"That depends whether we carry ourselves as though we expected pelting,"
said Ann Veronica.

"We won't."

"No fear!"

"Then, as we succeed, it will begin to sidle back to us. It will do its
best to overlook things--"

"If we let it, poor dear."

"That's if we succeed. If we fail," said Capes, "then--"

"We aren't going to fail," said Ann Veronica.

Life seemed a very brave and glorious enterprise to Ann Veronica that
day. She was quivering with the sense of Capes at her side and glowing
with heroic love; it seemed to her that if they put their hands jointly
against the Alps and pushed they would be able to push them aside. She
lay and nibbled at a sprig of dwarf rhododendron.

"FAIL!" she said.

Part 5

Presently it occurred to Ann Veronica to ask about the journey he had
planned. He had his sections of the Siegfried map folded in his pocket,
and he squatted up with his legs crossed like an Indian idol while
she lay prone beside him and followed every movement of his indicatory
finger.

"Here," he said, "is this Blau See, and here we rest until to-morrow. I
think we rest here until to-morrow?"

There was a brief silence.

"It is a very pleasant place," said Ann Veronica, biting a rhododendron
stalk through, and with that faint shadow of a smile returning to her
lips....

"And then?" said Ann Veronica.

"Then we go on to this place, the Oeschinensee. It's a lake among
precipices, and there is a little inn where we can stay, and sit and eat
our dinner at a pleasant table that looks upon the lake. For some days
we shall be very idle there among the trees and rocks. There are boats
on the lake and shady depths and wildernesses of pine-wood. After a day
or so, perhaps, we will go on one or two little excursions and see how
good your head is--a mild scramble or so; and then up to a hut on a pass
just here, and out upon the Blumlis-alp glacier that spreads out so and
so."

She roused herself from some dream at the word. "Glaciers?" she said.

"Under the Wilde Frau--which was named after you."

He bent and kissed her hair and paused, and then forced his attention
back to the map. "One day," he resumed, "we will start off early and
come down into Kandersteg and up these zigzags and here and here, and so
past this Daubensee to a tiny inn--it won't be busy yet, though; we
may get it all to ourselves--on the brim of the steepest zigzag you can
imagine, thousands of feet of zigzag; and you will sit and eat lunch
with me and look out across the Rhone Valley and over blue distances
beyond blue distances to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa and a long
regiment of sunny, snowy mountains. And when we see them we shall at
once want to go to them--that's the way with beautiful things--and
down we shall go, like flies down a wall, to Leukerbad, and so to Leuk
Station, here, and then by train up the Rhone Valley and this little
side valley to Stalden; and there, in the cool of the afternoon, we
shall start off up a gorge, torrents and cliffs below us and above us,
to sleep in a half-way inn, and go on next day to Saas Fee, Saas of
the Magic, Saas of the Pagan People. And there, about Saas, are ice
and snows again, and sometimes we will loiter among the rocks and trees
about Saas or peep into Samuel Butler's chapels, and sometimes we will
climb up out of the way of the other people on to the glaciers and snow.
And, for one expedition at least, we will go up this desolate valley
here to Mattmark, and so on to Monte Moro. There indeed you see Monte
Rosa. Almost the best of all."

"Is it very beautiful?"

"When I saw it there it was very beautiful. It was wonderful. It was the
crowned queen of mountains in her robes of shining white. It towered up
high above the level of the pass, thousands of feet, still, shining, and
white, and below, thousands of feet below, was a floor of little woolly
clouds. And then presently these clouds began to wear thin and expose
steep, deep slopes, going down and down, with grass and pine-trees, down
and down, and at last, through a great rent in the clouds, bare roofs,
shining like very minute pin-heads, and a road like a fibre of white
silk-Macugnana, in Italy. That will be a fine day--it will have to be,
when first you set eyes on Italy.... That's as far as we go."

"Can't we go down into Italy?"

"No," he said; "it won't run to that now. We must wave our hands at the
blue hills far away there and go back to London and work."

"But Italy--"

"Italy's for a good girl," he said, and laid his hand for a moment on
her shoulder. "She must look forward to Italy."

"I say," she reflected, "you ARE rather the master, you know."

The idea struck him as novel. "Of course I'm manager for this
expedition," he said, after an interval of self-examination.

She slid her cheek down the tweed sleeve of his coat. "Nice sleeve," she
said, and came to his hand and kissed it.

"I say!" he cried. "Look here! Aren't you going a little too far?
This--this is degradation--making a fuss with sleeves. You mustn't do
things like that."

"Why not?"

"Free woman--and equal."

"I do it--of my own free will," said Ann Veronica, kissing his hand
again. "It's nothing to what I WILL do."

"Oh, well!" he said, a little doubtfully, "it's just a phase," and bent
down and rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment, with his heart
beating and his nerves a-quiver. Then as she lay very still, with her
hands clinched and her black hair tumbled about her face, he came still
closer and softly kissed the nape of her neck....

Part 6

Most of the things that he had planned they did. But they climbed more
than he had intended because Ann Veronica proved rather a good climber,
steady-headed and plucky, rather daring, but quite willing to be
cautious at his command.

One of the things that most surprised him in her was her capacity for
blind obedience. She loved to be told to do things.

He knew the circle of mountains about Saas Fee fairly well: he had been
there twice before, and it was fine to get away from the straggling
pedestrians into the high, lonely places, and sit and munch sandwiches
and talk together and do things together that were just a little
difficult and dangerous. And they could talk, they found; and never
once, it seemed, did their meaning and intention hitch. They were
enormously pleased with one another; they found each other beyond
measure better than they had expected, if only because of the want of
substance in mere expectation. Their conversation degenerated again
and again into a strain of self-congratulation that would have irked an
eavesdropper.

"You're--I don't know," said Ann Veronica. "You're splendid."

"It isn't that you're splendid or I," said Capes. "But we satisfy one
another. Heaven alone knows why. So completely! The oddest fitness!
What is it made of? Texture of skin and texture of mind? Complexion and
voice. I don't think I've got illusions, nor you.... If I had never
met anything of you at all but a scrap of your skin binding a book, Ann
Veronica, I know I would have kept that somewhere near to me.... All
your faults are just jolly modelling to make you real and solid."

"The faults are the best part of it," said Ann Veronica; "why, even our
little vicious strains run the same way. Even our coarseness."

"Coarse?" said Capes, "We're not coarse."

"But if we were?" said Ann Veronica.

"I can talk to you and you to me without a scrap of effort," said
Capes; "that's the essence of it. It's made up of things as small as the
diameter of hairs and big as life and death.... One always dreamed
of this and never believed it. It's the rarest luck, the wildest, most
impossible accident. Most people, every one I know else, seem to have
mated with foreigners and to talk uneasily in unfamiliar tongues, to be
afraid of the knowledge the other one has, of the other one's perpetual
misjudgment and misunderstandings.

"Why don't they wait?" he added.

Ann Veronica had one of her flashes of insight.

"One doesn't wait," said Ann Veronica.

She expanded that. "_I_ shouldn't have waited," she said. "I might have
muddled for a time. But it's as you say. I've had the rarest luck and
fallen on my feet."

"We've both fallen on our feet! We're the rarest of mortals! The real
thing! There's not a compromise nor a sham nor a concession between
us. We aren't afraid; we don't bother. We don't consider each other;
we needn't. That wrappered life, as you call it--we've burned the
confounded rags! Danced out of it! We're stark!"

"Stark!" echoed Ann Veronica.

Part 7

As they came back from that day's climb--it was up the Mittaghorn--they
had to cross a shining space of wet, steep rocks between two grass
slopes that needed a little care. There were a few loose, broken
fragments of rock to reckon with upon the ledges, and one place where
hands did as much work as toes. They used the rope--not that a rope was
at all necessary, but because Ann Veronica's exalted state of mind made
the fact of the rope agreeably symbolical; and, anyhow, it did insure a
joint death in the event of some remotely possibly mischance. Capes went
first, finding footholds and, where the drops in the strata-edges came
like long, awkward steps, placing Ann Veronica's feet. About half-way
across this interval, when everything seemed going well, Capes had a
shock.

"Heavens!" exclaimed Ann Veronica, with extraordinary passion. "My God!"
and ceased to move.

Capes became rigid and adhesive. Nothing ensued. "All right?" he asked.

"I'll have to pay it."

"Eh?"

"I've forgotten something. Oh, cuss it!"

"Eh?"

"He said I would."

"What?"

"That's the devil of it!"

"Devil of what?... You DO use vile language!"

"Forget about it like this."

"Forget WHAT?"

"And I said I wouldn't. I said I'd do anything. I said I'd make shirts."

"Shirts?"

"Shirts at one--and--something a dozen. Oh, goodness! Bilking! Ann
Veronica, you're a bilker!"

Pause.

"Will you tell me what all this is about?" said Capes.

"It's about forty pounds."

Capes waited patiently.

"G. I'm sorry.... But you've got to lend me forty pounds."

"It's some sort of delirium," said Capes. "The rarefied air? I thought
you had a better head."

"No! I'll explain lower. It's all right. Let's go on climbing now. It's
a thing I've unaccountably overlooked. All right really. It can wait
a bit longer. I borrowed forty pounds from Mr. Ramage. Thank goodness
you'll understand. That's why I chucked Manning.... All right, I'm
coming. But all this business has driven it clean out of my head....
That's why he was so annoyed, you know."

"Who was annoyed?"

"Mr. Ramage--about the forty pounds." She took a step. "My dear," she
added, by way of afterthought, "you DO obliterate things!"

Part 8

They found themselves next day talking love to one another high up on
some rocks above a steep bank of snow that overhung a precipice on the
eastern side of the Fee glacier. By this time Capes' hair had bleached
nearly white, and his skin had become a skin of red copper shot with
gold. They were now both in a state of unprecedented physical fitness.
And such skirts as Ann Veronica had had when she entered the valley of
Saas were safely packed away in the hotel, and she wore a leather belt
and loose knickerbockers and puttees--a costume that suited the fine,
long lines of her limbs far better than any feminine walking-dress could
do. Her complexion had resisted the snow-glare wonderfully; her skin had
only deepened its natural warmth a little under the Alpine sun. She had
pushed aside her azure veil, taken off her snow-glasses, and sat smiling
under her hand at the shining glories--the lit cornices, the blue
shadows, the softly rounded, enormous snow masses, the deep places
full of quivering luminosity--of the Taschhorn and Dom. The sky was
cloudless, effulgent blue.

Capes sat watching and admiring her, and then he fell praising the day
and fortune and their love for each other.

"Here we are," he said, "shining through each other like light through a
stained-glass window. With this air in our blood, this sunlight soaking
us.... Life is so good. Can it ever be so good again?"

Ann Veronica put out a firm hand and squeezed his arm. "It's very good,"
she said. "It's glorious good!"

"Suppose now--look at this long snow-slope and then that blue deep
beyond--do you see that round pool of color in the ice--a thousand feet
or more below? Yes? Well, think--we've got to go but ten steps and lie
down and put our arms about each other. See? Down we should rush in a
foam--in a cloud of snow--to flight and a dream. All the rest of
our lives would be together then, Ann Veronica. Every moment. And no
ill-chances."

"If you tempt me too much," she said, after a silence, "I shall do
it. I need only just jump up and throw myself upon you. I'm a desperate
young woman. And then as we went down you'd try to explain. And that
would spoil it.... You know you don't mean it."

"No, I don't. But I liked to say it."

"Rather! But I wonder why you don't mean it?"

"Because, I suppose, the other thing is better. What other reason could
there be? It's more complex, but it's better. THIS, this glissade, would
be damned scoundrelism. You know that, and I know that, though we might
be put to it to find a reason why. It would be swindling. Drawing the
pay of life and then not living. And besides--We're going to live, Ann
Veronica! Oh, the things we'll do, the life we'll lead! There'll be
trouble in it at times--you and I aren't going to run without friction.
But we've got the brains to get over that, and tongues in our heads to
talk to each other. We sha'n't hang up on any misunderstanding. Not us.
And we're going to fight that old world down there. That old world that
had shoved up that silly old hotel, and all the rest of it.... If we
don't live it will think we are afraid of it.... Die, indeed! We're
going to do work; we're going to unfold about each other; we're going to
have children."

"Girls!" cried Ann Veronica.

"Boys!" said Capes.

"Both!" said Ann Veronica. "Lots of 'em!"

Capes chuckled. "You delicate female!"

"Who cares," said Ann Veronica, "seeing it's you? Warm, soft little
wonders! Of course I want them."

Part 9

"All sorts of things we're going to do," said Capes; "all sorts of times
we're going to have. Sooner or later we'll certainly do something to
clean those prisons you told me about--limewash the underside of life.
You and I. We can love on a snow cornice, we can love over a pail of
whitewash. Love anywhere. Anywhere! Moonlight and music--pleasing, you
know, but quite unnecessary. We met dissecting dogfish.... Do you
remember your first day with me?... Do you indeed remember? The smell
of decay and cheap methylated spirit!... My dear! we've had so many
moments! I used to go over the times we'd had together, the things we'd
said--like a rosary of beads. But now it's beads by the cask--like the
hold of a West African trader. It feels like too much gold-dust clutched
in one's hand. One doesn't want to lose a grain. And one must--some of
it must slip through one's fingers."

"I don't care if it does," said Ann Veronica. "I don't care a rap for
remembering. I care for you. This moment couldn't be better until the
next moment comes. That's how it takes me. Why should WE hoard? We
aren't going out presently, like Japanese lanterns in a gale. It's the
poor dears who do, who know they will, know they can't keep it up, who
need to clutch at way-side flowers. And put 'em in little books for
remembrance. Flattened flowers aren't for the likes of us. Moments,
indeed! We like each other fresh and fresh. It isn't illusions--for us.
We two just love each other--the real, identical other--all the time."

"The real, identical other," said Capes, and took and bit the tip of her
little finger.

"There's no delusions, so far as I know," said Ann Veronica.

"I don't believe there is one. If there is, it's a mere
wrapping--there's better underneath. It's only as if I'd begun to know
you the day before yesterday or there-abouts. You keep on coming truer,
after you have seemed to come altogether true. You... brick!"

Part 10

"To think," he cried, "you are ten years younger than I!... There are
times when you make me feel a little thing at your feet--a young, silly,
protected thing. Do you know, Ann Veronica, it is all a lie about your
birth certificate; a forgery--and fooling at that. You are one of the
Immortals. Immortal! You were in the beginning, and all the men in the
world who have known what love is have worshipped at your feet. You have
converted me to--Lester Ward! You are my dear friend, you are a slip of
a girl, but there are moments when my head has been on your breast, when
your heart has been beating close to my ears, when I have known you for
the goddess, when I have wished myself your slave, when I have wished
that you could kill me for the joy of being killed by you. You are the
High Priestess of Life...."

"Your priestess," whispered Ann Veronica, softly. "A silly little
priestess who knew nothing of life at all until she came to you."

Part 11

They sat for a time without speaking a word, in an enormous shining
globe of mutual satisfaction.

"Well," said Capes, at length, "we've to go down, Ann Veronica. Life
waits for us."

He stood up and waited for her to move.

"Gods!" cried Ann Veronica, and kept him standing. "And to think that
it's not a full year ago since I was a black-hearted rebel school-girl,
distressed, puzzled, perplexed, not understanding that this great
force of love was bursting its way through me! All those nameless
discontents--they were no more than love's birth-pangs. I felt--I
felt living in a masked world. I felt as though I had bandaged eyes. I
felt--wrapped in thick cobwebs. They blinded me. They got in my mouth.
And now--Dear! Dear! The dayspring from on high hath visited me. I love.
I am loved. I want to shout! I want to sing! I am glad! I am glad to be
alive because you are alive! I am glad to be a woman because you are a
man! I am glad! I am glad! I am glad! I thank God for life and you. I
thank God for His sunlight on your face. I thank God for the beauty
you love and the faults you love. I thank God for the very skin that is
peeling from your nose, for all things great and small that make us what
we are. This is grace I am saying! Oh! my dear! all the joy and weeping
of life are mixed in me now and all the gratitude. Never a new-born
dragon-fly that spread its wings in the morning has felt as glad as I!"

CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH

IN PERSPECTIVE

Part 1

About four years and a quarter later--to be exact, it was four years and
four months--Mr. and Mrs. Capes stood side by side upon an old Persian
carpet that did duty as a hearthrug in the dining-room of their flat
and surveyed a shining dinner-table set for four people, lit by
skilfully-shaded electric lights, brightened by frequent gleams of
silver, and carefully and simply adorned with sweet-pea blossom. Capes
had altered scarcely at all during the interval, except for a new
quality of smartness in the cut of his clothes, but Ann Veronica was
nearly half an inch taller; her face was at once stronger and softer,
her neck firmer and rounder, and her carriage definitely more womanly
than it had been in the days of her rebellion. She was a woman now to
the tips of her fingers; she had said good-bye to her girlhood in the
old garden four years and a quarter ago. She was dressed in a simple
evening gown of soft creamy silk, with a yoke of dark old embroidery
that enhanced the gentle gravity of her style, and her black hair flowed
off her open forehead to pass under the control of a simple ribbon of
silver. A silver necklace enhanced the dusky beauty of her neck. Both
husband and wife affected an unnatural ease of manner for the benefit of
the efficient parlor-maid, who was putting the finishing touches to the
sideboard arrangements.

"It looks all right," said Capes.

"I think everything's right," said Ann Veronica, with the roaming eye of
a capable but not devoted house-mistress.

"I wonder if they will seem altered," she remarked for the third time.

"There I can't help," said Capes.

He walked through a wide open archway, curtained with deep-blue
curtains, into the apartment that served as a reception-room. Ann
Veronica, after a last survey of the dinner appointments, followed him,
rustling, came to his side by the high brass fender, and touched two or
three ornaments on the mantel above the cheerful fireplace.

"It's still a marvel to me that we are to be forgiven," she said,
turning.

"My charm of manner, I suppose. But, indeed, he's very human."

"Did you tell him of the registry office?"

"No--o--certainly not so emphatically as I did about the play."

"It was an inspiration--your speaking to him?"

"I felt impudent. I believe I am getting impudent. I had not been near
the Royal Society since--since you disgraced me. What's that?"

They both stood listening. It was not the arrival of the guests, but
merely the maid moving about in the hall.

"Wonderful man!" said Ann Veronica, reassured, and stroking his cheek
with her finger.

Capes made a quick movement as if to bite that aggressive digit, but it
withdrew to Ann Veronica's side.

"I was really interested in his stuff. I WAS talking to him before I saw
his name on the card beside the row of microscopes. Then, naturally, I
went on talking. He--he has rather a poor opinion of his contemporaries.
Of course, he had no idea who I was."

"But how did you tell him? You've never told me. Wasn't it--a little bit
of a scene?"

"Oh! let me see. I said I hadn't been at the Royal Society soiree for
four years, and got him to tell me about some of the fresh Mendelian
work. He loves the Mendelians because he hates all the big names of
the eighties and nineties. Then I think I remarked that science was
disgracefully under-endowed, and confessed I'd had to take to
more profitable courses. 'The fact of it is,' I said, 'I'm the new
playwright, Thomas More. Perhaps you've heard--?' Well, you know, he
had."

"Fame!"

"Isn't it? 'I've not seen your play, Mr. More,' he said, 'but I'm told
it's the most amusing thing in London at the present time. A friend
of mine, Ogilvy'--I suppose that's Ogilvy & Ogilvy, who do so many
divorces, Vee?--'was speaking very highly of it--very highly!'" He
smiled into her eyes.

"You are developing far too retentive a memory for praises," said Ann
Veronica.

"I'm still new to them. But after that it was easy. I told him instantly
and shamelessly that the play was going to be worth ten thousand pounds.
He agreed it was disgraceful. Then I assumed a rather portentous manner
to prepare him."

"How? Show me."

"I can't be portentous, dear, when you're about. It's my other side of
the moon. But I was portentous, I can assure you. 'My name's NOT More,
Mr. Stanley,' I said. 'That's my pet name.'"

"Yes?"

"I think--yes, I went on in a pleasing blend of the casual and sotto
voce, 'The fact of it is, sir, I happen to be your son-in-law, Capes. I
do wish you could come and dine with us some evening. It would make my
wife very happy.'"

"What did he say?"

"What does any one say to an invitation to dinner point-blank? One tries
to collect one's wits. 'She is constantly thinking of you,' I said."

"And he accepted meekly?"

"Practically. What else could he do? You can't kick up a scene on the
spur of the moment in the face of such conflicting values as he
had before him. With me behaving as if everything was infinitely
matter-of-fact, what could he do? And just then Heaven sent old
Manningtree--I didn't tell you before of the fortunate intervention of
Manningtree, did I? He was looking quite infernally distinguished, with
a wide crimson ribbon across him--what IS a wide crimson ribbon? Some
sort of knight, I suppose. He is a knight. 'Well, young man,' he said,
'we haven't seen you lately,' and something about 'Bateson & Co.'--he's
frightfully anti-Mendelian--having it all their own way. So I introduced
him to my father-in-law like a shot. I think that WAS decision. Yes, it
was Manningtree really secured your father. He--"

"Here they are!" said Ann Veronica as the bell sounded.

Part 2

They received the guests in their pretty little hall with genuine
effusion. Miss Stanley threw aside a black cloak to reveal a discreet
and dignified arrangement of brown silk, and then embraced Ann Veronica
with warmth. "So very clear and cold," she said. "I feared we might
have a fog." The housemaid's presence acted as a useful restraint. Ann
Veronica passed from her aunt to her father, and put her arms about him
and kissed his cheek. "Dear old daddy!" she said, and was amazed to
find herself shedding tears. She veiled her emotion by taking off his
overcoat. "And this is Mr. Capes?" she heard her aunt saying.

All four people moved a little nervously into the drawing-room,
maintaining a sort of fluttered amiability of sound and movement.

Mr. Stanley professed a great solicitude to warm his hands. "Quite
unusually cold for the time of year," he said. "Everything very nice,
I am sure," Miss Stanley murmured to Capes as he steered her to a place
upon the little sofa before the fire. Also she made little pussy-like
sounds of a reassuring nature.

"And let's have a look at you, Vee!" said Mr. Stanley, standing up with
a sudden geniality and rubbing his hands together.

Ann Veronica, who knew her dress became her, dropped a curtsy to her
father's regard.

Happily they had no one else to wait for, and it heartened her mightily
to think that she had ordered the promptest possible service of the
dinner. Capes stood beside Miss Stanley, who was beaming unnaturally,
and Mr. Stanley, in his effort to seem at ease, took entire possession
of the hearthrug.

"You found the flat easily?" said Capes in the pause. "The numbers are a
little difficult to see in the archway. They ought to put a lamp."

Her father declared there had been no difficulty.

"Dinner is served, m'm," said the efficient parlor-maid in the archway,
and the worst was over.

"Come, daddy," said Ann Veronica, following her husband and Miss
Stanley; and in the fulness of her heart she gave a friendly squeeze to
the parental arm.

"Excellent fellow!" he answered a little irrelevantly. "I didn't
understand, Vee."

"Quite charming apartments," Miss Stanley admired; "charming! Everything
is so pretty and convenient."

The dinner was admirable as a dinner; nothing went wrong, from the
golden and excellent clear soup to the delightful iced marrons
and cream; and Miss Stanley's praises died away to an appreciative
acquiescence. A brisk talk sprang up between Capes and Mr. Stanley, to
which the two ladies subordinated themselves intelligently. The
burning topic of the Mendelian controversy was approached on one or two
occasions, but avoided dexterously; and they talked chiefly of letters
and art and the censorship of the English stage. Mr. Stanley was
inclined to think the censorship should be extended to the supply of
what he styled latter-day fiction; good wholesome stories were being
ousted, he said, by "vicious, corrupting stuff" that "left a bad taste
in the mouth." He declared that no book could be satisfactory that left
a bad taste in the mouth, however much it seized and interested the
reader at the time. He did not like it, he said, with a significant
look, to be reminded of either his books or his dinners after he had
done with them. Capes agreed with the utmost cordiality.

"Life is upsetting enough, without the novels taking a share," said Mr.
Stanley.

For a time Ann Veronica's attention was diverted by her aunt's interest
in the salted almonds.

"Quite particularly nice," said her aunt. "Exceptionally so."

When Ann Veronica could attend again she found the men were discussing
the ethics of the depreciation of house property through the increasing
tumult of traffic in the West End, and agreeing with each other to a
devastating extent. It came into her head with real emotional force that
this must be some particularly fantastic sort of dream. It seemed to her
that her father was in some inexplicable way meaner-looking than she
had supposed, and yet also, as unaccountably, appealing. His tie had
demanded a struggle; he ought to have taken a clean one after his
first failure. Why was she noting things like this? Capes seemed
self-possessed and elaborately genial and commonplace, but she knew him
to be nervous by a little occasional clumsiness, by the faintest shadow
of vulgarity in the urgency of his hospitality. She wished he could
smoke and dull his nerves a little. A gust of irrational impatience blew
through her being. Well, they'd got to the pheasants, and in a little
while he would smoke. What was it she had expected? Surely her moods
were getting a little out of hand.

She wished her father and aunt would not enjoy their dinner with such
quiet determination. Her father and her husband, who had both been a
little pale at their first encounter, were growing now just faintly
flushed. It was a pity people had to eat food.

"I suppose," said her father, "I have read at least half the novels that
have been at all successful during the last twenty years. Three a week
is my allowance, and, if I get short ones, four. I change them in the
morning at Cannon Street, and take my book as I come down."

It occurred to her that she had never seen her father dining out
before, never watched him critically as an equal. To Capes he was almost
deferential, and she had never seen him deferential in the old time,
never. The dinner was stranger than she had ever anticipated. It was
as if she had grown right past her father into something older and
of infinitely wider outlook, as if he had always been unsuspectedly a
flattened figure, and now she had discovered him from the other side.

It was a great relief to arrive at last at that pause when she could say
to her aunt, "Now, dear?" and rise and hold back the curtain through the
archway. Capes and her father stood up, and her father made a belated
movement toward the curtain. She realized that he was the sort of man
one does not think much about at dinners. And Capes was thinking that
his wife was a supremely beautiful woman. He reached a silver cigar and
cigarette box from the sideboard and put it before his father-in-law,
and for a time the preliminaries of smoking occupied them both. Then
Capes flittered to the hearthrug and poked the fire, stood up, and
turned about. "Ann Veronica is looking very well, don't you think?" he
said, a little awkwardly.

"Very," said Mr. Stanley. "Very," and cracked a walnut appreciatively.

"Life--things--I don't think her prospects now--Hopeful outlook."

"You were in a difficult position," Mr. Stanley pronounced, and seemed
to hesitate whether he had not gone too far. He looked at his port wine
as though that tawny ruby contained the solution of the matter. "All's
well that ends well," he said; "and the less one says about things the
better."

"Of course," said Capes, and threw a newly lit cigar into the fire
through sheer nervousness. "Have some more port wine, sir?"

"It's a very sound wine," said Mr. Stanley, consenting with dignity.

"Ann Veronica has never looked quite so well, I think," said Capes,
clinging, because of a preconceived plan, to the suppressed topic.

Part 3

At last the evening was over, and Capes and his wife had gone down to
see Mr. Stanley and his sister into a taxicab, and had waved an amiable
farewell from the pavement steps.

"Great dears!" said Capes, as the vehicle passed out of sight.

"Yes, aren't they?" said Ann Veronica, after a thoughtful pause. And
then, "They seem changed."

"Come in out of the cold," said Capes, and took her arm.

"They seem smaller, you know, even physically smaller," she said.

"You've grown out of them.... Your aunt liked the pheasant."

"She liked everything. Did you hear us through the archway, talking
cookery?"

They went up by the lift in silence.

"It's odd," said Ann Veronica, re-entering the flat.

"What's odd?"

"Oh, everything!"

She shivered, and went to the fire and poked it. Capes sat down in the
arm-chair beside her.

"Life's so queer," she said, kneeling and looking into the flames. "I
wonder--I wonder if we shall ever get like that."

She turned a firelit face to her husband. "Did you tell him?"

Capes smiled faintly. "Yes."

"How?"

"Well--a little clumsily."

"But how?"

"I poured him out some port wine, and I said--let me see--oh, 'You are
going to be a grandfather!'"

"Yes. Was he pleased?"

"Calmly! He said--you won't mind my telling you?"

"Not a bit."

"He said, 'Poor Alice has got no end!'"

"Alice's are different," said Ann Veronica, after an interval. "Quite
different. She didn't choose her man.... Well, I told aunt....
Husband of mine, I think we have rather overrated the emotional capacity
of those--those dears."

"What did your aunt say?"

"She didn't even kiss me. She said"--Ann Veronica shivered again--"'I
hope it won't make you uncomfortable, my dear'--like that--'and
whatever you do, do be careful of your hair!' I think--I judge from
her manner--that she thought it was just a little indelicate of
us--considering everything; but she tried to be practical and
sympathetic and live down to our standards."

Capes looked at his wife's unsmiling face.

"Your father," he said, "remarked that all's well that ends well, and
that he was disposed to let bygones be bygones. He then spoke with a
certain fatherly kindliness of the past...."

"And my heart has ached for him!"

"Oh, no doubt it cut him at the time. It must have cut him."

"We might even have--given it up for them!"

"I wonder if we could."

"I suppose all IS well that ends well. Somehow to-night--I don't know."

"I suppose so. I'm glad the old sore is assuaged. Very glad. But if we
had gone under--!"

They regarded one another silently, and Ann Veronica had one of her
penetrating flashes.

"We are not the sort that goes under," said Ann Veronica, holding her
hands so that the red reflections vanished from her eyes. "We settled
long ago--we're hard stuff. We're hard stuff!"

Then she went on: "To think that is my father! Oh, my dear! He stood
over me like a cliff; the thought of him nearly turned me aside from
everything we have done. He was the social order; he was law and wisdom.
And they come here, and they look at our furniture to see if it is good;
and they are not glad, it does not stir them, that at last, at last we
can dare to have children."

She dropped back into a crouching attitude and began to weep. "Oh,
my dear!" she cried, and suddenly flung herself, kneeling, into her
husband's arms.

"Do you remember the mountains? Do you remember how we loved one
another? How intensely we loved one another! Do you remember the light
on things and the glory of things? I'm greedy, I'm greedy! I want
children like the mountains and life like the sky. Oh! and love--love!
We've had so splendid a time, and fought our fight and won. And it's
like the petals falling from a flower. Oh, I've loved love, dear! I've
loved love and you, and the glory of you; and the great time is over,
and I have to go carefully and bear children, and--take care of my
hair--and when I am done with that I shall be an old woman. The petals
have fallen--the red petals we loved so. We're hedged about with
discretions--and all this furniture--and successes! We are successful
at last! Successful! But the mountains, dear! We won't forget the
mountains, dear, ever. That shining slope of snow, and how we talked of
death! We might have died! Even when we are old, when we are rich as we
may be, we won't forget the tune when we cared nothing for anything but
the joy of one another, when we risked everything for one another, when
all the wrappings and coverings seemed to have fallen from life and left
it light and fire. Stark and stark! Do you remember it all?... Say
you will never forget! That these common things and secondary things
sha'n't overwhelm us. These petals! I've been wanting to cry all the
evening, cry here on your shoulder for my petals. Petals!... Silly
woman!... I've never had these crying fits before...."

"Blood of my heart!" whispered Capes, holding her close to him. "I know.
I understand."


TREASURY DEPARTMENT
                  UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
                   HUGH S. CUMMING, Surgeon General

                              THE BEDBUG

             ITS RELATION TO PUBLIC HEALTH, ITS HABITS AND
                 LIFE HISTORY, AND METHODS OF CONTROL

                            REPRINT No. 626
                               FROM THE
                         PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTS
                           December 10, 1920
                           (Pages 2964–2970)
                        [Revised edition, 1924]

                              WASHINGTON
                      GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
                                 1924

                            THE BEDBUG.[1]

      Its Relation to Public Health, its Habits and Life History,
                        and Methods of Control.

    [1] Reprint from the Public Health Reports, vol. 35, No. 50,
    December 10, 1920, pp. 2964–2970.

The bedbug is one of the numerous insects which have been suspected
of conveying disease to man. Compared with such insect pests as
mosquitoes, lice, and fleas, however, its rôle is decidedly a minor
one. It has been claimed that the bedbug can take up the microparasites
of European relapsing fever, plague, and possibly leprosy, along with
the blood of men or animals suffering from these diseases. It is
also possible that in rare instances the bedbug may transmit plague
or European relapsing fever to man. On the other hand, there is no
convincing evidence that the bedbug is the usual and ordinary insect
transmitter of these or any other diseases at present known to us.

If the bedbug acts as a transmitter of disease, it apparently does so
by the accidental carriage of disease elements on the mouth parts;
but this occurs only under the most favorable conditions. These would
require, first, the presence of great numbers of microparasites on
the skin or in the blood of a man or animal sick with some disease
transmissible to man by subcutaneous inoculation; second, it would
probably be necessary that there should be many bugs biting in order
that one or more of them should bite some healthy person within a
rather short space of time after these insects had fed on the infected
individual.

In actual practice these conditions would be found only in the most
filthy and insanitary surroundings and would call for drastic measures
to exterminate all vermin. It is, of course, possible that under
unsettled conditions where sick and well are crowded together with
no facilities for cleanliness, bedbugs might act as transmitters of
septicemic diseases. Experience has shown that under such grossly
insanitary conditions such insects as fleas and lice appear to be
and are far more dangerous as carriers of disease. Special measures
for their extermination should be taken. Added precautions for the
examination of bedbugs under these conditions would probably not be
justified by the results.

Notwithstanding the minor rôle which must be assigned the bedbug as
a carrier of disease, its presence is an offense against sanitary
decency. Its bites are quite poisonous to some people and its odor
is most disagreeable; and every effort should be made to keep all
dwellings, hospitals, ships, and other premises free from these
disgusting insects.

Dr. L. O. Howard, Chief of the Bureau of Entomology, United States
Department of Agriculture, and consultant United States Public Health
Service, has permitted the quotation of the following passages
from Farmer’s Bulletin No. 754, by C. L. Marlatt, which gives an
authoritative account of the habits, life history, and the means of
control of these insects.

                       “General Characteristics.

“The bedbug belongs to the order Hemiptera, which includes the true
bugs or piercing insects, characterized by possessing a piercing and
sucking beak. The bedbug is to man what the chinch bug is to grains or
the squash bug to cucurbs. Like nearly all the insects parasitic on
animals, however, it is degraded structurally, its parasitic nature
and the slight necessity for extensive locomotion having resulted,
after many ages doubtless, in the loss of wings and the assumption of
a comparatively simple structure. Before feeding, the adult is much
flattened, oval, and in color is rust red, with the abdomen more or
less tinged with black. When engorged, the body becomes much bloated
and elongated and brightly colored from the ingested blood. The
wings are represented by the merest rudiments, barely recognizable
pads, and the simple eyes or ocelli of most other true bugs are
lacking. The absence of wings is a most fortunate circumstance, since
otherwise there would be no safety from it even for the most careful
of housekeepers. Some slight variation in length of wing pads has been
observed, but none with wings showing any considerable development has
ever been found.

                       “Habits and Life History.

“The bedbug is normally nocturnal in habits and displays a certain
degree of wariness, caution, and intelligence in its efforts at
concealment during the day. Under the stress of hunger, however, it
will emerge from its place of concealment in a well-lighted room at
night, so that under such circumstances keeping the gas or electric
light burning is not a complete protection. It has been known under
similar conditions to attack human beings voraciously in broad
daylight. It usually leaves its victim as soon as it has become
engorged with blood and retires to its normal place of concealment,
either in cracks in the bedstead, especially if the latter be one of
the wooden variety, or behind wainscoting, or under loose wall paper;
and in these and similar places it manifests its gregarious habit by
collecting in masses. It thrives particularly in filthy apartments and
in old houses which are full of cracks and crevices, in which it can
conceal itself beyond easy reach. As just noted, the old-fashioned,
heavy, wooden-slatted bedsteads afford especially favorable situations
for the concealment and multiplication of this insect, and the general
use in later years of iron and brass bedsteads has very greatly
facilitated its eradication. Such beds, however, do not insure safety,
as the insects are able to find places of concealment even about such
beds, or get to them readily from their other hiding places.

“The bedbug takes from 5 to 10 minutes to become bloated with blood,
and then retires to its place of concealment for 6 to 10 days for the
quiet digestion of its enormous meal, and for subsequent molting, or
reproduction if in the adult stage.”

“The eggs hatch in a week or 10 days in the hot weather of midsummer,
but cold may lengthen or even double this incubation period or check
development altogether. The young escape by pushing up the lid-like
top with its projecting rim. When first emerged, they are yellowish
white and nearly transparent, the brown color of the more mature insect
increasing with the later molts.”

“Unfavorable conditions of temperature and food will necessarily
result in great variation in the number of generations annually and
in the rate of multiplication, but allowing for reasonable checks on
development, there may be at least four successive broods in a year in
houses kept well heated in winter.”

                         “Food and Longevity.

“Under normal conditions the food of the common bedbug is obtained
from human beings only, and no other unforced feeding habit has been
reported. It is easily possible, however, to force the bedbug to feed
on mice, rats, birds, etc., and probably it may do so occasionally
in nature in the absence of its normal host. The abundance of this
insect in houses which have long been untenanted may occasionally be
accounted for by such other sources of food, but probably normally such
infestation can be explained by the natural longevity of the insect
and its ability to survive for practically a year, and perhaps more,
without food.”

                      “Influence of Temperature.

“As a messmate of human beings in dwelling houses, the bedbug is
normally protected from extreme cold and is known to be an abundant
and serious pest far north. In fact, it is often more troublesome in
north temperate latitudes than farther south. This may be accounted
for partly by the fact that the bedbug is very sensitive to high
temperatures, and a temperature of 96° to 100° F. or more, accompanied
with a fairly high degree of humidity, results in the death of
large numbers of the bugs. The mature or partly mature bedbugs can
stand comparatively low temperatures, even below freezing, for a
considerable period. The eggs and newly hatched larvæ, however, succumb
to a temperature below freezing, if this condition is prolonged for
from 15 days to a month. The feeding and developing activity of the
insect practically ceases at 60° F., the insect remaining quiescent and
in semihibernation at temperatures below this point. The most favorable
temperatures for activity are between 60° and 98° F. The activity of
the insect is controlled entirely by temperature and food supply, and,
therefore, in heated houses the insect may remain active throughout the
winter. There is some protection in winter, therefore, in sleeping in
cold bedrooms.”

                       “The Bite of the Bedbug.

“The bite of the bedbug is decidedly poisonous to some individuals,
resulting in a slight swelling and disagreeable inflammation. To such
persons the presence of bedbugs is sufficient to cause the greatest
uneasiness, if not to put sleep and rest entirely out of the question.
With others, however, who are less sensitive, the presence of the bugs
may not be recognized at all, and, except for the occasional staining
of the linen by a crushed individual, their presence might be entirely
overlooked. The inflammation experienced by sensitive persons seems to
result chiefly from the puncture of the skin by the sharp piercing setæ
which constitute the puncturing element of the mouth parts, as there
seems to be no secretion of poison other than the natural fluids of the
mouth.

“The biting organ of the bedbug is similar to that of other insects of
its order. It consists of a rather heavy, fleshy under lip (the only
part ordinarily seen in examining the insect), within which lie four
thread-like hard filaments or setæ which glide over one another with an
alternating motion and pierce the flesh. The blood is drawn up through
the beak, which is closely applied to the point of puncture, and the
alternating motion of the setæ in the flesh causes the blood to flow
more freely.

“To allay the irritation set up by the bite of the bedbug, peroxide of
hydrogen or dioxygen may be used with good results.

“Tincture of iodine either at ordinary or double strength is also a
good counterirritant for use in cases of flea, mosquito, bedbug, and
other insect bites, but should be used with caution on the tender skin
of small children and on those who are affected with or disposed to
eczemic disorders.”

                    “Natural Enemies of the Bedbug.

“Living always in houses as it does and being well concealed, the
bedbug is not normally subject to much if any control by natural
enemies. Certain other household insects, however, do occasionally
prey upon the bedbug, as, for example, the house centipede and the
common little red house ant. Such enemies, however, are of very small
importance and yield little, if any, effective control except under
very exceptional circumstances.”

                              “Remedies.

“Undoubtedly the most efficient remedy for the bedbug is to fumigate
the infested house or rooms with hydrocyanic-acid gas. This gas will
penetrate into every crevice in the house or room where the bedbugs
conceal themselves and has an immediate effectiveness which gives
it an important recommendation, especially when the infestation is
considerable or of long standing. This method of fumigation should be
intelligently employed, as the gas is deadly poisonous.” Five ounces
of potassium cyanide per 1,000 cubic feet of space should be employed;
exposure, one hour.[2] Ten ounces per 1,000 cubic feet would be better.

    [2] Creel, R. H., and Faget, F. M., Cyanide Gas for the
    Destruction of Insects, with Special Reference to Mosquitoes,
    Fleas, Body Lice, and Bedbugs: Public Health Reports, June 9,
    1916, pp. 1464–1475; Reprint No. 343.

“The fumes of burning sulphur are also a very efficient means of
control where the conditions are such that this method can be used,
readily destroying the insect in all stages, including the egg. The
treatment is inexpensive compared with the use of hydrocyanic-acid gas
and offers much less risk of danger to human beings. There is, however,
a considerable risk of injury to household fabrics, furnishings, and
wall papers from the strong bleaching quality of sulphur fumes. This
danger will be somewhat diminished if the fumigation can be done at a
time when the room or house is thoroughly dried out, as in winter by a
furnace or other heating system. Further precautions should be taken
by removing all metallic surfaces from the room or building, or by
protecting them with a coating of vaseline.”

Four pounds of sulphur are recommended for each 1,000 cubic feet of
space, and the building should be closed for the treatment for at least
five or six hours. “Sulphur candles may be used where available, or
the sulphurous gas or fumes can be generated by burning the sulphur
in a dish placed in the center of the room, and for protection set
within a larger vessel. Thoroughgoing precautions must be taken to
prevent accidental overflowing or the starting of a fire, and after the
fumigation the house should be given a thorough airing.

“Other gases have been experimented with, such as formalin and the
vapors of benzine, naphthalene, and camphor, but these gases are of
little value. Similarly, insect powders are of little value, largely
from the difficulty of getting them into the crevices and other places
of concealment of the insects.

“The old-fashioned household remedies referred to below are effective
enough, though at a greater cost of time and personal effort. They
will, however, be often of much service in the case of slight or
recent infestations, or where the employment of more poisonous and
troublesome gases is objected to or is impracticable. Of these simple
methods of control perhaps the most efficient is in very liberal
applications of benzine or kerosene, or any other of the lighter
petroleum oils, introduced with small brushes or feathers, or by
injecting with syringes into all crevices of beds, furniture, or walls
where the insects may have concealed themselves. Corrosive sublimate is
also of value, and oil of turpentine may be used in the same way. The
liberal use of hot water, wherever it may be employed without danger
to furniture, etc., is also an effectual method of destroying both
eggs and active bugs.[3] A 5 per cent solution of compound solution of
cresol (liquor cresolis compositus) in kerosene forcibly applied with a
large plant sprayer is effective if frequently applied.

    [3] “A remedy for the bedbug has been devised by Mr. R.
    H. Pettit (‘Notes on two insecticidal agents,’ 10th Rpt.
    Mich. Acad. Sci., p. 159–160, 1908) as a substitute for
    hydrocyanic-acid gas and sulphur, and is reported to have
    proved very successful. The preparation of this insecticide and
    its application are described as follows:

    “Alcohol is drawn through pyrethrum in a funnel until the
    powder is well washed and a large part of the resinous
    principle extracted. To do this, the powder is placed in a
    large funnel with filter-plate and a layer of cotton wool at
    the bottom. An aspirator is attached and the alcohol is at
    first slowly and later rapidly sucked through six or eight
    times, during which operation it becomes highly colored.
    To this liquid as a basis, are added several oils to give
    permanence to the application. Both alcohol and pyrethrum
    evaporate so quickly that it was thought best to carry in some
    heavier volatile oils whose effects would last several days or
    even weeks. The formula when completed stands as follows:

    “To the extract made by washing 400 grams of pyrethrum with
    2,000 c. c. of strong alcohol, are added――

        50 grams gum camphor.
        150 c. c. cedar wood oil.
        25 grams oil citronella.
        25 grams oil lavender.

    “The application is best made with a large-sized atomizer, one
    holding a pint or more and working with a piston instead of
    a rubber bulb. * * * To obtain the best results, repeat the
    treatment after about two weeks. We have tried this mixture
    repeatedly and with uniformly gratifying results. Usually
    one application, if thoroughly made, put a period to the
    complaints, about eight to ten ounces being required in an
    average sleeping room. The odor remains some little time in a
    room, but is not disagreeable to the average person.

    “This remedy can be readily prepared by a pharmacist in any
    drug store.”

“Various bedbug remedies and mixtures are for sale, most of them
containing one or another of the ingredients mentioned, and these are
frequently of value. The great desideratum, however, in a case of this
kind, is a daily inspection of beds and bedding, particularly the seams
and tufting of mattresses, and of all crevices and locations about the
premises where these vermin may have gone for concealment. A vigorous
campaign should, in the course of a week or so at the outside, result
in the extermination of this very obnoxious and embarrassing pest.”

“_Temperature control._――The possibility of temperature control is
indicated in the discussion elsewhere of the effect of temperature on
this insect. A temperature maintained below freezing for 10 or 15 days
destroys the eggs, and this temperature continued for 15 days to a
month will destroy the newly hatched young. It may be, therefore, that
if infested houses in cold climates should be opened up and allowed
to remain at a temperature well below freezing for a considerable
period, all eggs and the young, and possibly most if not all of the
adults, would be exterminated. This method of control might perhaps be
practicable at least in the case of summer houses in the North which
are left untenanted in the winter.

“The maintaining of high temperatures may be an even more efficient
method of control. The activity of the bedbug is at its greatest
between 60° and 70° to 75°. As indicated elsewhere, in a temperature
of 96° to 100° F., accompanied with a high degree of humidity, newly
hatched bedbugs perish within a few days, and, if this temperature is
raised to 113° F., in a few minutes.[4] A temperature of 113° will
also destroy the eggs, and with these higher temperatures the item of
humidity is not apparently important.”

    [4] EDITORIAL NOTE.――An account of successful use of live steam
    to eradicate bedbugs in bunkhouses, as practiced by a lumber
    company in Oregon, was published in Public Health Reports, Nov.
    28, 1919, pp. 2713–2714. In that instance steam pipes were
    tapped, after closing all doors and windows, and a temperature
    of 160° F. was held for approximately 3 hours. The officials of
    the company stated that 2 months after the steaming no signs of
    bedbugs had been found.

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 Transcriber’s Notes:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

 ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

 ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.