Less Than Kin

By
Alice Duer Miller

New York
Henry Holt and Company
1909

Copyright, 1909
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

Published May, 1909

QUINN & BODEN COMPANY PRESS
RAHWAY, N. J.

LESS THAN KIN

Chapter I

The curtain rolled down, the horns gave forth a final blare, and the whole house rustled with returning self-consciousness. Mrs. Raikes and Miss Lewis had always had orchestra seats for Monday nights. Their well-brushed heads, their high jeweled collars, their little bare backs were as familiar to experienced opera-goers as the figure of the long-suffering doorman. They had the reputation of being musical. What indeed could prove it better than their preference for orchestra seats, when they might so easily have gone whenever they wanted in the boxes of their friends?

As the lights went up, they both turned to the glittering tiers above them. The opera was a favorite and the house was full, though here and there an empty box caught one’s eye like a missing tooth. Miss Lewis was sweeping the semicircle like an astronomer in full cry after a comet. She had begun conscientiously at the stage box, and with but few comments she had reached the third or fourth, when her hand was arrested. There were three people in it—an old man in a velvet skull-cap, tall, thin, wrinkled, and strangely somber against the red-and-gold background; a younger man dimly seen in the shadow; and a slim young woman in gray.

The curve of the house afforded examples of every sort and kind of brilliantly dressed lady. There were dowagers and young girls, there were women who forgot the public and lounged with an arm over the back of a little gilt chair, and there were others who sat almost too erect, presenting their jewels and their composed countenances to the gaze of whoever cared to admire.

The lady in gray did neither. She sat leaning a little forward, and looking down absently into the orchestra, so that it was hard to tell how attentively she was listening to the man behind her. She had an extremely long waist, and had the effect of being balanced like a flower on its stalk.

Miss Lewis, with her glass still on the box, exclaimed:

“What, again! Wasn’t he with the Lees last week?”

“You mean James Emmons,” answered Mrs. Raikes. “He is not with Nellie. He belongs somewhere on the other side of the house. He came into the box just before the entr’acte. Rather she than me. He has a singularly heavy hand in social interchange.”

“He could give Nellie things she would value. I am sure she feels she would shine in high politics.” Miss Lewis raised her glass again. “You know she is not really pretty.”

“I think she is, only she looks as cold as a little stone.”

“If you say that, every one answers, ‘But see how good she is to her uncle.’”

“My dear, if you were a penniless orphan, wouldn’t you be good to a rich uncle?”

Miss Lewis hesitated. “I’m not so sure, if he were like Mr. Lee. Besides, some people say he hasn’t anything left, you know.”

“Look how they live, though.”

“My innocent! Does that prove that they pay their bills? Nellie strikes me as being very short of cash now and then.”

“Who is not?”

“And the reprobate son will have to come in for something, won’t he?”

“Oh, I fancy not. I don’t think they have anything to do with him. He has disappeared, to South America or somewhere.”

“Well,” said Miss Lewis, “I should advise Nellie not to take chances, but to accept—” And then she stopped. “Look at that,” she added. “Don’t you think that is a mistake?”

For the girl in gray had risen slowly, and disappeared into the back of the box, followed by Emmons.

He was a short man, no longer very young. Nature had intended him to be fat, but he had not let her have her way.

The two sat down in the little red-lined room behind the box, with its one electric light and its mirror. Nellie had established herself on the tiny sofa.

“Well, James,” she said.

“I wanted to tell you that I had been appointed to this commission to inquire into the sources of our Russian immigration. I start in September.”

“I congratulate you. You will be an ambassador within a few years, I feel sure.”

Her praise did not seem to elate him. He went on in exactly the same tone:

“I shall be gone three months or more.”

“I shall miss you.” Her manner was too polite to be warm, and he answered, without temper,

“You don’t care whether I go or not.”

She looked at him. “Yes, I do, James,” she said mildly. “You know I depend on you, but it would be very selfish if I thought of myself instead of——”

He brushed it aside, as one anxious only for facts.

“You are not really fond of me,” he said.

“Well, I am not romantically in love with you. I never was with any one, and I don’t suppose I ever shall be, but I like you well enough to marry you, and that is something, you know.”

“You don’t like me well enough to marry me in August and come to Russia with me.” If he had been watching her face at this suggestion, he would not have needed an answer, but fortunately he was looking another way.

“You know I can not leave my uncle, old and ill——”

“Will you be any better able to leave him in three months?”

She hesitated, but as if it were her own motives that she was searching. “When you come back there will be no need for leaving him.”

“Oh,” said Emmons. He glanced through the curtains at the old man’s thin back, as if the idea of a common household were not quite agreeable to him.

There was a short pause, and then he went on,

“It sometimes strikes me that if it weren’t your uncle it would be something else.”

“James,” said Nellie seriously, “I give you my word that if there were anybody who could take my place at home, I would marry you in August.”

Emmons nodded. “Well, I can’t ask more than that,” he answered, and added, with a smile, “though it is a perfectly safe offer, for I suppose no one can take your place.”

“No one,” said Nellie, with the conviction of a person who does not intend to look.

The box door opened, and a man half entered, and paused as he saw how prearranged was the tête-à-tête on which he was intruding. But Nellie welcomed him in.

“Don’t be frightened away, Mr. Merriam,” she said, smiling. “Mr. Emmons and I aren’t talking secrets. We weren’t even quarreling—at least I wasn’t. But the lights in front hurt my eyes. Don’t you think at my age I can do as I like?”

Mr. Merriam was eminently of that opinion—especially as a moment later Emmons rose to go.

“Good-night.” Nellie held out her hand. “Don’t forget that you are dining with us on the 22d.”

“I shan’t forget,” Emmons answered. “I’ve written it down.”

“I shouldn’t have to write it down,” said Merriam.

“Ah, you are not such a busy man as he is,” she returned, but she could not help smiling. It was so like James to tell her he had written it down.

Chapter II

There is nothing so radiant, so blue and green (unless it be a peacock), nothing so freshly washed and shining, as an early morning in the tropics.

A new President having decided to add cavalry to the army, the recruits were being drilled on a flat furrowed savannah outside the city limits. Behind them a line of hills, rugged in outline but softened by heavy vegetation, were hidden by the mist that was rolling away over the Atlantic; and all about them, at the edge of the meadow, were tall flat-topped trees, under which were dotted little pink and blue houses, like toys.

The soldiers wore blue cotton uniforms, and many of them were barefooted. Their horses were diminutive, but sure-footed and nimble, not ill built forward of the saddle, but pitifully weak behind.

The instructor was very differently mounted. He rode a round strong bay mare, which, in contrast to the pony-like creatures about her, looked a hand higher than her actual height. Her rider sat still watching his pupils. Little of his face was visible under the brim of his broad Panama hat except a brown chin and a pair of long blond mustaches. Now and then he shouted to the men in excellent Spanish; and once or twice swore with the tolerant, unmistakable drawl of the Yankee. On the whole, however, one would have said after watching him for some minutes that his temper seemed fairly unruffled in a climate which tries men’s tempers, and in an occupation which induces irritation.

Once, with some instinctive motion of his body, he put his horse at a hand gallop, and riding over to one of the soldiers offered some individual suggestions. The man plainly did not understand, and a minute later the instructor had changed mounts with the man, and presently the pony was wheeling hither and thither in response to his bit, as a boat answers its rudder.

Exactly at ten o’clock the door of a square building in the town opened; a little trumpeter came out, and the clear notes of a bugle—so appropriate to the fierce brilliance of the morning—were flung out like a banner upon the air. It was the signal that the lesson was over. The men formed into fours, and jogged away under the command of a non-commissioned officer, leaving the American alone.

He sat a moment, watching the retreating backs, as he took a grass cigarette case from his breeches pocket, and lit a little yellow native cigarette. Then he turned his horse with one hand, and cantered away across the savannah. As he did so, the motion and the clear brightness of the morning moved him to song. Pushing back his hat from his forehead he lifted his head:

“Oh, I’m not in a hurry to fuss or to worry,

For fear I should grow too stout,

And I don’t care a bit if my boots don’t fit,

For I walk just as well without.”

He stopped in front of one of the toy houses, and shouted “Oh, Señor Doctor.”

The door, which stood open, was at once filled by the figure of a man in crash clothes. He was middle-aged and wore spectacles, so powerful that the eyes appeared to glare upon you with unspeakable ferocity, until, seeing round them or over, you found the expression friendly in the extreme.

“Ah, ha, Don Luis,” he said, “I did not know you were a singer.”

“And a poet, my dear Doctor,” returned the other, bowing. “My own words. Could you hear them across the savannah?”

“I could have heard them over the frontier. Will you come in?”

“No, gracias,” he answered. “I only stopped in to ask you to a party this evening, Doctor, for the lovely Rosita. It became necessary to do something to cut out that handsome young dog of a native. Will you come?”

The doctor gave a sound indicative of hesitation.

“What kind of a party?” he asked cautiously.

“Oh, a perfectly respectable little party,” returned Vickers, “not a bit like my last. At least it will begin respectably. It will end as my guests please. Will you come early or late, Doctor?”

“Early,” said the doctor; “it is always permitted to go home. No, wait a moment,” he added, as he saw Vickers preparing to go. “I want to ask you something. Did you ever know a big American who lived on the Pacific side—a man named Lee? Not a relation of yours, was he?”

“Certainly he is not,” retorted Vickers. “I have not many causes for gratitude, but that is one. I met him only once, and then he borrowed fifteen pesos from me on the strength of a hypothetical likeness between us.”

“There is a certain resemblance,” observed the doctor.

“Is there? I never saw it. What has he been doing? Getting into trouble?”

“Getting out of it. He died at my house this morning.”

“What of? Fever?”

“No, drink. I found him two days ago in his hut on the Pacific slope, and brought him here. One can not drink safely in this climate. Nature is beneficent, she gives much,” the doctor waved his hand, “but she also exacts much. One can not drink here, and live.”

“Oh, nonsense, Doctor,” said Vickers, “look at me. I’m as sound as a dollar.”

“What I want of you,” said the other, “is to write to his family. My English is not sufficient to make him out a hero, and,” he added, with a smile, “when we write home they are always heroes. Will you undertake it?”

“Sure,” said Vickers, swinging a light leg over the mare’s head. As he stepped to the ground, one could see his great height, an inch or two over six feet.

“You know,” the doctor went on persuasively, as they walked up the steps into the house, “that he might just as well have died, as you suggested, of fever.”

“Fever, pooh!” exclaimed Vickers. “How tame! We must think of something better than that. Would fever be any consolation to the survivors? No, no, my dear Nuñez, something great, something inspiring. ‘My dear Madame, your son, after a career unusually useful and self-denying’ (the worthless dog), ‘has just met a death as noble as any I have ever seen or heard of. A group of children—’ No, ‘a group of little children returning from school were suddenly attacked by an immense and ferocious tigre——’”

“Oh, come, Don Luis,” murmured the doctor, “who ever heard of a tigre attacking a group?”

“My dear Señor Doctor,” replied Vickers, “I perceive with regret that you are a realist. I myself am all for romance, pure ethereal romance. I scorn fact, and by Heaven, if I can’t describe a tigre so that Lee’s mother will believe in it, I’ll eat my hat.”

“In that case,” returned the doctor dryly, “I suppose it is unnecessary to mention that Lee does not seem to have a mother.”

“Oh, well,” said Vickers, in evident discouragement, “if a fellow hasn’t got a mother, that prohibits pathos at once. A wife? At least a sister?”

Nuñez shook his head. “Nothing but a father,” he said firmly.

Vickers flung himself into a chair with his legs very far apart and his hands in his pockets.

“Now, how in thunder,” he said, “can I get up any interest in a father? A father probably knew all about Lee, and very likely turned him out of the house. A father will think it all for the best. Or no, perhaps not. An old white-haired clergyman—Lee was just the fellow to be a clergyman’s son.”

“I am often glad that I belong to a religion whose priests do not marry,” said the doctor. “Let me get you Lee’s papers.”

They made but a small bundle and most of them were bills, unreceipted. Vickers drew out one with an American stamp. It was dated Hilltop, Connecticut. Vickers read:

“My Dear Son: I enclose the money you desire for your journey home, which Nellie and I have managed to save during the last three months. I can hardly realize that I am to see you again after almost ten years.”

Vickers looked up. “Why, the poor beggar,” he said, “he was just going home after ten years. I call that hard luck.” And then his eye lit on the date of the letter, which was many months old. “By Jove, no. He took the old man’s money and blew it in, instead. Isn’t that the limit? But who is Nellie?”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders, and Vickers returned to the perusal of the papers. “Bills, bills, notes, letters from women. I seem to recognize that hand, but no matter. Ah, here is another from home. Ten years old, too.”

The writing was feminine, neat, and childish.

“Dear Bob,” it said, “if you left home on my account, you need not have gone.

“Your affectionate cousin,

“Nellie.”

There was a moment’s silence. A feeling of envy swept over Vickers. The mere sight of an American stamp made him homesick; the mail from the States never brought him anything; and yet somewhere at home there was a girl who would write like that to a worthless creature like Lee.

“They were using those stamps when I was at home,” he said reminiscently, “but they don’t use them any more.”

“Indeed,” said the doctor, without very much interest.

“Ten years ago, just fancy it,” Vickers went on, turning the letter over. “And he did not go back. I would have, in his place. If I had an affectionate cousin Nellie—I have always been rather fond of the name Nellie. Can you understand his not going?”

“We do not understand the Anglo-Saxon, nor pretend to,” returned the doctor. “You know very well, Don Luis, you all seem strangely cold to us.”

“Cold!” cried Vickers, with a laugh; “well, I never was accused of that before. Wait till you see my letter to Nellie: for of course it will be to Nellie that I shall write. Or no, I can’t, for I’m not sure of the last name. No. I’ll write the old man after all. ‘Dear Sir: It is my task to communicate a piece of news which must necessarily give you pain.’ (I wish I knew how much the old boy would really care.) ‘Your son expired yesterday in the performance of the bravest action that it has ever been my good fortune to see, or hear tell of. As you probably know, Mr. Lee held a position of some responsibility in the railroad.’ (It is a responsibility to keep the bar.) ‘Yesterday we were all standing about after working hours’ (I wonder when Lee’s began), ‘when a dispute arose between two of the men. In these hot climes tempers are easily roused, and words too quickly lead to blows, and blows to weapons. We all saw it, and all stood hesitating, when your son stepped forward and flung himself between the two. I grieve to say that he paid for his nobility with his life. It may be some satisfaction to you to know, my dear sir, that one of the boys whose life he saved, for both were hardly full grown, was the only son of a widowed mother.’ We could not make them both only sons of widowed mothers, could we? When are you going to bury him?”

“To-morrow.”

“Let me chip in for the funeral. We’ll have it handsome while we are about it. I must not stay now. Give me the letters, and I’ll get it off by to-morrow’s steamer. I’ll make it a good one, but I need time. And I have a report to write for the President, on the progress of my troop. Have you seen them? Don’t they do me credit?”

Doctor Nuñez looked at him gravely, as he stooped his head and passed out into the sunlight. As he was gathering up the reins, the older man said suddenly,

“Don Luis, would you be very much of a Yankee if I offered you a piece of advice?”

“Very much of a Yankee? I don’t understand. I should be very uncommonly grateful. Your advice is rare. What is it? To give up whiskey?”

“No, but to give up Cortez. He is in bad odor with the President.”

“Oh, I know, I know, but if I changed my friends in order to choose adherents of the administration—! However, I am an administration man. I am almost in the army.”

“Not always the safest place to be.”

“Oh, Cortez is all right, Doctor. You don’t do Cortez justice.”

“On the contrary,” said the doctor, “I do him full justice. I do him the justice of thinking him a very brilliant man,—but I do not walk about arm in arm with him in broad daylight. Is he coming to the party this evening?”

“I expect him.”

“You could not put him off?”

“Hardly. He brings the phonograph to amuse the señoritas. Now, come, Doctor, you would not cut me off from the only man in the country who owns a talking-machine?”

The doctor sighed. “I knew you would be a Yankee,” he said, and turned and walked into the house, while Vickers rode away, resuming his song about his indifference as to the fit of his boots.

Vickers’s house was on the slopes of the hills, and a steep little white adobe stairway led up to it. The house itself was a blue-green color, and though from the outside it presented an appearance of size, it was literally a hollow mockery, for the interior was taken up with a square garden, with tiled walks, and innumerable sweet-smelling flowers. Round the inner piazza or corridor there were arches, and in these Vickers had hung orchids, of which he was something of a fancier. In the central arch was a huge gilded birdcage in which dangled a large bright-colored macaw.

“You beauty,” said Vickers, stopping for an instant as he crossed the hallway.

The macaw hunched his shoulders, shifted his feet on the perch, and said stridently,

“Dame la pata.”

“You betcher life!” said Vickers, thrusting his finger between the bars. The two shook hands solemnly, and Vickers went on his way to the dining-room, shouting at the top of a loud voice,

“Ascencion, almuerzo.”

An instant later he was being served with coffee, eggs, and a broiled chicken by an old woman, small, bent, wrinkled, but plainly possessed of the fullest vitality.

“And what are you going to give us for supper to-night?” Vickers asked, with his mouth full.

With some sniffing, and a good deal of subterranean grunting, Ascencion replied that she did not know what to give los Americanos unless it were half an ox.

“Ah, but the lovely señoritas,” said Vickers.

A fresh outburst of grunting was the reply. “Ah, the Señorita Rosita. I have already had a visit from her this morning. She comes straight into my kitchen,” said the old woman. “She expects to live there some day.”

“In the kitchen, Ascencion!” said her employer. “You talk as if she were a rat.”

“Oh, you will see. The Señor Don Papa,—he goes about saying that he will marry his daughter to none but foreigners,—that they make the best husbands.”

“So they do.”

“Oh, very well, very well, if you are satisfied. It makes no difference to me. It is all the same to me that every one says this is a betrothal party, and the niña does not deny it.”

“Ah, you know very well, proud beauty,” said Vickers, waving a fork at her, “that there is only one woman in all Spanish-America for me—the only woman who knows how to cook, this side of the San Pedro. If you choose to call this our betrothal party, yours and mine, Ascencion——”

It was a perfectly safe joke, for Ascencion was a wife, the mother of fourteen, and the grandmother of a whole village. She did not even notice the last part of his sentence.

“And who is there can cook like me on the other side of the San Pedro?” she asked. “I don’t know her;” and she hobbled away.

After breakfast, Vickers with the assistance of two or three native boys, Ascencion’s grandchildren, who came and went about the house like stray dogs, hung the court and corridors with paper lanterns, and moved the furniture so as to leave the sala free for dancing.

These preparations occupied so much time that he was barely able to finish his report for the government before dinner, and almost immediately afterward his guests began to arrive. He had not had time to write the letter, and he could not now catch the mail unless he sent a boy down the trail to the coast. He actually thought of doing this in order to catch the steamer, for his conscience reproached him, but Ascencion absolutely refused to be deprived of any of her working staff on so great an occasion.

Cortez was the first to arrive. He was carrying his talking-machine in his arms as he entered, and he and Vickers had a great many jokes to exchange as to the rolls fit for the ears of the señoritas.

“It is going to be the making of the party,” Vickers exclaimed, “and I can’t thank you enough for bringing it.”

Cortez replied politely that everything he had was equally at the disposition of his friend, but presently it appeared that it was within the power of Vickers to do a reciprocal favor. Cortez was going the very next day on a long shooting trip. But he feared he would be short of cartridges. Doubtless Don Luis knew the delays in the custom-house. Was it possible that he could borrow a hundred or so?

Vickers asked the caliber, and noted that it was the same as the new government rifle.

Cortez shrugged his shoulders. “It may be,” he said. “You forget that I am not in the confidence of the government. But we will say no more. If it is not convenient——”

“My dear fellow,” cried Vickers, clapping him on the shoulder, “it is perfectly convenient; take as many as you want,” and summoning one of Ascencion’s descendants he gave orders that as many boxes as the señor might want should be carried out and put in his coche.

Almost every one had come before the arrival of the Señorita Rosita and her papa, which partook of the nature of a rite. He was a little man, very erect, possessed, in Vickers’s eyes, of that inscrutability which even the remnant of an older civilization has for a new one.

The girl was reputed a beauty, small, round, barely seventeen, with a pair of black eyes which languished so sweetly and so easily that one scarcely wondered that their owner never used them for anything else.

As his eyes met hers, Vickers cursed Ascencion in his heart for having instilled her suspicions into his mind, for it seemed to him that the lovely Rosita had never languished quite so openly upon him before. The thought affected the cordiality of his manner. His greeting was formal. Then seeing that she looked hurt, and reflecting that, if she had given her friends the notion that he was hers for the asking, it was very hard to be contradicted by his manner, he sprang forward and led her away to dance.

Soon afterward, having surrendered her to another partner, he found himself standing beside her father, and never at a loss for a pleasant word he observed that the señorita was undoubtedly the handsomest girl he had ever seen, and how did any one support the responsibility of having such a pretty daughter?

The old gentleman smiled.

“It is not a responsibility which I look forward to supporting very much longer, Don Luis.”

“Oh, I suppose not,” said Vickers, and he thought with some annoyance of the good-looking native for whose destruction the party had been planned.

“You give me,” went on the other, “an opportunity of saying what has long been in my mind. You know, Don Luis, that many of my countrymen are not friendly to the North Americans. I do not share the prejudice.”

Vickers bowed in his most florid manner. “I felt sure of that, sir, when you did me the honor of accepting my invitation for this evening.”

“Yes,” said the other thoughtfully, “the acceptance was as significant as the invitation itself.”

The phrase struck Vickers disagreeably, but he bowed again, and prepared to move away, but the old man stopped him.

“I was glad it should be so, Don Luis,” he said. “There is no one to whom I should more trustfully confide my daughter’s future. I am sufficiently Americanized to believe that marriages of the heart are the best marriages. My wife cries out for a man of our own country, but I say, ‘No, let the hearts of our children speak.’ I do not mind telling you that the heart of the little Rosita has spoken. Her mother has not the pleasure to know you, Don Luis, but we must alter that, we must alter that.” He smiled up at Vickers and perhaps saw something written upon his countenance, for he added hastily:

“Perhaps I mistake your sentiments. I have been warned that it is the habit of your countrymen to engage a young lady’s affections and to ride away. But I can not think that of you, my friend. I can not believe that I have mistaken your sentiments.”

“Oh, my sentiments,—not a bit,” said Vickers hastily. Even in English he might have found himself at a loss for the right word in which to decline an offer of marriage, but in Spanish, well as he knew the language, he floundered hopelessly. “My sentiments are as I told you, that the señorita is the most adorable young lady in the world, but——”

“Enough, enough, my young friend,” said his companion, laying a hand for an instant on Vickers’s arm with an incomparable gesture. “Obstacles are for old heads, love for young ones. See, she glances in our direction. She perhaps guesses what is the only topic that would keep you from her. Go to her. I will not be cruel. Go to her.” And he turned away, waving his hand.

Vickers sprang after him, but as he did so he felt his arm caught, and turning saw Doctor Nuñez.

“I must see you alone for an instant, but at once,” he said, in a low tone.

“More trouble!” said Vickers, leading the way to his old bedroom, which was the only spot in the house secure from the inroads of the party. He shut the door behind them, and invited the doctor to sit down, but Nuñez did not notice the suggestion.

“I have just come from town,” he said. “Your immediate arrest is decided on. The police may be here in a few minutes.”

“My arrest? Well, what the— Why in thunder am I to be arrested?”

“On suspicion of conspiring against the government. You are thought to have great influence with the men, which, taken in conjunction with your friendship for Cortez, makes you dangerous.”

“Well, if that isn’t the darndest,” said Vickers. “I have not conspired against their old government.”

“That, my dear Luis,” said the doctor gravely, “has nothing whatsoever to do with it. They are coming to arrest you. The mere presence of Cortez in the house will be enough. They can not arrest him without precipitating immediate trouble, but they can arrest any one who will be of assistance to him. It seems he has boasted openly that he could get all the ammunition he wanted from you. I do not say I believe it.”

“I have just sent all the cartridges he wanted out to the coche which is at this moment standing before my door,” said Vickers.

“Then you must certainly go at once.”

“Do you really advise me, Doctor, to run away from a couple of policemen with handcuffs and a warrant? No, no, I shall stay. My conscience is clear. I shall appeal to my own government. You know they can’t go about arresting innocent Americans without getting into trouble.”

Nuñez raised his eyebrows. “And through whom will you appeal? Your American consul?”

“I suppose so.”

“And do you happen to remember the last time you saw Meester B. Wilkins Smith?”

“Oh, thunder!” returned Vickers, “that was the time I dipped him in the San Pedro, for saying I cheated at cards. Well, he richly deserved it, Doctor. No one could deny that.”

“Perhaps not,” returned the doctor, “but I do not think he will break his neck to save you. I think he will write home that it is unfortunate that a better type of Americans do not come down here. I think he will think it right to let our law take its course.”

Vickers had begun to look grave, but at the word law his face brightened. “Ah, there you are,—law!” he cried. “They can not prove anything against me. They will not dare to ventilate their case in court.”

“I do not think they will try,” replied Nuñez gently. “I think they will send you down to a little prison on the island of Santa Maria, while they investigate your case. And I do not think, my dear Don Luis, that you will ever come back from that little island. A lovely spot, a paradise, but not healthy, it seems. It is very far away,—so far that sometimes the jailers forget to come to feed the prisoners for months at a time.”

“Well, in that case,” said Vickers, with a laugh, “I should think the prisoners would not have very much trouble in making their escape.”

“Not the least; they do not have the least, not the least little bit. But the channel is broad there, and the sharks are very hungry, Don Luis.”

“Gee, you are a cheerful companion! You put new life in a man, don’t you?” said Vickers.

“You must go, and go at once.”

“I suppose,” he answered, “that I might slip over the border for a day or two.”

“You would be sent back at once. We have a treaty with our neighbors, and it is strictly kept,—especially in regard to those they have no interest in protecting. You must go home, Don Luis. You can catch to-morrow morning’s steamer, if you are quick.”

For the first time the countenance of Vickers really clouded. “I can’t go home,” he said; and then, noting the surprise on the doctor’s face, he burst out: “Why, Heaven help you, don’t you suppose I would have gone home long ago, if I could? Did you think I was here for love of the damned country?”

“I did,” returned the other simply. “Yes, I am not ashamed to admit that I did. I find my country beautiful,—my countrymen attaching. I believed that you felt it too.”

“And so I do, so I do,” said Vickers, “but, man, I’m a northener, and I’d give every palm and orchid in the place for the noise of wheels creaking on packed snow.”

“All the more reason, then, why you should go home.”

“Look here, my friend,” the other answered, “if I go home I run a fair chance of being electrocuted. If I stay here the sharks get me, or if I escape the sharks, the Señor Don Papa is going to marry me to Rosita. There are three uncomfortable alternatives for a man to choose from.”

“I should choose electrocution,” said the doctor.

“I think I shall choose a pot shot at the police.”

There was a moment of silence, then the doctor asked,

“Did you send that letter to Lee’s family?”

Vickers shook his head absently.

“Then,” cried the other, with decision, “you shall go home as Lee. Ten years might change a man so that not even his own father would know him,—especially ten years in this climate. Beside, there was a resemblance, you know.”

Vickers had lifted his head to laugh at the project for its impossibility, and paused to listen further, attracted by its sheer folly.

“You must have observed,” the doctor continued, “that fugitives are caught for the simple reason they go into a new country as strangers, and strangers are always objects of suspicion. Strangers always are called upon to give an account of themselves; strangers always have to explain why they have come. Now all these difficulties are obviated if only you can take up the life and personality of some one else. You are Lee, you go home to see your father. Nothing could be simpler. Well, yes, I admit that there is a risk, but——”

“But,” said Vickers, “there is also a Nellie. I told you, didn’t I, Doctor, that it is a name I am fond of?”

“It is a risk,” Nuñez went on, “but to stay here is a certainty.”

“To go back,” murmured Vickers, “to a real home, even if it belongs to another man, and a father, and above all an affectionate cousin——”

“Order your horse,” said Nuñez, “and I’ll take care of your guests, and of the police, and of Rosita, and Cortez, and all the other follies you have committed.”

“And of Ascencion,” Vickers added. “She is worth all the rest, the nice old hag. Well, I’ll try it, Doctor, on your advice. By the way, thank you for not asking why I don’t go home under my own name.”

The doctor smiled. “We learn not to ask that question of our visitors,” he said; and then at Vickers’s request he went and routed out a small boy and gave orders to bring the patron’s mare at once to the front of the house.

When he returned to the bedroom, Vickers had changed into his riding clothes, and was stuffing a pair of saddle-bags.

“I want you, Nuñez,” he said, “to take anything you have a fancy for in the house, and give the rest to Ascencion. There’s a check for her, and here’s another for all I have in the bank. It will more than pay my bills. If not, write me to an address I will send. Be kind to Ascencion. She won’t like my going off like this, without saying good-by, but I don’t dare. She will have hysterics, as sure as Fate. Tell her I love her fond. Good-by, Doctor.”

The last Nuñez saw of him was a long leg quickly drawn over the window-sill.

The night, fortunately, was fair, for the rainy season had not regularly set in. As Vickers rode, he thought neither of the dangers he had left behind nor of the risk before him. It seemed as if the fierce homesickness of the last five years had suddenly broken out now and that his face was for the first time turned northward. He could not believe that within a week he would see the tops of New York’s tall buildings rise over the horizon like an immense castle set on a hill.

He reached the sea at four o’clock; at sunrise the vessel sailed. Then only, as he saw the gray water opening out between him and the shore, he felt an emotion of gratitude to the country that had sheltered him and which he never expected to see again.

Chapter III

Every one knows that there are palaces in Fifth Avenue which contain no one of social note, while there are houses no wider than step ladders in the side streets for admission to which one would give one’s eye-teeth. The Lees’ was of this type.

At ten o’clock on the evening of the twenty-second, the groom came out of the area gate. He knew, and the Lees knew, that no one would be going home for an hour, but he obeyed his orders to be on hand at that time in order to open the carriage doors, and generally speed the parting guest. He had already unrolled the red carpet down the entire length of the steps, and was walking up and down, debating whether he could squeeze in another five minutes for an extra plate of ice-cream (the cook was his aunt), when his attention was attracted to an approaching figure. It was that of a tall man in not ill fitting blue serge clothes, but, though the month was March, and a cold March at that, he seemed to feel no embarrassment over the fact that he wore a Panama hat of large, of almost blatant, variety. The groom counted up—at least two months before such a head-gear was even permissible. He had never supposed that such ignorant human beings existed.

At this point his scorn was changed to surprise by observing that the barbarian was actually ascending the Lees’ step, treading lightly upon the red carpet. The butler opened the door promptly with smiling grace. He had observed Miss Lewis among the guests, and knew her maid—a vivacious French-woman. His manner grew sterner when a stranger in a Panama hat asked for Mr. Lee. His gaze, starting at the Panama hat, sank slowly to the newcomer’s feet, noting on the way the pair of saddle-bags so casually held.

“Mr. Lee is entertaining friends at dinner,” he said coldly.

“Still eating at ten o’clock?” returned the stranger.

“No, sir. The gentlemen have just joined the ladies in the drawing-room.”

“Tell Mr. Lee I should like to see him,” said the other, and stepped, without invitation, inside the door. Plimpton, who in the natural course of his profession had become something of a judge of men, looked at the stranger critically, and came to the conclusion he was not a thief. Further than this he refused to go.

“What name shall I say?” he inquired, and was confirmed in his fears when the stranger answered,

“No name. Say I have a message from his son.”

Plimpton bowed very slightly. Be sure he knew all about the scandal about Mr. Robert. His curiosity was so much aroused that a weaker man would have mounted the stairs with a quickened tread. Not Plimpton. He rose grandly from step to step like a swimmer breasting slow waves.

Arrived at the top, he stood a minute in the doorway, fixing his employer with his eye, as one who would say, “Yes, it is true that I have important news, but do not be alarmed; you are in safe hands.”

The next moment he was herding Mr. Lee downstairs like a faithful sheep-dog.

Mr. Lee paused two steps from the bottom, and stood looking down at the newcomer. He was a tall man, and the two steps gave him extra height, so that in his close evening clothes he appeared almost gigantic.

“You wished to see me, sir?” he said politely.

“You have a son in South America, Mr. Lee?”

The old man bowed.

“A man about my age and height?”

“Not quite so tall, I think, sir.”

Vickers was silent. He had hoped the suggestion would be sufficient. He looked at the old man steadily. There was no recognition in the eyes. Vickers felt half tempted to throw over the whole game. It was indeed a mad one. He contemplated reporting the death of Lee, and going away. Then something in the face of Plimpton, peering over his master’s shoulder, encouraged him. Plimpton had guessed. Plimpton would believe him. He hazarded a bold stroke.

“Don’t you know me, father?”

The old man caught hold of him with a cry.

“My dear Robert! My dear son! To think of my not knowing you. But how you have changed! You have changed immensely.”

“Ten years do change a fellow.”

“Ten years, my boy? You keep no count. It will be twelve in June.”

Even at seventy Mr. Lee must have retained some love of the dramatic, for he insisted on taking Vickers upstairs, and entered the drawing-room leaning on his arm, and saying suavely,

“Ladies, I want to introduce my son to you.”

Vickers had been away from home for seven years, and in that time the highest type of feminine beauty which he had seen had been little round-faced Rosita, with her coarse muslins and cotton lace. And now he suddenly found himself the center of interest to a group of half a dozen women, to whose natural beauty care, taste, fashion, and money had added everything that could adorn. Their soft shining dresses, their pretty necks and arms, their endless jewels dazzled him. He thought of his own little party—of Ascencion’s efforts, of the phonograph, of the macaw.

The room, too, was incredibly warm and bright and luxurious in his eyes. The Lees prided themselves on its simplicity. It was more of a library, Nellie always said, than a drawing-room. But on Vickers, who had lived seven years with tiled floors and stucco walls, the dark red hangings, the shaded lamps, the books, the heavy rugs, made a profound impression.

Even in the first excitement, his prudence and his curiosity alike suggested the importance of at once discovering the identity of Nellie. His eye fell on Mrs. Raikes, sleek, dark, well bred as a fox terrier. She was the most cordial of the little group. Again his glance turned to an exuberant blonde, who stood with large blue eyes fixed upon him. Every man has it in him to admire an exuberant blonde. He wondered rather hopefully if it could be she.

“I am so glad to see you, Mr. Lee,” Mrs. Raikes was saying. “I had heard of you, but I had begun to think you were mythical, like King Arthur.”

“Why not say like all great heroes?”

The little group of women about him smiled. Only, he noticed the men stood apart—the men, and one girl, who had never moved from a sofa in the corner.

Vickers turned and looked at her, and as he did so, Mrs. Raikes exclaimed:

“What a shame it is! We have monopolized him so that his own cousin has not had a chance to speak to him. Come, Nellie, we’ll make room for you.”

Thus challenged Nellie rose very slowly, and Vickers’s eyes rested on her long slim figure, and immobile little face.

“Why did not you cable, Bob?” she said.

He had on his voyage home imagined every possible sort of meeting between them—meetings which ranged from frenzied reproaches to caresses, but he had not imagined just this.

Even the rest of the company seemed to feel it was an inadequate greeting to a cousin who had been away twelve years, and they turned with some amusement to catch Vickers’s answer.

“I did not cable,” he said good-temperedly, “because I had neither the time nor the price.”

There seemed to be no answer to this, and Nellie attempted none. Her eyebrows went up a little, and she returned to her sofa. Mrs. Raikes hastily followed her to say good-night.

“I suppose we must leave you to a family reunion,” she said, and added, lowering her voice: “Such a nice prodigal, Nellie. If I were you, I should fall in love with him at once.”

Nellie’s eyes dwelt on her cousin with an amusement worse than anger. “I don’t think I shall ever fall in love with Bob,” she answered, and Emmons, who was sitting beside her, could not repress a slight sniff of contempt.

Mrs. Raikes approached her host.

“Good-night, Mr. Lee. Thank you for such a pleasant after-dinner surprise. Good-night, Mr. Robert Lee. Will you come and dine with me some night? I always keep a fatted calf on hand.”

Vickers laughed. “Don’t you think I’ll get it at home?” he asked.

“Well, you know, Nellie is the housekeeper,” They both glanced at the girl’s impassive countenance, and smiled at each other. They, at least, were going to be friends.

Even after the guests were gone, and the three stood alone on the hearth-rug, Nellie remained silent.

Vickers could not resist saying lightly:

“You don’t seem very glad to see me, Nellie.”

“On the contrary,” she answered, with meaning. “Don’t sit up too late talking to Bob, Uncle Robert,” and with the curtest of nods she was gone.

He turned to Mr. Lee and observed with some bitterness that Nellie’s manner was not very cordial.

The old man shook his head. “No,” he said; “I was afraid you would notice it. You must not expect too much of Nellie. She is a good girl, but she has not a warm heart.”

“She has an attractive face,” said Vickers.

It was after midnight before Vickers found himself alone; he had sent the servants to bed, and was standing a minute in the act of turning out the lights. Plimpton had shown him—as one who bestows the freedom of the city—where the switch was to be found.

His brain still reeled with the success of his venture—a new name, a northern home, an affectionate old father, and—above all—New York under so friendly a guise. He was no reader of the social items in the newspapers. Names which had become familiar to half the country meant nothing to him; but there had been something about the people he had seen that evening which could not be mistaken by a man of any perception—a certain elegance and courage which together make the faults and virtues of good society. He had never in his wildest dreams imagined Nellie a woman of this type. He had hoped she would be pretty, but he hardly knew whether or not he was pleased to find this cool, perfectly appointed creature, with a full face like a boy, and a profile like an Italian saint. What bonds or barriers were there between them? And if such existed, was he ever to know them? He thought of her letter. “If it was on my account that you went, you need not have gone.” What did it mean? Had there been coquetry on her part? Had there been brutality on Lee’s?

And as he wondered he looked up and found himself face to face with her.

She had changed her elaborate evening dress for a scarcely less elaborate dressing-gown. She came in, sat down opposite him, crossed her legs, showing a pair of red-heeled bedroom slippers, and said briskly,

“Well, Bob?”

He attempted to respond with a smile that should be as non-committal as her words, but finding that she continued to stare at him he said,

“You were not very cordial in your greeting, Nellie.”

At this she laughed as if he were making the best joke in the world, and as if she were most fittingly replying to it when she said, “Ah, but you see I was so surprised.”

“Did not you know that I would come back?”

“So little that I can still hardly realize it.”

Again the doubt crossed his mind whether or not she believed in his identity with her cousin.

“It is incomprehensible to me why you did come,” she went on reflectively.

He answered truthfully: “Because I wanted to. Heavens, how I wanted to!”

“I am glad to hear it,” she returned. “I am glad you acted on a whim rather than from a belated sense of duty, for otherwise it might seem rather ungracious for me to say what I am going to say.”

There was something slightly sinister in her tone, but his curiosity had reached such a point that he forgot to be alarmed.

“Go on,” he said.

“I have done your work for twelve years, Bob, and I don’t mean to do it another instant.”

“Done my work?”

She went on with the utmost deliberation. She made not the smallest emotional appeal. Vickers had never heard a woman speak more calmly.

“I see that you think that I ought to have been grateful for a home. I wasn’t grateful. I have worked my passage. It was not desire for a home that has kept me here year after year, but a thing perhaps you don’t know very much about, Bob—a sense of duty. At this moment I have no idea whether your father is a ruined man, or whether his mind is slightly unhinged on the subject of money. He will not cut down the household in the smallest particular, and yet there are times when I can not get enough money from him to pay the servants’ wages. It is not an easy task, Bob, and such as it is I make it over to you.”

He glanced at the room—at her own extravagant clothes.

“Do you mean to say—” he began, but she interrupted him.

“Don’t pretend to be surprised. As if I had not written to you often enough, as long as I had any hope you would come back.”

“I never got your letters.”

“Odd, for you always cashed my checks.”

Vickers was silent. His experiment began to look less promising. It irked him inexpressibly to be obliged to bear such a tone from any one, more especially a woman. If Lee’s villainy had been on a larger scale he could have supported it better.

“You have got to stay at home, Bob,” she said firmly.

He could not help smiling. “It does not sound so alarming,” he answered.