A Man's Hearth

by Eleanor M. Ingram

That one day, in a mood of fierce impatience, had seized upon Anthony Adriance and hurried him through a range of feeling and experience such as Time usually brings in leisurely sequence, spaced apart. From Elsie's confidence in the morning, with its moving love and pride and awe he in nowise was afraid to name holy, he had gone to the spectacle of his friend's degradation in the tawdry restaurant. And as a completion, he had been confronted with the new and ugly vision of a father he could not honor.

He always had respected his father very sincerely, and felt more affection for him than either of them ever had realized. He had admired the success of the elder Adriance, and secretly regretted that he was not allowed to work with him or share it except by spending its proceeds. His hope of a reconciliation had not been all mercenary. Now all that was thrown down, an image overturned and shattered. He saw only a selfish, narrow-minded man, scheming to divorce a pretty woman from her husband in order that she might be free to come between his son and the unwelcome wife he had taken. For of course Elsie was judged by the servant's position she had held; there was no one to tell of her gentle birth and breeding. Anthony had understood this, and had looked forward with eager anticipation to enlightening his father, some day when his other plans were quite ready.

He had meant that day to be soon; now he knew that it would never come in the way he had fancied. And the loss of an ideal hurt. Masterson had told him the truth; there was no escaping the logical inference to be drawn from it. Anthony wasted no energy in trying, instead addressing himself still more closely to the work in hand.

He worked harder than ever, at the mill, but the buoyant enthusiasm was gone. Now he dreaded the possibility that Mr. Goodwin might speak to Mr. Adriance of the young man who bore his name and who was making such changes in the shipping department. For Anthony did not content himself with regulating the trucking system. He had inherited his father's ability, although the unused tool had lain undiscovered. His attention aroused, he found other slack lines, and indicated how to tighten them to taut efficiency. Mr. Goodwin visited the underground room more than once, observed and approved. Cook, won by the new man's tact that never slighted or criticised injuriously his former chief and present associate, aided him with warm co-operation. Anthony found his salary increased. When Ransome returned, after his illness, he was given a new position, upstairs.

The evenings in the little red house were no longer entirely devoted to play, after that night spent abroad. Adriance took to keeping a book of records, in the form of cryptic notes and columns of figures. "Chauffeur's accounts," he called them, when Elsie questioned; and she laughed acceptance of the evasion, forbearing to tease him with curiosity.

Long before, there had arrived the replies to the letters of announcement he and Elsie had written to her parents, and Adriance had been touched home by the serious, graciously cordial welcome extended to the unknown son-in-law. He had promised himself, and Elsie, that some time a visit to Louisiana should be paid. Since that, she had described the neighborhood, the countryside and people, with her knack of vivid word-sketching, until all lay as clearly before him as a place seen. Now he recalled this with a new consideration.

"Do you remember the old house and plantation that you once told me about?" he asked her, one Sunday morning. "The deserted place, that had been for sale so long. Do you suppose it is still for sale?"

"It was, the last time Virginia wrote," she replied, regarding him questioningly. "She spoke of a picnic held under the old trees."

"If I—well, was crowded out of here, would you be content to try life down there? I remembered yesterday that I own some rather valuable stuff left me by my mother; nothing very much, just jewelry she had as a girl. I do not like the idea of selling it, but if I am forced into a corner, it would buy such a place for us. I have some ideas I would like to try out."

Elsie set down the salad-bowl with which she was busied; her rain-gray eyes grave, she considered her husband.