Meredith Nicholson

“ Pollock had walked out leading his horse and he stood for greater ease in talking to Leighton. The men were clearly outlined, for it was as light as day. Suddenly they shook hands; then they lifted their hats to each other. Pollock mounted his horse and rode off rapidly countryward, and Leighton turned toward the interurban station.
It was Leighton’s solitary figure that Zelda’s eyes followed. She saw him pause just at the edge of a strip of woodland, glance toward the house, and then walk slowly away, while her eyes still rested on the spot where she had seen him last. ”

“ The promoter’s bold air pleased him.
“What piece of property was it you mentioned?” he asked with a feigned air of forgetfulness.
“You have made a fair sketch of it on that blotter,” said Balcomb, grinning. “That triangle is unmistakable,—that’s the creek there on the uneven side.”
Dameron looked down at the blotter over which his pencil had been traveling unconsciously. He had indeed sketched an outline of the plot of ground, and he looked up at Balcomb with a shrewd smile.
“You are a clever young man,—a very clever young man. I am glad to enjoy your acquaintance. You may go now.” ”

“ The vines about the veranda made a dark screen back of Zelda, shutting out the faint starlight and the lights of the house. She sat in a low chair with her hands clasping its rough arms, and it was well that her eyes could not be seen, for there had come into them a look of [285] sorrow and weariness and fear that is best not seen in the eyes of a girl.
Morris was not wholly dull or stupid. Olive, sitting up stairs with a book which she was not reading, would have thought well of him, if she had heard. ”

“ There were several trunks of her mother’s clothing and Zelda peered into these bravely. Her mother had arranged them thus shortly before her death. The girl was touched by their nice order; they were folded many times in tissue paper and were sweet with lavender. There stole again into her heart a sense of loneliness, of separation from the past to which these plaintive things belonged; and there lay beneath everything a wonder and awe, as of one who entered with another’s key some strange, dark chamber of life. ”

“ A New York friend who once spent a week with Rodney Merriam in Seminary Square said on leaving that the house was as good as a club; that the only thing he had missed was the signing of checks for what he ordered. Men regard a club as paradise brought to earth, not because they escape there from things feminine or can command a cool siphon by ringing a bell; but because they like full swing at a club kitchen. It is a heart-breaking thing in any man’s life when he knows to a moral certainty that the roast on Monday, week after week, will be beef ”

“ Zelda did not frequent the club, and the pretty, gray-eyed golf-champion with whom in other summers he had played many a round, bowed a little superciliously now when she passed him in her electric runabout. She did not salute him with a jangle of the gong as had been her pleasant habit in the genial days of their comradeship. Nor did the bands in the glittering beer-gardens tempt him; for there is something not wholly edifying in the passing spectacle of every one and every one’s cook. ”

“ Zelda went over and stood by him, and he looked up at her and smiled,—an impersonal, martyr-like smile.
“They look good, father. If you don’t mind I’ll get a knife and try one. It’s been a long time since I ate an apple.”
She brought herself a plate and knife from the pantry, and sat down near him. A gentler impulse had taken hold of her. She owed her father honor and respect; he was an old man, and at his age men were entitled to their whims. She won him to a more companionable mood than she had known in him before. ”

“ Olive had not warned her of Morris’s coming, but her cousin’s plea of letter-writing as an excuse for going indoors was not wholly sincere, as Zelda knew. But there was no escaping this talk with Morris Leighton on the veranda, and she began with sudden energy to speak rapidly of many irrelevant and frivolous things. It was not an easy matter to meet thus a man who a fortnight before had declared himself her lover. ”

“ He knew by the tensity of the hush that fell upon the audience that the song’s appeal was not to himself alone. The professor beamed with joy as the full, deep notes rose in the hall; and he threw down his violin at the end and joined in the applause. And as the hand-clapping continued after Zelda had turned to take up her dialogue, she came smiling down to the footlights, made a sweeping courtesy, and pointed to her throat as she shook her head at the professor, to explain that there could be no encore. ”

“ Dameron’s house, you acted toward me in an extraordinary way, to say the least.”
Merriam nodded affirmatively.
“As I am likely to meet you, here and there, at the club, perhaps at houses of your friends, I have taken the liberty of asking you what I have done to offend you. I resent being cut before my friends by a man whom they have a right to assume I know.”
“I fear that you exaggerate, Captain Pollock. I doubt whether cutting a man’s acquaintance can be construed as an insult.” ”

“ An old man is very poor company for a young girl. I had feared that you might not be satisfied here. Your uncle and aunt have never treated me fairly. We have nothing in common. I am glad to find that they have not estranged you and me; the paternal relation is a very beautiful one; very beautiful.”
The black maid was changing their plates, and Zelda rested her arms on the edge of the table and looked at him with deep, searching eyes. She knew instantly when he passed from words that represented honest feeling to his more usual note of hypocrisy. ”

“ I choose to take it that you have deliberately snubbed me, and, among other people, before your nieces, Miss Dameron and Miss Merriam, only yesterday afternoon. If I am not fit to enjoy your acquaintance, I am not a fit person for them to know. I have come, sir, to ask an explanation of your singular conduct. I am not in the habit of being treated in this fashion by a man of any age. ”

“ JACK BALCOMB’S PLEASANT WAYS
There comes a time in the life of young men when their college fraternity pins lie forgotten in the collar-button box and the spiking of freshmen ceases to be a burning issue. Tippecanoe was one of the few freshwater colleges that barred women; but this was not its only distinction, for its teaching was sound, its campus charming and the town of which it was the chief ornament a quiet place noted from the beginning of things for its cultivated people.
It is no longer so very laudable for a young man to pay his way through college ”

“ But, I say, the man who will drag a girl to the theater in a street car is fit for treason, stratagems and the stone pile. It ain’t enough to put ’em on four wheels when it’s snowing; no, I make a specialty of hacks under the starry hosts of heaven, and eke the pale and haughty moon. There’s no better way than that to get solid with a girl. There are some that put their faith in bonbons and a new novel now and then; but there isn’t a girl in Mariona to-night that wouldn’t rather go to see a good show in comfort than do anything else under the sun. ”

“ It was now full summer, and when it is hot in Mariona it is very hot indeed. The old locusts in the court back of the law offices of Knight, Kittredge and Carr were green again and venturesome robins paused there now and then to challenge Opinion and Precedent. There was not much for unattached young men to do when their day’s work was done. The roof garden of the Hamilton Club offered itself to those who cared for that sort of thing, or were zealous in the eternal politics of the place, from which, save for the roof garden, there was no escape. ”

“ I like your clothes,”—and she put aside her wraps, surveying Olive admiringly.
“Come on, then. I’m making bread,”—and Olive led the way to the kitchen.
“She’s making bread, after all the glory of her début! It’s just like the interviews with great artists that we read in the newspapers. They’re always planting garden-seed or canning fruit, when the reporter calls.” ”

“ Merriam; “privacy is a lost art. But I must except present company. All I have—anything you see—is yours to command, Zee. Better throw away that cigarette and have a cigar, Morris.”
“He’s in a generous mood to-night,” said Leighton to Zelda. “It’s well to seize and appropriate his worldly goods when he offers them. He’s offered you the house and given me a cigar.”
“I’m nothing if not polite,” declared Merriam. “But I don’t see what you’re complaining of, Morris. You haven’t lost your latch-key, have you?”
“No. But I wish to be sure that Miss Dameron understands how difficult you are.” ”

“ You have so little sense of honor,—you are so utterly devoid of anything that approaches honor and decency,—the hypocrisy in you is so deep, that you can’t imagine that a man like my uncle would never seek to prejudice me against you—my own father. Neither my uncle nor my aunt has ever said a single unkind word to me of you. ”

“ You killed her, with your pettiness and your hypocrisy; you are just as [345] much her murderer as though you had slain her with a knife. But I beg of you, do not think that you can play the same tactics with me. I don’t ask for the money that you have squandered. It isn’t your being a thief that I hate; it’s your failure to be a man! It’s the thought that you would betray the trust of the dead—of my dead mother—that’s what I hate you for! ”

“ While Ezra Dameron waited for Michael Carr, Rodney Merriam was walking slowly from his house in Seminary Square down High Street to Jefferson, swinging his stick, and gravely returning the salutations of friends and acquaintances. In Mariona, where men of leisure are suspicious characters, it was easy to take Rodney Merriam’s peculiarities far too seriously. When he was at home he lived quietly, as became a gentleman, and those who tried to find something theatrical in his course of life were doomed to disappointment. ”

“ Copeland spoke in a dry, tart way that lent weight to his dicta, whether he was talking at the club or addressing the directors of his company. He was thoroughly self-contained and with emotions that never got out of bounds. About once a month he received and declined an offer of the presidency of some bank or trust company. A business man who is a good fellow, and who, moreover, can say no to his best friend without offense, names his own salary in this golden age of commerce. ”

“ A poet—the poet that all the people love—wrote a song about it that made it the most famous street in Mariona. The houses there are chiefly one-story-and-a-half cottages, and in one of these, which was saved from intrusive eyes in summer by a double line of hollyhocks, and which had at its back door at seasonable times a charming old-fashioned garden, lived Olive Merriam and her mother.
Olive threw open the door and Zelda stepped into a sitting-room—the house had no hall—where a coal fire burned cozily in a grate. The room ran the length of the house; the woodwork was white ”

“ He knew that when a man of Dameron’s age and character begins to fail the failure is often very rapid. He smoothed his gloves carefully as he looked down on Dameron’s figure drooping over the table, contemplating him with something of the satisfaction with which a young buzzard watches an old horse stumbling about a pasture and making ready to die. ”

“ I suppose I am rather undersized,” said Olive, ruefully. “I should like to be a nurse. The girls look so stunning in their uniform. But that’s all there is about me. Mother is often ill and never very strong. We live alone here and don’t see many people and nothing ever happens.”
“It seems to me that a good deal happens. Now nothing really ever does happen to me. And I’m most shamelessly ignorant. They didn’t send me to school; my Aunt Julia kept me moving. I’ve lived in a trunk so long that it seems to me the lid is always crowding down on top of my head.” ”

“ I rarely eat pie, so I’m not overworked thinking of him. He’s so thin and crisp. You could roll him out and make a nice apple tart of him. Why, Olive Merriam!”
Tears had sprung suddenly to Olive’s eyes, and Zelda dropped the rolling-pin and ran to her.
“You poor dear, I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in the world. Tell me you forgive me!”
“I’m silly, and I know you’ll think things—go on now with that crust—there are the pans all ready—but Mr. Balcomb has been very kind to me. He has taken me to the theater sometimes, and sent me things. So I think you’re not fair to him.” ”

“ In a town like Mariona the tradition of riches is almost as good as the proved fact. It had been said for years that Ezra Dameron was the possessor of great wealth. How, indeed, could he be otherwise, when he was a miser and never spent any money? Old Roger Merriam had died one of the richest men in the state, and in dividing his property he had favored his daughters, so that Mrs. Forrest and Mrs. Dameron had received larger shares than their brothers. ”

“ That horse of his is a beauty, isn’t it? I wish he would trade with me,” answered Zelda.
“Horse-trading is a science, better let it alone,” declared Balcomb.
He jumped up, fumbling for his watch, which he could not see in the dark of the veranda, but he made a pretense of looking at it.
“Leighton, if we’re going to catch that nine-fifty car we’ve got to hustle. I have to see a man at the Imperial before he goes to bed. Good night, Miss Dameron; good night, Miss Merriam. Not going, Leighton? ”

“ It was he that told me of the sale of those lots.”
Merriam threw back his head and laughed in a very disagreeable way.
“A gambler! Ezra a gambler! Well, I’ll be damned! I suppose, Morris, that where a doctor knows that a man has inherited some sort of poison that lies dormant in the blood, he constantly expects it to manifest itself. He can’t tell just how it will break out, but he knows that it will come; and some day he sees the first signs of it, probably with a satisfaction in the thought that the business of nature proceeds so inexorably. That’s the way I have felt about Ezra Dameron. ”

“ Zelda smiled in relief. She could comprehend two thousand dollars.
“And how much is the house worth?”
“About five thousand, possibly. But there is no market for such property just at present. The trend of real estate is all in another direction.”
“Then they’d better stay there, if no one would want the house. I’m sure we can’t move.”
The old man smiled patronizingly.
“You don’t understand business, my child. It is well that your affairs are in trust. I have lent a good deal of money for you, and I am proud to say that I have never lost a cent, principal or interest.” ”

“ Without putting aside her wraps she dropped a match into the kindling in the fireplace of the living-room, and waited until the flames leaped into the throat of the chimney. Polly was in the dining-room, showing a new assistant how to lay the table for the evening meal, and she came to the folding doors and viewed Zelda with the interest that the girl always had for her. Polly was Zelda’s slave, and she went about half the day muttering and chuckling over what seemed to her Zelda’s unaccountable whims. ”

“ It has a gathering power that seems to sweep all before it; it touches the heights but never lets go of the depths; it becomes, when it rises greatly, something that is not of this world and that yet speaks of every joy and every grief that the world has known. It was a song of farewell,—the song of a girl singing to her lover who was going away to war; and it seemed to Morris Leighton that it was a good-by to everything that a girl might know and hold good.
When the last notes died away, Balcomb stepped out at the director’s nod and began the answering song. Balcomb usually amused Morris ”

“ The country banker and the small capitalist were now much seen in the streets of Mariona. They were learning the lingo of metropolitan business; many of them had found it convenient to enroll themselves as non-resident members of the Commercial Club, and Jack Balcomb’s office proved a pleasant rendezvous. Here they could use his stenographers, and the long-distance telephone was theirs to command. The banks and trust companies were a trifle large for these interurban capitalists; but Jack Balcomb accommodated himself to great and small. ”

“ With one servant it’s possible to keep down expenses. Servants are ruinous. And I’m not rich, Zee, like your Aunt Julia and Uncle Rodney.”
“I want to do just what you would have me do, in everything. It was kind and generous of you to let me stay away so long. I know my expenses abroad must have been a great tax on you.”
Ezra Dameron looked quickly at his daughter.
“Yes, to be sure, Zee, to be sure. Mariona is a simple place and your sojourn abroad has hardly fitted you for our homely ways. You’ll find that things are done very differently here. ”

“ The next morning he called for his horse early. He kept only one horse, for he never drove; but he rode nearly every day when it was fair. His route was usually out High Street toward the country; but to-day he rode down-town through the monument plaza and then struck east over the asphalt of Jefferson Street, where a handsome old gentleman of sixty, riding a horse that was remembered with pride at Lexington, was not seen every day. Rodney Merriam was thinking deeply this morning, and the sharp rattle of his horse’s hoofs on the hard pavement did not annoy him as it usually did. ”

“ The front door-bell rang out harshly, and the old man sprang up:
“You are not at home; you must see no one.”
Polly’s step was heard in the back hall.
“Never mind, Polly. I’ll answer the door,” said Zelda. The sight of any other face than that of her father would be a relief; but it was nine o’clock, an hour at which no one ever called. She expected nothing more than a brief parley with a messenger boy.
“Pardon me, Miss Dameron—”
Leighton stood on the step with his hat in his hand. He had been wandering about the streets since he left her, afraid to return to report to Rodney Merriam. ”