Title: Green Light (1935)
Author: Lloyd C. Douglas
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Title: Green Light (1935)
Author: Lloyd C. Douglas




THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

WITH ESTEEM AND AFFECTION TO

A. O. DAWSON

OF MONTREAL







Chapter One


Uncommonly sensitive to her owner's moods--for he had imputed
personality to her--Dr. Paige's rakish blue coupé noted at a glance
that this was one of those eventful mornings when she would be
expected to steer her own course to Parkway Hospital.

The signs of Dr. Paige's preoccupation were unmistakable.  Sylvia,
who usually plunged through the street door of the Hermitage
Apartments wagging her tawny tail from a hinge located in the
lumbar region, was following her broad-shouldered master with an
air of gravity absurdly appropriate to the serious concern of his
flexed jaw and faraway eyes.  Pete, the garage-boy, instead of
loitering to tell the young surgeon what kind of day it was, had
ambled off without venturing the customary amenities valued at a
quarter.

Assured that her entire family was safely aboard, the coupé hummed
a subdued monody on her twelve well-organized cylinders, and glided
into action.  Reckless of Sylvia's precarious dignity on the
slippery rumble seat, she illegally swung herself around in the
middle of the busy block, narrowly missing a ten-ton removal-van,
and earning an impolite salutation from the burly driver of a
gasoline tank.  Dusting apprehensive fenders for a half-mile on
Elm, she nonchalantly scraped the whole arc of the right kerb at
the corner of Euclid, made pretence of colour-blindness at One
Hundred and Eighty-Sixth, where she knew the cop, grazed a hub-cap
at the narrow entrance gate, forced an empty ambulance into the
dogwood bushes as she scudded round the big stone building, and
demobilized a small convention of smoke-stealing orderlies in the
parking-ground at the rear.

Pleased with her undamaged arrival, she belatedly made a great show
of professional poise, by rolling to a discreet stop on the
crunching gravel between Dr. Armstrong's sand-coloured sedan and
the five-year-old roadster of Dr. Lane, who at that moment was
noisily tuning up for departure.

Sighting the smart car sliding into the stall beside him, the grey-
haired anæsthetist turned off his cyclone and nodded a greeting
without enthusiasm.

"Where to?" queried Paige.  "We're doing that tuberculous kidney at
nine."

"Not till to-morrow," explained Lane discontentedly.  "What's the
trouble?"

"Oh--Endicott has been detained somehow.  Just now 'phoned from
Harrisburg or some place.  Business conference or something.  Back
in the morning, or some time.  I wish he had given orders for you
to go ahead with it."

Paige, still at the wheel, absently lifted an expressive hand, and
with a single flick of the fingers acknowledged the compliment and
dismissed the suggestion.

"The lady is Dr. Endicott's patient, Lane.  Came here especially to
have him--and quite properly, too," he added meaningly, almost
militantly, after a frosty pause.

"Of course!" agreed Lane, too fervently to be convincing.  "I said
I wished you were doing this Dexter excision because I dislike
these postponements.  They're too hard on the patient's morale.
Once you've got a case all nerved up for an operation, it's--"

The banal platitude perished of its own stupidity under the
unfocused steel-blue stare.  Paige wasn't hearing a word; just
sitting there glowering at a distant ghost.  What was eating him?
Lane guessed--and thought he knew.

Silently curious and more than a little perturbed, he watched the
athletic young fellow's abstracted movements as he locked the
gears, stepped out of his car, chained the whimpering setter to the
steering-wheel, and mechanically moved away without another word or
a backward glance.  It wasn't like Newell Paige to do that.

With narrowed eyes he broodingly followed the tall figure towards
the rear entrance, a bit hurt but not offended.  He liked young
Paige, often wondering why; for, as a passionate social radical,
Lane was naturally contemptuous of the well-to-do.

He chuckled a little.  Dr. Benjamin Montgomery Booth--specialist in
radium, with a degree from Edinburgh, one of Paige's most intimate
friends--had just been curtly disposed of with the briefest of nods
as they encountered each other in the doorway.  Bennie Booth's open-
mouthed expression of bewilderment was amusing.  Paige was playing
no favourites; he evidently had something important on his mind.

Lane's grin changed to a reflective scowl.  Drawing a tiny red book
from his ticket-pocket, he moistened his thumb and extracted a thin
leaf; brought up a small hard package of cheap tobacco, opened it,
tilted it, peppered the leaf expertly, tugged the package shut with
two fingers and his teeth, rolled a cigarette, ran his tongue along
the margin, struck a match, inhaled deeply, all the while
reminiscently spinning the reel of Paige's singular relationship to
the celebrated Endicott.

It was a dramatic story, the first spectacular episode of which had
been witnessed by a very small audience.  Lane, himself, knew it
only from hearsay, for he had been a mere stripling at the tail of
a muddy ambulance in France when Jim Paige died, here at Parkway,
of a swift pneumonia, following the malignant flu that had mown a
broad swath through the hospitals after the manner of a medieval
pestilence.

His old friend Sandy McIntyre, long since a lung specialist in
Phoenix, had once recited that initial chapter for Lane in a dusty
day-coach on the Santa Fe inexpensively en route from Chicago to
the Coast.

"I understand Jim's boy is working now at Parkway," McIntyre had
remarked in the course of their shop-talk.  "Does he still take
such good care of his hands?"

"Hadn't noticed," Lane remembered having replied.  "Why?"

McIntyre had grinned broadly.

"They used to say that when the kid was thirteen or so he would sit
on the fence and watch the rest of 'em play ball.  Willing to play
tennis, sail a boat, ride a horse, dive from high places, and
almost anything else requiring speed, skill, and courage, but he
wouldn't play baseball for fear of damaging his fingers.  Said he
was going to be a surgeon.  Took up the violin, not because he
wanted to be a musician, but to improve the dexterity of his left
hand.  They tell me that chap could walk right on to a stage and
play the fiddle along with the best of 'em if he wanted to.
Newell's a chip off the old block.  You should have known Jim."

Sandy had followed with a dreamily reflective monologue.  He had
been Jim's classmate through their medical training.  Knew all
about him.  He had also known the incomparable Sally Newell.

"As a student," McIntyre had recounted meditatively, "I used to
think that Jim was the luckiest chap of my acquaintance.  Boy!--he
had everything!  Plenty of money, and mighty generous with it, too.
Handsome as a Greek god.  Brilliant student.  Born surgeon, if
there ever was one.  Not quite so audacious as Endicott, who was
seven years his senior and already making a name for himself, but
in a fair way to be as competent when he had had the experience.

"Never knew anybody as serious as he was about his profession,"
McIntyre had rumbled on, half to himself.  "They ragged him about
it a good deal when we were in school.  You remember, Lane, the
sort of fooling that goes on among cocky young medicals, as if the
whole business was full of hanky-panky.  Can't blame 'em much; just
sensitive, scared youngsters, trying to build up some kind of
defence-apparatus against the screams and shocking sights and
stupefying stinks of a big hospital.  But Jim hated their kidding
about it.

"I recall one cruelly hot afternoon when Brute Spangler--best
diagnostician we ever had, but hard-boiled as the handles o' hell--
was leading a flock of us through the open ward of the women's
surgical, he growled at Jim, out of the corner of his mouth, 'Cheer
up, Father Paige.  We're not doing the stations of the cross.'
Jim's heavy black brows drew together into one straight line, and
looking down into Spangler's beady little eyes, he said, without a
smile, 'No--we're not, unfortunately.  Perhaps that's what ails
us!'

"And then--there was Sally Newell--"

There had been a long pause at this point in McIntyre's memories.
They had made a tedious job of reloading their pipes to account for
the delay.

"Paige's wife?" Lane had queried at length, knowing the answer.

"It was an ideal match," declared McIntyre.  "Most beautiful girl I
ever saw.  You may be sure it hadn't required old Oliver Newell's
money to make her the exact centre of interest wherever she went."

Lane, who had taken more than a merely inquisitive interest in
psychoanalysis, would have liked to ask a few pertinent questions
at this point, but had hesitated, knowing that the lean Scot with
the prominent pink cheek-bones would have closed up like a clam.
McIntyre didn't need anybody to inform him--even by tactful
indirection--that the heart is located close to the lungs.  There
was another long wait while McIntyre fondled the things he had laid
away in lavender.

"Nothing in my professional experience," he continued moodily,
"ever stirred me more deeply than the wan and weary little face of
their boy on the afternoon of Jim's death.  Sally had gone out the
same way two days before.  God--how helpless we were!

"Naturally, we couldn't let the child into his father's room, for
the stuff was deadly.  His grandmother, Mrs. Newell, waited in the
sun-parlour at the end of the hall.  The elder Paiges were still on
their way in from California.  This boy haunted the corridor for
hours, his dry, bloodshot eyes fastened on the door.  Every time
anyone came out, there he was, eager for news and wanting to come
in.  I'm afraid we weren't very attentive to his questions or his
grief.  We had all been too worn down to be considerate.

"That was the only time I ever saw Bruce Endicott stampeded.  I
always maintained he was the greatest surgeon I ever knew, and I
don't expect to have any occasion to change my mind about that.
Never met anybody with such complete mastery over a situation. . . .
Well--I drew the sheet up over Jim's cracked lips and swollen
cheeks, and followed Endicott out into the hall.  There was this
boy--Newell.  I told the nurse to go and tell Jim's mother-in-law.
Endicott took the lad by the hand and we went back to the library.
It was unoccupied.  Nobody was patronizing the library much during
that frantic period.

"'Well, sonny,' began Endicott, closing the door, 'we did
everything we knew.'

"The boy swallowed hard, a couple of times, and asked, 'Is my
daddy--'

"'Yes,' growled Endicott, as if he were reporting some monstrous
injustice, 'he is; but--' he repeated lamely, 'we did everything we
knew.'

"I fully expected to see the gallant little fellow cave in, for he
was nervously exhausted from worry and loss of sleep.  But he had a
lot of strong stuff packed away that we didn't know about.  He
stood there tense, his fists clenched until his thin knuckles
showed white, his babyish mouth twisted into a hard knot, looking
as if he had just been struck a blow in the face.  And then, to our
amazement, he piped out in a shrill treble, 'Now I'll have to be a
doctor!'

"Endicott took a turn or two, up and down the room, muttering,
'Doctor! . . .  My God! . . .  He wants to be a doctor!'  Then he
stood for a long time at the window, looking out.  After a while,
he came back, reached out his hand to the boy as he might have done
had they been contemporaries, and controlling a shaky voice, he
said, 'Very good, sir.  And if I may be of any service to you, I am
yours to command.'"


In white duck, Newell Paige emerged from the dressing-room on the
top floor, where he found Francis Ogilvie.  It was not a surprise.
He was always meeting her.

By agreement, arrived at many months earlier, they waived the
conventional greetings and restricted their talk to necessary
business.

"Dr. Endicott is not to be here to-day," she said crisply.

"I know," Paige replied.  "I met Dr. Lane outside.  Has Mrs. Dexter
been told of the postponement?  We were to have had her first."

Miss Ogilvie's cryptic smile was unpleasant.

"I believe not," she said.  "The others have been notified, but"--
the carefully pencilled brows arched slightly--"I thought you might
wish to talk to Mrs. Dexter yourself."  There was an inquiring
pause which Dr. Paige might make use of, if he desired, for purpose
of explanations, denials, or just plain stammering, but he allowed
the opportunity to pass.  "I understand Mrs. Dexter has become very
fond of you," finished Miss Ogilvie.

"Thanks."  Paige pushed the button for the elevator.

A bit of a problem--this competent, bronze-haired, physically
opulent, chief surgical nurse.  Once a warm comradeship between
them had been in the making, but they had spoiled it for each other
beyond any hope of mending.

One stormy afternoon in March, quite exasperated over Paige's
wilful inattentiveness to her rather obvious and slightly
disconcerting overtures, she had impetuously tossed herself at him,
with awkward results.  He had been sitting alone in the laboratory
for a half-hour, studying an X-ray thoracic which wasn't any too
generous with its disclosures.  For some minutes she had stood at
his elbow looking over his shoulder, before he became aware that
she had no errand in the room.  Her arm touched his lightly.

"Hello," he drawled, preoccupied.  "What's the good news with you,
Miss Ogilvie?"

She did not respond to the casual inanity as he had expected, and a
meaningful silence had ensued, of such duration that he had put the
plate down on the table and turned his head in her direction,
looking squarely and at very close range into a pair of questing
blue-green eyes.  Had the cloudy pleura been as easy to read, Paige
need not have been detained in the laboratory for another moment.
The girl's full lips were parted, and there was an entreating
little smile on her face, so near to his that the freckles, left
over from last summer, were clearly defined on her white cheeks.

"I'm lonesome as the devil--if you really want to know," she
confided, in a low tone of intimacy, adding presently, "and my name
is Frances--I hate 'Miss Ogilvie.'"

Paige hooked the rung of a neighbouring stool with his toe and
dragged it nearer.  "Sit down, won't you?"

She complied with some reluctance, her half-impatient gesture and
audible sigh implying a wish that she were well out of this unhappy
situation.

"I like that name," said Paige companionably.  "If the hospital
regulations encouraged us to have Christian names, it would be easy
to call you by yours."

Her face brightened a little and she murmured, "I could say yours,
I think."

"For it fits you--exactly," continued Paige hastily.  "I don't know
very many people who have as good a right to it--Saint Francis, you
know," he explained, when it had become apparent she was not
following him.

The shapely lips were a little derisive as she replied, "Rubbish!
I have no ambition to be a saint.  I'm all fed up with everything;
silly rules, stuffy discipline, pompous doctors, jealous nurses,
and earnest social welfarers. . . .  Tell me something, won't you?
Why do you dislike me so?  I've got to know!"

"But I don't!" protested Paige sincerely.  "Quite to the contrary.
I never knew an operating nurse with a more authentic talent for
surgery.  If I haven't told you so, it's only because I don't
bubble over."

"Just once--you did," she muttered, with averted eyes.  "Remember
the day we did the little Morton boy's osteo sarcoma?"

Paige winced at the recollection.  "My word!--that was a tough
experience."

"I kept up with you pretty well, you seemed to think, with the
forceps and ties.  And when it was done, you said--oh, no matter.
You've probably forgotten."

"I hope it was something pleasant."

"It sounds awfully silly, but it meant a great deal to me.  You
looked me straight in the face, for the first and last time, and
said, 'You're a good egg!'  I had never thought much about being an
egg before."  They both laughed, nervously, and Paige, vastly in
need of a little occupational therapy, sharpened a pencil.

"Yes," he said reminiscently, "that was the worst one I ever saw.
The little fellow didn't have one chance in a thousand, did he?"

She sighed, rose, and moved slowly toward the door, hesitating
there for a moment.

"Perhaps it would be better all around if I left Parkway, Dr.
Paige," she hazarded.

"I don't see the necessity of that."  He had risen and stood facing
her.  "You are needed here," he continued, in a tone of challenge.
"My God, woman, aren't you big enough to understand that our
profession is more important than our personal desires, and gets
the right of way over everything--OVER EVERYTHING, I TELL YOU!
Stay--and play the game!"

She studied the floor, tugging at her lip with agitated fingers.

"You saw my cards," she said morosely.  "It isn't fair."

"Nonsense!" scoffed Paige.  "I wasn't looking.  I don't even know
what suit was trump. . . .  Look here--you've been working too
hard, and the whole business has got on your nerves.  I'll tell Dr.
Endicott you need a week in the country."

"Thanks," she said listlessly.  "There's no need of that.  And--
I'll stay--if you're sure you want me to."

Paige smiled his satisfaction.  "You're a credit to the hospital,"
he declared warmly.  "It's the proper spirit.  I knew you had it."

"And may I still be--an egg?" she queried, with a brave attempt to
be playful.

"An uncommonly good one!"  He offered her his hand.

When she got to her room that night, Frances Ogilvie found three
dozen long-stemmed American Beauty roses bearing Paige's card.  It
was a mistake, as he discovered next day.  If, he reflected
afterward, he had wanted to send her some token of his regard for
her excellent sportsmanship in a trying position, he should have
given her a new clinical thermometer in a gold case, or The Life of
Osier, or a dated, candled, de luxe egg.  Miss Ogilvie was, as
Paige had conceded, an exceptionally able operating nurse, but--
long before that--she was a woman.  She would make a courageous
effort to play the game, but she couldn't abandon her belief that
hearts were trumps.  So the roses, which had been intended to
symbolize their friendship on a safer footing, had not cleared the
air at all.  Newell Paige came to dread the necessity for working
in the laboratory, where he was almost sure to be brought to bay.
Keenly interested in bacteriology, he had enjoyed nothing better
than microscopical research, but no sooner would he be lost in his
scientific problem than Frances would saunter in to bend over his
shoulder, ruthlessly reckless as she pressed closely against him.
He was for ever bumping into her in the corridors.  She was at his
heels until the whole place buzzed merrily.  At length he had been
obliged to be almost surly with her, to shut off the insufferable
smiles and winks.

"Very well," she agreed tartly.  "Strictly business, then, from now
on.  You wouldn't know how to be kind, anyhow--except possibly to
your dog."

Confused and defenceless, Paige had replied, absurdly, "Well--
Sylvia IS a good dog."


Mrs. Lawrence Dexter's day nurse, Bunny Mather, obediently but
unrewardedly studied Dr. Paige's face as he entered the room.

Bunny had been given a difficult assignment.  It had been suggested
to her that she should try to discover the nature of Dr. Paige's
peculiar interest in her wealthy and prominent patient.  She had so
much wanted to please Miss Ogilvie, whom she admired to the extent
of attempted imitation.  Miss Ogilvie's fleeting smile, executed
with half-closed eyes and a whimsical little pout, had cost Bunny
several long sessions of private smirkings before her diminutive
mirror in the nurses' home.

Unfortunately there had been almost nothing to report so far.  Dr.
Paige had been visiting Mrs. Dexter at least twice daily ever since
her arrival for observation two weeks ago.  She was not his
patient.  Dr. Endicott had brought him in, that first day, to
present him.

"I want you to become acquainted with my associate, Dr. Newell
Paige, Mrs. Dexter," he had said breezily.  "You two should know
each other.  It is no secret, Mrs. Dexter," he had added, "that Dr.
Paige is in the running to be the chief of staff here when the old
fellow retires to the Lido or Waikiki Beach."

The acquaintance ripened quickly into an unusual comradeship.
Sometimes Dr. Paige stayed with Mrs. Dexter for an hour or more.
As her disability was neither painful nor fatiguing, there was no
reason why she should not receive callers if she desired.  No one
of her family was in town.  Her husband, an investment broker in a
huge Mid-Western city, would come if an operation were decided on.
A daughter, Grace, at home with her father, would accompany him.
There was another daughter, Phyllis, in Europe for the summer with
a party of Vassar classmates.  The trip was Phyllis's Commencement
gift.

So little had Bunny learned about her interesting patient who,
contrary to custom, had been disinclined to discuss her private
affairs with her nurse.  As for the sudden friendship which had
developed between her and the young surgeon, Bunny was regretfully
unable to enlighten Miss Ogilvie.  No--she hadn't the faintest idea
what they talked about, for she was always promptly excused from
attendance while these conversations were in progress.

"I mean," she had explained, under heavy pressure, "they never have
said anything while I was in the room--not anything that really
meant anything, if you know what I mean.  They have both travelled;
maybe they talk about that.  Once I heard her saying something
about a ship."

"One they had sailed on?" pursued Miss Ogilvie, alert.  "Perhaps
they knew each other before.  Maybe she came here for that reason."

"I don't think so.  She quoted something that a dean had said to
her about a ship."

"Dean of a college?"

"I don't know.  She was talking in a very low tone.  I couldn't
hear very well."

"Did Dr. Paige make any reply?"

"Yes--he said he didn't believe it."

"And then they laughed, I suppose."

"No."

"It wasn't just a little joke, then?"

"No--they were pretty serious."

"But--how do they look at each other?" Miss Ogilvie had persisted,
after a thoughtful interval.  "You know what I mean--as if they had
something between them?"

"M-maybe," Bunny had ventured uncertainly.  "I'll try to notice
from now on, Miss Ogilvie--honest I will--but"--she added,
truthfully--"I don't think I'm going to be very good at it."

"Was she nettled," inquired Miss Ogilvie, unwilling to leave a
stone unturned, "when Dr. Paige said he didn't believe whatever it
was about the ship?"

"No," Bunny had replied.  She patted Dr. Paige's hand, and said,
"I hope it doesn't cost you too much."

"Well--in God's name--what on earth does that mean, Mather?"

"I'm sure I don't know, Miss Ogilvie.  You asked me what I heard
them say, and I've tried to tell you."

Anyone should have known at a glance that Bunny Mather was not
fitted, by nature, for sleuthing.  Life had not been very
complicated for Bunny.  She had no talent for dramatizing the small
episodes which sporadically punctuated her routine.  An inordinate
appetite for candy, cream, and other fattening refreshments had
earned her the cherubic rolypolyness of a Delia Robbia medallion.
She was not built for the sinister task of crouching at keyholes.
Her wide-open, slightly protuberant, birds-egg-blue eyes lent to
her round face an expression of ineffable guilelessness.  This
ocular phenomenon was due to an incipient exophthalmic goitre, but
the fact remained that Bunny was almost, if not quite, as naïve and
artless as she looked.

To-day she was resolved to stay in the room with them until
definitely and firmly invited to leave.  No mere hint or inquiring
glance in her direction would be sufficient to dislodge her.  She
had just learned that Mrs. Dexter's operation had been put off
until to-morrow.  After that, there might be a week or more when
conversation would be impossible.

One thing seemed sure: it was not a flirtation.  Mrs. Dexter was
nearly old enough to have been Dr. Paige's mother.  And she
certainly wasn't the sort to initiate or encourage a gusty little
romance for the sake of passing the time.

Dr. Paige always had the manner of a person coming in for advice on
some important problem.  He was very serious.  He never entered
with the capable condescension of the physician making his rounds,
carolling, "And how do we find ourselves this morning?"  Bunny had
thought of saying to Miss Ogilvie that Dr. Paige acted as if he
were going to school to Mrs. Dexter, but had decided against that
because it sounded too silly.  She didn't care to risk hearing Miss
Ogilvie say, as she had once said to her in reply to a remark,
"Don't be an ass, Mather!"

Bunny busied her fat fingers rearranging the books and bottles on
the table, glancing up frequently to note Dr. Paige's expression
and movements.  He stood for some moments at the foot of the bed,
toying with his platinum watch-chain.  Then he slowly nodded his
head, and smiled; not a greeting, but an affirmative.

Quickly shifting her search to Mrs. Dexter's face, Bunny tried to
interpret it, but realized that she had arrived the fraction of a
second too late.  Mrs. Dexter's sensitive lips were parted as if
she had just asked an inarticulate question with them--some single-
word query that might have been expressed with the lips only.  If
so--they had a very good understanding between them, these two.

And that would be natural, reflected Bunny, for they were very much
alike.  They were thoroughbreds.  You could always tell.  People
didn't get to be like that by personal effort or education.  If you
had it, it was because you were born with it, and nobody could take
it from you.  You had it whether you were rich or poor, sick or
well, happy or wretched.  All the money in the world couldn't buy
even a cheap imitation of it.  Bunny knew very well she didn't have
it.  She knew Miss Ogilvie didn't have it.

Mrs. Dexter had the eyes of a thoroughbred; steady greyish-blue
eyes that never widened suddenly in surprise or alarm or curiosity;
serene eyes that never gave her thoughts away.  There was one
little snow-white curl slightly to the left of the parting on the
low forehead, definitely outlined from the environing burnished
gold.  The white lock was not a disfigurement but a distinction.
One suspected that in Mrs. Dexter's youth her Titian hair had been
of a brighter yellow.  There were deep dimples in her cheeks.  Her
hands were long and slender, and she could say things with them.
Dr. Paige had the same slow-moving eyes and the same speaking
hands.  He had taken one of Mrs. Dexter's expressive hands in both
of his and had seated himself at her bedside.  These people were
somehow related, Bunny felt.

He said something to her in an undertone, and she replied, with a
smile, "What does it matter?--to-day, to-morrow, the day after.
Don't be troubled about this little delay.  I shall not be
fretting.  No, no--it isn't a pose, I assure you.  I am quite in
earnest.  It doesn't matter in the least and I'm content."

"You are a very fortunate woman," responded Dr. Paige.  "Last night
I was thinking over some of the things you had said, and it
occurred to me that if somehow it could be reduced to simple terms
and communicated, it would practically revolutionize the whole
problem of human happiness.  But I doubt whether it could ever be
made elementary enough for the ordinary intellect.  I admit it's
too much for mine.  I think I get spasmodic little tugs of it--and
then it is gone.  One would have to be something of a mystic, I
presume."

"No."  Mrs. Dexter's negative was accompanied by a slow shake of
her head on the pillow.  "No--it isn't a matter of mental capacity
or even of temperament.  The trouble is that the average individual
leaves most of his tasks unfinished, his mental tasks in
particular.  The world is fairly crowded with truncated minds
belonging to people who learned the scales up to three flats and
two sharps.  If the tune they are interested in happens to be
written in any higher signature, they have either to transpose it
into one of the keys they have learned or give it up.  Most people
try to get along with a vocabulary of about six hundred words.
This enables them to understand what is going on in the kitchen,
the shop, and on the street.  Any idea that can't be translated
into kitchen-lore or shop-lore or street-lore is dismissed."

"Did Dean Harcourt ever try to put this into print?"

"No--nor has he more than hinted at it in public addresses.  He
does it all by the case-method.  People in trouble come to him and
he tells them.  It's really amazing what happens to them.  Why--
I've known instances--"

"You may run along now and have a bit of relaxation, Miss Mather,"
Mrs. Dexter interrupted herself to say, without detaching her eyes
from Dr. Paige's face.

Bunny still lingered, tinkering with the magazines and vases,
consumed with curiosity to hear what was coming next.

"That will be all for the present," said Dr. Paige, with finality.
"We will ring when you are needed."

Bunny slowly and reluctantly walked to the door, opened it, and
softly closed it behind her.



Chapter Two


By admonition and example Dr. Bruce Endicott--elsewhere genial and
talkative--had discouraged all unnecessary conversation in his
operating-theatres at Parkway Hospital.  The sentiment he had built
up against superfluous chatter on the part of his associates and
assistants was not restricted to the period when surgery was
actually in process.  He did not like to be distracted even during
the preparatory business of scrubbing-up.  Nothing annoyed him more
than some cold-bloodedly irrelevant remark, when an operation was
impending, "as if one were making ready to bake a pie or patch a
boot."  Daily experience of working together in silence had so
harmoniously integrated this particular group of five, that their
respective rôles in the drama were adroitly enacted without need of
prompting or conference.

On this eventful Wednesday the pantomime had been in progress for
fifteen minutes, unattended by any noise but the padding of
competent rubber-shod feet on the tiled floor, the muffled plunk of
the sterilizing machines as they grudgingly disgorged their
immaculate contents through belching billows of steam, the
intermittent swirl and swish of water rushing into capacious
porcelain basins, and the patter and rattle and clink and clank of
variously sized, curiously shaped instruments, hot, clean,
gleaming.

Gingerly and at arms' length Miss Ogilvie held up the surgical
coat, and Dr. Paige stretched out his dripping arms toward it,
instinctively aware that her eyes were inviting him as they always
were in this thrice-a-day experience of a face-to-face contact
which lacked only a little of an embrace.  The Tweedy girl stood
behind him, gowned and masked, waiting to tie the tapes down his
back.  Dr. Endicott was still vigorously polishing his nails.  In a
moment he, too, would be offering himself to Ogilvie for the same
ministrations his associate had just received.  By custom everybody
was made ready before Endicott.

The anxious face of Lucy Reid, the chief's secretary, appeared in
the crack of the corridor door.  Miss Ogilvie glanced over her
shoulder, visibly annoyed.

"Could Dr. Endicott answer the telephone?" inquired the girl
nervously, aware that she was taking an unforgivable liberty.

"Certainly not!" snapped Miss Ogilvie, through her gauze.  "You
ought to know that much."

"I told them," explained Miss Reid defensively, "but they insisted
it was very urgent, and said that Dr. Endicott would be at a
serious disadvantage if the message was not delivered at once."

"Who was it?" boomed Endicott, without looking up.

"Riley, Brooks, and Bannister, Doctor.  Shall I say you will call
them up later?"

He released the faucet-pedal and stood for an instant, head tilted
to one side, as if listening for a decision.

"They said it was of immediate importance?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, I'll go. . . .  Sorry, Dr. Paige.  I shall not be
long."

Abstractedly stroking the fingers of his gloves, Paige walked
through the alcove, passed the operating-table, and entered the
adjacent chamber.  Mrs. Dexter, with the customary modicum of
morphine to reduce her active interest in the occasion, spread out
her hand apathetically and signed that she was too drowsy to offer
it, to which he wordlessly replied, by holding up his own, that he
would be unable to touch her, anyway.

Grace Dexter, whom he had met briefly an hour earlier, stood in the
doorway at a discreet distance, a bit pale, but entirely self-
possessed.  Her patrician face had the general contour of her
mother's.  Had the black hair been straight she could have done an
acceptable madonna.  Her figure was slight but shapely, as the
severely tailored suit, unrelieved by any touch of colour,
testified.  The brooding grey eyes hinted at a well-developed
talent for introspection, an effect augmented by the slightly
drooping, sensitive lips.  Slim, meditative fingers caressed a
silver crucifix depending from a heavy chain about her white
throat.  Dr. Paige smiled, and she answered the recognition.

"Did your father come up?" he asked.

"Yes--and just now went down again.  To the telephone, I think.  He
will be back in a moment.  Mother seems quite fit, don't you
think?"

"Never better!" said Paige confidently.  Then, leaning over Mrs.
Dexter, he whispered something in her ear which she approved with a
contented sigh and several reassuring little nods.  She closed her
eyes, and the slightly smiling lips relaxed.

"Do I know what that was about?" queried Grace, in the tone of one
asking for a password.  Paige nodded and retraced his steps into
the operating-room, and through the alcove where the white-swathed
little company waited.

Presently the door opened and the chief appeared, quite plainly
upset about something.  Paige watched him anxiously as he resumed
his washing with nervous haste.  His face was flushed and the
muscles of his cheeks twitched.  The silence was taut.  Endicott
seemed to sense it with defenceless irritation.  Everybody in the
room knew that he had been engaged in an emergency conversation
with his brokers, and he knew that they all knew.  They knew that
he knew they knew.  He plunged his arms into the surgical coat with
such force that he tore it out of Ogilvie's grip and it fell to the
floor.  Tweedy came promptly with another.  His exasperation was
all but out of control.  At length, in spite of his haste, he was
ready.  They filed into the operating-room and gathered about the
table.

Lane's thin fingers trembled a little as he readjusted the mask
more effectively over Mrs. Dexter's face.  Endicott noticed it and
frowned.  He stared glassily straight ahead through the high,
bright windows while they waited for the increasingly laboured
respiration to signal the moment for action.  One more shuddering
inhalation would do it.  Lane slowly looked up, pursed his lips
slightly, and nodded.

A hand-made Swiss watch could have had no better understanding of
itself than this close-knit company of five.  Endicott signed his
commands to Paige and Ogilvie, Ogilvie signed to the Tweedy and
Larimer girls--all the orders given with dexterous gestures.
Endicott was working faster than usual.

The hands of the surgeons opened and whatever they required was
instantly thrust into them; the others hovering close, alert, lynx-
eyed. . . .  A scalpel for Endicott, the swift use of a sponge
thrust into Paige's fingers by Tweedy, a pair of forceps for Paige,
the deft swipe of a sponge by Larimer, more forceps for Paige
furnished by Ogilvie, fresh sponges for Tweedy furnished by
Larimer, more forceps for Paige; clip, clip, clip, forceps,
forceps, forceps for Paige, more gauze for Tweedy, a clamp for
Paige, long-handled scissors for Endicott--a tense pause, quiet and
stiff as a tableau.  Larimer stood ready with the threaded ligator.
Ogilvie offered the handles of a secondary clamp.  Endicott shook
his head.  That meant he couldn't use it because there was no room
to apply it.  There was a quick, barely audible sucking intake of
breath by Ogilvie.  Endicott frowned.

"I'll hold your clamp, Dr. Paige," he muttered huskily.  "You make
the tie, please."

Paige realized that the pedicle had been cut too short for safe
ligation.  He adjusted the ligature with difficulty and drew it as
tightly as possible.  Endicott slowly and with apparent reluctance
relaxed the clamp and withdrew it.  They waited.  The chief
breathed as if he had recently been running uphill.  He had made
two grave mistakes.  In his nervous excitement he had neglected to
dissect the pedicle--sheath of the renal artery--with sufficient
care, and had severed it too short for a secure tie. . . .  The
pedicle slowly rejected the ligature.

"MY FAULT!" gasped Paige, as the flood broke.  "I should have drawn
it tighter.  MY GOD!"

The hæmorrhage was instantly out of control.  Sponges would have
been equally serviceable at a crumbled dam.  The increasing tempo
of the splash of big drops falling from the table to the floor
quickened to a brisk patter and accelerated to a steady stream.

The chief seemed suddenly to go to pieces--a shocking sight to
those who had never seen him panic-driven.  He panted for breath
and his hands shook.  Ogilvie thrust a huge bunch of gauze into the
pouring wound.  He shouted to her to remove it, and frantically
groped in the depths of the geyser with his clamp, hoping to
recapture the spouting pedicle by mere blind chance.

"A donor--immediately!" he commanded hoarsely.  "Here, Paige,"
handing him the clamp, "see what you can do."  The frenzied
grappling continued.

"How's she holding up, Lane?" mumbled Endicott, half incoherently.

Lane shook his head and closed the valves.  Miss Tweedy collapsed
on the slippery floor in a dead faint.  Larimer dragged her out of
the way.  Ogilvie sponged the sweat from Paige's white face.  The
hæmorrhage was subsiding now.  It had almost stopped.  There was no
further energy driving it.


Endicott and Paige washed at adjoining basins without the exchange
of a word or a look.  The chief was still breathing with an
asthmatic wheeze.  Paige was so shaken that his tears ran
unrestrained.

Two orderlies were mopping the floor.  The body had been wheeled
into a room across the hall.  Tweedy, quite nauseated, slumped over
a basin in the corner, supported by Larimer, who was swallowing
hard and apparently on the verge of crumpling.

Paige made a quick task of his ablutions, dashed to the dressing-
room, and changed to his street clothes.  Nothing seemed to matter
now but a prompt escape from this place at top speed.  His hands
shook so violently that he could hardly manage his buttons.

Frances Ogilvie was waiting for him when he came out into the
corridor.  He pretended not to notice her, and moved quickly to the
elevator.  She followed, clutching at his sleeve.  "Wait!" she
cried.  "I know exactly what happened and I'm going to tell
everybody the truth."

"You're going to mind your own business," retorted Paige, measuring
his words, sternly.  "It was my fault and I've admitted it.  And
that settles it.  You are to stay out of it, and keep your mouth
shut."

The sluggish elevator was in use, its remote rumble threatening a
long delay.  Unable to bear any more of the tempest that had
reduced the Ogilvie girl to a tear-smeared sputter of protestations,
Paige suddenly pushed her out of his path and started for the
stairway.  She pursued him, sobbing aloud.  He lost her somewhere
between the third and second floors, and ran on.  The last he heard
of her was an hysterical scream, "You'll be sorry!"

In the main hall, the superintendent, Watts, called to him, but he
did not stop.  At the front door he ran into Ted Rayburn, the house
physician.  He had been closer to Rayburn, for a couple of years,
than to any of the others, with the possible exception of Bennie
Booth.

"Where are you bolting to?" demanded Rayburn, holding out both
arms, semaphore fashion.  "What's happened?  You're white!"

"They'll tell you--in there," Paige replied, over his shoulder,
hurrying on.

Walking swiftly to the gate, he hailed a cruising taxi and ordered
the driver to take him home.  He did not reply when the elevator
boy at the Hermitage inquired why he was not using his own car.

The apartment was cool and quiet.  Inagaki was out, probably
attending to his marketing.

Paige flung his hat on to the table in the small vestibule and
walked through the living-room into his library.  Although
temperate almost to the point of abstinence, he maintained a
cabinet of choice liquors for the use of his guests.  He went
directly to it, poured himself a stiff drink of cognac, and gulped
it raw.  Unaccustomed to such heroic potations, and having had
nothing to eat--it was now twelve-thirty--since his light breakfast
at seven, he felt the fiery stuff make his head swim.

Telephoning the garage, he instructed Pete to go out to the
hospital for his car.

"No--nothing the matter with it.  Drive it back to the garage and
bring Sylvia here."

For a long time he stood at one of the front windows of his quite
luxurious living-room, beating a tattoo on the sash with restless
fingers.  The thick traffic on the street below was a confused blur
of noisy futility.  Everything was carrying on down there as if no
sudden world-destroying catastrophe had occurred.  These people
apparently hadn't heard yet that there was no reason for any
further effort.

The tragic affair of the forenoon clamoured for appraisal, but it
was all too painfully recent for a sensible survey.  On the trip
home in the taxicab the one blistering fact that mattered most was
the wanton destruction of his idol.  As they had stood there, side
by side, almost touching elbows, scrubbing off the blood that had
been so needlessly shed, he had momentarily expected the big,
dynamic, generous-hearted fellow to turn to him and say,
courageously:  "I was to blame, Newell.  We both know that.  I
shall clear you of any responsibility, you may be sure."  And he
had already composed the quick reply, "Better let the matter rest
the way it is."  But Endicott--damn him!--had buried his hairy arms
and pallid face in the square porcelain tub, splashing and
spluttering, without a single glance, much less a friendly word.
Endicott had crashed, completely cracked up.  All that noble talk
in his sumptuous library of an evening about professional ethics,
good sportsmanship, the inviolability of the Hippocratic (or was it
the hypocritic?) oath, the devotion to duty that demanded
precedence over any and all personal ambitions--bah!--and to hell
with it!

Mentally inspecting him now, toppled from his pedestal, Paige
realized that Endicott's moral disaster had not been entirely
unpredictable.  He had seen the big man slipping, slipping, day
after day.  Too much concern about money.  Too much fretting about
investments.  Too many business conferences downtown.  Too much
travelling all night and rushing into operations in the morning,
for which he had not prepared.

There had been that Baldwin girl, for instance, only last Thursday.
Simplest possible appendectomy.  Could have done it with his eyes
shut.  No occasion at all for a fifty-minute exploratory.  Hadn't
studied the plate, that was the trouble.  Was making a speech that
night before the P.T.A. on (God help us!) "The Changing Thought of
the Public in Respect to Surgery."  Probably was thinking about
that when they showed him the picture of the little stenographer's
insides.  Or wondering, perhaps, whether steel and rails would be
stronger to-day.  No matter if the twenty-dollar-a-week office
clerk was kept in bed ten days longer than necessary.  That
wouldn't discommode the chief.

No--Endicott had not crashed from some dizzy height.  He had been
sliding for a long time.  Paige admitted to himself now that he had
been afraid to see the chief operate on Mrs. Dexter.  Old Lane had
been afraid of it too.  As much as said so.  He regretted that he
had been so surly and highhanded with Lane.  Lane was an honest
fellow, for all his fanatical rot about the soul-destroying effect
of easy money.  Maybe frowsy old Lane was right.  One thing was
sure--money hadn't improved Endicott.  It had made him puffy,
arrogant, bumptious.  And now, in an emergency, he had turned out
to be a coward and a cad.

Newell's hard-driven pulse pounded in his ears.  Unwilling to
torture himself any further with thoughts of the execrable
Endicott, he went into the library and wrote a brief letter of
resignation to Watts, splutteringly addressed an envelope, and rose
unsteadily to take another drink of cognac.  Briefly cleared, he
resumed his stand at the window, and thought of Mrs. Dexter.

Subconsciously he had been dreading the moment when his memory
would compel a review of her case.  To his amazement, the thought
of Mrs. Dexter calmed him somewhat.  He had anticipated that the
recollection of her tragedy would haunt him for life.  Strangely
enough, the painful sight of her on the operating-table, rapidly
melting away, was driven into complete eclipse by the enduring
vision of her in her room.  Incomparably steady, she now seemed to
stand apart from all the blundering pomposities and blustering
incompetence and whimpering anxiety of his madly careering world--
an indestructible symbol of self-possession.

Sometimes, seated at ease in her tranquil presence, he had found
himself smiling indulgently as she talked of "the things that make
for personal adequacy."  Under ordinary circumstances he would, he
knew, have distrusted the phrase.  People who chattered glibly of
"the-things-that-make-for" this and that were tiresome, and more
often than not turned out to be mentally untidy.

But Mrs. Dexter's confident talk about "personal adequacy" was
refreshing.  He had enjoyed hearing it because it was so evident
that she believed it.  He had gone back to her, day after day, just
to hear her say it.  The very enunciation of the phrase had put her
singularly mobile lips through all their pretty paces.  And it was
a nice theory to toy with, academically; about as practical as a
house made of tissue-paper; very bright and attractive, so long as
it doesn't rain.

He had teasingly said this to her--just about this way--and she had
replied, smilingly unruffled, "But doesn't it look a little like
rain--over my house?  You don't think I shall go to pieces, do
you?"

"No," he had declared, with sincere conviction, "you'll not go to
pieces, whatever the weather, but that will not be because of your
curious philosophy.  It's not the philosophy that insures Mrs.
Dexter: it's Mrs. Dexter that insures the philosophy.  What
difference does it make, after all, what one believes?  If your
ductless glands are functioning properly, and you're biologically
built to be optimistic, your creed will sound attractive.
Your Father, Son, and Holy Ghost will allure them.  Or your
Transmigration of Souls.  Or your Iza-Nagi's Magic Wand.  Or your
Mystic Shrine of the Blue Flame.  People with an undeveloped
anterior lobe of the pituitary or an enlarged spleen will come with
flowers for your altar, thinking it is the thing you believe that
has made you enviably competent to survive the shocks and storms
and live beautifully. . . .  You might as well expect to get
results by screwing a Rolls-Royce name-plate onto a wheelbarrow,
and command it to get about under its own power."

He distinctly remembered her drawling reply, "Pouf!--You and your
glands!  You'd better turn your old hospital into a nice new
garage."

It had been very stimulating to talk with Mrs. Dexter.  There was
nothing wormlike about her serenity.  Nothing annoyed her, but she
was abundantly able to take care of herself in an argument.

The first time she had hinted at her curious theory, a bit shyly,
he had suspected it of being some sort of esoteric religion, and
inwardly sighed.  Such a charming personality she was, and now she
was going to be just another of those boresome, cult-harried women,
preparing to unload an incomprehensible mess of sweet and sticky
twitter relayed from some soul-surgeon.  (Tuesdays at eleven in the
Gold Room of the Ritz; a dollar-fifty, or the entire course of
twelve for ten, the deep-breathing book gratis to subscribers.)

But it was soon observable that Mrs. Dexter, far from being just a
gullible neurasthenic, was as remote as he himself from any
interest in metaphysical cream-puffs.  Indeed, she was his superior
in respect to their attitudes toward such fatuities.  He was
acutely irritated by them; caustically satirical about them.  Once
he had said to her:  "All religions are opiatic.  The old ones
stick to straight chloroform.  The new ones like a little rose-
verbena in their ether, just so it makes them too drowsy to think.
One method is good as another."  Mrs. Dexter did not deride any of
them.  She gracefully dismissed them with outspread passionless
hands.  Sometimes she had shocked him beyond belief with her bland
insistence upon what seemed like an uncompromising fatalism.

"It's an odd thing," he had said, one day.  "You seem the most
gentle of spirits, but this belief you hold is hard as tool-steel.
You have the temperament of a mystic, but your philosophy would
bite a hole in a battleship!"

Well--she would be an everlasting inspiration.  Tomorrow or next
day they would carry her out to some shady spot and leave her there
to become one with the soil.  That grisly aspect of human mortality
was made strangely unrepellent as he remembered her self-confessed
integration with "a planned universe" which, in her opinion, was
every way sound and worthy.

The door-bell rang.  He answered it mechanically.  Pete silently
handed him the end of the leash and departed unthanked.  Sylvia
licked his hand as he unfastened the snap from her collar.  She
followed him closely into the library, and when he slumped into a
chair she sniffed his fingers with quivering nostrils and whined.

"Go lie down!" growled Paige savagely.  Then he went to the
bathroom and washed his hands, thoroughly, this time.  Having
finished, he disrobed completely and spent a long time under the
shower.  Donning a dressing-gown, he sought the liquor cabinet
again, telling himself he must not take any more cognac.  It should
be something light.  He was barely able to move about.  He poured a
copious drink of rye whisky.  The telephone was ringing, but he did
not answer it.  With a whirling head, he staggered into his living-
room and sprawled at full length on the sofa, and slept.

Shortly after four he woke.  Inagaki stood near, regarding him with
concern.

"Dr. Rayburn is on the 'phone, sir," said the diminutive Nipponese.

"Tell him I'm out," muttered Paige thickly.  "Tell everybody I'm
out."

"Yes, sir--I told him you were in, sir."

"Well, you go back and tell him you're a little liar!"

Presently Inagaki was on hand again.  He had a tall glass in which
ice tinkled.  It had a welcome sound.  Paige reached for it.

"Did you tell Dr. Rayburn what I said, Inagaki?"

"Yes, sir.  He also say I am the little liar.  He will come."

"I might have known it. . . .  What is this stuff, Inagaki?"

"Limeade, sir."

"It's pretty flat.  Put some gin in it."

Inagaki found him sound asleep when he returned, and did not molest
him.  Paige slept fitfully.  The room was darker each time he was
roused by the telephone bell and the voice of Inagaki reassuringly
replying to solicitous inquirers.  Once he heard him say, "No,
Miss, Dr. Paige is at the hospital. . . .  He is not?  Then I do
not know."

At length he was aware of talk close beside him.  A painfully
pungent whiff of ammonia stung him wide awake.

"Hurry that coffee along, Inagaki," Rayburn was saying, "and make
it strong."

Raising himself on one elbow, Paige ran his long fingers through
his tousled hair and regarded his guests with a feeble grin.
"It's love of humanity brought 'em here," he intoned, with deep
solemnity.  "Spirit of service.  Man can't even get quietly inebri--
ineber--can't even get quietly drunk in his own house without
stirring up a lot of excitement.  Did you fellows bring the
ambulance?"

Bennie Booth chuckled a little, but Rayburn drew down the corners
of his mouth and scowled.

"If you were in the habit of getting quietly drunk in your own
house, there would be no occasion to call out the troops."  He
settled an ice-bag firmly about Paige's temples.  "Here, drink
this!"

"Better mix yourselves something," suggested their host, his thick
head clearing slightly as he sat up and sipped the scalding coffee,
"if you don't like to see me drunk by myself."

Booth thought it wasn't a bad idea.  No use to humiliate Newell
unnecessarily.  He would feel better if they had something.
Assisted by Inagaki, whose bewilderment over his master's plight
amused them even in the face of their own anxiety, they returned
with ample glasses of Scotch and soda.

"We've got to see this thing through, Bennie," Rayburn had said,
under his breath.  "Newell isn't fit to be left alone.  He might do
himself some damage.  We've had enough of that for one day."

Seating himself on the couch beside his dishevelled friend, Rayburn
studied his glass, and remarked casually, "Well--tell us all about
it, Newell.  What happened?  Or don't you want to talk about it
yet?"

"Not yet--or ever!" mumbled Paige bitterly.  "Inagaki, make me one
of those."

"Mostly soda, Inagaki," added Bennie, over his shoulder.

"But I would like to know one thing," said Paige, when the whisky
had lifted his fog a little, "how did the girl--and her father--
bear up?  I didn't see them afterward.  Wasn't quite man enough to
face 'em."

Booth and Rayburn exchanged glances, each waiting for the other to
invent an acceptable lie.  Then Bennie shook his head; but Rayburn,
noting that Newell had caught them in the act of conference,
plunged into the truth.

"It has been a kind of complicated affair," he began ponderously.
"Of course you've been laid up and haven't seen the evening papers.
There was a terrific crash in the stock market to-day.  The whole
town is shocked.  This man Dexter appears to have been cleaned out,
along with a half-million other well-to-do's.  Lost his shirt.
That, on top of this accident at the hospital--or this on top of
that--was a little too much for him.  So he pushed off, this
afternoon, about five.  Not a very neat job.  Didn't know his
anatomy in the cardiac zone.  Lived for a couple of hours."

"Ted looked after him," interjected Booth, "unconscious all the
while."

"He means Dexter was," Rayburn explained, hopeful of lifting
Newell's dejection.

"Damned silly remark," growled Paige sullenly.  "And what became of
the girl?  Is she dead, too?"

"Oh, no; we put her to bed, over at Parkway, and sprinkled a little
poppy-dust over her worries," replied Rayburn, pleased to be making
an encouraging report.  "But she had herself pretty well in hand,
considering everything she'd been through: father and mother both
dead and the family stony-broke--all in the course of about eight
hours.  Took it with her chin up.  Maybe she was just stunned.
Didn't want to go to bed.  We thought she'd better.  We sent some
telegrams for her including a cable to her sister; addressed it to
the young woman who is with her sister in London."

"Dr. Endicott about?" inquired Paige thickly.

"Huh!" snorted Bennie.  "THAT bird!"  Instantly aware of the
injudicious slip, he added promptly:  "I dare say he was busy.
He had had a hard day.  They say he took an awful beating in the
market collapse."

Newell shut off this criticism with the surly comment that he
didn't care to hear any criticism of Dr. Endicott, denouncing
Bennie for a drunken fool who ought to have his envy under better
control.  To clear the air of this slight disharmony, they made
another highball.  Inagaki offered his employer some advice while
this was in progress and was sent scurrying off to bed.

At two, the host having quite definitely passed out, Rayburn and
Booth repaired to the kitchen, where they scrambled half a dozen
eggs, grilled some bacon, and crowned Inagaki's statuette of Buddha
with an inverted gin-jigger.  Heartened by their success in giving
a jaunty air to so profound a matter, it occurred to them that
Newell, on waking in the morning, might appreciate some little
memento of their playful mood at the time of taking their
departure.  Composing his arms and legs, they placed a bunch of
celery across his breast, and drawing up two small tables at his
head and feet put a pair of candelabra on guard.  Bennie was for
lighting the candles, but Rayburn, slightly less drunk, vetoed this
mad suggestion.

At four-thirty Paige woke, bewilderedly took stock of his position
which under any less tragic circumstances would have been
ridiculous, dizzily struggled to his feet and muttered, "Dead,
eh? . . .  Why not?"

Reviving himself with another glass of cognac, he wrote a brief,
business-like letter to his valued friend, Eugene Corley, junior
member of the firm of attorneys who had long since handled his
affairs and his father's before him, confident that his secret
would be kept and his instructions meticulously obeyed.  He rather
wished he might have an intimate talk with his bachelor crony, who,
although fully ten years his senior, had always been delightfully
congenial.  A postcript was added to this effect.

He left the letter, sealed and stamped, on the library table, and
dressed quickly in a rough suit of tweeds and well-worn walking
shoes, the dog following about closely from room to room, sitting
on her haunches directly before him while he laced his shoes,
studying his face with a somewhat annoying solicitude.

"No--you can't go, Sylvia," he said gruffly, patting her on the
head.  "Not where I'm going.  You're still alive.  Try to make the
most of it."

She followed him to the door, and when he opened it squeezed past
him and bounded out into the hall.  He tried to coax her back, but
Sylvia took advantage of his necessity to depart without raising
the house.  She made for the stairway, indifferent to her master's
low-voiced cajolery and command.

It was still dark in the street and nobody in the vicinity was
astir.  There was a decided snap in the October breeze from the
lake.

Paige turned south on Elm and walked briskly.  Sylvia trotted at
his heels.



Chapter Three


Miss Arlen and Phyllis saw them off on the Berengaria and took the
noon char-à-banc back to London.

It was pleasant to think that they were to have six weeks of
leisurely browsing about together after the seventy-two hot and
helter-skelter days on the Continent.  Phyllis, especially, had
reasons for anticipating this experience with pleasant excitement.

Lined up along the rail on B-deck, as the last hawser splashed, the
homeward-bound party looked into the upturned faces of Phyllis and
Miss Arlen with undisguised envy--all but Patty Sumner, who was
going home to be married on the sixteenth of October, and Miss
Cogswell, who, in spite of her permission to arrive at Poughkeepsie
a week later for the opening of the autumn term, was conspicuously
restless to be back at her post.  At least a normal amount of
dispraise had been Miss Cogswell's portion during the twenty-five
years of her professional career, but nobody had ever said she was
not in earnest.

All things considered, the summer's excursion had been a success.
Miss Cogswell, recognized historian and competent art critic, had
remained an inflexible pedagogue throughout, marshalling her high-
spirited wards with a solicitude that had proved irksome at times,
but she had been an able director of the tour, providing handsomely
for their comfort.

The managerial technique of Miss Cogswell was canny and
irresistible.  From the first day out, she had assumed that her
young women (she never called them girls, though her discipline--
the result of ten years' experience in a prep. school previous to
her professorship in college--was better suited to the mood of
fifteen than twenty-two) were in Europe on a serious errand,
flatteringly imputing to them an ardent desire to devote every
minute to the pursuit of culture.

Only one unfortunate episode had briefly interrupted their mutually
forbearing display of concord.  That had been at Milan.  It was too
fine a night to be put to bed at nine-thirty.  They had just
arrived at seven, from a week in Florence of such vast improvement
to the mind that an hour of frivolous diversion seemed appropriate.

Miss Cogswell had been bathing her lame heels, when the sixth sense
she had evolved through an earlier decade of listening and sniffing
at tensely quiet dormitory doors warned her that the peace which
rested over their suite in the Metropole was too complete to be
real.  Tugging on her shapeless dressing-gown, she had paddled
about, peering into darkened and disordered rooms.  Not a mother's
daughter of her flock was to be found.

At eleven she and Miss Arlen located them, rosily merry, huddled
close together about a round table in the exact centre of the Café
Cova, stowing away tall parfaits.  Before each culprit reposed an
oily plate hinting at a recent antipasto, and an empty glass of the
size and shape frequently used in the serving of cocktails.  It was
a humiliating moment, in which the tour-director's young women
looked and felt like naughty little kindergarteners.

On the way back to the hotel, Miss Cogswell taciturnly leading on
with stiffened spine, determined stride, straight lips, and stony
eyes, Phyllis Dexter had lagged a little and fallen into step with
Miss Arlen who was dispassionately defending their retreat.
Phyllis admired her pretty English professor almost to the extent
of adoration, and disliked the thought of having annoyed her.  And
sometimes she had felt genuinely sorry for her, too, because it was
so manifest that she and Miss Cogswell--of necessity paired
together--had very little in common.

"I'm awfully sorry and ashamed," admitted Phyllis, rather shyly.

"You may be sorrier an hour from now," replied Miss Arlen
indifferently.  "It was a shocking mess--sardines and ice cream."

Phyllis risked a smile, but suspecting that the time was hardly
propitious for a light-hearted view of their misdemeanour, sobered
instantly and said with contrition, "We were horrid--making you
turn out when you were tired and sleepy."

"I wasn't sleepy," drawlingly dissented Miss Arlen, "and it is a
lovely night.  All the stars on duty."

"You're a darling!" breathed Phyllis, impetuously hugging Miss
Arlen's shapely arm.  And then, just as she was withdrawing her
hand, abashed over the impulsive liberty she had taken--for
Professor Patricia Arlen, Ph.D., was too coolly dignified and
remote to be pawed over in this manner--to Phyllis's unbounded
delight there was a warm pressure of response to her caress.  It
brought sudden tears to her eyes.  She had distantly worshipped
Miss Arlen, often wondering what it might be like to share the
confidence of this enigmatic, exquisite woman.  She thought she had
discovered a little secret.  Miss Arlen was human.  On the inside,
she was a regular fellow.

No attempt was made, next day, to improve upon the comradeship they
had tentatively confessed.  Miss Arlen was smilingly distant and
impartial.  But before the week was out, it had been arranged that
if Phyllis could secure consent from home, she would remain for a
few weeks in London with Miss Arlen, who had contrived a four
months' leave to study in the British Museum.  She had already won
recognition with her two volumes of essays on the Victorian Poets,
and now hoped to do another book on a subject she had not bothered
to confide to anyone, The Droller Aspects of the Restoration.

They followed along the dock as the Berengaria was tugged out,
waving good-byes, Phyllis wondering how soon they could decently
call it a closed incident and seek the shade.  Besides, she was
pipingly impatient to have Miss Arlen all to herself.  What would
it be like to live in such intimate contact with Miss Arlen; to
share the same room with her?  Phyllis was on tiptoe with
curiosity; just a little frightened, too.  She must be restrained,
mindful of her teacher's quite justifiable dignity.

At length Miss Arlen turned about, apparently satisfied that the
ceremony of farewell had been adequately attended to, and they
strolled over to the South Western Hotel where they were to board
the char-à-banc.  Presently they were bowling swiftly along High
Street, revelling in the welcome shade.  As they rattled under the
old Bargate Arch, Miss Arlen tugged off her prim little hat with a
girlish gesture of independence, as if the boundary of Miss
Cogswell's jurisdiction had now been passed, and the significant
smile she turned on Phyllis said, as plainly as if she had spoken
it, "There!  We are free now to do as we like!"

Phyllis, almost suffocated with pride and happiness over Miss
Arlen's comradely informality, again warned herself against the
temptation to ignore the considerable difference in their rank and
years.

Absorbed in the quaintness of the villages and the ripened serenity
of the countryside, they had but little to say to each other until
they were within sight of Winchester.  Phyllis was eager to talk.

"Are we going back to the Tate Gallery to-morrow?" she asked,
remembering Miss Cogswell's parting recommendation, and feeling
herself on safe ground here.

Miss Arlen tightened her pretty mouth, gave Phyllis a sidelong
glance of mock dismay, and grinned!  It was not a smile but a lazy
grin!  Miss Arlen closed one eye in a deliberate, diabolical wink!

"We are going out to Kew Gardens," she said firmly, "to lie flat on
our backs in the grass and watch the clouds.  And the first one who
says the word 'art' has to buy the lunch."

Phyllis sighed happily.

"I'm so glad now--about that affair in Milan," she said
reflectively.  "If it hadn't happened, I might have gone home with
the others.  Then I should have missed all this--being with you, I
mean.  You were so understanding, that night."

"It didn't call for much understanding," drawled Miss Arlen.  "I
was sitting in the dark by my window and saw you go.  Your dash for
liberty was no surprise."

By the time they reached Basingstoke they were arriving at a least
common denominator of mood and manner of talk.  Phyllis was
ecstatically loving London as they roared and sputtered into
increasingly heavy traffic.  Miss Arlen had forgotten her
professorship.

They had their baggage taken to a little hotel in Bloomsbury, round
the corner from the Museum.  Phyllis had never stopped at a place
so unpretentious; it had been Miss Arlen's suggestion.  She had
need to economize.  Unpacking, they put on their prettiest gowns,
Phyllis noting with shy admiration that Miss Arlen, so consistently
conservative on the outside, was almost startlingly modern while in
the act of hanging her travel togs in the closet.  At that moment
she didn't look at all like an authority on Tennyson.  It had been
agreed that they would go to the Trocadero for dinner, Phyllis
begging the right to play hostess on this festive occasion.
With the assurance of excellent experience she ordered with
discrimination, finding Miss Arlen in full approval of her choices.

"I wonder if we shouldn't have a glass of sherry first?" suggested
Phyllis, a bit uncertainly.  "It has been a busy day; you're
tired."

"Please," replied Miss Arlen.  "But not because I'm tired.  I never
felt better in my life."

"It seems an awfully long time since you were my teacher," mused
Phyllis, as they sipped their wine, smiling into each other's eyes,
to which Miss Arlen responded, casually, "That occurred during one
of our earlier incarnations.  We will try to live it down."

After dinner they saw Bitter Sweet, and returned to Bloomsbury in a
musty little cab at midnight--Miss Arlen rather pensive and quiet.
Without much further talk they went to their beds, Phyllis
instinctively sensing that Bitter Sweet hadn't been just the thing.

"Good-night, Phyllis, dear," called Miss Arlen, from the depth of
her pillow.

"Good-night," responded Phyllis, her eyes misty, adding, in a
reckless whisper, "Patricia."  Her heart pounded as the silence
piled up.  She had made the very blunder she had been trying so
valiantly to avoid, spoiling everything for them on the first day.

After five long hot minutes of acute misery, she murmured
contritely, "Please forgive me, Miss Arlen.  I hadn't the right to
do that."

"They never called me Patricia," said Miss Arlen drowsily, "except
when they disapproved of me.  When they liked me it was always
Pat."

"Would it be just terribly rude--and presumptuous?" asked Phyllis,
her voice trembling a little.

"I think it would be very sweet of you, dear," replied Miss Arlen
tenderly.

Phyllis drifted out, wishing her mother knew how supremely happy
she was.  She could see her mother's smile when, at home again, she
would tell her all about it.  And she distinctly heard Sally Welker
saying, "You didn't call Miss Arlen 'Pat'--not to her face--not
really!"


Had it occurred to either of them, through those enchanted days, to
compute in terms of years their respective contributions to the
diminishing of the distance which naturally lay between them, it
would have been incorrect to think that they had settled upon a
relationship midway in mood between twenty-two and thirty-five.

Miss Arlen had, indeed, recovered something of her youth, but to a
more marked degree had Phyllis achieved maturity.  The attractive
girl had had her little problems, but they had been of cartilaginous
structure.  She had bruised easily and painfully, but repair was
prompt and complete.  She had never seen a compound fracture of
lime-hardened bones.  Not until now.  Miss Arlen had not uncovered
her scars with a morbid wish to shock, or a self-piteous bid for
commiseration.  With cool unconcern she had exposed her irreparable
injuries, and Phyllis had grown almost to full stature at the sight.
She had even ventured to offer a possible remedy.

The disclosure had come about naturally enough.  They had been
strolling through the Cathedral grounds at Salisbury on a brown-and-
gold mid-October afternoon.  Amused by antique epitaphs on the
grass-ruffed, eroded stones, blandly certifying to the towering
superiority of long-departed husbands as compared with the
mousiness of their wives, the talk drifted from mere whimsical
satire to a serious discussion of this indefensible relationship
and the inevitable problems of matrimony.

"Funny you never married, Pat," remarked Phyllis.  "I wonder how
you escaped it."

"I'm not unwilling to tell you.  It is quite a long story, though."
Pat deliberated a suitable beginning.  After a moment's reflection
with averted eyes she said calmly, "He fell in love with my
sister."

Phyllis winced and gave a quick little breath of pained surprise,
but offered no comment, for it was to be quite a long story and she
must not interrupt.  She waited, with startled eyes.

"That's all," said Pat, in the same tone Phyllis had often heard
her use when dismissing a class.  "That's all--except that the
invitations were out and the presents were coming in--and I found
them in each other's arms when I came down to the library to show
him my new travelling suit--and my favourite brother fought him and
was hurt--and I ran away where they couldn't find me for ever so
long--and they were married, and there are children I have never
seen--and my mother lives with them--and all my people are in the
same town--and I can't go home."

"Oh--my dear!" sympathized Phyllis.  "How can you bear it?"

"I can't," replied Pat woodenly.  "That's the trouble.  The effort
to bear it has frozen me."

"But you aren't, Pat!"  Phyllis brightened hopefully.  "I never
felt so close to anyone, outside my own family."

Pat sighed, smiled wistfully, and nodded.

"I know, dear.  I have been very selfish, warming myself at your
bright fire.  I'm surprised it hasn't chilled you.  It really has
been a Godsend to me--much more than you realize."

Phyllis murmured an inarticulate little protest and laid her hand
on Pat's affectionately.

"I do wish you could talk with my mother," she said, searching the
heavy eyes with loyal concern.  "She has helped so many people.
You'd be surprised."

Pat's involuntary shrug doubted it.  For a silent moment she
reproved herself for having bared her wounds, fearing that she was
about to learn of some metaphysical patent-medicine--some echo of a
psychological wizardry, perhaps, that would dismiss cold fact with
an amiable grin and a careless, "There, there; you'll be all right
now."  She closed her eyes, tightened her lips, and shook her head
decisively.

"Nothing would help me, Phyllis, but utter forgetfulness of it all.
Your mother couldn't help me to that, however kindly she might
try."

"But that's just it!" exulted Phyllis.  "She does it!  It's
something our Dean taught her when my little brother was drowned.
I was only a baby then, so my mother has always had it, ever since
I can remember."

"Your Dean?" repeated Pat, mildly inquisitive.

"Dean Harcourt--of our Cathedral--at home."

"I'm not religious--not the least bit."

"Oh--but neither is he!"

"Don't be silly!" laughed Pat.

"I mean--this thing that I'm thinking about isn't religion; heaps
bigger and more important than that.  I'll try to tell you.  But it
won't be easy.  You see--I've never been hurt.  You have to be, I
think, before it means very much.  I guess it's a good deal like
planting a tree.  You have to dig the hole first."

"Perhaps I could qualify," said Pat dryly.  "Let's have it."

For more than two hours they sat on the grey stone bench at the
entrance to the cloister, the fallen leaves eddying about their
feet, Pat slowly tracing meaningless patterns on the dusty flagging
with the tip of her umbrella, Phyllis, falteringly at first but
with mounting confidence, pointing to the mere mirage of an oasis
she had had no occasion to seek personally.  She was conscious, all
the time, that she was making a very poor job of it; and when, at
last, her vague ideas were exhausted, an extended silence meant
nothing other than that Pat had remained unconvinced and unstirred.

"I think you get just a flash of it," pursued Phyllis, unwilling to
surrender--"not the real essence of it, of course, but just a faint
glimpse, among these old things we've been seeing lately.  I've
thought about it, a lot.

"Remember the other day when we were down at Saint Olave's, sitting
there in the dusky gloom, looking up at the bust of Elizabeth
Pepys?  And you had just been talking about all she and Sam had
been through; the London fire, the plague, the smash-up of two
governments, the frights, the flights, the shocks, the sorrows; and
there she was, so calm, so secure; and--outside in the street--you
could hear it pouring in through the open doors--the dull mutter
and rumble of traffic mumbling, 'On, on, on, on'--and you could
hear the measured plop-plop of big shaggy hoofs on the cobble-
stones, The same old loads were still moving.  Same kind of
straining horses, bracing their lathery shoulders against the same
hot collars, lashed and yelled at by the same cloddish drivers; and
Elizabeth, up there, not listening, but hearing; not gladly
approving, but accepting. . . .

"So--what?  Well--I'm afraid I don't know.  I can't quite define
it.  Maybe it has no bearing at all on the thing I've been trying
to talk about . . . I just know that for an instant, down at Saint
Olave's, there came over me an almost stifling wave of--of
comprehension.  And I said to myself, 'If ever I get into trouble,
I should like to be able to come to some place like this, where to-
day's struggle and pain is being hammered down hard on top of
yesterday's--and let mine be pounded into dust and silence, along
with Elizabeth's.'"

She laid her warm hand, trembling a little with emotion, around
Pat's slumped shoulders.

"Do you follow my mood, my dear?  Or am I just talking nonsense?  I
mean--about the--the foreverness of the mumble-rumble, 'On, on, on,
on!'. . .  Three hundred years ago it was fragile, foolish,
sensitive, little Elizabeth Pepys, all milled up in the traffic,
swept along with it, bruised by it, afraid of it, allured by it,
but in it and of it--and now it's Patricia Arlen and Phyllis
Dexter.

"But the thing of it is that it's going on, and it has been going
on, and it is going to keep on going on--as it was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be--and my troubles, in the face
of it all, aren't really worth worrying about. . . .  Do you see
what I mean, Pat?"

"Phyllis, child," said Pat moodily, "it explains nothing, but it's
a sedative.  I think it helps--a little. . . .  You mean"--she
continued, gropingly--"you mean that we're all caught in the grip
of something that's bigger and stronger than we are--something
planned from the beginning--something inevitable--and we've simply
got to keep coming along with it, whether we like it or not? . . .
That's FATALISM--in case you don't know the exact name of it!"

Phyllis shook her head vigorously.

"Not at all, Pat.  Fatalism is a treadmill.  This movement I'm
talking about is a PROCESSION.  Fatalism says, 'I'm caught in the
machinery of destiny and am being whirled around by it.  I can't
understand what it's all about, and I hereby give it up, and just
let it grind me to bits.'  That's Fatalism. . . .  The thing I
believe in admits the existence of the machinery, but sees it GOING
FORWARD instead of merely GOING ROUND.  And instead of asking you,
as Fatalism does, to SUBMIT, this better theory invites you to
UNDERSTAND!  It says, 'Come along--but come with your eyes open!'"

"It's quite worth thinking about," conceded Pat.

"I wish my mother could tell you," said Phyllis wistfully.  "It is
so very beautiful, the way she explains it and lives it."


Phyllis had dashed over to a little shop on Southampton Row to load
her camera.  They were going out to the old Caledonian Market to-
day.  There had been a fog when they woke at seven, but it seemed
to be clearing now.  Doubtless by the time they had done the tube
trip the sun would be shining.  Phyllis hoped so, for three
consecutive days of murky sky and chilly rains had kept them under
roofs.

While she was gone, Pat received the cable.  She sat down weakly,
buried her face in her hands, and dizzily considered how with the
least cruelty she might break the shocking news.  Phyllis would be
back at any moment, eyes alight, eager to be off for the day's
excursion.  The door swung open.

"Well--are we ready?  It's going to be lovely in an hour or two;
you'll see . . .  What is it, dear?  Don't you feel well?"

"Phyllis, would you mind very much if we didn't go out there to-
day, I'm not quite in the mood for it.  Maybe the fog has been
dampening me.  How about going down to Saint Olave's--to talk to
Elizabeth?  I believe I'd like to.  We'll try out your little
theory on me.  Agreed?"

"Of course," consented Phyllis cheerfully, a little disturbed by
Pat's sudden depression.  "We can go to the Caledonian thing any
time. . . .  I think I would be glad to have another session with
Elizabeth."

Most of the trip was done by buses and little was said on the way.
Pat was so obviously in low spirits this morning that Phyllis
decided on silence as her own best contribution to her friend's
search for tranquillity.  But she must try to do something for Pat
to-day while they were at Saint Olave's.  Perhaps she could make
her understand what she herself had felt in that steadying
environment.

It was only ten when they arrived, and they had the little church
all to themselves.  Walking slowly forward through the central
aisle, they seated themselves in the right front pew where they
could look up into the apse at the marble bust of Elizabeth.  For
ten minutes they sat together in silence.

Stirred by the sound of a suppressed sob and the sight of Pat's
face wet with tears, Phyllis interlaced their fingers, and
whispered, hopefully, "Can't you hear it, my dear?"

"That doesn't matter so much," said Pat thickly.  "Just so YOU hear
it."

"I do!"  Phyllis's tone was confident.  "It thrills me!  'On, on,
on, on'--not just going round and round--but pressing on!  Headed
toward something that has to be worked out--not alone by Elizabeth,
or you, or me--or on some particular day in 1669 or 1929--"

Pat suddenly clutched Phyllis's hand in both of hers, and
whispered, brokenly:  "Darling--I must tell you now.  Something
quite dreadful has happened . . .  I wish it had happened to ME,
instead of you.  One more tragedy wouldn't--"

Phyllis paled a little and her eyes widened, bewilderedly, as she
searched Pat's distressed face.  She swallowed convulsively and
asked, with a nervous catch in her voice, "Pat!--what are you
trying to tell me?"

With agitated hands Pat opened her handbag, took out the folded and
refolded yellow message, tucked it into Phyllis's palm and closed
her fingers upon it.  Then she slipped to her knees on the worn and
faded hassock, bowing her head over her tightly folded arms. . . .

The steady rumble of the ancient city, symbolic of the everlasting
procession, throbbed dully in their ears.

Phyllis stared at Grace's cable.  It was addressed to Pat.


FATHER AND MOTHER DIED THIS AFTERNOON ACCIDENT TELL PHYLLIS GENTLY


The message slowly slipped from her relaxed fingers and drifted to
the floor.

Too stunned to concentrate, she was conscious only of a pang of
such loneliness as she had never experienced.  The harsh, strident
racket of this foreign city assailed her, its rasp and rattle
stinging her to full awareness that she was far from home.  There
wasn't a sound, in all this tumultuous, metallic, unconscionable
din that could be associated with anything she had ever known or
believed or cherished.  Even the dejected shoulders of the woman
kneeling there seemed strangely unfamiliar.  She was alone.

Presently the tears came welling to her relief, great, scalding
tears that freed the suffocating tightness of her throat a little.
She blindly groped with her knees for a hassock and snuggled her
trembling body close to Pat, who put an arm tenderly about her.

For a long time they knelt together, Phyllis utterly devastated
with grief and sobbing heart-breakingly.  The old verger's wife
sympathetically brought a glass of water.  Pat wanly smiled their
gratitude, but did not allow Phyllis to be disturbed.  The sobbing
gradually subsided.  Phyllis was very quiet now.  Pat waited.  The
minutes dragged out into the third quarter struck from a
neighbouring clock-tower.

Suddenly Phyllis stirred and stiffened to attention.  Pat was
ruthlessly snatched out of a painful reverie by the clutch of the
girl's strong fingers on her arm.

"What is it, dear?" asked Pat.

"Listen!" whispered Phyllis, wide-eyed.  "Pat!" she called, with an
exultant little smile, "I CAN HEAR IT!"



Chapter Four


It is presumable that among the more thoughtful of those who sought
the counsel of Dean Harcourt, some were impressed by the fact that,
although he was a unique personality, not too easily evaluable, his
mind and mood were essentially the product of the Cathedral.

For more than three-quarters of a century, Trinity Cathedral had
been one of the most highly respected institutions of the entire
Middle West.  This distinction may have been due partly to her
imposing architecture, a stately Gothic strongly reminiscent of
York Minster.  It may have been accounted for also by her
commanding location, for the Cathedral close was bounded by four
spacious streets, one of them Lake Boulevard, the most prominent
avenue in the city.  Moreover, the great edifice faced beautiful
Madison Park, to the considerable advantage of her massive towers
and old-worldish buttresses.

But Trinity's influential position rested upon something more
consequential than these fortunate external phenomena.  There had
grown up a general public sentiment to the effect that you always
knew where to find her.  She was not subject to the sudden chills
and fevers which wobbled the erratic pulse of many another
institution displaying similar symbols in the windows.  Trinity had
been singularly immune to widespread emotional epidemics.
Sometimes neighbouring churches of clamorous importance were
exasperated over her reluctance or downright refusal to participate
in their tempestuous crusades of reform, and many an ardent front-
paged apostle of despair had eloquently rated her for cold-blooded
indifference to society's imminent collapse.  A devastating crisis
was on, shouted the gloomsters, and Trinity merely sat there and
mumbled:  "In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our
prosperity, Good Lord, deliver us."

She had even kept her poise throughout the war, remaining
discreetly neutral until the Government had officially declared
itself otherwise, a difficult position which had drawn the fire of
several prophets who were eager to be early on the field of battle
and hotly impatient of these lackadaisical delays.

Then she had loyally advocated patriotic sacrifice, but without the
prevalent hysteria, which had been interpreted by many as another
proof of her habitual unconcern.  One zealot preached a widely
quoted sermon on the Laodiceans, who were neither hot nor cold, and
pointed in the direction of the well-known Yorkish towers as a
deplorable case of such apathy.

But Trinity did not allow herself to be disconcerted.  When most of
the other churches were hanging the Kaiser, Sunday after Sunday,
she continued to intone, with a dispassionateness that infuriated
the swashbucklers, "Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech thee,
from the hands of our enemies."  That was all you could expect,
rasped the militants, of prayers that had to be read from a book!
They had no capacity to arouse moral indignation!

When peace arrived and it was again prudent for Christian pacifism
to put forth foliage and blossoms, Trinity's neighbours had given
themselves to an orgy of increasingly bold resolutions that they
would never, under any circumstance whatsoever, take up arms in an
aggressive movement.  Heartened by response to this endeavour, they
took the next step fearlessly, declaring that they would never
fight even in the defence of their country.  Trinity did not go on
record with convictions on this subject, and when heavily pressed
for a declaration, announced that so far as she was concerned all
such matters would have to be dealt with on their own merits when
and if they called for a decision.  The younger fry among the
clergy pointed a disapproving finger toward her, asserting that
Trinity was dead on her feet and didn't realize that she was
stricken of a disease that would presently carry her off.  But she
continued to carry on as if quite unaware of the supposed lethal
nature of the infirmity.

In the north-east tower a carillon of great value and wide repute
played on week-days, from four to five, the historic hymns of the
Anglican faith, and it was traditional that this daily programme
always began and ended with O God Our Help in Ages Past, which
seemed to be Trinity's theme song.  On certain occasions of
national grief or gratification, when the emotional tide ran high,
these serenely confident measures may have stirred many people who
ordinarily did not think much about their own spiritual reliances,
and it is not inconceivable that some of the more discriminating,
who had been bullied and badgered from one extreme opinion to
another by institutions given to noisy tantrums of ecstasy or woe,
were at least momentarily stabilized.

A high wrought-iron fence enveloped on three sides the Cathedral
close.  This gave the whole establishment an air of sequestration
from the raucous hurly-burly of secular affairs, a redundant
precaution, perhaps, for it was hardly necessary that Trinity
should thus emphasize her insular aloofness from the contemporary
fret.

At the back of the main edifice and facing on to Marlborough, were
the Bishop's Mansion, the Parish House, and the residence of the
Dean.

It was rumoured that there were telephones, typewriters, an adding
machine, a few clerks, and the inevitable paraphernalia of business
covertly tucked away in a remote corner of the Parish House, but
the casual visitor who had occasion to call there was not assaulted
at the front door by the metallic racket of modern machinery.

Latterly there had been a fad, originated by city churches and
amusingly imitated by the less busy elsewhere, to give the
impression that the operation of "The Kingdom" should be pursued by
up-to-date techniques consonant with the methods of great factories
engaged in the fabrication and distribution of commercial
commodities.  In such enterprising strongholds the prophet's desk
was cluttered with telephones dangling from adjustable brackets.  A
row of buttons served his urgency in buzzing the various members of
his staff into his presence to report on the success of last
night's 'banquet' of the Carpenter's Apprentices, to present
printer's proofs of the weekly bulletin and the newspaper
advertising for Sunday, the programme for the Advance Club, and
what had been ascertained about the leak in the roof.  His
stenographer sat with her pad on her knee, licking the point of her
pencil, poised for action.  The Millennium was about to be
delivered, F.O.B., as per yours of the thirteenth which, if you
have further occasion to advert to it in future negotiations,
should be keyed MBX13579.

Trinity had never railed at this nonsense, considering it none of
her business, but she had not gone in for it herself.  The people
who entered her quiet precincts were asked the nature of their
errands by unflustered employees trained to understand that the
less professional they were, the more ably they would discharge
their duties.

George Harcourt was a product of Trinity Cathedral.  Her mind and
his were in complete accord.  Perhaps they may have influenced one
another somewhat during the twenty years of his deanship.  His
serenity had become so potent that persons of every conceivable
type came to him for advice, consolation, and encouragement.  It
was a heavy load to carry, but he never complained of it.

Every week-day but Saturday a procession of men tarried in the
reception-room of his residence, taking turns in conference with
him, keeping him at his desk from ten to one.  In the afternoon,
from three to six, women of all ages and ranks appeared there for
the same purpose.  He never referred to it or thought of it as a
'clinic'.  He compiled no statistics, posted no records, permitted
no clerical fussiness in the handling of this strange business.  An
unassuming volunteer for the day welcomed the callers and seated
them.  In due time they would have their turn.

Every morning at eight two young curates placed strong hands under
the Dean's elbows and led him--for he was a cripple--into the dimly
lighted chancel of the Cathedral, where, whatever storms might be
blowing outside, whatever tumultuous issues might be agitating the
city or the nation or the world, his resonant voice intoned a
petition "for all sorts and conditions of men; that Thou wouldst be
pleased to make Thy ways known unto them."

When the early morning service was ended, the curates would assist
the Dean to a chair placed for him in the centre of the chancel,
facing the high altar, and leave him alone for a half-hour.

And thus it was that when broken people came to Dean Harcourt for
reconditioning, most of them, it was said, went out of his presence
with the feeling that they had been very close to Headquarters.


She entered the Dean's office-library and crossed it with the
agile, elastic, assured stride of complete physical fitness under
superb control, seated herself gracefully in the chair he
indicated, directly facing him, laid an expensive handbag on the
spacious mahogany desk which separated them, and loosened the
collar of an exquisite Persian-lamb coat.

"Sonia Duquesne," she said, in response to his low-voiced query.

The interview did not proceed any further than that for a long
moment.

Bearing most of his weight on the broad arms of his tall-backed
churchly chair, the Dean leaned forward, pursed his lips
thoughtfully, and took friendly stock of her.  The rather hard,
sophisticated smile she had brought along was gradually replaced by
an almost entreating expression of self-defence, of meekness, of
tenderness too, for it was now apparent to her that his deep-lined
face bore unmistakable evidence of suffering.

They studied each other silently, with candid concern, Sonia so
impressed and stilled by the spiritual majesty of the man that she
accepted his scrutiny of her without the slightest sensation of
self-consciousness.

It was a singularly interesting face.  The upper lip was
extraordinarily long, giving the firm but generous mouth an
appearance of being securely locked.  Perhaps, reflected Sonia, it
was his mouth that encouraged strangers to confide in him.  A
friend had told her that people found it easy to tell him all about
themselves without embarrassment or restraint.  Doubtless it was
the mouth that made them confident.  It seemed to have been built
especially for the safe keeping of secrets.  And there was
something uncannily prescient in his eyes.  They were dark, almost
cavernous.  A veritable sunburst of crow's-feet at the outer
corners gave the effect of a residual smile of compassion, which
softened the penetrating search and interpreted it as a comradely
quest.  His thick white hair shone silver in the single light
suspended above his head, a light that intensified, by strong
shadows, the ruggedness of his face.

"That is your real name?" asked the Dean.

"Yes.  I know it is a bit fantastic.  But it is mine.  My father's
people were of French descent and my mother thought Sonia a pretty
name.  She saw it in a story."

"It is a pretty name, and I had not thought it incongruous, but you
do not look foreign.  When was it and where--that your mother read
the story?"

"In 1901--Cedar Rapids."

"You are unmarried?"

"Yes," replied Sonia, her eyes occupied with the gloves which she
had unbuttoned and was tugging off, finger by finger.  Glancing up,
she met his gaze, and added, "No--I was never married."

"Am I right in surmising that you are engaged in something
theatrical?"

"Again I must answer--yes and no--"

The Dean acknowledged her honest candour with a slight inclination
of the head.  Sonia saw that she had said the right thing.

"I am the proprietor of a little shop, dealing in gowns.  My
clients--my customers prefer to think I am Parisian.  I make no
effort to counteract that belief.  The place does have a foreign
atmosphere.  Perhaps I am theatrical--to the extent of playing a
part in the course of my daily business."

"Do you attend the services of the Cathedral?" asked the Dean,
still smiling a little over her frank confession.

"No, sir; I have no religion."

"Very well, then.  Let us begin.  Tell me all about it.  What
brought you here?--and remember that the more directly you come to
it, the more time we will have to talk--profitably.  What has he
done to you?"

She sat for a while with a perplexed expression, her lips parted,
slightly baring pretty teeth, tensely locked.

"No--I am not a mind-reader," explained the Dean gently, "but I
have had much experience in listening."

"I believe that," said Sonia.  "Well--he has decided to go back to
his wife.  She is not very well, and thinks she wants him.  She has
treated him very shabbily.  It was her fault that he lost interest
in their home.  Now she begs him to return.  I urged him to go.
And I intend never to see him again. . . .  That was yesterday."
Sonia finished pulling off her gloves, and laid them on the desk
beside the handbag with a little gesture of finality.  Her hands
were white and well cared for.

"So--I really did not come to you for advice," she continued.  "For
there is nothing to decide.  They told me you were able to help
people who had trouble.  That's why I came.  I'm glad I did . . .
this is a very restful place.  You will not scold me.  I've had all
the punishment I can take."

"You love him--I think."

"Devotedly!  And he loves me.  He needs me, too, for he has been
very unfortunate recently--since the crash."

"Did he contribute to your support?"

"Never!  It wasn't on that basis, at all.  In fact, for the past
few weeks--"

Dean Harcourt's lips tightened, and he slowly raised a hand.

"Don't you want me to tell you?" asked Sonia, wide-eyed, shaking
her head girlishly.

"Not that. . . .  I think you will feel better afterwards if you do
not confide that part of it."

Sonia looked puzzled; then nodded approval.

"I take it that you bear his wife no ill-will?"

"Oh, no, not at all," she replied quickly.  "In fact, lately, since
he has been so hard-pressed, and I knew she was ill, I have--"

"Don't!" commanded the Dean, so sternly that she winced under his
unexpected rebuke.  "You mustn't tell that to anybody--not even to
me!"  His voice grew gentle.  "And may I add that I consider you a
very fortunate woman to be possessed of such a soul. . . .  If you
were my daughter I would be proud of you."

Her lips trembled as she replied, "Soul?  I hardly knew I had one."

"Yes," sighed the Dean, running his long fingers through the shaggy
hair at his temples.  "Yes--that's the trouble.  People collide
with circumstances that push them off the commonly accepted moral
reservation--and then they assume that they have lost their
souls. . . .  See here!  Do you know anything about football?"

"A little.  I often go.  I did--last Saturday."

"Very good.  You will have noticed then that a player sometimes
runs out of bounds.  Often it's his own fault, though frequently he
is FORCED over the chalk-line.  But, however it may have happened,
he isn't sent home in disgrace.  The game officials mark the spot
where he went out, and carry the ball back into the field from that
point."

"And then," said Sonia, "he loses his right to it."

"Only temporarily," corrected the Dean, pleased with this feature
of his allegory.  "He may quickly regain his right to pick up the
ball.  There is no telling but the next time he lays hands on it,
he will go through for a touchdown."

"You don't think I've lost my soul, then?"

"I should be more disposed to think," declared the Dean warmly,
"that you have just now come to the place in your life where the
essential fineness of you is about to have its great chance."

"What would you have me do?" asked Sonia sincerely.

"You must find somebody or something to absorb your love--a child,
perhaps, or a worthy charity in which you may invest yourself
personally.  Your case is not so difficult as you think.  You came
to grief through love.  It is the people who get into trouble
through hate--they're the ones I worry over.  Sometimes it is
very hard to help them.  Love is a gift--abused, overlooked,
misdirected, quite frequently--but a gift, nevertheless.  Hate is a
disease.  And you, obviously, are not a hater.

"This encourages me to believe that you may be able to understand
to what an extent the happiness of the world depends upon the clear
vision of people who have a natural talent for love--to neutralize
the bad influence of the people who are diseased by hate.  Let me
show you what I mean. . . ."

The Dean edged himself far forward in his chair, rested his elbows
on the desk, and looked Sonia steadily in the eyes, urging her
earnest concentration.

"You see--not many people take time to consider how they are
related to the Long Parade.  They snatch their little pleasures;
they bemoan their little disappointments; they smile and smirk and
sigh and sulk, reacting variously to events affecting them as
individuals.  But they do not think of themselves as component
parts of AN ERA.  They fail to understand that we are all trudging
along, elbow to elbow, in an endless, tightly integrated
procession, in which our most important interests are held in
common.

"Sometimes they sense it a little when some large catastrophe has
frightened them into a huddle.  It is often reported of groups that
they have felt it keenly in time of shipwreck, battle, or some mass
tragedy.  Then they live, for an hour, in a previously unexperienced
state of nobility, discovering themselves to be brave, and suddenly
impressed by the fact that human beings are all related.

"People with an extraordinary talent for love should be able to
understand this in the ordinary process of living, and get the same
thrill out of uneventful daily life that the shipwrecked experience
when tugged together by sudden misfortune.

"Now--this brings us up to your case--your love has been so urgent
that it has led you to defy the social canons.  You would like to
atone for it, or at least try to justify your possession of a love
so reckless.  Very well--I say!--you can do it!  You MUST do it!
Try to begin your thinking about this by believing that the
successful onward push of the human procession is the important
thing, after all; far more important than any of the trifling ups
and downs of the individuals. . . .  Sometimes I like to think of
civilization as a ship.  That ship, my friend, is more important
than any member of the crew!  If you want to pay for the privilege
of your love--and the mistakes of your love--believe that!"

They sat for a little while in silence.  The Dean had made a
platitude sound vital, dynamic.  Sonia distinctly felt the strong
tug of it.  Her eyes were contemplative.

"That's all," said the Dean, rousing from the reverie into which he
had momentarily drifted.  "I shall be thinking of you.  We will try
to find something specific for you to do.  Are you agreed?"

She rose to go, apparently reluctant to leave.

"I hope I can hold this feeling when I am outside again--in the
street," she said meditatively.  "There is something about this
place--and you--that has made my worries seem very small. . . .
Forgive my asking--if this isn't the thing to say--but shouldn't I
pay somebody for this interview--pay it to the Cathedral, maybe?"

"Yes," replied the Dean, "I was just coming to that.  You are to go
through that door at the right.  You will find a small dressing-
room.  Take off your hat and coat, and return to me."

She stood for a moment, mystified; then smiled, and obeyed.
Presently she was back, waiting orders, her face full of inquiry.

"Now I want you to go out to the reception-room where you waited
when you came here, and inquire who is next.  You will take that
woman, whoever she is, into the small adjacent room: you know the
one I mean."

"Where your secretary took me," said Sonia.  "Really--she was the
sweetest person I ever met, Dean Harcourt.  She was so tender--and
understanding."

"I am glad you found her so. . . .  Well--you take your lady into
that little room and let her tell you all she wants to about her
reasons for coming here, asking her the same general questions you
were asked.  And then you come back and tell me.  After that, you
may bring her to my door.  Then you will be free to recover your
belongings and go your way.  There is another exit from the
dressing-room, leading into the hall."

Sonia hesitated.

"But, Dean Harcourt"--she protested--"it seems such a pity to ask
ME to do this when I have had no experience--and there is your
secretary, outside, who knows exactly what to say to people.  I
never met anyone so--so thoroughly fitted to deal with a person in
trouble."

The Dean smiled enigmatically.

"That woman is not my secretary," he said quietly.  "She was my
last caller--just before you came."

Sonia's amazement parted her lips and narrowed her eyes.

"Do you always make them do that?" she asked.

"No--just the ones I think I can trust to do it well."

"I'll try," she said.

She was gone for about five minutes and returned with a distressed
face.  It was quite evident that she had been crying.

"Well?"

"Oh--Dean Harcourt--it's about her little girl.  The doctors told
her this morning that the little thing isn't ever going to be
right, mentally; a brain tumour, or something.  She's simply heart-
broken. . . .  And there wasn't a thing I could say that would have
been of any comfort to her. . . .  I just held her--and couldn't
talk.  I'm afraid you made a mistake in sending me out there."

"It was very well done, I think," said the Dean.  "Now go and bring
her in.  And then you go round to the dressing-room and powder your
nose--and run along.  It has been a good day's work."

Sonia impulsively clasped his hand.

"I think you're wonderful!" she exclaimed, smiling pensively
through her tears.

"No, Sonia," he replied, measuring his words slowly, "I'm not
wonderful. . . .  But you have made connexion with something, this
afternoon, that IS WONDERFUL--WONDERFUL!"  Drawing himself out of
the introspective mood in which he seemed to have been speaking
more to himself than to her, he added:  "When you leave the
dressing-room, if you turn to the right the hallway will lead you
directly into the nave of the Cathedral. . . .  Go out that way.
And when you are there, tarry a moment, sit down, face the altar,
and say a little prayer for me. . . .  I am not very strong, you
know, and I need the co-operation of people like you."

The clock in the great bell-tower was striking four.  Trinity's
theme-song vibrated in the air.

Sonia sank to her knees beside the Dean's chair and murmured,
brokenly, "People like ME! . . .  OH, MY GOD!"

He laid a firm hand on her quivering shoulder.

"Come," he said gently, "your friend is waiting."

She rose to her feet and walked unsteadily to the door, stood for a
moment with her hand on the knob, wiping her eyes and striving
valiantly to regain her self-control.  Then she glanced back at the
Dean, who sat with his elbows on the desk, his seamed face cupped
in his hand, and a rapt expression in his eyes, listening to the
bells.

Sonia smiled bravely, and turned the knob.

"I think I'll be all right now," she said.

"Yes--child," replied the Dean, as one answering from a dream,
"you'll be--all right--now."



Chapter Five


"Something tells me, Dr. Norwood, that you came here to please our
mutual friend Sinclair rather than in pursuit of a personal wish."

Dean Harcourt significantly tapped the typed note with his gold
pince-nez and regarded his taciturn guest with an interrogatory
smile.

Andrew Norwood, who with suppressed impatience had been dourly
torturing a closely clipped, fair moustache, stole a quick glance
from under his contracted brows, reluctantly met the Dean's
inquiring eyes, recrossed the lengthy legs of a former all-American
tackier, and drew his normally pleasant mouth into something half-
way between a scowl and a grin.

"Sometimes," amplified the Dean, with the barest suggestion of a
bantering twinkle, "a letter of introduction is a white elephant."

The interview was not taking off as Norwood had expected.  This
Dean Harcourt was anything but the benignly naïve old gentleman he
had pictured.  His infrequent glimpses of the distinguished
churchman had been at a long range.  He had seen him, a time or
two, on the platform at large civic assemblies; had heard him read
a formal prayer at a Commencement; had indifferently assumed him to
be the typical stage-jeered clergyman, medieval, other-wordly,
unctuous, and sweetly suave.  Doubtless he would be so flattered by
an unsolicited call from a university professor, bearing a letter
from a prominent bank president, that his surprised delight would
make him annoyingly agreeable.  Norwood knew now that he had been
mistaken, and felt himself at an absurd disadvantage in the
presence of this man who had the eyes of a fluoroscope.

"It is quite true, sir," he confessed stiffly, "that I might not
have asked for this conference but for the suggestion of Mr.
Sinclair."

Dean Harcourt received this frankness with a cordial bow.
Bombarded all day long with the emotional onslaughts of people who
hurled their troubles at him through a drizzle of tears, it was
refreshing to face this sullen but handsome fellow whose every
gesture said that he hadn't wanted to come.

"Robert Sinclair," remarked the Dean casually, "is a trustee of
Trinity Cathedral and a personal friend of mine.  May I inquire how
he is related to you?"

"He did not tell you?"

"No."

Norwood stroked his strong jaw moodily, and considered an
explanation.

"I had hoped you might not ask me that," he said, at length, with a
trace of asperity.  "I had occasion yesterday to negotiate a modest
loan.  As a small depositor with no collateral, I was referred to
Mr. Sinclair.  In the course of our conversation, which involved an
intimate account of my personal affairs from the cradle to the
grave, he advised me to talk to you."

"And granted you the loan on that condition?"

"Well," admitted Norwood, flushing slightly, "he did not demand it,
in so many words; but he made it quite clear that he expected me to
comply."

Dean Harcourt adjusted his glasses and dipped his pen in the ink.

"Now that you have discharged this part of your obligation to Mr.
Sinclair," he said dryly, "I shall sign my name to his letter and
restore it to you so that you may be able to prove--"

"Oh, I say, sir," growled Norwood, hitching his chair a little
closer to the big mahogany desk, "I haven't meant to be so testy
and impolite.  I have been in trouble.  But it isn't the sort of
thing I want to confide.  If I did, I wouldn't go--off my own bat--
to a member of your profession.  Whatever feeling I have toward the
church is antagonistic.  My presence here is an impertinence.  And--
anyway--I dislike to air my private perplexities."

"I can understand that attitude."  The Dean leaned back at ease in
his tall chair, as if the business of their conference had been
concluded.  "Your disinclination to talk about your troubles puts
me on your side, I think.  You are fortunate in that you do not
want to be pitied.  In most cases, pity is ruinous.  All one needs
to say to many an unhappy person is, 'You poor thing!' and the
victim immediately sets about it to demonstrate how poor a thing he
is."

Norwood pulled a crooked smile which said that he was not going to
be taken into camp easily.

"So--we don't have to discuss your affairs," continued Dean
Harcourt.  "I observe that you are a professor of modern history.
Perhaps you would prefer to talk about that.  Who, for instance,
did more for England--Gladstone or Disraeli?"

"Yes--I am a professor of history," snapped Norwood, suddenly
aflame.  "My trouble is located at that spot," he went on
impetuously.  "I came to the university as an associate professor
in 1923.  Two years later I was given a full professorship.  It was
no secret in the faculty that when Professor Denton reached
retirement age, I was expected to succeed him as head of the
department.  It was his wish.  As you are undoubtedly aware, Dr.
Denton, after many months of illness--during which time I assumed
his duties--died in September.  Our new president, Dr. Markham, has
just announced that he is bringing in Ware of Oxford to take the
position.

"This has been a serious disappointment to me, sir.  For one thing,
I have need of the increased salary; had already liberalized my
budget in anticipation of it.  But--far more importantly--this has
been a blow to my career."

He paused, and for the first time looked Dean Harcourt squarely in
the eyes with a man-to-man request for sympathetic understanding,
meeting encouragement in the deep-lined face.  Norwood was suddenly
struck with the ineradicable marks of long-borne pain which
furrowed the tense lips.

"Since the death of my wife," Norwood surprised himself by
confiding, "there has been little to absorb my time and thought but
my profession.  That was four years ago.  We were very good
companions.  I have a small child.  I am trying to keep her with
me.  She is a comfort, of course, but the care of her limits my
outside interests.  My profession, therefore, constitutes my
present life.  I have thrown myself into it with complete
abandonment of everything else.  And now it appears that I have
gone about as far in it as I am likely to go.  At sixty I shall be
exactly where I am--at thirty-eight."

"Do your students appear to have any opinions on this subject?"
interjected Dean Harcourt.

"They do!" declared Norwood promptly.  "I am told there was a well-
attended indignation meeting, the night before last."

"Rather unfortunate," remarked the Dean.  "However, you will be
able to correct that before it has done any damage."

"Damage!  What damage?  Shouldn't they have the right to express
themselves on this injustice?"

Dean Harcourt sat silently toying with a paper-knife, broodingly
searching his visitor's troubled face.  Presently his eyes drifted
slowly to a beautiful etching on the southern wall, at his left--a
superb reproduction of Holman Hunt's The Light of the World.
Norwood's gaze, instinctively following along, rested briefly on
the picture.  He was annoyed.  The Dean was staging a rebuke.

"Of course," he muttered, nodding his head toward the etching,
"that is the ideal attitude to take--crown of thorns--meek
submission--gentle tapping on the door that has been slammed in
one's face.  Not much of that on display at the university, I can
assure you!--and it's supposedly a Christian institution.  HE may
have been the light of the world; but, so far as I can see,
organized Christianity has done more to keep the world in darkness
than any other influence in human history!  Even the Buddhists
never burned a scientist at the stake!"

"They never had any to burn," said Dean Harcourt quietly.  "But--be
all that as it may, Dr. Norwood," he continued, waiving the
irascible comments of his gloomy guest, "it seems to me that this
apparent misfortune of yours is an important event in your career.
You have now been offered--left-handedly, I admit--an unusual
opportunity.  Here are the facts in the case.  You have been badly
treated and the university knows it.  A position to which you were
entitled has been given to a stranger.  Your students are loyally
incensed.  They will be prejudiced against the new man when he
arrives.  This will make it difficult for the history department to
function properly.

"You, I take it, would be the last man to desire that unhappy state
of things, for you are sincerely interested in the welfare of your
department--so much so, indeed, that you should have been put in
command of it.  Why don't you call a meeting of your indignant
students and request them to accept the situation exactly as it
stands?  The ship is more important than any member of the crew--
including the captain and the first mate.  When this Oxford
professor turns up, be his friend."

Norwood, slightly mollified, was listening attentively now.

"You will discover," predicted the Dean, "that your faculty friends
will be glad that an episode threatening disruption and bad feeling
has been handled with diplomacy.  And as for your students . . .
man!--what a chance!  If you are looking for a brilliant career as
a teacher, step into it.  It is ready and waiting for you.  The
average college youngster is much more interested in sportsmanship
than scholarship.  This disappointment of yours, if properly
interpreted, is going to add importance to every word you say in
your classroom.

"History must be rather difficult to teach, these days," pursued
the Dean, soliloquizing.  "So much of it has been shown to be
merely nationalistic propaganda; monumental falsehoods, spread on a
large canvas; unjustifiable mass martyrdoms demanded by the greed
and egotism of selfish and pompous men. . . .  And that's a pity,
for there has been no influence so far-reaching and ennobling as
these epics of gallant hazards.  To preserve the essential values
of that stirring saga, it must be interpreted to this new
generation by men who, themselves, are morally equipped to
recognize bravery when they see it.  If this task of evaluating
history is delegated to muck-rakers, idol-smashers, and grave-
robbers, the moral losses will be incalculable, and a great deal of
the damage will be irreparable.  The oncoming crop of young men
have had it explained to them that war is a racket.  And perhaps it
is just as well, for the sake of the world's peace, that this
sentiment should be developed.  But it should also be taught that
COURAGE IS NOT A RACKET!  And the man best qualified to point out
that distinction is one who can talk about heroism with the
authority of personal experience.

"You see, my friend," persisted Dean Harcourt earnestly, "we are at
our best when serving as time-binders.  Heaven help the era that
scornfully repudiates its past!  The normal human spirit has an
instinctive talent for the building of monuments and a reverent
regard for the sanctity of tombs.  The average man, whether he
realizes it or not, has been more directly guided into whatever
nobility he possesses by the silent inspiration of the valiant dead
than the clarion challenges of his own time.  Would it not be a
vast misfortune if, by the ruthless destruction of that guidance,
we and those who come after us should be doomed to live in a world
of pillaged sepulchres and desecrated shrines?

"Now it happens that the very large majority of all these inspiring
memorabilia are reminiscent of wars.  Most of the heroes who sit on
iron horses in the public parks of all nations were celebrated
soldiers; most of the marble busts of eminent statesmen in the
world's cherished halls of fame perpetuate the glory of
diplomatists who came by their distinction during periods of
strife. . . .  You historians are very properly teaching the
potential leaders of the new day to despise and discountenance war.
So be it.  You are on the right track, I think.  But the thing that
worries me is the utter absence of a programme for the monuments to
be erected now and henceforth.  What kind of people are going to
bestride the iron horses of the future?  What symbols of valour do
you suggest?  Perhaps you will advocate the type of courage
exemplified in personal sacrifice and self-renunciation for the
sake of the general good.  Do you think you could ever stir a
youngster's pulse with that manner of appeal?  Could you make the
call of self-abandoning duty alluring enough to compete with the
rattle of a drum?  I firmly believe you could!  But--to do it with
any hope of success, you yourself would have to come into your
lecture-hall armed with the credentials certifying that YOU HAD
TRIED IT!". . .

"I do see your point," agreed Norwood, "and I admit the soundness
of your argument.  But--even so--to have been completely thwarted
in one's rightful expectation of professional advancement is a
nasty dose to take.  Perhaps"--he went on, feeling his way--
"perhaps you do not realize just what that means, Dean Harcourt.
You yourself have been a very successful man in your profession.
You are well at the top of it.  I dare say you never experienced
what I am going through."

Dean Harcourt slowly raised his dark, cavernous eyes, and gave
Norwood a long, searching look that made him wonder to what length
of inexcusable impudence he had committed himself.  It was so very
plainly written on this man's face that he had suffered.

He waited, flushed with chagrin, for the Dean to defend himself
against the charge that he had counselled a sacrifice of personal
ambition without a first-hand knowledge of its cost.  A whole
minute passed.  Dean Harcourt ventured no reply to the challenge;
sat now with bowed head.  It left Norwood defencelessly despising
himself.

After a while the Dean glanced up from the reflective mood into
which he had fallen, and smiled.  It was exactly as if he were
tolerantly ignoring the awkward, blustering arrogance of a ten-year-
old boy.  Norwood disliked to have the interview close on this
diminished seventh chord, but it was now quite obvious that Dean
Harcourt had no intention of ending it otherwise.

"I meant no offence, sir," ventured Norwood uneasily.

"Then there is none," replied the Dean.

Norwood rose to go.

"Thank you," he said deferentially, extending his hand.

"I wish there was some way for me to repay you for the time you
have given me."

The Dean's eyes suddenly lighted.

"I think you mean that," he said cordially, "and I am going to
accept your tentative offer.  Of late, I have been seriously
disturbed about this very matter we have been discussing--the
menaced values of history.  I want some light on the subject.  I
have need to consult an expert in this field.  There are many
questions of a technical nature that I should like to ask you, for
my personal benefit.  This is, of course, quite unrelated to your
own dilemma. . . .  I wonder how you would like to come here to my
house--it is difficult for me to go to yours--and spend an evening
with me, some time in the very near future.  I need your counsel,
Norwood."

"It would be a great pleasure, sir."

"You would come to dinner, I hope, and afterwards we will talk.  It
is a custom with us here to have a few guests at dinner on Thursday
evenings.  Quite informal.  A visitor or two; men, usually, though
not always.  My curates--both of them accomplished and interesting
men; Talbot, with an M.A. in English Literature from Cambridge, and
Simpson of Harvard: perhaps you recall his record mile. . . .  How
about this coming Thursday?"

"Just at the moment," replied Norwood regretfully, "I am kept close
in the evening.  My little girl.  I hope to make, better
arrangements soon.  She was at a good boarding-school, but she
became homesick. . . .  Sorry, sir."

"You couldn't bring your little girl along, could you?  How old is
she?"

"Only eight.  I fear it would be an imposition."

"If you only knew," declared the Dean, "how we bachelors grab at
the chance to entertain small children in this lonely house, you
would realize that you are conferring a great favour. . . .  May we
expect you?"

"I hope it won't be a burden," said Norwood, offering his hand.


Shortly after five that afternoon Sonia came in, a pleasing picture
of radiant vitality, self-confidence, and urbanity.

She paused a moment inside the door, considering Dean Harcourt with
such a look of filial tenderness that he raised his hand to her in
a welcoming salute, and regarded her with smiling interest as she
approached his chair.

"Sonia--nobody has any business to be as happy as you are.  What
has happened to you?"

"I had a message from Dean Harcourt, asking me to come and see him.
Isn't that enough?"  She unpinned a bunch of violets from her coat,
laid them on the desk beside his hand, and seated herself in the
chair opposite him.  "Do tell me what it's all about!"

"It is something you can do for me.  On Thursday evening we are to
have a few guests here.  It is a custom of the house--these
Thursday evening affairs.  Most of the people who come here are in
need of companionship.  Usually they are strangers to one another.
And it is not always too easy to--to--"

"No," assisted Sonia, laughing.  "I shouldn't think it would be."

"And I need you--this Thursday evening."

"Thanks!  I'll be delighted!"

"Well--don't be too sure about that.  Sometimes we contrive to
gather up an oddly assorted lot.  This time, as it happens, we are
to have a motherless child of eight.  I particularly want to devote
most of my attention to this little girl's father.  And I wondered
if--"

"So THAT'S why I'm asked to your dinner!" commented Sonia,
pretending a pout.  "Just as I was having visions of myself at the
Dean's right hand, maybe, in my new black velvet, comes an order to
eat my porridge in the nursery along with another little girl."

"I have not seen this child," said the Dean, amused.  "She may be
the most engaging little angel you ever met.  It is quite possible,
on the other hand, that she may defy your best efforts to entertain
her.  If she is anything like her father, she will probably resent
baby-talk."

"You mean," said Sonia, impishly wide-eyed with surprise, "her
father doesn't talk any baby-talk at all?"

"Not to me, he didn't," replied the Dean, enjoying her drollery.
"There was a gold football on his watch-chain and I doubt if he
ever painted a picture.  Well--how about this party?  Will you
come?"

"You know perfectly well, Dean Harcourt," she said, suddenly
serious, "that I should be happy doing anything for you."

"Very good, my friend.  I must let you go now.  There are many
waiting, and I dare not detain them while I talk with a woman as
little in need of assistance as you are.  Get along with you!"

She tarried at the door, seeming to have something on her mind;
turned toward him, smiled, waited.

"Sonia!" called the Dean, "would you oblige me by showing the next
caller in?"

She swiftly recrossed the room, taking off her modish little black
toque as she came, and patting her rumpled hair.

"Do you always read people's thoughts?" she asked, at the door of
the dressing-room.

"Just their better ones," the Dean replied gently.

An uncommonly attractive girl, in her early twenties, arose when
Sonia, appearing in the doorway of the reception-room, asked which
of those waiting was next in turn.

"Will you come with me?" asked Sonia graciously, leading the way
into the adjoining room.  "Sit down, please."  She pointed to the
sofa in the farther corner, and they seated themselves together
there.

Sonia, to whom the slightest detail of apparel was important, noted
that the caller's clothing, expensively elegant, was not quite of
the current mode, instantly surmising that the fair-haired girl,
whose manner spoke of special privilege, belonged to the increasing
ranks of the poor rich.

"I want to talk to you for a moment," began Sonia kindly, "before
you see Dean Harcourt.  Perhaps you do not know that the D