A Hazard of New Fortunes, Part Fourth

ack? Are you sick? You're all pale. Well, no wonder! This is the last of Mr. Fulkerson's dinners you shall go to. You're not strong enough for it, and your stomach will be all out of order

atter? Has any

ndeavors for it; and then he poured out a confused and huddled statement of th

"I knew Lindau would

heart. "Isabel!" he

t dinner at breakfast. I noticed it; but I thought you were just dull, and so I didn't insist. I wish I had, now. If

mit to bullying like that, and meekly consent to commit an act

hall go now; Boston isn't like home any more; and we couldn't live on two thousand there; I should be ashamed to try. I'm sure I don't know where we can live on

imagined certain words, or perhaps only looks, from her that were bad enough. He had allowed for trouble, but trouble on his account: a svmpathy that might burden and embarrass him; but he had not dreamed of this merely domestic, this petty, this sordid view of their potential calamity, which left him wholly out of the question, and embraced only what was most crushing and desolating in the pro

e, or perhaps was waiting there for him to talk it over; March was quite willing to talk it over now. But it was hi

his absence from lunch, "that perhaps you were detained by

d look. "Well, if you say so, I will go back, and do what Dryfoos ordered

down, now, and don't keep walking that way, and let me see if

ecisely. From time to time, as she got his points, she said, "That was splendid," "G

int of view. Let's be perfectly just to

, ruefully. "The case is simpl

cour

pect that I will consider

interests! Don't you wish ther

y willing to do that. I have always kept that in mind as one of my dutie

ou've done it a great deal more than I could, Basil. And it

d not deserve praise; "I know that what Lindau said was offensive to him, and I can understand how

Mrs. March

ot so very peculiar; he might have got the most of them out of Ruskin-I shouldn't have had any ground to stand on,

ow they could hurt it much worse than Colo

s, some people would call us bad names, and the counting-room would begin to feel it. But that isn't the point. Lindau's connection with 'Every Other Week' is almost purely mechanical; he's merely a translator of such sto

ut against Dryfoos because he took a dictatorial tone with you, and because you wouldn't recognize his authority. But now I'm with you

're merely business standards, and the good that's in him is incidental and something quite apart from his morals and metho

taught you

really, that I despise Fulkerson so much for his course this morning as for hi

nd then she said, "Yes, that was loathsome;

an a chance to say something," March leniently suggested. "It was a w

he same," his wife insis

s far as I'm

ittle interview with Conrad Dryfoos after his father left," and now

some words before the old man came up to talk wi

he son of such a man to take! Do you su

y Conrad would say what he believed to anybody.

ce. I don't believe I ever saw him look quite happy, except that night at Mrs. Horn

those convictions of his. I don't see why it would

put them all out of our minds and se

but their two thousand to count upon. But they built a future in which they easily lived on that and on what March earned with his pen. He became a free lance, and fought in whatever cause he thought just; he had no ties, no chains. They went back to Boston with the

s happy as if you had come home and told me that you had cons

d have happened in any e

. I just used it

begin life anew on whatever terms. "I hope we are young enough yet, Basil,"

ome from school so that their mother might let them in. "Shall we tell the

lkerson, smiling from e

h in?" h

htily. "He's in his study," and she led the way

out at sight of him, "it's all r

men are going to talk bu

way," said Fulkerson. "I recko

aid March. "Don't go, I

ker

hat he had no business to speak to you as he did, and he withdraws everything. He'

toward them, that they could not refuse for the moment to share his mood. They felt themselves slipping down fro

Lindau to me. You won't have anything to do

, "that Mr. Dryfoos insist

If you don't send him any more work, he won't do any more, that

, Fulkerson. It's very good of you, and all that, but it comes to the same thing in the end. I could have gone on without any apology from Mr. Dryfoos; he transcended his authority, but that's a minor matter. I could have excu

an can't stand? He hasn't got anything against him personally. I don't suppose t

nt to that, directly or indirectly. We don't print his opinions, and he has

er to say nothing, but she now went and

ulkerson, rumpling his h

The old man says

nsent to his go

on't stay

and it, March; I am, indeed. I wish you'd reconsider. I-I'd take it as a personal favo

ept to say, "Yes, you must stand

e! I'll see you in the mor

to take," said March,

that's all." He sank b

drew a long breath. "

had got t

seems as if I had to make

good thing it'

didn't you tell him outright you

'll never move Dryfoos. I suppose we bo

suppo

lost dignity. At dinner Mrs. March asked the childr

g, are we?" asked To

elt about it, now," she said, w

"I want to live on the Back Bay. It

to Harvard," said Tom

be easier to get at

far as he could in meeting Dryfoos's wishes. He proposed the theatre as a distraction from the anxieties that he knew were

let's!" c

then came to tell her father that it was Mr. Lindau. "He says he wants to s

roaned Mrs. March, fr

ng pack dose macassines and dis mawney. I can't do any more voark for you; and I can't geep the mawney you haf baid me a'ready. It iss not hawnest mawney-that hass been oarned py voark; it iss m

began, but the old

I should be Guilty, I must share that man's Guilt, if I gept hiss mawney. If you hat toldt me at the peginning-if you hat peen frank with me boat it iss all righdt; you can go on; you ton't see dese tings as I see them; and you haf cot a family, and I am a free

of his course; it ended in their both getting angry, and in Lindau's going away in a wh

you're well rid of him. Now you have no quarrel wit

e feel so sneaking. What a long day it's be

s. Is there anything

I'd like to

tre?" wailed Bella, coming in upon

got home," and March amused himself at the puzzled