to make himself strong and free was tom whitelaw's ruling motive through the winter which preceded his going to harvard. he must be a man, not merely in physical vigor, but in mental independence. convinced that he was in what he called a rotten world, a world of rotten customs built on a rotten foundation, he saw it as a task to learn to pick his way amid the rottenness. to rebel, but keep his rebellion as steam with which to drive his engine, not as something to let off in futile raging against established convictions, was a hint of honey's by which he profited.

"it don't do yer no good to kick so as they can ketch and jump on you. i've tried that. and it ain't no good to jaw. tried that too. if the uninherited was anythink but a bunch o' simps you might be able to rouse 'em. but they ain't. all yer can do is to shut yer mouth and live. yer'll live harder and surer with yer mouth shut. yer'll live truer too, just as yer'll shoot straighter when yer ain't talkin' and fidgitin' about. don't believe what no judge or gov'nor or bishop says to yer just because he says it; but don't let 'em know as yer don't believe it, because they'll hoodoo you with their whim-whams. awful glad they'll be, both church and state, to ruin the man what don't believe the way they tell him to."

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on the eve of manhood tom thought more highly of honey than he had when a few years younger. having judged him drugged by work, he found that he had ideas of his own, however mistaken they might be. however mistaken they might be, they had at least produced one guiding principle: to keep your mouth shut and live! taking his notes about life, as he did through the following winter, he made them according to this counsel.

the outstanding feature of the season was the development of something like a real friendship with guy ansley. hitherto the two young men had backed and filled; but in proportion as tom grew more sure of himself the weaker fellow clung to him. he clung in his own way; but he clung. he was the patron. tom was the fine young chap he had taken a fancy to and was helping along.

"i'm awful democratic that way. whole lot of fellows'll think they've just got to go with their own gang. doolittle and pray's is full of that sort of bunk. the doolittle and pray spirit they call it. i call it fluff. if i like a fellow i stick by him, no matter what he is. i'd just as soon go round with you as with the stylishest fellow on the back bay. social position don't mean anything to me. of course i know it's very nice to have it; but if a fellow hasn't got it, why, i don't care, not so long as he's a sport."

"keep your mouth shut and live," tom reminded himself. he liked guy ansley well enough. he was at least a fellow of his own age, with whom he could be franker than had been possible with maisie, and who would understand him in ways in which honey

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never could. with the difference made by ten years in his point of view, he discussed with guy the same sort of subjects, sex, religion, profession, vices, politics, that he had talked over with bertie tollivant. merely to hear their own voices on these themes eased the adolescent turmoil in their brains.

hildred ansley, having entered miss winslow's school as a boarder, was immured as in a convent. her absence made it the easier for tom to run in and out of the ansley house on the missions, secret and important, which boys create among themselves. guy had a set of maps by which you could follow the ebb and flow on the battlefront. guy had a wireless installation with which you could listen in on messages not meant for you. guy had skis, and bought another pair for tom so that they could tramp together on the fenway. guy had a runabout which tom taught him to drive. guy had tickets for any play or concert he chose to attend, and invited tom to go along with him.

doubtful at first, mrs. ansley came round to view the acquaintance almost without misgiving.

"i think you're a steady boy, aren't you?" she asked of tom one day, when finding him alone.

tom smiled. "i don't get much chance, ma'am, to be anything else."

lacking a sense of humor, mrs. ansley was literal.

"i don't like you to say that. it sounds as if when you do get the chance—but perhaps you'll know better by that time. it's something i hope guy will help you to see in return for all the—well, the physical protection you give him."

"oh, but, ma'am, i—"

[pg 275]

"that'll do. i know my boy is brave. but i know too that he's not very strong, and to have a great fellow like you, used to roughing it—it reminds me of the big cossack who always goes round with the little tsarevitch. not that guy is as young as that, but he's been tenderly brought up."

"oh, mother, give us a rest!" guy had rushed into his flowered room from whatever errand had taken him away. "if i have been tenderly brought up, i'm as tough to-day as any mucker down where tom lives."

"the dear boy!"

she smiled at tom, as at one who like herself understood this extravagance, moving away with the stately lilt that made her skirts flounce up and down.

"it's hildred that's sicking the old lady on to her little song and dance in your favor," guy declared, when they had the room to themselves again. "hildred likes you. always has. she's democratic, too, just like me. once let a fellow be a sport and hildred wouldn't care what he was socially."

"keep your mouth shut and live," became tom's daily self-adjuration. that guy sincerely liked him he was sure, and this in itself meant much to him. the patronage could be smiled away. if he and his mother failed in tact they gave him much in compensation. in their house he was getting accustomed to certain small usages which at first had overawed him. space didn't dwarf him any more, nor beauty strike him spellbound. he was so courteous to pilcher that pilcher, returning deference for deference, had once or twice called him "sir." the plays to which guy

[pg 276]

took him were a long step in his education; the music they heard together released a whole new range in his emotions.

he discovered that guy was what is commonly called musical. he played the piano not badly; he knew something of the classics, of the great romanticists, of the moderns. back of the library was a music room, and when other occupations palled, there guy would play and explain, while tom sat listening and enjoying. guy liked explaining; it showed his superiority. tom liked to learn. to know the difference between mozart and beethoven was a stage in progress. to have the cabalistic names of wagner and debussy, which he had often seen in newspapers, spring to significance was an initiation into mysteries.

so with work, with sports, with amusements, the winter sped by, bringing a sense of an expanding life. he had one main care: maisie was more unhappy. her appeals to him to throw up college, to become a chauffeur and marry her, increased in urgency.

he had come to the point of seeing that his engagement to maisie was a bit of folly. if honey were to learn of it, or the ansleys ... but he hoped to keep it secret till he won a position in which he could be free of censure. once with an income to support a wife, his mistakes and sufferings would be his own business. in proportion as life opened up it was easy for him to face trouble cheerfully.

may had come round, and by keeping his birthday on the fifth of march, he was now more than eighteen. on a saturday morning when there was no school to attend he and guy had lingered on the roof of the

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ansley house after their task with the wireless apparatus was over. looking across the river toward cambridge, where one big tower marked the site of harvard, they were speculating on the new step in manhood they would take in the following october.

pilcher's old head appeared through the skylight to inform mr. guy that lunch was waiting. madam wished him to come down.

"where is she?"

"she's in the dining room, mr. guy."

"get along, tom. i'll be ready with the runabout at two. you won't be late, will you?"

tom said he would not be late, following pilcher through the skylight and down the several flights of stairs. he was eager to slip out the front door without encountering mrs. ansley. mrs. ansley was eager not to encounter him. with lunch on the table, it would be awkward not to ask him to sit down; and to ask him to sit down would be out of the question. it would be just like guy....

and then guy did what was just like him. "mother," he called out, puffing down the last of the staircases, "why can't tom have lunch with us? he's got to be back here at two anyway. he's coming out with me in the runabout."

tom was doing his best to turn the knob of the front door. "couldn't, guy," he whispered back, shaking his head violently. "got to beat it."

in reality he was running away. to sit at the table with mrs. ansley, and be served by pilcher, required a knowledge of etiquette he did not possess.

[pg 278]

"mother, grab him," guy insisted. "he might as well stay, mightn't he?"

reluctantly mrs. ansley appeared in the doorway. in so far as she could ever be vexed with guy, she was vexed. "if whitelaw's got to go, dear—"

"he hasn't got to go, have you, tom? he don't have a home to toe the line at. he just picks up his grub wherever he can get it."

to such an appeal it was impossible to be wholly deaf. "oh, then, if whitelaw chooses to stay with us—"

"oh, i couldn't, ma'am," tom cried, hurriedly. "i've got to—"

but guy, who had now reached the floor of the hall, caught him by the arm. "oh, come along in. it can't hurt us. the old lady's just as democratic as hildred and me."

mrs. ansley was overborne; she couldn't help herself. tom also was overborne, finding it easier to yield than to rebel. there being but three places laid at the table, one of which was reserved for mr. ansley in case he came home for luncheon, pilcher set a fourth.

"will you sit there, whitelaw?"

"oh, mother, call him tom. he isn't a chauffeur, not when he's in town here."

if anyone but guy had put her in this situation mrs. ansley would have deemed it due to herself to sail from the room. as it was, she endeavored to humor the boy, to keep tom in his place, and to rescue the dignity which had never yet sat down at table with a servant.

[pg 279]

"i'm sure there's no harm in being a chauffeur. i'm the last person in the world to say so, dependent on chauffeurs as i am. besides, we knew, of course, that some of the young people helping us at the inn-club were studying in colleges, and that they didn't mean to stay in those positions permanently." she grew arch. "but i'm not democratic, mr. whitelaw. guy knows i'm not. it's his way of teasing me. he's perfectly aware that i consider democracy a failure. there never was a greater fallacy than that all men were born free and equal. as to freedom i'm indifferent; but i've never pretended that any tom, dick, or harry was my equal, and i never shall."

"you don't mean this tom, do you, old lady?"

"now, guy! isn't he a tease, mr. whitelaw? but i do believe in equality of opportunity. that seems to me one of the glories of our country. so many of our great men have come from the very humblest origin. and if we can do anything to help them along—with guy that's an obsession. if it's a fault i say it's a good fault. better to err on that side, i always think, than to see some one achieve the big thing, and know that you had no share in it when you might have had. that's shepherd's pie, mr. whitelaw. we have very simple lunches because mr. ansley doesn't always come home, and in any case his meal is his dinner."

she rambled on because guy was too busy with his food to help her, and tom too terrified. he was sorry not merely for himself, but for her. compelled to admit him to breaking bread with her, she must feel as if he had been forced on her in her dressing

[pg 280]

room. as a matter of fact, he admired the way in which she was carrying it off. long ago, having divined her as taking her inherited position in boston as a kind of sanctifying aura, shrinking from unauthorized approach like a sensitive plant from a touch, she reminded him of an anecdote he had somewhere read of queen victoria. the queen was holding a council. present at it among others was a statesman sitting for the first time as a member of the cabinet. obliged at a given moment to carry a paper from one side of the table to the other, this gentleman passed back of the queen's chair, accidentally grazing it with his hand. the queen shuddered and shrank away. the touching merely of the chair was a violation of majesty. "he won't do," she whispered to the prime minister. he didn't do. he passed not only into political but into social oblivion. tom recalled the incident as he tried to choke down his shepherd's pie. he was the unhappy statesman. he wouldn't do. amiable as mrs. ansley tried to make herself, he knew how she was suffering. he was suffering himself.

and in on his suffering, to make it worse, bustled mr. ansley. throwing his hat and gloves on a settle in the hall, he shot into the dining room at once. he was a man who shot, sharply, directly, rather than one who walked. tom stood up.

"sorry i'm so late, sunshine—" his eye fell on tom. "oh, how-d'ye-do? seen you before, haven't i? oh! oh!" the exclamations were of surprise and a little pain. "why, you're the young fellow who ran the station car for us."

[pg 281]

mrs. ansley intervened as one who pacifies. "he's going out with guy at two o'clock, to help him run the runabout."

"help me run it! why, mother, you talk as if—"

"and guy couldn't let him go off without anything to eat."

"quite so! quite so!" mr. ansley agreed. "glad to see you. sit down." he helped himself to the shepherd's pie which pilcher passed again. "let me see! what was it your name was?"

tom sat down again. "whitelaw, sir."

"oh, yes; so it was. you're the same whitelaw who's been running about this winter and spring with guy. quite so! quite so! oh, and by the way, sunshine, speaking of whitelaw, henry looked in on me this morning. ran over from new york about some business cropped up since the sinking of the lusitania."

"how is he?"

"seems rather worried. lost several intimate friends on the ship, besides which the old question seems to be popping up again."

mrs. ansley sighed. "oh, dear! i hope they'll not be dragged through all that with another of their foolish clues. i thought it was over."

"it's over for eleonora. but you know how henry feels about it. got it on the brain. pity, i call it, after—how many years is it?"

mrs. ansley computed. "it was while we were on our honeymoon. don't you remember? we read it in the paper at montreal, after we'd come from

[pg 282]

niagara falls. that was the fifteenth of may, and harry had been stolen on the tenth."

tom felt a queer sick sinking of the heart. the tenth of may was the last of the three dates his mother had fixed as his birthday. she had told him, too, that the day when he was born was one on which the nursemaids were in the park, and the lilacs had been in bloom. why this specification? if, as she had informed him at other times, he was born in the bronx, where gracie also had been born, why the reference to the park and nursemaids, five miles away? he listened avidly.

"how old would that make him if he were living now?"

again mrs. ansley reckoned. "something over nineteen. i've forgotten just how many months he was when he disappeared."

tom was reassured. he was only eighteen; he was positive of that. he couldn't have been nineteen without ever suspecting it. mr. ansley continued.

"seems to me a great mistake to bring him back now, even if they found him. a lumbering fellow of nineteen, practically a man, with probably the lowest associations."

"that's what onora feels. she's told me so. she couldn't go through it. even if he isn't dead in fact he's dead to them."

"henry feels that, of course. he doesn't deny it. he doesn't want him back—not now. at the same time when any new will o' the wisp starts up he can't help feeling—"

[pg 283]

tom was back in his little hall bedroom, after the run in the car with guy, before he had time to think these scraps of conversation over. the details for which he had to render an account were, first, his sickening sense of dread on learning that the whitelaw baby had been stolen on the tenth of may, and, then, his relief that the child, if now alive, would be nineteen years of age. these sensations or emotions, whatever they might be called, had been independent of his will. what did they portend? why was he frightened in the one case, and in the other comforted?

he didn't know. that he didn't know was the only decision he could reach. were the impossible ever to come true, were the parents of the whitelaw baby ever, no matter how unwillingly, to claim him as their son, the advantages to him would be obvious. why then did he hate the idea? what was it in him that cried out, and pleaded not to be forsaken?

he didn't know.