Descending the hill, Thor saw a light in his uncle Sim's stable, and knew that Delia was being settled for the night. Uncle Sim still lived in the ramshackle house to which his father—old Dr. Masterman, as elderly people in the village called him—had taken his young wife, who had been Miss Lucy Dawes. In this house both Sim and Archie Masterman were born. It was the plainest of dwellings, painted by wind and weather to a dovelike silver-gray. Here lived Uncle Sim, cared for in the domestic sense by a lady somewhat older and more eccentric than himself, known to the younger Mastermans as Cousin Amy Dawes.

Thor avoided the house and Cousin Amy Dawes, going directly to the stable. By the time he had reached the door Uncle Sim was shutting it. In the light of a lantern standing in the snow the naked elms round about loomed weirdly. The greetings were brief.

"Hello, Uncle Sim!"

"Hello, Thor!"

Thor made an effort to reduce the emotional tremor of his voice to the required minimum. "Father's been telling me about Claude and Rosie Fay."

Uncle Sim turned the key in the lock with a loud grating. "Father had to do it, did he? Thought you might have caught on to that by yourself. One of the reasons I sent you into the Fay family."

"Did you know it then?—already?"

"Didn't know it. Couldn't help putting two and two together."

"You see everything, Uncle Sim."

Uncle Sim stooped to pick up the lantern. "See everything that's under my nose. Thought you could, too."

"This hasn't been under my nose."

"Oh, well! There are noses and noses. A donkey has one kind and a dog has another."

Thor was not a finished actor, but he was doing his best to play a part. "Well, what do you think now?"

"What do I think now? I don't think anything—about other people's business."

"I think we ought to do something," Thor declared, with energy.

"All right. Every one to his mind. Only it's great fun to let other people settle their own affairs."

"Settle their own affairs—and suffer."

"Yes, and suffer. Suffering doesn't hurt any one."

"Do you mean to say, Uncle Sim, that I should sit still and do nothing while the people I care for most in the world are in all sorts of trouble that I could get them out of?"

"That little baggage, Rosie Fay, isn't one of the people you care for most in the world, I presume?"

Thor knew that with Uncle Sim's perspicacity this might be a leading question, but he made the answer he considered the most diplomatic in the circumstances. "She is if—if Claude is in love with her. But—but why do you call her that, Uncle Sim?"

"Because she's a little witch. Most determined little piece I know. Hard working; lots of pluck; industrious as the devil. Whole soul set on attaining her ends."

Thor considered it prudent to return to the point from which he had been diverted. "Well, if the people I care for most are in trouble that I can get them out of—"

"Oh, if you can get them out of it—"

"Well, I can."

"Then that's all right. Only the case must be rather rare. Haven't often seen the attempt made except with one result—not that of getting people out of trouble, but of getting oneself in. But every one to his taste, Thor. Wouldn't stop you for the world. Only advise you not to be in a hurry."

"There's no question of being in a hurry when things have to be done now."

"All right, Thor. You know better than I. I'm one of those slowpokes who look on the fancy for taking a hand in other people's affairs as I do on the taste for committing suicide—there's always time. If you don't do it to-day, you can to-morrow—which is a reason for putting it off, ain't it?"

There was more than impatience in Thor's protest as he cried, "But how can you put it off when there's some one—some one who's—who's unhappy?"

"I see. Comes back to that. But I don't mind some one's being unhappy. Don't care a tuppenny damn. Do 'em good. I've seen more people unhappy than I could tell you about in a year; and nine out of ten were made men and women by it who before that had been only rags."

"I'm afraid I can't accept that cheerful doctrine, Uncle Sim—"

"All right, Thor. Don't want you to. Wouldn't interfere with you any more than with any one else. Free country. Got your own row to hoe. If you make yourself miserable in the process, why, it'll do you as much good as it does all the rest. Nothing like it. Wouldn't save you from it for anything. But there's a verse of an old song that you might turn over in your mind—old song written about two or three thousand years ago: 'Oh, tarry thou the Lord's leisure—'"

Thor tossed his head impatiently. "Oh, pshaw!"

"But it goes on: 'And be strong.' You can be awful strong when you're tarrying the Lord's leisure, Thor, because then you know you're not making any damn-fool mistakes."

Thor spoke up proudly: "I'd rather make mistakes—than do nothing."

"That's all right, Thor; splendid spirit. Don't disapprove of it a mite. Go ahead. Make mistakes. It'll be live and learn. Not the least afraid. I've often noticed that when young fellows of your sort prefer their own haste to the Lord's leisure there's a Lord's haste that hurries on before 'em, so as to be all ready to meet 'em when they come a cropper in the ditch."

Thor turned away sharply. "I guess I'll beat it, Uncle Sim."

The old man, swinging his lantern, shambled along by his nephew's side, as the latter made for the road again. "Oh, I ain't trying to hold you back, Thor. Now, am I? On the contrary, I say, go ahead. Rush in where angels fear to tread; and if you don't do anything else you'll carry the angels along with you. You may make an awful fool of yourself, Thor—but you'll be on the side of the angels and the angels'll be on yours."

Though dinner was over by the time Thor reached home, his stepmother sat with him while he ate it. It was a new departure for her. Thor could not remember that she had ever done anything of the sort before. She sat with him and served him, asking no questions as to why he was late. She seemed to divine a trouble on his part beyond her power to console, and for which the only sympathy she dared to express was that of small kindly acts. He understood this and was grateful.

He found her society soothing. This, too, surprised him. He felt so battered and sore that the mere presence of one who approached him from an affectionate impulse had the effect on him of a gentle hand. Never before in his life had he been conscious of woman's genius for comforting, possibly because never before in his life had he needed comfort to the same degree.

No reference was made by his stepmother or himself to the scene with Mrs. Willoughby in the afternoon, but it was not hard for him to perceive that in some strange way it was stirring the victim of it to newness of life. It was not that she admitted the application of Bessie's charges to herself; they only startled her to the knowledge that there were heights and depths in human existence such as her imagination had never plumbed. Her nature was making a feeble effort to expand, as the petals of a bud that has been kept hard and compact by a backward spring may unfold to the heat of summer.

When he had finished his hasty meal, Thor rose and kissed her, saying, "Thank you, mumphy," using the pet name that had not been on his lips since childhood. She drew his face downward with a sudden sob, a sob quite inexplicable except on the ground that her poor, withered, strangled little soul was at last trying to live.

Having gone up-stairs to his room, Thor shut the door and bolted it in his desire for solitude. He changed his coat and kicked off his boots. When he had lighted a pipe he threw himself on the old sofa which had done duty as couch at the foot of his bed ever since he was a boy. It was the attitude in which he had always been best able to "think things out."

Now that he had eaten a sufficient dinner, he felt physically less bruised, though mentally there was more to torture him. He regretted having seen Uncle Sim. He hated the alternative of letting things alone. There was a sense in which action would have been an anodyne to suffering, and had it not been for Uncle Sim he would have had no scruple in making use of it.

It was all very well to talk of letting people settle their own affairs; but how could they settle them, in these particular cases, without his intervention? As far as power went he was like a fairy prince who had only to wave a wand to see the whole scene transfigured. If he hadn't asked Uncle Sim's advice he would be already waving it, instead of lolling on his back, with his right foot poised over his left knee and dangling a heelless slipper in the air. He felt shame at the very attitude of idleness.

True, there were the two distinct lines of action—that of making a number of people happy now, and that of holding back that they might fight their own battles. By fighting their own battles they might emerge from the conflict the stronger—after forty or fifty years! Those who were unlikely to live so long—Len and Bessie Willoughby, for example—would probably go down rebelling and protesting to their graves. But Claude and Rosie and Lois might all grow morally the stronger. There was that possibility. It was plain. Claude and Rosie might marry on the former's fifteen hundred dollars a year, have children, and bring them up in poverty as model citizens; but whatever the high triumph of their middle age, Thor shrank from the thought of the interval for both. And Lois, too, might live down grief, disappointment, small means, and loneliness; might become hardened and toughened and beaten to endurance, and grow to be the best and bravest and kindest old maid in the world. Uncle Sim would probably consider that in these noble achievements the game would be worth the candle; but he, Thor Masterman, didn't. The more he developed the possibilities of this future for every one concerned, himself included, the more he loathed it.

It was past eleven before he reached the point of loathing at which he was convinced that action should begin; but once he reached it, he bounded to his feet. He felt wonderfully free and vigorous. If certain details could be settled there and then—he couldn't wait till the morrow—he thought that, in spite of everything, he should sleep.

He had heard Claude go to his room, which was on the same floor as his own, an hour earlier. Claude was probably by this time in bed and asleep, but the elder brother couldn't hesitate for that. Within less than a minute he had crossed the passage, entered Claude's bedroom, and turned on the electric light.

Claude's profile sunk into the middle of the pillow might have been carved in ivory. His dark wavy hair fell back picturesquely from temple and brow. Under the coverings his slim form made a light, graceful line.

The room was at once dainty and severe. A striped paper, brightened by a design of garlands, knots, and flowers À la Marie Antoinette, made a background for white furniture in the style of Louis XVI., modern and inexpensive, but carefully selected by Mrs. Masterman. The walls were further lightened by colored reprints of old French scenes, discreetly amorous, collected by Claude himself.

Thor stood for some seconds in front of the bed before the brother opened his eyes. More seconds passed while the younger gazed up at the elder. "What the dev—!" Claude began, sleepily.

But Thor broke in, promptly, "Claude, why didn't you ever tell me you knew Rosie Fay?"

Claude closed his eyes again. The expected had happened. Like Rosie, he resolved to meet the moment cautiously, creating no more opposition than he could help. "Why should I?" he parried, without hostility.

"Because I asked you, for one thing."

He opened his eyes. "When did you ever ask me?"

"At the bank; one day when I found you there. It must have been two months ago."

Claude stirred slightly under the bedclothes. "Oh, then."

"Yes, then. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't see how I could. What good would it have done, anyhow?"

It was on Thor's tongue to say, "It would have done the good of not telling lies," but he suppressed that. One of his objects was to be conciliating. He had other objects, which he believed would be best served by taking a small chair and sitting on it astride, close to Claude's bed. An easy, fraternal air was maintained by the effect of the pipe still hanging by its curved stem from the corner of his mouth. He began to think highly of himself as a comedian.

"I wish you had told me," he said, quietly, "because I could have helped you."

Claude lay still. His eyes grew brilliant. "Helped me—how?"

"Helped you in whatever it is you're trying to do." He added, with significance, "You are trying to do something, aren't you?"

Claude endeavored to gain time by saying, "Trying to do what?"

"You're—" Thor hesitated, but dashed in. "You're in love with her?"

It was still to gain time that Claude replied, "What do you think?"

Thor's heart bounded with a great hope. Perhaps Claude was not in love with her. He had not been noticeably moved as yet. In that case it might be possible—barely possible—that after Rosie had outlived her disappointment there might be a chance that he.... But he dared not speculate. Mustering everything that was histrionic within him, he said, with the art that conceals art, "I think you are—decidedly."

Claude rolled partly over in bed. "That's about it."

The confession was as full as one brother could expect from another. Thor's heart sank again. He managed, however, to keep on the high plane of art as he brought out the words, "And what about her?"

Again Claude's avowal was as ardent as the actual conditions called for. "Oh, I guess she's all right."

"So—what now?"

Claude rolled back toward his brother, raising his head slightly from the pillow. "Well—what now?"

"You're going to be married, I suppose?"

Claude lifted himself on his elbow. "Married on fifteen hundred a year?" He went on, before Thor could say anything, "If there was nothing else to consider!"

Thor felt stirrings of hope again. "Then, if you're not going to be married, what do you mean?"

"What do I mean? What can I mean?"

"Oh, come, Claude! You're not a boy any longer. You know perfectly well that a man of honor—with your traditions—can't trifle with a girl like that—or break her heart—or—or ruin her."

"I'm not doing any of the three. She knows I'm not. She knows I'm only in the same box she's in herself."

"That is, you're both in love, without seeing how you're going to—"

Claude lurched forward in the bed. "Look here, Thor; if you want to know, it's this. I've tried to leave the girl alone—and I can't. I'm worse than a damn fool; I'm every sort of a hound. I can't marry her, and I can't give her up. When I haven't seen her for a week, I'm frantic; and when I do see her I swear to God I'll never see her again. So now you know."

Claude threw himself back again on the pillows, but Thor went on, quietly: "Why do you swear to God you'll never see her again?"

"Because I'm killing her. That is, I should be killing her if she wasn't the bravest little brick on earth. You don't know her, Thor. You've seen her, and you know she's pretty; but you don't know that she's as plucky as they make 'em—pluckier."

Thor answered, wearily, "I've rather guessed that, which is one of the reasons why I feel you should be true to her."

"I am true to her—truer than I ought to be. If I was less true it would be better for us both. She'd get over it—"

Again Thor was aware of an up-leaping hope. "And you, too?"

"Oh, I suppose so—in time."

"Yes, but you'd suffer."

Claude gave another lurch forward in the bed. "I couldn't suffer worse than I'm suffering now, knowing I'm an infernal cad—and not seeing how to be anything else."

"But you wouldn't be an infernal cad if you married her."

The young man flung himself about the bed impatiently. "Oh, what's the use of talking?"

"If she had money you could marry her all right."

"Ah, go to the devil, Thor!" The tone was one of utter exasperation.

Thor persisted. "If she had, let us say, four or five thousand dollars a year of her own—"

Claude stretched his person half-way out of bed. "I said—go to the devil!"

"Well, she has."

"Has what?"

"Four or five thousand dollars a year of her own. That is, she will have it, if you and she get married."

"Say, Thor, have you got the jimjams?"

"I'm speaking quite seriously, Claude. I've always intended to do something to help you out when I got hold of Grandpa Thorley's money; and, if you like, I'll do it that way."

"Do it what way?"

"The way I say. If you and Rosie get married, she shall have five thousand a year of her own."

"From you?"

Thor nodded.

The younger brother looked at the elder curiously. It was a long minute before he spoke. "If it's to help me out, why don't I have it? I'm your brother. I should think I'd be the one."

"Because I'd rather do it that way. It would be a means of evening things up. It would make her more like your equal. You know as well as I do that father and mother will kick like blazes; but if Rosie has money—"

"If Rosie has money they'll know she gets it from somewhere. They won't think it comes down to her out of heaven."

"They can think what they like. They needn't know that I have anything to do with it. They know you haven't got five thousand a year, and if she has—why, there'll be the solid cash to convince them. The whole thing will be a pill for them; but if it's gilded—"

Claude's knees were drawn up in the bed, his hands clasped about them. Thor noticed the strangeness of his expression, but he was unprepared for his words when they came out. "Say, Thor, you're not in love with her yourself, are you?"

Owing to what he believed to be the perfection of his acting, it was the question Thor had least expected to be called on to answer. He knew he was turning white or green, and that his smile when he forced it was nothing but a ghastly movement of the mouth. It was his turn to gain time, but he could think of nothing more forcible than, "What makes you ask me that?"

"Because it looks so funny—so damned funny."

"There's nothing funny in my trying to give a lift to my own brother, is there?"

"N-no; perhaps not. But, see here, Thor—" He leaned forward. "You're not in love with her, are you?"

Thor knew the supreme moment of his life had come, that he should never reach another like it. It was within his power to seize the cup and drain it—or thrust it aside. Of all temptations he had ever had to meet none had been so strong as this. It was the stronger for his knowing that if it was conquered now it would probably never return. He would have put himself beyond reach of its returning. That in itself appalled him. There was some joy in feeling the temptation there, as a thing to be dallied with. He dallied with it now. He dallied with it to the extent of saying, with a smile he tried to temper to playfulness:

"Well, what if I was in love with her?"

Something about Claude leaped into flame. "Then I wouldn't touch a cent of your money. I wouldn't let her touch it. I wouldn't let her look at it. I'd marry her on my own—I'll be hanged if I wouldn't. I'd marry her to-morrow. I'd get out of bed and marry her to-night. I'd—"

Thor forced his smile to a tenderer playfulness, sitting calmly astride of his chair, his left arm along the back, his right hand holding his pipe by the bowl. "So you wouldn't let me have her?"

Claude lashed across the bed. "I'd see you hanged first. I'd see you damned. I'd see you damned to hell. She's mine, I tell you. I'm not going to give her up to any one—and to you least of all. Do you get that? Now you know."

"All right, Claude. Now I know."

"Yes, but I don't know." Claude wriggled to the side of the bed, drawing as near to his brother as he could without getting out. "I don't know. I've asked you a question, and you haven't answered it. And, by God! you've got to answer it. Sooner than let any one else get her, I'll marry her and starve. Now speak."

Thor got up heavily. He had the feeling with which the ancients submitted when they stood soberly and affirmed that it was useless to struggle against Fate. Fate was upon him. He saw it now. He had tried to elude her, but she had got him where he couldn't move. She asserted herself again when Claude, hanging half out of bed, his mouth feverish, his eyes burning, insisted, imperiously, "Say, you—speak!"

Thor spoke. He spoke from the middle of the floor, his pipe still in his hand. He spoke without premeditation, as though but uttering the words that Destiny had put into his mouth from all eternity.

"It's all right, Claude. Calm down. I'm—I'm going to be married to Lois Willoughby."

But Claude was not yet convinced. "When?"

"Just as soon as we can fix things up after the tenth of next month—after I get the money."

"How long has that been settled?" Claude demanded, with lingering suspicion.

"It's been settled for years, as far as I'm concerned. I can hardly remember the time when I didn't intend—just what I'm going to do."

Claude let himself drop back again among the pillows.

"So now it's all right, isn't it?" Thor continued, making a move toward the door. "It'll be Lois and I—and you and Rosie. And the money will go to Rosie. I insist on that. It'll even things up. Five thousand a year. Perhaps more. We'll see."

He looked back from the door, but Claude, after his excitement, was lying white and silent, his eyes closed, his profile upturned. Thor was swept by compunction. It had always been part of the family tradition to respect Claude's high-strung nerves. Nothing did him more harm than to be thwarted or stirred up. With a murmured good-night Thor turned out the light, opening and closing the door softly.

But in the passage he heard the pad of bare feet behind him. Claude stood there in his pajamas.

"Say, Thor," he whispered, hoarsely, "you're top-hole—'pon my soul you are." He caught his brother's hand, pulling it rather than shaking it, like a boy tugging at a bell-rope. "You're a top-hole brother, Thor," he repeated, nervously, "and I'm a beast. I know you don't care anything about Rosie. Of course you don't. But I've got the jumps. I've been through such a lot during the months I've been meeting her that I'm on springs. But with you to back me up—"

"I'll back you up all right, Claude. Just wade in and get married—and I guess our team will hold its own against all comers. Lois will be with us. She's fond of Rosie—"

With another tug at his brother's arm, and more inarticulate thanks, Claude darted back to his room again.

Thor closed his own door and locked it behind him. He was too far spent for more emotion. He had hardly the energy to throw off his clothes and turn out the light. Within five minutes of his final assurance to Claude he was sleeping profoundly.