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Title: The Giant's Strength
Author: King, William Benjamin Basil (1859-1928)
Date of first publication: 1907
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York and London: Harper & Brothers, March, 1907
Date first posted: 16 December 2010
Date last updated: 16 December 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #676

This ebook was produced by Barbara Watson, Ross Cooling
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This ebook was produced from images generously made available
by the Internet Archive/University of Toronto - Robarts Library




  THE GIANT'S STRENGTH

  BY
  BASIL KING

  AUTHOR OF
  "LET NOT MAN PUT ASUNDER"
  "THE STEPS OF HONOR" ETC.


                            "O, it is excellent
  To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
  To use it like a giant."

  --_Measure for Measure._


  NEW YORK AND LONDON
  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
  MCMVII




  Copyright, 1906, by Harper & Brothers.

  _All rights reserved._
  Published March, 1907.




  TO
  THE DEAR AND BLESSED MEMORY OF
  GEORGE WRIGHT HODGSON

  "Whatever way my days decline,
    I felt and feel, tho' left alone,
    His being working in mine own,
  The footsteps of his life in mine."

  _In Memoriam._




  THE GIANT'S STRENGTH




  THE GIANTS STRENGTH

  CHAPTER I


As it was the entr'acte of the opera the lobby of the Casino was filled
with a gay and noisy cosmopolitan crowd. All the more, therefore, was it
a proof of the celebrity to which Paul Trafford had attained that his
entry caused a distinct and general thrill of curiosity. A man who was
reckoned the richest in the world could not be other than an object of
supreme interest to people whose first cry was money. The fact that he
had arrived at Monte Carlo the day before had been as much a topic of
conversation as if he had been King Edward or the Czar. Now that he
appeared and was recognized, princes, duchesses, and adventurers
instinctively fell back a little, making way for him and his party to
pass on. Here and there some one claimed the privilege of his
acquaintance, and bowed before his nod as before a pope's benediction.
Those who followed in his train were besieged with greetings. Mr and
Mrs. George Trafford were actually cut off from the procession and made
prisoners of war. The Duke of Wiltshire only maintained his position at
Miss Trafford's side by being rude to people, and turning his back on
them.

As for Paula herself, she passed on, between her father and the man she
had almost promised to marry, unmoved by the stir she created. She was
aware of it, but she was used to it. Having been so constantly her
father's companion during the last four years, she had come to take
public attention as a matter of course. At first the interest she
inspired had been impersonal--the interest inseparable from one whom the
American press called "the greatest heiress on earth." Her fortune was
compared with that of the Queen of Holland, and of the daughters of the
Rothschild and Rockefeller families, but that was all. Now, however, at
twenty-two, she was emerging from the golden mist that had surrounded
her, and was assuming personality. The flowering of her beauty had done
something towards this. People had found it superfluous that a girl with
so much money should have a complexion like rose-petals floating in
milk. They resented the fact that her figure had needless grace, and her
face an expression of appeal which there was no resisting. Rumors of
marriage sprang up wherever she appeared. The girl knew these things
without taking actual account of them, or letting them form part of her
daily consciousness. At this minute she could ignore the fact that her
looks were being criticised and her income appraised, in gazing about
her, with amusement, at the novelty of the scene.

"We're now in one of those spots of No-man's-land," said the Duke of
Wiltshire, as they entered the first saloon, "which modern civilization
likes to set apart as cities of refuge from the rule of caste and
conventionality."

Paula turned her soft eyes slowly towards him. They were blue eyes with
black lashes--the Celtic eyes inherited from her father's mother--the
eyes in which faith is mingled with superstition, in which self-devotion
has a dash of insincerity, and in which laughter never wholly hides the
mist of tears. Between the brows there was a tiny, perpendicular furrow,
like that of a person endeavoring to see through the rights and wrongs
of things, and conscientiously trying to be sure. It was this puzzled,
inquiring look that the Duke of Wiltshire specially loved in her. It
gave him an opportunity for the kind of explanatory work in which he
excelled in the House of Lords.

"Haven't you noticed," he went on, in answer to Paula's unspoken
interrogation, "that in all the great capitals of the world--London,
Paris, and New York, for instance--there are two or three expensive
restaurants and luxurious hotels, where on crossing the very threshold
one steps outside all the limitations of nationality, moral prejudice,
and class distinction?"

"That's very true," Paul Trafford said, in corroboration.

He liked to listen to Wiltshire's reflections on subjects that he
himself had never thought about. "He's always widening your mind in some
direction where you never looked before," he remarked, now and then, to
Paula. The girl was glad to believe it. It was one more attraction of
mind, where physical charms were so lacking; it was one more explanation
of her willingness to marry him. She liked him. "No one could help
liking him," she often told herself; and yet as they moved slowly along
amid the crowd, with so many eyes upon them, she regretted the fact that
he was shorter than herself, and that he had this air of hopeless
mediocrity. The men of her own family were all equipped for command. Her
father, who had been a New England farmer's son, and himself a farmer's
boy, overtopped most men by a head, and was undeniably handsome. Even
her cousin George, who was big and lumbering, had something dominating
about him. It seemed strange to her, therefore, that this English duke,
the head of the illustrious house of Holroyd, the descendant of a line
whose good looks had helped to make Holbein, Vandyck, and Reynolds
famous, should have been sent into the world by the great capricious
Mother with the seal of the commonplace indelibly set upon him. She
could not stifle in herself the knowledge that she was sorry for this;
and yet as her glance took in once more the details of his dull-blue
eyes, his stubby, sandy beard, and the stocky figure that defied the
reformatory arts of the most expensive tailors in London, she was
conscious, too, of a throb of pity, of almost tender pity, that he to
whom so much had been given should have to contend with such obvious
disadvantages.

"You've only got to look about you," Wiltshire went on, with the
enthusiasm of a man airing his own ideas, "to see that Monte Carlo is
the great city of refuge of our time. To people whose outward appearance
warrants the green ticket of admission, the reign of liberty, equality,
and fraternity has set in as nearly as possible on earth. Look there!"
he continued. "That's the Grand-Duke Dmitri standing on tiptoe to look
over the shoulder of Aarons, the money-lender, one of the greatest
rascals unhung. That pretty English girl, asking Aarons to place her
stake for her, wouldn't touch him anywhere else with the end of her
parasol. In every direction you can see the same flinging together of
odd contrasts--the same suspension of the rules that govern organized
society elsewhere."

Paula listened and smiled, but said nothing in response, gazing about
her to verify his observations for herself.

Against a background of tawdry splendor the great ladies of all worlds
combined to produce an effect of elegance. There was a place for Aspasia
and Madame de Stal alike. So, too, with the men; great lords, great
bankers, and great adventurers met and mingled with the unprejudiced
freedom of souls in the future state. Among the seated players the
card-sharper elbowed the countess, and the fashionably dressed young man
of the world jostled the faded grandmother in rusty crape. It was clear
to Paula that in the Temple of Chance there was no respect of persons,
and that the worshippers loved to have it so. In this heated atmosphere
and under those glaring lights, it was as if a complex civilization
suddenly resolved itself into its constituent elements, and men and
women went back to the primitive, predatory instincts that time and
experience had taught them to conceal.




  CHAPTER II


On the outer ring of spectators around the table in the centre of the
room, they paused to look on.

"_Faites vos jeux, messieurs_," the croupier was saying, in a voice
nasally mechanical.

Paula's eyes were instantly attracted to the game. The sight of large
sums of money to be lost and won appealed, by some hereditary instinct,
to her imagination. She looked at the players facing her, and saw them
enriched or impoverished with dramatic suddenness. She was sure the girl
in a bright-red hat, with a wide-meshed blue veil making unnatural tints
on powder and rouge, would end her days in want. The gray-bearded old
man, carefully placing a five-franc piece _en carr_, would have his
homeward fare paid by the authorities. The purse-lipped woman, in shabby
widow's weeds, working an elaborate system all over the tableau, would
win a lot of money. The good-looking young man, smilingly throwing down
the maximum stake _en plein_, would be ruined and would shoot himself.

"_Rien ne va plus_," the croupier cried again, and the players drew back
their hands to await the result of Fate.

"Your father has been called away to be presented to the Grand-Duke
Dmitri," Wiltshire whispered to Paula, but she only nodded to signify
that she had heard.

When the croupier turned the wheel and threw the ball she felt her
heart-strings tighten. In the whirling thing before her the blindest and
most obscure forces of the universe seemed visibly at work. Destiny was
staked on a chance that kept beyond all foresight and eluded all
calculation. It was strange, daring, and exciting. She wondered how the
girl in the red hat could gaze indifferently about her while the wheel
spun round. She wondered how the young man could turn with a jesting
remark to the companion standing behind him. She wondered still more at
the effect upon them all when the rotations of the wheel began to
slacken speed, when the ball clicked and tapped and staggered, whirling
round and round in a slow, wild, drunken way, till it fell, at last, as
if exhausted, into the decisive number. The widow saw her system swept
away, and without a shadow of expression on her stony face began to work
out a new one. The girl in the red hat put down another louis on the
exact spot whence the last had disappeared. The old man replaced his
five-franc piece by one of ten. The young man who had played _en plein_
received the value of his stake thirty-five times over.

"_Faites vos jeux, messieurs_," the croupier called again. He was a
stout man of fifty, swarthy and commonplace, but Paula could not help
investing him with some of the inexorable power of the Parc.

"You seem interested," the Duke whispered, behind her.

"It's tremendous," she returned, over her shoulder. "It's awful. It's as
if one had got to the very springs of all happenings, as if one were in
touch with the power that has made the world and flung us, haphazard, on
to it."

"Wiltshire," said her father, slipping into the crowd, beside them, "the
Grand-Duke wants to meet you. Paula, dear, you can wait for us here a
minute. We sha'n't be long."

"Very well, papa, dear. I shall be all right."

She was not sorry to have them go, for it enabled her to give herself up
to the spectacle of the game. The wheel was twirled again and again,
always with variations on the same result. It gave her a thrill to see
the croupier rake the gold and silver in, with a sort of lavish
indifference to its value. There was something superb, too, in the
careless ease with which he pushed about to the successful players the
various multiplications of their stakes. As each winner picked up his
gains she regretted that she had not put down a louis just where he had
put his. She wondered what would happen if she did. She wondered whether
the obscure, blind power that was throwing destinies about would have
anything in store for her.

"If I knew how, I'd do it," she said to herself, looking up and down the
table to see exactly what the others did.

Just then a man across the table threw down a ten-franc piece on _pair_.
She had seen him do it several times in succession, and on each occasion
he had lost. It was an easy conclusion that if _pair_ lost _impair_
would win. It was the simplest form of the game, and before she realized
what she was about her own ten francs were down. The wheel spun and
slackened speed; the ball clicked and staggered and stopped. She held
her breath, with her eyes fixed upon her stake.

"If he rakes it in," she thought, "I shall know I've lost."

But no! From the ends of the table the sure, relentless hand swept up
the gold and silver into one central pile. Here and there a few isolated
stakes were left, her own among the number. A minute later she found two
gold coins where she had put down one.

She picked them up timidly, and looked across at the young man. _Pair_
had lost again, and she felt sorry for him. He was not in evening dress,
and she guessed, from slight indications, that he was poor. Her first
thought was that it was a pity for him to waste his money; her second,
that the stake she had won was practically that which he had lost. At
the idea the tiny furrow deepened for an instant between her brows, and
the gold piece clinched in her hand seemed to burn through her glove.
She had a confused, mistaken notion that she had taken the money from
him, that if she had not played he might have won.

"I oughtn't to have done it," she said to herself, half turning to go
away. But the young man threw down another ten-franc piece on _pair_.
It was an opportunity, she thought, for him to recover the money she had
taken from him. It was not likely that she would win again, and her loss
must of necessity be his gain. Once more she put her stake down on
_impair_, and, with eyes fixed on it, awaited the result.

Again the croupier raked the gold and silver in, and the young man's
stake went with the rest. This time the very coin he had forfeited was
pushed across the table to her. She picked it up and slipped it into her
glove, looking over at him to see what he would do. If he stopped she
would stop, if he went on she would give him the chance to win his money
back. She was sure it was _his_ money, and she felt some humiliation in
going home with twenty francs that belonged to a passing stranger.
Unconsciously to herself her interest was the more sincere because of
the fact that he was tall and good-looking. "Certainly a gentleman," she
commented, "and with such a striking face."

For an instant he seemed to hesitate; then his bit of gold fell on
_pair_. A second later Paula's fell on _impair_. The result was the same
as before; it was so the next time and the next. On the sixth spin
_pair_ won and _impair_ lost, but with the seventh _impair's_ run of
luck began again. Paula felt herself growing desperate. The palm of her
left-hand glove seemed bursting with gold, but in honor towards the poor
young man she could not stop till he did. She did not reason that he
could win back his money from the bank; she thought it must be from her.
Of one thing she was glad: he had not noticed her at all or glanced in
her direction. She could, therefore, look at him, with her money in her
hand, ready to throw her stake when he threw his.

The widow was elaborating a new arrangement of her system, taking coin
after coin from a small black bag. The girl in the blue veil was playing
with two louis instead of one, gesticulating her orders to the croupier
as to where they should be placed. The lad who had put his stake _en
plein_ was now playing it _ cheval_.

"_Rien ne va plus!_"

Paula started and looked at the young man across the table. He had put
nothing down. He had evidently lost all he could afford. What she had
won she should be obliged to keep. The obscure powers of chance had been
true to their reputation, and had given the luck to those who had no
need of it.

Her hand, with the glove full of gold, fell heavily at her side. Perhaps
the unfortunate man had lost everything he possessed and would be driven
to take his life, as she understood ruined gamblers generally were. She
had a wild thought of asking her father to go and beg him to take his
money back, when the victim's eyes wandered, apparently by accident, in
her direction. For a fraction of a second their glances met, but Paula
felt herself coloring and turned away.

"Why--what!"

The broken exclamation came from the Duke of Wiltshire, as he pushed
his way through the crowd to take his place again at her side.

"Have you been crying?--or playing?--or what?" he demanded, when he was
near enough to speak. For the first time in their acquaintance he
assumed a tone of authority.

"I haven't been crying," she said, hurriedly. "I've been playing, and
I've won a lot of money. I don't quite know what to do with it."

"So ho!" he laughed. "That's what you do when your father's back is
turned!"

"I sha'n't do it again," she said, in some confusion, as she moved out
of the ring immediately around the table. "You see it was this way. I
played against that tall young man over there. Don't look now because
he'll notice it. That is, whatever he did on one side of the table I did
on the other, and he always lost and I always won. I'm so sorry. He
didn't look as if he could afford to lose--and he didn't keep on."

"What young man do you mean? I don't see him."

"He's tall, and well set-up, with a pointed brown beard and rather
gleaming eyes. No; he's gone," she added, stealing a glance to where he
had been standing. "Ah, there he is now, coming round the table. He's
coming this way. Don't look; he'll know I've been speaking of him. Come
away. There's papa. Let us go to him."

But it was too late. The unknown young man and the Duke were already
shaking hands, with the cordiality of long-standing friendship. Paula
tried to slip out of her embarrassment by gliding round them and taking
her place beside her father. He was talking to a knot of people she did
not know, but she was near enough to him to be under his protection,
while not so far from the Duke as to escape hearing some of the remarks
between him and the stranger.

Through the hum of movement and conversation about her she caught a
sympathetic barytone quality of voice. From the English precision of his
enunciation and the American plaintiveness of his inflections, she
guessed he was one of those fellow-countrymen of her own who have lived
or studied abroad. The Duke catechised him freely, and he replied with
the sort of detail one gives only to one's friends.

He had been working in Rome, and would have remained till after Easter,
only that he had a couple of commissions for portraits in Paris. Oh yes;
commissions did come in, but very slowly. Perhaps it would be different
some day. Yes, his mother was quite accustomed to her blindness now, but
so feeble that they might lose her at any minute. Marah was well, and,
as usual, working hard. He was staying only a day or two at Monte Carlo,
just to break the journey from Rome. He hoped to have something in the
next Salon, though he had nothing ready yet. Perhaps if Lady Alice were
passing through Paris, she would look in, and give him the benefit of
her advice.

Then came the question Paula was afraid of. Would the Duke tell him who
was the tall young lady, in a blue dress and black hat, who had spoken
to him on turning away from the table? Of the reply she caught only the
end of the sentence--"and you must know her."

She felt herself flushing with embarrassment, but as the Duke approached
she knew the only dignified thing to do was to turn and greet him
pleasantly.

"Miss Trafford," he said, with the awkward air he always had at such
moments, "I want you to know a very old friend of ours, Mr. Roger
Winship."

"Mr. Winship's face," she laughed, "is perfectly familiar to me. I've
been watching him from the other side of the roulette-table for nearly
half an hour."

"And you saw the ill-will of the gods against me," he returned, easily.
"But I had the gratification of knowing that I couldn't lose unless you
won. That was something."

"Haven't we met before?" she asked, with a hurried change of topic.

"No; never."

The quick decisiveness of tone as well as the curious gleam of his eyes,
in speaking the brief words, were details she remembered afterwards.

"And yet," she persisted, "your name is very well known to me. I've
heard it often."

"That isn't impossible," he admitted, with a forced smile, "though you
must have been very young."

"I know I've heard of a Roger Winship," she continued, as if searching
in her memory. "It must have been my father--"

"Probably," he interrupted; "but it was so long ago--"

"That it was your father's name and not yours that I've heard mentioned.
Were you going to say that?"

"It was a long time ago," he repeated, the forced smile gone. "I don't
suppose that either you or I--"

He hesitated, and Paula saw that it would be best to let the subject
drop. The Duke broke in with a remark or two, and after a few further
words Winship bade them good-evening and passed on.

"What am I to do with all this money?" Paula asked, when she and
Wiltshire were alone again.

"You might give it in charity," he suggested.

"No; I wouldn't do that. I couldn't give in charity money to which I
felt some one else had a prior claim. And," she pursued, with some
hesitation, "I suppose I was right in fancying that he is poor?"

"Oh yes; he's poor enough. He's a portrait-painter, and still has his
way to make. Alice got to know him and his sister when she took it into
her head to study art in Paris. She brings them over every now and then
to stay with us at Edenbridge, or, at least she did till the poor old
lady grew too blind. I like this young fellow. He's full of ideas, and
we've had some jolly talks together."

"I've heard your sister spoken of as a great authority on art. Does she
think this Mr. Winship--?"

"She says she doesn't think--she knows. In ten years' time, she
believes, he will have such a place as Sargent holds to-day."

"Then, what shall I do with the money?" Paula said again.

"What _can_ you do but give it away or spend it?"

"I can keep it," she returned, thoughtfully. "I may find a way of
getting him to take it back."




  CHAPTER III


"What connection have I with the name of Roger Winship?"

"Oh, that dreadful man!" Mrs. Trafford cried, with a little gasp. "I
haven't heard of him for years."

"Do you mean old Roger Winship?" George Trafford asked, yawning, as he
slipped down lazily in his arm-chair and stretched his legs before the
fire.

"I mean any Roger Winship," Paula replied. "I've heard the name
to-night, and I seem to have known it before."

"How on earth did it happen?" came from Mrs. Trafford.

"There was a young man at the Casino, rather an interesting-looking man,
a friend of the Duke's. The Duke spoke to him and then introduced him to
me. I'd noticed him before that."

"I'm surprised at the Duke. It's very queer the sort of people who seem
to know one another nowadays."

Mrs. Trafford spoke with as much severity as a beaming content would
permit. Handsome, dimpling, and energetic, she was spending her
middle-age in the serene satisfaction of seeing all her dreams
fulfilled.

The daughter of a New England coal merchant, her modest fortune had
been the foundation on which the colossal Coal Trust had been built up.
It was to her credit to have married a poor man, certain that a great
industrial empire awaited him. She had married for love, against the
wishes of her family, but her love had been based on admiration. Her
husband and she had passed through good years and evil years, had lived
sparingly, had watched and planned and combined, and made their business
march with the march of the country. She had seen him rise, with the
swiftness and sureness of a Bonaparte, to the highest financial
position, first in Vermont, then in New England, then in America, then
in the world. Before he was sixty or she was fifty, Trafford was a name
to go with Rothschild. It was a name that meant not only the power of
money, but the power of power--the success of those who threw in their
destinies with it, and the ruin of those who opposed it.

During the years in which the great trust was being organized and
maintained, the Traffords had lived in an atmosphere of battle. There
were suits in the law courts, appeals to supreme courts, State
legislatures to be managed, Congress to be appeased, foreign trade-marts
to be invaded, and small competitors to be crushed out at home. It had
been exciting, and often dramatic; but as middle-age drew on and most of
the ends had been gained, it was pleasant to settle down and enjoy the
hardly won laurels in peace. George Trafford, whose late father, Andrew
Trafford, had shared the family elevation, was equal now to taking his
uncle's place in everything but the supreme command. In the exercise of
this office Paul Trafford himself was never idle, hurrying now to one
great capital, now to another, with but brief intervals to spend with
his wife and daughter at home.

Home now meant Paris. The dust of conflict being still thick in New
York, it was natural that Mrs. Trafford, at least, should prefer a place
of abode where she could breathe more freely. It was not less natural
that the enticements of fashion and fine weather, as well as the needs
of Mrs. Trafford's health, should draw them in winter to the Riviera.
The coming of the George Traffords from America, as well as the
possibility of Paula's engagement to the Duke of Wiltshire--a
possibility which was only awaiting her final word to become a
certainty--offered reasons for assembling something like a family party.

At the present minute they were spending the last desultory half-hour of
the evening in Mrs. Trafford's sitting-room, before parting for the
night. Mr. Trafford had already gone to his apartment, and Mrs. George,
beating back a yawn with the gloves she had just pulled off, was
preparing to take her husband off to theirs. Paula, dressed as she came
from the Casino, sat by a window from which she had pulled the curtain
back. Under the starlight, the sea gleamed duskily, reflecting here and
there the lamps of the yachts anchored in the tiny bay. Lights, too, ran
in a long, slanting line down the sea-wall to the Condamine, while more
lights still punctured the dark mass of the town of Monaco, looming,
high and ancient, against the sky.

"The Duke couldn't help introducing him to me," Paula explained, in
answer to her mother's objections. "I was standing near, and he asked
who I was. Besides, we'd noticed each other before that."

"Noticed each other?" Mrs. George queried, with just the glimmer of a
smile.

"In the Casino at Monte Carlo," George Trafford began, "strange ladies
don't notice strange gentlemen unless--"

"It was this way," Paula hastened to say. "I'd won a lot of money from
him--"

"You'd--what?" Mrs. Trafford gasped. "You don't mean to say you played
in that dreadful place?"

"I didn't play exactly. I just put down ten francs on a sort of square
to see what would happen."

"Well?"

"Well, he had ten francs on the corresponding square on the opposite
side, and he lost and I won."

"That wasn't winning from him," George Trafford corrected; "it was
winning from the bank."

"It seemed like winning from him," Paula insisted.

"Was that all?" the mother inquired, anxiously.

"No. We went on--six or seven times. He lost every time but one. I've
brought home all this!"

She pulled off her glove and let the gold pieces slip from her palm on
to the nearest table. They lay about separately, like stars. Mrs.
Trafford and Mrs. George both leaned forward to see; George Trafford
turned his head to look without changing his position.

"One--two--three," Mrs. Trafford counted--"fifty francs in all. Well, it
isn't very much."

"It was a good deal to him, I fancy," Paula remarked. "The Duke admitted
that he wasn't well off. Who is he, George?"

"If he is old Roger Winship's son--" George Trafford began, lazily.

"He is," Paula interrupted; "or at least he hinted as much. He seemed to
speak as if his family had had some connection with us."

"Did he say that?" Mrs. Trafford asked, with a gleam of her old
readiness for conflict.

"Not exactly," Paula explained. "He only wouldn't talk of it when I said
I seemed to know his name. Who is he?"

"Old Roger Winship," George Trafford went on, in his comfortable, lazy
tone, "was one of the men who, twenty years ago, had the folly, the
hardihood, and the ill-luck to oppose your father."

"And what then?"

"Then," Trafford laughed--"then he was ruined."

"Oh!"

"That is," Mrs. Trafford added, in explanation, "he would have been
ruined if he had lived. As it was--"

"His son was ruined," Paula finished, seeing her mother hesitate.

"No, his widow, poor thing," Mrs. Trafford corrected, pityingly.

"Was she ruined by--by us?" Paula continued, a little tremulously.

"No, by herself," George Trafford replied, promptly.

He pulled himself up in his chair and spoke with emphasis. You could see
that it was one of the subjects that kindled him into interest by the
way in which his eyes awoke from their blue benignity to dart out a ray
like steel. It was then that you realized in him the presence of the new
type--the essentially modern and chiefly American type--the son of the
hugely wealthy, self-made man; the son to whom has passed the blood of a
peasant with the power of a prince, and a command of means far in excess
of anything he knows how to use. As Trafford dragged his heavy figure
into an upright posture in his chair, his large jaw set, his head thrown
back, and his keen eyes flashing, there was the implication that he
could do what Paul Trafford himself had done if there were need to begin
the work again. But his was another duty--the duty of the second
generation to keep what had been won. It was a task consistent with a
large-handed, easy mode of life, with leisure for a certain sort of
simple cultivation, with praiseworthy, philanthropic undertaking, and
with interest in everything that made for the general public good. The
least competent judge of character could read in George Trafford's
rather ponderous, clean-shaven face the presence of the loyal, honest
citizen, who would have straightforward, sensible views on every
subject, from ward politics to the nude in art. It was not an
aristocratic face; its features, excellent in themselves, were so
placed together as to be without distinction; a mustache would have
softened the hard lines of the mouth and a beard would have veiled the
too aggressive chin; but in the general expression there was at least
frankness, open-mindedness, and a sense of power coupled with a look of
kindness. Undoubtedly that look of kindness came from his eyes. They
were blue eyes with black lashes, like his cousin Paula's, only smaller
and more deeply set. Where hers ranged about with a sort of searching,
puzzled wonder, his twinkled good-naturedly, until some sudden topic of
politics, business, or American patriotism made them blaze. A good man,
was the universal opinion in New York regarding George Trafford; a safe
man, a man to be found in the forefront of any movement to help on the
common weal; but a man who, in all matters of money, was of Paul
Trafford's own stock and blood.

"She ruined herself," he repeated, with greater energy. "She, too, was
possessed of the insane conviction that she could fight your father and
beat him. She wasn't the only woman who ever tried it, but no other kept
at it so doggedly and desperately that there was no choice at last but
to club her down."

"Of course," Mrs. Trafford interposed, "she worked for sympathy on the
fact that she was a woman; and she got it--there's no denying that. It
was one of the injustices that was done your father and which he is
always so ready to forgive."

"I didn't know," Paula said, with a more decided tremor in the voice,
"that papa fought with--women."

"There are no women in business," Mrs. George Trafford observed, in her
clear, cold way; "there are only competitors."

"Your father never fights with any one," George Trafford cried,
forcibly. "It is others who fight with him. They won't let him alone.
His success is what they can't pardon, and the less so when they compare
it with their own failure. There's never been a man who has tried harder
than your father to do good to others, and there's never been one who
has had more harm done to him."

In his tone there was a mingling of pride and indignation. Mrs. Trafford
raised her lace handkerchief to her eyes. Even Mrs. George Trafford, who
had only a connection by affinity with the great financier, threw up her
head with admiration when the trumpet was blown in his praise.

Paula herself felt a strange oppression about the heart. Like the rest
of the Traffords she had set up the man who had made them what they were
as a kind of demigod. She had done more than the rest of them; for, into
the worship they all accorded him, she had infused a self-devotion of
which she alone was capable. As the youngest of the family it was she
who had known him least as a man of business and most as a man of the
world. In all her recollection of him he had never been anything but the
great personage whose goings and comings were as important as those of
kings. During his later years, when the immensity of his affairs obliged
him to travel much, she was his frequent companion. She helped him in
collecting rare old books and works of art, and filled some of the gaps
in his early education; but she never saw him otherwise than as the
financial potentate, who had taught statesmen to look to him for advice
and bishops for benefactions, and who could buy anything that was good
enough.

To be the daughter of such a man had given her a kind of royalty--the
royalty of money. Wherever they went they were treated with a
spontaneous awe, scarcely less deferential than if they had sprung from
the line of Charlemagne. Governments and aristocracies did them honor,
and sovereigns received them on a footing curiously like that of
equality. As for republics and democracies, they had hailed Paul
Trafford at first as the type they could produce at their very best--the
man who out of small beginnings could rise to vastness of power, and
then dispense his means not merely in sumptuous living, but in founding
hospitals, building churches, endowing seats of learning, and leaving a
name that time could only consecrate. It was not strange that Paula,
living in the radiation of so strong a character, should give him more
than filial affection. For this very reason certain suggestions made
to-night seemed to her like a desecration. To fight with a woman! To
club her down! There are no women in business, only competitors! What
did it mean? For a few minutes she kept silence, pondering her cousin's
words. She looked straight before her, trouble clouding in her Celtic
eyes and the little furrow of perplexity deepening between the brows.

"Did Mrs. Winship--?" she began, with some hesitation.

"For mercy's sake, Paula," Mrs. Trafford exclaimed, hastily, "don't get
those Winships on the brain! I thought they were dead and buried long
ago, and, dear knows, they've given us trouble enough."

"Let her go on, Aunt Julia," George Trafford reasoned, calmly. "Since
the subject has come up, she'd better know it just as it is."

"I was going to ask," Paula said, with dignity, "if Mrs. Winship thought
that papa had done her wrong."

"Most people think you do them wrong if you do things better than they
can," Trafford answered, quickly. "There's no kind of business, from the
stage to the church, in which the strong worker isn't held as an enemy
by the feeble and the indifferent. That's inseparable from human nature,
and your father has had to face it. The hostility he has encountered has
been in proportion to his success; so, naturally, it's been colossal."

"And I've never known him to utter a harsh word," Mrs. Trafford
observed, quaveringly. "As each new attack has arisen, he has faced
about to crush it. When that's been done he has given it no more
thought--if it hasn't been to help those he has beaten. Where he has
seen people with ability he has often taken them into his own
employment; and there are plenty of wealthy men to-day who can tell you
that their fortunes were made when your father singled them out as
clever opponents. There's Henry Desmond, for instance, who was only an
obscure young lawyer at Utica until he gained the McTavish case against
us. From that very moment your father kept his eye on him, and when the
Brewer action was brought in Albany he put the whole case in Desmond's
hand. That made Desmond what he is; and there are hundreds of others of
whom the same thing is true. Your father has the most wonderful way of
converting enemies into friends. It's a sort of art of his. I've never
heard of it anywhere else--unless it was in Mary Queen of Scots."

"Couldn't he have done that with the Winships?" Paula asked, returning
to the personal point.

"In business," Trafford explained, swinging himself round so as to lean
over the arm of his chair, and speaking for Paula's benefit--"in
business, most men, when they can't get best, will turn themselves about
so as to put up with second-best. They will even accept third-best and
fourth-best rather than go with no advantage whatever. But every now and
then you meet some one with whom it must be all or nothing. They'll not
bargain, or compromise, or meet you half-way, or resort to any of the
shifts with which business men have often to be content. They'll fight
you to the bitter end, and die before they yield. In fact, they're
people with the fighting rather than the business instinct, and when you
meet them they leave you no choice but to crush them out of your way."

"Were the Winships like that?"

"Yes, they were. They were like that, only worse. You could no more beat
modern methods into old Roger Winship's mind than you could into a
mountain of brass. Because he was the largest owner of coal-lands in New
Hampshire, he looked upon himself as a sort of ruler by divine right.
For nearly thirty years he had operated the Devlin Mines--"

"But they're ours!" Paula exclaimed.

"Now--yes," Trafford assented, with a short laugh. "But when your father
first cast his eyes on them the Devlin Coal Company was practically old
Roger Winship. He worked the mines and sold the coal, in a humdrum,
provincial, old-fashioned way, and made a handsome income. Then came
your father--with new ideas, big ideas, and victory behind him all along
the line."

"But papa didn't want to take the Devlin Mines from Mr. Winship?"

"No; not at all. He was only developing the plan with which he had
begun--that he should control the entire output and sale of coal in the
sphere under his immediate influence. As you know, that, sphere expanded
as he went on, like a growing empire. At first, when he was a young man,
he thought of coal production only within the State of Vermont--didn't
he, aunt?"

"He spoke only of that," Mrs Trafford corrected. "His thoughts from the
beginning were as vast as his business afterwards came to be."

"At any rate," George Trafford continued, "he began with Vermont,
quietly and, as we should think nowadays, very modestly. And yet, so
complete was his system, and so thorough his organization in every
detail, that in a few years there was not a bushel of coal mined or sold
from Canada to the Massachusetts line that wasn't under his direct
control. He had got possession of every important company and annexed
every customer, great and small. Where any one showed fight, he pushed
him out of the market. He had his agents everywhere--not only in every
town but in every office. There wasn't a carload of coal that crossed
the state of which he didn't know the quality, the value, and the
destination. If it wasn't his, his agents went after it and offered the
dealer a better quality at a cheaper rate. If the dealer refused, then
they went to his customers and cut the prices right under the dealer's
nose. In five years' time there was practically not a merchant in
Vermont who could sell a ton of coal if he hadn't bought it from your
father."

"But the Devlin Mines are in New Hampshire," Paula argued, eager to know
about the Winships.

"We're coming to that," Trafford went on, enthusiastically. "It wasn't
natural that a business such as his had come to be should stop within
the limits of a state. It spilled over on every side: into New York,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, the Middle States--everywhere. It crossed
the whole country; the farther the net went out the easier it seemed to
throw it farther still. His system was so perfect that the thing seemed
to go of itself. In reality his method was simple; it lay in three main
points: First, to get control of the means of transportation by rebates
from the great railway and steamship lines--rebates allowed to him and
refused to others; then to sweep out competition by annexing rival
companies; and lastly to keep up prices by limiting the supply. If an
independent company refused to yield to his demands, then he laid siege
to it--siege as regular, as thorough, as patient, and as systematic as
that of a fortress. He invested it, so to speak, by sea and land. He cut
off its means of transportation by prohibitive rates and its customers
by low prices. If there was litigation, he was almost invariably
victorious. In the end the rebellious company did one of two things--it
capitulated and came in, or it went bankrupt and Uncle Paul bought it."

Trafford threw back his great head, with a sense of exultation in so
much industrial triumph. Mrs. Trafford sighed softly as she recalled the
old days of action. Paula sat quite still, her eyes fixed upon her
cousin with a sort of astonished fascination, as her mind tried to
comprehend these strange--these brutal--mysteries of business.

"You ought to say, George," young Mrs. Trafford suggested, "that your
uncle never struck until he had made the most generous proposals."

"That's true, Laura," her husband agreed. "Paula should understand that;
and the Winships make an excellent illustration. The Devlin Company," he
pursued, in a tone of narrative, "had already been pretty hard hit by us
before your father began to give them open attention. Of course, he'd
known for years what he was going to do with them, but he's never one
to act before the time. When he was ready--that is to say, when he had
secured his rebates on all their railways, when he held their customers
in the hollow of his hand, when, by his agents whom he kept in their
employ, he knew their business better than they did themselves--he made
his offer. It was a good one, or it wouldn't have come from him. As
nearly as I remember, it was this: They were to hand over to the Vermont
Mining Company--that was your father, of course--for the period of
twenty years, the mines, the plant, and all their own time. He was to
put in twenty thousand dollars and his rebates; that is to say, they
were to have the same transportation advantages as ourselves. They were
to limit their output to a given quantity, and in return Uncle Paul was
to guarantee them a profit of fifty thousand dollars a year. Any profit
over fifty thousand was to go to him."

"Most generous, I call it," young Mrs. Trafford commented.

"And yet the old man refused it," Trafford said, with a short laugh.

"Why?" Paula asked, trying to keep up with her cousin's explanations.

"Why?" he echoed. "Because those whom the gods wish to destroy they
first make mad. Old Roger Winship thought he could pit himself against
the man whose financial conquests were by this time the talk of two
worlds. You see, for forty years the Winships had done a steady,
respectable business in the played-out, live-and-let-live way that used
to be the standard. They had no notion of progress, or energy, or real
competition. Your father had begun to eat the heart out of their trade
before they ever heard of him. By the time they began to wake up they
were as good as ruined already. Your father knew it but they didn't.
When they took in the fact they threatened him with all the rigor of the
law."

"Only," Mrs. Trafford added, "they went beyond the limits of propriety.
They said your father was no better than a common thie--well, no, I
won't say it. He himself is the last to bear malice, and an example to
us all."

"At any rate," George Trafford pursued, "your father stepped in just
then with his offer. He was always for peace and fair-dealing, and he
knew the psychological moment had come. He knew, too, just how it would
be taken, and laid out his plan of action for five or six years ahead.
If the Devlin hadn't been a sort of family company, with all the shares
in a few hands, they would probably have come in after the first storm
of threats had blown over. A body of share-holders are generally ready
in the long run to eat humble-pie if their dividends are assured them.
But, you see, the Devlin was practically Roger Winship, a proud,
stubborn, high-tempered old fellow of a by-gone school. As hereditary
coal king of New Hampshire, he felt himself a match for any mushroom
Trafford, and so he set to work."

"Very cleverly, it must be admitted," Mrs. Trafford observed. "Your
father always says that he went straight for the weak point of the whole
system."

"Yes--the rebates," Trafford went on. "Uncle knew that if the question
of rebates was ever seriously raised in law he couldn't hold out beyond
a certain point."

"Do you mean that papa knew he was making use of an illegal privilege?"
Paula asked.

Trafford was not expecting a question of so much acumen, and replied,
somewhat slowly:

"Nothing is illegal till it's proved so. He only made use of the rebates
until it was shown that he couldn't. It was a matter of public benefit
to have the question fought out and settled. So when the New Hampshire
Central refused the Winships the same rates for transportation as they
had given to the Vermont Mining Company, the Devlin took the matter into
court. Of course your father stood behind the railroad, and the case was
argued in the Court of Common Pleas. The railroad lost, just as he
thought it would; but see what a general he is! He had the whole
campaign mapped out. The railroad appealed to the District Court, your
father in the mean time having the use of his rebates. The railroad lost
again. Then it appealed to the Supreme Court of the State. Still the
rebates went on, while at the same time your father was cutting off from
the Devlin every ton of business. Before the case was heard at Concord
old Roger Winship died from a stroke of apoplexy."

"Brought on," Mrs. Trafford explained, "purely by bad temper and his
refusal to accept your father's offer. Now, tell her, George, of your
uncle's magnanimity."

"It was just this," said Trafford--"just what you would have expected
him to do. He went to Mrs. Winship personally and renewed the offer he
had made two years before. In the mean time, please take notice, the
Devlin's business had gone from bad to worse, and yet he actually
renewed the offer as it stood."

Trafford leaned back, his thumbs thrust into the arm-holes of his
evening waistcoat, and watched the effect of this information upon
Paula. The girl could only gaze at him with the same troubled expression
of inquiry, waiting for him to go on.

"But Mrs. Winship," he continued, "had as little mind for compromise as
her husband. The railroad having already lost twice, she was persuaded
it would lose again. Once there were no more rebates, she was sure the
Devlin would do its old work again. Well, the railroad lost the third
time, and appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. For the
poor lady that was a staggerer, just as your father supposed it would
be. Still, she had the pluck--or the folly, whichever you choose to call
it--to struggle on. The case went before the Supreme Court of the United
States, and the railroad lost again. Mrs. Winship was victorious;
but--and this is what your father had foreseen during the whole six
years the fight had lasted--the Devlin Coal Company was already in the
hands of a receiver, and legal expenses had eaten up all the Winships'
private means."

Trafford, having ended his story, fell back dramatically into the depths
of his chair.

"We took over the Devlin Mines the next year," Mrs. Trafford concluded.
"The Winships had mismanaged them terribly. Once they were thoroughly
worked they became the most paying of all our properties."

There was a long silence, broken only when young Mrs. Trafford reminded
her husband that it was time to say good-night.

"Did any more of our money come like that?" Paula asked, suddenly.

"Like what?" Trafford demanded.

"Like what, Paula?" came from Mrs. Trafford herself, with a suggestion
of protest in her tone.

"Like that," the girl said, confusedly--"like the money we got from the
Winships."

"We got nothing from the Winships," Trafford declared. "We haven't a
dollar that we didn't get in business."

"Was it honorable business?"

The question slipped out unawares. Trafford strode towards her. He stood
looking down at her, his hands in the pockets of his evening jacket, his
feet planted apart, and his eyes shooting out their steely rays.

"Look here, Paula," he said, in a tone of rough kindliness, "you have
for a father one of the greatest men God ever raised up--a man with a
big mind, a big heart, a big nature; a man who out of nothing has
created one of the first positions in the world; a man who has not only
transformed the business of the country, but given new conceptions of
business to the whole earth. Now, such a man as that is bound to have
enemies, and he has them. All his life long he has been persecuted,
vilified, and traduced. He has gone from court to court, and from one
committee of investigation to another. What has been his crime? He has
made money. He has made a lot of money. To people who've tried to make
money and haven't made it, that's crime enough to warrant any kind of
hounding down. But take the people who haven't tried to make money; take
the people whose ambitions are elsewhere and whose minds are impartial.
Is there any one among them who isn't proud to take your father by the
hand and accept what he has to give? Is there a philanthropist, from
Cardinal Gibbons to Bishop Potter, who isn't glad of his subscription?
Is there an institution, from Harvard University to St. John's Floating
Hospital, that doesn't accept his donation without questioning the means
by which the money came to be his? He has built a cathedral at
Burlington, a hospital at Des Moines, an orphanage in St. Louis; he has
endowed a School of Mining at one university, and an Institute of Manual
Arts at another; there are charitable schemes all over the country that
owe their chief support to your father. Is there a doubtful note on the
part of any person or any corporation, civil or ecclesiastical, that has
received his benefactions? None. Mind you, I'm quoting to you not the
common standard of the world, but the standard of men devoted to the
religious, moral, or educational welfare of their fellows. One and all
they have taken his money as money which he had an honest right to
bestow. Now, isn't that enough for you? Haven't you got a mass of moral
testimony there that nobody can go behind or bring into dispute? The man
who impeaches your father to-day must practically impeach all the
religious, philanthropic, and educational opinion in the United States.
Don't you begin to do it."

He stood looking down at her, smiling in kindly admonition. Young Mrs.
Trafford came up and slipped her arm through his, smiling down at her
too. The mother joined them, with an affectionate injunction to dismiss
all foolish and fatiguing thoughts and go to bed.

The girl made no reply to any of them. She smiled rather wistfully in
response to their good-night wishes, and told them she would put out the
lights. Then she sat still, alone and pondering, trying to sift and
co-ordinate the mass of information she had just received.

It was late when she rose to go away. On the table beside her lay the
five gold pieces she had brought home an hour or two ago. "The Winship
money," she half muttered to herself. "What father did to his father I
seem to have done to him."

She picked up the coins one by one and pressed them in her palm.
Suddenly, before she could control herself, the tears rose and ran down
her cheeks. As she dashed them away it seemed as if a figure rose before
her through the mist they made. It was not the man with the brown beard
and the gleaming eyes she had seen that night; it was the blind woman,
who had gone on from court to court and from year to year, till her
father had been forced at last to "club her down."




  CHAPTER IV


Of all the Trafford family it was Paula who had least of the clearness
of vision and promptness of action that were so remarkable in her
parents. Her thought worked slowly and somewhat illogically. She was not
capable of large conceptions, and when she tried to trace for herself a
definite line of duty it soon lost itself in vagueness. In a small way
of life she would have fulfilled the daily task with scrupulous
devotion, helped by the very absence of choice; but as mistress of a
fortune such as that which she was already allowed to spend she felt
herself bewildered. It was as if she had a bird's range of flight
without the bird's instinct for finding the way.

She was conscious of this as she sat, on the following morning, looking
over her correspondence. Everything in the room about her suggested
wealth. She herself, in a soft, trailing garment that seemed to be woven
of gossamer and the petals of pale-pink flowers, looked as far removed
from the practical side of life as a Princess de Lamballe or Dauphiness
Marie Antoinette. Her coffee, brought to her in the gold-plate service
kept in the hotel as a delicate attention to passing royalties, was
beside her on the table, and she sipped as she read.

The Duke's daily letter she glanced through first, laying it down with a
sigh. When she had read the notes from her friends, she separated the
letters of invitation from those of premature congratulation on her
reported engagement. Then she attacked the large pile of envelopes, the
nature of whose contents she knew only too well. They were all requests
for contributions of money to charities of various kinds, and she swept
them aside with a gesture of impatience. In spite of herself, her
thoughts went back to the man she had seen last night--the man who was
"evidently a gentleman," but who "looked poor."

For a man to "look poor" seemed to Paula the last touch of the pitiable.
All the men with whom she had much to do had at least the outward air of
riches. This man, on the contrary, bore the very stamp of one obliged to
deny himself. Yes, that was it. She could see it now. It was not poverty
that he expressed so much as self-denial. The very clothes he wore were
threadbare. She had noticed that detail, subconsciously at the time,
and now it came back to her significantly. Well, he had a mother and a
sister dependent on him; it was only too likely that he should be forced
into personal privation. It was not the nobleness of the sacrifice that
appealed to Paula; that was not the standard by which she had been
taught to judge; it was rather the pitifulness involved in the necessity
for making that kind of sacrifice at all. The men of her family put
forth gigantic efforts, and carried them out to gigantic successes. She
understood that; she was used to it; but that a man of her own world,
one who was on such footing as to be casually presented to herself--that
such a man should be driven to pinching, sordid, petty economies in
clothing, and perhaps in food, had in it something of the shameful. It
put him at once, in her imagination, into the class of people without
money--the seekers, the wheedlers, the beggars. She was not indifferent
to poverty, but she could not help being distrustful of it. She had seen
so much of it, fawning and whining, with the back bent and the hand
outstretched! She could not remember the time when they, the Traffords,
had not been tracked down by petitioners. They had moved among them like
European tourists among Egyptian fellaheen, with cries for backsheesh
forever ringing in their ears. Whether from the individual or the
institution, the demand for money never ceased.

She had come to give carelessly, with a kind of royal prodigality, but
none the less with a certain contempt for those who asked of her. They
wearied her, they goaded her. There were so many of them that she was
tempted to class every one who had not huge means of his own among their
number. For the minute she saw Roger Winship there. He was poor; that
surely was a sufficient reason why he should put his hand out like the
rest.

Then came the thought of what had made him poor. She went over again the
discussion of last night. Her father had eaten the heart out of the
Winships' business before they had ever heard of him! He had laid out
his plan of campaign to ruin them five or six years ahead! What did it
mean? What could she do? Could she do anything? Was there a right and a
wrong to the situation?

She leaned her head on her hand and tried to think; but the complex
questions at issue were of the sort that baffled her intelligence. Her
mind could only shift aimlessly about, as in a labyrinth, where all the
paths led to nothing. She felt herself beating about in despair, in
search of a way, when Mrs. George Trafford came tripping in and pointed
out the direction.

She had knocked lightly at the door, but had entered without waiting for
an answer. She, too, was in a morning costume, but one significantly
unlike Paula's. It was of white linen, belted in at the waist with pale
blue. It was neat and trim and cleared the ground, setting off her small
figure to perfection.

"Good-morning, Laura," Paula said, rather wearily.

"Good-morning, dear," Mrs. Trafford returned, briskly.

They kissed each other in a pecking fashion, and Mrs. Trafford sank into
the nearest chair. No one could see her without being sure that she was
the sort of woman to go to her point at once.

"I simply _had_ to come to you, dear, before you had a chance to go out.
I've been so distressed about the conversation of last night. I've told
George that he shouldn't hurl things at you like that."

"What things?" Paula demanded, holding herself erect, and flushing.

"About your father, dear. You might easily misunderstand--"

"I should never misunderstand to the extent of thinking he had done
wrong," the girl said, haughtily.

"No, of course not. But I know exactly how you feel, because I've had
times of feeling that way myself."

"You mean--?" Paula began, and stopped abruptly. Her eyes clouded, and
the tiny furrow marked itself between her brows as she gazed straight
before her, trying to shape her thought.

Mrs. Trafford leaned back in her chair and waited. She was a pretty
woman, with the cold, clear-cut daintiness of a statuette in _biscuit de
Svres_. When George Trafford married her it was a surprise to every one
but herself. A Western girl, the daughter of a doctor in a small country
town, she had the Western ability to meet poverty just as, when it came,
she had the Western readiness to accept wealth. She had not looked for
wealth--certainly not such wealth as George Trafford's--but she knew her
capacity to fill any position, and she entered upon her new career with
plenty of self-confidence.

The marriage was something of a public event, especially in the West.
Even in New York there was some curiosity over the advent of a penniless
country girl suddenly lifted to such a giddy height of fortune. Laura
knew that people expected her head to be turned. They looked at least to
be amused by that wild splashing in money supposed to be characteristic
of those who have been hurriedly made rich, especially when their
antecedents have lain beyond the Mississippi. But they had reckoned
without the personal knowledge of one who knew thoroughly her own mind.
In coming to New York Laura felt herself raised up for the purpose of
illustrating the correct and conscientious use of wealth.

By this time the social position of the Traffords in New York had been
secured. After living in Cleveland, St. Louis, Washington, and
elsewhere, according to the needs of Mr. Trafford's growing empire, they
had come to New York as comparative strangers. Their reception by the
high powers ruling there had been one of mingled coldness and curiosity.
Little by little, however, they had passed through the necessary stages
of initiation, so that when Mrs. George Trafford made her entry it was
into an uncontested place. In spite of the Mississippi, there was no
reason why, as a bride unusually pretty and incomparably rich, she
should not become one of that chosen oligarchy of ladies whose golden
sceptre sways over the American metropolis.

And yet she had the courage to snub--gently, courteously, but none the
less decidedly to snub--those two great potentates, Mrs. Van Rensselaer
Smith and Mrs. Stuyvesant Jones, when, through sheer kindness, they
united their rival forces to come and tell her so. She should have no
time for mere amusement she informed them. The duties of her position
would tax her strength to the utmost. Besides, she shrank from
ostentation, from anything that made a parade of the mere power to
spend. True refinement lay in making as little display as possible,
didn't it? None, in fact, could know it better than themselves. The
responsibility of wealth involved so many considerations for others that
one's self and one's legitimate, one's natural tastes were driven to the
background.

She looked at them with such clear, gray eyes, was so frank, so nave,
and (as they thought) so Western, that Mrs. Van Rensselaer Smith and
Mrs. Stuyvesant Jones were nonplussed rather than offended. They liked
her for her independence, and were certainly amused. If she wanted to
help others with her money, goodness knew there was room enough, they
said, when they went away. They were the last people in the world to
object to it. Besides, when she had helped a few, she would have enough
of such a thankless task as that. She had snubbed them--that was
plain--but they were so unused to the process that they almost enjoyed
it. She would have other ideas when she was a little older, and then
they would take her up again.

But the years were slipping by and Laura was true to the principles with
which she started. The only display she made was of the fact that she
made no display; her only ostentation was that of her lack of
ostentation. She made no secret of the fact that she looked upon wealth
as a heavy burden. "Mr. Trafford and I have no pleasure like that of
giving away," she sighed, not only in private but in public. They did
give away on a scale of superb munificence. By confining their gifts to
what would refine, elevate, and educate the masses at large, they took
care not to pauperize or encourage idleness. Schools, colleges,
libraries, and art museums had the chief benefit of their generosity.
The grim want of individuals did not appeal to them, "because," so Mrs.
Trafford said, "there were so few cases in which the after-effects of
charity were not deleterious." She liked to feel that her liberality had
a sound commercial basis.

"You needn't be afraid to speak out with me, Paula, dear," she said,
encouragingly, when the girl had been a long time silent. "As I've told
you already, I've been through it all, and I want to help you. Before I
married George I'd heard lots of things about Uncle Trafford that--well,
that rather shocked me."

Again Paula lifted her head haughtily, but Laura hurried on.

"I had to reason everything out before I could see how right he was. If
I hadn't been able to come to that conclusion I could never have
accepted George. Now, here's a principle which, George says, people in
our position must never lose sight of: you can't go behind the law. If
the law is on your side, you must be right."

"But can't the law be outwitted?" Paula asked, ponderingly. "It seems to
me I've heard of that."

"I believe it can, but George says Uncle Trafford never tried to do it.
That's where he's been so able."

"Did he--? Tell me frankly, Laura, please. I know he didn't, but I
_must_ ask you. Did he, in your opinion, ever do anything that wasn't
honorable?"

"George says," Mrs. Trafford answered, slowly, "that business is a good
deal like whist. Each player holds his portion of the cards, out of
which he's permitted to win the game by any means short of cheating.
It's acknowledged beforehand that there's no place in the play for mercy
or unselfishness. The game goes to him who can get it. There are
commonly accepted rules that he can observe or not, as he chooses. What
justifies him is his success, and if he wins the question of honor or
dishonor isn't raised. Now, dear, your father is an amazingly clever
player of the game. He can win it when his opponents hold all the best
cards and more than half the trumps. It isn't his place to consider
them; it's his duty to take the tricks. If he takes a great many
tricks--a great, great many tricks--his skill can't be called dishonor,
can it? It's skill, that's all; and nothing is more admirable than skill
in anything."

"But if it's skill to bring trouble and worry and want to some people,
and to others--to us, for instance--millions more than we can ever
use--"

"There's no such skill as that, dear," Mrs. Trafford argued, in a
virtuous tone. "From the beginning of history wealth has always been a
stewardship, and it has gone into the hands of certain stewards. If you
are a steward, it's much more important to fulfil your stewardship than
to question the means by which you were appointed."

"But," said Paula, doubtfully, "couldn't part of the stewardship be--to
make reparation?"

"Reparation isn't as easy at it looks, dear. It's not only a matter of
giving, but a matter of taking. When one side is willing to offer it,
the other, perhaps, isn't ready to accept it."

"But if it were money? Anybody would accept money."

"No, anybody won't accept money, strange as it may seem. There are
people--we may not know many of them--but there _are_ people who put
money a long way after pride. I've got a good mind to tell you something
that George and I have always kept from you. It would show you."

Paula looked her interrogation.

"It's about your father."

"Do tell me, Laura, please."

"Well, the beginning of it was a long time ago, when we lived in
Turtonville, Wisconsin. It was ages before I ever imagined I should
marry one of the Traffords. Your father at that time had some trouble
out there with a man named Marshall. I don't know exactly what it was,
but it was something like what we were talking of last night."

"Not the Winships?" Paula cried, painfully. "There wasn't another case
like that? Tell me, Laura!"

"No, it wasn't a bit like that, it was just something in the same line.
What I'm coming to is this: Marshall was the rich man of Turtonville. He
had something to do with coal, of course; and he had four daughters,
all very plain. One of them was an old maid from the time I can begin to
remember. Well, when the trouble started, your father began pushing
Marshall and pushing him and pushing him--till at last he pushed him out
of his business altogether. Then Marshall shot himself."

"Oh, Laura, don't tell me any more."

"It was all Marshall's fault, dear. Your father didn't make him shoot
himself. That was perfectly gratuitous on Marshall's part. But it's
about the old Miss Marshalls that I want to tell you. After their father
died and they were so poor, they had to turn their hands to anything for
a living. They did sewing and made cake and put up pickles and painted
doilies--"

"Oh, how dreadful, Laura!"

"And they did pretty well till the eldest one fell ill. That was the
very summer I was married; and one day, in the winter after, I happened
to mention them to your father."

"Oh, I'm so glad. I know he was good to them!"

"Yes; he sent them a thousand dollars, anonymously, through their
minister. He gave the strictest orders that his name was never to be
known, but when they had spent a couple of hundred of it the foolish
clergyman told them. That was enough. The sick one got up out of her
dying bed and went to work. It was as if her pride had healed her. For
two years they toiled and saved till they had got together as much as
they had spent. Then they returned the full thousand to your father. He
told me about it, and I know it cut him to the quick. He's forgiven
them, though, great heart that he is! And he's asked me several times to
do what I can for them."

"And you've done it, Laura?"

"Indeed I have! I couldn't send them money, of course, after their
treatment of Uncle Trafford. Besides, I never run the risk of
pauperizing any one. What I've done has been to give them work. They sew
beautifully, and I've managed to let them have all the house-linen, both
for Newport and Tuxedo, without a suspicion on their part that it was
for our family. Naturally, I had to do it through a third person, for
they wouldn't have touched it if they had known."

"Are there really people in the world who feel towards us like that?"
Paula questioned, with an air of distress.

"I suppose," Mrs. Trafford replied, in her practical way--"I suppose
they feel towards us much as the French do towards the Germans. It can't
be very pleasant for the Germans to be hated so, and yet they have
Alsace-Lorraine to console them. I don't blame the Miss Marshalls. I say
it's very natural in their situation. I do all I can to alleviate their
condition, and I believe I succeed. Their work is really exquisite, and
I find that, even after paying the express charges, it is cheaper than
it would be in New York. Now the third person of whom I spoke--if you
must know who it is, it's that Miss Green who works in the College
Settlement in Bleecker Street--she wants me to take a lot of their
painted doilies, but I feel that I must draw the line at that."

"I'll take them," Paula said, instantly. "I'll take as many as they can
paint, if they go on painting all the rest of their lives."

It was this sort of impulsive generosity that contradicted all Mrs.
Trafford's well-thought-out principles of benevolence. It lacked the
element of the practical good of both parties, as well as the sense of
the responsibility of wealth.

"Then you'd be making a mistake," she said, bluntly. "You'd be wasting
both your own money and their time. There are three useful things that
they can do: they can sew, they can make cake, and they can put up
pickles. Why on earth should they want to do painting--?"

"But painting is a useful thing," Paula interrupted, a little warmly.

"Exactly. And that brings me right to the thing I came in to say. I know
what's been on your mind ever since last night. I know it, because it's
been on my mind, too. I always feel for those cases where there's been a
previous--connection with the family, so to speak. I know it's Uncle
Trafford's wish that we should make things as easy for them as we can.
Now, why shouldn't you have this Mr. Winship paint your portrait?"

"Oh, Laura. I couldn't!" the girl cried, flushing.

"Couldn't? Of course you could. It's the thing to do. He could paint you
and the Duke and me and our little Paul, and perhaps I might even get
George to sit to him. I suppose Aunt Trafford never would. Anyhow, he
could do all of us, and we'd pay him very good prices--nothing fabulous,
mind you, nothing of that kind, but what for him would be generous
prices. Just think of all it would mean to him! It wouldn't be only the
money--though that, of course, would be a great deal--it would be the
_rclame_, the advertisement. It would pose him before the world; it
would set him up for life. Then we should be rid of the worry of
thinking about him. Of course, I can see it would be a bore to you," she
added, as Paula still seemed to hesitate, "but people like ourselves,
with the responsibility of wealth upon them, can't stop at a duty merely
because, it's a bore."

"You're a wonderful woman, Laura," Paula said at last, her eyes suffused
with that Celtic softness which is midway between smiles and tears.
"You've such good ideas, and such sound ones. I won't say that I'll do
it, but I'll think it over. But if I come to it," she went on,
stammering slightly, "you--mustn't think--that it is because I have any
doubt of--of--father."

As she uttered the last words there came a sharp rap at the door, and
Paul Trafford himself entered.




  CHAPTER V


He strode in with his characteristic air of command, and Paula,
springing up, threw her arms about him. The two were always expressive
in their affection for each other, but this morning there was in Paula's
"Oh, papa!" a variety of emotions of which she herself could have given
but a confused account. It was as if she had received him back again
after the nightmare of having lost him. He clasped her to him, looking
down at her with that kind of impressive tenderness for which very
strong faces alone have the capacity.

If was no wonder that she was proud of him--this handsome giant of over
six feet three, before whom all the fast-barred gates of life had
yielded. Even age seemed powerless to lay more than the lightest hand
upon him. His sixty-five years had deepened the lines on his rocklike
face, and brought a little gray into the mustache that curving upward
revealed the set of the close lips, but they had done little more. The
hair was scarcely silvered, and the eyes still had the vivacity of an
eager, stern-faced boy's. They were the Trafford eyes--blue with black
lashes, and, in his case, with heavy, overhanging brows.

Paula slipped from his embrace, and they exchanged the usual morning
greetings. Trafford kissed his niece, and inquired for George and little
Paul. It was clear to the two women, accustomed to observe the slightest
signs of his wishes, that he had come on some special errand; so Laura,
after reminding Paula that she and the Duke were to lunch with George
and herself at Ciro's, made some excuse for running away.

Paula resumed her seat, while her father moved about the room with
unusual restlessness.

"That's a pretty thing you've got on," he observed, coming back to her
side. "Aren't you looking a little pale to-day?" he continued, stroking
her cheek "What's all this?"

He turned over, with a toss, the letters of petition she had opened,
and, with characteristic attention to small details, ran his eye over
them.

"You might send something there," he advised, "and there. I wouldn't pay
any regard to that. You might inquire into this one; and, of course, you
must see that that poor little French girl has what comfort you can give
her. I'm going to Vienna," he finished, abruptly. "Oh no, papa!" she
pleaded. "Not now! Not just now!"

"I must, dear. I've tried to get out of it, but there are very large
interests at stake, and I'm obliged to go."

He drew a small chair towards her and sat down. With his arms folded on
the table, he looked across at her. Before that gaze her own glance
fell. It was as though the mingling of strength and adoration in it
were too much for her to support without flinching. The roselike color
came and went in her cheek, and stole up into her white, blue-veined
temples, while Paul Trafford wondered, as he did ten times every day,
how it was that, out of his sheer force and his wife's mere buxomness,
there had sprung this exquisite flower of a child.

"Yes, dear, I'm obliged to go," he repeated. "I'm sorry it has to be
now--just now. You know why, don't you?"

She lifted her eyes and let them fall again.

"I suppose I do, papa."

"I don't want to hurry you," he went on, with what, for him, was curious
timidity, "and I wouldn't on my own account--not for a second. But,
darling, we ought to think of--of him, oughtn't we? Don't you think he's
been very patient? It's over a month now."

"I find it very hard to decide, papa."

"Could you tell me why, dear? I might be able to help you."

"You'd like it very much, wouldn't you, papa?"

"Yes; but that isn't a reason for you," he answered, promptly. "I want
my little girl to marry to please herself, not me."

"And yet I can't help taking what pleases you into consideration--into
deep consideration. And I've wondered a little papa," she continued,
looking up at him, "why you've been so anxious about this one, when
you've been so indifferent, if not opposed, to the others."

"I'll tell you, darling. I'll give you my point of view. But, mark you,
it can't be yours; it mustn't be yours. From the very nature of things,
you and I approach this subject from different angles. First of all, I
have to remember that I'm no longer a young man, and that I have a great
treasure to leave behind."

"But, papa, darling, I'd rather not think of it in that light."

"No, but I must. There's the difference of angle at once. If one of your
brothers had lived, or even one of your sisters, perhaps, I shouldn't
feel so keenly about it as I do. But you're all that's left to us--"

"Then why not keep me with you as long as possible?"

"We're not going to lose you. We shall never be far away from you, at
any time. Your mother and I have quite made up our minds to that. Life
wouldn't be worth anything to me if I couldn't see my little girl when I
wanted to; that is, within reason."

She leaned across the table and laid her hand on his, smiling into his
face with shining eyes.

"And so, dearest, since my treasure is so great, it would be a comfort
to me, as I go downhill, to know that it was in safe, in very safe,
hands."

"And you think his are the best?"

"They are the best I know. I can't think of any man I've ever met of
whom I should feel sure, with so few reserves--without any reserves at
all. Listen to me," he pursued, in another tone, patting her hand, which
still lay out-stretched towards him on the table. "Listen to me, and
I'll expose my whole reason to you in a way you will understand. I
repeat, that it is the reason which guides me, but it's not to guide
you. Yours must be a different motive and a surer one. Still, it may
help you in making your decision, if you know what has enabled me to
come to mine. In the first place, he loves you. Of course, you know
that."

She nodded and let her eyes fall again.

"Then, I think my little girl has, to say the least, a very sincere
regard for him."

She nodded again, still with eyes downcast.

"And then, he's not a man who would love to-day and forget to-morrow. He
is essentially good, kind, loyal, and devoted. Your mother and I would
have none of that wretched uncertainty of parents who say to each other,
'Oh, I hope he will be good to her!' We would be sure of that
beforehand. You see, dear, we've protected you so, we've got so strongly
the habit of protecting you, that it's like pain to us to think that any
wind of unkindness could ever blow on you."

"Papa, darling," she broke in, with a choking of the voice, "couldn't I
stay with you always, and not marry any one?"

"Certainly, dear. There's not the slightest reason why you shouldn't be
an old maid, if you want to. But, in the mean time, let me go on.
Wiltshire is not only a good man who loves you, but he's a very rich
man."

"I shouldn't think that mattered," she said, lifting her head suddenly.

"Only in this way, that in our position it's a guarantee. He's one of
the rich men of a rich country. There's no possible reason why he should
marry any woman for any other object than herself. Mind you, I'm far
from saying that if you married a poor man it might not be for love,
love on both sides. But I'll go as far as this: there's no poor man you
could marry for whom, however much he loved you, your wealth would not
be an overpowering consideration. The very change it would bring into
the daily circumstances of his life would oblige him to give his mind to
it, perhaps more than to you. I must keep repeating, dear, that that's a
point which weighs with me, though I shouldn't expect you to give it
undue importance."

"I don't think I could," she said, with a wistful smile.

"All right. So much the better. Now for one thing more. Wiltshire is not
only a good man, and a rich man, but he's a man of very high rank. He
can give his wife one of the best positions in the world, as the world
counts positions."

"I thought our own was very good as it is."

He raised himself and laughed.

"You're quite right," he returned. "It _is_ a good position. But it's
rather like that of the Bonapartes--good as long as you can keep it.
It's a position that depends upon a strong man, and requires a strong
man to maintain it. And I want my little daughter to have the best of
everything without the hardship of the struggle. If you were a boy, I
should feel differently; but as it is, I want to see you in a place that
will be based on something broader and solider than the mere possession
of money. I want you to be where criticism and accusation can't touch
you. You've never known to what an extent I've been assailed by
them--and not only I, but every one with whom I have had much to do.
We've kept you out of it as far as possible, but we couldn't do so
always. They've struck at your mother and George and Laura, and even at
my friends. Very soon they will begin to strike at you, simply because
you are my child."

"I should be proud of it," she declared, throwing back her head with
something of his own flashing of the eye.

"You wouldn't be proud of it long. The press of our country is perfectly
pitiless on those who rise an inch above the general mediocrity. It
spares no feeling and respects no sanctuary. The mere fact that you are
Paul Trafford's daughter will make you a target to that great section of
the public that has never ceased to pursue me with the most relentless
hostility."

"But what could they say against me?"

"Nothing _against_ you, darling--nothing against you. They could only
rifle the privacy of your domestic life, and besmirch you with a hundred
vulgarities. You might not perceive it, but it would be madness to me.
It's only over here that we have some respite from that kind of thing,
and, therefore, it's over here I should like to see you find a refuge.
If you were like some women--like Laura, for instance--I mightn't
hesitate to expose you to it; but, being what you are, I should like to
see you so far removed from it all that even the echo of slanderous
curiosity couldn't reach you. There," he broke off, "I think I've had my
say."

She rose from her place, and came slowly to him, round the table.

"Thank you, papa," she said, simply, slipping her arm over his shoulder
and bending down her cheek against his brow. "Whatever I do, you'll love
me just the same, won't you?"

For answer, he drew her slim white fingers to his lips. It vexed her
that, at that very instant, George's words of last night should have
returned to her memory like the refrain of some hideous song:

"Your father was obliged at last to club her down."




  CHAPTER VI


"Couldn't you take me somewhere?" Paula asked, turning with a smile to
the Duke as they pushed hack their chairs after lunch at Ciro's. "Laura
and George are going to Cap Martin, and I have nothing to do."

"We might motor over to Eze and see Alice," he suggested.

"No; let's walk up to Monaco. I've never been there, and you know you
promised to take me."

The Duke was radiant--or as near radiant as any one could be with so
little power of facial expression. As they traversed the Galrie Charles
III., on their way out, he bumped into people and overturned chairs,
with a joy in walking with his mistress like that of an affectionate
dog. From the hotels and restaurants the crowds were sauntering towards
the Casino, and there were so many salutes and greetings to exchange
that only the most broken remarks were possible till they neared the
sea-wall. Paula knew they offered a topic of conversation to passers-by,
strangers and friends alike; and again she was conscious of the utterly
foolish wish that he had been taller, and that in his springlike attire
and soft gray hat he had less the air of a prosperous grocer on the
stage. If she had not known that he was only thirty-eight, looking it up
for herself in Debrett, she would certainly have put him down as fifty.
She blamed herself for such thoughts as these, when she knew, as well as
her father did, his many sterling virtues. They chatted of indifferent
things as they descended towards the Condamine, and Paula wondered how
he would turn the talk into the channel he preferred. She wondered even
more what reply she would make to him when he did.

"Have you seen your friend Mr. Winship to-day?" she summoned up courage
to ask, as they ascended the brick-paved footway that leads up the face
of the cliff to the old town of Monaco.

"Yes; for a minute this morning. He's over at Eze, spending the day at
Alice's."

Paula caught herself up before she could regret not having accepted the
Duke's suggestion after luncheon. "They know each other very well, I
think you said."

"Oh, very well. You must come over and see Alice's little place some
day, too. I fancy she's only been waiting for some definite--"

"Oh, I'm out of breath!" Paula exclaimed, suddenly, turning round. "Do
let us wait a bit. What a glorious view!"

The level of the Condamine lay beneath them in the foreground, a cluster
of tawny, yellow houses roofed in ochre red. On the height behind, Monte
Carlo, with its hotels and villas, terraced one above another, sloped
steeply down towards the sea. Still farther back, shutting in the
horizon, the mountains of dull brown and olive green were crowned with a
light, glistening January snow. On the pale, bottle-green of the bay the
Prince of Monaco's yacht made a sharp white streak. Gray green on the
sea lay the long stretch of Cap Martin, covered with hoary olive-woods
and dotted with white villas. Then, on and on, into the east, followed
the successive headlands towards Italy, flecked with snow at the highest
points, and unchanged, except in the number of their clustering towns,
since the days when the Phoenicians toiled along in their high-beaked
triremes, on their way towards Cornwall or Marseilles.

"It's like those bits of landscape," Paula said, with a timid attempt to
bring the conversation back to the theme she had started--"those bits of
landscape which the old Italian masters show you through a window,
behind a Last Supper, or a--portrait."

"Do you think so?" Wiltshire argued, in his literal way. "Isn't it
rather that the old painters give you a glimpse of the life of their
day?--a line of hills, a village, a castle, a religious procession, a
knight riding with his hounds, a ploughman working in the fields. This
is too little typical for what they wanted; and besides, it isn't the
life that has grown out of the soil, but the one which idlers from other
lands have implanted on it." So they fell to discussing Monte Carlo, and
Paula was foiled again. She sighed softly to herself as they moved on,
and, after passing through an old gray gateway vaulted with yellow
arches, came up into the Place du Palais.

On the left, across the great square, stood the old town, a mass of
mellow red and orange. The palace, a long, simple structure with
battlemented towers, lay on the right. The Monagasque sentries, in
blue-and-red uniforms, and sweeping, picturesque, blue cloaks, had the
air of stepping through some romantic play. In the background, to the
north and west, the Tte du Chien rose like a majestic couchant mastiff
keeping watch over the Principality. Between its paws Cap d'Ail, with
its terraces, olive-trees, and red-roofed villas, lay like a plaything.
In towards the shore the sea reflected all the shades that mingle in a
peacock's breast, while farther away, towards Spain and Africa, it
deepened into Homeric wine-dark violet.

"How wonderful!" Paula murmured, just above her breath. "This air! This
immensity!"

She moved a step or two in advance, as though eager to cross the level
Place and reach some spot where she could best command the whole
sea-line of the hills, from the distant east to the distant west, from
the blue vagueness of Piedmont, past San Remo, past Bordighera, past
Mentone, past Cap Martin, past Monaco, past Nice, past Cannes, on into
the golden haze that hung above Provence. When she stood still, at the
western edge of the terrace, the Duke came to her side and explained
where the different points of interest lay.

"This is what we come to Monte Carlo for," he said. "It isn't to be in
the tide of fashion; it's because nature seems to have chosen the
Principality of Monaco as the single point of vantage from which to
behold all her beauties in one glance. We soon tire of Monte Carlo, but
this--"

With a gesture that was not without dignity, he indicated the vast
panorama of sea and sky, of headland and town, of blossoming gardens and
snows on the hills. Paula thought she saw another far-off opening, and
carefully pointed her remarks towards it.

"How much you enjoy beauty--I mean beauty for its own sake. There are so
few people who do. Now, I take only a second-hand interest in it. I like
to have seen Egypt or Switzerland or California, in order to be able to
follow with some intelligence what others say about them. But with you
it's different. So it is with your sister--or it seemed to me so the few
times I've seen her."

"Oh, Alice is all right. She really knows about it, and I don't. She
lives for art and artists."

"And I'm sure she does a lot of good. I thought what you said about her
last night was so charming--I mean about her taking that poor blind
lady, Mrs. Winship, to stay with you at Edenbridge."

"Oh, you'll like Alice when you know her well. She's got her queer ways,
like any other old maid with ten thousand a year, but her heart is
sound."

"Tell me about them--about the Winships."

He turned to her with a faint smile.

"Haven't we something else to talk of first?"

"No, not first--afterwards. Couldn't we go somewhere--out of the
sun--and sit down?"

"We should be likely to find seats over there."

"I wanted to ask your advice about something," she ventured, timidly, as
they entered the wonderful garden that clambers over the cliff, and goes
down, down, down till it almost meets the sea.

"Here's a good place, don't you think?"

He pointed to a bench, in a nook formed by giant cacti of every sinister
shape, massed in with pink and red geraniums growing like tall shrubs.
Overhead there was a shade of cedar, cypress, and pine, while far below
the blue-green sea broke with a monotonous rumble.

"My advice?" he questioned, as they sat down.

"You're such a good friend," she murmured, tremulously. "I'm in a great
deal of perplexity."

"Is it about me?"

"Partly; but it isn't only that."

"You know that I should never want to bring the shadow of a care upon
you--not even if it was to give me what I want so much. You're sure of
that, aren't you?"

"That's why I turn to you," she said, simply. "There's no one else in
the world I could trust in the same way."

"And you'll never regret having given me your confidence, however full
it may be. I know I'm not much to look at, but at least I can offer you
devotion and truth to the uttermost--to the uttermost."

"I want you to tell me about the Winships," she began again, looking
down at the tip of her parasol, with which she traced aimless lines in
the sand. "How did you come to know them?"

"Oh, it was a long time ago--let me see--ten, eleven, twelve--yes, it
must be quite fifteen years ago. After my mother died and Alice was
free, she went to Paris for a year or two to study art. In the atelier
where she worked she fell in with Marah Winship."

"Is that the sister of the man I saw last night?"

"Yes, an older sister--a good deal older. She must be somewhere about
Alice's age, not far off fifty."

"And does she paint, too?"

"Yes, poor thing."

"Why do you say poor thing?"

"Because she's had such a hard life. She had only the smallest kind of
talent, if she had any at all, and yet she made herself a painter by
sheer determination and pluck. I've heard Alice say that, in the
atelier, they used to think she couldn't possibly succeed, and yet she
did--in a measure. 'I had to succeed,' she has told me herself--but that
was afterwards, when Alice used to have them at Edenbridge."

"Why had she to succeed?"

"You see, their father was dead, and they had lost all their money.
There was a mother to be taken care of--a splendid, majestic creature,
when first I knew them, but already growing blind. Then there was this
brother--"

"But he's a man."

"I'm speaking of fifteen years ago. He was only a lad then. The sister
thought he had it in him to become one of the great portrait-painters of
the day, and so she brought him to Paris to give him the best chance.
By Jove! she's been a plucky one! I've never seen anything like it. She
has not only worked like a slave, but she's done the impossible. She's
turned herself into what nature never meant her to become, and she's
made a living for them all--a poor living, it must be admitted, and one
of great privation, but a living all the same, and somehow they've
managed to pull through."

"Do you know why they've been so poor?"

It was more the tone than the question that astonished Wiltshire.

"No," he replied, rather blankly.

"It's because we took their money and their mines, and everything they
had, away from them."

"We? Who?"

"Our family--my father. Oh, Duke, I didn't know anything about it till
last night, and to-day I feel as if we were a band of robbers. When I
think of the way we've lived, and the way they've lived--"

"Tell me about it," he said, soothingly, as she broke off, choking.

"I don't think I can. There's so little to tell--and yet so much. It's
all so dreadful--and it's--it's my father, Duke."

"For that very reason you shouldn't be in a hurry to judge--"

"I know, but I can't help it. It's like a kind of jealousy in me--a
jealousy for his honor, that I thought so far above attack."

The Duke's mouth twitched with a queer, significant expression, while a
look of pity stole into his dull eyes.

"This Miss Winship's father was my father's competitor, and my lather
crushed him and ruined him and killed him. He died in the middle of all
sorts of lawsuits, and then my father ruined the widow--the poor lady,
who, you say, is blind. Everything they possessed came to us--I can't
exactly tell you how, but my cousin George would explain it if you asked
him."

"I can guess."

"Yes, because you understand about business. But it's all so cruel,
Duke. I spend a great deal of money, but I can't spend it fast enough. I
don't know what to buy that I haven't bought over and over again, and
yet the money heaps itself up in spite of me. And now, when you tell me
of that poor Marah, working against the grain, trying to achieve the
impossible, and doing it--"

Her tone rose, with a sharp, nervous inflection, till she found herself
unable to go on.

"There's one thing we must never forget," Wiltshire said, kindly. "We're
the inheritors of the past; we're not the creators of it. All sorts of
complicated situations come down to us, and in them we can only grope
our way. You inherit the situation your father made for you, and Mr.
Winship inherits that which his father made for him. You and I know too
little to judge either side. We're too remote from all the conditions to
apportion out the real rights and wrongs--"

"And therefore," Paula interrupted, somewhat bitterly, "we should settle
down complacently to accept things as they are."

"Not quite that. But if we can't accept things as they are, we mustn't
try to force them into being what they can't become. We can only learn
by degrees how to adjust what's wrong--"

"But you can adjust anything with money--that is, if you have enough."

"Not everything, unhappily."

"But I could adjust this."

"You mean that you could give the Winships money? Oh no, you couldn't."

"I don't mean that I could give them alms, or do anything with
condescension. But couldn't I give them a great deal--as much as they
ever lost--more than that? I have a great deal of money of my own--I
don't know how much--but it must be a large sum--and I'd give it all to
them. You could help me. You know them, and I could do it through you,
if you only would--"

"Softly, softly. You couldn't do anything of that sort. They wouldn't
take it. Things aren't managed so directly as that in this complicated
world. They'd be offended, you know. They wouldn't listen to me--"

"Oh yes, they would. Everybody listens when it's a question of getting
money. You'd beg it as a favor. You'd say it was not in pity for them,
but in kindness to me. You'd put it that way. And they'd take it. I know
they would. I've never seen any one refuse money--if it was enough. Oh,
Duke, do!"

She ended abruptly, with a quaver in her voice, like a little wail.
Wiltshire sprang to his feet, and took two or three turns up and down
the gravel-path. Returning, he resumed his seat beside her.

"You mustn't do anything rash in the matter," he said, gently. "You
mustn't have the air of seeming to judge your father."

"I don't," she answered, quickly. "I know he didn't do anything wrong. I
should never admit otherwise. Only--"

She did not finish the sentence, and Wiltshire, leaning towards her,
laid his hand on hers.

"Dear Paula," he whispered, "couldn't we let it be, until you and I
could manage it together?"

She did not withdraw her hand from his touch, but the eyes she lifted
towards him were full of the mute appeal of an animal begging to be let
off.

"You've never answered my question--my great question," he went on,
tenderly.

"I've been trying to," she managed to say.

"And you don't find it easy?"

She shook her head, letting her eyes fall again.

"But you've been making the effort?"

"Yes," she murmured, just audibly.

"And it's been a great effort?"

"Yes."

"So great, in fact, that you don't feel the strength to make it."

"I'm trying to," she said, hurriedly. "I want to."

"You want to? In what way?"

Again she lifted her appealing eyes to him.

"I--I--want to please father," she stammered, "and make you happy,
and--and--"

"And sacrifice yourself," he added.

"It wouldn't be a sacrifice if I could do those two things," she
stammered on.

"That is," he corrected, "not so great a sacrifice but that you could
make it."

She nodded her assent. A few seconds passed in silence, when Wiltshire
slowly withdrew his hand and sat erect.

"I've hurt you," Paula cried, turning sharply towards him. "That isn't
what I meant to say. You haven't understood me. I'm ready to be your
wife, if it will make you happy. Indeed, I'm ready. You don't know how I
honor you, how good I think you, how--"

"Oh yes, I do," he broke in, with a wan smile. "I only thought that
perhaps it might be possible, after all, for a woman to do a little more
than honor me, and think me--"

"I'm sure it is," Paula insisted, warmly. "Let me try, let me--"

"Oh, but you have tried. And such things as that don't come from trying.
They come spontaneously, or not at all. I'm not hurt. I know you far too
well to think you would hurt anything that breathes--and still less me.
But I'll tell you something. We've always been good friends, haven't
we--that is, for three or four years past?"

"Very."

"And I've rather spoiled things between us by bringing up this subject,
which, I might have known from the first, was impossible. Suppose we go
back to what we were before. Suppose we blot all this out, as if it had
never happened. Wouldn't that be a relief to you?"

"Yes," she said, in an unsteady voice.

"Then we'll do it. I won't undertake to give up hoping. No one could to
whom you hadn't absolutely said no. But I sha'n't bother you with my
hopes, and if, in the end, I have to bury them--why, then, we'll see."

"How good you are!" Paula said, softly, two big tears falling in spite
of her efforts to keep them back.

"Don't say that," he protested. "You speak of goodness only because you
don't know--love. But you're tired," he added, rising. "Wouldn't you
like me to take you home? I dare say we shall find a fiacre in the Place
that will take us down by the carriage-road."

       *     *     *     *     *

Late that evening, when Paul Trafford kissed his daughter to say
good-night, she twined her arm over his shoulder and detained him.

"I've seen the Duke," she whispered, "and he wouldn't have me."

"He--" Trafford began, in a puzzled voice.

"He thought it was a sacrifice on my part," she explained, looking up at
him with glowing eyes, "and he wouldn't let me make it. It's all over."

"And would it have been a--sacrifice?" he demanded, with shaggy brows
drawn together.

"Not if I could have pleased you."

His face cleared as he bent low and kissed her again.

"Then I shall only keep my little girl the longer," was all he said.




  CHAPTER VII


"I'm going to do it, Laura," Paula whispered, as they approached the
luncheon-table. "I mean the portrait. I've got his address, and I'm
going this afternoon."

There was no time to say more, for Mrs. Trafford entered the room,
followed by George Trafford and little Paul.

There had been several reasons for their return to Paris in the early
days of February. The protracted absence of Mr. Trafford in Germany and
Russia was the one they spoke of openly. The Duke's silent departure
from Monte Carlo, taking the spirit out of their little band, was a
subject they mentioned to one another only when Paula was not there. The
sudden anxiety of Mrs. Trafford about her own health, and her haste to
see a doctor in Paris, was a matter that they dared not discuss at all.

"Where's everybody going this afternoon?" Mrs. Trafford demanded a
half-hour later, with the briskness which her courage enabled her to
maintain.

"Where are _you_ going, Aunt Trafford?" Laura inquired, warily.

"Oh, I've got a lot of things to do. First, I have the committee for
the Bazar de la Charit; the Princesse de Fridland counts on me
absolutely this year. Then I have to go to a meeting at the American
Art-Students' Home. Then I must drop in at the Duchesse de Dodoville's
_goter_. By-the-way, I could come back and take you there, Laura.
You'll want some tea."

"I simply _must_ go to the Bon March," Mrs. George Trafford declared.
"I have all sorts of things to buy for Paul. I'll get my tea at
Rumpelmeyer's or Colombin's on the way back."

"Then couldn't you come, Paula?" Mrs. Trafford continued. "I hate going
into crowded rooms alone--especially in French houses; and I speak so
badly."

Paula knew the moment had come, and nerved herself to reply in her usual
tone.

"I can't go, mother, dear," she said, as calmly as she could. "I've got
to see about sittings for a portrait I'm going to have painted."

It seemed to Paula as if her commonplace words fell with curious
solemnity on the stillness of the room. She knew that, in spite of
herself, she was coloring.

George Trafford took his cigar from his lips and looked round at her
over his shoulder.

"You seem to be lost in admiration of yourself, Paula," he observed.
"You had a portrait last year by Carolus Duran, and one by Chartran the
year before."

"I don't like either of them," she returned, her eyes searching the
depths of her empty coffee-cup.

"And yet they weren't considered to be what you'd call unfair to the
original," he went on.

"I'm sure I don't know where you'll hang it," Mrs. Trafford complained,
looking round the splendid room. "If you put another item on the walls
of this house we'll smother."

"I was thinking of making it a present to George."

"Oh, don't put the responsibility of stowing it away on me," Trafford
cried. "Laura and I have already more stuff than we can handle."

"I don't know about that, George, dear," Laura argued. "It might be nice
in years to come for Paul. We've got so little in the way of ancestral
things to leave him. And they say that, in forty or fifty years from
now--that would be easily within Paul's lifetime--some of the great
portrait-painters of the present day will have become what Romney and
Gainsborough are for us."

"It's a good while to look ahead to," Trafford laughed. "But I suppose
if ancestors hadn't had foresight descendants wouldn't have privileges.
Who's your man, Paula? Give us an American this time, won't you? Say
Sargent, or some of those fellows."

"He _is_ an American," Paula replied, "but he isn't Sargent. He's a new
painter. I believe he has remarkable talent. We spoke of him one night
at Monte Carlo. You told me about him, George. His name is Winship."

Mrs. Trafford gave a little scream and let her coffee-cup fall with a
crash on the floor.

"Paula Trafford," she cried, "if you want to kill me, do it now; don't
let it be by inches."

"You do beat everything, Paula," her cousin observed, grimly, "for
getting things on the brain. I'll bet fifty cents that you've been
turning those Winships over in your head ever since the subject came up,
two or three weeks ago."

"Lady Alice knows them," Paula stammered, in excuse. "She says he's
wonderful--and he isn't recognized--and his mother is blind--and they're
so poor--and--"

"Goodness knows," Mrs. Trafford expostulated, "there are plenty of poor
people in the world without hunting up your own father's enemies. I
don't believe the portrait is anything but a pretext for--"

"Even so, Aunt Trafford, dear," Mrs. George interrupted, in her
reasonable tone, "don't you think it's just what Uncle Trafford would
like? Haven't you known him time and time again turn round on the beaten
and the bitter and the sore and hold out the helping hand to them? Is
there any one who knows better than he how to take the sting from
hostility? And isn't it part of the responsibility of wealth--?"

"Oh, you needn't tell me!" Mrs. Trafford gasped, impatiently. She
disliked so much having the higher way pointed out to her by Mrs. George
that she often hurried in advance to take it. "I know better than any
one what he is, and the sort of example he sets us. If to return good
for evil is the motto of his life, it may well be that of ours. Paula,
my child," she added, with a quick change of front, "if it be your will
to help these people, do it. I withdraw all objection. If you like,
I'll pay for the portrait. I believe it would please your father, though
I think we'd better not say anything about it. Yes, I _will_ pay for it.
I don't care what it costs."

"Thank you, mother, dear," Paula said, rising, eager to escape, now that
her point was gained. "I'd rather pay for it myself."

"All I beg of you," Mrs. Trafford cried, as Paula left the room, "is not
to bring the young man here."

"But where can I have my sittings?" Paula questioned, from the doorway.

"Where you like. Have them in the Louvre, or in Notre Dame, or anywhere
else you please; but don't bring the young man here. I should faint if I
saw him. Take a maid with you, take two maids, take ten maids if you
will, but don't--bring--the young--man here."

"Do you think that's wise?" Trafford questioned; but Paula was already
out of hearing.

Half an hour later her coup turned from the Rue Mazarine into the
narrow Passage de la Nativit and stopped before an ancient,
fortress-like gate. Traces of Renaissance sculpture were visible on the
battered stone, while in a niche over the portal stood a crowned but
time-worn statue of the Virgin and Child. When the footman clanged the
gong a wrinkled old woman opened a small door cautiously. Paula
descended and asked the way to Mr. Winship's studio.

A minute afterwards she found herself in a spacious court-yard, paved
with flat stone, which time had forced into various levels, the
interstices being filled here and there with tufts of grass. Low,
weatherworn gray buildings in the Renaissance style surrounded the
court-yard on three sides. In the centre of the space the stone basin of
a long-disused fountain was gradually crumbling away, throwing slightly
out of the perpendicular the elaborate wrought-iron tracery which rose
above it, surmounted by a cross. The place was evidently an old convent,
violated probably at the Revolution, and since then become one of those
spots, more common in Paris than elsewhere, in which poverty can take
refuge and still keep some sense of dignity. To Paula, picking her way
across the court towards the entrance the _concierge_ had pointed out,
everything about her seemed oppressively ancient. It was picturesque
enough; in a mournful way it was even stately; but to think of any one
actually living there made her shudder. The Winships themselves were
well content to have discovered, in the heart of the city, so charming a
retreat, while Paula could think only of outcasts seeking shelter among
broken, empty tombs.

Now that she was here, she had none of the nervousness or fluttering of
the heart from which she had often suffered in thinking the matter over.
On the contrary, in her velvet and sables she felt herself imposing. The
ease with which the conversation at the luncheon-table had passed off
gave to the undertaking an air of being a matter of course. Besides,
after all, there was no tremendous difficulty to overcome. She would
have such a conversation as she had held at other times with M. Chartran
or M. Carolus Duran, and would come away. On the question of price she
would, naturally, have to surprise the young artist; but such surprises
were generally borne by their recipients with good grace. For everything
else she counted on her own dignity, tact, and knowledge of the world.

The entry was so dark, and the slippery stairs were so steep, that on
the landing Paula waited for a minute beside a window to take breath.
The view here was less severe than that below. In the foreground, just
beyond the court, there were gardens--such friendly, ancient, unexpected
gardens, hidden from the streets, as one finds everywhere in Paris, and
nowhere else in the world. Farther off rose the venerable tower of
St.-Germain-des-Pres; farther off still, the square of the Odon
displayed its simple lines, while, as culminating-point to the prospect,
the columned dome of the Panthon lifted itself into the winter air.

As Paula gazed outward she rehearsed once more the first few phrases she
should use to Winship. Suddenly she seemed to hear music--the faint
tinkling of an air with which she was familiar. When she turned from the
window to go up the second flight of stairs the sounds became more
distinct.

Presently she heard a voice singing--a woman's voice, sweet and in tune,
but thin and worn, like the tone of the old piano on which the singer
was playing her accompaniment. Once on the landing, Paula could hear the
words quite plainly:

  "O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
                The night is gone.
  And with the morn those angel faces smile
  Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile."

There was an _Amen_, just as they sing in churches, and then the
tinkling music ceased. Paula took a step forward towards the closed door
through which the sounds had proceeded. It was that indicated to her by
the _concierge_, but she hoped to find herself mistaken. While she was
ready to deal with Winship himself, she had not counted on finding
herself face to face with the women of his family. But no! she was not
mistaken. It was the door. The card on it bore the name "Winship." She
was half inclined to turn away, when a high-pitched, quavering voice
arrested her attention.

"Thank you, Marah, dear. That's very nice--very comforting."

The enunciation had that slow, emphatic distinctness which belongs to
aged persons of strong will. Paula was about to ring, when the voice
began again, reciting in a loud, clear, trembling monotone:

  "Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
                Lead Thou me on;
  The night is dark and I am far from home,
                Lead Thou me on.
  Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
  The distant scene; one step enough for me."

"One step enough for me--one step enough for me," the voice repeated,
softly, like an echo, and Paula summoned up force to ring.

There was a second or two of bustling movement within, and then the door
was opened.

For a brief instant Paula hesitated, in surprise. She had expected a
servant of some sort, and held her card, half-drawn from her card-case,
in her hand. Before her she saw a little, gray-haired lady, with
snapping black eyes and a face that might have betokened any of the
complex shades from cynical kindliness to jesting severity. Everything
about her was austerely simple, from the parting of her gray hair to the
falling of her black gown, covered up, just now, with a huge white apron
like a pinafore. Paula had a minute of feeling herself very tall and
very much overdressed.

"Is Mr. Winship at home?" she managed to ask at last.

"If you'll be good enough to come in, I'll see."

The voice was hard, the utterance crisp, and the smile that accompanied
the words had the bright flash of winter sunlight.

Marah Winship led the way in, with a quick, awkward motion that bespoke
a nature too busy to think of grace. Paula followed, and after a step or
two stood still, with another slight shock of surprise.

It was not like going into any other house she had ever visited. There
was no hallway or anteroom or vestibule. On crossing the threshold she
passed at once into the full domestic life of the family. She had
entered an immense, barnlike apartment, which was evidently studio and
living-room in one. The floor was bare, except for a few of the commoner
sorts of Oriental rugs. The walls were hung with an ordinary dark-red
stuff which formed a background for the unframed sketches--portraits,
landscapes, and architectural drawings--pinned up here and there against
it. At the far end of the room there was an easel on which the work was
covered up with a loosely thrown cloth. A couple of lay-figures stood in
grotesque attitudes in a corner, while near them was an open grand-piano
of old-fashioned make. It was only vaguely that Paula took these details
in, for after the first glance her eyes were drawn to a tall figure
seated quite near her, in a high, thronelike chair.

Paula knew at once that this was the woman who had done battle with her
father, until he had been obliged "to club her down." The immediate
impression was that of a person sitting very still and erect, her feet
planted firmly on a red cushion, and a large volume--evidently a
Bible--in raised letters, open on her knees. Over the white hair a lace
scarf, of beautiful design, came to a point on the forehead, and fell in
lappets to the shoulders. The severity of the black gown was relieved by
a fichu of soft white stuff, fastened on the breast with a large,
old-fashioned brooch set with emeralds. Clearly, the face had been
handsome once, and even haughty; but now all that had been passionate or
self-willed in it was subdued by time and sorrow into sweetness. There
was no color there at all--only the waxlike transparency of the aged. As
Paula entered, the sightless eyes were raised towards her, as if with
one more useless, piteous attempt to pierce the darkness.

Marah Winship had allowed Paula to stand still a moment and gaze. It was
one of her rare bits of pleasure--that instant when a stranger beheld
her mother for the first time and betrayed his astonished admiration. It
was the old maid's only coquetry; it was all that remained of the
vivacity and pride that had been hers in the days before the family
disasters. When ruin overtook them, she gave up once and forever all
impossible hopes for herself. She had not been without a young woman's
love of happy trifles; nor without a pleasant vague anticipation of a
home, with children of her own; nor without the half-shy, half-rapturous
thought that if a certain one of the young men with whom she danced
during the winter season in Boston ever asked her, it would not be in
vain. But when the great financial battle was fought to a finish, she
renounced everything of that kind. She saw her life's work before her.
It was, first, to make a man of Roger, the boy who was so much younger
than herself as to seem less like a brother than a son; then it was to
shield from the cruelest winds of adversity the mother who had done her
best and failed.

She crushed out her own longings with that cynical suppression of regret
which some women can command, and set herself to her task. She learned
the meaning of sacrifice, privation, penury, failure, and, at last, of
faint, almost pitiable, success. But she achieved her purpose--she made
a man of Roger; and during the long, hard years Mrs. Winship never knew
how long and hard they were. Marah protected her at least from that. As
the mother grew older and blinder, it became easier to deceive
her--easier to make her believe there was plenty of food because she had
enough, easier to persuade her that life was happy because she knew only
smiles. Out of the wreck of their pretty things Marah had snatched a few
old jewels, a few odds and ends of lace--not much, but enough to keep
alive in her mother's consciousness the conviction that she was "still a
lady." Marah was satisfied with that, as far as a hungry, unfed heart is
ever satisfied. The day's work was always lighter if some one pointed to
her mother and whispered, "Isn't she a picture!"

Paula did not say that, but she was conscious of an overwhelming
sentiment of pity. It was not only pity, it was a feeling of
responsibility. Everything about her was to her eyes so
poverty-stricken--while she was spending the money which would have
provided for this helplessness the setting to which it was entitled.
During the second or two that had passed since she entered the room, her
mind had worked faster than it had ever worked before. Wild schemes rose
confusedly in her heart, and it was almost exultantly that she felt it
in her power to change all this, making amends for a cruel past by a
sudden raining down of happiness. Notwithstanding her sense of the wrong
that had been done, she could not help feeling, as she stood in the
vast, bare room, a little like a fairy godmother.

But when Marah Winship spoke, Paula was recalled, of necessity, to the
circumstances of the moment.

"I think my brother is in; I will go and see. May I ask what name I
ought to give him?"

"Miss Trafford--Miss Paula Trafford."

She spoke slowly and distinctly; she meant also to speak reassuringly.
She hoped the very sound of the name would be the signal that, after the
long years, the victors were coming to give back the spoils and hold out
the olive-branch of peace. She was surprised to see Marah start and grow
pale, while her black eyes snapped with a sparkle like that of
electricity.

"I--I don't think my brother can be in," she returned, coldly.

"I want very much to see him. Won't you make sure?"

Paula spoke in the gentle tone of command that came from her sense of
power. Marah Winship had suffered too many defeats at the hands of
wealth to dare to disobey.

"Mother," she said, turning abruptly to the figure in the thronelike
chair, "this is Miss Trafford--Miss Paula Trafford. She has come to see
Roger; I'm going to look for him."

She sped away, leaving Paula alone, and face to face with Mrs. Winship.

There was a moment's silence, during which the blind woman's fingers
trembled violently over the raised letters of the open page. The lips
quivered as if unable to frame a word.

"Trafford!" she murmured at last. "Did my daughter say Trafford?"

"I'm Paul Trafford's daughter," Paula answered, firmly. She would have
no misunderstanding or mistake.

"I know the name," Mrs. Winship said, making an effort towards
self-control, "but I haven't heard it for many years."

"I'm afraid it may be painful to you," Paula felt impelled to say;
"but--"

"It used to be; it used to be. But oh! my dear, when the race is as
nearly run as mine is, and the kingdom of heaven is opening before your
eyes, nothing is very painful any more."

Paula was not expecting this. She moved uneasily. The sound caught Mrs.
Winship's ear.

"Come nearer to me, dear," she quavered, holding out a delicate white
hand, on which a diamond or two still twinkled. "Come here; sit down;
let me see you."

There was a tall, straight-backed chair beside her. Paula drew it nearer
to the blind woman and sat down.

"I was almost afraid to come," she began to murmur, but Mrs. Winship
interrupted her.

"You needn't be. No one can live to my age without learning that in this
world we can't afford to cherish enmities--not against any one--not
against any one. Give me your hand, my dear," she added, groping in the
darkness.

Paula stretched out both her hands. She could not speak for fear of
crying.

"You're young, I see," Mrs. Winship went on, letting her touch wander
lightly over Paula's gloves. "I begin to be able to distinguish the
young from the old by little signs. But of course you're young. I
remember that Mr. Trafford had a little girl at the time I used to--to
see him."

"I knew nothing till a short time ago--"

"About all our troubles," Mrs. Winship finished as Paula hesitated. "Of
course you didn't, dear. How should you? As I look back, I can see that
we knew very little ourselves. We were like children, wrestling in the
darkness, on the edge of a precipice. And it wasn't worth while--it
wasn't worth while."

She sighed, and Paula felt again the desire to cry.

"My husband is gone," Mrs. Winship quavered on. "He sees life--this
life--already from another point of view. And I begin to see it, too.
That's because I'm blind, perhaps. The spiritual vision becomes
wonderfully clear when the earthly eyes are closed. There are times when
I feel as if I could look up with Stephen and see the heavens opened and
the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. How should I keep hard
feelings when I'm so blest? I used to have them; but not now, not now.
I'm glad to see you, dear."

"If there's anything I can do for you--" Paula tried to say, conscious
of her own awkwardness.

"No, dear, no," Mrs. Winship broke in, gently, pressing the girl's hand.
"The Lord is good to us, and we've never wanted for anything. My son and
daughter have had great success in their callings, so that as soon as
one door was closed another was opened to us. Looking back, I can't but
see that all has been for the best--even the things against which, at
the time, I rebelled the most. It's the Lord's favor to have shown me
that in this life, when so many of His servants have to wait to learn it
till they enter on the life to come. Now that I see it, I feel ready to
sing my _Nunc dimittis Domine, in pace_. But you wanted to see my son, I
think you said, dear?" she added, in another tone.

"I hoped to have him paint my portrait," Paula tried to explain. "I've
heard of his work--"

"Yes; he's made a great reputation," the mother said, complacently.

"So I understand; and I hoped--"

"He's coming now, dear. I hear his step. It's always firmer than anybody
else's."

A door at the distant end of the long room was thrown open, and as Paula
looked up she saw the young man she had met at Monte Carlo stride in.




  CHAPTER VIII


As Winship came down the long room, Paula was able to give a definite
outline to the vague portrait of him she had carried away from Monte
Carlo. She saw him now, tall, spare, muscular, and, as it were, loosely
hung together. He swung himself along with an easy gait in which there
was something both careless and sure. "Careless and sure" seemed stamped
on his whole person, from his roughly brushed brown hair to the old,
russet-colored suit which, as Paula said to herself, he wore "so
distinctly like a gentleman." In his ill-dressed, aristocratic
gauntness, he seemed to her to recall the race of noble, legendary
outlaws--just as a hollow-flanked, gleaming-eyed dog will remind one of
a wolf.

"This is Miss Trafford, Roger," Mrs. Winship said, in a voice shaking
with emotion. "She has come to ask you to paint her portrait."

"Miss Trafford and I have met already," Winship returned, as he took the
hand Paula stretched out to him without rising from her chair.

"For an instant," Paula assented. "I'm glad you haven't forgotten. You
see," she added, turning to Marah, who had followed her brother into the
room--"you see, we're all friends of Lady Alice Holroyd's."

Marah Winship made no response. Her face had settled into an expression
of stony repose. As Winship drew up a small chair beside his mother and
opposite their visitor, Marah remained standing at a distance, just
where Paula could not see her without turning round.

"Lady Alice is such an enthusiast over your work, Mr. Winship--" Paula
hurried on.

"And so generous in singing other people's praises," Winship laughed,
not without a flush of conscious pleasure.

"--That I couldn't help hoping you would do a portrait of me, if you're
not too busy."

"You _are_ very busy, Roger," Marah warned him, before he had time to
reply. "If you're going to have anything ready for the Salon--"

"Perhaps Miss Trafford wouldn't mind my sending this?"

"Not at all," Paula smiled. "I've figured there already. It isn't so
very disagreeable. One is hardly ever recognized."

"What sort of portrait were you thinking of?" Winship inquired.

Paula confessed that her own ideas were vague; she would have to appeal
to him for advice. Carolus Duran had painted the bust only; Chartran had
done a three-quarters length, standing; she would accept Mr. Winship's
judgment as to how she should be represented now. She did not say that
the picture had little or no interest for her in itself. While he made
his suggestions she listened inattentively. He would paint her, he
thought, at full length, almost as she sat before him in the high Gothic
chair. She should be in some sort of evening dress, black for
preference, or diaphanous black over color. She should have a small
tiara in her hair, and wear a few fine jewels, possibly emeralds. If she
chose emeralds, he would carry out the idea of green by a glimpse--just
a glimpse--of a malachite table in the background. There would be green
tints, too, in the bit of sky--the sky of a long, late summer
twilight--that would be visible through an open window. It would be
quite simple--Miss Trafford need not fear the contrary--but it would be
the princely simplicity with which she ought to be surrounded.

Paula maintained her air of listening as he grew enthusiastic over his
conceptions, but in reality she was watching his play of countenance.
She thought she had never seen--not even in her father--a face in which
there was greater strength of will. In the eyes, soft and hazel as they
were, there was a penetration not less keen than in Paul Trafford's own;
while the mouth under the brown mustache seemed to her both sensitive
and inexorable. She was not sure that she liked it. It was too much like
the mouth of a man whom neither pity nor passion would turn from what he
had set his mind on. While he was talking of colors and poses, she
caught herself wondering if he could possibly be as unyielding as his
expression seemed to say.

Having decided on the general character the portrait was to take, they
discussed the question of sittings. Paula admitted the difficulty of
giving them in her own house, and her willingness to come to his.

"That will suit me admirably," Winship agreed, "if it isn't giving you
too much trouble. This is my only studio, I regret to say; but it has
the advantage that my mother is always here, and generally my sister."

Paula turned round towards Marah with a conciliatory smile.

"That will be charming. I know Miss Winship is an artist, too. Perhaps
we shall have the benefit of her criticism and advice."

But Marah stood unresponsive, gazing blankly at the opposite wall. After
waiting a second for some recognition of her words, Paula turned again
towards Winship. If she felt hurt, she was too sure of her own good
intentions to be otherwise than self-possessed.

"And now, Mr. Winship," she said, gently, "there's one other question.
I'm business woman enough to know that there must be no misunderstanding
about terms."

Winship bowed.

"Certainly. I will tell you frankly how the matter stands with me. I've
just finished a portrait for which I've had four thousand francs; for
the next one I painted I meant to ask five."

"I will give you fifty thousand," Paula said, quietly.

There was a moment's hush, as if the hearers were endeavoring to
comprehend.

"I don't think you understand me, Miss Trafford," Winship said at last,
speaking deliberately. "I said five thousand--"

"And I said fifty," Paula interrupted.

"You're very kind," Winship said, flashing one of his careless smiles at
her, "but I'm afraid I must stand by my price."

"There's no question of standing by anything," Paula returned. "A
portrait hasn't a fixed and unchanging value like--like a
postage-stamp."

"The money value of any work of art, a book, a picture, a statue, or
whatever it be," Winship explained, "can be measured only by the
reputation of its author. A poor bit of work by a well-known man is
worth more, from a financial point of view, than a good bit of work by a
man who makes only a small appeal to the public; and so--"

"I don't care anything about that," Paula interrupted again.

"No; but I do," Winship rejoined. "I'm obliged to look at things just as
they are. My portrait of you might be as good as Carolus Duran's, and
yet you couldn't hang it with the same pride on your walls, or take the
same glory in it among your friends."

"But that isn't what I want to do," Paula said, unguardedly.

"Then what _do_ you want to do?" he asked, leaning forward and looking
at her straight in the eyes.

Paula was not blind to the directness of the question, and she thought
it rather tactless. It would have been so much more delicate on his part
to have let her fix the price without discussion! His smile, too,
annoyed her--that is, it would have annoyed her if it had not fascinated
her by its suggestion of ease and power. He looked at her entirely
without awe, as if he caught no glimmer of the throne of gold on which
other people seated her. It was not exactly disagreeable, she thought;
it was only disconcerting.

"What do I want to do?" she repeated, trying to gain time to formulate
her reply. "I want to have a good portrait of myself, and to pay for it
what I am sure it will be worth."

"You're more than generous," Winship acknowledged; "but I must protect
you from the injustice you would do yourself."

"But I don't want to be protected. No woman does nowadays. And as for
injustice--"

She stopped in some confusion. It seemed to her that in Winship's
continual smile there was a play of satirical amusement. She felt that
he saw through her, that he was riddling her poor plan for his benefit
with the silent shots of his scorn.

"As for injustice--what, Miss Trafford? You were going to say
something."

It was Marah Winship who spoke, in a sharp tone of challenge. Feeling
the attack, Paula faced about to meet it. It was the sort of situation
that called out her courage, and made her spring to her own defence.

"I was going to say, Miss Winship," she replied, looking calmly into
Marah's snapping eyes, "that as for injustice, all of us have to bear
it--all of us. There are no exceptions. If it hurts you in one way, it
hurts me in another--but none of us escapes."

"Just as none of us escapes the winter's storm," Marah returned, hardly.
"Only it's one thing to watch it from the window, and another thing to
shiver in its blast."

Paula did not reply, but she did not immediately turn her eyes away. She
met Marah's scintillating gaze without flinching, but she grew aware of
the hostility behind it.

"There's only one prayer for us, dears, when we feel we're unjustly
treated," Mrs. Winship said, in her high, trembling voice. "It's,
'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' If we did know,
we'd be gentler with one another."

"I'm sure Mr. Winship doesn't know how he wounds me in not accepting my
conditions," Paula said, with a faint smile, turning again towards the
mother and the son.

"Nor Miss Trafford how she offends me by contesting mine," Winship
laughed.

"I do contest them," Paula insisted; "I not only contest them, but I
reject them."

"Then," said Winship, speaking with sudden gravity, "there's nothing
more to be said. If we can't agree, we can only cry our bargain off."

Paula was not expecting so abrupt a termination to the discussion. Her
blue eyes clouded and the deepening of the furrow between her brows
betrayed her distress.

"Do you mean that you won't paint my portrait at all?"

"Only at my own price."

"But since I can't accept it?"

"That's entirely for you to decide. I, at least, must abide by it."

"My son _shall_ paint your portrait," Mrs. Winship said, in a tone of
authority. "I shall act as arbitrater between you, for I understand you
both. He shall paint it for a price that I shall fix. It shall be higher
than his and lower than yours."

So, after further talk, it was settled, and presently Paula rose to go
away. She felt less assurance than when she arrived, but she said her
good-byes without visible embarrassment. As Winship held the door open
for her to pass out, she turned to him on the threshold.

"Our discussion strikes me as a little odd," she observed, her brows
contracting with her characteristic expression of perplexity. "I've
always understood that men wanted to make money."

"So they do--when they have time."

"And you?"

"I shall make money some day."

"Why some day? Why not now?"

"Because now I'm too busy with my art. When I've mastered that a little
more, the money will come of its own accord."

"But if it doesn't?"

"I should have only one reason for regretting it."

He nodded backward towards his mother's chair, over which Marah was
leaning tenderly.

"But if you refuse to seize your opportunities?"

"I shall not refuse; but there are opportunities and opportunities.
There are some of which one avails one's self, and there are others
which no honorable man could take without losing his self-respect."

"And you think my offer of to-day--"

"Was meant kindly," he finished, before she could end her sentence. "I'm
sure of that. And I'm equally sure that when you've reflected well
you'll see that my refusal to accept it is not incompatible with the
fullest appreciation."

She dared not question him further. She understood that he had read her
scheme in all its blundering benevolent futility. She read it so
herself, now that it had been put into words and subjected to scrutiny,
but she read it with a curious misapprehension of characters and hearts.

"No wonder he refused it!" she said to herself, as she drove homeward.
"Fifty thousand francs! Five hundred thousand would be but a trifle of
what we owe them. If it was five million--well, perhaps that might have
been enough."

Five million francs! The sum appealed alike to her imagination and to
her sense of justice. That would be a million dollars--two hundred
thousand pounds. She knew nothing about the matter, but it seemed to
her as if it might represent approximately the value of the Devlin
Mines. At least, it was a sum with which one might offer restitution
without being laughed at. Winship _had_ laughed at her. She was sure of
that now. The very thought made her cheeks burn, in the semiobscurity of
the carriage. She did not blame him. She did not resent his derision.
She accepted even Marah's hostility with a confused feeling of making
some atonement. But there was an atonement more practical and adequate
than that of sentiment; and with the unreasoning tenacity of her nature
she grew more firmly convinced that her family ought to offer it.

She spoke of it in the evening, at home, during that last hour before
parting, when the string of the tongue is often loosed and the mind
expresses itself boldly. She flung her opinion like a bomb into the
family circle, and waited to be blown up herself by the explosion.

At first there was neither expostulation nor direct reply.

"Aunt Julia," George Trafford remarked, from the depths of his
arm-chair, "I think we ought to send for Dr. Marier, the specialist for
mental diseases."

"What _does_ she mean?" Mrs. Trafford demanded, turning with an air of
distress towards Mrs. George. Laura arched her fine eyebrows and looked
at Paula wonderingly.

"It isn't a question of what _she_ means, but of what _we_ mean,"
Trafford exclaimed. "We ought to invent some mild form of strait-jacket
for her. It isn't safe to have her going around loose."

"Cheap witticism isn't argument, George," Paula reminded him.

"Cheap?" he retorted. "No witticism that turns on throwing away a
million dollars can be cheap."

"A million dollars isn't much," Paula declared, warmly.

"Try to earn it and you'll see," Trafford threw back at her.

"I mean it isn't much for us--especially if it were divided up among us
all. We should never miss it."

"We shall never try," he laughed, gruffly.

"Paula, dear, do keep your senses, at any rate while your father is
away," Mrs. Trafford pleaded. "If you go on like this you'll get nervous
prostration--or you'll give it to me."

"Mother, if you'd seen those people as I saw them to-day--"

"I don't want to. I don't want to know about them. When I remember what
they did to your father--"

"Well, they're punished for it now. They live in such a poor place!--a
sort of old, half-ruined convent. And everything about them is so
comfortless, so bare, so lacking in all that we call essential! When I
looked at that poor lady, it was as if I saw you, mother, dear, old and
blind and feeble and sweet and saintlike--"

"Oh, for mercy's sake, stop," Mrs. Trafford cried. "You're enough to
give any one the creeps."

"And a million dollars would mean so much to them," Paula ended,
pleadingly.

"That's the first point on which I agree with you," Trafford said,
dryly. "A million dollars means a good deal to most people. But look
here! I'll tell you what I'll do. You're a good girl and I'll humor you.
I'll give you fifty francs for them--"

"George, you're crazy," Paula exclaimed, indignantly. "You're insulting.
He refused fifty thousand francs from me this very afternoon."

"He--what?" Trafford asked, with the low, slow emphasis of incredulity.

Then Paula told the story of the day's experiences. She told it
brokenly, interrupted by George's and Mrs. Trafford's questions. Laura
stitched in silence, her eyes fixed on her work. Trafford drew up his
arm-chair close to where Paula sat by a small table, merging her hot
blushes in the red glow of a shaded electric lamp. Mrs. Trafford fanned
herself with a lace handkerchief, as though in danger of suffocation.

"And so he stood out for more," Trafford commented, as Paula brought her
narrative to a close. "Well, I don't blame him. No doubt he could see
that if he left you alone you'd bring him back the whole Devlin
property."

"Why shouldn't we?" Paula demanded, with cheeks flaming. "It was theirs.
We took it from them. You said yourself, the night we talked of it, that
papa had laid out his plan to ruin them five or six years ahead. Why
shouldn't we do justice to them now, late as it is?"

"I never said your father had laid out his plan to ruin them; I said he
had laid out his plan of campaign."

"It's the same thing."

"Pardon me, but it isn't the same thing. Your father's operations were
in the way of business, not of spoliation."

"That's the mere jargon of the market," Paula cried, springing to her
feet and beginning to move restlessly about. "I've heard it till I'm
sick of its sound. Business! business! It's the only password of our
world. It's our only motto, our only standard of right. So long as we
can say that any action, however base, is in the way of business, we
think the trickery, the meanness, the dishonor is excused. We make our
plea of business cover a greater multitude of sins than charity. What's
the good of our philanthropies and our libraries and our fine plans for
the elevation of mankind, when we get the very money that keeps our
schemes alive by clubbing other people down? I use your own expression,
George. It's what you said papa did to this poor, blind Mrs. Winship--"

"Your father can't be made responsible for my expressions, any more than
he can be argued guilty by your eloquence."

"I'm not trying to argue him guilty. I know he wasn't guilty. I'm trying
only to protect him from being thought so. And when we could do that
with an insignificant million dollars--"

"But could you?" Laura asked, looking up from her work, and speaking for
the first time. "If you constitute yourself a judge of your father's
doings--"

"A kind of Holy Office of the Inquisition, consisting of one infallible
member," Trafford threw in.

"You couldn't stop at one isolated case," Mrs. George went on. "You'd
find yourself led further than you expected."

"Do you mean that everything was wrong?" Paula demanded, stopping in her
walk and looking haughtily down at Laura.

"Everything could be made to seem wrong, I've no doubt," Laura replied,
quietly, "if we went by the tests you seem determined to apply. There'd
be no end to the extent to which you'd become involved. One million
wouldn't be enough, nor two, nor three."

"I shouldn't care for that," Paula flung out, turning towards the door.
"Rather than feel that we've become rich by grinding other people into
poverty, I'd give away everything we have."

"It's lucky for us that you can't," Trafford laughed. "It's lucky for
you, too. Paula!" he called after her, as she was leaving the room.
"Come back. I've got something more to say to you."

She turned at the door and confronted him. Her blue eyes were shining
with tears, and the color in her cheeks had contracted into two hectic
spots of scarlet.

"As far as I can see," he went on, with smiling sarcasm, "the only way
to help your painter man is to marry him."

"I would," she returned, holding her head high--"I would, if I couldn't
do him justice in any other way."

Trafford laughed aloud.

"Ho! Ho! Well done, Paula!" he cried after her, as she went proudly and
indignantly up the great stairway.

But Mrs. Trafford was vexed.

"Why on earth should you put that notion into her head, George?" she
complained, fretfully. "You know, as well as I do, that she's quite
capable of doing it."




  CHAPTER IX


"He'll never be the same again, Alice," Marah Winship said,
complainingly. "You've never seen any one more changed than he, since
the first day he began to paint her."

"I shouldn't bother about that," Lady Alice returned, in her bluff,
hearty way, "so long as the change is for the better."

"But is it?"

"Certainly, if you can judge from his work. That picture is a man's
work, not a boy's. It's got the two things he's lacked
hitherto--inspiration and authority. He's always had drawing and color.
I give you my word. Marah, I'm astonished, perfectly astonished--I, who
looked for big things from him. That woman is Paula Trafford as surely
as Rembrandt's 'Old Lady' in Amsterdam is Elisabeth Bas."

"If it had only been any one else in the world, rather than a Trafford!"

"I call that stuff and nonsense, and flying in the face of Providence.
The boy's business is to paint pretty women, and where could he have
found a better subject? You'd feel the same about any one else who had
good looks enough to give him pleasure in putting them on canvas. Oh
yes, I know all about the past; but, good gracious, Marah, you're not a
Corsican, to carry on a vendetta from generation to generation. I should
say that, if they've fallen in love with each other, it would be
uncommonly rare poetic justice for them to make a match of it."

"You didn't want your own brother to marry her."

"That's a different thing. Ludovic, poor lad, came into the world bound
hand and foot with duties, and with a whole load of family traditions
crushing him down. He can't marry the first pretty face he takes a fancy
to. He's got to keep in the picture, so to speak. There's nothing more
incongruous, in my opinion, than an English duke with a rich American
duchess. It's out of drawing and off the background. It leaps at you
from the frame. Of course, if Ludovic had done it, I could have lived
through it and made the best of it, just as I should do if he were to
dismantle the beautiful Louis Seize drawing-room at Edenbridge and
refurnish it from Maple's; but I shouldn't like it."

"We have our family pride as well as you," Marah observed, with sharp
eyes snapping. "Until we were driven out, our own family had lived on
the same land in New Hampshire for nearly three hundred years."

"Oh, my dear, America wasn't discovered as long ago as that, and even if
it had been, the two things are not the same at all. They're as
different as a Teniers and a Raphael. Mind you, a Teniers is just as
_good_ as a Raphael; but it's quite another genre, and you mustn't mix
them. As for your brother, I say again, that if they can make a match
of it you ought to take it as the special intervention of Providence,
and a happy way out of the coil."

They sat in the long studio before Winship's unfinished portrait. Lady
Alice, in her black cloth gown, Tyrolese hat, and stout leather boots,
was an excellent type of the Englishwoman who is so sure of her means
and position that she can dress as she pleases. Above the two women,
Paula Trafford sat as if enthroned. She had been painted much as Winship
had suggested in the first moment of inspiration--in diaphanous black
over something green, with a diamond ornament, like a tiara, shining in
her hair. From a chiselled gold coffer, standing on a small malachite
table beside her, she was drawing a string of pearls, though her eyes
were turned towards the spectator. Through an opening between two
columns the vaguely suggested sunset was fading out in tints of green
and gold and black.

"She'll have the money," Lady Alice continued, unfolding the plan, "and
he'll have the fame. The one will not be better dowered than the other.
This bit of work means that he is going up to the gate of the Temple
with a good, sharp rap. They'll let him in quickly enough this time.
It's marvellous how he's managed so much detail with such simplicity.
And yet," she went on, in her summary, "nothing takes your attention
away from the girl herself. He's caught the meaning of her face with
nothing short of power. I've seen her look just like that--in fact, it's
her characteristic expression. Don't you notice it, Marah?"

"I can see it's very well painted."

"Then it's a pity you can't see more. That rather pathetic kind of
loveliness is unusual in itself, but when you add her wondering,
questioning expression you make it positively significant. It's
tremendously modern, too. You could never confound this girl with the
soft-eyed, shameless beauties of the Lely school, or with the bedraped
and befeathered ladies of Sir Joshua. Here you've got not only a pretty
woman, but a human soul. Any one might think that, with her puzzled,
ranging gaze, she was asking the eternal What? and Why? of earthly
existence."

The grating of a latch-key in the lock of the door cut short Lady
Alice's observations, and Winship himself entered. During the greetings
that followed, Marah, murmuring something about see to her mother,
slipped from the room. Winship asked Lady Alice many questions: When had
she come? Where was she staying? How long was she to remain? He showed
his surprise and pleasure at seeing her.

"I'm especially glad on account of that," he said, with a gesture
towards the portrait, when they had finished the first preliminary
topics of meeting. "How do you like it? Sit down there--just
there--that's the best light. Now tell me what you think of it. There's
no one whose opinion I'd rather have than yours. Is it she? That's the
thing I care for most. You know her better than I do."

"And yet you seem to know her pretty well."

"I do. I divine her."

"It's a very pleasant form of speculation, isn't it? You've painted with
a good deal of enthusiasm. I can see that."

"It takes enthusiasm to transfer a living personality to the canvas," he
said, evasively. "You can paint clothes and features by mere skill; but
it's only sympathy with your subject that will put the whole character
into a single look."

"And you find that she inspires it?--the sympathy you speak of?"

"If she didn't her situation would."

"You mean--"

"I mean that for me she belongs to the group of women overwhelmed by the
fatality of circumstances, the representative circumstances of their
time. Each age has its own types, which often become its own victims. In
one age it may be an Iphigenia, in another a Lady Jane Grey, and in
another a Madame Royale. They are simple women--simple girls--without
inborn greatness of any kind--but the cyclone of forces concentrates and
bursts above them."

"My good man, do you mean to say that Paula Trafford is threatened by
some overhanging doom?"

"No, I do not. I say only that she is one of the few who focus into
themselves the results of a great industrial country and of a great
industrial era. There she sits as I see her," he went on, pointing over
Lady Alice's shoulder, "the type and the victim of a commercial age and
a commercial people. All the rights and wrongs of industry and finance
are forced into her hands--their honest gains, their pitiless
competitions, their brutal robberies, their sordid trickeries, and their
moral assassinations. She sums them up and represents them."

"Yes," Lady Alice assented, with her grim smile, "just about to the same
extent as I sum up the history and privileges of the House of Lords."

"Oh, more than that. You're one of your class; she stands alone in hers.
She can't be other than representative. Destiny has singled her out for
the task."

"And she's such a sweet, gentle soul."

"That's where the curious irony of it comes in. Do you remember in the
cathedral at Ghent the tomb of Mary of Burgundy? No? Well, it's worth
looking at the next time you're there. She lies crowned and gorgeously
robed, on a sepulchre covered with the shields of the duchies, counties,
and baronies she inherited from Charles the Bold. She herself is a
frail, pinched little body, who died at twenty-four. She lived just long
enough to marry Maximilian, to have a son, to transfer the Low Countries
to Spain and Austria, and so to begin the centuries of war and misery
that never really ended till the revolt of Belgium from Holland, in
1830. She was nothing but a girl--little older than Miss Trafford
there--but the storm-forces of her time centred around her, tossing her
into a place in history utterly out of keeping with her personal
importance. In the United States to-day, women don't inherit duchies,
like Mary of Burgundy, they inherit money--"

"So much the better for the men who marry them," Lady Alice broke in,
bluntly. "Some one has to marry them. Some one will have to marry Paula
Trafford."

Winship picked up a brush and began to fleck touches on the soft black
draperies.

"Well, won't they?" Lady Alice persisted.

"I suppose so," he agreed, without turning round.

"Then why shouldn't it be you?"

"I've so few ambitions of that kind."

"So few fiddlesticks!"

"And, besides, when I marry, I hope it will not be for money, but for
love."

"Love!" Lady Alice sniffed. "Is love so out of the question? You
couldn't have painted her as you've done if--"

"Shall I have to fall in love with all the beautiful women I hope to
paint in order to do them justice?"

"Not now, because she will have taught you the secret once for all."

Winship was spared the necessity of answering this retort by the opening
of a door near by, while his mother, aided by Marah, groped her way in.

Lady Alice sprang up and took the blind woman into her strong arms. When
the first embraces had been exchanged, she aided Marah in leading her to
a seat. While Marah busied herself in preparing tea, Lady Alice
entertained Mrs. Winship with the account of her doings through the
winter. It was inevitable that the talk should drift to Roger's work and
Paula Trafford.

"She's a sweet girl," Mrs. Winship said, tremulously. "I've come to love
her very dearly. So has my son, haven't you, Roger?"

"I can quite understand that," Lady Alice observed, dryly.

"Oh yes," he laughed. "It's quite intelligible. But all terms are
relative, and mother's don't bear being torn away from the context."

"She's been a great comfort to me," Mrs. Winship pursued, gently. "I
haven't been so well during the latter part of the winter, and her
kindness has been very sweet to me. She comes and reads to me, when
Marah and Roger are away, just as you used to do, dear. She took me to
drive one day, but I'm afraid that was too much for me. I don't suppose
I shall go out again now, till I go--home."

Winship and Lady Alice exchanged glances. It was evident to both that
the aged woman had grown very frail. The voice was strong and the look
eager, as though the spirit were straining itself to break away.

"If you'll excuse me a minute," Winship said, trying to speak cheerily,
"I'll leave you ladies to your reminiscences. I've got an idea I should
like to work out--"

"It would be a pity to lose it, then," Lady Alice replied. "Your company
will keep, but an idea must be seized on the wing."

"The Lord is very good to me," Mrs. Winship continued, in a high,
shaking voice, while Winship, with his back towards them, worked rapidly
at the canvas. "I see that more and more plainly as the time draws
near; and, oh, my dear, of all His mercies the last seems to me the
best."

"Then you must be a happy woman, Mrs. Winship. Most of us see the Lord's
mercies to us otherwise."

"I _am_ a happy woman, dear. I have everything to make me so. And yet it
would have been harder for me to enter into the joy of my Lord if I
hadn't learned to love Paul Trafford's daughter. I had the memory of
bitter feelings still, but even that has passed away since she came."

"I don't wonder you love her," Lady Alice murmured, sympathetically.

"And Roger loves her, too," the mother whispered, bending forward.
"Haven't you noticed it?"

"Well, I haven't had much time."

"Yes, he does. He tries to hide it, but he couldn't do that from me. And
she loves him. I've seen it. I'm sure of it. Oh, my dear, they were made
for each other. My son and Paul Trafford's daughter! If we had only
foreseen that, how much anguish we might have spared each other. But
it's better that it should be late than not at all. I shall go home to
tell my dear husband that all strife is at an end."

When she had finished her tea, Lady Alice crossed the room towards
Winship.

"May one have a peep?" she asked, looking over his shoulder. "I wouldn't
spoil anything by overzeal, you know. I should think you had almost got
to the point where you might leave well enough alone. So this is the
young lady a man couldn't marry for love!"

"I didn't say that," Winship returned, with a little warmth.

"Well, what _did_ you say?"

"I said--really, Lady Alice, I don't remember."

"No, nor I either--exactly. You said _you_ couldn't marry her for love;
wasn't that it?"

"I don't suppose I could marry her at all," he replied, turning round
and looking at her frankly. "Where there are so many extraneous
circumstances to be taken into consideration--"

"But if there weren't?"

"If there weren't an atmosphere round the earth, we should see things in
quite another light. But since there _is_ an atmosphere, all our
perceptions have to depend upon it."

"But even in the atmosphere there's a difference between cloud and
sunshine. You wouldn't refuse to enjoy a bright spring morning because
you'd suffered from last year's storm."

"You would if you'd been struck by lightning," he returned, with a
sharpness of tone that surprised her. "You would if you'd been crippled
and blinded and left all but dead. The bright spring morning would bring
a rather belated cheerfulness then."

"I didn't mean that," she began, apologetically.

"No, Lady Alice; but I _have_ to mean it. I can't shut my eyes to the
fact that the two lives nearest mine are blasted beyond all hope. The
curious thing is that the power that did it should have come right
under my hand. Can't you see that when I look at that"--he nodded in the
direction of his mother's chair--"when I look at Marah, the temptation
to strike back should be almost irresistible?"

"I can understand that easily enough. The instinct is as primitive as
mother's love. But in this sophisticated age of the world's history most
people think that, after defeat, reconstruction is wiser than revenge."

"Ah, yes," he laughed, with a curious glitter in the eyes, "but in my
case revenge would take the form of what you call reconstruction."

"I see."

"You see some of it--not all."

"The revenge of Romeo on the Capulets. I presume the motive would be
Romeo's as well as--all the rest of it."

"One has a right to presume anything on a subject that is no more than
'the baseless fabric of a vision.'"

"As yet."

He made no response.

"As yet," she insisted.

"As yet, if you like," he smiled.

"Ah, well, I've no more time to talk of it," she sighed, picking up her
gloves from a small table. "I must be off. I suppose you know," she
continued, glancing up at him sidewise, "that there'd be a fight. The
doors wouldn't be flung open to you as, for instance, to my brother
Ludovic."

Winship shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

"And so, in the end, you might fail."

"I couldn't fail," he answered, quickly, "not now. However it turned
out, the victory would be mine--now. In the one case, Paul Trafford
would carry a wound in his side; in the other he'd get it in the heart."

Lady Alice paused, with her glove half drawn on, and regarded him.

"Hmph!" she sniffed at last. "I believe you Winships are Corsicans,
after all--you and Marah, too."




  CHAPTER X


At the Pavillon d'Armenonville, in the Bois de Boulogne, it was the
crowded hour of the afternoon--all the more crowded because the day was
one of those in early spring when it seems a rare pleasure to sit
out-of-doors, under the foliage still too tender to keep off the
grateful warmth of the sun. In the long gallery, and beneath the trees,
there was such a movement of going and coming, such a rustle of silks
and satins, such a hum of talk and laughter, such a calling of greetings
and farewells, such a tinkle of cups and glasses, that two ladies seated
by themselves could be intimately alone. Lady Alice had forseen this
when she invited Paula to tea with her.

At the table nearest them, a young actress of the Comdie was
entertaining a party of friends; beyond them, a couple of clean-shaven
American lads were having a Scotch-and-soda; farther off, a group of
English people, on their way from the Riviera, were taking tea; the
Italians at another table, and the South Americans at still another,
were regaling themselves with pink and pea-green drinks and ices. Up to
the main door there was a long, double procession of carriages,
motorcars, and cabs. Liveried chasseurs ran to and fro, to welcome the
arriving, and speed the departing, guest. Swans were floating on the
lake in the foreground, and a faint, sweet perfume came up from the beds
of hyacinths on its banks. Overhead, birds were flitting and chirping,
in the ardor of building their nests; while above and through and
beneath all other sounds came the wild twanging, clanging,
heart-breaking music of the Hungarian Tziganes.

Neither of the two women paid direct attention to these things; they
only submitted unconsciously to the influence of what is a little out of
the common. The glamour of the sunshine, the strains of the gypsy air,
the subtle sense of the romantic that diffuses itself in any rich,
leisured, cosmopolitan crowd, made it possible, for Paula at least, to
speak as she could not have spoken without the stimulus and support of
an accompaniment.

"Yes, Ludovic will be back again in a few weeks," Lady Alice sighed, as
she put down her cup. "Poor boy, I hope the trip will have done him
good."

"I'm sure I hope so," Paula murmured, politely.

"He sails from Cape Town to-morrow. That'll make it about three months
altogether since he left Monte Carlo."

"About that, I think," Paula murmured again, trying to look anywhere but
at her hostess.

"Of course," Lady Alice ventured, boldly, "I never asked him what took
place between you. I wouldn't. I think one can never be too delicate
about matters of that sort. But, naturally, one has one's surmisings,
don't they?"

Paula admitted as much as that.

"I knew you'd say so," Lady Alice pursued, as though relieved by Paula's
assent. "One has their surmisings, and they can't help it. But I never
talk about such things. Whatever I think, I keep to myself. My dear
mother used to say that one always had plenty of time to begin to talk,
but it was never too soon to be silent."

"I'm sure that must be very true," Paula agreed, innocently.

"And so, as I say, I never say anything. I only thought--you'll excuse
me, dear, won't you?--I only thought, that if it was anything in the
nature of a misunderstanding--"

Paula shook her head.

"That I could help in--"

"It wasn't anything of that kind," Paula forced herself to say.

"Well, I'm glad of that--or, rather, I can't help being a little bit
sorry, too; because, if it had been so, there might have been a ray of
hope for Ludovic. But, of course, if you'd made up your mind that you
couldn't marry him--"

"I offered to," Paula stammered, in the hope of putting the matter less
ungraciously. "I wanted to, but the Duke thought I had better not."

"Oh!"

Lady Alice's dry tone indicated her astonishment.

"He seemed to think I didn't love him well enough."

"And didn't you?"

"He wouldn't let me try."

"Were you ready?"

"Yes--to try."

"Well, it's never too late, you know."

The swift rose-color came into Paula's cheek, while she fixed her
troubled eyes on the farthest point they could see--a swan at the
distant end of the lake.

"Look here, my dear," Lady Alice said, assuming a kindly, elderly tone,
"let me warn you of one thing: don't trifle with love. I'm an old maid,
and you may think I don't know anything about it, but I do. I've had my
experiences, like other people; and once, when I'd seen the man I could
have given my heart to, I wouldn't. I wouldn't because he was only a
barrister, and I was Lady Alice Holroyd, and I thought I couldn't come
down. I've been bitterly punished, I assure you, for I've thought of him
ever since, and he's been lord chancellor, too. Don't trifle with love,
dear. It's the most precious gift of life. It comes to us once, and if
we refuse to take it, it passes us by, never to return again."

The ending was so impressive, and the Hungarian music sobbed so
despairingly, that Paula's lip trembled.

"And so, dear," Lady Alice went on, pursuing her advantage, "you mustn't
let Ludovic think you don't love him enough, if you do."

"Oh, but I don't," Paula said, hurriedly.

"You said you could try."

"I could have tried then; I can't now."

"Excuse me, dear," Lady Alice exclaimed, twisting her mouth into a
sympathetic smile. "I'm talking about what I have no business to.
There! I shall say no more about it. I'm sorry I began. I shouldn't have
done it, only that I know so well what love means, when it has once come
to us--and--gone on. Being Ludovic's sister, I thought--but no. Let's
talk of something else. By-the-way, I went over to call on the Winships
yesterday, and I saw your portrait. It's superb."

"I'm glad you like it."

The new, bright color in Paula's face might have sprung from mere
pleasure in the success of the work.

"Like it isn't the word. It's a splendid work of art, that's what it is,
my dear, and you know that I don't speak on the subject without
knowledge. That man has something in him that none of our other young
painters have got, and he'll go far--you mark my words. I can't think
how you ever came to happen on him."

"It was my cousin, Mrs. George Trafford, who suggested my having it
done."

"She's very philanthropic, isn't she? Oh yes, I see. She got you to sit
to him out of a spirit of benevolence."

"Not that exactly."

"Well, you've done a very good thing, in any case. He tells me it's to
go to the Salon, and if so his reputation is made. How do you like him?"
she ended, abruptly.

"Like him? How?"

"As a man. You see, I've mothered the whole family, so to speak, in
times past, and so I have an interest in him. How do you think he
seems?"

"Oh, very well."

"Only that?"

"No--I wouldn't say only that."

"He struck me as very good-looking."

"He seemed so to me."

"And I thought him very determined and manly, and so on. Of course, I
knew he was; he's always been so. They've had such a hard time, you
know, or perhaps you don't know; but he had a man's pluck even when he
was a boy. Now the worst of that will be over for them, since you've
given him such a lift."

"I'm very glad," Paula said, just audibly.

"And you've done him another good turn. I don't know whether I ought to
tell you or not."

She laughed lightly, and Paula lifted her eyes, full of inquiry.

"I don't see why I shouldn't tell you," Lady Alice went on, as if with
inward amusement. "It can't matter to you, after all the admiration
you've had."

"Please don't," Paula begged.

"Why not? It isn't anything to you, and to him it's like electricity to
the wire. You know what artists are. They never seem able to do their
best work until they've found some one who appeals to their imagination
as an ideal. Dante wasn't anything until he saw Beatrice, even though he
lived to marry Gemma Donati."

"Please don't go on, Lady Alice. It makes me feel--ridiculous."

"Oh, you know what I was going to say? Then I might as well stop. I
thought I might be telling you something new; but of course you must
have seen it long before I did. You needn't pity him; it's the sort of
thing that does any young man good. Love isn't for men what I said just
now it was for women. If they have to let the best slip by, they've a
greater faculty than we for putting up with second-best. But--what?
What's the matter, dear? You look as if you were going to cry. For
mercy's sake don't do it here, where you'll attract so much attention."

"I'm not going to," the girl managed to say.

"That's good; but have I offended you? No? What can it be, then? Is
it--? Oh no, it can't be. It's too impossible. It's too absurd. It can't
be. Upon my word, I believe I'm like the farmer's wife who went out to
look for hen's eggs and found a pot of gold. Paula, my dear, when you
said, just now, that you couldn't try again to love Ludovic, was it
because--?"

"Yes." The word slipped from Paula's lips, though she would have given
anything to keep it back.

The sobbing, gypsy air rose higher and higher, till it ended in a clang
like the breaking of the strings of a thousand harps.

Lady Alice leaned back with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Ludovic is safe, thank God," she thought, "and so is Roger. I've done a
good day's work."




  CHAPTER XI


During the spring the first golden laurel-leaves of popular attention
began dropping into Winship's studio. Before his work was finished he
knew it was receiving that measure of respect which comes from being
talked about. Up to the present his reputation had been confined to
friends, critics, and connoisseurs. Now his name was to pass from mouth
to mouth, out from the narrow circle of those who know a good thing, to
the broader world which must be told where to look for it. In the
prophetic hints with which the great journals herald the approaching
Salon, there were frequent hints of a new, young artist of extraordinary
ability, and the portrait he was painting of Mademoiselle Trafford, _la
richissime Amricaine_.

It was the first puff of the trumpet of celebrity, and in it Paula's
name counted for much. The fact caused her an uneasiness which increased
as her father remained longer away. For the first time in her life she
had taken an important step without his knowledge. For the first time in
her life she had concealed anything from him, and hesitated still to
make it known. The project undertaken as one of private benevolence had
become a matter of almost public interest. As the girl saw her name in
print, side by side with Winship's, she dreaded lest some stray
paragraph should fall under her father's eye. It was chiefly with a view
to avowal that she secured the privilege of going alone to meet him at
the station, on the day following her talk with Lady Alice at
Armenonville.

"Papa, I've something to confess to you," she began, as the victoria
descended one of the long, populous thoroughfares leading from the Gare
du Nord. The crowd, the street cries, and the rumble of traffic gave her
courage. She felt less likely to fall into the emotional.

"Fire away," he said, good-naturedly.

"I've been having my portrait painted."

"What! Again? Well, that _is_ a crime. There will be no pardon for it,
unless the guilty object is forfeited to the state--and, '_l'tat, c'est
moi_.'"

"You mayn't want it when I've told you all. It has turned out to be a
very remarkable work."

"That's against it, of course."

"I didn't think anything about it--as a portrait--when I began; but Lady
Alice Holroyd says it's very striking, and sure to make the artist's
reputation. The newspapers have said so, too."

"Ah, well! That's a pity. But one can't always keep one's name out of
the papers, worse luck."

"And I've promised him to let it go to the Salon."

"You might have hesitated a little there. You were in the Salon last
year, and the year before. You don't want to be taken as an annual,
dear."

"No. I thought of that. I shouldn't have done it for my own sake. But I
was anxious that he should have whatever advantage he could get from
showing it."

"Who's--he?"

"He's a friend of Lady Alice's. The Duke introduced him to me the first
evening you took me to the Casino at Monte Carlo. After we came home
George told me who he was, and what connection his family had had with
ours."

"What's his name?"

"That's what you mayn't like, papa."

"Well, it's his name, dear, I suppose, whether I like it or not, I
didn't baptize him, so I'm not responsible."

"It's Winship."

"Surely not old Rog--?"

"Yes, papa. The very same."

"The devil it is! Why didn't you tell me that before, dear?"

"I suppose I should have done it, if you hadn't been away."

"But I wasn't beyond the reach of letters, dear--and you wrote nearly
every day."

"The truth is, papa, darling, that I was afraid you mightn't approve of
it."

"All the more reason, then, why you should have told me."

"We did talk it over--mamma, George, Laura, and I--and we came to the
conclusion that it was just what you would like. You're always so good,
papa, to people who've been your opponents, and--"

"I thought you said you were afraid I wouldn't approve of it."

"I had that feeling, too. You see, I was so anxious to do something for
them. You've no idea how poor they are--and the mother is blind, and--"

"Oh, she's living yet, is she?"

"Yes, papa, and such a saint!"

"Then she must have changed for the better. Well, we'll let it be. If
there's any harm done--"

"Oh, but there isn't, papa."

"So much the better, then. I'm sorry, dear, that you've been brought
into contact with these people--"

"But they're not a bit like what you think them."

"I'm sorry, all the same; and now that the business is over, as I
suppose it is, you can let the acquaintance drop."

"It isn't quite over--the business, I mean."

"Well, when it is, then," he said, shortly. "Now tell me how your mother
is," he went on, in another tone, as they turned into the
Champs-lyses. "Does she suffer less?"

"She's very brave about it. Sometimes I can't tell whether she suffers
much or not."

"And sometimes you can. Is that it?"

"Of course, when she has a paroxysm she can't hide it. But I don't think
they come quite so often now."

"What with one thing and another," he said, moodily, "I'm afraid I've
stayed away too long. But I couldn't help it; such great interests were
at stake."

"I'm sorry if I've added to your cares," she murmured, laying her hand
on his arm. "You know that, don't you, papa, dear?"

"Yes, dear, I know it," he answered, briefly, and sank into silence
until they reached home.

It was only in the evening that he spoke again of the subject Paula had
so much at heart.

"Come up to my room," he said, as they rose from the table after dinner.
They had dined alone. Mrs. Trafford had not left her room, and George
and Laura were out. During the meal he had been unusually silent, Paula
would have almost said dejected. His anxiety about her mother, she
thought, would have been enough to account for that. She was not
expecting his first words, as he closed the door of the large,
book-lined room, half library, half office, into which they entered.

"Did I understand you to say," he asked, "that Lady Alice Holroyd
suggested your being painted by this man Winship?"

"Oh no. I said only that she knew them. In fact, she and the Duke have
looked after them, more or less, for years past. They've often been over
to stay with them at Edenbridge."

"Then whose idea was it? I mean the portrait."

He lighted a cigar, and Paula seated herself on a sofa.

"It was Laura who spoke of it first, but it was I who wanted to help
them. If there's any blame to be attached anywhere, it's mine. Laura
only suggested it, because she knew I wanted to do something for them."

"Why?"

"Because I'd heard they were so poor. The Duke told me that."

"Was that the only reason?"

She raised her eyes to him frankly. He paced up and down the room, and
only glanced at her in passing.

"No, papa."

"Then what other reason had you?"

"George told me that all the property the Winships used to have had come
to us."

"And then?"

"Then I was sorry for them. I was more than sorry. I felt as if I were
responsible--"

"Responsible?" he exclaimed, stopping before her with a sharp jerk of
his person. "Responsible for what?"

"Perhaps I used the wrong word," she returned, softly. "What I felt was
that if any one should help them, it should be one of us."

"Why should we?"

"For the reason that we had what used to be their property, if there
were no other."

"And was there any other? That's what I want to know. Speak out, dear."

"I had no other, papa."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Quite sure. What other should I have?"

He took two or three turns up and down the room, and again paused before
her.

"Did it occur to you that I might have been hard to the Winships?"

"Yes, papa."

"Did the thought come to you that I might even have been unjust to
them?"

"Yes, papa."

"And what then?"

"I knew you couldn't have been. I knew it wasn't possible."

"How did you know?"

"I knew by myself, first of all. I knew you wouldn't be. Then I talked
it over with Laura, and she told me that no one could go behind the law,
and that if the law is on your side you must be right. And then,
besides," she added, looking up at him with a smile, "I was quite sure
of it. No one would make me believe otherwise, no matter what they said,
no matter what I saw."

Trafford's brow cleared suddenly. He slipped to her side on the sofa,
and drew her to him.

"You were quite right to have done it, darling," he murmured. "I'm glad
you thought of it. It's just like your goodness. I know I can always
trust to that. I do like to help those whom, in the way of business,
I've had to hit hard. But you'll never think that I hit hard without
reason, will you? You see, that's what I was afraid of; and it would be
a dark day for me if my little girl went over, even in thought, to my
enemies. You never will, will you, dear?"

In the very act of giving the assurance he asked, a sudden determination
came to her. It was the woman in her unconsciously taking advantage of
the man's moment of softness.

"Papa," she asked, leaning back in his arms, "have I as much as a
million dollars of my very own?"

"You've more. I invested a million dollars in your name five years ago.
And since then you've had three hundred thousand from your uncle Andrew,
and another two hundred thousand from your aunt Jane. Why do you ask?"

"Couldn't I give a million of that to the Winships?"

He drew his arms slowly away from her.

"Couldn't you--?" he began, as if trying to understand her question.
"Say that again, dear, will you?"

She repeated her words with some hesitation. For a minute he made no
response.

"I thought you believed in me," he said at last, reproachfully.

"So I do, papa. And yet--and yet--"

"And yet--what?"

"And yet something seems wrong to me somewhere. Oh, papa, don't be angry
with me. I can't bear it, if you are. I'm so unhappy about it. I don't
want all that money. I don't want any of it. I'd much rather they had
it. Even if I'm wrong, I'd rather purchase a little peace of mind in
that way. It wouldn't be very much for me to give."

"But don't you see," he pointed out, with cold gentleness, "that if you
did that it would be saying to all the world that, in your opinion at
least, I had robbed them?"

"Oh!" she gasped. "I see. I see. Then, of course, I couldn't do it in
that way."

"Neither in that way nor in any other way," he commented, still coldly,
as he rose.

"You're wrong, papa," she said to herself, while an expression of
mingled radiance and fear came over her. "There still remains--the way
you haven't thought of."

And she sat still, dreaming.




  CHAPTER XII


"You'll leave me alone with her," Mrs. Winship said to Marah, who was
propping her with pillows in an arm-chair. "It will be for the last
time."

"You mean that she won't come again when that thing has gone to the
Salon. I hope not."

"I mean, dear, that I shall not be here. You mustn't expect me to stay
long now, nor grieve that I am leaving you. Of course she will come
again, if she marries Roger."

"Oh, mother, don't say that. I know you've been thinking of it, but it
would kill me. I'd rather see Roger ruined, as father was, than married
to a Trafford. She comes here with her money, thinking to buy us--"

"She means well, dear. Some day you'll see that, and judge her more
justly. Kiss me, dear child," she added, as a ring came to the door.
"Now, leave us together till Roger comes."

It was the last visit before the removal of the portrait to the Salon.
Finished and framed, it stood now at the end of the long studio, making
a spot of incongruous splendor amid the poverty of its surroundings.

"I've written a check for twenty thousand francs," Paula whispered,
hurriedly, when the first greetings were over. "Dear Mrs. Winship, do
take it. I daren't give it to your son himself. When you said eight
thousand, you didn't know it would turn out such a work as this."

"Yes, I did, dear. I knew Roger couldn't do anything but what would be
very great. I mustn't take the money, dear. I know what is in your
heart, but it would give Roger great pain to be offered more than the
sum agreed upon."

"But it isn't worthy of what he's done--"

"You see, dear," she interrupted, "he doesn't value his work by money."

"But he ought."

"You think so because you're young. I would have said so, too--once.
But, oh, my dear, I've lived long enough to see how little money can do
towards buying us the things most worth having. Roger is wiser than I
was at his age. He's beginning where I leave off, and I bless God for
it. He's found already the secret I had to learn through so much
struggle and sorrow."

She lay back on her pillow, with closed eyes, as if so many words had
exhausted her. Paula was wondering whether she ought not to ring for
some one, when the blind woman raised herself and spoke again.

"I take your own case as an example, dear. You're rich, and you want to
help us. You'd like to give us money; you don't see that you've given us
more than money in giving us yourself."

"But there's the money, too," Paula urged.

"Forgive me if I speak too plainly," Mrs. Winship quavered on. "I
haven't long to stay here, now--a few days--a few hours--perhaps not
that. I feel the heavenly gates opening to let me in; and before I go
I'd like to tell you that I've read your heart aright. You've seen that
we've had to suffer for the conflicts of the past, and you've wanted to
give us back something of what we've lost. Isn't that it?"

"I hoped--" Paula began.

"And you've succeeded, dear. The Lord is letting me depart in a peace I
should never have known if you hadn't come. You've done more for me and
mine--"

"I've done nothing at all for Roger," Paula interrupted, quickly,
calling him, for the first time, by his Christian name.

"It will be shown you," the mother sighed, gently. "Where there are
young hearts, like yours and his, they'll not go far astray."

She sank back on the pillows again, and lay still, with closed eyes. As
Paula watched, a bright pallor, like an illumination, stole over the
waxen face. Presently there came a light breathing, though the blind
eyes remained closed. Paula sat still, wondering if this might not be
the distant approach of death, till, with a wide swing of the door and
long, vigorous tread, Winship came in. She motioned him to step lightly,
and pointed to his mother.

"Marah, come here," he called, in a loud whisper, through the still open
doorway.

"You've tired her, Miss Trafford," Marah said, bluntly, when she
appeared.

"I'm very sorry."

Mrs. Winship stirred.

"No, dear, no," she murmured, faintly. "It isn't your fault. It's only
that I'm going--going--home."

She dropped away again into what seemed like sleep. Marah sat down by
the arm-chair, fanning her.

"She'll be better now," Winship whispered to Paula. "Come and give me
your final judgment on the portrait."

They slipped away silently to the end of the long room, where the woman
in black and green regarded them, with her eternal What? and Why? For a
few minutes they stood side by side without speaking. The feeling was in
both their hearts that they were turning their backs on death and the
past, to look out towards life and the future.

"You've changed it in some way," Paula observed at last.

"I thought you might like it better so."

"This seems to me Paula Trafford more as she looks every day, and less
as an abstract conception."

"That's it. Lady Alice said I was wrong. She said the abstract
conceptions, rather than the mere portraits, survive best as works of
art--that 'Mona Lisa' and the 'Sistine Madonna' will always be greater
than any of Vandyck's cavaliers, or Vige-Lebrun's 'Marie Antoinettes.'
Perhaps she's right, but in your case I prefer the more absolute
likeness. You see, I was thinking of you too much as a type and too
little as a lady."

"Everybody thinks of me as a type," she complained, wistfully. "I have
to stand for Money, like the female figure on a stock-exchange."

"I didn't mean that. If I thought of you as representing Wealth, it was
that great, strange, new spirit of American wealth that is unlike
everything else."

"Do you mean in the way in which it's acquired?"

"Yes, and in the way in which it's dispensed. The world has never seen
money made with so little mercy, spent with so much generosity. The
spectacle is quite novel, and must be extremely puzzling to moralists."

Paula colored, and looked away. They spoke in low tones so as not to
disturb Mrs. Winship.

"I suppose," she ventured, after a minute's reflection, "that that's
better than if it were ill-spent and ill-gotten, too. If the money is in
your possession, it's something, at least to do good with it."

"Good," Winship observed, turning on her one of his gleaming
looks--"good is an essentially spiritual quality that is not to be
commanded by any sum in the market. You can't do good with money; you
can only do good by--yourself."

"Money must, at least, enlarge one's opportunities."

"There's no question about that. And yet the man who robs Peter and
expects to benefit mankind by paying Paul can't do what you call good to
any one."

"Still," she argued, "if Paul has been fed and clothed and educated,
you've added something to the total of human happiness."

"Not when you've left Peter hungry and naked and brutalized, and tricked
of the means that were honestly his. That's the spectacle to which some
of our great philanthropic financiers are treating us--and the angels
who look on must often be in doubt as to whether to laugh or to weep."

"It seems to me cruel to say that," she said, flushing still more
deeply.

"So it is. But it's only the cruelty inherent in the situation when Paul
reflects on the charity offered him through the robbery of Peter."

"Does he often do that?"

"Perhaps not often, but he'll learn."

"When?"

"When the American people have begun to judge by standards of right and
wrong, rather than by those of material success.

"Then we shall have a long time to wait."

"If it's too long, there may be a short way taken--that is, if we may
judge by analogous situations in history. When moral progress is too
slow to right intolerable wrongs, the human race has a way of appealing
to the fire and the sword."

"Do they gain anything by that?"

"You've only to look about you and see. The France you're living in may
be bad enough, but it's heaven itself compared to what it was before the
Revolution."

"I presume you are not foretelling a similar revolution for us?"

"Not if our moral forces develop themselves, as they should; not if we
can supplant our love of mere brutal bigness by an appreciation of the
simpler, holier elements in life; not if the rich man would be content
with his own flock and herd, without snatching the poor man's one
ewe-lamb. Then, Miss Trafford, there'd be no new American revolution.
But if--"

"But if these signs and wonders don't come to pass?"

"I'm neither a pessimist nor a prophet," he smiled. "I see only that
when Louis XIV. laid the first stone of his chteau at Versailles he
started the train of events which drove the French people into setting
up the guillotine. I read the same moral among every people on earth,
where there has been a heaping-up of wealth and privilege for a few,
while the many find it harder and harder to exist."

"And it is that heaping-up of wealth that you take me to stand for?"

There was no indignation in her tone. In her expression there was only
the look of pathetic interrogation he had caught in her portrait.
Winship met her gaze calmly and frankly. Whatever he felt inwardly, the
appeal of her helplessness did not make him flinch. He meant that she
should understand his view of her position.

"The daughter of a great house," he said, "stands for that house, in its
good and its evil. Iphigenia couldn't be other than an Atrides, though
she herself was innocent enough. Madame Elisabeth couldn't be other
than a Bourbon, though she herself could never have done wilful wrong to
any one. And Miss Paula Trafford--no, no," he broke off, "I won't say
it."

"Please!" she begged. "Please! I insist."

"Miss Paula Trafford," he went on again, "comes of a race that has had a
giant's strength, and has used it like--a giant! There! I've offended
you, and we've been such good friends till now! To-morrow this will have
gone to the Salon, and our association together will be over. You will
have your portrait, and I shall have--"

"What?" she questioned. "You will have--what?"

"I shall have the joy of having painted it. It will go where I shall
probably never see it; but it will remain my work. As long as it exists,
it will present you as I've seen and known and understood you. That's a
part of the artist's recompense that he can never lose. Nothing could
take away from Pygmalion the glory of having created Galatea."

"But Galatea came to life for him."

She stopped abruptly, biting her lip. She had spoken without weighing
the significance of her words. The color that came and went in her cheek
called forth a dark flush in Winship's as, for the first time, they
stood looking at each other in emotion they made no effort to conceal.
The silence that followed seemed to throb with what could not be spoken.

"She will always live for me," he said, with a slight gesture towards
the portrait.

"Yes--as the woman who could never dissociate herself from the wrongs
inflicted by one class upon another."

"Couldn't she?"

Winship's tone was lower, and he drew near her, looking down into her
clear eyes.

"That's for you to judge," she murmured, faintly.

"How?"

"I was wrong," she said, summoning all her strength to speak boldly; "I
was wrong when I said that Galatea came to life. Pygmalion prayed the
gods to bestow life on her. It was his prayer that wrought the miracle."

"Which means," he said, slowly, drawing nearer still, "that if I
prayed--"

"The gods might hear you," she finished, softly, turning her eyes away.

"But if the call into life meant for Galatea the coming-down from her
golden pedestal?--if it meant sacrifice?--renunciation?--the sharing of
a poor man's life--?"

"Roger! Quick! Come here!"

Marah's voice had the sharp ring that belongs to intense moments of
existence. Winship rushed to his mother's side. Paula followed slowly.

Mrs. Winship had lifted herself in her chair and was sitting upright.
Her arms were out-stretched and her hands raised, as though in
supplication. The sightless eyes seemed to be looking straight into
heaven.

"Roger!" she called, in a loud, clear voice.

"Yes, mother, I'm here." He seized her hand in both of his.

"Paula!"

The voice was weaker now, but the left hand seemed to beat the air,
feeling for a response. Paula clasped the trembling fingers to her
breast.

Slowly, feebly, and with the last act of earthly strength, the dying
woman drew the two hands together.

"Pardon!" she murmured.

Neither Paula nor Winship glanced at each other. They lost thought for
what was happening to themselves, in the sight of the passage of a soul.
When their hands met, it was with a firm, instinctive clasp.

"Love!" the mother sighed again, and fell back among the pillows.

There was a long minute's waiting, till the silence was broken by
Marah's wail.

"Oh, mother, mother! have you no word for me? I've loved you so! I've
loved you so!"

The little old maid flung herself upon her knees. It seemed to her now
as if she had been deprived of the last poor bit of human rights; for
the blind woman never spoke again.




  CHAPTER XIII


The blind woman never spoke again. She lingered a few days still, but
before the Salon was opened, and the crowds had begun to gather about
her son's great work, she was lying beneath a tiny, flower-decked chapel
up on Montparnasse.

Winship found himself in the first degrees of fame without paying any
attention to the fact. Rather he accepted the fact as one of two or
three new conditions that would bring momentous changes into his life.
After a youth of hard work, pinched means, and the narrowest path of
duty, he had come face to face with a future full of possibility. He was
neither elated by his success nor confused by his power of choice. He
had known for years what lay before him to do, if ever he had the
chance--and the chance had come.

He had had no communication with Paula since the day when his mother had
joined their hands, in an act of which neither knew the significance--if
it had significance at all. She had written an affectionate note of
sympathy to Marah, and had left with her father for a few weeks in the
Touraine. But Winship knew there was no coquetry in this withdrawal; it
was only flight from a situation of which neither he nor she was sure.

Paula's thoughts were not with Marie de Medici at Blois, nor with Anne
de Bretagne at Langeais, nor with Jeanne d'Arc at Chinon, nor with Diane
de Poitiers at Chenonceau. They were back in the long, red studio,
piecing together the events of the past winter, and tracing the progress
through which her mind had come to submit itself to Roger Winship's.

"You seem to be in a dream, dear," her father had said to her once or
twice, and the statement fitted her. It was not a waking life, these
days on the banks of the Loire. The primal emotions of love, ambition,
and hate found there that setting of stately castle and broad champaign
which softens crime into adventure and passion into romance. The spell
of the long past mingled with the glamour of the strange, new life into
which she felt herself entering. The memories of splendid, ardent
generations fell round her like rich tapestries, shutting in the
mysterious chamber of her heart. She made no effort to confront her
problems or to smooth her way. She was content, for the moment, to move
in her dream--the dream in which love is still able to keep to its
defenceless paradise.

With the return to town, the thought of the practical became more
insistent. What was to happen? How was it to happen? The old life seemed
to close in so tenaciously about her that she wondered how it would ever
be possible to get out of it. Even her dream lost some of its reality in
the stress of giving and receiving invitations to dinner. With all that
she could not avoid doing, it was the third day after her return before
she could find time to steal into the Salon, and see the effect of her
portrait as it hung. So much had been said of it at social gatherings,
and in the press, that even her family were roused to some degree of
interest. When they began planning a party to go and see it together,
Paula seized the first occasion to slip off alone. It was a wild, wet
afternoon; there would be few visitors; she was fairly sure of having
the gallery to herself.

It was as she expected. The great rooms of the Grand Palais, deserted
except for the uniformed guardians, and a solitary wanderer here and
there, succeeded each other in long, empty vistas of color. Her own
portrait held a conspicuous place of honor, and of the rare visitors two
or three were generally stationed before it. She sat on a divan in the
centre of the room, but too far off to challenge comparison with the
object of interest on the wall.

As she gazed about her she thought with compassion of the amount of
ambition and toil that had gone to make up such a collection--toil that
would never reap an adequate reward, ambition that would never have any
fulfilment. Who would buy the hundreds upon hundreds of landscapes and
sea-views, of domestic scenes and studies of still life, that hung about
her? They might have been those of last year, or of the year before, or
of the year before that, or of any year since the Salon was founded.
What became of all the pictures that were painted? What became of the
men and women who painted them? The feeling of pity which rose now was
new to her--new since she had watched Marah working away, day after day,
at her little wooden miniatures--new especially since the question
touched the man she loved.

He, too, had sent his offspring here for the last five years. She
herself had passed them by and never noticed them. The dumb things had
appealed to her for a glance, and she had ignored them. Hundreds of
thousands had moved on in the same neglect and indifference. It seemed
now like a wound to her own pride. True, he had done some of them as
commissions, and some of them he had sold; but she knew that some, too,
were still roaming from one exhibition to another in the hope of finding
a purchaser. So much effort and little or no recompense! Her father or
George would scoff at all that Winship could earn in a year. Even for
this thing, which was counted a success, he had received but eight
thousand francs, and, for a man of his standing, was to be considered
well paid. Eight thousand francs! She had often spent as much for a
trinket. The very fact that women of fashion, women of her own world,
were already coming to be painted by him, scorched her with a sense of
humiliation that he should be dependent on their patronage. That, at
least, need never be, she reflected, with some exultation. She had no
high-flown theories of the beauty of art or of the nobility of toil. It
was enough to know that the man she loved would be free from all sordid
cares of that kind--when she married him.

She had reached this point in her meditations when a footstep startled
her, and Winship himself glided on to the divan beside her.

There were many reasons why it should be a moment when all guards were
down. They had lived through months of repressed emotion--months in
which each had been a problem in the other's life. The thought of love
had been beaten back by large, persistent questions of mutual rights and
wrongs. Now it leaped to the front and claimed the field.

Before he realized what he was saying, Winship had done that which, for
weeks, he had been planning not to do. He had declared his love, as any
man to any woman, and he had implored her to be his wife. He had done it
with a few quick, passionate words, in which there were none of the
conditions and contingencies with which he had meant to speak. He had
foreseen this moment, but he had foreseen it as one of complicated
explanations. He had prepared his points, as an ambassador prepares a
treaty, and lo! they had gone for naught. The unexpected sight of her,
sitting on the red divan, simply dressed in black, as though in mourning
for his mother, had swept away all his theories, and left him nothing
but his passion as a man. The minute she lifted her surprised, appealing
eyes to his there had been only one thing to say.

There was no formal greeting between them. He slipped on to the divan
without touching her hand.

"I didn't know you were back," he whispered. "Don't go away and leave me
like that again."

"Did you miss me?" she asked, with childlike directness.

"It wasn't like missing--it was as if my own soul were gone. Every kind
of experience has come to me all at once, and yet, in your absence, I
seem to have been benumbed. It was as if I couldn't feel joy in my bit
of triumph, nor sorrow when we laid my mother in her grave. When you
went, all went; and I didn't know that you'd come back again."

"I didn't know you wanted me."

His response came in the tones that ring forever in a woman's heart, and
which she carries with her into paradise. The mere words Paula had heard
before, but they had not, as now, been set to a music with which her own
being sang. They were only the well-used formulas, which are all that
language provides, and to which the living voice alone lends the
significance. But to Winship they seemed new. He uttered them as though
they were sounds never before heard on earth, and Paula bowed her head,
as though listening to words too sacred for the human ear.

It was a lyric moment, and it was soon over. A few eager questions, a
few straightforward replies, and they were sitting with clasped hands,
pledged to become man and wife.

The dull-eyed, uniformed guardians paid them no attention; the visitors
who entered the room walked briskly up to the much-discussed portrait
without giving them a glance. Only the woman in black and green looked
down on them from her gilded frame, with her ever-unanswered What? and
Why?

Perhaps it was the sight of that which recalled Winship to himself. All
at once he seemed to fall from the blue ether, where he and Paula had
floated alone, to find himself again part of an intricate society. He
came down with a swift realization of the change which a few minutes had
produced. There was no dash upon his happiness; he had only the sudden
fear of owing his happiness to a trick.

He had not explained himself to Paula as he had intended. He had not
made clear to her the distinction he drew between Paula, the woman made
in the image of God, and Miss Trafford, the heiress of the man who had
ruined his father, Roger Winship, in order to insure his own success. In
their mutual situation love alone could not be the determining element,
and she had given her promise without understanding a point which to him
was essential. With what skill he could master he must weave the warning
in, as a skilful composer will make the death-motive heard in the very
strains of the love-chant.

"Paula, dear Paula," he whispered, "I've been afraid of you. I've been
afraid you wouldn't come with me on the road I must travel."

"I'd go anywhere with you, Roger--anywhere on earth."

"It won't be an easy way--especially for you."

"Nothing will be hard with you to help me. I've plenty of courage to
face whatever must be encountered. I've some skill, too," she added,
with a smile.

"You'll need it, darling. Above all, you'll need faith in me."

"You couldn't overtax that, Roger."

"Our love can't take the common course. You and I can't be like a knight
and a lady in a troubadour's romance. We have other things between us
than just the fact that we love each other."

She looked at him with a puzzled expression and an air of listening only
half attentively. A far-off clatter of footsteps caught her ear, with a
hum of voices.

"Even before we met, we were united by a past--" Winship pursued.

"Oh, don't let us talk of that now," she entreated.

"On the contrary, we must. Don't let us have any reserves between us.
It's been in your thoughts all winter, as it's been in mine--"

The sound of footsteps drew nearer, and she hastened to speak.

"But it's all over now, Roger. All I have is yours--all I shall ever
have--"

She stopped abruptly. The quick, incisive ring of one of the approaching
voices frightened her.

"You yourself will be enough, dear," Winship said, with a significant
inflection.

But she was no longer listening. She sat erect, alert and pale. The
voice was surely Laura's. The party were advancing, not directly behind
them, but through a series of rooms at the side. Even Winship's
attention was diverted to them now.

"If you'd only listen to me, George," Laura was protesting, "we
shouldn't have had this endless tramp. I knew from the beginning that it
was down this way. No wonder poor Aunt Trafford is tired out."

Winship and Paula sprang to their feet. Instinctively they moved apart.
Winship retreated a few paces from the divan, while Paula turned to
confront the members of her family, as they came in, in irregular
procession, from the adjoining room. Mrs. George was in the forefront.

"Why, here's Paula, Uncle Trafford," she called back, from the
threshold. "After all the hunt we've had for her, we find her on the
spot."

"There's no help for it," the girl reflected, feeling less brave than a
minute or two ago. "I must tell them--and do it now."

"For goodness' sake, Paula," Mrs. Trafford panted, as she marched in
fanning herself, "I wish you wouldn't spirit yourself away, where no one
knows where to look for you. Your father's been turning the house
upside-down. He's been as crazy as if you'd been kidnapped."

"It's all right now, since we've found her," Paul Trafford laughed,
striding up to his daughter and pinching her cheek. "So this is the
famous portrait. Well, it's you, sure enough."

"Portrait de Mademoiselle T----," George Trafford read from the
inscription. "I should label it 'A Note of Interrogation.' He's made you
look as new-born into the mysteries of this terraqueous globe as Eve
when she first wakes in the garden. No one could possibly live to your
age and be as innocent as that."

"That's the black-and-green thing Paquin made for you," Mrs. Trafford
commented, sinking on the divan. "Why on earth did you select that? I
suppose it was to bring out your complexion. It does do that, I must
say."

"That's a beautiful malachite table," Laura observed. "George, dear, I'm
simply dying to have one. It would go so well in the tapestry-room at
Tuxedo. I believe he's copied the gilded legs of this one from the
malachite table in the Grand Trianon."

All eyes were bent on the portrait. To Winship, standing remote and in
the background, no one had given a glance. Paula kept herself rigid and
erect, waiting for her moment. It was not till her father turned again
towards her, after a few more comments from the family, all in the same
strain, that she knew the hour had come.

"Papa," she said, huskily, "this is Mr. Roger Winship, who painted my
portrait. I've promised to marry him."

Trafford stood still, as if turned to stone. Mrs. Trafford glanced
backward from her seat on the divan. George and Laura wheeled round from
their contemplation of the portrait. It was the sort of shock that
translates itself slowly to the thought, more slowly still into action.

Winship remained motionless, his gleaming eyes fixed on the man who had
struck his father down. His trained observation watched, while dull,
ashen hues stole into Paul Trafford's face, and the determined lips
settled themselves, shade by shade, into the lines of pain.

The silence was long. It was only by degrees that the full meaning of
the situation made itself clear. The eyes of the family, that had been
fixed in amazed contemplation on Winship, now turned towards Trafford,
waiting for a sign.

"Paula, go home," he commanded at last. "Take her," he added to his
wife. There was a quiver in his voice as if he could say no more.

Paula advanced towards Winship and held out her hand. He took it and
held it long, but no word was spoken between them.

"Go!" Trafford cried, with the brief threat of anger, and Paula turned.

She went out first, with bowed head, through the door by which they had
all come in. Her mother followed, pressing her handkerchief to her lips.
Trafford nodded to George and Laura to precede him. George went out
obediently, very pale. On the threshold of the room Laura turned and
looked back at Winship. It was the only glance of recognition, if
recognition it was, that had been vouchsafed him. Trafford himself left
last.

Winship stood still, listening to the tramp, tramp of their footsteps
through the long defile of rooms. He listened while the sound grew
fainter, and till at last it died away. Then he flung himself on the
divan and covered his face with his hands.

"Paul Trafford has got it in the heart," he muttered to himself. "My
God, I've done it!--after the long years. Even it I lose her now--the
victory is mine."




  CHAPTER XIV


Little was said between Paula and her mother on the homeward drive. With
her head thrown back into the corner of the carriage, Mrs. Trafford
sobbed gently.

"Oh, mother, don't," Paula pleaded, from time to time; but Mrs. Trafford
only sobbed the more.

"It's my fault," she moaned. "I never should have allowed you to think
of that absurd portrait. I might have known that some evil would happen
when you began to take up with your father's enemies. It's my fault, and
I never shall forgive myself."

"No, mother, dear, it's not your fault. The painting of the portrait
didn't make me love him. I loved him before that. I can see it now."

"Don't say such a thing. It's shameful."

"But I did, mother. I did, even if it were shameful. I loved him before
the Duke introduced him to me. I've never ceased to think of him, from
the first moment I saw him."

"Oh, the poor Duke! I wonder you have the heart to mention him. If you'd
only married him, as you should have done, this dreadful scandal
wouldn't have come upon us. The newspapers are sure to get hold of it.
They always do. I can't begin to think what your father will say, after
the way he's spoiled you."

Paula sat erect and silent. Her mother had touched the one point that
was vital. What would Paul Trafford say and do? There was no question to
be asked beyond that. Beside that nothing counted.

They reached home at almost the same moment as George and Laura. The
father was following alone.

"It's my fault," Mrs. Trafford broke out anew, as they all met in the
great entrance-hall. "I should never have allowed her to think of it. I
should have insisted on her marrying the Duke of Wiltshire. Better that
she should have taken that Comte de Presles, though I never could endure
him. But anybody--anybody--rather than such disgrace as this! No! I
shall never forgive myself. Never! Never!"

"If it's any one's fault, Aunt Julia," Trafford spoke up, trying to be
consoling, "it's mine. I shouldn't have told her anything about the
Winships, to begin with. I should have known the kind of ardent, crazy
way in which she'd take it."

Laura said nothing, but, if possible, her face was clearer and more
business-like than ever. From the glance of her gray eye to the brisk
movements of her person, everything bespoke resolution and restraint.
Paula remained apart and behind them, just within the door, like a child
in disgrace.

"Come up to my room and talk about it," Mrs. Trafford begged. "I must
have something to say to your uncle when he comes in."

Moving heavily and moaning as she went, Mrs. Trafford mounted the
splendid stairway. George and Laura followed. Excluded from the
approaching conference, Paula, nevertheless, went forward timidly behind
them. At the foot of the stairs she paused. The sounds of wheels had
caught her ear. Her father was returning. She would see him and make one
plea, even if it were a silent one. She stepped aside, standing
inconspicuously by the pedestal of a statue.

Flinging his hat and rain-coat to the footman in the antechamber, Paul
Trafford entered, with set lips and rapid stride. In his eyes was the
look with which boards of directors were familiar, but which Paula had
never seen. It was the look that quenched inquiry before it could rise,
and bore down opposition as if in sheer insolence of strength. It was
the look that turned weaker men into enemies, and drew hatred from those
who were made rich by his co-operation. To Paula it was new and
frightening. She crept out of the shadow of the statue and stretched out
her arms towards him.

"Oh, papa, don't look at me like that."

She would have caught him, touched him at the least; but he put up his
hand to keep her back. She grasped it, but he tore it from her, and
pushed her away.

She staggered, regained her footing on the polished floor, staggered
again, and, recoiling towards the pedestal of the statue, fell. It was
an accident, the mere miscalculation of his iron strength, but as she
reeled and went down, Trafford thrilled with a sense of satisfaction.
The very brutality of the act was an assuagement to the pain of his
outraged adoration. At the turning of the stairway he glanced down at
her as she lay. Let her lie! She was the one being in the world against
whose blow he had no power of defence, and she had struck him.

He passed on to his room, and rang for his secretary. Two minutes later
he was dictating letters on business. It was partly the instinct for
work, partly the impulse to seek refuge in the commonplace from this
upheaval in his affections. He had not reached the point of considering
the situation in its practical light, practical man though he was. All
he could think of now, all there was room for in his big intelligence,
was the fact that his little girl, the one creature on earth whom he
loved with an idolatrous tenderness, had taken a step which, as she must
have known beforehand, would create a cruel breach between them. No
matter how it turned out now, the fact that she had done it would be
there.

She, too, in her room, was thinking in the same strain of him. When he
had thrust her from him the action had taken her by surprise. Not even
when she fell did she seize its full significance. It was only when she
caught his merciless glance, as he passed up the stairway, that she
understood the extent of the indignity he had put upon her.

For a second or two she lay quite still. She pressed her cheek on the
cold, polished wood, drinking in her humiliation. When she dragged
herself up, two hectic spots were blazing on her cheeks, while in her
soft eyes there was a light that made them curiously like her father's.
As she marched up-stairs her head was high, and her step firm, with a
determination altogether new to her. It came over her then that she
could never be again the clinging, dependent Paula Trafford of the past.
Whatever she did in the end, she knew that, outside herself, there would
be no stay sure enough to lean on. She must be, in future, her own
guide, her own judge, the arbitrator of her own destiny. She felt like a
child, putting forth into the night alone. Between leaving her father's
door and reaching Roger Winship's there was a dark, unknown road to
travel, but she must face it. It was difficult to believe that her
father's protecting love would not be there. She was so used to it that
to be without it was like being without shelter. Instinctively she
yearned to stretch out her hands to him again, but the impulse died in
the recollection that he had struck her down.

It was late in the afternoon when Trafford dismissed his secretary and
summoned his wife, George, and Laura. They filed into his book-lined
office, as children before a master. Mrs. Trafford sat near him, by the
desk; George and Laura farther off. Through all the business of the
afternoon, Trafford's thoughts had been working subconsciously towards
the definite step to be taken.

"Now, tell me about this affair," he said, briefly. "Tell me
everything."

Mrs. Trafford, trembling and gasping, recounted what she knew of the
first meeting of Paula and Winship at Monte Carlo, and of the progress
of their acquaintance.

"I shall never forgive myself, Paul," she sobbed, as she brought her
statement to an end.

"You never ought to," he said, with the shortness habitual to him in
moments of excitement. "You knew, as no one else did, what those people
brought on me. You knew how I had to fight them, and how, because I beat
them, public opinion has hounded me as if I were a criminal. They take
me for a heart of brass, indifferent to attack of that sort; but you
knew better. And yet you've permitted this!"

"Paul, I'm very ill," she pleaded. "Spare me!"

"I do spare you. If I didn't spare you, I should say much more."

"Aunt Julia is less to blame than I," George broke out, with a touch of
indignation in his voice. "It was I who told Paula all about the
Winships."

"There was no harm in her knowing that," Trafford said, quickly. "There
was nothing I wanted to hide. You didn't thrust her into their arms."

"No; but I let her go. I knew she felt that in some way we had wronged
them--"

"Then, by God! she'll learn to the contrary," Trafford cried, bringing
his fist down on the desk.

"I knew she felt that," George went on, "but I laughed at her. I didn't
take her seriously. When she talked of giving them a million dollars in
restitution, I joked about it, and told her the easiest way for her to
do it was by marrying the fellow."

"Then you were a damn fool."

"I know it," George agreed, humbly. "I'm only showing that I was more to
blame than Aunt Julia."

"I don't see anything to be gained, George," Laura said, in her most
mildly reasonable tone, "by trying to apportion out degrees of blame,
where, perhaps, there is no blame at all. Paula is of age and
independent. She's her own mistress in every sense. Neither you nor I
had any control over her, and Aunt Julia very little. It was Uncle
Trafford's wish. That's the way he's brought her up."

"I trusted her," Trafford broke in, savagely.

"Naturally," Laura agreed. "So did we. I should trust her again. I must
tell you, Uncle Trafford, dear, that it was I who sent Paula to have
that portrait done."

"Oh, you did, did you! Yes, I remember her telling me so. Then all I can
say of you is that--"

"You see," Laura pursued, calmly, "after the conversation at Monte
Carlo, when George told her about the Winships, and how they had lost
their money, and so on, I could see that she was very much distressed.
It was the first time she had ever come face to face with the idea that
if one man grows rich it often happens that another must grow poor. It
rather pained her. I tried to show her that, with just so much money in
the world, if wealth flows very much into one pocket, it has to ebb a
good deal from another."

"What's that got to do with it?" Trafford demanded.

"It gave her a more reasonable idea of business. It helped her to see
that the Winships might lose their property, and that you might get it,
and yet that the fault might be none of yours. What she felt was
pity--nothing more, and nothing less. You see, Uncle Trafford," she
continued, edging her chair a little nearer the desk, "Paula is more a
child than a woman. It wouldn't be possible for any one to live here on
earth and keep a soul more spotless from the things that the rest of us
have to know and understand. She isn't a man of business, like you and
George. She isn't even a woman of business, like Aunt Trafford and me.
She doesn't reason like the rest of us. She can't. The fact is, her
nature is limited; any one can see it who's ever lived with her. There
are just three things of which she's capable: love for what's good, pity
for what's suffering, and pardon for what's wrong."

"That's so," George corroborated, strongly.

"Yes, it is," Mrs. Trafford added, with a heavy sigh. "It's true, every
word of it, even if I _am_ her mother."

"Look here, Laura," Trafford said, coldly, "if your game is to work on
my sympathies--"

"Oh, but it isn't. I'm only trying to point out to you the way she
reasoned--the way that, with her limitations, she _had_ to reason. She
saw that the Winships were poor and that we were rich. She knew they had
suffered. She had a confused idea as to how it had come about. It wasn't
possible for her to think it out, as we should. She saw only that we
could come to their rescue, and put them back into something like the
position they had held before. The impulse to do it was as natural with
her as to want to heal them if they'd been sick. We talked it over
together, and I--"

"Sent her to marry him," Trafford interrupted, with a grim laugh.

"I advised her to help them," Laura went on, imperturbably, "but to do
it on some such lines as you would approve of, Uncle Trafford."

"God!" Trafford ejaculated, with an impatient flinging out of the hands.

"I remembered how good you were to those old Miss Marshalls in
Turtonville, Wisconsin--"

"Stop!" Trafford thundered.

"I can't stop, Uncle Trafford. I've got to justify myself. I've got to
justify Paula. As far as I can, I've got to justify you. So, when you
spoke to me about the Miss Marshalls, I did all I could to carry out
your wish. That is to say, I kept them regularly supplied with work, and
saw that they were able to earn a comfortable income. I told you about
it, and you were pleased. When it came to the similar case of the
Winships, what more natural than that I should follow the line that you
yourself had commended?"

"The situation was different. You should have foreseen the catastrophe."

"How could I, Uncle Trafford? It was no more possible than for you to
foresee that old Mr. Marshall would shoot himself."

"How _can_ you!" Mrs. Trafford protested, while George tried to silence
his wife with significant looks.

"Go on," Trafford said, quietly. He was not the man to let any one see
that Laura's shot had carried.

"I suggested the portrait," Laura continued, in the same calm tones,
"not only as a means of helping the Winships as a matter of generosity,
but also to divert Paula's mind from any larger or wilder projects. In
that I didn't succeed. I saw all winter that I wasn't succeeding, but I
hoped her ideas would die out with time. They haven't. That's perfectly
plain. And since that's the case, I, for one, dear Uncle Trafford,
cannot see what good will ever come of fighting her. You can't fight
Paula's instinct, not any more than you could fight the Spirit of
Spring. Our worldly weapons have no force against it. You'll excuse me,
dear Uncle Trafford, won't you--but if I might advise--"

"You'd give in?" he asked, hoarsely.

"I'd humor her. If we'd done that at first this thing might never have
happened. It mayn't be too late now."

"When you say humor her," Trafford demanded, slowly, leaning on the desk
and fixing Laura with his penetrating stare, "do I understand you to
suggest giving a large sum of money to the Winships, in what might be
called restitution?"

"I mean the large sum of money; I shouldn't care what they called it.
It's only the strong who can dare to eat humble-pie, and I suggest that
we should do it. The money, of course, is nothing; and for people in our
position, I should think the interpretation given to the act need count
for very little."

"Hmph!" Trafford snorted, springing to his feet; "just as it counts for
very little to a general whether the world looks on him as victorious or
defeated."

"There are different kinds of victory, Uncle Trafford. You who've gained
so many on one field could easily afford to win them on another."

He took two or three paces up and down the room. It was evident to them
all that he was in a state of great agitation. In the many years of
their married life, Mrs. Trafford had never seen him so. The poor lady
pressed alternately her handkerchief to her eyes and her vinaigrette to
her nostrils. George stared at Laura, in mingled surprise and admiration
at her audacity. It was not the first time he had seen advice proffered
to Paul Trafford, but he had never seen it endured so long, or carried
so far.

"You don't know what you're saying," Trafford flung out at last. "In the
eyes of the whole world, I should seem to be climbing down. It couldn't
be kept quiet. The press would ring with it."

"I shouldn't care for that," Laura responded, in her gentlest way, "if
it was to save my child."

He stopped abruptly before her, his feet planted apart, and his hands
thrust deep into his pockets.

"Would it?" he demanded, fiercely.

Laura looked up at him with frank eyes.

"I don't know," she replied. "It would depend on how far it's gone. It
might. I should even think it probable. At any rate, I should try."

Turning on his heel, he walked to the mantel-piece, and stood with his
back towards them. When he remained silent, they made signs to each
other, and slipped away.




  CHAPTER XV


At dinner Paula wore the black-and-green dress in which Winship had
painted her. The detail was lost on Trafford and George, but Mrs.
Trafford and Laura exchanged comprehending glances. Laura managed to
call her husband's attention to the fact, but the father saw only that
the dark setting brought out the rose tints of the girl's complexion,
and increased the blueness of her eyes. She had even hung round her neck
the string of pearls which, in the portrait, she was drawing from the
small gold coffer at her side.

The meal passed in some constraint. Trafford ate with his eyes on his
plate, or crumbled his bread with a nervous movement of the fingers.
Mrs. Trafford was too ill to eat at all. She had only appeared at table
in the hope, as she said, of "carrying things off." The three others
made feeble efforts to talk, Paula avoiding her father's eyes. When her
mother rose, she escaped again to her room.

"Don't wait for me, if you want to join the ladies," Trafford said to
his nephew, when they had smoked awhile in silence.

George understood the hint, and withdrew to the small salon the family
were in the habit of using when they spent the evening alone. His aunt
and Laura were already there, sitting as if in expectation.

Left to himself, Trafford sat staring vacantly at the flowers and
crystal on the table. His cigar went out, as his arm fell limply over
the back of his chair. He was not thinking actively, nor trying to make
plans. His inward sight was fixed on a little black heap, fallen on the
floor, while two blue eyes were lifted appealingly to his. They haunted
him. Their expression became confused in his mind with the unspeakable
look of a fallen Christ, in a picture of Vandyck's he had seen in a
church in Antwerp. His lips twitched, his eyelids quivered.

"My little girl," he muttered to himself. "I struck her down. It's come
to that!"

Again he stared, as if without sight and without thought. It was late in
the evening when he rose, and passed into the salon, where the two
ladies and George were sitting in silence. He went straight to the bell
and rang it.

"Ask Miss Paula to come here," he said to the servant who appeared.

He took a seat and waited. In a few minutes she came. She stood on the
threshold, without advancing into the room. He had again the impression
that her color was very radiant and her eyes strangely blue. He had
another impression, impossible to define--the feeling that his little
girl was no longer near him, but gazing at him across some mysterious
flood. He waited for her to come into the room, but as she did not, he
spoke.

"Paula, my child," he began, as gently as he could, "since this
afternoon I've reflected. You can't be unaware that what you told us in
the gallery has been a great blow to me, a great shock."

"I thought it might be a shock, papa, at first; I didn't know it would
ever prove a blow."

"It has done so, already. I can say, without melodramatic exaggeration,
that it's one which neither your mother nor I can ever get over."

"Oh, mamma, darling, I didn't think that possible."

Her voice trembled, but she took no step to advance into the room. Mrs.
Trafford pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and said nothing.

"I want to do you justice, dear," Trafford went on, "and I want you to
be just to me. We must be sympathetic with each other--"

"More than that," she interposed.

"Yes, more than that. It isn't possible for you and me to have any wish
more sacred than to insure each other's happiness, is it?"

"Not for me, papa."

"I thought so. And you must know that it's equally impossible for me. I
don't have to tell you that you're all I have. Other fathers love their
daughters; I know that, of course. But I don't think many of them do as
I love mine. Come into the room, dear. Don't stand away from me. Come
and kiss me."

Moving forward very slowly, she bent and kissed him. He drew her to him,
and she sank on the floor beside his chair.

"Oh, papa! Oh, papa!" she murmured, throwing her arms about his neck.

"There, there," he whispered, soothingly. "I'm sure we shall understand
each other."

She rose again, and took a seat. She sat directly facing him, the three
others ranged behind his chair.

"I've been trying to comprehend," he began again, "just how it was you
felt called upon to take the step you announced to us to-day. I think I
see it. I needn't explain, for I'm sure you follow me. I don't say that
you're wholly right. That's something we should both find difficult to
discuss. But since you feel as you do, I'm ready to go as far as I can
to meet you."

She clasped her hands tightly in her lap, looking at him with parted
lips and eyes glowing.

"To the young man we saw to-day," he continued, speaking very
deliberately, "I'm ready to give a large sum of money. It shall be as
large as you like. I understand there's been some mention made of a
million dollars. I should be willing to make it that."

"Oh, papa, how good you are!"

"I should settle it on his sister and him, in equal proportions, as I
believe the mother is dead. It could be called restoration or
restitution, or anything else they chose. By the press and the public
and the pulpit, it would be called conscience-money. I should be looked
upon as a penitent thief."

She started from her chair with a protesting exclamation; but he waved
her back.

"Let me go on, dear. Let me show you how much I'm willing to do for
you--I will even say, to suffer for you. You've known something, in a
vague way, of the fight I've had to make, but you've only seen the
favorable side of it. You've known me as victorious, but you've never
known how often I've been wounded. Nobody has. I've kept that as much as
possible to myself. I'm looked upon as a man too hard to be hurt by the
cannonade of popular hatred and abuse; but it isn't so. I've borne it in
silence, and I've lived through it. To a certain extent I've lived it
down. The men who couldn't beat me don't hate me less, but I've got
beyond reach of their powder. That's all. Now, in what I'm ready to do
at your request, I should be putting myself again within their range. I
should be doing more than that: I should be offering myself as a target.
I shouldn't be spared their shots--nor you, nor any of us. I told you
once that I wanted my little girl to be protected from that; but, of
course, we should have to let such considerations go."

"But, dear papa, why should any one ever know?"

He smiled faintly, with a shrug of the shoulders.

"You must go to the press to find that out, dear. I'm not in their
confidence half as much as they're in mine, and I know something of
their secrets, too. How did the New York papers announce the probability
of your marriage to the Duke of Wiltshire, with day and date for our
movements and his, just a week after the first mention of the subject
privately among ourselves? I don't know, any more than you. But this I
do know--that within ten days of the transference of property of which
we've been speaking, the news will be in every paper in the United
States. I know, too, just how it will be interpreted. I can't express it
better than I have done--that I shall be looked upon as a penitent
thief. I shall be abused for the theft and ridiculed for the penitence.
I shall be considered as a man whose mind has become enfeebled in his
declining years. It will be the end of my career, but--"

"Then, papa, darling, I don't want you to do it. I didn't see it in that
light."

"No, dear, of course not. How should you? But I want to do it. I've
considered it well, and I'd rather do it. For, when I've made this
sacrifice for you, you won't be unwilling to make one for me, will you
darling?"

"What sacrifice?" she faltered.

"You'd give this man up."

"Oh, but I love him!"

There was no mistaking the accent of the cry. It came from her because
she could not help it. It fell on the stillness with the strangeness of
a sacred avowal flung out on the common air. It was followed by a hush.
A long minute passed before Trafford spoke again.

"But you don't love him better than me?" he asked, softly, leaning
forward, with his strong eyes bent upon her.

"Not better, papa--differently," she managed to stammer, her cheeks
flaming now, as if with sudden shame.

"You wouldn't give me up for him?"

"I couldn't give you up at all."

"But if the choice lay between him and me?"

She sat with eyes downcast, and made no answer.

"What then?" Trafford persisted, softly.

Again she made no answer. Laura leaned forward, and whispered in his
ear.

"Dear Uncle Trafford, do you think it wise to ask her these questions
now?"

He waved her back, and kept on.

"If the choice lay between him and me, Paula, dear? What then? After the
way we've loved you, after all we've done for you, after the happy years
together, would you go away with this stranger--my enemy--and leave your
mother and me alone?"

"He isn't your enemy, papa," she declared, seizing the one point on
which she was able to reply.

"I must judge of that. But would you go with him? That's what I'm
asking. Your mother is ill, and I'm growing old. You're all we have--all
God has left with us. Would you desert us for a man you didn't even know
a year ago?"

She raised her burning face to him again.

"Oh, papa, how can I answer you? How can you bear to torture me like
this? Surely you know what love is!--not such love as yours and mine,
but the love of man and woman. If you don't know it, the others must.
Mamma, I appeal to you. Laura, I appeal to you. You know what a woman's
heart is when it's given to the one man to whom it can ever go out. You
know that I can't say anything. You know that I can't answer him. Help
me. Protect me. You're women like myself. Mamma! Mamma!"

She ended with a little cry.

"Yes, dear. I'm here."

Mrs. Trafford hustled forward with a sob. Paula sprang to meet her, and
mother and daughter were clasped in each other's arms.

"That spoils it," Trafford commented, turning wearily to Laura. "There's
no dealing with argument like that."

       *     *     *     *     *

A half-hour later, as he was lighting a cigar in his office, Mrs.
Trafford stole in. She was pale and trembling.

"I've got her to bed." she said, with some hesitation. "She'll be
quieter now. She's been terribly unnerved, poor lamb."

He stood with his foot on the fender, and neither answered nor turned
round.

"It's my fault, Paul," she began, weakly.

"So we understood," he flung over his shoulder. "Why return to the point
again?"

"Because I want you to forgive me, Paul."

"What's forgiveness got to do with it? Forgiveness won't give me my
daughter back."

"She's my daughter, too, Paul. You seem to forget that."

"Oh no, I don't. The fact that she is your daughter is my only possible
excuse for leaving her in your incompetent care."

"Oh, Paul! After all the years that we've been married you say that to
me!"

"Good-night," he returned, still over his shoulder.

"I'm very ill, Paul--" she began, once more.

"You won't get any better by standing in this cold room."

"You don't know how ill I am. I've never told you, Paul. I beseech
you--" she went on, brokenly.

"I'm tired," he said, leaning heavily on the mantel-piece. "I really
think we'd better say good-night."

She turned, slowly, and left him. He heard her go half-way up the
stairs, and come down to his door again. She stood a minute, but, as he
made no sign, she turned heavily away once more.

He listened without moving till her door closed behind her. Then he
flung himself into an arm-chair and smoked. He smoked on and on, while
the clock on the mantel-piece chimed off the hours. His mind worked back
to the past and forward to the future. He lived through again the old
days of strife, and drew comfort from the thought of his huge successes
and his many victories. By degrees his pain and anger died down
together. The longing for the love and tenderness of his own home came
back to him.

"After all, she's been a good wife to me," he muttered to himself,
reproachfully. "I'm a brute to treat her so--and I'm a brute to my
little girl."

The early June dawn was breaking when he rose to go up-stairs. The house
was very quiet, and he went on tiptoe past his wife's door, for fear of
waking her.

"Suppose I do wake her," he thought, suddenly, "wake her with a kiss. It
will please her."

He turned the handle and entered softly. A faint light was stealing in.
He went to the bedside and bent over. But when his lips touched hers, he
knew that she would never wake again.




  CHAPTER XVI


It was natural that during the fortnight following upon Mrs. Trafford's
death Paula's more personal affairs should recede to the background.
Trafford's grief for his wife was deep and sincere--all the more so from
the circumstances in which she had died. The mere mention of Winship's
name would have been an intrusion upon sorrow.

But as the days went by, and life seemed to resume its normal routine,
it became impossible to ignore the fact that such a subject could not be
forgotten. There was an uneasy sense of it in the minds of all. The very
reticence with which some themes were avoided, the very skill by which
others were touched upon with tact, heightened the perception that it
was among them, like an invisible presence, at all times when they came
together. If Paula and her father were alone they kept silence--a
guarded, conscious silence, in which the only spontaneous element was
the dread of what might follow upon speech. Their affection for each
other was not diminished; it was only changed by the loss of the old,
clear strain of confidence. They were falling into that painful mutual
attitude in which each looks for the other's move. Trafford's lack of
action was diplomatic; he had lived through many occasions in which he
had learned the advantage of just this kind of waiting. Paula was dumb
only because she did not know what to say.

When Trafford spoke at last, it was for the reason that he thought he
had found his way. He had entered Paula's boudoir one morning on some
unimportant errand connected with the day's domestic affairs.

"And, by-the-way," he said, casually, as he turned to leave her, "how
long will it take you to close up this house? I have important business
that will require our going to America."

For a few seconds she made no response, but it seemed to Trafford as if
her slight, black-robed figure became more erect against the tints of
white and rose and gold which formed the background.

"Then we shouldn't go to Versailles," she said, when she had found
voice. "We should be away all summer."

"Oh yes; longer, in all probability."

"All winter, too?"

"Well, I meant indefinitely."

"And not live in this house any more?"

"It isn't necessary to say as much as that. We can close it, and leave
it with the caretakers. If ever we want to come back to it, we can. It
was your poor mother's idea more than mine, from the very first. Now
that she's no longer with us--"

"Are you doing this with the object of separating me from Mr. Winship,
papa?"

Trafford was not expecting a question so direct. He turned fully round
and confronted her.

"I thought it might have that effect," he said, quietly.

"It wouldn't," she replied, in a tone like his own.

"Do you mean that you wouldn't come with me?"

"Oh no, papa. Of course I should go with you. But it wouldn't separate
me from him. Nothing would. Nothing ever will."

"I suppose you know it's painful to me to hear you talk like that?"

"But you make me do it, papa. You force me to say the things on which
any other girl is able to keep silent. I only do it to make you
understand."

"Understand what?"

"That I love him--that I shall always love him--even if I were never to
see him again--even if I were to marry some one else. I should belong to
him. I belong to him already. I've given him not only my heart, but my
word. I've given it and repeated it. I ought to tell you, papa, that
I've seen him again, since--that day."

"Where?"

"In the same place--for a few minutes only."

"Clandestinely?"

"That isn't a word that should be applied to me, papa. It was an
accident. I didn't stay, even though he had something to explain to me.
I wouldn't even let him write to me without your knowledge. And yet I
feel free to see him, if I choose."

"Even though it be against my command?"

"I don't think I ought to be subjected to command on such a point."

"You'll allow, perhaps, that I have some claim."

"And that I have some right."

"What right?"

"The right of the human being to love, where there is no impediment. I
don't ask for anything strange or astonishing. I'm only begging for the
use of an inalienable privilege."

"You mean the privilege to marry when and where and how you choose,
without regard to those who've loved you and cared for you, and who are
as much concerned in the act as you are. I never expected you, dear, to
blind yourself with that sort of sophistry."

"You put me in a very hard position, papa. You give me the choice
between two courses. I may marry him, and displease you; or I may give
him up, and break my heart. Which would you do if you were in my place?"

"There's one thing I shouldn't do. I shouldn't ally myself with a man
who could never stand towards my own father otherwise than with a drawn
sword in his hand."

"I'm sure he doesn't, papa."

"And I know he does. I take it for granted that the man is neither a
coward nor a fool. You'll allow, perhaps, that I have some acquaintance
with human nature. I know his type and I know his breed. He can't have
inherited any other feeling towards me than one of revenge. Mind you, I
don't say that I blame him much, not any more than I should blame the
serpent who bites with poison."

"Oh, please, don't say things like that."

"I'm warning you, Paula, dear. I'm no novice at this life. I've foreseen
so much that has come true that I can trust my own guess against another
man's experience. You don't know what you're doing, but I can show you.
You're only a little girl, innocent and good, and yet you're rousing the
passions that sleep but never die--just as a princess may press a button
and start up a system of machinery of which she has neither knowledge
nor control. I warn you. Have anything more to do with this man, and the
struggle ceases to be between you and me; it passes to me and him; and
it will last till one or other of us is alone on the field with the
victory."

"But is there no such thing as forgiveness, papa?"

"No--not among men--not in business. There, it isn't even the eye for
the eye and the tooth for the tooth; it's the trick in the dark, or the
stab in the back, or any other means that commends itself. Forgiveness
has no more place in that world than nectar and ambrosia have in this.
You can't fight with balms on the field of battle, and your lover and I
shouldn't choose the weapons that hurt least--"

"Ah, but why fight at all?"

"Do you think that if I stayed my hand he would stay his? Not a bit. I
might have my arms bound to my side, and he'd have at me none the less.
If you married him, that would be my position. You may be sure I
shouldn't strike at your husband, I should stand still and let him
strike at me. He'd do it, mind you, if he's a Winship; he'd do it, and
he'd keep it up, till I was riddled like St. Sebastian. I'm not at the
beginning of my experience of the Winship relentlessness. I told you, on
the very night your dear mother died, how many wounds I had carried out
of the big war I've had to wage. None were so deadly as those which came
from just that quarter, and their shots have never ceased. If they don't
fire them still, there are others who do. There are others who make use
of the Winship defeat to beg for public sympathy in their own; and they
get it. You've only to look through the newspapers and magazines to see
it. I could afford to laugh them to scorn, if it were not for one simple
fact. The chain can't be stronger than its weakest link; so I'm weak,
dear Paula, in everything that touches you."

"Papa, you wrong him. Do believe me. I know him so well. All that is as
much blotted out for him as if it had never been. It isn't as though he
had had any actual share in the trouble. He hadn't--not any more than I.
And he's so good--so noble! If you'd only be willing to see him, to get
to know him, to let him know you, then you'd be as sure of that as I am.
He doesn't care anything for money, or for the strife about money. I
thought that strange, at first, until I began to see that the things he
lives for are higher than--"

"Than those I've lived for. Be it so. You're arguing beside the mark,
dear. The great fact remains that one of us, you or I, must yield--and,"
he added, fixing her with one of his strong looks, "I've never
yielded."

Turning slowly away, she walked to a window and gazed down for a minute
on the trees and traffic of the Avenue du Bois. When she confronted him
again her own look was as strong as his.

"I'd yield, papa, if I thought it was right."

"And don't you?"

"You make it so hard for me to see."

"Surely I put it plainly enough."

"It isn't that I don't see what you mean; it's that you give me such a
terrible alternative. I must sacrifice either him or you--"

"Or yourself."

"I don't count myself. If I could only satisfy both your claims and his
I should be willing to suffer anything."

Trafford winced at the words, but maintained his ground.

"He has no claims."

"Oh yes, he has, papa. He loves me."

"Wiltshire loved you, too. That didn't give him a right."

"But I didn't love the Duke, and I do love Roger Winship. I know it's
wrong on my part, but I could see the one suffer with only a passing
pang, while, if I withdraw my word from the other, it will be like
plunging a sword not only into his heart but into my own."

"Then it's possible that you _should_ withdraw your word?"

"Anything would be possible that was right."

"And you'd have the strength to do it?"

"I should have to have the strength if I had the conviction. I couldn't
go on in a course I thought wrong, whatever happiness it might bring."

"That's a brave girl."

"But, oh, papa, I can't see it yet. I can't promise."

"Not yet, dear, perhaps," he said, coaxingly, "but you could take it
into consideration, couldn't you? You could think about it as a
probability--"

"No--not a probability."

"Well, then, a possibility. In any case, we could go to America, and
stay there awhile, and then we'd--see."

"If you mean that I might come, in time, to think less about him, and
give him up more easily--that couldn't be."

"But you could give him up--that's the main thing. Mind you, I don't say
you would have to, but if it came to the point--"

"I might have the courage, papa. I don't know. It's like asking me if I
should have the strength to die. One can, if one has to do it. And,
after all, I don't care what happens to me, so long as you're
pleased--and are saved from being wounded again--and we can all see our
way to doing what is right--and--"

But Trafford turned sharply away, leaving her with the words dying on
her lips and the brave look still shining in her eyes.




  CHAPTER XVII


"She disarms me," Trafford said, when he recounted the interview to Mrs.
George, later in the day.

Since his wife's death he had come to depend a good deal on Laura. Her
little sitting-room offered him a refuge in times of loneliness, while
the common-sense of her conversation was a relief from the strain that
life had lately taken on.

"I can understand that," Laura returned, looking up from her stitching.
"All her instincts are so right that one feels placed in the wrong,
whether one is wrong or not. But there are two things of which I am more
and more convinced as I grow older. The one is, that nothing is more
precious in life than the love and peace of families. And the other is
this, that to preserve them it must happen from time to time that some
one has to yield, and, perhaps, to suffer."

"Exactly," Trafford agreed, warmly. "I can't save her from suffering,
can I? God knows I would, if I could."

"I'm sure of that, dear Uncle Trafford. One can't have a child of one's
own without knowing that in everything it has to bear one suffers twice
one's self."

"Twice? I suffer twenty times. Since this thing has happened to my
little girl there's nothing she feels that isn't multiplied in me, over
and over again, like a reflection in double mirrors. I give you my word,
Laura, that I rack my brains to explain why the one event in all the
world that could have hurt me most should have come upon me. It almost
carries me back to the belief in a God who occupies Himself with the
details of our affairs and brings the moral consequences of our acts
upon us; and I'd given up that idea long ago."

"I often think," Laura observed, in her musing tone, "that it's easier
to suffer one's self than to see some one we love have to do it."

"Quite so. Quite so. You can see that in Paula. That's the way she
feels. My God! she's a brick if ever there was one. She'd take
everything on herself, if she could. But she can't."

"No, of course not," Laura said, quickly. "It's only the very strong who
can do that. I don't suppose any woman is capable of vicarious
suffering, and there must be very few men."

"What do you mean by that?" Trafford questioned, in the slightest tone
of pique.

"Well, I don't know what I mean," Laura smiled, frankly. "If I mean
anything, it is that there must be here and there a man strong enough to
take the cause of suffering from others, by bearing all the pain
himself."

"Hmph!" Trafford ejaculated.

He was not used to the suggestion that there were men in the world
stronger than himself.

"Of course, I don't know anything about it," Laura admitted. "One only
feels in that way about one's child."

"You can protect your child," Trafford argued, "as long as it will
follow you. Then you keep it to the line of your own defences. The
minute it goes outside, into a course of its own, you have no more
power."

"Do you know, dear Uncle Trafford," Laura said, "I'm beginning to think
that just as, at first, our children's happiness depends on following
us, so, later, our happiness depends on following them?"

"What do you mean by following them?"

"I mean recognizing the fact that they become independent entities, with
independent rights. I mean acknowledging their rights with frankness and
sympathy, and keeping as close to them as possible, whatever they may
do."

"And suppose they do what you don't approve of?"

"I admit that's the hard part. I have to take for granted that the
parent is the wiser and the stronger and the more able to endure."

"That's all very fine! But, now, to take an extreme illustration:
suppose your little Paul were to grow up and go to the bad? Then where
would your theories be?"

"He couldn't go so far to the bad that I shouldn't be as near to him as
I could, offering him at least the help that came from my love."

"Suppose he did worse? Suppose he were to marry--well, say a
chorus-girl, or something of that sort? What then?"

"I don't mean to say that I shouldn't be sorry; but I should do my best
to take her as my daughter, as he would remain my son."

"I don't believe you could do it."

"Very likely I couldn't, but I should try. You see, I feel so strongly
on the question of personal independence."

"But you can't leave much personal independence if you're going to
preserve the love and peace of families, of which you speak."

"Oh, don't you think so? It seems to me just the other way. I've often
thought that most of the domestic misery I ever heard of came from the
fact that the people who had to live together didn't know where to draw
the line between what they could claim and what they couldn't claim from
each other. A family isn't an autocracy, is it, uncle, dear? It's rather
a federation of states, in which each member keeps its sovereign rights.
There never can be love and peace unless those rights are freely
recognized."

"It strikes me that you're arguing rather queerly," Trafford commented,
after a short pause. "It almost seems to me as if you were telling me I
oughtn't to interfere between Paula and this young man."

"Oh, Uncle Trafford!"

"Well, it does."

She let her sewing fall into her lap, and looked at him with those
candid gray eyes, behind which no one could see the shrewdness.

"You mustn't attach any importance to what I say," she avowed, humbly.
"You see, I'm only a woman. I couldn't judge like you, even if I had the
penetration. I suppose every woman gives love and happiness a higher
place in her scheme of things than she ever ought to. It takes a man to
see that there are more important elements in life."

"Such as--what?"

"Well--let me see!--such as ambition--and success--and wealth--and
pride--and--"

"If you put those things before love and happiness, my girl, you're very
much mistaken."

"I shouldn't, because I'm a woman. But I thought men did."

"The young and the bumptious and the feeble sometimes do--not men who've
done my work or lived to my age."

"Still, we women have a simpler idea of happiness than you. It's less
complex, and goes more directly to its point. I don't suppose," she
added, with a depreciatory smile, "that there's anything more serious to
it than just the old, instinctive wish that those who love each other
should--get married."

"Hmph!"

"Oh, I'm not arguing, dear Uncle Trafford. I'm only excusing myself. You
see, we're not without certain successful examples right in our own
household, are we? Dear Aunt Trafford has told me so often how opposed
her family were when she married you."

"Pooh! They didn't keep that up very long. They know now where they
would have been if--"

"Yes, and it's just that which gives me this foolish, feminine
conviction that the heart is the surest of all guides. And then I have
my own marriage. Oh, I know very well that you were all a
little--perhaps only a little, but still a little--disappointed when
George married me. Now that it's all over, and you've been so good to
me, I don't mind confessing that I lived through several months of great
unhappiness, for fear you'd take him from me. If you had, there's no use
denying that there would have been one more embittered old maid in the
world, and George wouldn't have been so happy, either."

"Nor any of us, my girl--I can tell you that. If we were a little
staggered before we knew you, we recovered ourselves easily enough when
we did."

"And so, when I think of Paula--" She hesitated.

"Well--what? Speak up."

"I can't keep myself from wishing that she might be as happy as Aunt
Trafford was with the man she loved, and as I've been with George."

"The cases are different," Trafford jerked out, dryly.

"Oh yes, I know that. It seems a pity, too; because they say he's such a
fine fellow, and sure to make a great name for himself."

"How do we know that?"

"Well, I suppose we don't, except from such people as Lady Alice and the
Duke, who've been his friends nearly all his life. As for his
ability--the newspapers have witnessed to it abundantly. Then, too,"
she mused on, "it would create a great revolution of feeling at home,
though you wouldn't care anything about that. Just as you've been
indifferent to slander, you'd be equally so to applause."

"Applause--how?"

"Don't you see that it would be looked upon as so splendid and superior
and American, that your daughter, who's had dukes and princes at her
feet, should choose to marry a poor man--not only one of our own
countrymen, but the son of one of your defeated enemies? Of course, it
would mean nothing to you, but we weak women of the family couldn't but
rejoice that the world should see you in your true light--in your
simplicity and generosity, and in your great sense of the true
responsibility of wealth. Your traducers would be obliged to stop their
attacks, for there'd be no more powder in their magazine. I don't know
anything about it, Uncle Trafford. That's only the way I feel."

"Ah, well!" he sighed. "Ah, well!"

He rose and took two or three strides up and down the room.

"Ah, well!" he sighed again. "I don't mind admitting to you, Laura, that
I'm miserable about the whole business. When I think of that dear child
crying her brave eyes out, perhaps at this very minute--"

"Yes, I know," Laura interrupted "Then you'd make any sacrifice to save
her."

She felt she had said enough, for she, too, rose and folded her work.

"Won't you come and see Paul have his supper?" she suggested. She knew
he liked to see the boy kick and crow and splutter, and beat with his
spoon on the table.

"No, I don't believe I will," he replied, wearily. "I seem to have had
enough of children. I begin to wish the Lord had never made them."

"If He hadn't, you'd be the first to pray Him to begin," she smiled, as
she turned at the door to leave him. "You know better than I do, that
for Paula's sake you'd throw everything you've ever won to the winds."

"I suppose that's true," he muttered to himself, as he went along the
corridor to his office. "I suppose that's true. That wife of George's is
a damned clear-headed little woman, and she doesn't know it."

       *     *     *     *     *

Only a skilful psychologist could have followed the evolution of Paul
Trafford's thought during the next forty-eight hours. Only a sympathetic
insight could have disentangled the strands of love and self-love, of
egoism and devotion, of passionate affection for his child and of
impulse to make one more appeal to the great, easily hoodwinked public
to indorse him as a high-minded, honorable man.

"Life is only compromise, after all," was one text on which he mused.
"She'd go wild with joy; she'd love me more than ever," was another.
"Laura was right: they would see me as I am--simple, generous,
patriotic, caring nothing for honors or a big name, but only for
sterling worth. They'd come to understand me at last." That was a
fruitful theme of meditation. "Brave little brick! She doesn't care
what happens to herself, so long as I'm pleased, and saved from being
wounded again. God! I'd let myself be stabbed all over my body rather
than that she should shed another tear." That was a subject on which he
could dwell only with eyes blinking. "After all, I may be wrong to
distrust the man. He may be less of a Winship than the rest of the lot.
The old lust for vengeance may have died down, by this time, and the
reign of common-sense begun. Other people seem to speak well of him.
Wiltshire and Lady Alice ought to know. Who can tell? I shouldn't be the
first father who has had to make the best of his daughter's choice, and
I might even come to like him. I'm not a monster, in spite of all they
say of me." From these reflections he took what comfort he could.

It was the third day before he felt convinced that, of all the chances
against him, he was accepting the least dangerous. It was the fourth
before he felt sure enough to speak. He waited till evening, till the
moment when Paula came to kiss him and say good-night. He drew her to
him, and laughed with an air that was almost boyish in its
embarrassment.

"I've given in," he stammered. "My little girl is to do as she likes."

She slipped from his embrace and fell back a pace or two.

"I--I don't understand, papa."

"Don't you? Then I'll make it clearer. I'm a weak and beaten and foolish
old man. You'll see it," he went on, unconsciously quoting
Laura--"you'll see it when I tell you that just as you're my daughter,
so Roger Winship shall be my son."

The little sob with which she threw herself into his arms again was one
of natural relief in the thought that the long strain was over.




  CHAPTER XVIII


Winship had finished his coffee, in the long, red studio, before Marah
brought hers and sat down beside him. Though money had been coming in as
it had never come before, they had made no change in the simple habits
of the days of poverty. Going to and fro in the room, Marah observed
that her brother had received a letter which he read and reread with
unusual absorption.

"Is it another commission?" she asked, as she took her place.

"No," he answered, absently, still pondering the page before him.

When some minutes had gone by, she spoke again.

"It isn't any thing that worries you, I hope?"

"Read," he said, briefly, pushing the paper towards her. She took it and
read:

    "Dear Mr. Winship,--A great bereavement has recently come into
    both our families. Perhaps nothing so much as sorrow teaches us
    the true value of the things of this life. Since God has taken
    my dear wife from me, I, at least, have come to see many things
    from a different point of view. I am sure you will understand
    what I mean when I say that it would give great pleasure both
    to my family and myself to meet Miss Winship and you, and to
    talk over matters of importance, which must be discussed between
    us. May I ask, then, if to-morrow afternoon at three would suit
    your convenience to come to my house in the Avenue du Bois de
    Boulogne?--where, as I have already said, we shall all be glad
    to see you. Believe me, dear sir,

      "Yours very truly,

        "Paul Trafford.

    "P.S.--I beg to add that we lay particular stress on the
    presence of Miss Winship, as some of our topics of conversation
    will be of as much interest to her as to the rest of us."

The brother and sister looked at each other blankly.

"What does this mean?" Marah demanded at last.

"It means first of all that I have asked Paula Trafford to marry me."

"And then?"

"That she's consented."

"And then?"

"That they've all consented."

"And then?"

"And then," he cried, springing up, with a harsh laugh--"then it means
that the day has come to which we've looked forward so long--when we can
say to each other, as Deborah said to Barak, 'Up! for the Lord hath
delivered him into your hands.'"

"I don't understand you. How has He delivered him?"

"Come and see."

"Very well. I'll go."

No more was said: the subject was difficult to speak of; but at three
o'clock they presented themselves at the door of the great house.

Trafford himself met them at the foot of the grand stairway. Now that
this step was definitely decided on, he felt the satisfaction by which
he was always thrilled in playing the benefactor or god from the
machine. With a large share of the sentiment characteristic of the
American man of business in his softer moods, he had a distinct
enjoyment of generosity--especially his own. He came forward with
dignified cordiality, and held out his hand. Winship took it with a
certain gravity. Marah stood in the background, her eyes sparkling like
two electric lamps.

"You're very good to have come," Trafford said, in his kind tone. "I'm
sure we shall all be glad to know one another better. And you, too, Miss
Winship."

He advanced towards Marah, and again held out his hand. She allowed hers
to rest limply within his grasp, but left to her brother the task of
finding a reply.

"The kindness of your letter made our coming imperative," Winship
murmured, politely.

It was all that could be said before the two tall footmen, and Trafford
turned to lead the way up-stairs. As they followed, both brother and
sister were impressed by the magnificence of their surroundings. It was
beyond what they expected, and recalled to the imagination a bit of the
chteau of Versailles in the days of its greatness. Marah felt herself
dwarfed by so much splendor, and it required a mental effort even on
Winship's part to lift his personality above it.

"I want you to know my nephew and niece, George and Laura," Trafford
said, when they had reached the top of the stairs. "I think we shall
have our little talk, at first, without the presence of my daughter."

Winship bowed, and Trafford, with a wave of the hand, ushered the
visitors into the great salon, whose door was standing open.

It was an awkward moment, especially for Marah, who entered first. Her
little figure seemed to dwindle to nothing, in the vast apartment, where
every object was a thing of art. The Louis Seize drawing-room at
Edenbridge was the abode of gentry; but this was the dwelling-place of
kings. Once inside the door, she stood timidly, waiting for the others
to pass in and take the lead, when she became aware of a small lady, in
a long, black train, advancing, with out-stretched hand, to meet her.

"I know this is Miss Winship," Laura said, cheerily. "Our friend, Lady
Alice Holroyd, has spoken of you so often. And Mr. Winship," she
continued, in the same easy strain. "This is my husband, George. Now we
all know one another, don't we?"

George shook hands with the Winships in turn, saying, "How do you do?"
to each. To this they found it a relief to be able to reply with the
same non-committal formula.

"Oh, Mr. Winship," Laura rattled on, as the party moved a few paces
towards the centre of the room, "I can't tell you how much I admire your
portrait of Paula. I've been to see it twice. Everybody says that
nothing equal to it has appeared in the Salon during the last ten years.
Now, do tell me," she pursued, eager to cover up the first few trying
minutes, "didn't you paint that malachite table from the one in the
Grand Trianon?"

"No," Winship smiled, "it's one I had the chance to sketch in the
Quirinal Palace in Rome. You see, I have a knack with marble surfaces,
and so, when I get an opportunity--"

"Shall we sit down?" Trafford asked, offering a seat to Marah.

A Buhl table, with some gilded and tapestried arm-chairs about it,
seemed to offer a rallying-point, and presently they were all seated. It
was partly accident, partly instinctive grouping, that placed Winship
and Marah together on one side, with the three Traffords facing them on
the other. Laura felt that her power of taking the lead was now at an
end. There were a few seconds of constraint before Trafford spoke. He
looked directly at Winship and Marah, though his tone was that of a man
musing aloud.

"Our meeting of this afternoon is of a kind that must make any
thoughtful person believe in the directing finger of a higher
Providence. The very strongest of us must be subject to His authority.
In fact, I don't suppose that with Him there are such things as strong
or weak at all. We are simply His children, fulfilling His designs."

This opening was so little what any one expected that there was nothing
to do but to accept it in silence.

"I realize that the more fully as I see events shaping themselves better
than I could have directed them. Yes, I confess that it is better. I
admit that I have had my own plans--plans that have been very near my
heart. But now, as I approach my threescore years and ten, I see them
being gently taken from my hand, and others offered me in their place.
Very well, I accept them. It doesn't take much reflection to see that an
old man is better occupied in sowing the blessings of peace than in
continuing the wars of his youth. Mr. Winship, I believe you have asked
my daughter to marry you."

"I have."

"And that she's consented."

"I've understood her so."

"Then I, too, consent. I don't pretend that I can give her away easily
to any man. She's more than precious in my sight. But I realize that a
day must come, before many years are over, when she will need other
guardianship than mine; and where can she find it better than in the man
who loves her, and whom she loves, and of whom every one speaks well?"

"I can only say," Winship murmured, "that to me the trust will be a
sacred one. Her very sacrifice in marrying me will make it all the more
my duty to see that she is compassed about with--love."

"I like that," Trafford said, warmly. "Where there's love, care and
sorrow take their proper and subordinate place in the scheme of things.
Mr. Winship, we're simple people, and I'm a plain man. It will be better
for us all if I speak quite frankly and without reserve."

"That's what I should like," Winship agreed.

"We're simple people, but I think you'll find us open-hearted people.
We're a united family, and, with the necessary crosses such as fall to
human lots, we've been a happy family. God has blessed me, even though
He has seen fit to take from me all my children but my little
youngest-born--and, now, her mother, too. Still, He has blessed me. I
should be ungrateful to deny the fact, after all He has enabled me to
do. And just as, in my dear niece here, He has given me, as it were,
another daughter, so I am ready to see in you--an only son."

Winship bowed, and Trafford hurried on.

"You see, we want to take you in as one of ourselves. I want you to feel
that in me you have a second father. I want Miss Winship to be one of us
also; and," he continued, looking directly at Marah, with an encouraging
smile, "I've taken certain steps which I hope will assure her of my
unlimited good-will."

He drew a small memorandum-book from his pocket, and began turning its
pages. Marah sat bolt upright, with the rigidity of steel. Her snapping
eyes were fixed on Trafford, like those of a little animal watching its
minute to spring.

"It would be idle to ignore the fact," Trafford went on, "that it isn't
the first time our interests have lain in the same field, even though
it's the first time we meet. And yet I need hardly go back to speak of
the past. I consider it dead and buried. I want to erect over its ashes
to-day a monument of affection and peace. I'm sure you will understand
the sentiments by which I'm governed, without any further explanation on
my part, when I say, my dear Miss Winship, that I beg to turn over to
you, now, at once, securities to the amount of half a million of
dollars."

"Why?"

The laconic directness of Marah's question had a slightly disconcerting
effect on Trafford's benevolent placidity.

"Surely that's self-evident," he smiled, in gentle response. "Your
brother is about to marry my daughter. It wouldn't be fitting--you'll
excuse me if I speak quite plainly--it wouldn't be quite fitting that
you should remain in your circumstances, while we are in ours."

"They've been my circumstances for over twenty years, Mr. Trafford. I've
battled with them and borne them. I shouldn't be myself, now, in any
others."

"But I want you to feel," Trafford persisted, "that there will no longer
be any need for you to work--"

"I'm used to working," Marah broke in. "I've worked as few people have
ever done. I've worked as I never expected to work in the days
before--before you came into our lives, Mr. Trafford. I haven't only
toiled and pinched and scraped--I've starved. I've seen my mother and my
brother starving. I was only a girl not older than your daughter, and
not less tenderly nourished, when you, with your merciless hand, drove
me out, bewildered and penniless, into the world, with the care of a
mother and a little lad upon me. Now you are willing to erect over my
ruined life a monument of affection and peace. I thank you, but I don't
want it."

"Dear Miss Winship," Trafford said, still more gently, "do you think
that the heart of a general, whose duty it is to ravage some fair
province, doesn't often bleed for those whom he is obliged to render
homeless? Business and war are alike, in that neither conquered nor
conqueror escapes without a wound."

"Men ruin in war for a country's sake; they rob in business for their
own."

"You're using hard words, Miss Winship."

"I'm speaking of hard things. May I ask, Mr. Trafford, if my words
aren't true?"

"Perhaps," Trafford said, with a patient smile, "we should be in danger
of getting into an abstract discussion, when our attention should be
fixed on a particular point. I repeat that I'm glad to place this money
at your disposal, and should be still more glad to know that you
accepted it."

"I couldn't do it. I should feel that I was buying prosperity at the
cost of my father's life, and my mother's twenty years of want."

"Then," Trafford said, losing some of his forced air of patience, "I see
that this part of our discussion is useless, unless," he added, turning
to Winship--"unless your brother can persuade you."

"I think my sister is quite right," Winship said, quietly, and with a
certain air of detachment.

The three Traffords gave a simultaneous start, as if from a slight
electric shock.

"You'll pardon me if I don't understand," Trafford began, rubbing his
hand across his brow "You come here to marry my daughter--"

"I do."

"And you uphold your sister in refusing money that you yourself are
willing to share--"

"No! I never said so."

"But what? Upon my soul, I don't follow you."

It was clear that Trafford's courteous self-possession was breaking
down.

"My position," Winship said, "needs some explanation."

"So it would seem," Trafford assented, dryly.

"I've tried to make Miss Trafford understand from the first, that in
marrying me she would be sharing a poor man's life."

"Hmph! I doubt if she took that detail in."

"I think it quite possible. I've never had any real opportunity to place
the matter in its true light before her. I've had almost no
communication with her since the minute she promised to become my wife.
Without your consent, she has refused to see me, or even to let me write
to her."

"And what might that true light be?"

"Only that I wish to marry her for herself, and for herself alone. If
she comes to me, it will have to be without--money."

Trafford drew his chair closer to the Buhl table, as though to diminish
the distance between them, and fixed on Winship the look before which
all other men had quailed. Winship, too, drew up his chair, and returned
the gaze with quiet steadiness.

"You wish me to understand, I presume," Trafford said, speaking slowly,
"that your motives are quite disinterested. I'll do you the justice to
say that I never questioned them."

"I should like you to understand a little more than that," Winship
returned. "But, first, may I explain that the present situation is none
of my seeking? Had I seen it coming, I should have gone out of my way to
avoid it. There seems to have been no means of doing that. Some
fatality, or some destiny, has forced it on us all. If I had been given
my choice, the last woman in the world whom I should have wished to
marry would have been--a child of yours."

"You're quite right to be frank," Trafford threw in, with a touch of
irony.

"Thank you. I shall try to be so. May I go on with my explanation? It
wasn't I who sought Miss Trafford out, neither was it she who sought me.
She was impelled towards me by the knowledge that you had killed my
father, impoverished my mother, and blasted my sister's life."

A sound came from George like the low growl of a dog. Trafford put out
his hand to repress it.

"Let him go on," he muttered. "This is the most remarkable wooing I ever
heard of."

"Yes; it has to be," Winship agreed. "But I want to put things in a way
which will admit of no future doubt. I want to put them justly, too. So
when I say that Miss Trafford knew these things I don't mean that she
was able to formulate them to herself as facts. She was only convinced
of them in her inner sense of rectitude. Her love and loyalty remain
with you; her verdict and her sympathy have long ago gone out to me and
mine. Do I make myself clear? I repeat that, if it hadn't been for the
situation that you yourself created, your daughter and I would probably
have passed each other by as strangers."

"And since you haven't done that," Trafford broke in, impatiently, "I'm
here to say that I'm willing to make the best of it. You've fallen in
love with each other, as I understand; and though I don't look upon it
as the most brilliant match my daughter could make, I'm ready to swallow
my own disappointment in order that she should be as happy as possible.
I'm ready to make you rich. I'm ready to make your sister rich. What's
the use of dragging up a lot of unfortunate rubbish at the very minute
when we could put everything right again? If it's folly to kill the
goose that lays the golden eggs, it's surely criminal to strangle the
poor dove that comes with the olive-branch of peace."

"It isn't the peace I object to, but the terms of the treaty."

"My God! Don't I offer you enough?"

"Yes; too much. I ask only for your daughter's hand, empty of dower."

"Look here! Do you mean to tell me that you think of marrying my child
and supporting her out of your miserable painter's pittance?"

"Since you choose to put it so--yes."

"Then you're mad, It's out of the question. It's preposterous. She's
lived like a princess all her life. She'd spend in a day all that you
could give her in a year."

"I think not. I think she'd be content with what I could offer her."

"But, for the love of Heaven, why should she? Here's money to squander,
money to throw away, money to burn up--"

"It's money I couldn't touch. It's money I couldn't allow my wife to
touch. It's the money for which too many widows and orphans are still
clamoring. It's the money for which too many beggared men are still
cursing the sound of your name. It's the money that came when old
Marshall, of Turtonville, shot himself, and Rawson, of Fitchburg, hanged
himself, and Brewer, of Albany, went mad, and Bennett, of Cleveland,
became a forger, and Jackson, of Ohio, stabbed your agent and got penal
servitude for life, and Lewis, of Philadelphia, died a drunkard, and
Barnes--"

"That's enough!" Trafford cried, sternly, holding up his hand.

"I know it's enough," Winship threw back. "I could go on with the list
and make it much longer without mentioning my own father's name. But
that's enough. You can finish it, no doubt, for yourself. Such names are
not easily forgotten."

Trafford sprang to his feet and strode away from the group. With his
hands behind his back and his head bent, he took two or three paces
across the room. Marah had scarcely changed her position since the
conversation began. Laura sat biting her lip and looking at the floor.
George, grasping the arms of his chair, was like a bull-dog held in
leash and straining to spring at the man opposite, who was, apparently,
the least concerned among them all.

Trafford strode back to the group again.

"You're a clever man, Mr. Winship," he said, tapping with his fingers on
the table. "You're an ingenious man. You've had a blow to strike at me,
and you've chosen the weapon you knew to be the sharpest."

"I didn't choose it," Winship returned, quietly. "It came into my hand."

"But you know how it cuts."

"Yes, I do know that."

"And you have no scruple about thrusting the blade in."

"The whole world has learned from you, Mr. Trafford, that scruples
belong only to the weak."

"I see what you've been working round to," Trafford went on, musingly.
"I see it now. I see. I see. I see the whole game."

"It isn't a game," Winship corrected--"it's a situation."

"It's more adroit than I thought at first. The worst of which I could
suspect you was the plan of marrying my daughter in order to get her
money. That would have been bitter pill enough for me. That ought to
have given you an ample revenge. But this is--what shall I say?--this is
so clever as to be nearly devilish."

"I must call your attention again to the fact that the circumstances are
not of my making, but your own. I didn't seek to love your daughter. I
must say again and again that we were brought together in consequence of
your own acts. Now that I do love her, I want to marry her. That's
natural enough. But I can't touch your money. No honorable man could.
It's blood-money. But, there again, if that knife cuts you, it's one of
your own forging, not of mine. It isn't the first time the conquered
have been avenged by the very cruelty of the conquest. _Io Victis_ is a
song the world has heard over and over again."

"Hmph! Blood-money! It's blood-money, is it? And you want my child to
say so."

"I want her to be true to what I know are already her own high and holy
convictions."

"You want her to choose between you and me, before the world. Then, by
God! she shall," he cried, bringing his fist down upon the table.

He marched to the end of the long room, and threw open a door.

"Paula!" he called, loudly. "Paula, come here!"

When he rejoined the group he was very pale. Instinctively they all rose
as Paula appeared in the doorway.

For an instant she seemed to hesitate, her dark figure framed in the
arch of white and gold. Then she came forward a step or two, and paused,
then a step or two more, and paused. She seemed doubtful of what they
expected her to do. They could see that her eyes were aglow, her cheeks
delicately flushed, and her lips parted in a half-smile. She was in
black, with a row of black pearls in the frill around her throat.

The silence and immobility with which the group about the table regarded
her approach soon began to bewilder her. She looked from one to another
questioningly, and her smile faded.

"What is it?" she asked, pausing again before she had quite reached
them.

"Paula, my child," Trafford said, "I've given my consent to your
marriage with Mr. Winship, and I've not withdrawn it."

The half-smile came back. Her eyes sought Winship's; then the droop of
the long, black lashes hid them again.

"But Mr. Winship," Trafford pursued, "is not satisfied with my consent.
He asks for more."

"No, not for more," Winship corrected. "I ask for nothing."

"Mr. Winship asks for so little, dear, that it becomes significantly
much."

"I don't understand at all, papa."

"Then I'll put it to you plainly. Mr. Winship is ready to marry you, but
you must come to him empty-handed."

"I shouldn't care," she said, promptly. "I don't mind about the
money--not at all. I know what Roger means. He wants every one to see
that it's for myself--not for anything else."

"That isn't quite his motive, dear. But perhaps he could explain it
better than I can. Will you be good enough," he added, turning to
Winship, "to tell my daughter why it is that you'd shut her out from the
provision I've worked so hard to save for her?"

"If Miss Trafford is willing to make the sacrifice, it seems to me the
explanation becomes unnecessary."

"I don't want an explanation, papa--I really don't."

"I think you'd better have it, none the less," Trafford insisted, "If he
won't give it, I will. Mr. Winship will not touch my money, nor allow
you to touch it, because it's blood-money."

"Oh, don't, papa," the girl pleaded. "Don't tell me."

"I must tell you, dear. The time has come when you've got to make a
choice--when you've got to decide between my enemies and me."

"But Roger isn't your enemy!"

"You'll see. He wants you to stand forth before the world and declare
that, in your opinion, I am a robber, an assassin--"

"No, no," Winship cried. "That's not fair. That's not what I ask for. I
ask only that she shall come to me as she is, without money, without
dower. I'm not trying to force her into putting any construction on the
act--"

"And I'm not splitting hairs." Trafford interrupted, scornfully. "I'm
not drawing nice philosophical distinctions. If she doesn't put a
construction on the act, you will, and the world will. Paula, darling,
he wants you to refuse my money because it's blood-money. Those are his
words. He wants you to marry him without a penny. Then every one will be
able to say that Paul Trafford must be what his enemies and traducers
have called him, because his own daughter thinks him so."

"Oh no, Roger, you don't mean that!"

"He means more, dearest. He means that, as you are all I have, so even
that shall be taken from me."

"But I couldn't be!"

"That's for you to decide, dear--and to decide now. He knows that I
could bear up against the world, whatever it might say, whatever it
might be led to believe. But he knows, too, that what I couldn't bear up
against is that you should say, 'Papa, I can't touch your money, I can't
touch your hand, because they're full of blood.'"

"Roger, I wish you'd speak!" she pleaded. "I wish you'd tell me yourself
what it all means."

"How can I tell you?" he asked, moving towards her with hands
out-stretched, as if in petition. "Can't you guess? Can't you see? Don't
you know how this stupendous fortune has been brought together? Don't
you know that it's been by every form of financial jugglery the mind has
been able to invent? Don't you know that it's been by ways as crooked as
they were cruel? Don't you know that it's been by a system of
depredation so gigantic that even the common opinion of the common world
has risen in revolt against it?"

"You lie!" George Trafford shouted. It was as if the bull-dog had torn
away from its leash and sprang at Winship's throat.

"Be quiet, George," Laura begged.

"Stand back," Winship said, in a tone of authority. "I'm here to explain
to Miss Trafford, the woman I love, and who loves me. I lie, do I? Then
why have you Traffords, and your monopolies, been hunted from court to
court, throughout the whole land of America? Why is the press ringing
daily with your name, and calling for justice against you? Why have you
been driven to every legal shift in order to dodge, or twist, or
circumvent the law? Why have you spent millions to buy up clever men, to
corrupt politicians, to bribe a press, and to purchase a little public
that might stand by you? You have no friends but paid friends, and no
standing except among those who are overawed by the brutality of your
power. Even so, no one knows better than yourselves that that power will
not stand a day when once the moral wits of the people are awakened; no
one knows better than yourselves that the very sycophants of your
success will be the first to rejoice in your downfall. And yet you--a
Trafford!--dare to tell me that I lie! Dear Paula," he went on, in
another tone, turning again to the girl, who stood listening with white
face and terrified eyes--"dear Paula, I'm saying nothing new. It's only
what's notorious to the world. You're the only person, perhaps, on earth
who doesn't know it all. If it had been possible to keep it from you, I
should have done it. But it isn't possible. Sooner or later you must
have learned it. Don't you understand, then, that when I see you in the
midst of all this"--he threw out his arms with a wide gesture--"it's as
if I saw you living in, clothed in, the ruin of beggared men and hungry
women and children? When I see you in your splendor, your pearls are to
me like their tears, your rubies like their sweat of blood. I can't bear
it. I can't bear it. It's like desecration. It's like sacrilege. I must
take you out of it. Oh, come away--come away!"

"And leave my father?"

"You needn't leave him. You need only leave--all this."

"Is there no way by which love could make some--some reconciliation?"

"None."

"Then, papa," she said, in a dull tone, "I'm your daughter. If I have to
make the choice, it must be you."

She moved across the room to his side, slipping her arm into his.

Winship raised his hands again, with their petitioning gesture, but,
before the look of pathetic reproach in her eyes, he let them fall
again.

"Paula," Trafford said, in a voice that shook a little, "I've let this
man speak. You've heard him to the end. Now tell him that you believe in
me. Tell him that his charges have failed."

"Oh, papa," she returned, wearily, "how can it matter what I say? I'm so
tired of it all. I give him up; I'm going to stay with you. Isn't that
enough?"

Winship could see, as he had seen once before, the ashen hue steal over
Trafford's face.

"Yes, dear," he murmured, dropping his daughter's hand. "I suppose it is
enough. It will have to be."

There was a minute's pause, and then a simultaneous movement. The
Winships were going away. Paula gave a little start, as of one
awakening.

"Couldn't we be alone together?" she begged, looking round among them
all--"just for a minute?"

It was Laura who, somehow, got them from the room. Winship and Paula
stood, confronting each other. He remained at a distance, looking at her
with burning eyes.

"Roger!" she faltered--"Roger! Would it be useless to make one more
appeal to you? Must our love end like this?"

"Our love doesn't end. Our love can't end."

"But all the rest of it--all our happiness? Is it to be flung away for
this? How could you expect me to turn my back upon my father? It would
kill him."

"Oh, Paula," he said, coming towards her, "I didn't ask for that. Don't
turn your back on him. Love him always, as you've loved him, only come
to me. Renounce all this, that's so unworthy of you, and come to me
without--the money."

"I can't, Roger. Don't you see that I can't? Whatever the money is, even
if it's all you say, I can't separate myself from it now. It's bound up
with my father, and I'm bound up with him. I've got to carry the weight
of it. It seems to me that if you loved me, you'd come and help me bear
it."

"You've only to think of what that would mean, to see how impossible it
would be. You and I living together in splendid luxury on--"

"No, don't," she cried. "Don't say it again. Once has seared the words
right into my heart. I shall always feel them burning there. Then,
Roger, if you can't," she added, hopelessly, "there's nothing for us but
to part. I must go my way with my father, even though I fall in it. God
will help me, perhaps, to stumble on. I must leave you now. I can't
stay--it's killing me. Good-bye--good-bye."

She held out her hand. He dropped on his knee, and pressed it to his
lips.

Almost before he had risen, he found himself alone.

       *     *     *     *     *

It was a dreary little party that assembled in the small family salon
that evening before dinner. Laura's eyes were red; George tried to hide
himself behind his paper; Trafford turned his back on them, pretending
to look down at the stream of carriages coming from the Bois. In the
condition of nervous tension to which they were all wrought up, a
little scream from Laura was enough to make them start.

"For pity's sake!" she cried. "Paula, are you crazy?"

Paula stood in the doorway. She was dressed in some shimmering stuff,
like tissue of gold. On her head she wore the high, round, diamond crown
her mother had bequeathed her; a collar of rubies was clasped about her
throat; a girdle of diamonds and rubies encircled her waist; diamonds
and rubies were on her arms; while round her neck she had the rows upon
rows of the famous Trafford pearls. Her roselike color was bright, her
eyes shone, and she smiled valiantly.

"My God, what a vision!" Trafford muttered, under his breath, as he
watched her from the embrasure of the window.

"Well, you _have_ rigged yourself up!" George commented, looking up at
her, over his paper, with a sort of savage reproach. "What's the idea?"

"Really, Paula," Laura protested, "I don't think you ought to--"

"Let her alone," Trafford commanded, striding forward. "I know what she
means; don't I, dear?"

"I hope so, papa," she smiled, as she let him take her into his arms,
"because it's my profession of faith. I wear them because they're your
gifts."

She came into the room, and the conversation turned on the degree to
which the jewels suited her. The commonplace topic relieved the strain,
and the evening passed in a sort of artificial cheerfulness. It was not
till they were parting for the night that Laura found the moment for a
private word with her.

"I wouldn't force myself, if I were you, dear," she advised.

"I have to," Paula replied, with arms uplifted in the act of taking off
her crown. "I couldn't do it without forcing myself. But I shall be
equal to it, Laura. I'm not afraid of breaking down. Only you must help
me. You must laugh when I do, and we must both talk brightly. I want
papa to think I've done it easily. If he doesn't, he'll be unhappy, and
everything will be in vain."

"God bless you, dear," Laura murmured, as she kissed her. "God bless
you; and bless you again."




  CHAPTER XIX


Paul Trafford stood at a window of that house which no changes have been
able to dissociate from the memory of La Pava. It was the middle of
September, and he was thinking idly that the increased stir in the
Champs-lyses showed already that the dispersed forces of Paris were
beginning to concentrate again. From mountains, sea-shore, and chteaux;
from Asia, America, and the antipodes of the world, the great, beautiful
city was drawing new resources for the endless tragic comedy that makes
up her life. The curtain was rising on a season in which the events
would be as different as the fashions from those of last year. What were
they to be? In every nerve of Paris there was that sense of awakening
curiosity which is simultaneous with the moment when the chestnuts put
forth a few fresh, green leaves among the brown, and here and there a
flower. The slanting autumn sunshine was rich with the desire that is
more earthly, more passionate, and more essential to the heart than all
the hope of spring. Youth, with its careless anticipations, had gone on
its holidays in June; middle-age was coming back, with its desperate
longings, in September. There was to be something new, something the
eye had not seen before. Was it possible that there would be fulfilment
for the demands which had had none as yet? When the Invisible Hand
turned the kaleidoscope of events, what would the new combinations be?

Paul Trafford was wondering that on his own account. What kind of a
season was preparing for him now? It was just a year ago, here in this
very Travellers' Club, that Wiltshire had broached the subject of his
love for Paula. Trafford had entered on the winter which he had thought
to make the happiest of his victorious career. And yet, in those very
months, he had lost his wife, and wrought some indefinable change
between his daughter and himself.

Yes, there was a change. There could no longer be any doubt of that. But
was it between them or in them? Trafford was not used to close analysis
of character, and admitted he did not know. She puzzled him. She seemed
happy; she was often lively, in her quiet way. She was tenderer and
sweeter with him than she had ever been. She had borne the rupture with
Winship so easily that he had been astonished. He could only think that
the scene in June, with its brutal attack upon himself, her father, had
killed what she had taken to be her love for the man. All that had
passed off satisfactorily. And yet there was this subtle difference in
her, this something which was just within range of his perception,
though it was beyond his power to explain. In spite of her nearness, she
seemed mysteriously apart from him. It was as if there was in the
atmosphere about her some spiritual element that put him ill at ease. He
wondered if he were not growing to be afraid of her, as though she were
no longer the daughter of his blood, but some ethereal visitant from
other spheres.

"If her sister Jennie were to come back to me from the Lord's own
keeping," he sometimes said to himself, "I don't suppose I should have a
stranger feeling of unearthliness."

There seemed to Trafford but one means of bridging over the gulf that
had opened between the girl and common life: that she should marry and
have children. It was impossible then for his mind not to go back to
Wiltshire. There was the man for her! It was a million pities that she
had not felt so herself. He would have watched over her and worshipped
her. He would have been to her all that Hector was to Andromache. There
were even times when Trafford imagined that Paula regretted having sent
him away. He was afraid to hint at it, for fear of touching too rudely
what might be the delicacy of an awakening sentiment. But the fact was
there, that she spoke of him often, and always in a strain of
tenderness. Then, too, she had never looked so favorably on any other
man, with the exception of this young Winship, for whom, after all,
apparently, she had not cared.

"Lord! if it could only be brought about," he said to himself now. "I
believe I should be ready then to depart in peace."

He was turning away from the window to think of his lunch, when he was
suddenly arrested by an incident which seemed to him like an answer to
prayer. Wiltshire himself was entering the club. There was nothing
remarkable in the fact, beyond what was passing in Trafford's mind.
Wiltshire was a member of the Travellers', and it was natural that he
should be in Paris at just that time of year. But Trafford could not see
it so. Long ago he would have called it one of his lucky chances. Now he
could only feel that Wiltshire had been "sent."

The two men shook hands with a sincere effusion which meant more than
pleasure in each other's company. Each was an actor in the other's
drama, and the interrupted play could begin again.

"This is luck," Wiltshire exclaimed. "I thought you were in America."

"I meant to go, but I didn't. I found that George could look after what
was to be done just as well as I. He's there, with Laura and their
youngster. Paula and I are at Versailles. You must come out and see us."

"I should like to. In the mean time, can't we have lunch together? Then
we could talk a bit."

"All right; but not here. There'd be too many fellows interrupting us."

In Trafford's tone there was a hint of confidences to be exchanged to
which the Duke was not insensible.

"Let's go to Henry's," he suggested. "That's where they feed you best
just now."

It was in the minute of going out to take a cab that each found leisure
to note the changes that seven months had produced in his companion.

"By George, he's improved!" Trafford said to himself. "I believe Paula
would see it. He's better-looking, and he's smarter, and he's got an
expression in his face that was never there before."

"I wonder what's aged him so?" Wiltshire was asking, silently. "He's
grown old in half a year. He looks like a man who's had some great
shock. I suppose it must have been Mrs. Trafford's death."

The scraps of conversation after they had ordered lunch were as the
tuning of the fiddles to the playing of the piece. Wiltshire talked of
his trip to the Cape, and gave his views on South Africa. He shifted to
the Dolomites, where he had been in August, and passed on to tell of a
few days' shooting he had just had in Hungary.

"Now I'm on my way home to slaughter birds at Edenbridge. I suppose
Alice and I must have some people there."

"I expect you're very keen on it," Trafford hazarded.

"Not a bit. If there was anything better to do, I shouldn't go. Let me
give you one of these eggs _ l'cossaise_. You'll find 'em good. The
fact is, Trafford, I can't stay anywhere. I'm on the jump. Wherever I
am, I feel as if I should be more at peace somewhere else. When I went
out to the Cape, I thought that if I could only get away from Europe I
should be all right; and yet, bless you, I hadn't been there a day
before I was mad to be back again in England. But, Lord! England is the
last place I can stay in. If ever I do take a week at one of my places
over there, Alice passes a procession of virgins before me, as if I were
King Ahasuerus."

"Well, you'll marry one of them in time."

"No, that's done for. I'm one of those dull men with whom such things go
hard. It's just a year ago, isn't it, since we first spoke
of--of--something that never came off?"

"If you don't mind my saying so, Wiltshire, I always thought you gave up
that fight rather easily."

"Do you mean--?" Wiltshire began, with a jerk.

"No, I don't. I don't mean anything more than I say. In business we
generally keep at a thing till we do it. In love--"

"In love there are two sides to consider. In business you have only your
own."

"But I've always understood that the business of love was to make the
two sides one."

"When you can. I was under the impression that I couldn't. May I ask you
if you are of another opinion?"

"My dear boy, I have no opinion at all. All I know is that since you
left Monte Carlo last February my little girl has been a different
creature. There's something the matter with her still. I don't know what
it is, but it's clear she isn't the same."

"Do you mean that she's unhappy?"

"I shouldn't go so far as that; and yet if I did I don't know that I
should be very wrong. To me it seems as if she were living in another
world. She goes and sits for hours in the park of the Petit Trianon--my
little place touches it, you know--and when she comes back the look in
her eyes is like that of some sweet soul strayed out of paradise. I
don't know what to say to her or how to talk to her--I'm damned if I
do."

Trafford made fierce lunges at his slice of _pr-sal_, and ate
savagely. Wiltshire did not eat at all. He sat reflecting for a few
minutes before he spoke.

"I've been under the impression," he said at last, "that there was
something between her and young Winship, the painter."

"Oh, pshaw! There was nothing in that," Trafford declared, gulping
nervously at his Chablis. "What could there be?"

"Only what might not be unreasonable between a girl like Miss Trafford
and a handsome, idealistic young chap--"

"Oh, come now! The fellow's a damned scoundrel. I know all his ins and
outs, and of his people before him."

"I'm surprised to hear you say that. I've always thought rather highly
of him. Alice has just got him a somewhat important commission. He's
been over at Sandringham painting Queen Alexandra. She'd heard about his
portrait of Miss Trafford, and got Alice to send her a photograph of it.
She seems to have been quite struck with it, and sent Miss Trafford a
message to that effect. She thought the likeness extraordinary, apart
from the other merits of the work."

"Yes, I believe Lady Alice did write Paula something of the sort."

"We were rather pleased over the business, so that I'm sorry to hear
your opinion of the young man--"

"Oh, my opinion is of no importance. The only thing that counts is that,
as far as I can see, Paula thinks of him as I do. I shouldn't pay any
attention to the matter, in one way or another, if it were not for the
purpose of assuring you--"

"Thanks!"

The word came out in that dry, laconic tone which hints that the rest of
the subject can be best pursued in silence. It was dropped then and
there, with a significant abstention from further speech. It was only
when they were shaking hands at the door, to go their different ways,
that Trafford alluded to it again.

"I say, Wiltshire," he began, with a touch of embarrassment, "I hope you
won't take anything I said about young Winship too seriously."

"Oh no; I assure you."

"I called him a scoundrel. I had no right to do that. It's a word I'm
too quick to use of any one whose ideas are different from mine. From
the little intercourse I've had with the man, I can't say that I like
him, and yet I'm blowed it there isn't something in him I rather
admire."

"Oh, I sha'n't think any more about it. Well, good-bye, old chap I'm
ever so glad to have seen you."

"Good-bye," Trafford returned, as he got into his fiacre. "I'll tell
Paula you're here, and I know she'll want you to come out and see us."

Wiltshire waited till Trafford was out of hearing before he turned round
to the _chasseur_ at the door of the restaurant.

"Find out for me," he said, "when there will be a train for Versailles,
and call me a cab."




  CHAPTER XX


An hour later Wiltshire stood before the little palace built for Jeanne
du Barry, but stamped with the immortal charm of Marie Antoinette. It
was so many years since he had been there that he had forgotten the
simple elegance of its pale, pilastered facade, against which four
pomegranate-trees made dark spots of verdure, with an occasional late
scarlet flower. Cab-men hung about the gateway, children played in the
court, and tourists waited at the door for their turn to enter. She
would not be here, he said to himself, and passed onward to the park.

He avoided the road to the Hameau and the more frequented routes. If he
found her at all, it would be in some secluded spot, where the tourist
would be little likely to venture. From the terrace of the villa he
surveyed the French garden, with its lines of purple, scarlet, and
orange flowers making arabesque designs between the quaint,
close-clipped limes planted by Louis XV. With the exception of some
children sailing a boat on the basin in the centre, there was no one
there. Down by the Octagon Pavilion a girl in white was sketching; he
descended towards her, but it was not she whom he sought. He went on
through a labyrinth of hedges, where princesses and court ladies had
loved to wander in the cool of the _aprs-dne_, and now the shy birds
were startled by a foot-fall, taking flight with a sharp whir of wings;
but all was solitude and silence. The rose-red line of the Grand
Trianon, skirted about by gardens, brilliant with the splendid hues of
the end of summer, showed itself on his left; but he turned from it and
sought the deeper recesses of the park. A majestic mournfulness spread
about him as he went farther on. Pines shot up their bronze-colored
shafts with the straightness of palms. Ancient pointed firs drooped with
a melancholy sweep, dragging their lower branches on the ivy-tangled
ground. Junipers, soft as mimosas and spreading like cedars, were as red
with berries as pomegranates in flower. Dark walls of clipped yew led to
stone basins, where the water was heavy with dead leaves, and the bronze
water-babies seemed to have been arrested forever, in mid-play, by
tidings of calamity. Pale buildings showed here and there their
crumbling roofs through clusters of lilac or beneath yellowing elms.
Here was a rustic village, there a temple of love, elsewhere a
sculptured pavilion, and everywhere the ghost of a woman whose story is
the most moving of earthly dramas since that of the Son of Man.

Wiltshire wandered on, seeing no one but an occasional workman or a
party of tourists.

"Never mind," he said to himself. "If I don't find her to-day, I shall
come every day till I do."

He strayed aimlessly, knowing that any deliberate search would be
useless--and that only some happy chance would bring them together.
There were many probabilities that, in the semi-obscurity of shaded
alles and winding paths, they would pass each other by. There were many
more that she had not come at all. Still he would keep on, he said,
until twilight told him that further staying would he fruitless. He
would rather meet her in some such spot as this than in the commonplace
atmosphere of a drawing-room.

There was a moment when he found himself in a by-way dim with the
enchanting gloom of laurel, privet, and box. The sunlight that filtered
through the high trees above reached here only in faint flecks of gold
on the sombre foliage. The pathway climbed a little knoll, and seemed to
lead into some sacred grove. A murmur of falling water caught his ear,
and he followed its music, seeking the source. There were no birds nor
flowers--only a hush, a stillness, a solemnity, as if sound would be a
profanation, since the songs and laughter of the proud men and
light-hearted women, who had frequented here, had been frozen on the
lips by the horror of the coming tragedy.

It was with surprise that Wiltshire emerged suddenly into a sunny
grass-plot, with a view of green meadows and a meandering stream. Close
beside him, on the brow of a little cliff, perched a small pavilion--an
epitome of that beauty, simple, stately, and sure of itself, to which
the eighteenth century worked up, through all the splendors of color and
all the graces of form. The autumn sunlight, bathing the cream-colored
walls, showed glimpses of the white-and-gold decoration within--the
lyre, the harp, the flute, and whatever else is suggestive of lightness,
gladness, and song. Wiltshire stood still. He was not an imaginative
man--and yet he could almost persuade himself that he heard the tinkle
of the spinet giving out some melody of Gluck's--he could almost fancy
that he caught sight, through the high windows, of the Queen's white
fichu or Madame Elisabeth's percale.

He was so lost in the memories of the spot that for a minute he nearly
forgot the object of his quest. It was only when he began to look about
him that he became aware of the presence of a girl in black. She stood
in the centre of an arched rustic bridge, which, beyond the pavilion,
spanned the tiny, artificial chasm beneath. Behind her a towering mass
of rocks formed a sort of grotto, from whence came the sound of falling
water which had lured him on. Her hands rested on the rustic balustrade
of the bridge, and she stood looking at him, as he at her.

For a minute it seemed as if there were some uncertainty in their mutual
recognition. It was only when her lips quivered in a faint smile that
Wiltshire had the courage to go forward.

"How strange!" she cried, turning to offer him her hand, but not moving
from her place in the centre of the bridge. "I was just thinking of
you."

"And I of you," Wiltshire responded, keeping her hand an instant longer
than he need have done. "There must surely have been some unseen force
at work between us."

"Did you think I should be here?" she questioned, in her direct way.

"I knew you lived somewhere near by," he replied, evasively. "I was
really strolling about at haphazard. It's the most wonderful thing in
the world that I should have found you like this."

"Yes, it is," she agreed. "I come out into the park nearly every day,
and I don't think I've ever met any one I knew before. Over at
Versailles one does, but so few people ever come to the Trianons, except
to take a hurried run through the villas and a walk down to the Hameau.
They don't know anything about the real beauties and associations of the
place."

"I didn't myself till this afternoon."

"Oh, but you can't know anything yet."

"I could learn, though, if you'd teach me--and take me about."

"I should love to," she smiled, "but you wouldn't have the time. I
doubt, too, if you'd have the patience or the interest or the
imagination."

"Of the four conditions, I know I could take the time, and I could
cultivate the others. All I should want would be a little steering."

She shook her head.

"I'm afraid you'd need more than that. I question whether you're one of
the elect few who worship the shadows of other days. This is the
enchanted garden of the past. It's one of the few spots on earth where
the past isn't past. Almost everywhere else--in Rome or Athens or Egypt,
for instance--the things that happened a long time ago are hopelessly
out of one's mental reach. But it isn't so here. This is one of the rare
places that later generations have been wise enough to let alone. This
very spot where we're standing is exactly as it was when Marie
Antoinette left it, on October 5, 1789. Did you know that she was right
here in this grotto when the messenger came to tell her that the mob
from Paris was advancing on Versailles? She hurried over to the Chteau,
and never came back any more."

She spoke with a certain breathlessness, as though to gain time or to
conceal embarrassment.

"I'm sure I could learn details of that sort if anybody would be willing
to teach me."

"Ah, but would you come and sit here with Marie Antoinette herself?
Would you put yourself back into her time, and live with her through all
her follies and heartaches and sufferings?"

"I shouldn't ask for anything better, if you'd just show me how to do
it."

"I can see already that you wouldn't have the spirit. I'll test you.
Look over there, in that path beyond the lake. Tell me what you see."

"I see two elderly ladies in dark dresses. One has knitting in her hand,
and one is carrying a parasol."

"And that's all?"

"That's all I can see with the naked eye. If I had a field-glass--"

"Now, that's Madame Adelaide and Madame Victoire, the King's aunts.
They're neither so young nor so pretty as when Nattier painted the
splendid portraits over at Versailles, but there's something sweet and
touching in their faces, and I love to watch them. They come over to
Trianon every afternoon, between dinner and supper. If there's to be
music in this little pavilion, you'll see them, presently, stroll up
here. Now, listen. What do you hear here?"

"I hear some children--squabbling."

"No! How can you? They're not squabbling. That's the little Dauphin and
Madame Royale singing. They've been up in the English garden, and
they'll go by, in a minute, to drive their team of goats in the meadow.
He, poor lamb, will look so wide-eyed and innocent; and she will have
already in her young face the prophetic expression of sadness that
Vige-Lebrun gives her. But I know you won't see it. You'll think it's
two school-children from Versailles. That's because you haven't the
spirit. I feel certain already that you couldn't tell me who that is,
over there beneath that line of trees."

"It looks to me like Madame Elisabeth or the Princess de Lamballe,"
Wiltshire said, with a laugh, "only that she's limping."

"It's the Queen," Paula affirmed, decidedly. "You can tell that by her
walk. She isn't limping. It only seems so to you. No one else has that
sort of gliding carriage, so graceful and, at the same time, so
dignified. Besides, she's alone. That's significant in itself. It's
only at Trianon that etiquette is suspended and she can walk without her
suite. She's on her way to the Hameau to see the cows milked. There's
nothing she enjoys so much, poor thing. She'll be here in a minute, so I
think we'd better go away. If you'll come home with me, I'll give you a
cup of tea, and perhaps you'll see papa. He's been in Paris all day, but
he generally gets back about this time."

Wiltshire kept to himself the fact that he had seen papa already, and
hoped that, if they met, Trafford would do the same. It was just as well
that Paula should think the meeting had come about through the special
intervention of Providence. He turned when she did, and followed her
down, through dim and narrow paths, where they could not walk abreast,
towards the open avenue. He found answers to the many questions she
asked about himself, as she led the way. Where had he come from? Where
was he going? How had he happened to drop down in the middle of the park
of the Petit Trianon, of all the odd places in the world? But, as he
spoke, he had Trafford's words at luncheon ringing in his heart: "Some
sweet soul strayed out of paradise." That was what she was. He could see
exactly what her father had meant. The change in her was difficult to
define, but it was very visible. It would be a vulgarizing of its
spiritual quality to say that it had made her thinner and paler, but
that was the effect. "Her eyes are homes of silent prayer," was the
quotation he had been making to himself all the time she had been
chattering about the King's aunts. It was clear that her
self-possession was but superficial, and that even the cheerfulness of
her conversation had a forced note.

"No happy woman could look like that," he said to himself, when once she
turned half round.

With a great leaping of the heart, he wondered if he could be the cause
of her hidden grief. Trafford had hinted as much, and yet the idea was
too grotesque. She must have known that a sign from her would have
brought him back at any time. He would have scouted the very thought,
had it not offered a straw for his drowning hope to cling to. Besides,
it was not an unheard-of thing for a beautiful woman to love an ugly
man. He could think of several instances among his own acquaintances.
Was it possible, after all, that the miracle had been wrought for him?




  CHAPTER XXI


When they reached an avenue of towering elms, touched already with the
yellow brown of autumn, Wiltshire was able to take his place by her
side.

"This is our way," she said. "We have a little gate farther down that
leads into our own grounds. I'm glad you've come out, because I like
showing my garden to people who haven't seen it. Lady Alice was good
enough to compare it to the famous one at your Irish place, but I dare
say she did that only to please me."

"By-the-way, you've heard from Alice lately, haven't you?"

"Yes; she wrote to give me the Queen's kind message about--about my
portrait."

Wiltshire noticed the instant of hesitation, and observed her sharply.
She continued to walk on, with head erect, in the resolute fashion he
had already remarked as being new to her, but no touch of color came
into her pale cheek.

"I suppose you know that the King was so much pleased with Winship's
picture of the Queen that he has made him stay at Sandringham to paint
the Princess Victoria."

"No; I didn't know it. I'm so glad."

She glanced towards him, but again he got nothing from his scrutiny. It
seemed to him, however, that the old, appealing look was gone, and that
in its place had come something detached, uplifted, which caused him a
sudden sinking of the heart.

"I might as well hope to marry an angel," was the thought that passed
through his mind. Aloud he said: "Yes; it's a fine thing for Winship.
Alice writes me that owing to his being kept so long at Sandringham,
he's had to cut short the visit he was going to make at Edenbridge. She
hopes to have him for a night or two, but not more. I believe he has
orders ahead that will keep him busy for the next two years."

"I'm so glad," she said again.

"I thought you would be," he went on, "especially after what you said of
the family at Monte Carlo. Do you remember?"

"Yes, perfectly. I ought to say, perhaps, that I found you were right,
and that it wasn't possible to do--what I thought of then."

"You've done a great deal better. He's a made man through--what shall I
say?--through your co-operation."

"You mean the portrait. I was only an accident in that. He would have
had the same success with anybody else. It was bound to come."

"Perhaps so; and yet the hand that lifts us up is the one to which we
must be grateful. We can't say that another would have done as well."

If Paula betrayed herself at all, it was then. She stopped in her walk
and confronted him. They had entered a dim, turf-carpeted avenue, where
the solemn aisle of overhanging green stretched on, like that of some
stupendous church, to a distant arch of sunlight. The swish of a
hedge-trimmer's sickle cut sharply on the stillness, and far away they
could hear the rumbling of a forester's wain. In a round opening in the
wood stood a lonely, noseless, armless statue of Themistocles, the one
poor, melancholy ghost of the joyous, by-gone centuries.

"I want to tell you something, Duke," Paula began, with the forced
self-possession he had already remarked in her. "I should like you to
know it before you see papa. I speak of it because--well, because of
what we talked about that day at Monaco. If my father ever owed Mr.
Winship anything, he doesn't now."

"No?"

"No. Mr. Winship found the means by which to repay himself. It wasn't in
money; it was in something else. Mr. Winship wouldn't take the money."

"Do you mean that your father offered to--?"

"Yes; but Mr. Winship refused."

"And of course that hurt your father."

"You'll see. That's one reason why I'm telling you. Papa is very much
changed; he's aged in every way. I want you to be prepared for it."

"Am I to understand that Winship had the power--?"

"He had the power to wound my father deeply, and he used it. I can't
explain myself any further. I only want you to know that papa isn't what
he used to be. Dear mamma's death was a great blow to him--and then
this other thing--and everything--"

She broke off with a pathetic little gesture, and turned to walk on
again.

"I understand," Wiltshire murmured, though he did not understand at all.

Paula said no more, and he felt it best to let the subject drop. They
went on in silence to the end of the vista, emerging all of a sudden
into the open country, with a wide prospect of fields, reaped and
yellow, or lush and green. Dotted about in the hills all round, white
chteaux stood in pleasant nooks, sheltered by overhanging woods.

"This is our place," Paula said, passing through a wicket-gate into a
grove of firs. "It goes by the name of the Pavillon de la Reine,
because, I believe, the first building on the ground was a sort of
studio where Marie Leczinska used to paint. The present house is quite
modern, though, as you'll see; it's in the style of Louis XIII. We
thought at first of one or two more historic places that happened to be
in the market, but dear mamma said she wouldn't live with anybody's
ghosts, and so we took this."

In a minute or two they came out on the lowest of three wide terraces,
with gardens designed in the style of Le Ntre, leading up to the
cheerful red-brick facade of a house at once dignified and homelike.
Hedges of box and privet were broken by statues and sculptured urns,
while rows of conically clipped yews made quaint and stately contrast to
the majestic elms and chestnuts, where the gardens merged into the
park. Down from the centre of the house came a broad walk, straight as a
ribbon, descending from terrace to terrace by flights of marble steps.
Each terrace had its pair of fountains, of which the two on the middle
plane were playing. Not far behind the chteau the ground rose gently
into a wooded hill.

"Charming!" Wiltshire commented, as they stood still for a minute to
look up over the successive stages of blossom and verdure. "It does
recall our garden at Kilmaurice, as Alice said. Only this is the real
thing, and that's the imitation."

"I'm glad you like it," Paula returned. "I'm very fond of it. Papa
bought the place only for week-ends, and for entertaining passing
Americans, who like to see a bit of the country; but we've come to like
it better than any of our houses. Ah, there's papa now. He's got back.
Papa, dear," she called, "here's an old friend whom I'm sure you'll be
glad to see."

When Trafford turned from the idle contemplation of a peacock spreading
his tail, his face took on slowly the expression of admiring
appreciation it had sometimes shown to his associates when they had
carried through some unexpectedly successful "deal." When he laughed and
clapped his hands, and called out "Gad!" in a big, jovial voice,
Wiltshire knew that his own prompt action had met with approval, and
that Paula would hear nothing of the lunch at Henry's in the morning.

"It's done him good to see you already," Paula murmured, as Trafford
came down to meet them, shouting words of welcome. "And," she added,
quietly, "it does me good, too, to see him look pleased again."

"If it only needs that--" Wiltshire began, but Trafford was upon them,
and they could say no more.

At tea, in the English garden, on the other side of the house, Paula was
conscious of the fact that they had not been so cheerful since long
before her mother died. The sense of constraint which had become
permanent between her father and herself seemed to drop away in the
presence of this kindly man, with his unofficious sympathy. From her
seat behind the tea-table, in the shade of a trellised wall, hung with
honeysuckle, clematis, and roses, she watched the two men, out in the
sunlight, on the grass. She half listened, and half followed her own
thoughts, as Wiltshire explained to her father the exact situation
between the Church and the State in France. For the first time in months
the ashen hue had disappeared from Trafford's face, while the old light
of power stole back into his dulled eyes. Wiltshire, too, was changed.
She had noticed that from the beginning, but now she had time to remark
the fact more consciously. It was as if he had acquired the dignity that
comes from mental or moral suffering. That reflection brought a pang
with it, and the pity which had always entered into her regard for him
took on a new degree of tenderness.

It required but little urging to induce Wiltshire to stay and dine.
Again Paula had the sensation that life had come into their atmosphere
once more. Her father told his favorite stories with the relish he
would have had a year ago, and laughed with his old-time jollity as he
made the familiar points. He absorbed Wiltshire's attention with the
curious fascination he always had for men; and it both pleased and
amused her to see that, when she left them at the end of dinner, neither
of them noticed it, except to rise as she passed out.

It was then, however, that Trafford's manner changed. He told no more
anecdotes, and presently, as they smoked, he went back to politics. From
politics he passed to business, and from business to philanthropy. Then,
for a few minutes, conversation flagged. Wiltshire felt that they had
been working up to something, and waited for the cue.

"Speaking of philanthropy," Trafford said, with a sudden effort, "I've
got a lot of money I should like to give away."

"That's easily done, as a rule," Wiltshire laughed.

"As a rule--yes," Trafford went on, slowly. "But my case is a little
outside the rule. I wonder if I could make you understand it? I've often
thought that, if ever I had the chance, I should like to talk it out
with you--confidentially."

"Oh, confidentially, of course," Wiltshire said, politely.

"You see, I've given away a deuce of a lot of money, in one way or
another. I've given to charities, I've given to churches, I've given to
hospitals, I've given to orphanages and colleges and libraries and
picture-galleries, and every other damned thing there is to give to.
Now I should like to do something different from all that."

He paused to puff nervously at his cigar. Wiltshire waited for him to go
on.

"I don't have to tell you," he resumed, "that I've been what is called a
successful man. Well, to make my successes a good many poor devils have
had to fail. I know that I'm under no obligation to consider them--none
whatever. And yet, as I grow old, I'll be hanged if I don't think of
them a good deal. Perhaps it's nerves, or perhaps it's nothing but the
living every day with such a creature as that little girl of mine.
Whatever the reason, there's the fact that I should be glad to shuffle
back some of this useless money into the hands of those who used
to--well, who need it more than I, at any rate."

"How would you propose to do it?" Wiltshire asked, puffing quietly.

"There you've got me. That's where I don't see my way. I suppose to you
it seems easy."

"No; on the contrary, I can quite understand that it might be a ticklish
job."

"It's infernally ticklish. It's one of the queer elements of the
situation. Here I am, a well-meaning man, with no other longing than to
do good, and I'll be hanged if I can. I could give you the names of a
dozen people--old enemies, or old enemies' widows and orphans--whom I
should be willing to set up for life, and yet I doubt if they'd let me.
You'd hardly believe that."

"Oh yes," Wiltshire replied, dryly. "A little knowledge of human nature
makes the thing clear enough."

"That's it. You've got that knowledge, and so I thought that you might
help me."

"Oh!"

Wiltshire withdrew his cigar from his lips, and looked round with some
astonishment.

"I mean," Trafford explained, half apologetically, "that if, in any
particular instance, you had the chance to facilitate the thing--"

"Of course, of course. Were you thinking of any one especially?"

"No--no--that is--I know you've befriended the family of that--that
young Winship--who--who--painted a portrait--"

"Quite so. We were speaking of him at lunch this morning, if you
remember."

"You may not be aware that his father was an old opponent of mine."

"I know the circumstances vaguely."

"Then I won't go into them further than to say he was the kind of old
fellow you couldn't spare. I did my best to save him and his family from
ruin, but when they were bent on running into it, I had to let them.
That's all over years ago. Now he has this son and an old-maid daughter.
Don't you understand, Wiltshire, that with more money than I know what
to do with--with money of which I could take three-fourths and bury it
in a hole in the ground and still remain a rich man--don't you
understand that I should be glad--?"

He stopped as if searching for a word.

"I quite understand," Wiltshire hastened to say. "But isn't it the case
that Winship is getting beyond the need of generosity of that sort?"

"No one is beyond the need of what he can get. And whether he's so or
not, I want the fellow to have the money. I want to know that he's taken
it. What he does with it afterwards, or what his sister does with it,
won't matter a twopenny damn as far as I'm concerned, but I want to know
that they've had it. I'd leave it on his door-step, I'd stuff it down
his throat, just for the satisfaction of getting rid of it."

He laughed grimly, and threw the stump of his cigar on the ash-tray.

"Why don't you tell him so?"

"I've done so," Trafford answered, after a moment's hesitation. "He
wouldn't take it."

"Then what would you expect me to do?"

"Do? Do anything, so long as they take the money. I don't care a jot
about their knowing it's from me. I'll give you a million dollars--two
hundred thousand pounds--to juggle into their pockets by any tale you
can invent. Gad! when I think how easy it's been to make money, it seems
like the irony of the very Lord above to find it so difficult to throw
it away."

There were several pertinent remarks in Wiltshire's mind, but he
withheld them. As a matter of fact, he was slightly appalled by the
lifting of this corner of the veil on the rich man's conscience. From
the beginning of their acquaintance he had been interested in Trafford,
as the type of American success, while he had been drawn to him by a
certain bigness and generosity in Trafford's character, but he shrank
from contact with the details of his business career, with the distaste
of the hereditary grand seigneur. It was a relief to him when Trafford
rose, and, assuming another tone, affected to take the matter lightly.
He himself tried to do the same.

"Winship is as pig-headed a chap as was ever driven to market," he said,
as they went towards the drawing-room, "but I know him pretty well, and,
if it's any service to you, I'll try to influence him for his good."




  CHAPTER XXII


The appearance in the _New York Magazine_ of the famous series of
articles, in which the history and methods of the Vermont Mining Company
were exposed, had a clarifying effect on Paula's chaotic thought. Till
then she had not been without the persistent hope that some way of
reconciliation might be found between Winship and her father. "Roger
loves me," she argued to herself, in the first days of the separation.
"He'll come back, and take the money, for my sake." But when she had
read to a close the first of the articles that fell under her notice,
she had none of that hope left. "He'll not take it," she said to herself
then. "No man who knew this could." As she made the reflection, there
floated through her mind Lovelace's couplet:

  "_I had not loved thee, dear, so much,_
  _Loved I not honor more._"

The lines brought her a vague consolation. She repeated them often after
that. They seemed to justify Winship for what had appeared to her like
cruelty.

That was in July. She had picked up the current number of the _New York
Magazine_ quite casually at a news-stand, not suspecting that it could
contain anything of special interest to herself. She learned from it
that the articles had been appearing since the previous March, and
ordered all the numbers to be sent to her.

The first instalment dealt, among other things, with the origin of the
Trafford family, and contained many details of which Paula herself had
little knowledge. It informed her that in the early eighteen hundreds
William Trafford had been a laborer at Cannock Chase, in Staffordshire.
He married a girl named Sarah Paul, by whom he had a large family,
several of their descendants being miners at Cannock Chase to-day. John
Trafford, their second son, emigrated to America about the year 1833. He
settled as a farmer near Cumberland, Vermont, where he married Jennie
O'Mara, a pretty Irish girl, servant in the house of Julius Murray, a
coal merchant in the neighboring town.

John and Jennie Trafford were thrifty, industrious people, with that
instinct to rise in the world which distinguished the earlier emigrants
from the British Isles. Unable themselves to read or write, they were
eager to give their children the best educational advantages the
neighborhood afforded. These were exhausted, apparently, when Andrew was
fourteen and Paul was twelve. Then both lads went to work, Andrew
remaining with his father on the farm, while Paul found employment as
office-boy, with Julius Murray, in the town.

From that point the biography dealt chiefly with the younger of the two.
It recounted in detail Paul's first bit of business inspiration; in
which the boy showed himself as father to the man. A letter from Peter
O'Mara, his mother's brother, who worked in the Dundee Mines, in
Pennsylvania, had hinted at one of those early difficulties between
miner and employer which were afterwards organized into strikes. Julius
Murray told, during all the rest of his life, how Paul had rushed into
his office breathless with the news. He was fond of describing the lad,
as he stood there, straight and erect, in all the dignity of his
thirteen years, his hands behind his back, and his blue eyes flashing.
"Wouldn't it be well, Mr. Murray, to buy up all the Dundee coal you can
get between to-day and to-morrow? By the day after that everybody else
will know the news as well as we." Julius Murray, unaccustomed to wisdom
from the mouth of babes and sucklings, laughed at the boy's ardor and
pooh-poohed his advice. When he awoke next day to the fact that he was
letting a great opportunity slip by, he had only twenty-four hours in
which to do the work of forty-eight. The money he made when, in the
following winter, Dundee coal went up to the price, unheard of in those
days, of eleven dollars a ton, was that which gave Miss Julia Murray the
claim to be considered an heiress when she eloped with Paul Trafford in
1870.

In subsequent numbers Paula read the history of the Trafford rise, step
by step, scheme by scheme, million by million, lawsuit by lawsuit, fight
by fight--a great, sordid epic of finance, in which reputations were
ruined, homes wrecked, lives blasted, and a whole country's commercial,
legal, political, and moral honor brought painfully into question.

Paula read with no more than a vague comprehension. There were so many
characters in the play--lawyers, bankers, merchants, capitalists,
speculators, senators, governors, engineers, journalists, and
politicians of every sort--that she grew confused among them. The scene
shifted so often--now to San Francisco, now to Chicago, now to
Washington, now to St. Louis, now to New York--that her mind could not
keep pace with the action. There were so many questions involved--legal,
legislative, geological, and economical--that her simple intelligence
reeled in the effort to understand.

Where there were dramatic personal events, she grasped the subject more
fully. She could follow the story of the ruin of the Winships from
beginning to end. She could do the same with those of the Marshalls, of
Turtonville, of the Brewers, of Albany, and of poor Jackson, of Ohio.
But whether details were clear to her or not, one great fact surged up
out of this weltering mass of testimony--that the father she adored had
fought his way to success by means which made her shudder. Nothing she
had guessed at, nothing she had feared, could equal this heaping up of
testimony from every corner of the land. Nothing she had ever imagined
of Russian tyranny or Turkish misrule could be more merciless than the
despotism with which her father and his associates, in a country
considered free, had been able to club and crush and gag and grind into
helplessness whatever lifted itself against them. And he was her father!
She was his child! She was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. She
could no more dissociate herself from him and his work than she could
from the line of laborers and servants from whom she sprang. However
confused she might be about facts, she had no doubt as to her duty here:
it was to stand by the man who depended upon her; to stand by him all
the more now, when, in his old age, the storm of popular wrath was
gathering and breaking about him.

All through July, August, and September she had been reading these
articles secretly. That her father was reading them secretly, too, she
knew from seeing in the New York _Herald_ or the _Times_ an occasional
statement from his legal representatives, in which this or that
accusation was denied. How deeply he resented this history of himself
she could see from his increased depression as each new number of the
series appeared. Now, on one of the last days of September, the October
issue was in her hands.

She had just finished reading it, in her favorite corner of the English
garden. It had been especially pitiless to her father in the piling up
of charges against him. She closed the volume, and with hands clasped
upon it gazed vaguely across the lawn, indifferent to its sunlit spaces,
as well as to the masses of dahlia and canna, gorgeous with autumn
bloom.

"No, no," she kept saying to herself, "Roger couldn't take that money.
It's blood-money. And I must keep it. There's no way by which I could
give it up. If I did, it would kill papa. I must go on, all my life
clothed in the ruin of beggared men and of hungry women and children.
Roger said that, and it's quite true. My pearls are their tears and my
rubies are their sweat of blood. And yet I must wear them, for papa's
sake, whatever the world may think, whatever Roger himself may believe
of me. O Roger! O my love! How can I go on all through the years without
you? Oh, God help me!" she prayed, with a sudden lifting of her eyes.
"Oh, God, help me! I'm so weak. I'm so tired, I've so little strength
left to keep the struggle up."

Her breath came in hard gasps, the tears blinded her. She had just time
to control herself, and dash her hand across her eyes, as she saw
Wiltshire coming towards her through the trees.

She was not surprised. She knew he would be looking for her somewhere in
the grounds. During the week after their first meeting, he had come
every second day to the Pavillon de la Reine. During the week after
that, his visits had been daily. In the third week, Trafford had invited
him to move out to Versailles and become their guest.

To this arrangement Paula had given the welcome of acquiescence. Though
she was aware of what her father meant, she was sensible, too, of the
relief which Wiltshire's presence brought into the tension of their
daily life. Whenever he was with them there was a return to something
like the old-time happiness. Her father seemed to grow younger in his
society, and she herself drew comfort from the knowledge that this good
man's support was near. She could not bear to check his gentle,
tentative advances; still less could she bear to give back cold refusal
to the silent pleading in her father's eyes.

Little by little she began to see all that this marriage would mean to
him. It would be more now than anything he had said when he had first
spoken of it, months ago. Then the advantages of protection and position
were to be for her; now she could see that he was not without need of
them himself. It gave her a feeling that the foundations of the earth
were loosened to think that he, whom she had looked upon as almost
omnipotent, should require aid. But there was no doubt that his position
in the world was shaken--as much so as his moral courage or his bodily
frame. The strong, resourceful, self-dependent man had reached the
moment when he was beginning to hold out his hands for help.

It was help which she could give him only to the extent of her love and
tenderness. These she could still offer to the father, when she had
nothing for the financier. From the clamor of his countrymen against him
she would gladly have transported him into another world, where all
attack would be powerless. She remembered suddenly that it was what he
had wanted to do for her, when he had been eager to see her become
Wiltshire's wife. The reflection struck her like a blow, but she did her
best to remain firm and calm beneath the weight of it. The other world
for her, she argued, would be the other world for him. That was clear.
With Wiltshire as a son to him, he would have an ally whose strength it
would be hard to overestimate. She had no skill in calculation, and
little knowledge of the world; and yet she could not be unaware that an
English duke, rich, powerful, highly placed, and full of good-will and
sympathy, could not be other than an able friend to any man with needs
and ambitions like her father's.

So the days at Versailles were slipping by, with courage growing in
Wiltshire's heart and hope brightening in Trafford's, while in her own
she was searching for strength to make the sacrifice.

As Wiltshire drew near, his increased confidence was expressed in his
eyes, his smile, his attitude, and the very tones of his voice. It was
not until he had drawn a wicker chair near to hers that he noticed the
emotion she had been unable to conceal.

"You've been crying," he exclaimed.

"Not quite," she said, trying to smile at him through the mist of her
tears. "I've been reading this."

She held up the magazine, at which Wiltshire looked with a certain air
of embarrassment.

"You know what's in it," she went on, as he said nothing. "You've read
it, too."

"I hope you don't let these things distress you," he said, after a
minute's hesitation.

"If they were said of your father, wouldn't they distress you?"

He leaned forward and drew the magazine gently from her hands.

"It's always well to remember," he said, in a kindly voice, "that one
story is true till another is told. It's perfectly astonishing how many
different versions you can get of what seems like one plain, unvarnished
tale."

"Oh yes; like the 'Ring and the Book,' for instance. But this," she
continued, with a little break in the voice--"this doesn't seem to me
the same sort of thing. There you have different points of view, and
here it's a succession of facts."

"Facts are to the writer what objects are to the painter. He produces
different impressions as he presents them in different lights. The
writer of these articles has chosen the atmosphere which will be most
unfavorable to your father. Some one else might treat the very same
incidents in a way which would give you quite another effect."

"Could any one treat them in a way that would prove that--that
everything was right?"

"Suppose they couldn't," he reasoned, gently; "even so, we've one
important condition to remember, and that is the imperfect conception of
honor that exists in the financial world."

"I don't see why that should make any difference," she declared, with a
touch of honest indignation.

"It does in this way, that it's very hard for any but the highest moral
natures to be superior to the surroundings in which they live. That is,
it's a phase of the much-discussed question of environment. It's even
more than that. It's a phase of the far larger question of the standard
of rectitude by which the human race chooses to measure its public
conduct. No one can deny the fact that it's far from an ideal one. While
we accept in theory the principles of honor and honesty and fair
dealing; and truth, we have recognized systems of not living up to them.
Some of our most respected institutions would have to be made all over
again, if we were to put forth any pretension to follow the Golden Rule
of Christ."

The tiny furrow deepened between her brows, and she regarded him with
the expression of perplexity he had not seen for so many months. She was
trying to understand the strange method by which men regulated their
affairs, and of which even Wiltshire spoke with tolerance.

"What institutions, for example?"

"Well--take the governments of the world as an illustration. They're
fairly good governments, on the whole--most of them. And yet practically
all are inspired by an insatiable greed, and the most ferocious
determination to make one country's gain out of another country's loss.
It's not much of an exaggeration to say that envy, hatred, and malice
are the normal sentiments of every nation towards every other. You can't
open a newspaper, even in the most piping times of peace, without seeing
that the growling of cabinets at each other, in London, Paris, Berlin,
St. Petersburg, Washington, Vienna, Tokio, and Rome, is as savage and
incessant as that of a team of Esquimaux dogs. We have a whole honored
profession whose duties are in the field of hoodwinking, half-truths,
and evasion. We dress it up in gold lace and a cocked hat, and give it a
high place in our society. We have another profession, of which the work
is to shed blood and wreck homes and spread ruin. We give it a sword and
a uniform, and call it noble. Now, I cite these merely as examples of
the way in which mankind contents itself with a defective moral
standard. It's difficult to blame the soldier if he kills, or the
diplomat if he equivocates, or the statesman if he crushes another
people to aggrandize his own. It's what's expected. It's the way the
world acts."

"I don't see that that makes it any better," she argued, with feminine
dislike of compromise.

"It doesn't make the act any better, perhaps, but it helps us to
understand the agent. Few people question, few people are able to
question, the moral conditions they find around them. They accept them
and live in them. And," he added, significantly, "most men engaged in
financial affairs do like the others."

"You mean that they conform to a low standard."

"I'm afraid that's what I have to mean."

"And I always thought my father's standard was so high. That's what
hurts me. Oh, Duke, don't think that I'm blaming him, or trying to argue
against him. I oughtn't to talk of it at all, perhaps. But I'm so very
unhappy, and I've no one in the world to speak to, as I can to you."

"I like you to speak to me about it. It's possible that I can help you.
And in any case I know that you could never harbor a disloyal thought
towards any one in the world--and least of all towards him."

"You see," she stammered, "it's all so--so ignoble."

"Doesn't it give it a somewhat different aspect when you consider that
it's probably not more ignoble than what's going on in eight business
houses out of ten, in London, Paris, New York, and every other great
city in the world?"

"I don't see that a wrong thing becomes less wrong because a great many
people do it."

"Perhaps not; and yet if we know that public opinion is wrong it helps
us to make allowances for the individuals who are governed by it. And
that's what I assert about the commercial and financial worlds--their
moral tone is defective; their conception of honesty is imperfect. The
so-called revelations made, let us say, by the Cronier tragedy in Paris,
and the Insurance scandals in New York, are not revelations at all.
Every one who has much to do with business knows that to make money by
hook or by crook, but to make it somehow, is the one law of the game.
The people who are shocked are chiefly the people who haven't made it.
And that's the sort of virtuous indignation I find in these articles
about your father. I've read them carefully, over the lines and between
the lines, and for one word against his methods I find twenty against
his success. You see, Paula--I may call you Paula, mayn't I?"

"If you like," she murmured, letting her eyes drop.

"You see--Paula--that you and I, whose ideas are different, ought not
to be surprised if a man like your father, who has probably not studied
the question of ethics to any great extent, conforms to the general
standard around him. After all, he's only in the same case with
thousands of other men, who, on every point but that of making money,
are among the most high-minded in the world."

"I know you want to comfort me--"

"I should like to do more than comfort you," he said, with a sudden
change of tone.

"It's the money," she hurried on, confusedly, giving him a frightened
glance. "There's so much of it, and it will all come to me. I shall have
to take it. It would kill papa if he thought I wouldn't. I don't want
it. I hate it. If I could only find a way to give it back--"

"Paula, let me say something. Perhaps I'm daring too much, but I'm going
to take the risk. Did you know I'd begun to hope again? No, don't speak.
I'm not going to ask you the same question as at Monaco. I shall ask
none at all. I've thought more than once since then that perhaps I was
wrong not to accept just what you could give me. I feel it the more
strongly now, when I think I have something better to offer you than
anything I had then."

"Oh, but you couldn't have!"

"If it isn't something better, it's possibly something of which you have
more need. I know your trouble, and I understand it. I don't believe
that anybody in the world could feel with you more thoroughly than I.
It's my trouble, too. It couldn't be more my own, if I was--your
father's son."

Paula gave a little start. The words were so exactly the utterance of
her own thought that they sounded to her like the summons of destiny.
While she sat outwardly composed--pale, still, with hands clasped and
eyes downcast, her heart was calling its last drowning farewells before
going down into the sea of sacrifice.

"It's coming now," she was saying to herself. "I can't help it. I can't
cling any longer. I must let go. Oh, Roger, good-bye!"

"And since the trouble is not only yours but mine," Wiltshire went on,
tenderly, "why couldn't I bear it with you?"

"I don't think anybody could."

"Nobody could but I. I could. I could take you, and shelter you, and
hedge you all round with so much protection, that this great question,
so insistent in your life now, would pass into the second plane."

She lifted her eyes in interrogation.

"This is what I mean," he pursued, quietly. "To my wife even such a
great acquisition of wealth as you might receive from your father could
make no external difference. It would increase her actual possessions,
but it would add nothing to her outward train of life. From the mere
necessities of her position, that would already be as sumptuous and
splendid as it's right for any one's life to be. Whatever came in
addition would be a mere pouring of the Pacific into the Atlantic. You
won't think that I'm speaking in vulgar boastfulness--"

"Oh no."

"I'm only stating the facts as they are. Don't you see, then, what I
mean? If you were my wife, all this money could come to you, and you
could use it as you chose. No one would know, not even your father, that
you didn't spend it on yourself. You could give it away to the last
farthing. You could do more than that. I know that your aim would be not
merely to give the money away, but, as far as possible, to give it back
to the people who used to own it. I would help you in that. We should
make it our life's work. It would he a difficult task, and I don't know
how far we should be successful, but at least we could try it. Here, in
these pages," he went on, tapping the cover of the magazine, "there is
mention made of hundreds of families. We could hunt them up and see what
we could do. We should have to work discreetly, cautiously, secretly,
perhaps, and safeguard in every way the honor of your father's name. But
we could do our best; and even if we only succeeded once it would be
worth the trying. Wouldn't it mean something to you just to be making
the attempt?"

"How good you are! How well you understand!"

"I do understand, Paula, dear That's my one justification for offering
you a sort of bribe. And yet, God knows, I don't mean it as a bribe.
It's only the eagerness of my love to protect you from everything that
could hurt you or make you unhappy. When the gods of old saw those they
loved in trouble or danger, they threw a cloud about them and snatched
them away into a place of safety. And that's what I want to do for you,
Paula. I can do it, if you'll let me. When I see you in the midst of
this huge, unworthy battle, I'm in terror lest some of its arrows may
wound you. But as my wife you'd be safe--that is, as safe as any earthly
conditions can make you. I won't force the great question between us. I
won't ask you again if you love me--"

"Oh, Duke," she broke in, impulsively, "I do love you--in a way."

"Then I won't ask you what that way is," he said, quickly. "If you can
say as much as that, I shall be content."

When a minute or two had passed in silence, he took her hand and raised
it to his lips. Leaning back, with eyes closed, she allowed him to
repeat the caress. But she was thinking of the day when, beneath the
questioning eyes of the woman in black and green, Winship had told her
that he loved her.




  CHAPTER XXIII


There were several reasons for keeping the fact of Paula's engagement to
the Duke of Wiltshire a temporary secret from the outside world.
Trafford himself was receiving only too much publicity at the time, and
he shrank from seeing his daughter's name brought prominently into the
American press, as it would be if the news were known even to a few. As
the wedding was to take place in January, it was decided that it would
be soon enough after Christmas to let the information get abroad.

These details were arranged between Wiltshire and Trafford alone. Paula
acquiesced with a submission which barely concealed her listlessness.
The two men gave themselves up to the enjoyment of their happiness with
an odd unanimity. They made confidants of each other, and discussed
their respective hopes far into every night. Paula was posed like a
goddess in a shrine, while they found mutual delight in singing hymns
and weaving garlands in her praise. They were, in fact, too busy with
the service of the temple to observe that their divinity grew thinner
and thinner and paler and paler, day by day. Because she smiled at them,
and consented to all their arrangements, they failed to notice that, in
the hours they spent together, the number of words she uttered could be
counted.

It was not till they returned to Paris for Christmas and the wedding
that Trafford and Wiltshire received the first shock of enlightenment.

"What have you been doing to her?" more than one old friend exclaimed.
"If I had met her in the street, I don't believe I should have known
her."

The impression made on the father and the lover was one of uneasiness
rather than of alarm. Instead of their plans for London in February,
with the opening of Parliament and the presentation of the new Duchess
at an early Court, they began to talk of Egypt, Algiers, and Biskra.
Trafford had no doubt that she would be better when she was married.
Wiltshire was sure she would regain strength and color in the eagerness
of putting into practice the great scheme of restitution they had
planned.

It was for this reason that he began thinking over the matter of the
million to be forced upon Winship. He had done nothing in that cause as
yet, though Trafford had referred to it once or twice as a promise
Wiltshire had made him. The business which had been repugnant at first
began to have aspects that appealed to him when he thought of the
pleasure his success would give Paula.

During the three months since they had become engaged, he had been
slowly forming his own theory of the situation between her and Winship.
That there was a situation was clear to him from the something guarded
in her words and attitude, whenever his name was mentioned. The young
man had fallen in love with her, he thought, and had asked her to be his
wife. She had resented the liberty, while, woman-like, she had condoned
the offence. The opportunity had been taken to offer him the money
Trafford was so eager to get off his conscience, and Winship had refused
the proposal, as an outrage to his dignity.

The more Wiltshire reflected, the more exactly did this version seem to
fit the facts of the case. The elements it presented were not very
difficult for a man of the world to deal with; and so, on a bright
afternoon in January, he set out for the studio in the Passage de la
Nativit. If he could come back with the news that the victory had been
won, he knew that to Paula the tidings would be more precious as a gift
than all the jewels he could offer her.

And yet, when face to face with the artist in the atelier, Wiltshire
found the subject less easy to introduce than he had expected. Like the
other actors in the drama. Winship, too, had changed much during the
passage of a twelvemonth. With the exception of a few minutes on two
occasions at Monte Carlo in the previous winter, the Duke had seen
nothing of Winship for several years. He still thought of him as
"Alice's protg," a clever, hard-working, immature young man, to whom
he could speak with a certain amount of authority. It disturbed his
ideas at the outset to discover that time, assurance, and success had
evolved a personage quite different from that which he had thought to
find. He had the disagreeable sensation with which the patron always
sees that his subordinate has sprung on to a level with himself. In
theory, he would have been the last person in the world to object to it;
but, in fact, it caused him something akin to irritation. The very ease
with which Winship welcomed him seemed to lack respect. The
matter-of-course hospitality with which he offered him an extremely good
cigar seemed to savor of the man who has made money quickly. Winship's
keen eyes and hard mouth and determined manner were so much at variance
with the timid deference of the lad of eight or ten years ago that
Wiltshire found his sense of annoyance deepening as the conversation
passed from one topic to another. He knew at last that, if the object of
his errand were to be attained, it must be by diving into the subject
brusquely; and so he tried to jerk himself back into the manner of
speaking that would have been natural with "Alice's protg" on one of
his annual visits to Edenbridge, years ago.

"I say, Winship," he began, suddenly, "I've looked in on you to offer
you some advice."

"That's very kind of you, Duke," Winship returned, easily. "I'm sure I
must need it, when you put yourself to so much trouble."

"I rather think you do. We all require a friendly word at one time or
another in our lives."

"I've wanted it many a time, when I didn't get it." Winship laughed,
"and so I'm all the more grateful to you now."

There was a minute's hesitation, during which Wiltshire flicked the
ashes from the end of his cigar with his little finger. He seemed to be
quite absorbed in that operation, while Winship waited, in not unnatural
curiosity.

"I believe," Wiltshire said at last, "that there's been some little
misunderstanding between you and my friend, Mr. Paul Trafford."

Winship's manner changed at once. His hard mouth became harder, and he
sat rigidly upright in his chair, fixing Wiltshire with the stare of his
brilliant eyes.

"On the contrary," he said, quietly. "Your friend, Mr. Paul Trafford,
and I understand each other very well."

The slightly ironical tone gave an additional prick to the Duke's mild
temper.

"Now, don't be an ass, Winship," he laid, impatiently. "Mr. Trafford has
been extremely magnanimous to you, and you've been behaving like an
imbecile. Any man of the world would tell you that."

"Are you in his confidence, Duke?"

"I am to the extent of knowing what he would be willing to do for you."

"And his reasons for wishing to do it?"

"That, I understand, is one which does him credit. He has learned that
in certain transactions with your family, some years ago, the loss
entailed on you is greater than it should have been. He is eager now to
make the loss good. That's all."

"I wonder if that's his way of putting it, or yours?"

"That has nothing to do with it."

"No, it hasn't. It's merely a matter of curiosity on my part, because
it's rather neat. Your friend, Mr. Paul Trafford, has been a long time
learning the fact of which you speak. His mind must have been recently
opened to knowledge. Perhaps," Winship added, laying his hand on a pile
of numbers of the _New York Magazine_ that were within reach--"perhaps
he got some of his information here."

"Rot!" Wiltshire exclaimed, contemptuously. "If you're going to be
guided by stuff like that--"

"No, no, not at all. There's very little here that I didn't learn with
my catechism. My sister, Marah, would be an excellent historian of that
great man's life. She's followed his career, and treasured his sayings,
and marked his doings down, as Boswell never did with Johnson. I grew up
to the knowledge of it all as I did to the art of painting."

"That's very natural. Your sister is a woman who has suffered much. She
has her own point of view, from which you couldn't move her. But I
shouldn't think a man like you would go by any opinion but his own."

"I don't. In all that my sister feels towards your friend, Mr. Trafford.
I entirely agree with her."

"But on slightly different grounds, I presume."

There was something so significant in the Duke's tone that Winship
looked at him a minute before replying.

"Possibly," he admitted at last. "I'm not sure that I follow you,
but--"

"Oh yes, you do, Winship. You follow me well enough. Don't let us have
any beating about the bush. The matter is too serious for that. I may
say that I'm here in the interests of all the parties concerned. Have I
your permission to speak right out, as an old friend, and, perhaps, one
of your best friends?"

"Certainly, Duke; but if your object is to get me to accept money--"

"That's my first object, but not the most important one. I must say that
for a man like you to refuse a sum that would raise him to a position of
affluence seems to me insane. As I understand, it's money to which you
put forth a claim."

"No, no, Duke. May I correct you? The system by which your friend, Mr.
Paul Trafford, ruined my family was a perfectly legal one, leaving us no
claim at all. His plan of attack is always to dodge behind the law,
whenever any one attempts to defend himself or to hit back. Where there
are no laws to shelter him, he buys legislatures to pass them. It's a
very safe method, and stops effectually anything like what you call a
claim--unless it be a moral one."

"Then let's say a moral one. That's the second point I want to make. The
whole matter is removing itself to moral grounds, to a greater degree
than you may be likely to think probable. Trafford's not a bad sort, at
heart. He's far from being the cold, calculating monster the fellows in
that magazine would try to make him out. To my mind he's one of your
characteristic American primitives, possessed by the fury of making
money, as earlier primitives were possessed by the fury of battle. And,
just as with them the zest lay not so much in the conquest as in the
fight, so with him it's not so much in the money as in the game of
getting it. Now that he's had enough of the sport, now that the money is
piled up around him, other primitive impulses are beginning to awaken. I
wonder if you can guess?"

"I needn't guess. I know. It was never an unusual thing for the
robber-baron to be seized with remorse."

"That's it. You've hit it. It's a curious thing to watch, as I've had
the opportunity of doing in the past few months, the slow dawning in the
mind of this gigantic, materialistic, spiritually inorganic creature of
the knowledge that he has a soul. It's like the first uneasy groping
after higher things on the part of pre-historic man. There's something
in it which is at once amusing and terrible. Simple conceptions of
rectitude, that are matters of course to you and me, are strange, new
discoveries to him. On Trafford's part it translates itself by the
repetition of a certain phrase--'To make me successful a good many poor
devils have had to fail. By George, I'd like to set them on their feet
again!' Now, I say, Winship, why should you, from a mere sense of pride,
block the path to a blind man, feeling his way to doing what's right?"

"And not make his repentance as easy for him as possible?" Winship
added. "That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"Something of the sort," Wiltshire admitted.

"Then I may say at once, Duke, that I've no intention of making anything
easy for your friend, Mr. Paul Trafford, that I can render hard. It's
impossible for a man like you, whose life has been cushioned from his
cradle, to enter into the feelings of people like ourselves, who, during
long years, have been the victims of a great and wanton wrong."

Winship spoke quietly, and drew two or three puffs from his cigar before
he went on again.

"I can recall the time when, as a boy of eight or ten, I first heard the
name of Trafford whispered in our household. From the way in which it
was spoken there came to be, in my imagination, something evil and
ominous in the very sound. It grew to be the theme of all my parents'
conversation, and never failed to inspire anxiety, anger, and fear. I
don't suppose you know anything about the misery a young lad goes
through as he watches his elders battling with some great trouble which
he can't understand. The thing is all the more terrible from its
impalpability and vagueness. I don't exaggerate in the least when I say
that it robbed me of all the happy, careless ease of mind which means so
much to any young thing's normal development. I had no boyhood. Paul
Trafford crushed it out of me. He ground us all into powder, as you know
very well. We all had to suffer, but in some respects I suffered most,
though no one took note of it. I was the lad who had to weep behind the
walls, while the women went forth to fight. That humiliation is
unimaginable to you, who have probably never known an hour's indignity."

"That's all you know about it," Wiltshire threw in, with a touch of
bitterness.

"Well, to cut it short," Winship pursued, "I vowed from my boyhood to
hale Paul Trafford into some court where there would be a surer justice
than any meted out by man. It's a curious fact that, while I never saw
my way, I never lost the conviction that some day I should find it. And
I've done so. I've stumbled into it. Or, rather, I've been led into it
by the one hand on earth that has power to inflict on him the very
chastisement of Heaven."

"You must mean his daughter's."

"I do mean hers. I've found all the justice I wanted in the fact that
she knows him as he is."

"Don't you think it was knowledge that might have been spared her?"

"There can be no way of sparing Paul Trafford's daughter, as long as the
sins of the father continue to be visited on the child. That's a law
which nature never relaxes. If there had been any way of escape for her,
I, of all men, should have been bound to find it."

"Why you of all men?" Wiltshire asked, with an effort to maintain his
calmness of tone.

"Because I love her," Winship cried, fiercely. "Because I'm the one man
who can save her. Because her one chance of any kind of happiness lies
in marrying me."

The Duke grew white. His hand trembled so that, after trying to raise
his cigar to his lips, he threw it away. He knew that he must not lose
his self-control.

"I dare say it isn't unnatural for you to feel like that, Winship,"' he
said, with an attempt at speaking kindly. "And if you do care for Miss
Trafford, the way is open for you to make her happy as it is. You could
take the money her father offers you."

"Never! She knows as well as I that it's impossible. What the law has
given him, he shall keep. If I touched a penny of it, I should feel as
guilty as himself. She knows that. I've told her. She didn't understand
it at the minute, but I'm convinced she does to-day. How could she
expect me to take it when I've given up everything--given up my
love--given up _her_--in order to keep my honor? But no! I haven't given
her up. The time will come when her love will bring her back to me. She
loves me, Duke, as I love her--with that kind of love which is for once
and always. She gave me up to stay with him. I honor her for it, and
love her the more. But we're young. We can afford to wait. There will be
a day when she will be free to cast that cursed money from her, and come
to me without it, as she would have come already if it hadn't been for
him. She loves me, Duke," he repeated, speaking rapidly, and with
gestures. "She loves me. I know she will never change or love another.
You know her. You know how pure and holy and true she is. I can wait for
her, for however long the time may be, she'll come to me. I tell you all
this, Duke, because I want you to understand why I don't take the money.
She herself would condemn me for it now. She'll come to me, one day,
without it, and--"

"For God's sake, stop!" Wiltshire cried, hoarsely. "Paula is to marry me
next week."

He sat rigid and white in his chair, his fingers twitching nervously.
Winship, leaning from his own seat, gazed at him with blazing eyes.

"Paula is to--? Oh no, Duke, no."

"Yes," Wiltshire whispered, just above his breath, as though the
admission had in it something of the terrible.

"Great God!" Winship muttered to himself, and sank back limply in his
chair.

Minutes passed without sound or motion on either side. Dusk was
gathering in the long studio. The high north light began to take on a
faint tinge of red, caught from the winter sunset. The two men sat in
such dead silence that the mild tinkle of the door-bell startled them.
Each sprang to his feet and stood listening, as if in expectation.

"Excuse me," Winship said at last. "I'm alone here. I must answer it."

"In any case, I ought to go," the Duke returned He followed Winship
towards the door, with the intention of making his escape when the
new-comer was admitted. But he stopped again at the sound of Winship's
voice.

"Paula!"

Winship stood with the door open, as if unwilling to let her pass.

"I had to come, Roger," she answered, from the threshold. "Don't be
angry. Don't blame me. I've something to tell you. I didn't want you to
hear it from any one but myself. Oh, Roger, let me come in. I had to see
you just this once more. It's only to say good-bye."

"Hush!" Winship whispered.

But it was too late. Paula was already in the room, and face to face
with Wiltshire.




  CHAPTER XXIV


There was no hesitation on Paula's part. She went directly to Wiltshire
and held out her hand. "I didn't know you were here, Duke," she said,
without embarrassment. "I came to tell Mr. Winship something I wanted
him to learn from me, myself. Perhaps, if you're not in a hurry, you
could come back for me."

"If your carriage is here," Wiltshire returned, as calmly as he could,
"I think I won't come back. Alice is to arrive to-day, and I told her to
expect me at the Hotel Bristol about five."

"Then you'll bring her to dinner, won't you? She wrote me she'd come if
she wasn't too tired from the journey."

"That's it," Wiltshire muttered. "We shall meet this evening. Good-bye,
Winship. Au revoir, Paula."

He shook hands with both, and departed with the dignified air of a man
who sees nothing unusual in the situation. When the door closed behind
him, Winship seized Paula's hands and almost dragged her to the light.

"Paula, you've been ill," he cried. "What have they been doing to you?"

She released herself and drew away from him.

"No, Roger, I haven't been ill. I only think
that--perhaps--I'm--I'm--dying."

"My God!" he muttered to himself. "They'll pay for this."

He tried to take her in his arms, but again she stepped back from him.

"No, Roger, don't. We're all alone here, aren't we? Isn't Marah in?"

"Marah is out. We're all alone."

"Then I must only stay a minute," she hurried on. "I came to tell
you--to tell you--Oh, Roger, I don't know how to say it. It seems like a
blasphemy, now that I'm face to face with you again. It's like a crime.
I who love you so that I can make no pretence at not doing it--I'm going
to marry some one else."

"Then it's true, Paula?"

"Yes, it's true, Roger. Did he tell you?"

"Oh, it isn't true. It can't be true. You won't do it. Say you won't do
it."

"I must Roger. I have to do it for papa's sake. There are other reasons,
too. Everything is forcing me into it. I don't know what else to do. I'm
like a lost person. And I love you, Roger. I shall always love you. No
marriage will keep me from doing that."

"Then your marriage will be a crime, Paula, as you say. You must
reflect. You must ask yourself if it's just towards him."

"Yes; I think it's quite just. He knows I don't love him--as I might
do."

"But have you told him that you love some one else?"

"He never asked me. He said he wouldn't ask me anything."

"You must tell him, Paula. You must tell him that you love me. He must
hear it from yourself."

"Oh, Roger, what's the use? It would only make new complications, and
I'm so worn out with those that exist already. I've told you that I
think I must be dying, and I believe it. I don't seem to have the force
to live. There's nothing the matter with me, really, only it's all been
so hard for me. You know I haven't much strength of character; and so,
in the effort to stand alone, I've just--sunk down. I've come to the
point where I'd rather they did just as they will with me than struggle
any more."

"Oh, Paula, you mustn't feel like that when I love you. You'd be strong
if you had my arms to uphold you."

"Yes," she smiled. "I'd be strong then. But, you see, it can't be."

"Why can't it be? Why should you be sacrificed? Why should we both be
sacrificed? You're offering yourself up in an effort that will never
bring happiness to any one. Leave it all behind you, and come to me.
Come to me, as I asked you to come, that day in June. You could go to
England with Lady Alice Holroyd. She knows our story, and we have her
sympathy. I'd follow you, and we could be married there."

"No, no, Roger. I couldn't do anything like that. Don't hope for it. I
couldn't do anything in flight or secrecy."

"You must be reasonable, Paula, my darling. This isn't a matter where
one can follow the rules of a book of etiquette. It's a case of life and
death--of your life and your death. There's no other question here than
that of saving you."

"Nothing can save me, Roger. The situation is such as to leave me no way
of escape. If I were to do what you suggest, it would kill my father."

"But you mustn't let him kill you."

"He doesn't mean to. He hasn't a thought but for my happiness. You
remember how he yielded in everything last spring. If you could only
have accepted his offer--"

"Suppose I did it now, Paula. Would that help you? Would it make you any
happier?"

"I couldn't let you do it now. I know things now that I didn't know
then. I see that you were right. I see that you couldn't take the money.
I'm glad you didn't accept it, even for my sake. But I have to keep it.
I can't separate myself from my father, to secure either your happiness
or mine. It's especially my duty to be loyal to him now, when so many
others are condemning him."

She moved away from the window and dropped into a chair.

"I'll sit down a minute," she murmured. "I'm not very strong, and I'm
easily tired."

"Let me get you some tea," he begged. "I can do it quite quickly, even
though I'm alone here."

"No, don't do that. I've only a minute to stay. Perhaps I shouldn't
have come at all. But I couldn't face--what I have to do next
week--without seeing you once again. I shall feel stronger now, and more
resigned."

"It's monstrous, Paula," Winship broke out, bitterly. "You must not
throw away your life--"

"Roger, dear," she said, softly, "don't let us talk any more about it.
Take a chair and sit near me. There--not quite so near--there. Now let
me look about this dear room. You know I haven't been in it since the
day your mother joined our hands together. That's her chair," she
continued, gazing around the darkening room. "There's Marah's table,
with her paints and brushes. There's your easel, and the lay-figures,
and the old piano. Ah, how familiar it all is! I was so happy during the
weeks I used to come here. You didn't know what bliss it was to me to
sit before you, to hear you talk, and watch you work. I didn't know it
myself then. I was anxious and fearful, already, wondering how it was to
end. But now, as I look back, I can see that that was the good time. Why
couldn't I have been some girl-student, like those I see at the Art
Club?--whom you might have loved, who might have loved you, with no
great, vexed question between us. How happy I should have been if I'd
been poor. That's what nature meant me for. I've often wondered why I
could never feel as if wealth were a matter of course to me, like so
many girls I know, who would think it strange if they didn't have all
the money they want to spend. I suppose it's because I'm like the
people I'm descended from. I've been reading about them in those
dreadful articles every one is quoting. Jennie O'Mara, my grandmother,
was a servant. They say I resemble her, that I have her eyes. You see,
I'm nothing but a simple girl of the people, without either the
instincts or the antecedents of greatness; and yet I'm to be the richest
woman in the world. How strange it is!--and how wrong! That's one reason
why I'm marrying the Duke, Roger, dear. As his wife I shall be able to
slip out of all this, without attracting any notice to myself. Even papa
needn't know it, so the Duke says."

"Paula, don't say that again," Winship pleaded. "You can't marry
Wiltshire. It's out of all reason and possibility. I'll go to your
father. I'll take anything--"

She rose quietly and slipped towards him through the dusk. She laid her
hands on his shoulders and looked down into his eyes.

"I came, Roger, for help and strength. You've given them to me. Just to
see you, to hear your voice, and to know that you love me still, has
made me braver. But if I stay any longer you'll take your help away. So
I must go."

"No, no," he protested. "Not yet--not yet."

He seized her hands and pressed them to his lips. When he released them
she stooped and kissed him.

"Good-bye. Good-bye," she murmured, and glided towards the door.

Winship was wise enough to let her pass out, and go her way alone.




  CHAPTER XXV


Lady Alice Holroyd, dressed still in her travelling-gown, sat drinking
tea and munching toast in Wiltshire's sitting-room at the Hotel Bristol.
Her air was abstracted, and, as she ate, her gaze was fixed absently on
one spot in the carpet.

"I mustn't overdo it," she mused, "and, above all, I must be
sympathetic. It would spoil everything if he thought I had objections on
my own account."

So, when her brother entered, she rose and kissed him cordially.

"You see I've come," she exclaimed. "I couldn't wait another day, after
getting such news as that."

Wiltshire threw his hat and overcoat on one arm-chair and sank wearily
into another.

"So you've come to congratulate me," he said, in a tone of which the
slightly suggested irony did not escape her.

"I've come to wish that you may be very happy, Ludovic."

"Ah! Why the distinction?"

"I'm not aware that I make any distinction. If I do, it's because your
happiness is the first of all considerations to me."

"Give me some tea," he requested, with the air of a man who is very
tired.

"Your happiness is my first and only consideration," she continued, as
she prepared the tea. "It's very natural that it should be. Of course,
you know as well as I do that I used to have other hopes for you; but
that's neither here nor there when once you have made your choice. Your
wife would be my sister, even if you picked her out of a music-hall."

"Well, I haven't gone as far as that."

"I'm only an old maid, Ludovic," she went on, passing him his cup. "I'm
an Englishwoman, a countrywoman, and an aristocrat. I've got all the
traditions, limitations, and prejudices of my class. I'm neither modern
nor democratic nor cosmopolitan. But all that is nothing to me the
minute you've found the woman you love--and who loves you."

She pronounced the last four words in a natural tone, and without the
slightest emphasis; but Wiltshire gulped down all his tea at once, and
passed her back the cup.

"No one would ever accuse me of being a sentimentalist," she pursued, as
she filled the cup again, "but I've lived long enough, and seen enough
of the world, to know that love--mutual love--is the only thing. Nothing
else counts--neither wealth nor descent nor family pride nor anything.
So I say again, Ludovic, that if you love her, and if she loves you,
there's no question about it but that you've done the best thing
possible. It's a pity that there should be all this publicity about her
family history; but I give you my word, Ludovic, that nothing of the
sort shall weigh against her with me--as long as she loves you."

"Thanks," Wiltshire murmured.

"And how is the dear thing?" Lady Alice inquired, in another tone.

"I think you may find her changed. She isn't very well."

"Ah!"

"You'll see for yourself. We are going to dine with them this evening."

"What do you mean by changed? You don't suppose she has anything on her
mind, do you?"

"On her mind? What should she have?"

He glanced up at her sharply, but he turned his own eyes quickly away
before the scrutiny in hers. He had the uncomfortable suspicion that she
knew more of his affairs than he did himself. He remembered that Winship
had stayed with her at Edenbridge, not long ago, and might easily have
taken her into his confidence.

"Oh, I don't know," Lady Alice responded, vaguely. "Girls often have
ideas which they'll allow to consume them away before they'll speak of
them--and especially nice girls like Paula."

"I'm afraid I don't understand you," Wiltshire said, affecting a tone of
indifference. "I think I'll go and dress now. I hope they've given you
comfortable rooms. We ought to leave here at eight."

But, having passed into his room, he did not dress. He sent his man
away, and once more threw himself wearily into an arm-chair, where he
sat pondering.

Yes, it was clear that Alice knew something that had been kept from him.
Her repetition of the clause "if she loves you," "as long as she loves
you," which had seemed to him a few minutes ago like a stab delivered
unconsciously, now came to him like a note of intentional warning. Alice
knew what Winship knew, what Paula knew, what Trafford knew, what every
one knew but himself--that Paula did not love him. She was marrying him
because she could not see what else to do. There had, indeed, never been
any secret about that. It was the ground on which he had approached her.
He had caught her in the snare of her troubles, and bribed her by the
promise of deliverance. He had nothing to complain of. She had never
owned to loving him otherwise than--in a way. He knew now what the way
was. He should never have had any doubt about it. It was the way she had
already acknowledged that day at Monaco. It was in another way than that
that she loved Roger Winship.

As the name crossed Wiltshire's mind he buried his face in his hands,
and groaned. The lifelong humiliation, against which manhood and pride
had enabled him to erect some kind of barrier, swept over him now with
the whole force of its bitter flood. He was the man so cursed with
physical insignificance that no woman could love him for himself. He had
been wounded by the fact even when he had been half indifferent. He had
noticed often enough that the proud beauties, who had let him see that
they were willing to bear his name and wear his coronet, shrank from his
personal contact. But this was the crowning instance of all. Paula did
love him--in a way. That is, she honored and esteemed him. She trusted
him with the secrets which, he believed, she would never confide to any
one else on earth. She was ready to marry him, not out of ambition, nor
from any worldly motive whatever. And yet, even she, as she came to him,
held out despairing hands to a Roger Winship--a pauper--a nobody--a man
who could give her no proud place in the world, nor, indeed, anything
but himself.

In spite of his native simplicity, Wiltshire could not help feeling this
last fact to add gall to his wormwood. It emphasized his condition of
personal inferiority. No one could have greater advantages of position,
wealth, and character; and yet, because he was short and ugly and
dull-eyed, he could neither command love nor win it. The utmost he could
hope for would be the sort of tempered affection which Paula gave--the
affection of one who could look below the surface and honor him for what
was hidden there.

Then as the first bitterness of his reflections passed away, there came
the thought, Why not be content with what he could get? Since life
offered him only half a loaf, was it not better to take it than to go
hungry? It was out of the question for Paula to marry Roger Winship, in
any circumstances in which she could be placed. Then why not make the
best of the situation by marrying her himself? The conditions would not
be ideal for any one concerned, but he would take care that they
involved no actual misery. Of whatever suffering there might be to
bear, he would accept the lion's share as his own. That would be
better--anything would be better--than to give her up.

It was cold comfort, but he had no other. Such as it was, it gave him
the courage to dress, and go with Lady Alice to dine with Paula and her
father. It supported him through the ordeal of the evening, and helped
him to conceal his pain, as he watched Paula's jaded efforts to infuse
into her regard for him something which was not there.

It was when he was driving back to the hotel with his sister that the
current of his thoughts changed again.

"Well, how did she seem to you?" he asked, with evident anxiety.

Lady Alice did not reply.

"Did she strike you as being--altered, since you saw her last?"

Lady Alice looked out of the carriage window, and still kept silence.

"Why don't you answer?" he persisted.

"Because I'm trying to think of what to say."

"You mean, of what will give me the least pain."

"Yes, Ludovic."

"I don't think you need mind about that--now. I appreciate your
hesitation, but it's more or less needless. You know things that I
don't, and yet I do know more than you may suppose."

"That's rather enigmatical."

"No, it isn't. It means only that I've learned so much that you needn't
be afraid to tell me everything."

"What makes you think that I have anything to tell?"

"Roger Winship spent two nights with you at Edenbridge--"

"Well?"

"I don't imagine that you discussed pictures all the time."

"We didn't."

"No; he took you into his confidence, and told you about
himself--and--and--Paula."

Lady Alice seemed lost in the contemplation of the lights and carriages
as they crossed the Place de l'Etoile.

"Aren't you going to speak?" Wiltshire went on.

"What's the good of speaking, Ludovic? If Roger Winship said anything to
me, it's best to bury it in silence. You and Paula are to be married
next week, and so--"

"The good of speaking lies in the fact that I need to know.
Circumstances that touch me most closely are familiar to you, to
Winship, to Trafford, to Paula--in short, to every one but myself.
There's no one to whom I can turn for the information so naturally as to
you."

"But, Ludovic," she cried, in tones of astonishment, "I should think
you'd see it."

"See what?"

Lady Alice had to brace herself before she replied. It was no easy thing
to deal at her brother the blow which must inflict on him a lifelong
pain. She had to remind herself again that he was the head of the house
of Holroyd, and must, at all costs, be true to the history and
traditions of his race. Paula Trafford might be charming in herself, but
no Holroyd could look upon the marriage as other than a family disaster.
"The daughter of a notorious, low-born Yankee freebooter," their uncle,
Lord George, had called her, when the engagement was announced to him;
and much as Lady Alice liked Paula for her own sake, she could not deny
that the designation was just. It was a case in which Ludovic had to be
saved from himself, but, even so, Lady Alice argued, she would have had
the weakness to spare him if Paula had only loved him.

"See what?" she exclaimed, echoing her brother's words. "See that the
girl is dying on her feet, because--"

"Because," he broke in, "she's going to marry me."

"Not quite that, Ludovic. But because she isn't going to marry Roger
Winship."

"You don't know," he cried, desperately. "You've only his word for it."

"I haven't only his word, I've hers. I know what happened--and what's
happening."

"What do you mean--what's happening?"

"I've told you. She's fading out of life. You must all be blind not to
see it."

"And--what happened?"

"You make me say it, Ludovic, mind you. I would have kept it from you if
I could. Last spring, about the time you came back from the Cape, Paula
became engaged to Roger Winship. The father consented, and they might
have been married, only that Roger wouldn't accept, nor let her accept,
any of the Trafford money. Then it was all broken off, naturally enough.
There! Now you know all there is to know. You'll hate me as long as you
live for telling you, but, you see, you've made me."

"You've done quite rightly," he murmured, from the depths of his corner
of the carriage. "It would have been better if I had known it before."

As they rolled on the rest of their way in silence, Lady Alice reflected
sadly on the amount of heroism it sometimes takes to be loyal to one's
membership in a great, historic family.




  CHAPTER XXVI


Early in the next forenoon Wiltshire was ushered into Trafford's office.
He entered with an apology for the untimely hour, but Trafford stopped
him with the assertion that, had he not come, he himself would have gone
forth to seek the Duke at his hotel.

"The fact is, Wiltshire, that I'm worried about her. This morning she's
going around the house like a ghost. It's no use blinding ourselves to
the fact that she's very ill."

Trafford leaned heavily on his desk, and fingered the paper-weights
nervously.

"What do you suppose is the matter with her?" Wiltshire asked, with some
slight hesitation.

"I've had Robin to see her. I didn't tell you that."

"Well, what does he say?"

"Oh, he made up some cock-and-bull story, as doctors always do when
they're afraid to confess their ignorance. Said he thought she was
suffering from some secret grief. I told him that wasn't possible."

"Are you sure it isn't, Trafford?"

"How could it be?"

"I think I could tell you."

"You?"

Trafford raised his head with sudden attention.

"Yes, I. Doesn't it strike you that, between us, you and I are--killing
her?"

Trafford stared at Wiltshire a long half-minute before answering.

"How?" he asked, laconically.

"By urging her into a marriage in which she has no heart."

"Oh, but you must be mistaken, Wiltshire; I know she's fond of you--"

"Yes, as she would have been fond of an elder brother, if she had one.
It's because she's fond of me in that way that she hasn't the heart to
hurt me by refusing--"

He paused, half hoping to be contradicted again. But when Trafford spoke
his tone implied little inclination to dispute the question.

"Do you think so?" was all he said.

"Aren't we obliged to think so? Haven't we the proof before us?"

"Where?"

"In herself. No woman who was going joyfully to her wedding-day would
look as she does. Mind you, I don't say that what she's doing she's
doing unwillingly. On the contrary, she's making a willing
sacrifice--the sacrifice of all her own happiness for the sake of
pleasing you and me. We're forcing her--"

"No, no; not that, Wiltshire. I've never put the slightest constraint
upon her. She's always been as free as the wind. When it comes to
sacrifice, I'm willing to anticipate hers by mine--in everything."

"Not more so than I, Trafford," the Duke said, quietly. "And yet I
repeat what I said: we're forcing her by the very fact of letting her
see how much it means to us. We don't realize that she's just the nature
to break her own heart rather than wound yours or mine. The question for
us to decide is whether or not we're going to let her."

"Of course we can't let her--if you're right."

Trafford spoke with difficulty, finishing his sentence with a sort of
gulp. He bent his head again, and once more began pushing the
paper-weights about.

"And you know I _am_ right," Wiltshire persisted.

Again Trafford hesitated before answering.

"Then what do you propose to do?" he asked at last, with a certain
huskiness.

"I've thought that over, and I see that here our united action ends. If
her happiness is to be secured--and I suppose that is the dearest wish
of both of us--then I have one task and you have another. I have the
right to speak of mine, but I can't speak of yours, unless you give me
leave."

"Say what you like. This is no time for too much punctiliousness.
Whatever is necessary I shall have to do. I've long begun to recognize
that I can't be stronger than she is, not any more than the chain can be
stronger than its weakest link. Now, tell me what you mean."

"It's soon said," Wiltshire went on. "I can free her from the man she
doesn't love; but it's for you to let her marry the man she does."

Trafford sprang to his feet.

"There's a man--she does--love?"

"You ought to know it," Wiltshire answered, quietly. "A girl like Paula
hasn't forgotten in January the man she promised to marry in June. I
don't reproach you, Trafford--"

"Oh, reproach me if you like," Trafford groaned, impatiently, as he
strode up and down the room.

"I will say, however, that if you had only told me what I ought to have
known, none of us would have been in the position in which we find
ourselves to-day."

"I give you my word of honor, Wiltshire, I thought it was all over.
Paula did promise to marry the man, but since the affair ended she
seemed never to think of him again."

"And I can tell you that she thinks of nothing but him. If I were in
your place--"

"You'd let her marry him. Yes, I know," Trafford broke in, impatiently,
"but you'll be surprised, perhaps, when I tell you I'd consented to the
match, only the man refused my money. But what's the use of discussing
it. The whole thing is out of the question--unless--unless her life
depended on it."

"Are you sure it doesn't?"

"Look here, Wiltshire," Trafford cried, wheeling round. "What are you
trying to say? Speak right out, for Heaven's sake!"

"I mean that, for your sake and mine, Paula has undertaken a task
beyond her strength. In the effort to carry it out she's being
physically and mentally and spiritually exhausted. The question in her
mind is a more complicated one than that of giving up the man she loves
to marry the one she doesn't love. That's an experience many girls have
had to face, and they've lived through it. Paula could do it as well as
they. But in her case she has other troubles--"

"Other troubles?"

"And I think you ought to know it, Trafford."

"But, good God! what other troubles can she have?"

"Your own. She isn't ignorant of the campaign they're carrying on
against you--over there."

"Well, what of it?"

"I've no more to say on the point. I mention it only to explain why the
accumulation of her experiences during the past few months has been such
a drain on her vitality."

"Do you mean to say that she attaches importance to the rot they've been
writing about me in New York?"

"I think I can go as far as that."

"Importance--in what sense?"

The low tone of Trafford's voice, the stillness of his attitude, and the
intensity of his deep eyes betrayed the fear with which he awaited
Wiltshire's reply.

"That's a question I've no right to answer. Any discussion of it should
be between you and her."

"That sounds as if you were afraid of breaking bad news. Well, I won't
press you."

For a few minutes Trafford resumed his walk up and down the room, his
hands clasped behind his back and his head bent. When he stopped at last
in front of Wiltshire, he astonished him by saying:

"Let's go and talk it out with Paula."

Wiltshire objected, on the ground that he preferred to have his own
interview with her in private.

"No, no," Trafford urged. "I must be there. I must know what you say to
each other. I must know, above all, what she says. The question touches
me too closely to have it decided in my absence. Come, Wiltshire," he
insisted, taking the Duke by the arm and almost dragging him from his
chair, "come along, and we'll reach an understanding together."

Reluctant as he was, Wiltshire suffered himself to be led away towards
Paula's boudoir. As they approached the half-open doorway they heard
women's voices within. Wiltshire held back, but Trafford pushed the door
open and entered. Two women were on their knees, with pins in their
hands and between their teeth. There was a third woman farther off,
looking on with critical attention. Paula stood in the midst, tall,
pale, grave, crowned with orange-blossom, veiled in lace, and shimmering
in the white and silver of her wedding-dress.

She gave a little cry as her father entered.

"Don't be alarmed," he said, with a forced laugh "It's no one to he
afraid of. Come here, Duke, and you'll see something."

"No, no! Please!" Paula implored.

But Trafford insisted on Wiltshire's entering. Since things had gone as
far as this, he was not without a lingering hope that it might be too
late for turning back.




  CHAPTER XXVII


As they were actually in the room, there was nothing for Paula to do but
receive them with the best grace she could command. She came forward to
meet the Duke with hand out-stretched, but she held herself rigidly, as
though on guard against any warmer greeting. The attitude did not escape
him, and its significance confirmed him in the feeling that he was right
in what he proposed to do.

While the three women withdrew at a nod from Trafford, Paula stood
before Wiltshire trying to cover up her embarrassment with smiling
cordiality.

"It had to be done, you know," she said, spreading her hands apart in a
gesture of apology. "Even wedding-dresses have to fit."

"If you have to wear them," Wiltshire added, trying to smile in
response.

"And as I'm going to do so--" Paula began.

"We've come in to talk about that," Wiltshire said, bluntly.

"Talk about--what?" She looked wonderingly, as she spoke, from the Duke
to her father.

"Wiltshire thinks you'd rather not marry him," Trafford declared, with
intentional directness of attack.

"Oh, how can he? You must both know that I'm doing it--willingly."

"It's precisely because I do know that that I'm wondering whether I
should let you," Wiltshire said, gently.

"But I thought you--wanted to."

"It isn't a question of what I want, Paula. It's the far bigger question
of what's right. And I've come to the conclusion that it isn't right for
me to let you throw away your life for mine."

"Is it because you saw me at Mr. Winship's yesterday that you bring this
up now? Papa, dear," she added, turning to Trafford, "I went to see Mr.
Winship yesterday. I felt that I had a right to do it. I wanted to bid
him good-bye. Is it," she continued, looking again at Wiltshire--"is it
because of that that you want to--to release me?"

"I know why you went there. As you say, it was to bid him good-bye. But
if you hadn't loved him you wouldn't have wanted to do it."

There was no reproach in Wiltshire's tone. He tried to keep out of it
everything but a mere statement of the fact.

"I do love him," Paula said, after a minute's hesitation. "I needn't
deny it. A lot of people know it. Your sister knows it, and papa, and--"

"I swear I didn't, Paula," Trafford cried. "I thought you had given the
man up."

"So I have, papa. But don't you remember that I told you I should always
love him--even if I married some one else."

"You see, then--" Wiltshire began.

"But that doesn't keep me from loving you," she went on, quickly, "just
as much as I've always loved you. Only it isn't the same thing. It isn't
even the same sort of thing. If you think I've changed towards you,
Duke, or that I don't want to keep my word, you're quite wrong."

"But I don't think so, Paula. I know you're ready to marry me, and I
know you'd do it from the highest motives that can rule in human
conduct, but I couldn't have the heart of a man and allow you to do it."

"Let's sit down," Trafford suggested, with something like a groan.

When they had taken seats, Wiltshire defined the situation between them.
He took the responsibility for it entirely upon himself. He had
practically laid a trap for her. He had placed her in a position in
which it had been almost impossible for her to refuse him. He had known
that at the time. He had been quite aware that unless she had other
reasons for doing so she could not marry him for love. He would say in
his own defence that he hoped that the love which was lacking now she
might learn to give him as their lives went on together. It was a hope
founded on the assumption that if she did not love him much, at least
she loved no one else more. Now that he knew to the contrary, he must
beg her not to sacrifice herself in an effort that could only fail. She
listened with downcast eyes. Her face was pale and drawn, and though she
maintained her self-control, her emotion betrayed itself in the
nervousness with which she twirled round and round the one ring she
wore--her engagement-ring. She was unconscious of the action, but
Wiltshire noted how loosely the ring clung to the thin white finger.

"I don't think you do me justice, Duke," she said, when he had finished
speaking. She raised her eyes and looked at him with apparent calmness.
"You seem to think I have taken this step without knowing what I was
doing, or counting the cost. But I did all that beforehand. If I hadn't
believed that I could be a good wife to you, I shouldn't have undertaken
to try. That I loved some one else differently was something I never
intended that you should know. It wouldn't have been necessary. I don't
suppose that any two married people know everything about each other--or
that they need to know. You'd have been happy with me--"

"Ah, but would you have been happy with me, Paula?"

"A woman's happiness, Duke, is very easily secured. A large part of
it--the very largest part of it--is in the happiness of those she cares
for. If you and papa were pleased, that in itself would mean a great
deal to me. I don't say that it would be enough to make me put aside all
positive desires of my own, if there were no other reason. But there
_is_ another reason--"

"What?"

"Papa knows. I needn't explain it. It's enough to say that it exists. I
couldn't marry Mr. Winship, however much I cared for him. And since that
is so, why shouldn't I take what's left of my life to bring some
comfort into yours?"

Wiltshire sprang up and crossed the room towards her.

"No, no, Paula. It can't be. You wouldn't be bringing comfort into my
life when I knew you were desolating your own. It isn't as if everything
were surely over for the love you own to. If it were, then, perhaps--who
knows?--I might let you come in to the poor shelter I could offer you.
But everything isn't over--"

"Oh, Duke, don't say that," she cried, in a sharp tone of pleading.

"I do say it. I say it and repeat it. Reasons that exist to-day may not
exist to-morrow. What should I feel if the time ever came when you might
be free to marry him, if you had not been tied to me?"

She started with a little gasp, raising her hand as if to brush the
thought away from her. It was the hand on which her engagement-ring hung
so loosely. Wiltshire caught it, holding it firmly in his own grasp.

"I'm going to take this off, Paula. It should never have gone on."

She looked at him piteously, big tears beginning to roll down her
cheeks. Trafford sprang from his chair, with an inarticulate sound of
impatience. Wiltshire drew the ring so slowly from the finger that he
seemed to be counting the seconds by which his own life ebbed away.

In the long minute of silence a discreet tap on the door sounded
startlingly loud. To Trafford's quick "Come in," his secretary entered,
apologetically offering a card.

"The gentleman said his errand was urgent," the secretary explained,
"otherwise I shouldn't have ventured--"

"You're quite right, Smithson. Ask Durand to show the gentleman in
here."

"But who is it, papa?" Paula cried, rising, "I can't see any one."

"You'd better see _him_," Trafford said, gruffly.

He handed the card to Wiltshire, who, having read it, passed it on to
Paula.

"You see, I was right," he said, softly. "Everything isn't over yet."

"But, papa," Paula protested, with an air of distress, "I can't see Mr.
Winship with this--this wedding-dress on."

"Then take it off."

"Yes, take it off, Paula," Wiltshire said, with a sad smile. "As long as
I live I shall remember with joy that you were willing to wear it. Now I
am going to say good-bye. You mustn't be sorry for anything that's
occurred, because, even as things are, I'm a great deal happier than
if--than if I didn't love you."

"Oh, Duke--" she began, brokenly.

"Hush," he whispered. "Don't try to say anything. Winship will be here
in a minute, and you must go and take that off. But you can lay it away
somewhere--can't you?---and keep it in memory of the sacrifice--from
which I saved you."

Again Paula tried to speak, but he turned quickly from her. With a rapid
pressure of Trafford's hand, he left by one door, while Paula went out
by another. Trafford was thus left alone to wait for Winship.




  CHAPTER XXVIII


Years of use had developed into an instinct Trafford's faculty for
rapidly seizing the salient points of a situation. He never lost sight
of the end to be attained, or suffered side issues to divert his
attention. His victories had been won less by the success of his plans
than by the execution of new moves when his plans were thwarted. He
wasted no time in forcing the manoeuvre that could not be carried out,
or in lamenting the one that had failed. Whether the means were in men
or in money, he prized them only in so far as they reached the aim on
which his mind was fixed. His promptness of judgment, quickness of
action, and concentration of purpose excluded sentiment for those who
had ceased to fight by his side. Even if he had the will to think of
them, he had not the time.

When Wiltshire closed the door behind him, he disappeared from
Trafford's plan of action as completely as if he had never been in it.
It was one more instance of the tool that had been bent in the hand, and
could only be cast aside. He had been singled out to insure Paula
Trafford's happiness, but circumstances had rendered him unsuited to the
task. Very well; there was nothing to be done but to turn to some one
who would be equal to the undertaking, even though it were a Roger
Winship. Trafford was subconsciously aware that a day would come when he
would have leisure to look back with regret to the hopes he had built
upon the Duke, but events pressed too closely to allow of his doing it
now.

During the few minutes that passed between the Duke's departure and
Winship's appearance, Trafford reviewed, in his rapid way, the points of
the situation, one by one, and prepared himself for any step he might be
called upon to take.

The meeting between the two men was cold and formal. Each kept himself
on his guard. It was impossible for Winship's trained observation not to
see that Trafford was a broken man, and equally so for Trafford, with
his habit of quick scrutiny, not to perceive in Winship a certain
development in command and importance, since their meeting of six months
ago.

"I must thank you for receiving me," Winship began, when they had taken
seats. "I shouldn't have ventured to disturb you, if I had not something
of importance to say."

"I'm very willing to see you, Mr. Winship," Trafford said, with a faint
suggestion of friendliness.

"My business may be briefly stated," Winship continued, "but my motives
may require a word of explanation."

"I'm entirely at your service for anything."

"Six months ago," Winship pursued, with some evident difficulty, "you
offered my sister and myself a large sum of money. That is to say,
while no definite sum was named for me, you contemplated, I think,
something of the sort."

"You're quite right."

"We refused the money then. We meant that refusal to be final; but since
last night we've reconsidered the matter. If you are still in the same
frame of mind--"

"I am."

"We should be willing to accept it."

"I shall have the matter arranged at once. I believe I said five hundred
thousand for Miss Winship. If you'll permit me, I'll double the sum for
you; or, if you prefer it, I will double that again."

"The amount is of no consequence. Neither of us could ever use the money
for ourselves. As far as we are concerned, its transference to our names
would be a mere formality. I know we lay ourselves open to the charge of
compromising with the man who ruined our father and mother--"

"Couldn't we discuss the subject, Mr. Winship, without bringing that
point up again?"

The curious gentleness of Trafford's tone struck Winship strangely.

"I'll try," he said, briefly.

"I'll tell you why," Trafford explained. "I know you're doing this for
my daughter; and I've reached a point where I can't bear that there
should be bitterness of speech in anything where she's concerned."

"That's right," Winship said, with more emotion of tone than he had
displayed hitherto. "I ought to have remembered it--especially as my
errand here this morning is to say that my sister and I want to bury the
sword at your daughter's feet."

"In what way, Mr. Winship? Will you be good enough to tell me exactly
what you and Miss Winship mean?"

"Our impulses are different. My sister's is a very simple one. She has
always treated Miss Trafford harshly--unjustly. But she has done it with
a sort of kicking against the pricks. Now that she realizes her
goodness, her elevation of character, she is ready to do anything,
however hard, to make amends. It's not an unusual manifestation of
remorse. My own motives are somewhat more complicated--just as the whole
question is a complicated one. I understand that Miss Trafford is to be
married in a few days to the Duke of Wiltshire. Well, I rebelled against
that when she told me yesterday--for you may not know that I saw her
yesterday. But the night brings counsel, and I've come to see that, in
all the circumstances, it's perhaps the best thing for every one.
Wiltshire is a good man, and, if he can't make her happy, he will at
least surround her with love and kindness. I'm the only one who could
have made her happy--"

"And you wouldn't do it," Trafford broke in. "You threw away your
chance."

"I don't think I really had it. The Cid and Chimne were not separated
by so impassable a barrier as she and I. At all events, if I've made a
mistake I'm ready to pay the penalty. She's not happy, and she's not
well. Any one can see that. I think it might help her towards being both
if she knew I had taken the money. She feels strongly on the point--more
strongly, I fancy, than any of us is aware of."

"That is, she thinks--mind you, I'm speaking quite calmly, Mr. Winship,
I'm merely trying to state the case as it is--she thinks I've done you
and your family a wrong, and she would be happier if she thought I had
righted it."

"I think that's her conviction."

"And you're willing to make it seem as if I had righted it, in order
that she may be more at peace."

"Quite so. Miss Trafford need never know anything more than that I have
taken the money. Before she is married I shall have sailed for New York,
where I mean to live. It's hardly likely that our paths will cross
again; and so, in the course of time--"

"May I ask if you are going to America also on my daughter's account?"

"Only partially. The time has come for me to return there, in any case.
I'm only hastening my departure."

For a few minutes there was silence. Winship, having stated his case,
had little more to add. Trafford looked musingly at the floor, and even
when he spoke he did not lift his eyes.

"Look here, Winship," he said at last, "why shouldn't you wait a few
days and take my daughter with you?"

There was a second or two of dead stillness before Winship replied, "I
don't understand."

"It's easy enough, however," Trafford pursued, still without looking up.
"Paula is not going to marry the Duke of Wiltshire."

"Oh!" Winship started.

"He came here just now to release her. He'd learned that Paula didn't
love him--that, in fact, she loved you. And since she does--and you love
her--and you've met me half-way by offering to take the money--why
shouldn't we--?"

"I didn't expect this," Winship gasped.

"No, of course you didn't. Naturally it would put you back in the same
position as before--before you dealt that blow at me in June. Now, don't
speak, Winship. Let me give you the thing from my point of view."
Trafford looked up and spoke with more animation. "You've grown up in
the idea of working off on me a bit of family revenge. Chance put you in
the way of doing it. You would have carried off my daughter, and left me
childless. You would have done it in such a way that the very manner of
her going with you would have been the severest condemnation of my life
and me. You didn't quite succeed, and yet you haven't wholly failed. My
daughter stands by me before the world; she only condemns me in secret,
she only shrinks from me by ways which she thinks I don't see or
understand. As a matter of appearance she's still my child, but as a
matter of fact I've lost her. You see, then, that you've done the most
important part of your work--you've effected between her and me that
sort of moral separation that nothing can ever heal. Whatever happens
now, whatever turn events may take, she'll never be to me again--what
she used to be. You see, you've done as much as that. It's part of what
you wanted, isn't it?"

Winship hesitated a minute before replying. "Yes," he said at last.

"But there's one thing you haven't realized," Trafford went on, in the
same calm voice. "You've made me suffer, but I'm not the only one. I'm
not sure, even, that I'm the one who suffers most. You couldn't have
guessed beforehand what it would mean to a nature like my little girl's
to lose her faith in me. But you must know it now, if you saw her
yesterday. She didn't look like that when you saw her first, did she,
Winship? That's your work. As the Duke said this morning, she's not
dying merely because she gave up one man to marry another; she's dying
because she finds herself in a world so tainted that she can't breathe
in it. You see, then, Winship; you wanted to kill me, and you've gone
far towards killing her. There's just one thing that will bring her back
to life. Do you want me to tell you what it is?"

Winship was gazing at Trafford with haggard eyes, but he did not speak.

"Our reconciliation," Trafford said, with the same unemphasized
intensity.

Winship rose slowly to his feet.

"I'm only a man," he said, hoarsely. "I've no power to work a miracle."

"Then, for God's sake, couldn't you pretend to do it?" Trafford cried,
springing up in his turn. "You're ready to make sacrifices for her sake,
you're ready to take the money, you're ready to go away, you're ready to
tear out your own heart and hers too. Is it so much easier to do all
that than merely to take the hand outstretched to you? True, it's my
hand, the hand, you will say, that crushed your father and struck your
mother down; but even so, wouldn't you rather touch it--just touch
it--than grind the life out of a sweet and blameless child? I know your
revenge is dear to you--but you've got it. You've got it in the very
fact that I, Paul Trafford, come pleading to you, as I never expected to
plead to any man. I've used men as the mere bricks with which to build
my castle, and yet I'm brought to the necessity of begging you for a
recognition. Can't you afford to laugh, man? Can't you afford to triumph
over me? You couldn't gloat at the sight half so much if you saw me in
my coffin as you can now in watching me at your feet. God Almighty has
put me at your mercy, in menacing my poor child's life; but you'd be a
monster, and not a man, to keep me there."

He paused, waiting for a reply; but for a minute or two Winship said
nothing. He stood erect, his hands behind his back, his lips tightly
set, and his deep eyes gazing off into the distance above Trafford's
head. Trafford himself watched with an expression of rather pitiful
beseeching.

"I find my position a very hard one," Winship said, slowly. He spoke in
a low voice, but with what seemed to Trafford curious distinctness. "I
have to put it to you crudely--very crudely--in order that you may see
how hard it is. I thought I was ready to make any sacrifice for Miss
Trafford, merely to give her peace of mind. Now I have to hesitate to
save her life. But I've never contemplated the possibility of even a
nominal reconciliation with you. If it were only a question of private
enmity, I shouldn't shrink from it. But it's more than that. It's a
great point of honor. If I do as you suggest, I shall he allying myself,
openly and before the world, with a man whose life, work, and character
I look upon as a national evil. I shall be entering into a system of
organized depredation which is already bringing our country into
disrepute, and may lead it to disaster. I shall be abandoning my own
principles of simplicity, honesty, and self-respect, to take up--or to
seem to take up--those of plunder, cruelty, and greed. I must ask you to
forgive me for speaking in this way. I shouldn't do it if it were not
for the sake of making my position clear. You must see yourself that it
was one thing for me to try to take your daughter out of the life you
stand for, but it's quite another to be willing to go into it with her.
But that's what it comes to. However nominal my act might be, that's
what I should be doing. I repeat that I can forget all the reasons I've
had for personal hostility. But I can't forget that you're the chief of
that group of men who, as I believe in my heart, are the corrupters--"

"I won't trouble you for further explanations of that sort," Trafford
interrupted, without show of anger. "I've been treated to such a lot of
eloquence on the subject, at one time or another, that I know in advance
exactly what you want to say. I shall only ask you to remember that if
I've never said anything in my own defence, and if I say nothing now, it
doesn't follow that I've no defence at all. At the same time I may admit
that I see your point, and in spite of the fact that it isn't flattering
to me, I'm not without a certain respect for your position. Don't give
me an answer now. Think over it. Then, if you can't do it, why we shall
just have to bear the consequences, that's all. But remember this,
Winship: that if what you call your honor outweighs what you call your
love, and my little girl dies, it won't be because you wouldn't marry
her. She's no such weakling as to break her heart for that. It will be,
as I've said already, because the world will have become unfit for her
to live in. Now go and think it all over. If we talk about it any longer
we may say the wrong thing. Remember that you're on the point of making
a big decision, and take your time. To-day is Tuesday. Suppose you were
to come to see me again on Thursday afternoon?"

After further discussion it was settled in this way, and Winship rose to
go. He was at the door when he paused and turned.

"It often happens," he said, in a tone of voice he had not used
hitherto, "that men who are furthest apart in matters of principle find
some place for mutual sympathy when they come into personal contact.
I've been twice put in situations where I've had to speak out my mind
with something more than plainness; and yet the superb patience with
which you've borne what I've had to say has made me feel as if I were
shooting into the air. I should like to add, however, that it won't be
necessary for me to begin in that strain again."

"My dear fellow," Trafford responded, warmly, "nobody appreciates a good
fighter like an old soldier. It would never occur to me to resent
anything you say; I'm too much occupied in trying to make you think
differently. That's my form of winning a victory. Who knows but what we
may both live to talk over all these things, as I've heard two old
soldiers of the North and South, each giving his account of the same
battle from his own point of view?"

Winship made no reply to this, but he allowed Trafford to take his hand
and hold it for a second, with a pressure that was not unkindly.




  CHAPTER XXIX


In spite of what he knew of Marah's changed attitude towards Paula, it
was a surprise to Winship to find that she counselled him at once to
fall in with Trafford's plans.

"It's a case that admits of no hesitation," she said, as they talked the
subject over in the long, red studio that night. "If anything were to
happen to her--"

"Why should you suggest that?"

"I must suggest it, Roger. And if anything did happen to her, it would
be little comfort to you then to remember that you hadn't done violence
to your scruples. I don't deny that you're in a difficult position. When
a man's right course is to throw in his fortunes with what he believes
to be wrong, he offers a curious problem to the casuist. And yet it
seems to me there's no doubt as to what you ought to do. We're human
beings first and members of a social order afterwards. If Paula is as
ill as you say, there can be no thought for any one but her."

They sat at the table from which the servant had cleared away their
simple evening meal. Marah had brought her paints and brushes to the
light, and Winship had opened mechanically a portfolio of drawings, at
which he did not look. He sat smoking pensively, allowing Marah to
pursue her thoughts without interruption.

"At the same time," she continued, "you'd have to count the cost. We
should both have to do it. It's in the very nature of the circumstances
that, whatever compromise must be made, I should have to share it."

"That's hard on you," Winship said, absently. "You'd be paying the price
without securing any of the reward."

"My reward doesn't matter," she snapped. "It's too late now to think of
happiness for me. If I can get the reflection of yours it will be
enough. And you would have it. It's no use talking as if you were making
a great sacrifice to get nothing in return."

"I don't think I ever did. If I have scruples, they come entirely from
the fear of buying my happiness at a price I ought not to pay."

"Of course; but that's not the question any longer. It often happens in
life that it's your duty to spend on some one else the money which you
wouldn't be justified in wasting on yourself. That's the position here.
If your only thought was of what you were to get you wouldn't do it.
You'd be the man who was gaining the whole world and losing his own
soul. I'm sorry to say that that was the light at which I looked at it
in June. I didn't see that there was another side to it. I thought of
Paula only as a Trafford; and I didn't realize that good things could
come even out of Nazareth. Now I feel as if life couldn't be long enough
to make her the necessary reparation."

She stopped, with a little quiver in her voice. Bending her head, she
made sharp, tiny strokes on the unfinished miniature before her.

"But we must be clear in advance," she pursued, after a few minutes of
silence, "that the price you'd have to pay would be a heavy one. You
mustn't be blind to that fact now, and indignant when the world calls
you to the reckoning afterwards. In the first place, you'll be looked
upon as a successful fortune-hunter. Oh, you needn't frown, because no
one, outside the Traffords and ourselves, will have any other opinion
about you. They'll ignore the fact that Paula is a girl whom any man
might be eager to marry for herself. Even our own best friends won't
give you the benefit of the doubt in this case."

"I shall be able to live without it," he interrupted, dryly.

"Of course you will. But you won't be able to live without many a twinge
of pain arising from the fact. And there'll be even worse, Roger. In our
little group of intimates, where you've been the chief, where your ideas
have converted so many to sane and simple views of life, where you've
inspired them to go home, and fight against greed and corruption, and to
work for whatever is pure and lovely in American life, from the aspect
of the streets to the attitude of the mind--there you'll be looked upon
as worse than a lost leader, as more despicable than a turncoat. After
all, a man has a right to change his mind, and to adopt new principles
if he wants to; but they won't allow you that privilege. You'll be
considered simply as a traitor--as the man who denied his faith, and
went over to the enemy, for the sake of a big prize. There, again,
you'll be able to live without their good opinion; the very magnitude of
your fortunes will enable you to do that; but you must face the trial of
becoming the object of their scorn, and of being made to feel it. The
very fact that you'll be so far removed from your old friends in
circumstance will make you want to cling to them all the more in heart;
and they'll reject you."

Winship still puffed pensively at his pipe, looking far away into the
darkness of the long, dimly lighted room.

"And yet," she continued, speaking calmly, "you wouldn't be the first
man to live under the unjust condemnation of the world. It isn't so
hard, if you once steel yourself to do it. It will be easier in your
case than in most, for the simple reason that, in your position, you'll
be surrounded by a host of new friends and flatterers who'll stand well
between you and those you've left behind. Besides, there will be a lot
of people by whom you will be treated with sincere respect, as the man
who got the best of the great Paul Trafford. You will be the conqueror's
conqueror, and that fact alone will give you a high place among those
whose approval you despise. But having won that, you'll have to live up
to it. Having accepted the position, you'll have to show yourself equal
to its tasks. All your own simple tastes and habits of life must be
abandoned. You'll have to give up your art--"

"No," he thundered, bringing his clinched hand down on the table.

"Yes, Roger. You need only reflect a minute to see how incongruous your
art will have become in your new surroundings. An artist is essentially
a worker, a toiler, and, relatively, a poor man. You, on the contrary,
will have become one of the few very rich men in the whole world. You
can see at once how absurd it would be to go on painting portraits at
five or ten or even twenty thousand dollars apiece. In the first place,
you'd be taking the bread out of other men's mouths; and in the second,
your new duties wouldn't allow you the time. The first thought of a man
as rich as you will be must be his money--the care of it, the spending
of it, or even the giving of it away. Art will mean no more to you then
than a crutch would mean to an eagle. You've got to face that fact. I'm
only putting it before you now so that you won't rebel against it when
it's too late. It will be easier for you to give it up beforehand, of
your own free choice, than to have the renunciation forced upon you,
when you don't want to make it. But, on the other hand, you'll have
Paula. There'll be that compensation at least. If there's to be a
revolution in your life, it will be the kind of revolution that comes to
a man when he's torn away from the interests of this world, to go and
live in heaven."

Marah said much more, but Winship followed with only a wavering
attention. He was realizing with greater fulness what his acceptance of
Trafford's proposition would mean. The reversal of his aims became more
complete as he saw it in the light of her direct, feminine observations.
Hitherto he had thought chiefly of the change to be produced within
himself--of the giving up of his pursuit of vengeance, and of the
abandonment of those altruistic social principles which he had urged
upon others as being of the American republic's very soul. He had not
seen himself as he would figure in the eyes of those who formed his
world--the men and women who had looked up to him, who had encouraged
him, and whose mouth-to-mouth applause had been a large element in his
present incipient celebrity. They were the generous, eager, enthusiastic
young souls whom Paris had drawn from every corner of the Union, to send
them back again with ideas heightened, broadened, and clarified by touch
with the accumulated wisdom of mankind. For ten years Winship had gone
in and out among them, sharing their ambitions, their follies, and their
tasks, gradually sobering to one steady vision of the good they would
all do when they "went home." His heart had gone out to theirs, and
their hearts to him, in that sort of trust which contains the element of
a life-long bond, defying chance and change. It would have been hard
enough to turn his back on them in any case; it was harder still to know
that after he had done it they would hoot him down with pitiless,
jeering anathemas. They were still young and ardent enough to show no
mercy on the man who could sell his ideals for a fortune.

When Marah went to bed he paced up and down the studio thinking of them.
He came back from them to himself again, and passed from himself to the
thought of the beloved art he must abandon with the rest. He had not
accepted Marah's opinion when she first expressed it, but, little by
little, as he reflected, he saw that she was right. The hugely wealthy
portrait-painter would be futile and anomalous. Art was in some sense
the daughter of necessity, and he would become incapable of work when he
had entered into the Nirvana of Paul Trafford's money.

He went about the room taking up and laying down the familiar objects
connected with his painting. It seemed to him already as if he came back
to them like a disembodied spirit, unable to handle them any more. He
drew the cloth away from the newly finished portrait on the easel, and
stood gazing at it, as if bidding it a mute farewell. When he lit his
candle and went to bed he knew that his mind was made up. He knew, in
fact, that it had been made up from the beginning. Whatever might be his
pain at forsaking his old life, he could have no real hesitation when
Paula had need of him to make hers anew.

On Thursday afternoon he went to give Trafford his reply.

For father and daughter the intervening time had passed in a kind of
lull. From the fact that Trafford said nothing of the purpose of
Winship's previous visit, Paula gathered that something was in suspense.
As Trafford watched her, it seemed to him that she was better and
brighter, as if her new freedom had brought her relief already. Her step
was lighter as she went about the house, and in her cheek there was a
tinge of color like the first hint of coming dawn. When at luncheon on
Thursday he asked her to remain at home during the afternoon, her blush
betrayed the knowledge that some decisive moment was approaching.

Trafford waited in the small sitting-room that had been his wife's,
adjoining Paula's boudoir.

"It's a queer world," he mused, "and we old ones have tumbled into the
midst of a strangely constructed generation. I'll be hanged if I can
understand it. Here's a young fellow who, I suppose, is typical of the
twentieth century, hesitating to marry the loveliest girl and the
biggest fortune in the world. By gad! it was different in my time. It's
true that in my time there were no such heaps of money lying around, to
be scooped up with a wedding-ring. I've set the new pace in that. I've
piled up wealth, till the very thought of it is staggering, and it's
just as if nobody wanted it."

He smiled bitterly to himself, as he made the reflection, while there
floated through his mind a verse of the Scriptures that had found a
place in his memory, he knew not how:

    "_For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in
    vain; he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather
    them._"

"It's almost as if those words were written for me," he mused on. "I've
done the thing, and what's the good of it, after all? I've heaped up the
riches, but who's to gather them? Paula would rather be rid of the
money than take it; George has as much as he knows what to do with; I go
begging to old Roger Winship's son to take the stuff off my hands, and
he hesitates to do me the favor. Lord! if I could wave a fairy wand and
conjure it all back to where it came from, I'll be blowed if I wouldn't
do it. It's a curious Nemesis to overtake a man like me. I've had the
most stupendous luck that any one ever had on earth; and now I can only
say that I've walked in a vain shadow, and disquieted myself in vain."

Winship came at four. From the manner of his entering, Trafford knew
that this much of the cause was won. He strode in, looking very tall,
erect, and grave, and held out his hand. Trafford rose and took it, with
sudden gravity on his part. For a few seconds they stood, with hands
clasped, staring each other in the eyes. It was difficult for either to
find words to express the situation.

"You needn't say anything," Trafford said, at last, as they moved apart.
"I know you mean to do it, and that you'll do it well. It will be for me
to show that I appreciate your action."

"It will only be necessary for each of us to remember that whatever we
do we do for Paula's sake, to make what's difficult easy."

"That's well spoken, Winship. You can trust me not to forget it, as I am
sure you won't. Now let me call her."

When she appeared on the threshold, the scene brought back so painfully
her similar entry, on the similar occasion in June, that Trafford
hastened forward and took her by the hand.

"Come here, dear," he whispered. "Let me lead you to him. There, take
her," he added to Winship; "and no man on earth ever received so rare a
gift."

"No man on earth could value it more preciously," Winship returned.
Taking her hands gently in his own, he stooped and kissed them both.

The whole action was so sudden that it took Paula by surprise. With her
hands still in Winship's, she looked at her father, and from her father
back again to Winship.

"What does it mean?" she asked. Whatever color had been in her face died
away now.

"It means, dear," Trafford replied, "that the two hearts who love you
most have become one in you."

"Is it true, Roger?"

"It's true, Paula--after all."

With her hands still in his, she looked once more towards her father.

"You wish it, papa?"

"I do, dearest. In going to the man you love, you go with all my
good-will."

"And without--without the money?"

The question was unexpected. For a moment neither of the men replied.
When Trafford spoke it was stammeringly.

"He's--he's--going to take it, dear."

"Then I can't let him," she said, firmly. She withdrew her hands and
fell back a step or two. "It's what I was afraid of," she went on,
speaking in tones of quiet decision. "I thought he had come to say so
the other day. But I could never consent to it."

"But, darling--" Trafford began to implore.

"No, papa. I've thought it all over in the last two days, and I see what
he would be doing for me. He knows how I've been suffering. And to save
me he's willing to commit a great apostasy."

"But, Paula--"

"You needn't speak, Roger. I know your heart better than you do
yourself. No one has firmer convictions than you; no one is more sure of
what he considers right. And yet, for my sake, you'd renounce what you
believe in, just as, in a time of persecution, some Christian might
renounce his God, and his eternal hopes, for the sake of a heathen
maiden. But how can I accept such sacrifice? The Duke of Wiltshire
wouldn't let me do far less than that for him. Papa, dear," she pursued,
"you mustn't be offended at anything I say; but it must be clear to us
all that Roger hasn't the same ideas about life that--that we have. I
don't say that his are necessarily right and ours wrong; they're only
different. He couldn't possibly give up his and accept ours without
doing violence to his nature. He may pretend to be a convert, but he
isn't; and we know that nothing is so hollow, or so hard to keep up, as
a conversion in which there's no faith."

"But I should put faith into it, Paula."

"Don't say that, Roger. It pains me. I like to know that you're living
for your own aims, and for nothing else. For you to abandon them would
seem to me a good deal more than a desertion. I could never lend myself
to such a plan, or be satisfied to see you carry it out. No, Roger. Your
way isn't ours, nor ours yours."

"You didn't think so six months ago," Trafford broke in, despairingly.

"I've learned a great deal in six months, papa. I understand now things
that I knew nothing about then."

"What things?" he demanded, with the quickness of one who feels touched
where he is sensitive.

"Very serious things. I've thought about them, and read about them, and
prayed about them, until I've obtained some small degree of insight. I
know that some are higher and some are lower, and that Roger's are the
higher. How could I ask him to come down? How could I bear to be the
very instrument of such a renunciation? You mustn't feel hurt, papa, at
my saying this. Your life is my life, and I'm going to lead it; but I
couldn't let Roger come and share it. He'd be wretched with us, and,
when we saw it, we'd be wretched with him. Better let each live for his
own--he in his way, and you and I together."

"You and I together--in the lower way," Trafford said, sadly.

"I don't say so, papa. I've been thinking that over, too, and it seems
to me that different generations have different uses. You belong to the
great age of material effort. That's the age we've been living in, and
there must be good in it. It hasn't only made the country rich and
powerful, but it has developed the great storehouse God has kept laid up
in it, until mankind had need to come and use it. That's been part of
your work, papa, and it would be wicked to say that it hasn't its noble
aspects. But mayn't it be that, now that so much of it is done, we're
passing on to other phases--phases in which we sha'n't have to think so
much of the material, and so may be free to lift up our hearts to
something else? Aren't there signs of it everywhere--among all classes
of our people? Don't think me foolish," she continued, spreading her
hands apart in a gesture of appeal--"don't fancy that I suppose for a
moment that I can teach you. But I've had to go over it all in the last
few months, and it does seem to me as if I could feel the stir of a
great spiritual awakening. As I look over the new books, as I turn the
pages of the magazines, as I listen to sermons or read reports of them,
as I see in the papers the new kinds of effort that are being put forth,
I can't help the conviction that our whole country is groaning and
travailing in pain together to burst its bonds and let its soul go
free."

"How?"

"By getting beyond the idea that the greatest thing in the world is to
make money and live in luxury," she replied, promptly. "We've only had
to do it to see how unsatisfying it is, and we're feeling after
something better. There are people going before us to show us the way,
and the impulse is coming to the rest of us to press in behind and
follow on."

"She looks like a prophetess," Trafford whispered to Winship.

"I often think," she continued, heedless of the interruption, "that when
God kept our continent hidden for so many generations it was in order
that we might have virgin ground on which to begin all over again, with
a civilization that could be truer to the principles of Christ. I
believe that in our heart of hearts we know it. I believe that there's
not an American anywhere who doesn't feel, in some obscure depth of his
being, that we've missed our calling hitherto. We've been sent to preach
the gospel to the poor and heal the broken-hearted, and we haven't done
it. But I'm sure there's a growing sense that we ought to, and that we
must. There are men and women starting up in all directions to tell us
how. Roger's one of them, and I couldn't call him back. He has his word
of the message to deliver, and I couldn't ask him to be silent. I can
see now that what happened last June was for the best--the very best.
Roger, dear," she continued, turning towards Winship, "I thank you for
what you're willing to do for me. You know I love you--that I shall
always love you. I haven't made a secret of it, and I never shall. But I
couldn't--I couldn't--"

She faltered, her hands crossed on her breast, and her lips quivering.

The two men looked at each other helplessly.

"You see that you and I have to live for such different things that no
marriage--papa, darling, don't turn away," she implored, as Trafford
took two or three strides towards a window. "You mustn't be angry with
me. You mustn't think I don't want to stay with you. I do. I do. With
love like Roger's and mine we can be happy even if we're apart--can't
we, Roger?--even if we never see each other any more. Our being married
is of no consequence, papa," she went on, following after him. "It's one
of the beauties of such a great, great love that it doesn't want
anything but to do the best. Papa, papa," she begged, clinging to his
shoulder, "turn round, look at me, kiss me. Don't think for a moment
that I can want anything in this world half so much as to see you happy
in the love of your little girl. Roger doesn't want it, either--do you,
Roger? Look at me, papa, and kiss me, and make me feel that you want to
keep me at your side."

For a long half-minute Trafford remained motionless. When he turned, it
was so suddenly that he shook her from him. His face was crimson, but he
astonished them both by bursting into a loud and pealing laugh. Paula
stepped back from him, half afraid, half wondering. Trafford smote his
hands together, and laughed again, louder and longer than before.

"Gad!" he cried, as if stifling in his mirth. "Gad! How easily the
little thing is taken in! Didn't you see, dear? Didn't you understand?
Why, it's all a trick--it's all a bit of play-acting. 'Pon my soul," he
continued, coming nearer to her, "I didn't think you could be imposed
upon like that. Roger isn't going to take the money," he roared, seizing
her in his arms with a passion that almost hurt her. "He isn't going to
take the money, and I don't mean to offer it. You're to go to him
without it. It's all settled and understood. You're to live anywhere and
anyhow that suits you, and the money can go to blazes. There's only one
thing that matters on God's earth--that my little girl should be happy,
and that she should owe some of her happiness to her old papa. Here,
Roger--!"

"No, no, papa," she cried, clinging to him. "Don't let me go. I'm
afraid. I'm afraid. Don't let me go."

"Here, Roger," Trafford shouted again. "Take her."

He flung her from him with a wild force that would have been brutal had
not Winship caught her in his arms. He laughed again as he groped, like
a blind man, feeling his way from the room; but, being unused to comedy,
he betrayed himself by stopping too abruptly, when he had banged the
door behind him.

Within the room the silence was strange and sudden. Paula hung panting
and helpless in Winship's arms, while Winship rained kisses on her lips
and eyes and hair, in the unloosed passion of his long-pent-up love.




  CHAPTER XXX


"That's done," Trafford panted to himself, when he was in the corridor.
"It's done and settled for ever and ever. By God! I did it well. Very
few men would have pulled it off like that. I don't believe there's
another father in the world who would sacrifice himself as I've done.
It's all over. I've lost her. I'm beaten. I had to let her go. There are
very few men who would have done it like that."

Though he was sustained by a sense of his own heroism, the way seemed
long between Paula's room and his own library-office. He stopped at
every few steps, and muttered to himself.

"That's it. I've lost her. Oh, there's no use trying to shirk the fact.
She'll go her way and I'll go mine. There's nothing else for us to do.
I've lost them all now. Let me see. It was Harry first, then Arthur,
then Constance, then Jennie, then poor Julia, and now--now--she's gone,
and I'm all alone. I've walked in a vain shadow, and disquieted myself
in vain. Well, all right, all right. If nobody wants to gather the
riches I've heaped up, then, at least, I can give 'em back. By George!
what a stir it would make if I did it! Paul Trafford resolving his
immense fortune into its constituent elements! Andrew Carnegie wouldn't
be in it beside me. Well, it would be occupation for my lonely old age,
at any rate. But what's the use of dreaming? Money can no more be
returned to where it came from than a rose could be reduced to the earth
and water from whence it grew."

He tottered on a few paces farther, and stopped again.

"It's hard, though. It's damned hard. What's the world going to be to me
now? I've got an income that I can't count, and nothing to do with it.
I've got half a dozen big houses stuffed with luxury, and no one to live
in them. She'll go back to New York, and stifle in a six-room flat at
Harlem, while I shall be alone in my sixty rooms in Fifth Avenue. Why?
Why? Why?"

He smote his hands together and groaned.

"Why? Why? Why?" he repeated. "And yet, I suppose, I know why. She won't
put it into words, but she means it none the less. I seem born to be
misunderstood. Even she misunderstands me. After all the good I've done,
after the churches I've built and the institutions I've endowed, I'm
still looked upon as a sort of monster--living for nothing but his
money. Well, they shall learn better. I'll teach them. I'll show them
that I made money just because I chose to make it, and I'll fling it
back among them, and laugh to see them scramble for it. It'll be sport
for me to watch them squirming in the mud, to pick up what I disdain and
chuck away."

He held himself more erect at the thought, and walked down the corridor
with firmer tread. He had reached his own door, when he paused again.

"And yet, I suppose Paula would think that wasn't the right spirit.
She'd say the highwayman doesn't atone for robbery by giving the money
to a church--the only place for it would be the pockets it was taken
from. Well, I agree with her. It's just what I'd rather do, if it was
possible. But I don't believe it is. There are some I could hunt up. I
know that Brewer, of Albany, has a son working as a clerk at
Wanamaker's; and then there are the Rosses and the Brents and the
Dowlings and a few more. Rawson, who hanged himself in Fitchburg, left a
family, I believe; and that fellow Jackson, who stabbed my agent, Pitts,
has a wife, if not children. He must have served fifteen years of his
sentence by this time, and I might get him a pardon. Then there was old
Marshall--but, Lord! I'm not going on with this sort of catechism. I
should go daft. They took their chances, just as I did. Whatever I may
do for them or their families now I shall do as an act of mercy. Paula
herself couldn't make me think otherwise."

He turned the handle of his door and entered. As he did so, the click of
his secretary's type-writer came to him from the adjoining room. At the
very sound, instinct and habit resumed their sway, and a few minutes
later he was seated at his desk plunged into the details of work as
profoundly as if no great crisis had changed the nature of his domestic
life. He read the three or four cablegrams that had come during the
afternoon, and told Smithson what to say in reply. He ran his eye over
the secretary's answers to the day's correspondence, and signed his name
where it was needed. He dashed off two or three important letters with
his own hand, addressed and sealed and stamped them. He informed the
Oregon & Ohio Railway that in their fight with the United Power Company
he would stand behind them with unlimited money, while he indicated
several important congressmen, whose influence had already been his, for
proper consideration. He ordered George to spare nothing to get control
of the Kansas, Leavenworth & Baltimore line, and to push the
Jay-Berryman combine until it went under. He instructed his Hartford
agents, Messrs. Taft & Reed, to appeal against the verdict for two
thousand dollars in favor of old Mrs. Breen, and to carry the case to a
higher court. It put new nerve into him to feel that the impulse to
fight till he won was as strong in him as ever. It annoyed him that the
Scriptural words should sweep across his mind again:

    "_For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in
    vain; he heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather
    them._"

As he dwelt upon the words, the faint upleaping of courage that had come
from his half-hour of work died down again. He leaned his head wearily
on his hands and pondered. What was the use of it all? Why should he
fight against the United Power Company? Why should he try to get
control of the K., L. & B.? Why should he hinder poor old Mrs. Breen
from getting the damages rendered her for the husband killed in his
employ? He did not grudge her the money. He had no enormous interest in
smashing the Jay-Berryman combine. As for the United Power Company, he
had no object but to drive it into a corner where it would have to
capitulate to him. But why should he? Was it necessary to fight simply
because he had the instinct? Was it necessary to wield a giant's
strength simply because he had it? Was there no such word as enough? Was
there no such quality as mercy? Was it outside the rules of business--to
spare?

"Business! Business! Business!" he repeated to himself. "That's been my
God, and I've worshipped it as if it were a misshapen idol. I suppose
that if I'd served my Maker half as much I shouldn't be here, alone,
to-night. I wonder if I could do a big, new thing that wasn't business
at all? I wonder if I could start out on a course that would shock the
business world to its foundations? I believe I feel myself coming to it.
I've dreamed of it hitherto. Now, I think the minute has come for me to
wake up and do."

He leaned forward and touched a bell. A few seconds later the secretary
entered the room.

"Turn on the light, Smithson, please," Trafford said, with sudden
briskness of tone. "You may remember that a few months ago I asked you
to send to America for all the papers connected with the cases of
Marshall _versus_ the Vermont Mining Company, and of the Turtonville
Improvement Company _versus_ Marshall. I hope you have them."

"Yes, sir. They're in my safe. Shall I get them?"

"Please."

"You've looked them over, as I suggested?" he asked, when Smithson had
laid the documents before him.

"Yes, sir."

"Marshall failed for about three hundred and fifty thousand, didn't he?"

"Between that and four hundred."

"You've made the inquiries I asked you to look up? The daughters are all
living?"

"They were all living in October, sir. One of them was ill, and not
expected to live long."

"Thanks, Smithson. That will do for the moment. Don't send any of those
cablegrams to-night. I'll speak about them again to-morrow. No, you
needn't post these letters. I'm not sure yet that I shall send them."

Smithson retired, and Trafford began to turn over the papers before him.
He did not read them consecutively. A word here and there would arrest
his attention and send him off dreaming.

"It's curious," he reflected. "I was in the right throughout this case,
and yet it's one about which public opinion has given me no quarter. All
the laws of supply and demand, of cause and effect, were on my side; but
because old Marshall shot himself, leaving four daughters unprovided
for, I've been made to appear as the instrument of the disaster. I don't
feel so myself--not wholly so, at any rate; but Paula would agree with
the public, if she knew about it. Well, I'll try to patch it up before
she does. The wind will be taken out of that sail, at any rate."

He sighed, and went on with his desultory inspection of the Marshall
papers. He was still occupied in doing so when a knock came to the door.
Before he had time to look up and say "Come in," the door was pushed
open and Paula entered, followed by Winship. Trafford remained seated.
They advanced together, till they stood before his desk.

"We've come in to say that we can't do it, papa," Paula began, abruptly.
"I can't go and leave you alone."

"I will not take her from you like this," Winship added. "It seems to me
a sort of robbery. It wouldn't be blessed. If there's a sacrifice to be
made, it must be ours. We're younger and stronger--"

"Stop," Trafford said, softly. "Stop."

Winship ceased, and there was a long silence. Trafford still remained
seated, gazing absently at the papers on the desk before him, Winship
and Paula waited in motionless attention. There was no sound but the
click-click-click of the type-writer in the adjoining room.

Still without speaking, Trafford rose. Coming to them, he passed one
hand through Paula's arm and one through Winship's.

"My little girl is willing to stay with me after all, is she?"

"I'm not only willing, papa, but I want to."

"Then, darling, you can't. You can't, because I'm going on a long
journey."

As he spoke he turned them gently round, and began leading them towards
the door.

"A long journey, papa?"

"Yes, dear--a journey that will take me all round, and round, and round
the United States. I mean to go to New York when you go, after you've
been married. Then I shall have to leave you."

"But where are you going, papa, dear?"

"I'm going first to a place called Turtonville, Wisconsin--"

"Not to see the old Miss Marshalls?" came from Paula, like a
long-stifled cry.

Trafford started.

"Ah! What do you know about them?"

"I know all about them."

"Then I'm going to see them," he hurried on. "After that I'm going to
see more people--then more--then more. When it's all over, I shall come
back to you. Now kiss me--kiss me--and--go."

"Oh, papa, darling, how good you are!"

She kissed him, clinging to him, but he released her arms from about his
neck.

"Now go--both of you," he insisted, opening the door.

"First let me say," Winship began, "that I beg your pardon for
anything--"

"Oh, you needn't, Winship," he interrupted, with a weary smile. "I know
how you've felt. I should have felt that way myself. You've been a good
fighter, and you've only found out what all we fighters have to learn in
time--that when we've struck, the blow hasn't given us the satisfaction
we expected. Don't think any more about it. I'll do myself the justice
to say that I've always respected you, even at the worst of times.
Now--go--go off together. I've a great deal to do that I can only
do--alone."

He forced them gently from the room, closing the door behind them. For a
second he leaned against it, as if for support, till his habitual energy
came back.

"That I can only do--alone," he repeated to himself. "By God! I shall do
it--to the bitter end."

He strode back firmly to his desk and sat down again. With head erect
and lips set, he was for an instant like the Paul Trafford of old.

"But the end may not be a bitter one," he reflected. "In the hair-shirt
and penitence, Charles V. found something better than he had ever known
upon the throne. Well, why shouldn't I? True, the hair-shirt will look
queer in Wall Street, but I'm not afraid of that. If it has taken a
giant's strength to do what I've done hitherto, it will require more to
fulfil what lies before me. But I shall have it--I shall have it--the
giant's strength--and more--God and my little girl helping me."

He rang the bell and called for Smithson. The new orders took the
secretary so much by surprise that he was obliged to have them repeated
two and three and four and five times before he mastered them. When he
did so he was the first member of the great American public to call Paul
Trafford mad. He was also the first to qualify the madness as divine.


  THE END


  =Transcriber's Notes:=
  Original hyphenation, spelling and grammar have been preserved as in
    the original.
  Page 46, 'You needn't be afraid' changed to '"You needn't be afraid'
  Page 61, 'Couldn't you take me' changed to '"Couldn't you take me'
  Page 81, "a woman s voice" changed to "a woman's voice"
  Page 161, "say much ore" changed to "say much more"
  Page 171, "to myself I'm" changed to "to myself. I'm"
  Page 186, 'tone of pique."' changed to 'tone of pique.'
  Page 229, 'the aprs-dne,"' changed to 'the aprs-dne,'
  Page 339, "He was still occuped" changed to "He was still occupied"




[End of The Giant's Strength, by Basil King]
