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THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING

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THE ROAD

TO UNDERSTANDING

BY

ELEANOR H. PORTER

Author of "Just David"

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

1917

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COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ELEANOR H. PORTER

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TO

MY FRIEND

Miss Grace Wheeler

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CONTENTS

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ILLUSTRATIONS

From drawings by Mary Greene Blumenschein

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CHAPTER I

FROSTED CAKES AND SHOTGUNS

If Burke Denby had not been given all the frosted cakes and toy shotguns he wanted at the age of ten, it might not have been so difficult to convince him at the age of twenty that he did not want to marry Helen Barnet.

Mabel, the beautiful and adored wife of John Denby, had died when Burke was four years old; and since that time, life, for Burke, had been victory unseasoned with defeat. A succession of "anything-for-peace" rulers of the nursery, and a father who could not bring himself to be the cause of the slightest shadow on the face of one who was the breathing image of his lost wife, had all contributed to these victories.

Nor had even school-days brought the usual wholesome discipline and democratic leveling; for a pocketful of money and a naturally generous disposition made a combination not to be lightly overlooked by boys and girls ever alert for "fun"; and an influential father and the scarcity of desirable positions made another combination not to be lightly overlooked by impecunious teachers anxious to hold their "jobs." It was easy to ignore minor faults, especially as the lad had really a brilliant mind, and (when not crossed) a most amiable disposition.

Between the boy and his father all during the years of childhood and youth, the relationship was very beautiful—so beautiful that the entire town saw it and expressed its approval: in public by nods and admiring adjectives; in private by frequent admonitions to wayward sons and thoughtless fathers to follow the pattern so gloriously set for them.

Of all this John Denby saw nothing; nor would he have given it a thought if he had seen it. John Denby gave little thought to anything, after his wife died, except to business and his boy, Burke. Business, under his skillful management and carefully selected assistants, soon almost ran itself. There was left then only the boy, Burke.

From the first they were comrades, even when comradeship meant the poring over a Mother Goose story-book, or mastering the intricacies of a game of tiddledywinks. Later, together, they explored the world of music, literature, science, and art, spending the long summer playtimes, still together, traveling in both well-known and little-known lands.

Toward everything fine and beautiful and luxurious the boy turned as a flower turns toward the light, which pleased the man greatly. And as the boy had but to express a wish to have it instantly find an echo in his father's heart, it is not strange, perhaps, that John Denby did not realize that, notwithstanding all his "training," self-control and self-sacrifice were unknown words to his son.

One word always, however, was held before the boy from the very first—mother; yet it was not as a word, either, but as a living presence. Always he was taught that she was with them, a bright, beauteous, gracious being, loving, tender, perfect. Whatever they saw was seen through her eyes. Whatever they did was done as with her. Stories of her beauty, charm, and goodness filled many an hour of intimate talk. She was the one flawless woman born into the world—so said Burke's father to his son.

Burke was nearly twenty-one, and half through college, when he saw Helen Barnet. She was sitting in the big west window in the library, with the afternoon sun turning her wonderful hair to gold. In her arms she held a sleeping two-year-old boy. With the marvelous light on her face, and the crimson velvet draperies behind her, she looked not unlike a pictured Madonna. It was not, indeed, until a very lifelike red swept to the roots of the girl's hair that the young man, staring at her from the doorway, realized that she was not, in truth, a masterpiece on an old-time wall, but a very much alive, very much embarrassed young woman in his father's library.

With a blush that rivaled hers, and an incoherent apology, he backed hastily from the room. He went then in search of his father. He had returned from college an hour before to find his father's youngest sister, Eunice, and her family, guests in the house. But this stranger—this bewilderingly beautiful girl—

In the upper hall he came face to face with his father.

"Dad, who in Heaven's name is she?" he demanded without preamble.

"She?"

"That exquisitely beautiful girl in the library. Who is she?"

"In the library? Girl? Nonsense! You're dreaming, Burke. There's no one here but your aunt."

"But I just came from there. I saw her. She held a child in her arms."

"Ho!" John Denby gave a gesture as if tossing a trivial something aside. "You're dreaming again, Burke. The nursemaid, probably. Your aunt brought one with her. But, see here, son. I was looking for you. Come into my room. I wanted to know—" And he plunged into a subject far removed from nursemaids and their charges.

Burke, however, was not to be so lightly diverted. True, he remained for ten minutes at his father's side, and he listened dutifully to what his father said; but the day was not an hour older before he had sought and found the girl he had seen in the library.

She was not in the library now. She was on the wide veranda, swinging the cherubic boy in the hammock. To Burke she looked even more bewitching than she had before. As a pictured saint, hung about with the aloofness of the intangible and the unreal, she had been beautiful and alluring enough; but now, as a breathing, moving creature treading his own familiar veranda and touching with her white hands his own common hammock, she was bewilderingly enthralling.

Combating again an almost overwhelming desire to stand in awed worship, he advanced hastily, speaking with a diffidence and an incoherence utterly foreign to his usual blithe boyishness.

"Oh, I hope—I didn't, did I? Did I wake—the baby up?"

With a start the girl turned, her blue eyes wide.

"You? Oh, in the library—"

"Yes; an hour ago. I do hope I didn't—wake him up!"

Before the ardent admiration in the young man's eyes, the girl's fell.

"Oh, no, sir. He just—woke himself."

"Oh, I'm so glad! And—and I want you to forgive me for—for staring at you so rudely. You see, I was so surprised to—to see you there like—like a picture, and— You will forgive me—er— I don't know your name."

"Barnet—Helen Barnet." She blushed prettily; then she laughed, throwing him a mischievous glance. "Oh, yes, I'll forgive you; but—I don't know your name, either."

"Thank you. I knew you'd—understand. I'm Denby—Burke Denby."

"Mr. Denby's son?"

"Yes."

"Oh-h!"

At the admiration in her eyes and voice he unconsciously straightened himself.

"And do you live—here?" breathed the girl.

To hide the inexplicable emotion that seemed suddenly to be swelling within him, the young man laughed lightly.

"Of course—when I'm not away!" His eyes challenged her, and she met the sally with a gurgle of laughter.

"Oh, I meant—when you're not away," she bridled.

He watched the wild-rose color sweep to her temples—and stepped nearer.

"But you haven't told me a thing of yourself—yet," he complained.

She sighed—and at the sigh an unreasoning wrath against an unknown something rose within him.

"There's nothing to tell," she murmured. "I'm just here—a nurse to Master Paul and his brother." Denby's wrath became reasoning and definite. It was directed against the world in general, and his aunt in particular, that they should permit for one instant this glorious creature to sacrifice her charm and sweetness on the altar of menial services to a couple of unappreciative infants.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" he breathed, plainly aglow at the intimate nearness of this heart-to-heart talk. "But I'm glad—you're here!"

Once more, before he turned reluctantly away, he gazed straight into her blue eyes—and the game was on.

It was a pretty game. The young man was hard hit, and it was his first wound from Cupid's dart. Heretofore in his curriculum girls had not been included; and the closeness of his association with his father had not been conducive to incipient love affairs. Perhaps, for these reasons, he was all the more ardent a wooer. Certainly an ardent wooer he was. There was no gainsaying that—though the boy himself, at first, did not recognize it as wooing at all.

It began with pity.

He was so sorry for her—doomed to slave all day for those two rascally small boys. He could not keep her out of his mind. As he tramped the hills the next morning the very blue of the sky and the softness of the air against his cheek became a pain to him—she was tied to a stuffy nursery. His own freedom of will and movement became a source of actual vexation—she was bound to a "do this" and a "do that" all day. He wondered then, suddenly, if he could not in some way help. He sought her as soon as possible.

"Come, I want you to go to walk with me. I want to show you the view from Pike's Hill," he urged.

"Me? To walk? Why, Mr. Denby, I can't!"

Again the wild-rose flush came and went—and again Burke Denby stepped nearer.

"Why not?"

"Why, I couldn't leave the children; besides—it's Master Paul's nap hour."

"What a pity—when it's so beautiful out! To-morrow, then, in the morning?"

She shook her head.

"I couldn't, Mr. Denby."

"The afternoon, then?"

"No."

"Is it because you don't want to?"

"Want to!"

At the look of longing that leaped to her face, the thwarted youth felt again the fierce wrath he had known the first day of their meeting.

"Then, by Jove, you shall!" he vowed. "Don't they ever give you any time to yourself?"

She dimpled into shy laughter.

"I shall have a few hours Thursday—after three."

"Good! I'll remember. We'll go then."

And they went.

To Burke Denby it was a wonderful and a brand-new experience. Never had the sky been so blue, the air so soft, the woods so enchantingly beautiful. And he was so glad that they were thus—for her. She was enjoying it so much, and he was so glad that he could give this happiness to her! Enthusiastically he pointed out here a bird and there a flower; carefully he helped her over every stick and stone; determinedly he set himself to making her forget her dreary daily tasks. And when she lifted her wondering eyes to his face, or placed her half-reluctant fingers in his extended hand, how he thrilled and tingled through his whole being—he had not supposed that unselfish service to a fellow-being could bring to one such a warm sense of gratification.

At the top of the hill they sat down to rest, before them the wonderful panorama of grandeur—the green valley, the silvery river, the far-reaching mauve and purple mountains.

"My, isn't this real pretty!" exclaimed the girl.

The young man scarcely heard the words, else he would have frowned unconsciously at the "real pretty." He was looking at her lovely, glorified face.

"I thought you'd like it," he breathed.

"Oh, I do."

"I know another just as fine. We'll go there next."

A shadow like a cloud crossed her face.

"But I have so little time!"

The cloud leaped to his face now and became thunderous.

"Shucks! I forgot. What a nuisance! Oh, I say, you know, I don't think you ought to be doing—such work. Do you—forgive me, but do you really—have to?"

"Yes, I have to."

She had turned her face half away, but he thought he could see tears in her eyes.

"Are you—all alone, then? Haven't you any—people?" His voice had grown very tender.

"No—no one. Father died, then mother. There was no one else—to care; and no—money."

"Oh, I'm so—so sorry!"

He spoke awkwardly, with obvious restraint. He wanted suddenly to take her in his arms—to soothe and comfort her as one would a child. But she was not a child, and it would not do, of course. But she looked so forlorn, so appealing, so sweet, so absolutely dear—

He got abruptly to his feet.

"Come, come, this will never do!" he exclaimed blithely. "Here I am—making you talk of your work and your troubles, when I took you up here with the express intention of making you forget them. Suppose we go through this little path here. There's a dandy spring of cold water farther on. And—and forgive me, please. I won't make you—talk any more."

And he would not, indeed, he vowed to himself. She was no child. She was a young woman grown, and a very beautiful one, at that. He could not console her with a kiss and a caress, and a bonbon, of course. But he could give her a bit of playtime, now and then—and he would, too. He would see to it that, for the rest of her stay under his father's roof, she should not want for the companionship of some one who—who "cared." He would be her kind and thoughtful good friend. Indeed, he would!

Burke Denby began the very next morning to be a friend to Miss Barnet. Accepting as irrevocable the fact that she could not be separated from her work, he made no plans that did not include Masters Paul and Percy Allen.

"I'm going to take your sons for a drive this morning, if you don't mind," he said briskly to his aunt at the breakfast table.

"Mind? Of course I don't, you dear boy," answered the pleased mother, fondly. "You're the one that will mind—as you'll discover, I fear, when you find yourself with a couple of mischievous small boys on your hands!"

"I'm not worrying," laughed the youth. "I shall take Miss Barnet along, too."

"Oh—Helen? That's all right, then. You'll do nicely with her," smiled Mrs. Allen, as she rose from the table. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go and see that the boys are made ready for their treat."

Burke Denby took the boys for a drive almost every day after that. He discovered that Miss Barnet greatly enjoyed driving. There were picnics, too, in the cool green of the woods, on two or three fine days. Miss Barnet also liked picnics. Still pursuant of his plan to give the forlorn little nursemaid "one good time in her life," Burke Denby contrived to be with her not a little in between drives and picnics. Ostensibly he was putting up swings, building toy houses, playing ball with Masters Paul and Percy Allen; but in reality he was trying to put a little "interest" into Miss Helen Barnet's daily task. He was so sorry for her! It was such a shame that so gloriously beautiful a girl should be doomed to a slavery like that! He was so glad that for a time he might bring some brightness into her life!

"And do you see how perfectly devoted Burke is to Paul and Percy?" cried Mrs. Allen, one day, to her brother. "I had no idea the dear boy was so fond of children!"

"Hm-m. Is he really, indeed," murmured John Denby. "No, I had not noticed."

John Denby spoke vaguely, yet with a shade of irritation. Fond as he was of his sister and of his small nephews, he was finding it difficult to accustom himself to the revolutionary changes in his daily routine that their presence made necessary. He was learning to absent himself more and more from the house.

For a week, therefore, unchallenged, and cheerfully intent on his benevolent mission, Burke Denby continued his drives and picnics and ball-playing with Masters Paul and Percy Allen; then, very suddenly, four little words from the lips of Helen Barnet changed for him the earth and the sky above.

"When I go away—" she began.

"When you—go—away!" he interrupted.

"Yes. Why, Mr. Denby, what makes you look so—queer?"

"Nothing. I was thinking—that is, I had forgotten—I—" He rose to his feet abruptly, and crossed the room. At the window, for a full minute, he stood motionless, looking out at the falling rain. When he turned back into the room there was a new expression on his face. With a quick glance at the children playing on the rug before the fireplace, he crossed straight to the plainly surprised young woman and dropped himself in a chair at her side.

"Helen Barnet, will you—marry me?" he asked softly.

"Mr. Denby!"

With a boyish laugh Burke Denby drew his chair nearer. His face was alight with the confident happiness of one who has never known rebuff.

"You are surprised—and so was I, a minute ago. You see, it came to me all in a flash—what it would be to live—without you." His voice grew tender. "Helen, you will stay, and be my wife?"

"Oh, no, no—I mustn't, I can't! Why, of course I can't, Mr. Denby," fluttered the girl, in a panic of startled embarrassment. "I'm sure you—you don't want me to."

"But I do. Listen!" He threw another quick glance at the absorbed children as he reached out and took possession of her hand. "It all came to me, back there at the window—the dreariness, the emptiness of—everything, without you. And I saw then what you've been to me every day this past week. How I've watched for you and waited for you, and how everything I did and said and had was just—something for you. And I knew then that I—I loved you. You see, I—I never loved any one before,"—the boyish red swept to his forehead as he laughed whimsically,—"and so I—I didn't recognize the symptoms!" With the lightness of his words he was plainly trying to hide the shake in his voice. "Helen, you—will?"

"Oh, but I—I—!" Her eyes were frightened and pleading.

"Don't you care at all?"

She turned her head away.

"If you don't, then won't you let me make you care?" he begged. "You said you had no one now to care—at all; and I care so much! Won't you let—"

Somewhere a door shut.

With a low cry Helen Barnet pulled away her hand and sprang to her feet. She was down on the rug with the children, very flushed of face, when Mrs. Allen appeared in the library doorway.

"Oh, here you are!" Mrs. Allen frowned and spoke a bit impatiently. "I've been hunting everywhere for you. I supposed you were in the nursery. Won't you put the boys into fresh suits? I have friends calling soon, and I want the children brought to the drawing-room when I ring, and left till I call you again."

"Yes, ma'am."

With a still more painful flush on her face Helen Barnet swept the blocks into her apron, rose to her feet, and hurried the children from the room. She did not once glance at the young man standing by the window.

Mrs. Allen tossed her nephew a smile and a shrug which might have been translated into "You see what we have to endure—so tiresome!" as she, too, disappeared.

Burke Denby did not smile. He did frown, however. He felt vaguely irritated and abused. He wished his aunt would not be so "bossy" and disagreeable. He wished Helen would not act so cringingly submissive. As if she— But then, it would be different right away, of course, as soon as he had made known the fact that she was to be his wife. Everything would be different. For that matter, Helen herself would be different. Not only would she hold her head erect and take her proper place, but she would not—well, there were various little ways and expressions which she would drop, of course. And how beautiful she was! How sweet! How dear! And how she had suffered in her loneliness! How he would love to make for her a future all gloriously happy and tender with his strong, encircling arms!

It was a pleasant picture. Burke Denby's heart quite swelled within him as he turned to leave the room.

Upstairs, the girl, the cause of it all, hurried with palpitating nervousness through the task of clothing two active little bodies in fresh garments. That her thoughts were not with her fingers was evident; but not until the summoning bell from the drawing-room gave her a few minutes' respite from duty did she have an opportunity really to think. Even then she could not think lucidly or connectedly. Always before her eyes was Burke Denby's face, ardent, pleading, confident. And he expected— Before she saw him again she must be ready, she knew, with her answer. But how could she answer?

Helen Barnet was lonely, heartsick, and frightened—a combination that could hardly aid in the making of a wise, unprejudiced decision, especially when one was very much in love. And Helen Barnet knew that she was that.

Less than two years before, Helen Barnet had been the petted daughter of a village storekeeper in a small Vermont town. Then, like the proverbial thunderbolt, had come death and financial disaster, throwing her on her own resources. And not until she had attempted to utilize those resources for her support, had she found how frail they were.

Though the Barnets had not been wealthy, the village store had been profitable; and Helen (the only child) had been almost as greatly overindulged as was Burke Denby himself. Being a very pretty girl, she had become the village belle before she donned long dresses. Having been shielded from work and responsibility, and always carefully guarded from everything unpleasant, she was poorly equipped for a struggle of any sort, even aside from the fact that there was, apparently, nothing that she could do well enough to be paid for doing it. In the past twenty months she had obtained six positions—and had abandoned five of them: two because of incompetency, two because of lack of necessary strength, one because her beauty was plainly making the situation intolerable. For three months now she had been nurse to Masters Paul and Percy Allen. She liked Mrs. Allen, and she liked the children. But the care, the confinement, the never-ending task of dancing attendance upon the whims and tempers of two active little boys, was proving to be not a little irksome to young blood unused to the restraints of self-sacrifice. Then, suddenly, there had come the visit to the Denby homestead, and the advent into her life of Burke Denby; and now here, quite within her reach, if she could believe her eyes and ears, was this dazzling, unbelievable thing—Burke Denby's love.

Helen Barnet knew all about love. Had she not lisped its praises in odes to the moon in her high-school days? It had to do with flowers and music and angels. On the old porch back home—what was it that long-haired boy used to read to her? Oh, Tennyson. That was it.

And now it had come to her—love. Not that it was exactly unexpected: she had been waiting for her lover since she had put up her hair, of course. But to have him come like this—and such a lover! So rich—and he was such a grand, handsome young man, too! And she loved him. She loved him dearly. If only she dared say "yes"! No more poverty, no more loneliness, no more slaving at the beck and call of some hated employer. Oh, if she only dared!

For one delirious moment Helen Barnet almost thought she did—dare. Then, bitterly, the thought of his position—and hers—rolled in upon her. Whatever else the last two wretched years had done for her, it had left her no illusions. She had no doubts as to her reception, as Burke Denby's wife, at the hands of Burke Denby's friends and relatives. And again, whatever the last two years had done for her, they had not robbed her of her pride. And the Barnets, away back in the little Vermont town, had been very proud. To Helen Barnet now, therefore, the picture of herself as Burke Denby's wife, flouted and frowned upon by Burke Denby's friends, was intolerable. Frightened and heartsick, she determined to beat a hasty retreat. It simply could not be. That was all. Very likely, anyway, Burke Denby had not been more than half in earnest himself.

The bell rang then again from the drawing-room, and Helen went down to get the children. In the hall she met Burke Denby; but she only shook her head in answer to his low "Helen, when may I see you?" and hurried by without a word, her face averted.

Three times again within the next twenty-four hours she pursued the same tactics, only to be brought up sharply at last against a peremptory "Helen, you shall let me talk to you a minute! Why do you persist in hiding behind those two rascally infants all the time, when you know that you have only to say the word, and you are as free as the air?"

"But I must—that is—I can't say the word, Mr. Denby. Truly I can't!"

His face fell a little.

"What do you mean? You can't mean—you can't mean—you won't—marry me?"

She threw a hurried look about her. He had drawn her into the curtained bay window of the upper hallway, as she was passing on to the nursery.

"Yes, I mean—that," she panted, trying to release her arm from his clasp.

"Helen! Do you mean you don't care?" he demanded passionately.

"Yes, yes—that's what I mean." She pulled again at her arm.

"Helen, look at me. You can't look me straight in the eye and say you don't—care!"

"Oh, yes, I can. I—I—" The telltale color flooded her face. With a choking little breath she turned her head quite away.

"You do—you do! And you shall marry me!" breathed the youth, his lips almost brushing the soft hair against her ear.

"No, no, Mr. Denby, I can't—I—can't!" With a supreme effort she wrenched herself free and fled down the hall.

If Helen Barnet thought this settled the matter, she ill-judged the nature of the man with whom she had to deal. Unlimited frosted cakes and shotguns had not taught Burke Denby to accept no for an answer—especially for an answer to something he had so set his heart upon as he had this winning of Helen Barnet for his wife.

Burke Denby did not know anything about love. He had never sung odes to the moon, or read Tennyson to pretty girls on secluded verandas. He had not been looking for love to meet him around the bend of the next street. Love had come now as an Event, capitalized. Love was Life, and Life was Heaven—if it might be passed with Helen Barnet at his side. Without her it would be— But Burke ignored the alternative. It was not worth considering, anyway, for of course she would be at his side.

She loved him; he was sure of that. This fancied obstacle in the way that loomed so large in her eyes, he did not fear in the least. He really rather liked it. It added zest and excitement, and would make his final triumph all the more heart-warming and satisfying. He had only to convince Helen, of course, and the mere convincing would not be without its joy and compensation.

It was with really pleasurable excitement, therefore, that Burke Denby laid his plans and carried them to the triumphant finish of a carefully arranged tête-à-tête in the library, when he knew that they would have at least half an hour to themselves.

"There, I've got you now, you little wild thing!" he cried, closing the library door, and standing determinedly with his back to it, as she made a frightened move to go, at finding herself alone with him.

"But, Mr. Denby, I can't. I really must go," she palpitated.

"No, you can't go. I've had altogether too much trouble getting you here, and getting those blessed youngsters safely away with their mamma for a bit of a drive with my dad."

"Then you planned this?"

"I did." He was regarding her with half-quizzical, wholly fond eyes. "And I had you summoned to the library—but I was careful not to say who wanted you. Oh, Helen, Helen, how can you seek to avoid me like this, when you know how I love you!" There was only tenderness now in his voice and manner. He had taken both her hands in his.

"But you mustn't love me."

"Not love—my wife?"

"I'm not your wife."

"You're going to be, dear."

"I can't. I told you I couldn't, Mr. Denby."

"My name is 'Burke,' my love."

His voice was whimsically light again. Very plainly Mr. Burke Denby was not appreciating the seriousness of the occasion.

She flushed and bit her lip.

"I think it's real mean of you to—to make it so hard for me!" she half sobbed.

With sudden passion he caught her in his arms.

"Hard? Hard? Then if it's hard, it means you do love me. As if I'd give you up now! Helen, why do you torture me like this? Dearest, when will you marry me?"

She struggled feebly in his arms.

"I told you; never."

"Why not?"

No answer.

"Helen, why not?" He loosened his clasp and held her off at arms' length.

"Because."

"Because what?"

No answer again.

"You aren't—promised to any one else?" For the first time a shadow of uneasy doubt crossed his face.

She shook her head.

"Oh, no."

"Then what is it?"

Her eyes, frightened and pleading, searched his face. There was a tense moment of indecision. Then in a tragic burst it came.

"Maybe you think I'd—marry you, and be your wife, and have all your folks look down on me!"

"Look down on you?"

"Yes, because I'm not so swell and grand as they are. I'm only—"

With a quick cry he caught her to himself again, and laid a reproving finger on her lips.

"Hush! Don't you let me hear you say that again—those horrid words! You are you, yourself, the dearest, sweetest little woman that was ever made, and I love you, and I'm going to marry you. Look down on you, indeed! I'd like to see them try it!"

"But they will. I'm only a nurse-girl."

"Hush!" He almost shook her in his wrath. "I tell you, you are you—and that's all I want to know. And that's all anybody will want to know. I'm not in love with your ancestors, or with your relatives, or your friends. I don't love you because you are, or are not, a nurse-girl, or a school-teacher, or a butterfly of fashion. I even don't love you because your eyes are blue, or because your wonderful hair is like the softest of spun gold. It's just because you are you, sweetheart; and you, just you, are the whole wide world to me!"

"But—your father?"

"He will love you because I love you. Dad is my good chum—he's always been that. What I love, he'll love. You'll see."

"Do you think he really will?" A dawning hope was coming into her eyes.

"I'm sure he will. Why, dad is the other half of myself. Always, all the way up, dad has been like that. And everything I've wanted, he's always let me have."

She drew a tremulous breath of surrender.

"Well, of course, if I thought you all wanted me—"

"Want you!" With his impulsive lips on hers she had her answer, and there Burke Denby found his.

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CHAPTER II

AN ONLY SON

Proud, and blissfully happy in his victory, Burke went to his father; and to his father (so far as the latter himself was concerned) he carried a bombshell.

For two reasons John Denby had failed to see what was taking place in his own home. First, because it would never have occurred to him that his son could fall in love with a nursemaid; secondly, because he had systematically absented himself from the house during the most of his sister's visit, preferring to take his sister away with him for drives and walks rather than to stay in the noisy confusion of toys and babies that his home had become. Because of all this, therefore, he was totally unprepared for what his son was bringing to him.

He welcomed the young man with affectionate heartiness.

"Well, my boy, it's good to see you! Where have you been keeping yourself all these two weeks?"

"Why, dad, I've been right here—in fact, I've been very much right here!"

The conscious color that crept to the boy's forehead should have been illuminating. But it was not.

"Yes, yes, very likely, very likely," frowned the man. "But, of course, with so many around— But soon we'll be by ourselves again. Not but what I'm enjoying your aunt's visit, of course," he added hastily. "But here are two weeks of your vacation gone, and I've scarcely seen you a minute."

"Yes; and that's one thing I wanted to talk about—college," plunged in the boy. "I've decided I don't want to finish my course, dad. I'd rather go into business right away."

The man drew his brows together, but did not look entirely displeased.

"Hm-m, well," he hesitated. "While I should hate not to see you graduated, yet—it's not so bad an idea, after all. I'd be glad to have you here for good that much earlier, son. But why this sudden right-about-face? I thought you were particularly keen for that degree."

Again the telltale color flamed in the boyish cheeks.

"I was—once. But, you see, then I wasn't thinking of—getting married."

"Married!" To John Denby it seemed suddenly that a paralyzing chill clutched his heart and made it skip a beat. This possible future marriage of his son, breaking into their close companionship, was the dreaded shadow that loomed ever ahead. "Nonsense, boy! Time enough to think of that when you've found the girl."

"But I have found her, dad."

John Denby paled perceptibly.

"You have—what?" he demanded. "You don't mean that you've— Who is she?"

"Helen. Why, dad, you seem surprised," laughed the boy. "Haven't you noticed—suspected?"

"Well, no I haven't," retorted the man grimly. "Why should I? I never heard of the young lady before. What is this—some college tomfoolery? I might have known, I suppose, what would happen."

"College! Why, dad, she's here. You know her. It's Helen,—Miss Barnet."

"Here! There's no one here but your aunt and—" He stopped, and half started from his chair. "You don't—you can't mean—your aunt's nursemaid!"

At the scornful emphasis an indignant red dyed the boy's face.

"I didn't think that of you, dad," he rebuked.

Angry as he was, the man was conscious of the hurt the words gave him. But he held his ground.

"And I did not think this of you, Burke," he rejoined coldly.

"You mean—"

"I mean that I supposed my son would show some consideration as to the woman he chose for his wife."

"Father!" The boyish face set into stern lines. The boyish figure drew itself erect with a majesty that would have been absurd had it not been so palpably serious. "I can't stand much of this sort of thing, even from you. Miss Barnet is everything that is good and true and lovely. She is in every way worthy—more than worthy. Besides, she is the woman I love—the woman I have asked to be my wife. Please remember that when you speak of her."

John Denby laughed lightly. Sharp words had very evidently been on the end of his tongue, when, with a sudden change of countenance, he relaxed in his chair, and said:—

"Well done, Burke. Your sentiments do you credit, I'm sure. But aren't we getting a little melodramatic? I feel as if I were on the stage of a second-rate theater! However, I stand corrected; and we'll speak very respectfully of the lady hereafter. I have no doubt she is very good and very lovely, as you say; but"—his mouth hardened a little—"I must still insist that she is no fit wife for my son."

"Why not?"

"Obvious reasons."

"I suppose you mean—because she has to work for her living," flashed the boy. "But that—excuse me—seems to me plain snobbishness. And I must say again I didn't think it of you, dad. I supposed—"

"Come, come, this has gone far enough," interrupted the distraught, sorely tried father of an idolized son. "You're only a boy. You don't know your own mind. You'll fancy yourself in love a dozen times yet before the time comes for you to marry."

"I'm not a boy. I'm a man grown."

"You're not twenty-one yet."

"I shall be next month. And I do know my own mind. You'll see, father, when I'm married."

"But you're not going to be married at present. And you're never going to marry this nursemaid."

"Father!"

"I mean what I say."

"You won't give your consent?"

"Never!"

"Then— I'll do it without, after next month."

There was a tense moment of silence. Father and son faced each other, angry resentment in their eyes. Then, with a sharp ejaculation, John Denby got to his feet and strode to the window. When he turned a minute later and came back, the angry resentment was gone. His mouth was stern, but his eyes were pleading. He came straight to his son and put both hands on his shoulders.

"Burke, listen to me," he begged. "I'm doing this for two reasons. First, to save you from yourself. You've known this girl scarcely two weeks—hardly an adequate preparation for a lifetime of living together. And just here comes in the second reason. However good and lovely she may be, she couldn't possibly qualify for that long lifetime together, Burke. Simply because she works for her living has nothing to do with it. She has not the tastes or the training that should belong to your wife—that must belong to your wife if she is to make you happy, if she is to take the place of—your mother. And that is the place your wife will take, of course, Burke."

Under the restraining hands on his shoulders the boy stirred restlessly.

"Tastes! Training! What do I care for that? She suits my tastes."

"She wouldn't—for long."

"You wait and see."

"Too great a risk to run, my boy."

"I'll risk it. I'm going to risk it."

Again there was a moment's silence. Again the stern lines deepened around the man's lips. Then very quietly there came the words:—

"Burke, if you marry this girl, you will choose between her and me. It seems to me that I ought not to need to tell you that you cannot bring her here. She shall never occupy your mother's chair as the mistress of this house."

"That settles it, then: I'll take her somewhere else."

If Burke had not been so blind with passion he would have seen and felt the anguish that leaped to his father's eyes. But he did not stop to see or to feel. He snapped out the words, jerked himself free, and left the room.

This did not "settle it," however. There were more words—words common to stern parents and amorous youths and maidens since time immemorial. A father, appalled at the catastrophe that threatened, not only his cherished companionship with his only son, but, in his opinion, the revered sanctity of his wife's memory, wrapped himself in forbidding dignity. An impetuous lover, torn between the old love of years and the new, quite different one of weeks, alternately stormed and pleaded. A young girl, undisciplined, very much in love, and smarting with hurt pride and resentment, blew hot and cold in a manner that tended to drive every one concerned to distraction. As soon as possible a shocked, distressed Sister Eunice packed her trunks and betook herself and her offending household away.

In time, then, a compromise was effected. Burke should leave college immediately and go into the Works with his father, serving a short apprenticeship from the bottom up, as had been planned for him, that he might be the master of the business, in deed as well as in name, when he should some day take his father's place. Meanwhile, for one year, he was not to see or to communicate with Helen Barnet. If at the end of the year, he was still convinced that his only hope of happiness lay in marriage to this girl, all opposition would be withdrawn and he might marry when he pleased—though even then he must not expect to bring his bride to the old home. They must set up an establishment for themselves.

"We should prefer that,—under the circumstances," had been the prompt and somewhat haughty rejoinder, much to the father's discomfiture.

Grieved and dismayed as he was at the airy indifference with which his son appeared to face a fatherless future, John Denby was yet pinning his faith on that year of waiting. Given twelve months with the boy quite to himself, free from the hateful spell of this designing young woman, and there could be no question of the result—in John Denby's mind. In all confidence, therefore, and with every sense alert to make this year as perfect as a year could be, John Denby set himself to the task before him.

It was just here, however, that for John Denby the ghosts walked—ghosts of innumerable toy pistols and frosted cakes. Burke Denby, accustomed all his life to having what he wanted, and having it when he wanted it, moped the first week, sulked the second, covertly rebelled the third, and ran away the last day of the fourth, leaving behind him the customary note, which, in this case, read:—

Good-bye,
Burke.

John Denby read the letter once, twice; then he pulled the telephone toward him and gave a few crisp orders to James Brett, his general manager. His voice was steady and—to the man at the other end of the wire—ominously emotionless. When he had finished talking five minutes later, certain words had been uttered that would materially change the immediate future of a certain willful youth just then setting out on his honeymoon.

There would be, for Burke Denby, no "Reddington apartment." There would also be no several-other-things; for there would be no "allowance" after the current month. There would be only the "wages," and the things the wages could buy.

There was no disputing the fact that John Denby was very angry. But he was also sorely distressed and grieved. Added to his indignation that his son should have so flouted him was his anguish of heart that the old days of ideal companionship were now gone forever. There was, too, his very real fear for the future happiness of his boy, bound in marriage to a woman he believed would prove to be a most uncongenial mate. But overtopping all, just now, was his wrath at the flippant assurance of his son's note, and the very evident confidence in a final forgiveness that the note showed. It was this that caused the giving of those stern, momentous orders over the telephone—John Denby himself had been somewhat in the habit of having his own way!

The harassed father did not sleep much that night. Until far into the morning hours he sat before the fireless grate in his library, thinking. He looked old, worn, and wholly miserable. In his hand, and often under his gaze, was the miniature of a beautiful woman—his wife.

---

CHAPTER III

HONEYMOON DAYS

It was on a cool, cloudy day in early September that Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby arrived at Dalton from their wedding trip.

With characteristic inclination to avoid anything unpleasant, the young husband had neglected to tell his wife that they were not to live in the Denby Mansion. He had argued with himself that she would find it out soon enough, anyway, and that there was no reason why he should spoil their wedding trip with disagreeable topics of conversation. Burke always liked to put off disagreeable things till the last.

Helen was aware, it is true, that Burke's father was much displeased at the marriage; but that this displeasure had gone so far as to result in banishment from the home, she did not know. She had been planning, indeed, just how she would win her father-in-law over—just how sweet and lovely and daughterly she would be, as a member of the Denby household; and so sure was she of victory that already she counted the battle half won.

In the old days of her happy girlhood, Helen Barnet had taken as a matter of course the succumbing of everything and everybody to her charm and beauty. And although this feeling had, perforce, been in abeyance for some eighteen months, it had been very rapidly coming back to her during the past two weeks, under the devoted homage of her young husband and the admiring eyes of numberless strangers along their honeymoon way.

It was a complete and disagreeable surprise to her now, therefore, when Burke said to her, a trifle nervously, as they were nearing Dalton:—

"We'll have to go to a hotel, of course, Helen, for a few days, till we get the apartment ready. But 'twon't be for long, dear."

"Hotel! Apartment! Why, Burke, aren't we going home—to your home?"

"Oh, no, dear. We're going to have a home of our own, you know—our home."

"No, I didn't know." Helen's lips showed a decided pout.

"But you'll like it, dear. You just wait and see." The man spoke with determined cheeriness.

"But I can't like it better than your old home, Burke. I know what that is, and I'd much rather go there."

"Yes, yes, but—" Young Denby paused to wet his dry lips. "Er—you know, dear, dad wasn't exactly—er—pleased with the marriage, anyway, and—"

"That's just it," broke in the bride eagerly. "That's one reason I wanted to go there—to show him, you know. Why, Burke, I'd got it all planned out lovely, how nice I was going to be to him—get his paper and slippers, and kiss him good-morning, and—"

"Holy smoke! Kiss—" Just in time the fastidious son of a still more fastidious father pulled himself up; but to a more discerning bride, his face would already have finished his sentence. "Er—but—well, anyhow, dear," he stammered, "that's very kind of you, of course; but you see it's useless even to think of it. He—he has forbidden us to go there."

"Why, the mean old thing!"

"Helen!"

Helen's face showed a frown as well as a pout.

"I don't care. He is mean, if he is your father, not to let—"

"Helen!"

At the angry sharpness of the man's voice Helen stopped abruptly. For a moment she gazed at her husband with reproachful eyes. Then her chin began to quiver, her breath to come in choking little gasps, and the big tears to roll down her face.

"Why, Burke, I—"

"Oh, great Scott! Helen, dearest, don't, please!" begged the dismayed and distracted young husband, promptly capitulating at the awful sight of tears of which he was the despicable cause. "Darling, don't!"

"But you never sp-poke like that to me b-before," choked the wife of a fortnight.

"I know. I was a brute—so I was! But, sweetheart, please stop," he pleaded desperately. "See, we're just pulling into Dalton. You don't want them to see you crying—a bride!"

Mrs. Burke Denby drew in her breath convulsively, and lifted a hurried hand to brush the tears from her eyes. The next moment she smiled, tremulously, but adorably. She looked very lovely as she stepped from the car a little later; and Burke Denby's heart swelled with love and pride as he watched her. If underneath the love and pride there was a vague something not so pleasant, the man told himself it was only a natural regret at having said anything to cast the slightest shadow on the home-coming of this dear girl whom he had asked to share his life. Whatever this vague something was, anyway, Burke resolutely put it behind him, and devoted himself all the more ardently to the comfort of his young wife.

In spite of himself, Burke could not help looking for his father's face at the station. Never before had he come home (when not with his father), and not been welcomed by that father's eager smile and outstretched hand. He missed them both now. Otherwise he was relieved to see few people he knew, as he stepped to the platform, though he fully realized, from the sly winks and covert glances, that every one knew who he was, and who also was the lady at his side.

With only an occasional perfunctory greeting, and no introductions, therefore, the somewhat embarrassed and irritated bridegroom hurried his bride into a public carriage, and gave the order to drive to the Hancock Hotel.

All the way there he talked very fast and very tenderly of the new home that was soon to be theirs.

"'Twill be only for a little—the hotel, dear," he plunged in at once. "And you won't mind it, for a little, while we're planning, will you, darling? I'm going to rent one of the Reddington apartments. You remember them—on Reddington Avenue; white stone with dandy little balconies between the big bay windows. They were just being finished when you were here. They're brand-new, you see. And we'll be so happy, there, dearie,—just us two!"

"Us two! But, Burke, there'll be three. There'll have to be the hired girl, too, you know," fluttered the new wife, in quick panic. "Surely you aren't going to make me do without a hired girl!"

"Oh, no—no, indeed," asserted the man, all the more hurriedly, because he never had thought of a "hired girl," and because he was rather fearfully wondering how much his father paid for the maids, anyway. There would have to be one, of course; but he wondered if his allowance would cover it, with all the rest. Still, he could smoke a cigar or two less a day, he supposed, if it came to a pinch, and—but Helen was speaking.

"Dear, dear, but you did give me a turn, Burke! You see, there'll just have to be a hired girl—that is, if you want anything to eat, sir," she laughed, showing all her dimples. (And Burke loved her dimples!) "I can't cook a little bit. I never did at home, you know, and I should hate it, I'm sure. It's so messy—sticky dough and dishes, and all that!" Again she laughed and showed all her dimples, looking so altogether bewitching that Burke almost—but not quite—stole a kiss. He decided, too, on the spot, that he would rather never smoke another cigar than to subject this adorable little thing at his side to any task that had to do with the hated "messy dough and sticky dishes." Indeed he would!

Something of this must have shown in his face, for the little bride beamed anew, and the remainder of the drive was a blissfully happy duet of fascinating plans regarding this new little nest of a home.

All this was at four o'clock. At eight o'clock Burke Denby came into their room at the hotel with a white face and tense lips.

"Well, Helen, we're in for it," he flung out, dropping himself into the nearest chair.

"What do you mean?"

"Father has cut off my allowance."

"But you—you've gone to work. There's your wages!"

"Oh, yes, there are my—wages."

Something in his tone sent a swift suspicion to her eyes.

"Do you mean—they aren't so big as your allowance?"

"I certainly do."

"How perfectly horrid! Just as if it wasn't mean enough for him not to let us live there, without—"

"Helen!" Burke Denby pulled himself up in his chair. "See here, dear, I shan't let even you say things like that about dad. Now, for heaven's sake, don't let us quarrel about it," he pleaded impatiently, as he saw the dreaded quivering coming to the pouting lips opposite.

"But I—I—"

"Helen, dearest, don't cry, please don't! Crying won't help; and I tell you it's serious business—this is."

"But are you sure—do you know it's true?" faltered the young wife, too thoroughly frightened now to be angry. "Did you see—your father?"

"No; I saw Brett."

"Who's he? Maybe he doesn't know."

"Oh, yes, he does," returned Burke, with grim emphasis. "He knows everything. They say at the Works that he knows what father's going to have for breakfast before the cook does."

"But who is he?"

"He's the head manager of the Denby Iron Works and father's right-hand man. He came here to-night to see me—by dad's orders, I suspect."

"Is your father so awfully angry, then?" Her eyes had grown a bit wistful.

"I'm afraid he is. He says I've made my bed and now I must lie in it. He's cut off my allowance entirely. He's raised my wages—a little, and he says it's up to me now to make good—with my wages."

There was a minute's silence. The man's eyes were gloomily fixed on the opposite wall. His whole attitude spelled disillusion and despair. The woman's eyes, questioning, fearful, were fixed on the man.

Plainly some new, hidden force was at work within Helen Denby's heart. Scorn and anger had left her countenance. Grief and dismay had come in their place.

"Burke, why has your father objected so to—to me?" she asked at last, timidly.

Abstractedly, as if scarcely conscious of what he was saying, the man shrugged:—

"Oh, the usual thing. He said you weren't suited to me; you wouldn't make me happy."

The wife recoiled visibly. She gave a piteous little cry. It was too low, apparently, to reach her husband's ears. At all events, he did not turn. For fully half a minute she watched him, and in her shrinking eyes was mirrored each eloquent detail of his appearance, the lassitude, the gloom, the hopelessness. Then, suddenly, to her whole self there came an electric change. As if throwing off bonds that held her she flung out her arms and sprang toward him.

"Burke, it isn't true, it isn't true," she flamed. "I'm going to make you happy! You just wait and see. And we'll show him. We'll show him we can do it! He told you to make good; and you must, Burke! I won't have him and everybody else saying I dragged you down. I won't! I won't! I won't!"

Burke Denby's first response was to wince involuntarily at the shrill crescendo of his wife's voice. His next was to shrug his shoulders irritably as the meaning of her words came to him.

"Nonsense, Helen, don't be a goose!" he scowled.

"I'm not a goose. I'm your wife," choked Helen, still swayed by the exaltation that had mastered her. "And I'm going to help you win—win, I say! Do you hear me, Burke?"

"Of course I hear you, Helen; and—so'll everybody else, if you don't look out. Please speak lower, Helen!"

She was too intent and absorbed to be hurt or vexed. Obediently she dropped her voice almost to a whisper.

"Yes, yes, I know, Burke; and I will, I will, dear." She fell on her knees at his side. "But it seems as if I must shout it to the world. I want to go out on the street here and scream it at the top of my voice, till your father in his great big useless house on the hill just has to hear me."

"Helen, Helen!" shivered her husband.

But she hurried on feverishly.

"Burke, listen! You're going to make good. Do you hear? We'll show them. We'll never let them say they—beat us!"

"But—but—"

"We aren't going to say 'but' and hang back. We're going to do!"

"But, Helen, how? What?" demanded the man, stirred into a show of interest at last. "How can we?"

"I don't know, but we're going to do it."

"There won't be—hardly any money."

"I'll get along—somehow."

"And we'll have to live in a cheap little hole somewhere—we can't have one of the Reddingtons."

"I don't want it—now."

"And you'll have to—to work."

"Yes, I know." Her chin was still bravely lifted.

"There can't be any—maid now."

"Then you'll have to eat—what I cook!" She drew in her breath with a hysterical little laugh that was half a sob.

"You darling! I shall love it!" He caught her to himself in a revulsion of feeling that was as ardent as it was sudden. "Only I'll so hate to have you do it, sweetheart—it's so messy and doughy!"

"Nonsense!"

"You told me it was."

"But I didn't know then—what they were saying about me. Burke, they just shan't say I'm dragging you down."

"Indeed they shan't, darling."

"Then you will make good?" she regarded him with tearful, luminous eyes.

"Of course I will—with you to help me."

Her face flamed into radiant joy.

"Yes, with me to help! That's it, that's it—I'm going to help you," she breathed fervently, flinging her arms about his neck.

And to each, from the dear stronghold of the other's arms, at the moment, the world looked, indeed, to be a puny thing, scarcely worth the conquering.

---

CHAPTER IV

NEST-BUILDING

It is so much easier to say than to do. But nothing in the experience of either Burke Denby or of Helen, his wife, had demonstrated this fact for them. Quite unprepared, therefore, and with confident courage, they proceeded to pass from the saying to the doing.

True, in the uncompromising sunlight of the next morning, the world did look a bit larger, a shade less easily conquerable; and a distinctly unpleasant feeling of helplessness assailed both husband and wife. Yet with a gay "Now we'll go house-hunting right away so as to save paying here!" from Helen, and an adoring "You darling—but it's a burning shame!" from Burke, the two sallied forth, after the late hotel breakfast.

The matter of selecting the new home was not a difficult one—at first. They decided at once that, if they could not have an apartment in the Reddington Chambers, they would prefer a house. "For," Burke said, "as for being packed away like sardines in one of those abominable little cheap flat-houses, I won't!" So a house they looked for at the start. And very soon they found what Helen said was a "love of a place"—a pretty little cottage with a tiny lawn and a flower-bed.

"And it's so lucky it's for rent," she exulted. "For it's just what we want, isn't it, dearie?"

"Y-yes; but—"

"Why, Burke, don't you like it? I think it's a dear! Of course it isn't like your father's house. But we can't expect that."

"Expect that! Great Scott, Helen,—we can't expect this!" cried the man.

"Why, Burke, what do you mean?"

"It'll cost too much, dear,—in this neighborhood. We can't afford it."

"Oh, that'll be all right. I'll economize somewhere else. Come; it says the key is next door."

"Yes, but, Helen, dearest, I know we can't—" But "Helen, dearest," was already halfway up the adjoining walk; and Burke, with a despairing glance at her radiant, eager face, followed her. There was, indeed, no other course open to him, as he knew, unless he chose to make a scene on the public thorough-fare—and Burke Denby did not like scenes.

The house was found to be as attractive inside as it was out; and Helen's progress from room to room was a series of delighted exclamations. She was just turning to go upstairs when her husband's third desperate expostulation brought her feet and her tongue to a pause.

"Helen, darling, I tell you we can't!" he was exclaiming. "It's out of the question."

"Burke!" Her lips began to quiver. "And when you know how much I want it!"

"Sweetheart, don't, please, make it any harder for me," he begged. "I'd give you a dozen houses like this if I could—and you know it. But we can't afford even this one. The rent is forty dollars. I heard her tell you when she gave you the key."

"Never mind. We can economize other ways."

"But, Helen, I only get sixty all told. We can't pay forty for rent."

"Oh, but, Burke, that leaves twenty, and we can do a lot on twenty. Just as if what we ate would cost us that! I don't care for meat, anyhow, much. We'll cut that out. And I hate grapefruit and olives. They cost a lot. Mrs. Allen was always having them, and—"

The distraught husband interrupted with an impatient gesture.

"Grapefruit and olives, indeed! And as if food were all of it! Where are our clothes and coal and—and doctor's bills, and I don't-know-what-all coming from? Why, great Scott, Helen, I smoke half that in a week, sometimes,—not that I shall now, of course," he added hastily. "But, honestly, dearie, we simply can't do it. Now, come, be a good girl, and let's go on. We're simply wasting time here."

Helen, convinced at last, tossed him the key, with a teary "All right—take it back then. I shan't! I know I should c-cry right before her!" The next minute, at sight of the abject woe and dismay on her husband's face, she flung herself upon him with a burst of sobs.

"There, there, Burke, here I am, so soon, making a fuss because we can't afford things! But I won't any more—truly I won't! I was a mean, horrid old thing! Yes, I was," she reiterated in answer to his indignant denial. "Come, let's go quick!" she exclaimed, pulling herself away, and lifting her head superbly. "I don't want the old place, anyhow. Truly, I don't!" And, with a dazzling smile, she reached out her hand and tripped enticingly ahead of him toward the door; while the man, bewildered, but enthralled by this extraordinary leap from fretful stubbornness to gay docility, hurried after her with an incoherent jumble of rapturous adjectives.

Such was Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby's first experience of home-hunting. The second, though different in detail, was similar in disappointment. So also were the third and the fourth experiences. Not, indeed, until the weary, distracted pair had spent three days in time, all their patience, and most of their good nature, did they finally arrive at a decision. And then their selection, alas, proved to be one of the despised tiny flats, in which, according to the unhappy young bridegroom, they were destined to be packed like sardines.

After all, it had been the "elegant mirror in the parlor," and the "just grand" tiled and tessellated entrance, that had been the determining factors in the decision; for Burke, thankful that at last something within reach of his pocketbook had been found to bring a sparkle to his beloved's eyes, had stifled his own horror at the tawdry cheapness of it all, and had given a consent that was not without a measure of relief born of the three long days of weary, well-nigh hopeless search.

Dalton, like most manufacturing towns of fifteen or twenty thousand souls, had all the diversity of a much larger place. There was West Hill, where were the pillared and porticoed residences of the pretentious and the pretending, set in painfully new, wide-sweeping, flower-bordered lawns; and there was Valley Street, a double line of ramshackle wooden buildings with broken steps and shutterless windows, where a blade of grass was a stranger and a flower unknown, save for perhaps a sickly geranium on a tenement window sill. There was Old Dalton, with its winding, tree-shaded streets clambering all over the slope of Elm Hill, where old colonial mansions, with an air of aloofness (borrowed quite possibly from their occupants), seemed ever to be withdrawing farther and farther away from plebeian noise and publicity. There was, of course, the mill district, where were the smoke-belching chimneys and great black buildings that meant the town's bread and butter; and there were the adjoining streets of workmen's houses, fitted to give a sensitive soul the horrors, so seemingly endless was the repetition of covered stoop and dormer window, always exactly the same, as far as eye could reach. There was, too, the bustling, asphalted, brick-blocked business center; and there were numerous streets of simple, pretty cottages, and substantial residences, among which, with growing frequency, there were beginning to appear the tall, many-windowed apartment houses, ranging all the way from the exclusive, expensive Reddington Chambers down to the flimsy structures like the one whose tawdry ornamentation had caught the fancy of Burke Denby's village-bred wife.

To Burke Denby himself, late of Denby House (perhaps the most aloof of all the "old colonials"), the place was a nightmare of horror. But because his wife's eyes had glistened, and because his wife's lips had caroled a joyous "Oh, Burke, I'd love this place, darling!"—and because, most important of all, if it must be confessed, the rent was only twenty dollars a month, he had uttered a grim "All right, we'll take it." And the selection of the home was accomplished.

Not until they were on the way to the hotel that night did there come to the young husband the full realizing sense that housekeeping meant furniture.

"Oh, of course I knew it did," he groaned, half-laughingly, after his first despairing ejaculation. "But I just didn't think; that's all. Our furniture at home we'd always had. But of course it does have to be bought—at first."

"Of course! And I didn't think, either," laughed Helen. "You see, we'd always had our furniture, too, I guess. But then, it'll be grand to buy it. I love new things!"

Burke Denby frowned.

"Buy it! That's all right—if we had the money to pay. Heaven only knows how much it'll cost. I don't."

"But, Burke, you've got some money, haven't you? You took a big roll out of your pocket last night."

He gave her a scornful glance.

"Big roll, indeed! How far do you suppose that would go toward furnishing a home? Of course I've got some money—a little left from my allowance—but that doesn't mean I've got enough to furnish a home."

"Then let's give up housekeeping and board," proposed Helen. "Then we won't have to buy any furniture. And I think I'd like it better anyhow; and I know you would—after you'd sampled my cooking," she finished laughingly.

But her husband did not smile. The frown only deepened as he ejaculated:—

"Board! Not much, Helen! We couldn't board at a decent place. 'Twould cost too much. And as for the cheap variety—great Scott, Helen! I wonder if you think I'd stand for that! Heaven knows we'll be enough gossiped about, as it is, without our planting ourselves right under the noses of half the tabby-cats in town for them to 'oh' and 'ah' and 'um' every time we turn around or don't turn around! No, ma'am, Helen! We'll shut ourselves up somewhere within four walls we can call home, even if we have to furnish it with only two chairs and a bed and a kitchen stove. It'll be ours—and we'll be where we won't be stared at."

Helen laughed lightly.

"Dear, dear, Burke, how you do run on! Just as if one minded a little staring! I rather like it, myself,—if I know my clothes and my back hair are all right."

"Ugh! Helen!"

"Well, I do," she laughed, uptilting her chin. "It makes one feel so sort of—er—important. But I won't say 'board' again, never,—unless you begin to scold at my cooking," she finished with an arch glance.

"As if I could do that!" cried the man promptly, again the adoring husband. "I shall love everything you do—just because it's you that do it. The only trouble will be, you won't get enough to eat—because I shall want to eat it all!"

"You darling! Aren't you the best ever!" she cooed, giving his arm a surreptitious squeeze. "But, really, you know, I am going to be a bang-up cook. I've got a cookbook."

"So soon? Where did you get that?"

"Yesterday, while you went into Stoddard's for that house-key. I saw one in the window next door and I went in and bought it. 'Twas two dollars, so it ought to be a good one. And that makes me think. It took all the money I had, 'most, in my purse. So I—I'm afraid I'll have to have some more, dear."

"Why, of course, of course! You mustn't go without money a minute." And the young husband, with all the alacrity of a naturally generous nature supplemented by the embarrassment of this new experience of being asked for money by the girl he loved, plunged his hand into his pocket and crowded two bills into her unresisting fingers. "There! And I won't be so careless again, dear. I don't ever mean you to have to ask for money, sweetheart."

"Oh, thank you," she murmured, tucking the bills into her little handbag. "I shan't need any more for ever so long, I'm sure. I'm going to be economical now, you know."

"Of course you are. You're going to be a little brick. I know."

"And we won't mind anything if we're only together," she breathed.

"There won't be anything to mind," he answered fervently, with an ardent glance that would have been a kiss had it not been for the annoying presence of a few score of Dalton's other inhabitants on the street together with themselves.

The next minute they reached the hotel.

At nine o'clock the following morning Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby sallied forth to buy the furniture for their "tenement," as Helen called it, until her husband's annoyed remonstrances changed the word to "apartment."

Burke Denby learned many things during the next few hours. He learned first that tables and chairs and beds and stoves—really decent ones that a fellow could endure the sight of—cost a prodigious amount of money. But, to offset this, and to make life really worth the living, after all, it seemed that one might buy a quantity sufficient for one's needs, and pay for them in installments, week by week. This idea, while not wholly satisfactory, seemed the only way of stretching their limited means to cover their many needs; and, after some hesitation, it was adopted.

There remained then only the matter of selection; and it was just here that Burke Denby learned something else. He learned that two people, otherwise apparently in perfect accord, could disagree most violently over the shape of a chair or the shade of a rug. Indeed, he would not have believed it possible that such elements of soul torture could lie in a mere matter of color or texture. And how any one with eyes and sensibilities could wish to select for one's daily companions such a mass of gingerbread decoration and glaring colors as seemed to meet the fancy of his wife, he could not understand. Neither could he understand why all his selections and preferences were promptly dubbed "dingy" and "homely," nor why nothing that he liked pleased her at all. As such was certainly the case, however, he came to express these preferences less and less frequently. And in the end he always bought what she wanted, particularly as the price on her choice was nearly always lower than the one on his—which was an argument in its favor that he found it hard to refute.

Tractable as he was as to quality, however, he did have to draw a sharp line as to quantity; for Helen;—with the cheerful slogan, "Why, it's only twenty-five cents a week more, Burke!"—seemed not to realize that there was a limit even to the number of those one might spend—on sixty dollars a month. True, at the beginning she did remind him that they could "eat less" till they "got the things paid for," and that her clothes were "all new, anyhow, being a bride, so!" But she had not said that again. Perhaps because she saw the salesman turn his back to laugh, and perhaps because she was a little frightened at the look on her husband's face. At all events, when Burke did at last insist that they had bought quite enough, she acquiesced with some measure of grace.

Burke himself, when the shopping was finished, drew a sigh of relief, yet with an inward shudder at the recollection of certain things marked "Sold to Burke Denby."

"Oh, well," he comforted himself. "Helen's happy—and that's the main thing; and I shan't see them much. I'm away days and asleep nights." Nor did it occur to him that this was not the usual attitude of a supposedly proud bridegroom toward his new little nest of a home.

Getting settled in the little Dale Street apartment was, so far as Burke was concerned, a mere matter of moving from the hotel and dumping the contents of his trunk into his new chiffonier and closet. True, Helen, looking tired and flurried (and not nearly so pretty as usual), brought to him some borrowed tools, together with innumerable curtains and rods and nails and hooks that simply must be put up, she said, before she could do a thing. But Burke, after a half-hearted trial,—during which he mashed his thumb and bored three holes in wrong places,—flew into a passion of irritability, and bade her get the janitor who "owned the darn things" to do the job, and to pay him what he asked—'twould be worth it, no matter what it was!

With a very hasty kiss then Burke banged out of the house and headed for the Denby Iron Works.

It was not alone the curtains or the offending hammer that was wrong with Burke Denby that morning. The time had come when he must not only meet his fellow employees, and take his place among them, but he must face his father. And he was dreading yet longing to see his father. He had not seen him since he bade him good-night and went upstairs to his own room the month before—to write that farewell note.

Once, since coming back from his wedding trip, he had been tempted to leave town and never see his father again—until he should have made for himself the name and the money that he was going to make. Then he would come back and cry: "Behold, this is I, your son, and this is Helen, my wife, who, you see, has not dragged me down!" He would not, of course, talk like that. But he would show them. He would! This had been when he first learned from Brett of the allowance-cutting, and of his father's implacable anger.

Then had come the better, braver decision. He would stay where he was. He would make the name and the money right here, under his father's very eyes. It would be harder, of course; but there would then be all the more glory in the winning. Besides, to leave now would look like defeat—would make one seem almost like a quitter. And his father hated quitters! He would like to show his father. He would show his father. And he would show him right here. And had not Helen, his dear wife, said that she would aid him? As if he could help winning out under those circumstances!

It was with thoughts such as these that he went now to meet his father. Especially was he thinking of Helen, dear Helen,—poor Helen, struggling back there with those abominable hooks and curtains. And he had been such a brute to snap her up so crossly! He would not do it again. It was only that he was so dreading this first meeting with his father. After that it would be easier. There would not be anything then only just to keep steadily going till he'd made good—he and Helen. But now—father would be proud to see how finely he was taking it!

With chin up and shoulders back, therefore, Burke Denby walked into his father's office.

"Well, father," he began, with cheery briskness. Then, instantly, voice and manner changed as he took a hurried step forward. "Dad, what is it? Are you ill?"

So absorbed had Burke Denby been over the part he himself was playing in this little drama of Denby and Son, that he had given no thought as to the probable looks or actions of any other member of the cast. He was quite unprepared, therefore, for the change in the man he now saw before him—the pallor, the shrunken cheeks, the stooped shoulders, the unmistakable something that made the usually erect, debonair man look suddenly worn and old.

"Dad, you are ill!" exclaimed Burke in dismay.

John Denby got to his feet at once. He even smiled and held out his hand. Yet Burke, who took the hand, felt suddenly that there were uncounted miles of space between them.

"Ah, Burke, how are you? No, I'm not ill at all. And you—are you well?"

"Er—ah—oh, yes, very well—er—very well."

"That's good. I'm glad."

There was a brief pause. A torrent of words swept to the tip of the younger man's tongue; but nothing found voice except another faltering "Er—yes, very well!" which Burke had not meant to say at all. There was a second brief pause, then John Denby sat down.

"You will find Brett in his office. You have come to work, I dare say," he observed, as he turned to the letters on his desk.

"Er—yes," stammered the young man. The next moment he found himself alone, white and shaken, the other side of his father's door.

To work? Oh, yes, he had come to work; but he had come first to talk. There were a whole lot of things he had meant to say to his father. First, of course, there would have had to be something in the nature of an apology or the like to patch up the quarrel. Then he would tell him how he was really going to make good—he and Helen. After that they could get down to one of their old-time chats. They always had been chums—he and dad; and they hadn't had a talk for four weeks. Why, for three weeks he had been saving up a story, a dandy story that dad would appreciate! And there were other things, serious things, that—

And here already he had seen his father, and it was over. And he had not said a word—nothing of what he had meant to say. He believed he would go back—

With an angry gesture Burke Denby turned and extended his hand halfway toward the closed door. Then, with an impatient shrug, he whirled about and strode toward the door marked "J. A. Brett, General Manager."

If young Denby had obeyed his first impulse and reëntered his father's office he would have found the man with his head bowed on the desk, his arms outflung.

John Denby, too, was white and shaken. He, too, had been dreading this meeting, and longing for it—that it might be over. There was now, however, on his part, no feeling of chagrin and impotence because of things that had not been said. There was only a shuddering relief that things had not been said; that he had been able to carry it straight through as he had planned; that he had not shown his boy how much he—cared. He was glad that his pride had been equal to the strain; that he had not weakly succumbed at the first glimpse of his son's face, the first touch of his son's hand, as he had so feared that he would do.

And he had not succumbed—though he had almost gone down before the quick terror and affectionate dismay that had leaped into his son's voice and eyes at sight of his own changed appearance. (Why could not he keep those abominable portions of his anatomy from being so wretchedly telltale?) But he had remembered in time. Did the boy think, then, that a mere word of sympathy now could balance the scale against so base a disregard of everything loyal and filial a month ago? Then he would show that it could not.

And he had shown it.

What if he did know now, even better than he had known it all these last miserable four weeks, that his whole world had lain in his boy's hand, that his whole life had been bounded by his boy's smile, his whole soul immersed in his boy's future? What if he did know that all the power and wealth and fame of name that he had won were as the dust in his fingers—if he might not pass them on to his son? He was not going to let Burke know this. Indeed, no!

Burke had made his own bed. He should lie in it. Deliberately he had chosen to cast aside the love and companionship of a devoted father at the beck of an almost unknown girl's hand. Should the father then offer again the once-scorned love and companionship? Had he no pride—no proper sense of simple right and justice? No self-respect, even?

It was thus, and by arguments such as these, that John Denby had lashed himself into the state of apparently cool, courteous indifference that had finally carried him successfully through the interview just closed.

For a long time John Denby sat motionless, his arms outflung across the letters that might have meant so much, but that did mean so little, to him—now. Then slowly he raised his head and fixed somber, longing eyes on the door that had so recently closed behind his son.

The boy was in there with Brett now—his boy. He was being told that his wages for the present were to be fifteen dollars a week, and that he was expected to live within his income—that the wages were really very liberal, considering his probable value to the company at the first. He would begin at the bottom, as had been planned years ago; but with this difference: he would be promoted now only when he had earned it. He would have been pushed rapidly ahead to the top, had matters been as they once were. Now he must demonstrate and prove his ability.

All this Brett was telling Burke now. Poor Burke! Brett was so harsh, so uncompromising. As if it weren't tough enough to have to live on a paltry fifteen dollars a week, without—

John Denby sighed and rose to his feet. Aimlessly he fidgeted about the spacious, well-appointed office. Twice he turned toward the door as if to leave the room. Once he reached a hesitating hand toward the push-button on this desk. Then determinedly he sat down and picked up one of his letters.

Brett was right. It was the best way; the only way. And it was well, indeed, that Brett had been delegated to do the telling. If it had been himself now—! Shucks! If it had been himself, the boy would only have had to look his reproach—and his wages would have been doubled on the spot! Fifteen dollars a week—Burke! Why, the boy could not— Well, then, he need not have been so foolish, so headstrong, so heartlessly disregardful of his father's wishes. He had brought it upon himself, entirely, entirely!

Whereupon, with an angry exclamation, John Denby shifted about in his hand the letter which for three minutes he had been holding before his eyes upside down.

---

CHAPTER V

THE WIFE

Helen Denby had never doubted her ability to be a perfect wife. As a girl, her vision had pictured a beauteous creature moving through a glorified world of love and admiration, ease and affluence.

Later, at the time of her marriage to Burke Denby, her vision had altered sufficiently to present a picture of herself as the sweet good-angel of the old Denby Mansion, the forgiving young wife who lays up no malice against an unappreciative father-in-law. Even when, still later (upon their return from their wedding trip and upon her learning of John Denby's decree of banishment), the vision was necessarily warped and twisted all out of semblance to its original outlines, there yet remained unchanged the basic idea of perfect wifehood.

Helen saw herself now as the martyr wife whose superb courage and self-sacrifice were to be the stepping-stones of a husband's magnificent success. She would be guide, counselor, and friend. (Somewhere she had seen those words. She liked them very much.) Unswervingly she would hold Burke to his high purpose. Untiringly she would lead him ever toward his goal of "making good."

She saw herself the sweet, loving wife, graciously presiding over the well-kept home, always ready, daintily gowned, to welcome his coming with a kiss, and to speed his going with a blessing. Then, when in due course he had won out, great would be her reward. With what sweet pride and gentle dignity would she accept the laurel wreath of praise (Helen had seen this expression somewhere, too, and liked it), which a remorseful but grateful world would hasten to lay at the feet of her who alone had made possible the splendid victory—the once despised, flouted wife—the wife who was to drag him down!

It was a pleasant picture, and Helen frequently dwelt upon it—especially the sweet-and-gentle-dignity-wife part. She found it particularly soothing during those first early days of housekeeping in the new apartment.

Not that she was beginning in the least to doubt her ability to be that perfect wife. It was only that to think of things as they would be was a pleasant distraction from thinking of things as they were. But of course it would be all right very soon, anyway,—just as soon as everything got nicely to running.

Helen did wonder sometimes why the getting of "everything nicely to running" was so difficult. That a certain amount of training and experience was necessary to bring about the best results never occurred to her. If Helen had been asked to take a position as stenographer or church soloist, she would have replied at once that she did not know how to do the work. Into the position of home-maker, however, she stepped with cheerful confidence, her eyes only on the wonderful success she was going to make.

To Helen housekeeping was something like a clock that you wound up in the morning to run all day. And even when at the end of a week she could not help seeing that not once yet had she got around to being the "sweet, daintily gowned wife welcoming her husband to a well-kept home," before that husband appeared at the door, she still did not doubt her own capabilities. It was only that "things hadn't got to running yet." And it was always somebody else's fault, anyway,—frequently her husband's. For if he did not come to dinner too early, before a thing was done, he was sure to be late, and thus spoil everything by her trying to keep things hot for him. And, of course, under such circumstances, nobody could expect one to be a sweet and daintily gowned wife!

Besides, there was the cookbook.

"Do you know, Burke," she finally wailed one night, between sobs, "I don't believe it's good for a thing—that old cookbook! I haven't got a thing out of it yet that's been real good. I've half a mind to take it back where I got it, and make them change it, or else give me back my money. I have, so there!"

"But, dearie," began her husband doubtfully, "you said yourself yesterday that you forgot the salt in the omelet, and the baking powder in the cake, and—"

"Well, what if I did?" she contended aggrievedly. "What's a little salt or baking powder? 'Twasn't but a pinch or a spoonful, anyhow, and I remembered all the other things. Besides, if those rules were any good they'd be worded so I couldn't forget part of the things. And, anyhow, I don't think it's very nice of you to b-blame me all the time when I'm doing the very best I can. I told you I couldn't cook, but you said you'd like anything I made, because I did it, and—"

"Yes, yes, darling, and so I do," interrupted the remorseful husband, hurriedly. And, to prove it, he ate the last scrap of the unappetizing concoction on his plate, which his wife said was a fish croquette. Afterwards still further to show his remorse, he helped her wash the dishes and set the rooms in order. Then together they went for a walk in the moonlight.

It was a beautiful walk, and it quite restored Helen to good nature. They went up on West Hill (where Helen particularly loved to go), and they laid wonderful plans of how one day they, too, would build a big stone palace of a home up there—though Burke did say that, for his part, he liked Elm Hill quite as well; but Helen laughed him out of that "old-fashioned idea." At least he said no more about it.

They talked much of how proud Burke's father was going to be when Burke had made good, and of how ashamed and sorry he would be that he had so misjudged his son's wife. And Helen uttered some very sweet and beautiful sentiments concerning her intention of laying up no malice, her firm determination to be loving and forgiving.

Then together they walked home in the moonlight; and so thrilled and exalted were they that even the cheap little Dale Street living-room looked wonderfully dear. And Helen said that, after all, love was the only thing that mattered—that they just loved each other. And Burke said, "Yes, yes, indeed."

The vision of the sweet, daintily gowned wife and the perfect home was very clear to Helen as she dropped off to sleep that night; and she was sure that she could begin to realize it at once. But unfortunately she overslept the next morning—which was really Burke's fault, as she said, for he forgot to wind the alarm clock, and she was not used to getting up at such an unearthly hour, anyway, and she did not see why he had to do it, for that matter—he was really the son of the owner, even if he was called an apprentice.