4
MAGAZINE SECTION
the smile, assent in tlir gesture. How
ever, lie perceived neither.
She took a short step forward. The
wind whipcd the fountnin jet, and a fan
like cloud of spray drifted off across the
asphalt. Then they moved on together.
Presently she said, quietly, "I believe
I will curry u hunch of those violets";
and she waited for him to go hack
through the fountain spray, find the ped
dler, and rummage among the perfumed
heaps In the basket. "Because," she added
cheerfully, as he returned with the flow
ers, "I am going to the F.Hst Tenth Stm t
Mission, and I meant, to take some
flowers, anyway."
"If you would keep that cluster and
let me send the whole basket to your
mission " he began.
Hut she had already started on acrosi
the wet pHvement.
"I did not know you were to give my
flowers to those cripples," he said, keep
ing pace with her.
"Do you mind?" she asked, but she h id
not meant to say that, and she walked a
little more quickly to escape the quick
reply.
"I want to ask you something," he
said, after a moment's brisk walking. "I
wish If you don't mind I wish you
would walk around the square with me
Just once
"Certainly not," she said; "and now
you will say good-bye because you are
going away, you say." She had stopped,
at the Fourth Avenue edge of the square.
"Si good-bye, and thank you for the
beautiful dog, and for the violets."
"But you won't keep the dog, and you
won't keep the violets," he said; "and,
besides, If you are going north "
"Good-bye," she repeated, smiling.
" besides," be went on, "I woidd like
to know where you are going."
"That," she said, "is what I do not
wish to tell you or anybody."
There was a brief silence; the charm
of her bent head distracted him.
"If you won't go," she said, with ca
price, "I will walk once around the square
with you, but it is the silliest thing I
have ever done in my entire life."
"Why won't you keep the bull-terrier?"
he asked, humbly.
"Because Fm going north for one rea
son." "Couldn't you take Ilia Highness?"
"No that Is, I could, but I can't ex
plain he would distract me."
"Shall I take him back, then?"
"Why?" she demanded, surprised.
"I only I thought if you did not cure
for him " he stammered. "You see, I
love the dog."
She bit her Hp and bent her eyes on
the ground. Again he quickened his pace
to keep step with her.
"You see." he said, searching about
for the right phrase, "I wanted you to
have something that I could venture to
offer you rr something not valuable
er I mean not er "
"Your dog Is a very valuable cham
pion; everybody knows that," she said,
carelessly.
"Oh, yes he's a corker In his line; out
of Empress by Ameer, you know "
"I might manage ... to keep him
. . . for it while," she observed, without
enthusiasm. "At all events, I shall tie
my violets to his collar."
He watched her; the roar of Broadwuy
died out in his ears; in hers it grew,
increasing, louder, louder. A dim seen
rose unbidden before her eyes the high
gloom of a cathedral, the great organ's
first unsteady throbbing her wedding
march! No, not that; for while she
stood, coldly transfixed in centred self
ubsorption, she seemed to see a shape
less mass of wreaths piled in the twi
light of an altar the dreadful pomp und
panoply and circumstance of death
She ruised her eyes to the man beside
her; her whole Ix-ing vibrated with the
menace of a dirge, and in the roar of
traffic around her she divined the im
prisoned thunder of the organ pealing for
her dead.
She turned her head sharply toward
the west.
"What is it?" he asked, in the voice of
n man who needs no answer to his ques
tion. She kept her head steadily turned.
Through Fifteenth Street the sun poured
a red light that deepened as the mist
rose from the docks. She heard the river
whistles blowing; on electric light broke
out through the bay bane.
It was true she was thinking of her
husband thinking of him almost des
perately, distressed that already he
should have become to her nothing more
vital than a memory.
I'nconscious of the man beside her, she
stood there in the red glow, straining
eyes und memory to focus both on a past
that receded and seemed to dwindle to a
point of utter vacancy.
Then her husband's face grew out of
vacancy, so real, so living, that she
started to find herself walking slowly
past the fountain with Langham at her
side.
After a moment she said: "Now we
have walked all around the square. Now
I am going to walk home; . . . and
thank you . . . for my walk, . . . which
was probably as wholesome a perform
ance as I could have indulged in and
quite unconventionul enough, even for
you."
They faced about and traversed the
square, crossed Broadway in silence,
passed through the kindling shadows of
the long cross-street, and turned into
Fifth Avenue.
"You are very silent," she said, sorry
at once that she had said it, uncertain as
to the trend his seech might follow, and
withal curious.
"It was only about that dog," he said.
She wondered if ic was exactly that,
and decided it was not. It was not. He
was thinking of her husband as he had
known him only by sight and by re
port. He remembered the florid gentle
man perfectly; he had often seen him
tooling his four; he had seen him at the
traps in Monte Carlo, dividing with the
best shot in Italy; he had seen him rid
ing to hounds a few days before that
fatal run of the Shadowbrook Hunt,
where he had taken bis last fence. Once,
too, he had seen him ut the Sagamore
Angling Club up state.
"When are you going?" he said, sud
denly. "Tomorrow."
"I am not to know where?"
"Why should you?" and then, a little
quickly: "No, no. It Is a pilgrimage."
"When you return " he begun, but
she shook her head.
"No, no. I do not know where I may
be."
In the April twilight the electric lampj
along the avenue snapped alight. The
air rang with the metallic chatter of
sparrows.
They mounted the steps of her house;
she turned and swept the dim avenue
with a casual glance.
"So you, too, are going north?" she
asked, pleasantly.
"Yes tonight."
She gave him her hand. She felt the
pressure of his baud of her gloved fingers
after he had gone, although their hands
had scarcely touched at all.
And so she went into the dimly lighted
house, through the drawing-room, which
was quite dark, Into the music-room be
yond; and there she sat down upon a
chair by the plan:) a little gilded chair
that revolved as she pushed herself idly,
now to the right, now to the left.
Yes, . . . after all, she would go; ...
she would make that pilgrimage to the
spot on eartli her husband loved best
of all the sweet waters of the Saga
more, where his beloved club lodge stood,
and whither, for a month every year, he
had repaired with some old friends to
renew a bachelor's love for angling.
She hud never accompanied him on
these trips; she instinctively divined a
man's desire for a ramble among old
haunts with old friends, freed for a
brief space from the happy burdens of
domesticity.
The lodge on the Sagamore was now
her shrine; there she would rest and
think of him, follow his footsteps to his
best-loved haunts, wander along the riv
ers where he had wandered, dream by
the streams where he had dreamed.
She had married her husband out of
awe, sheer awe for his wonderful per
sonality. And he was wonderful; fault
less in everything though not so fault
less as to be in bad taste, she often told
herself. His entourage also wus fault
less; and the general fuultlessness of
everything had made her married life
very perfect.
As she sat thinking in the darkened
music-room, something stirred in the
hallway outside. She ruised her eyes;
the white bull-terrier stood in the lighted
doorway, looking in at her.
A perfectly Incomprehensible and re
sistless rush of loneliness swept her to
her feet; in a moment she was down on
the floor again, on her silken knees, her
arms around the dog, her head pressed
tightly to his head.
"Oh," she said, choking, "I must go
tomorrow I must I must. ... And
here are the violets; ... I will tie them
to your collar. . . . Hold still! ... He
loves you; . . . but you shall not have
them do you hear? . . . No, no . . . for
I shall wear them, . . . for I like their
odor; . . and, anyway, ... I am going
away." . . .
IV
The next day she began her pilgrim
age; und His Highness went with her;
and a maid from the British Isles.
She hud telegraphed to the Sagamore
Club for rooms, to make sure, but that
was unnecessary, because there were at
the moment only three members of the
club at the lodge.
Now although she herself could scarce
ly be considered a member of the Saga
more Angling Club, she still controlled
her husband's shares in the concern, and
she was duly and impressively welcomed
by the steward. Two of the three mem
bers domiciled there came up to pay
.heir wpects when she alighted from
the muddy buckboard sent to the rail
way to meet her; they were her hus
band's old friends, Colonel Hyssop and
Major Brent, white-haired, purple-faced,
well-groomed gentlemen in the early fif
ties. The third memler was out in the
rain fishing somewhere downstream.
"New man here, madam a good fel
low, but a bud rod eh, Brent?"
"Bud rod," rcicuted Major Brent, wag
ging his fat head. "Uses ferrules to a
six-ounce rod. We splice eh, Colonel?"
"Certainly," said the Colonel.
She stood by the open fire in the cen
ter of the hull-way, holding her shapely
hands out toward the blaze, while her
maid relieved her of the wet rain-eout.
"Splice what, Colonel Hyssop, if you
please?" she inquired, smiling.
"Splice our rods, madam no creaky
j iints and ferrules for old hands like
Major Brent and me, ma'am. Do you
throw a fly?"
"Oh, no," she said, with a faint smile.
"I I do nothing."
"F.xcept to remain the handsomest
woman in the five boroughs I" said the
Major, with a futile attempt to bend at
the waist utterly unsuccessful, yet im
pressive. She dropped him a courtesy, then took
the glass of sherry that the steward
brought and sipped it, meditative eyes
on the blazing logs. Presently she held
out the empty wine-gl.iss; the steward
took it on his heavy silver sulver; she
raised her eyes. A half-length portrait
of her husbund stured at her from over
the mantel, lighted an infernal red in
the fire-glow.
A catch in her throat, a momentary
twitch of the lips, then she gazed calmly
up into the familiar face.
I'nder the frame of the picture was
written his full hyphenuted name; fol
lowing that she read:
PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER
OF
THE SAGAMORE ANGLING CLUB
18801901
Major Brent and Colonel Hyssop ob
served her in decorously suppressed sym
pathy. "I did not know he was president,"
hhe suid, after a moment; "he never told
me that."
"Those who knew him best understood
his rare modesty," suid Major Brent. "I
knew him, madam; I honored him; I
honor his memory."
"He was not only president and
founder," observed Colonel Hyssop, "but
he owned three-quarters of the stock."
"Are the shares vuluuble?" she asked.
"I have them; I should be glad to give
them to the club, Colonel Hyssop-in his
memory."
"Good gad! madaih," said the Colonel,
"the shares are worth five thousand
apiece !"
"I am the happier to give them if the
club will accept," she said, flushing, em
barrassed, feurful of posing as a Lady
Bountiful before unybody. She added,
hastily, "You must direct me in the mat
ter. Colonel Hyssop; we can talk of it
later."
Again she looked up into her husband's
face over the mantel.
Her bull-terrier came trotting into the
bull, his polished nails and padded feet
beating a patter across the hard-wood
floor.
"I shall dine in my own rooms this
evening," she said, smiling vaguely at the
approaching dog.
(Continued on Page 8.)
