Franklin Kane

ball rolling. There were not many neighbours, but Helen assembled them all. She herself could stay only a few days. She was bound, until the

r, instructive; but she had now new standards of interest, and new sources of refreshment, and, shut up with

rolling her displeasure when Miss Buckston, dressed in muddy tweed and with a tweed cap pulled down over her brows,

or ventilation, and a damp breeze from the garden ble

faded carpets. The garden, she said, was shamefully neglected, and she could not conceive how people cou

oor to live at Merriston and to keep it up. She

k he's done himself very well in getting you to take th

hough but half-satisfied that there was no intention to 'do' her friend. 'When once you

r now that she took too much upon herself. At a hint of hesitancy, she knew, Miss Buckston would pass to and fro over her like a ste

singing in the Bach choir-even at the time it had struck her as funny-at a concert to which Althea had gone with her some years ago in London. It was to see, for her own private delectation, a weak point in Miss Buckston's iron-clad personality to remember how very funny she could look. Among the serried ranks of singing heads hers had stood out with its rubicu

uspecting a new hint of uncertainty in Althea, whose conviction she ha

l attitude of the average citizen is that of the ostrich keeping his head in the sand so that he shan't see what the country's coming to, what can you expect of the women? Your arguments don't affect the s

ith Miss Buckston. She did not like walking in the rain; she was a creature of houses, cabs and carriages. The sober beauty of blotted silhouettes, and misty, rolling hills at evening when the clouds

oth, Miss Buckston's methods. Miss Buckston had a manner of saying rude things in sincere unconsciousness that they could offend anybody. She herself did not take offence easily; she was, as she would have said, 'tough.' But Mrs. Pepperell had all the sensitiveness-for herself and for others-of her race, the British race, highly

ean it,' said

ulia; 'but I intend that s

s of what she considered decency, she became nearly as outspoken as Miss Buckston, that lady maintained her air of cheerful yet impatient tolerance. She continued to tell them that the American wife and mother was the most narrow, the most selfish, the most complacent of all wives and mothers; and, indeed, to Miss Buckston's vigorous virginity, all wives and mothers, though sociologically necessary, belonged to a slightly inferior, more rudimentary species. The American variety

tryside matron, as they saw her at Merriston-a creature, said Aunt Julia, hardly credible in her complacency and narrowness, Miss Buckston rejoined with an unruffled smile: 'Ah, we'll wake them up. They've good stuff in them-good, staying stuff; and they do a lot of usef

atisfaction. Miss Buckston, among the nets they spread for her, plunged and floundered like a good-tempered bull-at first with guileless acquiescence in the game, and then with growing bewilderment. They flouted gay cloaks before her dizzy eyes, and planted ribboned darts in her quivering shoulders. Even Althea could not accuse them of aggressiveness or rudeness. They never put themselves forward; they were there already. They never twisted the tail of the British lion; they never squeezed the eagle; they were far too secure under his wings for that. The

's a failing they share with our younger generation. I see more hope for your country in

said that she was a jolly old thing, and more fun than a goat, especially when she sa

r's eldest son, a handsome young soldier with a low forehead and a loud laugh, fell in love with Dorothy. That young men should fall in love with them was another of the pleasant things that Mildred and Dorothy took for granted. Their love affai

ing herself on this point by a direct cross-examination of Althea, she was as much amazed as incensed when her boy told her ruefully that he had been refused three times. Althea was very indignant when she realised that Mrs. Merton, bland and determined in her latest London hat, was t

insignificance beside Mildred and Dorothy. If Mildred and Dorothy counted for more than she, where was she to look for response and sympathy? And now, once again, as if in answer to these dismal questionings, came a steamer letter from Franklin Winslow Kane, announcing his immediate arrival. Althea had thought very little about Franklin in these last weeks; her mind had been filled with those foreground figures that now seemed to have become uncertain and vanishing. And it was not so much that Franklin came forward as that there was nothing else to look at; not so much that he counted, as that to count so much, in every way, for him mi

e, perhaps, Franklin might. Franklin himself never thrilled her; but the words he wrote renewed in her suddenly a happy self-confidence. Who, after all, was Franklin's superior in insight? Wrapped in the garment of his affection, could she not see with equanimity Helen's vagueness and Gerald's indi

oodness was her guide, and she could cling to it if the enchanting will-o'-the-wisp did not float into sight to beckon and bewilder her. She indignantly repudiated the conception of a social order founded on charm rather than on solid worth; yet, like other frail mortals, she found herself following what allured her nature rather than what r

rrival of her old friend as a very valid excuse. She walked up and down the drawing-room, dressed in one of her prettiest dresses; the soft warmth and light of the low sun filled the air, and her heart expanded with it. She wondered

in rather odd and rather ugly lines along his forehead and temples, and of his clothes the kindest thing to say was that they were unobtrusive. Franklin had once said of himself, with comic dispassionateness, that he looked like a cheap cigar, and the comparison was apt. He seemed to have been dried, pressed, and moulded, neatly and expeditiously, by some mechanical process that turned out thousands more just like him. A great many things, during this process, had been done to him, but they were commonplace, though complicated things, and they left him, while curiously finished, cu

own radiant appearance seemed to have dazzled him a little. Althea held out her hands, and the tears came into her

Franklin never took anything for granted, and Althea knew that it was because he saw her tears and saw her emotion that he could ask her now,

upon his request, and, still holding her hands, he leaned to her and kissed her. Closing her eyes she wondered intently for a moment, abl

r relative was a sister who taught in a college-and about their mutual friends and his work. To all he replied carefully and calmly, though looking at her delightedly while he spoke. He had a very deliber

her talk. Althea well remembered his sensitiveness to any slightest mood in herself; he was wonderfully imaginative when it came to a

king about. 'Homelike and welcoming. I liked the look of it

re here, and Herbert Vaughan, their friend. You know Herbert V

d not be likely to have met the fashionable Herbert. 'And where is that attractive new

he is coming; she

ing. I am to s

said Althea, smiling upon him. 'You are t

self to become utterly hopeless, yet he had become almost resigned to hope deferred; a pressing, present hope grew in him now.

erself colouring a little under his eyes. 'Y

ways fee

t makes me, sometimes, feel guilty, as t

e the only person who can

iness, like this-eve

rcedly, 'I can't pretend it's anything

l before the inte

anklin-I

hea, if you feel a little nearer to it just

th fear. She said, faltering, 'Don't ask me now. I'm so gla

e on the

he sighed t

he again kissed it, and holding it for an insistent mo

ing, turning

lly. 'No one would know anything about it. It would be our secret, our li

in that moved her, so that he must have seen the yielding to his love, if not to him, in h

y; but the tears came, of perplexity and pathos, and she said, 'Franklin, dear Franklin, I'll tr

you are n

bind myself. I can't marry you unless

an impartial answer to that now-can you, dear? I feel as if I wanted you to marry me on the chance you'd com

gue, but it floated before her as the rose-coloured dream of her youth-the hero, the earnest, ardent hero, who was to light all life to rapture and significance. And, absurdly, while the drift of glamour and regret floated by, and while she sat with Franklin's arm about her, her hand in his, it seemed to shape itself for a moment into the gay, irresponsible face of Gerald Digby. Absurd, indeed; he was neither earnest nor ardent, and if he were he would never feel earnestness or ardour on her account. Franklin certainly responded, in

nd rose. 'I mustn't bind myself,' she repeated, standing wit

on't you, dear?' he questioned; and to this she could truthfu