"But _he_ don't consider himself as engaged!" The words were almost out
of Haight's mouth, but he shut his teeth against them and kept
silence--he hardly knew why.

"Suppose Vandover were out of the question," he said, getting up and
smiling in order not to seem as serious as he really was.

"Ah," she said, smiling back at him. "I don't know; that's a hard
question to answer. I've never _asked_ myself _that_ question."

"Well, I'm saving you the trouble, you see," he answered, still smiling.
"I am asking it _for_ you."

"But I don't want to answer such a question off-hand like that; how can
I tell? It would only be _perhaps_, just now."

Young Haight answered quickly that "just now" he would be contented with
that "perhaps"; but Turner did not hear this. She had spoken at the same
time as he, exclaiming, "But what is the good of talking of that?
Because no matter what happened I feel as though I could not break my
promise to Van, even if I should want to. Because I have talked like
this, Dolly," she went on more seriously, "you must not be deceived or
get a wrong impression. You understand how things are, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," he answered, still trying to carry it off with a laugh. "I
know, I know. But now I hope you won't let anything I have said bother
you, and that things will go on just as if I hadn't spoken, just as if
nothing had happened."

"Why, of course," she said, laughing with him again. "Of _course_, why
shouldn't they?"

They were both at their ease again by the time young Haight stood at the
door with his hat in his hand ready to go.

He raised his free hand over her head, and said, with burlesque,
dramatic effect, trying to keep down a smile:

"Bless you both; go, go marry Vandover and be happy; I forgive you."

"Ah--don't be so _utterly_ absurd," she cried, beginning to laugh.

Chapter Seven

On a certain evening about four months later Ellis and Vandover had a
"date" with Ida Wade and Bessie Laguna at the Mechanics' Fair. Ellis,
Bessie, and Ida were to meet Vandover there in the Art Gallery, as he
had to make a call with his father, and could not get there until
half-past nine. They were all to walk about the Fair until ten, after
which the two men proposed to take the girls out to the Cliff House in
separate coupés. The whole thing had been arranged by Ellis and Bessie,
and Vandover was irritated. Ellis ought to have had more sense; rushing
the girls was all very well, but everybody went to the Mechanics' Fair,
and he didn't like to have nice girls like Turner or Henrietta Vance see
him with chippies like that. It was all very well for Ellis, who had no
social position, but for _him_, Vandover, it would look too confounded
queer. Of course he was in for it now, and would have to face the music.
You can't tell a girl like that that you're ashamed to be seen with her,
but very likely he would get himself into a regular box with it all.

When he arrived at the Mechanics' Pavilion, it was about twenty minutes
of ten, and as he pushed through the wicket he let himself into a huge
amphitheatre full of colour and movement.

There was a vast shuffling of thousands of feet and a subdued roar of
conversation like the noise of a great mill; mingled with these were the
purring of distant machinery, the splashing of a temporary fountain and
the rhythmic clamour of a brass band, while in the piano exhibit the
hired performer was playing a concert-grand with a great flourish.
Nearer at hand one could catch ends of conversation and notes of
laughter, the creaking of boots, and the rustle of moving dresses and
stiff skirts. Here and there groups of school children elbowed their way
through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement
pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips with pewter whistles on
the butts, while the air itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.

Ellis and Bessie were in the Art Gallery upstairs. Mrs. Wade, Ida's
mother, who gave lessons in hand painting, had an exhibit there which
they were interested to find; a bunch of yellow poppies painted on
velvet and framed in gilt. They stood before it some little time
hazarding their opinions and then moved on from one picture to another;
Ellis bought a catalogue and made it a duty to find the title of every
picture. Bessie professed to be very fond of painting; she had 'taken it
up' at one time and had abandoned it, only because the oil or turpentine
or something was unhealthy for her. "Of course," she said, "I'm no
critic, I only know what I like. Now that one over there, I like _that_.
I think those ideal heads like that are lovely, don't you, Bandy? Oh,
there's Van!"

"Hello!" said Vandover, coming up. "Where's Ida?"

"Hello, Van!" answered Bessie. "Ida wouldn't come. Isn't it too mean?
She said she couldn't come because she had a cold, but she was just
talking through her face, I know. She's just got kind of a streak on and
you can't get anything out of her. You two haven't had a row, have you?
Well, I didn't _think_ you had. But she's worried about something or
other. I don't believe she's been out of the house this week. But isn't
it mean of her to throw cold water on the procession like this? She's
been giving me a lecture, too, and says she's going to reform."

"Well," said Vandover, greatly relieved, "that's too bad. We could have
had a lot of fun to-night. I'm awfully sorry. Well, what are you two
going to do?"

"Oh, I guess we'll follow out our part of the programme," said Ellis.
"You are kind of left out, though."

"I don't know," answered Vandover. "Maybe I'll go downtown, and see if I
can find some of the boys."

"Oh, Dolly Haight is around here somewheres," said Ellis. "We saw him
just now over by the chess machine."

"I guess I'll try and find him, then," responded Vandover. "Well, I hope
you two enjoy yourselves." As he was turning away Bessie Laguna came
running back, and taking him a little to one side said:

"You'd better go round and see Ida pretty soon if you can. She's all
broke up about something, I'm sure. I think she'd like to see you pretty
well. Honestly," she said, suddenly very grave, "I never saw Ida so cut
up in my life. She's been taking on over something in a dreadful way,
and I think she'd like to see you. She won't tell _me_ anything. You go
around and see her."

"All right," answered Vandover smiling, "I'll go."

As he was going down the stairs on his way to find young Haight it
occurred to him what Ida's trouble might be. He was all at once struck
with a great fear, so that for an instant he turned cold and weak, and
reached out his hand to steady himself against the railing of the
stairs. Ah, what a calamity that would be! What a calamity! What a
dreadful responsibility! What a crime! He could not keep the thought out
of his mind. He tried to tell himself that Ida had practically given her
consent by going into such a place; that he was not the only one, after
all; that there was nothing certain as yet. He stood on the stairway,
empty for that moment, biting the end of his thumb, saying to himself in
a low voice:

"What a calamity, what a horrible calamity that would be! Ah, you
scoundrel! You damned fool, not to have thought!" A couple of girls, the
counter girls at one of the candy booths, came down the stairs behind
him with a great babble of talk. Vandover gave an irritated shrug of his
shoulders as if freeing himself from the disagreeable subject and went
on.

He could not find young Haight down stairs and so went up into the
gallery again. After a long time he came upon him sitting on an empty
bench nursing his cane and watching the crowd go past.

"Hello, old man!" he exclaimed. "Ellis told me I would find you around
somewhere. I was just going to give you up." He sat down beside his
chum, and the two began to talk about the people as they passed. "Ah,
get on to the red hat!" exclaimed Vandover on a sudden. "That's the
third time she's passed."

"Has Ellis gone off with Bessie Laguna?" asked young Haight.

"Yes," answered Vandover. "They're going to have a time at the Cliff
House."

"That's too bad," young Haight replied. "Ellis has just thrown himself
away with that girl. He might have known some very nice people when he
first came here. Between that girl and his whisky he has managed to
spoil every chance he might have had."

"There's Charlie Geary," Vandover exclaimed suddenly, whistling and
beckoning. "Hey, there, Charlie! where you going? Oh," he cried on a
sudden as Geary came up, "oh, get on to his new store clothes, will
you?" They both pretended to be overwhelmed by the elegance of Geary's
new suit.

"O-oh!" cried young Haight. "The bloody, bloomin', bloated swell. Just
let me _touch_ them!"

Vandover shaded his eyes and turned away as though dazzled. "This is
_too_ much," he gasped. "Such magnificence, such purple and fine linen."
Then suddenly he shouted, "Oh, _oh! look_ at the crease in those
trousers. No; it's too much, I can't stand it."

"Oh, shut up," said Geary, irritated, as they had intended he should be.
"Yes," he went on, "I thought I'd blow myself. I've been working like a
dog the whole month. I'm trying to get in Beale's office. Beale and
Storey, you know. I got the promise of a berth last week, so I thought
I'd blow myself for some rags. I've been over to San Rafael all day
visiting my cousins; had a great time; went out to row. Oh, and had a
great feed: lettuce sandwiches with mayonnaise. Simply out of sight. I
came back on the four o'clock boat and held down the 'line' on Kearney
Street for an hour or two."

"Yes?" young Haight said perfunctorily, adding after a moment, "Isn't
this a gay crowd, a typical San Francisco crowd and--"

"I had a cocktail in the Imperial at about quarter of five," said Geary,
"and got a cigar at the Elite; then I went around to get my clothes. Oh,
you ought to have heard the blowing up I gave my tailor! I let him have
it right straight."

Geary paused a moment, and Vandover said: "Come on, let's walk around a
little; don't you want to? We might run on to the red hat again."

"I told him," continued Geary without moving, "that if he wanted to do
any more work for me, he'd have to get in front of himself in a hurry,
and that _I_ wasn't full of bubbles, if _he_ was. 'Why,' says he, 'why,
Mr. Geary, I've never had a customer talk like this to me before since
I've been in the business!' 'Well, Mr. Allen,' says I, 'it's time you
_had_! Oh, sure, I gave it to him straight."

"Vandover has gone daft over a girl in a red hat," said young Haight,
as they got up and began to walk. "Have you noticed her up here?"

"I went to the Grillroom after I left the tailor's," continued Geary,
"and had supper downtown. Ah, you ought to have seen the steak they gave
me! Just about as thick as it was wide. I gave the slavey a four-bit
tip. Oh, it's just as well, you know, to keep in with them, if you go
there often. I lunch there four or five times a week."

They descended to the ground floor and promenaded the central aisle
watching for pretty girls. In front of a candy-counter, where there was
a soda fountain, they saw the red hat again. Vandover looked her
squarely in the face and laughed a little. When he had passed he looked
back; the girl caught his eye and turned away with a droll smile.
Vandover paused, grinning, and raising his hat; "I guess that's mine,"
he said.

"You are not going, are you?" exclaimed young Haight, as Vandover
stopped. "Oh, for goodness' sake, Van, do leave the girls alone for one
hour in the day. Come on! Come on downtown with us."

"No, no," answered Vandover. "I'm going to chase it up. Good-bye. I may
see you fellows later," and he turned back and went up to the girl.

"Look at that!" said young Haight, exasperated. "He knows he's liable to
meet his acquaintances here, and yet there he goes, almost arm in arm
with a girl like that. It's too bad; why _can't_ a fellow keep straight
when there are such a lot of _nice_ girls?"

Geary never liked to see anything done better than he could do it
himself. Just now he was vexed because Vandover had got in ahead of him.
He looked after the girl a moment and muttered scornfully:

"Cheap meat!" adding, "Ah, you bet _I_ wouldn't do that. I flatter
myself that I'm a little too clever to cut my own throat in that
fashion. I look out after my interests better than that. Well, Dolly,"
he concluded, "_I've_ got a thirst on. Van and Ellis have gone off with
their girls; let's you and I go somewhere and have something wet."

"All right. What's the matter with the Luxembourg?" answered young
Haight.

"Luxembourg goes, then," assented Geary, and they turned about and
started for the door. As they were passing out some one came running up
behind them and took an arm of each: it was Vandover.

"Hello," cried Geary, delighted, "your girl shook you, didn't she?"

"Not a bit of it," answered Vandover. "Oh, but say, she is out of sight!
Says her name is Grace Irving. No, she didn't shake me. I made a date
with her for next Wednesday night. I didn't want to be seen around here
with her, you know."

"Of _course_ she will keep that date!" said Geary.

"Well, now, I think she will," protested Vandover.

"Well, come along," interrupted young Haight. "We'll all go down to the
Luxembourg and have something cold and wet."

"Ah, make it the Imperial instead," objected Vandover. "We may find
Flossie."

"Say," cried Geary, "can't you _live_ without trailing around after some
kind of petticoats?"

"You're right," admitted Vandover, "I can't," but he persuaded them to
go to the Imperial for all that.

At the Imperial, Toby, the red-eyed waiter, came to take their order.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. "Haven't seen you around here for
some time."

"No, no," said Geary. "I've been too busy. I've been working like a dog
lately to get into a certain office. You bet I'll make it all right--all
right. Bring me a stringy rabbit and a pint of dog's-head."

"You bet I've been working," he continued after they had settled down to
their beer and rabbits, "working like a dog. A man's got to rustle if
he's going to make a success at law. _I'm_ going to make it go, by
George, or I'll know the reason why. I'll make my way in this town and
my pile. There's money to be made here and _I_ might just as well make
it as the next man. Every man for himself, that's what _I_ say; that's
the way to get along. It may be selfish, but you've got to do it. By
God! it's human nature. Isn't that right, hey? Isn't that right?"

"Oh, that's right," admitted young Haight, trying to be polite. After
this the conversation lagged a little. Young Haight drank his
Apollinaris lemonade through a straw, Geary sipped his ale, and Vandover
fed himself Welsh rabbit and Spanish olives with the silent enjoyment of
a glutton. By and by, when they had finished and had lighted their
cigars and cigarettes, they began to talk about the last Cotillon, to
which Vandover and Haight belonged.

"Say, Van," said young Haight, tilting his head to one side and shutting
one eye to avoid the smoke from his cigar, "say, didn't I see you
dancing with Mrs. Doane after supper?"

"Yes," said Vandover laughing; "all the men were trying to get a dance
with her. She had an edge on."

"No?" exclaimed Geary, incredulously.

"That's a fact," admitted young Haight. "Van is right."

"She was opposite to me at table," said Vandover, "and _I_ saw her empty
a whole bottle of champagne."

"Why, I didn't know they got drunk like that at the Cotillons," said
Geary. "I thought they were very swell."

"Well, of course, they don't as a rule," returned Vandover. "Of course
there are girls like--like Henrietta Vance who belong to the Cotillon
and make it what it is, and what it ought to be. But there are other
girls like Mrs. Doane and Lilly Stannard and the Trafford girls that
like their champagne pretty well now, and don't you forget it! Oh, you
know, I wouldn't call it getting drunk, though."

"Well, why not?" exclaimed young Haight impatiently. "Why not call it
'getting drunk?' Why not call things by their right name? You can see
just how bad they are then; and I think it's shameful that such things
can go on in an organization that is supposed to contain the very best
people in the city. Now, I just want to tell you what I saw at one of
these same Cotillons in the first part of the season. Lilly Stannard
disappeared after supper and people said she was sick and was going
home, but I knew exactly what was the matter, because I had seen her at
the supper table. Well, I had gone outside on the steps to get a
mouthful of smoke, and my little cousin, Hetty, who has just come out
and who is only nineteen, was out there with me because it was so warm
inside, and _she_ had seen Lilly Stannard filling up with champagne at
supper, and didn't know what to make of it. Well, we were just talking
about it, and I was trying to make her believe too that Lilly Stannard
was sick, when here comes Lilly herself out to her carriage. Her maid
was supporting her, just about half-carrying her. Lilly's face was so
pale that the powder on it looked like ashes, her hair was all coming
down, and she was hiccoughing. Now," continued young Haight, his eyes
snapping, and his voice raised so as to make itself heard above the
exclamations of his two friends, "now, that's a _fact_; I give you my
word of honour that it actually happened. It's not hearsay; I saw it
myself. It's fine, isn't it?" he went on, wrathfully. "It sounds well,
don't it, when it's told _just as it happened_? The girl was dead drunk.
Oh, she may have made a mistake; it may have been the first time; but
the fact remains that she always drinks a lot of champagne at the
Cotillons, and other girls have been drunk there, too. Mrs. Doane, that
Van tells about, was _drunk_; that's the word for it. She was dead drunk
that night, and there was my little cousin, Hetty, who had never seen
even a man the worse for his liquor, standing there and taking it all
in. Of course, every one hushed the thing up or else said the poor girl
was sick; but Hetty knew, and what effect do you suppose it had upon a
little girl like that, who had always been told what nice,
irreproachable people went to the Cotillons? Hetty will never be the
same little girl now that she was before. Oh, it makes me damned tired."

"Well, I don't see," said Geary, "why the girls should make such a fuss
about the men keeping straight. I daresay now that this Stannard girl
would cut us all dead if she knew how drunk we were that night about
four months ago--that night that you fellows got thrown out of the
Luxembourg."

"No, I don't believe she would at all," said young Haight.

"She'd think better of you for it," put in Vandover. "Look here," he
went on, "all this talk of women demanding the same moral standard for
men as men do for women is fine on paper, but how does it work in real
life? The women don't demand it at all. Take the average society girl in
a big city like this. The girls that we meet at teas and receptions and
functions--don't you suppose they know the life we men lead? Of course
they do. They may not know it in detail, but they know in a general way
that we get drunk a good deal and go to disreputable houses and that
sort of thing, and do they ever cut us for that? No, sir; not much.
Why, I tell you, they even have a little more respect for us. They like
a man to know things, to be experienced. A man that keeps himself
straight and clean and never goes around with fast women, they think is
ridiculous. Of course, a girl don't want to know the particulars of a
man's vice; what they want is that a man should have the knowledge of
good and evil, yes, and lots of evil. To a large extent I really believe
it's the women's fault that the men are what they are. If they demanded
a higher moral standard the men would come up to it; they encourage a
man to go to the devil and then--and then when he's rotten with disease
and ruins his wife and has children--what is it--_'spotted
toads'_--_then_ there's a great cry raised against the men, and women
write books and all, when half the time the woman has only encouraged
him to be what he is."

"Oh, well now," retorted young Haight, "you know that all the girls are
not like that."

"Most of them that you meet in society are."

"But they are the best people, aren't they?" demanded Geary.

"No," answered Vandover and young Haight in a breath, and young Haight
continued:

"No; I believe that very few of what you would call the 'best people' go
out in society--people like the Ravises, who have good principles, and
keep up old-fashioned virtues and all that. You know," he added, "they
have family prayers down there every morning after breakfast."

Geary began to smile.

"Well, now, I don't care," retorted young Haight, "I like that sort of
thing."

"So do I," said Vandover. "Up home, now, the governor asks a blessing at
each meal, and somehow I wouldn't like to see him leave it off. But you
can't tell me," he went on, going back to the original subject of their
discussion, "you can't tell me that American society girls, city-bred,
and living at the end of the nineteenth century, don't know about
things. Why, man alive, how can they help but know? Look at those that
have brothers--don't you suppose they know, and if they know, why don't
they use their influence to stop it? I tell you if any one were to write
up the lives that we young men of the city lead after dark, people
wouldn't believe it. At that party that Henrietta Vance gave last month
there were about twenty fellows there and I knew every one, and I was
looking around the supper-table and wondering how many of those young
fellows had never been inside of a disreputable house, and there was
only _one_ beside Dolly Haight!"

Young Haight exclaimed at this, laughing good-naturedly, twirling his
thumbs, and casting down his eyes with mock-modesty.

"Well, that's the truth just the same," Vandover went on. "We young men
of the cities are a fine lot. I'm not doing the baby act. I'm not laying
the blame on the girls altogether, but I say that in a measure the girls
are responsible. They want a man to be a _man_, to be up to date, to be
a man of the world and to go in for that sort of vice, but they don't
know, they don't dream, how rotten and disgusting it is. Oh, I'm not
preaching. I know I'm just as bad as the rest, and I'm going to have a
good time while I can, but sometimes when you stop and think, and as
Dolly says 'call things by their right names,' why you feel, don't you
know--_queer_."

"I don't believe, Van," responded young Haight, "that it's _quite_ as
bad as you say. But it's even wrong, I think, that a good girl should
know anything about vice at all."

"Oh, that's nonsense," broke in Geary; "you can't expect nowadays that a
girl, an American girl, can live twenty years in a city and not know
things. Do you think the average modern girl is going to be the
absolutely pure and innocent girl of, say, fifty years ago? Not much;
they are right on to things to-day. You can't tell them much. And it's
all right, too; they know how to look out for themselves, then. It's
part of their education; and I think if they haven't the knowledge of
evil, and don't know what sort of life the average young man leads, that
their mothers ought to tell them."

"Well, I don't agree with you," retorted young Haight. "There's
something revolting in the idea that it's necessary a young girl should
be instructed in that sort of nastiness."

"Why, not at all," answered Geary. "Without it she might be ruined by
the first man that came along. It's a protection to her virtue."

"Oh, pshaw! I don't believe it at all," cried young Haight,
impatiently. "I believe that a girl is born with a natural intuitive
purity that will lead her to protect her virtue just as instinctively as
she would dodge a blow; if she wants to go wrong she will have to make
an effort herself to overcome that instinct."

"And if she don't," cried Vandover eagerly, "if she don't--if she don't
protect her virtue, I say a man has a right to go as far with her as he
can."

"If _he_ don't, some one else will," said Geary.

"Ah, you can't get around it that way," answered young Haight, smiling.
"It's a man's duty to protect a girl, even if he has to protect her
against herself."

When he got home that night Vandover thought over this remark of young
Haight's and in its light reviewed what had occurred in the room at the
Imperial. He felt aroused, nervous, miserably anxious. At length he
tried to dismiss the subject from his mind; he woke up his drowsing
grate fire, punching it with the poker, talking to it, saying, "Wake up
there, you!" When he was undressed, he sat down before it in his
bathrobe, absorbing its heat luxuriously, musing into the coals,
scratching himself as was his custom. But for all that he fretted
nervously and did not sleep well that night.

Next morning he took his bath. Vandover enjoyed his bath and usually
spent two or three hours over it. When the water was very warm he got
into it with his novel on a rack in front of him and a box of chocolates
conveniently near. Here he stayed, for over an hour, eating and reading,
and occasionally smoking a cigarette, until at length the enervating
heat of the steam gradually overcame him and he dropped off to sleep.

On this particular morning between nine and ten Geary called, and as was
his custom came right up to Vandover's room. Mr. Corkle, lying on the
wolfskin in the bay window, jumped up with a gruff bark, but,
recognizing him, came up wiggling his short tail. Geary saw Vandover's
clothes thrown about the floor and the closed door of the bathroom.

"Hey, Van!" he called. "It's Charlie Geary. Are you taking a bath?"

"Hello! What? Who is it?" came from behind the door. "Oh, is that you,
Charlie? Hello! how are you? Yes, I'm taking a bath. I must have been
asleep. Wait a minute; I'll be out."

"No, I can't stop," answered Geary. "I've an appointment downtown;
overslept myself, and had to go without my breakfast; makes me feel all
broke up. I'll get something at the Grillroom about eleven; a steak, I
guess. But that isn't what I came to say. Ida Wade has killed herself!
Isn't it fearful? I thought I'd drop in on my way downtown and speak to
you about it. It's dreadful! It's all in the morning papers. She must
have been out of her head."

"What is it--what has she done?" came back Vandover's voice. "Papers--I
haven't seen--what has she done? Tell me--what has she done?"

"Why, she committed suicide last night by taking laudanum," answered
Geary, "and nobody knows why. She didn't leave any message or letter or
anything of the kind. It's a fearful thing to happen so suddenly, but it
seems she has been very despondent and broke up about something or other
for a week or two. They found her in her room last night about ten
o'clock lying across her table with only her wrapper on. She was
unconscious then, and between one and two she died. She was unconscious
all the time. Well, I can't stop any longer, Van; I've an appointment
downtown. I was just going past the house and I thought I would run up
and speak to you about Ida. I'll see you again pretty soon and we'll
talk this over."

Mr. Corkle politely attended Geary to the head of the stairs, then went
back to Vandover's room, and after blowing under the crack of the
bathroom door to see if his master was still there returned to the
wolfskin and sat down on his short tail and yawned. He was impatient to
see Vandover and thought he stayed in his bath an unnecessarily long
time. He went up to the door again and listened. It was very still
inside; he could not hear the slightest sound, and he wondered again
what could keep Vandover in there so long. He had too much self-respect
to whine, so he went back to the wolfskin and curled up in the sun, but
did not go to sleep.

By and by, after a very long time, the bathroom door swung open, and
Vandover came out. He had not dried himself and was naked and wet. He
went directly to the table in the centre of the room and picked up the
morning paper, looking for the article of which Geary had spoken. At
first he could not find it, and then it suddenly jumped into prominence
from out the gray blur of the print on an inside page beside an
advertisement of a charity concert for the benefit of a home for
incurable children. There was a picture of Ida taken from a photograph
like one that she had given him, and which even then was thrust between
the frame and glass of his mirror. He read the article through; it
sketched her life and character and the circumstances of her death with
the relentless terseness of the writer cramped for space. According to
this view, the causes of her death were unknown. It had been remarked
that she had of late been despondent and in ill health.

Vandover threw the paper down and straightened up, naked and dripping,
putting both hands to his head. In a low voice under his breath he said:

"What have I done? What have I done now?"

Like the sudden unrolling of a great scroll he saw his responsibility
for her death and for the ruin of that something in her which was more
than life. What would become of her now? And what would become of him?
For a single brief instant he tried to persuade himself that Ida had
consented after all. But he knew that this was not so. She had
consented, but he had forced her consent; he was none the less guilty.
And then in that dreadful moment when he saw things in their true light,
all the screens of conventionality and sophistry torn away, the words
that young Haight had spoken came back to him. No matter if she had
consented, it was his duty to have protected her, even against herself.

He walked the floor with great strides, steaming with the warm water,
striking his head with his hands and crying out, "Oh, this is fearful,
fearful! What have I done now? I have killed her; yes, and worse!"

He could think of nothing worse that could have happened to him. What a
weight of responsibility to carry--he who hated responsibility of any
kind, who had always tried to escape from anything that was even
irksome, who loved his ease, his comfort, his peace of mind!

At every moment now he saw the different consequences of what he had
done. Now, it was that his life was ruined, and that all through its
course this crime would hang like a millstone about his neck. There
could be no more enjoyment of anything for him; all the little pleasures
and little self-indulgences which till now had delighted him were
spoiled and rendered impossible. The rest of his life would have to be
one long penitence; any pleasure he might take would only make his crime
seem more abominable.

Now, it was a furious revolt against his mistake that had led him to
such a fearful misunderstanding of Ida; a silent impotent rage against
himself and against the brute in him that he had permitted to drag him
to this thing.

Now, it was a wave of an immense pity for the dead girl that overcame
him, and he saw himself as another person, destroying what she most
cherished for the sake of gratifying an unclean passion.

Now, it was a terror for himself. What would they do to him? His part in
the affair was sure to be found out. He tried to think what the
punishment for such crime would be; but would he not be considered a
murderer as well? Could he not hang for this? His imagination was never
more active; his fear never more keen. At once a thousand plans of
concealment or escape were tossed up in his mind.

But worse than all was the thought of that punishment from which there
was absolutely no escape, and of that strange other place where his
crime would assume right proportions and receive right judgment, no
matter how it was palliated or evaded here. Then for an instant it was
as if a gulf without bottom had opened under him, and he had to fight
himself back from its edge for sheer self-preservation. To look too long
in that direction was simple insanity beyond any doubt.

And all this time he threw himself to and fro in his room, his long
white arms agitated and shaking, his wet and shining hair streaming far
over his face, and the sparse long fell upon his legs and ankles, all
straight and trickling with moisture. At times an immense unreasoning
terror would come upon him all of a sudden, horrible, crushing, so that
he rolled upon the bed groaning and sobbing, digging his nails into his
scalp, shutting his teeth against a desire to scream out, writhing in
the throes of terrible mental agony.

That day and the next were fearful. To Vandover everything in his world
was changed. All that had happened before the morning of Geary's visit
appeared to him to have occurred in another phase of his life, years and
years ago. He lay awake all night long, listening to the creaking of the
house and the drip of the water faucets. He turned from his food with
repugnance, told his father that he was sick, and kept indoors as much
as he could, reading all the papers to see if he had been found out. To
his great surprise and relief, a theory gained ground that Ida was
subject to spells of ill-health, to long fits of despondency, and that
her suicide had occurred during one of these. If Ida's family knew
anything of the truth, it was apparent that they were doing their best
to cover up their disgrace. Vandover was too thoroughly terrified for
his own safety to feel humiliated at this possible explanation of his
security. There was as yet not even a guess that implicated him.

He thought that he was bearing up under the strain well enough, but on
the evening of the second day, as he was pretending to eat his supper,
his father sent the servant out and turning to him, said kindly:

"What is it, Van? Aren't you well nowadays?"

"Not very, sir," answered Vandover. "My throat is troubling me again."

"You look deathly pale," returned his father. "Your eyes are sunken and
you don't eat."

"Yes, I know," said Vandover. "I'm not feeling well at all. I think I'll
go to bed early to-night. I don't know"--he continued, after a pause,
feeling a desire to escape from his father's observation--"I don't know
but what I'll go up now. Will you tell the cook to feed Mr. Corkle for
me?"

His father looked at him as he pushed back from the table.

"What's the matter, Van?" he said. "Is there anything wrong?"

"Oh, I'll be all right in the morning," he replied nervously. "I feel a
little under the weather just now."

"Don't you think you had better tell me what the trouble is?" said his
father, kindly.

"There _isn't_ any trouble, sir," insisted Vandover. "I just feel a
little under the weather."

But as he was starting to undress in his room a sudden impulse took
possession of him, an overwhelming childish desire to tell his father
all about it. It was beginning to be more than he was able to bear
alone. He did not allow himself to stop and reason with this impulse,
but slipped on his vest again and went downstairs. He found his father
in the smoking-room, sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before
the fireplace.

As Vandover came in the Old Gentleman rose and without a word, as if he
had been expecting him, went to the door and shut and locked it. He came
back and stood before the fireplace watching Vandover as he approached
and took the chair he had just vacated. Vandover told him of the affair
in two or three phrases, without choosing his words, repeating the same
expressions over and over again, moved only with the desire to have it
over and done with.

It was like a burst of thunder. The worst his father had feared was not
as bad as this. He had expected some rather serious boyish trouble, but
this was the crime of a man. Still watching his son, he put out his
hand, groping for the edge of the mantelpiece, and took hold of it with
a firm grasp. For a moment he said nothing; then:

"And--and you say you seduced her."

Without looking up, Vandover answered, "Yes, sir," and then he added,
"It is horrible; when I think of it I sometimes feel as though I should
go off my head. I--"

But the Old Gentleman interrupted him, putting out his hand:

"Don't," he said quickly, "don't say anything now--please."

They were both silent for a long time, Vandover gazing stupidly at a
little blue and red vase on the table, wondering how his father would
take the news, what next he would say; the Old Gentleman drawing his
breath short, occasionally clearing his throat, his eyes wandering
vaguely about the walls of the room, his fingers dancing upon the edge
of the mantelpiece. Then at last he put his hand to his neck as though
loosening his collar and said, looking away from Vandover:

"Won't you--won't you please go out--go away for a little while--leave
me alone for a little while."

When Vandover closed the door, he shut the edge of a rug between it and
the sill; as he reopened it to push the rug out of the way he saw his
father sink into the chair and, resting his arm upon the table, bow his
head upon it.

He did not see his father again that night, and at breakfast next
morning not a word was exchanged between them, but his father did not go
downtown to his office that forenoon, as was his custom. Vandover went
up to his room immediately after breakfast and sat down before the
window that overlooked the little garden in the rear of the house.

He was utterly miserable, his nerves were gone, and at times he would
feel again a touch of that hysterical, unreasoning terror that had come
upon him so suddenly the other morning.

Now there was a new trouble: the blow he had given his father. He could
see that the Old Gentleman was crushed under it, and that he had never
imagined that his son could have been so base as this. Vandover wondered
what he was going to do. It would seem as if he had destroyed all of his
father's affection for him, and he trembled lest the Old Gentleman
should cast him off, everything. Even if his father did not disown him,
he did not see how they could ever be the same. They might go on living
together in the same house, but as far apart from each other as
strangers. This, however, did not seem natural; it was much more likely
that his father would send him away, anywhere out of his sight,
forwarding, perhaps through his lawyer or agents, enough money to keep
him alive. The more Vandover thought of this, the more he became
convinced that such would be his father's decision. The Old Gentleman
had spent the night over it, time enough to make up his mind, and the
fact that he had neither spoken to him nor looked at him that morning
was only an indication of what Vandover was to expect. He fancied he
knew his father well enough to foresee how this decision would be
carried out, not with any imprecations or bursts of rage, but calmly,
sadly, inevitably.

Toward noon his father came into the room, and Vandover turned to face
him and to hear what he had to say as best he could. He knew he should
not break down under it, for he felt as though his misery had reached
its limit, and that nothing could touch or affect him much now.

His father had a decanter of port in one hand and a glass in the other;
he filled the glass and held it toward Vandover, saying gently:

"I think you had better take some of this: you've hardly eaten anything
in three days. Do you feel pretty bad, Van?"

Vandover put the glass down and got upon his feet. All at once a great
sob shook him.

"Oh, governor!" he cried.

It was as if it had been a mother or a dear sister. The prodigal son put
his arms about his father's neck for the first time since he had been a
little boy, and clung to him and wept as though his heart were breaking.

Chapter Eight

"We will begin all over again, Van," his father said later that same
day. "We will start in again and try to forget all this, not as much as
we _can_, but as much as we _ought_, and live it down, and from now on
we'll try to do the thing that is right and brave and good."

"Just try me, sir!" cried Vandover.

That was it, begin all over again. He had never seen more clearly than
now that other life which it was possible for him to live, a life that
was above the level of self-indulgence and animal pleasures, a life that
was not made up of the society of lost women or fast girls, but yet a
life of keen enjoyment.

Whenever he had been deeply moved about anything, the power and desire
of art had grown big within him, and he turned to it now, instinctively
and ardently.

It was all the better half of him that was aroused--the better half that
he had kept in check ever since his college days, the better half that
could respond to the influences of his father and of Turner Ravis, that
other Vandover whom he felt was his real self, Vandover the true man,
Vandover the artist, not Vandover the easy-going, the self-indulgent,
not Vandover the lover of women.

From this time forward he was resolved to give up the world that he had
hitherto known, and devote himself with all his strength to his art. In
the first glow of that resolution he thought that he had never been
happier; he wondered how he could have been blind so long; what was all
that life worth compared with the life of a great artist, compared even
with a life of sturdy, virile effort and patient labour even though
barren of achievement?

And then something very curious happened: The little picture of Turner
Ravis that hung over his mantelpiece caught his glance, looking out at
him with her honest eyes and sweet smile. In an instant he seemed to
love her as he had never imagined he could love any one. All that was
best in him went out toward her in a wave of immense tenderness; the
tears came to his eyes, he could not tell why. Ah, he was not good
enough for her now, but he would love her so well that he would grow
better, and between her and his good father and his art, the better
Vandover, the real Vandover, would grow so large and strong within him
that there should be no room for the other Vandover, the Vandover of
Flossie and of the Imperial, the Vandover of the brute.

During the course of talk that day between himself and his father, it
was decided that Vandover should go away for a little while. He was in a
fair way to be sick from worry and nervous exhaustion, and a sea trip to
San Diego and back seemed to be what he stood most in need of. Besides
this, his father told him, it was inevitable that his share in Ida's
death would soon be known; in any case it would be better for him to be
away from the city.

"You take whatever steamer sails next," said his father, "and! go down
to Coronado and stay there as long as you like, three weeks anyway; stay
there until you get well, and when you get back, Van, we'll have a talk
about Paris again. Perhaps you would like to get away this winter, maybe
as soon as next month. You think it over while you are away, and when
you want to go, why, we'll go over together, Van. What do you think?
Would you like to have your old governor along for a little while?"

The _Santa Rosa_ cast off the company's docks the next day about noon in
the midst of a thick, cold mist that was half rain. The Old Gentleman
came to see Vandover off.

The steamer, which seemed gigantic, was roped and cabled to the piers,
feeling the water occasionally with her screw to keep the hawsers taut.
About the forward gangway a band of overworked stevedores were stowing
in the last of the cargo, aided by a donkey engine, which every now and
then broke out into a spasm of sputtering coughs. At the passenger
gangway a great crowd was gathered, laughing and exchanging remarks with
the other crowd that leaned over the railings of the decks.

There was a smell of pitch and bilge in the air mingled with the reek of
hot oil from the engines. About twelve o'clock an odour of cooking
arose, and the steward went about the decks drumming upon a snoring gong
for dinner.

Half an hour later the great whistle roared interminably, drowning out
the chorus of "good-byes" that rose on all sides. Long before it had
ceased, the huge bulk had stirred, almost imperceptibly at first, then,
gathering headway, swung out into the stream and headed for the Golden
Gate.

Vandover was in the stern upon the hurricane deck, shaking his hat
toward his father, who had tied his handkerchief to his cane and was
waving it at him as he stood upon an empty packing-case. As the throng
of those who were left behind dwindled away, one by one, Vandover could
see him standing there, almost the last of all, and long after the
figure itself was lost in the blur of the background he still saw the
tiny white dot of the handkerchief moving back and forth, as if spelling
out a signal to him across the water.

The fog drew a little higher as they passed down the bay. To the left
was the city swarming upon its hills, a dull gray mass, cut in parallel
furrows by the streets; straggling and uneven where it approached the
sand-dunes in the direction of the Presidio. To the right the long slope
of Tamalpais climbed up and was lost in the fog, while directly in front
of them was the Golden Gate, a bleak prospect of fog-drenched headlands
on either side of a narrow strip of yellow, frothy water. Beyond that,
the open Pacific.

A brisk cannonade was going on from the Presidio and from Black Point,
and both forts were hidden behind a great curtain of tumbling white
smoke that rolled up to mingle with the fog. Everybody was on that side
of the deck watching and making guesses as to the reason of it. It was
perhaps target practice. Ah, it was a good thing that the steamer was
not in line with the target. Perhaps, though, that was the safest place
to be. Some one told about a derelict that was anchored as a target off
the heads, and shot at for fifteen hours without being touched once. Oh,
they were great gunners at the Presidio! But just the same the sound of
cannon was a fine thing to hear; it excited one. A noisy party of
gentlemen already installed in the smoking-room came out on deck for a
moment with their cards in their hands, and declared laughingly that the
whole thing was only a salute in the _Santa Rosa's_ honour.

By the middle of the afternoon, Vandover began to see that for him the
trip was going to be tedious. He knew no one on board and had come away
so hurriedly that he had neglected to get himself any interesting books.
He spent an hour or two promenading the upper deck until the cold wind
that was blowing drove him to the smoking-room, where he tried to
interest himself in watching some of the whist games that were in
progress.

It surprised him that he could find occasion to be bored so soon after
what had happened; but he no longer wished to occupy his mind by
brooding over anything so disagreeable and wanted some sort of amusement
to divert and entertain him. Vandover had so accustomed himself to that
kind of self-indulgence that he could not go long without it. It had
become a simple necessity for him to be amused, and just now he thought
himself justified in seeking it in order to forget about Ida's death. He
had dwelt upon this now for nearly four days, until it had come to be
some sort of a formless horror that it was necessary to avoid. He could
get little present enjoyment by looking forward to the new life that he
was going to begin and in which his father, his art, and Turner Ravis
were to be the chief influences. The thought of this prospect did give
him pleasure, but he had for so long a time fed his mind upon the more
tangible and concrete enjoyments of the hour and minute that it demanded
them now continually.

He sat for a long time upon the slippery leather cushions of the
smoking-room trying desperately to become interested in the whist game,
or gazing awestruck at the man at his elbow who was smoking black
Perrique in a pipe, inhaling the smoke and blowing it out through his
nose. After a while he returned to the deck.

There it was cold and wet and a strong wind was blowing from the ocean.
Four miles to the east an endless procession of brown, bare hills filed
slowly past under the fog. The sky was a dreary brown and the leagues of
shifting water a melancholy desert of gray. Besides these there was
nothing but the bleached hills and the drifting fog; the wind blew
continually, passing between the immense reaches of sea and sky with
prolonged sighs of infinite sadness.

Three seagulls followed the vessel, now in a long line, now abreast, and
now in a triangle. They sailed slowly about, dipping and rising in the
vast hollows between the waves, turning their heads constantly from side
to side.

Vandover went to the stern and for a time found amusement in watching
the indicator of the patent log, and listening for its bell. But his
interest in this was soon exhausted, and he returned to the smoking-room
again, reflecting that this was only the first afternoon and that there
still remained two days that somehow had to be gone through with.

About five o'clock, as he was on his way to get a glass of seltzer, he
saw Grace Irving, the girl of the red hat whom he had met at the
Mechanics' Fair, sitting on a camp-stool just inside of her stateroom
eating a banana. The sight of her startled him out of all composure for
the minute. His first impulse was to speak to her, but he reflected that
he was done with all that now and that it was better for him to pass on
as though he had not seen her, but as he came in front of her she looked
up quickly and nodded to him very pleasantly in such a way that it was
evident she had already known he was on board. It was impossible for
Vandover to ignore her, and though he did not stop, he looked back at
her and smiled as he took off his hat.

He went down to supper in considerable agitation, marvelling at the
coincidence that had brought them together again. He wondered, too, how
she could be so pleasant to him now, for as a matter of course he had
not kept the engagement he had made with her at the Fair. At the same
time, he felt that she must think him a great fool not to have stopped
and spoken to her; either he should have done that or else have ignored
her little bow entirely. He was firmly resolved to have nothing to do
with her, yet it chafed him to feel that she thought him diffident. It
seemed now as though he owed it to himself to speak to her if only for a
minute and make some sort of an excuse. By the time he had finished his
supper, he had made up his mind to do this, and then to avoid her for
the rest of the trip.

As he was leaving the dining saloon he met her coming down the stairs
alone, dressed very prettily in a checked travelling ulster with a gray
velvet collar, and a little fore and aft cap to match. He stopped her
and made his excuses; she did not say much in reply and seemed a little
offended, so that Vandover could not refrain from adding that he was
very glad to see her on board.

"Ah, you don't seem as if you were, very," she said, putting out her
chin at him prettily and passing on. It was an awkward and embarrassing
little scene and Vandover was glad that it was over. But the thing had
been done now, he had managed to show the girl that he did not wish to
keep up the acquaintance begun at the Fair, and from now on she would
keep out of his way.

He took a few turns on the upper deck, smoking his pipe, walking about
fast, while his dinner digested. The sun went down behind the black
horizon in an immense blood-red nebula of mist, the sea turned from gray
to dull green and then to a lifeless brown, and the _Santa Rosa's_
lights began to glow at her quarters and at her masthead; in her stern
the screw drummed and threshed monotonously, a puff of warm air reeking
with the smell of hot oil came from the engine hatch, and in an instant
Vandover saw again the curved roof of the immense iron-vaulted depot,
the passengers on the platform staring curiously at the group around the
invalid's chair, the repair gang in spotted blue overalls, and the huge
white cat dozing on an empty baggage truck.

The wind freshened and he returned to the smoking-room to get warm. The
same game of whist was going on, and the man with the Perrique tobacco
had filled another pipe and continued to blow the smoke through his
nose.

After a while Vandover went back to the main deck and wandered aft,
where he stood a long time looking over the stern, interested in
watching the receding water. It was dark by this time, the wind had
increased and had blown the fog to landward, and the ocean had changed
to a deep blue, the blue of the sky at night; here and there a wave
broke, leaving a line of white on the sea like the trail of a falling
star across the heavens, while the white haze of the steamer's wake
wandered vaguely across the intense blue like the milky way across the
zenith.

Vandover was horribly bored. There seemed to be absolutely nothing to
amuse him, unless, indeed, he should decide to renew his acquaintance
with Grace Irving. But this was out of the question now, for he knew
what it would lead to. Even if he should yield to the temptation, he
did not see how he could take any great pleasure in that sort of thing
again, after what had happened.

Of all the consequences of what he had done, the one which had come to
afflict him the most poignantly was that his enjoyment of life was
spoiled. At first he had thought that he never could take pleasure in
anything again so long as he should live, that his good times were gone.
But as his pliable character rearranged itself to suit the new
environment, he began to see that there would come a time when he would
grow accustomed to Ida's death and when his grief would lose its
sharpness. He had even commenced to look forward to this time and to
long for it as a sort of respite and relief. He believed at first that
it would not be for a great many years; but even so soon after the
suicide as this, he saw with a little thrill of comfort that it would be
but a matter of months. At the same time Vandover was surprised and even
troubled at the ease with which he was recovering from the first shock.
He wondered at himself, because he knew he had been sincere in his talk
with his father. Vandover was not given to self-analysis, but now for a
minute he was wondering if this reaction were due to his youth, his good
health and his good spirits, or whether there was something wrong with
him. However, he dismissed these thoughts with a shrug of his shoulders
as though freeing himself from some disagreeable burden. Ah, he was no
worse than the average; one could get accustomed to almost anything; it
was only in the books that people had their lives ruined; and to brood
over such things was unnatural and morbid. Ah! what a dreadful thing to
become morbid! He could not bring Ida back, or mitigate what he had
done, or be any more sorry for it by making himself miserable. Well,
then! Only he would let that sort of thing alone after this, the lesson
had been too terrible; he would try and enjoy himself again, only it
should be in other ways.

Later in the evening, about nine o'clock, when nearly all the passengers
were in bed, and Vandover was leaning over the side of the boat
finishing his pipe before turning in himself, Grace Irving came out of
her stateroom and sat down at a little distance from him, looking out
over the water, humming a little song. She and Vandover were the only
people to be seen on the deserted promenade.

Vandover saw her without moving, only closing his teeth tighter on his
pipe. It was evident that Grace expected him to speak to her and had
given him a chance for an admirable little tête-à-tête. For a moment
Vandover's heart knocked at his throat; he drew his breath once or twice
sharply through his nose. In an instant all the old evil instincts were
back again, urging and clamouring never so strong, never so insistent.
But Vandover set his face against them, honestly, recalling his
resolution, telling himself that he was done with that life. As he had
said, the lesson had been too terrible.

He turned about resolutely, and walked slowly away from her. The girl
looked after him a moment, surprised, and then called out:

"Oh, Mr. Vandover!"

Vandover paused a moment, looking back.

"Where are you going?" she went on. "Didn't you see me here? Don't you
want to come and talk to me?"

"No," answered Vandover, smiling good-humouredly, trying to be as polite
as was possible. "No, I don't." Then he took a sudden resolution, and
added gravely, "I don't want to have anything to do with you."

In his stateroom, as he sat on the edge of his berth winding his watch
before going to bed, he thought over what he had said. "That was a mean
way to talk to a girl," he told himself, "but," he added, "it's the only
thing to do. I simply couldn't start in again after all that's happened.
Oh, yes, that was the right thing to do!"

He felt a glow of self-respect for his firmness and his decision, a
pride in the unexpected strength, the fine moral rigour that he had
developed at the critical moment. He _could_ turn sharp around when he
wanted to, after all. Ah, yes, that was the only thing to do if one was
to begin all over again and live down what had happened. He wished that
the governor might know how well he had acted.

Chapter Nine

Vandover stayed for two weeks at Coronado Beach and managed to pass the
time very pleasantly. He was fortunate enough to find a party at the
hotel whom he knew very well. In the morning they bathed or sailed on
the bay, and in the afternoon rode out with a pack of greyhounds and
coursed jack-rabbits on the lower end of the island. Vandover's good
spirits began to come back to him, his appetite returned, his nerves
steadied themselves, he slept eight hours every night. But for all that
he did not think that things were the same with him. He said to himself
that he was a changed man; that he was older, more serious.

During this time he received several letters from his father which he
answered very promptly. In the course of their correspondence it was
arranged that they should both leave for Europe on the twenty-fifth of
that month, and that consequently, Vandover should return to the city
not later than the fifteenth. Vandover was having such a good time,
however, that he stayed over the regular steamer in order to go upon a
moonlight picnic down on the beach. The next afternoon he took passage
for San Francisco on a second-class boat.

This homeward passage turned out to be one long misery for Vandover. He
had never been upon a second-class boat before and had never imagined
that anything could be so horribly uncomfortable or disagreeable. The
_Mazatlan_ was overcrowded, improperly ballasted, and rolled
continually. The table was bad, the accommodations inadequate, the
passengers hopelessly uncongenial. Cold and foggy weather accompanied
the boat continually. The same endless procession of bleached hills
still filed past under the mist, going now in the opposite direction,
and the same interminable game of whist was played in the smoking-room,
only with greasier, second-class cards, amidst the acrid smoke of
second-class tobacco. At supper, the first day out, a little Jew who sat
next to Vandover, and who invariably wore a plush skull-cap with
ear-laps, tried to sell him two flawed and yellow diamonds.

The evening after leaving Port Hartford the _Mazatlan_ ran into dirty
weather. It was not stormy--simply rough, disagreeable, the wind and sea
directly ahead. Half an hour after supper Vandover began to be sick. For
a long time he sat on the slippery leather cushions in the nasty
smoking-room, sucking limes, drinking seltzer, and trying to be
interested in the card games. He dozed a little and awoke, feeling
wretched, covered with a cold sweat, racked by a pain in the back of his
head, and tortured by an abominable nausea. He groped his way out upon
the swaying, gusty deck, descended to his cabin, and went to bed.

The _Mazatlan_ had booked more passengers than could be accommodated,
the steward being obliged to make up beds on the floor of the dining
saloon and even upon some of the tables. Vandover had not been able to
get a stateroom, and so had put up with a bunk in the common cabin at
the stern of the vessel.

About two o'clock in the morning he woke up in this place frightfully
sick at the stomach and wretched in body and mind. He had an upper bunk,
and for a long time he lay on his back rolling about with the rolling of
the steamer, vaguely staring straight above him at the roof of the
cabin, hardly a hand's-breadth above his face. The roof was iron,
painted with a white paint very thick and shiny, and was studded with
innumerable bolt-heads and enormous nuts. By and by, for no particular
reason, he rose on his elbow and, leaning over the side of his berth,
looked about him.

The light streaming from two strong-smelling ship's lanterns showed the
cabin, long and narrow. There were two cramped passageways, on either
side of which the tiers of bunks, mere open racks filled with bedding,
rose to the roof, those occupied by women hung with spotted turkey-red
calico.

The cabin was two decks below the open air and every berth was occupied,
the only ventilation being through the door. The air was foul with the
stench of bilge, the reek of the untrimmed lamps, the exhalation of so
many breaths, and the close, stale smell of warm bedding.

A vague murmur rose in the air, the sound of deep breathing, the moving
of restless bodies between the coarse sheets, the momentary noise of the
scratching of blunt finger-tips, a subdued cough, the moan of a sleeping
child. All the while the shaft of the screw, seemingly close beneath
the floor, pounded and rumbled without a moment's stop.

Immediately underneath Vandover two men, saloonkeepers, awoke and lit
their cigars and began a long discussion on the question of license. Two
or three bunks distant, a woman, a Salvation Army lassie, one of a large
party of Salvationists who were on board, began to cough violently,
choking for breath. Across the aisle the little Jew of the plush
skull-cap with ear-laps snored monotonously in alternate keys, one a
guttural bass, the other a rasping treble. The _Mazatlan_ was rolling
worse than ever, now up and down, now from side to side, and now with
long forward lurches that combined the other two motions. During one of
these latter the little Jew was half awakened. He stopped snoring,
leaving an abrupt silence in the air. Then Vandover could hear him
threshing about uneasily; still half asleep he began to mutter and
swear: "Dat's it, r-roll; I woult if I were you; r-roll, dat's
righd--dhere, soh--ah, geep it oop--r-roll, you damnt ole tub, yust
_r-r-roll_."

The continued pitching, the foul air, and the bitter smoke from the
saloonkeepers' cigars became more than Vandover could stand. His stomach
turned, at every instant he gagged and choked. He suddenly made up his
mind that he could stand it no longer, and determined to go on deck,
preferring to walk the night out rather than spend it in the cabin. He
drew on his shoes without lacing them, and dressed himself hurriedly,
omitting his collar and scarf; he put his hat on his tumbled hair, swung
into his overcoat, and, wrapping his travelling-rug around him, started
up toward the deck. On the stairs he was seized with such a nausea that
he could hardly keep from vomiting where he stood, but he rushed out
upon the lower deck, gaining the rail with a swimming head.

He sank back upon an iron capstan with a groan, weak and trembling, his
eyes full of tears, a bursting feeling in his head. He was utterly
miserable.

It was about half-past two in the morning, and a cold raw wind was
whistling through the cordage and flinging the steamer's smoke down upon
the decks and upon the water like a great veil of crêpe. A sickly
half-light was spread out between the sea and the heavens. By its means
he could barely distinguish great, livid blotches of fog or cloud
whirling across the black sky, and the unnumbered multitude of
white-topped waves rushing past, plunging and rising like a vast herd of
black horses galloping on with shaking white manes. Low in the northeast
horizon lay a long pale blur of light against which the bow of the
steamer, inky black, rose and fell and heaved and sank incessantly. To
the landward side and very near at hand, so near that he could hear the
surf at their feet, the long procession of hills continually defiled,
vague and formless masses between the sea and sky. The wind, the noise
of the waves rushing past, the roll of the breakers and the groaning of
the cordage all blended together and filled the air with a prolonged
minor note, lamentable beyond words. The atmosphere was cold and damp,
the spray flying like icy bullets. The sombre light that hung over the
sea reflected itself in long blurred streaks upon the wet decks and
slippery iron rods. Here and there about the rigging a tremulous ball of
orange haze showed where the ship's lanterns were swung. Directly under
him in the stern the screw snarled incessantly in a vortex of boiling
water that forever swirled away and was lost in the darkness. From time
to time the indicator of the patent log, just beside him, rang its tiny
bell.

Vandover drew his rug about him and went up to the main deck, dragging
his shoelaces after him. The wind was stronger here, but he bent his
head against it and went on toward the smoking-room, for the idea had
occurred to him that he could shut himself in there and pass the rest of
the night upon the cushions; anything was better than returning to the
cabin downstairs.

The deck was jerked away from beneath his feet, and he was hurled
forward, many times his own length, against a companionway, breaking his
thumb as he fell. A second shock threw him down again as he rose;
everything about him shook and danced like glassware upon a jarred
table. Then the whole ship rose under his feet as no wave had ever
lifted it, and fell again, not into yielding water, but upon something
that drove through its sides as if they had been paper. A deafening,
crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath
him Vandover heard a rapid series of blows, a dreadful rumbling and
pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel's framework
up to her very mast-tips. On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat
with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all
alive, his muscles tense. In the direction of the engine-room he heard
the furious ringing of a bell. The screw stopped. The _Mazatlan_
wallowed helplessly in the trough of the sea.

Vandover's very first impulse was a wild desire of saving himself; he
had not the least thought for any one else. Every soul on board might
drown, so only he should be saved. It was the primitive animal instinct,
the blind adherence to the first great law, an impulse that in this
first moment of excitement could not be resisted. He ran forward and
snatched a life-preserver from the pile that was stored beneath the
bridge.

As he was fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon
the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the
dining saloon. In an instant the deck was crowded. Men and women ran
about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling
shrilly over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only
in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again
and again for a certain "August." She wrung her hands in her excitement;
at times the man shouted "August!" in a quavering bass voice. "August,
here we are over _here_!" "Oh, where _is_ Gussie?" wailed the woman.
"Here, here I am," another voice answered at length; "here I am, I'm all
right." "Oh," exclaimed the woman with a sob of relief, "here's Gussie;
now let's all keep together whatever happens."

All about the decks just such scenes were going on; most of the women
wore only their night-gowns or dressing-gowns, their hair tumbling down
and blowing about their cheeks, their bare feet slipping and sliding on
the heaving wet decks. The men were in shirt and drawers, standing in
the centre of their family groups, silent, excited, very watchful;
others of them ran about searching for life-preservers, shouting
hoarsely, talking to themselves, speaking all their thoughts aloud.

But there was no panic; there was excitement, confusion, bewilderment,
but no excess of fear, no unreasoning terror, deaf, blind, utterly
reckless.

All at once a man parted the crowd with shoulders and elbows, passing
along the deck with great strides. It was the captain. The next instant
Vandover saw him on the bridge, hatless, without his vest or his coat,
just as he had sprung from his berth. From time to time he shouted his
orders, leaning over the rail, gesturing with his arm. The crew ran
about, carrying out his directions, jostling the men out of the way,
knocking over women and children, speaking to no one, intent only upon
their work.

In a few moments the deck steward and one of the officers appeared amid
the crowd of passengers. They were very calm, and at every instant
shouted, "There is no danger; every one go back to his berth; clear the
deck, please; no danger, gentlemen; everybody be quiet; go back to your
berths!" The steward even came up to Vandover and pulled at the straps
of his life-preserver, exclaiming, "Take this off! There is no danger;
you're only exciting the other passengers. Come on, take it off and go
back to your berth."

Vandover obeyed him, slowly loosening the buckles, looking around him,
bewildered, but still holding the preserver in his hands.

Best of all, however, was the example of a huge old fellow wearing the
cap and clothes of a boatswain's mate of a United States battleship; he
seemed to dominate the excited throng in a moment, going about from
group to group, quieting them all, spreading a feeling of confidence and
courage throughout the whole ship. He was an inspiration to Vandover,
who began to be ashamed of having yielded to the first selfish instinct
of preservation.

Just as the boatswain's mate was offering his flask to the woman whom
Vandover had heard calling for "August," the _Mazatlan_ lurched heavily
once or twice, and then slowly listed to the port side, going over
farther and farther every instant. Vandover heard a renewed rumbling and
smashing noise far beneath him, and in some way knew that the cargo was
shifting. Instead of righting herself, the ship began to heave over more
and more. The whole sea on the port side seemed to rise up to meet the
rail; under Vandover's feet the incline of the deck grew steeper and
steeper. All at once his excitement came back upon him with the
sharpness of a blow, and he caught at the brass grating of a skylight
exclaiming: "By God! We're going _over_." The women screamed with
terror; one heard the men shouting, "Look out! hold on! catch hold
there!" An old man, wearing only a gray flannel shirt, lost his footing;
he fell, and rolled over and over down the deck stupidly, inertly,
without making the slightest effort to save himself, without uttering
the least cry; he brought up suddenly against the rail, with a great
jar, the shock of his soft, withered body against the hard wood sounding
like the sodden impact of a bundle of damp clothes. There was a cry;
they thought him killed--Vandover had seen his head gashed against a
sharp angle of iron--but he jumped up with sudden agility, clambering up
the slope of the deck with the strength and rapidity of an acrobat.

There had been a great rush to the other side of the ship, a wild
scrambling up the steep deck, over skylights and between masts and
ventilators. People clung to anything, to cleats, to steamer chairs, to
the brass railings, to the person who stood next to them. They no longer
listened to the protestations of the brave boatswain's mate; that last
long roll had terrified them. The sense of a great catastrophe began to
spread and widen all about like the rising of some fearful invisible
mist. "_What_ had happened? What was to become of them?"

While Vandover clung to the starboard rail, rolling his eyes wildly,
trying to control himself again, a young man, a waiter in the dining
saloon, rushed up to him from out of the crowd, holding out his hand.
"It's all up!" he shouted.

Vandover grasped his extended palm, shaking hands with him fervently,
without knowing why. The two looked straight into each other's eyes,
their hands gripped close; then the waiter turned away, and dropping on
his knees began to pray silently to himself.

Vandover saw a great many others praying; there was even a large group
gathered about the band of Salvationists trying to raise a hymn. Every
now and then their voices could be heard, singing all out of tune, a
medley of discords.

At one time Vandover caught sight of the little Jew of the plush cap
with the ear-laps; he was grovelling upon the deck, huddling a small
black satchel to his breast; without a moment's pause he screamed, "God
'a' mercy! God 'a' mercy!"

The sight revolted Vandover and in a great measure helped to calm him.
In a few moments he had himself in hand again, cool and self-collected,
resolved not to act like a fool before the others, but to help them if
he could.

Near to him a Salvation Army lassie was down upon her knees trying to
cord up a huge bundle wrapped in sail-cloth. "Here," exclaimed Vandover
coming up to her, "let me help. I'll tie this for you--you put _this_
on." He took the wet, stiff ropes from between her fingers and held the
life-preserver toward her; but she refused it.

"No," she cried enthusiastically, "I'm going to be saved anyhow; I ain't
going to drown; Jesus is watching over me. Oh!" she suddenly exclaimed
with a burst of fervor, "Jesus is going to save me. I _know_ I'm going
to be saved. I feel it, I feel it _here_," and she struck her palm on
the breast of the man's red jersey she was wearing.

"Well, I wish _I_ could have such a confidence," answered Vandover,
sincerely envying the plain little woman under the ugly blue bonnet.

She seemed as if inspired, her face glowing. "Only _believe_; that's
all," she told him. "It isn't too late for you now. Ah," she went on,
smiling, "ah, you don't know what it is in a time like this! What a
comfort! What a support! Oh, _look, look_!" she cried, breaking off and
starting to her feet. "That man is going to jump!"

It was the boatswain's mate, the hero who had filled all the passengers
with his own coolness and courage, who had been Vandover's inspiration.
Some strange reaction seemed to have seized upon him. Of a sudden he
rushed to the rail, the starboard rail that was heaved so high out of
the water, stood upon it for a moment, and then with a great shout
jumped over the side. His folly was as infectious as his courage. Four
more men followed him, three going over all at the same time, and a
fourth a little later, hanging an instant upon the outside of the rail,
then dropping down feet first, disappearing with a great splash that
made itself heard in the great silence that had suddenly fallen upon the
throng.

Every one had seen what had happened; a thrill of fear and apprehension
passed over them all like a cold breath. They were silent, struck dumb,
feeling the presence of death close by.

Suddenly a long flash of yellow upon the bridge made a momentary streak
on the darkness, and there was the report of a gun. A minute later it
was fired again, and alternating with it the _Mazatlan's_ whistle began
to roar, like a hoarse shout for help. Between these sounds could be
heard the renewed clamour upon the decks, the shouting, the screaming,
and the rush of many feet; the little children clung about the knees of
their mothers, shrieking and wailing monotonously, "Oh, ma_ma_--oh,
ma_ma_!" rolling their eyes fearfully behind them.

But many of the children, even some of the older passengers, were
absolutely silent, dazed, stupefied with terror and excitement, their
eyes vague and distended, looking slowly about them, scarcely daring to
move a limb.

Meanwhile the _Mazatlan_ was settling forward, and already the spray was
beginning to fly over the decks. Little by little the terror increased;
people threw themselves down upon the deck, rising up again, their arms
raised to heaven, praying aloud, screaming the same things over and over
again. The Salvationists tried to raise another hymn, but the sound of
their voices was drowned out by the tumult, the roaring of the whistle,
the barking of the minute guns, the straining and snapping of the
cordage, and the sound of waves drawing closer and closer. Prone upon
the deck, his arms still clasped about his black satchel, the little Jew
of the plush cap went into some kind of fit, his eyes rolled back, his
teeth grinding upon each other. Vandover turned from him in disgust.
Then he looked around and above him, drawing a long breath, saying aloud
to himself:

"It looks as though it were the end--well!"

All at once Vandover knew that the water had reached the boilers; there
came a noise of hissing: deafening, stunning; white billows of steam
poured up over the deck.

It was no longer the _Mazatlan_, no longer a thing of wood and iron, but
some strange huge living creature that was dying there under his feet,
some enormous brute that was plunging and writhing in its last agony,
its belly ripped open by a hidden enemy that struck from beneath, its
entrails torn out, its life-breath going from it in great gasps of
steam. Suddenly its bellow collapsed; the great bulk was sinking lower;
the enemy was in its very vitals. The great hoarse roar dwindled to a
long death rattle, then to a guttural rasp; all at once it ceased; the
brute was dead--the _Mazatlan_ was a wreck.

Almost at the moment, he heard an order shouted twice from the bridge,
where he could see the shadowy figures of the captain and officers
moving about through the clouds of steam and smoke and mist. Immediately
there followed the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistle; one of the
officers, the first engineer, and some half dozen of the crew came
dashing through the crowd, and there was a great shout of "The boats!
The boats!"

The crowd broke up, rushing here and there about the ship, reforming
again in smaller bands by the boats and life-rafts. Vandover followed
the first engineer, running forward toward one of the boats in the bow.

"Come on!" he shouted to the little Salvationist lassie, pausing a
moment to help her with her heavy canvas-covered bundle. "Come on!
they're going to lower the boats."

She started up to follow him and the boom of the foremast, which the
accident had in some way loosened, swung across the deck at the same
moment. Vandover was already out of its path but it struck the young
woman squarely across the back. She dropped in a heap upon the deck,
then her body slowly straightened out, stiff and rigid, her eyes rapidly
opened and shut, and a great puff of white froth slowly started from her
mouth. Vandover ran forward and lifted her up, but her back was broken;
she was already dead. He rose to his feet exclaiming to himself, "But
she was so sure--she _knew_ she was going to be saved," then suddenly
fell silent again, gazing wonderingly at the body, disturbed, very
thoughtful.

When Vandover finally reached the lifeboat, he found a great crowd
gathered there; three people were already in the boat itself. The first
engineer, who commanded that boat, and three of the crew stood by the
falls preparing to cast off. Just below on the deck of the _Mazatlan_
stood two sailors keeping the crowd in order, continually shouting,
"Women and children first!" As the women passed their children forward,
the sailors lifted them into the boats, some shrieking, others silent
and stupid as if stunned. Then the women were helped up; the men,
Vandover among them, climbing in afterward. The davits were turned out
and the boat was swung clear of the ship's side.

Vandover looked out and below him and then made an involuntary movement
to regain the ship's deck. Far below him, or so at least it seemed, were
mountains of tumbling green water, huge, relentless, irresistible,
rushing on by thousands, to shatter themselves with dreadful force
against the ship's side. It seemed simple madness to attempt to launch
the boat; even the sinking wreck would be safer than this chance.
Vandover was terrified, again deserted by all his calmness and
self-restraint.

The sailors standing in the bow and the stern let out the ropes little
by little, the vast black hulk of the ship began to loom up above them
all, higher and higher, and to their eyes the lifeboat began to grow
smaller and smaller, more and more frail, more and more pitiful.

All at once it struck the water with a crash, in an instant it was
tossed up again in the air, heaving on the crest of a wave, was carried
in and dashed up against the ship, all the oars on that side snapping in
an instant. It was a fearful moment; the little boat was unmanageable in
an instant, leaping and plunging among the waves like a terrified horse,
banged and battered between the heaving water and the hull of the
steamer itself. Vandover believed that all was over; he partially rose
from his seat preparing to jump before the boat should swamp.

There was an interval of shouting and confusion, the first engineer and
the crew leaning over the sides fending off the boat with the stumps of
the oars and with long boathooks. Some oars were shipped to the other
side to take the place of the broken ones, and a score of hands tugging
at them, the boat was at length pulled away out of danger.

The lifeboat had been built to hold thirty-five people; more than forty
had crowded into it, and it needed all prudence and care to keep it
afloat in the heavy seas that were running. The sailors and two of the
passengers were at the oars, while the first engineer took command,
standing in the stern at the steering-oar. He was dressed in a suit of
oilskins, a life-preserver strapped under his arms; he wore no hat, and
at every gust his drenched hair and beard whipped across his face.

Just as the boat was pulling away from the wreck, Vandover and the
others saw the little Jew of the plush cap with the ear-laps standing
upon the rail of the steamer, holding to a stanchion. He believed that
he had been abandoned, and screamed after them, stretching out his
hands. The engineer turned and saw him, but shook his head. "Give way
there!" he commanded the men; "there's no more room."

The Jew flung his satchel from him and jumped; for a moment he
disappeared, then suddenly came up on the crest of a wave, quite close
to them, gasping and beating his hands, the water running out of his
mouth, and his plush cap, glossy with wet, all awry and twisted so that
one ear-lap hung over his eye like a shade. In another moment he had
grasped one of the oar-blades. Every one was watching and there was a
cry, "Draw him in!" But the engineer refused.

"It's too late!" he shouted, partly to the Jew and partly to the boat.
"One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"

"But you can't let him drown," cried Vandover and the others who sat
near. "Oh, take him in anyhow; we must risk it."

"Risk hell!" thundered the engineer. "Look here, you!" he cried to
Vandover and the rest. "I'm in command here and am responsible for the
lives of all of you. It's a matter of his life or ours; one life or
forty. One more and we are swamped. Let go there!"

"Yes, yes," cried some. "It's too late! there's no more room!"

But others still protested. "It's too horrible; don't let him drown;
take him in." They threw him their life-preservers and the stumps of the
broken oars. But the Jew saw nothing, heard nothing, clinging to the
oar-blade, panting and stupid, his eyes wide and staring.

"Shake him off!" commanded the engineer. The sailor at the oar jerked
and twisted it, but the Jew still held on, silent and breathing hard.
Vandover glanced at the fearfully overloaded boat and saw the necessity
of it and held his peace, watching the thing that was being done. The
sailor still attempted to tear the oar from the Jew's grip, but the Jew
held on, panting, almost exhausted; they could hear his breathing in the
boat. "Oh, don't!" he gasped, rolling his eyes.

"Unship that oar and throw it overboard," shouted the engineer.

"Better not, sir," answered the sailor. "Extra oars all broken." The Jew
was hindering the progress of the boat and at every moment it threatened
to turn broad on to the seas.

"God damn you, let go there!" shouted the engineer, himself wrenching
and twisting at the oar. "Let go or I'll shoot!"

But the Jew, deaf and stupid, drew himself along the oar, hand over
hand, and in a moment had caught hold of the gunwale of the boat. It
careened on the instant. There was a great cry. "Push him off! We're
swamping! Push him off!" And one of the women cried to the mate, "Don't
let my little girls drown, sir! Push him away! Save my little girls! Let
him drown!"

It was the animal in them all that had come to the surface in an
instant, the primal instinct of the brute striving for its life and for
the life of its young.

The engineer, exasperated, caught up the stump of one of the broken oars
and beat on the Jew's hands where they were gripped whitely upon the
boat's rim, shouting, "Let go! let go!" But as soon as the Jew relaxed
one hand he caught again with the other. He uttered no cry, but his face
as it came and went over the gunwale of the boat was white and writhing.
When he was at length beaten from the boat he caught again at the oar;
it was drawn in, and the engineer clubbed his head and arms and hands
till the water near by grew red. The little Jew clung to the end of the
oar like a cat, writhing and grunting, his mouth open, and his eyes
fixed and staring. When his hands were gone, he tried to embrace the oar
with his arms. He slid off in the hollow of a wave, his body turned over
twice, and then he sank, his head thrown back, his eyes still open and
staring, and a silver chain of bubbles escaping from his mouth.

"Give way, men!" said the engineer.

"Oh, God!" exclaimed Vandover, turning away and vomiting over the side.

A little while later some one on the bow of the boat called to the
engineer asking why it was they were not heading for the shore. The
engineer did not answer, but Vandover in some way understood that it was
too dangerous to attempt to run the breakers in such heavy weather, and
that they must keep in the open, holding the boat head on to the seas
until either the wind fell or they were picked up by some other vessel.

It was still very dark, and seen under the night from the little boat,
the ocean and the sky seemed immense and terrible; the great waves grew
out of the obscurity ahead of them, rushing down upon the boat, big,
swelling, silent, their crests occasionally hissing and breaking into
irruptions of cold white froth. As one of them would draw near, the boat
would rise upon it as though it would never stop, would hang a moment
upon its summit and then topple into the black gulf that followed,
sending the bitter icy spray high into the air. The wind blew steadily.
Suddenly toward three o'clock it began to rain.

Vandover, the engineer, all the five sailors, and two of the passengers
were clothed. The rest of the passengers were little better than naked.
Here and there a man had snatched a blanket from his berth, and one or
two of them were wearing their trousers, but the rest were clothed for
the most part only with their shirts and drawers. There were eighteen
women and five little girls in the boat. The little girls were well
looked after. Two were wrapped in Vandover's travelling-rug and a couple
of men had put their coats around the third. But there were not wraps
enough to go around among the women, by far the larger part of them were
covered only by their night-dresses or their bed-gowns.

It was abominably cold; the rain fell continually, and the wind blew in
long gusts, piercing, cutting. Every plunge of the boat threw icy
bullets of spray into the air, which the wind caught up and flung down
broad upon the boat. Sometimes even a huge wave would break just upon
their quarter, and then great torrents of bitter, freezing water would
fall over them in a deluge, leaving a sediment of salt that cracked the
skin. The women were huddled upon the bottom of the boat near the waist,
where they had been placed for greater safety. They were fouled with
the muddy water that gathered there, their long hair dishevelled,
dripping with sleet, clinging to their wet cheeks and throats, their
bodies showing pink with cold, through their thin, soaked coverings,
their limbs racked with long incessant shudderings, a wretched group,
miserable beyond words. One of them close by Vandover's feet, he noticed
particularly, had but a single garment to cover her. She was drenched
through and through, her bare feet were blue with the cold, her head was
thrown back, her eyes closed. She was silent except when an unusual gust
of wind whipped the rain and spray across her body like the long, fine
lash of a whip. Then with every breath she moaned, drawing in her breath
between her teeth with a little whistling gasp, too weak, too exhausted,
too nearly unconscious to attempt to shield herself in any way.

Vandover could do nothing; he had almost stripped himself to help clothe
the others. Nothing more could be done. The suffering had to go on, and
he began to wonder how human beings could endure such stress and yet
live.

But Vandover himself suffered too keenly to take much thought for the
sufferings of the others, while besides that anguish which he shared
with the whole boat, the pain in his broken thumb gnawed incessantly
like a rat. From time to time he stared listlessly about him, looking at
the dark sky, the tumbling ocean, and the crowded groups in the
plunging, rolling lifeboat.

There was nothing picturesque about it all, nothing heroic. It was
unlike any pictures he had seen of lifeboat rescues, unlike anything he
had ever imagined. It was all sordid, miserable, and the sight of the
half-clad women, dirty, sodden, unkempt, stirred him rather to disgust
than to pity.

At last the dawn came and grew white over a world of tumbling green
billows and scudding wrack. Some three miles distant, seen only when the
boat topped a higher wave, the same procession of bleached hills moved
gradually to the south under the fog, their feet covered by the white
line of the surf. Not far behind in the wake of the boat the stern of
the _Mazatlan_ rose out of a ring of white foam, the waves breaking over
her as if she had been there for ages, the screw writhing its flanges
into the air like some enormous starfish already fastened upon the hulk.

One of the other boats could be seen now and then between them and the
shore, a momentary dot of black on the vast blur of green and gray.

There was no conversation; the men relieved each other at the oars or
bailed out the water with their caps and hands, scarcely interchanging a
word. The only utterance was an occasional moaning from among the women
and children. There was nothing to eat; long since the two whisky flasks
had been exhausted. The rain fell steadily into the sea with a prolonged
rippling noise.

Vandover was leaning upon the gunwale of the boat, his head buried in
his arms, when suddenly he raised himself and asked of the man who sat
next to him:

"What was the matter last night? What caused the accident?"

The other shook his head, wearily, turning away again. However, the
engineer answered:

"We couldn't carry coal enough to keep up the right pressure of steam
and drifted in upon a reef. I said once before that it would happen some
time."

About an hour later Vandover dropped off to sleep, in spite of the cold,
the wet, and the torment in his thumb. He dozed and woke, and dozed
again all through the morning. About noon he was awakened by a more
violent rolling of the boat, the sound of voices, and a stir among the
other passengers.

It was still raining; the boat was no longer cutting the waves with her
nose, but was being rowed seaward flank on; a sailor stood in the bow
holding a coil of rope. Close in and seen over the tops of the waves
were the shaking and slatting sails of a pilot-boat, lying to. One of
the sails bore an enormous number six.

Vandover slept all that day and the night following, rolled in hot
blankets. The next morning he awoke with a strange sense of unreality
and of having dropped a day somewhere. As he lay in his stuffy little
bunk between decks, and felt the rolling of the pilot-boat under him, he
still fancied himself upon the _Mazatlan_; he felt the pain in his
bandaged thumb and wondered how it came there. Then his fall on the deck
came back to him, the wreck of the steamer, the excitement on board,
the reports of the rifle fired as a minute gun, the clouds of steam that
smelt of a great laundry, and the drowning of the little Jew of the
plush cap with the ear-laps. He shuddered and grew sick again for a
minute, telling himself that he would never forget that scene.

Such of the passengers as could get about breakfasted as best they could
in the cabin with the boatkeeper and four of the pilots. Here they were
informed as to what was to be done with them. The schooner would not go
in for two weeks, and it was out of the question to keep the castaways
on board for that length of time. However, at that moment the pilots
were cruising in the neighbourhood on the lookout for two Cape Horners
that were expected to be up at any moment. It was decided that when the
first of these should be met with the party should be transferred.

An hour after they had been picked up, the wind had begun to freshen. By
noon of the second day it had come on to blow half a gale. One could
hope only for the best as regarded the rest of the _Mazatlan's_ boats
and rafts. Not another sign of the wreck was seen by the schooner.

The castaways filled the little schooner to overflowing, hindering her
management, and getting in the way at every step. The pilot crew hustled
them about without ceremony, and after dinner one had to intervene to
prevent a fight between one of them and a sailor from the _Mazatlan_
over the question of a broken pipe. The women of the _Mazatlan_ kept in
their berths continually, rolled in hot blankets, dosed with steaming
whisky punches. In the afternoon, however, Vandover saw two of them in
the lee of the house attempting to dry their hair; one of them was the
woman he had particularly noticed in the lifeboat clad in a night-dress,
and he wondered vaguely where the dress had come from she now was
wearing.

About three o'clock of the afternoon of the following day Vandover was
sitting on the deck near the stern, fastening on his shoes with a length
of tarred rope, the laces which he had left trailing having long before
broken and pulled out. By that time the wind was blowing squally out of
the northeast. The schooner was put under try sails, "a three-reefed
mitten with the thumb brailed up," as he heard the boatkeeper call it.
This latter was at the wheel for a moment, but in a little while he
called up a young man dressed in a suit of oilskins and a pea jacket and
gave him the charge. For a long time Vandover watched the boy turning
the spokes back and forth, his eyes alternating between the binocle and
the horizon.

In the evening about half-past ten, the lookout in the crow's nest sang
out: "Smoke--oh!" sounding upon his fish horn. The boatkeeper ran aft
and lit a huge calcium flare, holding it so as to illuminate the big
number on the mainsail. Suddenly, about a quarter of a mile off their
weather-bow, a couple of rockets left a long trail of yellow against the
night. It was the Cape Horner, and presently Vandover made out her
lights, two glowing spots moving upon the darkness, like the eyes of
some nocturnal sea-monster. In a few minutes she showed a blue light on
the bridge; she wanted a pilot.

The schooner approached and was laid to, and the towering mass of the
great deep-sea tramp began to be dimly seen through the darkness. There
was little confusion in making the transfer of the castaways. Most of
them seemed still benumbed with their recent terrible exposure. They
docilely allowed themselves to be pushed into the pilot tender and again
endured the experience of being lowered to the shifting waves below.
Silently, like frightened sheep, they stood up in turn in the rocking
tender and allowed the life preserver to be fitted about their shoulders
to protect them from the bite of the rope's noose beneath their arms.
There followed a sickening upward whirl between sea and sky, and then
the comforting grasp of many welcoming hands from the deck above. By
three o'clock in the morning the transfer had been made.

Vandover boarded the Cape Horner in company with the pilot and the rest
and reached San Francisco late on the next day, which happened to be a
Sunday.

Chapter Ten

About ten o'clock Vandover went ashore in the ship's yawl and landed in
the city on a literally perfect day in early November. It seemed many
years since he had been there. The drizzly morning upon which the _Santa
Rosa_ had cast off was already too long ago to be remembered. The city
itself as he walked up Market Street toward Kearney seemed to have taken
on a strange appearance.

It was Sunday, the downtown streets were deserted except for the
cable-cars and an occasional newsboy. The stores were closed and in
their vestibules one saw the peddlers who were never there on week-days,
venders of canes and peddlers of glue with heavy weights attached to
mended china plates.

Vandover had had no breakfast and was conscious of feeling desperately
hungry. He determined to breakfast downtown, as he would arrive home too
late for one meal and too early for the other.

Almost all of his money had been lost with the _Mazatlan_; he found he
had but a dollar left. He would have preferred breakfasting at the
Grillroom, but concluded he was too shabby in appearance, and he knew he
would get more for his money at the Imperial.

It was absolutely quiet in the Imperial at the hour when he arrived. The
single bartender was reading a paper, and in the passage between the
private rooms a Chinese with a clean napkin wound around his head was
polishing the brass and woodwork. In the passage he met Toby, the
red-eyed waiter, just going off night duty, without his usual apron or
white coat, dressed very carefully, wearing a brown felt hat.

"Why, how do you do, Mr. Vandover?" exclaimed Toby. "Haven't seen you
round here for some time." Vandover was about to answer when the other
interrupted:

"Well, what's happened to _you_? Look as though you'd been drawn through
hell backward and beaten with a cat!"

In fact Vandover's appearance was extraordinary. His hat was torn and
broken, and his clothes, stained with tar and dirt, shrunken and
wrinkled by sea-water. His shoes were fastened with bits of tarred rope;
he was wearing a red flannel shirt with bone buttons which the
boatkeeper on the pilot boat had given him, tied at the neck with a
purple handkerchief of pongee silk; his hair was long, and a week's
growth of beard was upon his lip and cheeks.

"That's a fact," he answered grimly. "I do look queer. I was in a wreck
down the coast," he added hastily.

"The _Mazatlan!_" exclaimed Toby. "That's a fact; the papers have been
full of it. That's so, you were one of the survivors."

"The survivors!" echoed Vandover with wondering curiosity. "Tell me--you
know I haven't heard a word yet--were there many lives lost?" He
marvelled at the strangeness of the situation, that this bar waiter
should know more of the wreck than he himself who had been upon it.

"You bet there were!" answered Toby. "Twenty-three altogether; one boat
capsized; Kelly, 'Bug' Kelly, son of that fellow that runs the Crystal
Grotto, _he_ was drowned, and one of Hocheimer's--Hocheimer, the
jeweller, you know--one of his travelling salesmen was drowned; a little
Jew named Brann, a diamond expert; he jumped overboard and--"

"Don't!" said Vandover with a sharp gesture. "I saw him drown--it was
sickening."

"Were you in that boat?" exclaimed Toby. "Well, wait till I tell you;
the authorities here are right after that first engineer with a sharp
stick, and some of the passengers, too, for not taking him in. A woman
in one of the other boats saw it all and gave the whole thing away. A
thing like that is regular murder, you know." Vandover shut his teeth
against answering, and after a little Toby went on, willing to talk.
"You know, we've got a new man for the day-work down here now--George
isn't here any more. No, he's going to start a roadhouse out on the
almshouse drive in a few months; swell place, you know. I'll have him
send you cards for the opening."

Vandover ordered oysters, an omelette, and a pint of claret from the new
waiter who did the day-work, and ate and drank the meal--the like of
which he had not tasted since leaving Coronado--with delicious
enjoyment.

He delayed over it long, taking a great pleasure in satisfying the
demands of the animal in him. The wine made him heavy, warm, stupid; he
felt calm, soothed, and perfectly contented, and had to struggle
against a desire to go to sleep where he was. The atmosphere of the
Imperial was warm and there was a tepid languor in the air as of the
traces of many past debauches, a stale odour of sweetened whisky and of
musk. After the roughness and hardships of the last week he felt a
pleasant sense of quiet, of relaxation, of enervation. He even began to
wish that Flossie would come in. This, however, made him rouse himself;
he shook himself, and started home, paying his carfare with his last
nickel.

He sat on the outside of the car, wondering if any one he knew would see
him, half hoping that such a thing might happen, realizing the dramatic
interest that would centre about him now in his present condition as a
survivor of a wreck. The idea soon attracted him immensely and he began
to look out for any possible acquaintance as the car began to climb over
Nob Hill.

At the crossing of Polk Street he saw Ida Wade's mother in deep
mourning, standing near a grocery store holding a little pink parcel.

It was like a blow between the eyes. Vandover caught his breath and
started violently, feeling again for an instant the cold grip of the
hysterical terror that had so nearly overcome him on the morning after
Ida's death. It slowly relaxed, however, and by the time he had reached
the house on California Street he was almost himself again.

It was about church time when Vandover arrived at home once more. There
was a Sunday quiet in the air. The bells were ringing, and here and
there family groups on their way to church, the children walking in
front, very sedate in their best clothes, carrying the prayer-books
carefully, by special privilege.

The butler was working in the garden, as he sometimes did of a Sunday
morning, pottering about a certain bed of sweet-peas, and it was the
housekeeper who answered his ring. She recognized him with a prolonged
exclamation, raising her hands to heaven.

"O-oh, and is it you, Mr. Vandover, sir? Ah, how we've been upset about
you and all, and it's glad to see you back again your father will be!
Oh, such times as we had when we heard about the wreck and knowing you
were on it! Yes, sir, your father's _pretty_ well, though he was main
poorly yesterday morning. But he's better now. You'll find him in the
smoking-room now, sir."

Vandover pushed open the door of the smoking-room quietly. His father
was sitting unoccupied in the huge leather chair before the fireplace.
He was dead, and must have died some considerable time before, as he was
already cold. He could have suffered no pain, hardly a muscle had moved,
and his attitude was quite natural, the legs crossed, the right hand
holding the morning's paper. However, as soon as Vandover touched the
body it collapsed and slid down into a heap in the depth of the chair,
the jaw dropping open, the head rolling sidewise upon his shoulder.

Vandover ran out into the hall, waving his arms, shouting for the
servants. "Oh, why didn't you tell me?" he cried to the housekeeper "Why
did you let me find him so? When did he die?" The housekeeper was
distraught. She couldn't believe it. Only a little while ago he had
called her to say there were no more matches in the little brass
matchsafe. She began to utter long cries and lamentations like a hen in
distress, raising her hands to heaven. All at once they heard some one
rushing up the stairs. It was the butler, in his shirt-sleeves and his
enormous apron of ticking, still carrying his trowel in his hand. He was
bewildered, his eyes protruding, while all about him he spread the smell
of fresh earth. At every instant he exclaimed:

"What? What? What's the matter?"

"Oh, my dear old governor--and all alone!" cried Vandover through shut
teeth.

"Oh, oh, the good God!" exclaimed the housekeeper, crossing herself and
rolling her eyes. "And him asking for matches in the little brass box
only a minute since. Oh, the good, kind master!"

Suddenly Vandover rushed down the stairs and through the front hall,
snatching his hat from the hatrack as he passed. He ran to call the
family doctor, who lived some two blocks below on the same street. He
caught him just as he was getting into the carry-all with his family,
bound for church.

Vandover and the physician rode back together in the carry-all, the two
gray horses going up the steep hill at a trot. The doctor was dressed
for church; he wore red gloves with thick white seams, a spray of
lilies-of-the-valley in his lapel.

"I'm afraid we can do nothing," he said warningly. "It's your father's
old enemy, I suppose. This was--it was sure to happen sooner or later.
Any sudden shock, you know."

Vandover scarcely listened, holding the door of the carry-all open with
one hand, ready to jump out, beating the other hand upon his knee.

"Go back and take the rest of them to church now," said the doctor to
his coachman when the carry-all stopped in front of Vandover's house.

The whole house was in the greatest agitation all the rest of the day.
The curtains were drawn, the door bell rang incessantly, strange faces
passed the windows, and the noise of strange footsteps continually
mounted and descended the staircase. The hours for meals were all
deranged, the table stood ready all day long, and one ate when there was
a chance. The telephone was in constant use, and at every moment
messenger boys came and went, people spoke in low tones, walking on
tiptoe; the florist's wagon drove to the door again and again, and the
house began to smell of tuberoses. Reporters came, waiting patiently for
interviews, sitting on the leather chairs in the dining-room, or writing
rapidly on a corner of the dining-table, the cloth pushed back. The
undertaker's assistants went about in their shirt-sleeves, working very
hard, and toward the middle of the afternoon the undertaker himself tied
the crêpe to the bell handle.

Little by little a subdued excitement spread throughout the vicinity.
The neighbours appeared at their windows, looking down into the street,
watching everything that went on. It was a veritable event, a matter of
comment and interest for the whole block. Women found excuses to call on
each other, talking over what had happened, as they sat near their
parlour windows, shaking their heads at each other, peering out between
the lace curtains. The people on the cable-cars and the pedestrians
looked again and again at the crêpe on the bell handle, and the
curtained windows, craning their necks backward when they had passed.
The neighbours' children collected in little groups on the sidewalk near
the house, looking and pointing, drawn close together, talking in low
tones. At last even a policeman appeared, walking deliberately, casting
the shadow of his huge stomach upon the fence that was about the vacant
lot. He frowned upon the children, ordering them away. But suddenly he
discovered an acquaintance, the driver of an express-wagon that had just
driven up with an enormous anchor of violets. He paused, exclaiming:

"Why, hello, Connors!"

"Why, hello, Mister Brodhead!"

Then a long conversation was begun, the policeman standing on the
curbstone, one foot resting upon the hub of a wheel, the expressman
leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his whip between his
hands. The expressman told some sort of story, pointing with his elbow
toward the house, but the other was incredulous, gravely shaking his
head, putting his chin in the air, and closing his eyes.

Inside the house itself there was a hushed and subdued bustling that
centred about a particular room. The undertaker's assistants and the
barber called in low voices through the halls for basins of water and
towels. There was a search for the Old Gentleman's best clothes and his
clean linen; bureau drawers were opened and shut, closet doors softly
closed. Relatives and friends called and departed or stayed to help. A
vague murmur arose, a mingled sound of whispers and light foot-steps,
the rustle of silks, and the noise of stifled weeping, and then at last
silence, night, solitude, a single gas-jet burning, and Vandover was
left alone.

The suddenness of the thing had stunned and dizzied him, and he had gone
through with all the various affairs of the day wondering at his
calmness and fortitude. Toward eleven o'clock, however, after the
suppressed excitement of the last hours, as he was going to bed, the
sense of his grief and loss came upon him all of a sudden, with their
real force for the first time, and he threw himself upon the bed face
downward, weeping and groaning. During the rest of the night pictures of
his father returned to him as he had seen him upon different occasions,
particularly three such pictures came and went through his mind.

In one the Old Gentleman stood in that very room, with the decanter in
his hand, asking him kindly if he felt very bad; in another he was on
the pier with his handkerchief tied to his cane, waving it after
Vandover as though spelling out a signal to him across the water. But in
a third, he was in the smoking-room, fallen into the leather chair, his
arm resting on the table and his head bowed upon it.

After the funeral, which took place from the house, Vandover drove back
alone in the hired carriage to his home. He would have paid the driver,
but the other told him that the undertaker looked out for that. Vandover
watched him a moment as he started his horses downhill, the brake as it
scraped against the tire making a noise like the yelping of a dog. Then
he turned and faced the house. It was near four o'clock in the
afternoon, and everything about the house was very quiet. All the
curtains were down except in one of the rooms upstairs. The butler had
already opened these windows and was airing the room. Vandover could
hear him moving about, sweeping up, rearranging the furniture, making up
the bed again. In front of him, between the horse-block and the front
door, one or two smilax leaves were still fallen, and a tuberose,
already yellow. Behind him in the street he had already noticed the
marks of the wheels of the hearse where it had backed up to the curb.

The crêpe was still on the bell handle. Vandover did not know whether it
had been forgotten, or whether it was proper to leave it there longer.
At any rate he took it off and carried it into the house with him.

His father's hat, a stiff brown derby hat, flat on the top, hung on the
hatrack. This had always been a sign to Vandover that his father was at
home. The sight was so familiar, so natural, that the same idea occurred
to him now involuntarily, and for an instant it was as though he had
dreamed of his father's death; he even wondered what was this terrible
grief that had overwhelmed him, and thought that he must go and tell his
father about it. He took the hat in his hands, turning it about
tenderly, catching the faint odour of the Old Gentleman's hair oil that
hung about it. It all brought back his father to him as no picture ever
could; he could almost _see_ the kind old face underneath the broad curl
of the brim. His grief came over him again keener than ever and he put
his arms clumsily about the old hat, weeping and whispering to himself:

"Oh, my poor, dear old dad--I'm never going to see you again, never,
never! Oh, my dear, kind old governor!"

He took the hat up to his room with him, putting it carefully away. Then
he sat down before the window that overlooked the little garden in the
rear of the house, looking out with eyes that saw nothing.

Chapter Eleven

The following days as they began to pass were miserable. Vandover had
never known until now how much he loved his father, how large a place he
had filled in his life. He felt horribly alone now, and a veritable
feminine weakness overcame him, a crying need to be loved as his father
had loved him, and also to love some one as he himself had loved his
father. Worst of all, however, was his loneliness. He could think of no
one who cared in the least for him; the very thought of Turner Ravis or
young Haight wrought in him an expression of scorn. He was sure that he
was nothing to them, though they were the ones whom he considered his
best friends.

Another cause of misery was the fact that his father's death in leaving
him alone had also thrown him upon his own resources. Now he would have
to shoulder responsibilities which hitherto his father had assumed, and
decide questions which until now his father had answered.

However, he felt that his father's death had sobered him as nothing
else, not even Ida's suicide, had done. The time was come at length for
him to take life seriously. He would settle down now to work at his art.
He would go to Paris as his father had wished, and devote himself
earnestly to painting. Yes, the time was come for him to steady himself,
and give over the vicious life into which he had been drifting.

But it was not long before Vandover had become accustomed to his
father's death, and had again rearranged himself to suit the new
environment which it had occasioned. He wondered at himself because of
the quickness with which he had recovered from this grief, just as
before he had marvelled at the ease with which he had forgotten Ida's
death. Could it be true, then, that nothing affected him very deeply?
Was his nature shallow?

However, he was wrong in this respect; his nature was not shallow. It
had merely become deteriorated.

Two days after his father's death Vandover went into the Old Gentleman's
room to get a certain high-backed chair which had been moved there from
his own room during the confusion of the funeral, and which, pending
the arrival of the trestles, had been used to support the coffin.

As he was carrying it back his eye fell upon a little heap of objects
carefully set down upon the bureau. They were the contents of the Old
Gentleman's pockets that the undertaker had removed when the body was
dressed for burial.

Vandover turned them over, sadly interested in them. There was the
watch, some old business letters and envelopes covered with memoranda,
his fountain-pen, a couple of cigars, a bank-book, a small amount of
change, his pen-knife, and one or two tablets of chewing-gum.

Vandover thrust the pen and the knife into his own pocket. The
bank-book, letters, and change he laid away in his father's desk, but
the cigars and the tablets of gum, together with the crumpled
pocket-handkerchief that he found on another part of the dressing-case,
he put into the Old Gentleman's hat, which he had hidden on the top
shelf of his clothes closet. The watch he hung upon a little brass
thermometer that always stood on his centre table. He even wound up the
watch with the resolve never to let it run down so long as he should
live.

The keys, however, disturbed him, and he kept changing them from one
hand to the other, looking at them very thoughtfully. They suggested to
him the inquiry as to whether or no his father had made a will, and how
much money he, Vandover, could now command. One of the keys was a long
brass key. Vandover knew that this unlocked a little iron box that from
time out of mind had been screwed upon the lower shelf of the clothes
closet in his father's room. It was in this box that the Old Gentleman
kept his ready money and a few important papers.

For a long time Vandover stood undecided, changing the keys about from
one hand to the other, hesitating before opening this iron box; he could
not tell why. By and by, however, he went softly into his father's room,
and into the clothes closet near the head of the bed. Holding the key
toward the lock, he paused listening; it was impossible to rid his mind
of the idea that he was doing something criminal. He shook himself,
smiling at the fancy, assuring himself of the honesty of the thing, yet
opening the box stealthily, holding the key firmly in order that it
might not spring back with a loud click, looking over his shoulder the
while and breathing short through his nose.

The first thing that he saw inside was a loaded revolver, the sudden
view of which sent a little qualm through the pit of his stomach. He
took it out gingerly, holding it at arm's length, throwing open the
cylinder and spilling out the cartridges on the bed, very careful to let
none of them fall on the floor lest they should explode.

Next he drew out the familiar little canvas sack. In it were
twenty-dollar gold-pieces, the coin that used to be "Good for the
Masses." Behind that was about thirty dollars in two rolls, and last of
all in an old, oblong tin cracker-box a great bundle of papers. A list
of these papers was pasted on one end of the box. They comprised deeds,
titles, insurance policies, tax receipts, mortgages, and all the papers
relating to the property. Besides these there was the will.

He took out this box, laying it on the shelf beside him. He was closing
the small iron safe again very quietly when all at once, before he could
think of what he was doing, he ran his hand into the mouth of the canvas
sack, furtively, slyly, snatched one of the heavy round coins, and
thrust it into his vest pocket, looking all about him, listening
intently, saying to himself with a nervous laugh, "Well, isn't it mine
anyway?"

In spite of himself he could not help feeling a joy in the possession of
this money as if of some treasure-trove dug up on an abandoned shore. He
even began to plan vaguely how he should spend it.

However, he could not bring himself to open any of the papers, but sent
them instead to a lawyer, whom he knew his father had often consulted. A
few days later he received a typewritten letter asking him to call at
his earliest convenience.

It was at his residence and not at his office that Vandover saw the
lawyer, as the latter was not well at the time and kept to his bed.
However, he was not so sick but that his doctor allowed him to transact
at least some of his business. Vandover found him in his room, a huge
apartment, one side entirely taken up by book-shelves filled with works
of fiction. The walls were covered with rough stone-blue paper, forming
an admirable background to small plaster casts of Assyrian
_bas-reliefs_ and large photogravures of Renaissance portraits.
Underneath an enormous baize-covered table in the centre of the room
were green cloth bags filled apparently with books, padlocked tin
chests, and green pasteboard deed-boxes. The lawyer was sitting up in
bed, wearing his dressing-gown and occasionally drinking hot water from
a glass. He was a thin, small man, middle-aged, with a very round head
and a small pointed beard.

"How do you do, Mr. Vandover?" he said, very pleasantly as Vandover
passed by the servant holding open the door and came in.

"How do you do, Mr. Field?" answered Vandover, shaking his hand. "Well,
I'm sorry to see you like this."

"Yes," answered the lawyer, "I'm--I have trouble with my digestion
sometimes, more annoying than dangerous, I suppose. Take a chair, won't
you? You can find a place for your hat and coat right on the table
there. Well," he added, settling back on the pillows and looking at
Vandover pleasantly, "I think you've grown thinner since the last time I
saw you, haven't you?"

"Yes," answered Vandover grimly, "I guess I have."

"Yes, yes, I suppose so, of course," responded the lawyer with a vague
air of apology and sympathy. "You have had a trying time of it lately,
taking it by and large. I was _very_ painfully shocked to hear of your
father's death. I had met him at lunch hardly a week before; he was a
far heartier man than I was. Eat? You should have seen--splendid
appetite. He spoke at length of you, I remember; told me you expected to
go abroad soon to study painting; in fact, I believe he was to go to
Paris with you. It was very sad and very sudden. But you know we've all
been expecting--been fearing--that for some time."

They both were silent for a moment, the lawyer looking absently at the
foot-board of the bed, nodding his head slowly from time to time,
repeating, "Yes, sir--yes, sir." Suddenly he exclaimed, "Well--now,
let's see." He cleared his throat, coming back to himself again, and
continued in a very businesslike and systematic tone:

"I have looked over your father's papers, Mr. Vandover, as you
requested me to, and I have taken the liberty of sending for you to let
you know exactly how you stand."

"That's the idea, sir," said Vandover, very attentive, drawing up his
chair.

Mr. Field took a great package of oblong papers from the small table
that stood at the head of his bed, and looked them over, adjusting his
eyeglasses. "Well, now, suppose we take up the real property first," he
continued, drawing out three or four of these papers and unfolding them.
"All of your father's money was invested in what we call 'improved
realty.'"

He talked for something over an hour, occasionally stopping to answer a
question of Vandover's, or interrupting himself to ask him if he
understood. At the end it amounted to this:

The bulk of the estate was residence property in distant quarters of the
city. Some twenty-six houses, very cheaply built, each, on an average,
renting for twenty-eight dollars. When all of these were rented, the
gross monthly income was seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars. At this
time, however, six were vacant, bringing down the gross receipts per
month to five hundred and sixty dollars. The expenses, which included
water, commissions for collecting, repairs, taxes, interest on
insurance, etc., when expressed in the terms of a monthly average,
amounted to one hundred and eighty-six dollars.

"Well, now, let's see," said Vandover, figuring on his cuff, "one
hundred and eighty-six from five hundred and sixty leaves me a net
monthly income of three hundred and eighty-four--no, seventy-four. Three
hundred and seventy-four dollars."

The lawyer shook his head while he drank another glass of hot water:

"You see," he said, wiping his moustache in the hollow of his palm, "you
see, we haven't figured on the mortgages yet."

"Mortgages?" echoed Vandover.

"Yes," answered Mr. Field, "when I spoke of expenses I was basing them
upon the monthly statements of Adams & Brunt, your father's agents. But
they never looked after the mortgages. Your father acted directly with
the banks in that matter. I find that there are mortgages that cover the
entire property, even the homestead. They are for 6-1/2 and 7 per cent.
In some cases there are two mortgages on the same piece of property."

"Well," said Vandover.

"Well," answered the lawyer, "the interest on these foots up to about
two hundred and ninety dollars a month."

Vandover made another hasty calculation on his cuff, and leaned back in
his chair staring at the lawyer, saying:

"Why, that leaves eighty-four dollars a month, net."

"Yes," assented Field. "I made it that, too."

"Why, the governor used to allow _me_ fifty a month," returned Vandover,
"just for pocket money."

"I'm afraid you mustn't expect anything like that, now, Mr. Vandover,"
replied Field, smiling. "You see, when your father was alive and
pursuing his profession, he made a comfortable income besides that which
he derived from his realty. His law business I consider to have been
excellent when you take everything into consideration. He often made
five hundred dollars a month at it. Such are the figures his papers
show. He could make you a handsome allowance while he was alive, but all
that is stopped now!"

"Well, but didn't he--didn't he leave any money, any--any--any lump
sum?" inquired Vandover incredulously.

"There was his bank account," answered the other. "You see, he invested
most of his savings in this same realty, and since he stopped building
he seems to have lived right up to his income."

"But eighty-four dollars!" repeated Vandover; "why, look at the house on
California Street where we live. It costs that much to run it, the
servants and all."

"Here's your father's domestic-account book," answered Field, taking it
up and turning the leaves. "One hundred and seventy-five dollars a month
were the average running expenses."

_"One hundred and seventy-five!"_ shouted Vandover, feeling suddenly as
if the ground were opening under him. "Why, great heavens! Mr. Field,
where am I going to get--what am I going to _do_?"

Mr. Field smiled a little. "Well," he said, "you must make up your mind
to live more modestly."

"Modestly?" exclaimed Vandover, scornfully.

"You'll have to rent the house and take rooms."

Vandover gave a gasp of relief.

"I hadn't thought of that," he answered, subsiding at once. "How much
would it bring--the house?"

The lawyer hesitated as to this. "That I could hardly tell you
definitely," he answered, shaking his head. "Adams & Brunt could give
you more exact figures. In fact, I would suggest that you put it into
their hands. California near Franklin, isn't it? Yes; the neighbourhood
isn't what it used to be, you know. Every one wants to live out on
Pacific Heights now. Double house? Yes, well--with the furniture, I
suppose--oh, I don't know--say, a hundred and fifty. But, you know, my
estimate is only guesswork. Brunt is the man you want to see."

"Well," answered Vandover, solaced, "that makes--two thirty-four; that's
more like it. But," he added, hastily, "you say the homestead is
mortgaged as well; how about the interest on that?"

"You needn't be bothered about that," answered Mr. Field. "The interest
on _that_ mortgage is included in the two hundred and ninety that I
spoke of, and the insurance interest on the homestead is included in
Adams & Brunt's statement. That was on the whole estate _with_ the
homestead, you understand? But there is another thing you must look out
for. Most of the mortgages are for one year, and every time they are
renewed there is an expense of between forty and fifty dollars."

"Yes, I see," assented Vandover.

"Now," resumed the lawyer, "here is your father's bank account. He had
in the First National to his credit between nine and ten thousand
dollars; nine thousand seven hundred and ninety, to be exact. His
professional account book shows that there is now due him in bills and
notes eight hundred and thirty dollars; on the debit side he owes in all
nine hundred; the difference, you see, is seventy. Nine thousand seven
hundred and ninety less seventy leaves a balance of nine thousand seven
hundred and twenty. All clear?" he asked, interrupting himself. Vandover
nodded and the other continued:

"Now, your father left a will; here it is. I drew it for him a year ago
last September. He has given fifteen hundred dollars to some cousin in