The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Little Stories of Married Life

“I ken far lands to wifeless men unknown.”

“He kissed the laughing children as they clung to him”
“The Happiest Time,”

Little Stories of

Married Life

By

Mary Stewart Cutting

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1920

Copyright, 1902, by

Doubleday, Page & Co.

Copyright, 1896, by

S. S. McClure Co.

Copyright, 1899, by

S. S. McClure Co.

Copyright, 1902, by

S. S. McClure Co.

Contents

Their Second Marriage

Their Second Marriage

“HENRY, do you know what day Thursday will be?”

“Thursday? The twenty-first.”

“Yes, and what will the twenty-first be?”

“Thursday.”

“Oh, Henry!” Pretty Mrs. Waring looked tragically across the breakfast-table at her husband, or rather at the newspaper that screened him completely from her view. “Do put down that paper for a moment. I never get a chance to speak to you any more in the morning, and I have to spend the whole day alone. Do you really mean to say that you don’t know what the twenty-first is?”

“The twenty-first?” Mr. Waring met his wife’s gaze blankly as he hurriedly swallowed his coffee, and then furtively observed the hands of the watch that lay open on the table before him. “What do you mean, Doll? Say it quickly, for I’ve got to go.”

“Henry, have you forgotten that it is the anniversary of our wedding?”

“Oh—oh!” said Mr. Waring, a light dawning on him, and a suspicious note of relief perceptible in his voice. He rose from his chair as he spoke. “Forgotten that? Why, of course not; the day I was married to the sweetest girl in the world! How lovely you did look, to be sure, and what a lucky fellow I was to get you! Can you just help me on with my overcoat, dear? The lining of this sleeve—Yes, I know you haven’t had time to mend it yet. Now, Doll, I would like to stand here and kiss you all day, but the train is whistling across the bridge. By, by, dear; take good care of yourself and the babies!”

His wife watched him fondly as he walked down the path to the gate, strong, alert, and masculine, and waved her hand as he looked back and took off his hat to her with a smile before joining another man hurrying for the train. She could see him almost visibly shut out the little cottage from his mind as he turned away from it, and set his shoulders squarely, as if to brace himself for entering the strenuous whirl of business life that makes up the larger, waking half of a man’s life, and in which wife and children have but a sub-existence. But this morning Mrs. Waring did not feel the chill depression that sometimes stole over her as she saw him disappear; her mind was too occupied with his words, which, few and perfunctory as they might sound to the uninitiated, carried deepest meaning to her ears. Her ardent mind conjured up the picture of the girl in bridal attire who had stood beside her lover on their marriage-day, and credited him with the same wealth of imagining and all the tender sentiment connected with it. She fell into a delightful dream of the romantic past, from which she was only aroused by the patter of little feet above and the reminder that she was needed in the nursery.

Mrs. Waring had, unknown to her husband, set her mind for some months past on a celebration of her wedding anniversary, the observance of which had lapsed, for one reason or another, for a couple of years; but she had said to herself firmly that Henry must propose it, and not leave it all to her. If she had to plan it out as she had their moving into the country, or their trip to the seashore last summer, or the Christmas party for the babies—nay, if she even had to suggest it to him, it would be valueless to her. If he did not love her enough, if he did not have her happiness enough at heart to think of pleasing her without being reminded of it—why, she would have no celebration. It was entirely against her resolution that she had spoken of it this morning, but she knew in her soul that he never would remember if she did not, and she could only think that, the date once recalled, the rest must follow.

She herself thought of nothing else all day. She told little Henry all about mamma’s pretty wedding “once upon a time,” when mamma wore a beautiful white dress with a long white veil, and walked up the aisle in church when the organ played, and the chancel was full of roses and palms; and although the child only asked innocently if there were any bears or lions there, her small nurse-maid, Beesy, was deeply though respectfully interested, and Mrs. Waring could not help being secretly conscious that, while apparently engaged with her infant audience, she was in reality playing to the gallery. She even got out her wedding jewels to hang around baby Marjorie’s neck, to provoke Beesy’s awestricken admiration.

It would have taken close study of the influences of the past year to determine why this particular wedding anniversary should have assumed such prominence in young Mrs. Waring’s mind. Both she and her husband had been surprised to find that, in face of all preconceived opinions, they had not settled down into the cool, platonic friendship held up to them as the ultimate good of all wedded pairs, but were still honestly and sincerely in love with each other. Yet, in spite of this fact, there had lately been a certain strain. After all the first things are over—the first year, which is seldom the crucial one in spite of its conventional aspect in that light; after the first boy, and the first girl, and the first venture at housekeeping in the suburbs—there comes a long course of secondary living that tugs with its chain at character and sometimes pulls it sharply from its stanchions.

Mrs. Waring greeted her husband that night with a countenance of soulful meaning, and eyes that were uplifted to his in a fervid solemnity that ought to have warned any man of peril ahead. She had a delightful sensation that their most commonplace utterances were fraught with repressed feeling, and when he finally said to her, after dinner, as they sat by the little wood fire together, “I’ve a surprise for you, Doll,” her heart gave a joyous bound, and she felt how truly he had justified her thought of him.

“What is it, Henry?”

“Mother and Aunt Eliza and Mary Appleton and Nan are coming here to lunch day after to-morrow—Thursday. Of course I said you’d be delighted. It’s all right, isn’t it?”

“Coming on Thursday!”

“Yes. That isn’t a washing day or a cleaning day, is it?”

“No.”

Mr. Waring looked confounded.

“You’ve spoken so many times of their not coming out in the whole year we’ve lived here, I thought you’d be glad, Doll.”

“Henry, why do you never call me Ethel any more? You used to say it was the most beautiful name in the world, and now you seem to forget that I have any name. Oh, if you knew how sick I get of always being called Doll! Such a horrid, common-sounding thing!”

“Why, Doll—”

“There it is again!”

“Ethel, my dear girl, don’t cry. If I had had the dimmest idea—I seem always fated to do the wrong thing lately. Why can’t you tell me sometimes what you’re driving at? If you don’t want my mother and the girls, just say so. I can send them word to-morrow, and—”

“If you do!” Mrs. Waring stood up tragically with one hand on her husband’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have such a thing happen for worlds.” She gave a little gasp of horror at the thought. “But, oh, Henry, you nearly kill me sometimes! No, if you don’t know why this time, I shall not tell you again.” She leaned her head against her husband as if exhausted, and submitted to be drawn down beside him once more. “You never think of me any more.”

“But I do think of you, sweetheart.” He patted her head persuasively. “Lots of times, when you don’t know it. If you’d only tell me what you want, dear. I’m such a bad guesser. And I know you really do wish to see my mother and show her the children.”

“It’s the fourth time she has sent word that she was coming,” said his wife pensively. She was already forecasting the plan of action to be pursued in making ready for the expected guests.

When you are a young housekeeper with infants and only a nurse-maid besides the cook, a day’s company means the revolutionizing of the entire domestic machinery. In the city people carelessly come and go, and the household of the entertainer is put to no special preparation for them, but it is an unwritten law in the country that before the advent of the seldom guest “to spend the day” the entire domicile must be swept and garnished from top to bottom.

As Ethel Waring rubbed and polished and dusted she could but remember that she had gone through the process of cleaning three times before for Henry’s mother, who had always hitherto disappointed her. She prided herself on being really fond of her mother-in-law, and his sister Nan had been her particular friend, but Aunt Eliza and Mary Appleton were the kind of people—well, the kind of people that belonged to her husband’s family, and they always saw everything around the house. She cleaned now for the fourth time magnanimously. Since she had moved into the country, and went to and from the city two or three times a week, it had seemed odd to have her friends and relatives look upon the half-hour’s journey in train and ferry-boat as a mighty undertaking, to be planned for weeks ahead; and although she had been in her cottage over a year, she had not yet become used to this point of view, and still expected people to come after they had promised to.

There was something grimly sacrificial in her preparations now that upheld her in her disappointment; her husband could not remember her pleasure, but she was working her fingers off for his people. Yes, she had nothing to look forward to but neglect—and the worst of it was that he would not even know that he was neglecting her.

Perhaps, however, he did remember after all. She watched every word and gesture of his up to the very morning of their anniversary. He was so happy and merry and affectionate in his efforts to win her to smiles that she could hardly withstand the infectiousness of it. But she felt after his cheerful good-by as if the tragedy of her future years had begun.

There was, indeed, no time for the luxury of quiet wretchedness. The two children had to be bathed and put to bed for the morning nap, which both she and Beesy prayed might be a long one, so that the last clearing up might be done, and the table set, and the salad-dressing made, and the cream whipped for the jelly, and she herself dressed and in the drawing-room before twelve o’clock.

There was the usual panic when the butcher was late with the chickens, and the discovery was made that the green grocer had not brought what was ordered, and the usual hurried sending forth of Beesy to the village at the last moment for the missing lettuce, only to be told that “there was none in town this day”—a fact that smites the suburban housekeeper like a blow. But finally everything was ready, the table set to perfection, the drawing-room curtains drawn at their most effective angle, the logs burning on the andirons, the chairs set most cozily, and the vase of jonquils with their long, green stalks showing through the clear glass, giving a lovely brightness to the room in their hint of approaching spring. The babies, sweet and fresh, in the whitest of frocks, and hair curled in little damp rings, ran up and down and prattled beside the charmingly dressed, pretty mother, who sat with her embroidery in hand and who could not help feeling somewhat of a glow of satisfaction through her sadness. But after Harry had peeped out from the curtains some twenty times to see if grandmamma was coming, and little Marjorie had fallen down and raised a large bump on her forehead, and the one-o’clock train had come in, there was a certain change in the situation. The cook sent up word should she put on the oysters, and Mrs. Waring answered no, to wait until the next train, although that did not arrive until two o’clock. She pretended that her guests had missed the earlier train, but in her soul she felt the cold chill of certainty that they would not come.

As she sat eating her luncheon afterward in solitary state, and wishing that she knew any of her neighbors well enough to ask them to join her, she received a belated telegram from her husband: “Nan says party postponed; Aunt Eliza has headache.” She read it, and cast it from her scornfully.

And this was her wedding-day, passed in unnecessary work, futile preparation for people who didn’t care a scrap for her! Oh, if she had only been going in town that afternoon, as she had dreamed of doing, to have a little dinner with Henry at the Waldorf, or Sherry’s, or the St. Denis even—and go to a play afterward—she didn’t care where—and have just their own little happy foolish time over it all! She had hardly been anywhere since little Marjorie was born.

She was surprised to have a caller in the afternoon, a Mrs. Livermore. The visitor was a large, stout woman with very blond hair, who lived on the opposite corner. She was dressed in a magnificently florid style, and sat in the little drawing-room a large mass of purple cloth and fur and gleaming jet spangles, surmounted by curving plumes, that quite dwarfed Mrs. Waring’s slender elegance. She apologized profusely for not having called before, as illness had prevented her doing so, and sailed at once smoothly off into a sea of medical terms, giving such an intimate and minute account of the many diseases that had ravaged her that poor Mrs. Waring paled. The one bright spot in her existence seemed to have been her husband, whom she described as the most untiring of nurses.

“I really didn’t know whether I’d find you at home this afternoon or not,” she said. “Your nurse-girl, Beesy, told my cook that this was the anniversary of your wedding. Willie and I always used to go off somewhere for a little treat, but since I’ve been such an invalid I’ve had to stay at home. But he never forgets. What do you think, Mrs. Waring, every Saturday since our marriage, fourteen years ago, he has brought me home a box of flowers! He always says, ‘Here are your roses, Baby’—that’s his pet name for me. I don’t know what I’d do if Willie wasn’t so attentive.”

“Indeed,” said Mrs. Waring.

On her return to the nursery she took occasion to reprove Beesy for gossiping. Beesy was loud in extenuation. In a cottage one is thrown in rather close companionship with one’s nurse-maid.

“Ah, I never said but two words to Ellen; but Mrs. Livermore—there’s nothing she doesn’t find out. And the way she and Mr. Livermore quar’ls!”

“Why, she says he is so devoted to her,” said Mrs. Waring incautiously. “He brings her flowers every week.” She sighed as she thought of the husband who did not bring them once a year.

“Him! Ah, ma’am, Ellen says they fights like cat and dog, and ’twas only a week ago a-Monday the plates was flyin’ that thick in the dinin’-room, Ellen she dassent put her head in at the door to take away the meat. Ellen says ’twould have curdled y’r blood to hear ’em. The neighbors have complained of ’em in the court. He drinks terrible!”

“You must not tell me these things, Beesy,” said Mrs. Waring with dignity. “I do not wish to hear them. Come, Marjorie, sweetest, play pat-a-cake with mamma—this way, baby darling. Oh, Beesy, there’s the bell again!”

This time it was a neighbor whom Mrs. Waring had met before and rather liked, a gentle, faded, sympathetic woman who had admired the children. Mrs. Waring confided some of the household perplexities to her, and they talked of the village markets and compared notes on prices, gradually reaching even more personal ground. Mrs. Waring finally divulged the fact that this was the anniversary of her wedding, and received her guest’s congratulations.

“I had hoped to have celebrated the day in town,” she added impulsively, “but Mr. Waring’s business arrangements have prevented.”

“It must be a real disappointment to you,” commented her visitor feelingly. “I often think how lonely you must be, knowing so few people. A man so seldom realizes what a woman’s life is! He goes off into the busy world every morning, little thinking of all she must endure throughout the day. I often watch you look after your husband when he has left you in the morning; you look so longingly, dear. I said to Mr. Morris just the other day, ‘I do wish Mr. Waring would look back just once at that sweet young wife of his.’ Mr. Morris always turns at the corner and waves his hand to me; perhaps you’ve seen him—dear fellow!”

Mrs. Waring cooled suddenly toward this too sympathetic visitor, who soon left, but the words had left a secret sting. Her voice had a tragic sound when she told Beesy that she would order her meat henceforth from Einstein, as Mrs. Morris said that his prices were lower than O’Reilly’s.

“Mrs. Morris, ma’am!” caroled Beesy. “Ah, ma’am, you wouldn’t be after eatin’ the kind of stuff she does. It’s not a roast of beef that does be going in at that house from one week’s end to another—nothin’ but little weenty scraps that wouldn’t keep a dog alive. Mr. Morris, poor man, he’s that thin and wake. Oh, ’tis she has all the money, and she keeps him that close! Ellen says ’tis only a quart of milk goes to them for five days, and nobbut one shovelful of coal allowed to be put on the furnace at a time, and him with the cough that’s tearing the heart out of him! Ellen says—”

“That will do, Beesy,” said Mrs. Waring severely. The gossip of servants, the trivial conversation and fulsome pity of vulgar neighbors, was this all that was left to her?

She went downstairs again, and sat in the drawing-room, inside of the window curtains, and wept. The gathering dusk seemed to prefigure the gloom that was to encompass her future years. If people only wouldn’t pity her she might be able to live; the children would love her at any rate. Six years ago how happy she was, how dear his eyes looked when he gave her that first married kiss! She could smell even now the fragrance of the bride roses that she had held. She heard the patter of the children’s feet overhead, and tried to wipe away the blinding tears.

A quick footstep on the walk outside startled her, and the gate slammed to with a loud noise. Could it be possible? Her husband was running up the piazza steps with something white in his hand—an enormous bunch of white roses. Another moment and he was by her side, beaming down at her. Oh, how handsome he was!

“How soon can you get on your things, Doll? I’ve tickets for the opera to-night—‘Romeo and Juliet’—Emma Eames and Jean de Reszke—does that suit you?”

“Oh, Henry!”

“I’ve brought some flowers, and we’ll make a lark of it. I’ve ordered a cab from the station to be here in twenty minutes, and we’ll have to dress and get a bite, too, if we can. I wanted to come out earlier, but I wasn’t certain about the tickets until the last moment. We’ll have a little supper after the opera, and take the one-ten out. What do you say to that?”

“Oh, Henry! I thought you had forgotten, I thought—” But there was no time to talk.

Could she ever forget that delightful, bewildering, hurried twenty minutes? She spent five of them in trimming over a hat, to the masculine creature’s amazement, her deft fingers pulling off bows and feathers and sticking them on again with lightning rapidity. She ate a sandwich in the intervals of dressing and giving directions to Beesy about the babies.

When they finally whirled off in the stuffy little cab to the railway station they were like a couple of children in their happy abandonment to the expected pleasure.

The opera—had they ever gone to any opera before? How inconceivably beautiful and brilliant the house, the lights, the gay assemblage to the erstwhile dwellers of the suburbs! Together they scanned the emblazoned women in the boxes, and pointed out to each other those whom they recognized. And when Gounod’s delicious music stole into their hearts, and Mrs. Waring sat with her bride roses in one hand, and the other tucked secretly into Henry’s, under cover of her wrap, was ever any woman happier? Had ever any girl a lover more devoted or more bubbling over with fun? Romeo and Juliet—what were they to a real married couple of to-day? Then the supper afterward with the gay throng at the Waldorf—the reckless disregard of the midnight train—could there be dizzier heights of revelry?

It was when they stood outside on the ferry-boat coming home that Mrs. Waring spoke at last the thought that had lain nearest her heart all the evening. They were out alone in front, the cold night wind blew refreshingly, the dark water plashed around them, and across its black expanse the colored lights gleamed faintly from the New Jersey shore. Mrs. Waring leaned a little closer to her husband as they stood there in the night and the darkness.

“Dear,” she murmured, “I can’t tell you how lovely the evening has been; but you know what has made it so to me, that has been making me so very happy? The opera and the supper would have been nothing without it. Darling, it’s because you thought of it all yourself.”

A sudden tension in the arm on which she leaned startled Mrs. Waring. She bent forward to look up into her husband’s face, with a swift suspicion.

“Henry?”

“Well, Doll.”

“Didn’t you think of it, yourself?”

“Nobody could have enjoyed our little fun together more than I have, you know that, Doll; and nobody could want to make you any happier than I do. What’s the use of picking the whole thing to pieces now and spoiling it all?”

“Henry Waring, you haven’t answered me. Did you remember that this was our wedding-day, or did you not? Who was it told you to take me out to-night?”

“If you will not tell me these things yourself, Ethel—it’s mean of you, dear; it puts me at a disadvantage when you remember and I don’t. Heaven knows that I oughtn’t to forget anything that would give pleasure to you—that’s true; but I’m not mean on purpose, and you are. You know—But don’t let’s quarrel to-night.”

“Quarrel!” Mrs. Waring lifted her head indignantly. “As if I wanted to quarrel! Who was it told you, Henry?”

“Well, Ethel, if you must know, Nan was in the office to-day to say they couldn’t come, and she—”

“Nan—your sister Nan!”

Like a flash Mrs. Waring saw it all. She knew Nan’s impetuous, whole-souled way; but—One of Henry’s family! Life could have no further joy for her.

She looked at him furtively as he stood beside her gazing ruefully out across the water. Were they quarreling—would they get to throwing plates after a while? His attitude was ludicrously dejected. In spite of herself and the tears that had been ready to well up in her eyes the moment before, a sudden sense of the absurdity of it all came over her, and she broke into a refreshingly unexpected peal of laughter. Her husband stared, and then laughed, too, in delighted relief. “Ah,” she murmured, with her cheek against his coat sleeve, “I suppose I’ll just have to love you as you are!”

“If you only would, dear,” he assented humbly.

The lights on the New Jersey shore shone brighter and brighter now, yellow and red and green, casting their reflection on the black lapping water below. The boat was nearing the dock. All unbidden with the last words had come a deep joy, a thrill from heart to heart, wonderful in its illuminating power. The warm silence that followed was an instant benediction to unrecorded vows.

The chains clanked in the dock. As they stepped across the gangplank toward the dark, waiting lines of cars beyond, he pressed her hand in his as he bent over her, and whispered in tender playfulness, “Shall we take the train for Washington or Philadelphia?”

A Good Dinner

A Good Dinner

“THE butcher, ma’am.”

Mrs. Chauncey Callender put down her half-eaten muffin with a gesture of despair, as she looked at the tidy, white-capped maid before her.

“Why does he always come at breakfast time? As if it is possible to know then what one is going to want for the day! I’m sure I can’t think of a thing! Chauncey, you might help me. I get so tired planning the meals, and it’s very hard to order for a small family. What would you like for dinner to-night?”

“Roast peacock,” said Mr. Callender.

“Would you like a beefsteak?” His wife patiently ignored the last remark, which as a stock answer to a stock question had even ceased to irritate her.

“I shouldn’t mind having it.”

“‘Shouldn’t mind having it!’ I’m asking you if you want it.”

“I want anything that you do.”

“Oh, Chauncey! You’ll drive me crazy-mad some day. I wish you’d express a preference; it would make it so much easier for me. Would you like chicken? I know that Cadmus has poultry on Wednesday.”

Mr. Callender’s expression became suddenly tinged with melancholy. Although he was now metropolitan in appearance, manner, and habit, his early existence had been spent upon a farm, where the killing and eating-up of chickens at certain periods of the year was an economic process, compulsory upon the household. A momentary sickness and distaste of life seemed evolved from the recollection as he answered,

“I don’t seem to care much for chicken.”

“You never do, and I am so fond of it. Well, chops then. Would you like breaded chops?”

“We have those almost every night, don’t we?” returned Mr. Callender briskly, under the impression that he was being agreeable. “When in doubt, have chops. Oh, yes, I like them well enough, when they’re not raw in the middle, like the last. But get what you want yourself, Cynthia, it really doesn’t make any difference to me.”

“That’s so like you! Why don’t you tell me at the time when things are wrong, instead of coming out with it like this, afterwards? Why didn’t you say the chops were raw? Mine were all right.” She regarded him with affectionate exasperation, her wrath tempered by a guilty consciousness that there had been undue sameness in the meals lately. “If I were like some wives—”

“The butcher, ma’am—he’s waiting,” interposed the maid apologetically.

“Tell him I’ll come down to the village myself and give the order,” said Mrs. Callender with dignity. “I’ll surprise you with a really good dinner to-night, something out of the ordinary. We’ll have a dinner party for ourselves.”

“All right,” said Mr. Callender with amiable alacrity, feeling relieved of all individual responsibility. “Let’s, as the children say. I’ll bring out a bottle of wine and some flowers for you, to carry out the idea,” he added, with a magnificent cooperation in her plans that would have made up for all his previous shortcomings if he had not suddenly remarked as he was going out of the door,

“By the way, we may have company to-night, but I’m not sure. I nearly forgot to mention it.”

“Chauncey!”

“A couple of Englishmen, over here to interview the firm; nice fellows, you’d like ’em. They may give us a big order if things are satisfactory, and we treat ’em right.”

“Chauncey!”

But he was gone for his train. Mrs. Callender looked horrified, and then laughed. It was a way she had. His unexpectedness was always a secret delight to her, although she outwardly bemoaned it; it gave her a gambler’s interest in existence, and also a pleasing sense of masculine masterfulness. She was wont to thank Heaven that she was married to a man.

At no time would Mrs. Callender have been averse to the society of two nice men for dinner. She decided at once to expect them permanently, and accordingly took her cookery books in for consultation with the kitchen divinity, an elderly competent woman, newly installed, whose look of aggrieved patience had been gained from a peripatetic experience of young and erratic housewives.

This being swooped a pile of dish-towels off in one arm from the back of a chair as Mrs. Callender drew it forward, swooped a cluster of dishes from the table, and with still another swoop wiped the white oil-cloth cover clean enough for the books to be deposited on it. She then stood, her hands in front of her, rigidly attentive to the words of fate.

There was, however, an innate joyousness about young Mrs. Callender which bubbled forth at all times and in all places, carrying preconceived opinions with it. The countenance of the cook insensibly relaxed as Mrs. Callender beamingly said,

“I’m going to have a good dinner to-night, Catherine, and I want you to help me.”

“Yes, ma’am—for how many?”

“Only four. I’ve decided on some of the things I want. You know how to make cream of celery soup?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And boiled salmon with white sauce—you made the last very nicely; and cucumbers dressed with oil and vinegar—”

“You’ll have to order the oil, ma’am, as we’re just out of it.”

“Yes, I will; of course, we’ll need it for the mayonnaise also. I’ll have tomato salad, and I wish you would make some cheese wafers to go with it like those we had when you came last week. They were awfully good. And I want just a few rhubarb tarts and a frozen chocolate pudding for dessert—here’s the receipt for that—with whipped cream. And you might make a small cake of any kind that’s easy, Catherine.”

“What kind of meat is it to be, ma’am?”

“Spring lamb,” said Mrs. Callender with all the solemnity which such a resolution demanded. To buy real spring lamb in the suburbs in early April puts one on a level with a moneyed aristocracy. “Spring lamb with mint sauce and fresh peas and new potatoes, if I can get them,” she added reverently as a saving clause. She blessed her lucky stars that it was not a Friday, when, as every suburban dweller knows, there are only a few wilted strands of green to be seen in the vegetable bins, and nothing but cold round potatoes and onions and turnips are untemptingly offered for sale.

“And oh, Catherine,” concluded Mrs. Callender, “we’ll have coffee, of course; and I wish you’d make some of those lovely little rolls of yours—that is, if you have time,” she generously conceded.

“I’ll put the bit of ironing I have on hand away until to-morrow,” said Catherine with the resignation of necessity. “And you’ll make out a list, ma’am, if you please, of the things we do be needing. I’d have to get at the cake and the rolls this morning. There’s not a thing in the house to-day to start on. We’ve no eggs, nor cheese, nor cream, nor chocolate, and not enough butter, and no rock salt for the freezing, and there’s no fruit either, if you want that.”

“Oh, yes, certainly! It’s well that you reminded me.” Mrs. Callender beamed anew upon her help. “I’m going out to-day to luncheon, so you and Nelly will have all the time there is. I’ll go and see about the ordering at once as soon as I have given her directions about the table. I want everything to look as pretty as possible. Mr. Callender is going to bring me some lovely flowers for the center of it,” she concluded with a little flourish.

In the little rounds of a suburban town any incident is an event. Mrs. Callender felt that the day had become one of real importance. She let her fancy play around the two Englishmen and her good dinner and her own toilet until she was in a very pleasurable state of excitement. And to be going out to luncheon besides! The latter, however, was not a real function, but only the usual concomitant of a French reading which she held every week with a friend—still, it was quite like having two invitations in one day.

It happened that another friend stopped in casually that morning to see Mrs. Callender, on her way home from marketing, and from her she gained the pleasing knowledge that all the viands on which she had set her reckless fancy were really to be had that day—even to the fresh peas, whose pods might almost have contained small balls of gold, so stupendous was the price asked for them. But when she finally went upstairs to dress she found, to her consternation, that it was already half-past eleven, and not a thing ordered yet!

Every moment now was precious. She concentrated all her attention, and sitting down by her desk took up a sheet of blue paper and wrote down rapidly on it a list of all her wants—one for the grocer, and one for the butcher. Then Fortune favoring her with the sight of little Jack Rand across the street, on his bicycle, she called him over and confided the list to his care.

“And be sure that they both read the order carefully,” she said. “Take it on to Cadmus when O’Reilly is through with it. You will not need to tell them anything except that they are to send the things at once.”

“Yes,” said Jacky, departing with swift-revolving red legs. As she saw the blue paper in his hands a strange reluctance seemed to hover over her, she couldn’t tell why, as if it were somehow wrong to write lists on blue paper. Perhaps it was extravagant. There was a load off her mind when Jack returned to affirm the faithful performance of his errand, before she started out for the luncheon. “‘They had all the things and they’ll send them right up, they promised.’” She repeated his words with a glow of satisfaction.

There was no French after luncheon that day. Her friend had tickets for the private view of some pictures in town and persuaded Mrs. Callender to accompany her, under the pledge of taking an early train back. As a matter of fact, the six o’clock bells were ringing before Mrs. Callender had started to walk home from the station, feeling thoroughly guilty as she thought of her long defection from the affairs of the household on such a day, though it was quite likely that Chauncey’s friends would not come. The blue paper returned to her mind, unpleasantly, mysteriously.

She hastened into the kitchen, to be confronted by a scene of spotless order, a brilliant fire in the range shedding a red glow over the hearth, and the white-aproned cook sitting in front of it with her hands folded and a stony glare in her eyes.

“How is the dinner getting on?” asked Mrs. Callender nervously.

“There ain’t no dinner,” said the cook.

“No dinner! What do you mean, Catherine?”

“Not the sign of a thing has come this whole blessed day, ma’am; and me a-waitin’ here with my ironin’ half done, in the middle of the week. Not an egg nor a potato is there in the house, even.”

Mrs. Callender stopped, confounded. The shops were all closed at that hour.

“Why, I saw Jack Rand myself, after he had given the order!” she exclaimed, and then—she knew: like lightning her association with the sheet of blue writing-paper was revealed to her; on the other side of it was written the address of a newcomer who lived across the track at the other end of the village. The marketing had gone there!

“Well, I never heard of such a thing!” she commented blankly, and, as usual, laughed.

It was but a brief ten minutes later that her husband was presenting his guests to her—they had come! She had been but hoping against hope that they would not.

“Cynthia, I want to introduce Mr. Warburton and Mr. Kennard. I have persuaded them to dine with us to-night.”

“It was awfully good of your husband to invite us,” said Mr. Warburton, who was the elder, pleasant-faced and gray-haired, with the refined accent and accustomed manner of a gentleman. “I hope we’ll not inconvenience you, Mrs. Callender.”

“No, I hope we’re not inconveniencing you,” murmured the other, who looked nineteen and was twenty-nine, who spoke from somewhere down in his throat and blushed with every word.

“Not in the least,” said Mrs. Callender, immediately and intrepidly rising to the occasion. She was a stanchly hospitable little soul, and to have refused a welcome to the guests foisted on her would have been as impossible to her at any time as to the proverbial Arab. There was an inscrutable defiance in her eyes, however, when they met her husband’s, which puzzled him uncomfortably.

“Mr. Nichols wished us all to dine at the Waldorf-Astoria,” he explained—Mr. Nichols was the senior partner of the firm. “But I found, accidentally, that these gentlemen were extremely tired of living at hotels, and longed for a little home-like dinner, by way of variety.”

“We have been so much in your big hotels,” said Mr. Warburton apologetically. “It makes one very dull, after a time, I think. You can’t imagine, Mrs. Callender, our joy when Mr. Callender so kindly offered to take us in. It’s so uncommonly jolly of you both to treat us in this way.”

“I remembered that you said we were to have a particularly good dinner to-night, so I didn’t telegraph you when I found that they could come,” said Mr. Callender when the party had separated to dress and he and his wife were alone in their own room. “Nichols is very anxious to have them pleased—I told you that before, I think. They’re looking at machines, and if they take the London agency for us it will make a big difference. Why on earth did you look at me in that way downstairs? Is there anything wrong?”

“No; nothing is wrong,” said his wife ironically, “except that we haven’t any dinner—to speak of. Oh, dear, if you make me laugh I’ll never be able to hook this gown. No, it isn’t the least bit tight, it’s almost too loose, in fact—but I can’t hook it when I laugh. Chauncey, the order went wrong in some way, this morning, and the marketing never came at all. Just stand and take that in. If you had only helped me at breakfast when I asked you to, it wouldn’t have happened. I was away all the afternoon, and, of course, Catherine never sent for anything—just sat and waited. There’s nothing in the house but some cans of mock-turtle soup and tomatoes, and one can of corned beef, and a small one of plum pudding. Catherine is going to warm the beef in the tomatoes, and make a sauce for the pudding. I’d die before I’d apologize beforehand to those men; they’d never forgive themselves for coming.”

Mr. Callender whistled. “Good gracious! And to think we’ve come from the Waldorf-Astoria for this! But I don’t see yet how it happened,” he incautiously objected. “I should think you could have managed better in some way, Cynthia.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” said Mrs. Callender. “Well, I don’t. If you had the housekeeping to look after in a place like this, Chauncey, where you never can get anything you want, and there’s not a shop in the place open after half-past six—”

“Yes, I know, I know,” interposed Mr. Callender hastily, dodging the subject with the ease of long practice. “But couldn’t you knock up an omelet, or a Welsh rarebit, or some sort of a side dish? Couldn’t you borrow something?”

Mrs. Callender shook her head tragically.

“Nelly went to the Appletons and the Warings to see if she couldn’t get some eggs, but they had only one left at each place. It’s no use, Chauncey, we’ve got to do the best we can. I’ve put on my prettiest gown, and—did you bring the wine?”

“Yes, and it’s good,” said Mr. Callender with returning cheerfulness. He was glad now that he had paid a price for it that was too large ever to be divulged to his wife.

“And the flowers?”

“What flowers?”

“The flowers you said you were going to bring me.”

“My dear girl, I never thought of them from that moment to this.”

“Then we have nothing for the center of the table but that old crumpled-up fernery,” she paused tragically. “Not even fruit! There’s another plank gone.”

“Never mind, you’re the whole platform,” said her husband with jollity. “You always manage some way.”

“I have to,” she pleaded, looking at herself approvingly in the glass. The jetted black dress set off her white neck and arms very well. She never considered herself pretty, but she had an infectious smile, brilliant teeth, and those very light gray eyes that look black under excitement. She cast a provocative glance at her husband, with mock coquetry, and then deftly avoided his outstretched arm.

“I’ve no time for you,” she said saucily. “But for goodness’ sake, Chauncey, rise to the occasion all you can!”

The two irreproachably attired men who made their entrance into the drawing-room looked at her in a manner which she certainly found encouraging. She concluded that the chances were good for making them enjoy the dinner, irrespective of its quality. She was enjoying their unspoken admiration, and the conversation also, when Mr. Warburton returned to the subject of their invitation.

“It’s so good of you to have us without any notice—so uncommonly jolly for us. We’ve been so tired of hotel cooking, after the steamer.”

“Yes,” chimed in the other, “it grew to be almost as tiresome to us as the beastly tinned food we lived on when we were in Africa.”

“Oh, have you been in Africa lately?” asked Mrs. Callender with composure, although she and her husband felt the piercing of a mortal dart, and did not dare to look at each other.

“Yes, Kennard and I were on an exploring expedition last year, accidentally; it’s quite a long tale—but we lived on tinned soups and meats, and even plum pudding—fancy it in the hot climate!—until even the smell of them sickened us. We’ve not been able to touch a bit of tinned food since.”

“Canned things—or tinned, as you call them—are very useful in emergencies,” said Mr. Callender with idiotic solemnity. “You know you have to eat them sometimes—when you can’t—help yourself, you know. Oh, yes, in emergencies tinned things are very useful—if you like ’em.”

Mr. Kennard laughed heartily, as if at some delicate joke. “Ah, yes, yes, if you like them—if you like them, Warburton, yes—mind that, yes!”

“Excuse me for a moment,” said Mrs. Callender with graceful deliberation, sweeping slowly out of the room, and as soon as the door had closed behind her rushing into the kitchen wildly. The fortunes of war were against her, but win the victory she would. There had to be some way out of this!

“Don’t dish up a thing, Catherine,” she ordered breathlessly. “It is no use; the gentlemen never eat anything canned. I’ve got to think up something else.” Daunted by the grim face of the insulted cook, she turned appealingly to the waitress, a young and venturesome person, as woman to woman. “You must know of something I could do, Nelly!”

“The Warings, ma’am—”

“You told me you’d been there, and that everything they had was cooked for their own dinner.”

The eyes of Irish Nelly sparkled. “That’s just it, ma’am. Mr. Waring’s home late to-night, and they’re only just now sitting down to the soup. I seen it going in through the window. If you—” she stopped tentatively.

“Well, well—say it!”

“Sure, they’d loan you the whole dinner, ma’am, if you asked it.”

The light of kindred inspiration kindled in Mrs. Callender. The neighborhood was practically a joint-stock food company, where maids might be seen flitting through the back yard at any hour of the day or evening, with the spoils of the borrower. But an entire dinner! The magnificence of the scheme took Mrs. Callender’s breath away.

“You’d give the lend of it yourself, ma’am,” said Nelly impartially.

Mrs. Callender gasped—and assented.

“Come!” she said, and followed by the maid, dashed out of the kitchen door, down the back piazza steps, and then up again on the piazza of the adjoining house.

The people seated at the table in the dining-room looked up at the long window, amazed to see Mrs. Callender gesticulating insanely at them from without.

“Don’t help any more of that soup,” she called insistently. “Don’t help any more of it—wait till I get in.” The window opened from the inside, and she hurled herself into the room. “No, no!” she answered the look on their horror-struck faces, “it’s not poisoned. I don’t mean that—it’s all right; but I want it myself, I want your dinner. Oh, will you let me take it home with me?”

“My dear Mrs. Callender,” expostulated Mr. Waring in a quieting voice, rising cautiously.

“No, I’m not crazy! I mean just what I say. My husband has brought home company, and we had only a canned dinner, and they can’t eat it because they’ve been in Africa—and, oh, I can’t explain. And it’s so important to treat them well, and—oh, you dear thing!”

For Mrs. Waring had handed the soup to Nelly and was already giving orders to her own maid.

“Don’t say another word,” she commanded rapidly, with a woman’s perception grasping the situation. “Send us over just what you have in exchange. We have only a plain home dinner—roast beef, vegetables, macaroni, cottage pudding—you can put the things in your oven again. Henry, carry over this roast, will you? Don’t make any noise, any of you.”

“I’ll take the potatoes,” said Mrs. Callender fervently, but as she climbed her own piazza steps once more and saw the ghostly procession that came and went stealthily bearing dishes, her knees suddenly bent under her, and she leaned against one of the piazza posts, too weak from laughter to move.

“Take care, you’ll drop that dish,” said Mr. Waring interposing a dexterous arm, while he endeavored to balance the roast on the railing. “Mrs. Callender, don’t sit down on the piazza; get up. You’ll have me laughing, too, if you don’t stop, and I’ve got to take this in and go back for plates.”

“We have plates,” said Mrs. Callender, strangling. “Oh, Mr. Waring, we have plates—we have something. Oh, Mr. Waring, go and leave me, go and leave me! I’ll never be able to stand up.”

“Hello, what’s the matter?” Mr. Callender, with an excited whisper, came peering out into the semi-darkness. “That back door keeps letting in an infernal draught. What on earth are you and Waring doing out here, Cynthia? And you without a thing over your shoulders! I call that mean, having a good time out here by yourselves, and leaving me inside to do all the entertaining. Don’t you know that we’re waiting for dinner, and it’s after half-past seven o’clock?”

His ill-used expression was the last straw. Mr. Waring rocked and reeled with his platter, while the roast performed an obligato movement.

“Oh!” moaned Mrs. Callender as her husband finally assisted her to an erect position, and offendedly took up the dish of potatoes. “Don’t say a word, don’t ask me a thing; you’ll never in this world know all I’ve gone through in the last hour—you couldn’t take it in. But I’ve got the dinner—your Englishmen are provided for—your future is assured, and all that we have to do now is to go in and eat—and eat—and eat.”

The Strength of Ten

The Strength of Ten

AFTER plunging from the light and comfort of the heated train to the track, just below the little Gothic station of Braewood, John Atterbury had well-nigh half a mile to walk before reaching his suburban residence. The way led in part across untilled fields from the inclosures of which bars had been removed to facilitate the passage of daily commuters. In the slant sunlight of a summer evening, with insects chirping in the dusty grass by the side of the worn foot-path, and a fresh breeze from outlying meadows scented with clover and milkweed to fan the brow of the toiler, this walk served as a pleasant approach, in the company of conversational friends, to further country refreshment—the hammock on the verandah, the intimate society of rosebushes, or a little putting on the sward at the back of the house. But on a night in January, with the thermometer five degrees above zero, and a fierce wind blowing out of illimitable blackness, life in the suburbs demanded strenuous will-power. Men put their heads down and ran in silence, with overcoats tightly buttoned, and hands beating together, their footsteps sounding heavily on the frozen earth.

The wind cut John Atterbury’s strong lungs like a knife, and his feet seemed to stumble against the cold as if it had been a visible barrier. Moreover, he bore within him no lightness of spirit, but all the chill and fatigue of a hard day spent in business transactions that have come to nothing, added to the bitter knowledge of an immediate and pressing need for money in the common uses of life. He had a numbing sense of defeat, and worse than that, of inadequacy. If the man whom he was to meet to-night did not bring relief, he knew not where to turn. His tired brain revolved subconsciously futile plans for the morrow, while his one overmastering desire was to reach the light and warmth and rest of the cozy house that sheltered his young wife and three small children.

With a sharp pang of disappointment, he perceived, as he turned the corner, that the front of the villa was in darkness except for a dim light in his wife’s room, and as he opened the door with his latch key no gush of hot air greeted him, but a stony coldness. He knocked against a go-cart in the square hall on his way to light the gas, and his wife’s voice called down softly,

“Is that you, dear?”

“Yes. Are you ill?”

“No, only resting. Aren’t you coming up?”

“In a moment.”

He divested himself of his hat and coat, and stood absently trying to warm his hands at the frozen register, and then with a long sigh, prepared to take up this end of the domestic burden with the patient use of habit. He went upstairs with a firm and even step, treading more lightly as he passed the nursery door where the baby was going to sleep under the charge of Katy, the nurse-maid, and entered the room where his wife lay on the lounge in a crimson dressing-gown, a flowered coverlet thrown over her feet, her dark hair lying in rings on the white pillow, and her large, dark eyes turned expectantly toward him. The comfort of the pretty, luxurious room, which gave no hint of this new poverty in its fittings, was eclipsed by the icy chill that was like an opaque atmosphere.

The wind outside hurled itself at the house and shook the shutters.

Atterbury turned up the gas, and then sat down on the couch by his wife and kissed her.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing but that old pain; it will go over if I lie still—it was my only chance if we are to go out to-night. It’s really better now. I promised Mrs. Harrington faithfully this afternoon that we’d come, in spite of the weather. Do you mind?”

“No. Is Harrington home yet?”

“She expects him back this evening. Oh, Jack, Bridget was sent for this morning before the breakfast things were cleared away. She really didn’t want to go off this time, but that mother of hers—! The children were more troublesome than usual, and had to be taken care of. They’re all asleep now but the baby. I sent them off earlier than usual on account of the cold. Katy is no good around the house, and we’ve had such a day! The furnace—”

“I see that it’s out.”

“Both fires were out, but the range is going now. The wind was all wrong. We made up the furnace three times, but I couldn’t remember how to turn the dampers; they never seemed to be the right way. There’s a grate fire in the nursery, though.”

“The water hasn’t frozen in the pipes, I hope?”

There was an ominous sound in his voice.

She nodded speechlessly, and looked at him, her eyes large with unshed tears.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He rose for action. “You should have sent for the plumber at once.”

“There wasn’t anyone to send, and it was so late when I found it out; he wouldn’t have come until to-morrow, anyway.”

There was a certain look in his wife’s face at times which filled Atterbury with extreme tenderness. In the seven years of their wedded life she had explained to him every varying grade of emotion which the sight of him caused her, but there were many things which he had never thought of telling her, or even consciously formulating to himself. He went over to the closet, poured out some cordial in a small glass and brought it to her to drink, watching narrowly until a faint tinge of color relieved the bluish pallor around her mouth. Then he poured out another small glass for himself, and spread the down coverlet more closely over her, frustrating her evident desire to rise.

“You lie still.” He passed a heavy, affectionate hand over her forehead, and she rested her cheek against it with a passionate helplessness. “What on earth did you want to do all the work for, to-day? Why didn’t you get the McCaffrey woman? You’ve no business to tire yourself out like this, Agnes. I don’t see how you’re ever going out this evening!”

“Oh, I can go, I’m so much better now. I thought—I know that we have so little money—I wanted to economize; other women seem to do such things without any trouble at all.”

“Well, we won’t economize that way. Always get what help is necessary.” He spoke with the quick, matter-of-fact decision of a man used to affairs, temporarily regardless of the financial situation, whose cramping iron restrictions could be felt at every turn. “I’ll go down now and start things up!”

“Your dinner is in the oven. I’ll send Katy to you as soon as Herbert is asleep. She can’t leave him now, for he crawls over the crib and drops out.”

“All right! Don’t you worry, I’ll get it.”

He ran downstairs, arrayed for service, and Agnes listened to his receding footsteps, a warm comfort in her heart despite that racking of the bones, as of one “smote hip and thigh,” which comes to the delicately-born with unaccustomed kitchen-work. After some moments—spent, as she guiltily divined, in searching for the coal shovel—the clatter and rattle of the furnace showed that a master hand had taken it in charge.

Atterbury stoked and shoveled with every quick sense suddenly concentrated on a deep and hidden care. If anything should happen to his wife—vague, yet awful phrase—if anything should “happen” to his wife! She was not made for struggle; the doctor had told him that before. He knew, none better! how brave, loving, yet sensitive a spirit was housed in that tender and fragile body. If she were to leave him and their little children—

No mist came over his eyes at the phantasm, but a sobered keenness of vision gleamed there. There were certain things which it behooved a man to do. He walked over to the coal bins—they were nearly empty. Well, more coal must be ordered at once; he would himself speak about it to Murphy, and make arrangements to pay that last bill—somehow.

A catalogue of indebtedness unrolled itself before him, but he gazed at it steadily. The fog-like depression was gone. He felt in his veins the first tingling of that bitter wine of necessity which invigorates the strong spirit.

And there was Harrington, at whose house the card party was to be held to-night. He drew a long breath, and his heart beat quicker. He had not told his wife how much he counted on seeing Harrington, but he was sure that she had divined it—nothing else would have taken him out again on such a night. This wealthy and genial neighbor had held out great hopes of furthering one scheme of Atterbury’s in that trip out West from which he had just returned. Atterbury had helped Harrington about his patent, and the latter professed himself eager to repay the service. If Harrington had used his influence—as he could use it—and had got the company to look at the land, why, it was as good as sold. Atterbury knew that it held the very qualities for which they were looking. If the plan were a success, then what had been started first as an attractive “flyer” might prove to be a main dependence when most needed. He felt a little bitterly that the friends on whom he had most counted had failed him. Callender—Nichols—Waring—in their plans there was no room for him. This meeting with Harrington was the crucial point on which the future hung.

When Atterbury went back to his wife, warmed with his work, she was standing before the mirror, dressing; a faint, smoky smell arose from the register. The wind was still evidently in the wrong direction for chimneys. An infant’s prattle, mixed with an occasional whimper, came from the nursery.

“I’ve wrapped hot cloths around the pipes,” he said cheerfully, “and left a couple of kerosene lamps lighted on the floor near them. We’ll have to take our chances now. What’s this envelope on the mantelpiece?” His face fell. “Another assessment from the Association? That makes the eleventh this month, besides the regular insurance, that was due on the first.”

“But you can’t pay it!” She had looked bright when he came in, but now her lips quivered.

“Oh, I’ll have to pay that; don’t you worry about it. I tell you, though, Agnes, I’d be worth a good deal more to you dead than I am now.”

“Don’t! You know I hate to hear you talk like that. I’d never take your old insurance money.” She grasped him by her two slender, cold hands and tried ineffectually to shake him while he smiled down at her, and then hid her head on his breast, raising it, however, to say,

“Did you eat your dinner? I hope that it wasn’t burned.”

“I ate—some of it!”

“Oh,” she groaned, “and on such a night!”

“Never mind, I’m counting on a good hot little supper at Harrington’s. And, Agnes—” having none of the care of the children, he had a habit of intervening at inopportune moments with well-meant suggestions—“just listen to that child! Don’t you think he might go to sleep better if I brought him in here with us for a few moments?”

“No,” said his wife. She added afterward, sweetly in token of renewed amity, “He’s such a darling, and he looks more like you every day. He’ll be asleep soon. But I’m sure Gwendolen will have the croup to-night, the house has been so cold.”

“Oh, of course,” said Atterbury grimly. By some weird fatality the festive hour abroad was almost inevitably followed by harrowing attendance on one or other of the infants in the long watches of the night. Husband and wife looked at each other and laughed, and then kissed in silence, like two children, in simple accord.

It was with many instructions to Katy that the Atterburys finally left the house, instructions that comprehended the dampers, the babies, and the pipes.

“I don’t suppose that she will remember a word that we have told her,” said Agnes resignedly.

“Well, we are only going three doors away; I’ll run back after a while and see.”

“I’m so glad I’m going with you,” she whispered as they walked the few steps, he trying to shield her from the violence of the wind.

“Ah, yes,” he jibed, “it’s such a new thing, isn’t it, to be with me! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

The Harringtons’ house was certainly a change from the one they had left. Delicious warmth radiated from it as the ample doors unclosed to let the guests in; the crimson-shaded lights were reflected on the card tables and the polished floor, and laughing voices greeted the newcomers.

“You are late,” said the hostess, who was considered handsome, with heavy black eyebrows, dimples in her white, rounded cheeks, and a petulant expression. She wore a bunch of violets in the belt of her light blue gown. “You are late, but not so late as my husband. I expected him home to dinner, and he hasn’t come yet. It’s the way I’m always treated,” she pouted engagingly; “you other men will have to be very, very nice to me.”

She stared with public audacity into the eyes of the man nearest her, and then let her long black lashes sweep her cheek. It pleased her to pose as the attractive young married woman, and by tacit consent the suburban husbands were allowed by their wives to go through the motions of flirting with her.

Atterbury settled down to the strain of waiting. The company was composed of couples who saw each other daily, the men on the trains, the women in their small social rounds. Every event that happened in their little circle was common property, to be discussed by all. The evolution of Mrs. Oliver’s black spangled gown, the expensive house which the new doctor was erecting under the auspices of the Building Loan Association, Totty Jenkins’ stirring experiences in the kindergarten, and Mr. Waring’s sudden substitution of the seven-thirty-one morning train for the eight-fourteen, were subjects interspersed with, and of the same calibre, as discussions on the presidential candidate, the last new book, or affairs in Africa.

In spite of this pooling of interests, so to speak, the weekly gathering at the houses of different members always took on an aspect of novelty. Everyone dressed for the occasion, and there was usually a good game of cards, and a modest little supper afterwards, and the women met other men besides their husbands, and the men met each other and smoked after supper. The only real variety in the programme was that the simple and hearty friendliness beneath all this was more apparent at some houses than at others.

The Harringtons—somewhat new arrivals—were the confessedly rich people of the set, and the entertainments which they gave were characterized with a little more pomp and circumstance. Mrs. Harrington, for all her perfunctory belleship, was a lively and entertaining hostess. Everyone strove to make up to her for Harrington’s absence, and a particularly cordial spirit prevailed. It was always a secret trial to Agnes not to play cards at the same table as her husband in the progressive game, but to-night she did not mind, for his steel-blue eyes met hers in a kind, remembering glance whenever she looked for it, that spoke of a sweet and intimate companionship, with which outside events had nothing to do.

In one of the intermissions of the game Atterbury heard Henry Waring say to Nichols,

“Did you see the little item in one of the evening papers about that Western Company to whom Harrington sold his patent?”

“No, what was it?” asked Nichols.

“They’re going to start up the plant at once near some town in Missouri, I’ve forgotten the name—paid fifty thousand for the ground. You see, they required peculiar natural facilities; that’s what’s kept them back so long. It seems a good deal of money to pay for a clay-bank. Of course, Harrington’s in a hurry to start them up; he’ll get a big royalty.”

“You are not to talk business,” said Mrs. Harrington’s gay voice.

Atterbury felt the room swirl around with him; he knew the name of the town well enough! He had been sure from the first that those barren acres of his held just what the Company was looking for, but he had never dreamed of getting more than ten or fifteen thousand for them. A warm gratitude to Harrington filled him, and then a chill of doubt. The newspaper only chronicled a rumor, not a certainty, for no real sale could take place without his knowledge.

He did not know how he played after this, and it was a tremendous relief when the players left the tables and stood or sat in little home-like groups, all talking and laughing at once in a merry tumult. There was in the air that fragrant aroma of newly-made coffee which is so peculiarly convivial in the suburbs, and the absence of Harrington, who was nevertheless considered to be a jolly good fellow, had ceased to be noticed by anyone but Atterbury, when the sound of wheels was heard grating on the driveway outside. He clutched the chair he stood by, although his face was impassive. The hour he had been waiting for was here—Harrington had come.

Mrs. Harrington ran into the hall with an exclamation of pleasure, as the door opened, letting in a flood of cold air and a large man heavily wrapped in fur. The listening company heard him say,

“What in—time—have you got this crowd here to-night for?” The words were respectable, but the tone cursed.

There was a stiffening change in her voice. “Hush! Didn’t you get my letter?”

“What letter? No, if I had I wouldn’t have been fool enough to come home for a quiet night’s rest; I might have known I couldn’t get it here. You can’t live without a lot of people cackling around you.”

“Go to bed, then. Nobody wants to see you!” It was the quick thrust of a rapier.

“Much rest I’d get with that mob in there.”

The woman flashed back at him with a white heat,

“You have your men’s dinners and your wine parties—and you grudge me a little pleasure like this! It’s like you; it’s like—” For very shame’s sake, the guests were hurriedly talking to cover the sounds of strife.

“Harrington’s trip evidently hasn’t done him much good,” said Nichols to Atterbury. “I doubt his success. He has too many large schemes on hand; what he makes in one way he uses to float something else.”

“It’s possible,” said Atterbury thoughtfully.

“It doesn’t do to take things like that; if you lose your grip you can’t get on.”

“That’s what I’m finding out now. I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Nichols, that I’m in a hole. But you have no experience in that way; your business is secure.”

The two men had drawn to one side and were talking in low and confidential tones.

“Is it? I tell you, Atterbury, the time I went through five years ago was awful, simply awful. No, I never said a word to a soul here; nobody even suspected. There was one time when I thought I’d have to send Sue and the babies home to her father, and light out for the Klondike.”

“But you didn’t,” said Atterbury, his own pulse leaping to the courage of the other man with a sudden kinship.