The Clarion

CHAPTER VIII

A PART­NER­SHIP

All the ad­jec­tives in the so­cial reg­is­ter were ex­haust­ed by the dai­ly pa­pers in de­scrib­ing Mrs. Fes­tus Willard's dance. With­out fol­low­ing them in­to that ver­bal bor­der­land where­in “recher­ché” vies with “ex­clu­sive,” and “chic” dis­putes prece­dence with “dis­tin­gué,” it is suf­fi­cient for the pur­pos­es of this nar­ra­tive to chron­icle the fact that the pick of Wor­thing­ton so­ci­ety was there, and not much else. Al­so, if I may bor­row from the So­ci­ety Ed­itor's con­ve­nient phrase-​book, “Among those present” was Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine.

For rea­sons con­nect­ed with his new ven­ture, Hal had come late. He was stand­ing near the door­way won­der­ing by what path to at­tain to an uniden­ti­fied host­ess, when Miss Es­mé El­liot, at the mo­ment en­gaged with that very host­ess on some mat­ter of fem­inine strat­egy with which we have no con­cern, spied him.

“Who is the young Greek godling, hope­less­ly lost in the im­pen­etra­ble depths of your draw­ing-​room?” she pro­pound­ed sud­den­ly.

“Who? What? Where?” queried Mrs. Willard, thus abrupt­ly re­called to her du­ties.

“Yon­der by the door­way, look­ing as if he didn't know a soul.”

“It's some stranger,” said the host­ess, try­ing to peer around an in­ter­ven­ing palm. “I must go and speak to him.”

“Wait. Fes­tus has got him.”

For the host, a pow­er­ful, high-​col­ored man in his ear­ly for­ties, with a slight limp, had no­ticed the new­com­er and was now in­tro­duc­ing him­self. Miss El­liot watched the pro­cess with in­ter­est.

“Jin­ny,” she an­nounced present­ly, “I want that to play with.”

The stranger turned a lit­tle, so that his full face was shown. “It's Hal Sur­taine!” ex­claimed Mrs. Willard.

“I don't care who it is. It looks nice. Please, mayn't I have it to play with?”

“Will you promise not to break it? It used to be a par­tic­ular pet of mine.”

“When?”

“Oh, years ago. When you were in your cra­dle.”

“Where?”

“On the St. Lawrence. Sev­er­al sum­mers. He was my boy-​knight, and chap­er­on, and pro­tec­tor. Such a dear, chival­rous boy!”

“Was he in love with you?” de­mand­ed Miss El­liot with live­ly in­ter­est.

“Of course he wasn't. He was a boy of fif­teen, and I a ma­ture young wom­an of twen­ty-​one.”

“He _was_ in love with you,” ac­cused the girl, not­ing a bright­ness in her friend's col­or.

“There was a sort of knight­ly de­vo­tion,” ad­mit­ted the oth­er de­mure­ly. “There al­ways is, isn't there, in a boy of that age, for a wom­an years old­er?”

“And you didn't know him at first?”

“It's ten years since I've set eyes on him. He doesn't even know that I am the Mrs. Fes­tus Willard who is giv­ing this par­ty.”

“Fes­tus is look­ing around for you. They'll be over here in a minute. No! Don't get up yet. I want you to do some­thing for me.”

“What is it, Nor­rie?”

“I'm not go­ing to feel well, about sup­per-​time.”

“Why not?”

“Would _you_ feel well if you'd been in to din­ner three times in the last week with Will Dou­glas, and then had to go in to sup­per with him, too?”

“But I thought you and Will--”

“I'm tired of hav­ing peo­ple think,” said Miss El­liot plain­tive­ly. “Too much Dou­glas! Yes; I shall be quite in­dis­posed, about one dance be­fore sup­per.”

“I'll send you home.”

“No, you won't, Jin­ny, dear. Be­cause I shall sud­den­ly re­cov­er, about two min­utes be­fore the oys­ters ar­rive.”

“Nor­rie!”

“Tru­ly I shall. Quite mirac­ulous­ly. And you're to see that the young Greek godling doesn't get any oth­er part­ner for sup­per--”

“Es­mé!!”

“--be­cause I'm sure he'd rather have me,” she con­clud­ed su­perbly.

“Eleanor Stan­ley Maxwell El­liot!”

“Oh, you may call me _all_ my names. I'm ac­cus­tomed to abuse from you. But you'll ar­range it, _dear_ Jin­ny, won't you!”

“Did you ev­er fail of any­thing when you put on that wheedling face and tone?”

“Nev­er,” said Miss El­liot with com­po­sure, but giv­ing her friend a lit­tle hug. “Here they come. I fly. Bring him to me lat­er.”

Pi­lot­ed by Fes­tus Willard, Hal crossed the floor, and be­held, mov­ing to meet him with out­stretched hands, a lit­tle wom­an with an elfin face and the smile of a hap­py child.

“Have you for­got­ten me, Hal?”

“La­dy Jean­nette!” he cried, the old boy­hood name spring­ing to his lips. “What are you do­ing here?”

“Didn't Fes­tus tell you?” She looked fond­ly up at her big hus­band. “I didn't know that the sur­prise would last up to the fi­nal mo­ment.”

“It's the very best sur­prise that has hap­pened to me in Wor­thing­ton,” de­clared Hal em­phat­ical­ly.

“We're quite pre­pared to adopt you, Sur­taine,” said Willard pleas­ant­ly. “Jin­ny has nev­er ceased to won­der why she heard noth­ing from you in re­ply to her note telling of our en­gage­ment.”

“Nev­er got it,” said Hal prompt­ly. “And I've won­dered why she dropped me so un­ac­count­ably. It's rather luck for me, you know,” he added, smil­ing, “to find friends ready-​made in a strange town.”

“Oh, you'll make friends enough,” de­clared Mrs. Willard. “The present mat­ter is to make ac­quain­tances. Come and dance this dance out with me and then I'll take you about and in­tro­duce you. Are you as good a dancer as you used to be?”

Hal was, and some­thing more. And in his host­ess he had one of the best part­ners in Wor­thing­ton. Clev­er­ly she had judged that the “Boston” with her, if he were pro­fi­cient, would be the strongest rec­om­men­da­tion to the buds of the place. And, in­deed, be­fore they had gone twice about the floor, many cu­ri­ous and in­ter­est­ed eyes were turned up­on them. Not the least in­ter­est­ed were those of Miss El­liot, who pri­vate­ly de­cid­ed, over a full and over­flow­ing pro­gramme, that she would ad­vance her re­cov­ery to one dance be­fore the sup­per an­nounce­ment.

“You're go­ing to be a so­cial suc­cess, Hal,” whis­pered his part­ner. “I feel it. And _where_ did you learn that de­light­ful swing af­ter the dip?”

“Picked it up on ship­board. But I shan't have much time for gayeties. You see, I've be­come a work­ing­man.”

“Tell me about it to-​mor­row. You're to dine with us; quite _en famille_. You _must_ like Fes­tus, Hal.”

“I should think that would be easy.”

“It is. He is just the finest, clean­est, straight­est hu­man be­ing in the world,” she said sober­ly. “Now, come away and meet a mil­lion peo­ple.”

So late was it that most of the girls had no va­can­cies on their pro­grammes. But Jean­nette Willard was both a diplo­mat and a bit of a despot, so­cial­ly, and sev­er­al of the young el­igi­bles re­lin­quished, with sur­pris­ing­ly good grace, so Hal felt, their part­ners, in fa­vor of the new­com­er. He did not then know the tra­di­tion of Wor­thing­ton's best set, that hos­pi­tal­ity to a stranger well vouched for should be the com­mon con­cern of all. Very pleas­ant and warm­ing he found this at­mo­sphere, af­ter his years abroad, with its hap­py, well-​bred frank­ness, its open com­rade­ship, and ob­vi­ous, “first-​name” in­ti­ma­cies. But though ev­ery one he met seemed ready to ex­tend to him, as a friend of the Willards, a ready wel­come, he could not but feel him­self an out­sider, and at the con­clu­sion of a dance he drew back in­to a side pas­sage, to watch for a time.

Borne on a draught of air from some in­vis­ibly open­ing door be­hind him there came to his nos­trils the fairy-​spice of the ar­bu­tus-​scent. He turned quick­ly, and saw her al­most at his shoul­der, the girl of the lus­trous face. Be­hind her was Fes­tus Willard.

“Ah, there you are, Sur­taine,” he said. “I've been look­ing for you to present you to Miss El­liot. Es­mé, this is Mr. Har­ring­ton Sur­taine.”

She nei­ther bowed nor moved in ac­knowl­edg­ment of Hal's greet­ing, but looked at him with still, ques­tion­ing eyes. The springtide hue of the wild flow­er at her breast was matched in her cheek. Her head was held high, bring­ing out the pure and love­ly line of chin and throat. To Hal it seemed that he had nev­er seen any­thing so beau­ti­ful and de­sir­able.

“Is it a bet?” Fes­tus Willard's qui­et voice was full of amuse­ment. “Have you laid a wa­ger as to which will keep silent longest?”

At this, Hal re­cov­ered him­self, though stum­bling­ly.

“'Fain would I speak,'” he para­phrased, “'but that I fear to--to--to--'”

“Stut­ter,” sug­gest­ed Willard, with so­lic­itous help­ful­ness. The girl broke in­to a lit­tle trill of mirth, too liq­uid for laugh­ter; be­ing rather the sound of a brook­let chuck­ling mu­si­cal­ly over its pri­vate delec­ta­tions.

“If I could have a dance with you,” sug­gest­ed Hal, “I'm sure it would help my apha­sia.”

“I'm afraid,” she be­gan du­bi­ous­ly, “that--No; here's one just be­fore sup­per. If you haven't that--”

“No: I haven't,” said Hal hasti­ly. “It's aw­ful­ly good of you--and lucky for me.”

“I'll be with Mrs. Willard,” said the girl, nod­ding him a cheer­ful farewell.

Just what or who his part­ners for the next few dances were, Hal could not by any ef­fort re­call the next day. He was con­scious, on the floor, on­ly of an oc­ca­sion­al glimpse of her, a fugi­tive sa­vor of the wild­wood fra­grance, and then she had dis­ap­peared.

Lat­er, as he re­turned from a talk with Fes­tus Willard out­side, he be­came aware of the chal­lenge of deep-​hued, vel­vety eyes, re­gard­ing him with a some­what petu­lant ex­pres­sion, and rec­og­nized his ac­quain­tance of the mo­tor car and the rail­road ter­mi­nal.

“You'd for­got­ten me,” ac­cused Miss Kath­leen Pierce, pout­ing, as he came to greet her.

Hal's dis­claimer had suf­fi­cient diplo­mat­ic warmth to ban­ish her dis­plea­sure. She in­tro­duced to him as Dr. Mer­ritt a strik­ing-​look­ing, gray-​haired young man, who had come up at the same time with an an­tic­ipa­to­ry ex­pres­sion. This prompt­ly van­ished when she said offhand­ed­ly to him:

“You've had three dances with me al­ready, Hugh. I'm go­ing to give this one to Mr. Sur­taine if he wants it.”

“Of course I want it,” said Hal.

“Not that you de­serve it,” she went on. “You should have come around ear­li­er. I'm not in the habit of giv­ing dances this late in the evening.”

“How could I break through the sol­id pha­lanx of sup­pli­cat­ing ad­mir­ers?”

“At least, you might have tried. I want to try that new step I saw you do­ing with Mrs. Willard. And I al­ways get what I want.”

“Un­for­tu­nate young la­dy!”

“Why un­for­tu­nate?”

“To have noth­ing seem unattain­able. Life must pall on you ter­ri­bly.”

“In­deed, it doesn't. I like be­ing a spoiled child, don't you? Don't you think it's fun hav­ing ev­ery­thing you want to buy, and hav­ing a lead­ing cit­izen for a fa­ther?”

“Is your fa­ther a lead­ing cit­izen?” asked Hal, amused.

“Of course. So's yours. Nei­ther of them quite knows which is the most lead­ing. Dr. Sur­taine is the most pop­ular, but I sup­pose Pop is the most in­flu­en­tial. Be­tween the two of them they pret­ty much run this lit­tle old burg. Of course,” she added with care­less in­so­lence, "Pop has got it all over Dr. Sur­taine so­cial­ly.

“I humbly feel that I am ad­dress­ing lo­cal roy­al­ty,” said Hal, smil­ing sar­don­ical­ly.

“Who? Me? Oh, I'm on­ly the ir­re­spon­si­ble child of wealth and pow­er. Dr. Mer­ritt called me that once--be­fore I got him tamed.” Turn­ing to look at the gray young man who stood not far off, and not­ing the qui­et force and com­pe­tence of the face, Hal haz­ard­ed a guess to him­self that the very frank young bar­bar­ian with whom he was talk­ing was none too mod­est in her es­ti­mate of her own ca­pac­ities. “Mrs. Willard is our lo­cal queen,” she con­tin­ued. “And Es­mé El­liot is the princess. Have you met Es­mé yet?”

“Yes.”

“Then, of course, no­body else has a chance--so long as you're the newest toy. Still, you might find a spare hour be­tween-​times to come and call on us. Come on; let's dance.”

“Pert” was the mildest term to which Hal re­duced his char­ac­ter­iza­tion of Miss Pierce, by the time the one-​step end­ed. Nev­er­the­less, he ad­mit­ted to him­self that he had been amused. His one chief con­cern now, how­ev­er, was the en­gage­ment with Miss El­liot.

When fi­nal­ly his num­ber came around, he found her calm­ly ex­plain­ing to a well-​fa­vored young fel­low with a pained ex­pres­sion that he must have made a mis­take about the num­ber, while Mrs. Willard re­gard­ed her with min­gled amuse­ment and dis­fa­vor.

“Don't ex­pect me to dance,” she said as Hal ap­proached. “I've twist­ed my foot.”

“I'm sor­ry,” said he blankly.

“Let's find a qui­et place where we can sit. And then you may get me some sup­per.”

His face light­ed up. Es­mé El­liot re­marked to her­self that she had sel­dom seen a more pleas­ing spec­imen of the youth of the species.

“This is rather like a fairy-​gift,” he be­gan ea­ger­ly, as they made their way to a nook un­der the stair­way, spe­cial­ly adapt­ed to two peo­ple of her­mit tastes. “I shouldn't have dared to ex­pect such good for­tune.”

“You'll find me quite a fairy-​god­moth­er if you're good. Be­sides,” she added with calm au­dac­ity, “I want­ed you to my­self.”

“Why?” he asked, amused and in­trigued.

“Cu­rios­ity. My be­set­ting sin. You're a phe­nomenon.”

“An am­bigu­ous term. It may mean mere­ly a freak.”

“A new young man in Wor­thing­ton,” she in­formed him, “is a phe­nomenon, a so­cial phe­nomenon. Of course he may be a freak, al­so,” she added ju­di­cial­ly.

“New­ness is a charm that soon wears off.”

“Then you're go­ing to set­tle down here?”

“Yes. I've joined the la­bor­ing class­es.”

“What kind of la­bor?”

“Jour­nal­ism. I've just start­ed in, to-​day.”

“Re­al­ly! Which pa­per?”

“The 'Clar­ion.'”

Her ex­pres­sive face changed. “Oh,” she said, a lit­tle blankly.

“You don't like the 'Clar­ion'?”

“I al­most nev­er see it. So I don't know. And you're go­ing to be­gin at the bot­tom? That's quite brave of you.”

“No; I'm go­ing to be­gin at the top. That's braver. Any­way, it's more reck­less. I've bought the pa­per.”

“Have you! I hadn't heard of it.”

“No­body's heard of it yet. No out­sider. You're the first.”

“How de­light­ful!” She leaned clos­er and looked in­to his face with shin­ing eyes. “Tell me more. What are you go­ing to do with it?”

“Learn some­thing about it, first.”

“It's rather yel­low, isn't it?”

“Putting it mild­ly, yes. That's one of the things I want to change.”

“Oh, I wish I owned a news­pa­per!”

“Do you? Why?”

“For the pow­er of it. To say what you please and make thou­sands lis­ten.” The pink in her cheeks deep­ened. “There's noth­ing in the world like the thrill of that sense of pow­er. It's the one rea­son why I'd be al­most will­ing to be a man.”

“Per­haps you wouldn't need to be. Couldn't you ex­ert the pow­er with­out ac­tu­al­ly own­ing the news­pa­per?”

“How?”

“By ex­er­cis­ing your po­tent in­flu­ence up­on the oblig­ing pro­pri­etor,” he sug­gest­ed smil­ing.

There came a danc­ing light in her eyes. “Do you think I'd make a good God­dess-​Out­side-​the-​Ma­chine, to the 'Dai­ly Clar­ion'?”

“Charm­ing! For a two-​cent stamp--no, for a spray of your ar­bu­tus, I'll sell you an ed­ito­ri­al sphere of in­flu­ence.”

“Gen­er­ous!” she cried. “What would my du­ties be?”

“To ad­vise the ed­itor and pro­pri­etor on all pos­si­ble points,” he laughed.

“And my priv­ileges?”

“The right of a queen over a slave.”

“We move fast,” she said. Her fin­gers went to the clus­ter of del­icate-​hued bells in her bodice. But it was a false ges­ture. Es­mé El­liot was far too prac­ticed in her cho­sen game to com­pro­mise her­self to com­ment by al­low­ing a man whom she had just met to dis­play her fa­vor in his coat.

“Am I to have my price?” His voice was ea­ger now. She looked very love­ly and child­like, with her head droop­ing, con­sid­er­ing­ly, above the flow­ers.

“Give me a lit­tle time,” she said. “To un­der­take a part­ner­ship on five min­utes' no­tice--that isn't busi­ness, is it?”

“Nor is this--whol­ly,” he said, quite low.

Es­mé straight­ened up. “I'm starved,” she said light­ly. “Are you not go­ing to get me any sup­per?”

Af­ter his re­turn she held the talk to more im­per­son­al top­ics, ad­vis­ing him, with an adorable as­sump­tion of pro­tec­tive­ness, whom he was to meet and dance with, and what men were best worth his while. At part­ing, she gave him her hand.

“I will let you know,” she said, “about the--the sphere of in­flu­ence.”

Hal danced sev­er­al more num­bers, with more po­lite­ness than en­joy­ment, then sought out his host­ess to say good-​night.

“I'll see you to-​mor­row, then,” she said: “and you shall tell me all your news.”

“You're aw­ful­ly good to me, La­dy Jean­nette,” said he grate­ful­ly. “With­out you I'd be a lost soul in this town.”

“Most peo­ple are good to you, I fan­cy, Hal,” said she, look­ing him over with ap­proval. “As for be­ing a lost soul, you don't look it. In fact you look like a very well-​found soul, in­deed.”

“It _is_ rather a cheer­ful world to live in,” said Hal with ap­par­ent ir­rel­evance.

“I hope they haven't spoiled you,” she said anx­ious­ly. “Are you vain, Hal? No: you don't look it.”

“What on earth should I be vain about? I've nev­er done any­thing in the world.”

“No? Yet you've im­proved. You've so­lid­ified. What have you been do­ing to your­self? Not falling in love?”

“Not that, cer­tain­ly,” he replied, smil­ing. “Noth­ing much but trav­el­ing.”

“How did you like Es­mé El­liot?” she asked abrupt­ly.

“Quite at­trac­tive,” said Hal in a flat tone.

“Quite at­trac­tive, in­deed!” re­peat­ed his friend in­dig­nant­ly. “In all your trav­el­ings, I don't be­lieve you've ev­er seen any one else half as love­ly and lov­able.”

“Lo­cal pride car­ries you far, La­dy Jean­nette,” laughed Hal.

“And I _had_ in­tend­ed to have her here to dine to-​mor­row; but as you're so in­dif­fer­ent--”

“Oh, don't leave her out on my ac­count,” said Hal mag­nan­imous­ly.

“I be­lieve you're more than half in love with her al­ready.”

“Well, you ought to be a good judge un­less you've whol­ly for­got­ten the old days,” re­tort­ed Hal au­da­cious­ly.

Jean­nette Willard laughed up at him. “Don't try to flirt with a mid­dle-​aged la­dy who is most old-​fash­ioned­ly in love with her hus­band,” she ad­vised. “Keep your bra­vo speech­es for Es­mé! She's used to them.”

“Rather goes in for that sort of thing, doesn't she?”

“You mean flir­ta­tion? Some­one's been talk­ing to you about her,” said Mrs. Willard quick­ly. “What did they say?”

“Noth­ing in par­tic­ular. I just gath­ered the im­pres­sion.”

“Don't jump to any con­clu­sions about Es­mé,” ad­vised his friend. “Most men think her a des­per­ate flirt. She does like at­ten­tion and ad­mi­ra­tion. What wom­an doesn't? And Es­mé is very much a wom­an.”

“Ev­ident­ly!”

“If she seems heart­less, it's be­cause she doesn't un­der­stand. She en­joys her own pow­er with­out com­pre­hend­ing it. Es­mé has nev­er been re­al­ly in­ter­est­ed in any man. If she had ev­er been hurt, her­self, she would be more care­ful about hurt­ing oth­ers. Yet the very men who have been hard­est hit re­main her loy­al friends.”

“A trib­ute to her strat­egy.”

“A fin­er qual­ity than that. It is her own loy­al­ty, I think, that makes oth­ers loy­al to her. But the men here aren't up to her stan­dard. She is com­plex, and she is am­bi­tious, with­out know­ing it. Fine and clean as our Wor­thing­ton boys are, there isn't one of them who could ap­peal to the imag­ina­tion and ide­al­ism of a girl like Es­mé El­liot. For Es­mé, un­der all that light­ness, is an ide­al­ist; the ide­al­ist who hasn't found her ide­al.”

“And there­fore hasn't found her­self.”

She flashed a glance of in­quiry and ap­praisal at him. “That's rather sub­tle of you,” she said. “I hope you don't know _too_ much about wom­en, Hal.”

“Not I! Just a shot in the dark.”

“I said there wasn't a man here up to her stan­dard. That isn't quite true. There is one,--you met him to-​night,--but he has trou­bles of his own, else­where,” she added, smil­ing. “I had hoped--but there has al­ways been a friend­ship too strong for the oth­er kind of sen­ti­ment be­tween him and Es­mé.”

“For a guess, that might be Dr. Mer­ritt,” said Hal.

“How did you know?” she cried.

“I didn't. On­ly, he seems, at a glance, dif­fer­ent and of a broad­er gauge than the oth­ers.”

“You're a judge of men, at least. As for Es­mé, I sup­pose she'll mar­ry some man much old­er than her­self. Heav­en grant he's the right one! For when she gives, she will give roy­al­ly, and if the man does not meet her on her own plane--well, there will be tragedy enough for two!”

“Deep wa­ters,” said Hal. The talk had changed to a graver tone.

“Deep and dan­ger­ous. Ship­wreck for the wrong ad­ven­tur­er. But El Do­ra­do for the right. Such a gold­en El Do­ra­do, Hal! The man I want for Es­mé El­liot must have in him some­thing of wom­an for un­der­stand­ing, and some­thing of ge­nius for guid­ance, and, I'm afraid, some­thing of the an­gel for pa­tience, and he must be, with all this, whol­ly a man.”

“A pret­ty large or­der, La­dy Jean­nette. Well, I've had my warn­ing. Good-​night.”

“Per­haps it wasn't so much warn­ing as coun­sel,” she re­turned, a lit­tle wist­ful­ly. “How poor Es­mé's ears must be burn­ing. There she goes now. What a pic­ture! Come ear­ly to-​mor­row.”

Hal's last im­pres­sion of the ball­room, as he turned away, was summed up in one glance from Es­mé El­liot's lus­trous eyes, as they met his across her part­ner's shoul­der, smil­ing him a farewell and a re­mem­brance of their friend­ly pact.

“Hon­ey-​Jin­ny,” said Mrs. Willard's hus­band, af­ter the last guest had gone; “I don't un­der­stand about young Sur­taine. Where did he get it?”

“Get what, dear? One might sup­pose he was a cor­rupt politi­cian.”

“One might sup­pose he might be any­thing crooked or wrong, know­ing his old, black quack of a fa­ther. But he seems to be clean stuff all through. He looks it. He acts it. He car­ries him­self like it. And he talks it. I had a lit­tle con­fab with him out in the smok­ing-​room, and I tell you, Jin­ny-​wife, I be­lieve he's a re­al young­ster.”

“Well, he had a moth­er, you know.”

“Did he? What about her?”

“She was an old friend of my moth­er's. Dr. Sur­taine eloped with her out of her fa­ther's coun­try place in Mid­vale. He was an itin­er­ant ped­dler of some cure-​all then. She was a gen­tly born and bred girl, but a mere child, un­world­ly and very ro­man­tic, and she was car­ried away by the man's per­son­al beau­ty and mag­netism.”

“I can't imag­ine it in a girl of any sort of fam­ily.”

“Moth­er has told me that he had a per­son­al force that was al­most hyp­not­ic. There must have been some­thing else to him, too, for they say that Hal's moth­er died, as des­per­ate­ly in love as she had been when she ran away with him, and that he was al­most crushed by her loss and nev­er whol­ly got over it. He trans­ferred his de­vo­tion to the child, who was on­ly three years old when the moth­er died. When Hal was a mere child my moth­er saw him once tak­ing in dol­lars at a coun­try fair booth,--just think of it, dear­est,--and she said he was the pic­ture of his girl-​moth­er then. Lat­er, when Pro­fes­sor Cer­tain, as he called him­self then, got rich, he gave Hal the best of ed­uca­tion. But he nev­er let him have any­thing to do with the Eller­sleys--that was Mrs. Sur­taine's name. All the fam­ily are dead now.”

“Well, there must be some good in the old boy,” ad­mit­ted Willard. “But I don't hap­pen to like him. I do like the boy. Blood does tell, Jin­ny. But if he's re­al­ly as much of an Eller­sley as he looks, there's a bit­ter en­light­en­ment be­fore him when he comes to see Dr. Sur­taine as he re­al­ly is.”

Mean­time Hal, home at a rea­son­able hour, in the in­ter­est of his new pro­fes­sion, had tak­en with him the pleas­an­test im­pres­sions of the Willards' hos­pi­tal­ity. He slept sound­ly and awoke in buoy­ant spir­its for the dawn­ing en­ter­prise. On the break­fast ta­ble he found, in front of his plate, a bunchy en­ve­lope ad­dressed in a small, strong, un­fa­mil­iar hand. With­in was no writ­ten word; on­ly a spray of the trail­ing ar­bu­tus, still un­with­ered of its fairy-​pink, still elo­quent, in its way­ward, wood­land fra­grance, of her who had worn it the night be­fore.