“ There were houses as big as hotels and much more beautiful. Trees, flowers, lawns, terraces, fountains, tennis courts, dogs, horses, and motor cars were as silver in the building of the Temple of Jerusalem—nothing accounted of. Jennie had seen high life as lived by the motion-picture heroine, but she had not believed that even wealth could buy such a Garden of Eden as this. Expecting to reach Collingham Lodge a few minutes after passing the grille, she had gone on and on, over roads that branched, and then branched, and then branched again, like the veinings of a leaf. ”

“ She murmured:
"I don't know that I understand you, Bob—quite—but I do—I do love you. It's—it's different from love—it's—it's more. It's like—like melting into you—"
"That's love, Jennie. It isn't anything different. It's just—love."
"But you're so big—"
"And you're so little—so wee. Don't you see?—that's it! That's the compensating thing in nature. It's because we're different that we need each other and complete each other. I can't explain it as you'd explain a sum in arithmetic. I only know. You complete me, Jennie. ”

“ Instinctively they clasped hands as they stood on the edge of the flowery precipice, watching the chrysoprase yellow into saffron, and the turquoise melt into sapphire, while the topaz became light.
Then silently, above the wraithlike towers and cubes and battlements, slipped the rim of gold.
"There it is, Bob!"
He drew her to him, holding her close.
"Yes; there it is again, Jennie—always coming back to us! The last time we were here we had only the moonrise; and now it is the sun—the sun!" ”

“ If Bob were to insist on having this escapade—you wouldn't really call it a marriage, would you?—but if he were to insist on its being made public, why, there'd be an end of his relations with his father. My husband would neither give him a cent nor leave him a cent. I must say that Bob would deserve it; but, Jennie, I'm thinking of you. You'd have forsaken the man you loved, married a man you didn't care for, and got nothing in the world to show for it. That's where you'd have to suffer, and I can see well enough that you're suffering already. ”

“ Gladys answered, doubtfully, "I see—a little."
"Well then, the thing we need for the test is pluck, isn't it?"
Gussie spoke dreamily.
"We need pluck for everything."
"So we do; and I often think that we don't make enough of it. Pluck is different from courage, because it's—how shall I say?—it's a little more cheery and intimate. Courage is like a Sunday suit that you wear for big occasions; but pluck is your everyday clothes, which you need all the time and feel easy in. Courage is noble and heroic—something we'd be shy about claiming. ”

“ He merely walked to the end of the room, his hands in his pockets, as he stared above one of the hydrangea trees into Indiana Avenue. The windows being open, the voices of playing children mingled with the even-song of birds. To Teddy, there was mockery in these cheerful sounds. There was mockery in the westering May sunshine, mockery in the groups of girls, bareheaded and arm in arm, as they strolled toward Palisade Walk; mockery in the ruddy-faced men who watered their shrubs and grass; mockery in the aproned women who came to windows or doors in the intervals of preparing supper. ”

“ She had been led to the terrace drawing-room by the sound of voices and the fact that it was the end of the house toward the Sidebottoms' premises. Against a background of cannas, dahlias, and gladioli, with maples flinging their flame and crimson up into a golden sky, the two figures passing and repassing the long French windows were little more than silhouettes. Such scraps of their phrases as drifted her way told her that they were up to nothing more criminal than settling the affairs of a distracted universe, but she had no intention that they should settle anything. ”

“ Manhattan was a line of constellations the riverway a gulf of darkness in which were scattered stars. Along the parapet, shadowy couples, mostly lovers, formed little ghostly groups, while here and there was the point of light of a cigarette or cigar.
They came to a halt, Jennie leaning against one of the dragon's teeth, looking over at the city, Bob standing a little back from her.
"I've never been here at night before," he said. "I'd no idea it was so beautiful."
"We don't come very often ourselves. We live so near that I suppose we're used to it." ”

“ Most men were that way, more or less, and if he himself wasn't, it was not a moral excellence, but a trick of temperament. But that Jennie was in danger from Wray was a thought that never occurred to him. Her innocence and defenselessness, combined with what he had taken to be a kind of studio code of honor, would have been enough to protect her, even had his suspicions been roused, which they never were. He tried to smother those suspicions even now, saying to himself that he had nothing against her except that she had been a model—in all for which a model was ever called upon. ”

“ As much as from anything else he suffered from the breakdown of his convictions. He had been so glib on the subject of his instinct. Love could make mistakes, he had said to Edith, but instinct couldn't. He had been the other half of Jennie; Jennie had been the other half of him. She couldn't be unfaithful to him, because he knew she couldn't. His love was protecting her like a magic cloak, while she was.... The awful shame of a man whose foolish stammerings of passion are held up to public ridicule seemed to kill the heart in his body. ”

“ But Teddy himself was less reconciled than his mother to bidding the world good-by. In proportion as his physical strength returned, the fate that had overtaken him became more and more preposterous. To suppose that he had of his own criminal intention stolen money and killed a man was little short of insane. A man had been killed by a pistol he held in his hand; he had taken money because the need was such that he couldn't help himself; but he, Teddy Follett, was neither a thief nor a murderer in any sense involving the exercise of will. ”

“ Teddy laughed sheepishly, as if he had ventured to peer into secrets which were none of his business.
"I'll tell you the way God seems to me—it's all come to me while I've been in there." He nodded toward the cells. "I don't seem to get him as a great big man, the way the chaplain says he is. He's all right, the chaplain, only he don't seem to know anything about God. He can gas away to beat the band about law, and society, and the good of the community, and hell to pay when you don't respect them; but when it comes to God—it's nix." ”

“ I said I wouldn't believe anything against you—not even on your own evidence."
"Is that love, Bob—or is it just being stubborn?"
"I shall let you find that out for yourself—as we go on."
"Oh! as we go on?"
"Yes, as we go on, Jennie. We're going on. Don't make any mistake about that. I know how you feel. Everything looks so dark to you now that you can't believe it will ever be light again; but it will be, Jennie. All families and all individuals go through these experiences—not as terrible as yours, perhaps—but terrible all the same. Not one of us is spared. ”

“ Because as he continued to reflect he worked furiously, Jennie saw in him the being whom the lingo of the hour had taught her to call a caveman. In the motion-picture theaters she generally frequented, cavemen struggled with vampires in duels of passion and strength. Jennie longed to be loved by one of this race; and a caveman who came to her with violet eyes and a sweeping brown mustache possessed an appeal beyond the prehistoric. In spite of the challenge in her smile and the daring angle at which she held her chin, she waited in violent emotion for what he would say next. ”

“ Anguish and impatience had become of late the chief elements in the aura she threw out, and by which dogs take their sense of men. It was not that her words or expressions betrayed her. It was only that when she came within his sphere of perception he was aware that she felt the kind of passion the police dog roused in himself.
He was aware of it on this May afternoon, more than six months after she had first learned of Bob's infatuation for the Follett girl, when she came out on the portico to listen for the expected car. She would come out, listen, and go in. ”

“ A job! a job! To be allowed to work! To have a chance to earn a living! It was his kingdom of heaven, his forgiveness of sins, his paradise of God. In the middle of night he would open his eyes and say:
"I've got a job, Lizzie. Fifty a week!"
"Yes, yes," Lizzie would say, drawing the sheet about his shoulders. "Yes, yes; you'll go to town in the morning. Now turn over, dear, and go to sleep again."
These excitements were generally in the small hours of the morning. By day, he was less cheerful.
"I'm all in, Jennie darling," he would say then. ”

“ There was so much earnestness in this declaration that Miss Follett laughed again. It was an easy, silvery laugh, pleasant to the ear, and not out of keeping with the medley of beautiful things round her.
"Jennie's value in a studio is more than that of a model," Wray had recently confided to his friend, Bob Collingham. "It's as if she extracted the beauty from every bit of tapestry or bronze and turned it into animate life."
"By doing nothing or standing still," Collingham had added, "she can pin your eyes on her as other girls can't by frisking about. ”

“ So many good things had, during the past few days, swum into Jennie's vision, only to swim out again, that she had grown almost used to this fading of her hopes. Nevertheless, the bliss of loving Hubert and getting twenty-five thousand dollars for it had seemed tolerably sure. To lose it now would be hard; but harder still, for the moment, at least, was this tone of detachment, of indifference. That another woman should, in some ways, do better than herself was worse than the last indignity. ”

“ His voice sank to a whisper.
"Then why not do it?"
"I would like a shot if I had only myself to think about."
"In love, there are only two to think about, Jennie."
She laughed—a hard little laugh, in spite of its silvery tinkle.
"When I love I've got two sisters and a brother, all younger than myself, to bring into the little affair, to say nothing of a nice old dad and a mother that I'm very fond of. I've got to love for them as well as for myself—"
"Then why don't you love Bob Collingham?" ”

“ That was the hour at which from time immemorial he had taken possession of the great front portico where the distant burr of the motor-car first reached him. When the burr became a throb he knew it was passing the oak that marked the Collingham boundary; and, since it had arrived on his own ground, he could run down the driveway to meet it. This had been his exclusive right. To be joined daily now by a frisky, irrepressible pup made him feel like an old man tied to an insupportable young wife from whom his own death will be the sole deliverance. ”

“ Gladys reasoned, "that it was something we could do for you. I don't see—"
"You'd do it for me, because it's easier to pull with strong people rather than with weak ones. You see, this is something which no one of us can meet alone; we must all meet it together, and the stronger each of us is the stronger we all are. Being strong is a matter of knowing that you're strong, just as being weak is the same. If I was sure that none of you was going to break down, I could be stronger myself, and we could all buck up Teddy." ”

“ Love isn't physical or geographical. It's force, power, influence. I love you so much that I know I can keep you safe even though I'm on the other side of the world. I can't fend troubles away from you, worse luck, but I can carry you through them. I know that till I come back you'll be having a hard time; but my love will hang round you like an enchanted cloak, and nothing will really get at you. You're always wearing that cloak, Jennie; you always walk with it about you.
While Jennie was reading this, Edith Collingham, at breakfast at Marillo Park, was springing a question on her father. ”

“ Bickley, the efficiency expert, for whose opinion Mr. Collingham had a kind of reverence, had selected her for the job. Miss Ruddick cultivated her efficiency as another woman cultivates her voice or another her gift for dancing. Throwing off the weaknesses that spring from affection and softness of heart, she had steeled and oiled herself into a swiftly working, surely judging, and wholly impersonal business automaton. Ten years ago she would have felt sorry for a man in Josiah Follett's predicament. ”

“ Having said good-by to Doolan and turned away, he took the first steps in expectation of a stern command to come back.
It was another strange new sensation to be walking the familiar ways of Broad Street and Wall Street with this strange new consciousness. There were thousands of bright young men and women streaming to electrics, subways, and ferries in the first stages of commuting, and among them he bore a secret mark. Tramping along in the crowd, he felt like a soldier marching with his comrades to the trenches, but knowing himself picked for death. ”

“ Gussie declared, loftily, "they're clever and can get ahead, like Fred Inglis. I'll bet that if his father wanted his taxes and the interest on a mortgage, he wouldn't have to raise the wind among his old friends. Fred'd be Johnny-on-the-spot with the greenbacks."
Teddy could only gulp, hang his head over his plate, and choke himself with hash, as he muttered to his soul; "God! I'll shoot that Fred Inglis if I ever get a gun."
And just as if she knew that Teddy needed comforting, Pansy sprang upon his knees, pushing her face up along his breast till she could lick his chin. ”

“ As, however, she persisted in brushing the sketch aside, he straightened himself up.
"Then, Jennie, I'm afraid I can't use you any more—that is, for the present. Since you won't do it, I must get some one who will."
"You could paint another kind of picture," she argued indignantly, "with me with clothes on."
"You don't understand. I'm an artist. An artist doesn't paint the picture he chooses, but the one that's given him to paint."
"No one gave you this to paint. It isn't a commission. It's just your own bad mind." ”

“ Little as she was rebellious, she rebelled against that, preferring an element of chance in her love to a love in which there was no choice. Bob wrote as if her love was of no importance, as if he could love enough for two—did, in fact, love enough for two—so that the whole need of loving was taken off her hands.
I feel, as if my love was the air and you were a plant to grow in it. It's the sunshine to which your leaves and blossoms will only have to turn. ”

“ It is true that to protect your own interests you have the power to shoot him down; but when he lies dead at your feet, no more muzzled in death than he was in life, there is surely somewhere in the universe an avenging force that is on his side, and which will make you—you as representatives of the society which has placed its action in your hands—and you as twelve private individuals with duties and consciences—there is somewhere in the universe this avenging force which will require his blood at your hands and make you pay the penalty. ”

“ It is an asset to production, to the country's trade, to the whole world's wealth. And, gentlemen, what shall we say when we call that empty sack—a man?"
The value of the human asset was the next point to which he led his listeners.
"It is only a truism to say that among all the precious things with which the Almighty has blessed his creation the most precious is a human life; and yet we live in a world which seems to believe this so little that we must sometimes remind ourselves that it is so. Within a few years we have seen millions of men reckoned merely as stuff. ”

“ She had once run away from being shut up in the coalbin, her fate when the family went to the movies, and had been lost for half a day. The agony of being adrift and the joy of seeing Gussie come whistling and calling down the Palisade Walk formed the great central escapade in Pansy's memory. For days afterward, whenever the family spoke of it, she would stand with forepaws planted apart, and head hanging dejectedly, aware that no terms could be scathing enough fully to cover her guilt.
And here was Teddy in the same state of mind. Pansy had learned that the great race could suffer ”

“ Within its heart lay Broadway, Fifth Avenue, Wall Street, and the Bowery, shops, churches, brothels, and banks, all passions, hungers, yearnings, and ambitions, all national impulses worthy and detestable, all human instincts holy and unclean, all loveliness, all lust, all charity, all cupidity, all secret and suppressed desire, all shameless exposure on the housetops, all sorrow, all sin, all that the soul of man conceives of as evil and good—and yet, with no more than these few miles of perspective, and this easy play of light, translated into beauty, uplifting, unearthly, and ineffable. ”

“ That's my kind of love, Jennie darling. You can't get out of it—I can't get out of it—even if we would. At this very minute I'm sailing and sailing; but I'm not being carried farther away from you. The love in which you and I are now leading our lives is wider than the great big circle made by the horizon. Don't forget that, dear. I'm always with you. Love doesn't recognize distance. ”

“ Surely you can find a better use for that valuable asset, a young man's life, than just to take it away. For the sake of the public whose honor is in your keeping, you must play the game squarely. For the sake of your own future peace of mind, you must not add your own crime to this poor boy's misfortune. Your duty at this minute is not merely to interpret the dead letter of a law; it is to be the voice of the People whom you represent. ”

“ Nothing was ever said of money missing, and no hint thrown out that he himself was not trusted as before. He had nothing to go on except that Mr. Brunt became more taciturn than ever, and once or twice he thought he was being watched. The eyes of Jackman, the principal house detective, wandered often toward him, and twice he, Teddy, had seen Jackman in conference with Flynn.
"They'll never get me alive," was his inner consolation, though immediate suicide suggested itself as an alternative, and flight, disappearance, an absolute blotting out was a third expedient. ”

“ When you come to ages, the human race is young. It's made a life for itself which it doesn't know how to swing. In a few more ages it may learn; but it hasn't learned as yet."
Teddy reflected.
"So you've just got to take it as it is."
"That seems to be the number. We may kick because it isn't perfect, but we don't know how to make it perfect, and that's all there is to say."
"It's easier for your kind to say than for ours."
"It's not as easy as it seems for any kind. ”

“ The peace, the restfulness, the cheerfulness, when striving for effect are abandoned, dwarfing the magnitude of crowds and reducing their ebbings and flowing to mere vanity! Like Jennie with her emotions, like Pansy with her intuitions, Teddy had no words for these impressions; but the Scarborough tradition, nursed on Ancient Rome Restored, vibrated to their music. ”