CHAPTER V

When men were proud of what they had created, it was rare to find jealousy among them.

So Edward Enger had found with S. S. Pierce’s of Boston. Years ago, when he had bought the Goeltz property, he had visited S. S. Pierce’s almost humbly. He was received with the utmost courtesy and was compelled to take many notes, so profuse and generous were the suggestions, so patient and kind were the executives, buyers, advertising men, managers, and the clerks themselves. Young, he had been despairing that he could ever approach this perfection, this influence, this pride, and the absolute faith lavished on S. S. Pierce’s by their customers. “We buy and sell nothing but the excellent,” said one of the gentlemen whom Edward interviewed. “Anything else wouldn’t be worthy of us, and it would be an offense to our friends. Quality. That’s the keynote. Customers must trust you absolutely.”

“Caveat emptor,” Edward discovered, had no place at S. S. Pierce’s. He also found that these busy gentlemen could spare the time to sit down with him and discuss his problems and his ambitions with the most attentive sympathy. If they thought he was wrong, they said so; if he had an original idea, they applauded. He returned to Waterford with his bundle of notes and spent months studying them, to his great advantage. His pride was not hurt when customers in various big cities told him enthusiastically, “C. C. Chauncey’s reminds me so much of S. S. Pierce’s.” Rather, he was highly pleased.

He did not want to start as modestly as his mentors had started, and therefore, after long study of the Pierce methods of merchandising, he approached George Enreich for much more than had been originally agreed upon. George had said nothing; he had gone, unknown to Edward, for his own scrutiny of the establishment in Boston. Then he had advanced the money. “You are in competition with them, my Eddie, but I have the conviction that this will not alarm or annoy them.”

The Goeltz property had been bought. Then, to the astonishment of the people of Waterford and their ominous predictions, Edward had rebuilt the property entirely. There were six floors now, in this April of 1914, and the shop and its departments covered an area of half a block. Small old houses adjacent had been purchased, removed, and the shop extended.

In an era of small shops and small windows Edward introduced, in Waterford, huge expanses of plate glass. He invented his distinctive labels for his shops in other cities, and for the outlets in other stores who would carry some of his products. The Waterford shop, however, was what William called The Home. It serviced all of New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio. Customers came from Albany and from New York City, from Buffalo and Cleveland, from Newark and Pittsburgh.

The vast store in Waterford ran from Gelston Street to the rear on Kingman Street, and it was the wonder and pride of the city. Glass, beautiful lighting, clerks in white jackets, managers in frock coats and striped trousers, carpeting and scattered chairs for weary customers, and rest rooms “like palaces,” all mingled together to make a trip to C. C. Chauncey’s an event. There was no dark wood anywhere or dark counters or dim spots. The areas—“acres,” some people said in awe—of counters glowed with glass and light. Islands stood in inviting places, heaped with esoteric imports. There was a special “wine cellar” downstairs in a cool basement, where customers could linger over cobwebbed bottles and champagnes and liqueurs and whiskies, with a deferential and knowing clerk in attendance to advise or discreetly suggest. Big wagons stood in line at the rear, loading and unloading, and motor vans busied themselves at the many doors. There was a special candy shop carrying only the best imported of “Chauncey brand” sweets, glacés and brittles, a honey shop, a special meats shop, a coffee shop, a tea shop, all small and beautifully decorated, off the main shop and reached through arches.

The executive offices were on the third floor. Here business was done not only for local purchasing but for business abroad. Here letters flowed in a steady river to the C. C. Chauncey warehouse in New York, and to outlets and to out-of-town Chauncey shops. Here conferences were held between Padraig Devoe and his assistants and advertisers, and William MacFadden and his own circle. Here was the board room where Edward met with his officers once a month. Here, in offices, typewriters clacked and files slammed and clerks and stenographers bustled. Here was the heart of the enterprise. On the fourth floor was the experimental kitchen, to which visitors were invited. The other top floors were storerooms.

Edward’s office was larger than that of his officers and was furnished in the style of his home: rich Oriental carpets, heavy velvet, and leather furniture, two chandeliers, brocaded draperies. He often worked till midnight, his big windows lighted brilliantly, while the only sounds were that of men unloading the wagons and the vans. Sometimes he would go downstairs to the silent shops, light them here and there, and simply wander, looking at everything, occasionally making reproving notes, investigating, studying. He lived only two lives, that of his family and that of his enterprise. He liked to pick up a porcelain pot of honey, with his impressive label upon it, and open it and taste it, and put it on a plain English biscuit. Sometimes he went into the kitchens and brewed himself a cup of coffee, and ate a sandwich made of his best imported English or Polish ham. He would sit, then, on a table and eat contentedly. During the day he would only descend to the shops when his buzzer sounded to indicate that a valued customer needed special attention or pampering. Otherwise, his peaceful and agreeable moments were spent alone.

There had always been a restlessness, a seeking, an insistent quality, in him which had prevented what ordinary men fatuously called happiness. When the interviewer from Harper’s had asked him naïvely if he had had a happy childhood, he had stared at the man with amusement and irritation. “What do you mean by happy? It’s as hard, as impossible, to define as truth. If you mean, was my childhood a mélange of lollipops and ice-cream cones and picnics and songfests and children’s games and cakes and playgrounds and circuses and jumping and laughing and running aimlessly and shouting like a wild animal, and living like a wild animal instead of a human being, then I must say no. Happiness, as you define it, perhaps, can only be enjoyed by mindless creatures, by foxes and squirrels and deer and birds, and, most probably, by worms. It’s a dream world and one possibly inhabited by the feeble-minded. No thinking and reasoning creature, even a young child, would find anything stimulating in such a world. Oh, I’ve been reading the new magazines, with their insistence on ‘happy childhoods.’ What do the fools mean? There’s something wrong about this unhealthy and morbid preoccupation with children. Children are adults in the making, and they have harsh minds as well as emotions and little bodies.”

He had paused then, and had continued. “I should say that I had an interesting childhood. I worked hard. I never regretted it; in fact, I’m grateful.”

He believed this now, with absolute surety. He himself did not understand the heavy sense of depression that fell on him when he spent a few brief moments with his parents, or heard the voices of his brothers and sister, or caught the laughter, the shrill meaningless laughter, of children playing on the streets. He occasionally suffered from what he had designated as “stomach trouble,” and would impatiently swallow soda mints (a specialty of C. C. Chauncey’s) or aspirin tablets. Sometimes the pain in the region of his chest became almost unbearable. He never consulted a doctor.

The interviewer from Harper’s asked about his lack of a wife. Edward had smiled. “I’m too busy,” he had replied. He did not speak, of course, of the current lady who lived in the best hotel in New York and whose expenses he paid and for whom he bought jewelry and furs. She sometimes met him in Albany, but never in Waterford. He was getting tired of her, though she was young, entertaining, and pretty. She had been his friend for almost six months now, and it was time for a change.

He was alone, this warm late April night, in his office. It was nearly ten o’clock. The broad windows stood open, and the air was like balm, sweet and languishing. Edward’s big mahogany desk was neatly piled with letters and pamphlets. The chandeliers moved and swayed gently in the gusts of a fresh breeze. They cast reflections, like pale ghosts of themselves, on the paneled walls. A wagon or two rumbled on the way home. Street lights blinked outside. Then there was a far complaining of approaching thunder, and all at once lightning flashed and the sound of the breeze quickened to wind.

Edward never could recall at what precise instant he thought suddenly of suicide, not vaguely, but with power and compelling force.

The instant before he had been preoccupied with an important decision. He had made the decision and he had known it was good. He had also known that he was hungry, even after the plenteous dinner at home. He had decided to visit the experimental kitchens and treat himself to his best brand of coffee and some spiced imported meat in a sandwich. He had contemplated the idea with pleasure.

And then, without warning, he had thought of suicide, and had leaned back in his chair and had considered it simply. Why? he asked himself curiously. The impulse became more demanding. It was like a command which must be obeyed. Objectively, he examined the idea, coldly and analytically. Debts? Of course, they were mountainous, but they could be overcome in time. Health? It was superb. Disappointments? No. David’s agent had just jubilantly written him that the Carnegie engagement was assured, and that David had just received an offer from Albany, where he would play on April twenty-third, tomorrow. The rest of the family? With the exception of Sylvia, all was well. Business? It had never been better, even in these days when there was an uneasy feeling abroad, everywhere, a kind of formless premonition of disaster. Within a month he would open two new shops in other cities. He came back, in his thoughts, to his family.

Sylvia, whom he disliked more than he disliked the other members of the family, could not be the cause of this command to die, a command not accompanied by any despondency or despair or hopelessness. He considered Sylvia for a moment. Only he knew the real cause of her sudden illness and collapse, and he would not speak of it even to her. Padraig Devoe had married Mrs. Maggie McNulty in Buffalo over a month ago. Damn it, he had been disappointed, but it was Padraig’s business and not his. He was positive, too, that Padraig had never once suspected that Sylvia loved him. There was no guile in Padraig. After the marriage, upon which Padraig had sent him a quiet telegram, Padraig had completed his business and had returned to his apartment in New York, and his offices in the importing branch of C. C. Chauncey’s. Edward had wired his congratulations and had ordered an expensive gift for the couple. But Sylvia had suddenly collapsed and had been forced to go to bed. A specialist from Albany had been called for her. He could not understand that mute white anguish, that silent torment, that speechless misery. He had concluded that Sylvia was too thin, that her health was frail, that she had been working too hard, that she must rest and then travel.

Edward had proposed a trip to Europe. Sylvia, whose face was as white as her pillows, had only moved her head weakly in refusal, had then turned her face to her brother. The agonized and malign accusation had stood like a fire, for a few moments, in her dark eyes. You! said her eyes. You! You’ve done this to me! Edward had understood the accusation. His first impulse had been to curse, deride, and turn away with contempt. He wanted to say to his sister, “What have you, you wretched scrawny thing, you egotistic thing, in comparison with Maggie McNulty, who looks and acts and speaks and laughs like a woman? She has importance, presence, fame. But more than anything else she’s a woman, a warm armful, a woman who loves to live.”

He had lived all his life in an atmosphere in which his parents and his brothers and sister had either silently or openly accused him. He had felt defensive until he was fourteen. Then the accusations had alternately angered and amused him. They had become insignificant, finally. He had come to the true conviction that the strong are invariably accused by the weak, and that such accusations arose from a sense of guilt or inadequacy, and that to understand this was to destroy pride and self-love, intolerable to a man’s spirit, even if that man was a weakling. To bear the guilt or inadequacy at all, men must find a scapegoat on whom to heap their faults of character, or their secret flaws of personality or performance or sin.

Edward had not said or done what he had been impelled to say and do, because he had suddenly pitied Sylvia as well as despised her. It had been a long time since he had pitied anyone, for the years had contracted his warmth and emotional responses to a small nugget of iron, impervious and resistive. So his pity for Sylvia had so surprised him that he had left her room hastily. He was afraid that he might relent, might offer sympathy. That would be disastrous for Sylvia. So long as she believed no one was aware of her love for Padraig she would survive. “Men have died, and worms have eaten them,” thought Edward cynically, “but not for love!”

In the last few days Sylvia had begun to listen to her parents’ urging that she go to Europe “for a rest.” She had commenced to eat again, and even to read. When Edward visited her room, she spoke to him curtly and averted her eyes, but her words were polite if listless. Padraig was due in town in a few days, and he must be prevented from coming to this house. It was a nuisance, but there it was.

It was not Sylvia, or anyone else, or anything else, which had commanded Edward to die. It had surged inexorably up in him like an imperious mandate, without sound or pain or desolation. It was simply there, a fact. He was not afraid of it, and did not shrink from it. All at once it seemed the completely sensible and intelligent thing to do. Everything else in the world became two-dimensioned, faceless, colorless, without flavor. It was not that he felt distaste or repugnance or weariness for his life. He liked his life. But in comparison it was nothing to this darkly secret urge to die.

Now he could be entertained by the idea. He played with a pencil and examined it from every angle, looked at every facet. Once, when he had been young—and he could not remember just when—he had been afraid he was dying and had been appalled by the thought. There was no fear in him now, no aversion. There was, suddenly, no longer any appetite in him for living. It was gone, and he did not know why or how.

He began to wonder about those who had killed themselves. Illness, hopelessness, tiredness, loss? They probably were factors in some cases. But perhaps there were more like himself—men and women who, without warning, simply wanted to die. It was an interesting thought. Could it be that the wish to die was as potent as the wish to live? And as irresistible, sometimes? And as mysterious?

It’s a good thing I don’t have a gun at hand! thought Edward, and then he laughed. The impulse for death blew away on his laughter, and life rushed in on him. Shaking his head and laughing again, he began to rise from his desk. It was then that an awful trembling seized him, an intense sickness of the spirit, a passionate recoil, as if he had just confronted a most terrible danger. Sweat broke out on his body; his hands were nerveless. Tremors ran over him. His affrighted body, aware of the escaped destruction, clamored in all its cells. Quiet, he said sternly in himself. Quiet, quiet. A knife seemed to flash through his heart, and then it was gone.

The carved clock on the wall struck a melodious eleven. He started. Somehow he had lost an hour and had not been aware of it. I must have been insane for an hour, he thought. Well, I’ll never have such an idea again. Damn fool.

Edward ate his breakfast alone in his lofty dining room, for Heinrich and Maria did not rise so early. Since Heinrich, or, rather, Edward, had engaged an excellent manager for Enger’s, Heinrich preferred to arrive at his own shop about ten in the morning. There was a silent malaise about him lately, a slackening of energy, though he was only past his midforties. When he complained that he was an old man, in a very piteous voice, no one contradicted him, for Heinrich was indeed old. He felt abandoned, lost, and ill, and would look about him, when spoken to, with a seeking expression, like a blind child. Maria would sit with him in their rooms and read to him, in sonorous German, all the sentimental poems and stories which he remembered from his youth and which would fill his eyes with tears. He clung to Maria now and whenever possible avoided coming downstairs. He was the only one who shrank from this house, though occasionally he was aroused to a feeble pride in it.

No one wondered at the spiritual dependence he had developed for Maria. No one noticed her new gentleness with him, her new patience. When with her family she spoke with her old cold authority, and was respected by her children and acquaintances and all who came to the mansion. She was Heinrich’s substitute for a mother, and no longer the honored Maria Von Brunner, who had lived in a Schloss, a noble Fräulein whom one approached with deference and awe. He would reach dumbly for her hand in the night, as they lay side by side in the great carved bed which Edward had imported from Italy. Often he would timidly raise his head and rest it on her shoulder or bosom, and she would stroke his thin and graying hair tenderly and maternally. She had no need to ask questions. She understood, and he knew that she understood. He did not marvel at all this, in his simplicity. He had sought comfort and had found it, and it was enough for him.

On this particular morning, after Edward’s inexplicable urge to death, Maria came downstairs alone for breakfast. Edward glanced up in surprise, then rose. “Early, aren’t you, Ma?” he asked. He liked to be alone. The hunger for solitude was growing in him, like a lonely but heavily rooted tree.

Maria sat down, as formidable and massive as ever, and as dominant. There was some gray in her hair, but it blended so perfectly with the lengths of silver-gilt that it was perceptible only as a silver shine in certain lights. She was dressed as formally as if she were about to leave the house, in a brown satin dress which enhanced the size of her great body. She spoke in German to Edward, gazing at him with an odd penetration, as she shook out the big square of white linen beside her plate.

“It may appear strange to you, my son, but a mother has her intuitions. I felt, this morning, that all was not well with you.”

“Nonsense,” said Edward. Embarrassed, he looked at the windows. They were mullioned rectangles of gray mist and shallow green, as the damp morning slanted through the new trees. “I was just thinking about those two adjoining acres. I’d like to get them.”

Maria’s protruding and glassy eyes fixed themselves intently on him with new searching. “There is an old saying: ‘How much land does a man need?’”

Edward laughed. His broad face had a slight ashen overcast. He had eaten very little this morning. It was that confounded stomach trouble again, he thought. The sharp but fleeting spasms of pain irritated him. He swallowed another soda mint, and Maria watched him gravely. “I need those two acres,” he said. “I don’t want a farm, but those two acres are on the highway and there’s no real zoning law in Waterford, and it’s possible that someone will build a blacksmith shop or a meat market on the land. Another road borders it, and that will end any threat to my property.”

Maria nodded. “That is understandable, your apprehension,” she said. “But I was not speaking literally. I was speaking in a symbol.”

Edward frowned. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Enlighten me.”

“It does not matter. Allusions are for scholars and not always in good taste. You must forgive me.”

Old Pierre brought in fresh coffee. He glanced at Maria and bent his head to listen to her order. When he had gone, Edward said, “‘How much land does a man need?’ Meaning what?”

But Maria shook her head and ate her dish of fine imported figs, a specialty of C. C. Chauncey’s. It was baffling, but Edward thought of his impulse last night. Then he suddenly understood. How much land does a man need? Only enough to make him a grave, and a grave, finally, was all he had. He pushed back his chair abruptly.

“Yes?” said Maria. “The acres again?” Her gaze was inscrutable.

“That’s right, Ma.” Edward’s hands were on the table, and they had closed into fists. Maria saw them and put down her coffee cup. She saw that he had flushed. He was speaking rapidly, as if to drive away a terrible thought. “I’ve been hounding the bank to get in touch with the person who owns that land, without any result at all. She lives in Albany; her name is Baumer. That’s all they can tell me, they say. Probably some old hag who’s waiting for me to raise my price.”

He added, before his mother could answer, “How’s Pa? Going to the shop this morning?”

“I do not know, Edward. He did not sleep well.”

What is she waiting for? Edward asked himself, exasperated. Why does she look like that? And what a hell of a thing to say to a man who has built this house for her and her family! His anger had always been a slow thing; he had noticed, lately, that it was quicker to flare, and when it did so his “stomach” flashed its brief but searing pain. He stood up.

“You will do me a favor, please,” said Maria.

“What?” he asked impatiently.

“You will see a doctor. At once.”

He stared at her, astounded. He could not remember any solicitude on her part for him before.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m heavily insured. There’s plenty of money. Even if I dropped dead, Chauncey’s would go on.”

“You speak bitterly,” said Maria, replying to his English in German. “Did you think I meant what you imply?”

“What else can I think?” His heart was beating too fast; he could hear it in his ears, could feel the throb of its pulse in his temples and throat. It was ridiculous to be so infuriated. “Never mind, Ma. We understand each other—”

“Do you?” asked Maria. “Did you ever, Edward?”

“Did you, Ma?”

Maria broke a piece of toast. Her voice was calm and low when she said, “I believe so. I am but human but I am not a fool. You will do me the favor?”

“No,” said Edward. The room was suddenly stifling and too small for him, though it was over twenty-five feet long and twenty feet wide. The ponderous sideboard, mahogany and laden with silver, seemed to approach him; the high glass-and-wood cabinets loomed over him; the chairs lumbered about him. His feet had the sensation of sinking into the rich carpet as if into a bog. He had to make a real physical effort to move, and to leave, and he said nothing else to his mother.

By the time his limousine had taken him to the shop he had forgotten his mother, his anger, his depression. His mind was busy again, as it was always busy, planning, thinking, weighing. There was to be a board meeting this afternoon.

There was, among all the messages waiting for him, one that was interesting. The bank manager had called. Edward’s secretary made a call to the bank, and the manager said respectfully, “Mr. Enger? The lady, Miss Baumer, who owns those two acres, will be in my office at ten o’clock. I think she is willing to sell that land now—”

“For how much?”

The manager approved of rich men’s caution. Only bankrupts never asked the price. “At what you offered. To tell you the truth, Mr. Enger, she hasn’t been in the country for nearly a year. She found my letter with your offer a few days ago, when she returned home to Albany. She wrote me, and I honestly think she didn’t even remember she had those two acres here!”

“She must be very wealthy,” said Edward, with wryness.

“Not extremely so, Mr. Enger. I should say—comfortable.” The banker coughed. “Her parents owned a farm near Albany, and when the city expanded they sold a large section of it to a manufacturer for a factory. Then the rest was divided up into lots for houses for workingmen. The land you want was bought by her parents at least twenty years ago, when they lived in Waterford. They’re dead now, I understand. About five years ago.”

Some old spinster who had finally inherited, thought Edward. “I’ll be in your office at ten,” he said. “I hope the old—lady really wants to sell.”

He was pleased. The small piece of land had been a real threat to his estate. At ten o’clock he called for his limousine and was driven to the bank. He did not deal here. It was neither impressive nor very prosperous. The manager greeted him effusively and led him into his dingy office. Edward was oppressed because of the meager size, and there was a constriction in his chest. He sat down, refused one of Mr. Erhlich’s eagerly proffered cigars. Mr. Erhlich noted Edward’s worn clothing, and he approved. Only bankrupts dressed to the hilt, he thought. A rich man could afford to be shabby. He studied Edward out of the corner of his eye; he had caught glimpses of Edward occasionally, but he had not remembered that he was so tall, so broad, and so harsh and obdurate of expression. It was said he was still in his twenties; he looked much older. But then all that responsibility, all that money! Mr. Erhlich wistfully wondered if Edward would ever do any business with his bank. He doubted it.

He did not know what to say to Edward. The young man sat there, his long right leg impatiently swinging over the other. He glanced at his watch. “Miss Baumer should be here,” he said apologetically. “But ladies, you know, aren’t very punctual.”

The door opened and a clerk said with obsequiousness, “Miss Baumer, Mr. Erhlich.” The banker rose and Edward rose, reluctantly as always, for he had no great reverence for women and only impatience or contempt. He especially disliked elderly women who, he had discovered long ago, objected to parting with cash and liked to haggle for the sheer sense of importance it gave them when browbeating clerks or asserting their faded personalities, or pretending to be very shrewd indeed.

The clerk stood aside and a young woman entered, a pretty girl not more than twenty-one or two. “Miss Baumer!” exclaimed Mr. Erhlich with delight. “And how was Europe?” He took her hand, which was covered with a white kid glove.

“Oh, I came back from Europe some weeks ago. I’ve been touring America since then.” She had a sweet voice, not thin, not particularly clear, but gently strong and firm. She let Mr. Ehrlich lead her to a chair, and then looked up at Edward, who was standing near the desk and staring at her with what she considered brutal forwardness. What an unpleasant-looking young man! she thought. And so this is David’s brother. Poor David. Now I’m beginning to understand a little.

Edward was thinking, I’ve seen her before! But where, where? Why, she’s as familiar to me as my own hands. I couldn’t have forgotten her!

He had seen she was tall but very slight, and that her figure, though not as buxom as fashion preferred, was perfect. The blue silk suit, with the long tight skirt reaching to her ankles, had not been bought “off the hook.” Even Edward could see that. The hat, broad velvet the color of her suit, was loaded with coral velvet roses, the exact hue of her smooth coral cheeks and full coral lips. The froth of white lace at her neckline was no whiter than her throat and temples and brow and chin and hands. Edward remembered it all but could not remember where and when. He thought this girl the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. There was no flaw in her, in his excited mind. That pointed face, that delicate chin with the clefting dimple, that fine nose, those wide cheekbones, that air of womanly strength, and those extraordinarily lovely blue eyes, so expressive, so radiant—how could he have forgotten them! She was regarding him gravely and steadily from under gilded lashes and gilded eyebrows. It was as if she were affronted that he did not know her. She moved her head a little, and a beam of sunlight struck her coiling and waving masses of light brown hair, and gilded the crests. He hardly heard Mr. Erhlich performing the introductions. He sat down and faced the girl, and she still gazed at him in that peculiar steadfast way in which there was much reserve and a slight coldness. She smiled mechanically at him, and her small white teeth flashed for an instant. A dimple appeared in her cheek, then faded.

Edward forgot Mr. Erhlich. He said bluntly, “I think we’ve met before, haven’t we, Miss Baumer?” He leaned toward the girl; in a moment he would know where and when, and this powerful urgency and longing in him would be satisfied.

She shook her head slightly. “No. I don’t think so. Unless you were at one of David’s concerts, in a little town in Illinois a month ago.”

“David? You know my brother David?” He did not know that his voice had risen. The girl sat back in her chair. What a rough voice he had, strained and thrusting out at a person. David had been reticent about his brother, but she had caught undertones in his conversation. How could David have such a brother, shabby, almost uncouth, coarse and primitive, David who was so elegant and so dignified? He was worse than she had suspected.

“Yes, Mr. Enger. I know David.” The coral in her cheeks deepened, and Edward’s powers of observation, always acute, became preternaturally sharp. His heart gave a deep thump as he looked fiercely—she thought—into her eyes. She dropped her eyelashes coldly, and the whole vital shine of her face was obscured. “I think he is a wonderful artist.”

No, no, said Edward in himself, and again there was that searing tear in his chest, and he felt suddenly ill and full of compressed fury. Not David; not this girl. Outrage constricted his throat; he was wild with a sense of deception and insult, like a husband who had been betrayed, whose rights had been transgressed to the insuperable point. He forgot Mr. Erhlich; his face had flushed heavily; the muscles of his face had hardened, and there was a swollen and discolored area about his mouth. Now Miss Baumer looked at him and almost shrank. She glanced at Mr. Erhlich, who was looking at Edward with openmouthed astonishment, as much disconcerted as the girl. Why, the man seemed as if he were about to have a stroke!

“It’s a small world,” said Mr. Erhlich, feebly, and attempted to chuckle.

“Too small,” said Edward. His eyes had become bits of steel under his thick black lashes.

Miss Baumer stared at him, affronted, and she paled. She finally turned her shoulder to him and said quietly, “Mr. Erhlich, I have an appointment almost immediately. Can we conclude this business at once?” Her slender shoulder, her sweetly rounded breast, visibly trembled. “Too small,” he had said, implying that she had had no right to know any member of his precious family! Her hands clenched over her purse.

“Why, certainly, certainly!” said Mr. Erhlich, relieved. There was something very singular in this atmosphere. Young Mr. Enger was still fixedly glowering at this nice, pretty young woman, as if he wanted to hit her or shout, or overturn things, and Miss Baumer appeared to be about to dissolve into tears. The necessary papers were all on Mr. Erhlich’s desk, but it perhaps would be best if he pretended they were not and left the room for a few moments. Then, probably, when he returned, the bursting tension in the air would be gone. He excused himself with haste, and went out.

“You—you can’t possibly—” Edward began in a pent and almost stifled voice.

“I can’t what, Mr. Enger?” asked the girl, still half turned from him.

“You can’t—I mean,” said Edward, and his congested throat made him cough. “Dave. My brother—”

She blushed angrily. “David is a friend of mine,” she said. She swung to him suddenly, and the blueness of her eyes flashed in a blaze of offense. “Have you any objections, Mr. Enger? What do you know about me, anyway?”

To her amazement his voice dropped, became very slow and quiet. “I’ve known you all my life. I’ve never forgotten you. I’ve—” He stopped.

Her blush brightened. She lifted her head proudly. “I don’t remember you. As far as I know, I’ve never seen you in my life. I lived in Waterford until I was about ten, with—with—my parents, and then we moved to Albany. That was a long time ago.”

Why, the man must be insane! His eyes were absolutely mad! He was leaning over the desk at her, and his brows were one slash of black. Miss Baumer was frightened. She grasped her gloves and purse and moved to the edge of her chair, as if gathering herself for flight.

“Where did you live in Waterford?” Edward asked. All his faculties were concentrated on the girl; he forgot even where he was.

“I think it was Sherwood Street. I only lived there a little while.” The color suddenly went from the girl’s cheeks and mouth, and she was absolutely white. “Oh, I see. You’ve found out something about me. David must have written, and so you investigated.” Her voice curved out loud and clear with scorn. “Don’t worry, Mr. Enger. I’m not serious about David—yet. But when I am, you won’t matter at all!”

“You can’t—want—Dave,” said Edward, and he stood up, and his air of wrath terrified her. His big body, his massive shoulders, bulked over her like a rock.

But she spoke as clearly as before. “Because I was brought up in the orphan asylum here? Because I don’t know who my parents were? Mr. Enger, the Baumers adopted me when I was fifteen. They left me everything they had; they educated me. I’m a decent person.” She caught her breath. “And I’m going to write David, tonight, that I’ll marry him just as soon as he wants!”

She looked at him with cold blue defiance, though her lips trembled. Then she was again astonished. He was approaching her. Now he was standing beside her. He was a very queer ashen color, but he was smiling.

“Margaret—in the P’s,” he said, and his voice was low and shaken, and marveling.

Her mouth opened on a little gasp. He was bending over her. His stiff arm was supported by the hand he had placed on the desk and she saw the tight fist. “I just remembered,” he was saying. “I remember where and when we saw each other. Just one time. Try and remember.” His voice had fallen even lower, and it was desperately pleading, and even the startled girl recognized there was no threat in it. “We had a small delicatessen store. My father and I. It was a hot day. I can see and feel and smell it right now, just as if it was yesterday. You came in; you were just a little girl. The Baumers weren’t good people; they’d taken you from the asylum to work for them. You hadn’t had any dinner. I made a ham sandwich for you and gave you a glass of milk—”

“I don’t remember,” the girl faltered.

Edward did not seem to hear her. He gently took one of her hands, though she shrank again. “I remember your hands that day. They were all cut and bruised. You said you weren’t afraid of work; you used to wash all the floors in the orphanage. You said you didn’t want charity, as you chewed the sandwich. You were hungry. I never forgot you, though I thought I did. I didn’t know who I was looking for, since then. I was looking for you, all these years.”

She was afraid to pull away her hand. Her fingers were rigid in his. She blinked her gilt eyelashes and moistened her lips. She was more frightened than ever. She repeated, “I don’t remember.”

“You were only ten,” he said. “Margaret, in the P’s.”

The rigidity went out of her fingers. She looked at him as if hypnotized. Something was forming before her: a small shop, the glitter of glass counters, a little rotund man, a tall and lanky boy giving her something to eat, the sputter of gaslight. Faint, far off, distant, almost a dream. That was just before the Baumers had taken her to Albany, because she had satisfied them that she could work. There was the sweet taste of bread and ham and milk in her mouth, and the pungent odor of garlic and vinegar in her nostrils, and the dingy, dismal past was all about her, including the clamor of the orphan asylum, the endless floors to be scoured, the harsh smell of soapsuds and dirty water in pails, the ugly feel of a scrubbrush against her fingers.

Tears ran around the edges of her eyelids. She smiled unsteadily. “Why, yes,” she said. “I do remember now. You were awfully good to a little girl.” Her eyes widened. “And you had a tree! And there was the tree they cut down at the orphanage! Eddie!”

They did not see Mr. Erhlich in the doorway, gaping at them, stupefied. Mr. Erhlich was in confusion. He had left this room in haste, because of the huge hostility in it, the baffling hostility, and here they were now, smiling at each other and holding hands and the girl had just cried, “Eddie!”

“You said I was an Eddie,” Edward was saying.

“It was a long time ago,” said the girl. “I never thought of it after we left here. I didn’t want to remember anything about Waterford.” Her voice was stammering. “When we lived in Albany, near Albany on a farm, the Baumers were nicer to me. I worked awfully hard. Mr. Baumer was nicer than—Anyway, they adopted me years later. They left me a lot of money—” Her hand clung to Edward’s involuntarily, and she was looking up into his eyes like a child. “I must have remembered a little, though. When I met David, I—I liked him. He seemed to remind me of somebody, somebody who—I know, now, it was you. You were the first person who had ever been kind to me—”

A pool of pure light shone under her chin, the reflection of the sun. But, to Edward, it seemed like a thing belonging to her alone, an emanation of her, just as the full blueness of her eyes were hers, shining on him behind a mist of tears. He could not look away from her. He stroked her hand and she leaned a little toward him.

“I never forgot, I never forgot,” he said, and he was young again and buoyant and full of joy. “I’ve looked for you in every woman I’ve seen.” Quite simply he raised his free hand and touched her cheek, and it was the hand of a loving husband whose wife had returned from a long journey.

Well, thought Mr. Erhlich. Well. This is very curious, very.

He was quite dumfounded when Edward put his hand under Margaret’s elbow and she rose with implicit obedience and sweetness and walked out with him. They passed Mr. Erhlich as if he were not there. They were looking only at each other.