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EACH DAY
THE BENT TWIG
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
HILLSBORO PEOPLE
THE SQUIRREL-CAGE
GUNHILD
MOTHERS AND CHILDREN
A MONTESSORI MOTHER
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Publishers New York
THE BENT TWIG
BY
DOROTHY CANFIELD
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1916
THE NEW YORIT
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR LENOX AND
TiLDEN FOUNDATIONS
O i
COPYRIGHT, 1915,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Published October, 1915
Reprinted
November, Qecpmber, 1915 i
April, May, July (t\vice), Au^usc.
< i
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
F
CONTENTS
BOOK I
IN ARCADIA
CHAPTER PAGE
I SYLVIA'S HOME 3
II THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDS 12
III BROTHER AND SISTER 26
IV EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE . . 38
V SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS 44
VI THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE 53
VII " WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT ..." 70
VIII SABOTAGE 92
IX THE END OF CHILDHOOD 103
BOOK II;
/J FAL$E ST ART 'W' ATHENS
X SYLVIA'S FIHSO; .GLXMP-SE 'OF MODERN CIVILIZATION . 113
XI ARNOLD'S '.FuxoftE-' Is- CAS a ALLY DECIDED . . .123
XII ONE MAN s ME,-.T . , . 131
XIII AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNL 138
XIV HIGHER EDUCATION 145
XV MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALS . . . . . 153
XVI PLAYING WITH MATCHES .- 165
XVII MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLES . .179
XVIII SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICE . . . . 192
XIX As A BIRD OUT OF A SNARE 206
XX " BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM, BARK! " 217
XXI SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING HAPPENS . 232
BOOK III
IN CAPUA AT LAST
XXII A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIAN 237
XXIII MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS . . . 250
v
/t O V o Q I I
VI
CHAPTER
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
XLI
XLII
XLIII
XLIV
XLV
XLVI
XLVII
Contents
ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALK ....
NOTHING IN THE LEAST MODERN
MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT
BETWEEN WINDWARD AND HEMLOCK MOUNTAINS .
SYLVIA ASKS HERSELF "WHY NOT?" ....
A HYPOTHETICAL LIVELIHOOD
ARNOLD CONTINUES TO DODGE THE RENAISSANCE .
SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITY
MUCH ADO ...
" WHOM GOD HATH JOINED ..."
SYLVIA TELLS THE TRUTH
" A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR " .
THE ROAD Is NOT so CLEAR
"... His wife and children perceiving it, began
to cry after him to return; but the man put his
fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, ' Life!
Life Eternal!'" ..... f .-,,,
SYLVIA COMES .Id THE WICKET. GATE
SYLVIA DRIFTS WITH .THE MAJORITY, . .
t C t ,
< -
.1 II
BOOK IV
THE STRAIT PAfti Li
A CALL FROM HOME ........
HOME AGAIN *
" Strange that we creatures of the petty ways,
Poor prisoners behind these fleshly bars,
Can sometimes think us thoughts with God ablaze,
Touching the fringes of the outer stars " .
" Call now; is there any that will answer theef .
"A bruised reed will He not break, and a dimly
burning wick will He not quench"
" That our soul may swim
We sink our heart down, bubbling, under wave " .
A LONG TALK WITH ARNOLD ......
". .AND ALL THE TRUMPETS SOUNDED!"
273
284
301
312
322
333
341
354
364
3/0
384
392
400
409
418
440
448
451
457-
461
466
479
THE BENT TWIG
BOOK I
IN ARCADIA
CHAPTER I
SYLVIA'S HOME
LIKE most happy childhoods, Sylvia's early years lay back
of her in a long, cheerful procession of featureless days the
outlines of which were blurred into one shimmering glow
by the very radiance of their sunshine. Here and there
she remembered patches, sensations, pictures, scents-
Mother holding baby sister up for her to kiss, and the fra-
grance of the baby powder the pine-trees near the house
chanting loudly in an autumn wind her father's alert face,
intent on the toy water-wheel he was setting for her in the
little creek in their field the beautiful sheen of the pink silk
dress Aunt Victoria had sent her the look of her mother's
steady, grave eyes when she was so sick the leathery smell
of the books in the University Library one day when she
followed her father there the sound of the rain patterino-
on the low, slanting roof of her bedroom these were the
occasional clearly outlined, bright-colored illuminations
wrought on the burnished gold of her sunny little life
But from her seventh birthday her memories began to have
perspective, continuity. She remembered an occasional
whole scene, a whole afternoon, just as it happened.
he first of these must have marked the passing of some
unrecognized mental milestone, for there was nothing about
to set it apart from any one of a hundred afternoons. It
may have been the first time she looked at what was about
her, and saw it.
3
4 The Bent Twig
Mother was putting the baby to bed for his nap not the
baby-sister she was a big girl of five by this time, but
another baby, a little year-old brother, with blue eyes and
yellow hair, instead of brown eyes and hair like his two
sisters'. And when Mother stooped over the little bed, her
white fichu fell forward and Sylvia leaned to hold it back
from the baby's face, a bit of thoughtfulness which had a
rich reward in a smile of thanks from Mother. That was
what began the remembered afternoon. Mother's smiles
were golden coin, not squandered on every occasion. Then,
she and Mother and Judith tiptoed out of the bedroom into
Mother's room and there stood Father, with his University
clothes on and yet his hair rather rumpled up, as though
he had been teaching very hard. He had a pile of papers
in his hand and he said, " Barbara, are you awfully busy
just now? '
Mother said, Oh no, she wasn't at all. (She never was
busy when Father asked her to do something, although
Sylvia could not remember ever once having seen her sit
and do nothing, no, not even for a minute!) Then Father
said, " Well, if you could run over these, I'd have time to
have some ball with the seminar after they're dismissed.
These are the papers the Freshmen handed in for that
Economics quiz." Mother said, " Sure she could," or the
equivalent of that, and Father thanked her, turned Judith
upside-down and right-side-up again so quick that she didn't
know what had happened, and left them all laughing as
they usually were when Father ran down from the study
for something.
So Sylvia and Judith, quite used to this procedure, sat
down on the floor with a book to keep them quiet until
Mother should be through. Neither of them could read,
although Sylvia was beginning to learn, but they had been
told the stories so many times that they knew them from
the pictures. The book they looked at that day had the
story of the people who had rowed a great boat across the
water to get a gold sheepskin, and Sylvia told it to Judith,
word for word, as Father always told it. She glanced up
Sylvia's Home
at Mother from time to time to make sure she was getting it
right; and ever afterwards the mention of the Argonauts
brought up before Sylvia's eyes the picture of her mother
that day, sitting very straight, her strong brown fingers
making an occasional mark on the papers, as she turned
them over with a crisp rustle, her quiet face bent, in a calm
fixity of attention, over the pages.
Before they knew it, the work was done, Father had come
for the papers, and showed Sylvia one more twist in the
acrobatic stunt they were learning together. She could
already take his hands and run up to his shoulders in one
squirrel-like dash; but she was to learn the reverse and
come down on the other side, and she still got tangled up
with which foot to put first. So they practised whenever
they had, as now, a minute or two to spare.
Then Judith was set to play with her blocks like the baby
she still was, while Sylvia and Mother had a lesson in read-
Sylvia could remember the very sound of Mother's
:lear voice as she corrected a mistake. They were reading
a story about what happened to a drop of water that fell
into. the brook in their field; how, watering the thirsty
cornfields as it flowed, the brook ran down to the river
near La Chance, where it worked ever so many mills and
factories and things. Then on through bigger and bi^ r
rivers until it reached the Mississippi, where boats rode on
ts back; and so on down to the ocean. And there, after
resting a while, it was pumped up by the sun and' made
into a cloud, and the wind blew it back over the land and
Vn! eir , field again ' where {t fdl into the br o k and said,
Why, how-de-do, Sylvia you still here ? "
Father had written the story, and Mother had copied it
out on the typewriter so it would be easy for Sylvia to read
After they had finished she remembered looking out of
the window and watching the big white clouds drift across
the pale bright April sky. They were full of hundreds of
-rops of water, she thought, that were going to fall into
adreds of other brooks, and then travel and work till they
reached the sea, and then rest for a while and begin all
6 The Bent Twig
over again. Her dark eyes grew very wide as she watched
the endless procession of white mountains move across the
great arch of the sky. Her imagination was stirred almost
painfully, her mind expanding with the effort to take in the
new conception of size, of great numbers, of the small place
of her own brook, her own field in the hugeness of the world.
And yet it was an ordered hugeness full of comforting sim-
ilarity! Now, no matter where she might go, or what
brooks she might see, she would know that they were all of
one family, that the same things happened to them all, that
every one ended in the ocean. Something she had read
on a piece of paper made her see the familiar home field
with the yellow water of the little creek, as a part of the
whole world. It was very strange. She tried to tell Mother
something of what was in her mind, but, though Mother
listened in a sympathetic silence, it was evident that she
could make nothing out of the incoherent account. Sylvia
thought that she would try to tell Father, the next chance
she had. Even at seven, although she loved her mother pas-
sionately and jealously, she was aware that her father's
mind was more like her own. He understood some things
that Mother didn't, although Mother was always, always
right, and Father wasn't. She fell into silence again, stand-
ing by her mother's knee, staring out of the window and
watching the clouds move steadily across the sky doing their
share of the world's work for all they looked so soft and
lazy. Her mother did not break in on this meditative con-
templation. She took up her sewing-basket and began
busily to sew buttons on a small pair of half-finished night-
drawers. The sobered child beside her, gazing up at the blue-
and-white infinity of the sky, heard faintly and distantly,
for the first time in her life, the whirring reverberations of
the great mystic wheel of change and motion and life.
Then, all at once, there was a scraping of chairs overhead
in Father's study, a clattering on the stairs, and the sound
of a great many voices. The Saturday seminar was over.
The door below opened, and the students came out, Father
at the head, very tall, very straight, his ruddy hair shining
Sylvia's Home 7
in the late afternoon sun, his shirt-sleeves rolled up over
his arms, and a baseball in his hand. Come on, folks/'
Sylvia heard him call, as he had so many times before
Le s have a couple of innings before you go!" Sylvia
must have seen the picture a hundred times before but that
was the first time it impressed itself on her, the 'close-cut
grass of their yard as lustrous as enamel, the big pine-trees
standing high, the scattered players, laughing and running
about the young men casting off their coats and hats the de-
tached fielders running long-legged to their places. At the
first sound of the voices, Judith, always alert, never wasting
time in reveries, had scampered down the stairs and out in the
midst of the stir-about. Judith was sure to be in the middle
of whatever was going on. She had attached herself to
young Professor Saunders, a special favorite of the children
and now was dragging him from the field to play horse with
Father looked up to the window where Sylvia and
Mother sat, and called : " Come on, Barbara ! Come on and
amuse Judith. She won't let Saunders pitch."
Mother nodded, ran downstairs, coaxed Judith over be-
yond first base to play catch with a soft rubber ball ; and Syl-
via, carried away by the cheerful excitement, hopped about
everywhere at once, screaming encouragement to the base
runners, picking up foul balls, and sending them with
proud importance back to the pitcher.
So they all played and shouted and ran and laughed
In" M J n % 1 ? ale " g lden Spring aftern on stood still,'
until Mother held up her finger and stopped the game!
. J wl y 'if Wake ! She Said ' and Father went bounding
When he came back with the downy pink morsel
everybody gathered around to see it and exclaim over the
tiny fat hands and hungry little rosebud mouth " He's
' " WantS his SU PP er > Pr little
> >
J ? e , d , esn * want a lot of P e P le staring at him do
you, Buddy-baby?" She snatched him out of Father's
arms and went off with him, holding him high over her
shoulders so that the sunshine shone on his yellow hair, and
made a circle of gold around his flushed, sleepy face. Then
8 The Bent Twig
everybody picked up books and wraps and note-books and
said " Good-by, ' Perfessor! ' and went off
Father and Sylvia and Judith went out in the garden to
the hotbed to pick the lettuce for supper and then
In the kitchen to get things ready. When Mother _ was
through giving Buddy his supper and came hurrying in t
S Sylvia was proud that they had nearly everything
done-all but the omelet. Father had made cocoa and
creamed potatoes-nobody in the world could make creamed
potatoes as good as his-and Sylvia and Judith had between
them, somewhat wranglingly, made the toast and set the
table. Sylvia was sure that Judith was really too little
be allowed to help, but Father insisted that she should
for he said, with a turn in his voice that made Sylvia aware
he was laughing at her, " You only learned through trying,
all those many years ago when you were Judith s age
Mother put on one of her big gingham aprons and mad-
the omelet, and they sat down to the table out on
veranda as they always did in warm weather. In La Chance
it begins to be warm enough for outdoor life in April.
Although it was still bright daylight for ever so long after
the sun had set, the moon came and looked at them palely
over the tops of the trees.
After supper they jumped up to 'race through the
dishes," as the family catchword ran. They tried to
their record every evening and it was always a lively occa-
sion, with Mother washing like lightning, and
hurrying to keep up, Sylvia running back and forth to put
things away, and Judith bothering 'round, handing out dry
dish towels, and putting away the silver. She was allowec
to handle that because she couldn't break it. Mother and
Judith worked in a swift silence, but a great deal of talking
and laughing went on between Sylvia and her father, while
Buddy, from his high-chair where he was watching th
others occasionally broke out in a loud, high crow of delight.
They did it all, even to washing and hanging out the d
towels, in eleven and a half minutes that evening, Sylvia
remembered.
. Sylvia's Home 9
Then she and Judith went to sit on the porch on the
little bench Mother had made them. They tried to see who
could catch the first glimpse of the evening star every even-
ing. Mother was putting Buddy to bed and Father was
starting the breakfast cereal cooking on the stove. After
a while he went into the living-room and began to play
something on the piano, something full of deep, swaying
chords that lifted Sylvia's heart up and down as though she
were floating on the water. The air was full of the moist
fragrance of spring. When the music held its breath for
a moment you could hear the bedtime note of sleepy birds
in the oaks. Judith, who did not care much for music,
began to get sleepy and leaned all her soft, warm weight
against her big sister. Sylvia for the first time in her life
was consciously aware of being very happy. When, some
time later, the evening star shone out through the' trees,
she drew a long breath. " See, Judith," she cried softly
and began to recite,
" Star-light, star-bright,
First star I've seen tonight "
She stopped short it was Aunt Victoria who had taught
her that poem, the last time she had come to see them, a
year ago, the time when she had brought Sylvia the pink
silk dress, the only dress-up dress with lace and ribbons
on it Sylvia had had up to that time. As suddenly as the
evening star had shone out, another radiant vision flashed
across Sylvia's mind, Aunt Victoria, magnificent in her
lacy dress, her golden hair shining under the taut silk of
her parasol, her white, soft fingers gleaming with rings,
her air of being a condescending goddess, visiting
mortals . . .
^ After a time Mother stepped out on the porch and said,
' Oh, quick, children, wish on the shooting star."
Judith had dropped asleep like a little kitten tired of play,
and Sylvia looked at her mother blankly. " I didn't see* anv
shooting star," she said.
I0 The Bent Twig
Mother was surprised. "Why, your face was pointed
right up at the spot."
" I didn't see it," repeated Sylvia. ( t
Mother fixed her keen dark eyes on Sylvia. What s
the matter?" she asked in her voice that always re-
quired an answer. Sylvia wriggled uncomfortably,
was a nature which suffers under the categorical question ;
but her mother's was one which presses them home.
" What's the matter with you? " she said again.
Sylvia turned a clouded face to her mother. ( I was
wondering why it's not nice to be idyllic."
" What? " asked her mother, quite at a loss. Sylvia was
having one of her unaccountable notions.
Sylvia went to lean on her mother's knee, looking with
troubled eyes up into the kind, attentive, uncomprehending
face. " Why, the last time Aunt Victoria was here that
long time ago when they were all out playing ball she
looked round and round at everything at your dress and
mine and the furniture you know the the uncomfort-
able way she does sometimes and she said, ' Well, Sylvia
nobody can say that your parents aren't leading you a
very idyllic life/
Mother laughed out. Her rare laugh was too sudden
and loud to be very musical, but it was immensely infectious,
like a man's hearty mirth. " I didn't hear her say it but
I can imagine that she did. Well, what of it? What if
she did ? "
For once Sylvia did not respond to another's mood. She
continued anxiously, " Well, it means something perfectly
horrid, doesn't it?"
Mother was still laughing. ' No, no, child, what in the
world makes you think that ? '
" Oh, if you'd heard Aunt Victoria say it! " cried Sylvia
with conviction. Father came out on the veranda, saying to
Mother, " Isn't that crescendo superb? ' To Sylvia he said,
as though sure of her comprehension, ' Didn't you like
the ending, dear where it sounded like the Argonauts all
striking the oars into the water at once and shouting? '
Sylvia's Home n
Sylvia had been taught above everything to tell the truth.
Moreover (perhaps a stronger reason for frankness),
Mother was there, who would know whether she told the
truth or not. " I didn't hear the end."
Father looked quickly from Sylvia's face to her mother's.
" What's the matter ? " he asked.
' Sylvia was so concerned because her Aunt Victoria had
called our life idyllic that she couldn't think of anything
else," explained Mother briefly, still smiling. Father did
not smile. He sat down by Sylvia and had her repeat to him
what she had said to her mother. When she had finished
he looked grave and said : " You mustn't mind what your
Aunt Victoria says, dear. Her ideas are very different
from ours."
Sylvia's mother cried out, " Why, a child of Sylvia's age
couldn't have taken in the significance of "
' I'm afraid," said Father, " that Sylvia's very quick to
take in such a significance."
Sylvia remained silent, uncomfortable at being discussed,
vaguely ashamed of herself, but comforted that Father had
not laughed, had understood. As happened so frequently,
it was Father who understood and Mother who did the
right thing. She suddenly made an enigmatic, emphatic ex-
clamation, " Goodness gracious!" and reaching out her long
arms, pulled Sylvia up on her lap, holding her close. The
last thought of that remembered time for Sylvia was that
Mother's arms were very strong, and her breast very soft.
The little girl laid her head down on it with a contented
sigh, watching the slow, silent procession of the stars.
CHAPTER II
THE MARSHALLS' FRIENDS
ANY one of the more sophisticated members of the faculty
of the State University at La Chance would have stated
without hesitation that the Marshalls had not the slightest
part in the social activities of the University ; but no one
could have called their life either isolated or solitary.
Sylvia, in her memories of childhood, always heard the low,
brown house ringing with music or echoing to the laughter
and talk of many voices. To begin with, a good many of
Professor Marshall's students came and went familiarly
through the plainly furnished rooms, although there was, of
course, in each year's class, a little circle of young people
with a taste for social distinctions who held aloof from the
very unselect and heterogeneous gatherings at the Marshall
house.
These young aristocrats were, for the most part, students
from the town itself, from La Chance's " best families," who
through parental tyranny or temporary financial depression
were not allowed to go East to a well-known college with
a sizable matriculation fee, but were forced to endure four
years of the promiscuous, swarming, gratuitous education
of the State University. All these august victims of family
despotism associated as little as possible with the common
rabble of their fellow-students, and accepted invitations
only from such faculty families as were recognized by the
inner circle of the town society.
The Marshalls were not among this select circle. Indeed,
no faculty family was farther from it. Every detail of
the Marshalls' life was in contradiction not only to the
standards and ideals of the exclusive " town set," but to
those of their own colleagues. They did not live in the
12
The Marshall Friends 13
right part of town. They did not live in the right sort of a
house. They did not live in the right sort of a way. And
consequently, although no family had more visitors, they
were not the right sort of visitors.
This was, of course, not apparent to the children for a
good many years. Home was home, as it is to children.
It did not seem strange to them that instead of living in
a small rented house on a closely built-up street near the
campus in the section of the city occupied by the other
faculty families, they lived in a rambling, large-roomed old
farmhouse with five acres of land around it, on the edge of
the West Side. They did not know how heartily this land-
owning stability was condemned as folly by the rent-pay-
ing professors, perching on the bough with calculated
impermanence so that they might be free to accept at any
moment the always anticipated call to a larger salary. They
did not know, not even Sylvia, for many years, that the
West Side was the quite unfashionable part of town. It
did not seem strange to them to see their father sweeping
his third-floor study with his own hands, and they were
quite used to a family routine which included housework
for every one of them. Indeed, a certain amount of this
was part of the family fun. " Come on, folks ! ' Professor
Marshall would call, rising up from the breakfast table,
" Tuesday day to clean the living-room all hands turn
to ! ' In a gay helter-skelter all hands turned to. The
lighter furniture was put out on the porch. Professor Mar-
shall, joking and laughing, donned a loose linen overall suit
to protect his " University clothes," and cleaned the bare
floor with a big oiled mop ; Mrs. Marshall, silent and swift,
looked after mirrors, windows, the tops of bookcases, things
hard for children to reach ; Sylvia flourished a duster ; and
Judith and Lawrence out on the porch, each armed with a
whisk-broom, brushed and whacked at the chairs and sofas.
There were no rugs to shake, and it took but an instant to
set things back in their places in the clean-smelling, dust-
less room.
This daily drill, coming as it did early in the morning,
14 The Bent Twig
usually escaped the observation of any but passing farmers,
who saw nothing amiss in it; but facetiously exaggerated
reports of its humors reached the campus, and a certain set
considered it very clever to lay bets as to whether the
Professor of Political Economy would pull out of his
pocket a handkerchief, or a duster, or a child's shirt, for
it was notorious that the children never had nursemaids
and that their father took as much care of them as their
mother.
The question of clothes, usually such a sorely insoluble
problem for academic people of small means, was solved by
the Marshalls in an eccentric, easy-going manner which
was considered by the other faculty families as nothing less
than treasonable to their caste. Professor Marshall, it is
true, having to make a public appearance on the campus
every day, was generally, like every other professor, un-
distinguishable from a commercial traveler. But Mrs.
Marshall, who often let a good many days pass without a
trip to town, had adopted early in her married life a sort of
home uniform, which year after year she wore in one form
or another. It varied according to the season, and accord-
ing to the occasion on which she wore it, but it had certain
unchanging characteristics. It was always very plain as
to line, and simple as to cut, having a skirt neither full nor
scant, a waist crossed in front with a white fichu, and
sleeves reaching just below the elbow with white turn-back
cuffs. As Mrs. Marshall, though not at all pretty, was a
tall, upright, powerfully built woman, with a dark, shapely
head gallantly poised on her shoulders, this garb, whether
short-skirted, of blue serge in the morning, or trailing, of
ruby-colored cashmere in the evening, was very becom-
ing to her. But there is no denying that it was always
startlingly and outrageously unfashionable. At a time when
every woman and female child in the United States had
more cloth in her sleeves than in all the rest of her dress,
the rounded muscles of Mrs. Marshall's arm, showing
through the fabric of her sleeves, smote shockingly upon
the eye of the ordinary observer, trained to the American
The Marshall Friends 15
habit of sheep-like uniformity of appearance. And at the
time when the front of every woman's waist fell far below
her belt in a copiously blousing sag, Mrs. Marshall's trim
tautness had in it something horrifying. It must be said
for her that she did not go out of her way to inflict these
concussions upon the brains of spectators, since she always
had in her closet one evening dress and one street dress,
sufficiently approximating the prevailing style to pass un-
noticed. These costumes lasted long, and they took in the
long run but little from the Marshall exchequer: for she
wore them seldom, only assuming what her husband called,
with a laugh, her " disguise " when going into town.
For a long time, until Sylvia's individuality began to
assert itself, the question of dress for the children was
solved, with similar ease, by the typical Marshall expedient,
most heartily resented by their faculty acquaintances, the
mean-spirited expedient of getting along comfortably on
inadequate means by not attempting to associate with people
to whose society their brains and cultivation gave them the
right that is to say, those families of La Chance whose
incomes were from three to five times that of college pro-
fessors. The Marshall children played, for the most part,
with the children of their neighbors, farmers, or small
merchants, and continued this humble connection after they
went into the public schools, where their parents sent them,
instead of to " the " exclusive private school of town.
Consequently the plainest, simplest clothes made them in-
distinguishable from their fellows. Sylvia and Judith also
enjoyed the unfair advantage of being quite unusually pretty
little girls (Judith being nothing less than a beauty), so that
even on the few occasions when they were invited to a
children's party in the faculty circle their burnished,
abundant hair, bright eyes, and fresh, alert faces made up
for the plainness of their white dresses and thick shoes.
It was, moreover, not only in externals like clothes that
the childhood of Sylvia and Judith and Lawrence differed
from that of the other faculty children. Their lives were
untouched by the ominous black cloud familiar to academic
1 6 The Bent Twig
households, the fear for the future, the fear which comes
of living from hand to mouth, the dread of ' being obliged
to hand in one's resignation," a truly academic periphasis
which is as dismally familiar to most faculty children as its
blunt Anglo-Saxon equivalent of " losing your job ' is to
children of plainer workpeople. Once, it is true, this pos-
sibility had loomed up large before the Marshalls, when a
high-protection legislature objected loudly to the professor's
unreverent attitude towards the tariff. But although the
Marshall children knew all about this crisis, as they knew
all about everything that happened to the family, they had
had no experience of the anxious talks and heartsick con-
sultations which would have gone on in any other faculty
household. Their father had been angry, and their mother
resolute but there was nothing new in that. There had
been, on Professor Marshall's part, belligerent, vociferous
talk about " freedom of speech," and on Mrs. Marshall's a
quiet estimate that, with her early training on a Vermont
farm, and with the high state of cultivation under which
she had brought their five acres, they could successfully go
into the truck-farming business like their neighbors. Be-
sides this, they had the resource, extraordinary among Uni-
versity families, of an account in the savings-bank on which
to fall back. They had always been able to pay their debts
and have a small surplus by the expedient of refusing to ac-
knowledge a tenth part of the social obligations under which
the rest of the faculty groaned and sweated with martyr's
pride. Perfidiously refusing to do their share in the heart-
breaking struggle to " keep up the dignity " of the academic
profession, they were not overwhelmed by the super-
human difficulties of that undertaking.
So it happened that the Marshall children heard no fore-
bodings about the future, but only heated statements of
what seemed to their father the right of a teacher to say
what he believed. Professor Marshall had gone of his own
initiative to face the legislative committee which was ''in-
vestigating ' him, had quite lost his temper (never very
securely held in leash), had told them his highly spiced
The Marshalls' Friends 17
opinion of their strictures on his teaching and of the worth
of any teacher they could find who would submit to them.
Then he had gone home and put on his overalls. This
last was rather a rhetorical flourish ; for his cosmopolitan,
urban youth had left him ineradicably ignorant of the
processes of agriculture. But like all Professor Marshall's
flourishes it was a perfectly sincere one. He was quite
cheerfully prepared to submit himself to his wife's instruc-
tion in the new way of life.
All these picturesque facts, as was inevitable in America,
had instantly reached the newspapers, which, lacking more
exciting news for the moment, took that matter up with
headlined characterizations of Professor Marshall as a
' martyr of the cause of academic freedom," and other
rather cheap phrases about " persecution ' and " America,
the land of free speech." The legislative committee,
alarmed, retreated from its position. Professor Marshall
had not " been obliged to hand in his resignation," but
quite the contrary, had become the hero of the hour and
was warmly complimented by his colleagues, who hoped to
profit by an action which none of them would have dared
to imitate. It had been an exciting drama to the Marshall
children as long as it lasted. They had looked with pride
at an abominable reproduction of their father's photograph
in the evening paper of La Chance, and they had added an
acquaintance with the manners of newspaper reporters to
their already very heterogeneous experience with callers
of every variety ; but of real anxiety the episode had brought
them nothing.
As to that same extraordinary assortment of visitors at
the Marshall house, one of the University co-eds had said
facetiously that you met there every sort of person in the
world, from spiritualists to atheists everybody except
swells. The atheist of her dictum was the distinguished and
misanthropic old Professor Kennedy, head of the Depart-
ment of Mathematics, whose ample means and high social
connections with the leading family of La Chance made his
misanthropy a source of much chagrin to the faculty ladies,
The Bent Twig
and who professed for the Marshalls, for Mrs. Marshall in
particular, a wrong-headed admiration which was inex-
plicable to the wives of the other professors. The faculty
circle saw little to admire in the Marshalls. The spiritual-
ist of the co-ed's remark was, of course, poor foolish Cousin
Parnelia, the children's pet detestation, whose rusty clothes
and incoherent speech they were prevented from ridiculing
only by stern pressure from their mother. She always wore
a black straw hat, summer and winter, always carried a
faded green shopping bag, with a supply of yellow writing
paper, and always had tucked under one arm the curious,
heart-shaped bit of wood, with the pencil attached, which
spiritualists call " planchette." The Marshall children
thought this the most laughable name imaginable, and were
not always successful in restraining the cruel giggles of
childhood when she spoke of planchette's writing such beau-
tiful messages from her long-since-dead husband and chil-
dren. Although he had a dramatic sympathy for her sorrow,
Professor Marshall's greater vivacity of temperament made
it harder for him than for his wife to keep a straight face
when Cousin Parnelia proposed to be the medium whereby
he might converse with Milton or Homer. Indeed, his
fatigued tolerance for her had been a positive distaste ever
since the day when he found her showing Sylvia, aged ten,
how to write with planchette. With an outbreak of temper,
for which he had afterwards apologized to his wife, he had
forbidden her ever to mention her damn unseemly nonsense
to his children again. He himself was a stout unbeliever in
individual immortality, teaching his children that the crav-
ing for it was one of the egotistic impulses of the unregen-
erate human heart.
Between the two extremes represented by shabby, crack-
brained Cousin Parnelia and elegant, sardonic old Professor
Kennedy, there were many other habitual visitors at the
house raw, earnest, graceless students of both sexes, touch-
ingly grateful for the home atmosphere they were allowed to
enter ; a bushy-haired Single-tax fanatic named Hecht, who
worked in the iron-foundries by day, and wrote political
The Marshalls' Friends 19
pamphlets by night; Miss Lindstrom, the elderly Swedish
woman laboring among the poor negroes of Flytown; a
constant sprinkling from the Scandinavian- Americans whose
well-kept truck-farms filled the region near the Marshall
home ; one-armed Mr. Howell, the editor of a luridly radical
Socialist weekly paper, whom Judith called in private the
'old puss-cat" on account of his soft, rather weak voice
and mild, ingratiating ways. Yes, the co-ed had been right,
one met at the Marshalls' every variety of person except the
exclusive.
These habitues of the house came and went with the
greatest familiarity. As they all knew there was no servant
to answer the doorbell, they seldom bothered to ring, but
opened the door, stepped into the hall, hung up their
wraps on the long line of hooks, and went into the big,
low-ceilinged living-room. If nobody was there, they
usually took a book from one of the shelves lining the
room and sat down before the fire to wait. Sometimes
they stayed to the next meal and helped wash up the dishes
afterwards. Sometimes they had a satisfactory visit with
each other, two or three callers happening to meet together
before the fire, and went away without having seen any of
the Marshalls. Informality could go no further.
The only occurrence in the Marshall life remotely ap-
proaching the regularity and formality of a real social event
was the weekly meeting of the string quartet which Pro-
fessor Marshall had founded soon after his arrival in La
Chance.
It was on Sunday evening that the quartet met regularly
for their seance. Old Reinhardt, the violin teacher, was
first violin and leader; Mr. Bauermeister (in everyday life
a well-to-do wholesale plumber) was second violin; Pro-
fessor Marshall played the viola, and old Professor Kennedy
bent his^fine, melancholy face over the 'cello. Any one who
chose might go to the Marshall house on Sunday evenings,
on condition that he should not talk during the music, and
did not expect any attention.
The music began at seven promptly and ended at ten. A
2O The Bent Twig
little before that time, Mrs. Marshall, followed by any one
who felt like helping, went out into the kitchen and made
hot coffee and sandwiches, and when the last chord had
stopped vibrating, the company adjourned into the dining-
room and partook of this simple fare. During the evening
no talk was allowed except the occasional wranglings of the
musicians over tempo and shading, but afterwards, every
one's tongue, chastened by the long silence, was loosened into
loud and cheerful loquacity. Professor Marshall, sitting at
the head of the table, talked faster and louder than any one
else, throwing the ball to his especial favorite, brilliant
young Professor Saunders, who tossed it back with a sure-
ness and felicity of phrase which he had learned nowhere
but in this give-and-take. Mrs. Marshall poured the coffee,
saw that every one was served with sandwiches, and occa-
sionally when the talk, running over every known topic,
grew too noisy, or the discussion too hot, cast in one of the
pregnant and occasionally caustic remarks of which she held
the secret. They were never brilliant, Mrs. Marshall's re-
marks but they were apt to have a dry humor, and almost
always when she had said her brief say, there loomed out of
the rainbow mist of her husband's flashing, controversial
talk the outlines of the true proportions of the case.
After the homely feast was eaten, each guest rose and
carried his own cup and saucer and plate into the kitchen in
a gay procession, and since it was well known that, for the
most part, the Marshalls " did their own work," several of
the younger ones helped wash the dishes, while the mu-
sicians put away the music-racks and music,, and the rest
put on their wraps. Then Professor Marshall stood at the
door holding up a lamp while the company trooped down
the long front walk to the gate in the hedge, and turned
along the country road to the cross-roads where the big
Interurban cars whizzed by.
All this happened with that unbroken continuity which
was the characteristic of the Marshall life, most marking
them as different from the other faculty families. Week
^after week, and month after month, this program was fol-
The Marshall Friends 21
lowed with little variation, except for the music which was
played, and the slight picturesque uncertainty as to whether
old Reinhardt would or would not arrive mildly under
the influence of long Sunday imbibings. Not that this
factor interfered at all with the music. One of Sylvia's most
vivid childhood recollections was the dramatic contrast be-
tween old Reinhardt with, and without, his violin. Partly
from age, and partly from a too convivial life, the old,
heavily veined hands trembled so that he could scarcely
unbutton his overcoat, or handle his cup of hot coffee. His
head shook too, and his kind, rheumy eyes, in their endeavor
to focus themselves, seemed to flicker back and forth in
their sockets. The child used to watch him, fascinated, as
he fumbled endlessly at the fastenings of his violin-case, and
put back the top with uncertain fingers. She was waiting
for the thrilling moment when he should tuck the instrument
away under his pendulous double chin and draw his bow
across the strings in the long sonorous singing chord, which
ran up and down Sylvia's back like forked lightning.
This was while all the others were tuning and scraping
and tugging at their pegs, a pleasant bustle of discord which
became so much a part of Sylvia's brain that she could
never in after years hear the strumming and sawing of an
orchestra preparing to play, without seeing the big living-
room of her father's house, with its low whitewashed ceil-
ing, its bare, dully shining floor, its walls lined with books,
its shabby, comfortable furniture, the whole quickened by
the Promethean glow from the blaze in the grate and
glorified by the chastened passion of the singing strings.
The two Anglo-Saxon professors were but able amateurs
of their instruments. Bauermeister, huge, red, and im-
passive, was by virtue of his blood, a lifelong training, and
a musical ancestry, considerably more than an amateur;
and old Reinhardt was the master of them all. His was
a history which would have been tragic if it had happened
to any but Reinhardt, who cared for nothing but an easy
life, beer, and the divine tones which he alone could draw
from his violin. He had offered, fifty years ago in Vienna,
22 The Bent Twig
the most brilliant promise of a most brilliant career, a
promise which had come to naught because of his monstrous
lack of ambition, and his endless yielding to circumstance,
which had finally, by a series of inconceivable migrations,
landed him in the German colony of La Chance, impecu-
nious and obscure and invincibly convinced that he had
everything worth having in life. " Of vat use? " he would
say, even now, when asked to play in public " de moosic
i st all and dat is eben so goodt here mit friends." Or,
"Dere goes a t'ousand peoples to a goncert maybe fife
from dat t'ousand lofes de moosic let dose fife gome to
me and I play dem all day for noding!" or again, more
iconoclastically still, when told of golden harvests to be
reaped, " And for vat den ? I can't play on more dan yon
fioleen at a time is it? I got a good one now. And if I
drink more beer dan now, I might make myself seeck!'
This with a prodigiously sly wink of one heavy eyelid.
He gave enough music lessons to pay his small expenses,
although after one or two stormy passages in which he
treated with outrageous and unjustifiable violence the
dawdling pupils coming from well-to-do families, he made it
a rule to take no pupils whose parents employed a servant,
and confined himself to children of the poorer classes,
among whom he kept up a small orchestra which played
together twice a week and never gave any concerts. And
almost since the arrival of the Marshalls in La Chance and
his unceremonious entrance into the house as, walking
across the fields on a Sunday afternoon, he had heard
Professor Marshall playing the Doric Toccata on the newly
installed piano, he had spent his every Sunday evening in
their big living-room.
He had seen the children appear and grow older, and
adored them with Teutonic sentimentality, especially Sylvia,
whom he called his " Moonbeam brincess," his ' little
ellfen fairy," and whom, when she was still tiny, he used to
take up on his greasy old knees and, resting his violin on her
head, play his wildest fantasies, that she might feel how it
" talked to her bones."
The Marshalls' Friends 23
In early childhood Sylvia was so used to him that, like
the others of her circle, she accepted, indeed hardly noticed,
his somewhat startling eccentricities, his dirty linen, his
face and hands to match, his shapeless garments hanging
loosely over the flabby corpulence of his uncomely old body
his beery breath. To her, old Reinhardt was but the queer
external symbol of a never-failing enchantment. Through
the pleasant harmonious give-and-take of the other instru-
ments, the voice of his violin vibrated with the throbbing
passion of a living thing. His dirty old hand might shake
and quaver, but once the neck of the fiddle rested between
thumb and forefinger, the seraph who made his odd abiding-
place in old Reinhardt's soul sang out in swelling tones and
spoke of heavenly things, and of the Paradise where we
might live, if we were but willing.
Even when they were quite little children, Sylvia and
Judith, and later, Lawrence, were allowed to sit up on Sun-
day evenings to listen to the music. Judith nearly always
slept steadily ; and not infrequently after a long day of out-
door fun, stupefied with fresh air and exercise, Lawrence,
and Sylvia too, could not keep their eyes open, and dozed
and woke and dozed again, coiled like so many little kittens
among the cushions of the big divan. In all the intensely
enjoyed personal pleasures of her later youth, and these
were many for Sylvia, she was never to know a more utter
sweetness than thus to fall asleep, the music a far-off mur-
mur in her ears, and to wake again to the restrained, clari-
fied ecstasy of the four concerted voices.
And yet it was in connection with this very quartet that
she had her first shocked vision of how her home-life
appeared to other people. She once chanced, when she was
about eight years old, to go with her father on a Saturday
to his office at the University, where he had forgotten some
papers necessary for his seminar. There, sitting on the
front steps of the Main Building, waiting for her father,
she had encountered the wife of the professor of European
History with her beautiful young-lady sister from New
York and her two daughters, exquisite little girls in white
24 The Bent Twig
serge, whose tailored, immaculate perfection made Sylvia's
heart' heavy with a sense of the plebeian inelegance of her
own Saturday-morning play-clothes. Mrs. Hubert, obeying
an impulse of curiosity, stopped to speak to the littk
Marshall girl, about whose queer upbringing there were so
many stories current, and was struck with the decorative
possibilities of the pretty child, apparent to her practised
eye. As she made the kindly intended, vague remarks cus-
tomarily served out to unknown children, she was thinking :
" How can any woman with a vestige of a woman's in-
stinct dress that lovely child in ready-made, commonplace,
dark-colored clothes ? She would repay any amount of care
and thought." " So you take music-lessons too, besides
your school?" she asked mechanically. She explained to
her sister, a stranger in La Chance: " Music is one of the
things I starve for, out here! We never hear it unless
we go clear to Chicago and such prices! Here, there is
simply no musical feeling!' She glanced again at Sylvia,
who was now answering her questions, fluttered with pleas-
ure at having the beautiful lady speak to her. The beauti-
ful lady had but an inattentive ear for Sylvia's statement
that, yes, lately Father had begun to give her lessons on
the piano. With the smoothly working imagination coming
from a lifetime of devotion to the subject, Mrs. Hubert
was stripping off Sylvia's trite little blue coat and unin-
teresting dark hat, and was arraying her in scarlet serge
with a green velvet collar "with those eyes and that
coloring she could carry off striking color combinations
and a big white felt hat with a soft pompon of silk on one
side no, a long, stiff, scarlet quill would suit her style
better. Then, with white stockings and shoes and gloves
or perhaps pearl-gray would be better. Yes, with low-cut
suede shoes, fastening with two big smoked-pearl buttons."
She looked down with pitying eyes at Sylvia's sturdy, heavy-
soled shoes which could not conceal the slender, shapely
feet within them " but, what on earth was the child say-
ing? "
" every Sunday evening it's beautiful, and now I'm
The Marshall Friends -
getting so big I can help some. I can turn over the pages
for them in hard places, and when old Mr. Reinhardt has
had too much to drink and his hands tremble, he lets me un-
fasten his violin-case and tighten up his bow and "
Mrs. Hubert cried out, " Your parents don't let you have
anything to do with that old, drunken Reinhardt ! "
Sylvia was smitten into silence by the other's horrified
tone and hung her head miserably, only murmuring, after
a pause, in damning extenuation, " He's never so very
drunk ! '
; Well, upon my word ! " exclaimed Mrs. Hubert, in a
widely spaced, emphatic phrase of condemnation. To her
sister she added, "It's really not exaggeration then, what
one hears about their home life." One of her daughters,
a child about Sylvia's age, turned a candid, blank little face
up to hers, ' Mother, what is a drunken reinhardt?" she
asked in a thin little pipe.
Mrs. Hubert frowned, shook her head, and said in a
tone of dark mystery : " Never mind, darling, don't think
about it. It's something that nice little girls shouldn't know
anything about. Come, Margery; come, Eleanor." She
took their hands and began to draw them away without
another look at Sylvia, who remained behind, drooping,
ostracised, pierced momentarily with her first blighting mis-
giving about the order of things she had always known.
CHAPTER III
BROTHER AND SISTER
A FULLER initiation into the kaleidoscopic divergencies of
adult standards was given Sylvia during the visits of her
Aunt Victoria. These visits were angelic in their extreme
rarity, and for Sylvia were always a mixture of the beatific
and the distressing. Only to look at Aunt Victoria was a
bright revelation of elegance and grace. And yet the talk
around table and hearth on the two or three occasions when
the beautiful young widow honored their roof with a sojourn
was hard on Sylvia's sensitive nerves.
It was not merely that a good deal of what was said was
unintelligible. The Marshall children were quite accus-
tomed to incessant conversations between their elders of
which they could gather but the vaguest glimmering. They
played about, busy in their own absorbing occupations, lend-
ing an absent but not wholly unattentive ear to the gabble
of their elders, full of odd and ridiculous-sounding words
like Single-tax, and contrapuntal development, and root-
propagation, and Benthamism, and Byzantine, and nitroge-
nous fertilizers, and Alexandrine, and chiaroscuro, and
surviving archaisms, and diminishing utility for to keep
up such a flood-tide of talk as streamed through the Mar-
shall house required contributions from many diverging
rivers. Sylvia was entirely used to this phenomenon and,
although it occasionally annoyed her that good attention
was wasted on projects so much less vital than those of the
children, she bore it no grudge. But on the rare occasions
when Aunt Victoria was with them, there was a different
and ominous note to the talk which made Sylvia acutely
uneasy, although she was quite unable to follow what was
said. This uncomfortable note did not at all come from
mere difference of opinion, for that too was a familiar ele-
26
Brother and Sister 27
ment in Sylvia's world. Indeed, it seemed to her that every-
body who came to the Marshall house disagreed with every-
body else about everything. The young men, students or
younger professors, engaged in perpetual discussions, carried
on in acrimonious tones which nevertheless seemed not in
the least to impair the good feeling between them. When
there was nobody else there for Father to disagree with,
he disagreed with Mother, occasionally, to his great delight,
rousing her from her customary self-contained economy of
words to a heat as voluble as his own. Often as the two
moved briskly about, preparing a meal together, they
shouted out from the dining-room to the kitchen a dis-
cussion on some unintelligible topic such as the ' ' anachro-
nism of the competitive system," so loudly voiced and so
energetically pursued that when they came to sit down to
table, they would be quite red-cheeked and stirred-up, and
ate their dinners with as vigorous an appetite as though
they had been pursuing each other on foot instead of
verbally.
The older habitues of the house were no more peaceable
and were equally given to what seemed to childish listeners
endless disputes about matters of no importance. Professor
La Rue's white mustache and pointed beard quivered with
the intensity of his scorn for the modern school of poetry,
and Madame La Rue, who might be supposed to be insulated
by the vast bulk of her rosy flesh from the currents of
passionate conviction flashing through the Marshall house,
had fixed ideas on the Franco-Prussian War, on the relative
values of American and French bed-making, and the correct
method of bringing up girls (she was childless), which
needed only to be remotely stirred to burst into showers of
fiery sparks. And old Professor Kennedy was nothing less
than abusive when started on an altercation about one of
the topics vital to him, such as the ignoble idiocy of the
leisure-class ideal, or the generally contemptible nature of
modern society. No, it was not mere difference of opinion
which so charged the air during Aunt Victoria's rare visits
with menacing electricity.
28 The Bent Twig
As a matter of fact, if she did differ in opinion from
her brother and his wife, the children would never have
been able to guess it from the invariably restrained tones of
her fluent and agreeable speech, so different from the out-
spoken virulence with which people in that house were
accustomed to defend their ideas. But, indefinable though
it was to Sylvia's undeveloped powers of analysis, she felt
that the advent of her father's beautiful and gracious sister
was like a drop of transparent but bitter medicine in a glass
of clear water. There was no outward sign of change, but
everything was tinctured by it. Especially was her father
changed from his usual brilliantly effervescent self. In
answer to the most harmless remark of Aunt Victoria, he
might reply with a sudden grim sneering note in his voice
which made Sylvia look up at him half-afraid. If Aunt
Victoria noticed this sardonic accent, she never paid it the
tribute of a break in the smooth surface of her own con-
sistent good-will, rebuking her brother's prickly hostility
only by the most indulgent tolerance of his queer ways, a
tolerance which never had on Professor Marshall's sensi-
bilities the soothing effect which might have seemed its
natural result.
The visit which Aunt Victoria paid them when Sylvia was
ten years old was more peaceable than the one before it.
Perhaps the interval of five years between the two had
mellowed the relationship ; or more probably the friction
was diminished because Aunt Victoria arranged matters so
that she was less constantly in the house than usual. On
that occasion, in addition to the maid who always accom-
panied her, she brought her little stepson and his tutor, and
with characteristic thoughtfulness refused to impose this
considerable train of attendants on a household so primi-
tively organized as that of the Marshalls. They all spent
the fortnight of their stay at the main hotel of the town,
a large new edifice, the conspicuous costliness of which
was one of the most recent sources of civic pride in La
Chance. Here in a suite of four much-decorated rooms,
which seemed unutterably elegant to Sylvia, the travelers
Brother and Sister 29
slept, and ate most of their meals, making their trips out
to the Marshall house in a small, neat, open carriage, which,
although engaged at a livery-stable by Mrs. Marshall-Smith
for the period of her stay, was not to be distinguished
from a privately owned equipage.
It can be imagined what an event in the pre-eminently
stationary life of the Marshall children was this fortnight.
To Judith and Lawrence, eight and four respectively, Aunt
Victoria's charms and amenities were non-existent. She was
for Judith as negligible as all other grown-ups, save the few
who had good sense enough to play games and go in
swimming. Judith's interest centered in the new boy, whom
the Marshalls now saw for the first time, and who was in
every way a specimen novel in their limited experience of
children. During their first encounter, the well-groomed,
white-linen-clad boy with his preternaturally clean face,
his light-brown hair brushed till it shone like lacquer, his
polished nails and his adult appendage of a tutor, aroused
a contempt in Judith's mind which was only equaled by
her astonishment. On that occasion he sat upright in a
chair between his stepmother and his tutor, looking intently
out of very bright blue eyes at the two gipsy-brown little
girls in their single-garment linen play-clothes, swinging
their tanned bare legs and feet from the railing of the porch.
They returned this inspection in silence on Sylvia's part
with the keen and welcoming interest she always felt in new
people who were well-dressed and physically attractive, but
as for Judith with a frankly hostile curiosity, as at some
strange and quite unattractive new animal.
The next morning, a still, oppressive day of brazen heat,
it was suggested that the children take their guest off to visit
some of their own favorite haunts to ' get acquainted."
This process began somewhat violently by the instant halt
of Arnold as soon as they were out of sight of the house.
" I'm going to take off these damn socks and shoes," he
announced, sitting down in the edge of a flower-bed.
" Oh, don't! You'll get your clean suit all dirty! " cried
Sylvia, springing forward to lift him out of the well-tilled
30 The Bent Twig
black loam. Arnold thrust her hand away and made a
visible effort to increase his specific gravity. " I hope to
the Lord I do get it dirty ! " he said bitterly.
" Isn't it your best ? " asked Sylvia, aghast. " Have you
another?' "I haven't anything but!' said the boy sav-
agely. : There's a whole trunk full of them ! ' He was
fumbling with a rough clumsiness at the lacing of his shoes,
but made no progress in loosening them, and now began
kicking at the grass. " I don't know how to get them off ! '
he cried, his voice breaking nervously. Judith was down on
her knees, inspecting with a competent curiosity the fasten-
ings, which were of a new variety.
" It's easy! " she said. " You just lift this little catch up
and turn it back, and that lets you get at the knot." As she
spoke, she acted, her rough brown little fingers tugging at
the silken laces. " How'd you ever get it fastened," she
inquired, 'if you don't know how to wwfasten it?'
" Oh, Pauline puts my shoes on for me," explained Ar-
nold. ' She dresses and undresses me."
Judith stopped and looked up at him. " Who's Pauline ? '
she asked, disapproving astonishment in her accent.
" Madrina's maid."
Judith pursued him further with her little black look of
scorn. " Who's Madrina ? "
1 Why you know your Aunt Victoria my step-
mother she married my father when I was a little baby
she doesn't want me to call her ' mother ' so I call her
' Madrina/ That's Italian for "
Judith had no interest in this phenomenon and no opinion
about it. She recalled the conversation to the point at
issue with her usual ruthless directness. ' And you
wouldn't know how to undress yourself if somebody didn't
help you ! ' She went on loosening the laces in a con-
temptuous silence, during which the boy glowered resent-
fully at the back of her shining black hair. Sylvia essayed
a soothing remark about what pretty shoes he had, but with
small success. Already the excursion was beginning to take
on the color of its ending, an encounter between the per-
Brother and Sister 31
sonalities of Judith and Arnold, with Sylvia and Lawrence
left out. When the shoes finally came off, they revealed
white silk half-hose, which, discarded in their turn, showed
a pair of startlingly pale feet, on which the new boy now
essayed wincingly to walk. " Ouch ! Ouch ! OUCH ! ' he
cried, holding up first one and then the other from contact
with the hot sharp-edged pebbles of the path, " How do you
do it ? "
" Oh, it always hurts when you begin in the spring," said
Judith carelessly. " You have to get used to it. How old
are you ? '
" Ten, last May."
" Buddy here began going barefoot last summer and he's
only four/' she stated briefly, proceeding towards the barn
and chicken-house.
After that remark the new boy walked forward with no
more articulate complaints, though his face was drawn and
he bit his lips. He was shown the chicken-yard full of
gawky, half-grown chickens shedding their down and
growing their feathers and forgot his feet in the fascina-
tion of scattering grain to them and watching their fluttering
scrambles. He was shown the rabbit-house and allowed to
take one of the limp, unresponsive little bunches of fur in
his arms, and feed a lettuce-leaf into its twitching pink
mouth. He was shown the house-in-the-maple-tree, a
rough floor fixed between two large branches, with a canvas
roof over it, ensconced in which retreat his eyes shone with
happy excitement. He was evidently about to make some
comment on it, but glanced at Judith's dark handsome
little face, unsmiling and suspicious, and remained silent.
He tried the same policy when being shown the children's
own garden, but Judith tracked him out of this attempt at
self-protection with some direct and searching questions,
discovering in him such ignorance of the broadest division-
lines of the vegetable kingdom that she gave herself up to
open scorn, vainly frowned down by the more naturally
civilized Sylvia, who was by no means enjoying herself.
The new boy was not in the least what he had looked.
32 The Bent Twig
She longed to return to the contemplation of Aunt Vic-
toria's perfections. Lawrence was, as usual, deep in an
unreal world of his own, where he carried forth some
enterprise which had nothing to do with any one about
him. He was frowning and waving his arms, and making
stabbing gestures with his fingers, and paid no atten-
tion to the conversation between Judith and the new
boy.
' What can you do ? What do you know ? ' ' asked the
former at last.
' I can ride horseback," said Arnold defiantly.
Judith put him to the test at once, leading the way to
the stall which was the abode of the little pinto broncho,
left them, she explained, as a trust by one of Father's
students from the Far West, who was now graduated and
a civil engineer in Chicago, where it cost too much to keep
a horse. Arnold emerged from this encounter with the
pony with but little more credit than he had earned in the
garden, showing an ineptness about equine ways which led
Judith through an unsparing cross-examination to the in-
formation that the boy's experience of handling a horse
consisted in being ready in a riding-costume at a certain
hour every afternoon, and mounting a well-broken little
pony, all saddled and bridled, which was " brought round "
to the porte-cochere.
: What's a porte-cochere ? " she asked, with her inimitable
air of despising it, whatever it might turn out to be.
Arnold stared with an attempt to copy her own frank
scorn for another's ignorance. " Huh ! Don't you even
know that much? It's the big porch without any floor to
it, where carriages drive up so you can get in and out
without getting wet if it rains. Every house that's good
for anything has one."
So far from being impressed or put down, Judith took her
stand as usual on the offensive. " 'Fore I'd be afraid of a
little rain ! ' she said severely, an answer which caused
Arnold to seem disconcerted, and again to look at her hard
with the startled expression of arrested attention which
Brother and Sister 33
from the first her remarks and strictures seemed to cause
in him.
They took the pinto out. Judith rode him bareback at
a gallop down to the swimming pool and dived from his
back into the yellow water shimmering hotly in the sun.
This feat stung Arnold into a final fury. Without an
instant's pause he sprang in after her. As he came to the
top, swimming strongly with a lusty, regular stroke, and
rapidly overhauled the puffing Judith, his face shone bril-
liantly with relief. He was another child. The petulant
boy of a few moments before had vanished. " Beat you to
the springboard ! " he sputtered joyously, swimming low and
spitting water as he slid easily through it at twice Judith's
speed. She set her teeth and drove her tough little body
with a fierce concentration of all her forces, but Arnold
was sitting on the springboard, dangling his red and swollen
feet when she arrived.
She clambered out and sat down beside him, silent for an
instant. Then she said with a detached air, " You can swim
better than any boy I ever saw."
Arnold's open, blond face flushed scarlet at this state-
ment. He looked at the dripping little brown rat beside
him, and returned impulsively, " I'd rather play with you
than any girl I ever saw."
They were immediately reduced to an awkward silence
by these two unpremeditated superlatives. Judith found
nothing to say beyond a " huh " in an uncertain accent, and
they turned with relief to alarums and excursions from
the forgotten and abandoned Sylvia and Lawrence. Sylvia
was forcibly restraining her little brother from following
Judith into the water. " You mustn't, Buddy ! You know
we aren't allowed to go in till an hour after eating and
you only had your breakfast a little while ago ! " She led
him away bellowing.
Arnold, surprised, asked Judith, " 'Cept for that, are
you allowed to go in whenever you want ? "
' Sure ! We're not to stay in more than ten minutes at a
time, and then get out and run around for half an hour in
34 The Bent Twig
the sun. There's a clock under a little roof-thing, nailed
up to a tree over there, so's we can tell."
" And don't you get what-for, if you go in with all your
clothes on this way ? '
" I haven't any clothes on but my rompers," said Judith.
" They're just the same as a bathing suit." She snatched
back her prerogative of asking questions. ' Where did you
learn to swim so ? '
" At the seashore ! I get taken there a month every
summer. It's the most fun of any of the places I get taken.
I've had lessons there from the professor of swimming ever
since I was six. Madrina doesn't know what to do with
me but have me take lessons. I like the swimming ones
the best. I hate dancing and going to museums."
" What else can you do ? " asked Judith with a noticeable
abatement of her previous disesteem.
Arnold hesitated, his own self-confidence as evidently
dashed. ' Well I can fence a little and talk French ;
we are in Paris winters, you know. We don't stay in Lyd-
ford for the winter. Nobody does."
'' Everybody goes away ? ' queried Judith. c What a
funny town ! '
" Oh, except the people who live there the Ver-
monters."
Judith was more and more at a loss. " Don't you live
there ? "
' No, we don't live anywhere. We just stay places for
a while. Nobody that we know lives anywhere." He in-
terrupted a further question from the astonished Judith to
ask, " How'd you happen to have such a dandy swimming-
pool out of such a little brook? '
Judith, switched off upon a topic of recent and absorbing
interest, was diverted from investigation into the odd ways
of people who lived nowhere. ' Isn't it great ! ' she said
ardently. ' It's new this summer that's why I don't swim
so very well yet. Why, it was this way. The creek ran
through a corner of our land, and a lot of Father's students
that are engineers or something, wanted to do something
Brother and Sister 35
for Father when they graduated lots of students do, you
know and everybody said the creek didn't have water
enough and they bet each other it did, and after Commence-
ment we had a kind of camp for a week tents and things
all round here and Mother cooked for them camp fires
oh, lots of fun! and they let us children tag around as
much as we pleased and they and Father dug, and fixed
concrete say, did you ever get let to stir up concrete ? It's
great ! '
Seeing in the boy's face a blankness as great as her own
during his chance revelations of life on another planet, she
exclaimed, ' Here, come on, down to the other end, and
I'll show you how they made the dam and all they began
over there with ' The two pattered along the edge
hand-in-hand, talking incessantly on a common topic at last,
interrupting each other, squatting down, peering into the
water, pointing, discussing, arguing, squeezing the deliciously
soft mud up and down between their toes, their heads close
together they might for the moment have been brother
and sister who had grown up together.
They were interrupted by voices, and turning flushed and
candid faces of animation towards the path, beheld Aunt
Victoria, wonderful and queen-like in a white dress, a para-
sol, like a great rose, over her stately blond head, attended
by Sylvia adoring; Mrs. Marshall quiet and observant; Mr.
Rollins, the tutor, thin, agitated, and unhappily responsible ;
and Professor Marshall smiling delightedly at the children.
"Why, Arnold Smith!" cried his tutor, too much over-
come by the situation to express himself more forcibly than
by a repetition of the boy's name. " Why, Arnold! Come
here ! "
The cloud descended upon the boy's face. " I will not ! "
he said insolently.
' But we were just looking for you to start back to the
hotel," argued Mr. Rollins.
' I don't care if you were ! ' said the boy in a sullen
accent.
Sylvia and Judith looked on in amazement at this scene
36 The Bent Twig
of insubordination, as new to them as all the rest of the
boy's actions. He was standing still now, submitting in a
gloomy silence to the various comments on his appearance,
which was incredibly different from that with which he had
started on his travels. The starch remaining in a few places
in his suit, now partly dried in the hot sun, caused the
linen to stand out grotesquely in peaks and mud-streaked
humps, his hair, still wet, hung in wisps about his very
dirty face, his bare, red feet and legs protruded from
shapeless knickerbockers. His stepmother looked at him
with her usual good-natured amused gaze. ' It is custom-
ary, before going in swimming, isn't it, Arnold, to take
your watch out of your pocket and put your cuff-links in
a safe-place?" she suggested casually.
' Good Heavens ! His watch ! " cried Mr. Rollins, clutch-
ing at his own sandy hair.
Professor Marshall clapped the boy encouragingly on the
shoulder. " Well, sir, you look more like a human being,"
he said heartily, addressing himself, with defiance in his
tone, to his sister.
She replied with a smile, ' That rather depends, doesn't
it, Elliott, upon one's idea of what constitutes a human
being?"
Something in her sweet voice roused Judith to an ugly
wrath. She came forward and took her place protectingly
beside her new playmate, scowling at her aunt. " We were
having a lovely time ! " she said challengingly.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked down at the grotesque little
figure and touched the brown cheek indulgently with her
forefinger. ; That too rather depends upon one's definition
of a lovely time," she replied, turning away, leaving with
the indifference of long practice the unfortunate Mr. Rol-
lins to the task of converting Arnold into a product possible
to transport through the streets of a civilized town.
Before they went away that day, Arnold managed to seek
Judith out alone, and with shamefaced clumsiness to slip his
knife, quite new and three-bladed, into her hand. She
looked at it uncomprehendingly. " For you to keep," he
Brother and Sister 37
said, flushing again, and looking hard into her dark eyes,
which in return lightened suddenly from their usual rather
somber seriousness into a smile, a real smile. Judith's
smiles were far from frequent, but the recipient of one did
not forget it.
CHAPTER IV
EVERY ONE'S OPINION OF EVERY ONE ELSE
IN this way, almost from the first, several distinct lines
of cleavage were established in the family party during
the next fortnight. Arnold imperiously demanded a com-
plete vacation from " lessons," and when, it was indolently
granted, he spent it incessantly with Judith, the two being
always out of doors and usually joyously concocting what
in any but the easy-going, rustic plainness of the Marshall
mode of life would have been called mischief. Mrs. Mar-
shall, aided by the others in turn, toiled vigorously between
the long rows of vegetables and a little open shack near by,
where, on a superannuated but still serviceable cook-stove,
she " put up," for winter use, an endless supply of the
golden abundance which, Ceres-like, she poured out every
year from the Horn of Plenty of her garden. Sylvia, in
a state of hypnotized enchantment, dogged her Aunt Vic-
toria's graceful footsteps and still more graceful, leisurely
halts ; Lawrence bustled about on his own mysterious busi-
ness in a solitary and apparently exciting world of his
own which was anywhere but in La Chance ; and Professor
Marshall, in the intervals of committee work at the Uni-
versity, now about to open, alternated between helping his
wife, playing a great deal of very noisy and very brilliant
music on the piano, and conversing in an unpleasant voice
with his sister.
Mr. Rollins, for whom, naturally, Arnold's revolt meant
unwonted freedom, was for the most part invisible, " seeing
the sights of La Chance, I suppose," conjectured Aunt Vic-
toria indifferently, in her deliciously modulated voice, when
asked what had become of the sandy-haired tutor. And
because, in the intense retirement and rustication of this
38
Every One's Opinion of Every One Else 39
period, Mrs. Marshall-Smith needed little attention paid
to her toilets, Pauline also was apparently enjoying an un-
usual vacation. A short time after making the conjecture
about her stepson's tutor, Aunt Victoria had added the sug-
gestion, level-browed, and serene as always, ' Perhaps he
and Pauline are seeing the sights together."
Sylvia, curled on a little stool at her aunt's feet, turned
an artless, inquiring face up to her. " What are the ' sights '
of La Chance, Auntie?" she asked.
Her father, who was sitting at the piano, his long fingers
raised as though about to play, whirled about and cut in
quickly with an unintelligible answer, Your Aunt Vic-
toria refers to non-existent phenomena, my dear, in order
to bring home to us the uncouth provinciality in which we
live."
Aunt Victoria, leaning back, exquisitely passive, in one
of the big, shabby arm-chairs, raised a protesting hand.
" My dear Elliott, you don't do your chosen abiding-place
justice. There is the new Court-House. Nobody can deny
'that that is a sight. I spent a long time the other day
eontemplating it. That and the Masonic Building are a
pair of sights. I conceive Rollins, who professes to be
interested in architecture, as constantly vibrating between
the two."
To which handsome tribute to La Chance's high-lights,
Professor Marshall returned with bitterness, "Good Lord,
Vic, why do you come, then ? '
She answered pleasantly, " I might ask in my turn why
you stay." She went on, " I might also remind you that
you and your children are the only human ties I have."
She slipped a soft arm about Sylvia as she spoke, and
turned the vivid, flower-like little face to be kissed. When
Aunt Victoria kissed her, Sylvia always felt that she had,
like Diana in the story-book, stooped radiant from a shin-
ing cloud.
There was a pause in the conversation. Professor Mar-
shall faced the piano again and precipitated himself head-
long into the diabolic accelerandos of " The Hall of the
40 The Bent Twig
Mountain-King." His sister listened with extreme and
admiring appreciation of his talent. ' Upon my word,
Elliott," she said heartily, '' under the circumstances it's
incredible, but it's true your touch positively improves."
He stopped short, and addressed the air above the piano
with passionate conviction. ' I stay because, thanks to my
wife, I've savored here fourteen years of more complete
reconciliation with life I've been vouchsafed more use-
fulness I've discovered more substantial reasons for exist-
ing than I ever dreamed possible in the old life than any
one in that world can conceive ! '
Aunt Victoria looked down at her beautiful hands clasped
in her lap. Yes, quite so," she breathed. ' Any one who
knows you well must agree that whatever you are, or do,
or find, nowadays, is certainly ' thanks to your wife.'
Her brother flashed a furious look at her, and was
about to speak, but catching sight of Sylvia's troubled little
face turned to him anxiously, gave only an impatient shake
to his ruddy head now graying slightly. A little later he
said : ' Oh, we don't speak the same language any more,
Victoria. I couldn't make you understand you don't know
how should you? You can't conceive how, when one is
really living, nothing of all that matters. What does archi-
tecture matter, for instance?' 1
' Some of it matters very little indeed," concurred his
sister blandly.
This stirred him to an ungracious laugh. ' As for keep-
ing up only human ties, isn't a fortnight once every five
years rather slim rations ? '
' Ah, there are difficulties the Masonic Building "
murmured Aunt Victoria, apparently at random. But
then, it seemed to Sylvia that they were always speaking
at random. For all she could see, neither of them ever
answered what the other had said.
The best times were when she and Aunt Victoria were
all alone together or with only the silent, swift-fingered,
Pauline in attendance during the wonderful processes of
dressing or undressing her mistress. These occasions
Every One's Opinion of Every One Else 41
seemed to please Aunt Victoria best also. She showed her-
self then so winning and gracious and altogether magical
to the little girl that Sylvia forgot the uncomfortableness
which always happened when her aunt and her father were
together. As they came to be on more intimate terms,
Sylvia was told a great many details about Aunt Victoria's
present and past life, in the form of stories, especially
about that early part of it which had been spent with her
brother. Mrs, Marshall-Smith took pains to talk to Sylvia
about her father as he had been when he was a brilliant
dashing youth in Paris at school, or as the acknowledged
social leader of his class in the famous Eastern college.
You see, Sylvia," she explained, " having no father or
mother or any near relatives, we saw more of each other
than a good many brothers and sisters do. We had nobody
else except old Cousin Ellen, who kept house for us in
the summers in Lydford and traveled around with us."
Lydford was another topic on which, although it was already
very familiar to her from her mother's reminiscences of
her childhood in Vermont, Aunt Victoria shed much light
for Sylvia. Aunt Victoria's Lydford was so different from
Mother's, it seemed scarcely possible they could be the same
place. Mother's talk was all about the mountains, the
sunny upland pastures, rocky and steep, such a contrast to
the rich, level stretches of country about La Chance ; about
the excursions through these slopes of the mountains every
afternoon, accompanied by a marvelously intelligent collie
dog, who helped find the cows ; about the orchard full of
old trees more climbable than any others which have grown
since the world began ; about the attic full of drying pop-
corn and old hair-trunks and dusty files of the New York
Tribune; about the pantry with its cookie-jar, and the
' back room ' : ' with its churn and cheese-press.
Nothing of all this existed in the Lydford of which Aunt
Victoria spoke, although some of her recollections were also
of childhood hours. Once Sylvia asked her, " But if you
were a little girl there, and Mother was too, then you and
Father and she must have played together sometimes ? '
42 The Bent Twig
Aunt Victoria had replied with decision, " No, I never
saw your mother, and neither did your father until a few
months before they were married."
" Well, wasn't that queer? " exclaimed Sylvia " she al-
ways lived in Lydford except when she went away to col-
lege."
Aunt Victoria seemed to hesitate for words, something
unusual with her, and finally brought out, " Your mother
lived on a farm, and we lived in our summer house in the
village." She added after a moment's deliberation : ' Her
uncle, who kept the farm, furnished us with our butter.
Sometimes your mother used to deliver it at the kitchen
door." She looked hard at Sylvia as she spoke.
"Well, I should have thought you'd have seen her
there!" said Sylvia in surprise. Nothing came to the Mar-
shalls' kitchen door which was not in the children's field of
consciousness.
" It was, in fact, there that your father met her," stated
Aunt Victoria briefly.
" Oh yes, I remember," said Sylvia, quoting fluently
from an often heard tale. ' I've heard them tell about it
lots of times. She was earning money to pay for her last
year in college, and dropped a history book out of her
basket as she started to get back in the wagon, and Father
picked it up and said, ' Why, good Lord ! who in Lydford
reads Gibbon ? ' And Mother said it was hers, and they
talked a while, and then he got in and rode off with her."
Yes," said Aunt Victoria, "that was how it happened.
. . . Pauline, get out the massage cream and do my face, will
you?"
She did not talk any more for a time, but when she began,
it was again of Lydford that she spoke, running along in
a murmured stream of reminiscences breathed faintly be-
tween motionless lips that Pauline's reverent ministrations
might not be disturbed. Through the veil of these half-
understood recollections, Sylvia saw highly inaccurate pic-
tures of great magnificent rooms filled with heavy old
mahogany furniture, of riotously colored rose-gardens, ter-
Every One's Opinion of Every One Else 43
raced and box-edged, inhabited by beautiful ladies always,
like Aunt Victoria, " dressed-up," who took tea under
brightly striped, pagoda-shaped tents, waited upon by slant-
eyed Japanese (it seemed Aunt Victoria had nothing but
Japanese servants). The whole picture shimmered in the
confused imagination of the listening little girl, till it
blended indistinguishably with the enchantment of her
fairy-stories. It all seemed a background natural enough
for Aunt Victoria, but Sylvia could not fit her father into it.
"Ah, he's changed greatly he's transformed he is not
the same creature," Aunt Victoria told her gravely, speak-
ing according to her seductive habit with Sylvia, as though
to an equal. " The year when we lost our money and he
married, altered all the world for us." She linked the two
events together, and was rewarded by seeing the reference
slide over Sylvia's head.
" Did you lose your money, too ?" asked Sylvia, astounded.
It had never occurred to her that Aunt Victoria might have
been affected by that event in her father's life, with which
she was quite familiar through his careless references to
what he seemed to regard as an interesting but negligible
incident.
" All but the slightest portion of it, my dear when I
was twenty years old. Your father was twenty-five."
Sylvia looked about her at the cut-glass and silver uten-
sils on the lace-covered dressing-table, at Aunt Victoria's
pale lilac crepe-de-chine negligee, at the neat, pretty young
maid deft-handedly rubbing the perfumed cream into the
other woman's well-preserved face, impassive as an idol's.
" Why why, I thought " she began and stopped, a
native delicacy making her hesitate as Judith never did.
Aunt Victoria understood. " Mr. Smith had money,"
she explained briefly. " I married when I was twenty-one."
" Oh," said Sylvia. It seemed an easy way out of
difficulties. She had never before chanced to hear Aunt
Victoria mention her long-dead husband.
CHAPTER V
SOMETHING ABOUT HUSBANDS
SHE did not by any means always sit in the hotel and
watch Pauline care for different portions of Aunt Victoria's
body. Mrs. Marshall-Smith took, on principle, a drive
every day, and Sylvia was her favorite companion. At first
they went generally over the asphalt and in front of the
costly and incredibly differing " mansions ' of the ' resi-
dential portion" of town, but later their drives took them
principally along the winding roads and under the thrifty
young trees of the State University campus. They often
made an excuse of fetching Professor Marshall home from
a committee meeting, and as the faculty committees at
that time of year were, for the most part, feverishly occupied
with the classification of the annual flood-tide of Freshmen,
he was nearly always late, and they were obliged to wait
long half-hours in front of the Main Building.
Sylvia's cup of satisfaction ran over as, dressed in her
simple best, which her mother without comment allowed
her to put on every day now, she sat in the well-appointed
carriage beside her beautiful aunt, at whom every one
looked so hard and so admiringly. The University work
had not begun, but unresigned and harassed professors and
assistants, recalled from their vacations for various execu-
tive tasks, were present in sufficient numbers to animate the
front steps of the Main Building with constantly gathering
and dissolving little groups. These called out greetings to
each other, and exchanged dolorous mutual condolences on
their hard fate; all showing, with a helpless masculine
naivete, their consciousness of the lovely, observant figure
in the carriage below them. Of a different sort were the
professors' wives, who occasionally drifted past on the path.
44
Something About Husbands 45
Aunt Victoria might have been a blue-uniformed messenger-
boy for all that was betrayed by their skilfully casual
glance at her and then away, and the subsequent direct-
ness of their forward gaze across the campus. Mrs.
Marshall-Smith had for both these manifestations of con-
sciousness of her presence the same imperturbable smile of
amusement. : They are delightful, these colleagues of your
father's ! " she told Sylvia. Sylvia had hoped fervently that
the stylish Mrs. Hubert might see her in this brief apothe-
osis, and one day her prayer was answered. Straight down
the steps of the Main Building they came, Mrs. Hubert glis-
tening in shiny blue silk, extremely unaware of Aunt Vic-
toria, the two little girls looking to Sylvia like fairy prin-
cesses, with pink-and-white, lace-trimmed dresses, and big
pink hats with rose wreaths. Even the silk laces in their
low, white kid shoes were of pink to match the ribbons,
which gleamed at waist and throat and elbow. Sylvia
watched them in an utter admiration, and was beyond
measure shocked when Aunt Victoria said, after they had
stepped daintily past, " Heavens ! What a horridly over-
dressed family ! Those poor children look too absurd,
tricked out like that. The one nearest me had a sweet,
appealing little face, too."
; That is Eleanor," said Sylvia, with a keen, painful
recollection of the scene a year ago. She added doubtfully,
" Didn't you think their dresses pretty, Aunt Victoria ? '
' I thought they looked like pin-cushions on a kitchen-
maid's dressing-table," returned Aunt Victoria more forcibly
than she usually expressed herself. You look vastly bet-
ter with the straight lines of your plain white dresses.
You have a great deal of style, Sylvia. Judith is hand-
somer than you, but she will never have any style." This
verdict, upon both the Huberts and herself, delivered with
a serious accent of mature deliberation, impressed Sylvia.
It was one of the speeches she was to ponder.
Although Professor Marshall showed himself noticeably
negligent in the matter of introducing his colleagues to his
sister, it was only two or three days before Aunt Victoria's
46 The Bent Twig
half-hours of waiting before the Main Building had other
companionship than Sylvia's. This was due to the decisive
action of young Professor Saunders, just back from the
British Museum, where, at Professor Marshall's suggestion,
he had been digging up facts about the economic history of
the twelfth century in England. Without waiting for an
invitation he walked straight up to the carriage with the
ostensible purpose of greeting Sylvia, who was a great
favorite of his, and who in her turn had a romantic admira-
tion for the tall young assistant. Of all the faculty people
who frequented the Marshall house, he and old Professor
Kennedy were the only people whom Sylvia considered
" stylish," and Professor Kennedy, in spite of his very high
connection with the aristocracy of La Chance, was so cross
and depressed that really his " style " did not count. She
was now greatly pleased by the younger professor's public
and cordial recognition of her, and, with her precocious
instinct for social ease, managed to introduce him to her
aunt, even adding quaintly a phrase which she had heard
her mother use in speaking of him, ' My father thinks
Professor Saunders has a brilliant future before him."
This very complimentary reference had not the effect she
hoped for, since both the young man and Aunt Victoria
laughed, exchanging glances of understanding, and said to
each other, " Isn't she delicious ? ' But at least it effect-
ually broke any ice of constraint, so that the new-comer felt
at once upon the most familiarly friendly terms with the
sister of his chief. Thereafter he came frequently to lean
an arm on the side of the carriage and talk with the " ladies-
in-waiting," as he called the pretty woman and child. Once
or twice Sylvia was transferred to the front seat beside
Peter, the negro driver, on the ground that she could watch
the horses better, and they took Professor Saunders for a
drive through the flat, fertile country, now beginning to
gleam ruddy with autumnal tints of bronze and scarlet and
gold. Although she greatly enjoyed the social brilliance of
these occasions, on which Aunt Victoria showed herself un-
expectedly sprightly and altogether enchanting, Sylvia felt
Something About Husbands 47
a little guilty that they did not return to pick up Professor
Marshall, and she was relieved, when they met at supper,
that he made no reference to their defection.
He did not, in fact, mention his assistant's name at all,
and yet he did not seem surprised when Professor Saunders,
coming to the Sunday evening rehearsal of the quartet,
needed no introduction to his sister, but drew a chair up
with the evident intention of devoting all his conversation to
her. For a time this overt intention was frustrated by old
Reinhardt, smitten with an admiration as unconcealed for
the beautiful stranger. In the interval before the arrival
of the later members of the quartet, he fluttered around
her like an ungainly old moth, racking his scant English for
complimentary speeches. These were received by Aunt Vic-
toria with her best calm smile, and by Professor Saunders
with open impatience. His equanimity was not restored by
the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talk
than usual that evening, leaving him but small opportunity
for his tete-a-tete.
It began by the arrival of Professor Kennedy, a little
late, delayed at a reunion of the Kennedy family. He was
always reduced to bilious gloom by any close contact with
that distinguished, wealthy, and much looked-up-to group
of citizens of La Chance, and this evening he walked into
the front door obviously even more depressed than usual.
The weather had turned cool, and his imposingly tall old
person was wrapped in a cape-overcoat. Sylvia had no fond-
ness for Professor Kennedy, but she greatly admired his
looks and his clothes, and his handsome, high-nosed old face.
She watched him wrestle himself out of his coat as though it
were a grappling enemy, and was not surprised at the irrita-
bility which sat visibly upon his arching white eyebrows.
He entered the room trailing his 'cello-bag beside him and
plucking peevishly at its drawstrings, and although Aunt
Victoria quite roused herself at the sight of him, he re-
ceived his introduction to her with reprehensible indiffer-
ence. He sank into a chair and looked sadly at the fire,
taking the point of his white beard in his long, tapering
The Bent Twig
fingers. Professor Marshall turned from the piano, where
he sat, striking A for the conscientious Bauermeister to
tune, and said laughingly, " Hey there, Knight of the Dolor-
ous Countenance, what vulture is doing business at the old
stand on your liver?'
Professor Kennedy crossed one long, elegantly slim leg
over the other, " I've been dining with the Kennedy family,"
he said, with a neat and significant conciseness.
" Anything specially the matter with the predatory
rich ? " queried Marshall, reaching for his viola-case.
Professor Kennedy shook his head. ' Alas ! there's never
anything the matter with them. Comme le diable, Us se
portent toujours bien."
At the purity of accent with which this embittered remark
was made, Mrs. Marshall-Smith opened her eyes, and paid
more attention as the old professor went on.
" The last of my unmarried nieces has shown herself a
true Kennedy by providing herself with a dolichocephalic
blond of a husband, like all the others. The dinner was
given in honor of the engagement."
Sylvia was accustomed to finding Professor Kennedy's
remarks quite unintelligible, and this one seemed no odder
to her than the rest, so that she was astonished that Aunt
Victoria was not ashamed to confess as blank an ignorance
as the little girl's. The beautiful woman leaned toward the
morose old man with the suave self-confidence of one who
has never failed to charm, and drew his attention to her by
a laugh of amused perplexity. " May I ask," she inquired,
"what kind of a husband is that? It is a new variety to
me."
Professor Kennedy looked at her appraisingly. ' It's the
kind most women aspire to," he answered enigmatically.
He imparted to this obscure remark the air of passing a
sentence of condemnation.
Sylvia's mother stirred uneasily in her chair and looked
at her husband. He had begun to take his viola from the
case, but now returned it and stood looking quizzically from
his sister to his guest. ' Professor Kennedy talks a special
Something About Husbands 49
language, Vic," he said lightly. " Some day he'll make a
book of it and be famous. He divides us all into two kinds :
the ones that get what they want by taking it away from
other people those are the dolichocephalic blonds
though I believe it doesn't refer to the color of their hair.
The other kind are the white folks, the unpredatory ones
who have scruples, and get pushed to the wall for their
pains."
Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned to the young man beside her.
"It makes one wonder, doesn't it," she conjectured pleas-
antly, "to which type one belongs oneself?'
In this welcome shifting from the abstract to the under-
standably personal, old Reinhardt saw his opportunity.
" Ach, womens, beautifool and goot womens!" he cried in
his thick, kindly voice. ' Dey are abofe being types. To
every good man, dey can be only wie eine blume, so hold
and schon "
Professor Kennedy's acid voice broke in " So you're still
in the 1830 Romantische Schule period, are you, Rein-
hardt? " He went on to Mrs. Marshall-Smith : " But there
is something in that sort of talk. Women, especially those
who consider themselves beautiful and good, escape being
either kind of type, by the legerdemain with which they get
what they want, and yet don't soil their fingers with preda-
tory acts."
Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, perhaps, a shade tardy in ask-
ing the question which he had evidently cast his speech to
extract from her, but after an instant's pause she brought it
out bravely. " How in the world do you mean ? " she asked,
smiling, and received, with a quick flicker of her eye-' 's,
the old man's response of, c They buy a dolichocephalic
blond to do their dirty work for them and pay for him with
their persons."
'Oh!'' cried Mrs. Marshall, checking herself in a sud-
den deprecatory gesture of apology towards her sister-in-
law. She looked at her husband and gave him a silent,
urgent message to break the awkward pause, a message
which he disregarded, continuing coolly to inspect his finger-
50 The Bent Twig
nails with an abstracted air, contradicted by the half-smile
on his lips. Sylvia, listening to the talk, could make nothing
out of it, but miserably felt her little heart grow leaden as
she looked from one face to another. Judith and Lawrence,
tired of waiting for the music to begin, had dropped asleep
among the pillows of the divan. Mr. Bauermeister yawned,
looked at the clock, and plucked at the strings of his violin.
He hated all talk as a waste of time. Old Reinhardt's simple
face looked as puzzled and uneasy as Sylvia's own. Young
Mr. Saunders seemed to have no idea that there was any-
thing particularly unsettling in the situation, but, disliking
the caustic vehemence of his old colleague's speech, inter-
posed to turn it from the lady by his side. ' And you're the
man who's opposed on principle to sweeping generaliza-
tions! " he said in cheerful rebuke.
" Ah, I've just come from a gathering of the Clan Ken-
nedy," repeated the older man. ' I defy anybody to pro-
duce a more successfully predatory family than mine. The
fortunes of the present generation of Kennedys don't come
from any white-livered subterfuge, like the rise in the value
of real estate, as my own ill-owned money does. No, sir;
the good, old, well-recognized, red-blooded method of going
out and taking it away from people not so smart as they
are, is good enough for them, if you please. And my
woman relatives " He swept them away with a ges-
ture. "When I "
Mrs. Marshall cut him short resolutely. " Are you going
to have any music tonight, or aren't you?' she said.
He looked at her with a sudden, unexpected softening of
his somber eyes. ' Do you know, Barbara Marshall, that
there are times when you keep one unhappy old misanthrope
from despairing of his kind ? '
She had at this unlooked-for speech only the most honest
astonishment. ' I don't know what you're talking about,"
she said bluntly.
Judith stirred in her sleep and woke up blinking. When
she saw that Professor Kennedy had come in, she did what
Sylvia would never have dared do; she ran to him and
Something About Husbands 51
climbed up on his knee, laying her shining, dark head
against his shoulder. The old man's arms closed around
her. ' Well, spitfire," he said, " comment qa roule, eh ? "
Judith did not trouble herself to answer. With a ges-
ture of tenderness, as unexpected as his speech to her
mother, her old friend laid his cheek against hers. " You're
another, Judy. You'll never marry a dolichocephalic blond
and make him pull the chestnuts out of the fire for you,
will you? " he said confidently.
Mrs. Marshall rose with the exasperated air of one whose
patience is gone. She made a step as though to shield her
husband's sister from the cantankerous old man. " If I
hear another word of argument in this house tonight "
she threatened. " Mr. Reinhardt, what are these people
here for?'
The musician awoke, with a sigh, from his dazzled con-
templation of his host's sister, and looked about him. " Ach,
yes! Ach, yes! " he admitted. With a glance of adoration
at the visitor, he added impressively what to his mind
evidently signified some profoundly significant tribute, " Dis
night we shall blay only Schubert ! '
Sylvia heaved a sigh of relief as the four gathered in
front of the music-racks at the other end of the room,
tuning and scraping. Young Mr. Saunders, evidently
elated that his opportunity had come, leaned toward Aunt
Victoria and began talking in low tones. Once or twice
they laughed a little, looking towards Professor Kennedy.
Then old Reinhardt, gravely pontifical, rapped with his
bow on his rack, lifted his violin to his chin, and an
obliterating sponge was passed over Sylvia's memory. All
the queer, uncomfortable talk, the unpleasant voices, the
angry or malicious or uneasy eyes, the unkindly smiling
lips, all were washed away out of her mind. The smooth,
swelling current of the music was like oil on a wound.
As she listened and felt herself growing drowsy, it seemed
to her that she was being floated away, safely away from the
low-ceilinged room where personalities clashed, out to cool,
star-lit spaces.
The Bent Twig
All that night in her dreams she heard only old Rein-
hardt's angel voice proclaiming, amid the rich murmur of
assent from the other strings:
I
f
m
:*:
CHAPTER VI
THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE
ONE day at the end of a fortnight, Aunt Victoria and
Arnold were late in their daily arrival at the Marshall
house, and when the neat surrey at last drove up, they
both showed signs of discomposure. Discomposure was no
unusual condition for Arnold, who not infrequently made
his appearance red-faced and sullen, evidently fresh from
angry revolt against his tutor, but on that morning he was
anything but red-faced, and looked a little scared. His
stepmother's fine complexion, on the contrary, had more
pink than usual in its pearly tones, and her carriage had
less than usual of sinuous grace. Sylvia and Judith ran
down the porch steps to meet them, but stopped, startled by
their aspect. Aunt Victoria descended, very straight, her
head high-held, and without giving Sylvia the kiss 'with
which she usually marked her preference for her older
niece, walked at once into the house.
Although the impressionable Sylvia was so struck by
these phenomena, that, even after her aunt's disappearance,
she remained daunted and silent, Judith needed only the
removal of the overpowering presence to restore her cool-
ness. She pounced on Arnold with questions. " What you
been doing that's so awful bad? I bet you caught it all
right ! "
'Tisn't me," said Arnold in a subdued voice. "It's
Pauline and old Rollins that caught it. They're the ones
that ha' been bad."
Judith was at a loss, never having conceived that grown-
ups might do naughty things. Arnold went on, " If you'd
ha' heard Madrina talking to Pauline say ! Do you know
what I did? I crawled under the bed honest I did. It
53
54 The Bent Twig
didn't last but a minute, but it scared the liver out o' me."
This vigorous expression was a favorite of his.
Judith was somewhat impressed by his face and manner,
but still inclined to mock at a confession of fear. ' Under
the bed!" she sneered.
Arnold evidently felt the horror of the recently enacted
scene so vividly that there was no room for shame in his
mind. " You bet I did ! And so would you too, if you'd
ha' been there. Gee!'
In spite of herself Judith looked somewhat startled by
the vibration of sincerity in his voice, and Sylvia, with her
quick sympathy of divination, had turned almost as pale
as the little boy, who, all his braggart turbulence gone,
stood looking at them with a sick expression in his eyes.
"Was it in your room?" asked Judith. 'I thought
Pauline's room was on the top floor. What was she doing
down there ? '
" No, it was in old Rollins' room next to mine. I don't
know what Pauline was doing there."
" What did Pauline do when Aunt Victoria scolded her? '
asked Sylvia. She had come to be fond of the pretty young
maid with her fat, quick hands and her bright, warm-
hearted smile for her mistress' little niece. One day, when
Mrs. Marshall-Smith had, for a moment, chanced to leave
them alone, Pauline had given her a sudden embrace, and
had told her : " At 'ome zere are four leetle brozers and
sisters. America is a place mos' solitary ! ' What did
Pauline do?" asked Sylvia again as Arnold did not an-
swer.
The boy looked down. " Pauline just cried and cried,"
he said in a low tone. " I liked Pauline ! She was awful
good to me. I I heard her crying afterwards as she went
away. Seemed to me I could hear her crying all the way
out here."
" Did she go away ? " asked Judith, trying to make some-
thing coherent out of the story. Arnold nodded.
" You bet she did. Madrina turned her right out and
old Rollins too."
The Sights of La Chance 55
" Was he there ? What was the matter anyhow ? " Judith
persisted.
Arnold twisted uncomfortably, loath to continue bringing
up the scene. ' I d'n know what was the matter. Yes,
old Rollins was there, all right. He's gone away too, the
doggoned old thing for good. That's something!" He
added, "Aw, quit talkin' about it, can't you! Let's
play ! '
* It's my turn to help Mother with the tomatoes," said
Judith. ' She's doing the last of the canning this morning.
Maybe she'd let you help."
Arnold brightened. "Maybe she would!" he said, add-
ing eagerly, " Maybe she'd tell us another of the stories
about her grandmother."
Judith snatched at his hand and began racing down the
path to the garden. " Maybe she would ! " she cried. They
both called as they ran, " Mother, oh, Mother ! " and as
they ran, they leaped and bounded into the bright autumn
air like a couple of puppies.
Sylvia's mental resiliency was not of such sturdily elastic
stuff. She stood still, thinking of Pauline crying, and cry-
ing and started aside when her aunt came out again on
the porch.
' I don't find any one in the house, Sylvia dear," said
Mrs. Marshall-Smith quietly. Sylvia looked up into the
clear, blue eyes, so like her father's, and felt the usual
magic spell lay hold on her. The horrid impression made
by Arnold's story dimmed and faded. Arnold was always
getting things twisted. She came up closer to her aunt's
side and took the soft, smooth fingers between her two
little hard, muscular hands. In her relief, she had for-
gotten to answer. Mrs. Marshall-Smith said again,
'Where are your parents, dear?'
" Oh," said Sylvia. " Oh yes why, Father's at the Uni-
versity at a committee meeting and Mother's out by the
garden putting up tomatoes. Judy and Arnold are help-
ing her."
Mrs. Marshall-Smith hesitated, looked about her rest-
56 The Bent Twig
lessly, and finally raised her parasol, of a gold-colored silk,
a lighter tone, but the same shade as her rich plain broad-
cloth costume of tan. " Shall we take a little walk, my
dear?" she suggested. "I don't feel like sitting still just
now nor " she looked down into Sylvia's eyes " nor
yet like canning tomatoes."
That walk, the last one taken with Aunt Victoria, be-
came one of Sylvia's memories, although she never had a
vivid recollection of what they saw during their slow ram-
ble. It was only Aunt Victoria whom the little girl re-
membered Aunt Victoria moving like a goddess over their
rough paths and under the changing glory of the autumn
leaves. She herself was a brighter glory, with her shin-
ing blond hair crowned by a halo of feathery, gold-colored
plumes, the soft, fine, supple broadcloth of her garments
gleaming in the sunshine with a sheen like that of a well-
kept animal's coat. There breathed from all her person a
faint odor of grace and violets and unhurried leisure.
Sylvia clung close to her side, taking in through all
her pores this lovely emanation, not noticing whether they
were talking or not, not heeding the direction of their
steps. She was quite astonished to find herself on the
University campus, in front of the Main Building. Aunt
Victoria had never walked so far before. ' Oh, did you
want to see Father ? ' she asked, coming a little to her-
self.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith said, as if in answer, " Just sit
down here and wait for me a minute, will you, Sylvia ? '
moving thereupon up the steps and disappearing through
the wide front door. Sylvia relapsed into her day-dreams
and, motionless in a pool of sunlight, waited, quite uncon-
scious of the passage of time.
This long reverie was at last broken by the return of
Mrs. Marshall-Smith. She was not alone, but the radiant
young man who walked beside her was not her brother,
and nothing could have differed more from the brilliantly
hard gaze which Professor Marshall habitually bent on his
sister, than the soft intentness with which young Mr.
The Sights of La Chance 57
Saunders regarded the ripely beautiful woman. The
dazzled expression of his eyes was one of the remembered
factors of the day for Sylvia.
The two walked down the shaded steps, Sylvia watching
them admiringly, the scene forever printed on her memory,
and emerged into the pool of sunshine where she sat, swing-
ing -her legs from the bench. They stood there for some
minutes, talking together in low tones. Sylvia, absorbed
in watching the play of light on Aunt Victoria's smooth
cheek, heard but a few words of what passed between them.
She had a vague impression that Professor Saunders con-
tinually began sentences starting firmly with " But," and
ending somehow on quite another note. She felt dimly
that Aunt Victoria was less calmly passive than usual in
a conversation, that it was not only the enchanting rising
and falling inflections of her voice which talked, but her
eyes, her arms, her whole self. Once she laid her hand
for an instant on Professor Saunders' arm.
More than that Sylvia could not remember, even when
she was asked later to repeat as much as she could of what
she had heard. She was resolving when she was grown-up
to have a ruffle of creamy lace falling away from her neck
and wrists as Aunt Victoria did. She had not only for-
gotten Arnold's story, she had forgotten that such a boy
existed. She was living in a world all made up of radiance
and bloom, lace and sunshine and velvet, and bright hair
and gleaming cloth and smooth voices and the smell of
violets.
After a time she was aware that Professor Saunders
shook hands and turned back up the steps. Aunt Victoria
began to move with her slow grace along the road towards
home, and Sylvia to follow, soaking herself in an impres-
sion of supreme suavity.
When, after the walk through the beech-woods, they
reached the edge of the Marshall field, they saw a stiff
plume of blue smoke stand up over the shack by the gar-
den and, as they approached, heard a murmur of voices.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith stopped, furled her parasol, and sur-
58 The Bent Twig
veyed the scene within. Her sister-in-law, enveloped in a
large blue apron, by no means fresh, sat beside a roughly
built table, peeling tomatoes, her brown stained fingers
moving with the rapidity of a prestidigitator's. Judith
stood beside her, also attacking the pile of crimson fruit,
endeavoring in vain to emulate her mother's speed. Over
the hot, rusty stove hung Arnold, red-faced and bright-
eyed, armed with a long, wooden spatula which he con-
tinually dug into the steaming contents of an enormous
white-lined kettle. As, at the arrival of the new-comers,
Mrs. Marshall's voice stopped, he looked around and
frowned impatiently at his stepmother. " She's just got
to the excitin' part," he said severely, and to the raconteur
eagerly, " 'N'en what? "
Mrs. Marshall looked up at her husband's sister, smiled,
and went on, Sylvia recognized the story as one of her
own old favorites. ' Well, it was very early dawn when she
had to go over to the neighbor's to borrow some medicine
for her father, who kept getting sicker all the time. As she
hurried along across the meadow towards the stile, she
kept wondering, in spite of herself, if there was any truth
in what Nat had said about having seen bear tracks near
the house the day before. When she got to the stile she
ran up the steps and on the top one she stood still, for
there " She made a dramatic pause and reached for
another tray of tomatoes. Arnold stopped stirring the pot
and stood motionless, his eyes fixed on the narrator, the
spatula dripping tomato-juice all along his white trousers.
There on the other side, looking up at her, was a bear
a big black bear."
Arnold's mouth dropped open and his eyes widened.
' My grandmother was dreadfully frightened. She was
only seventeen, and she hadn't any kind of a weapon, not
so much as a little stick with her. Her first idea was to
turn and run as fast as she could, back home. But she
remembered how sick her father was, and how much he
needed the medicine; and then besides, she used to say, all
of a sudden it made her angry, all over, to have that great
The Sights of La Chance 59
stupid animal get in her way. She always said that nothing
' got her mad up ' like feeling afraid. So what do you
suppose she did ? '
Arnold could only shake his head silently in an ecstasy
of impatience for the story to continue. Judith and Sylvia
smiled at each other with the insufferable complacence of
auditors who know the end by heart.
' She just pointed her finger at the bear, and she said in
a loud, harsh voice : ' Shame ! Shame ! Shame on you !
For sha-a-ame ! ' She'd taught district school, you know,
and had had lots of practice saying that to children who
had been bad. The bear looked up at her hard for a
minute, then dropped his head and began to walk slowly
away. Grandmother always said, ' The great lummox lum-
bered off into the bushes like a gawk of a boy who's been
caught in mischief/ She waited just a minute and then
ran like lightning along the path through the woods to
the neighbors and got the medicine."
The story was evidently over, the last tomato was
peeled. Mrs. Marshall rose, wiping her stained and drip-
ping hands on her apron, and went to the stove. Ar-
nold started as if coming out of a dream and looked
about him with wondering eyes. ( Well, what-d'you-think-
o'-that? ' he commented, all in one breath. " Say,
Mother," he went on, looking up at her with trusting eyes,
searching the quiet face, ' ' what do you suppose made the
bear go away? You wouldn't think a little thing like that
would scare a bear! '
Mrs. Marshall began dipping the hot, stewed tomatoes
into the glass jars ready in a big pan of boiling water on
the back of the stove. The steam rose up, like a cloud, into
her face, which began to turn red and to glisten with
perspiration. ' Oh, I don't suppose it really frightened the
bear," she said moderately, refraining from the dramatic
note of completeness which her husband, in spite of him-
self, gave to everything he touched, and adding instead the
pungent, homely savor of reality, which none relished more
than Sylvia and her father, incapable themselves of achiev-
60 The Bent Twig
ing it. " 'Most likely the bear would have gone away of
his own accord anyhow. They don't attack people unless
they're stirred up." Arnold bit deeply into the solidity of
this unexaggerated presentation, and was silent for a mo-
ment, saying then : " Well, anyhow, she didn't know he'd go
away ! She was a sport, all right ! '
" Oh yes, indeed," said Mrs. Marshall, dipping and
steaming, and wiping away the perspiration, which ran
down in drops to the end of her large, shapely nose.
" Yes, my grandmother was a sport, all right." The acrid
smell of hot, cooking tomatoes rilled the shed and spread
to the edge where Sylvia and her aunt stood, still a little
aloof. Although it bore no resemblance to the odor of
violets, it could not be called a disgusting smell : it was the
sort of smell which is quite agreeable when one is very
hungry. But Sylvia was not hungry at all. She stepped
back involuntarily. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, on the contrary,
advanced a step or so, until she stood close to her sister-
in-law. " Barbara, I'd like to see you a few minutes with-
out the children," she remarked in the neutral tone she al-
ways had for her brother's wife. " A rather unpleasant
occurrence I'm in something of a quandary."
Mrs. Marshall nodded. " All right," she agreed. " Scat-
ter out of here, you children ! Go and let out the hens,
and give them some water ! '
Arnold needed no second bidding, reminded by his step-
mother's words of his experiences of the morning. He
and Judith scampered away in a suddenly improvised race
to see who would reach the chicken-house first. Sylvia
went more slowly, looking back once or twice at the pic-
ture made by the two women, so dramatically contrasted
her mother, active, very upright, wrapped in a crumpled
and stained apron, her dark hair bound closely about her
round head, her moist, red face and steady eyes turned
attentively upon the radiant creature beside her, cool and
detached, leaning willow-like on the slender wand of the
gold-colored parasol.
Professor Marshall chanced to be late that day in com-
The Sights of La Chance 61
ing home for luncheon, and Aunt Victoria and Arnold had
returned to the hotel without seeing him. His wife re-
marked that Victoria had asked her to tell him something,
but, acting on her inviolable principle that nothing must in-
terfere with the cheerful peace of mealtime, said nothing
more to him until after they had finished the big plate
of purple grapes from her garden, with which the meal
ended.
Then Judith vanished out to the shop, where she was
constructing a rabbit-house for the latest family. Sylvia
took Lawrence, yawning and rubbing his eyes, but fighting
desperately against his sleepiness, upstairs for his nap.
When this task fell to Judith's lot it was despatched with
business-like promptness, but Lawrence had early dis-
covered a temperamental difference between his two sisters,
and Sylvia was seldom allowed to leave the small bed until
she had paid tribute to her ever-present desire to please,
in the shape of a story or a song. On that day Buddy was
more exacting than usual. Sylvia told the story of Cinder-
ella and sang, ' A Frog He Would a- Wooing Go," twice
through, before the little boy's eyes began to droop. Even
then, the clutch of his warm, moist fingers about her hand
did not relax. When she tried to slip her fingers out of his,
his eyelids fluttered open and he tightened his grasp with a
wilful frown. So she sat still on the edge of his bed, wait-
ing till he should be really asleep.
From the dining-room below her rose the sound of
voices, or rather of one voice her father's. She wondered
why it sounded so angry, and then, mixed with some un-
intelligible phrases " turned out on the street, in trouble
in a foreign land Good God ! " she caught Pauline's name.
Oh yes, that must be the trouble. Mother was telling
Father about Pauline whatever it was she had done and
he was as mad about it as Aunt Victoria had been. If
Aunt Victoria's voice had sounded like that, she didn't
wonder that Arnold had hidden under the bed. If she could
have moved, she, too, would have run away, although the
idea that she ought to do so did not occur to her. There
62 The Bent Twig
had been no secrets in that house. The talk had always
been for all to hear who would.
But when she tried again to slip her hand away from
Buddy's the little boy pulled at it hard, and half opening
his eyes, said sleepily, ' Sylvie stay with Buddy Sylvie
stay " Sylvia yielded weakly, said : " Yes sh ! sh !
Sister'll stay. Go to sleep, Buddy.'*
From below came the angry voice, quite loud now, so
that she caught every queer-sounding word " righteous
indignation indeed! What else did she do, I'd like to
know, when she wanted money. The only difference was
that she was cold-blooded enough to extract a legal status
from the old reprobate she accosted."
Sylvia heard her mother's voice saying coldly, You
ought to be ashamed to use such a word ! " and her father
retort, " It's the only word that expresses it ! You know
as well as I do that she cared no more for Ephraim Smith
than for the first man she might have solicited on the street
nor so much ! God ! It makes me sick to look at her
and think of the price she paid for her present damn
Olympian serenity."
Sylvia heard her mother begin to clear off the table.
There was a rattle of dishes through which her voice rose
impatiently. ' Oh, Elliott, why be so melodramatic always,
and spoil so much good language ! She did only what every
girl brought up as she was, would have done. And, any-
how, are you so very sure that in your heart you're not so
awfully hard on her because you're envious of that very
prosperity ? '
He admitted, with acrimony, the justice of this thrust.
: Very likely. Very likely ! everything base and mean in
me, that you keep down, springs to life in me at her touch.
I dare say I do envy her I'm quite capable of that am
I not her brother, with the same "
Mrs. Marshall said hastily: "Hush! Hush! Here's
Judith. For Heaven's sake don't let the child hear you ! "
For the first time the idea penetrated Sylvia's head that
she ought not to have listened. Buddy was now soundly
The Sights of La Chance 63
asleep : she detached her hand from his, and went soberly
along the hall into her own room. She did not want to see
her father just then.
A long time after, Mother called up to say that Aunt
Victoria had come for her afternoon drive, and to leave
Arnold. Sylvia opened the door a crack and asked,
"Where's Father?"
" Oh, gone back to the University this long time," an-
swered her mother in her usual tone. Sylvia came down
the stairs slowly and took her seat in the carriage beside
Aunt Victoria with none of her usual demonstrative show
of pleasure.
" Don't you like my dress ? ' asked Aunt Victoria, as
they drove away. You don't even notice it, and I put
it on 'specially to please you you're the one discriminating
critic in this town ! ' As Sylvia made no answer to this
sally, she went on : ' It's hard to get into alone, too. I
had to ask the hotel chambermaid to hook it up on the
shoulders."
Thus reminded of Pauline, Sylvia could have but in-
attentive eyes for the creation of amber silk and lace, and
brown fur, which seductively clad the handsome body be-
side her.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith gave her favorite a penetrating look.
" What's the matter with you, Sylvia ? ' she asked in the
peremptory note which her sweet voice of many modula-
tions could startlingly assume on occasion. Sylvia had
none of Judith's instant pugnacious antagonism to any per-
emptory note. She answered in one imploring rush of a
question, " Aunt Victoria, why should Father be so very
mad at Pauline ? '
Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked a little startled at this direct
reference to the veiled storm-center of the day, but not at
all displeased. " Oh, your mother told him? Was he so
very angry ? " she asked with a slight smile.
" Oh, dreadfully ! ' returned Sylvia. " I didn't mean to
listen, but I couldn't help it. Buddy wouldn't go to sleep
and Father's voice was so loud and he got madder and
64 The Bent Twig
madder at her." She went on with another question,
:< Auntie, who was Ephraim Smith ? '
Aunt Victoria turned upon her in astonishment, and
did not, for a moment, answer ; then : " Why, that was the
name of my husband, Sylvia. What has that to do with
anything ? '
"Why didn't Pauline like him?" asked Sylvia.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith replied with a vivacity of surprise
which carried her out of her usual delicate leisure in speech.
'' Pauline? Why, she never saw him in her life! What
are you talking about, child ? '
' But, Father said I thought he seemed to mean "
Sylvia halted, not able to remember in her bewilderment
what it had been that Father had said. In a blur of doubt
and clouded perceptions she lost all definite impression of
what she had heard. Evidently, as so often happened, she
had grown-ups' affairs all twisted up in her mind.
Aunt Victoria was touched with kindly amusement at
the little girl's face of perplexity, and told her, dismissing
the subject: 'Never mind, dear, you evidently misunder-
stood something. But I wonder what your father could
have said to give you such a funny idea."
Sylvia gave it up, shaking her head. They turned into
the main street of La Chance, and Aunt Victoria directed
the coachman to drive them to " the " drug store of town,
and offered Sylvia her choice of any soda water confection
she might select. This completed the " about-face " of the
mobile little mind. After several moments of blissful
anguish of indecision, Sylvia decided on a peach ice-cream
soda, and thereafter was nothing but sense of taste as she
ecstatically drew through a straw the syrupy, foamy
draught of nectar. She took small sips at a time and held
them in the back of her mouth till every minute bubble of
gas had rendered up its delicious prickle to her tongue.
Her consciousness was filled to its uttermost limits with a
voluptuous sense of present physical delight.
And yet it was precisely at this moment that from her
subconscious mind, retracing with unaided travail a half-
The Sights of La Chance 65
forgotten clue, there sprang into her memory a complete
phrase of what her father had said. She gave one more
suck to the straw and laid it aside for a moment to say
in quite a comfortable accent to her aunt : " Oh yes, now I
remember. He said she didn't care for him any more than
for the first man she might have solicited in the street."
For an instant the words came back as clearly as though
they had just been uttered, and she repeated them fluently,
returning thereupon at once to the charms of the tall, foam-
filled frosted glass.
Evidently Aunt Victoria did not follow this sudden
change of subject, for she asked blankly, "Who? Who
didn't care for who?"
" Why, I supposed, Pauline for Ephraim Smith. It was
that that made Father so mad," explained Sylvia, sucking
dreamily, her eyes on the little maelstrom created in the
foaming liquid by the straw, forgetting everything else.
The luxurious leisure in which she consumed her potation
made it last a long time, and it was not until her suction
made only a sterile rattling in the straw that she looked
up at her aunt to thank her.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith's face was averted and she did not
turn it back as she said, ' Just run along into the shop
and leave your glass, Sylvia here is the money."
After Sylvia took her seat again in the carriage, the
coachman turned the horse's head back up the Main Street.
: * Aren't you going to the campus ? " asked Sylvia in sur-
prise.
' No, we are going to the hotel," said Aunt Victoria.
She spoke quietly, and seemed to look as usual, but Sylvia's
inner barometer fell fast with a conviction of a change in
the emotional atmosphere. She sat as still as possible, and
only once glanced up timidly at her aunt's face. There was
no answering glance. Aunt Victoria gazed straight in front
of her. Her face looked as it did when it was being mas-
saged all smooth and empty. There was, however, one
change. For the first time that day, she looked a little
pale.
66 The Bent Twig
As the carriage stopped in front of the onyx-lined, palm-
decorated, plate-glass-mirrored " entrance hall " of the ex-
pensive hotel, Aunt Victoria descended, motioning to Sylvia
not to follow her. " I haven't time to drive any more this
afternoon," she said. " Peter will take you home. And
have him bring Arnold back at once." She turned away
and, as Sylvia sat watching her, entered the squirrel-cage
revolving door of glass, which a little boy in livery spun
about for her.
But after she was inside the entrance hall, she signified
to him that she had forgotten something, and came imme-
diately out again. What she had forgotten surprised Sylvia
as much as it touched her. Aunt Victoria came rapidly to
the side of the carriage and put out her arms. ( Come
here, dear," she said in a voice Sylvia had never heard
her use. It trembled a little, and broke. With her quick
responsiveness, Sylvia sprang into the outstretched arms,
overcome by the other's emotion. She hid her face against
the soft, perfumed laces and silk, and heard from beneath
them the painful throb of a quickly beating heart.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith held her niece for a long moment
and then turned the quivering little face up to her own
grave eyes, in which Sylvia, for all her inexperience, read a
real suffering. Aunt Victoria looked as though somebody
were hurting her hurting her awfully Sylvia pressed her
cheek hard against her aunt's, and Mrs. Marshall-Smith
felt, soft and warm and ardent on her lips, the indescrib-
ably fresh kiss of a child's mouth. ' Oh, little Sylvia ! '
she cried, in that new, strange, uncertain voice which trem-
bled and broke, " Oh, little Sylvia ! ' She seemed to be
about to say something more, said in fact in a half-whisper,
' I hope I hope " but then shook her head, kissed
Sylvia gently, put her back in the carriage, and again dis-
appeared through the revolving door.
This time she did not turn back. She did not even look
back. After a moment's wait, Peter gathered up the reins
and Sylvia, vaguely uneasy, and much moved, drove home
in a solitary state, which she forgot to enjoy.
The Sights of La Chance 67
The next morning there was no arrival, even tardy, of
the visitors from the hotel. Instead came a letter, breaking
the startling news that Aunt Victoria had been called un-
expectedly to the East, and had left on the midnight train,
taking Arnold with her, of course. Judith burst into angry
expressions of wrath over the incompleteness of the cave
which she and Arnold had been excavating together. The
next day was the beginning of school, she reminded her
auditors, and she'd have no time to get it done ! Never !
She characterized Aunt Victoria as a mean old thing,
an epithet for which she was not reproved, her mother
sitting quite absent and absorbed in the letter. She read
it over twice, with a very puzzled air, which gave an odd
look to her usually crystal-clear countenance. She asked
her husband one question as he went out of the door.
You didn't see Victoria yesterday or say anything to
her?" to which he answered, with apparently uncalled-for
heat, " I did not! I thought it rather more to the purpose
to try to look up Pauline."
Mrs. Marshall sprang up and approached him with an
anxious face. He shook his head : " Too late. Disappeared.
No trace."
She sat down again, looking sad and stern.
Professor Marshall put on his hat with violence, and
went away.
When he came home to luncheon there was a fresh
sensation, and again a disagreeable one. He brought the
astounding news that, at the very beginning of the semes-
ter's work, he had been deserted by his most valuable
assistant, and abandoned, apparently forever, by his most-
loved disciple. Saunders had left word, a mere laconic
note, that he had accepted the position left vacant by the
dismissal of Arnold's tutor, and had entered at once upon
the duties of his new position.
Professor Marshall detailed this information in a hard,
level voice, and without further comment handed his wife
Saunders' note. She read it rapidly, this time with
no perplexity, and laid it down, saying to her husband,
68 The Bent Twig
briefly, " Will you kindly remember that the children are
here ? '
Judith looked at Sylvia in astonishment, this being the
first time that that well-worn phrase, so familiar to most
children, had ever been heard in the Marshall house. Why
shouldn't Father remember they were there? Couldn't he
see them? Judith almost found the idea funny enough to
laugh at, although she had not at all in general Sylvia's
helpless response to the ridiculous. Sylvia did not laugh
now. She looked anxiously at her father's face, and was
relieved when he only answered her mother's exhortation
by saying in a low tone : " Oh, / have nothing to say. It's
beyond words ! "
Luncheon went on as usual, with much chatter among
the children. Some time later in the midst of a long
story from Lawrence, Mrs. Marshall herself brought up
the subject again. Buddy was beginning to struggle with
the narrative form of self-expression, and to trip his tongue
desperately over the tenses. He had just said, "And the
rabbit was naughty, didn't he was ? " when his mother ex-
claimed, addressing her husband's grim face, ' Good
Heavens, don't take it so hard, Elliott."
He raised an eyebrow, but did not look up from the
pear he was eating. " To be responsible, as I feel I am,
for the pitching into a cul-de-sac of the most promising
young "
His wife broke in, "Responsible! How in the world are
you responsible ! ' she added quickly, as if at random, to
prevent the reply which her husband was evidently about to
cast at her. " Besides, how do you know? one never
knows how things will turn out she may she may marry
him, and he may have a life which will give him more
leisure for investigation than if "
Professor Marshall wiped his lips violently on his nap-
kin and stood up. " Nothing would induce her to marry
him or any one else. She's extracted from marriage all
she wants of it. No, she'll just keep him trailing along,
in an ambiguous position, sickened and tantalized and
The Sights of La Chance 69
fevered, till all the temper is drawn out of him and then
he'll be dropped."
He turned away with an impatient fling of his head. His
wife stood up now and looked at him anxiously. " Go play
us something on the piano," she urged. This was not a
common exhortation from her. She cared very little for
music, and with her usual honesty she showed, as a rule, a
very passive attitude towards it.
Professor Marshall glanced at her with a flash of an-
ger. ' Sometimes you count too much on my childish-
ness, Barbara," he said resentfully, and went out of the
door without further words.
Decidedly the discomposing effect of Aunt Victoria's visit
lasted even after she had gone away. But the next day
was the beginning of the school term, the busy, regular
routine was taken up, Sylvia was promoted to the 5A
grade, and at home Father let her begin to learn the Pil-
grim's Chorus, from Tannhauser.
Life for the eager little girl moved quickly forward at
its usual brisk pace, through several years to come.
CHAPTER VII
" WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-
EVIDENT . . ."
THE public school to which the Marshall children went
as soon as they were old enough was like any one of ten
thousand public schools a large, square, many-windowed,
extravagantly ugly building, once red brick, but long ago
darkened almost to black by soft-coal smoke. About it,
shaded by three or four big cottonwood-trees, was an in-
closed space of perhaps two acres of ground, beaten per-
fectly smooth by hundreds of trampling little feet, a hard,
bare earthen floor, so entirely subdued to its fate that
even in the long summer vacation no spear of grass could
penetrate its crust to remind it that it was made of com-
mon stuff with fields and meadows.
School began at nine o'clock in the morning and, as a
rule, three-fourths of the children had passed through the
front gate twenty or thirty minutes earlier. Nobody knew
why it should be considered such a hideous crime to be
' tardy/' but the fact was that not the most reckless and
insubordinate of the older boys cared to risk it. Any one
of the four hundred children in any public school in the
city preferred infinitely to be absent a day than to have the
ghastly experience of walking through deserted streets
(that is, with no children on them), across the empty play-
ground frighteningly unlike itself, into the long, desolate
halls which, walk as cat-like as one might, resounded to
the guilty footsteps with accusing echoes. And then the
narrow cloakroom, haunted with limp, hanging coats and
caps and hats, and finally the entry into the schoolroom,
seated rank on rank with priggishly complacent schoolmates,
70
" We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident" 71
looking up from their books with unfriendly eyes of blame
at the figure of the late-comer.
All over that section of La Chance, during the hour be-
tween half-past seven and half-past eight in the morning,
the families of school children were undergoing a most
rigorous discipline in regularity and promptness. No
child was too small or too timid to refrain from embit-
tering his mother's life with clamorous upbraidings if
breakfast were late, or his school-outfit of clothes were not
ready to the last button, so that he could join the proces-
sion of schoolward-bound children, already streaming past
his door at a quarter past eight. The most easy-going and
self-indulgent mother learned to have at least one meal a
day on time ; and the children themselves during those eight
years of their lives had imbedded in the tissue of their
brains and the marrow of their bones that unrebelling habit
of bending their backs daily to a regular burden of work
not selected by themselves which, according to one's point
of view, is either the bane or the salvation of our modern
industrial society.
The region where the school stood was inhabited, for
the most part, by American families or German and Irish
ones so long established as to be virtually American; a
condition which was then not infrequent in moderate-sized
towns of the Middle West and which is still by no means
unknown there. The class-rolls were full of Taylors and
Aliens and Robinsons and Jacksons and Websters and Raw-
sons and Putnams, with a scattering of Morrisseys and
Crimminses and O'Hearns, and some Schultzes and Bru-
backers and Helmeyers. There was not a Jew in the school,
because there were almost none in that quarter of town,
and, for quite another reason, not a single negro child.
There were plenty of them in the immediate neighborhood,
swarming around the collection of huts and shanties near
the railroad tracks given over to negroes, and known as
Flytown. But they had their own school, which looked
externally quite like all the others in town, and their play-
ground, beaten bare like that of the Washington Street
72 The Bent Twig
School, was filled with laughing, shouting children, ranging
from shoe-black through coffee-color to those occasional
tragic ones with white skin and blue eyes, but with the
telltale kink in the fair hair and the bluish half-moon at
the base of the finger-nails.
The four hundred children in the Washington Street
School were, therefore, a mass more homogeneous than
alarmists would have us believe it possible to find in this
country. They were, for all practical purposes, all Ameri-
can, and they were all roughly of one class. Their families
were neither rich nor poor (at least so far as the children's
standards went). Their fathers were grocers, small clerks,
merchants, two or three were truck-farmers, plumbers,
carpenters, accountants, employees of various big businesses
in town.
It was into this undistinguished and plebeian mediocrity
that the Marshall children were introduced when they be-
gan going to school.
The interior of the school-building resembled the outside
in being precisely like that of ten thousand other graded
schools in this country. The halls were long and dark and
dusty, and because the building had been put up under
contract at a period when public contract-work was not
so scrupulously honest as it notably is in our present cleanly
muck-raked era, the steps of the badly built staircase
creaked and groaned and sagged and gave forth clouds
of dust under the weight of the myriads of little feet which
climbed up and clown those steep ascents every day. Every-
thing was of wood. The interior looked like the realized
dream of a professional incendiary.
The classrooms were high and well-lighted, with many
large windows, never either very clean or very dirty, which
let in a flood of our uncompromisingly brilliant American
daylight upon the rows of little seats and desks screwed, like
those of an ocean liner, immovably to the floor, as though at
any moment the building was likely to embark upon a cruise
in stormy waters.
Outwardly the rows of clean-faced, comfortably dressed,
" We Hold These Truths to be Self -Evident" 73
well-shod American children, sitting in chairs, bore
no resemblance to shaven-headed, barefooted little Ara-
bian students, squatting on the floor, gabbling loud un-
comprehended texts from the Koran; but the sight of
Sylvia's companions bending over their school-books with
glazed, vacant eyes, rocking back and forth as a rhythmical
aid to memorizing, their lips moving silently as they re-
peated over and over, gabblingly, the phrases of the
printed page, might have inclined a hypothetical visitor
from Mars to share the bewildered amusement of the
American visitors to Moslem schools. Sylvia rocked and
twisted a favorite button, gabbled silently, and recited
fluently with the rest, being what was known as an apt
and satisfactory pupil. In company with the other chil-
dren she thus learned to say, in answer to questions, that
seven times seven is forty-nine; that the climate of Brazil
is hot and moist; that the capital of Arkansas is Little
Rock ; and that " through " is spelled with three misleading
and superfluous letters.
What she really learned was, as with her mates, another
matter for, of course, those devouringly active little minds
did not spend six hours a day in school without learning
something incessantly. The few rags and tatters of book-
information they acquired were but the merest fringes on
the great garment of learning acquired by these public-
school children, which was to wrap them about all their
lives. What they learned during those eight years of sit-
ting still and not whispering had nothing to do with the
books in their desks or the lore in their teachers' brains.
The great impression stamped upon the wax of their
minds, which became iron in after years, was democracy
a crude, distorted, wavering image of democracy, like
every image an ideal in this imperfect world, but in its
essence a reflection of the ideal of their country. No
European could have conceived how literally it was true
that the birth or wealth or social position of a child made
no difference in the estimation of his mates. There were
no exceptions to the custom of considering the individual
74 The Bent Twig
on his own merits. These merits were often queerly enough
imagined, a faculty for standing on his head redounding as
much, or more, to a boy's credit as the utmost brilliance in
recitation, or generosity of temperament, but at least he
was valued for something he himself could do, and not for
any fortuitous incidents of birth and fortune.
Furthermore there lay back of these four hundred chil-
dren, who shaped their world to this rough-and-ready imi-
tation of democracy, their families, not so intimately known
to each other, of course, as the children themselves, but
still by no means unknown in their general characteristics;
four hundred American families who were, on the whole,
industrious, law-abiding, who loved their children, who
were quite tasteless in matters of art, and quite sound
though narrow in matters of morals, utterly mediocre in
intelligence and information, with no breadth of outlook
in any direction ; but who somehow lived their lives and
faced and conquered all the incredible vicissitudes of that
Great Adventure, with an unconscious, cheerful forti-
tude which many an acuter mind might have envied
them.
It is possible that the personal knowledge of these four
hundred enduring family lives was, perhaps, the most im-
portant mental ballast taken on by the children of the com-
munity during their eight years' cruise at school. Certainly
it was the most important for the sensitive, complicated,
impressionable little Sylvia Marshall, with her latent dis-
taste for whatever lacked distinction and external grace,
and her passion for sophistication and elegance, which was
to spring into such fierce life with the beginning of her
adolescence. She might renounce, as utterly as she pleased,
the associates of her early youth, but the knowledge of their
existence, the acquaintance with their deep humanity, the
knowledge that they found life sweet and worth living, all
this was to be a part of the tissue of her brain forever, and
was to add one to the conflicting elements which battled
within her for the mastery during all the clouded, stormy
radiance of her youth.
" We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident" 75
The families which supplied the Washington Street
School being quite stationary in their self-owned houses,
few new pupils entered during the school-year. There was,
consequently, quite a sensation on the day in the middle
of March when the two Fingal girls entered, Camilla in the
" Fifth A ' : grade, where Sylvia was, and Cecile in the
third grade, in the next seat to Judith's. The girls them-
selves were so different from other children in school that
their arrival would have excited interest even at the begin-
ning of the school-year. Coming, as they did, at a time
when everybody knew by heart every detail of every one
else's appearance from hair-ribbon to shoes, these two
beautiful exotics, in their rich, plain, mourning dresses were
vastly stared at. Sylvia's impressionable eyes were espe-
cially struck by the air of race and breeding of the new-
comer in her class. Everything about the other child, from
her heavy, black hair, patrician nose, and large dark eyes
to her exquisitely formed hands, white and well-cared-for,
seemed to Sylvia perfection itself.
During recess she advanced to the new-comer, saying,
with a bright smile : " Aren't you thirsty ? Don't you want
me to show you where the pump is ? ' She put out her hand
as she spoke and took the slim white fingers in her own
rough little hand, leading her new schoolmate along in
silence, looking at her with an open interest.
She had confidently expected amicable responsiveness in
the other little girl, because her experience had been that
her own frank friendliness nearly always was reflected
back to her from others; but she had not expected, or in-
deed ever seen, such an ardent look of gratitude as burned
in the other's eyes. She stopped, startled, uncomprehend-
ing, as though her companion had said something unin-
telligible, and felt the slim fingers in her hand close about
her own in a tight clasp. " You are so very kind to show
me this pump," breathed Camilla shyly. The faint flavor
of a foreign accent which, to Sylvia's ear, hung about these
words, was the final touch of fascination for her. That in-
stant she decided in her impetuous, enthusiastic heart that
76 The Bent Twig
Camilla was the most beautiful, sweetest, best-dressed,
loveliest creature she had ever seen, or would ever see in
her life; and she bent her back joyfully in the service of her
ideal. She would not allow Camilla to pump for herself,
but flew to the handle with such energy that the white
water gushed out in a flood, overflowing Camilla's cup,
spattering over on her fingers, and sparkling on the sheer
white of her hemstitched cuffs. This made them both
laugh, the delicious silly laugh of childhood.
Already they seemed like friends. " How do you pro-
nounce your name ? " Sylvia asked familiarly.
" Cam-eela Fingal," said the other, looking up from her
cup, her upper lip red and moist. She accented the sur-
name on the last syllable.
"What a perfectly lovely name!" cried Sylvia. 'Mine
is Sylvia Marshall."
: That's a pretty name too," said Camilla, smiling. She
spoke less timidly now, but her fawn-like eyes still kept
their curious expression, half apprehension, half hope.
* How old are you ? ' asked Sylvia.
' Eleven, last November."
" Why, my birthday is in November, and I was eleven
too! " cried Sylvia. " I thought you must be older you're
so tall."
Camilla looked down and said nothing.
Sylvia went on : " I'm crazy about the way you do your
hair, in those twists over your ears. When I was study-
ing my spelling lesson, I was trying to figure out how
you do it."
' Oh, I don't do it. Mattice does it for us for Cecile
and me Cecile's my sister. She's in the third grade."
( Why, I have a sister in the third grade too ! ' ex-
claimed Sylvia, much struck by this second propitious co-
incidence. ' Her name is Judith and she's a darling.
Wouldn't it be nice if she and Cecile should be good friends
too!' She put her arm about her new comrade's waist,
convinced that they were now intimates of long standing.
They ran together to take their places at the sound of the
" We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident" 77
bell ; all during the rest of the morning session she smiled
radiantly at the new-comer whenever their eyes met.
She planned to walk part way home with her at noon,
but she was detained for a moment by the teacher, and
when she reached the front gate, where Judith was waiting
for her, Camilla was nowhere in sight. Judith explained
with some disfavor that a surrey had been waiting for
the Fingal girls and they had been driven away.
Sylvia fell into a rhapsody over her new acquaintance and
found to her surprise (it was always a surprise to Sylvia
that Judith's tastes and judgments so frequently differed
from hers) that Judith by no means shared her enthusiasm.
She admitted, but as if it were a matter of no importance,
that both Camilla and Cecile were pretty enough, but she
declared roundly that Cecile was a little sneak who had
set out from the first to be " Teacher's pet." This title, in
the sturdy democracy of the public schools, means about
what " sycophantic lickspittle " means in the vocabulary of
adults, and carries with it a crushing weight of odium
which can hardly ever be lived down.
" Judith, what makes you think so ? " cried Sylvia, horri-
fied at the epithet.
" The way she looks at Teacher she never takes her
eyes off her, and just jumps to do whatever Teacher says.
And then she looks at everybody so kind o' scared Vif she
thought she was goin' to be hit over the head every minute
and was so thankful to everybody for not doing it. Makes
me feel just like doin' it!' declared Judith, the Anglo-
Saxon.
Sylvia recognized a scornful version of the appealing
expression which she had found so touching in Camilla.
" Why, I think it's sweet of them to look so ! When
they're so awfully pretty, and have such good clothes and
a carriage and everything ! They might be as stuck-up as
anything! I think it's just nice for them to be so sweet! '
persisted Sylvia.
"I don't call it bein' sweet," said Judith, 'to watch
Teacher every minute and smile all over your face if she
78 The Bent Twig
looks at you and hold on to her hand when she's talkin' to
you ! It's silly ! '
They argued all the way home, and the lunch hour was
filled with appeals to their parents to take sides. Professor
and Mrs. Marshall, always ready, although occasionally
somewhat absent, listeners to school news, professed them-
selves really interested in these new scholars and quite
perplexed by the phenomenon of two beautiful dark-eyed
children, called Camilla and Cecile Fingal. Judith refused
to twist her tongue to pronounce the last syllable accented,
and her version of the name made it sound Celtic. ' Per-
haps their father is Irish and the mother Italian or Span-
ish," suggested Professor Marshall.
Sylvia was delighted with this hypothesis, and cried out
enthusiastically, " Oh yes Camilla looks Italian like an
Italian princess ! '
Judith assumed an incredulous and derisive expression
and remained silent, an achievement of self-control which
Sylvia was never able to emulate.
The Fingal girls continued to occupy a large space in
Sylvia's thoughts and hours, and before long they held a
unique position in the opinion of the school, which was
divided about evenly between the extremes represented by
Sylvia and Judith. The various accomplishments of the
new-comers were ground both for uneasy admiration and
suspicion. They could sing like birds, and, what seemed
like witchcraft to the unmusical little Americans about
them, they could sing in harmony as easily as they could
carry an air. And they recited with fire, ease, and evident
enjoyment, instead of with the show of groaning, unwilling
submission to authority which it was etiquette in the Wash-
ington Street School to show before beginning to ' speak
a piece."
They were good at their books too, and altogether, with
their quick docility, picturesqueness, and eagerness to please,
were the delight of their teachers. In the fifth grade,
Sylvia's example of intimate, admiring friendship definitely
threw popular favor on the side of Camilla, who made every
"We Hold These Truths to be Self -Evident " 79
effort to disarm the hostility aroused by her too-numerous
gifts of nature. She was ready to be friends with the poor-
est and dullest of the girls, never asked the important roles
in any games, hid rather than put forward the high marks
she received in her studies, and was lavish with her invita-
tions to her schoolmates to visit her at home.
The outside of this house, which Mr. Fingal had rented
a month or so before when they first moved to La Chance,
was like any one of many in the region ; but the interior
differed notably from those to which the other children
were accustomed. For one thing there was no ' lady of
the house," Mrs. Fingal having died a short time before.
Camilla and Cecile could do exactly as they pleased, and
they gave the freedom of the house and its contents lavishly
to their little friends. In the kitchen was an enormous old
negro woman, always good-natured, always smelling of
whiskey. She kept on hand a supply of the most meltingly
delicious cakes and cookies, and her liberal motto, " Heah,
chile, put yo' han' in the cookie- j ah and draw out what
you lights on ! ' was always flourished in the faces of the
schoolmates of the two daughters of the house.
In the rest of the house, filled with dark, heavy, dimly
shining furniture, reigned Mattice, another old negro
woman, but, unlike the jolly, fat cook, yellow and shriveled
and silent. She it was who arrayed Camille and Cecile with
such unerring taste, and her skilful old hands brushed and
dressed their long black hair in artful twists and coils.
Here, against their own background, the two girls seemed
more at their ease and showed more spontaneity than at
school. They were fond of " dressing up " and of organiz-
ing impromptu dramatizations of the stories of familiar
books, and showed a native ability for acting which ex-
plained their success in recitations. Once when the fun was
very rollicking, Camilla brought out from a closet a banjo
and, thrumming on its strings with skilful fingers, played a
tingling accompaniment to one of her songs. The other
little girls were delighted and clamored for more, but she
put it away quickly with almost a frown on her sweet
80 The Bent Twig
face, and for once in her life did not yield to their demands.
" Well, I think more of her for that! " remarked Judith,
when this incident was repeated to her by Sylvia, who cried
out, <( Why, Judy, how hate fid you are about poor Camilla ! '
Nothing was learned about the past history of the Fin-
gals beyond the fact, dropped once by the cook, that they
had lived in Louisiana before coming to La Chance, but
there were rumors, based on nothing at all, and everywhere
credited, that their mother had been a Spanish-American
heiress, disinherited by her family for marrying a Protes-
tant. Such a romantic and picturesque element had never
before entered the lives of the Washington Street school-
children. Once a bold and insensitive little girl, itching to
know more of this story-book history, had broken the silence
about Mrs. Fingal and had asked Camilla bluntly, " Say,
who was your mother, anyway ? ' The question had been
received by Camilla with whitening lips and a desperate
silence ended by a sudden loud burst of sobs, which tore
Sylvia's heart. You mean, horrid thing ! " she cried to the
inquisitor. ' Her mother isn't dead a year yet ! Camilla
can't bear to talk about her ! '
Once in a great while Mr. Fingal was visible, a bald,
middle-aged man with a white, sad face, and eyes that never
smiled, although his lips often did when he saw the clusters
of admiring children hanging about his daughters.
Judith held aloof from these gatherings at the Fingal
house, her prejudice against the girls never weakening,
although Cecile as well as Camilla had won over almost all
the other girls of her grade. Judith showed the self-con-
tained indifference which it was her habit to feel about mat-
ters which did not deeply stir her, and made no further at-
tempts to analyze or even to voice her animosity beyond
saying once, when asked to go with them on a drive, that
she didn't like their ' meechin' ways," a vigorous New
England phrase which she had picked up from her mother.
About a month after the Fingal girls entered school, the
project of a picnic took form among the girls of the Fifth A
" We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident" 81
grade. One of them had an uncle who lived three or four
miles from town on a farm which was passed by the Inter-
urban trolley line, and he had sent word that the children
could, if they liked, picnic in his maple woods, which over-
hung the brown waters of the Piquota river. There was
to be no recess that day in Five A, and the grade was to be
dismissed half an hour earlier than usual, so that the girls
could go out on the trolley in time to get the supper ready.
The farmer was to bring them back by moonlight in his
hay-wagon.
The prospect seemed ideal. Five A hummed with ex-
citement and importance as the various provisions were
allotted to the different girls and the plans talked over.
Sylvia was to bring bananas enough for the crowd ; one
of the German- American girls, whose father kept a grocery-
store, promised pickles and olives ; three or four together
were to make the sandwiches, and Camilla Fingal was to
bring along a big bag of the famous rich and be-raisined
cookies that lived in the " cookie-jah." Sylvia, who always
enjoyed prodigiously both in anticipation and in reality any
social event, could scarcely contain herself as the time drew
near with every prospect of fair weather.
The morning of the day was clear and fine, a perfect ex-
ample of early spring, with silvery pearls showing on
the tips of the red-twig osiers, and pussy-willows gleam-
ing gray along the margins of swampy places. Sylvia and
Judith felt themselves one with this upward surge of new
life. They ran to school together, laughing aloud for no
reason, racing and skipping like a couple of spring lambs,
their minds and hearts as crystal-clear of any shadow as the
pale-blue, smiling sky above them. The rising sap beat in
their young bodies as well as in the beech-trees through
which they scampered, whirling their school-books at the
end of their straps, and shouting aloud to hear the squirrel's
petulant, chattering answer.
When they came within sight and hearing of the school-
house, their practised ears detected (although with no hint
of foreboding) that something unusual had happened. The
82 The Bent Twig
children were not running about and screaming, but stand-
ing with their heads close together, talking, and talking, and
talking. As Judith and Sylvia came near, several ran to
meet them, hurling out at them like a hard-flung stone:
' Say what d'ye think ? Those Fingal girls are niggers ! '
To the end of her life, Sylvia would never forget the rend-
ing shock of disillusion brought her by these blunt words.
She did not dream of disbelieving them, or of underestimat-
ing their significance. A thousand confirmatory details leaped
into her mind : the rich, sweet voices the dramatic ability
the banjo the deprecatory air of timidity the self-con-
scious unwillingness to take the leading position to which
their talents and beauty gave them a right. Yes, of course
it was true ! In the space of a heartbeat, all her romantic
Italian imaginings vanished. She continued to walk for-
ward mechanically, in an utter confusion of mind.
She heard Judith asking in an astonished voice, ' ' Why,
what makes you think so ? " and she listened with a tor-
tured attention to the statement vouchsafed in an excited
chorus by a great many shrill little voices that the Fingals'
old cook had taken a little too much whiskey for once and
had fallen to babbling at the grocery-store before a highly
entertained audience of neighbors, about the endless pere-
grinations of the Fingal family in search of a locality where
the blood of the children would not be suspected " an'
theah motheh, fo' all heh good looks, second cousin to
Mattice ! " she had tittered foolishly, gathering up her basket
and rolling tipsily out of the store.
' Well " said Judith, " did you ever ! ' She was evi-
dently as much amazed as her sister, but Sylvia felt with a
sinking of the heart that what seemed to her the real signifi-
cance of the news had escaped Judith.
The Five A girls came trooping up to Sylvia. " Of
course we can't have Camilla at the picnic." " My uncle
wouldn't want a nigger there." " We'll have to tell her she
can't come."
Sylvia heard from the other groups of children about
them snatches of similar talk. " Anybody might ha' known
"We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident" 83
it singin' the way they do just like niggers' voices."
" They'll have to go to the nigger school now." " Huh 1
puttin' on airs with their carriage and their black dresses
nothin' but niggers ! ' The air seemed full of that word.
Sylvia sickened and quailed.
Not so Judith ! It had taken her a moment to understand
the way in which the news was being received. When she
did, she turned very pale, and broke out into a storm of
anger. She stuttered and halted as she always did when
overmastered by feeling, but her words were molten. She
ignored the tacit separation between children of different
grades and, though but a third-grader, threw herself pas-
sionately among the girls who were talking of the picnic,
clawing at their arms, forcing her way to the center, a rag-
ing, white-faced, hot-eyed little thunderbolt. " You're the
meanest low-down things I ever heard of ! ' she told the
astonished older girls, fairly spitting at them in her fury.
You you go and s-sponge off the Fingals for c-c-cakes
and rides and s-s-soda water and you think they're too
1-1-lovely for w-words and you t-t-try to do your hair just
the way C-C-Camilla does. They aren't any different to-day
f-f-from what they were yesterday are they? You make
me sick you m-m-make m-m-me "
The big bell rang out its single deep brazen note for the
formation of lines, and the habit of unquestioning, instant
obedience to its voice sent the children all scurrying to their
places, from which they marched forward to their respective
classrooms in their usual convict silence. Just as the line
ahead was disappearing into the open door, the well-kept,
shining surrey drove up in haste and Camilla and Cecile,
dazzling in fresh white dresses and white hair ribbons, ran
to their places. Evidently they had heard nothing. Camilla
turned and smiled brightly at her friend as she stepped
along in front of her.
Sylvia experienced another giddy reaction of feeling. Up
to that moment, she had felt nothing but shocked and in-
tensely self-centered horror at the disagreeableness of what
had happened, and a wild desire to run away to some quiet
84 The Bent Twig
spot where she would not have to think about it, where it
could not make her unhappy, where her heart would stop
beating so furiously. What had she ever done to have such
a horrid thing happen in her world ! She had been as much
repelled by Judith's foaming violence as by any other ele-
ment of the situation. If she could only get away! Every
sensitive nerve in her, tuned to a graceful and comely
order of life, was rasped to anguish by the ugliness of it
all. Up to the moment Camilla came running to her place
this had been the dominant impulse in the extreme con-
fusion of Sylvia's mind.
But at the sight of Camilla she felt bursting up through
this confusion of mind, and fiercely attacking her instinct of
self-preservation, a new force, unsuspected, terribly alive
sympathy with Camilla Camilla, with her dog-like, timid,
loving eyes Camilla, who had done nothing to deserve un-
happiness except to be born Camilla, always uneasy with
tragic consciousness of the sword over her head, and now
smiling brightly with tragic unconsciousness that it was
about to fall. Sylvia's heart swelled almost unendurably.
She was feeling, for the first time in her life consciously, the
two natures under her skin, and this,, their first open
struggle for the mastery of her, was like a knife in her
side.
She sat during the morning session, her eyes on the
clock, fearing miserably the moment of dismissal at noon,
when she must take some action she who only longed to
run away from discord and dwell in peace. Her mind
swung, pendulum-like, from one extreme of feeling to an-
other. Every time that Camilla smiled at her across the
heads of the other children, sullenly oblivious of their
former favorite, Sylvia turned sick with shame and pity.
But when her eyes rested on the hard, hostile faces which
made up her world, the world she had to live in, the world
which had been so full of sweet and innocent happiness for
her, the world which would now be ranged with her or
against her according to her decision at noon, she was over-
come by a panic at the very idea of throwing her single self
" We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident" 85
against this many-headed tyrant. With an unspeakable
terror she longed to feel the safe walls of conformity about
her. There was a battle with drawn swords in the heart of
the little girl trying blindly to see where the n came in
' pneumonia."
The clock crept on, past eleven, towards twelve. Sylvia
had come to no decision. She could come to no decision !
She felt herself consciously to be unable to cope with the
crisis. She was too small, too weak, too shrinking, to make
herself iron, and resist an overwhelming force.
It was ve minutes of twelve. The order was given to
put away books and pencils in the desks. Sylvia's hands
trembled so that she could hardly close the lid.
; Turn ! " said the teacher, in her tired, mechanical voice.
The children turned their stubbed-toed shoes out into the
aisle, their eyes menacingly on Camilla.
' Rise ! ' Like a covey of partridge, they all stood up,
stretching, twisting their bodies, stiff and torpid after the
long hours of immobility.
' Pass ! ' Clattering feet all over the building began
moving along the aisles and out towards the cloakrooms.
Every one seized his own wraps with a practised snatch, and
passed on, still in line, over the dusty wooden floors of the
hall, down the ill-built, resounding stairs, out to the play-
ground out to Sylvia's ordeal.
As she came out blinkingly into the strong spring sun-
light, she still had reached no decision. Her impulse was
to run, as fast as she could, out to the gate and down
the street home ! But another impulse held her back.
The lines were breaking up. Camilla was turning about
with a smile to speak to her. Malevolent eyes were fixed on
them from all sides. Sylvia felt her indecision mount in a
cloud about her, like blinding, scalding steam.
And then, there before her, stood Judith, her proud dark
little face set in an angry scowl, her arm about Cecile Fin-
gal's neck.
Sylvia never could think what she would have done if
Judith had not been there ; but then, Judith was one of the
86 The Bent Twig
formative elements of her life as much as was the food
she ate or the thoughts she had. What she did was to turn
as quickly and unhesitatingly as though she had always
meant to do it, put her arm through Camilla's and draw
her rapidly towards the gate where the surrey waited.
Judith and Cecile followed. The crowds of astonished, and
for the moment silenced, children fell back before them.
Once she had taken her action, Sylvia saw that it was the
only one possible. But she was upheld by none of the tra-
ditional pride in a righteous action, nor by a raging single-
mindedness like Judith's, who stalked along, her little fists
clenched, frowning blackly to right and left on the other
children, evidently far more angry with them than sym-
pathetic for Cecile. Sylvia did not feel angry with any one.
She was simply more acutely miserable than she had ever
dreamed possible. The distance to the surrey seemed end-
less to her.
Her sudden rush had taken Camilla so completely by sur-
prise that not until the)'' were at the gate did she catch her
breath to ask laughingly: "What in the world's the matter
with you, Sylvia ? You act so queer ! '
Sylvia did not answer, every nerve bent on getting Camilla
into safety, but a little red-headed boy from the second
grade, who could scarcely talk plainly, burst out chantingly,
pointing his dirty forefinger at Camilla :
" Nigger, nigger, never die,
Black face and shiny eye,
Curly hair and curly toes
That's the way the nigger goes ! '
There was a loud laugh from the assembled children.
Camilla wavered as though she had been struck. Her
lovely face turned ashy-gray, and she looked at Sylvia with
the eyes of one dying.
From the deepest of her nature, Sylvia responded to that
look. She forgot the crowd, boldly, unafraid, beside her-
self with pity, she flung her arms about her friend's neck,
" We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident" 87
hiding the white face on her shoulder. Judith ran up,
blazing with rage, and pulled at Camilla's arm. " Don't
give in ! Don't give in ! " she screamed. " Don't cry ! Don't
let 'em see you care ! Sass 'em back, why don't you ? Hit
that little boy over the head ! Sass them back, why don't
you ? "
But Camilla only shook her head vehemently and shrank
away into the carriage, little Cecile stumbling after, the
silent tears streaming down her face. The two clasped each
other, and the surrey drove quickly away, leaving the Mar-
shall girls standing on the curb.
Judith turned around and faced the crowds of enemies
back of them. " Nasty old things ! " she cried, sticking out
her tongue at them. She was answered by a yell, at which
she made another face and walked away, pulling Sylvia with
her. For a few steps they were followed by some small boys
who yelled in chorus :
" Judith's mad and I'm glad,
And I know what'll please her :
A bottle of wine to make her shine,
And two little niggers to squeeze her ! '
They were beginning this immemorially old chant over again
when Judith turned and ran back towards them with a
white, terrible face of wrath. At the sight they scattered
like scared chickens.
Judith was so angry that she was shivering all over her
small body, and she kept repeating at intervals, in a suffo-
cated voice : " Nasty old things ! Just wait till I tell my
father and mother ! '
As they passed under the beech-trees, it seemed to Sylvia
a physical impossibility that only that morning they had
raced and scampered along, whirling their school-books and
laughing.
They ran into the house, calling for their parents in ex-
cited voices, and pouring out incoherent exclamations.
Sylvia cried a little at the comforting sight of her mother's
The Bent Twig
face and was taken up on Mrs. Marshall's lap and closely
held. Judith never cried ; she had not cried even when she
ran the sewing-machine needle through her thumb ; but
when infuriated she could not talk, her stammering grow-
ing so pronounced that she could not get out a word, and it
was Sylvia who told the facts. She was astonished to find
them so few and so quickly stated, having been under the
impression that something of intense and painful excitement
had been happening every moment of the morning.
But the experience of her parents supplied the tragic back-
ground of strange, passionate prejudice which Sylvia could
not phrase, and which gave its sinister meaning to her briefly
told story : " and so Judith and I walked with them out
to the gate, and then that little Jimmy Cohalan yelled out,
' nigger nigger ' you know "
Judith broke in, her nostrils distended, " And they never
sassed back, or hit anybody or anything just crumpled up
and cried ! '
Sylvia was aghast with bewilderment. " Why, I thought
you were on their side ! "
1 Well, I am!' asserted Judith, beginning to stammer
again. ' But I don't have to like 'em any better, do I
because I get mad when a 1-1-lot of mean, n-nasty girls that
have b-b-b-been s-s-spongin' off " She stopped, balked
by her infirmity, and appealed to her parents with a silent
look of fury.
' What shall we do, Mother ? " asked Sylvia despairingly,
looking up into her mother's face from the comfortable
shelter of her long, strong arms. Mrs. Marshall looked
down at her without speaking. It occurred to Sylvia dis-
quietingly that her mother's expression was a little like
Judith's. But when Mrs. Marshall spoke it was only to
say in her usual voice : " Well, the first thing to do is to
have something to eat. Whatever else you do, don't let a
bad condition of your body interfere with what's going on
in your mind. Lunch is getting cold and don't talk about
trouble while you're eating. After you're through, Father'll
tell you what to do."
"We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident"
Professor Marshall made a gesture of dismay. " Good
Lord, Barbara, don't put it off on me ! '
His wife looked at him with smoldering eyes. " I cer-
tainly have nothing to say that would be fit for children to
hear ! ' she said in an energetic tone, beginning to serve
the baked beans, which were the main dish for the day.
After the meal, always rather hasty because of the chil-
dren's short noon-hour, Sylvia and Judith went to sit on
their father's knees, while he put an arm about each and,
looking from one serious expectant face to the other, began
his explanation. He cleared his throat, and hesitated before
beginning, and had none of his usual fluency as he went on.
What he finally said was: ''' Well, children, you've stumbled
into about the hardest problem there is in this country, and
the honest truth is that we don't any of us know what's
right to do about it. The sort of thing that's just happened
in the Washington Street School is likely to happen 'most
anywhere, and it's no harder on these poor little playmates
of yours than on all colored people. But it's awfully hard
on them all. The best we can do is to hope that after a
great many people have lived and died, all trying to do
their best, maybe folks will have learned how to manage
better. Of course, if grown men and women don't know
how to help matters, you little girls can't expect to fix
things either. All you can do is to go on being nice to
Camilla and "
Judith broke in here hotly, ' You don't mean we oughtn't
to do something about the girls being so mean to them
not letting Camilla go to the picnic and "
" What could you do ? " asked her father quietly, " that
would make things any better for Camilla? If you were
forty times as strong as you are, you couldn't make the
other girls want Camilla at the picnic. It would only spoil
the picnic and wouldn't help Camilla a bit." Professor
Marshall meditated a moment, and went on, ' Of course
I'm proud of my little daughters for being kind to friends
who are unhappy through no fault of theirs ' ( Sylvia
winced at this, and thought of confessing that she was very
90 The Bent Twig
near running away and leaving Camilla to her fate), "and
I hope you'll go on being as nice to your unfortunate
friends as ever "
Judith said : " They aren't friends of mine ! / don't like
them ! '
As not infrequently happened, something about Judith's
attitude had been irritating her father, and he now said
with some severity, <c Then it's a case where Sylvia's loving
heart can do more good than your anger, though you evi-
dently think it very fine of you to feel that ! '
Judith looked down in a stubborn silence, and Sylvia
drooped miserably in the consciousness of receiving un-
deserved praise. She opened her mouth to explain her
vacillations of the morning, but her moral fiber was not
equal to the effort. She felt very unhappy to have Judith
blamed and herself praised when things ought to have been
reversed, but she could not bring herself to renounce her
father's good opinion.
Professor Marshall gave them both a kiss and set them
down. " It's twenty minutes to one. You'd better run
along, dears," he said.
After the children had gone out, his wife, who had pre-
served an unbroken silence, remarked dryly, " So that's the
stone we give them when they ask for bread."
Professor Marshall made no attempt to defend himself.
' My dim generalities are pretty poor provender for honest
children's minds, I admit," he said humbly, " but what else
have we to give them that isn't directly contradicted by
our lives? There's no use telling children something that
they never see put into practice."
' It's not impossible, I suppose, to change our lives,"
suggested his wife uncompromisingly.
Professor Marshall drew a great breath of dishearten-
ment. ' As long as I can live without thinking of that
element in American life it's all right. But when anything
brings it home like this today I feel that the mean com-
promise we all make must be a disintegrating moral force
in the national character. I feel like gathering up all of you,
"We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident" 91
and going away away from the intolerable question to
Europe and earning the family living by giving English
lessons ! '
Mrs. Marshall cried out, " It makes me feel like going
out right here in La Chance with a bomb in one hand and a
rifle in the other ! '
From which difference of impression it may perhaps be
seen that the two disputants were respectively the father
and mother of Sylvia and Judith.
Mrs. Marshall rose and began clearing away the luncheon
dishes. As she disappeared into the kitchen, she paused a
moment behind the door, a grim, invisible voice, remarking,
'* And what we shall do is, of course, simply nothing at
all ! "
CHAPTER VIII
SABOTAGE
SYLVIA and Judith walked to school in a profound silence.
Sylvia was shrinking with every nerve from the ordeal of
facing again those four hundred hostile faces ; from the new
and painful relations with her playmates which lay before
her. She was now committed irrevocably to the cause of
the Fingals, and she felt a terrified doubt of having enough
moral strength to stick to that position.
For the moment the problem was settled by their arriv-
ing at the schoolhouse almost too late. The lines were just
marching into the building, and both girls barely slipped into
their places in time. Sylvia noticed with relief that Camilla
was absent.
All the Five A girls had paper bags or pasteboard boxes,
and in the air of the Five A cloakroom was a strong smell
of vinegar. Gretchen Schmidt's pickles had begun to soak
through the bag, and she borrowed the cover of a box to set
them in. These sounds and smells recalled the picnic to
Sylvia's mind, the picnic to which she had been looking
forward with such inexpressible pleasure. For an instant
she was aghast to think that she had forgotten her bananas,
tied up all ready at home on the sideboard. But the next
instant she thought sadly that she probably would not be
welcome at the picnic. She went to her seat and sat for-
lorn through the changing lessons of the afternoon.
The teacher ground out the half-hour lessons wearily, her
eyes on the clock, as unaware of the crisis in her class as
though she were in another planet. At four o'clock Sylvia
filed out with the other children to the cloakroom, but there
was not the usual quick, practised grab, each for his own be-
longings. The girls remained behind, exclaiming and
92
Sabotage 93
lamenting. Such a clamor arose that the teacher came hur-
rying in, anxious for the reputation for good behavior of
her class. Good behavior in the Washington Street School,
as in a penitentiary, was gauged by the degree of silence and
immobility achieved by the inmates.
The girls ran to Miss Miller, crying out, " Somebody's
stolen our lunches, we left them here all our boxes and
things and they're all gone ! '
Sylvia hung back in the door to the schoolroom, apart
from the others, half relieved by the unexpected event which
diverted attention from her.
One of the boys who had gone ahead in the line now
came back, a large cucumber stuck in the corner of his
mouth like a fat, green cigar. He announced with evident
satisfaction in the girls' misfortune that the steps were
strewn v/ith pickles. The bag must have burst entirely as
they were being carried downstairs. Gretchen Schmidt be-
gan to weep, " all them good pickles ! ' One of the
girls flew at the boy who brought the bad news. ' I just
bet you did it yourself, Jimmy Weaver, you an' Frank Ken-
nedy. You boys were mad anyhow because we didn't ask
you to come to the picnic."
Jimmy's face assumed the most unmistakably genuine
expression of astonishment and aggrieved innocence. ' Aw,
you're off yer base ! I wouldn't ha' gone to your darned old
picnic an' wasn't I in the room every minute this after-
noon ? '
" No, you weren't you weren't ! ' More of the girls had
come to the attack, and now danced about the boy, hurling
accusations at him. " You got excused to get a drink of
water ! And so did Pete Roberts ! You did it then ! You
did it then! You did "
"Hush, children! Not so loud!' said Miss Miller.
"You'll have the Principal down here!"
At this terrible threat the children, in spite of their heat,
lowered their voices. Jimmy was beginning an angry, half-
alarmed protest "Aw, 'twas a tramp must ha' got in an*
saw " when he was pushed out of the way by a small,
94 The Bent Twig
vigorous hand. Judith Marshall walked in, her face very
pale. She was breathing hard, and through her parted lips,
as though she had been running fast, her small white teeth
showed like those of an enraged squirrel. ' I threw your
picnic things in the river," she said.
The older children recoiled from this announcement, and
from the small, tense figure. Even the teacher kept her
distance, as though Judith were some dangerous little ani-
mal.
" What in the world did you do that for ? " she asked in
a tone of stupefaction.
" Because they are n-n-nasty, mean things," said Judith,
" and if they weren't going to let C-C-Camilla go to the
picnic, I wasn't going to let them have any picnic ! '
The teacher turned around to Sylvia, now almost as
white as her sister, and said helplessly, ' Sylvia, do you
know what she's talking about ? '
Sylvia went forward and took Judith's hand. She was
horrified beyond words by what Judith had done, but Judith
was her little sister. " Yes, ma'am," she said, to Miss
Miller's question, speaking, for all her agitation, quickly
and fluently as was her habit, though not very coherently.
" Yes, ma'am, I know. Everybody was saying this morning
that the Fingals' mother was a negro, and so the girls
weren't going to invite Camilla to the picnic, and it made
Judith mad."
" Why, she didn't know Camilla very well, did she ? '
asked the teacher, astonished.
" No, ma'am," said Sylvia, still speaking quickly, although
the tears of fright were beginning to stand in her eyes. ' It
just made her mad because the girls weren't going to in-
vite her because she didn't think it was anyhow her
fault."
'Whose fault!" cried the teacher, completely lost.
' Camilla's," quavered Sylvia, the tears beginning to fall
There was a pause. ' Well I never!' exclaimed the
teacher, whose parents had come from New England. She
was entirely at a loss to know how to treat this unprece-
Sabotage 95
dented situation, and like other potentates with a long habit
of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity with a
smart show of decision. You children go right straight
home, along out of the building this minute," she com-
manded. You know you're not allowed to loiter around
after school-hours. Sylvia and Judith, stay here. I'm
going to take you up to the Principal's office."
The girls and Jimmy Weaver ran clattering down the
stairs, in an agreeably breathless state of excitement. In
their opinion the awfulness of the situation had been ade-
quately recognized by the teacher and signaled by the
equally awful expedient of a visit to the Principal's office,
the last resort in the case of the rarely occurring insubordi-
nate boy.
Because Miss Miller had not the least idea what to say in
an event so far out of the usual routine, she talked a great
deal during the trip through the empty halls and staircases
up to the Principal's office on the top floor; chiefly to the
effect that as many years as she had taught, never had
she encountered such a bad little girl as Judith. Judith
received this in stony silence, but Sylvia's tears fell fast.
All the years of her docile school existence had trained her
in the habit of horror at insubordination above every other
crime. She felt as disgraced as though Judith had been
caught stealing, perhaps more so.
Miss Miller knocked at the door; the Principal, stooping
and hollow-chested, opened it and stood confronting with
tired, kind eyes the trio before him the severe woman,
with her pathetic, prematurely old face and starved flat body,
the pretty little girl hanging down her head and weeping,
the smaller child who gave him one black defiant look
and then gazed past him out of the window.
" Well, Miss Miller ? " he asked.
' I've brought you a case that I don't know what to do
with," she began. " This is Judith Marshall, in the third
grade, and she has just done one of the naughtiest things
I ever heard of "
When she had finished her recital, " How do you know
96 The Bent Twig
this child did it ? " asked Mr. Bristol, always his first ques-
tion in cases between teachers and pupils.
" She was so brazen as to come right back and tell us so,"
said Miss Miller, her tone growing more and more con-
demnatory.
Judith's face, capable of such rare and positive beauty,
had now shut down into a hard, repellent little mask of hate.
Mr. Bristol looked at her for a moment in silence, and then
at Sylvia, sobbing, her arm crooked over her face, hiding
everything but her shining curls. ' And what has this little
girl to do with anything?" he asked.
" This is Sylvia Marshall, Judith's sister, and of course
she feels dreadfully about Judith's doing such a dreadful
thing," explained Miss Miller inelegantly.
Mr. Bristol walked back to his desk and sat down.
1 Well, I think I needn't keep you any longer, Miss Miller,"
he said. " If you will just leave the little girls here for a
while perhaps I can decide what to do about it."
Thus mildly but unmistakably dismissed, the teacher
took her departure, pushing Sylvia and Judith inside the
door and shutting it audibly after her. She was so tired
as she walked down the stairs that she ached, and she
thought to herself, " As if things weren't hard enough with-
out their going and being naughty ! '
Inside the room there was a moment's silence, filled al-
most palpably by Sylvia's quivering alarm, and by Judith's
bitter mental resistance. Mr. Bristol drew out a big book
from the shelf over his desk and held it out to Sylvia. " I
guess you all got pretty excited about this, didn't you?'
he said, smiling wisely at the child. " You and your sister
sit down and look at the pictures in this for a while, till
you get cooled off, and then I'll hear all about it."
Sylvia took the book obediently, and drew Judith to a
chair, opening the pages, brushing away her tears, and try-
ing to go through the form of looking at the illustrations,
which were of the birds native to the region. In spite of
her emotion, the large, brightly colored pictures did force
their way through her eye to her brain, instinct in every
Sabotage 97
fiber with the modern habit of taking in impressions from
the printed page ; and for years afterwards she could have
told the names of the birds they saw during that long, still
half-hour, broken by no sound but the tap-tap-tap of Mr.
Bristol's typewriter. He did not once look towards them.
This was partly a matter of policy, and partly because he
was trying desperately to get a paper written for the next
Convention of Public School Principals, which he was to
address on the " Study of Arithmetic in the Seventh Grade/'
He had very fixed and burning ideas about the teaching of
arithmetic in the seventh, grade, which he longed with a true
believer's fervor to see adopted by all the schools in the
country. He often said that if they would only do so, the
study of arithmetic would be revolutionized in a decade.
Judith sat beside her sister, not pretending to look at the
book, although the rigidity of her face insensibly softened
somewhat in the contagious quiet of the room.
When they had turned over the last page and shut the
book, Mr. Bristol faced them again, leaning back in his
swivel-chair, and said : " Now, children all quiet ? One of
you begin at the beginning and tell me how it happened."
Judith's lips shut together in a hard line, so Sylvia began,
surprised to find her nerves steadied and calmed by the
silent half-hour of inaction back of her. She told how they
were met that morning by the news, how the children
shouted after Camilla as she got into the carriage, how the
Five A girls had decided to exclude her from the picnic,
how angry Judith had been, and then then she knew no
more to tell beyond the bare fact of Judith's passionate
misdeed.
Mr. Bristol began to cross-examine Judith in short, quiet
sentences. ' What made you think of throwing the things
into the river ? '
' I was afraid they'd get them back somehow if I didn't,"
said Judith, as if stating a self-evident argument.
' Where did you go to throw them in ? To the Monroe
Street bridge ? '
;< No, I didn't have time to go so far. I just went down
The Bent Twig
through Randolph Street to the bank and there was a boat
there tied to a tree, and I got in and pushed it out as far as
the rope would go and dropped the things in from the other
end."
Sylvia caught her breath in terror at this recital. The
Piquota river ran swift and turbid and deep between high
banks at that point. ' Weren't you afraid to venture out in
a boat all by yourself ? " asked the man, looking at Judith's
diminutive person.
" Yes, I was," said Judith unexpectedly.
Mr. Bristol said " Oh " and stood in thought for a
moment. Some one knocked on the door, and he turned
to open it. At the sight of the tall figure standing there in
his pepper-and-salt suit, Sylvia's heart gave a great bound
of incredulous rapture. The appearance of a merciful
mediator on the Day of Judgment could not have given her
keener or more poignant relief. She and Judith both ran
headlong to their father, catching his hands in theirs, cling-
ing to his arms and pressing their little bodies against his.
The comfort Sylvia felt in his mere physical presence was
inexpressible. It is one of the pure golden emotions of
childhood, which no adult can ever recover, save perhaps a
mystic in a moment of ecstatic contemplation of the power
and loving-kindness of his God.
Professor Marshall put out his hand to the Principal,
introducing himself, and explained that he and his wife had
been a little uneasy when the children had not returned
from school. Mr. Bristol shook the other's hand, saying
that he knew of him through mutual acquaintances and
assuring him that he could not have come at a more oppor-
tune moment. Your little daughter has given me a hard
nut to crack. I need advice."
Both men sat down, Sylvia and Judith still close to their
father's side, and Mr. Bristol told what had happened in a
concise, colorless narration, ending with Judith's exploit with
the boat. ' Now what would you do in my place ? ' he
said, like one proposing an insoluble riddle.
Sylvia, seeing the discussion going on in such a quiet, con-
Sabotage 99
versational tone, ventured in a small voice the suggestion
that Judith had done well to confess, since that had saved
others from suspicion. ' The girls were sure that Jimmy
Weaver had done it."
" Was that why you came back and told ? " asked Pro-
fessor Marshall.
" No," said Judith bluntly, " I never thought of that. I
wanted to be sure they knew why it happened."
The two men exchanged glances. Professor Marshall
said : " Didn't you understand me when I told you at noon
that even if you could make the girls let Camilla go to the
picnic, she wouldn't have a good time? You couldn't make
them like to have her ? '
" Yes, I understood all right," said Judith, looking straight
at her father, "but if she couldn't have a good time and
no fault of hers I wasn't going to let them have a good
time either. I wasn't trying to make them want her. I was
trying to get even with them ! '
Professor Marshall looked stern. " That is just what I
feared, Judith, and that hateful spirit is the bad thing about
the whole business." He turned to the Principal : ' How
many girls were going to the picnic ? '
The other, with a wide gesture, disavowed any knowl-
edge of the matter. " Good Heavens ! how should I know ? '
Sylvia counted rapidly. ' Fourteen," she said.
" Well, Mr. Bristol, how would this do for a punishment?
Judith has worked in various ways, digging up dandelions
from the lawn, weeding flower-beds, running errands you
know all the things children do and she has a little more
than five dollars in her iron savings-bank, that she has been
saving for more than a year to buy a collie puppy. Would
you be satisfied if she took that money, divided it into four-
teen parts, and took it herself in person to each of the
girls ? "
During this proposal Judith's face had taken on an expres-
sion of utter dismay. She looked more childlike, more like
her years than at any moment during the interview. ' Oh,
Father! " she implored him, with a deep note of entreaty.
ioo The Bent Twig
He did not look at her, but over her head at the Prin-
cipal, who was rising from his chair with every indication of
relief on his face. " Nothing could be better," he said.
" That will be just right every one will be satisfied. And
I'll just say for the sake of discipline that little Judith shan't
come back to school till she has done her penance. Of
course she can get it all done before supper-time tonight.
All our families live in the vicinity of the school." He
was shaking Professor Marshall's hand again and edging
him towards the door, his mind once more on his paper,
hoping that he might really finish it before night if only
there were no more interruptions !
His achievement in divining the mental processes of two
children hysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming
of those fluttering little hearts, his inspired avoidance of a
fatal false step at a critical point in the moral life of two
human beings in the making all this seemed as nothing
to him an incident of the day's routine already forgotten.
He conceived that his real usefulness to society lay in the
reform of arithmetic-teaching in the seventh grade, and he
turned back to his arguments with the ardor of the great
landscape painter who aspires to be a champion at billiards.
Professor Marshall walked home in silence with his two
daughters, explained the matter to his wife, and said that
he and Sylvia would go with Judith on her uncomfortable
errand. Mrs. Marshall listened in silence and went herself
to get the little bank stuffed full of painfully earned pennies
and nickels. Then she bade them into the kitchen and gave
Judith and Sylvia each a cookie and a glass of milk.
She made no comment whatever on the story, or on her
husband's sentence for the culprit, but just as the three
were going out of the door, she ran after them, caught
Judith in her arms, and gave her a passionate kiss.
The next day was Saturday, and it was suggested that
Judith and Sylvia carry on their campaign by going to see
the Fingals and spending the morning playing with them
as though nothing had happened.
Sabotage 101
As they approached the house, somewhat perturbed by
the prospect, they saw with surprise that the windows were
bare of the heavy yellow lace curtains which had hung in
the parlor, darkening that handsomely furnished room to
a rich twilight. They went up on the porch, and Judith
rang the bell resolutely, while Sylvia hung a little back of
her. From this position she could see into the parlor, and
exclaimed, " Why, Judy, this isn't the right house nobody
lives here ! ' The big room was quite empty, the floors bare
of the large soft rugs, and as the children pressed their faces
to the pane, they could see through an open door into a
bedroom also dismantled and deserted.
They ran around the house to the back door and knocked
on it. There was no answer. Judith turned the knob, the
door opened, and they stood in what had been unmistakably
the Fyingals' kitchen. Evidence of wild haste and confusion
was everywhere about them the floor was littered with
excelsior, the shelves half cleared and half occupied still
with cooking supplies, a packing-box partly filled with
kitchenware which at the last moment the fugitives had
evidently decided to abandon.
The little girls stood in this silent desolation, looking
about them with startled eyes. A lean mother-cat came
and rubbed her thin, pendent flanks against their legs, purr-
ing and whining. Three kittens skirmished joyfully in the
excelsior, waylaying one another in ambush and springing
out with bits of the yellow fibers clinging to their woolly
soft fur.
: They've gone! " breathed Sylvia. " They've gone away
for good ! '
Judith nodded, even her bold and unimaginative spirit
somewhat daunted by the ghostly silence of the house.
Sylvia tiptoed to the swinging-door and pushed it open.
Yes, there was the pantry, like the kitchen, in chaotic dis-
order, tissue paper and excelsior thick on the floor, and
entangled with it the indescribable jumble of worthless, dis-
connected objects always tumbled together by a domestic
crisis like a fire or a removal old gloves, whisk-brooms,
IO2 The Bent Twig
hat-forms, lamps, magazines, tarnished desk-fittings. The
sight was so eloquent of panic haste that Sylvia let the door
swing shut, and ran back into the kitchen.
Judith was pointing silently to a big paper bag on the
shelf. It had been tossed there with some violence evi-
dently, for the paper had burst and the contents had cas-
caded out on the shelf and on the floor the rich, be-raisined
cookies which Camilla was to have taken to the picnic.
Sylvia felt the tears stinging her eyelids, and pulled Judith
out of the tragic house. They stood for a moment in the
yard, beside a bed of flowering crocuses, brilliant in the
sun. The forsaken house looked down severely at them
from its blank windows. Judith was almost instantly re-
lieved of mental tension by the outdoor air, and stooped
down unconcernedly to tie her shoe. She broke the lacing
and had to sit down, take it out of the shoe, tie it, and
put it back again. The operation took some time, during
which Sylvia stood still, her mind whirling.
For the first time in her steadily forward-going life there
was a sharp,, irrevocable break. Something which had been
yesterday was now no more. She would never see Camilla
again, she who recalled Camilla's look of anguish as though
they still stood side by side. Her heart filled with unspeak-
able thankfulness that she had put her arms around Ca-
milla's neck at that supreme last moment. That had not
been Judith's doing. That had come from her own heart.
Unconsciously she had laid the first stone in the wall of self-
respect which might in the future fortify her against her
weaknesses.
She stood looking up blindly at the house, shivering again
at the recollection of its echoing, empty silence. The mo-
ment was one she never forgot. Standing there in that
commonplace backyard, staring up at a house like any one
of forty near her, she felt her heart grow larger. In that
moment, tragedy, mystery, awe, and pity laid their shadowy
fingers on her shining head.
CHAPTER IX
THE END OF CHILDHOOD
THAT afternoon a couple of children who came to play
in the Marshall orchard brought news that public opinion,
after the fashion of that unstable weathercock, was veering
rapidly, and blowing from a wholly unexpected quarter.
' My papa says," reported Gretchen Schmidt, who never
could keep anything to herself, even though it might be by
no means to her advantage to proclaim it " my papa says
that he thinks the way American people treats colored peo-
ples is just fierce; and he says if he'd ha' known about our
not letting Camilla go to the picnic, he'd ha' taken the
trouble to me ' mit der flachen Hand schlagen? That
means he'd have spanked me good and plenty."
Maria Perkins, from the limb where she hung by her
knees, responded, Yup, my Uncle Eben says he likes
Judy's spunk."
" I guess he wouldn't have, if it'd ha' been his pickles ! '
Gretchen made a last stand against the notorious injustice of
fickle adult prejudices.
But the tide had begun to turn. On Monday morning
Sylvia and Judith found themselves far from ostracized,
rather the center of much respectful finger-pointing on the
part of children from the other grades who had never paid
the least attention to them before. And finally when the
Principal, passing majestically from room to room in his
daily tour of inspection, paused in his awful progress and
spoke to Judith by name, asking her quite familiarly and
condescendingly what cities you would pass through if you
went from Chicago to New Orleans, the current set once
and for all in the other direction. No mention was ever
made of the disappearance of the Fingals, and the Marshall
children found their old places waiting for them.
103
104 The Bent Twig
It was not long before Judith had all but forgotten the
episode; but Sylvia, older and infinitely more impression-
able, found it burned irrevocably into her memory. For
many and many a week, she did not fall asleep without
seeing Camilla's ashy face of wretchedness. And it was
years before she could walk past the house where the Fin-
gals had lived, without feeling sick.
Her life was, however, brimming with active interests
which occupied her, mind and body. There was rarely a
day when a troop of children did not swarm over the Mar-
shall house and barn, playing and playing and playing with
that indomitable zest in life which is the birthright of human-
ity before the fevers and chills of adolescence begin. Sylvia
and Judith, moreover, were required to assume more and
more of the responsibility of the housework, while their
mother extracted from the Marshall five acres an ever in-
creasing largesse of succulent food. Sylvia's seances with
old Reinhardt and the piano were becoming serious affairs :
for it was now -tentatively decided that she was to earn her
living by teaching music. There were many expeditions on
foot with their mother, for Mrs. Marshall had become, little
by little, chief nurse and adviser to all the families of the
neighborhood ; and on her errands of service one of her
daughters was needed to carry supplies and act as assistant.
And finally, as the children grew older, and the family tradi-
tion of bookishness took hold of them, there were shelves
and shelves to be devoured, a strange mixture Thackeray,
Maeterlinck, Fielding, Hakluyt, Ibsen, Dickens, Ruskin,
Shaw, Austen, Moliere, Defoe, Cervantes, Shakespeare,
the children dipped, or tasted or swallowed whole, according
to their temperaments and the books they happened on.
When Sylvia was thirteen, almost fourteen years old,
she " graduated " from the eighth grade of the public schools
and was ready to enter the High School. But after a good
many family councils, in most of which, after the unreticent
Marshall manner, she herself was allowed to be present, it
was decided not to send her to the huge new Central High
School, which had cost La Chance such a big slice of its
The End of Childhood 105
taxes, but to prepare her at home for her course at the
State University. She had been growing very fast, was a
little thin and white, and had been outgrowing her strength.
This at least was the reason given out to inquirers. In
reality her father's prejudice against High School life for
adolescents was the determining cause. In the course of
his University work he was obliged to visit a good many
High Schools, and had acquired a violent prejudice against
the stirring social life characteristic of those institutions.
Sylvia's feelings about this step aside from the beaten
track were, like many of Sylvia's feelings, decidedly mixed.
She was drawn towards the High School by the suction of
the customary. A large number of her classmates expected
as a matter of course to pass on in the usual way; but,
with an uneasy qualm, half pride and half apprehension,
Sylvia, was beginning to feel her difference from ordinary
children. She was not altogether sorry to say good-bye to
her playmates, with whom she no longer had much in
common. She would miss the fun of class-life, of course;
but there was a certain distinction involved in being edu-
cated " differently." She might be queer, but since she was
apparently fated to be queer, she might as well not be
' common " as well. Finally, because she was still, at four-
teen, very much of a child, the scale was tipped by her
thinking what fun it would be to go down-town on errands
in school hours. Charles Lamb, lost in painful wonder at
his own leisure after thirty-six years of incessant office-
hours, could savor no more acutely than an American
school-child the exquisite flavor of freedom at an hour
formerly dedicated to imprisonment.
As a matter of fact, during the next three years Sylvia's
time was more constantly occupied than when there was a
fixed time-limit to her studies. Her teachers were always
about her, and lightly as the new yoke pressed, she wore it
practically without intermission. Her immersion in the
ideals, the standards, the concepts of her parents was com-
plete, engulfing. Somebody was nearly always teaching her
something. She studied history and Latin with her father;
106 The Bent Twig
mathematics with her mother. She learned to swim, to
play tennis, to ride in the summer-time, and to skate on the
frozen swimming-pool in winter, all without stirring from
home. Old Reinhardt was supposed to come twice a week
to give her a piano-lesson, but actually he dropped in almost
every day to smoke meditatively and keep a watchful ear
on her practising.
Although during those years she was almost literally
rooted to the Marshall soil, watered by Marshall convic-
tions, and fed by Marshall information, the usual miracle
of irresistibly individual growth went silently and uncon-
sciously forward in her. She was growing up to be herself,
and not her mother or her father, little as any one in her
world suspected the presence of this unceasingly recurrent
phenomenon of growth. She was alive to all the impres-
sions reflected so insistently upon her, but she transmuted
them into products which would immensely have surprised
her parents, they being under the usual parental delusion
that they knew every corner of her heart. Her budding
aversions, convictions, ambitions were not in the least the
aversions, convictions, and ambitions so loudly voiced about
her ; and a good deal of her energy was taken up in a more
or less conscious reaction from the family catchwords, with
especial emphasis laid on an objection to the family habit of
taking their convictions with great seriousness.
Her father would have been aghast if he could have felt
the slightest reflection from the heat of her detestation of
his favorite, Emersonian motto, which, now that he had
reached five and forty, he was apt to repeat with the itera-
tion natural to his age, rousing in Sylvia the rebellious
exasperation felt by her age for over-emphatic moralizings.
On the occasion of one of the annual gatherings at the
Marshall house of the Seniors in her father's classes, she
remarked fiercely to Judith, " If Father gets off that old
Emerson, ' What will you have, quoth God. Take it and
pay for it,' again tonight in his speech, I'm going to get
right up and scream."
Judith stared. The girls were in the kitchen, large aprons
The End of Childhood 107
over their best dresses, setting out rows of plates for the
chicken salad which was to come after the music. ' I don't
see anything to scream about in that! " said Judith with a
wondering contempt for Sylvia's notions.
" I'm so sick of it ! ' cried Sylvia, tearing the lettuce-
leaves apart with venom. " Father never gets through any
sort of a speech that he doesn't work it in and I hate it,
anyhow ! It makes me feel as though somebody had banged
a big door in my face and shut me up in prison."
" Well, for goodness' sakes ! ' ' cried Judith, who, at this
period of their lives, had remained rather more than her
three years behind Sylvia's intelligence. ' How do you get
all that out of that! 3
" You haven't sense enough to know what it means, that's
all ! " retorted Sylvia. " It means something perfectly hate-
ful, the way Father uses it. It means you've got to pay
for every single thing you do or get in this world ! It's
somebody tagging you round with an account-book, seeing
how big a bill you're running up. It's the perfectly horrid
way Father and Mother make us do, of always washing up
the dishes we dirty, and always picking up the things we
drop. Seems as though I'd die happy, if I could just step
out of my nightgown in the morning and leave it there, and
know that it would get hung up without my doing it."
( Well, if that's all you want, to die happy," said Judith,
the literal-minded, " I will do that much for you! '
" Oh gracious, no ! That wouldn't do any good ! You
know I couldn't take any satisfaction letting you do that ! '
objected Sylvia peevishly, fuming and fumbling helplessly
before the baffling quality of her desires. ' I don't want
just somebody to pick it up for me. I want it picked up by
somebody that I don't care about, that I don't see, that I'd
just as soon have do the tiresome things as not. I want
somebody to do it, and me to feel all right about having
them do it!"
" Well, for goodness* sakes ! ' Judith was reduced again
to mere wonder.
Professor and Mrs. Marshall stepped into the kitchen for
io8 The Bent Twig
a moment to see that everything was progressing smoothly.
The professor had his viola in his hand and was plucking
softly at the strings, a pleasant, tranquil anticipation of
harmony on his face. He looked affectionately at his
daughters and thought what dear good children they were.
Judith appealed to her parents : " Sylvia's as crazy as a loon.
She says she wants somebody to do her work for her, and
yet she wants to feel all right about shirking it ! '
Mrs. Marshall did not follow, and did not care.
" What ? ' she said indifferently, tasting the chicken-salad
in the big yellow bowl, and, with an expression of serious
consideration, adding a little more salt to it.
But Sylvia's father understood, " What you want to re-
member, daughter," he said, addressing himself to his oldest
child with a fond certainty of her quick apprehension, "is
that fine saying of Emerson, ' What will you have, quoth '
A raw-boned assistant appeared in the doorway. ' Every-
body here, I guess, Perfesser," he said.
When the girls were alone again, Sylvia stole a look at
Judith and broke into noiseless giggles. She laughed till
the tears ran down her cheeks and she had to stop work and
go to the kitchen sink to wash her face and take a drink of
water. " You never do what you say you're going to/' said
Judith, as gravely alien to this mood as to the other. ' I
thought you said you'd scream."
' I am screaming," said Sylvia, wiping her eyes again.
They were very familiar with the work of preparing the
simple " refreshments ' for University gatherings. Their
mother always provided exactly the same viands, and long
practice had made them letter-perfect in the moves to be
made. When they had finished portioning off the lettuce-
leaves and salad on the plates, they swiftly set each one on
a fresh crepe-paper napkin. Sylvia professed an undying
hatred for paper napkins. " I don't see why," said Judith.
: They're so much less bother than the other kind when
you're only going to use them once, this way." ( That's
it," asserted Sylvia ; ' that's the very stingy, economical
thing about them I hate, their not being a bother! I'd like
The End of Childhood 109
to use big, fine-damask ones, all shiny, that somebody had
ironed twenty minutes, every one, like those we had at
Eleanor Hubert's birthday party. And then I'd scrunch
them up and throw them in the laundry if there was the
least speck on them."
" I wouldn't like the job of doing them up," said Judith.
" Neither would I. I'd hate it ! And I wouldn't," con-
tinued Sylvia, roaming at will in her enchanted garden;
" I'd hire somebody to take all the bother of buying them
and hemming them and doing them up and putting them on
the table. All I'd do, would be to shake them out and lay
them across my lap," she went through a dainty-fingered
pantomime, " and never think a thing about how they got
there. That's all / want to do with napkins. But I do love
'em big and glossy. I could kiss them ! '
Judith was almost alarmed at the wildness of Sylvia's
imaginings. " Why, you talk as though you didn't have
good sense tonight, Sylvie. It's the party. You always get
so excited over parties." Judith considered it a ' come-
down ' to get excited over anything.
" Great Scotland ! I guess I don't get excited over one
of these student parties ! ' Sylvia repudiated the idea. ' All
Father's ' favorite students ' are such rough-necks. And it
makes me tired to have all our freaks come out of their
holes when we have company Miss Lindstrom and Mr.
Hecht and Cousin Parnelia and all."
" The President comes," advanced Judith.
Sylvia was sweeping in her iconoclasm. " What if he
does old fish-mouth ! He's nobody he's a rough-neck
himself. He used to be a Baptist minister. He's only Presi-
dent because he can talk the hayseeds in the Legislature into
giving the University big appropriations. And anyhow, he
only comes here because he has to part of his job. He
doesn't like the freaks any better than I do. The last time
he was here, I heard Cousin Parnelia trying to persuade
him to have planchette write him a message from Abraham
Lincoln. Isn't she the limit, anyhow ! '
The girls put off their aprons and slipped into the big,
no The Bent Twig
low-ceilinged living-room, singing like a great sea-shell with
thrilling violin-tones. Old Reinhardt was playing the
Kreutzer, with Professor Marshall at the piano. Judith
went quietly to sit near Professor Kennedy, and Sylvia sat
down near a window, leaning her head against the pane as
she listened, her eyes fixed on the blackness outside. Her
face cleared and brightened, like a cloudy liquor settling to
limpidity in a crystal vase. Her lips parted a little, her eyes
were fixed on a point incalculably distant. Her mind
emptied itself of everything but her joy in the glorious
cadences. . . .
If she had been asked what she and Judith had been
talking of, she could not have told; but when, after the
second movement was finished, old Reinhardt put down his
violin and began to loosen his bow (he never played the
presto finale), it all came back to the girl as she looked
around her at her father's guests. She hated the way the
young men's Adam's apples showed through their too-widely
opened collars, and she loathed the way the thin brown hair
of one of the co-eds was strained back from her temples.
She received the President's condescending, oleaginous
hand-shake with a qualm at his loud oratorical voice and
plebeian accent, and she headed Cousin Parnelia oft" from a
second mediumistic attack, hating her badly adjusted false-
front of hair as intensely as ever Loyola hated a heretic.
And this, although uncontrollably driven by her desire to
please, to please even a roomful of such mediocrities, she
bore to the outward eyes the most gracious aspect of
friendly, smiling courtesy. Professor Marshall looked at
her several times, as she moved with her slim young grace
among his students and friends, and thought how fortunate
he was in his children.
After the chicken-salad and coffee had been successfully
served and eaten, one of the Seniors stepped forward with
an awkward crudeness and presented Professor Marshall
with a silver-mounted blotting-pad. The house was littered
with such testimonials to the influence of the Professor
on the young minds under his care, testimonials which
The End of Childhood in
his children took as absolutely for granted as they did
everything else in the home life. On this occasion Sylvia
was so afflicted because the young rustic appointed
to make the presentation speech, forgot most of what
he had planned to say, that she felt nothing but the
liveliest impatience with the whole proceeding. But
her father's quick heart was touched, and more than half
of his usual little speech of farewell to his Seniors was an
expression of thanks to them. Before he had finished the
last part, which consisted of eloquent exhortations to the
higher life, none the less sincerely heartfelt for being re-
markably like similar speeches he had made during the last
twenty years, he had quoted his favorite saying from Emer-
son. Judith looked apprehensively at Sylvia; but she was
not laughing. She evidently was not hearing a word her
father said, being lost in the contemplation of the perfect
evening costume of the newest assistant in Professor Mar-
shall's department. He was a young man from Massachu-
setts, fresh from Harvard, who had come West to begin
his teaching that year. His was certainly the most modern
dress-suit in the University faculty; and he wore it with
a supercilious disregard for its perfections which greatly
impressed Sylvia.
After these usual formalities were thus safely past, some
one suggested a game of charades to end the evening.
Amid great laughter and joking from the few professors
present and delighted response from the students who found
it immensely entertaining to be on such familiar terms with
their instructors, two leaders began to " choose sides." The
young assistant from Harvard said in a low tone to his
friend, not noticing Professor Marshall's young daughter
near them : " They won't really go on and do this fool,
undignified, backwoods stunt, will they? They don't ex-
pect us to join in!'
" Oh yes, they will," answered his friend, catching up his
tone of sophisticated scorn. He too was from Harvard,
from an earlier class. " You'll be lucky if they don't have
a spelling-down match, later on."
H2 The Bent Twig
" Good Lord ! " groaned the first young man.
" Oh, you mustn't think all of the University society is
like this!' protested the second. ''And anyhow, we can
slope now, without being noticed."
Sylvia understood the accent and tone of this passage
more than the exact words, but it summed up and brought
home to her in a cruelly clarified form her own groping
impressions. The moment was a terribly painful one for
her. Her heart swelled, the tears came to her eyes, she
clenched her fists. Her fine, lovely, and sensitive face
darkened to a tragic intensity of resolve. She might have
been the young Hannibal, vowing to avenge Carthage.
What she was saying to herself passionately was, <; When /
get into the University, I will not be a jay! '
It was under these conditions that Sylvia passed from
childhood, and emerged into the pains and delights and
responsibilities of self-consciousness.
BOOK II
A FALSE START TO ATHENS
CHAPTER X
SYLVIA'S FIRST GLIMPSE OF MODERN
CIVILIZATION
ALTHOUGH there was not the slightest actual connection
between the two, the trip to Chicago was always in Sylvia's
mind like the beginning of her University course. It is
true that the journey, practically the first in Sylvia's life,
was undertaken shortly before her matriculation as a Fresh-
man, but this fortuitous chronological connection could not
account for Sylvia's sense of a deeper unity between the
two experiences. The days in Chicago, few as they were,
were as charged with significance for her as the successive
acts in a drama, and that significance was of the substance
and marrow of the following and longer passage in her
life.
The fact that her father and her mother disagreed about
the advisability of the trip was one of the salient points
in the beginning. When Aunt Victoria, breaking a long
silence with one of her infrequent letters, wrote to say that
she was to be in Chicago " on business ' during the last
week of September, and would be very glad to have her
sister-in-law bring her two nieces to see her there, Professor
Marshall said, with his usual snort : ' Business nothing !
She never has any business. She won't come to see them
here, that's all. The idea's preposterous." But Mrs. Mar-
shall, breaking a long silence of her own, said vigorously:
" She is your sister, and you and your family are the only
"3
H4 The Bent Twig
blood-kin she has in the world. I've a notion I have had
for some time that she was somehow terribly hurt on that
last visit here. It would be ungenerous not to go half-way
to meet her now."
Sylvia, anxiously hanging on her father's response, was
surprised when he made no protest beyond, " Well, do as
you please. I can keep Lawrence all right. She only speaks
of seeing you and the girls." It did not occur to Sylvia,
astonished at this sudden capitulation, that there might be a
discrepancy between her father's habit of vehement speech
and his real feeling in this instance.
It was enough for her, however, that they were going to
take a long journey on the train overnight, that they were
going to see a great city, that they were going to see Aunt
Victoria, about whom her imagination had always hovered
with a constancy enhanced by the odd silence concerning her
which was the rule in the Marshall house.
She was immensely stirred by the prospect. She made
herself, in the brief interval between the decision and the
beginning of the journey, a new shirt-waist of handkerchief
linen. It took the last cent of her allowance to buy the
material, and she was obliged, by a secret arrangement with
her father, to discount the future, in order to have some
spending-money in the city.
Mrs. Marshall was quite disappointed by the dullness of
Sylvia's perceptions during that momentous first trip, which
she had looked forward to as an occasion for widening the
girls' horizon to new interests. Oddly enough it was Judith,
usually so much less quick than Sylvia, who asked the in-
telligent questions and listened attentively to her mother's
explanations about the working of the air-brakes, and the
switching systems in railroad yards, and the harvesting of
the crops in the flat, rich country gliding past the windows.
It was quite evident that not a word of this highly instruc-
tive talk reached Sylvia, sitting motionless, absorbing every
detail of her fellow-passengers' aspect, in a sort of trance
of receptivity. She scarcely glanced out of the windows,
except when the train stopped at the station in a large town,
Sylvia's Glimpse of Modern Civilization 1
when she transferred her steady gaze to the people coming
and going from the train. ' Just look, Sylvia, at those blast-
furnaces ! ' cried her mother as they passed through the
outskirts of an industrial town. ; They have to keep them
going, you know, night and day."
"Oh, do they? What for?' asked Judith, craning her
neck to watch the splendid leap of the flames into the dark-
ness.
" Because they can't allow the ore to become " Mrs.
Marshall wondered why, during her conscientious explana-
tion of blast-furnaces, Sylvia kept her eyes dully fixed on
her hands on her lap. Sylvia was, as a matter of fact,
trying imaginary bracelets on her slim, smooth, white wrists.
The woman opposite her wore bracelets.
" Isn't it fine," remarked the civic-minded Mrs. Mar-
shall, ' to see all these little prairie towns so splendidly
lighted ? "
" I hadn't noticed them," said Sylvia, her gaze turned on
the elegant nonchalance of a handsome, elderly woman
ahead of her. Her mother looked at her askance, and
thought that children are unaccountable.
There were four of the Chicago days, and such important
events marked them that each one had for all time a physi-
ognomy of its own. Years afterwards when their travels
had far outrun that first journey, Sylvia and Judith could
have told exactly what occurred on any given day of that
sojourn, as ''on the third day we were in Chicago."
The event of the first day was, of course, the meeting with
Aunt Victoria. They went to see her in a wonderful hotel,
entering through a classic court, with a silver-plashing foun-
tain in the middle, and slim Ionic pillars standing up white
and glorious out of masses of palms. This dreamlike spot of
beauty was occupied by an incessantly restless throng of lean,
sallow-faced men in sack-coats, with hats on the backs of
their heads and cigars in the corners of their mouths. The
air was full of tobacco smoke and the click of heels on the
marble pavement. At one side was a great onyx-and-
marble desk, looking like a soda-water fountain without the
n6 The Bent Twig
silver faucets, and it was the thin-cheeked, elegant young-
old man behind this structure who gave instructions whereby
Mrs. Marshall and her two daughters found their way to
Aunt Victoria's immense and luxurious room. She was
very glad to see them, shaking hands with her sister-in-law
in the respectful manner which that lady always seemed
to inspire in her, and embracing her two tall young nieces
with a fervor which melted Sylvia's heart back to her old
childish adoration.
" What beautiful children you have, Barbara ! ' cried
Mrs. Marshall-Smith, holding Judith off at arm's length
and looking from her to Sylvia ; " although I suppose I
ought not to tell them that ! ' She looked at Sylvia with an
affectionate laugh. " Will you be spoiled if I tell you you
are very pretty ? " she asked.
' I can't think of anything but how pretty you are ! " said
Sylvia, voicing honestly what was in her mind.
This answer caused her aunt to cry out : " Oh ! Oh !
And tact too ! She's meant for social success ! ' She left
this note to vibrate in Sylvia's ears and turned again to her
sister-in-law with hospitable remarks about the removing
of wraps. As this was being done, she took advantage of
the little bustle to remark from the other side of the room,
' I rather hoped Elliott would come with you." She spoke
lightly, but there was the tremor of feeling in her sweet
voice which Sylvia found she remembered as though it
had been but yesterday she had heard it last.
You didn't ask him," said Mrs. Marshall, with her
usual directness.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith arched her eyebrows, dropped her
eyelids, and shook her head. " No, I didn't ask him," she
admitted, and then with a little wry twist of her lips, " But
I rather hoped he might feel like coming." She looked down
at her hands.
Mrs. Marshall surprised her daughters very much by
going across the room and kissing her husband's sister.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith took the other's strong, hard hand be-
tween her soft fingers. " That's generous in you, Barbara,"
Sylvia's Glimpse of Modern Civilization 117
she said, looking intently into the pitying dark eyes. " I'm
human, you know."
" Yes, I know you're human," said Mrs. Marshall, look-
ing down at her gravely. ' So are we all of us. So's Elliott.
Don't forget that." With which obscure reference, entirely
unintelligible to the two girls, the matter was forever
dropped.
The two ladies thereupon embarked upon the difficult
business of laying out to the best advantage the few days
before them so that every hour might be utilized for the
twofold purpose of seeing each other and having the girls
see the sights. Judith went to the window during this con-
versation, and looked down into the crowded street, the first
city street she had ever seen. Sylvia sat quietly and im-
printed upon her memory every item in the appearance of
the two women before her, not the first time she had com-
pared them. Mrs. Marshall was dressed in a dark-blue,
well-preserved, ready-made suit, dating from the year be-
fore. It was in perfect condition and quite near enough the
style of the moment to pass unnoticed. Sylvia saw nothing
to be ashamed of in her mother's unaccented and neutral
costume, but there was no denying that she looked exactly
like any one else. What was most apparent to the dis-
cerning eye was that her garb had been organized in every
detail so as to consume as little thought and effort as
possible. Whereas Aunt Victoria Sylvia's earnest and
thoughtful efforts at home-dressmaking had fitted her, if
for nothing else, for a full appreciation of Mrs. Marshall-
Smith's costume. She had struggled with cloth enough to
bow her head in respect and awe before the masterly tailor-
ing of the rich, smooth broadcloth dress. She knew from
her own experience that the perfection of those welted
seams could not be accomplished by even the most
intense temporary concentration of amateur forces. No
such trifling fire of twigs lighted the way to that pinnacle.
The workman who had achieved that skill had cut
down the whole tree of his life and thrown it into the
flame.
ii8 'The Bent Twig
Like a self-taught fiddler at the concert of a master, Syl-
via's failures had taught her the meaning of success. Al-
though her inexperience kept her from making at all a close
estimate of the literal cost of the toilet, her shrewdness made
her divine the truth, which was that Mrs. Marshall-Smith,
in spite of the plainness of her attire, could have clad herself
in cloth-of-gold at a scarcely greater expenditure of the
efforts and lives of others. Sylvia felt that her aunt was
the most entirely enviable person in the world, and would
gladly have changed places with her in a moment.
That was, on the whole, the note of the Chicago trip, all
the dazzling lights and reflections of which focused, for
Sylvia, upon Aunt Victoria's radiant person. At times,
the resultant beam was almost too much for the young eyes ;
as, for example, on the next day when the two made a
momentous shopping expedition to the largest and finest
department store in the city. ' I've a curiosity to see," Aunt
Victoria had declared carelessly, ' ' what sort of things are
sold in a big Western shop, and besides I've some purchases
to make for the Lydford house. Things needs freshening
up there. I've thought of wicker and chintz for the living-
room. It would be a change from what I've had. Perhaps
it would amuse the children to go along?'
At this, Judith, who had a boy's detestation of shopping,
looked so miserable that Aunt Victoria had laughed out,
her frank, amused laugh, and said, ' Well, Sylvia and I
alone, then ! '
Judith and I'll go to Lincoln Park to take a walk by the
lake," said Mrs. Marshall. ' Our inland young folks have
never seen so much water all at once."
Sylvia had been, of course, in the two substantial and
well-run department stores of La Chance, when she went
with her mother to make their carefully considered pur-
chases. They always went directly to the department in
question, where Mrs. Marshall's concise formula ran usually
along such lines as, "I would like to look at misses' coats,
size 1 6, blue or brown serge, moderate style, price some-
where between ten and fifteen dollars." And then they
Sylvia's Glimpse of Modern Civilization 119
looked at misses' coats, size 16, blue or brown serge, of the
specified price ; and picked out one. Sylvia's mother was
under the impression that she allowed her daughters to
select their own clothes because, after all these defining and
limiting preliminaries, she always, with a very genuine in-
difference, abandoned them to their own choice between the
four or five garments offered.
Even when Sylvia, as she grew older, went by herself to
make a small purchase or two, she was so deeply under the
influence of her mother's example that she felt it unbecom-
ing to loiter, or to examine anything she knew she could
not buy. Besides, nearly all the salespeople, who, for the
most part, had been at their posts for many years, knew
her from childhood, and if she stopped to look at a show-
case of new collars, or jabots, they always came pleasantly
to pass the time of day, and ask how her little brother was,
and how she liked studying at home. She was ashamed
to show in their presence anything but a casual, dignified
interest in the goods they handled.
After these feeble and diluted tipplings, her day with
Aunt Victoria was like a huge draught of raw spirits. That
much-experienced shopper led her a leisurely course up one
dazzling aisle and down another, pausing ruthlessly to look
and to handle and to comment, even if she had not the least
intention of buying. With an inimitable ease of manner
she examined whatever took her fancy, and the languid,
fashionably dressed salesladies, all in aristocratic black,
showed to these whims a smiling deference, which Sylvia
knew could come from nothing but the exquisite tailoring of
Aunt Victoria's blue broadcloth. This perception did not in
the least lower her opinion of the value of the deference.
It heightened her opinion of the value of tailoring.
They stood by glass tables piled high with filmy and costly
underwear, such underwear as Sylvia had never dreamed
could exist, and Aunt Victoria looked casually at the cob-
web tissues which the saleswoman held up, herself hankering
in a hungry adoration of the luxury she would never touch
in any other way. Without apology or explanation, other
I2O The Bent Twig
than Aunt Victoria's gracious nod of dismissal, they moved
on to the enchanted cave where, under the stare of in-
numerable electric lights, evening wraps were exhibited.
The young woman who served them held the expensive,
fragile chiffon of the garments up in front of her black
uniform, her eyes wistful and unsatisfied. Her instant of
glory was over when Aunt Victoria bought one of these,
exclaiming humorously about the quaintness of going from
Paris to Chicago to shop. It was of silver tissue over white
brocade, with a collar of fur, and the price was a hundred
and thirty-seven dollars. Sylvia's allowance for all her
personal expenses for a whole year was a hundred and
twenty. To reach the furniture, they passed by, with an
ignoring contempt, huge counters heaped with hundreds
and hundreds of shirt-waists, any one of which was better
than the one Sylvia had made with so much care and
interest before leaving home.
Among the furniture they made a long stay. Aunt Vic-
toria was unexpectedly pleased by the design of the wicker
pieces, and bought and bought and bought ; till Sylvia turned
her head away in bewilderment. She looked down a long
perspective of glittering show-cases filled with the minor
luxuries of the toilet, the ruffs, the collars, the slipper-
rosettes, the embroidered belts, the hair ornaments, the
chiffon scarves, all objects diverse, innumerable, perishable
as mist in tree-branches, all costly in exact ratio to their
fragility. Back of her were the children's dresses, fairy-like,
simple with an extravagantly costly simplicity. It occurred
to Sylvia as little as to many others of the crowd of half-
hypnotized women, wandering about with burning eyes and
watering mouths through the shrewdly designed shop, that
the great closets back of these adroitly displayed fineries
might be full of wearable, firm-textured little dresses, such
as she herself had always worn. It required an effort of the
will to remember that, and wills weak, or not yet formed,
wavered and bent before the lust of the eye, so cunningly in-
flamed. Any sense of values, of proportion, in Sylvia was
dumfounded by the lavishness, the enormous quantities, the
Sylvia's Glimpse of Modern Civilization 121
immense varieties of the goods displayed. She ached with
covetousness. . . .
When they joined the others at the hotel her mother, after
commenting that she looked rather flushed and tired, hap-
pened to ask, " Oh, by the way, Sylvia, did you happen to
come across anything in serge suits that would be suitable
for school-wear? '
Sylvia quivered, cried out explosively, " No ! " and turned
away, feeling a hot pulse beating through her body. But
Aunt Victoria happened to divert attention at that mo-
ment. She had been reading, with a very serious and
somewhat annoyed expression, a long telegram just handed
her, and now in answer to Mrs. Marshall's expression of
concern, said hastily, ''Oh, it's Arnold again. . . . It's al-
ways Arnold ! ' She moved to a desk and wrote a brief
telegram which she handed to the waiting man-servant.
Sylvia noticed it was addressed to Mr. A. H. Saunders, a
name which set dimly ringing in her head recollections now
muffled and obscured.
Aunt Victoria went on to Mrs. Marshall : " Arnold hates
this school so. He always hates his schools."
" Oh, he is at school now? " asked Mrs. Marshall. " You
haven't a tutor for him?'
' Oh yes, Mr. Saunders is still with him in the sum-
mers and during holidays." Mrs. Marshall-Smith explained
further : " To keep him up in his studies. He doesn't learn
anything in his school, you know. They never do. It's
only for the atmosphere the sports; you know, they play
cricket where he is now and the desirable class of boys
he meets . . . All the boys have tutors in vacation times to
coach them for the college-entrance examinations."
The face of the college professor's wife continued im-
movably grave during this brief summary of an educational
system. She inquired, " How old is Arnold now? " learned
that he was seventeen, remembered that, oh yes, he was a
year older than Sylvia, and allowed the subject to drop into
one of the abysmal silences for which she alone had the
courage. Her husband's sister was as little proof against
122 The Bent Twig
it as her husband. As it continued, Mrs. Marshall-Smith
went through the manceuvers which in a less perfectly bred
person would have been fidgeting. . . .
No one paid any attention to Sylvia, who sat confront-
ing herself in a long mirror and despising every garment
she wore.
CHAPTER XI
ARNOLD'S FUTURE IS CASUALLY DECIDED
THE next day was to have been given up to really im-
proving pursuits. The morning in the Art Institute came
off as planned. The girls were marshaled through the sculp-
ture and paintings and various art objects with about the
result which might have been expected. As blankly inex-
perienced of painting and sculpture as any Bushmen, they
received this sudden enormous dose of those arts with an
instant, self-preservatory incapacity to swallow even a
small amount of them. It is true that the very first exhibits
they saw, the lions outside the building, the first paint-
ings they encountered, made an appreciable impression on
them ; but after this they followed their elders through the
interminable crowded halls of the museum, their legs aching
with the effort to keep their balance on the polished floors,
their eyes increasingly glazed and dull. For a time a few
eccentric faces or dresses among the other sightseers pene-
trated through this merciful insensibility, but by noon the
capacity for even so much observation as this had left them.
They set one foot before the other, they directed their eyes
upon the multitudinous objects exhibited, they nodded their
heads to comments made by the others, but if asked sud-
denly what they had just seen in the room last visited,
neither of them could have made the faintest guess.
At half-past twelve, their aunt and mother, highly self-
congratulatory over the educational morning, voted that
enough was as good as a feast, and led their stunned and
stupefied charges away to Aunt Victoria's hotel for lunch.
It was while they were consuming this exceedingly appe-
tizing meal that Sylvia saw, threading his way towards
them between the other tables, a tall, weedy, expensively
123
124 The Bent Twig
dressed young man, with a pale freckled face and light-
brown hair. When he saw her eyes on him he waved his
hand, a largely knuckled hand, and grinned. Then she saw
that it was not a young man, but a tall boy, and that the
boy was Arnold. The quality of the grin reminded her that
she had always liked Arnold.
His arrival, though obviously unexpected to the last de-
gree, caused less of a commotion than might have seemed
natural. It was as if this were for Aunt Victoria only an
unexpected incident in a general development, quite re-
signedly anticipated. After he had shaken hands with
everybody, and had sat down and ordered his own luncheon
very capably, his stepmother remarked in a tolerant tone,
You didn't get my telegram, then ? ' He shook his head :
1 1 started an hour or so after I wired you. We'd gone
down to the town with one of the masters for a game with
Concord. There was a train just pulling out as we went
by the station, and I ran and jumped on."
' How'd you know where it was going?' 1 challenged
Judith.
" I didn't," he explained lightly. He looked at her with
the teasing, provocative look of masculine seventeen for
feminine thirteen. " Same old spitfire, I see, Miss Judy,"
he said, his command of unhackneyed phrases by no means
commensurate with his desire to be facetious.
Judith frowned and went on eating her eclair in silence.
It was the first eclair she had ever eaten, and she was more
concerned with it than with the new arrival.
Nobody made any comment on Arnold's method of be-
ginning journeys until Mrs. Marshall asked, : What did
you do it for ? ' She put the question with an evident
seriousness of inquiry, not at all with the rhetorical re-
proach usually conveyed in the formula she used.
Arnold looked up from the huge, costly, bloody beef-
steak he was eating and, after an instant's survey of the
grave, kind face opposite him, answered with a seriousness
like her own, " Because I wanted to get away." He added
after a moment, laughing and looking again at the younger
Arnold's Future Is Casually Decided 125
girl, " I wanted to come out and pull Judy's hair again ! '
He spoke with his mouth full, and this made him entirely
a boy and not at all the young man his well-cut clothes
made him appear.
Without speaking, Judith pulled her long, smooth braid
around over her shoulder where she could protect the end
of it. Her mouth was also full, bulgingly, of the last of her
eclair. They might have been brother and sister in a com-
mon nursery.
" My ! Aren't you pretty, Sylvia ! ' was Arnold's next
remark. " You're a regular peach ; do you know it ? ' He
turned to the others: "Say, let's go to a show this after-
noon," he proposed. Tling-Tling's in town. I saw it in
the papers as I came in. The original company's singing.
Did you ever hear them ? " he asked Sylvia. : They beat the
other road companies all hollow."
Sylvia shook her head. She had never heard the name
before, the Broadway brand of comic opera being outside
her experience to a degree which would have been incon-
ceivable to Arnold.
There was some discussion over the matter, but in the end,
apparently because there was nothing else to do with Arnold,
they all did go to the " show," Arnold engineering the ex-
pedition with a trained expertness in the matter of ticket-
sellers, cabs, and ushers which was in odd contrast to
his gawky physical immaturity. At all the stages of the
process where it was possible, he smoked cigarettes, pro-
ducing them in rapid succession out of a case studded w r ith
little pearls. His stepmother looked on at this, her beauti-
ful manner of wise tolerance tightening up a little, and after
dinner, as they sat in a glittering corridor of the hotel to
talk, she addressed him suddenly in a quite different tone.
" I don't want you to do that so much, Arnold," she said.
His hand was fumbling for his case again. You're too
young to smoke at all," she said definitely. He went on
with his automatic movements, opening the case, taking out
a cigarette and tapping it on the cover. * Oh, all the fel-
lows do," he said rebelliously, and struck a match.
126 The Bent Twig
.Mrs. Marshall-Smith aroused herself to a sudden, low-
toned, iron masterfulness of voice and manner which, for
all its quietness, had the quality of a pistol shot in the
family group. She said only, " Put away that cigarette " ;
but by one effort of her will she massed against the rebellion
of his disorganized adolescence her mature, well-ripened
capacity to get her own way. She held him with her eyes
as an animal-trainer is supposed to cow his snarling, yellow-
fanged captives, and in a moment Arnold, with a pettish
gesture, blew out the match and shut the cigarette case with
a snap. Mrs. Marshall-Smith forbore to over-emphasize
her victory by a feather-weight of gloating, and turned to
her sister-in-law with a whimsical remark about the pre-
posterousness of one of the costumes passing. Arnold
sulked in silence until Judith, emerging from her usual
self-contained reticence, made her first advance to him.
" Let's us all go there by the railing where we can look
down into the central court/' she suggested, and having a
nodded permission from their elders, the three children
walked away.
They looked down into the great marble court, far below
them, now fairy-like with carefully arranged electric lights,,
gleaming through the palms. The busily trampling cohorts
in sack-coats and derby hats were, from here, subdued by
distance to an aesthetic inofTensiveness of mere ant-like com--
ings and goings.
' Not so bad," said Arnold, with a kindly willingness tc
be pleased, looking about him discriminatingly at one detail
after another of the interior, the heavy velvet and gold
bullion of the curtains, the polished marble of the paneling,
the silk brocade of the upholstery, the heavy gilding of the
chairs. . . . Everything in sight exhaled an intense con-
sciousness of high cost, which was heavy on the air like a
musky odor, suggesting to a sensitive nose, as does the odor
of musk, another smell, obscured but rancidly perceptible
the unwashed smell, floating up from the paupers' cellars
which support Aladdin's palaces of luxury.
But the three adolescents, hanging over the well-designed
Arnold's Future Is Casually Decided 127
solid mahogany railing, had not noses sensitive to this
peculiar, very common blending of odors. Judith, in fact,
was entirely unconscious even of the more obvious of the
two. She was as insensitive to all about her as to the too-
abundant pictures of the morning. She might have been
leaning over a picket fence. ' I wouldn't give in to Her ! "
she said to Arnold, staring squarely at him.
Arnold looked nettled. ' Oh, I don't ! I don't pay any
attention to what she says, except when she's around where
I am, and that's not so often you could notice it much !
Saunders isn't that kind ! Saunders is a gay old bird, I tell
you ! We have some times together when we get
going ! "
It dawned on Sylvia that he was speaking of the man who,
five years before, had been their young Professor Saunders.
She found that she remembered vividly his keen, handsome
face, softened by music to quiet peace. She wondered what
Arnold meant by saying he was a gay old bird.
Arnold went on, shaking his head sagely : " But it's
my belief that Saunders is beginning to take to dope . . .
bad business ! Bad business ! He's in love with Ma-
drina, you know, and has to drown his sorrows some
way."
Even Judith, for all her Sioux desire to avoid seeming
surprised or impressed, could not restrain a rather startled
look at this lordly knowledge of the world. Sylvia, although
she had scarcely taken in the significance of Arnold's words,
dropped her eyes and blushed. Arnold surveyed them with
the indulgent look of a rakish but good-hearted man of the
world patting two pretty children on the head.
Judith upset his pose by bringing the talk abruptly back
to where she had begun it. ' But you did give in to her !
You pretend you didn't because you are ashamed. She just
looked you down. I wouldn't let anybody look me down.
I wouldn't give in to anybody ! '
Under this attack, the man of the world collapsed into an
awkward overgrown boy, ill at ease, with red lids to his eyes
and premature yellow stains on two fingers of his left hand.
128 The Bent Twig
He shifted his feet and said defensively : " Aw, she's a
woman. A fellow can't knock her down. I wouldn't let a
man do it." He retreated still further, through another
phase, and became a little boy, heated and recriminatory:
' I'd like to know who you are to talk ! You give in to your
mother all the time ! '
' I don't give in to my mother ; I mind her," said Judith,
drawing a distinction which Arnold could not follow but
which he was not acute enough to attack other than by a
jeering, " Oh, what a crawl ! What's the diff? "
" And I mind her whether she's there or not ! / do ! '
continued Judith, pressing what she seemed, inexplicably to
Arnold, to consider her advantage.
Sylvia was vexed with them for talking so loudly and
getting so red-faced and being so generally out of key with
the booming note of luxury resounding about them. ' Hush !
hush ! ' she said ; " don't be so silly. We ought to be
going back."
Arnold took her rebuke without protest. Either some-
thing in this passage-at-arms had perversely brought a sud-
den impulse to his mind, or he had all along a purpose in
his fantastic trip West. As they reached the two ladies, he
burst out, " Say, Madrina, why couldn't I go on to La
Chance and go to school there, and live with the Mar-
shalls ? "
Four amazed faces were turned on him. His stepmother
evidently thought him stricken with sudden insanity and
strove distractedly to select, from the heaped pile of her
reasons for so thinking, some few which might be cited
without too great offense to her brother's mode of life :
( Why, what a strange idea, Arnold ! What ever made you
think of such a thing? You wouldn't like it!' She was
going on, as in decency bound, to add that it would be also
rather a large order for the Marshalls to adopt a notably
" difficult ' boy, when Judith broke in with a blunt divina-
tion of what was in her aunt's mind. You'd have to wash
dishes if you came to our house," she said, " and help peel
potatoes, and weed the celery bed."
Arnold's Future Is Casually Decided 129
"I'd like it!" declared Arnold. "We'd have lots of
fun."
" I bet we would ! ' said Judith, with an unexpected
assent.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith laughed gently. " You don't know
what you're talking about, you silly boy. You never did
an hour's work in your life ! '
Arnold sat down by Mrs. Marshall. ' I wouldn't be in
the way, would I ? " he said, with a clumsy pleading. He
hesitated obviously over the u Mother" which had risen to
his lips, the name he had had for her during the momentous
visit of five years before, and finally, blushing, could not
bring it out. ' I'd like it like anything! 7 wouldn't be ...
I'd be different! Sylvie and Judy seem like little sisters to
me." The red on his face deepened. ' It's it's good for a
fellow to have sisters, and a home," he said in a low tone not
audible to his stepmother's ears.
Mrs. Marshall put out a large, strong hand and took his
slack, big-knuckled fingers into a tight clasp. Mrs. Mar-
shall-Smith evidently thought a light tone best now, as al-
ways, to take. ' I tell you, Barbara " she suggested laugh-
ingly, ' we'll exchange. You give me Sylvia, and take
Arnold."
Mrs. Marshall ignored this as pure facetiousness, and
said seriously : " Why really, Victoria, it might not be a
bad thing for Arnold to come to us. I know Elliott would
be glad to have him, and so would I."
For an instant Arnold's life hung in the balance. Mrs.
Marshall-Smith, gleaming gold and ivory in her evening-
dress of amber satin, sat silent, startled by the suddenness
with which the whole astonishing question had come up.
There was in her face more than one hint that the proposi-
tion opened a welcome door of escape to her. . . .
And then Arnold himself, with the tragic haste of youth,
sent one end of the scales down, weighted so heavily that
the sight of his stepmother's eyes and mouth told him it
could never rise again. In the little, pregnant pause, he
cried out joyfully, " Oh, Mother ! Mother ! " and flung his
130 The Bent Twig
arms around Mrs. Marshall's neck. It was the only time he
had shown the slightest emotion over anything. It burst
from him with surprising effect.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, as she had said, only human,
and at this she rose, her delicate face quiet and impassive,
and shook out the shimmering folds of her beautiful dress.
She said casually, picking up her fan and evidently pre^ar-
ing for some sort of adjournment: "Oh, Arnold, don't be
so absurd. Of course you can't foist yourself off on a
family that's no relation to you, that way. And in any
case, it wouldn't do for you to graduate from a co-educa-
tional State University. Not a person you know would
have heard of it. You know you're due at Harvard next
fall." With adroit fingers, she plucked the string sure
to vibrate in Arnold's nature. " Do go and order a table for
us in the Rose-Room, there's a good boy. And be sure
to have the waiter give you one where we can see the
dancing."
The matter was settled.
CHAPTER XII
ONE MAN'S MEAT . . .
THAT night after the Marshalls had gone back to their
somewhat shabby boarding-house, " things " happened to the
two people they had left in the great hotel. Sylvia and
Judith never knew the details, but it was apparent that
something portentous had occurred, from the number of tele-
grams Aunt Victoria had managed to receive and send be-
tween the hour when they left her in the evening, and
eleven o'clock the next morning, when they found her,
hatted and veiled, with an array of strapped baggage around
her.
" It's Arnold again ! ' she told them, with a resigned
gesture. She laid down the time-table she had been con-
sulting and drew Mrs. Marshall to the window for a low-
voiced explanation. When she came back, "I'm so sorry,
dears, to cut short even by a single day this charming time
together," she told the girls. ' But the news I've been get-
ting from Arnold's school there's nothing for me to do
but to stop everything and take him back there to see v/hat
can be done to patch things up." She spoke with the
patient air of one inured to the sacrifices involved in the
upbringing of children. We leave on the eleven-forty
oh, I am so sorry ! But it would have been only one day
more. I meant to get you both a dress I've 'phoned to
have them sent to you."
The rest was only the dreary, bustling futility of the last
moments before train-time kisses, remarks about writ-
ing more often ; a promise from Aunt Victoria to send
Sylvia from time to time a box of old dresses and fineries
as material for her niece's dressmaking skill ; from Arnold,
appearing at the last minute, a good deal of rather flat, well-
132 The Bent Twig
meant chaffing, proffered with the most entire unconcern as
to the expressed purpose of their journey; and then the
descent through long, mirrored, softly carpeted corridors to
the classic beauty of the Grecian temple where the busy
men, with tired eyes, came and went hurriedly, treading
heavily on their heels. Outside was the cab, Arnold ex-
tremely efficient in browbeating the driver as to the stowing
away of bags, more kisses, in the general cloud of which
Arnold pecked shyly at Sylvia's ear and Judith's chin ; then
the retreating vehicle with Arnold standing up, a tall,
ungainly figure, waving a much-jointed hand.
After it was out of sight the three watchers looked at
each other in a stale moment of anticlimax.
" Arnold's horrid, isn't he ? " said Judith thoughtfully.
'Why, I like him!" opposed Sylvia.
' Oh, I like him, all right," said Judith.
Then both girls looked at their mother. What next . . . ?
They were not to have gone back to La Chance until the
next night. Would this change of plans alter their schedule ?
Mrs. Marshall saw no reason why it should. She proposed
a sightseeing expedition to a hospital. Miss Lindstrom, the
elderly Swedish woman who worked among the destitute
negroes of La Chance, had a sister who was head-nurse in
the biggest and newest hospital in Chicago, and she had
written very cordially that if her sister's friends cared to
inspect such an institution, she was at their service. Neither
of the girls having the slightest idea of what a hospital was
like, nor of any other of the sights in the city which they
might see instead, no objection was made to this plan.
They made inquiries of a near-by policeman and found
that they could reach it by the elevated. Their encounter
with this metropolitan facility for transportation turned
out to be among the most memorable bits of sightseeing of
their trip. Neither of the girls had ever imagined anything
so lurid as the Saturday noon jam, the dense, packed throngs
waiting on the platforms and bursting out through the
opened doors like beans from a split bag, their places in-
stantly taken by an even greater crowd, perspiring, fighting
One Man's Meat ... 133
grimly for foot-room and expecting and receiving no other
kind. Judith was fired contagiously with the spirit about
her, set her teeth, thrust out her elbows, shoved, pushed,
grunted, fought, all with a fresh zest in the performance
which gave her an immense advantage over the fatigued
city-dwellers, who assaulted their fellow-citizens with only
a preoccupied desire for an approach to a breathing space,
and, that attained, subsided into lurching, strap-hanging
quiescence. Judith secured with ease, on all the public
vehicles they utilized that day, a place on the outside edge of
a platform, where she had fresh air in abundance and could
hang over the grating to watch with extreme interest the in-
timate bits of tenement-house life which flashed jerkily by.
But Sylvia, a shuddering chip on the torrent, always
found herself in the exact middle of the most crowded spot,
feeling her body horrifyingly pressed upon by various in-
visible ones behind her and several only too visible ones in
front, breathing down the back of somebody's neck, often a
dirty and sweaty one, with somebody breathing hotly down
the back of her own. Once as a very fat and perspiring
German-American began to fight the crowd in the endeavor
to turn around and leave the car, his slowly revolving bulb-
ous bulk pushed her so smotheringly into the broad back of
a negro ahead of her that she felt faint. As they left the
car, she said vehemently : ' Oh, Mother, this makes me
sick ! Why couldn't we have taken a cab ? Aunt Victoria
always does ! '
Her mother laughed. You little country girl ! A cab
for as far as this would cost almost as much as the ticket
back to La Chance."
' I don't see why we came, then ! ' ' cried Sylvia. ' It's
simply awful ! And this is a horrid part of town ! ' She
suddenly observed that they were walking through a very
poor, thickly inhabited street, such as she had never seen
before. As she looked about her, her mother stopped laugh-
ing and watched her face with a painful attention. Sylvia
looked at the tall, dingy houses, the frowzy little shops, the
swarms of dirty-nosed children, shrill-voiced, with matted
134 The Bent Twig
hair, running and whooping in the street, at the slatternly
women yelling unobeyed orders to them out of half-
glimpsed, cheerless interiors, smelling of cabbage and dish-
water. It was Sylvia's first sight of the life of city poor,
and upon her face of disgust and revulsion her mother bent
a stern and anxious eye.
" See here, Sylvia ! ' ' she said abruptly, " do you know
what / was thinking about back there in the crowd on the
elevated? I was thinking that lots of girls, no older than
my girl, have to stand that twice a day, going to earn their
livings."
Sylvia chafed under the obviously admonitory tone of this.
" I don't see that that makes it any easier for us if they
do!' she said in a recalcitrant voice. She stepped wide
to avoid a pile of filth on the sidewalk, and clutched at
her skirt. She had a sudden vision of the white-tiled,
velvet-carpeted florist's shop in a corner of Aunt Victoria's
hotel where, behind spotless panes of shining plate-glass,
the great clusters of cut-flowers dreamed away an enchanted
life roses, violets, lilies of the valley, orchids. . . .
" Here we are at the hospital/' said Mrs. Marshall, a
perplexed line of worry between her brows. But at once
she was swept out of herself, forgot her seriously taken
responsibility of being the mother of a girl like Sylvia. She
was only Barbara Marshall, thrilled by a noble spectacle.
She looked up at the great, clean, many-windowed fagade
above them, towering, even above the huge bulk of the
gas-tanks across the street, and her dark eyes kindled.
' A hospital is one of the most wonderful places in the
world ! ' she cried, in a voice of emotion. ' All this to
help people get \vell ! '
They passed into a wide, bare hall, where a busy young
woman at a desk nodded on hearing their names, and spoke
into a telephone. There was an odd smell in the air, not
exactly disagreeable, yet rather uncomfortably pungent.
' Oh, iodoform," remarked the young woman at the desk,
hearing them comment on it. " Do you get it ? We don't
notice it here at all."
One Man's Meat . . . 135
Then came Miss Lindstrom's sister, powerfully built,
gaunt, gray, with a professional, impersonal cheerfulness.
The expedition began. " I'll take you to the children's
ward first," said Miss Lindstrom ; " that always interests
visitors so much. . . ."
Rows on rows of little white beds and white, bloodless
faces with an awful patience on them,, and little white hands
lying in unchildlike quiet on the white spreads; rows on
rows of hollow eyes turned in listless interest on the visitors ;
nurses in white, stepping briskly about, bending over the
beds, lifting a little emaciated form, deftly unrolling a
bandage ; heat ; a stifling smell of iodoform ; a sharp sudden
cry of pain from a distant corner; somewhere a dully
beating pulse of low, suppressed sobs. . . .
They were out of the children's ward now, walking along
a clean bare corridor. Sylvia swallowed hard. Her eyes
felt burning. Judith held her mother's hand tightly. Miss
Lindstrom was explaining to Mrs. Marshall a new system
of ventilation.
: This is one of the women's wards," said their leader,
opening another swinging door, from which rushed forth a
fresh blast of iodoform. More rows of white beds, each
with its mound of suffering, each with its haggard face
of pain. More nurses, bearing basins of curious shape,
bandages, hot-water bottles, rubber tubes. There was more
restlessness here than in the children's ward, less helpless
prostration before the Juggernaut of disease . . . fretful-
ness, moans, tossing heads, wretched eyes which stared at
the visitors in a hostile indifference.
' Oh, they are just putting the dressing on such an
interesting case!" said Miss Lindstrom's voice coming to
Sylvia from a great distance. She spoke with the glow of
professional enthusiasm, with that certainty, peculiar to
sincere doctors and nurses, that a complicated wound is a
fascinating object.
In spite of herself Sylvia had one glimpse of horribly
lacerated red tissues. . . . She gripped her hands together
after this and looked fixedly at a button on her glove, until
136 The Bent Twig
Miss Lindstrom's voice announced : " It's the Embury stitch
that makes that possible : we've just worked out the applica-
tion of it to skin-graft cases. Two years ago she'd have lost
her leg. Isn't it simply splendid ! '
She said cordially as they moved forward : " Sister Selma
said to treat you as though you were the Queen of Sweden,
and I am! You're seeing things that visitors are never
allowed to see."
They walked on and on interminably, past innumerable
sick souls,, each whirling alone in a self-centered storm of
suffering; and then, somehow, they were in a laboratory,
where an immensely stout and immensely jovial doctor in
white linen got down from a high stool to shake hands with
them and profess an immense willingness to entertain them.
" . . . but I haven't got anything much today," he said,
with a disparaging wave of his hand towards his test-tubes.
" Not a single death-warrant. Oh yes, I have too, one
brought in yesterday." He brought them a test-tube, stop-
pered with cotton, and bade them note a tiny bluish patch
on the clear gelatine at the bottom. : That means he's a
dead one, as much as if he faced the electric chair," he
explained. To the nurse he added, " A fellow in the men's
ward, Pavilion G. Very interesting culture . . . first of
that kind I've had since I've been here." As he spoke he
was looking at Sylvia with an open admiration, bold, in-
trusive, flippant.
They were passing along another corridor, hot, silent,
their footsteps falling dully on a long runner of corrugated
rubber, with red borders which drew together in the distance
like the rails streaming away from a train. Behind a closed
door there suddenly rose, and as quickly died away, a
scream of pain. With an effort Sylvia resisted the impulse
to clap her hands over her ears.
" Here we are, at the minor operating-room," said Miss
Lindstrom, pausing. " It's against the rules, but if you
want to look from across the room just to say you've
been there- She held the door open a little, a suffo-
cating odor of anaesthetics blew out in their faces, like a
One Man's Meat ... 137
breath from a dragon's cave. Mrs. Marshall and Judith
stepped forward. But Sylvia clutched at her mother's arm
and whispered : " Mother ! Mother ! I don't think I'll go on.
I feel I feel I'll go back down to the entrance hall to
wait."
Mrs. Marshall nodded a preoccupied assent, and Sylvia
fled away down the endless corridor, looking neither to the
right nor the left, down repeated flights of scrubbed and
sterilized marble stairs, into the entrance hall, and, like a
bolt from a bow, out of it on the other side, out into the
street, into the sunshine, the heat, the clatter, the blessed,
blessed smell of cabbage and dish-water. . . .
After a time she went to sit down on the top step of the
hospital entrance to wait. She contemplated with exquisite
enjoyment the vigorous, profane, hair-pulling quarrel be-
tween two dirty little savages across the street. She could
have kissed her hand to the loud-voiced woman who came
scuffling to the window to scold them, clutching a dirty
kimono together over a Hogarth-like expanse of bosom.
They were well, these people, blood ran in their veins, their
skin was whole, they breathed air, not iodoform ! Her
mother had pulled the string too tight, and Sylvia's ears
were full of the ugly twang of its snapping.
When, at last, Judith and Mrs. Marshall came out, hand-
in-hand, Sylvia sprang up to say : ' : What an awful place !
I hope I'll never have to set foot in one again ! ' But quick
as was her impulse to speech, her perceptions were quicker,
and before the pale exaltation of the other two, she fell
silent, irritated, rebellious, thoroughly alien. They walked
along in silence. Then Judith said, stammering a little with
emotion, " M-M-Mother, I want to b-b-b-be a trained
n-n-nurse when I grow up."
CHAPTER XIII
AN INSTRUMENT IN TUNE
As they drew near to their boarding-house late that after-
noon, very hot, very crumpled, very solemn, and very much
out of tune with one another, they were astonished to see
a little eager-faced boy dash out of the house and run
wildly to meet them, shouting as he came.
" Why, Lawrence Marshall! ' cried his mother, picking
him up in strong arms ; " how ever in the world did you
get here ! '
' Father brungded me," cried the child, clasping her
tightly around the neck. ' We got so lonesome for Mother
we couldn't wait."
And then Sylvia had stamped on her mind a picture which
was to come back later her father's face and eyes as he
ran down the steps to meet his wife. For he looked at his
daughters only afterwards, as they were all walking along
together, much excited, everybody talking at once, and
hanging on everybody's arm. ". . . Yes, Buddy's right!
We found we missed you so, we decided life wasn't worth it.
You don't know, Barbara, what it's like without you you
don't know! '
Her father's voice sounded to Sylvia so loud, so gay, so
vital, so inexpressibly welcome. . . . She leaped up at his
face like a young dog, for another kiss. " Oh, I'm awfully
glad you came ! " she cried, wondering a little herself at the
immensity of her relief. She thought that she must get
him by himself quickly and tell him her side of that hos-
pital story, before her mother and Judith began on any
virtuous raptures over it.
But there was no consecutive talk about anything after
they all were joyfully gathered in their ugly, commonplace
138
An Instrument in Tune 139
boarding-house bedroom. They loosened collars and belts,
washed their perspiring and dusty faces, and brushed
hair, to the tune of a magpie chatter. Sylvia did not
realize that she and her father were the main sources of
this volubility, she did not realize how she had missed his
exuberance, she only knew that she felt a weight lifted from
her heart. She had been telling him with great enjoyment
of the comic opera they had seen, as she finished putting
the hairpins into her freshly smoothed hair, and turned, a
pin still in her mouth, in time to be almost abashed by the
expression in his eyes as he suddenly drew his wife to him.
" Jove ! Barbara ! ' he cried, half laughing, but with a
quiver in his voice, " it's hell to be happily married ! A
separation is well, never mind about it. I carne along
anyhow ! And now I'm here I'll go to see Vic of course."
" No, you won't," said Judith promptly. ' She's gone
back. To get Arnold out of a scrape."
Mrs. Marshall explained further, and incidentally touched
upon her sister-in-law's views of the relation between ex-
pensive boys' schools and private tutors. Her dryly humor-
ous version of this set her husband off in a great mirthful
roar, to which Sylvia, after a moment of blankness, suddenly
joined a burst of her own clear laughter. At the time she had
seen nothing funny in Aunt Victoria's statement, but she was
now immensely tickled to remember Aunt Victoria's Olym-
pian certainty of herself and her mother's grave mask of
serious consideration of the idea. Long after her father had
stopped laughing, she still went on, breaking out into de-
lighted giggles. Her new understanding of the satire back
of her mother's quiet eyes, lent to Aunt Victoria's golden
calm the quaint touch of caricature which made it self-
deceived complacency. At the recollection she sent up
rocket after rocket of schoolgirl laughter.
Her mother, absorbed in conscientious anxiety about
Sylvia's development, and deeply disappointed by the result
of the visit to the hospital, ignored this laughter, nor did
Sylvia at all guess that she was laughing away half the
spell which Aunt Victoria had cast about her. When they
140 The Bent Twig
went down to their supper of watery creamed potatoes,
and stewed apricots in thick saucers, she was in such good
humor that she ate this unappetizing fare with no protest.
" Now, folks," said Professor Marshall, after supper,
' we have to go home tomorrow early, so we ought to have
one more fling tonight. While I was waiting for you to
come back this afternoon, I looked up what Chicago has to
offer in the way of flings, and this is what I found. Here,
Barbara," he took a tiny envelope out of his upper waist-
coat pocket, " are two tickets for the symphony orchestra.
By the greatest of luck they're giving a special concert for
some charity or other, a beautiful program; a sort of
musical requiem. Sylvia mustn't miss it; you take her.
And here," he spun round to face Judith and Lawrence,
producing another slim, tiny envelope from the other upper
waistcoat pocket, ' since symphony concerts are rather
solid meat for milk teeth, and since they last till way after
bedtime, I have provided another sort of entertainment;
to wit : three seats for moving pictures of the only real and
authentic Cheyenne Bill's Congress of the World's Fron-
tiersmen. All in favor of going there with me, say ' Aye/
' Aye ! ' screamed Judith and Lawrence. Everybody
laughed in pleased excitement and everybody seemed sat-
isfied except Mrs. Marshall, who insisted that she should
go to the moving pictures while the Professor took Sylvia
to the concert.
Then followed the most amiable, generous wrangle as to
which of the parents should enjoy the adult form of amuse-
ment. But while the Professor grew more and more half-
hearted in his protestations that he really didn't care where
he went, Mrs. Marshall grew more and more positive that
he must not be allowed to miss the music, finally silencing
his last weak proffer of self-abnegation by saying peremp-
torily : ' No, no, Elliott ; go on in to your debauch of
emotion. I'll take the children. Don't miss your chance.
You know it means ten times as much to you as to me.
You haven't heard a good orchestra in years."
Sylvia had never been in such a huge hall as the one
An Instrument in Tune 141
where they presently sat, high, giddily high in the eyrie of
a top gallery. They looked down into yawning space. The
vast size of the auditorium so dwarfed the people now taking
their innumerable seats, that even after the immense audi-
ence was assembled the great semicircular enclosure
seemed empty and blank. It received those thousands of
souls into its maw, and made no sign ; awaiting some visita-
tion worthy of its bulk.
The orchestra, an army of ants, straggled out on the stage.
Sylvia was astonished at their numbers sixteen first
violins, she saw by the program ! She commented to her
father on the difficulty of keeping them all in tune. He
smiled at her absently, bade her, with an air of suppressed
excitement, wait until she had heard them, and fell to biting
his nails nervously. She re-read the program and all the
advertisements, hypnotized, like every one else in the audi-
ence, by the sight of printed matter. She noticed that the
first number of this memorial concert was the funeral march
from the Gotterdammerung, which she knew very well
from having heard a good many times a rather thin version
of it for four strings and a piano.
The conductor, a solitary ant, made his toilsome way
across the great front of the stage, evoking a burst of
applause, which resounded hollowly in the inhuman spaces
of the building. He mounted a step, waved his antennae,
there was a great indrawn breath of silence, and then Sylvia,
waiting with agreeable curiosity to hear how a big orchestra
would really sound, gasped and held her breath. The cup
of that vast building suddenly brimmed with a magical flood
of pure tone, coming from everywhere, from nowhere, from
her own heart as well as from outside her body. The
immense hall rang to the glorious quality of this sound as
a violin-back vibrates to the drawn bow. It rained down on
her, it surged up to her, she could not believe that she
really heard it.
She looked quickly at her father. His arms were folded
tightly across his chest. He was looking frowningly at
the back of the chair in front of him. It was evident that
142 The Bent Twig
Sylvia did not exist for him. She was detached from her
wonder at his pale sternness by the assault on her nerves
made by the first of those barbaric outcries of woe, that sud-
den, brief clamor of grief, the shouts of despair, the beating
upon shields. Her heart stood still There rose, sing-
ing like an archangel, the mystic call of the Volsung, then
the yearning melody of love ; such glory, such longing for
beauty, for life and then brusquely, again and again, the
screaming, sobbing recollection of the fact of death. . . .
When it was over, Sylvia's breath was still coming pant-
ingly. : ' Oh, Father ! How how wonderful how "
she murmured.
He looked at her, as though he were angry with her, and
yet scarcely seeming to know her, and spoke in a hard,
bitter tone: " And it is years since I have heard one ! ' He
seemed to cry out upon her for the conditions of his life.
She had no key for these words, could not imagine a
meaning for them, and, chilled and repelled, wondered if she
had heard him rightly.
The funeral march from the Eroica began, and her
father's face softened. The swelling volume of tone rose
like a flood-tide. The great hall, the thousands of human
hearts, all beat solemnly in the grave and hopeless pulsa-
tions of the measured chords. The air was thick with sor-
row, with quiet despair. No outcries here, no screams
the modern soul advancing somberly with a pale composure
to the grave of its love, aware that during all the centuries
since the dead Siegfried was lifted high on the shoulders of
his warriors not a word of explanation, of consolation has
been found; that the modern, barren self-control means
only what the barbarian yells out in his open abandonment
to sorrow and yet such beauty, such beauty in that sing-
ing thread of melody " durch Leiden, Freude!'
Not even the shadow of death had ever fallen across
Sylvia's life, or that of her father, to explain the premoni-
tory emotion which now drew them together like two fright-
ened children. Sylvia felt the inexorable music beating in
her own veins, and when she took her father's hand it
An Instrument in Tune 143
seemed to her that its strong pulses throbbed to the same
rhythm; beauty, and despair . . . hope . . . life . . . death.
At the end, " Oh, Father oh, Father ! ' she said under
her breath, imploringly, struggling to free herself from
the muffling, enveloping sense of imminent disaster. He
pressed her hand hard and smiled at her. It was his
own old smile, the father-look which had been her heart's
home all her life but it was infinitely sweeter to her now
than ever before. She had never felt closer to him.
There was a pause during which they did not speak, and
then there burst upon them the splendid tumult of " Death
and Transfiguration," which, like a great wind, swept Sylvia
out of herself. She could not follow the music she had
never heard of it before. She was beaten down, over-
whelmed, freed, as though the transfiguration were her
own, from the pitiful barriers of consciousness. . . .
" Was the concert good ? " asked Mrs. Marshall, yawning,
and reaching out of bed to kiss Sylvia sleepily. She
laughed a little at their faces. " Oh, music is a madness 1
To spend a cheerful evening listening to death-music, and
then come back looking like Moses before the Burning
Bush ! "
" Say, you ought to have seen the stunt they did with
their lassos," cried Judith, waking in the bed on the other
side of the room, and sitting up with her black hair tousled
about her face. " I'm going to try it with the pinto when
we get home."
" I bet you'll do it, too," came from Lawrence the loyal,
always sure of Judith's strength, Judith's skill.
Sylvia looked at her father over their heads and smiled
faintly. It was a good smile, from a full heart.
" Aunt Victoria sent our dresses," said Judith, dropping
back on the pillow. " That big box over there. Mine has
pink ribbons, and yours are blue."
Mrs. Marshall looked at the big box with disfavor, and
then at Sylvia, now sunk in a chair, her hands clasped be-
hind her head, her eyes dreamy and half closed.
144 The Bent Twig
Across the room the long pasteboard box displayed a
frothy mass of white lace and pale shining ribbons. Sylvia
looked at it absently and made no move to examine it.
She closed her eyes again and beat an inaudible rhythm with
her raised fingers. All through her was ringing the upward-
surging tide of sound at the end of " Death and Transfigura-
tion."
" Oh, go to bed, Sylvia ; don't sit there maundering over
the concert," said her mother, with a good-natured asperity.
But there was relief in her voice.
CHAPTER XIV
HIGHER EDUCATION
To any one who is familiar with State University life, the
color of Sylvia's Freshman year will be vividly conveyed
by the simple statement that she was not invited to join a
fraternity. To any one who does not know State Uni-
versity life, no description can convey anything approaching
an adequate notion of the terribly determinative significance
of that fact.
The statement that she was invited to join no sorority
is not literally true, for in the second semester when it was
apparent that none of the three leading fraternities in-
tended to take her in, there came a late " bid ' from one of
the third-rate sororities, of recent date, composed of girls
like Sylvia who had not been included in the membership
of the older, socially distinguished organizations. Cut to
the quick by her exclusion from the others, Sylvia refused
this tardy invitation with remorseless ingratitude. If she
were not to form one of the " swell " set of college, at least
she would not proclaim herself one of the " jays," the
' grinds," the queer girls, who wore their hair straight
back from their foreheads, who invariably carried off Phi
Beta Kappa, whose skirts hung badly, whose shoe-heels
turned over as they walked, who stood first in their classes,
whose belts behind made a practice of revealing large white
safety-pins ; and whose hats, even disassociated from their
dowdy wearers, and hanging in the cloakroom, were of an
almost British eccentricity.
Nothing of this sort could be alleged against Sylvia's
appearance, which she felt, as she arrayed herself every
morning, to be all that the most swagger frat could ask of a
member. Aunt Victoria's boxes of clothing, her own nimble
145
146 The Bent Twig
fingers and passionate attention to the subject, combined to
turn her out a copy, not to be distinguished from the origi-
nal, of the daughter of a man with an income five times
that of her father. As she consulted her mirror, it occurred
to her also, as but an honest recognition of a conspicuous
fact, that her suitable and harmonious toilets adorned a per-
son as pleasing to the eye as any of her classmates.
During the last year of her life at home she had shot up
very fast, and she was now a tall, slender presence, pre-
served from even the usual touching and delightful awk-
wardness of seventeen by the trained dexterity and strength
with which she handled her body, as muscular, for all its
rounded slimness, as a boy's. Her hair was beautiful, a
bright chestnut brown with a good deal of red, its brilliant
gloss broken into innumerable high-lights by the ripple of
its waviness ; and she had one other positive beauty, the
clearly penciled line of her long, dark eyebrows, which ran
up a trifle at the outer ends with a little quirk, giving an
indescribable air of alertness and vivacity to her expression.
Otherwise she was not at that age, nor did she ever become,
so explicitly handsome as her sister Judith, who had at
every period of her life a head as beautiful as that on a
Greek coin. But when the two were together, although the
perfectly adjusted proportions of Judith's proud, dark face
brought out the irregularities of Sylvia's, disclosed the tilt
of her small nose, made more apparent the disproportionate
width between her eyes, and showed her chin to be of no
mold in particular, yet a modern eye rested with far more
pleasure on the older sister's face. A bright, quivering
mobility like sunshine on water, gave it a charm which was
not dependent on the more obvious prettinesses of a fine-
grained, white skin, extremely clear brown eyes, and a
mouth quick to laugh and quiver, with pure, sharply cut out-
line and deeply sunk corners. Even in repose, Sylvia's face
made Judith's seem unresponsive, and when it lighted up in
talk and laughter, it seemed to give out a visible light. In
contrast Judith's beautiful countenance seemed carved out
of some very hard and indestructible stone.
Higher Education 147
And yet, in spite of this undeniably satisfactory physical
outfit, and pre-eminent ability in athletics, Sylvia was not
invited to join any of the best fraternities. It is not sur-
prising that there was mingled with her bitterness on the
subject a justifiable amount of bewilderment. What did
they want? They recruited, from her very side in classes,
girls without half her looks or cleverness. What was the
matter with her? She would not for her life have given a
sign to her family of her mental sufferings as, during that
first autumn, day after day went by with no sign of welcome
from the social leaders of her new world; but a mark was
left on her character by her affronted recognition of her
total lack of success in this, her first appearance outside the
sheltering walls of her home; her first trial by the real
standards of the actual world of real people.
The fact, which would have been balm to Sylvia's vanity,
had she ever had the least knowledge of it, was that upon her
appearance in the Freshman class she had been the occasion
of violent discussion and almost of dissension in the councils
of the two ' best " fraternities. Her beauty, her charm,
and the rumors of her excellence in tennis had made a flutter
in the first fraternity meetings after the opening of the
autumn term. The younger members of both Sigma Beta
and Alpha Kappa counseled early and enthusiastic "rush-
ing " of the new prize, but the Juniors and Seniors, wise in
their day and generation, brought out a number of damning
facts which would need to be taken into consideration if
Sylvia wore their pin.
There were, in both fraternities, daughters of other
faculty families, who were naturally called upon to furnish
inside information. They had been brought up from child-
hood on the tradition of the Marshalls' hopeless queerness,
and their collective statement of the Marshalls' position ran
somewhat as follows : " The only professors who have any-
thing to do with them are some of the jay young profs from
the West, with no families; the funny old La Rues you
know what a hopeless dowd Madame La Rue is and Pro-
fessor Kennedy, and though he comes from a swell family
The Bent Twig
he's an awful freak himself. They live on a farm, like
farmers, at the ends of the earth from anybody that any-
body knows. They are never asked to be patrons of any
swell college functions. None of the faculty ladies with
any social position ever call on Mrs. Marshall and no
wonder. She doesn't keep any help, and when the doorbell
rings she's as apt to come running in from the chicken
house with rubber boots on, and a basket of eggs and the
queerest clothes ! Like a costume out of a book ; and they
never have anybody to wait on the table, just jump up and
down themselves you can imagine what kind of a frat
tea or banquet Sylvia would give in such a home and of
course if we took her in, we couldn't very well tell her her
family's so impossible we wouldn't want their connection
with the frat known and the students who go there are a
perfect collection of all the jays and grinds and freaks in
college. It's enough to mark you one to be seen there
you meet all the crazy guys you see in classes and never
anywhere else and of course that wouldn't stop when
Sylvia's frat sisters began going there. And their house
wouldn't do at all to entertain in it's queer no rugs
dingy old furniture nothing but books everywhere, even in
their substitute for a parlor and you're likely to meet not
only college freaks, but worse ones from goodness knows
where. There's a beer-drinking old monster who goes there
every Sunday to play the riddle that you wouldn't have
speak to you on the street for anything in the world. And
the way they entertain ! My, in such a countrified way !
Some of the company go out into the kitchen to help Mrs.
Marshall serve up the refreshments and everything home-
made and they play charades, and nobody knows what else
bean-bag, or spelling-down maybe "
This appalling picture, which in justice to the young
delineators must be conceded to be not in the least over-
drawn, was quite enough to give pause to those impetuous
and immature young Sophomores who had lacked the philo-
sophical breadth of vision to see that Sylvia was not an
isolated phenomenon, but (since her family lived in La
Higher Education 149
Chance) an inseparable part of her background. After all,
the sororities made no claim to be anything but social or-
ganizations. Their standing in the college world depended
upon their social background, and of course this could only
be made up of a composite mingling of those of their in-
dividual members.
Fraternities did not wish to number more than sixteen or
eighteen undergraduates. That meant only four or five to
be chosen from each Freshman class, and that number of
' nice " girls was not hard to find, girls who were not only
well dressed, and lively and agreeable in themselves, but
who came from large, well-kept, well-furnished houses on
the right streets of La Chance ; with presentable, card-play-
ing, call-paying, reception-giving mothers, who hired
caterers for their entertainments; and respectably absentee
fathers with sizable pocketbooks and a habit of cash lib-
erality. The social standing of the co-eds in State Uni-
versities was already precarious enough, without running
the risk of acquiring dubious social connections.
If ^ Sylvia had been a boy, it is almost certain that the
deficiencies of her family would' have been overlooked in
consideration of her potentialities in the athletic world.
Success in athletics was to the men's fraternities what social
standing was to the girls'. It must be remarked parentheti-
cally that neither class of these organizations had the slight-
est prejudice against high scholastic standing. On the con-
trary it was regarded very kindly by fraternity members, as
a desirable though not indispensable addition to social stand-
ing and physical prowess.
But Sylvia was not a boy, and her fine, promising game
of tennis, her excellence in the swimming-pool, and her
success on the gymnasium floor and on the flying rings,
served no purpose but to bring to her the admiration of the
duffers among the girls, whom she despised, and the un-
spoken envy of the fraternity girls, whose overtures at
superficial friendliness she constantly rebuffed with stern,
wounded pride.
The sharpest stab to her pride came from the inevitable
150 The Bent Twig
publicity of her ordeal. For, though her family knew noth-
ing of what that first year out in the world meant to her,
she had not the consolation of hoping that her condition was
not perfectly apparent to every one else in the college world.
At the first of the year, all gatherings of undergraduates not
in fraternities hummed and buzzed with speculations about
who would or would not be ' taken ' by the leading fra-
ternities. For every girl who was at all possible, each day
was a long suspense, beginning in hope and ending in list-
lessness ; and for Sylvia in an added shrinking from the
eyes of her mates, which were, she knew, fixed on her with a
relentless curiosity which was torture to one of her tem-
perament. She had been considered almost sure to be early
invited to join Alpha Kappa, the frat to which most of the
faculty daughters belonged, and all during the autumn she
was aware that when she took off her jacket in the cloak-
room, a hundred glances swept her to see if she wore at
last the coveted emblem of the " pledged" girl; and when
an Alpha Kappa girl chanced to come near her with a
casual remark, she seemed to hear a significant hush among
the other girls, followed by an equally significant buzz of
whispered comment when the fraternity member moved
away again. This atmosphere would have made no impres-
sion on a nature either more sturdily philosophic, or more
unimaginative than Sylvia's (Judith, for instance, was not
in the least affected by the experience), but it came to be
a morbid obsession of this strong, healthy, active-minded
young creature. It tinged with bitterness and blackness
what should have been the crystal-clear cup holding her
youth and intelligence and health. She fancied that every
one despised her. She imagined that people who were in
reality quite unaware of her existence were looking at her
and whispering together a wondering discussion as to why
she was not " in the swim " as such a girl ought to be all
girls worth their salt were.
Above all she was stung into a sort of speechless rage by
her impotence to do anything to regain the decent minimum
of personal dignity which she felt was stripped from her by
Higher Education
this constant play of bald speculation about whether she
would or would not be considered " good enough " to be in-
vited into a sorority. If only something definite would
happen ! If there were only an occasion on which she might
in some way proudly proclaim her utter indifference to fra-
ternities and their actions ! If only the miserable business
were not so endlessly drawn out! She threw herself with
a passionate absorption into her studies, her music, and her
gymnasium work, cut off both from the "elect" and from the
multitude, a proudly self-acknowledged maverick. She
never lacked admiring followers among less brilliant girls
who would have been adorers if she had not held them off
at arm's length, but her vanity, far from being omnivorous,
required more delicate food. She wished to be able to cry
aloud to her world that she thought nothing and cared noth-
ing about fraternities, and by incessant inner absorption in
this conception she did to a considerable extent impose it
upon the collective mind of her contemporaries. She, the
yearningly friendly, sympathetic, sensitive, praise-craving
Sylvia, came to be known, half respected and half disliked,
as proud and clever, and " high-brow," and offish, and con-
ceited, and so " queer " that she cared nothing for the ordi-
nary pleasures of ordinary girls.
This reputation for a high-browed indifference to com-
monplace mortals was naturally not a recommendation to
the masculine undergraduates of the University. These
young men, under the influence of reports of what was
done at Cornell and other more eastern co-educational in-
stitutions, were already strongly inclined to ignore the
co-eds as much as possible. The tradition was growing
rapidly that the proper thing was to invite the " town-
girls ' to the college proms and dances, and to sit beside
them in the grandstand during football games. As yet,
however, this tendency had not gone so far but that those
co-eds who were members of a socially recognized fraternity
were automatically saved from the neglect which enveloped
all other but exceptionally flirtatious and undiscriminating
girls. Each girls' fraternity, like the masculine organiza-
152 The Bent Twig
tions, gave one big hop in the course of the season and
several smaller dances, as well as lawn-parties and teas
and stage-coach parties to the football games. The young
men naturally wished to be invited to these functions, the
increasing elaborateness of which kept pace with the in-
creasing sophistication of life in La Chance and the increas-
ing cost of which made the parents of the girls groan. Con-
sequently each masculine fraternity took care that it did not
incur the enmity of the organized and socially powerful
sororities. But Sylvia was not protected by this aegis. She
was not invited during her Freshman year to the dances
given by either the sororities or the fraternities ; and the
large scattering crowd of masculine undergraduates were
frightened away from the handsome girl by her supposed
haughty intellectual tastes.
Here again her isolation was partly the result of her own
wish. The raw-boned, badly dressed farmers' lads, with
red hands and rough hair, she quite as snobbishly ignored
as she was ignored in her turn by the well-set-up, fashion-
ably dressed young swells of the University, with their
white hands, with their thin, gaudy socks tautly pulled over
their ankle-bones, and their shining hair glistening like
lacquer on their skulls (that being the desideratum in youth-
ful masculine society of the place and time). Sylvia snubbed
the masculine jays of college partly because it was a breath
of life to her battered vanity to be able to snub some one,
and partly because they seemed to her, in comparison with
the smart set, seen from afar, quite and utterly undesirable.
She would rather have no masculine attentions at all than
such poor provender for her feminine desire to conquer.
Thus she trod the leafy walks of the beautiful campus
alone, ignoring and ignored, keenly alive under her shell of
indifference to the brilliant young men and their chosen few
feminine companions.
CHAPTER XV
MRS. DRAPER BLOWS THE COALS
THE most brilliant of these couples were Jermain Fiske,
Jr., and Eleanor Hubert. The first was the son of the well-
known and distinguished Colonel Jermain Fiske, one of the
trustees of the University, ex-Senator from the State. He
belonged to the old, free-handed, speech-making type of
American statesmen, and, with his florid good looks, his
great stature, his loud, resonant, challenging voice, and his
picturesque reputation for highly successful double-dealing,
he was one of the most talked-of men in the State, despite
his advanced years. His enemies, who were not few, said
that the shrewdest action of his surpassingly shrewd life
had been his voluntary retirement from the Senate and
from political activities at the first low murmur heralding the
muck-raking cyclone which was to devastate public life as
men of his type understood it. But every inhabitant of the
State, including his enemies, took an odd pride in his
fiercely debonair defiance to old age, in his grandiloquent,
too fluent public addresses, and in the manner in which,
despite his dubious private reputation, he held open to him'
by sheer will-power, sanctimonious doors which were closed
to other less robust bad examples to youth.
This typical specimen of an American class now passing
away, had sent his son to the State University instead of to
an expensive Eastern college because of his carefully
avowed attitude of bluff acceptance of a place among the
plain people of the region. The presence of Jermain, Jr.,
in the classrooms of the State University had been capital
for many a swelling phrase on his father's part " What's
good enough for the farmers' boys of my State is good
enough for my boy," etc., etc.
As far as the young man in question was concerned, he
153
154 The Bent Twig
certainly showed no signs whatever of feeling himself sacri-
ficed for his father's advantage, and apparently considered
that a leisurely sojourn for seven years (he took both the
B.A. and the three-year Law course) in a city the size of
La Chance was by no means a hardship for a young man
in the best of health, provided with ample funds, and never
questioned as to the disposition of his time. He had had
at first a reputation for dissipation which, together with his
prowess on the football field, had made him as much talked
of on the campus as his father in the State ; but during his
later years, those spent in the Law School, he had, as the
college phrase ran, ' taken it out in being swagger," had
discarded his former shady associates, had two rooms in
the finest frat house on the campus, and was the only
student of the University to drive two horses tandem to a
high, red-wheeled dog-cart. His fine physique and reputa-
tion for quick assertion of his rights saved him from the
occasional taunt of dandyism which would have been flung
at any other student indulging in so unusual a freak of
fashion.
During Sylvia's Freshman year there usually sat beside
him, on the lofty seat of this equipage, a sweet-faced, gentle-
browed young lady, the lovely flower blooming out of the
little girl who had so innocently asked her mother some ten
years ago what was a drunken reinhardt. The oldest
daughter of the professor of European History was almost
precisely Sylvia's age, but now, when Sylvia was laboring
over her books in the very beginning of her college life,
Eleanor Hubert was a finished product, a graduate of an
exclusive, expensive girls' boarding-school in New York,
and a that-year's debutante in La Chance society. Her
name was constantly in the items of the society columns, she
wore the most profusely varied costumes, and she drove
about the campus swaying like a lily beside the wealthiest
undergraduate. Sylvia's mind was naturally too alert and
vigorous, and now too thoroughly awakened to intellectual
interests, not to seize with interest on the subjects she
studied that year ; but enjoy as much as she tried to do, and
Mrs. Draper Blows the Coals 155
did, this tonic mental discipline, there were many moments
when the sight of Eleanor Hubert made her wonder if after
all higher mathematics and history were of any real value.
During this wretched year of stifled unhappiness, she not
only studied with extreme concentration, but, with a healthy
instinct, spent a great deal of time in the gymnasium. It
was a delight to her to be able to swim in the winter-time,
she organized the first water-polo team among the co-eds,
and she began to learn fencing from the Commandant of the
University Battalion. He had been a crack with the foils
at West Point, and never ceased trying to arouse an interest
in what seemed to him the only rational form of exercise;
but fencing at that time had no intercollegiate vogue, and
of all the young men and women at the State University,
Sylvia alone took up his standing offer of free instruction
to any one who cared to give the time to learn ; and even
Sylvia took up fencing primarily because it promised to
give her one more occupation, left her less time for loneli-
ness. As it turned out, however, these lessons proved far
more to her than a temporary anodyne : they brought her
a positive pleasure. She delighted the dumpy little captain
with her aptness, and he took the greatest pains in his in-
struction. Before the end of her Freshman year she twice
succeeded in getting through his guard and landing a thrust
on his well-rounded figure; and though to keep down her
conceit he told her that he must be losing, along with his
slenderness, some of his youthful agility, he confessed to his
wife that teaching Miss Marshall was the best fun he had
had in years. The girl was as quick as a cat, and had a
natural-born fencer's wrist.
During the summer vacation she kept up her practice
with her father, who remembered enough of his early train-
ing in Paris to be more than a match for her, and in the
autumn of her Sophomore year, at the annual Gymnasium
exhibition, she gave with the Commandant a public bout
with the foils in which she notably distinguished herself.
The astonished and long-continued applause for this new
feature of the exhibition was a draught of nectar to her
156 The Bent Twig
embittered young heart, but she acknowledged it with not
the smallest sign of pleasure, showing an impassive face as
she stood by the portly captain, slim and tall and young
and haughty, joining him in a sweeping, ceremonious salute
with her foil to the enthusiastic audience, and turning on her
heel with a brusqueness as military as his own, to march
firmly with high-held head beside him back to the ranks of
blue-bloomered girls who stood watching her.
The younger girls in Alpha Kappa and Sigma Beta were
seizing this opportunity to renew an old quarrel with their
elders in the fraternities and were acrimoniously hoping that
the older ones were quite satisfied with their loss of a bril-
liant member. These accusations met with no ready answer
from the somewhat crestfallen elders, whose only defense
was the entire unexpectedness of the way in which Sylvia
was distinguishing herself. Who ever heard before of a
girl doing anything remarkable in athletics? And anyhow,
now in her Sophomore year it was too late to do anything.
A girl so notoriously proud would certainly not consider a
tardy invitation, and it would not do to run the risk of
being refused. It is not too much to say that to have
overheard a conversation like this would have changed the
course of Sylvia's development, but of such colloquies she
could know nothing, attributing to the fraternities, with all
an outsider's resentful overestimation of their importance,
an arrogant solidarity of opinion and firmness of purpose
which they were very far from possessing.
Professor and Mrs. Marshall and Lawrence and Judith,
up in the front row of chairs set for the audience about the
running track, followed this exploit of Sylvia's with naively
open pride and sympathy, applauding even more heartily
than did their neighbors. Lawrence, as usual, began to
compose a poem, the first line of which ran,
' Splendid, she wields her gleaming sword "
The most immediate result of this first public success of
Sylvia's was the call paid to Mrs. Marshall on the day
Mrs. Draper Blows the Coals 157
following by Mrs. Draper, the wife of the professor of
Greek. Although there had never been any formal social
intercourse between the two ladies, they had for a good
many years met each other casually on the campus, and
Mrs. Draper, with the extremely graceful manner of assur-
ance which was her especial accomplishment, made it seem
quite natural that she should call to congratulate Sylvia's
mother on the girl's skill and beauty as shown in her prowess
on the evening before. Mrs. Marshall prided herself on
her undeceived view of life, but she was as ready to hear
praise of her spirited and talented daughter as any other
mother, and quite melted to Mrs. Draper, although her
observations from afar of the other woman's career in La
Chance had never before inclined her to tolerance. So that
when Mrs. Draper rose to go and asked casually if Sylvia
couldn't run in at five that afternoon to have a cup of tea
at her house with a very few of her favorites among the
young people, Mrs. Marshall, rather inflexible by nature
and quite unused to the subtleties of social intercourse,
found herself unable to retreat quickly enough from her re-
flected tone of cordiality to refuse the invitation for her
daughter.
When Sylvia came back to lunch she was vastly flut-
tered and pleased by the invitation, and as she ate, her
mind leaped from one possible sartorial combination to
another. Whatever she wore must be exactly right to be
worthy of such a hostess : for Mrs. Draper was a con-
spicuous figure in faculty society. She had acquired,
through years of extremely intelligent manceuvering, a repu-
tation for choice exclusiveness which was accepted even in
the most venerable of the old families of La Chance, those
whose founders had built their log huts there as long as fifty
years before. In faculty circles she occupied a unique posi-
tion, envied and feared and admired and distrusted and
copiously gossiped about by the faculty ladies, who accepted
with eagerness any invitations to entertainments in her
small, aesthetic, and perfectly appointed house. She was
envied even by women with much more than her income :
158 The Bent Twig
for of course Professor Draper had an independent in-
come; it was hardly possible to be anybody unless one be-
longed to that minority of the faculty families with re-
sources beyond the salary granted by the State.
Faculty ladies were, however, not favored with a great
number of invitations to Mrs. Draper's select and amusing
teas and dinners, as that lady had a great fancy for sur-
rounding herself with youth, meaning, for the most part,
naturally enough, masculine youth. With an unerring and
practised eye she picked out from each class the few young
men who were to her purpose, and proclaiming with the
most express lack of reticence the forty-three years which
she by no means looked, she took these chosen few under
a wing frankly maternal, giving them, in the course of an
intimate acquaintance with her and the dim and twilight
ways of her house and life, an enlightening experience of
a civilization which she herself said, with a humorous ap-
preciation of her own value, quite made, over the young, un-
licked cubs. This statement of her influence on most of
the young men drawn into her circle was perhaps not much
exaggerated.
From time to time she also admitted into this charmed
circle a young girl or two, though almost never one of the
University girls, of whom she made the j oiliest possible fun.
Her favorites were the daughters of good La Chance
families who at seventeen had "finished" at Miss Home's
Select School for Young Ladies, and who came put in
society not later than eighteen. She seemed able, as long
as she cared to do it, to exercise as irresistible a fascina-
tion over these youthful members of her own sex as over the
older masculine undergraduates of the University. They
copied their friend's hats and neckwear and shoes and her
mannerisms of speech, were miserable if she neglected them
for a day, furiously jealous of each other, and raised to the
seventh heaven by attention from her. Just at present the
only girl admitted frequently to Mrs. Draper's intimacy was
Eleanor Hubert.
On the day following the Gymnasium exhibition, when
Mrs. Draper Blows the Coals 159
Sylvia, promptly at five, entered the picturesque vine-
covered Draper house, she found it occupied by none of
the usual habitues of the place. The white-capped, black-
garbed maid who opened the door to the girl held aside
for her a pair of heavy brown-velvet portieres which veiled
the entrance to the drawing-room. The utter silence of this
servitor seemed portentous and inhuman to the young guest,
unused to the polite convention that servants cast no
shadow and do not exist save when serving their superiors.
She found herself in a room as unlike any she had ever
seen as though she had stepped into a new planet. The
light here was as yellow as gold, and came from a great
many candles which, in sconces and candelabra, stood about
the room, their oblong yellow flame as steady in the breath-
less quiet of the air as though they burned in a vault under-
ground. There was not a book in the room, except one in
a yellow cover lying beside a box of candy on the mantel-
piece, but every ledge, table, projection, or shelf was cov-
ered with small, queerly fashioned, dully gleaming objects
of ivory, or silver, or brass, or carved wood, or porcelain.
The mistress of the room now came in. She was in a
loose garment of smoke-brown chiffon, held in place occa-
sionally about her luxuriously rounded figure by a heavy
cord of brown silk. She advanced to Sylvia with both hands
outstretched, and took the girl's slim, rather hard young
fingers in the softest of melting palms. ' Aren't you a
dear, to be so exactly on time! " she exclaimed.
Sylvia was a little surprised. She had thought it axio-
matic that people kept their appointments promptly. ' Oh,
I'm always on time/' she answered simply.
Mrs. Draper laughed and pulled her down on the sofa.
" You clear-eyed young Diana, you won't allow me even
an instant's illusion that you were eager to come to see me ! '
" Oh yes, I was! ' said Sylvia hastily, fearing that she
might have said something rude.
Mrs. Draper laughed again and gave the hand she still
held a squeeze. " You're adorable, that's what you are ! '
She exploded this pointblank charge in Sylvia's face with
160 The Bent Twig
nonchalant ease, and went on with another. " Jerry Fiske
is quite right about you. I suppose you know that you're
here today so that Jerry can meet you."
As there was obviously not the faintest possibility of
Sylvia's having heard this save through her present in-
formant, she could only look what she felt, very much at
a loss, and rather blank, with a heightened color. Mrs.
Draper eyed her with an intentness at variance with the
lightness of her tone, as she continued : " I do think Jerry'd
have burned up in one flare, like a torch, if he couldn't
have seen you at once ! After you'd fenced and disappeared
again into that stupid crowd of graceless girls, he kept
track of you every minute with his opera-glasses, and kept
saying : ' She's a goddess ! Good Lord ! how she carries
herself ! ' It was rather hard on poor Eleanor right there
beside him, but I don't blame him. Eleanor's a sweet thing,
but she'd be sugar and water compared to champagne if
she stood up by you."
For a good many months Sylvia had been craving praise
with a starved appetite, and although she found this down-
pour of it rather drenching, she could not sufficiently col-
lect herself to make the conventional decent pretense that it
was unwelcome. She flushed deeply and looked at her
hostess with dazzled eyes. Mrs. Draper affected to see in
her silence a blankness as to the subject of the talk, and
interrupted the flow of personalities to cry out, with a pre-
tense of horror, ' You don't mean to say you don't know
who Jerry Fiske is ! '
Sylvia, as unused as her mother to conversational traps,
fell into this one with an eager promptness. ' Oh yes, in-
deed ; I know him by sight very well," she said and stopped,
flushing again at a significant laugh from Mrs. Draper. ' I
mean," she went on with dignity, " that Mr. Fiske has air
ways been so prominent in college football and all, you
know and his father being one of our State Senators so
long I suppose everybody on the campus knows him by
sight." Mrs. Draper patted the girl's shoulder propitiat-
ingly. " Yes, yes, of course," she assented. She added,
Mrs. Draper Blows the Coals 161
" He's ever so good-looking, don't you think like a great
Viking with his yellow hair and bright blue eyes ? '
' I never noticed his eyes," said Sylvia stiffly, suspicious
of ridicule in the air.
" Well, you'll have a chance to this afternoon," answered
her hostess, ' for he's the only other person who's to be
admitted to the house. I had a great time excusing myself
to Eleanor she was coming to take me out driving but of
course it wouldn't do for her own sake the poor darling
to have her here today ! '
Sylvia thought she could not have rightly understood the
significance of this speech, and looked uncomfortable. Mrs.
Draper said : " Oh, you needn't mind cutting Eleanor out
she's only a dear baby who can't feel anything very deeply.
It's Mamma Hubert who's so mad about catching Jerry.
Since she's heard he's to have the Fiske estate at Mercerton
as soon as he graduates from Law School, she's like a wild
creature ! If Eleanor weren't the most unconscious little
bait that ever hung on a hook Jerry 'd have turned away in
disgust long ago. He may not be so very acute, but Mamma
Hubert and her manceuvers are not millstones for seeing
through ! '
The doorbell rang, one long and one short tap. ' That's
Jerry's ring," said Mrs. Draper composedly, as though she
had been speaking of her husband. In an instant the heavy
portieres were flung back by a vigorous arm, and a very
tall, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven young man, in a well-
tailored brown suit, stepped in. He accosted his hostess
with easy assurance, but went through his introduction to
Sylvia in a rather awkward silence.
" Now we'll have tea," said Mrs. Draper at once, pressing
a button. In a moment a maid brought in a tray shining
with silver and porcelain, set it down on the table in front
of Mrs. Draper, and then wheeled in a little circular table
with shelves, a glorified edition in gleaming mahogany of
the homely, white-painted wheeled-tray of Sylvia's home.
On the shelves was a large assortment of delicate, small
cakes and paper-thin sandwiches. While she poured
162 The Bent Twig
out the amber-colored tea into the translucent cups,
Mrs. Draper kept up with the new-comer a lively mono-
logue of personalities, in which Sylvia, for very ignorance
of the people involved, could take no part. She sat silent,
watching with concentration the two people before her, the
singularly handsome man, certainly the handsomest man she
had ever seen, and the far from handsome but singularly
alluring woman who faced him, making such a display of
her two good points, her rich figure and her fine dark eyes,
that for an instant the rest of her person seemed non-
existent.
'How do you like your tea, dear?' The mistress of
the house brought her stranded guest back into the current
of talk with this well-worn hook.
' Oh, it doesn't make any difference," said Sylvia, who,
as it happened, did not like the taste of tea.
You really ought to have it nectar ; with whipped am-
brosia on top." Mrs. Draper troweled this statement on
with a dashing smear, saving Sylvia from being forced to
answer, by adding lightly to the man, " Is ambrosia any-
thing that will whip, do you suppose ? '
' Never heard of it before," he answered, breaking his
silence with a carefree absence of shame at his confession
of ignorance. " Sounds like one of those labels on a soda-
water fountain that nobody ever samples/'
Mrs. Draper made a humorously exaggerated gesture of
despair and turned to Sylvia. " Well, it's just as well, my
dear, that you should know at the very beginning what a
perfect monster of illiteracy he is ! You needn't expect any-
thing from him but his stupid good-looks, and money and
fascination. Otherwise he's a Cave-Man for ignorance.
You must take him in hand ! ' She turned back to the man.
' Sylvia, you know, is as clever as she is beautiful. She had
the highest rank but three in her class last year."
Sylvia was overcome with astonishment by this knowl-
edge of a fact which had seemed to make no impression on
the world of the year before. " Why, how could you know
that ! " she cried.
Mrs. Draper Blows the Coals 163
Mrs. Draper laughed. " Just hear her ! " she appealed to
the young man. Her method of promoting the acquaintance
of the two young people seemed to consist in talking to each
of the other. : Just hear her ! She converses as she fences
one bright flash, and you're skewered against the wall
no parryings possible ! ' She faced Sylvia again : " Why,
my dear, in answer to your rapier-like question, I must
simply confess that this morning, being much struck with
Jerry's being struck with you, I went over to the registrar's
office and looked you up. I know that you passed supremely
well in mathematics and French (what a quaint combina-
tion!), very well indeed in history and chemistry, and
moderately in botany. What's the matter with botany? I
have always found Professor Cross a very obliging little
man."
' He doesn't make me see any sense to botany," explained
Sylvia, taking the question seriously. " I don't seem to get
hold of any real reason for studying it at all. What dif-
ference does it make if a bush is a hawthorn or not?
and anyhow, I know it's a hawthorn without studying
botany."
The young man spoke for himself now, with a keen relish
for Sylvia's words. He faced her for the first time. " Now
you're shouting, Miss Marshall ! ' he said. " That's the
most sensible thing I ever heard said. That's just what I
always felt about the whole B.A. course, anyhow ! What's
the diff? Who cares whether Charlemagne lived in six
hundred or sixteen hundred? It all happened before we
were born. What's it all to us ? '
Sylvia looked squarely at him, a little startled at his di-
rectly addressing her, not hearing a word of what he said
in the vividness of her first-hand impression of his per-
sonality, his brilliant blue eyes, his full, very red lips, his
boldly handsome face and carriage, his air of confidence.
In spite of his verbal agreement with her opinion, his look
crossed hers dashingly, like a challenge, a novelty in the
amicable harmony which had been the tradition of her life.
She felt that tradition to be not without its monotony, and
164 The Bent Twig
her young blood warmed. She gazed back at him silently,
wonderingly, frankly.
With her radiantly sensuous youth in the first splendor of
its opening, with this frank, direct look, she had a moment
of brilliance to make the eyes of age shade themselves as
against a dazzling brightness. The eyes of the man op-
posite her were not those of age. They rested on her,
aroused, kindling to heat. His head went up like a stag's.
She felt a momentary hot throb of excitement, as though
her body were one great fiddle-string, twanging under a
vigorously plucking thumb. It was thrilling, it was startling,
it was not altogether pleasant. The corners of her sensitive
mouth twitched uncertainly.
Mrs. Draper, observing from under her down-drooped
lids this silent passage between the two, murmured amusedly
to herself, " Ah, now you're shouting, my children ! '
CHAPTER XVI
PLAYING WITH MATCHES
THERE was much that was acrid about the sweetness of
triumph which the next months brought Sylvia. The sud-
den change in her life had not come until there was an
accumulation of bitterness in her heart the venting of which
was the strongest emotion of that period of strong emotions.
As she drove about the campus, perched on the high seat
of the red-wheeled dog-cart, her lovely face looked down
with none of Eleanor Hubert's gentleness into the envying
eyes of the other girls. A high color burned in her cheeks,
and her bright eyes were not soft. She looked continually
excited.
At home she was hard to live with, quick to take offense
at the least breath of the adverse criticism which she felt,
unspoken and forbearing but thick in the air about her. She
neglected her music, she neglected her studies ; she spent
long hours of feverish toil over Aunt Victoria's chiffons and
silks. There was need for many toilets now, for the in-
cessantly recurring social events to which she went with
young Fiske, chaperoned by Mrs. Draper, who had for her
old rival and enemy, Mrs. Hubert, the most mocking of
friendly smiles, as she entered a ballroom, the acknowledged
sponsor of the brilliant young sensation of the college
season.
At these dances Sylvia had the grim satisfaction, not in-
frequently the experience of intelligent young ladies, of
being surrounded by crowds of admiring young men, for
whom she had no admiration, the barren sterility of whose
conversation filled her with astonishment, even in her fever
of exultation. She knew the delights of frequently " split-
ting ' her dances so that there might be enough to go
around. She was plunged headlong into the torrent of
165
1 66 The Bent Twig
excitement which is the life of a social favorite at a large
State University, that breathless whirl of one engagement
after another for every evening and for most of the days,
which is one of the oddest developments of the academic
life as planned and provided for by the pioneer fathers of
those great Western commonwealths ; and she savored every
moment of it, for during every moment she drank deep at
the bitter fountain of personal vindication. She went to
all the affairs which had ignored her the year before, to all
the dances given by the " swell men's fraternities/' to the
Sophomore hop, to the " Football Dance," at the end of the
season, to the big reception given to the Freshman class by
the Seniors. And in addition to these evening affairs, she
appeared beside Jerry Fiske at every football game, at the
first Glee Club Concert, at the outdoor play given by the
Literary Societies, and very frequently at the weekly recep-
tions to the students tendered by the ladies of the faculty.
These affairs were always spoken of by the faculty as
an attempt to create a homogeneous social atmosphere on
the campus ; but this attempt had ended, as such efforts
usually do, in adding to the bewildering plethora of social
life of those students who already had too much, and in
being an added sting to the solitude and ostracism of those
who had none. Naturally enough, the ladies of the faculty
who took most interest in these afternoon functions were
the ones who cared most for society life, and there was
only too obvious a contrast between their manner of kindly,
vague, condescending interest shown to one of the " rough-
neck ' students, and the easy familiarity shown to one of
those socially ' possible." The ' rough-necks ' ; seldom
sought out more than once the prettily decorated tables
spread every Friday afternoon in the Faculty Room, off the
reading-room of the Library. Sylvia especially had, on the
only occasion when she had ventured into this charming
scene, suffered too intensely from the difference of treat-
ment accorded her and that given Eleanor Hubert to feel
anything but angry resentment. After that experience, she
had passed along the halls with the other outsiders, books
Playing with Matches 167
in hand, her head held proudly high, and never turned even
to glance in at the gleaming tables, the lighted candles, and
the little groups of easily self-confident fraternity men and
girls laughing and talking over their teacups, and revengino-
vicariously the rest of the ignored student-body by the calm
young insolence with which they in their turn ignored their
presumptive hostesses, the faculty ladies.
Mrs. Draper changed all this for Sylvia with a wave of
her wand. She took the greatest pains to introduce her
protegee into this phase of the social life of the University.
On these occasions, as beautiful and as over-dressed as any
girl in the room, with Jermain Fiske in obvious attendance ;
with the exclusive Mrs. Draper setting in a rich frame of
commentary any remark she happened to make (Sylvia was
acquiring a reputation for great wit) ; with Eleanor Hubert,
eclipsed, sitting in a corner, quite deserted save for a funny
countrified freak assistant in chemistry ; with all the " swell-
est frat men' in college rushing to get her tea and sand-
wiches ; with Mrs. Hubert plunged obviously into acute un-
happiness, Sylvia knew as ugly moments of mean satisfac-
tion as often fall to the lot even of very prettv vounp-
women.
At home she knew no moments of satisfaction of any
variety, although there was no disapprobation expressed by
any one, except in one or two characteristically recondite
comments by Professor Kennedy, who was taking a rather
uneasy triumph in the proof of an old theory of his as to
Sylvia's character. One afternoon, at a football game, he
came up to her on the grandstand, shook hands with Jer-
main Fiske, whom he had flunked innumerable times in
algebra, and remarked in his most acid voice that he wished
to congratulate the young man on being the perfect specimen
of the dolichocephalic blond whose arrival in Sylvia's life
he had predicted years before. Sylvia, belligerently aware
of the attitude of her home world, and ready to resent
criticism, took the liveliest offense at this obscure comment,
which she perfectly understood. She flushed indignantly and
glared in silence with the eyes of an angry young goddess.
168 The Bent Twig
Young Fiske, who found the remark, or any other made by
a college prof, quite as unintelligible as it was unimportant,
laughed with careless impudence in the old man's face ; and
Mrs. Draper, for all her keenness, could make nothing of it.
It sounded, however, so quite like a dictum which she her-
self would have liked to make, that she cross-questioned
Sylvia afterwards as to its meaning ; but Sylvia lied fluently,
asserting that it was just some of Professor Kennedy's
mathematical gibberish which had no meaning.
In the growing acquaintance of Sylvia and Jermain, Mrs.
Draper acted assiduously as chaperon, a refinement of
sophisticated society which was, as a rule, but vaguely ob-
served in the chaotic flux of State University social life, and
she so managed affairs that they were seldom together
alone. For obvious reasons Sylvia preferred to see the
young man elsewhere than in her own home, where indeed
he made almost no appearance, beyond standing at the door
of an evening, very handsome and distinguished in his
evening dress, waiting for Sylvia to put on her wraps and
go out with him to the carriage where Mrs. Draper sat ex-
pectant, furred and velvet-wrapped. This discreet man-
ager made no objection to Sylvia's driving about the campus
in the daytime alone with Jermain, but to his proposal to
drive the girl out to the country-club for dinner one evening
she added blandly the imperious proviso that she be of the
party; and she discouraged with firmness any projects for
solitary walks together through the woods near the campus,
although this was a recognized form of co-educational
amusement at that institution of learning.
For all her air of free-and-easy equality with the young
man, she had at times a certain blighting glance which,
turned on him suddenly, always brought him to an agree-
ment with her opinion, an agreement which might obviously
ring but verbal on his tongue, but which was nevertheless
the acknowledged basis of action. As for Sylvia, she
acquiesced, with an eagerness which she did not try to
understand, in any arrangement which precluded tete-a-tetes
with Jerry.
Playing with Matches 169
\
She did not, as a matter of fact, try to understand any-
thing of what was happening to her. She was by no means
sure that she liked it, but was stiffened into a stubborn re-
sistance to any doubts by the unvoiced objection to it all at
home. With an instinct against disproportion, perverse per-
haps in this case, but with a germ of soundness in it, she
felt confusedly and resentfully that since her home circle
was so patently narrow and exaggerated in its standard of
personality, she would just have to even things up by
being a little less fastidious than was her instinct ; and on the
one or two occasions when a sudden sight of Jerry sent
through her a strange, unpleasant stir of all her flesh, she
crushed the feeling out of sight under her determination to
assert her own judgment and standards against those which
had (she now felt) so tyrannically influenced her childhood.
But for the most part she did little thinking, shaking as
loudly as possible the reverberating rattle of physical ex-
citement.
Thus everything progressed smoothly under Mrs. Dra-
per's management. The young couple met each other
usually in the rather close air of her candle-lighted living-
room, drinking a great deal of tea, consuming large numbers
of delicate, strangely compounded sandwiches, and listen-
ing to an endless flow of somewhat startlingly frank per-
sonalities from the magnetic mistress of the house. Sylvia
and Jermain did not talk much on these occasions. They
listened with edification to the racy remarks of their hostess,
voicing that theoretical " broadness ' of opinion as to the
conduct of life which, quite as much as the perfume which
she always used, was a specialty of her provocative per-
sonality; they spoke now and then, to be sure, as she drew
them into conversation, but their real intercourse was al-
most altogether silent. They eyed each other across the
table, breathing quickly, and flushing or paling if their
hands chanced to touch in the services of the tea-table.
Once the young man came in earlier than usual and found
Sylvia alone for a moment in the silent, glowing, perfumed
room. He took her hand, apparently for the ordinary hand-
i jo The Bent Twig
clasp of greeting, but with a surge of his blood retained
it, pressing it so fiercely that his ring cut into her finger,
causing a tiny drop of bright red to show on the youthful
smoothness of her skin. At this living ruby they both stared
fixedly for an instant ; then Mrs. Draper came hastily into
the room, saying chidingly, " Come, come, children!" and
looking with displeasure at the man's darkly flushed face.
Sylvia was paler than usual for the rest of the afternoon,
and could not swallow a mouthful of the appetizing food,
which as a rule she devoured with the frank satisfaction of
a hungry child. She sat, rather white, not talking much,
avoiding Jerry's eyes for no reason that she could analyze,
and, in the pauses of the conversation, could hear the blood
singing loudly in her ears.
Yet, although she felt the oddest relief, as after one more
escape, at the end of each of these afternoons with her new
acquaintances, afternoons in which the three seemed per-
petually gliding down a steep incline and as perpetually
being arrested on the brink of some unexplained plunge,
she found that their atmosphere had spoiled entirely her
relish for the atmosphere of her home. The home supper-
table seemed to her singularly flat and distasteful with its
commonplace fare hot chocolate and creamed potatoes and
apple sauce, and its brisk, impersonal talk of socialism, and
politics, and small home events, and music. As it hap-
pened, the quartet had the lack of intuition to play a great
deal of Haydn that autumn, and to Sylvia the cheerful,
obvious tap-tap-tap of the hearty old master seemed to
typify the bald, unsubtle obtuseness of the home attitude
towards life. She herself took to playing the less difficult
of the Chopin nocturnes with a languorous over-accentuation
of their softness which she was careful to keep from the
ears of old Reinhardt. But one evening he came in, un-
heard, listened to her performance of the B-flat minor
nocturne with a frown, and pulled her away from the
piano before she liad finished. " Not true music, not true
love, not true anydings ! ' ' he said, speaking however with
an unexpected gentleness, and patting her on the shoulder
Playing with Matches 171
with a dirty old hand. " Listen ! " He clapped his fiddle
under his chin and played the air of the andante from the
Kreutzer Sonata with so singing and heavenly a tone that
Sylvia, as helpless an instrument in his skilful hands as
the violin itself, felt the nervous tears stinging her eyelids.
This did not prevent her making a long detour the next
day to avoid meeting the uncomely old musician on the
street and being obliged to recognize him publicly. She
lived in perpetual dread of being thus forced^when in the
company of Mrs. Draper or Jermain, to acknowledge her
connection with him, or with Cousin Parnelia, or with any
of the eccentrics who frequented her parents' home, and
whom it was physically impossible to imagine drinking tea
at Mrs. Draper's table.
It was beside this same table that she met, one day in
early December, Jermain Fiske's distinguished father. He
explained that he was in La Chance for a day on his way
from Washington to Mercerton, where the Fiske family
was collecting for its annual Christmas house-party, and
had dropped in on Mrs. Draper quite unexpectedly. He
was, he added, delighted that it happened to be a day
when he could meet the lovely Miss Marshall of whom
(with a heavy accent of jocose significance) he had heard
so much. Sylvia was a little confused by the pointed atten-
tions of this gallant old warrior, oddly in contrast with the
manner of other elderly men she knew; but she thought
him very handsome, with his sweeping white mustache, his
bright blue eyes, so like his son's, and she was much im-
pressed with his frock-coat, fitting snugly around his well-
knit, erect figure, and with the silk hat which she noticed
on the table in the hall as she went in. Frock-coats and
silk hats were objects seldom encountered in La Chance,
except in illustrations to magazine-stories, or in photographs
of life in New York or Washington. But of course, she
reflected, Colonel Fiske lived most of his life in Washington,
about the cosmopolitan delights of which he talked most
eloquently to the two ladies.
As was inevitable, Sylvia also met Eleanor Hubert more
172 The Bent Twig
or less at Mrs. Draper's. Sylvia had been rendered acutely
self-conscious in that direction by Mrs. Draper's very open
comments on her role in the life of the other girl, and at
first had been so smitten by embarrassment as positively to
be awkward, a rare event in her life : but she was soon set at
ease by the other girl's gentle friendliness, so simple and sin-
cere that even Sylvia's suspicious vanity could not feel it to be
condescension. Eleanor's sweet eyes shone so kindly on her
successful rival, and she showed so frank and unenvious an
admiration of Sylvia's wit and learning, displayed perhaps
a trifle ostentatiously by that young lady in the ensuing con-
versation with Mrs. Draper, that Sylvia had a fresh, healing
impulse of shame for her own recently acquired attitude of
triumphing hostility towards the world.
At the same time she felt a surprised contempt for the
other girl's ignorance and almost illiteracy. Whatever else
Eleanor had learned in the exclusive and expensive girls'
school in New York, she had not learned to hold her own
in a conversation on the most ordinary topics ; and as for
Mrs. Draper's highly spiced comments on life and folk, her
young friend made not the slightest attempt to cope with
them or even to understand them. The alluring mistress
of the house might talk of sex-antagonism and the hateful-
ness of the puritanical elements of American life as much
as she pleased. It all passed over the head of the lovely,
fair girl, sipping her tea and raising her candid eyes to meet
with a trustful smile, perhaps a little blank, the glance of
whomever chanced to be looking at her. It was significant
that she had the same smile for each of the three very dis-
similar persons who sat about the tea-table. Of all the circle
into which Sylvia's changed life had plunged her, Eleanor,
the type of the conventional society bud, was, oddly enough,
the only one she cared to talk about in her own extremely
unconventional home. But even on this topic she felt
herself bruised and jarred by the severity, the unpictur-
esque austerity of the home standards. As she was trying to
give her mother some idea of Eleanor's character, she quoted
one day a remark of Mrs. Draper's, to the effect that
Playing with Matches 173
" Eleanor no more knows the meaning of her beauty than
a rose the meaning of its perfume." Mrs. Marshall kept
a forbidding silence for a moment and then said : " I don't
take much stock in that sort of unconsciousness. Eleanor
isn't a rose, she isn't even a child. She's a woman. The
sooner girls learn that distinction, the better off they'll be,
and the fewer chances they'll run of being horribly mis-
understood."
Sylvia felt very angry with her mother for this un-
sympathetic treatment of a pretty phrase, and thought with
resentment that it was not her fault if she were becoming
more and more alienated from her family.
This was a feeling adroitly fostered by Mrs. Draper, who,
in her endless talks with Sylvia and Jermain about them-
selves, had hit upon an expression and a turn of phrase
which was to have more influence on Sylvia's development
than its brevity seemed to warrant. She had, one day,
called Sylvia a little Athenian, growing up, by the oddest
of mistakes, in Sparta. Sylvia, who was in the Pater-read-
ing stage of development, caught at her friend's phrase as
at the longed-for key to her situation. It explained every-
thing. It made everything appear in the light she wished
for. Above all it enabled her to clarify her attitude towards
her home. Now she understood. One did not scorn Sparta.
One respected it, it was a noble influence in life ; but for
an Athenian, for whom amenity and beauty and suavity
were as essential as food, Sparta was death. As was natural
to her age and temperament, she sucked a vast amount of
pleasure out of this pitying analysis of her subtle, compli-
cated needs and the bare crudity of her surroundings. She
now read Pater more assiduously than ever, always carry-
ing a volume about with her text-books, and feeding on
this delicate fare in such unlikely and dissimilar places as
on the trolley-cars, in the kitchen, in the intervals of prepar-
ing a meal, or in Mrs. Draper's living-room, waiting for
the problematical entrance of that erratic luminary.
There was none of Mrs. Draper's habits of life which
made more of an impression on Sylvia's imagination than
174 The Bent Twig
her custom of disregarding engagements and appointments,
of coming and going, appearing and disappearing quite as
she pleased. To the daughter of a scrupulously exact
family, which regarded tardiness as a fault, and breaking an
appointment as a crime, this high-handed flexibility in deal-
ing with time and bonds and promises had an exciting
quality of freedom.
On a good many occasions these periods of waiting
chanced to be shared by Eleanor Hubert, for whom, after
the first two or three encounters, Sylvia came to have a
rather condescending sympathy, singularly in contrast to the
uneasy envy with which she had regarded her only a few
months before. However, as regards dress, Eleanor was
still a phenomenon of the greatest interest, and Sylvia never
saw her without getting an idea or two, although it was
plain to any one who knew Eleanor that this mastery of
the technique of modern American costume was no achieve-
ment of her own, that she was merely the lovely and plas-
tic material molded, perhaps to slightly over-complicated
effects, by her mother's hands.
From that absent but pervasive personality Sylvia took
one suggestion after another. For instance, a very brief
association with Eleanor caused her to relegate to the scrap-
heap of the " common " the ready-made white ruching for
neck and sleeves which she had always before taken for
granted. Eleanor's slim neck and smooth wrists were al-
ways set off by a few folds of the finest white chiffon, laid
with dexterous carelessness, and always so exquisitely fresh
that they were obviously renewed by a skilful hand after
only a few hours' wearing. The first time she saw Eleanor,
Sylvia noticed this detail with appreciation, and immediately
struggled to reproduce it in her own costume. Like other
feats of the lesser arts this perfect trifle turned out to de-
pend upon the use of the lightest and most adroit touch.
None of the chiffon which came in Aunt Victoria's boxes
would do. It must be fresh from the shop-counter, ruinous
as this was to Sylvia's very modest allowance for dress.
Even then she spoiled many a yard of the filmy, unmanage-
Playing with Matches 175
able stuff before she could catch the spirit of those ap-
parently careless folds, so loosely disposed and yet never
displaced. It was a phenomenon over which a philosopher
might well have pondered, this spectacle of Sylvia's keen
brain and well-developed will-power equally concerned with
the problems of chemistry and philosophy and history, and
with the problem of chiffon folds. She herself was aware
of no incongruity, indeed of no difference, between the two
sorts of efforts.
Many other matters of Eleanor's attire proved as fruitful
of suggestion as this, although Aunt Victoria's well-remem-
bered dictum about the " kitchen-maid's pin-cushion ' was
a guiding finger-board which warned Sylvia against the
multiplication of detail, even desirable detail.
Mrs. Hubert had evidently studied deeply the sources of
distinction in modern dress, and had grasped with philo-
sophic thoroughness the underlying principle of the art,
which is to show effects obviously costly, but the cost of
which is due less to mere brute cash than to prodigally ex-
pended effort. Eleanor never wore a costume which did
not show the copious exercise by some alert-minded human
being, presumably with an immortal soul, of the priceless
qualities of invention, creative thought, trained attention,
and prodigious industry. Mrs. Hubert's unchallengeable
slogan was that dress should be an expression of individ-
uality, and by dint of utilizing all the details of the attire
of herself and of her two daughters, down to the last ruffle
and buttonhole, she found this medium quite sufficient to
express the whole of her own individuality, the conspicuous
force of which was readily conceded by any observer of the
lady's life.
As for Eleanor's own individuality, any one in search of
that very unobtrusive quality would have found it more in
the expression of her eyes and in the childlike lines of
her lips than in her toilets. It is possible that Mrs. Hubert
might have regarded it as an unkind visitation of Provi-
dence that the results of her lifetime of effort in an im-
portant art should have been of such slight interest to her
176 The Bent Twig
daughter, and should have served, during the autumn under
consideration, chiefly as hints and suggestions for her
daughter's successful rival.
That she was Eleanor's successful rival, Sylvia had Mrs.
Draper's ^more than outspoken word. That lady openly
gloried in the impending defeat of Mrs. Hubert's machina-
tions to secure the Fiske money and position for Eleanor ;
although she admitted that a man like Jerry had his two
opposing sides, and that he was quite capable of being
attracted by two such contrasting types as Sylvia and
Eleanor. She informed Sylvia indeed that the present wife
of Colonel Fiske his third, by the way had evidently been
in her youth a girl of Eleanor's temperament. It was more
than apparent, however, that in the case of the son, Sylvia's
' type ' was in the ascendent ; but it must be set down to
Sylvia's credit that the circumstance of successful competi-
tion gave her no satisfaction. She often heartily wished
Eleanor out of it. She could never meet the candid sweet-
ness of the other's eyes without a qualm of discomfort, and
she suffered acutely under Eleanor's gentle amiability.
Once or twice when Mrs. Draper was too outrageously
late at an appointment for tea, the two girls gave her up, and
leaving the house, walked side by side back across the
campus, Sylvia quite aware of the wondering surmise which
followed their appearance together. On these occasions,
Eleanor talked with more freedom than in Mrs. Draper's
presence, always in the quietest, simplest way, of small
events and quite uninteresting minor matters in her life, or
the life of the various household pets, of which she seemed
extremely fond. Sylvia could not understand why, when
she bade her good-bye at the driveway leading into the
Hubert house, she should feel anything but a rather con-
temptuous amusement for the other's insignificance, but
the odd fact was that her heart swelled with inexplicable
warmth. Once she yielded to this foolish impulse, and felt
a quivering sense of pleasure at the sudden startled re-
sponsiveness with which Eleanor returned a kiss, clinging
to her as though she were an older, stronger sister.
Playing with Matches 177
One dark late afternoon in early December, Sylvia waited
alone in the candle-lighted shrine, neither Eleanor nor her
hostess appearing. After five o'clock she started home alone
along the heavily shaded paths of the campus, as dim as
caves in the interval before the big, winking sputtering arc-
lights were flashed on. She walked swiftly and lightly
as was her well-trained habit, and before she knew it, was
close upon a couple sauntering in very close proximity.
With the surety of long practice Sylvia instantly diagnosed
them as a college couple indulging in what was known
euphemistically as '* campus work," and prepared to pass
them with the slight effect of scorn for philanderings which
she always managed to throw into her high-held 4iead and
squarely swinging shoulders. But as she came up closer,
walking noiselessly in the dusk, she recognized an eccentric,
flame-colored plume just visible in the dim light, hanging
down from the girl's hat and stopped short, filled with a
rush of very complicated feelings. The only flame-colored
plume in La Chance was owned and worn by Eleanor
Hubert, and if she were out sauntering amorously in the
twilight, with whom could she be but Jerry Fiske, and
that meant Sylvia's pangs of conscience about supplant-
ing Eleanor were swept away by a flood of anger as at a
defeat. She could not make out the girl's companion, be-
yond the fact that he was tall and wore a long, loose over-
coat. Jerry was tall and wore a long, loose overcoat. Sylvia
walked on, slowly now, thoroughly aroused, quite unaware
of the inconsistency of her mental attitude. She felt a ris-
ing tide of heat. She had, she told herself, half a notion
to step forward and announce her presence to the couple,
whose pace as the Hubert house was approached became
slower and slower.
But then, as they stood for a moment at the entrance of
the Hubert driveway, the arc-lights blazed up all over the
campus at once and she saw two things : one was that
Eleanor was walking very close to her companion, with her
arm through his, and her little gloved fingers covered by
his hand, and next that he was not Jerry Fiske at all, but
178 The Bent Twig
the queer, countrified " freak " assistant in chemistry with
whom Eleanor, since Jerry's defection, had more or less
masked her abandonment.
At the same moment the two started guiltily apart, and
Sylvia halted, thinking they had discovered her. But it was
Mrs. Hubert whom they had seen, advancing from the other
direction, and making no pretense that she was not in
search of an absent daughter. She bore down upon the
couple, murmured a very brief greeting to the man, accom-
panied by a faint inclination of her well-hatted head, drew
Eleanor's unresisting hand inside her arm, and walked her
briskly into the house.
CHAPTER XVII
MRS. MARSHALL STICKS TO HER PRINCIPLES
DURING the autumn and early winter it not only hap-
pened unfortunately that the quartet played altogether too
much Haydn, but that Sylvia's father, contrary to his
usual custom, was away from home a great deal. The
State University had arrived at that stage of its career when,
if its rapidly increasing needs and demands for State money
were to be recognized by the Legislature, it must knit itself
more closely to the rest of the State system of education,
have a more intimate affiliation with the widely scattered
public high schools, and weld into some sort of homegeneity
their extremely various standards of scholarship. This was
a delicate undertaking, calling for much tact and an accurate
knowledge of conditions in the State, especially in the rural
districts. Professor Marshall's twenty years of popularity
with the more serious element of the State University
students (that popularity which meant so little to Sylvia,
and which she so ignored) had given him a large acquaint-
ance among the class which it was necessary to reach. He
knew the men who at the University had been the digs,
and jays, and grinds, and who were now the prosperous
farmers, the bankers, the school-trustees, the leading men
in their communities ; and his geniality, vivacity, and knack
for informal public speaking made him eminently fitted to
represent the University in the somewhat thankless task of
coaxing and coercing backward communities to expend the
necessary money and effort to bring their schools up to the
State University standard.
If all this had happened a few years sooner, he undoubt-
edly would have taken Sylvia with him on many of these
journeys into remote corners of the State, but Sylvia had
179
180 The Bent Twig
her class-work to attend to, and the Professor shared to
the fullest extent the academic prejudice against parents
who broke in upon the course of their children's regular
instruction by lawless and casual junketings. Instead, it
was Judith who frequently accompanied him, Judith who
was now undergoing that home-preparation for the Uni-
versity through which Sylvia had passed, and who, since
her father was her principal instructor, could carry on her
studies wherever he happened to be ; as well as have the
stimulating experience of coming in contact with a wide
variety of people and conditions. It is possible that Pro-
fessor Marshall's sociable nature not only shrank from the
solitude which his wife would have endured with cheerful-
ness, but that he also wished to take advantage of this
opportunity to come in closer touch with his second daugh-
ter, for whose self-contained and occasionally insensitive
nature he had never felt the instinctive understanding he
had for Sylvia's moods. It is certain that the result was a
better feeling between the two than had existed before.
During the long hours of jolting over branch railroads back
to remote settlements, or waiting at cheerless junctions for
delayed trains, or gaily eating impossible meals at extraor-
dinary country hotels, the ruddy, vigorous father, now grow-
ing both gray and stout, and the tall, slender, darkly hand-
some girl of fifteen, were cultivating more things than
history and mathematics and English literature. The most
genuine feeling of comradeship sprang up between the two
dissimilar natures, a feeling so strong and so warm that
Sylvia, in addition to her other emotional complications, felt
occasionally a faint pricking of jealousy at seeing her pri-
macy with her father usurped.
A further factor in her temporary feeling of alienation
from him was the mere physical fact that she saw him much
less frequently and that he had nothing like his usual inti-
mate knowledge of her comings and goings. And finally,
Lawrence, now a too rapidly growing and delicate lad of
eleven, had a series of bronchial colds which kept his
mother much occupied with his care. As far as her family
Mrs. Marshall Sticks to Her Principles 181
was concerned, Sylvia was thus left more alone than ever
before, and although she had been trained to too delicate
and high a personal pride to attempt the least concealment
of her doings, it was not without relief that she felt that
her parents had but a very superficial knowledge of the ex-
tent and depth to which she was becoming involved in her
new relations. She herself shut her eyes as much as possible
to the rate at which she was progressing towards a destina-
tion rapidly becoming more and more imperiously visible ;
and consciously intoxicated herself with the excitements
and fatigues of her curiously double life of intellectual
effort in classes and her not very skilful handling of the
shining and very sharp-edged tools of flirtation.
But this ambiguous situation was suddenly clarified by
the unexpected call upon Mrs. Marshall, one day about the
middle of December, of no less a person than Mrs. Jermain
Fiske, Sr., wife of the Colonel, and Jerry's stepmother.
Sylvia happened to be in her room when the shining car
drove up the country road before the Marshall house,
stopped at the gate in the osage-orange hedge, and dis-
charged the tall, stooping, handsomely dressed lady in rich
furs, who came with a halting step up the long path to the
front door. Although Sylvia had never seen Mrs. Fiske,
Mrs. Draper's gift for satiric word-painting had made her
familiar with some items of her appearance, and it was
with a rapidly beating heart that she surmised the identity
of the distinguished caller. But although her quick intel-
ligence perceived the probable significance of the appear-
ance, and although she felt a distinct shock at the seriousness
of having Jerry's stepmother call upon her, she was diverted
from these capital considerations of such vital importance
to her life by the trivial consideration which had, so fre-
quently during the progress of this affair, absorbed her mind
to the exclusion of everything else the necessity for keep-
ing up appearances. If the Marshall tradition had made
it easier for her to achieve this not very elevated goal, she
might have perceived more clearly where her rapid feet
were taking her. Just now, for example, there was nothing
1 82 The Bent Twig
in her consciousness but the embittered knowledge that there
was no maid to open the door when Mrs. Fiske should ring.
She was a keen-witted modern young woman of eighteen,
with a well-trained mind stored with innumerable facts of
science, but it must be admitted that at this moment she
reverted with passionate completeness to quite another type.
She would have given she would have given a year of her
life one of her fingers all her knowledge of history
anything! if the Marshalls had possessed what she felt any
decently prosperous grocer's family ought to possess a
well-appointed maid in the hall to open the door, take
Mrs. Fiske's card, show her into the living-room, and go
decently and in order to summon the mistress of the house.
Instead she saw with envenomed foresight what would hap-
pen. At the unusual sound of the bell, her mother, who
was playing dominoes with Lawrence in one of his con-
valescences, would open the door with her apron still on,
and her spectacles probably pushed up,, rustic fashion, on
top of her head. And then their illustrious visitor, used
as of course she was to ceremony in social matters, would
not know whether this was the maid, or her hostess ; and
Mrs. Marshall would frankly show her surprise at seeing
a richly dressed stranger on the doorstep, and would per-
haps think she had made a mistake in the house ; and Mrs.
Fiske would not know whether to hand over the cards she
held ready in her whitely gloved fingers in the interval
between the clanging shut of the gate and the tinkle of the
doorbell Sylvia endured a sick reaction against life, as an
altogether hateful and horrid affair.
As a matter of fact, nothing of all this took place. When
the bell rang, her mother called out a tranquil request to her
to go and open the door, and so it was Sylvia herself who
confronted the unexpected visitor, Sylvia a little flurried
and breathless, but ushering the guest into the house with
her usual graceful charm of manner.
She had none of this as a moment later she went rather
slowly upstairs to summon her mother. It occurred to her
that Mrs. Marshall might very reasonably be at a loss as
Mrs. Marshall Sticks to Her Principles 183
to the reason of this call. Indeed, she herself felt a sinking
alarm at the definiteness of the demonstration. What could
Mrs. Fiske have to say to Mrs. Marshall that would not
lead to some agitating crystallization of the dangerous solu-
tion which during the past months Mrs. Marshall's daughter
had been so industriously stirring up? Mrs. Marshall
showed the most open surprise at the announcement, " Mrs.
Colonel Fiske to see me? What in the world " she be-
gan, but after a glance at Sylvia's down-hung head and
twisting fingers, she stopped short, looking very grave, and
rose to go, with no more comments.
They went down the stairs in silence, tall mother and
tall daughter, both sobered, both frightened at what might
be in the other's mind, and at what might be before them,
and entered the low-ceilinged living-room together. A pale
woman, apparently as apprehensive as they, rose in a haste
that had almost some element of apology in it, and offered
her hand to Mrs. Marshall. " I'm Mrs. Fiske," she said
hurriedly, in a low voice, Jerry's stepmother, you know.
I hope you won't mind my coming to see you. What a
perfectly lovely home you have ! I was wishing I could
just stay and stay in this room." She spoke rapidly with
the slightly incoherent haste of shy people overcoming their
weakness, and glanced alternately, with faded blue eyes, at
Sylvia and at her mother. In the end she remained stand-
ing, looking earnestly into Mrs. Marshall's face. That lady
now made a step forward and again put out her hand with
an impulsive gesture at which Sylvia wondered. She herself
had felt no attraction towards the thin, sickly woman who
had so little grace or security of manner. It was constantly
surprising Sylvia to discover how often people high in social
rank seemed to possess no qualifications for their position.
She always felt that she could have filled their places with
vastly more aplomb.
" I'm very glad to see you," said Mrs. Marshall in a
friendly tone. " Do sit down again. Sylvia, go and make
us some tea, won't you? Mrs. Fiske must be cold after
driving out here from town."
184 The Bent Twig
When Sylvia came back ten minutes later, she found the
guest saying, ' My youngest is only nine months old, and
he is having such a time with his teeth."
' Oh ! ' thought Sylvia scornfully, pouring out the tea.
' She's that kind of a woman, is she ? ' : With the astonish-
ingly quick shifting of viewpoint of the young, she no longer
felt the least anxiety that her home, or even that she her-
self should make a good impression on this evidently quite
negligible person. Her anguish about the ceremony of
opening the door seemed years behind her. She examined
with care all the minutiae of the handsome, unindivid-
uaiized costume of black velvet worn by their visitor,
but turned an absent ear to her talk, which brought out
various facts relating to a numerous family of young chil-
dren. ' I have six living," said Mrs. Fiske, not meeting
Mrs. Marshall's eyes as she spoke, and stirring her tea
slowly, " I lost four at birth."
Sylvia was indeed slightly interested to learn through
another turn of the conversation that the caller, who looked
to her unsympathetic eyes any age at all, had been married
at eighteen, and that that was only thirteen years ago^-
Sylvia thought she certainly looked older than thirty-one,
advanced though that age was.
The call passed with no noteworthy incidents beyond a
growing wonder in Sylvia's mind that the brilliant and
dashing old Colonel, after his other matrimonial experi-
ences, should have picked out so dull and colorless a wife.
She was not even pretty, not at all pretty, in spite of her
delicate, regular features and tall figure. Her hair was dry
and thin, her eyes lusterless, her complexion thick, with
brown patches on it, and her conversation was of a domes-
ticity unparalleled in Sylvia's experience. She seemed
oddly drawn to Mrs. Marshall, although that lady was now
looking rather graver than was her wont, and talked to her
of the overflowing Fiske nursery with a loquacity which was
evidently not her usual habit. Indeed, she said naively, as
she went away, that she had been much relieved to find Mrs.
Marshall so approachable. " One always thinks of Uni-
Mrs. Marshall Sticks to Her Principles 185
versity families as so terribly learned, you know," she said,
imputing to her hostess, with a child's tactlessness, an
absence of learning like her own. " 1 really dreaded to
come I go out so little, you know but Jerry and the
Colonel thought I ought, you know and now I've really
enjoyed it and if Miss Marshall will come, Jerry and the
Colonel will be quite satisfied. And so, of course, will I."
With which rather jerky valedictory she finally got herself
out of the house.
Sylvia looked at her mother inquiringly. " If I go
where ? ' she asked. Something must have taken place
while she was out of the room getting the tea.
' She called to invite you formally to a Christmas house-
party at the Fiskes' place in Mercerton," said Mrs. Mar-
shall, noting smilelessly Sylvia's quick delight at the news.
'Oh, what have I got to wear!' cried the girl. Mrs.
Marshall said merely, " We'll see, we'll see," and without
discussing the matter further, went back to finish the inter-
rupted game with Lawrence.
But the next evening, when Professor Marshall returned
from his latest trip, the subject was taken up in a talk
between Sylvia and her parents which was more agitating
to them all than any other incident in their common life,
although it was conducted with a great effort for self-
control on all sides. Judith and Lawrence had gone up-
stairs to do their lessons, and Professor Marshall at once
broached the subject by saying with considerable hesita-
tion, ' Sylvia well how about this house-party at the
Fiskes' ? '"
Sylvia w-s on the defense in a moment. "Well, how
about it ? " she repeated.
1 1 hope you don't feel like going."
' But I do, very much! " returned Sylvia, tingling at the
first clear striking of the note of disapproval she had felt
for so many weeks like an undertone in her life. As her
father said nothing more, biting his nails and looking at
her uncertainly, she added in the accent which fitted the
words, " Why shouldn't I ? "
1 86 The Bent Twig
He took a turn about the room and glanced at his wife,
who was hemming a napkin very rapidly, her hands trem-
bling a little. She looked up at him warningly, and he
waited an instant before speaking. Finally he brought out
with the guarded tone of one forcing himself to moderation
of speech, " Well, the Colonel is an abominable old black-
guard in public life, and his private reputation is no
better."
Sylvia flushed. " I don't see what that has to do with
his son. It's not fair to judge a young man by his father
or by anything but what he is himself you yourself are
always saying that, if the trouble is that the father is poor
or ignorant or something else tiresome."
Professor Marshall said cautiously, " From what I hear,
I gather that the son in this case is a good deal like his
father."
"No, he isn't!' cried Sylvia quickly. "He may have
been wild when he first came up to the University, but he's
all right now ! ' She spoke as with authoritative and inti-
mate knowledge of all the details of Fiske, Jr.'s, life. ' And
anyhow, I don't see what difference it makes, what the
Colonel's reputation is. I'm just going up there with a
lot of other young people to have a good time. Eleanor
Hubert's invited, and three or four other society girls. I
don't see why we need to be such a lot more particular than
other people. We never are when it's a question of people
being dirty, or horrid, other ways ! How about Cousin
Parnelia and Mr. Reinhardt? I guess the Fiskes would
laugh at the idea of people who have as many queer folks
around as we do, thinking they aren't good enough."
Professor Marshall sat down across the table from his
daughter and looked at her. His face was rather ruddier
than usual and he swallowed hard. : Why, Sylvia, the point
is this. It's evident, from what your mother tells me of
Mrs. Fiske's visit, that going to this house party means
more in your case than with the other girls. Mrs. Fiske
came all the way to La Chance to invite you, and from
what she said about you and her stepson, it was evident
Mrs. Marshall Sticks to Her Principles 187
that she and the Colonel " He stopped, opening his
hands nervously.
' I don't know how they think they know anything about
it," returned Sylvia with dignity, though she felt an inward
qualm at this news. Jerry's been ever so nice to me and
given me a splendid time, but that's all there is to it. Lots
of fellows do that for lots of girls, and nobody makes such a
fuss about it."
Mrs. Marshall laid down her work and went to the heart
of the matter. ' Sylvia, you don't like Mr. Fiske? '
Yes, I do ! " said Sylvia defiantly, qualifying this state-
ment an instant later by, " Quite well, anyhow. Why
shouldn't I ? "
Her mother assumed this rhetorical question to be a
genuine one and answered it accordingly. " Why, he doesn't
seem at all like the type of young man who would be liked
by a girl with your tastes and training. I shouldn't think
you'd find him interesting or "
Sylvia broke out : ' ;< Oh, you don't know how sick I get
of being so everlastingly high-brow ! What's the use of
it ? People don't think any more of you ! They think less !
You don't have any better time nor so good ! And why
should you and Father always be so down on anybody that's
rich, or dresses decently? ferry's all right if his clothes
do fit ! '
' Do you really know him at all ? ' asked her father
pointedly.
' Of course I do I know he's very handsome, and
awfully good-natured, and he's given me the only good
time I've had at the University. You just don't know how
ghastly last year was to me ! I'm awfully grateful to Jerry,
and that's all there is to it ! '
Before this second disclaimer, her parents were silent
again, Sylvia looking down at her lap, picking at her fingers.
Her expression was that of a naughty child that is, with
a considerable admixture of unhappiness in her wilfulness.
By this time Professor Marshall's expression was clearly
one of downright anger, controlled by violent effort. Mrs.
The Bent Twig
Marshall was the first one to speak. She went over to
Sylvia and laid her hand on her shoulder. c Well, Sylvia
dear, I'm sorry about " She stopped and began again.
" You know, dear, that we always believed in letting our
children, as far as possible, make their own decisions, and
we won't go back on that now. But I want you to under-
stand that that puts a bigger responsibility on you than on
most girls to make the right decisions. We trust you your
good sense and right feeling to keep you from being
carried away by unworthy motives into a false position.
And, what's just as important, we trust to your being clear-
headed enough to see what your motives really are."
" I don't see," began Sylvia, half crying, ' why some-
thing horrid should come up just because I want a good
time other girls don't have to be all the time so solemn,
and thinking about things ! '
1 There'd be more happy women if they did," remarked
Mrs. Marshall, adding : ' I don't believe we'd better talk
any more about this now. You know how we feel, and
you must take that into consideration. You think it
over/
She spoke apparently with her usual calmness, but as she
finished she put her arms about the girl's neck and kissed
the flushed cheeks. Caresses from Mrs. Marshall were
unusual, and, even through her tense effort to resist, Sylvia
was touched. You're just worrying about nothing at
all, Mother," she said, trying to speak lightly, but escaped
from a possible rejoinder by hurriedly gathering up her
text-books and following Judith and Lawrence upstairs.
Her father and mother confronted each other. 'Well!'
said Professor Marshall hotly, " of all the weak, incon-
clusive, modern parents is this what we've come to ? '
Mrs. Marshall took up her sewing and said in the tone
which always quelled her husband, " Yes, this is what we've
come to.'
His heat abated at once, though he went on combatively,
' Oh, I know what you mean, reasonable authority and not
tyranny and all that yes, I believe in it of course but
"
"
Mrs. Marshall Sticks to Her Principles
this goes beyond " he ended. * Is there or is there not
such a thing as parental authority?'
Mrs. Marshall answered with apparent irrelevance, <: You
remember what Cavour said ? '
" Good Heaven ! No, I don't remember ! ' cried Pro-
fessor Marshall, with an impatience which might have been
Sylvia's.
" He said, ' Any idiot can rule by martial law.'
" Yes, of course, that theory is all right, but
" If a theory is all right, it ought to be acted upon.
Professor Marshall cried out in exasperation, " But see
here, Barbara here is a concrete fact our daughter our
precious Sylvia is making a horrible mistake and because
of a theory we mustn't reach out a hand to pull her back."
" We can't pull her back by force," said his wife. ' She's
eighteen years old, and she has the habit of independent
thought. We can't go back on that now."
" We don't seem to be pulling her back by force or in
any other way ! We seem to be just weakly sitting back and
letting her do exactly as she pleases."
" If during all these years we've had her under our in-
fluence we haven't given her standards that " began the
mother.
" You heard how utterly she repudiated our influence and
our standards and "
" Oh, what she says it's what she's made of that'll
count that's the only thing that'll count when a crisis
comes "
Professor Marshall interrupted hastily : " When a crisis !
What do you call this but a crisis she's like a child about
to put her hand into the fire."
" I trust in the training she's had to give her firm enough
nerves to pull it out again when she feels the heat," said
her mother steadily.
Professor Marshall sprang up, with clenched hands, tall,
powerful, helpless. " It's outrageous, Barbara, for all your
talk ! We're responsible ! We ought to shut her up under
lock and key "
190 The Bent Twig
" So many girls have been deterred from a mistake by
being shut up under lock and key ! " commented Mrs. Mar-
shall, with an ironical accent.
" But, good Heavens ! Think of her going to that old
scoundrel's how can I look people in the face, when they
all know my opinion of him how I've opposed his being a
Trustee and "
'' Ah, ! ' remarked his wife significantly, " that's
the trouble, is it?'
Professor Marshall flushed, and for a moment made no
rejoinder. Then, shifting his ground, he said bitterly: ''I
think you're forgetting that I've had a disillusionizing ex-
perience in this sort of thing which you were spared. You
forget that Sylvia is closely related to my sister."
" I don't forget that but I don't forget either that Sylvia
has had a very different sort of early life from poor Vic-
toria's. She has breathed pure air always I trust her to
recognize its opposite."
He made an impatient gesture of exasperation. ' But
she'll be in it it'll be too late "
' It's never too late." She spoke quickly, but her un-
wavering opposition began to have in it a note of tension.
' She'll be caught she'll have to go on because it'll be
too hard to get out "
The same vigor that makes her resist us now will give
her strength then she's not Eleanor Hubert."
Her husband burst out upon her in a frightened, angry
rush of reproach : " Barbara how can you ! You make me
turn cold ! This isn't a matter of talk of theories we're
confronted with "
She faced him down with unflinching, unhappy eyes.
' Oh, of course if we are to believe in liberty only so long
as everything goes smoothly " She tried to add some-
thing to this, but her voice broke and she was silent. Her
husband looked at her, startled at her pallor and her
trembling lips, immensely moved by the rare discomposure
of that countenance. She said in a whisper, her voice
shaking, " Our little Sylvia my first baby "
Mrs. Marshall Sticks to Her Principles 191
He flung himself down in the chair beside her and took
her hand. " It's damnable ! " he said.
His wife answered slowly, with long pauses. " No it's
all right it's part of the whole thing of life. When you
bring children into the world when you live at all you
must accept the whole. It's not fair to rebel to rebel at the
pain when
' Good God, it's not our pain I'm shrinking from ! "
he broke out.
' No oh no that would be easy "
With an impulse of yearning, and protection, and need, he
leaned to put his arms around her, his graying beard against
her pale cheek. They sat silent for a long time.
In the room above them, Sylvia bent over a problem in
trigonometry, and rapidly planned a new evening-dress.
After a time she got up and opened her box of treasures
from Aunt Victoria. The yellow chiffon would do Jerry
had said he liked yellow she could imagine how Mrs.
Hubert would expend herself on Eleanor's toilets for this
great occasion if she could only hit on a design which
wouldn't look as though it came out of a woman's maga-
zine something really sophisticated she could cover her
old white slippers with that bit of gold-tissue off Aunt
Victoria's hat she shook out the chiffon and laid it over
the bed, looking intently at its gleaming, shimmering folds
and thinking, " How horrid of Father and Mother to go
and try to spoil everything so ! ' She went back to the
problem in trigonometry and covered a page with figures,
at which she gazed unseeingly. She was by no means happy.
She went as far as the door, meaning to go down and kiss
her parents good-night, but turned back. They were not a
family for surface demonstrations. If she could not yield
her point She began to undress rapidly, turned out the
light, opened the windows, and sprang into bed. " If they
only wouldn't take things so awfully solemnly!" she said
to herself petulantly.
CHAPTER XVIII
SYLVIA SKATES MERRILY ON THIN ICE
THE design for the yellow chiffon dropped almost lit-
erally at Sylvia's feet the next day, on the frontispiece of
a theatrical magazine left by another passenger in the street-
car in which she chanced to be riding. Sylvia pounced on
it with instant recognition of its value. It was " different ''
and yet not " queer/' it was artistic and yet fashionable,
and with its flowing lines it would not be hard to construct
It was the creation of a Parisian boulevard actress, known
widely for her costumes, for the extraordinary manner in
which she dressed her hair, and for the rapidity of her
succeeding emotional entanglements. Her name meant
nothing to Sylvia. She tore out the page, folded it, and put
it for safe-keeping between the pages of her text-book on
Logic.
That afternoon she began work on it, running the long
seams up on the machine with whirring rapidity, acutely
aware of her mother's silent, uncommenting passage back
and forth through the sewing-room. With an impulse of
secrecy which she did not analyze, she did the trying-on
in her own room, craning and turning about before her
own small mirror. She knew that her mother would think
the dress was cut too low, although, as she told herself,
looking with complacency at the smooth, white, exquisitely
fine-grained skin thus disclosed, it wasn't nearly as low cut
as the dresses Eleanor Hubert wore to any little dance.
She had long felt it to be countrified in the extreme to
wear the mild compromises towards evening-dress which
she and most of the State University girls adopted, as
compared with the frankly disclosing gowns of the u town
girls ' whose clothes came from Chicago and New York.
192
Sylvia Skates Merrily on Thin Ice 193
She knew from several outspoken comments that Jerry
admired Eleanor's shoulders, and as she looked at her
own, she was not sorry that he was to compare them to
those of the other girl.
After this brief disposal of the question, she gave it no
more thought, working with desperate speed to complete
all her preparations. She had but a week for these, a
week rilled with incessant hurry, since she was naturally
unwilling to ask help of her mother. Judith was off again
with her father.
This absence greatly facilitated the moment of Sylvia's
departure, which she had dreaded. But, as it happened,
there was only her mother to whom to say the rather
difficult good-bye, her mother who could be counted on
never to make a scene.
About the middle of the morning of the twenty-third
of December, she came down the stairs, her hand-bag in
her hand, well-hatted, well-gloved, freshly veiled, having
achieved her usual purpose of looking to the casual eye like
the daughter of a wealthy man. She had put all of her
autumn allowance for dress into a set of furs, those being
something which no ingenuity could evolve at home. The
rest of her outfit, even to the odd little scarlet velvet hat,
with its successful and modish touch of the ugly, was the
achievement of her own hands. Under its absurd and
fashionable brim, her fresh face shone out, excessively
pretty and very young.
Mrs. Marshall kissed her good-bye gently, not smiling at
Sylvia's attempt to lighten the moment's seriousness by
saying playfully, " Now, Mother, don't you be such an old
worrier ! ' But she said nothing ' uncomfortable," for
which Sylvia was very grateful.
She had no sooner embarked upon the big Interurban
trolley-car which was to take her to Mercerton than her
attention was wholly diverted from uneasy reflections by
the unexpected appearance of two of the house-party
guests. Eleanor Hubert, every detail of her complicated
costume exquisitely finished as a Meissonier painting, sat
The Bent Twig
looking out of the window rather soberly, and so intently
that she saw neither Sylvia's entrance, nor, close upon her
heels, that of a florid-faced, rather heavily built young
man with a large, closely shaven jaw, who exclaimed joy-
fully at seeing Miss Marshall, and appropriated with ready
assurance the other half of her seat.
" Now, this is surely dandy ! You're going to the house-
party too, of course ! " he cried, unbuttoning and throwing
back his bright tan overcoat. ' Here's where I cut Jerry
out all right, all right ! Wait a minute ! How much time
have we?'' He appealed to the conductor as though a
matter of life and death depended on the answer. ' Four
minutes? here goes " He sprang to his feet, dashed
out of the car and disappeared, leaving his coat beside
Sylvia. It was evidently quite new, of the finest material,
with various cunningly stitched seams and straps disposed
upon its surface in a very knowing way. Sylvia noted out
of the corner of her eye that the address of the maker,
woven into the neckband, was on Fifth Avenue, New York.
The four minutes passed and the conductor approached
Sylvia. " Your friend's coming back, ain't he? " he asked,
with the tolerant, good-natured respect natural for the
vagaries of expensively dressed young men who wore
overcoats made on Fifth Avenue. Sylvia, who had met
the young man but once before, when Jerry had introduced
him as an old f riend, was a little startled at having a casual
acquaintance so publicly affixed to her; but after an in-
stant's hesitation, in which she was reflecting that she
positively did not even remember her " friend's " name, she
answered, " Oh yes, yes, I suppose so here he is now."
The young man bounded up on the back platform panting,
holding his hat on with one hand, a large box of candy in
the other. Sylvia glanced at the name on the cover. : You
didn't go all the way to Button's!" she cried.
He nodded, breathless, evidently proud of his feat, and
when he caught his breath enough to speak, explained,
" Yepp, it's the only place in this bum town where you
can get Alligretti's, and they're the only kind that 're fit to
Sylvia Skates Merrily on Thin Ice 195
eat." He tore open the box as he spoke, demolishing with
ruthless and practised hands the various layers of fine
paper and gold cord which wrapped it about, and presented
the rich layer of black chocolates to Sylvia. " Get a move
on and take one/' he urged cordially ; ' I pretend I buy
'em for the girls, but I'm crazy about 'em myself." He
bit into one with an air of prodigious gusto, took off his
hat, wiped his forehead, and looked at Sylvia with a relish
as frank as his enjoyment of the bonbon. 'That's a cork-
ing hat you got on," he commented. ' Most girls would
look like the old Harry with that dangling thing in their
eyes, but you can carry it off all right."
Sylvia's face assumed a provocative expression. " Did
you ever make that remark to any other girl, I wonder?'
she said reflectively.
He laughed aloud, eying her with appreciation, and clap-
ping another large black chocolate into his mouth. " You're
the prompt article, aren't you ? " he said. He hitched him-
self over and leaned towards her. ' Something tells me I'm
goin' to have a good time at this house-party, what ? '
Sylvia stiffened. She did not like his sitting so close to
her, she detected now on his breath a faint odor of alcohol,
and she was afraid that Eleanor Hubert would think her
lacking in dignity. She regretted having succumbed to the
temptation to answer him in his own tone; but, under her
bravado, she was really somewhat apprehensive about this
expedition, and she welcomed a diversion. Besides, the
voluble young man showed not the slightest sign of noting
her attempt to rebuff him, and she found quite unavailing
all her efforts to change the current of the talk, the loud,
free-and-easy, personally admiring note of which had the
effect on her nerves of a draught of raw spirits. She did
not enjoy the taste while it was being administered, but the
effect was certainly stimulating, not to say exciting, and
absorbed her attention so entirely that uncomfortable self-
questionings were impossible. She was also relieved to note
that, although the young man flung himself about in the
public conveyance with the same unceremonious self-
196 The Bent Twig
assurance that he would have shown in a lady's drawing-
room, Eleanor Hubert, at the other end of the car, was
apparently unaware of his presence. Perhaps she too had
some grounds for uncomfortable thought, for through-
out the hour's journey she continued to stare unseeingly
out of the window, or to look down fixedly and rather sadly
at her gloved hands.
Even through the confusion of her own ideas and plans,
and the need for constant verbal self-defense against the
encroaching familiarity of her companion, the notion flitted
across Sylvia's mind that probably Eleanor was thinking of
the young assistant in chemistry. How queer and topsy-
turvy everything was, she reflected, as she bandied lively
words with the lively young man at her side, continuing to
eat his candies, although their rich, cloying taste had al-
ready palled on her palate here was Mrs. Hubert throw-
ing Eleanor at Jerry's head, when what Eleanor wanted
was that queer, rough-neck freak of an assistant prof ; and
here were Jerry's parents making such overtures to Sylvia,
when what she wanted she didn't know what she did
want. Yes, she did, she wanted a good time, which was
somehow paradoxically hard to attain. Something always
kept spoiling it, half the time something intangible inside
her own mind. She gave the candy-box a petulant push.
"Oh, take it away!" she said impatiently; "I've eaten so
many now, it makes me sick to look at them ! '
The donor showed no resentment at this ingratitude,
holding the box on his knees, continuing to help himself
to its contents with unabated zest, and to keep the conver-
sation up to concert pitch : " the only girl I ever saw
who'd stop eating Alligretti's while there was one left
another proof that there's only one of you I said right off,
that any co-ed that Jerry Fiske would take to must be a
unique specimen " He did not further specify the
period to which he referred by his " right off," but the
phrase gave Sylvia a tingling, uncomfortable sense of having
been for some time the subject of speculation in circles of
which she knew nothing.
Sylvia Skates Merrily on Thin Ice 197
They were near Mercerton now, and as she gathered her
wraps together she found that she was bracing herself as
for an ordeal of some sort. The big car stopped, a little
way out of town, in front of a long driveway bordered
with maple-trees ; she and the young man descended from
one end-platform and Eleanor Hubert from the other, into
the midst of loud and facetious greetings from the young
people who had come down to meet them. Jerry was there,
very stalwart, his white sweater stretched over his broad
chest. All the party carried skates, which flashed like
silver in the keen winter sun. They explained with many
exclamations that they had been out on the ice, which was,
so the three new-comers were assured many times, " per-
fectly grand, perfectly dandy, simply elegant ! '
A big, many-seated sled came jingling down the driveway
now, driven by no less a personage than Colonel Fiske him-
self, wrapped in a fur-lined coat, his big mustache white
against the red of his strongly marked old face. With
many screams and shouts the young people got themselves
into this vehicle, the Colonel calling out in a masterful
roar above the din, ' Miss Marshall's to come up here
with me ! '
He held in his pawing, excited horses with one hand
and helped Sylvia with the other. In the seat behind them
sat Jerry and Eleanor Hubert and the young man of the
trolley trip. Sylvia strained her ears to catch Jerry's intro-
duction of him to Eleanor, so that she might know his
name. It was too absurd not even to know his name !
But the high-pitched giggles and deeper shouts of mirth
from the rest of the party drowned out the words. As a
matter of fact, although he played for an instant a rather
important role in Sylvia's drama, she was destined never to
know his name.
The Colonel looked back over the sleighload, shouted
out " All aboard ! ' loosened the reins, and snapped his
whip over the horses' heads. They leaped forward with
so violent a spring that the front runners of the long sled
were for an instant lifted into the air. Immediately all the
198 The Bent Twig
joyful shrieking and screaming which had gone on before,
became as essential silence compared to the delighted up-
roar which now rose from the sleigh. The jerk had thrown
most of the young people over backward into each other's
arms and laps, where, in a writhing, promiscuous mass, they
roared and squealed out their joy in the joke, and made
ineffectual and not very determined efforts to extricate
themselves. Sylvia had seen the jerk coming and saved
herself by a clutch forward at the dashboard. Glancing
back, she saw that Jerry and Eleanor Hubert still sat up-
right; although the gay young man beside them had let
himself go backward into the waving arms and legs, and,
in a frenzy of high spirits, was shouting and kicking and
squirming with the others. It was a joke after his own
heart.
Colonel Fiske, so far from slackening his pace to help
his young guests out of their predicament, laughed loudly
and cracked his whip over the horses' ears. They went up
the long, curving driveway like a whirlwind, and drew up
under the porte-cochere of a very large brick-and-stone
house with another abrupt jerk which upset those in the
sleigh who had succeeded in regaining their seats. Pande-
monium broke out again, in the midst of which Sylvia saw
that Mrs. Fiske had come to the doorway and stood in it
with a timid smile. The Colonel did not look at her, Jerry
nodded carelessly to her as he passed in, and of all the
disheveled, flushed, and laughing young people who
crowded past her into the house, only Sylvia and Eleanor
recognized her existence. The others went past her with-
out a glance, exclaimed at the lateness of the hour, cried
out that they must go and ' fix up ' for lunch, and ran
upstairs, filling the house with their voices. Sylvia heard
one girl cry to another, " Oh, I've had such a good time !
I've hollered till I'm hoarse ! '
After luncheon, a meal at which more costly food was
served than Sylvia had ever before seen, Jerry suggested
between puffs of the cigarette he was lighting that they have
a game of billiards. Most of the young people trooped off
Sylvia Skates Merrily on Thin Ice 199
after him into the billiard-room, but Sylvia, after a mo-
ment's hesitation, lingered near the big wood-fire in the
hall, unwilling to admit that she had never seen a bil-
liard table. She made a pretext of staying to talk to
Mrs. Fiske, who sat stooping her tall figure forward in a
chair too small for her. Sylvia looked at this ungraceful
attitude with strong disapproval. What she thought was
that such inattention to looks was perfectly inexcusable.
What she said was, in a very gracious voice : " What a
beautiful home you have, Mrs. Fiske ! How wonderfully
happy you must be in it."
The other woman started a little at being addressed, and
looked around vaguely at the conventional luxury of the
room, with its highly polished floors, its huge rich rugs, its
antlers on the wall, and its deeply upholstered leather
chairs. When Sylvia signified her intention of continuing
the talk by taking a seat beside the fire, Mrs. Fiske roused
herself to the responsibility of entertaining the young guest.
After some futile attempts at conversation in the abstract,
she discharged this responsibility through the familiar ex-
pedient of the family photograph album. With this be-
tween them, the two women were able to go through the
required form of avoiding silences. Sylvia was fearfully
bored by the succession of unknown faces, and utterly un-
able to distinguish, in her hostess' somewhat disconnected
talk, between the different sets of the Colonel's children.
; This one is Stanley, Jermain's brother, who died when
he was a baby," the dull voice droned on ; ' and this is
Mattie in her wedding dress."
1 Oh, I didn't know Jerry had a married sister," mur-
mured Sylvia indifferently, glad of any comment to make.
' She's only his half-sister, a great deal older."
' But you haven't a daughter old enough to be married ? '
queried Sylvia, astonished.
' Oh no no. Mattie is the daughter of the Colonel's
first wife."
' Oh," said Sylvia awkwardly, remembering now that
Mrs. Draper had spoken of the Colonel's several mar-
2OO The Bent Twig
riages. She added to explain her question, " I'd forgotten
that Jerry's mother was the Colonel's second wife and not
his first."
" She was his third," breathed Mrs. Fiske, looking down
at the pages of the album.
Sylvia repressed a " Good gracious ! ' of startled re-
pugnance to the topic, and said, to turn the conversation,
" Oh, who is that beautiful little girl with the fur cap ? '
" That is my picture," said Mrs. Fiske, ' when I was
eighteen. I was married soon after. I've changed very
much since my marriage." Decidedly it was not Sylvia's
lucky day for finding topics of talk. She was wondering
how the billiard game was progressing, and was sorry she
had not risked going with the others. She was recalled
by Mrs. Fiske's saying with a soft earnestness, " I want you
to know, Miss Marshall, how I appreciate your kindness to
me!"
Sylvia looked at her in astonishment, half fearing that
she was being made fun of.
The other went on : " It was very nice of you your
staying here to talk with me instead of going off with the
young people the others don't often " She played
nervously with a gleaming pendant on a platinum chain
which hung over her flat chest, and went on : " I you
have always seemed to me the very nicest of Jerry's friends
and I shall never forget your mother's kindness. I
hope I hope so much I shall see more of her. The
Colonel thinks so too we've liked so much having him
like you." The incoherence of this did not prevent Sylvia's
having a chillingly accurate grasp on its meaning. " It is
the Colonel's hope," she went on painfully, " to have Jerry
marry as soon as he graduates from the Law School. The
Colonel thinks that nothing is so good for a young man as
an early marriage though of course Jerry isn't so very,
very young any more. He the Colonel is a great be-
liever in marriage " Her voice died away into mur-
murs. Her long, thin throat contracted in a visible swallow.
At this point only Sylvia's perception of the other's an-
Sylvia Skates Merrily on Thin Ice 201
guished embarrassment prevented her from literally run-
ning away. As it was, they sat silent, fingering over the
pages of the album and gazing unseeingly at the various
set countenances which looked out at them with the un-
natural glare of the photographed. Sylvia was canvassing
desperately one possibility of escape after another when
the door opened, and the lively young man of the trolley-
car stepped in. He tiptoed to the fireplace with exaggerated
caution, looking theatrically over his shoulder for a pursuer.
Sylvia positively welcomed his appearance and turned to
him with a cordiality quite unlike the cool dignity with
which she had planned to treat him. He sat down on the
rug before the fire, very close to her feet, and looked up at
her, grinning. ' Here's where I get another one on Jerry
what?" he said, ignoring Mrs. Fiske. " Old Jerry thinks
he's playing such a wonderful game in there he can't tear
himself away but there'll be something doing, I guess,
when he does come and finds where / am ! ' He had par-
taken freely of the excellent white wine served at luncheon
(the first Sylvia had ever seen), and though entirely master
of his speech, was evidently even more uplifted than was
his usual hilarious wont. Sylvia looked down at him, and
across at the weak-faced woman opposite her, and had a
moment of wishing heartily she had never come. She
stood up impatiently, a movement which the young man
took to mean a threat of withdrawal. ' Aw, don't go ! " he
pleaded, sprawling across the rug towards her. As she
turned away, he snatched laughingly at her skirts, crying
out, " Tag ! You're caught ! You're It ! '
At this moment Jerry Fiske appeared in the doorway.
He looked darkly at his friend's cheerful face and said
shortly : " Here, Stub quit it ! Get up out of that ! ' He
added to Sylvia, holding out his hand : " Come on, go skat-
ing with me. The ice is great."
" Are the others going?' asked Sylvia.
" Oh yes, I suppose so," said Jerry, a trifle impatiently.
The young man on the floor scrambled up. ' Here's one
that's going, whoever else don't," he announced.
2O2 The Bent Twig
'Get yourself a girl, then," commanded Jerry, u and tell
the rest to come along. There's to be eats at four o'clock."
The ice was even as fine as it had been so redundantly
represented to Sylvia. Out of doors, leaning her supple,
exquisitely poised body to the wind as she veered like a
bird on her flying skates, Sylvia's spirits rebounded with
an instant reaction into enjoyment. She adored skating,
.and she had in it, as in all active exercise, the half-wild
pleasure of one whose childhood is but a short time be-
hind her. Furthermore, her costume prepared for this
event (Mrs. Draper had told her of the little lake on the
Fiske estate) was one of her successes. It had been a
pale cream broadcloth of the finest texture, one of Aunt
Victoria's reception gowns, which had evidently been
spoiled by having coffee spilled down the front breadth.
Sylvia had had the bold notion of dyeing it scarlet and
making it over with bands of black plush (the best bits
from an outworn coat of her mother's). On her gleaming
red-brown hair she had perched a little red cap with a
small black wing on either side (one of Lawrence's pet
chickens furnished this), and she carried the muff which
belonged with her best set of furs. Thus equipped, she
looked like some impish, slender young Brunhilde, with her
two upspringing wings. The young men gazed at her with
the most unconcealed delight. As she skated very well,
better than any of the other girls, she felt, sweeping about
the pond in long, swift curves, that she was repaid for her
ignorance of billiards.
Jerry and the young man he called Stub were openly in
competition for her attention, highly jocose on Stub's part
and not at all so on Jerry's, whose brow did not clear at
the constant crackling of the other's witticisms. On the
shore burned a big fire, tended by a man-servant in livery,
who was occupied in setting out on a long table a variety of
sandwiches and cups of steaming bouillon. Sylvia had never
encountered before a real man-servant in livery. She
.looked at him with the curiosity she might have shown at
Sylvia Skates Merrily on Thin Ice 203
seeing a mediaeval knight in full armor. Jerry brought her
a cup of the bouillon, which was deliciously hot and strong.
Experienced as she was in the prudent provisioning of the
Marshall kitchen she was staggered to think how many
chickens had gone into filling with that clear liquor the big
silver tureen which steamed over the glittering alcohol
lamp. The table was set, for that casual outdoor picnic
lunch, as she could hardly have imagined a royal board.
" What beautiful things your people have ! ' she ex-
claimed to Jerry, looking at a pile of small silver forks
with delicately carved ivory handles. " The rugs in the
house are superb."
Jerry waved them aside as phenomena of no importance.
" All of 'em tributes from Dad's loving constituents," he
said, repeating what was evidently an old joke in the family.
" You'd better believe Dad doesn't vote to get the tariff
raised on anything unless he sees to it that the manu-
facturers know who they have to thank. It works some-
thing fine ! Talk about the presents a doctor gets from his
grateful patients ! Nothing to it ! '
This picturesque statement of practical politics meant so
little to Sylvia's mind that she dismissed it unheard, admir-
ing, in spite of her effort to take things for granted, the
fabulous fineness of the little fringed napkin set under the
bouillon cup. Jerry followed the direction of her eyes.
" Yep tariff on linen," he commented pregnantly.
The young man called Stub now sped up to them, skating
very fast, and swept Sylvia off. ' Here's where we show
'em how to do it!" he cried cheerfully, skating backward
with crazy rapidity, and pulling Sylvia after him. There
was a clang of swift steel on ice, and Jerry bore down
upon them, the muscles of his jaw showing prominently.
Without a word he thrust his friend aside, caught at Sylvia's
hands, and bore her in a swooping flight to the other end of
the pond, now deserted by the other skaters.
As they sped along he bent over Sylvia fiercely and said
in a low, angry tone, " You don't like that bounder, do
you? You don't!"
204 The Bent Twig
Sylvia was astonished at the heat of his suspicion. She
had known that Jerry was not notably acute, but it had
seemed to her that her dislike for his friend must be more
than apparent to any one. They had reached the edge of
the ice now, and Sylvia's hands were still in Jerry's, al-
though they were not skating, but stood facing each other.
A bush of osier, frozen into the ice, lifted its red twigs
near them. Sylvia looked down at it, hesitating how to
express her utter denial of any liking for the hilarious
young man. Jerry misunderstood her pause and cried out :
" Good God ! Sylvia ! Don't say you do"
Sylvia's heart gave a frightened leap. ' Oh no no not
a bit!" she said hastily, looking longingly across the pond
at the group around the fire. Jerry caught his breath
with a gasp and gripped her hands hard. ' It makes me
crazy to see you look at another fellow," he said. He
forced her eyes to meet his. " Sylvia you know you
know what I mean."
Yes, Sylvia knew what he meant. Her very white face
showed that. The young man went on, pressing, masterful,
confident, towering over her : " It's idiotic to speak of it
now, out here with all these people around but it just
got me to see you with that I wasn't sure how I felt about
you till I saw how I felt when you seemed so friendly with
him, when you got off the car together. Then I knew.
It made me crazy I wanted you ! '
Sylvia had not been able once to look away from him
since he began to speak. Her mouth was a little open in
her white face, her eyes fixed with a painful intensity on
his. He moistened his lips with his tongue. " Sylvia it's
all right isn't it?"
With no change of expression in her strained face, Sylvia
nodded. As suddenly and apparently as automatically she
took a backward step.
The young man made a great stride towards her there
was a sound of quick strokes on the ice and " BOO ! '
shouted the hilarious young man, bursting between them
at railroad speed. He executed a marvelous pirouette and
Sylvia Skates Merrily on Thin Ice 205
returned instantly, calling out, ' Less spooning in the cor-
ners if you please or if it's got to be, let me in ! ' He
was followed closely by a string of young men and girls,
playing snap-the-whip. They ' snapped ' just as they
reached Jerry. The end girl flew off and bumped, scream-
ing with joy, into Jerry's arms. He looked furiously over
her head towards Sylvia, but she had been enveloped in a
ring and was being conveyed away to the accompaniment
of the usual squeals and shouts. The Colonel had come
down to take them all back, she was informed, and was
waiting for them with the sleigh.
CHAPTER XIX
AS A BIRD OUT OF A SNARE
SYLVIA dressed for dinner literally like one in a dream.
Outwardly she was so calm that she thought she was so
inwardly. It was nothing like so exciting as people said,
to get engaged, she thought as she brushed out her hair
and put it up in a big, gleaming knot. Here she had been
engaged for a whole hour and a half, and was getting
calmer every minute, instead of the reverse. She astonished
herself by the lucidity of her brain, although it only worked
by snatches there being lacunae when she could not have
told what she was doing. And yet, as she had approached
the house, sitting again beside the Colonel, she had looked
with a new thrill of interest at its imposing battlemented
fagade. The great hall had seemed familiar to her already
as she stepped across it on her way to the stairs, her feet
had pressed the rugs with assurance, she had been able to
be quite nonchalant about refusing the services of the maid
who offered to help her dress.
It was true that from time to time she suddenly flushed
or paled ; it was true that her mind seemed incapable
of the slightest consecutive thought ; it was true that
she seemed to be in a dream, peopled by crazily incon-
sequent images she had again and again a vision, star-
tlingly vivid, of the red-twigged osier beside which she had
stood ; it was true that she had a slight feeling of vertigo
when she tried to think ahead of the next moment but still
she w r as going ahead with her unpacking and dressing so
steadily that she marveled. She decided again from the
depth of her experience that getting engaged was nothing
like so upsetting an event as people made out. She thrust
the last pin into her hair and tipped her head preeningly
206
As a Bird out of a Snare 207
before the big triplicate mirror the first time she had ever
encountered this luxury outside of a ready-made clothes
shop. The yellow chiffon came out from the trunk in per-
fect condition, looking like a big, silk-petaled flower as she
slipped it on over her bare shoulders, and emerged above,
triumphant and yet half afraid to look at herself in the
mirror lest she should see that her home-made toilet had
not " the right look." One glance satisfied even her jealous
eagerness. It had exactly the right look that is, it looked
precisely like the picture from which she had copied it.
She gazed with naive satisfaction at the faithfulness with
which her reflected appearance resembled that of the
Parisian demi-mondaine whose photograph she had seen,
and settled on her slim, delicately modeled shoulders the
straps of shirred and beaded chiffon which apparently per-
formed the office of keeping her dress from sliding to the
floor. In reality, under its fluid, gauzy draperies, it was
constructed on a firm, well-fitting, well-fastened foundation
of opaque cloth which quite adequately clothed the young
body, but its appearance was of a transparent cloud, only
kept from floating entirely away by those gleaming straps
on the shoulders, an effect carefully calculated in the origi-
nal model, and inimitably caught by Sylvia's innocent
fingers.
She turned herself about, artlessly surprised to see that
her neck and shoulders looked quite like those of the women
in the fashion-plates and the magazine illustrations. She
looked at the clock. It was early yet. She reflected that
she never could take the time other girls did in dressing.
She wondered what they did. What could one do, after
one's bath was taken, one's hair done, and one's gown
donned oh, of course, powder! She applied it liberally,
and then wiped away every grain, that being what she had
seen older girls do in the Gymnasium dressing-room. Then
with a last survey of her face, unaltered by the ceremonial
with the powder-puff, she stepped to the door.
But there, with her hand on the knob, she was halted by
an inexplicable hesitation about opening the door and show-
208 The Bent Twig
ing herself. She looked down at her bare shoulders and
bosom, and faintly blushed. It was really very, very low,
far lower than any dress she had ever worn ! And the fact
that Eleanor Hubert, that all the " swell " girls wore theirs
low, did not for the moment suffice her it was some-
how different their showing their shoulders and her show-
ing her own. She could not turn the knob and stood,
irresolute, frowning vaguely, though not very deeply dis-
quieted. Finally she compromised by taking up a pretty
spangled scarf Aunt Victoria had sent her, wrapping it
about her like a shawl, in which quaint garb she went out
in more confidence, and walked down the hall to the stair-
way. Half-way down she met Colonel Fiske just coming
up to dress. Seeing one of his young guests arrayed for
the evening he made her his compliments, the first words
rather absent and perfunctory. But when he was aware
which guest she was, he warmed into a pressing and per-
sonal note, as his practised eyes took in the beauty, tonight
startlingly enhanced by excitement, of the girl's dark,
shining eyes, flushed cheeks, and white neck and arms.
He ended by lifting her hand, in his florid way, and press-
ing it to his white mustache for a very fervent kiss. Sylvia
blushed prettily, meeting his hot old eyes with a dewy
unconsciousness, and smiling frankly up into the deeply
lined carnal face with the simple-hearted pleasure she
would have felt at the kind word of any elderly man. The
Colonel seemed quite old to her much older than her
father like Professor Kennedy.
" Jerry's in the library, waiting," his father announced
with a sly laugh. " I wondered at the young rascal's being
dressed so far ahead of time." He turned reluctantly and
went on up the stairs, leaving Sylvia to go forward to her
first meeting alone with the man she had promised to
marry. As she descended the long flight of stairs, her scarf,
loosened by her movement, slipped unobserved in her ex-
citement and hung lightly about her shoulders.
The door to the library was shut. She opened it with a
rapidly beating heart and stood on the threshold, shyly hesi-
As a Bird out of a Snare 209
fating to advance further, looking with agitation at the stal-
wart, handsome, well-groomed figure which stood in an
attitude of impatient expectation by the window. Except
for the light which came in from the electric bulb on the
porch outside, the big room was in twilight. In the bril-
liantly lighted door-opening, she stood revealed as by a
searchlight.
At the sound of the opening door, and his name spoken
in a quavering voice, the young man turned, paused an
instant as if blinded by the vision, and sprang forward.
The door behind Sylvia swung shut, and her eyes, widening
in the dusk, saw only the headlong, overwhelming rush upon
her of her lover. She was enfolded strongly in muscular
arms, she was pressed closer and yet closer to a powerful
body, whose heat burned through the thin broadcloth, she
was breathless, stunned, choked. As the man bent forward
over her, clasping her to him, her flexible spine bent and
her head drooped backward, her face with its flush all
gone, gleaming white in the dusk. At this he rained kisses
on it, on her eyes, hair, cheeks, mouth, the burning soft-
ness of his full lips seeming to leave a smear on her skin
where they pressed it. Still holding her with one arm,
pressed to him as though the two young bodies were gripped
together by a vice, he loosened the other arm and thrust
it at the back of her dress, through the flimsy gauze of her
scarf, down next her body. His stiff cuff caught on the
edge of her dress, and his sleeve slid up it was his bare
arm against her naked flesh. He gave a savage, smothered,
gasping exclamation, pressed his fingers deeply into her
side, still kissing her passionately, her neck, her shoulders,
burying his hot face in her bosom.
It was the girl's body which acted, since at the first in-
stant of the whirlwind which had broken over her, her
mind had been shocked into a swooning paralysis. Only
her strong, sound body, hardened by work, fortified by out-
door exercise, was ready in its every fiber for this moment.
Her body bent suddenly like a spring of fine steel, its
strength momentarily more than a match for his, and thrust
2io The Bent Twig
the man from her with staggering violence. Her reaction
from him was as physical a sensation as though she had
bitten into a tempting fruit and found it not sweet not
even bitter but nasty. She sickened at the sight of him,
As he caught his balance, laughing a little but not at all
good-naturedly, and started back towards her with a
dangerous dark face of excited anger and desire, his head-
long rush was checked an instant by the fierce eyes which
flamed at him from her crimson face. Even her neck and
shoulders were now scarlet. She held him off for the
space of a breath, giving one deep exclamation, 'Oh!'
short, sharply exhaled, almost like a blow in his face.
But his blood was up as well as hers, and after his
momentary pause, he rushed forward again, his hand-
some, blond face black with passion.
Sylvia stooped, gathered up her skirts, turned, burst
open the door, and fled out of the room, running in her high-
heeled satin slippers as she did on the track in the Gym-
nasium, with long, deer-like bounds. In a flash she had
crossed the wide hall which was as it happened empty,
although she would not have slackened her pace for all the
assembled company and was darting arrow-like up the
stairs, her torn scarf flying behind her like a banner. Her
flight had been so unexpected and so swift that young
Fiske did not attempt to follow her; but she reached her
room, flung the door shut, and locked it with as much
precipitancy as though he were on her heels, instead of
standing quite still, open-mouthed, where she had left him.
The sharp crack of her slamming door, loud in the quiet
house, broke the spell which held him. His mouth shut,
and his clenched hands loosened from their fierce tension.
He took an aimless step and drew a long breath. A mo-
ment later, quite automatically, he fumbled for his cigarette-
case, and finding it, took out a cigarette and lighted it with
fingers that were not steady. The familiar action and the
first puff of smoke affected him like emerging from a tur-
moil of darkness into the quiet and order of a well-lighted
room. " Well, may I be damned ! " he said to himself with
As a Bird out of a Snare 211
the beginning of a return of his usual assurance " the
damn little spitfire ! '
He walked about the room, puffing vigorously, feeling
with relief his blood resume its usual rate of circulation.
His head seemed to clear of a thick vapor. The star-
tling recollection of the anger in his fiancee's eyes was fad-
ing rapidly from his mind. Now he only saw her, blushing,
recoiling, fleeing he laughed out a little, this time not
angrily, but with relish. " Ain't she the firebrand ! '' he
said aloud. He found his desire for her a hundredfold
enhanced and stood still, his eyes very lustrous, feeling
again in imagination the warm softness of her bosom under
his lips. " Gee ! ' he exclaimed, turning restlessly in his
pacing walk.
He was aware that some one in the room moved. ' Jer-
main," said his stepmother's faint voice. He looked at her
smiling. " Hello, Momma," he said good-naturedly, " when
did you gum-shoe in ? '
" Oh, just now," she told him, giving him an assurance
which he doubted, and which he would not have valued
had he known it to be true. He was perfectly indifferent
as to the chance that this negligible person might have been
a spectator to the scene between the son of the house and a
guest. If she said anything about it, he meant to give the
all-sufficing explanation that he and Miss Marshall had
just become engaged. This would of course, it seemed
self-evident to him, make it all right.
But Mrs. Fiske did not make any remark calling forth
that information. She only said, in her usual listless man-
ner, " Your sleeve is shoved up."
He glanced down in surprise, realizing how excited he
must be not to have noticed that before, and remained for
a moment silent, looking at the splendidly muscular white
arm, and the large well-manicured hand. He was feeling
in every nerve the reminiscence of the yielding firmness of
Sylvia's flesh, bare against his own. The color came up
flamingly into his face again. He moistened his lips with
his tongue. "Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed, contemptu-
212 The Bent Twig
ously careless of his listener, " I'm wild in love with
that girl ! ' He pulled his sleeve down with a quick,
vigorous gesture, deftly shot the cuff out beyond the
black broadcloth, and, the picture of handsome, well-
groomed youth in easy circumstances, turned again to his
father's wife. " What you in here for, anyhow? " he asked
still with his light absence of concern about anything she
[did or did not do.
She hesitated, looking about the room. " I thought Miss
^Marshall would be here. She promised to come down early
to write the names on the place-cards. I thought I heard
her voice."
" You did," he toldi her. " She came down early all
right but she went back again." He laughed, tossed his
cigarette-end in the fireplace, and vouchsafing no more ex-
planation, strolled into the billiard-room, and began to
knock the balls about, whistling a recent dance tune with
great precision and vivacity. He was anticipating with
quickened blood the next meeting with Sylvia. As he
thrust at the gleaming balls, his mouth smiled and his eyes
burned.
Mrs. Fiske went upstairs and knocked at Sylvia's door.
There was a rush of quick footsteps and the girl asked from
the other side in a muffled voice, " Who is it ? ' Mrs. Fiske
gave her name, and added, in answer to another question,
that she was alone. The door opened enough for her to
enter, and closed quickly after her. She looked about the
disordered room, saw the open trunk, the filmy cascade of
yellow chiffon half on and half off the bed, the torn and
crumpled spangled scarf, and Sylvia herself, her hastily
donned kimono clutched about her with tense hands.
The mistress of the house made no comment on this
scene, looking at Sylvia with dull, faded eyes in which
there was no life, not even the nicker of an inquiry. But
Sylvia began in a nervous voice to attempt an explanation :
" Oh, Mrs. Fiske I you'll have to excuse me I must go
home at once I I was just packing. I thought if I
hurried I could make the eight-o'clock trolley back to
As a Bird out of a Snare 213
La Chance, and you could send my trunk after me." Her
every faculty was so concentrated on the single idea of
flight flight back to the safety of home, that she did not
think of the necessity of making an excuse, giving a reason
for her action. It seemed that it must be self-evident to
the universe that she could not stay another hour in that
house.
Mrs. Fiske nodded. " Yes, I'll send your trunk after
you," she said. She drew a long breath, almost audible,
and looked down at the fire on the hearth. Sylvia came
up close to her, looking into her lusterless eyes with deep
entreaty. " And, Mrs. Fiske, would you mind not telling
any one I'm going, until I'm gone nobody at all ! It's
because I you could say I didn't feel well enough to
come down to dinner. I if you and say I don't want any
dinner up here either ! '
" Won't you be afraid to go down through the grounds
to the trolley alone, at night?" asked Mrs. Fiske, without
looking at her.
" Everybody will be at dinner, won't they ? " asked Sylvia.
Mrs. Fiske nodded, her eyes on the floor.
Upon which, "Oh no, I won't be afraid!" cried Sylvia.
Her hostess turned to the door. " Well, I won't tell them
if you don't want me to," she said. She went out, without
another word, closing the door behind her. Sylvia locked
it, and went on with her wild packing. When she came to
the yellow chiffon she rolled it up tightly and jammed it
into a corner of her trunk; but the instant afterward she
snatched it out and thrust it fiercely into the fire. The light
fabric caught at once, the flames leaped up, filling the room
with a roaring heat and flare, which almost as quickly died
down to blackened silence.
Sylvia faced that instant of red glare with a grimly set
jaw and a deeply flushed face. It did not look at all like
her own face.
At a quarter of eight the room was cleared, the trunk
strapped and locked, and Sylvia stood dressed for the
street, gloved, veiled, and furred. Under her veil her face
214 The Bent Twig
showed still very flushed. She took up her small handbag
and her umbrella and opened the door with caution. A
faint clatter of dishes and a hum of laughing talk came up
to her ears. Dinner was evidently in full swing. She
stepped out and went noiselessly down the stairs. On
the bottom step, close to the dining-room door, her um-
brella-tip caught in the balustrade and fell with a loud clat-
ter on the bare polished floor of the hall. Sylvia shrank
into herself and waited an instant with suspended breath
for the pause in the chatter and laughter which it seemed
must follow. The moment was forever connected in her
mind with the smell of delicate food, and fading flowers,
and human beings well-washed and perfumed, which
floated out to her from the dining-room. She looked about
her at the luxuriously furnished great hall, and hated every
inch of it.
If the noise was heard, it evidently passed for something
dropped by a servant, for Colonel Fiske, who was telling
a humorous story, went on, his recital punctuated by
bass and treble anticipatory laughter from his auditors :
and when he called her upon the 'phone the next day
to ask her about it, she said she didn't know he'd been there
at all ! ' A roar of appreciation greeted this recondite
climax, under cover of which Sylvia opened the front
door and shut it behind her.
The pure coldness of the winter night struck sharply and
gratefully on her senses after the warmth and indoor odors
of the house. She sprang forward along the porch and
down the steps, distending her nostrils and filling her lungs
again and again. These long deep breaths seemed to her
like the renewal of life.
As her foot grated on the gravel of the driveway she
heard a stealthy sound back of her, at which her heart
leaped up and stood still. The front door of the house had
opened very quietly and shut again. She looked over her
shoulder fearfully, preparing to race down the road, but
seeing only Mrs. Fiske's tall, stooping figure, stopped and
turned expectantly. The older woman came down the steps
As a Bird out of a Snare 215
towards the fugitive, apparently unaware of the biting
winter wind on her bared shoulders. Quite at a loss, and
suspiciously on her guard, Sylvia waited for her, searching
the blurred pale face with impatient inquiry.
' I I thought I'd walk with you a little ways," said the
other, looking down at her guest.
'Oh no! Don't!' pleaded Sylvia in despair lest some
one notice her hostess' absence. c You'll take a dreadful
cold! With no wraps on do go back! I'm not a bit
afraid ! "
The other looked at her with a smoldering flush rising
through the ashes of her gray face. ' It wasn't that I
didn't suppose you'd be afraid I I just thought I'd like
to go a ways with you," she repeated, bringing out the
words confusedly and with obvious difficulty. ' / won't
make you late," she added, as if guessing the girl's thoughts.
She put a thin hand on Sylvia's arm and drew her rapidly
along the driveway. For a moment they walked in silence.
Then, u How soon will you reach home? " she asked.
" Oh, about a quarter to ten the Interurban gets into
La Chance at nine-fifteen, and it's about half an hour
across town on the Washington Street trolley."
' In less than two hours ! " cried Mrs. Fiske wildly. ' In
less than two hours ! '
Seeing no cause for wonder in her statement, and not
welcoming at all this unsought escort, Sylvia made no
answer. There was another silence, and then, looking in
the starlight at her companion, the girl saw with consterna-
tion that the quiet tears were running down her cheeks.
She stopped short, "Oh . . . oh!" she cried. She caught
up the other's hand in a bewildered surprise. She had not
the faintest idea what could cause her hostess' emotion.
She was horribly afraid she would lose the trolley. Her
face painted vividly her agitation and her impatience.
Mrs. Fiske drew back her hand and wiped her eyes with
her palm. : Well, I must be going back," she said. She
looked dimly at the girl's face, and suddenly threw her
arms about Sylvia's neck, clinging to her. She murmured
2i6 The Bent Twig
incoherent words, the only ones which Sylvia could make
out being, "I can't I can't I can't!"
What it was she could not do, remained an impenetrable
mystery to Sylvia, for at that moment she turned away
quickly, and went back up the driveway, her face in her
hands. Sylvia hesitated, penetrated, in spite of her absorp-
tion in her own affairs, by a vague pity, but hearing in the
distance the clang of the trolley-car's bell, she herself
turned and ran desperately down the driveway. She
reached the public road just in time to stop the heavy
car, and to swing herself lightly on, to all appearances
merely a rather unusually well-set-up, fashionably dressed
young lady, presenting to the heterogeneous indifference of
the other passengers in the car even a more ostentatiously
abstracted air than is the accepted attitude for young
ladies traveling alone. One or two of her fellow voyagers
wondered at the deep flush on her face, but forgot it the
next moment. It was a stain which was not entirely to
fade from Sylvia's face and body for many days to come.
CHAPTER XX
"BLOW, WIND; SWELL, BILLOW; AND SWIM,
BARK ! "
SHE reached home, as she had thought, before ten o'clock,
her unexpected arrival occasioning the usual flurry of ex-
clamation and question not to be suppressed even by the
most self-contained family with a fixed desire to let its
members alone, and a firm tradition of not interfering in
their private affairs. Judith had come home before her
father and now looked up from her game of checkers with
wondering eyes. Sylvia explained that she was not sick,
and that nothing had happened to break up or disturb the
house-party. 'I just felt like coming home, that's all!'
she said irritably, touched on the raw by the friendly lov-
ing eyes and voices about her. She was glad at least that
her father was not at home. That was one less to look at
her.
" Well, get along to bed with you ! ' said her mother,
in answer to her impatient explanation. " And, you chil-
dren keep still ! Don't bother her ! '
Sylvia crept upstairs into the whiteness of her own
slant-ceilinged room, and without lighting a lamp sat down
on the bed. Her knees shook under her. She made no
move to take off her furs or hat. She felt no emotion, only
a leaden fatigue and lameness as though she had been
beaten. Her mother, coming in five minutes later with a
lighted lamp and a cup of hot chocolate, made no comment
at finding her still sitting, fully dressed in the dark. She
set the lamp down, and with swift deftness slipped out
hatpins, unhooked furs, unbuttoned and unlaced and loos-
ened, until Sylvia woke from her lethargy and quickly com-
pleted the process, slipping on her nightgown and getting
into bed. Not a word had been exchanged. Mrs. Marshall
217
2i 8 The Bent Twig
brought the cup of hot chocolate and Sylvia drank it as
though she were a little girl again. Her mother kissed
her good-night, drew the blankets a little more snugly over
her, opened two windows wide, took away the lamp, and
shut the door.
Sylvia, warmed and fed by the chocolate, lay stretched
at full length in the bed, breathing in the fresh air which
rushed across her face from the windows, feeling herself
in a white beatitude of safety and peace. Especially did
she feel grateful to her mother. " Isn't Mother great! " she
said to herself. Everything that had passed seemed like a
confusing dream to her, so dreadful, so terrifying that she
was amazed to feel herself, in spite of it, overcome with
drowsiness. Now the roles were reversed. It was her
brain that was active, racing and shuddering from one
frightening mental picture to another, while her body,
young, sound, healthful, fell deeper and deeper into torpor,
dragging the quivering mind down to healing depths of
oblivion. The cold, pure air blew so strongly in her face
that she closed her eyes. When she opened them again the
sun was shining.
She started up nervously, still under the influence of a
vivid dream strange. . . . Then as she blinked and rubbed
her eyes she saw her mother standing by the bed, with a
pale, composed face.
' It's nine o'clock, Sylvia," she said, " and Mr. Fiske is
downstairs, asking to see you. He tells me that you and
he are engaged to be married."
Sylvia was instantly wide awake. ' Oh no ! Oh no ! '
she said passionately. ' No, we're not ! I won't be ! I
won't see him ! ' She looked about her wildly, and added,
1 I'll write him that just wait a minute." She sprang out
of bed, caught up a pad of paper, and wrote hastily : " It
was all a mistake I don't care for you at all not a bit!
I hope I shall never have to speak to you again." : There,"
she said, thrusting it into her mother's hands. She stood
for a moment, shivering in her thin nightgown in the icy
draught, and then jumped back into bed again.
"Blow, Wind; Swell, Billow; Swim, Bark!" 219
Her mother came back in a few moments, closed the
windows, and opened the register. There was not in her
silence or in a line of her quiet presence the faintest hint
of curiosity about Sylvia's actions. She had always main-
tained in theory, and now at this crisis with characteristic
firmness of purpose acted upon her theory, that absolutely
unforced confidence was the only kind worth having, and
that moreover, unless some help was necessary, it might
be as well for the younger generation early to acquire the
strengthening capacity to keep its own intimate experiences
to the privacy of its own soul, and learn to digest them
and feed upon them without the dubiously peptonizing aid
of blundering adult counsel. Sylvia watched her mother
with wondering gratitude. She wasn't going to ask! She
was going to let Sylvia shut that ghastly recollection into
the dark once for all. She wasn't going by a look or a
gesture to force her helplessly responsive child to give, by
words, weight and substance to a black, shapeless horror
from which Sylvia with a vivid impulse of sanity averted
her eyes.
She got out of bed and put her arms around her moth-
er's neck. 'Say, Mother, you are great!' she said in
an unsteady voice. Mrs. Marshall patted her on the
back.
" You'd better go and take your bath, and have your
breakfast," she said calmly. ; Judith and Lawrence have
gone skating."
When Sylvia, tingling with the tonic shock of cold water
and rough toweling, and rosy in her old blue sailor-suit,
came downstairs, she found her mother frying pancakes
for her in the kitchen blue with smoke from the hot fat.
She was touched, almost shocked by this strange lapse from
the tradition of self-help of the house, and said with rough
self-accusation: "My goodness! The idea of your waiting
on me!' She snatched away the handle of the frying-pan
and turned the cakes deftly. Then, on a sudden impulse,
she spoke to her mother, standing by the sink. ' I came
back because I found I didn't like Jerry Fiske as much as
22O The Bent Twig
I thought I did. I found I didn't like him at all," she said,
her eyes on the frying-pan.
At this announcement her mother's face showed pale,
and for an instant tremulous through the smoke. She
did not speak until Sylvia lifted the cakes from the pan and
piled them on a plate. At this signal of departure into the
dining-room she commented, "Well, I won't pretend that
I'm not very glad."
Sylvia flushed a little and looked towards her silently.
She had a partial, momentary vision of what the past two
months must have been to her mother. The tears stood in
her eyes. " Say, Mother dear," she said in a quavering
voice that tried to be light, ' why don't you eat some of
these cakes to keep me company? It's 'most ten. You
must have had breakfast three hours ago. It'd be fun! I
can't begin to eat all these."
" Well, I don't care if I do," answered Mrs. Marshall.
Sylvia laughed at the turn of her phrase and went into
the dining-room. Mrs. Marshall followed in a moment
with a cup of hot chocolate and buttered toast. Sylvia
pulled her down and kissed her. " You'd prescribe hot
chocolate for anything from getting religion to a broken
leg ! ' ' she said, laughing. Her voice shook and her laugh
ended in a half-sob.
" No oh no ! ' returned her mother quaintly. * Some-
times hot milk is better. Here, where is my share of those
cakes ? ' She helped herself, went around the table, and
sat down. ' Cousin Parnelia was here this morning," she
went on. " Poor old idiot, she was certain that planchette
would tell who it was that stole our chickens. I told
her to go ahead but planchette wouldn't write. Cousin
Parnelia laid it to the blighting atmosphere of skepticism
of this house."
Sylvia laughed again. Alone in the quiet house with her
mother, refreshed by sleep, aroused by her bath, safe, shel-
tered, secure, she tried desperately not to think of the
events of the day before. But in spite of herself they came
back to her in jagged flashes above all, the handsome blond
"Blow, Wind; Swell, Billow; Swim, Bark!" 221
face darkened by passion. She shivered repeatedly, her
voice was quite beyond her control, and once or twice her
hands trembled so that she laid down her knife and fork.
She was silent and talkative by turns a phenomenon of
which Mrs. Marshall took no outward notice, although when
the meal was finished she sent her daughter out into the
piercing December air with the command to walk six miles
before coming in. Sylvia recoiled at the prospect of soli-
tude. " Oh, I'd rather go and skate with Judy and Larry ! '
she cried.
" Well, if you skate hard enough," her mother conceded.
The day after her return Sylvia had a long letter from
Jermain Fiske, a letter half apologetic, half aggrieved, pas-
sionately incredulous of the seriousness of the break be-
tween them, and wholly unreconciled to it. The upshot of
his missive was that he was sorry if he had done anything
to offend her, but might he be everlastingly confounded
if he thought she had the slightest ground for complaint!
Everything had been going on so swimmingly his father
had taken the greatest notion to her had said (the very
evening she'd cut and run that queer way) that if he mar-
ried that rippingly pretty Marshall girl he could have the
house and estate at Mercerton and enough to run it on, and
could practise as much or as little law as he pleased and
go at once into politics and now she had gone and acted
so what in the world was the matter with her weren't
they engaged to be married couldn't an engaged man kiss
his girl had he ever been anything but too polite for words
to her before she had promised to marry him and what
about that promise anyhow? His father had picked out
the prettiest little mare in the stables to give her when the
'engagement should be announced the Colonel was as much
at a loss as he to make her out if the trouble was that
she didn't want to live in Mercerton, he was sure the
Colonel would fix it up for them to go direct to Washing-
ton, where with his father's connection she could imagine
what an opening they'd have ! And above all he was crazy
222 The Bent Twig
about her he really was ! He'd never had any idea what
it was to be in love before he hadn't slept a wink the night
she'd gone away just tossed on his bed and thought of her
and longed to have her in his arms again " Sylvia sud-
denly tore the letter in two and cast it into the fire, breath-
ing hard. In answer she wrote, " It makes me sick to
think of you ! '
She could not endure the idea of " talking over " the ex-
perience with any one, and struggled to keep it out of her
mind, but her resolution to keep silence was broken by
Mrs. Draper, who was informed, presumably by Jermain
himself, of the circumstances, and encountering Sylvia in
the street waited for no invitation to confidence by the girl,
but pounced upon her with laughing reproach and insidi-
ously friendly ridicule. Sylvia, helpless before the graceful
assurance of her friend, heard that she was a silly little
unawakened schoolgirl who was throwing away a bril-
liantly happy and successful life for the queerest and fun-
niest of ignorant notions. " What did you suppose, you
baby? You wouldn't have him marry you unless he was
in love with you, would you? Why do you suppose a man
wants to marry a woman? Did you suppose that men in
love carry their sweethearts around wrapped in cotton-
wool ? You're a woman now, you ought to welcome life
rich, full-blooded life not take this chilly, suspicious atti-
tude toward it! Why, Sylvia, I thought you were a big,
splendid, vital, fearless modern girl and here you are act-
ing like a little, thin-blooded New England old maid. How
can you blame Jerry? He was engaged to you. What do
you think marriage is? Oh, Sylvia, just think what your
life would be in Washington with your beauty and
charm ! '
This dexterously aimed attack penetrated Sylvia's armor
at a dozen joints. She winced visibly, and hung her head,
considering profoundly. She found that she had nothing
to oppose to the other's arguments. Mrs. Draper walked
beside her in a silence as dexterous as her exhortation, her
hand affectionately thrust through Sylvia's arm. Finally,
" Blow, Wind ; Swell, Billow ; Swim, Bark ! " 223
Sylvia's ponderings continuing so long that they were ap-
proaching the Marshall house, in sight of which she had no
mind to appear, she gave Sylvia's arm a little pat, and
stood still. She said cheerfully, in a tone which seemed to
minimize the whole affair into the smallest of passing in-
cidents : " Now, you queer darling, don't stand so in your
own light ! A word would bring Jerry back to you now
but I won't say it will always. I don't suppose you've ever
considered, in your young selfishness, how cruelly you have
hurt his feelings ! He was awfully sore when I saw him.
And Eleanor Hubert is right on the spot with Mamma
Hubert in the background to push."
Sylvia broke her silence to say in a low tone, blushing
scarlet, "He was horrid!'
Mrs. Draper dropped her light tone and said earnestly:
" Dear little ignorant Sylvia you don't recognize life when
you see it. That's the way men are all men and there's
no use thinking it horrid unless you're going into a con-
vent. It's not so bad either, once you get the hang
of managing it it's a hold on them. It's a force, like any
other force of nature that you can either rebel against, or
turn to your account and make serviceable, if you'll only
accept it and not try to quarrel with water for running
downhill. As long as she herself isn't carried away by it,
it's a weapon in the hand of a clever woman. Only the
stupid women get hurt by it the silly ones who can't
keep their heads. And after all, my dear, it is a force of
nature and you're too intelligent not to know that there's
no use fighting against that. It's just idiotic and puritanic
to revolt from it and doesn't do any good besides ! ' She
looked keenly into Sylvia's downcast, troubled face, and
judged it a propitious moment for leaving her. e Good-bye,
darling," she said, with a final pat on the shoulder.
Sylvia walked slowly into the house, her heart like lead.
Her food had no savor to her. She did not know what
she was eating, nor what her mother, the only one at home
for lunch, was saying to her. As a matter of fact Mrs.
Marshall said very little, even less than was her custom.
224 The Bent Twig
Her face had the look of terrible, patient endurance it had
worn during the time when Lawrence had had pneumonia,
and his life had hung in the balance for two days ; but she
went quietly about her usual household tasks.
After the meal was over, Sylvia continued to sit alone
at the table, staring palely down at the tablecloth, her mind
full of Mrs. Draper's illuminating comments on life, which
had gone through her entire system like a dexterously ad-
ministered drug. And yet that ingenious lady would have
been surprised to know how entirely her attack had failed
in the one point which seemed to her important, the possi-
bility of a reconciliation between Sylvia and Jermain. The
girl was deeply under the impression made by the philos-
ophy of the older woman ; she did not for the moment
dream of denying its truth ; but she stood granite in a per-
fectly illogical denial of its implications in her own case.
She did not consciously revolt against the suggestion that
she renew her relations to Jerry Fiske, because with a
united action of all her faculties she refused utterly to
consider it for an instant. She would no more have been
persuaded to see Jerry again, by a consideration of the
material advantages to be gained, than she could have been
persuaded to throw herself down from the housetop. That
much was settled, not by any coherent effort of her brain,
but by a co-ordination of every instinct in her, by the action
of her whole being, by what her life had made her.
But that certainty brought her small comfort in the
blackness of the hour. What hideous world was this in
which she had walked unawares until now ! Mrs. Draper's
jaunty, bright acceptance of it affected her to moral nausea.
All the well-chosen words of her sophisticated friend were
imbedded in the tissue of her brain like grains of sand in
an eyeball. She could not see for very pain. And yet her
inward vision was lurid with the beginning of understand-
ing of the meaning of those words, lighted up as they were
by her experience of the day before, now swollen in her
distraught mind to the proportions of a nightmare: " It's a
weapon in the hand of a clever woman it's not so bad
" Blow, Wind ; Swell, Billow ; Swim, Bark ! " 225
once you get the hang of managing it it's a hold on
men " Sylvia turned whiter and whiter at the glimpse
she had had of what was meant by Mrs. Draper's lightly
evasive " it " ; a comprehension of which all her ' ad-
vanced ' reading and study had left her mind as blankly
ignorant as a little child's. Now it was vain to try to shut
her thoughts away from Jermain. She lived over and over
the scene with him, she endured with desperate passivity
the recollection of his burning lips on her bosom, his
fingers pressing into her side. Why not, if every man was
like that as soon as he dared? Why not, if that was all
that men wanted of women ? Why not, if that was the sole
ghastly reality which underlay the pretty-smooth surface of
life?
And beyond this bleak prospect, which filled her with
dreary horror, there rose glimpsed vistas which sent the
shamed blood up to her face in a flood if every man was
like that, why, so were the men she had known and loved
and trusted ; old Reinhardt, who seemed so simple, what
had been his thoughts when he used years ago to take her
on his knee what were his thoughts now when he bent
over her to correct her mistakes on the piano ?
The expression of Colonel Fiske's eyes, as he had com-
plimented her, brought her to her feet with a shudder but
Colonel Fiske was an old, old man as old as Professor
Kennedy
Why, perhaps Professor Kennedy perhaps she flung
out her arms perhaps her father
She ran to the piano as to a refuge, meaning to drown
out these maddening speculations, which were by this time
tinctured with insanity; but the first chords she struck
jarred on her ear like a discordant scream. She turned
away and stood looking at the floor with a darkening face,
one hand at her temple.
Her mother, darning stockings by the window, suddenly
laid down her work and said : " Sylvia, how would you
like to walk with me over to the Martins' to see if
2a6 The Bent Twig
they have any eggs? Our hens have absolutely gone back
on us."
Sylvia did not welcome this idea at all, feeling as over-
whelming an aversion to companionship as to solitude, but
she could think of no excuse, and in an ungracious silence
put on her wraps and joined her mother, ready on the
porch, the basket in her mittened hand.
Mrs. Marshall's pace was always swift, and on that crisp,
cold, sunny day, with the wind sweeping free over the great
open spaces of the plain about them, she walked even more
rapidly than usual. Not a word was spoken. Sylvia, quite
as tall as her mother now, and as vigorous, stepped be-
side her, not noticing their pace, nor the tingling of the
swift blood in her feet and hands. Her fresh young face
was set in desolate bitterness.
The Martins' house was about six miles from the Mar-
shalls'. It was reached, the eggs procured, and the return
begun. Still not a word had been exchanged between the
two women. Mrs. Marshall would have been easily capable,
under the most ordinary circumstances, of this long self-
contained silence, but it had worked upon Sylvia like a
sojourn in the dim recesses of a church. She felt moved,
stirred, shaken. But it was not until the brief winter sun
was beginning to set red across the open reaches of field
and meadow that her poisoned heart overflowed. ' Oh,
Mother ! " she exclaimed in an unhappy tone, and said
no more. She knew no words to phrase what was in her
mind.
Yes, dear," said her mother gently. She looked at her
daughter anxiously, expectantly, with a passion of yearn-
ing in her eyes, but she said no more than those two words.
There was a silence. Sylvia was struggling for expres-
sion. They continued to walk swiftly through the cold,
ruddy, sunset air, the hard-frozen road ringing beneath
their rapid advance. Sylvia clasped her hands together
hard in her muff. She felt that something in her heart
was dying, was suffocating for lack of air, and yet that it
would die if she brought it to light. She could find no
" Blow, Wind ; Swell, Billow ; Swim, Bark ! " 227
words at all to ask for help, agonizing in a shy reticence
impossible for an adult to conceive. Finally, beginning at
random, very hurriedly, looking away, she brought out,
faltering, " Mother, is it true that all men are that when
a girl marries she must expect to aren't there any men
who " She stopped, burying her burning face in her
muff.
Her words, her tone, the quaver of desperate sincerity in
her accent, brought her mother up short. She stopped
abruptly and faced the girl. " Sylvia, look at me ! ' she
said in a commanding voice which rang loud in the frosty
silences about them. Sylvia started and looked into her
mother's face. It was moved so darkly and so deeply
from its usual serene composure that she would have re-
coiled in fear, had she not been seized upon and held
motionless by the other's compelling eyes.
' Sylvia," said her mother, in a strong, clear voice,
acutely contrasted to Sylvia's muffled tones, "Sylvia, it's a
lie that men are nothing but sensual ! There's nothing in
marriage that a good girl honestly in love with a good
man need fear."
" But but " began Sylvia, startled out of her shy-
ness.
Her mother cut her short. " Anything that's felt by
decent men in love is felt just as truly, though maybe not
always so strongly, by women in love. And if a woman
doesn't feel that answer in her heart to what he feels why,
he's no mate for her. Anything's better for her than going
on. And, Sylvia, you mustn't get the wrong idea. Sensual
feeling isn't bad in itself. It's in the world because we
have bodies as well as minds it's like the root of a plant.
But it oughtn't to be a very big part of the plant. And it
must be the root of the woman's feeling as well as the
man's, or everything's all wrong."
" But how can you tell!" burst out Sylvia.
" You can tell by the way you feel, if you don't lie to
yourself, or let things like money or social position count.
If an honest girl shrinks from a man instinctively, there's
228 The Bent Twig
something not right sensuality is too big a part of what
the man feels for her and look here, Sylvia, that's not
always the man's fault. Women don't realize as they
ought how base it is to try to attract men by their bodies,"
she made her position clear with relentless precision, "when
they wear very low-necked dresses, for instance " At
this chance thrust, a wave of scarlet burst up suddenly over
Sylvia's face, but she could not withdraw her eyes from
her mother's searching, honest gaze, which, even more than
her words, spoke to the girl's soul. The strong, grave
voice went on unhesitatingly. For once in her life Mrs.
Marshall was speaking out. She was like one who wel-
comes the opportunity to make a confession of faith.
" There's no healthy life possible without some sensual
feeling between the husband and wife, but there's nothing
in the world more awful than married life when it's the
only common ground/'
Sylvia gazed with wide eyes at the older woman's face,
ardent, compelling, inspired, feeling too deeply, to realize
it wholly, the vital and momentous character of the moment.
She seemed to see nothing, to be aware of nothing but her
mother's heroic eyes of truth; but the whole scene was
printed on her mind for all her life the hard, brown road
they stood on, the grayed old rail-fence back of Mrs. Mar-
shall, a field of brown stubble, a distant grove of beech-
trees, and beyond and around them the immense sweeping
circle of the horizon. The very breath of the pure, scentless
winter air was to come back to her nostrils in after years.
" Sylvia," her mother went on, " it is one of the responsi-
bilities of men and women to help each other to meet on a
high plane and not on a low one. And on the whole
health's the rule of the world on the whole, that's the
way the larger number of husbands and wives, imperfect as
they are, do live together. Family life wouldn't be possible
a day if they didn't."
Like a strong and beneficent magician, she built up again
and illuminated Sylvia's black and shattered world. Your
father is just as pure a man as I am a woman, and I
"Blow, Wind; Swell, Billow; Swim, Bark!" 229
would be ashamed to look any child of mine in the face if
he were not. You know no men who are not decent
except two and those you did not meet in your parents'
home."
For the first time she moved from her commanding atti-
tude of prophetic dignity. She came closer to Sylvia, but
although she looked at her with a sudden sweetness which
affected Sylvia like a caress, she but made one more im-
personal statement : ' ' Sylvia dear, don't let anything make
you believe that there are not as many decent men in the
world as women, and they're just as decent. Life isn't
worth living unless you know that and it's true." Ap-
parently she had said all she had to say, for she now
kissed Sylvia gently and began again to walk forward.
The sun had completely set, and the piled-up clouds on
the horizon flamed and blazed. Sylvia stood still, looking
at them fixedly. The great shining glory seemed reflected
from her heart, and cast its light upon a regenerated world
a world which she seemed to see for the first time.
Strange, in that moment of intensely personal life, how
her memory was suddenly flooded with impersonal im-
pressions of childhood, little regarded at the time and
long since forgotten, but now recurring to her with the
authentic and uncontrovertible brilliance which only first-
hand experiences in life can bring with them all those
families of her public-school mates, the plain, ugly homes
in and out of which she had come and gone, with eyes
apparently oblivious of all but childish interests, but really
recording life-facts which now in her hour of need stretched
under her feet like a solid pathway across an oozing marsh.
All those men and women whom she had seen in a thousand
unpremeditated acts, those tired-faced, kind-eyed, unlettered
fathers and mothers were not breathing poisoned air, were
not harboring in their simple lives a ghastly devouring wild-
beast. She recalled with a great indrawn breath all the
farmer-neighbors, parents working together for the chil-
dren, the people she knew so well from long observation
of their lives, whose mediocre, struggling existence had
230 The Bent Twig
filled her with scornful pity, but whom now she recalled
with a great gratitude for the explicitness of the revelations
made by their untutored plainness. For all she could ever
know, the Drapers and the Fiskes and the others of their
world might be anything, under the discreet reticence of
their sophistication ; but they did not make up all the world.
She knew, from having breathed it herself, the wind of
health which blew about those other lives, bare and open
to the view, as less artless lives were not. There was some
other answer to the riddle, beside Mrs. Draper's.
Sylvia was only eighteen years old and had the childish
immaturity of her age, but her life had been so ordered that
she was not, even at eighteen, entirely in the helpless posi-
tion of a child who must depend on the word of others.
She had accumulated, unknown to herself, quite apart from
polished pebbles of book-information, a small treasury of
living seeds of real knowledge of life, taken in at first-hand,
knowledge of which no one could deprive her. The realiza-
tion of this was a steadying ballast which righted the wildly
rolling keel under her feet. She held up her head bravely
against the first onslaught of the storm. She set her hand
to the rudder !
Perceiving that her mother had passed on ahead of her
she sprang forward in a run. She ran like a schoolboy, like
a deer, like a man from whose limbs heavy shackles have
been struck off. She felt so suddenly lightened of a great
heaviness that she could have clapped her hands over her
head and bounded into the air. She was, after all, but
eighteen years old, and three years before had been a child.
She came up to her mother with a rush, radiating life.
Mrs. Marshall looked at the glowing face and her own
eyes, dry till then, filled with the tears so rare in her self-
controlled life. She put out her hand, took Sylvia's, and
they sped along through the quick-gathering dusk, hand-
in-hand like sisters.
Judith and Lawrence had reached home before them,
and the low brown house gleamed a cheerful welcome to
them from shining windows. For the first time in her life,
"Blow, Wind; Swell, Billow; Swim, Bark!" 231
Sylvia did not take for granted her home, with all that it
meant. For an instant it looked strangely sweet to her.
She had a passing glimpse, soon afterwards lost in other
impressions, of how in after years she would look back on
the roof which had sheltered and guarded her youth.
She lay awake that night a long time, staring up into the
cold blackness, her mind very active and restless in the
intense stillness about her. She thought confusedly but
intensely of many things the months behind her, of Jerry,
of Mrs. Draper, of her yellow dress, of her mother of
herself. In the lucidity of those silent hours of wakeful-
ness she experienced for a time the piercing, regenerating
thrust of self-knowledge. For a moment the full-beating
pulses of her youth slackened, and between their throbs
there penetrated to her perplexed young heart the rarest
of human emotions, a sincere humility. If she had not
burned the yellow dress at Mercerton, she would have
arisen and burned it that night. . . .
During the rest of the Christmas vacation she avoided
being alone. She and Judith and Lawrence skated a great
deal, and Sylvia learned at last to cut the grapevine pat-
tern on the ice. She also mastered the first movement of
the Sonata Pathetique, so that old Reinhardt was almost
satisfied.
The day after the University opened for the winter term
the Huberts announced the engagement of their daughter
Eleanor to Jermain Fiske, Jr., the brilliant son of that dis-
tinguished warrior and statesman, Colonel Jermain Fiske.
Sylvia read this announcement in the Society Column of the
La Chance Morning Herald, with an enigmatic expression
on her face, and betaking herself to the skating-pond, cut
grapevines with greater assiduity than ever, and with a
degree of taciturnity surprising in a person usually so
talkative. That she had taken the first step away from the
devouring egotism of childhood was proved by the fact that
at least part of the time, this vigorous young creature,
swooping about the icy pond like a swallow, was thinking
pityingly of Eleanor Hubert's sweet face.
CHAPTER XXI
SOME YEARS DURING WHICH NOTHING
HAPPENS
JUDITH had said to the family, taking no especial pains
that her sister should not hear her, " Well, folks, now that
Sylvia's got through with that horrid Fiske fellow, I do
hope we'll all have some peace ! ' a remark which proved
to be a prophecy. They all, including Sylvia herself, knew
the tranquillity of an extended period of peace.
It began abruptly, like opening a door into a new room.
Sylvia had dreaded the beginning of the winter term and
the inevitable sight of Jerry, the enforced crossings of
their paths. But Jerry never returned to his classes at all.
The common talk was to the effect that the Colonel had
" worked his pull " to have Jerry admitted to the bar with-
out further preliminaries. After some weeks of relief, it
occurred to Sylvia that perhaps Jerry had dreaded meet-
ing her as much as she had seeing him. For whatever rea-
son, the campus saw young Fiske no more, except on the
day in May when he passed swiftly across it on his way to
the Hubert house where Eleanor, very small and white-
faced, waited for him under a crown of orange blossoms.
Sylvia did not go to the wedding, although an invitation
had come, addressed economically and compendiously to
" Professor and Mrs. Marshall and family." It was a
glorious spring day and in her Greek history course they
had just reached the battle of Salamis, at the magnificent
recital of which Sylvia's sympathetic imagination leaped up
rejoicing, as all sympathetic imaginations have for all these
many centuries. She was thrilling to a remembered bit
of " The Persians " as she passed by the Hubert house late
that afternoon. She was chanting to herself, The right
232
Years During Which Nothing Happens 233
wing, well marshaled, led on foremost in good order, and
we heard a mighty shout ' Sons of the Greeks ! On !
Free your country ! * She did not notice that she trod
swiftly across a trail of soiled rice in the Hubert drive-
way.
She was like a person recovered from a fever who finds
mere health a condition of joy. She went back to her music,
to her neglected books, with a singing heart. And in ac-
cordance with the curious ways of Providence, noted in the
proverb relating the different fates of him who hath and
him who hath not, there was at once added to her pleasure
in the old elements of her life the very elements she had
longed for unavailingly. Seeing her friendly and shining
of face, friendliness went out to her. She had made many
new acquaintances during her brief glittering flight and had
innumerable more points of contact with the University life
than before. She was invited to a quite sufficient number of
hops and proms, had quite the normal number of masculine
' callers," and was naively astonished and disillusioned to
find that those factors in life were by no means as entirely
desirable and amusing as her anguished yearning had fan-
cied them. She joined one of the literary societies and took
a leading part in their annual outdoor play. At the begin-
ning of her Junior year, Judith entered as a Freshman and
thereafter became a close companion. Sylvia devoured cer-
tain of her studies, history, and English, and Greek, with
insatiable zest and cast aside certain others like political
economy and physics, which bored her, mastering just
enough of their elements to pass an examination and
promptly forgetting them thereafter. She grew rapidly in
intellectual agility and keenness, not at all in philosophical
grasp, and emotionally remained as dormant as a potato in
a cellar.
She continually looked forward with a bright, vague in-
terest to " growing up," to the mastery of life which
adolescents so trustfully associate with the arrival of adult
years. She spent three more years in college, taking a Mas-
ter's degree after her B.A., and during those three years,
234 The Bent Twig
through the many-colored, shifting, kaleidoscopic, disor-
ganized life of an immensely populous institution of learn-
ing, she fled with rapid feet, searching restlessly everywhere
for that entity, as yet non-existent, her own soul.
She had, in short, a thoroughly usual experience of mod-
ern American education, emerging at the end with a vast
amount of information, with very little notion of what it
was all about, with Phi Beta Kappa and a great wonder
what she was to do with herself.
Up to that moment almost every step of her life had
been ordered and systematized, that she might the more
quickly and surely arrive at the goal of her diploma. Rush-
ing forward with the accumulated impetus of years of
training in swiftly speeding effort, she flashed by the goal
. . . and stopped short, finding herself in company with a
majority of her feminine classmates in a blind alley.
' Now what ? ' they asked each other with sinking hearts.
Judith looked over their heads with steady eyes which saw
but one straight and narrow path in life, and passed on by
them into the hospital where she began her nurse's training.
Sylvia began to teach music to a few children, to take on
some of Reinhardt's work as he grew older. She prac-
tised assiduously, advanced greatly in skill in music, read
much, thought acutely, rebelliously and not deeply, helped
Lawrence with his studies . . . and watched the clock.
For there was no denying that the clock stood still. She
was not going forward to any settled goal now, she was
not going forward at all. She was as far from suspecting
any ordered pattern in the facts of life as when she had
been in college, surrounded by the conspiracy of silence
about a pattern in facts which university professors so con-
scientiously keep up before their students. She was slowly
revolving in an eddy. Sometimes she looked at the deep,
glowing content of her father and mother with a fierce re-
sentment. ' How can they ! " she cried to herself. At
other times she tried to chide herself for not being as con-
tented herself, " . . . but it's their life they're living," she
said moodily, ' ' and I haven't any to live. I can't live on
Years During Which Nothing Happens 235
their happiness any more than the beefsteaks somebody
else has eaten can keep me from starving to death."
The tradition of her life was that work and plenty of it
would keep off all uneasiness, that it was a foolishness, not
to say a downright crime, to feel uneasiness. So she prac-
tised many hours a day, and took a post-graduate course in
early Latin. But the clock stood still.
One of the assistants in her father's department pro-
posed to her. She refused him automatically, with a won-
dering astonishment at his trembling hands and white lips.
Decidedly the wheels of the clock would never begin to
revolve.
And then it struck an hour, loudly. Aunt Victoria wrote
inviting Sylvia to spend a few weeks with her during the
summer at Lydford.
Sylvia read this letter aloud to her mother on the vine-
covered porch where she had sat so many years before, and
repeated " star-light, star-bright " until she had remembered
Aunt Victoria. Mrs. Marshall watched her daughter's face
as she read, and through the tones of the clear eager voice
she heard the clock striking. It sounded to her remarkably
like a tolling bell, but she gave no sign beyond a slight
paling. She told herself instantly that the slowly ticking
clock had counted her out several years of grace beyond
what a mother may expect. When Sylvia finished and
looked up, the dulled look of resignation swept from her
face by the light of adventurous change, her mother
achieved the final feat of nodding her head in prompt,
cheerful assent.
But when Sylvia went away, light-hearted, fleeting
forward to new scenes, there was in her mother's farewell
kiss a solemnity which she could not hide. ' Oh, Mother
dear!" protested Sylvia, preferring as always to skim over
the depths which her mother so dauntlessly plumbed. ' Oh,
Mother darling ! How can you be so when it's only for a
few weeks ! "
BOOK III
IN CAPUA AT LAST
CHAPTER XXII
A GRATEFUL CARTHAGINIAN
ARNOLD SMITH put another lump of sugar on his saucer,
poured out a very liberal allowance of rum into his tea,
and reached for a sandwich, balancing the cup and saucer
with a deftness out of keeping with his long, ungraceful
loose-jointedness. He remarked in an indifferent tone to
Sylvia, back of the exquisitely appointed tea-tray : " I don't
say anything because I haven't the least idea what you are
talking about. Who was Capua, anyhow ? '
Sylvia broke into a peal of laughter which rang like a
silver chime through the vine-shaded, airy spaces of the
pergola. Old Mr. Sommerville, nosing about in his usual
five-o'clock quest, heard her and came across the stretch of
sunny lawn to investigate. " Oh, here's tea! " he remarked
on seeing Arnold, lounging, white-flanneled, over his cup.
He spoke earnestly, as was his custom when eating was in
question, and Sylvia served him earnestly and carefully,
with an instant harmonious response to his mood, putting
in exactly the right amount of rum and sugar to suit his
taste, and turning the slim-legged " curate's assistant ' so
that his favorite sandwiches were nearest him.
: You spoil the old gentlemen, Sylvia," commented Ar-
nold, evidently caring very little whether she did or not.
' She spoils everybody," returned Mr. Sommerville, tast-
ing his tea complacently ; ' f c'est son metier.' She has an
uncanny instinct for suiting everybody's taste."
Sylvia smiled brightly at him, exactly the brilliant smile
237
238 The Bent Twig
which suited her brilliant, frank face and clear, wide-open
eyes. Under her smile she was saying to herself, " If that's
so, I wonder not that I care at all but I really wonder
why you don't like me."
Sylvia was encountering for the first time this summer
a society guided by tradition and formula, but she was not
without excellent preparation for almost any contact with
her fellow-beings, a preparation which in some ways served
her better than that more conscious preparation of young
ladies bred up from childhood to sit behind tea-tables and
say the right things to tea-drinkers. Association with the
crude, outspoken youth at the State University had been an
education in human nature, especially masculine nature, for
her acute mind. Her unvarnished association with the
other sex in classroom and campus had taught her, by means
of certain rough knocks which more sheltered boarding-
school girls never get, an accuracy of estimate as to the
actual feeling of men towards the women they profess to
admire unreservedly which (had he been able to conceive
of it) old Mr. Sommerville would have thought nothing
less than cynical.
But he did not conceive of it, and now sat, mellowed by
the Tightness of his tea, white-haired, smooth-shaven, pink-
gilled, white-waistcoated, the picture of old age at its best,
as he smiled gallantly at the extremely pretty girl behind the
table. Unlike Sylvia he knew exactly why he did not like
her and he wasted no time in thinking about it. " What
were you laughing about, so delightfully, as I came in, eh ? '
he asked, after the irretrievable first moment of joy in
gratified appetite had gone.
Sylvia had not the slightest backwardness about explain-
ing. In fact she always took the greatest pains to be ex-
plicit with old Mr. Sommerville about the pit from which
she had been digged. " Why, this visit to Aunt Victoria
is like stepping into another world for me. Everything is
so different from my home-life. I was just thinking, as I
sat there behind all this glorious clutter," she waved a slim
hand over the silver and porcelain of the tea-table, " what
A Grateful Carthaginian 239
a change it was from setting the table one's self and wash-
ing up the dishes afterwards. That's what we always do
at home. I hated it and I said to Arnold, ' I've reached
Capua at last ! ' and he said," she stopped to laugh again,
heartily, full-throated, the not-to-be-imitated laugh of gen-
uine amusement, " he said, 'Who is Capua, anyhow?'
Mr. Sommerville laughed, but grudgingly, with an im-
patient shake of his white head and an uneasy look in his
eyes. For several reasons he did not like to hear Sylvia
laugh at Arnold. He distrusted a young lady with too keen
a sense of humor, especially when it was directed towards
the cultural deficiencies of a perfectly eligible young man.
To an old inhabitant of the world, with Mr. Sommerville's
views as to the ambitions of a moneyless young person,
enjoying a single, brief fling in the world of young men
with fortunes, it seemed certain that Sylvia's lack of tactful
reticence about Arnold's ignorance could only be based on
a feeling that Arnold's fortune was not big enough. She
was simply, he thought with dismay, reserving her tact and
reticence for a not-impossible bigger. His apprehensions
about the fate of a bigger of his acquaintance if its owner
ever fell into the hands of this altogether too well-informed
young person rose to a degree which almost induced him to
cry out, " Really, you rapacious young creature, Arnold's is
all any girl need ask, ample, well-invested, solid. . . ." But
instead he said, " Humph ! Rather a derogatory remark
about your surroundings, eh ? '
Arnold did not understand, did not even hear, leaning
back, long, relaxed, apathetic, in his great wicker-chair and
rolling a cigarette with a detached air, as though his hands
were not a part of him. But Sylvia heard, and under-
stood, even to the hostility in the old gentleman's well-
bred voice. ' Being in Capua usually referring to the fact
that the Carthaginians went to pieces that winter ? " she
asked. ' Oh yes, of course I know that. Good gracious ! I
was brought up on the idea of the dangers of being in
Capua. Perhaps that's why I always thought it would be
such fun to get there." She spoke rebelliously.
240 The Bent Twig
" They got everlastingly beaten by the Romans," ad-
vanced Mr. Sommerville.
" Yes, but they had had one grand good time before !
The Romans couldn't take that away from them! I think
the Carthaginians got the best of it ! ' Provocative, light-
hearted malice was in her sparkling face. She was think-
ing to herself with the reckless bravado of youth, ' Well,
since he insists, I'll give him some ground for distrusting
my character ! '
Arnold suddenly emitted a great puff of smoke and a
great shout of " Help ! help ! Molly to the rescue ! ' and
when a little white-clad creature flitting past the door
turned and brought into that quiet spot of leafy shadow
the dazzling quickness of her smile, her eyes, her golden
hair, he said to her nonchalantly : ' Just in time to head
them off. Sylvia and your grandfather were being so high-
brow I was beginning to feel faint."
Molly laughed flashingly. " Did Grandfather keep his
end up ? I bet he couldn't ! '
Arnold professed an entire ignorance of the relative
status. " Oh, I fell off so far back I don't know who got in
first. Who was this man Capua, anyhow? I'm a graduate
of Harvard University and I never heard of him."
" I'm a graduate of Miss Braddon's Mountain School for
Girls," said Molly, " and / think it's a river."
Mr. Sommerville groaned out, exaggerating a real qualm,
" What my mother would have said to such ignorance,
prefaced by ' I bet ! ' from the lips of a young lady ! '
" Your mother," said Molly, " would be my great-grand-
mother ! " She disposed of him conclusively by this state-
ment and went on : " And I'm not a young lady. Nobody
is nowadays."
" What are you, if a mere grandfather may venture to
inquire ? " asked Mr. Sommerville deferentially.
" I'm a femme watt-man," said Molly, biting a large
piece from a sandwich.
Arnold explained to the others : " That's Parisian for a
lady motor-driver ; some name ! '
A Grateful Carthaginian 241
" Well, you won't be that, or anything else alive, if you go
on driving your car at the rate I saw it going past the house
this morning," said her grandfather. He spoke with an
assumption of grandfatherly severity, but his eyes rested on
her with a grandfather's adoration.
" Oh, I'd die if I went under thirty-five," observed Miss
Sommerville negligently.
" Why, Mr. Sommerville," Arnold backed up his gen-
eration. " You can't call thirty-five per hour dangerous,
not for a girl who can drive like Molly."
" Oh, I'm as safe as if I were in a church," continued
Molly. " I keep my mind on it. If I ever climb a telegraph-
pole you can be sure it'll be because I wanted to. I never
take my eye off the road, never once."
" How you must enjoy the landscape," commented her
grandfather.
" Heavens ! I don't drive a car to look at the landscape ! '
cried Molly, highly amused at the idea, apparently quite
new to her.
" Will you gratify the curiosity of the older generation
once more, and tell me what you do drive a car for?'' in-
quired old Mr. Sommerville, looking fondly at the girl's
lovely face, like a pink-flushed pearl.
" Why, I drive to see how fast I can go, of course," ex-
plained Molly. " The fun of it is to watch the road eaten
up."
" It is fascinating," Sylvia gave the other girl an un-
expected reinforcement. ' I've driven with Molly, and I've
been actually hypnotized seeing the road vanish under the
wheels."
" Oh, children, children ! When you reach my age,"
groaned Arnold, "and have eaten up as many thousand
miles as I, you'll stay at home."
" I've driven for three years now," asserted Molly, " and
every time I buy a new car I get the craze all over again.
This one I have now is a peach of an eight. I never want
to drive a six again, never! I can bring it up from a
creep to to fast enough to scare Grandfather into a fit,
242 The Bent Twig
without changing gears at all just on the throttle "
She broke off to ask, as at a sudden recollection, " What
was it about Capua, anyhow ? ' She went to sit beside
Sylvia, and put her arm around her shoulder in a caressing
gesture, evidently familiar to her.
' It wasn't about Capua at all," explained Sylvia indul-
gently, patting the lovely cheek, as though the other girl had
been a child. ' It was your grandfather rinding out what
a bad character I am ; and how I wallow in luxury, now I
have the chance."
' Luxury ? ' inquired Molly, looking about her rather
blankly.
Sylvia laughed, this time with a little veiled, pensive note
of melancholy, lost on the others but which she herself
found very touching. ' There, you see you're so used to it,
you don't even know what I'm talking about ! '
" Never mind, Molly," Arnold reassured her. " Neither
do I ! Don't try to follow ; let it float by, the way I do ! '
Miss Sommerville did not smile. She thrust out her red
lips in a wistful pout, and looking down into the sugar-bowl
intently, she remarked, her voice as pensive as Sylvia's
own: " I wish I did! I wish I understood! I wish I were
as clever as Sylvia ! '
As if in answer to this remark, another searcher after
tea announced himself from the door a tall, distinguished,
ugly, graceful man, who took a very fine Panama hat from
a very fine head of brown hair, slightly graying, and said
in. a rich, cultivated voice : " Am I too late for tea ? I don't
mind at all if it's strong."
" Oh ! ' said Molly Sommerville, flushing and drawing
away from Sylvia; "Lord!' muttered Arnold under his
breath ; and " Not at all. I'll make some fresh. I haven't
had mine yet," said Sylvia, busying herself with the alcohol
flame.
" How're you, Morrison?" said Mr. Sommerville with
no enthusiasm, holding out a well-kept old hand for the
other to shake.
Arnold stood up, reached under his chair, and pulled out
A Grateful Carthaginian 243
a tennis racquet. ' Excuse me, Morrison, won't you, if I
run along ? " he said. ' It's not because you've come. I
want a set of tennis before dinner if I can find somebody
to play with me. Here, Molly, you've got your tennis shoes
on already. Come along."
The little beauty shook her head violently. ' No . . .
goodness no ! It's too hot. And anyhow, I don't ever
want to play again, since I've seen Sylvia's game." She
turned to the other girl, breathing quickly. ' You go, Sylvia
dear. I'll make Mr. Morrison's tea for him."
Sylvia hesitated a barely perceptible instant, until she saw
old Mr. Sommerville's eyes fixed speculatively on her.
Then she stood up with an instant, cheerful alacrity.
" That's awfully good of you, Molly darling ! You won't
mind, will you, Mr. Morrison ! ' She nodded brightly to
the old gentleman, to the girl who had slipped into her
place, to the other man, and was off.
The man she had left looked after her, as she trod with
her long, light step beside the young man, and murmured,
' Et vera incessu patult dea."
Molly moved a plate on the table with some vehemence.
" I suppose Sylvia would understand that language."
" She would, my dear Molly, and what's more, she would
scorn me for using such a hackneyed quotation." To Mr.
Sommerville he added, laughing, " Isn't it the quaintest
combination such radiant girlhood and her absurd book-
learning ! '
Mr. Sommerville gave his assent to the quaintness by
silence, as he rose and prepared to retreat.
' Good-bye, Grandfather," said Molly with enthusiasm.
As they walked along, Arnold was saying to Sylvia with
a listless appreciation : ' You certainly know the last word
of the game, don't you, Sylvia? I bet Morrison hasn't had
a jolt like that for years."
" What are you talking about ? ' asked Sylvia, perhaps
slightly overdoing her ignorance of his meaning.
" Why, it's a new thing for him, let me tell you, to have
244 The Bent Twig
a girl jump up as soon as he comes in and delightedly leave
him to another girl. And then to thank the other girl for
being willing to take him off your hands, that's more than
knowing the rules, that's art ! ' He laughed faintly at
the recollection. " It's a new one for Morrison to meet a
girl who doesn't kowtow. He's a very great personage in
his line, and he can't help knowing it. The very last word
on Lord-knows-what-all in the art business is what one
Felix Morrison says about it. He's an eight-cylinder
fascinator too, into the bargain. Mostly he makes me sore,
but when I think about him straight, I wonder how he
manages to keep on being as decent as he is he's really
a good enough sort ! with all the high-powered petti-
coats in New York burning incense. It's enough to turn
the head of a hydrant. That's the hold Madrina has on
him. She doesn't burn any incense. She wants all the
incense there is being burned, for herself; and it keeps old
Felix down in his place keeps him hanging around too.
You stick to the same method if you want to make a go
of it."
" I thought he wrote. I thought he did aesthetic criticisms
and essays," said Sylvia, laughing aloud at Arnold's quaint
advice.
" Oh, he does. I guess he's chief medicine-man in his
tribe all right. It's not only women who kowtow ; when old
man Merriman wants to know for sure whether to pay a
million for a cracked Chinese vase, he always calls in Felix
Morrison. Chief adviser to the predatory rich, that's one
of his jobs! So you see," he came back to his first point,
' it must be some jolt for the sacred F. M. to have a young
lady, just a young lady, refuse to bow at the shrine. You
couldn't have done a smarter trick, by heck ! I've been
watching you all those weeks, just too tickled for words.
And I've been watching Morrison. It's been as good as a
play! He can't stick it out much longer, unless I miss
my guess, and I've known him ever since I was a kid. He's
just waiting for a good chance to turn on the faucet and
hand you a full cup of his irresistible fascination." He
A Grateful Carthaginian 245
added carelessly, bouncing a ball up and down on the tense
catgut of his racquet : " What all you girls see in that old
wolf-hound, to lose your heads over ! It gets me ! '
"Why in the world 'wolf-hound'?" asked Sylvia.
" Oh, just as to his looks. He has that sort of tired,
dignified, deep-eyed look a big dog has. I bet his eyes
would be phosphorescent at night too. They are that kind ;
don't you know, when you strike a match in the evening,
how a dog's eyes glow? It's what makes 'em look so
soft and deep in the daytime. But as to his innards no,
Lord no ! Whatever else Morrison is he's not a bit like
any dog that ever lived first cousin to a fish, I should
say."
Sylvia laughed. " Why not make it grizzly bear, to take
in the rest of the animal kingdom ? '
" No," persisted Arnold. " Now I've thought of it, I
mean fish, a great big, wise old fellow, who lives in a deep
pool and won't rise to any ordinary fly." He made a
brain- jolting change of metaphor and went on: *' The plain
truth, and it's not so low-down as it seems, is that a big
fat check-book is admission to the grandstand with Felix.
It has to be that way! He hasn't got much of his own,
and his tastes are some "
" Molly must be sitting in the front row, then," com-
mented Sylvia indifferently, as though tired of the sub-
ject. They were now at the tennis-court. ' Run over to
the summer-house and get my racquet, will you? It's on
the bench."
" Yes, Molly's got plenty of money," Arnold admitted
as he came back, his accent implying some other lack which
he forgot to mention, absorbed as he at once became in
coping with his adversary's strong, swift serve.
The change in him, as he began seriously to play, was
startling, miraculous. His slack loose-jointedness stiffened
into quick, flexible accuracy, his lounging, flaccid air dis-
appeared in a glow of concentrated vigorous effort. The
bored good-nature in his eyes vanished, burned out by a
stern, purposeful intensity. He was literally and visibly
246 The Bent Twig
another person. Sylvia played her best, which was excel-
lent, far better than that of any other girl in the summer
colony. She had been well trained by her father and her
gymnasium instructor, and played with an economy of
effort delightful to see; but she was soon driven by her
opponent's tiger-like quickness into putting out at once her
every resource. There, in the slowly fading light of the
long mountain afternoon, the two young Anglo-Saxons
poured out their souls in a game with the immemorial in-
stinct of their race, fierce, grim, intent, every capacity of
body and will-power brought into play, everything else in
the world forgotten. . . .
For some time they were on almost equal terms, and
then Sylvia became aware that her adversary was getting
the upper hand of her. She had, however, no idea what
the effort was costing him, until after a blazing fire of im-
possibly rapid volleys under which she went down to de-
feat, she stopped, called out, "Game and set!" and added
in a generous tribute, " Say, you can play ! ' Then she
saw that his face was almost purple, his eyes bloodshot, and
his breath came in short, gasping pants. ' Good gracious,
what's the matter ! ' she cried, running towards him in
alarm. She was deeply flushed herself, but her eyes were
as clear as clear water, and she ran with her usual fawn-
like swiftness. Arnold dropped on the bench, waving her a
speechless reassurance. With his first breath he said,
" Gee ! but you can hit it up, for a girl ! '
"What's the matter with you?' Sylvia asked again,
sitting down beside him.
" Nothing ! Nothing ! " he panted. " My wind ! It's con-
foundedly short." He added a moment later, " It's tobacco
this is the sort of time the cigarettes get back at you,
you know ! " The twilight dropped slowly about them like
a thin, clear veil. He thrust out his feet, shapely in their
well-made white shoes, surveyed them with dissatisfaction,
and added with moody indifference : ' And cocktails too.
They play the dickens with a fellow's wind."
Sylvia said nothing for a moment, looking at him by no
A Grateful Carthaginian 247
means admiringly. Her life in the State University had
brought her into such incessant contact with young men
that the mere fact of sitting beside one in the twilight
left her unmoved to a degree which Mr. Sommerville's
mother would have found impossible to imagine. When
she spoke, it was with an impatient scorn of his weakness,
which might have been felt by a fellow-athlete : ' What
in the world makes you do it, then ? '
1 Why not ? ' he said challengingly.
You've just said why not it spoils your tennis.
It must spoil your polo. Was that what spoiled your
baseball in college? You'd be twice the man if you
wouldn't."
1 Oh, what's the use ? ' he said, an immense weariness
in his voice.
What's the use of anything, if you are going to use
that argument?' said Sylvia, putting him down con-
clusively.
He spoke with a sudden heartfelt simplicity, " Damn 'f I
know, Sylvia." For the first time in all the afternoon, his
voice lost its tonelessness, and rang out with the resonance
of sincerity.
She showed an unflattering surprise. ' Why, I didn't
know you ever thought about such things."
He looked at her askance, dimly amused. " High opinion
you have of me ! '
She looked annoyed at herself and said with a genuine
good-will in her voice, " Why, Arnold, you know I've al-
ways liked you."
You like me, but you don't think much of me," he
diagnosed her, ' and you show your good sense." He
looked up at the picturesque white house, spreading its
well-proportioned bulk on the top of the terraced hillside
before them. ' I hope Madrina is looking out of a window
and sees us here, our heads together in the twilight. You've
guessed, I suppose, that she had you come on here for my
benefit. She thinks she's tried everything else, now
it's her idea to get me safely married. She'd have one
248 The Bent Twig
surprise, wouldn't she, if she could hear what we're
saying ! '
" Well, it would be a good thing for you/' remarked
Sylvia, as entirely without self-consciousness as though
they were discussing the tennis game.
He was tickled by her coolness. ' Well, Madrina sure
made a mistake when she figured on you!" he commented
ironically. And then, not having been subjected to the
cool, hardy conditions which caused Sylvia's present clear-
headedness, he felt his blood stirred to feel her there, so
close, so alive, so young, so beautiful in the twilight. He
leaned towards her and spoke in a husky voice, " See here,
Sylvia, why don't you try it ! '
" Oh, nonsense ! ' : said the girl, not raising her voice at
all, not stirring. ; You don't care a bit for me."
" Yes, I do ! I've always liked you ! ' he said, not per-
ceiving till after the words were out of his mouth that he
had repeated her own phrase.
She laughed to hear it, and he drew back, his faint stir-
ring of warmth dashed, extinguished. ' The fact is,
Sylvia," he said, " you're too nice a girl to fall in love
with."
" What a horrid thing to say ! " she exclaimed.
"About you?" he defended himself. "I mean it as a
compliment."
" About falling in love," she said.
" Oh ! " he said blankly, evidently not at all following her
meaning.
"What time is it?' she now inquired, and on hearing
the hour, " Oh, we'll be late to dress for dinner," she said
in concern, rising and ascending the marble steps to the
terrace next above them.
He came after her, long, loose-jointed, ungraceful. He
was laughing. " Do you realize that I've proposed marriage
to you and you've turned me down ? ' ' he said.
"No such a thing!" she said, as lightly as he.
" It's the nearest / ever came to it ! " he averred.
She continued to flit up the terraces before him, her
A Grateful Carthaginian 249
voice rippling with amusement dropping down on him
through the dusk. ' Well, you'll have to come nearer than
that, if you ever want to make a go of it ! " she called over
her shoulder. Upon which note this very modern con-
versation ended.
CHAPTER XXIII
MORE TALK BETWEEN YOUNG MODERNS
WHEN they met at dinner, they laughed outright at the
sight of one another, a merry and shadowless laugh. For
an instant they looked like light-hearted children. The
change of Arnold's long sallow face was indeed so notice-
able that Mrs. Marshall-Smith glanced sharply at him, and
then looked again with great satisfaction. She leaned to
Sylvia and laid her charming white hand affectionately
over the girl's slim, strong, tanned fingers. " It's just a joy
to have you here, my dear. You're brightening us stupid,
bored people like fresh west wind ! ' She went on address-
ing herself to the usual guest of the evening : " Isn't it al-
ways the most beautiful sight, Felix, how the mere presence
of radiant youth can transform the whole atmosphere of
life ! "
' I hadn't noticed that my radiant youth had trans-
formed much," commented Arnold dryly ; " and Sylvia's
only a year younger than I."
He was, as usual, disregarded by the course of the con-
versation. Yes, sunshine in a shady place . . ." quoted
Morrison, in his fine mellow tenor, looking at Sylvia. It
was a wonderful voice, used with discretion, with a fine
instinct for moderation which would have kept the haunt-
ing beauty of its intonations from seeming objectionable
or florid to any but American ears. In spite of the
invariable good taste with which it was used, American
men, accustomed to the toneless speech of the race, and
jealously suspicious of anything approaching art in every-
day life, distrusted Morrison at the first sound of his voice.
Men who were his friends (and they were many) were in
the habit of rather apologizing for those rich and harmo-
250
More Talk Between Young Moderns 251
nious accents. The first time she had heard it, Sylvia had
thought of the G string of old Reinhardt's violin.
" I never in my life saw anything that looked less like a
shady place," observed Sylvia, indicating with an admiring
gesture the table before them, gleaming and flashing its
glass and silver and close-textured, glossy damask up into
the light.
" It's morally that we're so shady! " said Arnold, admir-
ing his own wit so much that he could not refrain from
adding, "Not so bad, what?' The usual conversation at
his stepmother's table was, as he would have said, so pes-
tilentially high-brow that he seldom troubled himself to
follow it enough to join in. Arnold was in the habit of
dubbing ' ' high-brow ' ' anything bearing on aesthetics ; and
Mrs. Marshall-Smith's conversational range hardly extend-
ing at all outside of aesthetics of one kind or another, com-
munication between these two house-mates of years' stand-
ing was for the most part reduced to a primitive simplicity
for which a sign-language would have sufficed. Arnold's
phrase for the situation was, " I let Madrina alone, and she
don't bother me." But now, seeing that neither the fagade
of Rouen, nor the influence of Chardin on Whistler, had
been mentioned, his unusual loquacity continued. " Well, if
one west wind (I don't mean that as a slam on Sylvia for
coming from west of the Mississippi) has done us so much
good, why not have another ? " he inquired. " Why couldn't
Judith come on and make us a visit too? It would be fun
to have a scrap with her again." He explained to Mor-
rison : " She's Sylvia's younger sister, and we always quar-
reled so, as kids, that after we'd been together half an
hour the referee had to shoulder in between and tell us,
* Nix on biting in clinches.' She was great, all right, Judith
was ! How is she now ? ' he asked Sylvia. " I've been
meaning ever so many times to ask you about her, and
something else has seemed to come up. I can't imagine
Judy grown up. She hasn't pinned up that great long
braid, has she, that used to be so handy to pull ? '
Sylvia took the last of her soup, put the spoon on the
252 The Bent Twig
plate, and launched into a description of Judith, one of
her favorite topics. " Oh, Judith's just fine! You ought
to see her ! She's worth ten of me : she has such lots of
character ! And handsome ! You never saw anything like
Judith's looks. Yes, she's put her hair up ! She's twenty
years old now, what do you suppose she does with her hair?
She wears it in a great smooth braid all around her head.
And she has such hair, Aunt Victoria ! ' She turned from
Arnold to another woman, as from some one who would
know nothing of the fine shades of the subject. " No short
hairs at all, you know, like everybody else, that will hang
down and look untidy ! ' She pulled with an explanatory
petulance at the soft curls which framed her own face in
an aureole of light. " Hers is all long and smooth, and the
color like a fresh chestnut, just out of the burr; and her
nose is like a Greek statue she is a Greek statue ! '
She had been carried by her affectionate enthusiasm out
of her usual self-possession, her quick divination of
how she was affecting everybody, and now, suddenly find-
ing Morrison's eyes on her with an expression she did not
recognize, she was brought up short. What had she said
to make him look at her so oddly?
He answered her unspoken question at once, his voice
making his every casual word of gold : ( I am thinking
that I am being present at a spectacle which cynics say is
impossible, the spectacle of a woman delighting and with
the most obvious sincerity in the beauty of another."
" Oh ! 5: said Sylvia, relieved to know that the odd look
concealed no criticism, " I didn't know that anybody nowa-
days made such silly Victorian generalizations about
woman's cattiness, anybody under old Mr. Sommerville's
age, that is. And anyhow, Judith's my sister."
' Cases of sisters, jealous of each other's good looks,
have not been entirely unknown to history," said Morrison,
smiling and beginning to eat his fish with a delicate relish.
" Well, if Judy's so all-fired good-looking, let's have her
come on, Madrina," said Arnold. " With her and Sylvia
together, we'd crush Lydford into a pulp." He attacked
More Talk Between Young Moderns 253
his plate with a straggling fork, eating negligently, as he
did everything else.
" She has a standing invitation, of course/* said Mrs.
Marshall-Smith. " Indeed, I wrote the other day, asking
her if she could come here instead of to La Chance for
her vacation. It's far nearer for her."
" Oh, Judith couldn't waste time to go visiting," said
Sylvia. " I've told you she is worth ten of me. She's on
the home-stretch of her trained-nurse's course now. She
has only two weeks' vacation."
" She's going to be a trained nurse ? ' asked Arnold in
surprise, washing down a large mouthful of fish with a
large mouthful of wine. " What the dickens does she do
that for?"
" Why, she's crazy about it, ever since she was a little
girl, fifteen years old and first saw the inside of a hospital.
That's just Judith, so splendid and purposeful, and
single-minded. I wish to goodness I knew what I want
to do with myself half so clearly as she always has."
If she had, deep under her consciousness, a purpose to
win more applause from Morrison, by more disinterested
admiration of Judith's good points, she was quite rewarded
by the quickness with which he championed her against her
own depreciation. ' I've always noticed," he said medita-
tively, slowly taking a sip from his wine-glass, ' that no-
body can be single-minded who isn't Marrow-minded ; and
I think it likely that people who aren't so cocksure what
they want to do with themselves, hesitate because they have
a great deal more to do with. A nature rich in fine and
complex possibilities takes more time to dispose of itself,
but when it does, the world's beauty is the gainer." He
pointed the reference frankly by a smile at Sylvia, who
flushed with pleasure and looked down at her plate. She
was surprised at the delight which his leisurely, whim-
sically philosophical little speech gave her. She forgot
to make any answer, absorbed as she was in poring over
it and making out new meanings in it. How he had
understood at less than a word the secret uncertainty of
254 The Bent Twig
herself which so troubled her; and with what astonishing
sureness he had known what to say to reassure her, to make
her see clear ! And then, her quick mind leaped to an-
other significance. . . . All during these past weeks when
she had been falling more and more under the fascination
of his personality, when she had been piqued at his dis-
regard of her, when she had thought he found her " young,"
and had bracketed her carelessly with Arnold, he had been
in reality watching her, he had found her interesting enough
to observe her, to study her, to have a theory about her
character; and having done all that, to admire her as she
admired him. Never in her life had she been the recipient
of flattery so precisely to her taste. Her glow of pleasure
was so warm that she suddenly distrusted her own judg-
ment, she looked up at him quickly to see if she had not
mistaken his meaning, had not absurdly exaggerated the
degree to which he ... she found his eyes on hers, deep-
set, shadowy eyes which did not, as she looked up, either
smile or look away. Under cover of a rather wrangling dis-
cussion between Arnold and his stepmother as to having
some champagne served, the older man continued to look
steadily into Sylvia's eyes, with the effect of saying to her,
gravely, kindly, intimately : Yes, I am here. You did
not know how closely you have drawn me to you, but here
I am." Across the table, across the lights, the service, the
idle talk of the other two, she felt him quietly, ever so
gently but quite irresistibly, open an inner door of her
nature . . . and she welcomed him in.
After dinner, when Mrs. Marshall-Smith lifted her eye-
brows at Sylvia and rose to go, Arnold made no bones of
his horror at the prospect of a tete-a-tete with the dis-
tinguished critic. 'Oh, I'm going in with you girls!" he
said, jumping up with his usual sprawling uncertainty of
action. He reserved for athletic sports all his capacity for
physical accuracy. " Morrison and I bore each other more
than's legal ! '
" I may bore you, my dear Arnold," said the other, ris-
More Talk Between Young Moderns 255
ing, " but you never bored me in your life, and I've known
you from childhood."
To which entirely benevolent speech, Arnold returned
nothing but the uneasy shrug and resentful look of one
baffled by a hostile demonstration too subtle for his powers
of self-defense. He picked up the chair he had thrown
over, and waited sulkily till the others were in the high-
ceilinged living-room before he joined them. Then when
Morrison, in answer to a request from his hostess and old
friend, sat down to the piano and began to play a piece
of modern, plaintive, very wandering and chromatic music,
the younger man drew Sylvia out on the wide, moon-lighted
veranda.
' Morrison is the very devil for making you want to
punch his head, and yet not giving you a decent excuse.
I declare, Sylvia, I don't know but that what I like best
of all about you is the way you steer clear of him. He's
opening up on you too. Maybe you didn't happen to
notice ... at the dinner-table? It wasn't much, but I
spotted it for a beginning. I know old Felix, a few."
Sylvia felt uneasy at the recurrence of this topic, and cast
about for something to turn the conversation. " Oh, Ar-
nold/' she began, rather at random, ' ' whatever became of
Professor Saunders ? I've thought about him several times
since I've been here, but I've forgotten to ask you or
Tantine. He was my little-girl admiration, you know."
Arnold smoked for a moment before answering. Then,
' Well, I wouldn't ask Madrina about him, if I were you.
He's not one of her successes. He wouldn't stay put/'
Sylvia scented something uncomfortable, and regretted
having introduced the subject.
Arnold added thoughtfully, looking hard at the ash of
his cigarette, " I guess Madrina was pretty bad medicine
for Saunders, all right."
Sylvia shivered a little and drew back, but she instantly
put the matter out of her mind with a trained and definite
action of her will. It was probably " horrid " ; nothing
could be done about it now; what else could they talk
256 The Bent Twig
about that would be cheerful ? This was a thought-sequencei
very familiar to Sylvia, through which she passed with
rapid ease.
Arnold made a fresh start by offering her his cigarette-
box. " Have one," he invited her, sociably.
She shook her head.
" Oh, all the girls do," he urged her.
Sylvia laughed. " I may be a fresh breeze from beyond
the Mississippi, but I'm not so fresh as to think it's wicked
for a girl to smoke. In fact I like to, myself, but I can't
stand the dirty taste in my mouth the next morning.
Smoking's not worth it."
" Well ..." commented Arnold. Apparently he found
something very surprising in this speech. His surprise
spread visibly from the particular to the general, like the
rings widening from a thrown pebble, and he finally broke
out : " You certainly do beat the band, Sylvia. You get
me! You're a sample off a piece of goods that I never saw
before ! "
" What now ? " asked Sylvia, amused.
" Why, for instance, that reason for your not smoking.
That's not a girl's reason. That's a man's ... a man
who's tried it!'
" No, it isn't ! ' she said, the flicker of amusement still
on her lips. ' A man wouldn't have sense enough to know
that smoking isn't worth waking up with your mouth full
of rancid fur."
" Oh gosh ! ' cried Arnold, tickled by the metaphor :
" rancid fur ! "
" The point about me, why I seem so queer to you," ex-
plained Sylvia, brightening, " is that I'm a State University
girl. I'm used to you. I've seen hundreds of you ! The
fact that you wear trousers and have to shave and wear
your hair cut short, and smell of tobacco, doesn't thrill me
for a cent. I know that I could run circles around you if it
came to a problem in calculus, not that I want to brag."
Arnold did not seem as much amused as she thought
he would be. He smoked in a long, meditative silence,
More Talk Between Young Moderns 257
and when he spoke again it was with an unusual seri-
ousness. ' It's not what you feel or don't feel about
me . . . it's what / feel and don't feel about you, that gets
me," he explained, not very lucidly. ' I mean liking you
so, without ... I never felt so about a girl. I like it.
... I don't make it out. . . ." He looked at her with
sincerely puzzled eyes.
She answered him as seriously. ' I think," she said,
speaking a little slowly, " I think the two go together, don't
they ? '
'How do you mean?" he asked.
; Why it's hard to say ' she hesitated, but evidently
not at all in embarrassment, looking at him with serious
eyes, limpid and unafraid. ' I've been with boys and men
a lot, of course, in my classes and in the laboratories and
everywhere, and I've found out that in most cases if the
men and the girls really, really in their own hearts don't
want to hurt each other, don't want to get something out
of the other, but just want to be friends why, they can be !
Psychologists and all the big-wigs say they can't be, I
know but, believe me ! I've tried it and it's awfully
nice, and it's a shame that everybody shouldn't know that
lots of the time you can do it in spite of the folks who
write the books ! Maybe it wasn't so when the books were
written, maybe it's only going to be so, later, if we all are
as square as we can be now. But as a plain matter of fact,
in one girl's experience, it's so, now! Of course," she
modified by a sweeping qualification the audacity of her
naively phrased, rashly innocent guess at a new possibility
for humanity, "of course if the man's a decent man."
Arnold had not taken his gaze for an instant from her
gravely thoughtful eyes. He was quite pale. He looked
astonishingly moved, startled, arrested. When she stopped,
he said, almost at once, in a very queer voice as though
it were forced out of him, " I'm not a decent man."
And then, quite as though he could endure no longer her
clear, steady gaze, he covered his eyes with his hand. An
instant later he had sprung up and walked rapidly away
258 The Bent Twig
out to the low marble parapet which topped the terrace.
His gesture, his action had been so eloquent of surprised,
intolerable pain, that Sylvia ran after him, all one quick
impulse to console. Yes, you are, Arnold ; yes, you are ! '
she said in a low, energetic tone, " you are! '
He made a quavering attempt to be whimsical. " I'd like
to know what you know about it! " he said.
"I know! I know!" she simply repeated.
He faced her in an exasperated shame. " Why, a girl
like you can no more know what's done by a man like
me . . ." his lips twitched in a moral nausea.
" Oh . . . what you've done . . ." said Sylvia . . . " it's
what you are ! '
" What I am," repeated Arnold bitterly. " If I were worth
my salt I'd hang myself before morning ! ' The heart-sick
excitement of a man on the crest of some moral crisis looked
out luridly from his eyes.
Sylvia rose desperately to meet that crisis. " Look here,
Arnold. I'm going to tell you something I've never spoken
of to anybody . . . not even Mother . . . and I'm going
to do it, so you'll believe me when I say you're worth liv-
ing. When I was eighteen years old I was a horrid, selfish,
self-willed child. I suppose everybody's so 
