The Readjustment

thern windows, one looked clean over the city, lying outspread below. Even the Call building, highest eminence piled up by man in that vista, presented its roof t

rom this tree had been seen to tumble from the wal

rns at the docks. Both in foreground and background, this panel changed day by day. It might be whalers from the Arctic which lay there in the morning, their oils making noisome the breeze; it might be a fleet of beaten, battered tramp wind-jammers, panting after their fight about the Horn; it might be brigs from the South Seas; it might be Pacific steamers, Benicia scow-schooners, Italian fishing smacks, Chinese junks-it might be any and all of these together. As for the background, that changed not every day but every hour what with the shifts of wind, tide and mists. Now its tinge was a green-gold betraying pollution of

When, after her years with Billy Gray, Eleanor came back, Mattie had refurnished it for the grown baby. The upper story held her bedroom and her c

y afternoon on the city roofs below, perceived that his wife had walked three times to

hird he smiled with inner satisfaction and rose to meet her return as though by ac

content with the warming sun and the bright air which feed life. But the inner soul, whose depth was his philosophy, whose surfac

roadway, which one mounted by two blocks of hen-coop

e that Miss Eleanor Gray is going to have a caller, and that

ave carried, "this is no common caller. For that young civil engineer and Mr. Perham the painter and Ned Greene, Mrs. Tiffany never blushes;

ing out into their fall greenery, overgrew the pillars beside her. Thes

bravely and well for a quarter century, to fail in one's age! Mattie, he works in my office, this blush-c

d her?" Mrs. Tiffany turned her head with a turn of her thou

on discipline if I

. "Let's begin at the start. How came he to renew his acquaintance with Eleanor, and w

s-they met by accident at a restaurant-Eleanor asked him. You remember he was taken with

behold that youth, who will always get what he wants by frontal attac

She turned full around at this, and the glance she threw into h

e I care in these days for such practice as I have left. I tell myself, of course, that it is my lingering interest in life as a general proposition which made me do i

se?" ask

hat made me notice him in the first place? What made you invite him to tea on the lawn? What ha

tions in their partnership was to hold small details

of success open. He may go slowly and well, 104 or fast and ill. Road number one: he stays with my moth-eaten old practice,

r road?" aske

. This Mr. Chester has made an investment in Richmond lots on information which he had no right to use. Never mind t

stian love on the surface, all guile beneath-he had taken to himself that success which Judge Tiffany might have had but for his hesitation

r will prove himself if he follows that path-magnetic young men to coax the rabble, young men not too nice on moral questions. Well, a boy isn't born with honor

you ought t

ament. In the second place, it would spoil the experiment-but I had comman

I was hooking up Kate and E

e wire?" On another tongue and in another fashion of speech, this sentence might have bee

ll as though she were surprised to have him call up; and I was really quite disturbed. You had told me not to invite him here for the present; and I ha

was liste

hat she should listen too. Eleanor said, 'Certainly I shall be in,' and Kate said, 'That's the old friend we met with Mr. Mast

e hadn't. I'd have liked to see whether she'd have told us then, or waited for him to surprise us. Kate was sharp again. I won

iffany

ace and harmony! Can't you grant my playma

e is nice

he puts herself out to entertain-even, Madame, I fla

re anything strange in liking you?" Her second expression set her

im now," said

the hen-coop sidewalk. The Judge returned to the house; Mattie Tiffany settled herse

ading. Across a space broken only by a painting, a Japanese print or so, and more spindle-backed chairs, Eleanor and Kate had grouped themselves by the piano. Eleanor, turning the leaves on the music-rack, looked over her shoulder at him. She was in pink that day; the tint of her gown, blending

; Eleanor and Judge Tiffany shook hands with more reserve. And as Bertram settled himself in an arm-ch

Loisel-you should have seen her, Judge Tiffany-you'd never dine at home again. When these young charms fade, I'm going to marry a French restaurant-ke

gry-that's how!" s

odest to mention myself, you see-were what she'll be at forty, and she were behind a counter, and y

ore giving the answer which is

to the laugh whi

ke to know abou

to know what she's saying when she parleys French to the gar?§ons. She's all right if she's feeling right, bu

about her-" th

time and climbed the side gate to the Hotel Marseillaise and pounded at the door. He faded out about then, he says. When he woke up, he was laid out on a couch, with a towel on his head, and Madame wa

Mrs. Tiffany, reachin

uncertain tone of one who gives assent f

narrow paths and get drunk, may I have M

ually, and resumed his book; and more and more did Bertram direct his talk, salted and seasoned with his magnetism, toward Eleanor. Kate Wadding

the room, "I'm going back to my unsympathetic home before tea. Don't you think

nterrupted?" asked Judge Ti

were trying not to show it. Mr. Chester-oh excuse me-well, I've broken in now, so I migh

an!" answer

ntirely too eager. Who would be a good rival anyway, Judge adored? Let's c

ester your end of the house and our garden-or would you

she sat bent over her yarns, her ears open. And she noticed, at the moment when Bertram made that a

Kate and Judge Tiffany faded into

to Eleanor's own living room. Would they stop there, these two, for a talk-yes, her gentle treble, his booming bass, drifted down the hall. Presently Mrs. Tiffany heard Eleanor's laugh, followed by his. In that instant, she lo

twosies." She swept the jacks towards him with one

e outer hall, and

anted at the telephon

ne leg drawn up under him, his big shoulders settled comfortably against the wall. Eleanor began to talk fluently, superficially, with animation. She felt from the first that he was throwing himself against her barriers, tryi

but I'm going to kee

ngenuousness of this, although partly at the contras

her large and compelling black-brown eyes upon her. "Some girls would get sore, and some

already-he is sudden!" tho

ed then if you were beautiful-I always knew you had nice eyes-and it isn't so muc

other things than

at time on the ranch a bull chaperoned us!" This minor joke, like every play of his spirit, gained a hundred times its own in

continued. "Why, I've carried you around right through my Senior year at

rancisco. It was flopping its lance-leaves against the panes; puffs of the breeze brought in a suggestion of its pungency. That magic sense, so closely united wit

ce girls have you k

mfort on the window seat, flashed h

n twelve a week?" She noticed the indelicacy of this, since he spoke in the

fellow in the salt business now. I guess she was 117 pretty: anyway, her hair

" asked

ry phrases by which, in the midst of his plain, Anglo-Saxon speech, he w

be in love until you'

ll the way," she thought. Yet in this tiny triumph Eleanor was not entirely happy.

he molasses hair. She interests

emember now, I hope. I'd like to talk about myself, though. I'd like some

an answer. None came. He bent hi

wo

ion through the porti?¨res, and enter Kate Waddington. Mr. Chester, Eleanor saw, rose to her entra

Sunday. One of her men has disappointed her and she's just telephoned to give me the commission to fill his place. Mr. Chester, you are an inspiration sent straigh

threw an arch l

119 the vernacular by his internal emotion o

you'd be the ready

aren't you?" asked

decline, I'm

htning-minded, read his expression. He had made a great faux pas; he had seemed more

l tell them-I'm going now-that way." Her tone gave the very slightest hint of pique; her attitude put a suggestion. Th

rose p

yed myself very much, Miss Gray. If 120 you d

into my thin

oved towar

the porti?¨re cord. Eleanor brushed too close; it caught in the lace at her throat. She pull

must reach about her so that his arms, never quite touching her, yet surrounded her as a circle surroun

nging and agitation ran over her with the spe

and then a glitter of her eye, a heave of her bosom, a catch of her breath. As he stood there, his great

out. The transitory expression in his eyes-Eleanor saw it now with t

choly uncommon in him; for his ill-humors, like his laughters, burned short and violent. Mark Heath-by this time

to the dingy wall of the Hotel Marseillaise, past the laborers, the outcasts, t

and those swell Japanese prints and paintings. And I'll have two autos and a toy ranch in the country to play with. We'll give little dances in the big hall downstairs. I'll lead the opening dance

id Mark Heath, "would

if that ain't the matte