The Last Drive and Other Stories

Stout’s longest and last piece for Young’s Magazine was this novelette. It appeared in the April 1918 issue, but must have been written more than a year earlier, as Stout had been busy collaborating with his brother Robert in promoting a school banking system, the Educational Thrift Service, since the end of 1916. This farewell appearance marks the only time that one of Stout’s early stories for Young’s was promoted on the cover: “OLD FOOLS AND YOUNG — Complete Novelette by REX T. STOUT”

I

Before the large granite pillars flanking the entrance to Roselawn — one of those showy country estates that turn the east bank of the Hudson into an unbroken series of formal parks and flower gardens — a high-powered Shinton roadster came to an abrupt stop early one July morning. At the wheel was a man of middle age, not more than a year or two either side of forty; he was the sole occupant of the car. The perplexed and somewhat resentful expression of his pleasing, still youthful countenance showed that he had certainly not halted as a tribute to the surrounding landscape, though such a tribute would have been not undeserved. On one side green valleys and gently sloping hills, thickly wooded, rested and charmed the eye with their endless variety of form and color; on the other, gardens and terraced lawns led past the buildings of the estate to where a glimmer of the broad river shone through the foliage. The day promised to be hot, but just now a gentle, steady breeze was stirring freshness in the air.

The man in the car, having stopped, had taken a letter from his pocket and glanced through it. It read as follows:

The man at the wheel refolded the letter with a grunt of irritation and returned it to his pocket.

“No, she doesn’t even say what train,” he observed glumly to the radiator. “Of course she wouldn’t. Well, I’ll have to find out.”

He started the motor and turned into the driveway between the granite pillars. It led him deviously, around sweeping curves, to the carriage entrance of the house itself — a large rambling structure of gray stone and uncertain architecture, set in the centre of a century-old grove not more than a hundred yards from the bank of the river. A man came running up from the garage in the rear, touching his cap as he approached with a deferential,

“Good morning, Mr. Canby.”

“Good morning, Simmons. Put her away,” returned the other as he leaped out and mounted the steps of the piazza. At the door he was met by a red-faced middle-aged woman who greeted him with unfeigned relief and began to explain vociferously that her mistress had left so suddenly she didn’t know what to think, and she had been so afraid Mr. Canby wouldn’t come, and the young women expected from the city any minute—!

Without waiting for her to finish, Canby passed through to the front of the house and on upstairs to his sister’s writing-room, where, after a ten-minute search, he finally found a typewritten letter containing the information that the Misses Rose Manganaro, Mildred Lavicci and Nella Somi would arrive Wednesday morning on the 10:50 local; also, Mrs. Janet Morton Haskins would please accept the profound thanks of the East Side Vacation Club for giving these working girls the opportunity of enjoying the myriad delights and advantages of country life for the two weeks they would be free from their toilsom labor in the cruel city...

“This is what comes of having a widowed sister with contemplations on humanity,” observed Canby, as he tossed the letter back in the drawer. ‘Here’s a nice job I’ve got. Pleasant task for an aged bachelor: playing croquet with Tired Working Girls! I’m not sure it’s even decent. Lord, what names! Manganaro! — Lavicci! — Somi! They won’t be able to speak English, their hands and feet will be in the way, and they’ll have their pockets full of garlic to nibble between meals! Sis says she’ll be back tonight or tomorrow, and maybe she will and maybe she won’t. Oh Lord! Hanged if I’ll go to the station, anyway; I’ll send Simmons.”

Downstairs, having summoned the chauffeur from the garage and delivered his instructions, and having ascertained from the housekeeper that the rooms of the expected guests were in readiness, Canby deposited himself in a shady corner of the piazza with a morning newspaper, a box of cigarettes, a bottle, a siphon, and a glass. Soon he saw Simmons, in a new seven-passenger touring car, winding along the driveway on his way to the station, seven miles distant. Canby sighed and returned to his paper. He had had a match on for this morning with Garrett Linwood, a guest at his own country home, some fifteen miles to the northeast, and he had expected at about this hour to be standing on the sixth tee, driving across the brook. That’s what comes of having a sister...

Buried in the sporting page of his newspaper some forty-five minutes later, Canby came to with a start at the sound of the returning automobile whizzing along the driveway. Hastily tossing off his glass and throwing the paper aside, he reached the central arch of the main portico just as the car drew up at the foot of the steps.

The three young women from the East Side Vacation Club descended rather stiffly, with embarrassed movements. Canby glanced at them with idle curiosity and then spoke, welcoming them to Roselawn in the name of his sister, their hostess, and explaining her temporary absence. They mumbled something in reply, and Canby, somewhat embarrassed himself, was relieved to find the housekeeper at this elbow.

“Mrs. Garton will show you your rooms,” he finished. “I trust you had a pleasant journey.”

“I’m going back for the luggage, sir,” came from Simmons.

Canby nodded; in his indifference he had forgotten all about it; but, come to think of it, of course even working girls would have luggage. Having followed the housekeeper with his eyes as she led the visitors into the house, he returned to his corner on the piazza and took up his newspaper; but by the time he had finished the financial page he was vaguely uneasy. As host pro tem., he felt that he probably ought to do something; so a few minutes later, he started in search of Mrs. Garton. As he crossed the reception hall he heard footsteps above, and there, on the landing of the great staircase, stood his three guests, huddled together as if for protection and gazing down at him doubtfully.

“I was just looking for you,” said Canby, trying to make his tone pleasant and fatherly. “Thought you might like to come out on the piazza — quite cool and cheerful. Later I’ll take you over the gardens, when the sun isn’t so hot.”

There was a movement on the landing, and a “Thank you, sir,” came down to him. He reflected with relief that they did appear to understand English, at least; and when they had descended the stairs he led the way outside.

There, after they had been distributed among the comfortable wicker chairs and he had rung for a maid to bring cakes and lemonade, he took the trouble to look at them. The two nearest him were easily classified as Italian peasant girls, with their dark skin and hair and eyes, rather coarse features and large hands and feet. They wore brightly colored dresses and one had a large yellow imitation rose in her hair. The third was more difficult; in fact, the longer Canby looked at her the more difficult she became. Her soft brown hair, combed back from her forehead, revealed a well-formed brow, smooth and white; her features were regular and her skin of a delicate velvety texture; and the hand that rested on the arm of the chair was small and exquisite in shape. She wore a laundered dress of light tan with a black velvet bow at the throat, and the low collar permitted a view of a dainty neck between the softly curving shoulders. Nineteen, she may have been, or twenty, and was of that delightful size and figure that makes any other woman always seem either too large or too small.

Canby took in these details, or most of them, gazing at her with something like astonishment. Curious his eye hadn’t picked her out from the others as they got out of the car; but, after all, there was nothing noticeable about her, nothing startling. That was just it; it was only after you noticed her that you saw her. There was something decidedly attractive and appealing about the little red mouth, with the sensitive lips neither closed nor parted; and the total effect of her attitude and expression was of quiet, well-bred modesty as she sat there, all unconscious of Canby’s stare.

He turned to the girl nearest him:

“I know what your names are,” he said with an apologetic smile, “but I don’t know how they’re distributed.”

Her black eyes, honest and patient, returned his look.

“Mine is Rose Manganaro,” she replied. “This,” she indicated to the girl next to her, “is Mildred Lavicci. And Miss Somi — Nella Somi.”

So her name was Nella Somi. That might be anything. He wished that she would turn her head so he could see her eyes. He ventured some trivial question, but it was Rose Manganaro who answered, and a conversation was started. She spoke of the hot city they had left behind, and the ride up the Hudson, and the beautiful homes they had passed on the way from the station. Then cakes and lemonade arrived, and Canby amused himself by watching their white teeth as they bit into the yellow squares. Nella Somi, he remarked, took no cake, but merely sipped her lemonade. After that their tongues were loosened and the two Italian girls talked freely and unaffectedly. Mildred had noticed some men playing golf on the way from the station, and Canby described the game in detail for their benefit.

Thus the time passed somehow until luncheon, and after that they returned to the piazza. Canby had promised himself that, as soon as he had sat at the table with them, he would leave them to their own resources and drive back to Greenhedge for the match with his friend Linwood, who was waiting for him; but, now that the time had come, he didn’t go. The desultory conversation of that morning was resumed, and the afternoon dragged away. Nella Somi spoke hardly at all, but the others made up for it. Finally, the shadows began to lengthen and a cooling breeze arose from the direction of the river. Rose Manganaro spoke of the gardens.

“I’ll show you around if you want,” offered Canby. “Not so hot now.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t trouble you, sir,” replied Rose, getting up from her chair, “we can go alone, if it’s all right. Are you coming, Mildred? Nella?”

Mildred was already on her feet, but Nella Somi declared that she was too comfortable to move. Canby at once decided to stay where he was, but rose politely as the two girls passed in front of him on their way to the steps. A minute later they had disappeared around the bend of the garden path. When Canby sat down again he moved over to the chair left vacant next to Nella Somi.

“You don’t care for flowers?” he ventured after a little.

“Oh yes, I love them,” she replied quickly, “but it’s so hot, and I’m so tired.”

“In an hour it will be cool; we’re quite close to the river here, you know. In the evenings, on the water, it’s really chilly.”

“In a boat, you mean.”

“Yes; especially in a swift one.”

Suddenly she turned her eyes on him, and he saw them for the first time.

It took his breath. He had expected them to be brown, from the darkness of her hair, and their clear vivid blue almost startled him. The lashes, heavy and drooping, were even darker than her hair, and the effect was striking and strangely beautiful. If she had purposely kept them from him throughout the afternoon she appeared now to have changed her mind, for she returned his gaze frankly and artlessly, to the point of disconcerting him. The vivid blue eyes held curiosity.

“You don’t do anything, do you?” she observed finally.

“Do anything?” he repeated.

“Work, I mean.”

“Oh! No.” He forbore smiling. “That is, no regular work. I have an office in New York, but I’m very seldom there.”

“How funny! I have to work so hard and you do nothing at all.” There was no resentment in her tone; her interest in the question seemed purely academic.

“Your hard work doesn’t seem to leave much impression,” returned Canby.

She calmly noted his gaze resting on her pretty white hands.

“I wouldn’t let it,” she replied with a smile. “Anyway, it isn’t that kind. I sort candies, and I wear gloves.” She twisted about in her chair the better to face him, with a quick graceful movement of her supple young body. The blue eyes were half closed as if in speculation. “To think of a big ugly man like you with nothing to do, and me working all day long,” she continued. “I could be so pretty if I had time for things!”

“I’m not sure it would be safe for you to be much prettier,” returned Canby with a laugh. To himself he added, “Or possible either.” He went on aloud: “But am I so ugly as all that?”

The blue eyes flashed a smile, then were serious:

“All men are ugly,” she declared daintily; “it’s a part of them. They’re clumsy and not nice to look at. If only there were something else to marry!”

“Are you thinking of marriage?”

“Oh, yes; Tony, Rose’s brother. But I haven’t promised yet, and I don’t think I will. He’s very nice, but so... so ugly.” She paused a moment. “There were a lot of men on the train this morning and they were frightful.”

“Did they annoy you?” demanded Canby in the tone of a protector.

“No; they never do. Of course, they often speak to me, on the street too, but that’s all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I look as if I didn’t understand them and say something in Italian or French. They always look frightened and go away. Americans are so afraid of a foreign tongue.”

“You speak Italian and French?”

“Yes. My mother was French; she was born in Paris. But, my goodness!”—she laughed a little for the first time, a low soft ripple of sound that enchanted the ear — “I tell all about myself, don’t I? Parlons un peu à votre sujet, monsieur.”

Canby protested that the topic would be unutterably dull, and a moment later found himself somehow involved in a discussion of neckties, how started he could not have told. It appeared that Nella Somi favored black and gray, because none of the gayer colors went well with the coarse complexion of the male; and she particularly disliked such shades as orange and green. Canby remembered that a green four-in-hand was at the moment around his neck, and he felt uncomfortable. They talked on various subjects, and finally arrived at tennis. Miss Somi had spent her two preceding vacations at a girls’ colony on Long Island, where they had played daily, and Canby proposed a set.

He found racquets and balls, and sport shoes of his sister’s for Miss Somi, and together they walked to the courts, at the foot of the north terrace near the lake. Canby was so interested in watching his opponent that he forgot everything else until he heard her call, “Fifty-love,” and then he set to it in earnest; and though he lost the game he succeeded in carrying it to deuce. After that he stopped trying.

The girl’s movements, incredibly quick and graceful, charmed him by their appeal to his feeling for the beautiful; she was Diana and the racquet was her bow. The red lips parted and the white teeth flashed as she called the score; her flushed cheeks made her more lovely than ever; and once, at the net, in the middle of the fourth game, her blue eyes sparkled directly into his, and he stood there stupidly as the ball whizzed past his shoulder.

The girl tossed her racquet on the ground.

“You’re not trying, and I won’t play any more,” she declared. “I’m tired, anyway. I wonder where Rose and Mildred are.”

He picked up the racquet and followed her to the piazza, where they found the others returned from the garden. It was nearly dinnertime, and they entered the house. Half an hour later at the table, Canby found that Miss Somi’s loquacity had entirely disappeared. She did not look directly at him once during the meal.

The conversation turned for the most part on flowers, for Rose and Mildred were full of enthusiasm over the gardens. Such wonderful blossoms and so many they had never seen before! One of the gardeners had kindly told them the names of the plants. His name was Jensen, and they thought him a very nice man. Tomorrow he was going to show them how the water was forced into the fountain, and some Italian bulbs he had in the greenhouses.

After dinner Canby proposed an alternative: would they go motoring, or take a walk down by the river? Miss Somi professed indifference; the others, after a sustained discussion in their native tongue, declared for the river. Before they started, Canby telephoned to the Waring home, and was told that Mrs. Waring was much better and that his sister would return home that evening. Then, after sending a maid for wraps for the girls, for it was nighttime now and quite cool, Canby led the way along one of the broad paths leading to the rear of the park. Miss Somi was beside him, and Rose and Mildred, chattering in Italian, were at their heels.

There was a bright full moon and the stars were thick in the heavens; so that, though it was quite dark in the shadows of the grove, when they emerged on to the riverbank there was a shimmering track of light on the rippling water and a silvery radiance was everywhere. The bluffs of the opposite shore rose black and indistinct, and had the appearance of being at a great distance in the soft mysterious light; and the noises of the night, the cry of an owl somewhere in the trees, the chug of a motor boat far up the river, and, more faintly, the lapping of the water on the bank, came to them with the evening breeze, and when they spoke their voices were lowered as if in fear of disturbing the fairy scene. They wandered a space along the bank, speaking a little, and then, reaching the boathouse, Canby proposed a row. Out on the water it was quite cool and the girls drew their wraps about their shoulders. Canby pulled across to the opposite shore and a half mile or so upstream, then crossed back over and floated down with the current.

“It was such a nice ride!” declared Mildred Lavicci a little shyly, as they landed at the boathouse.

Rose agreed, and added something about Mr. Canby being so kind, not a bit like a rich man. Nella Somi said nothing.

They strolled slowly back up the bank, the bright moonlight throwing their grotesque shadows across the water’s edge. From the direction of the house came the sound of a motor car on the driveway.

“That’s my sister, Mrs. Haskins,” Canby informed Nella Somi at his side. “If she wants to know how I’ve substituted in her absence, I hope you’ll give a good account of me. Remember, I let you beat me at tennis!”

“Yes, but I could have won anyway,” retorted the girl with a little defiant toss of the head. “I didn’t half try, you know.”

The other two had moved on ahead and had now stopped to wait for them at the beginning of the path leading into the park. When Canby and Miss Somi came up they stood there a time looking out over the water. Then Rose and Mildred turned into the path, and the others slowly followed at a distance.

All at once, just before they reached the enveloping shadow of the trees, Canby was aware of a sudden startled movement from the girl at his side. Then she stood stiff, as though paralyzed, with her gaze fastened on the ground ten feet ahead; and, following the direction of her eyes, Canby saw a large black water-snake basking in the moonlight with its beady eyes glittering like diamonds.

“No danger,” he reassured her, “it’s just a—”

At that moment the snake moved swiftly toward them, and he was interrupted by a cry of fear from the girl. She turned, and he saw her eyes filled with terror, and, the next thing he knew, his arms were around her protectingly, while she clung to him closely, like a frightened child.

“Where is it, where is it?” she cried, while he soothed her:

“Really, it won’t hurt you; really, it’s quite harmless! It’s only—”

There were footsteps on the gravel walk, and a voice suddenly sounded:

“Well, Fred!”

Canby looked up and saw his sister standing there, regarding the chivalrous scene with an expression decidedly ironic. Feeling rather foolish, he loosened his arms, and Miss Somi swiftly drew away.

“Hello, Janet!” he returned calmly. “Back already? This is Miss Nella Somi. We just saw a snake.”

II

Later that night Canby motored back to Greenhedge, his own estate, fifteen miles distant, where he found his friend Garrett Linwood mixing gin fizzes in pairs to while the hours away during the absence of his host. Linwood was a retired broker and capitalist, a widower a little over fifty, with an immense fortune and one aim left in life: to go around the Wanakahnda course in less than eighty. That was why he was at Greenhedge now; the Wanakahnda Country Club was distant only a ten-minute drive. He met Canby with the information that he had that day got a four on the long ninth and a three on the seventeenth.

The next morning they played the postponed match; then, leaving Linwood at the links, Canby jumped into his roadster and half an hour later, at Roselawn, announced to his surprised sister that he had come for lunch. He spent the afternoon on the tennis court with Miss Nella Somi of the East Side Vacation Club; he had the firm intention of inviting himself to dinner, but changed his mind when he learned that several guests were expected from neighboring estates.

During the week that followed Garrett Linwood was considerably mystified by the peculiar conduct of his friend Canby. That gentleman became suddenly most unreliable; he would disappear unexpectedly and turn up again several hours later without any explanation; he actually seemed to have taken a dislike to golf! Linwood couldn’t understand it.

As a matter of fact, Canby didn’t understand it himself. In his reflections, of which there were many during this eventful week, he hotly denied the possibility of his becoming enamored, at the age of forty-one years, of a nineteen-year-old child. So he called her: child. He played tennis with her, he took her motoring and motor-boating, he sat with her for hours at a time in the gardens or on the piazza of Roselawn, listening to her prattle and looking at her. Mostly he looked at her; the delight of it was never-ending, for her beauty was of the kind that could withstand long inspection and the fierce rays of the sun and the flushed cheeks of exertion; and not only withstand these things, but profit by them. He enjoyed hearing her talk almost as much as looking at her; her queer turns of expression, her simple, frank philosophy of the working-girl, her innocent delight in the luxuries of wealth as exhibited at Roselawn, even her occasional moody silences, when nothing would get a word from her.

There were occasional broad lapses from what Canby’s world considered good form, but they merely served to amuse him and attract him the more by their piquancy, especially as there was never any touch of vulgarity in anything she did; her gestures, her tones, her dress — none was ever in the slightest degree offensive. She seemed of different mould from the Italian peasant girls.

One night, without being questioned, she spoke of her parentage. Her mother had been a French actress; her father, a Hungarian office-holder. Both had been dead some years, and Nella, left practically penniless, had come to America at the age of fourteen; so far as she knew she had not a relative in the world. Her father she remembered scarcely at all, but her mother had been very beautiful.

The attitude — or attitudes, for there were many of them — which she assumed toward Canby interested and piqued him. She would ask him scores of questions on some subject — the theatre, for instance, or the great hotels of the world capitals — and hang with delightful breathless attention on his words, like a curious child; and the next moment she would snub him on no provocation whatever and subtly withdraw herself. She never alluded to the incident of the snake and the moment she had been held in his arms; neither did Canby, but it was often in his mind. They were together hours of every day; though when they went motoring or out on the river Canby would take the Italian girls along for the sake of appearances. Telling himself that it was absurd for a man of his age to use formal address with a young girl in her teens, he called her by her first name, and she made no objection. Thus the days flew by until only one remained of their two-weeks vacation.

“So you return to New York tomorrow,” Canby was saying. It was an hour after lunch and they were together in the garden, strolling aimlessly about from one shady spot to another; the day was too hot for tennis. Over near the fountain, some distance away, Rose and Mildred were seated on a bench with their hostess, who was reading aloud from a novel.

The girl, who had been in one of her silent moods since luncheon, nodded without speaking. She was dressed in white from head to foot — linen dress and canvas shoes — and, bareheaded, carried a blue parasol. The blue eyes did not sparkle with their usual life; they were serious, even a little sombre, as she bent them on the path before her.

“I’m sorry you’re going,” Canby continued, “deeply sorry. I’ve enjoyed your visit immensely.”

Still she was silent; but presently she sent him a quick glance, then looked away again before she spoke:

“You’ve been very kind to me — to all of us. And — something else. After the first day I thought you liked me; that is, I thought you were interested in me — that I... I pleased you. And I was a little — not afraid, but disturbed, because I know how rich men treat poor girls. So I want to thank you for not being — for being nice to me.”

“Good heavens, you needn’t thank me for not being a brute!” Canby exclaimed.

“I do, anyway.” Suddenly she looked up at him and laughed. “You wouldn’t have been much to blame — would you? — after the way I acted that night when I saw the snake.”

“You were frightened,” said Canby gruffly.

“Yes. Ugh, I hate them so, and fear them! But I really believe I threw my arms around you, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“How funny! I never did that before to any man; but then, of course, you’re so old.”

“Of course,” he agreed without enthusiasm.

“Well, it’s all over now. Tomorrow I go back to that smelly flat and the sorting-room and standing up all day long and Mr. Horowitz who shouts at you... But it’s fun, anyway, to work. I really don’t mind it, only it gets tiresome, and there are so many beautiful things you can’t have.”

“And to Tony,” came from Canby.

“What — to Tony?”

“You go back to Tony.”

“Oh!” She laughed and he caught a flash from her eyes. “I’d forgotten all about him. Tant mieux! But he’ll begin to make love to me again, I suppose.”

A little later they joined the others near the fountain, and were greeted with short nods, for page 280 of the novel had just been reached and things were exciting. Nella Somi sat down to listen, and Canby, feeling restless, wandered aimlessly about the paths. He had a project in mind and he was impatient to set it afoot.

He was not over-satisfied with himself. He had been astonished and enraged that morning to find three gray hairs in his head; and the discovery was singularly inopportune, inasmuch as his friend Garrett Linwood had been congratulating him only the evening before on the preservation of his youth. He reflected somewhat pityingly that Linwood himself was really getting quite old; a few years more now and he would be sixty. Three score! By comparison with that patriarchal figure he, Canby, was highly jejune. Something within him whispered, “Still youthful enough to be a fool, and too old to enjoy your folly.”

He snorted impatiently. Who spoke of folly? Could ever man be too old to feel the charm of innocence and beauty and health and youth, when all were combined in one rare adorable creature? To contemplate folly as a result of that charm was another matter. Canby did not contemplate it.

Presently he wandered back to the house; and later, hours later it seemed to him, his sister and her guests, having finished the novel, followed him. Canby, in the library, heard them in the hall; he heard talking of packing and their footsteps as they began to mount the stairs. In a moment he was at the door of the library calling up:

“Janet! Will you come down here a minute?”

When his sister entered the library a few minutes later he closed the door behind her; then suddenly forgot how he had decided to begin.

“They go back tomorrow?” he said finally, jerking his head in the direction of the stairs.

His sister replied that her guests were to take the nine-thirty train the following morning.

“Miss Somi also?”

“Of course.”

Canby cleared his throat. “I was wondering, Janie, if you hadn’t noticed anything unusual about her.”

“About Nella Somi?”

“Yes.”

“I have.” The woman of experience, veteran of a dozen society campaigns and a thousand skirmishes, turned a quizzical eye on her bachelor brother. “Nella is an extraordinarily clever girl; one of the cleverest girls, in fact, that I have ever seen.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that,” Canby returned impatiently. “Of course she’s clever; that is, she’s not a fool. I mean, don’t you think she’s unusual?”

“Cleverness is unusual.”

“But don’t you think she’s different, different from her cl— No, to the devil with class! But she strikes me as being intelligent and refined far beyond the ordinary girl, of any class whatever. Her outlook on life is sensible. Her mind is pure. She is attractive personally. She is neither impudent nor ignorant. She has the soul of an artist; she loves beautiful things without gushing over them. There’s no silly sentiment about her. And she is brave; she’s alone in the world, and she looks at life cheerfully.”

“Well,” replied Janet, seeing that he had finished, “granting that all you say is true, what of it?”

There was a silence, then Canby turned and spoke abruptly:

“Why don’t you adopt her?”

It was plain that his sister had not expected this.

“Adopt her!” she repeated in astonishment.

“Yes. You’re a widow, past forty, and you need someone; why not her? She’ll give you a new interest in life. As for her, she deserves something better than to sort candy and marry an Italian laborer. She’s too fine for that sort of thing. She would be a daughter to be proud of, with a little finishing. She would—”

He stopped short. His sister was laughing at him. There was real mirth in her laughter, too. He looked at her in amazement.

“What the deuce is so funny?” he demanded.

“Oh, my dear Fred!” The mirth subsided a little. “Men are really the stupidest creatures — that is, nice men like you. And yet, in this instance it is a little wonder.” She was suddenly serious. “Nella Somi is really an incredibly clever girl. She has taken you in, my dear. Don’t worry about her marrying any Italian laborer; she wasn’t made for that. You think her sweet and guileless and innocent. She may be innocent enough, but she certainly isn’t guileless. To put it vulgarly, she has dangled her bait before you — oh, with consummate art! — and you have swallowed it, hook and all.”

“Bah!” exclaimed Canby. “You women—”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” Janet put in quickly. “I’m not condemning her. Under different circumstances I might be her friend, and admire her. I don’t say she’s bad. I do admire her. With good birth and a fortune she would be a remarkable woman; a valuable friend and a dangerous enemy. But — I don’t fancy her as a daughter. Perhaps I should apologize for not warning you, but it amused me so to watch her, and her moves were so perfectly executed, I hadn’t the heart; and besides, I really didn’t fear, for you’re an exceptional man. Anyway, now you know.”

“But you don’t really believe all that!” cried Canby. “Of Nella Somi?”

“My dear boy, it’s true.”

“Pardon me, it’s absurd. Why, Janet, she’s nothing but a child! You women, with your intuition and perspicuity, make me tired. It’s absurd! Why, I could tell you—”

“You needn’t tell me anything, Fred; I’ve seen it all. I haven’t anything against her. But to adopt her — hardly!”

And though Canby continued his protests, his sister was firm. Finally, permitting himself some acutely caustic remarks concerning suspicious women and the habit of judging others by one’s self, he perforce accepted her decision.

He was deeply annoyed, not so much by Janet’s refusal to act — she had a right to do as she chose — as by her stubborn injustice. Had he not studied Nella Somi for two weeks — her simplicity of thought, her disinterestedness, her girlish friendship, her absolute avoidance of the sort of feminine wiles he had grown to detest? He told himself that he understood his sister well enough; she had lived so long in the atmosphere of artificiality, that she was unable to recognize natural and divine charm, direct and unadorned, when she saw it. So much the worse for her, he reflected scornfully. But what of his generous intentions for Nella’s future, thus so unexpectedly balked?

He went out and sat on the piazza with his feet on the rail — an attitude which Janet detested. He hoped she would see him. For more than two hours he sat there, and when Rose and Nella came downstairs, having finished their packing, and were later joined by Mildred and their hostess, he merely nodded without turning his head. About ten minutes before dinnertime he suddenly leaped to his feet, and, without paying attention to the others’ inquiring glances, he went to the garage, jumped into his roadster and was off. He covered the fifteen miles to Greenhedge in a few seconds less than a quarter of an hour, dined with his friend Linwood, and had an extended talk with his housekeeper.

By eight o’clock he was back again at Roselawn. They were surprised to see him, and Janet had something to say about his running off at dinnertime. All the reply her brother vouchsafed her was a meaningless and rather impolite grunt. Without preamble, he asked Nella Somi if she would go out on the river with him. The girl turned to her hostess with a look of inquiry.

Janet glanced at her brother with an expression of mingled amusement and disapproval, then turned to the girl and said drily:

“By all means go, my dear, if you wish.”

It was a starry, moonless night, and the river was smooth as glass, with no tide or wind to disturb its surface. In silence Canby and Nella had walked side by side through the park, and neither spoke as, reaching the boathouse, the skiff was untied and they shoved off. Instead of pulling for midstream Canby allowed the craft to float idly down with the current, now and then swinging her out a little to clear some obstruction near the bank. The stars gave just sufficient light for him to make out Nella’s features as she sat motionless on the seat near the stern with a dark mantle around her shoulders, bareheaded.

“I suppose you’re all packed ready to go,” said Canby at last, breaking a long silence.

Nella nodded her head, then, reflecting that he might not see her in the darkness, pronounced the word, “Yes.”

“The two weeks have gone swiftly,” Canby resumed after a moment; “that is, swiftly for me. I have thought sometimes that you and Rose and Mildred found it rather tiresome with no young people around.”

There was a short silence; then he was somewhat surprised to hear a gay little silvery laugh from her.

“Now you’re looking for a compliment, Mr. Canby,” she declared, with the laugh still in her voice. “All right, I don’t mind. We haven’t found it tiresome one minute, because you’ve been so good to us. We like old people.”

“But you’re glad to go back?”

“My goodness, no!” He had the impression of a flash from the blue eyes, though he could not have seen it in the darkness. “I guess you don’t know much about girls, Mr. Canby, if you think there is anyone who would be glad to leave all this—” she waved her hand toward Roselawn — “for a — for down there. That wouldn’t be natural. But — well, I don’t cry about it. I’ve got to go, and I go, and I’ll make the best of it. I believe Rose and Mildred mind it more than I do. Ma petite, sois philosophe. That’s what my mother used to say. You see, I am.”

A silence. Ahead there was a protuberance on the bank, and Canby pulled sharply on the starboard oar to clear it. They floated past.

“Would you like to stay?” asked Canby suddenly.

“Stay here?”

“Yes. Not at Roselawn. But I— For several days I’ve had an idea... Of course, you know I like you, Nella. In these two weeks I’ve grown fond of you; so, really, what I have to propose is more selfish than it is generous, but I think of you too. You deserve something better than the life you have been forced into by circumstances. I wanted my sister to adopt you, but she had made plans that rendered it impossible. So I thought — I wonder if you’d care to come and live with me?”

Without giving her time to reply he went on hastily:

“I mean, of course, as my ward. I could be appointed your legal guardian. Later, if we thought it advisable, I could adopt you and give you my name — that is, I don’t know if bachelors can have adopted daughters, though I don’t see why not. I assure you I’m not a difficult fellow to get along with...”

“But, Mr. Canby! Why do you want to do this for me?”

“I said I was fond of you,” he returned gruffly.

‘But I... I don’t know what to say.” She was sitting up very straight on the seat, rigid. “It is so — it’s like a dream! A beautiful dream! You really like me so well? I’m not always a good girl, you know. Often I am... I am... méchante. And you want me to come and live with you always, and have nice things. Oh! I... I...”

“Well, what do you say?” His voice lacked a little of being steady.

For a moment there was no reply. Then all at once the boat rolled crazily to one side as she jumped from her seat and bounded amidships to where he sat at the oars; and before Canby quite knew what she was about she had dropped on her knees before him and put her hands on his shoulders, drawing him forward, and planted a vigorous kiss on his cheek.

“There!” she cried like a delighted child, and kissed the other cheek too.

III

Not counting Nella Somi, there were two people who met with surprises that night that made it memorable for them.

The first was Mrs. Janet Morton Haskins. Telling herself that she knew men, when she had seen her middle-aged brother attracted by the girl from the East Side Vacation Club she refrained from interfering by a single word or gesture; it would have only added fuel to his ardor; and when he had returned after dinner for a tête-à-tête row on the river her thoughts were cynical. Even good old Fred, it seemed, was capable of things.

Thus far her reflections. Imagine, then, her stupefied indignation when good old Fred returned at ten o’clock with the girl, helped her into his roadster, went upstairs for her luggage and put that in also, and then announced calmly:

“I’m taking Nella home with me. You wouldn’t adopt her, so I will!”

Janet almost shrieked. She did, in fact, raise her voice; but, by the time intelligible words came to her lips, the roadster had disappeared down the driveway, so suddenly that for a full hour she succeeded in persuading herself that it was only a bad dream. Out of justice to her it should be added that when she awoke to the reality of it she didn’t even take the trouble to go to the telephone and call him up. Perhaps she did know something about men, after all.

The second surprised individual was Mr. Garrett Linwood. Having temporarily given up gin fizzes for fear of their effect on his golf score, he had taken a pitcher of lemonade and an interesting book to the billiard room at Greenhedge, and had reached chapter XIV a little before eleven o’clock, when he heard his host’s automobile outside. Chapter XIV being mostly description of scenery, which he detested, he threw down the novel and strolled idly down the hall to the door, and, arrived there, stopped short and opened and closed his eyes two or three times as if to wake himself up. For this thing that he saw surely could not be: Fred Canby crossing the threshold with a dark-haired, blue-eyed girl by his side! Or was it a witch, or a fairy? Linwood blinked harder, and he heard his friend address someone as Nella and tell her that this was Mr. Linwood, his guest.

Linwood bowed mechanically, still wondering when he would wake up, and stood by in stupor while he heard Canby send for his housekeeper and say to her:

“This is Miss Somi, Mrs. Wheeler, the young lady I spoke about this evening. She is going to live with us. I suppose her room is ready? Then you will show her, please. I’ll take you over your new home tomorrow, Nella. Bedtime now. I’ll send your things up immediately. Good night.”

Later, in the library, Linwood sat and listened to his friend’s wondrous tale; and though he was a fairly skeptical man he did not smile overmuch during the recital. When it was over he said calmly:

“Canby, you’re a fool!”

“I wasn’t aware I had asked for your opinion,” the other retorted.

“True enough; you didn’t. But remember I’m as much beyond fifty as you are beyond forty, and besides, having had a wife of my own for a total of twenty-one years — bless her memory! — I’ve studied the creature on its native soil. Nothing against Miss — What’s her name? Thanks! — Nothing against Miss Somi; I don’t know her at all, and I don’t intend to offer any advice or begin any argument. I merely make the observation: Canby, you’re a fool; but the thing’s done. You have sworn that you have no personal intentions in the matter, matrimonial or otherwise, and you’re a sincere and honest man. May you never have any regrets; and that sentiment should be sanctified in burgundy.”

Whereupon Canby rang a bell and the burgundy was brought.

The following morning, up early and out of doors, Canby found Linwood in a corner of the lawn near the garage lustily swinging his driver at a parachute ball. They had barely exchanged greetings when they heard footsteps and, glancing up, saw Nella Somi coming down the path. She was bareheaded, without a parasol, and the glow of health and youth was all about her like a radiance.

“Good morning!” Canby called, and she crossed over.

As she nodded to them on her approach, turning her vivid blue eyes from one to the other, Canby simply stood and looked at her as though there were nothing else in the world worth doing.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

She laughed a little. “To tell the truth, I did,” she confessed. “Comme une marmotte. When I went to bed I was so excited I was sure I wouldn’t sleep at all — and I don’t know what happened!”

When they were alone again a little later Linwood looked at his host and said:

“By Jove, Canby, now I know you’re a fool. A rare wind-flower. What does Pope say: ‘Snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.’ She has done so.”

After breakfast Linwood went off to the golf links, and Canby showed Nella about her new home. Compared with magnificent Roselawn, Greenhedge was quite unpretentious. The house was of brick and stone, high and old-fashioned, set in the midst of a grove of ancient elms, with terraced lawns sloping toward a small pond on one side and the driveway and gardens on the other. Completely surrounding the whole was a broad and high hedge, trimmed square; in the rear, beside the garage, there were kennels with a dozen Irish wolf-dogs, and a disused tennis court lay between there and the house. Nella displayed an eager childish interest in everything; she patted the dogs and picked a bouquet in the garden, and it was decided that the tennis court should be put in commission without delay.

When they returned for a tour of the house they were joined by Mrs. Wheeler, and Canby observed that Nella was already in the good graces of the old housekeeper. Everything pleased her, giving Canby delight in her pleasure; and when they reached the room where the portraits of past Canbys were hung she examined each of them critically, listening meanwhile to the other’s not too sympathetic remarks on the various virtues and vices of his ancestors. In the billiard room he taught her how to hold a cue and make a carrom; she was enchanted.

“By the way, about your own room,” Canby observed as they wandered on to the piazza after lunch, “you may do as you please about it, you know. Those hangings have been up I don’t know how long and will have to come down anyway; you shall have it decorated to suit yourself.”

“You are too good to me, Mr. Canby,” she replied simply.

They strolled out under the trees and sat down in a garden swing.

“I was talking to Mrs. Wheeler about it this morning,” Canby resumed, “and we thought it would be a good idea to fit out that room next to yours as a dressing-room. They’re connected, you know. There’s so much extra space, we might as well make use of all we can.”

“A dressing-room for me!” exclaimed Nella.

He nodded; and then, so quickly that he was scarcely aware it had begun before it was over, he felt warm arms about his neck and cool lips on his cheek, and he heard her voice in his ear:

“There, you’re so good I couldn’t help it!”

Canby looked into her blue eyes, feeling himself tremble as the blood raced through his veins. He had to control himself, and it required an effort, an effort so pronounced that his head swam. Decidedly, this was dangerous, and must be stopped.

“You mustn’t do that, Nella,” he said at last, managing a steady voice somehow.

The blue eyes opened a little in wonder.

“Why not?”

He discovered suddenly that he had no reply. To be sure, why not? He couldn’t very well say to this girl: “Because you awake my passion.” He had assumed toward her the attitude of guardian, of parent; what plausible objection, then, to a filial kiss? But what should he reply?

“Well, you are really somewhat of a young lady,” he stammered finally.

“Mais, mon Dieu,” she retorted, “I’m to live with you! And you’re so old! And when I love anybody and they’re nice to me, I kiss them!”

He found a mixture of bitter and sweet in that. He looked at her, and saw the feminine in her eyes, a fleeting first hint of the universal lure, the endless invitations; of course, he told himself, all unconscious. After all, she was nearly twenty...

“Last night,” Nella continued artlessly, “I was thinking of what good times we’ll have, if you’re really fond of me, like you said. I know—” she hesitated — “I know I’m awfully ignorant; like the other day when Mrs. Haskins introduced me to Mr. and Mrs. Lodge, and I shook hands with him, and he looked so funny, and you told me afterwards I shouldn’t. There are lots of things like that I don’t know, and I thought that of evenings we could come out here together or on the porch, and I’d sit on your lap while you told me all about such things. But if you don’t want me to kiss you, I guess, you’re not really so fond of me...”

“Good heavens!” Canby exploded. “Of course I want you to kiss me!”

“All right, then I will,” she returned calmly. After a moment she added thoughtfully: “I think I know what the trouble was, Mr. Canby. You were afraid I’d expect you to kiss me back, and of course you don’t like to kiss anybody; that’s why you never got married. But I won’t ask you to.” An instant’s pause, and her eyes danced roguishly. “Except on my birthday,” she added. “Then you’ll have to give me three kisses for a present. One here—” she tapped her right cheek with a dainty figure — “one here—” a tap on the other cheek — “and one here.” And she pressed the tips of her fingers against her lips.

This was rather too much. Artless or no, it could not be expected of a man to sit cold against the fascination of it. Canby rose abruptly to his feet and proposed a drive. Instantly she was for it, and together they went to the garage and got out the roadster. He broke all the speed laws in Dutchess and Putnam counties that afternoon.

Returning about six o’clock, just thirty minutes before the Greenhedge dinner hour, as they turned the last corner of the driveway they caught sight of Garrett Linwood, back from the golf links, seated on a canvas chair in a shady corner of the lawn; and, standing in front of him, talking with considerable rapidity and animation, was a young man with wavy brown hair dressed in a suit of summer silk and swinging a heavy black walking-stick.

“Oh, somebody’s here!” said Nella, touching Canby’s arm.

Canby too had seen the young man.

“It’s Tom,” he replied. “Tom Linwood; Mr. Linwood’s nephew. Probably run down from Newport to make a touch.”

“A touch? What’s that?”

“To ask for some money.”

When, a minute later, they joined the two on the lawn, this surmise was at once corroborated by the young man himself. He greeted Canby respectfully and hastened to assure him that there was no occasion to fear the inconvenience of an unbidden guest, as he had merely come on a flying visit to his uncle on a pressing matter of personal finance.

“Always glad to see you, my boy,” Canby declared, shaking hands. “As for your finances, let me give you a tip: show your uncle how to lower his golf score ten strokes, and you can have his entire fortune... Nella, this is Mr. Tom Linwood. Miss Somi, my ward, Tom.”

The young man turned his dark eyes on Nella for the first time, meeting her blue ones, vivid and startling under the heavy lashes. She half extended her hand, then, with a flush and a quick look at Canby, hastily dropped it. The young society man all at once lost his air of easy good manners; his gaze was developing into a stare.

“I’ll just let Mrs. Wheeler know you’re here,” Canby was saying, as he started for the house.

“Wait a minute!” came from the elder Linwood. “Tom isn’t going to stay.”

“What! Of course he is.”

“No.” Linwood’s voice had a touch of grimness. “He’s going back to New York on the six-thirty-five, and he’s going to be at his office tomorrow morning at nine. There’s been enough of this Newport foolishness for one summer.”

“What about it, Tom?” asked Canby, laughing. “You’ll stay to dinner? There’s a later train.”

The young man glanced at this host, at his uncle, and back at Nella.

“Why yes, thanks; I’ll stay if you don’t mind,” he replied.

On his way to the house, Canby debated in his mind what to do with Nella, feeling that it would be unfair to expect her to preside at her first dinner at Greenhedge with guests. However, since she had had the advantage of observing his sister in the performance of that duty for two weeks, he decided to risk it.

With a critical, though sympathetic, eye on her throughout dinner, he was amused and astonished to observe how thoroughly she had taken advantage of her opportunity at Roselawn, and that, too, without having had at the time any idea that she would so soon have use for that knowledge. The phrases that she used in indicating their seats to her guests were copied verbatim from Janet; when she served a ragout from casserole there was a reproduction of Janet’s every moment. She was clever, Canby observed inwardly, amazed; though he was far from beginning to believe in what he considered his sister’s spiteful estimate of her. The dinner, though informal, was a somewhat complicated affair for a nineteen-year-old girl who two weeks previously had been sorting candy in a Manhattan factory and living in an east-side tenement; but she reached the end with complete success, without a single false step.

Afterwards they went out to sit on the lawn, and, the two elder men engaging in a controversy on the war, young Linwood proposed a walk to Miss Somi. An hour later they returned, and, just before the time came for him to go to the station, whither his uncle was to drive him, the young man managed to get a word alone with Canby.

“Is it possible, sir, what Miss Somi tells me about herself — candy factory and all that rot?” he demanded. “I can’t believe it.”

Canby gave him an affirmative.

The youth whistled. “Well, believe me,” he observed softly to himself as the other moved away, “Uncle Garry is dead right about Newport foolishness. Nothing to it; nobody up there can touch her. In the future my vacations are going to be spent on the classic east side of little old New York.”

IV

For some time after that, Garrett Linwood made his daily pilgrimage to the Wanakahnda golf links alone. Canby’s days were full, what with tennis with Nella, and motoring with Nella, and walking and talking with Nella, and improving Nella’s mind, and trying not to make an old fool of himself with Nella.

The last became more difficult every hour, as her charm completely enveloped and permeated him. There was always a new gesture, a new expression, a new tone, to be watched for; of all the interests that he had ever had in life she became the strongest. He had many an argument with himself, but they ended always in the same decision: wait and see; which of course was no decision at all, and that was not like Fred Canby.

Linwood, sour widower of two-and-fifty, at first ignored the new member of the household more or less completely, contenting himself with courtesy; at length, however, he gave way before her gay good nature and the buoyant charm of her.

“By immortal time,” he declared one evening to his host, “since you won’t marry her, Canby, I’ll swear I’m tempted myself!” He even went so far as to invite her to Wanakahnda for a day on the links and an initiation into the mysteries of the ancient game; but the look of thankful relief that appeared on his face when she declined sent her into peals of laughter.

Thus weeks passed.

One day Mrs. Wheeler, the housekeeper, came to Canby and asked when he was going to New York.

“I don’t know, perhaps next week,” he replied vaguely. “Why?”

“It ought to be soon,” returned Mrs. Wheeler with emphasis. “It ain’t my business, and she don’t seem to mind, but I don’t see how the poor dear does it. When I asked her she said she come up here expecting to stay only two weeks, and she didn’t have any too much for that. Don’t you tell her I said anything, but I’m sure I don’t want to see the poor dear naked, and that’s what—”

Canby stopped her.

“What in the world are you talking about?”

Mrs. Wheeler became suddenly brief:

“I’m talkin’ about clothes.”

“Good Lord!”

Canby leaped to his feet and started in search of Nella. In the past week he had begun to notice that she was wearing the same things rather often; but, never having been concerned in the condition of any woman’s wardrobe, it simply hadn’t occurred to him that he had any responsibility in the matter. Now he reproached himself; also, he should before this have arranged for his appointment as her legal guardian. There would be no difficulty about that; she was absolutely alone in the world, without any ties whatever.

Early the following morning they started for New York in the roadster. It was the last day of August, and the pulse of summer was beginning to wane; on the foliage were the first faint signs of the season’s death; the air, though hot, was not oppressive, and when they got to the Albany road they found the breeze from the river cool and brisk. Nella was at the wheel; in the past two weeks she had become expert.

Canby took advantage of the occasion to tell her certain things that he thought she ought to know.

“I’m going to make application today for appointment as your legal guardian,” he informed her as they rolled along at thirty miles an hour. “That means that I will be responsible for you just as a father would be. Before you agree to that you ought to know definitely what to expect. I have an income of something over twenty thousand a year. I own Greenhedge. There is no one else in the world dependent on me, and another thing I will do today is make you the sole beneficiary in my will — that is, you’ll get everything when I die. I’m not a wealthy man as New York goes nowadays, but I have enough.”

When they arrived in New York he explained his plans for the day; and in accordance with them, at Forty-second Street he transferred Nella to a taxi-cab and handed her a well-filled purse. He had sufficient confidence in her taste to feel no anxiety for the propriety of her purchases; and besides, any advice from him on the subject would be worse than useless. So he left her, after appointing a rendezvous with her at one o’clock.

Downtown, in the brokerage office in which he had an interest, on Cedar Street just off Broadway, his sudden appearance caused a degree of surprise. Matters of business kept him there for over an hour, after which he departed to keep an appointment arranged over the telephone with his attorney. More surprise here, profound and sustained, at his abrupt announcement of the acquisition of a ward; it ended with the lawyer’s assurance that the legal phase of the transaction would present no difficulties whatever; he would enter the application that day, and in a week or so the thing would be done. Then the alteration of the will was attended to, and it was half an hour after noon when Canby found himself again on the street.

He crossed the sidewalk to the curb, opened the door of the roadster and was getting in when he heard his name called from behind:

“Mr. Canby! It’s a wonder you wouldn’t look at a fellow! When’d you come in?”

It was Tom Linwood, smiling as always, resplendent as to attire and assured as to countenance. They talked a little, the young man asking with mock solicitude concerning the state of his uncle’s golf score.

“You see,” he explained, “I’m naturally interested, because if he ever gets a seventy-nine he’ll die of joy and I’ll be a rich man... By the way, how is Miss Somi?”

Canby replied that Miss Somi was very well, and thoughtlessly added that she was at the moment uptown shopping.

“No! Is she really?” Young Linwood’s face brightened. “You don’t happen to know just where she is, do you? Perhaps she’d take luncheon with me.”

“I’m on my way to take her to lunch now,” replied the guileless Canby.

“Yes? By Jove, that’s fine! You don’t mind if I come along?”

And almost before Canby knew how it happened they were seated side by side in the roadster on their way uptown.

They were at Sherry’s a few minutes before one, and a little later Nella entered. Her face was flushed and her eyes were beaming with the unprecedented joy of the morning’s experience; in three hours she had bought a thousand dollars’ worth of clothes. Ineffable delight!

She came forward to greet Canby with so pervasive an air of happiness that for a moment he feared one of her demonstrations of fond gratitude there in the restaurant lobby. Then she caught sight of his companion.

“Oh! Mr. Linwood!” she said prettily.

The luncheon that Canby had looked forward to with so much pleasure proved rather an uncomfortable affair for him. In the first place, they had barely finished the clams when he began to reflect that Tom Linwood was an uncommonly handsome young man, and the trouble was that Nella seemed to have noticed it too; the Lord knows, she kept her eyes on him enough. And Tom, with incredible cunning, having discovered that Nella was under the spell of her first shopping orgy, began to describe in detail the frocks he had seen at Newport that summer. Fine masculine subject for conversation! But what really caused Canby discomfort was the sight of the youth in the brown eyes calling to that in the blue.

They had nearly finished when Canby, hearing a woman’s voice pronounce his name, turned to find Mrs. Ponsonby-Atkins approaching with her daughter Marie. She stopped to talk and inquire about his sister, while Marie chatted with Tom Linwood; there was absolutely no help for it, and he finally introduced “Miss Somi, my ward.” Good breeding held fast; Mrs. Ponsonby-Atkins never blinked an eyelash; but, as she moved away, her back seemed somehow to be saying in her own picturesque manner: “Fred Canby with a beautiful Latin princess for a ward! Where the devil did he get her?” Not that he was ashamed of Nella — far from it — but the encounter was inopportune and undesired.

And finally, out on the sidewalk, young Linwood calmly invited himself to Greenhedge for the coming week-end. He would arrive early Saturday afternoon, he declared, if it would be no inconvenience; and Canby, perforce, assured him it would not.

Alone again with Nella, bad humor was out of the question. He suggested a matinée. She clapped her hands in delight; so he telephoned to Greenhedge that they would not be home for dinner, and got tickets to something on Broadway. Her first visit to a theater other than movies. Nella was entranced; and Canby, with his eyes on her rather than on the stage, was entranced also. In the third act, when the heroine defied her wicked father, the brutal detective and the world in general, Canby felt Nella’s little hand creeping into his; his fingers closed over the trembling captive and held it fast till the curtain fell. For that twenty minutes he scarcely breathed.

After it was over they started for home, stopping at a roadhouse not far beyond Yonkers for dinner. The night was cool and pleasant when they resumed their journey two hours later; a crescent moon hung in the clear sky with its attendant twinkling stars, and the smell of the harvest was in the air. Nella, tired out from her unusual day, let Canby have the wheel; she seemed thoughtful and talked scarcely at all.

Whey they arrived at Greenhedge, a little after ten, everything was quiet. The gardener had waited up to put the car away, and in the house they found Mrs. Wheeler, who replied to Canby’s inquiry with the information that Mr. Linwood had gone to bed half an hour before. She added, turning to the girl:

“Your things came, Miss Nella.”

“No! Really? So soon? Where are they?”

“Upstairs, in your room.”

“Oh! Come, I must show you!”

She took Canby by the hand and half dragged him to the stairs. He protested that it was late, that she was tired and should rest, that it could wait till morning, but she wouldn’t listen to him. At the door of her room, however, she suddenly halted.

“You stay here a minute,” she commanded, and went in alone, leaving him there in the dark hall. He kicked his heels while the minute lengthened into five, ten; and finally he rapped on the door.

“All right, you may come,” her voice sounded from within; and he turned the knob and entered.

The room was flooded with light, so that the contrast with the hall blinded him for a moment. Then he looked at Nella. She stood in the middle of the room with Circe’s smile on her lips and a laughing light in her blue eyes. That was as far as Canby got in detail; he had an impression of a smart blue frock, entrancing little slippers and a drooping, lacy hat that framed her piquant face with loveliness. He looked, and caught his breath.

“Do you like me?” she demanded.

The poor man could only nod.

She pretended to pout. “I don’t believe you at all. I’ll try again. There’s lots more.” She turned to the bed, near which lay a great heap of boxes and bundles of all sizes and shapes. “I know what I’ll do! Go out in the hall again.”

He felt that he was making rather an ass of himself, but what could he do but obey? So out he went again into the dark hall, and re-entered at her call a few minutes later.

The blue frock and hat lay on the bed, discarded; and before him stood a vision in creamy white. She was bareheaded; her throat gleamed whiter than the filmy stuff that enveloped her, and her arms too as she swept him an old-fashioned curtsey and the flowing sleeves opened. Around the waist a heavy silken girdle drew in the folds to her slender form.

“Mon peignoir,” she announced, observing the effect on him. “Comment le trouvez-vous, monsieur? Isn’t it just lovely? Tell me, isn’t it?”

“It — it’s pretty nice,” Canby stammered.

“But yes! And oh, everything is so nice! I never dreamed I would have a single one of these beautiful things, and now I have them all, and all because you are so kind to me — and I just have to kiss you!”

And once more he felt her arms about his neck and her lips on his cheek — both his cheeks. He stiffened and held himself rigid; when she drew away he remained so, holding himself together by a great effort. And he succeeded in mastering the impulse of desire, but as he stood there motionless, devouring her with his eyes, the thought that his abstinence was folly, his spartan control senseless and purposeless, seized him and overwhelmed him. Still he remained without moving, his muscles tense.

“Oh, now you’re angry!” Nella was saying in pretty girlish despair. “I do want you to like me, you are so kind, and — See!” Her manner changed in a flash. “That’s the way it ought to be, isn’t it?” Up went her hands to her head, there was a quick movement, another, and the mass of dark brown hair tumbled about her shoulders and down her back, reaching to the waist; one thick wavy strand hung in front, in startling contrast to the white gown.

“There! Isn’t it nice and long?”

Canby, mad with the beauty of her, took a step forward.

“Nella!” His tone was dry — he had to make it so; his face was pale. “Nella, do you love me?”

“Of course I do,” she said simply.

“No, not like that.” He moved forward quite close to her, his eyes on hers. There was a pause.

“I really believe you don’t understand,” he said abruptly. “I’ve got to explain. If it goes on like this you’ll drive me crazy. You remember a long time ago I said I was fond of you? I am. I am fonder of you than I have even been of anyone in my life. So you see why I can’t stand this sort of thing.”

“But I’m fond of you too, and I like it!”

He groaned. “Yes, I know you are, but in a different way; at least, I think it’s in a different way, and that’s what I want to find out. You thought, Nella, that when I asked you to come and live with me — you thought that was what I wanted; but what I really wanted — though I wouldn’t admit it to myself at the time — was to ask you to marry me.”

“Oh! Why didn’t you?”

“Yes, that was what I wanted,” he went on, ignoring her question, “though I tried to deceive myself. This is what I get for trying to shut my eyes to the facts. But, good heavens — the thing was impossible! It is still impossible. I’m more than twice as old as you. You are not yet twenty; I am past forty. It would be unfair to you, terribly unfair. When you are thirty-eight I will be sixty. Oh, I’ve made all the combinations. But now — I don’t know. Perhaps I owe myself a chance. I couldn’t bear to take advantage of you, your innocence and youth, but after all, if I could make you happy, and the Lord knows I’d try—”

“But you are making me happy!”

“I know. I mean, if you could love me. Not as a grandfather, my dear child. Garry Linwood told me I was a fool, and I begin to respect his judgment. For, I suppose, you could never have the feeling for me that I want you to have, that I have for you. If you did, it couldn’t last. I’m too old — hopelessly old.”

“You are not!” cried the girl. “And I do love you!”

He was suddenly silent. He stood and looked at her, and all at once his face changed. All the determination of it, all the lines of resistance, were swept away by a fierce wave of emotion. He made a quick step forward and took her in his arms, but still holding her a little away from him. He was trembling from head to foot.

“Nella!” he said. His voice was husky. “Does this — do I frighten you?”

She shook her head, smiling at him as she declared calmly:

“Of course not!”

The next instant he crushed her in his arms, the last vestige of control vanished. Her own arms remained by her side, but for that matter she could not have moved them had she wished, so closely did he hold her. He kissed her hair, her cheeks, her throat, and then he found her lips. Her soft supple body next to his filled him with an indescribable warmth; his senses floated away in a whirl of tumultuous passion. Her lips were firm, yet yielding; there was no response in them, yet somehow they seemed to withhold nothing. He drew her closer, and felt the pressure against him in her effort to breathe.

The sweetness of her lips! Given or taken, the whole world was in them. He was drinking at the only fount that could quench his thirst, and he would not relinquish the draught. He neither knew nor cared how long he remained thus, straining her to him, for the force of all the weeks of repression surged into his arms and kept them round her. He could not even tell if she resisted, though that would not have mattered, for it was not tenderness that inspired this embrace.

“You are mine!” His tone was fiercely, savagely triumphant. “Mine, Nella!” Again he had her lips.

Then all at once the wave subsided as suddenly as it had come. He released her, almost pushing her from him in his revulsion. He turned his back and covered his face with his hands.

The girl’s voice came:

“Oh, how tight you squeezed me! I could scarcely breathe!”

“Good heavens!” cried Canby, wheeling about. “And that’s all you felt—” He checked himself and gathered his scattered senses. When he spoke again his voice was bitterly ironic. “And I wanted to be your guardian! Nella, I’m an old fool. Don’t misunderstand me; I wouldn’t insist on your love. My desire is to have you for my wife, on any terms; but I won’t ask you, and that’s all there is to it. Later, we’ll see. Forget everything I’ve said. If I asked you now to marry me, you would?”

She seemed to hesitate.

“Yes, I would,” she said at last.

“Very well. All the more reason why I shouldn’t ask it — now. I’ve got to think the thing out. I see I haven’t really thought about it; I’ve merely tried to make myself believe lies. It’s all a question of your chance for happiness, and I swear I won’t rob you of it. I’m tempted unspeakably. If we — if you find you can love me, we’ll see. Good night, and forgive me.”

He had reached the door when her voice came:

“Don’t you want me to kiss you good night?”

“I do not!” he replied grimly; and the next instant the door closed after him.

V

If only Canby had possessed a sufficiently active sense of humor to see the comedy in the thing it would have saved him many a bad hour. Or, if he had been a reader of modern fiction he would have known that in the past ten years hundreds of wealthy, middle-aged bachelors have suffered untold miseries through their unhappy passion for their beautiful young wards, and he would have been much less disturbed by the appearance of youth upon the scene in the person of Tom Linwood; for he would have known beforehand that it was inevitable, and the very triteness of the situation would have soothed his pain a little.

But he possessed neither of these desirable advantages, and thus, when Tom Linwood came on Saturday for the weekend and began to appropriate Nella’s waking hours with the calm assurance of arrogant youth, Canby felt the turning of the screw in no small degree. He reproached himself, was unutterably disgusted with himself, but all to no effect. He deliberately made opportunities for the two young people to be alone together and then berated himself for an ass. But he was determined to seize no unfair advantage on account of the position he held with regard to Nella; youth should have its chance with her.

At dinner Sunday evening he said to young Linwood:

“Why don’t you stay up with us a while, Tom? You could go down of mornings on the seven-thirty-five and get back in the evening in time for dinner. It’s only a two-hour run.”

The alacrity with which this invitation was accepted was equalled by that with which Canby immediately regretted having extended it. He told himself that it was more than fairness demanded; but the thing was done.

He had the days with Nella, however, and they were full of joy for him. If young Linwood was making any impression on her heart it was not evidenced by any change in her attitude toward Canby or any lessening of her pleasure in his company. They played tennis and walked and rode together as formerly, and he read to her a good deal — this last to improve her mind, and she did not refrain from expressing her gratitude. They were in September now, and the countryside lay in peaceful exhaustion after the summer’s heat.

The elder Linwood played golf, hanging on with grim tenacity to his resolution and purpose; but his reports from the links, though invariably optimistic, showed small progress. Canby was amused. Linwood had come up for the month of July, and here autumn was fast approaching without any sign of an intention to depart from Greenhedge. His own magnificent country estate on Long Island, not to mention a bungalow in the Adirondacks and a cottage at Bar Harbor, remained closed that he might pursue an elusive dream on the Wanakahnda golf links. Still he appeared to be growing a little discouraged, for his pilgrimages were becoming less frequent; he spent some of his days at Greenhedge now.

One evening Canby and Linwood sat on the lawn of the northern terrace smoking and talking; three of the Irish wolf-dogs lay at their feet, and a wooden table between their chairs held glasses and a bottle and a pail of cracked ice. Nella and Tom had gone off somewhere an hour before in Linwood’s new Binot racer, which he had allowed his nephew to bring up from New York. The night was cloudless and cool, with the stars gleaming intermittently through the foliage of the trees as the breeze stirred the leaves above them.

“I’ll probably run down Tuesday,” Canby was replying to a question from the other. “Andrews has written me that it will be necessary to appear in court that day in regard to my appointment as Nella’s guardian. I’ll attend to the other matter then too. Much obliged for that tip on Copper United, Linwood; I’ve cleared thirty thousand.”

The elder man waved the thanks aside. “Don’t mention it. Didn’t cost me anything, you know.” After a moment’s silence he added: “So you’re going through with the guardian business?”

Canby, filling the glasses, nodded. “I am.”

“Well,” Linwood chuckled, “it’ll probably be a short job. You may have your hands full for a while, but it won’t last long. Why don’t you marry her yourself, Canby, instead of flopping around like a sick fish?”

“Would it be fair to her?”

“Why not?”

“Don’t be a donkey, Linwood; you know why not as well as I do. She’s a mere girl, and I... well, I’m no unfledged nestling. As a matter of fact, she’s consented to marry me. I refused. There’s twenty-two years between us; it wouldn’t be fair to her.”

Linwood snorted. “What do you think a girl wants a husband for, anyway?” he demanded. “Do you still believe in the moonish ecstasy, the connubial coo-coo? Bah! Of course it’s not surprising; you’re a bachelor. I’ve had the advantage of experience. The call of youth is well enough as a pre-election platform, but it’s an issue that soon dies. Fair to her! Her eyes are open, aren’t they? You merely put it up to her, yes or no, and she can decide what she wants. And you refused!”

“But you don’t understand,” Canby protested. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t hesitate, but you see I’ve done things for her, and merely out of gratitude—”

“Don’t fool yourself,” the other interrupted. “No woman worthwhile ever yet married any man out of gratitude. I may add that this little lady is distinctly worthwhile. If she takes you it’s because she wants you, no matter what her reason.”

Canby seemed to be impressed. He picked up his glass and drained it before replying.

“But isn’t it true,” he asked then, “that Nella would certainly be happier with — well, with Tom, for instance?”

“Oh, of course!” Linwood’s tone was heavy with sarcasm. “Undoubtedly! So she would have the pleasure of running to me every Saturday to get enough to buy pork chops.”

“Linwood, you’re a depraved cynic.”

“Canby, you’re a doting driveler.”

With that exchange of courtesies they left the topic and drifted back to the stock market. But Canby had in reality been impressed, as we always are by any argument that fits in with our desire. He reflected that Linwood had a good understanding of the world and the life that was lived in it, and that his judgment was probably sensible, as it was certainly to his liking.

After all, not to flatter himself, he was a decent sort of fellow; there was no assurance that Nella would do better, and she might conceivably do worse. The memory of her in his arms came to him, as it had many times before, and he felt his blood grow warm at the recollection of that incomparably blissful moment. The sense of the sanctity and innocence of her youth was still strong within him, however, and colored his thoughts; what he feared was to take advantage of her ignorance and purity, and he asked himself how she could possibly be expected to make a decision for herself when the real question was of necessity hidden from her. And possibly it was already too late. Was her heart still her own to give? Folly, idiotic folly, to have deliberately placed before her the fascination of Tom Linwood’s youthful graces!

Most of these reflections came to him as he wandered alone in the garden, having left Linwood to take the dogs back to their kennels; and the fear of young Linwood’s rivalry was immediately suggested by the sound of the returning Binot racer on the driveway.

Canby sat on the bench in a secluded corner of the garden and dug about in his brain for a decision. Surely he had given youth a fair chance and an able representative. If the joy of having her was still possible, why not seize it?

Linwood’s words recurred to him. Yes, passion is a fleeting thing anyway, and when that was over the best of her would be left to him, and he would guard—

The current of his thoughts was interrupted by the sound of footsteps approaching along the garden path. He glanced out from his dark retreat; it was Nella and young Linwood. They approached slowly, without speaking, and Canby merely kept silent till they should pass; but, instead, they halted on the opposite side of the bush under which his bench was placed, not ten feet away. Too late he realized his position.

Young Linwood’s voice came:

“But, Nella, you have no feeling for me whatever?”

Then a little gay laugh from her:

“Of course! Didn’t I say I was awfully fond of you?”

“Oh, fond be hanged!” The representative of youth was evidently ready to explode with impatience. “It’s your love I want, Nella. Good Lord, how I hate that word fond! You’ve got to love me!” His breath caught and he went on: “I didn’t suppose anyone in the world could be so lovely, so adorable, as you. I tell you, I can’t live without you. Nella, look at me!”

Canby was trying to find a means of escape, but none offered. In the rear was an impenetrable hedge; on either side he was sure to be seen. He had stayed too long, and now must stay longer.

The rustle of a quick movement came from the other side of the bush, and the young man’s voice:

“Nella! There, I can’t help it! Oh, I’ve wanted so to hold you in my arms — like this. Ah!” There was the sound of a kiss. “No — please, Nella! I love you, I worship you, I adore you! See, I don’t hurt you, do I?”

“No-o. No, you don’t hurt me, Mr. Linwood, but—”

“Ah, let me! Nella, you don’t know what you mean to me! I never thought — You’ve just bowled me over! Dearest, let me!”

More kisses. Canby groaned inwardly. To be out of this!

Nella’s voice came:

“Mr. Linwood, let me go — please.”

“No, I can’t! I won’t! You must promise me, Nella. Say you love me. I’ve begged you long enough.”

“Mr. Linwood... please! Mr. Canby wouldn’t like it.”

“To the devil with Canby! I want you, Nella, you don’t know how I want you. You’re a sorceress, a witch; you set me crazy! You’ve got to promise me; you’ve got to. I tell you I can’t think of anything, of anyone but you. On the train, all day long at the office — everywhere I think of nothing but you. I can’t even sleep — I swear I can’t! But I don’t need to tell you that; you know how I love you. Nella, please — tell me— No! Tell me—”

There was the sound of rustling garments, the scuffling feet on gravel, a little suppressed cry, and then rapid retreating footsteps; and Canby, peering round the corner of the bush, saw Nella’s form dimly disappearing down the path in the starlight. She had flown to the house.

Then from the other side of the bush sounded the footsteps of the man she had left. But not along the path; they approached instead on the grass. Was the young idiot actually coming to this very bench?

He was indeed. On the instant, his form appeared from behind the bush and he sat down on the opposite end of the bench without becoming aware of the other’s presence; he thrust his hands deep in his pockets, crossed his legs in front of him, and let his chin fall on his chest.

“Well, I’m dashed good!” came his voice.

Canby felt that the situation had reached its limit.

“Hello!” he said abruptly. His voice sounded queer.

Young Linwood jumped up as though there had been a pin under him.

“What the devil!” he exclaimed, wheeling.

“It’s I... Canby,” returned the other, retaining his grammar in spite of everything.

“Oh!” The young man caught sight of him. He stood for a moment in silent bewilderment. “But what are you doing? How do you happen—”

Canby explained. “I was here when you came up. I thought you’d go on by. You began to talk at once, and there was no escape. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, that’s all right.” Young Linwood looked at him a moment, then sat down again. “Couldn’t be helped; not your fault. It happens often, especially in novels. Doesn’t bother me any; I don’t give a hang if the whole world knows I love her.”

Canby was silent.

“You know, I do love her,” the young man resumed presently. “By Jove, I do; with all my heart. “You heard what I said. Well, every word of it is true. And she won’t give me any satisfaction. Most amazing girl I ever saw. She tantalizes me and sets me crazy. I can’t understand it. For two days, you remember, I didn’t come up here; I was trying to forget her. Duff Lewis and I took two girls down to Long Beach and, Lord, but I was sick of ’em! Couldn’t get my mind off of her one minute. I tell you, Canby, I’m hit hard.”

It was the first time he had ever called him “Canby” without the “Mister.” He had reached the estate of man!

“It’s her confounded stubbornness,” the young lover resumed presently, changing his tune a little. “She loves me — I know she does, only she won’t admit it. It’s enough to worry a man to death; because, of course, I’m not absolutely sure.”

He stopped suddenly and looked at Canby as though a new idea had just entered his head.

“By the way, I suppose I ought to consult you, sir; you’re her guardian. Have you any objections?”

“Objections to what?”

“To my marrying Miss Somi.”

“Why—” Canby hesitated. “Have you asked her?”

“Only about ten thousand times.”

“What does she say?”

“She says — she says — I don’t know what the devil she does say! I’ll swear I don’t know, sir. Confound it all, that’s what I’m beefing about! I can’t get her to say anything.”

“It’s just possible she hasn’t made up her mind,” Canby observed drily.

“Good Lord, how much time does she want? Why, all the other girls — but, of course, that’s different. I hadn’t asked them to marry me; so naturally they let me kiss them all I wanted. But I can’t believe— Has she said anything to you about me?”

“About you? No.”

“Not a word?”

“Well, she asked me the other evening if you liked scallops. I believe they were considered for dinner.”

“Did she really?” The young man’s face brightened, then as speedily fell. “But that’s nothing. I’m her guest; she’d do as much for a dog. But she’ll marry me, if I have to run off with her. I’d be capable of anything; that is, I mean, if you have no objections, sir.”

“None whatever, Tom.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What I mean to say is, you’re acceptable to me if you are to her,” Canby continued. “Go ahead and win her if you can. No doubt you’d be as good a husband as the next man. But permit me an observation: don’t you think your method is a little boisterous?”

“Boisterous?”

“Well, undignified; er — unreserved.”

“Oh! Yes, sir, perhaps; but you can’t make love like a clam, you know; you’ve got to move around a little. Besides, they like it.”

Canby grunted. “As you please. It’s the way of youth, I suppose.” He rose from the bench. “I’ll leave you to your rosy reflections. Good night.”

He went off toward the house, leaving the young man on the bench.

He went partly because he had heard enough of the youth’s chatter, but more on account of a decision that had formed itself in his mind as he listened. Evidently the youth had not yet conquered. It was an open field now and a fair one. He, Fred Canby, would buckle on his armor and enter the lists at once, and at once meant now.

He paced the length of the piazza. There was no one there. The elder Linwood, he knew, had gone up to bed some time before. He entered the house, went upstairs to Nella’s room and, seeing a light under the door, knocked on the panel.

Her voice came instantly:

“Who is it?”

“Canby.”

“Oh! Come in.”

He entered, closing the door behind him. She was reclining in a low fauteuil with an open book in her hand; about her hung the folds of the filmy white dressing-gown she had worn that other night two weeks before, and her dark hair, in two massive braids, dropped from her shoulders. The wonder of her was ever new to Canby, and he gazed at her a second in silence.

Then he began abruptly:

“I’ve just been talking with young Linwood.”

Nella sat up, closing the book.

“He tells me he wants to marry you. He says he has asked you to be his wife. You haven’t accepted him?”

Silence.

“Have you?”

“No, I haven’t,” she declared calmly.

“Have you decided to accept him?”

She seemed to hesitate.

“Decided? No,” she replied finally.

Canby breathed. “Then I may speak.” He moved forward a little. “You remember, Nella, two weeks ago you said you would marry me if I wanted you to. I refused to accept what I considered a sacrifice. I gave you my reasons then. I no longer hold myself bound by them. I ask you to marry me.”

She started to speak, but he raised his hand to stop her:

“Wait; I want to explain. I do this because I see pretty plainly that if you don’t marry me you will marry Tom Linwood, and I believe I’d do as well by you as he would. But as your guardian I must put the facts before you: I am forty-one, he is twenty-four. We both come of good families, though mine is considerably better placed socially. I am worth about half a million, not counting Greenhedge, with an income of twenty thousand or so. He is penniless himself, but he is sole heir of his uncle’s fortune, which is somewhere between ten and fifteen millions. He will have that when Mr. Linwood dies if he behaves himself. Mr. Linwood is fifty-two years of age and in good health; what he would do for his nephew in the event of marriage I don’t know.”

Nella’s eyes were wide open.

“Is Mr. Linwood so wealthy?”

“He is. No doubt this all sounds mercenary to you, but these things should be taken into consideration when a girl contemplates marriage; and I, being an interested party, can’t very well judge for you, so you have to do it yourself. Another thing: You must decide between us strictly according to your own desires. It would be an injury to me — a deep injury — if you permit any feeling of gratitude for what I have done to influence your decision in my favor. You must take the one you want for your husband. You understand that, don’t you?”

Nella’s face was a study. “Yes, I understand,” she said slowly.

“I suppose—” Canby hesitated a moment, then went on: “I suppose you aren’t ready to decide? Tom Linwood wants to marry you; so do I. Can you decide now between us?”

His voice trembled a little in spite of himself. If she were willing to take him now, as she had been two weeks previously, he would not refuse the prize a second time. He waited, scarcely breathing.

“I... I... really, I don’t know,” said Nella at last. “Oh, Mr. Canby, you don’t mind, do you? I must think, just till tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll tell you.” She had risen from her chair and was standing with her hands clasped in front of her. “I do love you; but I like Mr. Linwood too. I must think over it a little—”

“Of course,” Canby agreed. His face was white. “Of course, dear child, you must think.”

There was a short silence.

“Tomorrow, then!” said Canby; and, turning, left the room without another word.

VI

He could not get to sleep for a long while, and in the morning he awoke late — late, that is, for him, for he was usually up by six o’clock. Downstairs the house was empty; the Linwoods had supposedly gone, one to the city and the other to the golf links, and Nella was apt to be anywhere. He lingered disconsolately over his fruit and coffee and morning paper, reading the latter through from beginning to end without a single word entering his consciousness. The morning was warm, the air oppressive, everything seemed out of tune; he heard Mrs. Wheeler out in the kitchen berating the cook, and finally, to escape the sound of her voice, he got up and wandered out to the lawn.

Turning a corner of the house, he halted in surprise; for there, stretched out on his back in the shade of a tree with his arms crossed over his eyes, he saw Tom Linwood.

“Hello! You didn’t go in this morning?” observed Canby, approaching.

The young man sat up, rubbing his eyes and blinking, and returned a negative with his greeting.

“You look sort of hipped,” Canby continued, stopping above him.

The youth nodded. “I feel it.” Looking up at the other, he added: “You don’t seem very jaunty yourself.”

“No. Weather, I guess.” Canby sat down on the grass. “Seen anything of Nella?”

“I have.”

It appeared from the length of the pause that followed this that young Linwood had said all he intended to say, but presently he continued:

“She’s gone off with Uncle Garry. In the Binot.”

Canby looked surprised. “Where to?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere; nowhere in particular, I guess.” Another pause, then he continued: “Rotten car, that Shinton roadster of yours, if you’ll pardon my saying so, Canby.”

“Say anything you please, my boy. But what—”

“The most I could get out of her was fifty-five. The Binot does eighty, you know. I was after uncle. I might as well have been standing still.”

“You were after—” Canby was mystified.

“Yes, after uncle. I didn’t want him to insult Nella if I could help it.”

“Insult Nella?” Canby turned quickened eyes on him. “Tom, make yourself intelligible, please.”

“Oh, I don’t mean — that is, it’s on account of me,” the young man explained. “You see, after you left me in the garden last night I set out to look for Uncle Garry. Couldn’t find him anywhere about, so I went up to his room. He was in bed. I should have waited perhaps, but I’d made up my mind to have it over with; so I turned on the lights and woke him up and told him I was going to marry Miss Somi. You see, I was afraid he might object on account of her — that is, she’s not—”

“I understand. Go on.”

“Well, he sleeps pretty sound for an old man, you know, so I had to shake him up a little and say it over once or twice before he seemed to get what I was driving at. Then he just sat and looked at me — and laughed!”

“Laughed?”

“Yes. I thought he was a little off. Finally he said to me, ‘Tom, you’re an unconditional ass!’ I replied, ‘I know it, sir,’ and he laughed again. Then all at once he got serious and read me a lecture. He said he knew better than to attempt to argue with words against the celestial trumpet-call of youth. He said he was glad to learn I had begun to talk moon-eyed, because the sooner it began the sooner it ended, but that I was too young yet to play the bass in the matrimonial harmony. He said that while he had all the respect in the world for the primal urge of nature, he preferred not to connive at its premature manifestations. Then he lay down again and told me to get out.”

“Well?” Canby was grinning.

“Well, I went. I didn’t like it; I wouldn’t have minded if he’d let out at me, but I didn’t like his sarcasm. I knew he was up to something; and, sure enough, at the breakfast-table this morning, the first thing I knew he and Miss Somi were arranging to go for a drive. I could tell from his manner he meant trouble. But he caught me napping, and pulled the thing off so quick that he had the Binot out of the garage and was off before I got my breath. I went after him in the roadster, but, Lord, I might as well have been chasing a hydroplane in a rowboat.”

“But you spoke of insult.”

“Sure. Oh, I know Uncle Garry! He’s going to try to buy her off. He’d say anything to her, and she’s so... so darned sweet, she’d stand for it. He’d throw it up to her about her — oh, about everything. That’s what he’s doing now. I tell you, Canby, I came nearly busting that roadster up with an axe.”

“What time did this happen?”

“Hours ago; about seven o’clock — right after breakfast. What time is it now?”

Canby glanced at his watch. “Eleven.”

“They ought to be back soon. I’m waiting around. I’ll tell you what, Mr. Canby, I’m going to marry that girl if I have to take — no matter what. I can’t live without her; I’m not going back to the office or anywhere else until — Hello, here they are!”

So it was. Through the gate in the great hedge the Binot racer appeared and came spinning along the driveway. Canby and young Linwood rose hastily and crossed over, meeting it as it drew up near the garage. The expression on the youth’s face was one of anxiety and determination; on Canby’s, curiosity and inquiry.

“Good morning!” cried Nella, leaping out. “Oh, we’ve had such a fine ride!” She turned to Canby: “We missed you at breakfast. I peeped in your room, but you were asleep.”

This was hardly the manner of a girl who had just been subjected to dreadful insults, Canby reflected; and from the bewildered hopefulness on young Linwood’s countenance it seemed that he had arrived at the same conclusion. Nella turned her smile, first on one, then on the other, with perfect impartiality; and Canby, who was looking for signs, could find no slightest indication that she had made a decision, either voluntary or forced. The elder Linwood, having relieved himself of his duster, wanted to know of his nephew why the deuce he hadn’t gone to his office; but, though the reply was somewhat unsatisfactory, he immediately dropped the question. He regarded the young man with a quizzical, half-amused expression in his eyes; then abruptly turned to his host with a demand for drink, claiming a magnificent thirst.

They made for the piazza, Canby leading with Nella, and the two Linwoods bringing up the rear. It was cooler there, and a faint stir began to be felt in the air, promising relief for the afternoon. Nella and Tom sat in a porch swing, talking by fits and starts; the elder Linwood reclined in a chair and fanned himself; and Canby, who felt that he alone understood the situation, took heart from the rather impersonal quality of the girl’s gaze as she let her eyes rest on young Linwood. Still, uneasiness seemed to hover in the air. A keen observer, studying the group, would have noted that each of its members had something on his mind; a subtle lack of repose, a kind of intangible restlessness, made itself felt; there was an undercurrent of uneasy suspense, and you could almost hear the sighs of relief that greeted the call to luncheon.

Canby meant to have a talk with Nella at the earliest opportunity, but they had no sooner gotten up from the table after lunch than he found himself circumvented by young Linwood, who calmly tucked the girl’s arm through his and led her away.

Canby watched them go with a sinking heart. He knew that the opposition of the uncle had put the finishing touch to the young man’s resolution; he would be capable now of carrying the girl off by main force. Youth could do such a thing while staid middle age looked on and sighed. Middle age did in fact sigh, seeing the two young people disappear around a bend in the garden path; and then turned at hearing the elder Linwood’s voice:

“How about a game of billiards?”

But Canby was in no mood for games of any sort, and said so briefly. He wanted to listen to no chatter, either; he only wanted to be alone. With Linwood in one of his genial moods there was only one way to make sure of that, and Canby adopted it. Announcing his intention of paying a visit to his sister at Roselawn, he went out and jumped into the roadster, turned for the gate and was gone.

He did in fact pass the entrance to Roselawn twice that afternoon, but did not enter. He tore along at forty miles an hour, paying no attention to direction or distance, wanting only to move and get away from himself. He was beginning to see that he had indeed acted a fool. Seldom in this sorry life are we given a strong desire and the means of satisfying it at the same time; when the happy combination comes only a madman refuses to take advantage of it. So he had done, Canby reflected. Nella had actually agreed, in so many words, to marry him, and he had refused! Then youth had come — youth, with its fiery eyes and burning words and grace of limb and movement; its awkward phrases and crude inflections that were somehow powerful; its triteness and endless repetition that somehow seemed ever new; youth with all its mastery.

These reflections and a thousand others tossed about in Canby’s brain as he drove madly about the countryside all that September afternoon. The thing was eminently just; he wouldn’t deny that. The girl of nineteen and boy of twenty-four belonged in each other’s arms.

And what a prize she was! Sweetness and intelligence, charm of good mind and body, innocence and goodness, all found their home in her. A prize for any lucky man!

Well, he would soon know. The suspense and indecision would end. This was her tomorrow; perhaps her “yes” was waiting for him now. It was that thought that turned the wheel about and headed him for home.

The dinner hour at Greenhedge was half-past six, and it was just ten minutes before that time when Canby turned in at the driveway. The lawn and piazza were deserted; there was no one in the garden. He left the car in the rear and entered the house. Still no one. Suddenly he heard Mrs. Wheeler addressing him:

“Oh, are you back, sir? Will you eat alone, sir?”

Looking into the dining-room, Canby saw with surprise that no preparations had been made for dinner.

“Why, where is everybody?” he demanded.

“I don’t know, sir. Miss Nella said she wouldn’t be back for dinner. She said to tell you she left a note for you in your room.”

Canby turned slowly toward the stairs with a heavy heart. He had felt this coming all afternoon. It was over. Then the spark of hope, still faintly alive, quickened within him, and he bounded up the stairs three at a time. He ran down the upper hall and dashed into his room. The note was there on his desk, addressed in her quaint round hand: “Mr. Fred Canby.” He tore it open.

Canby read it over three times, then slowly folded the sheet and placed it in his pocket. Then suddenly he took it out again and tore it into a dozen pieces; after which he walked to the window overlooking the garden and stood there crumpling the bits of paper in his hand. He stood very straight and motionless and his face was white and set like stone.

So youth had conquered! He smiled bitterly. No doubt it was all quite logical and proper and to be expected. Tom had made good; he was after all a worthy representative of the age of adventure. He had picked her up and ran off with her — with Nella, the sweetest and best and dearest girl in the world. She had heard the call of youth and had responded to it, and who was he to begrudge her happiness? An old worthless fossil!

Long after the dinner-bell rang he stood there. Finally he turned drearily and went downstairs, and, after informing Mrs. Wheeler curtly that he wanted no dinner, he went out into the fragrant peace of the garden.

Dusk was approaching; a cool breeze had sprung up and was rustling the leaves of the plants and shrubs. He strolled aimlessly along the paths, seeing nothing, hearing nothing.

But all at once his eyes were opened. Turning a bend in the path, there was a bench before him, and on the bench was seated a young man. Canby stopped short and stared at this young man with an expression of amazed stupidity, as if he had been a ghost. It was Tom Linwood.

“Hello!” said the youth, looking up dismally.

Canby continued to stare like an imbecile. “But what— You—” he stammered at last, and stopped.

Then:

“Where’s Nella?” he demanded.

“With her husband, I suppose,” was the reply.

“With her hus—! Are you crazy?”

The youth was unmoved in his stony gloom.

“I said, with her husband. That’s the proper place for a loving young wife, isn’t it?”

Then he burst forth suddenly:

“I don’t want to talk about her, I tell you! She’s a... she’s a— Oh damn it all, I don’t know what she is! Yes, I do!” He became dismally ironic: “She’s my aunt — my aunt Nella! She’s been throwing eyes at that old duffer all along and I didn’t know it; and he swallowed her bait. Oh, she’s a slick one! They got in the car and Uncle Garry tells me to be a good boy and hands me a note to give to you, and off they go!.. I forgot; I didn’t give you the note, did I? Here it is.”

Canby took it and tore it open. There were only a few lines.

Canby dropped weakly on the bench and sat there in an idiotic daze. Coming out of it hours later, he uttered the words:

“Old fool!”

Goodness only knows whom he was talking about.