Wickersham improved his opportunities with the ability of a veteran.

Little by little he excited Mrs. Wentworth's jealousy. Norman, he said, necessarily saw a great deal of Alice Lancaster, for he was her business agent. It was, perhaps, not necessary for him to see her every day, but it was natural that he should. The arrow stuck and rankled. And later, at an entertainment, when she saw Norman laughing and enjoying himself in a group of old friends, among whom was Alice Lancaster, Mrs. Norman was on fire with suspicion, and her att.i.tude toward Alice Lancaster changed.

So, before Norman was aware of it, he found life completely changed for him. As a boatman on a strange sh.o.r.e in the night-time drifts without knowing of it, he, in the absorption of his business, drifted away from his old relation without marking the process. His wife had her life and friends, and he had his. He made at times an effort to recover the old relation, but she was too firmly held in the grip of the life she had chosen for him to get her back.

His wife complained that he was out of sympathy with her, and he could not deny it. She resented this, and charged him with neglecting her. No man will stand such a charge, and Norman defended himself hotly.

"I do not think it lies in your mouth to make such a charge," he said, with a flash in his eye. "I am nearly always at home when I am not necessarily absent. You can hardly say as much. I do not think my worst enemy would charge me with that. Even Ferdy Wickersham would not say that."

She fired at the name.

"You are always attacking my friends," she declared. "I think they are quite as good as yours."

Norman turned away. He looked gloomily out of the window for a moment, and then faced his wife again.

"Louise," he said gravely, "if I have been hard and unsympathetic, I have not meant to be. Why can't we start all over again? You are more than all the rest of the world to me. I will give up whatever you object to, and you give up what I object to. That is a good way to begin." His eyes had a look of longing in them, but Mrs. Wentworth did not respond.

"You will insist on my giving up my friends," she said.

"Your friends? I do not insist on your giving up any friend on earth.

Mrs. Nailor and her like are not your friends. They spend their time tearing to pieces the characters of others when you are present, and your character when you are absent. Wickersham is incapable of being a friend."

"You are always so unjust to him," said Mrs. Wentworth, warmly.

"I am not unjust to him. I have known him all my life, and I tell you he would sacrifice any one and every one to his pleasure."

Mrs. Wentworth began to defend him warmly, and so the quarrel ended worse than it had begun.

CHAPTER XXII

MRS. CREAMER'S BALL

The next few years pa.s.sed as the experience of old Rawson had led him to predict. Fortunes went down; but Fortune's wheel is always turning, and, as the old countryman said, "those that could stick would come up on top again."

Keith, however, had prospered. He had got the Rawson mine to running again, and even in the hardest times had been able to make it pay expenses. Other properties had failed and sold out, and had been bought in by Keith's supporters, when Wickersham once more appeared in New Leeds affairs. It was rumored that Wickersham was going to start again.

Old Adam Rawson's face grew dark at the rumor. He said to Keith:

"If that young man comes down here, it's him or me. I'm an old man, and I ain't got long to live; but I want to live to meet him once. If he's got any friends, they'd better tell him not to come." He sat glowering and puffing his pipe morosely.

Keith tried to soothe him; but the old fellow had received a wound that knew no healing.

"I know all you say, and I'm much obliged to you; but I can't accept it.

It's an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth with me. He has entered my home and struck me in the dark. Do you think I done all I have done jest for the money I was makin'! No; I wanted revenge. I have set on my porch of a night and seen her wanderin' about in them fureign cities, all alone, trampin' the streets--trampin', trampin', trampin'; tired, and, maybe, sick and hungry, not able to ask them outlandish folks for even a piece of bread--her that used to set on my knee and hug me with her little arms and call me granddad, and claim all the little calves for hers--jest the little ones; and that I've ridden many a mile over the mountains for, thinkin' how she was goin' to run out to meet me when I got home. And now even my old dog's dead--died after she went away.

"No!" he broke out fiercely. "If he comes back here, it's him or me! By the Lord! if he comes back here, I'll pay him the debt I owe him. If she's his wife, I'll make her a widow, and if she ain't, I'll revenge her."

He mopped the beads of sweat that had broken out on his brow, and without a word stalked out of the door.

But Ferdy Wickersham had no idea of returning to New Leeds. He found New York quite interesting enough for him about this time.

The breach between Norman and his wife had grown of late.

Gossip divided the honors between them, and some said it was on Ferdy Wickersham's account; others declared that it was Mrs. Lancaster who had come between them. Yet others said it was a matter of money--that Norman had become tired of his wife's extravagance and had refused to stand it any longer.

Keith knew vaguely of the trouble between Norman and his wife; but he did not know the extent of it, and he studiously kept up his friendly relations with her as well as with Norman. His business took him to New York from time to time, and he was sensible that the life there was growing more and more attractive for him. He was fitting into it too, and enjoying it more and more. He was like a strong swimmer who, used to battling in heavy waves, grows stronger with the struggle, and finds ever new enjoyment and courage in his endeavor. He felt that he was now quite a man of the world. He was aware that his point of view had changed and (a little) that he had changed. As flattering as was his growth in New Leeds, he had a much more infallible evidence of his success in the favor with which he was being received in New York.

The favor that Mrs. Lancaster had shown Keith, and, much more, old Mrs.

Wentworth's friendship, had a marked effect throughout their whole circle of acquaintance. That a man had been invited to these houses meant that he must be something. There were women who owned large houses, wore priceless jewels, cruised in their own yachts, had their own villas on ground as valuable as that which fronted the Roman Forum in old days, who would almost have licked the marble steps of those mansions to be admitted to sit at their dinner-tables and have their names appear in the Sunday issues of the newly established society journals among the blessed few. So, as soon as it appeared that Gordon was not only an acquaintance, but a friend of these critical leaders, women who had looked over his head as they drove up the avenue, and had just tucked their chins and lowered their eyelids when he had been presented, began to give him invitations. Among these was Mrs. Nailor.

Truly, the world appeared warmer and kinder than Keith had thought.

To be sure, it was at Mrs. Lancaster's that Mrs. Nailor met him, and Keith was manifestly on very friendly terms with the pretty widow. Even Mrs. Yorke, who was present on the occasion with her "heart," was impressively cordial to him. Mrs. Nailor had no idea of being left out.

She almost gushed with affection, as she made a place beside her on a divan.

"You do not come to see all your friends," she said, with her winningest smile and her most bird-like voice. "You appear to forget that you have other old friends in New York besides Mrs. Lancaster and Mrs. Yorke.

Alice dear, you must not be selfish and engross all his time. You must let him come and see me, at least, sometimes. Yes?" This with a peculiarly innocent smile and tone.

Keith declared that he was in New York very rarely, and Mrs. Lancaster, with a slightly heightened color, repudiated the idea that she had anything to do with his movements.

"Oh, I hear of you here very often," declared Mrs. Nailor, roguishly. "I have a little bird that brings me all the news about my friends."

"A little bird, indeed!" said Alice to herself, and to Keith later.

"I'll be bound she has not. If she had a bird, the old cat would have eaten it."

"You are going to the Creamers' ball, of course?" pursued Mrs. Nailor.

No, Keith said: he was not going; he had been in New York only two days, and, somehow, his advent had been overlooked. He was always finding himself disappointed by discovering that New York was still a larger place than New Leeds.

"Oh, but you must go! We must get you an invitation, mustn't we, Alice?"

Mrs. Nailor was always ready to promise anything, provided she could make her engagement in partnership and then slip out and leave the performance to her friend.

"Why, yes; there is not the least trouble about getting an invitation.

Mrs. Nailor can get you one easily."

Keith looked acquiescent.

"No, my dear; you write the note. You know Mrs. Creamer every bit as well as I," protested Mrs. Nailor, "and I have already asked for at least a dozen. There are Mrs. Wyndham and Lady s...o...b.., who were here last winter; and that charming Lord Huckster, who was at Newport last summer; and I don't know how many more--so you will have to get the invitation for Mr. Keith."

Keith, with some amus.e.m.e.nt, declared that he did not wish any trouble taken; he had only said he would go because Mrs. Nailor had appeared to desire it so much.

Next morning an invitation reached Keith,--he thought he knew through whose intervention,--and he accepted it.

That evening, as Keith, about dusk, was going up the avenue on his way home, a young girl pa.s.sed him, walking very briskly. She paused for a moment just ahead of him to give some money to a poor woman who, doubled up on the pavement in a black shawl, was grinding out from a wheezy little organ a thin, dirge-like strain.

"Good evening. I hope you feel better to-day," Keith heard her say in a kind tone, though he lost all of the other's reply except the "G.o.d bless you."

She was simply dressed in a plain, dark walking-suit, and something about her quick, elastic step and slim, trim figure as she sailed along, looking neither to the right nor to the left, attracted his attention.

Her head was set on her shoulders in a way that gave her quite an air, and as she pa.s.sed under a lamp the light showed the flash of a fine profile and an unusual face. She carried a parcel in her hand that might have been a roll of music, and from the lateness of the hour Keith fancied her a shop-girl on her way home, or possibly a music-teacher.