
 
 <f. 

 
 IN THE SHADOW 
 OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES
 
 IN THE SHADOW 
 OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 BY 
 
 HERBERT G. WOODWORTH 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1920, 
 
 BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 (INCORPORATED)
 
 IN THE SHADOW 
 OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 2134O18
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF 
 LANTERN STREET 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Four o'clock in the afternoon; through the great 
 Cheng- Yang-Men gate the traffic, congested from both 
 directions, poured into the city and out of it. With 
 like impatience at the delay, with like weird shouts and 
 imprecations, the 'rickshaws from the city struggled to 
 get away and all the crowd from without pushed and 
 strove to get within the sheltering walls of Peking. 
 
 Along the roadway, beneath the towering gate with 
 its huge overhanging parapets that guarded the en- 
 trance, soldierly policemen kept the lines in order, the 
 white bands of their caps standing out clearly from 
 the mass of bare heads. Each officer wore a sword 
 at his belt and a short rifle slung from a shoulder-strap 
 across his back. These were for serious offenders, 
 but a long black stick lent force to every command, 
 and now and then might be heard its brutal thwack as 
 it struck some poor offending coolie across the shoul- 
 ders when he ducked to save his head. 
 
 Through the dust, above the strange explosive calls 
 of the Chinese, rose the cry: "Ho! Ho!" Each 
 'rickshaw-man, every chair-bearer and all the crowd 
 
 i
 
 2 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 on foot gave way, leaving space between the -two 
 streams for a carriage that came hurrying to the rail- 
 way station just outside the wall. Something in the 
 inflection of that Ho! told them that a Government 
 official approached, and a Government man was a 
 superior being. The sturdy Mongolian pony trotted 
 at his top speed, but the footman, dressed like the 
 driver in a long blue tunic trimmed with red, easily 
 kept pace with the horse, holding with one hand to his 
 bridle, and shouting with his spare breath a full de- 
 scription of the gentleman insid'e the ornate little 
 coupe. 
 
 The Mongolian March wind had been howling for 
 two days, filling the air with a murky cloud of dust 
 carried down from the north, trying its best to cut 
 through the quilted garments of the well-to-do, and 
 stinging with its icy lash the bare backs of the poor- 
 To-day the sun was shining, and the road lay warm 
 and peaceful beside the grey stone wall where a long 
 train of camels and donkeys laden with skins and furs, 
 pig bristles and soja bean cake from Mongolia drew 
 near to the crowd and to the great gate that opens to 
 the south between the outer Chinese city and the more 
 favored Tartar City lying within the second wall. 
 
 Close to the gate, in an angle where they might 
 avoid the crush of traffic, four men squatted on the 
 ground and ate their evening meal thus early, for 
 their day began and ended with the sunlight. The 
 eldest of the four, a grizzled, weather-beaten man who 
 wore his queue pieced out at great length with horse 
 hair, ate greedily from a blue and white bowl, shovel-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 3 
 
 ling the steaming rice soup into his wide mouth with 
 a pair of wooden chop-sticks. He held the bowl close 
 to his lips and as he ate his black little eyes narrowly 
 watched a lad who leaned against the wall and waited 
 for him to finish. 
 
 A ragged blue cotton shirt and breeches were the 
 boy's only clothing. His face and hands and feet 
 were dirty with the dust of many roads and many days. 
 One foot touched the basket in which he had brought 
 his master's dinner, but his eyes never wandered from 
 the old man's face. 
 
 One of the four emptied his bowl, and standing up 
 glanced back to where four 'rickshaws like miniature 
 chaises, their shafts in the air, waited for their steeds 
 to draw them. Then as his glance came back to the 
 boy he spoke : 
 
 " Pai-se is no child of yours." 
 
 The old man's mouth was so full of rice that he could 
 not answer, but he darted a quick glance to see if the 
 boy understood that name Pai-se, for it meant white. 
 
 The boy's eyes, no longer fastened upon his master, 
 met the curious gaze of the speaker, and the quick 
 color came to betray his secret. Other boys had told 
 him that he was white but never had he dared speak 
 of it much less to ask any questions. 
 
 "Hsiao (little 'un)," the old man had swallowed 
 his food at great risk of choking, and now his long 
 yellow teeth protruding beneath the curling lip seemed 
 to hiss his commands : 
 
 " Kuai chii (cut along now) ! " 
 
 The lad picked up his basket, joined the crowd that
 
 4 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 turned south into the Chinese city, and disappeared 
 down the broad Chien Men Street. 
 
 Soon he had passed the Street of Lanterns and taken 
 a narrow lane bearing east by the shoemaker's shops 
 and the little shops where they made jewelry of silver 
 with the feathers of the bluebird's wing. And then 
 he was out in open fields where were only scattered 
 huts built of mud and stone, windowless huts that told 
 of poverty and disease. 
 
 Not far away towered the circular Temple of 
 Heaven, its blue-tiled roof gleaming like a huge sap- 
 phire in the sun. The triple terraces of carved white 
 marble upon which the Temple rested looked from 
 where the boy stood like a white streak beneath the 
 Temple. He had known that view of it all the ten 
 years of his life, for he had lived them all in this very 
 spot. And it had seemed very beautiful to him, in- 
 accessible behind its high wall as the moon and the 
 stars. And beautiful as they too were, there had 
 never been any one to whom he could talk about it. 
 
 Into one of the dingiest of these huts the lad en- 
 tered, and setting his basket on the dirt floor called 
 out: "Ya-tzu!" 
 
 From the inner room a woman came slowly, pain- 
 fully stamping her distorted feet, encased in three-inch 
 shoes. Her black hair, glossy with grease, was coiled 
 about her head, and she wore a blue cotton jacket and 
 pantaloons. 
 
 " You're back early," she said. " Was he cross? " 
 The wistful look in the tired eyes raised to hers was
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 5 
 
 the only answer. It was the hungry look of the 
 motherless child, and the childless woman, who had 
 been mother to this boy since he was a month old, un- 
 derstood it. Hadn't she longed for children of her 
 own, and didn't she weep over this sensitive little fel- 
 low, kicked and beaten by his master, almost as though 
 he had been her own ? Drawing him to her she stroked 
 the close-cropped head. 
 
 " One of them said I was white," the boy whispered. 
 "I'm not white, am I, Ya-tzu? Only the foreign 
 devils are white." 
 
 " Dogs can only bark or whine when they're not 
 growling," the woman answered. " Now run, Hsiao, 
 and gather your faggots before Hao-tzu gets back." 
 
 And as he went in search of firewood Hsiao was 
 pondering ^ the strangeness of life. Even his name 
 was not a real name ; every boy was called " Little 'un " 
 but that seemed to be the only name he had. And 
 Ya-tzu why, that meant Duck. She must have 
 some other name. Hao-tzu, well, it was plain 
 enough why he was called the Rat: he looked it, and 
 he acted it. He had heard him spoken of as Tuan; 
 a stranger once said " Mr. Tuan," but Hao-tzu must 
 be his name. 
 
 And they were not his father and mother Master 
 and Ya-tzu they had always been, and even Ya-tzu 
 would never tell him why. White! Oh, no, it 
 couldn't be that he was one of the foreign devils. He 
 had never been bad enough to deserve that. 
 
 Faggots were getting scarcer. The bigger boys got
 
 6 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 the best of them. When he came home in the dusk 
 he thought to slip in unnoticed, but the Rat was al- 
 ways watchful. 
 
 " Is that all the wood you gathered, you lazy good- 
 for-nothing whelp ! " he snarled, and little Hsiao, who 
 knew his moods, crept to his bed on a pile of rags in 
 the corner, glad enough to get along without supper if 
 he might escape the cane. For a long time hunger kept 
 him awake, and he entertained himself with visions of 
 flight into the great wonderland of the Tartar City, 
 where one might see the walls of the inner Forbidden 
 City with its Purple Palace and the most sacred and 
 mysterious abode of the Empress Dowager. 
 
 Often had he heard her mentioned in awed whispers, 
 and had pictured her as a great deal bigger and more 
 terrifying than Buddha himself. But how could he 
 take his friend with him if he ran away? Before he 
 had solved that difficulty sleep overtook him, and when 
 he woke the light was coming in at the door where 
 the Rat stood smoking a pipe, and his little friend 
 who lived next door was calling him. Darting by the 
 old man, he entered a yard enclosed by a mud wall. 
 A few handfuls of rice straw littered the ground, and 
 beside them a tiny donkey, his soft grey coat 
 and gentle baby face a pathetic sight to the lad who 
 loved him, and who knew at a glance that the poor 
 little fellow was too tired to eat. Sitting down be- 
 side him, Hsiao put his arms about the donkey's neck ; 
 the soft nose rested in his lap, and the long ears dropped 
 over his shoulder. 
 
 If the donkey had a name, Hsiao had never heard it.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 7 
 
 He called him Brother, and knew that the coolie who 
 owned him let him for twenty cents a day. 
 
 If the weather was bad, or work was scarce, 
 Brother had a rest, but many a time he tramped under 
 a heavy load all day long without food or water. In 
 a land where men counted for so little and women for 
 so much less, there was no sympathy to waste on a 
 mere animal. 
 
 The Rat with his 'rickshaw had gone for the day 
 when Ya-tzu found the two little friends in the yard 
 next door and tossed the lad an extra rice cake for 
 his breakfast. 
 
 ' You're hungry," she said, and he, knowing that 
 she meant more than that, nodded his head and smiled. 
 Something about that smile even to her dull mind 
 spoke unutterable things. It seemed always to be 
 pleading for him. She had a basket of clothes that 
 she carried with great difficulty, tottering along to- 
 wards the pool just outside the south gate. And as she 
 went the boy was feeding the rice cake in little pieces 
 to the donkey.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 An hour later, the housework finished, Hsiao, also 
 tottering, set out for the south gate. Across his 
 shoulder he held a pole from each end of which dangled 
 a deep wooden pail. 
 
 The load was heavy for so small a lad, but in China 
 a part of every day's work is the carrying out of 
 sewage and putting it on the land. A sewer to the 
 Chinese is but the wasteful folly of Europeans. 
 
 Outside the south gate the Rat had his tiny garden 
 patch, sheltered by a rude wall. Here radishes, greens 
 and cress were growing even in March, and here Hsiao 
 worked five or six hours every day. 
 
 In a muddy pool green with filthy scum some women 
 were washing clothes, beating them at the water's 
 edge with a short, thick club. Ya-tzu was one of 
 these, and beside her a neighbor chatted as she dipped 
 her basket of vegetables again and again in the foul 
 water. 
 
 Four hens occupied a corner of the garden, and had 
 the luxury of an enclosure almost four feet square. 
 
 One of them had contributed an egg to her master's 
 store, and Hsiao picked it up and held it tenderly while 
 he pondered the question of appropriating it to his own 
 uses. No one knew that the egg was there; he was 
 hungry, and it would be so easy to break a little hole 
 
 8
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 9 
 
 in the shell at each end, and how good it would taste ! 
 Easy enough to bury the shell but Ya-tzu had 
 taught him that people must be honest, that was the 
 most important thing of all ; we should always be afraid 
 to turn our backs to each other if it weren't for that. 
 
 He looked over to where she crouched at her work, 
 folding the wet garment on a flat stone, and beating 
 the water out of it. She had taught him to read, 
 though the Rat called it a waste of time. No, he 
 couldn't eat the egg; it was her egg, and he placed it 
 carefully in a safe place till he should go home to din- 
 ner. Perhaps she would mix it with rye flour and 
 bake it in a dish for both of them. 
 
 He was raking where the earth was dry when some 
 one called " Hsiao ! " It sounded like See-ow for the 
 initial letter H only intensifies the hiss of S. Looking 
 up he saw Li, who lived in a shanty on the edge of 
 the pool. Li was the oldest of twelve children; he 
 was nearly thirteen, and his father was so rich he had 
 three wives. Li was letting his hair grow so that he 
 might develop a queue. 
 
 " I ran away from the factory," he said. " The old 
 man went to buy more brass and I ran to-night I'll 
 get I've found an egg!" and leaping the wall he 
 pounced upon Hsiao's treasure. But when he tried to 
 get out again with it, that was another matter. 
 
 " Put it down, Li, and don't break it," Hsiao com- 
 manded. 
 
 " One egg! " Li rejoined. " Why, they're only ten 
 cents a dozen." 
 
 " Then leave this one for me."
 
 io IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " I found it, and I shall keep it," Li insisted. 
 
 " You will not keep it ! It is Ya-tzu's egg." 
 
 " Oh! a duck's egg! Well, I shall keep it just the 
 same," and Li, placing it on top of the wall, was about 
 to climb over when the smaller boy pulled him back 
 with such violence that he fell in a heap. 
 
 Before Hsiao could regain the egg Li was up, his 
 eyes blazing with anger. Screaming like a wounded 
 animal he rushed at the little fellow, who stood his 
 ground manfully and grappled with him. What cour- 
 age and coolness could do against great odds the sturdy 
 Hsiao did, but after a little, Li, towering a head taller, 
 by sheer weight brought him down, and then over and 
 over they rolled on the ground heedless of the Rat's 
 garden, pounding, scratching, biting, until the bigger 
 boy getting astride of his antagonist, choked him into 
 submission. Then finding a stone ready to his hand 
 he pounded the lad's face till it was cut and bleeding. 
 
 Hsiao lay very still and white as Li went out through 
 the gate, but the egg reposed undisturbed where Li had 
 placed it on the wall. 
 
 Ya-tzu asked no questions; the egg was a welcome 
 treat and a boy's black eye and other bruises were, 
 after all, only a boy's heritage. Lucky the Rat had 
 not found that egg or it would never have been tasted 
 by the two who shared it. 
 
 One trait in the boy's character was revealed in this 
 little incident; he never bore the slightest resentment 
 against Li for his rough handling, only he planned 
 what he would do another time to outwit him. It 
 wasn't enough to be cool; one must be quick to think
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET n 
 
 and act. Next time they fought he meant to do the 
 choking. 
 
 Then came the happiest days Hsiao had ever known. 
 One night after Ya-tzu had gone to bed and the Rat 
 was entertaining his richest patron, a rug-maker, Hsiao 
 heard the terms of a trade by which he was to be let to 
 the rug-maker for a month. The Rat talked glibly of 
 his donkey, and the terms agreed upon were forty 
 cents Mexican per day for boy and donkey together. 
 
 The single lamp that hung from the low ceiling 
 threw huge shadows of the two men on the wall; the 
 rug-maker's long thin beard made a funny picture, 
 switching up and down as the man nodded his head. 
 They drank many little cups of a liquor the Rat kept 
 in a stone jug. 
 
 The boy could hardly sleep he was so excited at the 
 thought of the great adventure, and as the Rat had 
 no donkey of his own it must be that he was to hire 
 Brother from his next-door neighbor. 
 
 Ya-tzu showed no sign of anxiety or sorrow at his 
 departure, next day, but the Rat was there and she 
 was always afraid of him. No explanation was made 
 to the boy. 
 
 " I'm going to take you to a friend of mine to work, 
 and mind you work, you little dog! " the old man said, 
 as he came in leading the donkey. 
 
 The rug factory was a long way off in the Chinese 
 quarter of the Tartar City. The boy had never been 
 so far from home, and it seemed thrilling and quite 
 grown-up to be taking such a journey. 
 
 The Rat trotted on ahead with his empty 'rickshaw,
 
 12 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 and the two little friends side by side trotted behind 
 it. There was no luggage both were wearing their 
 entire wardrobe. 
 
 There was no ceremony of introduction when they 
 came to the little yard enclosing the factory, and met 
 the proprietor who carried a rattan cane and peered 
 critically at the boy and the donkey to see whether they 
 looked tough enough for his uses. The Rat seemed 
 anxious to get away perhaps he didn't care to be 
 questioned but he waited long enough to assure his 
 patron : 
 
 " They're not very big, but they'll stand no end o' 
 work, and they don't need much to eat." 
 
 This point pleased the patron so heartily that he hit 
 the donkey across the hind leg to test his temper. 
 
 The Rat showed his teeth in a grin of satisfaction, 
 and without even a word to the boy was gone. 
 
 " Follow me now and be spry," said the rug-maker, 
 and led the way into a low shed where bales of rugs in 
 burlap were piled high, and in a great bin were count- 
 less balls of yarn, blue and grey, red and brown, yel- 
 low, black and white. Next to the bin was another 
 enormous pile of yarn, undyed, and this in big bundles 
 the rug man and one of his coolies began loading upon 
 the donkey's back, tying it on with ropes, and balancing 
 the load with great skill. When they had finished, the 
 gentle face of patient little Brother looked out from 
 under a mountain of yarn enough to tax the broad 
 back of a dray horse. 
 
 The boy was then instructed how he was to find 
 the dye works situated seven miles north of the Hsichi-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 13 
 
 men Gate on the road to Tientsin. The rattan cane 
 administered one sharp reminder to look alive, but 
 neither the indignity nor the smart of the blow im- 
 pressed the lad, and then they were out in the road, 
 the rug-maker watching them out of sight to see that 
 he got his money's worth for forty cents in Mexican 
 silver. 
 
 Outside the city gate Hsiao untied the ropes to 
 transfer a great pack to his own shoulders, and little 
 Brother felt the difference and showed it in his gait, 
 taxing the lad to keep pace with him. Four hours 
 later they reached the dye works where a very fat 
 man proceeded to carry the bundles up a flight of stone 
 steps into the works. Brother, relieved of his burden, 
 began to graze along the roadside where so little grew 
 that only a donkey or a goat could have found it, and 
 Hsiao following the fat man into a low-studded room, 
 all stone, saw the vats in which the dyer, with vege- 
 table dyes, the secret of which was his fortune, trans- 
 formed the fibre of common wool into yarns of soft 
 but enduring hues. 
 
 Answering the lad's admiring gaze the dyer ex- 
 plained : " Some use the cheap colors of chemicals 
 . that come across Thibet from Germany. They do not 
 hold. They fade out in the sun. Pah! Have they 
 no honor, no pride these? My color, it is all fast. 
 As the green of the leaf ; you come from the city, 
 lad. Are you not hungry ? " 
 
 The boy nodded his head, and looked into the eyes 
 of this strange man who cared whether or not boys 
 were hungry. The dyer looked back at him with more
 
 i 4 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 than a casual curiosity, started to speak, then checked 
 himself, and beckoning the boy to follow, went through 
 a narrow passage that brought them into a kitchen 
 where two women were serving a steaming mess of 
 rice and curry, ladling it out in bowls from a great 
 kettle over the fire. 
 
 Many children were toddling about the room, all 
 too young to work, and Hsiao knew that two wives 
 must be the dyer's portion of domestic happiness. 
 One of the bowls came to him and he longed to share it 
 with little Brother out there in the road, but he feared 
 to offend these good people who had been so generous. 
 It would never occur to them to waste anything on an 
 animal. While they were eating he heard the dyer 
 say something that sounded strangely like white, and 
 the women looked at him,. 
 
 About two in the afternoon the donkey was loaded 
 almost as heavily with colored yarns for the return 
 journey, and once more Hsiao waited until they were 
 out of sight of the dye works before taking on his own 
 back a portion of the load. 
 
 A meagre supper awaited them on their return, but 
 the corner of the shed afforded a soft, warm bed where 
 many burlaps were piled, and there they lay very close, 
 Hsiao's arm thrown protectingly over Brother's neck. 
 
 Every fair day, and rainy days are few there, the 
 two little friends made the same long journey, and 
 always the dyer and his wives were kind, and there 
 was much of interest to see along their way, especially 
 inside the Tartar City. 
 
 It was all so much finer than the Peking he had
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 15 
 
 known, so much cleaner, and the Legation Quarter 
 fairly stunned him. Were these the houses of the 
 foreign devils! Why speak with contempt of people 
 who lived like this! But he dared not even mention 
 the thought except into the faithful ear of Brother. 
 So it was that the lad returned home, when his month 
 was ended, far wiser, as became one who had travelled 
 and seen the world. 
 
 From that time dated his all-absorbing desire to 
 learn. He lost no opportunity to read whatever came 
 within his reach, and so it was that he heard of the 
 vast and wonderful Examination Halls of far off 
 Nanking where the scholarly might try by competitive 
 examinations to rise to the dignity of mandarins. 
 That was in his twelfth year when suddenly all his life 
 was changed. 
 
 Ever since his return from that month at the rug- 
 maker's he had overheard scraps of argument between 
 the Rat, who wanted to make more money out of him, 
 and Ya-tzu, who pleaded that she had need of him at 
 home. But the Rat always had his own way, usually 
 by force, and when that was not possible, by cunning. 
 Twelve hours' work each day was not enough return 
 for the boy's board. " He must learn a trade to sup- 
 port me in my old age," the Rat declared, and that 
 day he was apprenticed to the rug-maker at five dol- 
 lars a month, the pay to begin after a year's instruc- 
 tion in the art, and free board to offset the beginner's 
 labor. 
 
 The factory was a high wooden shed in the same 
 yard where Hsiao had spent his nights during that ad-
 
 16 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 venturous month, but he had never been allowed so 
 much as a peep within its mysterious doorway. 
 
 The Rat had come with him, as before, so as to make 
 delivery in person to the rug-maker, and when they 
 had turned the first corner from home, the boy had 
 looked back and seen Ya-tzu, leaning against the door- 
 jamb and trying to smile as she waved him a farewell. 
 
 There was no floor in the shed, and the damp earthy 
 smell, together with a subdued light that resembled 
 twilight, gave the impression of being in a cellar. 
 
 These conditions he learned later were favorable for 
 the rugs in process of manufacture. 
 
 A row of boys sat close together on a bench, facing 
 a huge frame upon which was stretched the warp of a 
 great rug. Traced out on this warp in blue ink was the 
 design, and colors were indicated by little marks. 
 
 It was wonderful to see how nimbly their fingers 
 tied in the knots from balls of yarn of various colors 
 that hung just behind them from a rack. 
 
 While the two men talked in a low tone Hsiao was 
 at liberty to watch the boys, not one of whom turned 
 from his work so much as to glance at them. One 
 boy in cutting the threads dropped the thick knife, and 
 the rug-maker who saw everything, cut him across 
 the back of the neck with his rattan cane. Without a 
 start or a sound the boy kept on with his work. Hsiao 
 thought they all looked pale and wished the Rat had 
 put him out on a farm, anywhere but in this quiet, 
 gloomy shed. 
 
 When the Rat was gone the rug-maker directed 
 Hsiao to a bench by himself where he proceeded to
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 17 
 
 teach him the process, rapping his knuckles with the 
 stick every time the boy failed^to tie his knot at the 
 first trial. 
 
 " How long does it take you to make a square 
 yard?" he asked one of the boys that night when, 
 after their scant allowance of supper, they had hud- 
 dled in a corner of the factory to sleep. 
 
 " A boy must make one square yard in thirty days, 
 ninety threads to the inch," the boy told him, and it 
 seemed to him then impossible. 
 
 Yet in a very few weeks he was doing the impossible 
 on the bench, crowded in with the others, and under 
 his nimble fingers a beautiful rug was already taking 
 shape. 
 
 When darkness came his eyes ached so that he could 
 hardly keep them open, and it was not reassuring to 
 learn that a boy seldom kept at it more than three 
 years because his sight failed. 
 
 In a land where no one plays after the age of seven, 
 and there is no day of rest, every poor boy expects 
 hard work. It wasn't that which Hsiao found un- 
 bearable ; it was the sudden complete check to his thirst 
 for knowledge. He could not endure the thought of 
 wearing himself out with these tired, pale companions. 
 The next step was a firm determination to end it. 
 
 An old man now had the job of carrying to and 
 from the dye works. He drove a big white mule in 
 a two-wheeled cart with wooden axle and a blue can- 
 vas top, and rode sitting on one of the shafts. 
 
 The only chance of escape lay in slipping out in 
 the early morning with the old man and his cart.
 
 i8 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Hsiao waited for a cloudy day so as to elude the 
 watchful eye of his new master, meanwhile confiding 
 to no one any hint of his plans. 
 
 The wall about the yard was too high to scale, and 
 none but the rug-maker himself had the key to the 
 gate. When the day came it was so cold and foggy 
 in the yard that Hsiao could hardly see the white mule 
 being hitched to the long shafts. The teamster kept 
 up a steady flow of conversation with himself about 
 the absence of proper light, and the wooden axle 
 creaked as the load was adjusted to the saddle-girth. 
 The boy crept along by the wall close to the gate. He 
 knew the rug-maker would stand at the left side as the 
 cart went out, so as to face the teamster who rode on 
 the left shaft. As the gate swung open he glided to 
 the right side of the cart, and there, hidden from sight 
 of either man, he walked out. For a mile he kept the 
 same position ; then as they passed the end of Legation 
 Street, he left his shelter to explore once more the 
 stately precincts of the foreign devils. 
 
 Barefoot, half-clad, hungry, without even a " cash " 
 to his name, ignorant of any tongue but the Chinese 
 of the coolies, he was going to begin life on his own 
 responsibility.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 In front of the British Legation a yellow pony 
 pawed the ground, anxious to be off in spite of all the 
 luggage piled on top of the carriage, in spite of the 
 footman standing at his head and the driver on the 
 box flourishing a long lash whip, in spite of the three 
 gentlemen excitedly talking at the carriage door. 
 Plainly the yellow pony was not curious as to their 
 conversation, or he would have known that the driver 
 would not cluck and snap his whip until " that miser- 
 able, dawdling rascal showed up." 
 
 That is what the English gentleman was saying, and 
 the young Chinese gentleman looking up and down the 
 street was evidently expecting to see the miserable 
 dawdler coming on the run. The third man wore a 
 beautiful coat of silk brocade, and, from the red but- 
 ton on top of his black silk cap, one knew that he was 
 a mandarin of some importance. He held the young 
 man by the arm and said nothing. A pair of heavy 
 black goggles concealed his eyes, and Hsiao, watching 
 just across the street, thought they made him look 
 like an empty warehouse. 
 
 Suddenly the young man spied him and beckoned. 
 The boy crossed the road with the catlike agility of 
 his class when prompted by visions of ready money. 
 
 "Boy, make catchee plenty work?" said the 
 
 19
 
 20 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Englishman in a poor attempt at Pidgin English. 
 " He does not understand," the young Chinaman ex- 
 plained, whereupon he proceeded to question him in his 
 own tongue: 
 
 "Would you like work? A very good job for an 
 honest, faithful lad?" 
 
 The boy smiled his joy at the very thought, and 
 showed his white teeth, as he answered : " Yes, high- 
 ness." 
 
 " And would your father let you go far from home 
 with his excellency here?" indicating the personage 
 with the goggles. 
 
 " I have no father, no mother, just myself," the boy 
 answered. 
 
 " Does he look bright ? " the mandarin asked. 
 
 " Unusually," the other answered, " but a ragged 
 little urchin as ever you saw." 
 
 " Then I must take him and be off or I'll never catch 
 the boat." 
 
 The mandarin hurriedly entered the carriage, the 
 young man slammed the door, and the yellow pony, 
 released by the driver's signal, sprang forward to 
 show his contempt for the longest road. 
 
 " Follow close," commanded the young man, and 
 Hsiao's glance as he obeyed took in the two gentlemen 
 standing hat in hand while the carriage rolled away. 
 
 Once outside the city walls the footman left the 
 horse's head, and rode standing on a broad step be- 
 hind the carriage. They were going out over the 
 Tientsin road, and presently they came to the familiar 
 dye works. The mule cart they had passed far back
 
 going slowly on its way, but Hsiao well knew the old 
 teamster would never recognize him. The fat dyer 
 was in the door of the works gazing down the road, 
 and some of his many children were playing by the 
 roadside, so the boy kept his eyes on the ground as he 
 ran by. There were so many boys in ragged blue 
 cotton the dyer would probably never notice him. 
 
 Then came a hill and the road was stony, so the 
 tireless yellow pony was forced to walk. The man- 
 darin stuck his head out of the window, and the foot- 
 man, jumping down, came to the carriage door: 
 
 " The boy does he keep up ? " 
 
 " Yes, Excellency, but it is rough here." 
 
 " Let him ride I shall need him." 
 
 " Yes, Excellency." 
 
 After that Hsiao rode, and it was well for him that 
 he did for their journey was the ninety miles to Tien- 
 tsin, and few grown runners could keep pace with the 
 yellow pony. 
 
 On the evening of the second day they arrived, and 
 the boy, thinking his mission ended and wondering 
 what his pay would be, was amazed and thrilled to 
 find himself on a great steamer bound south for Shang- 
 hai. The journey was hardly begun. 
 
 And now he understood why the mandarin had need 
 of him : he must be eyes for a blind man. And what 
 marvels those eyes were seeing in this their first vision 
 of the great ocean and the monster steamboat, calmly 
 riding the mightiest waves! 
 
 Three days more and they had come to Shanghai, 
 a foreign-looking city where tall Sikhs in red turbans
 
 22 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 were the police, and everywhere the English foreign 
 devils seemed to be in power. 
 
 Here he was fitted out with decent clothes, and 
 from the new master, whom he was getting to know 
 as a wise and gentle man, he now learned that their 
 destination was Nanking whither the mandarin was 
 travelling on a mission so important that the failure of 
 his secretary to appear on the day of his departure 
 could not deter him. Therefore, it was that he had 
 taken up with a stray lad to guide his steps, as poorer 
 blind men rely upon a dog. 
 
 A week later found them embarked on a river 
 steamer for the twenty-four hours' sail up the Yangtse- 
 Kiang, and then they were at Nanking with its narrow 
 winding streets, its dense population, its food shops 
 where, exposed to all the dust of the street, rows of 
 ducks, very naked ducks shiny with oil, hung beside 
 other rows of ducks that had been roasted and re- 
 sembled mahogany well-varnished. To Hsiao there 
 was nothing strange about them, nothing strange about 
 the pervasive smell composite of grease, unwashed 
 humanity and sewage. It was all Chinese, that and 
 the crowded life, the beggars, poverty, disease, and 
 with it all a beauty, an antiquity and a vastness that 
 caught and satisfied the lad's inborn love of such 
 things. 
 
 Already he had come to see that his blind master 
 was no empty warehouse, a treasure-house instead, 
 from which he was daily drawing stores of learning, 
 and the mandarin's errand was the conduct of the 
 triennial examination about which Hsiao had read.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 23 
 
 Great was the boy's surprise to find the Examina- 
 tion Halls a yard surrounded by very high stone walls, 
 and divided into little streets or alleys formed by rows 
 of tiny stone huts or stalls, open in front and only 
 about three feet deep, three feet wide and four feet 
 high. And there were twenty thousand of these 
 stalls ! 
 
 From the kind mandarin he learned that of the great 
 host who came from far and near bringing each his 
 own bedding, light, food and drink for the three days 
 and three nights of the examination, only one hundred 
 and eighty were chosen to become mandarins. 
 Further he learned that shut in as the candidates were, 
 in such crowded condition, it was not unusual for one 
 or two to die. The examinations were written, and 
 the men were closely watched by proctors who pa- 
 trolled each alley. 
 
 And when the candidates began to gather, a few days 
 before the examination, he discovered that the only 
 subjects required were Chinese classics. None cared 
 about the wonders his master had explained to him as 
 existing in other lands. Was there no interest, then, 
 in the why and wherefore of the great engines that 
 drove their steamships? Didn't any one need to know 
 the marvellous things his blind master had told him 
 about the stars and about ourselves, how our blood 
 keeps us alive, and oh, so many things that are so much 
 more wonderful than what other men long ago hap- 
 pened to write ! 
 
 That is how it lay in Hsiao's mind when he dis- 
 covered that it was what the great mandarin had
 
 24 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 learned outside of his education that really made him 
 a treasure-house. And this conviction deepened when 
 he saw how little the candidates knew, for he had heard 
 and questioned several of them at the hotel from day 
 to day, and none was like his mandarin. None cared 
 for knowledge, save only knowledge of their own 
 literature. The wisdom which his mandarin ex- 
 pounded, coming from their sort of learning far less 
 than from experience and the ability to reason clearly, 
 was a thing unknown to them and unprized. 
 
 " Tell me, Hsiao," the master said one day, after 
 patiently answering the boy's questions ; " I find you 
 no street boy as I had supposed; your mind is active, 
 and as sight for my sightless eyes you are to me a gift 
 of the gods what is your parentage, for they have 
 told me that you are white ? " 
 
 " I do not know, Excellency," the boy answered, and 
 the master little suspected the blush that spread over 
 the boy's cheek, testifying to his humiliation. 
 
 " Surely, surely I am not white ! But I never knew 
 father or mother, only The Rat and good, kind Ya- 
 tzu." 
 
 Encouraged to talk, he told of his life, and how he 
 had run away to escape it. 
 
 " But why, if you had never known better? " asked 
 the master. 
 
 " Ya-tzu had given me sometimes a book to read, 
 and then I have seen how differently others live, and 
 one has always the hope " 
 
 " Ah lad, haven't you discovered yet that hope is
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 25 
 
 not of Chinese origin? Can you not see that it is 
 your white blood that hopes ? " 
 
 " But, Excellency, you hope, and you make me 
 hope." 
 
 " I have travelled much, and I have learned the best 
 things outside of my beloved country. Antiquity we 
 have, lad, and much of beauty and of art. But hope 
 for a nation lies not that way, but along the paths of 
 Science. If I could only make my countrymen see 
 it!" 
 
 After that the master seemed to take even greater 
 pains with Hsiao, teaching him to use his own mind 
 rather than stuffing him with facts, and gaining the 
 boy's perfect confidence. Little by little the relation- 
 ship between them changed with the lad's awakening. 
 Insensibly the menial position gave place to that of 
 pupil and secretary. Hsiao, no longer a servant, be- 
 came the mandarin's companion, and his progress in all 
 that such a position implied was amazingly rapid dur- 
 ing the succeeding months of their stay in Nanking. 
 
 No wonder the months flew by unheeded until they 
 had expanded into years. Business relating to the Gov- 
 ernment kept the mandarin employed along the course 
 of the Yangtse-Kiang from Shanghai up as far as Han- 
 kow for three years, and during all that time Hsiao 
 was with him constantly. 
 
 Not even the Rat or Ya-tzu would have known the 
 tall bright young fellow of fifteen who came back with 
 his patron to Peking in the early winter of 1899. He 
 was scrupulously Chinese in dress, and wore his hair
 
 26 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 in a short queue which he was cultivating with zealous 
 care. 
 
 Something had gone wrong with the master. Word 
 had come from the old Buddha, meaning Tzu Hsi, the 
 Empress Dowager, that her feelings were hurt: she 
 had heard with grave concern that her special envoy 
 to Nanking had preached heresy there and at Hankow, 
 urging Chinese scholars to learn other things besides 
 their classics. 
 
 The Empress was grieved, and any one who had 
 ever seen her cruel face with its thin, straight mouth, 
 knew what it meant to offend that august Majesty. 
 
 This much the mandarin confided on the hasty home- 
 ward journey, but Hsiao said : 
 
 " Excellency, Her Majesty has but to see you to 
 understand that you are all that is good and wise." 
 
 The old man laid his hand on the young man's sturdy 
 shoulder, and so they sat, neither speaking, until long 
 past midnight, while the great ship sped them north- 
 ward towards home and an Empress Dowager.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A blind man and a boy rode side by side in a coupe 
 that entered from the Tartar City through the third 
 wall into the Imperial City, home of the mandarins. 
 
 The guard at the gates recognized the man's right to 
 enter, not through the great central gate, for that was 
 reserved exclusively for their Majesties when, once 
 a year, they drove the three miles along the straight 
 avenue to the Altar of Heaven to make sacrifice in 
 sight of all the people and all their gods. But through 
 one of the side gates their carriage entered, drove 
 straight on till it came to another wall and other gates, 
 and there it paused. 
 
 The mandarin and Hsiao alighted, and the carriage 
 went back to deliver at the mandarin's house his lug- 
 gage, and the news to his five expectant wives that he 
 had been bidden to an immediate audience with the 
 Empress Dowager. 
 
 On foot they entered the Forbidden City, crossed 
 the marble-paved courtyard, crossed the beautiful 
 white marble bridge, were stopped and questioned by 
 the eunuchs in attendance at the door of the Palace 
 and finally stood before a red-lacquered chair on a 
 red-lacquered dais, and as Hsiao saw the mandarin 
 prostrate himself before that awful throne, he knew 
 that Her August Majesty, Queen of Heaven, Ruler 
 
 27
 
 28 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 of Emperors, was about to appear in judgment. From 
 his position by the door, forty feet behind the man- 
 darin, he too bowed his face to the floor. There was 
 a hushed sound of whispering from a side door; the 
 throne-room seemed very large and cold. Silence that 
 was ominous; and then a rustling of two or three who 
 entered stealthily. 
 
 The boy raised his head only enough to see two men 
 with long, flashing swords, who took their places 
 silently at each side of the kneeling mandarin. The 
 red-lacquered chair was empty. He heard the swish 
 of a sword that flashed and whirled for a second, then 
 struck with a dull, choking sound. Something fell 
 on the floor, but he dared not look up until he heard 
 the rustling again, heard it grow fainter, then disap- 
 pear through the side door. Slowly he raised himself 
 on his knees. One of the eunuchs was helping him to 
 walk from the room that was all he remembered of 
 it and his legs gave way under him. Before his 
 eyes was the figure of his beloved master still kneeling, 
 and on the floor the head that only a moment before 
 had held so much of wisdom, of loyalty to his country, 
 of kind thought for his fellow men. 
 
 This, then, was an interview with the Empress 
 Dowager! Oh the bitterness, the cruelty of it! 
 
 They allowed him to go unchallenged, back over the 
 white marble bridge, and the marble-paved courtyard, 
 out through the gate into the Imperial City; on, heed- 
 less of everything except the burning horror of his 
 loss, until he was back once more in the Tartar City,
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 29 
 
 back before the very gate of the British Embassy 
 where nearly four years ago he had met his beloved 
 Master. He could hardly see the gate for the hot 
 tears blinding his eyes. 
 
 An hour passed, and still the boy remained watching 
 with smarting eyes the spot where life had taken on 
 new meaning. And try as he could to see his patron 
 as he looked that day, standing by the carriage door, 
 the only image clear to his memory was of a prostrate 
 form and a head that rolled on the floor. 
 
 A fine carriage with two noble horses came down 
 the avenue, and as they drew out of the gate one of 
 the 'rickshaw men passing called out to Hsiao : 
 
 " British Ambassador, one of your foreign devils ! 
 They will squeal when we get at 'em!" 
 
 Two men on foot came out following the carriage. 
 Hsiao recognized the young Englishman and the 
 young Chinaman who bade farewell to the mandarin 
 that day, and told him to follow close. He must tell 
 them what had happened. 
 
 Neither of them recognized in the youth who crossed 
 the street the urchin of four years ago. But when he 
 spoke of the mandarin, and of Imperial justice, the 
 tears falling unheeded, they listened attentively, the 
 young Chinaman translating it to his companion. 
 Hsiao had to answer many questions about the stay in 
 the south, and then the Chinaman asked him : 
 
 "And what of you now? We need bright, honest 
 young men here in the British Legation. Will you 
 come to work for us ? "
 
 30 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 And Hsiao who was only too glad of shelter and 
 food eagerly took up with a proposition to work for 
 his board until he could speak English. 
 
 Six months passed, and Hsiao, living within the 
 walls of the Legation, was learning much more than 
 the English language. Thanks to the mandarin's 
 teaching, he was very clever at arithmetic, whether 
 computed on the frame strung with beads known in 
 China as the Abacus, or European fashion on paper, 
 and his mind was as alert and tireless as his body. 
 
 A few days after his return to Peking he had gone 
 to visit Ya-tzu. He had met in the very door of the 
 hut the Rat just going to work, and the Rat had 
 looked him in the face, and gone on without suspecting 
 who he was. 
 
 Ya-tzu was not in the house. Another woman, 
 much younger and much coarser, was in her place, and 
 to his inquiry for Ya-tzu she stood with arms akimbo, 
 head on one side, and laughed: 
 
 "If you want Ya-tzu, go down by the pool yonder 
 where she sleeps in her long box." 
 
 And there he found the coffin with a few others, 
 and that marked " Ya-tzu " was weather-stained, and 
 must have stood there for at least two years. Soon 
 they would bury it under a little mound of earth. No 
 altar was near it, and no one came to bring food and 
 tea for the departed spirit. 
 
 So poor Ya-tzu was gone, and the hateful Rat lived 
 on! The gods, it seemed to Hsiao, didn't manage 
 these things very well. 
 
 There came a hot day in June ; the men in the office
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 31 
 
 were discussing the Boxer uprising, a religious protest 
 against foreigners, aided and abetted by the Dowager 
 Empress in her hatred and jealousy of Europeans. 
 Threats and mutter ings had been rife for months, and 
 many of the Boxer troops were quartered within the 
 Forbidden City, a fact officially denied by the court. 
 And the argument of the men in the office was: why 
 should this be, when the Empress had expressly pub- 
 lished her liking for English and Americans? 
 
 A Chinese runner came in, breathless and excited: 
 " I saw a sergeant of the Imperial Guard," he panted, 
 " stop the sedan chair of the German ambassador and 
 fire point-blank at him. The bearers ran a crowd 
 gathered, they swear death to all foreigners. They 
 will burn and kill all !" 
 
 Hsiao, listening, thought how strange it was that he 
 no longer could side with those who vowed death to the 
 foreigners no longer foreign devils. 
 
 In the weeks that followed, the Boxers, emboldened 
 by the old Buddha's support, committed many out- 
 rages. The lives of Europeans were not safe, and so 
 gradually assembled within the strong high walls of 
 the British Embassy all British and Americans includ- 
 ing the American ambassador and all his force. 
 
 From the Forbidden City, separated only by an 
 open space of three hundred yards and the moat sur- 
 rounding its wall, it was easy even for the antiquated 
 Chinese cannon to fire shots against the walls of the 
 Legation. What few troops were attached to the 
 British and "American Embassies stood under arms 
 ready to repel any direct assault, and Hsiao without
 
 32 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 a pang saw these foreigners returning, as best they 
 could, shot for shot. He knew well enough that all 
 their lives were in grave peril. He knew that the 
 Imperial forces were already joining with the Boxers 
 to kill all foreigners and henceforth exclude them 
 forever from China. 
 
 And yet to his own danger he never gave a thought. 
 His life had been held of little account until the man- 
 darin had changed everything, and now his one 
 thought, dwarfing all else, was that his good, kind, 
 noble friend and teacher was gone. 
 
 No, let them fire back into the Dowager Empress's 
 palace itself. Let them kill her, cruel, unjust as she 
 was he would never lift a finger to prevent it. 
 
 There was a shortage of food for so many as were 
 quartered in the Embassy, and daily he heard discus- 
 sion of the danger that the Chinese soldiers would 
 rush the walls. There were weeks of anxiety and 
 terror; the guns from the Forbidden City had bat- 
 tered a great gap in the wall and soldiers worked 
 frantically to repair it. 
 
 Then " Tientsin " was whispered from one to an- 
 other, and the boy learned that an army of foreign 
 allies had landed at Tientsin and were already march- 
 ing on Peking. Meantime the Chinese soldiers were 
 preparing to annihilate " these contemptible invaders," 
 as the old Empress and her counsellors told them they 
 could easily do. When they came, however, the 
 Chinese ran like rabbits for their holes, and in a very 
 few days the allied army was encamped, some in the 
 gardens about the Temple of Heaven, some in the
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 33 
 
 enclosure of the White Marble Pagoda, others in parks 
 all about the outer city. The Dowager Empress had 
 fled to the north with the young Emperor in a mule 
 cart, and both were disguised as peasants. 
 
 Hsiao, privileged now as a clerk in the British Em- 
 bassy, went on various errands to the officers of the 
 different forces. He saw how the Japanese were 
 wantonly mutilating the beautiful marble Pagoda 
 carved with such skill and care centuries ago. One 
 day on a visit to the German headquarters he saw them 
 carrying off to ship to Berlin some of the beautiful 
 bronze apparatus from the Astronomical Observatory 
 on the city wall useless for scientific purposes but 
 very dear to the people because of the five centuries 
 it had stood there in a conspicuous angle. And Hsiao, 
 whose only moral training had been Ya-tzu's lessons 
 in honesty, shocked at such immorality by those in 
 authority, contrasted their conduct with that of the 
 English and Americans, and learned that there were 
 differences in foreigners.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Lazily floating out over the tops of low pines near 
 the Altar of Heaven, the Stars and Stripes marked 
 where the Americans were encamped. In a tent open 
 on all sides to encourage any draft of air, an officer 
 sat at a little table. 
 
 To judge by the clutter of papers before him there 
 was work to be done, but the officer's eyes were not 
 on his work ; his thoughts had gone back nearly seven- 
 teen years to the time when, still a student at West 
 Point, he had come here to Peking with his father and 
 mother. 
 
 Never since then could he think of Peking without 
 a pang. As he sat there in his tent, he could see once 
 more the fair-haired English girl, his little sister's 
 governess. The very sound of her voice came back 
 distinctly. She was of good family and showed her 
 breeding, but it wasn't this that made him fall in love 
 with her. They were both very young yes, and 
 very ignorant; that was the only excuse for them. 
 He recalled with a shudder some of the notes he had 
 slipped into her hand; with an indulgent smile he 
 thought of stolen interviews. Then he buried his face 
 in his hands at the horrid climax of it all. Thank 
 God, he had never suspected her reason for leaving 
 his mother's employ, just before they started for home. 
 
 34
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 35 
 
 Why should she prefer a Missionary School to him! 
 Fickle he had called her at their last hurried meeting, 
 and her only reproach he had seen in her eyes. Even 
 then he had not suspected. 
 
 And then, many months later, when he was back at 
 West Point, a letter, very brief, had come. 
 
 " Our little boy," it told him, " has been given to a 
 kind and gentle amah (nurse) who was connected 
 with the hospital, to bring up. You couldn't expect 
 missionaries to keep me after discovering my condi- 
 tion, so the day I was able to leave the hospital I had 
 to find work or we should have been objects of charity. 
 I am going back to London with a charming family, 
 and as soon as I can save up enough I shall go back for 
 my baby." 
 
 It was postmarked Hong Kong. Fear, Prudence 
 and Honor fought a terrible combat in full sight of the 
 young father's soul when he had read it. 
 
 In the end he had sent her a thousand dollars, most 
 of it borrowed, to the address she gave him in London, 
 but after writing half a dozen letters and tearing them 
 up, the poor little note accompanying his draft was 
 painfully formal and cold. No answer to it had ever 
 reached him, and oh, how many times had he re- 
 proached himself! Why should he have blamed her! 
 Had Fear, after all, won the fight? 
 
 How it all hung over his head to-day as though it 
 had happened yesterday! 
 
 And then, little by little, it had faded, blotted out 
 by the excitement of life to a boy of twenty-one. 
 Many times he had thought of her, thought of that
 
 36 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 mysterious child, growing up a Chinaman, or long 
 since taken home by his mother? 
 
 When the child was three years old he had written 
 to the London family for news of their governess, and 
 then had come the reply that she had died in a hospital 
 following an operation; that she had never recovered 
 from some sickness which had befallen her in China, 
 and that her own family had been with her at the last. 
 
 That was all and now, after all these years, duty 
 had brought him back to Peking. No wonder that, 
 as he sat there in his tent, his thoughts were not with 
 his wife and children at home in America, but with 
 that baby left all these years to make his own way in 
 the world while his father lived in the luxury of in- 
 herited wealth and an assured position in the army. 
 His only clue was the information in that first letter 
 that the amah was in some capacity employed by the 
 hospital. Peking did not abound in hospitals; it 
 would be a simple matter to find the record of her 
 case. Hot as it was, he put on his cork helmet and 
 called a chair. After sixteen years there was no time 
 to be lost. 
 
 A tall slender boy passed him at the camp barrier. 
 The boy had a message from the American ambassador 
 to the Colonel. Major Hugh Thornton, riding out in 
 his chair, noting the boy's straight, regular features 
 and clear bronzed skin, said to himself : " Handsome 
 boy that. Too handsome for a Chinaman." 
 
 Meantime a little group of officers were enjoying 
 themselves, chaffing the boy over his very limited 
 knowledge of English.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 37 
 
 " What is your name? " one asked him. 
 
 " Hsiao only name," he answered. Thus much he 
 understood. 
 
 " C. Howe!" rejoined the officer, imitating the 
 boy's pronunciation as well as he could. 
 
 " Well, what does C. stand for? " 
 
 Hsiao shook his head ; he didn't understand. 
 
 " What name C? " persisted the officer. 
 
 Hsiao thought a minute. Then C. suggested the 
 name of the American Ambassador. 
 
 " Conger," he said. 
 
 " Ah, now we have it, Conger Howe. Well, that's 
 some name for a young Chinaman to carry." 
 Whether it was or not, it was the name that Hsiao 
 carried ever after, for he became a great favorite with 
 officers and men, thrown with them constantly and 
 trusted with many an important mission between the 
 embassies and the troops, and Conger Howe he was 
 to all of them. 
 
 On one of these errands he encountered Major Hugh 
 Thornton, a typical soldier, in the service because he 
 loved it. The major had found at the hospital that 
 the amah's name was Ya-tzu, and where she had 
 lived, and even found her coffin in the field, but the 
 clue had led no further. 
 
 Face to face with the boy whose beauty had struck 
 him before, he felt shy about questioning his ante- 
 cedents, but something deeper than curiosity impelled 
 him and he was determined to know. 
 
 How simple it all seemed afterward; the boy's spirit 
 rebelling against slavery in the rug factory ; his bright,
 
 38 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 handsome face winning him the golden opportunity to 
 go south with the mandarin. 
 
 And as the boy's father thought it out, how natural 
 that the mandarin, a gentleman and a scholar, should 
 have recognized the fine spirit and quality in the boy! 
 But what good fortune that his son had fallen into 
 the hands of so noble a man ! 
 
 Was it the four years with the mandarin that had 
 made this boy a gentleman or was it good blood 
 showing itself? This the father pondered looking 
 into his son's eyes. Dark as he was, he was strikingly 
 like his mother. 
 
 Day by day the friendship between them grew to 
 intimacy, but Major Thornton, no longer an impetuous 
 youth, had not revealed himself as the boy's father, 
 reasoning that the complications to follow would be of 
 no help to any one. A way must be found without be- 
 traying his secret even to his own son. 
 
 Through the autumn and winter some of the troops 
 remained, and Major Thornton with them ; meanwhile 
 he had elaborated a scheme that seemed reasonable. 
 
 One day the colonel sent for Conger Howe, who 
 now spoke English fairly well, and asked him : 
 
 " Do you want to know who were your father and 
 mother?" 
 
 " Yes, Colonel, very much I have wished to know 
 since a small child." 
 
 " You know that you are not Chinese? " 
 
 " Sometimes they 'have said so ; and then I felt 
 ashamed. To-day, knowing so many, I do not feel 
 disgrace."
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 39 
 
 " Thank you," the colonel said, and the boy bowed 
 his head in acknowledgment. Irony was too indirect, 
 and the new language had so many strange idioms. 
 
 " Your father was an American and a gentleman," 
 the Colonel continued, " and your mother an English 
 lady who died when you were a baby. China is not 
 even now a comfortable place for foreigners. It was 
 less so then, and the young couple got separated, leav- 
 ing their baby in charge of a woman who had been 
 highly recommended. Probably the father also died. 
 At any rate nothing was heard of him. And now 
 Major Thornton, who knows your story and is very 
 fond of you, wants to adopt you as his son, take you 
 to America and give you every advantage. He has 
 a lovely wife and two little daughters, and I know 
 you would be very happy with them." 
 
 " Adopt? " the boy repeated. " I do not yet know 
 this." 
 
 But when the Colonel had explained it he exclaimed 
 delightedly : 
 
 " Ah ! It is then so much like my dear mandarin ! " 
 
 Hsiao had by this time quite lost his Chinese name, 
 and Major Thornton readily adopted that which chance 
 had brought to take its place. Conger Howe was a 
 good name, and it had also a reason for being. The 
 boy had come to live with his father and they talked 
 daily about America which to Conger was a painfully 
 new country. 
 
 " Even our Emperor Chun had been in his great 
 tomb in Nanking a hundred years when your land was 
 discovered. And Chun was only Ming Dynasty."
 
 40 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 The boy shook his head so patronizingly over this ut- 
 terance that the major, laughing, answered: 
 
 " But think how much fresher it makes everything 
 in a new country. Here the land, the very stones have 
 been used for thousands of years by millions upon mil- 
 lions of beings. With us all is new it even smells 
 fresh." 
 
 The boy was still incredulous. 
 
 " But the traditions," he insisted, " the history, the 
 art, the literature, all these you must lack, and your 
 religion one little Hebrew god ! Even your Rabbi 
 Jesu spoke to no such following as our Confucius; and 
 what is a peasant like him compared with that Prince 
 of India, Buddha?" 
 
 " Our Christian religion," Major Thornton ex- 
 plained, " has shown its greatness by the quality of its 
 following for two thousand years. It teaches " 
 
 Unfortunately the brave major hesitated here be- 
 cause his education had been chiefly in things pertain- 
 ing to war, and the boy caught him up: 
 
 " My mandarin has explained what it teaches ; one 
 thing in one land, another in another. To us it brings 
 a different story from that which it told in Syria, a 
 religion trimmed to suit the buyer's taste, so the man- 
 darin called it. But ours have we not sacrificed 
 to our ancestors and to the same gods these many cen- 
 turies before that Jesu was born? " 
 
 " See here, Conger," the major interrupted, " let's 
 drop this religious talk. We don't either of us know 
 anything about it."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 " I want to speak to the commander, sonny. P'raps 
 now, you're the commander, yourself." 
 
 The boy looked up from the wonderful fort that 
 he was building on the shore and saw standing before 
 him a tall man in sou'wester and oilers. That is, he 
 looked up just long enough to see the tall man who 
 stood with his hands clasped behind him, critically sur- 
 veying the fort as though it were to remain for ages 
 a national bulwark, instead of disintegrating with the 
 very next tide. And he saw the sou'wester and oilers, 
 and knew that the big man was a fisherman. 
 
 The fort was at that momentous stage in its con- 
 struction when you are just punching the holes through 
 the wet sand so that you can mount the big guns, and 
 poke them out, like real forts. But the enormous 
 boots were right there, facing you, evidently expecting 
 an answer to the inquiry about the commander; so the 
 boy on his knees glanced up again at the face that was 
 almost hidden by bushy whiskers. 
 
 He seemed a very serious boy, and spoke deliber- 
 ately : " The commander isn't here yet, I am the chief 
 engineer. The commander doesn't come till every- 
 thing is ready for fighting, in case of an attack." 
 
 " Oh ! I see well, now it's my mistake, but I 
 thought some one with a funny name would be in com- 
 mand o' this here fortification." 
 
 41
 
 42 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " Why, you see," (the voice was only an eight-year- 
 old voice, and it had in it the same ingenuous wonder 
 and honesty as the wide blue eyes that looked up from 
 the fort) " you must have thought it was Horatio. 
 He has a funny name, and my father used to call him 
 ' Sneeze,' but Horatio isn't down here." 
 
 "Oh! he ain't. Well, then it wouldn't likely be 
 him. But your own name ain't quite so common as 
 Charley leastways, not around here I heard it 
 not more'n ten minutes ago, and I says to myself I 
 can seem to see that name carved on a tombstone; but 
 hanged if I ain't gone and forgot it, so quick." 
 
 " Where was the tombstone ? " the boy asked, in the 
 same earnest manner as before. 
 
 " Why there wa'n't any real tombstone ; only some 
 names you can kinder see printed like. Now there's 
 ' Jessop ' I can't imagine that name anywheres but 
 on a stick o' chewing candy. And Puffer has to be 
 on a soda fountain, seems made on purpose to go 
 there, and Crosse just fits on a bottle o' pickles." 
 
 " But my name isn't like any of those." 
 
 "Ain't it? Well, it sounded awful solemn to me. 
 What is it, again? I disremember." 
 
 " It is Galton Gragg." 
 
 " You must be Cap'n Gragg's boy Galton Gragg! 
 It ain't a cheerful name, any way you can say it. 
 Galton Gragg; no, you can't make it anything but 
 gloomy. Well, Mr. Galton Gragg, I'm bound off for 
 the weirs. Would you like to come along, and see how 
 we catch fish by the cartload ? "
 
 " I should like very much to go, but I haven't any 
 clothes like yours to go in." 
 
 " And you don't need any, if 'what you have on can 
 be washed." 
 
 The huge ox, swaying slowly, drew the ponderous 
 two-wheeled cart down over the slope of the beach. 
 Two great wooden pins fastened his yoke to the ends 
 of the heavy shafts, and a cod-line, caught over the 
 tip of one horn, served in place of reins. His eyes 
 were very gentle for a beast of such gigantic girth, such 
 mighty shoulders, such broad stretch of horns; and 
 when the fisherman cried, " Haw ! " he veered to the 
 left, and then headed straight out, across the wide sand 
 flats, for the weir that lay a mile and a half off shore. 
 
 In the cart rode the big fisherman, and little Galton 
 Gragg sat on the seat beside him ; and the fresh breeze 
 blew his wavy yellow hair back from the eyes that 
 opened wide in wonder at thus setting out to sea in a 
 great cart drawn by a giant plodding ox. 
 
 He wondered what the fisherman's name was. He 
 had heard him called Cap'n Thoph, in the village store 
 where every one went to get the mail, but he had a 
 contempt for people who lisped, and he knew that he 
 could do better than Thoph, though at best it was evi- 
 dently only a nickname. It wouldn't be polite to ask 
 him what his real name was, but he might find out by 
 stratagem. 
 
 " Does the tide ever turn so quick it catches you out 
 here, Captain Soft?" 
 
 "Cap'n What?" and the big gruff voice went up
 
 44 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 an octave in its attempt to imitate the boy's tone. 
 
 " It probably isn't your really truly name, but don't 
 they call you Captain Soft?" 
 
 " No, no, boy, ' Cap'n Thoph.' That's short for 
 Theophilus; Theophilus Snow's my name. Gwan, 
 Sunday!" 
 
 " Why did you name the ox Sunday? " 
 
 " Because he's so damn slow." 
 
 " But my mother says Sunday is the best day in the 
 week." 
 
 " Well, and this is the best ox in the county. 
 Geddap! He's slow, sure enough, but he brings 'em 
 in. No matter how many's in the weir, you don't have 
 to lose none of 'em. Sunday fetches 'em in." 
 
 The boy was silent, trying to figure out whether 
 the simile of bringing them in went with the name also, 
 and Cap'n Thoph didn't answer as to whether the tide 
 ever caught him out on the flats. 
 
 Great flocks of gulls soared gracefully on their 
 sickle-shaped wings, and then came settling down in a 
 vast company, hundreds of them, waiting for the tide 
 to bring them their supper. 
 
 For miles and miles to the east and west the wet gray 
 sands lay flat as a table, save for the little ridges only 
 a few inches apart that ran parallel with the shore. 
 Pools and shallow channels here and there gave back 
 the blue and white of the sky, and the eel grass lay in 
 soft, dark green patches, cool and inviting, also mys- 
 terious and alluring after you had learned that such 
 shaded places often hid the lobster and the eel. 
 
 As they neared the weir, the low thunder of the tide
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 45 
 
 on the bar grew louder and more distinct, the wind 
 freshened and, look where you would, there was the 
 same vast plain of water and sand that stretched away 
 level from your very feet till it touched the horizon. 
 Only, far off behind you, might be seen the sand cliffs 
 on the shore, and a few white dots that must be houses, 
 and one that stuck up in a sharp white point against 
 the background of dark green, and this was surely the 
 church. All these were dwarfed by distance till they 
 seemed like toys. Everywhere else the sand and the 
 sea reaching to infinity. 
 
 The fish-nets that made a wall about the pound were 
 higher than the captain's head, and the water inside 
 the weir was about waist deep. In the nets were her- 
 ring and mackerel left over from the last tide where 
 they had tried to squeeze through only to die there ; and 
 now the gulls were flying about screaming and fighting 
 to get them. They even pounced upon the live fish 
 that crowded so thick along the sides of their prison, 
 yet hadn't sense enough to get out where they came in. 
 
 " Boy," said the big fisherman, as they came to a 
 stop just where they could see how many fish were 
 caught " I call you boy because Gralton Gag is such 
 a hard name to remember do you know what's the 
 matter with them birds ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't know for certain sure, but I think 
 they need oiling." 
 
 For a moment the man stood listening to the cry of 
 the gulls, half way between a creak and a croak, then 
 he smothered a laugh in his beard with one great hand, 
 and said very seriously :
 
 46 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " I didn't mean what's the matter with their voices, 
 I meant that their trouble is that they're hungry. Ani- 
 mals are all like that : hunger keeps 'em right on edge. 
 Give 'em all they want to eat and you spoil 'em. Well, 
 it ain't very different with men. Hunger troubles 'em 
 so 't they're always worrying about it, but for this 
 kind o' work give me a gaunt hungry man every time." 
 
 " Are you hungry, yourself ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, hungry as a bear, and I ain't got an ounce 
 of flesh on me." 
 
 Galton was secretly glad that the captain's clothes 
 were so thick you couldn't verify this statement, for 
 the picture of such a big man being only a bony frame- 
 work was not pleasant. It suggested a clothes-horse 
 and those things in the natural history rooms that show 
 only too plainly that they haven't an ounce of flesh 
 either, just like bird cages. 
 
 The ox stood in water above his knees, when the 
 cart was backed up against the mouth of the weir, 
 and Captain Thoph, waist deep, began loading, picking 
 up the fish on a huge pitchfork and tossing them over 
 the tailboard. 
 
 The little boy enjoyed watching them flopping and 
 thrashing about, but it was not long before the turn of 
 the tide brought such a depth of water that he fell 
 back about fifty yards out of the channel, and so on 
 ground two or three feet higher. 
 
 When the captain spied a dogfish among his trea- 
 sures he pursued him relentlessly until he succeeded in 
 spearing him, whereupon the dogfish, accompanied by 
 a choice string of oaths, went sailing over the net, and
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 47 
 
 landed, much the worse for wear, on the sand outside. 
 
 As the fish became scarcer in the weir, and had more 
 room to swim, the process of working was harder. 
 Fewer fish came over the tailboard; more oaths came 
 through the net. Gradually, little by little, the water 
 was growing deeper. Not until it was waist deep did 
 Galton deign to pay any attention to it. Then he 
 looked about for higher ground, but there was none. 
 The long leader or fence of netting, stretched between 
 high poles, led away for a long distance towards the 
 shore. Standing by this he felt that if the water got 
 too deep he could cling to one of the poles. 
 
 The great ox now held his head high to keep above 
 the tide which had risen almost to his back. The boy 
 could see that before it got above his depth the ox and 
 cart would be afloat, so he clung to the leader when 
 he could no longer keep his feet and said not a word. 
 It was evident from the conversation that Cap'n Thoph 
 was holding with the Almighty that he was having all 
 he could do to get his fish out. 
 
 Another ten minutes went by, and the body of the 
 cart was now level full of fish as the big man, heavy 
 in his oilers and mighty rubber boots, started to climb 
 aboard. 
 
 " Good God, if I don't deserve hangin' ! " he roared. 
 " Why, I clean forgot ye, boy ! " 
 
 There was Galton resolutely, silently, clinging to the 
 leader, the water all about him quite deep enough to 
 drown him; but who would actually drown with the 
 big fisherman within hail? 
 
 Captain Theophilus Snow hastened as fast as his
 
 48 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 clothes would allow to the boy's rescue, and soon had 
 him perched above the fish, and so they headed f.or the 
 shore again, and the tide slowly rising followed them 
 in, for, when the tide was high, eight to ten feet of 
 water rolled above these placid flats, and no one seeing 
 the bay then would ever dream of weirs or an ox cart 
 a mile and a half off shore. 
 
 The small boy made no mention of his perilous ad- 
 venture, but asked innumerable questions about every- 
 thing he saw : 
 
 " Do the flat fish swim on the edge, like this," he 
 asked, holding one of them up, " or like little rafts? " 
 
 " 'Tain't really either way," replied the captain, 
 " 'cause rafts float right on top o' the water, and they 
 float right down at the bottom of it, but the position 
 is the same." 
 
 " But how do they stay down ? Things that float 
 are up on top." 
 
 " Not everything that floats, boy. You see these 
 fish have been in the water so long they get heavy, what 
 you call waterlogged, and then they float just off the 
 bottom." 
 
 This was a poser. Galton knew it was not polite to 
 doubt his elders, but why shouldn't all fish get water- 
 logged if flat fish did? There must be another answer 
 better than that.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 On the beach the fisherman stopped to let Galton 
 jump out, and as the can started slowly on over the 
 fields to the ice-house, the big man waved his hand in 
 parting and said: 
 
 " You're a devilish spunky lad for your size. Some 
 day when the tide favors earlier you must go out again ; 
 and then I'll take you to see us pack 'em in the berrels 
 to ship away." 
 
 " What do you mean by ' ship away ' ? " the boy 
 called back, for an ox cart doesn't soon get out of hail- 
 ing distance. 
 
 " Take 'em to the railroad and send 'em to market," 
 came the answer, and Galton Gragg set off up the 
 grassy road to the village, for it was long after six, 
 and mother might be worrying. 
 
 Supper was waiting, and mother was watching for 
 him at the kitchen window. The table was set for two 
 that was the whole family when father was " off 
 to sea," and, after he had had a very hasty wash at 
 the sink, they sat down. If mother noticed the wet 
 clothes she said nothing about it. But she listened 
 with evident interest and amusement to her son's de- 
 scription of " the men with spears that had three sharp 
 fingers on 'em, ' jobbing ' for eels in the little pools 
 where the grass grew." 
 
 49
 
 50 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " Do you love the sea, Gallon? " she asked. " Shall 
 you follow it, like your father and your grandfather 
 before you? " 
 
 " Father said this was his last trip in a windjammer," 
 the boy answered, " but I don't think I shall ever make 
 any except as a passenger." 
 
 " Do you expect to go through life as a passenger, 
 dear?" 
 
 " Oh, no, I'm going to work to be a a something 
 or other in a big city like Boston. I'm not going to 
 live always on Cape Cod." 
 
 " I see," his mother said indulgently, but in her 
 heart very glad that her only child hadn't his father's 
 passion for the sea. And long after the little fellow 
 had gone to bed she sat at her window, gazing across 
 the rolling fields and the little pond that lay like 
 polished silver in the moonlight. Gently came the 
 rhythmic beat of the waves breaking on the beach; a 
 straggling line of bathhouses stood out darkly along 
 the shore, and somewhere far away on that wide 
 and treacherous expanse of sea her husband was 
 tossing about and trusting the winds to bring him 
 home. 
 
 It was a year before the winds and waves finally 
 brought Tom Gragg home to wife and son, and the 
 village saw the big man with deep-set grey eyes and a 
 beard already grizzled going to the post office every 
 day with his proud little son. They were a gallant 
 pair, and of the two the father's pride in his boy was 
 the more noticeable because he was held to be a mas- 
 terful man aboard a ship, and everyone in Waqua-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 51 
 
 nesett had heard how he ended a mutiny with a be- 
 laying pin that killed the first who came aft. 
 
 On Sundays Captain Gragg sat at the head of his 
 pew in the Orthodox Meeting-house, and little Galton, 
 between his father and mother, sat up very straight on 
 the most uncomfortable shelf that could possibly serve 
 as a seat for human beings and swung his feet for two 
 hours. The warnings issued by the Reverend Jere- 
 miah Driggs of the wrath to come, warnings accen- 
 tuated by a fist that smote the Holy Bible on the pulpit, 
 meant nothing to Galton. It was a minister's way of 
 doing business, and grown-up folks liked it. They 
 liked also the sound of their own voices raised in hymns 
 of praise which they sang through their noses, facing 
 the choir up in the gallery, but Galton found this very 
 dull, also, and the frequent exhortation to sinners 
 seemed to be wasted on a congregation of saints inas- 
 much as none but church members ever attended. He 
 hated Sunday exactly as he hated castor oil: without 
 daring to say so, and fully persuaded that in the mys- 
 terious ways of Providence anything so unpalatable 
 must be good for you. 
 
 He attended the village school, and before his thir- 
 teenth birthday had fought every boy in his class 
 and whipped each in turn; and had been flogged by 
 the head master for refusing to tell who took the 
 tongue out of the bell, causing recess one day to last 
 an hour. But nearly every boy and every girl in the 
 school was fond of Galton Gragg, and every teacher 
 had to admit that he was a very apt scholar, which was 
 something unusual for a boy who was first in all the
 
 52 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 sports. As was natural, this physical and mental su- 
 periority resulted in an egotism that was only the cli- 
 max of self-confidence. 
 
 It was in his fourteenth year that he first showed 
 any interest in girls, and then it was only in one girl 
 who had come to Waquanesett for the summer. She 
 came into " the store " while Galton was waiting for 
 the mail to be sorted, and with the accurate appraisal 
 common to all children, he knew that she was twelve 
 and that the little brother with her was eight. 
 
 "Why should we wait, Barbara?" the small boy 
 asked, and Barbara, with a toss of brown curls and a 
 laugh that displayed a very pretty mouth, shot a quick 
 glance at the handsome boy leaning against the coun- 
 ter, and bade her brother run along home. 
 
 " Now that I'm here I'm going to stay," she said, 
 and by the merest accident she caught Galton's eye. 
 
 " The mail is most generally late," Galton explained, 
 and immediately thought it was rather a silly thing to 
 say to a strange girl. But the strange girl seemed to 
 like it, and rejoined: 
 
 " It's awfully stupid to wait round for letters, be- 
 cause usually you don't get any." 
 
 Galton shuffled his feet and leaned back against the 
 showcase in an effort to appear at ease, but he could 
 think of nothing to say. Barbara, who wondered why 
 boys were so much more shy than girls, came to his 
 rescue : 
 
 " I love Waquanesett, I think it's the dearest place. 
 Do you live here all the time? " 
 
 " I do now," Galton answered reluctantly, " but I'm
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 53 
 
 not going to. Father says I can go up to a prepara- 
 tory school and then to Harvard." 
 
 " What fun ! " Barbara exclaimed, and as her merry 
 laugh rippled at the thought of it, Galton noted that her 
 hair rippled, too, and her eyes rippled in a very pro- 
 voking little way; even her cheeks rippled, leaving a 
 dimple in each. And when she had gathered up from 
 the postmaster's little window the Wraytons' mail 
 Galton heard her ask for it there was a decided 
 ripple in the swing of her skirts as she went out, utterly 
 forgetting him ; then at the door she turned and, catch- 
 ing sight of him, smiled the same rippling smile, and 
 was gone. 
 
 That was the very ordinary beginning of it, of the 
 boy's infatuation and the girl's admiration for strength, 
 courage, ability manliness; of the friendship which 
 for two years swung them back and forth from per- 
 fect accord to violent quarrel, from the normal healthy 
 friendship of boy and girl to the silly misunderstanding 
 based on jealousy. The jealousy was always Gal- 
 ton's ; ownership was comprehended in his idea of af- 
 fection. And Barbara loved to tease him ; what right 
 had he to be jealous? They were only a boy and a 
 girl, and a girl surely wouldn't be foolish enough to 
 tie herself to one boy. Nevertheless she showed a 
 marked preference for Galton, always. 
 
 Then, in his sixteenth year, his father, who had 
 prospered and owned a large interest in a tramp 
 steamer then plying her trade in the Pacific, took him 
 out of school in March to accompany him on a voyage 
 from Tacoma to Yokohama.
 
 54 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 For once Tom Gragg went as a passenger, and en- 
 joyed a passenger's idleness and ease during the three 
 weeks' voyage, for the tramp was roomy but slow. 
 
 At last, one morning, they were surrounded by small, 
 unpainted fishing boats; kites swooped down to touch 
 the waves with their broad, fringed wings; far off 
 towered the lovely Fujiyama, snow-clad near the sum- 
 mit, and the ship slowly crept in between the white and 
 the red lighthouses that mark the breakwater of Yoko- 
 hama harbor, and came to anchor. Here they were 
 detained by fussy, pompous customs officials, and then 
 they landed from one of the little fishing boats. 
 
 Galton in a jinrickisha drawn by .a sturdy coolie was 
 not quite sure that he hadn't suddenly become a figure 
 in a picture-book, everything was so unreal : the people 
 all so gaily dressed in bright kimonos; the little stal- 
 lions gaudily harnessed, dragging their loads on low 
 drays and always following their drivers who walked 
 ahead with the halter over their shoulders; the shops 
 open to the street; and everywhere color, beauty, 
 crowds of little brown people, and the clack-clack of 
 wooden shoes. 
 
 In the foreign quarter they were very comfortably 
 settled at the Oriental Palace Hotel, where their rooms 
 opened out upon the Bund and the busy waterfront. 
 That night at dinner Tom Gragg called Galton's atten- 
 tion to a lean bronzed man at a small table with a tall, 
 dark boy. The man, though in civilian dress, looked 
 like an army officer, and the boy might easily have been 
 his son. 
 
 " That's a kind of people we don't see so often in
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 55 
 
 New England," Captain Gragg explained ; " it's the 
 English type, and, wherever I've met it, it rings true." 
 
 After dinner they had coffee in the lounge, and Gal- 
 ton saw that the dark English boy was much interested 
 in the four tiers of galleries that surrounded the big 
 room, ventilating the whole house through a huge sky- 
 light, and furnishing an impressive architectural fea- 
 ture at the expense of much space. Something about 
 Tom Gragg's big, rugged personality, or else the simi- 
 larity of his also traveling with a sixteen-year-old boy, 
 drew the military man very soon into conversation. 
 
 " Fine house this, sir," he remarked, as he lit his 
 cigar at one of the little tables next to the Graggs. 
 
 " Never stopped here before, always been to the 
 Grand, something very homelike about this." The 
 dark boy watched him closely when he spoke, as 
 though he thought it was addressed to him, or he 
 might be deaf, Galton wasn't sure which. And when 
 Captain Gragg replied that he had always on former 
 visits been aboard of his own ship, the boy seemed to 
 be studying him with equal intentness. 
 
 "Are you staying here long?" Galton asked him, 
 and he didn't raise his voice for fear that might not 
 be the right method. 
 
 " We are here now but five days," the boy answered, 
 " and we stay some three weeks or month yet for see- 
 ing Japan." 
 
 Evidently, Galton thought, these are not father and 
 son. This boy is a foreigner; perhaps an Italian. 
 But he liked him, whatever he was ; there was a wistful 
 look in his dark eyes, and a smile that was half-sad,
 
 56 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 half-laughing but always sympathetic and understand- 
 ing. So much Galton had decided that first evening. 
 And Conger, when he talked it over with Major 
 Thornton, and learned from him that these Graggs 
 were typical New England people, declared that he 
 was delighted to know it, for they seemed to him like 
 pure metal " like you, yourself, my dear major, and 
 my beloved mandarin." 
 
 " God's own people, New Englanders," Major 
 Thornton added, " in God's own country." 
 
 " So ? " Conger replied. " Yet you mean only the 
 little god of the Hebrew people?" 
 
 "My! What a lot I've got to teach you," the 
 major rejoined, "and how doubtful you make me of 
 my own knowledge."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 " See here, Conger, don't you know that some things 
 are absolutely wrong, because God has forbidden 
 them?" 
 
 The two boys, who had been friends for a month, 
 were visiting the great temple of Kwannon, Goddess 
 of Mercy, in Kioto. They had agreed in their ad- 
 miration of the building, seven hundred and fifty years 
 old ; but to Galton's pure New England training it was 
 nothing less than sacrilege for Conger Howe to say, 
 as he did, that these ten hundred and one huge gilded 
 images of a heathen goddess were just as sacred as the 
 altar and images in the little Christian church. And 
 it only added to his shock when Conger calmly asked : 
 " Which god ? For some forbid one thing, some an- 
 other, and my mandarin told me it made all difference 
 where the gods were made." 
 
 " Don't ! " Galton commanded. " I feel afraid to 
 listen to such talk. So you really are a heathen your- 
 self!" 
 
 " Probably," Conger admitted, utterly unconscious 
 of the enormity of his crime. 
 
 When they came down the long flight of stone steps 
 from the temple a crowd was gathered about the great 
 bell of Daibutsu, and a sturdy Japanese was swinging 
 the long boom by which the bell is rung and at each 
 stroke a prayer is registered in Buddha's Book of Life. 
 An official of high rank, indicated by the buttons on his 
 
 57
 
 58 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 cuffs, a three-button man, was on his way to the temple, 
 and a policeman set to work with his stick to clear the 
 way for him. One old man was knocked down, one 
 was cut across the face, the crowd fled in abject terror, 
 and with them, all unmindful of any lack of dignity, 
 went Conger Howe as he had gone hundreds of times 
 in China, never questioning the policeman's right to 
 beat him or to shove him aside for his betters. 
 
 Looking back from a safe position he saw Galton 
 Gragg firmly occupying the very spot where he had 
 left him, and returning with interest the glare of the 
 official who, seeing in the boy an American, merely 
 smiled indulgently and shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " One thing his heathen training has done for him," 
 Galton thought, as he saw Conger's ignominious 
 flight, " it has made him a coward." A year or two 
 earlier he would have told Conger this thought, and 
 fought him, if need be, to prove it. But association 
 with his father was teaching him reticence. 
 
 In the evening they went to the theatre to see one 
 of the most noted Japanese companies. Their way 
 lay through the Ponto Cho, and Major Thornton, 
 whose jinrickisha was ahead of the others, called back: 
 " The name of this is ' The Street that is called 
 Straight ' ; it is the home of the geisha." Galton and 
 his father laughed at this sally, but Conger merely 
 gave his usual "Huh!" which was a vocal nod of 
 assent. Galton made a mental note that Conger was 
 lacking the sense of humor. Galton didn't know that 
 his friend was performing miracles in learning a new 
 and difficult language, and that Major Thornton's
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 59 
 
 translation of Ponto Cho meant nothing to him. 
 
 At the theatre all the Japanese left their wooden 
 shoes outside, and the foreigners who paid double 
 price, or one yen each, to sit in the rickety little gal- 
 lery, had felt socks put on over their shoes. To the 
 Japanese there seems to be something sacred about 
 straw matting. Conger, much to the surprise of the 
 others, refused to submit to this extra covering, pre- 
 ferring to remove his shoes and go in stocking feet, 
 and when Major Thornton remonstrated on the 
 ground that he would catch cold, he explained : 
 
 " Why, you forget ; I never wore shoes or stockings 
 until four years ago." 
 
 From their seats they looked down upon a crowded 
 house, the people huddled together as close as they 
 could sit. All the men wore their hats ; all the women 
 were hatless as usual ; many of them had their babies 
 strapped upon their backs; and many, both men and 
 women, were smoking. There was no music, and 
 when the play began a young woman, carrying her 
 baby on her back, stood close to the footlights and 
 laughed at a serious performance. There was enough 
 of familiar melodrama in the play to enable the four 
 in the gallery, without understanding a word, to dis- 
 tinguish the benevolent hero from the ranting villain. 
 There was even a cooing quality in the tone of one of 
 the women which marked her as the heroine. 
 
 At the close of the first act the footlights were ex- 
 tinguished, and in the resultant gloom the stage car- 
 penters were seen at work on the next setting. There 
 was much coughing and lighting of cigarettes in the
 
 60 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 audience. Some careless person on the stage over- 
 turned a lamp, and instantly the flimsy woodwork was 
 in a blaze. 
 
 Conger with keen interest watched the stage hands. 
 Each man seemed to know just what was to be done 
 and how to do it. In a surprisingly short time the fire 
 was completely smothered, and the panicky audience 
 that had fled for the street was slowly coming back, 
 but the house was chokingly filled with smoke. Then 
 it was that Conger discovered that he was alone in the 
 gallery. At the first warning crackle and leap of 
 flames Galton had jumped for the stairway, followed 
 by the two men. This they confessed when Conger 
 joined them, shoes in hand, and Major Thornton was 
 the only one of the three who gave him any credit for 
 coolness ; to the others he was only slow. 
 
 And all this time Conger in his new and strange sur- 
 roundings was adapting himself as only a very sensi- 
 tive nature could, noting constantly wherein the ways 
 of Europeans were superior to the Chinese. Where, 
 as in religious matters, he saw no particular superiority, 
 he refused to accept the new merely because it came 
 with a better civilization, and, though none suspected 
 it, his new friends were not much oftener pained by 
 his deficiencies than was he by theirs. 
 
 Something, whether inherited or acquired by the 
 hard conditions of his childhood, had made him at six- 
 teen unusually self-reliant mentally. It wasn't that 
 he felt sure of himself; it was that he was set upon 
 finding out instead of following blindly the lead of 
 others.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 61 
 
 Late that night he sat at his bedroom window look- 
 ing off at the twinkling lights of the city, and trying 
 to accommodate himself to American ideas. " How 
 little they understand," he thought, " how great is the 
 change for a boy who for the first half of his life 
 thought himself Chinese and hated the foreign devils 
 and now, behold, he is one of them himself ! I can- 
 not yet see why this arrogance which looks down upon 
 other nations so much older and wiser because they 
 differ in speech, in dress, in habits. Not one of these 
 has the wisdom or the learning of my mandarin, yet 
 they would consider him inferior. And always Major 
 Thornton preaches to me about democracy, and gets 
 angry when I ask if in his country the uneducated 
 masses are wiser or more trustworthy than the edu- 
 cated few. 
 
 " He explains to me that in America all men are born 
 equal, but it seems from what they tell me that they 
 do not remain equal after their first breath of the air 
 of freedom. I cannot see the sense in all this. But 
 why am I glad to be leaving my native land in the 
 company of these over-confident strangers?" 
 
 Then his memory went back over his early life, the 
 poverty and toil, The Rat's cruelty and cunning; once 
 more he was spending those golden years with his dear 
 mandarin, and then came back the cold horror of that 
 sacrifice to suit the whim of a merciless, pitiless mon- 
 arch. Ah! After all, there was something in their 
 democracy. 
 
 But how violent the changes he had undergone in 
 his sixteen years : a few months ago he was Chinese, in
 
 62 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 dress, in thought, in every aspiration for the future, 
 wholly Chinese. And now not only acquiring a 
 new language, but new ideals. 
 
 " I wonder," he mused, " whether I can ever get so 
 far from China that I shall reverence newness as these 
 people do. And play why, grown men pride them- 
 selves on their cleverness in playing games! Even 
 here in Japan the people play, and how Galton sneered 
 because I couldn't play tennis or catch a ball! Yet I 
 outran him, and in the jiu-jitsu school, though he is 
 bigger and stronger, I threw him because I was quicker. 
 And when I threw him his father and he both began 
 making excuses to explain it." 
 
 A while he sat pondering these strange new ex- 
 periences and their strange meanings. Then came a 
 knock at his door, and Major Thornton had come to 
 talk over these very questions with him. 
 
 " Are you sorry," the major asked, " to be taking 
 this great step, the changing over from a Chinaman to 
 a Yankee ? " 
 
 " Not sorry," the boy said, very deliberately to pre- 
 vent his earliest error which invariably stumbled over 
 the R, pronouncing it as L, " not sorry, but much 
 mixed. I have been thinking, but it was in Chinese 
 language. When I think new country I feel fear 
 so much change. Then I remember my mandarin, his 
 life, his death, and I am glad to go to new country." 
 
 " And aren't you a little fond of I mean glad to 
 go with me ? " the father asked, for he was overwhelm- 
 ingly conscious of paternity now, and something al-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 63 
 
 most overcame him at every intimate talk to think that 
 he must never tell this boy the truth. 
 
 Conger looked at him for an instant as though some 
 suspicion crossed his mind ; then he said : " Oh, yes, 
 Major, I like to go with you very kind gentleman 
 but I do not yet know my position. My mandarin was 
 blind; he had need of me but you " 
 
 " I wish to be like a father to you, to give you an 
 education, to start you in some profession." 
 
 " But for what is this? Am I to do nothing? " 
 
 " My boy, you will repay me in after life when I 
 see you a success," and Major Thornton, much em- 
 barrassed by the boy's direct questions, took his leave 
 of him for the night, promising himself more satisfac- 
 tory interviews on the long passage across the Pacific.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Six years had passed, six years in which many boys 
 had grown into young men, six years that Conger 
 Howe and Galton Gragg had spent in school and col- 
 lege side by side. And now had come their day of 
 graduation, and Galton, who had been prominent in 
 sports, was a marshal and as popular as any man in the 
 class. Conger had won an Honorable Mention and 
 had " cum laude " on his degree, but not half the class 
 knew him. They had " spread " together on Class 
 Day, and together they were receiving the congratula- 
 tions of their friends at Commencement. 
 
 Little Mrs. Gragg, so proud of her handsome son 
 that she couldn't keep back the tears, walked over to the 
 boys' rooms with Mrs. Thornton; they had met but 
 twice before, and on each occasion Mrs. Thornton had 
 tried to let Mrs. Gragg understand that such meetings 
 were a condescension on her part. But Mrs. Gragg 
 was the social leader in Waquanesett even Mrs. 
 Driggs, the minister's wife, admitted it and Mrs. 
 Gragg didn't even know that it put you on a higher 
 plane to live in Boston. So the condescension passed 
 by her quite unnoticed ; her heart was rilled with more 
 important things than her own position. 
 
 " Don't you feel very proud of Conger? " she asked. 
 " He is such a dear boy. Last summer when he visited 
 us I told Galton and my husband that I had learned 
 
 64
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 65 
 
 to love him almost as though he belonged to me." 
 
 " You know he doesn't belong to me in any 
 sense," Mrs. Thornton replied, and Mrs. Gragg glanc- 
 ing at her saw the corners of her very straight mouth 
 drawn down into a firmer negation than words could 
 possibly utter. 
 
 " Cold, cruel and self-satisfied," she commented to 
 herself, and before she could think of anything to say 
 aloud, Mrs. Thornton continued: 
 
 " The boy is well enough, I dare say; of course I 
 haven't had to see much of him; he has been away at 
 school and college but here are my two girls, twelve 
 and ten goodness me ! Jane will be coming out in 
 six years, and that foundling has been taking the very 
 clothes off their backs." 
 
 " The what? " Mrs. Gragg exclaimed. 
 
 " Well, not literally, but my husband isn't rich, and 
 every cent spent on that foundling is so much taken 
 from my children. Have I a car? No; I walk or 
 stand up in crowded street cars because of that foun- 
 dling." 
 
 " I had no idea you felt that way about him," Mrs. 
 Gragg said very quietly. 
 
 " Wouldn't you, in my place ? " the other snapped 
 back. 
 
 " Not if it were Conger." 
 
 " Do you realize when you say that," Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton asked in the same icy tone as before, " what it 
 means to my daughters, who are getting old enough to 
 understand things, if they are obliged to wink at im- 
 morality? "
 
 " Immorality ? " Mrs. Gragg repeated. " Conger 
 isn't immoral." 
 
 " I don't know what your standards are," Mrs. 
 Thornton retorted, " but didn't you know that he is 
 Here she looked round to be sure that no one heard the 
 awful disclosure and ended by suppressing it. 
 
 " But surely that doesn't make him immoral, what- 
 ever sin others may have committed ! " 
 
 " It doesn't ? " Mrs. Thornton rebuked her by her 
 very tone. " A child born out of wedlock? " 
 
 " Very unfortunate," Mrs. Gragg said firmly, " but 
 not the child's fault." 
 
 It was Mrs. Thornton's turn to look surprised. 
 Something in the inflection of that last sentence seemed 
 to put her in a class by herself. Was this the mild 
 little woman whom she had been patronizing by walk- 
 ing across the yard with her? 
 
 " Possibly in the country your standards are lower." 
 Let Mrs. Gragg put that in her pipe ! 
 
 But Mrs. Gragg, little as she was, was not afraid 
 of a dozen Mrs. Thorntons, and replied : 
 
 " Isn't it rather stupid of us women to talk about 
 morality as though it only meant such things? No ir- 
 regularity of that sort, bad as it is, is half so immoral 
 and vicious as selfishness, dishonesty, cowardice, or 
 cruelty." 
 
 There was a moment's pause while Mrs. Thornton 
 swallowed hard and relaxed her tight mouth sufficiently 
 to speak: 
 
 " And you are a woman ! And talk like thatj " 
 
 By this time they had reached the boys' rooms, and
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 67 
 
 the conversation was perforce dropped, but the two 
 women had seen each other in quite a new light, and 
 each was outraged at the other's point of view. 
 
 Among all the young people present, gaily chatter- 
 ing, laughing, joking, there was something that at once 
 distinguished the quartet over in the far corner of the 
 living-room. Both the boys were tall, but one was 
 decidedly handsome ; in face, in figure, in his carriage, 
 there was an air of superiority about Galton Gragg 
 that is Nature's gift to those who are born to rule. 
 
 The other was very dark, had a slight stoop from 
 the shoulders, struck you as slender, rather than power- 
 ful, and there were two vertical lines between his eye- 
 brows which gave him a puzzled expression. It might 
 be a mental habit, or it might mean near-sight; the 
 puzzled look was there. 
 
 The other two were girls, Barbara Wrayton grown 
 into a lovely young woman of twenty whose brown 
 hair and grey eyes still rippled as they did when as a 
 girl of twelve she had first attracted Galton. 
 
 " Mr. Howe," she was saying, " I want you to know 
 my dearest friend, Miss Grayley. And why is this 
 the first time I've met you? It isn't my fault. You 
 know, Bess," turning to her friend, " this Mr. Conger 
 Howe and Galton have been intimate for years, but up 
 to now he has been a sort of myth like Aladdin or 
 Jack the Giant Killer." 
 
 " It hasn't been through any fault of Galton's," 
 Conger confided, " I don't think I get on very well 
 with girls after they get beyond ten or twelve, 
 so I've just kept away from them."
 
 68 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 "Perhaps you're above them," Miss Grayley said; 
 " when a man talks like that usually he really feels 
 superior." 
 
 Conger laughed. " It isn't true of me. Perhaps it 
 has been until now a lack of interest in the general 
 proposition." 
 
 " Then it's up to us," Barbara interposed, " to make 
 the particular proposition so attractive that you'll 
 change your mind. Now, Bess, you see you are to be- 
 have very nicely to the gentleman." 
 
 " I don't know as I shall," Bess answered. "If he 
 isn't very nice to me, why should I ? " 
 
 " Because you are a missionary sent out to save that 
 which was lost." 
 
 " But I'm not lost," Conger Howe insisted, " at 
 least, not yet." 
 
 " Then you don't want to be saved? " Barbara asked, 
 looking mischievously into his face and then away as 
 though afraid of what she saw there. Whereupon, as 
 many another unsuspecting young man had done be- 
 fore, Conger rushed in pursuit: "If you will under- 
 take to save me I think I might try it. But," he added, 
 recovering himself, " are you both sure that you know 
 enough? " 
 
 "Know enough?" Miss Grayley was piqued at 
 this suggestion. Good heavens! Hadn't she often 
 thought how much more she knew than the boys who 
 had only been through college! And it must be ad- 
 mitted that Miss Grayley had sometimes wondered 
 how she had managed to acquire so much knowledge 
 and such wisdom with so little study.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 69 
 
 They were interrupted in their conversation by Gal- 
 ton's father, big, self-reliant, not so handsome as his 
 son who had his mother to thank for much of his 
 charm. Captain Gragg was very proud of Gallon, as 
 well he might be, and it was plain that he was fond 
 of Conger. 
 
 " Galton is keen on banking," he said, " now that 
 he's finished his education, but I haven't heard what 
 you want to do." 
 
 " Why, you see, sir," Conger answered frankly, 
 " I'm afraid I haven't finished mine, and I should like 
 to study medicine and then practise law." 
 
 " That's very stupid, Conger ! " Mrs. Thornton 
 had arrived in Captain Gragg's wake, just in time to 
 hear question and answer, and the opportunity to show 
 the captain that she was thoroughly a woman of the 
 world and wiser than most was too good to be lost 
 If her husband was a fool in his treatment of found- 
 lings, she at least could show that she was not. 
 
 " Excellent ! " Captain Gragg exclaimed, taking the 
 boy's hand and quite ignoring the lady, " and what 
 then? What are you going to hatch out of such an 
 egg as that? Going into the medical school to see 
 what comes of it? " 
 
 " No, Captain," the boy answered, looking directly 
 into Mrs. Thornton's eyes, " I have imposed upon my 
 benefactor long enough ; I am going to earn my living 
 as a professional amateur." 
 
 Bess Grayley turned to Barbara and remarked : " I 
 don't wonder nobody has ever met him before ; he can't 
 seem to utter a single sentence on any topic whatsoever
 
 70 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 without putting his foot in it. How Mrs. Thornton 
 does love him! I had imagined she was a sort of 
 mother to him instead of are these her daugh- 
 ters?" 
 
 Barbara turned to see two girls dressed in pink and 
 white, the younger one a smaller edition of her older 
 sister. 
 
 " They are pretty, if their mother is a cat," Barbara 
 commented, " only I wish the styles were more con- 
 siderate of their legs." 
 
 "Of their legs?" Bess repeated. 
 
 " Yes, when a girl is ten or twelve and the lines are 
 parallel, it's unkind of Fashion to decree that the proof 
 be extended ad infinitum." 
 
 Whereupon Bess tried to appear shocked, and suc- 
 ceeded in attracting Galton's attention so that he 
 begged to be admitted to the secret, and that sent Bess 
 into another series of giggles from which she suddenly 
 emerged to exclaim : " I do declare, Conger Howe 
 was telling the truth. Look at him chatting away as 
 happy as a puppy dog with those two children, and he 
 simply made excuses to get away from us as soon as 
 we were introduced." 
 
 " Is he really shy or just a woman-hater? " Barbara 
 added. 
 
 " A little of each," Galton answered. 
 
 " Then, it is my duty to cure him," Bess asserted, 
 with a defiant glance at the two little girls who were 
 monopolizing his attention. 
 
 "Well, what shall you prescribe?" Galton asked. 
 
 " Something from our Matthew Arnold, I'm sure,"
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 71 
 
 Barbara said, " we had it the last year in school : 
 ' Sweetness and Light.' ' 
 
 " And he stole that from Swift," Galton added. 
 
 " My ! How learned these seniors are ! " Bess com- 
 mented. " But you're not going to deter me from my 
 splendid purpose." And at that she crossed boldly 
 to where Conger still talked with Jane and Nancy 
 Thornton. 
 
 Left alone with Barbara, Galton, who had been 
 waiting for just such an opportunity, said : " Do you 
 recall a talk we had two years ago on the beach at 
 Waquanesett ? " 
 
 Barbara flushed, showing that she did remember it, 
 but laughed. " We were very young then. And, be- 
 sides, all I said was that we'd better wait till you were 
 out of college." 
 
 " Well, I am out, to-day. You can't get away from 
 it, you have been my girl ever since I first caught sight 
 of you. You were only twelve then and now you're 
 twenty. Of course it needn't be an engagement. I 
 mean it needn't come out until I get to earning 
 something " 
 
 " You seem to be settling it all very nicely without 
 any help from me," Barbara interjected, looking be- 
 yond him to where Bess Grayley was trying her hand 
 at conquest. 
 
 " Please be serious, Barbara," he urged. " You will 
 admit that a fellow who has done what I have in ath- 
 letics, and also graduated with honors, has a right to 
 assume he can earn a living." 
 
 " I'm not doubting that for a minute," Barbara an-
 
 72 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 swered, smiling her sweetest, " and everyone knows 
 that you have uncommon ability. I'm very proud of 
 you. But when it comes to putting your name on me 
 like an armchair in an auction-room, because you saw 
 me first, I'm not an armchair, and I'm not for sale." 
 
 " But I never intimated that you were. I only say 
 that you and I belong to each other, and no one shall 
 ever take you from me." 
 
 " Bess ! O Bess ! " Barbara called, as though she 
 hadn't heard this speech. " Don't go by us without 
 reporting how you got on as a doctor. Did you cure 
 him, or only catch his disease? " 
 
 " He is simply unbearable," Bess declared. " When 
 I could get a word in edgewise I asked the Thornton 
 girls, as an adroit way to sidetrack them, if they knew 
 there was a nice little luncheon in the other room, and 
 he actually asked me please not to interrupt as they 
 were right in the midst of a distussion." 
 
 Galton laughed almost too heartily at this confes- 
 sion of failure. Miss Grayley little suspected that the 
 good-natured Galton was glad of company in his own 
 momentary defeat, and Barbara, as placid as a May 
 morning, took her friend's arm and led her off to see 
 just how good the luncheon was. But even as she 
 went, something in her walk or was it something 
 more subtle? caught Conger's eye, and for an in- 
 stant the little Thorntons were forgotten. 
 
 It was only a flash, but Galton saw it, and Galton 
 knew that on Barbara's part it was not mere accident. 
 She craved admiration, and in the most mysterious 
 ways she always got it.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 If Barbara could have heard the conversation over 
 in the corner she might have been surprised to learn 
 that a toss of her pretty head terminated what Conger 
 had called a discussion, and that, in its place, she her- 
 self became their topic. 
 
 "Don't you think she's perfectly adorable?" Jane 
 asked, with the superlative enthusiasm of her age and 
 sex. 
 
 " No, I certainly do not," Conger answered. " But 
 she's a very pretty girl; knows it; uses it; lives on it, 
 I dare say." 
 
 " Do you like homely people better than pretty 
 ones ? " Nancy asked. 
 
 At this he laughed. " I wish I could see more of 
 you girls. Here we are calling each other cousins, 
 and your father giving me everything I have in life, 
 and yet I see you only at rare intervals. No, Nan, you 
 and Jane are living proofs that I like some pretty girls 
 not that you are as pretty as Barbara Wrayton." 
 
 " Oh, dear, you're spoiling it now," Jane urged ; 
 " do let us hear something nice once in a while ! " 
 
 " Jane, can't you and Nan find some one to talk to ? " 
 
 There was more in the tone of their mother's voice, 
 and in the look she shot at Conger than her inter- 
 ruption itself conveyed, but her daughters knew her, 
 and without a word of protest they left in pursuit of 
 other companions. Never before had Conger uttered 
 
 73
 
 74 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 the protest in his heart against her evident hostility. 
 Now.it flared up and was out before he could consider 
 it. She had already turned to follow the girls when 
 this sentence recalled her, and facing about she was 
 confronted with such a scorching flame in the eyes of 
 the always mild young man, that her own lacked the 
 courage to face it, and looked away in terror. How 
 dared he or anyone else to glare at her ! She was the 
 one to practise that sort of thing. Why, even Major 
 Thornton never had such audacity ! What was it that 
 he had said? 
 
 " If I live, Madam, I shall repay every cent that 
 your husband has so kindly spent on me. But he had 
 a perfect right to spend it." 
 
 "What is this?" a stern voice interrupted. "Are 
 you presuming to use any such tone to Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton?" 
 
 Conger had never seen Major Thornton angry be- 
 fore ; his face was very red, and his eyes if Conger 
 could have seen, the major's eyes were very much like 
 his own. 
 
 " I am not presuming," the young man insisted, 
 " but Mrs. Thornton has just sent the girls away from 
 me as though I were some loathsome object. I owe 
 you a great deal, sir ; far more than money can repay, 
 but" 
 
 " He merely," the lady said, very bold again now 
 that she was re-enforced by her husband, " showed his 
 bad breeding. He will never be a gentleman. It only 
 proves how wise I was to prevent you from adopting 
 him. He is disgrace enough as it is."
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 75 
 
 Major Thornton bit his lip, and looked from one to 
 the other. How little they knew that this was harder 
 for him than for either of them ! Of one thing he 
 was very sure ; Conger had spoken the truth ; he had 
 spent his own money on Conger's education and sup- 
 port for the past six years, and was not answerable to 
 any one for his conduct. 
 
 But for years his wife had had her way, and this was 
 the only instance in their married life when she had 
 not arranged things to suit herself. She had indeed 
 prevented a legal adoption, but beyond that to prayers 
 and threats alike the major had proved obdurate. He 
 would educate the boy as he had set out to do. She 
 could keep him out of the house, but he wasn't to be 
 turned adrift. 
 
 Now in great distress the father only bit his lip, but 
 Mrs. Thornton knew that he was a strong man, that if 
 his will once broke through the thin wall of her own 
 pretension she would never again control him, and 
 Mrs. Thornton for once was silent. 
 
 The anger faded from Conger's expression, giving 
 place once more to the puzzled look between his eyes. 
 He loved his benefactor almost as he had loved his 
 mandarin, and he would gladly have taken a whip to 
 his benefactor's wife as he had often seen The Rat 
 treat Ya-Tzu, with the difference that Ya-Tzu never 
 deserved it. Why were things so different in this 
 country? Major Thornton was a brave man and 
 strong, yet he seemed to fear this sour-visaged woman 
 as though he were a coward. 
 
 A minute more, and Mrs. Thornton had left them.
 
 ;6 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Then the father, taking his 'boy's hand, said : " You 
 will make it so much easier for me if you can control 
 yourself. My dear boy, you do not at all understand 
 our American women ; they are not chattels " 
 
 " Chattels ? " Conger repeated. " Why, here they 
 are dowager empresses. Even you, my patron, you 
 who are brave with men, have no courage when she 
 speaks." 
 
 " I cannot let you talk like that! " Major Thornton 
 commanded. 
 
 " Then I will not say it. But it is none the less 
 true." And thereupon the major, frowning and much 
 troubled in spirit, went to find his wi-fe. 
 
 Conger was left alone. The puzzled look gave 
 place to one of genuine pain. First the two young 
 ladies, then Galton, the two little Thornton girls, and 
 now his patron all had fled from him, as from a 
 pestilence. There was, then, something in this land of 
 pretended equality that made one of unknown parent- 
 age an object of scorn. Without waiting for the de- 
 parture of their guests he quietly found his hat and 
 walked out. Hours later when darkness came he was 
 seated on the bank of the Charles River ten miles up 
 stream, carefully reviewing his resources with a view 
 to determining how most quickly he could turn them 
 to such account as to earn his living. 
 
 He had always been clever at drawing, not that it 
 had ever been called a talent, for there was no one near 
 him competent to criticise, but his note-books were 
 filled with sketches, and nothing in nature appealed to 
 him so strongly as color. Yet it was not the bold,
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 77 
 
 strong tones that delighted him ; he called them garish 
 and when his friends accused him of preferring his 
 colors muted because he was afraid of them full 
 strength, he only shook his head and did not attempt to 
 reply. Strong colors were to him like noise and pro- 
 fanity they hurt, and he avoided them. So now as 
 he pondered this question of a means of living, sum- 
 ming up his tastes and abilities, it seemed to him that 
 he must study and procure the beautiful. " I may 
 never produce, but if I procure from their sources true 
 works of art I shall find appreciative buyers here in 
 America." This was the summing up of his afternoon 
 and evening of contemplation; this was his appraisal 
 of his stock in trade; he was too modest to set a high 
 value on his own work. 
 
 Meanwhile both Barbara Wrayton and Bess Gray- 
 ley, if the truth were known, were much disappointed 
 at his failure to reappear, for each in her way had de- 
 cided to reform him, and neither was willing to admit 
 that she had utterly failed to impress him. 
 
 " I don't know why I care," Barbara said frankly 
 to her friend, " but there is something wistful about 
 those eyes that just makes you wonder whether he's 
 hungry for something, and that will not let you hate 
 him even if you would like to. Besides, I'm afraid I 
 hurt his feelings." 
 
 " Sounds to me like a crush," Bess commented. 
 
 " Don't be silly, Bess. No girl under forty would 
 get a crush on him but you can feel sorry just as 
 you do for the dog without any collar, and a lost 
 look."
 
 78 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " You mean tail between his legs, running for a 
 place to hide?" Bess asked. 
 
 " Come now, Bess, do you think he suggests any- 
 thing like that?" 
 
 " Not to me," Bess answered ; " the simile isn't mine. 
 All the same I did want another chaftce at him for his 
 own sake, of course. He needs guiding and well, 
 I think I could have shown him a few things." 
 
 Finding their mother elsewhere occupied the Thorn- 
 ton girls came back also to finish their talk with Con- 
 ger. Barbara appealed to them : " Isn't Conger 
 Howe a sort of cousin of yours? " 
 
 " He isn't really anything to us," Jane answered, 
 " I mean he isn't related to us. But he's always per- 
 fectly dear, and treats you just as if you were grown 
 up." 
 
 " And he tells the most wonderful stories about 
 China," little Nancy added. " And when you walk 
 along the street he'd just as soon let you take hold of 
 his hand. Well, you needn't laugh, Miss Grayley; 
 lots of people, unless they are old, are dreadfully em- 
 barrassed if you take hold of their hand." 
 
 " It is rather babyish," her sister remarked. 
 
 " He doesn't think so," Nancy insisted, " and I like 
 the funny way he squinnies up his eyes." 
 
 But, in spite of the fact that four such attractive girls 
 were waiting for him, Conger did not reappear, and 
 years had passed before they saw him again.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 During those years Conger had been in Paris study- 
 ing art; his patron being only too glad to yield to the 
 boy's desire. Home was far pleasanter for Major 
 Thornton when his wife had one less grievance to agi- 
 tate, and, though his duties took him away frequently, 
 it was very important for his children that quarrels 
 should be reduced to a minimum. 
 
 So he had sent Conger to Paris, and Mrs. Thornton 
 had prayed that he might never return. Yet he did 
 return looking just the same but having gained vastly 
 in general knowledge of the world. 
 
 It appeared that he had brought back the agency for 
 the remarkable paintings of Felix fitron. News of it 
 reached the press the very day of his landing. In fact 
 a mysterious cable had forewarned the press, and a 
 dozen reporters awaited the young man's arrival in 
 New York. He received them graciously, explaining 
 that if he hadn't happened to bring the collection with 
 him it would almost certainly have gone well, into 
 other hands, quite likely other lands. All of which, 
 thoroughly embellished, appeared in the next morning's 
 papers, and Felix fitron was on every one's lips. Not 
 to have heard of him was not to be up with the times. 
 A series of exhibitions was planned in various cities, 
 and the young agent found himself at once as busy as 
 he could have wished. 
 
 70
 
 8o IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Gradually it leaked out that three of this artist's pic- 
 tures had been sold in Paris at phenomenal prices, and 
 after that announcement just enough news of Felix 
 fitron was fed to the public to keep their appetite on 
 edge. Meantime, to the surprise of his friends, Con- 
 ger Howe, instead of taking advantage of such good 
 fortune, went down to Waquanesett and hired a room 
 for the summer at the Inn. In vain did Galton lecture 
 him on the true American principle of striking while 
 the iron is hot. Conger only replied: 
 
 " I think the American idea is to strike until the iron 
 gets hot. It seems to me we worship activity and for- 
 get the virtue of patience. We admire the man or 
 woman who dashes in without waiting to count the 
 cost or even to decide whether dashing in is what is 
 needed. The result is all about us; in abortive laws, 
 government interference, and thousands of rattle- 
 headed busybodies who imagine they are doing the 
 world's work." 
 
 " Have your own way," Galton yielded, " only if 
 you've managed to stumble on to a good thing over on 
 the other side, you'd better get busy or some fellow 
 will take it away from you while you are dream- 
 ing." 
 
 So it was that when Galton had his vacation in July 
 the two young men sat on the beach at Waquanesett on 
 the very spot where long ago Galton had built his 
 forts to repel invaders. To-day the same spirit, not 
 content with defensive methods, was for carrying the 
 war into the enemy's country, with the result that, as a 
 man of business, he was a great success, aggressive but
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 81 
 
 politic, with his heart in his work to such an extent 
 that his business was his life. 
 
 " Are you going to be content all your days with 
 being a purveyor of other men's work?" he asked 
 with the directness allowed between old friends. 
 " Aren't you ambitious to create something? " 
 
 " I'm afraid," Conger answered, " that I shall have 
 to be content to go on just as I've begun. When you 
 come to think of it," he added, " aren't you also a mere 
 purveyor? Others build railroads, establish factories, 
 found cities, combine giant industries, and you sell to 
 the public the intangible evidences of their enterprise. 
 Yours appeals to man's cupidity and mine " 
 
 "We are just in time to draw the proper distinc- 
 tion," a cheerful voice declared just behind them. 
 " Bess is dying to say that one appeals to their cupidity 
 and the other to their stupidity." 
 
 Both men were on their feet as Conger answered 
 Barbara's sally : " That is so near the truth as almost 
 to be indiscreet." 
 
 " Well, I knew that whatever I had to say must be 
 put in tabloid form and administered at once/' Barbara 
 retorted. " The last time I had a chance to speak to 
 you which was also the first time you disappeared 
 into thin air. And now you have come back an art 
 connoisseur, and what is more I have been in New 
 York and have seen the exhibition of Felix fitron." 
 
 " Before Conger has a chance to coach you," Galton 
 interrupted, " let's have your opinion of them." 
 
 " Too late ! " she flung back. " \Ve went with an 
 artist, a regular velveteen jacket, flowing hair and
 
 82 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 flowing tie Frenchman of the Latin Quarter and mid- 
 night suppers and things. Only Monsieur Beauchamp 
 wore evening clothes and was bald but he had the 
 air and the wicked fascination. He knew all about 
 Felix fitron from the cradle to the grave." 
 
 " To the grave? " Conger repeated in alarm. 
 
 " No, not really to the grave but he told us that 
 Felix fitron was such a worker and such a harsh critic 
 of his own work that for the first twenty years of his 
 life as a painter he destroyed every canvas as soon as 
 it was finished. For a quarter of a century that incom- 
 parable genius starved in a garret. * Then one day/ to 
 quote Monsieur Beauchamp's own words, ' he burst 
 forth upon the gaze of the art loving world with a 
 single picture. It was called ' The Cousins of Al- 
 phonse.' ' 
 
 " What a thrilling title ! " Galton exclaimed. 
 
 " Perhaps it was for Alphonse," Bess Grayley 
 answered, " And what was it like? A portrait of two 
 spinsters ? " 
 
 "Mr. Howe can tell us," Barbara replied; "doubt- 
 less he saw it in Paris." 
 
 An instant Conger Howe hesitated, and the puzzled 
 look was in his eyes. Then he .spoke with a warmth 
 that deepened the color in his cheeks : " I remember 
 it vividly, but it isn't easy to describe. It seems like 
 a rainy afternoon and two children coming along the 
 seashore hand in hand." 
 
 "Isn't it something like an Israels?" Galton asked. 
 
 " Not the least bit," Barbara made haste to say. 
 " Felix fitron has an atmosphere, a certain or very un-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 83 
 
 certain something that makes you catch your breath 
 and wonder whether you are seeing what is on the can- 
 vas or what your imagination pictures." 
 
 By this time the four were seated on the sand. The 
 tide was out, and in huge -patches of grey and helio- 
 trope and green the sand flats lay bare, save where in 
 depressions the shallow water gleamed a pure sap- 
 phire. On the still air came the creak of Captain 
 Thoph's ox-cart on its daily journey to the weirs, and 
 the knock of its heavy wheels in their boxes. 
 
 " And Monsieur Beauchamp said it sold for a fabu- 
 lous price," Barbara continued. " Some one, it seems, 
 asked through the press who in all Paris owned a 
 Felix fitron, and every one was asking every one else 
 what it meant, when one solitary picture, ' The Cousins 
 of Alphonse/ was offered at auction. It brought 
 how much, Mr. Howe? I don't want to overstate it." 
 
 " Ten thousand francs," Conger answered, " and 
 it has since been sold for twice that sum. The price 
 was only large for the work of an unknown painter." 
 
 " But think of the man's passion for greatness, for 
 perfection if you will," Galton said, " that was willing 
 to starve until it accomplished its object." 
 
 " Tell us, Mr. Howe," Bess Grayley insisted, " what 
 he is like now that he has achieved. 'Has it spoiled 
 him, and is he satisfied? " 
 
 " My impression of him is that he doesn't yet feel 
 that he has accomplished it," Conger answered. 
 
 " Isn't he frightfully old sort of like Titian in his 
 last days? " 
 
 "It may seem strange to you, but somehow you
 
 84 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 don't think anything about his age when you are with 
 him. Of course you can see at a glance that he isn't 
 so young as he used to be, but I forgot how old 
 he was in my desire to get the sale of his pictures." 
 
 " Your interest in him, after all, Mr. Howe, was 
 chiefly mer cantile, wasn't it?" Barbara modified 
 the sting in this remark by the charming smile with 
 which she uttered it. Only Bess Grayley suspected 
 that it was the beginning of an effort to subdue this 
 strange specimen, and bring him into line with her 
 many admirers. If such was her intention Conger 
 Howe did not so far gratify her as to betray any an- 
 noyance. 
 
 " I shouldn't like to admit," he said, " that my inter- 
 est in art was chiefly for the money I get out of it, but 
 that counts with me, I grant you that. I am at present 
 self-supporting. That means to me more than you 
 can possibly imagine." 
 
 " Monsieur Beauchamp," Barbara rejoined, " knows 
 him intimately, knew him when he was painting and 
 destroying, before he had, as Monsieur Beauchamp 
 puts it, scaled the heights. And he says it is the soul 
 of Felix fitron that grips you in his pictures. I tried 
 to say something about Claude Monet ' Bah ! ' he 
 shouted, ' Monet reveals himself behind a thin veil of 
 whitewash. Do you know the breeze, the motion, the 
 life and the coloring that is Sorolla? Do you know, 
 also, Manet, so unlike either? In Felix fitron you 
 have these three combined, and what, I ask you as a 
 fair observer, what have you in the sculpture of 
 Rodin ? ' And when I hesitated for words, and finally
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 85 
 
 said I couldn't describe it, he went into ecstasies and 
 explained : 
 
 " ' No, you cannot describe it. That too is in Felix 
 fitron. But I tell you, young lady, it is genius, it is 
 mind and soul, and hand co-ordinating.' ' 
 
 " Critics have said that his hand is not nearly so 
 clever as his heart," Conger confessed, " that his draw- 
 ing is exceedingly faulty. I am glad to hear what your 
 Monsieur Beauchamp says because I do not wish to 
 see his work belittled and the price with it. Wealth, 
 after all, is desirable because it is a means to power." 
 
 "Are you particularly desirous of power?" Bar- 
 bara asked. 
 
 " It is the one great object of human existence," he 
 answered. 
 
 Barbara pondered this a moment; then she said: 
 "Yes, I never thought of it in just that way before; 
 but I think you are right. Wealth, beauty, strength, 
 intellect, cunning, or charm we value all of them in 
 proportion as they bring us power." 
 
 As they walked back over the winding road that led 
 up to the village Bess Grayley and Galton were a 
 little in advance of the other two. 
 
 " It strikes me/' Bess said, " that a man must be 
 queerly constituted who is content to be a dealer all his 
 life in other people's art." 
 
 " Conger isn't like other people," Galton answered. 
 " With him this is merely the means to a coveted end."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The day had been hot, there was no denying it ; the 
 thermometer outside the store bore shocking testimony 
 to it, and the little group gathered on the platform to 
 wait for the mail discussed it broadly and narrowly, 
 pro and con, by and large. In fact, so thoroughly did 
 they discuss it that the subject was quite exhausted be- 
 fore the mail carrier arrived, and he was only an hour 
 late. 
 
 " It seems to be the unanimous opinion," Galton re- 
 marked to the doctor, " that this is a hot day." 
 
 " Moreover," Dr. Boon added, " it seems always to 
 surprise, to astound, my good fellow townsmen that we 
 should encounter warm weather in summer." And 
 the fat little old gentleman mopped his bald head with 
 a very large handkerchief. The doctor's smooth- 
 shaven, florid face was even redder than usual, and his 
 fringe of white hair was damp, but, unlike the sea 
 lawyers whose dolorous lamentations filled the air and 
 added to its heat, the doctor had been working. 
 
 " Seen you agoin' down our rud last night, Doctor," 
 one of them said; " Cy Small's woman, I s'pose. 
 'Bout time, I should think. Been expectin' for more'n 
 three weeks." 
 
 The speaker was a long, lean individual with bottle 
 shoulders and an alarming way of protruding through 
 
 86
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 87 
 
 his clothes at the extremities. An unweeded beard 
 flourished in rank profusion on his face and neck, and 
 his whole appearance was such as nature had provided 
 without the intervention of art or the petty exactions 
 of fashion. 
 
 " Enoch," the doctor said, with an indulgent smile, 
 " as the good Lord's agent I was taking to the Smalls 
 an unmitigated blessing, their thirteenth child. This 
 one was a twelve-pound son who for eight mortal hours 
 contested his mother's right to live. But in the end 
 she won, and now both are doing nicely." 
 
 "What supports that family?" Galton asked. 
 " Ever since I can remember, Cy has belonged to that 
 group that Cap'n Thoph describes as ' lookin' for 
 work not so's they can find it but so's they can 
 avoid it.' " 
 
 " The most prominent thing in Cy Small's house," 
 the doctor answered, " is a framed motto, done in 
 worsted on cardboard, that hangs over the fireplace: 
 ' The Lord Will Provide.' I've always wanted to 
 write ' What? ' after it, but the Smalls look upon that 
 motto as something sacred. Of course you know 
 who's keeping them and the rest of the derelicts going, 
 this summer." 
 
 "Who is it?" Galton asked. 
 
 " I thought you knew. It's your friend, Conger 
 Howe. Wrote a note to the Se-lectmen saying that 
 people that were hungry appealed particularly to him, 
 and please say nothing about it, but look after some of 
 them, and enclosing five hundred dollars." 
 
 " Good Lord ! He can't afford to do it. I happen
 
 88 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 to know," Galton exclaimed; "but what's the use? 
 You couldn't hold Conger if he had the notion in his 
 head. So, you see your text really justifies itself, after 
 all." 
 
 " Good ! " Dr. Doon cried ; " then the proper ending 
 of it in reply to my ' what? ' is : ' Heathen to pay the 
 bills/ " 
 
 " So you know that also, doctor?" 
 
 " He took particular pains to explain it to the 
 board," the doctor said, looking over his shoulder as 
 he climbed into his gig. 
 
 In the late afternoon of that same day, just as the 
 birds came out from mysterious hiding to people the 
 trees again with family life and songs and antiphonal 
 twitterings; and just as the many roadside flowers 
 decided not to die but to hold out their cups once more 
 for another draught of the refreshing dew ; just before 
 the sun dipped towards his cool evening plunge in the 
 bay over by the Plymouth shore, Barbara Wrayton's 
 runabout shot out from quiet Waquanesett and romped 
 joyously eastward over the smooth, hard road towards 
 Provincetown. Barbara herself was at the wheel, and 
 beside her Conger Howe, and because the road was 
 good, though narrow, and because the car was power- 
 ful and swift, and because life was good, and youth 
 loves excitement and danger they went altogether 
 too fast. By the church and the schoolhouse, by the 
 inn and the scattering farms strung out for miles along 
 the state highway, they raced, regardless of the sign- 
 boards that warned of " School Children " and " Cross- 
 roads " and " Dangerous Curves." At each of these,
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 89 
 
 Barbara's horn lifted up its brazen voice in timely and 
 uncompromising warning; and the warning was 
 heeded, and the car flew on. 
 
 At length they turned off into a pleasant cross-road 
 where was a broad view of the mighty Atlantic, an 
 unobstructed view to the east as far as Portugal ex- 
 cept for the curve of the earth's surface. And here 
 they stopped and Barbara sitting back at her ease said : 
 " I told you I had a special reason for inviting you. I 
 want your advice. Why I come to you is a mystery 
 even to myself; but something impels me to trust you 
 with a secret. I feel that you will advise me honestly." 
 
 " Very well," said her guest, " I will try to be as 
 honest and intelligent as I can." 
 
 " Do you think," she began, " that a woman should 
 be content to fritter away her time in society and 
 just the little nothings of home life? Don't you think 
 it gets on their nerves after a while? " 
 
 Conger laughed : " I've seen proof of that." 
 
 " Well," she went on, " I have made up my mind to 
 create something." 
 
 " Out of what? " he asked. " I take it you don't 
 mean the something out of nothing sort. That can 
 only be done in theology, I believe." 
 
 " You speak as though you thought I lacked every 
 sort of material." 
 
 " Material isn't everything," he retorted. " Ability 
 to transform the material into something else is nec- 
 essary also." He paused, not even noticing the flush 
 that spread over her lovely features. Lovely she was ; 
 he had thought, even as he spoke, that he had never
 
 90 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 seen a lovelier woman. But she was used to a certain 
 deference that her beauty won her. This man alone 
 seemed to treat her exactly as he would have treated 
 another man. When a girl asks for frankness she 
 means well, she doesn't mean brutal frankness. 
 
 " And couldn't you credit me with material and 
 ability to use it? " she inquired. 
 
 " That would be a very broad negation," he said. 
 " In what field do you wish to create ? Not fancy 
 work, I take it." 
 
 " You are evidently trying to be disagreeable," she 
 flung back. 
 
 " No, truly I am not. I may have been too frank, 
 but I cannot seem to imagine you as a composer, for 
 example. You play very prettily, but " 
 
 " It isn't music," she corrected, hoping to help him 
 towards her secret. " I have been writing short 
 stories, and I haven't told any one about it, but 
 somehow I thought you would understand." 
 
 " Have you submitted any to publishers ? " he 
 inquired. 
 
 " No, but I have two ready to submit. The best is 
 called ' The Frozen Flame.' ' 
 
 " I see," he said; " she didn't care for him." 
 
 " Who told you that ? " she asked, in na'ive surprise. 
 
 "Who told me?" he repeated. "Your title. 
 What is the story about? " 
 
 " Why, you've rather taken the heart out of it ; it's 
 about a perfectly beautiful girl, and a man who was a 
 sort of Otho Gushing god physically, and with a soul 
 to back it up."
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 91 
 
 " Then, why didn't she love him ? " he asked. 
 
 "How could you justify your title if she had? 
 Don't you see? I just had to make her indifferent to 
 him." 
 
 " I'm not convinced," Conger said, prepared to 
 argue the question. 
 
 " That's just why I brought it," Barbara exclaimed, 
 and triumphantly drew forth the manuscript. For 
 ten minutes while he read it Barbara pretended to gaze 
 at the ocean, indifferent to " The Frozen Flame " and 
 to Conger's opinion. But his " Hm ! " as he handed 
 it back lacked the glowing enthusiasm for which she 
 had been fully prepared. However, having put her 
 hand to the literary plow she would not look back. 
 
 " I want your candid opinion," she said and mois- 
 tened her lips. Some horrid premonition made them 
 dry. 
 
 " There isn't one idea in it," he replied, " that you 
 haven't cribbed from some one else. No! No! I 
 don't think you meant to, but that's what we are 
 mostly; when we try to originate we simply work our 
 memory and fancy it's invention. You will never do 
 anything at story-writing." 
 
 A mile off shore, beyond the sand-bars, a tug was 
 steaming north to round the cape with her long tow of 
 coal barges strung out far behind her. Some fisher- 
 men with white sails set were beating out to get well 
 off shore before sunset. Down on the horizon a long 
 smudge of smoke told where the Savannah boat was 
 laying her course for the far south. And on the long 
 beach the heavy waves came breaking in dull thunder,
 
 92 
 
 then rushed back with their perilous undertow. How 
 different even on a fair day this outside ocean from the 
 peaceful bay so near it ! 
 
 Barbara had not spoken since Conger had so frankly 
 stated his opinion. The engine, mysteriously con- 
 sulted, had decided it was time to go home. The big 
 car backed and turned, and was silently racing back to 
 Waquanesett, but its driver spoke not a word. Once 
 more the scattered farms, cows on their way home 
 confidently daring to share the narrow road with this 
 speeding monster, the signs warning to slow down to 
 eight miles. Outraged beauty at the wheel did not 
 even sound her warning horn. She bit her lip till it 
 bled, but the indicator before her never fell below 
 forty, and the pace at that seemed slow to her. 
 
 " I brought it on myself," she thought, " why did I 
 give him the chance?" 
 
 To him she said just as they reached home : 
 
 " I might have known that a person whose ambition 
 was satisfied by selling other people's work wouldn't 
 care for originality in others." 
 
 " Quite likely you're right," he said so placidly that 
 it only made her anger hotter. 
 
 But it had never occurred to Conger Howe, brought 
 up by Ya-Tzu, honoring the truth above all else, to 
 cheat Barbara into believing herself gifted when he 
 was sure that she was not. Nevertheless, Conger 
 knew that he was in disfavor if not disgrace, and the 
 ways of women seemed to him past the power of man 
 to fathom.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 93 
 
 Galton called on her in the evening and found her 
 quiet and moody. Why was this Conger Howe dif- 
 ferent from all other men ? Did he see any difference 
 in looks, for instance, between her and some old Portu- 
 guese berry-picker? And if he was so stupid, why 
 did she care? "Do I care what he thinks?" she 
 asked herself. " Why, I must admit I do. I care to 
 make him treat me as though he knew that I wasn't 
 seventy-five anyway." 
 
 Here was Galton to console her pride. He could 
 be depended upon ; he criticised very frankly, said aw- 
 ful things to her but never things to make her feel 
 small and silly. She would confide her secret to Gal- 
 ton. The rest of the family sat out on the piazza, to 
 enjoy the cool of the evening, so they had the living- 
 room to themselves. He insisted that she read it 
 aloud, and when she had finished he seized both her 
 hands in his. " Barbara," he said, " it's wonderful; I 
 can hardly believe it's all you. Why, this is genius! 
 I've never heard anything more original or more thor- 
 oughly true to life. And your description of the news- 
 boy's death absolutely your own, and so beautifully 
 done that I couldn't keep the tears back." 
 
 " It isn't like Dickens's death of the crossing 
 sweeper, is it, Galton?" 
 
 " Why, I've forgotten that, but I don't believe 
 Dickens ever wrote anything so good, so thoroughly 
 true to life. You see Dickens exaggerated, but this 
 why, you have a career before you." 
 
 But after Galton had gone, when she sat before her
 
 94 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 mirror braiding her hair, she stopped short, looking 
 into her own eyes. " I wonder," she thought, " is 
 that stolen from Dickens ? And is it possible that that 
 odious Conger Howe is partly right? "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " No one objects to a man's taking what exercise 
 he wishes," Barbara said to Bess Grayley, as the two 
 stood one day looking down the road at the rapidly 
 retreating back of Conger Howe, " but why on earth 
 should a gentleman, when others of his class are play- 
 ing golf or tennis, prefer to come out on the public 
 road, bareheaded and barefooted, and trot for miles 
 like a lost dog ! " 
 
 " And why the blue overalls? " Bess added. " I'll 
 tell you, Barbara. The man is wrong in his head. 
 It's something to do with his early life in China 
 sunstroke probably." 
 
 " No, Bess, it has to do with his boyhood in China, 
 but the worst of it is he is outrageously sane. He does 
 it because he has formed the habit and is unwilling to 
 give it up. I wonder if he knows what a perfect guy 
 he is." 
 
 " Have you seen him in his gardening costume?" 
 Bess asked. " Well," as Barbara shook her head, " he 
 must have got his model for that from the garden of 
 Eden." 
 
 " You surely don't mean " Barbara gasped. 
 
 " Almost. As true as I live he strips to the waist. 
 Looks like an Indian. It's simply outrageous. I 
 watch him by the hour from my back window." 
 
 95
 
 96 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " You do ! " Barbara exclaimed, and Bess, seeing 
 that she had told more than she meant to tell, made 
 haste to shift her ground. 
 
 " I suppose you know about his studio down at the 
 shore in the Myrick's old barn. Studio? It's a mere 
 bluff, his work." 
 
 " I suppose it is," Barbara assented, " but then, he 
 can never become an artist without trying." 
 
 " Here comes his friend," Bess said; " do you know 
 Cap'n Thoph's daughter?" 
 
 Her head was down as though she studied the road, 
 and it was almost hidden under a blue and white ging- 
 ham sunbonnet, the strings of which hung untied, 
 revealing a dark face of uncommon beauty and stray 
 wisps of jet black hair. Her dress, which was very 
 short, was of the same material as her bonnet. Her 
 feet were bare, and in her hand she carried a tin pail 
 filled to the top with red currants. As she passed the 
 two young ladies her eyes came up to meet theirs, then 
 finding no welcome scowled and watched the road 
 again. 
 
 " Long and lean and dark and sinewy, like a 
 panther," Barbara whispered. " She must be eight- 
 een. She's pretty. Why haven't I ever seen her ? " 
 
 " Don't you remember half a dozen years ago the 
 child that got carried out in the sailboat ? " 
 
 " Oh, you mean playing in it and the tide came in 
 and carried her off shore? Wasn't Galton brave and 
 modest about that ! How he swam out and rescued her 
 and said it was nothing ! Is this that child ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's the one, and you know her next ship-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 97 
 
 wreck was more serious." Then to Barbara's ques- 
 tioning look she explained : " Had a baby a year ago. 
 Dr. Doon thought she was going to die, and told her 
 so, but her lips were sealed. Not a word as to the 
 father; obstinate as a mule." 
 
 " Good for her ! " Barbara said, whereupon Bess, 
 who had been prepared to call the girl a stiff-necked 
 viper, swung over sufficiently to allow : 
 
 " There are worse sinners than Relief Snow." 
 
 Barbara watched the girl, so silently, so easily, glid- 
 ing over the road, and when she had disappeared: 
 " And the baby ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, it was good enough to die. They said Cap'n 
 Thoph was in a state of mind, how to reconcile that 
 baby with his position as deacon in the Baptist 
 Church." 
 
 " Relief Snow," Barbara repeated, " and what did 
 you call her? Conger Howe's friend?" 
 
 " Now, my dear," Miss Grayley laughed derisively, 
 " don't pretend that you haven't heard ! " 
 
 " Conger Howe hasn't been in Waquanesett for 
 years till this summer. It couldn't have been " 
 
 " This friendship," Bess interrupted, " has to do 
 with the present. It began this summer. She goes 
 down to Myrick's barn every blessed day. Model, 
 you see. That's where the artist comes in. He's just 
 enough of an artist to call his girl friends models. 
 Well, Relief Snow is just as near being a model as he 
 is to an artist. There's that to be said in her favor." 
 
 They walked on in silence while Barbara turned this 
 bit of gossip over in her mind. They had come to the
 
 98 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 little common in front of the Wraytons' house famil- 
 iarly called from its shape " The Egg." 
 
 At the gate Barbara spoke : 
 
 " Why are you so hard on this girl ? I don't like 
 Conger Howe any more than you do, but " 
 
 Bess Grayley caught her up here: 
 
 "Hard on her! Self-satisfied cat, with her quiet, 
 purring voice and her black hair and creepy ways! 
 Did you notice her legs? Do you think she just hap- 
 pens to wear short skirts? Not much! He's told 
 her they're shapely so she flaunts them in the faces of 
 decent people." 
 
 " That's silly, Bess. If she happens to have pretty 
 legs it needn't make you jealous of a poor little coun- 
 try girl." 
 
 Without so much as a nod or a look Miss Grayley 
 swallowed her medicine and went her own way, but 
 her face was scarlet and a dangerous glint like steel 
 shone in her eyes. Miss Grayley's temper was pecu- 
 liarly sensitive to the shafts of ridicule. She knew 
 that she was pretty, and was unconsciously in the 
 habit of assuming that her own measurements were 
 the standards of symmetry. Therefore, when the two 
 friends met again later in the day she was prepared 
 to argue the point. 
 
 " It may strike you as petty," she began half apolo- 
 getically, " but it is more serious than you think I 
 mean your slur about slender legs." 
 
 " I didn't make any such distinction, Bess. I 
 merely stated that, when it comes to shape, Relief 
 Snow needn't fear comparisons."
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 99 
 
 " Oh ! I thought you made a mean remark about 
 me." 
 
 The subject of this discussion left her currants at the 
 side door of the inn; then took the short cut across 
 the fields to the shore, by Bassett's Pond, deep, dark, 
 nestling in the hollow of a moraine; over the long, 
 sharp beach grass growing rank in the white sand; 
 crushing with her bare, brown feet the soft green moss 
 under the pine trees ; then out on the high bluff at the 
 very edge of the beach. Here was Myrick's barn, 
 a tumble-down old building, no two of its sides parallel, 
 and with a roof that boastfully displayed here and 
 there a few hand-made shingles to prove that My- 
 rick's barn, had once been an object of pride to its 
 owner. 
 
 The big doors facing the sea were wide open. An 
 easel fronted the light, and before it a man was work- 
 ing in frantic haste to transfer to the canvas those 
 wonderful lights and shades, those soft blendings of 
 color, before yonder clouds should come across the 
 sun, and all the glory and the subtlety should fade 
 and disappear. 
 
 He wore a white shirt and white trousers badly 
 stained, and his feet were bare and brown as the 
 girl's. 
 
 Without glancing up from his work, he greeted her 
 with : " Hello ! Just in time, Rill ; take the same 
 pose right there on the bank where you were yes- 
 terday." And, as she got to her place : " That's good ! 
 Now, without turning your head, look right at me. 
 Perfect!"
 
 ioo IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Motionless as the bank itself, yet graceful as the 
 butterfly that perches on the petal of a flower, she 
 stood, half facing him. No wonder the artist in him 
 cried " Perfect." But did the man in him see what 
 lay behind those dark eyes with which she obeyed his 
 bidding? She was looking directly into his face; and 
 all of the worship, the devotion, the self-effacing love 
 with which the dog gazes into the eyes of his master, 
 shone in her eyes, spoke through them, implored him 
 to listen to their appeal. 
 
 Twenty minutes later the light had changed; the 
 delicate tints had been replaced by the gorgeous glory 
 of the sunset, and Conger Howe no longer hurried to 
 catch the fugitive tones and imitate them with his 
 brush. 
 
 " You pose well," he said ; " why does every one 
 call you 'Rill'?" 
 
 " Short for Relief," she said, and uninvited took a 
 seat beside him on the old bench that once for genera- 
 tions was a pew in the old Methodist Meeting-house. 
 
 "Say, why do you like to paint me?" she asked, 
 hoping to draw the answer that would repay her far 
 better than the dollar an hour which his princely lib- 
 erality allowed her. 
 
 " You have the kind of a look that I want to fit this 
 picture. You go well with the sea and the shore and 
 the gulls " did Conger see the girl's look of disap- 
 pointment? If he did he might well have been grati- 
 fied at the change which flashed into her face when he 
 added " and me."
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 101 
 
 "Do I go well with you?" She must hear him 
 say it over again. 
 
 " I think we get on very well indeed," he answered. 
 " You're always prompt, never kick if I keep you over 
 time. And, as for me, I never beat you " 
 
 " Sometimes I wish you would," she whispered. 
 
 " Now, why did you say a thing like that ? " he de- 
 manded. " You know very well you don't mean any- 
 thing of the sort." 
 
 At that the girl got up without answering him, and 
 busied herself putting things to rights. The canvases 
 had to be stood carefully against the wall and covered 
 with a rubber blanket, for the roof had proved itself 
 a mere name, and a traitor in bad weather. When all 
 was arranged to her satisfaction she said, " Good-by, 
 Mr. Kangeroo," which was her pleasantry for his 
 name, and back she went over the soft moss, through 
 the cutting beach grass, across the rolling fields, by 
 Bassett's Pond, and so down a wood-road that ended 
 abruptly in her father's yard. 
 
 Cap'n Thoph was near the back door, splitting wood 
 for his wife's stove. " You can't get supper and make 
 tea out o' nothin'," Mrs. Snow had called out the door, 
 and Cap'n Thoph called back, " I 'low that's good 
 reasoning Mercy," and took the hint. 
 
 Relief was the youngest of four children. " Gene," 
 the oldest, was a great help to his father. His full 
 name was Genesis, because he came first. Mrs. Snow 
 thought all names should come from the Bible. On 
 naming her second son she skipped from, Genesis to
 
 102 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Leviticus because Levi sounded so aristocratic. But 
 when Mary M. was born that was Relief's older 
 sister Mrs. Snow erred slightly in judgment, for at 
 the christening, when the Reverend Driggs commanded 
 that she name this child, Mrs. Snow, recently risen 
 from a bed of pain, announced: " Mary Magdalen." 
 Somebody in the congregation snickered and the Rev- 
 erend Driggs whispered something to Mrs. Snow, 
 whereupon the child was christened Mary M., and 
 Mary M. she was called even by those gossips who 
 were mean enough to say that Mercy Snow had " bet- 
 ter 'a' saved that name for her last one." 
 
 "Where you been?" Cap'n Snow demanded, 
 sternly, fixing his daughter with a look of righteous 
 scorn. 
 
 " Earning money," Relief answered, kicking away 
 some chips that lay in her path. 
 
 "Do you call that earning money?" the old man 
 shouted. 
 
 "Yes, I do!" she flung back. "And he says it's 
 just as high-toned a way to earn money as as as 
 there is." 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you somethin'," her father said, lay- 
 ing aside his axe and coming over to where she stood : 
 " If you disgrace Mother an' me again, I'll turn ye 
 out o' house an' home. Understand that?" 
 
 Relief didn't answer him, and when she went into 
 the kitchen her mother only said: 
 
 " Get on yer apron, Rill, and warm up them beans. 
 Father's hungry and wants fillin' up."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Conger Howe, left alone, stood in the wide door- 
 way and looked out over the restful scene that spread 
 north and east and west before him. The bay had 
 nearly emptied its tide; long white rows of gulls sat 
 on the sand-bars already out of water, and waited. 
 Half a dozen huge heron flew over them, flapping their 
 heavy wings as they squawked a challenge to the flock 
 below them. With a great flutter the graceful gulls 
 rose and circled in a cloud, then settled down again 
 satisfied with their demonstration of superior grace 
 and numbers. And Conger Howe, whose eyes fol- 
 lowed these scavengers of the flats, had gone back in 
 his thoughts to the varied bird life of China the 
 quail and pheasant and grouse and partridge, the end- 
 less variety of smaller birds. Once more he saw him- 
 self, a little half-naked urchin, scolding back at a mag- 
 pie in the Rat's garden. He saw the neighbors who 
 daily carried their catbirds out for an airing, either in 
 cages or tied by a string about the legs. And he re- 
 called the shock when he learned that the object was 
 not kindness to the bird, but that the sight of its free 
 fellows might encourage the poor, deluded captive for 
 several days to sing. 
 
 " Nothing is here so green," he thought, " as the 
 young blades of rice in the paddies. Here is no sub- 
 stitute for the wonderful bamboo which at six months 
 
 103
 
 104 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 gives us a strong light pole for every sort of use 
 gives us us ? I had almost forgotten again I am 
 not Chinese; I am an American citizen. One gains, 
 oh yes, so much, so very much ! But it is not all gain ; 
 one also gives up some things. How I should love 
 just now to paint one of those circular threshing floors 
 along the banks of the Yangtze-Kiang, and the stone 
 rice mill slowly turned by the patient, plodding buffalo, 
 treading his eternal circle! Poor buffalo! I think I 
 should leave him out of the picture, because of that 
 eternal circle and his blindfolded eyes. There's no 
 such cruelty in this land. And I'd paint the fishermen 
 in their coats of thatch, squatting to watch their nets 
 spread in a wide, graceful V on the long bamboo poles, 
 and raised or lowered by that ingenious pulley. Yes, 
 I'd choose one who squatted by the river's edge where 
 the bank rose steep and high behind him " 
 
 " Good afternoon ! " said a cheerful voice that in- 
 terrupted this soliloquy. " I just thought I'd see for 
 myself this mysterious workshop and its artistic tenant. 
 May I come in ? " 
 
 Miss Grayley had dressed with more than usual 
 care, if a white cloth suit, a big pink hat and pink 
 sunshade to match her pink stockings might be held as 
 witnesses. Such was Conger's impression, followed 
 at once by the thought that the right shade of blue 
 would have been far more becoming to her than pink. 
 
 " You may come in if you wish," he said, " but there 
 is really nothing at all to see. I haven't fixed up this 
 old barn much beyond arranging for light and a place 
 to sit. It's reasonably clean ."
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 105 
 
 " But I came to see what you are doing. I want to 
 see some of your work." 
 
 " Oh ! " he said a little embarrassed. " You are, 
 then, curious ? " 
 
 She found a seat on what was once the Myrick's 
 grain box, stood her parasol beside her, folded her 
 hands comfortably in her lap, stuck out her pretty 
 white shoes and a certain amount of the pink stockings 
 before she answered: 
 
 "It isn't exactly curiosity; it's interest rather; in- 
 terest in the business you have chosen. I like your 
 spirit, trying to make yourself an artist, too. You see 
 it's interest, after all, in you." 
 
 " That's very good of you," he replied, still standing 
 in the doorway where she had found him. 
 
 " Well ? " she continued. " Aren't you going to 
 meet me half way? " 
 
 "Where is half way?" he asked. "You wanted 
 to see my work? Well, this is it: studying the charm 
 of sea and sky, letting it soak into the very fibre of me. 
 It need not be uttered ; it may never be expressed just 
 as it is, but if I absorb it, it will some day reappear 
 transmuted, unrecognizable perhaps. But that is the 
 value of the beautiful to those who study it. You 
 have seen me at my work. I recommend it to you 
 also." 
 
 " Well, I like that ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " So? " he answered, and when she saw that irony 
 or discourtesy was far from his thought, she did not 
 press the point. Perhaps it was safer not to press it. 
 
 " But I know you try your hand at painting. You
 
 106 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 must have made some pictures of that Snow girl who 
 comes down here so often," 
 
 "So often?" he repeated, and it seemed to Miss 
 Grayley that a shadow came across his face, a mena- 
 cing frown that the girl was quick to heed. 
 
 " I thought probably she would appeal to you as 
 artistic. Just what is temperament, Mr. Howe? 
 Mother always says I've been full of it since I was a 
 babe in arms. If it's the ability to love what is lov- 
 able, to let oneself go, as it were, I suppose I'm about 
 as intense as a human being can be and live. Is that 
 temperament? " 
 
 " Probably it is one variety of it," he answered. 
 " Sorry not to be a better host, but really I must lock 
 this place up, or I shall be late for supper." 
 
 " Then you're not going to show me your pictures 
 after my taking the trouble to come way down here ? " 
 
 " Pictures ? Would you call my attempts pic- 
 tures?" he countered. "If you would, then it is 
 obviously wise in me to keep them hidden, lest you 
 change your mind about them." 
 
 Miss Grayley was disappointed, baffled, but by no 
 means discouraged. This man needed time to learn a 
 woman's ways, but he could be taught. 
 
 Together they left the shore to the gulls and coming 
 twilight and solitude. A thin column of smoke rose 
 from the Graggs' kitchen chimney. 
 
 " Mrs. Gragg is getting supper," Conger said, "just 
 as she did when Galton was a little boy, long years 
 before Captain Gragg made his money. Don't you 
 like the sweet naturalness of such a woman? "
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 107 
 
 " I adore it," Miss Grayley said, determined to leave 
 a good impression on this extraordinary man. " And 
 I adore Mrs. Gragg. I'm not sure that I might not go 
 further and adore Galton if he weren't already 
 tagged." 
 
 'Tagged? You mean that some one, has reserved 
 him, as it were. But he is not engaged." 
 
 " No, but any fool can see that she just enjoys keep- 
 ing him dangling." 
 
 " Strange," he murmured, as though to himself, " I 
 had not thought so. I had classed him as the pursuer." 
 
 ' Yes, I'm not surprised. You would." And with 
 that she left him at the door of the cottage her father 
 hired for the summer, and Conger Howe, turning the 
 corner just beyond, came out on to the State highway 
 and the Waquanesett Inn which stood well back from 
 the road on a high knoll. The doctor's gig was at the 
 side door; the fleabitten gray horse that had acquired 
 a reputation in the county as a dodger of motor cars 
 was hitched to the post under the big silver poplar 
 where, with swishing tail, he kept up a perpetual fight 
 against flies. Dr. Doon was wont to say : " All my 
 nerves are in my horse," and those who had seen the 
 fleabitten gray shy, or lash out with his front feet, 
 when a horse-fly lit on his nose, had also seen the doc- 
 tor sitting calmly in his gig as though it had been a 
 rocking-chair in his study, and could believe the state- 
 ment. 
 
 The dining-room was full; supper was being dis- 
 posed of with the usual businesslike haste. Dr. Doon 
 was at Conger's table in the seat next to his, a bit of
 
 io8 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 good luck, for the doctor was keen on botany and 
 birds and a number of things outside his profession. 
 
 " Hoped I wasn't going to miss you," he said, as 
 Conger took his place beside him. Before he could 
 say more the waitress had to learn his decision as to 
 " Apple pie, bluemonge or currants." That question 
 settled in favor of pie, and the good man having made 
 a mental note that young Howe was the only one in 
 the room who hadn't asked him who was sick, he was 
 now free to pursue the real object of his visit. 
 
 " That must be quite a good place for your line of 
 work, down there 't the shore." 
 
 " It suits me very well," the young man said. " I 
 like broad, unobstructed views physical or moral 
 alike." 
 
 " Hadn't thought of the similarity before," the doc- 
 tor confessed, " but don't know but what you're right." 
 
 " It's the idea of the infinite," Conger went on, 
 " space, more space, until you can seem to project 
 yourself into the eternal. That is the great inspiration 
 as it seems to me." 
 
 " Hm ! " thought the doctor. " This isn't much like 
 the conversation I came here to have with this man." 
 
 He tried again, this time directly to the point. 
 " You see a good deal of Cap'n Thoph's daughter, Rill, 
 don't you?" 
 
 " I'm having her every day just now. Yes, she's 
 just right for what I'm doing. You see the girl doesn't 
 seem to suspect that she is lovely and graceful. 
 Natural as some wild animal. Every attitude is 
 charming and she seems to enjoy the work/'
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 109 
 
 " You know about her, I s'pose," the doctor said. 
 
 " Yes, I know about her. There's been a sad chap- 
 ter, and we must try to make her forget it." 
 
 " The se-lectmen " Dr. Doon got as far as that, 
 and stopped. He couldn't bring himself to say to that 
 sensitive, earnest, thoughtful face beside him that the 
 selectmen had deputed him as chairman of the board 
 of health and member of the school committee to warn 
 the young man of the error of his ways. The girl's 
 father had requested that such action be taken, and 
 one of the summer visitors had written an anonymous 
 letter on the scandal of Myrick's barn, the basis of 
 each complaint being Relief's unhallowed baby and 
 the added sin of her refusal to gratify curiosity as to 
 its parentage. 
 
 But now that the good doctor was well launched 
 upon his topic, doubt seized and held him. Why press 
 the point with this serious and courteous young man, 
 to suspect whom of taking advantage of Relief Snow 
 would be alike stupid and unpardonable! And if he 
 were guilty of no such offence what had he done for 
 which he should be called to account? So he hung 
 suspended on " The select-men " until he had thought 
 it out. Then he continued : " make mistakes, the 
 same as other officials higher up. But they're honest 
 mistakes, so you and I and and Relief Snow 
 will overlook them." 
 
 " That's a part of the story that hasn't come to me," 
 Conger answered, then added, fearing the doctor 
 might think him curious to hear it, " but that's of no 
 consequence. I am really quite careful that she doesn't
 
 no IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 pose too long at a time. Do you find her health im- 
 paired or anything? " 
 
 " God bless my soul ! " Dr. Doon exclaimed, taking 
 off his spectacles to wipe them on his big handker- 
 chief, " nothing of the sort. Why, it's the best 
 thing that could happen to the girl to learn what 
 you are teaching her." 
 
 " Ah ! " the young man sighed ; " I can teach her but 
 one lesson, that taught me by my Chinese amah many 
 years ago : ' He needs no sword whose shield is 
 Honesty.' " 
 
 " Good Lord ! And we send missionaries out there 
 to teach those people our theology ! " After uttering 
 which sentiment Dr. Doon looked at the young man 
 in silence for a full minute. Then he added : " What 
 am I doing here ? " 
 
 " Haven't you a patient here? " Conger asked. 
 
 "Patient? No! No! And look at that horse of 
 mine." The fleabitten gray was pawing up as much 
 of the driveway as he could possibly reach, and stood 
 on end for joy when his master unhitched him and 
 gathered up the reins. Any one else would have 
 thought the fleabitten gray was running away as he 
 whirled the gig out of the driveway, but the doctor 
 turned and waved a good-by to the young man standing 
 under the poplar tree and wondering why the doctor 
 had forsaken little Mrs. Doon to eat a lonely supper 
 at the Inn.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Waiting for the mail is more or less of a social event 
 in the country. That alone saves it from becoming a 
 test of patience. 
 
 Conger Howe was expecting a letter from New 
 York. One of that great city's millionaires had set 
 his heart upon owning the picture that critics had called 
 the choicest in the little collection by Felix tron. To 
 a telegram from the dealer asking lowest price, Conger 
 had replied naming five thousand dollars, and if the 
 truth must be told, he had berated himself ever since 
 for a fool to have set a price that would simply drive 
 away the prospective buyer in disgust. Then he would 
 reason it out : " How am I to know what limit to set 
 for the pictures except by experimenting till I find 
 the top ? The minimum is easy enough most paint- 
 ers get it but how to discover the m.aximum ? " 
 And each time it seemed plain that he had chosen the 
 only way. So no wonder he was anxious to get his 
 mail. There were not many in the whole collection, 
 and his living depended on their sale. 
 
 Barbara Wrayton was waiting too, and Galton 
 Gragg, who didn't expect anything for himself, was 
 very keen and prophetic about Barbara's letter. She 
 hadn't favored Conger with anything more than a nod 
 
 since their ride and his frank discouragement of her 
 
 in
 
 ii2 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 literary efforts. But Galton, never lacking in confi- 
 dence, was talking to her about her story, and insisted 
 on dragging Conger into the conversation. 
 
 " Miss Wrayton," he said, " has sent her best story 
 to one of the big magazines, and is expecting their an- 
 swer now any day. I tell her not to let them have it 
 at a low figure just because she is an unknown writer. 
 Of course they'll try to get it for nothing, but I say 
 they'll soon be after all she can turn out, and it doesn't 
 pay to cheapen your work." 
 
 Miss Wrayton looked a little embarrassed. Galton 
 didn't know that his friend had given his opinion of 
 her story. If he had known the facts he would doubt- 
 less have gone to Conger Howe and called him a 
 bounder, a rotter and a few more choice epithets, after 
 which Conger would have stated his case so simply and 
 honestly that Galton would have felt ashamed, but 
 would have stuck to his own opinion nevertheless. 
 
 " Here it is ! " she cried, when the mail was finally 
 sorted, gleefully holding up a thick envelope. " I 
 can hardly wait to read it. I do hope they've been ab- 
 solutely frank and told me all my faults. It will help 
 me in the next one, which is going to be far better." 
 
 She insisted that Mr. Howe should come back home 
 with her. Galton was coming and she would read 
 the letter aloud. Possibly she might even enjoy seeing 
 Conger Howe eat humble pie when he should hear the 
 encomiums of professional critics. 
 
 The lamps were lighted, and the three gathered about 
 the library table while the enraptured author tore open 
 her first real business letter.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 113 
 
 "Miss Barbara Wrayton. 
 
 " DEAR Miss WRAYTON : We have read your story, 
 ' The Frozen Flame,' with much interest. It has un- 
 doubted merit " Here the reader looked across the 
 table at Conger to see if he thoroughly understood that. 
 Then resuming: "But just at present we have no 
 demand for exactly that sort of story, so we are very 
 reluctantly returning it herewith. With sincere thanks 
 for the opportunity to read it, We are very sincerely, 
 etc., etc." 
 
 For a moment no one spoke. Conger's face was 
 very red because, though he couldn't explain it, he felt 
 very sorry for her, sorry that she had read it before 
 him after what had happened between them. Gal ton 
 was the first to break the awkward silence : 
 
 ' You can see what their opinion of it is. That's 
 plain as the nose on your face. They're enthusiastic, 
 all right. But probably the demand is running on 
 some silly trash. Of course they have to publish, not 
 what they want, but what the public appreciates." 
 
 " I shall send it right back to another house," Bar- 
 bara responded. " They don't all want the same style 
 of stories, you see. But, oh dear ! the delay is exasper- 
 ating. I did so want to see it in print, this summer." 
 
 Conger tried twice to say something that wouldn't 
 sound like condolence. Finally he took refuge in 
 generalities : " Success, I often think, especially suc- 
 cess in creative work, is very largely fortuitous." 
 
 " Why don't you say it's a matter of luck if that's 
 what you think?" Galton asked savagely. And Bar-
 
 ii4 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 bara, glad of any diversion, added : " I was trying to 
 figure out what ' fortuitous ' meant. I thought it was 
 the adjective for fortitude." But the tension was re- 
 lieved, and Barbara was quite herself again when 
 Conger left, only the gleam of exultation had given 
 place to a more becoming humility. 
 
 That very night her manuscript was mailed to an- 
 other of the leading monthlies. Better not to waste a 
 day. You couldn't break into the coterie of short- 
 story writers in a minute. " Art is long," Barbara's 
 thoughts ran. " But with ability and speed you can 
 cover the distance." And she smiled as her imagina- 
 tion sketched her portrait in the newspapers. " Miss 
 Barbara Wrayton, author of ' The Frozen Flame.' ' 
 She was at work on another, far more startling and 
 original. In this a girl singularly beautiful, of a 
 character to match that of any supernal saint, had the 
 misfortune to be brought up by a cruel stepmother 
 whose soul was black as her alpaca gown. Naturally 
 enough, the poor child ran away from home and landed 
 in the superb Italian garden on the estate of a daz- 
 zlingly wealthy duke. It was in England where dukes 
 and Italian gardens are not uncommon. After that, 
 life was different. The duke's son, his only son and 
 heir, fell in love with Gwendolyn that was her name 
 and in the last paragraph they were married, much 
 to the chagrin of the black soul and alpaca dress and 
 accompanying stepmother. This story was entitled: 
 " The Outcast," and had cost its author many a sympa- 
 thetic tear and sleepless night. " The Outcast " was 
 sent to a third publisher. With two irons in the fire it
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 115 
 
 was only a question which should come to white heat 
 first. It must not be inferred that this story was 
 trash. It was, on the contrary, well written, and if 
 its author had already made a name for herself would 
 doubtless have been dramatized for the screen, there 
 are only a few plots in all fiction, the thousands of 
 stories extant being but clever variations on the old 
 themes. 
 
 In spite of Conger Howe's lack of appreciation of 
 her ability as a writer, Barbara constantly found her- 
 self thinking of him, wondering why he seemed so in- 
 different, hoping some day to hear his confession that 
 he had been quite wrong. He seemed a lonely man, 
 working for hours in the garden back of the inn, taking 
 his long excursions on foot, or painting down at My- 
 rick's barn ; he was so much alone. Evenings he read 
 in his bedroom. No one could induce him to attend 
 the card parties at which all the young people met two 
 or three times each week. Bess Grayley, called into 
 consultation, declared that she was very glad he didn't 
 come, as she hated the sight of him. " Why? " Bar- 
 bara asked. Barbara had had from childhood a tire- 
 some habit of demanding a reason for everything. 
 
 " Why? " Bess repeated irritably. " Because he 
 well, if you want to know, he doesn't act like a gentle- 
 man. That model business and a little way you may 
 have noticed of being too friendly the minute you're 
 left alone with him." 
 
 ' You must have made a deep impression, Bess. 
 He has never been friendly with me. Anything but 
 that!"
 
 ii6 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " Then I'm not going to say anything more about it." 
 Such was Bess Grayley's statement, but she was much 
 disappointed when Barbara dropped the subject there, 
 and refused to be led into further questioning. 
 
 Galton was too busy a man to spend much of his 
 summer in Waquanesett. After his vacation in June 
 he got down only for Sundays. His object in such 
 regular short visits was ostensibly to see his father 
 and mother, but they knew that nine-tenths of his real 
 motive was to see Barbara Wrayton. Why couldn't 
 the girl surrender now as well as later? Why wear 
 out their splendid son by years of anxiety when she 
 was certain to yield some day? These questions Cap- 
 tain Gragg and his wife asked each other almost daily, 
 and the only answer was that Barbara had, with all 
 her charm, some of the characteristics of the flirt. 
 
 One Sunday she and Galton strolled down to the 
 shore together. Barbara tried to talk of other people 
 and things, but Galton would not have it. 
 
 " I've got to get one or two personal questions set- 
 tled first," he declared. 
 
 " Oh, all right," she acquiesced, " if there are two, 
 I don't mind. What I object to is your sticking to 
 one. It gets so monotonous." 
 
 " You're so cold! " he flung back; " you've put me 
 off so by that tone I should feel like a fool to tell you 
 that I love you." 
 
 " Then, why do you ? Why don't you let me won- 
 der for at least a week whether you do or don't? " 
 
 " I want to ask you just one question," and the look
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 117 
 
 on Galton's brow was that of the masterful man who 
 gets his own way in the end. " Do you realize that I 
 have given up every other girl for you; that I might 
 marry brilliantly from a social point of view and that 
 I've turned it all down for you? And don't you see 
 that you are in honor bound ? " 
 
 " Once more your favorite metaphor," she inter- 
 rupted. " You've staked a claim, and I'm the claim. 
 The oftener you talk like that, the surer I am that I 
 shall never marry you. Now be nice and sensible. 
 I want to talk about Conger Howe. Why is he such 
 a woman-hater? " 
 
 No better proof of her influence over Galton could 
 be asked than his immediate compliance with her mood. 
 He dropped argument and recrimination and fell to 
 discussing Conger. 
 
 " My mother understands him. He drops in every 
 little while, and she can make him talk about himself. 
 She thinks it's his early life, no childhood, no notion 
 of play or friends. Did you know that his only chum 
 as a little boy was a donkey? And he called him 
 ' Brother.' ' Hereupon Galton laughed aloud at the 
 thought of it. " Two little donkeys! Brothers! " 
 
 " Don't laugh, please. It's no laughing matter," 
 Barbara insisted. "Hungry for love; that's what it 
 meant. Poor little motherless, friendless chap! So 
 he isn't the cold, self-centered being Bess calls him." 
 
 " Cold ? Conger Howe is so intense that he can take 
 up but one topic at a time. His mind and heart and 
 soul simply focus on subject or object until it is his.
 
 One thing at a time. He develops slowly. But he 
 would die in a minute for one he loves. I think he 
 would for me." 
 
 " I wonder if he has ever cared for any girl of his 
 own age. I wonder if if he could be made to," she 
 replied. Galton would have pursued it further, for 
 he didn't wholly relish this interest of Barbara's, but 
 as he was about to speak a flutter of white caught his 
 eye, far off on the bluff where Myrick's 'barn stood 
 out against the sky. A woman came out and stood a 
 minute sharply outlined, but too far away to be recog- 
 nizable to the two down by the water's edge in front 
 of the jagged line of bath houses. A man followed 
 and stood beside the woman. Then she turned away, 
 and they could still see the flutter of white. She was 
 coming towards them; she would cross through the 
 pine grove and so out to the beach within a quarter of a 
 mile of them. 
 
 " That isn't Relief Snow," Galton said, when he 
 saw that she too was watching the approaching figure. 
 " Strange if this should answer your question. If so 
 it's the first woman who ever made an impression on 
 him." 
 
 " Don't look round ! " Barbara urged a little later. 
 " Pretend we are watching that log floating off there. 
 It's Bess; I just caught sight of her, and she will see 
 us in a fninute." 
 
 They kept their eyes resolutely before them, but at 
 the end of ten minutes Miss Grayley had not joined 
 them. For some reason she had seen fit to avoid them. 
 
 Something, hardly definite enough to call a suspi-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 119 
 
 cion, restrained Barbara, when the two girls met later 
 in the day, from frankly questioning her friend about 
 the visit to Myrick's barn. Instead she asked her: 
 "Do you ever run across Conger Howe?" 
 
 " Why do you ask ? " Bess said, sparring for time. 
 
 " Curiosity." 
 
 " Well, then, I haven't laid eyes on the creature for 
 a week, and what's more, I don't want to." 
 
 " Which makes me more curious than ever," Bar- 
 bara responded in such an unwonted tone that Bess 
 Grayley looked at her narrowly. Evidently her de- 
 cision was that they couldn't have seen her, for she 
 said no more. But that, trifling as it was, was the first 
 rift in their intimacy. Barbara insensibly kept her 
 confidences thenceforth more and more to herself, and, 
 in trusting her friend less, gradually drew away from 
 her. 
 
 Then, one September afternoon, came her turn to 
 study Conger^Howe at close range. She was strolling 
 across the fields that rolled in little hills and valleys, a 
 miniature mountain scenery, and suddenly in a shel- 
 tered hollow was Conger Howe sitting on the ground. 
 Curled up beside him was a big yellow dog of no breed 
 at all, a dog whose ancestry, polymorphous and poly- 
 chromatic as it was, extended back just as far as that 
 of your prize-winning thoroughbred. His owner, a 
 Portuguese, who lived back in the woods, had been 
 warned time and again to dispose of him as a public 
 menace. The town was afraid of the yellow dog; 
 man, woman and child gave him a wide berth and a 
 bad name. And, whether this were cause or effect, it
 
 120 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 cannot be denied that the yellow dog was hostile to 
 every one he met. 
 
 Yet, here he lay, curled up in the sun, and his head 
 was on Conger Howe's knee, and Conger Howe's hand 
 stroked his rough ears. Close behind them grazed a 
 worn-out old horse whose weather-beaten coat had 
 known neither comb nor brush for many months. He 
 was so lame that when he stood still he lifted one hind 
 foot clear of the ground, and his despondent air con- 
 vinced you that he had heard how his owner had 
 turned him loose to save the cost of a cartridge. 
 Something had drawn the lame horse to join the man 
 and the dog. He had limped painfully over to be near 
 them, and he found the sparse grass sweeter where 
 they were. 
 
 Barbara, climbing to the brow of a low grassy hill, 
 came upon them suddenly; there they were, a hun- 
 dred feet away, and the man hadn't seen her. But the 
 yellow dog was on his feet instantly, growling like the 
 savage he was, and showing his dangerous long 
 teeth. 
 
 Conger caught him by the tail and dragged him 
 back. " Down, beast ! " he commanded, and Barbara 
 wondered how any one could utter the word " beast " 
 so that it seemed a caress. The yellow dog under- 
 stood it too, and turned to lick the hand that held him, 
 and the girl went straight down into the hollow to 
 join the other three, wondering at herself as she 
 went. It w r ould have been so easy to keep on with 
 just a pleasant word flung from the top of the 
 hill.
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 121 
 
 " How did you make friends with these two out- 
 casts? " she asked. 
 
 "Make friends?" he repeated. "You do not un- 
 derstand. We have so much in common and I love 
 them." 
 
 " Just like a little boy," she thought, and then it 
 was all so genuine, so natural to this man, she forgot 
 that they were not both children, and sat down unin- 
 vited, while the big yellow dog still eyed her suspi- 
 ciously, and Conger Howe put his arm about the dog's 
 neck to make sure that he behaved like a properly edu- 
 cated person, and kept his dislikes muffled. 
 
 " You mean you really prefer dogs and horses and 
 gulls and things to your own kind? " Barbara asked. 
 
 " They are so much simpler," he said; " it's an open 
 book. The waving grass all brown and yellow and 
 red where it has ripened and gone to seed, if it de- 
 lights you, there it is. Examine, and you find it real 
 grass; the rest is the sunlight and the breeze. The 
 horse and the dog are genuine also, and you may look 
 through their eyes directly into their hearts. No pre- 
 tence, no deception. Perhaps you say not enough re- 
 serve. They are not self-conscious, that is all." 
 
 Presently they fell to talking of other things, and 
 that was through Barbara's influence; she wanted to 
 talk of herself, in spite of former defeat. 
 
 " Did you know," she asked, " that I am on the very 
 brink of having a story published? " 
 
 "What sort of brink? Not the brink of despair, 
 evidently. But I think of a brink as the edge of a 
 steep place down which one may plunge."
 
 122 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " Well, my word wasn't a very good one, but you 
 know what I meant, the ragged edge." 
 
 " Ah," he rejoined, without the smallest intention 
 of being unkind, " that must be the Gehenna of most 
 prospective authors, that same ragged edge." 
 
 " About a fortnight ago I saw you standing on the 
 brink in front of Myrick's barn. It was Sunday aft- 
 ernoon, and you were not alone. That, too, was a 
 ragged edge, wasn't it? Do you recall the time I 
 mean? " 
 
 " I cannot understand why you ask I had thought 
 none knew or was to know " he broke off here, 
 looking at her with the puzzled look between his eyes. 
 And Barbara, with womanly quickness, perceiving 
 that her question had uncovered more than she had 
 suspected, was at a loss how to go on. She was very 
 curious to know what it was that he had thought was 
 to be kept secret between him and Bess Grayley. But 
 she had no wish to cause him to betray Bess's secret 
 if such he held, nor was she willing to take advantage 
 of his possible credulity in assuming that she and her 
 friend kept nothing from each other. 
 
 " Perhaps you advised her to take the step she did ? 
 She had talked it over with you before before that 
 Sunday afternoon? " 
 
 " I didn't say that." 
 
 " But you rather inferred it. Well, then, if you 
 only knew of it afterward, what was your criticism? 
 Did you endorse that sort of thing? I am really curi- 
 ous to know how you would look upon it whether 
 it is the sort of thing that well, that is done."
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 123 
 
 She sat very still looking at him. Clearly this was 
 something that he ought not to tell her, would not, if 
 he understood that she knew nothing whatsoever about 
 it. She didn't like to say this in so many words, be- 
 cause at the time it seemed to her that it would sound 
 heroic, an exhibition of virtue. But she was resolved 
 to prevent him from telling it. It was he who spoke : 
 
 " I see; you are afraid to speak for fear of betray- 
 ing her confidence. Quite likely you are right, and 
 yet there is much that has puzzled me about the inter- 
 view. I do not really know what what could have 
 been her motive. But possibly you know, and you 
 approve ? " 
 
 " I cannot even tell you that," Barbara answered. 
 Then she continued, glad to beat a retreat before she 
 got in any deeper, " I have thought a great deal about 
 what you said one day; that what we are striving for 
 is power. I find it absolutely true. It answers every 
 question. It is my one reason for writing. And if 
 I ever marry it will be for the same reason wealth 
 and position mean power." Conger Howe showed 
 little interest in her marriage prospects, and less in her 
 forthcoming story. In fact, he was much more inter- 
 ested in the yellow dog than in the talented and ambi- 
 tious young lady. She was tempted to say something 
 of the sort, but a decent pride prevented her. 
 
 Gathering her belongings she scrambled up over the 
 slippery grass to the rim of the hollow, and looking 
 back she saw that Conger Howe was carefully picking 
 a burr from the dog's shaggy ear.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 When Bess Grayley, at her first meeting with Con- 
 ger Howe, announced to her companions that she felt 
 herself called to cure him of his indifference to fem- 
 inine charms, she little thought how seriously she 
 would come to view her task. 
 
 She had no particular idea at first except that com- 
 mon to her sex : that the man who fails to take notice 
 should be taught the error of his way. But the more 
 she saw of Conger Howe the more she was attracted 
 to him, and in that growing attraction she developed a 
 cunning and a capacity for deceit beyond what had 
 hitherto .seemed possible to her. She lay in wait for 
 him as he left the inn early in the morning to cross the 
 fields to the shore. From her back window it was 
 easy to keep an eye on his coming and going. She 
 encountered him at the Post Office daily, and the oft- 
 ener she met him the more vehemently she declared to 
 Barbara Wrayton that she detested him. Little by 
 little, giving herself up to the pursuit, it became a pas- 
 sion, until she could think of nothing else. He was 
 the only man in the world for her. She read reams 
 of poetry by Ella Wheeler Wilcox and other special- 
 ists in passionate verse. She lay awake imagining 
 perilous situations from which her woman's cleverness 
 saved him, or his courage rescued her, only to reveal 
 to him in a flash that he had loved her madly from the 
 
 124
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 125 
 
 first. She could cry herself to sleep over some of these 
 thrilling scenes, but they always ended in mutual adora- 
 tion and matrimony. 
 
 On that Sunday afternoon when Galton and Bar- 
 bara had seen her leaving Myrick's barn, she had fol- 
 lowed Conger to the shore for the specific purpose of 
 arousing his sympathy. That her physical charms un- 
 aided were potent enough to win him, she had begun 
 to doubt, but she reasoned that their failure to over- 
 whelm him was only because his eyes had never been 
 opened. His heart however was tender, his sympa- 
 thies easily enlisted, and then ! It was to that de- 
 lightful uncertainty that she looked forward with 
 confidence. 
 
 Myrick's barn had other advantages than its remote 
 location, or its command of the broad bay, or even the 
 picturesque quality which age and decay sometimes 
 bestow as a slight compensation for the loss of fresh- 
 ness and strength. It was a surprise each year when 
 the winter storms blew over it and through it, twisting 
 it more and more out of shape, that it still held" to- 
 gether. But each spring welcomed its blackened sides 
 and just vanishing roof with smiles and sunshine and, 
 though it had outlived every soul in Waquanesett who 
 had known its infancy, it still bade fair to welcome 
 many another generation. Bess Grayley, that Sunday 
 afternoon, was not thinking of these things, but of the 
 advantage the old building offered for reconnoitring. 
 If he were not alone, she might see for herself how he 
 treated other people, particularly Relief Snow. And 
 if he were alone, what would he be doing? It wasn't
 
 126 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 likely that he did much painting; he was too bright to 
 imagine that he could ever become an artist. Prob- 
 ably he would be reading, or lying on his back smoking 
 a pipe and dreaming of what he hoped to do or to be. 
 In either case prudence dictated a strategic approach, 
 so she went very softly along the east side where pry- 
 ing and inquisitive strollers on the beach, if any were 
 there, could not see her. 
 
 From the bright light seen through the wide cracks 
 it was evident the big doors were open towards the sea, 
 so he was somewhere inside, though not a sound be- 
 trayed him. She chose a knothole for her survey; 
 its advantages were obvious. And there, very near 
 her, stood Conger. He was alone, and he was working 
 fast at a canvas that seemed to be almost finished. 
 To Bess Grayley's untrained eye it was a lovely pic- 
 ture. There was Myrick's barn, and the sand cliff on 
 which it stood, and a girl was going down the path 
 with a big stone jug, going down to the old spring 
 that had been brackish for fifty years. " Poor thing ! " 
 thought Miss Grayley. " She's wasting her time go- 
 ing to that spring." When she could reason it out 
 calmly afterwards Miss Grayley realized that the light 
 in a barn is dim for seeing pictures; that her peep 
 through a knothole was distinctly favorable to the par- 
 ticular picture ; and that it took her by surprise to find 
 Conger painting anything which she could admire. 
 
 Stepping softly to the door she presented herself as 
 though amazed to find the barn tenanted. This was 
 conveyed, not in words, but in a due amount of fem- 
 inine flutter which left her speechless and shy.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 127 
 
 " Oh ! " he exclaimed, hurriedly, removing his pic- 
 ture and turning its face to the wall, " it's Miss 
 Grayley." 
 
 " Now, what a speech that is ! " she said, trying to 
 be just a trifle hurt. " Couldn't you add, ' How de- 
 lightful ' or something? " 
 
 " But I was at work touching up an old thing that 
 might be taken " 
 
 " Might be taken for Myrick's barn," she caught 
 him up, " if one could judge in the flash you allowed 
 me." Then recalling his words, she added: 
 
 " So it's not really a new picture. You were just 
 touching up an old one? " 
 
 " That was the idea," he assented. But a light was 
 dawning on Miss Grayley. She had caught him 
 touching up an old picture, changing the foreground 
 to make it pass for Myrick's barn. Could it be that 
 he would actually practise such deception even to the 
 extent of selling such a picture as his own? " But I 
 never heard of his selling one of his pictures," she con- 
 cluded. Still she was keenly conscious that she had 
 discovered something of which he was not at all proud. 
 
 The silence was becoming awkward when she said, 
 with complete change of manner as though the inci- 
 dent of the picture had been forgotten, " May I sit 
 down? I'm wretchedly unhappy, Mr. Howe. I don't 
 know why I should do such a thing, but if you don't 
 mind may I give you my confidence ? It seems as 
 though I simply must tell some one " 
 
 He had offered her a beer keg with an old coat 
 thrown over it, for a chair, and from this she looked
 
 128 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 up at him still standing, and he saw tears in her eyes. 
 "You have told Miss Wrayton?" he asked, and she 
 shook her head. 
 
 " No ; you wouldn't understand, but girls are so 
 unsympathetic, so cattish, towards each other. You 
 know Barbara self-centred. She can't help it. 
 I'm not blaming her. But no fair-weather friend for 
 me when I'm in trouble ! " 
 
 Up to this time, it must be confessed, Conger Howe 
 had been much more troubled at the thought that some- 
 one had caught him touching up that picture than at 
 the girl's distress. Suddenly, however, he found him- 
 self so sorry for her that his own annoyance vanished, 
 and he squatted on the floor in true Chinese fashion, 
 which must be far more comfortable than it looks, and 
 that attitude of repose had at least the merit that it 
 seemed to give her permission to stay. 
 
 "If telling me will help you," Conger said, " I will 
 hear it willingly." 
 
 " You must hear it. I am not understood at home. 
 You may not know it, but one's family seldom under- 
 stands or appreciates or sympathizes." 
 
 " For me," he agreed, wishing even now to keep to 
 generalities, " I do not know for there is no family." 
 
 " Oh ! I remember," and stealthily her hand sought 
 his. True emotion may often be more eloquently ex- 
 pressed by the hand, but he failed to see it, and one 
 golden opportunity was lost. 
 
 This failure of his to respond and to let the conver- 
 sation become personal forced her to take a fresh 
 start. " In coming to you I mean, in taking advan-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 129 
 
 tage of this accidental meeting I feel, I don't know 
 why I do, that I can trust your judgment as well as 
 your honor and sympathy." 
 
 This called for no reply, and he made none, so she 
 went on. " I must leave home. My position there is 
 unendurable. Oh! I know you will say that an only 
 child can surely live with her parents and all that 
 but it isn't so. It is quarrel, wrangle, criticism, injus- 
 tice from morning till night. I have got to end it. 
 I'm not perfect. I don't say that I am; but I am the 
 most sensitive person in the world. You know what 
 that means because you, too, are sensitive. People 
 say things, they may not mean them, but they hurt. 
 And they are always saying and doing things that hurt 
 me. They seem to think that I have no right to be " 
 
 Tears were falling from those sad blue eyes; her 
 face was buried in her hands, and her bowed head was 
 really beautiful, surrounded by its light aureole of 
 golden hair, shimmering, soft, vitally appealing. He 
 stretched out his hand and touched it. She did not 
 move; it seemed to comfort her. He smoothed the 
 lovely hair as though it had been the head of the yel- 
 low dog, and, like the yellow dog, she was very still 
 lest the stroking should cease. Her tears had vanished, 
 a pink glow suffused her neck and ears, and showed 
 between the ringers that still hid her face. And the 
 woman who had won so far with her most primitive 
 weapons was silent because she dared not reckon the 
 effect of a different strategy. Was not this perfect 
 while it lasted? One must make haste slowly. It 
 was a long while before the stroking ended, so long
 
 130 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 that her knees were beginning to resent the sharp pres- 
 sure of her elbows. But, Miss Grayley wisely guessed 
 that this was the first experience of the kind that had 
 ever befallen Conger Howe. A much wider range of 
 similar happenings gave her wisdom, and she waited 
 for him. When she saw that he was likely to rise and 
 break the spell, she straightened up and looking from 
 him out through the great doors, far across the bay, 
 continued in a voice so low it was scarce audible : 
 " My worst offence is that I am passionately, hope- 
 lessly devoted to a man who who " wasn't he 
 coming to her rescue? She gave him abundant time. 
 Finally he asked : " You mean he doesn't that is, 
 it isn't mutual? " 
 
 She nodded, and kept her face resolutely from him. 
 
 " Poor girl ! I'm very sorry." He had risen and 
 was standing beside her now. He even patted the 
 golden head, and repeated: "Very sorry." 
 
 She stood and faced him, so near that he might easily 
 have closed his two arms about her. She raised her 
 face to his, and it would have been but a trifle, a bend- 
 ing forward of the head, to kiss those lips so near his 
 own. 
 
 " It is selfish of me to burden you with my sorrow." 
 How natural that he should disclaim any burden; tell 
 her it was only a delight to help and comfort her ! He 
 seemed not even to hear her, so she grew more confi- 
 dential : 
 
 " If I only knew how to treat him I mean whether 
 I ought to let him know. He's such a strange man, 
 so " Surely a sentence left hanging thus in mid-air
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 131 
 
 would appeal to his gallantry. At least he would ask 
 her to finish it. There was something uncanny in the 
 way he responded. It left her wondering whether the 
 man actually suspected, or was so utterly ingenuous 
 that thought of himself in such a role would never 
 cross his mind. " Far better not, I'm sure. Even in 
 this country where women rule, the idea would shock 
 such a man as you would be likely to care for." 
 
 " You will never tell promise me you will never 
 tell ! " she cried. " Oh, I am afraid I've done a very 
 silly thing, but I just couldn't help it. And you 
 will not be angry with me, will you ? " 
 
 " I will never tell and I am not the least angry. I 
 am sorry for you. I wish there was something that 
 I could do." He hesitated; then added: "And I 
 wish that you in turn would say nothing about my re- 
 touching that picture. It might give a false im- 
 pression." She had forgotten the picture. Though 
 he resolutely refused to take advantage of the present 
 opportunity, they were now bound to each other by 
 mutual vows of secrecy. She raised her right hand 
 as though he had sworn her, and repeated his words, 
 " I will never tell." 
 
 They came out upon the bluff, and stood there a 
 minute. Then she said : " Good-by, dear friend. 
 May I come again for comfort? " 
 
 " Yes," he answered warmly. " Come whenever I 
 can help you ! " 
 
 The woman made her way along the cliff where a 
 sandy path dipped down out of sight from Myrick's 
 barn, and then out on the level of the beach.
 
 132 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Here it was that she had suddenly spied Galton and 
 Barbara who, fortunately, she decided, were so occu- 
 pied with each other that they didn't look in her direc- 
 tion. 
 
 "And if that isn't Barbara to the letter!" Bess 
 Grayley said to herself, " refuses to marry Galton, 
 I haven't any doubt he's asked her a hundred times 
 but keeps him devoted and tries her best to hook 
 Conger Howe also ! " 
 
 The man back there at Myrick's did not replace the 
 picture. He sat on the ground and braided three long 
 blades of beach grass, but his mind was not on his 
 work. The sun went down red, and was swallowed in 
 a hazy mist, blue-grey, shooting out long bands of 
 purple and orange to north and south. A bat circled 
 round and darted at something just above the man's 
 head. A chill of autumn was in the air. The heavy 
 doors were swung to, and fastened with a padlock, and 
 in the dusk a man was going slowly towards the village.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Mrs. Gragg was alone in her kitchen. It was her 
 day for baking, and the stove was contrary. That 
 meant that the wind had gone into the no'theast. 
 Coax it as you would, that stove wouldn't draw with 
 the wind in the no'theast, and Mrs. Gragg was afraid 
 that her bread and two loaves of cake and two pies 
 would be ruined. And here was Galton coming down 
 for the first time in two weeks! Galton always said 
 nothing that he could get in Boston compared with 
 her cooking. That was one of the joys of doing her 
 own work when the captain begged her to give it up 
 and hire help. 
 
 Some one rapped on the back door. " Come in," 
 she called and, like her husband at the wheel during a 
 storm, never stirred from her post. Her helm was 
 the poker, and with its judicious use she was guiding 
 the good old stove by a sort of dead reckoning known 
 to all great cooks. 
 
 Conger Howe, stepping in out of the wind, found 
 her on her knees before the grate. " It's Conger," he 
 said taking a comfortable seat in the big rocker by 
 the window. " Glad to see you," she flung back over 
 her shoulder, and then for some minutes neither spoke. 
 You cannot speak and navigate a cranky stove in a 
 gale without endangering her cargo. And Conger 
 Howe, to whom housework had been the lightest por- 
 
 i33
 
 134 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 tion of childhood, understanding the danger, the strug- 
 gle for supremacy, the necessity for coolness and vigi- 
 lance, sat and rocked. 
 
 When the present danger was past, and the stove 
 was drawing properly, Mrs. Gragg rose from her knees 
 and sat where she could keep an eye on her guest, the 
 other on her compass, which in this case was the front 
 of the grate. 
 
 " I am going to-morrow," Conger said, and she 
 nodded, evidently expecting it. " I sail from New 
 York, but I want to be sure that those who need me 
 shall be cared for between now and next summer when 
 I return." 
 
 " I'll see to it as I promised," the good woman an- 
 swered, smiling at the young man so unlike her own, 
 yet so dear to her. " But you ought not to do it. 
 You'll be in debt, and then Mrs. Thornton " 
 
 " Yes, my dear Mrs. Gragg, I know. She would 
 say ' I have told you so.' And my dear kind major 
 would feel very badly and would pay my bills. But I 
 have counted the cost and " Here he drew from his 
 pocket a letter which he gave her to read. The mil- 
 lionaire who wanted to own a Felix fitron had been 
 willing to pay the price, and his check had been en- 
 closed. " Ten per cent, you see? " and he counted out 
 and passed her five hundred dollars. 
 
 " I am afraid it is only pauperizing a worthless lot," 
 the little woman temporized, wishing that Conger 
 would be less lavish and more reasonable, if he must 
 give away his money as fast as he earned it. 
 
 " But, my dear Mrs. Gragg," he insisted, " one can-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 135 
 
 not at least pauperize a nameless dog. I want his 
 license paid again in case I shouldn't get back in time. 
 I want to know that he has enough to eat and a warm 
 place to sleep. Cy Small will see to all that if he 
 knows that his own portion is conditional upon it." 
 
 " Why don't you give the poor brute a name if you 
 take such pains to look out for it ? " 
 
 " You wouldn't understand," he explained, and 
 when she repeated the conversation to Galton she 
 said : " I understood so well I wanted to take the 
 dear, tender-hearted, nameless boy in my arms and 
 hug him." 
 
 When the town's poor were surely provided with 
 fuel for the winter, and he felt safe about the yellow 
 dog, something still remained to be done, something 
 concerning which he felt shy even with the motherly 
 Mrs. Gragg. 
 
 " I have yet one more request this must not be 
 known to come from me it is difficult for me to ex- 
 plain. I shall not try to explain, for you, you whom 
 I love as I love no other woman, you will understand. 
 I wish that some allowance it need be but little 
 be made for Relief Snow. Life has given her so 
 little, .so very little for one to whom Nature was so 
 kind." 
 
 Mrs. Gragg started to speak, to ask him if he under- 
 stood how delicate a question this giving of money. 
 Then she checked herself. This was Conger Howe. 
 This was the man who was concerned about the hum- 
 blest, the least attractive people in the backwoods, and 
 an outcast yellow dog.
 
 136 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " I will manage some way to get it to her, and if 
 she suspects who gave it why, that can do no harm." 
 
 Galton, arriving an hour later, was delighted to find 
 his friend had been persuaded to stay to supper, and 
 the three passed a cosy evening in intimate talk of plans 
 and hopes. Mrs. Gragg was radiantly happy. " My 
 two boys ! " she exclaimed when they had done com- 
 paring notes. " You are as different as " and when 
 she could think of no comparison to suit her, Galton 
 suggested : " brothers." " Well, anyway," she per- 
 sisted, " I love you almost as though you were 
 brothers." 
 
 " I am very proud," Conger said quietly, " and I 
 can believe you are sincere, dear lady, because of that 
 ' almost.' ' Galton, who knew him so well, winked 
 at his mother and began to tell her about the ride down. 
 Once before, when she had spoken so, Conger had told 
 him how his heart had struggled to come up and thank 
 her. 
 
 " So you're going back to Paris," he continued, when 
 Conger had had time to recover. " I begin to see a 
 light on that crazy notion you once propounded: that 
 you were going to be a professional amateur. It 
 sounded like spending your life enjoying the fruits of 
 other people's labor. In a way, a legitimate way, that 
 is what you and I are both doing. Only one is never 
 classified as a lover of securities, however true it may 
 be, but only of works of art. But I say, old man, 
 don't for goodness' sake neglect your own talent 
 talent may be too strong a term for it, but you have 
 real ability. Has he never shown you any of his
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 137 
 
 drawings, mother ? " She shook her head. " Well, 
 he needn't be ashamed of 'em. And I know you have 
 done a lot of painting down there at Myrick's." 
 
 "Please!" Conger protested. "I am fond of it. 
 I work at it. Perhaps, some day there is much time 
 ahead let us say no more of that." 
 
 " It is modesty, mother," Galton declared. " You 
 keep plugging away, Conger. Don't you give your 
 life to selling other people's pictures. I tell you, the 
 day might come when the name of Conger Howe 
 would command a price of itself." 
 
 " It never will, my dear Galton," Conger said ; " so 
 long as I can get the Felix fitrons there is more for me 
 in selling one of those than in a dozen poor daubs by 
 C. Howe." 
 
 The season was ended at Waquanesett. All the 
 summer people had gone, and now Conger Howe's de- 
 parture for Paris left the village conscience clear of the 
 guilt of subsisting upon imported money, for all were 
 gone who were even tainted with the odium of being 
 outsiders, and for at least six months Waquanesett was 
 about to live upon itself. And while a choice few of 
 its citizens breathed a sigh of relief, Conger Howe on 
 the deck of a ship was reviewing things that had be- 
 fallen him in Waquanesett. Prominent among these 
 memories was a Sunday afternoon, a golden head that 
 his hand had stroked, blue eyes that looked into his as 
 with uplifted hand their owner had said: "I never 
 will." 
 
 It must be admitted that this memory of Miss Gray- 
 ley was distinctly pleasant, that if the truth were told
 
 138 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 no girl had ever made that sort of impression on him 
 before, and that he found that portion of it a delightful 
 experience to look back upon. For the disturbing part 
 of the interview she had given her word never to tell. 
 He also had her secret in his keeping, reposed there 
 voluntarily. Another mystery revealed to him on the 
 same occasion was the hitherto unknown quality known 
 as magnetism. He now knew that to be physical 
 charm ; it was still subtle, but he was beginning to un- 
 derstand it. 
 
 That his absence should seriously affect any one 
 would have surprised him; that his deserted studio 
 should become a shrine would have amazed him. It 
 is as well, therefore, that he did not see the figure that 
 lay prone upon the dead grass in front of the heavy 
 closed doors the day after his departure. 
 
 She looked so young and so beautiful, despite her 
 shabby clothes, that he must have lifted her up and 
 been kind to her from sheer pity. Her eyes were red 
 with weeping; sobs shook her slender body with their 
 violent convulsion; her fingers clutched and held the 
 withered grass that told the story of a summer that was 
 dead. No word escaped her lips, but in her heart the 
 storm of passion beat madly, madly because hopelessly. 
 Her soul was on the rocks, and the pilot had aban- 
 doned her. 
 
 " I shall see you again before I go," he had said that 
 last day, on this very spot. And then he had come to 
 the house to say good-by, and her mother had shaken 
 hands with him, and her father had kept out of the 
 way because he was afraid to make trouble before
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 139 
 
 mother, and then he had shaken hands with her just 
 as he had with mother, and walked out ! Not a word 
 alone for her to cherish forever. He liked her 
 and mother just the same. "If he only knew how 
 I'd love to die for him! " Her heart uttered that cry; 
 then something warm and moist brushed one of her 
 out-stretched hands; it lapped her tear-stained cheek, 
 and looking up she saw the yellow dog. Instantly that 
 which had drawn him to her, to comfort her with his 
 generous sympathy, drew her also to him, and she threw 
 her arms about him and buried her face in his neck. 
 
 Never before had these two been considerate of each 
 other; jealousy had held them apart. Now the com- 
 mon sorrow brought them close together. The yellow 
 dog tried his best with his stump of a tail to tell her 
 that the past was forgotten. He lay down that his 
 rough coat might be her pillow. His master was no- 
 where to be found, but in his loneliness he had dis- 
 covered a new friend. 
 
 That same day in Boston Miss Bess Grayley began a 
 campaign having for its object the happy union of two 
 kindred souls, hers and Conger Howe's. It was not 
 the ill-considered act of impulse. Long had Miss 
 Grayley pondered, and each time her conclusion was the 
 same : she and Conger Howe were made for each other. 
 The picture that he was " touching up " to make it look 
 like Myrick's, why, what did that prove except that 
 he was human? She would have done it without a 
 pang. It only proved that he wasn't above her. He 
 was human and she was human, true as steel up to a 
 certain point. So, instead of lowering him, that in-
 
 140 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 cident rather raised him in her eyes. She could under- 
 stand it. And didn't the very fact that she knew 
 bind them to each other as few things could? De- 
 sirability and fitness being thus favorably disposed of, 
 the only question was how to make him love her. She 
 was wise enough to have seen that the touch of her 
 hair, the intimacy of stroking it, had thrilled him. He 
 was a battery of emotions, if he did but know it. 
 Why shouldn't she, who had discovered it, profit by it 
 before he should understand himself? For, to tell the 
 truth, Miss Grayley saw clearly enough that, if he had 
 that complete understanding of himself which comes 
 only by experience, he might not choose her for his 
 wife. Day and night she gave herself up to this pas- 
 sion until nothing else in life seemed to her worth 
 while, and she had evolved a plan that must start at 
 once and come to a climax the following summer. 
 First, having learned his Paris address, she would 
 write him chatty, friendly little letters, not many, but 
 full of news and a subtle suggestion of intimacy. 
 Galton came next in the scheme ; she asked him to call. 
 They had been good friends for years. The note 
 merely stated : " I want to see you," but that was 
 enough. He came next day. She looked very fresh 
 and pretty in her soft grey house-dress as she sat 
 there, pouring the tea. 
 
 " You take two lumps," she said, dropping them 
 into the cup. 
 
 " Now, how did you remember that, Bess ? " 
 " Nothing the least bit strange about it," she an- 
 swered, passing him the cup and a plate with little
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 141 
 
 cakes such as he particularly liked. " You are one 
 of my best friends. That's why I sent for you. I 
 want to make you and Barbara happy." 
 
 "Barbara? I'm a little out of patience with her." 
 
 " And I don't blame you, but it isn't her fault. She 
 imagines that she's getting fond of Conger Howe." 
 
 " O Bess ! Never ! Why, Conger never looks at a 
 girl." 
 
 " I didn't say he had anything to do with it, but I 
 know Barbara, and she has been romancing about him 
 until she begins to imagine herself interested. Now 
 is the time to nip that sort of thing in the bud. They 
 are utterly unsuited to each other. I am going to see 
 Barbara and tell her some facts that will make that 
 plain to her." 
 
 " I had an idea that you and she weren't quite so 
 intimate as well, as you used to be." 
 
 " Quite true," she admitted, spreading out her white 
 hands to show him all they held, " and now you see the 
 reason." 
 
 He looked at her hands a moment as though trying 
 to make out what it was that they offered him. 
 
 " Oh ! " he exclaimed finally, " I see : you want Con- 
 ger for yourself ! " 
 
 " That's tactless and rude ! " she retorted, blushing 
 crimson. " I never intimated anything of the sort. 
 All I wanted was that he should be left free to choose 
 for himself, and not be flirted with by a girl who never 
 would marry him, and who ought to marry you as 
 she will in the end." 
 
 " Have it your own way," Galton conceded ; " I
 
 142 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 didn't mean to be rude crude, may be, but not rude 
 so you'll forgive me, Bess, and we'll start over again." 
 
 She looked up and smiled her forgiveness. " If I 
 make it plain to Barbara that it isn't fair to flirt with 
 a man like him, I shall be doing two of my best friends 
 a good turn. At least, that's the way it looked to me. 
 If I'm wrong " 
 
 " Why, of course you're not wrong," Galton broke 
 in with a warmth that showed he welcomed her inter- 
 cession. Surely his cause needed help. 
 
 " Then say nothing to her about this conversation. 
 Not a word just let things take their course, but 
 don't be tactless and interfere. One more thing I 
 hesitate to say it in fact it's an awful thing to say." 
 
 " Do you mean it's something else to do with me, a 
 criticism or a suggestion? If so, don't be squeamish; 
 just fire away." 
 
 " I think if you should overcome your New England 
 thrift a little more, spend some money on her; flowers, 
 theatre " 
 
 " Just loosen up, as it were," he added, helping her 
 in the difficult suggestion. She nodded, glad of not 
 being obliged to say more. 
 
 " Hm ! I hadn't thought of that. You women do 
 beat the devil. Come to think of it, I don't believe I 
 ever spent a nickel on her." 
 
 " Not a nickel," she agreed, and that made him 
 serious. 
 
 " Damn me if I don't send her some flowers now! 
 Bess, you're a trump! I didn't even know the rudi- 
 ments."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 To influence Barbara was a harder problem. Bess 
 knew that she had lost ground there, that she was 
 sometimes even distrusted; that the old days of per- 
 fect confidence had ended when they began to be at- 
 tracted to the same man. Because it was a harder 
 problem it must be handled more carefully, more 
 adroitly, less openly. 
 
 The first time she called, other girls were there. 
 None was gayer, more appreciative of Barbara, than 
 was Bess Grayley. It was like the old times, and Bar- 
 bara felt it strangely, keenly, because conscience was 
 asking whether she had been quite fair to Bess. At 
 the next attempt Barbara was alone, and Bess once 
 more outdid herself in sweetness. When a favorable 
 opening came she introduced her subject so naturally 
 and easily that it seemed accidental. " My dear, you 
 know how I've run on about my hobby : Blood will tell. 
 Just before we left Waquanesett I had the shock of 
 my life. Of course I knew Conger Howe was half 
 Chinese, but " 
 
 " He isn't ! " Barbara cried, then checking herself : 
 " I mean I never heard anything of the sort. I 
 knew he lived " 
 
 " Why, my dear, what else is he? His father was 
 a Chinaman and his mother heaven knows what she 
 was."
 
 144 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Barbara was trying to get used to this news and 
 made no reply other than to look shocked. 
 
 " It doesn't matter to us," she got out finally, " what 
 his parents were we know what he is." 
 
 " Yes, that's the worst of it. When I discovered 
 that the yellow streak was there, and no mistake 
 but I haven't any right to say that perhaps you 
 wouldn't think so." 
 
 Barbara was so startled by the announcement of 
 Conger's parentage that she scarcely heard. Bess sat 
 and watched; when her hostess came out from her 
 hiding she was ready to pounce again. 
 
 When Barbara asked : " What gave you any such 
 idea?" 
 
 "Any such idea as what?" she countered. 
 
 " That he ever showed what you call a yellow 
 streak?" 
 
 " I didn't mean to put it so badly as that, and I 
 hadn't any notion of telling even you; but now that 
 we're on it I will tell you only what I know. One day 
 when I was down there at Myrick's he happened to be 
 working on a picture that looked like that very spot 
 at dawn or twilight, anyway, dim light and a girl 
 going down the bank. It looked old, but he was put- 
 ting touches of color on it, and I happened to ask what 
 it was. You should have seen his face! And, my 
 dear, he swore me to secrecy, not to tell a mortal soul. 
 Now what, I ask you, what was he doing that he was 
 ashamed of? " 
 
 " But, Bess, he swore you to secrecy, yet you have 
 told already."
 
 145 
 
 " Only you, Bar !'" That was her pet name for 
 Barbara, and she had a charming little way of saying 
 it. 
 
 Twice Barbara started to .say something. Each 
 time she thought better of it. You couldn't explain 
 it. If it was not important why swear Bess to secrecy? 
 Was it, as Bess put it, the yellow showing through? 
 
 With fine diplomacy Miss Grayley soon went on to 
 talk of other people and things. If she dwelt too long 
 on Conger Howe Barbara would begin to suspect a 
 motive ; it must be casual, as lightly dropped as it had 
 been touched upon. In leaving, all her interest was 
 centred upon knowing whether skirts were to be worn 
 fuller in the spring, as some of the dressmakers in- 
 sisted. 
 
 " You see, my dear," she said, as a parting word, 
 " it wouldn't mean much to a girl as rich as you are, 
 but on the limited income of Pa Grayley well, if I 
 have to throw away last summer's clothes, it will be a 
 tragedy ! " 
 
 Barbara thought over this interview and its revela- 
 tions many times, but always with a shudder. There 
 was in it something so vulgar the sort of thing that 
 cropped out in the children when a girl married her 
 father's chauffeur. There was a case like that 
 they all knew the children only the chauffeur then 
 was a coachman. 
 
 It was disappointing anyway. But she was glad 
 that she hadn't got any more deeply interested. On 
 second thought she had to admit that she might have. 
 He was so appealing; that quiet solemn way was so
 
 146 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 different, and his dark eyes ! Ugh ! Those dark eyes 
 and that dark skin why hadn't she thought of it ! 
 
 And just then it happened that Galton Gragg had 
 broken out without warning as a liberal, almost a 
 lavish, spender. Flowers, great boxes of American 
 Beauties, with the longest stems, too ! What could it 
 mean? What, unless it meant that Galton had been 
 willing to change his very nature to please her! He 
 who had always held back and let Conger pay the bills 
 when they stopped at tea-houses in the summer, he 
 whom Bess had often behind his back called Mr. 
 Tightwad, he had seen the error of his ways, and was 
 reformed to please her. Because Barbara was a 
 woman, this attention pleased her; because she was 
 merely human its continuance went far towards that 
 surrender for which Galton had waited so patiently. 
 
 If he had known that that surrender was being pre- 
 pared for him by a betrayal of Conger Howe's confi- 
 dence or a misrepresentation of his parentage, Galton 
 would not for one moment have been willing to profit 
 by it. Not to play fair was to Galton Gragg, as it is 
 to every real man, the vilest sin. He did not know; 
 and Miss Grayley and the roses, theatre parties and a 
 general air of liberality were carrying Barbara on 
 their tide setting all the time in his direction. 
 
 Many a true woman is influenced by attentions of 
 that sort and not a few are in the end bought by them. 
 It isn't their fault that they are human. Barbara was 
 merely growing up, learning by experience what life 
 is and what its possibilities, but she was not going 
 ahead blindly. Every day she reviewed the steps that
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 147 
 
 had led her to her present position ; every day she tried 
 to picture herself as Mrs. Galton Gragg, and always 
 before she was through with it, her future became more 
 and more hazy. 
 
 " Some women are unfitted to be wives, to lose their 
 identity in that of the men they might marry and 
 I'm one of that sort," she would say to herself after 
 such communing, and then almost immediately would 
 follow : " I wonder perhaps it's only fear and 
 any girl would be proud of Galton." 
 
 Meantime Conger, working away in Paris, had a 
 far harder task in trying to understand American girls 
 in general and two in particular. The devotion of Re- 
 lief Snow that was friendship and would be just 
 the same if she were a boy, so that didn't need any con- 
 templation and adjustment, but the other two it was 
 all so different from China, and after all wasn't it 
 better as they did things there, to have a girl's parents 
 choose for her some eligible spouse? Surely the par- 
 ents were wiser than their children and the girl would 
 get a better husband perhaps. 
 
 Then would come up this new question: whether it 
 wasn't asking too much of a woman that she should 
 be a sprightly and accomplished companion, a house- 
 keeper, and the mother of one's children. The old 
 civilization of China had long since given its verdict 
 that the trinity was impossible. 
 
 Thinking the way of Americans was far harder than 
 thinking in their language. Here before him lay a 
 letter from Galton. It was eloquent of love his 
 love for Barbara and hers for him. Conger read it
 
 I 4 8 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 over and over again, not because it was so fine, but 
 Galton was so sure of himself. He wrote of the 
 sacredness of a boy's love for father and mother. 
 Conger had never known what that meant. The letter 
 went on to speak of " your first very dear friend." 
 His had been " Brother," the little donkey back there in 
 Peking. Of all his new friends the yellow dog came 
 first in his heart. No, it was useless he could never 
 get Galton's point of view. 
 
 But he was lonely; his whole life had been lonely and 
 he knew he was capable of very strong affection. 
 
 He closed his eyes and once more he was a boy; 
 once more he winced as he recalled the harsh blows 
 of the bamboo cane on his bare back. Ah, he had it 
 now! One of the many beatings had been due to a 
 little girl with ragged clothes and bare feet, like his 
 own, and a rippling smile like Barbara's. How it all 
 came back! The dust in front of the great Lama 
 Temple beggars, blind men, blue cotton clothes, the 
 cries of street vendors, the creaking wheel-barrows of 
 the water-sellers, the pungent smell of Chinamen, the 
 greasy smell of greasy food, the foul smell of the 
 great city ! He saw other barelegged urchins like him- 
 self, and the vision of the evil-eyed, leering priest of 
 Lama. For one instant his hand had fallen from the 
 back of the 'rickshaw, and the Rat, looking back, had 
 seen him forsaking his post, had seen the sudden charge 
 with which he had sent the dirty priest sprawling on 
 his back. But the Rat hadn't seen the shy, grateful 
 smile with which the girl had rewarded him, a smile 
 that started at the corners of her eyes, spread down-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 149 
 
 ward to her pretty mouth and ended in a boy's heart ! 
 
 And Barbara's smile was like that he was only a 
 boy then now he was a man. How very little dif- 
 ference deep down in one's own heart between being a 
 boy and being a man ! 
 
 He wondered whether real Americans were ever con- 
 scious of marking time, shillyshallying while life went 
 on all about them. Did these other people go straight 
 for their goal, did they know what their goal was, or 
 was it a part of life to drift until you brought up some- 
 where in some bend of the stream?
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Down at Waquanesett, after an unusually hard win- 
 ter, the spring came early. Even in April the robins 
 and song sparrows were building; the meadows were 
 dry enough for planting ; the wood-roads were passable 
 and sweet with arbutus and violets. Off on the hill- 
 sides the horses, bowing their necks, tramped fetlock 
 deep in last year's furrows, while the shining plow be- 
 hind them cut through the heavy earth, curling it in 
 long, dark waves from its prow, turning up its chemi- 
 cal stores of energy that sun and rain might give them 
 life. The birds, the blossoms, the very earth sang 
 of spring. Is it any wonder, then, that Relief Snow, 
 who was young and fair and overflowing with life, 
 should also sing? And what more natural song for 
 youth and spring than the song of love, the eternally 
 recurring theme! Relief Snow knew nothing of Men- 
 delssohn or the other writers of spring songs, but she 
 knew the throbbing song of the bird to his mate. She 
 knew also that birds and spring and love were a trinity, 
 miraculous, heavenly and inseparable. And because 
 she knew no songs of love save those in the Baptist 
 hymnal she first tried to express her emotion in a 
 verse of " Jesus, lover of my soul ! " When this 
 came down by way of the back stairs to the kitchen 
 where Mrs. Snow and Mary M. were at work, they 
 stood and looked at each other in amazement. 
 
 150
 
 IN THE SHADOWOF LANTERN STREET 151 
 
 " You don't think Rill has got religion, do you, 
 Ma ? " Mary M. asked, as the voice upstairs began on 
 " Love divine, all love excelling." 
 
 " I wisht she had," her mother answered, listening 
 with pride to the fresh and joyous tones of the singer, 
 " but I ain't cherishin' no sech hopes o' Relief." 
 
 Apparently Relief had exhausted her repertoire, for, 
 after a brief interval of silence, she began improvising 
 on the theme : " I love my love." Her song declared 
 that she loved her love up the scale and down the scale, 
 in arpeggio and cadenza, and in many other florid 
 forms not known to orthodox musical composition. 
 Her mother looked hard at Mary M. and said : " I 
 thought so. Hers ain't the holy kind." The sauce- 
 pan that she had just lifted from the stove was set 
 back with a bang and, going to the foot of the stairs, 
 she called in a voice to discourage any and all music : 
 "Ri-ull! Ri-ull! You quit that caterwaulin' ! If 
 you ain't got nothin' to do you better come down an' 
 help us." 
 
 Hurried feet came clattering to the top of the stairs, 
 and Relief's voice called : " I'm workin' on my dress, 
 Ma. Where's father?" 
 
 " He's out to the barnd," her mother answered, far 
 more gently. The clattering footsteps retreated once 
 more to the bedroom; once more the song of love 
 poured forth, while the dark young head bent over its 
 task, and the busy fingers fashioned a wondrous gown 
 designed to welcome back the tenant of Myrick's barn, 
 who also was the tenant of Relief Snow's heart and 
 the subject and inspiration of her song.
 
 152 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 She had never asked Dr. Boon the source of the 
 five dollars which the good man brought her each 
 month. He had said the first time : " It's a little 
 legacy turned over to me to pay over to you," and her 
 eyes had filled with tears as she turned away with the 
 money in her hand. Who else would send her money ? 
 Who else in the world cared whether she had money or 
 happiness; whether she lived or died? And she had 
 saved it all to buy a dress that should surprise him 
 when he came next summer. The store in Waquane- 
 sett had nothing in fabrics that could satisfy her, but 
 the next town, five miles away, offered far greater 
 inducements, as distant towns always do. The ten- 
 mile walk was nothing if you could bring back under 
 your arm enough purple cotton cloth to make a dress, 
 with yellow moons all over it that fairly jumped at 
 you. It was very lovely in Relief's eyes ; and she saw 
 herself the envy of the summer folks when she should 
 appear in it to welcome the only one who mattered. 
 If he liked it, the others might go hang. " Noses in 
 the air just because they wear high-heeled shoes and 
 lacy shirt-waists! Who cares?" That was her fine 
 independence as she sewed and sang. Usually she 
 had cared a great deal, and many a night her tears had 
 fallen unheeded as she undressed and sat on the edge 
 of her bed while she contrasted her lot with theirs. 
 But now the singing went on uninterrupted ; this morn- 
 ing her heart was full of thanksgiving to whatever it 
 was that made the spring and youth and love and beau- 
 tiful purple cloth radiant with yellow moons. Father
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 153 
 
 was out in the barn, and couldn't hear. Mother never 
 meant anything when she scolded. There was that 
 awful time when they knew the baby was coming! At 
 thought of it the singing ceased abruptly; a shudder 
 ran its course over the slender shoulders ; two big tears 
 dropped on the edge of one of the bright yellow moons, 
 and the purple spread, threatening an eclipse. 
 
 " Father was so hard p'raps he never did any- 
 thing himself ! " the girl muttered. " Can't fool me. 
 I've watched him; they're all alike! No, they ain't, 
 either. He ain't like that, for one." 
 
 And the one in Relief's mind was so potent for joy 
 that once more her song rang out, and the sad past was 
 forgotten. 
 
 The style had changed many times since Butterick 
 had issued the pattern by which she wrought, but to 
 Relief Snow the Mother Hubbard was the very acme 
 of style. As a restraint, to curb its voluminous pro- 
 portions, she had recourse to a sash which, drawn tight 
 about her waist, did much to display a figure that had 
 never yet known the indignity of a corset. The -try- 
 ing on was very satisfactory. By standing on a chair 
 she could see in her mirror the skirt down to her knees. 
 Just how it hung below that was of little consequence ; 
 the neck was the most important, and it required a 
 couple of gathers to get that finally to stay where it be- 
 longed. But it delighted Relief when a last scrutiny 
 revealed her emerging above the draw-string like an 
 Indian princess coming out of a gorgeous bag. Little 
 did she understand that all the beauty was her own,
 
 154 k IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 which even that barbaric costume could not quench. 
 " Ri-ull ! " her mother called. " Father's comin' in, 
 and the dinner's dished." 
 
 With marvellous rapidity the glorious creation was 
 whisked off, the blue and white checked gingham took 
 its place, and Relief's fingers were busy with buttons 
 as she slid into her seat at table just in time. Cap'n 
 Thoph, in his shirt-sleeves, had extended a hand on 
 each side of the boiled ham, and had already opened 
 his mouth to invoke the divine blessing upon the pig's 
 joint and those about to partake of it, when he spied 
 the unbuttoned dress and Relief's frantic efforts to 
 complete her toilet. Fixing her with his eye he de- 
 manded : " Are we goin' to hev a blessin' said over 
 this food, or ain't we? " Gene snickered, and the old 
 man, who believed in vicarious atonement, laid the 
 whole burden of guilt on poor Relief. If he insisted 
 on her answer he should have it, and she flashed back : 
 " I don't see as it matters. The dinner won't taste 
 any diff'rent, an' the Lord wouldn't notice on just one 
 ham, anyway." 
 
 Mary M. wanted to laugh, but a glance at her mother 
 showed her this was a fearful crime. In silence the 
 old man rose, seized his youngest by the ear, and led 
 her from the room in disgrace. Back beside her own 
 little bed she gazed down upon the beautiful purple 
 dress lying there as she had dropped it. Was nothing, 
 nothing at all in life to be happy for her? One little 
 glimpse of Heaven she had had as she saw herself in 
 that gown only a few minutes ago, and now a hungry, 
 solitary afternoon in disgrace. " Oh, how I hate them
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 155 
 
 all! Father, the hypocrite! Haven't I heard him 
 swear hundreds of times like a trooper ! Him and his 
 blessing! The idea of him yankin' me out as though 
 I was ten ! I'll get even with yer yet, old man ! " She 
 sank on her knees beside the bed, and there in sight 
 of her proud handiwork, instead of prayers, poured 
 forth her soul in imprecations against fate and father 
 who had combined together to blast her slightest chance 
 of happiness. 
 
 Just before it grew too dark to see, she drew from 
 its hiding place under a corner of the carpet a letter 
 postmarked two weeks ago at Tacoma. When it came 
 she had been tempted to tear it up ; second thoughts had 
 suggested that it would do no harm to keep it. Now, 
 as she re-read it carefully, it made her think of the 
 little boat hung out on the davits over the side a last 
 resource in shipwreck. It was a better letter than she 
 had thought. But her mind then was full of him ; now 
 it was father, and the letter was greatly favored by the 
 new comparison. With far more respect than before 
 she replaced it under the carpet. The figure of the 
 little lifeboat persisted. If fathers and fates were 
 cruel, so long as youth and life lasted one might run 
 away from them, and try other fates. But then, he 
 would not be there. She would never even see him; 
 and he would never know how she looked in the purple 
 dress. 
 
 Some one was lowering the lifeboat; the tackle fell 
 heavily on the deck ; overhead a hundred yellow moons 
 came up to shine in a purple sky, and Relief in a huddle 
 beside her bed was sleeping like a tired child.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Miss Grayley's plan had worked admirably; as an 
 organizer she had shown such ability as would have 
 made her invaluable to one of the great packing plants. 
 No silly scruples had been allowed to stand in her way. 
 If a certain amount of deception had been practised, 
 the end attained would surely justify it. Galton and 
 Barbara had been drawn closer together than ever be- 
 fore; the announcement of their engagement might be 
 looked for any day. " Dear Bess " was the friendly 
 superscription of Conger Howe's letter which came 
 with punctilious regularity every fortnight. Galton 
 was never a good correspondent; he was too busy to 
 write letters. Those that he did send were dictated to 
 a stenographer, and after acknowledging the receipt of 
 two from " Dear ' Cougar,' " went on for half a page to 
 explain that nothing was happening in Boston, that the 
 weather was beastly cold or warm or wet or dry, that 
 certain things were almost sure to happen soon, but of 
 such a nature that evidently he didn't care to confide 
 them to the young lady at his elbow. Then followed a 
 few lines of plain padding: "Of course, you know 
 what Boston is, how she glories in her provincialisms 
 and thanks God that she isn't as New York is." He 
 signed that particular letter below the phrase " One of 
 the Pharasees," but didn't correct his stenographer's 
 spelling. There wasn't much of a personal touch in 
 
 156
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 157 
 
 such correspondence. Conger always felt that he was 
 replying to the blonde, and so finally gave it up alto- 
 gether. 
 
 After the first few months, with the exception of an 
 occasional letter to Major Thornton or the Thornton 
 girls, Miss Grayley was his only correspondent. 
 Sometimes her letters hinted at the dark secrets they 
 shared ; his in reply never even remotely alluded to the 
 subject. His were straightforward accounts of daily 
 life in the artist colony at Paris, frequent comment 
 upon things and a whimsical half-seriousness that was 
 like the lines in his forehead. He was very difficult 
 to persuade in some ways; try as she would, Miss 
 Grayley, who had led him by the halter of affectionate 
 solicitude to the water of life, could not make him 
 drink. Even the most direct questions as to his feel- 
 ing towards her were passed over in silence. His 
 likes and dislikes he refused to analyze. 
 
 She was, however, somewhat comforted when he 
 confided to her alone the exact date of his sailing for 
 home and the careful plans he had laid for free adver- 
 tising in the press " to the glory of Felix fitron, albeit 
 to the enriching of one Conger Howe." 
 
 She was at the dock to meet him, but a large, florid 
 man, with much jewelry, very curly hair and the in- 
 gratiating manners of a circus agent, surpassed her 
 zeal and took the edge off her welcome by rushing up 
 the gangplank, seizing the young man's hand in both 
 of his, and establishing an appearance of ownership 
 that would ill become a modest single woman. So 
 Miss Grayley came in a poor second, but^Conger was
 
 158 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 very cordial and friendly, introduced the florid gentle- 
 man as Mr. de la Barre, promised to come and see her 
 very soon, and did his best to make conversation gen- 
 eral while they waited for the usual formalities of cus- 
 toms officers. Mr. de la Barre, however, had no in- 
 tention of allowing the young woman to interfere with 
 his plans, and talked in French. This made it ex- 
 tremely difficult for Miss Grayley, who knew as much 
 French as the average American girl; she could ask 
 for a glass of water or her bill, could read all that one 
 really cares to read in the menu, and all except the 
 crucial word in the jokes of Vie Parisienne. But they 
 talked so fast no one could be expected to follow such 
 gibberish; it was hard enough to keep up an air of 
 intelligent interest. And then, to do her full justice, 
 she did now and then intercept a " bien " or " com- 
 prend," even " Felix tron " and then she would get 
 right into the midst of things by such nods of compre- 
 hension that the florid gentleman was almost deceived 
 by them. 
 
 At last the examination was finished; not so Mr. 
 de la Barre, for like the manager he was there must 
 needs ensue a great raising of hats, a lowering of hopes, 
 and then a waiting taxi that engulfed the two men, 
 leaving behind Miss Bess Grayley and a strong odor 
 of circus agents' favorite perfume. 
 
 Once more the name of Felix fitron blazed in the 
 news columns of the daily press. Ten of his pictures 
 were to be sold at auction in New York, and the 
 Metropolitan Museum had already bid seventy-five 
 hundred for first choice. One interview that was
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 159 
 
 widely copied went into the question of how it hap- 
 pened that a young Bostonian had the rare good for- 
 tune to represent the great artist in the United States. 
 
 " Mr. C. Howe," the article stated, " when asked 
 how he secured the agency, explained that he once 
 lived with Therat, and we infer that Felix fitron at 
 that time may have studied also with the same master. 
 This would account for his loyalty to an old friend 
 when competition is so keen, and there are so many 
 well known dealers in this country." In writing out 
 this interview for the reporter C. Howe had not ex- 
 plained. He had told only how he once lived with 
 The Rat, but words are queer weapons, and Conger 
 thought it safer to be vague. One interviewer, though 
 balked of details concerning the great painter, thought 
 he might at least give a vivid portrayal of his agent. 
 
 " In appearance Mr. Howe is decidedly Spanish. 
 He is often called The Sad Painter, for Mr. Howe is 
 also a painter, although his pictures thus far have never 
 been offered for sale. It is said among his friends that 
 he never laughs, never was known to take part in any 
 sort of game or sport, and that his only recreation is a 
 change of work. His long, slender hand when he 
 talks with you is constantly brushing back from his 
 forehead a lock of his black hair that will not stay 
 brushed back, but otherwise his calmness impresses 
 yQU, and his interest in whatever you have to say. 
 You come away with a feeling that you have made a 
 very favorable impression; later you realize that you 
 have found out very little as to the object of your 
 visit."
 
 160 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Conger's first social duty was to write his patron 
 telling of his arrival and asking when he might see 
 him alone. Major Thornton wrote in reply urging 
 him to dine at his house that very night. His note be- 
 trayed a father's eagerness to see his son. Its answer 
 was a telephone message : 
 
 " Major Thornton, this is your grateful and fond 
 ward, Conger." 
 
 " No, no," the major expostulated, " not ward; you 
 are something far nearer than that " 
 
 " So ? " came back. 
 
 " I want you," the major went on, " to look upon me 
 more as a father." 
 
 " Thank you, Major. I have told you you are al- 
 most to me as dear as my mandarin." 
 
 " That's going back too far," Major Thornton pro- 
 tested. " Well, how about dinner to-night? " 
 
 " I am sorry, Major, but to sit at Mrs. Thornton's 
 table, knowing how she feels toward me " 
 
 " It's my table ; I am inviting you to see here, 
 Conger, I like your spirit but, damn it all, you shouldn't 
 have sent me that draft. I've got to see you about 
 that. Now, do be reasonable." 
 
 " I will see you at your club any time that you may 
 choose." 
 
 " Then we'll dine there this evening." 
 
 " Very well, sir, and I am delighted to have it so." 
 
 When they met at seven, Major Thornton was sur- 
 prised to see how Conger had matured in eight months. 
 It flashed through his mind that even Mrs. Thornton 
 might hesitate to patronize this fine, serious-looking
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 161 
 
 man. The major's greeting was quite different from 
 what he had intended a moment before. One couldn't 
 call such a man to account for having sent from France 
 a statement of all expenditures on his behalf for the 
 past eleven years, and a draft defraying the total out- 
 lay. It was not until after dinner, over their coffee 
 and cigars, that the major ventured: 
 
 " My boy, I won't ask why you paid me, but how 
 on earth, even with this agency of yours, could you 
 raise the money ? " 
 
 " One or two little ventures over there have resulted 
 exceedingly well." 
 
 " But you have had no business experience until you 
 managed to hypnotize this great artist." 
 
 " You forget," the young man said, looking straight 
 into his father's eyes, yet seeing there only a strangely 
 interested friend, " you forget that I was once in the 
 rug business." 
 
 " Poor little chap ! " the major sighed, and to Con- 
 ger's amazement, the major's handkerchief was needed 
 to brush the tears from his eyes. " I want you to 
 know," he said when they parted, " that I'm very proud 
 of you ; that you're to come to me any time for money 
 or help of any sort. And I wish you would try to feel 
 differently towards my wife." 
 
 "Does she?" Conger asked, and that so upset the 
 poor major that he didn't even attempt a reply. 
 
 Soon after this dinner Conger went one afternoon to 
 pay his respects to Bess Grayley. By her tactful de- 
 vices Miss Grayley had succeeded in making herself 
 one of his most intimate friends. It was as Bess and
 
 162 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Conger that they greeted each other, and his pleasure 
 was manifestly genuine, much to the surprise of Bar- 
 bara Wrayton, who was spending the day with Bess. 
 These two had been far less friendly than in the old 
 days, and it was by special invitation that Barbara 
 had come up from Waquanesett. The Grayleys had 
 the same cottage for the summer, but had not yet 
 moved down to it. The day was warm, the air sultry 
 and lifeless; the two girls looked refreshingly cool and 
 dainty in their light summer frocks. Strangely 
 enough they had just been discussing Conger Howe, 
 and Bess had repeated her former opinion, expressed 
 almost a year ago, that he was odious, that she had 
 always detected a certain something in his eyes which 
 was tricky. She wouldn't trust him ; she detested him. 
 And then suddenly his card had been brought, and she 
 had told the demure maid to show him in. Barbara, 
 glancing up, expecting to be told who the visitor was, 
 had caught a twinkle in the maid's eye such as might 
 have been there had the maid been listening to their 
 conversation, and Barbara was therefore prepared to 
 see Conger Howe. What she was not prepared for 
 was the evident intimacy that had grown during his 
 stay abroad. Bess had been lying to her, deliberately, 
 but for what purpose ? 
 
 He looked older, sadder, but sure of himself, and in 
 vigorous health. His skin was clear and tanned a rich 
 brown; his eye flashed in a way that made her think 
 at once of some one else, though of whom she couldn't 
 at the moment recall. 
 
 " Is this, then," he asked, seating himself comfort- 

 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 163 
 
 ably on the wide divan, " what you mean by killing 
 two birds with a stone ? " 
 
 "Are you quite sure you have made the killing?" 
 Barbara flung back, with a laugh. 
 
 " It would profit one nothing here," he said, with 
 that queer little puzzled look that had interested her 
 from their first meeting, " here where one is allowed 
 but one wife at a time ? " 
 
 " What a horrid idea ! " Bess broke in. " Would 
 you wish to teach a Christian country your heathenish 
 Chinese notions of polygamy? " 
 
 " They are not my notions," he answered ; " it is that 
 China practises polygamy, this country monogamy. 
 One is not necessarily better or even more righteous 
 than the other." 
 
 " That means you would like the Chinese idea better 
 than ours," Bess declared. 
 
 " Not for myself," he replied quietly. " There is in 
 China a saying : ' How many wives, so many 
 troubles.' It is because women do not agree so well 
 among themselves as men." 
 
 Instinctively Barbara and Bess looked at each other, 
 but neither was prepared to debate the point then and 
 there. 
 
 Barbara, who was beginning to fear that this serious 
 man might take the twist given his remark too literally, 
 changed the subject abruptly by asking: "How is 
 your adorable Felix fitron? Monsieur Beauchamp 
 wrote my father, the other day, that he recently painted 
 a Madonna and Child so beautiful, so spiritual, that 
 the nuns from the convent of the Sacred Heart went in
 
 164 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 a body and drew the dear old man in his carriage out 
 to the Bois where he was completing the background." 
 
 " There are so few Frenchmen in this country," 
 Conger Howe said regretfully, " Monsieur Beauchamp 
 must know Felix tron and his little circle very well. 
 They are few who know him." 
 
 " Then it is true I mean about the nuns it 
 seemed so theatrical " Barbara hesitated. 
 
 " Ah," he assured her, " one must not forget that to 
 the aged come demonstrations of affection denied to 
 those who might more highly value them." 
 
 " But he is a lovable old character," Barbara insisted. 
 " I know he is from the mystery, the depth, the won- 
 der in his pictures." 
 
 " You see that ? " Conger asked ; " then you will 
 understand when I tell you that I love him. I used 
 to think, at the first, that I saw in his pictures what it 
 was given to none else to see. I have learned 
 this! " and he stretched his arms wide seeming to the 
 girl facing him to open the doors that all might come 
 in. 
 
 She didn't ask for an explanation; she felt that she 
 could understand his point of view. He had seen the 
 beauty, the subtlety, the charm in Felix fitron, had 
 thrown himself heart and soul into the work of intro- 
 ducing the world to that which had dawned for him. 
 And to his surprise, to his great joy, had come this 
 instant response. Was it any wonder that the fine old 
 man, recognizing Conger Howe's value to him, re- 
 mained loyal despite the tempting offers of influential 
 dealers ?
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A curious effect of this call was that it left all three 
 wondering, uncertain, anxious to know more. To 
 Bess, most of all, it was disappointing, baffling, that 
 Conger's attention had been all but monopolized by 
 Barbara. She was too bright not to know that Bar- 
 bara had seen through her mask, seen that she was 
 playing false, and would naturally speculate upon her 
 reasons. It was not to be supposed that she could 
 have spoken honestly in disparagement of one with 
 whom she was on such friendly footing. Barbara had 
 found her out, and there was no help for it. 
 
 Barbara had been shocked to find so wide a dis- 
 crepancy between Bess's talk and her conduct, but had 
 not been wholly unprepared for it. She reproached 
 herself for a fool in having for a year accepted Bess's 
 false estimate of Conger Howe instead of forming 
 her own judgment. As she thought it over she even 
 concluded that there might be some leniency shown re- 
 garding the strange copying or retouching that he had 
 seemed ashamed of. No nice girl would marry a half 
 Chinaman, of course, but one might be friends with 
 him. Doubtless their ideas of right and wrong were 
 on a lower plane, as all foreigners' ideas were, to a 
 greater or less degree. 
 
 And if the afternoon had brought its surprises to 
 
 165
 
 166 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Bess and Barbara, it was no less a shock to Conger 
 that Bess had appeared to him jealous of her friend's 
 presence his sensitive nature had grasped that fact 
 at once and that Barbara had shown none of the 
 qualities attributed to her in frequent confidential ref- 
 erences during their correspondence of the winter. It 
 was confusing, but his loyalty to this new friend for- 
 bade more than a passing chill of disappointment; then 
 once more she became for him what his imagination 
 had pictured her during the year of their growing 
 friendship. 
 
 Such were the relations among these three when they 
 were settled again at Waquanesett for the summer. 
 The disreputable yellow dog must have learned that C. 
 Howe was his benefactor, for, although never allowed 
 to set foot within the sacred threshold of the inn, he 
 was patiently waiting outside in the yard every morn- 
 ing when Conger finished breakfast, and no inclemency 
 of the weather caused the slightest deviation from his 
 regular attendance. A bright new collar testified to 
 his legalized existence, but so little accorded with his 
 general appearance of shabbiness and rowdyism that it 
 stood out like a shiny silk hat on a rag-picker. The 
 moment C. Howe appeared the yellow dog's emotion 
 convulsed him into such contortions that he seemed to 
 wag all the rear half of his body; then he would leap 
 as high as the man's shoulder, uttering his short, sharp 
 bark of welcome. All day the yellow dog kept close 
 beside the man he worshipped, and when night came 
 he disappeared, none knew where, to sleep and dream 
 of the morrow.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 167 
 
 On the second day after the arrival of " the tall 
 furriner " had been town gossip, C. Howe was at 
 Myrick's barn, getting things cleaned and set to rights. 
 His was the thorough housecleaning of the trained 
 worker and dust, field mice, sand and broken shin- 
 gles flew in an endless stream far out over the steep 
 bank, pursued by the relentless broom of efficient zeal. 
 The yellow dog had just been exhorted in Chinese to 
 get out of the way, and, understanding, had heeded the 
 advice, when a step was heard, and the stumpy tail 
 heralded the approach of a friend. Half a minute of 
 expectancy, and in the full glare of the bright morning 
 sunlight Relief Snow stood before the door, clad in 
 purple and bright yellow moons. 
 
 "Why, Relief!" Conger gasped; then instantly he 
 knew that she was wearing it for him. Her heart 
 showed itself in her eyes. He couldn't mistake it. 
 " How lovely you look ! " he lied, and thanked good- 
 ness that he had lied in time. 
 
 " Do you really like it? " she asked, smoothing the 
 skirt into place with evident admiration of its love- 
 liness. 
 
 " Like it? Why, my dear Relief, you are charming 
 in it ! " and, coming out to her, he turned her round 
 for a more careful survey. The girl blushed with 
 pleasure and the consciousness of beauty, never dream- 
 ing that the loveliness was not chiefly in her raiment 
 and the boldness of its color scheme. 
 
 " I've been waitin' for you ter come back," she said, 
 looking away from him at the power dory panting 
 laboriously up to westward.
 
 168 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " And many a time I have thought also of Waquane- 
 sett," the man said : " of this quiet spot where one looks 
 acipss the sea from the sand dunes to the sky, and 
 knows the meaning of the words ' from everlasting to 
 everlasting.' ' 
 
 The girl turned to look at him. This impersonal 
 tone was not in keeping with her thoughts. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," she said, simply. 
 
 " I mean," he answered, " that men and women 
 and yellow dogs are of very little account compared 
 with the sand and the sea and the sky. They have 
 been here countless ages; they will be here for count- 
 less ages to come, but we Time snaps its fingers at 
 the little space in which we, poor silly things, come, and 
 build our fences, calling so much ours, and are gone. 
 It is all so short, so unimportant ! But here you 
 and I come face to face with great and lasting things. 
 It shall not make us sad, this looking at life as it is, 
 but it must give us perspective." 
 
 Relief had turned her back by this time, and was 
 interested in the yellow dog. 
 
 "What's that claw for, hangin' down on his leg? 
 Look's like it ain't any sort o' use ? " She had no idea 
 of being rude, but her mind didn't follow his all 
 this talk about sand being real and people not being 
 real. 
 
 " That is what some ancestor very far back used for 
 a thumb," Conger explained, but she only shook her 
 head and said : " You're off again ! There's nothin' 
 to it, nothin' to it!" 
 
 Some one on board the power dory had seen them,
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 169 
 
 and was waving a handkerchief. Relief caught up one 
 of his dust cloths, and responded vigorously. Her 
 arms lifted above her head, skirts and hair fluttering 
 in the lazy breeze, she looked so strong and young and 
 glowing, " she even overcomes the biting harshness of 
 her clothes," he thought. 
 
 Turning suddenly she knew that he was watching 
 her, she even caught a note of admiration, and, with 
 a child's directness, asked, " Are you goin' ter marry 
 the Grayley woman? " 
 
 "The what?" he asked, to give himself time to 
 treat this idea without hurting her feelings. 
 
 " The Grayley woman," she repeated, trying to look 
 disinterested. " She's made up her mind to have you." 
 
 The yellow dog half rose, stretched his long legs 
 slowly as far as they would reach, yawned capaciously, 
 audibly, and lay down again at full length on the 
 ground, every muscle and nerve relaxed, every anxiety 
 banished, every sin atoned or transferred to his master's 
 shoulders by the comfortable practice of confession and 
 absolution. With neither guilt nor hunger to dis- 
 turb him, it is little wonder that he soon snored pro- 
 foundly. Relief had sat down on the huge relic of a 
 broken mast, a bit of driftwood that like a sleeping 
 giant lay alongside Myrick's barn. Not unmindful 
 of her new gown she had cautiously lifted the glorious 
 skirt, and it spread about her, converting the weather- 
 beaten log into an Oriental couch. 
 
 Miss Grayley had been dropped; the yellow dog 
 had had the last word, but Conger Howe was thinking : 
 Was it true? Did she care for him to that extent?
 
 170 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 And how came Relief Snow to know anything about 
 it? 
 
 He was standing in his favorite place; leaning 
 against the jamb of the big door, and he had lighted 
 his pipe. 
 
 " Seems like we hadn't left, an' it was still last 
 summer," Relief said finally. ' 'Cept I didn't hev no 
 sech dress say did you think I wouldn't know 
 where the money come from ? Doctor Boon ain't got 
 no more play-actin' about him 'n a heifer calf. 'Cute 
 he is, too, some ways. I remember when Mary M. 
 had dipthery she was awful sick an' we thought 
 she wouldn't fetch through. He come an' stood to the 
 foot o' her bed an' told her she was much better. But 
 then, yer see, that was straight lyin' it wa'n't no 
 actin'. Why did you do it, Mr. Kangaroo?" 
 
 " Because you and I are friends," he said, smiling, 
 " and I wanted to feel that you had a little that you 
 could call your own." Then pointing to the east he 
 went on, " See that long line of smoke left by some 
 steamer just rounding the cape? I am always glad 
 one cannot see the shipping here. This seems so far 
 from struggle, from commerce, from competition, 
 from all that make life hard." 
 
 " I wonder if it is," the girl said. Was this the 
 same Relief Snow who a few minutes ago could not 
 follow him? 
 
 He looked at her hard, but she had stooped to pick 
 up a clam-shell, and was studying intently the bleached 
 and broken fragment in her hand.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 " I say, Conger, you've been long enough in this 
 country to get over some of these Buddhist or Con- 
 fucianist notions of yours." Galton spoke earnestly. 
 The two men were on their way to Waquanesett by the 
 afternoon Cape train. C. Howe had just returned 
 from a business trip to New York and Galton was go- 
 ing to spend Saturday and Sunday with his parents. 
 
 " But these are not notions," Conger argued. " For 
 me it is possible, it is feasible, to hold in one's mind 
 at the same time two conflicting ideas. Once my ideas 
 of a profession, my desire to study one thing and live 
 by another, seemed to you visionary. It was prac- 
 tical." 
 
 " Well, that's very different from saying you'd like 
 to marry both Barbara and Bess Grayley," Galton re- 
 torted. 
 
 " No, it's much the same thing," Conger insisted. 
 " They are so different they complement each other. 
 No, I think the two together, if they could get on to- 
 gether, would make a good wife." 
 
 " In the first place," Galton protested, " Bess has 
 nothing that Barbara hasn't, so you'd gain nothing. 
 Barbara has more brains, better disposition, more 
 varied gifts, greater charm, and certainly she's far 
 better looking." 
 
 "So?" Conger said reflectively. "I thought, for
 
 i;2 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 example, that Miss Bess appeared more anxious to 
 please. Miss Wrayton never has seemed to me to 
 care much what any one thought of her." And even 
 as he spoke he knew in his heart that he was fighting 
 down his admiration for her because she was Galton's 
 and could never care for him. 
 
 " I'm afraid that's pretty near true, Conger. Life 
 has thus far never looked serious to her. It has just 
 been a game. After we're married it will be differ- 
 ent." 
 
 " She will fall in love with you after you are mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 " Good Lord, man, I didn't mean that ; her love will 
 grow deeper, stronger. She will understand herself 
 and it then." 
 
 " Perhaps but I do not think it." 
 
 " You're very exasperating, Conger. What in hell 
 do you think ? " 
 
 " I think this girl has never found what one calls 
 her heart. It may be that she does not possess the 
 faculty to love. I believe this to be true of many 
 women, especially those highly-bred individuals of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race. Already in this country it is most 
 creditable to be sexless. Some day you may be forced 
 to our I mean the Chinese custom of several wives 
 lest your race our race perish from the earth. 
 Miss Grayley is more human. Now, if I could marry 
 both" 
 
 " Shut up ! " Galton interrupted. " I tell you I am 
 going to marry Barbara in a very few months, so you 
 can leave her out of it."
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 173 
 
 " Galton," Conger said deliberately, " I have watched 
 you now in your wooing these ten years Miss Bar- 
 bara may love some day. You she will never love. 
 To marry her without no ; you could not do this ! " 
 
 "Nonsense," Galton insisted; "don't you suppose 
 I know Barbara? " 
 
 " I have watched you," his friend answered, " and I 
 have seen that you do not." 
 
 " What an ass you are ! " Galton exclaimed, indig- 
 nantly. " You cannot seem to comprehend that you 
 are not a Chinaman but a Yankee. Your judgment of 
 women is the critical sort that applies to dogs and 
 horses and motor cars chattels." 
 
 " And why not ? " C. Howe asked, blandly. " Are 
 wives less important than chattels? Your world has 
 dignified under the title ' affairs of the heart ' the com- 
 monest animal instincts. Let them become affairs of 
 the head, and you will see less unhappy marriages." 
 
 "Bosh!" Galton flung back, petulantly. "You're 
 talking platitudes." 
 
 " Platitudes or not," Conger said, " the ideal wife 
 is the composite of three good women. But if the 
 three good women cannot live together in peace 
 why, one must remain single. Do you know, Galton, 
 if your Miss Barbara W ray ton were really what you 
 claim for her, she might make me a good wife by her- 
 self." 
 
 " Oh, you old jackass ! " Galton laughed, " I believe 
 you have the nerve to be half serious at that. Why, 
 man, she wouldn't look at you ! " 
 
 A letter awaited Conger Howe at the Waquanesett
 
 174 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Inn. Its handwriting suggested lack of practice; in 
 spelling it carried reform almost to the point of revolu- 
 tion. The choice of adjectives proved that one may be 
 a church deacon and still employ profanity so long as 
 the user of it does not mean by his damning to consign 
 the thing damned to everlasting perdition. In one 
 sentence the recipient was exhorted, and in the very 
 next he was dared, to visit the undersigned at his house 
 where, as an inducement to call, he was promised " the 
 damdest threshin' you ever seen." It was signed " Re- 
 spectfully Yours, Theophilus Snow." 
 
 " Relief's father," Conger said to himself. " What 
 can have gone wrong there?" Next morning after 
 breakfast he and the yellow dog entered the Snow's 
 yard. Gene was unhitching a giant ox from the heavy 
 shafts of a two-wheeled cart. The wooden yoke, re- 
 leased from its thole-pins, was lifted from the creature's 
 neck, and stolidly as he had borne the weight and toil of 
 his long journey from the weirs, he now began grazing 
 on the nearest grass. To him work meant hunger, 
 hunger food, and food in turn but the preparation for 
 more work. 
 
 " How many oxen one sees even in New York," 
 Conger thought. A girl stood watching Gene. She 
 too had just come from work; her sleeves were rolled 
 up to the elbows. What caught Conger Howe's at- 
 tention most was the elevated angle of her nose as 
 if some rude hand had tweaked it upward, drawing 
 after it the short upper lip, leaving shamelessly exposed 
 her very red gums and a crowded disarray of long 
 teeth.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 175 
 
 " She is a rodent," C. Howe said to himself, and 
 then was sorry lest she should read his thought. A 
 gray-haired woman who once was pretty appeared in 
 the door of the shed. "Mary M.," she called, "I 
 can't lift that kittle by myself, and it's bilin' over now." 
 Mary M. disappeared into the house. 
 
 "Is Captain Snow about?" Conger asked. 
 
 " Down t' the fish-house yonder," Gene said, indi- 
 cating with a thumb over his shoulder the road leading 
 down beside the barn. A hundred yards down this 
 road stood an unpainted shed, and there Conger found 
 the fisherman sorting and packing in barrels with ice 
 the mackerel and tautog that had been his morning's 
 haul. The load had been dumped into a sort of shal- 
 low bin, and the big grizzly man in oilers and rubber- 
 boots was sorting the fish into several barrels, stopping 
 every few minutes to pack in more ice. All the large 
 mackerel were kept apart from the smaller ones, and 
 to Conger's surprise even the squid were not thrown 
 away, but went into barrels to be eaten, as he after- 
 wards learned, by the Italians, the foremost of food 
 conservers. As tools the captain used only a pitchfork 
 and a common shovel. Time was precious, and he 
 worked steadily for several minutes before he was 
 aware that he had a visitor. His first word was not 
 a friendly form of greeting : " So you come round 
 to get it, did ye? " The long pitchfork hung balanced 
 in his hairy hands. 
 
 " To get what you had to say to me," the young man 
 answered. 
 
 " To get a damn sight more'n that! " the Captain re-
 
 176 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 torted angrily, taking a stride forward as he spoke. 
 
 The yellow dog showed his teeth and growled a 
 warning as he sprang before his master. 
 
 " Ye would, would ye ! " the fisherman cried, and 
 made a vicious lunge at the yellow dog with his heavy 
 fork. But quicker than the attack, quicker even than 
 the dog's attempt to save himself, was Conger's spring. 
 Something like a galvanic shock intercepted the awk- 
 ward motion of Cap'n Thoph's arms; something 
 wrenched and twisted them with such a sudden pain 
 that their strength was gone and they were mere ropes 
 of hay. The pitchfork flew into the air, and fell 
 twenty feet away with a startling clatter. The big 
 man, unsteady on his feet, was rubbing his left arm 
 with his right hand. There was no feeling in it from 
 the thumb to the elbow. The place had grown cold 
 and there were black specks floating before his eyes. 
 Then a voice quite calm and low said : '' You forget 
 that you are more than twice my age." Gradually the 
 feeling was coming back into the injured arm. 
 " Twice my age," rang in the captain's ears. He 
 knew that he was going to protest: no one need con- 
 sider his years; he wasn't quite sixty, and could do a 
 day's work with any of 'em. Yet he did not say it. 
 Weakness, faintness, made him feel suddenly old. 
 He had never thought of it before, but perhaps he 
 was ageing a little. The young man was examining 
 the fish still left in the bin. The yellow dog seemed 
 very much surprised when the fish jumped and flapped 
 their tails. He even barked at them; the pitchfork 
 that had almost ended his existence no longer con-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 177 
 
 cerned him. That was the past, and his philosophy 
 never went back, even to dig up the bones buried yes- 
 terday. 
 
 Cap'n Thoph, stumbling heavily forward, sat down 
 on a wheelbarrow. " How did ye do that? " he asked, 
 in a voice that only weakly resembled his own, famous 
 in prayer-meeting hymns for the masterful way it car- 
 ried the bass. 
 
 ' That is one of many tricks learned in China and 
 in Japan," Conger said simply, and picked up a squid to 
 see if it could use its peculiar defense out of water. 
 
 Cap'n Thoph looked at the lithe and easy figure be- 
 fore him, so confident in its powers, and he knew that 
 he had passed his prime. " What did you wish to say 
 to me? " the young man asked. 
 
 " Not to meddle with my little gal," the fisherman 
 declared, regaining a little his proper voice. 
 
 " For sixteen years," Conger Howe said, perching 
 on a barrel that afforded a precarious seat, " I was in 
 China an outcast, nameless, almost more a slave than 
 your ox. Life opened for me one of its doors of 
 escape from bondage into freedom, freedom to live my 
 own life, to think my own thoughts, to fashion my own 
 future. Do you think that I could step out from such 
 a life as that was into freedom, and endure to see any 
 other creature, woman, man or dog enslaved?" 
 
 The older man looked into the clear eyes of the 
 speaker, and his own fell before them in shame. 
 
 " You mean," he began ; then stopped, for the words 
 that should match what he had read in the other's 
 face.
 
 i;8 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " I mean," Conger Howe caught him up, " that what 
 you allowed yourself to think had never come into my 
 mind.' v 
 
 " I believe ye," Cap'n Thoph said solemnly. " I 
 dunno now why I believe ye, but I do. The gal has 
 worried her ma and me ever since ye may 'a' 
 heard" 
 
 " Yes, I have heard how ignorant youth is. Youth 
 goes wrong, makes blunders because fathers are too 
 stupid or too prudish to enlighten it. The fault is not 
 youth's; it lies with teachers and protectors who do 
 not teach and protect." 
 
 " Seems like you was makin' me out to be the guilty 
 one, 'stead o' her." 
 
 " I do not pretend to know," Conger explained. 
 " But if you had not taught her; if you let her find out 
 for herself, you are far more guilty than she ever was." 
 
 The big man in his heavy clothes had taken out his 
 knife and sat there whittling a stick. No one had ever 
 suggested such a thing to him. It wasn't so, of course, 
 but these educated people that talked like a page right 
 out of a book were somethin' powerful hard to argue 
 with. 
 
 The yellow dog, bearir j no malice, came and sniffed 
 at a smell of dead fish on the big rubber-boots, a smell 
 that had been there long enough to get that quality of 
 age which alone appeals to a dog's sensitive nose as 
 something delightful, something to roll in and carry 
 away in one's coat as a precious memory. 
 
 "Say, hev you got religion?" Cap'n Snow asked
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 179 
 
 suddenly. A new light was breaking on the captain's 
 mind. 
 
 "Got religion?" 
 
 " Yes have you found Jesus ? " 
 
 " I never looked for him," C. Howe said ; and when 
 he saw that this shocked the fisherman, he added : " I 
 have a religion of my own, but it has nothing to do 
 with the things you call sacred." 
 
 "Hold on there! Stiddy!" cried Cap'n Thoph. 
 " Thar ain't but one God, one Faith, one Salva- 
 tion " 
 
 " That's where this nation goes astray," the young 
 man broke in. " You boast of your bigness and 
 breadth, and you are as narrow as Italy." 
 
 Instead of a torrent of abuse, Cap'n Thoph chose a 
 new stick to whittle, and asked, " Is Italy very nar- 
 rer?" 
 
 " Very ! " Conger answered. " But why did you 
 ask about religion? " 
 
 " Seemed to me like your words was touched by the 
 Holy Ghost," the big man said simply, and C. Howe 
 sitting there on his barrel mused aloud : " The Holy 
 Ghost I have not been able to make anything out of 
 that. It is figurative language probably means the 
 spirit of Goodness." 
 
 Cap'n Thoph knew exactly what it meant. The 
 Trinity was as simple as the seasons: simply the Al- 
 mighty's way of doing business, as he had explained 
 in meeting more than once at great length and to the 
 complete satisfaction of Mrs. Snow. But Cap'n
 
 i8o IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Thoph sat there and whittled. This man with his dark 
 eyes and his masterful habits and his gentle manner! 
 No ! No ! it wasn't for such as Cap'n Thoph Snow to 
 tell what he knew to this man. 
 
 They sat so long silent that the dog put his paw on 
 C. Howe's knee, which is a dog's way of asking: 
 What next? And Conger patted the dog's head, but 
 said nothing, for the pat is dog language and means: 
 Be patient and the dog understood it and was pa- 
 tient. 
 
 " Relief ain't never b'en convicted o' sin," the cap- 
 tain said after his long meditation. Conger looked 
 puzzled, as he was. Why should Relief be convicted 
 of sin? Aloud he said: 
 
 "Sin? She doesn't know what it is." 
 
 " I've told her," Cap'n Thoph protested. " It's a 
 parent's dooty. The wrath o' God ain't no " 
 
 " Where the hell is them fish? " a voice interrupted. 
 The form of Gene, the captain's first born, darkened 
 the door. " I've hed the hoss hitched more'n half an 
 hour, waitin'." 
 
 Cap'n Thoph rose stiffly from his seat, found his 
 pitchfork and resumed his work of sorting and pack- 
 ing. Gene went back to his horse without another 
 word. There were dark moods when even Gene dared 
 not hurry the old man. He was once more wielding 
 the heavy fork, but his left arm, was stiff and there 
 was very little strength in that thumb. The yellow 
 dog wagged a thankful tail, for he loved action, as 
 out from the cool, dark shed Conger Howe and he 
 stepped into the glare of sunshine, and, following
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 181 
 
 their shadows down the grass-grown road, hurried, 
 eager for the day's work. C. Howe could not fix his 
 attention on anything else until that strange interview 
 had been well thought out, its causes and effects care- 
 fully weighed, his future conduct towards the girl de- 
 termined. No such contemplation disturbed his com- 
 panion. He had come close, very close to death but 
 death had missed him. Why look back? With joy- 
 ous bark and optimistic tail he scurried to and fro, 
 facing the future, living the present. 
 
 Conger could still smell the fish, still feel the cool 
 of the fish-house, and see the shiney blue mackerel 
 flopping their final protest against man's carnivorous 
 habits. There was pathos in the figure of the big 
 fisherman forking his fish into the barrels, trying to 
 make himself believe that nothing had happened 
 nothing except a sprained thumb and a wrenched pride 
 that had suddenly made him humble. What a stupid 
 notion the old man had about his daughter! Why 
 should fathers and mothers always expect their chil- 
 dren to fall in love? When they were little the par- 
 ental solicitation was lest they get run over; later the 
 same anxiety about falling in love. Ridiculous! 
 How Relief would laugh at the idea! " I shall not 
 mention it, however," he decided, " because of what 
 she said about Bess." He fell to wondering just how 
 much he cared for Bess. " I might do worse," he 
 thought, " especially if she cares for me." That con- 
 fidential revelation given him eight months ago she 
 hadn't left home, in fact she had never again men- 
 tioned being unhappy, and as for the man with whom
 
 182 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 she was hopelessly infatuated : " I wonder if it could 
 be? " he asked himself. " And I wonder if this is how 
 a man feels when he is what they call in love? "
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 There was an evening clambake on the beach. Sat- 
 urday night had been chosen that Galton might be one 
 of the party. Where the bake lay heaped under an 
 old sail-cloth rose a steaming fragrance into the air 
 that told of chickens and corn and lobsters roasting 
 in all that pile of seaweed with the sizzling clams. 
 Cap'n Gragg, who was in charge of the bake, knew 
 to a second when it was done, and his hearty voice 
 summoned all hands to " tumble up." The girls were 
 busy arranging dishes, napkins, wooden plates; open- 
 ing bottles of olives and ginger pop. The young men 
 came fresh and hungry from a long swim; and all 
 smelt the salty fragrance of the feast and delighted in 
 it even as their ancestors, many centuries before them, 
 when cooking was first invented. And to none did the 
 delectable odors appeal more powerfully than to the 
 yellow dog whose ancestors had remained impartial as 
 to the question of cooking, but whose discrimination 
 was keener than that of any other guest present 
 
 Conger Howe, who, like the yellow dog, had known 
 the full value of good food from all the varied ex- 
 perience of going without any or snatching a hasty 
 bite of what came his way, up to the present calm pros- 
 pect of repletion, found a seat beside Barbara Wray- 
 ton. In fact Barbara had seemed to indicate by a 
 
 183
 
 i84- IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 subtle suggestion of her eyes that he was expected to 
 take that seat. 
 
 " You hadn't asked me since you came home about 
 my stories," she said, when a lull in the eating of the 
 clams afforded opportunity for talk. " Aren't you in- 
 terested in me, if you couldn't be in them? " 
 
 " I had asked Galton, who said all the publishers 
 were dull and blind." 
 
 " That sounds as though you were laughing at me." 
 
 " But I am not. I see nothing to laugh at." 
 
 " So you knew that I had failed not a publisher 
 who would accept one of my stories." 
 
 "And therefore what?" Conger asked. 
 
 " Why, at first," she said frankly, " I was horribly 
 disappointed and bitter. The world didn't appreciate 
 me and all that sort of thing. It makes me 
 ashamed now to think of that stupid mood. I've been 
 vain. This has opened my eyes to see myself." Sud- 
 denly she broke off. " Are you still quite sure we 
 were right about power being the aim in life?" 
 
 He turned to look at her. There was even a new 
 tone in her voice. The self-centred girl by disappoint- 
 ment had found herself and become a woman. A 
 still stronger emotion, stronger than Conger Howe sus- 
 pected, had been at work quietly but steadily trans- 
 forming Barbara from something that rippled and 
 danced in the sun into something that could also move 
 calmly because it was deep and strong. 
 
 "Your opinion has been changing, then?" he 
 asked. " I, too, from the opposite direction, perhaps, 
 have been coming to the same point. If disappoint-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 185 
 
 ment has led you to question life's object, success, the 
 material success for which I strove, has been leading 
 me to mistrust power." 
 
 "And in its place you have substituted what?" 
 she asked, and he confessed : 
 
 " I haven't got so far as that power no longer 
 satisfies. Perhaps you have some explanation." 
 
 Nothing could have shown more clearly how Bar- 
 bara had grown than the distress his confession caused 
 her. His idea of power must have been so much less 
 than hers if he could regard his own business pros- 
 perity as worthy of such a title! For that was merely 
 the possession of wealth, and it was hard to picture 
 Conger Howe as caring supremely for that. 
 
 " No," she confessed, " I have no explanation only 
 somehow I'm sure there must be a better object than 
 power. I no longer want power so much as as I 
 thought I did." 
 
 " Possibly," he said, " you have come to feel that 
 what counts most is not what you do, but what you 
 are." 
 
 " But," she caught him up, " isn't what you do the 
 expression of w r hat you are? Take your own great 
 patron, Felix Etron, as an example. Would he still 
 be Felix tron if he didn't paint his pictures? Isn't 
 that his way of giving out to the world the great 
 thoughts that are in him, the appreciation of beauty, 
 the actual power to make even the commonplace beau- 
 tiful? Think what an inspiration that old French- 
 man is to thousands of people, to me who have never 
 seen him, so great an inspiration that I intend to go to
 
 186 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 him some day just to tell him what he has meant to 
 me." 
 
 " It is not that I wish to belittle his influence," Con- 
 ger said, lighting his pipe for an after-dinner smoke, 
 " but may it not be that his pictures are to you largely 
 what you yourself put into them? You spoke once of 
 that one that shows a troubled sea, the foreground 
 blurred by driving mist, and a girl down by the water's 
 edge facing the wind and the sea." 
 
 " Yes," Barbara said dreamily, recalling the picture 
 vividly, " she wasn't prominent in it. You only felt 
 that she was there too, seeing what you saw, watching 
 perhaps for some sail long overdue, shivering in the 
 dampness but dreading to give it up and turn her 
 back on it. And yet she wasn't the picture ; it was 
 the sea and the wind and the mystery of the 
 storm." 
 
 " Proving," he said, " that the picture is a success 
 because it doesn't illustrate; it doesn't tell a story; it 
 is a vehicle for the thoughts and imaginations and 
 ideals of such as you who have something to put into 
 it. To come back to our question, it seems to me that 
 it is given to some of us to influence only a few; to 
 others many; what counts isn't the number reached, 
 but the kind of influence exerted. And I have come 
 to believe that the best kind is what we exert uncon- 
 sciously. Therefore, I say what we are is the im- 
 portant thing, not what we do." 
 
 Galton, who had stayed away as long as he thought 
 necessary, joined them here, and Bess Grayley fol- 
 lowed him.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 187 
 
 "Who furnished the sandwiches?" Galton asked. 
 " Because I'm going to register a kick against mustard 
 on chicken and tongue." 
 
 " Oh, don't, please ! " Barbara protested. " We are 
 having such an interesting talk, and Conger was teach- 
 ing me so much ! " Then, seeing Galton's disappoint- 
 ment, she was sorry instantly. It was a trifle priggish 
 not to be willing to discuss sandwiches. She did her 
 best to be interested. Galton, however, took her al- 
 ways as he found her. He was prepared to accept 
 her at the altar for better or worse, which alternative 
 seemed to him distinctly a feminine characteristic, a 
 fickle quality which most men escaped in themselves, 
 but had to put up with as the one drawback to married 
 bliss. 
 
 Bess Grayley saw the change in Barbara and made 
 a note that Barbara was losing her charm. She had 
 always been one of the coy sort, uncertain with her 
 girl friends, and quite inclined to flirt with her boy 
 friends. Now here she was at twenty-five becoming 
 serious and even bothering her head about abstract 
 questions. 
 
 Barbara was going to become one of those cultured 
 women that are so tiresome to their friends. Galton 
 had better hurry up and marry her before she became 
 impossible. This was the first time she had ever heard 
 her call Conger by his first name. It was time to bring 
 matters to a climax with Conger or that strange per- 
 son might take it into his head to fall in love with 
 Barbara. All this Bess Grayley had time to consider 
 before joining in the conversation.
 
 i88 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 It was Gallon who drew her out by asking why she 
 was so chatty. 
 
 " I was going to suggest to Conger this very min- 
 ute," she said, " that he and I were simply in your 
 way. I know you needn't protest, either of you 
 you have very little time to see each other, with 
 Galton up town all summer, and it's the least we can 
 do to give you this cosy evening to yourselves." 
 
 " But we don't want to be by ourselves ! " Barbara 
 protested. 
 
 Conger had started to rise ; it was growing dark and 
 he could only dimly see her face, but he felt a detain- 
 ing hand on his sleeve, more eloquent than words, and 
 he needed no further persuasion to stay. Bess, who 
 hadn't seen this mute appeal, redoubled her efforts to 
 carry her point, and Galton's mild " Oh, nonsense, 
 Bess! You mustn't consider us," was too thinly 
 veiled to serve as a protest. 
 
 "Aren't you coming, Conger?" Bess cried, rising 
 with a great deal of unnecessary shaking out of skirts 
 to make her action apparent to all the circle. 
 
 The whole company had drawn up around a pretty 
 log fire of driftwood gathered along the shore. Dark- 
 ness and falling dew had brought just enough of chill 
 to make the fire grateful. A flood tide lapped the 
 beach gently just below them, and the black water be- 
 yond the reach of the bonfire's glow was cold and 
 treacherous and full of mystery. Laughter and shout- 
 ing had given place with the fading light to quiet and 
 subdued conversation. 
 
 Conger had felt a tug at his sleeve and to his own
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 189 
 
 surprise that slight pressure, amounting to no more 
 than a subtle invitation to remain, outweighed the 
 spoken appeal of the girl who up to that very moment 
 had been his best friend. There was in that appeal of 
 Bess's too much of the married woman's brandishing 
 of her marriage license. It was the tone that conveyed 
 a righteous criticism from one authorized to criticize, 
 and it took C. Howe back as by magic to the days in 
 China with his mandarin, to the ideals of China as 
 to marriage and woman's place. It roused the old 
 scorn for the claims of women in America. It was 
 but the flaming up of the embers in a dying flare, but, 
 while it lasted, Conger felt his old repugnance against 
 dominant females and their attempts to run his affairs. 
 Nothing that Bess could say would have moved him. 
 while that mood lasted. It was China reasserting it- 
 self. Bess was too bright to press for an answer. 
 They were not married yet. Afterwards that 
 would 'be very different. He would come when he 
 was called then ; but now one must be so much more 
 gentle in the art of angling than in the more prosaic 
 treatment o the fish that has been securely hooked. 
 So she laughed it off, called him a wayward, self-willed 
 boy, spoiled by long residence in heathen lands. And 
 then she joined the nearest little group, and became the 
 Jife of the party. She laughed with even more hearty 
 merriment than the humor of the party demanded, so 
 that Conger might note what he had missed, and might 
 appreciate her as the life and soul of any company. 
 Talk among the three thus left was unsatisfactory. 
 Galton and Conger knew each other so well there
 
 190 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 seemed to be no need of saying anything, and for 
 reasons of her own Barbara was very quiet. 
 
 Some one suggested it was time to go home. The 
 dying fire was left to smoulder and die, to change from 
 a warm, glowing thing of life to dead, cold ashes. 
 Lanterns were lighted to show the road, for the night 
 was very dark now, and in twos and threes the merry 
 company stole back silently from the shore, carrying 
 empty baskets and the dejected dishes that went forth 
 50 gaily decked in parsley, now recklessly jolted, un- 
 washed memorials of a joyous past. 
 
 Galton was as near to being displeased with Conger 
 as he had ever been. There was no reason why Con- 
 ger should have stuck to them after Bess Grayley's 
 broad hint that he wasn't wanted. It was simply his 
 obstinacy. Barbara might easily have allowed him 
 to go instead of saying what she did. And to punish 
 them both Galton walked up with Bess Grayley, leav- 
 ing Conger and Barbara to get on as best they could. 
 They had no lamp, but Conger carried a huge tin pail, 
 and a basket which had contained Barbara's contribu- 
 tion to the supper. In front of them giant shadows 
 stalked along the edge of the woods, tall as the pines, 
 cast by the lantern hung low from a woman's hand as 
 she walked. Barbara clung to his arm that they 
 might not wander from the road. 
 
 " Were you amused at my confession of failure ? " 
 she asked, gently. 
 
 "Amused? No, not that." 
 
 " Well, you had a perfect right to be. I'm awfully 
 ashamed when I look back at that ride a year ago when
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 191 
 
 I asked for your opinion, and then was angry because 
 I got it. My vanity couldn't stand the shock." 
 
 ' You see, with me it is different from what you 
 think," he said, trying to make it easier for her. " I 
 have not even yet mastered the English idiom so as 
 to express that shade of meaning which I should wish 
 to employ." 
 
 " No," she broke in, " I will not have it so. You 
 told me candidly that my story was poor. And it was 
 poor, but I hadn't the decency to bear disappointment, 
 and so I was contemptible ! " 
 
 They trudged along for a minute in silence; then 
 he explained. 
 
 " It was only natural that you should be annoyed. 
 When one has just finished a piece of work, picture 
 or story or whatsoever it may be, it is so near that its 
 author cannot see over or round it; it fills his horizon 
 for the moment. So he always believes it the best 
 thing he has ever done, when it may be the poorest. 
 After a while it looks different because he gets away 
 from it." 
 
 " No apologies on my behalf," she insisted. " These 
 bobbing lights must take you back to Peking. 
 You see you are still in the shadow of Lantern 
 Street." 
 
 " I shall always be in the shadow of Lantern Street," 
 he answered, simply, " the gray shadow from which 
 I came." 
 
 " Oh, but I didn't mean that ! " and, unconsciously, 
 the hold upon his arm tightened. 
 
 Barbara Wrayton was no longer the girl whose
 
 192 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 thought was always of herself; she had become keenly 
 sensitive for others. 
 
 " You needn't fear for me," he said gently; " always 
 there is the shadow, but the sunshine is far stronger 
 than the shadow. And, after all, it must be reason 
 that governs a man, not emotions." 
 
 " But emotions are much more thrilling than cold 
 common-sense. It's a pity to tie their hands as long 
 as they behave themselves." 
 
 " As long as they behave," he repeated. " But that 
 isn't always the case. They have a habit of not be- 
 having. My first lessons in childhood were by way 
 of covering up every emotion. The man with whom 
 I lived acted always in accordance with his emotions 
 and they were always vicious. Your emotions tell 
 you only what you would like to do." 
 
 " Well," Barbara remarked thoughtfully, " a really 
 nice person doesn't often wish to do what isn't right 
 and proper." 
 
 He made no reply, and she asked : " Isn't that 
 so?" 
 
 " If that is true, I am not a nice person," he replied 
 frankly. 
 
 She thought of his parentage; his Chinese father 
 and more doubtful mother his early life that must 
 have been spent among the most corrupting influences 
 of a land where Christianity is unknown. 
 
 Perhaps he wasn't a nice person, according to the 
 narrowest standards, yet here she was, a girl, virtually 
 engaged to another man, clinging to this man's arm 
 in the dark. Despite this reflection she hadn't thought
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 193 
 
 of releasing his arm and running ahead to join the 
 group of good reliable Christians whose parentage was 
 vouched for in church records and family Bibles. 
 These confessions had not made him repulsive. Per- 
 haps something was inherently wrong with herself also, 
 for she continued to walk with him, and to hold his 
 arm, and there was no perceptible quickening in her 
 gait. 
 
 He had dismissed the emotions in favor of a present 
 sensation that pleased him. " Locust blossoms," he 
 exclaimed, sniffing the cool air delightedly, " and fresh 
 hay raked in windrows and left in the field. I saw it 
 there as we came down. It always reminds me of my 
 mandarin, my first happy days, my mandarin with- 
 out whom I should now be a coolie in Peking, dragging 
 a 'rickshaw through the streets, earning about twenty 
 cents a day and living in every other respect the life of 
 a cab-horse." 
 
 " Galton has told me about it," Barbara said, with 
 remarkable sympathy in her tone for one who had been 
 so recently asking herself whether she ought to con- 
 demn him as a heathen. " But I never thought of it 
 as such a narrow escape. Somehow it seemed to me 
 that, if you hadn't happened upon the blind mandarin, 
 you would have made a place for yourself somewhere, 
 because well, because you are you." 
 
 " That is very kind," he answered, " but I am not 
 at all sure I could have done more than fit into a place 
 if I happened to find it. Making a place in the world 
 is such an energetic job. Galton could do it, with his 
 dominating will."
 
 194 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " Dominating will," she thought. " Is he going to 
 dominate me ? " Aloud she asked, " Do you think he 
 will dominate his wife?" 
 
 " Why not? " Conger flashed back so suddenly that 
 he hadn't time to check it. The girl was startled ; the 
 light hand on his sleeve told him that. 
 
 " Do you think," she began, then abruptly dropping 
 the question, " I forgot your Chinese ideas as to 
 women's inferiority, and the rights of husbands." 
 
 " Fast being remodelled, these Chinese ideas, to suit 
 American customs," he replied, not attempting to de- 
 bate the question of woman's inferiority. " To go 
 back to Galton, he typifies energy, force of body and 
 brain." 
 
 " In the Bible it wasn't force that could remove 
 mountains, it was faith," Barbara said, and he laugh- 
 ingly admitted, 
 
 " I am not so well versed in the Scripture, but I re- 
 call that saying. The answer is no one ever be- 
 lieves it is true. It is like the rich man and the camel's 
 eye hyperbole the rhetoric calls it." 
 
 " You know, -it wasn't the camel's eye," she corrected 
 him, wondering whether he was merely being perverse, 
 but he passed it over with the remark, " The particular 
 eye doesn't matter ; only, when Americans do not un- 
 derstand the modern Orientals, they call them liars 
 and cheats. They have plenty of excuses for those of 
 twenty centuries ago." 
 
 " Have your own way about that if you will," she 
 yielded. " But I find I'm not so keen about strength 
 as I used to be. It's all right among men; they all
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 195 
 
 worship it, but women like a little weakness here and 
 there. It gives them their chance to be useful. Chil- 
 dren and drunkards and sick people and prisoners 
 they all appeal to us because we can see they need us." 
 
 " Women have always been out of my line," Conger 
 said. " Ya-tzu was kind to me when I was little, but 
 over here Bess has been recently concerned for my 
 welfare." 
 
 "And I a little?" 
 
 He made no reply; it wasn't the same thing, this 
 interest of a girl who was completely absorbed in an- 
 other man's welfare. They had come to the end of 
 their walk, and as he surrendered the pail and the 
 basket to Barbara at her doorstep, Galton was wait- 
 ing to forgive her for her thoughtless treatment of 
 him. Magnanimity radiated from him, vibrated in 
 the tone in which he thanked Conger for carrying her 
 belongings. 
 
 " She is a little lax always has been," he explained, 
 " when it comes to remembering her duty to people." 
 
 " For goodness' sake ! " she retorted tartly. " Am 
 I already under obligation to you; must I think of 
 duty?" 
 
 " Decidedly you must," Galton answered, firmly. 
 
 It was much the same Barbara that she was when 
 Galton had first seen her who rippled back at him with 
 a mocking laugh and, as she disappeared into the house, 
 called, " Don't try that sort of stuff with me ! Good 
 night, Conger." And the front door closed with a 
 bang. 
 
 The two friends stood for a moment watching to see
 
 196 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 her reappear, then Gal ton with a show of confidence 
 tried to laugh it off. 
 
 " They have tempers, you see, the best of them, and 
 I put it a little, too plainly," he said, as they turned 
 away. " A little of your Chinese ideas wouldn't hurt 
 our American girls. A man ought to be the head of 
 his own family; there cannot be two captains aboard 
 the same ship, as my father often remarks." 
 
 " But this sounds like heresy from an American," 
 Conger answered. " And as applied to Miss Wrayton, 
 are you not a little premature ? " 
 
 "It's been going on too long; that's the trouble," 
 Galton confessed. " She grows careless and indiffer- 
 ent, and I cross and exacting. But what's the use of 
 telling you? You don't even think I ought to marry 
 her, but I'm going to marry her within four months 
 and this little quarrel will only hasten the day." 
 
 Conger made no reply. Lover's quarrels, the treat- 
 ment due from each to each, the proper conduct of 
 friendship with a woman, were problems outside his 
 knowledge or experience. Nevertheless he had 
 thought lately that he would be happier to have a home 
 of his own, and that meant a wife to preside over it. 
 The picture was not complete without children. Then 
 came the limitation of his possible choice. He knew 
 so few girls! In fact, he knew but one who would 
 be at all likely to listen to a proposal of that sort 
 for it was as a proposal, not as a suit, that his mind 
 viewed it. 
 
 " You are not very communicative," Galton said,
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 197 
 
 when they had come opposite the Gragg house. " I 
 hope you didn't think I was blaming you." 
 
 " Blaming me ? You mean for Miss Wrayton's 
 lack of submission ? " 
 
 " Oh, you old jackass, I never could explain what 
 I mean. Only I do not in the least blame you for 
 anything." 
 
 They said good night, and Conger went on alone, 
 wondering about marriage and whether he had better 
 try it, also.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 The cliff directly in front of Myrick's jutted out in 
 a bold promontory. Some winter storm worse than 
 the rest must have torn away the bank on each side 
 of it, leaving this headland for a silent witness to test- 
 tify to the fury of an angry sea. If Felix fitron him- 
 self had approached it from the land one afternoon in 
 July, he would have found there the material for a 
 portrait. A tall man, all in white, stood alone at the 
 very edge of the cliff, his hands clasped behind him, 
 his thick dark hair falling over his forehead, shading 
 a little the thin straight features and the deep set 
 eyes that looked intently seaward. Not a sail was in 
 sight, only a murky cloud low down in the northwest 
 like heavy smoke from a steamer below the horizon. 
 The air was very still and hot. A deep, far-off rumble 
 disturbed the quiet with its long vibration, and the 
 yellow dog that lay panting with dripping tongue, rose 
 and found a new spot where he could lie within the 
 touch of his master's foot. Contact, to the yellow dog, 
 meant confidence, and he hated sharp sounds, in fact 
 he frankly admitted that he was gun shy. 
 
 The man appeared to notice neither the distant mut- 
 tering of thunder nor the close approach of the dog 
 resting against his heel. His thoughts were busy with 
 the settling of a new and vital question that had leaped 
 full grown out of the night, demanding an answer. 
 To his horror he had found himself deeply stirred by 
 
 198
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 199 
 
 Barbara Wrayton, interested in Galton Gragg's prom- 
 ised bride, and he felt like a thief, not as the thief 
 feels, hardened to misdeeds, by long indulgence, but 
 as one just waking to discover his own dishonor, start- 
 ing back from the revelation, shocked at the sight of his 
 naked soul. Step by step, word by word, he had gone 
 back over their conversation, trying to put his finger 
 on the spot where he had left the path of friendship 
 for Galton, had forgotten that Barbara was Gallon's, 
 had dared by so much as a thought to trespass upon the 
 sacred ground of his best friend's love for the woman. 
 When he had left her, the sudden ending of their talk 
 had been unsatisfactory; the evident annoyance of 
 Galton had disconcerted him, so it was with mixed 
 feelings that he had undressed and gone to bed and .to 
 sleep, feelings not clearly defined, in which he had as 
 yet seen nothing wherein to blame himself. But in 
 the night while his room was still black he had suddenly 
 wakened to face this grave question, an accusation of 
 disloyalty arising from the darkness to point at him 
 its finger and ask him if he also dared to love Barbara 
 Wrayton. His answer had been ready, a stern denial 
 of any such thought, and as an echo to the denial the 
 whole question had come back in the vision of her 
 face as she said good night to him but not to Gal- 
 ton in the light touch of her hand on his arm. 
 There it was; deny it, stoutly as he did, the question 
 remained a question, and the clock on the floor below 
 struck two and three and four while he lay there try- 
 ing to prove that it wasn't a question at all. 
 
 At four it was daylight, and he got up, put on his
 
 200 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Chinese overalls and went out to work in the garden. 
 Years ago he had learned that most ghosts can be laid 
 by the sweat of the brow. In spite of the strenuous 
 labor, the run to the shore and the sea bath that fol- 
 lowed it, this ghost had persisted and here he was argu- 
 ing the whole case from the beginning again in the 
 attempt to prove to himself that no ghost existed. 
 
 That bunch of smoke, on the line where sea 
 and sky met, was growing larger, yet not lengthening 
 out as smoke trails in the wind from the funnel of a 
 steamer. This was bunching up blacker and more 
 threatening every minute. The wind came in gusts; 
 it blew the man's hair and his shirt sleeves, but he 
 seemed not to notice that it was blowing. 
 
 Sometimes in the early spring when the snow, back 
 on the hillsides, melts and fills the brook with its hur- 
 rying stream, a stray bit of driftwood, swirled in the 
 increasing flood, is caught and held for a few minutes 
 in a sharp angle. Here it checks the rush of waters, 
 and, piling up back of it every floating bit, adds its re- 
 sistance, lifting the water's level to a new height, until 
 suddenly it bursts through at a new point. With a 
 great wave the brook has changed its course, carrying 
 every obstacle before it in its first wild stampede. 
 And the innocent-looking driftwood that was the cause 
 of such violent change what becomes of that? 
 
 The storm was gathering within and without, as 
 Conger Howe stood there facing it, on the cliff in 
 front of Myrick's, and, as the brook sees unmoved the 
 driftwood that is destined to change its course, so 
 Conger Howe spied the figure of a woman coming
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 201 
 
 along the shore, and gave no more heed to the discovery 
 than merely to note that it was a woman, and that she 
 was hurrying for shelter before the storm should break. 
 For a storm was coming; that little murky cloud had 
 multiplied into a great bank of angry storm clouds 
 from which at intervals shot forth long, jagged 
 streaks of lightning that tore them from top to bot- 
 tom. Half a minute later followed the sullen rumble 
 of distant thunder, and the woman's skirts down there 
 on the shore were caught in a sudden gale that blew 
 them about her in such a tumult that she could hardly 
 walk. The edge of the storm as it came on across the 
 bay was a curtain of rain, shutting from sight every- 
 thing behind it. The woman watching it was doing 
 her best to reach Myrick's before it. She had even 
 turned to climb the path by the old spring, when, with 
 a deafening crash, the thunder and the gale broke loose 
 together, and a torrent of rain poured from the rent 
 and shattered heaven. A handful of shingles rose 
 from the tormented roof of Myrick's barn and sailed 
 with the gale far inland. And Conger stood watching 
 the woman struggle towards him up the path, and 
 nothing told him that she was driftwood swirling into 
 the stream of his life at the very moment when its 
 course might be diverted by a trifling accident. 
 
 He was staring facts in the face, the appalling fact 
 that he had for a few hours dared to love Barbara 
 Wrayton. That spark must be stamped out effectually 
 before any one else should even suspect its existence. 
 And the most effectual way to do it was by attachment 
 to some other girl.
 
 202 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Just then Bess Grayley's head appeared over the 
 top of the bank. She was dripping wet, breathless 
 and frightened by the crash and fury of the storm now 
 raging at its height. Her straw hat hung limp and 
 shapeless about her ears, its bright blue ribbons black 
 with water. Her skirt gave forth sundry little streams 
 from its bedraggled folds, and she was shivering. Be- 
 fore Conger could say a word to reassure her, the yel- 
 low dog was on his feet, growling and showing a vi- 
 cious array of teeth. 
 
 The yellow dog would not have invited her within 
 Myrick's doubtful shelter, but his master did, and the 
 yellow dog showed his disapproval in his own way. 
 The front end of the studio, when the big doors were 
 shut, afforded at least a dry shelter from the storm. 
 Bess sat on the rough bench and Conger threw over her 
 his coat and a red blanket that served usually for a 
 cushion, but had been known to transform Relief Snow 
 into a beautiful barbarian. Bess was still shivering 
 and alarmed, sitting there well wrapped up, so terri- 
 fied that she clung to Conger's hand, and he stood be- 
 side her to give her confidence. She had taken off her 
 shapeless hat and pressed her head against his side, 
 not unconscious that it was still a pretty head despite 
 its rumpled hair. If either of them had given a 
 thought to the yellow dog they would have noticed 
 that his sensitive nose sniffed once or twice as though 
 it had discovered something. Then they might have 
 seen him walk calmly over to the screen that stood 
 half open in a far corner, where his front half was 
 lost to sight while an expressive rear told by the os-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 203 
 
 dilations of his tail that he had found something which 
 pleased him mightily. But the two were quite taken 
 up with each other, with the strangeness of their being 
 thus brought together at a time when a young lady 
 might naturally be frightened, a time when Conger 
 was peculiarly sensitive to appeals to his gallantry. 
 
 The flashes and the crashes were coming so near to- 
 gether that it was plain that the storm was directly 
 over them. No wonder the girl found it comforting 
 to lean upon this strong man, to press close against 
 him, to whisper little words of endearment wrung from 
 her unwilling lips in the excitement of the moment. 
 His hand once more stroked the fair hair to reassure 
 her. He hardly knew that he did it, for she was 
 trembling, her teeth were chattering, she was a child 
 in her terror. A wife like this would be a blessing to 
 a lonely man, because she would need him and it is a 
 joy to a strong man to protect those who need pro- 
 tection. This thought was taking form in his mind 
 slowly when she said, " I was frightened. Thunder 
 always frightens me. You are so strong. You'll 
 think me a dreadful baby, but " A terrific crash 
 that shook the frail building drowned the rest of her 
 sentence. It must have struck very near them, and 
 it only strengthened the desperate grip with which she 
 clung to her protector. If one must die the other 
 could not escape. 
 
 " There is nothing to be afraid of," he assured her, 
 and she, looking up into his face, declared, " I don't 
 care what comes, so long as as I have you." 
 
 His surprise at so plain a statement showed in a
 
 204 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 momentary embarrassment, then something whispered 
 in his ear that this was his opportunity for happiness. 
 
 Galton and Barbara would find their little difference 
 settled automatically. Bess Grayley would be a de- 
 voted wife, distinctly ornamental, and as Galton's and 
 Barbara's friend she would not separate him from 
 them. That counted for even more than he was will- 
 ing to admit to himself. Marriage for him would 
 undoubtedly be desirable; his marriage just now 
 would likewise be desirable for all concerned. He 
 was too modest to acknowledge the suspicion that Gal- 
 ton's chances would be improved if he were out of the 
 question. Perhaps it was simply Barbara's innate 
 fondness for conquest, a winning little tendency to- 
 ward flirtation. While his thoughts were thus calmly 
 ranging the whole field, Bess had caught his right 
 hand in hers, and pressed it to her lips. The golden 
 hair on which he looked down was very soft and 
 beautiful; he could feel her warm lips on his fingers. 
 Fear must have caused her completely to forget all 
 the reserves with which such a girl habitually sur- 
 rounded herself. She dropped his hand and asked 
 very softly: 
 
 " Do you care a little tiny bit? " 
 
 " You mean," he asked, " do I care for you that 
 much?" 
 
 " Yes, do you care at all? " She was trembling 
 again, violently agitated, as her voice betrayed. The 
 man who knew so little of women, whose mind always 
 harked back to Chinese customs, felt that he was being 
 made love to, and he shrank from the idea, while the
 
 205 
 
 fact under such circumstances was not displeasing. 
 The woman needed him ; that was the strong point in 
 her favor. She was afraid, and conventions were for- 
 gotten. But she was waiting for an answer, knowing 
 as well as he that the thunder and the storm and the 
 proximity had more influence upon him than any ad- 
 miration for Bess Grayley's character or accomplish- 
 ments. 
 
 He had never known a similar experience, save that 
 of a year ago with the same woman ; he was therefore 
 at a great disadvantage in appraising his own feelings. 
 This seemed like love, was in fact what most people 
 mistake for love at some time in their life. 
 
 Before answering he looked down and met her eyes 
 looking straight into his for their answer. They were 
 pretty eyes and they held an intensity at that moment 
 that seemed to tell him that life or death hung on his 
 decision that their light would go out forever if 
 he admitted that he didn't care a little. 
 
 The change in his estimate of women, gradually as 
 it had come about, was difficult for him even now to 
 appreciate; that a modest woman should take the 
 initiative was extremely distasteful. In spite of this, 
 as he looked into her eyes, he seemed to see the fires 
 beneath them glowing through. His old boyish hun- 
 ger for love overcame every lesser thought and feeling. 
 
 " I care very, very much," he said, and took her up- 
 turned face between his two hands. Even to his in- 
 experience the attitude of her lips suggested the ex- 
 pectation of a kiss. Never before had he kissed a 
 woman, but he did so then, and Bess's arms about his
 
 206 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 neck prevented it from being of the hurried or per- 
 functory sort. When he could control his voice to 
 speak he asked, 
 
 " Does this surrender mean that I may have you 
 for my wife? " 
 
 She smiled at the mention of surrender, for she un- 
 derstood who had been ambushed, understood so well 
 that she was glad the yellow dog couldn't talk; even 
 he must have seen how little Conger Howe had had to 
 do with it. 
 
 " Do you really want me for your wife? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " I need you, I want you, I 
 want a good woman's love." 
 
 She had risen that he might take her in his arms, 
 and from that shelter she now whispered: 
 
 "All that I have, all that I am, is yours. Oh, if 
 you only knew how much I need to have some one of 
 my own, some one to look after me, to care whether 
 I am happy or not! My life has been wretched; you 
 will lift me out of it so that I can show some of these 
 cats that they've made a mistake ! " 
 
 Her voice gained in strength as she went on review- 
 ing her ambitions; its tone jarred discordantly on 
 Conger's dream of love. The tender sentiments, the 
 hopes and confidences that trembled on his lips, ready 
 to find sympathy in this wonderful new intimacy, re- 
 mained unuttered, not that he consciously refrained 
 from expressing them ; love was not so overpowering, 
 so absorbing as he had fancied it. Even in its first 
 grip it left you keenly conscious of your surroundings, 
 almost inclined to be critical, perhaps a little disap^
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 207 
 
 pointed that a woman didn't seem like an angel. After 
 the first it was she who did the leading, asked whether 
 they should be married at once, how well they could 
 afford to live. He was conscious once more, at this 
 point, of a distinct and disconcerting jar. He felt 
 curiously cold and indifferent about it all, even as he 
 stood there with the pretty blonde head so close to his ; 
 in the very climax of the woman's surrender he hardly 
 knew what he was saying, vaguely aware of questions 
 launched, one after another, all inquisitive as to how 
 much the woman was to be paid. At least that was 
 the interpretation that a mocking voice within him 
 insisted upon repeating over and over, as she more and 
 more plainly betrayed her estimate of married bliss and 
 how to measure it. 
 
 The storm was over. Once more the sun came out, 
 smiling like a naughty child released from the closet, 
 and the clouds that had wrought such havoc while he 
 had neglected his duties, now scurried off southward, 
 breaking up into harmless little groups that tried to 
 look as though they knew nothing of broken trees, 
 levelled corn fields and devastation. The water still 
 dripped in dozens of places from the drenched roof; 
 it fell splashing into as many little pools and rivulets 
 outside Myrick's barn, and into a few on the inside, 
 one of which was just behind the screen where the 
 yellow dog showed an interest not shared by his 
 master. 
 
 Conger noted a ray of sunlight that came through 
 the roof. He thought how the raindrops would glit- 
 ter and how fresh the earth would smell after such a
 
 208 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 rain. He even thought that he should enjoy his sup- 
 per at the inn. Then once more he was conscious of 
 a great change, a new responsibility, a vague disap- 
 pointment that he was too loyal to harbor. 
 
 " Come," he said almost abruptly ; " it is time we 
 were going," and he flung open the big doors. 
 
 " Aren't you going to kiss me before we go ? " she 
 asked, and he wondered why she seemed to have a 
 grievance, determined that he should be in some way 
 at fault. But he kissed her, and they left the barn 
 securely padlocked on the outside, regardless of the 
 yellow dog's protest that things were not as they 
 should be. And when they were a hundred yards away 
 from Myrick's the yellow dog at his master's heel kept 
 looking back, but the two strange lovers paid no heed 
 to the yellow dog.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 A loose board at the back of Myrick's barn slid to 
 one side, a bare brown foot and ankle stole cautiously 
 out, followed by a blue-checked gingham skirt, wet 
 and bedraggled. Last of all came a very pretty tousled 
 head, brown curls framing a flushed and angry face. 
 But, angry or not, Relief was unmistakably pretty, 
 even when she stamped upon the unoffending grass 
 and cursed Miss Bess Grayley with the everlasting 
 doom of the damned. She was not careful of her 
 language, not sparing the poor man whom she char- 
 acterized as a silly sucking dove. He was the stupid 
 victim, poor witless man! But all her wrath was for 
 the scheming, sly woman. " I'll kill her first ! " she 
 said between her clenched teeth. " She'll never have 
 him, if I have to kill her to stop it! Oh, the snake! 
 The snake ! " Her thought ran back to the days of 
 her own temptation and fall. How similar this was 
 to that ! Only, that was man tempting, appealing to a 
 simple girl's vanity and love of admiration; this was 
 woman appealing to the gallantry of a man as guileless 
 and unsuspecting as Relief herself had been. It was 
 nothing but an emotional response to the situation, and 
 Relief, who had no words for it, recognized this fact. 
 To her it was plain that Conger Howe was not at all 
 in love with Miss Grayley; she even went so far as 
 
 209
 
 210 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 to suspect that he was in love with Barbara Wrayton, 
 and in that she was dangerously near the truth, save 
 that his loyalty to Galton would not suffer him to 
 confess it even to himself. In any event one thing 
 became clearer to her than ever before : the utter hope- 
 lessness of her infatuation for the artist who had seen 
 in her only a picturesque model, while she saw in him 
 the divinity who possessed in one person every ador- 
 able attribute. With such a being it was impossible to 
 be angry; his ignorance and stupidity about women 
 only made him the more attractive. 
 
 She had almost reached home when she heard voices 
 just ahead. A man said : " My hearty congratula- 
 tions, old chap; this is delightful. What fun we four 
 can have together! " Relief left the path and, skirting 
 it through the bushes, came close to them where she 
 could see and hear quite unobserved. It was Galton 
 Gragg who had spoken, and Miss Wrayton who was 
 with him didn't appear to share his enthusiasm. She 
 seemed to Relief to be looking reproachfully at the 
 artist, almost scornfully. The only one of the four 
 wholly at ease and blissfully happy was Miss Bess 
 Grayley. Evidently she hadn't lost a minute in an- 
 nouncing her engagement. The man wasn't going to 
 escape her now that she had trapped him. " I dare- 
 say the cat will lead him to the parson on her way home, 
 and have the knot tied before he can have time to 
 think it over." So Relief's thoughts ran while two of 
 the four continued to express the usual vague and op- 
 timistic sentiments concerning marriage in general and 
 this coming one in particular as an example of utmost
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 211 
 
 fitness. Plainly enough the event, which was a divine 
 inspiration as seen by Miss Grayley and Galton, was an 
 embarrassing surprise to the artist and a shocking dis- 
 appointment to Miss Barbara. 
 
 " You see," Miss Grayley said, in her liveliest man- 
 ner, " it took Conger some time to discover it because 
 he is so modest, but I've known what he really thought 
 about it for weeks. The poor dear old goose couldn't 
 conceal it from me." 
 
 This speech had far from the desired effect on Con- 
 ger. He looked more disturbed and perplexed than 
 ever. This air of ownership was distressing him. 
 Relief Snow, who wasn't in their class, could see it. 
 She knew him a good deal better and sympathized with 
 him far more than these friends of his who looked 
 down on her as not good enough for them to notice. 
 
 " Now come, Conger," Miss Bess continued, " I 
 want to break the news to the summer colony before " 
 and, hesitating here for the right word, she lost her 
 advantage, and Barbara Wrayton finished her sen- 
 tence : " Before C. Howe has time to revert to his 
 Chinese ideas of women as chattels? " 
 
 At this sally Bess only laughed. She well knew 
 that those old Chinese notions were gone, and in their 
 place she was to teach him that equality of the sexes 
 meant the rule of woman. Barbara never glanced at 
 her, however; she was studying that puzzled look on 
 Conger's face which had deepened to an ominous 
 frown. China was not so far behind him as Miss 
 Grayley thought. All this the unhappy Relief saw and 
 understood. She saw also the quick look with which
 
 212 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 her artist answered Barbara Wrayton, that it was a 
 sudden appeal to her to understand what he was doing 
 and why. This was much for a simple country girl 
 like Relief Snow to see and comprehend, but suffering 
 and disappointment had taught Relief many things 
 about human nature. Her heart had always been open 
 for love, open in vain it would seem, now her eyes and 
 mind were open likewise to the things that concerned 
 love. 
 
 If Barbara Wrayton shared what Relief saw in C. 
 Howe's glance she did not gratify his appeal; instead 
 she laughed the careless rippling laugh that was half 
 merriment, half a challenge, and asked of Bess, " Are 
 you going to have him keep on with painting and pic- 
 ture-selling, or shall you have him go into another busi- 
 ness ? " Conger winced under this, but not a look be- 
 trayed that he caught the point, and Bess, accepting it 
 as a tribute to her right to command, answered frankly : 
 " My dear, we haven't been engaged fifteen minutes 
 yet it's too soon to plan every detail. But one 
 thing I will tell you: I mean that he shall make the 
 most of what ability he has." 
 
 Even Galton noted the new tone of command in this 
 declaration and instinctively sought in his friend's face 
 the sympathetic scowl to mark his abhorrence of it 
 which on any previous occasion would surely have 
 been there. Only the old puzzled look was between 
 Conger's eyes, and Galton, translating it into terms 
 of conquest, put his hand on Conger's shoulder and 
 said : " You have a very bad case of it. I thought 
 I was pretty hard hit, but you are a transformed
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 213 
 
 creature. Only don't let it go too far; I should hate 
 like the devil to see you lose all your independence and 
 your fine old heathen notions of what's what." 
 
 Conger didn't answer this friendly rally. His deep 
 eyes were watching the duel flashing in rapier glances 
 between the two girls who had so long been friends 
 that words were not needed. Why were they angry 
 with each other? Why weren't they all the better 
 friends now that this definite pairing off had removed 
 all possibilities of jealousy? This was puzzling him; 
 what he had done had apparently already fallen far 
 short of his expectations, and he began to fear that his 
 years of observation and training in America had, after 
 all, taught him but little of American women. He had 
 been prepared in his first reaction against the Oriental 
 views to accord to woman an exalted position as high 
 above her deserts as the other was below it. Now 
 suddenly he saw her revealed simply as a human being, 
 neither below nor above man, dependent simply upon 
 her education and environment. Once more he must 
 change his whole attitude towards life. For his first 
 ten years life had been something to be endured sto- 
 ically, because to show suffering was but to invite 
 worse. Then little by little had come revaluation, new 
 ideals, purpose and zest. Now, by this newest revela- 
 tion, he could see that Bess Grayley had mistaken his 
 reverence for servility; his modest admiration of wo- 
 man for cringing admission of his own inferiority. 
 Like Samson, his next step, after giving woman her 
 way with him, had been to pull the whole temple down 
 about his ears.
 
 214 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Relief Snow had gone, her anger against Miss Gray- 
 ley hotter than ever, her failure to comprehend the 
 artist's position only half as complete as that of the 
 two young ladies who were his friends, but still a very 
 distinct failure to see things as he saw them. The 
 Snow family had finally accepted the situation and with 
 it the pay that Rill earned by her posing. Cap'n 
 Thoph had been very sparing of details in discussing it 
 with his wife. He had entirely omitted mention of 
 that little incident at the fish-house; it was easier to 
 ignore the interview than to explain how it resulted. 
 But he did say that he had " changed his mind about 
 that artist feller an' he 'lowed no harm'd come to Rill 
 along o' him." 
 
 "Wai, I hope not," said Mrs. Snow. "It does 
 seem's though one sech disgrace is enough fer a life- 
 time. But she's awful took with him, Thoph, kinder 
 moonin' like, an' goin' off by herself, an' lookin' fer 
 away. It's a bad sign with a girl, leastways them as 
 ever I knew." 
 
 " But it takes two to make love, same as to quarrel," 
 her husband sententiously remarked. 
 
 " Thoph," Mrs. Snow replied, " sometimes it does 
 seem like you didn't hev reasonable common sense. 
 If the women folks is ready an' willin' when it comes 
 to love-makin' there ain't never no dearth o' men to 
 jine 'em married or single it don't make the least 
 difference. Two to make love? Permission is all the 
 men folks wants, an' they'll do the makin', night or 
 daytimes, weekdays or Sundays. You can't tell me 
 nothin' 'bout men."
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 215 
 
 Twice Theophilus Snow attempted to reply ; his dig- 
 nity was shocked the wife of a deacon uttering such 
 sentiments as these ! He got as far as standing very 
 straight, raising his hand and clearing his throat, 
 which was his usual procedure when he rose in prayer- 
 meeting. Then he thought better of it. Mrs. Snow 
 was different from a prayer-meeting. She might an- 
 swer back. So he frowned at her prodigiously and 
 ventured not a word. 
 
 It was at this juncture that Rill walked in, flushed 
 and out of sorts, flopped down in the rocker facing 
 her mother who was ironing a Sunday shirt, and ex- 
 ploded : " What d'you think that silly thing's gone an' 
 done, Ma? Got engaged to that she cat Grayley. 
 Didn't even see that it was all her doin'. Jest fell for 
 it ! Oh Lord, it fair makes one sick ! And she hangin' 
 round his neck till he had to like Jacob rastlin' with 
 the Lord " 
 
 " Now see here, Rill," her father interposed, " you 
 just leave the Lord out o' this. It ain't fer sech as 
 you to be drawin' him into the argyment." 
 
 " The Lord ain't takin' no hand in this," Relief 
 flung back. " It's the devil's work, pure an' simple. 
 Pure an' simple that's a good description of Mr. C. 
 Howe." 
 
 " I ain't so sure," Mrs. Snow said, replacing one of 
 her irons on the stove and testing another by holding 
 it near her cheek. 
 
 " Listen, Ma ! " Relief got up and stood at the 
 other side of the ironing-board. She seemed to have 
 forgotten her father's presence. " That man ain't
 
 216 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 thinkin' about himself, the way other folks do; say, I 
 seen him stand up fer an hour because that yaller dog 
 was takin' a nap in his chair an' he wouldn't disturb 
 him. If I was a queen he couldn't be no politer to me 
 than what he is. An' now he's marryin' that critter to 
 save her feelin's. Well, you watch me, Ma; I ain't 
 goin' to allow no sech sacrifice. It's worse'n Abra- 
 ham layin' Isaac on the altar." 
 
 " Careful, Rill ! " the old man interrupted. " We 
 don't want no blarsphemin'." 
 
 " It ain't blasphemin' ; didn't the Lord provide a 
 ram caught in the thicket to take poor little Ikey's 
 place ? Well, who's goin' to be the ram this time ? " 
 
 And with that Relief defiantly marched up the back 
 stairs to her own room, but her mother knew that she 
 was desperately in earnest and fighting to keep back 
 the tears. 
 
 For once Cap'n Thoph launched no invectives after 
 his wilful daughter, and no tiresome argument fol- 
 lowed her outburst. Mrs. Snow 'lowed that he was 
 softenin' with age jest as her father done thirty years 
 back. 
 
 Upstairs the carpet was being turned back in one 
 corner, and the letter from Tacoma came out once 
 more from its hiding to be read very carefully through, 
 then as carefully restored to its retreat, after which 
 Relief still sat there on the floor, looking at the 
 carpet that concealed it. Before her eyes floated the 
 image of Conger Howe, now addressing her in his 
 friendly, boyish manner, now working at his easel or 
 playing with the yellow dog. Finally, she could only
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 217 
 
 picture him as he stood there holding Miss Grayley 
 in his arms, and offering himself a sacrifice to make life 
 easier for her and his- friend Galton Gragg. Gradu- 
 ally the truth about it all seemed to dawn upon her, 
 and she got up with white but resolute face, put on her 
 Sunday dress and quietly left the house. The guests 
 at the hotel were just finishing supper when Relief 
 Snow appeared on the piazza., inquiring for Dr. Doon 
 who wasn't there and had no occasion to be there. 
 One excuse was as good as another, so long as it per- 
 mitted her to loiter without attracting suspicion. 
 When Miss Bess Grayley strolled over casually to tell 
 the news, Relief kept out of sight, but not out of hear- 
 ing. She was next concerned to find her artist and 
 to find him immediately. 
 
 C. Howe was in the billiard-room alone, practising 
 on the table which his munificence had recently 
 equipped with new cushions, and which was never even 
 groomed except when he brushed it. Relief noticed 
 there were only three balls on the table, and that he 
 seemed to possess that peculiar charm by which certain 
 men can with perfect ease coax the white ball to per- 
 form miracles with the other two and an intervening 
 cushion. She knew nothing of touch and co-ordina- 
 tion, but grace and lithe ease she knew because they 
 were natural to her. For a minute therefore she stood 
 in the doorway admiring the relaxed and careless atti- 
 tude of the player and his skill at the game; then she 
 advanced boldly. 
 
 " May I speak to you? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, certainly, Rill; is anything wrong? "
 
 218 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " Yes, there is but I don't know how to tell you. 
 Will you come out here where we can be alone? " 
 
 Conger Howe watched her sharply. He had never 
 seen her like this. She was plainly distressed, yet he 
 hesitated to question her. They found seats on the 
 piazza, at the far end quite isolated. 
 
 " Well," he said, " now tell me as much or little as 
 you wish. I'll do anything in my power to help you." 
 
 Some one was talking just round the corner. 
 
 " Listen ! " Relief said, and laid her hand on his 
 sleeve. 
 
 " He's been crazy about me for weeks just simply 
 hounding the life out of me to marry him. You know 
 what I mean. My family have always thought so 
 much about breeding that I could hardly bear to think 
 about that side of it but I propose to make the name 
 Howe worth something one of these days. I don't 
 propose to have him spend his life dawdling around 
 trying to learn to paint " 
 
 " But, Miss Grayley," a girl's voice interrupted, 
 " isn't Mr. Howe earning a fine living as agent for the 
 great Felix fitron?" 
 
 " He is just now," Miss Bess admitted, " but you 
 can't tell how long a snap like that will last. I mean to 
 have my husband in a regular business where he can 
 make money and reputation. He has youth and health 
 and an amiable disposition I guess we can make an 
 American of him." 
 
 Like a little boy Conger put his hand in that of the 
 girl sitting beside him. Together they rose from the 
 bench and hand in hand walked back to the billiard-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 219 
 
 room. Neither spoke, but in the light of the single 
 kerosene lamp over the table Relief saw that his face 
 was very pale, his lips were firmly pressed together, 
 and his eyes looked at something very far away. He 
 had released her hand when they got inside the door. 
 Presently he picked up his cue and began to play, but 
 the white ball no longer clicked gently against each 
 of the other two. Somehow the white ball had lost 
 something of its magic. And so Relief left him in 
 silence, and the twilight swallowed her up, blending 
 her slim figure with the pitch pines on her road home. 
 " Never mind," she said to herself, " somebody had 
 to show him, an' I'm glad I done it."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 At one o'clock the following day Major Thornton 
 walked up and down the corridor of his club, nervously 
 awaiting his son's arrival. A telephone message had 
 advised him that Conger wished to see him, and the 
 major, who hadn't so much as seen or heard from 
 Conger for two months, was apprehensive. There had 
 been sufficient warning of trouble even in the tone of 
 the voice that came over the telephone making this 
 appointment. 
 
 Promptly at one he came. He looked pale and agi- 
 tated. His father, scenting money difficulties, secretly 
 welcomed this opportunity to show his boy how much 
 he loved him. In the dining-room they found a table 
 overlooking the Common where waving elm trees, 
 green grass and the great flaring fountain of the Frog 
 Pond gave the hot city a taste of real life, recalling the 
 days when Boston's citizens pastured their cows on 
 this same Common, under these very trees. By police 
 indulgence a score or more of ragged urchins were 
 even bathing in the pond, and Major Thornton, point- 
 ing to them, said : 
 
 " Conger, you don't need to go to Cape Cod for 
 freedom. See what you can do in the heart of 
 Boston." 
 
 " Showing, sir, that freedom isn't a matter of place 
 220
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 221 
 
 or time, but is chiefly a state of mind. And that's 
 what I wanted to see you about, sir." 
 
 The major eyed him attentively, but said nothing. 
 
 " I am upset by reason of the uncertainty, the cloud 
 involving my parentage. Foundlings are looked upon, 
 I find " 
 
 He stopped short. The major's face had gone scar- 
 let, and from scarlet to a strange pallor. The major's 
 heart was acting very badly, and the young man, fear- 
 ful that he had seemed to be lacking in respect, hastened 
 to reassure him. 
 
 " I know, sir, that it has never made the least differ- 
 ence to you, and I remember I was given to understand 
 by the colonel when you took me up in Peking that I 
 need not be ashamed of my parents. But sir, your 
 countrymen are so full of superstitions that the phrase 
 ' What God hath joined together ' has more weight 
 with them than all the common sense and biology 
 combined. And the lack of knowledge about my birth 
 is by many so great a prejudice that it amounts to a 
 divine visitation, God being very angry because pos- 
 sibly he wasn't invited to the wedding." 
 
 " You shouldn't say such things," the major replied, 
 feebly. He had put down his knife and fork, and 
 from time to time took a swallow of water, then gazed 
 out at the Common, which was no longer very green, 
 and by no means suggested freedom. 
 
 " I understand," Conger went on, " that in fairness 
 to my parents their identity couldn't be disclosed, so 
 I'm not asking such a thing. But I can ask whether 
 you know, of your own knowledge, that they were of
 
 222 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 such character that I should not be committing a fault 
 to marry to bring into the world grandchildren of 
 my father and my mother." 
 
 Major Thornton's hand shook perceptibly as he 
 raised his glass to his lips before attempting to reply. 
 His mouth was very dry, and the hungry look in his 
 eyes was strangely tragic for a man who had merely 
 adopted a foundling, hadn't even made the adoption 
 a legal contract for his wife's sake. But Conger Howe 
 saw only the sympathy that he himself could feel to- 
 wards any living thing, so no inkling of the truth came 
 to him. At last the major said : 
 
 " You need have no such scruples or doubts. Your 
 mother, I know, my boy, was a sweet, a pure, a lovely 
 girl, and your father was a gentleman. Very 
 young they were, impulsive, and your father in the 
 heedlessness of youth did the girl a great wrong. It 
 was wholly his fault but repentance doesn't bring 
 back the dead. Thank God there is such a thing as 
 forgiveness for sin ! " 
 
 " But is there ? " Conger answered, then checked 
 himself, for the major's sympathy was causing great 
 beads of perspiration to stand out on his forehead. 
 His luncheon, untasted, had grown cold on his plate. 
 Could another's tragedy cause such suffering as Conger 
 could see back of those eyes that looked so appealingly 
 into his? Some gleam of a possible truth reached him 
 in that mute appeal. Instantly his whole manner 
 changed. 
 
 " That is enough for me to know," he exclaimed, 
 " that I need not fear to have children. To me it
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 223 
 
 would seem the unpardonable sin to transmit to one's 
 children a taint, physical, mental or moral. And if 
 you know that my parents were like other people, ir- 
 regularity as to marriage is nothing, nothing at all, a 
 mere convention often binding together those who 
 would be far better and happier apart." 
 
 The major was looking out of the window again, 
 across the Common and the Public Garden and the 
 Back Bay where Boston's conventions and creeds and 
 prejudices are held in highest honor. 
 
 " Conger," he said, " you may not call yourself a 
 Christian, but you hold and practise the very best that 
 our religion teaches." 
 
 " And those things," Conger replied, " are the eter- 
 nal truths that your religion holds in common with 
 many others. I ought to tell you, sir, that I have been 
 guilty of a great indiscretion: I 'have engaged myself 
 to Miss Grayley." 
 
 "An indiscretion?" the major repeated. "I don't 
 follow you. She is a lovely girl, and you are earning 
 money enough to support her handsomely. Where is 
 the indiscretion? " 
 
 " It seems, sir, that I have run my neck into a fem- 
 inist noose. I am to be her husband; not she my wife. 
 I have overheard her expounding how she hopes to 
 make something out of me yet a stock broker, or a 
 railroad magnate, I judge, is her ambition. I had 
 gathered that here marriage was a partnership. Be- 
 hold, it is but a reversal of our Chinese custom : here 
 man becomes the chattel. I am in the slang vernacular, 
 facing it."
 
 224 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Major Thornton was forced to smile at Conger's 
 idea of slang, but his idea of marriage was another 
 and a closer problem. The major well knew how it 
 worked in his own home. "If you've discovered that 
 sort of thing already, why don't you back out? It's 
 a good deal better than going on with it. Marriage, 
 to be a success, requires first of all an enthusiastic start. 
 Love, my boy, is one of the most complicated ailments 
 flesh is heir to. You can't let nature have her way 
 with it or nature will work a cure, and that is just 
 what you don't want. By repeated inoculations you 
 can keep the germ alive in the system, and those inocu- 
 lations are the successful efforts to attract and win 
 one's mate." 
 
 " Conscious efforts ? " Conger asked. 
 
 " Certainly, conscious efforts, as were the girl's de- 
 sire to look attractive, to be sweet and womanly; and 
 his to be strong and brave and just and honest in her 
 eyes when they first met." 
 
 " That is not a universal practice even in America," 
 the young man commented, and his father, with a wise 
 shake of the head, admitted: 
 
 " Most of us discover it too late. Like so many 
 of our proved theories, it is seldom really given a fair 
 trial; but, if you have found Miss Grayley what you 
 say, don't let any mistaken notions of gallantry mis- 
 lead you into marrying her, or you'll be wretchedly 
 unhappy both of you. How long a trial have you 
 given it the engagement ? " 
 
 " About fifteen minutes, sir." 
 
 " Fifteen minutes ! "
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 225 
 
 " Yes, sir, at the end of that time she disclosed her 
 real self for the first time, and her attitude towards 
 marriage. Since then I have heard her amplify the 
 topic, though she didn't know I was hearing and all 
 of this was yesterday afternoon, so you see I have had 
 but a short and sharp engagement." 
 
 " Are you quite sure, Conger, that you are not misled 
 by appearances? " 
 
 " Quite sure, sir." 
 
 " Then you should lose no time in undoing your 
 mistake before news of it has travelled." 
 
 " It is so complicated a problem," the young man 
 answered enigmatically, and the other, who knew how 
 tangled matrimony might be, did not question him. 
 So many paths may lead to marriage, so many reasons 
 good and bad. His present anxiety was that his son 
 might be spared the sorrow of an unhappy union. His 
 ideas of duty were so chivalrous that it would be alto- 
 gether like him to decide that having proposed marriage 
 he must stick to it, however bad the bargain. 
 
 That evening Conger called on Bess, and found her 
 in a state of mind bordering on temper. 
 
 " Where on earth have you been? " was her greeting. 
 " You offer yourself ; I accept. We walk home and 
 you disappear, drop out of sight. When a girl an- 
 nounces her engagement she wants at least to have the 
 man to show them. What became of you? If you 
 felt embarrassed why couldn't you at least " 
 
 " Bess," he said, ignoring the space she had dex- 
 trously left beside her on the sofa, and standing be- 
 fore her, " I have made a monstrous mistake. I
 
 226 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 ask your pardon. The fault is wholly mine I 
 should never have spoken to you of marriage I " 
 
 It was her turn now to interrupt. Her face had be- 
 come so pale that even her lips were white. He had 
 never before noticed how thin her lips were or how 
 straight was the line of her mouth. It even flashed 
 through his mind that he had never before seen her 
 mouth closed. She was standing, facing him, and her 
 hands were tight clenched. She was not even pretty 
 in this mood. 
 
 " How dare you ? " she panted. " Do you think you 
 can treat me like like one of your own kind ? You ! 
 You of all men! The dishonored, disowned son of 
 some Chinese woman of the streets!" He heard 
 her thus far, and suddenly memory brought before his 
 eyes the Rat's garden in Peking, the stone wall en- 
 closing it, the precious egg that he was saving for 
 Ya-tzu, the fierce fight that followed, and its lesson in 
 self-control. He no longer heard the torrent of de- 
 nunciation and abuse, but when she paused for breath, 
 she met in his eyes a scorn and a reproach that fright- 
 ened her into silence. 
 
 " If I had been in doubt before," he said steadily, 
 " this outburst would have convinced me." 
 
 And with that he left her standing there very white 
 and very angry and not a little troubled, for she was 
 far too bright a woman to mistake this for a lovers' 
 quarrel. In denouncing him,, as she had, there re- 
 mained no possibility of explanation and reconcilia- 
 tion. "What a fool I was! " she reproached herself, 
 in this first panic after he had gone. " How am I
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 227 
 
 ever to face the crowd? They all know of it by this 
 time. Oh, why was I in such a hurry to brag of it! 
 There must be a way out. I must have a hold on him." 
 By this time she was seated again, tapping the floor 
 with a trim but impatient foot, and looking about her 
 as though expecting to find a way of escape marked 
 " exit." Suddenly she found it ; the color came back 
 to her cheeks with a rush. " I'll show him yet whether 
 he can play fast and loose with me," she whispered. 
 " I'll punish him, but I wouldn't marry him if he came 
 to me on his knees ! A nice income he'll have to offer 
 the next girl ! " 
 
 And while she was storming, blaming her own indis- 
 cretion, and planning a fearful revenge upon him, 
 Conger Howe was on his way along the shadowy path 
 to the shore, lighted only by a fitful moon but followed 
 close by his devoted dog. 
 
 The night air was soft and balmy; the tide was out, 
 and in the shallow pools out on the flats the moonlight 
 shone like silver. So calm and restful was the scene 
 that Conger sitting on the old bench in front of My- 
 rick's could forget the smart of his recent hurt, could 
 ignore the memory of his last interview here. But 
 as usual since early childhood he was glad of solitude 
 to review his own past, to satisfy himself whether his 
 conduct had been up to his own standards. Shame 
 seemed always to travel close behind him. He remem- 
 bered his shame when, as a little boy, people called at- 
 tention to his color, and even accused him of being 
 white. How strange .all -that seemed now! How 
 easily his point of view had later shifted until he felt
 
 228 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 it a disgrace to be half Chinese, and how happy when 
 he was assured that his parents were both white ! And 
 now Major Thornton had farther removed shame from 
 his consciousness by his assurance that father and 
 mother were perfectly respectable, decent people; in 
 fact, it would seem from what the major said that they 
 were something better than that. Step by step he 
 looked himself over and brought himself down to this 
 ill-advised, precipitate engagement and disengagement. 
 He wondered whether he could call it that, whether he 
 had extricated himself or was enmeshed deeper than 
 ever. With a shudder he reviewed his somersault 
 from the Oriental attitude towards woman to the hen- 
 pecked American, and how near it had come to wreck- 
 ing him. 
 
 " All my ideas seem to need constant revision and 
 correction," he mused. " So recently I believed the 
 object of my life was power. I know now that it is 
 not but I am not sure what it is." 
 
 The moon, which had been playing hide and seek, 
 came out frankly, shamelessly, to be admired. She 
 was behind him, but she revealed a figure coming along 
 the beach, swinging with the long, graceful stride of 
 youth, health and the habit of locomotion. At first he 
 couldn't make out whether it was man or woman; 
 then, as it drew nearer, a white skirt was visible and a 
 very feminine hat worn with feminine courage at a 
 daring angle. She paused when she came to the bluff, 
 then, turning, mounted the path to Myrick's. Not 
 long ago in a storm he had waited on this very spot 
 for a woman to come to him up that path. Could this
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 229 
 
 by any chance be the same woman ? He assured him- 
 self that she could not have distanced him; he had left 
 her in her home and had come straight down here. 
 No, it couldn't be she. Meantime some woman, young 
 and vigorous, was mounting the steep path. 
 
 " She must be an intrepid lady," he said to himself, 
 " out alone at this time in the evening. Not that there 
 is the slightest danger down here, but women don't 
 like the dark." 
 
 He sat still, but the yellow dog's tail was vigorously 
 heralding the arrival of a friend. How much their 
 noses tell them that is denied to us! 
 
 Her head appeared. She saw him and gave a little 
 cry of surprise; then the dog went forward to reassure 
 her, and Conger, not to be outdone, spoke. 
 
 " It is very lovely and peaceful here, to-night." 
 
 "Why, Conger," she cried, "is it you?" 
 
 He wasn't quite sure whether she had ever called 
 him Conger before; possibly he wouldn't have noticed 
 whether she did or not. Now, even the tone of her 
 voice was a delight. She was no longer the careless 
 Barbara. Something had still further changed her, 
 something intangible, that made her his friend. 
 
 " Will you sit down ? " he asked, rising to make room 
 for her. He didn't ask why she was roaming the 
 shore alone, and his delicacy in betraying no curiosity 
 was gratefully appreciated. 
 
 Sitting there beside him on the bench, and swinging 
 her feet like a child, her artless sincerity drew him out, 
 instantly breaking down his usual reserve so completely 
 that he welcomed the opportunity to talk about himself.
 
 230 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " I suppose," she began, " I'm in a silly mood to 
 come down here alone this way. It wasn't sentiment, 
 you know ; it was restlessness, and " 
 
 " Curious, you should have said that," he replied, in 
 his simple direct way, " because I have just broken with 
 Bess after a thirty hours' engagement. Almost estab- 
 lishes a record, does it not ? " 
 
 "What? Broken it? Why, pray? Oh, it's only a 
 misunderstanding, and " 
 
 " No, the misunderstanding came before the engage- 
 ment. Now we understand each other thoroughly." 
 
 " Marriage is a great mistake anyway," Barbara 
 said. " Just how the race could go on without it I 
 don't know. Nine women out of every ten marry 
 simply because they want children, the tenth because 
 she wants a home. Are you shocked ? " 
 
 "Shocked?- No!" 
 
 " Galton, of course," she went on, " is the nicest, the 
 least objectionable of the sex, but the whole scheme of 
 double harness is hideous! Why, if I were married I 
 couldn't do this. The rotten world would wag its 
 head and ask : ' Whom is she going to meet ? ' 
 
 " Would it? " he asked, sincerely interested. 
 
 " Yes, it would, and what is more, my husband, who, 
 when not at his office, would be under my feet every 
 minute, would be furious; either he would be jealous 
 or shocked at my doing what his mother never did." 
 
 " But you cannot generalize about husbands," he 
 protested ; " not all men are cut out from the pattern 
 you describe." 
 
 " Come now," she insisted, " do you know what is
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 231 
 
 going to happen between you and Bess? She will 
 take all the blame and you will let her. Doubtless you 
 were domineering, also jealous, but you will justify 
 yourself. It was all for her sake. It was to save the 
 woman from entangling alliances and all that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 " I cannot see your face," he answered calmly, " but 
 I do not need to. It always seems to me the twinkle in 
 your eye betrays you ; that you are only masquerading 
 as you are now." 
 
 " I wonder if I am," she said, " or just being dis- 
 agreeable to irritate you into an outburst " ; then, after 
 a minute's silence, " I'm 'sorry. It isn't any fun being 
 hateful to you. Galton would come at me, hammer 
 and tongs, and then we should have had a quarrel. It 
 was your fault with Bess, wasn't it? Were you 
 flirting?" 
 
 " Flirting requires a greater degree of skill than I 
 possess," he said. " Besides, I fancy it is too subtle 
 for me; I do not apprehend its object. Always I 
 either do or I do not. The flirting seems to be some- 
 thing that is half of each, and I fail to grasp it." 
 
 " Why, you flirted with me, desperately, the night of 
 the clambake." 
 
 She could not see the quick rush of color to his face ; 
 she could only hear the troubled protest : " No ! You 
 mistake I never forget that you are Gallon's, and 
 that he is my best friend." 
 
 " What has that to do with it? " she asked, so sud- 
 denly that he was startled. " Couldn't you flirt with 
 the wife of your best friend, or his promised wife?
 
 232 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 If I ever am Gallon's wife I shall flirt with every at- 
 tractive man I meet. That's the only fun a married 
 woman can have, and it's little enough to pay her for 
 wearing the shackles. If you want an aphorism for 
 marriage it is : Shackles for shekels. That's the real 
 exchange." 
 
 " I have never before seen you in this mood," Con- 
 ger said almost reproachfully. " In any one less 
 merry and kind it would seem like cynicism; in you I 
 feel sure it is some momentary irritation, or else having 
 your fun." 
 
 "You disapprove, yet you defend me. Why?" 
 she asked, turning to look at him. The moonlight 
 showed him a very lovely face, unmistakably on the 
 verge of tears. Something, then, was wrong with 
 her, also, and she too had come alone to the shore to 
 let the fresh sea air blow through it. He could sympa- 
 thize with that point of view, but her anxieties must 
 be trivial. Perhaps publishers continued to be heart- 
 less and blind. 
 
 " I am very fond that is, I think very highly of 
 you. And still more I value your friendship because 
 you are Gallon's," he said, and she flung back : 
 
 " Gallon's. There you go ! Ownership ! " 
 
 " No, no, not ownership," he insisted. " His by 
 attachment, just as he is yours." 
 
 " Well, attachment isn't enough to marry on." Her 
 manner had changed. She was no longer flippant; 
 her voice shook with the attempt to control her emotion. 
 
 " Conger, I'm worried to death over it. Galton is 
 getting impatient, and I cannot marry him. It isn't
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 233 
 
 in me to love any man. I hate to tell him, after keep- 
 ing him waiting for years, but I am convinced I'm in- 
 capable of -love, and without it marriage would be 
 frightful. Why I tell you I don't know unless it's 
 because you are his best friend." 
 
 They sat a few minutes in silence, thinking it over. 
 Then Conger said, " We had better be going." His 
 voice sounded strange; his thoughts had been hard to 
 keep strictly loyal to his friend. Just as that night of 
 the clambake he knew that he loved her, and not to 
 admit it even to himself was a struggle. He had 
 caught at Bess Grayley, imagining that love was trans- 
 ferable. He had learned his mistake already. 
 
 In the shade of the trees it was hard to keep to the 
 path. It was all very familiar to him, and he could 
 find it in the dark. Several times he had to take her 
 by the hand, and lead her, and every time the touch of 
 her hand in his deprived him of the power of thought 
 or speech save the guilty consciousness that even this 
 was heavenly and incomparable bliss. He longed to 
 tell her very simply and frankly that, in spite of Gal- 
 ton, in spite of her reiterated assertion as to her own 
 indifference and coldness, he loved her. It would clear 
 the air; it would be better and safer for her to know 
 it. She, too, was very quiet. What were her 
 thoughts, he wondered. Were any bestowed on him? 
 
 They came out into the open fields where they could 
 see the pond signalling back to the stars and the clouds 
 above it, repeating to each its own message faithfully 
 reproduced. He wondered if she would say that the 
 pond was an ideal wife. Instead:
 
 234 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " I heard to-day from that painter man in New 
 York, Monsieur Beauchamp. He is a frothy person, 
 vain and artificial, but very amusing and besides he is a 
 very dear friend of my beloved old Felix fitron." 
 
 " Old yes but why beloved ? " he asked. 
 
 "Can't you see it in his pictures?" she retorted. 
 " The understanding, the sympathy with all that lives, 
 the insight and the mystery of it all? I believe if he 
 wasn't eighty I could marry him if he would have 
 me." 
 
 " He could be a grandpa to you, and let you play in 
 his studio when you were very good." 
 
 " Which only shows," she declared, " that you do not 
 understand me or the wonderful artist who has 
 made you." 
 
 They parted at her gate, both very quiet, occupied 
 with their own thoughts, and his presently took him 
 back again to My rick's and the solitude of the shore.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 M. Beauchamp was becoming prominent in the 
 world of art. His pictures were attracting more 
 favorable notice, and the critic who had likened his 
 impressionist view of " Bald Mountain at Sunset " to 
 a Dutch cheese rampant now began to see real value in 
 M. Beauchamp' s performance. Twice had he ap- 
 peared in headlines in the New York papers, the im- 
 mediate cause being a letter from no less a celebrity 
 than Felix fitron. In the interview accorded the lead- 
 ing dailies M. Beauchamp had generously gone some- 
 what into details concerning the great painter, his life, 
 his personality and his ideas. " I used to think," M. 
 Beauchamp told the reporters, " that a man was old at 
 seventy; that if at sixty he hadn't arrived his case was 
 hopeless. Now my friend Felix fitron comes to show 
 me that your great genius may be beyond eighty be- 
 fore he finds himself. Don't you see how much of 
 value this adds to life, this prolongation of its useful- 
 ness, this uncertain, indeterminate period of its climax! 
 When may a man safely give up the struggle, saying 
 to himself, ' My day has come and gone, and behold 
 the night cometh ' ? Surely not until his eyes are clos- 
 ing in death; not until his arms hang listless at his 
 sides, and his brain no longer conjures up for him 
 those images which are the basis of all thought, the 
 
 235
 
 236 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 accompaniment of all our conscious hours, and the 
 fabric of our dreams." 
 
 Much of this was copied verbatim from the letter of 
 Felix fitron, in which occurred also this passage : 
 
 " In answer to your question I could no more give a 
 rule for painting pictures than for preventing baldness. 
 To some it seems to come naturally, but I am convinced 
 that only they who feel life keenly, deeply, can portray 
 it vividly. Those who see only the surface give you 
 just that on their canvases. Small wonder if they 
 fail to satisfy and are soon forgotten. It is the deeper 
 something that speaks to us in nature. If we can put 
 some of that into our pictures they will live." 
 
 M. Beauchamp had been good enough to enclose a 
 clipping of his interview in a letter to Barbara Wray- 
 ton. In that he further amplified his topic, explaining 
 that he had addressed a letter to M. Felix fitron at 
 Paris six weeks ago in the hope of drawing his friend 
 into a discussion of his own career. The reply, which 
 had only just arrived, quite ignored the most salient 
 of his questions, as M. Beauchamp expressed it: 
 " with a characteristic modesty which forbids the dear 
 old master to talk of himself even to me." M. Beau- 
 champ always allowed one to infer that he was a pupil 
 as well as an intimate of the great painter, but nothing 
 in his pictures bore any testimony to that effect. The 
 bizarre, the self-conscious straining for appearances, 
 which characterized his work, were at the opposite pole 
 from the sincere straight- for ward methods of Felix 
 >tron. 
 
 Barbara had the letter in her pocket when she met
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 237 
 
 Conger at the post office shortly after their chance 
 meeting at Myrick's, and she read him that portion 
 which dealt with his patron, considerately omitting the 
 passage which declared : " You are at liberty to show 
 my interview with the reporters to your friend Mr. C. 
 Howe, but you needn't tell him that I suggested to 
 fitron that I could do a great deal better by him if he 
 would transfer to me the sale of his pictures on this 
 side the Atlantic. I expect very soon to receive his ac- 
 ceptance of my proposition." 
 
 This rather troubled Barbara. She liked Conger, 
 and she knew that without the commissions on his sales 
 his income would shrink from its princely level to ex- 
 tremely humble proportions, so she asked, by way of 
 stimulating him, " Do you think you are devoting as 
 much energy as you ought to the business of your 
 agency ? " 
 
 " Just how ? " he asked, and she tried to explain : 
 
 " I mean, do you try hard enough to get the best 
 results for your patron so that no one could step 
 in and take the business away from you? Do you, 
 perhaps, give too much of your time to your own work 
 which is, after all, just an avocation, isn't it? " 
 
 " Oh, I see," he said; " about such things one never 
 knows." 
 
 And Barbara felt that she had made a failure of her 
 attempt to warn him, yet feared it would not be fair 
 to tell him why she had spoken. He read her clipping 
 from the New York Sun and returned it to her with 
 no other comment than a Chinese " Ho ! " which might 
 be anything, she thought, from surprise to indifference,
 
 238 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 save for the contraction of those two lines between 
 his eyes, an interrogation no, rather an admission 
 of doubt. 
 
 " Why shouldn't you have been the one to furnish 
 this interview," she went on, " perhaps I should say to 
 grant it, instead of Monsieur Beauchamp? " 
 
 " I know it," he said, which, after all, was no more 
 satisfactory and definite than his scowl. But he did 
 show his interest in her by continuing the conversation 
 long after he might easily have escaped, and neither 
 the attraction of Myrick's nor his allegiance to the gar- 
 den was sufficient for the next two hours to drag him 
 from the Wraytons' piazza, where Barbara held him by 
 a magic spell that, if half indifference, was at least half 
 the instinctive impulse to attract the male. 
 
 Galton was back in the city hard at work to put him- 
 self into a position where he might support a wife in 
 such style of living as would not call for excuses 
 to friends and apologies to her. Despite his loyalty 
 to Conger, it did annoy him a little to see his friend in 
 possession of a large income derived from the hap- 
 hazard marketing of another's genius and labor, but 
 the annoyance had nothing in it of jealousy at Conger's 
 good fortune. 
 
 Barbara had been speaking of Galton and suddenly 
 exclaimed : " Oh, how I wish I were a man ! It's 
 the crudest vagary Providence is guilty of to make 
 so many of us humans women. Cripples and blind 
 are accidents; but females are the deliberate insult of 
 nature. Born to a position of inferiority 'it is only by 
 a ridiculous assertion of power they do not possess that
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 239 
 
 they have come to the enjoyment at last of equal rights. 
 But of what use are equal rights without equal powers? 
 Equal? We are inferior, and we know it." 
 
 Conger was listening a stolen side glance assured 
 her of that but this extravagant vein distressed him, 
 and he had no wish to pursue a subject on which he 
 had more than once expressed his present convictions 
 and explained his gradual change of sentiment. 
 
 " You're laughing at me," she continued, " but -it's a 
 real tragedy. Don't you see where it lands me? I 
 find I simply cannot marry. I never was made to be 
 any man's wife. And what then? Why, I haven't 
 the ability to be an independent woman I have no 
 talents." 
 
 "Wait!" he insisted. "You have gifts to say 
 nothing of physical charms, you play and sing very 
 well, you have a good education, decided facility in the 
 use of French, and a fascination in manner which few 
 possess." 
 
 "I might be a cloak model, but go on!" she 
 prompted when he paused here, and he, taking her liter- 
 ally, did as she bade him. 
 
 " I have analyzed that fascination ; it is uncon- 
 sciously exerted; it is but the light within shining 
 through. One cannot be like that and at the same 
 time cold or cynical or out of tune with life. As you 
 are gifted physically and mentally, so temperamentally 
 are you one of the few whom nature has selected as 
 storehouses for her sunshine. Don't look for your 
 work and place in the world, my dear Barbara ; just be 
 content to live wherever you are, and you will make
 
 240 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 each day the brighter for some one because you have 
 lived it too." 
 
 He spoke in his quiet direct way. Plainly he had 
 no intention to compliment, and yet what he said filled 
 her so with wonder, gave her such a new purpose in 
 living, so entirely new an estimate of herself, that she 
 could not answer him. Was it, as he had said, enough 
 for her to keep on being the light-hearted Barbara 
 Wrayton with her rippling laugh and her universal 
 sympathy? She wondered if this serious man could 
 be right. And when she thought of his unaffected 
 praise spoken frankly as a child might tell his thought, 
 something within her breast fluttered so that she caught 
 her breath and shut her eyes tight to keep back the 
 tears that wanted to overflow in gratitude. " Perhaps 
 I am that sort of a girl," she thought. " Oh, I will 
 try very hard to be like that ! " 
 
 To him when she could speak she said : 
 
 " I wonder if it's possible for us to be friends. The 
 world seems to have made up its mind that a young 
 man and a young woman " she left the sentence un- 
 finished and he, understanding why, and grateful to 
 her for the restraint, only nodded and said : 
 
 " I am thankful the world had outgrown those con- 
 temptible notions before our day. Certainly we can 
 be friends if you are willing, and I will not spoil it by 
 trying to make love to you." 
 
 " But you will want to will there be no tempta- 
 tion ? Are you so sure at the very start ? " 
 
 " Friendship," he answered, smiling at her evident 
 love of admiration, " means to one one thing, to an-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 241 
 
 other another. To me it brings back the memory of 
 the one little friend of my childhood I called him 
 Brother, and I suffer to this day when I think of his 
 hard, unhappy life." 
 
 " I don't know what it means to me," she said, " the 
 affection I feel for my father and mother and brother ; 
 a diluted form of the same bestowed on certain girl 
 friends and Galton." 
 
 " Well, then," he concluded, " you might water that 
 out until quite sure that it is weak enough to be harm- 
 less. We could still call it friendship, an extra dash 
 of cold water would always keep it from becoming 
 warm." It would never do to let her suspect that he 
 already loved her, or she would no longer wish to be 
 friends. He must begin now the study of diplomacy, 
 for surely friendship would be far better than outer 
 darkness. Like other men he had taken it for granted 
 that he could pick out the cold women ; he had assumed 
 a coexistence of frigidity with acidity. Mrs. Thorn- 
 ton, the dear major's wife, was his first example. She 
 had no sex, and thanked God daily that she was just 
 as she was. People who had sex and admitted it she 
 looked upon as vulgar, inferior, even immoral. She 
 wore imaginary moral pantalettes to prevent a prurient 
 world from revelling in the wanton enjoyment of her 
 charms, and Conger well remembered that the first 
 time he had ever noticed a low-neck gown was at a din- 
 ner at the major's during his freshman year. Mrs. 
 Thornton, conceding to fashion just enough of a 
 square aperture to show a prominent collar-bone and a 
 few inches of bluish skin south of it, kept looking down
 
 242 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 to view herself, whether from pride or alarm, he didn't 
 know; but each time she would hitch the squareneck a 
 wee bit higher, and the boy wondered whether this was 
 out of consideration for her guests or because she felt 
 a draft. And he was called upon to readjust his ideas, 
 to classify so human, so vitally alive a woman as Bar- 
 bara with those like Mrs. Thornton who advertised it 
 and gloried in their deficiency. 
 
 So you couldn't judge of people by their faces, their 
 animation, the flash of their eyes, the quick response 
 of their sympathies. All these meant nothing, and 
 that little undercurrent of a language not spoken, trans- 
 mitted in a twinkle of the eye, the slightest pressure of 
 the hand or, subtler still, by silence when silence could 
 be more eloquent than words. All these had been but 
 the illusions of his own disordered imagination. Why, 
 it actually meant, when you followed it to its lair, this 
 horrid discovery, that life wasn't half so thrilling and 
 full of little wonderful experiences to hug up to your- 
 self and never tell of, as he had believed it. How dis- 
 appointing! How it did take all the spice and spirits 
 out of life and substitute in their place rainwater! 
 To go a step further, then, the man with a narrow head 
 and the .muzzle of a rodent with his little ratty eyes 
 was very likely a philanthropist, philosopher and noble 
 friend. Why not, if appearances meant nothing at 
 all? No wonder there were unhappy marriages, and 
 it was probably a mercy to Galton that she had decided 
 not to marry, not to add another to the fearful list of 
 failures. 
 
 This soliloquy was interrupted by Barbara asking,
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 243 
 
 " Well, are you going to accept my high-potency friend- 
 ship, cold water and all? " 
 
 " I had thought we were friends already," he said. 
 
 " Not real friends. Real friends trust each other 
 even with their thoughts. That is what preserves their 
 friendship." 
 
 " Oh, I had thought your idea was to preserve it as 
 one keeps fish by freezing." 
 
 He looked up and caught her eye, and something 
 that rippled there answered him, but it laughed at the 
 cold storage theory. She must have truant eyes ; they 
 looked honest it was a delight to look into them 
 but they were running away from her theories about 
 herself. 
 
 " Shall I, then," he asked, " tell you what were my 
 thoughts ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you trust me and believe that a man can 
 afford to be honest with a woman." 
 
 " Then my thought was of Mrs. Thornton I was 
 attempting to fit you into her class no ! no ! " an- 
 swering a very decided frown, " not as to charm or 
 character, but as to temperament." 
 
 " I can't help that," she admitted, with a shake of 
 her head, " and it isn't quite fair to classify me with 
 her, because I am capable of warm friendship, and I 
 feel things keenly I'm not in that lukewarm class 
 that begin to ferment in middle life." 
 
 " So ! " he said, unconsciously reverting to his 
 former habit of speech. " The Mongolian ponies are 
 easily taught to trot long distances in harness, but the 
 trainers early discovered that the secret to prevent them
 
 244 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 from breaking into a run was to determine how high 
 each individual carried his head, then hold it checked 
 by the rein at that position I think you may safely 
 do the same with me in reference to the sort of friend- 
 ship you offer." 
 
 " Do you infer that, like Mrs. Thornton, I propose 
 to mount the box, and take the reins, while you pull 
 the load of the friendship? " 
 
 " I am afraid my metaphor was clumsy, but I " 
 
 " Your metaphor was not clumsy, and I see exactly 
 what it holds out to me but suppose I would 
 rather give you your head? " 
 
 " Hoping that I might take the bits in my teeth and 
 run away, so that you would have the fun of pulling 
 me down with the curb, or throwing me?" 
 
 " But I shouldn't ! You see, to stick to your meta- 
 phor, if you ran away, I should merely decline to run 
 away with you; I should hop off the box and watch 
 you." 
 
 " Ah, and one wouldn't be enthusiastic about run- 
 ning alone. This is so different, anyway, from your 
 abhorrent idea of double harness." 
 
 " And you see," she added, " that there is no need 
 of the check-rein. Friendship is so much more satis- 
 factory than marriage. One can step out at any mo- 
 ment, and there's no rumpus, because friendship de- 
 pends on two agreeing when they cease to, it isn't 
 that ends it. But love seems to include a certain 
 amount of mauling how I hate mauling! " 
 
 " You mean ?"
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 245 
 
 " I mean male demonstration of animal affection 
 and I abominate it! " 
 
 " Oh ! " he said, " hence your desire for a friendship 
 which is calm, always, and cool and keeps its 
 distance." 
 
 " I don't want it too calm and cool that means in- 
 difference," she corrected him. 
 
 " Exactly," he agreed, " the true figure comes to my 
 mind now : Ideal friendship is typified by the lovely 
 Venus in the Louvre one sees her only to admire, 
 one studies her perfections, but in the warmest out- 
 burst of enthusiasm one never forgets the little card 
 which says : ' Hands off ! '" 
 
 " You're not punning, are you? " she asked, forget- 
 ting for the moment that this was Conger Howe, but 
 it ended their conversation unsatisfactorily; it was so 
 hard to make him see that he was to maintain a re- 
 spectful distance only by dint of supreme self-control.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 Alas, of all the frailties flesh is heir to none is more 
 sinister than pride which can be harsh and pitiless as 
 hate, for wounded pride is hate's twin sister. Miss 
 Grayley's pride was very dear to her, dearer than Miss 
 Grayley herself knew, and Miss Grayley's pride was 
 sorely wounded. It was not enough that she had told 
 her friends and all the summer colony of Waquanesett 
 that she had discovered just in time the perfidious char- 
 acter of Conger Howe, and had forthwith spurned him, 
 cast him out, and with him the broken fragments of 
 their engagement. Bess Grayley knew that her friends 
 didn't believe her story, that Conger's silence spoke 
 more convincingly than her own fiery denunciation, 
 and the more she pondered that odious fact the more 
 determined was she to punish the man. 
 
 Fortunately, the habit of observation had put her in 
 possession of the means to pay him in full. All that 
 was needed was to make sure of her ground before she 
 ventured to act. Bess Grayley had thus far gone 
 through life with her eyes open; very little escaped her, 
 and she had prided herself on seeing things as they 
 really were. 
 
 Something was wrong, or at least irregular, in Con- 
 ger's methods of touching up and possibly even of sign- 
 ing pictures that were not his own work. It was all 
 
 246
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 247 
 
 well enough to wink at practices distinctly profitable 
 when you were vitally interested in the profits quite 
 another matter when they no longer concerned you. 
 And one might wink out of sight a circumstance undis- 
 covered by any one else so long as no harm came of it. 
 But, when it actually made it possible for a man to flout 
 his infidelity in her face that was very different, it 
 became her moral duty to expose and punish him even 
 though his action had been the result of immoral par- 
 entage and heathen education. The more she thought 
 of it the plainer became her duty as a woman and a 
 Christian. 
 
 First of all, then, she must have proof with which to 
 confront him at the proper time. Was he actually 
 going so far as to forge the name of Felix tron, or 
 did he merely retouch canvasses scraped and damaged 
 by rough handling? She wasn't sure as to the extent 
 of his transgression, but what she had seen in her 
 limited opportunities to watch him had led to the sus- 
 picion that he was taking here and there one of the 
 less characteristic of the great master's paintings, 
 changing it slightly, and sending it out under his own 
 name. It was the attempt, it seemed, now that he was 
 making plenty of money as an agent, to build up a 
 reputation for himself. If he had remained faithful 
 to her she would have closed her eyes to it, because 
 well, one should be loyal to one's own, and after he had 
 saved up enough to be comfortable, she would gently 
 show him that heathen customs and standards were not 
 tolerated in refined Christian society. He had, how- 
 ever, seen fit to cut himself off from her guidance and
 
 248 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 protection, and now he must bear the consequences. 
 
 He had gone to New York for a day or two ; it was 
 an excellent opportunity to investigate thoroughly the 
 canvases in his deserted studio. She could take her 
 own time, and make sure exactly how far he had dared 
 to go in forestalling the day when the aged master 
 should die, leaving him in possession of pictures which 
 he could turn into cash or fame, whichever he prized 
 the more. 
 
 Just before five in the afternoon she set out for the 
 shore, innocently equipped with novel, sunshade and 
 knitting-bag. She had almost persuaded herself that 
 her sole intention was to spend an hour alone, thinking 
 while she worked, or reading to occupy her mind so 
 that she need not think. She took particular pains 
 before leaving home to see that no one was coming 
 from either direction. She wished to be not only 
 alone, but unobserved. But she hadn't gone a hun- 
 dred yards before Barbara Wrayton overtook her. 
 Barbara was very sorry for .her; she thought it must be 
 very hard for a girl to be dropped as Bess had been, 
 and she must help Bess to recover. 
 
 " Coming down for a swim ? " she asked. 
 
 " No, I hate cold water ; and what's the use ? I can't 
 swim." 
 
 "It's only a matter of practice, Bess. Come on; 
 I'll teach you the new crawl stroke." 
 
 "Did you learn that from Conger?" Bess asked 
 sharply, and then could have bitten her tongue out for 
 letting slip such a petulant admission of her feelings 
 even to one who had been her intimate friend. Bar-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 240 
 
 bara only turned and looked at her, but in that look 
 Bess read pity, and she didn't want pity. She wanted 
 people to act as though they knew that she had broken 
 it for reasons of her own. She had never been able 
 to play a part with Barbara because Barbara insisted 
 on truth even when a little distortion would serve her 
 purpose better. In such ways Bess had often noticed 
 Barbara was not clever, was rather masculine in fact, 
 and it amounted to a lack of tact. 
 
 " Bess," Barbara said, linking her arm in hers in the 
 old way that she had when they were warmer friends, 
 " we must hold each other up. I've just written Gal- 
 ton that it's no use; I simply couldn't go on with it. 
 It isn't in me to love as men expect to be loved.'" 
 
 " So that's the story ! " Bess exclaimed, disengaging 
 her arm. ' You've had to come wheedling round to 
 own up to that ! " 
 
 "To what? You don't understand." 
 
 " Yes, I do. I understand much that has been very 
 blind to me until now. I understand that you were 
 not content with the devotion of a splendid fellow like 
 Galton ; you had to try your hand at seducing Conger 
 not that you wanted him, only to show your power 
 over a foundling without morals or religion." 
 
 " Don't, Bess ! " Barbara implored, stopping her be- 
 fore she could say more and worse. " You don't mean 
 anything like that of Conger or of me." 
 
 " Oh, no," Bess blazed, quite losing her self-control. 
 " I mean to pussy-cat my friends into a placid doze 
 while I tiptoe about, and rob them all. I mean to 
 keep two or three men dangling while I make up my
 
 250 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 mind which one is going to afford me the biggest in- 
 come. I mean " 
 
 " You are talking silly nonsense, Bess, and if there 
 was any truth in it I should probably be indignant. I 
 rather like your courage in saying it to my face, but 
 you know better." 
 
 " I know worse, you mean," Bess fairly hissed at 
 her, " so much worse that when you find it out you'll 
 drop C. Howe for the serpent he is." And with that 
 parting shot Miss Bess Grayley was gone. Half an 
 hour later Barbara, swimming a hundred yards off 
 shore, and delighting in the very motion as a strong 
 man in battle, saw a pale blue figure come out in front 
 of Myrick's barn high up on the cliff, and set to work 
 prying the big doors with a long stick. Why, she 
 wondered, should Bess be so anxious to get into Con- 
 ger's studio that she was willing to break and enter? 
 Perhaps he had some of her letters, but surely he would 
 never be mean enough to keep them if she asked him 
 to return them. 
 
 The door and its padlock withstood Bess's efforts. 
 Barbara could see her throw down the stick and dis- 
 appear round the side of the old building. Appar- 
 ently she had given it up ; she might indeed have come 
 to her senses sufficiently to realize the sort of thing she 
 was doing. The swimmer turned and went back to- 
 ward the bathing beach, her easy stroke sliding her 
 gracefully through the water. Once she turned to look 
 back over her shoulder at Myrick's, but the blackened, 
 weather-beaten old barn stood lonely and deserted 
 against its background of pines. Even the gulls soar-
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 251 
 
 ing above it took no interest in its melancholy and 
 neglected roof ; but the sunlight, Barbara knew, with 
 wiser judgment, was entering at that very moment in 
 search of the tall, serious artist who had worked there, 
 silent, thoughtful, industrious, day after day, with a 
 perseverance quite out of proportion to his success. 
 She knew, or thought she knew, exactly how the in- 
 terior of Myrick's barn looked at that moment while 
 she swam away from it and pictured to herself its 
 silent interior half lighted by the slanting rays that 
 stole in through the broken roof. She could see the 
 half -finished pictures leaning against the wall, the 
 empty easel, the few pieces of broken furniture; and 
 she could hear the faint voices in the pines, the weird 
 flapping of a loose shingle, and far overhead the 
 screech of the gulls. Barbara could imagine exactly 
 how things looked and sounded at Myrick's, but had 
 she been there she might have seen one who had just 
 discovered that loose board in the back cautiously in- 
 sinuating herself into the gloomy interior, first a white 
 shod foot, then a pale blue skirt, last of all a pretty 
 head half frightened at its own audacity. 
 
 Prowling was new to Miss Bess Grayley, that is, 
 actual, physical prowling. Many and many a time she 
 had prowled in imagination, looking for sensations 
 and finding them. She had prowled thus into studios, 
 living-rooms, even into bedrooms, but from such 
 prowling it was always possible to beat a hasty retreat 
 and swear that she had never been within a thousand 
 miles of the place. This prowling was different; if 
 you were caught you couldn't deny it. One must be
 
 252 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 very careful about this sort of thing. But the end was 
 virtuous enough to justify the means. If one could 
 expose fraud why be squeamish in getting the evidence ! 
 
 Thus fortified with righteous resolution Miss Gray- 
 ley stepped boldly in. That uncertain light aslant 
 from the holes in the roof was uncanny in a great 
 black room without a window. The loose floor 
 creaked beneath her stealthy tread, and when she stood 
 still it creaked again. " Never mind, there's no one 
 to hear it!" she told herself, but still it gave her a 
 horrid sense of being watched. Something invisible 
 caught her across the line of her eyes. She stopped 
 again and put up her hand to brush it away. Only a 
 spider's web, but her heart was beating so fast that 
 she could hear it thumping. She had to take herself 
 in hand seriously after that, and bid herself go on like 
 she could think of no one in history that it was like, 
 not Joan of Arc, of course not, nor one of the Marys. 
 
 " Let's see," she said to hersehf , with the strange ir- 
 relevance of one who hesitates on the verge of action 
 and is conscious of ignoble fears, " let's see, there are 
 so many noted Marys all the way from God's mys- 
 terious mother down to the founder of Christian Sci- 
 ence. But why a Mary? There have been Helens, 
 too ! And Elizabeth think what an Elizabeth man- 
 aged to do, and walked off with it, none venturing to 
 lift an eyebrow!" This was reassuring: behold an- 
 other Elizabeth who also should despise matrimony as 
 an office of supererogation. Miss Bess was not alto- 
 gether sure about supererogation. It seemed to fit, but 
 she charged herself to look it up as soon as she got
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 253 
 
 home. Then she called in her wandering thoughts to 
 the business before her. Let the boards creak; she 
 wasn't afraid of noises! 
 
 The outside picture in that pile that leaned against 
 the wall under the dryest part of the roof, covered with 
 an old sail cloth, proved to be a very rough sketch of 
 Myrick's. The shadows behind it were so deep and 
 quiet and unfathomable that the woman lost for an 
 instant her presence of mind and glanced uneasily over 
 her shoulder. The next was a girl that detestable 
 Relief Snow. " Hm ! She fairly has the nerve to 
 smile at me, at me who might and will tell some of the 
 things I've suspected about her lolling round here half 
 dressed half dressed? " That gave her a new idea, 
 and she turned the canvases in feverish haste to find a 
 nude that could furnish its own evidence of what Miss 
 Grayley termed immorality, which was never immoral 
 except when it excluded her. The nude was not there, 
 but in its place she found one which gave her far 
 greater satisfaction. She carried it out into one of 
 the shafts of sunlight where she could examine it more 
 minutely. -She made pencil marks, damning proofs to 
 call up when she deemed it wise to spring the trap so 
 deftly laid to bring C. Howe to his knees. " Not to 
 my knees," she soliloquized, " for, when I expose him, 
 he will not have the earning power of a house-painter 
 or the reputation of a day laborer." Unconsciously 
 she was assuming that her valuation of a man was de- 
 pendent on his ability to supply her with luxury. She 
 could easily identify this picture anywhere now; even 
 though the guilty man should try to conceal his perfidy
 
 254 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 she had seen it when the proof was unquestionable. 
 
 A twig snapped just outside. Some one was com- 
 ing. She held her breath and waited. No one could 
 get in. She was safe if she made no sound. She felt 
 an irresistible desire to cough, but checked it with a 
 hand over her mouth. A sound of sniffing, sniffing 
 came nearer and nearer along the wall of the building. 
 It stopped opposite where she crouched. Another 
 twig snapped, and then came the rushing, scurrying of 
 footsteps up and down, up and down, too quick even 
 for a child. A dog that yellow dog ! How had 
 he tracked her? Perhaps by keeping very quiet she 
 might fool him into the belief the old barn was empty 
 if only that common girl wasn't with him ! Coun- 
 try bumpkin that put on airs and thought herself pretty 
 because C. Howe had used her as a model ! 
 
 What a tiresome, tireless dog! Would he never 
 stop sniffing and tearing up and down ? 
 
 After a time it became plain that he was alone, he 
 was doing this bit of detective work on his own re- 
 sponsibility and, Heaven be praised, whatever he dis- 
 covered, he could never by any chance tell. So she 
 grew accustomed to the watchful presence outside, and 
 finally decided to walk boldly forth, ignoring his ex- 
 istence. 
 
 He was waiting for her when she came out cau- 
 tiously through the narrow aperture, backwards to 
 avoid catching her skirt. He showed his teeth in a 
 nasty, vicious snarl, and barred her way with head 
 down and forelegs extended, ready to spring. Bess 
 was afraid; she kicked at him violently; he came
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 255 
 
 nearer as though to dare her, and she caught him on 
 the jaw. There was no getting away from the vicious 
 brute, no time to crawl back into the barn. He 
 jumped, and seized her skirt, tearing the thin fabric in 
 a huge zigzag rent, and then he caught her by the leg 
 and bit her savagely. She wanted to scream for help, 
 but wanted more to get away undiscovered. 
 
 With that one bite the yellow dog was more than 
 satisfied; his temper cooled, he was very sorry for 
 what he had done. His drooping tail and ears told 
 that excessive zeal in his master's service had carried 
 him much farther than he had meant to go. He tried 
 hard to apologize and make amends with friendly wag- 
 ging tail and soft lapping tongue. The woman saw 
 these signs ; they were unmistakable, but her leg pained 
 her; she could even feel a little trickle of blood run- 
 ning down into her shoe. " Get out, you nasty brute ! " 
 she cried, and the yellow dog slunk off, fearfully 
 ashamed. It was a long time since his temper had got 
 the better of him, and he was only defending his mas- 
 ter's property against sneaks, prowlers, enemies of his 
 Deity. 
 
 By good luck Miss Grayley got back home, having 
 escaped every inquisitive eye, and reached her own 
 room. The skirt was an irretrievable loss and ne- 
 cessitated a tale of briers to account for it. Exulta- 
 tion over the splendid success of her enterprise was 
 dampened by the dread that those toothmarks would 
 forever remain to mar the loveliness of a faultless 
 calf. Her rage towards the poor yellow dog waxed 
 the hotter now that she felt herself safe from dis-
 
 256 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 covery. " That cur daring to attack a lady simply be- 
 cause she happened to be ! " But she left the sen- 
 tence unfinished; some things seem far worse when 
 we put them into words. There is a psychological side 
 to that, and some people can feel that if you don't speak 
 of it, give it a name, it doesn't exist.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 Mary M. didn't often take her washing out in the 
 yard, not that there was much passing on their road, 
 but well, it wasn't the way the Snows did things. 
 To be sure, this was not a regular wash, it wasn't Mon- 
 day for that matter, but there were aprons and a 
 couple of table cloths and a pair of pants belonging to 
 Gene. And the day was so hot and sultry that Mary 
 M. was stifling in the shed, so she carried the tub right 
 out in the yard. And that is how it happened that she 
 saw Cy Small go down towards the shore with his shot 
 gun. Mary M. heard some one shout and she looked 
 up " and there was Gene over acrost the rud rakin' 
 hay an' hollerin' at Molly. That hoss, father says, is 
 too skittish like to work on rowen ; it's too much rake 
 and turn round, and nothin' to drag like an' let you 
 know there's somethin' back o' ye." 
 
 And it was her interest in brother Gene and Molly 
 that accounted for her happening to see Cy Small, and 
 that is how she explained it later to Dr. Doon. 
 
 Cy Small looked over the fence and saw her there; 
 he noted the roundness of her arms, that her bust as 
 she bent over the wash tub was remarkably firm and 
 well proportioned and, in spite of the tapering small- 
 ness of her waist, he felt morally certain that she didn't 
 wear a corset. He rebuked himself for never having 
 been nice enough to Mary M. and resolved that, once 
 he was through with the business in hand, he would be 
 
 257
 
 258 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 particularly polite to Cap'n Thoph's oldest girl. Cy, 
 in the almost infinite variety of his own huge family, 
 had a daughter just Mary M's. age, but he could ap- 
 preciate comeliness in the daughters of others, and was 
 not narrow in fixing age limits. 
 
 To Mary M., Cy Small was an old man with gray 
 hair and a poor little wornout wife who was a constant 
 reminder of the text, " Whom the Lord loveth he 
 chasteneth." Mary M. wasn't above thinking about 
 younger men. Most days, she might have told you, 
 she was too tired and her back ached too badly to think 
 about anything, but often of a Sunday morning, when 
 she could enjoy the luxury of lying abed till six o'clock, 
 she would revel in the wildest imaginings. In such 
 dreams a perfect swell, with a small mustache and a 
 silk hat and very shiny boots, invariably came from 
 Noo Yawk direct to Waquanesett, saw the well- 
 rounded arms, the curly hair and other attractions of 
 Mary M. and, vaulting the garden fence, laid all his 
 treasures at her feet. The sequel to this weekly ro- 
 mance kept Mary M. patient and exalted through the 
 Sunday morning sermon and the long prayer. And 
 well it might, for it included a quarrel due to the jeal- 
 ousy of the multi-millionaire, the reconciliation, the 
 warmth of which caused Mary M. to look very red 
 and fan herself vigorously, the wedding and three sub- 
 sequent illnesses resulting in three tiny silk hat wearers. 
 To a girl who had such a lover, even in her mind, Cy 
 Small cut a sorry figure as a Cupid. 
 
 Relief came out wearing once more the purple dress 
 with the orange moons. " What's up, Rill ? " the
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 259 
 
 older sister asked. " What you dressed up for this 
 time o' day? " Relief went over close to the wash tub 
 so that her reply needn't be heard by watchful parents, 
 and explained : " He's comin' home to-day. Not 
 that he cares what I have on but it does seem 
 you see it's the least I can do, ain't it? " 
 
 And Mary M. nodded, poor Mary M., who had 
 never so much as seen her hero of the silk hat! But 
 she understood what Rill didn't say, and when she bent 
 once more over the washtub, two big tears fell splash- 
 ing into the soapsuds. Mary M. had heard enough 
 from Rill's own lips to divine the hopelessness of her 
 latest infatuation. She was glad Rill understood it 
 too, but, bless you! you never could keep Rill from 
 loving something with all her heart and soul. Poor 
 little Rill! 
 
 But poor little Rill was on her way to the shore, 
 singing as she went, for the joy that was in her heart. 
 Never mind if he didn't think of her as she thought of 
 him. He was always good and dear and thoughtful 
 such a boy, after all, and always that look between 
 his eyes as if he couldn't quite make you out but 
 wanted to. 
 
 Cap'n Thoph, lumbering up from the fish-house in 
 his heavy oilers, met her, frowned at the beautiful pur- 
 ple dress, then, remembering sundry warnings from 
 Mrs. Snow, unbuttoned the frown and looked silly and 
 could think of nothing to say to his youngest child. 
 Women are more tactful. Relief, welcoming his 
 change of expression, showed her gratitude by inquir- 
 ing as to the fish in the weir.
 
 26o IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " Get much to the ware this mornin', pa ? I see the 
 wind was settin' to the north." 
 
 " Abaout two berrels o' squid 'n a few blue fish. 
 But them damn dogfish nigh 'most tore the lint off the 
 paound." 
 
 " Father's different," Relief said to herself, as she 
 kept on toward the shore. " I dunno whether he's 
 gettin' old or what's struck him. But he doesn't glare 
 at me with the wrath o' God in his eye, the way he 
 useter. He's softenin' up, an' it does improve him." 
 She wasn't conscious of any love for the old man, 
 didn't remember a time when she had loved him. 
 Mother and Mary M., yes, she loved them, and Gene 
 a little. But mother and Mary M. and Gene had 
 never shaken God at her ! 
 
 Then she fell to thinking about Him. There wasn't 
 any name by which it seemed natural to call him. He 
 was her artist. He was her ideal of a gentleman and 
 a man. All the others could be classified, were classi- 
 fied into so many grades of prehensile males, and, ac- 
 cording to their grades, so the more or the less did they 
 lay hold upon and appropriate whatsoever they chanced 
 to covet. The one and only exception was Conger 
 Howe, the heathen, the foundling for Relief had 
 more than once heard the whole story. Possibly she 
 gave him too great credit. She did not analyze; she 
 did not use the word " prehensile." " Grabbing " 
 meant the same, but the classification was hers. He 
 wouldn't by any chance reach the studio for an hour, 
 but she would wait outside on the bench where he loved 
 to sit, and she would look out over the great bay now
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 261 
 
 buried beneath the incoming tide. She would watch 
 the gulls flying shoreward, gorged with feeding in 
 the weirs ; she would follow the fleecy clouds breaking 
 into long white streaks before the freshening breeze. 
 How much he had taught her! How many things he 
 had pointed out that she had never seen before! 
 
 In the woods that freshening breeze did not pene- 
 trate ; it was very hot, and mosquitoes were thick and 
 bold. She was glad it would be cooler in the shade of 
 My rick's barn. Checkerberries grew plentifully by 
 the side of the path, the leaves still tender. She loved 
 to chew them, and taste, long after, the fresh cool bite 
 they left on her tongue. A little bunch of goldenrod, 
 the very earliest of the season, adorned her belt and 
 fought shamelessly with the orange moons, but Relief 
 had not yet developed a sensitive eye for colors. Hers 
 was of the aboriginal type such as delights many of 
 the moderns a distinct reversion to the primitive. 
 Possibly they are right, and there is no such thing as 
 discord in colors. If there is, Relief Snow hadn't 
 suspected it, and disagreement was farthest from her 
 thoughts when she was startled by a shot. The sound 
 came from the direction of Myrick's. It might have 
 been just off shore, but who would be shooting in mid- 
 summer at the shore? "The law's on, and they 
 wouldn't darst at this time o' year," Rill told herself 
 as another shot rang out. Then she began to run. 
 She didn't know why she ran, it was an instinctive 
 feeling that something must be wrong. 
 
 She came out breathless on the bluff by the old barn. 
 No one was there. Not a sound broke the stillness of
 
 262 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 the summer day. Then, far down below her, a 
 woman's voice cried: "This way! This way!" 
 And, peering over the edge, she saw a man and a 
 woman running up the beach, much hampered in their 
 progress by the soft sand. The man carried a gun, 
 and the woman was cutting across ahead of him to 
 reach the gully beyond the bluff where they could not 
 be seen. 
 
 Something lay on the beach directly below Myrick's, 
 and writhed, struggling to get up. A horrid fear 
 seized Relief that she knew what it was, that writhing 
 object not much darker or yellower than the sand on 
 which it lay, and she flew down the winding path, 
 heedless now of the couple fleeing up the beach, heed- 
 less of the precious purple gown. Was it what she 
 feared ? " Oh, God ! " she prayed as she ran. " Don't 
 let it be that ! Don't let it be that ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 When Bess Grayley, in the privacy of her own bed- 
 room, had removed the wrecked blue gown, had very 
 gingerly peeled off the blood-stained white stocking 
 and bathed her wound, a smart remained more poig- 
 nant than the bite itself, more bitter than the dread of 
 infection. That common yellow dog had attacked her, 
 a lady, and he still lived. Alcohol and a strip of linen 
 could go far as a substitute for the cauterizing that 
 she dared not ask for. But what, she pondered, could 
 heal the deeper wound ? Retribution ! 
 
 Cy Small, she believed, once owned the cur; and Cy 
 would do anything for a dollar. Hadn't the doctor 
 once said that Cy Small would do almost anything for 
 fifty cents anything but work! Cy was the man 
 to get. 
 
 It was a long walk up to his house, long, hot, and 
 dusty. But she started early and had her reward in 
 finding Cy in his dooryard. His coat was off, also his 
 collar, apparently in readiness for work. At present 
 his back alone was visible. He stood on one foot, 
 the other elevated to the first bar of the pigsty fence, 
 and watched intently two aged sows who were asleep 
 in the mud. When Cy, Jr., beholding a lady caller, 
 hailed him with, "Father! I say, father!" he re- 
 plied without turning round: "Shut up, son; I'm 
 busy now ! " 
 
 263
 
 264 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 So the lady herself approached and plucked him by 
 his dirty shirt-sleeve. Then he turned, took out his 
 corn-cob pipe, spit once, and said : " How d'ye do ? 
 You wanta see the missis, I s'pose." Having removed 
 his pipe he didn't deem it necessary to bother about his 
 hat, and the lady visitor almost lifted it off his head 
 with surprise when she said, " I've come to see you, 
 Mr. Small on a matter of business." 
 
 Mr. Small, who couldn't remember any similar ex- 
 perience in his entire life, was distinctly flattered. 
 "Will you step inside?" he asked. It seemed more 
 fitting to the transaction of business than leaning up 
 against the pigsty. The children, curious to know who 
 and what and why, had come within hearing distance, 
 so the lady thought well of the suggestion, and they 
 went in, where children might not overhear and draw 
 their own conclusions in the irritating way of children. 
 
 Mrs. Small was in the kitchen as they went through 
 and looked up from the sink where she was peeling 
 potatoes. She was a large slatternly woman with 
 watery eyes and a secret that she took no pains to con- 
 ceal. " Good heavens ! " thought the lady visitor, 
 " isn't there even an age limit in the Small family ? " 
 And then she and Cy Small were in the parlor with 
 the door shut, and she was seated on the haircloth- 
 covered sofa that hadn't been dusted for months until 
 she sat down. The room was damp and close, and 
 smelt of decaying wood. The dirty, faded wallpaper 
 was streaked with the records of a bad leak under one 
 window, and the Rogers group on the white marble- 
 topped table no longer was true to its title, " The Eve-
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 265 
 
 ning Hour," for the kneeling child had lost her head, 
 and it lay in the mother's lap along with a collection of 
 burnt matches and an abortive lottery ticket. 
 
 The business was soon settled, as soon as the dollar 
 fee was mentioned. Cy got his shotgun, which wasn't 
 where he thought it was, but finally was discovered in 
 the woodshed where he had left it, and they set out, 
 Cy following at a distance so as not to excite suspi- 
 cion. After all, that dog had been condemned once, 
 and his record at that time was very bad. It was a 
 public service to get such a menace out of the way. 
 The lady knew the dog's habits, had better reason to 
 know than she confided to Cy Small, and knew that 
 in his master's absence he spent most of his time in the 
 neighborhood of Myrick's. 
 
 And there they found him lying curled up in the sun 
 by the big doors, now padlocked. He rose when they 
 came near and, when they turned aside to avoid him, 
 lay down again. They didn't concern him so long as 
 they didn't trespass on sacred ground. He didn't 
 sleep, however, for he knew them both, and neither 
 pleased him. 
 
 " Xot here," the lady had said. " This is too con- 
 spicuous. You must get him down on the beach ! " 
 So they found a rough path down, a quarter of a mile 
 to the eastward, and came back till they were opposite 
 Myrick's barn. From down below there was no sign 
 of the yellow dog. Cy whistled, and he stood up, 
 came to the edge, and looked down at them. Again 
 Cy whistled, and the dog wagged his tail, which was 
 his way of saying, " All right, what's up? " He had
 
 266 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 no intention of going down there to join them. Then 
 they threw stones at him, those thrown by the lady 
 landing a quarter way up the bluff; but those thrown 
 by Cy Small came near enough, so the yellow dog 
 thought, to indicate hostility. He barked a protest, 
 and was answered with hisses. Once more he barked 
 a warning that ended in a deep growl. A shower of 
 stones and hisses was the answer from below. He 
 started towards them down the steep bank where no 
 man could keep his footing. Before he reached them 
 a stone had hit him, and the woman, the woman he 
 had never liked, was hissing at him, daring him to come 
 on. He wasn't afraid of her. He saw Cy Small 
 raise his gun to his shoulder; he had seen Cy do that 
 a good many times. It meant a loud noise and a dead 
 bird, but where was the bird ? The shot rattled round 
 him. Something stung him in the shoulder. He 
 stoped short, and, with ears pricked, tried to under- 
 stand what Cy was about. He came down on to the 
 beach quite near them, walking slowly, uncertain. Cy 
 raised the gun again, and fired point blank. Without 
 a sound the dog dropped, and lay panting in agony. 
 A great gaping wound in his side poured forth its red 
 toll upon the sand almost at the lady's feet, and once 
 he turned his head to look at it, for even then he could 
 not understand that the man he once called master had 
 done this thing to him. 
 
 Far down the beach a tiny speck moved. It was 
 hurrying towards them. And the woman saw it, and 
 the man and the woman ran, leaving the yellow dog 
 to die alone there on the beach in front of Myrick's.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 Dr. Doon numbered among his patients one family 
 that rivalled the Smalls in the race for the Queen's 
 Bounty" They were what the natives call " Portu- 
 gees," and they lived in a tiny shack at the water's 
 edge, near the eastern boundary of the town. Whether 
 by accident or from a desire to be eccentric, the young 
 man whose arrival was to add yet another star to the 
 galaxy of this Portugee family, refused to enter the 
 world according to what is considered good form, and 
 uttered his protest, much to Dr. Doon's disgust, by 
 protruding his feet. So the good doctor whose fee for 
 obstetrical service was twenty-five dollars, and who 
 never got more than five from the father of so many 
 " Portugees," sent back his gig and the fleabitten gray 
 in charge of the eldest son, and spent the night officiat- 
 ing in the triple capacity of family physician, nurse and 
 anaesthetist. The result was another lusty, squalling 
 " Portugee," a tired, dozing mother in a stuffy little 
 room; a very unconcerned father who grunted and 
 went off to work as though he knew nothing whatever 
 about it and a rotund but jaded doctor who left 
 during the forenoon to walk home along the beach 
 where he could get a breath of fresh air. 
 
 And as Dr. Doon, holding his hat in his hand that 
 he might feel the air on his bald head, came round 
 
 267
 
 268 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Quagit Point, walking slowly, meditating on life and 
 what people do with it he saw a white puff of smoke, 
 and then he heard the report of a gun. He spied two 
 figures on the beach, and then came another puff of 
 smoke and another report. The two figures started 
 at a run, and soon were lost to sight ; another, appar- 
 ently a woman, came hurying down the path from My- 
 rick's. He could see now her skirts fluttering as she 
 ran, and, forgetful of his own sober advice to fat 
 people never to hurry, the doctor, fearing there was 
 need of his skill, began to run also, and, after a few 
 yards, to walk again and breathe very hard and fast. 
 He took off his coat and carried it over his arm. He 
 had by now quite forgotten his sleepless night. 
 
 Relief, on her knees, was bending over something 
 that she completely hid, but her sobs forewarned the 
 good man that he had come upon a tragedy. 
 
 " Now, let me see, dear, just how bad it is. There, 
 there ! That's a good little girl," as he gently put her 
 aside to examine the wound, and adjusted his spectacles 
 for a careful scrutiny. The dog feebly tried to raise 
 his stubby tail in thanks, and with his mournful eyes 
 upon the doctor's lay still and never winced during the 
 painful examination. 
 
 Relief sobbed incessantly, and the doctor worked 
 once more to save a life. Neither knew how or when 
 he came, but suddenly Conger Howe was with them, 
 and he had fallen flat beside the yellow dog, encircling 
 him tenderly in both his arms, burying his face in the 
 dog's face. And the yellow dog forgot his awful 
 hurt, and licked his master's cheek.
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 269 
 
 Dr. Doon, glancing back from these two to the girl, 
 saw that blood was dripping from the bunch of golden- 
 rod she wore, and that it stained the orange moons. 
 
 , No word was spoken. One long, agonizing look 
 that took in the cruel injury, the dark clotted blood, the 
 dear, patient eyes, so pleased to find him there, and 
 Conger, lost to all else on earth, was living only for 
 the yellow dog and the few short minutes they still 
 might have together. If he heard the girl's sobs he 
 heeded them no more than the raucous cry of the crows 
 that came to look from a safe distance and whet their 
 craven appetites in the shadow of death. 
 
 He could feel the pulse grow weaker. The tongue 
 tried for one last time to carry its message of love and 
 devotion. The eyes, blurred and dim, sought for one 
 final smile from the god of their worship, failed, closed 
 on the world ; and, with a sigh the yellow dog was 
 dead. 
 
 The man still lay there with the warm body in his 
 arms ; the girl still sobbed, holding her face in her two 
 hands. The doctor rose, picked up his coat and hat, 
 and silently resumed his journey up the beach. 
 
 Two hours later Rill and Conger Howe stood by a 
 little grave, fresh filled and covered with pine boughs, 
 close by the old bench in front of Myrick's barn. Con- 
 ger straightened up and, with his hands clasped behind 
 him, gazed at the far-off sky line. The girl knelt and 
 laid her withered bunch of goldenrod on the grave; 
 then softly turned to walk away and leave the lonely 
 watcher with his grief.
 
 2;o IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " I must hear about it," he said, gently. " Much as 
 I hate to know the horrible details, you must tell me 
 how and why it happened." And so she told him all 
 she knew, which wasn't much after all, and neither 
 tried to keep back the tears that overflowed afresh at 
 thought of it. . 
 
 " I think it was that Miss Grayley that done it," 
 Relief ended her story, and he only nodded and said, 
 " I am afraid that is so." Surely, the girl thought, 
 that wasn't the end of it ! And she asked : 
 
 " Ain't you goin' to do somethin' to get even? " 
 " Would anything bring back the life that is lost? " 
 That was all. The great doors were unlocked and 
 swung open, the easel was placed where the light was 
 best, and C. Howe went to work as though no inter- 
 ruption had marred his day no dearly loved friend 
 had left him never to return. 
 
 And, as in those old days, when he was a boy in 
 China, so now the man felt no resentment, only the 
 burning sorrow that another chapter in his life had 
 come to untimely end. The Empress Dowager! He 
 still shuddered at the name. The suspicion suggested 
 itself that women were more cruel than men. Then 
 the image of Ya-tzu came to correct that error, 
 Ya-tzu, so much kinder than the Rat! One must not 
 grow bitter, for life holds more sunshine than sorrow. 
 Nothing, no loss, no grief, no disappointment, should 
 blind his eyes to that. So his thoughts ran as he 
 worked, but Relief, who watched him, saw that the 
 lines between his eyes were deeper, that his lips were 
 shut together very tight, and Relief knew that not
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 271 
 
 without a mighty struggle was the man triumphing 
 over his hour of blackness. 
 
 Dr. Doon, who had from the first made up his mind 
 to find out by whom and why the cowardly deed was 
 done, called over the fence to Mary M. as she was 
 carrying in an armful of wood for the kitchen fire. 
 And Mary M. came out to the gate, still cherishing her 
 kindlings. The doctor was in his gig and wanted to 
 know whether a man and a woman had been by their 
 house with a gun. Mary M. felt quite important to be 
 able to state how she happened to look up and see Cy 
 Small. 
 
 " But there wa'n't no lady along o' him then. 
 Leastways I didn't see none." 
 
 ' Thanks ! " Dr. Doon said, and, as he turned the 
 fleabitten gray in the narrow grass-grown road, he 
 added : 
 
 " I'll soon get the rest of it out of him." 
 
 " Well, I think you'd orter tell me what you find 
 out, bein's I told you who done it." 
 
 "Who did what?" he asked. "Has Rill got 
 home?" 
 
 " No, she ain't. But I think you might tell me 
 what what the man and the gun and Rill done. 
 I don't hev no chance, tied up here doin' house-work, 
 to see things, no excitin' times only prayer-meetin' 
 an' a very few funerals." 
 
 " All right, Mary M., I'll come back and tell you," 
 and with that the fleabitten gray was off again. 
 
 For the doctor who spent his life in setting people 
 right, broken people who needed mending, sick people
 
 272 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 who needed guiding, silly people who needed correct- 
 ing, stricken people who needed comforting, saw in this 
 another case, and went to treat it with all the zeal and 
 all the skill at his command. And he needed it all to 
 penetrate the hide of Cy Small, who only puffed out 
 his cheeks when told that it was the artist who had 
 been helping him to keep his family during the past two 
 winters, and whined his favorite dirge about the rich 
 growing richer and the poor poorer. " Ain't I even 
 got a right to earn an honest penny? " he wailed. 
 
 " You damn fool," the doctor retorted, " you 
 haven't the decency of a skunk, you and your honest 
 penny; don't you know that for years the rich have 
 been growing poorer and the poor richer; that it has 
 been a blessing to mankind, and that now the only 
 danger is it may go too far in the opposite direction? 
 Damn you ! " And the irate doctor shook his fist in 
 Cy's face. What a sense of decency or a suspicion 
 of gratitude failed to arouse in the craven breast of 
 Mr. Small was finally awakened when Dr. Doon pic- 
 tured the athletic C. Howe itching to close his fingers 
 upon the throat of the man who killed his dog. 
 
 "Did you ever see him pitch hay?" the doctor 
 added. " Have you seen him run for miles on the 
 road like a racehorse, or tear through the water like a 
 motor boat? There isn't a man in these parts could 
 live five minutes in a fight with him ! And I can teli 
 you one thing, you poisoned pimple ! you needn't send 
 for me to patch up your wounds, I'd throw salt in 
 them if there's enough of you left to recognize 
 when he gets through with you."
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 273 
 
 With that fusillade the doctor, very red in the face, 
 left him, left a very different man from the blusterer 
 he had found, a man whose face and neck were wet 
 with a cold sweat, a man who went round locking 
 doors and windows, who crawled upstairs to his bed, 
 telling Mrs. Small that the rheumatiz had struck to his 
 heart, and never left his bed for ten days, trembling 
 all over every time the sound of wagon or motor or 
 hurrying footsteps could be heard. Every night he 
 would start up terrified by some fearful dream in 
 which the tall dark artist was stalking him, ready to 
 pounce, and Mrs. Small, who knew nothing of her hus- 
 band's doings save that he was the father of all but 
 one of the little Smalls, would comfort him as she 
 would a child sick with fever. From his unwilling 
 lips the good doctor had wrung the name of the woman, 
 and once Miss Grayley's name had come out Cy threw 
 upon her the whole burden of his guilt, vowing that 
 he had never known an unkind or evil thought, and 
 beseeching the doctor to put the blame where it be- 
 longed. Poor Cy Small was not the first man to cry 
 that the woman had tempted him. 
 
 Diagnosis is two-thirds of a doctor's job, and Dr. 
 Doon was a successful practitioner. He didn't carry 
 his accusation to Miss Grayley, suspecting the cause 
 and motive of her misdeed. Instead he went straight 
 to Conger, gave him all his facts, and left the matter 
 there ; he didn't even ask him what he proposed to do 
 about it. Very likely he didn't need to ask, for a tacit 
 intimacy had grown up between these two men, and 
 its basis was mutual understanding and admiration.
 
 274 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 Not forgetting his promise to Mary M., he went back 
 to Cap'n Thoph's to gratify her curiosity. What she 
 had said about her lack of excitement had struck him 
 as pathetically true, and he would not have blamed 
 Mary M. if, like some other fillies, she had not only 
 kicked but jumped the fence. 
 
 Meantime Conger himself was wrong in imagining 
 that he knew the reason why Cy Small had been hired 
 to take the life of the yellow dog. Only Miss Gray- 
 ley knew that this event was merely to square matters 
 between herself and the dog, a more subtle and lasting 
 punishment being reserved for the master. 
 
 Sometimes, as we grow up and they are happiest 
 who keep on growing up as long as they live we can 
 look back to triumphs or defeats well borne, to gains 
 or losses, that served us as rungs in the ladder. And 
 to these days, following his break with Bess, C. Howe 
 looked back in after years as to the most important 
 mile-stone of his life, though at the time he was merely 
 conscious of the purpose to live his life according to 
 his own standards. That Bess Grayley was by no 
 means through with him; that she had laid so clever 
 a trap that he should henceforth be an outcast without 
 friends or money, he could not know. Only Bess 
 knew that, and the knowledge of it gave to her eyes 
 a peculiar greenish glitter, to her imagination the joy 
 of those who conquer, and to her heart the comfort of 
 complete revenge. Barbara, meeting her at a tennis 
 party, saw it and wondered, saw that she hit the ball 
 too hard, sending it out of bounds, and Barbara trans- 
 lated it into terms of wounded pride and hate, and
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 275 
 
 she was sorry for Conger who, like herself, had re- 
 coiled on the brink of matrimony. But how different 
 his treatment from the fine magnanimity of Galton 
 Gragg whose letter had brought her to tears, no 
 word of reproach or bitterness, only regret for his 
 loss and the hope that she might yet find elsewhere so 
 great a love as could kindle her own. " Dear Gal- 
 ton ! " she had exclaimed when she read it. " How 
 I wish I knew how to love you as you deserve ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 So many things to be understood must be looked at 
 relatively: a trifle is no longer a trifle if it gets in your 
 eye. The great Darwin was much troubled because he 
 couldn't account for the tuft of hair on the breast of 
 the wild turkey cock, not because hair so located in- 
 scrutably engenders pride, but because he was studying 
 the origin of species. 
 
 C. Howe was troubled; there were many serious 
 things to trouble him. It seemed that his Oriental 
 ethics had played him false. There was no telling 
 where the spite of Bess Grayley might lead her; and 
 it was not unlikely that Galton might misinterpret his 
 influence with Barbara. 
 
 But none of these things troubled him at all; his 
 anxiety was lest he should betray to Barbara the love 
 which overwhelmed him, but which, as he now fully 
 understood, to her would be painful, putting an end to 
 all friendship between them. 
 
 He had written Galton at length concerning the 
 fiasco with Bess, assuming all the blame. In reply 
 had come a characteristic letter from Galton explain- 
 ing his own unhappy trial, and at the end this frank 
 avowal : 
 
 " Nothing would please me more, if she will not 
 have me, than that you should marry her. She thinks 
 
 276
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 277 
 
 you are a very unusual man don't blush ! I didn't 
 say it! Curiously enough, I'd like to see her happy." 
 
 Conger carried the letter in his pocket, and read it 
 over many times each day, and every time, as he folded 
 it again, would come before him the picture of Bar- 
 bara explaining to him how she was incapable of love. 
 
 She was at her gate, next time they met, and she 
 stopped him with a friendly hail. Then she spoke of 
 the dog: 
 
 " I am so sorry. He was such a dear ! " 
 
 ' Yes," Conger said, looking away toward the 
 shore, " I loved him and he loved me that means 
 understanding." 
 
 " And now ? " Barbara" said, leading him to what 
 sort of answer? She didn't know, only that it was 
 dangerous but her sympathy was genuine. 
 
 " Now ? " he repeated. " I have no longer my 
 friend, my companion. I think to go back to Paris." 
 
 " And you will see my beloved Felix fitron. And 
 some fine day I too shall come to Paris, and you will 
 introduce me to him." 
 
 " So ! " Conger said, and was thoughtful until she 
 drew him out once more. 
 
 " But have you friends there I mean besides the 
 dear old man, friends whom you love? " 
 
 " It is such a difficult word, love. The Greeks, you 
 remember, had two words for it. One for your kind, 
 another for for the other kind." 
 
 " And which kind have you in Paris, that you think 
 of getting back to? " 
 
 " Ah ! That, unfortunately, is your kind."
 
 278 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 "Unfortunately?" she asked. "Is the calm so 
 much less fortunate than the storm?" 
 
 " If there is moving to be done, yes ! " 
 
 "And you are anxious to move something in 
 Paris?" 
 
 " Wherever I am," he answered. " The fleecy white 
 cloud is pretty, but one admires the black cloud that 
 holds the possibilities of the tempest." 
 
 " I wonder," Barbara said, and paused. " The pat- 
 ter of rain on the roof; the coming and going of the 
 tide ; the wind in the trees, all those are moving but 
 not storm not violent, just strong and steady. 
 Why aren't they better ? " 
 
 " I, too, love the sunshine and the calm," Conger 
 said, seriously. " But sometimes do you never feel 
 so deeply, so strongly, that no calm is possible then 
 only conflict, struggle, the fury of the storm, or the 
 passion you despise ? " 
 
 " I don't know," she whispered, for what he had 
 said and his evident earnestness had almost carried her 
 away from her boasted calm. " I have always felt, 
 rather than believed, that letting oneself go was primi- 
 tive, weak, a lack of control and proper restraint. 
 And why isn't it ? " 
 
 " What is gained by it? " he answered. " In New 
 England it has always been held that, if you like it, 
 it's wrong. You have never seen in Peking the song- 
 birds that are tied by the leg : they fly a few feet ; then 
 their tether holds them. Little by little captivity clips 
 the wings of their song. I used to feel that I was one 
 of them, that it was life. My mandarin taught me
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 279 
 
 that it was only despoiling life. To be natural, to let 
 yourself go, to live fully, freely, joyously this was 
 to get the best and to give the best. But you of New 
 England, it would seem, prefer the straight and nar- 
 row way that leadeth to that sexless Elysium dreaded 
 by every honest soul that believes in it." 
 
 " I don't subscribe to Puritanism. Mine is only 
 rudimentary," she protested. " As a principle I be- 
 lieve in your idea of living fully, freely, joyously, but 
 in practice I never fly far without feeling the tether. 
 About going back to Paris you are not going at 
 once, are you? " 
 
 " I had set no time. But why ? Some commission 
 that I could execute there in the shops?" 
 
 " No nothing so cold and calculating. I just 
 didn't want to lose you so soon. There ! Is that liv- 
 ing freely to come out flatly with one's thoughts ? " 
 
 " It is a good beginning," he said, " and it gives me 
 a warm feeling when I needed friendship. I thank you 
 for wishing me to know it." 
 
 She little knew that he left her then abruptly because 
 he would not trust himself to go on. Banter or general 
 discussion of principles was firm ground; when she 
 was gentle and human about him he felt there was no 
 solid footing under his feet, and fled rather than fall. 
 For he knew that there lay but one choice before him 
 a cool, calm friendship or outer darkness, and he 
 chose the friendship, hard as it was for him to keep 
 to its terms. 
 
 Every time they met, and it was daily, he was con- 
 scious of holding himself in check, and, because it was
 
 280 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 not safe to let their talk become too personal, he spoke 
 oftener than he realized of Paris, confided much to her 
 of his life while there, the friends, men and women, 
 and the unconventional ways of artist folk. He 
 showed her how the protection of the women in this 
 life lay in its very naturalness, the natural inclination 
 of the woman to be helpful and inspire the best, the 
 natural readiness of the man to protect. 
 
 He was looking back to things that had been, 
 frankly stating facts and ascribing motives. She, 
 looking forward to his return to that life, saw in it a 
 keen personal interest in one of the women whom he 
 classed as the best and fairest of them all. He was 
 far too ingenuous to exaggerate the girl's attractive- 
 ness in order to arouse his hearer's jealousy. It was 
 what a woman would have done, but Barbara knew 
 that he was altogether too direct for that, and conse- 
 quently she was the more disposed to see in it the chief 
 cause of his desire to leave America. 
 
 Young as she was, Barbara had seen enough of life 
 to learn that we react differently to different persons ; 
 that one seems to call upon us to be entertaining, an- 
 other expects us to be wise, and one calls forth all that 
 is best in us. 
 
 So it was no surprise to find that her friendship with 
 Conger seemed totally different from that with Gal- 
 ton, but what did upset her more and more was the 
 discovery that each interview left her more dissatisfied 
 with her own part in it, and she asked herself why it 
 was that, while Conger was just what she had asked 
 him to be, it didn't satisfy her. He was going away
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 281 
 
 soon, in a few weeks, back to Paris. That pleased 
 her still less. She was unwilling to be more than a 
 friend to him, but she demanded of him that he be dis- 
 satisfied with mere friendship, claiming the love which 
 she could not give him. She was really afraid that 
 his calm acceptance of her restrictions indicated not 
 self-control but lack of interest, and, to gratify her 
 vanity, she simply couldn't resist the temptation to 
 put him to the test. 
 
 One day, after a hard set of tennis he had beaten 
 her three straight sets, but she had made him work 
 they were on the way to the beach with a dozen others, 
 and they lagged behind. It seemed strange to Bar- 
 bara that she had always so many things to say to 
 Conger. As soon as she had left him, each day, she 
 was sure to think of something very important that she 
 had forgotten to ask him about, and only the night be- 
 fore she had taken herself to task for it as she sat be- 
 fore her mirror, braiding her hair in two thick braids 
 for the night. It was a very pleasing picture that she 
 faced, but she paid no heed to it; perhaps long fa- 
 miliarity had something to do with that. But she 
 challenged the girl confronting her in the glass. 
 
 " Are you flirting with that man, playing fast and 
 loose, when he is the very sort of friend you asked him 
 to be?" 
 
 The girl in the mirror looked embarrassed. She 
 didn't relish the insinuation; her broken engagement 
 was too fresh in her mind, and she hated triflers even 
 worse than the self-indulgent who talked of tempera- 
 ment.
 
 282 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " But what am I doing? " she went on, and the girl 
 in the glass looked her straight in the eyes and an- 
 swered : 
 
 " You are just being natural. You like each other, 
 and Why not? Pooh! Why not? He's a man 
 grown, and will look out for himself. You can de- 
 pend on that the man looks out for himself, every 
 time!" 
 
 Barbara felt grateful to the girl in the glass for 
 giving her so sane a view of it, and went to bed happy. 
 
 Then something woke her up as the hall clock was 
 chiming the half hour, and she lay awake because in 
 the dark it always seems vitally important to know 
 what hour it is. And then the hall clock, after a long 
 Westminster chime that had the right tones in the 
 wrong order, struck four. " I can sleep three more 
 hours," she told herself, but she was wrong. Her eyes 
 were very wide open, and she was blaming herself for 
 ever having listened to such blithering nonsense as that 
 about Conger looking out for himself. That was a 
 falsehood, to begin with. Hadn't she expressly stated 
 the terms on which they could be friends? How flat 
 that had been of her as much as to say that he was 
 in danger of falling in love with her! That wasn't 
 the danger, at all: it was that she would make him 
 appear in a false light before his friends. They 
 would naturally infer that he was in love with her and 
 that she was holding him at a distance. It was her 
 duty to release him now that she could see. 
 
 " No, I'm not even honest with myself," she con- 
 cluded. " I know, any woman would know, that he
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 283 
 
 loves me, and my problem is whether I have any right 
 to allow it." 
 
 She was the first one down to breakfast, an unusual 
 distinction, and could not eat, which was also unusual. 
 And now at last she had Conger to herself, and could 
 talk it over with him if she dared. She couldn't 
 tell him how she had been puzzling over him for hours 
 until, at the very last, she had come out honestly and 
 admitted to herself what she had known to be the 
 truth, but would not acknowledge because she didn't 
 want it to be so. 
 
 " I lay awake this morning a long time thinking," 
 she began. 
 
 " About ? " He only uttered the one word, but 
 she saw that he knew what was coming. 
 
 " About us. I know it cannot be a satisfactory sort 
 of agreement for you; it is liable to misinterpretation 
 by all these others. So ' here came a long pause, 
 and finally she went on : "I am glad you have decided 
 to get back to Paris. It will be better for both of us. 
 I am not like other people. Something wrong with 
 me." 
 
 "So!" That was all he said, and, as he swung 
 along beside her with his peculiar easy, sliding gait, 
 his mind was actively picturing the lad who trotted be- 
 hind the 'rickshaw on that morning when he had been 
 forced to say good-by to Ya-tzu and take his place 
 among the half -starved boys in the rug factory. Life 
 -what was life at best but what the day brought! 
 And one must take it as it came. If he had cherished 
 a wee germ of hope that she might change, he had
 
 284 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 never allowed it to take root as a definite possibility. 
 Already he was setting his house in order for the life 
 that should shut her out completely, but should go on 
 nevertheless with purpose and determination to make 
 every day count. There was not now to be, there never 
 had been, any turning aside to lie prone and brood over 
 loss and disappointment. Only a tighter closing of 
 the jaws, a deepening of the lines between his eyes, 
 and the steady keeping at the things that make up life. 
 Barbara, walking by his side, stole now and then a 
 glance at the strange, silent figure, and recalled how at 
 times he had thrown wide the windows of his soul that 
 she might see in. No closest union could do more than 
 that. " But we have to live our lives alone," she 
 thought. " No matter how hard we try to let some 
 one else in, when the business of living is on, the shut- 
 ters are down, and we live as we die alone."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 Twenty centuries ago Pilate asked the question: 
 " What is truth? " and the narrative fails to record an 
 answer. Is it fidelity to facts, or loyalty to supersti- 
 tion? Twenty centuries after Pilate's famous ques- 
 tion the civilized world is divided over the answer. 
 
 Can we, then, cavil if Bess Grayley heard the clear 
 call of duty, in the cause of truth, to expose Conger 
 Howe and his heathen standard of ethics? It was not 
 from any petty motive such as spite; it was, in fact, 
 against her very nature, but truth is mighty, and it was 
 for Bess Grayley to give the answer for which Pilate 
 has waited so long. 
 
 She need not, to be sure, have furnished it with a 
 dramatic setting, such as staged the question in the 
 beginning, but it was in Bess's nature to do things thor- 
 oughly and well, so she did much planning and think- 
 ing and a little supplementary prowling. The result 
 was that she acquainted herself thoroughly with Con- 
 ger's habits of work. She knew when to find him at 
 his studio and how much time he allowed to get back 
 to his meals. Then she whispered to one and another 
 about a startling disclosure which would soon cause 
 so violent a disturbance that thousands who never 
 heard of Waquanesett would be reading about it and 
 talking of it and looking it up on their maps. Natur- 
 
 285
 
 286 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 ally some of this prophecy filtered through to Conger 
 and might have served as a warning to him, but, if he 
 understood its significance, he made no change in his 
 habits. 
 
 Conger Howe was sick at heart, and rumors, even 
 though heavy with portent, concerned him very little. 
 He was going away to break from Barbara. It was 
 the only way. She saw it. She had told him that it 
 was the only way, because for some inexplicable rea- 
 son, she did understand his feeling, did even appre- 
 ciate a state of mind or emotion of which she herself 
 was incapable. He had no slightest fear that this new 
 sorrow and disappointment would ruin his life or 
 wreck his career. He knew that he was going to grit 
 his teeth and clench his fists and go into life harder 
 than ever, that he was not about to mope and brood 
 over the past, but to postpone thinking about it until 
 time had graciously healed the smart, and removed it 
 far enough from him so that it should not fill his whole 
 horizon, and he could see it clearly. This was what 
 he had done from childhood. Then the bitter things 
 had come so often, the danger of worse to come was 
 so persistent, that common prudence had dictated a 
 policy of deferred judgment. By the time he was 
 ready to review one grievance another was on top of 
 him, and, hard as the lesson was, it had taught him 
 the futility of worry. But the consciousness of so 
 great a break in his life was a dark cloud over him, 
 compared with which all other disappointments seemed 
 but trifles. 
 
 He saw Barbara every day, and they were the best
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 287 
 
 of friends. The approaching separation must have 
 been in her mind to give that new reluctance to the 
 gaze with which she left him, a very different gaze from 
 the greeting of friends long separated, but like the last, 
 long, tenacious look of those who part when one sails 
 away on the proud ship, and one stands on the wharf 
 and waves a farewell as the distance between them 
 widens. Such a sadness parents feel when children 
 leave home, and schoolmates sometimes on their day of 
 graduation. It was not even an argument for marry- 
 ing, and, if Conger had only been like her, Barbara 
 saw there would be no reason why they could not al- 
 ways have each other. What a pity men were so dif- 
 ferent ! She very gladly consented to sit for a portrait. 
 " I am not a portrait painter," he had told her, " but 
 if I may take you for my model I will try to make it 
 a portrait." She knew too well how much he wanted 
 it, to ask any questions. 
 
 An afternoon in late August, Barbara's fourth sit- 
 ting, she occupied the old bench, and leaned against 
 the weather-stained boards of Myrick's barn that 
 faced the north. Salt and long exposure had left them 
 silver grey as the rails of an old cedar fence, a soft 
 background for the picture, soft as the light itself. 
 Something of the hazy atmosphere reappeared on the 
 canvas at which the man worked steadily, silently, his 
 back to the water, to the long stretch of beach, to the 
 distant figures, twenty of them, men and women, 
 coming slowly along the shore towards Myrick's. 
 Barbara had sat there for two hours thus, her hands 
 loosely clasped in her lap, and he had worked in silence.
 
 288 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 At length : " May I come and have a look at it ? " 
 she asked, and, as though she had waked him from a 
 sleep, he started at the sound of her voice, then smiled 
 and answered : 
 
 " How thoughtless of me I had forgotten 
 everything! " 
 
 " How lovely ! " sprang involuntarily to her lips 
 when she saw it, for there faced her one whose beauty 
 seemed to be the revelation of a soul. It wasn't she, 
 Barbara Wrayton, looking out from that picture. 
 " What do you try to paint," she asked, " the ideal, 
 with your model suggesting only the husk ? " 
 
 He shook his head. "It is hard to say what one 
 tries to paint; I should say it was to paint what one 
 sees. If one sees outline and color and nothing more, 
 one paints the picture card. But, if one sees, in the 
 subject character, deeply graven things, good or bad, 
 one paints them as one sees them, superficiality, depth, 
 meanness, nobility, weakness or strength: the painter 
 may not be a prophet or a seer but he portrays what 
 his eyes tell him is there." 
 
 " Oh, Conger ! How your eyes have deceived you 
 about me!" Her exclamation was so genuine. a pro- 
 test he didn't for an instant mistake it for a woman's 
 thirst for admiration. 
 
 The longer she studied the painting the more deeply 
 was she moved by the spirit of that woman sitting there 
 all unconscious of herself. What problem was being 
 thought out behind those unfathomable eyes looking 
 not at you, but through and beyond you ? In that pure 
 face you saw the ideal woman : there was neither guile
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 289 
 
 nor self -absorption, but strength was combined with 
 sweetness; and with singular purity an unmistakable 
 womanliness that was neither cold nor indifferent. 
 " It is not I, Conger. But oh, how I wish it were." 
 
 " It is so I see you," he said, looking from the can- 
 vas to the model. 
 
 " Then it is so you idealize your friends " 
 
 He interrupted her here. " Of what were you 
 thinking as you sat so calmly here these past two hours ? 
 Was it of yourself? " 
 
 " I was wondering about you, Conger, about what 
 the future held for you. And I was regretting that 
 one cannot have friendships that endure without 
 changing. I believe I was wishing I might change the 
 world over. And then, just at the very end, I began 
 on the foundation of an air castle, and so I jumped 
 from that to being curious as to how much of my real 
 mood you had guessed." 
 
 " It is not guessing," he answered, still studying the 
 portrait by aid of its model, " it is seeing." 
 
 A new thought possessed her. She had not before 
 looked at his work as a painting. Now she exclaimed : 
 " I had no idea you could paint anything so so satis- 
 factory, so convincing. It isn't I any more than it is 
 Relief Snow, so I may praise it. If it were a picture 
 of some one else I should long to ask her a question." 
 
 " Then I am satisfied with the likeness," he said, 
 " for I too should like to ask her many questions. 
 It is that which makes people interesting, is it not? 
 that quality which invites questioning. It presupposes 
 the existence of things worth finding out, of answers
 
 290 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 that might be given. You never long to question the 
 stupid, the silly, the shallow, though they may be beau- 
 tiful to look at." 
 
 His praise seemed so impersonal, directed to the girl 
 of the picture, that she was not embarrassed by it. 
 Only its reflection, that about it which did pertain to 
 her, was delightfully warming and invigorating. It 
 left a desire and a purpose to try to live up to that other 
 girl who existed in his imagination. 
 
 "When did you begin this sort of thing?" she 
 asked, " expressing your thoughts without words ? " 
 
 " It is older than writing. Perhaps it was China 
 that gave it to me before ever I had been taught to 
 read or write. I shall never forget my first effort. It 
 was the Altar of Heaven which one could see from a 
 point near our house. I had a big sheet of paper and 
 a bit of charcoal. Brother that was my little friend, 
 the donkey lay at my feet, flat on his side as though 
 he were dead. And he was, very nearly, from cruel 
 overwork. I could see where the circular terraces of 
 white marble rose one on another until in the centre of 
 the uppermost circle was the stone where once a year 
 the Emperor used to kneel, surrounded first by the 
 circles of the terraces and finally by the circle of the 
 horizon. I knew that then whole animals were sacri- 
 ficed to all the gods of all that vast circle of the 
 heavens. And I tried to put on the paper my boyish 
 wonder and awe at the thought of beauty combining 
 here with majesty and the mastery of gods other 
 emperors whom one might not behold even once in a 
 year. It was a very weird production, but I think I
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 291 
 
 got the outlines of the picture as I saw it. As for my 
 spiritual interpretation ! " 
 
 "And what became of it? Did you keep it?" 
 
 The color came flooding to his face, and he was back 
 there again. " I had hardly finished drawing. I was 
 holding it up to compare w r ith the real when the owner 
 of the donkey came looking for him. And with him 
 was the Rat, who was looking for me. One kicked 
 the donkey his feet were bare, but he kicked him in 
 the head, and the other seized me and beat me with a 
 stick till he was tired. You see we had been hiding 
 to escape work." 
 
 " Poor little tired fellows ! " Barbara exclaimed. 
 ' You and your patient little friend ! And so the pic- 
 ture " 
 
 ' The picture was trodden into the dust, but not the 
 spirit to portray. After that I drew many pictures 
 for Ya-tzu, and she kept them all carefully hidden from 
 the Rat. Later, when life had opened to me and I 
 was travelling with my mandarin, he got me a chance 
 in Nanking to do some color work on a wall surround- 
 ing a military mandarin's garden. You see, the civil 
 mandarins were known by their floral decorations, 
 often on the high plastered walls about their gardens. 
 But military mandarins used animal decorations." 
 
 " A subtle appropriateness I shouldn't have sus- 
 pected in Chinamen," Barbara interjected. 
 
 He only nodded and went on. " I had seen many 
 camels and horses, the Manchu bear, and numerous 
 small creatures. I fairly revelled in that work ; it was 
 restoration, but much of it quite obliterated, and it re-
 
 292 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 quired only the minimum of talent, mixed with 
 imagination. Some day I should love to go back and 
 have a look at it, particularly a wonderful dragon done 
 in green and blue, his face as good a portrait of the 
 Rat as I could draw from bitter memory." 
 
 " You speak of life opening to you through the 
 blind mandarin," Barbara smiled. " Was it then you 
 got the idea that the object of life was power? " 
 
 " I think that was the beginning, but I know bet- 
 ter now, Barbara; the legitimate aim and object in life 
 is" 
 
 " Wait ! " she whispered, and pointed down the 
 path. "If they hear voices it may tempt them to come 
 up and interrupt us. I've been watching them as they 
 came along the beach, the regular crowd, and Bess 
 among them." 
 
 They were coming up, all talking at once, and, in 
 the babel of voices, the only distinguishable utterance 
 was: " What sort of a game is this, Bess? " 
 
 Conger turned the canvas before him that it need 
 not be profaned by idle curiosity. This seemed a 
 deliberate attempt to annoy him; he had never en- 
 couraged visitors. 
 
 Arrived on the little space before the old barn, they 
 seemed indeed a crowd. It was Bess Grayley's party, 
 and she took the lead. Singling out Barbara she ad- 
 dressed herself to her. 
 
 " We have come up here to see a certain picture that 
 is, or was, in that pile just inside the door. It is a pic- 
 ture of Relief Snow, not a good likeness, and not a
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 293 
 
 picture any one of good taste would care to own. But 
 we want to see it." 
 
 C. Howe came forward, strangely troubled, for he 
 had seen Galton's mother in the group, and he surmised 
 that she had been invited to see him humiliated. But 
 how? What could Bess know to cause him shame? 
 
 "If you know what picture you wish to exhibit you 
 are at liberty to find it," he said, coming close to where 
 Bess Grayley stood. Only Barbara caught the defiant 
 look, the steely glitter in her eyes, with which she an- 
 swered the invitation. Then she advanced boldly, and 
 began examining the pile of pictures. " Some one has 
 tampered with them," she declared, breathless in her 
 anger. Next moment she had found it, and came out 
 holding it in her hand. No one broke the tense still- 
 ness. They had been invited to witness what Miss 
 Grayley had called " the truth revealed." The space 
 was small for so many ; some were standing on the lit- 
 tle grave of the yellow dog. Mrs. Gragg, suspecting 
 tragedy in wait for the boy she had loved next to her 
 own, was trying to wink out of sight the tears that 
 would come. Dr. Doon, with his back to the others, 
 held his straw hat in both hands and revolved it hur- 
 riedly, as though expecting to come to the end of the 
 brim. 
 
 " You recognize this picture ? " There was a harsh- 
 ness in Bess's tone that sounded cruel. Barbara was 
 looking squarely into her eyes. That might have ac- 
 counted for it. 
 
 " Relief Snow," a dozen voices proclaimed.
 
 294 
 
 " Then look carefully at the forgery," holding it 
 higher so that all could see the signature : " Felix 
 fitron!" 
 
 Barbara's face, a moment before unusually red, was 
 suddenly become deathly pale. Mrs. Gragg trembled 
 violently and felt that she was going to fall, and Dr. 
 Boon was heard to mutter shocking profanity. All 
 eyes turned from the picture to the painter. 
 
 They in the East who take the place of beasts of 
 burden learn, like them, to stand relaxed, but still as 
 death. So C. Howe, once " Hsiao," stood, his gaze 
 never straying from the face of his accuser, not a 
 muscle betraying the depth of his emotion. A very 
 young lady, conspicuous in the front row by reason of 
 a long expanse of pink clad legs, coughed violently. 
 Some one behind her asked some one else, " What do 
 you think of that? " The spell was broken. Headed 
 by the doctor and Mrs. Gragg a number started back 
 down the steep path. C. Howe without a word to any 
 one put back his easel with its inverted canvas, and the 
 picture of Relief, locked the big doors of Myrick's 
 barn and glided out of sight among the friendly pines.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 There was very little business between trains at 
 Waquanesett Station. The station-master, who was 
 also baggage-master and tele'graph operator, was tak- 
 ing his ease stretched out on a baggage truck where he 
 could see a mile down the track, a straight mile of con- 
 verging rails, of dwindling poles that supported a lofty 
 barricade of wires, a mile of monotony carefully meas- 
 ured by four miles of transverse ties. There was no 
 poetry, no romance, no inspiration in sight, and the 
 station-master was nearly dozing. 
 
 " Oh, here you are ! I want to send a telegram." 
 
 At sound of this the station-master sat up, and even 
 put on his cap with the gold lettering and two gold but- 
 tons. 
 
 "Why, Rill! Dear me! I ain't seen you sense I 
 dunno when." 
 
 " No, you ain't, an' if this goes an' gits back yer 
 may not see me again fer as much more." 
 
 The old man opened the door into the tiny sanctum 
 where he was wont to practise the awful mysteries of 
 the Morse Code, and faced Relief Snow through the 
 brass grating of a half grown window. He had on 
 his spectacles and his official manner, and according 
 to custom inquired : " Hev yer got it writ, or do yer 
 want me to ? " 
 
 She drew from some mysterious hiding-place a bit 
 295
 
 296 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 of paper, and passed it in, under the protective grating. 
 The station-master read it through slowly: then he 
 looked up over the spectacles. 
 
 " So Joel went to Tacoma I never thought so 
 bad o' Joel as some on 'em." 
 
 Relief was growing fidgety; she hadn't come up 
 here to talk over an affair that no one had been able to 
 induce her to discuss even with the minister. 
 
 " * If you still mean what it says in the letter I will 
 come right away. Relief/ " the old man read aloud, 
 counting each word with his pencil. " That's fifteen 
 words, Rill, an' the rate's awful high to Tacoma. You 
 could cut it down by leavin' out the unnecessary words. 
 Now see, yer could put it: 'If still mean what letter 
 says will come right away.' That's ten words." 
 
 " But it don't sound the same. It ain't the way to 
 answer a letter that's been waitin' for years." 
 
 " Like as not Joel's married by this time," the old 
 man suggested. Relief ignored it, and getting out 
 her pocket-book asked, " How much is it? " 
 
 " Another thing you ain't thought of," said the 
 operator. " Don't yer want to add ' Answer ' ? " 
 
 " No I thought o' that, but I left it out o' purpose. 
 If he wants to answer he won't need no one to tell 
 him." 
 
 " I'll send it fly in'/' the station-master said, as he 
 counted the money into the till. " It 'ud be an awful 
 journey if you was to be sent for, Rill. I 'low it's 
 most three thousand five hundred miles to Tacoma 
 further'n from here to Europe. Still Joel done it." 
 When she had gone he watched her disappearing down
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 297 
 
 the road. "Gawd!" he exclaimed. "I wisht I was 
 forty years younger. Joel wouldn't git no sech beauty 
 as Rill travellin' acrost no continent fer him ! " 
 
 Back over the forty years handicap the station- 
 master travelled in memory, searching for a face to 
 compare with hers. 
 
 " Damn' if she ain't been kinder hankerin' all this 
 time! An' folks callin' her cold-blooded! Women- 
 folks! I ain't never heard a man say it! " 
 
 After that he went inside, and the little tapper be- 
 gan clicking out its conversation with a little tapper far 
 away on the Pacific Coast, raking together the ashes 
 of a fire that once had scorched the Cape Cod beauty, 
 blowing upon them to see if any spark of life remained. 
 
 On the day when Miss Grayley had executed her 
 manoeuvre in force against Conger had come the 
 answer to Relief's message : " Always meant. Mean 
 it now more than ever. Come quick. Anxiously 
 waiting. Joel." 
 
 Relief had carried it up to her bedroom to read it 
 calmly after the excitement caused by its arrival. 
 Breakfast had been a little late, and they were just 
 hurrying through at half past^six. Cap'n Thoph was 
 sousing half a doughnut in his second cup of coffee, 
 and Ma and Mary M. had begun to clear the table 
 when some one drove into the yard and knocked at the 
 back door. 
 
 " Go see who it is, Rill," Mrs. Snow said, and Rill's 
 heart jumped before her feet. If it should be the tele- 
 gram! She hoped it wasn't. But it was, and the 
 station-master explained at length how it had come
 
 298 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 the night before, " but th' old hoss hed ben out on the 
 flats an' was tired out; so I 'lowed the mornin' 'ud do." 
 
 " Thank you," Rill said, and crumpled it unopened 
 in her hand. 
 
 "Ain't yer goin' ter open it?" he asked. " Yer 
 know I took it down. Yer needn't be afraid, Rill." 
 
 " Thank you," she said again, and turned away. 
 
 " Queer critters, women an' gals," the station- 
 master confided to his horse. " Give 'em what they 
 want, an' they ain't no better satisfied than's if they 
 didn't get it." 
 
 As Relief came back into the kitchen she heard her 
 mother say, " It's her business, an' she's ben runnin' 
 it uncommon well, I 'low." 
 
 The old man looked up from his drowning dough- 
 nut, but asked no questions, and Mary M., longing 
 for excitement, buried her curiosity in sisterly affec- 
 tion, and washed her dishes. 
 
 Relief, sitting on the edge of her small bed, looked 
 round the bare little room, at the stained window- 
 shade that she could always turn into a picture of her 
 mother chasing something with a broom ; at the cracked 
 pitcher and broken bowl on her washstand ; at the mir- 
 ror one half of which, owing to mercurial palsy, gave 
 back no reflection; at the faded, worn carpet under 
 one corner of which Joel's letter had lain since, a month 
 after the awful disaster, he had written back from 
 Tacoma begging her to marry him. It was a mean, 
 sordid room, but it was home, her sanctuary. How 
 much more cosy it was than she had ever before real- 
 ized!
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 299 
 
 The telegram lay open in her lap. She had read it 
 a dozen times. Joel meant it, had meant it from the 
 first, wasn't simply willing to marry her because 
 because of that. His letter said that he loved her, and 
 years had passed, but Joel hadn't married any one else. 
 If she could only keep her mind on Joel, and not get 
 to thinking about Myrick's and Him! 
 
 She put her finger in her mouth, using it as a pawl on 
 a windlass, preventing the recoil, and the method suc- 
 ceeded so far that presently she was on her feet, had 
 emptied her bureau and the old wardrobe of her scanty 
 stock of clothes, and was packing furiously, in fever- 
 ish haste, and the tears unheeded followed one another 
 down her cheeks and were packed with the clothes. 
 
 Suddenly she stopped, went to the head of the stairs 
 and called, "Mother!" Mrs. Snow exchanged with 
 Mary M. coinciding opinions (uttered without speech) 
 to the effect that Rill had been crying, and Mrs. Snow 
 panted up the steep back-stairs. Relief shut the door; 
 the two women sat side by side on the bed, and the 
 mother held her daughter's hand in hers. Relief gave 
 her the telegram and, by reason of tears in her eyes, 
 and her spectacles left on the kitchen table, she couldn't 
 see, and Relief had to read it aloud. 
 
 "I'm goin', Ma to-day afternoon train. I've 
 got money enough to get out there, money he's paid 
 me. An', Ma, I didn't want any mistake made about 
 him." 
 
 " You mean down to Myrick's, Rill, dear? " 
 
 Relief nodded. " He ain't like other folks. He's 
 learnt me more than ever I knew. Seems like he was
 
 300 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 one o' them magnifyin' glasses. I've seen so much 
 through him that I didn't know was there." 
 
 A long silence followed. Rill's mind, in spite of 
 that pawl, had flown back to the studio. The mother, 
 holding fast a daughter whom she could never hope to 
 see again, had gone back to the days of a rosy baby 
 that loved to be cuddled, and a tiny hand pressing her 
 breast. 
 
 " Ma, I'm goin' ter be very happy with Joel," Relief 
 said, at last. 
 
 " I know it, dear; I know it," her mother said, and 
 kissed her. 
 
 The packing was soon finished so few clothes 
 and of treasures there were the Holy Bible her father 
 gave her when she was eighteen, a few story-books, 
 a celluloid paper-cutter she got at a church fair, but 
 best of all a picture of herself painted by him, and so 
 big it would hardly go in her trunk. 
 
 On top of all went the sacred purple dress. He had 
 said he liked it, only he liked her best in the checked 
 gingham. It was easy, in a way, to hurry through the 
 farewells with father and Gene, harder far when it 
 came to Mary M., and heartbreaking to tear herself 
 from mother. But it was done at last. She and the 
 old trunk lashed with a couple of fathoms of clothes- 
 line were stowed in the " deepo " wagon ; there was 
 one last look at the old place, at father who looked old, 
 and Gene pretending to be busy in the woodshed, and 
 Mary M. and Ma who had their arms round each other. 
 
 And while Relief Snow was breaking away from 
 the old life without trusting herself to say good-by to
 
 301 
 
 the man she held in reverence, Bess Grayley's party 
 grouped in front of Myrick's were looking from Relief 
 Snow's likeness to the signature beneath it. 
 
 The cat came out from the kitchen and rubbed 
 against the door-jamb, holding her tail very high and 
 humping her back. That was Relief's last sight as the 
 wagon turned the corner, and she faced the long jour- 
 ney towards Tacoma and the new life and the waiting 
 Joel.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 They had gone, every one, not chatting gaily as 
 when they came toiling up the path ; silently, or whisper- 
 ing softly, for they were leaving tragedy behind them 
 on the cliff. Conger Howe had been popular with 
 young and old; despite his reticence there lurked at 
 the corners of his eyes a spirit that led children to make 
 friends with him. And they were sorry, now, that they 
 had come. Those who whispered were offering ex- 
 cuses based upon his lack of training as a child. Only 
 Bess was pleased, and her enjoyment of victory was 
 marred when she overheard the doctor saying to Mrs. 
 Gragg that somehow it made him think of Judas. 
 
 Barbara was left alone. Unconsciously she had re- 
 sumed the seat and the attitude in which she had spent 
 the afternoon. Once more her thoughts carried her 
 back to that air castle, now a ruin; then to C. Howe 
 and what the future held in store for him. How dif- 
 ferent her judgment as to that future from what she 
 had pictured it an hour ago ! And they had all turned 
 against him now that they had seen but had Mrs. 
 Gragg and Dr. Doon turned against him, however 
 great his offence? She could not believe that. They 
 loved him, and love, such love as men feel towards 
 each other, could pardon and find some sort of excuse 
 for worse than that. 
 
 302
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 303 
 
 " What is my own position ? " she asked herself. 
 " Do I love him less than they? " 
 
 Then she fell to wondering where he was, why he 
 didn't stay to talk it over with her. It was not fear 
 at least. No one could say he was afraid or ever had 
 been afraid of anything. 
 
 Over in the west the sun was dropping, bright red; 
 a bat, the earliest riser in his family, ventured forth, 
 and hovered blindly, squeaking to his mate. In the 
 nearest pine a katydid kicked his loud protest against 
 the sultry heat, and dinned with his incessant dee ! dee ! 
 dee! 
 
 The girl still sat there motionless and leaned her 
 head against the friendly boards. Somehow, the more 
 she thought the more her own life became involved in 
 his. And he was going away but not to Paris now. 
 He never could but he would go, all the sooner be- 
 cause of this. And she would never see him again. 
 He might go back to China where no one knew or 
 cared about the French school or the name taken in 
 vain. 
 
 " How could he ? How could he ? " she repeated, 
 and then before her eyes was the image of the man 
 who had stood there painting her. Was that the image 
 of a contemptible man? She tried to plan her life, 
 with Conger quite left out. An icy premonition 
 warned her that he had gone already, that she would 
 never look upon his face again. 
 
 One by one the stars came out; a thousand insects 
 trilled and chirped, calling to each other, and very far 
 away a dog was barking. By the faint light she could
 
 3 04 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 make out the careless footprints that profaned the lit- 
 tle grave. She found a stick, and by its aid repaired 
 the damage, heaping the soft earth once more into a 
 decent mound. 
 
 On her knees in the gathering darkness life seemed 
 something different from what she had ever known 
 before. Almost, she thought, as though this were the 
 end of it; and she had been thinking it the beginning, 
 had not yet come to the point where she regarded her- 
 self as grown up. " But I have lived and loved and 
 lost," she pondered, then checking herself. " But have 
 I loved, as other women love ? " And as she tried to 
 answer her own question, not once did Galton come into 
 her thoughts. It was Conger's image that occupied 
 her wholly, his deep eyes that seemed to be searching 
 hers for the answer. If only this hideous revelation 
 of Bess Grayley's could have been postponed for a few 
 days! 
 
 " I haven't loved because I cannot love," she con- 
 cluded, peering out into the darkness, half conscious 
 of a sound, the faint rhythmic thud of footsteps, or 
 it might be the tapping of a branch of the nearest pine 
 as it brushed the back of the old barn. She was too 
 busily absorbed in her own problem to question which 
 it was. Faithful to the North Star, the Big Dipper 
 hung suspended over the bay; it was tipped at a very 
 friendly angle for a thirsty child to drink from it, and 
 Barbara was thirsty, a child once more in her longing 
 for some one to take the responsibility and care. Her 
 hand rested fondly on the little grave.
 
 IX THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 305 
 
 " Poor old dog," she murmured, " you never even 
 had a name ! " 
 
 " Neither did I," said a voice behind her. 
 
 " Conger ! " her lips exclaimed. " I had thought 
 you were gone." 
 
 "In panic-stricken flight?" he asked. "That 
 would be too great a triumph for Bess. But did you 
 never think that I gave the dog no name because I 
 never had one ? Hsiao, meaning : ' little one/ spelt in 
 English is C. Howe. Neither is more than a nick- 
 name." 
 
 She saw that he wanted to avoid discussion of the 
 afternoon's disclosure. They need not mention it; 
 they could ignore it in the short time they might still 
 have together. 
 
 " You didn't tell me," she said, " what you had de- 
 cided was the legitimate end and aim of life." 
 
 " I remember," he answered, " we had just come to 
 that. And I was going to say that I had lived long 
 enough to discover that the object was happiness not 
 mere pleasure, of course, but happiness. Emperors 
 would crush the idea, dogmatists deride it, egoists scoff 
 at it, and priests abhor it, but, if it is true, it will live 
 in spite of them." 
 
 "And you expect to find it in Paris?" 
 
 " One never knows where or when, only as your 
 Scripture says : ' Seek and ye shall find, and to him 
 that knocketh it shall be opened.' I believe there is 
 much wisdom in that." 
 
 " Happiness ! " She spoke only the one word, and
 
 306 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 shivered, but it was not from cold. Some wild fancy 
 prompted her even then to ask, " And if all the world 
 were open to you, where would you seek it first? " 
 
 " On this very spot," he declared, " and now." 
 
 She had risen to her feet, and was glad she had 
 thought to repair the damage to the little grave before 
 he could see it. 
 
 " There is real happiness only where love is," he 
 went on. " Without it I cannot imagine happiness." 
 
 " And now more than ever you will need some 
 one who really cares." She was thinking of his down- 
 fall, what it would mean to him morally, financially, 
 physically. He had never before seemed so much in 
 need of love. An accusing voice within her was say- 
 ing: " Why do you fight against it? He needs you." 
 She was glad of the darkness that hid the rush of 
 color which she could feel even in her eyes, for he 
 still thought her interest quite impersonal. It seemed 
 to her that some power outside herself was taking 
 charge of this interview, rushing her headlong into 
 utterances such as she would despise from any one else. 
 He was going away, that was the all important fact 
 and explanation. A few minutes since she believed he 
 had gone. But he had come back to where they had 
 spent the afternoon, and now she knew that all along 
 she had wanted him to come back, had half believed he 
 would. And why did she want him? she asked her- 
 self. Was more than one answer possible? 
 
 " I should hate to think I didn't love him when he 
 was strong, and that now, because he is weak, I can 
 change." So she reasoned with herself, and he, never
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 307 
 
 suspecting such a possibility, was silent, leaving it all 
 to her. After what had happened he might as well 
 hasten his departure. To her sympathetic nature it 
 was doubtless doubly hard to play the part forced upon 
 her. 
 
 " Perhaps because of the changed conditions he will 
 be too proud to accept what I can give him," she 
 thought, trying to fathom him it would have been 
 so much easier in daylight watching those deep 
 eyes. 
 
 " I want you to be happy, Conger ! " Her voice 
 trembled in her earnestness, and she never even heeded 
 it ; there was none but Conger to hear it. She stretched 
 out her hands to him, and he took them in his without 
 a word. 
 
 Galton had taken her hands ; it had left her quite un- 
 moved. Now her heart was racing. He must never 
 let them go! But he would, because she had misled 
 him. 
 
 " Conger ! " she whispered. " Take me in your 
 arms I want you to love me I want to be a part 
 of your happiness." 
 
 " Why Barbara ! " That was all he said. 
 
 A long time they had been sitting on the old bench, 
 her head leaned not against the friendly boards but his 
 friendlier shoulder; he too happy for words, the after- 
 noon quite forgotten in this exquisite joy, she burying 
 the horrid memory beneath the great new overwhelm- 
 ing tide of her love. 
 
 " Why is the bell tolling? " she asked, breaking the 
 spell at last.
 
 3 o8 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " It is only striking twelve," he said, " but hark ! " 
 A voice a long way off was calling, " Bar-ba-ra ! " 
 
 And Conger calling back answered it, " Here at 
 
 Myrick's!"
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 ' They are coming for you," Conger said, resuming 
 his seat, resuming also the charge of that brown head 
 against his shoulder. " But they need not hurry now." 
 
 " Have I been horribly bold? " she asked, looking up 
 in his face which she could only dimly see. " You 
 know I virtually offered myself to you." 
 
 Suddenly she felt the shoulder and the strong pro- 
 tecting arm grow tense. 
 
 " Have you," he spoke nervously, anxiously : " have 
 you done this thing from the motive of pity? I had 
 not thought of this phase of it." 
 
 " It may have been," she answered fearlessly, " that 
 what prompted me in the beginning was the belief that 
 you had need of love. But whatever it was, it dis- 
 covered to me the fact that I, who didn't know what 
 love was, was in love with you. And if you need me, 
 as I hope you do, I need you a thousand times more." 
 
 Nothing, during the hours they had sat there, had 
 been said of the afternoon, Bess's triumph. Now they 
 were coming to break in upon this heavenly calm. 
 
 " Is there, perhaps, something you would wish to 
 ask me before they come? " he suggested, and she in 
 the panoply of a new confidence only shook her head, 
 and answered: "No, nothing!" She would not 
 
 309
 
 310 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 wound him by seeming distrust. It must be that in his 
 own heart he found an excuse for what he had done. 
 That, should satisfy her, for the present, at least. 
 
 " So ! " he answered, and she knew he was satisfied 
 with her decision, that when the time came he, himself, 
 would explain his point of view and willingly discuss 
 it with her. She wasn't afraid to wait though it was 
 the severest possible test of her faith in him. 
 
 "How can it be midnight?" she whispered, "No 
 wonder the family were disturbed. But at first I 
 couldn't go from here, and then then you came and 
 I wouldn't go not for all the families in the world ! " 
 
 The voices had come very near, and with them the 
 bobbing lights of half a dozen lanterns, and Galton 
 Gragg's voice was heard saying : " I know it was 
 Confer, so she's all right." 
 
 The searchers came, and found them sitting there on 
 the old bench. Barbara's father led them, his anxiety 
 suddenly turned to petulance that he should have been 
 " put to so much trouble for nothing, and your poor 
 mother worried to death for fear you were lost, and 
 here you are simply ." At this point his extended 
 hands had to finish the sentence with a gesture indica- 
 tive of emptiness. 
 
 " Father, dear," Barbara protested, " don't act as if 
 you were sorry no harm had come to me." 
 
 Galton alone seemed able to take in the situation at 
 a glance ; ignoring his companions he made straight for 
 Conger. Holding up his lantern that he might see 
 his friend's eyes. " At last," he said, speaking so that 
 only those two could hear him, " the impossible has
 
 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 311 
 
 happened to Barbara and all because she felt that 
 you needed her. Isn't it so, Barbara ? " 
 
 It was their first real interview since the broken en- 
 gagement, and she had dreaded the reproach of this 
 masterful man, was quite unprepared for this sort of 
 loyalty. It almost seemed that he had known her bet- 
 ter than she knew herself. Gal ton and Conger, two 
 friends whom this supreme test could not estrange, 
 friends because they admired each other, trusted each 
 other, and had much in common besides the love for 
 this woman Galton and Conger, their hands united 
 in a grasp that spoke plainer than any words, read by 
 the light of Galton's lantern all the story ; one the story 
 of Barbara's surrender, the other how a man can un- 
 derstand, and understanding, yield without bitterness, 
 
 " But what is all this stupid gossip about Felix 
 fitron," Galton asked. 
 
 " Surely you understand," Conger answered stead- 
 ily, looking into his friend's eyes, " surely you need 
 not to ask. I am Felix fitron. It is but my Paris 
 name. In Peking Hsiao ; in Boston C. Howe ; in Paris 
 Felix fitron." 
 
 " And the silly Bess thought she had trapped you 
 you, the guileless " 
 
 " Don't ! " Barbara exclaimed, " I should hate my- 
 self for being stupid enough also to have believed it 
 but it was that his need of some one that showed 
 me my own heart. Why what becomes of M. 
 Beauchamp ? " 
 
 "He is of the Latin temperament that is 
 enough ! " Conger explained, and Barbara :
 
 3 i2 IN THE SHADOW OF LANTERN STREET 
 
 " Haven't I declared all along that if Felix fitron 
 were not eighty, and would have me, I would marry 
 him?" 
 
 THE END
 
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