A vagabond artist came to town and I employed him to make sketches of Peters, Mason and Vark. It was easy to get a pose from the pilot and the notorious one, but after his "juniper spree" the shoemaker had locked himself in his shop. But we hammered his door day after day, and one morning we heard the sliding of the bolt.

"Come in," said Vark. "But let me tell you that I am in no shape to do work."

He had spread a blanket on the floor, with a bundle of leather at one end, and with books scattered about. I took up two volumes to find the plays of Marlowe and the snarling complaint of old Hobbs.

"What do you want, boys?"

"I want you to stand for a few moments just as you are," said I.

"For a picture? What do you want with a picture of me? I'm nobody."

"Oh, yes. You've lived here thirty years, you know."

"All right, go ahead. I don't suppose there ever was a man so no-account that he didn't think his picture was worth something. But I wish you'd hurry up and get through with me. I wouldn't have let you in, but I didn't want to be rude to a stranger. Scratch fast, you chap!" he added, speaking to the artist. "What are you going to do with the sketch? Hang it up for a scarecrow? Done with me? Take it away. I don't want to see it."

He turned us out and bolted his door; and I heard him swear at his rusty joints as he got down upon the blanket and wallowed in the midst of his books.

I procured a number of photographs of gardens and of time-softened houses; I jotted down numerous hints of "atmosphere," wrote a full description of Washington and of Aunt Patsey and sent the whole to Maffet And it seemed that these acts of gleaning were long to be protracted, for odd bits of characteristic color were constantly arising, as tinted mists from the soil. In no-wise could they find a place in the action or the dialogue, but they would aid the stage craftsman to clothe his trickery in the garb of truth. But these color-mists came only of their own will, and never would they arise at command, to enshroud and to soften the vividness of the picture that tantalized me. Love may be a divine essence, calm as God-ordered peace, when it flows from the legitimate heart—it may be—but my love was wolfish.

The Senator was very much elated over the success of our Virginius engagement. Early one morning as I sat looking from the window, with my nostrils full of the dusty smell of sprinkled floors newly swept, he came whistling up the stairs.

"Ha! dreaming," he cried. "I can see it in your face. But you can afford to dream. Keep your seat. I don't care to sit down. Well, Sir, old Zeb Harkrider hailed me this morning to tell me that a good many of our citizens didn't like our show. I said: 'Look here, Zeb, I thought I kicked you off the courthouse steps for bringing me news that I didn't want to hear a long time ago. Don't you remember it?' He remembered. He didn't say so, but he stepped back. 'Why, I didn't know you were interested in it,' said he. I had to lie just a little, Belford. I hold, Sir, that we are justified in occasionally slipping a lie on our left arm and using it for a shield, to protect our private grounds against invasion. Yes, I lied to him a little; I told him that my only interest lay in the fact that it was my desire to see our people well entertained, and that the habit of constant grumbling would finally blind us to the beauties of even the best of things. So I got rid of him. And do you realize that Petticord didn't do us justice? Confound his insolence, you passed in his entire brigade, and yet he says that only those who were easily pleased came near getting the worth of their money. That scoundrel suspects that I have a hand in this, and he would almost be willing to cut his own throat in order to do me a harmful turn. But I will get him one of these days—yes, Sir, I'll get him or drive him out of this community. My boy, you don't seem to be in very good spirits. What's the matter? Getting tired of Bolanyo?"

I answered with what the humorist of the "profession" would have phrased a "property laugh." "No, Senator, I am not getting tired. In fact, I would rather be here than in any place under the sun."

"Strong, but that's right. I was afraid that you felt yourself chained."

"You might fasten me here with links of rusty iron, but in my eyes they'd be a chain of gold."

"What's that?"

He startled me with the sharp eye of comprehension, and I felt myself droop under the look that he gave me. "I mean that this soft and restful air and the sweet breath of the gardens would exalt a soul in spite of the restraints of the body."

Innocence flew back to his eye, "That's good, Belford; I have felt it many a time. I have thought in moments of ambition that my talents as a Legislator were crippled here, that I might go to Congress, and perhaps make a National name for myself, but then came the idea that to broaden my scope might forever spoil my love for old Bolanyo."

He stood there meditating, with nothing more to say; he took out a small bunch of keys, looked at them and returned them to his pocket; he put his hands behind him; he went to the window and looked out upon the deliberate commerce of the town—wagons loaded with hay, carts of kindling wood, negroes with chickens, groups of story-telling countrymen.

"But I didn't know that the town could take quite so strong a hold on a stranger," he said, with his eyes in the street. "But, Belford," and now he turned to me, "you are a man of quick endearments, and so am I; and that is one of the reasons why I like you, and a reason, I might say, why I condemn myself. But I like a man or don't, almost at the start. They call me a shrewd politician, and I am, but I'm one of the easiest men taken in you ever saw. Oh, I can tell whether or not a man is a rascal, and I sometimes buy his ware knowing that I myself am sold, but I can't help it. One single note in a man's voice sometimes catches me—a little thing that he doesn't know himself. Belford, I want you to go to the State capital with me sometime, after the Legislature meets. I'll show you some of the most picturesque and genial old blatherskites you ever saw. Well, I've got some knocking around to do. See you again soon."

And it was thus that we always parted—with "See you again soon," and never with "You must come to see me." I wondered whether his daughter had warned him against the impropriety of inviting me to the house. I mused over the sharp light of comprehension in his eye, and made an additional trouble for myself with speculating upon the degree of his suspicion.

In the afternoon I walked far out beyond the limits of the town, not at first in the direction of the Senator's house, but I cut a quarter circle to the left and came upon the road that led past his gate. So self-forgetful had been my employment that I did not realize until I stepped into the shade of a cottonwood how hot it had been out on the blazing commons. On the dying grass I sat, with my feet in a gully, fanning with my hat, harvesting delicious shudders of coolness. From afar off came the hum of a thrashing machine, and almost in my ear an insect sang the melancholy tune that tells of autumn's coming. I heard the slow and heavy trot of an old horse, and around a bend in the road a buggy came, and in it a woman. I got up with my blood leaping. I stepped to the roadside and stood there, with my face turned away, and suddenly the horse fell back to a walk, in obedience to an impulsive pull upon the lines, my eager and outlawed heart had told me. I turned about. Her eyes were averted, and her face was red, and she would have passed without a word, without a look, but I stepped out boldly and cried: "Just a moment, please. The hame strap has come unbuckled."

"Oh, thank you," she said, and the horse stopped. I stepped in front and began to pull at the strap.

"Quite a surprise to see you, Mrs. Estell."

"Yes. But I don't know why it should be. I drive about a good deal."

"And I walk about a good deal, and yet this is the first time—"

"Can't you fasten it?"

"Yes; now it's all right." I stood partly in front of the horse, with my hand on the shaft. She gathered up the lines.

"Mrs. Estell, I hope you are not offended at me."

She laughed with music though not with mirth, and then her face grew serious as she said: "Of course not, Mr. Belford."

Where was the freedom, the outbreak of energy she had shown in the opera house; where was the look of frankness? All now was reserve, a cool and sacred respect for the law that held her tied with a frost-covered rope. I did not presume that she loved me, but I knew that she hated him.

"Have you buckled the strap?"

"Yes, madam."

"Thank you."

At that moment a buggy with two men in it came rattling by. One man turned to look back, and I recognized Petticord, the editor.

"Mrs. Estell, I hope sometime to tell you—"

"Don't tell me anything, Mr. Belford. Let me go, please. Good-bye."