George Washington Flowers 
 Memorial Collection 
 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ESTABLISHED BY THE 
 
 FAMILY OF 
 
 COLONEL FLOWERS 
 
f£ I7-Z- 
 
 J 
 
 jW, 
 
 ■■nv . 
 
 u. 
 
THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
We must not look at Goblin men, 
 We must not buy their fruits; 
 
 Who knows upon what soil they fed 
 Their hungry thirsty roots ? " 
 
 GOBLIN MARKET. 
 
THE 
 
 TROLL GARDEN 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLA SIBERT CATHER 
 
 '}9^ 
 
 / MCC P 
 
 ; , & Co ;l 
 
 &^&d 
 
 A FAIRY PALACE, WITH A FAIRY 
 INSIDE THE TROLLS DWELL, . . . 
 THEIR MAGIC FORGES, MAKING AND 
 THINGS RARE AND STRANGE 
 
 GARDEN ; 
 
 . . . WORKING AT 
 
 MAKING ALWAYS 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 
 
 MCMV 
 
Copyright, 1905, by 
 McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 
 
 Published March, 1905 
 
 Copyright, 1904-05, by The S. S. McClure Co. Copyright, 190S, by 
 Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1904, by The Ridgway-Thayer Co. 
 

 To 
 
 Isabelle McClung 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 1 
 
 THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 55 
 
 THE GARDEN LODGE 85 
 
 "A DEATH IN THE DESERT" Ill 
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF PHLEDRA 155 
 
 A WAGNER MATINEE 193 
 
 PAUL'S CASE 211 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 
 
 As the train neared Tarrytown, Imogen Willard 
 began to wonder why she had consented to be 
 one of Flavia's house party at all. She had 
 not felt enthusiastic about it since leaving the city, 
 and was experiencing a prolonged ebb of purpose, 
 a current of chilling indecision, under which she 
 vainly sought for the motive which had induced 
 her to accept Flavia's invitation. 
 
 Perhaps it was a vague curiosity to see Flavia's 
 husband, who had been the magician of her 
 childhood and the hero of innumerable Arabian 
 fairy tales. Perhaps it was a desire to see M. 
 Roux, whom Flavia had announced as the espec- 
 ial attraction of the occasion. Perhaps it was a 
 wish to study that remarkable woman in her own 
 setting. 
 
 Imogen admitted a mild curiosity concerning 
 Flavia. She was in the habit of taking people 
 rather seriously, but somehow found it ira- 
 
4 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 possible to take Flavia so, because of the very ve- 
 hemence and insistence with which Flavia de- 
 manded it. Submerged in her studies, Imogen 
 had, of late years, seen very little of Flavia; but 
 Flavia, in her hurried visits to New York, be- 
 tween her excursions from studio to studio — her 
 luncheons with this lady who had to play at a 
 matinee, and her dinners with that singer who 
 had an evening concert — had seen enough of her 
 friend's handsome daughter to conceive for her 
 an inclination of such violence and assurance as 
 only Flavia could afford. The fact that Imogen 
 had shown rather marked capacity in certain 
 esoteric lines of scholarship, and had decided to 
 specialize in a well-sounding branch of philology 
 at the Ecole des Chartes, had fairly placed her in 
 that category of "interesting people" whom Flavia 
 considered her natural affinities, and lawful prey. 
 
 When Imogen stepped upon the station plat- 
 form she was immediately appropriated by her 
 hostess, whose commanding figure and assurance 
 of attire she had recognized from a distance. 
 She was hurried into a high tilbury and Flavia, 
 taking the driver's cushion beside her, gathered 
 up the reins with an experienced hand. 
 
 "My dear girl," she remarked, as she turned 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 5 
 
 the horses up the street, "I was afraid the train 
 might be late. M. Roux insisted upon coming up 
 by boat and did not arrive until after seven." 
 
 "To think of M. Roux's being in this part of 
 the world at all, and subject to the vicissitudes of 
 river boats ! Why in the world did he come over ?" 
 queried Imogen with lively interest. "He is the 
 sort of man who must dissolve and become a 
 shadow outside of Paris." 
 
 " Oh, we have a houseful of the most interest- 
 ing people," said Flavia, professionally. "We 
 have actually managed to get Ivan Schemetzkin. 
 He was ill in California at the close of his concert 
 tour, you know, and he is recuperating with us, 
 after his wearing journey from the coast. Then 
 there is Jules Martel, the painter; Signor Donati, 
 the tenor; Professor Schotte, who has dug up As- 
 syria, you know ; Restzhoff , the Russian chemist ; 
 Alcee Buisson, the philologist ; Frank Wellington, 
 the novelist; and Will Maidenwood, the editor of 
 Woman. Then there is my second cousin, Jemima 
 Broadwood, who made such a hit in Pinero's 
 comedy last winter, and Frau Lichtenfeld. Have 
 you read her?" 
 
 Imogen confessed her utter ignorance of Frau 
 Lichtenfeld, and Flavia went on. 
 
6 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 "Well, she is a most remarkable person; one 
 of those advanced German women, a militant 
 iconoclast, and this drive will not be long enough 
 to permit of my telling you her history. Such a 
 story! Her novels were the talk of all Germany 
 when I was there last, and several of them have 
 been suppressed — an honour in Germany, I 
 understand. 'At Whose Door' has been trans- 
 lated. I am so unfortunate as not to read Ger- 
 man." 
 
 "I'm all excitement at the prospect of meeting 
 Miss Broadwood, " said Imogen. "I've seen 
 her in nearly everything she does. Her stage 
 personality is delightful. She always reminds 
 me of a nice, clean, pink-and-white boy who 
 has just had his cold bath, and come down 
 all aglow for a run before breakfast. " 
 
 "Yes, but isn't it unfortunate that she will 
 limit herself to those minor comedy parts that are 
 so little appreciated in this country ? One ought to 
 be satisfied with nothing less than the best, ought 
 one ?" The peculiar, breathy tone in which Flavia 
 always uttered that word "best," the most worn 
 in her vocabulary, always jarred on Imogen and 
 always made her obdurate. 
 
 "I don't at all agree with you," she said re- 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 7 
 
 servedly. "I thought every one admitted that the 
 most remarkable thing about Miss Broaawood 
 is her admirable sense of fitness, which is rare 
 enough in her profession." 
 
 Flavia could not endure being contradicted; 
 she always seemed to regard it in the light of a de- 
 feat, and usually coloured unbecomingly. Now 
 she changed the subject. 
 
 "Look, my dear," she cried, "there is Frau 
 Lichtenfeld now, coming to meet us. Doesn't she 
 look as if she had just escaped out of Walhalla ? 
 She is actually over six feet." 
 
 Imogen saw a woman of immense stature, in a 
 very short skirt and a broad, flapping sun hat, 
 striding down the hillside at a long, swinging gait. 
 The refugee from Walhalla approached, panting. 
 Her heavy, Teutonic features were scarlet from 
 the rigour of her exercise, and her hair, under her 
 flapping sun hat, was tightly befrizzled about her 
 brow. She fixed her sharp little eyes upon Imogen 
 and extended both her hands. 
 
 "So this is the little friend?" she cried, in a 
 rolling baritone. 
 
 Imogen was quite as tall as her hostess; but 
 everything, she reflected, is comparative. After 
 the introduction Flavia apologized. 
 
8 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 "I wish I could ask you to drive up with us, 
 Frau Lichtenfeld." 
 
 "Ah, no!" cried the giantess, drooping her 
 head in humorous caricature of a time-honoured 
 pose of the heroines of sentimental romances. 
 "It has never been my fate to be fitted into 
 corners. I have never known the sweet privileges 
 of the tiny.' ' 
 
 Laughing, Flavia started the ponies, and the 
 colossal woman, standing in the middle of the 
 dusty road, took off her wide hat and waved them 
 a farewell which, in scope of gesture, recalled the 
 salute of a plumed cavalier. 
 
 When they arrived at the house, Imogen lookea 
 about her with keen curiosity, for this was verit- 
 ably the work of Flavia's hands, the materializa- 
 tion of hopes long deferred. They passed directly 
 into a large, square hall with a gallery on three 
 sides, studio fashion. This opened at one end 
 into a Dutch breakfast-room, beyond which 
 was the large dining-room. At the other end 
 of the hall was the music-room. There was a 
 smoking-room, which one entered through the 
 library behind the staircase. On the second floor 
 there was the same general arrangement; a 
 square hall, and, opening from it, the guest 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 9 
 
 chambers, or, as Miss Broadwood termed them, 
 the "cages." 
 
 When Imogen went to her room, the guests had 
 begun to return from their various afternoon ex- 
 cursions. Boys were gliding through the halls with 
 ice-water, covered trays, and flowers, colliding 
 with maids and valets who carried shoes and 
 other articles of wearing apparel. Yet, all this was 
 done in response to inaudible bells, on felt soles, 
 and in hushed voices, so that there was very little 
 confusion about it. 
 
 Flavia had at last builded her house and hewn 
 out her seven pillars; there could be no doubt, 
 now, that the asylum for talent, the sanatorium of 
 the arts, so long projected, was an accomplished 
 fact. Her ambition had long ago outgrown the 
 dimensions of her house on Prairie Avenue; be- 
 sides, she had bitterly complained that in Chica- 
 go traditions were against her. Her project had 
 been delayed by Arthur's doggedly standing out 
 for the Michigan woods, but Flavia knew well 
 enough that certain of the aves rares — "the 
 best" — could not be lured so far away from the 
 seaport, so she declared herself for the historic 
 Hudson and knew no retreat. The establishing 
 of a New York office had at length overthrown 
 
10 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Arthur's last valid objection to quitting the lake 
 country for three months of the year ; and Arthur 
 could be wearied into anything, as those who 
 knew him knew. 
 
 Flavia's house was the mirror of her exultation ; 
 it was a temple to the gods of Victory, a sort of 
 triumphal arch. In her earlier days she had swal- 
 lowed experiences that would have unmanned 
 one of less torrential enthusiasm or blind pertin- 
 acity. But, of late years, her determination had 
 told; she saw less and less of those mysterious 
 persons with mysterious obstacles in their path 
 and mysterious grievances against the world, who 
 had once frequented her house on Prairie Ave- 
 nue. In the stead of this multitude of the un- 
 arrived, she had now the few, the select, "the 
 best." Of all that band of indigent retainers who 
 had once fed at her board like the suitors in the 
 halls of Penelope, only Alcee Buisson still re- 
 tained his right of entree. He alone had remem- 
 bered that ambition hath a knapsack at his back, 
 wherein he puts alms to oblivion, and he alone 
 had been considerate enough to do what Flavia 
 had expected of him, and give his name a current 
 value in the world. Then, as Miss Broadwood 
 put it, "he was her first real one," — and 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 11 
 
 Flavia, like Mahomet, could remember her first 
 believer. 
 
 The "House of Song," as Miss Broadwood 
 had called it, was the outcome of Flavia's more 
 exalted strategies. A woman who made less a 
 point of sympathizing with their delicate organ- 
 isms, might have sought to plunge these phos- 
 phorescent pieces into the tepid bath of domestic 
 life; but Flavia's discernment was deeper. This 
 must be a refuge where the shrinking soul, the 
 sensitive brain, should be unconstrained; where 
 the caprice of fancy should outweigh the civil 
 code, if necessary. She considered that this much 
 Arthur owed her; for she, in her turn, had made 
 concessions. Flavia, had, indeed, quite an equip- 
 ment of epigrams to the effect that our century 
 creates the iron genii which evolve its fairy tales : 
 but the fact that her husband's name was an- 
 nually painted upon some ten thousand thresh- 
 ing machines, in reality contributed very little to 
 her happiness. 
 
 Arthur Hamilton was born, and had spent his 
 boyhood in the West Indies, and physically he 
 had never lost the brand of the tropics. His fath- 
 er, after inventing the machine which bore his 
 name, had returned to the States to patent and 
 
12 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 manufacture it. After leaving college, Arthur had 
 spent five years ranching in the West and 
 travelling abroad. Upon his father's death 
 he had returned to Chicago and, to the aston- 
 ishment of all his friends, had taken up the 
 business, — without any demonstration of enthu- 
 siasm, but with quiet perseverence, marked 
 ability, and amazing industry. Why or how a 
 self-sufficient, rather ascetic man of thirty, in- 
 different in manner, wholly negative in all other 
 personal relations, should have doggedly wooed 
 and finally married Flavia Malcolm, was a 
 problem that had vexed older heads than Imo- 
 gen's. 
 
 While Imogen was dressing she heard a knock 
 at her door, and a young woman entered whom 
 she at once recognized as Jemima Broadwood — 
 "Jimmy" Broadwood, she was called by people 
 in her own profession. While there was some- 
 thing unmistakably professional in her frank 
 savoir-faire, "Jimmy's" was one of those faces 
 to which the rouge never seems to stick. Her eyes 
 were keen and grey as a windy April sky, and so 
 far from having been seared by calcium lights, 
 you might have fancied they had never looked on 
 anything less bucolic than growing fields and 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 13 
 
 country fairs. She wore her thick, brown hair 
 short and parted at the side; and, rather than 
 hinting at freakishness, this seemed admirably in 
 keeping with her fresh, boyish countenance. She 
 extended to Imogen a large, well-shaped hand 
 which it was a pleasure to clasp. 
 
 "Ah! you are Miss Willard, and I see I need 
 not introduce myself. Flavia said you were kind 
 enough to express a wish to meet me, and I pre- 
 ferred to meet you alone. Do you mind if I 
 smoke?" 
 
 "Why, certainly not," said Imogen, some- 
 what disconcerted and looking hurriedly about 
 for matches. 
 
 "There, be calm, I'm always prepared," said 
 Miss Broadwood, checking Imogen's flurry with 
 a soothing gesture, and producing an oddly-fash- 
 ioned silver match-case from some mysterious re- 
 cess in her dinner-gown. She sat down in a deep 
 chair, crossed her patent-leather Oxfords, and 
 lit her cigarette. "This match-box," she went 
 on meditatively, "once belonged to a Prussian 
 officer. He shot himself in his bath-tub, and I 
 bought it at the sale of his effects. " 
 
 Imogen had not yet found any suitable reply to 
 make to this rather irrelevant confidence, when 
 
14 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Miss Broadwood turned to her cordially: "I'm 
 awfully glad you've come, Miss Willard, though 
 I've not quite decided why you did it. I wanted 
 very much to meet you. Flavia gave me your 
 thesis to read." 
 
 "Why, how funny!" ejaculated Imogen. 
 
 "On the contrary," remarked Miss Broad- 
 wood. "I thought it decidedly lacked humour." 
 
 "I meant," stammered Imogen, beginning to 
 feel very much like Alice in Wonderland, "I 
 meant that I thought it rather strange Mrs. 
 Hamilton should fancy you would be interested." 
 
 Miss Broadwood laughed heartily. "Now, 
 don't let my rudeness frighten you. Really, I 
 found it very interesting, and no end impressive. 
 You see, most people in my profession are good 
 for absolutely nothing else, and, therefore, they 
 have a deep and abiding conviction that in some 
 other line they might have shone. Strange to say, 
 scholarship is the object of our envious and par- 
 ticular admiration. Anything in type impresses 
 us greatly; that's why so many of us marry au- 
 thors or newspaper men and lead miserable 
 lives." Miss Broadwood saw that she had rather 
 disconcerted Imogen, and blithely tacked in 
 another direction. "You see," she went on, toss- 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 15 
 
 ing aside her half -consumed cigarette, "some 
 years ago Flavia would not have deemed me 
 worthy to open the pages of your thesis — nor to 
 be one of her house party of the chosen, for that 
 matter. I've Pinero to thank for both pleasures. 
 It all depends on the class of business I'm play- 
 ing whether I'm in favour or not. Flavia is my 
 second cousin, you know, so I can say whatever 
 disagreeable things I choose with perfect good 
 grace. I'm quite desperate for some one to laugh 
 with, so I'm going to fasten myself upon you — 
 for, of course, one can't expect any of these gypsy- 
 dago people to see anything funny. I don't intend 
 you shall lose the humour of the situation. What 
 do you think of Flavia's infirmary for the ails, 
 anyway?" 
 
 "Well, it's rather too soon for me to have 
 any opinion at all," said Imogen, as she again 
 turned to her dressing. "So far, you are the only 
 one of the artists I've met." 
 
 "One of them?" echoed Miss Broadwood. 
 " One of the artists ? My offence may be rank, my 
 dear, but I really don't deserve that. Come, now, 
 whatever badges of my tribe I may bear upon 
 me, just let me divest you of any notion that I 
 take myself seriously." 
 
16 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Imogen turned from the mirror in blank aston- 
 ishment, and sat down on the arm of a chair, 
 facing her visitor. " I can't fathom you at all,Miss 
 Broadwood," she said frankly. "Why shouldn't 
 you take yourself seriously ? What's the use of 
 beating about the bush ? Surely you know that 
 you are one of the few players on this side of the 
 water who have at all the spirit of natural or in- 
 genuous comedy?" 
 
 "Thank you, my dear. Now we are quite even 
 about the thesis, aren't we ? Oh ! did you mean it ? 
 Well, you are a clever girl. But you see it doesn't 
 do to permit oneself to look at it in that light. If 
 we do, we always go to pieces, and waste our sub- 
 stance a-starring as the unhappy daughter of the 
 Capulets. But there, I hear Flavia coming to take 
 you down; and just remember I'm not one of 
 them; the artists, I mean." 
 
 Flavia conducted Imogen and Miss Broad- 
 wood downstairs. iVs they reached the lower hall 
 they heard voices from the music-room, and dim 
 figures were lurking in the shadows under the 
 gallery, but their hostess led straight to the smok- 
 ing-room. The June evening was chilly, and a 
 fire had been lighted in the fireplace. Through 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 17 
 
 the deepening dusk the firelight flickered upon 
 the pipes and curious weapons on the wall, and 
 threw an orange glow over the Turkish hangings. 
 One side of the smoking-room was entirely of 
 glass, separating it from the conservatory, which 
 was flooded with white light from the electric 
 bulbs. There was about the darkened room some 
 suggestion of certain chambers in the Arabian 
 Nights, opening on a court of palms. Perhaps it 
 was partially this memory-evoking suggestion 
 that caused Imogen to start so violently when she 
 saw dimly, in a blur of shadow, the figure of a 
 man, who sat smoking in a low, deep chair be- 
 fore the fire. He was long, and thin, and brown. 
 His long, nerveless hands drooped from the 
 arms of his chair. A brown moustache shaded his 
 mouth, and his eyes were sleepy and apathetic. 
 When Imogen entered, he rose indolently and 
 gave her his hand, his manner barely courteous. 
 
 "I am glad you arrived promptly, Miss Wil- 
 lard," he said with an indifferent drawl. "Flavia 
 was afraid you might be late. You had a pleasant 
 ride up, I hope?" 
 
 "O, very, thank you, Mr. Hamilton," she re- 
 plied, feeling that he did not particularly care 
 whether she replied at all. 
 
18 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Flavia explained that she had not yet had time 
 to dress for dinner, as she had been attending to 
 Mr. Will Maidenwood, who had become faint 
 after hurting his finger in an obdurate window, 
 and immediately excused herself. As she left, 
 Hamilton turned to Miss Broadwood with a 
 rather spiritless smile. 
 
 "Well, Jimmy," he remarked, "I brought up 
 a piano box full of fireworks for the boys. How 
 do you suppose we'll manage to keep them until 
 the Fourth?" 
 
 "We can't, unless we steel ourselves to deny 
 there are any on the premises," said Miss Broad- 
 wood, seating herself on a low stool by Hamil- 
 ton's chair, and leaning back against the mantel. 
 "Have you seen Helen, and has she told you the 
 tragedy of the tooth ?" 
 
 "She met me at the station, with her tooth 
 wrapped up in tissue paper. I had tea with her an 
 hour ago. Better sit down, Miss Willard;" he 
 rose and pushed a chair toward Imogen, who was 
 standing peering into the conservatory. " We are 
 scheduled to dine at seven, but they seldom get 
 around before eight." 
 
 By this time Imogen had made out that here 
 the plural pronoun, third person, always referred 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 19 
 
 to the artists. As Hamilton's manner did not spur 
 one to cordial intercourse, and as his attention 
 seemed directed to Miss Broadwood, in so far as 
 it could be said to be directed to any one, she sat 
 down facing the conservatory and watched him, 
 unable to decide in how far he was identical with 
 the man who had first met Flavia Malcolm in 
 her mother's house, twelve years ago. Did he at all 
 remember having known her as a little girl, and 
 why did his indifference hurt her so, after all 
 these years ? Had some remnant of her childish 
 affection for him gone on living, somewhere down 
 in the sealed caves of her consciousness, and had 
 she really expected to find it possible to be fond of 
 him again ? Suddenly she saw a light in the man's 
 sleepy eyes, an umistakable expression of interest 
 and pleasure that fairly startled her. She turned 
 quickly in the direction of his glance, and saw 
 Flavia, just entering, dressed for dinner and lit 
 by the effulgence of her most radiant manner. 
 Most people considered Flavia handsome, and 
 there was no gainsaying that she carried her five- 
 and-thirty years splendidly. Her figure had never 
 grown matronly, and her face was of the sort that 
 does not show wear. Its blond tints were as fresh 
 and enduring as enamel, — and quite as hard. Its 
 
20 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 usual expression was one of tense, often strained, 
 animation, which compressed her lips nervously. 
 A perfect scream of animation, Miss Broad- 
 wood had called it — created and maintained by 
 sheer, indomitable force of will. Flavia's appear- 
 ance on any scene whatever made a ripple, caused 
 a certain agitation and recognition, and, among 
 impressionable people, a certain uneasiness. For 
 all her sparkling assurance of manner, Flavia was 
 certainly always ill at ease, and even more cer- 
 tainly anxious. She seemed not convinced of the 
 established order of material things, seemed al- 
 ways trying to conceal her feeling that walls 
 might crumble, chasms open, or the fabric of her 
 life fly to the winds in irretrievable entanglement. 
 At least this was the impression Imogen got from 
 that note in Flavia which was so manifestly 
 false. 
 
 Hamilton's keen, quick, satisfied glance at his 
 wife had recalled to Imogen all her inventory of 
 speculations about them. She looked at him with 
 compassionate surprise. As a child she had never 
 permitted herself to believe that Hamilton cared 
 at all for the woman who had taken him away 
 from her; and since she had begun to think about 
 them again, it had never occurred to her that 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 21 
 
 any one could become attached to Flavia in that 
 deeply personal and exculsive sense. It seemed 
 quite as irrational as trying to possess oneself of 
 Broadway at noon. 
 
 When they went out to dinner, Imogen realized 
 the completeness of Flavia's triumph. They were 
 people of one name, mostly, like kings; people 
 whose names stirred the imagination like a 
 romance or a melody. With the notable exception 
 of M. Roux, Imogen had seen most of them before, 
 either in concert halls or lecture rooms; but they 
 looked noticeably older and dimmer than she re- 
 membered them. 
 
 Opposite her sat Schemetzkin, the Russian 
 pianist, a short, corpulent man, with an apoplec- 
 tic face and purpleish skin, his thick, iron-grey 
 hair tossed back from his forehead. Next the 
 German giantess sat the Italian tenor — the 
 tiniest of men — pale, with soft, light hair, much 
 in disorder, very red lips and fingers yellowed 
 by cigarettes. Frau Lichtenfeld shone in a gown 
 of emerald green, fitting so closely as to enhance 
 her natural floridness. However, to do the good 
 lady justice, let her attire be never so modest, it 
 gave an effect of barbaric splendour. At her left 
 sat Herr Schotte, the Assyriologist, whose features 
 
22 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 were effectually concealed by the convergence of 
 his hair and beard, and whose glasses were con- 
 tinually falling into his plate. This gentleman 
 had removed more tons of earth in the course of 
 his explorations than had any of his confreres, and 
 his vigorous attack upon his food seemed to sug- 
 gest the strenuous nature of his accustomed toil. 
 His eyes were small and deeply set, and his fore- 
 head bulged fiercely above his eyes in a bony 
 ridge. His heavy brows completed the leonine 
 suggestion of his face. Even to Imogen, who knew 
 something of his work and greatly respected it, 
 he was entirely too reminiscent of the stone age 
 to be altogether an agreeable dinner companion. 
 He seemed, indeed, to have absorbed something 
 of the savagery of those early types of life 
 which he continually studied. 
 
 Frank Wellington, the young Kansas man who 
 had been two years out of Harvard and had pub- 
 lished three historical novels, sat next Mr. Will 
 Maidenwood, who was still pale from his recent 
 sufferings, and carried his hand bandaged. They 
 took little part in the general conversation, but, 
 like the lion and the unicorn, were always at it; 
 discussing, every time they met, whether there 
 were or were not passages in Mr. Wellington's 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 23 
 
 works which should be eliminated, out of con- 
 sideration for the Young Person. Wellington had 
 fallen into the hands of a great American syndi- 
 cate which most effectually befriended struggling 
 authors whose struggles were in the right direc- 
 tion, and which had guaranteed to make him 
 famous before he was thirty. Feeling the security 
 of his position, he stoutly defended those passages 
 which jarred upon the sensitive nerves of the 
 young editor of Woman. Maidenwood, in the 
 smoothest of voices, urged the necessity of the au- 
 thor's recognizing certain restrictions at the outset, 
 and Miss Broadwood, who joined the' argument 
 quite without invitation or encouragement, sec- 
 onded him with pointed and malicious remarks 
 which caused the young editor manifest discom- 
 fort. Restzhoff, the chemist, demanded the atten- 
 tion of the entire company for his exposition of his 
 devices for manufacturing ice-cream from vege- 
 table oils, and for administering drugs in bonbons. 
 Flavia, always noticeably restless at dinner, 
 was somewhat apathetic toward the advocate of 
 peptonized chocolate, and was plainly concerned 
 about the sudden departure of M. Roux, who had 
 announced that it would be necessary for him to 
 leave to-morrow. M. Emile Roux, who sat at 
 
24 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Flavia's right, was a man in middle life and quite 
 bald, clearly without personal vanity, though his 
 publishers preferred to circulate only those of his 
 portraits taken in his ambrosial youth. Imogen 
 was considerably shocked at his unlikeness to the 
 slender, black-stocked Rolla he had looked at 
 twenty. He had declined into the florid, settled 
 heaviness of indifference and approaching age. 
 There was, however, a certain look of durability 
 and solidity about him; the look of a man who has 
 earned the right to be fat and bald, and even 
 silent at dinner if he chooses. 
 
 Throughout the discussion between Welling- 
 ton and Will Maidenwood, though they invited 
 his participation, he remained silent, betraying 
 no sign either of interest or contempt. Since his 
 arrival he had directed most of his conversation to 
 Hamilton, who had never read one of his twelve 
 great novels. This perplexed and troubled Flavia. 
 On the night of his arrival, Jules Martel had en- 
 thusiastically declared, "There are schools and 
 schools, manners and manners; but Roux is 
 Roux, and Paris sets its watches by his clock." 
 Flavia had already repeated this remark to Imo- 
 gen. It haunted her, and each time she quoted it 
 she was impressed anew. 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 25 
 
 Flavia shifted the conversation uneasily, evi- 
 dently exasperated and excited by her repeated 
 failures to draw the novelist out. "Monsieur 
 Roux," she began abruptly, with her most 
 animated smile, "I remember so well a state- 
 ment I read some years ago in your " Mes Etudes 
 des Femmes," to the effect that you had never met 
 a really intellectual woman. May I ask, with- 
 out being impertinent, whether that assertion 
 still represents your experience?" 
 
 " I meant, madam, " said the novelist conserva- 
 tively, "intellectual in a sense very special, as we 
 say of men in whom the purely intellectual 
 functions seem almost independent." 
 
 "And you still think a woman so constituted a 
 mythical personage?" persisted Flavia, nodding 
 her head encouragingly. 
 
 "TJne Meduse, madam, who, if she were dis- 
 covered, would transmute us all into stone," said 
 the novelist, bowing gravely. "If she existed at 
 all," he added deliberately, "it was my business 
 to find her, and she has cost me many a vain pil- 
 grimage. Like Rudel of Tripoli, I have crossed 
 seas and penetrated deserts to seek her out. 
 I have, indeed, encountered women of learning 
 whose industry I have been compelled to respect; 
 
26 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 many who have possessed beauty and charm and 
 perplexing cleverness ; a few with remarkable in- 
 formation, and a sort of fatal facility." 
 
 "And Mrs. Browning, George Eliot, and 
 your own Mme. Dudevant?" queried Flavia 
 with that fervid enthusiasm with which she 
 could, on occasion, utter things simply incom- 
 prehensible for their banality — at her feats of 
 this sort Miss Broadwood was wont to sit breath- 
 less with admiration. 
 
 "Madam, while the intellect was undeniably 
 present in the performances of those women, it 
 was only the stick of the rocket. Although 
 this woman has eluded me, I have studied her 
 conditions and perturbations as astronomers con- 
 jecture the orbits of planets they have never 
 seen. If she exists, she is probably neither an ar- 
 tist nor a woman with a mission, but an obscure 
 personage, with imperative intellectual needs, 
 who absorbs rather than produces. " 
 
 Flavia, still nodding nervously, fixed a strained 
 glance of interrogation upon M. Roux. "Then 
 you think she would be a woman whose first ne- 
 cessity would be to know, whose instincts would 
 be satisfied only with the best, who could draw 
 from others; appreciative, merely?" 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 27 
 
 The novelist lifted his dull eyes to his interlocu- 
 tress with an untranslatable smile, and a slight 
 inclination of his shoulders. "Exactly so; you are 
 really remarkable, madame, " he added, in a tone 
 of cold astonishment. 
 
 After dinner the guests took their coffee in the 
 music-room, where Schemetzkin sat down at the 
 piano to drum rag-time, and give his celebrated 
 imitation of the boarding-school girl's execution 
 of Chopin. He flatly refused to play anything more 
 serious, and would practise only in the morning, 
 when he had the music-room to himself. Hamil- 
 ton and M. Roux repaired to the smoking-room to 
 discuss the necessity of extending the tax on man- 
 ufactured articles in France, — one of those con- 
 versations which particularly exasperated Flavia. 
 
 After Schemetzkin had grimaced and tortured 
 the keyboard with malicious vulgarities for half 
 an hour, Signor Donati, to put an end to his tor- 
 ture, consented to sing, and Flavia and Imogen 
 went to fetch Arthur to play his accompaniments. 
 Hamilton rose with an annoyed look, and placed 
 his cigarette on the mantel. "Why yes, Flavia, 
 I'll accompany him, provided he sings something 
 with a melody, Italian arias or ballads, and pro- 
 vided the recital is not interminable." 
 
28 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 "You will join us, M. Roux?" 
 
 " Thank you, but I have some letters to write, " 
 replied the novelist bowing. 
 
 As Flavia had remarked to Imogen, "Arthur 
 really played accompaniments remarkably well." 
 To hear him recalled vividly the days of her child- 
 hood, when he always used to spend his business 
 vacations at her mother's home in Maine. He 
 had possessed for her that almost hypnotic in- 
 fluence which young men sometimes exert upon 
 little girls. It was a sort of phantom love affair, 
 subjective and fanciful, a precocity of instinct, like 
 that tender and maternal concern which some 
 little girls feel for their dolls. Yet this childish 
 infatuation is capable of all the depressions and 
 exaltations of love itself; it has its bitter jealous- 
 ies, cruel disappointments, its exacting caprices. 
 
 Summer after summer she had awaited his 
 coming and wept at his departure, indifferent to 
 the gayer young men who had called her their 
 sweetheart, and laughed at everything she said. 
 Although Hamilton never said so, she had been 
 always quite sure that he was fond of her. When 
 he pulled her up the river to hunt for fairy 
 knolls shut about by low, hanging willows, he 
 was often silent for an hour at a time, yet she 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 29 
 
 never felt that he was bored or was neglecting her. 
 He would lie in the sand smoking, his eyes half 
 closed, watching her play and she was always 
 conscious that she was entertaining him. Some- 
 times he would take a copy of "Alice in Wonder- 
 land" in his pocket, and no one could read it as 
 he could, laughing at her with his dark eyes, 
 when anything amused him. No one else could 
 laugh so, with just their eyes, and without moving 
 a muscle of their face. Though he usually smiled 
 at passages that seemed not at all funny to the 
 child, she always laughed gleefully, because he 
 was so seldom moved to mirth that any such de- 
 monstration delighted her and she took the credit 
 of it entirely to herself. Her own inclination had 
 been for serious stories, with sad endings, like 
 the Little Mermaid, which he had once told her 
 in an unguarded moment when she had a cold, 
 and was put to bed early on her birthday night and 
 cried because she could not have her party. But 
 he highly disapproved of this preference, and had 
 called it a morbid taste, and always shook his 
 finger at her when she asked for the story. When 
 she had been particularly good, or particularly 
 neglected by other people, then he would some- 
 times melt and tell her the story, and never laugh 
 
30 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 at her if she enjoyed the "sad ending" even to 
 tears. When Flavia had taken him away and he 
 came no more, she wept inconsolably for the 
 space of two weeks, and refused to learn her 
 lessons. Then she found the story of the Little 
 Mermaid herself, and forgot him. 
 
 Imogen had discovered at dinner that he could 
 still smile at one secretly, out of his eyes, and that 
 he had the old manner of outwardly seeming 
 bored, but letting you know that he was not. She 
 was intensely curious about his exact state of 
 feeling toward his wife, and more curious still to 
 catch a sense of his final adjustment to the con- 
 ditions of life in general. This, she could not help 
 feeling, she might get again — if she could have 
 him alone for an hour, in some place where there 
 was a little river and a sandy cove bordered by 
 drooping willows, and a blue sky seen through 
 white sycamore boughs. 
 
 That evening, before retiring, Flavia entered 
 her husband's room, where he sat in his smoking- 
 jacket, in one of his favourite low chairs. 
 
 "I suppose it's a grave responsibility to bring 
 an ardent, serious young thing like Imogen here 
 among all these fascinating personages," she re- 
 marked reflectively. "But, after all, one can never 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 31 
 
 tell. These grave, silent girls have their own 
 charm, even for facile people." 
 
 "O, so that is your plan?" queried her hus- 
 band dryly. "I was wondering why you got her 
 up here. She doesn't seem to mix well with the 
 faciles. At least, so it struck me." 
 
 Flavia paid no heed to this jeering remark, but 
 repeated, "No, after all, it may not be a bad 
 thing." 
 
 "Then do consign her to that shaken reed, the 
 tenor," said her husband yawning. "I remember 
 she used to have a taste for the pathetic. " 
 
 "And then," remarked Flavia coquettishly, 
 " after all, I owe her mother a return in kind. She 
 was not afraid to trifle with destiny. " 
 
 But Hamilton was asleep in his chair. 
 
 Next morning Imogen found only Miss Broad- 
 wood in the breakfast-room. 
 
 "Good-morning, my dear girl, whatever are 
 you doing up so early ? They never breakfast be- 
 fore eleven. Most of them take their coffee in their 
 room. Take this place by me." 
 
 Miss Broadwood looked particularly fresh and 
 encouraging in her blue serge walking-skirt, her 
 open jacket displaying an expanse of stiff, white, 
 
32 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 shirt bosom, dotted with some almost impercepti- 
 ble figure, and a dark blue-and-white necktie, 
 neatly knotted under her wide, rolling collar. She 
 wore a white rosebud in the lapel of her coat, and 
 decidedly she seemed more than ever like a nice, 
 clean boy on his holiday. Imogen was just hoping 
 that they would breakfast alone when Miss 
 Broadwood exclaimed, "Ah, there comes Arthur 
 with the children. That's the reward of early ris- 
 ing in this house; you never get to see the young- 
 sters at any other time." 
 
 Hamilton entered, followed by two dark, 
 handsome little boys. The girl, who was very tiny, 
 blonde like her mother, and exceedingly frail, he 
 carried in his arms. The boys came up and said 
 good-morning with an ease and cheerfulness un- 
 common, even in well-bred children, but the little 
 girl hid her face on her father's shoulder. 
 
 "She's a shy little lady," he explained, as he 
 put her gently down in her chair. "I'm afraid 
 she's like her father; she can't seem to get used 
 to meeting people. And you, Miss Willard, did 
 you dream of the white rabbit or the little mer- 
 maid?" 
 
 "O, I dreamed of them all! All the personages 
 of that buried civilization," cried Imogen, de- 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 33 
 
 lighted that his estranged manner of the night 
 before had entirely vanished, and feeling that, 
 somehow, the old confidential relations had been 
 restored during the night. 
 
 "Come, William," said Miss Broadwood, 
 turning to the younger of the two boys, "and 
 what did you dream about?" 
 
 "We dreamed," said William gravely — he 
 was the more assertive of the two and always 
 spoke for both — "we dreamed that there were 
 fireworks hidden in the basement of the carriage- 
 house; lots and lots of fireworks." 
 
 His elder brother looked up at him with ap- 
 prehensive astonishment, while Miss Broad- 
 wood hastily put her napkin to her lips, and 
 Hamilton dropped his eyes. " If little boys dream 
 things, they are so apt not to come true," he re- 
 flected sadly. This shook even the redoubtable 
 William, and he glanced nervously at his brother. 
 "But do things vanish just because they have 
 been dreamed?" he objected. 
 
 "Generally that is the very best reason for 
 their vanishing," said Arthur gravely. 
 
 "But, father, people can't help what they 
 dream," remonstrated Edward gently. 
 
 "Oh, come! You're making these children 
 
34 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 talk like a Maeterlinck dialogue," laughed Miss 
 Broadwood. 
 
 Flavia presently entered, a book in her hand, 
 and bade them all good-morning. "Come, little 
 people, which story shall it be this morning ?" she 
 asked winningly. Greatly excited, the children 
 followed her into the garden. "She does then, 
 sometimes," murmured Imogen as they left the 
 breakfast-room. 
 
 "Oh, yes, to be sure," said Miss Broadwood 
 cheerfully. "She reads a story to them every 
 morning in the most picturesque part of the gar- 
 den. The mother of the Gracchi, you know. She 
 does so long, she says, for the time when they will 
 be intellectual companions for her. What do you 
 say to a walk over the hills ?" 
 
 As they left the house they met Frau Lichten- 
 f eld and the bushy Herr Schotte — the professor 
 cut an astonishing figure in golf stockings — re- 
 turning from a walk and engaged in an animated 
 conversation on the tendencies of German fiction. 
 
 "Aren't they the most attractive little children," 
 exclaimed Imogen as they wound down the road 
 toward the river. 
 
 "Yes, and you must not fail to tell Flavia that 
 you think so. She will look at you in a sort of 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 35 
 
 startled way and say, 'Yes, aren't they?' and 
 maybe she will go off and hunt them up and have 
 tea with them, to fully appreciate them. She is 
 awfully afraid of missing anything good, is Fla- 
 via. The way those youngsters manage to conceal 
 their guilty presence in the House of Song is a 
 wonder." 
 
 "But don't any of the artist-folk fancy child- 
 ren?" asked Imogen. 
 
 " Yes, they just fancy them and no more. The 
 chemist remarked the other day that children are 
 like certain salts which need not be actualized 
 because the formulae are quite sufficient for prac- 
 tical purposes. I don't see how even Flavia can 
 endure to have that man about. " 
 
 "I have always been rather curious to know 
 what Arthur thinks of it all," remarked Imogen 
 cautiously. 
 
 "Thinks of it!" ejaculated Miss Broadwood. 
 "Why, my dear, what would any man think of 
 having his house turned into an hotel, habited by 
 freaks who discharge his servants, borrow his 
 money, and insult his neighbours ? This place is 
 shunned like a lazaretto!" 
 
 "Well, then, why does he — why does he — ' 
 persisted Imogen. 
 
36 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 "Bah!" interrupted Miss Broadwood impa- 
 tiently, " why did he in the first place ? That's the 
 question." 
 
 "Marry her, you mean?" said Imogen col- 
 ouring. 
 
 "Exactly so," said Miss Broadwood sharply, 
 as she snapped the lid of her match-box. 
 
 "I suppose that is a question rather beyond us, 
 and certainly one which we cannot discuss, " said 
 Imogen. " But his toleration on this one point puz- 
 zles me, quite apart from other complications." 
 
 "Toleration? Why this point, as you call it, 
 simply is Flavia. Who could conceive of her with- 
 out it ? I don't know where it's all going to end, 
 I'm sure, and I'm equally sure that, if it were not 
 for Arthur, I shouldn't care," declared Miss 
 Broadwood, drawing her shoulders together. 
 
 "But will it end at all, now?" 
 
 " Such an absurd state of things can't go on in- 
 definitely. A man isn't going to see his wife make 
 a guy of herself forever, is he ? Chaos has already 
 begun in the servants' quarters. There are six dif- 
 ferent languages spoken there now. You see, it's 
 all on an entirely false basis. Flavia hasn't the 
 slightest notion of what these people are really 
 like, their good and their bad alike escape her. 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 37 
 
 They, on the other hand, can't imagine what she 
 is driving at. Now, Arthur is worse off than either 
 faction ; he is not in the fairy story in that he sees 
 these people exactly as they are, but he is utterly 
 unable to see Flavia as they see her. There you 
 have the situation. Why can't he see her as we do ? 
 My dear, that has kept me awake o' nights. This 
 man who has thought so much and lived so 
 much, who is naturally a critic, really takes Fla- 
 via at very nearly her own estimate. But now I 
 am entering upon a wilderness. From a brief ac- 
 quaintance with her, you can know nothing of 
 the icy fastnesses of Flavia's self-esteem. It's like 
 St. Peter's; you can't realize its magnitude at 
 once. You have to grow into a sense of it by living 
 under its shadow. It has perplexed even Emil 
 Roux, that merciless dissector of egoism. She has 
 puzzled him the more because he saw at a glance 
 what some of them do not perceive at once, and 
 what will be mercifully concealed from Arthur 
 until the trump sounds ; namely, that all Flavia's 
 artists have done or ever will do means exactly 
 as much to her as a symphony means to an oyster; 
 that there is no bridge by which the significance 
 of any work of art could be conveyed to her. " 
 "Then, in the name of goodness, why does she 
 
38 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 bother ?" gasped Imogen. " She is pretty, wealthy, 
 well-established; why should she bother ?" 
 
 "That's what M. Roux has kept asking him- 
 self. I can't pretend to analyse it. She reads 
 papers on the' Literary Landmarks of Paris, 
 and the Loves of the Poets, and that sort of thing, 
 to clubs out in Chicago. To Flavia it is more neces- 
 sary to be called clever than to breathe. I would 
 give a good deal to know that glum Frenchman's 
 diagnosis. He has been watching her out of those 
 fishy eyes of his as a biologist watches a hemis- 
 phereless frog." 
 
 For several days after M. Roux's departure, 
 Flavia gave an embarrassing share of her atten- 
 tion to Imogen. Embarrassing, because Imogen 
 had the feeling of being energetically and futily 
 explored, she knew not for what. She felt herself 
 under the globe of an air pump, expected to yield 
 up something. When she confined the conversa- 
 tion to matters of general interest, Flavia con- 
 veyed to her with some pique that her one en- 
 deavour in life had been to fit herself to converse 
 with her friends upon those things which vitally 
 interested them. " One has no right to accept their 
 best from people unless one gives, isn't it so ? I 
 want to be able to give — !" she declared vague- 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 39 
 
 ly. Yet whenever Imogen strove to pay her tithes 
 and plunged bravely into her plans for study 
 next winter, Flavia grew absent-minded and in- 
 terrupted her by amazing generalizations or by 
 such embarrassing questions as, "And these 
 grim studies really have charm for you; you are 
 quite buried in them; they make other things 
 seem light and ephemeral ?" 
 
 "I rather feel as though I had got in here un- 
 der false pretences," Imogen confided to Miss 
 Broadwood, "I'm sure I don't know what it is 
 that she wants of me." 
 
 "Ah," chuckled Jemima, "you are not equal 
 to these heart to heart talks with Flavia. You ut- 
 terly fail to communicate to her the atmosphere 
 of that untroubled joy in which you dwell. You 
 must remember that she gets no feeling out of 
 things herself, and she demands that you impart 
 yours to her by some process of psychic trans- 
 mission. I once met a blind girl, blind from 
 birth, who could discuss the peculiarities of the 
 Barbizon school with just Flavia's glibness and 
 enthusiasm. Ordinarily Flavia knows how to get 
 what she wants from people, and her memory 
 is wonderful. One evening I heard her giving 
 Frau Lichtenf eld some random impressions about 
 
40 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Hedda Gabler which she extracted from me five 
 years ago ; giving them with an impassioned con- 
 viction of which I was never guilty. But I have 
 known other people who could appropriate your 
 stories and opinions; Flavia is infinitely more 
 subtile than that ; she can soak up the very thrash 
 and drift of your day dreams, and take the very 
 thrills off your back, as it were." 
 
 After some days of unsuccessful effort, Flavia 
 withdrew herself, and Imogen found Hamilton 
 ready to catch her when she was tossed a-field. 
 He seemed only to have been awaiting this crisis, 
 and at once their old intimacy re-established it- 
 self as a thing inevitable and beautifully prepared 
 for. She convinced herself that she had not been 
 mistaken in him, despite all the doubts that had 
 come up in later years, and this renewal of faith 
 set more than one question thumping in her 
 brain. "How did he, how can he?" she kept re- 
 peating with a tinge of her childish resentment, 
 "what right had he to waste anything so fine?" 
 
 When Imogen and Arthur were returning from 
 a walk before luncheon one morning about a 
 week after M. Roux's departure, they noticed 
 an absorbed group before one of the hall 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 41 
 
 windows. Herr Schotte and Restzhoff sat on the 
 window seat with a newspaper between them, 
 while Wellington, Schemetzkin and Will Maiden- 
 wood looked over their shoulders. They seemed 
 intensely interested, Herr Schotte occasionally 
 pounding his knees with his fists in ebullitions of 
 barbaric glee. When Imogen entered the hall, 
 however, the men were all sauntering toward the 
 breakfast-room and the paper was lying inno- 
 cently on the divan. During luncheon the per- 
 sonnel of that window group were unwontedly 
 animated and agreeable, — all save Schemetzkin, 
 whose stare was blanker than ever, as though 
 Roux's mantle of insulting indifference had fallen 
 upon him, in addition to his own oblivious self 
 absorption. Will Maidenwood seemed embar- 
 rassed and annoyed; the chemist employed him- 
 self with making polite speeches to Hamilton. — 
 Flavia did not come down to lunch — and there 
 was a malicious gleam under Herr Schotte's eye- 
 brows. Frank Wellington announced nervously 
 that an imperative letter from his protecting 
 syndicate summoned him to the city. 
 
 After luncheon the men went to the golf 
 links, and Imogen, at the first opportunity, pos- 
 sessed herself of the newspaper which had been 
 
42 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 left on the divan. One of the first things that 
 caught her eye was an article headed "Roux on 
 Tuft Hunters ; The Advanced American Woman 
 As He Sees Her; Aggressive, Superficial and 
 Insincere." The entire interview was nothing 
 more nor less than a satiric characterization of 
 Flavia, a-quiver with irritation and vitriolic 
 malice. No one could mistake it; it was done with 
 all his deftness of portraiture. Imogen had not 
 finished the article when she heard a footstep, 
 and clutching the paper she started precipitately 
 toward the stairway as Arthur [entered. He put 
 out his hand, looking critically at her distressed 
 face. 
 
 "Wait a moment, Miss Willard," he said per- 
 emptorily, "I want to see whether we can find 
 what it was that so interested our friends this 
 morning. Give me the paper, please." 
 
 Imogen grew quite white as he opened the 
 journal. She reached forward and crumpled it 
 with her hands. "Please don't, please don't," 
 she pleaded, "it's something I don't want you 
 to see. Oh! why will you? It's just something 
 low and despicable that you can't notice." 
 
 Arthur had gently loosed her hands and he 
 pointed her to a chair. He lit a cigar and read the 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 43 
 
 article through without comment. When he had 
 finished it, he walked to the fireplace, struck a 
 match, and tossed the flaming journal between 
 the brass andirons. 
 
 "You are right," he remarked as he came 
 back, dusting his hands with his handkerchief. 
 " It's quite impossible to comment. There are 
 extremes of blackguardism for which we have no 
 name. The only thing necessary is to see that 
 Flavia gets no wind of this. This seems to be my 
 cue to act; poor girl." 
 
 Imogen looked at him tearfully; she could 
 only murmur, " Oh, why did you read it! " 
 
 Hamilton laughed spiritlessly. "Come, don't 
 you worry about it. You always took other peo- 
 ple's troubles too seriously. When you were little 
 and all the world was gay and everybody happy, 
 you must needs get the Little Mermaid's troubles 
 to grieve over. Come with me into the music- 
 room. You remember the musical setting I once 
 made you for the Lay of the Jabberwock ? I was 
 trying it over the other night, long after you were 
 in bed, and I decided it was quite as fine as the 
 Erl-King music. How I wish I could give you 
 some of the cake that Alice ate and make you a 
 little girl again. Then, when you had got through 
 
44 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 the glass door into the little garden, you could 
 call to me, perhaps, and tell me all the fine 
 things that were going on there. What a pity it is 
 that you ever grew up!" he added, laughing, 
 and Imogen, too, was thinking just that. 
 
 At dinner that evening, Flavia, with fatal per- 
 sistence, insisted upon turning the conversation 
 to M. Roux. She had been reading one of his 
 novels and had remembered anew that Paris set 
 its watches by his clock. Imogen surmised that 
 she was tortured by a feeling that she had not 
 sufficiently appreciated him while she had had 
 him. When she first mentioned his name, she 
 was answered only by the pall of silence that fell 
 over the company. Then every one began to talk 
 at once, as though to correct a false position. 
 They spoke of him with a fervid, defiant ad- 
 miration, with the sort of hot praise that covers 
 a double purpose. Imogen fancied she could 
 see. that they felt a kind of relief at what the 
 man had done, even those who despised him for 
 doing it; that they felt a spiteful heat against 
 Flavia, as though she had tricked them, and a 
 certain contempt for themselves that they had 
 been beguiled. She was reminded of the fury 
 of the crowd in the fairy tale, when once the 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 45 
 
 child had called out that the king was in his 
 night-clothes. Surely these people knew no more 
 about Flavia than they had known before, but 
 the mere fact that the thing had been said, al- 
 tered the situation. Flavia, meanwhile, sat chat- 
 tering amiably, pathetically unconscious of her 
 nakedness. 
 
 Hamilton lounged, fingering the stem of his 
 wine glass, gazing down the table at one face 
 after another and studying the various degrees 
 of self-consciousness they exhibited. Imogen's 
 eyes followed his, fearfully. When a lull came in 
 the spasmodic flow of conversation, Arthur, 
 leaning back in his chair, remarked deliber- 
 ately, " As for M. Roux, his very profession places 
 him in that class of men whom society has never 
 been able to accept unconditionally because it 
 has never been able to assume that they have any 
 ordered notion of taste. He and his ilk remain, 
 with the mountebanks and snake charmers, peo- 
 ple indispensable to our civilization, but wholly 
 unreclaimed by it; people whom we receive, but 
 whose invitations we do not accept." 
 
 Fortunately for Flavia, this mine was not ex- 
 ploded until just before the coffee was brought. 
 Her laughter was pitiful to hear; it echoed 
 
46 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 through the silent room as in a vault, while she 
 made some tremulously light remark about her 
 husband's drollery, grim as a jest from the dying. 
 No one responded and she sat nodding her head 
 like a mechanical toy and smiling her white, set 
 smile through her teeth, until Alcee Buisson and 
 Frau Lichtenfeld came to her support. 
 
 After dinner the guests retired immediately to 
 their rooms, and Imogen went upstairs on tip- 
 toe, feeling the echo of breakage and the dust of 
 crumbling in the air. She wondered whether 
 Flavia's habitual note of uneasiness were not, in 
 a manner, prophetic, and a sort of unconscious 
 premonition, after all. She sat down to write a 
 letter, but she found herself so nervous, her head 
 so hot and her hands so cold, that she soon 
 abandoned the effort. Just as she was about to 
 seek Miss Broadwood, Flavia entered and em- 
 braced her hysterically. 
 
 "My dearest girl," she began, "was there 
 ever such an unfortunate and incomprehensible 
 speech made before? Of course it is scarcely 
 necessary to explain to you poor Arthur's lack of 
 tact, and that he meant nothing. But they! Can 
 they be expected to understand ? He will feel 
 wretchedly about it when he realizes what he has 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 47 
 
 done, but in the meantime ? And M. Roux, of all 
 men! When we were so fortunate as to get him, 
 and he made himself so unreservedly agreeable, 
 and I fancied that, in his way, Arthur quite ad- 
 mired him. My dear, you have no idea what 
 that speech has done. Schemetzkin and Herr 
 Schotte have already sent me word that they 
 must leave us to-morrow. Such a thing from a 
 host!" Flavia paused, choked by tears of vexa- 
 tion and despair. 
 
 Imogen was thoroughly disconcerted; this was 
 the first time she had ever seen Flavia betray any 
 personal emotion which was indubitably gen- 
 uine. She replied with what consolation she 
 could. "Need they take it personally at all? It 
 was a mere observation upon a class of peo- 
 ple — " 
 
 "Which he knows nothing whatever about, 
 and with whom he has no sympathy," inter- 
 rupted Flavia. "Ah, my dear, you could not be 
 expected to understand. You can't realize, know- 
 ing Arthur as you do, his entire lack of any 
 aesthetic sense whatever. He is absolutely nil, 
 stone deaf and stark blind, on that side. He 
 doesn't mean to be brutal, it is just the brutality 
 of utter ignorance. They always feel it — they are 
 
48 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 so sensitive to unsympathetic influences, you 
 know; they know it the moment they come into 
 the house. I have spent my life apologizing for 
 him and struggling to conceal it; but in spite of 
 me, he wounds them; his very attitude, even in 
 silence, offends them. Heavens! do I not know, 
 is it not perpetually and forever wounding me ? 
 But there has never been anything so dreadful 
 as this, never! If I could conceive of any possible 
 motive, even!" 
 
 "But, surely, Mrs. Hamilton, it was, after all, 
 a mere expression of opinion, such as we are 
 any of us likely to venture upon any subject 
 whatever. It was neither more personal nor 
 more extravagant than many of M. Roux's 
 remarks." 
 
 "But, Imogen, certainly M. Roux has the 
 right. It is a part of his art, and that is altogther 
 another matter. Oh, this is not the only in- 
 stance!" continued Flavia passionately, "I've 
 always had that narrow, bigoted prejudice to con- 
 tend with. It has always held me back. But 
 this—!" 
 
 "I think you mistake his attitude," replied 
 Imogen, feeling a flush that made her ears tingle, 
 "that is, I fancy he is more appreciative than he 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 49 
 
 seems. A man can't be very demonstrative about 
 those things — not if he is a real man. I should 
 not think you would care much about saving the 
 feelings of people who are too narrow to admit of 
 any other point of view than their own." She 
 stopped, finding herself in the impossible position 
 of attempting to explain Hamilton to his wife ; a 
 task which, if once begun, would necessitate an 
 entire course of enlightenment which she doubted 
 Flavia's ability to receive, and which she could 
 offer only with very poor grace. 
 
 "That's just where it stings most," here Fla- 
 via began pacing the floor, "it is just because 
 they have all shown such tolerance, and have 
 treated Arthur with such unfailing consideration, 
 that I can find no reasonable pretext for his 
 rancour. How can he fail to see the value of such 
 friendships on the children's account, if for noth- 
 ing else ! What an advantage for them to grow up 
 among such associations! Even though he cares 
 nothing about these things himself he might 
 realize that. Is there nothing I could say by 
 way of explanation ? To them, I mean ? If some 
 one were to explain to them how unfortunately 
 limited he is in these things — " 
 
 "I'm afraid I cannot advise you," said Imo- 
 
50 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 gen decidedly, "but that, at least, seems to me 
 impossible." 
 
 Flavia took her hand and glanced at her af- 
 fectionately, nodding nervously. "Of course, 
 dear girl, I can't ask you to be quite frank with 
 me. Poor child, you are trembling and your 
 hands are icy. Poor Arthur! But you must not 
 judge him by this altogether; think how much he 
 misses in life. What a cruel shock you've had. 
 I'll send you some sherry. Good-night, my dear." 
 
 When Flavia shut the door, Imogen burst 
 into a fit of nervous weeping. 
 
 Next morning she awoke after a troubled and 
 restless night. At eight o'clock Miss Broadwood 
 entered in a red and white striped bath-robe. 
 
 "Up, up, and see the great doom's image!" 
 she cried, her eyes sparkling with excitement. 
 "The hall is full of trunks, they are packing. 
 What bolt has fallen ? It's you, ma cherie, you've 
 brought Ulysses home again and the slaughter 
 has begun!" she blew a cloud of smoke trium- 
 phantly from her lips and threw herself into a 
 chair beside the bed. 
 
 Imogen, rising on her elbow, plunged excitedly 
 into the story of the Roux interview, which Miss 
 Broadwood heard with the keenest interest, 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 51 
 
 frequently interrupting her by exclamations of 
 delight. When Imogen reached the dramatic 
 scene which terminated in the destruction of the 
 newspaper, Miss Broadwood rose and took a 
 turn about the room, violently switching the 
 tasselled cords of her bath- robe. 
 
 "Stop a moment," she cried, "you mean to 
 tell me that he had such a heaven-sent means 
 to bring her to her senses and didn't use it, that 
 he held such a weapon and threw it away?" 
 
 "Use it?" cried Imogen unsteadily, "of 
 course he didn't! He bared his back to the tor- 
 mentor, signed himself over to punishment in 
 that speech he made at dinner, which every one 
 understands but Flavia. She was here for an 
 hour last night and disregarded every limit of 
 taste in her maledictions." 
 
 "My dear!" cried Miss Broadwood, catching 
 her hand in inordinate delight at the situation, 
 "do you see what he has done? There'll be no 
 end to it. Why he has sacrificed himself to spare 
 the very vanity that devours him, put rancours 
 in the vessels of his peace, and his eternal jewel 
 given to the common enemy of man, to make 
 them kings, the seed of Banquo kings! He is 
 magnificent!" 
 
52 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 "Isn't he always that?" cried Imogen hotly. 
 " He's like a pillar of sanity and law in this house 
 of shams and swollen vanities, where people stalk 
 about with a sort of mad-house dignity, each one 
 fancying himself a king or a pope. If you could 
 have heard that woman talk of him! Why she 
 thinks him stupid, bigoted, blinded by middle- 
 class prejudices. She talked about his having no 
 aesthetic sense, and insisted that her artists had 
 always shown him tolerance. I don't know why it 
 should get on my nerves so, I'm sure, but her 
 stupidity and assurance are enough to drive one 
 to the brink of collapse." 
 
 "Yes, as opposed to his singular fineness, 
 they are calculated to do just that," said Miss 
 Broadwood gravely, wisely ignoring Imogen's 
 tears. "But what has been is nothing to what 
 will be. Just wait until Flavia's black swans 
 have flown ! You ought not to try to stick 
 it out ; that would only make it harder for every 
 one. Suppose you let me telephone your mother 
 to wire you to come home by the evening train ? " 
 
 "Anything, rather than have her come at me 
 like that again. It puts me in a perfectly impossi- 
 ble position, and he is so fine!" 
 
 "Of course it does," said Miss Broadwood 
 
FLAVIA AND HER ARTISTS 53 
 
 sympathetically, " and there is no good to be got 
 from facing it. I will stay, because such things in- 
 terest me, and Frau Lichtenfeld will stay be- 
 cause she has no money to get away, and 
 Buisson will stay because he feels somewhat re- 
 sponsible. These complications are interesting 
 enough to cold-blooded folk like myself who 
 have an eye for the dramatic element, but they 
 are distracting and demoralizing to young people 
 with any serious purpose in life." 
 
 Miss Broadwood's counsel was all the more 
 generous seeing that, for her, the most interest- 
 ing element of this denotement would be elimi- 
 nated by Imogen's departure. "If she goes now, 
 she'll get over it," soliloquized Miss Broadwood, 
 "if she stays she'll be wrung for him, and the 
 hurt may go deep enough to last. I haven't the 
 heart to see her spoiling things for herself." She 
 telephoned Mrs. Willard, and helped Imogen to 
 pack. She even took it upon herself to break the 
 news of Imogen's going to Arthur, who remarked, 
 as he rolled a cigarette in his nerveless fingers : 
 
 " Right enough, too. What should she do here 
 with old cynics like you and me, Jimmy ? Seeing 
 that she is brim full of dates and formulae and 
 other positivisms, and is so girt about with il- 
 
54 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 lusions that she still casts a shadow in the sun. 
 You've been very tender of her, haven't you? 
 I've watched you. And to think it may all be 
 gone when we see her next. 'The common fate 
 of all things rare,' you know. What a good fel- 
 low you are, anyway, Jimmy," he added, put- 
 ting his hands affectionately on her shoulders. 
 
 Arthur went with them to the station. Flavia 
 was so prostrated by the concerted action of her 
 guests that she was able to see Imogen only for a 
 moment in her darkened sleeping chamber, 
 where she kissed her hysterically, without lifting 
 her head, bandaged in aromatic vinegar. On the 
 way to the station both Arthur and Imogen 
 threw the burden of keeping up appearances en- 
 tirely upon Miss Broadwood, who blithely rose 
 to the occasion. When Hamilton carried Imogen's 
 bag into the car, Miss Broadwood detained her 
 for a moment, whispering as she gave her a large, 
 warm handclasp, "I'll come to see you when I get 
 back to town; and, in the meantime, if you meet 
 any of our artists, tell them you have left Caius 
 Marius among the ruins of Carthage." 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 
 
 A group of the townspeople stood on the station 
 siding of a little Kansas town, awaiting the com- 
 ing of the night train, which was already twenty 
 minutes overdue. The snow had fallen thick over 
 everything; in the pale starlight the line of 
 bluffs across the wide, white meadows south of 
 the town made soft, smoke-coloured curves 
 against the clear sky. The men on the siding 
 stood first on one foot and then on the other, their 
 hands thrust deep into their trousers pockets, 
 their overcoats open, their shoulders screwed up 
 with the cold; and they glanced from time to 
 time toward the southeast, where the railroad 
 track wound along the river shore. They con- 
 versed in low tones and moved about restlessly, 
 seeming uncertain as to what was expected of 
 them. There was but one of the company who 
 looked as though he knew exactly why he was 
 there ; and he kept conspicuously apart ; walking to 
 
58 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 the far end of the platform, returning to the sta- 
 tion door, then pacing up the track again, his 
 chin sunk in the high collar of his overcoat, his 
 burly shoulders drooping forward, his gait heavy 
 and dogged. Presently he was approached by a 
 tall, spare, grizzled man clad in a faded Grand 
 Army suit, who shuffled out from the group and 
 advanced with a certain deference, craning his 
 neck forward until his back made the angle of a 
 jack-knife three-quarters open. 
 
 M I reckon she's a-goin' to be pretty late agin to- 
 night, Jim," he remarked in a squeaky falsetto. 
 "S'pose it's the snow?" 
 
 "I don't know, " responded the other man with 
 a shade of annoyance, speaking from out an as- 
 tonishing cataract of red beard that grew fiercely 
 and thickly in all directions. 
 
 The spare man shifted the quill toothpick he 
 was chewing to the other side of his mouth. "It 
 ain't likely that anybody from the East will come 
 with the corpse, I s'pose, " he went on reflect- 
 ively. 
 
 "I don't know," responded the other, more 
 curtly than before. 
 
 "It's too bad he didn't belong to some lodge or 
 other. I like an order funeral myself. They seem 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 59 
 
 more appropriate for people of some repytation, " 
 the spare man continued, with an ingratiating 
 concession in his shrill voice, as he carefully 
 placed his toothpick in his vest pocket. He al- 
 ways carried the flag at the G. A. R. funerals in 
 the town. 
 
 The heavy man turned on his heel, without re- 
 plying, and walked up the siding. The spare man 
 shuffled back to the uneasy group. "Jim's ez full 
 ez a tick, ez ushel," he commented commiser- 
 atingly. 
 
 Just then a distant whistle sounded, and there 
 was a shuffling of feet on the platform. A 
 number of lanky boys of all ages appeared as sud- 
 denly and slimily as eels wakened by the crack of 
 thunder; some came from the waiting-room, 
 where they had been warming themselves by the 
 red stove, or half asleep on the slat benches; 
 others uncoiled themselves from baggage trucks 
 or slid out of express wagons. Two clambered 
 down from the driver's seat of a hearse that stood 
 backed up against the siding. They straightened 
 their stooping shoulders and lifted their heads, 
 and a flash of momentary animation kindled their 
 dull eyes at that cold, vibrant scream, the world- 
 wide call for men. It stirred them like the note of 
 
60 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 a trumpet; just as it had often stirred the man 
 who was coming home to-night, in his boyhood. 
 
 The night express shot, red as a rocket, from 
 out the eastward marsh lands and wound along 
 the river shore under the long lines of shivering 
 poplars that sentinelled the meadows, the escap- 
 ing steam hanging in grey masses against the 
 pale sky and blotting out the Milky Way. In a mo- 
 ment the red glare from the headlight streamed 
 up the snow-covered track before the siding and 
 glittered on the wet, black rails. The burly man 
 with the dishevelled red beard walked swiftly up 
 the platform toward the approaching train, un- 
 covering his head as he went. The group of men 
 behind him hesitated, glanced questioningly at 
 one another, and awkwardly followed his exam- 
 ple. The train stopped, and the crowd shuffled up 
 to the express car just as the door was thrown 
 open, the spare man in the G. A. R. suit thrusting 
 his head forward with curiosity. The express 
 messenger appeared in the doorway, accompan- 
 ied by a young man in a long ulster and travelling 
 cap. 
 
 "Are Mr. Merrick's friends here?" inquired 
 the young man. 
 
 The group on the platform swayed and shuffled 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 61 
 
 uneasily. Philip Phelps, the banker, responded 
 with dignity: "We have come to take charge of 
 the body. Mr. Merrick's father is very feeble and 
 can't be about." 
 
 "Send the agent out here," growled the ex- 
 press messenger, "and tell the operator to lend a 
 hand." 
 
 The coffin was got out of its rough box and 
 down on the snowy platform. The townspeople 
 drew back enough to make room for it and then 
 formed a close semicircle about it, looking curi- 
 ously at the palm leaf which lay across the black 
 cover. No one said anything. The baggage man 
 stood by his truck, waiting to get at the trunks. 
 The engine panted heavily, and the fireman 
 dodged in and out among the wheels with his yel- 
 low torch and long oil-can, snapping the spindle 
 boxes. The young Bostonian, one of the dead 
 sculptor's pupils who had come with the body, 
 looked about him helplessly. He turned to the 
 banker, the only one of that black, uneasy, stoop- 
 shouldered group who seemed enough of an in- 
 dividual to be addressed. 
 
 "None of Mr. Merrick's brothers are here?" 
 he asked uncertainly. 
 
 The man with the red beard for the first time 
 
62 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 stepped up and joined the group. "No, they 
 have not come yet; the family is scattered. The 
 body will be taken directly to the house." He 
 stooped and took hold of one of the handles of 
 the coffin. 
 
 "Take the long hill road up, Thompson, it will 
 be easier on the horses," called the liveryman as 
 the undertaker snapped the door of the hearse 
 and prepared to mount to the driver's seat. 
 
 Laird, the red-bearded lawyer, turned again 
 to the stranger: "We didn't know whether there 
 would be any one with him or not, " he explained. 
 " It's a long walk, so you'd better go up in the 
 hack." He pointed to a single battered convey- 
 ance, but the young man replied stiffly: "Thank 
 you, but I think I will go up with the hearse. If 
 you don't object," turning to the undertaker, 
 "I'll ride with you." 
 
 They clambered up over the wheels and drove 
 off in the starlight up the long, white hill toward 
 the town. The lamps in the still village were shin- 
 ing from under the low, snow-burdened roofs; 
 and beyond, on every side, the plains reached out 
 into emptiness, peaceful and wide as the soft sky 
 itself, and wrapped in a tangible, white silence. 
 
 When the hearse backed up to a wooden side- 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 63 
 
 walk before a naked, weather-beaten frame house, 
 the same composite, ill-defined group that had 
 stood upon the station siding was huddled about 
 the gate. The front yard was an icy swamp, and a 
 couple of warped planks, extending from the 
 sidewalk to the door, made a sort of rickety foot- 
 bridge. The gate hung on one hinge, and was 
 opened wide with difficulty. Steavens, the young 
 stranger, noticed that something black was tied 
 to the knob of the front door. 
 
 The grating sound made by the casket, as it 
 was drawn from the hearse, was answered by a 
 scream from the house; the front door was 
 wrenched open, and a tall, corpulent woman 
 rushed out bareheaded into the snow and flung 
 herself upon the coffin, shrieking: "My boy, my 
 boy! And this is how you've come home to me!" 
 
 As Steavens turned away and closed his eyes 
 with a shudder of unutterable repulsion, another 
 woman, also tall, but flat and angular, dressed 
 entirely in black, darted out of the house and 
 caught Mrs. Merrick by the shoulders, crying 
 sharply: "Come, come, mother; you musn't go 
 on like this!" Her tone changed to one of ob- 
 sequious solemnity as she turned to the banker: 
 "The parlour is ready, Mr. Phelps." 
 
64 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 The bearers carried the coffin along the nar- 
 row boards, while the undertaker ran ahead with 
 the coffin-rests. They bore it into a large, un- 
 heated room that smelled of dampness and dis- 
 use and furniture polish, and set it down under a 
 hanging lamp ornamented with jingling glass 
 prisms and before a "Rogers group" of John 
 Alden and Priscilla, wreathed with smilax. Henry 
 Steavens stared about him with the sickening 
 conviction that there had been some horrible mis- 
 take, and that he had somehow arrived at the 
 wrong destination. He looked painfully about 
 over the clover-green Brussels, the fat plush up- 
 holstery; among the hand-painted china placques 
 and panels, and vases, for some mark of identifi- 
 cation, for something that might once conceiv- 
 ably have belonged to Harvey Merrick. It was not 
 until he recognized his friend in the crayon por- 
 trait of a little boy in kilts and curls hanging above 
 the piano, that he felt willing to let any of these 
 people approach the coffin. 
 
 "Take the lid off, Mr. Thompson; let me see 
 my boy's face," wailed the elder woman between 
 her sobs. This time Steavens looked fearfully, al- 
 most beseechingly into her face, red and swollen 
 under its masses of strong, black, shiny hair. He 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 65 
 
 flushed, dropped his eyes, and then, almost in- 
 credulously, looked again. There was a kind of 
 power about her face — a kind of brutal hand- 
 someness, even, but it was scarred and furrowed 
 by violence, and so coloured and coarsened by 
 fiercer passions that grief seemed never to have 
 laid a gentle finger there. The long nose was 
 distended and knobbed at the end, and there 
 were deep lines on either side of it; her heavy, 
 black brows almost met across her forehead, her 
 teeth were large and square, and set far apart — 
 teeth that could tear. She filled the room; the 
 men were obliterated, seemed tossed about like 
 twigs in an angry water, and even Steavens felt 
 himself being drawn into the whirlpool. 
 
 The daughter — the tall, raw-boned woman in 
 cr&pe, with a mourning comb in her hair which 
 curiously lengthened her long face — sat stiffly 
 upon the sofa, her hands, conspicuous for their 
 large knuckles, folded in her lap, her mouth and 
 eyes drawn down, solemnly awaiting the opening 
 of the coffin. Near the door stood a mulatto wo- 
 man, evidently a servant in the house, with a 
 timid bearing and an emaciated face pitifully 
 sad and gentle. She was weeping silently, the cor- 
 ner of her calico apron lifted to her eyes, occa- 
 
66 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 sionally suppressing a long, quivering sob. 
 Steavens walked over and stood beside her. 
 
 Feeble steps were heard on the stairs, and an 
 old man, tall and frail, odorous of pipe smoke, 
 with shaggy, unkept grey hair and a dingy beard, 
 tobacco stained about the mouth, entered uncer- 
 tainly. He went slowly up to the coffin and stood 
 rolling a blue cotton handkerchief between his 
 hands, seeming so pained and embarrassed by 
 his wife's orgy of grief that he had no conscious- 
 ness of anything else. 
 
 "There, there, Annie, dear, don't take on so," 
 he quavered timidly, putting out a shaking hand 
 and awkwardly patting her elbow. She turned 
 with a cry, and sank upon his shoulder with such 
 violence that he tottered a little. He did not even 
 glance toward the coffin, but continued to look at 
 her with a dull, frightened, appealing expression, 
 as a spaniel looks at the whip. His sunken cheeks 
 slowly reddened and burned with miserable 
 shame. When his wife rushed from the room, her 
 daughter strode after her with set lips. The ser- 
 vant stole up to the coffin, bent over it for a mo- 
 ment, and then slipped away to the kitchen, leav- 
 ing Steavens, the lawyer and the father to them- 
 selves. The old man stood trembling and looking 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 67 
 
 down at his dead son's face. The sculptor's splen- 
 did head seemed even more noble in its rigid 
 stillness than in life. The dark hair had crept 
 down upon the wide forehead; the face seemed 
 strangely long, but in it there was not that beau- 
 tiful and chaste repose which we expect to find 
 in the faces of the dead. The brows were so drawn 
 that there were two deep lines above the beaked 
 nose, and the chin was thrust forward defiantly. 
 It was as though the strain of life had been so 
 sharp and bitter that death could not at once 
 wholly relax the tension and smooth the counte- 
 nance into perfect peace — as though he were 
 still guarding something precious and holy, which 
 might even yet be wrested from him. 
 
 The old man's lips were working under his 
 stained beard. He turned to the lawyer with timid 
 deference: "Phelps and the rest are comin' back 
 to set up with Harve, ain't they?" he asked. 
 "Thank 'ee, Jim, thank 'ee." He brushed the 
 hair back gently from his son's forehead. "He 
 was a good boy, Jim ; always a good boy. He was 
 ez gentle ez a child and the kindest of 'em all — 
 only we didn't none of us ever onderstand him. " 
 The tears trickled slowly down his beard and 
 dropped upon the sculptor's coat. 
 
68 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 " Martin, Martin. Oh, Martin ! come here, " his 
 wife wailed from the top of the stairs. The old 
 man started timorously: "Yes, Annie, I'm com- 
 ing. " He turned away, hesitated, stood for a mo- 
 ment in miserable indecision ; then reached back 
 and patted the dead man's hair softly, and stum- 
 bled from the room. 
 
 " Poor old man, I didn't think he had any tears 
 left. Seems as if his eyes would have gone dry 
 long ago. At his age nothing cuts very deep," 
 remarked the lawyer. 
 
 Something in his tone made Steavens glance 
 up. While the mother had been in the room, the 
 young man had scarcely seen any one else; but 
 now, from the moment he first glanced into Jim 
 Laird's florid face and blood-shot eyes, he knew 
 that he had found what he had been heartsick at 
 not finding before — the feeling, the understand- 
 ing, that must exist in some one, even here. 
 
 The man was red as his beard, with features 
 swollen and blurred by dissipation, and a hot, 
 blazing blue eye. His face was strained — that of 
 a man who is controlling himself with difficulty 
 — and he kept plucking at his beard with a sort 
 of fierce resentment. Steavens, sitting by the 
 window, watched him turn down the glaring 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 69 
 
 lamp, still its jangling pendants with an angry 
 gesture, and then stand with his hands locked 
 behind him, staring down into the master's face. 
 He could not help wondering what link there 
 could have been between the porcelain vessel 
 and so sooty a lump of potter's clay. 
 
 From the kitchen an uproar was sounding; 
 when the dining-room door opened, the import of 
 it was clear. The mother was abusing the maid 
 for having forgotten to make the dressing for the 
 chicken salad which had been prepared for the 
 watchers. Steavens had never heard anything in 
 the least like it; it was injured, emotional, dra- 
 matic abuse, unique and masterly in its excru- 
 ciating cruelty, as violent and unrestrained as 
 had been her grief of twenty minutes before. With 
 a shudder of disgust the lawyer went into the 
 dining-room and closed the door into the kitchen. 
 
 "Poor Roxy's getting it now," he remarked 
 when he came back. "The Merricks took her out 
 of the poor-house years ago; and if her loyalty 
 would let her, I guess the poor old thing could tell 
 tales that would curdle your blood. She's the mu- 
 latto woman who was standing in here a while 
 ago, with her apron to her eyes. The old woman 
 is a fury; there never was anybody like her for 
 
70 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 demonstrative piety and ingenious cruelty. She 
 made Harvey's life a hell for him when he lived 
 at home; he was so sick ashamed of it. I never 
 could see how he kept himself so sweet. " 
 
 "He was wonderful," said Steavens slowly, 
 "wonderful; but until to-night I have never 
 known how wonderful." 
 
 "That is the true and eternal wonder of it, 
 anyway; that it can come even from such a dung 
 heap as this," the lawyer cried, with a sweeping 
 gesture which seemed to indicate much more 
 than the four walls within which they stood. 
 
 "I think I'll see whether I can get a little air. 
 The room is so close I am beginning to feel 
 rather faint," murmured Steavens, struggling 
 with one of the windows. The sash was stuck, 
 however, and would not yield, so he sat down de- 
 jectedly and began pulling at his collar. The 
 lawyer came over, loosened the sash with one 
 blow of his red fist and sent the window up a few 
 inches. Steavens thanked him, but the nausea 
 which had been gradually climbing into his 
 throat for the last half hour left him with but one 
 desire — a desperate feeling that he must get 
 away from this place with what was left of Har- 
 vey Merrick. Oh, he comprehended well enough 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 71 
 
 now the quiet bitterness of the smile that he had 
 seen so often on his master's lips! 
 
 He remembered that once, when Merrick 
 returned from a visit home, he brought with him 
 a singularly feeling and suggestive bas-relief of a 
 thin, faded old woman, sitting and sewing some- 
 thing pinned to her knee; while a full-lipped, 
 full-blooded little urchin, his trousers held up 
 by a single gallows, stood beside her, impatiently 
 twitching her gown to call her attention to a 
 butterfly he had caught. Steavens, impressed by 
 the tender and delicate modelling of the thin, 
 tired face, had asked him if it were his mother. 
 He remembered the dull flush that had burned 
 up in the sculptor's face. 
 
 The lawyer was sitting in a rocking-chair be- 
 side the coffin, his head thrown back and his eyes 
 closed. Steavens looked at him earnestly, puzzled 
 at the line of the chin, and wondering why a man 
 should conceal a feature of such distinction under 
 that disfiguring shock of beard. Suddenly, as 
 though he felt the young sculptor's keen glance, 
 he opened his eyes. 
 
 "Was he always a good deal of an oyster ?" he 
 asked abruptly. "He was terribly shy as a boy." 
 
 "Yes, he was an oyster, since you put it so," 
 
72 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 rejoined Steavens. "Although he could be very 
 fond of people, he always gave one the impres- 
 sion of being detached. He disliked violent emo- 
 tion; he was reflective, and rather distrustful of 
 himself — except, of course, as regarded his 
 work. He was sure-footed enough there. He dis- 
 trusted men pretty thoroughly and women even 
 more, yet somehow without believing ill of them. 
 He was determined, indeed, to believe the best, 
 but he seemed afraid to investigate. " 
 
 " A burnt dog dreads the fire, " said the lawyer 
 grimly, and closed his eyes. 
 
 Steavens went on and on, reconstructing that 
 whole miserable boyhood. All this raw, biting 
 ugliness had been the portion of the man whose 
 tastes were refined beyond the limits of the rea- 
 sonable — whose mind was an exhaustless gal- 
 lery of beautiful impressions, and so sensitive that 
 the mere shadow of a poplar leaf flickering against 
 a sunny wall would be etched and held there for- 
 ever. Surely, if ever a man had the magic word in 
 his finger tips, it was Merrick. Whatever he 
 touched, he revealed its holiest secret; liberated 
 it from enchantment and restored it to its pris- 
 tine loveliness, like the Arabian prince who 
 fought the enchantress spell for spell. Upon 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 73 
 
 whatever he had come in contact with, he had 
 left a beautiful record of the experience — a sort 
 of ethereal signature; a scent, a sound, a colour 
 that was his own. 
 
 Steavens understood now the real tragedy of his 
 master's life ; neither love nor wine, as many had 
 conjectured ; but a blow which had fallen earlier 
 and cut deeper than these could have done — a 
 shame not his, and yet so unescapably his, to hide 
 in his heart from his very boyhood. And with- 
 out — the frontier warfare ; the yearning of a boy, 
 cast ashore upon a desert of newness and ugliness 
 and sordidness, for all that is chastened and old, 
 and noble with traditions. 
 
 At eleven o'clock the tall, flat woman in black 
 crepe entered and announced that the watchers 
 were arriving, and asked them "to step into the 
 dining-room." As Steavens rose, the lawyer said 
 dryly: "You go on — it'll be a good experience 
 for you, doubtless ; as for me, I'm not equal to that 
 crowd to-night; I've had twenty years of them." 
 
 As Steavens closed the door after him he 
 glanced back at the lawyer, sitting by the coffin 
 in the dim light, with his chin resting on his hand. 
 
 The same misty group that had stood before 
 the door of the express car shuffled into the dining- 
 
74 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 room. In the light of the kerosene lamp they 
 separated and became individuals. The minister, 
 a pale, feeble-looking man with white hair and 
 blond chin-whiskers, took his seat beside a small 
 side table and placed his Bible upon it. The 
 Grand Army man sat down behind the stove and 
 tilted his chair back comfortably against the wall, 
 fishing his quill toothpick from his waistcoat 
 pocket. The two bankers, Phelps and Elder, sat 
 off in a corner behind the dinner-table, where they 
 could finish their discussion of the new usury 
 law and its effect on chattel security loans. The 
 real estate agent, an old man with a smiling, 
 hypocritical face, soon joined them. The coal 
 and lumber dealer and the cattle shipper sat on 
 opposite sides of the hard coal-burner, their feet 
 on the nickel- work. Steavens took a book from 
 his pocket and began to read. The talk around 
 him ranged through various topics of local in- 
 terest while the house was quieting down. When 
 it was clear that the members of the family were 
 in bed, the Grand Army man hitched his shoul- 
 ders and, untangling his long legs, caught his 
 heels on the rounds of his chair. 
 
 "S'pose there'll be a will, Phelps ?" he queried 
 in his weak falsetto. 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 75 
 
 The banker laughed disagreeably, and began 
 trimming his nails with a peail-handled pocket- 
 knife. 
 
 " There'll scarcely be any need for one, will 
 there ?" he queried in his turn. 
 
 The restless Grand Army man shifted his 
 position again, getting his knees still nearer his 
 chin. "Why, the ole man says Harve's done 
 right well lately," he chirped. 
 
 The other banker spoke up. "I reckon he 
 means by that Harve ain't asked him to mortgage 
 any more farms lately, so as he could go on with 
 his education." 
 
 "Seems like my mind don't reach back to a 
 time when Harve wasn't bein' edycated," tittered 
 the Grand Army man. 
 
 There was a general chuckle. The minister 
 took out his handkerchief and blew his nose 
 sonorously. Banker Phelps closed his knife with 
 a snap. "It's too bad the old man's sons didn't 
 turn out better," he remarked with reflective 
 authority. " They never hung together. He spent 
 money enough on Harve to stock a dozen cattle- 
 farms and he might as well have poured it into 
 Sand Creek. If Harve had stayed at home and 
 helped nurse what little they had, and gone into 
 
76 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 stock on the old man's bottom farm, they might 
 all have been well fixed. But the old man had to 
 trust everything to tenants and was cheated 
 right and left." 
 
 " Harve never could have handled stock none," 
 interposed the cattleman. " He hadn't it in him to 
 be sharp. Do you remember when he bought 
 Sander's mules for eight-year olds, when every- 
 body in town knew that Sander's father-in-law 
 give 'em to his wife for a wedding present eigh- 
 teen years before, an' they was full-grown mules 
 then." 
 
 Every one chuckled, and the Grand Army 
 man rubbed his knees with a spasm of childish 
 delight. 
 
 "Harve never was much account for any- 
 thing practical, and he shore was never fond of 
 work," began the coal and lumber dealer. "I 
 mind the last time he was home ; the day he left, 
 when the old man was out to the barn helpin' his 
 hand hitch up to take Harve to the train, and 
 Cal Moots was patchin' up the fence, Harve, he 
 come out on the step and sings out, in his lady- 
 like voice: " Cal Moots, Cal Moots! please come 
 cord my trunk." 
 
 "That's Harve for you," approved the Grand 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 77 
 
 Army man gleefully. "I kin hear him howlin' 
 yet when he was a big feller in long pants 
 and his mother used to whale him with a raw- 
 hide in the barn for lettin' the cows git foun- 
 dered in the cornfield when he was drivin' 'em 
 home from pasture. He killed a cow of mine 
 that-a-way onct — a pure Jersey and the best 
 milker I had, an* the ole man had to put up for 
 her. Harve, he was watchin' the sun set acrost the 
 marshes when the anamile got away; he argued 
 that sunset was oncommon fine." 
 
 " Where the old man made his mistake was in 
 sending the boy East to school," said Phelps, 
 stroking his goatee and speaking in a deliber- 
 ate, judicial tone. " There was where he got 
 his head full of trapseing to Paris and all such 
 folly. What Harve needed, of all people, was 
 a course in some first-class Kansas City busi- 
 ness college." 
 
 The letters were swimming before Steavens's 
 eyes. Was it possible that these men did not un- 
 derstand, that the palm on the coffin meant noth- 
 ing to them? The very name of their town 
 would have remained forever buried in the pos- 
 tal guide had it not been now and again men- 
 tioned in the world in connection with Harvey 
 
78 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Merrick's. He remembered what his master had 
 said to him on the day of his death, after the con- 
 gestion of both lungs had shut off any probability 
 of recovery, and the sculptor had asked his pupil 
 to send his body home. "It's not a pleasant place 
 to be lying while the world is moving and doing 
 and bettering," he had said with a feeble smile, 
 "but it rather seems as though we ought to go 
 back to the place we came from in the end. The 
 townspeople will come in for a look at me; and 
 after they have had their say I shan't have much 
 to fear from the judgment of God. The wings 
 of the Victory, in there" — with a weak gesture 
 toward his studio — "will not shelter me." 
 
 The cattleman took up the comment. "Forty's 
 young for a Merrick to cash in; they usually 
 hang on pretty well. Probably he helped it along 
 with whisky." 
 
 "His mother's people were not long lived, and 
 Harvey never had a robust constitution," said 
 the minister mildly. He would have liked to say 
 more. He had been the boy's Sunday-school 
 teacher, and had been fond of him; but he felt 
 that he was not in a position to speak. His own 
 sons had turned out badly, and it was not a year 
 since one of them had made his last trip home in 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 79 
 
 the express car, shot in a gambling-house in the 
 Black Hills. 
 
 "Nevertheless, there is no disputin' that Harve 
 frequently looked upon the wine when it was red, 
 also variegated, and it shore made an oncommon 
 fool of him," moralized the cattleman. 
 
 Just then the door leading into the parlour rat- 
 tled loudly and every one started involuntarily, 
 looking relieved when only Jim Laird came out. 
 His red face was convulsed with anger, and the 
 Grand Army man ducked his head when he saw 
 the spark in his blue, blood-shot eye. They were 
 all afraid of Jim; he was a drunkard, but he 
 could twist the law to suit his client's needs as no 
 other man in all western Kansas could do; and 
 there were many who tried. The lawyer closed 
 the door gently behind him, leaned back against 
 it and folded his arms, cocking his head a little 
 to one side. When he assumed this attitude in 
 the court-room, ears were always pricked up, as 
 it usually foretold a flood of withering sarcasm. 
 
 "I've been with you gentlemen before," he be- 
 gan in a dry, even tone, "when you've sat by the 
 coffins of boys born and raised in this town; 
 and, if I remember rightly, you were never any 
 too well satisfied when you checked them up. 
 
80 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 What's the matter, anyhow? Why is it that re- 
 putable young men are as scarce as millionaires 
 in Sand City ? It might almost seem to a stranger 
 that there was some way something the matter 
 with your progressive town. Why did Ruben 
 Sayer, the brightest young lawyer you ever 
 turned out, after he had come home from the 
 university as straight as a die, take to drinking 
 and forge a check and shoot himself? Why did 
 Bill Merrit's son die of the shakes in a saloon in 
 Omaha ? Why was Mr. Thomas's son, here, shot 
 in a gambling-house ? Why did young Adams 
 burn his mill to beat the insurance companies 
 and go to the pen ?" 
 
 The lawyer paused and unfolded his arms, 
 laying one clenched fist quietly on the table. 
 "I'll tell you why. Because you drummed noth- 
 ing but money and knavery into their ears from 
 the time they wore knickerbockers ; because you 
 carped away at them as you've been carping 
 here to-night, holding our friends Phelps and 
 Elder up to them for their models, as our grand- 
 fathers held up George Washington and John 
 Adams. But the boys, worse luck, were young, 
 and raw at the business you put them to; and 
 how could they match coppers with such artists 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 81 
 
 as Phelps and Elder? You wanted them to be 
 successful rascals; they were only unsuccessful 
 ones — that's all the difference. There was only 
 one boy ever raised in this borderland between 
 ruffianism and civilization, who didn't come to 
 grief, and you hated Harvey Merrick more for 
 winning out than you hated all the other boys 
 who got under the wheels. Lord, Lord, how you 
 did hate him ! Phelps, here, is fond of saying that 
 he could buy and sell us all out any time he's a 
 mind to ; but he knew Harve wouldn't have given 
 a tinker's damn for his bank and all his cattle- 
 farms put together; and a lack of appreciation, 
 that way, goes hard with Phelps. 
 
 "Old Nimrod, here, thinks Harve drank too 
 much ; and this from such as Nimrod and me ! 
 
 "Brother Elder says Harve was too free with 
 the old man's money — fell short in filial consid- 
 eration, maybe. Well, we can all remember the 
 very tone in which brother Elder swore his own 
 father was a liar, in the county court; and we all 
 know that the old man came out of that partner- 
 ship with his son as bare as a sheared lamb. But 
 maybe I'm getting personal, and I'd better be 
 driving ahead at what I want to say." 
 
 The lawyer paused a moment, squared his 
 
8fe THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 heavy shoulders, and went on: "Harvey Mer- 
 rick and I went to school together, back East. 
 We were dead in earnest, and we wanted you all 
 to be proud of us some day. We meant to be 
 great men. Even I, and I haven't lost my sense 
 of humour, gentlemen, I meant to be a great 
 man. I came back here to practise, and I found 
 you didn't in the least want me to be a great 
 man. You wanted me to be a shrewd lawyer — 
 oh, yes ! Our veteran here wanted me to get him 
 an increase of pension, because he had dyspepsia; 
 Phelps wanted a new county survey that would 
 put the widow Wilson's little bottom farm in- 
 side his south line; Elder wanted to lend money 
 at 5 per cent a month, and get it collected; old 
 Stark here wanted to wheedle old women up in 
 Vermont into investing their annuities in real- 
 estate mortgages that are not worth the paper 
 they are written on. Oh, you needed me hard 
 enough, and you'll go on needing me; and that's 
 why I'm not afraid to plug the truth home to you 
 this once. 
 
 "Well, I came back here and became the 
 damned shyster you wanted me to be. You pre- 
 tend to have some sort of respect for me ; and yet 
 you'll stand up and throw mud at Harvey Mer- 
 
THE SCULPTOR'S FUNERAL 83 
 
 rick, whose soul you couldn't dirty and whose 
 hands you couldn't tie. Oh, you're a discriminat- 
 ing lot of Christians ! There have been times when 
 the sight of Harvey's name in some Eastern 
 paper has made me hang my head like a whipped 
 dog; and, again, times when I liked to think of 
 him off there in the world, away from all this 
 hog-wallow, doing his great work and climbing 
 the big, clean up-grade he'd set for himself. 
 
 "And we? Now that we've fought and lied 
 and sweated and stolen, and hated as only the 
 disappointed strugglers in a bitter, dead little 
 Western town know how to do, what have we got 
 to show for it? Harvey Merrick wouldn't have 
 given one sunset over your marshes for all you've 
 got put together, and you know it. It's not for me 
 to say why, in the inscrutable wisdom of God, a 
 genius should ever have been called from his 
 place of hatred and bitter waters; but I want 
 this Boston man to know that the drivel he's 
 been hearing here to-night is the only tribute any 
 truly great man could ever have from such a lot 
 of sick, side-tracked, burnt-dog, land-poor sharks 
 as the here-present financiers of Sand City — upon 
 which town may God have mercy!" 
 
 The lawyer thrust out his hand to Steavens as 
 
84 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 he passed him, caught up his overcoat in the hall, 
 and had left the house before the Grand Army 
 man had had time to lift his ducked head and 
 crane his long neck about at his fellows. 
 
 Next day Jim Laird was drunk and unable to 
 attend the funeral services. Steavens called 
 twice at his office, but was compelled to start 
 East without seeing him. He had a presentiment 
 that he would hear from him again, and left his 
 address on the lawyer's table ; but if Laird found 
 it, he never acknowledged it. The thing in him 
 that Harvey Merrick had loved must have gone 
 under ground with Harvey Merrick's coffin; for 
 it never spoke again, and Jim got the cold he 
 died of driving across the Colorado mountains 
 to defend one of Phelps's sons who had got into 
 trouble out there by cutting government timber. 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 
 
 When Caroline Noble's friends learned that 
 Raymond d'Esquerre was to spend a month at 
 her place on the Sound before he sailed to fill his 
 engagement for the London opera season, they 
 considered it another striking instance of the per- 
 versity of things. That the month was May, and 
 the most mild and florescent of all the blue-and- 
 white Mays the middle coast had known in years, 
 but added to their sense of wrong. D'Esquerre, 
 they learned, was ensconced in the lodge in the 
 apple orchard, just beyond Caroline's glorious 
 garden, and report went that at almost any hour 
 the sound of the tenor's voice and of Caroline's 
 crashing accompaniment could be heard floating 
 through the open windows, out among the snowy 
 apple boughs. The Sound, steel-blue and dotted 
 with white sails, was splendidly seen from the 
 windows of the lodge. The garden to the left and 
 the orchard to the right had never been so riotous 
 
88 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 with spring, and had burst into impassioned 
 bloom, as if to accommodate Caroline, though 
 she was certainly the last woman to whom the 
 witchery of Freya could be attributed; the last 
 woman, as her friends affirmed, to at all adequate- 
 ly appreciate and make the most of such a setting 
 for the great tenor. 
 
 Of course, they admitted, Caroline was musi- 
 cal — well, she ought to be ! — but in that as in 
 everything she was paramountly cool-headed, 
 slow of impulse, and disgustingly practical; in 
 that, as in everything else, she had herself so pro- 
 vokingly well in hand. Of course it would be she, 
 always mistress of herself in any situation, she 
 who would never be lifted one inch from the 
 ground by it, and who would go on superintend- 
 ing her gardeners and workmen as usual, it would 
 be she who got him. Perhaps some of them sus- 
 pected that this was exactly why she did get 
 him, and it but nettled them the more. 
 
 Caroline's coolness, her capableness, her gen- 
 eral success, especially exasperated people be- 
 cause they felt that, for the most part, she had 
 made herself what she was; that she had cold- 
 bloodedly set about complying with the de- 
 mands of life and making her position comforta- 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 89 
 
 ble and masterful. That was why, every one said, 
 she had married Howard Noble. Women who 
 did not get through life so well as Caroline, who 
 could not make such good terms either with for- 
 tune or their husbands, who did not find their 
 health so unfailingly good, or hold their looks so 
 well, or manage their children so easily, or give 
 such distinction to all they did, were fond of 
 stamping Caroline as a materialist and called her 
 hard. 
 
 The impression of cold calculation, of having 
 a definite policy, which Caroline gave, was far 
 from a false one; but there was this to be said 
 for her, that there were extenuating circum- 
 stances which her friends could not know. 
 
 If Caroline held determinedly to the middle 
 course, if she was apt to regard with distrust 
 everything which inclined toward extravagance, 
 it was not because she was unacquainted with 
 other standards than her own, or had never 
 seen another side of life. She had grown up in 
 Brooklyn, in a shabby little house under the 
 vacillating administration of her father, a music 
 teacher who usually neglected his duties to write 
 orchestral compositions for which the world 
 seemed to have no especial need. His spirit was 
 
90 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 warped by bitter vindictiveness and puerile self- 
 commiseration, and he spent his days in scorn of 
 the labour that brought him bread and in pitiful 
 devotion to the labour that brought him only dis- 
 appointment, writing interminable scores which 
 demanded of the orchestra everything under 
 heaven except melody. 
 
 It was not a cheerful home for a girl to grow 
 up in. The mother, who idolized her husband as 
 the music lord of the future, was left to a life- 
 long battle with broom and dust-pan, to never 
 ending conciliatory overtures to the butcher and 
 grocer, to the making of her own gowns and of 
 Caroline's, and to the delicate task of mollifying 
 Auguste's neglected pupils. 
 
 The son, Heinrich, a painter, Caroline's only 
 brother, had inherited all his father's vindictive 
 sensitiveness without his capacity for slavish 
 application. His little studio on the third floor 
 had been much frequented by young men as un- 
 successful as himself, who met there to give 
 themselves over to contemptuous derision of 
 this or that artist whose industry and stupidity 
 had won him recognition. Heinrich, when he 
 worked at all, did newspaper sketches at twenty- 
 five dollars a week. He was too indolent and 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 91 
 
 vacillating to set himself seriously to his art, too 
 irascible and poignantly self-conscious to make 
 a living, too much addicted to lying late in 
 bed, to the incontinent reading of poetry and to 
 the use of chloral, to be anything very positive 
 except painful. At twenty-six he shot himself in 
 a frenzy, and the whole wretched affair had ef- 
 fectually shattered his mother's health and 
 brought on the decline of which she died. Caro- 
 line had been fond of him, but she felt a certain 
 relief when he no longer wandered about the 
 little house, commenting ironically upon its 
 shabbiness, a Turkish cap on his head and a 
 cigarette hanging from between his long, trem- 
 ulous fingers. 
 
 After her mother's death Caroline assumed 
 the management of that bankrupt establish- 
 ment. The funeral expenses were unpaid, and 
 Auguste's pupils had been frightened away by 
 the shock of successive disasters and the gen- 
 eral atmosphere of wretchedness that pervaded 
 the house. Auguste himself was writing a sym- 
 phonic poem, Icarus, dedicated to the memory 
 of his son. Caroline was barely twenty when 
 she was called upon to face this tangle of 
 difficulties, but she reviewed the situation can- 
 
92 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 didly. The house had served its time at the 
 shrine of idealism; vague, distressing, unsatis- 
 fied yearnings had brought it low enough. Her 
 mother, thirty years before, had eloped and 
 left Germany with her music teacher, to give 
 herself over to life-long, drudging bondage at the 
 kitchen range. Ever since Caroline could re- 
 member, the law in the house had been a sort of 
 mystic worship of things distant, intangible 
 and unattainable. The family had lived in suc- 
 cessive ebulitions of generous enthusiasm, in 
 talk of masters and masterpieces, only to come 
 down to the cold facts in the case ; to boiled mut- 
 ton and to the necessity of turning the dining- 
 room carpet. All these emotional pyrotechnics 
 had ended in petty jealousies, in neglected duties 
 and in cowardly fear of the little grocer on the 
 corner. 
 
 From her childhood she had hated it, that 
 humiliating and uncertain existence, with its 
 glib tongue and empty pockets, its poetic ideals 
 and sordid realities, its indolence and poverty 
 tricked out in paper roses. Even as a little girl, 
 when vague dreams beset her, when she wanted 
 to lie late in bed and commune with visions, or 
 to leap and sing because the sooty little trees 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 93 
 
 along the street were putting out their first pale 
 leaves in the sunshine, she would clench her 
 hands and go to help her mother sponge the 
 spots from her father's waistcoat or press Hein- 
 rich's trousers. Her mother never permitted the 
 slightest question concerning anything Auguste 
 or Heinrich saw fit to do, but from the time Caro- 
 line could reason at all she could not help think- 
 ing that many things went wrong at home. She 
 knew, for example, that her father's pupils 
 ought not to be kept waiting half an hour while 
 he discussed Schopenhauer with some bearded 
 socialist over a dish of herrings and a spotted 
 table cloth. She knew that Heinrich ought not 
 to give a dinner on Heine's birthday, when the 
 laundress had not been paid for a month and 
 when he frequently had to ask his mother for 
 car fare. Certainly Caroline had served her ap- 
 prenticeship to idealism and to all the embar- 
 rassing inconsistencies which it sometimes en- 
 tails, and she decided to deny herself this diffuse, 
 ineffectual answer to the sharp questions of life. 
 When she came into the control of herself and 
 the house, she refused to proceed any further 
 with her musical education. Her father, who had 
 intended to make a concert pianist of her, set 
 
94 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 this down as another item in his long list of dis- 
 appointments and his grievances against the 
 world. She was young and pretty, and she had 
 worn turned gowns and soiled gloves and impro- 
 vised hats all her life. She wanted the luxury of 
 being like other people, of being honest from 
 her hat to her boots, of having nothing to hide, 
 not even in the matter of stockings, and she was 
 willing to work for it. She rented a little studio 
 away from that house of misfortune, and began 
 to give lessons. She managed well and was the 
 sort of girl people liked to help. The bills were 
 paid and Auguste went on composing, growing 
 indignant only when she refused to insist that 
 her pupils should study his compositions for 
 the piano. She began to get engagements in New 
 York to play accompaniments at song recitals. 
 She dressed well, made herself agreeable, and 
 gave herself a chance. She never permitted her- 
 self to look further than a step ahead, and set 
 herself with all the strength of her will to see 
 things as they are and meet them squarely in the 
 broad day. There were two things she feared 
 even more than poverty; the part of one that sets 
 up an idol and the part of one that bows down 
 and worships it. 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 95 
 
 When Caroline was twenty-four she married 
 Howard Noble, then a widower of forty, who 
 had been for ten years a power in Wall street. 
 Then, for the first time, she had paused to take 
 breath. It took a substantialness as unquestion- 
 able as his; his money, his position, his energy, 
 the big vigour of his robust person, to satisfy her 
 that she was entirely safe. Then she relaxed a 
 little, feeling that there was a barrier to be 
 counted upon between her and that world of vis- 
 ions and quagmires and failure. 
 
 Caroline had been married for six years when 
 Raymond d'Esquerre came to stay with them. 
 He came chiefly because Caroline was what she 
 was; because he, too, felt occasionally the need 
 of getting out of Klingsor's garden, of dropping 
 down somewhere for a time near a quiet nature, 
 a cool head, a strong hand. The hours he had 
 spent in the garden lodge were hours of such 
 concentrated study as, in his fevered life, he 
 seldom got in anywhere. She had, as he told 
 Noble, a fine appreciation of the seriousness of 
 work. 
 
 One evening two weeks after d'Esquerre had 
 sailed, Caroline was in the library giving her hus- 
 band an account of the work she had laid out 
 
96 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 for the gardeners. She superintended the care of 
 the grounds herself. Her garden, indeed, had be- 
 come quite a part of her; a sort of beautiful ad- 
 junct, like gowns or jewels. It was a famous 
 spot, and Noble was very proud of it. 
 
 "What do you think, Caroline, of having the 
 garden lodge torn down and putting a new 
 summer house there at the end of the arbour; 
 a big rustic affair where you could have tea 
 served in mid-summer?" he asked. 
 
 "The lodge?" repeated Caroline looking at 
 him quickly. "Why, that seems almost a shame, 
 doesn't it, after d'Esquerre has used it ?" 
 
 Noble put down his book with a smile of 
 amusement. 
 
 "Are you going to be sentimental about it? 
 Why, I'd sacrifice the whole place to see that 
 come to pass. But I don't believe you could do 
 it for an hour together." 
 
 "I don't believe so, either," said his wife, 
 smiling. 
 
 Noble took up his book again and Caroline 
 went into the music-room to practise. She was 
 not ready to have the lodge torn down. She had 
 gone there for a quiet hour every day during the 
 two weeks since d'Esquerre had left them. It 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 97 
 
 was the sheerest sentiment she had ever per- 
 mitted herself. She was ashamed of it, but she 
 was childishly unwilling to let it go. 
 
 Caroline went to bed soon after her husband, 
 but she was not able to sleep. The night was 
 close and warm, presaging storm. The wind had 
 fallen and the water slept, fixed and motionless 
 as the sand. She rose and thrust her feet into 
 slippers and putting a dressing-gown over her 
 shoulders opened the door of her husband's 
 room; he was sleeping soundly. She went into 
 the hall and down the stairs; then, leaving the 
 house through a side door, stepped into the vine 
 covered arbour that led to the garden lodge. The 
 scent of the June roses was heavy in the still air, 
 and the stones that paved the path felt pleasantly 
 cool through the thin soles of her slippers. Heat- 
 lightning flashed continuously from the bank of 
 clouds that had gathered over the sea, but the 
 shore was flooded with moonlight and, beyond, 
 the rim of the Sound lay smooth and shining. 
 Caroline had the key of the lodge, and the door 
 creaked as she opened it. She stepped into the 
 long, low room radiant with the moonlight which 
 streamed through the bow window and lay in 
 a silvery pool along the waxed floor. Even that 
 
98 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 part of the room which lay in the shadow was 
 vaguely illuminated; the piano, the tall candle- 
 sticks, the picture frames and white casts stand- 
 ing out as clearly in the half-light as did the 
 sycamores and black poplars of the garden 
 against the still, expectant night sky. Caroline 
 sat down to think it all over. She had come 
 here to do just that every day of the two weeks 
 since d'Esquerre's departure, but, far from ever 
 having reached a conclusion, she had succeeded 
 only in losing her way in a maze of memories 
 — sometimes bewilderingly confused, sometimes 
 too acutely distinct — where there was neither 
 path, nor clue, nor any hope of finality. She had, 
 she realized, defeated a life-long regimen; com- 
 pletely confounded herself by falling unaware 
 and incontinently into that luxury of revery 
 which, even as a little girl, she had so deter- 
 minedly denied herself ; she had been developing 
 with alarming celerity that part of one which 
 sets up an idol and that part of one which bows 
 down and worships it. 
 
 It was a mistake, she felt, ever to have asked 
 d'Esquerre to come at all. She had an angry 
 feeling that she had done it rather in self-de- 
 fiance, to rid herself finally of that instinctive 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 99 
 
 fear of him which had always troubled and per- 
 plexed her. She knew that she had reckoned with 
 herself before he came; but she had been equal 
 to so much that she had never really doubted she 
 would be equal to this. She had come to believe, 
 indeed, almost arrogantly in her own mallea- 
 bility and endurance; she had done so much 
 with herself that she had come to think that 
 there was nothing which she could not do; like 
 swimmers, overbold, who reckon upon their 
 strength and their power to hoard it, forgetting 
 the ever changing moods of their adversary, the 
 sea. 
 
 And d'Esquerre was a man to reckon with. 
 Caroline did not deceive herself now upon that 
 score. She admitted it humbly enough, and since 
 she had said good-bye to him she had not been 
 free for a moment from the sense of his formid- 
 able power. It formed the undercurrent of her 
 consciousness; whatever she might be doing or 
 thinking, it went on, involuntarily, like her 
 breathing; sometimes welling up until suddenly 
 she found herself suffocating. There was a mo- 
 ment of this to-night, and Caroline rose and 
 stood shuddering, looking about her in the blue 
 duskiness of the silent room. She had not been 
 
100 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 here at night before, and the spirit of the place 
 seemed more troubled and insistent than ever 
 it had been in the quiet of the afternoons. 
 Caroline brushed her hair back from her damp 
 forehead and went over to the bow window. 
 After raising it she sat down upon the low seat. 
 Leaning her head against the sill, and loosening 
 her night-gown at the throat, she half closed 
 her eyes and looked off into the troubled 
 night, watching the play of the sheet-lightning 
 upon the massing clouds between the pointed 
 tops of the poplars. 
 
 Yes, she knew, she knew well enough, of what 
 absurdities this spell was woven; she mocked, 
 even while she winced. His power she knew, lay 
 not so much in anything that he actually had — 
 though he had so much — or in anything that he 
 actually was; but in what he suggested, in what 
 he seemed picturesque enough to have or be — 
 and that was just anything that one chose to be- 
 lieve or to desire. His appeal was all the more 
 persuasive and alluring that it was to the imag- 
 ination alone, that it was as indefinite and im- 
 personal as those cults of idealism which so have 
 their way with women. What he had was that, 
 in his mere personality, he quickened and in a 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 101 
 
 measure gratified that something without which 
 — to women — life is no better than sawdust, and 
 to the desire for which most of their mistakes and 
 tragedies and astonishingly poor bargains are 
 due. 
 
 D'Esquerre had become the centre of a move- 
 ment, and the Metropolitan had become the 
 temple of a cult. When he could be induced to 
 cross the Atlantic, the opera season in New 
 York was successful; when he could not, the 
 management lost money; so much every one 
 knew. It was understood, too, that his superb 
 art had disproportionately little to do with his 
 peculiar position. Women swayed the balance 
 this way or that; the opera, the orchestra, even 
 his own glorious art, achieved at such a cost, 
 were but the accessories of himself; like the 
 scenery and costumes and even the soprano, they 
 all went to produce atmosphere, were the mere 
 mechanics of the beautiful illusion. 
 
 Caroline understood all this; to-night was not 
 the first time that she had put it to herself so. 
 She had seen the same feeling in other people; 
 watched for it in her friends, studied it in the 
 house night after night when he sang, candidly 
 putting herself among a thousand others. 
 
102 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 D'Esquerre's arrival in the early winter was 
 the signal for a feminine hegira toward New 
 York. On the nights when he sang, women 
 flocked to the Metropolitan from mansions and 
 hotels, from typewriter desks, school - rooms, 
 shops and fitting-rooms. They were of all con- 
 ditions and complexions. Women of the world 
 who accepted him knowingly, as they some- 
 times took champagne for its agreeable effect; 
 sisters of charity and overworked shop-girls, who 
 received him devoutly; withered women who 
 had taken doctorate degrees and who worshipped 
 furtively through prism spectacles; business 
 women and women of affairs, the Amazons who 
 dwelt afar from men in the stony fastnesses of 
 apartment houses. They all entered into the 
 same romance; dreamed, in terms as various as 
 the hues of phantasy, the same dream ; drew the 
 same quick breath when he stepped upon the 
 stage, and, at his exit, felt the same dull pain of 
 shouldering the pack again. 
 
 There were the maimed, even ; those who 
 came on crutches, who were pitted by smallpox 
 or grotesquely painted by cruel birth stains. 
 These, too, entered with him into enchantment. 
 Stout matrons became slender girls again; worn 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 103 
 
 spinsters felt their cheeks flush with the tender- 
 ness of their lost youth. Young and old, however 
 hideous, however fair, they yielded up their 
 heat — whether quick or latent — sat hunger- 
 ing for the mystic bread wherewith he fed them 
 at this eucharist of sentiment. 
 
 Sometimes when the house was crowded from 
 the orchestra to the last row of the gallery, when 
 the air was charged with this ecstasy of fancy, 
 he himself was the victim of the burning re- 
 flection of his power. They acted upon him in 
 turn; he felt their fervent and despairing appeal 
 to him ; it stirred him as the spring drives the sap 
 up into an old tree; he, too, burst into bloom. 
 For the moment he, too, believed again, desired 
 again, he knew not what, but something. 
 
 But it was not in these exalted moments that 
 Caroline had learned to fear him most. It was in 
 the quiet, tired reserve, the dullness, even, that 
 kept him company between these outbursts 
 that she found that exhausting drain upon her 
 sympathies which was the very pith and sub- 
 stance of their alliance. It was the tacit admission 
 of disappointment under all this glamour of suc- 
 cess — the helplessness of the enchanter to at all 
 enchant himself — that awoke in her an illogical, 
 
104 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 womanish desire to in some way compensate, to 
 make it up to him. 
 
 She had observed drastically to herself that it 
 was her eighteenth year he awoke in her — those 
 hard years she had spent in turning gowns and 
 placating tradesmen, and which she had never had 
 time to live. After all, she reflected, it was better 
 to allow one's self a little youth ; to dance a little 
 at the carnival and to live these things when 
 they are natural and lovely, not to have them 
 coming back on one and demanding arrears 
 when they are humiliating and impossible. She 
 went over to-night all the catalogue of her self- 
 deprivations ; recalled how, in the light of her 
 father's example, she had even refused to hu- 
 mour her innocent taste for improvising at the 
 piano; how, when she began to teach, after her 
 mother's death, she had struck out one little in- 
 dulgence after another, reducing her life to a 
 relentless routine, unvarying as clockwork. It 
 seemed to her that ever since d'Esquerre first 
 came into the house she had been haunted by an 
 imploring little girlish ghost that followed her 
 about, wringing its hands and entreating for an 
 hour of life. 
 
 The storm had held off unconscionably long; 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 105 
 
 the air within the lodge was stifling, and without 
 the garden waited, breathless. Everything seem- 
 ed pervaded by a poignant distress; the hush of 
 feverish, intolerable expectation. The still earth, 
 the heavy flowers, even the growing darkness, 
 breathed the exhaustion of protracted waiting. 
 Caroline felt that she ought to go; that it was 
 wrong to stay; that the hour and the place were 
 as treacherous as her own reflections. She rose 
 and began to pace the floor, stepping softly, as 
 though in fear of awakening some one, her fig- 
 ure, in its thin drapery, diaphanously vague 
 and white. Still unable to shake off the obsession 
 of the intense stillness, she sat down at the piano 
 and began to run over the first act of the WalJciire, 
 the last of his roles they had practised together; 
 playing listlessly and absently at first, but with 
 gradually increasing seriousness. Perhaps it 
 was the still heat of the summer night, per- 
 haps it was the heavy odours from the garden that 
 came in through the open windows ; but as she 
 played there grew and grew the feeling that he 
 was there, beside her, standing in his accus- 
 tomed place. In the duett at the end of the first 
 act she heard him clearly: " Thou art the Spring 
 for which I sighed in Winter's cold embraces." 
 
106 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Once as he sang it, he had put his arm about her, 
 his one hand under her heart, while with the 
 other he took her right from the keyboard, hold- 
 ing her as he always held Sieglinde when he 
 drew her toward the window. She had been won- 
 derfully the mistress of herself at the time; 
 neither repellant nor acquiescent. She remem- 
 bered that she had rather exulted, then, in 
 her self-control — which he had seemed to take 
 for granted, though there was perhaps the 
 whisper of a question from the hand under 
 her heart. " Thou art the Spring for which I 
 sighed in Winter's cold embraces." Caroline 
 lifted her hands quickly from the keyboard, and 
 she bowed her head in them, sobbing. 
 
 The storm broke and the rain beat in, spat- 
 tering her night-dress until she rose and lowered 
 the windows. She dropped upon the couch and 
 began fighting over again the battles of other 
 days, while the ghosts of the slain rose as from a 
 sowing of dragon's teeth. The shadows of things, 
 always so scorned and flouted, bore down upon 
 her merciless and triumphant. It was not enough; 
 this happy, useful, well-ordered life was not 
 enough. It did not satisfy, it was not even real. 
 No, the other things, the shadows — they were 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 107 
 
 the realities. Her father, poor Heinrich, even her 
 mother, who had been able to sustain her poor 
 romance and keep her little illusions amid the 
 tasks of a scullion, were nearer happiness than 
 she. Her sure foundation was but made ground, 
 after all, and the people in Klingsor's garden 
 were more fortunate, however barren the sands 
 from which they conjured their paradise. 
 
 The lodge was still and silent; her fit of weep- 
 ing over, Caroline made no sound, and within 
 the room, as without in the garden, was the black- 
 ness of storm. Only now and then a flash of 
 lightning showed a woman's slender figure rigid 
 on the couch, her face buried in her hands. 
 
 Toward morning, when the occasional rum- 
 bling of thunder was heard no more and the beat 
 of the rain drops upon the orchard leaves was 
 steadier, she fell asleep and did not waken until 
 the first red streaks of dawn shone through the 
 twisted boughs of the apple trees. There was a 
 moment between world and world, when, neither 
 asleep nor awake, she felt her dream grow thin, 
 melting away from her, felt the warmth under 
 her heart growing cold. Something seemed to 
 slip from the clinging hold of her arms, and she 
 groaned protestingly through her parted lips, 
 
108 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 following it a little way with fluttering hands. 
 Then her eyes opened wide and she sprang up 
 and sat holding dizzily to the cushions of the 
 couch, staring down at her bare, cold feet, at her 
 labouring breast, rising and falling under her 
 open night-dress. 
 
 The dream was gone, but the feverish reality 
 of it still pervaded her and she held it as the vib- 
 rating string holds a tone. In the last hour the 
 shadows had had their way with Caroline. They 
 had shown her the nothingness of time and space, 
 of system and discipline, of closed doors and 
 broad waters. Shuddering, she thought of the 
 Arabian fairy tale in which the Genii brought 
 the princess of China to the sleeping prince of 
 Damascus, and carried her through the air back 
 to her palace at dawn. Caroline closed her eyes 
 and dropped her elbows weakly upon her knees, 
 her shoulders sinking together. The horror 
 was that it had not come from without, but from 
 within. The dream was no blind chance; it 
 was the expression of something she had kept 
 so close a prisoner that she had never seen it her- 
 self ; it was the wail from the donjon deeps when 
 the watch slept. Only as the outcome of such a 
 night of sorcery could the thing have been loosed 
 
THE GARDEN LODGE 109 
 
 to straighten its limbs and measure itself with 
 her; so heavy were the chains upon it, so many a 
 fathom deep it was crushed down into darkness. 
 The fact that d'Esquerre happened to be on the 
 other side of the world meant nothing; had he 
 been here, beside her, it could scarcely have hurt 
 her self-respect so much. As it was, she was with- 
 out even the extenuation of an outer impulse, and 
 she could scarcely have despised herself more had 
 she come to him here in the night three weeks 
 ago and thrown herself down upon the stone 
 slab at the door there. 
 
 Caroline rose unsteadily and crept guiltily 
 from the lodge and along the path under the 
 arbour, terrified lest the servants should be stir- 
 ring, trembling with the chill air, while the wet 
 shrubbery, brushing against her, drenched her 
 night-dress until it clung about her limbs. 
 
 At breakfast her husband looked across the 
 table at her with concern. "It seems to me that 
 you are looking rather fagged, Caroline. It was 
 a beastly night to sleep. Why don't you go up to 
 the mountains until this hot weather is over ? By 
 the way, were you in earnest about letting the 
 lodge stand ?" 
 
 Caroline laughed quietly. "No, I find I was 
 
110 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 not very serious. I haven't sentiment enough to 
 forego a summer-house. Will you tell Baker to 
 come to-morrow to talk it over with me? If we 
 are to have a house party, I should like to put 
 him to work on it at once." 
 
 Noble gave her a glance, half humorous, 
 half vexed. "Do you know I am rather disap- 
 pointed?" he said. "I had almost hoped that, 
 just for once, you know, you would be a little bit 
 foolish," 
 
 "Not now that I've slept over it," replied 
 Caroline, and they both rose from the table, 
 laughing. 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 
 
 Everett Hilgarde was conscious that the man in 
 the seat across the aisle was looking at him intent- 
 ly. He was a large, florid man, wore a conspicu- 
 ous diamond solitaire upon his third finger, and 
 Everett judged him to be a travelling salesman of 
 some sort. He had the air of an adaptable fellow 
 who had been about the world and who could 
 keep cool and clean under almost any circum- 
 stances. 
 
 The "High Line Flyer," as this train was de- 
 risively called among railroad men, was jerking 
 along through the hot afternoon over the mo- 
 notonous country between Holdridge and Chey- 
 enne. Besides the blond man and himself the 
 only occupants of the car were two dusty, be- 
 draggled-looking girls who had been to the Ex- 
 position at Chicago, and who were earnestly dis- 
 cussing the cost of their first trip out of Colorado. 
 The four uncomfortable passengers were covered 
 
114 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 with a sediment of fine, yellow dust which clung 
 to their hair and eyebrows like gold powder. It 
 blew up in clouds from the bleak, lifeless country 
 through which they passed, until they were one 
 colour with the sage-brush and sand-hills. The 
 grey and yellow desert was varied only by occa- 
 sional ruins of deserted towns, and the little red 
 boxes of station-houses, where the spindling trees 
 and sickly vines in the blue-grass yards made 
 little green reserves fenced off in that confusing 
 wilderness of sand. 
 
 As the slanting rays of the sun beat in stronger 
 and stronger through the car- windows, the blond 
 gentleman asked the ladies' permission to remove 
 his coat, and sat in his lavender striped shirt- 
 sleeves, with a black silk handkerchief tucked 
 carefully about his collar. He had seemed inter- 
 ested in Everett since they had boarded the train 
 at Holdridge, and kept glancing at him curiously 
 and then looking reflectively out of the window, 
 as though he were trying to recall something. But 
 wherever Everett went some one was almost sure 
 to look at him with that curious interest, and it 
 had ceased to embarrass or annoy him. Presently 
 the stranger, seeming satisfied with his observa- 
 tion, leaned back in his seat, half closed his eyes, 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 115 
 
 and began softly to whistle the Spring Song from 
 Proserpine, the cantata that a dozen years be- 
 fore had made its young composer famous in a 
 night. Everett had heard that air on guitars in Old 
 Mexico, on mandolins at college glees, on cottage 
 organs in New England hamlets, and only two 
 weeks ago he had heard it played on sleighbells at 
 a variety theatre in Denver. There was literally 
 no way of escaping his brother's precocity. 
 Adriance could live on the other side of the At- 
 lantic, where his youthful indiscretions were 
 forgotten in his mature achievements, but his 
 brother had never been able to outrun Proser- 
 pine, and here he found it again in the Colo- 
 rado sand-hills. Not that Everett was [exactly 
 ashamed of Proserpine \ only a man of gen- 
 ius could have written it, but it was the sort of 
 thing that a man of genius outgrows as soon as 
 he can. 
 
 Everett unbent a trifle, and smiled at his neigh- 
 bour across the aisle. Immediately the large man 
 rose and coming over dropped into the seat fac- 
 ing Hilgarde, extending his card. 
 
 "Dusty ride, isn't it? I don't mind it myself; 
 I'm used to it. Born and bred in de briar patch, 
 like Br'er Rabbit. I've been trying to place you 
 
116 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 for a long time ; I think I must have met you be- 
 fore." 
 
 "Thank you," said Everett, taking the card; 
 "my name is Hilgarde. You've probably met my 
 brother, Adriance; people often mistake me for 
 him." 
 
 The travelling-man brought his hand down 
 upon his knee with such vehemence that the soli- 
 taire blazed. 
 
 "So I was right after all, and if you're not 
 Adriance Hilgarde you're his double. I thought 
 I couldn't be mistaken. Seen him ? Well, I guess ! 
 I never missed one of his recitals at the Audi- 
 torium, and he played the piano score of Pros- 
 erpine through to us once at the Chicago Press 
 Club. I used to be on the Commercial there before 
 I began to travel for the publishing department of 
 the concern. So you're Hilgarde's brother, and 
 here I've run into you at the jumping-off place. 
 Sounds like a newspaper yarn, doesn't it ?" 
 
 The travelling-man laughed and offered Ever- 
 ett a cigar and plied him with questions on the 
 only subject that people ever seemed to care to 
 talk to Everett about. At length the salesman and 
 the two girls alighted at a Colorado way station, 
 and Everett went on to Cheyenne alone. 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 117 
 
 The train pulled into Cheyenne at nine o'clock, 
 late by a matter of four hours or so; but no one 
 seemed particularly concerned at its tardiness 
 except the station agent, who grumbled at being 
 kept in the office over time on a summer night. 
 When Everett alighted from the train he walked 
 down the platform and stopped at the track 
 crossing, uncertain as to what direction he should 
 take to reach a hotel. A phaeton stood near the 
 crossing and a woman held the reins. She was 
 dressed in white, and her figure was clearly sil- 
 houetted against the cushions, though it was too 
 dark to see her face. Everett had scarcely no- 
 ticed her, when the switch-engine came puffing 
 up from the opposite direction, and the head- 
 light threw a strong glare of light on his face. 
 Suddenly the woman in the phaeton uttered a 
 low cry and dropped the reins. Everett started for- 
 ward and caught the horse's head, but the animal 
 only lifted its ears and whisked its tail in impa- 
 tient surprise. The woman sat perfectly still, her 
 head sunk between her shoulders and her hand- 
 kerchief pressed to her face. Another woman 
 came out of the depot and hurried toward the 
 phaeton, crying, "Katharine, dear, what is the 
 matter?" 
 
118 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Everett hesitated a moment in painful em- 
 barrassment, then lifted his hat and passed on. 
 He was accustomed to sudden recognitions in the 
 most impossible places, especially by women, but 
 this cry out of the night had shaken him. 
 
 While Everett was breakfasting the next morn- 
 ing, the head waiter leaned over his chair to mur- 
 mur that there was a gentleman waiting to see 
 him in the parlour. Everett finished his coffee, 
 and went in the direction indicated, where he 
 found his visitor restlessly pacing the floor. His 
 whole manner betrayed a high degree of agita- 
 tion, though his physique was not that of a 
 man whose nerves lie near the surface. He was 
 something below medium height, square-should- 
 ered and solidly built. His thick, closely cut hair 
 was beginning to show grey about the ears, and 
 his bronzed face was heavily lined. His square 
 brown hands were locked behind him, and he 
 held his shoulders like a man conscious of re- 
 sponsibilities, yet, as he turned to greet Everett, 
 there was an incongruous diffidence in his ad- 
 dress. 
 
 "Good-morning, Mr. Hilgarde," he said, ex- 
 tending his hand; "I found your name on the 
 hotel register. My name is Gaylord. I'm afraid 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 119 
 
 my sister startled you at the station last night, 
 Mr. Hilgarde, and I've come around to apolo- 
 gize." 
 
 " Ah ! the young lady in the phaeton ? I'm sure 
 I didn't know whether I had anything to do with 
 her alarm or not. If I did, it is I who owe the 
 apology." 
 
 The man coloured a little under the dark 
 brown of his face. 
 
 "Oh, it's nothing you could help, sir, I fully 
 understand that. You see, my sister used to be a 
 pupil of your brother's, and it seems you favour 
 him ; and when the switch-engine threw a light on 
 your face it startled her." 
 
 Everett wheeled about in his chair. "Oh! 
 Katharine Gaylord! Is it possible! Now it's you 
 who have given me a turn. Why, I used to know 
 her when I was a boy. What on earth — ' 
 
 "Is she doing here ?" said Gaylord, grimly fill- 
 ing out the pause. " You've got at the heart of the 
 matter. You knew my sister had been in bad 
 health for a long time?" 
 
 "No, I had never heard a word of that. The 
 last I knew of her she was singing in London. My 
 brother and I correspond infrequently, and sel- 
 dom get beyond family matters. I am deeply 
 
120 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 sorry to hear this. There are many reasons why I 
 am concerned than I can tell you. " 
 
 The lines in Charley Gaylord's brow relaxed 
 a little. 
 
 " What I'm trying to say, Mr. Hilgarde, is that 
 she wants to see you. I hate to ask you, but she's 
 so set on it. We live several miles out of town, 
 but my rig's below, and I can take you out any 
 time you can go." 
 
 "I can go now, and it will give me real pleas- 
 ure to do so, "said Everett, quickly. "I'll get my 
 hat and be with you in a moment. " 
 
 When he came downstairs Everett found a cart 
 at the door, and Charley Gaylord drew a long 
 sigh of relief as he gathered up the reins and set- 
 tled back into his own element. 
 
 "You see, I think I'd better tell you some- 
 thing about my sister before you see her, and I 
 don't know just where to begin. She travelled in 
 Europe with your brother and his wife, and sang 
 at a lot of his concerts; but I don't know just 
 how much you know about her. " 
 
 "Very little, except that my brother always 
 thought her the most gifted of his pupils, and that 
 when I knew her she was very young and very 
 beautiful and turned my head sadly for a while. " 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 121 
 
 Everett saw that Gaylord's mind was quite en- 
 grossed by his grief. He was wrought up to the 
 point where his reserve and sense of proportion 
 had quite left him, and his trouble was the one 
 vital thing in the world. " That's the whole thing," 
 he went on, flecking his horses with the whip. 
 
 " She was a great woman, as you say, and she 
 didn't come of a great family. She had to fight her 
 own way from the first. She got to Chicago, and 
 then to New York, and then to Europe, where 
 she went up like lightning, and got a taste for it 
 all; and now she's dying here like a rat in a hole, 
 out of her own world, and she can't fall back into 
 ours. We've grown apart, some way — miles and 
 miles apart — and I'm afraid she's fearfully un- 
 happy." 
 
 " It's a very tragic story that you are telling me, 
 Gaylord, " said Everett. They were well out into 
 the country now, spinning along over the dusty 
 plains of red grass, with the ragged blue outline of 
 the mountains before them. 
 
 "Tragic!" cried Gaylord, starting up in his 
 seat, " my God, man, nobody will ever know how 
 tragic. It's a tragedy I live with and eat with 
 and sleep with, until I've lost my grip on every- 
 thing. You see she had made a good bit of money, 
 
122 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 but she spent it all going to health resorts. It's 
 her lungs, you know. I've got money enough to 
 send her anywhere, but the doctors all say it's 
 no use. She hasn't the ghost of a chance. It's 
 just getting through the days now. I had no no- 
 tion she was half so bad before she came to me. 
 She just wrote that she was all run down. Now 
 that she's here, I think she'd be happier any- 
 where under the sun, but she won't leave. She says 
 it's easier to let go of life here, and that to go East 
 would be dying twice. There was a time when I 
 was a brakeman with a run out of Bird City, 
 Iowa, and she was a little thing I could carry on 
 my shoulder, when I could get her everything on 
 earth she wanted, and she hadn't a wish my $80 
 a month didn't cover; and now, when I've got a 
 little property together, I can't buy her a night's 
 sleep!" 
 
 Everett saw that, whatever Charley Gaylord's 
 present status in the world might be, he had 
 brought the brakeman's heart up the ladder with 
 him, and the brakeman's frank avowal of senti- 
 ment. Presently Gaylord went on : 
 
 'You can understand how she has outgrown 
 her family. We're all a pretty common sort, rail- 
 roaders from away back. My father was a con- 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT 123 
 
 ductor. He died when we were kids. Maggie, my 
 other sister, who lives with me, was a telegraph 
 operator here while I was getting my grip on 
 things. We had no education to speak of. I have 
 to hire a stenographer because I can't spell 
 straight — the Almighty couldn't teach me to 
 spell. The things that make up life to Kate are all 
 Greek to me, and there's scarcely a point where 
 we touch any more, except in our recollections of 
 the old times when we were all young and happy 
 together, and Kate sang in a church choir in Bird 
 City. But I believe, Mr. Hilgarde, that if she can 
 see just one person like you, who knows about 
 the things and people she's interested in, it will 
 give her about the only comfort she can have 
 now. " 
 
 The reins slackened in Charley Gaylord's hand 
 as they drew up before a showily painted house 
 with many gables and a round tower. "Here we 
 are," he said, turning to Everett, "and I guess 
 we understand each other. " 
 
 They were met at the door by a thin, colour- 
 less woman, whom Gaylord introduced as "My 
 sister, Maggie. " She asked her brother to show 
 Mr. Hilgarde into the music-room, where Kath- 
 arine wished to see him alone. 
 
124 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 When Everett entered the music-room he gave 
 a little start of surprise, feeling that he had step- 
 ped from the glaring Wyoming sunlight into some 
 New York studio that he had always known. He 
 wondered which it was of those countless studios, 
 high up under the roofs, over banks and shops 
 and wholesale houses, that this room resembled, 
 and he looked incredulously out of the window at 
 the grey plain that ended in the great upheaval of 
 the Rockies. 
 
 The haunting air of familiarity about the room 
 perplexed him. Was it a copy of some particular 
 studio he knew, or was it merely the studio at- 
 mosphere that seemed so individual and poig- 
 nantly reminiscent here in Wyoming ? He sat 
 down in a reading-chair and looked keenly about 
 him. Suddenly his eye fell upon a large photo- 
 graph of his brother above the piano. Then it all 
 became clear to him : this was veritably his broth- 
 er's room. If it were not an exact copy of one of 
 the many studios that Adriance had fitted up in 
 various parts of the world, wearying of them and 
 leaving almost before the renovator's varnish had 
 dried, it was at least in the same tone. In every 
 detail Adriance's taste was so manifest that the 
 room seemed to exhale his personality. 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 125 
 
 Among the photographs on the wall there was 
 one of Katharine Gaylord, taken in the days 
 when Everett had known her, and when the flash 
 of her eye or the flutter of her skirt was enough 
 to set his boyish heart in a tumult. Even now, he 
 stood before the portrait with a certain degree of 
 embarrassment. It was the face of a woman al- 
 ready old in her first youth, thoroughly sophisti- 
 cated and a trifle hard, and it told of what her 
 brother had called her fight. The camaraderie of 
 her frank, confident eyes was qualified by the 
 deep lines about her mouth and the curve of the 
 lips, which was both sad and cynical. Certainly 
 she had more good-will than confidence toward 
 the world, and the bravado of her smile could 
 not conceal the shadow of an unrest that was 
 almost discontent. The chief charm of the wo- 
 man, as Everett had known her, lay in her su- 
 perb figure and in her eyes, which possessed a 
 warm, life-giving quality like the sunlight; eyes 
 which glowed with a sort of perpetual salutat 
 to the world. Her head, Everett remembered 
 as peculiarly well shaped and proudly poised. 
 There had been always a little of the impera- 
 trix about her, and her pose in the photograph 
 revived all his old impressions of her unattached- 
 
126 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 ness, of how absolutely and valiantly she stood 
 alone. 
 
 Everett was still standing before the picture, his 
 hands behind him and his head inclined, when he 
 heard the door open. A very tall woman advanced 
 toward him, holding out her hand. As she started 
 to speak she coughed slightly, then, laughing, 
 said, in a low, rich voice, a trifle husky: "You see 
 I make the traditional Camille entrance — with 
 the cough. How good of you to come, Mr. Hil- 
 garde. " 
 
 Everett was acutely conscious that while ad- 
 dressing him she was not looking at him at all, 
 and, as he assured her of his pleasure in coming, 
 he was glad to have an opportunity to collect him- 
 self. He had not reckoned upon the ravages of a 
 long illness. The long, loose folds of her white 
 gown had been especially designed to conceal the 
 sharp outlines of her emaciated body, but the 
 stamp of her disease was there ; simple and ugly 
 and obtrusive, a pitiless fact that could not be 
 disguised or evaded. The splendid shoulders were 
 stooped, there was a swaying unevenness in her 
 gait, her arms seemed disproportionately long, 
 and her hands were transparently white, and cold 
 to the touch. The changes in her face were less ob- 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 127 
 
 vious; the proud carriage of the head, the warm, 
 clear ey^ c even the delicate flush of colour in her 
 checks, all defiantly remained, though they were 
 a 1] in a lower key — older, sadder, softer. 
 
 She sat down upon the divan and began nerv- 
 ously to arrange the pillows. "I know I'm not an 
 inspiring object to look upon, but you must be 
 quite frank and sensible about that and get used 
 to it at once, for we've no time to lose. And if 
 I'm a trifle irritable you won't mind ? — for I'm 
 more than usually nervous." 
 
 " Don't bother with me this morning, if you are 
 tired," urged Everett. "I can come quite as well 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "Gracious, no!" she protested, with a flash of 
 that quick, keen humour that he remembered as 
 a part of her. " It's solitude that I'm tired to death 
 of — solitude and the wrong kind of people. You 
 see, the minister, not content with reading the 
 prayers for the sick, called on me this morning. 
 He happened to be riding by on his bicycle and 
 felt it his duty to stop. Of course, he disapproves 
 of my profession, and I think he takes it for 
 granted that I have a dark past. The funniest fea- 
 ture of his conversation is that he is always ex- 
 cusing my own vocation to me — condoning it, 
 
128 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 you know — and trying to patch up my peace 
 with my conscience by suggesting possible noble 
 uses for what he kindly calls my talent. " 
 
 Everett laughed. "Oh! I'm afraid I'm not the 
 person to call after such a serious gentleman — I 
 can't sustain the situation. At my best I don't 
 reach higher than low comedy. Have you decided 
 to which one of the noble uses you will devote 
 yourself?" 
 
 Katharine lifted her hands in a gesture of re- 
 nunciation and exclaimed : " I'm not equal to any 
 of them, not even the least noble. I didn't study 
 that method." 
 
 She laughed and went on nervously: "The 
 parson's not so bad. His English never offends 
 me, and he has read Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall,' 
 all five volumes, and that's something. Then, he 
 has been to New York, and that's a great deal. 
 But how we are losing time! Do tell me about 
 New York; Charley says you're just on from 
 there. How does it look and taste and smell just 
 now ? I think a whiff of the Jersey ferry would be 
 as flagons of cod-liver oil to me. Who conspicu- 
 ously walks the Rialto now, and what does he or 
 she wear ? Are the trees still green in Madison 
 Square, or have they grown brown and dusty ? 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 129 
 
 Does the chaste Diana on the Garden Theatre 
 still keep her vestal vows through all the ex- 
 asperating changes of weather ? Who has your 
 brother's old studio now, and what misguided 
 aspirants practise their scales in the rookeries 
 about Carnegie Hall ? What do people go to see 
 at the theatres, and what do they eat and drink 
 there in the world nowadays ? You see, I'm home- 
 sick for it all, from the Battery to Riverside. Oh, 
 let me die in Harlem!" she was interrupted by 
 a violent attack of coughing, and Everett, em- 
 barrassed by her discomfort, plunged into gossip 
 about the professional people he had met in town 
 during the summer, and the musical outlook for 
 the winter. He was diagraming with his pencil, 
 on the back of an old envelope he found in his 
 pocket, some new mechanical device to be used 
 at the Metropolitan in the production of the 
 Rheingold, when he became conscious that she 
 was looking at him intently, and that he was talk- 
 ing to the four walls. 
 
 Katharine was lying back among the pillows, 
 watching him through half-closed eyes, as a 
 painter looks at a picture. He finished his ex- 
 planation vaguely enough and put the envelope 
 back in his pocket. As he did so, she said, quietly: 
 
130 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 "How wonderfully like Adriance you are!" and 
 he felt as though a crisis of some sort had been 
 met and tided over. 
 
 He laughed, looking up at her with a touch of 
 pride in his eyes that made them seem quite boy- 
 ish. "Yes, isn't it absurd? It's almost as awk- 
 ward as looking like Napoleon — But, after all, 
 there are some advantages. It has made some 
 of his friends like me, and I hope it will make 
 you. " 
 
 Katharine smiled and gave him a quick, mean- 
 ing glance from under her lashes. "Oh, it did 
 that long ago. What a haughty, reserved youth 
 you were then, and how you used to stare at 
 people, and then blush and look cross if they 
 paid you back in your own coin. Do you remem- 
 ber that night when you took me home from a re- 
 hearsal, and scarcely spoke a word to me ?" 
 
 "It was the silence of admiration," protested 
 Everett, "very crude and boyish, but very sincere 
 and not a little painful. Perhaps you suspected 
 something of the sort ? I remember you saw fit 
 to be very grown up and worldly. " 
 
 "I believe I suspected a pose; the one that col- 
 lege boys usually affect with singers — ' an earth- 
 en vessel in love with a star,' you know. But it 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 131 
 
 rather surprised me in you, for you must have 
 seen a good deal of your brother's pupils. Or had 
 you an omnivorous capacity, and elasticity that 
 always met the occasion?" 
 
 "Don't ask a man to confess the follies of his 
 youth, " said Everett, smiling a little sadly; "I am 
 sensitive about some of them even now. But I 
 was not so sophisticated as you imagined. I saw 
 my brother's pupils come and go, but that was 
 about all. Sometimes I was called on to play ac- 
 companiments, or to fill out a vacancy at a re- 
 hearsal, or to order a carriage for an infuriated 
 soprano who had thrown up her part. But they 
 never spent any time on me, unless it was to 
 notice the resemblance you speak of. " 
 
 "Yes," observed Katharine, thoughtfully, "I 
 noticed it then, too; but it has grown as you have 
 grown older. That is rather strange, when you 
 have lived such different lives. It's not merely an 
 ordinary family likeness of feature, you know, 
 but a sort of interchangeable individuality; the 
 suggestion of the other man's personality in your 
 face — like an air transposed to another key. But 
 I'm not attempting to define it; it's beyond me; 
 something altogether unusual and a trifle — well, 
 uncanny," she finished, laughing. 
 
132 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 "I remember," Everett said, seriously, twirl- 
 ing the pencil between his fingers and looking, as 
 he sat with his head thrown back, out under the 
 red window-blind which was raised just a little, 
 and as it swung back and forth in the wind re- 
 vealed the glaring panorama of the desert — a 
 blinding stretch of yellow, flat as the sea in dead 
 calm, splotched here and there with deep purple 
 shadows ; and, beyond, the ragged blue outline of 
 the mountains and the peaks of snow, white as 
 the white clouds — "I remember, when I was a 
 little fellow I used to be very sensitive about it. I 
 don't think it exactly displeased me, or that I 
 would have had it otherwise if I could, but it 
 seemed to me like a birthmark, or something not 
 to be lightly spo'ken of. People were naturally al- 
 ways fonder of Ad than of me, and I used to feel 
 the chill of reflected light pretty often. It came 
 into even my relations with my mother. Ad went 
 abroad to study when he was absurdly young, 
 you know, and mother was all broken up over 
 it. She did her whole duty by each of us, but 
 it was sort of generally understood among us 
 that she'd have made burnt-offerings of us all 
 for Ad any day. I was a little fellow then, and 
 when she sat alone on the porch in the sum- 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 133 
 
 mer dusk, she used sometimes to call me to 
 her and turn my face up in the light that 
 streamed out through the shutters and kiss me, 
 and then I always knew she was thinking of 
 Adriance. " 
 
 "Poor little chap," said Katharine, and her 
 tone was a trifle huskier than usual. "How fond 
 people have always been of Adriance! Now tell 
 me the latest news of him. I haven't heard, except 
 through the press, for a year or more. He was in 
 Algiers then, in the valley of the Chelif, riding 
 horseback night and day in an Arabian cos- 
 tume, and in his usual enthusiastic fashion he 
 had quite made up his mind to adopt the Ma- 
 hometan faith and become as nearly an Arab as 
 possible. How many countries and faiths has he 
 adopted, I wonder? Probably he was playing 
 Arab to himself all the time. I remember he was a 
 sixteenth-century duke in Florence once for 
 weeks together." 
 
 "Oh, that's Adriance," chuckled Everett. "He 
 is himself barely long enough to write checks and 
 be measured for his clothes. I didn't hear from 
 him while he was an Arab; I missed that. " 
 
 "He was writing an Algerian suite for the 
 piano then; it must be in the publisher's hands by 
 
134 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 this time. I have been too ill to answer his letter, 
 and have lost touch with him. " 
 
 Everett drew a letter from his pocket. "This 
 came about a month ago. It's chiefly about his 
 new opera which is to be brought out in London 
 next winter. Read it at your leisure. " 
 
 " I think I shall keep it as a hostage, so that I 
 may be sure you will come again. Now I want you 
 to play for me. Whatever you like; but if there is 
 anything new in the world, in mercy let me hear 
 it. For nine months I have heard nothing but 
 'The Baggage Coach Ahead' and 'She is My 
 Baby's Mother.'" 
 
 He sat down at the piano, and Katharine sat 
 near him, absorbed in his remarkable physical 
 likeness to his brother, and trying to discover in 
 just what it consisted. She told herself that it was 
 very much as though a sculptor's finished work 
 had been rudely copied in wood. He was of a 
 larger build than Adriance, and his shoulders 
 were broad and heavy, while those of his brother 
 were slender and rather girlish. His face was of 
 the same oval mould, but it was grey, and dark- 
 ened about the mouth by continual shaving. His 
 eyes were of the same inconstant April colour, but 
 they were reflective and rather dull; while Adri- 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 135 
 
 ance's were always points of high light, and al- 
 ways meaning another thing than the thing they 
 meant yesterday. But it was hard to see why this 
 earnest man should so continually suggest that 
 lyric, youthful face that was as gay as his was 
 grave. For Adriance, though he was ten years the 
 elder, and though his hair was streaked with 
 silver, had the face of a boy of twenty, so mobile 
 that it told his thoughts before he could put them 
 into words. A contralto, famous for the extrav- 
 agance of her vocal methods and of her affections 
 had once said of him that the shepherd-boys 
 who sang in the Vale of Tempe must certainly 
 have looked like young Hilgarde; and the com- 
 parison had been appropriated by a hundred 
 shyer women who preferred to quote. 
 
 As Everett sat smoking on the veranda of the 
 Inter-Ocean House that night, he was a victim 
 to random recollections. His infatuation for 
 Katharine Gaylord, visionary as it was, had been 
 the most serious of his boyish love-affairs, and 
 had long disturbed his bachelor dreams. He was 
 painfully timid in everything relating to the 
 emotions, and his hurt had withdrawn him from 
 the society of women. The fact that it was all 
 
136 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 so done and dead and far behind him, and that 
 the woman had lived her life out since then, gave 
 him an oppressive sense of age and loss. He be- 
 thought himself of something he had read about 
 " sitting by the hearth and remembering the faces 
 of women without desire/' and felt himself an 
 octogenarian. 
 
 He remembered how bitter and morose he had 
 grown during his stay at his brother's studio 
 when Katharine Gaylord was working there, and 
 how he had wounded Adriance on the night of 
 his last concert in New York. He had sat there 
 in the box while his brother and Katharine were 
 called back again and again after the last number, 
 watching the roses go up over the footlights until 
 they were stacked half as high as the piano, 
 brooding, in his sullen boy's heart, upon the pride 
 those two felt in each other's work — spurring 
 each other to their best and beautifully contend- 
 ing in song. The footlights had seemed a hard, 
 glittering line drawn sharply between their life 
 and his; a circle of flame set about those splendid 
 children of genius. He walked back to his hotel 
 alone, and sat in his window staring out on Madi- 
 son Square until long after midnight, resolving to 
 beat no more at doors that he could never enter, 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 137 
 
 and realizing more keenly than ever before how 
 far this glorious world of beautiful creations lay 
 from the paths of men like himself. He told him- 
 self that he had in common with this woman only 
 the baser uses of life. 
 
 Everett's week in Cheyenne stretched to three, 
 and he saw no prospect of release except through 
 the thing he dreaded. The bright, windy days of 
 the Wyoming autumn passed swiftly. Letters and 
 telegrams came urging him to hasten his trip to 
 the coast, but he resolutely postponed his busi- 
 ness engagements. The mornings he spent on one 
 of Charley Gaylord's ponies, or fishing in the 
 mountains, and in the evenings he sat in his room 
 writing letters or reading. In the afternoon he 
 was usually at his post of duty. Destiny, he re- 
 flected, seems to have very positive notions about 
 the sort of parts we are fitted to play. The scene 
 changes and the compensation varies, but in the 
 end we usually find that we have played the same 
 class of business from first to last. Everett had 
 been a stop-gap all his life. He remembered go- 
 ing through a looking-glass labyrinth when he 
 was a boy, and trying gallery after gallery, only 
 at every turn to bump his nose against his own 
 
138 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 face — which, indeed, was not his own, but his 
 brother's. No matter what his mission, east or 
 west, by land or sea, he was sure to find himself 
 employed in his brother's business, one of the 
 tributary lives which helped to swell the shining 
 current of Adriance Hilgarde's. It was not the 
 first time that his duty had been to comfort, as 
 best he could, one of the broken things his broth- 
 er's imperious speed had cast aside and forgotten. 
 He made no attempt to analyse the situation or 
 to state it in exact terms; but he felt Katharine 
 Gaylord's need for him, and he accepted it as a 
 commission from his brother to help this woman 
 to die. Day by day he felt her demands on him 
 grow more imperious, her need for him grow 
 more acute and positive; and day by day he felt 
 that in his peculiar relation to her, his own indi- 
 viduality played a smaller and smaller part. His 
 power to minister to her comfort, he saw, lay solely 
 in his link with his brother's life. He understood 
 all that his physical resemblance meant to her. 
 He knew that she sat by him always watching for 
 some common trick of gesture, some familiar play 
 of expression, some illusion of light and shadow, 
 in which he should seem wholly Adriance. He 
 knew that she lived upon this and that her dis- 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 139 
 
 ease fed upon it ; that it sent shudders of remem- 
 brance through her and that in the exhaustion 
 which followed this turmoil of her dying senses, 
 she slept deep and sweet, and dreamed of youth 
 and art and days in a certain old Florentine gar- 
 den, and not of bitterness and death. 
 
 The question which most perplexed him was, 
 " How much shall I know ? How much does she 
 wish me to know?" A few days after his first 
 meeting with Katharine Gaylord, he had cabled 
 his brother to write her. He had merely said that 
 she was mortally ill ; he could depend on Adriance 
 to say the right thing — that was a part of his gift. 
 Adriance always said not only the right thing, but 
 the opportune, graceful, exquisite thing. His 
 phrases took the colour of the moment and the 
 then present condition, so that they never savour- 
 ed of perfunctory compliment or frequent us- 
 age. He always caught the lyric essence of the 
 moment, the poetic suggestion of every situation. 
 Moreover, he usually did the right thing, the op- 
 portune, graceful, exquisite thing — except, when 
 he did very cruel things — bent upon making 
 people happy when their existence touched his, 
 just as he insisted that his material environment 
 should be beautiful; lavishing upon those near 
 
140 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 him all the warmth and radiance of his rich na- 
 ture, all the homage of the poet and troubadour, 
 and, when they were no longer near, forgetting — 
 for that also was a part of Adriance's gift. 
 
 Three weeks after Everett had sent his cable, 
 when he made his daily call at the gayly painted 
 ranch-house, he found Katharine laughing like a 
 school-girl. "Have you ever thought," she said, 
 as he entered the music-room, "how much these 
 seances of ours are like Heine's 'Florentine 
 Nights,' except that I don't give you an oppor- 
 tunity to monopolize the conversation as Heine 
 did ?" She held his hand longer than usual as she 
 greeted him, and looked searchingly up into his 
 face. "You are the kindest man living, the 
 kindest," she added, softly. 
 
 Everett's grey face coloured faintly as he drew 
 his hand away, for he felt that this time she was 
 looking at him, and not at a whimsical caricature 
 of his brother. "Why, what have I done now?" 
 he asked, lamely. "I can't remember having sent 
 you any stale candy or champagne since yester- 
 day." 
 
 She drew a letter with a foreign postmark from 
 between the leaves of a book and held it out, 
 smiling. "You got him to write it. Don't say 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 141 
 
 you didn't, for it came direct, you see, and the last 
 address I gave him was a place in Florida. This 
 deed shall be remembered of you when I am with 
 the just in Paradise. But one thing you did not 
 ask him to do, for you didn't know about it. He 
 has sent me his latest work, the new sonata, the 
 most ambitious thing he has ever done, and you 
 are to play it for me directly, though it looks hor- 
 ribly intricate. But first for the letter; I think you 
 would better read it aloud to me." 
 
 Everett sat down in a low chair facing the win- 
 dow-seat in which she reclined with a barricade of 
 pillows behind her. He opened the letter, his lash- 
 es half -veiling his kind eyes, and saw to his satis- 
 faction that it was a long one; wonderfully tact- 
 ful and tender, even for Adriance, who was tender 
 with his valet and his stable-boy, with his old 
 gondolier and the beggar-women who prayed to 
 the saints for him. 
 
 The letter was from Granada, written in the 
 Alhambra, as he sat by the fountain of the 
 Patio di Lindaraxa. The air was heavy with the 
 warm fragrance of the South and full of the 
 sound of splashing, running water, as it had been 
 in a certain old garden in Florence, long ago. The 
 sky was one great turquoise, heated until it glow- 
 
142 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 ed. The wonderful Moorish arches threw grace- 
 ful blue shadows all about him. He had sketched 
 an outline of them on the margin of his note- 
 paper. The subtleties of Arabic decoration had 
 cast an unholy spell over him, and the brutal ex- 
 aggerations of Gothic art were a bad dream, 
 easily forgotten. The Alhambra itself had, from 
 the first, seemed perfectly familiar to him, and he 
 knew that he must have trod that court, sleek and 
 brown and obsequious, centuries before Ferdi- 
 nand rode into Andalusia. The letter was full of 
 confidences about his work, and delicate allusions 
 to their old happy days of study and comrade- 
 ship, and of her own work, still so warmly re- 
 membered and appreciatively discussed every- 
 where he went. 
 
 As Everett folded the letter he felt that Adri- 
 ance had divined the thing needed and had risen 
 to it in his own wonderful way. The letter was 
 consistently egotistical, and seemed to him even a 
 trifle patronizing, yet it was just what she had 
 wanted. A strong realization of his brother's 
 charm and intensity and power came over him; 
 he felt the breath of that whirlwind of flame in 
 which Adriance passed, consuming all in his 
 path, and himself even more resolutely than he 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 143 
 
 consumed others. Then he looked down at this 
 white, burnt-out brand that lay before him." Like 
 him, isn't it ?" she said, quietly. 
 
 "I think I can scarcely answer his letter, but 
 when you see him next you can do that for me. I 
 want you to tell him many things for me, yet they 
 can all be summed up in this : I want him to grow 
 wholly into his best and greatest self, even at the 
 cost of the dear boyishness that is half his charm 
 to you and me. Do you understand me ?" 
 
 "I know perfectly well what you mean," an- 
 swered Everett, thoughtfully. "I have often felt 
 so about him myself. And yet it's difficult to 
 prescribe for those fellows; so little makes, so 
 little mars." 
 
 Katharine raised herself upon her elbow, and 
 her face flushed with feverish earnestness. "Ah, 
 but it is the waste of himself that I mean; his 
 lashing himself out on stupid and uncompre- 
 hending people until they take him at their own 
 estimate. He can kindle marble, strike fire from 
 putty, but is it worth what it costs him ?" 
 
 "Come, come," expostulated Everett, alarmed 
 at her excitement. "Where is the new sonata? 
 Let him speak for himself." 
 
 He sat down at the piano and began playing 
 
144 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 the first movement which was indeed the voice of 
 Adriance, his proper speech. The sonata was 
 the most ambitious work he had done up to 
 that time, and marked the transition from his 
 purely lyric vein to a deeper and nobler style. 
 Everett played intelligently and with that sym- 
 pathetic comprehension which seems peculiar to 
 a certain lovable class of men who never accom- 
 plish anything in particular. When he had finished 
 he turned to Katharine. 
 
 "How he has grown!" she cried. "What 
 the three last years have done for him! He 
 used to write only the tragedies of passion ; but 
 this is the tragedy of the soul, the shadow co- 
 existent with the soul. This is the tragedy of 
 effort and failure, the thing Keats called hell. 
 This is my tragedy, as I lie here spent by the 
 race-course, listening to the feet of the runners 
 as they pass me — ah, God ! the swift feet of the 
 runners!" 
 
 She turned her face away and covered it with 
 her straining hands. Everett crossed over to her 
 quickly and knelt beside her. In all the days he 
 had known her she had never before, beyond an 
 occasional ironical jest, given voice to the bitter- 
 ness of her own defeat. Her courage had become 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 145 
 
 a point of pride with him, and to see it going sick- 
 ened him. 
 
 "Don't do it," he gasped. "I can't stand it, I 
 really can't, I feel it too much. We mustn't 
 speak of that; it's too tragic and too vast. " 
 
 When she turned her face back to him there 
 was a ghost of the old, brave, cynical smile on it, 
 more bitter than the tears she could not shed. 
 "No, I won't be so ungenerous; I will save that 
 for the watches of the night when I have no bet- 
 ter company. Now you may mix me another drink 
 of some sort. Formerly, when it was not if I 
 should ever sing Brunhilda, but quite simply 
 when I should sing Brunhilda, I was always starv- 
 ing myself, and thinking what I might drink and 
 what I might not. But broken music-boxes may 
 drink whatsoever they list, and no one cares 
 whether they lose their figure. Run over that 
 theme at the beginning again. That, at least, is 
 not new. It was running in his head when we were 
 in Venice years ago, and he used to drum it on 
 his glass at the dinner-table. He had just be- 
 gun to work it out when the late autumn came 
 on, and the paleness of the Adriatic oppressed 
 him, and he decided to go to Florence for the 
 winter, and lost touch with the theme during his 
 
146 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 illness. Do you remember those frightful days ? 
 All the people who have loved him are not strong 
 enough to save him from himself! When I got 
 word from Florence that he had been ill, I was in 
 Nice filling a concert engagement. His wife was 
 hurrying to him from Paris, but I reached him 
 first. I arrived at dusk, in a terrific storm. They 
 had taken an old palace there for the winter, and 
 I found him in the library — a long, dark room 
 full of old Latin books and heavy furniture and 
 bronzes. He was sitting by a wood fire at one end 
 of the room, looking, oh, so worn and pale ! — as 
 he always does when he is ill, you know. Ah, it is 
 so good that you do know ! Even his red smoking- 
 jacket lent no colour to his face. His first words 
 were not to tell me how ill he had been, but that 
 that morning he had been well enough to put the 
 last strokes to the score of his ' Souvenirs d' Au- 
 tomne,' and he was, as I most like to remember 
 him ; so calm and happy and tired ; not gay, as he 
 usually is, but just contented and tired with that 
 heavenly tiredness that comes after a good work 
 done at last. Outside, the rain poured down in 
 torrents, and the wind moaned for the pain of all 
 the world and sobbed in the branches of the shiv- 
 ering olives and about the walls of that deso- 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 147 
 
 lated old palace. How that night comes back to 
 me! There were no lights in the room, only the 
 wood fire which glowed upon the hard features 
 of the bronze Dante like the reflection of purga- 
 torial flames, and threw long black shadows about 
 us; beyond us it scarcely penetrated the gloom at 
 all. Adriance sat staring at the fire with the weari- 
 ness of all his life in his eyes, and of all the other 
 lives that must aspire and suffer to make up one 
 such life as his. Somehow the wind with all its 
 world-pain had got into the room, and the cold 
 rain was in our eyes, and the wave came up in 
 both of us at once — that awful vague, universal 
 pain, that cold fear of life and death and God and 
 hope — and we were like two clinging together on 
 a spar in mid-ocean after the shipwreck of every- 
 thing. Then we heard the front door open with a 
 great gust of wind that shook even the walls, and 
 the servants came running with lights, announc- 
 ing that Madame had returned, ' and in the book 
 we read no Trior e that night.' " 
 
 She gave the old line with a certain bitter 
 humour, and with the hard, bright smile in which 
 of old she had wrapped her weakness as in a glit- 
 tering garment. That ironical smile, worn like a 
 mask through so many years, had gradually 
 
148 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 changed even the lines of her face completely, 
 and when she looked in the mirror she saw not 
 herself, but the scathing critic, the amused ob- 
 server and satirist of herself. Everett dropped his 
 head upon his hand and sat looking at the rug. 
 "How much you have cared!" he said. 
 
 "Ah, yes, I cared," she replied, closing her 
 eyes with a long-drawn sigh of relief; and lying 
 perfectly still, she went on: "You can't imagine 
 what a comfort it is to have you know how I cared, 
 what a relief it is to be able to tell it to some one. I 
 used to want to shriek it out to the world in the 
 long nights when I could not sleep. It seemed to 
 me that I could not die with it. It demanded some 
 sort of expression. And now that you know, you 
 would scarcely believe how much less sharp the 
 anguish of it is. " 
 
 Everett continued to look helplessly at the floor. 
 "I was not sure how much you wanted me to 
 know," he said. 
 
 "Oh, I intended you should know from the 
 first time I looked into your face, when you came 
 that day with Charley. I flatter myself that I have 
 been able to conceal it when I chose, though I 
 suppose women always think that. The more ob- 
 serving ones may have seen, but discerning peo- 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 149 
 
 pie are usually discreet and often kind, for we 
 usually bleed a little before we begin to discern. 
 But I wanted you to know; you are so like him 
 that it is almost like telling him himself. At least, 
 I feel now that he will know some day, and then I 
 will be quite sacred from his compassion, for we 
 none of us dare pity the dead. Since it was what 
 my life has chiefly meant, I should like him to 
 know. On the whole, I am not ashamed of it. I 
 have fought a good fight. " 
 
 "And has he never known at all?" asked 
 Everett, in a thick voice. 
 
 " Oh ! never at all in the way that you mean. Of 
 course, he is accustomed to looking into the eyes 
 of women and finding love there; when he doesn't 
 find it there he thinks he must have been guilty of 
 some discourtesy and is miserable about it. He 
 has a genuine fondness for every one who is not 
 stupid or gloomy, or old or preternaturally ugly. 
 Granted youth and cheerfulness, and a moderate 
 amount of wit and some tact, and Adriance will 
 always be glad to see you coming round the cor- 
 ner. I shared with the rest ; shared the smiles and 
 the gallantries and the droll little sermons. It was 
 quite like a Sunday-school picnic; we wore our 
 best clothes and a smile and took our turns. It 
 
150 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 was his kindness that was hardest. I have pretty 
 well used my life up at standing punishment." 
 
 "Don't; you'll make me hate him," groaned 
 Everett. 
 
 Katharine laughed and began to play nerv- 
 ously with her fan. " It wasn't in the slightest de- 
 gree his fault; that is the most grotesque part of 
 it. Why, it had really begun before I ever met 
 him. I fought my way to him, and I drank my 
 doom greedily enough. " 
 
 Everett rose and stood hesitating. "I think I 
 must go. You ought to be quiet, and I don't think 
 I can hear any more just now. " 
 
 She put out her hand and took his playfully. 
 'You've put in three weeks at this sort of thing, 
 haven't you ? Well, it may never be to your glory 
 in this world, perhaps, but it's been the mercy of 
 heaven to me, and it ought to square accounts 
 for a much worse life than yours will ever be." 
 
 Everett knelt beside her, saying, brokenly: 
 "I stayed because I wanted to be with you, 
 that's all. I have never cared about other women 
 since I met you in New York when I was a lad. 
 You are a part of my destiny, and I could not 
 leave you if I would. " 
 
 She put her hands on his shoulders and shook 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 151 
 
 her head. "No, no; don't tell me that. I have seen 
 enough of tragedy, God knows: don't show me 
 any more just as the curtain is going down. No, 
 no, it was only a boy's fancy, and your divine pity 
 and my utter pitiableness have recalled it for a 
 moment. One does not love the dying, dear 
 friend. If some fancy of that sort had been left 
 over from boyhood, this would rid you of it, and 
 that were well. Now go, and you will come again 
 to-morrow, as long as there are to-morrows, will 
 you not?" She took his hand with a smile that 
 lifted the mask from her soul, that was both 
 courage and despair, and full of infinite loyalty 
 and tenderness, as she said softly: 
 
 " For ever and for ever, farewell, Cassius ; 
 If ive do meet again, why, we shall smile ; 
 If not, why then, this farting tvas well made." 
 
 The courage in her eyes was like the clear 
 light of a star to him as he went out. 
 
 On the night of Adriance Hilgarde's opening 
 concert in Paris, Everett sat by the bed in the 
 ranch-house in Wyoming, watching over the last 
 battle that we have with the flesh before we are 
 done with it and free of it forever. At times it 
 
152 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 seemed that the serene soul of her must have left 
 already and found some refuge from the storm, 
 and only the tenacious animal life were left to do 
 battle with death. She laboured under a delusion 
 at once pitiful and merciful, thinking that she was 
 in the Pullman on her way to New York, going 
 back to her life and her work. When she aroused 
 from her stupor, it was only to ask the porter to 
 waken her half an hour out of Jersey City, or to 
 remonstrate with him about the delays and the 
 roughness of the road. At midnight Everett and 
 the nurse were left alone with her. Poor Charley 
 Gaylord had lain down on a couch outside the 
 door. Everett sat looking at the sputtering night- 
 lamp until it made his eyes ache. His head 
 dropped forward on the foot of the bed, and he 
 sank into a heavy, distressful slumber. He was 
 dreaming of Adriance's concert in Paris, and of 
 Adriance, the troubadour, smiling and debon- 
 nair, with his boyish face and the touch of silver 
 grey in his hair. He heard the applause and he 
 saw the roses going up over the footlights until 
 they were stacked half as high as the piano, and 
 the petals fell and scattered, making crimson 
 splotches on the floor. Down this crimson path- 
 way came x\driance with his youthful step, leading 
 
"A DEATH IN THE DESERT" 153 
 
 his prima donna by the hand; a dark woman 
 this time, with Spanish eyes. 
 
 The nurse touched him on the shoulder, he 
 started and awoke. She screened the lamp with 
 her hand. Everett saw that Katharine was awake 
 and conscious, and struggling a little. He lifted 
 her gently on his arm and began to fan her. She 
 laid her hands lightly on his hair and looked into 
 his face with eyes that seemed never to have wept 
 or doubted. "Ah, dear Adriance, dear, dear," 
 she whispered. 
 
 Everett went to call her brother, but when they 
 came back the madness of art was over for 
 Katharine. 
 
 Two days later Everett was pacing the station 
 siding, waiting for the west-bound train. Charley 
 Gaylord walked beside him, but the two men had 
 nothing to say to each other. Everett's bags were 
 piled on the truck, and his step was hurried and 
 his eyes were full of impatience, as he gazed again 
 and again up the track, watching for the train. 
 Gaylord's impatience was not less than his own; 
 these two, who had grown so close, had now be- 
 come painful and impossible to each other, and 
 longed for the wrench of farewell. 
 
 As the train pulled in, Everett wrung Gay- 
 
154 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 lord's hand among the crowd of alighting pas- 
 sengers. The people of a German opera company, 
 en route for the coast, rushed by them in frantic 
 haste to snatch their breakfast during the stop. 
 Everett heard an exclamation in a broad German 
 dialect, and a massive woman whose figure per- 
 sistently escaped from her stays in the most im- 
 probable places rushed up to him, her blond hair 
 disordered by the wind, and glowing with joyful 
 surprise she caught his coat-sleeve with her tight- 
 ly gloved hands. 
 
 " Herr Gott, Adriance, lieber Freund," she 
 cried, emotionally. 
 
 Everett quickly withdrew his arm, and lifted 
 his hat, blushing. "Pardon me, madame, but I 
 see that you have mistaken me for Adriance Hil- 
 garde. I am his brother," he said, quietly, and 
 turning from the crestfallen singer he hurried into 
 the car. 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PHAEDRA 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 
 
 The sequence of events was such that Mac- 
 Master did not make his pilgrimage to Hugh 
 Treffinger's studio until three years after that 
 painter's death. MacMaster was himself a 
 painter, an American of the Gallicized type, 
 who spent his winters in New York, his sum- 
 mers in Paris, and no inconsiderable amount of 
 time on the broad waters between. He had often 
 contemplated stopping in London on one of his 
 return trips in the late autumn, but he had al- 
 ways deferred leaving Paris until the prick of 
 necessity drove him home by the quickest and 
 shortest route. 
 
 Treffinger was a comparatively young man at 
 the time of his death, and there had seemed no 
 occasion for haste until haste was of no avail. 
 Then, possibly, though there had been some 
 correspondence between them, MacMaster felt 
 certain qualms about meeting in the flesh a man 
 
158 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 who in the flesh was so diversely reported. His 
 intercourse with TrefEnger's work had been so 
 deep and satisfying, so apart from other appre- 
 ciations, that he rather dreaded a critical junc- 
 ture of any sort. He had always felt himself singu- 
 larly inadept in personal relations, and in this 
 case he had avoided the issue until it was no 
 longer to be feared or hoped for. There still re- 
 mained, however, TrefEnger's great unfinished 
 picture, the Marriage of Ph&dra, which had 
 never left his studio, and of which MacMaster's 
 friends had now and again brought report that 
 it was the painter's most characteristic pro- 
 duction. 
 
 The young man arrived in London in the eve- 
 ning, and the next morning went out to Kensing- 
 ton to find TrefEnger's studio. It lay in one of the 
 perplexing by-streets off Holland Road, and the 
 number he found on a door set in a high garden 
 wall, the top of which was covered with broken 
 green glass and over which a budding lilac-bush 
 nodded. TrefEnger's plate was still there, and a 
 card requesting visitors to ring for the attendant. 
 In response to MacMaster's ring, the door was 
 opened by a cleanly built little man, clad in a 
 shooting jacket and trousers that had been made 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PELEDRA 159 
 
 for an ampler figure. He had a fresh complexion, 
 eyes of that common uncertain shade of grey, and 
 was closely shaven except for the incipient mutton- 
 chops on his ruddy cheeks. He bore himself in a 
 manner strikingly capable, and there was a sort 
 of trimness and alertness about him, despite the 
 too-generous shoulders of his coat. In one hand 
 he held a bulldog pipe, and in the other a copy 
 of Sporting Life. While MacMaster was explain- 
 ing the purpose of his call, he noticed that the 
 man surveyed him critically, though not imper- 
 tinently. He was admitted into a little tank of a 
 lodge made of white-washed stone, the back 
 door and windows opening upon a garden. A 
 visitor's book and a pile of catalogues lay on 
 a deal table, together with a bottle of ink and 
 some rusty pens. The wall was ornamented with 
 photographs and coloured prints of racing 
 favourites. 
 
 "The studio is h'only open to the public on 
 Saturdays and Sundays," explained the man — 
 he referred to himself as "Jymes" — "but of 
 course we make exceptions in the case of pynt- 
 ers. Lydy Elling Treffinger 'erself is on the Conti- 
 nent, but Sir 'Ugh's orders was that pynters was to 
 'ave the run of the place.' ' He selected a key 
 
160 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 from his pocket and threw open the door into the 
 studio which, like the lodge, was built against 
 the wall of the garden. 
 
 MacMaster entered a long, narrow room, 
 built of smoothed planks, painted a light green; 
 cold and damp even on that fine May morning. 
 The room was utterly bare of furniture — unless 
 a step-ladder, a model throne, and a rack laden 
 with large leather portfolios could be accounted 
 such — and was windowless, without other 
 openings than the door and the skylight, under 
 which hung the unfinished picture itself. Mac- 
 Master had never seen so many of Treffinger's 
 paintings together. He knew the painter had 
 married a woman with money and had been able 
 to keep such of his pictures as he wished. These, 
 with all of his replicas and studies, he had left 
 as a sort of common legacy to the younger men 
 of the school he had originated. 
 
 As soon as he was left alone, MacMaster sat 
 down on the edge of the model throne before the 
 unfinished picture. Here indeed was what he had 
 come for; it rather paralysed his receptivity for 
 the moment, but gradually the thing found its 
 way to him. 
 
 At one o'clock he was standing before the col- 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 161 
 
 lection of studies done for Boccaccio's Garden 
 when he heard a voice at his elbow. 
 
 "Pardon, sir, but I was just about to lock up 
 and go to lunch. Are you lookin' for the figure 
 study of Boccaccio 'imself?" James queried 
 respectfully, "Lydy Elling Treffinger give it to 
 Mr. Rossiter to take down to Oxford for some 
 lectures he's been a-giving there." 
 
 "Did he never paint out his studies, then?" 
 asked MacMaster with perplexity. "Here are 
 two completed ones for this picture. Why did he 
 keep them?" 
 
 "I don't know as I could say as to that, sir," 
 replied James, smiling indulgently, "but that 
 was 'is way. That is to say, 'e pynted out very 
 frequent, but 'e always made two studies to 
 stand ; one in water colours and one in oils, before 
 'e went at the final picture, — to say nothink of all 
 the pose studies 'e made in pencil before he be- 
 gun on the composition proper at all. He was 
 that particular. You see 'e wasn't so keen for the 
 final effect as for the proper pyntin' of 'is pic- 
 tures. 'E used to say they ought to be well made, 
 the same as any other h'article of trade. I can 
 lay my 'and on the pose studies for you, sir." 
 He rummaged in one of the portfolios and pro- 
 
162 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 duced half a dozen drawings. "These three," he 
 continued, "was discarded: these two was the 
 pose he finally accepted; this one without altera- 
 tion, as it were." 
 
 "That's in Paris, as I remember," James con- 
 tinued reflectively. " It went with the Saint Cecilia 
 into the Baron H — 's collection. Could you tell 
 me, sir, 'as 'e it still ? I don't like to lose account 
 of them, but some 'as changed 'ands since Sir 
 'Ugh's death." 
 
 "H — 's collection is still intact, I believe," 
 replied MacMaster. "You were with TrefBnger 
 long?" 
 
 "From my boyhood, sir," replied James with 
 gravity. "I was a stable boy when 'e took me." 
 
 "You were his man, then ?" 
 
 "That's it, sir. Nobody else ever done any- 
 thing around the studio. I always mixed 'is col- 
 ours and 'e taught me to do a share of the varn- 
 ishin'; 'e said as 'ow there wasn't a 'ouse in Eng- 
 land as could do it proper. You aynt looked at 
 the Marriage yet, sir ?" he asked abruptly, glanc- 
 ing doubtfully at MacMaster, and indicating 
 with his thumb the picture under the north 
 light. 
 
 " Not very closely. I prefer to begin with some- 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 163 
 
 thing simpler; that's rather appalling, at first 
 glance," replied MacMaster. 
 
 "Well may you say that, sir," said James 
 warmly. "That one regular killed Sir 'Ugh; it 
 regular broke 'im up, and nothink will ever con- 
 vince me as 'ow it didn't bring on 'is second 
 stroke." 
 
 When MacMaster walked back to High Street 
 to take his buss, his mind was divided between 
 two exultant convictions. He felt that he had 
 not only found Treffinger's greatest picture, but 
 that, in James, he had discovered a kind of 
 cryptic index to the painter's personality — a clue 
 which, if tactfully followed, might lead to much. 
 
 Several days after his first visit to the studio, 
 MacMaster wrote to Lady Mary Percy, telling 
 her that he would be in London for some time 
 and asking her if he might call. Lady Mary was 
 an only sister of Lady EllenjTreffinger, the paint- 
 er's widow, and MacMaster had known her 
 during one winter he spent at Nice. He had 
 known her, indeed, very well, and Lady Mary, 
 who was astonishingly frank and communica- 
 tive upon all subjects, had been no less so 
 upon the matter of her sister's unfortunate mar- 
 riage. 
 
164 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 In her reply to his note, Lady Mary named an 
 afternoon when she would be alone. She was as 
 good as her word, and when MacMaster ar- 
 rived he found the drawing-room empty. Lady 
 Mary entered shortly after he was announced. 
 She was a tall woman, thin and stiffly jointed; 
 and her body stood out under the folds of her 
 gown with the rigour of cast-iron. This rather 
 metallic suggestion was further carried out in 
 her heavily knuckled hands, her stiff grey hair 
 and long, bold-featured face, which was saved 
 from freakishness only by her alert eyes. 
 
 "Really," said Lady Mary, taking a seat be- 
 side him and giving him a sort of military in- 
 spection through her nose-glasses, " Really, I had 
 begun to fear that I had lost you altogether. It's 
 four years since I saw you at Nice, isn't it ? I 
 was in Paris last winter, but I heard nothing 
 from you." 
 
 " I was in New York then." 
 
 "It occurred to me that you might be. And 
 why are you in London ? " 
 
 "Can you ask?" replied MacMaster gal- 
 lantly. 
 
 Lady Mary smiled ironically. "But for what 
 else, incidentally?" 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 165 
 
 "Well, incidentally, I came to see Treffinger's 
 studio and his unfinished picture. Since I've 
 been here, I've decided to stay the summer. I'm 
 even thinking of attempting to do a biography 
 of him." 
 
 "So that is what brought you to London?" 
 
 " Not exactly. I had really no intention of any- 
 thing so serious when I came. It's his last picture, 
 I fancy, that has rather thrust it upon me. The 
 notion has settled down on me like a thing 
 destined." 
 
 "You'll not be offended if I question the 
 clemency of such a destiny," remarked Lady 
 Mary dryly. "Isn't there rather a surplus of 
 books on that subject already ?" 
 
 "Such as they are. Oh, I've read them all," 
 here MacMaster faced Lady Mary triumphantly. 
 "He has quite escaped your amiable critics," he 
 added, smiling. 
 
 "I know well enough what you think, and I 
 dare say we are not much on art," said Lady 
 Mary with tolerant good humour. "We leave 
 that to peoples who have no physique. Treffinger 
 made a stir for a time, but it seems that we are 
 not capable of a sustained appreciation of such 
 extraordinary methods. In the end we go back 
 
166 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 to the pictures we find agreeable and unper- 
 plexing. He was regarded as an experiment, I 
 fancy; and now it seems that he was rather an 
 unsuccessful one. If you've come to us in a 
 missionary spirit, we'll tolerate you politely, but 
 we'll laugh in our sleeve, I warn you." 
 
 "That really dosen't daunt me, Lady Mary," 
 declared MacMaster blandly, "As I told you, 
 I'm a man with a mission." 
 
 Lady Mary laughed her hoarse baritone laugh. 
 "Bravo! and you've come to me for inspiration 
 for your panegyric ? " 
 
 MacMaster smiled with some embarrass- 
 ment. "Not altogether for that purpose. But I 
 want to consult you, Lady Mary, about the ad- 
 visability of troubling Lady Ellen Treffinger in 
 the matter. It seems scarcely legitimate to go on 
 without asking her to give some sort of grace to 
 my proceedings, yet I feared the whole subject 
 might be painful to her. I shall rely wholly upon 
 your discretion." 
 
 "I think she would prefer to be consulted," 
 replied Lady Mary judicially. "I can't under- 
 stand how she endures to have the wretched af- 
 fair continually raked up, but she does. She 
 seems to feel a sort of moral responsibility. Ellen 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 167 
 
 has always been singularly conscientious about 
 this matter, in so far as her light goes, — which 
 rather puzzles me, as hers is not exactly a mag- 
 nanimous nature. She is certainly trying to do 
 what she believes to be the right thing. I shall 
 write to her, and you can see her when she re- 
 turns from Italy." 
 
 " I want very much to meet her. She is, I hope, 
 quite recovered in every way," queried MacMas- 
 ter, hesitatingly. 
 
 "No, I can't say that she is. She has remained 
 in much the same condition she sank to before 
 his death. He trampled over pretty much what- 
 ever there was in her, I fancy. Women don't 
 recover from wounds of that sort; at least, not 
 women of Ellen's grain. They go on bleeding 
 inwardly." 
 
 "You, at any rate have not grown more 
 reconciled," MacMaster ventured. 
 
 " Oh, I give him his dues. He was a colourist, I 
 grant you ; but that is a vague and unsatisfactory 
 quality to marry to; Lady Ellen Treffinger found 
 it so." 
 
 "But, my dear Lady Mary," expostulated 
 MacMaster, " and just repress me if I'm becom- 
 ing too personal — but it must, in the first place, 
 
168 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 have been a marriage of choice on her part as 
 well as on his." 
 
 Lady Mary poised her glasses on her large 
 forefinger and assumed an attitude suggestive 
 of the clinical lecture room as she replied. "El- 
 len, my dear boy, is an essentially romantic per- 
 son. She is quiet about it, but she runs deep. I 
 never knew how deep until I came against her on 
 the issue of that marriage. She was always dis- 
 contented as a girl; she found things dull and 
 prosaic, and the ardour of his courtship was 
 agreeable to her. He met her during her first 
 season in town. She is handsome, and there were 
 plenty of other men, but I grant you your scowl- 
 ing brigand was the most picturesque of the lot. 
 In his courtship, as in everything else, he was 
 theatrical to the point of being ridiculous, but 
 Ellen's sense of humour is not her strongest 
 quality. He had the charm of celebrity, the air 
 of a man who could storm his way through any- 
 thing to get what he wanted. That sort of vehem- 
 ence is particularly effective with women like 
 Ellen, who can be warmed only by reflected 
 heat, and she couldn't at all stand out against it. 
 He convinced her of his necessity; and that done, 
 all's done." 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PELEDRA 169 
 
 "I can't help thinking that, even on such a 
 basis, the marriage should have turned out bet- 
 ter," MacMaster remarked reflectively. 
 
 "The marriage," Lady Mary continued with 
 a shrug, "was made on the basis of a mutual 
 misunderstanding. Ellen, in the nature of the 
 case, believed that she was doing something 
 quite out of the ordinary in accepting him, and 
 expected concessions which, apparently, it never 
 occurred to him to make. After his marriage he 
 relapsed into his old habits of incessant work, 
 broken by violent and often brutal relaxations. 
 He insulted her friends and foisted his own upon 
 her — many of them well calculated to arouse 
 aversion in any well-bred girl. He had Ghillini 
 constantly at the house — a homeless vagabond, 
 whose conversation was impossible. I don't say, 
 mind you, that he had not grievances on his side. 
 He had probably over-rated the girl's possibili- 
 ties, and he let her see that he was disappointed 
 in her. Only a large and generous nature could 
 have borne with him, and Ellen's is not that. 
 She could not at all understand that odious 
 strain of plebeian pride which plumes itself upon 
 not having risen above its sources." 
 
 As MacMaster drove back to his hotel, he re- 
 
170 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 fleeted that Lady Mary Percy had probably had 
 good cause for dissatisfaction with her brother- 
 in-law. Treffinger was, indeed, the last man who 
 should have married into the Percy family. The 
 son of a small tobacconist, he had grown up a 
 sign painter's apprentice; idle, lawless, and 
 practically letterless until he had drifted into the 
 night classes of the Albert League, where Ghil- 
 lini sometimes lectured. Prom the moment he 
 came under the -eye and influence of that erratic 
 Italian, then a political exile, his life had swerved 
 sharply from its old channel. This man had been 
 at once incentive and guide, friend and master, 
 to his pupil. He had taken the raw clay out of the 
 London streets and moulded it anew. Seemingly 
 he had divined at once where the boy's possi- 
 bilities lay, and had thrown aside every canon 
 of orthodox instruction in the training of him. 
 Under him Treffinger acquired his superficial, 
 yet facile, knowledge of the classics ; had steeped 
 himself in the monkish Latin and mediaeval 
 romances which later gave his work so naive and 
 remote a quality. That was the beginning of the 
 wattle fences, the cobble pave, the brown roof 
 beams, the cunningly wrought fabrics that gave to 
 his pictures such a richness of decorative effect. 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PHLEDRA 171 
 
 As he had told Lady Mary Percy, MacMaster 
 had found the imperative inspiration of his pur- 
 pose in Treffinger's unfinished picture, the Mar- 
 riage of Ph&dra. He had always believed that 
 the key to Treffinger's individuality lay in his 
 singular education ; in the Roman de la Rose, in 
 Boccaccio, and Amadis, those works which had 
 literally transcribed themselves upon the blank 
 soul of the London street boy, and through 
 which he had been born into the world of spir- 
 itual things. Treffinger had been a man who lived 
 after his imagination; and his mind, his ideals 
 and, as MacMaster believed, even his personal 
 ethics, had to the last been coloured by the trend 
 of his early training. There was in him alike the 
 freshness and spontaneity, the frank brutality 
 and the religious mysticism which lay well back 
 of the fifteenth century. In the Marriage of 
 Phwdra MacMaster found the ultimate ex- 
 pression of this spirit, the final word as to Tref- 
 finger's point of view. 
 
 As in all Treffinger's classical subjects, the 
 conception was wholly mediaeval. This Phae- 
 dra, just turning from her husband and maidens 
 to greet her husband's son, giving him her first 
 fearsome glance from under her half lifted veil, 
 
172 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 wais no daughter of Minos. The daughter of 
 heathenesse and the early church she was ; doom- 
 ed to torturing visions and scourgings, and the 
 wrangling of soul with flesh. The venerable 
 Theseus might have been victorious Charle- 
 magne, and Phaedra's maidens belonged rather 
 in the train of Blanche of Castile than at the 
 Cretan court. In the earlier studies Hippolytus 
 had been done with a more pagan suggestion, 
 but in each successive drawing the glorious figure 
 had been deflowered of something of its serene 
 unconsciousness; until, in the canvas under the 
 skylight, he appeared a very Christian knight. 
 This male figure, and the face of Phaedra, paint- 
 ed with such magical preservation of tone under 
 the heavy shadow of the veil, were plainly Tref- 
 finger's highest achievements of craftsmanship. 
 By what labour he had reached the seemingly 
 inevitable composition of the picture — with its 
 twenty figures, its plenitude of light and air, its 
 restful distances seen through white porticoes — 
 countless studies bore witness. 
 
 From James's attitude toward the picture, Mac- 
 Master could well conjecture what the painter's 
 had been. This picture was always uppermost in 
 James's mind; its custodianship formed, in his 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 173 
 
 eyes, his occupation. He was manifestly appre- 
 hensive when visitors — not many came now- 
 a-days — lingered near it. "It was the Marriage 
 as killed 'im," he would often say, "and for the 
 matter 'o that, it did like to 'av been the death 
 of all of us." 
 
 By the end of his second week in London, 
 MacMaster had begun tfie notes for his study of 
 Hugh Treffinger and his work. When his re- 
 searches led him occasionally to visit the studios 
 of Treffinger's friends and erstwhile disciples, he 
 found their Treffinger manner fading as the 
 ring Treffinger's personality died out in them. 
 One by one they were stealing back into the fold 
 of national British art; the hand that had wound 
 them up was still. MacMaster despaired of them 
 and confined himself more and more exclusively 
 to the studio, to such of Treffinger's letters as 
 were available — they were for the most part 
 singularly negative and colourless — and to his 
 interrogation of Treffinger's man. 
 
 He could not himself have traced the succes- 
 sive steps by which he was gradually admitted 
 into James's confidence. Certainly most of his 
 adroit strategies to that end failed humiliatingly, 
 and whatever it was that built up an understand- 
 
174 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 ing between them, must have been instinctive and 
 intuitive on both sides. When at last James be- 
 came anecdotal, personal, there was that in 
 every word he let fall which put breath and 
 blood into MacMaster's book. James had so 
 long been steeped in that penetrating personality 
 that he fairly exuded it. Many of his very phrases, 
 mannerisms and opinions were impressions that 
 he had taken on like wet plaster in his daily con- 
 tact with Treffinger. Inwardly he was lined with 
 cast off epithelia, as outwardly he was clad in the 
 painter's discarded coats. If the painter's letters 
 were formal and perfunctory, if his expressions 
 to his friends had been extravagant, contradic- 
 tory and often apparently insincere — still, Mac- 
 Master felt himself not entirely without authen- 
 tic sources. It was James who possessed Treffin- 
 ger's legend; it was with James that he had laid 
 aside his pose. Only in his studio, alone, and 
 face to face with his work, as it seemed, had 
 the man invariably been himself. James had 
 known him in the one attitude in which he was 
 entirely honest; their relation had fallen well 
 within the painter's only indubitable integrity. 
 James's report of Treffinger was distorted by no 
 hallucination of artistic insight, coloured by no 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PELEDRA 175 
 
 interpretation of his own. He merely held what 
 he had heard and seen; his mind was a sort of 
 camera obscura. His very limitations made 
 him the more literal and minutely accurate. 
 
 One morning when MacMaster was seated 
 before the Marriage of Phwdra, James entered 
 on his usual round of dusting. 
 
 "I've 'eard from Lydy Elling by the post, 
 sir," he remarked, " an' she's give h'orders to 
 'ave the 'ouse put in readiness. I doubt she'll be 
 'ere by Thursday or Friday next." 
 
 "She spends most of her time abroad?" 
 queried MacMaster; on the subject of Lady 
 Treffinger James consistently maintained a very 
 delicate reserve. 
 
 " Well, you could 'ardly say she does that, sir. 
 She finds the 'ouse a bit dull, I daresay, so durin' 
 the season she stops mostly with Lydy Mary 
 Percy, at Grosvenor Square. Lydy Mary's a 
 h'only sister." After a few moments he contin- 
 ued, speaking in jerks governed by the rigour of 
 his dusting: "Honly this morning I come upon 
 this scarf-pin," exhibiting a very striking in- 
 stance of that article, "an' I recalled as 'ow 
 Sir 'Ugh give it me when 'e was a-courting of Lydy 
 Elling. Blowed if I ever see a man go in for a 
 
176 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 'oman like 'im! 'E was that gone, sir. 'E never 
 went in on anythink so 'ard before nor since, till 
 'e went in on the Marriage there — though 'e 
 mostly went in on things pretty keen; 'ad the 
 measles when 'e was thirty, strong as cholera, 
 an' come close to dyin' of 'em. 'E wasn't strong 
 for Lydy Elling's set; they was a bit too stiff 
 for 'im. A free an' easy gentleman, 'e was; 'e 
 liked 'is dinner with a few friends an' them 
 jolly, but 'e wasn't much on what you might 
 call big affairs. But once 'e went in for Lydy 
 Elling, 'e broke 'imself to new paces. He give 
 away 'is rings an' pins, an' the tylor's man an' 
 the 'abberdasher's man was at 'is rooms contin- 
 ual. 'E got 'imself put up for a club in Piccadilly; 
 'e starved 'imself thin, an' worrited 'imself white, 
 an' ironed 'imself out, an' drawed 'imself tight 
 as a bow string. It was a good job 'e come a 
 winner, or I don't know w'at'd 'a been to pay." 
 The next week, in consequence of an invita- 
 tion from Lady Ellen Treffinger, MacMaster 
 went one afternoon to take tea with her. He was 
 shown into the garden that lay between the resi- 
 dence and the studio, where the tea-table was set 
 under a gnarled pear tree. Lady Ellen rose as 
 he approached — he was astonished to note 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 177 
 
 how tall she was — and greeted him graciously, 
 saying that she already knew him through her 
 sister. MacMaster felt a certain satisfaction in 
 her; in her reassuring poise and repose, in the 
 charming modulations of her voice and the in- 
 dolent reserve of her full, almond eyes. He was 
 even delighted to find her face so inscrutable, 
 though it chilled his own warmth and made the 
 open frankness he had wished to permit himself 
 impossible. It was a long face, narrow at the 
 chin, very delicately featured, yet steeled by an 
 impassive mask of self-control. It was behind 
 just such finely cut, close-sealed faces, Mac- 
 Master reflected, that nature sometimes hid 
 astonishing secrets. But in spite of this sugges- 
 tion of hardness, he felt that the unerring taste 
 that Treffinger had always shown in larger 
 matters had not deserted him when he came 
 to the choosing of a wife, and he admitted 
 that he could not himself have selected a wo- 
 man who looked more as Trefrmger's wife should 
 look. 
 
 While he was explaining the purpose of his fre- 
 quent visits to the studio, she heard him with 
 courteous interest. "I have read, I think, every- 
 thing that has been published on Sir Hugh Tref- 
 
178 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 finger's work, and it seems to me that there is 
 much left to be said," he concluded. 
 
 "I believe they are rather inadequate," she 
 remarked vaguely. She hesitated a moment, ab- 
 sently fingering the ribbons of her gown, then 
 continued, without raising her eyes; "I hope you 
 will not think me too exacting if I ask to see the 
 proofs of such chapters of your work as have to 
 do with Sir Hugh's personal life. I have always 
 asked that privilege." 
 
 MacMaster hastily assured her as to this, add- 
 ing, "I mean to touch on only such facts in his 
 personal life as have to do directly with his 
 work — such as his monkish education under 
 Ghillini." 
 
 "I see your meaning, I think," said Lady 
 Ellen, looking at him with wide, uncompre- 
 hending eyes. 
 
 When MacMaster stopped at the studio on 
 leaving the house, he stood for some time before 
 TrefBnger's one portrait of himself; that brigand 
 of a picture, with its full throat and square head ; 
 the short upper lip blackened by the close- 
 clipped moustache, the wiry hair tossed down over 
 the forehead, the strong white teeth set hard on 
 a short pipe stem. He could well understand 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 179 
 
 what manifold tortures the mere grain of the 
 man's strong red and brown flesh might have in- 
 flicted upon a woman like Lady Ellen. He could 
 conjecture, too, Treffinger's impotent revolt 
 against that very repose which had so dazzled 
 him when it first defied his daring; and how 
 once possessed of it, his first instinct had been 
 to crush it, since he could not melt it. 
 
 Toward the close of the season, Lady Ellen 
 Treffinger left town. MacMaster's work was pro- 
 gressing rapidly, and he and James wore away 
 the days in their peculiar relation, which by this 
 time had much of friendliness. Excepting for the 
 regular visits of a Jewish picture dealer, there 
 were few intrusions upon their solitude. Oc- 
 casionally a party of Americans rang at the little 
 door in the garden wall, but usually they de- 
 parted speedily for the Moorish hall and tinkling 
 fountain of the great show studio of London, not 
 far away. 
 
 This Jew, an Austrian by birth, who had a 
 large business in Melbourne, Australia, was a 
 man of considerable discrimination, and at once 
 selected the Marriage of Phoedra as the object 
 of his especial interest. When, upon his first 
 visit, Lichtenstein had declared the picture one 
 
180 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 of the things done for time, MacMaster had 
 rather warmed toward him and had talked to him 
 very freely. Later, however, the man's repulsive 
 personality and innate vulgarity so wore upon 
 him that, the more genuine the Jew's apprecia- 
 tion, the more he resented it and the more base 
 he somehow felt it to be. It annoyed him to see 
 Lichtenstein walking up and down before the 
 picture, shaking his head and blinking his watery 
 eyes over his nose-glasses, ejaculating: "Dot is a 
 chem, a chem! It is wordt to gome den dousant 
 miles for such a bainting, eh ? To make Eurobe 
 abbreciate such a work of ardt it is necessary 
 to take it away while she is napping. She has 
 never abbreciated until she has lost, but," know- 
 ingly, " She will buy back." 
 
 James had, from the first, felt such a distrust 
 of the man that he would never leave him alone in 
 the studio for a moment. When Lichtenstein in- 
 sisted upon having Lady Ellen Treffinger's ad- 
 dress, James rose to the point of insolence. "It 
 ay'nt no use to give it, noway. Lydy Treffinger 
 never has nothink to do with dealers." MacMaster 
 quietly repented his rash confidences, fearing that 
 he might indirectly cause Lady Ellen annoy- 
 ance from this merciless speculator, and he re- 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 181 
 
 called with chagrin that Lichtenstein had ex- 
 torted from him, little by little, pretty much the 
 entire plan of his book, and especially the place in 
 it which the Marriage of Phwdra was to occupy. 
 
 By this time the first chapters of MacMas- 
 ter's book were in the hands of his publisher, and 
 his visits to the studio were necessarily less fre- 
 quent. The greater part of his time was now em- 
 ployed with the engravers who were to reproduce 
 such of Treffinger's pictures as he intended to 
 use as illustrations. 
 
 He returned to his hotel late one evening after 
 a long and vexing day at the engravers, to find 
 James in his room, seated on his steamer trunk 
 by the window, with the outline of a great square 
 draped in sheets resting against his knee. 
 
 "Why, James, what's up?" he cried in as- 
 tonishment, glancing enquiringly at the sheeted 
 object. 
 
 "Ay'nt you seen the pypers, sir?" jerked out 
 the man. 
 
 "No, now I think of it, I haven't even looked 
 at a paper. I've been at the engravers' plant all 
 day. I haven't seen anything." 
 
 James drew a copy of the Times from his 
 pocket and handed it to him, pointing with a 
 
182 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 tragic finger to a paragraph in the social column. 
 It was merely the announcement of Lady Ellen 
 Treffinger's engagement to Captain Alexander 
 Gresham. 
 
 " Well, what of it, my man ? That surely is her 
 privilege." 
 
 James took the paper, turned to another page, 
 and silently pointed to a paragraph in the art 
 notes which stated that Lady TrefBnger had pre- 
 sented to the X — gallery the entire collection 
 of paintings and sketches now in her late hus- 
 band's studio, with the exception of his unfin- 
 ished picture, the Marriage of Phwdra, which 
 she had sold for a large sum to an Australian 
 dealer who had come to London purposely to 
 secure some of Treffinger's paintings. 
 
 MacMaster pursed up his lips and sat down, 
 his overcoat still on. "Well, James, this is some- 
 thing of a — something of a jolt, eh ? It never 
 occurred to me she'd really do it." 
 
 "Lord, you don't know 'er, sir," said James 
 bitterly, still staring at the floor in an attitude of 
 abandoned dejection. 
 
 MacMaster started up in a flash of enlighten- 
 ment, "What on earth have you got there, 
 James ? It's not — surely it's not — " 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 183 
 
 "Yes, it is, sir," broke in the man excitedly. 
 "It's the Marriage itself. It aynt a-going to 
 H'australia, no'ow!" 
 
 "But man, what are you going to do with 
 it ? It's Lichtenstein's property now, as it seems." 
 
 " It aynt, sir, that it aynt. No, by Gawd it aynt !" 
 shouted James, breaking into a choking fury. 
 He controlled himself with an effort and added 
 supplicatingly : "Oh, sir, you aynt a-going to 
 see it go to H'australia, w'ere they send con- 
 vic's?" He unpinned and flung aside the sheets 
 as though to let Phwdra plead for herself. 
 
 MacMaster sat down again and looked sadly 
 at the doomed masterpiece. The notion of 
 James having carried it across London that 
 night rather appealed to his fancy. There was 
 certainly a flavour about such a high-handed pro- 
 ceeding. "However did you get it here?" he 
 queried. 
 
 "I got a four-wheeler and come over direct, 
 sir. Good job I 'appened to 'ave the chaynge 
 about me." 
 
 "You came up High Street, up Piccadilly, 
 through the Haymarket and Trafalgar Square, 
 and into the Strand?" queried MacMaster with 
 a relish. 
 
184 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 'Yes, sir. Of course, sir," assented James 
 with surprise. 
 
 MacMaster laughed delightedly. "It was a 
 beautiful idea, James, but I'm afraid we can't 
 carry it any further." 
 
 "I was thinkin' as 'ow it would be a rare 
 chance to get you to take the Marriage over to 
 Paris for a year or two, sir, until the thing blows 
 over?" suggested James blandly. 
 
 "I'm afraid that's out of the question, James. 
 I haven't the right stuff in me for a pirate, or 
 even a vulgar smuggler, I'm afraid." Mac- 
 Master found it surprisingly difficult to say 
 this, and he busied himself with the lamp as 
 he said it. He heard James's hand fall heavily 
 on the trunk top, and he discovered that he 
 very much disliked sinking in the man's estima- 
 tion. 
 
 "Well, sir," remarked James in a more for- 
 mal tone, after a protracted silence; "then 
 there's nothink for it but as 'ow I'll 'ave to make 
 way with it myself." 
 
 "And how about your character, James? 
 The evidence would be heavy against you, and 
 even if Lady Treffinger didn't prosecute, you'd 
 be done for." 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 185 
 
 "Blow my character! — your pardon, sir," 
 cried James, starting to his feet. " Wat do I want 
 of a character? I'll chuck the 'ole thing, and 
 damned lively, too. The shop's to be sold out, 
 an' my place is gone any'ow. I'm a-going to en- 
 list, or try the gold-fields. I've lived too long with 
 h' artists ; I'd never give satisfaction in livery 
 now. You know 'ow it is yourself, sir; there 
 aynt no life like it, no'ow." 
 
 For a moment MacMaster was almost equal 
 to abetting James in his theft. He reflected that 
 pictures had been white-washed, or hidden in the 
 crypts of churches, or under the floors of palaces 
 from meaner motives, and to save them from a 
 fate less ignominious. But presently, with a sigh, 
 he shook his head. 
 
 "No, James, it won't do at all. It has been 
 tried over and over again, ever since the world 
 has been a-going and pictures a-making. It was 
 tried in Florence and in Venice, but the pictures 
 were always carried away in the end. You see 
 the difficulty is that, although Treffinger told 
 you what was not to be done with the picture, 
 he did not say definitely what was to be done 
 with it. Do you think Lady Treffinger really un- 
 derstands that he did not want it to be sold ?" 
 
186 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 "Well, sir, it was like this, sir," said James re- 
 suming his seat on the trunk and again resting 
 the picture against his knee. "My memory is as 
 clear as glass about it. After Sir 'Ugh got up 
 from 'is first stroke, 'e took a fresh start at the 
 Marriage. Before that 'e 'ad been working at it 
 only at night for awhile back; the Legend was 
 the big picture then, an' was under the north 
 light w'ere 'e worked of a morning. But one day 
 'e bid me take the Legend down an' put the 
 Marriage in its place, an' 'e says, dashin' on 'is 
 jacket, ' Jymes, this is a start for the finish, this 
 time.'" 
 
 "From that on 'e worked at the night picture 
 in the mornin' — a thing contrary to 'is custom. 
 The Marriage went wrong, and wrong — an' 
 Sir 'Ugh a-gettin' seedier an' seedier every day. 
 'E tried models an' models, an' smudged an' 
 pynted out on account of 'er face goin' wrong 
 in the shadow. Sometimes 'e layed it on the col- 
 ours, an' swore at me an' things general. He got 
 that discouraged about 'imself that on 'is low 
 days 'e used to say to me: 'Jymes, remember 
 one thing; if anythink 'appens to me, the Mar- 
 riage is not to go out of 'ere unfinished. It's 
 worth the lot of 'em, my boy, an' it's not a-going 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PH^DRA 187 
 
 to go shabby for lack of pains.' 'E said things 
 to that effect repeated." 
 
 "He was workin' at the picture the last day, 
 before 'e went to 'is club. 'E kept the carriage 
 waitin' near an hour while 'e put on a stroke an' 
 then drawed back for to look at it, an' then put 
 on another, careful like. After 'e 'ad 'is gloves on, 
 'e come back an' took away the brushes I was 
 startin' to clean, an' put in another touch or two. 
 'It's a-comin' Jymes,' 'e says, 'by gad if it aynt.' 
 An' with that 'e goes out. It was cruel sudden, 
 w'at come after. 
 
 "That night I was lookin' to 'is clothes at the 
 'ouse when they brought 'im 'ome. He was con- 
 scious, but w'en I ran down stairs for to 'elp lift 
 'im up, I knowed 'e was a finished man. After 
 we got 'im into bed, 'e kept lookin' restless at me 
 and then at Lydy Elling and a-jerkin' of 'is 'and. 
 Finally 'e quite raised it an' shot 'is thumb out 
 towards the wall. 'He wants water; ring Jymes,' 
 says Lydy Elling, placid. But I knowed 'e was 
 pointin' to the shop. 
 
 " ' Lydy Treffinger,' says I, bold, ' he's pointin' 
 to the studio. He means about the Marriage; 
 'e told me to-day as 'ow 'e never wanted it sold 
 unfinished. Is that it, Sir 'Ugh ? ' 
 
188 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 " He smiled an' nodded slight an' closed 'is 
 eyes. 'Thank you, Jymes,' says Lydy Elling, 
 placid. Then 'e opened 'is eyes an' looked long 
 and 'ard at Lydy Elling. 
 
 " ' Of course I'll try to do as you'd wish about 
 the pictures, 'Ugh, if that's w'at's troublin' 
 you,' she says quiet. With that 'e closed 'is eyes 
 and 'e never opened 'em. He died unconscious 
 at four that mornin'." 
 
 "You see, sir, Lydy Elling was always cruel 
 'ard on the Marriage. From the first it went 
 wrong, an' Sir 'Ugh was out of temper pretty con- 
 stant. She came into the studio one day and 
 looked at the picture an' asked 'im why 'e didn't 
 throw it up an' quit a-worriting 'imself. He an- 
 swered sharp, an' with that she said as 'ow she 
 didn't see w'at there was to make such a row 
 about, no'ow. She spoke 'er mind about that 
 picture, free; an' Sir 'Ugh swore 'ot an' let a 
 'andful of brushes fly at 'is study, an' Lydy Ell- 
 ing picked up 'er skirts careful an' chill, an' drift- 
 ed out of the studio with 'er eyes calm and 'er chin 
 'igh. If there was one thing Lydy Elling 'ad no 
 comprehension of, it was the usefulness of swear- 
 in'. So the Marriage was a sore thing between 
 'em. She is uncommon calm, but uncommon bit- 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 189 
 
 ter, is Lydy Elling. She's never come a-near 
 the studio since that day she went out 'oldin' 
 up of 'er skirts. Wen 'er friends goes over 
 she excuses 'erself along o' the strain. Strain — 
 Gawd!" James ground his wrath short in his 
 teeth. 
 
 "I'll tell you what I'll do, James, and it's our 
 only hope. I'll see Lady Ellen to-morrow. The 
 Times says she returned to-day. You take the 
 picture back to its place, and I'll do what I can 
 for it. If anything is done to save it, it must be 
 done through Lady Ellen Treffinger herself; 
 that much is clear. I can't think that she fully 
 understands the situation. If she did, you know, 
 she really couldn't have any motive — " He 
 stopped suddenly. Somehow, in the dusky lamp- 
 light her small, close-sealed face came ominously 
 back to him. He rubbed his forehead and knitted 
 his brows thoughtfully. After a moment he shook 
 his head and went on: "I am positive that noth- 
 ing can be gained by high-handed methods, 
 James. Captain Gresham is one of the most pop- 
 ular men in London, and his friends would tear 
 up Treffinger's bones if he were annoyed by any 
 scandal of our making — and this scheme you 
 propose would inevitably result in scandal. Lady 
 
190 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Ellen has, of course, every legal right to sell the 
 picture. Treffinger made considerable inroads 
 upon her estate, and, as she is about to marry a 
 man without income, she doubtless feels that she 
 has a right to replenish her patrimony." 
 
 He found James amenable, though doggedly 
 sceptical. He went down into the street, called a 
 carriage, and saw James and his burden into it. 
 Standing in the doorway, he watched the car- 
 riage roll away through the drizzling mist, 
 weave in and out among the wet, black vehicles 
 and darting cab lights, until it was swallowed 
 up in the glare and confusion of the Strand. 
 "It is rather a fine touch of irony," he reflected, 
 "that he, who is so out of it, should be the one 
 to really care. Poor Treffinger," he murmured 
 as, with a rather spiritless smile, he turned 
 back into his hotel, "Poor Treffinger; sic transit 
 gloria." 
 
 The next afternoon MacMaster kept his 
 promise. When he arrived at Lady Mary Percy's 
 house he saw preparations for a function of 
 some sort, but he went resolutely up the steps, 
 telling the footman that his business was urgent. 
 Lady Ellen came down alone, excusing her sis- 
 ter. She was dressed for receiving, and Mac- 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF PILEDRA 191 
 
 Master had never seen her so beautiful. The col- 
 our in her cheeks sent a softening glow over her 
 small, delicately cut features. 
 
 MacMaster apologized for his intrusion and 
 came unflinchingly to the object of his call. He 
 had come, he said, not only to offer her his warm- 
 est congratulations, but to express his regret that 
 a great work of art was to leave England. 
 
 Lady Treffinger looked at him in wide-eyed 
 astonishment. Surely, she said, she had been 
 careful to select the best of the pictures for the 
 X — gallery, in accordance with Sir Hugh 
 Treffinger's wishes. 
 
 " And did he — pardon me, Lady Treffinger, 
 but in mercy set my mind at rest — did he or did 
 he not express any definite wish concerning this 
 one picture, which to me seems worth all the 
 others, unfinished as it is?" 
 
 Lady Treffinger paled perceptibly, but it was 
 not the pallor of confusion. When she spoke 
 there was a sharp tremor in her smooth voice, 
 the edge of a resentment that tore her like pain. 
 " I think his man has some such impression, but 
 I believe it to be utterly unfounded. I cannot 
 find that he ever expressed any wish concerning 
 the disposition of the picture to any of his friends. 
 
192 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Unfortunately, Sir Hugh was not always dis- 
 creet in his remarks to his servants." 
 
 "Captain Gresham, Lady Ellingham and 
 Miss Ellingham/' announced a servant, appear- 
 ing at the door. 
 
 There was a murmur in the hall, and Mac- 
 Master greeted the smiling Captain and his aunt 
 as he bowed himself out. 
 
 To all intents and purposes the Marriage of 
 Ph&dra was already entombed in a vague con- 
 tinent in the Pacific, somewhere on the other side 
 of the world. 
 
A WAGNER MATINEE 
 
A WAGNER MATINEE 
 
 I received one morning a letter, written in pale 
 ink on glassy, blue-lined note-paper, and bearing 
 the postmark of a little Nebraska village. This 
 communication, worn and rubbed, looking as 
 though it had been carried for some days in a 
 coat pocket that was none too clean, was from 
 my uncle Howard and informed me that his 
 wife had been left a small legacy by a bachelor 
 relative who had recently died, and that it would 
 be necessary for her to go to Boston to attend to 
 the settling of the estate. He requested me to 
 meet her at the station and render her whatever 
 services might be necessary. On examining the 
 date indicated as that of her arrival, I found it 
 no later than to-morrow. He had characteristi- 
 cally delayed writing until, had I been away 
 from home for a day, I must have missed the 
 good woman altogether. 
 The name of my Aunt Georgiana called up 
 
196 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 not alone her own figure, at once pathetic 
 and grotesque, but opened before my feet a 
 gulf of recollection so wide and deep, that, as 
 the letter dropped from my hand, I felt 
 suddenly a stranger to all the present con- 
 ditions of my existence, wholly ill at ease and out 
 of place amid the familiar surroundings of my 
 study. I became, in short, the gangling farmer- 
 boy my aunt had known, scourged with chil- 
 blains and bashfulness, my hands cracked and 
 sore from the corn husking. I felt the knuckles of 
 my thumb tentatively, as though they were raw 
 again. I sat again before her parlour organ, 
 fumbling the scales with my stiff, red hands, 
 while she, beside me, made canvas mittens for 
 the huskers. 
 
 The next morning, after preparing my land- 
 lady somewhat, I set out for the station. When 
 the train arrived I had some difficulty in finding 
 my aunt. She was the last of the passengers to 
 alight, and it was not until I got her into the 
 carriage that she seemed really to recognize me. 
 She had come all the way in a day coach; her 
 linen duster had become bl'ack with soot and 
 her black bonnet grey with dust during the 
 journey. When we arrived at my boarding- 
 
A WAGNER MATINEE 197 
 
 house the landlady put her to bed at once and 
 I did not see her again until the next morning. 
 Whatever shock Mrs. Springer experienced at 
 my aunt's appearance, she considerately con- 
 cealed. As for myself, I saw my aunt's misshapen 
 figure with that feeling of awe and respect with 
 which we behold explorers who have left their ears 
 and fingers north of Franz-Joseph-Land, or their 
 health somewhere along the Upper Congo. My 
 Aunt Georgiana had been a music teacher at 
 the Boston Conservatory, somewhere back in the 
 latter sixties. One summer, while visiting in 
 the little village among the Green Mountains 
 where her ancestors had dwelt for generations, 
 she had kindled the callow fancy of the most idle 
 and shiftless of all the village lads, and had con- 
 ceived for this Howard Carpenter one of those 
 extravagant passions which a handsome country 
 boy of twenty-one sometimes inspires in an an- 
 gular, spectacled woman of thirty. When she re- 
 turned to her duties in Boston, Howard followed 
 her, and the upshot of this inexplicable infatua- 
 tion was that she eloped with him, eluding the re- 
 proaches of her family and the criticisms of her 
 friends by going with him to the Nebraska fron- 
 tier. Carpenter, who, of course, had no money, had 
 
198 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 taken a homestead in Red Willow County, fifty 
 miles from the railroad. There they had meas- 
 ured off their quarter section themselves by driv- 
 ing across the prairie in a wagon, to the wheel of 
 which they had tied a red cotton handkerchief, 
 and counting off its revolutions. They built a dug- 
 out in the red hillside, one of those cave dwellings 
 whose inmates so often reverted to primitive con- 
 ditions. Their water they got from the lagoons 
 where the buffalo drank, and their slender stock 
 of provisions was always at the mercy of bands 
 of roving Indians. For thirty years my aunt had 
 not been further than fifty miles from the home- 
 stead. 
 
 But Mrs. Springer knew nothing of all this, 
 and must have been considerably shocked at 
 what was left of my kinswoman. Beneath the 
 soiled linen duster which, on her arrival, was the 
 most conspicuous feature of her costume, she 
 wore a black stuff dress, whose ornamentation 
 showed that she had surrendered herself unques- 
 tioningly into the hands of a country dressmaker. 
 My poor aunt's figure, however, would have 
 presented astonishing difficulties to any dress- 
 maker. Originally stooped, her shoulders were 
 now almost bent together over her sunken chest. 
 
A WAGNER MATINEE 199 
 
 She wore no stays, and her gown, which trailed 
 unevenly behind, rose in a sort of peak over her 
 abdomen. She wore ill-fitting false teeth, and 
 her skin was as yellow as a Mongolian's from 
 constant exposure to a pitiless wind and to the 
 alkaline water which hardens the most trans- 
 parent cuticle into a sort of flexible leather. 
 
 I owed to this woman most of the good that 
 ever came my way in my boyhood, and had a 
 reverential affection for her. During the years 
 when I was riding herd for my uncle, my aunt, 
 after cooking the three meals — the first of which 
 was ready at six o'clock in the morning — and 
 putting the six children to bed, would often stand 
 until midnight at her ironing-board, with me at 
 the kitchen table beside her, hearing me recite 
 Latin declensions and conjugations, gently shak- 
 ing me when my drowsy head sank down over a 
 page of irregular verbs. It was to her, at her iron- 
 ing or mending, that I read my first Shakspere, 
 and her old text-book on mythology was the first 
 that ever came into my empty hands. She taught 
 me my scales and exercises, too — on the little 
 parlour organ, which her husband had bought her 
 after fifteen years, during which she had not so 
 much as seen any instrument, but an accordion 
 
200 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 that belonged to one of the Norwegian farm- 
 hands. She would sit beside me by the hour, 
 darning and counting while I struggled with the 
 "Joyous Farmer," but she seldom talked to me 
 about music, and I understood why. She was a 
 pious woman; she had the consolations of religion 
 and, to her at least, her martyrdom was not 
 wholly sordid. Once when I had been doggedly 
 beating out some easy passages from an old score 
 of EuryafUhe I had found among her music 
 books, she came up to me and, putting her hands 
 over my eyes, gently drew my head back upon her 
 shoulder, saying tremulously, "Don't love it so 
 well, Clark, or it may be taken from you. Oh! 
 dear boy, pray that whatever your sacrifice may 
 be, it be not that." 
 
 When my aunt appeared on the morning after 
 her arrival, she was still in a semi-somnambulant 
 state. She seemed not realize that she was in the 
 city where she had spent her youth, the place 
 longed for hungrily half a lifetime. She had 
 been so wretchedly train-sick throughout the 
 journey that she had no recollection of anything 
 but her discomfort, and, to all intents and pur- 
 poses, there were but a few hours of nightmare 
 between the farm in Red Willow County and my 
 
A WAGNER MATINEE 201 
 
 study on Newbury Street. I had planned a little 
 pleasure for her that afternoon, to repay her for 
 some of the glorious moments she had given me 
 when we used to milk together in the straw- 
 thatched cowshed and she, because I was more 
 than usually tried, or because her husband had 
 spoken sharply to me, would tell me of the splen- 
 did performance of the Huguenots she had 
 seen in Paris, in her youth. At two o'clock the 
 Symphony Orchestra was to give a Wagner 
 programme, and I intended to take my aunt; 
 though, as I conversed with her I grew doubtful 
 about her enjoyment of it. Indeed, for her own 
 sake, I could only wish her taste for such things 
 quite dead, and the long struggle mercifully end- 
 ed at last. I suggested our visiting the Conserva- 
 tory and the Common before lunch, but she 
 seemed altogether too timid to wish to venture 
 out. She questioned me absently about various 
 changes in the city, but she was chiefly concerned 
 that she had forgotten to leave instructions about 
 feeding half -skimmed milk to a certain weakling 
 calf, "old Maggie's calf, you know, Clark," she 
 explained, evidently having forgotten how long I 
 had been away. She was further troubled because 
 she had neglected to tell her daughter about the 
 
202 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 freshly-opened kit of mackerel in the cellar, 
 which would spoil if it were not used directly. 
 
 I asked her whether she had ever heard any of 
 the Wagnerian operas, and found that she had 
 not, though she was perfectly familiar with their 
 respective situations, and had once possessed the 
 piano score of The Flying Dutchman I began 
 to think it would have been best to get her back 
 to Red Willow County without waking her, and 
 regretted having suggested the concert. 
 
 From the time we entered the concert hall, 
 however, she was a trifle less passive and inert, 
 and for the first time seemed to perceive her sur- 
 roundings. I had felt some trepidation least she 
 might become aware of the absurdities of her 
 attire, or might experience some painful embar- 
 rassment at stepping suddenly into the world to 
 which she had been dead for a quarter of a cent- 
 ury. But, again, I found how superficially I had 
 judged her. She sat looking about her with eyes as 
 impersonal, almost as stony, as those with which 
 the granite Rameses in a museum watches the 
 froth and fret that ebbs and flows about his pedes- 
 tal — separated from it by the lonely stretch of 
 centuries. I have seen this same aloofness in old 
 miners who drift into the Brown hotel at Denver, 
 
A WAGNER MATINEE 203 
 
 their pockets full of bullion, their linen soiled, 
 their haggard faces unshaven; standing in the 
 thronged corridors as solitary as though they were 
 still in a frozen camp on the Yukon, conscious that 
 certain experiences have isolated them from their 
 fellows by a gulf no haberdasher could bridge. 
 
 We sat at the extreme left of the first balcony, 
 facing the arc of our own and the balcony above 
 us, veritable hanging gardens, brilliant as tulip 
 beds. The matinee audience was made up chiefly 
 of women. One lost the contour of faces and 
 figures, indeed any effect of line whatever, and 
 there was only the colour of bodices past counting 
 the shimmer of fabrics soft and firm, silky and 
 sheer; red, mauve, pink, blue, lilac, purple, ecru, 
 rose, yellow, cream, and white, all the colours 
 that an impressionist finds in a sunlit landscape, 
 with here and there the dead shadow of a frock 
 coat. My Aunt Georgiana regarded them as 
 though they had been so many daubs of tube- 
 paint on a palette. 
 
 When the musicians came out and took their 
 places, she gave a little stir of anticipation, and 
 looked with quickening interest down over the rail 
 at that invariable grouping, perhaps the first 
 wholly familiar thing that had greeted her eye 
 
204 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 since she had left old Maggie and her weakling 
 calf. I could feel how all those details sank into 
 her soul, for I had not forgotten how they had 
 sunk into mine when I came fresh from plough- 
 ing forever and forever between green aisles of 
 corn, where, as in a treadmill, one might walk 
 from daybreak to dusk without perceiving a 
 shadow of change. The clean profiles of the 
 musicians, the gloss of their linen, the dull 
 black of their coats, the beloved shapes of 
 the instruments, the patches of yellow light 
 thrown by the green shaded lamps on the 
 smooth, varnished bellies of the 'cellos and the 
 bass viols in the rear, the restless, wind-tossed 
 forest of fiddle necks and bows — I recalled how, 
 in the first orchestra I had ever heard, those 
 long bow strokes seemed to draw the heart out 
 of me, as a conjurer's stick reels out yards of 
 paper ribbon from a hat. 
 
 The first number was the Tannhauser over- 
 ture. When the horns drew out the first strain of 
 the Pilgrim's chorus, my Aunt Georgiana clutch- 
 ed my coat sleeve. Then it was I first realized 
 that for her this broke a silence of thirty years; 
 the inconceivable silence of the plains. With the 
 battle between the two motives, with the frenzy 
 
A WAGNER MATINEE 205 
 
 of the Venusberg theme and its ripping of strings, 
 there came to me an overwhelming sense of the 
 waste and wear we are so powerless to combat; 
 and I saw again the tall, naked house on the 
 prairie, black and grim as a wooden fortress ; the 
 black pond where I had learned to swim, its 
 margin pitted with sun-dried cattle tracks; the 
 rain gullied clay banks about the naked house, 
 the four dwarf ash seedlings where the dish- 
 cloths were always hung to dry before the kitchen 
 door. The world there was the flat world of the 
 ancients; to the east, a cornfield that stretched 
 to daybreak ; to the west, a corral that reached 
 to sunset; between, the conquests of peace, dearer 
 bought than those of war. 
 
 The overture closed, my aunt released my coat 
 sleeve, but she said nothing. She sat staring 
 at the orchestra through a dullness of thirty years, 
 through the films made little by little by each of 
 the three hundred and sixty-five days in every 
 one of them. What, I wondered, did she get from 
 it ? She had been a good pianist in her day, I 
 knew, and her musical education had been 
 broader than that of most music teachers of a 
 quarter of a century ago. She had often told me 
 of Mozart's operas and Meyerbeer's, and I could 
 
206 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 remember hearing her sing, years ago, certain 
 melodies of Verdi's. When I had fallen ill with a 
 fever in her house she used to sit by my cot in the 
 evening — when the cool, night wind blew in 
 through the faded mosquito netting tacked over 
 the window and I lay watching a certain bright 
 star that burned red above the cornfield — and 
 sing " Home to our mountains, O, let us return!" 
 in a way fit to break the heart of a Vermont boy 
 near dead of homesickness already. 
 
 I watched her closely through the prelude to 
 Tristan and Isolde, trying vainly to conjecture 
 what that seething turmoil of strings and winds 
 might mean to her, but she sat mutely staring at 
 the violin bows that drove obliquely downward, 
 like the pelting streaks of rain in a summer 
 shower. Had this music any message for her ? 
 Had she enough left to at all comprehend this 
 power which had kindled the world since she had 
 left it ? I was in a fever of curiosity, but Aunt 
 Georgiana sat silent upon her peak in Darien. 
 She preserved this utter immobility through- 
 out the number from the Flying Dutchman, 
 though her fingers worked mechanically upon 
 her black dress, as though, of themselves, they 
 were recalling the piano score they had once 
 
A WAGNER MATINEE 207 
 
 played. Poor old hands! They had been stretched 
 and twisted into mere tentacles to hold and lift 
 and knead with; the palm, unduly swollen, the 
 fingers bent and knotted — on one of them a 
 thin, worn band that had once been a wedding 
 ring. As I pressed and gently quieted one of those 
 groping hands, I remembered with quivering eye- 
 lids their services for me in other days. 
 
 Soon after the tenor began the "Prize Song," 
 I heard a quick drawn breath and turned to my 
 aunt. Her eyes were closed, but the tears were 
 glistening on her cheeks, and I think, in a mo- 
 ment more, they were in my eyes as well. It never 
 really died, then — the soul that can suffer so ex- 
 cruciatingly and so interminably; it withers to the 
 outward eye only; like that strange moss which 
 can lie on a dusty shelf half a century and yet, if 
 placed in water, grows green again. She wept so 
 throughout the development and elaboration of 
 the melody. 
 
 During the intermission before the second half 
 of the concert, I questioned my aunt and found 
 that the "Prize Song" was not new to her. Some 
 years before there had drifted to the farm in Red 
 Willow County a young German, a tramp cow 
 puncher, who had sung the chorus at Beyruth, 
 
208 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 when he was a boy, along with the other peasant 
 boys and girls. Of a Sunday morning he used to 
 sit on his gingham-sheeted bed in the hands' 
 bedroom which opened off the kitchen, cleaning 
 the leather of his boots and saddle, singing the 
 " Prize Song," while my aunt went about her 
 work in the kitchen. She had hovered about him 
 until she had prevailed upon him to join the coun- 
 try church, though his sole fitness for this step, in 
 so far as I could gather, lay in his boyish face and 
 his possession of this divine melody. Shortly after- 
 ward he had gone to town on the Fourth of July, 
 been drunk for several days, lost his money at a 
 faro table, ridden a saddled Texan steer on a bet, 
 and disappeared with a fractured collar-bone. 
 All this my aunt told me huskily, wanderingly, 
 as though she were talking in the weak lapses of 
 illness. 
 
 "Well, we have come to better things than the 
 old Trovatore at any rate, Aunt Georgie?" I 
 queried, with a well meant effort at jocularity. 
 
 Her lip quivered and she hastily put her hand- 
 kerchief up to her mouth. From behind it she 
 murmured, "And you have been hearing this 
 ever since you left me, Clark ?" Her question was 
 the gentlest and saddest of reproaches. 
 
A WAGNER MATINEE 209 
 
 The second half of the programme consisted of 
 four numbers from the Ring, and closed with 
 Siegfried's funeral march. My aunt wept quietly, 
 but almost continuously, as a shallow vessel over- 
 flows in a rain-storm. From time to time her dim 
 eyes looked up at the lights which studded the 
 ceiling, burning softly under their dull glass 
 globes ; doubtless they were stars in truth to her. I 
 was still perplexed as to what measure of musical 
 comprehension was left to her, she who had heard 
 nothing but the singing of Gospel Hymns at 
 Methodist services in the square frame school- 
 house on Section Thirteen for so many years. I 
 was wholly unable to gauge how much of it had 
 been dissolved in soapsuds, or worked into bread, 
 or milked into the bottom of a pail. 
 
 The deluge of sound poured on and on; I 
 never knew what she found in the shining cur- 
 rent of it; I never knew how far it bore her, or 
 past what happy islands. From the trembling of 
 her face I could well believe that before the 
 last numbers she had been carried out where 
 the myriad graves are, into the grey, nameless 
 burying grounds of the sea ; or into some world 
 of death vaster yet, where, from the begin- 
 ning of the world, hope has lain down with 
 
210 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 hope and dream with dream and, renouncing, 
 slept. 
 
 The concert was over; the people filed out of 
 the hall chattering and laughing, glad to relax 
 and find the living level again, but my kins- 
 woman made no effort to rise. The harpist slipped 
 its green felt cover over his instrument ; the flute- 
 players shook the water from their mouthpieces; 
 the men of the orchestra went out one by one, 
 leaving the stage to the chairs and music stands, 
 empty as a winter cornfield. 
 
 I spoke to my aunt. She burst into tears and 
 sobbed pleadingly. "I don't want to go, Clark, I 
 don't want to go!" 
 
 I understood. For her, just outside the door of 
 the concert hall, lay the black pond with the 
 cattle-tracked bluffs; the tall, unpainted house, 
 with weather-curled boards; naked as a tower, 
 the crook-backed ash seedlings where the dish- 
 cloths hung to dry; the gaunt, moulting turkeys 
 picking up refuse about the kitchen door. 
 
PAUL'S CASE 
 
PAUL'S CASE 
 
 A STUDY IN TEMPERAMENT 
 
 It was Paul's afternoon to appear before the 
 faculty of the Pittsburgh High School to account 
 for his various misdemeanours. He had been sus- 
 pended a week ago, and his father had called at 
 the Principal's office and confessed his perplexity 
 about his son. Paul entered the faculty room 
 suave and smiling. His clothes were a trifle out- 
 grown and the tan velvet on the collar of his open 
 overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that 
 there was something of the dandy about him, and 
 he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black 
 four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his button- 
 hole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow 
 felt was not properly significant of the contrite 
 spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension. 
 Paul was tall for his age and very thin, with 
 high, cramped shoulders and a narrow chest. 
 His eyes were remarkable for a certain hysterical 
 brilliancy and he continually used them in a con- 
 
214 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 scious, theatrical sort of way, peculiarly offen- 
 sive in a boy. The pupils were abnormally large, 
 as though he were addicted to belladonna, but 
 there was a glassy glitter about them which that 
 drug does not produce. 
 
 When questioned by the Principal as to why 
 he was there, Paul stated, politely enough, that 
 he wanted to come back to school. This was a lie, 
 but Paul was quite accustomed to lying; found 
 it, indeed, indispensable for overcoming friction. 
 His teachers were asked to state their respective 
 charges against him, which they did with such a 
 rancour and aggrievedness as evinced that this 
 was not a usual case. Disorder and impertinence 
 were among the offences named, yet each of his 
 instructors felt that it was scarcely possible to 
 put into words the real cause of the trouble, 
 which lay in a sort of hysterically defiant manner 
 of the boy's; in the contempt which they all knew 
 he felt for them, and which he seemingly made 
 not the least effort to conceal. Once, when he had 
 been making a synopsis of a paragraph at the 
 blackboard, his English teacher had stepped to 
 his side and attempted to guide his hand. Paul 
 had started back with a shudder and thrust his 
 hands violently behind him. The astonished 
 
PAUL'S CASE 215 
 
 woman could scarcely have been more hurt and 
 embarrassed had he struck at her. The insult 
 was so involuntary and definitely personal as to 
 be unforgettable. In one way and another, he had 
 made all his teachers, men and women alike, 
 conscious of the same feeling of physical aver- 
 sion. In one class he habitually sat with his hand 
 shading his eyes; in another he always looked 
 out of the window during the recitation; in an- 
 other he made a running commentary on the 
 lecture, with humorous intention. 
 
 His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole 
 attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his 
 flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell up- 
 on him without mercy, his English teacher lead- 
 ing the pack. He stood through it smiling, his 
 pale lips parted over his white teeth. (His lips 
 were continually twitching, and he had a habit of 
 raising his eyebrows that was contemptuous and 
 irritating to the last degree.) Older boys than 
 Paul had broken down and shed tears under 
 that baptism of fire, but his set smile did not 
 once desert him, and his only sign of discomfort 
 was the nervous trembling of the fingers that 
 toyed with the buttons of his overcoat, and an 
 occasional jerking of the other hand that held 
 
216 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 his hat. Paul was always smiling, always glanc- 
 ing about him, seeming to feel that people might 
 be watching him and trying to detect something. 
 This conscious expression, since it was as far as 
 possible from boyish mirthfulness, was usually 
 attributed to insolence or "smartness." 
 
 As the inquisition proceeded, one of his in- 
 structors repeated an impertinent remark of the 
 boy's, and the Principal asked him whether he 
 thought that a courteous speech to have made a 
 woman. Paul shrugged his shoulders slightly and 
 his eyebrows twitched. 
 
 "I don't know," he replied. "I didn't mean to 
 be polite or impolite, either. I guess it's a sort of 
 way I have of saying things regardless." 
 
 The Principal, who was a sympathetic man, 
 asked him whether he didn't think that a way it 
 would be well to get rid of. Paul grinned and said 
 he guessed so. When he was told that he could 
 go, he bowed gracefully and went out. His bow 
 was but a repetition of the scandalous red carna- 
 tion. 
 
 His teachers were in despair, and his drawing 
 master voiced the feeling of them all when he de- 
 clared there was something about the boy which 
 none of them understood. He added: "I don't 
 
PAULS CASE 217 
 
 really believe that smile of his comes altogether 
 from insolence; there's something sort of haunted 
 about it. The boy is not strong, for one thing. I 
 happen to know that he was born in Colorado, 
 only a few months before his mother died out 
 there of a long illness. There is something wrong 
 about the fellow." 
 
 The drawing master had come to realize that, 
 in looking at Paul, one saw only his white teeth 
 and the forced animation of his eyes. One warm 
 afternoon the boy had gone to sleep at his draw- 
 ing-board, and his master had noted with amaze- 
 ment what a white, blue-veined face it was; 
 drawn and wrinkled like an old man's about the 
 eyes, the lips twitching even in his sleep, and 
 stiff with a nervous tension that drew them back 
 from his teeth. 
 
 His teachers left the building dissatisfied and 
 unhappy; humiliated to have felt so vindictive 
 toward a mere boy, to have uttered this feeling 
 in cutting terms, and to have set each other on, 
 as it were, in the grewsome game of intemperate 
 reproach. Some of them remembered having seen 
 a miserable street cat set at bay by a ring of tor- 
 mentors. 
 
 As for Paul, he ran down the hill whistling the 
 
218 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Soldiers' Chorus from Faust looking wildly be- 
 hind him now and then to see whether some of 
 his teachers were not there to writhe under his 
 light-heart edness. As it was now late in the af- 
 ternoon and Paul was on duty that evening as 
 usher at Carnegie Hall, he decided that he would 
 not go home to supper. When he reached the 
 concert hall the doors were not yet open and, as 
 it was chilly outside, he decided to go up into the 
 picture gallery — always deserted at this hour — 
 where there were some of Raffelli's gay studies 
 of Paris streets and an airy blue Venetian scene 
 or two that always exhilarated him. He was de- 
 lighted to find no one in the gallery but the old 
 guard, who sat in one corner, a newspaper on his 
 knee, a black patch over one eye and the other 
 closed. Paul possessed himself of the place and 
 walked confidently up and down, whistling un- 
 der his breath. After a while he sat down before a 
 blue Rico and lost himself. When he bethought 
 him to look at his watch, it was after seven 
 o'clock, and he rose with a start and ran down- 
 stairs, making a face at Augustus, peering out 
 from the cast-room, and an evil gesture at the 
 Venus of Milo as he passed her on the stairway. 
 When Paul reached the ushers' dressing-room 
 
PAUL'S CASE 219 
 
 half-a-dozen boys were there already, and he be- 
 gan excitedly to tumble into his uniform. It was 
 one of the few that at all approached fitting, and 
 Paul thought it very becoming — though he knew 
 that the tight, straight coat accentuated his nar- 
 row chest, about which he was exceedingly sensi- 
 tive. He was always considerably excited while he 
 dressed, twanging all over to the tuning of the 
 strings and the preliminary flourishes of the horns 
 in the music-room; but to-night he seemed quite 
 beside himself, and he teased and plagued the 
 boys until, telling him that he was crazy, they put 
 him down on the floor and sat on him. 
 
 Somewhat calmed by his suppression, Paul 
 dashed out to the front of the house to seat the 
 early comers. He was a model usher; gracious 
 and smiling he ran up and down the aisles ; noth- 
 ing was too much trouble for him; he carried 
 messages and brought programmes as though 
 it were his greatest pleasure in life, and all the 
 people in his section thought him a charming 
 boy, feeling that he remembered and admired 
 them. As the house filled, he grew more and more 
 vivacious and animated, and the colour came to 
 his cheeks and lips. It was very much as though 
 this were a great reception and Paul were the 
 
220 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 host. Just as the musicians came out to take 
 their places, his English teacher arrived with 
 checks for the seats which a prominent manu- 
 facturer had taken for the season. She betrayed 
 some embarrassment when she handed Paul the 
 tickets, and a hauteur which subsequently made 
 her feel very foolish. Paul was startled for a mo- 
 ment, and had the feeling of wanting to put her 
 out; what business had she here among all these 
 fine people and gay colours ? He looked her over 
 and decided that she was not appropriately 
 dressed and must be a fool to sit downstairs in 
 such togs. The tickets had probably been sent 
 her out of kindness, he reflected as he put down 
 a seat for her, and she had about as much right 
 to sit there as he had. 
 
 When the symphony began Paul sank into one 
 of the rear seats with a long sigh of relief, and 
 lost himself as he had done before the Rico. It 
 was not that symphonies, as such, meant any- 
 thing in particular to Paul, but the first sigh of the 
 instruments seemed to free some hilarious and 
 potent spirit within him; something that strug- 
 gled there like the Genius in the bottle found by 
 the Arab fisherman. He felt a sudden zest of 
 life; the lights danced before his eyes and the 
 
PAUL'S CASE 221 
 
 concert hall blazed into unimaginable splendour. 
 When the soprano soloist came on, Paul forgot 
 even the nastiness of his teacher's being there 
 and gave himself up to the peculiar stimulus such 
 personages always had for him. The soloist 
 chanced to be a German woman, by no means in 
 her first youth, and the mother of many children ; 
 but she wore an elaborate gown and a tiara, and 
 above all she had that indefinable air of achieve- 
 ment, that world-shine upon her, which, in Paul's 
 eyes, made her a veritable queen of Romance. 
 
 After a concert was over Paul was always ir- 
 ritable and wretched until he got to sleep, and 
 to-night he was even more than usually restless. 
 He had the feeling of not being able to let down, 
 of its being impossible to give up this delicious 
 excitement which was the only thing that could 
 be called living at all. During the last number he 
 withdrew and, after hastily changing his clothes 
 in the dressing-room, slipped out to the side door 
 where the soprano's carriage stood. Here he be- 
 gan pacing rapidly up and down the walk, wait- 
 ing to see her come out. 
 
 Over yonder the Schenley, in its vacant 
 stretch, loomed big and square through the fine 
 rain, the windows of its twelve stories glowing 
 
222 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 like those of a lighted card-board house under a 
 Christmas tree. All the actors and singers of the 
 better class stayed there when they were in the 
 city, and a number of the big manufacturers of 
 the place lived there in the winter. Paul had of- 
 ten hung about the hotel, watching the people 
 go in and out, longing to enter and leave school- 
 masters and dull care behind him forever. 
 
 At last the singer came out, accompanied by 
 the conductor, who helped her into her carriage 
 and closed the door with a cordial auf wiedersehen 
 which set Paul to wondering whether she were not 
 an old sweetheart of his. Paul followed the car- 
 riage over to the hotel, walking so rapidly as not 
 to be far from the entrance when the singer 
 alighted and disappeared behind the swinging 
 glass doors that were opened by a negro in a tall 
 hat and a long coat. In the moment that the door 
 was ajar, it seemed to Paul that he, too, entered. 
 He seemed to feel himself go after her up the 
 steps, into the warm, lighted building, into an 
 exotic, a tropical world of shiny, glistening sur- 
 faces and basking ease. He reflected upon the 
 mysterious dishes that were brought into the 
 dining-room, the green bottles in buckets of ice, 
 as he had seen them in the supper party pictures 
 
PAUL'S CASE 223 
 
 of the Sunday World supplement. A quick gust 
 of wind brought the rain down with sudden 
 vehemence, and Paul was startled to find that he 
 was still outside in the slush of the gravel drive- 
 way; that his boots were letting in the water and 
 his scanty overcoat was clinging wet about him; 
 that the lights in front of the concert hall were 
 out, and that the rain was driving in sheets be- 
 tween him and the orange glow of the windows 
 above him. There it was, what he wanted — tan- 
 gibly before him, like the fairy world of a Christ- 
 mas pantomime, but mocking spirits stood guard 
 at the doors, and, as the rain beat in his face, 
 Paul wondered whether he were destined always 
 to shiver in the black night outside, looking up 
 at it. 
 
 He turned and walked reluctantly toward the 
 car tracks. The end had to come sometime; his 
 father in his night-clothes at the top of the stairs, 
 explanations that did not explain, hastily im- 
 provised fictions that were forever tripping him 
 up, his upstairs room and its horrible yellow 
 wall-paper, the creaking bureau with the greasy 
 plush collar-box, and over his painted wooden 
 bed the pictures of George Washington and John 
 Calvin, and the framed motto, "Feed my 
 
224 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Lambs," which had been worked in red worsted 
 by his mother. 
 
 Half an hour later, Paul alighted from his car 
 and went slowly down one of the side streets off 
 the main thoroughfare. It was a highly respecta- 
 ble street, where all the houses were exactly alike, 
 and w T here business men of moderate means 
 begot and reared large families of children, all of 
 whom went to Sabbath-school and learned the 
 shorter catechism, and were interested in arith- 
 metic; all of whom were as exactly alike as their 
 homes, and of a piece with the monotony in 
 which they lived. Paul never went up Cordelia 
 Street without a shudder of loathing. His home 
 was next the house of the Cumberland minister. 
 He approached it to-night with the nerveless 
 sense of defeat, the hopeless feeling of sinking 
 back forever into ugliness and commonness that 
 he had always had when he came home. The 
 moment he turned into Cordelia Street he felt 
 the waters close above his head. After each of 
 these orgies of living, he experienced all the 
 physical depression which follows a debauch; 
 the loathing of respectable beds, of common 
 food, of a house penetrated by kitchen odours; 
 a shuddering repulsion for the flavourless, colour- 
 
PAUL'S CASE 225 
 
 less mass of every-day existence ; a morbid desire 
 for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers. 
 
 The nearer he approached the house, the more 
 absolutely unequal Paul felt to the sight of it all; 
 his ugly sleeping chamber; the cold bath-room 
 with the grimy zinc tub, the cracked mirror, the 
 dripping spiggots; his father, at the top of the 
 stairs, his hairy legs sticking out from his night- 
 shirt, his feet thrust into carpet slippers. He was 
 so much later than usual that there would cer- 
 tainly be inquiries and reproaches. Paul stopped 
 short before the door. He felt that he could not 
 be accosted by his father to-night ; that he could 
 not toss again on that miserable bed. He would 
 not go in. He would tell his father that he had no 
 car fare, and it was raining so hard he had gone 
 home with one of the boys and stayed all night. 
 
 Meanwhile, he was wet and cold. He went 
 around to the back of the house and tried one of 
 the basement windows, found it open, raised it 
 cautiously, and scrambled down the cellar wall 
 to the floor. There he stood, holding his breath, 
 terrified by the noise he had made, but the floor 
 above him was silent, and there was no creak on 
 the stairs. He found a soap-box, and carried it 
 over to the soft ring of light that streamed from 
 
226 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 the furnace door, and sat down. He was horribly 
 afraid of rats, so he did not try to sleep, but sat 
 looking distrustfully at the dark, still terrified 
 least he might have awakened his father. In such 
 reactions, after one of the experiences which 
 made days and nights out of the dreary blanks of 
 the calendar, when his senses were deadened, 
 Paul's head was always singularly clear. Sup- 
 pose his father had heard him getting in at the 
 window and had come down and shot him for a 
 burglar? Then, again, suppose his father had 
 come down, pistol in hand, and he had cried out 
 in time to save himself, and his father had been 
 horrified to think how nearly he had killed him ? 
 Then, again, suppose a day should come when 
 his father would remember that night, and wish 
 there had been no warning cry to stay his hand ? 
 With this last supposition Paul entertained him- 
 self until daybreak. 
 
 The following Sunday was fine; the sodden 
 November chill was broken by the last flash of 
 autumnal summer. In the morning Paul had to 
 go to church and Sabbath-school, as always. On 
 seasonable Sunday afternoons the burghers of 
 Cordelia Street always sat out on their front 
 "stoops," and talked to their neighbours on the 
 
PAUL'S CASE 227 
 
 next stoop, or called to those across the street in 
 neighbourly fashion. The men usually sat on gay 
 cushions placed upon the steps that led down 
 to the sidewalk, while the women, in their Sun- 
 day "waists," sat in rockers on the cramped 
 porches, pretending to be greatly at their ease. 
 The children played in the streets ; there were so 
 many of them that the place resembled the rec- 
 reation grounds of a kindergarten. The men on 
 the steps — all in their shirt sleeves, their vests 
 unbuttoned — sat with their legs well apart, 
 their stomachs comfortably protruding, and 
 talked of the prices of things, or told anecdotes 
 of the sagacity of their various chiefs and over- 
 lords. They occasionally looked over the multi- 
 tude of squabbling children, listened affection- 
 ately to their high-pitched, nasal voices, smiling 
 to see their own proclivities reproduced in their 
 offspring, and interspersed their legends of the 
 iron kings with remarks about their sons' prog- 
 ress at school, their grades in arithmetic, and the 
 amounts they had saved in their toy banks. 
 
 On this last Sunday of November, Paul sat all 
 the afternoon on the lowest step of his "stoop," 
 staring into the street, while his sisters, in their 
 rockers, were talking to the minister's daughters 
 
228 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 next door about how many shirt-waists they had 
 made in the last week, and how many waffles some 
 one had eaten at the last church supper. When the 
 weather was warm, and his father was in a par- 
 ticularly jovial frame of mind, the girls made 
 lemonade, which was always brought out in a 
 red-glass pitcher, ornamented with forget-me- 
 nots in blue enamel. This the girls thought very 
 fine, and the neighbours always joked about the 
 suspicious colour of the pitcher. 
 
 To-day Paul's father sat on the top step, talk- 
 ing to a young man who shifted a restless baby 
 from knee to knee. He happened to be the young 
 man who was daily held up to Paul as a model, 
 and after whom it was his father's dearest hope 
 that he would pattern. This young man was of a 
 ruddy complexion, with a compressed, red 
 mouth, and faded, near-sighted eyes, over which 
 he wore thick spectacles, with gold bows that 
 curved about his ears. He was clerk to one of 
 the magnates of a great steel corporation, and 
 was looked upon in Cordelia Street as a young 
 man with a future. There was a story that, some 
 five years ago — he was now barely twenty-six — 
 he had been a trifle dissipated but in order to 
 curb his appetites and save the loss of time and 
 
PAUL'S CASE 229 
 
 strength that a sowing of wild oats might have 
 entailed, he had taken his chief's advice, oft re- 
 iterated to his employees, and at twenty-one had 
 married the first woman whom he could persuade 
 to share his fortunes. She happened to be an 
 angular school-mistress, much older than he, who 
 also wore thick glasses, and who had now borne 
 him four children, all near-sighted, like herself. 
 The young man was relating how his chief, 
 now cruising in the Mediterranean, kept in touch 
 with all the details of the business, arranging his 
 office hours on his yacht just as though he were 
 at home, and "knocking off work enough to keep 
 two stenographers busy." His father told, in turn, 
 the plan his corporation was considering, of put- 
 ting in an electric railway plant at Cairo. Paul 
 snapped his teeth ; he had an awful apprehension 
 that they might spoil it all before he got there. 
 Yet he rather liked to hear these legends of the 
 iron kings, that were told and retold on Sundays 
 and holidays; these stories of palaces in Venice, 
 yachts on the Mediterranean, and high play at 
 Monte Carlo appealed to his fancy, and he was 
 interested in the triumphs of these cash boys who 
 had become famous, though he had no mind for 
 the cash-boy stage. 
 
230 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 After supper was over, and he had helped to 
 dry the dishes, Paul nervously asked his father 
 whether he could go to George's to get some help 
 in his geometry, and still more nervously asked 
 for car fare. This latter request he had to repeat, 
 as his father, on principle, did not like to hear 
 requests for money, whether much or little. He 
 asked Paul whether he could not go to some boy 
 who lived nearer, and told him that he ought not 
 to leave his school work until Sunday; but he 
 gave him the dime. He was not a poor man, but 
 he had a worthy ambition to come up in the 
 world. His only reason for allowing Paul to usher 
 was, that he thought a boy ought to be earning a 
 little. 
 
 Paul bounded upstairs, scrubbed the greasy 
 odour of the dish-water from his hands with the 
 ill-smelling soap he hated, and then shook over 
 his fingers a few drops of violet water from the 
 bottle he kept hidden in his drawer. He left the 
 house with his geometry conspicuously under his 
 arm, and the moment he got out of Cordelia 
 Street and boarded a downtown car, he shook off 
 the lethargy of two deadening days, and began 
 to live again. 
 
 The leading juvenile of the permanent stock 
 
PAUL'S CASE 231 
 
 company which played at one of the downtown 
 theatres was an acquaintance of Paul's, and the 
 boy had been invited to drop in at the Sunday- 
 night rehearsals whenever he could. For more than 
 a year Paul had spent every available moment 
 loitering about Charley Edwards's dressing-room. 
 He had won a place among Edwards's fol- 
 lowing not only because the young actor, who 
 could not afford to employ a dresser, often 
 found him useful, but because he recognized in 
 Paul something akin to what churchmen term 
 "vocation." 
 
 It was at the theatre and at Carnegie Hall 
 that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep 
 and a forgetting. This was Paul's fairy tale, and 
 it had for him all the allurement of a secret love. 
 The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty 
 odour behind the scenes, he breathed like a pris- 
 oner set free, and felt within him the possibility 
 of doing or saying splendid, brilliant, poetic 
 things. The moment the cracked orchestra beat 
 out the overture from Martha, or jerked at 
 the serenade from Rigoletto, all stupid and 
 ugly things slid from him, and his senses were 
 deliciously, yet delicately fired. 
 
 Perhaps it was because, in Paul's world, the 
 
232 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 natural nearly always wore the guise of ugliness, 
 that a certain element of artificiality seemed to 
 him necessary in beauty. Perhaps it was because 
 his experience of life elsewhere was so full of Sab- 
 bath-school picnics, petty economies, wholesome 
 advice as to how to succeed in life, and the un- 
 escapable odours of cooking, that he found this 
 existence so alluring, these smartly-clad men 
 and women so attractive, that he was so moved 
 by these starry apple orchards that bloomed 
 perennially under the lime-light. 
 
 It would be difficult to put it strongly enough 
 how convincingly the stage entrance of that 
 theatre was for Paul the actual portal of Romance. 
 Certainly none of the company ever suspected it, 
 least of all Charley Edwards. It was very like the 
 old stories that used to float about London of 
 fabulously rich Jews, who had subterranean halls 
 there, with palms, and fountains, and soft lamps 
 and richly apparelled women who never saw the 
 disenchanting light of London day. So, in the 
 midst of that smoke-palled city, enamoured of 
 figures and grimy toil, Paul had his secret tem- 
 ple, his wishing carpet, his bit of blue- and- white 
 Mediterranean shore bathed in perpetual sun- 
 shine. 
 
PAUL'S CASE 233 
 
 Several of Paul's teachers had a theory that his 
 imagination had been perverted by garish fiction, 
 but the truth was that he scarcely ever read at all. 
 The books at home were not such as would 
 either tempt or corrupt a youthful mind, and as 
 for reading the novels that some of his friends 
 urged upon him — well, he got what he wanted 
 much more quickly from music; any sort of 
 music, from an orchestra to a barrel organ. He 
 needed only the spark, the indescribable thrill 
 that made his imagination master of his senses, 
 and he could make plots and pictures enough of 
 his own. It was equally true that he was not stage 
 struck — not, at any rate, in the usual acceptation 
 of that expression. He had no desire to become an 
 actor, any more than he had to become a musi- 
 cian. He felt no necessity to do any of these 
 things; what he wanted was to see, to be in the 
 atmosphere, float on the wave of it, to be car- 
 ried out, blue league after blue league, away 
 from everything. 
 
 After a night behind the scenes, Paul found 
 the school-room more than ever repulsive; the 
 bare floors and naked walls; the prosy men who 
 never wore frock coats, or violets in their button- 
 holes; the women with their dull gowns, shrill 
 
234 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 voices, and pitiful seriousness about prepositions 
 that govern the dative. He could not bear to have 
 the other pupils think, for a moment, that he 
 took these people seriously; he must convey to 
 them that he considered it all trivial, and was 
 there only by way of a jest, anyway. He had auto- 
 graph pictures of all the members of the stock 
 company which he showed his classmates, tell- 
 ing them the most incredible stories of his famil- 
 iarity with these people, of his acquaintance with 
 the soloists who came to Carnegie Hall, his sup- 
 pers with them and the flowers he sent them. 
 When these stories lost their effect, and his audi- 
 ence grew listless, he became desperate and 
 would bid all the boys good-bye, announcing 
 that he was going to travel for awhile; going to 
 Naples, to Venice, to Egypt. Then, next Monday, 
 he would slip back, conscious and nervously 
 smiling; his sister was ill, and he should have to 
 defer his voyage until spring. 
 
 Matters went steadily worse with Paul at 
 school. In the itch to let his instructors know how 
 heartily he despised them and their homilies, 
 and how thoroughly he was appreciated else- 
 where, he mentioned once or twice that he had 
 no time to fool with theorems; adding — with a 
 
PAUL'S CASE 235 
 
 twitch of the eyebrows and a touch of that ner- 
 vous bravado which so perplexed them — that he 
 was helping the people down at the stock com- 
 pany; they were old friends of his. 
 
 The upshot of the matter was, that the Princi- 
 pal went to Paul's father, and Paul was taken 
 out of school and put to work. The manager at 
 Carnegie Hall was told to get another usher in 
 his stead; the doorkeeper at the theatre was 
 warned not to admit him to the house; and Char- 
 ley Edwards remorsefully promised the boy's 
 father not to see him again. 
 
 The members of the stock company were vast- 
 ly amused when some of Paul's stories reached 
 them — especially the women. They were hard- 
 working women, most of them supporting indi- 
 gent husbands or brothers, and they laughed 
 rather bitterly at having stirred the boy to such 
 fervid and florid inventions. They agreed with 
 the faculty and with his father that Paul's was a 
 bad case. 
 
 The east-bound train was ploughing through a 
 January snow-storm; the dull dawn was begin- 
 ning to show grey when the engine whistled a 
 mile out of Newark. Paul started up from the 
 
236 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 seat where he had lain curled in uneasy slumber, 
 rubbed the breath-misted window glass with his 
 hand, and peered out. The snow was whirling 
 in curling eddies above the white bottom lands, 
 and the drifts lay already deep in the fields and 
 along the fences, while here and there the long 
 dead grass and dried weed stalks protruded black 
 above it. Lights shone from the scattered houses, 
 and a gang of labourers who stood beside the 
 track waved their lanterns. 
 
 Paul had slept very little, and he felt grimy and 
 uncomfortable. He had made the all-night jour- 
 ney in a day coach, partly because he was asham- 
 ed, dressed as he was, to go into a Pullman, and 
 partly because he was afraid of being seen there 
 by some Pittsburgh business man, who might 
 have noticed him in Denny & Carson's office. 
 When the whistle awoke him, he clutched quickly 
 at his breast pocket, glancing about him with an 
 uncertain smile. But the little, clay-bespattered 
 Italians were still sleeping, the slatternly women 
 across the aisle were in open-mouthed oblivion, 
 and even the crumby, crying babies were for the 
 nonce stilled. Paul settled back to struggle with 
 his impatience as best he could. 
 
 When he arrived at the Jersey City station, 
 
PAUL'S CASE 237 
 
 he hurried through his breakfast, manifestly ill at 
 ease and keeping a sharp eye about him. After 
 he reached the Twenty-third Street station, he 
 consulted a cabman, and had himself driven to a 
 men's furnishing establishment that was just 
 opening for the day. He spent upward of two 
 hours there, buying with endless reconsidering 
 and great care. His new street suit he put on in 
 the fitting-room; the frock coat and dress clothes 
 he had bundled into the cab with his linen. Then 
 he drove to a hatter's and a shoe house. His next 
 errand was at Tiffany's, where he selected his 
 silver and a new scarf-pin. He would not wait to 
 have his silver marked, he said. Lastly, he stop- 
 ped at a trunk shop on Broadway, and had his 
 purchases packed into various travelling bags. 
 
 It was a little after one o'clock when he drove 
 up to the Waldorf, and after settling with the 
 cabman, went into the office. He registered from 
 Washington; said his mother and father had been 
 abroad, and that he had come down to await the 
 arrival of their steamer. He told his story plausi- 
 bly and had no trouble, since he volunteered to 
 pay for them in advance, in engaging his rooms ; a 
 sleeping-room, sitting-room and bath. 
 
 Not once, but a hundred times Paul had plan- 
 
238 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 ned this entry into New York. He had gone over 
 every detail of it with Charley Edwards, and in 
 his scrap book at home there were pages of de- 
 scription about New York hotels, cut from the 
 Sunday papers. When he was shown to his sitting- 
 room on the eighth floor, he saw at a glance that 
 everything was as it should be ; there was but one 
 detail in his mental picture that the place did not 
 realize, so he rang for the bell boy and sent him 
 down for flowers. He moved about nervously un- 
 til the boy returned, putting away his new linen 
 and fingering it delightedly as he did so. When 
 the flowers came, he put them hastily into water, 
 and then tumbled into a hot bath. Presently he 
 came out of his white bath-room, resplendent in 
 his new silk underwear, and playing with the 
 tassels of his red robe. The snow was whirling so 
 fiercely outside his windows that he could scarce- 
 ly see across the street, but within the air was de- 
 liciously soft and fragrant. He put the violets and 
 jonquils on the taboret beside the couch, and 
 threw himself down, with a long sigh, covering 
 himself with a Roman blanket. He was thoroughly 
 tired ; he had been in such haste, he had stood up to 
 such a strain, covered so much ground in the last 
 twenty-four hours, that he wanted to think how 
 
PAUL'S CASE 239 
 
 it had all come about. Lulled by the sound of the 
 wind, the warm air, and the cool fragrance of the 
 flowers, he sank into deep, drowsy retrospection. 
 
 It had been wonderfully simple; when they had 
 shut him out of the theatre and concert hall, 
 when they had taken away his bone, the whole 
 thing was virtually determined. The rest was a 
 mere matter of opportunity. The only thing that 
 at all surprised him was his own courage — for he 
 realized well enough that he had always been tor- 
 mented by fear, a sort of apprehensive dread that, 
 of late years, as the meshes of the lies he had 
 told closed about him, had been pulling the mus- 
 cles of his body tighter and tighter. Until now, he 
 could not remember the time when he had not 
 been dreading something. Even when he was a 
 little boy, it was always there — behind him, or 
 before, or on either side. There had always been 
 the shadowed corner, the dark place into which 
 he dared not look, but from which something 
 seemed always to be watching him — and Paul 
 had done things that were not pretty to watch, he 
 knew. 
 
 But now he had a curious sense of relief, as 
 though he had at last thrown down the gauntlet 
 to the thing in the corner. 
 
240 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 Yet it was but a day since he had been sulking 
 in the traces ; but yesterday afternoon that he had 
 been sent to the bank with Denny & Carson's de- 
 posit, as usual — but this time he was instructed 
 to leave the book to be balanced. There was 
 above two thousand dollars in checks, and nearly 
 a thousand in the bank notes which he had taken 
 from the book and quietly transferred to his 
 pocket. At the bank he had made out a new de- 
 posit slip. His nerves had been steady enough to 
 permit of his returning to the office, where he had 
 finished his work and asked for a full day's holi- 
 day to-morrow, Saturday, giving a perfectly rea- 
 sonable pretext. The bank book, he knew, would 
 not be returned before Monday or Tuesday, and 
 his father would be out of town for the next week. 
 From the time he slipped the bank notes into his 
 pocket until he boarded the night train for New 
 York, he had not known a moment's hesitation. 
 It was not the first time Paul had steered through 
 treacherous waters. 
 
 How astonishingly easy it had all been ; here he 
 was, the thing done ; and this time there would be 
 no awakening, no figure at the top of the stairs. 
 He watched the snow flakes whirling by his win- 
 dow until he fell asleep. 
 
PAUL'S CASE 241 
 
 When he awoke, it was three o'clock in the af- 
 ternoon. He bounded up with a start; half of one 
 of his precious days gone already ! He spent more 
 than an hour in dressing, watching every stage of 
 his toilet carefully in the mirror. Everything was 
 quite perfect; he was exactly the kind of boy he 
 had always wanted to be. 
 
 When he went downstairs, Paul took a carriage 
 and drove up Fifth Avenue toward the Park. The 
 snow had somewhat abated ; carriages and trades- 
 men's wagons were hurrying soundlessly to and 
 fro in the winter twilight ; boys in woollen mufflers 
 were shovelling off the doorsteps; the avenue stages 
 made fine spots of colour against the white street. 
 Here and there on the corners were stands, with 
 whole flower gardens blooming under glass cases, 
 against the sides of which the snow flakes stuck 
 and melted; violets, roses, carnations, lilies of the 
 valley — somehow vastly more lovely and alluring 
 that they blossomed thus unnaturally in the snow. 
 The Park itself was a wonderful stage winter- 
 piece. 
 
 When he returned, the pause of the twilight 
 had ceased, and the tune of the streets had chang- 
 ed. The snow was falling faster, lights streamed 
 from the hotels that reared their dozen stories 
 
242 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 fearlessly up into the storm, defying the raging 
 Atlantic winds. A long, black stream of carriages 
 poured down the avenue, intersected here and 
 there by other streams, tending horizontally. 
 There were a score of cabs about the entrance of 
 his hotel, and his driver had to wait. Boys in liv- 
 ery were running in and out of the awning stretch- 
 ed across the sidewalk, up and down the red vel- 
 vet carpet laid from the door to the street. Above, 
 about, within it all was the rumble and roar, the 
 hurry and toss of thousands of human beings as 
 hot for pleasure as himself, and on every side of 
 him towered the glaring affirmation of the om- 
 nipotence of wealth. 
 
 The boy set his teeth and drew his shoulders 
 together in a spasm of realization; the plot of 
 all dramas, the text of all romances, the nerve- 
 stuff of all sensations was whirling about him 
 like the snow flakes. He burnt like a faggot in a 
 tempest. 
 
 When Paul went down to dinner, the music 
 of the orchestra came floating up the elevator 
 shaft to greet him. His head whirled as he stepped 
 into the thronged corridor, and he sank back into 
 one of the chairs against the wall to get his breath. 
 The lights, the chatter, the perfumes, the bewil- 
 
PAUL'S CASE 243 
 
 dering medley of colour — he had, for a moment, 
 the feeling of not being able to stand it. But only 
 for a moment ; these were his own people, he told 
 himself. He went slowly about the corridors, 
 through the writing-rooms, smoking-rooms, re- 
 ception-rooms, as though he were exploring the 
 chambers of an enchanted palace, built and peo- 
 pled for him alone. 
 
 When he reached the dining-room he sat down 
 at a table near a window. The flowers, the white 
 linen, the many-coloured wine glasses, the gay 
 toilettes of the women, the low popping of corks, 
 the undulating repetitions of the Blue Danube 
 from the orchestra, all flooded Paul's dream with 
 bewildering radiance. When the roseate tinge of 
 his champagne was added — that cold, precious, 
 bubbling stuff that creamed and foamed in his 
 glass — Paul wondered that there were honest 
 men in the world at all. This was what all the 
 world was. fighting for, he reflected; this was 
 what all the struggle was about. He doubted the 
 reality of his past. Had he ever known a place 
 called Cordelia Street, a place where fagged- 
 looking business men got on the early car; mere 
 rivets in a machine they seemed to Paul, — sick- 
 ening men, with combings of children's hair al- 
 
244 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 ways hanging to their coats, and the smell of 
 cooking in their clothes. Cordelia Street — Ah! 
 that belonged to another time and country; had 
 he not always been thus, had he not sat here 
 night after night, from as far back as he could re- 
 member, looking pensively over just such shim- 
 mering textures, and slowly twirling the stem of a 
 glass like this one between his thumb and middle 
 finger ? He rather thought he had. 
 
 He was not in the least abashed or lonely. He 
 had no especial desire to meet or to know any of 
 these people; all he demanded was the right to 
 look on and conjecture, to watch the pageant. 
 The mere stage properties were all he contended 
 for. Nor was he lonely later in the evening, in his 
 lodge at the Metropolitan, He was now entirely rid 
 of his nervous misgivings, of his forced aggres- 
 siveness, of the imperative desire to show himself 
 different from his surroundings. He felt now that 
 his surroundings explained him. Nobody ques- 
 tioned the purple; he had only to wear it pas- 
 sively. He had only to glance down at his attire to 
 reassure himself that here it would be impossible 
 for any one to humiliate him. 
 
 He found it hard to leave his beautiful sitting- 
 room to go to bed that night, and sat long watch- 
 
PAUL'S CASE 245 
 
 ing the raging storm from his turret window. 
 When he went to sleep it was with the lights 
 turned on in his bedroom ; partly because of his 
 old timidity, and partly so that, if he should 
 wake in the night, there would be no wretched 
 moment of doubt, no horrible suspicion of yellow 
 wall-paper, or of Washington and Calvin above 
 his bed. 
 
 Sunday morning the city was practically snow- 
 bound. Paul breakfasted late, and in the after- 
 noon he fell in with a wild San Francisco boy, a 
 freshman at Yale, who said he had run down for 
 a "little flyer" over Sunday. The young man of- 
 fered to show Paul the night side of the town, and 
 the two boys went out together after dinner, not 
 returning to the hotel until seven o'clock the next 
 morning. They had started out in the confiding 
 warmth of a champagne friendship, but their 
 parting in the elevator was singularly cool. The 
 freshman pulled himself together to make his 
 train, and Paul went to bed. He awoke at two 
 o'clock in the afternoon, very thirsty and dizzy, 
 and rang for ice- water, coffee, and the Pittsburgh 
 papers. 
 
 On the part of the hotel management, Paul ex- 
 cited no suspicion. There was this to be said for 
 
246 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 him, that he wore his spoils with dignity and in 
 no way made himself conspicuous. Even under 
 the glow of his wine he was never boisterous, 
 though he found the stuff like a magician's wand 
 for wonder-building. His chief greediness lay in 
 his ears and eyes, and his excessses were not of- 
 fencive ones. His dearest pleasures were the grey 
 winter twilights in his sitting-room ; his quiet en- 
 joyment of his flowers, his clothes, his wide divan, 
 his cigarette and his sense of power. He could not 
 remember a time when he had felt so at peace 
 with himself. The mere release from the neces- 
 sity of petty lying, lying every day and every day, 
 restored his self-respect. He had never lied for 
 pleasure, even at school; but to be noticed and 
 admired, to assert his difference from other 
 Cordelia Street boys; and he felt a good deal 
 more manly, more honest, even, now that he 
 had no need for boastful pretensions, now that 
 he could, as his actor friends used to say, "dress 
 the part. " It was characteristic that remorse did 
 not occur to him. His golden days went by with- 
 out a shadow, and he made each as perfect as he 
 could. 
 
 On the eighth day after his arrival in New 
 York, he found the whole affair exploited in the 
 
PAUL'S CASE 247 
 
 Pittsburgh papers, exploited with a wealth of de- 
 tail which indicated that local news of a sensa- 
 tional nature was at a low ebb. The firm of 
 Denny & Carson announced that the boy's father 
 had refunded the full amount of the theft, and 
 that they had no intention of prosecuting. The 
 Cumberland minister had been interviewed, and 
 expressed his hope of yet reclaiming the mother- 
 less lad, and his Sabbath-school teacher de- 
 clared that she would spare no effort to that 
 end. The rumour had reached Pittsburgh that 
 the boy had been seen in a New York hotel, 
 and his father had gone East to find him and 
 bring him home. 
 
 Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he 
 sank into a chair, weak to the knees, and clasped 
 his head in his hands. It was to be worse than jail, 
 even ; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to 
 close over him finally and forever. The grey mo- 
 notony stretched before him in hopeless, unre- 
 lieved years; Sabbath-school, Young People's 
 Meeting, the yellow-papered room, the damp 
 dish-towels; it all rushed back upon him with a 
 sickening vividness. He had the old feeling that 
 the orchestra had suddenly stopped, the sinking 
 sensation that the play was over. The sweat broke 
 
248 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 out on his face, and he sprang to his feet, looked 
 about him with his white, conscious smile, and 
 winked at himself in the mirror. With something 
 of the old childish belief in miracles with which 
 he had so often gone to class, all his lessons un- 
 learned, Paul dressed and dashed whistling down 
 the corridor to the elevator. 
 
 He had no sooner entered the dining-room and 
 caught the measure of the music than his remem- 
 brance was lightened by his old elastic power of 
 claiming the moment, mounting with it, and find- 
 ing it all sufficient. The glare and glitter about 
 him, the mere scenic accessories had again, and 
 for the last time, their old potency. He would 
 show himself that he was game, he would finish the 
 thing splendidly. He doubted, more than ever, 
 the existence of Cordelia Street, and for the first 
 time he drank his wine recklessly. Was he not, 
 after all, one of those fortunate beings born to the 
 purple, was he not still himself and in his own 
 place ? He drummed a nervous accompaniment 
 to the Pagliacci music and looked about him, tell- 
 ing himself over and over that it had paid. 
 
 He reflected drowsily, to the swell of the music 
 and the chill sweetness of his wine, that he might 
 have done it more wisely. He might have caught 
 
PAUL'S CASE 249 
 
 an outbound steamer and been well out of their 
 clutches before now. But the other side of the 
 world had seemed too far away and too uncer- 
 tain then ; he could not have waited for it ; his need 
 had been too sharp. If he had to choose over 
 again, he would do the same thing to-morrow. 
 He looked affectionately about the dining-room, 
 now gilded with a soft mist. Ah, it had paid 
 indeed ! 
 
 Paul was awakened next morning by a painful 
 throbbing in his head and feet. He had thrown 
 himself across the bed without undressing, and 
 had slept with his shoes on. His limbs and hands 
 were lead heavy, and his tongue and throat were 
 parched and burnt. There came upon him one of 
 those fateful attacks of clear-headedness that 
 never occurred except when he was physically 
 exhausted and his nerves hung loose. He lay still 
 and closed his eyes and let the tide of things wash 
 over him. 
 
 His father was in New York; "stopping at 
 some joint or other," he told himself. The mem- 
 ory of successive summers on the front stoop fell 
 upon him like a weight of black water. He had 
 not a hundred dollars left; and he knew now, 
 more than ever, that money was everything, the 
 
250 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 wall that stood between all he loathed and all he 
 wanted. The thing was winding itself up; he had 
 thought of that on his first glorious day in New 
 York, and had even provided a way to snap the 
 thread. It lay on his dressing-table now; he had 
 got it out last night when he came blindly up from 
 dinner, but the shiny metal hurt his eyes, and he 
 disliked the looks of it. 
 
 He rose and moved about with a painful effort, 
 succumbing now and again to attacks of nausea. 
 It was the old depression exaggerated; all the 
 world had become Cordelia Street. Yet some- 
 how he was not afraid of anything, was abso- 
 lutely calm; perhaps because he had looked into 
 the dark corner at last and knew. It was bad 
 enough, what he saw there, but somehow not so 
 bad as his long fear of it had been. He saw every- 
 thing clearly now. He had a feeling that he had 
 made the best of it, that he had lived the sort of 
 life he was meant to live, and for half an hour 
 he sat staring at the revolver. But he told himself 
 that was not the way, so he went downstairs and 
 took a cab to the ferry. 
 
 When Paul arrived at Newark, he got off the 
 train and took another cab, directing the driver 
 to follow the Pennsylvania tracks out of the town. 
 
PAUL'S CASE 251 
 
 The snow lay heavy on the roadways and had 
 drifted deep in the open fields. Only here and 
 there the dead grass or dried weed stalks pro- 
 jected, singularly black, above it. Once well into 
 the country, Paul dismissed the carriage and 
 walked, floundering along the tracks, his mind 
 a medley of irrelevant things. He seemed to hold 
 in his brain an actual picture of everything he 
 had seen that morning. He remembered every 
 feature of both his drivers, of the toothless old 
 woman from whom he had bought the red flow- 
 ers in his coat, the agent from whom he had got 
 his ticket, and all of his fellow-passengers on the 
 ferry. His mind, unable to cope with vital mat- 
 ters near at hand, worked feverishly and deftly 
 at sorting and grouping these images. They made 
 for him a part of the ugliness of the world, of the 
 ache in his head, and the bitter burning on his 
 tongue. He stooped and put a handful of snow 
 into his mouth as he walked, but that, too, seem- 
 ed hot. When he reached a little hillside, where 
 the tracks ran through a cut some twenty feet 
 below him, he stopped and sat down. 
 
 The carnations in his coat were drooping with 
 the cold, he noticed; their red glory all over. It 
 occurred to him that all the flowers he had seen 
 
252 THE TROLL GARDEN 
 
 in the glass cases that first night must have gone 
 the same way, long before this. It was only one 
 splendid breath they had, in spite of their brave 
 mockery at the winter outside the glass; and it 
 was a losing game in the end, it seemed, this re- 
 volt against the homilies by which the world is 
 run. Paul took one of the blossoms carefully from 
 his coat and scooped a little hole in the snow, 
 where he covered it up. Then he dozed a while, 
 from his weak condition, seeming insensible to 
 the cold. 
 
 The sound of an approaching train awoke 
 him, and he started to his feet, remembering only 
 his resolution, and afraid least he should be too 
 late. He stood watching the approaching locomo- 
 tive, his teeth chattering, his lips drawn away 
 from them in a frightened smile ; once or twice he 
 glanced nervously sidewise, as though he were 
 being watched. When the right moment came, 
 he jumped, As he fell, the folly of his haste oc- 
 curred to him with merciless clearness, the vast- 
 ness of what he had left undone. There flashed 
 through his brain, clearer than ever before, the 
 blue of Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian 
 sands. 
 
 He felt something strike his chest, and that his 
 
PAUL'S CASE 253 
 
 body was being thrown swiftly through the air, 
 on and on, immeasurably far and fast, while his 
 limbs were gently relaxed. Then, because the 
 picture making mechanism was crushed, the 
 disturbing visions flashed into black, and Paul 
 dropped back into the immense design of things. 
 
 THE END 
 
 THE McCLURE PRESS, NEW YORK 
 
on