WITH EDGE TOOLS

BY HOBART CHATFIELD TAYLOR

CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY
1891

Copyright,
By A. C. McClurg and Co.
A. D. 1891.

CONTENTS.

[CHAPTER I. The Staten Club]
[CHAPTER II. Cross Fire]
[CHAPTER III. Two Women]
[CHAPTER IV. In an Opera Box]
[CHAPTER V. A Challenge]
[CHAPTER VI. Spanish Castles]
[CHAPTER VII. The Patricians]
[CHAPTER VIII. Gathering Clouds]
[CHAPTER IX. Oakhurst]
[CHAPTER X. "I Will Laugh, Too"]
[CHAPTER XI. Under the Willows]
[CHAPTER XII. Unrest]
[CHAPTER XIII. Derby Day]
[CHAPTER XIV. Danger]
[CHAPTER XV. A Game of Skill]
[CHAPTER XVI. In the Library]
[MRS. ABBOTT'S BOOKS.]
[Other Books]

WITH EDGE TOOLS.

CHAPTER I.

THE STATEN CLUB.

In the world of clubs the "Staten" held its head proudly. It was a social union comprising the most exclusive men of family and fashion. Though its outward walls differed little from those of other clubs which lined the avenue, its muster-roll was sacredly guarded by the governors, and posted at the hall desk was a long list of waiting aspirants, each to undergo in his turn the scrutiny of the committee-room, where all antecedents must be known and approved before his card could bear "Staten Club" in the left-hand, lower corner. Other club buildings there were, in New York, of greater stateliness, with marble walls and galleries, and well filled libraries, but the "Staten" cared for none of these, and proudly pointed to its members' list, where were inscribed five hundred names which no other club could ever hope to equal. Three rooms, the restaurant, café, and billiard room, received their share of patronage, while the lounging room, upon the avenue, where a few papers were kept for respectability's sake, and others for use, was the daily haunt of some of the choicest spirits. In the early days of the club's history, to be sure, a thoughtless governor had inspired the foundation of a library. A room upstairs somewhere (few of the members knew where) was selected, and into this were placed a set of Dickens, the "Britannica," an atlas, a history or two, a dictionary, and perhaps a hundred other books, which together formed the nucleus of a store of knowledge. But no one went there except Simkins, Rynder and McLaughlin. They were a queer lot; none of the men could make them out; it was their families that got them elected, and they never seemed to have anything better to do than cuddle over musty books. But the choice clique were those whose names were most often signed to the wine-room tickets. It was they who ran the club and made it the popular place it was.

On a particular January afternoon, of a year not long since passed, one of the broad, front windows of the lounging room was occupied by three intimates of "the set." There was Rennsler Van Vort, whose ancestor had been a red-faced burgher at the time when old Peter Stuyvesant rigorously ruled New Amsterdam. His fortune was his name, for the family was too old to be wealthy and too proud to be in trade; yet he never lacked a berth on a yacht or a room in a country house, and wherever he went, he brought a collection of rare tales and a song or two which made him the friend of all. Like his burgher ancestor he had a red, round face and was bald, but behind his glasses there were two queer, little eyes which shone with kindly humor, and from lips half hidden by stubby black hairs, bright, timely words were sure to come. Rennsler was the senior by several years of his companions, and, if the truth were known, he probably cared little for them, but Roland Waterman owned the "Phrygia," and Clifford Howard-Jones was a coaching man with a shooting box and other convenient accessories.

It had been snowing in the morning, but the sun had turned the snow to slush, and the three men, for lack of more exciting sport, were watching the omnibus horses slide and struggle down Murray Hill, and the pedestrians splash and spatter in their vain efforts to dodge the cabs and reach the curbs with unsoiled feet. If the unfortunate wayfarer happened to be a woman, and a pretty one at that, the three friends would smirk and nudge each other, as the little feet tripped daintily from puddle to puddle, or splashed her white skirts with great mud blotches, while the owner folded them about her and pattered rapidly on her heels, foolishly fancying the more speed the less mud. An occasional witticism from Rennsler's lips would heighten the grotesqueness of a luckless passer's struggles. The other two would laugh and Howard-Jones would add some strained gibe, with the flat effect that forced wit always has. Perhaps half an hour was thus passed, when Howard-Jones spied a woman leaving a house in a side street. A carriage was waiting at the curb, and a footman was vainly endeavoring to protect her feathers from the rain; but forgetting the servant and his umbrella, she gathered her skirts up frantically and rushed from the bottom step to the carriage door, which, of course being closed, left her no alternative but to stand patiently in the drenching rain until the marked precision of the footman's steps brought relief and the umbrella.

"Look at that action!" shouted Howard-Jones. "Great for park work but too high for the open. Easy, my beauty, or you will come a cropper at the curb. By Jove, fellows, it is Mrs. Harry Osgood."

"So it is," replied Waterman. "I wonder what she is mousing about that street after? She must be searching for her Duncan. Dear girl, how pathetically lonesome she looked at Sherry's last night when Grahame left her to dance with Mrs. Rossy Platt."

This remark was hailed by Howard-Jones with the world-wise chuckle with which a man of narrow sympathy and ill-spent life invariably receives a pointed insinuation against a woman's character. Broad sentiments and heroic impulses are seldom nursed in clubs, and Howard-Jones had learned his ethics within the limits of the world in which he moved.

"If I were Osgood, I would go gunning for Grahame," he retorted. "A rounder like Duncan never hovers about a bird so long for nothing."

"He had far better give up dogs and horses and bestow a little attention on his wife," Rennsler Van Vort replied. He had the persuasive sympathy, possessed by few men, which told him that a woman's heart, though easily won by flattery may be as easily lost by neglect. The lack of fortune had brought him into contact with the petty meanness of life and if he had made friends whose hospitality helped out his meagre purse, he knew that without his postprandial accomplishments and unquestioned ancestry few boards would have a place for him. He did not imagine that a moral truism would deeply affect his companions, but his broad instincts prompted him to add that "when a married woman goes astray it is usually the fault of her mother or her husband."

"Nonsense, old chap," retorted Howard-Jones. "Mrs. Osgood is a pretty woman, and a pretty woman must have admiration. Duncan used to admire her, but Osgood had the money and she married him. Duncan Grahame keeps right on admiring her and Osgood doesn't, so there you are."

The argument thus incited might have been continued were it not for the interruption caused by the familiar voice of a man, who had just entered, hailing the group at the window with the somewhat pithy expression: "What are you sportsmen doing there? Staring at nothing, I'll wager, and I don't believe you have had one drink between you for a week."

The men at the window turned, and were startled to see standing in the door the man of whom they were speaking, Duncan Grahame. His clothes showed that he had just come from the city. His trousers were turned up and muddy, and his hat was sprinkled with rain. The merry familiarity of his expression told, however, that he had not heard the remark just made, but Howard-Jones, a trifle abashed at finding one of the objects of his insinuations appear so inopportunely, and feeling that something had better be said to remove the embarrassment, took it upon himself to reply. "I don't believe we have, but you are just in time to stir us up. Rennsler has been preaching and we are awfully dry; just punch that bell, won't you."

The appearance of the servant caused the four friends to draw as many chairs about a small cherry wood table, supplied with the usual complement of bell, match-box and ashtray, and as the servant put the familiar question—"What is the order, sir?" it was followed by the habitual meditative silence. Grahame threw himself back in his chair and pushed his hat back, doubtfully. "I have got a Sahara thirst," he finally said, "so I suppose it will have to be a long drink. Bring me a whiskey and soda."

"Split the soda with me, won't you?" interjected Howard-Jones.

"Couldn't think of it, my love," Grahame replied; "I have not had a drink to-day. Went to lunch with the senior partner and he ordered nothing more stimulating than unfiltered Croton. He took me out to talk business, and I nearly expired under the strain." Howard-Jones finally decided to indulge in a whole bottle of Delatour, but when Rennsler Van Vort quietly told the servant he would take an Apollinaris lemonade without sugar, it was too much for the dashing Duncan. "When do you take orders, old man?" he said. "All you need is a cowl and sandals, for nature has kindly tonsured your locks for you. I suppose you will soon be leading the singing at noon prayer meetings."

"I am off my liquor," Van Vort replied; "but if I do come to noon meetings I feel sure I'll do better with Sankey hymns than I do now with comic ditties."

"Don't start Rennsler preaching," Howard-Jones interjected, "he's primed with moral bosh and the atmosphere is too depressed already. What brings a hard-working man like you uptown at four o'clock? I thought you didn't knock off until five."

"I don't," Duncan replied, "but I am going out to Chicago to-morrow and I am taking a half holiday to prepare my nerves for the strain."

"Going to Chicago," the three interposed almost in a breath.

"Yes, and, worse luck, I don't know when I shall get back. I am going out for an English syndicate we have in tow. The Britons have bought all the breweries and stock-yards out there, and now they are after elevators."

"'Elevators'", exclaimed Waterman, "I should think they do need a few in London; those beastly 'lifts' they have in the hotels there are about the only British institution I don't admire. But what have you got to do with elevators?"

"Don't be an ass, Roland," Duncan replied. "It is about time you knew that the chief industry of 'the city of the future', as some fool journalist calls Chicago,—pork of course excepted,—is grain, and elevators are the warehouses where it is stored. I am going out to work a scheme to buy them all up, make a trust, and sell the stock in London. Our house are the middlemen between Chicago and the Britons. Now do you see?"

"Well, I'm deuced glad I didn't go into Wall Street," Roland replied. "I shouldn't care to be shut up in that beastly hole, Chicago. I don't believe there is a sportsman in the place. I stopped there a day once on my way to Minnesota, grouse shooting, and I never saw such a rum place. I put up at the biggest hotel in the town, and there wasn't much to complain of in the size of it; but the dirt and the niggers were too much for me. I had to eat dinner at two o'clock and I wish you could have seen how they managed it. I was met at the door by a six-foot black man in a waistcoat that was perhaps white in the year one, and a coat made in the days of Henry Clay. He waltzed us down the room with the airs of a drum major and put us at a table with a drummer and a cow-boy. There we were given in charge of another colored gentleman who polished off the plates with a greasy towel, and placed big tumblers of iced water at each place. He took our orders and brought us the soup in fairly good shape, except that his black fingers got into all the plates; but you ought to have seen the rest of the dinner. He started from the kitchen at a record-breaking pace, spinning a tray on the forefinger of his right hand. He galloped past us and deposited his implements on a side table, then he commenced to sling canary birds' bath tubs, filled with heaven knows what, across the table like poker chips, until we had a perfect collection of samples of the most villainously cooked truck I ever tasted. I tried to make out a 'feed', but I gave it up when the black gentleman appeared with all sorts of pie, floating island, ice cream and jelly. I then fled in despair and went out for a walk, but I didn't find anything but mud, smoke, and cable cars. I tell you, Duncan, old man, you don't know what Chicago is, or you wouldn't look so beautifully unconcerned."

A burst of laughter greeted Waterman's recital of his pathetic experience, and then Duncan, who little relished his coming exile, mournfully asked if any of the fellows knew some people of the right sort in the place.

"No one but a charming creature of the vintage of forty-nine whom I saw at the Pier last summer," retorted Howard-Jones. "She must ride sixteen stone, but she canters about like a yearling and plasters her hair all over her face in little curlycues, to say nothing of her voice, which used to run an effective opposition to the steam horn at the lighthouse. But speaking of lighthouses, you should have seen her diamond earrings; the light on Point Judith wasn't a circumstance to them. When the heat was too much for her, she used to mop her face with a piece of chamois and puff like a crippled hunter. The papers called her 'the beautiful and accomplished leader of Chicago society.' I tell you, old man, she is the girl for you; she'll enliven your weary hours."

Another laugh greeted this effusion, but Van Vort felt compelled to interpose an objection. "I don't believe any of you fellows know the first thing about the West," he said. "Your ideas are bounded by Bar Harbor on the north and Washington on the south, and as for their western limits, they don't extend beyond Orange County."

"Come, old chap, you're getting into deep water. Didn't I tell you I had been in Chicago?" objected Waterman.

"You went out West after chickens, and you didn't get beyond a Minnesota shooting club. As for Chicago, you admit that you were there on a muggy day and didn't stir two squares from an hotel which, I wager, wasn't the best in the place. As for the people, one of the best mannered women I ever met came from Chicago."

"Who was she?" Duncan interrupted. "If there is anybody decent in the place I want to know her."

"Her name is Mrs. Sanderson. I met her in Washington last winter. Her uncle was in the State Department and she was visiting him. She had a friend with her who is also from Chicago, I think, and they both of them were better read and had less affectation than any women I have met for a year, at least."

"That sounds encouraging," replied Duncan. "I think I have heard Sibyl Wright talk about that Mrs. Sanderson. If there is any sport in Chicago I am bound to have it. My old college chum, Harold Wainwright, has been living out there for three years and he must know the town by this time."

"I say, Duncan, won't you have some more liquor? You need it to fortify your nerves for that voyage of discovery."

"I think you are right, Roland," Duncan replied. "By Jove, though, I don't believe I have time; I have got a date before dinner."

"Oh, yes you have; just one more for luck. Here, waiter, take the orders."

The glasses were soon removed and freshly filled ones took their place. "When are you off?" said Waterman.

"To-morrow on the 'Limited'" was the reply.

"Then let's drink to the great Duncan and his success among the pork-packers," said Howard-Jones.

The four men quickly drained their glasses and Duncan took a hurried leave of his friends. "Good-by, Duncan, good-by," were the exchanged partings. Duncan hurried through the hall, hailed a cab at the door, gave an uptown address to the driver, jumped into the cab, and was off.

CHAPTER II.

CROSS FIRE.

Duncan was dressing. It was already five minutes past the hour named for dinner on his invitation, but if Duncan were not late at dinner, it would deprive the guests of one stock topic of conversation, and he had never yet been so inconsiderate. No one waited for him, and when he finally appeared with some trumped up excuse, it was greeted with a round of laughter, and served to enliven the naturally trifling entrée conversation; so no one,—least of all the hostess,—blamed him. One who has been in an engine house when an alarm of fire is turned in can form some idea of Duncan's dressing accomplishments. There were, to be sure, no clanging gongs, stamping horses, and scurrying, half-dressed men, but there was the same instantaneous assumption of perfect order out of bewildering chaos. His servant was his faithful assistant, and when Duncan's steps were heard upon the stairs, he would seize a shirt in one hand and a pair of trousers in the other, which he held waiting for the arrival of his master. Duncan would make a wild rush through the door, and his top coat, coat and waistcoat would fly across the room at random, while Parker pulled off one pair of trousers and assisted him on with another. A dive into a face bath would give Parker time to change the odds and ends in Duncan's pockets; while on would go the shirt, and the tie would be adjusted and his hair smoothed while the servant replaced the muddy boots with evening shoes. Coat and waistcoat would go on together, hat, umbrella and overcoat be seized, and off Duncan would start in the official time of three minutes and seventeen seconds.

On the present occasion he desisted from his dressing long enough to read a small, blue note which he found upon his dressing table. It was worded as follows: "The coast is clear at nine, and will be so till after midnight. I will see you if you come." There was no signature or address. It had been left by a maid in the usual way, so Parker said, but even unsigned and non-committal as it was, it did not please Duncan. "I wish I could forget that woman," he muttered to himself. "But I suppose I will be there and play the fool, just as I always do. I have a mind to break away from her, though." Then, turning to Parker, he continued audibly, "I am going to Chicago to-morrow morning. Have my portmanteau and shirt box packed. You know about what I want, but put in plenty of shirts as I may be gone some weeks."

"Very good, sir," replied the taciturn Parker. "Hi suppose you will want your hulster for the journey, sir."

"Yes," replied Duncan; then putting on his coat and hat, and seizing a pair of gloves and a stick, he rushed down the stairs without stopping for that apartment elevator which was never running, jumped into the cab he had left waiting, and was off uptown to his dinner. He was only half an hour late but his rudeness was punished, for he was placed between a débutante and a dowager, and condemned for two mortal hours to endure alternately insipid zephyrs and chilling blasts of small talk. Stiff-backed chairs were there and stiff-backed people were in them. Shaded candles threw a flickering light upon a mass of plate and flowers, bonbons, almonds, fruit and glasses. Around the table was a circle of bare necks and diamonds, white shirts and ties; and behind the chairs solemn footmen silently moved from place to place passing the endless courses. Some of the guests were bright and others solemn; some brilliant and others stupid; but they were the component parts of a fashionable dinner. There was a banker, a broker, a yachtsman, a diplomat, a merchant, and a sprinkling of dawdling men of leisure, and their wives, daughters, and cousins. The forks rattled and the tongues clattered, while each strove to hide his inner nature behind an effective pose. The clever succeeded and the stupid failed. Coffee was brought; the women arose, a man or two sprawled beneath the table to find some fan or glove, and then the women filed slowly out to gossip and dissect their neighbors, and the men remained to drink and smoke and drink again, while a ribald wag related some choice but scandalous tale, and ardent sportsmen took sides in vain disputes about the "Poseidon's" time allowance and "Salvador's" Suburban chances.

Duncan was moodily indisposed for banter or dispute. His buoyant and careless spirit seldom deserted him, but this dinner only claimed his presence because his senior partner was the host, and none of his intimes being there, he fell readily into a state of passive ill-humor. He dosed over his glass of port, carelessly puffed his cigar and occasionally proffered an opinion with a superior air incited by his social ascendency over most of the men present. Duncan Grahame was a man whose dominant characteristic was assurance, tempered only by an intuitive knowledge of the social amenities. He was often bold but never vulgar. He was rude in the manner of most society men, but his rudeness was a pose prompted by the mannerisms of the age, and designed, as was his coat, after the latest London model. He possessed the rare fortune of being considered handsome both by men and women. His beauty was of the vigorous type, which wins admiration by its manliness rather than its perfection. His eyes were great, grey wells, which gave to women a Narcissus-like reflection of their own impulses. They charmed by their seeming sympathy, but were really the artful tools of conscious power. To most men's minds curly hair is a blemish which barbers' shears and bristly brushes may remove, but to women Duncan Grahame's short; crispy black curls were a seldom failing charm. Although his eyes might deceive even one who knew the countless evidences of breeding and career, his mouth, partly hidden by a short moustache, betrayed the hard, unmistakable markings of indulgence, and a student of life would have mentally described him by the trite, though significant expression, "a man of the world." And such was Duncan Grahame,—no better and no worse than scores whose names adorn the blue books of metropolitan life. There was once a time, not many years before, when he had been an innocent and confiding boy. He had gone to school and then to college,—a dangerous experiment at best, but, with a boy like Duncan, who had been brought up within the strictness of a Connecticut home and turned upon the world without a knowledge of it, pretty sure to result as it had turned out in his case. It was the old story of weakness, ignorance, and a desire to emulate his upper classmen and be a man. The first step was not taken without a struggle, but one by one the cards of which the Puritan moral structure was built were blown away, and, left without support, the edifice collapsed. What other result could be expected? His Christian ethics were but the expurgated teachings of the pulpit, tempered by dogmas and doctrines, and in his home the faintest whisperings of the real world brought blushes to his parents, and stilted, meaningless words of warning. His first intimations of worldly ways were gathered surreptitiously in the streets, and his first knowledge of the nature of sin came with the temptation. The struggle was brief; perhaps it was as strong as could be expected; and soon he was the careless, fearless leader of the mischievous, rollicking set to be found in every college. He became, he thought, a man, and knew the world. He left college and after two years in London and Paris came to New York. His family was excellent, his appearance attractive, his manners good, and his assurance unbounded,—all that was needed, except money, to win social success in the metropolis. Money he did not have, but he resolved to make it, so into Wall Street he went, and was so successful there, that at the end of three years he became the junior partner of a great brokerage house and was entrusted with the furtherance of many delicate schemes. In society he had won his way to a leadership in not the best, but the best advertised, set in New York. The plunge into the cold torrent of Wall Street deception was sufficient to chill even a stronger optimistic ardor than Duncan's, but when he was carried on into the whirling, flashing eddies of smart society, only to be left shivering upon the cruel reefs of selfishness and debauchery, every chivalrous sentiment was gone, and when he gathered courage for the second plunge, it was as a designing, selfish disciple of utility.

To return to the dinner. The men had left their coffee and cigars and the lucky ones had singled out attractive adversaries, with whom to thrust and parry bright, sharp phrases in those exhilarating practice-bouts of love, sure to precede the desperate encounters where mask and buttoned foil are cast aside. Others, to whom fortune was less kind, were striving to cull from unsympathetic neighbors some evidences of interest and intelligence, or had resigned themselves to the melancholy fate of being bored. Duncan wandered restlessly about awhile. He found no one to interest him, and being too selfish deliberately to resign himself to another dowager, he remembered that his intended journey to the West offered a plausible reason for retiring, so, making his excuses to the hostess, he took his departure, feeling, as he folded his muffler about his neck and buttoned his great-coat, that for a successful dinner more depends on the choice of guests than the choice of wines.

The little blue note found upon his dressing table turned his steps still farther uptown. The thaw of the afternoon was over; it was snowing, and cold blasts blew the flakes against his face, biting his cheeks and chilling his humor, so that when he had trudged the three squares he had to go, he felt the ill-temper which a raw wind invariably produces in one whose moods change with the barometer. He approached the particular flight of brown stone steps he sought, and observing that the street both ways was free from passers, and that the curtains of the adjoining houses were drawn, he ascended and rang the bell; a servant soon opened the door and he entered quickly. The door closed, and, instead of darkness and snowflake blasts, there was warmth and light, and a pretty woman standing just inside the drawing-room door, murmuring playfully in a soft tone: "Duncan, you cold, naughty fellow, I was willing to lay a dozen bottles of Houbigant that this wind would have blown away what little was left of your flighty heart."

"Don't chaff me. I'm in no mood for it. I wish you had sat out a stupid dinner and afterward had tramped three blocks in the snow."

"I actually believe that the usually serene nature of Mr. Duncan Grahame is a trifle, that is to say only a trifle, ruffled," she ironically replied. "I fancied that while Henry Stokes Osgood, Esquire, whom the laws designate my lord and master, was attending the Yacht Club election, Mr. Grahame might deign to amuse me. If I was not mistaken, his lordship, when he has removed his outer garments, can find me in the back drawing-room."

Duncan was left standing in the hallway. He had silently permitted her to retire because he had been unable to find a ready reply to her words. He had made up his mind to be disagreeable, and it angered him to have his guns silenced after the first fire.

He was in the habit of bullying women, but such tactics had invariably proved useless against Helen Osgood. When he was away from her he felt ashamed to think that her's was the stronger nature. He fancied, at times, that he did not care for her, and was resolved for policy's sake to break away from her influence, but each attempt of his to anger her, instead of producing tears and pleadings, ended, as he feared this would, in a meek surrender on his part. "That woman understands me," he muttered as he removed his great-coat. He was never sure of his ability to read her subtle blue-black eyes; even her soft, olive cheeks never changed their delicate shading, and her thin, languid lips were often determined and cold. Her hair was of a lustreless black, and her figure was delicately, but superbly, formed. She was the blended type of Celt and Creole, her father being Scotch and her mother of Louisiana French descent. In her the cold cunning of the North bridled the reckless warmth of the South. Her acts were prompted by impulse but masked by design, and if Duncan seemed at times to reach her Southern heart, the canny Scotch nature quickly veiled her feelings, and he was left at a loss to know whether he had inspired passion or merely aroused amusement.

But it was not his nature to analyze deeply or reflect long. He removed his coat, walked slowly down the long hallway, and entered the back drawing-room door. Mrs. Osgood was gracefully ensconced in the corner of a divan from the Orient, and her eyes were fixed apparently upon the latest work of Paul Bourget. A tall, bronze lamp was at her side and its rays were tempered by a carefully selected shade of the most becoming tinge. The other lights were dimmed, and beyond could be seen the subdued forms of graceful plants, while beneath her feet the yielding fur of an Arctic bear half hid two tiny bronze-tipped slippers and just enough of scarlet silk.

Duncan stood silently before her. Uncurbed natures are the most capricious, and as he gazed his anger turned to admiration, and he softly sat down beside her, took her hand, and said winningly, "Nell, dear, let's be friends."

She pushed him away, and with a quick, proud toss of her head coldly said, "Not till my lord Duncan has humbly sued for pardon."

"Pardon for what?"

"For intended flight to the West without permission and leave-taking."

"Am I not, then, the master of my actions?" Duncan replied in a somewhat ruffled tone.

"Not if you expect my favor." Then, lowering her large, black eyes, and pointing authoritatively to the floor, she continued: "Down on your knees and confess you were attempting to act without my knowledge."

Duncan started angrily. He was nettled at the tone of authority she assumed, so he replied: "I will do nothing of the kind. I see no reason why my actions should be accounted to, much less pardoned by, you."

"You big, foolish fellow," she laughingly said. "You have been spoilt by women. You expect that a declaration of independence delivered with so much bluster will anger me. Down on your knees and ask forgiveness."

Duncan jumped to his feet and paced the floor. He was too angry to speak at first, but he finally said in defiant tones: "I should think that my intended departure without your being informed of it, would be sufficient to advise you that your possible feelings on the subject were of supreme indifference to me."

"Indeed!" she replied, carelessly tossing aside the Bourget novel. "So I am to infer that Mr. Duncan Grahame, being weary of the woman upon whom he has previously pretended to bestow his favors, imagines that the easiest, and of course the most manly, way to rid himself of her is surreptitiously to steal away and leave her to discover his change of heart as best she can. Very well, so be it. But I really wish you would not molest that poor bear's head with the toe of your boot. If you have no regard for me, you should, at least, consider the feelings of my rug."

She quietly commenced reading her book, and the careless and continued tapping of the little bronze-toed slipper on the rug seemed to emphasize her apparently complete absorption in the words of the French romancer. There is no man—or woman either—who will not chafe under the strain of indifference, and Duncan was no exception to the rule. Open war he relished, but to be dismissed with peremptory coldness when he had intended to be the aggressor was humiliating to the strongest sentiment of his nature, his pride. He silently watched her, trying, meanwhile, to formulate some plan of action. Angry words rose to his lips but were checked by prudence. He had lost his temper too much, he thought. His eyes carelessly wandered toward the book she was reading; "Cœur de femme" were the words printed across the yellow cover leaf. "If that Frenchman understands his subject," he thought, "she will read somewhere in that book that a woman's heart adores its master and detests its slave. Bourget is an analyst of nature, they say. Could he teach me more than that submission can never be success. Thank you, Monsieur Bourget; your yellow cover has given me an idea." Then, assuming an air of mock humility, he said: "I have been waiting to hear if you have anything further to add to your discharge."

She slowly raised her eyes from her book and said coolly, "Nothing whatever. I think you understand me perfectly; if you are satisfied I am." Then she turned again to the book, apparently vexed at the interruption.

"Very well," he replied. "Since the understanding is mutually perfect, please accept the conventional expressions of leave taking, and permit me to say 'adieu'."

"That is a favor you can easily obtain," she replied. "But pray spare me the task of calling a servant; this book is intensely amusing, and I feel sure you know all the doors of the house."

"By Jove, you are a keen one," Duncan muttered to himself; then he slowly walked to the door, put on his coat, took his hat, turned up his collar, opened the door, and descended the steps. "That woman," he thought, "is a sportsman to the bone, but it will do her good to leave her for a while. She's a thoroughbred, though, and I wish I didn't love her."

Mrs. Osgood listened quietly until the door had shut and the sound of his steps had died away. "So he expected me to act like a school-girl," she said, half aloud. "Some women are fools, I suppose. I am glad he did not bluster any more. I hate a man who loses his temper. So, Mr. Duncan, you want to leave me. You have my permission; but you will soon be back, and then perhaps you will hear me tell you that I—no you won't, for I want to keep your handsome, curly head all for myself."

CHAPTER III.

TWO WOMEN.

We have all seen a manly young fellow go up to college. Full of life and vigor, he sees the world before him; but the thought of all its battles rouses no fear in his young heart, and, though his pranks are boyish and his manners rough, he stumbles good humoredly and persistently on into success. His upper classmen patronizingly smile upon him, while his natural enemy, the Soph, taunts and teases him, but is sometimes brought down and punished by his strong, young arms. Youthful, growing Chicago reminds one of this college boy. She has left the school of preparation and has taken her place among the great cities of the earth, where, full of energy and life, she is fighting her way to the front. Her mature colleagues of the Old World smile patronizingly at her efforts, but doubt her powers; while the cities of the East, seeing in her a young rival, taunt and ridicule her with jealous anger. She is young; but strong and active; and if she is sometimes carried away by the very energy of her youth, she is never daunted, and the older cities of the East have already felt the vigor of her sinewy grasp. Chicago, with her broad avenues and stupendous buildings, her spacious parks and stately homes, her far-reaching railways and towering chimneys, her bustling marts and busy, surging crowds of active men and women, is the archetype of American energy,—the creation of yesterday and the marvel of to-day. But the mortar is scarcely dry and the stones are still undimmed by time. She is as the mason, the carpenter, and the builder have left her—crude and fresh, without the dignified stains of age, without the majestic polish which time alone can give. Her social structure, like her brick and mortar buildings, is solidly laid and firmly built, but new. Her people built Chicago and she is the best memorial of their energy. They are still young and vigorous; in them the ardor of the pioneer is scarcely dead; the lethargy of long-held wealth has yet to come.

In the library of an imposing, but new, grey stone mansion on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive two women were dawdling together over Petrarch's "Canzoniere" in the original. A well-thumbed dictionary was in the lap of one, and by the other's side lay Volume IV. of Symond's "Renaissance in Italy." It was cold January, and the broad, low window showed the angry lake dashing against the great sea wall and splashing the sparkling spray far over the roadway. The moaning north wind furiously rattled the long casements and sent occasional puffs of smoke and cinders out from the brightly blazing hearth fire; but these outward signs of winter were unable to affect the inviting coziness of the apartment. Fortunately the decorator's work had stopped at the walls; so, although artistically arranged, it was also a room to live in. Though the chairs were carved to match the panels, they were also—pardon the term—sittable; and though the bindings on the low book-shelves blended well with the tapestries and rugs, the books themselves were readable. The same judgment which had chosen the books had selected bronzes and porcelain, tiles and tapestries, and the tasteful arrangement of the art objects at once bespoke the dilettante.

The elder student of Italian lyrics, glancing up from the "Rime in vita e morte" said interrogatively to her friend: "I wish I knew, Florence, whether Madonna Laura were once a living woman or merely the divine creation of the poet's soul."

"I am sure she must have been a fancy," the other replied. "She is too ideal for flesh and blood, and besides, she was married. I don't think it is natural for any man so sincerely to love another man's wife."

"You horrid girl! You forget that Petrarch was a poet."

"No, I don't, my dear Marion; but so were Shelley, Byron, de Musset, and scores of others. The same broad collar and velvet jacket often cover both an artistic temperament and a fleshly nature. Now I, for one, don't believe in pardoning in genius what we condemn in mediocrity. If Laura was an inspiration of Petrarch's soul, the poet has my admiration; if she was merely another man's wife with whom he was enamored,—no matter how delightfully he may have sung of her,—I lose respect for Petrarch."

"You have no appreciation of the beautiful, Florence."

"I appreciate the beautiful, but I also respect virtue. There is enough that is beautiful in this world but not enough that is good."

"O, you Philistine. How can you go on reading these exquisite lyrics and not soar above Puritan casuistry in the enjoyment of beauty for its own sake?"

"You misunderstand me, my dear. I never said that I did not appreciate the beauties of this rhythm and the subtleties of this language. What I mean is that I see no reason why a poet's errors should be pardoned because his quatrains are above criticism. Now Petrarch, by his own confession, was not exceptionally well-behaved, but whatever his morals may have been they should not be judged by his lyrics. Nor, for that matter, should his lyrics be judged by his behavior."

"You have lived in a New Hampshire village too long to view the world through the broad lenses of cosmopolitanism."

"I have been away from a New Hampshire village long enough to look through the sordid spectacles of worldliness, and I was glad enough to return to my Puritan blue glasses."

"Stop talking such nonsense, Florence. I don't believe a word of it. Here you are not quite twenty-four years old. You have had the same education I had; we went to the same school, studied the same books, lived in the same room, traveled about Europe together for nearly a year, met the same people, have almost the same tastes, and have spent a winter in Washington together, to say nothing of our countless letters to each other in the interim. The only real difference between us is that you were born in Fairville and I in Chicago, that I am married and you are not, and that I am fourteen months your senior; yet with all this affinity of tastes and education, you deliver a bit of straight-laced Calvinism which makes me shudder and smell sulphur and roasting flesh."

"I deny the implied accusation, although, if finding fault with the recklessness of life of the present day constitutes being a Puritan, I fear I shall be compelled to plead guilty. They say one's face is an index of one's character, so I suppose mine is as long as the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, and as narrow as it is long."

"No, Florence, you are a dissembler, for your sparkling blue eyes, bright cheeks, and soft brown hair are more Parisienne than Puritan, to say nothing of those white teeth and that sweet little mouth. No, my dear, there is nothing narrow about your face; in fact, I think it is almost round enough for a Breton peasant."

"You cruel woman! I shall never forgive you for such an insulting remark. You could say nothing worse except to call me buxom. I know I am not classic, or antique Etruscan, or Ptolemaic, but I don't think you need tell me to my face that I am paysanne."

"Don't lose your temper, dear. If I told the truth, I should say that your beauty is of that charming eclectic type which only America can produce. Intelligence and fidelity shine in your deep blue eyes, and any woman would give ten years of her life for your coloring, to say nothing of your superbly tall figure."

"I feel a trifle better, but I can't quite forgive you for the round face."

"If Miss Florence Moreland is still provoked, she may have revenge by telling me exactly what she thinks of my personal appearance and character as interpreted by my features."

"Mrs. Roswell Sanderson is most formal, but I assure her that if I speak, it will be to tell the truth."

"Come, Florence, I am really in earnest, and I promise not to be angry. I should so like to know exactly what you think of me."

"I think you are the dearest friend I ever had, and I don't intend to lose you by criticism."

"Nonsense, Florence, I promise not to be angry, and I feel that it will actually do me good."

"Well, if you will hear things quite as disagreeable as 'the round face,' here goes. I shall begin with your eyes. I believe novelists call them the lanterns of the soul. You have superb, dreamy, black eyes; eyes to fill a woman with envy or a man with love,—but they are both absent-minded and ambitious; they show a restless longing after unattained hopes. In other words, they are dissatisfied and cold, but from an artistic standpoint that only enhances their attractiveness."

"You horrid creature! But I promised to be quiet, so go on."

"So much for the eyes; now the nose. It is exquisitely moulded and classic. I shall dismiss the nose as perfect."

"O, thank you so much."

"Now the mouth. It has a cupid's bow and it droops at the corners. I like your mouth, but I think it also looks dissatisfied. An artist would rave over it, but when his eyes fell on that transparently white complexion, and that glossy hair so artistically knotted at the back, I am sure he would think you were a creation of Phidias lost from the Elgin rooms of the British Museum. If you did call me eclectic, I must admit that your type is pure, unalloyed Greek; but I won't let you off altogether, for I consider your figure a trifle too stubby. Does that pay you up for 'the round face'?"

"I promised to keep my temper, so I will spare you; besides, I must confess that I did not come off so badly after all. 'The creation of Phidias' was quite flattering; but what makes you think I look dissatisfied?"

"I am sure you should not look so, for of all women in the world you have the least to make you discontented."

"O, Florence, don't talk that way. You, who have been my best friend and my only confidante, ought to know that even the brightest surroundings have their shadows." Then Marion looked out over the angry, grey waters, and Florence saw in her deep, black eyes just the dissatisfied, longing look she had described.

"I think," said Florence, "that what you call shadows on your bright surroundings are but tarnish which neglect has left there. A little extra care will make all bright."

"I want sympathy, not sermons, Florence. I was brought up on texts and tracts, and the Westminster catechism was my daily nourishment."

"Why, Marion, dear, I don't want to preach; I want to help you; but it is hard for me to understand why you should not be perfectly happy. Your husband adores you; he is rich and denies you nothing; you are a leader in society, young, handsome and admired. What more do you want?"

"I don't know, I really don't. If some fairy queen were to appear in a blaze of light and spangles out of that coal-scuttle and promise to fulfill any wish, I should be at a loss to tell her what I really want, but I am not happy. To myself I find fault with everything and everybody. Some people bore me, some people upset my nerves; at times I feel utterly lifeless, and at times I get into such a state of mind that I almost scream, and all over nothing at all. When I go out and meet the same old set over and over again,—and such a narrow, prosaic set at that,—it seems as though I should fairly go mad. What I want is a change. I am perfectly contented away from this depressing place. When I was in Washington last spring, I felt almost like another woman; in fact I don't believe it is anything but the provincialism of Chicago which is putting me in such states of mind."

"Don't be foolish, Marion. As though such a cause could make you discontented. If it does, then you don't appreciate your native city. I like Chicago and I would rather visit here than in any place I know."

"Perhaps it is because your old friend, Harold Wainwright, lives here," said Marion insinuatingly. Just a tinge of color rose in her friend's cheeks, but she did not reply, so Marion continued: "You don't have to live here nine months in the year, and you don't know all the intricacies and peculiarities of our society."

"Perhaps I don't, but to me the peculiarities are all in Chicago's favor. I love the go-ahead spirit, and I love the lack of affectation among the people one meets."

"The go-ahead spirit you love," Marion replied, "is but an insatiable craving for the 'mighty dollar', and the lack of affectation resolves itself into a lack of savoir faire."

"Why, Marion, how can you say such things. You have friends here with as much knowledge of the world as any one."

"Yes, but how many? Perhaps fifty, or be liberal and say a hundred, and they were all brought up away from Chicago, or, like myself, have lived away from here a good many years of their lives. If they remain here long enough they will stagnate like the natives."

"You unpatriotic rebel. I have almost a mind to denounce you to the people you are slandering."

"I am not slandering them. I am only speaking my convictions. You think I am captious, but I merely understand the subject, and I ought to, for heaven knows I have had a long enough experience. One has the choice here between parvenu vulgarity and Puritanic narrow mindedness. The one makes us the butt of the comic papers and the other is simply unbearable. I was brought up in the latter, and of course all ancient families,—that is to say, those dating from before the fire,—come under that eminently respectable classification, but I actually believe one would find the pork-packers more distracting."

"What do you call Puritanic narrow-mindedness, Marion?"

"I call it that carping sanctimoniousness which makes certain people throw up their hands in horror at the slightest appearance of advanced and civilized ideas. It is scarcely more than five years since a woman who wore décolleté evening gowns was one of the chosen of Beelzebub, a warm meal on Sunday night was a sacrilege, and wine at dinner the creation of the Devil himself; but the people who hold such ideas will talk scandal by the hour while making red flannel shirts for heathen babies. I don't believe you know how a few of us have struggled to liberalize this city and raise its society a little above that of a country village."

"You are too bitter, Marion."

"No, I am not. You should have witnessed the tussle I had with mama, before I was married, in order to get livery on our coachman, and to abolish the anachronism of a one-o'clock dinner."

"It seems to me, Marion, that your criticisms apply to the Chicago of the past and not to the Chicago of to-day. I am sure I never endured a noon dinner, and as for the turn-outs one meets, many of them are quite as well appointed as one could desire."

"I grant you that, but then it is the same limited few that have wrought all these changes, and, improved as the city is, we have had to overcome almost insurmountable prejudices. I grant you that Chicago has passed the chrysalis age. It is no longer a village but it is far from being a metropolis."

"You have everything here which makes a city: opera, theatres, parks, drives, shops, art galleries, libraries, restaurants, and even races. What more do you desire?"

"People, Florence; people. We want people with the instinctive sense of the fitness of things, people with refined tastes and cultivated minds, people whose souls are not bound up either in dollars or in psalms."

"Why, Marion! I can name you, off-hand, twenty as advanced and cultivated people as I ever met."

"Of course you can, and perhaps fifty more, but there you will have to stop. Three or four score of people do not make society."

"If you talk that way I shall believe you are more bigoted than the sanctified families you have just described. I really believe you go about conjuring up imaginable faults in your friends merely to carry out your ideas."

"Don't be nasty, Florence."

"No, my dear, I love you too much for that; but it is really dreadful for you to get into such states of mind. I think I understand what you feel; you have led a nomadic existence, and you were educated in a different atmosphere. An acquaintance with three languages, a season in London, a winter in Washington, and a strong love of variety all combine to make you discontented with the life here. You want a kaleidoscopic existence, an ever shifting scene, and because you are here, a thousand miles from the nearest city worthy of the name, it is quite natural that you should tire of meeting the same people day after day. You think of London, New York, and Washington, where society is continually shifting, where new people come and go, where every one does not know or care about his neighbor's business; but, Marion, granting all this, are you not a little too bitter?"

"Perhaps; but just think of the lack of savoir faire that one finds here; the striving to do a thing correctly and missing it just sufficiently to ruin the effect."

"That is a criticism which might be applied to American society in general. It is only a poor imitation of the English model. For my part, I almost wish we could go back to pumpkin-pie and Johnny-cake. I wish we could go 'buggy riding with our beaux' and 'spark in the back parlor.' It was all more original, and, what is more to the point, more American."

"You fairly make me shudder, Florence. Where did you get such Jeffersonian ideas?"

"In my New Hampshire home, perhaps; but despite my patriotism, I recognize that the buggy and the back parlor have gone never to return. I don't regret it, either, for I am just as fond of refinement as you are; but what I do object to is the introduction of extraneous ideas which are contrary to the spirit of Americanism. I love Chicago because it is fairly American, and represents more truly than the older cities the Yankee spirit which made us a free people. You may have vulgar parvenus here, but where are they not to be found? This may be the only large city where New England Puritanism affects society, but it is, at least, American, and better than European immorality. There may be only a few people here who are initiated into the esoterics of manners and manias, but how many good husbands, loving wives, and happy children are there among your rich! you may dine at seven o'clock and go to dances at ten; some of you may talk with a twang and pronounce u like double o; but how many snobs and sycophants, how many unemployed and dissipated men, how many intriguers and gamblers have you in Chicago society? For my part I love refinement and les petits soins as much as you do, Marion; but if we can't have the good of European life without the bad, if we can't cultivate manners without vices, better far go back to sewing bees and church sociables, and keep our morals pure; better have baked beans and blue laws than truffled capon and depravity. There, I feel quite exhausted, but I have had my say."

"Really, Florence, you almost take my breath away. I have not heard such a screeching of the American eagle since I can remember. It ought to make me very much ashamed, I suppose, but somehow the flapping of the bird of freedom's wings never did inspire me."

"I positively refuse to quarrel any more, but I do wish you could feel different; you would be so much happier," Florence replied.

"O, it is of no use. I am discontented by nature, I suppose. My ideals are too high, my realities too low. Success among people of rank, reputation, and intellect, is what I desire; a position among merchants, manufacturers, and shop-keepers is what I have. For intellectual variety I read a few papers before the Renaissance Club, and meet such occasional notables as stop over here long enough to view the stock-yards. I am the wife of a Chicago banker with all the prerogatives of that position, but nothing more, and with no prospect of being anything more."

"Nothing short of a coronet and a Court appointment would satisfy you, I fear. As for merchants and shop-keepers, all American society is composed mainly of them or their spendthrift children. But I am firm in my intention not to argue any more, so let us go back to Madonna Laura. If you want to feel better satisfied with Chicago, think about the sickening spectacle of Roman society at the time of Petrarch, and the futile efforts of his friend, Rienzi, to regenerate it."

"We sha'n't have time either for reading or discussion before dinner. There is Roswell's key in the door, and he was never known to leave the office before six o'clock. What gown are you going to wear? Something charming, as usual; but don't forget that the drapery in the Auditorium is old gold plush."

"Why, Marion, I had quite forgotten we were going to the Opera to-night. Tamagno in 'Otello': that will be a treat."

CHAPTER IV.

IN AN OPERA BOX.

A long and motley line of carriages was slowly arriving at the Auditorium entrance. A surging, gaping crowd was jostling the few policemen on duty and trying to catch a glimpse of the brilliant dresses of the women hurrying into the lobby. Long, furry wraps and covered heads, perhaps a gleam of hidden diamonds, were all they saw; but it was a passing glance into a forbidden, dazzling world. Footmen scurried, doors were slammed, horses stamped, and husky-voiced policemen called out orders to the coachmen. A long awning covered the carpeted walk, and electric lamps shed a brilliant light upon the muffled comers and the eager faces of the waiting crowd. It was not a wan, hungry crowd of starving beggars, such as often surrounds a foreign theater; it was not a silent, wondering crowd; but American-like, it was cheerful and humorous, envious, perhaps, but merry in its envy. It laughed and gibed at every novelty, and its jokes were shared alike by the smart English coachmen and the driver of the antiquated family "carry-all." It was impudent, too, but it was the impudence of the great Republic,—the bold assertion of freedom and prosperity.

In the crowded lobby long lines of people were depositing wraps at the cloak-room windows, some were standing in little groups, and hundreds of others were passing up the grand marble staircase into the hall above; Libretto sellers' cries and the scurrying tread of many feet upon the hard mosaic mingled with the distant strains of music, and scores of glittering lights shone upon the marble walls, and the countless, brilliant dresses of the moving throng. On into the great hall the people went. Five thousand seats were being filled, and, tier above tier, they rose like a section of a Roman theatre. Two rows of boxes lined the sides. Delicate wall tints and carefully toned lights blended softly with pretty faces and many colored gowns. The colors were an artist's work and masterly was it done. Up from the stage rose a mass of faces. An unbroken multitude it was, grand and impressive. Down at the front a little man was frantically leading an army of skilled musicians, whose rhythmical efforts filled the noble audience-room with the overture of Verdi's masterpiece, and as the last note rolled far away, up into the balcony loft, and was lost amid the subdued whisperings and rustling programmes, the lights were dimmed, the stately curtain slowly rose, and ten thousand hands applauded a welcome to the great singer from distant Italy. Thousands of music lovers wonderingly listened to the amazing power and range of Tamagno's voice, hundreds stood at the back of the amphitheatre, and even the little swinging gallery away up in the eaves was crowded with humble enthusiasts. But there were a conspicuous few whose whisperings and laughter mingled with the artist's notes; a few whose bids were highest at the auction sale of boxes, and whose tardy, noisy coming accentuated their social prominence and exasperated every lover of good music and good manners.

Among these was Mrs. Roswell Sanderson, who, with her husband, Florence Moreland, and Mr. Walter Sedger, had just entered a box, in the upper, left-hand tier.

"What a superb audience-room," said Florence Moreland as she put aside her fur-lined cloak and took her opera glass out of its case. "How beautifully it lights up. I don't think I ever saw a finer sight."

"Do you think so, Florence?" replied Marion Sanderson. "To me it is just like everything else Chicago produces, stupendous and gaudy. They have tried to make an opera house, a concert hall and a convention room, and, consequently, have produced a building which is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl."

"What do you mean?" asked Florence.

"I mean that as an opera house it is a woful failure. They have shoved two tiers of boxes off at the sides and have given the entire house up to seats; they have put in a hideous organ where the proscenium boxes ought to be, and have invented all manner of machines for lowering the roof and shutting off the galleries; and as for those miserable little columns holding up that balcony, they are simply ridiculous."

"Marion very seldom admires home productions," Roswell Sanderson interposed.

"That is just the trouble," added Florence. "For my part I admire the progressive spirit which prompted the architect to depart from conventional ideas. If there are no boxes at the back, every one can see and hear, and I think that mass of people rising gently from the stage one of the most superb sights one could wish to see. The effects of the Paris and Vienna opera houses are not to be compared to it."

"Don't be so disagreeably contradictory to all I say," retorted Marion.

"I sha'n't for the present, dear, because I wish to hear some of that glorious music. You must not take what I say seriously."

Then they were silent, for, unconsciously, they were brought under the spell of the great tenor's art.

"What a divine voice that man has," said Florence, as the curtain slowly fell after the first act. "I fairly held my breath during that high C. Mr. Sedger, please applaud, and help bring him out. There he comes! Bravo, bravo, Tamagno!"

"I did the best I could, Miss Moreland," Walter Sedger said, after the applause of two recalls had died away. "But do you really enjoy this music so much? For my part I prefer opera-bouffe."

"I admire your frankness, Mr. Sedger," she replied. "There are so many people who adore Wagner because he is the fashion, and sneer at Verdi and the Italian school, when, if the truth were known, they have not the slightest conception of the good qualities of either. For my part I like any music from a hurdy-gurdy up, though an extended term of suffering under a German professor has finally produced a taste for such music as Verdi has given us in 'Otello', which seems to me quite as remarkable as some of Wagner's masterpieces."

"Well, I am glad you enjoy it, Miss Moreland, but I fear my education did not extend beyond the 'Mikado' and 'Ermine'; so when it comes to grand opera I must confess my pleasure is confined to the entre acte. I love to see the people, and if it were not for being rude I think I should be tempted to run down to the club while the curtain is up."

"You have my permission, Mr. Sedger, but tell me who is that good-looking man with Mr. Wainwright, coming down this way?"

"He is a New Yorker; Duncan Grahame is his name. I met him at the club this afternoon."

"What is he doing here? One always seems to ask what a stranger is doing in Chicago: I don't know why, I am sure."

"He is out here on business in connection with an elevator trust. He seems to be a capital fellow, and, as he is a member of the Staten Club, I suppose he needs no further patent of respectability. But here he comes, so you can judge of him for yourself."

The two men of whom they were speaking entered the box. Harold Wainwright spoke to the ladies and introduced his friend. Mrs. Sanderson offered Duncan a seat beside her and said: "I have heard of you quite frequently, Mr. Grahame, from a friend in New York, Miss Sibyl Wright, and I think you should be grateful for having such an enthusiastic admirer."

"Doubly so considering that she is a woman and it was to you she spoke. I also have heard of you from scores of people in the East, and I made Wainwright introduce me at the first opportunity. I arrived only this morning, and I assure you I am quite without a guiding hand."

"You make me smile and frown by turns," she replied. "I was tempted to feel flattered at the first part of your speech, but if it is a question of any shade in the desert, I shall not feel strongly inclined to offer you my protection in the Chicago wilderness."

"I think it would be advisable to interpret my speech as a compliment, as I seldom make them."

"Really, Mr. Grahame, I am tempted to call you rude."

"It is not rudeness but frankness, I assure you, and I spoke the truth. I have really been most anxious to meet you, and now that my desire has been gratified I trust you will not be so cruel as to let the frown remain. There goes the curtain. I am going to beg permission to return after the next act."

"You deserve punishment for your rudeness, so I refuse to grant it. As a penance for your offense I shall expect you to remain where you are during this entire act and devote your energies to amusing me."

"I suppose I must submit, but please talk to me, as I am not bold and feel sure that your friend is a musical fiend who is quite prepared to cast furious glances at me should I be audacious enough to speak above a whisper."

"I see you are an analyst of character."

"Rather more of a synthesist, I imagine. I collect what both enemies and friends say of an individual and then build his character from those materials."

"How horrible! I trust you will never try your method on me."

"I have done so already."

"You wretch! What do you mean?"

"I mean that I have heard considerable about you in New York, and that I dined with six men at the City Club this evening. You were the one person in Chicago I was most desirous of meeting, so I managed to collect some most useful materials from which I have built my estimate of your character."

"I must call that the boldest piece of assurance I ever heard of."

"Why any more so than for me to judge you by my own impressions? My method is more judicial. As in a court of law, I hear both sides of a case, and do not permit myself to be biased by personal charms."

"You are a clever pleader. I feel tempted to throw myself on the mercy of the court and receive its verdict."

"Before the verdict can be given the court must be cleared of reporters; as that seems impracticable, sentence must be deferred."

"Is it then so horrible? If so, I shall feel tempted to 'jump bail'."

"I think you have nothing to fear; but how did you acquire such a knowledge of the law?"

"At one time I had a passion for reading accounts of trials, and I even went with a party to see the Anarchists when they were on trial."

"What a morbid curiosity!"

"Another impertinence."

"If it is so considered, I humbly ask pardon, and meanwhile I move that the court take a recess which shall be employed in instructing me in the intricacies of Chicago society."

"I see you want more material with which to construct characters; if so, we had far better listen to the opera."

"O, bother the opera! It is vulgar to listen to an opera; it shows a lack of conversational powers. Don't you think so?"

"One can easily see that you came from New York, and, like all New York men, I suppose you expect to be pampered."

"Of course I expect it, so please tell me about those people in the opposite boxes. You need not fear to speak the truth, as I am an entire stranger."

"If I do, as a friend I shall expect you to let my opinions go no further."

"Cela va sans dire."

"You must first understand, then, that every man here has an employment. We have absolutely no 'unemployed rich'."

"Idleness must be at a premium."

"On the contrary it is tabooed. However, though we are all in trade we have distinctions as intricate as the most ancient aristocracy."

"How so?"

"In the peculiar meshes from which society is woven. For example: a wholesale dry-goods merchant is an aristocrat, a retailer a plebeian; a hotel keeper may be a lord, a restaurant keeper a commoner; a car builder is a prince, a carriage builder a burgher; a brewer may be a count, a beer seller a churl; and so on, although even if a member of a certain trade is in society, his confrères may be without the pale."

"Much the same as in New York, only there hotels and dry goods are commoners, while tobacco and skins are lords."

"Yes, but at least society is older there. The skins have been buried for a generation or two."

"In some cases, yes, but in others they are still uncured. I am a working man myself, and I must defend my class."

"But surely you have respect for established institutions."

"Yes, but not for dead ancestors. Suppose I search through the dusty archives of the Herald's College for a drop of Norman blood; I find that it was spilt on Saxon land by some hireling freebooter, or landgrabber, who followed at the heels of a conscienceless adventurer."

"You are republican enough to please the taste of my friend, Miss Moreland."

"I fear you misunderstand me. I am not patriotic, or republican, or anything else, for that matter."

"Except the incarnation of contrariety."

"I hate polemics, so I will cry touché as one does in fencing after a thrust, and end the contest."

"You mean you would rather thrust than parry. You men are all alike. You told the truth when you expressed a fondness for being pampered, and, as it is the duty of our sex to be compliant, I await your pleasure."

"If I am to be so indulged, I confess to feeling a craving to hear the promised lecture about those people across the way."

"I would willingly comply but that falling curtain says it must again be deferred. On second thought, perhaps it would be better to give you an object lesson, so if you will come and see me to-morrow about five, I will take you to a tea where you may meet them all and judge for yourself."

"I see you mean to prevent my favorite method of character study. I fear you will succeed, as the enticing preventive you suggest cannot possibly fail to be effectual. I willingly submit to your cure and will come to you at the appointed hour."

The fall of the act drop was followed by a confused fluttering of dresses and hum of voices; people stretched and rose, talked, or wandered toward the foyer, while hundreds of glasses were leveled at the boxes, and every one of mark or notoriety was scrutinized by hundreds of eyes and criticised by hundreds of tongues. Society was there paraded in two rows of little pens, labeled and ticketed at so many millions per head, to be gazed upon by the curious and envious of that great throng. Society was the operatic side-show, and society paid dearly for the privilege of being seen.

"Do you like to be gazed at by a crowd, Mr. Grahame?" said Florence, after a momentary silence.

"Yes, I think I do," he replied. "It makes one feel so superior to be up above, looking down on the 'madding crowd'."

"Do you think so? I always feel like a caged animal at a menagerie, where each one who pays the admission fee can gratify the curiosity he has about me, and poke me with his umbrella if he does not like my looks."

"How absurd; but I understand you are democratic in your feelings and object to class distinctions."

"Not in the least; on the contrary I believe in them. Nature herself has decreed that no two creatures can be equal. What I object to are inflated distinctions which rest on no foundation, and collapse completely when pricked by sound opinion."

"Miss Moreland believes in an aristocracy of merit," interposed Harold Wainwright.

"Yes," replied Florence, "but where is it to be found?"

"Not in a republic," retorted Duncan. "A democracy is a breeding ground of plutocrats."

"Perhaps, when its Government discourages every intellectual pursuit," replied Wainwright. He felt strongly the ungratefulness of republics, as his father had been a Federal judge on a miserly salary, with no pension after years of faithful service.

"I quite agree with you, Harold," replied Florence, "and I only wish I were a man."

"Why?" interposed Mrs. Sanderson, who had just finished interchanging polite platitudes with Walter Sedger.

"So that I might express my views about the evils of our political system."

"And be called by that expressive word which is not in the dictionary, 'a crank'," said Duncan ironically. "That is the reward of a reformer."

"John Bright and Wendell Phillips were both 'cranks' in their day," was the reply, "but I would not object to their reputation. By the way, here comes a 'crank' whom I almost love," she added, as a stout, kindly faced, elderly man, whose features wore the sweet expression of earnest and well guided intelligence, approached the box.

"Who is he?" asked Duncan, following her eyes.

"Dr. Maccanfrae, physician and philanthropist, missionary and moralist, and the dearest man in the world, besides," she replied. "He does more good in a day than twenty Poor Boards do in a week, and has more genuine Christian charity in his soul than a score of average parsons, although he is an evolutionist and a pantheist combined."

"A most flattering description," said Duncan. "I hope he deserves such adulation."

"He certainly merits it all," added Wainwright.

Dr. Maccanfrae entered the box and Walter Sedger improved the opportunity to slip away and visit some friends. The Doctor spoke to Mrs. Sanderson, then moved toward the corner occupied by Florence Moreland, while Duncan dropped quietly into the seat left vacant by Mr. Sedger.

"What can bring so industrious a man as Dr. Maccanfrae to the opera?" said Florence as the Doctor took the seat beside her.

"The opera itself, Miss Florence. I am devoted to music and never lose an opportunity of hearing it well rendered. Isn't Tamagno doing grandly to-night?"

Her reply was interrupted by the appearance of a tall, plainly dressed woman, who, pencil and paper in hand, entered the box door. Her face was refined, though careworn, and bore the mark of better days. She hesitated for a moment, as though realizing fully her intrusive calling, then advanced toward Duncan. "May I ask you, sir, to give the names of your party for the Morning Stentor?" she finally said.

"What does she mean?" said Duncan, turning to Mrs. Sanderson for an explanation.

"It is one of the peculiarities of Chicago life," she replied. "It is for to-morrow's society column."

"And do you give them the information?" he asked.

"O, yes, it is better to have it right, as they publish it anyway, right or wrong," she replied, and then she told the reporter the names.

"Might I trouble you to describe your dress?" was the next question asked. "I am sorry to be so intrusive, but it is the city editor's orders, and we have to do the best we can."

"You are a woman, and understand such matters, so I think you had better do that yourself," Mrs. Sanderson replied.

The reporter thanked her and withdrew. When she had gone Duncan said wonderingly: "We have society reporters in New York, but they never go quite so far as to ask one to describe oneself. Who reads such particulars anyway?"

"Ask Dr. Maccanfrae, he is wiser than I," she replied.

"Dr. Maccanfrae, who should you say read the society columns of the newspapers?" he asked.

"People who expect to find their names in print, and people who think their names ought to be in print, to say nothing of those who read society columns, as they do society scandals, in order to get a reflection of the tinsel and tarnish of an unknown world."

"That must include a great portion of newspaper readers," replied Duncan.

"Precisely; that is why society scandals and fashions occupy so large a portion of our papers," the Doctor replied. "But there comes the conductor, so I must get back to my place."

"Won't you remain here, Doctor?" said Mrs. Sanderson.

"No, I thank you. I only came in to pay my respects, and, as I have a musical friend with me, I must get back to him."

The Doctor hurried away and the little man away down in front lifted his baton. Ninety musicians watched the beat of the first bar, and, as the baton fell, sixty bows moved in unison, and trumpets, horns, trombones, and reeds, added their strains, while the act drop slowly rose disclosing the great stage, gorgeously set as Otello's audience-chamber.

"I must tell you an amusing tale about 'Otello,'" whispered Mrs. Sanderson to Duncan Grahame. "I was in Rome when the opera was brought out there, and went with the American minister and his wife. Revere was their name and they came from Tallahassee. He had been a congressman, but she had never been away from home until she went as the wife of our representative in Austria, so you can imagine her ignorance of the world. She watched the opera quietly until she noticed that the black Otello bore some relation to the white Desdemona. That made her hem and fidget, but when Otello embraced his wife, she put up her fan in disgust, and said indignantly to me: 'How outrageous! I assure you such conduct would not be tolerated in Tallahassee.'"

Grahame laughed, and then they listened to the grand music of Verdi for a while, but it was not the opera which inspired their interest, for the subtle spell of similarity seemed to arouse the sympathy of kindred taste. Bright phrases and pleasing words flashed between them, and quickly another act passed. Again the people rose and talked, again visitors came to the box and uttered conventional insipidities. Finally Roswell Sanderson himself returned. He had passed the evening in the manager's office with some friends, but his wife did not even express a curiosity to know it. The curtain rose on the last act. "Come," said Wainwright to Duncan, "we must go back to our seats. Good-night, Mrs. Sanderson." "Good-night, Mr. Grahame." "A demain," said Duncan, and he was off. Another act of the opera was rendered, then the great house was slowly emptied, and hundreds of carriages bore their occupants away. The lights went out, the weary artists hurried home, the Auditorium was left cold, silent and deserted.

CHAPTER V.

A CHALLENGE.

Marion Sanderson's surroundings kept her in a continual state of irritation. Her fancy created an ideal life with harmonious environments and sympathetic friends, but the reality was what she termed "an utterly commonplace existence." From early childhood her parents and acquaintances had jarred upon her, so that her fanciful mind had carried on incessant warfare with her prosaic surroundings. Her father and mother were respectable representatives of practical Calvinism, who, endeavoring to make their child a pillar of the Church, had persistently combated her natural tendencies. For days at a time, during her younger years, the poor child would obediently follow the routine of prayer prescribed for her until worn out by the drastic Scotch tenets; then rebellious tears would flow, and she would permit some natural sentiments to escape from her impulsive heart. Such outbursts most frequently occurred on Sunday, and they invariably called from her mother's lips the time-tried reproof: "I think, Marion, you forget the day. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy." Resentful and disgusted the child would expostulate, only to be frigidly denounced as one possessed of an evil spirit; then she would rush to her room and remain for hours sobbing and yearning for sympathy. "Fox's Book of Martyrs," "The Church at Home and Abroad," and "Baxter's Saints' Rest" were her literary diet, but she managed to devour, surreptitiously, romance after romance, and her greatest pleasure was to live over, in fancy, the lives of those she had read about. Thus for fifteen years the restless child tugged unsuccessfully at the parental tethers till relief came from an unexpected quarter.

Marion's mother, despairing of her child's spiritual welfare, decided curiously enough, to send her abroad to the care of her sister-in-law, the wife of the United States minister to France. This aunt, being a woman of broad sympathies and experience, questioned the girl about her education, and, finding that it had been confined to the three R's and the Westminster catechism, decided to send her to school. So Marion was forthwith ensconced in a select pension patronized by the Faubourg St. Germain nobility. Here a new life was opened to Marion, and, freed from her childhood's restraints, she eagerly sought companionship with these girls of a different world. She learned a new language and new sentiments, and though novels were forbidden in the school, the pages of Balzac, Mérimée, Sand and Gautier, surreptitiously read, fed her fancy with new impressions and created new aspirations. Florence Moreland was the only other American in the school, and to her Marion was attracted by the very oppositeness of her nature. The frank practicality and keen perception of Florence fascinated her, and although the two girls disagreed on most subjects, a warm affection always kept their hearts united.

Marion left the pension at the age of seventeen. By that curious process of expatriation which few but Americans can successfully undergo, her childhood's sentiments had been removed, and European ideas had been engrafted in their place. Her aunt, who during Marion's pension days had vibrated between Paris and the Riviera, now took her for a few months of travel. Florence was invited to accompany them, and after making the conventional summer-garden tour of the Continent, they went to Nice for the winter. There the two girls studied Italian and mixed in the quasi Anglo-European society of the place—certainly not the best for a girl first to enter.

The transfer of Marion's uncle to the English mission brought them to London, and they were just enjoying the excitement of a first season when Marion's parents ordered her home. A child when she left Chicago, she was now a woman. Her home, which had been uncongenial before, was now intolerable. Her life became a continual struggle against the prejudices of her parents. She longed to pull down the sombre drawing-room curtains and pitch the stiff-backed, haircloth chairs out of the window; but her father, though a millionaire, would brook no change. Still she struggled on, demanding an alteration in the dinner hour, wine at table and the discarding of the family carry-all. "Do you want me to open the house to Satan?" her mother asked in horrified tones. "I want you to be civilized beings and not anchorites," she replied. Her mother's friends were practically limited to the communicants of the Knox Presbyterian Church, but such a society only served to exasperate her more. To her the men were stupid slaves of business and the women narrow-minded prudes. There was a progressive set whose companionship she desired, but in her mother's mind they were the Devil's chosen, and were consequently forbidden the house. In desperation Marion sought relief and it came in the shape of a husband. Roswell Sanderson was vice-president of her father's bank, rich, prominent, and,—what was more to her,—liberal-minded. He asked her to be his wife, and, without analyzing her feelings further than the sense of gratefulness which she felt, she accepted him. After a brief engagement they were married and her new life began.

Marion's husband was a country boy who had been sent to an Eastern college; and possessing American energy and perception in a marked degree, he rapidly won a place in the first rank of Chicago business men. He was a man of broad ideas and sympathies, but lacked the delicate veneer of manners which distinguishes the cosmopolite from the provincial. In Marion's eyes this fault soon became greatly magnified. His flat pronunciation and Western inflection, his cordial, unstudied manner and hearty laughter so mortified her that in the presence of those who were capable of recognizing his shortcomings, her manner became apologetic. His open-hearted frankness, which made him a friend of high and low, so rasped her ideas of convention that all sense of sympathy was destroyed, and her married life was no more congenial than that at home had been. Roswell never criticised her actions, so she was enabled to seek relief in society. She saw the gradual enlargement and improvement of Chicago but she was able to pick flaws in the struggles of society to break the shackles of provincialism, and she longed to hasten the metropolizing process. Unlike Florence Moreland she could not admire the vigor and freshness of Western life, but permitted herself to suffer from intense mortification at the faults which others would have passed unnoticed. Marriage and society having failed to supply the happiness she desired, she turned to books. Her selections of reading, however, were destined to intensify her restlessness, for in the pages of Daudet, Bourget and de Maupassant she found the anomalies of human weakness painted in brilliant and exculpatory colors. The clever portraitures of these subtle analysts created a spirit which caused her to explain her eccentricities of feeling by comparison with the emotions described in their yellow-covered records. She became a disciple of the modern philosophy of introspection, which, unlike that of the stoic and anchorite, is not intended to humble desire, but to create a morbid craving for the unattainable. Recognizing that the absorbing passion of her life was yet to come, she scrupulously analyzed each impulse she felt and resolved it into infinitesimal atoms of feeling, which again were subjectively compared with the minutest details of her analytical romances. The consequence was that her emotions were kept in a state of continual irritation, and ordinary pleasures becoming less and less gratifying, a desire for new excitements and experiences was created. It was in such a state of mind that Florence Moreland had found her, and, since the latter's arrival in Chicago she had striven unsuccessfully to dispel the spirit of depression which had taken possession of her friend.

On the afternoon of the day following the performance of "Otello," Florence, cold and rosy from tobogganing, burst into the drawing room. She expected to find Marion in one of her moods, and she was astonished to find her dressed to go out and carelessly strumming on the piano. Marion looked up, and, seeing Florence, burst into laughter at her tousled locks and red cheeks. "You had better stand over the register and get thawed out," Marion remarked cheerfully; then, thumping the piano again, she continued: "How was the slide?"

"Capital! and hundreds of people there," was Florence's reply. Then, wondering at Marion's sudden change of spirits, she added, "Are you going to the McSeeney's tea?"

"Yes; I intend to take Mr. Grahame."

"I suppose I shall have to get there the best way I can."

"You can take the brougham. What do you think of him?"

"Who, the brougham?"

"No; Mr. Grahame, you silly."

"O, he is like many New Yorkers, one-third clothes and two-thirds conceit. I asked him if he thought he should like Chicago, and, knowing I was from the East, he confidently replied: 'It is not New York, you know, but I suppose one can get used to anything in time.'"

"I don't care, I like him," Marion replied.

"Hush, here he comes," said Florence hurriedly.

A servant announced Mr. Grahame, and as Duncan entered, Marion said in a somewhat surprised tone, "Are you always so prompt?"

"No; it is quite a mistake, I assure you," he replied. "I will not be so vulgarly exact next time."

"It is a provincialism quite permissible in the West," said Marion.

"Indeed! But I have not yet said good afternoon," replied Duncan; "have you recovered from the dissipation of last evening?"

"Quite."

"And you, Miss Moreland?"

"Look at her cheeks, Mr. Grahame," interjected Marion.

"I see it is needless to ask about your health, Miss Moreland, but I trust I may say I admire your snow costume."

"You must have a fondness for brilliant colors," said Florence.

"Decidedly; shades and tints were made for funerals and frowns," he replied.

"I don't like to interrupt," interposed Marion hurriedly, "but I fear it is time for Mr. Grahame and me to be going."

"Are you not to accompany us, Miss Moreland?" said Duncan.

"Not in this costume, certainly," laughed Florence.

"Then I shall say au revoir."

"Where am I to be taken?" said Duncan, as he and Marion descended the steps of the house.

"To meet my most bitter enemy, Mrs. McSeeney," she replied.

"I admire your courage," he said.

"O, there is no danger of bodily harm, as we are quite on speaking terms; a sort of armed neutrality, you know."

"Am I to be used as an offensive or a defensive weapon?" Duncan asked.

"Neither; I shall use you as a flag of truce; but whatever happens don't you dare to say she is good looking or brilliant."

"I promise," he answered, "but please tell me who she is and what she is."

"You ought to know her; she is a New Yorker,—at least she was three years ago—her husband is the president of an elevated railway company and made her come here to live. She hates Chicago, and takes her revenge by saying disagreeable things about it. For some reason she has singled me out as the particular object of her antipathy and you can imagine there is no love lost between us. But here we are at her door, so I can't tell you any more."