"Now see here," he said, "we have everything fixed the way you said You wanted it. And I'll give you ten minutes. That's all."

He stocked away, and Mr. Beecher looked at me.

"Ten minutes of Heaven," he said, "and then perdetion with that bunch.

Look here," he said, "I--I'm awfully interested in what you are telling me. Let's cut off up the beech and talk."

Oh night of Nights! Oh moon of Moons!

Our talk was strictly business. He asked me my Plot, and although I had been warned not to do so, even to David Belasco, I gave it to him fully.

And even now, when all is over, I am not sorry. Let him use it if he will. I can think of plenty of Plots.

The real tradgedy is that we met father. He had been ordered to give up smoking, and I considered had done so, mother feeling that I should be encouraged in leaving off cigarettes. So when I saw the cigar I was sure it was not father. It proved to be, however, and although he pa.s.sed with nothing worse than a Glare, I knew I was in more trouble.

At last we reached the Bench again, and I said good night. Our relations continued business-like to the last. He said:

"Good night, little auth.o.r.ess, and let's have some more talks."

"I'm afraid I've board you," I said.

"Board me!" he said. "I haven't spent such an evening for years!"

The Familey acted perfectly absurd about it. Seeing that they were going to make a fuss, I refused to say with whom I had been walking. You'd have thought I had committed a crime.

"It has come to this, Barbara," mother said, pacing the floor. "You cannot be trusted out of our sight. Where do you meet all these men? If this is how things are now, what will it be when given your Liberty?"

Well, it is to painful to record. I was told not to leave the place for three days, although allowed the boat-house. And of course Sis had to chime in that she'd heard a roomer I had run away and got married, and although of course she knew it wasn't true, owing to no time to do so, still where there was Smoke there was Fire.

But I felt that their confidence in me was going, and that night, after all were in the Land of Dreams, I took that wreched suit of clothes and so on to the boathouse, and hid them in the rafters upstairs.

I come now to the strange Event of the next day, and its sequel.

The Patten place and ours are close together, and no other house near.

Mother had been very cool about the Pattens, owing to n.o.body knowing them that we knew. Although I must say they had the most interesting people all the time, and Sis was crazy to call and meet some of them.

Jane came that day to visit her aunt, and she ran down to see me first thing.

"Come and have a ride," she said. "I've got the Runabout, and after that we'll bathe and have a real time."

But I shook my head.

"I'm a prisoner, Jane," I said.

"Honestly! Is it the Play, or somthing else?"

"Somthing else, Jane," I said. "I can tell you nothing more. I am simply in trouble, as usual."

"But why make you a prisoner, unless----" She stopped suddenly and stared at me.

"He has claimed you!" she said. "He is here, somwhere about this Place, and now, having had time to think it over, you do not Want to go to him.

Don't deny it. I see it in your face. Oh, Bab, my heart aches for you."

It sounded so like a play that I kept it up. Alas, with what results!

"What else can I do, Jane?" I said.

"You can refuse, if you do not love him. Oh Bab, I did not say it before, thinking you loved him. But no man who wears clothes like those could ever win my heart. At least, not permanently."

Well, she did most of the talking. She had finished the bath towle, which was a large size, after all, and monogramed, and she made me promise never to let my husband use it. When she went away she left it with me, and I carried it out and put it on the rafters, with the other things--I seemed to be getting more to hide every day.

Things went all wrong the next day. Sis was in a bad temper, and as much as said I was flirting with Carter Brooks, although she never intends to marry him herself, owing to his not having money and never having asked her.

I spent the morning in fixing up a Studio in the boat-house, and felt better by noon. I took two boards on trestles and made a desk, and brought a Dictionery and some pens and ink out. I use a Dictionery because now and then I am uncertain how to spell a word.

Events now moved swiftly and terrably. I did not do much work, being exhausted by my efforts to fix up the studio, and besides, feeling that nothing much was worth while when one's Familey did not and never would understand. At eleven o'clock Sis and Carter and Jane and some others went in bathing from our dock. Jane called up to me, but I pretended not to hear. They had a good time judging by the noise, although I should think Jane would cover her arms and neck in the water, being very thin.

Legs one can do nothing with, although I should think stripes going around would help. But arms can have sleaves.

However--the people next door went in to, and I thrilled to the core when Mr. Beecher left the bath-house and went down to the beech. What a physic! What shoulders, all brown and muscular! And to think that, strong as they were, they wrote the tender Love seens of his plays.

Strong and tender--what descriptive words they are! It was then that I saw he had been vacinated twice.

To resume. All the Pattens went in, and a new girl with them, in a One-peace Suit. I do not deny that she was pretty. I only say that she was not modest, and that the way she stood on the Patten's dock and pozed for Mr. Beecher's benafit was unecessary and well, not respectable.

She was nothing to me, nor I to her. But I watched her closely. I confess that I was interested in Mr. Beecher. Why not? He was a Public Character, and ent.i.tled to respect. Nay, even to love. But I maintain and will to my dying day, that such love is diferent from that ordinaraly born to the Other s.e.x, and a thing to be proud of.

Well, I was seeing a drama and did not even know it. After the rest had gone, Mr. Patten came to the door into Mr. Beecher's room in the bath-house--they are all in a row, with doors opening on the sand--and he had a box in his hand. He looked around, and no one was looking except me, and he did not see me. He looked very Feirce and Glum, and shortly after he carried in a chair and a folding card table. I thought this was very strange, but imagine how I felt when he came out carrying Mr. Beecher's clothes! He brought them all, going on his tiptoes and watching every minute. I felt like screaming.

However, I considered that it was a practicle Joke, and I am no spoil sport. So I sat still and waited. They staid in the water a long time, and the girl with the Figure was always crawling out on the dock and then diving in to show off. Leila and the rest got sick of her actions and came in to Lunch. They called up to me, but I said I was not hungry.

"I don't know what's come over Bab," I heard Sis say to Carter Brooks.

"She's crazy, I think."

"She's seventeen," he said. "That's all. They get over it mostly, but she has it hard."

I lothed him.

Pretty soon the other crowd came up, and I could see every one knew the joke but Mr. Beecher. They all scuttled into their doorways, and Mr.

Patten waited till Mr. Beecher was inside and had thrown out the shirt of his bathing Suit. Then he locked the door from the outside.

There was a silence for a minute. Then Mr. Beecher said in a terrable voice.

"So that's the Game, is it?"

"Now listen, Reg," Mr. Patten said, in a soothing voice. "I've tried everything but Force, and now I'm driven to that. I've got to have that third Act. The company's got the first two acts well under way, and I'm getting wires about every hour. I've got to have that script."

"You go to h.e.l.l!" said Mr. Beecher. You could hear him plainly through the window, high up in the wall. And although I do not approve of an oath, there are times when it eases the tortured Soul.

"Now be reasonable, Reg," Mr. Patten pleaded. "I've put a fortune in this thing, and you're lying down on the job. You could do it in four hours if you'd put your mind to it."

There was no anser to this. And he went on: