CHAPTER XVI

THE IDES OF MARCH

"Love's second summer," was the name Mammy Lou bestowed on the troubled period of my engagement with Richard Chalmers which followed the portentous events chronicled in the last few chapters.

"A love affair ain't no different from a baby," she would say to me sometimes, as her quick eye saw that all was not going well, and her maternal pity for me caused her to forgive the disappointment I had given her in my choice of a lover. "It's bound to have some miz'ry as well as joy mixed along with it. Why, you can't no more make true love run smooth than you can play a 'juice harp' with false teeth."

True love! Oh the irony of the words! So many months have passed since the happenings that I last recorded that I can look back now and dispassionately dissect even the motives of many things which transpired during that gilded year. For it proved to be only a gilded year, while I thought at the time that it was a golden one. And I can see, among many other strange and bewildering things, that at the moment I saw Alfred Morgan stand up and bravely defy Richard's selfish tyranny, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes and I knew then which was the false and which the true. That I did not act upon this knowledge and follow the dictates of my intuition, I afterward regretted more poignantly than it often befalls the lot of a girl to rue a guiltless deed.

On that November night when I stood in the dining-room and counted out and stored away the Chalmers' family silver while Richard stood by and suggested appeasing Alfred's outraged pride by a gift of money, I felt an almost overpowering desire to fly precipitately away from the great, gleaming house with its Midas-like master, who, as I remembered for the first time with a shudder, was also _my_ master.

The storm without, which had broken so violently at the hour of the equally violent storm within, and between those two strong and determined spirits, had spent its force during the afternoon, and when the dreary night closed down there was a sharp wind from the east, and the rain changed into a driving sleet.

Out into this Alfred went, and I stood at the door with him as we said good-by, until the piercing wind blew in and brought with it a little shower of light sleet, which it scattered over the inlaid floor.

"I'll be in the city for a day or two next week," I said as he held out his hand and looked with a slight shiver out into the icy blackness through which he must pass. "I'll see you then."

For the moment I had forgotten that Alfred and I no longer saw each other when I was in the city. I had failed to remember the fact, and also the circumstances leading up to it.

"But I'm leaving for New York Saturday night," he said briefly, as he pulled a little closer the big storm collar of his heavy coat, and slipped on his long automobile gauntlets. He had left the city so hurriedly that he had not had time to exchange these for ordinary gloves. "--And I sail on the following Wednesday."

"Oh! So this is good-by then?"

"Yes--for all time, I suppose. You'll be married long before I get back."

We were standing alone at the door which led out to the driveway and there was a motor-car a few feet away puffing softly a warning to hurry; Richard was somewhere near, in the front part of the house--but I thought not of his anger if he should find me in such a plight; I did not stop to remember that Alfred was in danger of missing his train; above all I did not recall that only a few months before I had had the chance of making a decision which, if differently made, would have put such a different aspect upon the world's cold blackness this miserable night--I remembered nothing, except that Alfred was going away from me--and I had already seen my mistake. Giving way completely as this mighty knowledge came bearing down upon the tired, aching nerves of my brain, which had already been working at over-tension for the past many days, I covered my face with my hands and gave vent to the sobs and tears which seemed to have been gathering in my heart since I had last seen Alfred. Now he was going away, and I was to see him no more!

"Ann," he begged, as he quickly stripped off the long gauntlets and started to put out his hand, "_don't_! For God's sake don't cry! I've stood a lot to-day, but I'll swear I can't stand that."

"If you've stood a lot, don't you think that I have, too?" I demanded in a low voice, the convulsive little catches in my throat making speech difficult. I had lost all power of self-control for the moment, and I think that if Richard had come out into the hall at that instant and demanded an explanation I should have frankly given it. Many times through the succeeding months I regretted bitterly that he had not.

Alfred's hand started out toward me again at my passionate words, and caught mine this time, dragging them gently down from my face as he compelled my eyes to meet his.

"What do you mean?" he demanded. "Is he unkind to _you_, too?"

"Oh, no, not unkind," I stammered, half frightened at the sudden turn of our conversation. "Certainly not unkind. He is the soul of generosity--but we don't--get along well--together." I broke down weakly in my speech, for the sense of disloyalty was strong upon me, and I felt that it was almost as grave a crime to recount the faults of a lover as those of a husband.

But Alfred's face was very serious, and if my perfidy made any impress upon him it was lost in the mazes of a greater problem.

"That is what I've been afraid of," he said in almost the same tones he had used when he made a similar remark upon my telling him I cared for Richard. "I thought you would find that your natures are--incompatible."

"Incompatible? Oh, Alfred, if we marry we'll _fight_!" I sobbed, burying my face in my hands again, and forgetting the _lover_ Alfred in the dear friend whom I could always go to with a trouble. And I would be willing to stake anything in life that, in that moment, he, too, had forgotten that he was my lover.

"Well, that is a very serious question, and one which you will have thoroughly to thresh out before it is too late," he said, his bright brown eyes anxious and troubled. He looked down upon me with infinite sympathy.

"And you are going away so soon--and for so long?"

"Well, if I were not going away I could no longer be a--a friend to you, Ann; for I am not capable of giving you unbiased advice, and that is what you need. It would be a great temptation to make capital for myself out of your troubles with--him; and I can't lower myself this way. So don't grieve over my going away, and--take council with your mother and Mrs. Clayborne. I am not the one to advise you in this case."

So he went out into the blackness!

* * * * *

From New York, the day he sailed, he wrote me a note saying that he could not leave without telling me some things which he could not honorably speak of while we were in Richard Chalmers' house that night; and those things were that his own feeling for me would never change; if years passed before I ever felt that I needed him I was to send for him just as confidently as I would to-day. No matter what decision I came to in regard to my marriage with Richard Chalmers he would never approach me again in the light of a lover until I sent for him, the note ran on; and, as I read this last I looked up and smiled into vacancy over the thought of how proud and high-minded he is. He gave me the address of a London hospital and said that if I cared to write to him at any time within the next few weeks the letter would reach him there.

But I did not write to him within the next few weeks.

On the morning after Alfred's departure from Charlotteville I came down-stairs early and found Richard in the breakfast-room. He was smiling radiantly as he looked up and saw me; then he threw aside his morning paper and pulled up a chair close to the fire.

"Evelyn is doing splendidly; the political news is to my liking; there are fresh trout for breakfast, and--here's a rose for your hair, my lady-love," he said, holding out to me a perfect bud of pearly whiteness. A box of them had come on the early train from a friend of Evelyn's in the city, and Richard had purloined the most beautiful one for me.

The ground outside was white and there was the sharp little sound of sleet against the window-pane, but the breakfast-room was a scene of glowing cheer. A Japanese tea-service was on the table, and the trout, which Richard had been fortunate enough to secure from a passing fisherman that morning, was broiled to a most delicious brown and seemed to be enjoying its repose upon its bed of water-cress. A steaming pot of hot water was presently brought in and placed beside my plate, and the tea-ball was brought to me. I was to make the tea and Richard and I were to breakfast together.

"This strikes me as being a happy arrangement," he said, smiling what I had often called his "twenty-one-year-old smile," for when he wore it it was difficult for me to believe that he was as far advanced in the thirties as I knew him to be. "This looks quite married and home-like, doesn't it--Mrs. Chalmers?"

Richard seldom jested about our marriage, and he never, but this one time, made reference to the name which would be mine when we married. Such a jest on the morning before, when he had just come in from his trip and was the personification of gentlemanly grouch, would have made all the world radiant to me; but, as it was, I blushed painfully as he spoke the name--and he took the blush at its face value.

"Ah, madam, I see that the thought pleases you!" he kept on banteringly as my hand trembled a little over the tea-ball. "Perhaps this is my opportunity for pressing my suit--isn't that what they call it in novels? It smacks too much of the tailor shop to suit my taste, however.--But honestly, Ann, I do want us to make arrangements for our marriage the first minute this nomination business is over. What do you say, dear heart?"

Again, if the question had been asked yesterday morning it would have made a startlingly different impression, but, as it was this morning, I parried.

"I say that we are two very selfish and thoughtless young people to be talking about such things while Evelyn is lying up-stairs so ill--and your mother in such distress, Richard," I answered.

"Well, we'll not say another word about it, if it troubles you, sweetheart," he said gently. Then after a moment he added: "I never expect to do anything to hurt you, even a little bit, again."

"You mean--?"

"I mean as I did yesterday--about Morgan, you know. Did you notice how I stayed clear away last night while you went to the door with him? But," resuming his tone of persiflage, "you were there an unreasonable time, it seems to me. Now, tell your rightful lord what you two cronies were talking about."

"About his trip," I said quickly, spilling a little tea upon the cloth and vigorously mopping it up with my napkin. "He's going to Europe next week."

"Well, he's a pretty decent chap, although he does look deucedly young to be cutting into people--don't you think so?" he asked, not that he really did think so, for Alfred is quite old-looking for his years, but he thought it would place him in a better light--the way he acted yesterday.

"Oh, you'd like a bearded old surgeon who learned so much technique before the war that he hasn't needed to learn any since," I answered, and the breakfast-hour passed away with this kind of light, bantering talk.

From that day Richard set about being the most agreeable companion when we were together, and the most devoted lover when we were separated that it has ever been my lot to meet in fact or fiction. I left Charlotteville the next day and he followed me up to the city on the fourth day thereafter, as soon as the doctors pronounced Evelyn out of danger. I had not intended stopping over in the city any length of time, but I found Cousin Eunice in a state of despair over the progress, or lack of progress, of her new book.

"Do stay," she begged, as I announced this intention to her, "at least until I get through with the proposal. It's as hard to get your hero to propose nicely as it is to get the gathers of a sleeve to set right. There's always either too much or too little in a given spot. And it's so provoking, when I'm right in the midst of such a delicate situation, to have Pearl call out to me from the foot of the steps: 'Mrs. Clayborne, here's a jepman at the do' want's to know if your husban's a householder and a freeholder.'

"'Tell him yes, and a _slave-holder_,' I yell back at her; for any woman who really keeps house _is_ a slave."

"What do 'jepmen' want to ask such fool questions for?" I asked wonderingly.

"To avoid election frauds. You see there is so much deviltry right now in politics that the law-enforcement faction is sending men around all over the city to find out every voter, and if he has the right to vote."

"Well, what good does it all do?"

"None; but it gives the poor, overworked housewives one more trip to the front door, in the course of the day.--Then there are agents selling non-rustible wired bust-forms. Pearl never knows what to say to them, either."

"Mercy, what should one say?" I demanded, thinking all of a sudden that maybe my task was going to be too large for me.

"Say anything that comes to your mind, just so it's unfit for publication--nothing milder will do for them," she answered bitterly.

"And Waterloo doesn't give you any trouble while you're trying to work, does he?" I inquired.

"Happily no, for Grapefruit is his consolation and his joy. Never were there such ways of a nursemaid with a man child. Never has anybody invented such tales and games--"

"And spitting contests," I interpolated.

"It's true she taught him that ugly habit," she responded with some dignity, "but all boys learn it sooner or later."

So I stayed and the book grew like a soap-bubble the first week. Then Pearl's brother got into that condition which is always described by our colored servants with much gusto and rolling of white eyeballs as "'bout ter die," and, whether he ever dies or not, is a matter that the housekeeper knows nothing of. But the servant always leaves, and she did in this case; and upon the Sunday morning thereafter the gas stove in the Clayborne home looked as if gangrene had set in on it. I had magnanimously insisted on doing the cooking; and I didn't know before that a gas stove had to be washed as often as a new-born baby.

Cousin Eunice came out of her cataleptic state on Sunday morning, for she is ashamed to write on the type-writer that day for fear Waterloo will tell it at Sunday-school--and she showed me how to dispose of the week-old egg-shells and concentrated soup cans which had accumulated amazingly around the fenders of the range.

"Oh, I think a literary ambition is an evil thing sometimes," she said with a deep sigh, looking around at the house, which she declared was enough to give us all bubonic plague.

"It is--er, disheartening to have you shut up all the week in the little back room up-stairs," Rufe admitted, fishing one of his best gloves out from behind the coal-box. "When you're locked away up there the house looks as empty as a hotel bureau-drawer--and that's the emptiest thing on earth."

"I know it," she answered, looking at him sympathetically. "--Besides, it's wearing to have a book for ever in your mind. Inspiration is so uncertain--and so urgent. I've had it strike me while I was washing my hair; and it's far from pleasant to have to dash the soap out of your eyes while you search all over the house for your note-book and pencil--and the water drips down all over the furniture."

"It must be," Rufe agreed.

"And here lately I've grown so absent-minded that when I go down-town for a little shopping I have to dress with my memorandum in my mouth to keep from going off and forgetting it."

But on Monday morning genius was burning again, and I stayed through that week, but only in the capacity of a protection against interruptions. We got another cook, for Pearl's brother, like Charles II., was "an unconscionable time a-dying." Richard came every day and every night and was so attentive to the whole family that Rufe rather sarcastically asked one day: "Ann, is Chalmers courting you or me?"

Rufe's words meant little to me then, but later they kept recurring to my mind with a persistency that would make Banquo's ghost appear like a tame and laggard thing. Was Richard hoping to gain, through his friendship with me, the support of the _Times_? He knew that if Rufe's personal influence could not bring about an actual support of him in the coming campaign it would be a factor in having the paper judge his manipulations with a lenient eye.

And now this finally brings me up to that miserable day the following spring, the Ides of March, it was, when the skies fell; and they never fell upon a more wretched, more humiliated, more bitterly disciplined young woman.

As I have said, Richard had made an ideal fiancé throughout the time which followed that miserable parting with Alfred, and I had occasion many times to wonder if, after all, I might not have been mistaken about the incompatibility of our natures. Besides, the fascination of the handsome, physical Richard Chalmers was still there; perhaps it was never so strongly and bitterly there as on the fifteenth of March that I have just mentioned.

As the winter wore away, Richard's visits down home here, in the country, had been much further apart, especially since the time for the actual political fight drew nearer; and, from this fact and from the newspapers' more volcanic outbursts, I knew that a gubernatorial contest was about to take place.

But I should never have known it from the man who was most concerned in the race, for, during all this time, Richard never confided one hope nor fear of his to me; and I see now that it was not because he "didn't want to bother my pretty little head about such things," as he occasionally stated, with a fond smile, but because he judged me to be exactly of the same intellectual stripe as his mother and Evelyn. He thought that I would not have sense enough to understand the situation.

Richard had been out of town a good deal lately on business trips, and the meeting that morning in March, at Rufe's office, was in the nature of an accident. Richard had not known that I was in the city for a day's shopping, so when we accidentally ran across each other on the street, the _Times_ building was the nearest place we might drop into for a little talk.

"Well, you are taking your campaign hard," I said, as I looked at him critically after Rufe had assured us that we might have the whole morning without interruption, in his own particular little den, as he was going to be out in town. Then Richard had asked him to give orders that we were not to be interrupted, as he particularly wished for a little talk with me.

"Ann, I've had enough to run any man crazy since I saw you last, dear," he said wearily, in answer to my comment on his looks. He dropped down into the nearest chair and put up one hand to shade his eyes from the brilliant morning glare. "This political business is the most infernal--"

"What, Richard?"

He was looking steadily into my eyes, but at my question he looked away; then after a moment moved his chair over closer and caught up my left hand.

"I'm in a devil of a mess, love," he said after a little inward struggle--then with that charming directness of his he ventured--"I want you to promise to help me out."

"Of course I will," I readily agreed.

"Oh, that's not the kind of promise I want," he instantly objected. "Say it solemnly. Say, 'I'll promise to stick to you.'"

"Why, Richard, you make me fear that something is seriously wrong," I cried in sudden alarm, for my sense of oneness with him had grown so amazingly since those months between the time of my visit to Charlotteville and then, and I felt as entirely identified with his interests as if we were already married. His attitude toward me at the breakfast-table the morning after Alfred's departure was a key-note to the manner in which he strove every day after that to cement this relation; and I know now that this was an immense factor in causing me to allow the engagement to exist through those days of doubt. I had always felt that an engagement was very nearly as binding as a marriage--and Richard had always exercised such a charming right of possession.

"Something is seriously wrong, Ann," he said gravely, and his eyes held mine in a sort of fascinated wonder; "and I expect you to stand by me."

His manner was very grave; and he seemed to be in a serious doubt as to whether or not I would stand by him.

"Tell me about it," I suggested as patiently as I could, for I was trembling with uneasy eagerness.

"Give me your hand and swear that you will stick to me."

"Oh, sweetheart, I'll stick to you if you're a horse-thief," I said, trying to force a laugh.

"Then listen! You know that I want to be governor of this state--"

I nodded my head.

"--And the temperance party is about to go back on me because they think that Major Blake and I are going to form a separate faction and leave out the liquor question."

"Yes, I know."

"Well, that is just what we are going to do--to save the state from the Republicans."

"Well?"

"And Blake is going to work up the campaign _for me_--on the condition--"

My blood was pounding like fire through my veins, but I felt absolutely unable to move. I knew what he was going to say and my heart was pleading for mercy, but my lips were mute. They could not even move enough to say, "I know it all. Don't say the hideous words." Richard had grown painfully embarrassed, and he stammered awkwardly:

"--on the condition that I become his son-in-law."

Just what happened after this I do not know. I might sit here all night trying to recall his explanations and protestations, but I shall get through with it all as speedily as possible, for all I really remember about that terrible day is that I felt dreadfully ill--and _benumbed_. I listened in a sort of trance to his recital of how Berenice Blake had labored under an hallucination for some time that he cared for her; and she had learned to return the fancied affection; how very ill she was, so ill that when she came home for Thanksgiving it was found that she would have to go right back to Denver--

"And you went as far as St. Louis with them--and brought me a string of pearls," I said in a dazed fashion.

"Yes, I always think of you first--no matter where I am," he answered, looking at me fondly. "And our love-affair will not even be suspended for very long," he went on. "She can't possibly live six months; and her father wants, above everything on earth, that she shall be happy for the little while that she has to live."

"By marrying you."

"By being engaged to me. I would _not_ marry her--there is no necessity for that."

"And you are asking me to release you?"

"I am _not_," he said very firmly. "I am asking you to give me--a leave of absence."

Some unknown power seemed to put the words into my mouth, for I was not conscious of any effort toward thinking.

"But I release you, Richard. I could not be--mixed up in that kind of thing."

He sprang from his chair and caught me violently in his arms.

"That's just what you're not going to do. You are _mine_. You are going to stick to me."

"I said that I would stick to you if you were a horse-thief," I said slowly. "--But not--_this_."

"Oh, Ann, you are breaking my heart," he cried, as he caught me close to him and buried his head on my shoulder. "You can't mean to throw me over."

"You are kind to put it that way, Richard," I said.

"You are a sensible girl," he exclaimed suddenly as he raised his head and looked at me again. "You must listen to reason and do exactly as I tell you in this matter. Then all will be well. The affair will be nothing more than a make-believe between us all, for Major Blake knows that I do not love the poor, homely, half-dead creature; the betrothal will have no more feeling in it than a stage kiss. The only deception you will have to practise will be to announce your own engagement to some one else this week, so that--"

"This week? My own engagement? Richard, what do you mean?"

"I mean just this, my poor little girl," he began, his deep gray eyes full of tears, and his hands, as they held mine, trembling piteously, "--that if the story gets noised abroad that I--I hate even to suggest such a thing, Ann, it is so far from truth, darling--but if the story gets noised abroad that I jilted you it will harm my prospects, as well as being a humiliation to you."

"Oh, I see."

"So I thought you might announce your engagement to some one else--of course, just for a pose, but--"

"But there isn't any one else."

His eyes glanced into mine for a moment, then sought the floor.

"I've thought of all that," he said easily. "But you know that Alfred Morgan would--would--"

"Would let me use his name?"

"Oh, Ann, don't look so queer and unnatural, dear; you frighten me! You're not going to faint, nor--anything, are you?" he began, looking around helplessly.

"I'm not going to faint," I assured him with a little smile that was forced up from somewhere in the depths of my misery. "But I'm not going to use Alfred's--nor any other man's name in the way you suggest."

"It is only to save yourself humiliation, dear," he said, looking annoyed and relieved at the same time.

"Oh, I'll take the humiliation for my part," I said but with no evidence of anger nor reproach. I was still stunned and benumbed. "I can stand the humiliation--but I hate a liar."

* * * * *

So it ended this way--that beautiful dream of mine; and I should not tell the truth if I pretended that I did not wish many times in the bitter weeks which followed to close my eyes to the cruel reality and dream again, even knowing all the while that it was a dream.

No, there was no sense of thankful relief that I had found my knight of the lion heart to be a poor-spirited, craven, selfish thing. Not then! At the time of the revelation and for many days following I gave myself up to a bitter, longing sorrow for the man whom I had created out of my own fancy and had named King Richard. I had made the image as entirely as ever Pygmalion made Galatea, and I had worshipped it. I had loved it so that if its coming to life could have been brought about through my giving up my own I should gladly have let it live. But it would not come to life, for it was nothing--it was a dream-creature. Even as such, its image continued with me, and I sorrowed for it with such an aching, lonely hopelessness that more times than once during the spring months of that year I felt that it was not within my nature to keep up the struggle any longer. I must give it up and send for Richard to come back.

The pale blue of the flowers which came up and blossomed in thousands along the hillsides of the "garden" back of the village, and the deep blue of the April skies were both turned to gray this spring--the cold, piercing gray of his eyes. They had not been cold for me!

And then a little later there was the "humiliation" he had mentioned. Possibly he did what he could to make this as light as it might be made, for his engagement to Major Blake's daughter was not publicly announced until several weeks after I felt sure the understanding had been reached. But he could not ask her to keep the betrothal a secret, as he had asked me, for his capital must be quickly and surely made from its brief existence.

Taking a new lease on life from this sudden and mighty happiness of hers, the poor, dying creature came home from Colorado and set about a feverish enjoyment of the brief span of time which was left her. There were crowded arrangements made for the wedding, which was announced for June--after the primaries were well over--and she had the satisfaction of having her full-length picture appear in all the prominent newspapers of the state, all bearing the legend that she was Mr. Richard Chalmers' fiancée. The sight of these pictures, homely as they were, was no consolation to me, for I had never been jealous of her. And now I felt an infinite pity.

I used often to think with a laugh of scorn of the man I had imagined Richard Chalmers to be, making love to the poor, ugly, emaciated thing, in hopes of gaining her father's political favor! For of course he had made love to her all along, just as he had to me, in the same beautiful language, and with the same beautiful smile--but he had not kissed her. I could fancy him telling her of his great admiration and his mighty respect, and how unworthy he was to touch the hem of her garment--when all the while he was thinking how ugly she was and what a risk there might be of his catching tuberculosis!

Poor girl! She was happy, though, for her little while, tagging around the country with her father and Richard, and watching him adoringly as he made his pretty speeches to the enthusiastic crowds of constituents. But she played the game too quick and fast, and with such a studied disregard for consequences that it was no wonder the end came so soon. She spent the most uncertain, changeable weeks of the time which is ever an ominous one for consumptives in driving through long stretches of damp country roads, then sitting for hours in stuffy, ill-ventilated little assembly rooms, where the foul air did its deadly work for her. She contracted pneumonia and died; and Mr. Chalmers canceled all speaking dates for one week!

But she died still thinking her Richard was a lion-hearted king, so who can say that Fate was not kind to her?

That there was an aftermath to my own affair with Richard was almost inevitable, for only in books do such bubbles burst and vanish entirely, leaving nothing in their wake. But this is the true record of what happened that spring and summer, and undignified and inartistic enough these happenings ofttimes were. If Fate had wished to bring the matter to a beautiful and aesthetic close she would never let Richard and me meet again in this world, for oh, those after-meetings are bitter dregs of romance! But we met again--on the night of his defeat, a strange chance meeting it was, for he was standing at the door of his headquarters hotel, which is just across the street from the _Times_ building, trying to make way for his mother and Evelyn, when I passed with the Claybornes. Evelyn saw me and called out a surprised greeting, so I was forced to stop for a moment, while Rufe and Cousin Eunice, never missing me, continued threading their way slowly across the street.

Richard stood very pale and weary looking, with his hat in his hand, while I spoke to Mrs. Chalmers and Evelyn; then seeing that I had been left alone he gravely suggested that I could never make my way through the crowd by myself, so he sent his mother and sister up-stairs and constituted himself my temporary knight errant. His hand, which tightly clutched my arm, as we struggled on, was icy cold; and the lines around his eyes made him look decidedly middle-aged. Clearly he had already realized his defeat, although the returns were only beginning to be flashed before the eyes of the cheering throng.

He walked with me to the elevator of the _Times_ building, and the great mirror in the back of the car held our two images a moment as he lifted his hat and turned to leave me. The reflection held a wholesome lesson as I gazed for an instant upon the features of the handsome, blasé, middle-aged man, then glanced at myself in my short-sleeved white gown, with my rounded elbows showing youthfully. Yes, I was undeniably _young_; and I felt, even in the midst of my sorrow for him, a little thrill of satisfaction that it was so.

It was a week or two after his defeat that Richard began a renewal of his lover-like attitude toward me, calling me on the telephone and asking permission to come, and again bombarding the express office with boxes of candy and flowers. When I gave abnormally polite refusals to these requests he would usually acquiesce with his half amused smile, which I could see just as plainly as if only a few feet lay between us, instead of many miles.

"You are a stubborn little vixen," he would say sometimes. "How long do you expect to keep this up?"

And if he had studied the matter over carefully and tried to hit on a means of curing me of my fancy for him he could never have found anything more effectual than this. Then one day in the early autumn when all the world was dreary and the state was so evidently going Republican that no doubt he had cause for his odd temper, Richard called me again and asked that a meeting might be arranged, either at home or in the city. I began giving my usual reasons for not seeing him, when he cut me short with quick impatience.

"Oh, that's all right, if you don't want to see me," he said harshly, his rich drawl entirely obliterated in the sudden anger which tinted his speech. "And I'll promise never to give you the chance again of turning me down. But, my dear Ann, you must remember there was a time when I didn't have to _beg_ you for every little favor I got."

"There was a time!" Ungenerous, despicable as this was, coming from Richard, I took it with a sort of calmness born of the knowledge that it was only what I deserved. For I don't believe that a woman ever acts a fool over a man but that she lives to have the unwholesome fact cast up to her while she is drinking the dregs of her folly. "There was a time," the man is always ready to remind her, ofttimes hoping to use this memory as a lever to remove the aftergrowth of indifference or positive hatred.

In this case the words caused me to feel something very nearly akin to hatred for Richard, and I quickly ran away up-stairs, where I threw myself across my bed and gave way to the storm of tears which had been brought on by the angry selfishness of his act. But tears, while they are bitter and scalding, are also _cleansing_, and they acted that day as a purifying flood which washed my soul clean from all thoughts of Richard Chalmers. When, late in the afternoon of that rainy day, I arose from my bed I was weak from weeping, and unutterably saddened over this final, ugly blow which Reality had dealt the fragments of my house which was built upon the sands; but, weak and sad and world-wise, as I felt myself to be, there was a great joy singing in my heart, for I knew, for the first time, I _knew_ that I was free.

The next day I wrote a letter to Jean asking her to get me several boxes of the latest style gold-edged note paper with my monogram embossed thereon, and insisted that she have the stationer hurry the order through. "I want the very newest and most exquisite style you can find," I wrote her, "for I am about to begin a most particular correspondence and if you will take pity upon my loneliness enough to run down any time within the next few weeks I'll tell you the name of my distant correspondent. Yet, for fear you will not be able to get here before your curiosity consumes you, I'll let you into the secret enough to satisfy you that the gentleman is a 'medicine man' and he is now wandering on a foreign strand. And if you should hear that I have done such an unladylike thing as to _send_ for him, you will know in your heart that it is not entirely on account of father's rheumatism and Mammy Lou's still threatening right side.

"But come, dear Jean, if you love me, for I am very lonesome, with absolutely nobody but Neva and her mother to divert my mind."

Poor little Neva! I must not wind up this chapter without some little word about her, for there is going to be only one more chapter after this, and there will be no room for Neva in that. This final word may be written next week--it may not be written until a whole year has passed, but whenever it is it will be the last, for I know that if Mammy Lou's definition of the period is correct it will wind up the age of Eve.

But Neva! We left her a lovelorn lass grieving over the perfidies of Hiram, the fickle. We find her again a college girl, breathing academic atmosphere from the tassel of her mortar-board down to the rubber heel of her "gym" shoes. She cares for nothing but school, and the sororities therein. She knows all the places up in the city where one is most likely to come across the college boys one desires most to see; and the class of ices that take the longest time to consume while one is sitting watching these boys pass by. She sometimes does not know the name of a certain desirable young man, but she always knows the name of his high-sounding Greek letter brotherhood.

"She don't talk about nothing but 'frats' and 'spats' and things like that," her mother one time complained after a brief visit from Neva. "And she calls some of her mates by the curiousest names I ever heard. There's one she likes a good deal that she says is a _new Phi Chi_; and another one that she has to look to some because she's a '_old Tau!_'"

"The stage has to be passed through," mother said to Mrs. Sullivan comfortingly, "for it's as certain and as harmless as chicken-pox."

But Mammy Lou takes a much more serious view of Neva's collegiate career and high-flown talk.

"Education ain't no good for girls," she often declares emphatically, "for it spoils their powers of emmanuel labor. You can just as shore count on a educated girl makin' a lazy wife as you can count on damp weather makin' a baby's hair curl an' a ol' woman's feet hurt!"