A Fountain Sealed

by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

So, with something of the air of a lovely verger, she led her primed pair into the room and pointed out two chairs to them.

Valerie, in her thin black draperies, looked pale and jaded. She turned from her desk, keeping her pen in her hand, and Imogen detected in her eye, as it rested upon the Pottses, a certain impatience.

Tison, suddenly awakening, broke into passionate barking; he had from the moment of Mr. Potts's arrival shown toward him a pronounced aversion, and, backed under the safe refuge of his mistress's chair, his sharp hostility disturbed the ceremonious entrance.

"Please put the dog out, Jack," said Imogen; "we have a very serious matter to talk over with mama." But Valerie, stooping, caught him up, keeping a soothing hand on his still defiant head, while Mr. Potts unfolded the plan before her.

The wonderful purpose, the wonderful project, was that Mr. Potts, aided by Imogen, should write the life of the late Mr. Upton; and as the curtain was drawn from before the shrined intention, Imogen saw that her mother flushed deeply.

"His name must not be allowed to die from among us, Mrs. Upton. His ideals must become more widely the ideals of his countrymen." Mr. Potts, crossing his knees and throwing back his shoulders, wrapped one hand, while he spoke, in a turn of his flowing beard. "They are in crying need of such a message, now, when the tides of social materialism and political corruption are at their height. We may well say, to paraphrase the great poet's words: 'Upton! thou shouldst be living at this hour; New York hath need of thee.' And this need is one that it is our duty, and our high privilege, to satisfy." Mr. Potts's eye, heavy with its responsibility, dwelt on Valerie's downcast face. "No one, I may say it frankly, Mrs. Upton, is more fitted than I to satisfy that need and to hand on that message. No one had more opportunity than I for understanding that radiant personality in its public aspects. No one can feel more deeply than I that duty and that privilege. Every American child should know the name of Upton; every American man and woman should count him among the prophets of his generation. He did not ask for fame, and we, his followers, ask none for him. No marble temple, no effulgent light of stained glass;—no. But the violets and lilies of childhood laid upon his grave; the tearful, yet joyous whisper of those who come to share his spirit:—'I, too, am of his race. I, too, can with him strive and with him achieve.'" Mr. Potts's voice had risen, and Tison, once more, gave a couple of hoarse, smothered barks.

Imogen, though reared on verbal bombast, had found some difficulty in maintaining her expression of uplifted approbation while Mr. Potts's rhetoric rolled; her willingness that Mr. Potts should serve the cause did not blind her to his inadequacy unless kept under the most careful control; and now, though incensed by Tison's interjection, she felt it as something of a relief, seizing the opportunity of Mr. Potts's momentary confusion to suggest, in a gentle and guarded voice:—"You might tell mama now, Mr. Potts, how we want her to help us."

"I am coming to that, Miss Imogen," said Mr. Potts, with a drop from sonority to dryness;—"I was approaching that point when the dog interrupted me"; and Mr. Potts cast a very venomous glance upon Tison.

"Had not the dog better be removed, Mrs. Upton?" Mrs. Potts, under her breath, murmured, leaning, as if in a pew and above prayer books, forward in her chair. But Mrs. Upton seemed deaf to the suggestion.

Mr. Potts cleared his throat and resumed somewhat tersely:—"This is our project, Mrs. Upton, and we have come this afternoon to ask you for your furtherance of it. You, of course, can provide me and Miss Imogen with many materials, inaccessible otherwise, for this our work of love. Early letters, to you;—early photographs;—reminiscences of his younger days, and so on. Any suggestion as to the form and scope of the book we will be glad, very glad, to consider."