The Gay Deceiver

by Kathleen Norris

After the meat course, Mrs. Tolley and Min rather languidly removedthe main platters and, by reaching backward, piled the dinner plateson the shining new oak sideboard. Thus room was made for the salad,which was always mantled in tepid mayonnaise, whether it was slicedtomatoes, or potatoes, or asparagus. After the salad there wasanother partial clearance, and then every available inch of thetable was needed for peach pies and apple sauce and hot gingerbreadand raspberries, or various similar delicacies, and the coffee andyellow cheese and soda-crackers with which the meal concluded.By the time these appeared, on a hot summer evening, the wheezingclock in the kitchen would have struck six,--dinner was early atKirkwood,--and the level rays of the sun would be pouring boldly inat the uncurtained western windows. The dining, room was bare, andnot entirely free from flies, despite an abundance of new greenscreening at the windows. Relays of new stiff oak chairs stoodagainst its walls, ready for the sudden need of occasional visitors.On the walls hung framed enlarged photographs of machinery, andfactories, and scaffoldings, and the like. There was one of laborersand bosses grouped about great generators and water-wheels intransit, and another of a monster switchboard, with a smiling youngoperator, in his apron and overalls, standing beside it.Mrs. Tolley sat at the head of the table--a big, joyous, vigorouswidow, who had managed the Company House at Kirkwood ever since itserection two years before, and who had been an employee of the Lightand Power Company, in one capacity or another, for some five yearsbefore that--or ever since, as she put it, "the juice got poreGeorge." Mrs. Tolley loved every inch of Kirkwood; for her it wasthe captured dream.Min Tolley, sitting next to her mother, loved Kirkwood, too, becauseshe was going to marry Harry Garvey, who was one of the shift bossesat the plant. Harry sat next to Min. Then came her brother Roosy,ten years old; and then the Hopps--Mrs. Lou, and little Lou,spattering rice and potato all over himself and his chair, and bigLou, silently, deeply admiring them both. Then there were two emptychairs, for the Chisholms, the resident manager and superintendentand his sister, at the end of the table; and then Joe Vorse, theswitchboard operator, and his little wife; and then Monk White,another shift boss; and lastly, at Mrs. Tolley's left, Paul Forster,newly come from New York to be Mr. Chisholm's stenographer andassistant.Paul was the first to leave the table that night. He drank hiscoffee in three savage gulps, pushed back his crumpled napkin, androse. "If you'll excuse me--" he began."You're cert'n'y excusable!" said Mrs. Tolley, elegantly--adding,when the door had closed behind him: "And leave me tell you rightnow that somebody was real fond of children to raise you!""An' I'm not planning to spend the heyday of my girlhood ironingnapkins for you, Pauly Pet!" said Min, reaching for his discardednapkin and folding it severely into a wooden ring.Paul did not hear these remarks, but he heard the laughter thatgreeted them, and he scowled as he selected a rocker on the frontporch. He put his feet up on the rail, felt in one pocket fortobacco, in another for papers, and in a third for his match-case,and set himself to the congenial task of composing a letter in whichhe should resign from the employ of the Light and Power Company. Itwas a question of a broken contract, so it must be diplomaticallyworded. Paul had spent the five evenings since his arrival atKirkwood in puzzling over the phrasing of that letter.Below the porch, the hillside, covered with scrub-oak and chaparraland madrono trees, and the stumps where redwoods had been, droppedsharply to the little river, which came tumbling down from thewooded mountains to plunge roaring into one end of the big power-house, and which foamed out at the other side to continue its madrush down the valley. The power-house, looming up an immense crudeoutline in the twilight, rested on the banks of the stream and stoodin a rough clearing. A great gash in the woods above it showedwhence lumber for buildings and fires came; another ugly gash markedthe course of the "pole line" over the mountain. Near the bigbuilding stood lesser ones, two or three rough little unpaintedcottages perched on the hill above it. There was a "cook-house," anda "bunk-house," and storage sheds, and Mrs. Tolley's lockedprovision shed, and the rough shack the builders lived in whileconstruction was going on, and where the Hopps lived now, rent free.Nasturtiums languished here and there, where some of the women hadmade an effort to fight the unresponsive red clay. Otherwise, evenafter two years, the power-house and its environs looked unfinished,crude, ugly. On all sides the mountains rose dark and steep, thepointed tops of the redwoods mounting evenly, tier on tier. Exceptfor the lumber slide and the pole line, there was no break anywhere,not even a glimpse of the road that wound somehow out of the canyon--up, up, up, twelve long miles, to the top of the ridge.And even at the top, Paul reflected bitterly, there was only anunpainted farm-house, where the stage stopped three times a weekwith mail. From there it was a fifty-mile drive to town--aCalifornia country town, asleep in the curve of two sluggish littlerivers. And from "town" to San Francisco it was almost a day's trip,and from San Francisco to the Grand Central Station at Forty-secondStreet it was nearly five days more.Paul shoved his hands in his pockets and began again: "Light andPower Co.--Gentlemen."Night came swiftly to Kirkwood. For a few wonderful moments the lastof the sunlight lingered, hot and gold, on the upper branches of thehighest trees along the ridge; then suddenly the valley was plungedin soft twilight, and violet shadows began to tangle themselvesabout the great shafts of the redwoods. The heat of the day droppedfrom the air like a falling veil. A fine mist spun itself above theriver; bats began to wheel on the edge of the clearing.With the coming of darkness every window in the place was suddenlyalight. The Company House blazed with it; the great power-housedoorway sent a broad stream of yellow into the deepening shadows ofthe night; the "cook-house," where Willy Chow Tong cooked for ascore of "hands" and oilers, showed a thousand golden cracks in itsrough walls. The little cottages on the hill were hidden by theglare from their dangling porch lights. Light was so plentiful, atthis factory of light, that even the Hopps' barnlike home blazedwith a dozen "thirty-twos.""Nothing like having a little light on the subject, Mr. Fo'ster,"said Mrs. Tolley, coming out to the porch. The Vorses had smallchildren that they could not leave very long alone; so, when Min andher mother had reduced the kitchen to orderly, warm, soap-scenteddarkness every night, and wound the clock, and hung up their aprons,they went up to the Vorses' to play "five hundred.""Seems's if I never could get enough light, myself," the matroncontinued agreeably, descending the porch steps. "Before I come hereI never had nothing in my kitchen but an oil lamp and a reflector.Jest as sure as I'd be dishing up dinner, hot nights, that lampwould begin to flicker and suck--well, shucks! I'd look up at it andI'd say, 'Well, why don't you go out? Go ahead!'" Mrs. Tolleylaughed joyously. "Well, one night--George--" she was continuingwith relish, when Min pulled at her sleeve and, with a sort ofaffectionate impatience, said, "Oh, f've'vens' sakes ma!""Yes, I'm coming," said Mrs. Tolley, recalled. "Wish't you played'five hundred,' Mr. Fo'ster," she added politely."I don't play either that or old maid," said Paul, distinctly. Thisremark was taken in good part by the Tolleys."Old maid's a real comical game," Min conceded mildly."Well, you won't be s'lunsum next week when the Chisholms get back,"said Mrs. Tolley, unaffectedly, gathering up the skirt of herstarched gown to avoid contact with the sudden heavy dews. "He's anawful nice feller, and she--she's twenty-six, but she's as jolly asa girl. I declare, I just love Patricia Chisholm.""Twenty-six, is she?" said Paul, disgustedly, to himself, when theTolleys had gone. "Only one woman--of any class, that is--in thisforsaken hole, and she twenty-six!" And he had been thinking of thisPatricia with a good deal of interest, he admitted resentfully. Paulwas twenty-four, and liked slender little girls well under twenty."Lord, what a place!" he said, for the hundredth time.He sat brooding in the darkness, discouraged and homesick. So he hadsat for all his nights at Kirkwood.The men at the cook-house were playing cards, silently, intently.The cook, serene and cool, was smoking in the doorway of his cabin.Above the dull roar of the river Paul could hear Min Tolley's cackleof laughter from the cottages a hundred yards away, and Mrs. Hoppscrooning over her baby.Presently the night shift went down to the powerhouse, the mentaking great boyish leaps on the steep trail. Some of the lightedwindows were blotted out--the Hopps', the cook-house light. Thesinging pole line above Paul's head ceased abruptly, and with alittle rising whine the opposite pole line took up the buzzingcurrant. That meant that the copper line had been cut in, and thealuminum one would be "cold" for the night.Minutes went by, eventless. Half an hour, an hour--still Paul satstaring into the velvet dark and wrestling with bitterdiscouragement and homesickness."Lord, what a place!" he said once or twice under his breath.Finally, feeling cramped and chilly, he went stiffly indoors,through the hot, bright halls, that smelled of varnish and matting,to his room.The next day was exactly like the five preceding days--hot,restless, aimless; and the next night Paul sat on the porch again,and listened to the rush of the river, and Min Tolley's laugh at the"five hundred" table, and the Hopps' baby's lullaby. And again hecomposed his resignation, and calculated that it would take threedays for it to reach San Francisco, and another three for him toreceive their acceptance of it--another week at least of Kirkwood!On the seventh day the Chisholms rode down the trail that followedthe pole line, and arrived in a hospitable uproar. Alan Chisholm,some five years older than Paul, was a fine-looking, serious, darkyouth, a fellow of not many words, being given rather to silentappreciation of his sister's chatter than to speech of his own. MissChisholm was very tall, very easy in manner, and powdered just nowto her eyelashes with fine yellow dust. Paul thought her too talland too large for beauty, but he liked her voice, and the fashionshe had of crinkling up her eyes when she smiled. He sat on theporch while the Chisholms went upstairs to brush and change, andthought that the wholesome noise of their splashing and calling,opening drawers, and banging doors was a pleasant change from theusual quiet of the house.Miss Chisholm was the first to reappear. She was followed by Min andMrs. Tolley, and was asking questions at a rate that kept bothanswering at once. Had her kodak films come? Was Minnie going tohave some little sense and be married in a dress she could get someuse out of? How were the guinea-pigs, the ducks, the vegetables, thecaged fox, the "boys" generally, Roosy's ear, Consuelo Vorse's lamefoot? Did Mrs. Tolley know that she had made a deep impression onthe old fellow who drove the stage? "Oh, look at her blush, Min!Well, really!"She came, delightfully refreshed by toilet waters and crisp linen,to take a deep rocker opposite Paul, and leaned luxuriously back,showing very trim feet shod in white."Admit that you've fallen in love with Kirkwood, Mr. Forster," saidshe."I can't admit anything of the sort," said Paul, firmly, but smilingbecause she was so very good to look at. He had to admit that he hadnever seen handsomer dark eyes, nor a more tender, more expressiveand characterful mouth than the one that smiled so readily andshowed so even a line of big teeth."Oh, you will!" she assured him easily. "There's no place likeKirkwood, is there, Alan?" she said to her brother, as he came out.He smiled."We don't think there is, Forster. My sister's been crazy about theplace since we got here--that's eighteen months ago; and I'm crazyabout it myself now!""Wait until you've slept out on the porch for a while," said MissChisholm, "and wait until you've got used to a plunge in the poolbefore breakfast every morning. Alan, you must take him down to thepool to-morrow, and I'll listen for his shrieks. Where are you goingnow--the power-house? No, thank you, I won't go. I'm going out tofind something special to cook you for your suppers."The something special was extremely delicious; Paul had a vagueimpression that there was fried chicken in it, and mushrooms, andcream, and sherry. Miss Chisholm served it from a handsome littlecopper blazer, and also brewed them her own particular tea, in aCanton tea-pot. Paul found it much pleasanter at this end of thetable. To his surprise, no one resented this marked favoritism--Mrs.Tolley observing contentedly that her days of messing for men wereover, and Mrs. Vorse remarking that she'd "orghter reely git out herchafing-dish and do some cooking" herself.Paul found that Miss Chisholm possessed a leisurely gift of fun; shewas droll, whether she quite meant to be or not. Everybody laughed.Mrs. Tolley became tearful with mirth."Now, this is the nicest part of the day," said Patricia, when theythree had carried their coffee out to the porch and were seated."Did you ever watch the twilight come, sitting here, Mr. Forster?""It seems to me I have never done anything else," said Paul. Shegave him a keen glance over her lifted teaspoon; then she drank hercoffee, set the cup down, and said:"Well! How is that combination of vaudeville and railway station andzotrope that is known as New York?""Oh, the little old berg is all there," said Paul, lightly. But hisheart gave a sick throb. He hoped she would go on talking about it.But it was some time before any one spoke, and then it was AlanChisholm, who took his pipe out of his mouth to say:"Patricia hates New York.""I can't imagine any one doing that," Paul said emphatically."Well, there was a time when I thought I couldn't live anywhereelse," said Alan, good-naturedly; "but there's a lot of the pioneerin any fellow, if he gives it a chance.""Oh, I had a nice enough time in New York," said Patricia, lazily,"but it just wears you out to live there; and what do you get out ofit? Now, here--well, one's equal to the situation here!""And then some," Paul said; and the brother and sister laughed athis tone."But, honestly," said Miss Chisholm, "you take a little place likeKirkwood, and you don't need a Socialist party. We all eat the same;we all dress about the same; and certainly, if any one works hardhere, it's Alan, and not the mere hands. Why, last Christmas therewasn't a person here who didn't have a present--even Willy ChowTong! Every one had all the turkey he could eat; every one a fire,and a warm bed, and a lighted house. Mrs. Tolley gets only fiftydollars a month, and Monk White gets fifty--doesn't he, Alan? Butmoney doesn't make much difference here. You know how the boys adoreMonk for his voice; and as for Mrs. Tolley, she's queen of theplace! Now, how much of that's true of New York!""Oh, well, put it that way--" Paul said, in the tone of an offendedchild."Apropos of Mrs. Tolley's being queen of the place," said Alan tohis sister, "it seems she's rubbing it into poor little MolliePeavy. Len brought Mollie and the baby down from the ranch a weekago, and nobody's been near 'em.""Who said so?" flashed Miss Chisholm, reddening."Why, I saw Len to-night, sort of lurking round the power-house, andhe told me he had 'em in that little cottage, across the creek,where the lumbermen used to live. Said Mollie was in agony becausenobody came near her.""Oh, that makes me furious!" said Patricia, passionately. "I'll seeabout it to-morrow. Nobody went near her? The poor little thing!""Who are they?" said Paul."Why, she's a little blonde, sickly-looking thing of sixteen,"explained Miss Chisholm, "and Len's a lumberman. They have a littleblue-nosed, sickly baby; it was born about six weeks ago, at herfather's ranch, above here. She was--she had no mother, the poorchild--""And in fact, my sister escorted the benefit of clergy to them abouttwo months ago," said Alan, "and the ladies of the Company Houseare very haughty about it.""They won't be long," predicted Miss Chisholm, confidently. "Theidea! I can forgive Mrs. Hopps, because she's only a kid herself;but Mrs. Tolley ought to have been big enough! However!""This place honestly can't spare you for ten minutes, Pat," herbrother said."Well, honestly," she was beginning seriously, when she saw he waslaughing at her, and broke off, with a shamefaced, laughing look forPaul. Then she announced that she was going down to the power-house,and, packing her thin white skirts about her, she started off, andthey followed.Paul was not accustomed to seeing a lady in the power-house, andthought that her enthusiasm was rather nice to watch. She flittedabout the great barnlike structure like a contented child, insistedupon displaying the trim stock-room to Paul, demanded ademonstration of the switchboard, spread her pretty hands over thewhirling water that showed under the glass of the water-wheels, andhung, fascinated, over the governors."I never get used to it," said Patricia, above the steady roaring ofthe river. "Do you realize that you are in one of the greatest forcefactories of the world? Look at it!" She swept with a gesture themonster machinery that shone and glittered all about them. "Do yourealize that people miles and miles away are reading by lights andtaking street-cars that are moved by this? Don't talk to me aboutthe subway and the Pennsylvania Terminal!""Oh, come, now!" said Paul."Well!" she flared. "Do you suppose that anything bigger was everdone in this world than getting these things--these generators andwater-wheels and the corrugated iron for the roof, and the door-knobs and tiles and standards and switchboard, and everything else,up to the top of the ridge from Emville and down this side of theridge? I see that never occurred to you! Why, you don't know what itwas. Struggle, struggle, struggle, day after day--ropes breaking,and tackle breaking, and roads giving way, and rain coming! Supposeone of these had slipped off the trail--well, it would have stayedwhere it fell. But wait--wait!" she said, interrupting herself withher delightful smile. "You'll love it as we do one of these days!""Not," said Paul to himself, as they started back to the house.After that he saw Miss Chisholm every day, and many times a day; andshe was always busy and always cheerful. She wanted her brother andPaul to ride with her up to the dam for a swim; she wanted to go tothe woods for ferns for Min's wedding; she was going to make candyand they could come in. She packed delicious suppers, to be eaten incool places by the creek, and to be followed by their smoking andher careless snatches of songs; she played poker quite as well asthey; she played old opera scores and sang to them; she had jig-sawpuzzles for slow evenings. She could not begin a game of what Mrs.Tolley called "halmy," with that good lady, without somehowattracting the boys to the table, where they hung, championing andcriticising. Paul was more amused than surprised to find Mrs. Peavyhaving tea with the other ladies on the porch less than a weeklater. The little mother looked scared and shamed; but Mrs. Tolleyhad the baby, and was bidding him "love his Auntie Gussie," whileshe kissed his rounding little cheek. One night, some four weeksafter his arrival, Patricia decided that Paul's room must be madehabitable; and she and Alan and Paul spent an entire busy eveningthere, discussing photographs and books, and deciding where to crossthe oars, and where to hang the Navajo blanket, and where to put thecollege colors. Miss Chisholm, who had the quality of grace andcould double herself up comfortably on the floor like a child,became thoughtful over the class annual."The Dicky, and the Hasty Pudding!" she commented. "Weren't you theSmarty?"Paul, who was standing with a well-worn pillow in his hand, turnedand said hungrily:"Oh, you know Harvard?""Why, I'm Radcliffe!" she said simply.Paul was stupefied."Why, but you never said so! I thought yours was some Westerncollege like your brother's!""Oh, no; I went to Radcliffe for four years," said she, casually.Then, tapping a picture thoughtfully, she went on: "There's a boywhose face looks familiar.""Well, but--well, but--didn't you love it?" stammered Paul."I liked it awfully well," said Patricia. "Alan, you've got that onea little crooked," she added calmly. Paul decided disgustedly thathe gave her up. His own heart was aching so for old times and oldvoices that it was far more pain than pleasure to handle all thesereminders: the photographs, the yacht pennant, the golf-clubs, therumpled and torn dominoes, the tumbler with "Cafe Henri" blown inthe glass, the shabby camera, the old Hawaiian banjo. Oh, what funit had all been, and what good fellows they were!"It was lovely, of course," said Patricia, in a businesslike tone;"but this is real life! Cheer up, Paul," she went on (they hadreached Christian names some weeks before). "I am going to have twodarling girls here for two weeks at Thanksgiving, just from Japan.And think of the concert next month, with Harry Garvey and LauretteHopps in a play, and Mrs. Tolley singing 'What Are the Wild WavesSaying?' Then, if Alan sends you to Sacramento, you can go to thetheatre every night you're there, and pretend"--her eyes dancedmischievously--"that you're going to step out on Broadway when thecurtain goes down, and can look up the street at electric signs ofcocoa and ginger beer and silk petticoats--""Oh, don't!" said Paul; and, as if she were a little ashamed ofherself, she began to busy herself with the book-case, and wasparticularly sweet for the rest of the evening. But she wouldn'ttalk Radcliffe, and Paul wondered if her college days hadn't beenhappy; she seemed rather uneasy when he repeatedly brought up thesubject.But a day or two later, when he and she were taking a long ride andresting their horses by a little stream high up in the hills, shebegan to talk of the East; and they let an hour, and then another,go by, while they compared notes. Paul did most of the talking, andMiss Chisholm listened, with downcast eyes, flinging little stonesfrom the crumbling bank into the pool the while.A lazy leaf or two drifted upon the surface of the water, and wheregold sunlight fell through the thick leafage overhead and touchedthe water, brown water-bugs flitted and jerked. Once a great dragon-fly came through on some mysterious journey, and paused for apalpitating bright second on a sunny rock. The woods all about weresilent in the tense hush of the summer afternoon; even the horseswere motionless, except for an occasional idle lipping of theunderbrush. Now and then a breath of pine, incredibly sweet, creptfrom the forest.Paul watched his companion as he talked. She was, as always, quiteunself-conscious. She sat most becomingly framed by the lofty riseof oak and redwood and maple trees about her. Her sombrero hadslipped back on her braids, and the honest, untouched beauty of herthoughtful face struck Paul forcibly. He wondered if she had everbeen in love--what her manner would be to the man she loved."What did you come for, Paul?" She was ending some long sentencewith the question."Come here?" Paul said. "Oh, Lord, there seemed to be reasonsenough, though I can't remember now why I ever thought I'd stay.""You came straight from college?""No," he said, a little uneasily; "no. I finished three years ago.You see, my mother married an awfully rich old guy named Steele, thelast year I was at college; and he gave me a desk in his office. Hehas two sons, but they're not my kind. Nice fellows, you know, butthey work twenty hours a day, and don't belong to any clubs,--they'll both die rich, I guess,--and whenever I was late, or forgotsomething, or beat it early to catch a boat, they'd go to the oldman. And he'd ask mother to speak to me.""I see," said Patricia."After a while he got me a job with a friend of his in aPhiladelphia iron-works," said the boy; "but that was a rotten job.So I came back to New York; and I'd written a sketch for an amateurtheatrical thing, and a manager there wanted me to work it up--saidhe'd produce it. I tinkered away at that for a while, but there wasno money in it, and Steele sent me out to see how I'd like workingin one of the Humboldt lumber camps. I thought that sounded good.But I got my leg broken the first week, and had to wire him from thehospital for money. So, when I got well again, he sent me a nightwire about this job, and I went to see Kahn the next day, and cameup here.""I see," she said again. "And you don't think you'll stay?""Honestly, I can't, Patricia. Honest--you don't know what it is! Icould stand Borneo, or Alaska, or any place where the climate andcustoms and natives stirred things up once in a while. But this islike being dead! Why, it just makes me sick to see the word 'NewYork' on the covers of magazines--I'm going crazy here."She nodded seriously."Yes, I know. But you've got to do something. And since your coursewas electrical engineering--! And the next job mayn't be half soeasy, you know--!""Well, it'll be a little nearer Broadway, believe me. No, I'm sorry.I never knew two dandier people than you and your brother, and Ilike the work, but--!"He drew a long breath on the last word, and Miss Chisholm sighed,too."I'm sorry," she said, staring at the big seal ring on her finger."I tell you frankly that I think you're making a mistake. I don'targue for Alan's sake or mine, though we both like you thoroughly,and your being here would make a big difference this winter. But Ithink you've made a good start with the company, and it's a goodcompany, and I think, from what you've said to-day, and other hintsyou're given me, that you'd make your mother very happy by writingher that you think you've struck your groove. However!"She got up, brushed the leaves from her skirt, and went to herhorse. They rode home through the columned aisles of the forestalmost silently. The rough, straight trunks of the redwoods rose allabout them, catching gold and red on their thick, fibrous bark fromthe setting sun. The horses' feet made no sound on the corduroyroadway.For several days nothing more was said of Paul's going or staying.Miss Chisholm went her usual busy round. Paul wrote his letter ofresignation and carried it to the dinner-table one night, hoping toread it later to her, and win her approval of its finely roundedsentences.But a heavy mail came down the trail that evening, brought by theobliging doctor from Emville, who had been summoned to dress thewounds of one of the line-men who had got too close to the murderous"sixty thousand" and had been badly burned by "the juice." And afterthe letters were read, and the good doctor had made his patientcomfortable, he proved an excellent fourth hand at the game ofbridge for which they were always hungering.So at one o'clock Paul went upstairs with his letter stillunapproved. He hesitated in the dim upper hallway, wondering ifPatricia, who had left the men to beer and crackers half an hourearlier, had retired, or was, by happy chance, still gossiping withMrs. Tolley or Min. While he loitered in the hall, the door of herroom swung slowly open.Paul had often been in this room, which was merely a kind of adjunctto the sleeping-porch beyond. He went to the doorway and said,"Patricia!"The room, wide and charmingly furnished, was quite empty. On thedeep couch letters were scattered in a wide circle, and in theirmidst was an indentation as if some one had been kneeling on thefloor with her elbows there. Paul noticed this with a curiousfeeling of unease, and then called softly again, "Patricia!"No answer. He walked hesitatingly to his own room and to the window.Why he should have looked down at the dark path with the expectationof seeing her, he did not know; but it was almost without surprisethat he recognized the familiar white ruffles and dark head movingaway in the gloom. Paul unhesitatingly followed.He followed her down the trail as far as he had seen her go, and wasstanding, a little undecidedly, wondering just which way she hadturned, when his heart was suddenly brought into his throat by thesound of her bitter sobbing.A moment later he saw her. She was sitting on a smooth fallen trunk,and had buried her face in her hands. Paul had never heard suchsobs; they seemed to shake her from head to foot. Hardly would theylessen, bringing him the hope that her grief, whatever it was, waswearing itself out, when a fresh paroxysm would shake her, and shewould abandon herself to it. This lasted for what seemed a long,long time.After a while Paul cleared his throat, but she did not hear him. Andagain he stood motionless, waiting and waiting. Finally, when shestraightened up and began to mop her eyes, he said, trembling alittle:"Patricia!"Instantly she stopped crying."Who is that?" she said, with an astonishing control of her voice."Is that you, Alan? I'm all right, dear. Did I frighten you? Is thatyou, Alan?""It's Paul," the boy said, coming nearer."Oh--Paul!" she said, relieved. "Does Alan know I'm here?""No," he reassured her; then, affectionately: "What is it, Pat?""Just--just that I happen to be a fool!" she said huskily, but withan effort at lightness. Paul sat down, beginning to see in thedarkness. "I'm all right now," went on Patricia, hardily. "I just--Isuppose I just had the blues." She put out a smooth hand in thedarkness, and patted Paul's appreciatively. "I'm ashamed of myself!"said she, catching a little sob, as she spoke, like a child."Bad news--in your letters?" he hazarded."No, good; that's the trouble!" she said, with her whimsical smile,but with trembling lips. "You see, all my friends are in the East,and some of them happened to be at the same house-party at Newport,and they--they were saying how they missed me," her voice shook alittle, "and--and it seems they toasted me, all standing, and--and--" And suddenly she gave up the fight for control, and began to crybitterly again. "Oh, I'm so homesick!" she sobbed, "and I'm solonesome! And I'm so sick, sick, sick of this place! Oh, I thinkI'll go crazy if I can't go home! I bear it and I bear it," saidPatricia, in a sort of desperate self-defence, "and then the timecomes when I simply can't bear it!" And again she wept luxuriously,and Paul, in an agony of sympathy, patted her hand."My heart is just breaking!" she burst out again, her tears andwords tumbling over each other. "It--it isn't right! I want myfriends, and I want my youth--I'll never be twenty-six again! I wantto put my things into a suit-case and go off with the other girlsfor country visits--and I want to dance!" She put her head downagain, and after a moment Paul ventured a timid, "Patricia, dear,don't."He thought she had not heard him, but after a moment, he wasrelieved to see her resolutely straighten up again, and dry hereyes, and push up her tumbled hair."Well, I really will stop," she said determinedly. "This will notdo! If Alan even suspected! But, you see, I'm naturally a sociableperson, and I had--well, I don't suppose any girl ever had such agood time in New York! My aunt did for me just what she did for herown daughters--a dance at Sherry's, and dinners--! Paul, I'd give ayear of my life just to drive down the Avenue again on a springafternoon, and bow to every one, and have tea somewhere, and smellthe park--oh, did you ever smell Central Park in the spring?"Both were silent. After a long pause Paul said:"Why do you stay? You've not got to ask a stepfather for a job.""Alan," she answered simply. "No, don't say that," she interruptedhim quickly; "I'm nothing of the sort! But my mother--my mother, ina way, left Alan and me to each other, and I have never doneanything for Alan. I went to the Eastern aunt, and he stayed here;and after a while he drifted East--and he had too much money, ofcourse! And I wasn't half affectionate enough; he had his friendsand I had mine! Well then he got ill, and first it was just a coldand then it was, suddenly--don't you know?--a question ofconsultations, and a dry climate, and no dinners or wine or latehours. And Alan refused--refused flat to go anywhere, until I saidI'd love to come! I'll never forget the night it came over me that Iought to. I am--I was--engaged, you know?" She paused.Paul cleared his throat. "No, I didn't know," he said."It wasn't announced," said Miss Chisholm. "He's a good deal olderthan I. A doctor." There was a long silence. "He said he would wait,and he will," she said softly, ending it. "It's not forever, youknow. Another year or two, and he'll come for me! Alan's quite adifferent person now. Another two years!" She jumped up, with acomplete change of manner. "Well, I'm over my nonsense for anotherwhile!" said she. "And it's getting cold. I can't tell you how I'veenjoyed letting off steam this way, Paul!""Whenever we feel this way," he said, giving her a steadying hand inthe dark, "we'll come out for a jaw. But cheer up; we'll have lotsof fun this winter!""Oh, lots!" she said contentedly. They entered the dark, opendoorway together.Patricia went ahead of him up the stairs, and at the top she turned,and Paul felt her hand for a second on his shoulder, and feltsomething brush his forehead that was all fragrance and softness andwarmth.Then she was gone.Paul went into his room, and stood at the window, staring out intothe dark. Only the door of the power-house glowed smoulderingly, anda broad band of light fell from Miss Chisholm's window.He stood there until this last light suddenly vanished. Then he tooka letter from his pocket, and began to tear it methodically topieces. While he did so Paul began to compose another letter, thistime to his mother.

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