________________________________________________
_ An elderly couple, it chanced, had been walking behind Bibbs and Mary
for the last block or so, and passed ahead during the removal of
the soot. "There!" said the elderly wife. "You're always wrong when
you begin guessing about strangers. Those two young people aren't
honeymooners at all--they've been married for years. A blind man
could see that."
"I wish I did know who threw that soot on you," said Bibbs, looking up
at the neighboring chimneys, as they went on. "They arrest children
for throwing snowballs at the street-cars, but--"
"But they don't arrest the street-cars for shaking all the pictures
in the houses crooked every time they go by. Nor for the uproar they
make. I wonder what's the cost in nerves for the noise of the city
each year. Yes, we pay the price for living in a 'growing town,'
whether we have money to pay or none."
"Who is it gets the pay?" said Bibbs.
"Not I!" she laughed.
"Nobody gets it. There isn't any pay; there's only money. And only
some of the men down-town get much of that. That's what my father
wants me to get."
"Yes," she said, smiling to him, and nodding. "And you don't want it,
and you don't need it."
"But you don't think I'm a sleep-walker, Mary?" He had told her of
his father's new plans for him, though he had not described the vigor
and picturesqueness of their setting forth. "You think I'm right?"
"A thousand times!" she cried. "There aren't so many happy people
in this world, I think--and you say you've found what makes you happy.
If it's a dream--keep it!"
"The thought of going down there--into the money shuffle--I hate
it as I never hated the shop!" he said. "I hate it! And the city
itself, the city that the money shuffle has made--just look at it!
Look at it in winter. The snow's tried hard to make the ugliness
bearable, but the ugliness is winning; it's making the snow hideous;
the snow's getting dirty on top, and it's foul underneath with the
dirt and disease of the unclean street. And the dirt and the ugliness
and the rush and the noise aren't the worst of it; it's what the dirt
and ugliness and rush and noise MEAN--that's the worst! The outward
things are insufferable, but they're only the expression of a spirit--
a blind enbryo of a spirit, not yet a soul--oh, just greed! And this
'go ahead' nonsense! Oughtn't it all to be a fellowship? I shouldn't
want to get ahead if I could--I'd want to help the other fellow to
keep up with me."
"I read something the other day and remembered it for you," said Mary.
"It was something Burne-Jones said of a picture he was going to paint:
'In the first picture I shall make a man walking in the street of a
great city, full of all kinds of happy life: children, and lovers
walking, and ladies leaning from the windows all down great lengths
of a street leading to the city walls; and there the gates are wide
open, letting in a space of green field and cornfield in harvest; and
all round his head a great rain of swirling autumn leaves blowing from
a little walled graveyard."
"And if I painted," Bibbs returned, "I'd paint a lady walking in the
street of a great city, full of all kinds of uproarious and futile
life--children being taught only how to make money, and lovers
hurrying to get richer, and ladies who'd given up trying to wash their
windows clean, and the gates of the city wide open, letting in slums
and slaughter-houses and freight-yards, and all round this lady's head
a great rain of swirling soot--" He paused, adding, thoughtfully:
"And yet I believe I'm glad that soot got on your cheek. It was just
as if I were your brother--the way you gave me your handkerchief to
rub it off for you. Still, Edith never--"
"Didn't she?" said Mary, as he paused again.
"No. And I--" He contented himself with shaking his head instead of
offering more definite information. Then he realized that they were
passing the New House, and he sighed profoundly. "Mary, our walk's
almost over."
She looked as blank. "So it is, Bibbs."
They said no more until they came to her gate. As they drifted slowly
to a stop, the door of Roscoe's house opened, and Roscoe came out with
Sibyl, who was startlingly pale. She seemed little enfeebled by her
illness, however, walking rather quickly at her husband's side and not
taking his arm. The two crossed the street without appearing to see
Mary and her companion, and entering the New House, were lost to
sight. Mary gazed after them gravely, but Bibbs, looking at Mary,
did not see them.
"Mary," he said, "you seem very serious. Is anything bothering you?"
"No, Bibbs." And she gave him a bright, quick look that made him
instantly unreasonably happy.
"I know you want to go in--" he began.
"No. I don't want to."
"I mustn't keep you standing here, and I mustn't go in with you--
but--I just wanted to say--I've seemed very stupid to myself this
morning, grumbling about soot and all that--while all the time I--
Mary, I think it's been the very happiest of all the hours you've
given me. I do. And--I don't know just why--but it's seemed to me
that it was one I'd always remember. And you," he added, falteringly,
"you look so--so beautiful to-day!"
"It must have been the soot on my cheek, Bibbs."
"Mary, will you tell me something?" he asked.
"I think I will."
"It's something I've had a lot of theories about, but none of them
ever just fits. You used to wear furs in the fall, but now it's so
much colder, you don't--you never wear them at all any more. Why
don't you?"
Her eyes fell for a moment, and she grew red. Then she looked up
gaily. "Bibbs, if I tell you the answer will you promise not to ask
any more questions?"
"Yes. Why did you stop wearing them?"
"Because I found I'd be warmer without them!" She caught his hand
quickly in her own for an instant, laughed into his eyes, and ran
into the house.
It is the consoling attribute of unused books that their decorative
warmth will so often make even a ready-made library the actual
"living-room" of a family to whom the shelved volumes are indeed
sealed. Thus it was with Sheridan, who read nothing except
newspapers, business letters, and figures; who looked upon books as
he looked upon bric-a-brac or crocheting--when he was at home, and
not abed or eating, he was in the library.
He stood in the many-colored light of the stained-glass window at
the far end of the long room, when Roscoe and his wife came in, and
he exhaled a solemnity. His deference to the Sabbath was manifest,
as always, in the length of his coat and the closeness of his
Saturday-night shave; and his expression, to match this religious
pomp, was more than Sabbatical, but the most dismaying of his
demonstrations was his keeping his hand in his sling.
Sibyl advanced to the middle of the room and halted there, not
looking at him, but down at her muff, in which, it could be seen,
her hands were nervously moving. Roscoe went to a chair in another
part of the room. There was a deadly silence.
But Sibyl found a shaky voice, after an interval of gulping, though
she was unable to lift her eyes, and the darkling lids continued to
veil them. She spoke hurriedly, like an ungifted child reciting
something committed to memory, but her sincerity was none the less
evident for that.
"Father Sheridan, you and mother Sheridan have always been so kind to
me, and I would hate to have you think I don't appreciate it, from the
way I acted. I've come to tell you I am sorry for the way I did that
night, and to say I know as well as anybody the way I behaved, and
it will never happen again, because it's been a pretty hard lesson;
and when we come back, some day, I hope you'll see that you've got
a daughter-in-law you never need to be ashamed of again. I want to
ask you to excuse me for the way I did, and I can say I haven't any
feelings toward Edith now, but only wish her happiness and good in
her new life. I thank you for all your kindness to me, and I know
I made a poor return for it, but if you can overlook the way I behaved
I know I would feel a good deal happier--and I know Roscoe would, too.
I wish to promise not to be as foolish in the future, and the same
error would never occur again to make us all so unhappy, if you can be
charitable enought to excuse it this time."
He looked steadily at her without replying, and she stood before him,
never lifting her eyes; motionless, save where the moving fur proved
the agitation of her hands within the muff.
"All right," he said at last.
She looked up then with vast relief, though there was a revelation
of heavy tears when the eyelids lifted.
"Thank you," she said. "There's something else--about something
different--I want to say to you, but I want mother Sheridan to hear
it, too."
"She's up-stairs in her room," said Sheridan. "Roscoe--"
Sibyl interrupted. She had just seen Bibbs pass through the hall
and begin to ascend the stairs; and in a flash she instinctively
perceived the chance for precisely the effect she wanted.
"No, let me go," she said. "I want to speak to her a minute first,
anyway." _
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