The swing of the pendulum

Jean Norris came slowly down the Library steps, passed the Chemistry Building, and took the worn path across the campus to the brush-lined creek. The hot stubble burned through...

As Jean had predicted, the summer was a hard one. Martha Norris insisted on taking summer students to board, closing every argument against it with gentle insistence on her own...

Every morning at eight Jean crossed the Bay and every night at six she returned. The trains and the boats were always crowded, and very shortly Jean came to know certain faces a...

Exactly at half past five Herrick came. The thick hair had been freshly cut, and he wore a suit that Jean had not seen before. He looked young and very happy and full of joy in...

Through the crowd waiting for tables, Herrick pushed his way and Jean followed closely. Greasy waiters rushed about with great platters of spaghetti, increasing the noise and co...

Soon after the first dinner with The Bunch, Herrick finished the series of articles and no longer came to the library. But often Jean found him waiting at the closing hour and t...

Herrick was happier than he had been for a long time as he sat bareheaded on the upper deck and thought back over the day with Jean and of how she had looked as he kissed her. I...

He went nowhere and saw no one. Through the lonely dinners, and long evenings in the studio, Herrick worked himself into a fury that urged him on and held him back. His anger sp...

Thompson of the _Chronicle_ was a large, fat man who had cultivated what he considered the proper editorial manner so that even in ordinary conversation he snapped out his sente...

Whenever Jean looked back on that night she could remember every detail of the dinner, everything that had been said, almost the order of its saying. Thrilled by the happiness a...

In the bright sunshine she looked old. Her flesh was pale and flaccid, like the flesh of overworked people, or of the aged who have gone without sleep. Her hair was twisted in a...

From the chaos of chance emotions, pleasure snatched at random, Herrick settled down into the calm order of a life directed by a fixed purpose. He was going to write the novel....

In the middle of November, Herrick struck a snag in his work. The first five chapters had gone well. He had brought Robert up from the farm, taken him through college and plunge...

Late in December the rains set in. Heavy gray clouds hung low over the city's hills, pressing all the joy and color from life, flattening the world to a monotone of black umbrel...

"I am certainly glad." Dr. Mary, as she came padding across the big living room, saw only Jean. "I thought you were a 'promiser,' and I loathe 'promisers,' almost as much as I d...

"Jean, I'm going to give you this case, because I feel in my backbone that it's out of the usual run, and that's saying a good deal, with some of those we've had lately, isn't it?"

Giuseppe's was crowded. The air reeked with smoke and the heavy odor of highly seasoned food. Not a place at the long table was vacant. Flop was denouncing the low standards of...

In the months that followed there were whole weeks when Herrick despised Jean for her blindness; when he hated her for the calm, filled order of her days; when he wanted to go a...

Jean touched the electric button on her desk and Josephine Grimes appeared with notebook and pencil. She was a tall, spare woman, impelled through life by devotion to an invalid...

A few moments before three-thirty the next afternoon Jean tidied her desk, settled Miss Grimes with enough work for the rest of the day, and drew out some notes she had made for...

In winter Gregory Allen always looked forward to summer, except for missing Puck, as a rest from the weary round of Margaret's enthusiasms, her uninteresting friends, and the bo...

"Let me see." Puck spoke with Gregory's quiet determination, as if she always expected to have to hold out against some opposition. It sat oddly with her golden hair and the del...

"What on earth is the matter with you to-night? You look as if you had lost your last friend and been evicted for non-payment of rent." Jean was leaning back in her usual chair...

The Fenninger dinner was a success, and Jean waited all the next morning for Gregory to 'phone. She so thoroughly expected him to, and waited so impatiently, enjoying in anticip...

For the first week a feeling of relief in going without writing to Jean had persisted in the background of Gregory's mind. But as the heat increased, and the improvements sugges...

Jean never knew by what power she left the train at the right station, nor how she sat as usual for a few moments on Martha's bed and told her of the meeting. She had no memory...

It was the end of October. The trees in the parks and along the Palisades were bare, but the sun still shone and children danced in the streets to the music of the hurdy-gurdies...

It was a few minutes before seven when the maid showed Jean into the Allen living-room. A little girl rose from a hassock and stood looking at her quietly. Then she came forward...

Jean's work now took shape to her as something visible and apart. It was the system of wires that ran through life, connecting the days. The dynamo that kept it all vibrating wa...

In March, before the actual building of the tenements began, Jean and Gregory went away for a week-end. They had decided on the spur of the moment and taken the train like two t...

Although for the last year Dr. Pedloe had objected to many things that Jean had done, he really was proud of the energy and magnetism that made her district better known than al...

At the end of the week Miss Burns left and in a few days Puck was running about the house as usual. The only reminder that something had changed somewhere in his world, were the...

The third week in August, Dr. Mary returned. She came without warning, so that, late in the afternoon, when Jean came rushing in to start dinner, she stopped, staring at the fig...

Gregory Allen had never intended to let three months pass without telling Jean of his promise to go to Maine. But at first his going had seemed a distant point, and then, as it...

Mary had decided to stay on and work for an M. A. at Columbia. She was busy choosing courses of study and quarreling with professors about prerequisites, so Jean, by pleading ex...

The dead year was buried in a flare of gold and scarlet. For a little while the gray sky hung low over the earth, and chill winds blew through the empty world. Then the gorgeous...

Spring was late, but when it came, it came with a rush. In a day, the trees swelled in buds and blades of grass pricked the frozen earth. Jean woke one morning, late in April, t...

Winter closed early with a jealous grip, and Jean worked as even she had never worked before. She managed committees, lobbied bills, spoke at meetings and drove her plans throug...

"How do you like it?" Margaret turned, looking back over her shoulder to Gregory. Her fair hair and white shoulders rose from a swathing of cloudy fabric that showed now palest...

Jean laid her arm across her mother's shoulders and drew her close. "You won't be silly, will you? If you don't feel well you'll 'phone me? There's nothing very special to-day."

Alone in the church, Jean sat upright in the first pew. The stained windows, the fine linen of the young priest's cassock, his deep-toned chant, the odor of incense, the satin-g...

The porter dimmed the lights for the night. In the berth above a man snored, and across the aisle an old woman breathed in gasping squeaks. Jean pulled up the blind, and, proppe...

It was late in the afternoon of a cold, clear day two weeks later that Jean stood outside the Grand Central Station and looked at the moving streams of strangers, all touched to...

The next day Jean went back to work. Charlotte Stetson, who had taken her place, tried to evince genuine pleasure but could not quite convey it. Jean felt that she had been suit...

The machinery of the house on Grove Street moved smoothly and Jean was more physically comfortable than she had been at any time since Martha's death. And although, at first, sh...

Philip did not come for a week. Every day, after the first three, Nan rang up the office, but either Philip had just left or had not yet come. Every night Gerte wondered why, un...

The others had already arrived when Catherine, Jean and Philip took the three vacant seats on the center aisle. From her box, Mrs. Dalton, resplendent in black lace and diamonds...

A week after the concert Catherine gave up hope for Poloff. Mrs. Dalton did not like him. Some reason, connected with an absconding Russian maid who had once stolen some jewelry...

A little before dawn Jean got up. The narrowness of the couch, the heat of the sheets, the motionless air of a scorching day cramped her. She tried to hold her mind with unaccus...

The evenings from early dusk until late, Jean spent upon the roof, and her first feeling, of being high and safe from all turmoil, deepened. Its peace was tangible. Something wi...

On the Monday morning following the wedding, Jerome was at the office earlier than usual. After the lonely Sunday behind him, the day ahead was filled with expectation. First, h...

Jerome hung up his hat and sat down at the desk. He knew that Jean had asked him something and was waiting for an answer. While he shuffled his mail, he knew that the welcoming...

As they went through the small side door, the band at the far end of the pier was just tuning up. Two powerful arc lamps shed their hard white light on the men, and the rows of...

Whenever Jerome could grasp the fact of Alice, the night's madness dulled to acceptance of conditions. Alice was married. She would have children of her own. He would be a grand...

Jerome Stuart grinned at the red-cap who rushed forward for his bag, at the transfer man to whom he gave his checks, to the taxi driver whom he beckoned, and finally, when he fo...