Van Cleve and His Friends

[In the late sixties of the last century, Joshua Van Cleve, a well-to-do Ohio business man, died, leaving a widow with three grown children, two daughters and a son, and a handsome fortune. Shortly afterwards the daughters married, becoming, respectively, Mrs. Kendrick and Mrs. Lucas; and each had a child. One of these latter was a boy, Van Cleve Kendrick. Van Cleve’s parents both died when he was a baby; and by the time he grew up, his grandfather’s estate had been almost entirely dissipated, so that, at eighteen years of age, the young fellow found himself practically the only support of the family, which now consisted of his grandmother, his aunt, who was a widow, with her daughter Evelyn, and his uncle, Major Stanton Van Cleve, a broken-down ex-officer of the Civil War. Van Cleve accordingly went to work, and after sundry experiences, secured a position with the National Loan and Savings Bank of Cincinnati, Ohio.

It was at this time, that is, as nearly as I recollect, about 1892 or 1893, that I first met Van Cleve and his people, who had just come to Cincinnati to live. Van must have been twenty-one or so. They had friends here who introduced them, Professor Gilbert of our university and his family. There were two young Gilberts, a boy and girl of Van Cleve’s own age. Bob Gilbert had not had a very promising career so far; he was rather wild at college, and got to drinking and into other bad habits, after he came home. At this time he had a position with a firm of brokers where a college chum of his, a Mr. Cortwright, was also employed. Nobody knew much about Phil Cortwright, who was not a native Cincinnatian; he was a very good-looking young man, inclined to be fast, we understood, and in the habit of making love violently to every girl he met. He was beginning now to be quite devoted to Lorrie Gilbert; and Van Cleve Kendrick disliked him heartily — from which we drew our own conclusions.]

CHAPTER VII

THE INDUSTRIOUS APPRENTICE

‘THE rolling stone gathers no moss,’ and ‘The setting hen never gets fat,’ are two worthy old proverbs not less true, it would seem, for being diametrically contradictory; and liable, like most proverbs, to excite the retort that everything depends on the individual. For instance, there was Van Cleve Kendrick, after some five years at the bank, as solid a fixture as its marble steps or safe-deposit vaults, the very reverse of a rolling stone; yet no supine and starveling setting hen, for all that. On the contrary, the young fellow was considered unusually active, shrewd, self-reliant, and capable; his integrity was above question; his ability such as to put him ' right in line for promotion,’ according to what people heard. Indeed, the president of the National Loan, Mr. Gebhardt himself, was the original source of this rumor. He was an enthusiastic man, a big, blond, finelooking man with the heavy beard and roving, distant blue eyes of a Viking, and when he came out with one of his strong encomiums about ‘my young friendt Van Cleef Kendrick,’ in his deep and melodious bass voice, with the faint German accent which he always betrayed in moments of earnestness or excitement, the effect was very impressive and convincing.

At twenty-seven years of age, Mr. Kendrick held eight shares in the National, on which he had paid a third of what he had borrowed to buy them; he had six hundred dollars laid by; he was drawing a salary of twentythree hundred a year, and making a little ‘on the side,’ in the management of various small savings and bits of real estate for half a dozen or more of those same honest hucksters, seamstresses, dairymen, and so on, whom he had used to watch coming in with their deposits Saturday nights; he had put his cousin Evelyn through the Art School, and given her an extra twelvemonth of study in New York; he had been supporting a family for years, if not in luxury, certainly in ordinary comfort.

At twenty-seven, also, Van’s hair was thinning a little on the temples, there was a hard line at the corner of his flat, straight mouth, another between his eyebrows. Since he began to work, he had seldom had, and never asked for, a vacation, even of a week, even of a day. There he stuck at his desk, or at and about kindred desks and offices, cool, steady, briefly civil, ageing before his time, an edifying example of American thrift and industry— yet I know one person, at least, to whom there was something not far from pathetic in the spectacle. Youth’s a stuff that can’t endure; and what was Van Cleve doing with his? What was he doing with these beautiful, unreturning days, and what, what would he be doing at sixty or seventyfive? He was providing against that very time! ‘ It’s a bad thing to be old,’ he used to say in his dry and cold way. His manner may have inspired confidence and respect, but it was never gracious. ‘It’s a bad thing to be old,’ said Joshua Van Cleve’s grandson; ‘but it’s the worst thing that can happen to be poor and old!’

The young man, with all his harshness, took care not to betray any such opinion to his family, all of whom, setting aside Evelyn, were well under way in years; if old age would not find them in poverty, that was owing solely to Van Cleve’s own efforts, — a fact, however, of which he never would have dreamed of reminding them, even if he himself had fully realized it. He was of the temper to work hard and direct his affairs with economy and prudence, without any need or incentive whatever; and it was with a kind of satirical patience that he received, or rather endured, the devotion and admiration of his domestic circle. ‘Why, Grandma, you’ve got me down fine, have n’t you? And of course you’re a pretty good judge of men at your time of life and with all your experience!’ he would say, in reply to the old lady’s half-tearful eulogies; ’I’m a hero and a saint, and the biggest thing on top of the ground. You say so, and you ought to know. My services to the bank are invaluable; I don’t believe they could find more than forty or fifty bright young men to fill my place, in case—’

‘Oh, don’t talk that way, Van!’ cried his Aunt Myra, aghast at this suggestion; ‘if you should lose your position—!’ Her eyes roved wildly over the pretty, comfortable room; in a trice she saw it a garret, a hovel, an almshouse, and herself and Evelyn starving in rags!

‘You — you don’t think they’re going to discharge you, do you, Van Cleve?’ she said, trembling.

‘Why, not that I know of. I guess I’ll stay with the job a while yet,’ said Van, amused, reading her easily, perhaps somewhat contemptuously. He knew his aunt to be a sincerely good woman, and he supposed that all good women contrived to be not at all selfindulgent, yet thoroughly selfish, after her fashion. ‘Don’t fly off the handle that way,’ he said;' I’ll always manage to take care of you somehow or other, Aunt Myra.’

‘Well, I hope I count for something,’interposed Evelyn, haughtily; ‘I expect to do something with my brush. I think I’ve shown there’s something in me already, for that matter, getting a picture in the Women’s Art League Exhibit with that awfully critical jury that refused some of the most famous artists in Ohio —’

‘All right, Rosa Eonheur, you get busy “with your brush" and stave off the poor house when the time comes, will you? In the meanwhile I may as well keep on working,’ said Van Cleve, cutting her short with the good-humored indifference his cousin found so exasperating. Many a genius has suffered thus from a lack of appreciation in the family; and I fear Evelyn was no fonder of Van Cleve because he had contributed to her artistic education with unhesitating liberality, perhaps at the cost of some scrimping and self-denial; nor did she like him any the better for having forgotten all about these sacrifices, or for holding them of no moment. Yet she was not ungrateful; all that she wanted was for him to take her seriously — and he refused to take her seriously. It was obvious that he left her and her talents and her achievements out of his reckoning altogether.

‘All you think about is money, Van Cleve Kendrick!’ she burst out angrily; ‘that’s the only standard you’ve got. If I sold a picture for seventy-five or a hundred dollars, you’d believe I could paint — you’d think I was worth while! ’

‘ You bet I would! ’ Van Cleve agreed heartily, if somewhat absently; he had got out his fountain-pen and, sitting at the little old-fashioned black-walnut desk in the corner of the dining-room, was running over the monthly bills which Mrs. Lucas always collected and bestowed in a certain old Japanese lacquer box, to await pay-day. ‘Ought n’t there to be a bill here from Doctor McCrea? ’ said Van, looking up; ‘he generally sends it at the half year.’

No one answered immediately; and to his surprise Van Cleve detected a conscious glance pass among the three women. His grandmother spoke at last. ‘Evelyn has arranged about that bill,’ she said proudly and, at the same time, rather timidly; ‘it was forty-five dollars, and Evelyn went to see the doctor and arranged to pay it herself.’

Van Cleve turned his light gray eyes on the girl. ‘How?’ he asked. ‘How are you going to pay it?’ He looked interested. ‘Did you save it up yourself Evie? By George, that’s pretty good! ’

‘Never mind, Van dearest, we did n’t want to bother you with it; we were n’t going to say a word to you about it,’ his aunt cried out, in a hectic excitement. ‘You’re always so splendid and honorable, we knew you’d pay the doctor and go without a new spring suit — and you ought to have a spring suit, you said so yourself the other day. And we could n’t bear to have you disappointed; it’s a perfect shame the way you deny yourself all the time, and you have all of us hanging around your neck like millstones.’ Her eyes filled up; she almost sobbed the next words. ‘So Evelyn thought out a p-plan, and she went to see the doctor, and — you tell him, Evie — Oh, Van, she is the noblest girl!’

‘I simply suggested that I could pay him with a picture, Van,’ said Evelyn, not without complacency. ‘I told him that I had three that had been exhibited and very highly spoken of, and he could have his choice. You know any one of them is worth ever so much more than his bill, Van,’ said Evelyn, earnestly; ‘but of course I did n’t tell him that in so many words. Only I thought it was n’t any harm to let him know that they were very valuable, and that he was n’t getting cheated. He said he did n’t know much about pictures. So I just told him in a general sort of way, you know, what I would ask for these, and I could see he was perfectly astonished and very much impressed. I’m going to send the pictures over to-morrow for him to pick out. It’s that View of Paradise Park by Moonlight, and Over the Rhine, and that lovely Bend in the River, Fort Thomas —’

‘Have you got his bill?’ interrupted the other; and, the document being produced, Van Cleve silently folded it away in his letter-case, alongside the rest, with an expression that somehow disconcerted the little assembly.

‘I think you’d better give up this — this arrangement, Evelyn,’ he said unemotionally. ‘I’ll send the doctor a check to-day. I’d rather you didn’t pay any bills that way.’

‘Why, Van, why not?’ Evelyn protested; ‘oh, of course, I see ! You think my paintings aren’t worth forty-five dollars. You think they are n’t worth anything. You don’t realize that my pictures are just the same as money.’

‘Maybe so. You couldn’t pay the butcher with ’em,’ said Van Cleve — a remark that momentarily silenced argument. He rose, the three women staring at him, hurt, angry, bewildered. ‘Now look here, Evelyn,’ he said, not unkindly, ‘you’re not to do anything like this again, you understand me? I’m not saying anything against your pictures; they may be worth all you claim. But they are n’t the same as money, not by a long sight. I look after a little piece of property for a man that’s a marble-cutter over here on Gilbert Avenue; what would you think if he offered to pay me with a statue of Psyche, hey? Now I know you want to help me, but that’s not the way to do it — to go and bunko somebody into taking one of your pictures in return for his work that he’s trying to make his living by. Sell your picture first, and do what you want with the money —’

‘Stop, Van Cleve! Don’t you see you’re breaking her heart!’ Mrs. Lucas screamed, starting to her feet and rushing to throw her arms around her daughter; both of them were sobbing vehemently. ‘How can you talk so? How can you be so brutal?’ She faced him in tragic indignation. ‘If it had been any other man, anybody but you, Van Cleve, I’d say he ought to be horsewhipped !’

‘Don’t, Mother darling, don’t! Now she’ll have one of her heart attacks — Van, how could you —! ’ proclaimed Evelyn in her turn. Mrs. Van Cleve ran for the smelling-salts; the maid whirled in from the kitchen; there was a terrifying to-do; in the midst of it, the young man, who was not unfamiliar with this sort of scene, made his escape. He was so little moved by the distress he left behind that he even grinned to himself as he took his way down town, thinking, ‘I’d like to have seen McCrea’s face when Evie handed him that gold brick!’ Apart from performances of this nature, which were likely to be annoying, Mr. Van Cleve attached scarcely any importance to what women said and did; all women, he supposed, were hysterical fools — ahem! — well, not that exactly, but ill-balanced and excitable and reasonless — all but one, that is. Van had seen enough of Lorrie Gilbert to know that she, at least, could control herself, and act to good purpose when need arose.

He thought about Lorrie a good deal these days, tried to put her out of his mind, and found it returning to her again and again with a commingled pain and pleasure which he now at last understood. As usual he was ruthlessly clear-eyed and clear-headed about it, ruthlessly plain-spoken with himself. He knew that he was nothing to Lorrie; she had never encouraged him; if Van Cleve had ever assumed a definitely lover-like attitude, she would have denied him with real distress and regretted keenly the lost friend; and, besides, she was credibly reported engaged to another man. Van worked harder than this other man, and he made as much money; if not so ornamental to the community, he was a deal more useful; he was the good apprentice and the worthy steward; but he could not marry. Even had Lorrie been as much in love with him as he with her, he could not have asked her to marry him. His sense of duty and his hard pride would have restrained him.

‘ I ’m not going to ask any girl to live with my family — I’m not going to put that on her, and I’m not going to ask her to “wait for me,” either,’ was his idea; ‘I don’t want anybody taking a chance on me. What would that be, anyhow, but hinting to her to hang on till some of my people died off and left me a little freer? Not for me! When I’m making ten thousand a year will be time enough for marrying. Lorrie’ll be a grandmother by that lime, most likely! Oh, well!’ he sometimes finished with a touch of his harsh fun. Mr. Kendrick did not lack a gift of philosophy; and it was equally characteristic that he never for an instant doubted he would some day make that ten thousand a year and much more.

In the meanwhile, life was not uninteresting even to a hopeless lover — a lover, that is, with as hard a head and as stanch a digestion as this hero’s. This very day, when Van caught the next down-going car, he found itscrowded passengers reading the latest news from the insurrection in that neighboring West Indian island of which we were beginning to hear so much in those days, and conclamantly airing their views on the subject. ‘DOOM OF HAVANA SEALED! GENERAL GOMEZ CAPTURES THE WATERWORKS!’ one man read out of the paper. ‘That settles it, boys! ’ he announced with much solemnity; ‘the Spanish’ll have to give up now. They can’t get any washing done!’ And everybody laughed, and another remarked that, he had never understood the Spanish were very strong on laundry-work, anyhow. Van Cleve, clinging to his strap, listened inattentively; this kind of talk was rife that winter — had been going the rounds, indeed, for the past year. Maceo — Weyler — McKinley — concentration camps — filibusters — the ‘Commodore’ expedition — do we not all of us remember it?

Mr. Kendrick was among those who were against intervention — when he thought about Cuba’s troubles at all, which was seldom. Of late he had been giving a stricter attention than ever, if that were possible, to the National Loan’s affairs. He thought they were in danger of ‘going to sleep’ at that institution, to use his own words, notwithstanding the fact that to outsiders, at least, it seemed to be prospering greatly. The simple old building itself had recently been remodeled at a handsome cost; you might see the plain citizens who were its patrons surveying with awe the new marble stairs, the figures of ‘Commerce’ and ‘Industry’ in the triangular brow above the doors, and the bronze tablets set into the corner-stone with the mystifying legend A.D. MDCCCXCVI. Van Cleve did not wholly approve of the changes, being by nature severely opposed to any sort of show; but he could not deny that the bank took in a number of fresh accounts about that time which may have been due in large part to the increased majesty and solidity of its appearance. Still Van was critical; he had not been with the Loan and Savings all these years for nothing, and he had gone a long way since his early days in the office, when he had felt an unquestioning respect for his elders and a readiness to learn of them.

‘This bank is Julius Gebhardt,’ he used to say to himself shrewdly; ‘he is the National Loan and Savings, body and bones, hide, horns, and tallow. Every one of the directors is a back number. They keep on electing themselves over and over again, and when they come trailing in here Monday mornings it looks like an overflow meeting from the Old Men’s Home. I’ll bet they do just what Gebhardt says, and half the time they don’t know what he’s saying. Of course he’s used to it, but it’s a pretty big responsibility for one man. He knows the banking business as well as the next man, I suppose, but nobody’s infallible.’ If he had owned a few more shares, say twenty instead of eight, Van was confident he would be on the board, and what was more, would probably be cashier in place of Schlactman, who was in ill health, and talked of moving to Colorado. In fact, Mr. Gebhardt had hinted as much, in his big, warmhearted, almost fatherly, way. He liked Van Cleve and did not hesitate to show it. The cashier’s salary was three thousand. ‘I’d have a use for it,’ Van thought, with a grim smile.

The family had lately been showing signs of their perennially recurrent restlessness, which Van recognized from ancient acquaintance. Once in a long while it crossed Van Cleve’s mind that he might some day surprise them by putting his foot down on all this foolishness; but the time never came. He always had too much to do, and too many things on his mind, to burden himself further by futile attempts at argument with his household; it was easier and infinitely more peaceful to let them have their own way. As for discussing his plans and prospects with them, or confiding to them all that about the bank and the president and his methods, and Van’s own opinions, the young man never dreamed of such a thing. They could not have understood a word of it; they were devoted to him heart and soul, but they could not speak his language, or live in his world. The Office and the Street were his real home, and under his own roof he had companions, but no companionship.

He had forgotten all about the morning’s disturbance by dinner-time, when he reached home; and was only reminded of it. by finding the house as yet unlighted, in a kind of symbolic gloom, and everybody tiptoeing about in an impressive anxiety. ‘Mother has been very ill, Van Cleve,’ Evelyn told him with a species of reproachful resignation; ‘it has been an unusually sharp seizure. Doctor McCrea could n’t understand this attack at all, and kept saying she must have had some nervous shock. But of course we did n’t tell him about this morning,’ said Evelyn, magnanimously. ‘It does n’t make any difference about me, Van, but I hope you won’t be so cruel again to poor Mother, who only wanted to help you and give you a pleasure.’

‘Well, that’s so; I’m sorry about that,’ said Van, troubled; ‘ I forgot how easy Aunt Myra gets sick. But you know, Evelyn, I can’t have you doing things like that, if only for the looks of the thing. These doctors all keep a pretty good line on who can pay them and who can’t; they’ve got to. Doctor McCrea knew I could afford that bill; it was n’t exorbitant —’

‘Doctor McCrea was very much disappointed! ’ his cousin interrupted triumphantly. ‘I explained to him in a tactful way, so as not to put you in a bad light, and he said, “Oh, don’t I get any picture, then?” and I could see he did n’t like it at all, though he gave a kind of queer laugh. I could n’t say anything, of course.’

Van Cleve grunted, but was otherwise silent, after the exasperating fashion he had of allowing Evelyn the last word, and the peculiar barrenness of victory.

‘And there’s something else, Van — something you ought to know. The doctor says that Mother—’ She was beginning importantly; but was checked by a look from her grandmother.

‘Dinner’s ready, and we’d better wait till afterward to tell Van Cleve about that,’ interrupted the old lady, hastily, remembering other days and the late Joshua. It was always advisable to feed a man first. And accordingly after the meal, during which everybody was painstakingly amiable and lively, she herself reintroduced the subject.

‘The doctor thinks that your Aunt Myra ought to be in a different climate, Van Cleve. I have been thinking it myself for some time, and when I spoke of it this morning, he said at once that I was right, and that a change was good for everybody. He said if she could go away for a while, it would undoubtedly make her feel better —’

‘Then I explained with perfect frankness, because that is always best,’ Evelyn interrupted; ‘that we could n’t take trips South and all that sort of thing, which I could see he was about to suggest.. “Oh, Doctor McCrea,” I said, “we can’t be running off on jaunts that way just for pleasure. We have to make a permanent move. And, besides, we’ve been here for seven years now, and I think Mother ought to get out of it for good. The Ohio Valley climate never has agreed with her, and now she is fairly saturated with it, and you can see she’s losing ground every day.” He said, “Oh, I think you exaggerate ”; but of course, you know, he said that just, to soothe me and keep me from being frightened —’

‘You mean to say you want to get up and leave here — you want me to quit my job, and look for another somewhere else,’ said Van Cleve, unmoved as usual.

‘But if it’s a question of Mother’s health, Van Cleve —’

‘You can always get something to do—you’re not appreciated in the bank, anyhow. You could get Mr. Gebhardt to transfer you to some other bank; they do things like that all the time, don’t they? Mr. Gebhardt thinks so highly of you, he’d do anything for you, Van—you could go anywhere on his recommendation,’ cried Mrs. Van Cleve.

‘Where d’ ye want to go now?’ said Van Cleve, coming to the point with his disconcerting directness.

Evelyn began eagerly, ‘Why, I thought at once of New York. I could look after Mother, and still go on with my professional career. It would be an ideal arrangement —’

‘ I never heard New York talked up much for a health resort,’ said Van Cleve.

‘Well, a health resort is n’t what she needs, you know. It’s the complete change that would be so beneficial. Doctor McCrea was enthusiastic; he said it could n’t possibly do her any harm, and would probably be just as good for her as anywhere. And you know New York is so interesting, Van. I loved it when I was studying there. I have such clever, stimulating, exceptional friends. The change in the social atmosphere alone would brace Mother right up, I know —’

‘ New York is a wonderful city,’ said Major Van Cleve; ‘I remember General Grant making that very remark to me once when we were walking up Fifth Avenue; we were both of us just back from the War, but it was before he had been elected to the Presidency. He turned to me and said, “Well, Mage,” — that was his nickname for me, —“ New York is a marvelous place, is n’t it?” Rather odd that he should have died and been buried there afterward, I always thought.’

Van Cleve let them talk; he was not angry or out of patience; he was only sourly amused. This was Van’s day — a fair sample of all his days. People who happened to be pretty well acquainted with the family used to repeat around a saying of Bob Gilbert’s that always brought a laugh from the men, whatever the women thought of it. I suppose it was really dreadfully coarse. '’S shame!’ says Bob, who was about three parts drunk, with tearful vehemence; ‘ ’s shame zose Van Cleves. Kept Van’s nose grindstone years — always will keep it — ’s shame. Know what they all need? Spankin’ — hic —ol’ lady an’ all of’em — need spankin’ — reiterated Bob with dark and frowning emphasis. ‘Goo’ spankin’!’

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH WE GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME

I DO not remember whether it is recorded that the Industrious Apprentice ever took the Idle Apprentice aside, and pointed out to him the folly of his ways, scolded him heartily, and pleaded with him to reform. A man must, have a tolerably good conceit of himself who will undertake to direct another man how to live, even though this other may be as notoriously in need of direction as was Robert Gilbert. Van Cleve hesitated and shrank before the task. He told himself that he had too stiff a job doing his own duty, to be qualified to preach theirs to other people. Was he his brother’s keeper, anyhow? It was impatience and indignation that roused him to hunt Bob out and lecture him, at last. Van thought the world was too kind, too stupidly kind, to this culprit; it liked him too well; it was ruinously soft-hearted; it kept on giving him a chance when it should have brought him up with a round turn! And all this in the face of the strange fact that Robert himself asked no quarter; he never offered any excuses; he was the most amiably unashamed and unrepentant sinner on earth, and the most incurably sanguine. ‘Never mind, Van old man, don’t worry yourself so over me. I hate to see you so worried! ’ he said affectionately, when the sober Mr. Kendrick had painfully got through with his exhortations. ‘I’m going to come out all right, you see if I don’t. I’ll get out even, don’t you worry.’

‘You’re always saying that, Bob,’ said Van Cleve, glumly; ‘you know very well you can’t keep up this gait and come out anywhere but behind. You’re ruining your health, and spoiling your chances, and making your people unhappy. You’ve got plenty of sense, Bob, and I can’t see why—’

‘Well, I’m glad you’ll allow me that much, anyhow!’ said Bob, with the utmost good temper. He met his friend’s severe gaze with one full of amusement, insuperable nonchalance, honest affection. ‘You’re not much of a preacher, Van; your heart’s not in it. You don’t really want to reform the bad little boy and make him a good little boy, and have him sign the pledge and all that, in the interest of virtue and respectability — not a bit of it, you timeserving old utilitarian, you! You only—’

‘Oh, good, bad — that’s not what I’m talking about!’ interrupted Van Cleve, with a movement of irritation; ‘I don’t want you to make an everlasting fool of yourself, that’s all! All this drinking and having a good time with the boys, what does it amount to? Can’t you see there’s nothing in it? You can’t keep on with that all your life. Why, why — damn it, Bob, there’s nothing in it! Can’t you see that?’

‘There! Did n’t I say that was the way you felt!’ Bob stated, grinning. He made an extravagant display of surprise. ‘Why, Van Cleve, it looks to me as if you were trying to get me to settle down and work like yourself! And I used to think you had a sense of humor! Now Phil Cortwright says —’

‘Oh, cut it out!’ said Van, scowling.

‘All right, just as you say,’ the other retorted tolerantly.

‘I’m only talking because I — because I — I think a lot of you, you know, Bob,’ said Van Cleve, looking down, chewing hard at the end of his cigar, mortally abashed by this sentimental admission.

The sight moved Bob as no amount of arguing or hectoring could have done. ‘Why, of course I know that, Van!’ he cried. The moisture sprang into his eyes; he wiped them unaffectedly. ‘Why, I know that, my dear old fellow! You’re all right — everything you say is pretty near right, I guess,’ he said incoherently. He pulled himself together and went on with more steadiness, even earnestness — for him. ‘You see, Van Cleve, I ve got a different. way of looking at it from you. I believe in — in — well, I believe a man’s life’s his own to do what he wants with, so long as he does n’t harm anybody else. Well, then I don’t harm anybody else, do I? Suppose I do — well — lush some off and on, and — and all that, you know — all the other things you say — why, it does n’t hurt anybody but me, does it? If I’m willing to take the consequences, why, it does n’t need to worry you any. I don’t ask anybody to suffer for it but myself. Then where’s the harm? I’m not responsible for any one else, and nobody else needs to feel responsible for me. That’s the way I look at it.’

‘Do the family look at it; that way, too?’ Van Cleve asked.

‘The family? Oh, well, they — of course they think more or less as you do, and the rest of the representative citizens,’ said Bob, smiling, but for the first time a little restive under his friend’s eye. ‘Hang it, you goody-good people don’t know how funny and inconsistent you are!’ he burst out in a sort of good-natured impatience. ‘There ’re plenty of respectable old skinflints walking around town this minute that gouge and grind and pile up the dollars and do more mischief in a day than I can in a year, and because they pass the plate in church, and go home to bed with the chickens, and never drink anything stronger than cold tea, you hold ’em up to me for models —’

‘I wasn’t holding up any models. You’re dodging, Bob,’ said the other, gloomily.

But Bob had returned to his thesis. ‘Of course I don’t mean to keep it up all my life, as you were saying. I can stop whenever I want to — when I get tired of it. In the meanwhile I’m not hurting anybody but myself, and I’m not hurting myself anything to speak of. And I’ll pay that score myself,’ he repeated, rather grandiloquently.

‘I don’t know whether a man can do that or not,’ said Van Cleve; ‘pay for himself, I mean. Looks to me sometimes as if everybody got assessed for him all around.’

Robert had left Messrs. Steinberger & Hirsch some while before this date, those gentlemen having, in fact, intimated that his services were no longer required. Even their not unduly exalted standards were too high for the young man, it seemed.

The next news was that young Gilbert had got a berth on the RecordWorld, which was a penny sheet that used to come out in six or eight successive editions of an afternoon, with detonating head-lines, every smallest event decorated with the most lurid purple patch conceivable. For a while the young man was quite faithful to his duties, perhaps finding in the haste and tension of the work almost enough of the false excitement he seemed to crave. As invariably happened, everybody in this new world liked him; they liked him even after they, too, had begun to shake their heads over him — even when they, too, had to ‘speak to’ him. In the end, like all the rest of the friends he was constantly making and constantly disappointing, they also acknowledged that Bob was indeed ‘ no good.' He had some fine, warmblooded virtues; he was loyal, generous, and humane; he was curiously clean-minded and simple with all his gross self-indulgence. But — they agreed sorrowfully—he was not overclever; he could not be depended on for half an hour; he did not know the meaning of duty and ambition; put him to the test, in short, and you would find Bob Gilbert pretty nearly worthless.

The family accepted the unhappy fact with a plain and prosaic dignity, as do almost all families. No doubt they got used to it In the course of time; and, of course, the Professor and his wife had realized the truth from the first, even when Lorrie was doing her best to shield them from it. Van Cleve told her so in his hard, matter-of-fact way. ‘It’s no use, Lorrie,’ he said; ‘you can’t keep this thing about Bob dark. Your mother’s probably known all along. I should n’t wonder if she thought she was keeping it from you all the while you thought you were keeping it from her. I don’t know why women make believe that way. It doesn’t do any good. Might as well look at things square in the face.’

‘You don’t understand — men can’t understand,’ said Lorrie, sadly; ‘why, Mother and I can’t talk about it, even now, to each other. We keep on pretending. Why, you yourself have never talked about it like this before, and yet you knew, you must have known about Bob for two or three years, even if you did n’t know before that. Is that why you have n’t — you have n’t been with him so much?’

‘Well, Bob’s never around where I am, you know,’ said Van Cleve, a little lamely; it was not easy to explain his position to Bob’s sister. ‘I’m busy — I have n’t any time to hunt him up. I’m sorry, but—’

‘But you’ll have to let Bob go?’ Lorrie finished for him, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. ‘I’m sorry, too, Van. You’re one of the people that can do the most with him — that he pays the most attention to. If his own friends give him up—But I dare say you are right. You can’t sacrifice your own interests — you have yourself to think about, and your own future, and you can’t be burdened with Bob.’

‘Yes, I’ve got to think about myself — I’m always thinking about myself,’ Van Cleve agreed with her dryly. Her words stung him to the quick; he was conscious of a certain truth underlying their unkindness and unfairness. He was constantly thinking about Van Cleve Kendrick’s affairs and prospects — he was thinking about himself, but surely, surely not wholly for himself! That very morning Evelyn and his aunt had begun again with their New York plan. They had written to a dozen friends and fellow students, wonderfully able, astute persons, and got all manner of reports, figures, and estimates pointing unanimously to the fact that it was incalculably cheaper and healthier to live in New York than anywhere else on the face of this globe! Two hundred would move them beautifully— ‘You know we’re very good managers, Van dearest.’ ‘Two hundred, hey? You must think I get my money from the pump!’ he had said in vain jocularity. Now a sudden melancholy invaded the young man; what was he but a money-making machine? he thought dispiritedly. Even Lorrie believed that that was all he cared for — even Lorrie!

As for Lorrie herself, did she know how she hurt him? She was a tenderhearted, good woman, and shrank from inflicting pain on anybody; but even a tender-hearted, good woman may sometimes take advantage of her position to visit some of her own unhappiness on another’s head. And Lorrie would have been more than a mortal girl not to have suspected her power over the young fellow. At any rate, swift contrition and a desire to make amends took hold of her.

‘That sounded horrid, but I did n’t mean it that way, you know,’ she said hastily and penitently; ‘it’s only that I do wish — you have such an influence over Bob — if he was only out of that — that atmosphere he’s got into — if he was with people like you —’

‘Oh, influence!’ Van broke in harshly; ‘I tell you, Lorrie, this talk about “ unfortunate surroundings ” and bad influence” and “good influence” makes me very tired. Any fellow that’s too weak-kneed to resist “evil influence” is too weak-kneed to be bolstered up much by good ones. Not you nor I nor the Almighty can make a man go crooked any more than we can make him go straight; he’s got to do it himself. “I got into bad company” — “I wasn’t directed right”— “Nobody looked after me.” — Pooh! that’s the old eternal incessant yawp of folly and feebleness and guilt — you don’t want to begin excusing Bob that way. Of course, I know you will forgive him, and keep on forgiving him, no matter what he does —’

‘And what kind of a sister would I be, if I didn’t?’ cried Lorrie with a great deal of spirit. ‘I don’t at all believe what you say, Van. People are different. We can’t all be pillars of strength. Mr. Cortwright says —’ She stopped short. ‘ Well ? ’ she said sharply; for Mr. Kendrick’s countenance had assumed an extremely forbidding and unpleasant expression at the sound of that name.

‘Bob started quoting Cortwright at me, too,’ he said acridly, ‘That’s where he’s got his precious theories about irresponsibility, and all the rest of it. I recognized the brand.’

‘Oh! Then you don’t think Mr. Cortwright is the proper sort of friend for Bob to have, is that it?’ said Lorrie, in an ominous calm.

‘Well, I don’t, Lorrie, since you ask me. I think that association has been the worst thing in the world for a fellow of Bob’s disposition,’ said Van Cleve; and he was honest and disinterested in saying it. ‘I believe Cortwright’s influence —’

‘I thought you said just now that influence had nothing to do with it,’ said Lorrie. And Van Cleve had no answer, alas! His own words confounded him. He was sure he was right — right in his theory, right about the facts; but no juggling would fit the two together!

The interview ended rather stiffly on both sides. Lorrie went upstairs after the young man had left, with a fire-red spot on each cheek. ‘The idea of his hinting that about Philip!’ she thought with an anger no criticism of herself could have aroused; ‘Phil never says a word about him. And he’s tried and tried, and done his best for Bob. What did Van Cleve Kendrick ever do, I’d like to know? He’s ashamed of the way he’s abandoned Bob, that s all — he’s ashamed and — and jealous, that’s what made him talk that way!’

And that was all Mr. Kendrick got for his interference. It would have darkened his skies enough to know that he had offended Lorrie or hurt her; but not long after a piece of news descended upon him like another blight — news which, by the way, was already common property, and seemed to have traveled around to everybody before reaching him, who was secretly the most concerned. It had a paragraph all to itself in next Sunday morning’s Society Jottings: ‘The engagement is announced of Miss Laura Gilbert, daughter of Professor and Mrs. Gilbert, who has been a great favorite ever since she made her bow to society, two or three seasons ago, to Mr. Philip Cortwright. Mr. Cortwright is a Eureka College man, a member of the old Cortwright family of Kentucky,’etcetera, etcetera.

Van Cleve heard the announcement silently, with as indifferent a face as he could manage. ‘I chose a good time to tell her I did n’t approve of Cortwright — tactful and opportune in me, was n’t it?’ he remarked inwardly, with savage irony. The next time he saw her there were others about, and a good deal of joking allusion going on, and it. would undoubtedly have been the proper moment for Mr. Kendrick to tender his compliments on the happy event; but, in point of fact, he did nothing of the kind; he kept silence — and it may be Miss Gilbert liked him just as well for saying nothing and looking morose; she was only human, after all.

In truth, Lorrie was human enough to be very happy these days, in spite of the skeleton in the family closet. It would be hard for a girl yet in her twenties, engaged to be married to a very handsome, devoted, popular (or, at least, well-known) young fellow, with whom she is quite openly and genuinely in love it would be a hard matter, I say, for any girl to be seriously unhappy in these circumstances. Of course, they were not to be married for a while yet — Philip’s business. It was understood that perhaps next year — her mother’s wedding-day had been the tenth of June; if Lorrie should be married next year, the tenth of June, eighteen-ninety-nine, it would be thirty years to the day, after her mother — remarkable fact! That would be the last year of the century, too — another remarkable fact!

‘No, it won’t be the last year. Nineteen hundred’s the last year,’said Cortwright, laughing. He recited the hundred-pennies-in-a-dollar argument which people were making use of to convince one another on this often disputed point. ‘Why, you wise, practical little person, who would have thought you would have had to have that explained to you?’ he said fondly. It pleased him singularly to catch her tripping; he liked to feel even so trivial a superiority, for there were many moments, when, secure as he was in his own conceit, he was a little afraid, a little abashed, in the presence of this girl whom he was to marry; sometimes he wished uncomfortably that Lorrie were not quite so good! ‘Why won’t you let me kiss you?’ he once said to her aggrievedly, in the first hours of their betrothal. ‘You belong to me now. I would n’t be a man if I did n’t want to. Most girls like it — I mean I always supposed they did — I always understood so. How can you be so — so cold?’ He put an arm around her, at once masterful and beseeching. ‘Please, Lorrie! You know you really like — want me to—’ he murmured with lips very close.

‘You can kiss me, but not — not my neck, that way,’said Lorrie, backing off, turning scarlet, troubled rather than angry. ‘I — I don’t like to have you kiss my neck —for indeed it was some such intimate caress which he had already attempted that had led to this scene. The young woman shrank from it undefinably; she shrank from the act and from the look in her lover’s eyes.

Cortwright obeyed, resenting what he called inwardly her prudery, even while clearly conscious that it was precisely that quality about her which most strongly attracted him. She wasn’t cheap, he thought, with an exultant thrill; and naturally coveted her the more.

This news of Lorrie Gilbert’s engagement created only a mild stir socially, having been expected any time these two or three years. Lorrie might have done better, doubtless — she had never lacked attention from men, some of whom had been better off in the worldly way, and perhaps more ‘settled’ than Mr. Cortwright. But it looked as if he was very much in love with Lorrie, and certainly she was over head and ears in love with him. People in general were glad to hear anything pleasant connected with the poor Gilberts, who had had so much that, was sad and discreditable to endure from that ne’er-do-well, Robert. It had got to the pass that their friends seldom even mentioned Robert, nowadays. The girls whom he used to know, who came to see Lorrie and gave her engagement luncheons and engagement presents of little silver candlesticks and ornamental spoons and after-dinner coffeecups, who were already planning linenshowers, and chattering to her about the lovely four-room suites in the new apartment buildings, those girls never asked after Bob. They never invited him to their homes any more; they contrived not to see him on the street. How could they? He had got to looking so seedy and run-down and dissipated, they said. Nobody would want to be seen with him — nobody could afford to be seen with him! It was a universal taboo, excepting on the part of Miss Paula Jameson, whom Bob continued to visit in his ostracism more often than ever before. At the moment, however, he was deprived even of that resource, for Paula went to Palm Beach with her mother in March; conceivably, Robert was the only person who missed her. The young lady had never counted at all, socially; she had no friends, and heard from and wrote to nobody, not even Lorrie. ' She’s got such hotel manners!’ was a criticism I once overheard from some other young lady; ‘and the way she simply fastened herself on to Lorrie Gilbert! I suppose she found she could n’t get in, after all, because she does n’t stick to Lorrie so much now, but it used to be, really —!’

CHAPTER IX

REMEMBER THE MAINE!

That winter all the world of our town, as of a hundred other towns all over the country, went about its business and pleasure as usual without the slightest suspicion that a tremendous national event was going to take place, though this will doubtless seem to our descendants to have been abundantly foreshadowed. The world was bringing its daughters ‘out’ at dances and dinners and teas, and going to its clubs and Symphony concerts, and complaining about its servants and the high cost of living, even as it does today. Every morning the world got up and read in its newspaper about Zola and Dreyfus with a kind of indignant amusement; it read about the last murder, the last divorce, the last serum discovery and Edison invention; and, perhaps, wondered indifferently if these mechanical piano-players and motorvehicles they were experimenting with would ever be of any practical value! It also read that the Spanish minister, whose name it considered unpronounceable and therefore outlandish, had resigned, following some unpleasantness at Washington, — ’Dŭpuy de Lome, gone home, no more to roam!’ the comic editor facetiously chanted, — and that a bomb had exploded in the Hotel Inglaterra in the city of Havana, and another bomb in the mayor’s office; and that one of our big battleships had been sent down there to protect American interests.

Then came the morning of the 16th of February with some appalling news. Bob Gilbert’s paper, being an afternoon one, did not get that ‘scoop’; but it made a gallant effort and came out at noon with mighty head-lines and exclamation points, with columns of information or misinformation, with pictures of the unfortunate vessel, her captain and officers, and complete details about the Maine’s size, ‘displacement,’ ‘armament,’ cost, and previous career. Bob himself fell into the wildest state of excitement; it kept him sober for a week! To be sure, he was not the only one who lost his head and fumed and fretted and girded at the Administration, and denounced the investigations as cowardly and farcical delays. Within a week of the disaster there were militia companies drilling furiously all over the State, and all over every other state in the Union; there were fiery speeches on the floor of every legislature; and at a big public banquet, while the temper of the Administration still seemed to be for peace, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy got up and made a speech of such strength and significance that everybody present nudged his neighbor, and one gentleman went so far as to say to the presiding genius of the gathering, ‘Mr. Hanna, may we please fight Spain now?’ So, at any rate, the newspapers reported.

Mr. Van Cleve Kendrick, so far as was known, made but one comment on the situation. ‘I guess we can’t get out of it without a fight; and if we do have war, wheat ought to jump some,’he said; and studied the market reports and gave closer attention to business than ever, these days. The news that troops of the regular army had actually been ordered to Key West, that some millions of dollars had been voted for ‘defense,’ that the Oregon had started for Cape Horn and Atlantic waters, that the Vizcaya had anchored off Manhattan Island (to the terror of the unprotected Manhattanese!); the talk about the Philippines, with consequent searchings of the map, and about the Pacific Squadron; the withdrawal of the United States consul from Havana, and of Mr. Woodford from the Embassy at Madrid — all this news and all the heroic excitement of the times affected Van Cleve not in the least.

The young man was not unpatriotic; he had as much pride and spirit as any of his fellows, and, it cannot be doubted, heard the songs and speeches, and saw the massed soldiery under the banner of his country, with an honorable stirring of the heart. But whatever befell, — and, like the rest of us, he had a hearty belief in the power of our arms and an unshakable expectation of success, — Van must still stay at home and make a living for himself and those dependent on him. He was in odd contrast to that time-honored warrior, Major Stanton, who, if his age and state of health had not prohibited it, as he was careful to assure everybody, would have been the first to offer himself to the Cause. ‘It’s hard for us — hard! We old fellows that went out for the Union in sixty-one — hard to be shelved now!’ he would say with a magnificent break in his voice, and wagging the grizzled whiskers sadly. It was an impressive spectacle, and Major Van Cleve was very popular on all political-military occasions, where, indeed, he cut an admirable figure, and exercised handsomely his fine gift of eloquence.

Van Cleve’s family, by the way, were going to New York to live. The news created an interest in their set of acquaintances hardly second to that roused by the international complications. They had a dozen reasons for going, any one of them unanswerable: Mrs. Lucas’s health, the possibility of much greater economy in living, a wider sphere for Evelyn, and a thoroughly artistic atmosphere — they recited all these arguments with their customary fervor and certainty. It developed that Van Cleve was not intending to move with them; they explained that he could n’t give up his position here, of course; but equally, of course, they would n’t be so selfish as to walk off and leave him without knowing that he was perfectly comfortable; and accordingly a wonderful, ideal, Elysian boarding-house had been discovered where they kept such a table, and he would have such a room, so large, light, and sunny!

Van had made no comment on these arrangements; the women, indeed, wondered and were aggrieved at his unsympathetic silence; it was true that he gave them ungrudgingly whatever money they asked for, — and in fairness it must be said they asked for as little as possible, — but he paid no heed to their explanations, he took no interest in the plans they made either for themselves or for his own comfort. He would not even go to look at the matchless boarding-house. ‘Why, I suppose it’s all right, if you say so — it’ll be just as good as home,’ he said, cheerfully indifferent.

' Van Cleve, how can you say such a thing? As if any place could be the same as your own home!' they exclaimed in reproachful chorus; nor could they at all understand why he laughed. They said to each other that Van Cleve was getting more and more wrapped up in his affairs — it would end by making him hard and selfish — he might even become miserly!

It is strange to think that such small doings as these can go on side by side with the great stirring business of the nation on the edge of war, and receive within their own circle quite as much attention. People did not cease to be interested in spring wardrobes and summer trips, in weddings and new houses and house-cleaning and the Musical Festival; everybody, I repeat, thought and talked as much as ever about these things that month of April, as if nothing of moment had been going forward. And on there at Washington, the debate about arbitration and intervention rumbled on, and the Senate recognized Cuba, and the President called out the troops, and the Ultimatum was issued and forestalled; and that energetic Assistant Secretary of the Navy resigned and set about forming his regiment of Rough Riders. The last did really touch us closer, for here and there we heard of some prospective recruit or aspirant for that body, — somebody’s cousin or brother, some young fellow at Harvard or ranching it out West. One of the rumors credited that young Cortwright, — Phil Cortwright that was with Steinberger & Hirsch, — Lome Gilbert’s Mr. Cortwright, with ambitions in that direction. Nobody was surprised to hear it; he was a dashing sort of fellow and would make a first-rate cavalryman — any man that came out of Kentucky could ride and shoot, for that matter. Cortwright could probably get a commission with case; at any rate, he was going to Washington to make a try for it, everybody presently understood.

Lorrie, looking a little pale, but sweetly resolute and cheerful, confirmed the report. ‘Yes. He’s going. He thinks he ought to; he wants to do his duty,’ she said, with a beautiful pride in her hero; she had no conception of the tinsel and spot-light allurements this martial drama held out for him, as for nine tenths of the other young fellows; and, for the matter of that, when this brave, eager, selfcentred restlessness overtakes a man, is there a woman on earth who can hold him? ‘I’d go myself—with the Red Cross, you know — if Mother thought she could get along without me. But she wants me here, and there will be plenty of women that can go,’ said Lorrie, who never had to explain to anybody that she wanted to do her duty. ‘Bob’s going, too — not with the army—his paper’s sending him. He’s quite wild about it,’ she told people. They were liable to remark to one another afterwards that Bob would be no great loss whatever became of him, but the way those things generally turned out, a fellow like Bob came through it all scot-free without a scratch or a day’s sickness, while any number of fine, useful men succumbed to the hardships or the enemies’ bullets!

Robert, however, showed a disposition to straighten up, under all the excitement, queerly enough; he took himself with gratifying seriousness in the capacity of war-correspondent to the Record-World, and was too absorbed in preparations for the campaigning to spare any time to his former disreputable company and diversions. In the beginning, with some idea of enlisting, he had gone and got himself examined at the recruiting station for the regular army. ‘Those are the fellows that are sure to go, you know,’ he said cannily; and he came away a little chopfallen at being rejected by the doctor and sergeant. ‘Said my teeth were defective! Did you ever hear of anything so fine-drawn as that?’ he told Van Cleve in a comical indignation.

‘Teeth, hey?’ said Van Cleve, looking the other over with his shrewd, hard, gray eyes; ‘they must make a pretty searching examination.’

‘Oh, yes, you have to strip, of course. They measure you and test your lungs, and you have to come up to some standard they’ve got. The doctor said I was a little too light — too thin for my height, you know; but I don’t think that would have made any trouble. I told him I’d make it my business to get heavier, and he kind of laughed. He asked me how long I’d had this cough, too — it’s nothing but a cold I’ve had off and on this winter — and I noticed him thumping around my chest; that shows you how particular they are. That’s all right, too; I’m not kicking about that. They’ve got to have sound men physically in the army. But teeth — piffle!’ Robert ejaculated disgustedly. ‘Well, as long as I’m going, anyhow, for the paper, I’ve got the laugh on ’em. But to be with the army itself would be more fun.’

Van Cleve listened to him with an extraordinary inward movement of affection and pity; there were times when he felt old enough to be Bob’s father. ‘Well, you want to fatten up and — and get rid of your cold so as to be in first-class shape, because it’s bound to be a good deal like hard work part of the time, anyhow,’ he advised Robert. But when they had parted, he shook his head over the teeth episode. ‘I should n’t wonder if they said that to every poor devil they reject, rather than tell him right out what the matter is with him,’ he opined sagely; and wondered if the humanity of doctors was not sometimes ill-judged. It did not need a doctor’s experience to see at a glance what sort of a fellow Bob was: the pace he went was beginning to tell on him; and even if he behaved himself, he was not of the type wanted in the United States Army.

Bob’s mother and sister, who had awaited the verdict in terror, were too much relieved to sympathize with him; his position was likely to be exciting and hazardous enough, anyhow, they thought. Mrs. Gilbert was never seen to shed a tear, or heard to utter a word in opposition; but she used to follow him to the door whenever he left the house, and watch him every step of the road, if he went no farther than the corner or across the street. When he was at home, she would be forever visiting his room on slight errands, even slipping in like a small, gentle, noiseless ghost at any hour of the night, to look at him while he slept, as she had when he was a little boy in his crib, years ago. All the things he liked to eat were constantly on the table; and the mother even went so far as to rout out a photograph of Paula Jameson in a striking pose, like a variety actress, a photograph that Mrs. Gilbert cordially detested, and restore it to the place on Bob’s bureau whence she had removed it in a temper six months before. ‘I want him to remember everything pleasantly,’ she said to Lorrie.

Robert himself was quite unconscious or unobservant of these efforts, though he was kind after his fashion. ‘Don’t you worry, Moms, correspondents never get hurt. They don’t have to stand up to be fired at, you know—they can run like rabbits, when they get scared, and nobody blames ’em,’ he said, in a laughing but sincere attempt to reassure her. ‘There’s no Roman soldier, nor boystood - on-the - burning-deck about me. I’ll bet the first volley I hear I’11 establish a new world’s record for the running high jump. I’ll land somewhere in the next, county, and I won’t get back till New Year’s!’

‘No, you won’t, run, Bob; you’d never run away in the wide world!’ cried his mother, flushing all over her pretty, faded face; and though she joined in the laugh against herself, the flush remained. The Virginia woman remembered the Shenandoah and the guns of Chancellorsville. It was with faces of resolute calm that she and his sister kissed the young man good-by the morning he started for Tampa and ‘the front’; his father wrung his hand; the little boys of the neighborhood hung around, and scrabbled for the honor of carrying his suit-case; Mrs. Gilbert watched him down the street for the last time; and he swung on to the rear platform of the trolley-car, and his figure lessened in the distance, waving his new Panama hat. Down at the Louisville and Nashville station, here was Van Cleve Kendrick, that stoic and cynic and temperance lecturer, with a box of cigars and some kind of wonderful confection in leather and nickel-plate, combining a knife, fork, spoon, cup, flask, and goodness knows what else, for camp use! He thrust the gifts confusedly upon Bob while they bade each other good-by. — ‘Well, so long, Van!’ — ‘Here’s luck, Bob!’ — It was a simple ceremony.

The train-shed was crowded with a great rush of arriving and departing travelers, not a few military-looking gentlemen with military-looking luggage among them, for these were wartimes. On Bob’s own train, there were a score of newspaper men bent on similar business—jolly fellows all; his kind, gay, boyish face shone on Van Cleve from the midst of them; the train pulled out; and Van walked off to the office, perhaps envying them a little.

In the meanwhile, Lorrie’s Mr. Cortwright got his appointment, according to his confident expectation, and came back to her in high spirits. He had seen and had interviews with the President and the Secretary of War; he was to ‘report for duty’ at such and such a place, on such and such a date; he was planning his baggage; he had his photograph taken in uniform for Lorrie; the girls used to see it standing on her dressing-table, looking more than ever reckless and handsome, and said to one another that it was a pity he had n’t always been in the army, it seemed to suit him so well somehow, he appeared to so much advantage as a military man. Some of her friends may have even envied Lorrie her romantic position; and, in truth, I am not sure that, in spite of her miserable moments of apprehension for him, these last few weeks may not have been the happiest Lorrie had ever spent with her lover.

He had never been so devoted, so thoughtful and tender; and when the dreaded time of parting came, spoke to her in a fashion that became him well, gravely and manfully. ‘You’re a deal too good for me, my dear: it makes me ashamed to see you care so much,’ he said, with real humility; the depth of her feeling, for the first time revealed, surprised and touched and a little awed Philip. ‘I — I almost wish you did n’t care so much, ’ he stammered nervously; and he did not offer to kiss her neck now, but, instead, took her hand and laid it against his lips with something like reverence. ‘I wish — I wish—!’ He was silent, looking down in a swift, passing, useless pain and shame and regret. After all, he told himself, he was n’t much worse than the next man

— men could n’t help some things — and anyhow that life was all over and done with forever for him now — no use bewailing the spilled milk — the thing was to live straight from this on, and be worthy of this splendid girl. Lorrie and he would be married — they would have children —! He kissed her and held her close in honest pride and tenderness.

‘I’m not going to be silly any more — I did n’t mean to be silly at alt — only I c-could n’t quite help it,’ said Lorrie, bravely, swallowing the rest of her sobs, and raising her head from his shoulder. ‘And you may not be in any battles, anyway! ’ she added, so naïvely hopeful that Cortwright laughed aloud.

‘That’s right, little woman. I’m going to come back all right,’ he said gayly; ‘but when it’s over, I believe I’ll stay in the army; I could get into the regulars, I think. A lot of the volunteer officers did after the Civil War, did n’t they? I’ll stay in the army and end up a major-general. That’ll be better than pegging along with old Leo Hirsch, hey? Give me one more kiss, Mrs. Major-General!’

He went off buoyantly, with his head up and a free step, in his familiar, carelessly graceful style; and Lorrie, standing on the steps, looked after him, strained her eyes after him, as every woman has looked and strained her eyes some time in her life after some man since this world began its journey through the stars. It happened to be a Sunday morning, the first of May, very leafy, green, fresh, and warm; people were coming home from church, and children skipping on the pavements. Lorrie thought she would remember it to her last hour.

(To he continued.)