LUCILLE HARDCOME, having observed the kiss, instantly pulled the bell, and Lanny and Alice started apart guiltily, and Alice opened the door. Seeing Lucille was a relief, for the visitor might have been anyone, and Lucille further relieved her by pinching her cheek and shaking a playful finger at her, accompanied by a jingling of many bracelets.

“So this is he!” she teased. “Am I to meet him, Alice, or are you too jealous to let him know other women!”

Lanny stepped forward. He shook hands warmly, making Lucille's bracelets jingle like miniature cymbals, and Lucille exchanged a few words, half grave and half gay, taking his measure meanwhile—or thinking she was taking it, for she was a poor judge of individual character, however well she understood it in the gross. She liked the impressive. Henry Ward Beecher's hair meant more to her than Henry Ward Beecher's mind; she could never have understood a blithe statesman or one not in a frock coat. In time, not being an utter fool, she was apt to see through hollow impressiveness or to see real worth under unimpressive exteriors, but this came slowly. Her first impressions were usually wrong, as when she had misjudged Dominie Dean. In Lanny, standing in the illy lighted little hall, she saw nothing of the inner Lanny. She thought, “A male trifle; hardly worth serious consideration; a girl's first love material,” and felt she had him properly scheduled.

“Your father is in the study?” she asked, and tapped on the study door lightly, not to injure the knuckles of her kid gloves. If David had not heard the light tap—which he did, knowing Lucille was in the hall—he would have heard her bracelets. He opened the door.

We are apt to give men and women too much credit for pursuing a definite course. The hard heads that, at the beginning of a career, lay clean-cut plans of ambition are in an infinitesimal minority. With most ambition is not much more than a feeling of uneasiness, an oyster's mild irritation at the grain of sand that intrudes into the shell. Just as some forms of indigestion cause an inward uneasiness that urges the sufferer to eat and eat, regardless of what is eaten, and only seeking relief from what seems a pang of hunger—but is actually a pathologic condition—so the victim of ambition feeds on whatever comes to hand. Lucille was such a victim.

When David opened the door of his study Lucille sailed in like a full-rigged ship, and seated herself at his desk. She opened her purse, and disgorged the roll of bank notes, which opened itself like something alive. She pushed the money to the edge of the desk.

“You'll find that right,” she said, and dipped into her purse again. “This is the note, if you insist. I've left the time blank—shall I make it a year?”

She picked up David's pen.

“I think six months—”

“It is to be just as you wish it,” she said, and inserted the time, and slid the note toward David, handing him the pen. He was standing, and he bent over the desk and signed his name. Lucille blotted it briskly, and put the note back in her purse. The money still remained where she had pushed it. She put it into David's hand.

“There!” she exclaimed. “Now, no more worry!”

“I can't tell you how I appreciate this, Mrs. Hardcome,” said David.

“Please!” she begged, raising a hand. She snapped her purse and dropped it into her lap. “Alice told me of her engagement, the dear girl!” she said. “I met the happy man in the hallway just now.”

“Alice told you?” said David, surprised. “Oh! this morning, of course. She said nothing just now? We think it best not to make the engagement public yet; they will not be married for a year, at least—they agree to that—and I thought she might have told you.”

Lucille put out her hand; there was nothing for David to do but take it.

“I'm so glad!” she cried effusively. “Glad the engagement is not to be announced, I mean; glad the wedding is not to be for a year. I wonder if you feel as I do, that so many marriages are too hastily made? Alice is such a dear girl, Mr. Dean; no man could be too good for her.”

The implication was plain; Lanny was not good enough for Alice.

“It isn't as if dear 'Thusia could be up and about,” said Lucille, still holding David's hand. “We know 'Thusia would do all a mother should do, but she is so handicapped. Young girls are so impulsive; they need just a bit of guiding here and a word there. We should let them think they are making a free choice, but should help them in making it. Mr. Dean, frankly, don't you think Alice is making a mistake!”

She dropped the dominie's hand, and settled herself in his desk chair again. It was impossible to shake off the confidential air she had imparted to the interview. David was not sure that Alice was not making a mistake. He hesitated, seeking some word that would deny that 'Thusia had not done all she should have done for Alice. What he wanted to tell Lucille Hardcome was that he and 'Thusia were quite able to manage Alice's affairs, but it was necessary to tell Lucille more than politely, and he felt at heart that Lucille was perhaps right—someone should have guided Alice's choice a little.

“I know you think so,” Lucille said without waiting for his reply. “I know just how you feel. I feel the same—quite as if Alice was my own daughter; we all feel as if Alice was that; the daughter of the church. Not but what this young man may be thoroughly praiseworthy, Mr. Dean, but is he the son-in-law our dominie should have! Oh, no! No!”

In anything he said in Lanny's favor, David must be on the defensive. He did not know enough of the young man yet to speak with unbounded enthusiasm or calm certainty.

“My short interview with him was quite satisfactory,” he said. “In the essentials he seems to meet any reasonable requirements. His manner is manly.”

Lucille interrupted him.

“Oh, all that, of course! Alice is not a baby, she would not choose anyone utterly impossible, I dare say.” Then, leaning toward David, she said: “Mr. Dean, you know and I know that Alice ought not marry this Lanny, or whatever his name is. This Welsh—do you know what his father is? He's an awful creature. You know Alice can't be permitted to marry into such a family. Now, please,” she urged, “just leave it all to me. Men can't manage such things, and poor dear 'Thusia—”

“But, my dear Mrs. Hardcome,” David began. “Oh, my dear Mrs. Nonsense!” she cried, rising and mocking him. “I think it is about time someone took you in hand, David Dean; I think it is just about time! 'Thusia is a dear soul, and Mary and Rose are dear souls too, but the whole lot of you haven't enough worldly gumption to say boo to a goose. You'd sit here and let Alice marry a bartender (well, then, an ex-bartender!) and you wouldn't see it would be the ruin of the whole lot of us, and of him, too, or if you did see it you wouldn't raise a hand.”

She spoke rapidly but without excitement; teasingly.

“Mr. Dean,” she continued in a more serious tone, “I am worldly and I know the world. Alice must not marry this young fellow; she must not! And she is not going to!”

“But, Mrs. Hardcome,” cried David, thoroughly frightened. “I cannot let you interfere in what is so completely a family matter.”

“David Dean, will you please stop Mrs. Hard-coming me? My name is Lucille quite as much as Mrs. Derling's is Mary, and you are not going to frighten me away by calling me Mrs. Hardcome. Now,” she said, “will you leave Alice to me?”

“I will not!” said David; “I must beg you not to interfere in any way. I understand Alice; 'Thusia understands her. We are not, perhaps,” he said with a smile, “as lacking in worldly wisdom as you imagine.”

Lucille shook her head and laughed. “Incorrigible!” she exclaimed. “You'll never understand how much you need someone like me. A business manager? Shall I call it that? Then it is all settled—I am to see that Alice does not make this mistake.”

“No!” cried David, but she was at the door. “It is all settled!” she triumphed.

“Mrs. Hardcome!”

“All settled!” she laughed, and went out and closed the door.

David put his hand on the knob and hesitated. After all was said, Lucille was right, no doubt. The marriage would be more than annoying; he himself was too prone to consider character as canceling worldly objections. There was one thing about Lucille Hardcome—she usually had her way. She was a “manager.”

Lucille had gone from David to 'Thusia. David waited until she had left the house. He found 'Thusia more complacent than he had expected to find her. Lucille's visits sometimes annoyed her.

“I feel so relieved, David,” she said. “Lucille has been here and spoken about Alice. There was so little I could do, tied down as I am, and Ruth could hardly help, and of course Mary would hesitate, feeling as she does about Alice and Ben. Lucille is just the person we needed.”

“'Thusia! And I thought, of all the women in Riverbank, she was the one we would want to have keep hands off!”

“But you see,” said 'Thusia cheerfully, “she is going to keep her hands off, in a way. She is going to be my hands.”

David had his own idea of Lucille's being anyone's hands but her own, but he said nothing then. He had the money in his pocket with which to pay his debts, and he was eager to settle with Herwig. He kissed 'Thusia and went out.