Neith Boyce

“ The things that Graves had had in his mind during the afternoon, that he had meant to say, were now to remain unuttered. They were too bitter. He had meant to reproach her with clinging to Lindsay's fortune for herself and the children; for caring for the superficial worldly aspect of unity which was so pitiful a sham. ”

“ It was midsummer before Graves himself could see his way clear to a month's vacation; and he was preparing for his much longed for plunge into Northern forests, when one morning a telephone message, repeated to the hospital where he was working, asked him to go at once to Mrs. Lindsay at the house in town.
He hurried through his work with a sinking heart. Mrs. Lindsay's maid admitted him and took him upstairs through the dark house, shrouded in linen and cooler than the scorching day outside. He found her in the little study adjoining her bedroom, looking over a mass of papers in her desk. ”

“ Now she turned her hand slightly and glanced at a tiny watch set in a bracelet on her wrist. He saw that glance and went on, his voice hardening.
“It is not your fault, of course, if you lack a broad intelligence. But you're bound to use what you have, and this you consistently refuse to do. You've set up for yourself a single ideal, that of constancy, faithfulness—and you've narrowed down that ideal to a single case. You demand of yourself to be faithful to the consequences of your mistake.”
Here she would have interrupted, but he hurried on.
“I don't know why you married Lindsay. ”

“ Your children are consequences. Your daughter has her father's temperament. Your boy has been weakly from his birth. You've given them a bad father. You owe them all the more of yourself. You owe yourself to them and not to Lindsay. You can do nothing, really, to change him. He'll go his own way, as he always has done; you're not much of a brake on that wheel. All you can do is to keep up appearances.
“Appearances!” he cried, and got up abruptly, and walked across the room and back. “It's really appearances you care for! It's your appearance to yourself you care for! ”

“ Graves cleared his eyes and saw a figure in pink pajamas, with a large pitcher in one hand, standing, feet wide apart, at the head of the stairs.
“Don't you come up here,” growled the master of the house, brandishing the empty pitcher. “It's damned queer if a man can't take a bath without the whole neighborhood coming in.”
“Look here! I'm coming up,” said the doctor. “I'm Graves; don't you know me? And I'm in a hurry. You've wet me through to the skin with your infernal foolishness, and I've got to come up and get dry. Do you want me to have pneumonia?”
“Don't care if you do. ”

“ You've any amount of spirit and pluck, and you have will and constancy. It isn't moral virtues you lack. If you lack anything, Mary, it's intelligence—good, hard, practical horse sense. Well, that's commoner in the world than the qualities you have—there's a lot more intelligence than character in the world—but, all the same, it's a good thing. ”

“ THE doctor was answering a hurry call. His motor, however, was constantly checked in the stream of carriages on Fifth Avenue, and his impatience betrayed itself in the tenseness of his attitude and of his smooth, sharply cut face. The house to which he was going stood in a side street near the Park, a few doors from the Avenue. He jumped out before the motor had stopped, and the door was opened for him before he reached it. The butler had a pale and terrified face.
“Glad you've come, sir,” he gasped. “We didn't know what to do. Mr. Lindsay's on an awful tear. He won't let nobody near him. ”

“ Pity if a man can't have his own dressing room to himself, in his own house.”
“Do you dress on the stairs? How in thunder do you expect to take a bath on the landing?”
Graves went up, stair by stair, toward the big pink figure, whose congested face and half-opened gray eyes lowered down at him. The big man stood like a bull, head down, breathing heavily. ”

“ A little thing like quarantine won't matter to you—or your chance of taking the fever and dying and leaving your children to get on without you. You will have lived up to your own idea of yourself, and that's the main thing. ”

“ Guess you need a plumber, not a doctor,” snapped Graves, as the man took his hat and fur coat.
“Lord, sir, it's Mr. Lindsay. He's been pouring water down the stairs this half-hour. He won't let none of us go up or down.”
“Where's Mrs. Lindsay?”
“I think she's in the library. I haven't seen her since he commenced this. She was talking to him before—”
Graves started up the stairs, and the man called after him quaveringly:
“Look out for yourself, Doctor! Shall I telephone for a policeman? I didn't like to do it on my own—”
“No. Just stay below there,” Graves called back sharply. ”

“ I feel like a murderess!”
“Don't be hysterical,” said Graves. “There's no need. You may hear soon that he's all right. People don't invariably die of yellow fever, and you may depend on it, he'll have care. He'll always be looked out for, where-ever he is. ”

“ If that fool of a man hadn't left the stopper out— Look out!”
And as Graves approached within arm's length he aimed a furious blow with the pitcher.
Graves dodged and threw himself upon the big man, knocking the pitcher from his hand and seizing both his wrists. Lindsay staggered back against the wall, then forced Graves over against the balustrade of the stairs in a frantic effort to free himself. Graves shouted for Parker, the butler, tripped Lindsay and threw himself forward on his chest. Both men went to the floor. Lindsay's head struck against the parquet floor and he lay quiet. ”

“ Lindsay took the children to the country house on Long Island. Lindsay continued his bachelor life in town, and after a month or so went to Cuba on business. Graves made a weekly visit of superintendence at the Long Island place. Neither of the children was strong, and Mary Lindsay consulted him minutely about every detail of their care and education. She was an almost morbidly careful and conscientious mother. She had accepted perforce the entire responsibility for the children's welfare, but it weighed heavily upon her. ”