IV

As I draw this intimate biography to a close, they are sleeping in my house, two doors down this upper hallway from my study. Nathan came to Paris this week-end to visit his home office about business in England next month. He made a motor-trip of it and brought Madelaine, Nathan Junior and Junior’s nurse.

Mary Ann gave a dinner for them to-night. Many of our friends among the Preston-Hill set, as our summer colony is known, were invited, notable among them Mrs. Percival Mosely. The Moselys have lately bought a summer place here in Paris at the instigation of the Thornes.

Mary Ann’s dinner was very much of a success. It was aided toward that end by Madelaine,—mightily so.

A score of times to-night I caught myself staring rudely at Nathan’s wife. With smashing beauty of face, figure and gown, and a personal charm beyond all clumsy male adjectives, she kept that table on qui vive with her bon mots and delicious repartee—eyes shining, cheeks flushed, ruby lips sparkling—and my cellar is not stocked with anything but pumpkins and last season’s peach preserve, either. And the pride and happiness on her husband’s face was entirely pardonable and heart-mellowing.

I would conclude with Mrs. Mosely’s remark to Mary Ann at the door. Naturally Mrs. Mosely is a comparative stranger to Paris.

“I’ve had a truly wonderful evening,” she cried, in her smooth onyx voice, “and I’m especially grateful for being placed beside that young Mr. Forge at dinner. I met him once in New York but really had no opportunity to make his acquaintance closely. Why, he told me more about Russia and Russian art than I’ve learned in eleven summers abroad. And as for poetry—he spoke of that new book that’s causing such a sensation in New York: ‘Life Lyrics of a Tanner’, as though he might have written it himself. I should have liked to have known his parents. Truly, they must have been most remarkable people. Why, I haven’t met such a well-informed, intelligent, perfectly poised and smoothly polished young fellow in the last dozen years. I think he’s perfectly charming!”

The “Life Lyrics of a Tanner!” It’s a great book. An autographed copy lies here upon my desk, weighing down my high pile of manuscript. Pity it was published anonymously!

For the tanner isn’t old Caleb Gridley. I’ll tell the world he isn’t. And that’s not army slang, either.

“It is a chapter out of American life, a vital and significant chapter,

and ably written.”—Baltimore Sun.

THE GREATER GLORY

By WILLIAM DUDLEY PELLEY

With frontispiece by Norman Price.

12mo. Cloth. 376 pages.

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