The Clarion

CHAPTER XVIII

MIL­LY

All Hal's days now seemed filled with Pierce. Pierce's friends, de­pen­dents, em­ploy­ees, as­so­ciates wrote in, de­nounc­ing the “Clar­ion,” can­cel­ing sub­scrip­tions, with­draw­ing ad­ver­tise­ments. Pierce's club, the Huron, com­pelled the aban­don­ment of Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine's can­di­da­cy. Pierce's cler­gy­man be­wailed the low and vin­dic­tive tone of mod­ern jour­nal­ism. The Pierce news­pa­pers kept ha­rass­ing the “Clar­ion”; the Pierce banks evinced their fi­nan­cial dis­ap­proval; the Pierce lawyers dili­gent­ly sought new caus­es of of­fense against the foe; while Pierce's may­or per­se­cut­ed the news­pa­per of­fice with fur­ther pet­ty en­force­ments and ex­ac­tions. Pierce's daugh­ter, how­ev­er, fled the town. With her went Miss Es­mé El­liot. Ac­cord­ing to the so­ci­ety columns, in­clud­ing that of the “Clar­ion,” they were bound for a rest­ful voy­age on the Pierce yacht.

From time to time Ed­itor Sur­taine re­tal­iat­ed up­on the foe, em­ploy­ing the news of the slow progress of Miss Cleary, the nurse, to main­tain in­ter­est in the top­ic. Protests in­vari­ably fol­lowed, some­times from sources which puz­zled the “Clar­ion.” One of the protes­tants was Hugh Mer­ritt, the young health of­fi­cer of the city, who ex­pressed his views to McGuire El­lis one day.

“No,” El­lis re­port­ed to his em­ploy­er, on the in­ter­view, “he didn't ex­act­ly ask that we let up en­tire­ly. But he seemed to think we were go­ing too strong. I couldn't quite get his rea­sons, ex­cept that he thought it was a ter­ri­ble thing for the Pierce girl, and she so young. Queer thing from Mer­ritt. They don't make 'em any straighter than he is.”

Alone of the lot of protests, that of Mrs. Fes­tus Willard gained a re­sponse from Hal.

“You're treat­ing her very harsh­ly, Hal.”

“We're giv­ing the facts, La­dy Jin­ny.”

“_Are_ they the facts? _All_ the facts?”

“So far as hu­man eyes could see them.”

“Men's eyes don't see very far where a wom­an is con­cerned. She's very young and head­strong, and, Hal, she hasn't had much chance, you know. She's Elias Pierce's daugh­ter.”

“Thus hav­ing ev­ery chance, one would sup­pose.”

“Ev­ery chance of hav­ing ev­ery­thing. Very lit­tle chance of be­ing any­thing.”

There was a pause. Then: “Very well, Hal, I know I can trust you to do what you be­lieve right, at least. That's a good deal. Fes­tus tells me to let you alone. He says that you must fight your own fight in your own way. That's the whole prin­ci­ple of sal­va­tion in Fes­tus's creed.”

“Not a bad one,” said Hal. “I'm not par­tic­ular­ly lik­ing to do this, you know, La­dy Jin­ny.”

“So I can un­der­stand. Have you heard any­thing from Es­mé El­liot since she left?”

“No.”

“You mustn't drop out of the set, Hal,” said the lit­tle wom­an anx­ious­ly. “You've made good so quick­ly. And our crowd doesn't take up with the first com­er, you know.”

Since Es­mé El­liot had passed out of his life, as he told him­self, Hal found no in­cen­tive to so­cial amuse­ments. Hence he scarce­ly no­ticed a slow but widen­ing os­tracism which shut him out from house af­ter house, un­der the pres­sure of the Pierce in­flu­ence. But Mrs. Fes­tus Willard had per­ceived and re­sent­ed it. That any one for whom she had stood spon­sor should fail so­cial­ly in Wor­thing­ton was both ir­ri­tat­ing and in­cred­ible to her. Hence she made more of Hal than she might oth­er­wise have found time to do, and he was much with her and Fes­tus Willard, de­riv­ing, on the one hand, recre­ation and amuse­ment from her sparkling _ca­ma­raderie_, and on the oth­er, sup­port and en­cour­age­ment from her hus­band's strong, out­spo­ken, and rugged­ly hon­est com­mon sense. Nei­ther of them ful­ly ap­proved of his at­tack on Kath­leen Pierce, whom they un­der­stood bet­ter than he did. But they both--and more par­tic­ular­ly Fes­tus Willard--ap­pre­ci­at­ed the courage and hon­or of the “Clar­ion's” new stan­dards.

Ex­cept for an oc­ca­sion­al din­ner at their house, and a more fre­quent hour late in the af­ter­noon or ear­ly in the evening, with one or both of them, Hal saw al­most noth­ing of the peo­ple in­to whose so­cial en­vi­ron­ment he had so read­ily slipped. Be­cause of his ex­clu­sion, there pros­pered the more nat­ural­ly a ca­su­al but swift­ly de­vel­op­ing in­ti­ma­cy which had sprung up be­tween him­self and Mil­ly Neal.

It be­gan with her com­ing to Hal for his coun­sel about her copy. From the first she as­sumed an at­ti­tude of un­ques­tion­ing con­fi­dence in his wis­dom and taste. This flat­tered the ped­agogue which is in­her­ent in all of us. He was wise enough to see prompt­ly that he must be del­icate­ly care­ful in his crit­icism, since here he was deal­ing out not opin­ion, but gospel. Poised and self-​con­fi­dent the girl was in her at­ti­tude to­ward her­self: the nat­ural con­se­quence of ear­ly suc­cess and re­spon­si­bil­ity. But about her writ­ing she ex­hib­it­ed an al­most mor­bid timid­ity lest it be thought “vul­gar” or “com­mon” by the ed­itor-​in-​chief; and once McGuire El­lis felt called up­on to warn Hal that he was “tak­ing all the gimp out of the 'Kit­ty the Cutie' stuff by try­ing to sewing-​cir­cu­lar­ize it.” Of lit­er­ature the girl knew scarce­ly any­thing; but she had an ea­ger am­bi­tion for bet­ter stan­dards, and one day asked Hal to ad­vise her in her read­ing.

Not with­out mis­giv­ings he tried her with Steven­son's “Vir­ginibus Puerisque” and was de­light­ed with the swift­ness and ea­ger­ness of her ap­pre­ci­ation. Then he in­tro­duced her by care­ful se­lec­tion to the po­ets, be­gin­ning with Ten­nyson, through Wordsworth, to Brown­ing, and thence to the gold­en-​voiced singers of the son­net, and all of it she drank in with a wist­ful and won­der­ing de­light. Soon her vis­its came to be of al­most dai­ly oc­cur­rence. She would dart in of an evening, to claim or re­turn a book, and sit perched on the cor­ner of the big work-​ta­ble, like a lit­tle, flash­ing, friend­ly bird; al­ways exquisite­ly neat, al­ways vivid­ly pret­ty and vivid­ly alive. Some­times the talk wan­dered from the sta­tus of in­struc­tor and in­struct­ed, and touched up­on the progress of the “Clar­ion,” the view which Mil­ly's lit­tle world took of it, pos­si­ble ways of mak­ing it more in­ter­est­ing to the wom­en read­ers to whom the “Cutie” col­umn was sup­posed to cater par­tic­ular­ly. More than once the more per­son­al note was touched, and the girl spoke of her com­ing to the Certi­na fac­to­ry, a raw slip of a coun­try crea­ture tied up in cal­ico, and of Dr. Sur­taine's kind­ness and watch­ful­ness over her.

“He want­ed to do well by me be­cause of the old man--my fa­ther, I mean,” she caught her­self up, blush­ing. “They knew each oth­er when I was a kid.”

“Where?” asked Hal.

“Oh, out east of here,” she an­swered eva­sive­ly.

Again she said to him once, “What I like about the 'Clar­ion' is that it's try­ing to do some­thing for _folks_. That's all the re­li­gion I could ev­er get in­to my head: that hu­man be­ings are most­ly worth treat­ing de­cent­ly. That counts for more than all your laws and rules and church reg­ula­tions. I don't like rules much,” she added, twin­kling up at him. “I al­ways want to kick 'em over, just as I al­ways want to break through the po­lice lines at a fire.”

“But rules and po­lice lines are nec­es­sary for keep­ing life or­der­ly,” said Hal.

“I sup­pose so. But I don't know that I like things too or­der­ly. My teach­er called me a law­less lit­tle de­mon, once, and I guess I still am. Sup­pose I should break all the rules of the of­fice? Would you fire me?” And be­fore he could an­swer she was up and had flashed away.

As the in­ti­ma­cy grew, Hal found him­self look­ing for­ward to these swift-​winged lit­tle vis­its. They made a wel­come break in the de­tailed drudgery; added to the day a glint of col­or, bright like the rip­ple of half-​hid­den flame that crowned Mil­ly's head. Once Velt­man, in­trud­ing on their talk, had glared black­ly and, with­draw­ing, had wait­ed for the girl in the hall­way out­side from whence, as she left, Hal could hear the fore­man's deep voice in anger and her clear replies taunt­ing­ly stim­ulat­ing his cha­grin.

Hav­ing ne­glect­ed the Willards for sev­er­al days, Hal re­ceived a tele­phone mes­sage, about a month af­ter Es­mé El­liot's de­par­ture, ask­ing him to stop in. He found Mrs. Willard wait­ing him in the con­ser­va­to­ry. His old friend looked up as he en­tered, with a smile which did not hide the trou­ble in her eyes.

“Aren't you a lily-​of-​the-​field!” ad­mired the vis­itor, con­tem­plat­ing her green and white cos­tume.

“It's the Vanes' dance. Not go­ing?”

“Not asked. Be­sides, I'm a work­ing­man these days.”

“So one might in­fer from your ne­glect of your friends. Hal, I've had a let­ter from Es­mé El­liot.”

“Any mes­sage?” he asked light­ly, but with star­tled blood.

There was no an­swer­ing light­ness in her tones. “Yes. One I hate to give. Hal, she's en­gaged her­self to Will Dou­glas. It must have been by let­ter, for she wasn't en­gaged when she left. 'Tell Hal Sur­taine' she says in her let­ter to me.”

“Thank you, La­dy Jin­ny,” said Hal.

The diminu­tive la­dy looked at him and then looked away, and sud­den­ly a righ­teous flush rose on her cheeks.

“I'm fond of Es­mé,” she de­clared. “One can't help but be. She com­pels it. But where men are con­cerned she seems to have no sense of her pow­er to hurt. I could _kill_ her for mak­ing me her mes­sen­ger. Hal, boy,” she rose, slip­ping an arm through his ca­ress­ing­ly, “I do hope you're not bad­ly hurt.”

“I'll get over it, La­dy Jin­ny. There's the job, you know.”

He start­ed for the of­fice. Then, abrupt­ly, as he went, “the job” seemed pur­pose­less. Un­re­al­ized, hope had still per­sist­ed in his heart--the hope that, by some pos­si­ble turn of cir­cum­stance, the shat­tered ide­al of Es­mé El­liot would be re­viv­ified. The blight­ing of his love for her had been no more bit­ter, per­haps less so, than the re­al­iza­tion which she had com­pelled in him of her light­ness and un­wor­thi­ness. Still, he had want­ed her, longed for her, hoped for her. Now that hope was gone. There seemed noth­ing left to work for, no ad­equate good be­yond the striv­ing. He looked with dulled vi­sion out up­on blank days. With a sud­den weak­en­ing of fiber he turned in­to a ho­tel and tele­phoned McGuire El­lis that he wouldn't be at the of­fice that evening. To the oth­er's anx­ious query was he ill, he replied that he was tired out and was go­ing home to bed.

Mean­time, far across the map at a fa­mous Flori­da hostel­ry, the Great Amer­ican Pumess, in the first flush and pride of her en­gage­ment which all com­men­ta­tors agree up­on as char­ac­ter­is­tic of maid­en­hood's vi­tal res­olu­tion, lay curled up in a lit­tle fluffy coil of mis­ery and tears, re­peat­ing be­tween sobs, “I hate him! I _hate_ him!” Mean­ing her _fi­ancé_, Mr. William Dou­glas, with whom her mind and emo­tions should prop­er­ly have been con­cerned? Not so, per­spi­ca­cious read­er. Mean­ing Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine.

Up­on _his_ small por­tion of the map, that gen­tle­man wooed sleep in vain for hours. Present­ly he arose from his tossed bed, dressed qui­et­ly, slipped out of the big door and walked with long, swing­ing steps down to the “Clar­ion” Build­ing. There it stood, a plexus of en­er­gies, in the midst of dark­ness and sleep. Eye-​like, its win­dows peered vig­ilant­ly out in­to the city. A door opened to emit a voice that bawled across the way some pro­fane de­mand for haste in the de­liv­ery of “that grub”; and through the shaft of light Hal could see brisk fig­ures mov­ing, and hear the roar and thrill of the press seal­ing its ir­re­vo­ca­ble mes­sage.

Again he felt, with a pride so pro­found that its roots struck down in­to the depths of hu­mil­ity, his own re­spon­si­bil­ity to all that strain­ing life and en­er­gy and en­deav­or. He, the small atom, alone in the night, _was_ the “Clar­ion.” Those men, the fight­ing fel­low­ship of the of­fice, were rush­ing and toil­ing and co­or­di­nat­ing their pow­ers to car­ry out some ide­al still dim­ly in­choate in his brain. What mat­tered his lit­tle pangs? There was a man's test to meet, and the man with­in him stretched spir­itu­al mus­cles for the tri­al.

“If I could on­ly be sure what's right,” he said with­in him­self, voic­ing the doubt of ev­ery high-​mind­ed ad­ven­tur­er up­on un­beat­en paths. Sharply, and, as it seemed to him, in­con­gru­ous­ly, he won­dered that he had nev­er learned to pray; not know­ing that, in the un­fin­ished phrase he had ut­tered true prayer. A chill breeze swept down up­on him. Look­ing up in­to the jew­eled heav­ens he re­called from the far dis­tance of mem­ory, the prayer of a great and sim­ple soul,--

“Make thou my spir­it pure and clear As are the frosty skies.”

Hal set out for home, ready now for a few hours' sleep. At a blind cor­ner he all but col­lid­ed with a man and a wom­an, walk­ing at high speed. The wom­an half turned, fling­ing him a quick and sil­very “Good-​evening.” It was Mil­ly Neal. The man with her was Max Velt­man.