Fa:rr an J Nea:rr

STORIES OF JAPAN, CHINA,

AND AMERICA

THE JOHN DAY COMPANY

NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1934, 1935, 1936, 194:2, 1945, 1946, 1947, BY PEARL S. BUCK

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, muse

not be reproduced in any form without permission.

Manufactured in the United States of America

TilE ENEMY I

HOME GIRL 22

MR. RIGHT 35

THE TAX COLLECTOR 52

A FEW PEOPLE

HOME TO HEAVEN

ENOUGH FOR A LIFETIME

MOTHER AND SONS

MRS. MERCER AND HER SELF

THE PERFECT WIFE

VIRGIN BIRTH

THE TRUCE

HEAT WAVE

THE ONE WOMAN 225

 The Enemy

R. SADAO HoKI's house was built on a spot of the Japanese

D coast where as a little boy he had often played. The low

square stone house was set upon rocks well above a narrow
beach that was outlined with bent pines. As a boy Sadao had climbed
the pines, supporting himself on his bare feet as he had seen men
do in the South Seas when they climbed for coconuts. His father had
taken him often to the islands of those seas, and never had he failed
to say to the little grave boy at his side, "Those islands yonder, they
are the steppingstones to the future for Japan."
"Where shall we step from them ?" Sadao had asked seriously.
"Who knows ? " his father had answered. "Who can limit our
future ? It depends on what we make it."
Sadao had taken this into his mind as he did everything his father
said, his father who never joked or played with him but who spent
infinite pains upon him who was his only son. Sadao knew that his
education was his father's chief concern. For this reason he had been
sent at twenty-two to America to learn all that could be learned of
surgery and medicine. He had come back at thirty, and before
his father died he had seen Sadao become famous not only as a
surgeon but as a scientist. Because he was now perfecting a discov
ery which would render wounds entirely clean he had not been
sent abroad with the troops. Also, he knew, there was some slight
danger that the old General might need an operation for a condi
tion for which he was now being treated medically, and for this
possibility Sadao was being kept in Japan.
Clouds were rising from the ocean now. The unexpected warmth
of the last few days had at night drawn heavy fog from the cold
I
waves. He watched mists hide outlines of a little island near the
shore and then come creeping up the beach below the house, wreath
ing around the pines. In a few minutes it would be wrapped about
the house, too. Then he would go into the room where Hana, his
wife, would be waiting for him with the two children.
But at this moment the door opened and she looked out, a dark
blue woolen /zaori over her kimono. She came to him affectionately
and put her arm through his as he stood, smiled and said nothing.
He had met Hana in America, but he had waited to fall in love
with her until he was sure she was Japanese. His father would
never have received her unless she had been pure in her race. He
wondered often whom he would have married if he had not met
Hana, and by what luck he had found her in the most casual way,
by chance, literally, at an American professor's house. The pro
fessor and his wife had been kind people, anxious to do something
for their few foreign students, and the students, though bored, had
accepted this kindness. Sadao had often told Hana how nearly he
had not gone to Professor Harley's house that night-the rooms
were so small, the food so bad, the professor's wife so voluble. But
he had gone, and there he had found Hana, a new student, and
had felt he would love her, if it were at all possible.
Now he felt her hand on his arm and was aware of the pleasure
it gave him, even though they had been married years enough to
have the two children. For they had not married heedlessly in
America. They had finished their work at school and had come
home to Japan, and when his father had seen her, the marriage had
been arranged in the old Japanese way, although Sadao and Hana
had talked everything over beforehand. They were perfectly happy.
She laid her cheek against his arm.
It was at this moment that both of them saw something black
come out of the mists. It was a man. He was flung up out of the
ocean-flung, it seemed, to his feet by a breaker. He staggered a
few steps, his body outlined against the mist, his arms above his
head. Then the curled mists hid him again.
"Who is that? " Hana cried. She dropped Sadao's arm and they
both leaned over the railing of the veranda. Now they saw him
2
again. The man was on his hands and knees, crawling. Then they
saw him fall on his face and lie there.
"A fisherman, perhaps," Sadao said, "washed from his boat." He
ran quickly down the steps and behind him Hana came, her wide
sleeves flying. A mile or two away on either side there were fish
ing villages, but here was only the bare and lonely coast, dangerous
with rocks. The surf beyond the beach was spiked with rocks.
Somehow the man had managed to come through them-he must
be badly torn.
They saw when they came toward him that indeed it was so.
The sand on one side of him had already a stain of red soaking
through.
"He is wounded ! " Sadao exclaimed. He made haste to the man,
who lay motionless, his face in the sand. An old cap stuck to his
head, soaked with sea water. He was in wet rags of garments. Sadao
stooped, Hana at his side, and turned the man's head. They saw
the face.
"A white man ! " Hana whispered.
Yes, it was a white man. The wet cap fell away and there was
his wet yellow hair, long, as though for many weeks it had not
been cut, and upon his young and tortured face was a ragged yel
low beard. He was unconscious and knew nothing that they did
to him.
Now Sadao remembered the wound, and with his expert fingers
he began to search for it. Blood flowed freshly at his touch. On
the right side of his lower back Sadao saw that a ragged gun wound
had been reopened. The flesh was blackened with powder. Some
time, not many days ago, the man had been shot and had not been
tended. It was bad chance that the rock had struck the wound.
"Oh, how he is bleedingl" Hana whispered again in a solemn
voice. The mists screened them now completely, and at this time
of day no one came by here. The fishermen had gone home and
even the chance beachcombers would have considered the day at
an end.
"What shall we do with this man ? " Sadao muttered. But his
trained hands seemed of their own will to be doing what they
3
could to staunch the fearful bleeding. He packed the wound with
the sea moss that strewed the beach. The man moaned with pain
in his stupor, but he did not awaken.
"The best thing that we could do would be to put him back
in the sea," Sadao said, answering himself.
Now that the bleeding was stopped for the moment he stood up
and dusted the sand from his hands.
"Yes, undoubtedly that would be best," Hana said steadily. But
she continued to stare down at the motionless man.
"If we sheltered a white man in our house, we would be arrested,
and if we turned him over as a prisoner, he would certainly die,"
Sadao said.
"The kindest thing would be to put him back into the sea," Hana
said. But neither of them moved. They were staring with a curious
repulsion upon the inert figure.
"What is he ?" Han a whispered.
"There is something about him that looks American," Sadao said.
He took up the battered cap. Yes, there,almost gone, was the faint
lettering. "A sailor," he said, "from an American battleship." He
spelled it out, "U. S. Navy." The man was a prisoner of war!
"He has escaped," Hana cried softly, "and that is why he is
wounded."
"In the back," Sadao agreed.
They hesitated, looking at each other. Then Hana said with
resolution, "Come, are we able to put him back into the sea ?"
"If I am able, are you ? " Sadao asked.
"No," Hana said. "But if you can do it alone . . ."
Sadao hesitated again. "The strange thing is," he said, "that
if the man were whole I could turn him over to the police without
difficulty. I care nothing for him. He is my enemy. All Americans
are my enemy. And he is only a common fellow. You see how
foolish his face is. But since he is wounded . . ."
"You also cannot throw him back to the sea," Hana said. "Then
there is only one thing to do. \Ve must carry him into the house."
"But the servants ?" Sadao inquired.
"We must simply tell them that we intend to give him to the
4
police-as indeed we must, Sadao. We must think of the children
and your position. It would endanger all of us if we did not give
this man over as a prisoner of war."
"Certainly," Sadao agreed. "I would not think of doing anything
else."
Thus agreed, together they lifted the man. He was very light,
like a fowl that has been half-starved for a long time until it is
only feathers and skeleton. So, his hand and arms hanging, they
carried him up the steps and into the side door of the house. This
door opened into a passage and down the passage they carried the
man toward an empty bedroom. It had been the bedroom of Sadao's
father, and since his death it had not been used. They laid the
man on the deeply matted floor. Everything here had been Japanese
to please the old man, who would never, in his own home, sit on
a chair or sleep in a foreign bed. Hana went to the wall cupboards
and slid back a door and took out a soft quilt. She hesitated. The
quilt was covered with flowered silk, and the lining was pure white
silk.
"He is so dirty," she murmured in distress.
"Yes, he had better be washed," Sadao agreed. "If you will fetch
hot water, I will wash him."
"I cannot bear for you to touch him," she said. "We shall have
to tell the servants he is here. I will tell Yumi. She can leave the
children for a few minutes."
Sadao considered a moment. "Let it be so," he agreed. "You tell
Yumi and I will tell the others."
But the utter pallor of the man's unconscious face moved him
first to stoop and feel his pulse. It was faint but it was there. He
put his hand against the man's cold breast. The heart, too, was yet
alive.
"He will die unless he is operated on," Sadao said, considering.
"The question is whether he will die if he is operated on, too."
Hana cried out in fear. "Don't try to save him! What if he should
live ?"
"What if he should die ?" Sadao replied. He stood gazing down
on the motionless man. This man must have extraordinary vitality
5
or he would have been dead by now. But then he was very young
-perhaps not yet twenty-five.
"You mean from the operation ?" Hana asked.
"Yes," Sadao said.
Hana considered this doubtfully, and when she did not answer
Sadao turned away. "At any rate something must be done with
him," he said, "and first he must be washed," He went quickly out
of the room and Hana came behind him. She did not wish to be
left alone with the white man. He was the first she had seen since
she left America and now he seemed to have nothing to do with
those whom she had known there. Here he was her enemy, a men
ace, living or dead.
She turned to the nursery and called, "Yumi!"
But the children heard her voice and she had to go in for a
moment and smile at them and play with the baby boy, now nearly
three months old.
Over the baby's soft black hair she motioned with her mouth,
"Yumi-come with me!"
"I will put him to bed," Yumi replied. "He is ready."
She went with Yumi into the bedroom next to the nursery and
stood with the boy in her arms while Yumi spread the sleeping
quilts on the floor and laid the baby between them.
Then Hana led the way quickly and softly to the kitchen. There
two servants were frightened at what their master had j ust told
them. The old gardener who was also a house servant pulled the
few hairs on his upper lip.
"The master ought not to heal the wound of this white man,"
he said bluntly to Hana. "The white man ought to die. First he
was shot. Then the sea caught him and wounded him with her
rocks. If the master heals what the gun did and what the sea did,
they will take revenge on us."
"I will tell him what you say," Hana replied courteously. But
she herself was also frightened, although she was not superstitious
as the old man was. Could it ever be well to help an enemy ? Never
theless she told Yumi to fetch the hot water and bring it to the
room where the white man was.
6
 She went ahead and slid back the partitions. Sadao was not yet
there. Yumi put down her wooden bucket. Then she went over to
the white man. When she saw him her thick lips folded themselves
into stubbornness. "I have never washed a white man," she said,
"and I will not wash so dirty a one now."
Han a cried at her severely, "You will do what your master com
mands you ! "
"My master ought not t o command me t o -wash the enemy,"
Yumi said stubbornly.
There was so fierce a look of resistance upon Yumi's round dull
face that Hana felt unreasonably afraid. After all, if the servants
should report something that was not as i t happened ?
"Very well," she said with dignity. "You understand we only
want to bring him to his senses so that we can turn him over as
a prisoner ? "
"I will have nothing to do with it," Yumi said. "I a m a poor
person and it is not my business."
"Then please," Hana said gently, "return to your own work."
At once Yumi left the room. But this left Hana with the white
man alone. She might have been too afraid to stay, had not her
anger at Yumi's stubbornness now sustained her.
"Stupid Yumi," she muttered fiercely. "Is this anything but a
man ? And a wounded, helpless man!"
In the conviction of her own superiority she bent impulsively and
untied the knotted rags that kept the white man covered. When
she had his breast bare, she dipped the small clean towel that Yumi
had brought into the steaming hot water and washed his face care
fully. The man's skin, though rough with exposure, was of a fine
texture and must have been very blond when he was a child.
While she was thinking these thoughts, though not really liking
the man better now that he was no longer a child, she kept on
washing him until his upper body was quite clean. But she dared
not turn him over. Where was Sadao? Now her anger was ebbing
and she was anxious again and she rose, wiping her hands on the
wrung towel. Then lest the man be chilled she put the quilt over
him.
7
 "Sadao!" she called softly.
He had been about to come in when she called. His hand had
been on the door so that now it opened. She saw that he had
brought his surgeon's emergency bag and that he wore his surgeon's
coat.
"You have decided to operate ! " she cried.
"Yes, " he said shortly. He turned his back to her and unfolded
a sterilized towel upon the floor of the ta konoma alcove, and put
his instruments out upon it.
"Fetch towels," he said.
She went obediently, but how anxious now, to the linen shelves
and took out the towels. There ought, also, to be old pieces of
matting so that the blood would not ruin the deep floor covering.
She went out to the back veranda where the gardener kept strips
of matting with which to protect delicate shrubs on cold nights and
took an armful of them.
But when she went back into the room, she saw this was useless.
The blood had already soaked through the packing in the man's
wound and had ruined the mat under him.
"Oh, the mat!" she cried.
"Yes, it is ruined." Sadao replied, as though he did not care.
"Help me to turn him," he commanded her.
She obeyed him without a word, and he began to wash the
man's back carefully.
"Yumi would not wash him, " she said.
"Did you wash him, then ?" Sadao asked, not stopping for a
moment his swift concise movements.
"Yes," she said.
He did not seem to hear her. But she was used to his absorption
when he was at work. She wondered for a moment if it mattered
to him what was the body upon which he worked so long as it
was the thing he did so excellently.
"You will have to give the anesthetic if he needs it," he said.
"I?" she repeated blankly. "But never have I."
"It is easy enough," he said impatiently.
He was taking out the packing now and the blood began to flow
8
more quickly. He peered into the wound with his bright surgeon's
light fastened on his forehead. "The bullet is still there," he said
with cool interest. "Now I wonder how deep this rock wound is.
If it is not too deep, it may be that I can get the bullet. But the
bleeding is not superficial. He has lost much blood."
At this moment Hana choked. He looked up and saw her face
the color of sulphur.
"Don't faint," he said sharply. He did not put down his explor
ing instrument. "If I stop now, the man will surely die." She
clapped her hands to her mouth and leaped up and ran out of the
room. Outside in the garden he heard her retching. But he went
on with his work.
"It will be better for her to empty her stomach," he thought. He
had forgotten that of course she had never seen an operation. But
her distress and his inability to go to her at once made him im
patient and irritable with this man who lay as though dead under
his knife.
"This man," he thought, "there is no reason under heaven why
he should live."
Unconsciously this thought made him ruthless and he proceeded
swiftly. In his dream the man moaned, but Sadao paid no heed
except to mutter at him.
"Groan," he muttered, "groan if you like. I am not doing this
for my own pleasure. In fact, I do not know why I am doing it."
The door opened and there was Hana again. She had not stopped
even to smooth back her hair.
"Where is the anesthetic ?" she asked in a clear voice.
Sadao motioned with his chin. "It is as well that you came back,"
he said. "This fellow is beginning to stir."
She had the bottle and some cotton in her hand.
"But how shall I do it ?" she asked.
"Simply saturate the cotton and hold it near his nostrils," Sadao
replied without delaying for one moment the intricate detail . of his
work. "When he breathes badly, move it away a little."
She crouched close to the sleeping face of the young American.
It was a piteously thin face, she thought, and the lips were twisted,
9
 The man was suffering whether he knew it or not. \Vatching him,
she wondered if the stories they heard sometimes of the sufferings
of prisoners were true. They came like flickers of rumor, told by
word of mouth and always contradicted. In the newspapers the re
ports were always that wherever the Japanese armies went the peo
ple received them gladly, with cries of joy at their liberation. But
sometimes she remembered such men as General Takima, who
beat his wife cruelly at home, though no one mentioned it now
that he had fought so victorious a battle in Manchuria. If a man
like that could be so cruel to a woman in his power, would he
not be cruel to one like this, for instance ?
She hoped anxiously that this young man had not been tortured.
It was at this moment that she observed deep red scars on his neck,
just under the ear. "Those scars," she murmured, lifting her eyes
to Sadao.
But he did not answer.
At this moment he felt the tip of his instrument strike against
something hard, dangerously near the kidney. All thought left
him. He felt only the purest pleasure. He probed with his fingers,
delicately, familiar with every atom of this human body. His old
American professor of anatomy had seen to that knowledge. "Ig
norance of the human body is the surgeon's cardinal sin, sirs! "
h e had thundered a t his classes year after year. "To operate with
out a complete knowledge of the body as if you had made it
anything less is murder."
"It is not quite at the kidney, my friend," Sadao murmured. It
was his habit to murmur to the patient when he forgot himself in
an operation. "My friend," he always called his patients, and so
now he did, forgetting that this was his enemy.
Then, quickly, with the cleanest and most precise of incisions,
the bullet was out. The man quivered but he was still unconscious.
Nevertheless, he muttered a few English words.
"Gut," he muttered, choking. "They got . . . my guts . . ."
"Sadao! " Hana cried sharply.
"Hush," Sadao said.
The man sank again into silence so profound that Sadao took
10
up his wrist, hating the touch of it. Yes, there was still a pulse so
faint, so feeble, but enough, if he wanted the man to live, to give
hope.
"But certainly I do not want this man to live," he thought.
"No more anesthetic," he told Hana.
He turned as swiftly as though he had never paused, and from
his medicines he chose a small vial and from it filled a hypodermic
and thrust it into the patient's left arm. Then putting down the
needle he took the man's wrist again. The pulse under his fingers
fluttered once or twice and then grew stronger.
"This man will live in spite of all," he said to Hana and sighed.
* * *

The young man woke, so weak, his blue eyes so piteous when
he perceived where he was, that Hana felt compelled to apology.
She served him herself, for none of the servants would enter the
room.
When she came in the first time she saw him summon his small
strength to be prepared for some fearful thing.
"Don't be afraid," she begged him softly.
"How come . . . you speak English .he gasped.
."

"I was a long time in America," she replied.

She saw that he wanted to reply to that but he could not and
so she knelt and fed him gently from the porcelain spoon. He ate
unwillingly, but still he ate.
"Now you will soon be strong," she said, not liking him and yet
moved to comfort him.
He did not answer.
When Sadao came in the third day after the operation he found
the young man sitting up in bed, his face bloodless with the effort.
"Lie down! " Sadao cried. "Do you want to die ?"
He forced the man down gently and strongly, and examined the
wound. "You may kill yourself if you do this sort of thing," he
scolded.
"What are you going to do with me ? " the boy muttered. He
looked just now barely seventeen. "Are you going to hand m e
over? "
II
 For a moment Sadao did not answer. He finished his examination
and then pulled the silk quilt over the man.
"I do not know myself what I shall do with you," he said. "I
ought of course to give you to the police. You are a prisoner of
war . . . no, do not tell me anything. " He put up his hand as he
saw the young man about to speak. "Do not even tell me your
name unless I ask it."
They looked at each other for a moment, and then the young
man closed his eyes and turned his face to the wall.
"Okay, " he whispered, his mouth a bitter line.
Outside the door Hana was waiting for Sadao. He saw at once
that she was in trouble.
"Sadao, Yumi tells me the servants feel that they cannot stay if
we hide this man here any more," she said. "She says they are
thinking that you and I were so long in America that we have
forgotten to think of our own country first. They think we like
Americans."
"It is not true," Sadao said harshly. "Americans are our ene-
mies. But I have been trained not to let a man die if I can help it. "
"The servants cannot understand that," she said anxiously.
"No," he . agreed.
Neither seemed able to say more, and somehow the household
dragged on. The servants grew daily more watchful. Their cour
tesy was as careful as ever, but their eyes were cold upon the pair
to whom they were hired.
"It is clear what our master ought to do," the old gardener said
one morning. He had worked with flowers all his life, and had been
a specialist, too, in moss. For Sadao's father he had made one of
the finest moss gardens in Japan, sweeping the bright green carpet
constantly so that not a leaf or a pine needle marred the velvet
of its surface. "My old master's son knows very well what he ought
to do," he now said, pinching a bud from a bush as he spoke.
"When the man was so near death, why did he not let him bleed ? "
"That young master i s so proud of his skill to save life that he
saves any life," the cook said contemptuously. She split a fowl's
neck skillfully and held the fluttering bird and let its blood flow
12
into the roots of a wistaria vine. Blood is the best of fertilizers and
the old gardener would not let her waste a drop of it.
"It is the children of whom we must think," Yumi said sadly.
"What will be their fate if their father is condemned as a traitor ? "
They did not try to hide what they said from the ears of Hana
as she stood arranging the day's flowers in the veranda near by,
and she knew that they spoke on purpose that she might hear.
That they were right she knew in most of her being. But there
was another part of her which she herself could not understand.
It was not sentimental liking of the prisoner. She had come to
think of him as a prisoner. She had not liked him even yesterday
when he had said in his impulsive way, "Anyway, let me tell you
that my name is Tom." She had only bowed her little distant bow.
She saw hurt i n his eyes, but she did not wish to assuage it. Indeed
he was a great trouble in this house.
As for Sadao, every day he examined the wound carefully. The
last stitches had been pulled out today, and the young man would
in a fortnight be nearly as well as ever. Sadao went back to his
office and carefully typed a letter to the chief of police reporting
the whole matter. "On the twenty-first day of February an escaped
prisoner was washed upon the shore in front of my house." So
far he typed, and then he opened a secret drawer of his desk and
put the unfinished report into it.
On the seventh day after that, two things happened. In the morn
ing the servants left together, their belongings tied in large square
cotton kerchiefs. When Hana got up in the morning nothing was
done, the house not cleaned and the food not prepared, and she
knew what it meant. She was dismayed and even terrified, but her
pride as a mistress would not allow her to show it. Instead, she
inclined her head gracefully when they appeared before her in the
kitchen, and she paid them off and thanked them for all that they
had done for her. They were crying, but she did not cry. The cook
and the gardener had served Sadao since he was a little boy in his
father's house, and Yumi cried because of the children. She was
so grieving that after she had gone she ran back to Hana.
13
 "If the baby misses me too much tonight, send for me. I am
going to my own house and you know where it is."
"Thank you," Hana said smiling. But she told herself she would
not send for Yumi however the baby cried.
She made the breakfast and Sadao helped with the children.
Neither of them spoke of the servants beyond the fact that they
were gone. But after Hana had taken morning food to the prisoner
she came back to Sadao.
"Why is it we cannot see clearly what we ought to do ? " she asked
him. "Even the servants see more clearly than we do. Why are we
different from other Japanese ? "
Sadao did not answer. But a little later he went into the room
where the prisoner was and said brusquely, "Today you may get
up on your feet. I want you to stay up only five minutes at a time.
Tqmorrow you may try it twice as long. It would be well that
you get back your strength as quickly as possible."
He saw the flicker of terror on the young face that was still very
pale.
"Okay," the boy murmured. Evidently he was determined to say
more. "I feel I ought to thank you, doctor, for having saved my
life."
"Don't thank me too early," Sadao said coldly. He saw the flicker
of terror again in the boy's eyes-terror as unmistakable as an ani
mal's. The scars on his neck were scarlet for a moment. Those scars!
What were they ? Sadao did not ask.
In the afternoon the second thing happened. Hana, working
hard at unaccustomed labor, saw a messenger come to the door
in official uniform. Her hands went weak and she could not draw
her breath. The servants must have told already. She ran to Sadao,
gasping, unable to utter a word. But by then the messenger had
simply followed her through the garden and there he stood. She
pointed at him futilely.
Sadao looked up from his book. He was in his office, the outer
partition of which was thrown open to the garden for the southern
sunshine.
"What is it?" he asked the messenger and then he rose, seeing
the man's uniform.
 "You are to come to the palace," the man said. "The old General
is in pain again."
"Oh," Hana breathed, "is that all ? "
"All ?" the messenger exclaimed. "Is it not enough ?"
"Indeed, it is," she replied. "I am very sorry."
When Sadao came to tell her good-by she was in the kitchen,
but doing nothing. The children were asleep and she sat merely
resting for a moment, more exhausted from her fright than from
work.
"I thought they had come to arrest you," she said.
He gazed down into her anxious eyes. "I must get rid of this
man for your sake," he said in' distress. "Somehow I must get rid
of him."
* * *

"Of course," the General said weakly, "I understand fully. But
that is because I once took a degree in Princeton. So few Japanese
have."
"I care nothing for the man, Excellency," Sadao said, "but having
operated on him with such success . . ."
"Yes, yes," the General said. "It only makes me feel you more
indispensable to me. You say you think I can stand one more such
attack as I have had today ? "
"Not more than one," Sadao said.
"Then certainly I can allow nothing to happen to you," the Gen
eral said with anxiety. His long pale Japanese face became expres
sionless, which meant that he was in deep thought. "You cannot
be arrested," the General said, closing his eyes. "Suppose you were
condemned to death and the next day I had to have my operation ? "
"There are other surgeons, Excellency," Sadao suggested.
"None that I trust," the General replied. "The best ones have
been trained by Germans and would consider the operation suc
cessful even if I died. I do not care for their point of view." He
sighed. "It seems a pity that we cannot better combine the German
ruthlessness with the American sentimentality. Then you could
turn your prisoner over to execution, and yet I could be sure you
would not murder me while I was unconscious." The General
I5
laughed. He had an unusual sense of humor. "As a Japanese, could
you not combine these two foreign elements ?" he asked.
Sadao smiled. "I am not quite sure," he said, "but for your sake
I would be willing to try, Excellency."
The General shook his head. "I haq rather not be the test case,"
he said. He felt suddenly weak and overwhelmed with the cares
of his life as an official in times such as these when repeated victory
brought great responsibilities all over the south Pacific. "It is very
unfortunate that this man should have been washed up on your
doorstep," he said irritably.
"I feel it so myself," Sadao said gently.
"It would be best if he could be quietly killed," the General said.
"Not by you, but by someone who does not know him. I have my
own private assassins. Suppose I send two of them to your house
tonight-or better, any night. You need know nothing about it.
It is now warm-what would be more natural than that you should
leave the outer partition of the white man's room open to the
garden while he sleeps?"
"Certainly it would be very natural," Sadao agreed. "In fact, it
is so left open every night."
"Good," the General said, yawning. "They are very capable assas
sins-they make no noise and they know the trick of inward bleed
ing. If you like, I can even have them remove the body."
Sadao considered. "That perhaps would be best, Excellency," he
agreed, thinking of Hana.
He left the General's presence then, and went home, thinking
over the plan. In this way, the whole thing would be taken out
of his hands. He would tell Hana nothing, since she would be
timid at the idea of assassins in the house, and yet certainly such
persons were essential in an absolute state such as Japan was. How
else could rulers deal with those who opposed them ?
He refused to allow anything but reason to be the atmosphere
of his mind as he went into the room where the American was in
bed. But as he opened the door he found the young man out of
bed to his surprise, and preparing to go out into the garden.
"What is this ? " he exclaimed. "Who gave you permission to leave
your room ? "

16
 "I'm not used to waiting for permission," Tom said gaily. "Gosh,
I feel pretty good again! But will the muscles on this side always
feel stiff? "
"Is it so ?" Sadao inquired, surprised. H e forgot all else. "Now
I thought I had provided against that," he murmured. He lifted
the edge of the man's shirt and gazed at the healing scar. "Massage
may do it," he said, "if exercise does not."
"It won't bother me much," the young man said. His young face
was gaunt under the stubbly blond beard. "Say, doctor, I've got
something I want to say to you. If I hadn't met a Jap like you,
well, I wouldn't be alive today. I know that."
Sadao bowed, but he could not speak.
"Sure, I know that," Tom went on warmly. His big thin hands
gripping a chair were white at the knuckles. "I guess if all the
Japs were like you there wouldn't have been a war."
"Perhaps," Sadao said with difficulty. "And now I think you had
better go back to bed."
He helped the boy back into bed and then bowed. "Good night,"
he said.
He slept badly that night. Time and time again he woke, thinking
he heard the rustling of footsteps, the sound of a twig broken or
a stone displaced in the garden, such sounds as men might make
who carried a burden.
The next morning he made the excuse to go first into the guest
room. If the American were gone, he then could simply tell Hana,
and so the General had directed. But when he opened the door he
saw at once that it was not done last night. There, on the pillow, was
the shaggy blond head. He could hear the peaceful breathing of
sleep, and he closed the door again quietly.
"He is asleep," he told Hana. "He is almost well to sleep like
that."
"What shall we do with him?" Hana whispered her old refrain.
Sadao shook his head. "I must decide in a day or two, " he
promised.
But certainly, he thought, the second night must be the night.
There rose a wind that night, and he listened to the sounds of bend
ing boughs and whistling partitions.
I7
 Hana woke too. "Ought we not to go and close the sick man's
partition?" she asked.
"No," Sadao said. "He is able now to do it for himself."
But the next morning the American was still there.
Then the third night, of course, must be the night. The wind
changed to quiet rain and the garden was full of the sound of drip
ping caves and running springs. Sadao slept a little better, but he
woke at the sound of a crash and leaped to his feet.
"What was that?" Hana cried. The baby woke at her voice and
began to wail. "I must go and see." But he held her and would not
let her move. "Sadao," she cried, "what is the matter with you?"
"Don't go," he muttered. "Don't go! "
His terror infected her and she stood breathless, waiting. There
was only silence. Together they crept back into the bed, the baby
between them.
Yet, when he opened the door of the guest room in the morning,
there was the young man. He was very gay and had already washed
and was on his feet. He had asked for a razor yesterday and had
shaved himself, and today there was a faint color in his cheeks.
"I am well," he said joyously.
Sadao drew his kimono around his weary body. He could not,
he decided suddenly, go through another night. It was not that he
cared for this young man's life. No, simply it was not worth the
strain.
"You are well," Sadao agreed. He lowered his voice. "You are
so well that I think if I put my boat on the shore tonight, with food
and extra clothing in it, you might be able to row to that little
island not far from the coast. It is so near the coast that it has not
been worth fortifying. Nobody lives on it because in storm it is
submerged. But this is not the season of storm. You could live there
until you saw a fishing boat pass by. They pass quite near the
island because the water is many fathoms deep there."
The young man stared at him, slowly comprehending. "Do I
have to?" he asked.
"I think so," Sadao said gently. "You understand . it is not
.

hidden that you are here . . ."

18
 The young man nodded in perfect comprehension. "Okay," he
said simply.
Sadao did not see him again until evening. As soon as it was
dark he had dragged the stout boat down to the shore and in it he
put food and bottled water that he had bought secretly during the
day, as well as two quilts he had bought at a pawnshop. The boat
he tied to a post in the water, for the tide was high. There was no
moon and he worked without a flashlight.
When he came to the house he entered as though he were just
back from his work, and Hana knew nothing. "Yumi was here to
day," she said as she served his supper. Though she was so modern,
still she did not eat with him. "Yumi cried over the baby," she went
on with a sigh. "She misses him so."
"The servants will come back as soon as the foreigner is gone,"
Sadao said.
He went into the guest room that night before he went to bed,
and himself checked carefully the American's temperature, the state
of the wound, and his heart and pulse. The puke was irregular but
that was perhaps because of excitement. The young man's pale lips
were pressed together and his eyes burned. Only the scars on his
neck were red.
"I realize that you are saving my life again," he told Sadao.
"Not at all," Sadao said. "It is only inconvenient to have you here
any longer."
He had hesitated a good deal about giving the m an a flashlight.
But he had decided to give it to him after all. It was a small one,
his own, which he used at night when he was called.
"If your food runs out before you catch a boat," he said, "signal
me two flashes at the same instant the sun drops over the horizon.
Do not signal in darkness for it will be seen. If you are all right but
still there, signal me once. You will find fish easy to catch but you
must eat them raw. A fire would be seen."
"Okay," the young man breathed.
He was dressed now in the Japanese clothes which Sadao had
given him, and at the last moment Sadao wrapped a black cloth
about his blond head.
19
 "Now," Sadao said.
The young American without a word shook Sadao's hand warmly,
and then walked quite well across the floor and down the step into
the darkness of the garden. Once . . . twice . . . Sadao saw his light
flash to find his way. But that would not be suspected. He waited
until from the shore there was one more Rash. Then he closed the
partition. That night he slept.

"You say the man escaped?" the General asked faintly. He had
been operated upon a week ago, an emergency operation to which
Sadao had been called in the night. For twelve hours Sadao had not
been sure the General would live. The gall bladder was much in
volved. Then the old man began to breathe deeply again and to ask
for food. Sadao had not been able to ask about the assassins. So far
as he knew, they had never come. The servants returned, and Yumi
had cleaned the guest room thoroughly and had burned sulphur in
it to get the white man's smell out of it. Nobody said anything.
Only the gardener was cross because he had got behind with his
chrysanthemum cuttings.
After a week Sadao had felt the General was well enough to be
spoken to about the prisoner.
"Yes, Excellency, he escaped," Sadao said. He coughed, signifying
that he had not said all that he might have said, but was unwilling
to disturb the General further. But the old man opened his eyes
suddenly.
"That prisoner," he said with some energy, "did I not promise
you I would kill him for you?"
"You did, Excellency," Sadao said.
"Well, well!" the old man said in a tone of amazement. "So I did !
But you see, I was suffering a good deal. The truth is, I thought of
nothing but myself. In short, I forgot my promise to you."
"I wondered, Your Excellency," Sadao murmured.
"It was certainly very careless of me," the General said. "But you
understand it was not lack of patriotism or dereliction of duty."
20
He looked anxiously at his doctor. "If the matter should come out,
you would understand that, wouldn't you?"
"Certainly, Your Excellency," Sadao said. He suddenly compre
hended that the General was in the palm of his hand and that as a
consequence he himself was perfectly safe. " I can swear to your
loyalty, Excellency," he said to the old General, "and to your zeal
against the enemy."
"You are a good man," the General murmured, and closed his
eyes. "You will be rewarded."

But Sadao, searching the spot of black in the twilighted sea that
night, had his reward. There was no prick of light in the dusk. No
one was on the island. His prisoner was gone-safe, doubtless, for
he had warned him to wait only for a Korean fishing boat.
He stood for a moment on the veranda, gazing out to the sea
from whence the young man had come that other night. And into
his mind, although without reason, there came other white faces he
had known-the professor at whose house he had met Hana, a dull
man, and his wife, who had been a silly, talkative woman, in spite
of her wish to be kind. He remembered his old teacher of anatomy,
who had been so insistent on mercy with his knife, and then he
remembered the face of his fat and slatternly landlady. He had
had great difficulty in finding a place to live because he was a Jap
anese. The Americans were full of prejudice and it had been bitter
to live in it, knowing himself their superior. How he had despised
the ignorant and dirty old woman who had at last consented to
house him in her miserable home! He had once tried to be grateful
to her because she had, in his last year, nursed him through influ
enza, but it was difficult, for she was no less repulsive to him in her
kindness. But then white people were repulsive, of course. It was
a relief to be openly at war with them at last. Now he remembered
the youthful, haggard face of his prisoner-white and repulsive.
"Strange," he thought. "I wonder why I could not kill him."

21
"MY mother no like so late," Etsu said.
She looked up, very far up, at the tall American with
whom she was walking along the street of her home
town. She had lived here all her life but it was a new town since
the Americans came. Nobody knew what to make of it, but they
were all trying hard to please the conquerors. Etsu held her body
stiff in the circle of Ted's arm. "Teddu," she called him.
"You give Mother my chocolate, Etty, and she no care," Teddy
replied. He squeezed her tighter. The big obi she wore was a
nuisance.
"I wish you'd take the sofa cushion off your back," he com
plained.
She laughed. This, he knew now, meant that she did not under
stand what he said and he reached in his pocket for his dictionary.
"Siddown," he commanded her. They were in the park, and there
was a bench. She obeyed him and he released his arm. He looked
up "sofa" and "cushion" and pointed to her satin obi. She nodded.
"Ah-ha, Teddu," she said_ Then she looked grave. "No," she said
distinctly. She shook her head for emphasis. "No," she repeated.
It was the first English word she had learned and the one she used
most frequently with Ted. Her gravity he instantly understood. She
thought he had proposed something improper. He looked at her
solemnly.
"Listen, kid, I don't mean take off your clothes-just the sofa
cushion. Couldn't you use a string or something?"
He fished in his pockets and produced a string. It had been tied
around the box of cookies Sue had made and sent him. Sue was his
22
best girl in Plainfield, New Jersey, which was his home town. It
was a good string, and he had kept it. Now he reached his arms
around Etsu's waist and demonstrated with the string. She was
horrified.
"No, no, Teddu," she said with such passion that he gave up,
thrust his hands in his pockets, and stared sulkily across the grass.
She sat in her graceful, motionless fashion, stealing looks at him
from the corners of her long eyes. She was a very pretty girl, small
and slight. Her face was oval and her eyes were black and gentle.
But her mouth was her prettiest feature. Ted had looked at it often
and long, with speculative eyes. She had never let him kiss her. He
had made efforts, both with and without the dictionary, but she had
only said, "No, no, Teddu."
It was not as if all Japanese girls refused kisses. The fellows said
plenty of them were willing enough, once you showed them how.
But Etsu would not let him show her anything. More than once he
had decided to give her up and get him an easier girl. But none of
them were as pretty as Etsu. Besides, there was something homelike
about her house and family. He always called there for her, and her
parents hovered around, as anxious as if they'd been Americans.
She was the oldest of the family, and they thought a lot of her, any
body could see. There were two girls and a boy younger than she
was. They all told Etsu good-by as though she were going to be
gone a week, instead of only down the street to the park or the
movies. It made him feel responsible.
"To hell with it," he now said aloud.
Etsu laughed and waved to a deer, which came up to them hope
fully. The park was full of deer. Even during the war they had
been cared for and fed. There had been some talk of eating them,
but nobody could bring himself to kill the sacred deer.
"Deer, hungry," she remarked. Study of the dictionary had helped
her English very much.
Ted grinned. "Now if you'd just say, 'Hungry, dear.' "
"Hungry, dear?" she said obediently.
"Damned hungry," he replied. He took her little hand and put it
to his lips. This she allowed. She had discussed it at home, and
23
Father and Mother had listent:d, bewildered. She discussed every
thing about the American with them at night after she came home
and the children were in bed.
"Does he bite your hand ?" Mother had asked in horror.
"No, he never hurts me," Etsu had replied. She felt tenderness at
the thought of him. "He never hurts me at all, " she said. "He even
helps me by the arm when we cross the street."
Father and Mother had looked at one another.
"You are sure he does not have improper ideas?" Mother asked
timidly. Etsu had gazed at them limpidly, anxious to tell them
everything. After all, she was in a strange situation, with what
dangers she did not know.
"He wants to put his mouth on mine," she told them.
The two elders looked away in their horror.
"I forbid it," Father said sternly.
"There are germs in the mouth," Mother explained.
"Promise me you will never allow it, " Father commanded, and
she had promised.
"But my hand ? " she had asked.
They had discussed the hand, and after some hours of delibera
tion Father and Mother had agreed that the hand might occasionally
be allowed if it was necessary to avoid the mouth. But it should not
be allowed if it led to the mouth. Since Ted was displeased with her
about her obi, she now allowed him the hand.
The deer watched them hopefully.
"He think you eat the hand," Etsu said with amusement.
Ted laughed. "I'll be darned," he said. He forgot that it was Etsu's
hand he was kissing. It became a game with the deer. He put her
hand down. The deer stared and began to walk away. They saw
it look back, and Ted snatched her hand again and put it to his lips.
The deer galloped toward them. They laughed and both forgot that
a moment before he had been angry and she half frightened.
"Smart deer," Ted said. "For that, I'll buy him something to eat."
They rose and the deer followed, trotting like a dog behind them
when it saw them turn in the direction of the vendor who sold the
little bean cakes for deer. Ted bought a bagful and they sat down
24
on the grass and he fed them to the deer one by one, while Etsu
watched them both with affection. But the sight of the feeding in
creased her own ever present hunger.
"Feed me, please, Teddu, like deer," she coaxed.
He gave her a cake and she ate it in a swallow. He stared at her.
"Is it good ?" he asked.
"Some good," she said.
He put down the bag and leaned toward her. "I'll be damned.
. . ." he began. "You aren't sure enough hungry are you, Etty ? "
"Some hungry," she admitted.
Father and Mother had both told her that she was never to accept
food from him-not real food, that is. Tea and sweets she could
take, but no more. Once a man began feeding a woman, he would
feel she belonged to him, they said.
"You understand that you cannot belong to an American,"
Father had said sternly. Father was a tall man, for a Japanese. He
had a deep sad voice and sad eyes. None of the children thought
of disobeying him. He went on and his voice sank a note deeper.
"The Americans are our conquerors and we must show them
courtesy. But courtesy does not demand that we give them our
women."
"I had rather see Etsu dead," Mother had said. She was a tiny
creature, thin as a winter wren.
There had been great difficulty in the town over the mattor of
Americans and women. It had become clear, within twenty-four
hours, that the Americans were used to women and expected to be
with them. Some expected more. All through the town anxious
fathers and mothers discussed this matter. The Americans did not
understand the difference, the vast difference, between home girls
and other girls. One of the other girls need not mind if an American
came up behind her and put his arm about her middle and pulled
out his dictionary. She too bought a dictionary as soon as she could.
But a home girl cried and ran if an American put his arm about
her. He always ran after her and tried to comfort her, which
frightened her more than ever. Ted had run after Etsu and only
because the house had been in the same block as the market, where
she bought the family food, had she escaped him. When she came
out the next day, he was there again. She saw him and slammed the
gate and ran back to tell Father and Mother. Together they had
come out to meet the American and explain matters, which was
difficult, since Mother spoke no English and Father had only who:t
he had been able to learn out of a dictionary since the Emperor had
announced the defeat of the nation. Ted had thought they were
speaking Japanese, and both had to use dictionaries to arrive at an
understanding.
"I get you . . ." Ted had said at last. "You mean she's a nice girl."
Father had beamed at him.
"Mind if I walk with her once in a while? " Ted had asked.
"Nno," Father had said positively, meaning exactly what he
said.
"Okay, thanks," Ted had said.
He had tipped his cap and walked away with Etsu then, to the
consternation of Father and Mother, who had at once fallen in
behind. But there had been only the block to go, and when they
reached the market Ted had laughed, tipped his cap again, and
sauntered away.
Ted had been there the next day, too, but Etsu had reported no
misbehavior when she got home, and he had not tried to come in.
But at the gate, with the dictionary, he had conveyed to her that
while he walked with her no other American man must be allowed
to do so.
The parents had discussed this solemnly after the children went
to bed.
"It is better for only one to follow you than an army," Father
had declared. "With help from Mother and me, we can perhaps
benefit from this one American, and preserve good relations also."
So it had come to pass that Ted walked with her every day, and
after a while she began to come out after supper and walk to the
park with him, which was what had happened this evening.
He studied her pretty face. Gosh, but she was pretty-almost as
pretty as Sue. He would never have thought a Jap girl could be so
pretty. Funny how a few months ago he was shooting every Jap
26
creature in sight! He wouldn't have believed that he could want to
be with a girl like this. He couldn't explain it to Sue, so he had not
told her anything at all about Etsu. It wasn't as if Etsu made any
difference to him and Sue. Sue was the girl he was going to marry
-a real honey she was, yellow hair and blue eyes and a figure. She
was full of spunk, too-a regular spitfire if you rubbed her the
wrong way. Etsu was different-mild and gentle, all the time.
Studying Etsu's cream-colored face, he saw what he had never
noticed before-that there were hollows at her temples under her
soft black hair, that her neck was childishly thin. "Say," he burst
out, "do you get enough to eat ? "
She laughed merrily and h e tried again, "Etty, listen," he put his
hand on her two hands folded on her lap. "Eat, see ?" He opened
his mouth and pointed down his throat.
"No, no, Teddu," she said quickly.
"I thought not," he said. "You come along with me."
He grasped her wrist and dragged her up and along with him.
Behind them the bag of soy cakes fell on the ground and half a
dozen deer trotted toward it. But a child ran and snatched the bag
first and carried it away. Neither Ted nor Etsu saw it. They were
absorbed in struggle, he to pull her toward the restaurant down the
street and she to resist him.
"You're going to eat," he said firmly.
"No, no, Teddu! " she wailed.
"Yes, yes, Etty," he said.
In the end he prevailed. He always prevailed, being a man and an
American, and she found herself seated at a table in the restaurant.
A dozen other couples looked at them and grinned.
"Rope her in, fella," a soldier yelled across the room.
"You shut up," Ted yelled back.
Etsu stared at the menu through tears. "I eat home," she wailed.
"You eat now," Ted ordered sternly.
He took the menu from her hands and pointed at items so reck
lessly that her Japanese thrift quenched her tears and she took the
card away from him again.
"No, no, Teddu," she said.
27
 "I'm hungry," he declared. "Order something for me, then."
Under this pressure she said a few soft words to the waitress, who
stared at her. Etsu did not meet her eyes. The waitress was certainly
not a home girl, and she saw that Etsu was, and her stare was cyni
cal. Etsu did not like it and she looked away.
"Get a move on, kid," Ted said to the waitress.
"Yes, please," she said. The order from the manager was "Obey
all Americans."
The food came almost at once, and Ted refused to take a mouth
ful until he saw Etsu pick up her chopsticks. This she resisted, be
cause she knew that once she began to eat, she would not be able
to stop. There would be nothing to stop her, no little brothers and
sisters watching her hungrily, no Father and Mother pretending
that they were not hungry.
But that was exactly what happened. She began to eat and she
could not stop. She ate fish soup and fried shrimps and shredded
chicken and cabbage and rice. She ate until even Ted was aston
ished.
"Boy, you must have been empty," he said.
"Boy ?" she repeated.
"Forget it," he said, "it don't mean anything. You j ust keep on
eating." So she kept on eating, until at last she could eat no more.
She felt wonderfully warm and comfortable and happy in her body.
But in her heart she felt full of sin. She had accepted the food, and
now she must pay the price. Tears rose to her eyes. But she could
not escape. In honor she must pay for what she had accepted. How
would she ever tell Father and Mother ?
She was too distressed to protest at the size of the tip that Ted left
the waitress. Instead, she followed him in meek misery, her head
down, her sleeve to her lips, her geta pattering on the cement floor.
The men at the other tables shouted words at Ted which she did
not know but which she perfectly understood. They were con
gratulating him. But why did they whistle as well as shout ?
Outside, the twilight was gone and the night come. Soft paper
lanterns glowed as people walked along. There were no street lights
-the electric works had been destroyed by bombing. In the shadows
28
Ted stopped and put his arms around her and she stood in them,
shivering.
"Not here . . ." she m urmured.
The blood in his veins stopped, then raced.
"Kid . . ." he gasped, "you don't mean-"
"Not here, Teddu," she said, trying not to cry. She was not
thinking about him but about Father and Mother. She would tell
them the whole shameful story, how hungry she had been, how at
the sight of the hot food she had simply yielded-everything.
"Where can we go, kid ?" his voice was thick and breathless. He
tried not to think of Sue. Plenty of fellows-married fellows, too
and he and Sue were only engaged.
"We go home," Etsu said gravely.
He knew the Japanese were queer, but this was too queer. "Your
people, kid, your father and mother . . ."
"Yes, yes, Teddu," she said faintly.
He gave up after that. They walked side by side down the dark
street. He took her hand and held it hard. It was a soft hand, much
softer than Sue's. It did not clasp his back as Sue's always did. He
did not want to think of Sue. He fixed his whole mind on Etsu
that part of his mind, at least, that did not think, that felt.
Only when they reached the gate of her home did Etsu's soft hand
come to life. He felt it pull him through the gate, down the narrow
garden walk to the house. The paper wall screens were drawn, and
the light in one room shone softly veiled. Against them the figures
of Father and Mother moved in flat gray outlines. Etsu drew the
screen enough to make a doorway and went into the house, pulling
Ted after her. The children were already in bed, and Father and
Mother looked at her without smiles.
"I am very late," she said and began to cry.
Father invited Ted to sit down with a wave of his hand. They all
sat down on the floor mats, while Etsu continued to cry.
"Don't cry, Etty," Ted muttered. "You don't have to do anything
you don't want to do."
But he began to be a little angry. What was the game now? She
had got him all excited and then come home. He listened to the
29
soft outpourings of her voice, understanding nothing. When the
Japs really talked, dictionaries were no good. You just had to wait.
"Alas, dear ones," Etsu was saying. She wiped her eyes with one
sleeve and the other. "I have fallen so low. I do not deserve to be
your child. Yet, I had to return to my home. Where else can I go? "
"Tell us exactly what happened," Father said in a practical voice.
So she told them. "My stomach suddenly ached. My eyes became
blind. My nostrils were filled with the fragrance of the food. I
trembled and felt faint. I thought only of putting the food in my
mouth. Once I began, I could not stop. I ate until I could eat no
more. He paid how many yen I dare not tell you. Afterwards, we
went outside and at once he asked me where we could go. I said; we
would come home. He refused. But I insisted that you would do
what was honorable. He is come in that expectation."
They all looked at Ted. He sat bolt upright on his folded legs,
acutely uncomfortable. But the handbook on Japan had said that it
was considered rude to stretch the legs out straight.
He grinned at her. "I can't keep it up too long," he remarked.
Father and Mother looked at Etsu. "What does he say ? " they
asked in unison.
"He says he cannot wait too long," she said faintly.
They sighed, and Father coughed. "We must remember that their
ways are not our ways," he said.
"But Etsu is our daughter," Mother wailed.
"That is the difficulty," Father agreed.
"Let's get going, kid," Ted said restlessly. "I can't sit here much
longer." The inner muscles of his legs were beginning to cramp.
"What does he say ?" Father and Mother asked again.
"He wants to begin," Etsu said still more faintly.
There was nothing for it. "The Emperor himself said we were
to yield to the conquerors," Father said sadly. He motioned to
Mother and they rose. "We will go in the other room," Father said.
"We will wait there." Mother lifted her sleeve to her face and cried
behind it softly. Thus they walked out of the room, and Father
drew the screen of the partition behind him.
Ted stared after them. "Mighty decent of the old folks," he re-
30
marked. His legs suddenly became unbearable. "Mind if I straighten
out ? " He got up and stamped his feet, one after the other. "My
feet've gone to sleep," he said cheerfully. The room was awfully
small, he thought. Queer, how the Japs seem to live in closets! Etsu
still kneeled, looking up at him. He could make nothing of her
look. It was fixed and strange. But her great eyes, under their
straight, uplifted lashes, were beautiful. He dropped to the mat
again beside her.
"Not scared of me, are you, kid ? " he asked tenderly.
She did not answer. He took her in his arms and felt her as soft
as a doll, unresponsive, passive, completely yielded. He kissed her
at last, full on the mouth, and her face lay against his shoulder.
"Why, I can . . . I can . . ." He did not finish the sentence. He could
do anything with this soft female creature.
At this moment Etsu, against his breast, felt something square
and hard under her cheek. Now that the moment was come she
was desperately frightened, even with Father and Mother just on
the other side of the screen. Fear forced her to seize any delay. She
reached inside his coat and pulled out the square. It was a folded
leather case.
"This," she said, sitting up, "what ? "
"Oh, heck, give that to me," Ted said harshly. H e snatched a t it,
but she held it away from him.
"No, no, Teddu," she said. She tried to laugh. Then it occurred
to her that it was his money. She was horrified. Suppose he should
think she wanted money! She opened the case hastily and saw a
face, a girl's face, twice repeated, one grave, one laughing.
"Oh, Teddu ! " she breathed. She looked down into the faces.
"Pretty giru! " she said.
It had never come into her mind that he had perhaps a home like
her own, with father and mother. He existed for her, as all the
Americans existed for everybody, merely as soldiers and conquerors.
"Your sister ?" she asked.
"No," he said shortly.
"Your wife ! " she declared.
"No-well, not exactly," he said.
31
 She gazed down at Sue's face, so enchanted, so admiring, that he
was moved to pride. "She's the girl I'm going to marry," he said.
"Oh, Teddu! Nize ! " she said in her little musical voice. Every-
thing she said sounded like singing. "Tell something, please."
She touched Sue's loose curls. "Black, please ?"
"Gold," Ted said.
"And eyes, please ?"
"Blue," he said.
Etsu jumped up nimbly. "Tall, like me ?" she asked.
"Much taller," Ted said. He stood up and measured to his eye-
brow. "Sue's a tall girl-not fat, though."
"Giru's name, please ? " Etsu asked softly.
"Sue," Ted said shortly.
"Sue ? So pretty," Etsu murmured, "so pretty . . . pretty ! I like! "
Impulsively, she put Sue's picture to her cheek. "Nize giru," she
said. "She come Japan, too ?"
"No," Ted said.
"But you marry ? " Etsu said anxiously.
"Sure, when I go home," Ted said.
"Oh, you go home ? " Etsu repeated.
"Sure, sometime," Ted said.
"What time ?" Etsu urged.
"Oh, maybe next summer."
"Then you marry," Etsu murmured. "You have nize . . ."
"Wedding," Ted supplied.
"Wedding," she repeated, "and then small babies, many small
babies . . . so nize! " she sighed.
"Yeah," Ted said.
Etsu gazed at the picture affectionately.
She pressed it to one cheek and the other. Then she closed the
case and put it back into Ted's breast pocket and buttoned the flap.
She patted the pocket with her hand. "Nize," she kept saying, "so
nize."
Sue was there in the room with them. He could feel her as plain
as anything. All the longing and hunger that had been roused in
his strong young body rushed to her. He wanted her, his own girl,
32
and nobody else, the girl he was going to marry, who was going to
have his children for him. All the homesickness of the two years
he had been away swept over him. He saw the white painted
houses, the streets, the green lawns of home. That was where he be
longed, in Plainfield, New Jersey, where Sue was waiting for him.
He looked at Etsu in her flowered kimono with the big obi.
What the hell had made him think. . .
"Say, I got to be going," he muttered. "It's gettin' late."
She found his cap for him, and he put it on. He stared at her an
instant. Queer . he didn't even want to kiss her.
.

"G'night," he muttered.
"Good nigh', Teddu," she said sweetly. She opened the screen for
him, and let it be open long enough for the light to shine across the
path to the gate. When he had gone out she ran and pushed the
bar across. A fine rain was beginning to fall, and by the time she
was back in the house again her dark hair was full of silver mist.
Father and Mother were waiting for her.
"He didn't . . ." they began.
"No," she said.
"What happened ?" Father asked.
"Nothing," she said. "We talked. There is a girl in America with
blue eyes and yellow hair. I saw her picture. He is going home to
be married to her."
"But he knew that before," Mother said, bewildered.
"I didn't know it," Etsu said. "It was when I knew it that he re-
membered her."
They stood staring at each other.
"Do you understand ?" Mother asked Father.
"No," Father said. "Who can understand Americans ?"
Etsu did not speak. She was already pulling down the soft, silken
quilts from the wall cupboards. At night Father and Mother slept
here on the floor. She slept with the children in the next room.
"At any rate we are safe," she said. "And I will eat his food no
more, I promise you."
But hours later, lying wedged between her two little sisters, she
kept thinking of the pretty blond face. Two women, across the seas
33
from one another-and was it possible one had come flying to the
aid of the other ?
"Who knows?" Etsu asked. Her grateful heart reached through
the night. "She is my sister," she thought. "My sister, who saved me.
Sue ! " She spoke the name aloud. It was like a Japanese name
almost, she thought.

34
 ED looked across the little park. Like everything else in

T Tokyo which had not been destroyed by bombs, it was neat.

The shrubbery was protected from the deer by almost invis
ible fencing and the grass was being swept by two old men. By his
side Etsu sat, waiting for his advice. He looked down at her small
flowery figure and felt the protective tenderness which he had come
to accept as his habitual feeling for her. It had nothing to do with
the sturdy and aggressive love he had for Sue, his own girl at home
in New Jersey. Etsu's plump hands were folded in her lap, and her
white-stockinged toes peeped out of her geta, under the edge of her
kimono.
He cleared his throat. "Kid," he said, "you gotta stand up for
yourself."
Etsu looked at him with astonishment in her round black eyes.
She hesitated, then stood up. He laughed. He never knew what
Etsu was going to do. One reason he liked her so much was that she
kept him laughing. She smiled half timidly.
"No, Teddu ?" she inquired.
"Listen-! didn't mean to stand up now, on your feet. It's just
the way we talk. You gotta learn English, kid."
She sank to the bench again gracefully, and looked at him with a
gaze so exactly like that of a deer that had trotted up to them hope
fully, that he laughed again. The deer, encouraged, nosed into his
side pocket and he pushed it away.
"Get out, you beggar," he said, "always thinkin' of eatin', ain't
they ! No, kid, to stand up for yourself means not to let yourself be
run over, see ? "
35
 "Run over, Teddu ?" Etsu repeated with increased bewilderment.
"But in park is no car."
Ted set himself to the earnest teaching of English. "Now, Etty," he
began. The deer interfered again, nosing his chest. Sometimes people
carried food in their breast pockets or in their kimono bosoms. Ted
punched its nose gently and the deer stared in surprise but did not
move. "Here-! got to get rid of this wild beast," Ted said grimly.
Taking the deer gently by the horns, he rose and ran it backward
for twenty feet or so. There it stood, shocked. Etsu laughed heartily
behind the sleeve of her kimono raised decently to her face.
"American funny," she remarked when Ted returned to the park
bench.
"You gotta act rough with these here deer," Ted said. "They get
so nosey."
The deer gazed at them wistfully, but cam no nearer. Other deer
stared at them, surprised at what had taken place. A few Japenese
citizens looked pained but quiescent. Whatever Americans did was
not to be questioned. But their looks showed plainly that no Jap
anese would have thought of running a deer in reverse.
Ted went on with his business. "No, when I say, stand up for
yourself, Etty, I mean you gotta think what's best for you. You
mustn't j ust lie down . . . your folks say you gotta marry that . . ."
"Lie down where, Teddu ?" Etsu asked.
He looked into her round black eyes. Clearly, he was only puz
zling her more with every word he said. "Heck, I'll begin all over.
I don't mean lie down, Etty. I mean-gosh, let me think what I do
mean. I'm all mixed up now, myself."
He took off his cap and held his head in his hands and shut his
eyes for a moment. Etsu was always mixing him up. He would
start out as clear as sunshine to say something. In the next minute,
she had him in knots.
"Listen, Etty," he began. He kept his eyes shut. "Don't you say
anything for a minute-that's a good girl. Let me think as I talk.
Your folks want you to marry this old widower guy. You don't
want to marry him . . ."
A small noise as of escaping steam made him open his eyes on
36
Etsu. She had her hand over her mouth and she shook her head.
"Hey-you told me you didn't want to marry him !" Ted cried.
The steam would not be held back. "No, no, Teddu," she cried.
She laughed. "So funny you talk . . ." she explained.
"Now, kid, cut out the giggles." He asked her sternly, "Do you
--or don't you-want to . . ."
"No, no, Teddu," she said happily. Now they understood one an
other. She clapped her hands softly.
"Then why in heck don't you tell the old man so, and be done
with it ?"
Etsu's hands dropped. She looked grave. "In Japan . . ." she began,
but Ted cut her off.
"Don't you go telling me what they do here in Japan," he said
sternly. "That's what we're here for, to see that they don't do that
away any more in Japan."
"Whataway ? " Etsu asked. Was it possible that she was wrong
about their understanding each other ?
Ted looked harassed. "Now, kid, don't begin getting my English
mixed up again. You told me you don't wanta get married to this
here widower. Okay! That's clear. I said, why don't you tell your
old man that ?"
Etsu could not imagine what Father would say, were she to accept
this outrageous advice. "In Japon . . ." she began again, forgetting
herself. She caught sight of Ted's furious blue eyes and clapped her
hands over her mouth. "No, no, Teddu," she said, giggling, "Not
. ,
m J apon . . .

"I should say not," Ted said sternly. "Forget Japan. Go on, kid."
She cast about for something to take the place of her native land.
She looked up at the blue sky, at the blossoming cherry trees, at the
deer, licking up the drift of petals beneath them. Some pretty kin
dergarten children stood with their teacher, decorously watching the
deer.
"My father," she began-Teddu had taught her how to say "th."
She did it now by sticking her red tongue an inch or more beyond
her red lips. Ted laughed and touched the tip of it with hh fore
finger. They both laughed. The school children turned to stare at
37
 them instead of the deer, until admonished by their teacher. Then
they stared at the deer again.
Etsu put up her sleeve as a guard against Ted. "My father," she
began again, "so kind."
"Queer sort of kindness," Ted remarked, "wanting you to marry
an old widower with two children . . ."
"Very hard now," Etsu murmured. "So many young mans dead."
Ted did not answer this. He knew a good many young men
dead ; he'd never forget the good American fellows who had dropped
in the j ungles. Every time he'd got a Jap it helped the hurt in him.
But it was queer-Etsu having to marry an old widower, maybe,
because the young Jap she ought to marry was dead, too! Thank
God, it wasn't Sue! Thinking of this, he determined to write Sue a
letter this very night and tell her to remember he was alive, and
kicking, as usual. If any damned old widower at home, with or
without two kids, was playing around Sue . . .
"I think," Etsu said carefully, "I more better marry him."
Ted turned on her passionately. "Etty, I'm ashamed of you!
You're only a kid. Why don't you wait and see if there isn't some
body else . . . somebody near your own age ? You don't have to
get married if you don't want to, do you ? "
"Yes," Etsu said faintly, "more better."
"That's the way with girls," Ted said, "always wantin' to get mar
ried . . . to get married
. .to get married! They don't care who the

man is. If they can't get the one they want they take the one they
can get-a meal ticket-"
He choked. Had Sue been getting his letters regularly or not ?
Everything was so balled up these days.
"What do, Teddu ?" Etsu said in her soft little voice.
"What do ?" he bawled at her. "Why, stay at home and wait till
Mr. Right comes along!"
" 'Mr. Right' ?" she asked.
"Yeah-a nice young Jap, a coupla years older than you, good
lookin', speaks English . . . a good j ob . . . never been married be
fore, lookin' around for a pretty kid somewhere-like you-"
38
 A lively interest shone in Etsu's black eyes. "Please," she breathed,
"tell my father."
Obviously, she thought Mr. Right was a living young man, and a
friend of his. Ted groaned. Etsu believed everything he said right
away, the way he said it. It was awul. But that was the way with
these Japs. The fellows were always telling stories about the way
the Japs hopped to do what they thought you had said. Before you
knew it, you were all balled up.
"I didn't say I knew any Mr. Right, Etty," he explained with
some exasperation. Plenty of times, he wondered why he bothered
with Etty at all. It wasn't as if she was dumb-well, he didn't think
she was dumb, but he was never sure, at that. All he knew was
that she was so damn pretty that a lot of the fellows were always
hanging around the edges, waiting for a chance to horn in. And
Etty was too nice and sweet for him to hand her over to j ust any
body. If she wouldn't let him kiss her, he wasn't going to have any
body else kissing her. Not that he was sorry, really, that she wouldn't
let him. When the time came for him to tell Sue about her, h e could
say that he and Etty had j ust been friends-nothing else. But he
felt responsible for her, j ust the same. It wouldn't be right to hand
Etty over to that bunch of wolves who were his best friends.
"You don't know ? " Etsu faltered. "But Teddu, you say, 'wait
Mr. Right.' Where Mr. Right ?"
Ted took off his cap and scratched his head. He felt in the need
of refreshment before he undertook to explain to her the hypo
thetical nature of the young man he had in mind.
"Let's go find something to eat," he said.
Etsu looked prim. She had an invincible determination, which he
could not understand, that she would not accept a meal from him.
"Aw, j ust tea and a couple cakes," he said.
She smiled, rose, folded her hands inside her sleeves, and pattered
along beside him. Even on her geta she did not approach his shoul
der. Her tiny figure always moved him to a welter of tenderness.
What became of little girls like this in Japan ? He remembered
stories he had heard of geisha. Maybe the widower <vould be better
than that. He strode along frowning, and Etsu panted a little. So
39
absorbed was he that he did not glare at two American fellows who
whistled as they passed.
When they were drinking hot tea and consuming small rice cakes
he kept looking at her. He couldn't worry about what happened
to pretty Japanese girls. There were too many of them, for one
thing. Etty would just have to manage. He'd be leaving for home
before long-if you could believe what they said. In a couple of
months he'd have forgotten all about Etty. After all, supposing he
had never been sent to Japan ?
She caught his eye and smiled. Her smile was lovely. Her teeth
were very white, and her straight black lashes were long. Hell, she
was a nice kid and he knew perfectly well he wouldn't forget her
in a coupla months. Maybe he'd never forget her. Certainly he
wouldn't forget her if she was unhappy and he knew she was
pushed into something hard-a widower with two children couldn't
be too easy.
He sighed. "I'm softhearted," he thought sadly. Queer, how one
could be softhearted after a war ! If you're born soft, you stay soft,
maybe. Anyway, a little girl like Etty--even if she was Japanese.
He faced himself reluctantly. If he was going to be happy with
himself, and he expected to be and wanted to be, he'd be happier if
he knew Etty was happy, even if he never saw her again. If he
shirked his duty, he'd feel his conscience gnawing the rest of his
life. He'd cursed his tender conscience plenty, but he couldn't
down it.
"Etty," he said, sighing. "Gimme a coupla days."
"Coupla days ?" she repeated, her eyes rounding.
"Two days, Etty," he said hastily. "See? " He held up two fingers.
"Tomorrow, tomorrow-one, two--I'll try and find Mr. Right for
you."
It was folly. It was the last thing he ought to do. Where would he
find the man Etty ought to marry ? He didn't know any young
Japanese. Even if he found one, the likelihood was he couldn't speak
a word of English. Besides, what would he say to a strange fellow
-how could you go up to a strange fellow and ask him if he wanted
40
to marry a girl you knew ? All sorts of horrible complications were
possible. He sighed again.
"Gee-war's so simple."
"You say something, Teddu ?" Etsu inquired sweetly.
"A mouthful," he muttered.
"In your mout', Teddu ? Somesing? Hurt ?" Etsu was anxious.
"No, kid, please," he begged her. "Don't get mixed up-lemme
think."
The result of sorne minutes of deep thought on his part, while
Etsu quietly but heartily consumed cakes, was that he paid the bill
abruptly and ordered her to follow him. He took her straight to her
father's door, and then left her with a few stern words.
"You stay home, kid, see ? I'll be back in two days-with or
.
without Mr. Right. Tell Father-and don't let him go on gettin'
you engaged to that damn widower."
Etsu was completely overcome. She bowed again and again, [;he
little bows that mad him think of a fainting butterfly.
"Sank you, Teddu," she murmured over and over, "sank you . . .
sank you . . ."
He tipped his cap a little farther over one eye. She was so sweet
that he hadn't the heart to correct her English.
"Thass okay, kid," he told her and marched away, feeling her life
dependent upon him.
* * *

. . . Inside the little paper and wood house Etsu tried to explain
the whole thing to Father and Mother. The children were sent to
play in the pocket handkerchief of a garden. Clearly, this was not
for their ears. There had been nothing so difficult to explain since
the night Ted had not stayed with Etsu. That remained inexplicable,
but this was more so.
Father put aside his pipe. He felt that the matter was so complex
that he could not undertake even that extra occupation. Mother sat
in the opposite corner of the room, listening. It was her habitual
role in life.
"You say," Father said slowly, "the American brings you a hus
band ?"
 "Named Mr. Right, Father," Etsu said timidly.
"Mr. Right," Father repeated. "But it is an American name. I
have never heard such a name in Japan."
Etsu stared at Father, smitten with horror. Then she smiled. She
remembered distinctly what Teddu had said. "Teddu said Mr.
Right is Japanese, two years older than I, Father, and he speaks
good English and has a good job."
"There is no such young Japanese," Father declared. "I have
searched the city for him. There is only Mr. Matsui, the widower."
"Must I marry him, Father ?" Etsu pleaded.
Father sighed. He had a kind heart and he loved his daughter.
"Alas, child, what else is there for women to do ? " he asked. "Your
mother and I cannot live forever. Your brother will marry some
day but he must not be asked to care for you. And your younger
sisters must also marry. We must get you married first."
The children were playing quietly in the tiny artificial pool that
was in the middle of the garden. Etsu looked out at their small, bent
figures.
"Father, I wish we need not grow up," she said wistfully. "Can I
ever have so happy a home as this ? "
"Alas," Father said again, "everything is inevitable."
Over in her corner Mother wiped her eyes, one after the other, on
her sleeves, and Etsu drooped her head. Down her cheeks ran two
large clear tears. They splashed on her knees as she sat with her
legs under her. Father saw the tears.
"At least," he said kindly, "we can wait two days."
* * *

In the barracks the men were razzing Ted. He had broken

down after supper. There was no other way to explain his loss of
appetite and his nervous state of mind.
His girl had turned him down. That was the way it had begun.
Everybody knew the faithful Etsu. He had braved their laughter
before. He had never denied their accusations. They wouldn't have
believed him if he had told them his relations with Etsu were per
fectly pure. They would have howled like wolves. So why tell them ?
42
Anyway, he was half ashamed of such purity, until he remembered
how much easier it was going to make his life with Sue. How
could he explain to anybody the way he felt toward Etty ? He
couldn't explain it to himself. If he had hac.l Sue-well, he had Sue.
But Etty had her own hold on him-she was like a cute kitten, like
a little girl about three years old, something you wanted to cuddle
. only she wouldn't let him, and he was glad she wouldn't. But
.

still she was like that. She pulled at his heart, even if nothing could
ever come of it. Besides, she was a darn nice girl, clean all the way
through. He thought of this and grew earnest. He'd try to make the
fellows see.
It was night, in the brief half-hour before taps, when he tried.
They were lounging around on their cots.
"It's like this . . ." he began. If he could get them on their soft side
-they had an awful soft side-all of them did. He reached for it
deliberately. "She's decent, that kid. I know what you all think, but
it ain't so. Besides, I'm an engaged ella . I got a girl waitin' for

me at home . . "

He waited for laughter and whistling to subside and went dog

gedly on. "Seems the old folks want Etty to marry an old fella with
kids-two of 'em. She don't want to, see ? So what ? Well, seems
she's gotta, unless someone else can be found. That's the way it is
with these Japs. And Japs are scarce-we know why-"
He watched merriment fade away. He was getting them, all right.
There was something about Etsu's faithfulness that had touched
them, unknown to themselves. There were a few jeers about having
to get her married. He waited for these to pass over him and kept
on.
"I don't know a doggone Jap. But I've let myself in for it. What
I want to know is-any of you know anybody ? "
He waited for a few ribald offers to end, grinning patiently. "Gee,
I'm i n an awful spot," he said. He wiped his forehead. "I gotta de
liver. I sure would appreciate some help."
Taps sounded and the lights went out. Nothing could be done
that night. He tossed in strange dreams, seeing against a blackness
as soft as jungle night the faces of young Japanese he had been
43
forced to kill. He woke somewhere before dawn with a conviction
as clear as consecration. W hat if one of them was the man that
might have married Etty ? It was his duty to make it up to her.
* * *

. . . He asked and got forty-eight hours leave. Until now it had

not seemed worth while to take more leave than a few hours. He
had no desire to sight-see, and a couple of hours was as much as he
and Etty ever needed. By that time they had run out of conversa
tion, and he had absorbed enough of her soft charm to last him
until next time. He felt restless if he was with her longer than that.
It was as much of a nice girl as any fellow could take.
But forty-eight hours was none too long to find that nice girl a
husband. He relieved his distress by grumbling and complaining to
all the men in the mess about his predicament and their inability to
help him.
"There ain't no nice Japs," one declared.
"Gatta be," he retorted. "What'll happen to all these nice girls, if
there's no men ?"
He ignored the answers they flung across the tables to him and
returned to his anxiety. "All the same," he persisted, "you fellows
might do a little thinkin'. Look at the fix I'm in!"
The hours passed with horrifying swiftness. They had always
dragged on his hands, impeded by menial tasks or tiresome drill
and almost equally tiresome leisure, but now with nothing at all
happening, the hands of his double-duty, guaranteed watch sped
around the luminous dial. Sue had sent him the watch for Christ
mas, but he had never looked at it so often as now. He thought of
advertising in The Tokyo Times and went so far as to attempt a
description of a suitable husband, "Wanted, a young Japanese, good
job, nice disposition," but when it came to saying he was to marry
Etsu, it became impossible. "Any fellow reading it would say I'd got
her in trouble," he groaned to himself.
The search grew so intensive that he looked at every Japanese he
saw with a speculative eye. The age limits went lower and higher.
44
From twenty-four they sank to nineteen, since Etsu was eighteen,
and from thirty they rose to forty. The widower was forty-five.
But he who seeks, finds. At ten minutes to five as he passed the
hotel, he heard a loud voice, swearing admirably with an American
accent. A twinge of homesickness seized him and he paused to listen.
The voice came from the lobby of the hotel and through the open
door.
"I want a seat on that plane-! want to get home. I'll pay any
son-<lf-a-gun what he asks-just so I can get out of this damned
country! "
"Lucky guy t o be able to go where h e wants," Ted thought wist
fully. Think of being able to go to a hotel clerk and yell about a
seat on a plane for home! He entered the lobby, sank into a com
fortable chair, closed his eyes, and listened to the voice.
"It can't be possible that every damned passenger wants to get
back as much as I do . . . there must be some who would take
cash . . ."
"I am sorry, Mr. Fukuda," the clerk said.
Ted's eyes opened. "Mr. Fukuda ? " He got up and approached the
desk impetuously. A strongly built figure stood belligerently in
front of it. The hair was unmistakable, so were the clenched fists,
so, as he came cautiously from the side, was the belligerent profile.
The fellow was Japanese-with that accent!
He saluted diplomatically. "Excuse me," he said, "but your talk
makes me think of home. You ever been in New Jersey ?"
"That's where I come from," Mr. Fukuda said.
"Not, by any chance, from Plainfield ? " Ted asked anxiously.
"No-Somerville," Mr. Fukuda said.
"God," Teddy cried, "that's where Sue's grandmother lives ! "
"What's her name ?" Mr. Fukuda asked crisply.
"Mrs. Riley, and her grandfather is Mr. Riley-runs a men's
store . . .
"

"Where I bought this suit," Mr. Fukuda said, and his face crin
kled in smiles.
Ted put out his hand. "It's the same small little old world," he
said feelingly.
45
 They clasped hands and sat down simultaneously on a long couch.
Mr. Fukuda had forgotten the plane and Ted forgot Etsu.
"How come ?" Ted asked.
"I was born there," Mr. Fukuda said.
"Then you're American!" Ted exclaimed.
"Sure," Mr. Fukuda beamed. He lifted his thick black eyebrows.
"Your name, Mr. . . . ah . . ."
"Ted-just Ted-family name's Miller," Ted said promptly.
"My name is Kino," Mr. Fukuda said. "Family name's Fukuda."
Ted took a deep breath. Then he remembered. A gleam stole into
his eye. "Kino, do you have to go home right away ?" he asked
purposefully.
Kino considered. "I want to go home because I don't like this
country," he said frankly.
"What did you come here for, anyway ?" Ted inquired.
"My father asked me to come here and inquire into his factory,"
Kino said. "But the factory is blown up-the whole district was
bombed. There is nothing left-why should I stay ?"
"What kind of a factory was it ?" Ted inquired.
"Silk," Kino said. "My father is an importer-was, I had better
say."
"What'll he do now ?"
"He wants me to stay here to build a new factory," Kino said
sadly. "But I cannot stay. I hate the damned country."
"It's yours," Ted said coaxingly.
"No, America is my country," Kino said firmly.
"Why don't you like it here ?" Ted inquired. How did one ap
proach a man with matrimony when he wanted to leave the girl's
country ?
"I . . . just don't like it," Kino said. "It's too slow."
"You know anybody ?" Ted inquired.
Kino shook his head. "I have cousins and one uncle, and I never
want to see them again."
Ted edged nearer. "Say, I know some swell people." He was so
anxious that his voice was tense.
"Yeah ?" Kino's voice was full of sound American skepticism.
46
 "There's a pretty girl-nice, too."
"Japanese girls are dumb," Kino remarked.
"Etty isn't," Ted retorted.
"Etty ?" Kino repeated.
"Etsu," Ted said. "I call her Etty for American."
Kino looked stern and Ted caught the look from the corner of his
eye. "Nothing romantic, you understand, Kino-but, well, I'm nuts
on the whole family. They're j ust like my own, somehow. I mean,
her mother's like Mom, and the father's like my old man, and
there's a lot of kids younger-like my kid brothers and sisters. Well,
now her dad says she's got to marry an old widower with a lot of
kids of his own and she don't want to . . . see ? "
Kino did not look interested. Ted drew a fresh breath. "So . . .
I thought to myself, if I could find some swell fellow, who'd talk the
family out of it-a Japanese, that is . . ."
"I am American," Kino said firmly again.
"Sure," Ted agreed, "but your dad is Japanese . and you look
.

Japanese . . . well, you know what I mean."

Kino sat silent for a moment. "Why do you care ? " he asked
abruptly.
"Gee, I don't know," Ted said. His blue eyes were honest. "I'm
kinda surprised at myself. I guess it's because Etty is one of those
girls-you see 'em at home, too-that every fellow kinda feels he has
to look after . . . a sweet kid, you know. Not fresh, or anything . . .
kind of little and cute . . . and helpless . . .
"

"You don't . . . ah . . ." Kino suggested.

"Certainly not," Ted said hastily. "I gotta girl waiting at home. I
only want to see Etty happy with some fella, and I know the
widower isn't the one. She cries every time she mentions him, but I
guess the home pressure is getting hard. They'll listen to you better'n
me."
"I have no interest in people I don't know," Kino said thought
fully, "but if I could break down some of these damned old hard
shell Japs, and make them see the light, I would take pleasure in it.
Where does the family live ?"
"Come with me," Ted said joyfully.
47
 He walked Kino in such haste to the little house on one of the
modest streets of Tokyo that he was afraid Kino might suspect him
of something. He did not talk. Ted could not talk and think at the
same time, and what he was thinking about was how to get hold
of Etty while Kino was talking to Father and Mother, and how to
tell her that she must turn on all the works. He sighed. She wouldn't
understand "turn on all the works," and he would get all involved
trying to explain to her what it was. He wished she understood
plain English !
"Etty understands English real good," he told Kino.
"You teach her ? " Kino inquired with a grin.
"Well, of course she ain't perfect," Ted replied hastily.
They reached the door of the house, and Mother opened it.
Housebroken for Japan, Ted took off his shoes, and Kino slipped
his off as a matter of course. Mother spoke no English whatever,
but at the sight of Kino she was suddenly overcome with modesty
and politeness. She bowed again and again, and she lavished grate
ful looks upon Ted which he did not comprehend. In her soft voice
she called, and Father came hastily out of the inner room, his
brown-rimmed horn spectacles on his nose. He had been copying
the scrolls which he sold for a meager living.
"Hah-sodeska," he said when he had listened to Mother's whis
perings in his ears. Then he beamed, took off his spectacles, and
bowed again and again to Kino and only less often to Ted.
Father did not speak English, either. But there was no mistaking
his warmth of welcome. He ushered the two young men into the
tiny sitting room.
Mother had hurried in before him and had whisked Etsu out. She
had been arranging flowers in the alcove, and Mother finished them
quickly, bowing many times to Kino in apology while she did so.
Father began to ask Kino a few experimental questions. Kino
shook his head and turned to Ted. "I don't understand what he's
trying to ask me," he said frankly. "I'm the youngest of our family,
and I just never learned much of the stuff. This is an educated old
guy and he uses long words."
Here was a predicament. Kino didn't speak enough Japanese!
48
Then where was Etty ? Ted leaned forward on his folded legs. They
were sitting on the floor as they always did in this little house. He
could only sit so long before he had to stretch his legs.
"Etty," he said distinctly to Father, "where is she ?" He made mo
tions.
Father looked distressed. "Hah . . ." he said. He looked at Mother,
and Mother bowed her head. A few words passed between them.
"They don't want the girl to come in," Kino said. "They're old
fashioned, like my own folks."
"Then we'll get nowhere," Ted said. "She's got to come in." He
lifted his voice and shouted, "Etty-come here ! "
There w a s a rustling outside a panel, and the shadow o f a slender,
kimonoed figure appeared against the rice paper, but the panel did
not slide back. Etsu's pretty voice called her parents. Father wagged
his head and issued a sudden order. The panel slid back, and there,
against the background of the tiny garden, stood Etsu. She held
her fan across the lower part of her face, and her long straight eye
lashes lay against her flushed cheeks.
"Come in here, Etty," Ted ordered her. "This is a friend of mine.
He don't speak much Japanese, see ? He's American . . . "

He was amazed to see Etty patter into the room and abase herself
before Kino. She sank to her knees, her kimono falling in perfect
folds about her, and she bowed to the floor until the creamy nape
of her neck, under the soft black hair, lay exposed to the view of
the young men. Ted looked at Kino, and Kino, feeling that intent
look, returned it.
"Cute, ain't she ?" Ted said, out of the corner of his mouth.
"H-m-m," Kino replied, without committing himself to a nod.
"That's why I feel kinda sorry for the kid," Ted said in a low
voice. He didn't want to rush Kino. But certainly he couldn't take
the next plane now.
Etsu had risen gracefully and was preparing tea. She placed a
bowl before Kino with both hands, and bowed again.
"Thanks," Kino said abruptly. Etsu flashed him a smile as soft
and bright as a baby's.
Father said something.
49
 "What's he say, Etty ?" Ted inquired.
Etsu shook her head. "No . . . no . . . no . . ." she said. Her eye
lashes swept downward, and she was covered with new shyness.
"Now, Etty," Ted said severely, "don't begin that." He turned to
Kino. "She's always saying no . . . no . . . no."
Kino burst into laughter. "Why ?" he asked with twinkling eyes.
"No, no," Ted said hastily, "it hasn't anything to do with me."
Etsu was suddenly grave. "No . . . no ?" she inquired. She clasped
her chubby hands together and looked at Kino with pleading in
her face. "No . . . no . . . Mr. Right ? " she asked.
Ted turned to Kino. "She's got something mixed up again," he
said in a low voice. "She's always gettin' mixed up. I'll j ust find out
how things are."
He hooked a finger at Etsu and she followed him obediently.
Outside, in the small garden, he looked at her. "What's the idea ?"
he asked severely. "Acting like you was already engaged! Don't
you know you have to lead a man on easy-like ? You can't just take
it for granted that the minute he lays eyes on you he's going to ask
you to be his little ball and chain. You gotta manoover ! "
"Many ? " Etsu said. A light came into her round black eyes.
"No . . . no . " Ted said. "It ain't whatever it is you think.
.

Manoover!"
She looked at him helplessly. "Not Mr. Right ? " she asked.
"Yes, Mr. Right-! think so, that is, but he don't know it."
"No ?" she asked.
"Yes . . . not no, Etty . . . he no savvy, see ? You got to let him
know gradual-oh, heck !-she can't understand ! Etty, look . . ."
"Where look ? " Etsu inquired gazing around the garden helpfully.
"Here, Etty . . . right here . . ." Ted pointed to himself fiercely.
"Now, listen ! Concentrate, Etty, I'll go slow. You tell Father . . ."
"I tell Father," she repeated adorably.
"Ask Mr. Right . . ."
"Ask Mr. Right " ,

"Stay to supper . . ."

"Supper ?"
"Yeah . . ." he made signs of shoveling food into his mouth.
50
 "Ah . . . ha . . ." Etsu understood and was overcome with amuse
ment. She turned at once and trotted back into the house, Ted fol
lowing her in triumph. In the room again, where Kino sat in
silence waiting, she poured out a stream of soft, eager talk to Father
and Mother.
, "Hah-sodeska!" Father said co-operatvely.
He turned to Mother and the three of them argued something
politely. Then Etsu turned to Ted.
"Fishu ?" she asked prettily, pointing her forefinger at Kino.
"Shikinu ? Isucreemu ? "
"Swell," Ted said heartily. H e explained t o Kino with condescen
sion. "The folks want to ask you to stay to eat. Fish, chicken, ice
cream. 'Course they'll buy the ice cream. They got a fish pond, and
they raise chickens."
Kino consulted his watch. His face had changed its expression.
He looked benign or, perhaps, ready to laugh. "I've missed any
chance for the plane," he said meditatively.
"Sure have," Ted said. "You'll have a swell time now you know
these folks. They'll be hurt if you leave. Whyn't you stay a while ? "
Kino hesitated. Then h e caught sight o f Etsu. She had quite for
gotten to conceal her eagerness, and she stood posed unconsciously
like a little girl, gazing at her hero.
"I don't care if I do," Kino said in a lordly American fashion.
"I've landed the big fish," Ted thought with secret joy. But aloud
he was very cautious. "I gotta stretch my legs," he said indifferently.
"Stretch your legs, Kino, old fella-Etty and the folks won't mind
-they're used to Americans."

51
 HE bus between Wang's Corners and the Li Family Village

T is always crowded, in spite of the fact that the road lies be

tween mountains that are haunted by bandits. This is because
at Wang's Corners you can take another bus which carries you to
the nearest railway station. Wang's Corners is a plebeian town and
would be today the village it has been for centuries and still deserves
to be, were it not for the spurious life it has taken on as a bus stop
for the Lung Tan railroad. As in all such mushroom towns, most of
the people are rascals in one way or another. Shops and brothels
stand conveniently side by side, so that when a girl demands a
present before granting favors, the present can be bought and given
in a very few minutes, and affairs can proceed without delay.
Among all the citizens of Wang's Corners there was none so
warmly hated and feared as Big Tooth Yang, the tax collector. In
any region the tax collector is, of course, the worst of men. Even
were he not, the sight of him is hateful to all hard-working people,
and Big Tooth would not have been handsome even had he not
been the tax collector. The gods, in some freak of merriment, had
caused him to have one large front tooth which outran all the
others in its growth, and since he had a big mouth, opening as wide
as a window in his face, this tooth stared everyone out of counte
nance. It had amazed his parents when he was a child and had
horrified his wife when she first saw him on their wedding night.
It still horrified her, so that she had simply made it the rule of her
life never to look at her husband. Since it is also good manners for
a woman never to look at a man, this was not noticed.
The tax collector himself had been deeply influenced by this big
52
tooth of his. As a boy he had found that fear can become a sub
stitute for liking, and when he realized that because of his grotesque
appearance no one could like him without great effort, he allowed
their fear to suffice him. His mother was a sensible woman, and
she had tried to teach him that because he had this fearsome tooth
he must atone for it by more than usual goodness and kindness,
in order to have the friends that all men need. But he found that
it was hard to be good and easy to be evil, and to be continually
kind made him irritable. Persuaded by the horror in the eyes of
others when they saw him, he early gave up trying to obey his
mother.
Instead, he allowed his big tooth to shape him into a rough, harsh,
cruel human being. As a boy he pushed other boys down into the
dust of the road as he passed, grinning at them while he did so,
and as a man he simply grinned at those he wished to subdue. It
was natural, therefore, that he should apply to the provincial gov
ernment for the post of tax collector in Wang's Corners and in
evitable that the post should be given to him.
It must not be thought that the citizens of Wang's Corners were
so servile, however, as to suffer him without rebellion. The boys who
had grown up with Big Tooth Yang never forgot that he had
kicked them and pushed them as children, and when he became tax
collector all their memories rose up against him.
But who can be successful against a tax collector ? He had the
resources of the whole region at his hand. Let any man make a
good bargain on a pig and Big Tooth stood in his doorway.
"I claim the tax on your profit, for the sake of the nation," he
always said loudly.
"What has the nation to do with my pig ? " the man might cry.
"My pig was my own, out of my own sow, reared on the leavings
from my own harvests."
"The government has commanded me to take one-third share of
all business," Big Tooth declared ; "I am allowed to use force if
necessary."
"Force" meant that the Chief of Police in Wang's Corners and
his six policemen would march into the house and stay there to
53
be fed and sheltered, to sleep on the beds and sit on the chairs. This
was horrible, and if there were young women in the house it was
shameful. So, groaning and cursing Big Tooth's ancestors, the man
would pour into the fat palm the tax money.
It is doubtful whether these citizens of Wang's Corners could ever
have gathered the strength to free themselves of the curse of Big
Tooth, if it had not been for some events which took place within
a few days of one another, just after the harvesting of the rice.
The whole countryside was goaded to a height of fury because Big
Tooth had visited every house and demanded a share of one third
of the harvest for the nation. By this time the people heartily hated
the nation, because to them it now meant only Big Tooth.
"What is this 'nation' he keeps talking about ? " they complained
in loud voices to one another. "This nation does nothing for us.
It does not feed out children or care for our old. It does not plow
our fields or cut the sheaves. It does not even give us good roads,
or even so much as protect us from the bandits in the hills."
For this was another grievance, that when Big Tooth had taken
a share for the nation he talked about, the bandits also came down
from the hills to claim their share.
"I would be hard put to it," Old Li declared, at the Li Family
Village, "to know which are the bigger bandits, Big Tooth and his
nation, or that yellow dog and his little dogs up there in the moun
tains."
But even this might not have stirred the citizens to any action,
so deeply peaceful were they. For when Big Tooth had gone away
and they had sat and moaned a while, they wiped their faces on their
blue -cotton girdles, looked around at their wives and children, and
in spite of themselves they began to smile. Life was still good.
"Shall we allow rascals to make us always miserable ?" they asked
themselves. "Come, there is only this one Big Tooth, and he cannot
be everywhere at once, nor can he live forever. And the bandits
are in the hills, and when they have once come they will not come
again for a while."
So life would go on again in Wang's Corners, and in the Li
Family Village, and the people who lived there followed the example
of Big Tooth's wife and turned their faces away from him.
54
 It might have gone thus for the rest of Big Tooth's life had he
not decided one day to take a concubine. The one sorrow of his life
was that he had no son. He was growing richer every day, and he
ad added courts to his house and put in a fish pond and a garden.
He ate the food he liked best for every meal, so that a feast was no
longer a feast to him. He had servants and he had even an automo
bile. This was an old machine, it is true, but it still had its four
. wheels and the engine. Anyone could see the engine, for the cover
to it was gone. When Big Tooth bought this machine he had
asked about the cover but its owner had replied, "It was a matter of
continually opening and shutting that cover whenever the engine
had to be fed and watered, so for convenience I had it taken off."
This was reasonable and so Big Tooth had bought the machine.
It extended the length of his arm for now he could go out into the
country and collect tax to the distance of a hundred miles around
him. He was no longer limited to the bus between \Vang's Corners
and the Li Family Village.
But none of these things took the place of a son. His wife, though
she continued pretty and gentle, also continued barren, and no
amount of scolding produced any change in her. At last she said
one day with the patience which was habitual to her, "My husband,
why do you not take a concubine ? With your riches and position
you could have any young woman in the town, and perhaps she
will be luckier for you than I am."
"Two women under one roof always make trouble," he retorted.
"Not under your roof," she replied sweetly. "I promise you I will
welcome her and treat her as my sister."
This put the idea into Big Tooth's head, especially as he was con
tinually annoyed that even the girls in the brothels disliked him,
because he insisted on taking one third of all they earned for tax.
He found, as he remembered all the young girls he had seen lately,
that a certain handsome young face was already in his mind, and
that this face belonged to the only daughter of Old Li, a hrmer
outside the Li Family Village. The two, father and daughter, lived
in a small half-ruined house on a parcel of land to the south of the
village; and since there was no son, the young girl helped her
55
father in the field, and that was how I3ig Tooth had seen her. He
had not noticed her until recently because he had seen her grow up
from an unkempt motherless little girl, whose black hair was burned
tawny brown by the sun, into the young woman he had noticed
only one day recently, while she had been beating out grain against
the side of the threshing box. It was the day he had gone t collect
the tax.
Sitting in his garden he thought how healthy she had looked and
how red her cheeks were. She was a tall girl, but then he was a tall
man, and he was tired of small, puny women like his wife.
"She'll be hard to manage, but that is nothing to me," he thought,
boastfully, "because I manage everybody."
It was from such thinking that he sauntered out of the town a
few days later and went in the evening to Old Li's tiny farm. The
young woman was sitting on a bench by the door eating a water
melon. She had a slice of the fruit to her mouth, and Big Tooth
saw that it was the golden-hearted variety which is sweeter than
any other. Over it she looked at him with her large, lively black
eyes. When she saw him she rose promptly, the fruit still between
her teeth, and went inside the house. Instantly, Old Li came out,
buttoning his faded blue jacket about him.
"You must excuse me that I was not at the door," he said to Big
Tooth. "I was j ust washing myself after coming home from my
field."
Big Tooth sat down on the bench that was still warm from the
young girl's body. "That was a fine watermelon," he said ; "I have
not eaten watermelon in a long time. Give me a slice of it."
Old Li called out at once to his daughter. "Bring some of the
melon to our guest! "
The young girl's voice came back clearly. " I can't. I have eaten the
last piece."
And while they heard this, she added impudence to what she
had just said. "It is one thing he can't tax-it's inside me." Then she
laughed loudly.
Old Li was struck with terror but Big Tooth laughed, too. "Now
56
I could tax you just the same," he remarked. "I can ask for the
young woman herself."
Old Li tried to make a laugh also, and then he said, "It has been
a good day-not too hot, not too cold."
"Don't talk about the weather," Big Tooth said. "I mean what I
just told you. I want the young woman."
Old Li grinned, and fright nailed the grin on his face. "You are
joking," he said. "She's-she's betrothed."
This was a lie, for his daughter, whose name was Liehsa, had
steadfastly refused to marry until she found a young man who
would take her surname for his, so that her father would have a
son. But what young man wanted to be the son of a poor old
widower with only a few hundred yards of land for a field ? To
find someone poorer than they, who was also strong and handsome,
clever and good, was no small task.
"He is in the army," Old Li said faintly of this young man who
did not exist, "but he will come at any time and he would kill me
and his family would leave me unburied if he found I had not kept
faith with him."
"I will settle that," Big Tooth said. "He'll be afraid of me."
"Oh, no, he fears no one," Old Li said positively. "You forget he
has been fighting the Jap devils and he has seen the red-haired
Americans also, and he feared none of them."
Big Tooth instantly began to burn with a raging jealousy. "Tell
your daughter to come out," he commanded.
Old Li called feebly, "Liehsa, come and see our guest ! "
Liehsa called back pleasantly i n the same clear voice, ''I'm busy.
I can't come out."
"Does she know who I am ?" Big Tooth asked loudly.
"Do you know who he is?" Old Li echoed.
"The tax collector ! " Liehsa called back, laughing. "But I am not
taxable! " she added.
"You see how spoiled she is," Old Li said eagerly. "She is all I
have and she is lazy, disobedient, and dirty. She eats all the time
and she does nothing. She would quarrel with your honorable lady
and make a hell of your home."
57
 "She needs beating," Big Tooth declared, "and I would enjoy beat
ing her."
His big tooth gleamed out of his smiling mouth and Old Li shud
dered.
"Give me a few days to get her used to the thought," he begged.
Big Tooth rose. "I will expect her seven days from today," he an
nounced and went away. But at the edge of the threshing floor, he
paused. "If you arrange this affair well," he remarked, "I will allow
you freedom from taxes so long as you live." He chuckled behind
his big tooth. "And if there are taxes in the world beyond, as of
course there are, I will speak for you myself to the head god in hell."
Old Li tried again to laugh but no sound would come out of his
dry mouth and so he only bowed. When Big Tooth's heavy figure
had completely disappeared from sight he sat down on the bench
and began to wail, and Liehsa at once ran out.
She scolded her father heartily. "I heard every word that accursed
one said, and I heard all you said, too. Father, I don't know what
your mind is, but I'll tell you mine. I will not go to his house."
"Wait . . ." Old Man Li said.
"I will wait forever," she said, "but I will not go."
"You must remember that we are helpless," the old man began.
"I will not go," Liehsa said.
"And he is the tax collector, the powerful one . . ."
"I will not go," Liehsa said.
"He will free us from taxes," Old Li pleaded.
"I will not go," Liehsa said.
Old Li grew a little angry now on his own account. "Stop saying
that and tell me how I can prevent it," he said sharply.
Liehsa opened her big black eyes at him wide. "You have noth-
ing to do with it," she said. "I just will not go."
"He said you needed a beating, and so you do," Old Li retorted.
"No one can beat me," Liehsa retorted, "and certainly not he."
Upon this their day ended most unhappily and they went to their
rooms, and the old man turned a hundred times on his bed and
Liehsa sat up, thinking hard.
When morning came they both had come to no conclusion except
ss
that they must go to all the people they knew in Wang's Corners
and ask for help. They had decided upon Wang's Corners because
Liehsa was ashamed for any of her relatives in the Li Family Vil
lage to know, even, that Big Tooth wanted her for his concubine.
They set out to go by bus as soon as they had tasted the breakfast
for which they had no appetite.
At the doorstep they had a discussion. Liehsa had put on her best
blue jacket and _white cotton socks and new cloth shoes. She had,
beyond that, put on her silver earrings, which she wore only at New
Year.
"Do you think it well," Old Li now asked, looking at her, "to
dress yourself up to look your best ? Oughtn't you to look ugly, so
as to appear as miserable as you are? "
" I thought o f that," Liehsa replied, "but then it occurred t o me
that men will be more sorry for me if I look beautiful."
"True, true ." Old Li said, and so they set forth on their mis

sion.
Alas that Old Li was a widower and that Liehsa was motherless!
For had the good wife and mother been alive, she would have told
them that i t is not the men who decide matters even in Wang's
Corners, but the women. When the pair came to the doors of the
houses of such families as they knew, when th y were invited in, it
is true that the men, looking at Liehsa's fresh and pretty face, felt
an instant new rage against Big Tooth.
"This is really too much," they each declared in his own way.
"We have endured enough from Big Tooth in his robberies of
whatever belongs to us, but if he is going to begin to take concu
bines from among our best-looking young women, then it is time
for him to be put to death."
This was most comforting to Old Li and to Liehsa. But, sadly
enough, it was the women who spoke next and what each said in
her own way was something like this : "I don't see that it would
be so bad for Liehsa to be the concubine of Big Tooth. He is rich
and he has the biggest house in town, and it is well known that his
wife is good-tempered. After all, what is Liehsa ? Nothing but a girl
59
from the Li Family Village. She could do much worse than to be
the concubine of a man in Wang's Corners."
The men heard their wives speak thus-when they were ill-tem
pered they said it at once, and when they were kind they spoke in
pitying voices to Liehsa and Old Li, and waited until they were
gone, but what they said amounted to the same thing. The men
were prudent and now to the trouble of fighting against Big Tooth
they had the trouble also of arguing with their wives and maintain
ing that Liehsa was nothing to them-that they had not even seen
that she was pretty.
By the end of the day half the homes in Wang's Corners were
in a state of irritation because husband and wife were angry with
one another, and all sorts of irrelevant things were being said. For
example, Mrs. Ying at the Street of the Three Ghosts said to Mr.
Ying, as they lay on opposite sides of their big bed, "I cannot under
stand why anybody in Wang's Corners has to undertake a matter
for someone surnamed Li, who does not live here but belongs in the
Li Family Village. Why didn't they go to their own village instead
of corning to our town ?"
"I suppose they thought we would have more power over our
own townsman the tax collector," Mr. Ying replied. "Anyway, I
have told you that I will have nothing to do with the matter, and I
wish you would let me go to sleep."
"But the way you stared at that girl !" Mrs. Ying cried, beginning
to sob.
Mr. Ying bounced out of bed. "I am tired of hearing you say
that ! " he shouted. "I didn't stare at her ! I presume she has black
eyes and hair, since she i s a Chinese. Beyond that, I know nothing.
I am going to sleep in the main room on the couch, which is as
hard as the bottom of the creek."
This sort of thing went on in a score of houses that night. As
for Liehsa ad Old Li, they had returned by bus and sat mourn
fully in their little house, and Liehsa talked about running away.
"Where would you run ?" Old Li inquired.
"I could run away and join the Women's Army," Liehsa said.
"If you do that, I will swallow poison," Old Li declared.
6o
 This sort of talk went on until they were both exhausted and
went to bed. "At least," Old Li said as they parted, "let us wait until
after the Fair tomorrow."
The next day was the Fair at the Li Family Village. It came only
once a year and the whole village prepared for it for days. Farmers
came from miles around and brought their produce, their pigs and
chickens, their largest melons and radishes, their longest turnips
and greenest cabbages. Usually, the citizens from Wang's Corners
would not have come to this rustic occasion, but so many of the
husbands had been made miserable the night before that when the
bus left Wang's Corners the next morning it was quite full of men
who had said to their wives, "I am going to be late at work tonight."
They were anxious for a day's rest from their wives and also for
recreation. All sorts of jugglers and dancers attended the Fair. Two
or three men of Wang's Corners honestly wanted to help Liehsa and
Old Li, and had made up their minds to see if some of the citizens
of the Li Village could take up their defense. There were also two
or three who simply and secretly wanted to look at Liehsa again.
The bus had started just after dawn when, suddenly, it was called
to a halt by a loud horn, which all the citizens in the bus recognized
at once as belonging to Big Tooth. They looked out the doorless
back of the bus and there he was, being driven along the rough
road by a poor relation. Big Tooth would have felt it beneath him
to drive his own car, and so he had a dozen or so of his poorer rela
tives taught to do the menial task.
The bus stopped and Big Tooth climbed aboard in a fury. "I
sent word I wanted to go by bus this morning to the Li Family
Village," he bawled at the driver. "I am short of car drink."
"I didn't get any word," the driver retorted. He was afraid of Big
Tooth, but he was not afraid to lie. It was true that one of the poor
relations had sent word through a water carrier, who had relayed
the word by a manure picker who was going along the road toward
the bus station, and the manure picker had told the bus driver, who
had then pretended he was deaf.
"Just shut your mouth and go on !" Big Tooth shouted. Every
body had stood when he got in, and he chose the seat he liked best
61
 at the back of the bus, and he sat down where he could feel the
cool air, not speaking to anybody.
All sat down, and each man hated Big Tooth freshly, not only
for all the taxes he had collected in the past, but because he had
looked at a handsome young girl and wanted her for his concubine,
and beyond that they hated him because he had been the cause of
trouble in their homes and a sleepless night.
When hearts are full of hatred which they dare not vent, silence
is best. All were silent, all looked out of the windows from which
the glass had long since disappeared. But this was only an advan
tage, for had there been glass it would have been too dirty for
them to see the freshly mown fields and the flocks of white geese
and ducks that were wandering over them, picking up the fallen
grain.
Be sure that Big Tooth saw every duck and every goose a11d
counted the stacks of grain. He was coming today to the Fair to
watch the business that was done and to take his toll. Before the day
was over he planned also to go to see Old Li, and he had made up
his mind that he would not take "no" for an answer. By this time
seven days hence, Liehsa would be in his house as a concubine. He
had already told his wife. She had taken the news in silence and
without surprise, almost, indeed, as though she did not care, and
this had enraged him.
"You show no shame that I have to bring another woman into
the house," he scolded at the breakfast table where he ate alone,
while she served him.
"I am as the gods made me," she sighed.
What he could not know was that as soon as he had gone she sat
down in what appeared to be complete idleness and thought about
the young girl Liehsa whom she had never seen. She felt fond of
her already and grateful to her, and then she felt sorry for her. It
was so terrifying to be married to Big Tooth. There were no com
pensations, unless one had a child, but what if the child were like
Big Tooth ? In her agitation at this thought, she grew quite ill, and
felt that she must take steps. But what could a weak woman do ?
"I can only pray," she thought.
62
 So she washed herself and brushed her hair and put on a clean
coat and with her maidservant she walked by side streets out of the
town and to a temple outside. There she slowly climbed the three
hundred stone steps that led to the temple, and she paid the priest
who welcomed her and went in to the goddess who sat in a little
crypt in the solid rock of the mountain. She liked this little goddess
because she looked shy, sitting there in the half darkness, and as if
she would perhaps understand shy and sad-hearted women.
There, alone with the goddess she lit the two candles and ex
plained the situation in half-whispering words, and the goddess
looked down at her through the flickering light and seemed to
listen.
"You know, Lady, I should like to have the young girl in the
house," Mrs. Big Tooth Wang said earnestly. "It would be nice to
have someone with me all the time, and we could talk everything
over together. It would be wonderful if she had a baby for me. We
could be mothers together. But what if the child turned out like Big
Tooth ? Could you prevent that, do you think ?"
She went on with this sort of talk for an hour or so, until she
felt comforted, and then she went home again, only saying to the
goddess as she went, "I will leave everything to you."
Whether the goddess took any steps cannot be known. If she did,
it is not to say she came down from her fixed place in the crypt.
Gods and goddesses do not communicate by such means. It is a
matter of flying thoughts, feelings, wings in the air, spirit touching
spirit. Probably some such glancing brightness brushed the being
of the great gray-faced god that stood at the gate, that god wh
protects all good men and punishes the evil ones. But such things
cannot be known except that when the good pray, strange benefits
may come of it. While one cannot be certain that in this case what
happened was the result of the visit to the goddess in the crypt, yet
it can be said certainly that Mrs. Big Tooth Wang was a good
woman, whether her visit to the goddess in the crypt was useful
or not.
It was a glorious day, and everybody who had anything to do
with the Fair in the Li Family Village was glad of this. It was so

63
fine a day that up in the mountains the air was stinging with
energy and the bandits could not sit still. They were playing about
in the little bowllike valley which was their lair, punching one an
other, and pretending to make battles.
"Why don't we go to the Fair at the Li Family Village ? " the
younger leader exclaimed.
"Leave that village alone," the elder leader replied. The bandits
had always the two leaders, the younger to think of new and daring
attacks and the elder to add prudence.
"Only good farmers and such will be at that Fair," the old bandit
went on. "It is shameful for decent bandits if they begin to rob the
good beyond what can properly be taken after harvest."
"Then let's go and rob the bus," the younger one urged. "None of
the farmers will go by bus. Likely, the passengers will just be gam
blers and thieves and pickpockets, who always travel in luxury."
The old man had nothing to say to this, but he begged to be left
behind, since he was tired and preferred to keep his strength for
bigger matters than holding up the bus. The other older bandits
chose to stay with him, and so it came about that only the younger
bandits ran down the stony mountain path, shouting and singing
as they went. They had a pair of field glasses they had taken from
a rich German they had once robbed, and through it they searched
for the bus in the foothills below. Each of the twenty or so young
men took a look through the glasses and saw it crawling along the
road some miles away.
"It looks like a beetle ! "
" I t goes slowly because it is s o heavy laden ! "
"It will be lighter when w e get through our work ! " S o they
talked and joked and they went over the countryside, their strong
brown legs marching together in unison. Before them people dis
appeared, and it was as though they walked through an uninhabited
land and this, too, they joked about.
It was all as easy as play, and indeed it was play. They waited
until the bus came into a hill which had been cut in two to allow
the road to pass through, and then they swarmed around, yelling
and waving their old guns. The bus could only stop. No one

64
thought of res1stmg. B andits were accepted as thunderbolts from
heaven and every man yielded himself to what seemed inevitable
every man, that is, except Big Tooth. The hearty young men
climbed into the bus and all stood except Big Tooth. Since each
passenger had known privately that he was going to the Fair, it
was only natural that all had some extra money on their persons.
The bandits went down the crowded aisle, pushed into each pocket
and feeling all the trousers and sleeves, except those of the women,
from whom they took only their rings.
Behind all who were standing was Big Tooth, still sitting. The
bandits could not see him, for the others unwillingly shielded him,
until they came upon him at the end of the best seat.
"Here is a fat man! " they roared. "Up with you, Elder Brother ! "
Big Tooth did not rise. He showed his great white tooth a t them.
"Keep your hands off my person," he said in a maj estic voice. "I
am the tax collector. I represent the nation."
While he said these words he reached into his bosom and brought
out a folded sheet of paper, and this he opened before them. Upon
it was a sign, some names, and a great seal. "Here is my authority,"
he said. "My person is sacred."
Had the elder leaders been with these young bandits they might
not have been afraid of Big Tooth. But the younger bandits knew
that "nation" meant "government" and "government" meant sol
diers, and perhaps the destruction of their comfortable lair. Their
elders were continually preaching to them about keeping out of
trouble with the government.
"It never pays to arouse the government," their elders preached.
"Be polite to officials, never rob them, pay out money to them
freely, in order to live in peace. Besides, we can always get it back
again."
So now they bowed to Big Tooth. "Excuse me, sir," the young
leader said. "We are so ignorant," and with this he turned and
shouted to his men to get off the bus.
But Big Tooth was made bolder than ever by this success. He
swelled himself up, and glanced around at the staring eyes of the

6s
robbed and helpless people in the bus. Then he roared at the young
bandit leader.
"Do not think you can escape the law so easily," he bellowed. "I
tell you, I am the tax collector ! "
His voice halted all o f those young men as they stood o n the road.
"What do you want of u s ? " their leader faltered.
"You have j ust done business," Big Tooth declared sternly. "It is
your trade and you have made a profit. Upon that profit I claim a
just tax."
"A tax ?" faltered the young bandit leader.
"One third," Big Tooth announced and held out his hand.
Those who watched could not believe what they saw. But what
they saw was plain enough. The young bandits hurriedly cast up
all the money they had taken from them and divided it into three
piles there on the lonely road, and one of them was put into Big
Tooth's outstretched hands.
This gain Big Tooth stowed into his huge inner pocket, which
hung like an apron over his belly. "Now you may go," he said.
"I will report to the nation that you are honest bandits and have
paid your taxes."
"Thank you, Elder Brother," the bandits said feebly.
Big Tooth went back to his seat, brushing everybody aside as he
went, and behind him the young bandit leader looked at his fel
low. "Did we rob them, or did that big-toothed fellow rob u s ? " he
asked in a puzzled voice. None of the other bandits could answer.
They stood shaking their heads, their eyes dazed, and then they
turned back to the mountain, resolved to say nothing to their elders,
but only to repo t what money they had left.
In the bus, however, the citizens of Wang's Corners knew per
fectly what had happened. They had been robbed and a third of
their loss was in Big Tooth's great pocket. They sat down while the
bus went on its rocky way and to all that had happened was now
added this final outrage. They turned and stared at Big Tooth, and
Big Tooth stared impudently back at them, without a word. Under
his dirty gray silk gown was their money, but he had taken it as his,
and the law, he would have said, was on his side.

66
 Each man in himself turm;d over what could be done. Then as
one man they rose and surged upon Big Tooth. Ahead of them,
and who did not know it, was the Great Dragon Gorge, where the
precipice rolled down a thousand feet into a deep river. The bus
driver drove on, not turning his head, and the women looked away.
Between them and the end of the bus where Big Tooth had chosen
to sit so that he might not be hot, there was a crowd of men. What
went on who could know ? A dozen girdles were loosened, hands
covered the mouth with its big tooth, hands pinched the nostrils
and bent the head. Big Tooth felt himself tied in the twinkling of a
goddess's eyelash, knees to chin, hands under the knees, head bent
back, and a thick girdle of cloth between his teeth. Hands emptied
his pocket bag. The next instant he was rolling down the mountain
side, bouncing like a ball from rock to rock. The Great Dragon
Pool lay at the bottom, the bottomless pool, in which no man dared
to swim or to fish, even on the hottest day. He clove the waters and
went on into the abyss.
In the bus the men counted out their money. Each took a third
of what he had brought, and put it back i nto his own pocket, and a
third of what he had was given to the driver. He did not turn his
head for the bus was late and while time did not matter to anyone,
it was a matter of pride for the driver to be at the Li Family Village
before noon. Besides, he was young and always hungry.

It was a successful Fair, and nearly everybody had a good time.

Old Li wandered mournfully about the streets, but of all the citi
zens of Wang's Corners none said anything to him except Mr. Ying,
who was kinder than the rest and perhaps a little more brave.
"As to the matter spoken of yesterday," he said to Old Li, "give it
no more thought. The gods take care of such things."
Old Li thanked him without being reassured, since the gods had
failed him too often for him to have any confidence in their good
sense or even in their kindness.
But as time went on he had to acknowledge that for once he had
been mistaken. No one ever saw or heard of Big Tooth again. After

67
a while there came rumors that bandits had tumbled him over the
precipice, but who dared to go down into the abode of dragons to
see ?
Mrs. Big Tooth waited for him faithfully for a whole month,
then she sold the house and became a nun to the little goddess in
the crypt, and kept her shined and polished as if every day were a
feast day. Liehsa married a year later. As it happened, she married
the young bus driver, who told her the truth about Big Tooth
Wang when they were admiring their first-born son. They had first
met, simply enough, because the bus broke down one day and Old
Li's house was the nearest one. It was pure chance, for the bus
always broke down two or three times on each trip. Liehsa had
made tea for the passengers while they waited for the driver to
mend the engine, but she and that driver had fallen in love at first
sight. The goddess of course could have had nothing to do with
this, except that Mrs. Big Tooth Wang, now the nun called Snow
Purity, prayed often that the young girl could find a really good
husband and have a son.
This son was born promptly ten months after their marriage, and
it was while admiring his perfection one warm summer evening,
when Liehsa was bathing him by pouring cool water over his fat,
naked body, that the young bus driver felt compelled to tell his wife
just what had happened.
Liehsa paused in the delightful rite she was performing. "Was
that what became of the old devi l ? " she exclaimed.
"I couldn't stop the bus," he said.
"Of course not," she agreed.
They fell silent, contemplating the end of evil men. Then Liehsa
began her work again, and they watched the clear water coursing
down the beautiful small brown body they had made.
The child, feeling the water running down his body, laughed,
and they laughed with him.
"What has happened is heaven's will," Liehsa said cheerfully.
"Entirely," the young bus driver said, looking at his son.

68
 A Few PeopRe

ANG's CoRNERs had changed. Before the war it had been

W the quietest village in China, equally inaccessible to trav

elers from east or west. But had it been nearer to either,
it would still have been quiet and no travelers would have found it
worth visiting. The village had existed for a thousand years, of in
terest to no one except the Wang family itself. The family was of
no interest, either, for a Wang was like any person you might meet
on any street in any village. There had never been a great scholar
or a rich man among them. Good W angs and bad W angs there
were, but even these were not extreme, for the rest of the W angs
were alarmed if anything unusual developed in one of their mem
bers. Immediately, parents and elder aunts and uncles suspected
illness or secret frustration, and every effort was made to tempt and
ensnare the unusual one back to health and reason. If he were a
man, a pleasant concubine was found, and if i t were a woman a
piece of jewelry was bought. They were not above providing opium
for the aged. If, on the other hand, a crime was committed, it was
equally intolerable, for the family honor was concerned. None of
them forgot that four generations back a young male Wang had
been put to death by his own family because he had become the
lover of a married woman in another village.
But the change in their village brought change to the W angs,
especially to the younger ones. For centuries they had been used to
nothing more speedy than a passenger barrow or a sedan chair, and
now suddenly airplanes dropped down out of the sky and disgorged
people from all over the world. The names of strange countries
became familiar. Even a five-year-old Wang could point at a white
man and lisp the name of his kind.
69
 Wang Chen thus heard his own son, Little Big, stare at a tall
white man and diagnose his race and country accurately. Pointing
his little forefinger at him, Little Big said, "You come from
America !"
The tall man understood the name of his country, and he paused
on his busy way to smile. Little Big went on : "In America, people
eat raw animals." This the tall man could not understand, but he
liked Little Big's lively black eyes and he reached in his pocket and
brought out a flat bit of something wrapped in paper and handed it
to the child. Then he hurried to step into another plane which had
at that very moment come down out of the sky. No one stayed in
Wang's Corners. I t was simply the crossroads to anywhere else in
the world.
After the white man had disappeared over the horizon, Little Big
unwrapped his gift and found inside a sweet-smelling substance.
He smelled it and then put it in his mouth and chewed it. The more
he chewed it, the less he could swallow it. He showed it to Wang
Chen, his father, who showed it to other members of the family.
All chewed it in turn and agreed that it was not to be swallowed.
At the same time it was something to eat and should therefore not
be wasted. At last, Great-grandmother swallowed it and put an
end to the problem of what to do with it. She declared next day
that she felt better than she had in ten years, and everybody regret
ted not having swallowed it. But it was too late. Little Big eagerly
hoped for another stick of the same substance, but no one gave him
any more. Most travelers were too busy to notice him among the
other small Wangs exactly like him, and few of them were
Americans.
But this stick of sweet was the cause for much talk in Wang
Chen's family. Heretofore, they had seen only strangers come and
go. It was like a perpetual show, which had nothing to do with
them. The stick of sweet was something real. Outside the village
there were these strange, life-giving foods and substances. Wang
Chen began to wonder about the outer regions. He was a young
man, and he had had twinges of restlessness even before the village
changed. Now it seemed to him that it was absolutely necessary for

70
him to live a life different from his father's and his grandfather's
and his great-grandfather's. All three of these elders were alive and
hearty. His father was the mayor of the village, and his grandfather
was the elder, and his great-grandfather, being the oldest man in
the village, was the head of everything. All of them lived together
inside the earthen walls which sheltered Wang Chen's particular
branch of the family.
But Wang Chen made the mistake of confiding to his wife, Vir
tue, that he was bored with his life. It carne out of talking to her in
the night about the sweet stick which Great-grandmother had
swallowed.
"You see what interesting things are outside our village," he said,
staring into the flowered canopy above the great bed in which they
lay. "This stick of magic food has rejuvenated our old ancient. She
has new strength and willfulness."
Virtue, lying with her head on his shoulder, murmured, "But
Great-grandmother has always been willful."
Wang Chen did not hear her. He went on, "But the white man
thought nothing of that magic food or he would not have given it
away carelessly to a child. It is only a small thing to these people
outside. They have so many wonders. They ride in flying ships as
we ride in wheelbarrows. What else have they ? I long to find ou t
everything for myself."
Virtue was te'rrified. "If you ever go up into the sky in one of
those devil ships, I shall cry myself to death," she declared.
Until this moment Wang Chen had not thought actually of
leaving home. But now he said to her sternly, "You must not tie
a man to the bedpost ! "
Virtue said no more, b u t t h e next morning she reported the whole
conversation to the three elder generations. All of them shared her
terror. Wang Chen was the oldest of the youngest generation and
all looked to him to lead the family some day. Great-grandmother,
however, opposed the others.
"Wang Chen, our descendant, is a clever child," she declared.
Anyone under forty she called a child. "Why should we lock him
for life into this village between earth and heaven ? If he goes out,

71
he may become a great man. Then he would bring honor to our
village. We have never had a great man here. Who has ever heard
of our village? All of you have eaten and slept and begotten sons
like yourselves-no more."
She had not, in all her ninety-two years, said what she really felt
about the Wang men, the one she had married and the ones she
had borne, and all were shocked. Virtue saw wrath gathering in
three generations of men, and she made haste to speak.
"Don't blame Great-grandmother," she said. "It is that foreign
stuff in her belly that has changed her."
The others were struck with this wisdom and Great-grandfather
spoke. "If a bit of foreign stuff in the belly of an old woman can
make her even more willful than she was, then certainly let us
have no more of anything foreign. Tell Wang Chen that he cannot
leave the path we have made."
"You tell him, Great-grandfather," Virtue said wisely. "He will
listen to you, but who expects a man to listen to his wife ?"
Three days later, Wang Chen was called before his elders, and
one after the other spoke-first Great-grandfather, and then Grand
father and Grandmother, and then his own father and mother, and
the uncles and aunts in their generation. Only Great-grandmother
would not speak in her turn. She sat looking rebellious and making
secret signs to Wang Chen not to yield. When the elders spoke too
long, she had coughing fits until they stopped. Virtue stood in the
door and saw everything, and felt that Wang Chen was not listen
ing because he was laughing secretly at Great-grandmother.
By some chance arranged by Heaven, they heard at this very
moment a commotion outside the gates on the street that ran
through the village. Shouts and screams and the padding of bare
feet in the dust made them all stop, look at one another, and listen.
Great-grandmother was the first to reach the gate. She was so small
and light that she was still the quickest on her feet. She said it was
because she had three legs, her own two and the dragon-headed
staff. But she was so shrunken and tiny that the rest of them could
see over her head, and since the gate was set at the top of three
72
steps, the street was below them, and they looked down upon the
night.
There in the dust of the street, in this village where never in all the
generations had anyone been killed nor had any died except by a
natural death, beyond one long ago, a handsome man now lay dying.
He was gasping out a few broken words, and these were the words.
"I die . . . because I said we must . . . be free. Ah, brothers!"
He closed his eyes, and all thought him dead. But suddenly he
opened his eyes and struggled to lift his head. With great effort he
raised himself on his hands, and the blood began to flow from his
shattered side. He fixed his wavering eyes on Wang Chen. "Free!"
he gasped. "To speak . . . to think . . . you young men!"
Nobody had any knowledge of what he meant. He pointed at
Wang Chen, and then before he could utter one more word, he
fell back dead.
Against all wisdom, Wang Chen ran and lifted him out of the
dust. His family screamed at him to let the man lie until his own
kin came to fetch him, lest blame for his death fall on the Wangs.
Wang Chen wavered until Great-grandmother pushed herself
through a crack in the crowd.
"Bring him into the court," she ordered. "I am so old nobody can
blame me for anything. What killed him ? "
Nobody knew. The man had been sitting i n the teashop, dressed
in ordinary clothes, as anybody could see, and suddenly there was
a noise like a big firecracker and blood came out of his left breast.
"Has anybody ever seen this man ?" Great-grandmother asked.
Nobody had seen him. He was a traveler among many travelers,
except that he was a native of the province. The proprietor of the
teashop said, mournfully, that he had only, j ust complimented him
on this, when the strange accident happened.
It was Virtue who pointed at this moment at another stranger,
who held his hand in his pocket. She did not say a word. But
while all were watching the stranger die, she saw this man smile.
He, too, was a Chinese, but he was dressed in foreign clothes like
a white man. Many travelers, however, dressed in such garments,

73
and it was not that which made her notice him. It was his cold
and smiling face.
All now looked at him. He kept on smiling and tried to appear
unmoved. But the fixed stares of two hundred and more W angs
were hard to endure. He turned hot, although the season was early
autumn.
"Can you tell me when the next plane arrives ?" he asked in a
loud voice. Nobody answered.
He looked even more uncomfortable. There was no way of get
ting out of the Wang Village except by plane or on his own two
feet.
"What has he in his hand ?" Great-grandmother inquired sud
denly. The man kept one hand in his pocket. He did not move.
She turned to Wang Chen. "Go and pull out his hand," she
ordered. All the Wangs cried out to Wang Chen not to obey, but
he laughed and strode over to the man. To the astonishment
of all, the man turned and tried to run away. Wang Chen seized
him by the neck with both hands, and the man's hands flew up
to save himself. Something fell out of his pocket, an object as small
as a toy.
Great-grandmother called out to Wang Chen, "Hold him ! "
Wang Chen held h i m while Great-grandmother skipped over and
picked up the toy. It fitted her hand nicely and she did not know
what it was. Her finger pressed something and suddenly there was
a loud noise and smoke came out. All the Wangs screamed, and
Wang Chen shook the stranger, who tried again to get away.
"Throw it down !" the elders shouted to Great-grandmother.
But she held the toy tightly. "Why, it's a little gun," she said.
"This fellow killed our provincial brother with this gun. He must
not escape. Justice must be done in our village."
Everyone remembered that they were all safe, now that Great
grandmother had the gun and that Wang had the stranger half
choked and that it was too late that night for any more planes to
come in.
Great-grandfather cleared his throat and said loudly, "Our Old
Lady is right. Let the village gates be locked. Bring this villain to
74
the ancestral hall. As for our dead brother, let him be lifted into
the hall and put upon the blackwood couch in order that he him
self may see that justice is done."
An hour later, had any dropped down from the skies to see, they
would have understood why the Wang Village had lived for a
thousand years and would indeed live forever. There in the great
old hall, earthen-walled and solid, its rafters the beams of great trees
polished and dark, the generations sat-men, women, and children.
Virtue held Little Big on her lap. The dead man lay on the central
couch, and candles and incense burned at his feet. Great-grandfather
sat on one side of the table and Grandfather on the other side, and
the men of the generations sat in proper order ori either side. The
stranger was tied to a heavy chair before them. Two gatemen held
lighted candles on either side of him, not only to light his face so
that all could see when he lied, but also to hold to the palms of
his hands if he refused to speak.
This was necessary because when Great-grandfather first began to
ask questions, the man looked haughty and declared that he would
not talk to ignorant villagers.
"Burn his palms," Great-grandmother said mildly. In a moment,
the man was willing to speak. The sweat was running down his
cheeks.
"Who are you ? " Great-grandfather began again.
"I am a member of the police," the man said.
"I didn't know we had such a thing," Great-grandfather said.
"We never have needed police before. Explain yourself."
So the man explained himself unwillingly. Each time he halted,
Great-grandmother took her water pipe out of her mouth.
"Burn him," she said.
So he began to speak again. He said he had been under orders to
kill this man lying there. All looked at the dead man. He was tall,
young, and beautiful. Moreover, he looked intelligent and learned.
He was no common man.
"What had he done ?" Wang Chen asked sorrowfully. He liked
the dead man.
"He incited the people," the man said sullenly.
75
 "How did he incite the people ? " Wang Chen asked. Virtue made
signs to him that he ought not thus to take the case away from the
elders, but he ignored her.
The man did not answer.
"Burn him," Great-grandmother said amiably.
The man answered, "He praised a rebel who was shot a month
ago."
"Go on," said Great-grandmother, "tell us everything."
The man held his swollen hands straight out before him, and
tears of agony ran down his cheeks. He did not dare to keep back
anything from her. But he was spiteful.
"You here in this inland village know nothing," he said. "You are
all ignorant. In times of war no one can speak as he likes. In such
times, all must conform."
"Conform to what ? " Wang Chen asked.
"To commands from above," the man said arrogantly.
"Do you mean Heaven ?" Great-grandmother asked.
"No," the man said with contempt of her ignorance.
"Then say what you mean," Great-grandmother said gently.
"I mean from those men above," the man replied.
"Ah," Great-grandmother said, "those rulers ! "
"Did they tell you to shoot this teacher ? " Wang Chen asked.
"He deserved to be shot, I tell you," the man retorted. "He praised
a rebel, and he declared that he had the right to say what he liked
and he refused discipline."
All was silence after this. The W angs reflected upon what they
had heard, and the man blew on his blistered palms and wiped his
eyes on his sleeves. "Wait till those above hear of this," he mut
tered. Nobody paid any heed to him.
"In the time of the Chin emperor," Great-grandfather said, "they
also silenced the teachers."
"They burned the books," Grandfather said.
"Are such times here again ? " Wang Chen's father murmured.
Wang Chen said nothing. He walked over to the dead man and
stood looking at him. His face was very thin and his robe was

76
patched. He had not eaten well for a long time, it could be easily
seen. But money was useless those days and bought nothing.
Great-grandmother looked at the prisoner. "It is very inconvenient
to have this murderer in our village. We must not let him go. A
man who kills on command of a ruler can do anything. There is
no light in his heart."
"We could lock him up," Great-grandfather said, "and deliver
him to those in command."
"They would only release him," Great-grandmother retorted.
"We had better obey Heaven."
A flutter of movement went over the assembled Wangs. The
elders could decide, but who would execute ?
"We have no provision for killing men here," Grandmother re
monstrated. "It would be very unpleasant, and the children ought
not to see so much blood."
"There is very little blood on the dead man," Great-grandmother
argued. "With this toy, only a little hole brought death."
She took the thing out of her breast pocket and looked at it with
admiration.
"Great-grandmother, none of us here has ever killed anyone,"
Virtue dared to say. She was afraid Great-grandmother would ask
Wang Chen to kill the stranger, and she did not want her husband
to kill even a wicked man.
"That is true," Great-grandmother admitted. "I myself would not
care to do it. But this man is a murderer already. It will not add to
his crimes if he kills yet one more."
She motioned the two serving men to bring the man near.
"Set the candles here on the table."
They did so.
"Seize his wrists," she commanded next.
They obeyed her.
"Give him this weapon," she said then. ''You are to hold him
so that he does not turn it anywhere but to himself."
So saying, so she did. She gave a gateman the weapon and he
pressed it into the man's burned palm and when he would have
dropped it, the other man clasped the man's hands about it and the
77
man screamed with pain. Great-grandmother lifted a candle, and
held it close and more close, and suddenly the man obeyed her.
They heard the noise, the flash of smoke, and then silence. The man
slid to the floor, a heap of western garments.
Great-grandmother sighed. "Now give me that toy," she com
manded. "I shall put it where no one can ever find it again."
She got up, and suddenly she looked very tired. Wang Chen ran
to support her, and she clung to him. "Be a good man !" she whis
pered. "Be good . . . be good . . . there is too much evil in our
times!"
She who had been so strong began to weep a little. "To think
these two dead were once the sons of women !" she muttered, and
thus murmuring she went out, leaning on Wang Chen's arm. Vir
tue followed after them. Little Big was asleep on her shoulder. He
had hardly stirred when the shot was fired. Behind her the Wangs
gathered and went each to his own house soberly, wife and children
following each husband and father. Only Great-grandfather was
left in the hall and with him the two serving men.
"Let the priests be called for this teacher," he directed. "As for
the refuse here on the floor, it had better be buried somewhere in
the hills before dawn brings those airplanes here again."
Then he, too, got up and went to his bed.
By midnight Wang's Corners was as quiet as ever. What hap
pened had happened, and the Wangs were asleep. Even Great
grandmother was asleep, having obeyed Heaven. Only Virtue lay
awake. Her head was on Wang Chen's breast. He was talking.
"If the times are like this," he was saying, "if a man cannot speak
what he wishes, if he cannot look to Heaven for justice, then good
men must right the wrong."
Under her right ear, Virtue heard the beat of his heart. "Each
man in his generation," Wang Chen was saying, "for the sake of
his sons."
She listened to his heart. Steady and strong, faultlessly true to
the beat of the blood, the good Wang blood, the plain Wang blood,
fathers and sons, the common men who never rule or car be ruled!
"How can I live here in our village as though the times were
78
good ?" he demanded of her in the darkness. "I must go out and see
what is going on among evil men."
"I am afraid for you," she whispered.
"Am I the only good man?" he retorted. "There must be thou
sands like me. I have only to find them."
She put her hand to his cheek and he pressed it to his mouth.
"But you," he muttered, "you must let me go!"
Virtue was very young, but she had inherited wisdom. "When
Heaven sends a good man to die in our village," she said gently,
"shall I refuse to heed Heaven's will ? I know you must take his
place."
"I shall come back," he promised.
"You must come back," she said and wiped her eyes secretly.
"You . . ." he said, "you can busy yourself, you know."
"Oh, yes," she agreed. "I am always busy. I'll be busier when
you're gone . . . learning to be like Great-grandmother, you know
. . . ready for you."

79
''M ARIAN, I've got the passports ! "
Henry Allen burst into the kitchen of their small
rented bungalow and whirled his wife's slender figure
away from the sink. Her arms were dripping dishwater and she
wiped them on her apron.
"Henry !" she breathed.
"Take off that apron, Madame," he ordered. "No more dishpan
hands, if you please ! "
She held u p her narrow reddened hands, bare o f everything ex
cept her wedding ring. "I can wear my jade again ! " she cried.
"All your pretties," he agreed.
They looked at one another and saw their future as bright as
heaven before them. It was clear because it was exactly like their
past. They knew what it was going to be. She glanced around the
kitchen. Oh, if it could only begin now, this instant, without another
day of the hateful present !
"When can we get passage?" she asked with passionate concern.
"Two weeks from today," he replied. He sat down on one of the
flimsy kitchen chairs. "And if you think it was easy, you're wrong.
The big boss didn't wake up until I told him that the Sunflower
people already had their man over there in Shanghai."
"I guess that waked him up," she said, laughing.
"You bet it did! " he said, and laughed with her.
Suddenly, now that it was sure that they were going, nothing
seemed to matter. She had been about to put on a beef stew and she
ought to get it started. But it didn't matter.
Bo
 "Did you see anybody else in Washington ? " she asked.
He was on his feet again, restlessly. "Halliday was there-trying
to get passage for his wife, too. But he couldn't."
Halliday was the Bishop of Soochow. They had known them in
Shanghai. "I'll bet she's sore," Marian said.
"He said she would be," Henry said with satisfaction. They had
not liked the Bishop's lady.
"I can j ust see her stuck in that suburb of Boston," Marian said
with pleasure.
"Maybe she's been able to get a maid," Henry said.
"What's a maid ?" Marian's voice was pure scorn. "If they're all
like the creature we had . . ." Her accents took on new passion.
"Why, j ust our houseboy in Shanghai did more in an hour than
she did in a whole day-and no back talk, either. God, it'll be
good to have no back talk again!"
"I'll be glad to get out of the office-boy class, myself," he said. He
paused by the kitchen table where she sat and looked down at her
solemnly. "I haven't wanted to say anything, Marian, while you
were having it so hard here in the house. But it's been hell in the
office. The things I've had to do-the orders I've had to take-just
to hang on to my job . . ."
"Oh, I know! " she cried. "Don't I know. But it would have been
awful if you'd lost it. Think of having to live here . . . " She looked
around the barren kitchen.
"Well, we aren't going to live here," he said triumphantly. "You
know what saved me ? "
"What?"
" 'Member that summer I spent studying Chinese, and you asked
me what I wanted to learn Chinese for, when every Chinese we
needed to know spoke English ?"
"They did, didn't they ?"
"Sure they did-they still do-but the big boss has an idea, see ?
A bran' new, swell idea! He wants all the China staff to know the
language."
"Can you imagine! " Marian murmured.
They joined in a duet of laughter.
8r
 "Yep, it's the new policy," Henry went on. "So the old gang is
out. I'm the only senior member going back."
"But what's the real idea ? " she asked. "He doesn't expect you
to talk to the Chinese yourself, does he?"
"He does," Henry said, "but of course, he doesn't know China.
He talks about it being a new day-new day, my hat! Still, you
have to humor him."
"Sure you do," she breathed. "Anything he says goes-until we
get back, Henry-"
"Yep ! "
"Does that mean the Kinkaids and the Parcells and all the others
won't go back ? "
"Yep-it's your old man that's going back to the top. Big boss
called me himself and told me-in consideration of the zeal I'd
shown in mastering the language . . ."
They laughed again. Then he grew grave. "All the same, I'm
going to brush up when I get there-just in case."
"In case of what ? "
"In case the juniors get ahead of m e . . ."
"Get on to you, you mean," she scoffed.
He was hurt. "Now, Marian, I learned more than you think I
did."
She blew him a kiss. "Darling, whatever you learned, I'm re
spectful. It's saved us."
She had not blown him a kiss in months. She used to do it often
in Shanghai, especially when they were first married. They had met
in Shanghai. She had been traveling around the world, getting jobs
on the way to pay her passage, secretarial jobs, mostly, although
sometimes she had to take what she could get. She had gone to his
office for a job. He had only been number three in the firm then,
but he was young and good-looking and she had become his secre
tary-his first. It hadn't lasted long. They had been married in less
than a year, and in less than five years they had the three children.
She had been horrified at their swift appearance, and yet amused.
It was so easy to have children in China-one simply hired an amah
for each. She had been able to go on with her idle, lovely days, and
82
the children were always somewhere in the periphery, happy and
prettily dressed. She heard vague rumors of amahs who fed their
charges opium to keep them quiet and of houseboys who meddled
with little girls. These rumors she had refused to believe. It was
impossible to believe them when she looked at her perfect servants,
the amahs so fresh and clean and smiling in their blue coats, and
the houseboys immaculate and polite, and Cook at the he! . Even
the two coolie gardeners were wonderful. The chrysanthemums
they grew! It was fun to give parties to show them off. A party was
easy in Shanghai. Twenty guests to dinner, sixty guests to tea.
There was nothing to do but give the order and then appear as
easy as one of her own guests at the appointed time, dressed and
beautiful.
"Suppose we'll get the top company house ? " she asked.
"Sure we will," Henry said robustly. "It's going to be put into
shape for us."
"We'll need a couple of extra servants," she said. "There'll be
more entertaining."
"Listen," he said with energy. "You're going to have all the
servants you want, see ? And if you don't like the ones we get, you
can fire 'em and there's plenty more where they came from, see ? "
"Oh . . ." she sighed, "oh . . . o h . . . oh ! " She locked her hands
behind her head, closed her eyes, and smiled for sheer joy.
Henry watched her and smiled in sympathy. She was still pretty,
this woman-the horrible housework hadn't lasted quite long
enough to ruin her blond beauty. Ther.e was nothing a couple of
months of Shanghai life would not mend. Get her hands in shape,
her skin, get her hair fixed up-anyway, she hadn't taken on
weight, thanks to the housework. She was no housekeeper-he'd be
glad to get back to decent living again-his socks hadn't been
darned in weeks. The sew-amah had always kept his socks in per
fect shape-always.
"Of course, Shanghai's filthy after all those Japs," he warned her.
"Oh, I don't care." She opened her eyes and saw the clock. "Good
ness, the kids will be home in no time-it's too late for stew."
83
 "Open a can of beans," he ordered. 'Til go and wash up and
come back to help."
This was largess on his part. She knew, and he knew she knew,
that his continual secret struggle was over this matter of helping
her with the housework. It outraged him, after years in the Far
East, where he never so much as took a handkerchief out of the
drawer for himself. There had been weeks here when they had had
even to do their own laundry. He prayed that this news would
never get back to China. He was sorry that he had come back to
his home town to live. It would have been easier to keep secrets in a
strange community. But when they came back as war refugees, his
home had seemed the logical place to stop. They had stayed a month
with his parents before his father had spoken plainly to him one
day.
"Now, Henry, I hate to say this, but for your mother's sake I've
got to-1 think you and Marian had better find another place to
live. There's a house on Sixth Street-a bungalow-and small
enough for Marian to manage."
"Why . . . why . . ." he had blustered.
"No hard feelings," his father had said amiably. "But your
mother isn't as young as she could be, and Hannah says she can't
keep up with the extra work."
Hannah was the maid.
"I could find an extra maid," he suggested, but his father had
stopped him.
"One maid wouldn't do it, Henry. You need a whole raft of serv
ants and nowadays you can't hire 'em. Trouble is, Henry, you've
all got out of the way of doing anything for yourselves. Marian
doesn't remember there's dishes after every meal, and little Mollie
leaves her bed j ust as she got out of it, and the boys don't even pick
up their pajamas. It makes a whole lot of work. And even you,
Henry, you don't act as helpful as you used to."
They had moved at once, and while relations were cordial they
were not warmly so. His mother's house resumed its look of or
dered quiet. Hannah was not helpful about getting a maid. Such as
they had found, he had bribed at the employment office and bribed
84
in vain, for the moment they came into the house they were ready
to leave.
He strolled upstairs and glanced at the beds still unmade and
washed his hands in a bathroom not yet cleaned. Well, never mind
-two weeks could be endured in any sort of house.
He whistled cheerfully and then stopped. A wail and a roar came
up from the kitchen. The children were home, and Marian had
told them. He rushed downstairs, wiping his hands as he went, and
flung the towel on the hall table.
"What's this . . . what's this . . ." he burst into the kitchen.
"Aw . . . we ain't gain' back to Shanghai." Hal's furious blue
eyes met his father's. He flung his strapped books across the kitchen.
"Hal, stop that! Pick up your books."
"I'll be glad to get you back to a place where you'll learn decent
English . . .
"

His voice a nd Marian's were in duet again.

Robert, his second son, stood statue still. "Do we have to go ?"
His voice was small and chill.
"Of course you do," Henry said roughly. "And mighty lucky,
too."
"Your father is going to be number one," Marian said. She was
dumping the beans into a bowl. "Get washed, now-dinner's ready."
"Oh, heck-beans again," Hal growled.
But Mollie was silent. She had dropped her books and hat and
coat on the floor as she always did. Only yesterday Henry had yelled
at her, "Hang up your things, darn you-who do you think is going
to pick up after you around here ? "
Now he saw and said nothing. It was only two more weeks. A
strange dreamy look had come over his daughter's pretty face. She
was the youngest, ten on her last birthday.
"Are we really going back to China, Daddy ? " she asked.
"We really are. Glad ?"
The curious look in her dark eyes deepened and her lids flickered.
She looked away from him. "Will Ah Fang be our houseboy
again ?" she asked.
Bs
 "I'll bet the whole gang will be on the dock to meet us," he said
gaily.
"And the house will be clean and dinner ready to serve when we
get there," Marian said. She was slicing bread and now she sliced
her thumb. "Oh, damn-again . . ." she wailed. She held the drip
ping thumb over the sink. "Do something, somebody !" she cried.
Henry reached for the bandaid in the kitchen drawer.
"Good thing you don't have to cut bread the rest of your life . . .
you wouldn't have ten fingers left," he said with good humor. Yes
terday he would have bawled at her, "Can't you keep your fingers
out of the way ?"
They sat down to the hot beans and a bowl of cold canned toma
toes, bread and jam. Hal was still furious.
"Just when I was gain' to get on the baseball team," he groaned.
His eyes were full of tears which he blinked back.
"You'll go to the American School in Shanghai," Marian soothed
him. "They'll have a baseball team there."
"Not a real one," he spluttered. "Over there nobody wants to run
-1 can remember how it was. They weren't regular fellows there
like they are here. The team wasn't worth a cent."
He threw down his napkin, burst into tears and rushed from the
table. Henry rose, but Marian stopped him.
"Sit down," she said. "He'll get over it."
"He's damn well got to," Henry said and sat down.
They sat in silence, Robert eating a little, Mollie eating a little,
neither saying anything.
Outside the house a trolley turned the corner and screeched. The
rough lawn was gray with late winter. Small as it was, it was more
than they could keep cut. Henry nagged the boys and then usually
cut it himself. They never had flowers. He thought of the great
compound in Shanghai. Behind the high walls the wide lawns were
green and bordered with flowers. He had accepted them as he ac
cepted all the blessings of their life there. Now, only now, after
these dreadful years, would he know how wonderful they were. He
glanced at the faces of the two silent children.
86
 "You'd like to go back to China, wouldn't you, daughter ?" Henry
urged.
"No more old housework," Marian said comfortingly.
Mollie did not lift her eyes from her plate. "I guess so," she said
dreamily. "I guess I'd like to go back."
Robert spoke up, Robert the Silent, they always called him. "But
we're Americans," he said clearly, "and Americans always do their
own work . . . don't they ? "
Marian and Henry exchanged amused looks over his dark head
and laughed again together.
"Not if they can help it, son," Henry said boisterously.
"No, sir!" Marian agreed.
Robert looked uncertainly from one adult face to the other. "I
thought they did," he faltered. "It seems to me they do," he said.
"You're wrong, my son," Henry said, "dead wrong."

* '

The raw March winds which had blown them away from the
shore of San Francisco were mild with April when they approached
the low Bat shores of China. The sky line of Shanghai was un
touched. They saw it from the ship's deck.
"It looks the same," Marian murmured.
"Exactly the same," Henry said.
Four of them leaned on the ship's rail, watching the nearing
docks. At the last minute Henry and Marian had agreed that it
was not worth the struggle to force Hal to come. He had been made
captain of the baseball team and they had left him with his grand
parents. It had been hard, for a minute, to tell him good-by. "When
I see him again he'll be a man," Marian had thought. She had seen
already the outlines of the man in his crude young face. Would he
blame them some day for leaving him ? But he wasn't a sacrifice.
He simply didn't want to come back with them. "And stay I can
not," she had told herself and had forced her thoughts away from
him.
Now, staring at the familiar Bund, she found herself thinking of
87
him again. "I wonder if we ought to have made Hal come with
us," she said.
"No," Henry replied, so quickly that she knew he had been
thinking of the boy, too. "Don't get to worrying about that," he
went on. "We wanted him to come, didn't we ?"
"Yes," she said firmly, and made up her mind not to worry.
Robert and Mollie had not spoken. Indeed, it seemed sometimes
as if they had not spoken since they started. "Look," Marian said,
suddenly, "isn't that the number one amah, there on the dock ? It is!"
"There's the cook !" Henry shouted joyously.
"I _hope . . I hope . . . I hope . . . lze isn't there . . ." she heard
.

Mollie whisper.
"Who, dear ?" she asked abruptly. She did not hear Mollie's an
swer. "Oh, I see both the coolies ! " she screamed.
In no time at all they were back in the compound. Ah Fong, the
old houseboy, was not there. He had been shot as a spy, cook ex
plained. The number two and number three amahs were also dead,
number one amah explained. One had been caught in the bombing
of Wing On's department store, and the other one-the young and
pretty one-well, the Japanese ! Number one amah looked fondly
at Mollie and explained no further.
"Is Ah Fong really dead? " Mollie asked abruptly.
"Too bad, missy," Cook said, smirking.
But Mollie looked back at him. "I'm glad he's dead," she said
calmly. "I don't mind coming back so much, now I'm sure he's
dead."
The servants, including the new houseboy, laughed loudly at this,
and Henry and Marian, in their joy at being home again, laughed,
too.
Really, everything was exactly the same. Marian got up in the
morning when she liked, and a pretty tray was always brought to
her bed. There was a new flower on it every day. Her hands grew
soft nd white. Her old massage amah came back and her wash
hair amah, too. There were surprisingly few people dead. Getting
herself into condition took most of the morning while the children
were at school. People were coming back so quickly that almost
88
every day there were guests for tea or dinner, and she and Henry
went out several times a week. It was lovely to wear evening gowns
once more, and to see Henry in tails. He looked so handsome, and
being number one gave him new dignity. She remembered the little
bungalow, but she put it away as a bad dream. Once or twice a
month Hal wrote them, and she read his letters quickly and stuffed
them into the drawer of her teakwood desk. Half the time she for
got to share them with Henry. But the children always wanted to
see them. Together, they pored over the news of Hal in high school.
Whatever they thought they told only each other.
But then neither Henry nor Marian had much time for the chil
dren. There was a great deal of catching up to do, and as the wife
of number one, Marian had duties to the wives of the junior mem
bers of the firm. Henry was too busy to take up his Chinese again.
Besides, it wasn't necessary. The compradores were there, just as
they had always been. He made a good many speeches at men's meet
ings about the far-flung battle lines of new American trade. "Amer
ica is in world affairs to stay," he said. Everybody looked up to
him, Marian saw with pleasure. And everybody told her how young
she looked.
Of course, there were rumors now, as there had always been, al
though not the same rumors. The Chinese weren't quite the same,
perhaps. She and Henry didn't like to acknowledge it, but it was
true. Mollie slapped the houseboy and he left. In the old days he
would have taken it.
"Oh, Mollie," Marian wailed, "he was so good !"
"That's what yott think," Mollie answered grimly.
But there were still plenty of houseboys and they soon had an
other.
Henry said that the new Chinese business corporations were diffi
cult, too. The compradores were not so pliable as they had once
been. They took the side of their own people doggedly, and there
was trouble over investments.
"Looks like every darn Chinese is hipped on the subject of fifty
one per cent," Henry grumbled. "How're we going to do business
that way ?"
 "Why don't you tell them so ?" Marian inquired.
They were going to a dinner at the British Consulate, and she
was trying to decide between white and rose for her gown, between
jade and Chinese pearls. Downstairs, Robert was practicing his vio
lin. He had taken it up only recently and was doing rather well
under a young Jewish refugee teacher, who was being saved thus
from starvation.
"I do tell them, " Henry snorted above his white tie. "They just
say, 'More better no business'-"
"That's queer," Marian murmured and chose the rose taffeta and
the pearls.
"Darn queer," Henry agreed.
But they weren't really worried about anything. Outside the walls
of the compound the city was still filthy and partly ruined. That
didn't worry them, either. In time it would be cleared up. Beggars
roamed the streets, but then there had always been beggars, and
they had two company cars, both chauffeured. The children were
driven back and forth to school. The beggars tapped on the closed
glass panes with their dirt-caked claws when the cars were held up
by traffic, and pointed down their open mouths. But nobody paid
any attention to them.
Inside the big quiet compound everything was just the same. They
lived a perfectly happy life, isolated and safe. Of course it was safe ?
Yes, of course it was. Henry was number one. It was wonderful to
be back-it was heaven.
M
iss WILLEY hesitated a moment before she opened the door
into the courtyard. Each autumn she dreaded more
sharply these wintry mornings of cold, yellow, sandy
winds.
"May and June don't make up to me for it," she thought misera
bly, staring through the square of glass set into the door.
The court was full of dim yellow light. Standing a little on tip
toe, since she was very short, she found she could not even see the
ragged pine tree in the middle of it. It was a very bad sandstorm,
bad even for a Peking November. She put her hand on the wooden
bar of the door. "I must go," she told herself.
Then her small childish face wrinkled anxiously. Which had she
better do-run quickly through the dust and risk catching her foot
on an unevenly laid tile, or go slowly, clinging to the side of the
veranda ? If she kept her head down . She sighed a little. She

didn't feel like running today. She must go. The school bell clanged
sharply, and in the courtyard she saw the huddled figures of the
girls creep through the sandy cloud.
She set her teeth and said faintly, "0 God . . . please . . ." she
whimpered again. It was the beginning of a prayer she never fin
ished nowadays. She used to pray a great deal, telling God every
thing. But now she went no further than that preliminary cry . Not
that she expected anything . . . not now; it was only a habit, per
haps. But really it was a little more. She had to cry out to somebody,
and there was no one else to whom she could tell how she hated
everything. She could not even tell God, for that matter. How could
she, when this school and the mission were all His work ? No, she
91
 made the little cry involuntarily . . . although God might per
haps . . .
She fumbled for the door of the classroom, choking. The fine sand
was in her very lungs. She held her breath and pushed open the
door and closed it. It was better now-better in the schoolroom. She
found her handkerchief and wiped her eyes and looked about her.
Eight girls sat waiting for her. They were all dressed alike in the
cheap blue cotton coats the mission school provided. They turned
their similar faces to her, without expectancy, and their eyes were
unlighted. She was suddenly afraid of them again. She had taught
this class in Old Testament History for sixteen years and still she
was afraid of it. No one was ever interested.
She sat down timidly behind the table which was a little too high
for her, and opening the Bible she said, trying to make her voice
firm, "Today, we have the giving of the Ten Commandments."
Through the morning she sat, one class after another passing be
fore her. The room grew very cold. The wind tore at th lattices and
and forced the sand between the wide crevices in the wood. Upon
the table the sand lay thick. Her hands were cold and gritted. The
pages of her book would not lie smooth for the sand. Through the
inset of glass above the papered lattice she could see the circle of the
sun, pale and Bat against the yellow sky.
At noon she must go into the court again and to the bare dining
room where she would have her tiffin with old Miss Benton. The
food would be full of sand, and Miss Benton would sit silent
through the meal or, if she talked, she would talk about how much
the straw cost for the kitchens and where they could cut down on
the food, and how the cook was taking too much squeeze, and
how the new revolutionary government was making wicked laws
against the teaching of religion, and how they must never give up
the purpose for which they came, which was to- Miss Willey sent
out her little cry again, "0 God . . . please . . ." forgetting the stout
Chinese girl standing patiently before her, plodding through the
Thou Shalt Nots.
It was on the afternoon of this day that Miss Willey first thought
seriously about Mr. Jones. It began by her looking at Miss Benton
92
while she talked and suddenly seeing how ugly she was. She was
very ugly. Her scant gray hair was yellowed, and her skin was dark
and leathery. She had lived forty years in these winds and sands.
"I shall look like that," Miss Willey thought sadly. "In twenty
more years I shall look like that."
She remembered that even now she had to struggle very often at
night to make herself put cold cream on her face. It seemed scarcely
worth while when no one ever came to see her. And then she was
always so tired at night and there was so much to do. Sometimes she
thought she had not strength to say her prayers and put the cold
cream on, too. But she dared not leave off prayers, at night at least,
and somehow she still could not quite let herself go and look like
Miss Benton. . . . Even Mr. Jones, she thought, could scarcely be
worse to see across the table three times a day.
"I might as well . . ." she thought.
That was how she began to think about Mr. Jones.
She thought about him often during the afternoon school. She
thought of him as he now doubtless was, sitting in his study in the
big square mission house at the north end of the compound, where
he had lived a long time with Mrs. Jones until she died last month.
She had not been dead a month before Mr. Jones wrote Miss Willey
the letter. She had been sitting in her room reading when the letter
came. She was reading secretly-that is, she was reading a book she
kept in her cupboard where Miss Benton could not see it. Even so,
when Miss Willey read it, she drew the bolt softly in the door, be
cause Miss Benton had a way of giving a thump and bounding in
without waiting. As it was, she had once driven Miss Willey into a
lie.
"What have you got the door locked for ?" she demanded indig
nantly.
"I am dressing," Miss Willey called faintly through the crack. It
was a great lie. She was not dressing at all-she was reading the
book.
The book contained the sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
It had been sent to the school among a lot of old books from Amer
ica, and Miss Benton, sorting them, had picked it out with her
93
 thumb and forefinger and snorted, "We don't want that kind of
thing here." Miss Willey gathered it up, then, with the trash. But
afterwards she took it to her room and looked at it and saw what
it was. There were pictures of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Brown
ing in the front pages and Miss Willey looked at them earnestly,
because once, in high school at home in Ohio, the English teacher
had said she looked like Elizabeth Browning. But Miss Willey had
not seen a picture of her until now. She stared thoughtfully at
the curl-shadowed face . . . not pretty, that face. . . . After she began
to read the poems she was glad she was like Elizabeth, although she
looked more often at Robert. On one night when she was sure Miss
Benton had gone to bed, she even took down her hair and curled
it around her fingers and peeped shamefacedly at herself in the
mirror. With her hair like that she did look like Elizabeth. She
stated at herself a moment and then she brushed the curls all out
quickly and braided them down her back and went to bed. But, of
course, it gave her a special interest in the lovers.
She was reading the book when Mr. Jones's letter came, and that
was what made the letter so dreadful. By this time, she had read
the book over and over again and to her shame and terror she could
not stop reading it. She ran quickly to her room after tiffin to read
until the two o'clock bell rang, and often she had to read a while
before she could go to sleep at night. It was sweet . . . sweet . . .
to love like that! She could so clearly see those two lovers-Robert
tall and handsome and dark, and Elizabeth small and clinging, her
heavy chestnut curls half hiding her face. She saw them always
standing together, Elizabeth clinging. It would be sweet to cling to
someone like that . . . a man, tall and strong, with whom she could
be safe.
But she knew no men at all. Of course, there were men in
Peking-many men. One saw them sometimes on the streets if one
went there, and there were always some men, a very few, in the
English church where she went on Sunday afternoons. She went
regularly to the English church, alone, because Miss Benton went
to Chinese services three times on Sundays, and anyway she did
not think the English church was important, since what they had
94
come out for was to save the natives. But Miss Willey went because
it was her one chance in the week to sit among white people, and
it made her feel at home again. It was like Ohio to see only white
faces. No one ever spoke to her, it is true, but this she did not ex
pect, because no one knew her, not even a woman, and of course
not a man. There was nothing about her, of course, to attract a . . .
a . . . gentleman. Besides, the school was so far away-in a country
village-a half hour from the city. As for Chinese men . . . well, it
was not the same. And they were always married, anyway. There
was only the old Bishop who came to see them once a year and who
always shouted heartily, "Wonderful privilege, Miss Willey, for a
young woman like you to work with a wonderful old saint like Miss
Benton ! Wonderful school she has built out of a handful . . . after
she is gone it will be your job . . . wonderful opportunity, you
know! "
Miss Willey agreed, smiling her pretty smile, her color a little
more faded each year. By now, the only pleasure in the Bishop's
speech was that he called her "young woman." She was thirty-eight,
and of course, she told herself soberly, she must remember that the
Bishop was very, very old. Thirty-eight was not really young for a
lady. So she lived quite alone in the midst of all the blue-coated
schoolgirls, and though she was kind to them and she knew they
liked her well enough, still she was alone, and she warmed herself
secretly in the passion of the two dead lovers. It made a thing to
look forward to after supper-something to go back to in her room.
The days were so alike.
Of course, she had never thought of Mr. Jones as a man at all.
There was, for many years, Mrs. Jones, and it was not easy to re
member him when she was alive. She and Miss Benton were great
friends, and when the four of them came together to talk about the
work Mrs. Jones and Miss Benton talked and Mr. Jones and Miss
Willey listened. He was a small pale man, bald and unbearded,
and there were freckles on his cheeks and across the backs of his
hands, which were unexpectedly large and white and hairy. Mrs.
Jones planned his sermons for him, and he preached them in a
small high voice which did not vary its tones in an hour's talking.
95
It was strange to hear Mrs. Jones's positive doctrines coming forth
in his mild voice. He was not very strong and Mrs. Jones bustled
about him continually. They never took a meal at Miss Benton's
without her saying, "Now, Archie, you know you can't eat that
hot bread . . . . His stomach is so delicate, Miss Willey. You
wouldn't believe the trouble it's been to me all these years!"
Mr. Jones obediently laid down the hot biscuit and looked about
him despondently.
"A little toast, very hard and dry, please, Miss Benton," said Mrs.
Jones firmly.
But in spite of his stomach, it was Mrs. Jones who died first, very
suddenly, of typhoid fever. In three days it was all over, and Mr.
Jones was left alone.
Still, Miss Willey did not think of him as a man. It would take
much longer than three days for Mrs. Jones really to be dead. lt would
perhaps be years before one saw no longer beside Mr. Jones that
large thick body, the square face, the reddish-gray hair brushed up
from the forehead, the reddish hairs about the lips and chin. In her
house, one still waited for her heavy footsteps upon the bare floors.
But more than that, Miss Willey by now thought of a man only as
tall and dark and handsome, as a strong breast upon which a little
dark-haired woman might lean, where she might cling and hide her
face.
So Mrs. Jones's letter had come as a great surprise to her. She
could scarcely grow used to it, although three whole days had passed
since it came. . . . He had been very clever about sending it, too,
choosing an evening when he knew Miss Benton was having a
night class. It would never have done if she had been in the house.
She would have opened i t at once. "I thought of course it was mis
sion business," she would have said grimly.
But she was away, and Miss Willey had just locked the door and
opened the book to her favorite sonnet. She had just read, "How
do I love thee ? Let me count the ways," when there came a knock
at the door. She thrust the book quickly under the edge of her full
skirt.
"Yes ?" she called.
 "A letter," the servant's voice answered.
She opened the door a little and took the letter and glanced at it,
wondering. She never had any letters. When she saw what it was,
she felt faint. No one had ever proposed marriage to her before.
The servant waited. At last he asked, "Is there no answer ? "
She looked up from the letter, startled. Why, of course .there
.

must be an answer.
"Oh . . . tell . . . say there is an answer later !"
She shut the door and now she made sure of the bolt. She sat
down again and looked at the letter. It was very short. It said :
My dear Miss Willey,
I hope you will not think ill of me that so soon after my dear
wife's demise I should write you this letter. I miss her sorely.
Nevertheless, in writing this letter I do not think of any other than
you. We have long known each other and we are engaged in the
same noble work. I have always deeply respected your gentle and
ladylike qualities. To this respect I now add affection. Will you,
my dear Miss Willey, return my emotion and consider me as a
suppliant for your hand ?
Faithfully yours,
ARcHIBALD JoNES

She read it through three times. Then her eyes fell upon the book.
She had left it open upon the table j ust where she was reading it.
Now the lovely burning words flew to her heart. "How do I love
thee ? Let me count the ways." She read it through again slowly.
The letter dropped from her hand to the flood. She laid her head
down upon the page and began to weep softly.
* * *

During the three days she avoided all chance meetings with Mr.
Jones. The sandstorm was really a blessing to her in this, because he
had asthma, and when the winds blew &om the desert he had to
shut himself up in a little inner room and hold a wet towel to his
face and breathe through it. Miss Willey knew this as everyone did,
because Mrs. Jones would describe his sufferings so clearly that Miss
97
Willey's vivid imagination could see him gasping and choking alone
in that little room, sighing every now and then in a way he had.
Poor Mr. Jones ! He would be very lonely shut up like that. She was
a little sorry for him. For, of course, neither she nor Miss Benton
could think of going into the house where he was-not now, with
Mrs. Jones dead and gone. She perceived that after all Mr. Jones was
a man. Without Mrs. Jones he became a man.
On the afternoon of this third day, therefore, since it was Saturday
and there were no afternoon classes, she went to her room and
locked the door and took out the letter again. A flutter came into her
throat as she read. After all, it was a real proposal of marriage. She
held it in her hand and stared out of the window thoughtfully,
afterwards. She saw the low tiled roofs of the village houses and
she looked across them to the bare hills in the west. The sky was
chill and of the same hue as the dry, sandy earth. There was no
color anywhere.
"After all," she told herself sadly, "it's the only proposal I'll prob
ably ever have. No one will ever want to marry me except Mr.
Jones."
* *

She sighed and turned away from the gray window, and since it
was Saturday she made the fire in the little iron grate and lit the
kerosene lamp on the table. The room was changed, more cheerful
and more cosy in the yellow light. She drew the curtains and pulled
her rocking chair to the fire and fetched the book and began to read
it here and there. It fell open of itself in many places, and now sit
ting so warmed, she let it open where it would and read and
dreamed. In the quiet and warmth Mr. Jones's letter, lying on the
table, gave reality to the poems. Did she not know now in her own
experience what a man's love was ? She, too, might, if she liked,
write a letter which would bring a man to her. She began to plan
what she might perhaps say to Mr. Jones if she should decide. She
dreamed a little, the book sliding upon her lap, her eyes fixed on the
flames. She did not think of Mr. Jones exactly while she_was imag
ining the answer to his letter. She was making an answer worthy of
the poem.
 But still it was a good thing she did not write it down, because
the very next day the extraordinary thing happened to her. She went
to bed almost happily Saturday night, the letter shaping in her mind.
She would not, she thought, write it just yet-perhaps on Sunday
night. She was always a little low on Sunday night because no one
spoke to her in church and because she knew when she woke up the
next morning it would be Monday again . . . .
All Sunday morning, during the school exercises and during Sun
day school, she thought about the sort of letter she would write.
Once, it is true, she thought about Mr. Jones, and was confused by
the knowledge that it was to Mr. Jones she was planning to write
such a letter. Would he perhaps be shocked by it or think it un
maidenly ? For an hour or so after this occurred to her, she devoted
herself to her Sunday-school class.
But as the day wore on she could even bear to remember that the
letter was to be sent to Mr. Jones. For the dust had given Miss
Benton a cold, and nothing Miss Willey could do was enough. Miss
Benton went to bed with a gray flannel petticoat about her head,
and she complained that it was strange that Miss Willey still did
not know how to get the water right in a hot water bottle, or where,
after all these years, she kept her aspirin, in the left-hand corner of
the small shelf in the closet in the bathroom. Miss Willey, running
to and fro, silently panted under her breath, "0 God . . . please . . ."
Surely, Mr. Jones could not be worse than this ? She was very late
to church and would almost have not gone, except that it gave her
an excuse to get away from Miss Benson.
Then, on that very day, the thing happened for which she long
ago had given up any hope. Someone spoke to her after church. She
was j ust sidling out of the end of her pew, and there he was at the
end waiting for her-a man-young, tall, dark, handsome. She had
sat drearily through the service, her feet aching a little. The church
was very cold, and Dr. Henry preached. Her spirit sank when she
saw him rise, stooped and gray, to his usual sermon. "Brethren, in
these evil days, when so many have forgotten the true teachings of
the Scriptures and have turned aside to pleasure . "
Pleasure! Miss Willey turned her head straight away from him
99
 and stared out of a high window. She could see nothing but pale
sky until a gust of wind tossed up a bare branch. What a day it had
been, trying to do her own work and Miss Benton's, too ! She went
over it all, not hearing the old man. At the end she rose when the
hymn began and felt faint with fatigue while they sang, "Fight the
good fight !" Her small lower lip trembled, and she stared earnestly
at the window, now quite dark.
After the benediction she turned to go out as she always did, her
eyes down, not expecting to hear anyone call her name. And then
she heard him call her name, and she looked up and saw him and
saw his kind, happy dark eyes. He smiled a little.
"I hope I didn't startle you ? Forgive me . . . I shouldn't have
spoken so suddenly. I wanted to catch you before you went home.
You see, the Dramatic Club here in town wants to give The Barretts
of Wimpole Street and we can't find anybody for Elizabeth, and
Julie Barnes said she had seen you in church one day and you looked
exactly like Elizabeth, so I said I'd ask you. I came especially. I'm
to be Robert."
Miss Willey stared at him, opened her mouth, and shut it again.
Her lips began to tremble again piteously. The young man said
quickly, "I say . I. you aren't feeling ill, Miss Willey ?"
. .

She shook her head. "No," she whispered. "No." Then she cleared
her throat. She was being absurd. What would he think of her ?
But it was all absurd. As if she, of all people
.

"I couldn't do it," she said, looking up at him tragically. "I

couldn't possibly do it. I've never . . . I have done nothing at all
dramatic. I teach in a mission school . . . and . . ."
"Now, Miss Willey, don't say no so quickly," the young man in
terrupted warmly. "If you knew how we've looked . . . I say, don't
answer me now. Anyway, this is no place to put such a question,
but nobody's ever seen you anywhere else except in church. Look
here, I'm coming to see you tomorrow, and I won't take no for an
answer. No, no, no-don't say another word. Tomorrow, about tea
time, Miss Willey !" Then, smiling and lifting his hat, he was gone.
There it was. She looked about and saw that almost everyone
was gone, and so she went out of the church into the dusk and
IOO
climbed into a ricksha. It was impossible to believe what had hap
pened. She held herself rigid in the swaying vehicle and saw noth
ing in the crowded street. A play ! She had never even seen a
play. . . . She got out at the school gate and did not hear the whin
ing of the ricksha puller for money money. Thirty cents was the
right fare, but she was always so distressed when they were not sat
isfied that she usually gave them more. But tonight she did not
notice the fellow. She walked lightly into the house. Miss Benton
called out wearily, "Is that you, Amy ?"
For a moment Miss Willey thought of answering gaily, "I'm not
exactly sure myself, Miss Benton ! I think I'm somebody else, to
night!" But Miss Benton would think she was mad. So instead she
went into Miss Benton's room and asked gently, "Shall I fill your
hot water bottle for you ?" And when Miss Benton fumbled for it
with her feet and pushed it out onto the floor Miss Willey picked it
up and said fervently, "I'll do my very best to get it just right this
time."
* * *

But by teatime next day she was more sure than ever that she could
not do it. She had been foolish enough during the evening to think
that perhaps she could. Not so much that she could, perhaps, as that
it would be so nice if she could. She spent the whole evening in
her room dreaming over the book, imagining the words said aloud,
herself saying the words aloud-to Robert. She heard herself saying
them over and over, passionately.
When she stood u p to get ready for bed at last, something fell
out of the book. It was Mr. Jones's letter. How had it come into
those pages ? She must have tucked it there without knowing that
she did. Suddenly, she could not bear to think it had been against
those poems and she opened a drawer in the table and thrust it
among her papers.
But of course she couldn't do the play. Monday morning brought
her to reality again-the school bell, the shuffle of feet across the
tiles, the cold schoolroom, the Old Testament open before her, Miss
Benton's cold a little better, enough better to make her irritable and
shouting commands everywhere. There was only one good thing,
101
 and it was that Miss Benton could not get up. That meant, Miss
Willey thought agitatedly, that she would see the young man alone
and tell him she couldn't . . . she appreciated the invitation so much
but she couldn't do it.
But it was not so easily done. The young man sat holding his
cup of tea and he bit once into the rather stale little cake-for of
course she had forgotten to see about fresh cakes with everything
else on her mind-and he listened to Miss Willey. Then he put
down his tea and laughed.
"You are exactly like Elizabeth! " he declared. "Do you know,
Miss Willey, you might be rehearsing the first act with me ! I wish
you could see yourself. And I am going to play my part. I am
Robert Browning-not Ted Hill of the American consular service
-and I won't take no ! "
She had never been so overridden in her life, not even b y Miss
Benton. He was laughing at her and refusing to let her speak, and
when she stood up he had her by her two elbows and held her tight,
shaking his head and laughing at her in his great, round, deep
voice. She fell silent and stood before him, drooping, all but lean
ing upon him. She was not used to . . . she was very, very tired.
She felt his eyes upon her face. But she could not raise her head.
He said quietly, "Now take down your hair, and let me see it done
like Elizabeth's. It's curly, I can see."
She obeyed him, fumbling, shocked at herself. What if someone
came in, a servant or a student ? They would think her mad. But
his fingers were at her hair, skillful, quick. He said, his voice soft
with astonishment, "I never could have dreamed of such a likeness
-the play's made!"
He turned and took up his hat swiftly, and said with decision,
"Miss Willey, you are going with me this very minute ! I don't
dare let you out of my sight until I have you thoroughly committed
before witnesses! Our first rehearsal is at six, and I'll bring you
home safely afterwards. Go and get your hat and coat, and I'll wait
here for you."
Miss Willey, hearing him so command, obeyed him. By now she
was past any will of her own at all. She crept by Miss Benton's door
102
and flew upstairs, holding her curls with her hands. Then she
smoothed them back and put on her brown coat and her brown
toque and ran down softly again. In the ricksha, following behind
his broad back, very upright before her and solid and clear in the
dusk, she sat tense and amazed, her hands clenched together. She
had not the least idea what she was going to do.
When she found herself in a large cheerful drawing room full
of people and light and the roaring warmth of a great fire, she was
completely lost. She saw a host of faces turned to her and cries went
up all about her, "Oh, Ted, swell!" "Ted, you persuaded her !" "Now
that's fine, Miss Willey! " She looked at them all, and she felt herself
fainting a little. Before she knew it she had gasped out the begin
ning of her prayer, "0 God . . . please . . . "

There was a silence and the mistiness in front of her eyes grew
darker. She clutched the knobby back of a carved Chinese chair.
'
Then someone came up to her and a light young voice, a girl's
voice, said very clearly and kindly, "Don't you see she is frightened ?
She is as pale as she can be. Here, Miss Willey, sit down and drink
this hot tea. And all of you go on talking and leave her alone
a little while, until she is used to us."
So Miss Willey found herself sitting in the big Chinese chair
drinking good hot tea, and the others stopped looking at her and
went on with their own talk. Soon she felt better, well enough to
look at the girl beside her. She saw at once that this was the pret
tiest girl she had ever seen, a girl with a round rosy little face set
about with very fair, curly hair. The girl met her eyes and smiled
so quickly and delightfully that Miss Willey felt she must say some
thing. "I am so silly . . . I don't know what came over me . . . "

"I understand perfectly," the girl interrupted eagerly. "You came

in so suddenly out of the cold and silence, and we all began shout
ing at you. It was perfectly natural." Then, still smiling, she said,
"Isn't it going to be fun ? I'm to be Henrietta. You are simply per
fect for Elizabeth. And isn't Ted handsome as Robert ? Look at
him over there talking to Mrs. Howett-she's our director."
Miss Willey looked earnestly. "Yes, he is quite what I imagined,"
she replied.
103
 They were all very kind to her then. When they saw that she was
better they came crowding about her and said kind things. "It is
so good of you, Miss Willey, you must be so busy . . ." "We feel
the play is quite made now, Miss Willey . " And then Mrs.
Howett gave out the parts, and she had hers, pages of it. How
could she ever learn it all ! Then before she could do more than
glance at it, they were asking her questions. Did she think Elizabeth
should wear gray or brown ? Where ought the couch to be ? She
turned over the pages and scanned the lines, surprised now at her
own ease, answering, she thought, very well. She felt their appro
bation warm about her. She looked about at their faces. Why, how
kind they all were-so kind and good and approving. It was lovely
to be approved. She thought to herself, "I shan't mind a bit if Miss
Benton is cross when I get back."
Then it was over, and people began to scatter quickly. "Darling,
I've a dinner i n twenty minutes . . . " "Do drop in for cocktails,
Julie darling, you and Ted . . ." "Dance at the Grand tonight
Mary, m'dear, you and Jack coming ? Ah, come on ! "
She did not know exactly how t o get away and then she found
herself with only three of them, Mrs. Howett, whose house it was,
and Mr. Hall, and the pretty girl named Julie. "I must go," she
murmured.
"I'll go with you," the young man said, and then he looked at
the pretty girl. "Be a little late, Julie."
But this Miss Willey could not bear. "Oh, no, Mr. Hall, it isn't
at all necessary-not at all-1 am quite safe . . . "
"He'd better go with you, Miss Willey," the young girl said
earnestly.
"Oh, no, it isn't . . . I assure you . . . " Miss Willey cried in distress,
"I am used to going about alone-I don't want him to be late on
my account-"
"Well, Miss Willey, if you are quite sure," the young ma n
broke in.
And really he was very kind. He went with her to the street and
helped her climb into the ricksha, and he tucked the rug so snugly
about her feet that she was quite cozy. Then he smiled kindly and

!04
he said, cheerfully, "Good night-Elizabeth," so cheerfully that she
grew bold. "Good night, Robert," she replied over her shoulder,
smiling very shyly.
She turned her head once to look back, after the ricksha had
started. He was running gaily up the steps. The door opened and
the pretty girl came out. For a moment, against the warm light
pouring out into the darkness, their two figures met together. Then
the door closed.

Of course, Miss Benton could not be nice about it. She shouted
at once when she heard the front door shut, "Where have you been,
Amy Willey ?"
Miss Willey thought i t best to tell everything at once, now that
she still had the strength of their kindness to help her. She went
into Miss Benton's room. "I am going to be in a play, Miss Benton,"
she answered, before she even took off her toque. "It is The Bar
retts of Wimpole Street, and I am to be Elizabeth. They asked me
because I look like her."
She waited, her heart beginning to beat very hard. But it was
not so dreadful, after all. The very strangeness of the thing crumpled
Miss Benton's attack.
"Whoever heard of such a thing! " she said loudly.
Miss Willey did not answer, since Miss Benton said this of many
things of which she did not approve. She sat down and looked
at Miss Benton quietly, and began to take off her gloves. Then Miss
Benton sneezed and could not find her handkerchief. When Miss
Willey saw it on the floor and pressed it into her hand she could
only gasp, "What will the Bishop say ? "
But standing there above Miss Benton and looking into her
wrinkled face and at her dry gray hair scattered sparsely upon the
pillow, Miss Willey suddenly felt young and strong. She answered,
"The play will take only three weeks and the Bishop is not coming
until after Christmas. He needn't even know. And I promise you
it won't make any difference in my work. The play and the rehear
sals are all at night-you won't see any difference."
ros
 "It'll be scandal in the school," Miss Benton muttered.
"I won't tell any of them-and anyway, Miss Benton," said Miss
Willey, clasping her hands together a little wildly, "I've told them
I am going to do it, and I a m ! " Miss Benton blew her nose loudly
and without waiting Miss Willey went to her room.
That night after her supper she sat down to study her part. She
began this very first night to make a ritual of it. First, she read the
book softly aloud to herself, until she felt the words come to life
in her voice and until she felt Elizabeth's passion transfused into
herself. Then she took up the typed sheets and like a miracle the
words of the play printed themselves upon her brain. What the hour
was when at last she went to bed she did not know. She would
not look, for what did it matter ? She had been so happy all evening.
The little plain room was a theater for love to play in.

* * *

In those three weeks she scarcely spoke to anyone beyond the

necessities of her work. She managed somehow to get through the
long days. She taught her classes, collected her papers, made out
her marks, and waited for the nights. Three times a day she sat
across the table from Miss Benton. They never spoke of the play
any more, and after supper each night Miss Benton ignored Miss
Willey entirely. Once at breakfast she said, ''I'm worried about poor
Mr. Jones. The servants say his asthma is so bad he can't get out
of his room. He misses Mrs. Jones-she knew what to do for him
better than any doctor."
But Miss Willey scarcely heard her. She had quite forgotten the
letter in the drawer upstairs.
At night, after Miss Benton had scraped back her chair and gone
to her room, Miss Willey began to live. She put on her coat and
toque and rode through any wind or rain. She felt new life
rise in her, warm and eager, however cold the night ride was. They
were rehearsing now in the Masonic hall. It was always cold, and
the others grumbled and blew on their fingers and pretended their
teeth were chattering so that they could not say their lines. But Miss
Willey was never cold. She came always on time and was ready in

I06
her place, serious and quiet, and she brought the sonnets with her,
and read them between acts, so that the spirit of the play might
not be broken for her.
She knew all her lines very soon. After the first week, they were
her own speech. She waited without impatience while the others
stammered and halted. When Robert, holding her in his arms,
faltered, she prompted him softly beneath her breath. He whispered
under her curls, while she clung to his breast, "You're swell, Miss
Willey ! "
But that she did not like. She liked nothing which broke the spell.
She was not Miss Willey now, she was Elizabeth, and Robert was
her lover. She avoided every sight of Ted Hall. When he made
merry off stage and laughed and danced a tap dance to warm him
self, she looked away, pretending to be busy over her lines. He
was Robert-Robert-she wanted him to be nothing but Robert.
When Mrs. Howett called to them to take their places, she wel
comed him back again in passionate silence. Now they were them
selves again, Elizabeth and Robert. The play was all for them;
the others only built up the story of their love.
She began to be Elizabeth all day long. In the morning when
she rose she was Elizabeth. Somehow, she dreamed through the
day twisting the duties of it into Elizabeth's duties. She walked and
talked as Elizabeth would. She let dark eyes look up quickly and
full of fire, and then drop again. She altered her dresses a little,
and loosened the sides of her hair. When Miss Benton sniffed, she
pretended not to hear it.
At the rehearsals she grew used to praise and no longer needed
its warming for strength. When they said, "You are wonderful,"
she accepted it, smiling as Elizabeth smiled, shyly yet with mischief.
When Mrs. Howett said, "Really, Miss Willey, I have nothing
more to suggest. I don't see how a professional could do it better,"
she was silent. Of course, no one could do it better. She was
Elizabeth.
Thus every night she fed her soul. She who had starved all her
life now poured into herself nightly this great hot love. She clung
to Robert, she was timid and fearful, she grew strong and sure, she

107
gloried in him and in love. Nightly she knew what it was to lay
her head against a man's breast, to hear a man's voice plead most
beautifully for her love. And she made him so plead. For her own
passion made the man passionate. His voice took on the deep tones
of sincerity. He held her to him with gentle power. Nightly the
triumphant hour of flight came to its great moment of crisis, and
nightly she cried, "I go-to my husband ! "
Afterwards, s h e hurried as quickly a s she could into her wraps
and went away. They grew used to her instant disappearance. She
did not want anything to spoil that moment-not his voice saying
other things to other people. She must keep that moment quite
perfect every night and hurry away with it like a lovely jewel in
her palm.
* * *

Still, with all this, there was one place in the play which worried
her. She had in one scene, before Robert came, to weep-to weep
desolately, alone in her dark room at night, an invalid, hopeless,
the moonlight shining in at her window meaningless, because she
was alone. At first, she did it rather well. She could turn her face
to that moon and weep for loneliness. It was natural to weep like
that. But then it grew harder and harder. She was so happy. She
knew that in the very next act Robert was coming. How could she
keep on weeping desolately ?
Mrs. Howett grew uneasy. "Miss Willey, i t's all so perfect-except
somehow you've let the life slip out of that weeping scene. Could
you practice it by yourself a little at home ? "
B u t she could not even weep a t home. Nothing seemed to make
her weep any more. She had been used to weep rather easily, but
now she went blithely through her days and mounted to the great
crescendo of the nights. She could not weep.
Then something came to help her. It came j ust in time for the
opening, the night of the dress rehearsal. She had not, in fact, done
the weeping well at all that night. She felt less like i t than ever.
The ruffiy brown dress was so becoming and her hair had gone
j ust right. Julie, whirling by her in a crinoline, saw her and gave
I08
her a great hug. "You are adorable, Elizabeth ! " she cried. "Look at
her, Ted ! How can you keep from falling in love with her really
and truly ?"
There was Robert at the door. Miss Willey smiled up at
him, the blood crowding into her heart. But before she could
protest, they were both gone. Then while she sat, still smiling,
through the open door she heard his answer, not made to her, but
to Julie. She could hear his voice, Robert's voice, saying most pas
sionately, "Julie, Julie, I can't bear you to talk even in fun of my
loving anyone except you. I love you . . I love you . . .
"

There was silence. Miss Willey got up softly after a little while
and closed the door. Then she sat down before the mirror. Eliza
beth looked back at her, alone.
A moment later Mrs. Howett came in. "Miss Willey," she began
anxiously, "I hate to criticize . . ."
But before she could finish Miss Willey turned to her quietly.
"I know what you mean, Mrs. Howett. It's the weeping. But I
think I have the idea now-I think I can do it."

So she wept the next night very well, the night of the grand
performance. Out there beyond the footlights were hundreds of
staring faces, white and dim. She had thought she might be afraid
of them. But she was not. She did not know them and they were
nothing to her. In the familiar room upon the stage, which was
now more her room than any other in the world, she lay upon her
couch and bade the maid turn out the lights and leave her. Then
alone, she gazed quietly into the moonlit sky beyond the window.
She let herself think fully of what she had not dared until now to
think. Now she knew. She was only Amy Willey, after all, and
Robert was Ted Hall, and he loved a girl named Julie, who was
pretty and young.
After tonight it would all be over-everything. She would go
back to her place again. It was only a play. The tears rose brim
ming to her eyes and she began to sob softly. She had let herself
live as though this were to go on forever. She dropped her head

109
upon her arms. It was Amy Willey who wept now, and she wept
utterly and with her whole heart. There was silence in the hall,
and her sobs beat into it. Then there was the crash of hands clap
ping and the curtain went down.
She rose very quickly, then. Mrs. Howett ran to her exclaiming,
"My dear, it was perfect !"
But Miss Willey did not seem to hear her. She hurried into her
dressing room, terrified. She had lost Elizabeth! She was not Eliza
beth any more-she was only Amy Willey again, and she couldn't
go on with the play . . She stumbled into the dressing room and
shut the door and locked it and sat down and wrung her hands.
Why, she couldn't even remember her lines ! How silly she had been
to think she could-she remembered nothing except his voice last
night-Robert's voice-saying over and over again, "I love you, I
love you . . . " At that moment she had begun not to be Elizabeth.
Someone knocked at the door. A voice called, "Five minutes, Miss
Willey !"
She did not answer. She could only sit there with her hands wrung
together. Then she saw her book. She had even forgotten to take it
home last night and had not missed it. It lay on her dressing table,
open as she had left it yesterday. She picked i t up and turned the
pages desolately. It had no meaning now . . .

But suddenly it had meaning. After a moment the lovely, rich,

full words began to take on their old habit of meaning, the mean
ing they had before ever the play began. She knew them by heart.
She said them softly aloud, turning the pages here and there. The
love was in them still, deathless. No one could kill a love like that.
It did not matter what Ted Hall said to anybody. She did not even
know who Ted Hall was. She only knew Robert, to whom she had
written these songs of love. How silly she was-this last night was
her greatest night-her night of marriage.
"Curtain's going up, Elizabeth ! " a voice shouted.
"I am ready," she answered steadily.
So she forgot how Amy Willey had wept, and she went out to
finish the dream of love.

I IO
 She knew, of course, that the play was a success. She did not need
them crowding about her to cry at her, "How could you be so
wonderfu l ! " "You are a great actress, Miss Willey ! " "You were
glorious ! " She smiled at them all, saying nothing.
Then Julie, in her wide, ruffled white skirt swept up and wrapped
her tenderly about with warm young arms. "You made it a great
experience for us all. Dear Miss Willey, I want you to know first
before anyone. Ted and I are going to marry each other. Somehow,
seeing him with you like that-I know now that I love him."
And there he was, still dressed as he had been. But looking at him
she knew him no more for Robert. No, Robert was safe forever in
her own heart. This was Ted Hall, and when he sb.id in his hearty
boy's way, "You made us all do our best, Miss Willey," she smiled
and took his hand and pressed it against Julie's, which she held.
"I am so glad," she said gently. Then she slipped her hand out be
tween those two, and left them joined together.
It was quite easy to leave them quickly, partly because everybody
was used to it, and partly because now everybody had for the mo
ment forgotten even the play in the excitement of Julie's announce
ment. She fetched her coat and went quietly away in her ricksha,
j ust as she had done on any other night.

So it was all finished and she was back again in her old life. The
play was over. There was a note or two, one from Julie, and another
from Ted, saying that they must meet. But the days went by and
they did not meet. It was easy to see them as very happy and gay,
and of course the school was not near and they would think her
busy. All she had left of those three happy weeks was the typed
manuscript of her part. The days began to pass in their old steady,
graven fashion, two days and three days, and then day upon day.
But, still, everything was not quite the same. One night when she
lit her fire and prepared for the evening she opened the drawer to
her table. She must look over her papers which she had so long
neglected-her few bills and things. It was then she saw Mr. Jones's
letter, lying where she had thrust it. She had forgotten all about

III
him. She took out the letter and read it again. It seemed quite new
and strange to her. She sat with it in her hand, staring thoughtfully
into the fire for a while after she had finished it. Of course, it was
really a proposal. And now at her age she couldn't expect . . . It
would be hard to grow old and never be married at all, never know
what it really meant to . . . She should have answered the letter
long ago, of course, but i t was not too late yet. She could still write
to him the letter that she planned.
But now she remembered him very clearly. Why, she could never
write that letter to Mr. Jones, never, never! It was a letter she could
write only to Robert, to Robert who had come out of the book and
who in the play had taught her what love really was, what a glori
ous, glowing, tempestuous, shining thing love was. She smiled a
little, remembering Robert. What did it matter whether she ever
married or not ? It wasn't marrying that mattered. It was love. She
could keep whole and beautiful within her always her knowledge of
love. She knew she could, she knew she was able, to write a letter
of love-only it could not be to Mr. Jones. No . . . no . . . no . . .
it was better to keep the gift ungiven except in her dreams rather
than . . . She leaned over and carefully laid the letter in the middle
of the flames, and when it was ash she turned to her papers again,
smiling a little too steadily.
At dinner that night she saw Miss Benton looking at her secretly.
She looked back in inquiry. Miss Benton must have something on
her mind. "Yes, Miss Benton ? " she said gently.
For a moment Miss Benton looked as though she would not speak
after all. Then she changed and said gruffiy, "Play's all over, is it?
I saw about it in the paper."
"All over," said Miss Willey.
"Well," said Miss Benton, "all I can say is, it was a queer business
for a missionary. But as long as it's over now . . . And I suppose
you're satisfied ? "
"Quite satisfied," said Miss Willey.

I I2
"HERE they are, Freda!" Mrs. Barclay called to her maid.
She rose from her chair by the window as a roadster
swept around the curve of the drive, and stood while her
sons, Lane and Harry, leaped out.
Freda came running into the room and now she peered from be
hind Mrs. Barclay. "Harry's most as tall as Lane," she breathed.
"But don't Lane look wonderful in his uniform !"
Mrs. Barclay repressed her irritation. She had never been able to
make Freda say "Master Lane." She did not believe that Freda
would ever leave her, but in these days one never knew, and so now
she said nothing. Instead, she hurried to the door, opened it, and
threw her arms about Lane. She was tall but he was taller, and she
trembled with adoration while she held him. His shaved cheek
brushed her temple, and he kissed her quickly. She smelled soap
and leather but beneath that the precious clean odor of his flesh,
which she recognized for her own.
"Oh, darling! " she whispered. Then she let him go instantly,
aware of his muscles repelling her while they held her. "Well,
Lane," she cried, holding him at arm's length.
He was in his second lieutenant's uniform and he was so hand
some that she could have wept for joy. Again and again in his
lifetime she had been blinded by his beauty, but never so much as
now. She would like to have fallen at his feet and worshiped him;
literally, she could have done this, but she knew better.
"Aren't you ashamed to be so handsome ? " she said, her mouth
twisting and teasing. "You look like an advertisement for Brooks
Brothers."
 "As a matter of fact, I am," he said. "That's where my stuff came
from." He put down his cap and gloves and overcoat on the hall
settee, rubbed his hands and blew on them. "It's getting cold
there'll be frost tonight, Mother."
"It's the end of your roses, I'm afraid," Harry added.
"I picked them all today, to the last buds, because you were com
ing, Lane," she said, and waved her hand at the bowl on the table.
His hands and hers were extraordinarily alike, long and slender,
but his were a man's hands. She seized his right one and pretended
to examine it. "How clea n ! " she cried, laughing. "When I think
how I used to scold you about your hands-the way I still do
Harry ! "
Harry had followed them into the living room and now h e was
sprawled in a big chair watching them, his pale blue eyes blinking.
He was biting his fingernail when she caught sight of it and said
gently :
"Harry, do stop biting your nails."
"Have to have 'em short for my violin," he muttered.
"Then cut them, for heaven's sake," she said.
"Still fiddling, Harry ? " Lane asked.
Harry put his hands in his pockets and nodded.
"Harry really plays very well," Mrs. Barclay said. "He is working
now on a Beethoven symphony with the school orchestra."
She knew of course that Lane did not care for music, but still she
could never quite give up hope that he really was what she wanted
him to be. "Harry, you must get your violin after dinner," she went
on, when Lane did not answer.
Harry sat up impatiently. "Oh, heck, Mother, Lane doesn't want
to hear me fiddle."
Lane grinned. He was walking around the room restlessly, look
ing at everything. He stopped and squared his elbows in mock
fury at his brother. "Want to get me in wrong ?" he demanded.
"Sure I'll listen to you, kid."
"It's not very nice of you to say such things, Harry," Mrs. Bar
clay said. She had a pretty voice and nothing she said could sound
severe, and yet both of her sons looked at her with apprehension.
I I4
Lane went over to her quickly and patted her cheek. "Now,
Mother," he said co<l?'ingly. "Harry didn't mean anything."
She caught his hand and held it. "Look at Lane's nails, Harry,
they're beautiful-the way yours ought to look."
"His hands are like yours, mine are like Dad's," Harry said
shortly.
She dropped Lane's hand and stared at Harry. How did he know
that was what she was thinking ? Tom's thick pale hands,
their stubby fingertips, the scoop-shaped nails-could she ever forget
them ? He had been dead for five years, but sometimes the sight of
Harry's hands brought him back into the room alive again, the
huge, sandy-haired, pale-skinned man whom she had married and
loathed. Hovt silly it had been for her to marry him to spite Arnold
Foster, who did not love her ! She had only broken her own heart.
"That has nothing to do with biting your nails," she said.
Lane was prowling around the room again. "Where's the dog ?"
he now asked.
"Oh, Lane." Mrs. Barclay's voice was tender. "I didn't want to
write you-he got run over last month. I don't know how it hap
pened except that he would keep running in front of the cars on
the drive. It was the laundry truck that did it. We found him in
the bushes, poor old fellow, quite stiff. He'd crawled in there to die
all by himself. Harry gave him a beautiful funeral."
"Stupid dog," Lane said.
Harry's pale eyelashes lifted and his small blue eyes were furious.
"He wasn't stupid-you never trained him properly. You can't ex
pect a dog to know how to behave if you don't take the trouble to
teach him."
"Getting another dog ? " Lane asked calmly. He was lighting a
cigarette.
"I don't want another dog," Harry muttered.
No one spoke for a moment. ''I'm going to call Elise," Lane said
suddenly.
"Now, Lane, you must be here for dinner tonight," Mrs. Barclay
said. "Freda would be hurt."

us
 "Of course," Lane agreed easily. "But I promised Elise that after
wards we might go somewhere-dance or something."
He went out of the room and Mrs. Barclay gazed at his graceful
back. "Lane looks wonderful in a uniform, doesn't he ? " she said
brightly. Harry was cross, she thought, when he did not answer,
and when he was cross he was more like Tom than ever. His brown
tweed suit was rumpled and his thick hair too long. It would do him
good to get into a uniform, but he was only seventeen and she did
not know exactly what to do with the year between. She had a
strange illusion, as she looked at him, that it was not Harry sitting
there, but Tom himself. Tom was so young, even when he died at
forty-six. He was what other women called "just a big boy." But
she had never been attracted by such big boys, men whose bodies
aged while their minds remained j uvenile, men who took refuge in
remaining children in the eyes of women.
But she had married Tom, knowing what he was, and knowing
that she did not love him. When she accepted him she had, to do
her own self justice, no idea of how wicked it was to marry a man
she did not love. Her own suffering she had endured with a guilty
sense of the inj ustice she had done him. She remembered this as
she looked at Harry, and the old guilt made her say gently, "What's
the matter with you today, Harry ? Aren't you glad to have Lane
come home ? "
Lane's gay voice came rolling into the room o n laughter. "Quit
kidding, Elise-oh, yeah ? What do you think I am ? "
"Of course I'm glad t o have Lane come home," Harry said. H e
sat up, but he kept the objectionable hands i n h i s pockets. He
squared his shoulders and looked at her directly. "Nothing's the
matter with me, Mother. Lane and I were having a swell time to
gether. I was awfully glad to see him at the station and we talked
all the way home-more than we ever have. But you make every
thing wrong between us."
Never before had he spoken so bluntly. She felt it a blow and she
moved to retaliate blindly. "You're jealous of Lane-that's all it is,
Harry. He's handsomer than you are . . . older . . . it's j ust the
usual younger-brother j ealousy."

n6
 She perceived at once that the blow in return fell upon his heart,
too. The quick red streamed upward into his face and he was scar
let in an instant. "I know Lane is handsome and I am not," he
said. "You have let me know that ever since I can remember." His
quiet voice, the only thing about him that was not like Tom, cried
no anger, only intense suffering.
She gasped and flushed in her turn. Had she indeed been so cruel
as this ? She refused to believe it. "Now, Harry, that is unj ust," she
said swiftly. "I have never by any word . . . "

He broke in. "I am not stupid, Mother. I don't need words. I see
by your looks and your voice, by lots of ways. I've always known
what you felt about me."
She trembled and the tears came into her eyes. Tom could never
have spoken like this. It was dreadful that out of Tom's son, the
flesh of his flesh, should come these words of articulate accusation.
It was as though Tom were taking revenge on her, through this
boy. "Harry, how can you talk like this now when Lane is only
home for these few hours ? Tomorrow he'll be going across-per
haps he'll never come back."
It is despicable of me to say that, she thought, it is cowardly to
use the possibility of Lane's death to hide myself from Harry-from
Tom, she almost said.
Harry looked suddenly as old as Tom. He said calml y : "It's
nothing new to me, Mother, though perhaps I have never quite
wanted to own, even to myself, how much you love Lane. It has
only come over me i n the last few minutes that I must face it."
"Of course I love Lane," she cried, "and I love you. You are both
my sons."
He smiled so sad a smile that if she had loved him it would have
broken her heart afresh and she knew it, and all the old guilt she
had felt toward Tom came darkly into her again, to poison her joy.
She rose and went over to him quickly and put her hand on his
shoulder. "Harry, we simply must not talk about this now. I am
terribly hurt . . . I don't know what I've done to make you think
. . . I've tried to be a good mother . . . "

"You've tried awfully hard," he said, looking up at her.

1 17
 Her hand dropped from his shoulder and she stared down at him
aghast. He was pale again. "I wish you would stop trying," he said
distinctly, and she knew that he knew it had been an effort to put
even her hand on his shoulder. The smell of his flesh was the smell
of Tom. She noticed it whenever she came near him. A son could
inherit even the odor of his father.
"You've shocked me," she said. "I don't know what to say. But
I think we owe it to Lane to keep today happy."
"Of course." Harry rose and stood, tall and stoop-shouldered, his
hands still in his pockets. The smile twisted his thick, pale lips. "But
you know, Mother, Lane really wouldn't notice anything. He's not
like you and me."
She opened her mouth to answer and could not. Her dark-lashed
lids fluttered and fell.
"You and Lane look alike," Harry said, "but you and I are alike."
She could not answer the outrageous truth. She had denied it so
long, she had hidden it so deeply in herself, sure that none knew it,
and this pale ugly boy had shared the knowledge ! Now he brought
it out and put it before her, on this day of all days, when she
wanted to be happy. She was suddenly terrified of him, and she
wanted to run out of the house away from him, to run away with
Lane. Instead she bent her head and covered her face with her
hands.
"How can you be so . cruel " she sobbed.
"Poor Mother," he said, and went shambling out of the room.
She heard the door shut, and, grateful to be alone, she sank into
her chair and wiped her eyes. She could hear Lane's farewells
"Yeah . . well, so long, Elise. I'll come around about half past
nine. Sure . . we'll do up the town . . . okay! "
She had barely time to right herself outwardly before h e came in.
Then, so that he might notice nothing, she said something that
would take his attention from her : "You aren't in love with Elise,
are you, Lane ?"
He laughed as he sat down. "Now, Mother, what a question ! How
do I know? Maybe I'll find out tonight."
"Elise is a lovely girl," she said. She was amazed at herself. She

n8
had always repressed her jealousy of the girls who called Lane up
and followed him and sighed after him. She had laughed at him
and teased him and so had distilled her jealousy. Now she was not
jealous. She wanted her love of him vindicated by another woman's
love. If Elise could love him, Elise who was clever and brilliant, it
would mean that she was right about Lane and Harry was wrong.
"Do you notice any difference in Harry ? " she asked suddenly.
Lane looked surprised. "He's grown a lot taller-! hadn't noticed
anything else."
"He's behaving so queerly these days," she said unwillingly. " I
don't know what t o think."
"He's always been a queer sort of fellow," Lane said absently, "al
ways reading books and practicing music-the sort of things most
fellows don't care much about. At least, I don't."
She sat drooping in her chair, lookig at him, not answering.
The way that children break your heart, she thought, the way
they can disappoint you and hurt you, without knowing! The mo
ment the nurse had put Lane into her arms she had fallen in love
with him. He was her flesh, he had her dark hair and brown eyes,
her smooth olive skin, her slender fine body, even her feet. She had
held his feet in her hand when h e was a baby, she had scrubbed his
rough little boy feet, and she knew the look of his feet now in his
young manhood. They were like hers but a man's, long, strong,
slim.
"I used to read to you," she said. "Stories and poetry by the hour
when you were sick. I used to play to you and sing to you . . ."
He looked at her, half ashamed. "You've been awfully good to
me, but I guess I'm like Dad. You know that, Mother."
She turned her head away. "I suppose so," she said.
She could not face it. She j umped up and smoothed back her hair
with both hands. "How shall we use this precious day ? " she de
manded in a hard clear voice. "Today must be the very best day of
our lives. \Vhat do you want to do more than anything else in the
world ?"
"Let's take out the horses," h e said eagerly. "I'd like that better
than anything."
 It was the one thing she and Tom used to do together. After the
years had finished their separation, after she knew that he would
never like any of the things she loved most to do, after she knew
that what he enjoyed bored her beyond endurance, life being so
brief, still they had been able to go horseback riding. But she had
not once ridden since the day they had quarreled and Tom had
gone out alone and been killed. She had kept the horses only for
the boys.
"All right," she said now, "all right, Lane."

. . . She gave herself up to her love for him. The trail led through
the woods and against the green gold of the trees his erect and
handsome figure stirred her to the heart. The sunshine of the glori
ous autumn day fell on his dark head and crowned him. She had
made this glorious creature, her flesh and her blood had created
him in beauty. She tried to hide from him her pride, because he
was only her son and not her lover.
"I am sure men who look as you do in a uniform invented war
and keep it up," she said drily. "It's too wickedly becoming for
permanent peace ! "
He laughed his easy l aughter that made speech unnecessary. But
he had a simple vanity which understood what women felt toward
him, even what she felt, and vanity added glitter to his beauty. His
eyes were bright, his lips were confident, and his hands were sup
ple upon the reins. When suddenly he broke into a gallop and went
ahead of her she drew her own horse back that she might watch
him.
"I wonder," she thought, "if Elise can be happy with him."
She had never questioned before the possibility of his making any
woman happy. But it was because she had never acknowledged
before that he had not made her happy. This heavenly son of hers,
whose beauty she had taken for her comfort, had often made her
unhappy. "Give him time," his teachers had said. "He has such
high spirits. He does not apply himself. When he is older . . . "

She had taken their words to cover her chagrin at his failures.

120
Then before the first year of college was over the war had taken him
out of school, and now she could not know what time might have
done.
He came galloping back to her, his cap in his hand and his dark
hair flying, his eyes alight and his body as graceful as a king's in
the saddle. A moment later they were cantering side by side.
"Lane," she said soberly in the midst of the sunshine. "How do
you feel about going to war ? I've wanted to ask you, but perhaps
we cannot be alone again today. And I want to know, darling-it
will comfort me when you are gone-if I feel I know what you are
thinking behind all the things you have to do-dangerous things,
sometimes. And if something should happen to you . . . it would
help me if I thought you might feel you had fought for something
worth dying for."
It was true that she had thought of this often, and had longed to
know that he had in him a faith which would serve him, if he had
to die.
He turned bright and uncomprehending eyes on her. "I guess I
haven't thought much about it, Mother. But I expect to have some
fun out of it."
Dreadful memories came creeping like ghosts out of the woods
and laid their cold hands upon her. So Tom might have answered,
so Tom had often answered when, in her desperate attempts to
mend their difference, she had laid bare her heart to him.
"Is that all ? " she asked Lane.
"What else ? " he replied. "What would you want me to feel,
Mother ? "
"Nothing," she said, "nothing a t all."
Harry was not in the house when they came home. He had gone
to the school to practice, Freda said, and he did not know when he
would be back.
"Then Lane and I will have luncheon together," Mrs. Barclay
said. Yesterday she had wondered how she could maneuver to have
this luncheon with Lane, and could think of no way to achieve it.
Now Harry had done it simply by going away.
But she was not alone with Lane, after all. She kept thinking of

121
Harry. How deeply had she hurt the boy ? She found herself think
ing of him with a new feeling, even with a sort of curiosity. Was it
possible that she had really never understood him ? Perhaps, she
thought, with the old guilt that was still connected with Tom, she
had been so absorbed in Lane that she had never taken time for
Harry. But then she had never had to worry about Harry. He had
been a quiet boy who had always known what he wanted, and who
had always done well in school. There had been none of the crises
which had kept her agitated about Lane. It was only recently that
Harry had been restless and impatient and, at times, even disobedi
ent. He had taken to staying out late at night, for instance, not
telling her where he had been.
"I wish you weren't going away," she said suddenly to Lane over
the beefsteak. It was his favorite food, but today she could not bear
it. He loved it rare, and he was eating heartily. "I really feel I need
help with Harry," she went on. "I don't understand him."
"Leave him alone," Lane advised. "The Army'll take him off
your hands next year." He helped himself to steak again. "Swell
lunch, Freda," he said.
Freda smiled and her eyes melted. Lane was her favorite, too.
"I don't feel that having the Army take a son off her hands is
exactly enough for a mother," Mrs. Barclay said. "Does he talk to
you, Lane ? "
"He was talking this morning about wanting to go into chemis
try," Lane said carelessly. "I didn't pay much attention. He was
jabbering away. I never liked chemistry. Mother, do you mind if I
go and look up some of the fellows this afternoon ?"
"Of course not," she said. "I want you to do j ust what makes you
happiest."
But it was strange, all the same, to be alone in her house that
afternoon, the afternoon before Lane might be leaving forever. And
Harry did not come home. She telephoned the school at five o'clock,
but no one answered. Everyone had gone.
She felt suddenly under such a tension that she did not want to
dine alone with her two sons, who had in the course of this day

122
become strange men, and she went to the telephone after a little
thought and called up Elise.
"Elise ? I wasn't sure you'd be home."
"Oh, it takes me all afternoon to get ready to go out with Lane,"
Elise cried, laughing. It was the laughter of a woman in love, and
Mrs. Barclay recognized it with a pang of something like fear.
"Will you come to dinner, Elise ? You'll make four, and I know
Lane would like it."
"I was simply praying you'd ask me, Mrs. Barclay," Elise's voice
sang over the wires.
"All right then, dear."
She hung up the receiver, told Freda, and went back to her room
and lay for an hour on the chaise longue, the house silent around
her. At six she rose and bathed and dressed and went downstairs,
and at half past six Lane burst into the house and opened the living
room doors. "Hello, Beautifu l ! " he cried. "Waiting for me ? "
"Of course," she said, turning her cheek for his kiss. "I asked
Elise to dinner. She'll be here in a few minutes."
"Swell," he said. "I wanted to ask her but Harry didn't know if
you wanted her."
"Have you seen Harry ? " she asked.
He was already out of the room and halfway up the stairs. "Nope,
nowhere ! " he shouted back.
"I simply will not get anxious about Harry," she told herself. But
she was so absurd as to wonder if he had been so foolish as to . . .
to do something like running away. She felt after this morning that
now she did not know him at all.
But she showed no sign of her anxiety when ten minutes later
Elise came in, looking like a golden lily. They kissed gently, and
she felt a rush of affection for the tall, beautiful girl whom she had
always known. Elise was very young, only eighteen, to Lane's nine
teen. But all the children were being forced to grow up quickly
these days. The boys had to be men at eighteen and the girls were
falling in love, marrying, hurried into womanhood before their
time.
"Lane will be down in a few minutes," she said.
123
 "Where's Harry ? " Elise asked.
"He went to orchestra practice-and I haven't seen him since,"
Mrs. Barclay said.
"He's been given the solo," Elise said. "Did you know ? "
"No, I didn't," Mrs. Barclay said. "The rascal-not t o tell me !"
"It was only yesterday," Elise said. "I met him and he told me.
You must be proud of him, Mrs. Barclay-he really plays beauti
fully."
"Oh, I am," she said quickly.
And then she heard the front door open and, upon an impulse
she could not explain, she rose and went into the hall, and there
was Harry. He looked tired and his face was smudged. He had his
violin case in his hand.
"Harry, where have you been ? " she demanded.
"I went home with my music professor," he said. "I wanted to
talk some things over with him-get some special help."
"Why didn't you tell me you had the solo ? " she asked. "I've only
just heard it from Elise."
"I didn't know you'd care," he answered.
She was beaten again by his honesty. "Well, dinner's ready . . .
you had better go and wash your face."
But when he came down fifteen minutes later, j ust after Lane, he
had changed into his dark blue suit and had brushed his hair
neatly. His pale face was quiet. He shook hands with Elise without
speaking and they went out to the dining room, and he took his
place across from Elise. Lane sat at the head of the table, where his
father used to sit.
I t was a pleasant dinner, and they gave it to Lane. Lane talked
and they listened. Harry said almost nothing. Had this been any
other day, Mrs. Barclay would not have noticed his silence. But now
she found herself forgetting Lane and thinking of Harry. Two or
three times their eyes met and parted quickly. He was thinking of
her, too. She could feel it. She began to dread Lane's going. Tomor
row at this time she and Harry would be alone in the house. There
would be no screen between them. They would be face to face. She

124
found herself thinking more of this than of Lane's going, and she
was so astonished that she, too, was unusually silent.
She slept badly that night and woke early. Yes, clearly, she
dreaded Lane's going, because of Harry. "This is nonsense," she told
herself. "Why, Harry's nothing but a boy-the baby I had, the little
boy I've taken care of and taught."
But she really had not needed to teach him much, she thought
honestly. Harry learned somehow, without being taught, and Lane
had taken so much of her time. She had never really given up on
Lane until the Army took him.
"Perhaps it's the very best thing that could have happened," she
thought, "for of course he will make a wonderful soldier."
Tom had been a good soldier too. Laid away somewhere today
were the medals Tom had been given in France for extraordinary
bravery. "Stupid men are always good soldiers," she had thought
bitterly long ago. She remembered it now with a new edge to the
bitterness. "Oh, Lane's not stupid," she declared to herself, "at least
not the way Tom was. Lane is j ust young . . ."
The parting which had loomed so dreadful to her for days was
inexplicably lightened. The wholehearted sorrow which she had
expected was divided, as though it were not quite Lane to whom
she was bidding farewell, but someone whom she did not love as
entirely as she loved Lane.
"Good-by, Mother," he said in the midst of a great hug.
"Good-by, dear," she replied, and to her own surprise her eyes
were dry.
But Elise was crying when the train pulled out. "How brave you
are, Mrs. Barclay ! "
"He'll b e back," she replied. " I have a feeling that he will."
It was quite true that she did feel so. Tom had gone through the
last war unscratched, to die from falling off a horse twenty years
later.
Harry drove the car home and she and Elise sat in the back seat
until they reached the house where Elise lived and she got out.
Then Mrs. Barclay moved into the front seat. Whatever there was
to be got through about Harry had better be faced, she thought.

125
But Harry seemed quite tranquil this morning. He drove expertly,
his thick hands solidly upon the wheel. He did not speak and she
glanced at his profile. It showed no distress, though it was grave.
"I sometimes wonder if Elise and Lane will marry," she said
after a while.
"I hope not," he said calmly, but with such conviction that she
was astonished and even a little amused.
"Why ?" she asked, glancing at him.
"I think they'd both be very unhappy, after the first year or so,"
he said. "I mean-Lane's awfully handsome-it would take a while
for Elise to get over that. But she'd get over it. She is-intelligent."
"And Lane is not ? "
"I don't say he i s not. B u t she's extraordinary. That would b e very
hard on him after a while."
"Oh . . . would it ?"
"Hard on them both," Harry said.
They did not speak again until they reached the house, and then
he only said, "I'm off to practice again, Mother."
"All right, son," she said.
He gave her a quick look, opened his mouth, and closed it again
and went away.
Alone all day she pondered that look and late in the afternoon
she suddenly understood it. She had called him "son." It was the
first time she had ever done so. She put down her needlework and
stared across the room. "Why, I have been cruel," she thought.
"He's suffered and I haven't even known it."

He came home early that night and went upstairs and washed
before he spoke to her. When he saw her he did not touch her and
she understood, with the strange new perception she had of him,
that he was convinced that she did not want him to touch her. She
remembered now that h e never came near to touch her, that h e had
not since h e was a little boy, and she had let it be so. It was her
impulse to put out her arms to him now, but she knew it would
shock him. There must be more between them first, but she did not
know how to begin what must be.
They dined together quietly, and quietly he talked about his

126
music and about his difficulties with a certain adagio passage. He
asked her about her day.
"I have done nothing," she said, "except sew."
"I hope you haven't been too lonely," he said.
"No," she replied. "I thought I would be when Lane went away,
but somehow I am not."
He threw her one of his strange, comprehending looks. "He
knows everything," she thought suddenly. "I have seen nothing in
him, and all the time he has been growing up in the house, know
ing everything about me."
She rose from the table. The tears which had not filled her eyes
this morning came welling into them now, and he saw them and
hurried to her side, still without touching her.
"Aren't you feeling well ? " he asked anxiously.
She put her hand into his arm. "Come into the living room with
me," she said; "I want to talk."

* * *

. . . "No, nobody told me," he said quietly. He was sitting with

his hands carefully in his pockets, his hands with their bitten nails.
"I don't know when I first knew."
They had talked a long time and she felt the strange ease and
rest in her being that comes only with all secrets told.
"I knew it, I think, when I was about seven," he went on. "At
first, of course, I thought you j ust didn't like me. Then I began to
wonder why , . and after a while I knew why. It was because I
looked like Dad."
She thought speechlessly that for ten years this child, this boy, had
suffered what she had suffered, and she had not known!
"But it was only, of course, when I was older," he was saying,
"when I was thirteen, I think . . . yes, it was on my birthday. You
remember that knife you gave me ? I had wanted it a long time and
i t was exactly what I wanted."
"But you gave it to Lane . . . right away," she interposed. "I
thought you didn't care about it."
"He wanted it as soon as he saw it, and I saw that you wished
127
you had given him one, and so I gave it to him. I knew that day
you loved him better than you did me, because you let me give
him my knife."
She was speechless again and they sat in silence for a long mo
ment.
"When did you know . . . that you were really like m e ? " she
asked at last.
"I think I always knew that," he said. "Because I have always
understood you-l've a lways known what you were thinking . . .
and feeling."
"Oh, my God ! " she whispered.
She got up out of her chair and went over to him and put he r
hands on his shoulders, and he looked up at her, smiling his usual
smile, and she was horrified at its sadness. "I feel so different to
day," she said. "I feel as if now I really knew you . . . after all this
time. I blame myself so much . . . for what I've missed. Harry, wiii
you forgive me ? "
The quick red flooded h i s face a n d s h e s a w tears in h i s eyes. He
looked down and his lips trembled. He wet them and drew his
breath. Then he could speak.
"Sure," he said. "It's all right, Mother. People can't help the way
they feel. I've known that for a long time."

!28
'' ooD-BY, dear."

G "Good-by, Harold."
Mrs. Mercer offered her cheek and Mr. Mercer kissed
it heartily. She looked up at him with affection. "Sure you have
enough clean shirts ? "
"One for every day, and an extra one for the dinner."
"I put your studs in myself."
"I'm not going to a desert," Mr. Mercer said smiling. "I can pick
up a shirt in New York if I have to."
"I hope you can," Mrs. Mercer said.
She stood at the window and waved while he got into the taxicab.
When he was out of sight she sat down in the chintz-covered chair
by the window. For the first time since they had been married
twenty-two years ago, she would be alone in the house. Last year
Elizabeth had still been at home. Now she was at college, too, as
Hal Junior was. She looked around the room. What would she do
with herself? The room looked tired-faithful but tired. That was
the way she felt. She could go upstairs this minute and crawl into
bed and sleep as long as she liked. Why not ?
She got up, sighing, and as she passed the telephone table in the
hall she took off the receiver and locked the front door. Let the
neighbors think nobody was at home. So far as she was concerned,
nobody was at home.
She climbed the stairs slowly. The banisters were dusty and she
ought to polish them. "But I can't-because I'm not at home," she
thought. The small fantasy teased her imagination. If she were not
at home, where would she be ?
129
 She opened the door of her bedroom and was startled by a face,
a figure that seemed strange. Silly-it was herself, her reflection in
the oval pier glass that hung on the wall opposite the door. But
she had never faced herself in it before-that is, she had not seen
herself. She had always hurried upstairs on some errand, and for
years she had dressed in a hurry. Now she stood still, looking at
the woman she was.
How she had changed ! She would not have known herself. She
closed the door behind her, still staring at her reflection. This was
she, then, Elinor Mercer, forty-two years old!
"I'm a sight," she thought contemptuously.
She walked to the mirror, her heart hardening against herself.
Why not face the woman in the mirror ?
"I look like every other woman on the street," she thought. She
had had her hair waved yesterday. For ten years she had gone to
the same hairdresser, and the waves were as set as corrugated roof
ing. Her hair was brown, the eyes were gray-blue, the complexion
nondescript. Most of the time at home she did not bother to use
lipstick or rouge, and when she put it on to go out it was a careless
ritual. She had forgotten the shape of her mouth. She examined it
now-tight lips, set with years of hurrying and suppressed irritation.
"Oh, Mrs. Mercer, how do you keep such a lovely, even disposi
tion ? " young Mollie Blaine had wailed yesterday. She had come
flying in to declare that she could not, could not endure her Tom
another day unless he learned not to throw his clothes on the floor
every morning.
"I set my teeth to it," she had told Molly.
She wet her lips and tried to put them together softly. It was no
use. The years had shaped them.
"I'm an ugly, nondescript creature," she thought.
But then she had never liked the way she looked. Her regular,
somewhat large features, her square frame and capable hands had
dismayed her even as a girl. She had accepted the handicap, submis
sive to her mother's teaching that what she did was more important
than how she looked.
 "I don't believe that," she said suddenly. Her voice echoed about
the room, and she jumped at the sound of it.
Then she peered at herself more closely. "What sort of woman
are you inside ? " she muttered at the reflection. Gray-blue eyes stared
back at her. The mouth pursed. "I haven't the faintest idea," she
replied. "I've never taken time to find out."
She turned away from the mirror, and lay down on the chaise
longue and drew the quilted cover over her. Harold had decided
yesterday to let the furnace go out. Tomorrow was the first of June,
but it had been a late spring. She shut her eyes and lay still. The
silence of the house rose like a tide and she sank into it and it
closed over her.
. . . She was horribly shy. That she had hidden since she was a girl
by staying at home, by being too tired when Harold wanted her to
go with him to Ladies' Night at his club, by refusing to be chair
man of any committee at her own club, by being always one of the
workers behind the scenes. She had never acknowledged that she
did all this because she was shy.
"Very well, I'm shy," she said aloud.
A shy woman, but why ?
Because she did not do anything well enough. She did not even
read good books. When she read at all, she read stories-something
to take her mind off-nothing at all educational.
"All right, I don't like anything solid," she said aloud.
But this was so out of character with her solid, responsible-looking
body! She had grown stout and lost her figure. It was her own
fault-there were plenty of people, if one were to believe the adver
tisements, who were anxious to restore one's figure. But she was too
shy to go to such places. Besides, what did it matter ? She thought
of her reflection with sudden hostility. Her body betrayed her. It
had made her look like somebody else. When she had been about
fifteen, she had been very gay. Between fifteen and seventeen she
had grown inches taller, and her mother had said, "Elinor, don't
romp--you're too big." So her body even then had betrayed her.
She loathed her mortal frame. Imprisoned within it she had been
131
shaped to it as in medieval times traveling showmen had put chil
dren into jars until they were shaped into monstrosities.
She got up in profound anger and began to pace the floor. Every
time she passed the mirror she threw it hostile looks. Her thickness,
her clumsiness, her height, her hair and skin and eyes, her hands
she spread her big hands-she had been so foolish as to let the
manicure girl redden her nails.
"Why, Mamma," Harold had said in surprise.
Mamma-she hated the name. But that was what he had always
called his own mother. "I'll tell him I hate it," she decided now,
recklessly. "I don't really enjoy being a mother," she thought. There
-it was out. All women ought to want to be mothers. "Well, I
don't," she thought. A dam burst in her soul. She cried aloud in the
silent house. "I don't like babies ! I don't like housekeeping! I don't
like houses ! I hate small towns! I hate this town . . ." She paused.
Did she hate Harold ? Was that what was really wrong ? Down at
the bottom of everything?
She sat down to consider this, her hands on her knees. She could
not decide. "But I don't want to see him for a long, long time," she
thought. "And I don't want to see Hal, either-nor Elizabeth
maybe never."
Layer after layer, she lifted from herself what she did not like and
what she was not. . . . But everything she found out about herself
was negative. And underneath was-what ? She would never know
so long as she stayed in this house, doing busy work.
Anger cooled in her. She forgot herself. She would like to pack a
suitcase and close the door of her house behind her. She'd cash a
check at the bank and get on a train. What train? Well, a west
ward train. She had never been west of Pittsburgh. Lovely names
floated through her brain-Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, Dakota,
Alaska-she'd get off anywhere, at some station that had a pretty
name.
She got up smiling-pretty names, pretty words, pretty places
she dressed without once seeing herself in the mirror, put on her
brown three-piece suit, packed her bag, went out of the door and
locked it.
 . . . "But this isn't the station your ticket calls for, Madam," the
conductor said.
"You oughtn't to mind if it isn't as far," she said briskly. She put
on her brown hat without looking in the mirror set in the wall
between the Pullman seats. She didn't look in mirrors any more.
As far as she was concerned she was a slender, gay, light-minded
woman, a gypsy, a gadabout, going where she liked and doing what
she would.
The conductor looked at her rather solemnly. "Sure you hae
friends here, lady ?" he inquired. There was something in her eyes
that he didn't like.
"Lots of them," she said happily.
She swung off the train. Above her head was the name of the
town, printed in white on a green board-Alameda. She did not
even know what state it was in, but it took her fancy-a pretty
sound, the vowels running over her tongue.
She walked down the empty platform, her mind as empty. Maybe
she would go back, maybe she wouldn't. She could do anything she
wanted. She had scrupulously left half the money in the bank for
Harold, in case she did not want to go back.
The morning was silver and gold, the sunshine gold, the great
white clouds over the blue mountains silver. The earth was sand
colored and green. The railroad station was a low adobe building,
the roof red-tiled. There was no sign of a town. She yawned in the
warm sunshine and sat down on a bench and pulled her hat over
her eyes. She had always wanted to sleep on a bench in the sun
with her hat over her eyes, but being a lady-
"1 hate being a lady," she said, though drowsily. The glittering
parallel of the rails ran toward the horizon to meet in some in
finity. There was no one in sight. She leaned back and stretched out
her legs, and the sunlight penetrated to the very marrow of her
bones. She felt warmed through, her blood heated, her skin flushing,
her mind drowsing in the content of her body. She had eaten an
enormous breakfast on the tain-eggs, wheat cakes, cream in her
coffee-all the things she never ate. The sun was warm but the air
1 33
was cool. She breathed deeply and felt elixir in her lungs. She
smiled, closed her eyes, and went to sleep .
. . . Sometime later, hours it must be, for the sun was now directly
overhead, she felt her arm gently shaken.
"Ma'am," someone was saying, "wake up, ma'am. I've come."
She pushed back her hat and opened her eyes. A huge grizzled
man was shaking her. He was hatless and the sunshine sparkled on
the silvery threads i n his tangled black beard.
"I'm sorry I am so late," he said. "But my jalopy broke down. I
told you it probably would."
She opened her mouth to tell him that he was mistaken about
her and closed it again. She could tell him later.
"Had a good sleep ? " he asked, smiling down at her.
"Wonderful," she said, smiling back.
He picked up her suitcase. "You don't look what I expected."
"Neither do you," she retorted.
"But you told me you were old . . ." he protested.
"I'm forty-two," she said. She got up and straightened her hat.
"That's not old," he said. "I'm sixty-one."
"How far are we going? " she asked.
"Thirty-seven miles, but there's no road-1 told you that."
She did not answer, and they climbed into a huge, ancient, sand
colored car. "In fact," he went on, "I didn't think you'd take me
up. I said to myself I'd come to Alameda on the chance you were
there. But if you weren't-well-you weren't."
"It was nip and tuck with me," she replied. "I was about to go
right past Alameda-and then I decided to get off."
"Irresponsible, eh ? " he asked, grinning.
"Completely so," she replied.
"So am 1," he admitted. "That's why I want to get rid of the
place. I'm going to sea, like I've always wanted to . . ."
"At sixty-one!" she cried.
"Before I die," he said.
"When are you going ?" she asked.
"As soon as I land you at the gate," he declared.
"I can't pay for a place," she said.
13 4
 He looked at her in surprise. "I thought we settled all that."
"Did we ? "
" I told you I didn't want your money," h e reminded her.
"I don't feel I ought to be given a home," she objected.
"I'm not giving it to you," he said. "I'm lending it . . ."
"But if you don't come back ?"
"Then you can have it."
"Your children . . ."
"I haven't any."
"Your wife . . ."

He looked at her oddly. "Don't you remember ? I told you she

left me years ago. It's all in my will-if I don't come back."
"Isn't anybody there? " she asked.
"Nobody but old Manuela," he replied.
She sat back and went through a profound and secret struggle
with herself. Should she tell him who she was ? But who was she?
She did not know herself. Certainly, she was not the woman she had
last seen in the mirror.
He looked down at her. "I'm a little worried about your being so
young, though."
"Don't be silly," she said sharply. "I weigh a hundred and eighty
pounds."
"You don't look it-you got good proportions. Well, I'll leave a
couple of pistols in case some drurik rides by-though it doesn't
happen in a hundred years-"
"All right," she said.
They were riding over the desert toward the blue mountains. She
felt a small morality tugging at her conscience. "What if I hadn't
come ? " she asked.
"I'd have let the place go back to the desert," he said. "I'd have
gone anyway."
In an hour and a quarter they drove up to a sand-colored wall in
which was set a red-painted gate. They got out of the car, and he
took her suitcase and pushed through the gate. Inside was a garden,
a small pool, and a square of rooms. An old Mexican woman shuf
fled out.
1 35
 "Manuela, this is your new mistress," he told her.
"Why don't you tell her my name ? " she asked clearly. What was
her name ?
He grinned and flushed. "Ma'am, I actually forget it-1 lost your
letter, and your handwriting isn't too good or maybe my reading
isn't . . .
"

She smiled, and he did not seem to expect her to speak the name
he had forgotten. Or perhaps he did not care-he was now in a
great hurry.
"Manuela, you feed this lady good. And don't get lazy, or else
she'll push you out of the gate."
Manuela grinned with white teeth and tossed back her two black
plaits.
"Well, good-by," he said. "I'm off . . . I'll catch the three-five to
Frisco and walk straight on to my ship-The Golden Arrow, by the
way."
He gripped her hand. "The will-if you need it, it's cached in a
hole in the wall, behind the Indian blanket."
He ' nodded, smiled inside his beard, and the next instant she
heard the car roar. Through the open gate she saw a wide streak
of dust across the desert.
"Well," she said.
"Come, please eat," Manuela said calmly, and twisting her braids
about her head she set pottery dishes of food upon the garden table.
. . . She grew lean and hard in the desert wind. The mountains
shielded on the west, and there were occasional days of glittering
quiet. Less occasionally on one of these quiet days it rained. But
much of the time the wind blew in tangles of sand. She liked it.
There was always a shelter to be found if she wanted it in the lee
of the adobe walls. But she spent hours walking across the desert in
the wind. She could feel it blowing through her until her very
skeleton felt clean and dry. Manuela had warned her about rattle
snakes and she carried a stick, forked at the end. Manuela had
taught her how to pin a snake's head with the fork and then
squeeze it off into the sand. But most of the time she simply
frightened the snakes away. She found she was not afraid of them.
1 36
 She found out much about herself. She liked color, piles of it,
gaudy and clear. Manuela brought back armsful of cotton from
market days at Alameda, red and green and blue and yellow. She
made dresses for herself, short, straight garments belted about her
waist. As the weeks passed she took satisfaction in her bones, ap
parent under her skin at last. There was not a mirror in the house,
and she broke the one in her vanity case deliberately. Her hair grew
straight and long, and she twisted it into a knot at the back of her
head. She ate meat, a great deal of meat, and cornmeal bread, and
not any fruit or vegetables, which she had never liked. She slept
twelve hours at night and at any time in the day. She talked to no
one, not even to Manuela very much. But she laughed very often
with Manuela about nothing, and she grew lighthearted and care
less. She did not think of Harold or Elizabeth or Hal or anyone.
Long ago, Harold would have come back to the locked house. She
did not know how many days had passed since she left. But many
-the summer was nearly over and autumn was in the night air.
She had never heard a word from The Golden Arrow.
At first she had thought, "This kind of thing can't go on." But it
had gone on, and she had begun to ask, "Why not ?" and then she
had simply taken it for granted. It could go on forever if she
wished.
She let it go on. Sometimes, she wondered if the other woman,
the old woman who had wanted the house, would ever come. But
no one came, no one that stayed. Sometimes a cowboy stopped
Manuela to ask the way to Alameda, and sometimes a Mexican
passed and Manuela fed him.
"Manuela, do you get lonely ? " she asked one day.
"Lonely-how ?" Manuela replied astonished.
She explained and Manuela laughed. She tapped her breast. "I
have always . . . me . . . myself."
On the morning of the seventh of September a telegram came,
delivered by an astonished man in a broken-down car.
"I never had a telegram for this place before !" he exclaimed.
He waited while she tore open the envelope. There were a few
1 37
 lines on the yellow paper, signed by a shipping company in Hono
lulu.
"We regret to inform you that The Golden Arrow was sunk in a
typhoon off the Java coast with all hands on board."
The man looked over her shoulder and read it aloud.
"That's the end of him," he remarked and went away without
mentioning a name.
She sat down with the telegram and considered. It would perhaps
be necessary to open the little hole in the adobe wall and take out
the papers. Then she decided she would not. Let him be nameless.
What did it matter ? The will was safe enough in the wall, if ever
she needed it. And the house was hers-if she wanted it.
What did she want to do about it? "I don't have to do anything,"
she thought. The knowledge filled her with peace. It was enough
simply to be. To be-what ? It did not matter . . . what. A vessel
containing life-that was enough. The telegram fell from her hands
and upon the floor. The wind, entering through the open door,
snatched it and whirled it away.
But she was quite happy, not knowing it gone. Here was the
amazing thing-the discovery. She did not care who she was or
what she was. She was content to be as anonymous as a plant or a
sagebrush.
What was it that made her suddenly completely happy ? Simply
being alive-that was all. There was no guilt in her joy. She had
nothing to do with the dead body floating somewhere in the warm
Java seas. The chance of death had merely fallen upon him, not her.
She was alive. This was the source of her lightheartedness. It did
not matter what she was or whether she did anything. Whatever
she did was merely the extension of being alive. When she walked
on the sands, when she looked at the sky, when she shared a storm,
when she ate, when she drank, when she slept, when she merely
sat as she did now, breathing, thinking-to be alive was enough.
She had never understood this before. She had always tried to be
something more, to do beyond being. It had taken her all these
months to find it out. No . . . more than that it had taken the
.

telegram. The Golden Arrow had gone down with all on board.
1 38
The man who had unwillingly given her the opportunity to live
alone with herself was dead.
He was dead, as one day she must die. But now she was alive, her
body sentient, her eyes still able to see the blue hills, her ears to
hear the wind, her mind to think, her heart to laugh. She stood up,
and flung out her hands. At that moment, she felt something slip
into her body and fit there snugly.
"My self! " she thought.
Her hands dropped. She felt complete and content.
In the kitchen, Manuela was bent over the charcoal earthen stove.
She went up to her.
"Manuela, your master is dead," she said gently.
Manuela stared at her.
"Drowned," she went on, to Manuela's unblinking eyes.
"This house is now mine," she went on. "You stay here, Man-
uela ? "
"Sure," Manuela said.
"I go away, but you stay," she said firmly.
"Sure," Manuela said. "You pay me ?"
"Yes, every month.'
"You come back ? "
"Some day."

She reached the town in the late afternoon. Mrs. Blaine, Mollie's
mother-in-law, passed her on the street, stared at her and went on.
"She doesn't know me," Mrs. Mercer thought, and was pleased.
She waited until Mrs. Blaine had turned the corner and then
she went up her own steps and opened the door. It was not locked,
and she went in. The hall was dark but she heard the piano in the
living room, and she went to the door. Elizabeth's drooping slender
figure was at the piano. She was touching the keys halfheartedly.
The child looked sad and unkempt. The room was unkempt, too.
There were no flowers i n the bowls on the table. Before she went
away, she had grown tired of putting flowers into the bowls and
seeing them die and throwing them out. How foolish of her ! It
1 39
was wonderful to be alive to pick flowers, wonderful to set them on
a table to enjoy them, and when they die, as all must die, how won
derful the richness of nature that provides more, always, to come
into bud and bloom !
"Elizabeth," she said gently.
The girl leaped to her feet and stared at her.
"Don't you know me, child ?" she asked.
Elizabeth turned pale, and her blue eyes stared. She wet her lips
and put out her hands.
"We thought you were . . ."

"No, I'm not dead," Mrs. Mercer said cheerfully.

She smiled at her daughter, but Elizabeth's face was working with
sobs. "Mother .how could you ?"

"Now, now," Mrs. Mercer said. She put her arms around the girl.
"But you're so thin," Elizabeth sobbed.
"I'm as pleased as punch about that," Mrs. Mercer said briskly.
"You don't look like yourself."
"Yes, I do-at last," Mrs. Mercer said. "What's that, burning ?"
"Oh," gasped Elizabeth, "I'm trying to make a pie . . ."

They ran to the kitchen together and Mrs. Mercer pulled an apple
pie out of the oven. It was smoking at the edges. "No harm done,"
she said. "But why aren't you at college ?"
"Somebody had to look after Dad," Elizabeth protested. "He's
simply been crushed. Hal's here, too . he comes home Fridays
.

to be with Dad in the office."

"I didn't think he'd take you out of college," Mrs. Mercer re
monstrated.
"He didn't," Elizabeth said. "I came home because Mrs. Blaine
wrote me he looked sick."
"That was sweet of you," Mrs. Mercer replied. "Now you can just
go right back again . . . if you want to . . ."
She met her daughter's doubtful eyes. "But, Mother, where have
you been ? "
"Oh, 'most everywhere," Mrs. Mercer said.
"But you didn't write . . ."
"It was terrible of me," Mrs. Mercer agreed.
1 40
 "Are you sure you're all right ? "
"I'm wonderful," Mrs. Mercer declared.
The hall door opened. There was a subdued murmur of men's
voices.

"It's Dad and Hal," Elizabeth whispered. "Shall I tell ?"
Mrs. Mercer smiled. "I can't hide myself . . ."
Elizabeth ran into the hall, and Mrs. Mercer heard Hal's voice,
"I'm going upstairs . . ."
Then Elizabeth's, "But Hai, you've got to . ."

Hal again, "I say it was mean-"

Then silence fell. Footsteps went upstairs, Hal's heavy, Elizabeth's
light.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Mercer opened a drawer and took out a
clean white apron and tied it on. She opened the refrigerator and
found a raw steak on a plate. Then she heard Harold's voice.
"Elinor . . ."
"Yes, Harold . . . "
She turned and saw him standing there. He had aged . . . he was
thinner, too. Tears rushed into his eyes but he did not come near
her.
"Elinor, where have you been ?"
She put down the steak. "Living . . . in a house out on the desert."
"Alone ? "
"Yes . . . well, there was a n old woman servant."
"What were you doing ? "
"Nothing."
"Nothing ? "
Suspicion dried his eyes. "There must have been . . . someone."
"You mean-a man ?"
"Someone . . ." he repeated.
She looked out of the window, considering. Mrs. Blaine was com
ing home again, her head bent against the wind. What was the use
of telling Harold about the man with the grizzled beard ? A dead
man-it could never be explained or believed that he was nothing
and yet everything to her, an accident, incredible as life.
"Nobody . . . except myself," she repeated.
141
 "But whose house was it?" he asked. His eyes were dazed.
"Mine . . . it's j ust an adobe house . . .
"

"You bought it ?"

"Yes . . . that is . . . yes, in the end I bought it. In case I ever
want to go back . . ."
She heard footsteps, Hal's unwilling ones, Elizabeth's light ones.
Elizabeth was propelling Hal in front of her.
"Look at Mother," she said dramatically. Mrs. Mercer smiled.
"Hello, Hal," she said to her sullen son.
"Hello," he said. Then he stared at her for a long instant. "Gee,
you don't look the same . . ." he said suddenly.
"I'm quite myself," she said.
"But Mom . . ." He stood, his hands in his pockets, his face grave.
For the first time she saw that he looked astonishingly like her,
now that she was her natural self. He saw it and so did she, and
the mutual knowledge pulled them toward each other. But he was
young and resisting.
She smiled again. "If you're going to ask for a lot of explanations,
you won't get them," she said.
He shook his head and kept on staring at her.
Harold spoke in a sudden harsh voice. "I don't feel I can trust
you again."
Elizabeth stepped between them, her young face anxious, her
hands twisting . . .

Mrs. Mercer smiled. She threw back her head. "But here I am,
Harold," she said gaily. "This is me-as I am. Trust me or not
it's all there is."
She looked from him to Elizabeth to Hal, challenging them to
accept her as she was and would be forever-
"Why, Mother," Elizabeth breathed, "you're beautiful ! Dad, look
at Mother . . "

She looked at him and he looked at her-Harold, her good and

faithful husband. He was gazing at her as though he had never
seen her before.
"Oh, darling " she murmured, "after all these years-l'm still
.

alive!"
142
 He did not understand what she meant, he scarcely heard her
words. But he came toward her as to a light,
"Hal," Elizabeth whispered, "Hal . . . we must leave them alone
. . . it's too wonderful . . ,
"

She seized his arm and they tiptoed away, their young faces rev
erent and their eyes tender.
"Of course they don't understand," Mrs. Mercer thought. She
held Harold close, and he held her. "Nobody understands . , .
except me. But I'm enough . . . for my self!"

1 4
 The Perfeci Wife

ENNETH BARCLAY
Jl veyed the rack
whistled softly under his breath as he sur
of ties beside his chiffonier. Which tie ex-
pressed the day for him ? He glanced out of the window.
It was a glorious spring morning in April. The sun sparkled upon
the new green leaves of the three elms in his little suburban garden.
Green was the color of the day, a soft deep green. He tied the tie
critically, still whistling. Once he began to sing and then stopped.
Mildred had a wonderful ear for music, and she could not bear his
singing. He did not, he knew, keep a tune well, although he had
not known it until after they were married. During their engage
ment he shouted heartily and with pleasure the Gilbert and Sulli
van songs he loved, singing them to Mildred, and delighting in
her quick fingers upon the piano. They were an ideal couple, he
thought in those days.
Well, of course, they still were. He hadn't given up trying, not by
a long shot. He had only given up singing; that is, singing at home.
When he was working in his laboratory at the university he sang
over his little cells as he mated them and encouraged them to pro
duce and studied their tiny progeny under microscopes and upon
slides. "Thou the bee and I the flower," he sang recklessly and in
content. "Thou the sunrise, I the day."
Nobody heard him at the laboratory; nobody but Marion Crowne,
his assistant, his right hand, as he called her. When he was work
ing on a delicate experiment, upon a filament as fragile as a thread
of smoke, he reaced out for the next instrument, and knew un
failingly that it would be there. Hour after hour that would be all
he would see of her, her hand there at the corner of his eye, steady
I 44
and sure, holding the one thing he needed next. Once, when he had
been shouting triumphantly through a song as he finished a suc
cessful day's work, he paused above the sink where he was scrub
bing up and looked at her, stricken with a new thought.
"Say, I never thought to ask you if you minded my singing out
of tune."
"I love it," she said, smiling. She was packing the slides away into
their boxes, neatly, silently. She seldom spoke. When she did, she
looked up directly and clearly, and gave her words value and truth.
"It's a good thing," he said. "My wife is set on edge by it. She has
a good ear, you see."
She did not answer, and he dried his hands and threw a smile at
her.
"Good night," he called.
"Good night, Dr. Barclay," she answered.
So, tying his green tie, he only whistled softly under his breath.
It had been so long since he had sung in the house that he would
have been surprised if anyone had told him he felt he could not. He
would have laughed and said it did not matter-it mattered much
more to have Mildred happy. She was so pleasant when she was
happy. He put on the brown tweed coat hanging on a chair and set
tled it over his shoulders. Green and brown-they were nice colors.
He might try them in a stain today, just to celebrate the spring. He
still wasn't too old to feel spring. He smiled at himself in the glass.
He was fifty years old, his two children were grown up-Bob was
married and Mollie in love-his curly hair was white, and yet he
felt the spring come round in April!

He ran downstairs still whistling, and checked himself at the

dining-room door. He knew perfectly what to expect when he
opened the door today, as he had every day for twenty-five years,
except when they were traveling; but he did not tire of it, really.
There were days, of course-but this was not one of them. It was
such a beautiful morning. He wanted to see Mildred; he wanted
to kiss her.
1 45
 He opened the door eagerly and saw her there at her end of
the table, sitting behind the coffeepot, waiting for him. She was
'
very small and fair, and she had kept her fairness and slenderness.
When she slept well she looked wonderfully young for her years,
as she did this morning in her pale blue negligee, her still blonde
hair beautifully waved about her head, her hands white and tapered
with shining nails.
"You're late, Kenneth," she said composedly.
"I know it, darling," he replied, quick in apology. "I worked too
late last night on my book, and this morning--"
"I know what happened this morning," she said, with emphasis.
"You got thinking about it."
"How did you know ? " he asked guiltily. He stood above her,
poised ready to kiss her.
"I heard the shower run and run, and I knew you were standing
there letting it run and thinking and forgetting all about break
fast. I've been waiting."
"You know me through and through, don't you ? " he said, half
laughing. "I'm sorry you had to wait."
He bent to kiss her. How sweet she smelled; how sweet she was
even after all these years ! He wanted to kiss her hard. It was years
since he felt she had really let him kiss her hard. The green tie,
the morning, the scent of her hair, the clear blue of her robe made
him daring. He took her by the shoulders and pressed his lips
warmly upon her pretty, palely rouged mouth.
"Don't ! " she cried in a piercing whisper.
"Darling! Do you know how long it is since we have really kissed
each other ?" he cried with tenderness.
"Lizzie might come in at any moment." She wiped her lips upon
her napkin and went on resentfully : "Besides, I hate-wetness."
"I'm sorry," he answered. He suddenly felt absurd. He went to
his seat and unfolded his napkin. "Will you ask Lizzie to bring in
the mail ?"
So, after that, the morning went just as i t always had. He glanced
thmugh his letters and discussed them with her, trying to make
1 46
his voice cheerful and usual. There was one large letter with a
foreign postmark.
"What is it ? " she asked, faintly curious. He tore it open. "It's
a letter from Dhas of Calcutta," he said, glancing through it. Then
he forgot her and his face grew eager. "I'm getting some good
material from him. I think I'm going to put in a whole chapter
on India. I want to get out there, though, awfully. I must go, some
how."
He was sorry he had spoken. She did not answer, and instantly
he felt the quality of her silence. He looked at her quickly.
"I can't go to India," she said. Over the bowl of freshly picked
pansies on the table, he saw her face harden. Her eyes met his.
"Hindus make me creep. Besides, it isn't right to leave Mollie just
now. She's thinking of having the wedding some time in August,
before Jim has to go back to work, so that his holiday can be their
honeymoon."
He felt as definitely settled as though she had dusted him and
laid him on a shelf. Perhaps it was the spring sun streaming into
the garden, perhaps it was that the tie made him feel young and
good-looking, but he allowed himself to consider a thought which
had before this occurred to him, and which he had always firmly
cast out of his mind. It was that every time he put forth an idea
for his own work the children or Mildred herself had some neces
sity which prevented it.
He had never even taken the journey he should have had in
Germany. The one summer they were there Mildred had not liked
it, and he had hurried through his conferences to get her to Eng
land. She would not travel alone. Wherever he left her, there she
stayed until he came and fetched her. He should have had weeks
to linger in German laboratories and to delve into German refer
ences. He had less than a month.
* * *

Then his conscience stirred. He was wrong to remember that

summer, now so many years ago. She was young and timid then
and she spoke no foreign language. He must remember. She had
1 47
been a wonderful wife to him for years, a careful mother, a good
housekeeper. He had often been glad she was not one of these
independent women. She was a womanly woman, thoroughly femi
nine, dependent on him. He wanted her so. He liked to feel she
needed him.
"I've invited the Browns for dinner tonight," she said suddenly.
"We owe them a dinner and bridge. Will it be convenient for you ?"
He considered a moment. "Well, no, it isn't," he said apolo
getically. "I really ought to work. I'm j ust finishing the last of these
experiments on reproduction in one-celled organisms, and it's rather
important that I put the results down minutely at the end of each
day. It's only a matter of a week or two now."
"I'm sorry," she said, pouring the coffee with dainty, precise
movements. "I've already invited them."
"So I see," he answered, and paused. Then he made the effort
to which years had accustomed him. "I'll try and adjust things at
the laboratory. Perhaps Marion can stay a little later and help me
to get through."
She did not answer. She never answered when he spoke of
Marion. Ten years ago there had been a strange tension between
them because of Marion. He had not understood it entirely; he did
not understand it to this day. But for a while Mildred had been
unlike herself. For weeks and months she had lived in a strange
smoldering silence, wholly unresponsive to all his warm, envelop
ing affection. It was true she was never very responsive. He was,
he knew humbly, too ardent for her. She was a real woman in her
fastidiousness.

He knew the very first day he met her at a garden party that she
was cool and shy of contact and chary of caresses. It had seemed
lovely in her then, rare and lovely. He disliked bold women very
much. As a young girl, he thought she had been like a lily. Through
the years of their marriage he had pressed eagerly and with secret
excitement toward her heart. Some day, some day, he always told
himself, he would reach that golden solitary heart and make it
1 48
his own. He wooed her far more eagerly as husband than even he
had as lover.
Then ten years ago he had awakened one morning, one April
morning like this, to feel it all quite hopeless. He was forty and she
was thirty-nine, and it was too late. She was past any yielding.
He had never won his citadel. For that morning at dawn she turned
to him almost with hatred in her eyes, surely with repulsion. She
said, with bitter coldness, to him : "Will you never learn that a
woman gets past that sort of thing ?"
In that short moment, he saw what she thought of all his ardent
love and all his romance and all his need of pouring his heart out
upon her. To her it had only been "that sort of thing."
He went to his laboratory that day half blind and mortally
wounded. He hesitated over his test tubes and dropped his speci
mens and ruined plates, and then halfway through the morning
he had given up and gone into his small office and sat there in the
sunshine and held his head in his hands and moaned under his
breath.
At that moment Marion had come to the door in the friendliest
sort of way and asked him what was the matter. Of course, he could
not tell her, but it had been very good to have someone care enough
for him to come to him and ask him softly what was wrong.
Marion had a sweet, deep voice-deep for a woman. He knew her
voice and her hand, but he had not often looked at her face. He
could not today have told what color her eyes were if anyone had
asked him.
After that, of course, he could not go near Mildred. At first, he
thought he could never go near her again, not even to kiss her.
He shrank if her hand fell against his. If she touched him in pass
ing, his heart leaped and shrank. Ncr-ncr-no. She never knew
what he had given her all these years. Let him keep his gift to
himself. Let him study now in the remaining years to give only
what she wanted of him, his money, his presence at her table, and
his companionship at the country club, at dinner, at the theater.
He would give her no more than she wanted. He could even pity
1 49
her. Poor Mildred, all these years embarrassed and wearied by his
ardors and passions and adorations!
Then she began to be often angry with him. He could never
please her. At first he could not imagine why she was changed.
After what she had said he felt he was even more distasteful to
her than he had imagined, and h e suffered when he was near her.
He felt himself huge and burly and unkempt. He grew as nervous
as an awkward boy about her. His old easy flow of talk was stopped
in her presence and he hung about her in a misery until he saw
her eyes cold upon him, and then he went away crushed.
Then the idea of the book had come to save him and he had
plunged into fresh research and plans. He was ruthless to himself.
He wearied himself working until midnight every night except the
nights when she wanted him to appear before people with her.
He was ruthless to himself and to Marion. He let Marion stay
night after night and take down his notes. With his eye against the
microscope he dictated to her the changes he saw taking place in
the little cells. The notes were wonderful. Pages of them he was
using in his book today, almost as they stood.
Then one night, when he came home late and exhausted, Mildred
was sitting waiting for him in the library. He saw the light burn
ing there unaccustomedly, and he supposed it had been forgotten
and he went in to turn it out. There she sat, a book in her hand.
But she was not reading. She was only sitting with the book in
her hand, waiting. Her pale, smooth face was strangely flushed.
He was surprised and, for a second, anxious, until he perceived that
she was angry, and apparently with him.
* * *

"Where have you been? " she asked him coldly, sharply.
"Why, in the laboratory," he answered simply.
"What have you been doing ? " she asked again.
"Why, working," he answered, wondering.
"I suppose," she said, "that you will tell me you have been work
ing alone all these nights until midnight."
I 50
 "I have," he replied, fool that he was. "There hasn't been any
body there except Marion."
"Except Marion!" she mocked him, and then staring at her, he
saw what she meant. He sat down, suddenly faint and sick. Good
God, so she thought that of him-and all these years of his faithful,
adoring love meant nothing to her at all ! He might as well have
been a scoundrel and a rake instead of what he was. She believed
it all of him anyway. He looked at her helplessly, aghast.
"Mildred! " he whispered.
"Well, I won't stand it," she cried bitterly. "Other women may
stand that sort of thing, but I won't. You've taken my youth and
I've given my whole life to you. I've given you children and I've
sacrificed everything and this is what I get for it! As soon as I
say I can't go through with things exactly the same any more
at my time of life you go playing fast and loose. You've always
been oversexed. Even your work is about sex; you pore over those
-those experiments with her -- "
But he could not bear it. "Stop-stop!" he cried. "You can't say
these things. Mildred, what is the matter with us, darling ? Think
what you're saying. I'm your h usband, sweet-your lover."
He began to weep suddenly, broken utterly down.
He was ashamed of that weeping whenever he thought of it
afterwards, but perhaps it was the best thing. She had been shocked
enough to be a little sorry then and. when he threw himself upon
his knees and buried his face in her lap, she was silent and after a
while she stroked his hair a little, half unwillingly, and listened to
him stammering it all out to her.
"I've never, never thought of anyone but you-she's nothing to
me but my assistant-a band-a brain-you're my wife-you're my
love-I'm not that sort of a man--"
But before she could answer, before he could stop weeping and
stammering, there were footsteps in the hall and Bob and Mollie
came in from a party and with them some of their friends. The
hall was full of noise and gay voices.
"Get up, the children are coming," Mildred cried hastily in a
whisper, pushing him away, and he scrambled to his feet from
151
habit. He had long since learned that she could not bear any caress
or sign of intimacy before the children. It was as though there was
something secret and degrading about love-something that might
harm the children if they knew their parents loved each other.
When they came bursting noisily into the library he was seated
in the chair opposite her, pulling on his pipe. They might have been
any old married couple waiting for their children to come home
from a party.

There was no more to be said. When the children were gone,

there was nothing to be said. She straightened the books on the table
and kissed him coolly on the forehead, and he said, "Good night,
dear," and that was all. But she was kinder to him afterwards and
they jogged along somehow. For a few days he was uncomfortable
at the laboratory with Marion and he was a little gruff with her.
But these days, too, passed and he forgot, or almost he forgot, that
night in the library.
Still, they never quite forgot, neither he nor Mildred. He forced
himself always to mention Marion casually, but scrupulously, if he
had to work beyond his usual hours. She came and went in the
house as an occasional guest. Mildred was calmly courteous to her,
and she never mentioned again what once she had thought. But
he never quite lost the secret sense that it was all in her mind still
and that if-impossible thing-but if ever there was a wisp of
gossip about Marion and him, she, his wife, would be the first to
believe it.
Yet he continued doggedly faithful, for it was his nature so to
be. He continued to adore Mildred, because she was honestly his
love. And for his reward, sometimes she tolerated him. Once in a
long while when he kissed her he felt a pallid warmth in her lips,
or she patted him upon his shoulder. It was her invitation, her
response. Sometimes he accepted it, but very often he could not.
Very often it only made tears come to his eyes, and his heart went
hollow in him, but he did not know why. He scolded himself,
saying that as he grew older he was as edgy as a woman.
152
 A!ld he continued to be very scrupulous with her. When he was
compelled to delay by work, or if an old college mate came to
town unexpectedly and arrived at the university, he always called
her up and told her exactly where he was and with whom, and
always he asked her if she would join them. He never had friends
among other women anyway, and so he had no secrets from her,
not one. As time passed he comforted himself with this knowledge
that he had nothing to hide from her, and he grew quieter and
some of the hurt in him went away. He learned to accept her as
she was and he grew very gentle indeed with her. He never pressed
himself or his wishes upon her at all, and he was rewarded at last
by her slight, pleasant smiles and by her approval.
Now he looked at her with boyish and unclouded eyes and he
thought her still the prettiest girl he had ever seen. He was, he
thought this morning, a lucky man to have so pretty a wife, and
she was loyal and good. After all, women were delicate creatures.
One could only take what they gave and be gentle with them and
tender. He had finished his breakfast by now, and he rose and
wiped his lips carefully dry and bent to kiss her cheek.
"Good-by, my darling," he said. "I will be back in time for lunch
and I'll manage to be home early tonight."
."Good-by, dear," she answered tranquilly, and turned her cheek
slightly to meet his kiss.
* * *

It was the Indian letter that changed everything. When he reached

his office he sat down and read it over again from beginning to end.
It was burning with enthusiasm and pleading, and it ended with
a fervor which somehow thrilled him.
"Come-come to us," Mr. Dhas had written to his old professor.
"I need you. I need your help now. I want my students to have
your help as you gave it to me. You are much wanted here, dear,
dear sir. And I have much, much new material for your most valu
able book. I wish to give it into your own hands with my two
hands."
He laid the letter down and smiled and looked out over the quiet
1 53
 square. It was warming to be wanted as badly as this-to be needed
-to have someone cry out for what he could give. There was the
new material, of course, and that was invaluable. But it could, after
all, be sent by n:tail. But they needed him over there. Mr. Dhas was
very young to be a full professor, and he was struggling with re
search too hard for him. He remembered Mr. Dhas clearly, a slim,
wiry young Hindu, whose enormous black eyes burned in his dark
face with continual devotion and enthusiasm. He had followed his
professors about until they complained of his presence. But he him
self had somehow been touched by the boy, so foreign in the British
university. He had taken time with him, a great deal of time, and
had been rewarded by finding a really good mind behind the fa
natic eyes. The young Hindu had never forgotten the kindness. He
sent constant and absurd gifts and now, after five years, his letters
were as long and as frequent as ever. It had been a great embarrass
ment that he could not even invite him to the house. But Mildred
would not have it. She had some prejudice against the foreign stu
dents-some idea about Mollie-
"No, Kenneth,' ' she had answered firmly to his suggestions.
"Don't ask me to do it. I can see farther into this than you can.
Mollie is growing up now, and I will not have these foreign stu
dents hanging about the house. If something should happen, and
you never can tell where a young girl's romantic ideas will go
she takes after you--"
"It's absurd," he had protested.
She pressed her lips together and looked at him solemnly. "Look
at poor Mrs. Houston and her Barbara married to a Chinese!"
He was silenced. There had once been Barbara Houston. So he
said no more, and he made it up to Mr. Dhas by sitting late with
him after class and discussing his experiments, and in recommend
ing books to him and in carefully answering all his letters as he
would this one also, and Mr. Dhas did not seem to notice he was
not invited to Dr. Barclay's home.
* * *

He looked the letter over once more and smiled. Then he had one
I 54
of his impulses. He would answer it now while it was fresh to him.
He would, of course, explain that he could not, unfortunately, come
to India just now on account of the approaching marriage of his
daughter, but he would not entirely refuse. He pressed the button
on his desk and Marion Crowne came in, very quiet and fresh in
her dark blue spring suit.
"Good morning, Marion," he said, smiling at her. "I have such
a good letter from Dhas here that I think I'll answer it now while
I want to-"
So he dictated his reasons carefully for not coming to India, and
Marion wrote them down swiftly and clearly. He watched her thin
capable hand moving over the paper to the end of a sentence and
then prepared to go on. "As to the material--"
But before he could go on, she looked up at him and laid down
her pencil and pad upon his desk.
"Dr. Barclay," she said, "why don't you go to India ? "
H e was very much surprised, and h e replied gently, "I've j ust been
saying why."
"It isn't reason enough," she said i n that deep, clear voice of hers.
"Your daughter's marriage-it will be over soon-or it could be
postponed-or you could even miss it. You've never once done what
you wanted to do-never once. You've just lived on the edge of
things all the time. This is a great chance-great for you and for
your work."
"It isn't convenient just now," he stammered. It was very hard
to meet her straight eyes.
"Mrs. Barclay doesn't want you to go, I know," she said bluntly.
Then she rushed on : "Do you realize how many times you've given
up your own wishes because of her ? You always give up--"
He flushed and interrupted her. "I can't listen to this," he said.
"I think you misjudge her. You ought not to-to say such things."
Marion Crowne shut her lips firmly and took up her pad again.
"All right," she said. "Let me put it another way. I think you owe
it to your work to go to India. It's perfectly true that you ought to
put in a chapter on the Indian material you have. But as a scientist,
surely you ought to go there and confirm the material-at least see
155
if the sources are sound. You will be bitterly criticized if you sim
ply accept what Mr. Dhas has sent. What are you going to answer
to your critics ?"
He looked at her helplessly. She was quite right. He had thought
of this himself and he could not answer her. For the first time in
all these years he really saw her face. It was a handsome face, honest
and open and clear. Her eyes were brown and wide open and her
dark hair was now a little gray. She had been his assistant for fifteen
years. She met his eyes squarely and began to speak very swiftly.
"Oh, go-go-go," she urged him. "You've never had anything
you've never been anywhere-not really. You're a great man-you're
big-you might have been anything if you hadn't--" She swal
lowed and hurried on. "You're fifty years old and you'll never, never
have anything if you don't take it. Listen to me : do you want to
go ?"
He stared at her and felt his breath tighten in his chest. "Yes,"
he said.
She rose. "I'm going to buy your ticket," she said firmly. Then
she looked at him. "Will Mrs. Barclay go with you ?"
He shook his head. "She doesn't like India."
She wavered and her voice changed. She was troubled. "I oughtn't
to let you go alone," she said. "I can't let you go alone. I'll go with
you. I can manage it."
"I don't know -- " he began, hesitating.
But she put on her hat. "I am going," she said firmly, and flashed
him a warm, instant smile and was gone.

But, of course, it could not be done so easily. A man married and

with children cannot buy a ticket and leave for India like that. Later
in the morning he knew it very well himself. He went into Marion
Crowne's office and said to her, "Look here, don't settle the tickets
for us until I've talked it over with Mrs. Barclay."
She opened her mouth and shut it again, and then began to tap
loudly on her typewriter. "All right," she called through the din,
and would not look at him, and so he went away.
1 56
 All through the morning he spent a great deal of time thinking
not about whether he would go to India, but how he would tell
Mildred that he must go. For now the ardent letter had become a
summons to him. He wanted to go and he must go.
He dallied outrageously over his work and he sat and stared out
into the sunshine and felt the mild intoxicating spring winds and
he knew he must go. It was perfectly true he had just let his life
slip through his fingers, day by day. Every day had been full of
small necessary duties. Only i n his work had he found largeness
and only in the ceaseless activity of his mind had there been adven
ture. He had always lived there alone, since Mildred found his sub
ject distasteful. He had never forgotten what she had said : "Even
your work--"
In the end he took Marion's argument and carried it to Mildred.
Across the luncheon table he looked at her tentatively. She had
changed into a tan suit with a froth of lace at the bosom.
"Going out for bridge ? '' he asked. He wa ashamed to realize
that he felt he wanted to create a happy atmosphere before he said
anything about India. He was a coward about wanting her to be
pleasant with him.
"Yes," she said crisply. "Mollie and I are shopping for an hour
first-! really must get to work on her trousseau. By the way, I'll
want more money. And then I am going to Grace Baxter's for the
bridge club."
"I'll give you a signed check," he answered eagerly. "You can
make it out for whatever you want."
Now he saw her blue eyes were so calm that he was emboldened
and he began about India, eating industriously while he talked, and
keeping his eyes on his plate . . "And so," he finished, "I really
.

think I ought to go."

"But I can't possibly go," she said flatly. "I said so this morning."
"No, dear, I can't expect it," he said gently, putting down his
fork and looking at her. "Not with the wedding in August. But
I've been counting up, and I could be back in time, I think-or if
you think better, I could wait until afterwards-it wouldn't make
so much difference." He turned his head and looked through the
1 57
open window out over the lawn and suddenly he knew it would
make a difference. He wanted to go now, now in the springtime.
He didn't care how hot it was in India-he wanted to get away.
"You can't go by yourself," she said decidedly. "I should be
miserable."

But in the end they compromised on his going by himself. For

when he mentioned Marion Crowne, all the old suspicious hostility
flared into her eyes again and his head drooped before her. He
could not meet it. He could not bear it. He had been fool enough
to think through these years that it was so quiet it had gone. But it
was not gone-it leaped into life again, bitter and strong and cold.
"What would people say ?" she demanded.
"They would say she is my assistant," he retorted, stung for the
moment.
"Well, I won't have it," she replied.
But in the end it all happened so quickly that before he knew it
he was going to India. He was packed up and fitted out with a sun
helmet and white clothes and his notes were in a new brief case
and his ticket was in his pocket. It was the ticket in his pocket
which had done it. For when he went back to his laboratory that
day Marion Crowne had already bought his ticket. He opened his
mouth to tell her that his wife-and she stopped him, waving the
envelope before him. "It isn't any use-it's too late," she said. "I've
bought your ticket." She looked at him and hurried on. "No, not
mine-only yours. I know what Mrs. Barclay said. She said, 'I won't
have it.' "
"How did you know ?" he asked guiltily. But she only laughed
and tucked the envelope into his pocket. "Keep it next to your heart
and be brave," she answered.
So he had kept it there and been brave. It seemed impossible that
he could go in a week, and yet in a week he was on the ship's deck
and they were all at the dock to see him off. Mildred and Bob and
Mollie were together, and a little way off clearly apart from them
stood Marion Crowne in her dark blue suit.
1 58
 "I'll wait until you come back if you hurry!" called Mollie.
"I'll hurry!" he called back gaily.
Then the steamer whistled and he looked down and saw a dark
strip of water creeping between him and them. He looked at them.
He ought, he supposed, to feel sorry ; to feel strange and alone. But
he did not. He felt happy and free. He loved his family, but he felt
happy and free. Of course, he would be glad to get back to them
in three months-at most, four-but now it was glorious to be going
off like this-

He leaned over impetuously and shouted to Marion Crowne :

"Thank you, Marion-thank you for everything!" After all, if it
had not been for her--
"Don't worry about the book," she called oack. "I'll go on with
the notes."
No, he thought comfortably as the ship drifted away, he need
not worry. She knew everything about his work. Why, she could
write the book herself as well as he could! He turned to Mildred
and threw her kisses and pulled out his handkerchief and waved to
her as long as he could see her among the crowd. She was very pretty
and composed, but, of course, she felt it. He couldn't be sure exactly
how much she felt it, because although she was trying to be pleas
ant about it, she had not forgiven him. When he kissed her good
by, her small figure was stiff against him. "Good-by, Kenneth,"
she said. Oh, well, he understood her.
He went contentedly to his cabin. He'd j ust work a while on
that Indian chapter he'd thought of putting into his book. There
were days and days ahead, all beautiful and empty-no dinners, no
bridge, no evenings when he knew he ought to be amusing to her
and couldn't be because of the ideas about his work thronging into
his head. Now let them come. He was adventuring at last, alone
and on holiday, and on his way to India.
On the dock Mildred turned politely to Marion Crowne. "I'm
sure we appreciate so much all your help to my husband."
159
 "Not at all," said Marion Crowne crisply. "It is part of my work
and I am paid for it."
Mildred disliked her very much. She disliked her voice and the
rather loud way she said things. What she said now was little
short of rudeness. But she herself was never rude. She said, still
politely : "May I drive you back to the university grounds ? It will
not be very much out of my way."
"It would be out of your way," said Marion Crowne. "I want to
send a cable to tell Mr. Dhas to meet him in Bombay."
"In that case, then--" murmured Mildred.
So she had gone home with the children, and Bob and his wife,
Gay, had come over for dinner, and they sat a while with her so
she would not be lonely. She was graceful and a little sad about it,
and she said gently that she hoped Dad would not mind the cli
mate. They all cheered her up at that, and Bob said heartily :
"Dad's as strong as a horse. He'll have the time of his life."
"Of course, he'll miss Mother," said Gay, looking at him re
proachfully.
"Of course he will," said Bob, hastily. "But I mean he's always
been so keen on his book and all that-gosh, I've heard about noth
ing but that book since I was a kid. When's it really coming out,
Mother ?"
"I don't know," she answered. Would they have the coffee at the
table or in the living room ? It was always a question to be decided
when there were guests.
"What's it to be about ?" asked Mollie, curiously. She blew her
cigarette smoke into the air and glanced at the clock. Jim would
be here soon.
"I'm afraid I don't know that, either," Mildred answered. Per
haps in the living room tonight? "Coffee in the other room, Liz
zie," she said to the maid. Then she continued the conversation as
they rose. "Something about his research, of course. I think I've
heard him say it would be a very long book. It has been a long
time, certainly."
But in tbe end it hadn't been so hard. She would, of course, have
missed him more except that Mollie and Jim had decided suddenly
160
that they would not wait. She could not blame them, for Kenneth
didn't say when he was coming home. He wrote long excited let
ters about all he was doing, although he hadn't really seen any
thing, apparently. He had gone straight to Mr. Dhas' school and
plunged into work. His excitement was all about his work, and it
made his letters rather boring. And he said nothing at all about
coming ho:ne.

So they went on with the wedding and at the reception she

smiled pleasantly and appreciatively when people said, "It's brave
of you to have all this without your husband, Mrs. Barclay. You
must miss him."
"Of course I do," she replied gently. "But it seemed scarcely fair
to the children to ask them to wait for him, and I didn't want to
interfere with his work, either."
But the truth was she did not really miss him. Even after Mollie
and Jim were gone she did not miss him. She did not miss him
until that morning, when the cable came from Mr. Dhas-a long,
incoherent, half-mad cable. She had noticed tha Kenneth's letters
of late complained somewhat of the extreme heat. If she hadn't
been so very busy with the wedding she might have worried. But
there had been so much to think of. And she was scarcely rested
from everything when the cable came. It came to Miss Crowne
and Miss Crowne brought it over.
As soon as she saw Miss Crowne she knew something was
wrong.
"What is it?" she asked. But strangely enough she thought only
of Mollie and Jim on their wedding trip. She did not think of Ken
neth. He was so healthy and so big and always so strong-so
much stronger than she had ever been in all her fragility.
"Be brave," said Miss Crowne abruptly. Her face was very set.
Then she read the cablegram.
-
"Would that I might have died in his place-he gave himself
utterly-we said don't work the day and the night all the time
he was too zealous-a devoted soul-he was always kind to us. We
161
don't forget his kindness-we'll never forget him-not so long as
we live. We had the best doctor, but he died of cholera at midnight
and we will bury with full honors."
She had looked unbelievingly at Miss Crowne, and she saw Miss
Crowne's ruddy face go white as the wall behind her. Her very
ips were white. Suddenly she said a strange thing, in a strange
pleading voice.
"I bought his ticket. I put it in his pocket. But he thanked me
at the last. I would do the same thing over again. He thanked me
for it."
"I don't know what you mean," she answered, bewildered, star
ing at Miss Crowne.
"It doesn't matter," said Miss Crowne after a second. "It only
matters that he is dead. Forget that you hate me. Come here and
weep on my shoulder. You must weep."
She let Miss Crowne sweep her against her shoulder then, but
they were both uncomfortable. She could not weep so suddenly and
Miss Crowne went away abruptly.

But after that they all said she must weep. Everybody said she
was wonderful the way she bore up, but they said the break must
come, and she ought to weep for her own sake. She wanted to
weep. She lay awake in the night, a dry ache in her narrow bosom,
wanting to weep. Kenneth, her husband, was dead. It was all such
a waste. He need never have gone off to India. It hadn't been nec
essary-not really. She was going to miss him all her life now. She
thought about it, aching, her eyelids stinging. A few tears did
gather slowly beneath her lids. But in the morning she rose quiet
and sad again and she heard them say, her children who stayed
with her, the neighbors who came in to see her and be kind to
her, "Don't-don't let your heart break like this. Cry, dear, and
ease yourself."
She smiled at them wanly and silently and they petted her and
murmured over her. She was not really lonely yet. She couldn't
realize he was not coming back.
162
 Then one day his bags came in, and his brief case, and he was
not there. It stopped her heart when the expressman brought them
in the front door. "These yours, ma'am ? " he shouted cheerfully,
and she looked down at Kenneth's bags come home from India
without him.
"Yes," she said slowly. "Yes, they're mine."
She signed the paper he held out to her and tipped him, and then
stood and stared at the bags. Oh, she might have wept, for now
she knew he was never coming back to her, never, never. But she
did not weep. Luckily she was quite alone. She dragged the bags
into the living room and opened them, her heart aching and
aching.
Then she saw a bulky package of manuscript. It was addressed
to Marion Crowne, and there was an unsealed note on the top. She
could read it. It was not sealed. It was there to be read. After all,
he belonged to her. She opened the note. There, in his handwriting,
he said gaily, "Dear Marion, thanks to you, here's the Indian
chapter, finished. I hope it's as great stuff as I think it is-darn it,
as I'm sure it is!"
That wa' all. She opened the manuscript. She had never seen
any of the book before. Once or twice she had tried to read an
article of his in some scientific magazine that he brought home,
but his articles were difficult to read-dry and the subject dull. She
remembered that she thought one or two of them not quite nice,
and she put them away so the children wouldn't see them. Lucky
-lucky she was alone now! For none of the articles had been any
thing compared to this chapter. She could not believe what she saw
written there on the pages she turned. But it was all there, in his
handwriting-in his own clear small handwriting.

Her eyes ran over the pages. She felt faint and sick. Oh, the
horrible, horrible things he told! She dropped the pages, as though
they were filth. They were filth. Oh, what had he been, this man
to whom she was married for twenty-five years ? He used to be
she supposed men were all so-but these last years he had seemed
r63
changed. He had been so gentle and sweet with her. She had
thought he was over all that so nicely. His book could never, never,
never be published. It would be a disgrace to his memory. They
would all be disgraced by it. How could she face her friends ? What
would they think of the man she had lived with all these years,
whose children she had borne; what would they think of her ? She
would burn it all up-the note to Marion Crowne and all. Marion
Crowne should never know. She ran with the manuscript in her
arms to the fireplace and stuffed the pages into it and she lit a
match and stood and waited for the roar of the flames. Then she
fetched the dustpan and swept up the ashes and threw them into
the garbage pail and made everything neat again.
Five days afterward, Marion Crowne came in. She was lying
down just a little while before dinner because the children were
coming to dine with her and she wanted to be quite fresh, when
Lizzie came up and said Miss Crowne was downstairs and wanted
to see her on important business. So she dressed and went down
stairs, and there was Marion Crowne standing in the middle of the
room, very composed and determined, in the same blue suit.
"I'm sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Barclay," she said immediately,
when they had sat down, "but there was a letter from Dr. Barclay
saying he was sending a manuscript to me. I am working on the
last pages of his book, and I am waiting for that chapter. Has any
thing come-his things ? "
"His bags came last week, Miss Crowne," she answered steadily.
"There was no manuscript in them-only his clothes."
Miss Crowne looked at her hard, but she was not frightened. She
was sure she had done what was right. She had done it all for him
-to save him from shame. No one should ever know India had
had changed him, perhaps. Even she must try to forget and re
member him as he truly was, sweet and gentle to her, and good
to the children. She sat quietly until Miss Crowne sighed and
looked away.
"I didn't really think it would be there," she said. "He sent it
through the mails direct to me, I am sure. If it is lost, it will be a
tragedy. The book is one of the greatest ever written on sexology."
164
 She did not answer, and at last Miss Crowne rose. "I'm fearfully
worried," she said, musing and hesitating at the door. "If it's lost,
it can't be replaced. He was always a little careless about his stuff.
He was accustomed to my being there to keep it for him."
"You were very useful to him, I am sure," she answered cour
teously, and Miss Crowne went away.

It had been very pleasant and comforting having the children

there that evening, but in the days afterwards she was, she noticed,
a little lonely. It began to seem really true that Kenneth was never
coming back, although, of course, she had known it before. But
she knew it now because almost every day she was invaded at one
time or another with the same sense of emptiness, of nothing to
do, of no one to talk to her. Of course she had to adjust herself,
and everybody said she adjusted wonderfully. People began to be
have more normally to her, and to come in only occasionally in
stead of every day, and they stopped sending her flowers and notes,
and Bob and Gay were busy in their own home with all their own
friends. They were lovely to her, of course, but still they could not
come in every day.
There were many days to be passed quite alone, except for Lizzie,
unless she took a little walk and met someone, or went to call on
someone. But none of it seemed very worth doing. She could, of
course, look for some sort of occupation, but it was not necessary.
Kenneth had always been so careful about his life insurance for
her. He had written some articles or managed somehow even
when the children were little to keep up his payments so she
would be safe if he died. So she was quite well off now. And the
authorities had said she was to live on in the house j ust as though
Kenneth were alive. She had felt proud and important when they
said, "Your husband died before his work was finished. But he
was a great man." Many people said to her that he was a great
man. But still they could not always be telling her.
And so it came about that at last she really did not know what
to do with herself. One evening in October she sat in her chair
x6s
where she always sat, and suddenly she missed Kenneth a great
deal. She looked about the quiet room. She heard Lizzie clump
upstairs to the attic, and then the house became very still, still and
empty. Kenneth had always read to her in the evenings, or told
her something pleasant that had happened, some pleasant little in
cident of the day. Now there was no one. And, of course, she must
not interfere with the children's lives. She always felt it was so
wrong to interfere with people's lives. She must just go on bravely,
alone.
But the house was dreadfully still. She did not feel like reading.
She was not sleepy. She was low, very low. She must find some
interest in life. After they had finished saying to her how brave she
was they said, "Now, dear Mrs. Barclay, you must find an interest
in life."
"I suppose they are right," she thought to herself, wistfully. She
looked about the room helplessly for a while and listened to the
silence, and then something came to her. It was a real idea. She
spoke aloud, unexpectedly, as though Kenneth were there. "Why,"
she said, with sudden pleasure, "I could buy a little dog!"

166
 ARJORIE
M
BAm came out of the doctor's office, into the wait
ing room. The same three people she had left there looked
up at her quickly. They had been waiting for her to
come out so that they could take their turn. All the time the
doctor was making his examination she had thought of them now
and again-they would be so tired waiting. She had waited so long
herself. Nearly all her holiday afternoon had gone into waiting
precious day, when she might have been with Philip. Philip had
wanted her to go down the river with him to their little island. It
was barely spring, but all winter there had been fine days when
they had gone.
But this was the finest day of all. Philip could not understand
why she could not go. And she had not made up her mind
whether or not she would tell him. So she had pretended to tease
him, and she said, "I don't have to tell you everything, do I ? " And
he had grown serious and said, "Yes, you do . . . we have to tell
each other everything . . . it's the only surety in love. If we don't
tell each other everything it means we are secretly living apart."
But she had shaken her head until she saw that he was really
hurt. He was easily hurt, Philip was. He had not her free quick
humor. She had to stop teasing him. "It's a secret just for a few
days," she said.
His face lightened. In a few days he woufd be twenty-six. His
birthday fell on a Sunday and they had planned for weeks that
they would go to the island and spend the whole day repairing the
little shack they had built, made mostly of driftwood from the
flood tides. "I'd rather have you with me than any birthday pres-
r67
ent you could give me," he said. He had his arm around her shoul
der, his tense young arm. So she had let him think she was spending
the afternoon buying him a present . . .

"Aie you through, dearie ? " the tired woman in the waiting
room said. "My, I wish it was my turn !" She spoke loudly enough
for the two men to hear, but they would not hear. The young
man with the sallow face looked up from the labor magazine he
was reading, and shut it and rose and went into the office.
"Young men ain't as polite as they was," the woman complained.
She looked at Marjorie piteously. "Is the doctor nice ?" she whis
pered. ''I'm awful afraid ! "
Marjorie was picking u p her papers. Waiting so long, she had
been able, almost, to finish correcting her arithmetic papers. She
could go to bed early tonight. She would tell Philip when he
called that she had a headache. She'd been having headaches lately-,
it was true enough. "Marjorie, you look all pulled down," her
mother kept saying.
"It's only spring," she had answered listlessly.
. . . "He's nice enough," she said to the woman. "You needn't be
afraid."
The doctor had been nice enough, a new doctor who did not
know her, for of course she could not go to old Dr. MacGrath, who
had always known her. He had been quick and brusque-she was
glad for his cold clean eyes that had never seen her before. "Un
mistakable," he had said. "Too late-three months along, I should
say. . . . Next, please," he had said to the nurse, stripping off his
rubber gloves.
"I'm afraid I'll die!" The woman's dead gray eyes suddenly
shone with living tears. She swallowed hard and blew her nose.
"Not that I have anything to live for," she went on, her voice
broken. "I haven't anybody-not chick nor child-1 always said if
I'd only had a child! "
"Yes," said Marjorie quietly, "it would make a difference." She
was drawing on her gloves. She wanted to get out of this sad room,
where the woman sat waiting to be told she had cancer in her
breast, where the coughing, haggard, middle-aged man sat wait-
I68
ing to be told he had no lungs. His chest was gone, his face the
color of green clay. But he had not said a word. He had only sat
coughing that incessant, minute, dry cough. There was not even
any honest phlegm in him any more-nothing to make a real
cough. But he said nothing.
"Maybe the doctor will say it's only a cyst or something," she
said. She must get out into the sunshine. Outside, there was sun
shine. She had said brightly to the doctor, "I think I have a cyst
or something, Dr. Venabel."
But she knew all the time it was not that.
The woman shook her head. "I know I have my death in me,"
she said heavily. "I don't know why I care . "

"I hope not," Marjorie said and smiled and went away quickly.
Death ! There were things in life so much worse than death. The
words came like an echo. Where had she heard them ? She thought
a moment and remembered. Her mother had said them to a neigh
bor. They were sitting by the fire that day in Christmas vacation, that
bright and wonderful day when she and Philip had . . . had . . . been
to the island. She had come into the house at sunset, warm, excited,
and tranquil together. The sky, when she shut the door, had been
pellucid with the clear cold twilight-not a cloud-and there, be
hind the flat Wisconsin horizon, there was a long orange bar of
sunset.
" . . . No regrets ? " Philip had asked, staring down at her before
he opened the door for her. His young, too-sensitive face was
tense with waiting for her reply.
"Glad . . . glad!" she had said, her face brightly upturned. He
had bent to kiss her quickly.
"Wife!" he whispered.
"Husband !" her lips had framed.
"We are husband and wife," he had said, binding the words
together. She nodded, and slipped into the door. Out of the sitting
room, her mother's voice came flatly, "But I always say, Mrs.
Smith, there's even worse things than death."
But she had not stayed to find out what was worse than death.
She went straight up to her little room, and shut the door between
r69
 into her mother's room. Ever since her father died last year they
had kept the door open so her mother would not be lonely. Her
mother was so easily lonely. She was lonely when Marjorie went
out in the evenings with Philip. She was lonely all day while
Marjorie was teaching the fifth grade and Philip was teaching
English and history in the high school. They were lucky to have
everything in one building so they could see each other at assembly,
or passing in the halls. Groton was such a little town. "I've been
awful lonely today, Marjorie," her mother would say every eve
ning. "Hasn't anybody run in ?" she would ask, pausing. Outside,
Philip was waiting. "Let's walk a little together before supper,"
he had said as they passed each other in the confusion of the chil
dren in the hall.
For of course they could not be seen together-not in a little
town like Groton. Besides, if there had been talk of her being
engaged to Philip she would have lost her job. That was what the
depression did for girls-kept them from marrying and having
their babies properly. Philip's little salary couldn't pay for her
mother, too-especially since he had to send some of it home every
month to his father now that he was out of work. They had counted
it all over so many times-suppose he came and lived in their
house with her mother suppose they even sold the house.
. .

But no one was buying houses, and anyway her mother would
never have been willing to sell the house. It was one of twenty
exactly like it in a row, but it remained the house her father had
paid for at last. "Of course my husband left me a home," her
mother always said plaintively to callers, when she was telling
about the way he died-so suddenly, a stroke, in the middle of the
afternoon, in the shipping office at the -chain factory. He'd been
worrying a lot because his salary was cut. "I've left the house to
you anyway . . . no mortgage," he had gasped in a flicker of con
sciousness. He had been about to try for a mortgage on it because
he did not want Marjorie to stop State College, but he died first,
and so left it free. It was the result of all his years of life. So Mar
jorie left college and because they had always known her in Groton
for a nice girl-" . and a pretty girl," Mr. Forman said, who
.

1 70
was the head of the board of trustees-she got the teaching of the
fifth grade. And Philip, because he had a Ph.D., was given the job
in the high school that she had really wanted-only she could
never stop being glad she had not got it, not even though the salary
was quite a lot more. "Quite a little more, you mean," Philip al
ways said, smiling wryly. But they agreed it was as though some
one above had planned them to meet, to fall in love, to marry-it
was all predestined, except that they couldn't find a way to marry,
and the depression kept going on after everybody said it was over.
In her little room she stared at herself in the mirror. She was
different now, not the same Marjorie. She had, of course, known that
these things happened to girls, but to careless girls who were too free
with men. And she had always been particular about herself. But
she had never been in love before. No one had ever really kissed
her, even, except Philip.

At first, a kiss had seemed so much-enough, surely, when it

was so much. "I don't ask anything of you," Philip had said,
brokenly. "I can't . . . I haven't anything . only let me love
.

you." They had kissed each other, then, a fumbling, breathless

first kiss that was a promise, a prelude rather than a fulfillment of
their need. But soon they had learned, and soon it was not enough.
When they spent their hours talking of how they could marry
each other, a kiss, however close, however deep, was not enough.
But there was no way that they could marry each other. . . .
The telephone rang and she heard her mother call, "Who did you
say ? . . . Oh, it's you, Philip . Her voice came wiry shrill up
."

the stairs, "Margie, Philip wants you!" She got up slowly and went
downstairs and took the receiver. "Yes, Philip ? "
His voice came surging over the wire, eager, rushing, warm.
"Marjorie, darling, I'm going to take a night off chuck the
. .

themes for once! Did you see the little new moon over the river?
I'm coming for you it's spring at last!"

"I can't, Phil!"

"What's the matter? "
17 1
 "I have a fearful headache. Besides, there's Mother."
"Headache ! Are you sure ? I haven't done something, have I,
sweetheart ? Your voice sounds funny . . . far away. You aren't
mad at me ?"
"Silly! When you've done nothing . . . nothing at all ?"
"I want to come down."
"No, no, darling. I'm going to bed right away."
. .

His voice came disconsolately. "This has been a heck of a holi-

day . not a sight of you all afternoon, and now tonight . . ."
.

"I know . . . I'm sorry."

"I love you, Marjorie."
"I love you, Philip, darling . tomorrow, under the clock at
.

a quarter to nine." There were so many people thronging the

hall that they could meet at a quarter to nine and smile and look
into each other's eyes safely. She heard him sigh.
"Well, if it must be, Margie."
The telephone clicked. So she had this evening before she needed
to tell him. She went toward the kitchen. Her mother would be
expecting her. She was sitting at the sink, peeling potatoes. She
began at once.
"Marjorie, where were you this afternoon ? Mrs. Rundle said she
saw you go upstairs and I thought you'd be down any minute. It
would've been nice if you'd come in and seen her a minute."
''I'm sorry, Mother. I guess I was tired." She sat down by the
table. A necessity to speak, to tell what had happened to her rose
in her like a gorge. She had to tell. If she told it, it would be almost
as good as getting rid of it. But before she could speak, her mother
looked at her shyly. A thick, coppery red rose in her cheeks and
flooded into the roots of her dry gray hair. She put down the
potato she was peeling and leaned over and took Marjorie's hand
awkwardly.
"Marjorie, it came over me this afternoon that I hadn't sounded
so appreciative as I might lately-since your father died. I was lis
tening to Mrs. Rundle talk-her son don't send her a penny. His
wife takes everything he can make. She has to do with that little
bit of life insurance Mr. Rundle left. She hasn't even a home like
we have. Papa did leave us this home, I always say. She has only
1 72
that one room to call home. I do . . . I want you should know . . .
I appreciate the way you are . your helping me and all."
.

She was miserably awkward standing with her mother's heavy

hand in hers. It felt wet and stiff. She wanted to hold it, but it
was a lifeless thing to hold. Her hand was used to Philip's, quick
and warm.
"That's all right," she said wretchedly, "I want to do what I
ought . . ."
But her mother clutched her. "I only want you should know
_
you're all I have to live for, Margie-there isn't anything else. It
isn't j ust the money, I mean . . . it's .it's not having anybody
.

but you. If anything was to happen to you " Her mother's voice
. .

rose in agitation that threatened weeping.

"Mother, don't!" She could not bear this intimacy between her
mother and herself. She hated it, feared it, writhed in it. "Noth
ing's going to happen to me. I'll always stand by you, Mother.
You know that . . . I promise you.''
Her mother seized a dish towel and dabbed at her eyes. "I know
it," she muttered. "It's just that it came over me this afternoon
when Mrs. Rundle was talking that I hadn't anybody but you."
She patted her mother's shoulder quickly. "But you have me,
Mother. You'll always have me." She picked up a potato and
opened the drawer for a knife. "I'll help you. There now for .

get about Mrs. Rundle, will you ? " She laughed brightly. "As if
you could compare a perfectly good daughter to that chinless
Henry Rundle! "
Her mother smiled mistily. "You going out with Philip tonight ? "
she asked.
"No," said Marjorie resolutely. "No, I'm going to stay home with
you."
"That'll be nice," her mother answered. There was the tone of a
solaced child in her voice. "I've been sort of lonely today."

But she would tell Philip, she said to herself that night in her
bed. She lay on her back, taut, thinking, the covers drawn up
under her chin. Through the open door came the sound of her
1 73
 mother's sleeping breathing, gently indrawn, softly expelled in
little regular bursts. They had played checkers all evening. "It's
real cozy, just us two," her mother had said. They had played three
games, and she let her mother win two. How foolish she was to
have dreamed of telling her mother ! She could not have borne to
tell her, she knew now.
"But you've always been such a nice girl, Margie . . . so . . .
so dependable and nice! I can't imagine what came . over you . . .

to . . . to let Philip . . ."

"I love Philip, Mother . . .
"

"Why didn't you marry him then, first ?"

"We can't afford to get married, Mother."
"Well, you could have waited. Lots of people have had to wait
and stay decent."
"You see, there's no end in sight to this waiting, Mother. It's dif
ferent. Millions of people are waiting, but the end doesn't come."
"But I don't see . . ." Far better that no such words were ever
spoken. Far better that she had played checkers and let her mother
win.
She lay in her bed alone . . . no, not alone never quite alone
.

again. But she would tell Philip. She ought to tell Philip.
The night wind blew gently, and slowly and solemnly the white
muslin curtains rose and fell. From the near countryside there came
the sound of early peepers. Their voices were small and mournful,
a tiny lonely piping in the dark. She felt suddenly very small her
self, and lonely . . . not lonely for anyone, not even for Philip, but
lonely in the immense and spreading night, among the huge stars,
among the sun and moon, in all the universe fulfilling each its
strange unknown destiny, completing its causeless law. Among
these, she also, in her little lonely way, was to fulfill her being.
Life . she was creating life, as she breathed and ate and slept.

Her body had been taken away from her, to be used as stars and
suns were used, ruthlessly, without reason. She was suddenly
breathless with panic in the dark.
She would tell Philip on Sunday, on his birthday. She would
tell him everything, the strange feeling that came to her in the
1 74
deep of the night, the feeling of something outside herself direct
ing the movement of her being. She would tell him that even
though she came and went in ordinary ways it was all different.
This difference she must share with Philip; it was too much to
bear alone. If she told him, she would be caught and held by his
reality so that she would not seem so lost among the stars and
turning suns. There would be his hand to hold.
For as long as he did not know, he did not seem real to her as he
had been. Even when he kissed her he was not real. Last night
when he had held her in their close way he had not seemed near
her at all. It was as though she were reading about them in a
book, seeing but not feeling him real, because now he did not
know her. She must bring him near again. To tell him, to say to
him, "What shall I do, Philip ?"-to hear him say, "What shall
we do, you mean, Marjorie," would be to make him real again.

For, of course, he would want to marry her at once. The thing

she had to decide was whether she would let him marry her when
he had said this. She could see him, his too thin face, his dark eyes.
"We'll be married at once, sweet-no more waiting! "
"But Philip . . your father . . . there's m y mother ."
"Nothing . . . no one . matters now . . . this is you and me
. . and the baby."

"Philip . Philip . . I knew that's what you would say." The

.

load upon her would roll away. For the first time, she would be
glad of the baby. The baby would do what they had not been able
to do for themselves, what no one could do for them. He would
compel them together. Yes, she would let Philip marry her. They
would finish together what they had begun. Philip was close again,
Philip was real.
"Silly me," she whispered, laughing into the dark. "Silly to be
so afraid ! Of course Philip will want to marry me !"

She opened the door on Sunday morning to Philip, waiting. She

shut the door quickly behind her. "Don't let's go in . let's go
straight on to the island."
1 75
 "Your mother bad this morning ?" he said, troubled. She nod
ded, and put her hand into his arm. There was no use in telling
how bad it had been. She had braced herself to secure this day
for her own . . . for their own.
"But it's Philip's birthday, Mother."
"I'm not saying anything against your being together, Margie,"
her mother said. She had burned the toast a little and she scraped
it gently. The dry rasp shivered down Marjorie's spine. Every
thing was hard to bear these days. But after she had told Philip
it would all be eased. She hurried to begin the day, setting the
table quickly, nervously. Mingled with the slow rasp, her mother's
voice went on. "I understand your wanting to be together on his
birthday. You forget I've been young once, myself . . . in love, too."
Her mother paused, embarrassed. Marjorie glanced at her swiftly.
It was not possible . . . it was revolting to think of her mother in
love. Her mother stood, stout, plaintive, at the sink. Her small
mouth drooped above her chin, and her hair was still in its night
net. Over her nightgown was her powder-blue cotton crepe Jap
anese negligee. "We relax a little, Sunday mornings, Margie and 1,"
she always explained if anyone came in. "I don't ask you not to
spend the day together," she was saying. Her voice was full of
weeping and tears stood in her soft, pale gray eyes. "But couldn't
you go for a little walk if you didn't want to go to church ? I don't
ask you to go to church-it's such a nice morning-but we could
have a nice Sunday dinner together and maybe do something to
gether afterwards. You're all I have, Margie, and when you shut
me out of even your happiness I'm so alone."
She had to harden herself, to remember Philip. "I'm sorry,
Mother," she said quietly. "I'm awfully sorry, but I've promised
Philip." Above her distressed and doubtful heart her face was un
moved, her blue eyes steady.
"You're so hard," her mother whispered. She put the toast on a
plate and dabbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "All young
people these days are so hard-1 don't ask . . "
"Come on, darling," she cried, pulling Philip along. She turned
and waved vivaciously, smiling, at a gray shape in the window.
1 76
"Come on . . . come on ! Don't let's think about anything for once
but ourselves. I want to be selfish and mean and demanding, and
forget everybody . . . especially all old people !"
But Philip was not gay, though he fell in with her urging. He
followed her swift feet to the river and they climbed into the little
old flat rowboat they kept there. Under the dark water the new
green tips of reeds were pushing up out of the old, decayed stems.
Down the river the willow twigs were yellow, and at the water's
edge a fringe of fresh grass shone startlingly green.
"It's spring," she said, relaxing in the gentle air. "I'd forgotten."
"It's a swell day," he said, picking up the oars.
But she saw at once that he was not gay. Not the day, not their
being alone together, nothing could make him gay. She tried to lift
his heart as he rowed up-river. She must have his heart high before
she could tell him. But all her small attempts, her smiles, her strug
gling cheerfulness, were useless. He had awakened sad. She knew
that mood in him of sadness. There were days when he went som
berly through the hours. She met his graven, remote look as they
passed each other in the halls. And at night, even though they
might be in each other's arms, he was closed to her, smoldering
alone. The end would come like the end of an illness. He would
wake suddenly, look at her, and shake himself free. "Gosh, I've
been in the dumps-now I'm out !" Or he would bury his face in
her breast and look up at her and take a deep breath. "Well, any
way, I have you, Margie . . . that's one thing that's eternally right
in this wrong world! "
She had been watching all morning for the moment to tell him
what was waiting to be told. The words lay upon her lips, but the
moment had not come. She gave up finally, after they had made
their lunch and eaten it quietly, almost in silence.
"Sorry you're low on your birthday, Phil," she said casually.
He started. "Am I low ? I hadn't meant you to know."
"As if you could hide anything from me! I thought we were
going to tell each other everything."
"Queer thing is I haven't anything to tell . . . just general low
ness. I'm twenty-six today and ahead of me I see no more than I
177
saw when I was twenty-five . . . twenty-four . . . as long as I can
remember. It'll be no different next year, either . . . the same thing,
year after year."
She did not answer. She began picking up the litter of their small
solemn picnic. She threw bits of paper on the dying fire, and
looked about for a sharp stick to dig a hole to bury what would not

burn.
"I'm a conscientious fool," she murmured. She felt tears hot in
her eyes. "Why don't I leave the stuff for somebody else ? I'll never
get over being a girl scout, I guess, Phil ! It's wrong, isn't it-their
teaching us to think about other people-kind deeds and all that ?
We ought to think of ourselves."
"I wish we could," he groaned. "But what good would it do ?
We haven't enough even for ourselves. You can't blame people
like my dad. He's tried hard enough. It's just the luck, that's all."
He had not helped her at all. He sat there, throwing bits of sticks
and stones into the river.
"Funny thing," he said abruptly, his back to her, "when I'm low
like this I don't feel even our loving each other is real. I'm not
really alone with you here, on this island." He paused and went
on quickly, his back to her, "Fact is, Marjorie, I've been worrying a
good deal about what we .we . . . what happened, you know. I've
.

felt we were going to be married but I've kidded myself, I guess.

I'm not the kind of fellow who could j ust take a girl and . . . let it
go at that."
"I know, Philip." Everything was cleared away now and neat,
but she busied herself, picking up twigs and putting them on the
fire, and he did not turn around to see what she was doing.
"I might as well face the fact," he said. "I can't marry. I'll never
be fixed well enough to marry. I daren't stop this job to hunt for
a better, not with Dad and Mother depending on me the way they
:
do . . . and your mother . and by the time they're all dead . . -
.

well, we might as well face it, and I know when I face it that we .
oughtn't to . . . to do what we've been doing. Something might
happen to you . something dreadful, and I'd feel it was my

fault."
 "It wouldn't be more your fault than mine, would it ?" she said
very quietly.
"Yes, it would," he said definitely. ''I'd never get over it. I'd feel
it was my fault. I'm older, a man, and I should have . . . have
protected you. I wouldn't forgive myself."
She put a twig upon the fire and watched it kindle and blaze and
flare red and fall to ash.
"All right, Philip," she said in the same quiet voice. "You're
right, maybe, feeling the way you do. I wouldn't want anything to
happen that you couldn't forgive yourself for." She laughed, a
strange small laugh. "For then I couldn't forgive myself, you see !"
So she did not tell Philip, after all. She came home, her burden
in her, secret, alive, intact, unshared.
She found her mother sitting by the window, staring into the
April twilight. She looked up when Marjorie came in.
"Well, you're here at last. I was getting worried. It's been a long
day."
"It has been a long day," Marjorie agreed. She put away her hat
and coat. "I'll play checkers, if you like, tonight, Mother."
"That'll be cozy," her mother said. She rose with sudden brisk
ness. "I'll get right to work and get supper out of the way."
She dropped into the chair, warm with her mother's long sitting,
and in her turn stared into the April twilight. When Philip had
stood beside her at the door she had clutched her courage in her
hands like a sword. "Does this mean we aren't engaged any more,
Philip ?"
He looked down at her, his heart in his smoldering eyes. "What
right have I to be engaged to anybody, Marjorie ? "
"Maybe you'll feel better i n a few days, Philip."
"Better ? I feel at last as though I'd come to grips with things
as they are."
"You aren't wanting to .to marry somebody else," she whis

pered.
"Gosh, no !" he cried. He squeezed her hand hard and turned
away and hurried down the street, his hands in his pockets. No,
she thought, remembering, she could see he didn't want to marry
1 79
anybody else. She pulled down the shade and shut out the misty
April twilight, the empty April night.

What, she thought practically, did people do next ? . . . Girls, that

is. Coming and going to her classes, smiling at Philip when they
met, sometimes walking with Philip, only they didn't go back to
the island . . . she kept thinking. Of course she mustn't wait, be
cause life was growing so fast . . . life didn't wait. It went on, mak
ing new shapes and forms, breathing a new breath. She had mo
ments when she felt as she used to when she was a little girl and
swallowed a cherry stone, and other little girls had cried at her,
"A cherry tree will grow out of you-it'll grow right out of you
if you swallow a seed ! " She saw herself fantastic with cherry blos
soms coming out of her ears and her hair, her eyes and mouth.
She saw herself possessed by the growing, blossoming cherry tree,
her life drawn up into its growing.
"I'll have to hurry," she told herself. She cast about not for a
friend but for a cold, safe stranger, casual and cold. She thought of
the doctor who did not know her, and she took a lunch hour to
go and see him, although it cost her an effort to miss lunch when
she was hungry all the time. He was alone in the office, putting
on his hat to go to his own lunch.
"I'll only take a minute," she said. "You don't know me
there's no reason why you should. But I'm the girl who came
about a month ago and you said it was too late for an abortion."
"I remember you . . . what do you want now ?"
She looked into his cold, his beautifully cold eyes. "I want you
to tell me what to do next. I've never been in this condition . . .
this situation . . . before."
"There isn't anything you can do-go on and have it," the doc
tor said sharply. "Where's the fellow ? Won't he stick by you ?"
"Oh, yes," she said. "There isn't much he can do . . . he can't
marry me."
"That's the way, is it?" The doctor frowned. "That's incon
venient."
180
 "Yes, it is, rather," she agreed in a small vo1ce. It sounded so
small that she cleared her throat. No pity !
"Especially with the three-months law we have in this state," he
said.
"What's that ?" she asked.
"Why, according to the law in this state you've got to nurse your
child at the breast for at least three months."
She stared at him unblinkingly. "Three months! " A law that
held a baby at the breast-they were fed every three hours or some
thing-and she with an ali-day job! How could anyone hide a baby
for three months ? "What did they make a law like that for ?" she
asked, blankly.
"What for ? " The doctor laughed with the noise of a steel rasp.
"They talk some sort of rot about infant mortality-as if germs
had never been discovered ! Why, it's for revenge, that's what for
it's morality, to make a woman suffer for her sins!"
"Suffer! " she echoed in a whisper. "Suffer!" She stood up,
breathless with suffering. "I guess my game's up," she said. Her
mouth was dry and she felt her lips quiver.
The doctor snatched off his hat and groaned. "Oh, Lord ! I
swear . . . I promised my wife I'd never do it again . . . but sit
down ! "
She sat down again, dazed. "What . . . you mean . . . operate ?"
"No," he said furiously. "I don't . . I wouldn't do that as a

doctor. I mean get you out of this damned state-take you across
the border-get myself in jail, likely !"
"But . . . but . . ." she stammered, "where could I go-what
could l do ? I haven't any money. I don't know anybody."
"That's not my business," he said crossly. "All I can do is to
put you in the car and drive you over the border some night-run
away slave stuff." She sat staring at him, seeing herself set down,
in some black midnight, on an unknown spot of ground. He went
on grudgingly. "But I'm not making any plans for you-it's against
the law. If you could go yourself . . . you'd better aim for a big
city-Chicago, maybe-Minneapolis, or somewhere. Can't you go
to summer school ? I thought teachers were always going to sum-
181
mer school. When are you due ? September . . . gosh, that's bad . . .
well, anybody can fall ill and need an extension. There're places
you can put the kid. Here I've an address-" He opened his

desk and fumbled among some papers and found one and scribbled
a name on an old envelope. "Go to see this woman."
She stared at the name. "But will she be good to i t ? " she whis
pered.
"She doesn't keep 'em-gives 'em out for adoption-but she's all
right . salt of the earth and all that
. I know her. You'll see."
. .

She kept staring at the bit of paper. "I suppose it's the only
thing," she said.
"Unless the fellow will marry you," the doctor answered. He was
watching her with those keen, knife-cold eyes.
"It isn't exactly that he won't," she said slowly. "It's more than
that . .there doesn't seem to be any room for a baby . . . in life,

I mean . . . now. Everything's full already-all the money used

all our time gone-no room. When would you want me to go ? "
"Soon as your school closes. You can hide l t until then. Lucky
you've got that big frame-thin. Now I've got to go to lunch. I'm
due back in ten minutes."
He j ammed his hat on his head and rushed out, then turned to
shout at her, "Come in and see me once a month or so . . . let me
check up . . ." and she went out alone after him. In the waiting
room, people were beginning to gather. There were a young hus
band and wife, sitting hand in hand, their eyes beatific with hope.
She saw them, turned away, and went through the room, her head
high, alone.

The days were surprisingly the same. She was very strong, luck
ily. She'd always had a good body. She wasn't sick-not much
not more than she could conceal in the mornings and get over be
fore school. She came and went to school, teaching the children.
Sometimes, watching their heads bent in a fit of tiny industry, she
felt herself drenched with tenderness for them. She had always
been fond of children, but now she loved them passionately.
r82
"Though if their parents knew," she thought, looking at them,
"they would think I wasn't fit to teach them. I'm really teaching
them better than ever."
She and Philip were going together again a little-never to the
island. He was holding himself back, keeping himself rigidly not
her lover. Once he broke down, one warm May evening. He took
her in his arms and buried his face in her neck. "You're lovelier
than ever-there's something about you these days-" She smiled
warmly, mysteriously, letting him hold her. Poor Philip ! He drew
away from her suddenly. "I don't believe you feel things the way
I do," he said. "I thought you'd mind . . our not being as we

were. But you don't, do you ? " His voice was wistful. "I ought to
be glad . . . but somehow it makes me wonder if you ever did care
the way I do."
She did not speak. She lifted her head and kissed him deeply,
quietly. "I'll never change," she said. "Only . . . we can't help the
way things are, can we ? I won't fret. Life's to be lived."
"I'm so restless ! " he moaned, his cheek against hers. She smoothed
his hair a moment and then moved away from him, and touched
his cheek and smiled. She must fulfill her appointed time alone.
"Good night," she said softly, and opened the door and went in.
She was not restless. She was living each day i n a deeper, more
fathomless quiet. It was not so much the quiet of despair as the
quiet of the helplessness of her spirit before the strength of her
resurgent body, her triumphing body, fulfilling itself outside the
law of the mind. There was nothing she could do except let life
grow on. She ate heartily and slept deeply.
"You're looking better," her mother said.
"I feel splendid," she replied, meeting her mother's eyes calmly.

"Pity ! " the doctor said briefly. "Looks as though it would be a

swell kid-everything's wonderful." He put away the stethoscope
and looked at her. "Can't keep him, eh ?"
She shook her head, took out her purse, and handed him his fee.
"Pay me cash and for God's sake keep your name to yourself," he
1 83
had growled. "I don't want to know who you are. When I feel the
righteous hand of the law on my shoulder I want to say, 'Me ? I
don't even know her name ! ' " He grinned at her. "Let's see
schools close the fifth of June-any day after that. It's swell you
have that big spare frame . . . or you'd never get away with it. But
you've a pelvis like a cradle." He sighed. "Well ! Come back once
more. Good-by, what's-your-name. I'll bet on a fine boy."
She went away, smiling. 0 course it would be a fine boy. She
and Philip then suddenly, out of all her calmness, she broke
.

into weeping. Right there in the open street ! "Oh, Philip . . .

Philip .Philip . . ." She bent her head and set her teeth. He'd
.

never forgive himself, he said-he'd never forgive himself.

It was amazing how easy it was. She said to Mr. Forman, "I'm
going to school this summer, Mr. Forman."
"Well, that's fine," he had said heartily. He was a small man with
round cheeks, a round red chin, and a suddenly protruding, round
little belly. "That's fine, Marjorie. Where you goin' ? "
"Chicago, I think. That's all right, isn't it ? "
"Couldn't be better " He stared a t her out o f little round blue
.

eyes. "You look a blooming rose, Marjorie. My, I do like to see a

healthy, sound girl. If you want, I might see if I could get you a
better grade in the fall. I could see what to do about it . . . with
the summer school and all . . ."
"Thank you a lot, Mr. Forman," she said.
"You're a good girl, Marjorie," he said solemnly, "taking care of
your mother and all. I always tell people you're a good girl-sober
and hard-working-not many like that these days . . . and pretty,
too. That's not so common, either ! " He smiled in a series of circles
over his face.
"Thank you, Mr. Forman," she said once more.
He had made it easy again. She told her mother, "I'm going to
summer school, Mom. I'm getting stale . . . besides, Mr. Forman
says if I go he'll get me a better grade."
"Well, I'm sure . . ." her mother sighed, astonished. She sighed
184
again. "It'll be a long summer in all conscience. But if it means a
better job . . . "
She told Philip and he said nothing for a moment. Then he lit
a cigarette. "I ought to be glad. I am, of course. Only . . . well, I
shan't be able to think of you here while I'm away." Every sum
mer, Philip helped in a boy's camp. It brought in a little money
and his food. "You'll be running around with fellows," he said
abruptly. "Not that I have the right . . ."
''I'm going to work very hard," she said. "You needn't worry
about me, Philip. I don't change." She looked at him fully, deep
into his eyes, and found his worship of her there.
"There's nobody like you ." he whispered, "nobody . .no

body . ." He felt for her hand and held it in both of his, against
his breast. "But I don't ask you to wait for me, Margie. I can't. . ."
"I'm not waiting," she said serenely. ''I'm going right on living
as I go. Don't worry, Philip."
The very first thing she did in the city was to look up the
woman. The cold doctor had been very kind. "I've written about
you," he had said. "And she'll tell you where you can get a decent
cheap room. Don't use your own name, though. Have you money ? ''
"I've been saving all spring," she said proudly.
"All right-but if you set stuck, ask her, she'll help you, since
I've sent you. Tell her straight, though, anything she asks you."
So she had gone into the plain little waiting room. There was
another girl there, waiting-a pretty, common-looking girl, who
kept crying while she waited and wiping her eyes with a dirty
green silk handkerchief. Marjorie looked at her, pitying, wanting
to speak to her and not wanting to speak. For she did not want to
know about her and she could see that this girl would tell anyone
that she was "in trouble." And Marjorie did not want to think of
it as trouble. No, it was only life, growing, demanding, natural as
life alone could be natural, and right as life alone could be right.
The wrong was the laws which men made against life. But life
knew no law except its own right to be. She sat calmly, ignoring
the girl, staring out into a tiny courtlike garden where rose trees
were beginning to bud.
r8s
 The door opened, and a tall white-haired woman looked at them
both and, with her eyes, chose Marjorie.
"Will you come in, please ? " She looked at the other girl, crouched
into her green plaid coat. "Miss Loomis will be here in a moment
for you," she said kindly, coldly.
Marjorie's heart quieted at her lovely coldness. She rose and
followed her into the inner office. It was a small, plain room, fin
ished in gray and green. On the wall was a colored photograph,
the only picture, of a baby. It faced the door and Marjorie, coming
in, met full and unexpectedly the baby's grave blue eyes, under a
fluff of new pale gold hair. She caught her breath. This was how
babies looked, this cherub's roundness, the angelic gold and blue.
Her child suddenly took on form and shape. Philip's eyes were
brown, but hers were blue, "larkspur blue" he always said. Her
knees shook a little.
"Sit down," the white-haired woman told her, seating herself at
the desk. She was taking some forms from the drawer. "Now let
me see . . . name of mother . . . and your age ?"
"Jane Reed-twenty-two," said Marjorie. She was steadied by the
kind, cold voice.
"Race ? "
"Anglo-Saxon."
"Ancestry ? "
"English."
"Nothing else ? "
"A little Irish." Philip always said the curl o f her lashes was
Irish. And it was true that one of her great-grandmothers had been
named Kathie McGruder-
"Married ? " the brisk, pleasant voice went on.
"No," she said quietly.
"Child's father ? "
"American-born. French ancestry."
"Education?"
"Both went to college."
The woman looked up suddenly. "That's unusual," she remarked.
Marjorie looked into very deep, cool gray eyes. A hint of warmth
186
came into them, a tentative kindness. "You do not feel marriage
possible ? "
"It i s not possible," Marjorie said tranquilly. The warmth sub
sided. The woman went on.
"Yes . well, I see you know what you are doing. Under the
.

circumstances you are sensible not to try to keep your child."

Something quivered in Marjorie's flesh.
"Very wise, indeed," the woman repeated. "In our society as it
is at present organized there is no room for the love child-it is at
an immense disadvantage unless it is at once given a place in
a conventional home, where its environment is what is called
normal."
No room for the child . . . no room for the child . "In your
. .

circumstances," the woman went on, "it will not be too difficult to
find foster parents who are educated and will gladly give the child
every advantage which you cannot. In fact-" she searched among
some letters-"! have an application here from some very fine
people . .worthy, cultivated . . . the woman barren . . . English

ancestry . . . it may be very suitable." She paused, absorbed.

Instantly, a woman took shape before Marjorie's eyes-tall, defi
nite, blonde, cultivated, barren.
"Will she . . . do you think she would be kind to him ? " she
asked. Her voice was surprisingly thin and piping. She coughed.
"I mean-" she steadied her voice-"would she be a person you
would trust your own child to . . . to rear ?"
"Oh, we are very careful," the woman said quickly; "we have
never had a complaint."
Marjorie hesitated and rushed on. "Could I . . . would it be pos
sible for me . ."
"Oh, no," the woman said definitely. "We think it very inadvisa
ble. It is much better not to know. Believe me when I say this
better for you and better for the child-better for the foster parents."
"Strangers. . . ." Marjorie murmured. She wanted suddenly to
cry and cry. She was giving her baby to strangers-she had to. "It
seems queer," she said, trying not to cry, trying to speak as one
does in ordinary circumstances, "that people are too poor to keep
187
their babies . . . marry and keep their babies . . . and that rich
people should take them. It would cost less . . . you'd think there'd
be some way . . ."

"Yes," the woman said heartily, "yes, indeed. Perhaps some day
something will be worked out-by government or something. Now,
if you will just step into the laboratory, the doctors will make cer
tain tests-blood, intelligence, and so on. We like to have our rec
ords as complete as possible."
She went into the next room. A doctor was there, looking at a
slide a nurse had j ust handed him. "Here," he was saying, "a trace
. . . more than a trace. I thought there was a suspicion when the
girl came in yesterday-spot not healed-she's waiting, I suppose ?
Make a note to put the child in the state orphanage, Miss Mills
it's not fit for adoption. Next, please . . .
"

He turned to Marjorie, and again she gave herself into strange

hands.

There was nothing to do after that but wait through long, hot,
summer days. She attended her classes steadily, and she spent long
hours in the cool library, reading sometimes, sitting in reverie,
scarcely thinking. She was glad for the thousands of people around
her, all strangers. Among them she was as safely lost as in a forest
upon a distant island. She lived alone and safe among them. At
night, after a little bread and milk, she walked a while in the park
or took a trolley to the lake and sat looking over the water until
the night grew cool enough for sleep.
But though she was so alone she was never lonely. She had al
ways the presence of the child. She saw his face now, blue-eyed
under a fluff of new golden hair, she saw his little moving mouth,
his waving hands and feet. She pondered on the minutest parts of
his body, the body which she was making for the woman who was
barren. It came to be a matter of pride with her to know that her
child's body would be beautiful and strong, his blood pure and
good, his brain sound. She remembered proudly a hundred times
the doctor's voice, "Absolutely negative . . . put it down, Miss
r88
Mills . . . negative . . . negative . . . negative." He had run over
the blood smears quickly. Then he had given her a look, a stranger's
pleasant, passing smile. "Good, honest blood in your veins, young
woman." He turned from her. "Next, please."
* * *

So day after day had gone until the last week in August. The
summer had been very hot, but she had not allowed herself to mind
it. She had planned every hour of every day. She had made 1-lersel
rise early in the coolness of morning, and bathed and carefully
dressed, she had gone out for breakfast and then to her classes.
When noon came, she steadily forced herself to food again-milk,
salad, brown bread and butter-and then she lay down to rest
until the sun was down. She disciplined her body to food and sleep.
Her mind, her heart, she disciplined, too. Yes, though there were
times when she was terrified by her longing to keep her child, she
said to him inwardly, steadily, "She'll be a good mother to you,
Sonny-a very good mother. She wants you she has no chil
. .

dren. A father, a mother .home

. that's what you're being

born for, Sonny-that's what your own mother is giving you." He

was so alive, so real, moving his strong little arms and legs in her
body. At least she had that-no other woman had that feel of him
in her body. She had him altogether, now-shaping him. She read
a great deal and wrote long letters to Philip and her mother about
her classes, about the books she read.
The last week in August she woke in the night, conscious of
thudding, rhythmic pain. For one instant she was frightened. What
was this rhythm, in which she was so caught and helpless ? Around
her was the night again, the stars immense and grave. Then she
calmed herself. Let her remember her appointment-that appoint
ment with the universe to which she had committed herself. She
rose and dressed and went to the telephone. "Send a taxi," she said
into the receiver and waited for the small far-away assurance of an
unknown voice, "Yes, ma'am, at once. . . ." She brushed her hair
and put on her hat and took the bag she had had ready packed
for ten days and went downstairs. The cab was at the curb. "To
189
the city hospital," she said. "As fast as you can and be safe," she
added.
"Okay," the man said. He was a stranger, too, she thought, and
yet he guided her and took her there as safely as if he had known
her and loved her.
"There you are, Miss . . . Ma'am . . ." he said smartly. "Forty
five cents-thank you !"
She picked up the bag and went into the office and faced the
night nurse. "I think my baby is about to be born," she said calmly.
* *

The ten days had gone very quickly. She had sent a telegram
to Mr. Forman that she would be delayed a few days by illness.
To her mother she wrote, "It's nothing, Mother-don't worry.
I'll be back Saturday, better than ever."
To Philip she did not write at all. He would miss her and ask
and find out. Besides, Saturday was there almost at once. They
had dismissed her briefly. "Beautiful confinement," the matron
had said kindly and approving, "absolutely normal."
When she stepped off the train, Philip was there to meet her.
He looked unusually well, cheerful and brown. When he saw her
he ran to her and seized her shoulders and gazed into her eyes
anxiously. "Not changed, Marjorie ?" he asked, searching her.
"Everything's the same ?"
"Just the same," she answered, meeting his eyes without waver
ing. His hands dropped and he laughed.
"Honest as the day . . . ." he said. His voice was rich with love
for her, with adoration of her. "But you're lovelier, Marjorie . .
there's something about you."
"Is there ?" she said, smiling. "I'm j ust the same, really."
He took her hand inside his arm, and seized her bag. "Your
mother's invited me to supper," he said. "I wanted )ou alone
tonight, sweetheart, but I hadn't the heart."
"No," she agreed, "not this first night."
"Maybe we'll get a moment somehow," he said longingly.
It was all exactly the same. Her mother held her, weeping a
rgo
little. "I've missed you so, Marjorie . . . nearly three months ! Bu1
Mr. Forman said to tell you he'd gotten you the sixth grade and
a ten-dollar raise."
She was eager for a moment. "Has h e ? I'm glad . . . then I'll
have my own children again."
She went upstairs to her room. Her own children ! A cold wind
swept across her heart. In the hospital that night the gay, fluttery
little night nurse had prattled to her, "The most beautiful, beau
tiful boy, dearie! Don't you want to see him before they take him
away ?"
That was the moment of her agony. The birth pains had been
nothing-what was the mere rending of flesh ? Pain of the flesh
was nothing-pain of the spirit, that was the true agony! In the
other room he lay born, her little son, to see, to feel in her arms
at last. But she turned her face away to the wall. She had finished
what she had to do.
"No," she said, "no, thank you. I won't see him."
The little nurse was shocked. "Well, I never ! " she said. After
wards, when they thought she was asleep, she heard her say to the
day nurse, "Hard as they make 'em-she wouldn't even look at
her own baby ! "
"That sort," the day nurse had snorted. "What can you expect ?"
As long as she lived, birth would mean that moment, that agony.
It would lie in her, bleeding at the slightest touch of memory,
until she died. Strangers-she had given her son to strangers
her own flesh she had given into unknown hands. But strangers
had cared for her from the first. Strangers were kind, because
they did not know and did not care. From one stranger to another
she had passed, and into their final keeping she had given her son.
It was as cold, as safe, as spacious as death.There was no room for
him in life, she repeated to herself, not in her life, the only life
she had. He would have been cruelly confined, compelled to share
the prison of what would have been called her disgrace. The world
had not changed much-not even in two thousand years.
"Supper, Margie !" her mother's voice flew up the stairs shrilly.
"Coming, Mother !" she answered, and went downstairs, to
begin again.
 Ross their hearth Elizabeth Bond looked at Martin, her

A husband. They had decided, the last time they quarreled,

that they would not quarrel for thirty-six hours. They
could not go on quarreling. They were degraded by their endless
quarreling. In the midst of it she had looked at him over the break
fast table, quivering, and she cried, "Oh, Martin, stop ! " And he
groaned out, "If we only could ! What is the matter with us ?" He
looked up at her, his face twitching.
Then the idea had come to her. "Let's make a truce," she said
slowly, staring at him. "Let's agree not to quarrel about anything
more until tomorrow night. We're alone tomorrow night. Then
let's sit down and talk it all over and see what we can do. We
cannot go on like this. Either we must understand each other . . .
or we must . . . separate."
It was the first time that she had used the word aloud, and though
she had said it to herself many times, said aloud it frightened her.
But he did not seem to notice it.
"No," he agreed thoughtfully, "we cannot go on like this." He
had folded his napkin up neatly and come to kiss her gravely on
the forehead, and then he had left the room.
She did not move while he put on his hat and coat and went
out of the front door. She sat immobile, her head leaning on her
hands. He tried so hard, she tried so hard, and still it was like this.
It was not as though they were cheap, common people-not like
that Mr. Bee! and his silly little wife next door, who were con
tinually fighting. Martin was not like that-not interested in ste
nographers and secretaries-and she wasn't interested in anybody
192
else. There was no triangle at all. They did not want to love any
body else. They wanted to love each other. They wanted to be
happy, to do what was right, to fulfill their vows to each other.
Yet she was, she realized with horror, glad to see him go out
of the house, her husband ! For now the house was her own again.
It never seemed her home while he was in it. He was always like
a guest in a hotel, who sees nothing beyond what is necessary for
his comfort, and it was she who had made the home, planned
it, decided on every shade and color. He said he liked it, of course,
approving-that is, most of the time approving-when he noticed
it, or if she asked him. But when there was something he did not
like . . . he had never liked that lovely, old, dull blue Japanese
print because he had said he did not know what it was about.
He liked a picture he could understand. It looked, he said, silly
a pale, flat face staring out of swirling blue cloth. Maybe the Japa
nese liked their own pictures, but he was a n American there
. .

she was, remembering the stolid things he said! Why could she
not remember his kindnesses ? He had brought her a box of choco
lates last night. But she did not like chocolates-she liked nougat.
He never remembered, because he liked chocolates. She rose quickly
and drew her breath in deeply. Anyway, she had the picture, and
it was hanging there where she had put it.

* * *

Still, it had been terrifying to them both to realize, even in those

short thirty-six hours, how often they had looked at each other
and stopped the bitter words upon their tongues. Without know
ing it, they had made a very habit of quarreling. He had not come
into the house last night before he had wanted to know why it
was that his particular coat hanger in the closet downstairs was
the one she always seemed to use for her fur coat, and she had
begun to answer coldly she didn't know he had had a particular
coat hanger, and he had started to say that she didn't realize , ,

when they both looked at each other and remembered. A score of

times, they had remembered. By the end of this second day she
felt as though she had scarcely spoken to him. She felt checked
1 93
and hampered at every turn of speech with him, and tonight he
had sat all through dinner, silent, effortless.
Now, the thirty-six hours were over. They looked at each other,
she on one side of their fire and he on the other. She had taken
care to look rather nice. She put on a dull red dress that they
both liked one of the few dresses they were agreed upon. He

liked to see her in plain things, straight and simple and without
a touch of the bizarre that she loved. So he liked the red dress
because it was straight and fitted her straightly, and she liked it
because it was red.
He had, she saw, taken an unusual care with himself, too. He
had changed into his dark suit and had put on a fresh tie. He was
still good to her sight, she thought, rather sadly, blue-eyed and
blond-haired. Perhaps that had been the whole trouble . . . he had
been so very handsome that she had seen nothing beyond that.
She had always been rather weak about handsome people-why,
she had even loved to look at a pretty woman-perhaps because she
had never been really pretty herself. She was too dark, too tall,
her features a little too large. Sometimes, people said she was hand
some when she was looking her best, but she had secretly, wist
fully, always wanted to be small and fair and pretty-the sort of
woman men would call "little girl." Martin never called her "little
girl." Why should he, when she stood as tall as he in her stocking
feet ? If he had, they'd probably both have burst out laughing.
Still, there was the secret wish, and he had never divined it. She
had tried to be always the sort of woman he admired, dependable
and capable and ready, even, to help him in his work in the lab
oratory. Her music had made her fingers sensitive, fortunately,
and she learned quickly enough the technique of his work. They
quarreled less in the laboratory than they did at home. Indeed,
there she admired him more than anywhere else, and there he
commended her briefly. "Good worker . . ." he said sometimes,
or he said, "You're a smart girl, Bet." Well, that was praise enough
in a laboratory . . . but somehow, not enough at home, at night,
by a fireside.
"Well, Martin ? " she said quietly.
1 94
 "Well, Elizabeth," he answered after a second.
There was a pause. She felt the old familiar anger rising swiftly
to her lips. Of course, he would wait for her to begin. Of course,
it was like him to make her take the initiative, to force her to a
commitment. He was always so cautious, so guarded-the scientist
in him, perhaps. Then she pressed her lips firmly together. She
would not be forced, either by him, or by her anger. She made her
voice come out lightly, easily, and she smiled as she spoke. "And
what is the end of it in your opinion, Martin . . . say, as a scientist ? "
H e felt for his pipe. "You mean . . . the end for us ?"
Ah, she thought a little maliciously, he was putting it off again!
"Yes, for us."
He lit his pipe carefully and put the match in the fire, and
puffed. She could wait, she would wait, she told herself.
"What do you think ? " he asked.
"For once," she answered instantly, "I am going to wait until
I hear what you think. I seem to remember one of your complaints
against me is that I am always too ready with my own opinions."
"I seem," he said, after a long staring into the fire, "to rub you
the wrong way. Everything I do seems to be not wrong in itself,
but somehow wrong because it is done in a way you don't like.
I seem j ust to be wrong, rather than to do wrong." He hesitated
and then added, "Perhaps, if we'd had children, we wouldn't have
had time to notice each other so much."
At the word "children" her heart became rigid. She could not
have children-she hadn't known i t when they were married-not
until afterwards. She couldn't hear the word "children" mentioned
without that rigidity, that stillness, that putting away. She fixed
her eyes on the blazing fire. It was a lovely fireplace, and she had
designed the hearth. The whole house was lovely . the house
. .

she had so longed to have a home as well as a house. Perhaps, if

they had had children . she pushed them away again. He had
.

put it exactly-he seemed always to be wrong.

"And I ? " she asked rather sadly. "I suppose you find me the
same way."
"I don't know," he answered.
195
 He had let his pipe go out and now he was scratching a match
again . . . silly, but the way he scratched a match even had been
a thing to quarrel over. She could not bear his slow, firm scratch
she hated the sound of a scratching match-it shivered down her
spine. He had forgotten this again, and now he was scratching in
long slow strokes she held herself tightly, waiting for the
.

burst of flame to end it. At least she would not speak of it at this
moment-it was too small of her.
"I suppose," he said, puffing vigorously, "that I do not find all
that you do pleasant. It is natural, when one is so often criticized,
to become critical in turn. I think if you had been able to accept
me more and to let me have-well, my little habits-that I would
not have seen things in you."
"What, for i nstance ? " she said dangerously. So there had been
things in her, too ?
"Well," he said, with surprising readiness, "the way you keep
stirring your coffee and stirring your coffee while you talk. There
is no sense in it. The sugar melts instantly, and yet you go on
stirring and stirring."
She swallowed hard. "I didn't know that I did it," she said.
"No," he agreed, "of course, I know that."
"Why didn't you speak of it ? "
" I thought maybe I would, sometime," he replied calmly.
"You've spoken of enough else," she cried hotly ; "you don't like
the way I dress, you don't like the way I play . . ."
"Those are more important things," he interrupted. "You don't
know how to dress to bring out your good points, and you are too
tall a woman to sway at the piano the way you do."
"Even if I don't know it ?"
"I've told you that you do it."
"You certainly have, my dear ,Martin, again and again and
again . . " There was the old, frequent swelling of anger in her
throat and the ringing in her ears. Oh, she would like to hurt him
. . she wanted to hurt him terribly, terribly . . . .
But before she could do it, he began to speak again rather
r
mournfully. "Even before we were married I used to notice it . . ."
"Did you, indeed ?" she murmured, biting her lip.
, But he refused to notice the interruption. ". . . and I thought
I would mention it as soon as we were married, knowing how
sensitive you were . . ."
"Did you think I would be less sensitive afterwards ? "
"No, but I thought we'd b e nearer together then, s o that I could
do it more easily, but we never have seemed to get much nearer.
In fact, Elizabeth, I sometimes think we were nearer before we
were married than we have ever been since."
She felt her anger subside a little in surprise. Now, that was
rather clever of him. She pondered it. They had been near those
first days. She was still i n the old manse, a girl fresh from college,
wondering what she was going to do with herself. There seemed
a score of things that she could do, but, of course, her music was
the one thing she knew she must do. She had gone on with it
steadily all through college . . college because her mother so
wanted it, her little starved mother, who died before she could see
her girl graduate and get the diploma she herself had always
longed to have had but a fter college, music
. . music. She
.

and Dad had been planning how to get the music, he giving what
he could from his little salary at the church and she earning some
thing by lessons i n the village while she commuted to the con
servatory.
And then, suddenly, Martin had come that summer to visit
some cousins in the village. They had met on a country picnic,
and instantly they had become friends. He talked about his work,
and she . . . she thought about his square shoulders and his strong
hands and his serious, too-goad-looking face. There were no young
men in the village like him-and she had gone to a college for
women and had not seen many men, and somehow she was ready
for friendship with men. And he had never had time for girls, he
said, and he was glad, he said, that his first real friendship with
a girl could be with one so sensible as she. "I hate silly girls," he
said darkly. Of course, she knew there must have been girls enough
about him because he was so good-looking. There were many
197
women who thought of nothing else in a man except his looks.
She had been astonished by a throb of jealousy in her breast. Why
should she be jealous ?
But, still, she was jealous that summer, a strange jealousy that
made her lean to him in a new way and let the sparkle come into
her eyes. She laughed more easily, and she teased him a little and
was different without wanting to be exactly, until one day he had
seized her in his arms, one day when they had been walking over
the wind-swept hills, and had kissed her hard.
"There," he said gruffiy. "That's what you have been asking for."
"I haven't I haven't! " she cried furiously. It was their first

quarrel. While they were friends they had never quarreled, but
once he had kissed her they quarreled again and again, and she
lived in a strange state of despair and delight-strange delight
of the body, strange despair of the heart, because after he had
kissed her she was lonely.
But they were engaged and married. She wanted to be married
quickly, because there was no reason why she shouldn't be and
because she thought that after they were married she would not
be so lonely with him. She wanted to be married . . . she was in
a fever to be married. There was old Dad saying wistfully, "What
about your music, darling? " And she had put him off airily : "Oh,
music doesn't seem to matter these days, beside Martin. And
I can take it up again any time I like, and I shall keep prac
ticing . " .

She didn't even know until after they were married that Martin
did not really like music. When he worked in the evening it dis
turbed him a good deal if she played.
Now she said aloud, moodily, "You've never really liked music
at all."
He took his pipe out of his mouth. "What the devil has that to
do with it ? "
"Everything, everything!" she cried, looking a t him i n great
accusation. "It's j ust like you to understand nothing of what my
music means to me. Why, it means to me what your work means
to you . it means my life, that's what it means! I've let it go-
.

I've let this thing and that interfere with it-getting the house
settled and then trying to learn to run it the way you wanted it
and thinking I had to help you in your work . . . the hours I've
put in at the laboratory . . ."
"For God's sake," he broke in, his voice thick, "nevc;r come near
the laboratory again-1 can do without you ! I'd rather work alone
the rest of my life than have you come as a favor. Why did you
come, if you didn't want to ? "
Why did she not speak the truth ? She had wanted to come
at first so as to be near him, to try somehow to be less lonely when
she was with him. It had frightened her to discover that even after
they were married she was still lonely with him. But other words
crowded them out.
"I never will come again if it means no more to you than that.
You said . . ."
Across their angry voices the doorbell rang suddenly, and she
paused. It rang again and again, sharply, insistently. He drew him
self together, preparing to rise. But she was already on her feet
swiftly, ahead of him. She was running to the door before he was
out of his 'chair, and she flung it open. There stood a telegraph
messenger. She signed quickly the slip he held out to her and took
the yellow envelope. Martin came sauntering up behind her.
"For me ? " he inquired. "I've been expecting word from Baker,
the chemistry man . ."
"No," she said, astonished. "It's for me. I don't believe I've had
a telegram since Mother died."
She tore it open quickly and turned to him, crying aloud, "Oh,
Martin, it's Dad . . . he's very ill ! "

So they could not come to the end o f their quarreling, after all.
She had to lay aside everything else and tend this old, trembling
man, whom she had gone to fetch home with her. She could not
believe it was Dad. Surely, it was not Dad. She poured out the
story to Martin in their room when the old man was safely lying
in the comfortable bed in ttte guest room. She had written him
1 99
many times during the two years since she had seen him. "You
must come and visit us, Dad . . . we have such a pretty guest
room." And of course he always said gratefully that he would
come. But he kept putting it off-he was so busy in his church
it was hard to get a supply, and he had to pay for it himself. But
he was surely coming to see his girl-and to see Martin, too, of
course, and the new home. He missed her very much about the
manse, but of course it was nice to think of her . . . .
And here he was, come i n such a way as she would not have
dreamed !
"Oh, Martin," she cried, forgetting all else, "if you could have
seen ! I went rushing to the manse, thinking of course he was
there. But he had-they had made him resign two months ago,
Martin ! And he hadn't told us-he was so broken up he couldn't
tell us-he doesn't seem to realize it, not even now. There was
a young man in the manse, a boy just out of school, and he seemed
ashamed enough. He took me to Mrs. Wick's boardinghouse and
there Dad was, in one of those awful cheap rooms where the
traveling salesmen stop-you know-and he has been living there
two months . . and all the time saying nothing to me at all,

and when he saw me he was so ill he thought I was Mother! "

She fumbled for her handkerchief and looked at Martin's face
in the mirror. It was after dinner, and he was changing his tie
carefully, knotting it compactly beneath his chin.
"It's a shame, old girl," he said gravely. Then he said cheer
fully, "Well, don't worry about him now . . . he's here safe and
sound and we'll look after him."
"My father, Martin . . . my old Dad !"
She looked at him piteously, longing to go over to him and
put her head down upon his shoulder.
"Yes, yes," he said kindly, "it's awful. Well, we'll look after
him. I've got to go now, my dear . got an appointment in twenty
.

minutes." He turned and bent and kissed her, and went down
stairs. She heard his footsteps echoing sturdily upon the floors,
heard the door slam, and then his footsteps echoing upon the walk.
She was suddenly alone in the house, alone with an old sick man
200
'-with death, perhaps-with things she did not understand. She
was afraid. For a moment she was afraid even to go into the guest
room where that guest lay. It did not seem like Dad, that old
vague terrified man who kept calling her "Allie." But of course
she must go . . . of course she must go and take care of him. The
doctor would be here in a few minutes. And Martin did not mean
to be unkind. He was only practical. She rose and entered the room.

* * *

"You see, Allie," her father's high, trembling voice said, "you
see how it was. I didn't want to tell the child she's so young.
.

And there was no one to talk to-"

"I see, dear," she answered gently. Day after day now she had
said those words, and day after day he poured out his tragedy to
her, always the same tragedy. Once, at first, she had called him
"Dad," and he was troubled for a moment, staring at her. Then
she remembered that her mother had never called him anything
but Robert, and so she said quickly, " I must have heard Eliza
beth . . ."
"Yes," he said relieved. "But I like it that you never called me
'Dad' as some women do when they have children. It always
seemed to me as if they forgot their h usbands you always have
. .

kept me . . . your lover . ," .

She smiled, trembling a little under the necessity to speak. She

could not . .could not
say Robert, not as she remembered

her mother used to say it with that deep careS& in the words
"My Robert-" so she said unsteadily, "Yes, my my dear." . .

But his mind was flying off again, as it did these days, continu
ally. "You see, Allie, they thought I was older than I was. You
remember my birthday is on September the sixth. They said a
man seventy-five years old is too old for the church. But you see
the point is, Allie, I am not seventy-five-! won't be seventy-five
yet for a long time-not until next September . . . on the sixth
of September . . . I said." He began to tremble and tried to sit
up in bed, his faded old blue eyes gathering energy. He faced
his foes. "I said, 'Mr. Jones, you are mistaken, sir . . .' "
201
 "Yes, yes, dear," she said sobbing. "Lie down . . dear heart
. . lie down and rest . .
. "

"But I want you to understand everything, Allie . . . "

"I do understand, dear."
Over and over, until he slept, she murmured the comforting
words, "I understand, my dear . I understand . . ."
. .

* *

But in the morning, when she had left him sleeping in the care
of the nurse, she went running to her own room to throw herself
upon her bed and weep, and, weeping, Martin found her and
listened to her as she poured it out to him.
"Oh, Martin, he is so pitiful-he worked there forty years, on
that tiny wage-plowing through the snow to visit the sick and
never taking any vacation in summer and doing without things
-and in the end they threw him off-his own people, Martin!"
"It's a darn shame," he said, sitting down beside her and taking
her hand.
In his way he was very kind to her these days, she thought,
clutching his solid strong hand gratefully. He never reproached
her for anything. Even when she sat down sorrowfully to play
sometimes, he did not say anything. But she tried to remember,
too. If he were in the room she held her body quiet, and she re
membered about the coffee. She would never forget again-not if
she could help it. Yet these things were now strangely unimpor
tant. Their own life seemed quite in abeyance. Those two quarrel
some, vigorous young creatures-where were they ? She found
herself even behaving like her mother, being quieter, less argumen
tative, more patient than she naturally was. When he slammed
the front door as he always did, she did not cry out at him quickly,
not even though she winced at the noise. She was able to be silent.
For nothing mattered now except this-she had in these few
short weeks, perhaps not more than days, to see her father safely
through to the end. She began to feel what her mother would have
been at such an hour, how she would have spoken, and how
comforted an old dying man. Day by day, she seemed to be her
mother, even to herself.
202
 "Don't distress him," the doctor said. "It won't be long at best
-let him have the comfort of thinking your mother is by him."
So she let him think so.
"When I am well, Allie," he said with feeble brightness, "I
am going to start again. I am going to apply for a country church
somewhere, with a little country manse that has a garden. With
a garden we won't be dependent on whether or not they pay my
salary quite promptly. I find it so distressing, dearest, to ask for
money. I think if it were not for you and the child I never could
do it. If I were alone, I would just do without it. And with a
garden . . ." His voice trailed off and he fell into one of his little
sleeps.
To Martin that night, she cried angrily, "I don't believe they
have paid him properly all the two years I've been away. Oh, I
ought to have gone back-! didn't dream what was going on
and he never said anything."
"Just as well, perhaps, you didn't," Martin said practically. They
were at the dinner table, and he poised his knife carefully above
the beefsteak. "After all, my dear, he was a very old man, and
I daresay the last ten years he hasn't been able really to fill the
pulpit."
"I don't care," she said sharply. "Forty years deserves something
at the end . . . if religion means anything . . ."
"I suppose religion means dollars and cents, like anything else,"
he replied calmly.
But she could not swallow her portion of the meat. She sat there
aching, aching.
Martin glanced at her, and then said kindly, "You mustn't let
yourself get so worked up. It's only what happens to any of us
- . we've got to face things as they are, you know. You let your
self feel things too much. You always have."
"It's my own father, Martin," she said.
"Yes, of course it is," he agreed. "Of course I know how yqu
feel and all that, but the point is, there probably is another side
to it. Probably the old man did hang on too long and didn't take
any hints, and so they had to be plain with him. You know he
always was rather absent-minded and dreamy. I used to think,
203
that summer I was there, that things weren't too happy in the
church, but he didn't notice anything."
"What do you mean ? " she asked. "Why didn't you tell me ?"
"It wasn't any of my business," he said. "I'm not interested in
churches. But I heard Uncle Jim say something about his sermons
being long and too vague for these days. The young people had
stopped coming, you know."
She was silenced, remembering. It was, perhaps, very true. She
could not honestly deny it.
"All the same," she repeated, "they might have remembered
what he had been . . . and what Mother was . . ."
"Of course," he said amiably. "They ought to have remembered.
But you know how people are. There's no use in expecting any
thing much from people. One has to be practical about life."
Practical ! She rushed passionately back to her father's bedside.
He had had a restless day.
"I'll take care of hiin tonight, Miss Carew," she said to the
nurse. ''I'm sure you'll be glad of a straight night's sleep." The
nurse wavered. "I can't leave him tonight," Elizabeth added quickly.
"I'll be here, in case," the nurse answered wearily.
She sat by him in a very madness of devotion through the long
hours. But he slept quite peacefully and as he had not slept for
several nights. He wanted her to take both of his hands, and she
sat holding them in her grasp, frail as sea shells worn and dried
by wind and the sands, and she watched him sleep. Only once he
woke, and then he stared at her a little while and said, troubled,
"Is it night, Allie, and you not asleep ? "
She answered, "No, indeed, dear . . . it's the afternoon . . . I
have the shades drawn against the sun."
"You mustn't . . ." he began and then wavered off into sleep
again.
* * *

Somehow, it did not seem their house at all, this house. It did
not seem the house she had made for herself and for Martin.
Some other life stronger than theirs had taken it. Their life, and
204
what had been their love, stood in abeyance upon this other life,
this greater love.
For now, as the end drew near, this was all the old man had.
Everything left him except this passionate clinging to Allie. Eliza
beth went away from him only when he slept and when he woke
he cried for her, and she had to become Allie for him again. He
was not her father any more, nor was Allie her mother. They
were two people, two other people, two lovers, eternally married to
each other. The reticence, the sense of vague shame she had had
at first when her father poured out his heart to her, left her now.
He was telling things he would never have told Elizabeth, and so
she put away Elizabeth and became Allie, and he told her every
thing. In her necessity for release somewhere at first, she had told
Martin the piteousness of the secret things she heard. "Oh, Mar
tin, he's fighting for faith-1 always though his faith in God was
so sure-the one thing in life for him . . . for which he gave up
everything . . . but he isn't sure--oh, what ought I to do ?"
"Face the facts," said Martin briefly. "Nothing else to do. Keep
your perspective, Elizabeth. Keep saying to yourself, 'He's only
one man dying as we all must die.' "
"He's my father . . .'' she said brokenly.
She could not say that Martin was wrong, nor even that he was
unkind. He was helping her all he could. But he could not under
stand why she felt she must help the old dying man not to face
facts-help him to believe what was not true, even, so that he
might die happy. Yes, Martin was very kind. In the sickroom he
was strong, and he lifted the old man capably and easily from one
side of the bed to the other. But the old man always looked at
Martin bewildered and asked always the same question, "Allie,
who is this young man ? "
A t first she had said cheerfully, "Don't you remember Martin,
dear ?" But he did not remember. So she said, "He married Eliza
beth, you know .' . '

Then he said, "But Elizabeth is not married-Elizabeth would

have told us if she were married." And after a moment he said,
"Elizabeth is only a little girl . . .
"

205
 He was so distressed then that Martin said comfortably, "Oh,
I'm j ust one of your neighbors, Doctor."
The old face relaxed and smiled vaguely. "I'm always glad to see
young men." The voice began quaveringly, "I am always glad to
see young men in my study between four and six in the afternoon.
Allie, tell the young man . . ." The words trailed away.
"Funny, he doesn't even remember we are married," said Mar
tin, as they stood and watched the gentle, sleeping face.
Perhaps, she thought later, he did remember. For when he waked
he said suddenly, "Elizabeth wasn't married. She \vas never really
married."
"What do you mean, dear ?" she asked, her breath bated. But he
did not answer and she did not know.

So she must let herself become Allie completely as the swift days
passed-the few days left to him. He clung to her then unceasingly
and he whispered out the innermost fear of his life. "Allie . . .
what if . . . I've been wrong ? What if I've staked my life on some-
thing . . . not true ? Suppose there isn't . . . God ?"
Years ago, she had asked herself that question, and years ago had
answered it. If she had not, those two years with Martin would
have destroyed faith utterly-Martin in his laboratory, announcing
confidently over his slides, "You see how matter divides itself, Bet
divides and dies-no meaning in it, except that endless division and
death." Martin was right, of course. . . .
"I know there is God," she said calmly to the anxious dying face.
"You're sure . . . Allie ?" he asked, listening, his whole face lis-
tening.
"Sure," she answered.
"If you're sure, Allie . . ." he said contentedly, and fell into sleep.
Over and over again in the last day, in the last night, he asked
the question and she answered it. He would forget, for he could
remember nothing except the vague fear of the end.
"You're sure, Allie ?"
"Sure . . . sure . . . "
206
 But at the very end she added the two words she had heard so
often from her mother's lips which until now she had not been
able to say. She had not been able to say them because of some final
shyness, since she was after all Robert's and Allie's daughter. But
it was as though Allie at this last moment broke through her shy
ness completely and completely took possession of her. "Sure . . .
sure," she said to the glazing, beseeching eyes, and then she added,
sobbing, "my Robert . . . "

He smiled sudd;nly, brilliantly.

When it was all over, it was as though she came out again from
dusk into hard, glittering sunshine. There was no sorrow possible;
it was impossible to wish the end had not come, and yet the hard,
glittering, usual sunshine was more than she could bear. She and
Martin were again alone. The other two presences-that welded,
warm, other life-were gone, quite gone. Her very body had been
possessed by Allie as by a spirit, and now the spirit had departed,
leaving her empty, leaving her what she had been before.
But in her emptiness she was not the same. She had for a time
lived another, a fuller, life. For a time, she had been translated into
another atmosphere, an atmosphere where love had been so tender,
so powerful, that a quarrel withered before it prang, and she was
still dazed by it. She prodded into her memory, so that she might
understand. Going about the emptied house, taking up her small
habitual duties, she remembered what in her childhood she had
taken for granted, the love her parents bore each other. She had
grown up sheltered and wrapped about, not really with their love
for her, but with their love for each other. It was their love for each
other that shaped her and made that home her home. Under that
radiance she had lived with happiness for her daily mood. That
was why they had not minded being poor, any of them.
"Yes," she thought, pausing above the flowers she was setting in
a vase for the table, "Dad had his little ways, and Mother could
never cook. Not so long as she lived would she have been a good
cook. But, somehow, it was only funny and we laughed. It didn't
20]
seem to matter. It didn't matter that her hair was always slipping
a little, either, or that Dad would forget and let the furnace get too
low when he was writing his sermons. Why didn't anything mat
ter, these days ? Why were we never lonely in that tiny village ?"
Yes, she thought, remembering, thrusting the yellow tulips
gravely one by one into their dish, they were never lonely together.
Even after her mother died, her father had not been lonely. He said
serenely that she could not really die. He had her, he would have
her forever. Allie was a part of him, though her body was buried.
When the restraint of his reason was gone and his spirit came out
untrameled it came aU mingled with hers.
She finished the flowers and set them in a bar of sunshine that
feU upon the table, and then she went and sat by the window and
looked out into her garden, budding with early spring, and she
pondered this mingling, this marriage, in which she had taken so
strange and borrowed a part for a little while. It was as though for
a moment she had been let into heaven by mistake, a guest unin
vited, and had taken an actor's place for an instant before, inexora
bly, she had been shut out. For now those two were together again,
in existence or out of existence, or wherever it was. Even nothing
ness could not separate those two who were so one.
But they were gone together and she was left alone with Martin,
and so she put away like a dream the weeks she had been possessed,
and consciously she took up the life with Martin, the only life she
now had. She went about the house, mending and making neat.
The room where the old man died she made over wholly, changing
the very color of the curtains and moving the pictures and the fur
niture into new places. She must be satisfied with what life she had
now. The other was not her own, she kept reminding herself. Her
mother had given her back the body she had used for a little
while to help her lover to come over into death to be with her. She
felt not so much bereft as left behind. She moved about her house
silently, working at this small thing and that, left behind. She and
Martin were left behind.
She was very gentle with Martin, gentle and considerate and
painstaking to do what he liked, and he was kind, too. She began
208
to think, "Perhaps we can go on being kind the rest of our lives,
now that we have been kind all these days. Perhaps we have
broken the old habit of quarreling. Perhaps we see how we ought
to be to each other." She asked herself earnestly if she could not
be Allie to Martin, having now learned what Allie was to Robert.
But if she were to be Allie, she must be better to Martin. She must
fight, for instance, this increasing tendency in her to shrink from
him, though she was trying to be kind.
For now, to her wonder, she found herself shrinking from him
very much, from the touch of his hand, from any hint of ardor in
his kiss. Though she could still see his large, even good looks,
she shrank from him. This she must not do. She must rather, she
planned, troubled, come nearer to him, tell him more, open herself
more fully to his knowledge. "Martin," she must say, "Martin, let's
give each other everything. Let's hold nothing back."
So she planned to speak, and she would wait for him to answer.
Perhaps then, really, they two also could put their hearts into
words each for the other to understand. But suppose he said, and
she seemed to hear him say, "I don't know what you mean. I'm not
hiding anything from you . . ."
Then she must say, "No, Martin, not hiding, of course. We
wouldn't hide from each other. But I mean . . . j ust open the door
and let me in and come inside me, too. Why a m I lonely, though
I eat at your table and sleep in your bed ?" Over and over, she
planned such talk.
But it all came about in its own way, after all. There was no
good in her planning, for life went willfully its own way, in spite
of her. An hour would come, she knew it must come, she felt it
must come, though she postponed it by her determined kindness
and by her planning. For day by day, the memory which had pos
sessed the house grew weaker. Day by day, their own actual life
grew stronger, more pressing, more actual. She caught his eyes re
turning to her coffee cup, and there was an instant's struggle in her
before she put down the spoon. After all, why should she not stir
if she liked ? It was a small thing, but if she liked . . . and then she
forced herself to put down the spoon. And why should he begin to
209
answer her abruptly again ? Why, if he could be kind, should he
not continue kind ? But he was very busy and absorbed. There
was a new experiment in the laboratory. He looked up at her at
the breakfast table one morning and did not see her. He said
sharply, "I'm in a hell of a hurry with this damned thing at the
laboratory. They want me to report on Saturday. Can you come
down and help a bit today ?"
She hated herself because she wanted to pluck out the bitter
phrase he had flung at her that winter's night. "Never come again
. . ." he had said.
"Of course I will come," she said gently, for of course he had
forgotten.
At the laboratory she worked all afternoon, and answered noth
ing when he cried at her for clumsiness, though she was angry and
the word "Ungrateful !" hung upon her tongue to cry at him. But
it was true, she was somehow very clumsy today. There was a sort
of tremendous refusal gathering in her, and to deny that refusal in
her heart made her breath come hard and her hands tremble. But
still she held it back. Robert would have laughed at Allie's clumsi
ness, teased her a little, sent her home to rest. But then Allie would
not have had this inner battle to fight against a great surging, blind
refusal.
. . . Yet if it had not been for the wind she might have held the
hour off a long time, perhaps forever, since surely day by day she
was growing a little stronger, a little more used to holding it off.
But the next day there came that rough, tempestuous March wind,
the wind that forced the hour upon them. Who could withstand
the wind ? It swept through the house in great rocking gusts, it
tore at the windows and rattled the doors. Peace was wrenched
away. All day she sat in the house waiting for the end of the wind,
holding herself hard against it, waiting for darkness.
When darkness fell and the wind dropped into the night, she
was spent. She must have something to bring her back to peace.
So, unthinking, she went to the piano to find a little quiet for her
self. But before she could more than touch the keys once or twice,
210
the door was flung open as though by the wind again and there
stood Martin.
"What a day !" she called to him, preparing for the steadying,
sonorous chords.
Then his furious eyes struck her. "Noise, noise . . . noise . . ."
he said, his voice tight, his face drawn. Her hands dropped. What
was in his voice?
"You mean . . . ?" she asked blankly.
He answered, "I've got to have quiet."
"Of course," she agreed, and closed the piano softly.
He came i n and threw himself down, but she did not rise from
the seat. She sat there, her hands folded on the closed piano.
Of course he was very tired, she told herself-very, very tired.
She ought to go to him and do something for his great weariness.
But she couldn't. She didn't, she realized, ever want to do any
thing for him again.
"What is it ?" he asked wearily.
"It's the end of the truce, isn't it ?" she murmured helplessly.
"What do you mean ?" he replied, searching for his matches.
"I'm dog-tired. You aren't going to cook up some trouble again, are
you ?"
She turned to look at him. So here they were again. The hour
had caught them, the hour she had been pushing off with her
dread. They were suddenly back again to that winter's night, the
night when she had run to the door. But sb.e was not the same
woman now. She couldn't quarrel like that-not now-not having
once known . .

"No," she said, "I'll never quarrel with you again."

"Then what's the matter ?" he asked irritably.
She repeated his words bewildered, "I don't know-1 honestly
don't know-what is the matter, Martin ? What is the matter with
us ? "
But before h e could speak, Allie carne into the room to answer
her. There was Allie so clearly that it was like a picture thrown
upon the wall opposite her.
She remembered one day when she had been a girl of seventeen
2II
 and she had gone into her mother's room and found her mother
standing in the clothes closet, her face buried in her father's old
brown tweed coat.
"Mother," she had cried, startled, "what are you doing ? "
For a frightened instant she thought something had happened
and that her mother was crying. But her mother turned quickly to
show a laughing, rosy face under her gray hair all curly and awry.
"It's nothing at all," she said, laughing again; "I was j ust clean
ing out the closet and there was Robert's old brown coat, shaped
just like him, and I had to kiss it."
She heard Allie's voice, she saw Allie's shining eyes, only for a
second, but long enough to understand what Allie meant. . .

There was no truce possible for her and Martin, Allie said, how
ever they might live together, however determined through how
ever many years, for their flesh and their blood were alien to each
other. Though sometimes they might love each other at sudden
blind moments of necessity, they never would like each other. They
were irrevocably enemies in the blind, deep, secret ways of their
natures. That night Martin had said, "Everything I do seems to
rub you the wrong way." Now Elizabeth, rememberi ng, under
standing Allie, answered him, slowly, comprehending at last, "And
I never could have kissed your coat. I never wanted to . . . kiss
your coat. I shouldn't have married you unless I wanted to . . ."
"For God's sake," he burst out at her, "talk so that I can under
stand . . ."
"I can't," she said simply, "I never can . . . ."
And suddenly, with these words, the truth was said, as though
someone else had spoken it, as though Allie had spoken. She turned
upon the piano stool and stared at Martin. He was sitting deep in
the chair beside the hearth, his small habitual frown above his
closed eyes. Of course, she could not speak to make him under
stand, nor could h e reach her understanding. They had no means
by which to speak together, and love could never be where there
was no speech together. There was no love, there never had been
love, and that past attraction which they had forced to take the
shape of love was never love. They had so innocently deceived
212
themselves; they had so unknowingly hurt each other ; they had
been so wrong to try to shape each other through marriage to the
secret unfulfilled desire. Of course each had quarreled against such
shaping-of course each heart had strained against the other.
"Oh, Martin," she cried aloud, "do forgive me I never knew

how wrong it was, how cruel . . ."

He opened his eyes and answered slowly, patiently, without look

ing at her, "I hate mysteries. You're always making mysteries. It
seems a pity a man can't come home and ask for silence."
She smiled, not minding any more what he might say, now that
she knew she did not love him, did not need to try to love him or
make love from what he gave to her. He could not hurt her, she
did not want to hurt him, now that she knew that what had been
between them was not love. She felt a new, fleeting, humorous
tenderness for him, as a mother might feel a tenderness for a stub
born, sullen, little boy who did not know what was wrong with
him. Some day, some woman would adore his very bluntness and
his simplicities, and ask no more than suffering at his hands. She
felt no jealousy toward her; no, more than that, she must help to
find that woman if she could, i n gratitude that she herself was
free. Her heart leaped suddenly to sing a little song of freedom,
now that she knew what had been was not love, was never love,
and never need they be compelled again. She turned instinctively to
the piano, eagerly, freely, now that she was not tied by love.
And then she paused and glanced at him. He sat there sturdily,
his hands in his pockets, his brows drawn down, his lips pursed
about his pipe, the smoke cloudy about his square, handsome head.
He was shut into his silence. She closed the piano again softly,
smiling secretly. Let her song wait. So let him have his silence,
poor Martin, dear Martin, whom she ought never to have married.
Allie and Robert, coming into her house to teach her, had made
her know how wrong she was. But she'd make it up to him one
day, kindly, gently, letting him wander into his freedom, and with
out quarreling any more. And when she saw him happy and re
lieved, there would be time for making music. She had a lifetime
yet for making music, a happy lifetime for making her own music.
21 3
1fT was going to be another hot day. He stood by the window,
Jl stared down the street, and gave a gust of a sigh. There was
a thick gray haze over the city. It was hot already, and it was
only five o'clock. . . . He wished he had not got up so early. But he
was so hot-he had been hot and restless all night. He had waked
up and felt his skin tickling. The sweat was running down his
neck, over his ribs, in small slow streams. He heard Mattie's loud
breathing by his side and was wide awake. Still, if he had turned
over and shut his eyes and waited a minute, he might have dropped
off again.
But it had been hot so long he was all on edge-nine days and
nine nights! Hattie slept through anything. Hot or not, she slept.
If he could have felt her threshing around beside him and heard
her groan out, "Ain't it awful, Hansie! " he could have borne it
better. But she slept no matter what, lying as stiff and still as a
small dead woman, except for her heavy, regular breathing, blow
ing in and out, i n and out, all night long between her full, puffing
lips. She was hot enough, too. This morning, when he couldn't
stand it, he had leaned over and stared at her. She lay on her back,
sleeping, her mouth open, her little stubby hands with their bright
red nails crossed tightly on her rounding stomach. Her cotton
nightgown was wet over her small breasts and clung damply to
her legs. She was hot, but she could sleep.
He had grunted petulantly then, and got up quickly, young and
impatient. "Ain't no more sleep for me, and I might as well work,"
he said aloud, looking at Mattie. "The way some folks can sleep,"
21 4
he muttered. But she did not hear him. She puffed in and out, in
and out. "Like sleepin' with a railway ingin," he said.
Then he looked gloomily toward the open door of the bath
room. "If I wash now . . . I don't know . . ." he thought. He
might go and clean up the shop and then wash before breakfast.
If he washed now, it would be waste. Standing there in his blue
pajama trousers, his short, thick upper body bare and ruddy under
his sweat, he was suddenly tired of the day before it was begun.
Usually, he j umped out of bed like a shot out of a gun and was in
and out of the bathroom before Mattie had opened more than one
eye. He would dance in wet and dripping to shout at her, "Hey,
you lazy block-a-wood, I'm ready for breakfast!"
That waked her, and she would smile sleepily and begin to stir,
stretching her arms above her head and yawning loudly and
cheerfully. Then she'd bustle-oh, they got on well enough-until
it got so hot. They quarreled a good deal one way and another,
now.
And i t was hotter than ever today. He was tired of it-tired of
everything, tired of washing and shaving and dressing, of eating
and working and sleeping. He wouldn't wash-he'd let himself
sweat. "I'd be wet through by breakfast, anyway," he thought.
He pulled a cotton undervest over his head and put on his old
blue trousers, taking no pains to be quiet. But Mattie did not
waken. Well, let her sleep. He didn't care if he ate or not on a
morning like this. He wouldn't be able to eat even pork chops and
buckwheat cakes and maple syrup, not if they were set before him.
He walked heavily into the hall and down two stairs. Then he
halted and listened. She was still sleeping, breathing in and out as
loudly as ever. Well, he couldn't stand any more of that-not
after a night of it. He'd be able to hear her 'way down i n the shop.
He stomped back and shut the door firmly. He had a glimpse of
her between the door and frame. She was lying there exactly as
she had lain all night, small and square and stiff. He was tied to
her, as surely as a ship is tied to a dock.
But then everything in his life had him by the nose. This shop
he'd bought-he opened the door. The close smell of spiced meats,
215
of warm foods shut into a small room, wrapped about him. Ev
erything would be spoiling on him if this heat went on. He
couldn't put everything on ice. That fruit cake delivered yesterday
-he bent over the counter. Yes, it was molding already, a faint
powdery frost upon its black, rich surface. He took the cake up and
blew over it, and then ran his finger over its crust. Why, even
sausages couldn't hold up these days. This was life, to go and put
everything he had into a delicatessen and make i t look nice and
paint it all up, and then along came this heat the very first summer!
He wasn't sure he'd ever wanted a delicatessen, anyway. When
Mamma died and left him his five thousand, he didn't know as . . .
but Mattie was all for the delicatessen. Her grandpa had had a
delicatessen, and she couldn't get over what a nice kind of a busi
ness it was, refined and nice and sure, because people had to eat,
didn't they ? Well, he had wanted a good bar where you could sell
beer and soft drinks too, but she had said, "I couldn't serve in a bar,
Hansie . . . it would look so. . . . But a delicatessen-well now, I
wouldn't mind. Nice people come to a delicatessen, and I could
help out real well."
Yes, and how much had she helped out ? She hadn't hardly
come into the shop since the heat began. He couldn't even get to a
stadium concert once a month. There the stadium was, only five
blocks away, and he read in the paper every day about the concerts
and what they were going to have. He always spelled carefully
through the long names. He didn't really know one piece of music
from another, not by the names, but he liked to sit out under the
stars in the dark, and maybe watch the moon come up as big as a
yellow pumpkin over the high houses, and listen and think about
something else than sliced ham and potato salad. He thought about
a lot of things, things he read in the paper, politics and fights and
sometimes a little piece of poetry that was nice, and now things
like the Germans and the Reds. Not that he had any use for Reds !
The only concert he had got to this summer, the mayor gave a
speech and there was a lot of noise in the crowd and people said it
was the Reds yelping again. They kept it up even when the music
began and spoiled the night for him, and he had a hard enough
216
time getting a while off, too. He'd had a regular fight with Mat
.
about it. She hadn't wanted to keep shop for three whole hours.
"I've had my day's work, too," she pouted. "If you'd seen the wash
today . . . and besides I ain't so good this summer with the baby
coming and all this heat . . .
"

Well, he was nearly tired of the baby before i t was even born.
She made it an excuse for everything she didn't want to do. God
knows his own mamma had had babies every summer and nobody
thought anything of it, and neither did she. But then Mattie was
a sort of fancy girl-black hair all fuzz, and eyes big and black, but

the eyelashes not real. It was the first time he had even known
girls could have eyelashes not real. After they were married he told
her to cut 'em out.
Well, they had a sort of row about it, but he needn't have both
ered. She soon wouldn't have taken the trouble, anyway. They
had only been married six months and look at her now. She was
like all the other married women . . . didn't care how she looked
now that she had got him. She'd say, "It's the baby, Hansie . . ."
Well, he'd- He pulled himself up abruptly and scrubbed hard at a
counter. He couldn't curse his own child, he guessed, not before it
was even born.
So he had gone to the door and opened it and looked down the
street. But no coolness came in. The air from the street was heavy
and full of the heat of the day before, and the day before that, and
many days. There were no winds in the night to blow the streets
clean.
He drew up an empty box and sat down outside the door. Right
and left of him stood garbage cans. In front of him was his own
that he had filled last night. Soon the truck would come. . . . But,
first, he saw a small, shambling, bent figure come creeping by, the
trousers too long and covering the torn shoes. This figure pushed
a ruined baby carriage. In one hand it held a stick, and it began to

turn over the garbage in the cans slowly and silently.

Above him, a woman's frowsy blonde head thrust itself from a
window. She screeched down into the street, "I'll thank you not to
217
mess everything over the sidewalk ! There's nothing in my can you
can eat. I don't throw good food away . . . ."

The figure moved speechless away and drew near. Five minutes
before, Hans had felt something bristling in him. This wasn't
quite thieving, he had been thinking, but the next thing to it. But
then the woman screamed-he knew that gabbling woman Mattie
was always running with-
"Hey, you! " he shouted at the small gray thing. "There's a loaf
of stale bread in my can . . . I don't care . . ."
He watched gloomily while the creature fished desperately to
find the loaf. This, he supposed, was what the Reds were always
talking about. Well, would they call him, Hans Reder, a capitalist
maybe, letting this fellow get his food out of his garbage . . . still,
God knows, he was no capitalist . . . he was a worker . . . couldn't
even get to a people's concert.
If Mattie had not come down at this moment, he would not have
known what he was. But she came in. He could hear her heels
dragging in those silly bedroom slippers she had bought at a sale
mules, she called 'em-and the heels clattering till he couldn't
stand it. Then she was there beside him in the open door, wrapped
in her faded green kimono. She leaned against him. She hadn't
washed. He could smell her, sour with sweat. Then she saw the
thing at the garbage can, and before he could speak she screamed
out as bad as that hag, "Get out of my garbage, you! Why don't
you go and get something decent to do, 'stead of living on other
people's leavin's ? "
I n that moment h e was a Red. He growled at her, "Have a heart,
can't you, Mat ? A ella can't go out and get a job anywhere these
days . . . and you don't want the garbage, do you ?"
"Yeah ?" she sneered, turning to look down on him, one hand on
her hip. "Well, say, it don't matter about my wantin' the garbage
or not. It makes me sick to see a human bein' snooping around like
a alley cat."
"Yeah ?" he bawled. "Well, you make me sick, see? Selfish!
Women are all selfish . . . crabbin' . . . don't want a thing them
selves and then won't let anybody else have it . . ."

2!8
 Mattie drew herself up and put both hands on her thin hips.
Her kimono hung open and her nightgown was drawn tight over
her knobby stomach.
"Yeah . . . sez you!"
The gray ghost at the garbage can, hearing their loud voices,
peered at them from under the brim of a torn felt hat, and put the
lid on the garbage can softly and crept away, pushing the wrecked
baby carriage.
"Now . . . look what you done, Mat!" said Hans gloomily.
"There was a loaf a stale bread in there he might as well a
had . . ."
"Let him go," said Mat loudly.
He looked at her. She was hideous, he thought suddenly. Her
hair was a snarl, her lips pale, and her black eyes cold. God, how
a fellow got let down after marriage ! He used to s11y her mouth
was like a red rose-it made him sick when he remembered what he
used to say. She didn't care now how she looked. He shouted at her,
"Pull your clothes over yourself, can't you ? " She shouted back at
him, "Who made me look like this, I'd like to know ?"
He got up. He wasn't going to have her start talking about the
baby out here. Let her show herself . . . he didn't care . . . he'd
get to work. But he lingered to stare remorsefully after the gray
ghost, now five houses away. He said gloomily, "It's enough to . . .
they're right, them Reds. Things ought to be fixed so nobody
needs to starve like that. Let the rich give it up .there ought to
.

be some way so . . ."

"Yeah," Mat interrupted loudly, "and if we had Reds, they'd
come and take everything in your shop."
"Yeah, and if they was starvin', I'd let 'em," he threw at her.
"Nice lookout for your family," she sneered. "Nice thing for a
woman to hear when she's about to . . ."
"Aw, go on and get some clothes on you, will you ? The truck
men are coming and you look like hell . . ."
"Yeah ? And whose fault . . ."
A wave of heat swept over him. He had forgotten for a moment
about being hot. Now the rumble of the truck drew near. Cars
21 9
began to rush by. With the noise, the heat rose, stifling, thick, roar
ing, about him. He slapped his sturdy leg. He wouldn't speak to
her-he'd get to work. But as he passed he looked at her, and he
could not bear her. All the heat and sickness in him rose and burst
out of him. He shouted at her over and over, "Shut up . . . shut
up . . . shut up! " He could not leave off, his teeth set, his eyes glaring
into hers, the sweat starting out over his whole body. "Shut up !
Shut up . . . shut up . . ."

Her soft full face changed in surprise. She stared at him as

though he had gone insane. Then, breaking into a wild howl of
tears, she rushed away.
* * *

He did not follow her. He was tired of following her. He knew

what he would have to do if he did. He'd have to tell her he was
sorry and coddle her and lie down beside her on the bed and coax
. . . well, he wouldn't . . . not today . . . not in all this heat. He
wouldn't hold her against him on this hot day on that messy bed.
"Every way, the Reds is right," he muttered to himself willfully.
He took out his dusting cloth and began wiping the counters off
again. This business of a man's tying himself to a woman when
he was young-the Reds had it right-easy divorce, and no ques
tions asked. And the woman had to work, too, in Russia. Gee, he'd
like to see Mat work for once, a real day's work! She said she used
to work in a ten-cent store, but he didn't believe it. She wasn't
working when they met . . . just living with her married sister an d
taking care o f the kids when she felt like it. H e moved a pie,
wrapped in cellophane, and wiped under it. If it wasn't sold today,
it would be no good tomorrow. Beer, now, and bottles, you could
keep forever . . . what had possessed him !
The morning wore on. The sun streamed in at the door, an
oblong patch of solid white heat upon the floor. He'd have to buy
an awning or he couldn't keep anything in the window.
The door opened. He saw Mat's sullen face. "Breakfast," she said
coldly. She hadn't brushed her hair probably hadn't washed
. .

220
her face, even. "Don't want any," he said. "It's too hot to eat." The
door slammed-nice way to start the day !
It didn't get any better, either. Two women came in during the
morning, one to buy six eggs, the other a quarter of a pound of
butter. That was all. He was shut up in the idle shop. "No use
goin' back upstairs," he thought, and let the hours wear on.
Toward noon the sun went under, but it was no cooler. The sky
pressed down-thick, dark, hot as a woolen blanket. The shop was
a pocket, full of smells. The sausages reeked, the cheese stank. He
went to the door and leaned against the frame and stared down the
street. He'd sell the shop. He'd . . . he might do anything. It was
a rotten city. He might go off somewhere-no chance for a young
man here, not in these days. He watched the cars rolling by and
chose one to hate especially. It was a large black and silver car.
The traffic light changed, and it paused near where the garbage
can had stood in the early morning. Some difference! He stared
at a chauffeur, at a handsome, cool, white-haired woman. Well, she
didn't worry about anything-going out to her country place with
her bags, he guessed, and he couldn't even get to a concert five
blocks away. Yeah, the Reds were right, all right.
The door opened behind him and Mat came i n and passed him.
She was all dressed up in her green dress and hat and white fixings.
The dress was getting too tight for her, but he wouldn't say any
thing, or she'd yell for something new.
"I'm going to Roselle's," she said shortly. "Your dinner's on the
table."
"All right," he said as briefly. Her mouth was painted very red
now, and her black hair was carefully waved where it showed un
der one side of her green hat.
"Hope it doesn't rain before I get back," she said anxiously, not
looking at him. "This dress won't stand it. Well, g'by !"
She stepped j auntily down the street and he stared after her
against his will. From the back, you wouldn't know anything was
wrong. He used to think she had style when she was all dressed up
-he used to like it. But today it made him tired. He felt a drop
of rain on his face. It was going to rain. But there was no wind,
22!
no coolness in it, even in the clouds. The very rain came down
warm, a meager, tepid shower.
Anyway, he would eat. And if it was going to rain all afternoon
and Mat was away, he'd sleep. Nobody would come to the shop in
the rain, and Mat would be late . . . she and her sister would prob
ably go to a movie. He was tired clear through. The wet heat made
him dizzy. He'd eat only a little something and then get into a
tub of cool water and throw himself on the bed. When he woke,
he'd think some , more about selling the shop. He couldn't stand
this. he couldn't stand another day.
.

* * *

But when he woke he had slept so heavily he scarcely knew

where he was. Where was he ? What time was it? Not night, for
the pale twilight streamed gently in at the window. But something
had happened to him. His body felt light and relieved, his very
bones rested, his skin dry. He drew a great breath. Why! . . . he
was cool ! The bed was cool, the room was cool. There must have
been a storm somewhere and now it was over-well, he could
hardly believe he was cool !
He stretched himself and smiled. He was as hungry as hell. He
didn't believe he had eaten anything, after all . . . went and took a
cold bath and threw himself on the bed to sleep a few minutes
before he ate and then hadn't waked again. Now, here he was cool
. . . he'd forgotten how it felt to be cool.
The door opened softly a little way and Mat stuck her head
through, smiling, mischievous. "Great big lazy! " she cried. "I've
been back ages . the shop's been full and I've been getting sup
.

per, too. Honey, you haven't eaten anything this whole day ! I've
got a grand supper for you-everything you love-beefsteak, honey
boy, and fried potatoes and sweet corn ! And I made a dessert . . .
and it's turned so cool you can eat and eat!"
He leaped up and roared at her, "Gee, I'm hungry enough to eat
you up, Mat . . . you look swell to me!"
She gave a little squeal of pretended fear and was gone. Never
mind . . . he'd catch her and give her a good hug yet-he hadn't
222
kissed her in an age-several days maybe-since it had been so hot.
Anyway, he was starved. He began to put on his clothes. Well,
'
j ust for once, since it was so cool, he'd wear a tie, Mat's favorite
red one, and a clean blue shirt. She liked blue to go with his eyes,
and red to go with his hair, she said. Gee, he wasn't a bad-looking
fellow-he rushed down, ravenous, shouting, "Don't let me get
into the shop till after supper, will you, han ? I'd eat everything I
saw !"
That night, after a rush of business, he sat out in the dark cool
street with Mat. The sky was black and full of stars. He sat on the
milk box, but he brought out the canvas folding chair for Mat.
She'd been swell to him. She hadn't gone to the movies at all. She'd
come back in the rain, God knows why, and found him asleep and
seen that he hadn't eaten his dinner, and she'd stayed in the shop
the rest of the afternoon and sold a lot. The pie was gone, too.
Now, she lay back in the canvas chair and hummed a little. Un
der the dim street lights she looked pretty, her hair all curly about
her face and her lips red and full-like a big rose, her mouth was.
He bent over and gave her a kiss. Well, he was glad about the kid,
too. And she'd look as good as ever, after it was over.
"You're swell," he whispered suddenly. ''I'm just as crazy about
you as I ever was."
"So'm I about you," she laughed, and slapped him playfully on
the cheek.
So they sat there in the coolness, watching the people go by. He
strained his ears in a brief moment of quiet between traffic. Did he
hear faint music ? No, not quite . . . not quite . . . still, he knew it
was there. The music was going on. It would be there every night,
every summer. In his lifetime he'd get to hear a good deal.
\Vhen they rose at last to go to bed and were straightening the
shop out for the night, Mat asked him suddenly, looking at him
very straight out of her black eyes, "Say, Hansie, I've been wantin'
to ask you something all day. You didn't really mean all that stuff
you talked about Reds, did you ? You scared me."
Reds ? He stared at her. Oh, that-"Forget it," he said shortly.
223
"I was so hot this morning I guess I was crazy." He lifted the gar
bage can and set it out on the street.
But when she was gone upstairs, he waited a moment. He looked
thoughtfully at the loaf of cake on the counter. It had molded the
night before. It wouldn't keep much longer. Still, it was so cool
tonight . . . and he might sell it tomorrow yet. Then, suddenly, he
picked it up and wrapped a piece of paper about it.
"Oh, well . . ." he said aloud, and stalked across the sidewalk
and dropped it in his garbage can.

224
 The One Woman

HEN his wife Elinora died, Edward Baynes did not need

W to tell even himself that for him all that she had been to
him was over. Other and less subtle men than he might
need to put the conviction into words. He could not and did not.
Standing by her bed, where the nurse had left him alone with
Elinora when it became evident that the long trance in which she
had lain had passed into death, he looked down at her unchanged
face, fixing on his mind its last beautiful, delicate gravity.
It was all over, not only for her, but for him. As he brooded
upon it, the thought occurred to him that he would never again look
upon a woman lying in her bed. This was the last time, this time,
when he looked upon Elinora, dead. Her silken gown had slipped a
little from her shoulder when he drew his arm gently away, and
showed her small right breast. For an instant he had the impulse
to do what he had often done, put his hand gently over the slight,
soft mound. Death had not changed her; she looked herself, sleep
ing. When she had wept a little sometimes because she had no
child, he had been used to put his hands upon her like that and
say passionately, although still gently, because she was so fragile
that he was always gentle with her, "For me . . for me only. I

am glad . . . I want no child. I think your breasts would never be

the same to me if they had been put to other use than love."
Sometimes she was comforted, sometimes not; one never knew
quite what would comfort her, because her moods were so swift
and so different. He had been married to her six years, and yet he
never knew in the morning to what mood she would wake, how
intimate and childlike and clinging she might be, how wayward
225
 and remote. . . . It was a good thing he had not to go away from
her every day to earn their living, since it had taken him all his
time to know her.
At first, her withdrawn moods had terrified him. When she
stared at him coldly, her bright blue eyes as hostile as a strange
child's, he was frantic. He had sometimes made the great mistake
of seizing her, of trying to hold her, of making her kiss him. He
would take her listless, slender arms and force them about his neck,
press her slight body against him, shamelessly try to rouse her fitful
passion for him which could so delight him with its suddenness
and depth. Yes, he could even feel himself in a cold terror lest she
never be swept again, and he never again know the excitement of
that cool body, so white and so cool, which could yet burn and
throb and be charged with passion . . . . But if she was listless, she
would not be forced. Even though he held her against him, even
though he held her flesh against flesh, she was cold if it was not
her time.
He learned it, after a while. He learned to let her go, to let her
withdraw as far away from him as she would, and it was very far.
Though she might be in the same room with him, or stretched
upon the long chair on the terrace and he sitting near, trying to
read, waiting, watching secretly, waiting, she was very far. But
when she came back, she brought with her a little scribble upon a
bit of paper, verses which she distilled somehow out of the silence
into which she had gone. These she slipped sometimes into his
hand, sometimes into the book he was reading, once under his
handkerchiefs in his drawer.
"They are my apologies," she said shyly. "I've been horrid-sad
as anything and about nothing-only I have to be sad sometimes.
I feel better afterwards."
Her verses were always sad. At first the sadness had made him
suffer. He said, "But Elinora, my darling, you aren't like this. You
have suffered no such loss. Why, I give you . . . "

But she had opened her eyes very wide at him, eyes still shadowed
and dark with her causeless sadness, and she nodded her head in
the little violent way she used, so that her short yellow hair tossed
226
upon her cheek. "I have . . . I have . . ." she whispered passionately.
"I feel it all. I get thinking about it-1 think, what if Edward . . .
and then it seems to me you have-it's just the same as if you had
left me for someone else."
"Impossible," he answered more harshly than he had ever said
anything to her. "You are the one woman for me . . . there can be
no other. I shall never touch another woman."
. . . No, he never would. Looking down at her now, as she lay
dead, he promised her once more, silently. He would never touch
another woman. . . . He felt again the impulse to cover her little,
pale, dead breast with his hand. But now he could not. In those few
minutes she had already withdrawn herself. It was almost as it
used to be in the old withdrawals, except now she would never
come back. His hand would touch her no more. He bent and drew
the silk gown gently over her, taking care delicately that his fingers
did not touch her flesh, reserved in death. It was all over. Love was
over. He turned away, at last, to leave her.
* *

At first he had not known what to do with himself. It now be

came evident to him that during these years he had allowed Elinora
to become his sole occupation. He had no friends apart from the
friends they made together. How, to his surprise, he found he
could not be with their friends because he missed her most intol
erably when he was with them. They were all changed without
her. Without her they were dull and uneasy and somehow strained.
He was not able to set this right. When she had been there every
one was easy and happy, and each one was doing what he liked
even though they were always conscious of her. If, for instance, at
any moment she chose to sing, they all listened. No one knew her
who had not heard her sing. When that small, high, sweet voice
lifted itself above their talk and laughter, though it came from
some far corner where she had chosen to hide herself, they drifted
to it and held themselves silent. For she had an unearthly voice, not
great or powerful, but full of promises of things not seen. It was
such a voice, being at once clear and tender, as sent each one who
227
heard it back again into his own hidden place, where his memo
ries were kept or his hopes unfulfilled.. Where there was nothing,
neither memory nor hope, it put a strange uneasiness and yearn
ing. . .It was perhaps because they were all unconsciously now

listening for her voice that they were uncomfortable. He listened,

too, and was more keenly aware that she was dead when it did not
come, and when he perceived they were all listening for it.
So he let them all slip away from him. After the small, quiet
funeral, which with great care he planned to be like her-no lilies,
but only white and purple violets and small yellow roses, and a
Bach piece instead of hymns, and nothing said except a verse of
hers read aloud, the one about the white shell carried out to sea at
last, and then lost and so no more at the mercy of the willful tides
to fill or empty it-after the fneral, they had come often to see
him, and then they had not come so often. But they telephoned
him a good deal, and then it was summer, and they went away,
first calling him up to cry heartily across the wires, "Good-by, Ed
ward, old chap ! We are off for the shore. See you in September!
What are you doing ? Better get away a little . . run down and see
us perhaps ? Always glad . ."
He answered in his rather careful fashion, for he was not by
nature able to be casual, "I think I shall spend the summer at home,
thank you, Henry . " or Robert, or James, or
. "I have it in
.

mind to go over Elinora's poems and put them in a book. A good

many of them have been published, of course, but we planned a
small book."
"Good . . . good . . ." the voice sang back at him. "It ought to be
done, Edward-exquisite things-only, I say, you mustn't, you
know, let yourself get . . . take a little trip somewhere, perhaps . . .
meet other people . . "
"Thank you," h e answered, protecting himself delicately from
their pity. They could not, of course, understand that for him no
body whom he would meet could possibly do anything for him.
He shut himself into his large, quiet home and garden, and for
weeks he went nowhere.
On the whole, he was happy. That is, having accepted Elinora's
228
death, and his own with her, he was happy, poring daily over her
small fine writing, sorting, placing, pondering. He became ab
sorbed in the task of how to arrange the poems-chronologically,
or according to subject ? But it was impossible to classify them so
easily, for there were no two on the same subject until those writ
ten near the end, when they both knew that she had not long to
live. Yes, during those last ten months she had poured out her love
liest poems, some frightened, some triumphant, some mischievous
and even wanton, like a merry child thumbing her nose at a hated
pursuer, determined to be gay a little while longer, but all filled
with the sad certainty of death soon to come.
He sorted these first, carefully, and found himself saying, "This
one she wrote that morning she felt suddenly much better so that
she would have the nurse dress her in her yellow dressing gown
with the silver butterflies." Then he winced, because a few hours
afterwards the butterflies had been stained and dark with her
blood. She had had one of her worst hemorrhages, and there was
no gaiety for many days. Yes, and here was the poem she wrote
out of those still days-four lines. She was not even allowed to
speak, but she had, he remembered, opened her great, heavy-lidded
eyes at him and reached for the_ little pad and pencil she kept near
her. When he cried out in agony, "Oh, darling, had you better,
now ?" she had answered him with the far look he knew so well,
the look she had always on her face when she had been away
from him and came back bringing a poem. So she wrote it down
and pushed it toward him weakly-he remembered now how
pale her hand was, the slender, lovely, bloodless hand-and even
as he read it, she slept. Here it was, the lines straggling downward
with her weakness. He read it slowly, scarcely understanding it,
it was so elusive and already so near to death.
Then he had an idea. He would classify the poems according to
a secret order of his own-their own. He would go back over them
all and remember how and when each one was written, in what re
lation to him and to their love. The book would be a private record
of their love. Others might wonder that this gay bit followed so
hard upon this other full of darkness and terror. But so she was.
229
 Often, there was no interval at all between her strange terrors and
her gaiety. Holding her in his arms, himself shaken with her deep,
causeless terror, aching, searching for what might comfort her, he
would suddenly see her eyes filled with mischief and laughter. "Be
cause, darling, I happened to think of something funny . . . "

That was Elinora. She could produce out of herself the blackest,
most passionate despair, and nothing could brighten it, no word of
his, no pressure of his arms about her. She could lie limp and spent
upon his breast and he could not reach her. Then, suddenly, out
of her own inexhaustibility, would come a spark, a light, a laughter,
so small a thing, perhaps, that even when she told him of it he
could only marvel secretly that it could change her. But he was
grateful, glad for anything, even if it was some absurdity in him
self which she saw for a moment.
So he arranged the poems, dwelling infinitely upon every mem
ory . . . . The summer, he heard his housekeeper say, was very hot,
but he did not know it. The gardener complained, when he
walked in the garden in the evening, that the blue delphiniums
were not what they ought to be. Elinora had every year wanted blue
delphiniums of every size and shade, but always blue. She had
written a lovely cluster of verses about the blue delphiniums . . . .
"I've watered 'em, sir, but pipe water ain't the same as the rains
from the sky, not for the delphiniums it ain't. There's something
about the pipes."
"Yes," he said gently, "yes . . . doubtless . . . yes . . . yes . . ."
She had written about the delphiniums one year when they were
very fine. He had never seen them so fine. He said suddenly, "Was
it five years ago they were so very fine, Rogers ?"
The gardener took off his hat and scratched his head thought
fully. He had sweated a dark ring in his stubby gray hair. "Four
years, sir. I remember the mississ . " He stopped remorsefully,
.

glancing hastily and sidewise at Edward's grave face. But Edward

only said, "Four years, of course. I remember perfectly." And he
went quietly into the house.
Four years, for that summer he had seen in a shop window the
delphinium-blue hat, the wide one she wore and wore after he
bought it. She wore it even last summer when they carried her out
in the garden sometimes, when she felt able for it. At his desk
again he found one last little verse she wrote about the delphiniums,
knowing she would see them no more, a farewell. That was the
last day she wore the hat, the last day in the garden. He must see
that the hat was not thrown away.
He went into her room quickly, only stopping to put a paper
weight on the verse. It was j ust as she had left it, only with all the
sickroom litter cleaned away. He tiptoed across the floor without
knowing that he did, since for so long he had entered tiptoe, lest she
be fallen into one of her light, short slumbers. He opened the closet
door. Yes, there the hat was, blue among the others on the stands.
The housekeeper kept hinting about the clothes and what to do
with them. Of course, some day he must make up his mind, but
j ust now it comforted him to see the blue hat still there. He tip
toed out again, exactly as he used to do when he found she was
asleep.
So the summer slipped past, and with autumn he was still busy,
in and out of town now very frequently about the printing. There
was so much to a book-the right paper, thick and dull and soft,
not too white, and yet not pretentiously any of these things . . .
the type, he had not known there was so much to type, and of
course the greatest care about the binding. It was to be bound in
dull blue linen with a thread of silver in the weave.
He set his heart to have it finished on their wedding day, which
was Christmas Eve. They had been married quite unexpectedly on
that day. She had promised herself to him, and then she could not
set a day for marriage. All through the summer and autumn she
could not set a day, until he was half wild with her willfulness.
Then suddenly she had said, two days before Christmas, "Let's
be married tomorrow, Edward, on Christmas Eve. I think I'd like
to be married when I wake up on Christmas morning."
And although he had planned to go home for Christmas to his
parents, since he was the only child and they counted on it, he had
not dared to do anything but seize the moment, and they were
married in the maddest way, except that at her home nothing she
23 1
did was ever called mad. She was an only child, too, and her
mother was dead and her father a dreaming sort of old man. He had
said mildly, "Why not, my dear ? Tell cook to make the cake."
So they waked up married on Christmas morning. Only rather,
they had never waked at all. Living with Elinora had been nothing
but a lovely, exciting dream. He might have gone humdrum all
his days, for he knew, because she laughed at him for it, that he
could be a little fussy and humdrum-he would have become so if
he had been married to an ordinary woman. But Elinora had never
let him. She had laughed at him, teased him, clung to him, had
made love to him, had drawn him to passion, had showed him
everything love could be.
So the book came out on Christmas Eve, and he sent out many
copies of it to all their friends and he was busy with mailing lists
and with reviews. They were just such reviews as he wanted
appreciative, regretful, and filled with respect for one too soon dead.
He clipped them all and made a collection of them. Then he sat
and waited for replies from friends and these he filed carefully,
sending his thanks back again.
But of course they could not keep writing to him, and other
books were published and reviewed. Poems, it seemed, however
successful, did not receive the notice that they should. A tawdry
novel, for instance, was reviewed over and over again. Still, it was
comforting that good, sound magazines noticed the poems.
Then it was suddenly midwinter, and snows fell and the weather
turned hard and sleety and he was alone in his big house, intoler
ably alone. Everything was finished. He had not quite realized
until now that Elinora was dead. But the publication of the poems
had set a seal upon her tomb. She was dead. . . .
He wandered about the house, coughing a little with a cold he
could not throw off. He was not able somehow to read. Every book
he took up had been read with her and he was not inclined to find
new ones. They had done everything together, always. He fell to
staring out into the garden a good deal of his time, until one day
his housekeeper said briskly, "I've taken the liberty, sir, of sending
for the doctor. I don't like your color, Mr. Baynes, I'm frank to say
232
. . . nor your cough. You've had it going on four weeks and it
don't get no better."
She looked at him portentously. He answered patiently, "I'm
quite well, Mrs. Frost."
But the end of it was that the doctor had packed him off on
a trip around the world, had insisted upon it, although Edward
himself felt it unnecessary. He had given way only on one con
dition, that he be home by July.
"Why July ?" the doctor said crossly. He had known Edward
Baynes for years, in fact, since he had been a rather delicate but
still very handsome undergraduate at Harvard. "You've never
stood heat well. I always made you take Elinora away, but it was
as much for your sake as hers."
Edward looked at the doctor speechlessly. How could he say
to this fat, irritable, kindly old man that he must come back for
the blue delphiniums ? There was a certain bed of them where
the color was exactly the color that Elinora's eyes had been. He
used to make her stand among them, and her eyes seemed to
melt into the blue so that they became part of the flowers, but her
hair was only more yellow. He must, he must, he said passionately
in his heart, see that blue, which was now all he had left of Elinora's
eyes. So he went away, secretly and stubbornly resolved upon
the necessity of the hour of his return. Not, of course, that he could
ever forget her-never, never, who was his one love!

II

He could remember the exact moment and the exact place in

which he had first seen Millicent. She was, indeed, the first per
son, the only person, he had seen. He traveled painstakingly to
Honolulu, where he stayed for a fortnight as his doctor had told
him he must, bathing every day in the warm seas. He looked
at his tour schedule and found Japan next, and thither he went
and saw the temples and bridges marked for him in the guide
book by the man at Cook's who planned the trip for him, and
when it was all checked off, for he put a little cross against each
. 233
place as he finished it, he went on to China. There was a war
on, and this he avoided as he had been directed, and took ship
southward, hastening a little because he heard it would be hot in
Italy sooner than he expected. At Java he caught a sturdy Dutch
ship, bound for Europe. He had a vague idea he would take a
Dutch ship instead of a liner because there wouldn't be so many
people-more freight, they said. Not that he had bothered with
anybody, but still people troubled him, wanting subscriptions or
asking him to play shuffieboard.
He was tired a good deal of the time, and often, stretching his
long, thin legs in a narrow berth, he thought with pleasure of his
comfortable bed at home. But he was conscientious. He would
not, he said, get home until delphinium time, as he had promised.
He grew daily a little more forlorn, however, and inclined to be
fussy about trifles-the sort of thing Elinora ould have laughed
out of him. He never had time to be fussy with her about . . .
there was always something new about Elinora, something im
portant, something to be done for her.
So he took the Dutch ship and settled into the cleanly cabin and
was pleased at the confusion of tongues in the dining room
German, Dutch, French and whatnot, and, thank God, he spoke
only English. He could sit silent, not listening, not hearing, not
expected to answer.
He went to bed early after the first night, when he discovered
a great full moon rising out of the smooth warm sea. It slipped
suddenly over the horizon, spilling out its light upon the water,
and he looked at it once and went abruptly to bed, although he
had only just had his dinner. He and Elinora had made much
of the moon in their time. They had been used to sit on the ter
race and wait for its coming. He kept a little note of the hour
when it was due, and they sat waiting for it. Elinora said in
an ecstasy, "It is like waiting for the curtain to go up on Tristan
and Isolde.". . . So he went to bed, and when he could not sleep
he read carefully through his guidebooks on India. He was going
to see India next. It was strange how confused the different coun
tries could be in his mind after he had seen them, although he
234
bought histories and things. He must read a lot about India . . .
evenings, now that the moon . . .
Yet it was by the light of this moon that he first saw Millicent.
Of course, she had been on the ship all the way from Batavia, but
he had not seen her. He would not have seen her now except that
she sat by the rail as he passed-he had that bit of deck to cross
to his cabin, and he saw her because she was the only person
watching the moon. Everyone else was playing bridge or some
thing.
When he saw her he looked at her again. It was almost as though
he had seen her before. She sat in a stiff wicker chair, her knees
crossed, her foot tucked behind her leg, and her elbow on her knee,
her chin in her band-a childish hunched pose that he knew and
his eyes paused upon it. Why, it was the way Elinora used to
sit when she was waiting for something, the very way, for in
stance, she had been used to watch for the moon, her face turned
to the slowly brightening spot of sky above the trees. It might
almost be Elinora sitting there now, slight and graceful and curled
into herself like that! Millicent's hair was short, too-it stirred a
little on her cheek, tossed by the evening breeze. He stopped, his
heart beating, to catch the whole resemblance, forgetting himself
and this girl. He was suddenly starved for Elinora.
Then she looked at him. When the sound of his footfall ceased,
the girl was startled and she turned her face toward him and
looked at him. Here was suddenly more than he could bear. It was
Elinora's own look, deep, mysterious, withdrawn. The moon shone
full on her face. Even her mouth was small and pathetic in the
full, slightly lifted upper lip. So had been Elinora's. He went on
then, very shaken. He dropped his head a little, as he did habitu
ally now, and went straight to his cabin.
When he reached it he sat down breathlessly upon his berth
and asked himself, "But are her eyes blue ? " It seemed, after he
thought of it carefully, that of course they were not blue. Impos
sible to tell in the moonlight, but they seemed shadowed and dark,
brown or hazel. Still, Elinora's eyes often looked so, especially
235
later when she was so thin-black lashes, perhaps, and perhaps a
little fragility to add pallor and shadow.
He did not sleep well, aware of certain excitement to come.
Once he lay awake, thinking that if the girl's eyes were blue, it
would be almost too much. Yet he wanted them blue, to bring
back to him Elinora's eyes again. It was nothing to him for any
other reason, only that Elinora might be brought to him clearly
and his memory of her made fresh. He was suddenly filled with
a passionate need to see Elinora again, anyhow, in the blue of the
delphiniums, in the unconscious likeness to her of this chance
stranger-anything, anywhere, if only he might see her, even
though it were only fragments of her, to haunt him at once with
their likeness to her and their unlikeness.
It became necessary to him in the solitary night to know the
color of the girl's eyes, because it seemed to him that his memory
of Elinora, fading subtly with days and months into something
pale and static as a daguerreotype, would come to life and move
ment once more, if he might see movement, color, likeness to her
which was living, even in another flesh.
He was, therefore, ready for breakfast very early. Where he haJ
been used to dawdle somewhat over his shaving and dressing,
weary before he was finished, this morning he made haste, a haste
to which he was so unusued in all his leisurely years that he cut
himself and broke a cuff link, and was impatient at his own delay.
For she might, he feared, rise early, as young people did, he be
lieved, and then it would be difficult to go searching about for her,
conspicuous in the small passenger group.
He was the first in the dining saloon, and the Chinese boy
looked at him with surprise. Then it became evident to Edward
that he was too early. He ate slowly through his usual breakfast,
more and more slowly as a few stray men passengers entered. At
last, as he lingered over the second cup of coffee he never dared
to take, she came in, following an older woman, her mother,
doubtless.
Edward looked down suddenly, unable to endure the moment.
Through the corner of his glance he saw the two seat themselves
236
at the next table but one, and he felt a momem's wonder. Could
it be she had sat there these three days, sat there with Elinora's
look, with Elinora's slight body, with Elinora's very eyes, and he
not have seen her ? He looked up quickly now, and straight into
her face, into her eyes. He was aware of a slight giddiness. For the
eyes were blue, a thought more gray in the blue, perhaps, than
Elinora's, but blue. She wore a soft blue frock, and her eyes were
as blue . . . . He could not swallow; a thickness rose in his throat.
This wonderful, wonderful thing had happened to him ! He had
found someone to make him feel Elinora again.
He could not help anything that happened after that. He could
no more help staying near this young girl than he could have
helped staying near Elinora if she had been alive. It would not
be hard to begin a little conversation. She was plainly lonely, and
the only young person on the ship. There were not even any young
men-a stout Dutch trader or two, homeward bound, a Javanese
half-caste couple going to Holland for the first time, a pair of
elderly sharp-eyed traveling men, from parts unknown. There was
no one to whom she could talk. She did not, he noticed, talk much
to her mother, who sat beside her in a large heaviness, obviously
English with her hard red cheeks and high nose, knitting a dun
colored garment of some sort.
Edward could not, he felt, say anything before the mother. He
dragged his chair to a little distance, ostensibly for sunshine, grate
ful for the first time for the smallness of the deck. Then, over a
book, he looked secretly and often at the girl.
Again and again, he saw Elinora in this girl. Once he could
scarcely hold back a cry. She had sat up in her chair and looked
out to sea, and then she flung out her hand to point to something,
turning her eyes to her mother. So did Elinora often do. She could
never break herself of pointing as a child does at something she
saw, and her face would turn in j ust that eagerness to him, to
share the sight with him. But now he did not look at the sight.
He kept his whole heart on this girl's likeness to Elinora. Sud
denly, it faded. She leaned back and closed her eyes. He could not
bear it that now there was scarcely any resemblance at all. Her eyes
237
 were closed, her mouth drooped, her small, rather pale face took
on a petulant, weary look such as Elinora never wore. It was all
he could do to keep from springing forward to cry out to her, "Do
open your eyes again-please open your eyes!" He played with the
idea a little, half smiling. What would she think if a stranger
cried out such a demand ?
Yet, what he actually said a few minutes later was almost as
strange. The mother, glancing at the girl's closed eyes, rose and
walked away with a ponderous softness. As ' soon as she was gone
the girl sat up and looked about her with a new interest. She felt
under her rug for a book. She opened it, glancing around once
more.
It was then that she saw Edward. For he was staring at her,
caught breathless again in her awaking likeness to Elinora. She
smiled, and the resemblance deepened. He could not be silent.
He rose impulsively and went to the empty chair and sat down.
Now the blue eyes were very near. Yes, they were a little paler
than the delphiniums, but how like-how like! He began to speak
tremblingly. "Will you think me mad if I tell you how you re
mind me of someone very dear to me, someone now dead ? Will
you forgive me if I look at you very often ?"
He was gazing deep into the lovely eyes now. He felt himself
wreathed about with a sweet, forgotten ardor. It was the ardor
he had been used to feel when for some small reason or other he
had been away from Elinora for a few hours and had come back
to her again.
The girl smiled at him. "Of course I don't mind," she answered
in a very soft little voice, and smiled again. "What is your name ?
I am Millicent Howard."
When her mother came back, she said, "Mother, this is Mr.
Baynes. He lives i n New York, and he says when we come to
America he will take us about."
Edward saw the mother appraising him, stiffiy at first, then with
guarded approval. He was glad he had put on his new gray suit
and his pearl stickpin. She said calmly, "Very nice of you, Mr.
238
Baynes. No, don't bother to get me a chair. I've just to fetch a
bit more wool," and she went away willingly.
When she came back a half hour later he knew very much
indeed about this lovely young creature. For she was, he decided,
watching her as he listened, more lovely than he had first realized
-not vivid, as Elinora always was, especially if she talked-paler,
perhaps, with all her ways and tones of voice less accentuated than
Elinora's, but resemblance everywhere. She was, he learned, Aus
tralian, and she had been very ill, and her mother was taking her
to England for a visit. She had never been in England before, and
they were to stay six months and come back by way of America.
She had always wanted to see America . . . . By the end of the day
he had decided to leave out India this time and go on to Italy,
and to spend the spring in England. England was beautiful in
spring.
* * *

It was in Italy he found he could not do without Millicent. He

had never, of course, even dreamed of remarriage. He reiterated
very often to himself now that Elinora was the one woman, and,
with her, love had died for him. During the languorous days upon
the Indian Ocean when nightly he sat beside Millicent to watch
the sun sink into the warm seas, he lived in a daze of sweetest
memory. With the cunning of some strange inner urgency he
persuaded Millicent to postures and to movements which made
most clear her likenesses to Elinora. He murmured, "When I first
saw you, you sat thus-your hand like this, your chin resting on
it. You were lovely. Let me see you like that again. I want to
remember you so."
Shyly and half laughing she would take the posture, and he
stared at her eagerly. "Yes . . . yes . . ." he cried, "you are lovely
. . . lovely! Now look at me . . . I am glad your eyes are blue! "
To his eagerness, and h e had a n uncomfortable feeling some
times that he was more eager than he ought to be, than he wanted
to be, she began to respond. She had not yet, she told him very
shyly one night, ever been in love. It must be wonderful. "It is,"
239
he said. Then looking into her eyes, for she had herself taken the
pose he loved, he was troubled and said abruptly, "I mustn't stay
late tonight. I am a little tired."
Her face grew wistful at that, and he was more uncomfortable.
In his own room, far earlier than he wanted to be, he remembered
this wistfulness, and he thought to himself gravely, "I must not,
of course, arouse any feelings in this dear child. She is so young.
How can I explain to her that . . . that for me there can forever
be only the one love ?"
He felt with an inexplainable discomfort that he was not quite
honest to Millicent because Elinora was always in his mind. He
began to plan how he would tell her. Instead, he found himself
crying in a hoarse whisper to Elinora, almost as though Elinora
were there, "Never anybody but you, Elinora . . . only you . . .
only you! Impossible for any other woman . . . Elinora, you knotv
my heart is full only of memories of you!" Then he caught him
self, a little shocked, and fell silent. It was almost as though he
were apologizing to Elinora for something! "I must be careful,"
he thought anxiously. "I am not myself, somehow." After he was
in his berth he decided he had been letting himself live under a
strain with Millicent. He must tell her exactly how things were.
* * *

Yet, somehow, he never did tell her. For one thing the heat in
the Red Sea was much worse than he had imagined, and Milli
cent was ill with it. The little color which had come into her
cheeks faded suddenly, and she lay quite white and spent in her
chair, her eyes closed. He brought iced drinks and begged an ice
bag from the doctor, and sat near to fetch anything her mother
might think necessary. Under his solicitude the mother unbent and
told him in whispers that Millicent had never been strong, and
she hoped the air of England would brace the child. She sighed
and said, "She is all I have . . . her father died when she was a
baby, and I've spent my life keeping her alive. I've only the busi
ness in Australia, but I've left it in other hands for a while , . . a
good shop business he left me. I don't keep shop myself, naturally,
240
but I've managed the business. I can't leave it too long, either. If
I can find the right spot in England, I'll leave her a bit, perhaps
. . . a year or two, and go back, though how I'll leave her, so
alone . . ." She shook her head and set her lips and knitted very fast.
Of course, he could not, therefore, say anything. And when
they were out of Suez and Millicent was better again he was so
touched by her lassitude and pallor, by the pathos of her little
mouth, that he could not speak. Besides, she had not looked so
much like Elinora these days, and he had not been so drawn to
her. It was foolish of him, doubtless, to imagine she . .

At Brindisi he left the ship. It was not, after all, so hard to

say good-by. But she did melt him a little at the last moment, for
she took his hand into both hers in a pretty way he had not
expected, for Millicent was not usually impulsive, and she cried
softly, "You are not to forget you have promised to come to Eng
land! Mother, tell him !"
Her mother nodded. "You've been kind," she said in her positive,
large voice. "Of course, you must come."
"I will . I will," he answered fervently. Afterwards, he re
.

membered the fervor with some perturbation. Why had he prom

ised so eagerly ? It would have been better to be vague and make
it possible not to go at all .much better. Then he knew. He

said to himself, "When she took my hand it was so much as Eli

nora would have done it." And, after a while, he said again, "I
had better stay in Italy for a couple of months."
He made, therefore, careful preparations about his stay in Italy.
He and Elinora had always planned to come to Italy together and
then somehow they had let the years slip by. They were so happy
it did not seem to matter where they were, so long as they were
together. Now he conceived the idea that he would deliberately
dream that Elinora was here with him. In spirit they would be
together. He would see everything consciously with her eyes. Into
every lovely spot he would go with her.
So whenever he entered a cathedral he called to her in his
heart, "Elinora, my darling, you see ?" And then, thinking of her
there beside him, leaning her head against his shoulder, her fingers
241
interlocked with his, he would trace the arches and shadows, the
carvings and the paintings. He floated upon the canals of Venice,
gazing steadily opposite into her dreamed eyes ; he rode through
country roads and walked beneath olive trees and upon the streets
of Rome, and she was everywhere. He could scarcely have felt
her more near, h e told himself, if she had been there in body. He
was conscious of her all the day.
Why, then, at night did he lose her ? At night he longed for her,
and she was gone. By no power could he make her flesh live beside
him. He lay alone, and his loneliness began to frighten him. How
could he make her real again, real in the night ? He wanted to see
her, to touch her, to hear her voice.
Then he thought of Millicent. There was Millicent, alive, young,
ready to love him, tricked out in Elinora's look and shape. He
turned upon his bed and groaned aloud and cried, "Elinora, save
me . save me, darling! I want no one but you . . . never, never! "
.

But the nights conquered him a t last. The loneliness of the

nights penetrated into all his life and made Elinora unreal even
in the days, too-took her from him and left him solitary. There
was one day in Florence when not by any imagination could he
remember how Elinora looked. He cried desperately at last, "Am
I losing my mind ? I know her eyes were blue, but I can't remem
ber they were blue! "
H e stopped i n the middle of a street to try to think how her
upper lip was lifted, and he could not. "It was like Millicent's,"
he said aloud, staring at a hearty Florentine who looked at him
in sudden horror. Then it came to him, as clearly as anything. "I
must go to Millicent, of course. When I see her everything will
come back again."
In this way, he went to England a month before he had planned.
He went straight to the little town in Devonshire and to a square
brick house the solitary policeman described to him, and he rang
the bell. The door opened and there was Millicent, her pale hair
yellow and her eyes soft and blue against the old shadowed hall
behind her. She was exactly as he remembered. She was comfort
to his heart. He reached for her two hands, blindly, wildly. "I
242
can't leave you again . . . never again !" he said. "I must have
you with me always."

III
So it happened that when July came he was back in his own
garden and Millicent was with him, his wife. There had been no
reason why they should not be married at once. Indeed, it became
obvious that to her mother it was the solution. She asked a few
sharp questions as to money matters and became entirely pleased
when Edward murmured gently the figures of his income. It was
even more than she had thought probable for her girl. She would
accompany them, she said, to America, and see for herself what
his house was like. So, after a wedding in the old church which
was quite empty except for themselves and the vicar and his wife
and eldest daughter for witnesses, they went to America, and after
a week in Edward's house, and long conversations with Mrs.
Frost, Millicent's mother was satisfied and went her way.
Then he was alone with Millicent in this house where he had
lived only with Elinora. He and Elinora had planned and built it
and lived in it. Now he began to live in it with Millicent. She had
Elinora's room. He had said to her, "Do you like it ? Is there
anything you want changed ? " She hesitated and then said in her
little half-timid voice, "I like the blue, dear, of course . . . only
I've always had a fancy for rose in my bedroom . . . "

But when he said positively, "Rose, darling ? With your blue

eyes ?" she had only smiled and said nothing. So the room was
left as it was, except that of course Elinora's frocks and hats were
put away, in the attic. He could not, somehow, quite give them
away.
It seemed then, with Millicent in that room, almost as if Elinora
were there. He honestly loved Millicent. But he could not avoid,
sometimes, pressing the resemblance a little, sometimes, "Millicent,
darling, when you walk, hold your head a little higher-like this!"
He tilted her chin a little. It annoyed him that her hands were
never like Elinora's. They were short, soft, childish hands with
none of Elinora's keen, sensitive, nervous energy. Millicent did not
243
use her hands when she talked. They lay in her lap, silent, inex
pressive. There was nothing to do about her hands, he decided. He
would forget them.
But there were times when Millicent seemed a stranger there,
times, for instance, when he forgot she looked like Elinora and
she was herself, a little paler than Elinora ever was, quieter, always
without the spark. Millicent had not, he decided, any sense of
humor. She could seem so much Elinora, by some trick of the
mouth and the turn of her head, and yet she was so tantalizingly
never quite Elinora. There was no vagary i n her, no willfulness,
no surprise. She was always the same, always patient in her fra
gility, never, like Elinora, flouting her body's weakness with her
spirit's gaiety. Holding Millicent's slight body in his arms he was
even angry at her patience, at her submission. He was not a gross
man; indeed, he was too fastidious, perhaps, needing to be roused,
stimulated, by some little subtlety. But Millicent had no subtlety.
She was, poor child, only pretty and passionless and patient, and
always willing to do what he wanted, if she understood what it
was. But very often she did not understand.
How he first conceived the idea of writing about Elinora's life
he did not exactly know. He was, he admitted to himself, a little
restless and wanted something to do. Millicent did not fill his days
as Elinora had. It was true that the old friends called, but they
did not come clustering about as they used to do. He had con
fidently expected that they would. He looked forward eagerly to
the old joyful companionship. But something was wrong. Millicent
was anxious and even too cordial, and he was quite himself. Never
theless, they did not come back. "I cannot, of course," he pondered
to himself, "blame Millicent because she does not sing. Elinora
had a very sweet, gay voice, and she attracted people."
It began perhaps the July morning when the delphiniums were
at their height. He had never seen them more glorious. He was
walking with Millicent and admiring them and suddenly, scarcely
knowing what he did, he took her by the shoulders and thrust her
among the tall heavy-headed plants. Elinora, Elinora ! But Milli
cent's hair was paler, and in the brilliant flowers her eyes turned
244
paler, too, grayer, softer. She did not smile, but only looked at
him, questioning. He loosed her.
"You look lovely there," he said quickly, "but the blue is too
bright for you . . . a softer blue . . ."
It was then that he thought of the hat.
"Wait a minute ! " he cried. He went into the attic room, and
came down again with the wide blue hat. It had faded a little. He
put it upon Millicent's head. It suited her perfectly. She looked
up at him quietly, a little anxious as she now very often was, aware
that she did not always please him, however much she wished she
could.
"It is exactly the color of your eyes, darling!" he cried, and then
she smiled because she was glad. To her amazement, he seized
her in his arms, there in the garden, and groaned while he held
her and muttered as if he were in pain, "My beloved . . . my
beloved !"
He had never called her that before. He had, indeed, never
kissed her like that. She was a little frightened because he was not
quite himself. But he let her go as quickly, to her great relief, and
he saw he had frightened her.
"My dear, you are pale," he said, reproaching himself. "Come
and lie down . . . "

And then, his passion gone and only his lovely courtesy and
kindness left, he pulled a long garden chair into the shadows of
an old tree, and made her lie down. But still he would not let her
take off the blue hat, not for a while.
It was then that he first fetched Elinra's poems to read to her.
He had often talked to Millicent about Elinora. But some delicacy
in him forbade his saying ever again that she looked like Elinora. It
was only now, bit by bit, that she began to find it out. He sat on the
grass beside her and read to her, first the poem about the delphini
ums, and then one by one, others, until all the book was read, from
first to last. Nor did he tell Millicent that the order of the poems
had been the order of their love-his and Elinora's. But from that
day she sensed something. She began to feel Elinora. At first she
245
asked simple questions, "What color were her eyes ?" "Did she
have curly, fair hair, like me ? " "Was she tall, Edward ?"
When he spoke one day of Elinora's singing she said wistfully,
"I always wanted to sing, too. It's lovely to sing." And one day
he even heard her at the piano when she thought he was away,
touching the keys with one finger, humming a little melody, try
ing her voice. He listened breathlessly and then tiptoed away,
disappointed. Her voice was small and quite colorless.
But he was very loyal to Millicent. He blamed her for nothing,
and he was always gentle to her and, after a while, not passionate
at all. The truth was that he had thought of something that morn
ing while he read the poems-why should he not write about
Elinora's life ? It was a good time to do it. Her poems were not
forgotten. Only the other day he had come across one quoted by
a critic, who said, "I can never cease to mourn the too early death
of Elinora Baynes, whose exquisite verse . . ." He had all her
letters and her diary that she had begun as a child and kept up
with a fitful brilliance until she died. There was material for an
illuminating book, a beautiful book. He could not keep the idea
to himself, although he was not too cruel in telling Millicent. He
said, with decent gravity, that night at the dinner table, "I have
been thinking, darling, that I ought to write Elinora's life because
I am the only one who really knew her, and it is due her public."
Millicent lifted her eyes to him, waiting, questioning. How she
looked like Elinora now . . . Elinora, quiet ! And yet, he could see
increasingly that in reality she was not like Elinora. There were
whole weeks when he forgot to see even the superficial likeness
which had once been so plain to him. He was now only a little
haunted.
"You see," he explained, "Elinora was really a very great poet.
Her book is not dead. I ought to keep her memory alive and write
down what I know."
"Yes, I see," said Millicent, at once. Her upper lip trembled a
little. "I'd like to help, Edward," she said faintly.
"Of course, my dear," he answered sedately. "I count on your
help."
 So, again, he was happily at work. He was indeed very happy,
almost as happy as he had ever been. Every morning he went into
the library with Millicent and worked until noon. In the afternoon
he worked again for an hour or two alone, revising what had been
done in the morning. He was perhaps happiest at those times. For
one thing he felt in himself a renewed loyalty to Elinora. There
had been a few uncomfortable moments during the past months
when he let himself wonder if, in marrying Millicent, he had been
quite loyal to Elinora. But, of course, Millicent had never really
taken Elinora's place . . . never! No one wuld. At the same time,
he could not tell Millicent this. He had, for instance, meticulously
avoided calling her "dearest." There were plenty of other names.
He had only the once in the garden called her "Beloved." He had
not meant to do it-it had slipped from him-a trick of memory.
The name belonged only to Elinora. But it was sometimes as
though he were married to the two women, and it was difficult
to be quite fair.
In the library, though, alone, poring over Elinora's small, swift
handwriting, he could forget everyone else. He was, he felt, quite
justified in thinking only of her, because he must work with an
undivided mind if the work were to be worthy of her. Once or
twice he hesitated over a letter she had written him. She had said
often, "Promise me, dearest, you will never, never publish my
letters to you. I couldn't bear it." He had promised, of course.
But now he felt differently. He reasoned it all out. He had not
the right to withhold anything of his glorious Elinora ; she be
longed to the world. He must give everything. However it might
hurt him, he must give it all to those to whom she belonged. So
when he came upon her words in one of her letters, "This is only
for your eyes, beloved," he bore the stab of pain. He must not
think of himself.
In the evenings he read aloud to Millicent all that he had written
in the day. She lay half-curled in the great chair opposite him,
listening, silent. He was very careful to make her quite comfort
able with cushions and a footstool and a rug over her feet. She
was easily cold these early autumn days and then he had the fire
247
made. He read, but it was natural, inevitable, that he paused often
to lay the manuscript down and talk of Elinora. He stared into
the fire, dreaming.
"You see, Millicent, how extraordinary she was. She added a
quality to everything . . . even a meal could not be ordinary if
she were there. When she came into the room it was as though
the great actress for whom everybody had been waiting came in.
The play really began then."
"Yes," said Millicent faintly, "yes, I can see that, Edward."
They came to sitting up very late, he reading, talking, she lis
tening. He discussed many points with her. At least, he talked
exhaustively of every detail of Elinora, weighing every memory,
while Millicent sat silent, looking at him. He was very happy.
Then, suddenly, he was seriously interrupted by Millicent's ill
ness. She had not been well for some time, he knew, because she
could not, as she had been doing, work the whole morning through.
By eleven o'clock she was often white and spent. When he had
discovered it, he had insisted she lie down and have a glass of
milk. It became rather usual, after a while, for her to work only
the two hours. She would slip away then quietly, leaving him so
softly he did not know that she was gone.
But still he would not have thought her ill, except that she
caught a heavy cold and it became known to him from Mrs. Frost
that she had been having a cough all autumn. Now it grew worse
very quickly, and she was feverish and in a day very ill, so ill
that the old doctor would not hold out any hope. He grumbled at
Edward, "You've gone and married two women as like as two
peas-no constitution at all. This is pneumonia, but she has in
cipient t.b., anyway. She'll not pull through, no use beating about
the bush, Edward. She won't hang on as long as Elinora did.
Hasn't the will to live, like Elinora had."
The doctor was quite right. On the third night she died.
Edward was alone with her, the nurse having left him for a mo
ment. She had not, it is true, expected the end quite yet . .

perhaps in a few hours. But Millicent had not been able to last
any longer. When she felt Edward's arms about her, she smiled
248
faintly. "I'm afraid I've been . . . disappointing . . . " she said.
Her face was very white, her eyes scarcely blue. Yet, even dying,
she kept the ghostly likeness to Elinora.
"Oh, my darling!" he cried remorsefully. He longed to cry out
that he loved her now quite for her own sake. But he could not.
This moment was so tragically, so horribly, like that other mo
ment. And, anyway, she died before he could say anything.

So, again, he was left alone in the house. After the funeral, a
small quiet funeral that suited Millicent and her quietness-no
lilies, but only white and purple violets-he was alone as if Milli
cent had never been. He found, it is true, a few disturbing papers
when he was gqing through his wife's room, choosing some of her
things to send to her mother. In a little drawer of the desk which
had been Elinora's, he found some poems in Millicent's handwrit
ing. He read them, astounded. He saw instantly that they were
not good. In fact, they were very commonplace little things, about
love dying and sunsets fading. The rhymes were atrocious. He
destroyed them gravely. They were not worth keeping. When at
last Mrs. Frost cleaned the room, it was quite as it had been in
Elinora's time, as if Millicent had not lived there at all.
When it was all over and he had written a long painstaking
letter to Mrs. Howard, he settled himself again to the book about
Elinora's life. It was a relief in the midst of his new sorrow to
have this work he must do. But it was a great task, an important
task, and after a few weeks it became evident to him he needed a
secretary to help him. He needed someone to whom to talk and
with whom he could clarify his memories . . . . Dear Millicent, he
thought suddenly, what a help she had been and how he missed
her! She had been so sympathetic, always. It was almost as if
she had known Elinora. Yes, h e must have someone . . . he must,
he supposed, advertise.
So he did advertise and three or four women came to see him
in his study and he looked at them shyly and at a loss. It was very
difficult. He was no judge of women . . . he had known none,
249
really. Suddenly his eye fell upon a young girl near the door. She
sat on a straight chair, her knees crossed, her foot tucked under
her leg, her face turned away a little. She was staring at the por
trait of Elinora, hung over the mantelpiece. "Is that . . her?" she
.

asked. Unconsciously, she had flung out her pretty hand, pointing.
"Yes," he said. So, of course, he knew which one to keep to help
him.
But when the others were gone and she had taken off her little
dark hat and jacket and sat before him ready for work, her pencil
poised, her eyes on her paper, it occurred to him to ask her how she
had known Elinora. Was it possible that the poems had penetrated
so far ? He had been about to dictate the dedication of the Life :
"To Millicent, without whose sympathy and understanding . . ." He
paused, and as he hesitated, the little secretary looked up at him
in surprise. It was then that he saw her eyes. They were like new
delphiniums-blue, blue, blue !