Chapter 4

"Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise."

Soft the great voice was, soft and widely flowing; to Caroline, who had retreated to the further end of the music-room, so that Delia should not see her tears, it seemed as if Delia herself, a wonderful new Delia, were singing her, a baby again, to sleep. She felt soothed, cradled, protected by that lapping sea of melody that drifted her off her moorings, out of the room....

Vaguely she saw Miss Honey, relaxed on the red throne, smile in her sleep, one arm falling over the broad seat. Was it in her dream that some one in a blue and white apron--not Delia, for Delia was singing--leaned back slowly in the long basket chair and closed her tired eyes? Who was it that held the General close in her arms, and smiled as he patted her cheek at the familiar song and mumbled her fingers with happy cooing noises?

"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream!"

Soft as plush, sweet as honey, the warm voice dipped and rose to the old tune. The General's head was growing heavy, but he smiled confidingly into the dark eyes above him and stretched himself out in full-fed, drowsy content. One hand slipped through the lace under his cheek and rested on the singer's soft breast. She started like a frightened woman, and her voice broke.

Down in the hall the butler and the maid sat on the lower stair.

"Ain't it grand?" she whispered, and Haddock nodded dreamily.

"Mother used to sing us that in the old country," he said. "There was Tom and 'Enry an' me--Lord, Lord!"

The General was asleep. Sometimes a tiny frown drew his eyebrows together. Sometimes she clenched and uncurled his warm hands. Sometimes he sucked softly at nothing, with moist, reminiscent lips. But on and on, over and over, rose and fell the quaint old song,

"My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream!"

It flooded the listening house, it spread a net of dreams about the happy people and coaxed them back to childhood and a child's protected sleep. It seemed a song that could not stop, that must return on its simple refrain so long as there were arms to encircle and breasts to lean upon.

Two men came softly up a smaller stair than the grand entrance flight, and paused in amazement at sight of Caroline stretched, full length, across the threshold. The older and smaller of the men had in fact stepped on her, and confused and half awake she listened to his apologies.

"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! not a vordt! Mein Gott! but it is marvellous! A voice of velvet! Hey? A voice of the heart. My friend, what is this?"

He peeped behind the drawn curtains, and withdrew a face of wonder.

"It is nothing but children--and they sleep!" he whispered. "Oh, but listen, listen! And I offered her fifteen hundred dollars for two hours only of that!"

The other man peeped behind the curtain in his turn, and seizing Caroline by the arm tip-toed with her to a further room.

"What--who--what is the meaning of this?" he whispered hoarsely. "That child--where--"

Caroline rubbed her eyes. The golden voice rose and fell around her.

"General--Delia," she muttered, and stumbled against him. He lifted her limp little body and laid it gently on a leather sofa.

"Another time," he said softly to the other man, "I--we cannot talk with you now. Will you excuse us?"

The man looked longingly at the curtains.

"She will never do more well than that. Never!" he hissed. "Oh, my friend, hear it grow soft! Yes, yes, I am going."

It seemed to Caroline that in a dream some one with a red face and glasses askew, shook her by the shoulder and said to her sternly, "Sh! sh! Listen to me. To-day you hear a great artist--hey? Will you forget it? I must go because they do not vant me, but you will stay and listen. There is here no such voice. Velvet! Honey! Sh! sh!" and he went the way of dreams.

The man who stayed looked long through the curtains.

As a swing droops slow and slower, as the ripples fade from a stone thrown in the stream, the song of the Princess softened and crooned and hushed. Now it was a rich breath, a resonant thread,

"Flow gently, sweet Afton--"

The man stepped across the room and sank below the General at her feet. With her finger on her lips she turned her eyes to his and looked deep into them. He caught his breath with a sob, and wrapping his arm about her as he knelt, hid his face on her lap, against the General. She laid her hand on his head, across the warm little body, and patted it tenderly. Around them lay the sleepers; the General's soft breath was in their ears. The man lifted his head and looked adoringly at the Princess: her hand caressed his cheek, but her eyes looked beyond him into the future.

III

THE PRIZE

Caroline sniffed her way luxuriously through the dusky panelled library.

"I think it smells awfully good here, don't you?" she inquired of her hostess.

The lady's wonderful velvet train dragged listlessly behind her. Her neck and arms were dressed in heavy yellowish lace, but all around her slim body waves of deep colored, soft velvet held the light in lustrous pools or darkened into almost black shadows. It was like stained glass in a church, thought Caroline, stroking it surreptitiously, and like stained glass, too, were the lovely books, bloody red, grassy green and brown, like Autumn woods, with edges of gold when the sunlight struck them. They made the walls like a great jewelled cabinet, lined from floor to ceiling: here and there a niche of polished wood held a white, clear-cut head. From the ceiling great opal tinted globes swung on dull brass chains; they swayed ever so slightly when one watched them closely.

"This is my favorite room, Duchess," said Caroline, "isn't it yours?"

"Do you really think I look like one?" returned the lady, "the only duchess I ever saw was fat--horribly fat. It is a very handsome library, of course."

"Then _she_ didn't look like a duchess, that's all," Caroline explained. "What I like about this library is, it's so clean. And you can pull the chairs out and show those big, shiny yellow ones on the bottom shelf."

"Of course; why not?" said the Duchess, dropping into a great carved chair with griffins' heads on the top.

"Why, you can't do that at Uncle Joe's," Caroline confided, sitting on a small griffin stool at the lady's feet, "because General gets at the bottom row and smears 'em. You see he's only two, and you can't blame him, but he licks himself dreadfully and then rubs it on the backs. He marks them, too, inside, with a pencil or a hatpin, or even an orange-wood stick that you clean your nails with. Yours is made of pearl, you know, but most--a great many, I mean--people have them wood. And so the chairs have to be all leaned around against the walls to keep him from the books."

The Duchess drew a long breath. "And your uncle objects?" she said, between her teeth.

"Uncle Joe says," Caroline returned, patting the griffin heads on her little stool, "that if the President had General in his library for half an hour he'd feel different about race suicide."

The Duchess laughed shortly.

"That is possible, too," she agreed. "You said Cousin Joe was well--and Edith?"

"Oh, yes, they're well--I mean, they're very well indeed, thank you," said Caroline. "Uncle Joe says they have to be, with the General's shoes two dollars and a half a pair! You see he has quite thick soles, now--he runs about everywhere. Aunt Edith says he needs a mounted policeman 'stead of a nurse."

"Did Edith get rested after the moving?"

"Oh, yes," Caroline answered absently. She was watching the opal globes sway. "Aunt Edith says before she was married she'd have gone South with a trained nurse after such an experience, but now she has to save the nurse for measles, she s'poses, so she just lies down after lunch."

The Duchess moved restlessly half out of the griffin chair, but sank back again.

"And you have a trained nurse all the time," Caroline mused, stroking the glistering velvet, "isn't that funny? Just so in case you _might_ be sick...." The sunlight peeped and winked on the gold book-edges.

"It amounts to that," the Duchess said, adding very low, "but she is not likely to be needed for measles."

"No," Caroline assented, "you and cousin Richard are pretty old for measles. It's children that have 'em, mostly. I never did, yet. But you don't seem to ever have any children. And such a big house, too! And you're very fond of children, aren't you? It seems so queer that when you like them you can't manage to have any. And people that don't care about them have them all the time. It was only Christmas time that Norah Mahoney--she does the extra washing in the summer--had another. That makes seven. It's a boy. Joseph Michael, he's named, partly after Uncle Joe. Norah says there don't seem to be any end to your troubles, once you're married to a man."

The Duchess turned aside her head, but Caroline knew from the corner of her mouth that her eyes were full of tears. She stroked the hands that clenched the griffin's crest.

"Never mind," she urged, "maybe you'll have some. Most everybody has just one, anyway."

The Duchess shook her head mutely; a large round tear dropped on the griffin.

"Well, then," said Caroline briskly, "why don't you adopt one? The Weavers did, and she was quite a nice girl; I used to play with her. She sucked her thumb, though. But prob'ly they don't, all of them."

"I wouldn't mind, if she did," the Duchess declared. Already she spoke more brightly. "I wanted to adopt one--one could take it when it was very little. But Richard won't hear of it."

"Not a bit?" Caroline looked worried; she knew Richard.

"Not a bit," the Duchess repeated, "that is, he says he is willing under certain conditions, but they are simply impossible. Nobody could find such a child."

"There are lots of 'em in the Catholic Foundling," said Caroline thoughtfully, "all kinds. Aunt Edith went there to sing for them and she took Miss Honey and me. They're all dressed differently and they look so sweet. You can take your choice of them; Aunt Edith cried. But you must let them be Catholics."

"Richard wouldn't let me take one from an institution," the Duchess said, "and somehow I wouldn't care to, myself. But there is a woman I know of who is interested in children that--that aren't likely to grow up happily, and she will get one for anybody, only one can't ask any questions about them. You may have all the rights in them, but you will never know where they came from. And Richard won't have that. I suppose he's right."

"But there are plenty of people who would let you have one, if you would give her a good home and be kind to her," Caroline began, lapsing for the moment into her confusing, adult manner.

"Yes, but Richard says that no people nice enough to have a child we could want would ever give us the child, don't you see," the Duchess interrupted eagerly. "He says the father must be a gentleman--and educated--and the mother a good woman. He says there must be good blood behind it. And they must never see it, never ask about it, never want it. He says he doesn't see how I could bear to have a child that any other mother had ever loved."

Caroline sighed.

"Cousin Richard does make up his mind, so!" she muttered.

"He is unreasonable," said the Duchess suddenly, "unreasonable! He must know all about the child, but the parents must not know about us! Not know our name, even! Just give up the child and withdraw--why, the poorest, commonest people would not do that, and does he expect that people of the kind he requires would be so heartless? We shall never be able to get one--never. And yet he wants one so--almost as much as I!"

The Duchess had forgotten Caroline. Staring at the opal globes she sat, and again the tears rose, brimmed and overflowed.

Caroline slipped off the little stool and walked softly out of the beautiful room. The books glowed jewel-like, the four milky moons swayed ever so little on their brass chains, the white busts looked coldly at the Duchess as she sat crying in her big carved chair, and there was nobody that could help at all.

Through the dark, shiny halls she walked--cautiously, for she had had embarrassing lessons in its waxy polish--and paused from force of habit to pat the great white polar bear that made the little reception room such a delightful place. More than the busts in the library even, he set loose the fancy, and whiled one away to the enchanted North where the Snow Queen drove her white sledge through the sparkling glades, and the Water Baby dived beneath the dipping berg.

Miss Grundman, the trained nurse, appeared in the doorway.

"Did you care to go out with the brougham, to-day, dear?" she asked. "Hunt tells me he has to go 'way down town."

"Yes, I'd like to--can you take care of babies, too?" Caroline returned abruptly.

Miss Grundman started.

"What an odd child you are--of course I can!" she said. "All nurses can; it's part of the training. Have you any you're worried about?" she added pointedly. Caroline flushed.

"You're making fun o' me," she muttered, "you know very well only grown people have them! I don't mean if they're sick, but can you wash them, and cook the milk in that tin thing, and everything like that?"

"Bless the child, of course I can!" Miss Grundman cried, "you bring me one and I'll show you!"

"Oh, I b'lieve you, Miss Grundman, if you say so," Caroline assured her, and slid carefully along the hall for the stairs that led to her hat and coat.

They spun smoothly down the avenue with an almost imperceptible electric whir, Caroline bolt upright on the plum-colored cushion, Hunt and Gleggson bolt upright on the seat outside. It was a matter for congratulation to Caroline that of all the vehicles that glided by them, none boasted a more upright pair than Hunt and Gleggson.

The tall brown houses were gradually changing into bright shops; the carriages grew thicker and thicker; the long procession stopped and waited now almost every moment, so crowded was the brilliant street. Once a massive policeman actually smiled at her as Hunt stopped the brougham close to him, and Caroline's admiring soul crowded to her eyes at the mighty wave of his white, arresting hand. They drew up before a great window filled with broughams and victorias displayed as lavishly as if they had been hats or bonbon boxes--it was like a gigantic toy-shop. Hunt dropped acrobatically to the pavement and was seen describing his mysterious desires to an affable gentleman behind the plate-glass; he measured with his knuckles and illustrated in pantomime the snapping of something over his knee; the clerk shook his head in commiseration and signalled to an attendant, who darted off. Soon Hunt appeared with a small package and they started on again, turning a corner abruptly and winding through less exciting streets. The shops grew smaller and dingier; drays passed lumbering by and street cars jarred along beside them, but vehicles like their own were noticeably lacking. It was plain that they attracted more attention, now, and more than one group of children dancing in the street to the music of the hurdy-gurdy lingered daringly to provoke the thrilling, mellow warning of their horn. At last they stopped at a corner and Hunt dropped again to the pavement, lingering for a short consultation with Gleggson who pointed once or twice behind them to the small occupant of the brougham. On this occasion he took with him a mysterious and powerful handle, and Caroline knew that this was precisely equivalent to running away with the horses. He hurried around an unattractive corner, and Gleggson sat alone in front. Five, ten minutes passed. They seemed very dull to Caroline, and she reached for the plum-colored tube and spoke boldly through it.

"What are we waiting for, please, Gleggson? Where is Hunt?"

"'E just stepped off, Miss, for a minute, like. 'E'll be 'ere directly. Would you wish for me to go and look 'im up, Miss?"

Gleggson spoke very cordially.

"We-ell, I don't know," Caroline said doubtfully. "If you think he'll be right back ... I can wait...."

"Pre'aps I'd better, as you say, Miss," Gleggson continued, "for 'e _'as_ been gone some time, and I think I could lay me 'and on 'im. You'll not get out, of course, Miss, and I'll be back before you know it."

He clambered down and took the same general course as Hunt had taken, deflecting, however, to enter a little door made like a window-blind, that failed to reach its own door-sill.

"Hunt didn't go there at all," Caroline muttered resentfully, and deliberately opening the door of the brougham, she stepped out.

She had followed Hunt's track quite accurately till a sudden turn confused her, and she realized that after that corner she had no idea in which direction he had gone. She paused uncertainly; the street was dirty, the few children in sight were playing a game unknown to her and not playing very pleasantly, at that; the women who looked at her seemed more curious than kindly. The atmosphere was not sordid enough to be alarming or even interesting; it was merely slovenly and distasteful, and Caroline had almost decided to go back when a young girl stopped by her and eyed her inquisitively.

"Were you lookin' for any particular party?" she asked.

"I was looking for Hunt," said Caroline, "he went this way, I think."

"There's some Hunts across the street there," the girl suggested, "right hand flat, second floor. I seen the name once. I guess you're lost all right, ain't you?"

"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I'm not lost. I can go right back. I'll see if Hunt's there."

The threshold was greasy and worn, the stairs covered with faded oil cloth, the side walls defaced and over-scrawled. At the head of the stairs three dingy doors opened in three different directions, and a soiled card on the middle one bore the name of Hunt. A man's voice somewhere behind it talked in a strange loud sing-song; he seemed to be telling a long, confusing story. At the moment of Caroline's timid knock he was saying over and over again,

"Isn't that so? Isn't that so? Who wouldn't have done the same? Put your finger on the place where I made the mistake! Will you? Will anybody? I ask it as a favor--"

"Hush, won't you?" a woman's voice interrupted, "wasn't that a knock?"

Caroline knocked again.

There was a hasty shuffling and a key turned in the door.

"Who is it?" the woman's voice asked. "What do you want? The auction's all over--there's nothing left. We're moving out to-morrow."

Surprise held Caroline dumb. How could one have an auction in such a place? At auctions there were red flags, and horses and carriages gathered around the house, and people brought luncheon; they had often driven to auctions out in the country.

The door opened.

"Why it's only a child!" said the woman, thin and fatigued, with dark rings under her not ungentle eyes. "What do you want here?"

"I'm looking for Hunt," Caroline answered, "doesn't he live here?"

"Heavens, no!" the woman said, "that old card's been there long before we moved in, I guess. They were old renters, most likely. What's the party to you, anyway? Is he your--"

She paused, studying Caroline's simple but unmistakeable clothes and manner.

"He drives the automobile," Caroline explained, "I thought he came this way."

"Come in, won't you?" said the woman, "there's no good getting any more lost than you are, I guess. There's not much to sit on, 'specially if you're used to automobiles, but we can find you something, I hope. I try to keep it better looking than this gen'ally, but this is my last day here. I'm going out West to-morrow."

An old table, two worn chairs and an over-turned box furnished the small room; through an open door Caroline spied a tumbled bed. A kitchen, dismantled and dreary, faced her.

"The agent gave me five dollars for all I left," the woman said, "I don't know which of us got the best o' the bargain. Now, about you. Where do you live? I s'pose they're looking for you right now while we're talking. Do you know where you left the automobile?"

"Oh, yes." Caroline stared frankly about her. "Wasn't there a man in here? Where did he go?"

The woman grunted out a sort of laugh. "If you're not the limit!" she murmured. She stepped to the door of the kitchen, looked in, and beckoned to Caroline.

"I suppose you heard him carrying on," she said, "he's in there. Poor fellow, he's all worn out."

Caroline peered into the kitchen. With his rough, unshaven face resting on his arms, his hair all tossed about, his face drawn in misery, even in his heavy sleep, a young man sat before a table, half lying on it, one hand on a soiled plate still grasping a piece of bread.

"Is he sick?" whispered Caroline.

"N--no, I wouldn't say sick, exactly, but I guess he'd be almost as well off if he was," said the woman. "It would take his mind off. He's had a lot of trouble."

The man scowled in his sleep and clenched his hand, so that the bread crumbled in it.

"And so I won the prize," he muttered, "just as I told her I would. Did I have any pull? Was there any favoritism? No--you know it as well as I do--it was good work won that prize!"

"Was it a bridge prize?" Caroline inquired maturely. The woman stared.

"A bridge prize?" she repeated vaguely. "Why, no, I guess not. It was for writing a story for one of those magazines. He won a thousand dollars."

The man opened his eyes suddenly.

"And if you don't believe it," he said, still in that strange sing-song voice, "just read that letter."

He pulled a worn, creased sheet from an inner pocket and thrust it at Caroline.

"It's typewritten," he added, "it's easy enough to see if I'm lying. Just read it out."

Caroline glanced at the engraved letter-heading and began to read in her careful, childish voice:

MY DEAR MR. WILLISTON:

_It is with great pleasure that I have to announce the fact that your story, "The Renewal," has been selected by the judges as most worthy of the thousand-dollar prize offered by us._

The woman snatched the paper from her hand.

"The idea!" she cried, "let the child alone, Mr. Williston! Don't you see she's lost?"

The man dropped like a stone on the table.

"Lost!" he whispered, "lost! Oh, that dreadful word! Yes, she's lost. Poor little Lou. It's all over."

The woman drew Caroline back into the sitting room.

"I'm sorry you should see him," she said. "You must excuse him--he don't really know what he's doing. He lost his wife a week ago and he's hardly slept since. It's real sad. I was as sorry as I could be for 'em, and I'd have kept 'em even longer if she'd lived, though they couldn't pay. I'd keep the baby, too, if I could, it's such a cute little thing, but I can't, and I'm to take it to the Foundling to-day. I'll go right out with you, and see that the police--"

"Oh, is there a baby? Let me see it!" Caroline pleaded. "How old is it?"

"Just a week," said the woman. "Yes, you can see him. He's good as gold, and big--! He weighs nine pounds."

In the third room, lying in a roll of blankets on a tumbled cot, a pink, fat baby slept, one fist in his dewy mouth. The red-gold down was thick on his round head; he looked like a wax Christ-child for a Christmas tree.

Caroline sighed ecstatically.

"Isn't he lovely!" she breathed.

"He's a fine child," the woman agreed. "And his mother never saw him, poor little thing. Nor his father either, for that matter."

Caroline looked in amazement toward the kitchen.