irrelevance, "and I hope they'll bring their Swami--or
whatever he is, with them. He must be a queer creature."

"He's not a Swami, he's an artist," Tony said, drawn into a casual
conversation much against his will. "Blondin--I've met him. He has
a studio up on Fifty-ninth Street--goes in for poetry and musical
interpretations and I don't know what else. Now I believe it's
Indian philosophies--I can't bear him, he makes me sick!"

He relapsed into gloomy silence, and Isabelle put into her laugh
something affectionate and soothing.

"He evidently lives by his wits," she suggested, "which is
something you have never had to do!"

Tony scowled again. It was part of his charm for her that he was
the spoiled darling of fortune. Handsome and young, and with no
family ties to restrain him, he had recently come into his own
enormous fortune. Isabelle knew that his New York apartment was
fit for a prince, that his man servant was perfection, that he had
his own pet affectations in the matter of monogrammed linen,
Italian stationery, and specially designed speed cars. His manner
with servants, his ready check book, his easy French, and his
unruffled self-confidence in any imaginable contingency, coupled
with his youth, had strong attraction for a woman conscious of the
financial restrictions of her own early years and the limitations
of her public school education.

"Why don't you go to the club and dress now, and come back and
dine with us?" she said, in an undertone.

"Do you want me?" he asked, sulkily.

"I'm ASKING you!"

For answer he stood up, and smiled wistfully down upon her, with a
hesitancy she knew well how to interpret in his eyes. She should
not have asked him to dinner; he should not accept her invitation.
Yet he had been longing so thirstily for just that permission, and
she had been yearning so to give it! Happiness came back into both
their hearts as he turned to go, and she gave him just a quick
touch of a warm little hand in farewell. At such a moment, when
her mood of heroism gave way to melting, Isabelle had a desperate
sort of hope that one more concession would not alter the
inevitable parting, whenever it came. This time--and this time--
and this time--must positively be the last.

Other guests had come in, and Miss Field was extremely busy, and
Ward, helping her officially, was busy, too. She had indeed
offered her place to Isabelle, but Isabelle, spurred by her
mother-in-law's criticism, would not have disturbed her secretary
for any consideration now.

"No, no--stay where you are, my dear!" she had said. And Miss
Field remained.

"Fun to have you down here!" said Ward, in her ear.

Harriet Field had an aside with a maid regarding hot water. Then
she gave Ward an indulgent, an older-sisterly glance. He was in
years almost twenty-two, but at twenty-seven the young woman felt
him ages her junior. Ward was broad and fair, his light brown hair
was somewhat tumbled about from the tennis; his fine, strong young
throat showed brown where the loose collar turned back. Even in
his flat tennis shoes he stood a clear two inches above Miss
Field, although she was not a small woman by any means. He was a
joyous, irresponsible boy, and he and his mother's secretary had
always been good friends since the day, four years ago now, when
the silent, somewhat grave Harriet Field had first made her
appearance in the family. Ward was so much a child in those days
that Harriet used to go with him to pick out suits and shirts, and
to buy matinee seats for him and his school friends, and they
laughed now to remember his favourite and invariable luncheon
order of potato salad and French pastries. Nina had had a nurse
then, and Harriet practised French with both the boy and girl, but
now the nurse was gone, and Ward could buy his own clothes, and
Nina went to a finishing school. So Miss Field had made herself
useful in new ways; she was quite indispensable now. The young
people loved her; Richard Carter occasionally said to his wife,
"Very clever--very pretty girl!" which was perhaps as close as he
ever got to any domestic matter, and Isabelle confided to her
almost all her duties and cares. She patronized Harriet prettily,
and told her that she was too pretty to be getting up to the
thirties without a fiance, but Harriet only smiled her inscrutable
smile, and made no confidences on the subject of admirers. Nina,
insatiably curious, had gathered no more than that Miss Harriet's
father had been a college professor of languages, and that her
only relative was a married sister, much older, who had four
children, and lived in New Jersey.

She was a master of the art of keeping silent, this young woman,
and but for her beauty she might have been as inconspicuous as she
sincerely tried to be. But her simple gowns and her plainly massed
hair only served to emphasize the extraordinary distinction of her
appearance, and her utmost effort to obliterate herself could not
quite keep her from notice. Men raised their eyebrows, with a
significant puckering of the lips, when she slipped quietly
through the halls; and women narrowed their eyes, and looked
questioningly at one another. Isabelle, who was far too securely
throned to be jealous of any one, sometimes told her that she
would make a fortune on the stage, but old Mrs. Carter, who for
reasons perfectly comprehensible in an old lady who had once been
handsome herself, detested Harriet, and said to her daughter-in-
law that in her opinion there was something queer about the girl.

There was nothing queer in her aspect to-day, at all events, as
she demurely performed her duties at the tea table. To the
occasional pleasant and surprised "Hello, Miss Field!" she
returned a composed and unsmiling nod of greeting; for the rest,
she poured and sweetened, and conferred with the maids, in a
manner entirely businesslike.

She was of that always-arresting type that combines a warm dusky
skin with blue eyes and fair hair. The eyes, in her case, were a
soft smoky blue, set in thick and inky black lashes, and the hair
was brassy gold, banded carelessly but trimly about her rather
broad forehead. Her mouth was wide, deep crimson, thin-lipped; it
had humorous possibilities all its own, and Nina and Ward thought
her never so fascinating as when she developed them; it was a
mouth of secrets and of mystery, of character, a mouth that had
known the trembling of pain and grief, perhaps, but a firm mouth
now, and a beautiful one.

And in the broad forehead and the cheek-bones, just a shade high,
and the clearly pencilled brows and the clean modelling of the
straight young chin, there was a certain openness and firmness, a
fortuitous blending of form and proportion that would have made
the head a perfect model for a coin, a wonderful study in pastels.
Looking at her, an artist would have fancied her a bold and
charming and boyish-looking little girl, fifteen years ago, with
that Greek chin and that tawny mane; would have seen her sexless
and splendid in her early teens, with a flat breast and an untamed
eye. And a romancer might have wondered what paths had led her, in
the superb realization of her beautiful womanhood, at twenty-
seven, to this subordinate position in the home of a self-made
rich man, and this conventional tea table on a terrace over the
Hudson. The smoky blue eyes to-day were full of an idle content;
the rounded breast rose and fell quietly under the plain checked
gown with its transparent frills at wrists and throat. Harriet may
have had her moments of rebellion, but this was not one of them.
She had been here for four years; she had held more difficult and
less well-paid positions for the four years before that; she had
known fatigue and ingratitude, and snubs and injustices, as every
business woman, especially in secretarial work, must know them,
and she had no quarrel with this particular occasion. Indeed,
Nina's open adoration, Ward's pointed attentions, and Isabelle's
graciousness were making her feel particularly cheerful, and more
than offset the old lady's disapproval, which was always more
stimulating than otherwise to Harriet.

"Nearly half-past five, Nina," she said, presently. "Go and change
and brush, that's a darling! You look rather tumbled."

Nina, reaching for a marron, obediently wandered away, and
immediately the empty chair beside Harriet was taken by a
newcomer, Richard Carter himself, the owner of all this smiling
estate, who had come up from the little launch at the landing, had
changed hastily into white flannels, Harriet saw at a glance, and
had unexpectedly joined them for tea. His usual programme was to
go off immediately for golf, and to make his first appearance in
the family at dinner-time, but perhaps it had been unusually
tiring in the city to-day--he looked pale and tired, and as if
some of the grime of the sun-baked streets clung about him still.

"Tea, Mr. Carter?" Harriet ventured.

He was watching his wife with a sort of idle interest. She had to
repeat her invitation.

"If you please, Miss Field! Tea sounded right, somehow, to me to-
day. It's been a terrible day!"

"I can imagine it!" Harriet's voice was pleasantly commonplace.
But the moment had its thrill for her. This lean, tall, tired man,
with his abstract manner, his perfunctory courtesies, his nervous,
clever hands, loomed in oddly heroic proportions in Harriet's
life. His face was keen and somewhat lined under a smooth crest of
slightly graying hair; he smiled very rarely, but there was a
certain kindliness in his gray eyes, when Nina or Ward or his wife
turned to him, that Harriet liked. He came and went quietly,
absorbed in his business, getting in and out of his cars with a
murmur to his chauffeur, disappearing with his golf sticks,
presiding almost silently over his own animated dinner table. He
was always well groomed, well dressed without being in the least
conspicuous; always more or less tired when she saw him. In the
evenings he smoked, listened to music, went early to bed. But he
never failed to visit his mother, or pay her some little definite
attention when she was with them; and when Madame Carter was in
her New York apartment he called on her nearly every day.

For Harriet he had hardly a dozen words a year. He merely smiled
kindly when she thanked him for the Christmas gift that bore his
untouched card; if she went to her sister for a day or two, he
gave her only a nod of greeting when she came back. Sometimes he
thanked her for a small favour, briefly and indifferently; now and
then asked with sharp interest about Nina's teeth or his mother's
headache.

But Harriet had known other types of men, and for his very
silences, for his indifference, for his loyalty to his own women,
she had begun to admire him long ago. She had not been born in
this atmosphere of pleasure and ease and riches; she was not
entirely unfitted to judge a man. There was not much to awaken
respect in the men she met at Crownlands, still less in the women.
She liked Ward for his artless boyishness; forgave Anthony Pope
much because he was straight and clean and self-respecting; but
there were plenty of other men, spoiled and selfish, weak and
stupid; men who amused and flattered Isabelle Carter perhaps, but
among whom her husband loomed a very giant. Harriet had watched
Richard Carter with a keenness of which she was hardly conscious
herself, ready to detect the flaw, the weakness in his character,
but she never found it, and after awhile she became his silent
champion, his secret ally in all domestic matters, quick to see
that his mail and his telephone messages were sacred, that his
meals never were late, and that any small request, such as the use
of the study for some unexpected conference, or the speedy sending
of a telegram, was promptly granted.

Isabelle was always breezily civil to her husband; he had long ago
vanished as completely from among the vital elements of her life
as if he were dead, perhaps more than if he were dead. She
thought--if she thought about him at all--that he never saw her
little affairs; she supposed him perfectly satisfied with his home
and children and club and business, and incidentally with his
beautiful figurehead of a wife. They had quarrelled distressingly,
several years ago, when he had bored her with references to her
"duty," and her influence over Nina, and her obligations to her
true self. But that had all stopped long since, and now Isabelle
was free to sleep late, to dress at leisure, to make what
engagements she pleased, to see the persons who interested her.
Richard never interfered; never was there a more perfectly
discreet and generous husband. Half the women Isabelle knew were
attempting to live exactly as she did, to cultivate "suitors," and
drift about in an atmosphere of new gowns and adulation and
orchids and softly lighted drawing rooms, and incessant playing
with fire; it was the accepted thing, in Isabelle's circle, and
that she was more successful in it than other women was not at all
to her discredit.

Even Harriet, who was in her secrets, who saw maid and masseuse
and hair-dresser in desperate defence of Isabelle's beauty every
morning, who knew just what scenes there were over gowns and
cosmetics, and the tilt of hats--even Harriet admired her.

"Why not?" said Harriet sometimes to her sister, when she went to
visit Linda, and the subject of the beautiful Mrs. Carter was
under discussion. "She has a boy and a girl, her house runs
perfectly, her husband adores her--"

"Oh, he CAN'T adore her, Harriet!" Linda would protest. "No man
could adore that sort of--of shallowness, and selfishness, and
vanity--"

"Well, I assure you he does! I think that sort of thing keeps a
man admiring a woman," the younger sister would maintain, airily.
"He sees her looking like a picture all the time, he sees other
men crazy about her--"

"Too much money!" Linda usually summarized, disapprovingly. But
this was always fuel to Harriet's flame.

"Too much money? You CAN'T have too much money! I've seen both
sides-don't ever say that to me! There's nothing in this WORLD but
money, right down at the bottom. If you haven't any, you can't
live, and the more you have the more decently and prettily--yes,
and generously, too--you can live! Look at Madame Carter, she was
doing her own work when she was my age--not that she ever mentions
that, now! Can you tell me that she isn't a thousand times happier
now, with her maids and her car and her dresses? And money did it-
-and if you and Fred had two thousand, or twenty thousand, a
month, instead of two hundred, do you mean to tell me your lives
wouldn't be fuller, and richer, and happier? You shake your head,
Linda, but that's just to make me furious, for you know it's true!
I admire Mrs. Carter, and I assure you that if ever I do marry--
which as you know I won't--you may be very sure that money is the
first thing I shall think about!"

It was their only ground for real dissension. Harriet usually was
ready to laugh and forget it almost instantly; but Linda, who was
deeply spiritual, never ceased to pray that all the dangers of
life at Crownlands would pass safely over the little sister's
beloved head, and that some real man, "like Fred," would win
Harriet's turbulent and restless heart, after all.




CHAPTER II


Madame Carter, gathering her draperies about her, was one of the
first to leave the terrace. Dressing for dinner was a slow and
serious business for her. She gave Harriet a cold, appraising
glance as she passed her; Richard Carter had risen to escort his
mother, but she delayed him for a moment.

"Miss Nina gone in, Miss Field?"

Harriet, whose manner with all old persons was the essence of
scrupulous formality, rose at once to her feet.

"Nina has gone to change her dress, Madame Carter."

"She took it upon herself to ask you to help us out this
afternoon?" the old lady added, with the sort of gracious cruelty
of which she was mistress. Richard Carter gave his daughter's
companion a look that asked indulgence. Harriet coloured brightly,
fixing her eyes upon his mother.

"Nina brought me a message from her mother, Madame Carter."

"Miss Nina did?" Madame Carter amended the title as if absently.
"Mrs. Carter," she added, with a glance toward the near-by group
in whose centre they could see the cream-coloured gown with its
pink poppies, "told me that she was surprised to see that you had-
-had stepped into the breach so nicely--" Her son's reproachful
glance had the effect of interrupting her, and she turned to him.
"Well, I am saying that it was very nice of Miss Field, Richard,"
she protested. "I am sure there is no harm in my saying that, my
dear!"

Harriet said nothing, and resumed her seat as the old lady rustled
slowly away. Her heart was hot with fury, and she was only partly
soothed by hearing Richard Carter's murmur of reproach: "How can
you be so perverse, Mother--"

"Of all the detestable, horrible, maddening--" Harriet thought,
splashing hot water and clattering tea-cups. "Who's coming?" she
added aloud in an undertone to Ward, as one more motor swept about
the carriage drive.

"What is it, Beautiful?" Ward laughed. Harriet's glorious eyes
widened into smiling warning. His open and boyish admiration was a
sort of joke between them. Yet in this second, as he craned his
neck to get a glimpse of the approaching guests, a sudden thought
was born in her. Honour had compelled her to a generous policy
with Ward. She had held his admiration firmly in check, she had
maintained a big-sister attitude that was as wholesome for herself
as for him.

But here, she thought with sudden satisfaction, might be her
answer to his grandmother's snubs, might be the realization of her
own ambition, after all. Ward was but four years her junior, and
Ward would be Richard Carter's heir.

No, that was nonsense, of course. And yet she played with the
thought amusedly, enjoying the vision of the old lady's anger and
confusion, and of the world's amazement at the masterly move of
the quiet secretary. Richard would be generous, thought Harriet
idly, Isabelle philosophical and indifferent, but how old Madame
Carter would writhe!

"It's the Bellamys and their crowd," said Ward, watching the
approach of newcomers. "Look at that man with them, that fellow
with the hair--that's Blondin! That's the man I was telling you
about the other night, the man whose name I couldn't remember!"

"WHO?"

Harriet did not know whether she said it or screamed it. She lost
all consciousness of her surroundings and her neighbours for a few
terrible seconds; her mouth was dry, her throat constricted, and a
hideous weakness ran like nausea through her entire body. The
brilliant terrace swam in a mass of mingled colours before her
eyes; the casual, happy chatter about her was brassy and
unintelligible. The hand with which she touched the sugar tongs
was icy cold, a pain split her forehead, and she felt suddenly
tired and broken. She sat perfectly still, like a trembling little
mouse in a trap, the colour drained from her face, her breast
rising and falling as if she had been running.

Ward had gone across to greet the Bellamys; Harriet fixed her eyes
with a sort of fascination upon the man to whom she presently saw
him talking. Almost everyone else in the group was looking at him,
too; Royal Blondin was used to it; one of his favourite
affectations was an apparent unconsciousness of being observed.

He talked to everyone, to children, to great persons and small,
with the same air of intense concentration with which he was now
honouring Ward. Well over six feet in height, he had dropped his
leonine head, with its thick locks of dark hair, a little on one
side; his mobile, thin lips were set, and his piercing eyes
searched the boy's face with a sort of passionate attention.

His figure was one to challenge attention anywhere. He wore a
loosely cut suit of pongee silk, the collar of the shirt flowing
open, and a blue scarf knotted at the throat. On one of his long
dark hands there was a blazing sapphire ring, and about his wide-
brimmed Panama hat the folded silk was of the same colour. Harriet
could catch the intonations of his voice, a deep and musical
voice, which turned the trifles they were discussing into matters
of sudden import and beauty.

Introductions were in order, everyone wanted to meet the Bellamys'
friend, and Harriet saw that it pleased him, for some inscrutable
reason, to continue his ridiculous conversation with the flattered
Ward, and to accept names and greetings absently, in an aside, as
it were, smiling perfunctorily and briefly at the eager girls and
women, and returning immediately to his concerned and passionate
undertones with the boy.

Isabelle fluttered forward, to fare a little more fortunately.
Ward dropped into the background now, and his beautiful little
mother stood in a full sunset flood of light, with her small hand
in that of the lion, and the cream and black hat, with its pink
roses, close to the drooping, reverential head.

It was Isabelle who brought him to the tea table. Harriet had
felt, with a sure premonition of disaster, that it must be. She
might not escape, there was nothing for it but courage, now. Her
breath was behaving badly, and the muscles contracted in her
throat, but she managed a smile.

"And this is Miss Field, Mr. Blondin," said Isabella. "She will
give you some tea!"

"Miss Field," said Royal Blondin, and his dark hand came across
the tea-cups. Harriet, as his thin mouth twitched with just the
hint of a smile, looked straight into his eyes, and she knew he
was as frightened as she. But from neither was there a visible
sign of consternation. "No tea," the man said, making of the
decision a splendid and significant renunciation. "Nothing--
nothing!"

"He only eats about once a month, and then it's dates and hay and
camel's milk and carrots!" Ward was beginning. Royal Blondin gave
him a look, deeply amused and affectionate.

"Not quite so bad, Laddie!" he protested, mildly.

"We might manage the dates," Isabelle smiled. Harriet had not
spoken because she was quite unable to command her voice. But she
gained it now to say in an undertone:

"I think I shall have to go in, Mrs. Carter. I promised Nina some
help with her Spanish. I wonder--"

"You speak Spanish, Miss Field?" said Royal Blondin, in Spanish.

This was an invitation to Ward to burst into involved sentences in
the tongue; Royal Blondin turned to him seriously. The rest of the
company might be bored or not, as they pleased, but he was only
interested in testing the boy's accent and vocabulary. As a matter
of fact, everyone laughed and listened, perfectly appreciating
Ward's mad ventures and the other man's liquid and easy
assistance. A few seconds later Harriet Field slipped from her
place, crossed the terrace with her heart beating sick and fast
with fright, and made her escape.

She ran up the awninged steps that led to the square great hall,
and ascertained with relief that it was empty. On all sides wide
doorways gave her perspectives: the drawing rooms, in their
brilliant summer covers; the porches, with wicker tables and
chairs; the music room; the breakfast room all cheerful green and
white; the library, in cool north shadow; and the dining room,
long and dark and dignified, where maids were already moving
noiselessly about the business of dinner. Here in the hall was the
pleasant shade and coolness, the subtle drifting scent of early
summer flowers, space, and the simplicity of dark polished floors
and sombre rugs. The whole house seemed empty, lovely, silent,
after the confusion of the terrace and the heat of the summer day.

Harriet mounted the stairs, threaded the familiar, pleasant
hallways above. She and Nina had a luxurious suite on the second
floor, shut off from the rest of the house by a single door, and
rather remotely placed in a wing that commanded a superb view of
the river. There were guest rooms on this floor, Richard Carter's
room and his wife's beautiful rooms, and there was an upstairs
sitting room. But Madame Carter and her grandson and his friends
had their rooms on the third floor, the old lady demanding a quiet
and isolation that her daughter-in-law's proximity did not favour.

Nina, half-dressed, was sprawling luxuriously on her bed when
Harriet came in. The three rooms of their suite were joined by
doors almost always open; they were small rooms, but to both the
young women they had always seemed entirely satisfactory. Just now
they were in shade, but outside the windows the blue river
glittered, and the fresh, heavy foliage of the trees moved softly,
and inside was every charm of furnishing, of brilliant flowered
draperies, and of exquisite order. There was a business-like heap
of mail on Harriet's big desk; there were flowers everywhere; fan-
tailed Japanese gold fish moved languidly about in a tall bowl of
clear glass, and Nina's emerald-green parrot walked upon his gaily
painted perch, and muttered in a significant and chuckling
undertone. Glass doors were open upon a square porch, and the
sweet afternoon air stirred the crisp, transparent curtains.

Harriet shut the door, and leaned against it, and the world spun
about her. What now? What now? What now? hammered her heart. Nina
tossed aside her magazine, and regarded her with affectionate
reproach.

"You ran upstairs!" she said. "I'm lying on your bed because Maude
had the laundry all over mine. Are you going to lie down?"

"No, my dear!" said Harriet, in an odd, breathy whisper.

"You DID run upstairs!" murmured Nina. She sat up, and put her
bare feet on the floor, groping for slippers, and yawned, with a
red face. "What time is it?"

"It's--" Harriet shook back the ruffle at her wrist, twisted her
arm slightly, and looked blindly down.

"Well?" said Nina, when she dropped her hand. But Harriet, smiling
at her blankly, had to look again.

"Six, dear--almost. Brush your hair, and get into something, and
we'll have half an hour before dinner comes up. I must be
downstairs for awhile to-night, I want to see just how the new
cook sends dinner in Your mother wasn't at all satisfied with
luncheon yesterday. I don't know why this comes to me," she added,
busy with her mail in the little sitting room. "Something your
father ordered through the club. I'll send that to Mr. Fox. Here's
the bill for your two hats--Miss Nina Carter, by Miss Field."

"What was the blue one?" asked Nina in the doorway, from a cloud
of hair.

"The-blue-one," Harriet said, absently, "was forty-five dollars.
Not bad for a smart little English hat with a little curled cock
feather on it, was it? It's quite the nicest you've ever had, I
think." What now?--What now? hammered her heart.

"Granny paid three times that for that brown hat last winter,"
observed Nina.

"I know she did, and it was absolutely an unsuitable hat, and your
mother wouldn't let you wear it," Harriet said, mildly. "You are a
type, my dear. You must dress for that type."

Nina looked pleased. She was at an age when all girls are vain.
Few people noticed the appearance of the young heiress of Richard
Carter, except perhaps with kindly pity, but it was part of Miss
Field's duty to make the best of it, and Nina was grateful.

"I'll wear it to Francesca's tea!" she said, of the blue hat. The
social bow of a young neighbour, a little older than Nina, was to
be made in a few days' time, at a garden party, and Nina was
absorbed in the exciting prospect of assisting formally.

"No, it's not full dress," Harriet told her. "You'll have to wear
the white mull, and the white hat, and look very girly-girly."

"My eye-glasses make me look like a school-teacher playing baby,"
Nina said, gloomily. Harriet laughed, dazed, but not ungrateful to
find that she could laugh and speak at all.

"He's come back!" she said in her heart. "My darling child, you
aren't going to wear your glasses!" she assured Nina, aloud. "Not
if you have to have a dog and a cane! Not if you fall into the
fountain!"

"I shall be scared stiff!" Nina grumbled, coming out with her
Spanish books. Harriet, distracted for a moment, came to lean over
her shoulder, and the terror of half an hour ago began to flood
her soul and mind again. She went out to the porch, and looked
down into the clear shade of the early twilight, under the trees.
The terrace was deserted; every sign of the tea-party had
vanished, not a crumb marred the order of the grass-grown bricks.
The chairs held formal attitudes, the table was empty. All the
motor-cars were gone from the drive. She turned back into the
room, breathing more easily.

At half-past seven she came up from a little diplomatic adjusting
in the service end of the house, to peep at Nina, who was reading
in bed, and to go on to Isabelle's room. If Mrs. Carter was alone,
she liked to see Harriet then, to be sure of any last message, or
to discuss any domestic plan.

Harriet found her, exquisite in twinkling black spangles, before
her mirror. Isabelle's hair was dressed in dark and shining waves
and scallops, netted invisibly, set with brilliant pins. There was
not an inch of her whole beautiful little person that would not
have survived a critical inspection. Her skin, her white throat,
her arms and hands and fingernails, her waist and ankles and her
pretty feet, were all absolute perfection. The illusion that
veiled her slender arms stood at crisp angles; the silk stockings
showed a warm skin tint through their thinness; her lower eyelids
had been skillfully darkened, her cheeks delicately rouged, and
her lips touched with carmine; her brows had been clipped and
trained and pencilled, her lashes brushed with liquid dye, and
what fragrant powders and perfumes could add, had been added in
generous measure. She wore diamonds on her fingers, in her ears,
and about her throat, and her gown was held at her full smooth
breast by a platinum bar that bore a double line of magnificent
stones. Harriet always thought her handsome; to-night she had to
admit that her employer was truly beautiful.

Mrs. Carter was in a pleasant mood; she had a good disposition,
and there was nothing in her life now to ruffle it. She liked her
bright, luxurious dressing room, and the progress of her toilette
was soothing and restful. Her maid had been busy with her for
nearly two hours. The air was warm and fragrant, the prospect of
dinner, with its eagerly attendant Tony, rather stirred her, and
the mirror had everything delightful to say. Like all women of
forty, Isabelle liked the night, tempered lights and becoming
settings, and the dignity of formal entertaining. Last but not
least, she had a new toy to-night, a great black fan of uncurled
wild ostrich plumes whose tumbled beauty she waved about her
slowly as Harriet came in, watching the effect in the mirror with
intense satisfaction.

"Oh, pretty--pretty!" Harriet said, seeing it.

"Isn't it ducky? Anthony Pope just sent it to me--the dear boy. I
don't know where he picks things up, or how he knows what's
right." Mrs. Carter half-closed the fan, and laid it against her
bare shoulder, and looked at it with tipped head and half-closed
eyes.

"Did you see What's-His-Name?" she asked.

Harriet understood the allusion to the new chef.

"I've just been down there," she said. "Everything seems to be all
right, and looks delicious!"

"That's nice of you, Harriet," Isabelle said. The kitchen was not
strictly Harriet's responsibility, but Mrs. Carter had been making
changes there of late, and the girl's interest and interference
were invaluable. She laid down the fan, and pushed a silver case
toward her secretary, at the same time helping herself to a
cigarette. But Harriet shook her head.

"You're very clever, you know," Isabelle smiled, through a cloud
of pale smoke. "You're always in character, Harriet!"

Harriet smiled her inscrutable smile; there was just the
suggestion of a shrug. She had her own cigarette-case, and not
infrequently used it in Isabelle's presence. But at this hour,
when Richard or Ward or Nina, or even Madame Carter, might come
in, she felt any familiarity unsuitable. Isabelle, the least
affected of women, for all her spoiling and vanity, perfectly
appreciated this, and liked Harriet for it.

"You amuse me," said Isabelle, making a long arm to brush away the
ash from her cigarette, "playing your part so discreetly. Your
neat little old-maidy silks--"

"Is it old-maidy?" Harriet asked, mildly, glancing down at the
severe blue cross-barred gown she wore, and straightening a
transparent cuff.

"Not on you!" Isabella assured her. But her thoughts never left
herself long, and presently she discontentedly introduced her
favourite topic: "I could have been a business woman," she
announced, thoughtfully, "my father wouldn't hear of it, of
course. We had no money!"

"We had no money, and no father," Harriet observed. "So I had no
choice. At eighteen I had to make my own way."

"At eighteen I jumped into marriage," the older woman said, still
with a reminiscent resentment in her tone. "Mr. Carter had his
mother to support, of course. We thought we were pretty reckless
to pay sixty dollars rent. He was only twenty, he was getting what
was supposed to be an enormous salary then. Heavens--it seems
thousands of years ago!"

Harriet, who had imagination, could see it. The little brilliant
wife, insisting upon the fashionable apartment, worrying over the
extravagances of the one maid. The man eager only to push on, to
more money, more responsibility, wider fields, to make to-day's
extravagance to-morrow's reasonable expenditure.

Isabelle picked up the fan again, and gave her brilliant
presentment in the mirror a complacent glance.

"Is Mr. Pope's apartment attractive?" Harriet, who knew where her
thoughts were, asked idly. The older woman heard her perfectly,
but she affected indifference.

"Is--I didn't hear you. Oh--Mr. Pope's apartment. My dear, it is
perfection--absolutely. I have never seen anything so beautiful,
and so beautifully managed. And all by that boy. He has two
coloured women and the man--just a perfect menage. And they adore
him. Absolutely!" She mused happily, her lips twitching with some
amusing memory. Then she became businesslike. "Harriet, do you go
to the city this week?"

"Nina and the girls are to see Ruth St. Denis on Friday," Harriet
said. "I thought Madame Carter would take them, but now she says
no. But if Nina stays with her grandmother overnight, I thought I
would like to see my sister; she hasn't been very well. That can
wait, of course. Miss Jay's tea-party is to-morrow; that's
Thursday--"

"And that reminds me that Louise Jay telephoned to-day, and asked
me if you would take charge of the tea table," Isabelle said, with
a shrewd glance.

"At Mrs. Jay's house?" Harriet asked, after a second.

"Yes, at Francesca's tea-party!"

Harriet hesitated, and the colour crept into her smooth cheeks.

"I wonder why she asked that?"

"Because, in the first place, no one will drink tea," Isabelle who
was watching her intently said promptly. "In the second, Morgan
won't be there, because she says it's a kiddies' tea. I can't be
there, and presumably Mrs. Jay wants to depend on someone."

"One wonders," mused Harriet, in a most unpromising tone, "whether
one is asked as a maid, or a guest?"

"In this case, as a mother," Isabelle was inspired to answer.
"Personally, I should very much like it for Nina's sake. But you
suit yourself!"

The tone denied the words; Harriet knew what she was expected to
do. She knew that Isabelle would tell Mrs. Jay, in a day or two,
that she had simply mentioned it to Miss Field, and Miss Field had
been free to act exactly as she pleased. She knew that faintly
annoyed expression on Isabelle's face.

"I'll be delighted to help!" she said, lifelessly. "A lot of women
and children," she reflected, "and nobody drinking tea anyway,
this weather!"

"I say, Mater," Ward said from the doorway, with what he fondly
believed to be an English accent, "I'm no end peckish, what what?
Say, Mother," he added, becoming suddenly serious, "what do you
think of Blondin? Isn't he a corker? Say, listen, are you going to
ask him to dinner? Do we have to have the whole Bellamy tribe if
we ask him, Miss Harriet?"

"DON'T spill things and fuss with things, Ward," his mother
protested plaintively, protecting her bottles and jars from his
big hands as he sat down. "Yes, dear, we'll have him. I like him
because he was so enthusiastic about you. He's really quite a
person."

"Person--you bet he is!" Ward said. "Gosh, he knows everything.
You ought to get him started about--oh, I don't know, philosophy,
and the way we all are forever getting things we don't want, and
music--he can beat the box, believe me! He gave talks at the
Pomeroys' last year--"

Nina, trailing in in a blue wrapper, sat herself upon a chair,
wrapped her garments about her, and entered interestedly into the
conversation.

"'The Ethics of the Everyday'," she contributed. "I remember it
because Adelaide Pomeroy and I used to be in the pantry, eating
the tea things. And he talked at our school about Tagore."

"I remember those talks at Lizzie Pomeroy's," Isabelle said,
thoughtfully. "I wish I had gone! I suppose he's got a book out.
Will you see if you can get me anything he's written when you're
in town, Harriet? If we're going to have him here--"

She glanced at herself in the glass, where a more primitive woman,
in a jungle, would have commenced a slow, solitary dance and song.
If the hint of a scornful smile touched the secretary's beautiful
mouth, she suppressed it. She had a little notebook in her pocket,
and in it she duly entered the name of Royal Blondin.

"Too much rouge on this side, Mother," said Ward. Mrs. Carter
picked up a hand-mirror, and studied herself carefully. When she
had powdered and rubbed one cheek, she thoughtfully rouged her
lips again, pouting them artfully, while Harriet and the children
chattered. Nina was full of excited anticipation. Francesca's tea
to-morrow, and the box-party on Friday, and a new gown for each-
Nina fancied herself already a popular and lovely debutante.
Harriet imagined that she saw something of a brother's pity in
Ward's eyes as he watched her. Ward himself looked his best in his
evening black, and several years older than he really was.

"We're a handsome couple, Miss Harriet," said Ward, with a glance
toward the door of solid mirror that chanced to reflect them both.
"Aren't we, Mother?"

"You're an idiot!" said Nina, scornfully. Harriet laughed
maternally, but in spite of herself her idle dream of the
afternoon returned for a second, and she wondered just how that
faintly supercilious smile of Isabelle's would be affected if she
had her own right, here in this family group, a Carter of the
Carters, daughter of the house. And thinking this, her smoky blue
eyes met Ward's, and perhaps there was something in them that he
had not seen there before. At all events, she was ashamed to see
him colour suddenly, and become a little incoherent, and to have
him turn to her his full attention, with a sort of boyish
clumsiness that was touching in its way. Imaginary or not, the
trifling episode troubled her, and as Madame Carter came
majestically in and the little clock on the dresser pointed to the
hour, she said her good-nights, and carried Nina off again.

Richard Carter's wife and mother differed in no particular more
strikingly than in their attitude toward the toilet artifices they
both employed so lavishly. The old lady's beauty was even more
than Isabelle's assisted by art, for her snowy-white hair was a
wig, her teeth not her own, and her eyebrows quite openly
manufactured without one single natural hair to build upon. But it
pleased her generation to regard these facts as sacred, and to
assume that the secrets of the boudoir were unsuspected. Even Nina
never saw so much as a powder puff in her grandmother's dressing
room, and any compliment upon her hair or complexion Madame Carter
received with gracious dignity.

She looked at Ward's departing back, now, and remarked with
pointed reproof:

"My son has never seen his mother even in the act of brushing her
hair! There are reserves--there are niceties--"

"Where did you have it brushed--down at the shop?" Isabelle asked,
laughing. Madame Carter never failed to be staggered by her
daughter-in-law's irreverence, yet she never could quite resist
the criticisms that courted it.

"For the last few years, I admit," she conceded with a somewhat
shaken dignity, "I admit that I have had recourse to what they
call 'puffs'--you know what I mean? Made of my own hair, of
course--"

"Made of your own imagination!" Isabelle amended, in her own
heart. But she only gave the old lady a somewhat disquieting smile
as she picked up the tumbled black fan and led the way down to
dinner.




CHAPTER III


Nina was duly dressed for the tea-party the next day, and went to
show herself to her mother while Harriet dressed. The young girl
really did look her best in the filmy white with its severely
plain ruffles, and with a wide white hat on her thick, smoothly
dressed hair. Miss Field, too, although she was very pale to-day,
looked "simply gorgeous," as Isabelle expressed it, when she saw
them off in the car, although Harriet's gown was not new, and the
little flowered hat she had crushed down upon her splendid hair
had been Isabelle's own a season ago. Harriet was in no holiday
mood; she felt herself in a false position; this was to be one of
the times when she paid high for all the beauty and luxury of her
life.

"... so then when she came to me," Nina was recounting the
reception of some celebrity at school, "of course I was awfully
shy; you know me!" She was suddenly diverted. "But I'm not as shy
as I used to be, am I, Miss Harriet?" she asked, confidingly.

"Not nearly!" Harriet made herself say, encouragingly.

"Well, then," Nina resumed, "when she came to me I don't know what
I said--I just said something or other--I can't for the life of me
remember what it was! Probably I just said that I had seen her in
her last three plays or something like that, anyway--anyway, she
said to Miss King that she had noticed me, and she said, 'It's an
aristocratic face!' Amy Hawkes told me, for a trade last. The
girls were wild--they were all so crazy to have her notice them,
you know, and I thought--I thought of course she'd speak of Lucia
or Ethel Benedict or one of those prettier girls; although," said
Nina, with her little air of conscientiousness, "Ethel didn't look
a bit pretty that day. Sometimes she does; sometimes she looks
perfectly lovely! But that day she looked sort of colourless.
'Aristocratic'!" Nina laughed softly. "Well, I'd rather look
aristocratic than be the prettiest girl in the world, wouldn't
you?"

Harriet glanced at her with something like pity. This was Nina in
her before-the-party mood. Her confidence and complacency would
all begin to ooze away from her, presently, and the words that
came so readily to Harriet would refuse to flow at all to any one
else. She would come home saying that she hated parties because
people were all so shallow and uninteresting, and that she
couldn't help what her friends said of her, she just wouldn't
descend to that sort of nonsense.

"Here we are!" Harriet rather drily interrupted the flood. Nina
gave a startled glance at the lawns and gardens of the Jay mansion
already dotted with awnings and chairs, and sprinkled with the
bright gowns of the first arrivals. They were early, and their
hostess, a handsome, heavily built woman with corsets like
armourplate under her exquisite gown, and a blonde bang covering
her forehead, came forward with her daughter to meet them.
Francesca was as slight as a willow, with a demurely drooped
little head and a honeyed little self-possessed manner.

"Very decent of you, Miss Field!" breathed Mrs. Jay, in a voice
like that of a horn. "You girls run along now--people will be
comin' at any minute. I'm going to take Miss Field to the table.
Three hundred people comin'," she confided as Harriet followed her
across the lawn, and to the rather quiet corner of the awninged
porch where the tea table stood, "and Mist' Jay just sent me a
message that he won't be here until six. My older daughter,
Morgan, is stayin' with the Tom Underbills--you know their place--
lovely people--Well, now, I'll leave you here, and you just ask
for anything you need--"

The matron melted away; Harriet looked after her broad, retreating
back indifferently. Everyone knew Mrs. Jay, a harmless, generous,
good-natured and hospitable target for much secret criticism and
laughter. The odd thing was, old Mrs. Carter had sometimes pointed
out to the dutifully listening Harriet, that the woman really came
of an excellent family, so that her little affectations, her
fondness for the phrases "my older daughter, Morgan," and "lovely
people, loads of money, you know them?" were honest enough, in
their way. She would have loaned Harriet any amount of money, the
girl reflected, smouldering, she would have shown her genuine
friendship and generosity in a crisis. But she would not introduce
people to Harriet this afternoon, and in a day or two she would
send Harriet a bit of lace, or a dainty waist, as a delicate
reminder that the courtesy had been a business one, after all.

The afternoon was the perfection of summer beauty, and after a few
moments' solitude Harriet began to feel its spell. She put her
cups and spoons in order, and chatted with a hovering maid. Some
elderly persons came out and sat near, and were grateful for the
quiet and the tea. From the reception line, on the lawn, came such
a brainless confusion of jabbering and chattering as might well
appall the old and nervous.

And presently the sun came out for Harriet in the arrival of a
tall, swiftly moving, dark-eyed woman some ten years older than
she was herself: Mary Putnam, one of the real friends the girl had
gained in the last four years. Young Mrs. Putnam, Harriet used to
think, with a little natural jealousy under her admiration, had
everything. She was not pretty, but hers was a distinguished
appearance and a lovely face; she had the self-possessed manner of
a woman whose whole life has been given to the social arts; she
had a clever, kindly, silent husband who adored her; her home, her
garden, her clubs and her charities, and finally she had her
nursery, where Billy and Betty were rioting through an ideal
childhood.

"Harriet--you dear child!" said the rich and pleased voice, as
Mary's fine hand crossed the tea table for a welcoming touch. "But
how nice to find you here! I'm trying to get some tea for Mr.
Putnam's aunt and mother, but, my dear--it's getting very thick
out there!"

"I can imagine it!" Harriet glanced toward the lawn.

"I've been wanting to see you," Mrs. Putnam said in an undertone.
"But suppose I carry them a tray first? Harriet, you are prettier
than ever. I love the green stripes! I've just been trying to
think how long it is since I've seen you."

"Not since the day you lunched with Mrs. Carter, and that was
almost two weeks ago!" Harriet's hands were busy with cups and
plates; now she nodded to a maid. "Mayn't Inga carry this to your
mother, Mrs. Putnam?" she asked. "And couldn't you stay here and
have some tea yourself?"

Mrs. Putnam immediately settled herself in the neighbouring chair.

"I'm chaperoning little Lettice Graham for a week," she began, in
the delightful voice upon which Harriet had modelled her own. "But
Lettice is trying her little arts upon Ward Carter. Dear boy,
that!"

"Ward? He IS a dear!" Harriet said, innocently.

"No blushing?" Mary Putnam asked, with a smiling look. The colour
came into Harriet's lovely face, and the smoky blue eyes widened
innocently.

"Blushing--for WARD?" she asked.

Mrs. Putnam stirred her tea thoughtfully.

"I didn't know," she said. "You're young, and you know him well,
and you're--well, you have appearance, as it were!"

Harriet laughed.

"Ward is twenty-two," she observed.

"And you're--?"

"I shall be twenty-seven in August."

"Well, that's not serious," the older woman decided, mildly. "The
point is, he's a man. Ward has fine stuff in him," she added, "and
also, I think, he is beginning to care. It would be an engagement
that would please the Carters, I imagine."

The word engagement brought a filmy vision before Harriet's eyes,
born of the fragrance and sunshine of the summer. She saw a ring,
laughter and congratulations, dinner parties and receptions,
shopping in glittering Fifth Avenue.

"Perhaps it would," she said, with a hint of surprise in her tone.
"They are really very simple, and always good to me! But old
Madame Carter," she laughed, "would go out of her mind!"

"A boy in Ward's position may do much worse than marry a lovely
and sensible woman," Mrs. Putnam said. "Well, it just occurred to
me. It is your affair, of course. But looking back one sees how
much just the--well, the lack of a tiny push has meant in one's
life!"

"And this is the push?" Harriet said, her heart full of the
confusion and happiness that this unusual mood of confidence and
affection on Mary Putnam's part had brought her.

"Perhaps!" The smooth, cool hand touched hers for a second before
Mrs. Putnam went upon her gracious way. Harriet hardly heard the
bustle and confusion about her for a few minutes. She sat musing,
with her splendid eyes fixed upon some point invisible to the
joyous group about her.

To Nina, meanwhile, had come the most extraordinary hour of her
life. It had begun with the familiar and puzzling humiliations,
but where it was to end the fluttered heart of the seventeen-year-
old hardly dared to think.

She had sauntered to a green bench, under great maples, with
Lettice Graham and Harry Troutt and Anna Poett. And Joshua
Brevoort had come for Anna, and they had sauntered away, with that
mysterious ease with which other girls seemed to manage young men.
And then Harry and Lettice had in some manner communicated with
each other, for Lettice had jumped up suddenly, saying, "Nina,
will you excuse us? We'll be back directly," and they had wandered
off in the direction of the river, giggling as they went. Nina had
smiled gallantly in farewell, but her feelings were deeply hurt.
She hated to sit on here, visibly alone, and yet there was small
object in going back to the absorbed groups nearer the house.

Then came the miracle. For as she uncomfortably waited, Ward's
friend, the queer man with the black eyes and thick hair, suddenly
took the seat beside her. Nina's heart gave a plunge, for if she
was ill at ease with "kids" like Harry and Joshua, how much less
could she manage a conversation with the lion of the hour! But
Royal Blondin needed no help from Nina.

"You're little Miss Carter, aren't you?" he said. "We were
introduced, back there, but there were too many young men around
you then for me to get a word in! However, I was watching you--I
wonder if you know why I've been watching you all afternoon?"

Nina cleared her throat, and gave one fleeting upward glance at
the dark and earnest eyes.

"I'm sure I don't know why any one should watch me!" she tried to
say. But everything after the first three words was lost in the
ruffles of the white gown.

"I'll tell you why. I watched you because, from the moment I saw
you, I said to myself, 'if that little girl isn't utterly wretched
and out of her element, among all these shallow chatterers and
gigglers, I'm mistaken!' I saw the lads gather about you, and I
had my little laugh--you must forgive me!--at the quiet little way
you evaded them all. Nice boys, all of them! But not worth YOUR
while!"

Nina murmured a confidence.

"What did you say?" Blondin said. "But come," he added, frankly,
"you're not afraid of me, are you? My dear little girl, I'm old
enough to be your father! Look up--I want to see those eyes.
That's better. Now, that's more friendly. Tell me what you said?"

"I said--that Mother expected me to--to like them."

"To--? Oh, to like the boys. Mother expects it? Of course she
does! And some day she'll expect to dress you in white, and bid us
all to come and dance at the wedding! But in the meantime, Mother
mustn't blame someone who has just a LITTLE more discernment than-
-well, young Brevoort, for example, for seeing that her tame dove
is really a wild little sea-gull starving for the sea. Now, look
here, Miss Nina, you hate all this society nonsense, don't you?"

"Loathe it!" Nina stammered, with a little excited laugh.

"Loathe it? Of course you do! Of course you do! And you don't want
to fall in love with one of these lads for a year or two, anyway?"

"Oh, my, no!" Nina felt the expression inadequate, but her breath
had been taken away. The man had turned about a little, his eyes
were all for her, and his arm, laid carelessly along the back of
the green bench, almost touched the white ruffles. They were in
full sight of the house, too, and if Lettice or Anna came back,
they would see Nina in deep and lasting conversation with the man
that all the older women were so mad about--

"You don't. But--what?" He bent his dark head.

"I said, 'But I don't know how you knew it'!" Nina repeated,
looking down in her overwhelming self-consciousness, but with a
smile of utter happiness and excitement.

A second later she looked up in some alarm. He was silent--she had
somehow said the awkward thing again I Nina's heart fluttered
nervously.

But what she saw reassured her. Royal Blondin had squared himself
about, and had folded his arms, and was staring darkly into space.

"How I knew it!" he said in a half-whisper, as if to himself,
after a full half-minute of silence that thrilled Nina to the
soul. "Child, I don't know! Some day you and I will read books
together--wonderful books! And then perhaps we will begin to
understand the cosmic secret--why your soul reaches out to mine--
why I not only want to know you better, but why it is my solemn
obligation to take the exquisite thing your coming into my life
may mean to us both! You're only a child," he went on, in a
lighter tone, "and I can read those big eyes of yours, and can see
that I'm frightening you! Well, this much remains. You and I have
somehow found each other in all this wilderness of lies and
affectations, and we're going to be friends, aren't we?"

"I--hope we are!" Nina said, clearing her throat, with a bashful
laugh.

"You know we are!" Royal Blondin amended. And in a musing tone he
added: "I'm afraid I was a little bitter a few hours ago. And then
I saw you, just an honest, brave, bewildered little girl,
wondering why the deuce they all make such a fuss about nothing--
clothes and bridge parties and dinners--"

"They never SAY anything worth while!" Nina said, with daring.
There was exquisite homage in the dropped, listening head, the
eyes that smiled so close to her own. "But if I tell Mother that,
she thinks I'm crazy!" she added, lapsing into the school
vernacular against a desperate effort to sustain the conversation
at his level.

"Because you're a little natural rebel," interpreted the man,
smilingly. "And that's the price we pay for it!"

"I'm afraid I've always been a rebel, then!" confessed Nina.

"Yes, those eyes of yours say that," Blondin conceded, sadly. "And
it doesn't make for happiness, Little Girl!" he warned her.

Nina narrowed her eyes, and stared into the green garden. She was
not wearing her glasses to-day, and hers were fine eyes, albeit a
trifle prominent, and with a somewhat strained expression.

"Oh, I know that!" she said. "Mother and Father," she confided,
with the merciless calm of seventeen, "they'd like me to be
exactly like all the other girls, flirting and dressing, and
rushing about all day and all night! But oh--how I hate it! Oh, I
like the girls and boys--truly I do, and I am popular with them
all, I know that! But 'CASES'!" said Nina with scorn.

"Dear Heaven!" Royal said, under his breath. "No--no--no--that's
not for you!" he murmured. "And yet--" and he turned upon her a
look that Nina was to remember with a thrill in the waking hours
of the summer night--"and yet, is it kindness to wake you up,
child?" he mused. "Is it right to show you the full beauty of that
questing soul of yours?"

It was said as if to himself, as if he thought aloud. But Nina
answered it.

"I often think," she said, mirthfully, "that if people knew what I
was thinking, they'd go crazy! 'Oh, isn't the floor lovely--isn't
the music divine! Are you going to the club to-morrow? What are
you going to wear?'"

It was not a very brilliant imitation of a society girl's tone and
manner, but Royal Blondin seemed deeply impressed by it.

"Look here!" he said. "You're a little actress!"

"No. I'm not!" Nina laughed. "But I can always imitate anything or
anybody," she admitted. "It makes the girls perfectly wild
sometimes! But Ward's different," she resumed, going back to the
more serious topic. "I envy Ward! He is just as different from me
as black and white. Now Ward likes everyone--and everyone likes
him. He just drifts along, perfectly content to be popular, and to
have a good time, and to do the regular thing, and of course he
knows NOTHING of moods--!"

"Bless the lad!" Blondin said, paternally.

"Oh, I manage to keep the appearance of doing exactly what the
others do," Nina hastened to say, "and I laugh and flirt just as
if that was the only thing in life! If people want to think I am a
butterfly, why, let them think so! My friend Miss Hawkes says that
I have two natures--but I don't know about that!"

She looked up at him to find his eyes fixed steadily upon her, and
flushed happily, with a fast-beating heart.

"With one of those natures I have nothing to do," Royal said. "But
the other I claim as my friend. Come, how about it? Are we going
to be friends? I am old enough to be your father, you know; you
may tell Mother that it is perfectly safe. When the right young
man comes to claim you, why, I'll resign my little friend with all
the good will in the world. But meanwhile, am I going to pick you
out some books, am I going to have some talks as wonderful as this
one now and then? No--not as wonderful, for of course this sort of
thing doesn't come twice in a lifetime! Will you give me your hand
on it--and your eyes? Good girl! And now I'll take you back to be
scolded for running away from your own friends for so long. I'm
dining with Mother to-morrow. Shall I see you?"

"Oh, yes--if Mother lets me come down!" fluttered Nina. "But, no--
we're to be at Granny's!" she remembered.

"Soon, then!" He left her in the circling group, but all the world
saw him kiss her hand. Nina wandered about in a daze of pleasure
and satisfaction for another half-hour, paying attentions to
Mother's poky friends with a sparkle and charm that amazed them.
Presently Ward and the demure Amy Hawkes found her; the car was
waiting. Miss Field, Ward said, was no longer at the tea table;
she had left a message to the effect that she was walking home and
would be there as soon as they were.

He asked Amy and Nina, whose irrepressible gossip and giggling met
with only silence and scowls from his superior altitude, if they
knew why Miss Harriet had decided to walk. They stared at each
other innocently, on the brink of fresh laughter. No; they hadn't
the least idea.




CHAPTER IV


Royal Blondin went straight from Nina to the tea table, which was
almost deserted now. Harriet saw him coming, and she knew what
hour had come. She stood up as he reached her, and they measured
each other narrowly, with unsmiling eyes.

There was reason for her paleness to-day, and for the faint violet
shadows about her beautiful eyes. Harriet had lain awake deep into
the night, tossing and feverish. She had gotten up more than once,
for a drink of water, for a look from her balcony at the solemn
summer stars. And among all the troubled images and memories that
had trooped and circled in sick confusion through her brain, the
figure of this smiling, handsome man had predominated.

She had always thought that he must come back; for years the fear
had haunted her at every street crossing, at every ring of Linda's
doorbell. At first it had been but a shivering apprehension of his
claims, an anticipation of what he might expect or want from her.
Then came a saner time, when she told herself that she was an
independent human being as well as he, that she might meet his
argument with argument, and his threat with threat.

But for the past year or two her lessening thoughts of him had
taken new form. Harriet had hoped that when they met again she
might be in a position to punish Royal Blondin, to look down at
him from heights that even his audacity might not scale.

That time, she told herself in the fever of the night, had not yet
come. Her pitiful achievements, her beauty, her French and
Spanish, her sober book reading, and her little affectations of
fine linen and careful speech, all seemed to crumple to nothing.
She seemed again to be the furious, helpless, seventeen-year-old
Harriet of the Watertown days, her armour ineffectual against that
suave and self-confident presence.

"Oh, how I hate him!" whispered the dry lips in the silence of the
night. And looking up at the wheeling grave procession of powdery
jewels against the velvet of the sky, Harriet had mused on escape,
on a disappearance as complete as her flight years ago had proved
to be.

She had forced herself to unbind the wrappings, to look at the old
wound. She had gone in spirit to that old, shabby parlour to which
Linda and Fred had carried Josephine's crib late every night, and
where sheet music had cascaded from the upright piano. She saw,
with the young husband and wife, a fiery, tumblehead girl of
fifteen or sixteen, who helped with her sister's cooking and
housework, who adored the baby, who planned a future on the stage,
or as a great painter, or as a great writer--the means mattered
not so that the end was fame and wealth and happiness for Harriet.

Fred had brought Royal Blondin in to supper one night, and Royal
had laughed with the others at the spirited little waitress who
delivered herself of tremendous decisions while she came and went
with plates, and forgot to take off her checked blue apron when
she finally slipped into her place.

The man had been a derelict then, as now. But he was nine years
older than Harriet Field. He had had the same delightful voice,
the same penetrating eyes. He had brought poetry, music, art, into
the sordid little parlour of the Watertown apartment; he had
helped Harriet to tame and house those soaring ambitions. Seated
on Linda's stiff little fringed sofa, they had drunk deep of Keats
and Shelley and Browning, and Harriet's eyes had widened at what
Royal called "world ethics." To live--that was the gift of the
gods! Not to be afraid--not to be bound!

Reaching this point in her recollections, the girl recalled
herself with a start. She was safe in luxurious Crownlands, it had
all been years ago. But again the abyss seemed to yawn at her
feet. She felt again those kisses that had waked the little-girl
heart into passionate womanhood; she shut her eyes and pressed her
hand tight against them. So young--so happy--so confident!--
plunging headlong into that searing blackness.

And now Royal Blondin was back again, and she was not ready for
him. She could not score now. But he could hurt her irreparably if
he would. Isabelle was an indifferent mother, and an incorrigible
flirt, but at the first word, at the first hint--ah, there would
be no arguing, no weighing of the old blame and responsibility! If
there was the faintest cloud of doubt, that would be enough!
Better the driest and fussiest old Frenchwoman for Nina, the
dullest and least responsive of Englishwomen. But by all means
settle accounts at once with Miss Field, and pay her railway fare,
and wish her well.

Harriet had shaken back her mane of hair, had hammered furious
fists together up on the dark balcony. It wasn't fair--it wasn't
fair--just now, when she was so secure and happy! She had flung
her arms across the railing, and buried her hot face on them, and
had wept desperate and angry tears into the silken and golden
tangle that shone dully in the starlight.

The stars were paling, and the garden stirred with the first
languid breath of the hot day to come, when she suddenly rose and
bound up the loosened hair, and went in. Harriet was not yet
twenty-seven, and every fibre of her being cried out for sleep.
Cold water on the tear-stained face, and the childish prayer she
never forgot, and she had crept gratefully into the soft covers,
and had had perhaps four hours of such rest as only comes to
youth.

So that the morning brought courage. Her heart was heavy and
fearful, but she knew that Royal would seek her, and she hoped
much for the talk that they were to have now. She did not refuse
him her hand when he came to the tea table, or her eyes, and there
was friendliness, or the semblance of it, in the voice with which
she said his name. That he was waiting, perhaps as fearfully as
she, for his cue, was evidenced by the quick relief with which he
echoed the old familiarity.

"Harriet! I find you again. I've been waiting all this time to
find you! I'd heard Ward speak of 'Miss Field', of course! But it
never meant you, to me. I've been thinking of you all night."

"I've been thinking, too," she said, simply.

"It's after six," Blondin said with a glance about. "We can't talk
here. Can you get away? Can we go somewhere?"

Without another word she deserted her seat, pinned on her hat, and
picked up her gloves.

"There's a very quiet back road straight to Crownlands," she said,
considering. "We might walk."

"Anything!" he assented, briefly.

Guided by Harriet, who was familiar with the place, they slipped
through the hallway, and out a side door, crossing the lane that
led down to the garage, and striking into a splendid old quiet
roadway barred now by the shadows of elms and sycamores and
maples, and filled with soft green lights from the thick arch of
new leaves. They had no sooner gained the silence and solitude it
afforded them than the man began deliberately:

"Harriet, I've not thought of anything else since I came upon you
yesterday, after all these years. I want you to tell me that you--
you aren't angry with me."

There was a moment of silence. Then the girl said, quietly:

"No. I'm not angry, Roy."

"You knew--you knew how desperately I tried to find you, Harriet?
What a hell I went through?"

If she had steeled herself against the possibility of his shaking
her, she failed herself now. It was with an involuntary and bitter
little laugh that she said:

"You had no monopoly of that, Roy."

"But you ran away from me!" he accused her. "When I went to find
you, they told me the Davenports had moved away. Won't you believe
that I felt TERRIBLY--that I walked the streets, Harriet, praying-
-PRAYING!--that I might catch a glimpse of you. It was the
uppermost thought for years--how many years? Seven?"

"More than eight," she corrected, in a somewhat lifeless voice. "I
was eighteen. My one thought, my one hope, when I last saw you, in
Linda's house," she went on, with sudden passion, "was that I
would never see you again! But I'm glad to hear you say this,
Roy," she added, in a gentler tone. "I'm glad you--felt sorry. Our
going away was a mere chance. Fred Davenport was offered a
position on a Brooklyn paper, and we all moved from Watertown to
Brooklyn. I was grateful for it; I only wanted to disappear! Linda
stood by me, her children saved my life. I was a nursery-maid for
a year or two--I never saw anybody, or went anywhere! I think
Linda's friends thought her sister was queer, melancholy, or
weakminded--God knows I was, too! I look back," Harriet said,
talking more to herself than to him, and walking swiftly along in
the golden sunset light that streamed across the old back road,
"and I wonder I didn't go stark, staring mad! Strange streets,
strange houses, and myself wheeling Pip Davenport about the curbs
and past the little shops!"

"Don't think about it," he urged, with concern.

"No; I'll not think about it. Royal, don't think that all my
feeling was for myself. I thought of you, too. I missed you.
Truly, I missed what you had given my life!"

A dark flush came to the man's face, and when he spoke it was with
an honest shame and gratitude in his voice that would have
surprised the women who had only known him in his later years.

"You are generous, Harriet," he said. "You were always the most
generous girl in the world!"

More stirred than she wished to show herself, Harriet walked on,
and there was a silence.

"I hunted for you," Royal said presently. "For months it seemed to
me that we must meet, that we must talk! I came back from Canada
in August, I went to the house; it was taken by strangers. I went
to Fred's paper; he had been gone for months!"

"I know!" Harriet nodded. The wonderful smoky blue eyes met his
for a second, and there was something of sympathy now in their
look. "I know, Roy! It was," she shuddered, "it was a wretched
business, all round!"

"Linda and Fred made it hard for you?" he asked.

"Oh, no! They were angels. But of course in their eyes, and mine,
too--I was marked."

Silence. Royal Blondin gave her a glance full of distress and
compunction. But he did not speak, and it was Harriet who ended
the pause.

"Well, that's what a little girl of eighteen may do with her
life!" she said. "I have been a fool--I have made a wreck of mine!
Ambition and youth went out of me then. It wasn't anything actual,
Roy. But I have known a hundred times why when I should have
courage I had nothing but fear, when I should have self-confidence
I failed myself. Something in my soul got broken!"

"You are the most beautiful woman in the world," Royal Blondin
said, steadily, "you are established here, they all adore you! Why
do you say that your life is a wreck?"

"I am the daughter of Professor Field," said Harriet, "and at
twenty-seven I am the paid companion of Mrs. Richard Carter's
daughter! Oh, well--I was happy enough to have the opportunity. I
had studied French, you know; and Mrs. Rogers took me abroad with
her. She was an outrageous old lady, but not curious! No
reasonable woman could live with her--I made myself endure it.
Then I went to her daughter, Mrs. Igleheart, the famous
suffragette, for two years. And the Carters took me from her." She
shrugged indifferently. "What of yourself? Where have you been?"

But he was not quite ready to drop the personal note.

"Harriet, now that we have met, we'll be friends? My life now is
among these people; you'll not be sorry if we occasionally meet?"

"In this casual way--no, we can stand that!" she agreed. The fears
of the night rose like mist, melted away. It was bad enough, but
it was not what her inflamed and fantastic apprehension had made
it. He was no revengeful villain, after all. He did not mean to
harm her.

"I've been everywhere," he said, answering her question. "I made
two trips to China from San Francisco. I was interested in Chinese
antiques. Then I went into a Persian rug thing, with a dealer. We
handled rugs; I went all over the Union. After that, four years
ago, I went to Persia and into India, and met some English people,
and went with them to London. Then I came back here, as a sort of
press agent to a Swami who wanted to be introduced in America, and
after he left I rather took up his work, Yogi and interpretive
reading, 'Chitra' and 'Shojo'--you don't know them?"

She shook her head, sufficiently at ease now even to smile in
faint derision.

"They eat it up, I assure you!" Royal Blondin said, in self-
defence.

"Oh, I know they do!" Harriet agreed. "I've been hearing a great
deal about you lately! You have a studio?"

"I have--really!--the prettiest studio in New York. I rented my
London rooms, with my furniture in them, and I have a little
apartment in Paris, too, that I rent."

"And what's the future in it, Roy?" Now that the black dread was
laid, she could almost like him.

"The present is extremely profitable," he said, drily, "and I
suppose there might be--well, say a marriage in it, some day--"

"A rich widow?" Harriet suggested, simply.

"Or a little girl with a fortune, like this little Carter girl,"
he added, lightly.

Harriet gave him a swift look.

"Don't talk nonsense! Nina's only a child!"

"She's almost eighteen, isn't she?"

The girl walked swiftly on for a full minute.

"How do you happen to know that?"

"Is it a secret?"

The possibility he hinted, however remote, was enough to stop her
short, actually and mentally. Considering, she stood still, with a
face of distaste. The hush before sunset flooded the quiet road. A
bird called plaintively from some low bush, was still, and called
again. From the river came the muffled, mellow note of a boat
horn. Two ponies looked over the brick wall, shook their tawny
heads, and galloped to the field with a joyous affectation of
terror. Nina! By what fantastic turn of the cards was Royal
Blondin to be connected in her thoughts, after all these years,
with Nina?

She looked at Blondin, who was watching her with a half-sulky,
half-ingratiating air.

"My dear girl, that was merely an idle remark!" he said.

"Well, I hope so," Harriet said, going on, "anyway, she's a
child!"

"You weren't--quite--a child, at eighteen," he reminded her.

The colour flooded her transparent dusky skin.

"That's--exactly--what I was!" she said, drily. "But talk to Nina,
if you don't believe me! Everything that is school-girly and
romantic and undeveloped, is Nina. If you held her coat for her,
she would embroider the circumstance into something significant
and flattering! She is absolutely inexperienced; she's what I
called her, a child!"

"I've been talking to her," Blondin said. His companion looked at
him sharply, and after a second he laughed. "There is just one
chance in the world that I might make that little girl extremely
happy!" he said.

"Don't talk nonsense!" Harriet said again, impatiently.

"Is it nonsense?" he asked, smiling.

"It's--preposterous!"

"I suppose," the man drawled, "that that is a question for the
young lady, and her parents, and myself, to decide."

"You suppose nothing of the sort!" Harriet said, sensibly, without
wasting a glance upon him. And she added in scorn, "I doubt very
much if it's possible!"

"Very probably it isn't," he conceded, amiably. "I seem middle-
aged to her. I--"

"You ARE thirty-eight," Harriet said.

"Exactly! But--don't forget!--I shall have the field to myself.
The mother won't interfere. Of the grandmother I have my doubts,
but if the father is like the usual American male parent, he will
give the girl her head!"

Harriet bit her lip. This was utterly unexpected. Into her
calculations, up to this point, she had taken only Royal Blondin
and herself. If this casual hint covered any truth, then the
matter did not stop there. Nina was involved, and with Nina, Ward
and Nina's father and Isabelle--

The complications were endless; her heart sickened before them.
For she read Nina's susceptible vanity as truly as he, and she
knew besides, what he did not know, that the formidable-appearing
grandmother was secretly a little piqued at Nina's lack of
masculine attention, and would probably further any romantic
absurdity on the girl's part with all her determined old soul.
Nina adored at eighteen by the much-talked-of poet; Nina, young
and gauche perhaps, but married, and entertaining guests in her
husband's studio, would be a Nina far more satisfying to her
grandmother than the bread-and-butter Nina of to-day.

And yet, the conviction that Royal dared not betray her had been
flooding Harriet's heart with exquisite reassurance during this
past half hour. She was safe; her life at Crownlands took on a new
and wonderful beauty with that knowledge. And if she was fit to
continue there, Nina's companion, Isabelle's confidante, guide and
judge for the whole household, could she with any logic warn them
against this man?

He had her trapped, and she saw it. If she was to have her safety,
as all this talk implied, then she must give him the same tacit
assurance. To threaten his standing was to wreck her own.

"Don't make a tragedy of it," Royal, watching her narrowly,
interrupted her thoughts to say lightly. "The girl will marry
where she pleases. She makes her own choice. If I can make the
right impression on her and convince her father and mother that I
am fit for her, why, it isn't your affair!"

"Isn't it?" Harriet whispered the question, as if to herself. Her
eyes looked beyond him darkly; the girl was young and innocent,
greedy for flattery, eager to live. What chance had little Nina
Carter against charm like his--experience like his? Harriet
wondered if she could look dispassionately on while Nina dimpled
and flushed over her love affair, while gowns were made and
presents unpacked. Could she help to pin a veil over that stupid
little head; could she wave good-bye to Royal Blondin and his girl
wife; could she picture the room where Nina's ignorance that night
must face his sophistication, his passion, his coarseness?

They had come to the particular lane that led to Crownlands now,
and she stood still by the ivy-covered brick wall, her face dark
and sober with thought in the soft, clear twilight.

"There won't be any kidnapping or chloroform about it!" Royal
reminded her.

"No--I know!" she answered, with a swift glance of pain. "But--"

But what? The alternative was Linda's house, at twenty-seven
instead of seventeen, and with the vague cloud over her even more
definite than before. Harriet winced. Nina, whispered her mind,
was far less ignorant than Harriet had been at her age.

"Life--the truths of life," Royal said, as if he read her thought,
"may not be to everyone what they--might be--might have been--to
you!" The colour rushed to her face.

"PLEASE, Roy--!" she said, suffocated.

"I may never be asked to the house after to-morrow night," said
Blondin, after a pause, realizing that he was gaining ground. "She
won't be here to-morrow night. This may be the beginning and end
of it. All I ask is that if I am made welcome here, on my own
merits, you won't interfere! The mere fact that you're living here
doesn't mean that you have the moral responsibility of the family
on your shoulders, does it? Does it?"

"No-o," Harriet admitted, in a troubled tone.

"Of course not! You live your life, and I mine. Is there anything
wrong about that?"

He looked down with quiet triumph at the exquisite face, never
more beautiful than in this soft light, against the setting of
maples and brick wall.

"You know you would never look at that girl except for her money,
Roy!" she burst out.

"Nor would any one else!" he amended, suavely.

Harriet gave a distressed laugh.

"Come! You and I never saw each other until this week," Blondin
urged. "That's the whole story."

Before she answered, the girl looked beyond him at the splendid
stables and lawns of Crownlands. One of the great cars was in the
garage doorway, its lamps winking like eyes in the dusk. An old
gardener was utilizing the last of the daylight, his back bent
over a green box border. Beyond, lights showed in the side windows
of the great house. Harriet could see pinkish colour up at her own
porch; Nina was at home, or Rosa was turning down the beds and
making everything orderly for the night. She had a swift vision of
the great hallways, the flowers, the silent, unobtrusive service;
of Ward and his friends racketing upstairs; the old lady
majestically descending; of Isabelle at her mirror. Richard Carter
would come quietly down, groomed and keen-eyed; he would glance at
his mail, perhaps saunter out to the wide porch for a chat with
his mother before dinner was announced.

It had never lost its charm for her, her castle of dreams; she had
longed to be part of just such a household all her life! Now she
actually was part of it, and--if what Mary Putnam had hinted was
true, if her own fleeting suspicion only a few evenings ago was
true; then she might some day really belong to Crownlands, in good
earnest!

After all, Nina was bound for some sort of indiscretion; nobody
could save her that! Even if there was any probability that Royal
could carry out his plan.

Harriet made her choice.

"Very well," she said, briefly. "I understand you. I turn in here.
Good-night!"

"Just a second!" he said, detaining her. "You won't hurt me with
any of them, Ward or the girl, or the father?"

The girl's lips curled with distaste.

"No," she said, tonelessly.

"The look implies that you despise me!" Royal said, smiling.

"Oh, not YOU!" she said, in a tone of self-contempt. And in
another second she was gone. He saw the slender figure, in its
green gown, disappear at a turning of the ivied wall. She paused
for no backward glance of farewell. But Royal Blondin was
satisfied.




CHAPTER V


Again Harriet fled through the quiet house as if pursued by
furies, and again reached her room with white cheeks and a fast-
beating heart. Nina was not there. She crossed to the window, and
stood there with her hands clasped on her chest, and her breath
coming and going stormily.

"Oh, he's clever!" she whispered, half aloud. "He's clever! He
never made a threat. He never made a threat of any kind! He knew
that he had me--he knew that he had me just where he wanted me!"
And looking down toward the lane, invisible now behind the trees
and stables, in the gathering dusk, she added scornfully, "You're
clever, Roy. I wonder if there's anything you wouldn't do, if it
made for your own comfort or brought you in money!

"But, at all events," summarized Harriet, quieting a little under
the soothing influence of solitude and safety, "I'm out of it! He
won't touch ME. And what he does here, in making his way with this
family, doesn't concern me! Nina is old enough to decide for
herself--I had my own living to make at her age, and no father to
write me checks for my birthdays, and no Uncle Edward to die and
leave me a hundred and fifty thousand dollars!"

She mused about the little fortune, left most unexpectedly five
years before to Nina and Ward by an uncle of their mother. Edward
Potter had been a bachelor, had been young when an accident flung
him out of life, and made his niece's children, the twelve-year-
old Nina, and Ward at sixteen, his heirs. The expectation had been
that he would marry, that sons and daughters of his own would
disinherit the young Carters. But his affianced wife had married
someone else, after awhile, and the fortune had gone on
accumulating for Ward and for the girl whose eighteenth birthday
was only a few months off now. Harriet wondered if Royal Blondin
knew about it. Of course he knew about it! Harriet had seen a
check for one million dollars exhibited, under glass, among the
wedding gifts of one twenty-year-old girl a few months ago. She
did not suppose that Richard Carter would do that for his
daughter, even if he could. But he would probably double Uncle
Edward's legacy, and the bride would begin her new life with a
fortune that was no contemptible fraction of a million.

"And I am worrying about my responsibility to poor, dear little
Nina!" the girl said to herself, with a rather mirthless laugh, as
Nina herself came into the room.

Nina had been experiencing what were among the pleasantest hours
of her life. A school friend, Amy Hawkes, had come back with her
from Francesca Jay's tea, and the two had been prettily invited by
Isabelle to join the family downstairs at dinner. Coming at this
particular moment, it had seemed to Nina that she was emerging
from the chrysalis indeed.

But more than that. Amy, who was romance personified, under a
plain and demure exterior, had observed Nina's long conversation
with Royal Blondin, and had found an arch allusion to it so well
received by Nina that she had followed up that line of
conversation, almost without variation, ever since. By this time
the girls had confided to each other, over a box of chocolates in
the deep chairs of the morning room, everything of a sentimental
nature that had ever happened to them in their lives, and much
that had not. Amy was convinced that Mr. Blondin was just
desperately in earnest, and that, for the sake of other aspirants,
Nina ought not to trifle with him, and Nina, with blazing cheeks
and tumbled hair, was assuming rapidly the airs of a sad coquette.

Amy was to sleep with Nina, and Harriet realized, as she
superintended their fluttered dressing, that she, Harriet, would
be obliged to go to their door five times, between eleven and one
o'clock that night, and tell them that they must stop talking.
With the grave manner that always impressed young girls, and with
a somewhat serious face, she was busying herself with their frills
and ribbons, when from the bathroom, where Amy was drawing on silk
stockings, and Nina had her toothbrush in her mouth, she was
electrified by a chance scrap of their conversation.

"If I do mention it to Mother," said Nina, rather thickly, "she
will only scold me! A man of his age--she'd be furious!"

"And don't you think you deserve to be scolded?" said Amy, in a
delightfully rebuking undertone. "My dear--he must be in the
thirties!"

"No, I don't, Amy!" Nina protested, in a tone of great honesty and
innocence. "I can't help being like that. If I don't like a man,
why, I have nothing to say to him! If I do, why--his age--NOTHING-
-matters!"

She hesitated, and laughed a little laugh of pure pleasure.

"You flirt!" Amy said.

"Truly, honestly--" Nina was beginning, when both girls were
smitten into panicky silence by the sound of the slipper Harriet
deliberately dropped on the floor. Nina noiselessly bent her
stocky young body far forward, to look through the crack of the
bathroom door. Harriet went on quietly spreading the youthful
dinner dresses on Nina's bed, snapped up a dressing-table light,
went on into her own room. But she had been taken far more by
surprise herself, if they had only known it, than had Amy and
Nina. Could Royal possibly have been the subject of their
confidences? Could he have made such progress in a single
afternoon? Knowing Royal, and knowing Nina, she was obliged to
confess it possible.

While she stood pondering, in her own beautiful room, there was a
modest knock at the door, and Rosa came in with a box. She smiled,
and put it on Harriet's desk.

"For me?" the girl said, smiling in answer, and with some
surprise. Rosa nodded, and went her way, and Harriet went to the
box. It was not large, a florist's box of dark green cardboard;
Harriet untied the raffia string, and investigated the mass of
silky tissue paper. Inside was an orchid.

She took it out, a delicate cluster of flaky blossoms, poised
carelessly, like little white hearts, on the limp stem. She opened
the accompanying envelope, and found Ward's card. On the back he
had written,

"Just a little worried because he's afraid you're cross at him!"

Harriet stood perfectly still, the orchid in one hand, the card
crushed in the other. Ward Carter had sent orchids, no doubt, to
other girls. But Harriet Field had never had an orchid before from
a man.

She put the card into her little desk, and the orchid into a
slender crystal vase. Then she went back to advise Amy and Nina as
to gold beads and the arrangement of hair. But a little later,
when she was in the big housekeeper's pantry, where several maids
were busy with last-minute manipulations of olives and ice and
grapefruit, Ward came out and found her, soberly busy in her old
checked silk.

"Why didn't you wear it?"

"Wear it--you bad, extravagant child! I'll wear it to town to-
morrow."

"No; but--" he sank his tone to one of enjoyable confidences--"but
WERE you mad at me?"

"Mad at you? But why should I have been?" Harriet demanded.

"Oh, I don't know! You looked so glum at breakfast."

"Well, you had nothing to do with it!" she assured him, in her
big-sisterly voice. "And it was the first orchid I ever had, and I
loved you for it!"

It was said in just the comradely, half-amused voice with which
she had addressed Ward a hundred times in the past year, but
perhaps the boy had changed. At all events, it was with something
like pain and impatience in his tone that he said gruffly:

"Yes, you do! You like me about as much as you like Nina, or
Granny!"

"I like you--sh! just a LITTLE better than I do Granny!" Harriet
confided. "Don't spoil your dinner with olives, Ward! Don't muss
that--there's a dear! Dinner's announced, by the way. It's quarter
past eight."

"I'm going!" he grumbled, discontentedly.

"At any rate, I LOVE the orchid!" Harriet said, soothingly. He was
laughing too, as he disappeared, but something in his face was
vaguely troubling to her none-the-less, and she remembered it now
and then with a little compunction during her quiet evening of
reading. She was tired to-night, excited from the talk with
Blondin that afternoon, and by the general confusion and noise of
the household. Ward--Nina--Royal--their names flitted through her
thoughts even when she tried to read; at such a time as this she
felt as if the life at Crownlands was like the current of a river
that moved too swiftly, or more appropriately perhaps, like some
powerful motor-car whose smooth, swift passage gave its occupants
small chance to investigate the country through which they fled.
Well, she would see Linda on Saturday, and have Sunday with her
and the children, and that meant always a complete change and a
shifted viewpoint, even when, as frequently happened, Linda took
the older-sisterly privilege of scolding.




CHAPTER VI


Linda, who had been Mrs. Frederick Davenport for some seventeen
years, had lived for the last ten in a quiet New Jersey village.
The house for which she and her husband paid the staggering rent
of forty dollars a month had proved to be in a region toward which
the expected tide of fashion did not turn, but it remained a quiet
and eminently respectable neighbourhood, remained almost
unchanged, in fact, and Linda was satisfied.

When Harriet had chaperoned Nina and Amy to the Friday afternoon
matinee, and had duly deposited Amy afterward in the Hawkes
mansion, and had escorted Nina to her grandmother's apartment, she
was free to direct Hansen to drive her to the Jersey tube, and to
spend a hot, uncomfortable hour in a stream of homegoing
commuters, on the way to Linda's house. She was unexpected, but
that made no difference; the Davenports had little company, and
they were always ready to welcome the beloved sister and aunt.

Linda's home was a shingled brown eight-room house, built in the
first years of the century, and consequently showing the
simplicity and spaciousness that were unknown in the architecture
of the eighties. It was exactly like a thousand other houses here
in the Oranges, and like a million in the Union. There was a
porch, with a half-glass door covered by a wire netting door, and
a rusty mail box; there was a square entrance hall with a side
window and an angled stairway; there was a kitchen back of the
hall, and a square parlour with a green-tiled mantel to the left;
a square dining room back of the parlour, with a window at the
back and another at the side. The side window gave upon the
neighbouring house, a duplicate of this house, forty feet away,
and the back window commanded an oblong backyard in which
clotheslines and bean poles and a dog house, and a small vegetable
garden protected by collapsing chicken wire, and various pails and
buckets appertaining to the kitchen, all had place.

But up the slope of meadow beyond this yard were the woods, and
the Davenport children had always considered these woods as a part
of their legitimate domain, combining thus, as their mother said,
"the advantages of the country with all the conveniences of the
city." What the conveniences of the city were Harriet was unable
to decide, but to Linda's practical mind electric light, adequate
plumbing, and a gas stove were all extremely important.

A chipped cement path led to Linda's steps; there was no front
fence. It was considered vaguely elegant, in the neighbourhood, to
let the fifty-foot plots run together, as boundless estates might
unite. So that the old prim charm of pickets and protected
gardens, and protected babies playing in them, had long ago
vanished from country homes, and although the lawns here were all
well tended, there was a certain bareness and indefiniteness about
the aspect that partly accounted for the little curl of distaste
that touched Harriet's mouth when she thought of Linda's home.

She mounted the three cement steps from the sidewalk level, and
the four shabby and peeling wooden ones that rose to the porch. On
this hot summer afternoon the front door was open, and Harriet
stepped into the odorous gloom of the hall, and let the screen
door bang lightly behind her. There was a confused murmur of
voices and the clinking of plates in the dining room, but these
ceased instantly, and a hush ensued.

Immediately, in the open archway into the parlour, a girl of
fifteen appeared, a pretty girl with blue eyes and brown hair, a
shabby but fresh little shirtwaist belted by a shabby but clean
white skirt, and a napkin dangling from her hand.

She made a round O of her mouth, and then gave a shout of
pleasure.

"Oh, Mother--it's Aunt Harriet! Oh, you darling--!"

Harriet, laughing as she put down her bag and divested herself of
her hat and wraps, went from the child's wild embrace into the
arms of Linda herself, a tall, broadly built, pleasant-faced woman
with none of Harriet's own unusual beauty, but with a family
resemblance to her younger sister nevertheless.

"Well, you sweet good child!" she said, warmly. "Fred--here's
Harriet! Well, my dear, isn't it fortunate that we were late! We'd
hardly commenced!"

The remaining members of the family now streamed forth: Fred
Davenport, a thin, rather gray man of fifty, with an intelligent
face, a worried forehead, and kindly eyes; Julia, a blonde beauty
of twelve; Nammy, a fat, sweet boy of five, with a bib on; and
Pip, a serious ten-year-old, with black hair and faded blue
overalls, and strong little brown hands scrupulously scrubbed to
the wrist-bones, where dirt and grime commenced again unabated.
Josephine, the oldest child, continued to dance about the visitor
delightedly, but the little thoughtful Julia disappeared, and when
presently they all went out to resume the interrupted meal, a
place had been set freshly for Harriet, and a clean plate was
waiting for her.

"Now, I don't know whether to take this out and heat it up for
you, or whether it's still hot," said Linda, beaming from her
place at the head of the table.

"I'll do it!" said Julia, half launched from her chair.

"Oh, Mother, it's plenty hot enough!" Josephine contended, good
naturedly. Harriet protested against the reheating plan. It seemed
to her the middle of the afternoon, with the blazing, merciless
sunlight streaming across the backyards. She had forgotten that
Linda had dinner at half-past six.

"Iced tea! Oh, don't you love it? I could die drinking it!" Julia
said, drawing the beverage from off the ice in her glass with
Epicurean delight.

"You very probably will!" her father said. The children laughed
hilariously. Linda put Harriet's plate before her, and Harriet
attacked codfish cakes and boiled potatoes and stewed tomatoes
with pieces of pulpy bread in them, with what appetite she could
command. The stewed blueberries that followed were ice-cold, and
she enjoyed them as much as the others did.

The talk ranged wholesomely from family to national affairs. Fred
was a newspaper man, one of the submerged many, underpaid,
overworked, unheard, yet vaguely gratified through all the long
years by the feeling that his groove was not quite the groove of
the office, the teller's desk, or the travelling salesman's
"beat." Here in the little suburban town his opinion gained some
little weight from the fact that he had been ten years with a New
York evening paper. Fred held vaguely with labour parties, with
socialists and single-taxers; his sister-in-law had a somewhat
caustic feeling that if Fred had ever given Linda a really capable
maid, his opinions might have been more endurable, to her,
Harriet, at least. Linda had had maids, Polack and Swedish girls,
and Irish country girls hardly intelligible in speech. But now she
had no maid, she preferred the economy and independence of doing
her own housework.

They sat on into absolute darkness, finishing the last teaspoonful
of blueberry preserve, and the last crumby cooky. Mrs. Davenport
was interested in everything her sister had to say; knew the
Carters, and even some of their closest friends, by name, and
asked all sorts of questions about them. Josephine, after a half-
hearted offer to help with the dishes, departed for a rehearsal of
"Robin Hood," which was to be given by the women of the church as
their annual entertainment. While she was upstairs, little Nammy
was sent up to bed, but when it was absolutely necessary to have
lights, and the group at the table naturally adjourned, little
Julia and Pip gallantly did their share of the work.

Harriet knew that work by heart; no amount of absence could ever
make her unfamiliar with any detail of it. The clearing of the
table, the shaking of the crumpled tablecloth, the setting of the
breakfast table, the hot glare of electric light in the cluttered
and odorous kitchen, the scraping of congealed plates, the
spreading of her damp tea towel on the rack by the sink, the
selection of a dry towel.

Linda, she reflected, had had seventeen years--had had something
nearer twenty-five years of it. For Linda had been only
Josephine's age when their mother died, and Professor Field's
daughters had assumed the management of his little home. Linda
might have been anything, thought her sister, as the older woman
rinsed and soaped cheerfully, in the insufferable heat of the
kitchen, but she had always had cooking and dishes to do. She said
that she liked them.

Julia was Harriet's favourite among the children. Pip had been a
baby, entirely absorbing his mother, in those terrible days nine
years ago, but Julia had been a delicious, confidential two-year-
old, with a warm soft hand, and a flushed little friendly face
under tumbling curls. Harriet had bathed her, dressed her, fed
her, and taken her for silent walks. And on many a moonlit night
the unconscious little body had been held tight in Harriet's arms,
and the unconscious little face wet with passionate tears.

Julia had never known this, but Harriet never forgot it, and she
looked at Julia lovingly, as the small, sturdy girl in her shabby
little school-frock went to and fro busily.

"And now we can talk!" Linda said at last, when the kitchen was
dark and hot and orderly, and the children gone upstairs to bed in
hot darkness, and she and Harriet had taken the seats on the
small, hot porch. "This is a terrible night--nine o'clock--and
they are hardly settled off yet!"

Nine o'clock. They would still be at dinner at Crownlands, and the
river breeze would be blowing the thin curtains of Harriet's
French windows straight into the cool, fresh room. She would be
out on the porch, now, looking at the river lights, her book
forgotten in her lap. At the head of the table Richard Carter
would be sitting, in his cool and immaculate white, and at the
foot, sparkling and beautiful, with her fresh bare arms and her
firm bare shoulders, her exquisitely modelled hair and her bright
eyes, Isabelle. And beside her, to-night, Royal Blondin, musical,
poetical, playing the game with all his consummate art, scoring
with every glance and word--

Fred was at the piano. It was a poor piano, and he was a poor
player who smoked his old pipe while he painstakingly fingered
Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" or the score of "The Geisha."
But Linda loved him.

"He will putter away there, perfectly content, for an hour," she
told Harriet. "And at ten you'll see him starting to get
Josephine. They're great chums--she thinks there's no one in the
world like Daddy!"

"How are things at the office?" Harriet asked.

"Oh, just about the same! Old Frank Judson died, you know, and of
course Fred expected the A. P. desk. But Allen had a nephew, just
out of Yale, it seems, and you can imagine how poor old Fred felt
when they put him in. However, I said he wouldn't last, and he
didn't last! So Fred has that desk now, and of course he is
tremendously pleased."

"More money in it?" Harriet asked, practically.

"Well, there will be. Allen hasn't said anything about it, but
Fred is sure he will. But since Fred's mother died, we've felt
very much easier. It was an expense, and it was a responsibility,
too," said Linda, with her plain, fine, unselfish face only
vaguely visible to Harriet in the starlight. "And we were about
six months clearing up the final expenses. But now, with only
ourselves and the children, it makes me feel positively selfish! I
did tell Mrs. Underhill that I would try to sew regularly for the
Belgians, and there's the Red Cross, I always manage that. But--I
know you'll be as glad as I am, Harriet, we are really saving, at
last."

"Well, you told me so last Christmas," Harriet said,
sympathetically, "when you and Fred took the Liberty Bonds--"

"Yes, that. But I mean really, for our home, now. And--but don't
mention this, Harriet, for we are in perfect DREAD that someone
else will have the same idea--you know that old place we've been
watching for years? Well, Mr. Adams told David Davenport that he
believed that it could be had for seven or eight thousand dollars,
and perhaps only one thousand or fifteen hundred paid down."

Harriet remembered the place perfectly, a shabby, fine old house
on a corner, with trees and an old stable, a plot perhaps one
hundred feet wide, a street flanked by new wooden houses and young
trees. Linda and Fred had wanted this house since the Sunday walk,
wheeling Pip in the perambulator, when they had first seen it.

"We could do wonders with that house!" said Linda,
enthusiastically. "Not all at once. But it has electric light in,
that we know, and one bath--"

Harriet's thoughts had wandered.

"How's David?"

"Lovely. He always comes to us for Sunday dinner," Linda said.
"And he always asks for you!" she added, with some significance.
David Davenport, Fred's somewhat heavy and plodding brother, a
successful Brooklyn dentist, had never made any secret of his
feeling for the beautiful Harriet. "David is a dear," his sister-
in-law said, "the most comfortable person to have about! And he is
doing remarkably well. He is going to make some woman very happy,
Harriet. He and Fred both have that--well, that domestic quality
that wears pretty well! We've promised to give the children a
picnic on the ocean a week from Sunday, and you'd be perfectly
touched to see how David is planning for it. We're to spend
Saturday night with him--"

"I like David!" Harriet said, in answer to some faint indication
of reproach in her sister's tone. But immediately afterward she
added, in a lower voice: "Ward Carter has had Royal Blondin at the
house this week!"

Linda's rocker stopped as if by shock. There was an electric
silence. When she spoke again it was with awe and incredulity and
something like terror in her tone.

"Royal Blondin! He's in England!"

"He was," Harriet said, drily. "He's been in New York for two
years now."

"Harriet! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know, Sis. He came to tea last week--stepped up and held
out his hand--I hadn't even seen him since that night in your
Watertown house--"

Linda shuddered.

"I know--I remember!" she said in a whisper. And she added
fervently, "I hoped he was dead!"

"So did I!" Harriet said, simply.

There was another moment of silence. Then Linda said:

"Well, what about it? What did he say--what did you say?"

"Nothing very significant; what was there to say?" Harriet
answered. "Our meeting was entirely accidental. He had no idea of
finding me; was as surprised as I was." She stopped abruptly,
musing on some unpalatable thought. "You wouldn't know him, Linda.
He is a perfect freak," she said, presently, "talks about Karma
and Nirvana and I don't know what all! Whether he's a Theosophist
or a Brahmin I don't know--"

"For Heaven's sake!" Mrs. Davenport commented, in healthy surprise
and contempt.

"New thought, and poetry, and the occult, and Tagore and the
Russian novelists, and the Russian music," Harriet said, "he
lectures about them and he has been extremely successful! He wears
pongee coats and red ties, and has his hair long, and--well, you
never saw women act so about anything or anybody!"

"Royal Blondin!" Linda exclaimed, aghast. "Perhaps their making
fools of themselves will make it not worth his while to bother
you," she speculated, hopefully.

"He's having dinner with the Carters to-night," Harriet said. To
this Linda could only ejaculate again an amazed:

"Royal Blondin!" And as Harriet merely nodded, in the gloom, she
added, vigorously, "Why, he hadn't a PENNY! He was always an
idiot--he didn't have enough to EAT ten years ago!"

"Well, he has enough to eat now! Ward told me that he gets three
hundred dollars for his drawing-room talks--his 'interpretive
musings', he called them. And he has a book of poetry out, and he
reviews poetry for some magazine--"

"Well, THAT--" Mrs. Davenport was still dazed with astonishment
and indignation. "That REALLY--" she began, and stopped, shaking
her head. "Tell me EVERYTHING you said!" she commanded.

"I will!" Harriet's voice fell flatly. "I came home to talk it
over with you." But it was fully five minutes later that she began
the inevitable confidences. "We talked--Roy and I--" she said,
briefly. "He doesn't belong in my life, now, any more than I do in
his! We simply agreed to a sort of mutual minding of our own
business--"

"Thank God!" Mrs. Davenport said, fervently. "He--he doesn't want
to--he doesn't still feel--he won't worry you, then?" she asked
somewhat diffidently. Harriet's laugh had an unpleasant edge.

"He is after bigger game than I am, now!" she said.

"The brute!" her sister commented in a whisper. "It--it is all
right, then?" she asked, a little timidly.

"All right!" Harriet echoed, bitterly. "I haven't drawn a happy
breath since I saw him! All that time came up again, as fresh as
if it were yesterday--except that I HAVE climbed a little way,
Linda; I was happy--I was busy and useful--and I had--I had my
self-respect!"

And suddenly the bright head was in Linda's lap, and she was
sobbing bitterly. Linda, with a great ache in her heart, circled
her arms, mother-fashion, as she had circled them a hundred times,
about her little sister.




CHAPTER VII


Harriet slept in the room with Julia and Josephine that night, or
rather tossed and lay wakeful there. The light of a street lamp
came squarely in on the white ceiling, and although the hall door
was open, there was no breath of air moving anywhere. The children
slept in attitudes of youthful abandonment; Harriet heard Fred and
Linda murmuring steadily, and could imagine of what they spoke;
little Nammy awakened, and there was an interval of maternal
comforting, and then silence.

At about two o'clock the wind streamed mercifully in, hot and
thick, but prophetic of rain, and Harriet, wandering about to make
windows fast, encountered Linda, on the same errand. When the
worst of the crackling and flashing was over, the girl glanced at
her watch again. Three o'clock, but she could sleep now. She sank
deeply into dreams, not to stir until Linda's alarm clock, hastily
smothered, thrilled at seven, and the small girls rose with
cheerful noise, to let streams of hot sunshine upon her face.

Her head ached; she brushed Julia's hair as a sort of bribe for
turning the small girl out of the bathroom, and was in the tub
when Pip hammered on the door for his turn. Linda was in a whirl
of blue smoke in the kitchen; Fred shouted a request for a little
more hot water; Josephine set the table with languid grace,
entertaining her aunt with a description of "Robin Hood."

Her face beaming with satisfaction, Linda assembled her brood.
There were cocoa and coffee and muffins and omelette and Fred's
little bottle of cream, and his paper, and there was, as always,
Linda's spontaneous grace before meat: "I wonder if we're thankful
enough, when we think of those poor people in Poland and Belgium!"

Immediately after breakfast the two small girls attacked their
Saturday morning's work with a philosophic vigour that rather
touched their aunt. This morning Linda would leave the whole lower
floor to their ministrations while she thoroughly cleaned the
floor above. Josephine must bake cake or cookies, all the
dishwashing and dusting and sweeping must be done before Mother
came down at twelve to put finishing touches on the lunch. Fred
had hurried away after his hasty meal; the boys were turned out
into the backyard, which Pip was expected to rake while he watched
his small brother.

Harriet's heart ached deeply for them all as she watched the
Jersey marshes from the car window a few hours later. The poor
little pretty girls, gallantly soaking their small hands in
dishwater and lye, eager over the church production of "Robin
Hood" and a picnic with Uncle David at Asbury! Josephine was to be
a stenographer when she finished High School, and little Julia had
expressed an angelic ambition to teach a kindergarten class some
day. Nina, at their ages, had had her pony, her finishing school,
her little silk stockings, and her monogrammed ivory toilet set,
her trip to England and France and Italy with her mother and
brother and grandmother.

Suppose that she, Harriet, was right in suspecting that Ward's
feeling was more than the passing gallantry of a light-hearted
boy? She bit her lip, narrowed her idle gaze on the meadows that
flew by the car window. It would be a nine-days' wonder, his
marriage at twenty-two with his mother's secretary, more than four
years his senior. But after that? After that there would be
nothing to say or do. Young Mr. and Mrs. Ward Carter would
establish themselves comfortably, and the elder Carters would
visit them; Isabelle absorbed as usual in her own mysterious
thoughts, and Richard Carter--

Harriet's thoughts, none too comfortable up to this point, stopped
here, and she flushed. It was impossible to see Richard Carter, as
she saw him every day, in the role of husband, father, son, and
employer, without holding him in hearty respect. She liked him
thoroughly; she knew him to be the simplest, the most genuine and
honest, of them all. He had none of his wife's airy selfishness,
none of his mother's cold pride. Nina was far more of a snob than
her father, and Ward--well, Ward was only a sweet, spoiled,
generous boy, at twenty-two. But Harriet always saw behind Richard
Carter, the years that had made him, the patient, straightforward,
hard-working clerk who had been sober, and true, and intelligent
enough to lift himself out of the common rut long before the
golden secret that lay at the heart of the Carter Asbestos Company
had flashed upon him. Money had not spoiled Richard; he still held
wealth in respect, while Ward ordered his racing car, and Nina
yawned over twelve-dollar school shoes.

No; she would not enjoy telling Richard that she was to marry his
son. Those keen eyes would read her through and through, and while
her father-in-law might love her, and see her beauty and charm
with all the rest of the world, Harriet knew that she must begin
an actual campaign for his esteem on her wedding day. The prospect
had an unexpected piquancy. She had little fear of its outcome.
She would make Ward Carter a wife for whom his father must come to
feel genuine gratitude and devotion. Every fibre of her being
would be strained to make the Carter marriage a success. She knew
what persons to cultivate, and what elements to weed out of their
lives. There would be children, there would be hospitality and
music and a garden. And Ward should seriously settle down to his
business, whatever it might be, and show himself a worthy son of
his clever father.

Isabelle, simply because of her supreme indifference to whatever
did not affect her own personal affairs, would be easy to handle.
Her son's marriage might pique her, momentarily, but less, on the
whole, than the discovery that she had gained eight pounds, or
that new wrinkles had appeared about her eyes. She would very
probably choose the position of championing Harriet, if only to
infuriate the old lady. Madame Carter would of course be frantic,
but Ward's wife need have no fear of her. And Nina--

"I would very soon put a stop to that Blondin affair!" thought
Harriet at this point. But a sharp little wedge of fear entered
her heart at the same second. It would not do to anger Royal, that
end of the tangle must be handled very carefully. Whatever
influence she might have with Nina must be used with discretion.

"After all, Nina must live her own life, as I have to live mine!"
she thought. And her mind drifted to the happier thought of what a
brilliant marriage on her part would mean to the little girls who
were so busily cleaning an eight-room house in a little Jersey
suburb. Josephine and Julia should come to visit her, they should
have little frocks that would befit the pretty nieces of Mrs. Ward
Carter; they should have a taste of polo games and country clubs,
and in a winter or two Josephine's first formal dance should be
given in Aunt Harriet's house.

"Why not--why not?" Harriet asked herself, as she reached Madame
Carter's pretentious apartment house, and was whisked upstairs.
She was to meet Nina here, and she glanced about for the big
limousine at the curb, as an indication that the old lady might be
ready to accompany them back to Crownlands. But there was no car
in sight. The maid's first statement was that Miss Carter had gone
home with her brother, and when Madame Carter came magnificently
into the room, Harriet could see from the nature of her head-dress
that she did not intend to assume a hat for some hours. When Mrs.
Carter meant to go out, her maid pinned and pressed and veiled her
hat immovably, while dressing her, as a fixture, with the puffs
and braids and curls of white hair.

"Well, our bird has flown!" said the old lady. Harriet could see
that she was pleased about something.

"Gone home with Ward?" Harriet asked. Madame Carter never shook
hands with her; there was conscious superiority in the little
omission. She sank into a chair, and Harriet sat down.

"Ward and his friend, this Mr. Blondin," Madame Carter said. "A
very interesting--a most unusual man. A very good family, too--
excellent old family. Yes. Nina assured us that she had to wait
and go home with her Daddy, but that--" Madame Carter gave

Harriet a deeply significant smile--"but that didn't seem to
please Somebody very much!" she added. "So I told Nina I thought
Granny would be able to make it all right with Daddy, and off the
young people went."

She rocked, with a benignly triumphant expression, and a
complacent rustle of silken skirts. Harriet, beneath an automatic
smile, hid a troubled heart. Royal was losing no time, Ward his
innocent instrument, and this fatuous old lady of course playing
his game for him! Madame Carter had always spoiled Nina in
something a trifle more defined and malicious than the usual
grandmotherly fashion. She had indulged the child in chocolates
when the doctor's prohibition of sweets was being scrupulously
enforced by Isabelle and Harriet; she had permitted late hours and
unsuitable plays when Nina visited her; she had encouraged her
granddaughter in a thousand little snobberies and affectations.
And she had taken a mischievous pleasure in thwarting Harriet
whenever possible, emphasizing the difference in her position and
Nina's, humiliating the companion whenever it was possible, in
ways that were far less subtle than Madame Carter imagined them to
be.

Harriet saw now that she was pleased and flattered by an older
man's apparent admiration of Nina; and that she would further the
girl's first definite affair in every way that lay in her power.
It was maddening; it was exasperating beyond words. An honest
warning would have merely flattered her with its implication of
her importance; ah, no, Isabelle and Harriet might try to hold the
child back--but Granny knew girl nature better than either of
them!

"Well, then, I must follow them home," Harriet said, pleasantly.
"You don't come back to-night?"

To this Madame Carter very pointedly made no answer; her plans
were not Miss Field's business. She rocked on placidly, in her
ornate, pleasant room, at whose curtained and undercurtained and
overdraped windows the summer sunshine was battling to enter. It
was a large room, but seemed small because the rugs were two and
three deep on the floor, and there was so much rich, dark
furniture, so many lamps and jars and pictures and boxes and
frames, handsome but heterogeneous treasures that must always
remain in exactly the same positions. The several tables were
angled carefully, their draperies lay precisely placed, year after
year; Harriet knew that all the ten rooms were just the same, and
that the old lady liked to walk slowly through them, and note the
lace over satin, the glint of ranked wineglasses, the gleam of
polished silver, the clocks and candlesticks. There were certain
ornate ashtrays for Richard and Ward, there was a magnificent
piano player, for which his grandmother bought the boy a dozen
rolls a month, selecting them with splendid indifference on one of
her regal expeditions downtown, and there was a massive Victrola,
which had once delighted Nina for hours at a time.

"The child is growing up!" the old lady said, smiling at some
thought. "Well, we must look for love affairs now!"

Harriet felt that there was small profit in following this line of
conversation. She glanced at her twisted wrist.

"I think I will make that two o'clock train, Madame Carter, unless
there is some errand I might do for you?" she said respectfully.

This courtesy, from a beautiful young woman to an old one, always
antagonized Madame Carter. Harriet knew that she was casting about
for some honeyed and venomous farewell, when the muffled thrill of
the bell came to them, and the footsteps of Ella were heard.
Immediately afterward Richard Carter came quickly in.

He met Harriet at the door.

"How are you, Miss Field? Tell Nina to hurry; I've got about five
minutes!" he said, pleasantly.

"Don't keep Miss Field; she is making her train!" said his mother,
coming forward under full sail, and laying both hands about his.
"I'll explain about Nina. Come here--you have time to sit down
with your mother, I hope!"

Richard Carter gave his mother the peculiarly warm smile that was
especially her own.

"Went on with Ward, eh?" he said, in his hearty voice. "That's all
right, then. Oh, Miss Field!" he called, after Harriet's
discreetly retreating back, "the car's downstairs. Wait for me
there; I'll run you home in half the time the train takes. I'm
playing in the tennis finals, Mother--"

Harriet, turning for just a nod and smile, heard no more. His
voice dropped to a filial undertone, and he sank into a low chair,
with his hands still clasping the old lady's hand. But as she
entered the lift, the girl said to herself, with a passionate sort
of gratitude: "Oh, I like you! You're the only genuine and
unselfish and kind-hearted one in the whole crowd!"

She went down to the street, and saw the small car waiting. He was
driving himself to-day. With a great sense of comfort and
relaxation Harriet got into it, and was comfortably established,
and tucked in snugly, when Richard came down. He smiled at seeing
her, got into his own seat; the machine slipped smoothly into
motion, the hot and sordid streets began to glide by.

"Ever think how illuminating it would be, Miss Field, if we kept a
list of the things that are worrying us sick, and read 'em over a
few weeks later?"

"I suppose so!" the girl said, a little surprised, and yet with
fervour. "We'd have a fresh bunch then, and be worrying away just
as hard!"

The spontaneous response in her tone made Richard Carter laugh.

"I've had something on my mind for two months," he said, "to-day I
ran into the fellow I thought was going to make the trouble--we
had lunch together, and everything was settled up as calm as a
June day! I feel ten years younger than I did at this time
yesterday! What made me think of it was that I had it on my mind
that you and Nina and the bags would be a crowd in this car when I
came out to my mother's a few minutes ago. I was figuring on
sending the bags on to-morrow, and so on and so on--"

"It's often that way," Harriet smiled. "Only money trouble really
seems to have a solid, tangible form," she added, thoughtfully.

"Combined with some other," he surprised her by answering quickly,
as if he were quite at home with his subject. "If there isn't
sickness--or drink--"

"Oh, you can't say that, Mr. Carter!" Harriet was at home here,
too. "Everybody who is respectable and hard working and sober
doesn't get rich---"

"No, not rich!" He was really interested. "But our contention
isn't that riches are the only happiness, is it?" he countered.

"No, but I say that money trouble is a very real thing," she
answered, quickly.

"There is a golden mean, Miss Field, between being rich and being
poor!" he reminded her.

"I suppose I am rather bitter," Harriet said, enjoying this
confidence more than she could stop to realize, "because I have
just been to see my sister in New Jersey. She has four children,
pretty well grown now, and her husband is really a good man, and a
steady man, too--he is a sort of Jack-of-all-trades on a Brooklyn
newspaper. I suppose Fred is paid sixty dollars a week, and they
save on that! But--"

"She's unhappy, eh?" asked the man, with a sidewise glance.

"Linda?" Harriet laughed ruefully. "No, she's not! She's too
happy," she said, with a little laugh that apologized for the
sentiment. "She washes and cooks and plans all day and all night!
I'm the one who worries. It makes me sad to have her work so hard
for so little--"

She sensed his lack of sympathy, and stopped short, in a little
vague surprise. There was a brief silence while he took the car
skillfully through a somewhat congested side street, then they
were leaving the hot city behind, and the fresh breath of the
river was in their faces. Harriet, in self-defence, sketched the
Davenport home for him in a dozen sentences.

"You might tell your brother-in-law, from me," Richard Carter
said, presently, "that there isn't much that money will buy HIM!"

Harriet flushed. She had had perhaps a dozen brief conversations
with Richard Carter before to-day, but they had never touched so
personal a note before.

"I sounded mercenary!" she said, a little uncomfortably. "But I
didn't mean to be. I suppose it is because I see so many things
that money would do for my sister; I'd love so to have the
children beautifully dressed and well educated. Little Pip, raking
the yard to-day!--when he ought to be in some wonderful Montessori
school!"

"Oh, nonsense!" the man said, heartily. "Lord--Lord, I remember
Saturday morning, in a little Ohio town, and raking up the leaves,
too! That won't hurt them. I wish--I've often wished, that Nina's
life ran a little more in that direction," said her father,
frankly. "It's hard not to spoil 'em when you have the chance!
Girls--well, perhaps it isn't so bad for girls. But I look at
Ward, now, and I wonder what on earth is going to keep that boy
straight. This Tony Pope, for instance--it's too much, you know!
They don't know the value of money, and they don't know the value
of life!"

"Ward is too sweet to be spoiled," Harriet ventured, somewhat
timidly.

"You like the boy?" his father asked.

"I? Ward?" She was taken unawares, and flushed brightly. "Indeed I
do!"

"I'm glad you do," Richard Carter said, in quiet satisfaction.
"I've imagined sometimes that you have a good influence on him--
he's impressionable." He fell into silence, and for some time
there was no further speech between them. Harriet was content to
enjoy this restful interval between the hurry and crowding of
Linda's house and the currents and cross-currents that she must
encounter at Crownlands. She watched the green country go by, the
trees silent and heavy with their rich foliage, the villages
blazing with the last June roses. It was oppressively hot,
yesterday's storm had not much relieved the air, but Harriet was
conscious of a lazy feeling that it did not so much matter now,
the weather was no longer of importance. A mere accident had made
it natural for Richard Carter to drive her home, and yet she was
pleasantly thrilled by the circumstance.

They flew by the great gates of the country club, and turned in
past Crownlands lodge, and Harriet got out, at the steps, and
turned her happy, flushed face toward the man to thank him. A
little spraying film of golden hair had loosened under her hat;
her cheeks had a summer burn over their warm olive; her eyes shone
very blue. Whatever she saw in his face as he smiled and nodded at
her pleased her, for she went upstairs saying again to herself,
"Oh, you're real----you're honest--I LIKE you!"

It was delightful to get back into the familiar atmosphere, to
catch the fragrance of flowers in the orderly gloom downstairs, to
take off her hat and her hot, dusty clothing, and have a leisurely
hot bath; to put on fresh and fragrant summer wear, and to go
down-stairs presently, rejoicing in being young and comfortable,
and tremendously interested in life. A maid stopped to question
her; there were letters to open; she felt herself instantly a part
of the establishment again, and at home here. The significance of
Richard Carter's parting look, its honest admiration and
friendliness, augmented by her own glance at a chance mirror on
her way upstairs, stayed with her pleasantly.

At one end of the terrace there was an awning whose shade fell
upon the brick flooring and the jars of bloom; and this afternoon
it also shaded Isabelle, in a basket chair, and the big hound, and
Tony Pope. Harriet cast them a passing glance, and wondered a
little in her heart. The boy was handsome, and fascinating, and
rich, but it was just a little unusual to have Isabelle so openly
interested in any one. There were no other callers this afternoon;
Nina had driven to the golf club with her father, and might be
expected to remain there for tea, if any entertainment offered, or
to return home when Hansen brought the car back.

The thought of Nina brought Royal Blondin again to Harriet's mind,
and she was conscious of a little internal wincing. But that risk
must be faced simply, as one of the unpalatable possibilities of
life. That Royal would take some step against which she must, in
honour bound, protest; that Nina should engage herself to him, and
Nina's parents consent; that no fortuitous circumstance should
play into Harriet's hands, and that she should be obliged to
antagonize him openly. was unthinkable on this peaceful, golden
afternoon. The canvas was too big, the cast of characters too
large, there must be some shifting of scene, some change in plot,
before anything so momentous occurred.

Yet the danger, faint though it might be, was already influencing
her. She was committed to a certain amount of diplomatic silence
now; her position here had subtly changed since the hour that
brought Royal Blondin back into her life a few days ago. Linda's
concern, and her own agony of apprehension when she first saw him,
had shown her just how frail was her hold upon this pleasant and
smooth existence, and in self-defence she had begun for the first
time to think of making it more definite. If she was to have all
the terrors of maintaining a dangerous position, at least she
might be sure of its sweets.

Undefined and vague, all this was still somewhere in the
background of her thoughts as she returned to Crownlands, and when
she met Ward Carter, wrestling with the engine of his own rather
disreputable racing car, out in one of the clean, gravelled spaces
near the garage. His coat was off, his fresh, pleasant face
streaked with oil and earth, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow.

Harriet, who had wandered out idly, felt a little quickening of
her pulses as she saw him. There was no mistaking the pleasure in
his eyes as she came close.

"Spark plugs?" she asked, with the sympathy of one to whom the
peculiarities of the car were familiar.

"She's fixed now; I've just cleaned 'em," Ward announced, flinging
away his cigarette, and straightening his back. "She'll go like a
bird, now. When did you get back?"

"Your father drove me home, like the angel he is. You came with
Nina?"

"Nina and Blondin. Then I drove him on to the Evans's. But she
began to act queer on the way home," said Ward, fondly, of the
car. "Say--get in and try her, will you?" he asked, eagerly.

"If you could wipe your face---" Harriet murmured, offering a
handkerchief. He declined it, but snatched out his own, and
distributed the dirt on his face somewhat more evenly. "Come on--
come on, be a sport!" he said. But perhaps he was as much
surprised as delighted when she very simply stepped into the low
front seat. There was a friendly nearness of her fresh white
ruffles, and a thrilling fragrance and sweetness and youngness
about her this afternoon that was new. Miss Field always, in
Ward's simple vocabulary, had been a "corker." But now he gave her
more than one sidewise glance as they went dipping smoothly up and
down through the green lanes, and said to himself, "Gosh--when she
crinkles those blue eyes of hers, and her mouth sort of twitches
as if she wanted to laugh, she is a beauty--that's what SHE is!"

And dressing for dinner, some time later, he found himself
stopping short, once or twice, with his tie dangling in his hand,
or his brushes aimlessly suspended, while he calculated the
chances of encountering her again--in the pantry, in one of the
hallways, in the side garden, where she often went, at about
twilight, with a book.

About a week later they met for a few moments in this very side
garden. It was early evening, and twilight and moonlight were
mingled over the silent roses, and the trimmed turf, and the low
brick walls. The birds had long gone to bed, and the first dews
were bringing out a thousand delicious odours of summer-time.
Harriet's white gown and white shoes made her a soft glimmering in
the tender darkness; Ward was in informal dinner clothes, with the
shine of dampness still on his sleek hair, and the pleasant
freshness of his scarcely finished toilet still about him.

They came straight toward each other, and stood very close
together, and he took both of Harriet's hands.

"Now, what is it--what is it?" the man said, quickly. "I've been
waiting long enough. I can't stand it any longer! I can't go away
to-morrow, perhaps for two weeks, and not know!" "Ward," the girl
faltered, lifting an exquisite face that wore, even in the faint
moonshine, a troubled and intense expression, "can't we let it all
wait until you get back?"

"I'll keep my mouth shut, nobody suspects us, if that's what you
mean!" he answered, impatiently. "But--why, Harriet," and his arm
went about her shoulders, and he bent his face over hers,
"Harriet, why not let me go happy?" he pleaded.

"You'll see a dozen younger girls at the Bellamys' camp," Harriet
reasoned, "girls with whom it would be infinitely more suitable--"

"PLEASE!" he interrupted, patiently. And almost touching her warm,
smooth cheek with his own, and coming so close that to raise her
beautiful eyes was to find his only a few inches away, he added,
fervently, "You love me and I love you--isn't that all that
matters?"

Did she love him? Harriet hoped, when she reviewed it all in the
restless, tossing hours of the night, that she had thought, in
that moment, that she did. It was wonderful to feel that strong
eager arm about her, there was a sweet and heady intoxication in
his passion, even if it did not awaken an answering passion in
return. Under all her reasoning and counter-reasoning in the night
there crept the knowledge that she had known that this was coming,
had known that only a few days of encouraging friendliness, only a
few appealing glances from uplifted blue eyes, and a few casual
touches of a smooth brown hand must bring this hour upon her. And
back of this hour, and of a man's joy in winning the woman he
loved, she had seen the hazy future of prosperity and beauty and
ease, the gowns and cars and homes, the position of young Mrs.
Ward Carter.

But she told herself that all that was forgotten in that magic
five minutes of moonlight and fragrance and beauty in the rose
garden; she told herself that she really did love him--who could
help loving Ward?--and that she would save him far better than he
could save himself, from everything that was not loving and
helpful and good, in the years to come.

She had let him turn her face up, in the strengthening moonlight,
and kiss her hungrily upon the lips, and she had sent him in to
his dinner half-wild with the joy of knowing himself beloved.
Harriet had gone in, too, shaken and half-frightened, and with his
last whispered prophecy ringing in her ears:

"Wait a year--rot! I'll go to the Bellamys', because I promised
to, but the day I come back, and that's two weeks from to-day,
we'll tell everyone, and this time next year you will have been my
wife for six months!"




CHAPTER VIII


A most opportune lull followed, when Harriet Field had time to
collect her thoughts, and get a true perspective upon the events
of the past week. On the morning after Ward's departure for the
Bellamys' camp she had come downstairs feeling that guilt was
written in her face, and that the whole household must suspect her
engagement to the son and heir.

But on the contrary, nobody had time to pay her the least
attention. Nina was leaving for a visit to Amy Hawkes, at the
extremely dull and entirely safe Hawkes mansion, where four
unmarried daughters constituted a chaperonage beyond all
criticism. Isabelle Carter was giving and attending the usual
luncheons and dinners, her husband absorbed in an especially
important business deal that kept him alternate nights in the
city. The house was quiet, the domestic machinery running
smoothly, the weather hot, sulphurous, and enervating.

A letter from Ward brought Harriet's colour suddenly to her
cheeks, on the third morning, but there was no one but Rosa to
notice her confusion. Ward wrote with characteristic boyishness.
They were having a corking time, there was nobody there as sweet
as his girl was, and he hoped that she missed him a little bit. He
was thinking about her every minute, and how beautiful she was
that last night on the terrace, and he couldn't believe his luck,
or understand what she saw in him.

There were seven sheets to the letter; each one heavily engraved
with the name of the camp, "Sans Souci," and the telephone, post-
office, telegraph, and rail directions charmingly represented by
tiny emblems at the top of the letter-head. Harriet smiled over
the dashing sentences; it was an honest letter. She felt a thrill
of genuine affection for the writer; he would never grow up to
her, but she would make him an ideal wife none-the-less. She went
about his father's home, in these days, with a secret happiness
swelling in her heart. It would not be long now before the
secretary and companion must take a changed position here. It was
not the least of her satisfactions that Ward wrote her that Royal
was at the camp, planning a trip to the Orient. But before he went
he talked of giving a studio tea for Nina. "I think he is slightly
mashed on the kid," wrote Ward, simply.

With Royal in China, Nina safely recovering from her June fever,
and Harriet affianced to Ward, the summer promised serenely
enough. Harriet answered the letter in her happiest vein. Her
reply was but two conservative pages; but she said more in the
double sheet of fine English handwriting than Ward had said in
three times as much space. A charming letter is one of the fruits
of loneliness and reading; Harriet was sure of her touch. His
father, his mother, and Nina each had an epigrammatic line or two,
and for his grandmother Harriet dared a little wit, and smiled to
imagine his shout of appreciative laughter.

She dined as usual alone, that evening, and was surprised, at
about eight o'clock, to receive the demure notification from Rosa
that Mrs. Carter would like to see her. Harriet glanced at a
mirror; her brassy hair was as smoothly moulded as its tendency to
curve and ring ever permitted, and she wore a thin old transparent
white gown that looked at least comparatively cool on this
insufferably hot evening. With hardly an instant's delay she went
downstairs.

On the terrace outside the drawing-room windows they were at a
card table: Richard, looking tired and hot in rumpled white,
Isabelle exquisite in silver lace, and young Anthony Pope. Near
by, Madame Carter majestically fingered some illustrated
magazines.

It appeared that they wanted bridge; it was too hot to eat, too
hot to dance at the club, too hot--said Isabelle pathetically--to
live! Harriet had supposed her dining alone with her infatuated
admirer, but it appeared that Richard had driven his mother out
from the city in time to join them for salad and coffee, and that
this angle of the terrace, where the river breeze occasionally
stirred, was the only spot in the world that was approximately
comfortable.

Obligingly, Harriet took her place, cut for the deal. But her eyes
had not fallen upon the group before she sensed that something was
wrong, and she had a moment's flutter of the heart for fear that
someone suspected her, that she was under surveillance. Had Royal-
-had Ward--

She turned a card, took the deal, found Anthony Pope her partner,
and entered into the game with spirit. Richard's first words to
her were reassuring; if there was constraint here, she was not
involved in it.

"No trump--says little Miss Field. Well, that doesn't seem to
frighten me. Two spades."

"I think we might try three diamonds, Miss Field," Anthony said,
gravely and pleasantly, and Harriet felt herself acquitted of any
apprehension in that direction as well. It only remained for
Isabelle to show friendliness.

"Du hast diamonten and perlen, you two. I can see that! You're
down, Harriet!" Mrs. Carter said, thoughtfully. Harriet began
thoroughly to enjoy herself! If they were all furious, at least it
was not with her. She speculated, as she gathered in her tricks.
Was it conceivable that Richard did not enjoy the discovery of the
tete-a-tete dinner? But Isabelle had often been equally
indiscreet, and he had never seemed to resent it before. Harriet
knew that Isabelle was ill at ease; she suspected that Tony was
furious. The old lady was obviously quivering with baffled
interest and curiosity.

In the little pool of light over the card table the air seemed to
grow hotter and hotter; there was suffocation in the velvet
darkness. A distant rumble of thunder broke heavily on the
silence, the sky glimmered with shaking light, and the great
leaves of the sycamores turned languidly in a hot breeze. Harriet,
the only interested player, was unfortunate with Tony, unfortunate
with Isabelle. After three rubbers the game ended suddenly;
Richard said he had some letters to write, and was keeping Fox
waiting in the library; Anthony scribbled a check, said brief and
unfriendly good-nights; Isabelle merely raised passionate dark
eyes to his. She was languidly gathering in her spoils when the
lights of his car flashed yellow on the drive and he was gone.
Harriet, who had lost more than twenty dollars, gave a rueful
laugh. The old lady watched everyone in expectant silence.

But when Richard spoke it was only to Harriet, and then in an
undertone almost fatherly:

"You lose no money when we ask you to oblige us by playing, my
dear. I won't permit that! Twenty dollars and forty cents, was it?
Consider it paid."

"Oh, but truly--" she was beginning to protest. The grave look in
his eyes, the authoritative nod, interrupted her, and with a
pleasant little sensation of protection and of friendliness she
had to concede the point. Immediately afterward he said good-night
to his mother and wife, and went in to his study. Madame Carter
followed him in, and went upstairs, but Isabelle sat on moodily
shuffling and reshuffling the cards, in the bright soft light of
the terrace lamps.

"Wait a minute, Harriet," she said, briefly, and Harriet
obediently loitered. But Isabelle seemed to have nothing to say.
Her eyes were on the cards, her beautiful breast, exposed in the
low-cut silver gown, rose and fell stormily, and Harriet saw that
she was biting her full under lip, as if anger seethed strong
within her. In the gleam of the lamps her dark hair took the shine
of lacquer; there were jewelled combs in it to-night, and the
jewels winked lazily.

Bottomley, the butler, came out, and began discreetly to adjust
chairs and to supervise the carrying away of ashtrays and coffee-
cups.

"Come upstairs to my room; I want to speak to you!" Isabelle said,
suddenly. Harriet followed her upstairs, and they entered the
beautiful boudoir together. Here Isabelle dropped into a chair,
sitting sidewise, with one bare arm locked across its rococo back,
and stared dully ahead of her, a queen of tragedy. Her silver
scarf fluttered free, and the toe of a spangled slipper beat with
an angry, steady throb on the floor.

Germaine came forward, evidently more accustomed to this mood than
Harriet was. Like a flash the high-heeled shoes, the silver gown,
and the brocaded stays were whisked away, and a cool, loose silk
robe enveloped Isabelle, and she took a deep, cretonned chair by
the window. The lights were lowered, Isabelle nodded Harriet to
the opposite chair. Then at last she spoke.

"Can that creature hear?"

Harriet, thrilled, glanced toward the dressing room, and shook her
head.

"I ask you," said Isabelle, with a great breath of anger
restrained, "I ask you if any woman in the world could stand it!"

"I knew something was wrong," Harriet murmured, as the other made
a dramatic pause.

"Wrong!" Isabelle echoed, scornfully. "You saw the way Mr. Carter
acted. You saw him make me ridiculous--make a fool of me! The boy
will never come to the house again."

"Oh, I don't think that!" Harriet said, in honesty.

"Mr. Carter stalked in upon us, at dinner--" his wife said,
broodingly. She fell into thought, and suddenly burst out,
"Harriet, my heart aches for that boy! My God--my God--what have I
done to him!"

She rested her white full arms on the dressing table, and covered
her face with her hands. Harriet saw the frail silk of the
dressing gown stir with her sudden dry sobbing.

"My God--if I could cry!" Isabelle said, turning. And Harriet
realized, with a shock, that she was not acting. "Mr. Carter only
sees what I see," she added, "that it must stop. But I am afraid
it will kill him. He isn't like other men. He--" She opened a
drawer, fumbled therein. "Read that!" she said.

Harriet took the sheet of paper, pressed it open.

"'My heart,'" she read, in Tony Pope's handwriting. "'I will go
away from you if I must. But it will be further than India,
Isabelle, further than Rio or Alaska. While we two live, I must
see you sometimes. Perhaps outside the world there is a place big
enough for me to forget you!'"

"Now--!" said Isabelle, rising and beginning restlessly to walk
the floor. "Now, what shall I do? Send him away to his death, or
risk Mr. Carter's insulting him again, as he did to-night! Anthony
Pope means it, Harriet--I know him well enough for that. His whole
life is one thought of me. The flowers, the books, the notes--he
only wakes in the morning to hope for, to plan, a meeting, and the
days when we don't meet are lost days. You don't know how I've
been worrying about it," said Isabelle, passionately, "I'm sick
with worry!"

She fell silent. Germaine appeared with a tray, and began to
loosen and brush the dark hair, and Isabelle went automatically to
the business of creaming and rubbing, still shaken, but every
minute more mistress of herself. With the thick, dark switch gone,
Harriet was almost shocked by the change in the severely exposed
forehead and face. Isabelle looked fully her age now, more than
her age. But the younger woman knew that however honest her desire
to disenchant her young lover, no woman ever risks his seeing her
thus. Isabelle might weep, and pray, and suggest supreme
sacrifice, but it would be the corseted and perfumed and beautiful
Isabelle from whom Tony parted, whom Tony must renounce.

"Well!" said the mistress, sombre-eyed still, and with a still
heaving breast. "There was something else, Harriet--Gently,
please, Germaine, my head aches frightfully. Oh, Harriet, will you
see what this Blondin man wants with Nina? She tells me he
suggested some sort of summer party in his roof garden; I don't
know quite what it is. But her heart is set on it. They seem to
understand each other--I always felt that when Nina's affairs did
begin, she would pick out freaks like this! But," Nina's mother
sighed, resignedly, "that's all right. He's interesting, and
everyone's after him, and if it pleases her--! And will you go to
the Hawkes' for her in the morning? Hansen is going at--I don't
know what time, in the big car. Don't--" Germaine had gone to the
bathroom for a hot towel, and Isabelle dropped her voice, almost
affectionately--"don't worry about this little scene, Harriet. It
will be quite all right!"

"Oh, surely!" The companion's voice was light and cheerful; she
went upstairs only pleasantly excited and thrilled. And at the
breakfast table next morning Harriet could show the head of the
house the same bright assurance. She was young. Life was like a
fascinating play. Richard had come downstairs early, and they had
their coffee alone.

"Nina?" asked her father.

"She comes back to-day," Harriet said. "Mrs. Carter is going to
have her masseuse, so she won't be down. She asked you to remember
that you are dining at the Jays' to-morrow. There's to be tennis
at about four."

"Finals," he said, nodding. "Jim Kelsoe and one of the Irvins--"

"Judson Irwin," the girl supplied.

"Was it?" Richard Carter went out to his car apparently well
pleased with himself and his life. Harriet started for the Hawkes'
with a philosophic reflection or two as to the ephemeral quality
of married quarrels.

She brought Nina back at noon, a garrulous and complacent Nina,
who could pity the elder Hawkes as girls who "never had admirers."
When they reached the driveway of Crownlands, Harriet recognized
the car that was already there, and said to herself that Anthony
Pope would join them for luncheon. But just as she and Nina were
about to enter the cool, wide, dark doorway, Anthony himself
passed them. He was almost running, and apparently did not see
them. He ran down the shallow steps and sprang into his car, which
scattered a spray of gravel as he jerked it madly about, and was
gone before she and Nina had ended their look of surprise. Harriet
detected a magnificent astonishment in Bottomley's mild elderly
glance as well; she went slowly upstairs, with a dim foreboding
far back in her heart.

In Nina's room were three flowers from Royal Blondin. Nina said
hastily, and in rapture: "Water lilies!" but a ten-year-old memory
told Harriet that they were lotus blooms. Another girl had had
lotus blooms years ago; Harriet wondered if Royal always sent them
to the women he admired, or rather, to the one whose favour was,
for the moment, to his advantage.

Nina had no such thoughts. Radiantly and amazedly she turned to
Harriet.

"Oh, Miss Harriet, look! They're from Mr. Blondin! Oh, I do think
that is terribly nice of him. The idea! The IDEA! We were speaking
of a poem called 'The Lotus Flower'. Did you ever? I think that is
terribly decent of him, don't you? Shan't I write him? Would you?
Hadn't I better write him right now? Will you help me? I do think
that is terribly decent of him, don't you?"

And so on indefinitely. Harriet felt rather sorry for the gauche
little creature who flung aside her hat and wrap, and sat biting
her gold pen-handle, and spoiling sheet after sheet of paper. But
there was protection in Nina's absorption, too; she was far too
happy to know or care that Harriet felt somewhat worried, or to
make any comment when they went down to lunch to find that
Isabelle begged to be excused. They lunched alone with the old
lady.

At about three, when the important note was written, and Harriet
and Nina were idling on the shady terrace, with the hound, the new
magazines, and their books, Hansen brought one of the small closed
cars to the side door. Five minutes later Isabelle, in a thin
white coat, a veiled white hat, and with a gorgeous white-furred
wrap over her arm, came out. Germaine was with her, carrying two
shiny black suitcases. Isabelle, Harriet thought, looked superbly
handsome, but Germaine had evidently been scolded, and had red
eyes.

Isabelle came over to give her daughter a farewell kiss.

"Mrs. Webb has telephoned for me, ducky. Your father isn't coming
home to-night, but have a happy time with Miss Harriet, and I'll
be back in a day or two."

"I thought that you were dining to-morrow at the Jays'!" Harriet
said. That she had not been mistaken did not occur to her until
she saw the colour flood Isabelle's face.

"I forgot it. But I wonder if you will be sweet enough to
telephone to-morrow morning, and say that I am obliging an old
friend?" Isabelle said, smoothly. "I shall be with Mrs. Webb in
Great Barrington, Harriet. She made it a personal favour, and I
couldn't refuse! Good-bye, both of you. All right, Hansen!"

They swept away, leaving Harriet with a strange sense of
nervousness and suspense. The summer air seemed charged with
menace, and the silence that followed the noise of the car oddly
ominous. She looked about nervously; Nina was drifting through
Vanity Fair, the sun was warm, and the air sweet and still. But
still her heart was beating madly, and she felt frightened and ill
at ease.

Madame Carter was on the terrace when they came back at five from
an idle trip to the club, reporting that her son had just returned
unexpectedly from the city, and had gone in to change for golf.

Nothing alarming here, yet Harriet experienced a sick thrill of
apprehension. Something abnormal seemed to be the matter with them
all this afternoon!

"Did you call me, Mr. Carter?" She hardly knew her own voice, as
he came down the three broad steps from the house. Her hands felt
cold, and she was trembling.

"Do you happen to know where Hansen is, Miss Field?"

"Driving Mrs. Carter to the Webbs' at Great Barrington," the girl
answered, readily. "Will young Burke do? Mrs. Webb telephoned, and
Mrs. Carter left in a hurry. She did not expect you to-night.
Hansen ought to be back at about seven, I should think--"

He was not listening to her; abruptly left her. When Harriet went
into the house she saw nothing of him. But she knew he had not
gone away for the usual golf, and was conscious still of that odd
fluttering of mind and soul, that presage of ill. She made her
usual little round, spoke briefly to a maid about some fallen
daisy petals, consulted with the housekeeper as to the new
cretonne covers. A man was to come and measure those covers this
very afternoon--perhaps this was he, modestly waiting at the side
door.

But no, this man briefly and simply asked to be shown to Mr.
Carter, remarking that he was expected. He disappeared into the
library; Harriet saw no more of him for an hour, when he silently
appeared beside her, and asked to see the chauffeur Hansen as soon
as he came.

Richard brought the strange man to the dinner table; but there was
nothing in that to make the dinner so unnatural. To be sure
Richard ate little, and spoke hardly at all; but this Mr. Williams
was quite entertaining, and the old lady in good spirits. Nina,
pleased at being downstairs, as she and Harriet usually were when
her father and mother were not at home, or when there was no
company, also contributed some shy remarks. But Harriet was beset
with sudden fits of nervousness, and oppressed by a heavy sense of
impending disaster. She said to herself that she wished heartily
the weather would break and clear, she felt like "a witch."

At eight Hansen was back, presenting himself in his dusty road-
coat; Mr. Carter immediately drew him with Williams into the
library. Nina loitered up to bed, but the old lady and Harriet
remained downstairs. They did not like, but they sometimes amused,
each other. Suddenly came the summons: would Miss Field please
step into the library?

Hansen was going out as she came in; Richard was at the big flat-
topped desk, the man Williams standing somewhat in shadow.
Harriet's heart leaped; they were going to ask her about Royal.

"Just a moment, Miss Field," Richard said. "Will you sit down?"
And as Harriet, looking at him in frightened curiosity, did so, he
began quietly: "We are in some trouble here, Miss Field. I hardly
know how to tell you what we fear. Did you notice anything strange
about--Mrs. Carter's--manner to-day?"

"I thought I did," Harriet admitted.

"Did you think of any reason for it?"

Harriet gave the stranger a glance that made him an eavesdropper.

"I fancied that it was connected with--with what distressed her
last night, Mr. Carter."

"You may speak before Mr. Williams," Richard said. He looked down;
was silent. "I asked him to help me," he added, slowly. "Was young
Mr. Pope here to-day?"

"This morning, I don't know how long," Harriet said, with a great
light, or darkness, breaking in upon her mind, "he was leaving
when Nina and I came home."

Richard gravely considered this, and nodded his head.

"And immediately afterward Mrs. Carter went away?"

"Not immediately. Not until three."

"Do you know who took the telephone call from Mrs. Webb?" Richard
said.

"No, because nobody did. No person named Webb called from Great
Barrington, or anywhere else, to-day," said Williams, breaking in
decidedly, his voice a contrast to Richard's hesitating tones. "As
a matter of fact, Hansen didn't drive to Great Barrington. Two
miles from your gate here, Mrs. Carter gave him other directions."

"What directions?" Harriet asked, antagonized by his manner, and
feeling her cheeks get red. The man evidently had small respect
for womanhood.

"He drove to New London," Richard supplied. "Pope's yacht is
there."

His manner was very quiet, he spoke almost wearily, but Harriet
felt as if a cannon had exploded in the study. She turned white,
looked toward Williams, whose mouth was pursed in a silent
whistle, looked back at Richard, who was making idle pencil marks
on a tablet of paper.

"I've had New London on the wire," said Mr. Williams. "Mr. Pope
had been getting ready for a cruise. The chances are that they
have already weighed anchor."

"On the other hand," Richard said, glancing at his watch, "we have
an excellent prospect of finding them there. I was not supposed to
come home until to-morrow night. I found Mrs. Carter's message at
five, twenty-four hours earlier than she expected me to. Williams
may be mistaken, of course," he finished, with a glance at the
detective.

"Not likely!" said Williams, with a modest shrug.

"However, even if he is right," Richard resumed, "the chances are
that they are still there, and if they are, I will bring--my wife
back with me to-night. Meanwhile, I leave the house in your care,
Miss Field. I needn't tell you that my mother and Nina must be
kept absolutely ignorant of what we suspect. You'll know what to
tell them, in case I should be longer away. If our calculations
are wrong, there's no telling where I may follow Mrs. Carter. I
leave this end of things to you!"

The trust he placed in her, and something tired and patient in his
tone, brought the tears to Harriet's eyes.

"I'm sorrier than I can say," she said, huskily.

"I know you are! It's--" Richard passed his hand over his
forehead--"it's utter madness, of course. But, please God, we can
keep it all hushed up. She has Germaine with her; Hansen I can
trust. We're off now, Miss Field. I'll keep you informed if I
can."

Harriet went back to the drawing room with her heart big with
pride. He had mentioned Hansen and Germaine, but he KNEW that he
could trust her! The event was sensational enough, was horrifying
enough. But back of the excitement lay the joy of being needed and
being trusted.

"Mr. Carter going away again?" said Madame Carter.

"Mr. Williams came up from the city to consult him about
something," Harriet explained, smoothly. "They may have to go
back."

"To-night!" ejaculated the old lady. And immediately she added,
suspiciously, "What'd he want Hansen for?"

"Doctor and Mrs. Houghton," Bottomley announced, in his soothing
undertone. Harriet could have embraced the uninteresting elderly
couple who entered smilingly. They beamed that it was so hot--they
were going up to the club; couldn't the Carters join them?

"Mrs. Carter went to visit a friend in Great Barrington," Madame
Carter explained, "and my son has one of his clerks here, and may
have to return to the office to-night. Too bad!"

"But how about another lesson in bridge, Doctor Houghton?" Harriet
ventured. The old wife was instantly enthusiastic.

"Yes, now, Doctor! This is a splendid chance, for I know Madame
Carter isn't too good a player to be patient."

"I don't want to bore this pretty girl to death!" protested the
old man, gallantly. But Harriet had already signalled the
attentive Bottomley, and when Richard Carter came to say good-
night a few minutes later they were on the terrace, and hilarious
over the beginner's mistakes. Even Madame Carter enjoyed this; she
was a poor player, but she shone beside the Houghtons, and Harriet
took care to consult her respectfully, and agree seriously as to
bids and leads.

"Good-night, Mother!" said Richard, touching with his lips the
cool old forehead, next to the white hair. "Wish I could play with
you fellers and girls!"

"You!" said old Mrs. Houghton, archly. "You'd scare us to death!"

Richard went smiling to the car, hearing Harriet murmur as he
went: "I think he has a two heart bid, don't you Madame Carter?
You bid two hearts, Doctor ..."




CHAPTER IX


That Isabelle's madness would run its full gamut did not occur to
Harriet until the next day. Then, as the serene hours moved by,
and there was no word and no sign from Richard, the possibilities
began to suggest themselves. It seemed to her incredible that any
woman would risk all that Isabelle had, for the sake of a fiery
boy's first love, and yet, on the other hand, there was the memory
of Isabelle's suffering two nights ago, and here were the amazing
facts to prove it.

The girl went about in a dream, sometimes imagining the meeting of
husband and wife, sometimes trying to fancy Isabelle with her
lover. As was inevitable, the older woman seemed to lose something
charming and intangible in this confession of definite weakness.
To be adored by any man merely adds to her glory, but the instant
she concedes him an inch, the Beauty throws down her halo, the
whole affair becomes mundane and vulnerable. Harriet might have
envied Isabelle once, now she saw her frail, forty, her woman's
pride weakened by admitted passion, and was sorry for her. She had
had all men at her feet, now she must feel herself fortunate if
she could hold one.

And with Isabelle's shame came a wholesome sting of shame to
Isabelle's companion. Harriet had seen nothing harmful in this
affair a few days ago; it was the way of this world of theirs. But
she felt within her now the awakening of something clean and
stern; she found in her mind odd phrases and terms--"a married
woman's duty," "her sense of honour," "owing it to her husband and
children."

It was for few women to enjoy the popularity that Isabelle had
known. But any woman might run away with a rich admirer. Harriet's
admiration for the cleverness with which Isabelle conducted this
pretty playing with fire disappeared, and in its place came the
sharp conviction that old-fashioned women like Linda had some
justification, after all; it was "dangerous," it did "lead to
sin," it could indeed "happen once too often."

Harriet felt her own lapsing morality regaining its standard. Just
now, when Nina most needed her mother, when Richard was struggling
with difficult business conditions, when Ward was engaged--

She interrupted her thoughts here, and tried to make herself feel
like a woman engaged to be married. Somehow the fact persisted in
baffling her. There was an unreality about it that prevented her
from tasting the full sweet. Engaged--to a rich man, and a rich
man's son. Well, perhaps when Ward came back, it would seem more
believable.

But Ward might come back to a changed home. Harriet fancied a
quiet wedding, herself afterward as the true head of the
disorganized family. She would be Nina's natural chaperon, then,
her father-in-law's--for Richard would be that!--natural
confidante. The prospect, and every hour of this warm and silent
day seemed to make it more definite, brought the wild-rose colour
to her face, and made her heart beat faster. It was certainly a
life full and gratifying beyond her dreaming, and it was almost
settled now! If Ward did not figure very prominently in this
bright dream, she told herself that Ward should have no cause for
grievance. He should always be first in everything; but if his
wife enjoyed her position, her connections, her place in the
family, surely there was no harm in that! There was but one
stumbling block: Royal Blondin. Her heart stopped at him.

She had been standing at one of the hall windows, a window deep
set in the brick wall, and commanding through elms and beeches the
path to the tennis court. Down this path Nina and Francesca Jay
had recently disappeared, with their rackets, for some practice.
The sun was high, and the sky cloudless; under the trees there was
a softly mottled pattern of light and shade. Outside the window
the hound was lying, his nose on his paws, his eyes shut. Harriet
remembered walking in such a summer wood, years and years ago, a
little girl with yellow braids, holding tight to her mother's
hand. They had sat down on the ground, and her mother and father
had talked, and the little girl had lain on her back for what
seemed hours, looking at the sky.

There seemed to be no time for idle walks and dreaming in the
woods nowadays. Harriet had been four years at Crownlands, and had
looked out at this wood a thousand times, but she had never lost
herself in it, or lain staring up through branches there. She was
always too busy: the business of eating, and of amusing the
others, and of keeping the machinery moving, had always absorbed
her. Personalities, microscopic buzzing of midges, had blotted out
the beautiful arches and aisles; and if ever Harriet walked
through the wood now, she was with chattering women; she was
wondering if this one, or that one, or the other one, was hurt, or
neglected, or piqued, was paired with the wrong person, or had
really intended the meaning that might be read into a look or
tone.

--Hands pressed her eyes tight, and she came back to the present
moment with a start. Ward Carter was behind her. He laughed at her
confusion, and they sat down on the window seat together. Yes, he
was going back to the Bellamys', and so was Blondin, but they had
both come in just for lunch and the drive. They had driven a
hundred and twenty miles that morning, what? And they were going
to drive back that afternoon, what-what? And how about eats, old
dear?

Instantly he brought reassurance to her. Ward was such a dear! Of
course she loved him.

"But you weren't a very good boy last night!" she said. Their
hands were locked; but she had shaken a negative when he would
have kissed her. Bottomley was everywhere at once.

"Rotten!" he confessed, easily. "I played poker, too. No man ought
to do that when he's edged. Sorry--sorry--sorry. Bad, bad, bad
little Edward! I lost two hundred to Bates, a curse upon him. But
that was nothing; once, there, I was over twelve hundred in.
Listen. When we're married it's all off. No smoking, drinking,
gambling, wine, women, or song, what?"

"You may not know it, but you never spoke a truer word!" the girl
said. His shout of laughter was pleasant to hear.

"Listen. Does the Mater know it? About us, I mean?"

"Oh, Ward--nobody knows it! Hush!" His mention of his mother
brought back realization with a rush, and she added uncomfortably,
"She's at Great Barrington."

"Oh, darn! I wanted to see her! She wrote me, and told me she
loved me, and that she didn't think she had been a very good
mother to me!" He laughed, youthfully, with a bewildered widening
of his eyes. "I thought she was sick. Well, maybe we can stop
there going back."

"Where did you leave Mr. Blondin?"

"He beat it down to the tennis court. Say, listen, is there a
chance that he's stuck on Nina? It looks to me like what the watch
comes in!"

Harriet glanced at her wrist before she answered him. Her heart
was sick within her. Close upon her radiant dream had come this
shadow, far more a shadow now, when her responsibility had
infinitely increased, and when she had had proof of the love and
respect in which they held her here.

"I don't think so!" she said, briefly. "I'll find Bottomley, and
have lunch put ahead."

"You don't like him!" Ward said, watching her closely.

"I don't like him for Nina!" she amended.

The boy followed her while she gave her order. Then they went out
into the blazing day together.

"Nina isn't going to have more than a scalp a day," said her
brother, fraternally.

"Nina has a fortune!" the girl remarked, drily, opening her wide
white parasol.

But Ward was rapidly squandering an equal amount, and it was not
impressive to him.

"Lord, he could marry a girl with ten times that! Look here, you
don't think a man like Blondin would consider that!" he protested.

"I would rather see Nina dead and buried!" The words burst from
Harriet against her will, against her promise to Royal. There was
no help for it, her essential honesty would have its way. "I make
a splendid conspirator!" she said to herself, in grim self-
contempt.

"Talk to him!" Ward, fortunately, was not inclined to take her too
seriously. "You'll like him! Gosh, he certainly has a good effect
on me," added the youth, modestly. "He doesn't drink, and he talks
to me--you ought to hear him!--about character being fate, and all
that! Say, listen, before we get out of the woods--?"

His sudden sense of her nearness and beauty belied the careless
words. Harriet found his arms tight about her, her face tipped up
to the young, handsome face that was stirred now with trembling
excitement. The quick movement of his breast she could feel
against her own, and the passion of his kisses almost frightened
her; she was held, bound, half-lifted off her feet.

"Ward!" she gasped, freed at last, and with one hand to her
disordered hair, while the other held him at arm's-length. "Dear!
PLEASE!"

It was no use. Soul and senses were enveloped again, and close to
her ear she heard his whisper: "I'm mad about you! Do you know
that! I'm mad about you!"

"I think you are!" she stammered, breathless and laughing. "You
mustn't do that! You mustn't do that! Why, we might be seen!"

Breathless, too, he flung back his hair, and stooped to pick up
her parasol.

"Do you think I care!" he panted, indifferently. "I wouldn't care
if the whole world saw!"

"Sh--sh!" By the magic only known to youth and womanhood Harriet
had gathered herself into trimness and calm again. She took her
parasol composedly. Her eyes told him the whole story. Nina and
Royal Blondin were two hundred feet away, coming up from the
tennis court.

The four met cheerfully; apparently all at ease. Nina was
stammering and blushing a trifle more than usual, but Royal's
presence would account for that. Ward burst into a stream of
idiotic conversation; Harriet found herself sauntering ahead of
the young Carters, discussing Sheringham fans with the dilletant.

"You fool--fool--fool!" she said to herself. What had they seen?
What new twist to the situation would Nina's suspicions afford?
Richard Carter trusted her; this was no time to tell him that she
loved his son. Did she love Ward?--or with his keen and kindly
eyes would Ward's father see exactly what she saw in the marriage?
Caught kissing in the woods--like Rosa or Germaine; it was
unthinkable! She, with her hard-won prestige of dignity and
reserve, exposed to Nina's laughing insinuations, or, worse,
Nina's prim disapproval. How she had weakened her position here!
How she had risked--her heart contracted with pain--severing of
her association with Crownlands.

Luncheon, under its veneer of gaiety and foolishness, offered
fresh terrors. For old Madame Carter had come down, and it
occurred to Harriet that if Nina had seen anything in the wood,
she might naturally interest her grandmother with an account of
it. Nina rarely had so interesting a topic of conversation. The
old lady would go instantly to her son. And Richard--Harriet could
imagine him, tired, harassed, heartsick over the recent
inexplicable weakness of his wife, having to face another woman's
treachery, having to listen to the demure announcement of the
little secretary's engagement to his son.

Perhaps not treachery, exactly, thought Harriet, as the birds, and
the asparagus, and the crisp little rolls went the rounds. She
ate, hardly knowing what she tasted, and spoke with only a partial
consciousness of what she said. No, not treachery exactly,
especially if she went to Richard first with the news.

But break in upon his painful speculations with the blithe
announcement? What must he think of such utter lack of
consideration? He was experiencing the most overwhelming shock of
all his life now; he must shortly be exposed to all the whirl of
scandal: the silenced gossip, the averted eyes of his world, the
weeklies with their muddy insinuations, the staring fact headlined
above his breakfast bacon. This was her time to efface herself and
the household, to help him to lift the load.

"I'm afraid I wasn't listening, Mr. Blondin?"

"Miss Nina and I want to know what day we may have our party?"
Royal repeated.

"The studio party?"

"The roof-garden party. We're going to have it from half-past six
to half-past seven only, because then it won't be too hot. We
shall only ask the people we like! Gira Diable will come and dance
for us, and Tilly will read something--"

"That's Unger Tillotson, the actor!" Nina interpolated,
ecstatically.

"We're not sure that we'll let Francesca and Amy come," Blondin
pursued. "Maybe we won't let them know anything about it! And
everybody has to wear costumes, so that the picture won't be
spoiled."

"He doesn't like Amy and Francesca," Nina confessed, with a guilty
little laugh.

"Not at all. I like them very much." Blondin's languid, rich voice
corrected her. Nina shrank sensitively. "I think they're very
charming little schoolgirls. But I don't want them for my
friends!"

At this Nina blossomed like the rose. Emotion choked her, and she
looked down at her plate with a fluttering laugh. This was
irrefutable; before Miss Harriet and Ward and Granny, too.

"That's what I meant!" she murmured, thickly.

"Why not have it at night, with lanterns?" Harriet said, quite
involuntarily. And again a pang of self-contempt swept over her.
It was hateful, it was incredible, but she was playing his game as
calmly as if doubts and reluctance had never entered her heart.

"People won't go to the city, summer evenings," Royal explained,
"but a great number are there in the afternoons. And then
twilight, over the city, and the bridges lighting up--I assure you
it's like fairyland!"

"I wonder if I am to be invited to this party?" said Madame
Carter, royally. She had been watching this exchange of
pleasantries with approval.

"You? You're the queen of the whole affair!" Royal assured her.
"You don't have to costume unless you feel like it."

"Oh, Granny'll have the nicest there!" Nina predicted, gaily. Her
grandmother bridled complacently, although shaking a magnificent
head. Harriet knew that she would spend as much time upon her
dress as the youngest and most beautiful woman who attended.

"Come," said Madame Carter, brightly, "you didn't think I was
going to let you carry out this little plan without a chaperon!"

If there was a self-conscious second after this remark it was no
more than a second. Harriet's quick colour rose, but before Nina's
nervous little laugh had died away Blondin said easily:

"Ah, we'll surround the Little Duchess with chaperons; I'm not
going to be a party to her losing her heart anywhere around MY
diggings!"

"From what I said at luncheon, I hope you didn't imagine that I
thought there was anything--well, in questionable taste, in your
coming to Nina's party!" said Madame Carter to Harriet an hour
later, when the men had started on their long run back to camp,
and she was about to go upstairs for her daily siesta.

"Not at all; I understood perfectly!" Harriet assumed an air of
abstraction, of pleasant unconcern. Her red lips were firm, and
closed firmly after the brief answer. The smoky blue eyes regarded
Madame Carter with innocent expectancy. The girl was amazingly
handsome, thought the old lady reluctantly.

"Of course, if Mrs. Carter can spare you, and considers it
suitable, you will be there!" said Madame Carter, amiably,
mounting the first stair.

"Surely!" Harriet said, with a murderous impulse. She watched the
erect, splendid old figure ascending. What was there about this
old lady that could put her, and indeed almost any one else who
chanced to be marked by her dislike, into a helpless fury of
anger? "If I were once safely married to Ward," the girl said to
herself, "if--"

It was a tremendous "if," of course. There were a great many
things now that might turn the scales one way or another.
Richard's attitude was supremely important. He might feel that his
son was taking a wise, a desirable step. He might feel that to
have the boy settled was to lift just one care from the many that
burdened his shoulders. On the other hand, was it more probable
that this untimely announcement, with its accompanying merry-
making and rejoicing, would utterly exasperate and antagonize him?
Harriet fancied him asking, with weary politeness, just what their
plans were? Did Ward propose to finish college? Had he formed any
idea of the means by which he should earn his living? He had his
uncle's legacy, of course, the larger part of it. Did the young
people propose to begin with that?

Harriet perfectly understood Richard's attitude to the average son
of the average wealthy family. She had heard his caustic comments
upon them often enough. He had earned his own education; he showed
for Isabelle's spoiling of her son the patience of helplessness.
To make a man of Ward, in his father's estimation, would have
meant a readjustment of their entire scheme of living and
thinking. It was simpler, pleasanter, to sacrifice Ward to the
general comfort, especially as he, Richard, was very busy, and as
there was always a possibility that the women were right, and
would make a man of him anyway. Harriet's keen eyes saw, if
Isabelle's did not, that Ward had been steadily gaining in his
father's good graces for the last year or two. His cheerful,
casual manner masked no weakness, every muscle in the young, big
body was hard from tennis and baseball. If there were sins of
self-indulgence, natural to youth and money and charm, Ward never
brought them home with him. Lately he had begun to talk of getting
out of college at Christmas time, and "getting started." His
father watched him, Harriet saw, almost wistfully. Was the lad
really becoming a man, in a world of men?

"The probability is that he will favour our engagement," Harriet
reflected. But this was no time to risk the chance of crossing
him. She must wait. She must choose the lesser risk of Nina making
mischief with old Madame Carter; the contingency was there, but it
was a remote contingency.




CHAPTER X


At four o'clock Richard came home, and the instant Harriet saw his
face she realized, with a shock even sharper than the original
moment of incredulity, that he had had no success in his search.
He was alone.

She was standing in one of the doorways of the lower hall when he
crossed it, but he did not see her. His face was drawn and gray,
he looked hot and rumpled and utterly weary; more, he who had
always been the pink of well-groomed perfection looked old. He
asked Bottomley briefly if Madame Carter was in her room, and,
being informed that she was, went hastily upstairs.

Harriet could only imagine, later, that he had gone in to see his
mother before brushing and changing, or perhaps to avoid Nina, who
with Amy catapulted down the stairway a few seconds after he went
up. At all events, it was to the old lady's beautiful sitting room
that Harriet was summoned a few minutes later. She knew at once
that he had told his mother all he knew and feared.

Madame Carter was shockingly agitated. She had a deep sense of the
dramatic, but she was not entirely acting now. Her face was pale
under its rouge, and the painful tears of age stood in her eyes.
She was sitting erect in a chair beside the divan where Richard
sat; he did not look up as Harriet came in, but continued to
stroke his mother's hand.

"Miss Field!" said Madame Carter, "we have just had a most
terrible--a most unexpected--blow!"

Harriet simulated expectancy.

"There is every reason to believe," pursued Madame Carter,
majestically, "that my unfortunate daughter-in-law, Mr. Carter's
wife, Isabelle, has yielded to the passion of her lover! No, let
me talk, Richard," she interrupted herself, as the man raised
haggard eyes to watch her impersonally, "far better to face the
facts, my dear! My son tells me, Miss Field the--the well-nigh
incredible statement that--forgetting the honour of womanhood, and
the tender claims of maternity--"

"Miss Field," Richard did not have the manner of interruption, but
his quiet voice dominated the other voice none-the-less. Madame
Carter fell silent, and watched him with mournful pride. "Miss
Field," he said, "we want your help. The facts are these: Williams
had all the roads watched; they did not go by motor. Mrs. Carter
reached New London at five o'clock yesterday; Pope's boat, the
Geisha, pulled out at half-past six. From what Williams' men
picked up, at the dock, Pope did not expect her, was to have
sailed this morning. She arrived, and evidently he thought it wise
to hurry their start. The pier had a dozen boxes for the Geisha on
it, groceries and what not, that they left behind! They will
probably skirt the coast for a few days, and put in somewhere for
supplies. But that"--he passed his hand wearily across his
forehead--"that doesn't concern us now. We got there at ten last
night--hours too late, of course." His voice fell, he mused, with
a knitted brow. "Well!" he said, suddenly recalling himself. "Now,
Miss Field, I want you to get hold of Ward. I want the boy home at
once! He must know. But there is of course a chance that Mrs.
Carter is--is planning to return. There may be a woman friend with
her--it's not probable, but it's possible. I don't want any one in
the house, or out of it, to suspect, and if you think it is
possible, I should like Nina protected!"

"I understand," Harriet said, quietly, in the silence.

"You will remember, Richard," Madame Carter said, in the accents
of Lady Macbeth, "that this is exactly what I always expected! I
told you so, twenty years ago. You brought it on yourself, my
dear. A Morrison--who ever heard of the Morrisons?--their mother--
Mrs. Banks tells me--was a school teacher! I have always felt--!"

Harriet heard the man's patient murmur as she slipped away. She
crossed the hall, and for the first time in four years entered
Isabelle's suite unannounced. It was in exquisite order; streams
of late afternoon light were falling on the gay walls and the
bright chintzes. The novels Isabelle had been skimming, the gold
service of her dressing table, the great four-poster with its
deeps of transparent white embroideries over white, all spoke of
the beautiful woman who had spent so many hours here. On the
dressing table, with its splendid length doubled in the mirror,
was the great fan that her hand had idly wielded, only a few days
ago, in an hour of domestic felicity and happiness. And the
inanimate plumes, that Harriet picked up and idly unfurled, had
played their little part in the drama that had ended that bright
scene once and for all.

What to tell Nina?--Harriet wondered, going downstairs. But Nina
proved pleasantly indifferent to the maternal absence when she and
Amy came up from the tennis court for tea. To the guest or two who
came calling Harriet, installed quite naturally now behind the
cups and saucers, explained that Mrs. Carter was visiting with
friends--having a beautiful time, too, apparently. To an
accidentally direct remark from Amy she answered that she believed
they were taking a motor trip just at the moment, but she would
forward a note, if Amy liked. Madame Carter did not come out for
tea; they were very quiet on the terrace. But Richard was there,
and Amy and Nina were developing their youthful conversational
arts upon him, when a maid came to stand respectfully beside
Harriet. "If you please, Miss Field, Mr. Bottomley would like to
know if you are to have your dinner downstairs to-night, please,"
said Pauline, incidentally feeling as if she was in a dream of
bliss. Her last position had been in a well-to-do stationer's
family in Newark, and consesequently she might have entered into
the feelings of Miss Field far more intelligently than either
imagined.

Harriet hesitated, glanced at Richard, wondering if he had heard.
More rested on this decision than there was any estimating. She
dared not decide.

"Miss Field will dine downstairs," Richard said, without glancing
in their direction. And when the maid had gone he said with
pleasant authority, "I wish you and Nina would do that regularly,
Miss Field, when you have no other plan."

"Thank you," Harriet said, with her heart singing.

Perhaps Nina suspected that something about his high-handed
domestic readjusting was unusual. She looked from her father to
Harriet, and after a moment's silence asked abruptly:

"When is Mother coming back?"

"I don't know!" her father answered, quickly.

"Say, listen, are we going to dress?" asked Amy. Nina, instantly
diverted, suggested that they go in. Nina's awkward bigness and
Amy's mousy neutral tones were as well displayed in one garment as
another, but both girls debated over pinks and blues, crepes and
mulls, every evening, as if the world was watching them alone.
Harriet lingered for only a word.

"Mr. Carter, it occurred to me that old Mrs. Singleton is going to
California, in her own car, to-morrow. Would it be possible to let
Nina and Amy and the household generally think--"

"Yes?" he encouraged her as she paused dubiously. He had risen to
his feet, and fixed his tired eyes on her face.

"I was wondering if we might confide in Mrs. Singleton--she was
always very fond of Mrs. Carter--and give out the impression that
Mrs. Carter had suddenly decided to make the trip with her."

"That's an idea," Richard said, thoughtfully. "I could see Mrs.
Singleton to-night--and--and talk it over."

"It might serve for only a few days," Harriet submitted.

"Yes, I see," he agreed, slowly.

"Well, I can give Nina a hint now!" Harriet said, going. The late
golden sunshine struck her bright hair to an aureole, as she went
up the brick steps and disappeared.

But it was too late for any soothing deception of Nina. A scene
was in full progress in Nina's bedroom, and Harriet's eye had only
to go from the prone form on the bed to the crushed newspaper that
had drifted to the floor, to know that the secret was out.
Isabelle's face, radiant and happy, looked out from the page. It
was flanked by two smaller pictures, Richard's and Anthony Pope's.
Harriet could see the big letters: "Young Millionaire--Wife of
Richard Carter." The deluge was upon them.

"Oh--it's a lie--it's a lie! My beautiful little mother!" Nina was
sobbing. "Oh, no, it's not true! It's a lie! Oh, how shall I ever
hold up my head again--to be disgraced--now just when I'm so
young--and ha-h-happy!"

"Nina, my child, control yourself!" Harriet, ignoring the staring
and pale-faced Amy, sat down on the edge of the bed, and shook the
girl slightly. "You mustn't give way! Come now, my dear, you must
face this like a woman. Think how your father and Ward will look
to you--"

Acting, all of it, said Harriet in her soul. But despite the
youthful appetite for heroics, there were real tears in Nina's
eyes, as there had been in her grandmother's a few hours ago.

"Yes, that's true!" she said, wiping a swollen face on the
handkerchief Harriet supplied. "But oh--I don't believe it, and my
father will sue them for libel, you see if he doesn't! My mother's
the purest and sweetest and best woman ALIVE--and I'll KILL any
one who says any different!"

"Oo--oo, to see it in the paper there, right on the bed," said
Amy, in her reedy, colourless little voice, as Nina stopped
suddenly. "Oo--oo, I thought Nina would die!" Nina began to cry
again, but more quietly. "I guess I had better go--" Amy finished,
plaintively.

"Oh, no!" said Nina in a choked voice, as she clung to her friend.
"No, darling! you stay with me. Oh, I must go see my father, and
my poor, poor grandmother! Oh, Amy, perhaps you HAD better go, for
my family will need me to-night. My mother--!" said Nina, crying
again.

She and Amy parted solemnly, with many kisses.

"It's a thing that might happen to me, or to any girl," said Amy,
gravely. Harriet had an upsetting vision of stout, high-busted
Mrs. Hawkes, panting as she discussed the details of the Red Cross
drive, but she was very sympathetic with the young girls, and even
agreed with Nina, when Amy was gone, that it would be much more
sensible to take her bath, and put on her white organdie, and then
go find her father.

They dined almost silently, and were about to disperse quietly for
the night, after an hour of half-hearted conversation in the
drawing room, obviously endured by Richard simply for his mother's
sake, when Ward burst in. He had travelled almost four hundred
miles by motor that day, his face was streaked with dirt and oil,
and ghastly with fatigue. He went straight to his father.

"Say, what's all this!" he said, in a voice hardly recognizable.
Harriet saw that he had been drinking. "I got your wire, and we
started. I thought the Mater was sick, perhaps. My God--THAT
worried me!" he broke off bitterly. "Blondin came with me; we
stopped on the road for dinner, and the man had a paper there. Is
that what you wanted me for--I don't believe it! It's a dirty lie,
and the bounder that put that in the paper--"

"I'm glad you came home, my boy," Richard said. "I've been waiting
for you--"

Harriet heard no more; she slipped from the room. There were
genuine tears in her own eyes now; for the boy had flung himself
face downward against a great chair, and was crying. All the
household knew it; Harriet could read it in Bottomley's carefully
usual manner and quiet speech. In the little music room across the
hall Royal Blondin was waiting.

"This is a terrible thing!" he said, seriously.

"Oh, frightful!" Harriet agreed. A rather flat silence ensued. She
seemed to have nothing to say to Royal now.

But she was not surprised when a moment later Nina came softly in,
the picture of girlish distress, with her wet eyes and fresh white
gown.

"I thought it best to leave Ward with Granny and Father," Nina
said, in vague explanation, going straight to Blondin, who rose,
dusty and weary, but with a solicitous manner that was infinitely
soothing.

"I hoped you wouldn't mind just seeing me," he said in a low tone.
"I'm not quite family, and yet I felt myself nearer than all the
neighbours and friends, eh?"

"I shan't see any one for ages," Nina murmured, plaintively, "but
you--you're different."

"And shall we talk about her sometimes?" Royal pursued, still
close to her, and holding both her hands. "As she was, beautiful
and sweet and good. For who are you and I, Little Girl, to judge
what passion--what love will do with human hearts?"

"Yes, I know!" Nina, who never could keep pace with him, said
mournfully.

Harriet could hear the undertones, and imagine what they said. She
felt extremely uneasy. If this unforeseen calamity had lifted her
suddenly in the family estimation, it would appear to be drawing
Royal Blondin closer as well.

His manner, she had grudgingly to admit, was perfection. When
Richard and Ward joined them a few moments later, he expressed
himself with manly brevity to the older man. He realized, said
Blondin simply, that he was absolutely de trop; he had merely
imagined, as "the lad" had imagined, that the sudden summons from
camp meant illness or ordinary emergency, or he would not have
intruded at this time. He would not express a sympathy that must
sound extremely airy to the stricken family. And now, if they
would lend him Hansen, he would go over to the club---

"Nonsense!" Ward said. "You're all dirty and tired and hungry, and
so am I. We'll clean up, and then we'll have something to eat
first! Miss Harriet'll look out for us."

"And I'd like to see you for a moment in the library, Miss Field,"
Richard said, rather wearily. He had been obviously displeased at
seeing the stranger, but Blondin's manner would have won a harder
heart than his. "I want something sent to the papers," Richard
explained, in an undertone.

Ah--they all wanted her, and needed her! How quick, and how
efficient, and how self-effacing Harriet was, as she went about
the business of making them all comfortable! She and Nina talked
with the young men while they demolished the cold roast and drank
cup after cup of coffee. Then Blondin selected several books, and
went upstairs, and Harriet and Nina disappeared in their own
rooms; but Ward came downstairs again, and he and his father
settled in the library for a talk.

They talked deep into the night, Harriet knew, for she herself was
sleepless, and she could see from the upper balcony that a stream
of golden light was pouring across the brilliant flowers beneath
the library windows.

She had wrapped herself in a warm robe, over her thin nightgown,
and thrust her feet into fur-lined slippers, and after Nina was
fathoms deep in youthful slumber Harriet crept out to the balcony,
and sat thinking, thinking, thinking. She reviewed the incredible
events of the past few days, and the actors drifted before her
vision fitfully: Isabelle, white-bosomed and beautiful, in her
prime; Tony Pope, passionate and wretched; Royal, low-voiced,
dreamy, poetic, with his eloquent black eyes; Nina, newly
awakened; Ward, weak, boyish, ardent; Madame Carter full of
theatrical dignity and well-rounded phrases, and lastly--simple,
strong, anxious to protect them all, even from their own follies--
Richard.

"Not one word of blame, not one ugly insinuation," she mused, "yet
she has shamed him, and he is so honourable; and she has made him
conspicuous, when he is so modest!"

She thought of Isabelle, fresh from Germaine's careful hands,
lying in her exquisite white against the cushions of a deck chair,
smiling, in the rosy flattering light under the green awning, at
the infatuated man beside her. Isabelle was a splendid sailor, and
loved the sea. They would land at some dreamlike Italian city,
rising in tiers of pink and cream and blue beside the sapphire
Mediterranean, and Isabelle would unfurl her white parasol, and
walk beside him through the warmth and beauty--

"Ugh!" said Harriet, with a healthy uprush of utter disgust. These
few months would not be cloudless for Isabelle, by any means. And
after them, what? Was it conceivable that those fatal sixteen
years would fail to identify Tony and Isabelle wherever they went,
even if the press was not eagerly assisting them? Supposing that
Isabelle never thought of Crownlands, of her handsome son and her
young daughter, of the man whose patience and cleverness had
lifted her to all this luxury from an apartment in a small town,
would no memory of the place she had held, and the friendships she
had commanded, haunt her? Truly there was always society for the
Isabelles, but to Harriet's clean sense it seemed but the society
of a jail.

"I wouldn't change places with her!" Harriet decided, in the soft
silence and darkness of the summer night.

From Isabelle's problem her thoughts went to her own, to Royal
Blondin. She was wakeful and restless to-night simply because she
could not decide just how much she need fear him. Firstly, was
there any reason for antagonizing him, and secondly, would he hurt
her if she did? For Royal could not punish her without punishing
himself, and could not banish her from Crownlands if he ever hoped
to show his own face there again.

Nina, reaching her room that night, had flung her arms about
Harriet's neck.

"Oh, I'm so happy! Oh, Miss Harriet, were you ever in love?" she
had demanded, with a girl's wild, exultant laugh.

This was moving very fast indeed. Harriet had managed a
sympathetic yet warning smile.

"I think I have been. But, my dearest girl, you'll be in and out a
dozen times before the real thing comes along!"

Nina had smiled inscrutably at this, and slightly diverted the
conversation.

"Don't you think it was awfully decent of Mr. Blondin to want to
go off to the club to-night? Oh, I thought he looked perfectly
stunning when he looked at Father that way! He told me to
telephone the club to-morrow if I felt like just a quiet walk. Of
course I shan't see any one for weeks, after this. But he said
some day when I'm in town with Granny he didn't see why we
couldn't go over and have a cup of tea with him, even if we
postponed the regular tea. Do you? He's different from any one I
ever knew. He says I am different from any girl he ever knew. Do
you think I am? I said I thought I was just like the others,
except that I like to read poetry and have my own ideas about
things, and that I couldn't flirt, or wouldn't if I could, and
that the average boy just bored me. I said that those things were
sacred to me--"

Sacred to her! Long after the chattering voice was still, Harriet,
out on the balcony, remembered the phrase and winced. There would
be small sacredness in the hour that gave Nina to Royal Blondin.
And yet, if in his cleverness he won her first tenacious
affection, it would be a difficult thing to prevent. Isabella, her
natural protector, was gone; Richard saw nothing; the old lady was
on the lovers' side, and Ward also had been captivated by Blondin.
It was only Harriet, only Harriet, who saw and who understood.

Was he so bad? She tried to ask herself the question honestly, and
an honest shudder answered it before it was fairly framed. Nearly
twenty years Nina's senior, with an interest that could not, he
confessed, have existed except for the girl's fortune, that was
arraignment enough. But there was more. Harriet knew the smooth
coldness, the contemptuous superiority that within a year or two
would blast the youth and self-confidence of a dozen Ninas; she
knew what his moral code was, a code that made desire and
opportunity the only law, and that honoured passion as the
crowning emotion of life. She tried to picture Nina's marriage,
their early days together, the breakfast table, where the crude
little girl blundered and floundered in conversation, her helpless
devotion, that would annoy and exasperate him. She saw Nina's
near-sighted eyes welling with hurt tears; Nina's check book
eagerly surrendered to win from her lord a few delicious hours of
the old flattery, the old attention. Harriet fancied Nina, poor,
plain, obtuse little Nina, home again: "But you don't know how
hard it is, Father. He is never there any more--he hardly ever
speaks to me!"

"It would take a clever woman to hold him," Harriet thought, "and
it wouldn't be worth a clever woman's while."

Nina-Ward-Royal-Richard. The wearying procession began again.
Royal might treat her with honesty and honour. He was not small in
everything, and she had never done him harm. But--there might come
the terrible moment when she had to face Richard with the
confession. Yes, she had known him before. Yes, they had entered
into a tacit compact. Yes, she had kept from Nina's father a
secret that, while it might be unimportant, certainly should have
been told him.

Impossible to think the thing to any conclusion! Too many
possibilities might alter the entire situation. If she were
married safely to Ward, for example--? But then she dared not
marry Ward until Royal's attitude was finally defined. For if her
position were dangerous now, what would it be if she had committed
herself irrevocably to deception by marriage? Ward's young, crude
intolerance sitting in judgment upon his wife!--Harriet shivered.

Suddenly she fell upon her knees, and dropped her bright head
against the wide balustrade. She wanted to be a dignified,
honourable, helpful woman; not selfish, like Nina; not an
intriguer, like Isabelle; not proud, like Madame Carter. Something
was changing in her heart and soul; she did not feel angry and
bitter any more. With Royal's reappearance had come the
realization that the old, sad time was no longer a living wound in
her life, it was merely a memory, young, and mistaken, and to be
forgotten. For years she had felt that it had maimed her; now it
seemed only infinitely pitiable. She could go on, to honour and
happiness, despite it. And how she longed to go on, with no
further handicap! If he would go away again, and leave her
mistress of the field. She only wanted her chance. She wanted to
win her way, here in this fascinating world; she wanted to be
beloved and successful; above all she wanted to be GOOD!

For a long time Harriet had not prayed. But now, in a few words,
and quite without premeditation, there burst from her the most
sincere prayer of her life. She looked up at the stars.

"God!" she said, softly, aloud, "help me! Make me do what is
right, however hard it is. Father, don't let me make another
mistake!"




CHAPTER XI


Sudden peace and confidence flooded her spirit. She sat on,
dreaming and planning, but with no more mental distress. With the
prayer she had gained, in some subtle fashion, a new self-respect.
She would not let him frighten her again; after all, while she
commanded her own soul, Royal Blondin could not hurt her.

"And he shall not marry Nina, either!" Harriet decided, going in,
stiff and cold, but full of resolution. She looked at a clock, it
was almost four. Three hours' sleep was not to be despised, but
Harriet was in no mood for it. Instead she took a bath, and just
as the dawn was beginning to flood the world with mysterious half-
lights and long wet shadows, she crept out into the dew-drenched
garden, and with a triumphant sense of being alone, went into the
wood. Early walks were one of her delights. She was rarely alone
otherwise; her position afforded her almost every other luxury,
but not often this one. Nina's plans were usually cut to fit
Harriet's; even the shortest errand, or least interesting trip
into town was pleasanter to Nina than her own society.

It was exquisite in the wood. The light flashed on wet leaves, the
birds were awaking. A little steamer went up the satiny, dreaming
surface of the river, and when Harriet walked through the village,
heartening whiffs of boiling coffee and wood smoke came from the
labourers' cottages. She was young; she could have danced with
exultation in the hour and mood. It was almost seven o'clock when
she came back, glowing, beginning to feel warm and headachy,
beginning to realize that the July day would be hot, beginning to
be conscious of the eight-mile tramp. In the garden at Crownlands
she met Royal, leaving the house.

He studied her approvingly.

"Harriet, do you know you are extraordinarily easy to look upon?
What gets you up so early?"

"I've been walking," she said, briefly and unresponsively. His
social pleasantries instantly antagonized her, and he saw it.

"Well, I thought perhaps I had better get out. I'm at the club for
a day or two. I believe Miss Hawkes, Rosa, the eldest sister,
wants me to get up a reading, the great Indian Epic Poems,
something along that line. It's for the Red Cross, of course." He
yawned, and smiled at the early summer sky. "Ward tells me," he
added, giving the girl a sharp glance, "that you and he--eh?"

Harriet flushed.

"I'm sorry he told you!"

"Oh, my dear child!" Blondin made a deprecatory motion of his
hands. "Of course, I think you're very wise," he added.

This smote upon her new-born self-respect, and all the glory
departed from the day. She had taken off her loose white coat, and
pushed back the hat that pressed upon her thick, shining hair. It
clung in damp ringlets to the soft duskiness of forehead and
temples, her cheeks glowed rosily under their warm olive, and her
clouded smoke-blue eyes were averted; he could see only the thick,
upcurling black lashes that fringed them so darkly. The man saw
her breast rise and fall with some quick emotion as he half-
smilingly watched her.

"The lad gets a beautiful and wise and very discreet wife," he was
beginning, but Harriet silenced him angrily.

"We need not indulge in compliments, Roy! If I marry Ward--"

"If--? I supposed it definite!"

"Well, when I marry him, then, it will be because I truly---" She
paused, halted at the great word. "Because I truly do admire and
care for him," she substituted, somewhat lamely.

"It isn't quite a pillar of smoke by day, and of fire by night?"
he suggested, quietly. Harriet saw the words written, in the
handwriting of a girl of seventeen, and had a moment of vertigo.
She attempted no answer. "In other words, you would hardly
consider him if he had his own way to make, if he had a salary of
two hundred a month, like Fred Davenport!" Royal added. "There's a
certain magic about a background of motorcars and Sherry's, and
the opera Monday nights, and the bank account, isn't there?"

Silence. But it was only for a moment. Then Harriet raised her
eyes.

"He loves me," she reminded the man, quietly. "I don't know what a
boy's love is worth; he's only twenty-two, after all. But he does
love me! But believe me, Royal, you couldn't hurt me--as you ARE
hurting me!-if there was no truth in what you say. Ward has had
three years at college--I've not been a member of the family all
that time without knowing that he is not a saint! He has lived as
other men do--as women permit decent men to live, I suppose.
Nina's different. She's younger. She has never had an affair---"

"We were not discussing Nina!"

"No, I know it. But you reminded me that what I object to in you,
with her, I myself am doing with him--or something very like it!
Except that--" Harriet floundered a little, but regained her
thread--"except that he does care for me," she repeated; "he loves
beauty--I can say that to you without your misunderstanding!--and
then, he knows me, we have been intimate for years, we are
congenial!"

"He knows everything about you," Royal repeated, innocently, as if
the defence she made were perfectly acceptable. But again she was
stung to silence.

"I am going to tell him frankly, exactly what you have said to
me," Harriet said, presently, with decision and relief in her
voice. "I shall remind him that I have always been poor, and that
it is utterly impossible for me to separate the thought of him
from the thought of what my life as his wife would gain."

"Be careful how you play your hand alone!" the man said. "Half
confidence isn't much more than none at all!"

A moment later they parted: the woman entering the house for a cup
of coffee, and some conference with butler and housekeeper, and
the man starting off briskly for his early walk. But Blondin was
smiling, as he went upon his way, and Harriet was white with anger
and impotence.

"I'll put everything else I have in this world in the balance,
Roy!" she said to herself, in the sunshiny silence of the
breakfast room. "But I'll hold no more stolen conversations with
you! I'll break my engagement with Ward, I'll go to Richard Carter
and humiliate myself, I'll go back to Linda's house without a
penny in the world--but I'll be done with you! Thank God, however
the story may sound, especially with your interpretations on it,
you haven't my honour in your keeping, though you may seem to
have!"

The house was absolutely quiet; the clock on the stairs struck a
silvery seven. Harriet went noiselessly to her own room; Nina was
sleeping heavily. She flung off her clothes, sank into bed. And
now at last sleep came, deep, delicious, satisfying. Nina awoke,
had her breakfast in bed, tubbed and dressed, and still Harriet
slept on.

"Miss Harriet, it's nearly noon!" The monitory voice penetrated at
last; Harriet awoke, smiling. "Father's gone to the city, and Ward
with him," Nina said, "and I telephoned the club and asked Mr.
Blondin to lunch--Granny said I might. And the papers--you ought
to see them! Father said to Bottomley that he was to say that the
family was not answering the telephone. Granny was darling to me
this morning. She thinks I could keep house for Father. I said no,
thank you, not while Miss Harriet was here. She said, Oh, no, she
didn't mean immediately, but if you married, or something. But of
course I may move into Mother's room, after awhile, although--
isn't it funny?-I keep thinking that she may come back. And Father
said I was not to leave the place to-day. I had nine letters; Amy
said that she had cried all night, and Mrs. Jay wrote Father, and
oh--Father had a letter from Mother written just before the boat
went; he didn't show it to any one. And she said they were going
to Italy, and maybe Spain, he told Granny. Isn't it TERRIBLE?"

Thus Nina, excited and pleased by the importance of being so close
to the calamity.

"I'll be dressed directly," Harriet said, in a matter-of-fact
voice. "Get at your Spanish, Nina, and I'll be with you in a few
minutes!"

A day or two later there was a family conference in the library,
and Harriet realized more clearly than ever that it was impossible
to forecast the march of events. Richard announced that after
consideration he had decided that it would be wiser for the family
to weather the storm of talk that would follow Isabelle's
disappearance, in some neighbourhood less connected with her. He
had therefore leased an establishment on Long Island, where the
children could have their swimming and tennis, and his mother her
usual nearness to town, but where they would be comparatively
inaccessible to a curious press and public, and might disappear
for a grateful interval. The life at Huntington would be less
formal than at Crownlands, but the house he had taken was
comfortable and roomy; there would be plenty of room for Nina's
girl friends and Ward's guests. Miss Field, Bottomley, and Hansen
would please see to it that the move was made with all possible
expedition. He would join the family there every week-end,
possibly now and then during the week, and he hoped the change
would do them all good, and bridge the difficult first months of--
their misfortune. "I have explained to my mother and the
children," he said, quietly, to Harriet, "that Mrs. Carter has
asked for a divorce, which will, of course, be immediately
arranged.

"The trip," he ended, turning to his mother, "is only about the
distance this is, in the car. I've not seen the place, but I'm
confident that you'll like it."

"I shall of course remain there steadily, Richard," said the old
lady, with graciousness. "The length of the trip makes no
difference. You naturally have not had time to consider--how
should you--that there is a change in your circumstances, my son.
The presence of an older woman in your house is imperative."

He smiled at her patiently, and Ward laughed outright.

"You mean on Miss Field's account, Mother?"

Madame Carter was outraged at this outspokenness; she had supposed
herself somewhat obscure.

"If I do, my dear, it is a feeling that any WOMAN would share with
me, although possibly men--as the less delicate--"

"Oh, shucks, Granny!" Ward said, affectionately. "Where did you
ever get that line of dope?"

"Never mind, Ward," his father interrupted in turn. "We needn't
discuss that now. We'll be delighted for every hour you can spend
with us, Mother, whether it's for Miss Field's sake or ours.
She'll take care of us all, and herself into the bargain, I'm sure
of that. Now, Miss Field, about your check book; I've arranged---"

"The world, my dear, is less blind than you imagine!" his mother
reminded him pleasantly, gathering her draperies for departure.

"Well, about your checks," Richard said, with his indulgent smile,
when she was gone. "Where were we?"

"I have never respected and admired and been so grateful to any
human being as I am to you," thought Harriet. "I think you are the
finest and the strongest man I ever saw in my life!" Aloud she
said, "I can send Bottomley and his wife, and one or two of the
girls down to-day, if you think best. Then he can telephone me how
things go."

Nina interposed an objection on the score of the tennis tournament
at the club, was overruled, and departed in her turn to discover,
as Harriet tactfully suggested, the condition of her bathing suit.
Ward had already gone to do some necessary telephoning, so that
Harriet and her employer were alone.

"Now, Miss Field," Richard said, when various details of
management were delegated, "you understand that you are in charge
from now on. My mother will--well, you know how to handle her! She
is old--enjoys her little bit of mischief sometimes! Anything
unusual you can refer to me; I shall be there every week, anyway."

He paused, and ruffled the scattered papers that were on the flat-
topped desk before him. Harriet watched him anxiously. She thought
he looked tired and old, and her heart ached at the troubled
attempt he was making to simplify the tragedy for them all. He was
not handsome, she reflected, but surely there had never been
keener or pleasanter gray eyes, and a mouth so strong when it was
in repose, so honest when it smiled. Not like Ward's ready and
incessant laughter, not like Royal Blondin's carefully calculated
amusement.

Reaching this point in her thought, facing him with her whole
beautiful face alive with emotion and interest, Harriet smiled
herself, involuntarily and faintly. It was a smile of almost
daughterly sympathy and comradeship, friendly and innocent, and
wholly irresistible. As usual, her masses of hair were trimly
pinned and braided, but stray little golden feathers had loosened
about the soft olive forehead, and the neck of her thin white
blouse was open, showing the straight column of her young throat;
the effect was unstudied and youthful, almost childishly engaging
and fresh.

Richard, catching the look, was perhaps unconsciously cheered by
it. Even at forty-four, and under his present difficulties and
harassments, he must have been dead not to be refreshed by the
vision of earnest youth and beauty that was so near him in the
tempered summer light of the great library.

"Thank you!" he said, as if she had spoken. "There is one more
thing, Miss Field," he added, idly rumpling his papers again, and
then moving his fine hand to his thick brown hair, whose shining
order he rumpled, too. "About this man Blondin. Do you know
anything about him?"

A more direct shot at her innermost fastnesses could hardly have
been made. Robbed of breath and senses by the suddenness of it,
and with dry lips, Harriet could only falter a repetition:

"Know anything about him?"

"I don't know much, and what I do know I don't like," Richard
continued, noticing nothing amiss in her manner, perhaps because
he was so deeply absorbed in what he was saying. "He's a handsome
fellow; he knows his subject, I guess. He's the modern substitute
for the mediaeval minnesinger," he added, "a sort of father
confessor--and the women like to talk to him! But I don't like
him. Now, I don't know how he feels to Nina, or she to him, but as
you know, she will come into her uncle's fortune in a few months,
unless the trustee, who is myself, decides to defer payment for
another three years. I merely want to say that it might be as well
to intimate to this young fellow that there are conditions under
which I would see fit to defer it, and anything that brought him
into that connection would--well, would constitute one!"

"I didn't know of that!" Harriet exclaimed, in such obvious relief
that the man smiled involuntarily.

"Then you agree with me?" he asked, eagerly.

Here in the sombre sweetness of the library, with the man she
admired and respected above all others looking to her for
confidence and counsel, what could she say? Even had Royal Blondin
been present, Harriet might have cast every secondary
consideration to the winds as readily. As it was, she could only
tell him the truth.

"Oh, yes--yes! I told Ward that I would rather see Nina dead!"

"Why do you say so?" Richard asked. "Now, I'll tell you why I do,"
he added, as Harriet was, not unnaturally, groping for definite
phrases, "I've been watching this man. I had his record looked
into. There's nothing extremely bad in it--he seems to be a
gentleman adventurer. But there was an affair several years ago,
his name mixed into some divorce, and it developed then that he
holds rather peculiar ideas about free love, natural
relationships--I needn't go into that. I don't want him mixed up
with my family. I'm going to speak to Ward about it, warn him that
his sister's happiness mustn't be risked by having the fellow
about at all. Meanwhile, you can take it up with Nina. Just let
her see that she isn't the only girl who has ever listened to him
reading 'In a Gondola.' You might hint that there was a good deal
of talk about him five or six years ago; there was a Swedish
woman--I didn't get the details!--but I imagine trial marriage
comes pretty close to it. You're tired," said Richard, abruptly.

"Indeed I'm not!" the girl protested, with white lips.

"You don't imagine the man is serious?" Richard asked, alarmed by
her manner.

"I don't know!" Harriet answered at random. "They've--they've
hardly known each other three weeks!"

"Ah, well! And she's only seventeen," her father said. "Distract
her, amuse her--if she's inclined to mope a bit. Get riding
horses!"

No time to think--no time to trim her course. Harriet must plunge
blindly ahead now.

"Mr. Carter, would you--if you think wise--give your mother a hint
of this? Madame Carter is romantic, you know--"

"Oh, certainly! Certainly!" he said, approvingly. "I'll speak to
her. We must keep Nina a little girl this summer. And, Miss Field-
-"

It was said with only a slight change in the pleasant voice. But
it brought a sudden change in their relationship, a tightening of
the bonds that were all Harriet's world now.

"--Miss Field, I may say here and now that it is an unmixed
privilege, in my estimation," Richard Carter said, simply, "that
my daughter, and my son, too, for the matter of that, should have
the advantage of your influence, and your example, at this time.
Of course it infinitely simplifies my own problem. But I don't
mean only that. I mean that with your knowledge of the world, of
work and poverty--I know them, too, I know their value--you are
infinitely qualified to balance their whole social vision just
now. I have never been unappreciative of the value of a simple,
good, unspoiled woman in my household. I have seen the effect in a
thousand ways. But at the present moment, I hardly know where I
could turn without you. I can only hope that in some way the
Carters may be able to repay you!"

The secretary's shining head dropped, and she rested her elbow on
the table, and pressed a white hand tight across her eyes for a
moment of silence. When she faced him again her face was a little
pale, and her magnificent eyes heavy with tears.

"I love all the Carters," she said, simply. "I only wish I were--
half what you say!"

And without another word she stood up, folded into a tiny oblong
the paper upon which she had been making a few notes, and went
slowly to the library door. More deeply stirred than she had been
since the days of her passionate girlhood, she turned on the
threshold for a look of farewell. But Richard Carter had left the
desk, and was kneeling on one knee before his safe; he had
forgotten her. Harriet went across the hall, mounted the stairs,
and found her own room. She was hardly conscious of what she was
doing or thinking.

"Oh, what shall I do?" she whispered. "He trusts me to protect
her! Oh, why didn't I--the moment I knew that Royal was thinking
of her--why didn't I go to him then, and make a clean breast of it
all! Now--now I've promised! And they trust me and love me--and
what shall I do! Oh, God," whispered Harriet, sinking on her knees
beside the bed, "You know that I am good--You know that I can
really help them all--can really protect the girl! You know how I
have chosen what was fine and good, all these years, how I have
longed for an opportunity to be useful and happy! Don't let him
come into my life again, and spoil it again. Don't let Richard
Carter lose faith in me, and despise me! I don't know what's the
matter with me," sobbed Harriet, burying her brimming eyes in the
pillows; "I never cry, I haven't cried like this for years and
years! I think I'm losing my mind!"




CHAPTER XII


The move to Huntington was made quickly and quietly, and lazy
weeks followed, to Harriet weeks of almost cloudless content. She
and Nina walked and rode, swam and practised their tennis stroke,
paddled about in a canoe, motored over miles of exquisite country.
Madame Carter was often with them, suggesting, disapproving,
meddling, awaiting her chance to score. Ward, early in August,
after a serious talk with Harriet, joined some friends for a motor
run of three thousand miles, and presently was sending them post
cards from Monterey and Tahoe. There was naturally no entertaining
or formal social life for the family this summer, but Richard
almost always brought men down for golf, over the week-ends, and
seemed, if quiet and reserved, to be well content.

They had been in the new home only a few days when Harriet had
reason to stop short in a busy morning of unpacking with one hand
upon her heart, and a great satisfaction in her eyes. Nina,
reading from a note from Royal Blondin, announced the sensational
news that he had broken his ankle. He was with friends at Newport,
and must remain there now for weeks, perhaps a month. Nina was
please to write him, and to give his regard to Miss Field, and ask
her not to forget him.

Harriet was quite willing to overlook the delicate menace of the
message for the sake of the other news. For several weeks they
were safe. Nina did not know the family Royal had been visiting,
there was a long interval before she could possibly see him again.
He would write to the girl, of course, and Harriet knew with what
absorbing emotion she would look for his letters. But Nina was
young and Nina wrote wretchedly, and anything might happen,
thought Harriet, consoling herself with a vague argument that was
in itself youthful, too.

Old Madame Carter was the only stumbling block now; there was no
question of her definite hostility. It was partly the jealousy of
age for youth, of departed beauty for beauty in its prime, but it
was mainly actuated by the old lady's sense of pride, her firm
belief that there was some mysterious merit of birth in the Carter
blood, and that to friendship with the Carters a mere upstart, a
secretary, a working-woman, could not with any justice aspire. In
a thousand ways, many of them approaching actual mendacity, she
undermined Harriet's usefulness, and annoyed and distracted the
domestic force. If Harriet decided that the weather was too warm
for an out-of-door luncheon, Madame Carter pleasantly overruled
her, and there was much running to and fro for the change.
Messages undelivered by the old lady were attributed to the
secretary's carelessness, and there was more than one occasion
when Harriet had no choice between silence toward Madame Carter or
the flat accusation of untruthfulness.

Every hour under his roof, however, helped to convince her that
Richard Carter was unaware of very little that transpired there.
His reading of Nina's young secret had proved that; Harriet never
remembered his ready allusion to "In a Gondola" without surprise.
How he had managed to obtain that particular detail she could not
imagine. But she hoped that he read the relationship between her
and his mother as truly, and that time would reconcile the old
lady to her presence in the house.

With September came changes. Blondin wrote that he was limping
about with a stick, and wanted to limp down to them as soon as
they would ask him. Ward was home again, as always irresponsible,
a little older and in some vague way a little coarser, Harriet
thought, but still a most enlivening element in the quiet
household. Madame Carter had brought with her, for several weeks'
stay, a friend of Isabelle's, a pretty, dashing little grass
widow, Mrs. Tabor. The resolute brightness and sweetness with
which Ida Tabor attempted to amuse Richard gave Harriet some hint
of the plan which was taking shape in the back of his mother's
head. But she could only make Mrs. Tabor comfortable, and fit her
somehow into the youthful plans of the household.

"Miss Harriet," Nina said, without preamble, lying flat on the
gently rocking float, and catching little handfuls of water as she
spoke, "what'll I wear to-morrow?"

Harriet had already settled this question several times, but she
was always patient with Nina.

"White is prettiest," she said; "didn't we decide for the
organdie?"

"The white with the rolled hem," Nina said with unction, "and pale
pink stockings, and white shoes."

"That will do nicely!" Harriet, always happiest in the water, was
sitting on the edge of the float, with her feet idly splashing. A
glorious September sun blazed down upon the water, there was
absolute silence up and down the curving shore. Above the plumy
tops of the trees, rising abruptly from the beach with its
weather-burned bath houses, the gables and porches of the new home
showed here and there. There were other country mansions scattered
up and down beside the blue waters of the Sound, but the Carters
had no sense of having neighbours.

Nina, Ward, and Harriet fairly lived in the water, and Ward had
unconsciously served his father's cause by bringing home with him
a tongue-tied pleasant youth named Saunders Archer, whose presence
in the house had helped to keep Nina pleased and amused. She had
already imparted to Harriet the valuable information that Saunders
had never known his mother, and had never had a sister, "and of
course I have always been such an oddity in the family," said
Nina, "that I got right at his confidence in that dreadful way of
mine! He said he didn't know why he talked to me so frankly."

Harriet had seen to it that a variety of delightful plans awaited
the young people at every turn. The retirement natural after the
recent domestic catastrophe was too dangerous to risk now. They
drove to Piping Rock, to Easthampton; they yachted and swam; and
the evenings were filled with riotous entertainments of their own
devising, and once or twice with country club dances ten or twenty
miles away. And Harriet hoped, hoped, hoped, feverishly,
incessantly, wearyingly, that the danger was past.

But Amy came down, mild and colourless as ever, yet still more
poised, more socially adept than Nina, and with Amy innocently
diverting Saunders's bashful attentions, Nina returned to thoughts
of Royal. The "to-morrow" for which the white organdie had been
selected was to bring Royal for his first visit to Huntington. He
was coming down with Madame Carter and Mrs. Tabor in her car. The
man, the old lady had protested indignantly, had already been
asked to visit them, and it was preposterous, just because Richard
fancied every man who looked at Nina was in love with her, that he
should be insulted! No matter, Richard said, in an aside to
Harriet, accepting the situation philosophically, there was no
need for suddenness. Harriet tried to be philosophical, too.
Richard was bringing two men down for golf this week-end, and with
Saunders and Amy, Royal and Madame Carter and Mrs. Tabor, the
house would be filled. She had plenty to do with the managing, the
endless details that were brought her mercilessly, hour after
hour, by maids and housekeeper. And yet under her quiet busyness
and her happy hours with the young people there lurked incessantly
a fretted sense of danger approaching.

Something of this was in her mind as she and Nina basked on the
gently heaving float, in the sunshine. Amy, with no particular
desire to hide the fact that she was a better swimmer than Nina,
had essayed a swim to the buoy, a hundred yards out in the
channel. Nina, therefore, was naturally turned to thoughts of a
male who quite frankly did not admire Amy; and she talked
incessantly of Blondin. Harriet, the best swimmer among them,
remained with Nina, and now fancied she saw an opening for a
little talk she felt extremely timely.

"Mr. Blondin likes you, Nina, just because you aren't flirtatious
and silly, like the other girls. But he isn't the sort of man to
get very deeply interested in any woman, dear."

"No, I know he's not!" Nina said, quickly, turning suddenly red,
and looking attentively at the print of her wet hand on the dry,
hot boards.

"And I would be sorry if he were," Harriet pursued, not too
seriously, "for I want you to marry a man of your own age, when
you do marry, and not a man who has had--well, other affairs, who
has that confidential, flattering manner with all women!"

"If you think I don't realize perfectly that you don't like Royal
Blondin, you are mistaken!" Nina said, airily, even with a yawn.
"I am perfectly able to manage my own affairs in THAT direction!"

"Yes, I know, dear. But we want you--" Harriet was beginning
pacifically. But Nina angrily interrupted:

"Oh, I know you and Father talk about me, if THAT'S what you
mean!"

"No, dear, listen. We want you to see other types of men, to see
all kinds. You will be rich, Nina--"

"Why don't you say that Royal is after my money!" Nina burst out,
with symptoms of tears. The ready name frightened Harriet afresh;
she knew that they corresponded, that grass was not growing under
Royal's feet. She and Nina were sitting close together now, their
drying hair tossed backward, their faces flushed. "The first man I
ever really liked," Nina said, with a heaving breast, "the first
man who ever understood me--!"

"Nina," Harriet said, "you don't want to have to write your
husband a check on your honeymoon?"

She felt it a cruel cut; but seventeen years of flattery and
smoothness had armed Nina in impregnable complacence. She gave a
sneering laugh that trembled on the brink of tears, and tried to
control a mouth that was shaking with anger. One look of utter
scorn she did manage, then she shrugged not so much her shoulders
as her whole body, and flung herself furiously into the water.
Harriet called "Nina!" first impatiently, and then coaxingly. But
the younger girl swam steadily to the shore, and Harriet saw her a
minute later, shaking herself outside the shower, before she
disappeared into the big bath house. With a grave face, as she
absentmindedly tossed and spread the glorious mass of her
glittering hair, Harriet sat on, pondering. They had reached a
crisis; Nina, between delicious confidences to Amy and aggrieved
appeal to Royal, would commit herself now. There was no help for
it; she, Harriet, must act.

Amy and Saunders swam by her, breathless and screaming as they
made for shore, and fought and shrieked under the shower. Then
they, too, entered the dressing rooms, and there was absolute
silence in the world. Harriet had entirely forgotten Ward, until
he swam under the float, and with a characteristic yell, rose
streaming like a seal under her very feet.

Genuinely startled, she gratified him with a scream, and they both
laughed like children as he flung himself dripping on the hot
boards, and proceeded to bake luxuriously in the sun.

"It's the most gorgeous thing I ever saw, do you know that?" he
asked, with one hand touching the river of sparkling gold that
blazed and tumbled on her shoulders. "Listen, Harriet, do you
remember the little talk we had some weeks ago?"

"Perfectly," she said, a little unwillingly.

"Before I went to California, I mean," he further elucidated.

"Yes, I know what you mean, Ward!"

"Well, how about it?" the boy said, after a pause. Harriet, her
beautiful flushed face framed in curtains of shining hair, was
regarding him steadily, and almost sorrowfully.

"Do you mean to ask if I have changed?"

"Well--" he looked up. "I thought you might! They do--the ladies!"

"It wouldn't be fair to you. Ward," the girl said, slowly, after a
pause. "I love you, but I don't love you the way your wife will!"

"Why do you talk like that--it's all bunk!" he said, impatiently.
"If you try it and don't like it, why, you can get out, can't
you?"

"Ward, don't say those things!" the girl said, distressedly.

"I want you!" he said, sullenly. "I'm crazy about you! My God--"

"Ward, please don't touch me!" she said, sharply, getting to her
feet with a spring, as he put his arm about her. "Don't--! I shall
tell your father if you do!"

"You didn't talk that way at Crownlands last June," the man said,
sulkily. "I don't see what has made such a difference now!"

"I think perhaps I'm different, Ward. The summer--" Harriet's
voice died into silence. Her eyes were fixed upon the figure of a
man who came down the little pier, and dove into the shining
water. Two minutes later, with a great gasp of satisfaction,
Richard Carter drew himself up beside them.

"Ha! That is something like! My Lord, the water is beautiful to-
day! How about the buoy? Who swims with me to the buoy?"

"Come on, Harriet!" Ward said, poising.

The girl hesitated, glanced toward the shore. Saunders, with a
white-clad girl on each side of him, was walking up to the house.

"Did your friends come down with you, Mr. Carter?" she asked,
before quite abandoning all responsibilities.

"Briggs and Gardiner--yes. They're getting into golf clothes.
We're going to play nine holes anyway, at the club. What time is
dinner?"

"Eight o'clock. Unless you prefer--"

"No, no! Eight is fine. We'll be back at seven. My mother and Mrs.
Tabor and Blondin will be down from town at about six."

Harriet rose, too, and bundled the glory of her hair into a blue
rubber cap that made her look like a beautiful rosy French
peasant. With no further speech she made a splendid dive, and the
men followed her.

It was one of life's beautiful hours, she thought, as in a great
splash of salt water she reached the buoy, and hung laughing and
panting to its restless bulk. Ward had preceded her by a full
minute, Richard was half a minute behind her. With much
vainglorious boasting from the men, they all rested there before
the homeward swim. Harriet hardly spoke, her cup was full to the
brim with a mysterious felicity born of the summer hour, the
heaving waters, and the joyous mood of father and son. When
Richard praised her swimming she flushed in the severe blue cap,
and the blue eyes met his with the shy pleasure of a child. It was
while she was hastily dressing, in the hot bath house a little
later, that a sudden thought came to her, and flushed the lovely
face again, and brought her to a sudden pause.

A tremendous thought, that made her breast rise suddenly, and her
eyes fix themselves vaguely on space for a long, long minute. Her
palms were damp, and she put them over her hot cheeks. But that--
she whispered in the deeps of her soul, that was nonsense!

When Blondin arrived she did not see him, for Mrs. Tabor and
Madame Carter, elaborately entering at five, reported him
"perfectly wonderful" on the trip down, and that he had shown such
transports at the sight of the woods and the water that they had
put him down perhaps a mile away, to walk alone for the rest of
the way, and commune with his own exquisite soul. The expectantly
waiting Nina, at this, followed Amy upstairs in the direction of
the white organdie, and Harriet felt a little premonitory chill.

"Oh, Miss Field!" said Madame Carter's voice, an hour later, as
Harriet passed her door. The old lady had been talking with her
grandson, while she was resting, magnificent in a pale blue
negligee, but her maid was now extremely busy at the toilet table,
and an elaborate dinner costume was laid out upon the bed. Harriet
entered.

"Well, how has the little household been running?" asked Madame
Carter, who had been away for almost a week. "Miss Nina looks
sweet." And without waiting for a reply, which indeed would have
been of no interest to her, she added, blandly, "Ward tells me
that you are a beautiful swimmer!"

"Ward did not find that out to-day," Harriet said, mildly, thus
informed that her radiant hour with both the Carters was known to
the mother and grandmother.

"My son is a brilliant man," said Madame Carter, with apparent
irrelevance, "but the most brilliant men in the world are the
stupidest in domestic life, isn't that so?"

Harriet, ready for the knife, said pleasantly that perhaps it was
sometimes so.

"Now my son," Madame Carter said, confidentially, "is a man of
scrupulous honour. But he is capable of placing a young woman,
and"--she bowed graciously--"a beautiful young woman, in a very
false position! I confess that if I were in that young woman's
place, I should resent it. I should feel--"

"If you mean me," Harriet said, interrupting the smooth, innocent
old voice, "I assure you that I do not feel my position here at
all false--" ["She always gets me wild, and gets me talking,"
Harriet added to herself, with anger at her own weakness, "but I
can't help it!"] And aloud she finished, "I am Nina's companion,
and in a sense, housekeeper--"

"Pilgrim is housekeeper," Mrs. Carter corrected, Miss Pilgrim, a
one-time maid, was really Mrs. Bottomley, and had been manager
below stairs for a long time.

"There are things Pilgrim cannot do," Harriet suggested.

"I feel myself the difficulty of explaining your position here!"
said the old lady, raising both hands and arms in an elaborate
gesture of deprecation, and smiling kindly. "You put me in a false
position, too!"

But Harriet had now reached the point she always did reach, sooner
or later, in these talks with Madame Carter, the point of mentally
pitying the old lady, and recollection that after all her
mischievous tongue could do no real harm.

"You will have to discuss that with Mr. Carter, of course!" It was
always ace of trumps, and Harriet only blamed herself for ever
beginning a conversation with anything else. Now she retired from
the field with all honours, forcing herself to dismiss the
unpleasant memory the instant she was out of reach of Madame
Carter's voice. But the old lady fumed for an hour, and took up
the subject with her son when he came dutifully in to take her
down to dinner.

"Ida feels as I do," she said, when Mrs. Tabor, charming in blue,
joined them on the way downstairs. Richard felt a sensation of
anger. It was poor taste to involve a casual stranger like Ida
Tabor in this rather delicate family discussion. But he thought
that the little widow showed excellent sense in her rather slangy
fashion.

"Well, of course, she's filled the bill this summer, Dick, ab-so-
loo-tely! But, let me tell you, that Nina of yours is beginning to
take notice, and she won't need a governess forever! With you to
keep an eye on things generally, Nina will soon be able to manage
Dad's affairs. I know just how you feel--never'll forget how
utterly blank I felt when Jack Tabor just quietly packed his
trunks and walked out! Why, I couldn't get hold of myself for
months!"

"Where is Miss Field?" Richard was looking for the demure blue
gown and the bright head as they joined the young group
downstairs.

"She is not coming down, Richard," his mother explained.

"Why not?" he asked, abruptly. His mother gave him a magnificent
look, warning, silencing, appealing.

"I'll explain it to you later, dear!" she said, half-annoyed and
half-pleading. "You may announce dinner, Bottomley!"

Bottomley duly announced dinner. But he might have added something
to the conversation, had he been permitted. He had had some simple
and direct conversation with Madame Carter, not an hour before,
and had in consequence sent up a dinner tray to Miss Field. Rosa,
taking the tray, had been instructed to say simply that Madame
Carter had told Mr. Bottomley that Miss Field wished her dinner
upstairs. But Rosa was perfectly in touch with the situation, too,
and carried the news below stairs that Miss Field had got as red
as fire, and had stood looking from Rosa to the tray, and from the
tray to Rosa, for--well, full five minutes, before she had said,
"Thank you, Rosa, you may put it there on the table!"

Madame Carter sparkled her best that evening. Mrs. Tabor, too,
carried along the conversation noisily if not brilliantly, until
the young people got well under way. Richard was rather silent,
but then he was always silent. And after awhile the rich,
significant tones of Royal Blondin were heard. It was well after
nine when they all drifted out into the cool dimness of the porch
for coffee; Ward started music, Saunders and Amy danced. The men
attempted a little pool, but were too weary, and by half-past ten
Mrs. Tabor had tripped upstairs after the young girls, with a
buoyant good-night for her host, and the old lady, lingering for a
minute, had a chance to explain.

"About Miss Field, dear. I gave her just a kindly hint as to the
propriety of her being ALWAYS present at dinner, and she was
sensible enough to take it! Now and then, of COURSE--"

He jerked impatiently.

"I wish you would be a trifle more careful with your kindly hints,
Mother! Miss Field is a most exceptional girl--"

"My DEAR boy," said the old lady, fanning rapidly, "I could get
you a dozen women infinitely more capable--"

"--and I don't want her feelings hurt!" Richard finished, with a
return to his usual gentleness.

"You won't hurt her feelings!" his mother predicted, roundly. "Not
while the entire household is taking her orders, and the bank
honouring her checks--oh, no, my dear! don't worry about that!"

"To-morrow night," Richard said, half to himself, "I shall make it
a point to ask her to come down to dinner. If she prefers her
room--"

"Richard," his mother said, in a low, furious tone, "if you do
that, you may be kind enough to excuse me! While poor Isabelle was
here, while Nina was a child, it was all well enough! But nothing
could be more unfortunate for your daughter, for your young son,
than to have any fresh gossip--the sort of thing people are only
too ready to say, and are beginning to say now!"

"Why, how you do cook up things from whole cloth, Mother!" the man
said with his indulgent smile. "You see the thing too closely, you
are right in the middle of it!"

"I see that Harriet Field is an extremely pretty woman," his
mother said, hotly.

Richard looked from the tip of his unlighted cigar into his
mother's eyes, looked back again.

"Why, yes, I suppose she is!" he said, thoughtfully. "Gardiner
said something about it just now. Said she'd make her fortune in
the movies."

"I don't know about that," Madame Carter said, indifferently.

"Why can't you consider that we are fortunate to have her,
Mother?"

"Because I don't want to see you in a false position before the
world, my son. You must consider---"

The man kissed her hand lightly, with a laugh that closed the
conversation.

"Consider nothing! It's all nonsense!" he said, and as she began
her leisurely and dignified ascent he turned toward the porch and
the solace of his cigar. While he and the other men smoked and
mused, he decided to see Harriet and have a long talk with her the
next day, to tell her that no matter what his mother said or did
her word in the house was law, to assure her that in his eyes at
least her position was secure beyond any question. Even with the
varied group at the table to-night, he had missed her; there was
an influence even in her silences, and a certain power in her very
glances.

"Why the boy isn't heels over head in love with her I don't know!"
he thought of Ward. And when Gardiner, who had had merely a chance
encounter with her in the hall spoke again of the gold hair and
dark blue eyes, Richard fell into a benevolent dream of the little
secretary married to Gardiner, who was rich and a bachelor, and a
very decent fellow, too. He fancied young Mrs. Gardiner coming to
visit the Carters, and himself toasting her at a formal dinner,
and wondered if he had ever seen Harriet in evening dress. He
would tell her to-morrow that she must get an evening gown.
Richard, always the man of business, selected the hour on Sunday
that would be most suitable for his talk with her. He and the
other men would get up at seven, and go to the country club, where
they would manage eighteen holes before breakfast was served on
the club porch, the famous chicken Maryland and waffles of which
the golfers dreamed for six days. After that they might get into a
game of bridge, pleasantly tired, well fed; there were less
agreeable things to do than sit on the shady club porch, ordering
mild drinks, and quarrelling over two or three hard-fought
rubbers. Nina and her crowd were to lunch at the club; last Sunday
Harriet Field had come out with Nina and looked on for a hand or
two, other people were drifting about, and it was extremely social
and agreeable.

But he would be home to dress for dinner, at six, and then he
would get hold of Miss Field, and somewhat clear up the situation.
Richard slept upon the resolution, and arose in the sweet summer
morning to a satisfied recollection of it. He looked from his
window into the green, warm garden, and saw Miss Field herself
emerging from the wood, and Nina's friend, Blondin, beside her.
Harriet had evidently been to church; she carried a prayer-book; a
broad-brimmed hat made the slender figure, from this distance
anyway, extremely picturesque. The man and she were in earnest
conversation.

"Now THAT" thought Richard, still paternally busy with matrimonial
plans for her, "that wouldn't do at all. I hope she isn't wasting
any time on that fellow. He's clever, he has a good manner, but by
George, that girl could marry any man, and make him a magnificent
wife, too! I rather thought we'd disposed of this Blondin, anyway!
But they seem friendly enough--"

For they had parted with a nod unmistakably familiar.




CHAPTER XIII


Blondin had been waiting for her at the church door. Harriet,
coming out, had indicated without a word that he might walk beside
her. The service had been ill-attended, and the few women who
drifted away from it did not walk in their direction, so they
found themselves alone. Harriet had been realizing ever since his
arrival that Blondin had lost none of his unique and baffling
charm. His handsome person, his unusual voice, his fashion of
dreamily contributing to the conversation some viewpoint entirely
unexpected and fresh, his utter indifference to general opinion--
these made him a distinct entity in any group, and would account
for Nina's immediately renewed alliance, and for the general
disposition on the part of the household to accept him on his own
terms.

Harriet opened the conversation this morning with a frank yet
reluctant confession.

"I'm so sorry, Roy! But it is only fair to you to say that I've
changed. You will have to do what you think fit about it, of
course. But I can't pretend that I'm--I'm playing your game any
longer."

"What game?" Blondin, falling into graceful step beside her, asked
pleasantly.

"I mean any possible--idea you might have of Nina!" Harriet said,
bravely.

"Oh, Nina!" he shrugged his shoulders lightly. "Don't take me too
seriously, my dear Harriet," he said. "Why, whenever we are alone
together, should you promptly begin to cross-question me about
that little person? Look about you--isn't this a divine morning? I
always rather fancy September, somehow. It's dry, panting,
finished--and yet there's something about the mornings and the
evenings--"

Harriet made a faint, impatient ejaculation.

"Well, anyway, you know where I stand!" she said.

"And you know where I do," he answered, after a pause. "I can see
Carter has no particular enthusiasm for me--I suppose that's your
work."

"I've said nothing definite," she answered, in a troubled voice.

"Then I shall!" Royal said, with sudden feeling. "I'm sick of this
shilly-shallying, and weighing words! If he will accept me as I
am, well and good--if not, I'm done! But he has a high opinion of
you, Harriet; what you say really counts!"

"You know where I stand," she could only repeat. They had reached
the garden now, and were at the foot of the steps.

"I don't quite see how you can take that tone," Blondin hinted.
"Do you expect to marry the boy?"

Harriet did not answer, except by a faint shrug. Her heart was
sick with fright, but there was no reason why he should be
informed that she had definitely broken with Ward. But he had
never come so near a threat before.

"Of course I am entirely at your mercy," she said, simply. Blondin
watched her for a full moment of silence before he said suddenly:

"All I ask you to do is assume, for the time being, that you and I
met as strangers a few weeks ago!"

"Oh, Roy," the girl exclaimed, "as if I were likely to do anything
else!"

She despised herself for the sense of relief that flooded her
heart.

"Look here then," he said, after a moment of thought. "I'll make a
bargain with you. If you will consent not to make any allusion to-
-well, to ten years ago, I'll do the same. I'll give you my solemn
promise on it. Say what you please about me now. You're under no
bond to protect me. I can hold my own. But the past is dead.
Neither you nor I will speak of it without agreeing to do so. How
about it?"

She hesitated, the black lashes dropped, her restless hands
twisting and torturing her handkerchief. It protected her, she
thought, while leaving her free to oppose him.

"I'll agree," she said, finally.

"Promise?"

"Oh, I promise!" She bit her lip, and frowned, as if she would add
something more. But no words came, only her troubled eyes met his
fully and splendidly for a second.

Then with the brief, familiar nod which Richard Carter saw from
his upstairs window, she turned, and without another word went
into the house.

 The morning dragged. It was dry and hot, with promise of a storm
later. The men piled into the car, and went off for their golf. It
was ten o'clock before Nina and Amy came chattering downstairs;
Royal was in the music room then, evoking a tangle of dim chords
from the piano, smoking endless cigarettes. Presently Ward and his
friend thundered down to join the girls at breakfast; a maid
circled the table with toast and covered dishes.

Madame Carter's breakfast had been sent upstairs, and Mrs. Tabor
had joined her, for when the old lady sent a message to Harriet,
the two women were together, in elaborate negligee, and a litter
of Sunday papers was scattered about the beautiful bedroom. Upon
Harriet's entrance Mrs. Tabor gracefully rose to go, but she
paused for a pleasant good-morning.

Alone with her determined old enemy, Harriet assumed her usual air
of respectful readiness. Madame Carter had sent for her?

"Yes," said the old lady, looking aimlessly about her before
gathering her garments together, and sinking into a chair. "I
wanted you to know that the young people propose to drive to
Easthampton, at about two o'clock--my granddaughter has been here,
teasing Granny for the plan, and I have consented. They will dine
there and be back at about--well, after dinner."

"But won't that tire you?" Harriet asked.

"I? Oh, I shall not go. Ward will chaperon his sister, and Nina,
Amy. Mr. Blondin will see that they get home in time. It's quite
all right, Miss Field; I am entirely satisfied. They--"

"But, Madame Carter!" Harriet interrupted her as she had expected
to be interrupted. "Surely it would be better--"

"We won't discuss it, please, Miss Field!"

Harriet's cheeks reddened; she was silent.

"Your devotion to my son and his family is extremely
praiseworthy," said Madame Carter, coldly. "But, as Mrs. Tabor,
who is of course a woman of the world, and comes of a very fine
family--she was a Kingdon, the Charleston family--as Mrs. Tabor
was saying, Richard is just the sort of chivalrous, splendid man
who is perfectly helpless in his own house!"

Harriet smiled, with a touch of scorn.

"When Mr. Carter is dissatisfied with me, Madame Carter, I shall
of course consider myself--dismissed. But until that time I am
very glad to make his own house comfortable for him."

The hard, angry colour of old age had been rising in Madame
Carter's face during this speech, and now she was quite obviously
enraged.

"You are hardly in a position to dictate to me in this matter!"
she said, shaking. Harriet watched her gravely as she rose from
her chair, made a few restless turns about the room, opened and
shut bureau drawers, dropped and plucked up handkerchiefs and
newspapers. In a dead silence the girl asked:

"Was that all?"

A sort of sniff was the answer, and, leaving the room, Harriet saw
the door of Mrs. Tabor's room, adjoining, open cautiously. The
ally was creeping back for news of the fray, thought the girl,
with a little grin at the thought of the two women's discomfiture.
But she sighed again as she entered her own suite to find Nina and
Amy complacently dressing themselves for the afternoon's run.

"We're going to Easthampton, Miss Harriet; Granny said it was all
right," Nina said, in great spirits. "I know you won't feel hurt,
because the car simply won't accommodate more than five, and it's
too long a run to sit on laps--"

"But, dearie child," Harriet said, in her friendliest manner, "I
don't believe you had better do that! You're all pretty young, in
case anything occurred--"

A mutinous line marked Nina's babyish mouth. She would not yield
to any nursery control before Amy!

"Granny said it was all right, Miss Harriet, so just don't bother
your head about us!" she said, airily.

"Yes, I know, dear. But Granny's ideas are old-fashioned--"

"Old-fashioned people are apt to be even more rigid than we are,
aren't they?" Amy submitted lightly and sweetly.

Harriet, a trifle nonplussed by this determined resistance, stood
looking from one to the other, pondering.

"Anyway, I'm going!" Nina muttered, lacing high white buckskin
shoes, with some shortening of breath. "Granny says a girl's
brother--"

Harriet paid no further attention to them, and the two developed a
splendid case for themselves. But she went down to find Ward, and
took him partially into her confidence. Would he please be a
darling, and see that there was no nonsense? She could not well
cross his grandmother and Nina without his father to back her. She
disliked to call his father at the club and make too much of the
whole thing. Would he promise her that they would be home by ten
o'clock, at latest?

Somewhat comforted by Ward's affectionate loyalty, Harriet went up
to dress for the one o'clock luncheon, and while she was dressing
a new idea came to her. For a few minutes she shook her head,
stood thinking, with a face of distaste.

"I COULD do that!" she said, aloud. And she picked up the gingham
dress that she had laid on the bed.

But there was a prettier dress in Harriet's wardrobe, a gift from
Isabelle, that she had never worn. It was a flowered silk mull, of
a soft deep blue that was exactly the colour of Harriet's eyes,
and at the throat and wrists it had frills of transparent lace.
The soft ruffles that made the skirt were cunningly edged with
black, and there was a great open pink rose at the belt.

Harriet put on this enchanting garment, and as she did so she felt
some half-forgotten power rise strong within her. There was one
trump in her hand that she had never thought to play in a game
with Nina Carter, but she was glad to find it now.

She went downstairs, and found Royal Blondin lounging in the
billiard room, and idly knocking balls about. The second thing he
said to her was of the gown, the third of her eyes. Harriet stood
beside him, raising the eyes in question, and smiling. When she
turned and went slowly away, Blondin went after her.

At half-past two o'clock the car was at the side door, and Nina
and Amy came downstairs with their wraps, and Saunders and Ward
ran about laughing and confusing things. Blondin watched the
performance lazily from a basket chair on the porch, but when Nina
called him a half-laughing, half-daring, "We're ready, Mr.
Blondin!" he sauntered down to the car with his pleasantest
expression, but with the regretful statement that he was not
going: a vicious headache had developed since luncheon.

Whatever the effect on Amy and the young men, to Nina this was a
staggering blow. Harriet felt sorry for her as she saw the girl
try to meet it gallantly; she knew that the heart died from Nina's
day there and then. Nina had triumphed all through luncheon, had
laughed and chattered, had made Ward telephone a dinner
reservation for five, and had assumed a hundred coquettish airs.
Now all this crumpled, faded away, and Harriet knew, as she stood
beside the car looking down at the folded light rug on her arm,
that she was ready to cry.

"No, you'll have a far nicer time without me," said Royal,
throwing away his cigarette, and resting one arm on the car. "I
wouldn't interfere, because I knew you'd all give it up! You just
all have a perfectly wonderful time, and I'll be down next week-
end and hear about it!"

Nina stood irresolute; too choked with sudden disappointment to
risk her voice. It was all hateful, maddening, horrible! Those two
boys and Amy--ah, there would be no "fun" now! She loathed Amy,
getting in so briskly, and saying, "Come on, Nina!" She hated
Ward, she wished that they were all dead, and herself, too. It was
impossible that she should be carried farther and farther away
from him--after last night and to-day!

The storm came at Good Ground, and they all had to scramble with
curtains, "smelly" curtains, Nina called them. And the dinner was
eaten in warm, sticky half-darkness on a hotel porch, with
horrible music making a horrible racket, according to the same
authority. Saunders and Amy held hands all the way home, too, and
Nina thought it was disgusting; everyone was too tired to talk,
they bounced along silently and crossly.

And upon getting home, Miss Harriet came out of the shadows on the
porch, looking perfectly exquisite in her new gown, sweetly
interested and cheerful. She said that she was so sorry the dinner
was poor, they had had such a nice dinner at home, and that she
had had a talk with their father, and they were to go back to
Crownlands next week. Nina did not see Blondin; she heard his
voice from the smoking room, but her arrival caused no cessation
of the men's laughter and voices in there, and the only news she
had from him that night was from her grandmother, who was in a bad
temper, and reported that he and Miss Field had been walking half
the afternoon. Nina, for the first time in her life, cried herself
to sleep.

"Never mind, my dear," said the old lady with terrible insight,
"if I ask my son to choose between me and any other woman, I have
no doubt of the outcome!"

Harriet had assuredly triumphed, but it was on terms that for more
than one reason did not entirely please her. To affect a
confidential intimacy with Royal Blondin was utterly distasteful,
and to have poor little Nina sulky and silent far from pleasant.
But most disquieting of all was the immediate result of old Madame
Carter's meddling.

For Richard, finding the pretty secretary prettier than ever in
her blue gown, and warmed by a relaxed day at the club and a mood
of friendliness, had specifically instructed her that she was to
dine with the family on all occasions, and to dress as the others
did, and to regard herself as "a member of the family." And this,
Harriet was quick to realize, really did place her in a peculiar
position, made difficult by Richard's kindly championing no less
than his mother's hostility, by the adoring sympathy of the
servants, and the affectionate familiarities of the Carter
children. Richard's friends took their cue from him, as was
natural, and in the first early winter dinner parties at
Crownlands Harriet could not but sparkle and lead; she had reached
her own level at last.

Perhaps the master of the house but dimly saw the truth of this,
but he did see a most charming and pretty woman at the head of his
establishment, his daughter and son protected, his affairs capably
managed, and such hospitality and entertainment as he felt
suitable well handled. She and Nina shared Isabelle's old rooms,
and Harriet balanced Nina's first evening gowns with discreet but
dignified black.

A sense of well-being and happiness began to envelop Richard
Carter for the first time in many years. He was conscious of a
desire to express his appreciation to Miss Field. It was natural
that this should take the form of money; a little present, in the
form of a check. She had a sister who was not rich; she would like
to go home with laden hands. But the question was, how much?

He was musing over this very point and other matters of deeper
moment one morning when Harriet herself came in. She returned his
smile with her usual bright nod, but he thought she looked pale
and troubled.

"Mr. Carter," she said, bravely going to the point, "do you think
Nina is able, with your mother's help, to manage your house?"

Richard looked at her silently for perhaps two minutes. Then he
said, quietly:

"Mr. Blondin, eh?"

The girl looked bewildered.

"My mother has given me a hint, indeed I've seen, that he would
want to take you away from us!" Richard said.

Harriet, without any show of emotion, looked down, and was silent
in her turn. But it was not, he saw with surprise, the silence of
confusion. On the contrary, she seemed simply a little thoughtful
and puzzled.

"Mr. Carter," she said, presently, "I have reason to believe that
Mr. Blondin would be a very bad husband for Nina. I had no scruple
in--in diverting his thoughts. But if he was the only man in the
world"--and to his surprise, she slowly got to her feet, and spoke
as if to herself, her eyes fixed far away--"I would sooner kill
him than marry him!" she said.

Richard sat genuinely dumfounded. Her beauty, her assurance, and
the cleverness with which she had managed that Blondin's
allegiance should be temporarily shifted from his own daughter,
held him mute. It was with the charm of watching perfect acting
that he followed this extremely amusing and unexpected woman.

"I confess that I am glad to hear it!" he said, drily.

"Nina is very angry at me," Harriet said. "Well, I have to stand
that!"

And she gave Nina's father a whimsical and friendly look.

"But what then?" Richard asked. Harriet immediately became serious
again.

"But this," she said, "you know your mother is right. You're all
too kind to me; I am really a member of the family. I love it. I
love to dress for dinner, and order the car, and charge things to
your accounts! But--it's not possible. You see that?"

Richard was quietly looking down. Now he made several parallel
lines with a pencil before he looked up.

"No. I don't see that!"

"Mary--Mrs. Putnam, for instance, who is very fond of me, and Mrs.
Jay. They want to ask me to dinner--to Christmas parties--and
they're not quite comfortable about it. I am not a member of your
family even though you are kind enough to treat me as one. I am a
paid employee, and Madame Carter naturally resents their treating
me as anything else. But most of all," said Harriet, seeing that
she was not making headway, "it's myself. Nina, and your mother,
and Mrs. Tabor--it's just a hint here and there--nothing at all!
But it undermines my position--even with Bottomley. I dress, I
entertain your friends, I join you in town; it makes talk. And I
can't--I can't--"

She stood up, and turned her back on him proudly, and he knew that
she was crying.

"Just a minute," Richard said, finding himself more shaken than he
would have believed. "It is--you're sure it isn't Blondin?"

"Royal Blondin!" There was in her tone a pleasant, childish scorn
and indignation that again he thought amusing. She sat down facing
him again, and quite openly dried her eyes, and smiled. "No, it's
more serious," Harriet said. "It means constant irritation for
your mother. It means that she is always in a state of
exasperation. I think--I don't know, but I have reason to think--
that she made it a choice, for Mary Putnam, between us!"

"She has no right to do that," said Richard, soberly.

"I'm not--you know that!--criticizing," Harriet said. The man
sighed, and tossed a few papers on his desk.

"Sometimes I have hoped," he began, on a fresh tack, "that you and
the boy might fancy each other. I'm not satisfied with Ward. He
needs an anchor. That would be a solution for us all!" It was a
random shot, but to his surprise she flushed brightly.

"Ward knows that there is no chance of that," she said, quickly,
"dearly as I love him!"

Richard's eyes widened with whimsical amusement again.

"So you've refused Ward, have you?"

"Long ago," she answered, simply. The man laughed; but a moment
later his face grew dark and troubled again as he said:

"I hardly know what to do! The girl is the first consideration, of
course, and she needs you. I feel that she is not only safe, but
happy, when you are here. My mother needs you, too; she would pay,
like the rest of us, for worrying you out of the house. She
couldn't manage it--bringing Nina into town, ordering her clothes,
entertaining the boy's friends, answering letters--I know what it
is! I've unfortunately reached a place where I've got to feel
free. You've heard us all talk of this new asbestos merger--my
dear girl, that will keep me going like a slave for months,
perhaps years! I won't know when I am to be home, or what I shall
have to cancel. I wish I could convince you that a woman of
seventy-five and a girl of seventeen are not exactly a jury--"

"This is the jury!" Harriet said, touching her own breast lightly.
He looked at her sombrely.

"I suppose so! I suppose I can't convince you how badly we need
you. My mother--well, she has always taken life that way; she
can't change now. I shall have Ida Tabor as a fixture here, I
suppose, Nina running wild, Ward never home! You--you give me
exactly what I want here! Good dinners, fires, hospitality, a good
report from Nina and Ward; I can bring men home, I can--" He
mused, with a smile touching his fine, tired face. "In short, I
wish there was some fortunate young man somewhere to make you Mrs.
Smith or Jones, Miss Field, and let you come back to the Carters
immediately again!"

Harriet laughed, sighed sharply immediately upon the laugh.

"Unfortunately, there isn't such a man," she said. And she added,
"Even a widow, sometimes, is vulnerable!"

Richard smiled, but some sudden thought made the smile but an
absent one, and he sat quite obviously plunged in meditation for a
long minute. The clock and the fire ticked sleepily, and outside
the high windows the first tentative flutter of snow was melting
on bare boughs and brick walls.

"Here's another suggestion, Miss Field," he said, suddenly,
looking up, "I don't know how this will strike you; it has
occurred to me before. Gardiner hinted it--or I thought he did,
and the more I think of it, the more possible it seems. You are a
business woman, and I am a business man. You know exactly what I
am, exactly what occurred in my married life, after twenty-two
years. That--that sort of thing is over, of course. But there is
that way of settling it, if you care to consider it--"

He paused, with a questioning look of encouragement,
embarrassment, and affectionate interest. Harriet had grown pale,
and had fixed her eyes upon his as if under a spell.

"You mean--" Her voice failed her.

"I mean marriage. I mean that you and I shall quietly get married
in a few weeks, when I am free," he answered. "I have just
indicated to you what it would mean to me. I hope," he added,
watching her closely, as she sat stunned and silent, "I hope that
it would also have its advantages to you. Your position then would
be unquestionable, my mother--Nina--the world, would have nothing
to say. I think you know how thoroughly we all like you, and that
my share of our--our business partnership would be to make you as
happy as was in my power. Your influence on Ward is the one thing
that may save the boy. Of Nina we've already spoken. My mother--I
know her!--would immediately become the champion of her son's
wife. There would be a three days' buzzing--that would end it!"

The swift uprushing of joy in Harriet's heart was accompanied with
the first agonies of renunciation, was perhaps all the more
poignantly sweet because of them. She had not come to this hour
without knowing what he meant to her, this quiet man with the
splendid mouth and the keen gray eyes, and she trembled now with
an exquisite emotion that seemed to drown out all the past and all
the future--everything except that she loved him, and he needed
her! But when she spoke it was as coolly as he:

"Mr. Carter--what of your wife?"

His eyes met hers wearily.

"Divorce proceedings were instituted immediately it was definitely
established she had gone with young Pope. The decree will be
absolute."

"But that will not--cannot alter the situation--" Harriet
faltered.

"You mean--" the man hesitated "--you mean you--that you regard me
as married still?"

Harriet, mute with emotions absolutely overpowering, nodded
without speaking.

"Will you--will you let me think about it?" she faltered. A sudden
brightness came into his face. "You know how I was brought up to
think of divorce," she went on, pleadingly. "I've made plenty of
mistakes in my life, but I've never deliberately done what I felt
was wrong."

"And this would be?" Richard asked, slowly.

"Well--I haven't thought about it!" she answered, slowly. "My
people--my sister and her husband--would say so! I--I would have
said so of some other woman!"

"This would not be an ordinary marriage; you would be entirely
your own mistress," Richard said, with quiet significance. "It
would be a marriage only in the eyes of the world. You--have a
higher tribunal!"

"My own, you mean?" she asked, thoughtfully.

"Your own. You would know exactly why this marriage was not in
violation of any code of yours! The world might not acquit you,
but you would know in your own heart."

"I see," she said. "I--I must have time to think about it!"

"As long as you like!" She had risen, and now he rose, too, and
went with her to the library door, and opened it for her. "When
you decide, come and tell me," he said, bowing.

She turned to give him a parting smile, with a desperate wish to
tell him half the honour and joy she would feel in taking his
name, in sharing his responsibilities, but the pleasantly
impersonal nod he gave her chilled the words unspoken. Harriet
fled to her room, and to the porch beyond it, and flinging herself
into a basket chair, covered her face with her two hands, and for
half an hour rocked to and fro audibly gasping, half-laughing,
half-crying, almost beside herself with amazement and excitement.

To be Mrs. Richard Carter--to be Mrs. Richard Carter--to be
mistress of Crownlands, to command the cars and the maids, to
enter the opera box and the big shops--recognized, envied,
triumphant--ah, it was a prospect brilliant enough to dazzle a far
more fortunate woman than Harriet Field! To sign "Harriet Carter,"
to enter his office with assurance, to say at the telephone, "Mrs.
Carter, if you please--!"

"My chance," whispered Harriet, pressing her cold finger tips to
her hot cheeks again, "my chance at last--and I can't take it! No,
I can't take it--I don't care what his world does or thinks--my
world doesn't permit it! My father would never have spoken to me
again--Linda wouldn't! No--I can't. Not a divorced man, not a man
with a living wife! I've been a fool--I've been wrong, plenty of
times, but I've never committed myself to folly and wrong!"

She stared blindly ahead of her. After awhile she spoke again,
half-aloud:

"Oh, but why does it have to be this way! If I could go to him,
tell him what he means to me, if we were poor--if we could take a
little place next to Linda--never see Nina or his mother or Ward
or Roy again--Oh, what Heaven! How I should love it, planning for
things together, as Linda and Fred did, having him come home to me
every night!

"But it isn't that way," Harriet suddenly recalled herself
sensibly, "and it is folly even to think about it! He is a rich
man, and a married man, and that ends it. That ends it."

A great desolation swept her spirit. She fell from bitter musing
to weakening. The law permitted it, after all. Plenty of good
women had shown her the way. The family needed her; she might do
good here. And above all, she loved him. Again the dream
triumphed, and she was Mrs. Carter, young, beautiful, and radiant,
taking her place beside him. How she would watch him, how she
would guard him, what a life she would build for him!

"But no, I mustn't think of that," Harriet said, sternly. "It
would be even different if he loved me. But he made that very
clear! He made that extremely clear! And the fact is this: that I
marry a divorced man the week he is free, a man who does not love
me, but who can give me an establishment! No--no--no--everything
I've tried for all my life counts for very little if I can do
that!"

She heard a stirring in the bedroom.

"What time is it, Rosa?" she called, suddenly aware of weakness
and fatigue.

"My goodness, how you frightened me, Miss Field! It's just noon."

"Do you happen to know if Mr. Carter is still downstairs?"

"Yes'm, he is; he's expecting Mr. Fox to come!"

Harriet smoothed her tumbled hair, and went slowly downstairs.

"But I love him!" she said, suddenly standing still on the
landing, to look out at the softly falling snow with brimming
eyes. "I love him with all my soul!"

A moment later she knocked at the library door, opened it in
answer to his call, and went in, closing it behind her.




CHAPTER XIV


There was trouble at Linda's house; trouble so terrible that
Harriet's unexpected arrival caused no comment, caused no more
than a weary flicker of Linda's heavy eyes. Pip, the adored first-
born son, lay dangerously ill, and the whole household moved on
tiptoe, heartsick with dread. Fred, a white and unshaven Fred, was
home in the cold gray midday; the telephone was muted, the hall
door stood ajar, the maid was red-eyed. Harriet, entering with a
cheerful call hushed suddenly on her lips, kissed her brother-in-
law while her eyes anxiously questioned him, and put a heartening
arm about Josephine, who came out in a kitchen apron, and wept
pitifully on her aunt's shoulder.

It was diphtheria, very bad, Fred stated lifelessly. Linda hardly
left the room; they were afraid for her, too, "if anything
happened." "If anything happened!" Harriet thought she had heard
the phrase a hundred times before the dreadful night came. The
sympathetic neighbours whispered it, the doctor said it gravely,
the nurse muttered it in the kitchen, and the little sisters,
clinging together, faltered it with trembling lips. The invalid
was isolated on the upper floor; Harriet only waited to get into a
thin gown before noiselessly mounting to the sick room. Linda,
sitting beside the haggard little feverish boy, looked at her
sister apathetically, the nurse was glad to whisper directions and
slip away,

A bitter winter afternoon was waning, but the air in Pip's room
was warm, and there was the order and silence of recognized
crisis. The swollen little mouth moved, the heavy eyes; Linda bent
above the child.

"What is it, my darling? Mother is right here--"

There was a new note in the passionate, tender voice. Linda was
all alive for the few seconds he needed her, then she sank into
her voiceless apathy again, and the short winter afternoon wore
away, and there was no change. The doctor came, the nurse
returned, Fred appeared at the door. After awhile it was dark, and
a shaded lamp was lighted, and Harriet went downstairs, to the
world of subdued voices, and smothered sobs, and fearful glances.
And always horror brooded over the little house, and over the
simple, normal family living that had been so taken for granted a
few days before.

Harriet talked to the little girls, and while they were going to
bed amused Nammy, whose lighter attack of the disease, a week ago,
had begun the siege. Fred, tenderly attempting to reassure his
daughters, buttoned his small son into woollen sleeping-wear,
brought the inevitable drink, heard the garbled prayers, glancing
now and then toward the door, as if fearing a summons, and
looking, Harriet thought, stooped and gray and suddenly old.

She took Linda's place for an hour, but before it was up the
mother came back, and they kept their vigil together. Fred
answered the strange, untimely ringing of the door-bell, brought
in packages, conferred in the halls with the doctors. Midnight
came, two o'clock, four o'clock.

Suddenly there was panic. Harriet, by chance in the hall, saw
Linda and Fred and the doctors together, heard Linda's quick,
anguished "Yes!" and Fred's hoarse "Anything!" Her heart pounded;
the nurse ran upstairs. Harriet fell upon her knees with a sobbing
whisper, "No--no--no!" and Linda clung to her husband with a cry
torn, from the deeps of her heart, "Oh, Pip--my own boy!"

They were all needed; they were back in the sick room, there was
hurry, quick whispers, breathless replies. No time to think now,
though Harriet cast more than one agonized glance at Linda's drawn
face, and nodded more than once to Fred that she should not be
here. The child protested with a choked cry; and Linda's voice,
that new, deep, terrible voice, answered him, "Never mind, my
dearest--just a minute, that's all! Mother is taking care of you!"
And Harriet heard her sister say, in a breath almost inaudible:
"Thy will be done--Thy will be done!"

 Dawn came slowly and reluctantly at seven; the village lay bleak
and closed under a sky of unbroken gray. Here and there smoke
streamed upward from a chimney, or a window-pane showed an oblong
of pale light. The dirty snow, frozen in thick lumps about the
yard, was trodden by a furtive black cat, that mounted a fence and
meowed desolately.

Harriet saw this from Linda's kitchen, when she put out the light
that was becoming unnecessary. But her heart was singing for joy,
and the house was brimful of an inner light and cheer that no
winter bleakness could touch. The girl had been crying until she
was almost blind, but it was a crying mixed with laughter and
prayers of utter thankfulness. She and Fred had built up a roaring
fire, had given the nurse a royal breakfast, had had their own
coffee, and now Harriet was waiting for Linda, in that mood when
the commonplaces of life take on an exquisite flavour, and just to
be free to eat and sleep and live is luxury.

She met Linda at the door, a weary Linda, ghastly as to face,
grayer as to straggling hair, but with such radiance in her eyes
that Harriet, clasped in her arms, began to cry again.

"What YOU need is coffee!" she faltered, trying to laugh, as Linda
sat down and rested her head in her hands.

"Oh, Harriet--if I can ever thank God enough!" Pip's mother said,
beginning on her breakfast with one long sigh. "Oh, my dear--!
He's sleeping like a baby, God bless him, and dear old Fred is
sleeping, too. Oh, Harriet, to go about the house, as I just have,
covering Nammy and the girls, and feeling that we're all going to
be together again, in a few days--my dear, I don't know what I've
done to be so blessed! My boy, who has never given any one one
moment's care or trouble since he was born--my darling, who looked
up at me yesterday with his beautiful eyes--"

The floodgates were loosed, and Linda laughed and cried, while she
enjoyed her breakfast with the appetite of a normal woman released
from cruel strain, whose whole brood lies safely sleeping under
her roof. Nammy's light illness, Pip's wet feet, Linda's
unwillingness to believe that it was anything but a cold, every
hour of the four awful days of danger, she reviewed them all. And
oh, the goodness of people, the solicitude of nurse and doctor,
the generosity of God!

"Fred has been a miracle," said Linda, with her third cup of
coffee, "this will cost him five hundred dollars, but Harriet,
I'll never forget the way his voice rang out yesterday, 'I don't
want you to think of anything but giving me back my boy!' And
Harriet, only ten days ago--it seems ten years--I felt so
terribly, I ACTED so terribly, about that old house that I've been
wanting so long! They sold it at auction, and the Paysons got it
for forty-three hundred, and I was perfectly sick that Fred
wouldn't bid! But now," said Linda, reverently, putting her arm
about Josephine, who came yawning into the kitchen, in her blue
wrapper, "now, if the Father spares me my girls and boys, and
their daddy, I shall never ask anything happier than this! Pip's
better, Jo," she said to the child, who was kissing her dreamily,
over and over, "they put a tube in his throat last night, and
saved him for us! And now Mother must get a bath, and change, and
perhaps some sleep, and then go back and stay with him when he
wakes up!" It was the afternoon of the next day when Harriet could
first speak of her own affairs. Pip, recuperating with the amazing
speed of childhood, was asleep, the other children walking, the
nurse gone. She could lay the whole matter before Linda, who
listened, over her mending, nodded, pursed her lips, or raised her
eyebrows.

If Linda might ever have been worldly minded, she had had her
lesson now, and the viewpoint she gave Harriet was the lofty one
of a woman who has faced a supreme sacrifice without shrinking and
with unwavering faith.

"You did right, dear," she assured her sister. "You could not stay
there, under the circumstances. Whatever their code is, yours is
different, yours has not been vitiated by luxury and idleness. As
for Mr. Carter's talk of marriage, that, of course, is simply an
insult!"

"No, I don't think it was that," Harriet said, feeling herself
revolt inwardly at this plain speaking. She listened to Linda; she
knew Linda was right, but she fought an almost overwhelming
impulse to say rudely, "Oh, shut up, you don't know what you're
talking about."

"I don't see what else it could be," Linda pursued, serenely. "A
married man--you would be no better than his--well, it's not a
nice word--but his mistress!"

"Not at all," Harriet said, trying hard to hide the irritation
that rose rebellious within her, "he is legally free, or will be
soon, and so am I!"

"I am speaking of God's law, not man's," Linda said, gently but
awfully, and Harriet was silent. "Fred says that such men regard
these matters far too lightly," Linda finished. Fred's name, thus
introduced, always had the effect of angering Harriet. She was
suffering cruelly, in these days, and moral reflections held small
consolation for her. She was homesick with an aching, gnawing
homesickness that arose with her in the morning, and went to bed
with her at night; under everything she said and did was the
longing for Crownlands, for just one more word or look from
Richard Carter.

She had shared the family exaltation over Pip's recovery, and had
thought more than once in that fearful night of his illness that
even poverty, gray hairs, and the agony of parenthood, shared with
the man she loved, would have been ecstasy to her. But in the slow
days and weeks that followed, her spirit became exhausted with the
struggle that never ended within her. Her bridges were burned
behind her; it was all over. Whatever her emotions had been in
leaving Crownlands, the Carters' feelings had been quite obvious
and simple. Old Madame Carter had wished her well; Ward had
written from college that he thought it was "rotten," and that she
had been a corker to get Dad to raise his allowance for him; Nina
had felt her own wings the stronger for the change; and Richard
had interrupted his little speech of regret twice to answer the
telephone, and had given her a check that placed, it seemed to
Harriet, the obligation permanently with her. The utter desolation
of spirit with which she had left them was evidently unshared; the
only word she had had from that old life had been from Mary
Putnam, and even this cordial note jarred Harriet with its frank
revelation of the change in her position. Mary wrote:

I telephoned Mr. Carter for your address, and he reports them all
well. I wanted to tell you that I am giving you a tremendous
reputation with Kane Bassett, who wants someone to be with his
little girls. You know their mother died, and the grandmother
lives in England. It would be a beautiful thing for you if I could
manage it. The Putnams are all full of happy plans for a month at
Nassau, as usual running away from January in New York.

Harriet looked at the two words that stood for Richard Carter, and
her heart beat thickly.

"I can't keep this up!" she told herself, playing games with
little convalescent Pip, walking over frozen roads with the girls,
reading under the evening lamp. "I can't keep this up! Twenty-
seven, and a governess, and in love with a married man who does
not know I am alive!" summarized Harriet, bitterly. "I will simply
have to forget it, and begin again, that's all."

And she meditated upon David, the excellent, steady, devoted
David, who was Fred's brother and a dentist in Brooklyn, and who
gave the children wonderful holidays at Asbury Park. It would make
Linda and Fred very happy to have her change toward him: they were
a little hurt and silent about David. He always went with them to
the crowded beach where they spent July and August, had had a car
this year, Linda told her sister, and had been "so popular."

Harriet would look off from her book; David's nearness did not
hold the thrill, the shaking, the happy suffusion of colour that
the most casual remembered glance of Richard Carter still
possessed. No, she was richer in her memory of Richard--

"I think you're a wonder! Don't you think Fred is a wonder!" Linda
would say. Fred's precious bank-account had been almost wiped out
now; he made evening calculations with a sharp pencil. But what
was a bank-account to a Pip coming downstairs on Christmas Day,
shaky but gay, in his wrapper, and glad to be with the family
again?

David was there, Christmas Day, and there was a fire and a tree,
happy children everywhere, rosy little neighbours coming in to see
the toys, snowy wet garments spread on the porch after church.
David took Harriet walking in the fresh cold air, a Harriet so
beautiful in her furry hat and long coat, with her brilliant
cheeks and her blue eyes shining under a blown film of golden
hair, that Linda, as she basted the turkey in the hot kitchen,
couldn't help a little prayer that that would all come out
"right."

"But, Davy dear!" Harriet and David had stopped short in the
exquisite, silent woods. "There is a feeling--a something that
makes marriage RIGHT! And I haven't it, that's all!"

"How do you know you haven't?" he said, smiling.

"Well---" She looked up bravely; David knew her whole story. "I've
had it!"

"You don't mean that old feeling ten years ago? My dear girl, that
wasn't love! That was just a little girl's first feeling. But look
at Fred and Linda after seventeen years. Why, it's sacred--it's
holy. Harriet, if once you said you would, it would COME. Why,
that's the very proof that you're as fine--as sensitive as you
are--that you don't feel it now. But, Harriet," his arm was about
her now, his voice close to her ear "don't let those years with
rich people spoil you for the real thing, dear! Think of our
hunting for an apartment--Fred and I haven't Mother to care for
now; I've some of her good old mahogany, we could pick out
cretonnes and things--think of next summer, all together, down at
the beach! Linda's children---"

She looked up at him, with something wistful in her blue eyes.

"Sounds nice, Davy!" she said, childishly. Instantly she saw leap
to his face the look he had hidden so many years; she heard a new
ring in his voice.

"Ah--you darling! You will? You'll let me tell them---?"

"No, no, no!" Half-angry, half-sorry, she put away his embrace.
"I'll--Davy, I hate to spoil your Christmas Day--I don't know what
to say! I'll think about it!"

"And tell me--it's noon now---" He took out his watch.

"Oh, David, you make me feel as if I were catching a train!"

"And so you are, the Matrimonial Limited!" He would have his kiss,
but only caught it where the bright hair mingled with the dark fur
of her cap. Then she turned to go home, forbidding the topic
imperatively, meeting every buoyant hint with a suddenly serious
warning. Her heart was lead within her.

"I suppose there's no help for it," she thought, in a panic.
"Linda'll see--it'll all be out in five seconds!"

But Linda met them at the door, full of an announcement.

"Harriet, Mr. Carter is here!"

"Mr.--WHO?"

Back came the tide with a great rush, nothing else mattered. For a
moment Harriet was turned to stone. Then in a dream of radiance
and delight she went into the little parlour, and Richard Carter
stood up to greet her, and there was nobody else in the world.
Linda had introduced herself; David was introduced. Harriet
glanced about helplessly; he had not come here to say "Merry
Christmas," surely.

"I suggested that Hansen take the little people for a five-
minutes' drive," he explained, "and then I shall have to hurry
back. I wanted to speak to you on a matter of business, Miss
Field. I wonder--since you're well wrapped--if we might walk to
the corner and meet them; I'll only steal you from your family for
five minutes."

"Certainly!" Harriet's heart was singing. The voice, the
pleasantly certain manner, the firm, kind mouth--she drank in a
fresh impression as if she had been starving! She was hardly
conscious of what he said; it was enough that he had sought her
out, that she was to have one more word with him.

"I came here to discuss my own plans, Miss Field," he said at the
gate, "but a hint from your sister has made me fear that perhaps I
am too late. She tells me that you may be making plans of your
own."

"David?" Harriet said, resentfully. "I have no plans with David!"
she said, simply.

"I didn't know," Richard answered. "I came to ask you to come
back. Things are in an absolute mess with us. We have not had a
serene moment since you left us--three weeks ago."

To go back--back to Crownlands! Harriet's spirit soared. She had
been strong enough to leave, to leave Nina's young impertinence,
and Madame Carter's coldness, but she knew she must go back! She
had only despaired of their ever needing her again. Every fibre of
her being strained toward the old life.

"Linda, my sister, thinks it would be unwise," she began. The man
interrupted her.

"There has been a new turn of events, Miss Field. I had some
information last night which may make a difference," he said,
gravely. "I received a wire from Pope, in France. My wife--
Isabelle--died on an operating table yesterday afternoon, in
Paris."

Harriet, stupefied, could only look at him fixedly for a long
minute. Her lips parted, but she did not speak.

"DIED?" she whispered, sharply. The man nodded without speaking.
"But--but what was it?" Harriet said.

For answer he gave her the crumpled cable, with the bare statement
of fact. She read it dazedly, looked at his sombre face, and read
it again.

"I need not tell you that it is a shock," Richard said, looking
off toward the bare village in its mantle of trampled snow. "It--
it is--a shock." And he folded the cable and returned it to his
pocket. "We were married twenty-three years," he said, simply.
"She was an extremely pretty girl, vivacious and happy--I imagine
hers was a happy life!"

"I can't believe it!" Harriet said.

"Well, now," Richard began presently in a different tone, "we are,
as I said, Miss Field, in a mess. I haven't told the children
this; they have a lot of young people there over Christmas.
Bottomley tells me that he is leaving on the first. My mother and
Nina are planning some entertainment for New Year's night, and I
suppose this will end all that; I should suppose that Nina and her
brother must have a period of mourning. I am deeply involved in a
big project in Brazil, committee meetings all through January--I
can't swing it, that's all.

"Now, when we last talked of the subject together," Richard
pursued in a businesslike way, "you objected to the suggestion of
a marriage, because my wife was then still alive. Am I correct?"

"Yes, that's correct!" Harriet said, voicelessly. She felt herself
beginning to tremble.

"My purpose in coming to-day was to suggest that, if that was your
sole objection," the man continued, painstakingly, "you might feel
the situation changed now. I need you. We all do. If it is my
mother who makes it impossible, or some other thing that I cannot
change--why, I must get along as best I can. But my proposition is
that you and I are quietly married to-morrow; you come back to-
morrow night, and announce it whenever you see fit. Of course, it
might be wiser not to have the two announcements come together;
there will be the usual talk; Nina and my mother prostrated; and
so on, and perhaps--but you must use your own judgment there. I
may seem a little matter-of-fact about this, Miss Field, but I am
hoping you understand. You have impressed me as a woman of unusual
intelligence and sagacity; I am making you an unsentimental
business offer. I need you in my life and I offer you certain
advantages which it would be silly and school-boyish for me to
deny I possess. I have a certain standing in the community which
even Mrs. Carter's madness has not seemed to impair seriously. The
boy and the girl both love you, and you have my warmest
friendship. As for the financial end there will be the usual
provision made for you in case of my death and I will make the
same monthly arrangement with you that I had with Isabelle. I
mention these matters so that you may understand that your
position in my household will be as free and independent as was
Isabella's. I do not know whether you will consider this a fair
return for what I ask, for after all you are giving your services
for life to the Carter household--

"Now, this is of course entirely subject to what pleases you in
the matter," he broke off to say emphatically. "I merely throw it
out as a suggestion. It would please me very much. I would draw a
long breath of relief to have it settled. Mrs. Tabor is there--
stays there; takes the head of my table. I spent last night at the
club; I had cabled Pope--and expected an answer, but my mother
telephoned me at three o'clock this morning to say that Ward and
some of his friends had gone out ice-skating. Ward's been dropped
from his university. I can't have that sort of thing, you know!"

"When--did you want me?" Harriet brought her beautiful eyes back
from some far vista.

"To-morrow?" he said, with sudden hope in his voice.

"To-morrow!" the girl echoed, in a dream.

"I thought that if you could meet me at my office to-morrow, I
would have all the arrangements made. Nina is to be at the
Hawkes'; I send the car for her at three. I thought that you and
she could go home together to Crownlands. I'll have to be in town
that night."

"Home--to Crownlands!" Suddenly Harriet's lip quivered, and her
eyes brimmed with tears. "I'll be very glad to go back," she said,
in a low voice.

"Good!" he said. "I needn't tell you how I feel about it, it helps
me out tremendously. Now, about to-morrow, how would you like that
to be?"

"Well," she laughed desperately through her tears. "We're Church
of England!" She laughed again when he took out his notebook and
wrote the words down.

"Once it's done," he said, reassuringly, "you'll see my mother and
all the rest of them come into line! It puts you in a definite
position, and although I may seem to be rushing and confusing you
now, there is a more peaceful time to come--we'll HOPE!" he added,
grimly. "Here's Hansen now. Lovely children," he added, of the
young Davenports and some intimates who were tumbling out of the
car, "lovely mother."

"You'll not speak of this yet?" Harriet said, suddenly thinking of
David and Linda. "My sister might think it lacked deliberation--so
close upon Mrs. Carter's death. I'd rather have a little time, get
things straightened out---"

"Oh, certainly--certainly!" She could see he was relieved, was
indeed in cheerful spirits, as he gave his furred hand to the
children's mittened ones. They thanked him shrilly and Hansen
smiled warmly upon Harriet as he touched his cap. Then they were
gone. Linda, watching from the window, thought that the
chauffeur's obvious respect for Harriet was rather impressive. She
came to the porch, and Richard waved his farewell to them en
masse.

"He's very nice," said Linda. "Poor fellow, he probably would have
had an entirely different moral code, if his life had been
different!" Harriet inwardly writhed, but she did not stir in the
sisterly embrace of Linda's arm. "Now if he would marry this Mrs.
Tabor, whoever she is," Linda resumed, comfortably, "that would be
quite suitable! Then you could go back with perfect propriety--"

"Oh, HUSH, for Heaven's sake!" Harriet said, in the deeps of her
being. But she said nothing aloud as they turned back into the
warm house.

Fred's face was radiant; for no apparent purpose he caught his
sister-in-law in his arms as she passed him, and kissed the top of
her hair

"Here--here--here--what's all this!" Linda laughed.

"Nothing at all!" Fred said, evidently in boisterous spirits.
Harriet looked sharply at David, but he was innocently laying
train tracks for little Nammy. But she suspected at once that the
elder brother had had a hint that matters were at least under
consideration, and the rather aimless laugh with which Linda
presently embraced her, and the air of suppressed excitement that
marked the Christmas dinner, all confirmed the suspicion. She felt
a prickling sensation of the skin; a flush of helpless annoyance.




CHAPTER XV


At three o'clock the next afternoon, Nina Carter, leaving the
Hawkes' mansion in New York City, with a great many laughing
farewells, descended to her father's waiting car, and discovered,
sitting therein, an extremely handsome young woman, furred and
trimly veiled, and deep in pleasant conversation with Hansen.

"Miss Harriet!" Nina ejaculated, in a tone that betrayed a vague
resentment as well as a definite surprise.

"Nina, dear!" Harriet accepted Nina's kiss warmly. "Are you glad
to see me?" And as Nina stumbled in, and established herself,
Harriet continued easily, "Your father and I had a talk, my dear,
and he suggested that I come back for awhile. So Hansen picked me
up at the office, and here I am! He tried to telephone you, I
know, but you were out. And now," said Harriet, glancing at her
wrist watch, "I think we will go right home, please, Hansen!"

Nina had been her own mistress for several delicious weeks, and to
have any sort of restriction again was very unpalatable to her.
Harriet could almost have laughed at her discomfiture, although
she was sorry for her, too. Nina smiled and listened with notable
effort; Harriet knew she was chagrined.

She sulked all the way home, and Madame Carter, meeting them at
Crownlands, gazed rather stonily at the newcomer, granting her
only the briefest greeting. But oh, how homelike and welcoming the
beautiful place, mantled in snow, looked to Harriet's eyes. The
snapping fires, the warmth and fragrance of the big rooms, and the
very obvious welcome of the maids, all were enchanting to her. Her
first duty was to make a brief tour below stairs, after which she
went up to her own room.

When they returned from Huntington in the fall, she and Nina at
Richard's suggestion had taken Isabelle's handsome rooms, turning
both into bedrooms, and sharing the dressing rooms and bath that
joined them. It was here that Harriet found Nina awaiting her,
still with her hat on, and loitering with obvious discomfiture.
There had been no actual changes in her room except that the
personal touch was gone. Bottomley had put her bags here, and Nina
spoke first of them.

"You've got a new suitcase?"

"Yes, I got that this morning; isn't it stunning?" Harriet eyed
its shiny blackness with satisfaction. "I had to get a gown or
two," she added, "and some little things! We've been so quiet at
Mrs. Davenport's that I hadn't any new clothes. Pip was ill, you
know."

"Miss Harriet!" Nina said with a rush. "You're so sweet about
things like this, I wonder if you will mind taking the yellow
guest room--it's really much larger--and leaving this room? You
see when I have friends--"

Harriet, at the dressing table, had raised her hands to remove her
hat. Like any general, she realized the crisis of the apparently
unimportant moment, and met it by instinct.

"But you have an extra bed, besides the couch, in your room,
Nina!"

Nina cleared her throat, threw back her head, regarded Harriet
between half-closed eyelids in a manner Harriet realized was new,
and drawled:

"I know. But if you would be so very kind---?"

"Do you know, I'm afraid I shan't be so very kind!" Harriet said,
briskly. "You're one of my duties here, you know, little girl, and
I think Daddy would prefer to have me near you! Now, if you like
to ask him, perhaps he'll not agree with me; in which case I shall
move immediately! But meanwhile--" She picked up a thick book from
the table, read the title idly: "'Secret Memoirs of the Favourites
of the French Courts!' Where on earth did you get this?" she
asked, surprised. '"Five Dollars Net,'" she mused, glancing
through it. "How well I know this sort of rubbish! There are
thousands of them on the market, exquisitely printed, beautifully
bound, and just so much--rot! Secret memoirs of the favourites of
the French Courts indeed! Most of them hadn't the brains to write
a decent note!" scoffed Harriet, cheerfully.

Nina's face was scarlet; she left the room abruptly. A moment or
two later Harriet sauntered into the adjoining room, and found her
again. The younger girl was assuming a ruffled and beribboned
negligee, and tossing her wraps and street dress about carelessly.
Harriet noted this with disapproving eyes, but said nothing. There
was an immense picture of Mrs. Tabor on the dressing table, and
she found in that a sudden solution of the strange change in Nina.

"'With Ladybird's unending devotion, to Ninette,'" read Harriet,
from the inky scrawl across the picture. "Do you call her
Ladybird, Nina? You and she have formed a pretty strong
friendship, haven't you?"

"Oh, something more than that!" Nina drawled in her new manner.
But, being Nina, she could not resist the desire to display the
new possession. She jerked open a desk drawer, and Harriet saw
thick letters, still in their envelopes, and tied in bundles. "We
write each other almost every day!" said Nina, yawning, as she
flung herself down upon a couch, and reached for a book.

"I should fancy she would make a loyal friend," Harriet observed,
generously. Nina softened a little, although her voice was still
carefully bored and arrogant when she spoke:

"Oh, she's the best sort!"

It was one of Mrs. Tabor's phrases, Harriet recognized. She moved
easily about the room, picking up other handsome, superbly
illustrated volumes: "An American Woman in the Sultan's Harem," "A
Favourite of Kings."

"Does she have my room when she is here?" Harriet presently
suggested, sympathetically. "Now, my dear," she added, as Nina's
quick self-conscious and hostile look gave consent, "Mrs. Tabor is
too thoroughly acquainted with convention to blame you if your
father keeps you under a governess's eye for a little while
longer. You're the most precious thing your father has, Nina, and
as I used to remind you years ago, you don't begin to have the
restrictions that the European princesses have to bear!"

This view of the case was always pleasing to Nina's vanity; she
was quite clever enough to see that a friend protected and
confined, watched and valued, would lose no prestige with the
charming "Ladybird." She pouted; and Harriet saw that for the
moment the battle was hers.

"Darling gown!" said Harriet of the picture.

"Oh, she has the most wonderful clothes!" It was the old Nina's
voice. "She doesn't spend much, but she goes to the BEST places,
and they know her there, and the women at Hatson's will say, 'I've
got a gown for you, Mrs. Tabor!' She picked out this negligee, and
she picked out another gown for me that you haven't seen. That was
one thing that made trouble between her and her husband," Nina
said, eagerly. "She can't help looking smart, and he used to get
so jealous, and she told me that she told the judge exactly what
she spent for clothes the last year, and he said that that was
less than his wife spent, mind you, and he said he didn't know how
she did it! And that was the judge, that had never laid eyes on
her before! She used to cry and cry, after she got her divorce,
because she said that she thought there was a sort of disgrace
about it. But this judge in Nevada said that a man like Jack Tabor
ought to be horsewhipped!"

"Has she--been here very much?" Harriet said, after a moment.

"Oh, lots! She loves to be here, and I can't think why," Nina
said, "because people are all crazy to get her, and she could go
to the most wonderful dinners and things. But she really is just
like a girl, herself; sometimes we burst right out laughing,
because we think exactly the same about things! And she just loves
picnics, and to let her hair down--and she's so funny! You'll just
love her when you know her--"

Nina, Harriet reflected, had had a thorough dose of poison. It
would take, like many diseases, more poison to cure her, a counter
dose. Going to her room to change to one of the new gowns, Harriet
had a moment of contempt for the new-found intimate, who could so
unscrupulously play upon the girl's hungry soul. But with this
situation it was possible to cope; there was definite comfort in
the fact that Nina had not mentioned Royal Blondin.

Brave in the new gown, whose lustreless black velvet made even
more brilliant her matchless skin, Harriet went to find Ward. She
met instead one of his house-guests, Corey Eaton, a man some years
older than Ward, a big, rawboned, unscrupulous youth, with a wild
and indiscriminate laugh. Mr. Eaton, greeting her
enthusiastically, admitted frankly that he was just up from bed,
and that he had been "lit up like a battleship" last night, and
that he still felt the effects of it.

"Mr. Eaton," Harriet said, in an undertone, making another
strategic decision, "come in here to the library, will you? I want
to speak to you."

"When you speak to me thus," said Corey Eaton, passionately, "I
can refuse you naught!"

But he sobered instantly into tremendous gravity at Harriet's
first confidence. She told him simply of Isabelle's death.

"Well, that surely is rotten--the poor old boy!" said Corey,
affectionately. "Ward's mad about his mother, too! Well, say, what
do you know about that? We'll beat it, Miss Field, Nixon and I. We
came in my car and we'll go to the Jays' for dinner. Say, that is
tough, though, isn't it?"

It was not eloquent, but it was sincere, and Harriet made her
thanks so personal and so flattering that the young man could only
fervently push his plans for departure, swearing secrecy, and
evidently touched by being taken into her confidence. The
fastnesses were yielding one after another; Harriet could have
laughed as she left him at the foot of the stairs. Bottomley
respectfully addressed her as she turned back into the hall:

"Miss Field, I wonder if you'd be so good--?"

She nodded, and accompanied him instantly into the pantry where
they could be alone.

"It's Madame," said Bottomley, bitterly, "she's just 'ad me up
there agine, it's really tryin'--that's what it is. It's tryin'!
Now she'ad to'ave her say about you bein' at table, Miss Field. I
says that you 'ad stipulited that you WAS to be there. Now, I
says, and I says it arbitrarily like, and yet I says it
respectful, too---"

"Now, just wait one moment, Bottomley," Harriet said, soothingly.
"I want to talk to you and Pilgrim. Is she in her room? Suppose we
go there?"

Pleased with the consideration in her manner, the outraged
Bottomley led the way. Mrs. Bottomley was enjoying a solitary cup
of tea; she bustled hospitably for more cups.

"I want to tell you that your comin' has taken a load off my
soul," said Pilgrim, a gray, round-visaged woman who had a
sentimental heart," and so I said to Mr. Carter not three days
since! I know that Bottomley," said Pilgrim with an Englishwoman's
admiring look for her lord, "would never have spoke so harsh if he
had but known you might come back. It's been very bad, indeed,
Miss, since you went, as we was tellin' you a bit back. Impudence,
orders this way and that, confusion and what not, and Mr. Ward
very wild, really very wild, and so at last Bottomley said he
couldn't stand it."

"I'm hoping he will reconsider that," Harriet said, pleasantly,
with a glance at the face Bottomley tried to make inflexible. "For
I'm going to tell you two old friends some news. We have always
been friends, haven't we?" said Harriet.

"It would be 'ard to be anything else, and I've said it before
this! It's a different 'ouse with you in it!" Bottomley said.
Pilgrim, rocking to and fro, clasped Harriet's hand to her breast,
and beamed. With no further preamble Harriet announced Isabelle's
death.

The servants were naturally shocked. There were a few moments of
ejaculatory and sorrowful surprise. Her that was so young and so
'andsome, and went off so bold and high! It didn't seem possible,
so far away from 'ome and all.

When this had died away, Harriet had more news.

"I'm going to tell you two something," she began. "You are the
very first to know, and I know you'll be glad. Before I left the
house last October, Mr. Carter did me the--the great honour to ask
me to--to marry him."

It gave her inward delight even to voice it; it made the miracle
seem more real. Bottomley and Pilgrim exchanged stupefied glances
in a dead silence.

"I met him at eleven o'clock to-day," Harriet finished. simply,
"and we drove to Greenwich in Connecticut, and we were married at
one o'clock."

Bottomley and Pilgrim glanced again at each other, glanced at
Harriet, opened their mouths slowly.

Then Pilgrim dropped the hand she was familiarly caressing, and
Bottomley rose slowly to his feet.

"Oh, no!" Harriet said, flushing in utter confusion and with a
nervous laugh. "Oh, please! Please sit down, Bottomley, and please
don't either of you think that it has made any difference.
Although I am Mrs. Carter now, I'm still Miss Nina's companion!"

"To think of you bein' Mrs. Carter!" Pilgrim marvelled in a
whisper.

"Oh, sh--sh--sh! You mustn't say it even!" Harriet caught both
their hands. "No one must know. I only told you so that you would
help me, so that you would understand! There will be no change,
anywhere--"

Bottomley shook a dazed head; but Pilgrim looked at the other
woman with kindly eyes, and presently said:

"Well, now, it's hard on you, so young and pretty and all, and
goin' right on as if you wasn't married a bit!"

Harriet only smiled, but she blinked black lashes that the little
touch of sympathy had suddenly made wet. And presently when
Bottomley was gone, and she about to follow him, she laid one hand
on Pilgrim's broad black alpaca shoulder, and said:

"I had my own reasons, Pilgrim, you know. Reasons that make it all
seem--right, to me!"

"Well, why wouldn't you?" Pilgrim said, approvingly. "You'd have
been a very silly girl not to take him, and--as I always tell the
girls--love'll come fast enough afterwards!"

The words came back to Harriet, hours later, when the house was
quiet, and when, comfortably wrapped in a loose silk robe, she was
musing beside her fire. Nina was asleep; to Ward, who was headachy
and feverish, she had paid a late visit. He had been sick enough,
after the revel of Christmas Eve, to summon a doctor to-day; and
was dozing restlessly now, under the effect of a sedative. Madame
Carter had not come down to dinner, and when Harriet had sent in a
message, had asked to be excused from any calls, even from Nina
and Miss Field, this evening.

Nina had chattered constantly during the meal. Granny had had a
terrible time with them all. And Ward and Nina and "Royal"--the
name suddenly leaped between them again--had been arrested for
speeding. And Daddy had threatened Nina with a boarding-school,
and Granny had cried.

"Where is Mr. Blondin now, Nina?" Harriet had asked.

"Oh, he's round!" Nina had said, airily. "I suppose you put Daddy
up to saying that I wasn't to see so much of him!" she had added,
with her worldly wise drawl.

"Not at all," Harriet had said.

"Ladybird and I are planning a trip," Nina had further confided.
"I shall be eighteen in February, you know, and we want to go
round the world. Would'nt it be wonderful to go with her, for
she's been about fifty times!"

"Wonderful!" Harriet had been obliged to concede.

"You know"-and Nina, in good spirits, had put her arm about
Harriet as they left the table--"you know, some day I'd love to do
it with you!" she had said, soothingly. "And some day we will, for
I mean to travel a great deal. But just now--she spoke of it, you
know. And it would be such an unusual opportunity. We're going to
Algiers--and Athens--Mr. Blondin is making out the list for us,
and wouldn't it be fun if he could go, too? He's afraid he can't,
but if he could--!"

"But, dearest child, what does your father think?"

"Father--" Nina had shrugged regretfully. "But I shall be of age!"
she had reminded her companion.

"Yes, I know, dear, but Father's ward for another three years, you
know!"

"Why, Ladybird says"--the girl had been ready, and had spoken with
flushed cheeks--"Ladybird says that in that case we'll go anyway,
and she'll pay all expenses! That's the kind of friend SHE is!"

And Nina had flounced to a telephone, and had telephoned her
friend in New York, laughing, coquetting, and murmuring for a
blissful half hour.

"Love'll come fast enough afterward!" Pilgrim had said, and
Harriet thought Pilgrim was rather a wise woman, in her homely
way. The girl stirred the fire and settled herself to watch it
again.

After what? Well, certainly not after anything so short, simple,
and unconvincing as that three minutes with the clergyman to-day.
The utter unreality of that had seemed to blend with the silent,
snowy day, and with the dulled and dreamy condition of her own
brain. Snow was falling softly when she had met Richard Carter at
the office, at half-past ten, and snow lisped against the windows
of the limousine as they two, with Irving Fox, Richard's kindly,
middle-aged, confidential clerk, were whirled out of the city, and
on and on through the bare little wintry towns. They had all
talked together, sometimes of herself and her sister, sometimes of
Nina and Ward, of Fox's amazing grandchildren, and of business.
Fox had had some papers to which they occasionally referred; the
old clerk was the only person to congratulate Harriet warmly when
the brief and bewildering business was over and she had her
wedding ring. It was alone with Fox that she made the return trip.
Richard came back by train, saving an hour, and was at the office
when they got there. Harriet did not see him again; he was in
conference; and presently she quietly got back into the motor-car,
and on her way to meet Nina she slipped the plain circle of gold
into her hand bag.

She had it out to-night, and put it on her bare, pretty hand, and
held it to the fire, and slowly the events of the bewildering and
tiring day wheeled before her, and only the reality of the ring
assured her that it was not all a confused dream. Married! And all
alone before the glowing coals, weary from hostile encounters, on
her marriage night! Ward, to be sure, was always her champion, but
Ward was drinking heavily just now, and her influence was none the
stronger because he admired her while she held him at arm's-
length. Nina was all ready to flame into defiance, and the old
lady's message had not been reassuring.

"But Bottomley and Pilgrim will stand by me!" Harriet said, with a
shaky laugh. She looked about the beautiful familiar room, the
room that had been Isabelle's for so many years, and wondered to
think of Isabelle, lying dead so far away, and a usurper already
holding her name and place.

She had intended to write to Linda to-night; Linda was vexed with
her, and small wonder! For Harriet had left the little New Jersey
house almost without farewells, had come down to an earlier
breakfast even than Fred's, and had said briefly that she was
returning to the Carters, and would see them all soon.

Why hadn't she told Linda? Well, for one reason, she had hardly
believed her own memory of the talk on Christmas Day with Richard.
Then she had feared opposition, feared Linda's shocked references
to decent intervals of mourning; Linda's frank unbelief that there
was no strong personal feeling involved on Richard's part; Linda's
advice to a bride.

Harriet's face burned at the mere thought of it. No, she couldn't
tell Linda yet; she was too tired to write to-night, anyway. Linda
and Fred had not been at all approving, Christmas night. David had
reproached her, had disappeared earlier than was expected or
necessary; they had not failed of their suspicions.

"Well! I must go to bed," she said aloud, suddenly. She stood, one
elbow on the mantel, her beautiful eyes fixed on the dying fire.
It was midnight, the room and the house very still. Outside the
snow was still falling--falling. Her loose gown slipped back from
the round young arm, fell in folds about the slender figure; her
rich hair was braided, and hung in a rope of gold over one
shoulder. Her smoke-blue eyes, heavy-lidded in a rather white
face, met their own gaze in the mirror. "It isn't exactly what I
expected marriage to be," mused Harriet, smiling at the exquisite
vision upon which no other eyes would fall. "But after all," she
said to herself, beginning to move about with last preparations
for bed, "I'm married to the man I love--nothing can change that.
And if he doesn't love me, he likes me. I've done nothing wrong,
and if my life is just a little different from most women's, why,
I shall have to make the best of it! And I did tell him--I did
tell him--"

And her thoughts went back to the first few minutes she had spent
in Richard's office that day. They had been alone, discussing the
last details of their astonishing plan, when she had suddenly
taken the plunge.

"Mr. Carter, there is just one thing! Of course," Harriet's cheeks
had flamed, "of course, this marriage of ours is not the usual
marriage, and yet, there is just one thing of which I would like
to speak to you before we--we go up to Greenwich." And finding his
gray eyes pleasantly fixed upon her she had gone on, confused but
determined: "I'm twenty-seven now-and perhaps I might have married
some other man before this--except that-when I was seventeen-I did
fall in love with a man! And we were to be married--!" She had
stopped short; it was incredibly hard. "He had--or I thought he
had, brought something tremendously big and wonderful into my
life," Harriet had continued, "and I was a stupid little girl,
just taking care of my sister's babies and reading my father's
books--"

"You are under no obligation to tell me anything of this," Richard
had said, kindly, far more concerned for her distress than
interested in what she was saying. "I must have known that there
were admirers! I assure you that--"

"No, but just a moment!" Harriet had interrupted him. "I was
infatuated--I knew that at once, God knows I've known it ever
since! I went away with him, little fool that I was!"

A gleam of genuine surprise had come into Richard Carter's eyes,
and he looked at her without speaking.

"I was taken ill the day I left with him. While I was getting well
I had time to think it over. I knew then I was too young and too
ignorant to be any man's wife. I was frightened and I--well, I ran
away; I went back to my sister. Both she and her husband regarded
me after that as in some way marked, unprincipled, unworthy--"

"Poor child!" Richard had said. "They naturally would. You were no
more than Nina's age!"

"So that's my history," Harriet had finished, simply. "I thought I
had done with men. And there have been men, men like Ward, for
instance, to whom I could have been married without feeling that I
need make any mention of that old time. But I wanted to tell you."

"Thank you very much," Richard had said, gravely. "If the
protection of my name and my house seems welcome to you, after
some battling with the world, it will be an additional
satisfaction to me."

And then before another word was spoken Fox had come in,
announcing the car, and they had begun the long, strange drive.
And now, deep in the quiet winter night, she was back at
Crownlands, alone beside her fire, able at last to rest, and to
remember. It seemed to her that ever since Richard's call on
Linda's Christmas household yesterday she had walked strangely
detached and isolated, with odd booming noises in her ears, and a
panicky thumping at her heart. Now she felt suddenly safe and
secure again; none of the oppositions she had vaguely feared, from
David, from Linda, from the family at Crownlands, had interrupted
the mad plan; she was in a stronger position now than ever, and if
the path before her was dangerous and difficult, she was not too
weary to-night to feel confident of following it to the end.

She got into the luxurious bed, put out the bedside light, and lay
with her hands clasped behind her head, thinking. The clock struck
one; snow was still falling steadily outside, but in here the last
pink glow of firelight flickered and sank--flickered and sank
lazily. It touched the flowered basket chairs, the roses that
filled a bowl on the bookshelf, the table with its shaded lamp and
its magazines.

Some sudden thought made Harriet smile ruefully. She indicated
that it was unwelcome by turning over to bury her bright head in
the pillow, and resolutely composing herself for sleep.




CHAPTER XVI


Morning found them half-buried in a bright dazzle of snow, the
midwinter miracle that sets the most jaded heart singing and the
weariest blood to moving more quickly. The bare trees glittered in
a glassy casing, and every twig carried its burden of soft fur.
Half-a-dozen shovels were scraping and clinking about Crownlands
when Nina and Harriet came downstairs, and Harriet saw the men
laughing and talking as they worked. The telephone announced
Francesca Jay, with an eager luncheon invitation for Nina and
Ward; they were bob-sledding, and it was perfectly glorious!

"I wish I liked people as much as they like me," Nina remarked
over her breakfast. "Now I like the Jays--but this being invited
everywhere--all the time!" Harriet, who suspected that Miss Jay's
hospitality was really directed at the engaging Ward, good-
naturedly persuaded him to go with his sister, thus assuring a
real welcome from Francesca. He looked pale, complained of a
headache, and breakfasted on black coffee, but agreed with her
that fresh air and exercise would be the one sure cure for him,
and tramped off beside Nina at eleven o'clock willingly enough.

Harriet was through with her housekeeping and her luncheon, and
meditating a letter to Linda, when Ida Tabor fluttered in. Harriet
heard the gay voice at the foot of the stairs: "Oh, sweetheart!
Where's my little girl?"

Mrs. Tabor looked a trifle dashed when only Harriet responded,
although she immediately assured Miss Field cordially with bright
insincerity that she had known of her return, and was "so glad!"

"I've been a sort of big sister here," she said, laughingly, "and,
my Lord, these kids have managed things wonderfully! But I suppose
sooner or later the machinery would have stalled without your fine
Italian hand!"

"Mr. Carter asked me to come back," Harriet stated, simply. She
thought the truth her best weapon, but Mrs. Tabor was ready for
her.

"Mary Putnam told us that you were just resting and looking
about," she said, innocently, "and Dick--generous that he is!--
couldn't feel comfortably about it, I suppose! Well, I wanted to
see Nina--?"

Harriet explained Nina's absence, and Mrs. Tabor pouted.

"I'd have stopped there," she said. "I'm on my way to the
Fordyces'; they have a regular New Year's party, you know--"

This was deliberate, Harriet knew. Ida Tabor had not always been
admitted to the Fordyces' sacred portals.

"Blondin and I are getting it up," she further elucidated, "I want
Nina in it, and Ward, too. Blondin is lending us the most gorgeous
tapestries and things you ever saw!"

Harriet was not concerned for Nina's plans after today; for
Richard had telephoned her at three o'clock that the morning
papers would have "the news," and that he was coming home to tell
his children of their mother's death, to-night. But she must get
rid of this woman now, somehow. It would be fatal to have Ida
Tabor here when Richard Carter returned. Her time was short,
Harriet thought anxiously, for at any minute now the young people
might stream back for tea.

"I might run up now and see the old lady!" said Mrs. Tabor who had
flung off her furs, and beautified herself at her hand-bag mirror.
"I don't really have to get to the Fordyces' until just before
dinner--really not then, if Nina wanted me!" She pressed her lips
together for the red colouring. "Mr. Carter be here to-night?" she
asked, casually.

Bottomley caused an interruption. Harriet turned to him with
relief. But unfortunately he answered the very question she was
trying to evade.

"Mr. Carter had just telephoned, 'm, and says that he'll be 'ere
at about six, 'm!"

"Oh, thank you, Bottomley!" Harriet turned back to Ida, to see her
complacently loosening outer wraps.

"I came in the Warrens' car," said she, "they were to run over and
say Merry Christmas to the Bellamys, and then pick me up. But--if
I won't be in the way!--perhaps I might stay and see Nina; we've
become great chums. I suppose I'd better go to the room I always
have? Then I'll run up and get the latest news of the Battle of
Shiloh from Madame Carter!"

It was now or never; Harriet's heart began to beat.

"Madame Carter has gone driving," she said. "She may be in at any
moment, but before she comes, I want to speak to you. We've had
terrible news here, Mrs. Tabor. Mr. Carter is coming home to tell
the children and his mother to-night. Mr. Pope cabled from Paris
on Christmas Eve that Mrs. Carter suddenly died that day!"

Ida Tabor never felt anything very deeply, but her emotions were
accessible enough, and violent while they lasted. She grew white,
gasped, somehow reached a chair, and burst into honest tears.
Isabelle--! Why, they had been friends for years! Why, she had
been so wonderfully well and strong!

"My God, isn't that the limit!" said Mrs. Tabor, drying her eyes.
"I don't know why I'm such a fool," she added, with perhaps a
faint resentment of Harriet's calm, "but I declare it's just about
taken my breath away! And they don't know it! Isn't that simply
terrible!"

"Nobody knows it," Harriet said. And not quite innocently she
added: "The Fordyces, the Bellamys--everyone who knew her--are in
total ignorance of it! If you do tell them, Mrs. Tabor--and there
is no reason why you shouldn't--"

"Oh, I shall stay here with Nina to-night, anyway!" the visitor
said, decidedly. "She'll need me, of course! Poor little thing!"

"It seems too bad to spoil your New Year's plans," Harriet said,
smiling, "but you know Nina! She will put those long arms of hers
about you--and she won't hear of your leaving her for days! With
Nina," Harriet pursued, thoughtfully, "it isn't so much that one
can't find a good excuse, as that she won't hear of excuses at
all! I remember when Mrs. Carter first went away, there were days
of it--weeks of it!--just talk, tears, tears, and talk--my arm
used to ache from the weight of Nina's arm! Mr. Carter intends to
leave for Chicago to-morrow, Ward will probably go up to the
Eatons'---" Harriet rambled on, not unconscious that she was
making an impression. "Anyway," she finished, "we shall be
fearfully quiet and alone here, and your being here would simply
save the day for Nina!"

"Oh, I really couldn't stay over New Year's," Mrs. Tabor, looking
slightly discomfited, said slowly. "You see, the Fordyces--"

"Nina may keep you," Harriet said, lightly. Perhaps the other
woman had a sudden vision of the overwhelming Nina, a Nina so
convinced of her friend's real desire to stay that with a certain
sportive heaviness she would do the necessary telephoning and
explaining herself, to keep her. Perhaps she saw the alternate
vision of herself at the Fordyces' inaccessible, and it must be
confessed dull, dinner table, electrifying them all with the news
of Isabelle Carter, coming as one admitted to the family
confidence and councils. She looked undecided, and bit her under-
lip.

"One wonders--?" she said, musingly. "Of course, I shouldn't want
to intrude to-night--it would be merely to have them feel that I
was HERE--"

"Mr. Carter has asked me to see that the family is alone to-
night," Harriet said, courageously, "but of course he may feel
that you are an exception," she added, with the impersonal air of
a mere employee. "I only want to be able to tell him that I
repeated his request, and told you the reason for it. That's"--and
she smiled pleasantly--"that is as far as my authority goes, of
course. I shall say simply that you know of his wishes, and if you
remain, I know I can say that it was to please Nina!"

And now the two women exchanged an open glance that needed no
pretence and no concealment, and it was a glance of enmity.

"When I visit this house it is not at your invitation, Miss
Field!" said Mrs. Tabor, frankly. "I am aware of that," Harriet
said, simply.

"Will you be so kind as to tell Nina and Madame Carter," the
visitor was resuming her wraps, and arranging her handsome hat and
veil, "that I will be here to-morrow, and that anything I can do I
will be so glad to do!--Is that Mrs. Warren's car, Bottomley?
Thank you. Good afternoon, Miss Field!"

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Tabor!" Harriet followed her to the hall
door, and heard a Parthian shot, ad-dressed in a cheerfully high
voice to kindly old Mrs. Warren, Mrs. Fordyce's mother, who was in
the limousine.

"Nobody home! All my trouble for nothing!"

Old Mrs. Warren leaned against the frosted glass; waved from the
holly-dressed interior at Harriet, and the girl saw her lips frame
"Merry Christmas!" The door slammed; Bottomley came with stately
footsteps up to the hall again. Harriet gave a little laugh of
triumph. Now the coast was clear!

Thus it was that Richard Carter found only his mother and his
children at the dinner table that night, and no guests under his
roof. Miss Field, to be sure, was at the head of the table, but
then Miss Field was a member of the family. He interrogated her
briefly as they went in.

"Ward's gang? That Eaton ass?"

"Oh, they went yesterday!"

"Speak to Bottomley?"

"Yes. He and Pilgrim are quite reconciled to remaining." Harriet
buttoned a cuff, to hide a dimple that would come to the corner of
her mouth. "And Mrs. Tabor came, and would have stayed," she could
not resist the temptation to add, "but I persuaded her that some
other time would be better!"

"Scene with Nina about it?" Richard had asked, curiously.

"Nina was not here," Harriet answered. And there was a faint smile
in the deep blue eyes that she raised suddenly to his.

"Ah, well, I knew of course that you would manage it!" he said,
contentedly. "It seems black art to me. I had enough of it!"

She smiled again, and went quietly to her place. But when he
summoned Ward and Nina to his mother's room, after dinner, she had
disappeared, and the family was quite alone when he broke the news
to them.

Harriet, presently needed again, was astonished at the emotion of
the old lady, who had been genuinely fond of her daughter-in-law,
and had always been loyal to Isabelle, as one of the Carters.
Madame Carter was greatly shaken, Nina hysterical, Ward aggrieved,
irritated at his own feeling. He had not seen his mother for seven
months, she had brought nothing but a certain unpleasant notoriety
to her children, yet her death struck both the young creatures
forcibly, and they felt shocked and shaken.

"We can't be in the Fordyce tableaux," said Nina in an interval
between floods of sobs. "Not that I would want to, now! But I
don't know; it seems to me that I am the most unfortunate girl in
the world!"

"I think both you and Ward should wear black for a certain
period," Richard said to her. He had been walking the floor
nervously, stopping now and then beside the great chair where his
mother sat silent and stricken, to put his arm about her
shoulders, and murmur to her consolingly.

"When my mother died," Madame Carter quavered, with her
handkerchief pressed to the tip of her nose, "my sisters and I
wore black, and refused all social engagements for one year. We
then, I remember distinctly, began to wear white and lavender--"

Harriet smiled inwardly at the picture of Victorian mourning and
compared it to the mourning of to-day, as different indeed as was
the conception of motherhood to-day.

"I remember that a cousin of my mother, Cousin Mallie we used to
call her, got in a sewing woman, and all our black things were
made right there in the house--" the old lady was pursuing,
mournfully, when Nina broke in pettishly:

"I don't see why I have to wear black!"

"Why should you?" Ward said with bitter scorn. "It's only your
mother!" Nina began to cry.

"You and I will go down to Landmann's early to-morrow, Nina,"
Harriet suggested, "and we'll have someone show us what is simple
and nice--not crape, you know," Harriet said with a glance at
Richard Carter, "but black, for a few months anyway."

"I think that would be the least, Richard," his mother approved.
"I believe I will go with you," she condescended to Harriet,
"after all, Isabelle was my daughter-in-law, and the mother of my
grandchildren!"

"And I won't go to California or Bermuda or any-where else unless
Ladybird comes!" Nina burst out, with a broken sob.

"Nonsense!" her father began harshly. Harriet said:

"Bermuda? Is there a plan for Bermuda?"

"I suggested it for a few weeks," Richard said, frowning, "but I
don't propose to have Nina invite a group of friends. That isn't
exactly the idea."

"We could ask Mrs. Tabor," Harriet said, soothingly; "it is right
in the middle of the season, and perhaps she will feel she can
hardly spare the time. But I'm sure that if she can--"

"If I ask her, she'll go," Nina said, in a sulky, confident
undertone.

Harriet had her doubts, but she did not express them. A month at
Nassau, in the undiluted company of Nina and her grandmother, was
enough to appall even Harriet's stout heart.

The event proved her right, for while Ida Tabor flew at once to
her disconsolate little friend, and assured Richard with tears in
her eyes that she would do anything in the world to help him, she
weakened when the actual test arrived.

"If just you and I and your dear grandmother were going, dearest
girl," she said to Nina, "then it would be perfect. But as long as
Miss Field, who is perfectly charming and conscientious and all
that, feels that she must accompany us, why--you and I would never
be a moment alone, sweetheart, you know that! I DON'T like to
think that it's jealousy--"

"Of course it's jealousy," Nina was pleased to decide, gloomily.
"Granny says that we don't need her, but Father just sticks to it
that she must manage everything!"

"I am going to run in every few days and amuse your father, and
get the news of you," said Ida Tabor. "You don't think that your
father perhaps trusts Miss Field too far, do you?" she added,
carelessly. She was standing behind Nina at the dressing table,
experimenting with the girl's thick, straight hair. "You look like
one of the little Russian princesses with it that way!" said she.

Nina was instantly diverted.

"I had to laugh at Christine yesterday," she said. "She said, 'Oh,
Ma'm'selle, you've got enough for two people here!' 'Oh,' I said,
'then I ought to pay you double'!" Nina laughed. "And I did, too!"
she finished. For Nina, without ever being unselfish, was often
extremely generous. Ida Tabor smiled automatically.

"I don't suppose your father sees anything in Miss Field," she
submitted again, lightly.

"Oh, Heavens, no!" Nina said, studying herself in a handglass.
"Christine says that I ought to have my eyebrows pulled," she
added, thoughtfully. There was a rather steely look in the eyes of
her friend Ladybird, but she did not see it. Her smile of pleasure
gradually gave place to a pout. "I'm going to ask Father if we
need Miss Harriet!" she said.

And that evening she did indeed attack Richard on the subject,
although not as decidedly as she had planned. He listened to her
interestedly enough, with his evening paper held ready for his
next glance.

"Let you roam about the country with Mrs. Tabor," he said, as the
girl's faltering accents stopped. "No, my dear, it's out of the
question! In the first place, she is not the sort of companion I
would choose for any girl, and in the second place I would never
know where you and your grandmother were, or what was happening to
you! While Miss Field is in charge I shall feel entirely safe. Of
course, if Mrs. Tabor chooses to invite herself, that's her
affair!"

"Then I don't want to go!" Nina stormed. But in the end she did
go. The alternative of moping about Crownlands, and seeing her
idol only at intervals, was not alluring, and Mrs. Tabor herself
urged her to go. Madame Carter, Nina, and Harriet duly sailed, in
the second week of January, and Ward joined them almost a month
later, in Nassau. And here Harriet had the brother and sister at
their best, free to show the genuine childishness that was in
them, to swim and picnic and tramp, and here she indulged Nina in
long talks, and encouraged her to associate with the young people
she met. Madame Carter found the island air a help to her
rheumatic knee, and consequently made no protest against a
lengthened stay. She slept, ate, and felt better than in the cold
northern winter, and at seventy-five these considerations were
important.

Harriet wrote once a week to Richard, making a general report, and
enclosing receipted hotel and miscellaneous bills. His
communications usually took the form of cables, although once or
twice she received typewritten letters.

In mid-April they all came home again, and Crownlands, in the
year's first shy filming of green, looked wonderful to Harriet's
homesick eyes. With joyous noises and confusion Ward and Nina
scattered their possessions about, and the old lady bustled,
chattered, and commented. Bottomley and Pilgrim were apparently
enchanted to welcome home their one-time tormentors, and in the
fresh, orderly rooms, and the scent of early flowers, and the
burgeoning winds that shook the blossoms, there was a wholesome
order and familiarity delicious to the wanderers.

Richard was to join them at dinner; it had been impossible for him
to meet them when the boat arrived, but Fox had been there and
attended to the formalities. It had pleased them all to make the
occasion formal and to dress accordingly. Nina looked her
prettiest in a white silk, and the old lady was magnificent in
diamonds and brocade. Harriet deliberately selected her handsomest
gown, a severe black satin that wrapped her slender body with one
superb and shining sweep, and left her white arms and firm,
flawless shoulders bare. The weeks of sunshine and fresh air had
been good for her, as for the others, and when she was dressed,
and stood in the full blaze of the lights, looking at herself, she
would not have been human not to be pleased. Her bright hair was
dressed high, and shone in rich waves and curves against the soft,
dusky forehead, and above the black-fringed, smoke-blue eyes. The
firm young lines of chin and throat, the swelling white breast
that met the encasing satin, the slippers with their twinkling
buckles--she could not but find every detail pleasing, and her
scarlet mouth, firmly shut, was twitched by a sudden dimple.

She glanced at the clock, went slowly to the door, and slowly down
the big square stairway. Richard and his children were in the
lower hall, and they all glanced up.

Down in the soft glow of light came Harriet, smiling as she
slipped her left arm about Nina, and gave the free hand to Nina's
father. She was apparently cool and unself-conscious; inwardly she
felt feverish, frightened and excited and happy, all at once.
Richard was in evening dress, too; he looked his best; his dark
hair brushed to a shining crest, and his gray eyes full of
pleasure.

"Well, Miss Field--!" he said, a little breathlessly. "Well! Your
vacation hasn't done you any harm!"

"We had to make an occasion of our coming home!" Harriet said,
with a nervous laugh, trying not to see the admiration in his
eyes.

"I must say I like the gown," Richard said, simply. It was
impossible not to speak of it, and of her; they were all staring
at her.

"You look wonderful!" Nina said.

"Why, you saw this gown at Nassau," Harriet protested.

"Louise--or whoever she was of Prussia, or whatever you call it,
turned in the family vault when you walked down those stairs!"
Ward said. "Oo-oo--caught you under the mistletoe--oo-oo, you
would!" he added, with an effort to envelop her in his embrace.

"Ward, behave yourself!" Harriet said, evading him, and walking
toward the dining room with his grandmother, who came downstairs
in her turn, and joined them. "No pain in the knee?" Richard heard
her say, solicitously.

"Not a bit!" the old lady said, eagerly. "Why, my dear," she
added, grandly, "there's no rheumatism in our family! Not a bit!
It was just that fall I had, ten years ago, that settled there,
that was all! Immediately after that fall---"

Harriet had heard of the fall before. She had heard of it one
hundred times. But she listened attentively. She had an aside for
Bottomley, she drew Nina into the conversation, she was most at
ease with Ward, teasing him, drawing him out.

Richard Carter watched her, the incarnation of young and beautiful
womanhood. Clever he knew her to be, capable and conscientious,
but to-night she was in a new role. He liked to see her there at
the other end of the table; he realized that she was the centre of
things, here in his house, and that he had missed her.

After dinner it chanced that Bottomley called her to the
telephone, and that a moment later she passed the call on to
Richard.

"It's Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Carter. He didn't know that you were here,
but he would rather speak to you," Harriet said. Richard went to
the telephone, and as she moved to make room for him, and gave him
the receiver, he had a sudden breath of the sweetness and
freshness of her, of hair and young firm skin, of the rustling
satin gown, and the little handkerchief that she dropped, and that
he picked up for her. He smiled as he gave it, and flushed
inexplicably, and his first few words to the bewildered Gardiner
were a little shaken and breathless. But Richard was quite himself
again an hour or two later, when he sent for Miss Field, and she
came into the library.

"I needn't say that I'm entirely pleased with the way matters have
gone, Harriet," said Richard, when she had seated herself on the
opposite side of his big, flat desk, and locking her white hands
on the shining surface, had fixed her magnificent eyes on him.
"Nina seems in fine shape, and I have never seen my mother better.
You seem to have a genius for managing the Carters. Ward, of
course, is the real problem now--I wish the boy might have made
his degree; but it wasn't to be expected perhaps. He's clever, but
his heart wasn't in it; he never made the slightest effort to get
through. I'm seriously considering this offer from Gardiner; he's
got to take his boy out to Nevada for his health. Ward wants to
go, and would very probably like it when he got there. Gardiner's
brother is a magnificent fellow, 'P. J.,' they call him; he and
his cattle are known all over that part of the country. He's got
two or three pretty girls--I hope Ward will try it, anyhow! So
that leaves Nina, who is safe enough with you, and my mother, who
seems perfectly well and happy. Meanwhile, while you've been gone,
we've gotten the Brazilian company well started, so that I shall
have a little more freedom than I've had for years."

"You look as if you needed it," Harriet observed.

"YOU look wonderful," Richard returned, simply. "Wonderful! Is
that a new gown?"

"Well, I had it made last November just before I went away. Mrs.
Carter gave me the material a year ago." Harriet glanced down at
herself and smiled.

"You might wear pearls--or something--with it," Richard said. "Do
you like pearls?"

It was astonishing to see the colour come up in her dusky skin;
her eyes met his almost pleadingly.

"Why--I never thought!" she said, in some confusion.

"I suppose a man may ask his wife if she likes pearls?" Richard
said, impelled by some feeling he did not define. He had leaned
back in his chair, and half-closed his eyes, as he studied her.

"Oh--please!" Harriet said in an agony. She gave a horrified
glance about, but the library was closed and silent. "Someone
might hear you!" she whispered. And a moment later she rose to her
feet, and eyed him quietly. "Was that all, Mr. Carter?" she asked.
It was Richard's turn to look a trifle confused.

"That's all--my dear!" he said, obediently. The term made her
flush again. He was still smiling when she closed the door.




CHAPTER XVII


It was the gayest spring that Harriet had ever known at
Crownlands, for even at her best, Isabelle had been socially an
individualist, devoting herself to one man at a time, and to
nobody else, and the whole family had necessarily accepted
Isabelle's attitude. Richard had been too busy to notice or
protest, the old lady helpless, and Nina a child.

But now there was a beautiful and gracious woman in Isabelle's
place, and long before the world knew that Harriet Field was
really Harriet Carter, there was a very decided change in the
social atmosphere. Nina would be eighteen in June, and affairs for
Nina and her friends began to assume a more formal air. Ward, who
seemed anxious to placate his father, and convince him of his
genuine reform, was almost always at home, and Madame Carter was
willing to accept the comfort and amusement that Harriet's return
brought to the house, and rarely raised an issue with the
triumphant secretary. And, more strange than all, Richard began to
bring his friends to the house; he was proud of his smoothly
running establishment, and proud of the charming woman who neither
flirted with nor ignored the men he brought home. They were plain
men sometimes, business associates who might have been ill at ease
at Crownlands, and voiceless at the dinner table. But Harriet drew
them out, and seemed to have some conversational divining rod by
which she touched with unfailing instinct upon the topic of each
in turn.

Always beautiful and always busy, constantly in demand on all
sides, she went about his house like a smiling worker of miracles,
and Richard watched her. When she went home to her sister for a
day or two he missed her strangely, and wandered about the empty
rooms with a desolate sense of loss.

She was presently back, and amused the young people at the dinner
table with a spirited account of her sister's move into a new
house--"really an old house," that she and her family had been
watching for years. It had been auctioned, forfeited by the
purchaser, it had figured in a lawsuit, and now at last it was in
the possession of the delighted Davenports. And the move--with the
baby carrying his puppy, and Pip the goldfish, and the girls
wheeling the old baby-carriage full of their treasures, and Linda
whitening her hands with a cut lemon, as she walked the seven
short blocks--! Harriet made them see it all, and Richard laughed
with the children. His mother, always reminiscent, recalled a move
in his own third year, when he had tasted furniture polish, and
made himself ill.

Nina and Amy and Ward had rushed from the dinner table to an early
dance at the club, and Richard, after a talk with his mother on
the terrace, had wandered about with a vague hope of finding
Harriet somewhere with her book. But she was not downstairs.

He went back, and presently accompanied his mother to her door.
The old lady stopped outside of Nina's open door, from which a
subdued light streamed.

"Oh, Miss Field--" said Madame Carter.

"Yes, Madame Carter!" The rich, ready voice responded instantly.
Richard hoped she would come to the door, but his mother's message
was delivered too quickly to make it necessary.

"You're waiting up for Nina?"

"Oh, yes, Madame Carter!" Harriet answered. The two exchanged
good-nights; Richard loitered into his mother's room, left her in
her maid's hands, and went back into the dimly lighted, spacious
upper hall. He felt oddly stirred; there were letters downstairs,
his usual books and amusements, but he felt curiously impelled to
try for one more word with Miss Field.

He opened the door of Nina's room, and went in, and knocked on the
half-open door within that connected it with Harriet's room.

"Come in. Is it you, Pilgrim?" the pleasant, quiet voice said.
Richard stepped to the doorway.

Harriet, seated in a square basket chair, under the soft flood of
light from a basket-shaded lamp, rose precipitately, and stood
looking at him with widened eyes and parted lips, without
speaking. She was plainly frightened, though she made herself
smile. She wore a scant, long-sleeved garment of a deep, oriental
blue, that covered her from her white throat to her feet, and yet
that was obviously only for bedroom wear, and to which she gave a
quick, apologetic glance, as the man came in. He noticed that in
this mellow light her blue eyes seemed to communicate a blue
shadow to their neighbourhood, brows and lids, and the clean arch
in which they were set, all wore the same shadowy blueness. The
beautiful room was full of shadows; at the wide-open windows thin
curtains stirred in the cool night air.

"Frighten you?" Richard said.

"Is there something--?" Her eyes were those of a deer that is
afraid to turn.

"Why, I wanted to suggest that we tell our little piece of news to
the family," Richard suggested, after a momentary search for a
suitable subject. "I came very close to telling my mother, just
now. Is there any good reason for further delay?"

"Why, no, I don't--I don't suppose there is!" Harriet stammered.

"You see, my mother had left me in no doubt of her intentions with
Mrs. Tabor," Richard said, smiling. "I'll give Mrs. Tabor credit
for being as innocent as I am in the matter," he added, simply.
"But there's a plan for a Montreal trip--I believe Ida arrives for
a week to-morrow, and so on. I should be very glad to let the
world know that--my arrangements--in the line, are already made.
It will be fairer to you, too, I think. Gardiner asked me last
night if the coast was clear--Ward asked me if I thought there was
any use in his trying again--"

"There will be talk," said Harriet with distaste, as he paused.

"I suppose so," he answered, simply. "But what we do is our own
affair, after all. I shall explain to my mother that for us both
it seemed a practical and a--well, not unpleasant solution. There
need be no change here, but you will simply have a more assured
position--"

She had been watching him, with all June in her face. But as he
went on the colour slowly drained away, and about her beautiful
eyes a look of strain and even of something like shame gradually
deepened. When she spoke, it was as if the muscles of her throat
were constricted.

"Yes, I see. Certainly, I see. We will have to let them talk. This
is--simply the best arrangement possible under the circumstances!"

"It is an arrangement that a man perhaps has no right to ask of a
woman," Richard said. "Love means a great deal in a girl's life,
and I suppose there is nothing else that makes up for the lack of
it. But you are not an ordinary woman, and I assure you that in
every way that I can I mean to prove to you how deeply I
appreciate what you are doing for us all."

"Thank you!" Harriet said, almost inaudibly.

"Simply change your name on your checks," Richard said,
thoughtfully. "I shall have Fox step into the bank with the
authenticated signature. And if there is anything else, use your
own judgment. Perhaps, if I tell my mother, you would like to
write to certain friends--? You can continue to draw on the Corn
Exchange, that's simplest, and I hope you'll remember that you
have a large personal credit there," he added, with a smile. "It
occurred to me to-night that you--you mustn't let your sister
worry about that new house. If you want your own car--"

"Oh, good heavens, Mr. Carter!" Harriet said, suffocating.

"Ask me anything that puzzles you," the man said. And with a brief
good-night he was gone. Harriet, who had dropped back into her
chair, sat absolutely motionless for a long, long time. Her eyes
were fixed on space; she hardly breathed; it almost seemed as if
her heart was stopped.

Richard went downstairs, surprised to feel still vaguely
unsatisfied. He had had his word with Harriet, had said indeed
much that he had not expected to say. However, it was much better
to let the world know their relationship; he was perfectly
satisfied to have it so. But still, as he settled himself to an
hour's reading, the plaguing little impulse persisted. He would
like to go upstairs again; he missed her companionship.

There was something very appealing about this woman, thought
Richard, suddenly closing his book. Her beauty, her silences, her
complete subjugation of her own interests to his, he found
strangely fascinating. She had looked extremely beautiful in that
long, dark blue bedroom gown, reading Shakespeare. He wondered why
she read Shakespeare.

"By George, she has made a most interesting woman of herself!"
Richard decided, opening his book again. "She ought to be right in
the middle of things, that girl!"

He was still reading when Nina and Amy came in, and yawned him
good-nights from the library doorway. He heard them go upstairs,
heard a burst of laughter and nonsense, and then Harriet's rich
voice, and then the closing door. Then there was silence. Richard
discovered that he was sleepy, and went upstairs, too.

A day or two later Madame Carter came out to the terrace at eleven
o'clock, beautifully groomed and gowned, and with an imperative
hand arrested Harriet, who was tumbled and sunburned from the
tennis court and was going toward the house.

"Just a moment, Miss Field," said she, magnificently. Harriet
obediently stood still, and watched Madame Carter's magnificence
settle itself slowly in a basket chair. The old lady freed an
eyeglass ribbon deliberately, straightened a ruffle, laid her
magazine beside her on a table. "There was a little matter of
which I wished to speak to you," she said, suavely, bringing her
distant glance to rest dispassionately for a moment upon Harriet's
face.

Harriet waited, amused, annoyed, impatient.

"I understand," Madame Carter said, "that you and my son--for some
reason best known to yourselves--have entered into a secret
marriage?"

"Your first object, my dear, is not to antagonize his mother!"
Harriet reminded herself. Aloud she said mildly: "You have no
reason to disbelieve it, have you?"

"No reason to disbelieve my son!" his mother echoed, scandalized.
"Why should I have! Mr. Carter is the soul of honour--absolutely
the soul. Upon my word, I don't understand you!"

"I said you have no reason to disbelieve him," Harriet repeated.
"You said that you UNDERSTOOD that we had been married. It is
true!"

And she looked off toward the river with an expression as composed
as that of Madame Carter herself.

"I suppose you know that old saying: 'A secret bride has a secret
to hide!'" the older woman pursued, pleasantly.

"I never heard it. I did not play much with the children of the
neighbourhood when I was a child," Harriet answered. "My father
was very anxious to protect us from picking up expressions of that
sort!"

There was a silence. Harriet, beginning to be ashamed of herself,
did not look at her companion.

"A girl of your age has a great deal of confidence when she
marries into a family like mine," the old lady said, presently, in
a tone that trembled a little. "My son is a rich man--he is a
prominent man. He has used his own judgment, of course. But I
confess that in your place I should not carry myself with quite so
much an air of--triumph! It seems to me--"

Harriet had had time to reflect that such an opening would
certainly lead to tears and hysteria now, and might easily begin
an estrangement that would sadden and disappoint Richard. A few
more such exchanges, and his mother would retire worsted to her
room, might possibly leave his house, and punish Harriet cruelly
through him. She determinedly regained her calm, and taking the
chair next to the enraged old lady, quietly interrupted the flow
of her angry words.

"I hope I have shown no air of triumph, Madame Carter," Harriet
said. "You yourself--and most wisely!--pointed out to us a few
months ago that the arrangement here was unconventional--"

"Everyone was talking, if you mind that!" the old lady snapped.
But she was slightly mollified, none-the-less. "But upon my word,
you'd think marrying into the family was something to be done
every day--!" she was beginning again, when Harriet interrupted
again.

"No--no," she said, soothingly, conceding the last words an amused
smile that itself rather helped to placate her companion. "It is,
of course, the most serious step of my life! But the secrecy--as
of course you will appreciate--was because there has been so much
terrible notoriety this year! Why, Mr. Carter tells me that never
in the history of all the Carters--"

This fortunate lead was enough. Madame Carter launched forth
superbly upon a description of the usual Carter weddings, the
ceremony, the state. In perhaps twenty minutes she was blandly
patronizing Harriet, giving her encouraging little taps with her
eyeglasses, warning her of mistakes that Isabelle had made with
Richard. Harriet knew that before three days were over her
terrible mother-in-law would be telling the world just how wise,
under the trying circumstances, the whole thing was, and just how
clearly she had foreseen it. She was still listening respectfully,
if a trifle confusedly, when Ward bounded from the house, and gave
her an effusive embrace.

"Hello, Mamma!" Ward said. Harriet laughed, as she pushed away the
filial arm. Hardly knowing what she said or did she made her way
to the house, and up to her own room.

But here, in Nina's room, were Nina and Mrs. Tabor, and from their
eyes, as she came in, she knew that they knew. Nina got up, and
came forward with a sort of sulky graciousness.

"I hope you'll be very happy, Miss Harriet--I suppose I oughtn't
to call you Miss Harriet any more," Nina said, with an effort to
smile that Harriet thought quite ghastly. She gave Harriet one of
her big hands, and hesitated over a kiss. But they did not kiss
each other. Ida Tabor watched them with the half-closed eyes of a
cat.

"Confess you took my breath away," she said, frankly, "because it
doesn't seem the sort of thing that Dick Carter does! Always knew
he idolized Isabelle, poor girl, and never dreamed he'd put any
one in her place! Of course, Dick's a rich man, and he's the
dearest fellow in the world, at that, but knowing, as I do know--
for I've known him since we were kiddies--exactly what a firebrand
Dick always has been-mad as a hatter when he was in love, and
consequently this talk of a sensible arrangement--"

She had a quick, vivacious way of speaking, this pretty little
angry and disappointed woman, that often carried an offensive very
successfully. As she spoke, in an innocent voice, she glanced in
and out of the magazine she had caught up, and was apparently
unconscious of Harriet's blazing cheeks and darkening eyes. But
now Harriet interrupted her.

"I don't quite see the point, Mrs. Tabor," Harriet said, bravely
and deliberately, "you speak of Mr. Carter's being a rich man, and
of his love for his wife, and his having been a fiery young man.
What has that to do with me? I was here in his house as his
daughter's companion--

"As far as being a companion to ME was concerned," Nina
interpolated, rapidly, in an airy undertone, and with a toss of
her head. But Harriet suppressed her with a glance.

"--that position I could not keep," she pursued, "but for Ward's
sake and Nina's there had to be some social life. My birth," said
Harriet, steadily, "is quite the equal of theirs; I was well able
to fill that place. Mr. Carter took the step that made it
possible. That's all!"

There was a silence when she finished speaking. Ida Tabor was
outfaced, and she knew it. Her cheeks burned scarlet, and she was
able to gasp only the feeblest response.

"Thank you for your kind explanation!" she said, somewhat
breathless, and with a bow. Nina, giving Harriet a resentful
glance, went over to put her arm about her friend, who had risen,
and was facing Harriet.

"It need make no difference with us, Ladybird!" Nina said in
passionate loyalty.

"Why, of course not," Harriet hastened to assure them. "Why should
it? It has been just as true since December, only you didn't know
it!"

"THANK you!" Mrs. Tabor said again, with another twitch of
countenance intended for a smile.

"Will you want both these rooms now?" Nina said, insolently. "I
don't want to be in your way!"

"Be careful, Nina!" Harriet said with ominous calmness. And going
into her own room she added, in her usual quiet manner, "There
will be no changes, dear!" She realized that her heart was beating
fast with anger, but it died down rapidly, and she consoled
herself with some prophecies that the next few days were to
justify to the fullest extent. Nina's inseparable Ladybird would
find little to interest her in Crownlands now, Harriet suspected,
and they would not long be troubled by her company. She smiled as
she heard Nina and Ida in the next room.

"Put on your yellow gown, sweetheart," Ida said. "We're going to
the Bellamys' after lunch."

"Oh, I don't feel like going anywhere!" Nina said, pathetically.
"Would you just as soon stay here--and just read and talk, and
fool around as we did yester-day?"

"Just as soon do anything!" But there was a tiny edge to
Ladybird's tone that had not been there yesterday. "Only, dearest
girl," she added, lightly, "we're expected!"

For answer Nina only gave her rich, mischievous laugh, and Harriet
knew that she was embracing her friend.

"But a lot you and I care for that, don't we? We'll get into
wrappers and be comfortable. I'll have Bottomley simply telephone
after lunch, and say that we are unexpectedly detained. I can't
get over it," Nina said, luxuriating in surprise. Her voice sank
to speculation, and the two murmured awhile. Then Harriet heard
Ida return the attack. "But about the Bellamys, dear," and smiled
a little sadly, to think of the swiftness with which, to
calculating Mrs. Tabor, the Carter stock was declining, and the
Bellamy market looking up.

"That crazy man who--you said--admired me last night," Nina was
presently saying, "tell me again what he said. I don't see how he
could have said I was picturesque, for there's nothing picturesque
about that old blue rag. I don't know, though, it's always been
awfully smart. But I'll tell you honestly, Ladybird, I'd rather be
picturesque than almost anything else."

"You're certainly that!" said Ida's bored voice.

"Well, if you say so, I'll believe you!" Nina said. Harriet knew
that they had been aware of her nearness, but now she very
deliberately closed the door.

At luncheon everything was exactly as usual; Richard had gone to
the city, not to return for a night or two, and several social
engagements distracted the young people from the contemplation of
their father's affairs.

Harriet had not dared to hope that they would accept the situation
so quietly, or that the world would. There were callers on the
terrace every afternoon, there were pleasant congratulations and
good wishes, there were a few paragraphs in the social weeklies.
Richard had for years been too busy for mere entertaining, and the
dinner parties and luncheons to the new Mrs. Carter, it was
generally felt, must wait until next season.

Meanwhile, the speculating world saw her going quietly about the
house, advising Nina, conferring with the domestic staff, laughing
with Ward. She immediately formed a habit of going into the old
lady's room every morning: Madame Carter had quite accepted her as
a member of the great house of Carter now, and came to depend upon
the half-hour of morning gossip. The world saw her in a box at the
theatre, with the young Carters, saw that Richard presently joined
them, and laughed, in the shadowy back of the box, at something
his beautiful new wife said to him over her shoulder. The world
was obliged to decide that the little secretary took her promotion
very coolly, that there was something queer about it.

But inwardly the little secretary was thrilled to her heart's
core. Even to glance at the gold ring on her finger made Harriet
feel as if a happiness almost shameful was bared to view. Her new
position, modestly as she filled it, was yet a high position. She
saw Richard's growing affection and trust, if he did not. She
could afford to wait.

She visited Linda, almost afraid to show new gowns and new
generosity, almost afraid of the constant "Mrs. Carter."

"They'll be ruined!" Linda laughed, of the children's summer gowns
and the camera and wrist watch that transported Julia and
Josephine to Paradise. This rustling and perfumed Harriet, with
the flowered little French hat, and the filmy little odd gowns,
was almost bewildering.

Decorously having tea on the terrace in the June afternoons,
knowing herself the centre of interest, Harriet's heart sang with
a wild inward delight. She smiled; she could afford the
friendliest interest for everyone's affairs. When her own were
touched, there was a youthful flushing, a deprecatory smile. But
she took no one into her confidence.

"But when are you and Dick Carter going to dine with us?" Mary
Putnam said, one afternoon, at tea. Madame Carter, whose Victorian
ideal of romance was not at all dissatisfied with the idea of the
employer marrying his daughter's beautiful governess, smiled
significantly.

"They're very odd lovers, my dear," she said to Mary with an
eloquent glance. Mary laughed, and looked at Harriet, whose face
was suddenly crimson, though she tried to laugh, too. The visitor,
with instant kindness, covered the little break.

"Whenever they're ready, they're going to dine with me!" she said,
patting Harriet's hand with real affection and understanding. The
arrival of a group from the tennis court, Nina, Ida, Ward,
Francesca Jay, and their friends, changed the subject immediately,
the old lady was distracted, and Harriet busy. But Mary was free
to reflect. She had the eyes of a contented woman, freed from her
own problem for those of others. "And Harriet is certainly mad
about Richard," Mary mused.

But with the rest of the world she had to decide that there was
something in the affair that she did not understand.

When everyone else had gone from the terrace, and the late
afternoon light was throwing clear shadows across the warm red
bricks, Nina and Ida Tabor remained, talking. Nina had seated
herself on the arm of her friend's chair, and was chattering away
in happy ignorance of the fact that the older woman was seething
within. Nina saw no reason for jealousy because Harriet had just
had an hour's petting from everyone, had dominated the scene in
her striped blue muslin, had finally sauntered to the house
between no more important persons than Granny and Ward.

But to Ida it was insufferable, and she could only revenge herself
upon her innocent admirer.

"And now we positively must go in, Nina!" she said. "We've wasted
this whole afternoon!" And she added, of the embracing arm:
"Don't! It's too hot."

"Is playing tennis and talking with me WASTING an afternoon,
Ladybird?" Nina asked, archly.

"You know I don't mean that!" Mrs. Tabor said, impatiently, if
fondly, freeing herself. "But I have to get packed if I'm going to
the Jays'!"

"But you're not going to the Jays'!" Nina said in soft, sweet,
confident reminder.

"But I must, darling!"

"Not if I ask you not to!" Nina persisted.

"Truly I must," Mrs. Tabor said, wearily.

"No, you mustn't!"

"But, dearest, I truly have to---"

"But, Ladybird," Nina laughed, happily, "I sent them a message
this afternoon that you were staying with me! So now," she
finished, triumphantly, "that's settled! And we'll go to bed
early, with books, and talk, and maybe creep down for something to
eat about eleven, as we did that other night--"

"Nina," Mrs. Tabor said, in a new voice, interrupting her, "you
didn't telephone Mrs. Jay, did you?"

"Indeed I did!" Nina was still smiling over the thought of her
midnight raid on the pantry with a flattering and laughing and
girlish Ladybird, a Ladybird who had simply "never gotten over"
that chance encounter with Father in the upper hall, and who had
talked of it, and of their slippered feet and kimonos, through
hours of delicious giggling and embarrassment.

"Well, then, you were extremely impertinent and officious," said a
new voice, that Nina hardly recognized.

Poor Nina! Harriet found her sobbing on her bed, half an hour
later, and took it for a sign that the wound would cure, that Nina
did not resent her sympathy and comfort. Nina was still heaving
with deep sobs, albeit taking steps toward a hot bath and a
becoming gown, when Ida went away. Her farewells were made only to
the composed interloper, who went with her pleasantly to the hall
door, and turned back with some remark for Bottomley that was in
the perfect tone of the mistress. Ida's heart was hot within her
as she looked her last at Crownlands, in the mellow light of the
summer twilight.




CHAPTER XVIII


Royal Blondin presently came to pay his respects to Harriet in her
changed position. Nina had told her that he had been forbidden the
house, in December; they had seen him only two or three times
since their return from Bermuda, and then accidentally. Harriet
was thankful to believe the affair between him and Nina well over.
The girl was growing up now, there were other men in her world,
and for the list for her eighteenth birthday party she had merely
mentioned his name among others.

"You'll see that Royal gets a card, Harriet?" she had said.

"Well--yes, if you want him, but somehow one doesn't see the
mysterious and artistic Royal in so juvenile a party," Harriet had
answered. Nina might have disquieted her with her serene: "Oh,
he'll come!" But Harriet knew Nina was often over-sure of her own
powers.

Three days before the garden party that was to mark the girl's
anniversary Royal drifted in with the assurance that was quite
characteristic of him. He rarely accepted an invitation, or waited
for one. Perhaps he was clever enough to know that half his
acquaintances detested him theoretically, but were glad to have
him about. Nina and Harriet came in from an afternoon at the club
to find him playing with languid hands at the piano, and he lazily
rose to greet them. While Nina was there, his attitude toward both
was pleasantly impersonal, but his suggestion, which was more like
a command, that she run upstairs and dress early, so that they
might have a talk before dinner, sent the girl flying, and he and
Harriet could speak more freely.

"Well, Harriet, I congratulate you! How does it feel to be a
married woman? I was with Lenox, in his camp--we went up there to
look it over," Royal went on, in his musical voice. "It's a
beautiful place, in the Adirondacks. I saw your name in an evening
paper; of course I was delighted for you."

"Money and position don't really mean much to me," Harriet said,
unencouragingly.

"They don't?" he asked, with an upward glance.

"Not lately. Not as much as they always seemed to!" the girl
added, uncertainly.

"Perhaps because your dream is captured," Blondin suggested. "It's
no longer a myth! I wonder if it isn't always so?"

"I remember his taking that dreamy, silly tone years ago," Harriet
thought.

"My first sensation," Blondin said, "was one of satisfaction. I
thought to myself that my own cause, with Nina, was safe now. That
you trusted me, and I had every reason to trust you."

Harriet looked away for a brief silence, brought her eyes to his
face. She felt suddenly sick.

"Roy, you're not still serious about Nina?"

"I have never been anything else," he said, delicately.

"But--but why?" Harriet asked.

"I like the girl," he reminded her pleasantly. "I hope she is not
entirely indifferent to me--"

"Indifferent! She's at the age that marries anybody!" Harriet
said, indignantly.

"You give me hope," Royal said with a bow.

"Her father very violently opposes it," Harriet said, after a
troubled silence.

"I am well aware of that, my dear. Her father forbade me the house
last December. I submitted; the girl submitted. But we made our
plans. I fancy we will not have any difficulty now."

"You mean that you are engaged?"

"An understanding. We have corresponded, seen each other now and
then through Ida Tabor. It's," he smiled, dreamily, "extremely
romantic, of course," he said.

Harriet felt that she could have killed him.

"You understand that she won't have one penny, Roy. I know her
father. He won't yield. He'll forbid it; he'll not hesitate. If
she does it against his will, she will have to wait three years
for her money. Three years--! Roy, she wouldn't be happy three
weeks! Mr. Carter spoke to me about it the only time we've spoken
of you. He said that he was glad the affair had ended naturally;
that you were not the man to make Nina happy, and that he would
rather have her suffer anything, and find out her mistake at once,
than have her heart broken, and her money wasted, through several
wretched years!"

Blondin had listened to this quietly, his eyes moving from her
lips to her own earnest eyes, and wandering over her animated
face.

"I count on you to be my advocate, my dear Harriet," he said,
after a moment's silence. "Richard Carter believes in you; he has
great faith in your judgment. If you represent to him that you
believe this to be a wise step all round, we shall have no further
trouble--'

"I can't honestly tell him so, Roy!" the girl interrupted.

"Can't you?" Blondin said. He looked across the open hallway to
Nina, descending in fresh ruffles and ribbons, and raised his
voice. "Here she is--looking like the very rose of girls! Come on
now, Nina, you aren't going to belong to anybody else but me for a
while!" he said. But as he turned to leave Harriet, he added
again: "Can't you? Think it over."

The girl thought it over with a maddening and feverish persistence
that presently caused her a sensation of actual sickness. How
serious her countenancing of Nina's love-affair might prove to be-
-how unimportant it might prove to be--what Nina might do or might
not do, these vague speculations churned and seethed in the weary
brain that could find no beginning and no end to them. To have
made a clean breast of the whole matter months ago would have
meant a delicious sense of freedom from responsibility now, but
then under those circumstances would she, Harriet, have been here
now? Certainly, even in the present purely technical sense, she
would not have been the second Mrs. Richard Carter, nor would she
have held her present position of trust and responsibility.

While Nina and her lover murmured on the terrace Harriet brooded
on these things, and after dinner that evening she gave Richard so
sharp a warning that he sent at once for Nina, and with a clouded
brow and angry eyes briefly requested Harriet to be present while
he spoke to her.

Nina came at once, with an innocent expression on her rather heavy
young face. She seated herself near Harriet, and her father went
to the point at once.

"Nina," he said, seriously, "you saw Royal Blondin this afternoon,
didn't you?" And as Nina answered only with an ugly glance at
Harriet, the betrayer, he added, "Didn't I ask you not to see him
any more, several months ago?"

"Yes, you did," Nina said, in a low tone, and with a heaving
breast. She was sure of herself, but she felt a little frightened.

"I hope, and we all hope, that you will marry some day," Richard
said. "But you are too young now to make a wise choice. And until
you are a little older, you will have to take my word for it that
such an affair would only lead you to misery and regret."

Nina mumbled something bravely.

"I didn't hear you," her father said.

"I said, I didn't see what you could do about it!" the girl
repeated, desperately.

For a few moments of silence Richard merely looked gravely at his
daughter. Then he clasped his fine hands on the desk before him,
and cleared his throat.

"I cannot do as much as I should like, Nina," he conceded, "but I
shall do what I can. But first let me ask you: have you promised
to marry Mr. Blondin?"

Silence. Nina looked at the floor. Richard repeated his question.

"Yes, I have-and you can't kill me for it!" Nina said, and burst
into tears.

"Well," the father resumed, when Harriet had supplied a
consolatory murmur and a handkerchief, "I'm sorry, of course. Mrs.
Tabor carried letters between you, did she? You met him
occasionally?"

"Two or three times," Nina said, sniffing and drying her eyes
busily.

"You know my reasons for disliking him, Nina," her father said.
"He is a man more than twice your age; he has a certain sort of
unsavory reputation in his affairs with women. He has no income,
no profession, no home; all those things tell against him. But the
most serious of all, to me, is his mental attitude. The man has no
wholesome, decent code. He dabbles in the occult, in Oriental
morality--or immorality. With an older woman, that mightn't
matter. She could guide him, perhaps influence him. But you're
only a child--"

"I shall be of age Tuesday!" Nina burst forth, resentfully.

"You will be of age Tuesday. True. But you will be my ward, as far
as your Uncle Edward's legacy is concerned, for another three
years. Now, Nina, if you persist in this folly, against my most
earnest advice, I can only forbid the man the house, and lock you
in your room in the good old-fashioned way. That I shall do. I
shall then give out to the world--that has already had a rare
treat at the expense of the Carter family!--the news of my utter
disapproval of the match. If you manage the marriage in spite of
me, I shall forbid you and Blondin my house, and as a matter of
course use my right to withhold the payment of your legacy for
three years, and stop your present allowance, and your credit with
the shops. That's all I can do! And I do it, Nina," said Richard
in a softer tone, "I do it to hasten the inevitable, my dear! I do
it to bring you back to your father sooner instead of later; to
give you only one year of disillusionment and suffering, instead
of seven or eight!"

It must be a brave girl, thought Harriet, who could persist in any
course, after that. But Nina had the impregnable armour of
ignorance and pride, and she only sniffed pathetically again, and
shrugged her shoulders.

"You do everything in the world to MAKE my marriage a failure!"
she said with the irrepressible tears. "And I suppose you'll be
delighted if it is! Uncle Edward's money belongs to me; Ward has
got his; and I don't see why you just want to shame me before the
world for your own satisfaction! Royal is a perfect child about
money; he says that I will have to manage our business affairs,
anyway. And I don't see--if a woman can marry a rich man, why a
man shouldn't sometimes be glad if a girl has money! I'm PROUD to
help him out, if he'll let me. He says he won't--why, we had
planned going--well, just everywhere, Honolulu and southern
California and just everywhere, only now he won't go! He says he
is going to stay right here, and take a position with an art
magazine that he just hates, and work it all off--before we go, if
it takes years--"

"Work what all off?" Harriet asked, simply and quietly.

"This money that a friend of his really lost, but he has taken it
upon himself," Nina answered, a little mollified. "It was eleven
thousand dollars, and he has PAID OFF about four, and anyway, I
hate so much talk about money!" she finished, angrily.

"My dear," Harriet said, as Richard, with a troubled face,
remained silent. "It isn't the money that we are worrying about.
Why, ask your father, Nina! Ask him if he wouldn't write Royal
Blondin a check for any sum to-day, ANY sum, if you and he would
promise solemnly to wait three years more. You will only be
twenty-one then, Nina, still such a child!"

Harriet paused, glancing at Richard for encouragement; he nodded
eagerly, and she went on:

"Marriage is a tremendous thing, Nina, and the only thing that
makes it right---"

"If you're going to say love," Nina broke in, scornfully, "you
didn't marry Father for love!"

"I was going to say mutual understanding and respect," Harriet
said, quietly, but the splendid colour flooded her face as she
spoke, "and you do not understand life, Nina, or men, or marriage.
Royal Blondin is a charming man, and a gifted man, but he is an
adventurer, dear; he is a man who has lived in all sorts of
places, known all sorts of persons, accepted all sorts of queer
codes. There are coarse elements in him, Nina, things that would
utterly sicken and frighten you! Your father is right; you would
be back with us in a few months or years, perhaps with a child,
perhaps shattered in body as well as soul--not free to take up
your life again with Ward and Amy, but scarred and embittered and
changed--!"

"My God, how that woman loves the child!" Richard said to himself,
watching her. To him she seemed inspired. Her eyes were blurred
with tears, her voice shaking, and she had leaned over to clasp
Nina's hands, and so hold the girl's unwilling attention.

"Nina, can't you trust your father that far?" Harriet finished.
"Can't you realize that a man like Royal, embarrassed for money--
no matter if he truly admires you, and truly means to make you
happy--can't think of you without thinking also of what your
generous checks are going to mean to him? Write him a check for
eleven thousand, Nina, as a consolation for delaying the marriage
a year. Try it!"

Nina rose to her feet. Her trembling mouth was desperately
scornful, and her eyes brimming, although she fought tears.

"I don't know why my own family is the first to think that nobody
could possibly love me for myself!" she said, in a breaking voice.
"First Harriet ruins my friendship with Ladybird--and then--then--!"

"Listen, Nina," her father said. He and Harriet had come around to
stand beside her, and he had encircled the shaking and protesting
shoulders with his arm. "I have just telephoned Fox to make
reservations for me on the next Brazilian steamer. I shall have to
be a month or six weeks in Rio de Janeiro every year now. Now I've
just been wondering why you and Harriet don't come with me this
first trip? We stop at the Barbadoes and Bahia; it's a magnificent
steamer--swimming tanks and gymnasium; you'll love it, and you'll
love a touch of the South American countries, too, a chance to try
your Spanish. Why not put off this marriage idea for a year, come
along with me, you'll make steamer acquaintances, you'll broaden
out a little bit--"

"I won't go anywhere!" sobbed Nina, wildly, turning for flight,
"because I'm going to kill myself!"

Harriet only waited long enough after her dramatic exit to give
Richard a reassuring nod. Then she hurried after Nina.

The girl was sobbing on her bed, and for awhile she answered
Harriet's soothing touch of voice and hand only with angry jerks.
Then they fell to talking, and Nina confided for the first time
fully in the older woman. Royal's letters, his exquisite cards,
sent with flowers, the poems he had written her; here they all
were. Harriet sympathized, sighed, and consoled her
affectionately. Presently she was able to suggest a new thought to
Nina, one that could not but be palatable to the girl's hurt
spirit.

"You see, you're only seventeen, Nina," Harriet said. "The age
when most girls are still in the schoolroom, long before they have
affairs! Well, you're not interested in college, so that ought to
give you three or four clear years of girlhood. You're bound to
have other affairs, you've proved that! You go to South America--
perhaps there is some interesting man on the steamer; you go to
Canada--to California, the world is yours. Now, Royal is
different. He is an experienced man of affairs; he will always
have an attraction for women, and they for him. You aren't his
match, now, Nina. In a few years you may be--"

"I'm not jealous!" Nina said, proudly. But Harriet smiled.

"Yes, you are jealous. You wouldn't be a real true woman if you
weren't!" she accused. A reluctant dimple tugged at Nina's pouting
mouth. She did not dislike the idea of potential despotism, of the
travelled, experienced woman of the world, confident of her charm.

"If I offered a check to Royal, do you suppose he'd accept it!"
she remarked, after dark musing. She was sitting on the edge of
her bed now, and Harriet was brushing her hair.

"If you really are worried about his business affairs, Nina, why
not try it?" Harriet suggested, sensibly. To this Nina returned a
pouting:

"I'm perfectly willing to try it!" And as a great concession she
added with a sigh, "And I'll tell him what Father thinks!"

"Now you're talking like a woman who has herself well in hand!"
Harriet said, approvingly. "When are you to see him?"

"He's coming over especially to see Father to-morrow," Nina said.
"I suppose I might as well go down," she added, eyeing herself
gloomily in her mirror, "for Ward and that boy seem absolutely at
a loss for amusement!"

"And I'll be down presently," Harriet said. But when Nina was gone
she walked slowly to her own dressing table, and sat down, and
regarded herself steadily, and with heavy eyes. Unexpectedly, here
between the family dinner and the early going to bed, on a June
evening, a crisis in her life was confronting her, and she knew
that she must meet it.

Ward's guest was only the young Saunders boy, who had been with
them constantly last summer, and who was of absolutely no
significance in their lives. And yet Harriet had been introduced
to him all over again as "Mrs. Carter"--there was no halfway, in
the eyes of the world at least, in this relationship of hers with
Richard, and she must begin to take her place in the family.

"Mrs. Carter!" Bottomley and Pilgrim were beginning to call her
so; she must sign checks as "Harriet Carter" now, she must say "by
Mrs. Carter" in the shops, in a thousand little ways she must
claim the dignity of being his wife.

And Harriet loved that distinction as if the title, the signature,
and the dignity had never been vouchsafed to womankind before. She
had marvelled at her old self, that had taken "Miss" and "Mrs."
with cheerful indifference--why, there was a worldwide chasm
between the two! Just to have this silly Saunders boy call her
Mrs. Carter, as a matter of course, was to receive the accolade
that gave her all her longed-for dreams in one. It was the name of
the man she loved, and, even though in a shadowy and unloved way,
she liked the title that made her his.

But this dignity had its sting, too, and its responsibility.
Harriet's soul had been growing during this past year. She had
thrown off the old shell of bitterness and discouragement, she had
become ambitious again, even if only in the shallow, mercenary way
that the life about her encouraged. And then that had changed,
too, and it had seemed to Harriet only good to serve and to be
busy, to work out the difficult problem that was presented her
with all the accumulated years of study and dreams, philosophy and
courage, to help her. Then love had come, sweeping all her old
life away before it--the flotsam and jetsam of discouraged years;
what was ignoble and sordid and outgrown had still lined the river
banks, it was true, but that was carried away now, the man she
loved needed her, and by some instinct deeper than any dull male
reasoning of his, had drawn her to him.

And now she owed him the truth, the whole, painful, humiliating
story. If she had told him months ago, so much the better and
braver woman she! She had not done so; she had been fighting Nina
and his mother then; she had been afraid. But she was not afraid
now; he could forgive that long-ago girl of seventeen because her
advocate was the woman of twenty-eight, the finished, cultivated,
capable woman who had served him and his house, who must win his
respect back because she loved him with every fibre of her being.

The words in which she would tell him came to her in a rush. Why--
it was nothing! It was less than nothing. In half an hour she
would be back here in her room again, with all the past clean and
straight at last, with the cloud gone, and with her whole soul
singing with hope of the glorious future. For a moment she knelt
by her bed, her face in her hands.

She rose to her feet. There was a tap at the door.

It was Bottomley. "If you please, 'm--Mr. Carter would be so much
obliged if she would step down to the library, 'm." Harriet gave
herself a parting glance, and followed the man downstairs.

"Courage!" she said to herself, with her hand on the library door.
"I've exaggerated and enlarged upon this thing too long! I've
imagined it into an importance that it really hasn't at all!"

Richard was back at his desk; he smiled and rose as she came in.
There was another man in the library, who rose and faced her, too.

And when Harriet saw him she knew that she was too late. It was
Royal Blondin.

A dizziness and sickness came over her as she went slowly to the
chair opposite Richard. She touched the desk for support as she
sat down, and felt that her fingers were cold and wet.

"Mr. Blondin has come to talk to me about Nina," Richard said.
Harriet somehow moved her dizzy eyes toward Blondin, and she
smiled mechanically. But she had to moisten her lips before she
could speak.

"I see!" Her voice sounded horribly choked to her; she could find
nothing to add to the meaningless words.

"Mr. Blondin asks my consent to an immediate marriage," Richard
said. "You know my objections to that, Harriet, of course! We have
just been discussing them, as I explained to him. This is a
painful matter to me, and I regret it. But Mr. Blondin has given
me no choice but to tell him frankly why I think him an unsuitable
husband for my daughter. I have told him exactly what my procedure
will be in such a case, and I think we understand each other!"

Royal was smiling the serene, dreamy smile that was characteristic
of him.

"Nina," he said, tenderly, "is warm hearted. And a chance allusion
to my financial position, which I thought I owed her, has
distressed her unnecessarily. It will, truly, be out of the
question for me to travel, as we had planned. The unfortunate
speculations of my friend--"

"Whose name you withhold," Richard interrupted the musical voice
to say, drily.

"Because of a promise!" Royal flashed promptly. "But," he resumed,
turning to Harriet, "I shall be able to negotiate this business,
as I assure Mr. Carter, without any assistance from him or his
daughter," his lip curled scornfully, "and I do not propose to
give her up for any three years--or three weeks!"

Harriet could only look at him fixedly, with an ashen face.

"God help me," she breathed in her soul. "God help me!"

"Well," said Richard, with weary impatience, "we did not call you
down to bore you with this! I asked to see you, Harriet, because
Mr. Blondin has made the statement to me, just now, that you were
heartily in accord with his plans for Nina, and that you approved
of the affair!"

The prayer in Harriet's heart did not stop as she moved her
wretched eyes to Blondin.

"I believed that you and she had not seen each other since
December," she reminded him. "I lost no chance to advise her
against the engagement! I thought it was all over!"

"Well!" Richard said, with a breath of relief. He had been
watching her closely, now he settled back in his chair, and moved
his contemptuous scrutiny to Blondin.

"One moment!" Royal Blondin said, gently. But he was also pale.
"You believe that I would make Nina a good husband, don't you?" he
asked Harriet directly and quietly.

She was not looking at him. Her eyes were on Richard Carter.

"I believe you would ruin her life!" she said, deliberately.

"Thank you," Richard said. "I think that is all, Mr. Blondin. I
was aware that you had--misunderstood Mrs. Carter when you made
that statement!"

"Not quite all," Blondin persisted. "You believe that Nina would
be wiser not to marry me?" he asked Harriet.

"You--" She cleared her throat. "You know that I think so!" she
said.

Blondin laughed.

"And now, Mr. Blondin, you will kindly leave my house!" said
Richard.

The other man was watching Harriet, with a menace in his narrowed
eyes. White lines had drawn themselves about his tightly closed
lips, yet he was smiling. He had lost the game, truly, but she
knew he would play his last card, just the same. The suavity, the
calm of years fell from him, and his voice deepened into a sort of
cold and quiet fury as he said:

"One moment, Mr. Carter. Why don't you ask your wife what makes
her think I won't make Nina a good husband? Why don't you ask her
if she has been hiding something from you all this time? Why don't
you ask her if she herself wasn't madly in love--and with me!--
when she was Nina's age, and whether she was married in my studio,
to me, ten years ago--!"

He had shot the phrases at her with a distinctness almost violent.
Now his dry voice stopped, but his swift, venomous look went from
the silent man at the desk to the silent woman who stood before
him. Before either moved or spoke he spoke again.

"Ask her--she'll tell you! Ask her!'

"Be quiet!" Richard said. "I don't believe one word of it!" And
then as the girl neither raised her eyes nor attempted to speak,
he asked her, encouragingly and quickly: "Harriet, will you tell
him that not one word of that is true?"

Harriet had risen, and was standing at the back of the carved
black chair with both her hands resting upon it. She had looked
quietly at Blondin, when he began to speak, and the beautiful
white breast that her black evening gown left bare had risen once
or twice on a swift impulse to interrupt him. But now she was
looking down at her laced fingers, with something despairing and
helpless in the droop of her bright head and lowered lashes.

It had had its times of seeming frightful to her, this secret, in
the troubled musings of the past year. But it had never loomed so
horrible and so momentous as now, in the silent library, with the
eyes of the man she loved fixed anxiously upon her. He had
trusted, he was beginning to admire her, and like his wife and his
daughter and his mother, she had failed him.

"Harriet?" he said in quick uneasiness. She raised her head now,
and looked at him with weary eyes devoid of any expression except
bewilderment and pain.

"Yes," she said, simply. "That is all--quite true. It sounds--"
she hesitated, and groped for words--"it sounds--as if--" she
began, and stopped again. "But it is all quite true!" she
finished, in the troubled tone of a child who is misunderstood.

Then for a long time there was silence in the library.




CHAPTER XIX


The curtains at the French windows in the library at Crownlands
stirred in the breeze of the warm summer night, the pendulum of
the big clock behind Richard Carter moved to and fro, but for a
long time there was no other sound in the library. Richard had
dropped his eyes, was idly staring at the blank sheet of paper
before him. Royal Blondin, who had folded his arms, for a moment
studied Harriet between half-closed lids, but presently his eyes
fell, too, and with a rather troubled expression he studied the
pattern of the great Oriental rug.

Harriet stood motionless, turned to stone. If there was anything
to be said in her behalf, she could not say it now. For the first
time the full measure of her responsibility and the full measure
of her deceit smote her, and in utter sickness of spirit she could
advance no excuse. It was not that she had failed Blondin, or that
she had failed Richard, but the extent of her failure toward
herself appalled her. She was not the good, brave, cultivated
woman she had liked to think herself; she was one more egotist,
with Nina, and Isabelle, and Ida, unscrupulously playing her own
game for her own ends.

"I'm extremely sorry," Richard said, presently, in a somewhat
lifeless tone. "I imagine that if my daughter had known this, she
might have been spared some suffering and some humiliation. But we
needn't consider that now." He was silent, frowning faintly. He
put up a fine hand and adjusted his eyeglasses with a little
impatient muscular twitching of his whole face that Harriet knew
to be characteristic of his worried moods. "Mr. Blondin," he said,
wearily and politely, "I have had a great deal on my mind, lately,
and have perhaps been hasty in my condemnation of you. However,
this does not particularly help your cause with my daughter. There
are a great many aspects to the matter, and I--I must take time to
consider them. Nina must be my first consideration, poor child!
Her mother failed her--we have all failed her! She has a right to
know of this conversation--"

Harriet stirred, and his eyes moved to her. Without a word, and
with a stricken look in her beautiful, ashen face, she turned, and
went slowly toward the door. When she reached it, she steadied
herself a second by pressing one fine hand against the dark wood,
then she opened it and was gone.

"I'm very sorry--" Blondin said, hesitatingly, when the men were
alone.

"Mrs. Carter," Richard said, getting to his feet, and very
definitely indicating an end to the conversation, "before she
consented to the--arrangement into which we entered, of course
took me into her confidence in this matter!"

"She--she did?" Royal stammered.

"Certainly she did," Richard said, harshly. And looking at him the
other man saw that his face looked haggard and colourless. "She
did not mention your name, I presume out of a sense of generosity
to you. I could have wished," he added, "that you had been
similarly generous, and had seen fit to leave her, and leave my
daughter alone. I think I must ask you to excuse me," said Richard
at the door. His tone was one of absolute suffocation. "I can see
no object in your frankness to-night, unless to distress and
humiliate Mrs. Carter. My daughter, and not myself, is the one
entitled to your confidence, and you are well aware of my feeling
where she is concerned! I would to God," said Richard, with
bitterness, "that I had never seen your face! Mrs. Carter has been
a useful--and indispensable!--member of this family for many
years; if there was in her past some unpleasant and painful event,
that is her own affair--!"

"Not when she marries a man who is unaware of it," Blondin
suggested, in his pleasant, soft tones.

"That is mine!" Richard said, sternly. And he opened the library
door. "Good evening!" he said.

"Good evening!" Blondin, with his light, loitering step, crossed
the threshold, and Richard closed the door. He took his chair
again, and reached toward the bell that would have brought
Bottomley to summon Nina in turn. But halfway to the bell his
resolution wavered, disappeared. Instead, he rested his elbows on
the table, and his head in his hands, and there sounded from his
chest a great sigh that was almost a groan.

Oh, he was tired--he was tired--he was tired! It was all a mess--
the boy, the girl, their mother, his own arrangements for their
protection and safety. All a mess.

She had been beautiful, that girl, with her golden hair in the
lamplight, and her white arms a little raised to rest her locked
hands on the chair. Like some superb actress of tragedy, some
splendid and sullen prisoner at the bar. The slender figure in the
dull wrapping of satin, and the white bosom, had looked so young,
so virginal, the blue eyes were so honestly frightened and
ashamed. And she had been that bounder's wife--in his arms!
Divorced! Harriet Field? Poor girl, cornered by this unscrupulous
scoundrel, this bully, with all the ugly past dragged up like the
muddy bottom of a river, staining and clouding the clear waters.
And what a look she had given him, there under the lamp!

"It's a funny code," he mused. "Barbarians, that's what we are,
when it comes to women. Nina, Ida, Isabelle, Harriet--all of them
pay for the man-made rule! I shouldn't have forced her hand in
this business marriage; it was taking an advantage of her. No
woman wants to marry for anything but love, and if she had married
for love, she would have made a clean breast of this old affair,
of course. I didn't exact that. We've made a nice mess of it, all
around!

"I mustn't let her work herself into a fever over all this!" he
found himself thinking.

But Nina must be the first consideration. He must plan for Nina.
He brought his thoughts back resolutely--his daughter must break
her engagement now, there was that much gained. And for the
journey to Rio--

"But why didn't she tell me!" he interrupted himself, suddenly.
The reference was not to Nina. Again he saw the superb white
shoulders in the soft flood of lamp-light, and the flash of the
blue eyes that turned toward Blondin.

"She could have killed him!" Richard said. "My God! how she will
love when she does love!"

 Meanwhile, to Harriet had come the bitterest hour of her life.
She had reached a crossroads, and with steady fingers and an
anguished heart she prepared for the only step that to her
whirling brain and shamed soul seemed possible. She must
disappear. There was no alternative.

She had harmed them all, they could only think of her now as an
unscrupulous and mischievous woman who had by chance entered their
lives when they were all in desperate need of wisdom and guidance,
who had played her own contemptible game, and added one more hurt
to the hurt reputation of the house of Carter.

Harriet got out of her evening gown and into a loose wrapper. She
went about somewhat aimlessly, yet the suitcases, spread open on
the bed, were gradually filled, and her personal possessions
gradually disappeared from tables and walls. Now and then she
stopped short, heartsick and trembling; once her lips quivered and
her eyes filled, but for the most part she did not pause.

Nina, at about eleven, had come to the door between their rooms,
and opened it. The girl was undressed, and for a few moments she
watched Harriet scowlingly, with narrowed eyes.

"Are you going away?" she said, presently. Harriet brought heavy
eyes to meet hers, and stood considering a minute, as if bringing
her thoughts back a long distance.

"I--going away? Yes," she said, slowly. "Yes, I may."

Nina still stood watching, which seemed vaguely to trouble
Harriet, who gave her a restless glance now and then as she went
to and fro. Presently she spoke to Nina again.

"Good-night, Nina!"

"Good-night!" snapped Nina, and the door slammed.

Harriet continued to move about for perhaps half an hour before
Nina's odd manner recurred to her, on a wave of memory, and she
seemed to hear again Nina's ungracious tone.

"He told her!" she said, suddenly. "She saw Royal, and he told
her! Poor child--"

And she went to Nina's room, with a vague idea that she would sit
beside the weeping girl for awhile, one heavy heart close to the
other, even if no words could pass between them.

But Nina lay sleeping peacefully, and Harriet, after watching her
for a few minutes, went back to her own room. She went to the open
window, and stood staring absently out at the dark summer night,
the great branches of the trees moving in the restless wind, and
the oblong of dull light that still fell from the library window.

She could not see the horror as Richard saw it: she could not see
herself as only a mistaken woman, a woman with youth, beauty, and
intelligence pleading for her, one problem more in his life it is
true, but only one among many, and not the greatest. She did not
see him as he saw himself, his family as the somewhat troublesome,
and yet quite understandable, group of selfish human beings in
whose perplexities he had always played the part of arbiter.

To Harriet the thing loomed momentous, unforgivable, incalculable.
It assumed to her the proportions of a murder. Bigamy, perjury,
deceit--what hadn't she done! Richard, in her estimation, was not
what he thought himself, a somewhat ordinary man in the forties
whose life had already held poverty and disillusionment and
wholesome disappointment, whose nature had been tempered to humour
and generosity and philosophy; to Harriet, he was the richest, the
finest, the most deserving of men, and she the adventuress who had
brought his name down to shame and dishonour.

Until two o'clock she was wretchedly busy in soul and body. When
the last of her personal possessions was packed, and when she was
aching from head to foot, she took a hot bath, and crept into bed.

But not to sleep. The feverish agonies of shame and reproach held
her. She was pleading with Richard, she was talking to Nina--she
was making little of it--making much of it--she was saying a
reluctant "yes--yes--yes!" to their questioning.

At four o'clock she dressed herself again, half-mad with headache
and fatigue, and went out into a world that was just beginning to
brighten into faint shapes and colours. The fresh cold air of
morning struck her jaded senses with a delicious chill; she went
noiselessly across the terrace and down toward the water, her big
soft coat brushing spider-webs from the dim rosebushes as she
went. The world lay silent, fragrant, saturated with dew. Yet
under its chill Harriet felt the pervading warmth of the day that
had gone, and the day that was to come.

She drew in great breaths of it; it was her world for another
three hours. Then men would begin to stir themselves, down at the
river docks, and at the stables and garages, and smoke would go up
from the chimneys of Crownlands, and rakes clink on the gravel
walks. She went down to the little pier, and sat on a weather-worn
bench, and watched the day breaking softly over the river.

Little wrinkles crossed the satiny surface of the Hudson, which
looked dark and metallic in the twilight. But presently there was
a general glimmering and widening, and across the river trees and
houses were touched with light, and window-panes flashed. Harriet,
huddled into her coat, did not stir; she might have been, for an
hour, a part of the motionless scene.

A steamer moved majestically up the river, the smoothly widening
wake spread from shore to shore; pink light showed at one cabin
window; and into Harriet's sombre thoughts came unbidden the
picture of a yawning cook, stumbling about amid his soot-blackened
pots and pans.

With the morning, the peace of a conquered spirit fell upon her.
She had thought it all to an ending at last. It seemed to Harriet
that never in her life had she thought so clearly, so truly, so
bravely. Her duty to Richard, to his children, to Linda; she had
faced them without fear and without deception, tasting the
humiliating truth to its bitter dregs, planning the few short
interviews that must precede her leaving them all forever.

For Harriet emerged from the furnace the mistress of her own soul.
She had been wrong; she had been weak; she had been contemptible;
but not so wrong or weak or contemptible as they would think her.
She would go on her way now, the braver for the lesson and the
shame. And what they thought of her must never shake again her own
knowledge of her own innocence.

Go on her way to what? She did not know. But she neither feared
what the future might hold nor doubted, it. She could make her own
way from a new beginning.

"But before I go," said Harriet, resolutely, "I must tell him that
I'm sorry. And I must ask Nina to forgive me."

She turned, and buried her face in the thick, soft sleeve of her
coat. But she did not cry long, and when Jensen, the boatman, came
out on the dock at seven, the lady he knew to be his new mistress
was sitting composedly enough on her bench, studying the now
glittering and sparkling river with quiet eyes.

Harriet nodded to him, and rose somewhat stiffly, to go up to the
house. She mounted the brick steps with a thoughtfully dropped
head--the straight shafts of the sunlight were making it
impossible to face the house, in any case--and so was within three
feet of Richard Carter before she saw him.

He looked fresh, hard, even young, in his white flannels. They
stood looking at each other for a moment without speaking.

"Where have you been?" said Richard, sharply, then. "You look
ill!"

Tears, despite her desperate resolution, suddenly stung Harriet's
eyes. And yet her heart leaped with hope.

"I wanted to see you, Mr. Carter," she faltered. "I couldn't sleep
very well. I've been down at the shore. But later--any time will
do!"

"You couldn't sleep!" he exclaimed with quick sympathy. He looked
from her about him, as if for a shelter for her emotion. "Here,"
he said, "come down the steps a bit. I was just going down to the
court for a little tennis; Ward may follow me, but he won't be
dressed for half an hour yet. Sit down here; we can talk."

They had come to the marble bench on the terrace, where Isabelle
and Anthony Pope, sheltered by these same towering trees and low
brick walls, had had their talk a year ago. Harriet, to her own
consternation, felt that she was in danger of tears.

"I--I hardly know how to say it," she began. "But--but you know
how ashamed I am!"

"I know--I know how you feel!" Richard said with a sort of brief
sympathy. "I'm sorry! But you know you mustn't take this all too
hard. I didn't--I was thinking of this last night; I didn't ask
you for--well, any more than you gave me, in this marriage of
ours. Your divorce was your own affair--"

The girl's tired eyes flashed.

"There was no divorce!" she said, quickly.

"No divorce?" he echoed with a puzzled frown.

"I want to tell you about it!" she said. But the tears would come
again. "I'm tired!" Harriet said, childishly, trying to smile.
"I've been up--walking. I couldn't sleep!"

The consciousness that he had been able to forget the whole
tangle, and sleep soundly, gave Richard's voice a little
compunction as he said:

"You don't have to tell me now. We'll find a way out of it that is
easy for everyone--"

"No, but let me talk!" Harriet, in her eagerness, laid her fingers
on his wrist, and he was shocked to feel that they were icy cold.
"I want to tell you the whole thing--I want you to understand!"
she said, eagerly. Richard looked at her in some anxiety; there
was no acting here. The rich hair was pushed carelessly from the
troubled forehead. She was huddled in the enveloping coat, a
different figure indeed from his memory of the superb and angry
girl of last night in the library lamplight.

"Mr. Carter, I never knew my mother--" she began. But he
interrupted her.

"My dear," he said, in a tone he might have used to Nina. He laid
his warm, fine hand on hers, and patted it soothingly. "My dear
girl, if you feel that you would like to go to that motherly
sister of yours--if you feel that it would be wiser--"

"Oh, I am going to Linda at once!" Harriet said, feverishly, hurt
to the soul. "I had planned that! But--but won't you let me tell
you?" she pleaded. She had framed the sentences a hundred times in
the long night; they failed her utterly now, and she groped for
words. "I was only three years old when my mother died," she said.
"Of course I don't remember her--I only remember Linda. I was shy,
my father was a professor, we were too poor to have very much
social life. I lived in books, lived in my father's shabby little
study really; I never had an intimate girl friend! Linda was
always good--angelically good--talking of the Armenian sufferers,
and of the outrages in the Congo, and of the poor in New York's
lower east side--she never cared that we were poor, and that we
hadn't clothes!"

"I know--I know!" Richard's eyes were smiling, as if he knew the
picture, and liked it.

"Well, Linda married when I was ten, and Josephine came, and then
Julia came. I still lived for books and babies. But, unlike Linda,
I cared." Harriet's whole face glowed; she looked off into space,
and her voice had a longing note. "I cared for clothes and good
times!" she said. "I adored the children, but I dreamed of
carriages--maids--glory--achievements! I knew that other women did
it--"

"I remember feeling that way!" Richard commented, mildly, as she
paused.

"Well," Harriet said, "I met Royal Blondin one night. He lived in
our town--Watertown. He had a dreadful, artificial sort of mother.
My sister didn't approve of her at all. A friend of his named
Street was an artist, and he had a nice little wife, and a baby,
and they lived in a big, barnlike sort of studio. It seemed
wonderful to me. They loved each other, and their baby, but they
were so free! They would have the whole crowd to dinner, twenty of
us, bread and red wine and macaroni and music and talk, it was
wonderful--or I thought so! It was so different from Linda's
ideas, of frosted layer-cake, and chopped nuts, and Five Hundred.
I loved the studio, and they--they all loved me, and he--Royal--
loved me especially. He used to talk about Yogi philosophy and
Oriental religions and poetry, and after awhile it was understood
among them all that he loved me, and I him. And we were engaged.
Of course Linda suspected, and there was opposition at home, but
in the studio, helping the Streets get their suppers, it seemed so
right--so simple! Royal said he did not believe in the orthodox
ceremony of marriage. He argued that no one could live up to its
promises, and I believed him. Miriam Street, the artist's wife,
was a poet, and she wrote the ceremony by which we were married.
We had a big supper, and they were all there, and this poem--this
marriage poem--was beautiful. It was published in a magazine,
afterward, and called 'A Marriage for True Lovers'. It had a part
for the woman to say, and a part for the man, and Royal and I said
those, and then it had a part for the woman's friend, and the
man's friend, and for all their friends. And then there was a
promise that when love failed on either side, the two were free,
to keep the memory of the perfect love unstained by the ugly
years."

She paused; Richard did not speak. She had told him this much in a
simple, childish voice, a voice that was an echo of that old time,
he knew. Presently she went on:

"There was music, and then they all kissed me, and we had supper,
and they drank our health. I went back that night to my sister's;
Royal stayed with his mother. We planned to go away on our
honeymoon the next day. I did not tell Linda and Fred that I
considered myself married. I knew they would not understand and
would try to interfere.

"The next morning I slipped away from the house, with my suitcase,
and I met Royal Blondin downtown. We motored to Syracuse, and took
a train there for New York. I had felt sick when I awakened--it
was partly excitement, and partly the supper the night before,
when we had all eaten and drunk too much. But I was very sick in
the train, I thought I was going to die. Royal persuaded me to eat
my lunch in the dining car, and that only made me worse. There was
a nice woman in the train, with two little girls, and she took
care of me. And when she got to New York--I had told her that I
was on my wedding journey, and perhaps that made her kind--she
took us to her boarding-house, in West Forty-sixth Street. The
landlady was a dear, good woman, a Mrs. Harrington, and--I was
very sick by this time!--she put me into her own room, because the
house was full, and sent for her own doctor.

"It was a time of horror," Harriet said, smiling a little, after a
moment of thought. "The strange women and the strange room, and
Royal coming in with flowers, and sitting beside me. The doctor
said it was a touch of poisoning, and I was ill only a few days.
But the home-sickness, and the strangeness! Somehow, I didn't feel
married, I felt like a lost little girl. I wanted to be back in
Linda's kitchen again, safe, and scolding because nothing
interesting ever happened.

"Well, I was sick for three or four days. It was the fourth day
when I was well enough to go out. Royal thanked them, and paid
Mrs. Harrington and the doctor and we went to lunch downtown--it
was at Martin's, I remember, and Royal was so excited and
interested in everything. But I still felt limp and dull. We
shopped and went about seeing things after lunch, and then we went
to the hotel where he was staying. We were registered there as Mr.
and Mrs. Blondin; it was all quite taken for granted."

Harriet stopped; her face was drawn and white, her words coming
with difficulty, the phrases brief and dry. Richard was paying her
absolute attention, his eyes fixed upon her face.

"We had dinner upstairs," she said. She paused, her lips tight
pressed.

"I can't tell you," she began again, suddenly, "I can't tell you
how it was that I came suddenly to know that I was too young for
marriage! In Miriam Street's little studio, where they were
laughing about the baby and the supper, it had seemed different.
But here, in a hotel, I suddenly wanted my sister, I wanted to be
home again.

"We were talking and planning naturally enough. Royal was coming
and going in the two rooms; I had plenty of chance to--to escape.
Every time I let one go by my heart beat harder."

He could tell from her voice that her heart was beating hard now
with the memory of that old time.

"If I had let them all go by," she recommenced, "my life would
have been different. In a few weeks we would have come back to
Watertown, as man and wife, and perhaps had a studio near the
Streets', and perhaps found a solution. But I couldn't!

"I caught up my coat; left my hat and bag. I went down the stairs,
not daring to wait for the elevator. And I went to Mrs.
Harrington's. She was very kind and took me in; she said that
perhaps it would be better to wait--until I was older. I cried all
night, and the next day Mrs. Harrington lent me the money and I
went back to Linda.

"Of course, it was terrible, at first. But they were kind to me,
in their way. And I was--cured. I went into hysterics at the first
mention of the whole hideous thing. They saw Roy, and they told me
that I need never see him again. The papers--for it got to the
papers!--said that a divorce had been arranged, but there was no
need for a divorce. It was all hushed up--Linda and Fred never
spoke of it. I--ah, well, I couldn't!

"But when Fred's brother, David, who was in dental college then,
began to like me, then they began to make light of it," Harriet
remembered. "There had been no marriage, of course, either in law
or in fact. They all knew that. And I suppose if I had married
David it might have been happier for me. But as it was, I angered
them. I didn't want to marry David. And so it was what folly girls
got themselves into--what the world thought of a girl who had been
'talked about'--what the least breath of scandal meant!"

"And you went back to Blondin?" Richard suggested.

"I? No, I never saw him again until a year ago in this garden!"
Harriet said.

"You never saw him again!" the man ejaculated.

"Not for nine years!"

"But--my God, my dear girl, he spoke of you as his wife!" Richard
said.

"He said I had been. Not that I was now!"

The man looked at her, looked away at the river, and shrugged his
shoulders as if he were mystified by the ways of women.

"But--you were never his wife?" he said, flatly.

"Oh, no! You didn't think," Harriet said, hurt, "that I would have
married you, or any one else, if I had been!"

"You let him blackmail you for that," Richard further marvelled.

"I knew--in my own mind, of course, that I was not to blame," the
girl said, anxiously. "But it sounded--horrible."

Richard bit his lower lip, looked critically at his racket, slowly
shook his head.

"I didn't mind what any one thought," Harriet said, reading his
thought. "But they did!"

"They?" Richard repeated, patiently.

"Everyone," she supplied, promptly. "Your wife, your mother, Mary
Putnam! Even Mrs. Tabor."

"I suppose so!" he conceded, after a pause. And beneath his breath
he added, "Isabelle--Ida Tabor!"

His tone was all she asked of exquisite reassurance.

"I hoped you wouldn't!" she said, standing up with clasped hands
and a sudden brightening of her tired and colourless face. "That's
what I tried to make myself believe you would feel! I wanted so to
leave it all behind. I thought he had gone, that it was all over,
that what it was mattered more than what it sounded like! I
thought I could save Nina better, with what I knew, than any one
else! But last night," Harriet added, "proved to me that I had
been all wrong. I've been so worried," she added, with utter faith
in his decision. "I don't know what you think we had better do."

For a full minute Richard watched her in silence. Then he said,
mildly:

"About Nina, you mean?"

"About everything!" Harriet suddenly laughed gaily, like a child.
Life seemed once more straight and pleasant in this exquisite June
morning; she felt puzzled, but somehow no longer afraid. The
menacing horrors of all the years, the vague uneasiness that she
had never quite dared to face, were fluttering about her awakening
spirit like Alice's pack of cards.

"Nina will come into line," her father said, thoughtfully, "she
doesn't know what she wants. I wish--I wish he loved her!" he
added, with a faint frown. "I'll see him about it again. We'll
take her to Rio. She'll get over it."

"And--" Harriet stopped, and began again: "And do you want things
to go on just as they are?" she asked.

For answer Richard smiled at her in silence.

"No," he said, finally. "I can't say that I do. I want you to
worry less, and to buy yourself some new gowns, and to begin to
enjoy life! Shakespeare had you down fine when he talked about
conscience making cowards of us all. What did you do it for? A
young, capable, good-looking girl scared by a lot of old women!
Now, we'll take up this Nina question, later on. You'd better go
up and get yourself some coffee, and go to bed for awhile. Better
plan to be in town for a day or two, for you'll both need clothes
for the steamer--"

"You're very kind," the girl said, eyes averted, voice almost
inaudible. They were both standing now, Harriet's head turned
aside, so that he could not see her face, but her soft fingers
resting in his.

"I'm not kind at all!" Richard said, with a rather confused laugh.
He patted her hand encouragingly. "The sea trip will shake both
you and Nina up, and do you a world of good!" he said.

"You think--" Harriet raised the soft, dark lashes, and her
splendid, weary eyes met his, "You really aren't worried about
Nina?"

And she tried by a very faint stirring of her fingers to free
them, and finding them held, dropped her eyes again.

"I think I have Blondin's number," Richard said, with more force
than eloquence. Then with a little laugh that was partly amused
and partly embarrassed, he let her go.

He watched the young, slender figure and the shining, bare head
until they disappeared among the great trees about the house.




CHAPTER XX


The summer Sunday ran its usual course. Ward and his sister went
to luncheon at the club; Madame Carter drove majestically to a
late service in the pretty, vine-covered village church. Harriet,
at last able to relax in soul and body, slept hour after glorious
hour. Richard, returning from golf for a late luncheon, asked for
her. Mrs. Carter was still asleep, Bottomley assured him, and
received orders not to disturb her. But when Mr. Blondin called,
Richard told the butler he was to be shown to the terrace at once.

At three o'clock, therefore, Royal Blondin followed his guide out
to the basket chairs that were set under the trees, and here he
found Richard, comfortably smoking, and alone. The host rose to
greet him, but they did not shake hands, and measured each other
like wrestlers as they sat down.

"I had your message," Royal said, as an opening.

"You've not seen Nina to-day?" Nina's father asked.

"I broke an engagement with her at the club," the other man
assured him. "We will probably meet at the Bellamys', at dinner
this evening."

"Ah, it was about that I wished to speak." Richard paused, and
Blondin watched him with polite interest. "You have held your
knowledge of Mrs. Carter as a sort of weapon for some months,"
Richard said. presently, "to use it when you saw fit. I have
always been in my wife's confidence--"

He paused, but for no reason that Blondin could divine. As a
matter of fact, it gave Richard a sudden and unexpected pleasure
to speak of her so, to realize that he really might give the most
wonderful title in the world to this beautiful and spirited woman.

"And I have also talked with Nina this morning," he went on. "I
regret to say that her intentions have not altered."

"A loyal little heart!" Blondin said, gravely and contentedly. "I
knew I could depend upon her!"

Richard looked at him steadily for a moment, and felt carefully
for his next words.

"You know how I feel about her marrying you--" he began.

Royal nodded, regretfully, broke the ash from his cigarette with a
delicately poised little finger, and regarded Richard
questioningly. "That is my misfortune," he said, resignedly;
pleasantly aware that Nina's father would never be his match in
phrases and self-control.

"I needn't go over all that," Richard said. "I love my daughter; I
believe she will make a fine woman. But she isn't anything but a
child now!"

"Perhaps you fail to do her justice in that respect," Royal
Blondin said. Richard flushed with anger, but felt helpless under
the other man's quiet insolence.

"I said I wanted to see you on business, Mr. Blondin," Richard
continued, trying to keep impatience and contempt out of his
voice, "and we'll keep to business. I don't know what your
circumstances are, of course--"

He hesitated, and Blondin looked at him with a faint interest.

"I live simply," he said. "Nina's money will be all her own."

"Nina will have no money, not one five-cent piece, for exactly
three years!" Richard said.

Blondin shrugged.

"She is quite willing to try it!" he reminded her father.

"I know she is! But how about you?" Richard asked. "You are not a
boy, you have some idea of what marriage means. For three years
you must take care of her, dress her, amuse her, satisfy her that
she has not made a mistake. Then she does come into her money--
yes. But three years is a long time in which to keep her certain
that the wisest thing she can do is turn it over to you."

He paused; Blondin smoked imperturbably.

"The marriage must be a notorious one, in any case," Richard
pursued. "For I intend to make my stand too clear ever to permit
of a retraction. I shall forbid it--let the world know that I
forbid it. I shall forbid my daughter the house, and her wedding
gift will be simply the clothes she happens to have. From Tuesday-
-her eighteenth birthday--she will turn to you for her actual
pocket money, for her theatre tickets and cab fares."

"I understand that perfectly!" Royal said, serenely. But
underneath, while not moved from his intention, he felt his
customary assurance shaken.

"She is extravagant, naturally," her father said. "She will want
new gowns, want to display her new importance a little. Those
bills will come to you, Mr. Blondin. All the world will know as
well as you do that I have washed my hands of the whole affair."

Royal nodded again. He began to be conscious of a growing
disquietude. He had naturally given much thought to this exact
question during the past few weeks, and had solved it only by
dismissing it. He had assured himself that with his only daughter
no man as generous as Carter could be really harsh, and had always
held his knowledge of Harriet comfortably in the back of his mind,
as an irresistible lever. Now both these considerations were
losing their force, and the empty satisfaction of defying Richard
seemed to be losing its flavour, too.

Blondin had no money, and lived with an extravagance that kept him
perpetually worried for money. The rent of his studio had been
raised; he was conscious of the necessity of returning
hospitalities, of buying clothes. His credit would receive an
immediate assistance from a marriage with Richard Carter's
daughter, to be sure, but to sustain a credit for three years upon
that shadowy footing would be extremely trying.

He liked Nina; despite his contempt for the girl, there was a
certain pitying affection for her stubborn loyalty and simplicity.
But he knew exactly what hideous scenes must follow upon his
marriage with her. What could he do with her, even suppose him to
have borrowed money enough to make their honeymoon a success? He
imagined her dawdling about his studio, imagined his social
standing as necessarily affected, imagined Mr. and Mrs. Royal
Blondin attempting to reach an agreement as to which invitations
would be accepted and which rejected. Railway fares, luncheons
downtown, all these cost money--lots of money. Nina would want to
entertain "the girls." And Royal had at present several serious
debts. He had lost money on three morning lectures, delightful
lectures and well-attended, but still a financial loss. He had
been foolish enough to lose money at bridge, at the Bellamys' a
week ago, and young Bellamy was carrying his check for three
hundred and twelve dollars, drawn upon a bank where Royal was
already overdrawn. Then there was an unpleasantness about three
rugs, rugs he had taken four years ago, in a moment of
unbelievable prosperity, but for which seven hundred and twenty
dollars had been promised, and never paid. Royal had indeed
offered Hagopian the rugs and a bonus, back again; he was sick of
the studio, and the endless reminders from his landlord's agent
that the monthly one hundred and seventy-five dollars was overdue;
he was sick of the whole business.

But Hagopian had refused to take back the rugs, and the rent had
reached the four-figure mark, and until he had settled for the
last lectures, he did not feel encouraged to begin more.

This was not a cheerful outlook with which to begin three years of
penniless matrimony. Royal, suavely smiling, and smoking on the
terrace, wondered suddenly if old Madame Carter, who had always
been his champion, would help out.

But Richard seemed to read his thought.

"Nina has appealed to her grandmother," he said, "and I know my
mother sympathizes, and would be glad to help you. But her affairs
are in my hands. She preferred it so, when I offered her some
securities years ago, and it has always been so. Her bank account
receives a monthly check; she sends all her household bills to my
secretary, Fox. He O. K's and pays them. Consequently, she is not
able to act in this matter, and I think she is glad of it! I
believe she would regret the--the inevitable estrangement as much
as I."

Blondin elevated his eyebrows politely, as one interested but not
concerned. But he knew, with a sort of rage, that he was beaten.
His only recourse now would be to plead to Nina an all-important
wire from the Pacific coast, a dying friend, a temporary absence.
He could sub-let his studio for twice the rent, and live on the
margin until kindly Fate, as always, turned up a new card. Nina
would protest, would weep that her beloved studio, where her first
exciting housekeeping was to begin, was occupied by strangers, but
that was unavoidable. However, he would annoy this gray-eyed,
firm-lipped business man first.

But Richard had taken a small slip of tan paper from his pocket,
and was studying it thoughtfully. Royal saw it, and his eyes
narrowed.

"Now, Mr. Blondin," Nina's father said, simply, "I'm a business
man. I can't beat about the bush, and call things by pretty names.
I want a favour of you, and I'm willing to pay for it. I
telephoned you this morning that I wanted to see you on a matter
of business. This is my proposition."

He leaned forward, and Royal saw the paper. He boasted to women of
his indifference to money, it was true, but as with all
adventurers, it held first place in his thoughts. No man who was
in debt could look upon that check unmoved. Royal might win at
cards to-night, to be sure; Carter might weaken to-morrow, it was
true. But this check bore his name, and it was sure.

To enter the bank, with Richard Carter's check for so substantial
an amount, to deposit it, exchange a careless word with the
cashier, to write his check for the overdue rent, with a casual
apology; to play bridge again, this evening, with young Bellamy,
and this time win back that accursed check of his own, as he knew
he would win it. ...

It all fluttered before his eyes, despite his attempt to look
indifferent. It weighed down the little tarnished thing he called
his pride, already half-forfeited in this group. His last attempt
at bravado was obviously that, and he knew it.

"Just one moment, Mr. Carter. You say that you and I know what
marriage is. How do you reconcile it with your knowledge of Nina,
your knowledge of her upbringing, to plan deliberately what would
make our marriage--or any marriage--foredoomed to failure from the
start? I didn't spoil Nina, I didn't form her tastes. She has
thought of herself as an heiress, she has spent money, lived
luxuriously. I only ask a fair chance. Make it an allowance, if
you like. Keep the matter in the family; don't blaze to the world
that you disapprove! Many a less-promising marriage has turned out
a brilliant success. She loves me. I--I am devoted to her. I see
tremendous possibilities in her!"

"She loves you as a child does, and because she doesn't know you,"
Richard said, inflexibly. "But you haven't heard what I propose,
Blondin. Hear me out. I give you this now, to-day, on condition
that before to-night you talk to Nina. Represent anything you wish
to her. Tell her what you please. But convince her that she must
wait for two years--with no letters, no meetings, no engagement--
that's all.

"On my part, I promise that nobody in the world, not Mrs. Carter,
not anybody, will hear of this for two years from to-day, at
least. Meanwhile, we'll amuse Nina. Her grandmother wants to take
her to Santa Barbara next fall--Gardiner wants both the youngsters
on his ranch this summer, or she may go with me to Brazil. She'll
have enough to think about. We'll not hurt you with her, you may
take my word for it. And I tell you frankly that I shall be deeply
grateful. I'm not paying you for giving her up. I'm paying you for
two years' delay. Young Hopper will be at the Gardiners' this
summer--she likes him, and he likes her! Well, that's
speculation." Richard dismissed it with a movement of his fine
hands. "But we'll distract her!" he promised. "Hopper may buy a
ranch out there--that sort of thing might suit Nina down to the
ground!"

"Buy it with Nina's money," Royal could not help sneering.

Richard eyed him in surprise.

"When Joe Hopper died he left that boy's mother something in the
millions," he said. "There's an immense estate." And then, with a
reversion to business: "Come, now, Mr. Blondin. We understand each
other. Nina's dining at the Bellamys' to-night; you're staying
there. Will you see her?"

The check fluttered to the table between them. There was a long
silence. Then Blondin ground out his cigarette in a stone saucer,
rose, in all the easy beauty of his white summer clothes, his
flowing scarf, his dark, romantic locks. He lifted his straw hat,
put it on, picked up his stick, and laid it on the table. Then he
took the check and read it thoughtfully.

"Thank you!" he said. Yet the shameful thing struck him, an adept
now in evading and lying, as surprisingly easy, and as he
sauntered away in the June warmth and silence, it was not of Nina,
or her father, or even of himself that he was thinking.

He had met the widow of Joe Hopper a few nights ago: a faded
little pleasant woman of fifty, pathetically grateful for his
casual politeness in her strangeness and shyness. He had chanced,
quite idly and accidentally, to make an impression on her. She had
promised to come to the studio and look at his rugs.

Royal wondered why she dressed so badly; she needed simple
materials and flowing lines. He heard himself telling her so.

Richard sat on, on the terrace, thinking, and presently his mother
came out and joined him. Wasn't he, the old lady asked
elaborately, going to the club? It was almost five o'clock, her
son reminded her. Two or three of his business associates were
coming to dinner; Hansen was to drive them all into the city
later. Now, he just felt lazy.

"No tea to-day?" he asked, presently. People usually went to the
club on Sunday, said his mother. She added, irrelevantly, that
Harriet was asleep. Richard said that she had looked tired this
morning; sleep was the best thing for her.

But suddenly life became significant and thrilling again; he heard
her voice, her laugh. She came swiftly and quietly out to them,
smiling at him, settling herself in the chair beside his mother.
She wore white, transparent, simple; there were coral beads about
her firm young throat. The dew of her deep sleep made her blue
eyes wonderful; her cheeks were as pink as a baby's.

"Aren't the June days delicious?" she said. Richard studied her,
smilingly, without answering. What would she say next, where would
she move her eyes, or lay her white hand, he wondered. When she
murmured to his mother in an undertone, he tried to catch the
words.

"We're to have tea," Harriet announced. When it came, she poured
it; for awhile the three were alone. Richard found himself talking
to make her talk, but she was apparently interested only to draw
out his mother and himself. "I'm starving," she presently said,
apologetically, "this is luncheon and breakfast, too, for me!"

"Did you have a good sleep?" Richard asked. She flashed him an
eloquent look.

"Oh--the most delightful of my whole life! Eight hours without
stirring!"

The Hoyts arrived: a handsome mother and two equally handsome
daughters. Harriet went to them gracefully; Richard saw that she
was accepting good wishes. She took the callers to his mother, and
filled their cups herself.

"She certainly is wonderful!" Richard said. He perfectly realized
his own suddenly deepening feeling for her, but he dared not
analyze it yet. When Mrs. Hoyt hinted at a dinner, he took part in
the conversation. "Thursday? Why not, Harriet? We have no
engagement for Thursday?"

She flushed brightly, signalling to him that she had already
indicated an excuse. They had never dined together away from home.
He need not think, said Harriet's anxious manner, that he need
carry the appearance of marriage so far.

"But--but aren't Nina and I to be in town Thursday?" she ventured,

"Shopping. You can make that next week!" Richard said. He loved
her confusion.

"Then we surely will! Thank you," she said to Mrs. Hoyt.

"Thursday, then, at eight!" the caller said, departing. Richard
sauntered with them to their car, and returned to find Harriet
half-scandalized, half-laughing.

"But do you want to dine with them?" she asked.

"Why not?" His smile challenged her, and she laughed hardily.

"I suppose there is no reason why not, Mr. Carter!"

"You can wear"--he gestured--"the black and goldy thing. They'll
all be watching you!"

"Oh," she said, considering earnestly, "I have a much handsomer
one than that. Blue and silver. You've not seen it."

"Blue and silver, then." Richard felt a distinct regret when the
men he expected appeared. There was but one figure of any interest
to him on the shady, flower-scented terrace, and that was a
woman's figure in a white gown.

For two or three days he was conscious of a constant interest in
her appearances and disappearances, a constant desire to please
her. He found himself liking a certain young man, in his city
club, for no other reason than that he had asked admiringly for
Mrs. Carter. He found Harriet deeply interested in a book, and
took the time to go into a bookstore and ask the clerk for
something "on the same line as the Poulteney Letters." In Nina's
old Kodak album, idly opened, he was suddenly held by pictures of
Nina's governess, beautiful even in a bathing-suit, with dripping
hair; lovely in the gipsy hats and short skirts of camp life.

Richard Carter was conscious of one mastering curiosity: he wanted
to know just how Harriet regarded him. It seemed suddenly of
supreme importance. He thought of it in his office, and smiled to
himself during important business conferences, wondering about it.
It seemed incredible to him, now, that his experiences of the past
year had been so largely concerned with Harriet. His wife's
companion, his daughter's governess, his own capable and dignified
housekeeper, the woman he had so hastily married, all seemed a
different person, a quite visionary person, with whom just such
businesslike arrangements had been possible.

But Harriet was beginning to seem to him a stranger who possessed
at once the most mysterious and childlike, the most beautiful and
the most baffling personality that he had ever known. He made
excuses to go home early, just to catch glimpses of this wife who
was not his wife. That he had ever taken a fatherly, advisory tone
with this woman was unbelievable; her mere approach made him catch
his breath and lose his coherency. He had walked into her room--he
had patronized her--he had asked her as casually to marry him as
if she had been fifty, and as plain as she was lovely!

Richard shuddered as he thought of it. He made constant efforts to
engage her in personalities, but she evaded him. There was a real
thrill for him in the quiet dinner at the Hoyts'. Mrs. Carter,
said slow old bewhiskered John Hoyt, was an extremely pretty
woman. My wife--Richard in answering called her that--looks
particularly well in an evening gown. Indeed she looked exquisite
in the blue and silver dress, laughing--still with that adorable
mist of strangeness and shyness about her--with her neighbours at
the table, and afterward in the drawing room, waving her silver
fan slowly while Freda Hoyt, who quite obviously adored her,
whispered her long confidences.

Coming home in the limousine they had neighbours with them, old
Doctor and Mrs. Carmichael, so he might not have the word alone
with her for which he had been longing all evening. But he stopped
her in the wide, dim hallway when they reached Crownlands.

"Tired?" he said, at the foot of the stairs.

"Not a bit!" There was an enchanting vitality about her. She had
slipped the thin wrap from her shoulders, and she turned to him
her lovely, happy face. "Did you want me?"

"I wanted to say something to you," Richard said, feeling awkward
as a boy.

"In there?" She nodded, suddenly alert, toward the library.

"Why in there?" he asked, with a little husky laugh. His one
impulse was to put his arms about her.

"I thought--bills, perhaps?" Harriet said, innocently. It was the
third day of the month; he had often consulted her as to expenses
before this.

"No," Richard said, with another unsteady little laugh. "It wasn't
bills. I was just wondering--if I had been very stupid," he said,
taking one of her hands, and looking up from the fingers that lay
in his to the face that now wore an expression a little frightened
despite the smile.

"Never with me!" Harriet said, in a low tone.

"Never so blind," Richard said, "never so matter-of-fact that I
hurt your feelings? Nothing of--that sort?"

"Always the kindest friend I ever had!" the girl answered,
unsteadily, and with suddenly wet eyes. "The--the most generous!"

He looked at her hand again, looked up at her as if he would
speak. But instead she felt her fingers pressed, and felt her
heart thump with a delicious terror.

"Do--do you like the blue and silver dress?" she asked with an
excited laugh.

"I like it better than any dress I have ever seen!" Richard
answered, seriously. Her hand free now, Harriet, standing on the
lowest step, made him a little bow that displayed the frail silver
fan, the silver slippers, the stockings with their silver lace.

"And wait until you see our frocks for the boat!" she warned him.
"Nina has a yellow coat--and I have a black lace and a white
embroidery! Really--REALLY I have never seen anything like the
white one. SHEER, you know--"

Bottomley came noiselessly, discreetly, across the hall. Instantly
the woman in blue and silver was all the mistress.

"Is Mr. Ward in, Bottomley?"

"He dined at 'ome, Mrs. Carter."

"Oh, thank you! You may lock up, then. Good-night, Mr. Carter!
Good-night, Bottomley!"

She was gone. The blue and silver gown and the bunched folds of
the furred coat vanished on the stairway landing. The tall clock
that she passed struck eleven. And Richard, going into his
library, realized that he was deeply and passionately in love. He
could think of nothing else--he did not wish to think of anything
else. Her face came between him and his book, her voice loitered
in his ears, her precise, pretty phrasing, the laughter that
sometimes lurked beneath her tones.

He went upstairs, and to his own suite. There was a door between
his own sitting room and the room that had been Isabelle's. From
the other side of his door, to-night, came the murmur of voices:
Harriet and Nina were talking. Their conversation seemed full of
fascination to Richard, although he could not hear a word, and
would not have made an effort to do so. But he liked the thought
of this lovely woman near his little girl, of their conferences
and confidences.

 Next day Harriet told him that Nina had been talking of young
Hopper.

"It seems that this awkward, tongue-tied youth is desperately
enamoured of Rosa Artures, of the Metropolitan Opera Company,"
Harriet said in rich amusement. "Of course the Artures is forty-
five, and has a domestic life that is the delight of the women's
magazines. But poor little Hopper haunts her performances, and
sends her orchids, just the same. He had never met her until a
week or two ago, then some friends had her and her husband on
their yacht, and he was there. And she ate, it seems, and laughed,
and even drank a little too much--he's entirely disillusioned!
Isn't it too bad? And somebody told me about it, so I encouraged
Nina to get him to talk last night. They talked only too well!
They exchanged tragedies."

"Well, that won't hurt her!" Richard said, thoughtfully.

"Hurt her!" Harriet answered, eagerly. "It will be the best thing
in the world for her!"

They were at the country club; Harriet chaperoning Nina, who was
down at the tennis court with a group of young persons; Richard
breathless and happy from a hard game of eighteen holes. He had
encountered her on the porch, on his way to the showers,
experiencing, as he did so, the thrill that belongs only to the
unexpected encounter. Now they loitered at the railing, in the
shade of the green awnings, as entirely oblivious of watching eyes
as if the clubhouse were the library at home.

"Nina is charming as a confidante," Harriet said, "and she would
make a boy of that type a delightful wife. She is the sort that
marries early, or not at all. and I'm going deliberately to
encourage this affair in a quiet way. He's a dear fellow, domestic
and shy; they'd love their home and their children and Nina would
develop into the ideal wife and mother. She's discriminating, she
makes nice friends, she has splendid French and Spanish. She looks
lovely to-day; I persuaded her to leave her glasses at home, even
if she did miss them a little, and she has on one of the gowns we
bought for the Brazilian trip."

"I made the reservations to-day. We sail the third of August,"
Richard said. "We've got to have your pictures taken for the
passports."

"South America!" Harriet gave a great sigh of joy. "You don't know
how excited I am!" she said. "Three weeks on a big liner--and we
have to have bathing-suits, somebody said for the canvas tank, and
they have all sorts of things on board. I've always wanted to go
to Rio!"

"There are eight big staterooms with baths on this liner," Richard
said. "I've taken two adjoining ones, so we ought to be very
comfortable. Yes," he conceded, enjoying her enthusiasm, "it ought
to be a great trip! Will you and Nina want a maid?"

"A maid?" She widened her blue eyes. "Oh, no! Why should we?"

Richard laughed at her surprise.

"You might take Pilgrim," he suggested. And with an amused glance
he added: "You forget that you are a rich man's wife."

"Indeed I don't!" Harriet said, quickly. "I spend simply
scandalous sums! When I saw my sister last week," she confided,
gaily, "she explained that the payment on the new house would
prevent the usual six weeks at the beach this year, and I simply
made them go! I paid the rent on their cottage and bought the
tickets, and--oh, all sorts of things, little dresses and sandals
and shade hats, and off they went! You never saw such joy!"

Richard blinked his eyes, and managed a smile.

"What did you pay it out of?" he wondered,

"My bank account! Linda and I shopped a whole morning, and had
lunch downtown--it was more fun!" Harriet said, youthfully. "The
rent," she explained, "was eighty dollars--"

"What? For six weeks!" Richard interrupted.

"Do you think that's a lot?" she asked, anxiously.

"Go on!" he said. "They all went off, did they? Eighty dollars
gives them a cottage until the middle of August, does it?"

"Until school opens," she nodded. "All the other things--well, it
came to about two hundred."

"That's happiness, isn't it?" Richard said. "A cottage on a
swarming beach. Sons and daughters in bathing-suits, no real
housekeeping for the mother, nothing but sleep and swimming and
plain meals!"

"They love it!" But Harriet's eyes drank in the awninged shade of
the country club porches, the flowered cretonne on the wicker
chairs, the women in their exquisite gowns, the smooth curves of
the green links, where brightly clad figures went to and fro.
Riders were disappearing into the green shade of the bridle paths;
girls in white, demanding tea, came up the shallow steps. A group
of four women, at a card table, broke up with laughter. "Yes, it's
honester than this," she said, bringing her eyes back to his.
"I'll have Linda and the girls here some day," she added, "and
they'll think it is wonderful. But after all, they get more taste
out of life!"

"You know they do!" Richard said.

"Mrs. Carter," said a woman in bright yellow, coming up to them
suddenly, "will you be a darling and come and talk to my French
officer? The girls have all been practising their Berlitz on him,
and he's almost losing his mind! Dick," added this matron, who had
linked her arm about Harriet's waist, "for heaven's sake go clean
up! Can't you find time to talk to your wife at home? I've been
watching you for five minutes, getting my arms burned simply
black--will you come, Mrs. Carter? That's the poor soul, over
there with Sarah. I don't know why I've had a French governess for
that girl for seven years!"

"To save the life of a fellow creature--" Harriet said in her
liquid French. She went off, laughingly, in the other woman's
custody; Richard looked after them a moment.

He saw them join the group of smiling girls and the harassed
Frenchman; saw the alien's face brighten as Harriet was
introduced. A moment later a boy with a tennis racket dashed up to
them, and there was a scattering in the direction of the courts.
The girls surrounded the boy, and streamed away chattering. The
matron in yellow came back to her card table. And Harriet,
unfurling her parasol, deep in conversation with the captured
soldier, sauntered slowly after the tennis players. The afternoon
sunshine sent clean shadows across the clipped grass; the
stretched blue silk of Harriet's parasol threw a mellow orange
light upon her tawny hair and saffron-coloured gown.

Richard had a child's desperate wish that he was dressed, and
might run after them.

"They are playing the semi-finals," he said to himself, hurrying
through his change of garments. "I wish to the Lord I had gotten
through in time to get down there!"

 But it was not at the tennis that he looked, twenty minutes
later, when he reached the courts; although a brilliant play was
being made, and there was a spattering of applause. His eyes
instantly found Harriet's figure; she was still talking to the
Frenchman, whose olive face was glowing with interest and
admiration, and not more than eight inches, Richard thought, from
her own. Harriet's own face wore the shadow of a smile, her lashes
were dropped, and she was gently pushing the point of her closed
parasol into the green turf. The chairs in which they sat had been
slightly turned from the court.

Richard engaged himself in conversation with two or three men and
women who were watching the youngsters' game, and presently found
himself applauding his son for a brilliant ace. But after perhaps
five minutes he walked quite without volition, straight to
Harriet's neighbourhood, and she rose at once, introduced her new
friend, and with a glance at her wrist, announced that she must
go.

"Ward said he would drive me home the instant it was over," said
Harriet, clapping heartily for the triumphant finish of the set.

"I'll drive you home!" Richard said, instantly. "I've the small
car."

"Friday night!" Harriet smiled. For Friday night was the night for
a men's dinner and poker game at the country club, and Richard
usually liked to be there.

"I can come back!" he persisted, suddenly caring more for this
concession than anything else in the world. Without another word
she agreed, bade her Frenchman what seemed to Richard a voluble
good-bye, and when the bowing officer disappeared turned with a
reminiscent smile.

"And now what?"

"Where did you learn to chatter French that way?" Richard said,
leading the way to the line of parked motors.

"Oh, we lived in Paris--old Mrs. Rogers and I," Harriet reminded
him carelessly. And reaching the little rise of ground that lay
between the clubhouse and the parking field, she stood still,
looking off across the exquisite spread of fields and valleys,
banded by great strips of woods, and flooded now by the streaming
shadows and golden lights of the late afternoon. "What a day!" she
said, filling her lungs with great breaths of the sweet air. "What
an hour!"

"What I meant to say to you up there on the porch," Richard said,
"when that--that woman interrupted--"

Harriet herself interrupted with a laugh.

"You say 'that woman' as if it was a bitter, deadly curse!" she
said.

"Well--" They had reached the car now, and Richard was
investigating the oil gauge and spark plugs under the hood. "Well,
a woman like that breaks in--nothing to her!" he said with scorn,
straightening up.

"Yes, but at a country club?" Harriet offered, placatingly, as she
got into the front seat, and tucked the pongee robe snugly about
the saffron-coloured gown.

"I suppose so!" He got in beside her; there was a moment of
backing and wrenching before they glided out smoothly on the white
driveway. "What I meant to say was this," he added, suddenly, with
a sidewise glance from his wheel. "I--I want you to realize that I
appreciate the injustice--the crudeness of my rushing to you in
New Jersey that Christmas Day. I realize that we all have imposed
on you--we've taken you too much for granted! I was in trouble,
and I couldn't think of any other way out of it. But for any man
to put a proposition like that to any woman--"

They were driving very slowly. He looked at her again, and met a
wondering look in her beautiful eyes that still further confused
him. He had been uncomfortably conscious of an odd confusion in
touching upon this subject at all. Yet his mind had been full of
it all day.

"I never felt it so, I assure you!" Harriet said with her lucid,
friendly look. Richard felt that there was more to say, but
realized that he had selected an unfortunate time for these
confidences.

"I'm afraid I've been extremely stupid in the matter," he said,
feeling for his words. "I've gone about it clumsily. To tell you
the truth--What does that boy want?"

It was Ward who was coming toward them across the green, with
great springs and leaps, like some mountain animal.

"Give us a lift!" shrieked Ward, flinging himself upon the car as
its speed decreased. "Something is the matter with my engine--
engina pectoris is what I call it! Father, Mr. Tom Grant expects
you to dine at his table to-night, he said to remind you. And,
Harriet, angel of angels, we will be about six or seven about the
groaning board; is that all right?"

"I told Bottomley six or seven," Harriet said, serenely. "Ward,
get in or get out," she added, maternally, "don't hang over the
door in that blood-curdling way!"

She had put her arm about the boy to steady him; they began to
discuss tennis scores with enthusiasm. Richard drove the rest of
the way home almost without speaking.

He planned to see Harriet again that evening, and left the club at
eleven o'clock, after an incredibly dull game, with the definite
hope that the youngsters would dance, or in some other way prolong
the summer evening at least until midnight. His heart sank when he
reached Crownlands; the lower floor showed only the tempered
lights that burned until the latest member of the family came in,
and Bottomley reported that the young persons had gone upstairs at
about half-past ten, sir. It was now half-past eleven.

Richard debated sending Harriet a message to the effect that he
would like to see her for a moment. The flaw in this plan was that
he could think of nothing about which there was the slightest
necessity of seeing her. He felt restless and anything but sleepy,
and glanced irresolutely at the library door, and at the stairway.

Suddenly uproar broke out upstairs: there were thumping feet,
shrieks, wild laughter, and slamming doors. With a suddenly
lightened heart Richard ran up the wide, square flight to the
landing. His son, in pajamas that were more or less visible
beneath his streaming robe of Oriental silk, was pirouetting about
the upper hall with a siphon of soda water. Subdued giggles and
smothered gasps indicated that the young ladies were somewhere
near, in hiding. Young Hopper, under Ward's direction, was
investigating doors and alcoves.

"Amy Hawkes--Amy Hawkes--Amy Hawkes--come into court!" Ward
intoned. "Drunk and disorderly!"

"Here, here, here!" Richard said. "What's all this?" Amy and Nina,
with hysteric shrieks, immediately forsook cover, and dashed down
to him, clinging to him wildly.

"Oh, Father! Make them stop! Oh, Mr. Carter, save us!" screamed
the girls in delicious terror. "Oh, they got poor Francesca--she's
locked up in your room! They climbed up our porch, after they
swore to Harriet that they wouldn't make another SOUND--"

Harriet now appeared in the hallway, her hair falling in a braid
over her shoulder, and the long lines of the black robe she wore
giving her figure an unusual effect of height. She did not see
Richard immediately, for she had eyes only for Ward, as she caught
his shoulder, and took away the siphon.

"Now, Ward--look here," she said, sternly. "What sort of honour do
you call this! Half an hour ago I thought all this nonsense was
STOPPED. Shame on you! Those girls promised me--"

She saw Richard, and laughed, the colour flooding her face.

"Aren't they simply shameless!" she said. "I had them all settled
down, once! Nina, where's Francesca? You see," Harriet said, in
rapid explanation to Richard, "I gave the girls my room to-night,
so that they could all be together, and this is my reward!"

The girls, entirely unalarmed by her severity, had deserted
Richard now, and were clinging to her with weak laughter and
feeble explanations.

"Francesca unlocked that door, and rushed into Mr. Carter's room!"
Amy explained, wiping her eyes. "And then the boys locked her in
there!"

The composed reappearance of Francesca at this point, however,
added to the general hilarity.

"You DID NOT lock me in, Smarties!" Francesca drawled, childishly.
"They climbed to the balcony, and we were--well, we were
undressing," she said to Richard, "and here they were hammering
and yelling like--like Siwashes! We grabbed our wrappers, we
wanted to---"

"We wanted to lock them out there!" Amy explained, laughing
uncontrollably. "But--"

"And I snapped off the light--" Nina interposed, with deep
satisfaction.

"And, mind you--"

"And, Father--"

"And the wonder was that we didn't die of fright--"

"Now, look here," Harriet said, in the babel, "I'll give you all
exactly two minutes to QUIET DOWN. Never in the course of my life-
-"

Richard thought her maternal indulgence delightful; he thought the
young people who clung about her charming in their apologetic and
laughing promises. Ward and Bruce Hopper mounted to their own
region; Richard went with the girls and Harriet to the rooms that
had been attacked. Pilgrim, the tireless, was already there,
replacing pillows, straightening beds, untwisting curtains. The
girls, with reminiscent bubbles of laughter, began to help her.

After the last good-nights, Richard and Harriet had no choice but
to cross the hall again, and they stood there for a moment,
laughing at the recent excitement.

"After twelve," Harriet said, with a smiling shake of her head.
"Aren't they young demons! However," she added in an undertone,
"it's the best thing in the world for Nina! This sort of nonsense
will blow cobwebs away!"

Richard was only conscious of a desire to prolong this intimate
little moment of parental consultation.

"She doesn't speak of Blondin?" he asked.

"Not at all. The birthday came and went placidly enough," Harriet
answered, suddenly intent after her laughing. And as he did not
speak for a second, she looked up at him, innocently. "You don't
think she's hiding anything?" she asked, anxiously.

"I--no, I hardly think so," Richard answered, confusedly. Their
eyes met, and he smiled vaguely. Then Harriet slowly crossed the
hall to the door of the guest room where she was spending the
night, and gave him an only half-audible good-night. Richard stood
watching the door for a moment or two after it had closed upon the
slender, dimly seen figure. Then he went to his own rooms, and
began briskly enough to move about between the mirrors and
dressing room, windows and bed. But two or three times he stopped
short, and found himself staring vacantly into space, all movement
arrested, even thought arrested for whole long minutes at a time.

Harriet, entering her room, closed the door noiselessly, and
remained for a long time standing with her hands resting against
it behind her, her eyes alert, her breath coming as if she had
been running. There was only a night light in the bedroom; the
covers were still tumbled back from her sudden flight toward the
rioting youngsters in the hall. She got back into her bed, and
opened her book. But for a long time she neither slept nor read;
her eyes widened at the faintest sound of the summer night; her
heart thumped madly when the curtains whispered at the window, or
the wicker chairs gave the faintest creak. It had not been only
for Richard that the midnight hour of responsibility and
informality shared had had its thrill.

One o'clock. Harriet closed her book and snapped off her light.
But first she went to the window, and leaned out into the sweet
darkness. There was shadow unbroken everywhere; no light in all
the big house was burning as late as her own.




CHAPTER XXI


After that life took on a mysterious fragrance and beauty that
made every hour of it an intoxication to the master and mistress
of Crownlands. The fact that their secret was all their own was
all the more enchanting. To the domestic staff, to the children,
to the outside world, life went upon its usual smooth way. Mr.
Carter would be in town to-night, Mr. Carter was detained at the
office, Mrs. Carter was chaperoning the young people, there were
flowers for Mrs. Carter. That was all Bottomley and Pilgrim and
Ward and Nina saw.

But to Harriet and Richard the delicious, secret game of hide-and-
go-seek made everything else in the world insignificant. Harriet
opened the boxes of flowers he sent her with a heart suffocating
with joy. Richard consented to be absent from the dinner table
over which she presided with an agony of renunciation that almost
made him feel ill. When he chanced one day to meet her with Nina,
in a breezy, awninged summer restaurant, the sight of the slender
figure thrilled him as he had never been thrilled by any woman he
had ever known. He was to speak to her, to hear her voice! One day
he bought her shoes; in the shop she looked at him for approval.
He thought the shoes, low shoes with buckles, that showed the
silk-clad ankle, very suitable and pretty. He was thrown into
sudden confusion when the shoe clerk turned to him with a murmured
mention of the price.

Ten dollars? Richard fumbled for his purse. He had met her walking
alone in the Avenue; she had said that she must get shoes.
Hundreds of other men were presumably buying their wives shoes, up
and down the brilliant street. But Richard found the adventure
shaking to the soul.

"They're lovely shoes," Harriet said, as they walked out into the
sunshine. She told him that she was to meet Nina at his mother's
at five. Richard, with sudden eagerness, wondered if she would
spend the interval in having tea somewhere, but instead they went
into a bookshop, and she carried a new book triumphantly away.
"It's a frightful day in town," Harriet said, "and if we're a
little early we may all get away to the country that much sooner!"

She established herself contentedly beside him when they did
finally start for Crownlands. Ward, beside Hansen, did most of the
talking; Nina was silent, and Harriet noticed that she was very
pale. Richard was repeating to himself one phrase all the way; a
phrase that he found so thrilling and absorbing that it was enough
to keep him from speaking aloud, or listening to what the others
said.

"I love her--I love her--I love her!" thought Richard. And
sometimes he glanced sidewise at her, her beautiful hair rippling
in thick waves under the thin veil, her face a little pale from
the heat of the day, her glorious eyes faintly shadowed. When the
swift movement of the car brought her shoulder against his, their
eyes met for a smiling second, and it seemed to Richard that his
heart brimmed with the most delicious emotion that he had ever
known.

Nina complained of a headache when they reached home, and went
early to bed. Harriet, when she had tubbed and changed to an
evening gown, glanced in at Nina, and thought the girl asleep.
There were men guests for dinner, and afterward there was bridge.
Harriet sat with Madame Carter for awhile, for the old lady had
also dined upstairs, went about the house upon her usual errands,
and, going to her own room, found Nina reading, at about ten
o'clock. Nina did not look up or speak as Harriet came in.

The door that led to Richard's room was not only unlocked, but
actually ajar. Harriet gave it a surprised glance, and spoke to
Nina, in the next room.

"Nina, did you unlock this door?"

"What door?" Nina called. "Oh, yes!" she added. "I did."

"Oh," Harriet murmured. And she stepped to the door, and looked
into Richard's room.

It was a sort of upstairs sitting room, furnished simply, in man
fashion, with deep leather chairs on each side of the fireplace,
broad tables carrying only the essential lamps and ashtrays, a
shabby desk where Richard kept personal papers, and bookshelves
crammed with novels. Harriet, making a timid round, saw Balzac and
Dickens, Dumas and Fielding, several Shakespeares and a complete
Meredith, jostling elbows with modern novels in bright jackets,
and yellow French romances losing their paper covers.

With a great sense of adventure she looked down from the
unfamiliar windows at a new perspective of driveway and garden,
peeped into the big square bedroom beyond. Two large photographs
of Nina and Ward and an oil painting of his mother were here;
there had been several pictures of Isabelle once, Harriet knew,
but these had long ago disappeared.

Suddenly her heart turned to water; some tiny sound in the silence
warning her that someone had entered. She turned, discovered here
in the very centre of his own private apartment. He was standing
not three feet away from her. For a second they stared at each
other with a sort of mutual trepidation.

"Hello!" he said; then matter-of-factly, "I brought home a paper
to-night; I wanted Unger to see it! I left it in the suit I wore."

He stepped to the dressing room, and groped in a pocket, without
moving his pleasant look from her.

"Giving my room the once over?" he said.

"Nina left the door open. I've never been in here before," Harriet
said, trying to make her voice as natural as his own. Confused and
ashamed, she was hardly conscious of what she said.

"Here we are!" Richard glanced at the paper he had found. "See
here," he said, presently, going to a window, "come here a minute,
I want to show you this! You see," they were both looking out into
the moonlight now, "you see, this is where I propose to build on
that big room downstairs, throw the library into the blue room,
and have a big sleeping porch upstairs here," he explained.
"Perfectly feasible, and yet it will make a different house of
it!"

Harriet commented interestedly enough. But she heard his voice
rather than his words, and saw only the well-groomed, black-clad
figure, the shining patent-leather shoes, the fine hand that
indicated the changes.

Perhaps he was conscious of confusion, too, for his words stopped,
and presently they were looking at each other in a strange
silence, Richard still smiling, Harriet wide eyed.

Then suddenly his strong arms held her close, and her blue,
frightened eyes were close to his, and she felt everything else in
the world slip away from her except the exquisite knowledge that
she loved this man with all her heart and soul.

"I want to tell you something," Richard said, quickly and
incoherently. "I want you to know that I love you--I think I've
always loved you! This wasn't in our bond, I know, but I think I
couldn't have wanted you so without loving you! If--if the time
comes, Harriet, when you can care for me, you'll tell me, won't
you? That's all I want, just to know that you will tell me. You're
going to tell me, yourself! I'm going to make you love me! I'll be
patient--I'll not hurry you--but some day you'll have to tell me
that I've--I've won you!"

He had spoken swiftly, almost sternly, with a sort of desperate
determination. Now he freed her arms as suddenly as he had grasped
them, and added, in a lower tone:

"Until that time I'll not--not even--kiss the top of your hair,
Harriet," he said.

In the mad rushing of her senses she could not find the right
word, but she detained him with an entreating hand. Her eyes,
shining with a look that he had never seen there before, were
fixed on his. But Richard did not look at her eyes, he looked down
at the hand she had laid on his own.

"I don't think," Harriet said, breathlessly, "that I can ever like
you any more than I do!"

She had meant it for surrender; her heart was beating wildly with
the glorious shame of a proud woman who gives herself. But Richard
was not looking at the betraying eyes. In the great new love that
had swept him from all his old moorings there was a deep humility.
He only heard her say that she could never learn to love him. He
bent his head over her finger tips, and kissed them, as he said
quietly:

"But I'm going to try to make you, just the same!"

Then he was gone, and Harriet was standing alone in the softly
lighted room. For a few moments she remained perfectly still, with
her white hands pressed to her burning cheeks. Then, shaken with
joy and surprise, with a delicious terror and something of a
child's innocent chagrin, she went noiselessly back to her own
room, closed the communicating door, and undressed with pauses for
the dreams that would come creeping over body and soul, and hold
her in their exquisite stillness for long minutes together.

She was brushing her hair when Nina suddenly appeared, and came
lifelessly in to sit on the edge of Harriet's bed. "I want to ask
you something!" Nina said, in an odd voice. "And, Harriet, I want
you to tell me the truth!"

Harriet, turning, faced her between two curtains of rippling gold.
She saw a new Nina, a subdued, thoughtful, serious woman in the
old confident Nina's place.

"But first I ought to tell you that I wasn't with Amy to-day!"
Nina said.

"Oh, Nina! Must we begin that sort of thing?" Harriet reproached
her. But she was puzzled by Nina's manner. "Back to school-girl
tricks!" she said.

"Never back to a school-girl," Nina said, with trembling lips.
"No," she added, passionately, "I'll never be that again.
Harriet," she went on, "I've written Royal three times, since my
birthday, and I've seen him twice."

"You saw him to-day?" Harriet ventured.

"I went there this afternoon," Nina admitted, heavily. Then
suddenly, "Harriet, did my father pay him--did he take money--to
break our engagement?"

"Nina, what a horrible thought! Of course not!" Harriet could
fortunately answer in perfect honesty.

"Oh, Harriet," the girl caught her hands, turning sick and
imploring eyes toward her, "are you sure?"

"Nina, dear, your father would have told me!"

"He might not--he might not!" Nina said, feverishly. "But if he
did----!" she whispered, half to herself. "That's Pilgrim, I rang
for her," she said, of a knock on her own door. "Ask my father to
come up, will you?" she said to the maid, when Pilgrim appeared.
"We'll settle it now!"

"Mr. Carter is just coming up," Pilgrim said. And a moment later
Richard, with an interested face, came through Nina's room, and
joined them. Harriet had had time only to knot her hair back
carelessly, and slip into the most formal of her big Chinese
coats.

"Father," Nina said, when they three were alone together, "did
Royal Blondin take a check from you ten days ago?"

Richard, taken unaware, glanced sharply at Harriet, who shook her
head, with an anxious look. He sat down beside Nina on the bed,
and put a fatherly arm about her.

"Ah, Father, DON'T put me off!" the girl begged. "I wrote him,
after my birthday," she said, "and told him that money made no
difference to me. He didn't answer. Then I got Bruce Hopper to ask
his mother to have Blondin meet her at the club for tea, and I saw
him then. Bruce," Nina cast in, still in the new, self-contained
tone, "has been wonderful about it! I know he only seems a silent
sort of boy, but I'll never forget what he's done for me! Royal,"
she resumed, "didn't want to see me, and said he had promised
Father that it was OVER. He--but I needn't tell you all he said.
It sounded----" Nina clung to her father's hands, and shut her
eyes. "It sounded so--so false!" she whispered, bitterly. "So I
went to his studio to-day!" she presently continued. "And--there
were two or three women there, but it wasn't that. They were--
well, perhaps they were just having fun. But----" And Nina looked
pitifully from Harriet's sympathetic face to her father's troubled
eyes. "But I've not been having much fun!" she faltered, with a
suddenly trembling mouth. "I've been planning--PRAYING!--that
somehow it would come out right. He told me to-day that he had
promised not to see or speak to me for two years," she said,
slowly. "I--Father, I KNEW that he had a reason! He was changed. I
never saw him so! And two hours ago," she pointed to the door that
led into her father's room, "two hours ago I went in there," she
said, "and I looked over your own check book. Father, did you
write him a check? Was that the stub that had 'R.B.' on it?"

Richard looked at her sorrowfully.

"I'm sorry, Nina," he said, simply. "I told him you should not
know, from me! I would have spared you that."

For a few minutes there was silence in the room. Then Nina said
bravely, through tears:

"I don't know why you should be sorry for what will save me months
of slow worry, all at one blow! You and Harriet needn't worry any
more. I'm cured. I've been a fool, I let him flatter me and lie to
me," said this new Nina, with bitter courage, "but I'm over it
now. I'm sorry I gave you so much trouble, Father----"

"My darling girl," her father said, tenderly. "I only wish I could
spare you all this!"

"Better now than two or three years after we were married," Nina
said. "Plenty of girls find it out then! Father, I want you to get
that check, through the clearing-house, for me," she said,
heroically, "and I want to keep it. If ever I'm a fool about a man
again, I'll take it out and look at it!"

"I have it, I told Fox to get it to-day," Richard said. "You shall
have it!"

Nina had turned suddenly white; it was as if a last little hope
had been killed.

"You have it!" she whispered. "He cashed it, then!"

"He cashed it the next morning," Richard said. Nina was silent for
a moment.

"How you must laugh at me, Harriet!" she said then.

"I? Laugh at you!" Harriet said, stricken. "My darling girl, I am
the last woman in the world who could do that! I was only your
age, Nina, when I met him--you know that story. Why, Nina, you're
but eighteen, after all, you'll have many and many an affair
before the right man comes along," Harriet said. "You'll look back
on this some day, and say, 'It was an experience, and I learned
from it! It is only going to make me happier and more sure when
the man whom I really love comes to me!' Aren't you much richer
now, in actual knowledge of men, than Amy and Francesca, who
haven't had anything but school flirtations?"

Nina, sitting between Richard and Harriet on the bed, looked
wistfully from one face to another.

"I'll try to make it so, Harriet!" she said. And somewhat timidly
she added, "Father--and Harriet--shall you feel dreadfully if I
say that I don't want to go to Brazil? I'll tell you why. Ward is
going out to the Gardiner ranch, and Bruce is going, too, and it
seems to me that riding and camping and living in the open air
will be--well, will seem better to me than just being on the
steamer! I dread seeing strange places and meeting people," said
Nina. "The Gardiner girls were simply darling to me the term they
were in school, and--don't you remember, Harriet?--we were the
only people who took them out for Christmas and Easter holidays,
and they like me! And--if you wouldn't be too disappointed,
Harriet, I believe I would like it better!"

"My darling girl," Harriet said, warmly, "you must do what seems
right to you. But you won't need me?" she added, tactfully.

"Well, you see Mrs. Gardiner and Mrs. Hopper are sisters," Nina
explained, readily, "and they'll be with us. But if you'd LIKE to
come--we are going camping in the most glorious canon that you
ever saw!" Nina interrupted herself with sudden enthusiasm. "And I
am so glad I really can ride! I'd feel so horribly if I couldn't!"

"I think you'll have a wonderful two months of it," Harriet said,
"and then Granny'll be coming West, to spend the winter in Santa
Barbara, and that will be delightful, too! And now, Nina love,
it's after eleven o'clock," she ended with a change of tone, "and
you have had a terrible day! We will have to do some more shopping
to-morrow afternoon, and try on the riding habits, and do a
thousand things. And, Nina," Richard heard her add tenderly, when
his daughter had given him a rather sober good-night kiss at the
door of her room, "whenever you feel sad and depressed about it,
just remember to say to yourself, 'This won't last! In a few
months the sting will all be gone!'"

"Nina is in safe hands!" Richard said to himself, thankfully, as
he closed the door. He carried a memory of Harriet's earnest eyes,
her low, eager voice, her encouraging arm about Nina's shoulders.

 They were all at breakfast when he came down the next morning.
His mother, in one of the lacy, flowing robes she always wore
before noon, laid down a letter half-read, to smile at him. Ward,
his dark head very sleek above his informal summer costume, was
deep in talk with Bruce Hopper, who had evidently ridden over from
the country club, and was in a well-fitting, shabby jersey that
became his somewhat lanky frame. Nina, somewhat silent, but
interested in everything, wore an expression of quiet self-
possession that her father found touching. Nina was growing up, he
thought.

Completing the group, and officiating at the foot of the table,
was the radiant Harriet. She looked as fresh as one of the creamy
rosebuds that were massed in the dull blue bowl before her, her
shining hair framing the dusky forehead like dull gold wings, the
frail sleeves of her blue gown falling back from her rounded arm.

"You're late, my son," said Madame Carter, as he kissed her
temple.

"Never mind," Harriet said, serenely, "I've just this instant
come, and he saves my face! Do turn that toast, Ward!" she added.
And to the maid, "Mr. Carter's fruit, Mollie, please."

Breakfast was the least formal of all the informal meals at
Crownlands. Bottomley was never in evidence until the late
luncheon; mail and newspapers, and the morning gaiety of the young
people all made for cheerful disorder.

"If you're going into town at ten, Father, we'll go, too," Nina
suggested. "But I can't," she was heard to murmur in an undertone
to the disappointed Bruce. "I have to get CLOTHES, don't I?"

"Oh, Brazil--Brazil--Brazil!" the youth said, disgustedly. "I hate
the sound of it!"

"THESE clothes are for the ranch," Nina said, smiling. Both her
father and Harriet augured well from the youth's instantly
transformed face.

"Say--honestly?" he asked, ineloquently, with an irrepressible
grin.

"I think so," Nina murmured. The rest of their conversation was
inaudible; they presently wandered forth to finish it on the
tennis court. Ward followed his grandmother upstairs, and Harriet
and Richard were left to finish their breakfast alone.

"You look tired," Harriet said, rising, when his omelette came in,
and pausing beside the head of the table for an instant on her way
to the pantry.

"I had a bad night," Richard admitted. "But that's not all you're
going to have for breakfast?" he protested.

"I never have more!" Harriet smiled. "I'm sorry about the bad
night," said she.

"I couldn't help thinking----" Richard began.

"What is it, Mollie?" he added, harshly, to the hovering maid.

"Nothing--no matter--sir," Mollie stammered, retreating. "It was
just that the man about the sheep came, sir----" she faltered.

"The sheep!" Richard echoed, frowning. Harriet laughed gaily.

"Oh, yes!" she said. "I told you I had ordered two or three young
sheep," she explained, "to keep our lawns cropped. They look so
adorable, and they do it so nicely! Has he got them, Mollie?" she
added, eagerly. "Oh, I must see them! I'll be back in exactly five
minutes, Mr. Carter," she said.

"What are we supposed to do with them in winter?" Richard asked,
smiling.

"Oh, they will have a little--a little byre!" she answered,
readily. "You'll--you'll like them!" And he heard her joyous voice
following Mollie away.

Richard pushed back his plate, and looked irresolutely after her.
Then suddenly he rose, and walked through the pantry, asking two
startled maids for Mrs. Carter. Etelka had been several years in
the house without ever seeing "him" in this neighbourhood before.

Richard crossed a sunshiny brick-walled yard, where linen was
drying, and went through a brick gateway that gave on a neglected
little lane. The lane had once been the driveway for a carriage
and a prancing pair, but there were only riding horses at
Crownlands now, and three of these were looking over the wall at
the grass-grown road. And Richard found Harriet here.

She was on her knees, in the pleasant green shadow of the old
sycamores and maples, her back was toward him, she was looking up
into the face of the old stableman, Trotter, who stood before her,
his crooked, dwarfed old figure still further bent, as he held two
strong young ewes by their thick, woolly shoulders.

As Trotter gave him a respectful good morning, Harriet sprang to
her feet, and whirled about, and Richard saw the woodeny stiff
legs of a very young lamb dangling from her arms, and the lamb's
meek little black-rubber face close to the beautiful face he
loved.

"Oh, Richard!" she said, carried away by her own delight. "Look at
it! Isn't it the sweetest darling baby that ever was! Oh, you
sweet!" she said, putting her lips to the little woolly head.

"You are!" Richard said quite without premeditation.

Harriet laughed, surrendered the little lamb to Trotter, and
followed the old man's departure to the stables with an anxious
warning.

"They're to have this little enclosure all to themselves," she
explained to Richard, when they were alone. "He's going to build
them a little shed." And as Richard, his back leaning against the
low brick wall, made no immediate attempt to move, she looked at
him expectantly. "Shall we go back?" she suggested.

"That sounded very pleasant to me," Richard said, with deliberate
irrelevance.

Harriet looked at him in puzzled silence.

"I mean your calling me Richard," he said.

She flushed brightly, and laughed.

"Did I? I always think of you as Richard!" she explained.

"So you abandon me on the Brazil trip?" he asked, watching her
seriously.

"Well----?" Harriet shrugged. "I thought you had to go," she
added. "I'm--I'll confess I'm disappointed. But to have Nina want
to do anything is such a relief to me that I'm only going to think
of that!"

"Yes, I have to go," Richard said, slowly. "I must be there for a
month at least. But I'm disappointed, too. I got thinking of it,
in the night--I couldn't sleep! I'm disappointed, too." He fell
silent. "I wish," he said, hesitatingly, "that you had not told me
that you--you don't feel that you--are going to love me!" he said.
"I love you with all my heart and soul. It--well, it's all I think
of, now. I want----" He turned, and picking an ivy leaf from the
wall, looked at it intently for a moment, and tore it apart before
he let it fall. "However," he said, philosophically, smiling at
her, "we'll let that wait!"

Harriet, close to him, laid one hand upon his shoulder.

"You misunderstood me," she said, steadily. "What I said was that
I could not love you more than I do! Aren't you--ever--going to
understand?"

For a long minute they looked straight into each other's eyes.

"Harriet, do you mean it?" Richard said then, simply.

"Yes," she answered, "I mean it! I've always meant it. I've
always loved you, I think. No man could want any woman to love him
more!"

The blue eyes so near his own were misty with sudden tears. In the
deserted little lane, in the blue summer morning and the green
shade of the sycamores, they were alone. Richard put his arms
about her.

And for a moment he held all the beauty and fragrance and laughter
and tears that was Harriet close to his heart; the soft hair
tumbled, the brown, firm young hand resting on his shoulder, the
warm cheek against his own.

A breeze rustled through the branches high above them; the blue
river, beyond the brick wall, flowed on in an even sheet of satin;
two birds looped the enclosure in a sudden twittering flight; and
from the stable region came the plaintive bleating of a mother
sheep. But to Harriet and Richard the world was all their own.

"My wife!" said Richard Carter.


THE END





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