All days are alike in the mountains, all days are marvellously different. It seems sometimes as if a giant hand must push the great hills into new positions and relationships. Then the sky artist makes such daring experiments in shape and colour, as no Cubist ever dreamed of. People say they tire of the mountains and prefer the sea, because it is ever changing, but no man with the seeing eye ever makes that mistake. The sea soothes or irritates, but the mountains rouse the spiritual sources of your being—they are vision makers; they stretch you to your fullest measure, if you go to them with yearning.

The second day of their first expedition they jogged back to the ranch after an early supper on the heights. Barbara went on to the main house to see if hot water could be gotten for a bath, and came back chuckling.

"The bath-tubs are in the laundry house. You get a ticket. I'm thirteen. I hope this isn't a popular hour."

When she set forth laden with towels and soap Paul laughed.

"The luxury-loving idol of Broadway makes for the distant laundry!"

"I'd walk a mile for hot water to take this soreness out of my bones. You'd better get yourself a ticket."

"Thanks, I'll go into the river."

An hour later, in a soft frilly nÉgligÉ, she joined him on the tiny veranda, where he sat smoking. He rose and bowed formally.

"How did you leave New York, Madam? I'd no idea we had guests."

"I'm only stopping over night," she retorted. "Are you alone in this wilderness?"

"No, I have a boy with me named Bob—a most engaging companion. He is away this evening.... How were the laundry tubs?"

She chuckled.

"I had to do battle for mine. A man was just going into my bathroom when I appeared. I claimed it, I presented my check as proof; he said I had forfeited my chance by being late."

"Western gallantry!"

"He was from New England, on the contrary!"

"What did you do?"

"I bowed low and quoted Sir Philip Sydney: 'Sir,' said I, 'thy need is greater than mine.'"

"Wasted, I'll warrant," laughed Trent. "Then what?"

"There was another vacant tub, so I took that and we splashed in unison, in adjoining booths. The water was hot and I feel too good to be true. How was the river?"

"Icy."

"Isn't it wonderful to feel all of yourself like this?"

"All of yourself?"

"Yes, most of the time you only feel the part of yourself that hurts. Now I feel my blood jumping in my veins, my heart pumping, my lungs expanding. I have eyes and ears in my skin. I'm using all of me."

"You've said it," he nodded appreciatively.

"Let's spend most of our time in the hills, Paul. I like it better than this, don't you?"

"Is this too domestic for you?" he teased.

"I suppose so. I don't want to be too intimate with you."

"You don't like me, on closer association?"

"I didn't say that."

"This kind of life is the ultimate test, I grant you that."

"Yes, it is. It's a good place to get acquainted." She turned her eyes on him. "I've just met you up here."

"Think you're going to like me?"

"I don't know."

"It is an awful responsibility."

"What is—liking you?"

"No, trying to make you like life well enough to stay on a while."

"I'm staying until you're elected, anyhow."

"If you should decide to stay on after that, what could I do to interest you?"

She lifted her brows in question.

"It's only the governor you're interested in—his fight, his success. I'm just the works inside his officialism."

"Like the stick inside the scarecrow," she smilingly assented.

"Exactly. Now will that scarecrow continue to interest you when he is set up in the gubernatorial field?"

"Depends on how the 'big stick' acts. I love a fight, you know."

"I see no peace ahead for me," he sighed.

"Better take it now," she said. "Look off there—peace like frozen music. Is there such a thing as a fight for governor, as Broadway, marionettes on a stage, turmoil and unrest? Bad cess to 'em, I'm going to bed," she ended abruptly.

"Good-night, Boy-Girl-Woman."

When her light was out he spoke through the open window: "Why don't you want to be intimate with me?"

"Oh, I think it's more interesting not to be," she answered.

"Do you think our present relations are interesting?"

"Rather," she answered sleepily.

They rarely came to the cabin after this except for supplies and fresh clothes. Day after day they spent in the saddle up on the heights. Bill found them insatiable, they gave him no rest. Barbara was introduced to a trout line and a mountain brook trout of her own catching. After that she insisted on visiting all the streams for miles around, where trout were to be found.

"Talk about a taste for whiskey, it's nothing to a taste for trout," said Bob.

"More exclusive, too," Paul added. "You can get whiskey on every corner in New York, but real fresh mountain trout you travel for."

"And work for, and suffer after!"

The usual plan was to break camp early. Paul and Barbara would fish upstream, while Bill led the ponies and met them at an appointed place to eat the catch. In her hip boots, with her basket on her shoulder, Bob waded the swift-running streams, or stood on the rocks above, the sun bright, the air like a new life fluid, time measured only by an ever-pursuing appetite. Long talks with Paul at night, under the stars, hours of silence, save for a word now and then to her pony, sleep in the open, with a plunge in an ice pool at dawn. Life was reduced to the lowest common denominator, the natural companionship of man, woman, and nature.

"How do you suppose we ever wandered so far away from the real things?" she asked him one day.

"What do you count the real things?" curiously.

"Life in the open; simple relations of people."

"Is Bill your highest ideal of man? By that definition he has the things that count."

"He's happier than either of us."

"Happy nothing! He's contented—tight in the only rut he knows. His mind is as active as rutebaga." She laughed at the homely word, but he went on with the idea. "Do you think he thrills at your mountains—sings rude hymns to your sunsets? Not he. The mountains are made for tourists, tourists are made for guides. As for sunset, well, that means time to sleep."

"Oh, Paul," she protested.

"It's true. Your 'plain man of the soil' is a hero only in novels. In real life he is apt to be a grub."

"I'd rather be a grub than a Broadway Johnny."

"Oh, let's talk about a man," he suggested, smiling.

"But where will you find him?"

"Somewhere between your two extremes. A man's sensibilities have to be opened to nature by training, as his mind is to books. You said it yourself, 'he's got to use all of himself.'"

In all their days of closest intercourse, there was no hint of sentiment. They were two good chums, off holiday making, that was all. What might come later, what was to be their ultimate relation, this sufficed for now. They both unconsciously protected this interim, this breathing space, before they faced a possible upheaval in their lives.

The day was fair and the trout biting well. Barbara stood on a rock while Paul cast in midstream below her. All at once her line went taut and she began to play her fish. Nearer and nearer the edge of the high rock he drew her, more and more excited she became with the struggle. All at once Paul heard a mighty splash, and strode to the rescue. She sat shoulder deep in the swift stream, as she had fallen, but with grim determination she played her fish!

"Take my line while I get up!" she ordered, transferring it.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"No, I sat down for the fun of it, Mister!" she snapped, as she got to her feet. "Give me that!" He grinned and resigned her rod to her and watched her land her antagonist.

"There," said she, plumping him into Paul's basket. "He was a good fighter and a diplomat. He thought if he drowned me I'd let go."

"He was a poor judge of character," Paul remarked.

"Gee! I'm wet!" she exclaimed.

"Naturally—you swam after him. I thought you were drowned when I heard the splash. We'd better follow Bill to camp and get you dried out."

"Oh, no, not with them biting a mile a minute," she protested.

"But you're wet to the skin."

"I won't melt."

"This isn't the last day of the world, you know. Have you got dry clothes in your kit?"

"Shirt, but no breeches."

"Bill will have to make a fire and hang you on the line."

"I'll go, but you stay on. I'll come back when I'm dry."

"Sure you can find the way alone?"

She made a face at him. As she waded for the bank she addressed the fish that sped by her: "Go over and bite him!" Slopping water at every step she started for camp. When she saw he was watching her, she threw a shower of drops with a quick turn of her body.

"Automatic fire extinguisher!" she called back. His laugh answered her.

"That man has a nice laugh," she confided to the woods.

Bill received her with whoops of joy, and set to work to dry her out.

"You know how to make people very comfortable, Bill. Are you married?" she asked him.

"Not jest now."

"Does that mean that you have been or you're going to be?"

"I had a wife fer a while, but she lit out with a logger thet played the fiddle."

"Well, did you just let her go?"

"Sure, she was gone when I heard 'bout it."

"That was tough," she commiserated him.

"Oh, I don't know. She didn't like it on a ranch. I got her in a mining camp, so natcherlly she thought it was slow out here. She was used to a shootin' or two on Sat'day nights."

"Think of not liking it here!"

"Wa'al, my likin' ain't your likin', ye know; no two the same. If I cud have played the fiddle, an ef I'd a had a hellofa temper, I might a kep' her. But there ye are."

"You don't know where she is?"

"Nope."

"You don't miss her?"

"Not so's ye'd notice."

"You didn't have any children?"

"Nope. Now let's talk about somethin' cheerful, like a lynchin'."

She begged for a tale of his gold-mining days. He was usually a silent man, but once or twice over the fire at night they had succeeded in unlocking his lips, and from that time on his colourful cowboy language had delighted Barbara. At first he had been a little shy of her, but now they were fast friends. He always mentioned her to Trent as "the little feller," and he admitted that "she was the best all-round woman exhibit he ever saw."

He had just reached the climax of his adventure when Paul came into camp. Barbara, wrapped in a blanket, sat beside the fire, while her clothes hung on the line behind her. Her face was alive with response to Bill's oratory.

"I grabbed him round the middle, an' I swang him over my head, an' I sot him down so hard it jarred his ancestors," said he. Barbara's laugh greeted the phrase and Paul stalked in on them.

"How is the little feller?" he asked.

"He has to stay in a barrel till his duds dries out," said Bill. "He furgot to hang his clothes on the hickory-nut limb."

"I've had the time of my life, listening to Bill. He knows more good stories than anybody in the world."

"Listen at her! She's stringin' ye, Mr. Trent." He strode off to take in the clothes, big with pride.

"Think you'll take cold?" asked Paul.

"Cold? The only way a cold could get me would be to bite me. I'm the wellest thing on earth."

"Broadway won't know you, you're so brown," he commented, looking down at her.

"Broadway? What's that?"

"A state of mind," he laughed.

The days slid by with incredible swiftness. They extended their holiday twice to please Bill, who insisted on some special expeditions. A descent upon the cabin in the valley found a pile of mail awaiting them.

"Shall we burn it without opening it?" Trent asked her.

"And never go back?" she challenged him.

"And never go back," he answered gravely.

"Your proposition interests me," she said to lessen the tension. "This is a call to rehearsal." She held up the envelope.

"And this is a summons from my party leaders," he remarked, matching her envelope with his.

"What do you say, Barbara? Work or bolt?"

She looked at him steadily for a long moment, then slit her envelope. He lifted his eyebrows slightly and began on his letters.

"My call is for Monday. When is yours?" she said presently.

"Mine is urgent, but Monday in New York is soon enough. That means we must leave here Friday morning."

"This is Tuesday night. Let's go up once more, and come down Thursday night. We can pack in an hour. Let's say good-bye to it, up there."

"Good-bye to what?"

"To the mountains."

So it was arranged, and they set out on their last climb. The weather was uncertain but Bob would hear of no postponement.

"It seems as if we had always spent our days like this, as if we always would," she said as they rode.

"But you wouldn't like that."

"Probably not."

As the day wore on and they went higher with each mile, clouds began to gather, and thunder rumbled far away, then nearer.

"Goin' to git a storm," said Bill.

"Good! That's the one big thing we haven't had in the way of experience," Bob answered.

"Yer goin' to git it."

"How far are we from shelter, Bill?" Trent asked.

"There's a loggin' shack 'bout five miles up. We'd better jog along and git to it, fer when this here thing busts it's goin' to rip snort."

They pushed the ponies into a trot on all the level spots, and they scrambled up the steep grades, as if they, too, sensed danger. The clouds grew blacker and blacker.

"Those clouds bubble out of a huge cauldron," Bob said. Lightning began to crack across the sky, like fiery lashes of a whip. Bob reined up to watch.

"Come on, Bob, hurry!" ordered Trent. "This is no stage storm, it's the real thing."

The wind began to rise in intermittent gusts at first, then steadier, stronger, as if loosed from all restraint. The aspen trees and the ash bent to the earth in graceful salutations which fascinated Bob. A big tree trunk snapped somewhere, and they heard it fall with a noise like a groan.

"Hurry up, folks, it's after us!" shouted Bill.

Barbara answered with a shout of excitement and pleasure. They put their ponies to the run, sparing them neither for climb nor descent. The mountains seemed to rock about them; the noise of wind and thunder made speech impossible, little whirlwinds of dust and loose earth and stones enveloped them. Down below the valley was a black abyss.

They sighted the shack and made a last frantic scramble for it. As Bill kicked in the door of the cabin the last full fury broke. Trent lifted Barbara off her pony and ran into the house with her. Then the two men tried to shut the door.

"No, no, let it be open! It's wonderful to be a part of it!" cried the girl. She tried to stand in the door, but the wind whirled her aside as if she were a leaf. At her beckoning Paul stood beside her, holding her upright. It was like a war of worlds they looked upon.

"Will the shack stand, Bill?" Paul called to him.

"Can't say. Not if this wind keeps up."

Crash and crack and hurricane of wind. Mountains blurred by distant rain, mountains streaked by lightning flashes. Then came the downpour: the rain deluged, it leapt out of the sky and pierced the earth like javelins. The men got the door closed, and tried to fit an old wash-pan into the window to keep out the torrent. Barbara watched them, so excited she could scarcely contain herself. She would have gone out into it, if they could be induced to let her. Finally the shack was as waterproof as they could make it, with every available thing stuffed round the cracks and the edges.

Bill lit a candle, and Bob sat on the bunk, her feet drawn up under her. It was the one dry spot. They ate crackers and cheese and sardines for supper, with no chance to make a fire.

"It seems trivial to eat, when all that wonder is happening out there," she protested.

"Might as well eat as anything. Can't do nuthin' else," said Bill. "Pesky shame we can't make no coffee."

"But look what that's making, Bill!" she cried.

"Makin' a pesky lot of noise," he grumbled.

"The superman," jeered Paul.

Little by little the artillery diminished.

"He's calling them off—the god of war. What's his name?" she said.

"Thor. Weren't you frightened?" he asked curiously.

"No. It was worth all the dull days I've ever spent. I know how to go out now, Paul, if the time comes: up here, in glorious destruction!"

"You queer, uncanny Celt," said he.

Later they opened the door and ventured out. The earth was blotted out in blackness, as of the void before God spoke. They made for a rock a few feet from the cabin, and stood peering off into opaque nothingness. Barbara felt for Paul's hand and clung to it. They stood so for a space of time, silent.

"I'm ready now to go back down. There's nothing more to learn up here. I know His peace and His wrath," she said at last.

"Life seems simpler, somehow—and greater, much greater," he answered her.

II

Monday found them back in New York. As they drove from the station to the hotel they watched the passing panorama in silence.

"It seems a little dwarfed, doesn't it?" Barbara said.

"Yes. New York needs an occasional dose of absence, to keep the perspective true," he answered.

They looked about the hotel living-room with a sense of its strangeness. The maid had everything in order, even to flowers everywhere.

"I can't seem to remember why we clutter up with so many luxuries," Barbara sighed.

"Are you a little sorry that you slit the envelope?" he teased her.

"No. Are you sorry I did it?"

"I had more to leave behind than you did."

She looked her surprise.

"I left the best playmate I ever had, up there in the hills."

"You mean Bill?" impudently.

"I mean the 'little feller'."

"You must ask him to visit you."

"No, he belongs to the hills and a heyday holiday. I doubt if Barbara Garratry, Broadway's darling, would care for that kid."

"I'm partial to nice boys."

"He might be fascinated with you, and make me jealous."

"That is a joke," she laughed. "I had to make a sacrifice, too, you know."

"You mean?"

"I had to exchange a big boy chum for a possible governor, plain garden variety."

"I wonder if that big boy and the little feller will ever play again?"

"'I ain't no pruphut,' as Bill says."

The morrow found them both buckling down to work. Paul went off to his office at nine, and Barbara was due at the theatre an hour later. He stopped at her door a moment before he left.

"I seem to recall a great many truisms about the joy of work!"

"It's flapdoodle," she agreed, "the stuff that dreams are made of."

"No, speeches," he amended.

For a few days they both felt cramped, they shifted the old burden of the day's work uneasily, but routine breaks down resistance in the end, and they fell into step with their tasks. Paul was driven every moment. Their hurried visits were unsatisfactory enough. Bob kept in touch with his plans and movements as well as she could, but her own work was trying. The late heat was exhausting, and rehearsing always tried her soul.

"You act like a balky pony, Barbara Garratry," she scolded herself, "I wish Bill were here to give you a 'good jawin'."

Paul appeared at night about seven, hot, tired, harassed.

"Busy to-night?"

"No."

"What do you say to dinner on a roof garden—a city mountain top?"

"Delighted. Are you speaking to-night?"

"Yes, but not until late."

"May I come?"

"Oh, no, don't. I don't know why I dread so to have you in my audience."

"But I've never heard you speak. Maybe you think I couldn't understand your speeches."

"Or maybe I'm afraid you'll find out how much of them you inspire."

They went to the garden on top of the Biltmore, and secured a table as far from people as possible. They looked off over the roofs, which in the half light took on romantic outlines of mosques and minarets. The twin spires of St. Patrick's were mistily dominating it all, as usual. Lights burst slowly, here, there, then the whole upper way was white with electric radiance.

"This has a certain grandeur, too," Barbara said.

He nodded acquiescence, reading her thought.

"It inspires and stimulates, but it never rests you. I wonder why one's kind is so exhausting?" He indicated the garden, now full to the last seat. The chatter, the raised voices, the whirr of electric fans, they all taxed tired nerves to the snapping point. Barbara caught his weary look.

"Do you use all that force we stored up in the hills?" she asked.

"Of course. It's like a reserve army to a hard-pressed general."

"Let me tell you how I use it. I can plunge into the calm that lies out there in the mountains, just as surely as I stepped into that icy stream the first night we were there. I lie down in it, I drink it, I steep myself in it, and I come out refreshed and renewed. Try it, it's a trick of imagination."

The idea caught and held his attention for several minutes.

"Thanks. I'll try that. You're working very hard, aren't you?"

"Yes. I have to. I can't get interested. I want to go fishing."

"Me, too," he laughed.

"I've had bad news to-day."

He leaned toward her quickly.

"We are to open in Boston."

"No?"

"Yes. I must leave Sunday."

"You don't like Boston? You don't want to go?"

"No, I don't want to go."

"Why?" eagerly.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm more comfortable here."

"Oh!"

"You'll be glad to have me out of the way, while you're so busy."

"On the contrary. I rarely see you, but it is a pleasure to think that you are here."

"Thanks! Boston is suburban; if you could find time to——"

"I may come?"

She nodded.

"I'll find time."

Sunday she left for a month's absence. In a way she was glad to go. She realized that she needed time and solitude to think out several problems that confronted her. First and most important, she wanted to discover just how much of a part Paul Trent had come to play in her days. Removed entirely from the influence of his personality, she intended to free herself from him, look at him, and at herself impersonally.

He had rushed away from a meeting to put her on the train, and his farewell had been as casual as if she were going to Brooklyn for the evening. It had piqued her a bit. Then angry at herself that she had wanted him anything but casual, she had punished him with an indifference which a more astute student of women would have detected at once as over played.

She sighed over the growing complexity of the situation. Why could it not always be as simple and natural as it had been in the mountains? Monday was too busy for thoughts, rehearsal in the new theatre, getting settled in the new hotel, followed by a first night as climax.

When she arrived at the theatre she found her dressing-room full of Killarney roses, with a telegram from Paul: "Irish roses have to do. I wish I could fill the room with mountain laurel."

She was both touched and pleased. She knew he had taken time and thought from his busy day, and it gave her a thrill of happiness. It was enough to key her performance to a high note of joy which her audience felt at once. She was gladsome youth and daring, and she danced into their hearts, just as she had into the more hospitable affections of Broadway. There was no withstanding her. It was a triumph.

Later when the manager came to her room to congratulate her, she said: "Yes, they liked me, but I'm not going to extend the run."

"Why not, if the money's rolling in?"

"I don't care if it is. I want to get back to New York."

"You Irish are all crazy!" he remarked, with the Hebraic patience of one whose gods are all outraged. "She don't care for money, she likes New York," he mocked her.

Her friends came back in numbers after the play. She was invited to sup, to dine, to play bridge, to take tea. She refused to go anywhere until she was rested after the strain of the first night, and when they had all departed, she hurried into her street clothes. All at once it came to her that there was no need of this rush. Paul would not be pacing the corridor to-night. With a sigh and a sudden acute sense of loneliness, she led the way to the hotel.

As she stopped for her key the clerk told her that New York would call her at midnight. She hurried to her room, her heart beating, and as she opened the door the telephone rang. She flew to it.

"Yes, yes, Paul!" she said, and scarcely knew her own voice. "Yes, great success. I was wonderful, thanks to you ... yes, I was so happy about the flowers and the telegram; it sang in my playing. Tell me about your day. What happened?" She listened attentively. "Everything all right, then. Empty?... You mean you miss me? I can't be sorry for that, Playmate."

They talked on for several minutes. When good-nights were said, Bob crossed the room to lay off her cloak, smiling. She caught sight of herself in the mirror.

"Why, Barbara Garratry," she said, staring at herself. "How can you look like that after a Boston opening?" Then she laughed.

Friends absolutely closed in on her after the first few days. She had all she could do to protect herself.

The days were crowded with little things, people and teas. She found herself too restless to work. She could not analyze her state of mind at all. Nothing interested her, people seemed unusually stupid and bromidic, she lost interest in the play she was writing and found the one she was playing a bore. She knew that her health was perfect and she could not make it out.

In her search for something to divert her mind and serve as an escape from over-devoted admirers, she discovered a public municipal bath house, where she could go to swim. Clad in the shapeless blue garment provided by the bath house—Bob called it "the democratic toga"—she would shut her eyes and dive off the spring board, pretending that she was going into the mountain pool in the dark. The strength she had stored up in the hills stood her in good stead for the swimming races. Pauline, as she taught the girls to call her, was always, or nearly always, winner.

Nobody suspected who she was, and she found great amusement in the occasional outburst of some matinee adorer, in regard to the charms of Bob Garratry. She heard marvellous yarns about herself, her unhappy marriage, her large group of children, her many lovers.

"No, I haven't seen the lady," she answered one of them, "but I'll wager I can beat her swimming fifty yards."

"Oh, she wouldn't swim!" protested the girl.

"Wouldn't she? Poor sort, then," said "Pauline," trying the Australian Crawl.

Every night at midnight Paul called her on the 'phone, and this was the one vital hour of her day. He kept her as closely in touch with his campaigning as she had been in New York. In return he demanded news of her doings, her successes, and her friends. He announced that he was to go on a trip through the state, lasting a week, and she lamented to herself that their visits would cease, but he called her just the same from the different towns.

One afternoon she sauntered down the hall to her room, after a series of alleged pleasures, including luncheon and two teas. She was tired and she vowed to herself that this was her last day of killing time. To-morrow she would force herself to work. She opened the door and was halfway across the room before she saw him smiling at her from the hearthrug. Her hand went to her heart swiftly as he came toward her, both hands out.

"Barbara!"

"Paul! But how—when——"

"I ran away! We were in a town where we were to have a meeting. I was to be the main speaker. I don't know what happened to me: I just found myself on a train coming here, and here I am."

He held her two hands and looked at her intently.

"But how long have you been here? Why didn't you let me know?"

"I wanted to surprise you. I've been pacing this room for one hour in punishment."

"Oh, I'm sorry.... You're very thin and overworked, Governor."

"I know it. The strain is over soon now, thank Heaven. But you—it's you I want to hear about; it's you I want to see, and listen to."

He helped her with her coat, placed her chair, and when she was seated, he stood looking at her.

"You think I've changed?" she smiled at him.

"I never can remember how you look. It tantalizes me."

"Oh, didn't I leave you any pictures?"

"Pictures! I don't want any Miss Barbara Garratry advertisements. I know how she looks. It's you I can't remember. You've had a big success here. Does it make you happy?"

She shook her head.

"Why not?"

"No fight—too easy. That's one of my troubles: there seems to be so little for me to fight for in my work. Lord! that sounds self-satisfied. I don't mean it that way. I mean that developing as an artist is a peaceful process, rather. The days when I had to fight for my chance, fight for my part, fight the stage manager to let me do it my way, fight the audience to make it like me—oh, those were the days that counted! Daddy and I used to talk things over nights. He was cautious. He'd say: 'Well, ye' lose yer job if you do that,' but when I had done it, he used to laugh and say: 'Bob, son av battle, shure enough'."

Paul laughed.

"The dulness of being successful! There's something in it, Bob."

"Of course there is. Report on your week, sir."

"Well, the boys say it went all right, but I didn't seem to have my heart in it. I've been so restless, so sort of bored with people and things. I can't get down to work. I even find myself thinking of what I am going to say to you over the telephone, right in the middle of a speech, with a big audience out there in front of me."

Barbara laughed.

"I suppose I'm tired. I don't know what else can be the matter with me."

She laughed again.

"What is it that amuses you?"

"Can't I laugh when I'm happy?"

"Are you happy?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I just found out something."

"What?"

"Secret."

"Tell me?"

"Maybe—some day."

He stared at her again.

"I know," she nodded, "I am a different girl from the one you married. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped."

"If you're happy, you aren't thinking of—you're not wanting to die?"

"Not until you're governor, anyway."

"You always say that, Barbara. It terrifies me. You mean that if I win, you still may——"

She rose and faced him.

"Not to-night. I'll tell you my plans the night you are elected. Come along now, and eat of the sacred codfish."

"You are a little glad to see me?" he asked her.

"Oh, yes. Boston is boring me to death," she evaded him.

"Damn Boston!" was his succinct reply.

III

As Trent's campaign neared its close, Barbara could tell by the weariness in his voice, over the 'phone, just how near he was to the end of his endurance. It fretted her constantly that she had to stay on in Boston, when she might look after him, make it easier for him if only she could be with him. Twice he came to Boston on flying visits, and the last time she almost decided to throw up her engagement and go back with him.

He assured her that her absence was providential, that he could never see her, even if she were in the same hotel, that it was less tantalizing to have her away, than near and far. He never failed to say good-night by long distance. Sometimes the tired little boy note crept into it to disturb her slumbers.

The week of the election arrived with excitement high. No gubernatorial campaign in years had been fought with such tenacity and fierceness. The entire state was lined up in rabid factions. Trent occasionally sent Barbara a package of newspapers from the smaller towns in the state and she read in one of Paul as "the embodiment of youth and courage, the two qualities most needed in the new governor. Full of enthusiasm for reforms that mean greater efficiency in our state government, yet tempered by a calm judgment and the experience which came to him in his brilliant career in the law." Next she read: "Paul Trent is the tool and mouthpiece of rampant reform. Once in the governor's chair, he will prove a dangerous factor to be dealt with by the people when it is too late."

They accused him of every crime in the decalogue, this side of murder—and every virtue. They mentioned his mysterious marriage with a well-known actress as proof of his loose moral standards—as proof of his fine democratic ideas! The whole thing, viewed as a spectacle, made one of the absurd exhibits of our political system.

When Barbara was not raging, perforce, she laughed.

For the first three days of the week before election the New York call came once at one, twice later than that. Three or four meetings a night listened to Trent, and during the day he addressed crowds in the nearby towns. The day before election, at noon, Barbara entered her manager's office with an air of bravado.

"Oh, good-morning. This is an honour," he smiled.

"Wait a minute before you waste that smile! An understudy has got to go on for me to-night and to-morrow night."

"What? Are you sick?"

"No. I'm going to New York on an afternoon train. I'll come back on the midnight train to-morrow."

"You will and you won't. That's a pretty high tone for you to take with me. What about the receipts—what about me—what am I to tell the public? That you don't like Boston, and you went to New York to buy a hat? Nice position you put me in, with the S.R.O. sign out every night. You think all you've got to do is to come in here, smiling sweetly, and say: 'I'm going to New York this afternoon.'"

"I told you you'd regret that smile! Look here, Wolfson, you can like it or not, just as you please. I'm going to New York to help get my husband elected governor. If you've got the sense God is supposed to have given your race, you'll play it up big in the papers and make capital out of it. There aren't so many actresses married to governors, you know. You've got something exclusive!"

"But he ain't governor!"

"No, but he will be by to-morrow night. By the time you get it into the dear public's head, he will be, and I'll be back here. Get my point?"

"Yes, but you're crazy!"

"Granted—it's grand to be crazy! Give little Marcy a chance at my part; she deserves it. I'm off now. By-by."

"I could break my contract with you for this!"

She turned and came back.

"Suits me perfectly. Let's settle it now. I don't want to come back to-morrow night, just for the trip," she said coolly.

The poor little man was on the prongs of a toasting fork, and he knew it. He paced the floor and sputtered and raged. Bob looked at her watch.

"I don't intend to miss my train. Do I come back or not?"

"Oh, damn it, yes. Now get out."

"You're a most obliging little man, Wolfson, but your temper is unspeakably bad."

She smiled sweetly at him, and tripped out.

All the way on the train she devised new ways of appearing to Trent. He had no least suspicion of her plans, and she intended to make the most of the dramatic possibilities of the situation. Her train did not get her into New York until after six. She knew Paul was to address half a dozen meetings, ending with the biggest of all at Cooper Union. She was not sure that she could find him even if she tried, but she intended to be at Cooper Union to lose herself in the crowd, and listen to him, watch him fire the last gun of his fight—their fight. Then—well, that would have to take care of itself.

She drove to the hotel and met the cordial, unsurprised greeting of the clerk. Nothing "in heaven or earth beneath" can surprise a New York hotel clerk. She asked about Paul, when he came in, when he dined.

"Lord, Mrs. Trent, I don't know when the man eats or sleeps. I don't think he does much of either."

"How can I find out where he is to speak to-night? He does not know I'm here and I want to surprise him."

"We've got some hand bills here."

"Thanks! I'll be here until to-morrow night."

She went to her own sitting-room which Trent was supposed to use during her absence. She ventured into his rooms, which looked unused and cheerless. She had a bath, dressed with unusual care, dined alone in her room studying Paul's itinerary between bites. Eight meetings announced him as headliner, with Cooper Union as the climax. She shook her head over it; he would be dead of weariness.

At eight o'clock she called a taxi and started to the first meeting. She could not get within a block of the place. She tried the next and the next with the same results, so she ordered the driver to Cooper Union, hoping to beat the crowd there, as Paul was not announced until late.

She paid her man and joined the mass of people wedged into a solid block of resistance before the building.

"Is the hall full?" she asked the policeman.

"Full? Sure, it's been full since six o'clock, Ma'am."

"What's the attraction?"

"Paul Trent, the nixt governor, is speakin' here to-night."

"He must be popular."

"Sure he's popular. He's got the right dope, that feller. He's the people's ch'ice, all roight, all roight."

"I couldn't possibly get in there, could I?"

"The governor's wife couldn't git in. If ye had a platform ticket ye might get in there."

"How do I get to the platform door?"

"I'll get ye through. Have yer ticket ready."

He pushed and beat a way for her to the stage door, which was guarded by a fellow officer.

"Tickut, lady?" he demanded.

"I want to see Mr. John Kent."

"He's Trent's manager. He's with him at the other meetings."

"Who has this meeting in charge?"

"If ye haven't got yer tickut, it's no use," he said, inspecting her suspiciously.

"The idea of one Irishman sayin' no use to another," she laughed.

"Are ye Irish?"

"Phwat's the matter with yer eyes, man?"

He grinned.

"Give me your pencil."

He obeyed. She wrote on her card and handed it to him. "You get that to the chairman of the meeting."

He read it deliberately.

"Fer the love av the green!" said he. "'Tis yersilf. I seen ye at the Comedy Theatre onct. Well, well!"

The chairman himself hurried to the door to meet her in reply to the summons.

"Miss Garratry— I should say, Mrs. Trent, this is a pleasure."

"I'd no idea I had to have a passport to hear my own husband speak."

He led her in.

"Let me sit back where no one will see me, please. Mr. Trent has no idea I am in town. I'd rather he didn't see me until after his speech."

The chairman nodded, but he was much too astute a stage manager to let this opportunity pass. They stood at the back of the stage until the speaker finished, and then with an air he led Barbara down the very middle of the stage to a seat in the front row.

"So sorry," he said, "the back seats are all full."

Then he took the stage and introduced the next speaker, smiling at Barbara in such a way that every eye in the great mob was fixed upon her. The speaker began the regulation political speech, and Bob gave herself up to an excited study of the house, black with people to the very dome. She was too well versed in audiences not to feel its quality.

In the meantime Paul was making slow progress from one meeting to the next. In the cab between stops he tried the mechanical transposition of himself into the mountains, according to Bob's suggestion. He must find some way to rest his tired brain. He pretended that he was sitting in the theatre in Boston watching Bob's play; he repeated the midnight walk they once took up the avenue. He wished he might ask her advice about the speech at Cooper Union. It would count a good deal, and her experienced knowledge of the psychology of audiences had helped him out many times before. She would know just the most effective thought to leave in the minds of the men who were to answer him at the polls to-morrow.

For the first time he felt the need of her, not as brain or partner, but just as woman and wife. He wanted to put his tired head down on her shoulder and feel her cheek on his hair, her tenderness about him. He roused himself with a start.

"What meeting is this, John?"

"Eighth. Twenty-fifth ward."

"Cooper Union after this!"

"Yes. It's eleven now; we ought to make it by eleven-thirty."

"Bother. We won't get through before one," said Paul, thinking of the long distance call to Boston.

Back at Cooper Union the speaker sawed the air, and yelled himself hoarse, in the approved political speaking style of the old school. The crowd was bored with him. They kept up their enthusiasm by yelling, just to keep awake. When the orator sat down, some man in the audience leapt to his feet.

"Mr. Chairman," he shouted, "let Bob speak. She can tell the truth about Paul Trent—she's married to him."

In a flash the house had grasped the idea.

"We want the Governor's lady! We want the Governor's lady!" they chanted. The place was a roar of sound. Bob's heart clamped tight with terror. She turned a white face to the chairman, who stood with raised hand, trying to quiet them. It was like pushing back the waves of the sea, the sound surged higher and more tempestuous. Into Bob's atrophied mind pierced the thought that this was her chance to help Paul, that she could play her own popularity to forward his cause, if she had the nerve.

She had never made a speech in her life. She was trained in an art which makes no extemporaneous demand on the artist. Everything is set, prepared for, rehearsed. This all made the background of her mind, as she rose and nodded to the astonished chairman. Then as she walked to the speaker's desk and faced them, her fear fell away. There were the same old adoring faces she was used to. They were just human beings, not a jury to try her. She waived the chairman aside, when he tried in vain to introduce her. The crowd indulged in what might be termed "a mob fit."

They yelled, deepening waves of sound; they stood up and waved handbills, with a crackling like flames; they stomped with their boots and whistled on their fingers. Bob watched and listened a moment, then her clear laugh rang out above the roar. She held up her hand and absolute quiet fell on them, as if a lid had been shut down on a bubbling pot.

"Boys and girls, do be still!" called Bob. "I can't talk to a Roman mob like you, unless you're quiet. I'm scared to death as it is. I never made a speech before, and maybe I'm not going to make one now!

"I've been to political meetings before. I'm Irish, so that goes without saying. My father used to say that if I'd been a man I'd have been a policeman. Ye know they call me Bob, son av Battle."

"I bet you would, too. I'd vote for ye! Maybe you suffragettes will make it yet," the crowd interrupted her.

"Are you making this speech or am I?" she called to them.

"Shut up! Let her alone! Tell us what kind of a guy Trent is!" they called.

"What I started to say, when I was so rudely interrupted, was this: I'm more interested in this political meeting than any I ever went to, because I'm more interested in the candidate for governor, and I want every man in this audience to vote for Paul Trent to-morrow on my say so."

They expressed themselves on that point in the usual vocal way. Bob reached for the chairman's gavel, with a "Give me that thing!" which made them all laugh. She beat the desk until there was silence.

"I think a man who is courteous, high minded, unselfish, and dependable in his relations with women is the kind of man to be dependable in his political relations. When Paul Trent says a thing is so, you can bank on its being so. If you send him to Albany to run this state, he'll run it. The politicians can't boss him, you can't boss him, and I can't boss him—(laughter)—but he'll do his conscientious best to run it right. You send him up there and see!"

She smiled and nodded at them as she turned to take her seat; the crowd's sudden shout of welcome made her turn quickly. Paul was coming toward her. The look in his eyes held her so that she forgot the crowd, which was going into convulsions out in front.

"My dear!" Paul said to her softly, taking her hand. She smiled up at him, turned back to the crowd in front, and with her hand still in his silenced them with a gesture. They scented a situation.

"Friends," Paul began.

"Save yer breath, Guv'nor, the Missus said it all," yelled a voice from the crowd. Everybody laughed.

"Friends," Paul repeated, smiling, "I shall not try to improve on the Missus. If when you go to the polls to-morrow you think it is for the good of the State of New York that I should try to direct its government for two years, vote for me, and I'll thank the Missus. Mind you, I don't promise any miracles, but as far as any honest man can see what's right, I'll do it. Good-night to you."

Cooper Union has seen some exhibitions of excitement, but this was a prize example. Bob and Paul stood for ten minutes, hand in hand, bowing and smiling, before the crowd began to break up. Then the mob on the platform surrounded them, and it was half an hour before they made their escape. At the door Paul said to her:

"I've got to meet my committee for half an hour, dearest. Will you go to the hotel and wait for me? I'll come as soon as I can."

She nodded, and he put her into a cab at the door. The hour she waited for him seemed ten minutes, for she went over every step of their time together from the first day. He burst open the door at last, and came toward her, his face alight, his arms out, his whole need of her in his eyes. She put her two hands on his breast and held him away from her.

"Paul, not one word to-night. No extra strain, no excitement. I want you to go to bed, now, at once. I shall be here until after the returns to-morrow night. Then we'll talk. Please, dear," she added softly, at the protest in his eyes. He bent and kissed her fingers.

"I don't know how you're here, but it's wonderful," he said, and left her.

The next day she scarcely saw him. She spent the time at the telephone or buying extras. All day long she busied herself with this, that, and the other thing, to keep her nerves in order. At seven Paul telephoned that he could not come to dine with her, but that he hoped to be back by ten. She forced herself to go to a nearby theatre to put in the early evening, but the only part of the entertainment that interested her was the election returns announced between the acts.

Back at the hotel at ten, but no Paul. She packed her bag, and sent out for two tickets on the midnight train to Boston. At half-past ten he came, worn to a shred.

"Well?" she cried, as he stood on the threshold.

"We've won, Barbara. It seems to be a landslide."

He came and stood before her.

"Are you glad?"

"Glad? Governor, aren't you?"

"I suppose so. It seems unimportant somehow. I want something else so much more."

"What?"

"You—your love. I want to put my arms around you, I want to put my head down on your hair, and know that you're safe in my heart."

"Lock me away there, Governor, that's my home," she whispered, and was in his arms.

"Barbara, beloved, you don't want to go away from earth now?" he asked her, after long but pregnant silences. She lifted her head and kissed him gently.

"Dear heart," said she with a sigh, "I want to live to be a hundred and ten."

THE END