^m^ 'S/f'-'iJsSJirai m yes, Cyril Patrick Gournthum Stephenson loved the fair sex, and what member of the fair sex could ever resist a baronet, — a baronet of twenty - three who was called " the pink of the Albany " ? A maid might scorn the wooing of a duke, for a duke hasn't the subtle attraction of a baronet, especially in Kilkenny, but no woman could scorn Sir Cyril. A picture of his father by Romney hangs in the National Gallery, and he is said to be "the living image of the dead Squire." Pause under that picture, you senti- mental chits who hunt romance; observe the beau- tifully chiselled features, the liquid green eyes, the proud lips, the brown hair unpowdered. What would he say if he could speak ? He is the beau ideal, the dream lover, a man with lips of fire. His lovely ghost whispers some- thing to each woman who gazes up at the por- trait. The portrait is the shadow of our hero. But there is one point of difference,— the sixth baronet's chin is stronger than his father's. "Hello, my lord!" said the man who guarded 7 the bar. " What can I do for your lordship ? A Webster cocktail? Some peach bitters — or is it a water night ? " Sir Cyril was entering the always crowded bar-room of Johnny Astor's most famous venture. "Nothing to-night, Tom. I want my sea- legs to-morrow." " Guess we 'II miss you about here. Hope you 'II think of your old pals when you see the dooks over there. Say, isn't it wonderful now for you to know that old dook who licked Napo- leon — and isn't it wonderful for me, Tom Jen- kins, to know you? Say, ain't you sorry to leave us ? Perhaps you 've a gal you 're struck on in the old country?" The boy smiled, but it was only a half-smile. " Perhaps she 's waiting for you ? " "She is waiting for me, Tom," came the slow words, — " VfSiitmg for me!" "Is she pretty?" asked the man, with the fearlessness of one who might some day be the President of his country. m4 8 i"^ " They say so in London," came the answer. The bar-tender winked at the glass he was shining. "Money I " his open eye said, but his lips said nothing. Sir Cyril went over to a table and sat down. A page was lighting a lamp by the change desk, and for a moment the young baronet thought he was back in Boodles with the musty Club foot- men fetching in the lights. "Say, I'd like to be you I" shouted Tom Jenkins, who was a cheerful soul and couldn't stand a customer's depression. " Would you ? " mocked the other, thinking the man was referring to his station in life. In his subconscious mind was a vision of O' Grady Castle, a second Rackrent Hall. Starving tradesmen were sitting in every room in long funeral rows. At the foot of the Grand Stair- case a tall pale girl was waiting for him in a dress of cloth of gold. She was the heiress. Lady Aveline Toole, soon to be a Stephenson. o ]BROABWSvY,WlHIIClHI SOME ANCIENT CITHZEMS PERSISTE© UN CAEEIHG O 6 m4 9 ^'>^ " You're such a good looker," came the voice Jrom behind the row of Waterford decanters. The Irishman stuck out his chest. His thoughts had come back to earth; they were there in that hotel. "I say," he said, — " I say"; but Tom Jenkins was busy uncorking sherry. A moment later he was glad that he hadn't asked about her; it was profaning her somehow. With an elegant Piccadilly stride he sauntered out of the bar. Once on the staircase he fairly flew to the Grand Lounge. Then with guilty steps he made for the desk. "I say," he stammered to the dozing clerk. From where he stood he could catch a refection of himself in the glass, and he blushed as he remembered the words of one Jenkins. While he stood there hesitating, the mirror suddenly reflected a fluttering ribbon, a waving feather, and a woman's smile, arch but unintended. Then Sir Cyril forgot his Piccadilly stride. CHAPTER II OF course she knew that he had followed her. He knew also that she knew it. She was leaning' over one of those iron balconies that used to decorate the huge drawing-room windows of the Astor House. Below her were the tides of the Broadway, flowing north and south; — crowds whirled and eddied and then dashed into the sudden darkness beyond L,is- penard's meadows and below Trinity. Stages clanged their bells, curb-venders shouted, guest- catchers called out the delights of the Museum just opposite, toilers of all ages whistled and sang. The bells of the city were proclaiming the death of the day. The April night was free of care, and a new moon was peeping shyly over roofs and tree-tops and silvering rivers and sea. The roses, the feather, and the fluttering ribbon were still now ; but did he see a flicker. 11 a humorous imp, steal from the land of for- bidden smiles and hover near her lips? She seemed to be always smiling. He wanted to laugh aloud — his heart was only a boy's heart. Then she became a startled thing, a bird in a net, a trapped woodland creature. The man blocked her retreat to the window, and so, inch by inch, she bent nearer the street until the curve of her bonnet hid her face. For a minute he pondered. With all the grace of a Vestris she walked to the end of the balcony. He decided that she was brazen. She had noticed him, she knew that he was there, and now she was luring him on. There was a mys- tery about her that was enchanting. Her bold- ness was adorable. Manlike, he decided that he would give her tit for tat. A woman who could walk so proudly and make her high red heels click with such a roguish mocking air should have boldness for boldness. So, with his very best manner and his beaver in his hand. Sir Cyril said in a voice that startled himself, "Madam, you smiled." The face turned to his was a startled child's. "\ didn't/' the girl said. For a moment he would have given his tongue to recover his speech. It seemed almost criminal. His gallantry had never led him into such a direct attack before ; the blush of a few minutes ago came back reinforced. The eyes of the creature before him began twinkling. "I didn't smile — I laughed/' she' said. " By Jove ! you did \" he echoed. " You looked so funny," she continued. Sir Cyril had never been called funny by a woman. It didn't suit his own sense of humour. You can imagine how he took it. " You looked so sort of lonely, I mean, as if you were mourning somebody — your sweet- heart." Sir Cyril thought of the Lady Aveline m4 i3 p>m Toole, and his expression didn't grow any pleasanter. " You are rather good at surmising." "All people who come from the country are." "I shouldn't say you came from the country. " " Would n't you, really ? You are a nice man ! / have buttercup dust all over my chin." She showed him her lovely little pointed chin, just as if they were playing some nursery game, " and a frog in each shoe. " She showed him a pair of slippers, bewitching little things. Her eyes rested on the slippers for a time as if she loved them ; then she whispered irrele- vantly, " My aunt says I am far too countryish ; she called me a cow yesterday, because I lagged before shop windows." Her listener laughed. "I should call you something less heavy than that — something off the dull earth, up in the air — something — " "Father calls me Thrushes — I whistle, you m4 U 1"^ see; I don't keep time very well, but I always get the melody." " What a sweet, odd name ! You 're quite different from any girl I have ever met." " Yes, I suppose I am different from Eng- lish girls. I shouldn't talk to you, should I? Aunt wouldn't like it; she hated to leave me." "She's gone," his eyes said. " You see it 's this way. Her brother, my uncle Tobias, is ill in Flushing — yes, he's very ill — but she couldn't take me, he hates my father. " "And he has never seen you," he put in. "No, he never wanted to; he thinks me a chip of the old block. The old block, you know, is something Satan sits upon." "I shouldn't think man or devil could sit on you— pardon one of your Americanisms." "Oh, how nice you are, a second time! I'm only seventeen, just seventeen, and you do think me quite grown up ? " He looked at her as she looked at him — so ja*«- 'ILAGGE© BEFOIRE SHIOF WIMBO^^^S' 0= i m4 15 ^^ eager, so Jluttering. Her eyes were bluer than any Irish eyes he had seen ; fair April weather seemed to dance in them, soft skies and sun- shine. Her skin was white, with only the faintest touch of pink. A poet would have said her lips were a Cupid's bow. As she stood there with the shadow of the great house upon her and the grey day turning black, for the moon was pale as yet, she looked some girl vision of immortal youth. Her manner might have bewildered any man. Now she had the tricks of Mayfair ; now the simplicity of the country, a far-away sylvan country. When she raised her head and showed the girdle of Venus about her slender throat, the Irishman thought of stately beauties of some earlier age. She was Beatrix Esmond in a room where candles flamed and men felt hotly for their swords. When she asked him her quaint breath- less questions, she was a wood thing hurrying through fields of wind-tossed daisies — a fairy thing welcoming the dreaming moon. " It's fizzing' to be young," he said. " You 're not very old yourself," came the retort. " The Irish never grow old. " " You have seven lines about each eye — yes, I count seven." "That must be for luck." Her laugh was a challenge to Father Time. " What 's your name ? " was her next re- mark. " Cyril Stephenson — Sir Cyril Stephenson." "Really a Sir." " You think I should go to the Zoo I " " Why, I 've never seen one before ! " " They 're quite common at home. " " Would your wife be a lady ? " She was much interested. "I hope so." " Would she wear a crown ? " "All the Stephenson crowns are waiting in Jerusalem." " You sound rather sacrilegious." 17 ^'They're pawned, I mean." " I wish you had one for her, women look so beautiful in crowns. I saw a picture of Victoria in Godey's Lady Book. It was lovely. We never wear crowns in America. Some girls in New York wear Jenny Lind wreaths of ca- mellias, but where I come from they never wear anything. " "All uncrowned queens," he jested. "Perhaps you wouldn't say that if you could see them. They are not even like me, most of them. " She was trying very hard to be humble. "They become fish-wives when they are very young; fish-wives salt the cod fish, you know, or stay at home and slave, watching and watching for ships to come back. The name of the place where I live is Gloucester. Perhaps you 've been there ? You have n't? I daresay you are not very sorry. It 's all old and grey, and the streets run up and down little hills, and you smell salt fish and the sea, and another scent like jasmine, all mixed together. Oh, yes, you 'd -^<^ 18 1*^ like the scent — you needn't poke your nose up at the thought of it. You 'II never have to come there anyway ! Is n't there jish-drying in Ire- land ? You are making game of me!" "No, I'm not. I like hearing about it." "Do you, really? Then I'll tell you of Beauport — that's the name of our house." " They all come there," he said mischievously. She pretended not to have heard his inter- ruption. "It hangs just over the sea," she whispered again; her speech was always running into whispers. " It 's very, very old, for it was built when Anne was Queen. It 's a fat old gentle- man sort of a house and it spreads all about the ground. I say always that it looks like father. Then there are wide cool rooms and a great hall where Captain Horry used to have turtle feasts. He owned the first American feet of Indiamen. That was in colony days, before we parted from England. Captain Horry brought everything from England — every brick. You ■^<^ 19 ^"^ would think it quite like a place in your coun- try. It has such a dear comfy air. We love it— Captain Crawley and I." " Captain Crawley ! " he repeated indig- nantly. "He's my father," she laughed. "I often call him Captain Crawley because he looks so young. He 's fifty-eight, hut he seems only your age." "And what does he take?" " Gin, I think," —giggling. " I don't mean that." "He says his imagination has kept him young. He 's always pretending. When Maria makes mistakes with the dinner and burns our monthly roast, he just pretends it's all right. He pretends that everything is much nicer than it really is — about the world, I mean. He says the average man is a good man if you 'II only get to know him, and women are just human angels — eW but Aunt. She doesn't approve of him, you know. She says what he calls his ^4 20 ^"^ philosophy is just a Jine excuse for indolence. ' You 'II end in the poor house/ is her pet remark. She says that I oug'ht to live with her and get out of a slipshod life, but the Captain says she 'd make me too orderly and prim and altogether a bore. He says, 'If your income falls into the washtubs, don't let all your nature follow it.' I wouldn't leave the Captain and the sea for anything ! " "He's just my sort," he said. "What a way he must have with creditors 1 He sounds as if he belonged to Kilkenny. " She forgot him for a moment and bent nearer the crowd. It was candle-lighting time in Beau- port, with the Captain at his bit of supper. They were missing her there at that frugal meal — the Captain and Maria. As he studied her, he asked himself what it was about her that awakened all his protective instinct. Her eyes were like two stars of blue fire that were opening gates to strange forgotten yearnings. Sometimes when she smiled he saw m^ " Who said you would n't ? " "I've been entrapped— that's what it is " " What 's entrapped you ? " "The pater's rotten debts, twenty thousand pounds lost at ecarte. The sins of the fathers — you know the old saying. If he hadn't died head over heels in debt, I might have married to please myself" "Lady Aveline is a wife to be proud of" " I 'm sick of pride — it 's about all we have left in Ireland." Denby went to a chest and laid out his master's evening" things. The room was almost in darkness, fm tween the States and Canada. Though I don't love England any too much, as she belongs to Ireland, I 'm glad to have done something for her. The people have been good to us. I've never met any like them except in Cavan." "Sure, they're most of them young Irish — the spirit of Ireland is here in a more bracing air. Have you seen the letter on the bed, Sir ? " "What letter?" Denby fumbled about for the thing, and at last he found it. Apart by the faint starlight Sir Cyril read : "Miss Hone presents her compliments and begs that Sir Cyril Stephenson will honour the Assembly with his pres- ence this evening. Her aunt Mrs. Van der Gast has had the honour of staying at Castle O Grady in the hie baro- nets time, and if she had been in health would have paid Sir Cyril other courtesies. She sends her best felicitations by Miss Hone to-night. Enclosed please find a ticket." " They want me to do a jig or two," said the boy. He was thinking of the girl who had m4 33 p>m never been to a ball. Her eager eyes were haunting him. " You will have jigs enough at O'Grady after the wedding. We had better go on board ship to-night." "Don't — don't talk." Sir Cyril went over to look at the stars again. His thoughts, mad, impetuous, were like sky-rockets shooting off to lovelier worlds. "One night," he cried, "one night to live! I shall crowd all the stars into one May night." " What 's up now ? " asked Denby's twink- ling eyes. For answer some brushes were thrown at his head. CHAPTER IV r M ^HE dragon was away; he knew that. In M Kilkenny he was looked up to as a man who was without fear, and yet he trembled as he stood in the passage leading to Julia Craw- ley's room. A woman servant passed him, and he found his voice. " Would you be kind enough to tell Miss Crawley that Sir Cyril Stephenson desires to speak with her a moment ? " "I seen her just taking to the stairs, Sir," was the answer. He looked, and saw a white figure hurry- ing through the lower hall; she seemed always to be hurrying away. Down passage after passage she ran. They were both out of breath when he finally caught up with her by the ballroom door. "I wasn't going to let you escape," he said. "I knew all these lamps would catch you. m4 35^^m Women are so like moths — they all seek the liffht. " " We love to see the world, you horrid man!" "And be seen by it!" For answer she smiled a sort of mocking " Yes, thank you," and pulled hack the yellow silk curtains that guarded the door. Behind them was a scene of almost dazzling radiance. The room was perhaps the largest public room in New York since the destruction of the famous Coffee Room in the old City Hotel and the last governor had decided there was to be no waltzing in the City Hall. It was square in shape, and hung with the curtains that once decorated the salon of that famous lady. Madam Aaron Burr. The street side was flanked by four enormous windows, that the night made into great pools of liquid blue. Servants were light- ing bracket gas jets covered with festive white silk shades. Portraits of an earlier day by Stuart, Dunlap, the Peales, West, and many -^<^ 36 i*^ foreign artists hung" along" the white panels. The likenesses of these early New Yorkers who had founded the dances called the York Assem- blies — the earliest dancing organization in Amer- ica —gave the room a note of distinction. They brought the forgetful living in closer touch with the delightful vista of the past. They seemed to sigh out at one, "Ah, we too have danced, though now we are dead. Think of us danc- ing, and not of our sordid humdrum moments. In sublunary times the world said that our dancing was a waste of precious hours, but now we know that the long spaces in which our fin- ery was laid aside were the maddest forfeitures — we lie so still — so still in our decaying slip- pers, and our arms that once held warm slim waists are folded forever and forever. To-night our ghosts can smile a little. When the violins go trailing off to the lands where all lovely sounds have flown, catch the echo of our lost melodies and dance before your steps grow weary, for the time of year is spring." mm — I am sliding!- my feet under my dress, so the old man cannot see, and it feels like our Gloucester Lake in winter." He didn't say anything, but he went a step nearer to her. "Do you imagine that I would come here and dance without you?" She glanced at him archly. " To hear you talk you would think me quite town-bred and going to a ball once a week. Remember, Sir, I am not used to dances and the polite world. Aunt says my Indian blood is always coming out. In Gloucester our greatest treat is going to the post-office in a new print or playing cro- quet on the parsons lawn. Sometimes there's a squire or two among the crowd, or a Cam- bridge young gentleman who has failed in his exams and needs the sea air. The Gloucester girls love seeing a real gentleman. / wonder what they would do if they saw you." " Take me for a peep show and give me a penny, I dare say," he laughed. ({ / would love to dance with you," she said, letting the gliding feet creep out from under the muslin to tease him. Her lashes brushed her cheeks. The garrulous old gentle- men had stopped their conversation to watch her. "Quit your palavering," he said. "I wish my aunt were here," she whispered demurely. "I'm glad she isn't!" " It would be much nicer for you. " "I don't see it! " " I 'm her poor relation. She wants to marry me off." A cloud crossed his face, and she felt his sudden change of mood. " I am a silly ! Forgive me ! " " You 're just the dearest thing in the world. " "I'm so happy!" "So am I." ''We two are different from other people." " I thought of you all the time I was dress- 'I MA© MY EDAGlLnE: BONE TES' T (aAJLILElKy 0= v ^4 4^ ^'^m insr. I was off in Ireland at your castle. Tell me, do you ever have dances there ? " " Often!" he mused. She saw that he had a strange look in his eyes. He was remembering' those words of Denby's about jigs after the wedding. "I should like to see the world — old castles, with romances and haunted rooms — something different from dear little Beauport. When I look out from my windows across the sea, I dream of them. Just think of never going anywhere or never doing anything — just sort of dreaming." "Philosophers have not been able to decide which is bettei — the dreaming or the living, the wanting or the realisation." "I should like to see your castle." " O' Grady." He smiled joyously. " What is it like, tell me ! " They had walked to a seat under the apple blossoms. -^4 42 1*^ " It's very grand and very humble. It's a true Irish home. A race of happy-go-lucky Irishmen have lived there." " It sounds as if it would suit me. " His face had clouded again. She looked into his eyes and remembered the eyes of a caged eagle. Then he grew calm. " There are chairs from Versailles, and peasant chairs, and velvet by homespun. The fireplaces could roast an ox. There 's a forest of fir trees creeping up to the very door. In the dark passages are servants we have forgotten to pay, — im- pudent creatures, all heart and stomach, like Denby. Denby's my man, you know. Oh! It's a rum old place, with chamber things in the drawing-room and kitchen things in the chambers." " We 're like children — first I tell you every- thing and then you tell me everything." She almost touched his hand. " Everything ? " he said softly. m4 43 1-^ " IVell, of course you have more to tell than I have." " You'll have a grand lot to tell one day." "Shall I tell it?" she asked. She had seen his meaning look. " To some lucky beggar ! " " I 'II tell him about you first. " " You will soon forget me. " "Do you think I look like a woman who could forget?" "Women always look as if they couldn't." " Do you know, I believe that some of them just pretend to forget. It is a sort of stupid pride. We never forget our loveliest hours, no matter how far we have wandered from them." "I shall never forget this." She tried to hide a blush. " I wish I had a picture of you as you look now." "I had my daguerreotype done yesterday in the Wall Street Gallery. You might ask Aunt for it. I was dressed like this." ■^<^ 44 1^^ " You look as if you were waiting for the ball to begin." The expression of her face changed, and he knew that he had hurt her a second time. " Don't care, child ! " he said. " You shall go to the ball. You shall go with me ! " She jumped to her feet and clapped her hands. " What do you mean. Sir Cyril ? " " You are unknown here, and you could use the card they sent me. As for me, an Irish- man can always get into a party, whether he is asked or not." She did one or two jumping steps that Captain Crawley had taught her in a Sail- ors' Rigadoon. The bickering gentlemen raised their eyeglasses with proper indignation. " You 're coming with me ? " he cried. "Heavens, I don't know ! " " Heavens, you must come ! '' "It's the one thing I want to do in the world." " Then you are to do it. " "WMEM &MJE, ITOOIK. ME TO HEIBILtD'S THEATRE" o m<4 45 l-^ " What would Aunt think?" " Sure, she 's not thinking of you, she 's thinking of Tobias." " When she took me to Niblo's Theatre, she said that was enough gaiety for this visit. " "Don't you believe her!" " Would you like me to come ? " " You know I'm drunk with the thought of it!" "I knew something would happen to me in this dress. It's borrowed, you know. We all borrow in Gloucester. When a girl goes away on a jaunt, the stage stops at every door to let her get additional pieces of finery. The last girl who wore it fell in love — and married," she said impishly. "And now you want it to go to a ball!" she added. " You 'II dance with me, then I " "I'm afraid to!" There was a double meaning in the words. She feared the room full of strangers, but she wanted him to know that she feared him more. ^4 46 p>m " Shure, now, do, dear!" he said. "I'm sailing home to-morrow ! " The word "dear" did not seem to strike her ears. A strange new terror was struggling with her. " Home to Ireland ! " She gasped. He turned away. Her changing face hurt him. Suddenly he clenched his hands, as a man in pain would. Like all his race, he wasn't clever at disguising his real feeling. "A night is a long time to live," she whis- pered, creeping closer to him. His own words had come to her lips. "I've never lived before — " The room, sweet-scented and ablaze with light, was theirs alone. He took her hands in his, and her wild breath touched his face. CHAPTER V JULIA CRAWLEY stood before the mir- ror in her little bedroom. Her eyes gleamed and her breast heaved. Sometimes her lips burst into a gay air, " When Cupid comes marching down Broadway," a song that was the rage in New York parlours. Now she tied a fresh ribbon about her waist, and then began to sew a rather worn fold of her bodice. After a moment, when her face almost touched the face in the mirror in anxious scrutiny, she slipped the thing from her waist and with deft fingers lapped lace over lace until a portion of the gar- ment had disappeared. Then she put it on again. It was the first time that she had ever worn low neck, and she was amazed at her own daring. She felt the eyes of all the old ladies in Gloucester were upon her — eyes reinforced by her aunt's more awful orbs. m4 4S ^-m She was a strange girl, that girl before the mirror — strange for her time and her period. Captain Crawley, sipping his port, used to take a long puff of baccy and say : " Thrushes, you should have been a boy. Then you could have inherited Beauport. You could have laboured harder than I ever laboured and paid off the back mortgages and the place would have been yours. Being a woman, you cannot use all those wits you have — inherited from me, ahem ! So the house will probably go under the hammer when I set sail on my last voyage. Of course old Frizwig [he was the Gloucester money- lender] hasn't a hope of ejecting us while I live. He must go somewhere for his bottle, and he doesn't dare show his face in a tavern. Then you're here. Thrushes. No two-legged. Godfearing, sea-smelling critter could resist you. Thrushes ; you 've got all your kind beat, even if I do say it." Thrushes poured the cheer in that long room by the sea, while the old New England sea ^4 49 |»M dosi's sat hy the bleared casements and watched the "King of Prussia," the "Saucy Sallie," the "Benjamin Franklin," and other smart frigates come proudly into harbour. She gave her father's cronies port or canary when the cellaret was flourishing, and on off nights she watered the gin. The Captain used to say, "Friend, have some of my father's — the General's — port, just up from below stairs where it has been these fifty years " ; or a more common speech was : " This canary has travelled past the Cape four times — yes, sirrah! four times — and that means how many thousands of miles? It might be in the belly of a whale, but I'd rather have it see yours, sirrah! By the love of Harry, I would, sirrah, and there's my hand on it." Judy the young men called her, or longed to call her, for she was something of a princess in that far-away grey town. She was an un- canny growth for a Puritan atmosphere. You could never be sure what she would do or say. Women pointed to her as the natural result of m4 50 |»^ a wanton bringing up and a lack of feminine influence. Men found her delightful. No dis- sertations on worsted work or scullery worries from her ; she preferred arguing you down in politics — about which she knew nothing — or tickling your vanity. She was a minx at spar- ring, but she never barbed her words. When the ring grew hot at Beauport and Julia scored a point, the Captain would toss back his chair with a wild guffaw. "She should have worn breeks, she should. She would have been a Senator. Jiminy cricks! Think of a chit like her downing all you gosh darned land- lubbers!" He was proud of her, and she was proud of him. She was his sun, moon, and stars, and she loved his true and hearty nature and its trail of petty weaknesses. If he looked upon her as a son to him, at times she went farther and played at being his mother. When he gave a dramatic touch to his hospitalities and called the common sherry smuggled over from Salem ^4 51 ^^> "five-voyaged canary" she always felt respon- sible for him and watched to see how far the white lies would go. He was very poor, and no one knew how poor but Julia, yet he loved giving his guests the best. He had fallen into the habit unconsciously. Even when dining alone with his daughter he would offer her breast of chicken when it had been devoured at the last party. Of course, she knew enough to prefer dark meat. Her heart used to beat over those white lies until she discovered that he enlarged on things to give his small world pleasure. The Captain had the manners of a lord and the store of a field-mouse. He de- ceived himself and his neighbours to enhance the joy of living. He let his imagination run riot, and those who discovered him forgave him. Do not judge him too harshly. His daughter knew him better than anybody else. Hadn't she laughed and cried over his jackdaw tricks in her chamber under the eaves? But for all that, she had absorbed some of his art of delu- ^4 52 l*^ sion. The Crawleys were two dear fools, and Beauport was just the little outer building to a castle in Spain. They were like the noblesse in the Concierge who welcomed the daily appear- ance of bread and cheese with " Tenez I Void la fricassee de veau et la champagne. " The night before the stage had borne her away from Gloucester, just seven days ago, the Captain and his daughter sat before their fire. It is cold in that north country in the spring. "Judy Thrush," he said dreamily, as he watched her busily painting the vermilion leather on the worn heels of those oldfashioned shoes that had amused and enchanted Sir Cyril, — "Judy Thrush, you look a woman to-night. You look like your mother did when I married her. Gad ! how a man remembers. . . . You 're not as handsome as she was, so don't poke up that nose of yours, girl, but, by thunder, you 're the handsomest woman living in these here parts." *' Flatterer," said the girl, bending nearer ^4 52 ^^m the Jire. " You are 'partial to me because I am yours. I know you ! " After a long silence, while some wet cones were sucked into the fire by the falling logs, he said: "I hope you will never marry and leave me, dear. What would this house be without you, I wonder. . . . You 're the life and soul of this hulk of timber. . . . Yes, 't would be a sad place without you . . . only the sea and its stories. " " I thought you loved the sea, father ! " " It talks too much, dear . . . of days gone by." "Happy days," she smiled in the ember glow. " You have always told me if one has happiness to look back upon one can be at peace, listening to it." " I 'm growing old ; I feel it strangely to- night. I suppose it is because you are journey- ing off to your aunt in York. Whatever should happen to me, no doubt she would take care of you. If the good ship 'Boston Pride' hadn't m4 54 l»^ been wrecked, you might have had a dowry, girl." " Why, Captain, your sails are limp 1 " " Perhaps it 's lumbago / " " You sly-boots, you know you 're after a nightcap. You like to be cozened!" " If Captain Eldridge had a son, or Captain Peppercorn — they both have blood, drat their wenches ! There 's not a lad in Gloucester for you." " Why, you know you would n't let me marry anyone. You've been begging me not to leave you." "I believe in young marriages. None of your yoking stiff-necked old maids and old Betty bachelors." The Captain brought his hard fist down on the arm of his oak chair. "I won't marry; that's all there is to it," she mocked. " You will, hussy, or I'll beat you into it." "Aha, sir!" She jumped from her chair in the darkness. The shoes were finished. ■^4 ^^1*^- "Vou defame?" He too arose, with a great show of authority and a terrible scowl. " I '11 kiss you/' she said, and she did. They were always playing at war, the Cap- tain and his daughter. But she didn't sleep very much that night, although the rain dripped on the roof with its most soothing melody. Something was wrong in the house. Maria had an unhappy, hunted look. When the shop-keepers hinted to the Cap- tain that they could use a little ready money, and the Captain swore at their impertinence, Maria took to starving herself. She had given up long ago attempts to starve the Captain. His open rebellion left, her wavering between temper and tears. She was angry with him for calling a tragedy a comedy. That is the Puritan tem- perament. Still, she loved him in her grim way. If he would not stop eating to pay back bills, she could live on one egg a day. He did not know it, but Julia did. A woman possesses an m4 56 ^"m intuition that leads her into the secret recesses of another woman's heart before a man has reached the outer chamber. Julia had fathomed a great many things that a young girl is seldom forced to learn, but she met them as the birds meet the rain. There was something in that name of Thrushes, for she sang at the first hint of sunshine. " The sun is off somewhere, no matter how bad things might be!" The Cap- tain had taught her that. But things were worse than usual now. Beauport's rents and darns, its maimed and broken furnishings, seemed to cry out to her for mending. She was the only one who could ever put things right. There was just one way — marriage. The Cap- tain was looking toward it. He had begun to await it as the last good ship on the horizon of his life. Was it her duty to marry ducats for her father's sake? And where were the ducats? Who had ever heard of the Crawleys outside of Beauport? She said in her own mind that she was capable of sacrificing herself, but the old THIE MAGE EN IfEW YORK FAM,LOUIR,S 0= ^ don's father's brother who sold us the passage home." " Would you know Muldon if you saw him ? " " What do yer take me for ? " " Well, you are not overburdened with wit, even if you have the gift of gab. " Sir Cyril sat down at his washstand and pencilled a note on the back of a torn letter. He seemed in a desperate hurry, and when his pencil had stopped scraping he flung the thing to his gaping servant. " What is it ? " asked the undaunted one. " That is no affair of yours. " " May I have a look. Sir ? " pleaded the true son of Kilkenny. "At the cost of your own peace of mind," glared his master. Denby took the thing and stared at it. Then it fell to the floor, and he hopped away from it as if it had been some deadly reptile forgotten by Saint Patrick. In the emotion ^^ 65 |»^ that was overpowering him he looked more like a fat church pigeon than ever. " You're daft," he said, "you're daft. . . ." "I'm not going," said the boy sullenly. There was a drawn look about his mouth. "They'll be waiting at O' Grady," came the sad voice. "Let them wait. The place and all its rotten debts hangs about my neck like my own gravestone." "She is coming to Queenstown to meet yer. " " Yes, damn her ! " " May God have mercy on your soul ! May the mither of us all have mercy on your soul I " cried Denby, aghast. "I didn't mean that, do you hear. I wish her no harm. You torture me, you fool! I'll sail a week later." "And break another woman's heart." " Be off with the letter — the favour I 'm ask- ing comes late enough, as it is." m^ of a wild emotion. What is place and power without love, and if love meets love and ^oes grandly to the sacrifice, who dare call it im- moral ? This was his faming argument. This was his duel with his finer nature, the nature that was capable of transcending passion and sacrificing itself Gotham was coming in the many doors of the Astor House, through its Grand Lounge and up the steep side staircase where the fair sex were forced to cling to its narrow hand- rail to save their skirts from ballooning. There were streams of excited chatter, the prelude of a ball. Stately old-time New York— there was some- thing serene about it, something big-hearted and kind. Each man was sure of his position, and wives and children stood staunchly by that posi- tion, whatever it was. There was no shame in belonging to families whose honesty and in- dustry had made its city one of the coming capi- tals of the world. The reign of the American noble was unthought of. There were only two or three coats-of-arms in the city, and those were hidden by their owners as not being quite in keeping with a republic. Everybody bowed to everybody else, for they were a simple people, and they knew that the laws of caste are too complex to fathom. It is only when a nation becomes complex that the laws of caste seem to grow simple. Can anyone say in America that one man is of better blood than another while the sons of the men who made it what it is are unrecognized? Some day it will revise its ab- surd social system and get back to the spirit of true democracy that pervaded the Astor House on that longforgotten night. Gotham smiled on true worth and attainment then — on the arts. " What part are you playing in this drama of Freedom ? " was its cry. Hand in hand, it came hurrying into that old hotel. They stood looking at the crowd, and many in the crowd looked back at them. Spring had never yielded lovelier flowers. m4 73 h^ " I feel it is just a fairy-tale and it 's not true — say I'm not dreaming," she said. " We are both dreaming I " was his answer. "I am holding my ticket very tight!" "I am holding you very tight!" " JVhy, I haven't your arm." "No, but — " He pointed to his heart — remember his period. She was wishing the Captain could see her. She heard him calling her Lady Cyril. SJie did n't know what the words were, but he was saying something. She followed the curve of his lips, she felt one of his hands clasp hers. She knew that it ended with "I love you!" She drew in her breath and was silent. "I love you more than any woman in the world!" " When did it begin . . . Cyril ? This after- noon, or when you saw me coming out of St. PauVs ? " "Oh, my darling, it began long, long ago, in some other world." ^<^ 74 p>^ "Do you know, I think you are the man who has been coming' over the sea for me al- ways. You have come to rescue me, Cyril. You 're my Viking ! " " Am I? " "Dearest, you are not so poor, are you?" " Shure, no!" "I'm so very poor." " We could live in Boro Wood." " The Captain would like me to come back to Beauport in a coach and four." " The funny old Captain I We must drink a toast to him to-night." "Oh, I wish that he could see me — / wish that he could see me now. I thought of it the first moment when I knew you loved me. I mean so much to him. You don't know what I am to him. He's counting the hours most likely until I get back to him." "I love you — Thrushes." He looked at her, his eyes gleaming, and then a mist came to them. There are so many saints in Ireland ■m4 75 p^m that a part of one of them gets into every man, although he doesn't always know it. She did not speak, and he said again: "It just breaks my heart to love you. While I am loving you I am sick with apprehension that something is going to happen to one of us. I fear you are going to die, or love somebody better than you love me." "I should like to kiss you once," she whis- pered in his ear. She did n't, for Tom Jenkins was up from the bar to see the pageant of the night and came over to the man he called his "friend." " Gee, she is a corker, a reg'lar Jenny Niblo ; you 've got the prize to-night. " All this was shouted in the astonished Irishman's ear. What could any chap do but throw out his chest a little more? "Deuced pleasant sort, isn't he," said Sir Cyril, " even if he is a bit in the way ? " "I didn't hear a word," she said. "I was m^ thinking of Aunt giving Uncle Tobias his medicine." He threw back his head and laughed. Then he whispered, "Kiss me now." "I couldn't, really; the Captain says, 'Never take your eggs to the same market twice.' Besides, it's much too bright. I only wished to kiss you, you know. I might not like it at all when I did it . . . And if I did it you might not ask me to do it again. That would be awful. Perhaps the Captain wouldn't like it. I must not forget my duty to the Captain." He pretended to be very sad. "The Captain never told me not to kiss you." "Kiss me now; it is dark here just by these bay trees." " There are only two trees and it is not dark enough," she pouted. " I 'd give a year of my life for one kiss I " " Shure, would yerV she mocked. o= =o ^4 77 P>m- "Make me happy, love . . . make me very happy . . . " " Who is that man who is watching us ? " He turned and scowled at Denby. "I think he wants you to go to him." " Well, I won't go. He 's my man — the old idiot. I'll fist him soon unless he takes himself off." "He has frightened me, he looks so stern." " The old ill-natured creatur' I " "I couldn't kiss you now." "Couldn't yer, me darling?" She hung her head. "Perhaps it's not right. Perhaps I should not. The Captain's last ship never came home. A kiss is the only dowry I'll bring a man. A kiss is my very all . . . "Don't kiss me yet . . ." He too was afraid. Behind the yellow curtains so luminous with light the hand had begun the first dance. The horns and drums proclaimed a reel. "That air, what is it?" she asked eagerly. m4 78 ^>^ " Of course I know — they play it for the Glouces- ter Troop when they march to Boston. " "It's 'The Girl I left behind Me/" he answered. Her voice was very low when she spoke again. " Come closer ! " she said. Then she kissed him on the forehead. They danced in that great room as moths dance in the light. He seemed to be trying to whirl her off to some distant place, and when the apple branches stopped him at one corner of the room he was off to another. Each had visions. For long periods they would not speak. Sometimes she would laugh softly to herself and when he asked her the cause of her mirth she would say "Happiness." He danced with pain tugging at his heart. The scene and the place dazed her evidently, for she no longer played with him. Between the dances she would sit close to him like a frightened child. Then her sweetness was a torture. m4 79 ^^m If she had only gone on being high-spirited and flippant, but this unconscious appeal to his protective instinct was more than he could bear. When they sat out dances, the Irishman's eyes would wander to the blue windows where the curtains were still undrawn. O'Grady was there in the starlight, a grey ghost. It was a banshee wailing to his honour to rise and flee. " Julia, " he said in mad impulse, " if some- thing happened — if I had to go on the ' Britan- nia' to-morrow." "But you won't have to," said the woman. " If I did — if there were forces stronger than we are ? " Now he was in his barren fields with his people. " I could go back to Beauport . . . I could wait . . ." "Suppose the waiting was just . . . wait- mg . . . "I should grow old and take to a cap and a cat perhaps. I won't say that I wouldn't ^4 SO P>m look off over the sea — we all do that in Beau- port. I could hope." " There must be living that is worse than death — days, and nights, and months, and years, of terrible wanting. I never knew the hell life might be until to-night." "Hell or heaven," she said, "it will be heaven to remember. It will be heaven to think of to-day, to-night. Ah, but they won't take you away from me . . ." "Dance/" he said wildly. "Dance/ . . ." That waltz began the killing of her dream. A coach was lost on the way to Beauport . . . The Captain by the door never rose from his chair smiling . . . There were no lights in the windows for her . . . The wines her old friends drank were the same old watered wines. The road ended at Gloucester. There was no be- yond. It was night there . . . black night . . . The sea was moaning . . . To those who have seen Love's face vanish the sea offers no siren music, no consolation. ^^ 81 1-^ " You love me, Cyril?" she pleaded. "More than anything on earth.' " Your face is so white. I do not know what it is that is troubling you . . ." He turned away. " You have gained the highest tribute on earth. The love that sacrifices itself." She tried to follow him. "As you love me, beware of me now . . . hurt me . . . wound me . . ." " Oh, I do not understand . . . I do not understand . . ." The music rose divinely sweet . . . "Dance me," she whispered. "Dance and forget!" They danced until they were exhausted. The wondering room looked at them, but they were oblivious of the room. Finally she grew faint in his arms. "Poor little thing," he said. " If I had only loved you less!" "I love you," was all she said. Then she whispered, "Something' has come between us, but I do not know what it is." He saw Denhy in the doorway and made toward him with her on his arm. "Here's a letter, Sir." Sir Cyril hesitated to open it. He thought that it was the reply from his shipping friend in Beach Street. " It's from Lady Aveline," said Denby. "Lady Aveline?" repeated the girl. "Aveline!" . . . the boy's face could grow no whiter. " Who is she ? " Julia's words were very low. "His affianced wife!" said the servant gruffly. He had been a soldier. CHAPTER VII r t ^HE three stared at each other like people M walking in their sleep. " Tell him to leave us," the girl said thickly. " You are not going to faint, dear ? " " The Captain would shoot you if he heard you say that. No Crawley woman has ever fainted. Don't you know that women can bear things as well as men?" "Every word you say hurts me. I was going to tell you — at the end of each dance I wanted to tell you, but I could not. You are so sweet and clean I thought that you might not care for me if you knew that I was engaged to another." "Perhaps it would have been kinder." That was the only reproach she made. " I want to give her up. I sent Denby to change the passage. I could starve with you m4 84 1"*^ at O' Grady and be happy. If I jilted Aveline, there would be you, and I, and the bailiffs for dinner, when we had any." He tried to laugh. " Does she love you ? " she asked. "Her letters say so — see this one." " I could not read her letter. " He put it back in his pocket. "Did you give her your word that you would marry her ? " "I did, but that means nothing now." "It means everything. "/ could not love you without honour. I do not mean quite that, but I could not love you smiling as I do. . . . See . . . I am smiling, dear. You have honour, though you have been fighting with it all the time we danced. I knew you were suffering . . . The Captain says, ' A man without honour is dead-sea fruit. ' Life can rob us of everything but honour. " " You are wonderful for one so young," he said. " I know I have less that is fine about ■^<^ 85 1-^ me than any Stephenson who has gone before, but you could make even Satan pure." They left the hot room and went out under the bay trees. They sat very much in the shadows lest Miss Hone should find him and try to be kind. "To think that a girl should be teaching me to be brave! If you had been different, I might have been so weak. I must sail to-morrow. I must send Denby to the ship in an hour or two. " "I only fear loneliness," she said. "Per- haps God is giving it to me for a reason." He began beating his chest with his arms. "It is such a topsy-turvy world," he cried. "No wonder men make mistakes. If a man could always meet an angel like you." " Remember the Captain says that ' all women are angels. "Remember he left out Aunt." Something like a smile came back to his face. "Listen, dear. I have the Irish changeful- ■m4 86 ^'^■ ness, and you have your dear child dreams — dreams that want a man to be a god — and if they shut us up in the same house together you might he saying to yourself a dozen times a day, 'I wonder if he 's the man I loved. ' I 'm not nearly so big a chap as you think me! I'd be bound to disappoint you ! You see, dear, our love is dancing up among those fading stars now. If Fate had been kinder and we had dragged it down to earth . . . perhaps." For answer she nestled closer in his arms. "I should not have been afraid," she whispered. " I know I am young, but it seems to me that our ideals are the only things that life cannot take from us if we live toward them. You will always be my knight riding through the tan- gled forest of this world toward the sun. If you nearly forgot the quest, if you grew weary or fell by the way, ah, I could forgive — / could forgive you everything." " That is love, dear," he said, with a new note in his voice. " That is the love I have M4 87 p>m sought long- to find. Oh, my God, you must come with me, you must . . ." He seized her in his arms and covered her face with passionate kisses, but her lips she held back from him. Once she gave a frightened cry, and tears came to her eyes. "Remember her/' she said, "remember your promised wife^ remember your honour ! " " What is honour, to stand between you and me? You are my woman and I am your man — to-night is the Garden of Eden. " " The Captain says that the one you can lead into sin, someon^ else can lead into • >> sm. " You mean that those who are weak are seldom faithful — that if I jilted Aveline and you went with me you wouldn't trust me. "I should trust you because I love you, and that would mean that you could break my heart — / don't say that you would, dear, but one day you might find another woman who ^4 88 |»^ appealed to you— you have loved many women," she said sadly. He turned from her and looked into the darkness. There were faces of those women he had loved, each robbed of its little hour of illu- sion. He knew the ache of the world then, that every sin must be paid for. "My body is fainting with anguish, but my heart is strong now." Her voice had the low break in it, the wistful thrushlike quality that always charmed him. " You will live in my heart forever, Irishman, and I shall live in yours. While I have faith in myself and faith in you, my heart will be strong. It will be the spar that will keep me up in whatever ship- wreck life brings. Love denied its earthly par- adise does not break hearts. It is sin and dis- illusion that hurts them. When I look to the rim of the sea off there in Gloucester, dreaming of you . . . hoping, dear . . . I shall still be smiling . . . always think of me smiling . . ." He no longer called her poor little thing; ^4 89 1-^ under all her graceful moods this divine spirit had been watching. The dawn was breaking, and over tall roof tops and ghostly trees came shafts of silver light that seemed to hang betwixt earth and heaven. In a moment they had vanished, and up to the two at the window came the cold wind that had crept into the sleeping streets. They stood very still, like people left in a deserted world. At their feet was a little cloud of torn apple blossoms that her arms had crushed upon her breast, and from the ballroom below came that half -rollicking , half-tender air, "The Girl I left behind Me." Their eyes met. "Say you love me," he murmured, "that after fate is done with us here we shall meet again and love." They heard a bird break into song in the churchyard; then the sunlight touched their pallid faces. He looked at her, so young and alluring. 90 The dawn gave her quaint old-fashioned gar- ments a new grace as she began to mount the stairway. When she reached the top, she turned to him again and looked hack. He was still standing there. THE END SI ^ sz. *^ 4^ <^- ^ PO ■ V - ^ 3z: - ^ . S7n , > !-_^ -^ (f ■ ^ ■■ ■■ -^"V- 6a i^psi^zs::^:^^::^^^^^^^ ^rrrscr—i^zs: DATE DUE ■¥^!mt:f CAYLORO "'""■"-"•■* T 'V ■'. ■■ ■ lltv'llk" 'jvi,.^-:'"--'- '■'■■\'^:r '•■/■liJ . .1. i»ltMS«5a»S