"Yet you won't help me into the Philomathean?"

"No."

"So you'll make money out of me, but think your club too good?"

"I owe my club a duty."

"I know," he went on smoothly, "that you're an awful screw, when there's a dollar in sight. How much do you want?"

My silence should have warned him, but he was too self-absorbed to feel anything but his own mood.

"How much do you want?" he repeated, and I still sat without speaking, though the room blurred, and I felt as if I were stifling. "The day I'm elected to the Philomathean, I'll give you"--

I rose and interrupted him, saying, "Mr. Whitely, if you wish me to leave your house and employment, you can obtain my absence in an easier way than by insulting me."

For a moment we faced each other in silence, and then he rose.

"Hereafter, Dr. Hartzmann, you will pay those dues yourself," he said in a low voice, as he moved towards the door.

I only bowed, glad that the matter was so easily ended; and for nearly two months our relations have been of the most formal kind that can exist between employer and employed.

Far more bitter was another break. When the moment of farewell came, that evening, I waited to put you and Mrs. Blodgett into your carriages, and while we were delayed in the vestibule you thanked me again for the pleasure of the previous afternoon, and then continued: "I understand why you did not feel able to please Mrs. Blodgett about the concert. But won't you let me acknowledge the pleasure of yesterday by sending you a ticket? I have taken a number, and as all my circle have done the same, I am finding it rather difficult to get rid of them."

"That's all right, Maizie," interjected Mrs. Blodgett, who had caught, or inferred from an occasional word that she heard, what you were saying. "We took an extra ticket, and I am going to use the doctor for an escort that evening."

"I thank you both," I answered, "but I shall not be able to attend the concert."

"Nonsense!" sniffed Mrs. Blodgett, as I helped her into her carriage.

"You're going to do as I tell you."

You did not speak in the moment we waited for your coupe to take its place, but as the tiger opened the door you looked in my face for the first time since my words, showing me eyes that told of the pain I had inflicted.

"I am sorry," you said quietly. "I had thought--hoped--that we were to be friends."

There was nothing for me to say, and we parted thus. From that time I have seen little of you, for when I meet you now you no longer make it possible for me to have much of your society. And my persistent refusal to go to the concert with Mrs. Blodgett and Agnes increased their irritation against me, so that I am no longer asked to their home, and thus have lost my most frequent opportunity of meeting you. But harder even than this deprivation is the thought that I have given you pain; made all the greater, perhaps, because so ill deserved and apparently unreasonable. I find myself longing for the hour when we shall meet at that far-away tribunal, where all our lives, and not alone that which is seen, will stand revealed. For two months I have not had a single moment of happiness or even hope. I am lonely and weary, while my strength and courage seem to lessen day by day. Oh, my darling, I pray G.o.d that thought of you will make me stronger and braver, that I may go on with my fight. Good-night.

XXII

_March 13._ Last night, at the Philomathean, Mr. Blodgett joined me, and asked me why I had not dined with them lately. He returned only a few days ago, and was thus ignorant that I have not been inside his door for weeks. I hesitated for an instant, and then replied, "I have been working very hard."

"What are you usually doing?" he asked, smiling. "Come in to Sunday dinner to-morrow."

"I shall be too busy with a lot of ma.n.u.scripts I have on hand, that must be read," I told him.

"Stop killing yourself," he ordered. "As it is, you look as if you were on the brink of a bad illness. You won't get on a bit faster by dying young."

There the matter rested, and I did not go to dinner to-day, being indeed glad to stay indoors; for I very foolishly walked up town yesterday through the slush, and caught a bad cold. While I was trying to keep warm, this evening, a note was brought me from Mr. Blodgett, asking me to come to him at once; and fearing something important, I braved the cold without delay, ill though I felt. I was shown at once into his den, which was so cheerful with its open fire that I felt it was a good exchange for my cold room, where I had sat coughing and shivering all the afternoon.

"Twice in my life I've really lost my temper with the boss," he began, before I had even sat down, though he closed the door while speaking.

"Never mind about the first time, but to-day I got mad enough to last me for the rest of my life."

"May I sit down?" I interrupted.

He nodded his head, and took a position in front of me, with his back to the fire, as he continued: "Women are enough to make a man frantic when they get a fixed idea! Now, to-day, at dinner, I said I'd invited you, and I saw in a moment something was in the wind; so when we had finished I told them to come in here, and it didn't take me long to find out the trouble."

"I didn't like to"--I began; but he went on:--

"And that was the beginning of their trouble. I tell you, there was Cain here for about ten minutes, and there weren't two worse scared women this side of the grave, while I was ranting; for the boss remembered the other time, and Agnes had never seen me break loose. I told them they'd done their best to drive you crazy with grief; that if they'd searched for ten years they couldn't have found a meaner or crueler thing, or one that would have hurt you more; that nine men out of ten, in your shoes, would have acted dishonestly or cut their throat, but that you had toed the chalk-line right along, and never once winced. And I let them know that for five dollars they'd added the last straw of pain to a fellow who deserved only kindness and help from them."

"Really, Mr. Blodgett"--I protested.

"Hold on. Don't attempt to stop me, for the fit's on me still," he growled. "They tried to come the surprised, and then the offended, but they didn't fool me. I never let up on them till I had said all I wanted to say, and they won't forget it for a day or two. When I sent Agnes upstairs, she was sobbing her eyes out, and the boss would have given her pin money for ten years to have escaped with her."

"It's too bad to"--

"That's just what it was!" he cried. "To think of those screws trying to blackmail you, and then telling me you were a skinflint because you wouldn't do what they wanted! Well, after Agnes had gone, I gave the boss a supplementary and special dose of her own. I told her she could double discount you on meanness, and then give you forty-nine points; and to make sure of good measurement, I added in the whole female s.e.x along with her. I told her that if she knew the facts of your life, she'd get down on her knees and crawl round to your place to ask your pardon, and then she wouldn't be fit to have it. I told her that when the day of judgment came, she'd just go the other way in preference to hearing what the recording angel had written of her."

"I am afraid that your intended kindness will make my welcome scantier than ever."

"Not a bit of it. I'm the master of this house, as they found out this afternoon, and I say who'll come into it, and who'll not. I shan't need to interfere in your case, for you'll get a warm welcome from both."

"You didn't tell them?" I exclaimed, starting forward in my seat.

"Not a word, though the boss nearly went crazy with curiosity. But I did say that you were making a splendid up-hill fight, and if they knew the facts of the case they'd be proud to black your boots. My word goes in this family about as well as it does on the Street, and you'll get all the welcome you can stand from now on."

"You make me very proud and happy."

"You have reason to be proud," he a.s.serted. "I'm not a man who s...o...b..rs much, but I'm going to tell you what I think of you. When you first came here, I sized you up as rather a softy, your manner was so quiet and gentle. I got over that delusion precious quick, and I want to say that for pluck and grit you're a trump, and there's my hand on it."

He went to the table, poured out a couple of gla.s.ses of whiskey and seltzer, and brought them to the fire. "You need something for that graveyard cough of yours," he said, handing one to me. "Well," he went on, "I didn't bring you out such a night as this to tell you of my sc.r.a.p; but after the row, the boss was so ashamed of herself that she trumped up an A 1 excuse (as she thought) for having treated you as she had, and that led to a talk, and that's why I sent round for you. What do you suppose she has got into her head?"

"I can't imagine."

"I needn't tell you," he remarked, "that women always know an awful lot that isn't so. But just because they do, they every now and then discover a truth that can't be come at in any other way. Now the boss thinks she's done this, and I'm not sure that she hasn't. She says you are in love."

"I never knew a man who wasn't," I replied, trying to smile. "If it isn't with a woman, then it's always with himself."

"But the boss thinks she knows the girl, and has a down on you because you--because you don't try for her."

I laughed bitterly, and said, "You needed no explanation for that."

"That's what made the boss's idea reasonable to me," he explained. "She couldn't conceive why you should keep silent, and so was ready to pitch into you on the slightest pretense. Women haven't much use for a man who falls in love and doesn't say so. But of course I knew that your debt put marriage out of the question."

I merely nodded my head, for even to him I could not speak of my love for you, it was so sacred to me.

He drew up a chair to the fire, and continued: "There isn't another man to whom I'd care to say what I'm going to say to you, but you've got a heart and a head both, and won't misunderstand me." He finished his gla.s.s, and set it on the mantel. "Now I don't have to tell you that the boss is fond of you, and when I told her that I knew of a reason why you couldn't marry, she forgave you on the spot. What's more, she first wished to learn what it was; and failing in that, she then wanted to know if it could be remedied, so that you might have a chance to win the girl."