Lawrence was arranging for a grand ball in the Odd Fellows’ Hall, on Christmas Eve, and he had, as he came around to the office one day to assure Marley, counted him and Lavinia in. Marley, glad enough to close the law-book he was finding more and more irksome, listened to Lawrence’s enthusiasm for a while, but said at last:

“I’m afraid I can’t go.”

“Why not? Lavinia will want to go; she always does.”

“I know that,” Marley admitted, “but I can’t, that’s all.”

Lawrence looked at him intently for a moment.

“Say, Glenn, what’s the matter with you?” he said. “Anything been going wrong lately? You look like you were in the dumps.”

Marley shook his head with a negative gesture that admitted all Lawrence had said.

“You ain’t fretting over that job, are you?”

“What job?”

Marley looked up suddenly.

“Why, with Carman.”

“How’d you know?”

“Oh, everybody knows about that,” Lawrence replied with a light air that added to Marley’s gloom; “but what of it? I wouldn’t let that cut me up; come out and show yourself a little more! You don’t want to keep Lavinia housed up there, away from all the fun that’s going on, do you? Mayme and I were talking about it the other night; you and Lavinia haven’t been to a thing for months; it isn’t right, I tell you.”

Marley looked sharply at Lawrence for a minute, and Lawrence marking the resentment in his eyes, hastened on:

“Don’t get mad, now; I don’t mean anything. I’m only saying it for your good. I think you need a little shaking up, that’s all.”

“Lavinia can do as she likes,” Marley said with dignity. “I shall not hinder her; I never have.”

“Well, don’t get sore now, old man; I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. The holidays are here and you want to cut into the game; it’s a time to forget your troubles and have a little fun; you’ve only got one life to live; what’s the use of taking it so seriously?”

Marley looked at Lawrence with a genuine envy for an instant, as at a man who never took anything in life very seriously; he looked at the new overcoat Lawrence held over his knee, showing its satin lining; and then, reflecting that Lawrence’s father had left with his estate a block of bank stock which had given Lawrence his position in the bank, Marley’s impatience with him returned and he said:

“Oh, it’s easy enough for you to talk; if you were in my place you might find it different.”

“That’s all right,” Lawrence went on, a smile on his freckled face. “You just come to the party; it’ll cost you only five, and Lavinia would like it. I know that. So do you.”

Marley did know it; and he felt a new disgust with himself that remained with him long after Lawrence had put on his new overcoat and left. He reproached himself bitterly, and he told himself that the best thing he could do would be to go away somewhere, and not tell Lavinia, or anybody.

“I’m only in her way, that’s all,” he thought as he opened his law-book, and bent it back viciously, so that it would stay open.

Ever since the fiasco of his plans as to a place with Carman, he had been seeking consolation in a new resolution to keep on patiently in the law; but it was a consolation that he had to keep active by a constant contemplation of himself as a young man who was making a brave and determined fight against heavy odds. It was difficult to sustain this heroic attitude in his own eyes and at the same time maintain that modesty which he knew would become him best in the eyes of others. The approach of the holiday season, the visible preparations on every hand and the gay spirits everywhere apparent had isolated him more than ever, and he had felt his alienation complete whenever he went to see Lavinia and found the whole Blair family in an excitement over their own festival. Marley would have liked to make Lavinia handsome gifts, but his debts were already large, relatively, and he rose to heights of self-denial that made him pathetic to himself, when he decided that he could give her nothing. Now that Lawrence was getting up a ball to which he knew Lavinia would like to go, as she had always gone to the balls that were not so frequent in Macochee as Lawrence wished they might be, he felt his humiliation deeper than ever. He put the matter honestly to Lavinia, however, and she said promptly:

“Why, I wouldn’t think of going.”

She looked up at him brightly, and then in an instant she looked down again. She relished the nobility of the attitude she had so promptly taken, but the woman in her prevailed over the saint, and told what a moment before she had determined not to tell:

“I’ve already declined one invitation.”

She saw the look of pain come into Marley’s eyes, and instantly she regretted.

“You have?” he said.

“Why, yes.” She looked at him with her head turned to one side; her face wore an expression he did not like to see.

It was on Marley’s lips to ask who had invited her, but his pride would not let him do that; somehow a sense of separation fell suddenly between them. He examined with deep interest the arm of his chair.

“Well,” he began presently, “I wouldn’t have you stay away on my account, you know.” He looked up suddenly. “Please don’t stay away, Lavinia. I’d like to have you go.”

There was contrition in her voice as she almost flew to reply:

“Why, you dear old thing, it was only George Halliday who asked me; and when I told him I wouldn’t go he was actually relieved; he said he didn’t want to go himself; he hates our little functions out here, you know, and has ever since he came back from Harvard. I suppose he was used to so much more in Cambridge!” Lavinia had a sneer in her tone, and it took on a shade of irritation as she added: “He asked me only because he was sorry for me.”

“Yes, sorry for you,” Marley repeated bitterly. “That’s another thing I’ve done for you.”

“Please don’t, dear,” said Lavinia, “don’t let yourself get bitter. It’ll be all right. We’ll spend Christmas Eve here at home and have ever so much more fun by ourselves.”

Mrs. Blair told Marley that she wished Lavinia might go to the ball; her father wished it, too. Mrs. Blair told him that she could easily get George Halliday to take her,—their lifelong intimacy with the Hallidays permitted that. Marley assured her that he wished Lavinia to accept Halliday’s invitation, but that she would not do so.

“I’d take her myself,” he added, “only I can’t dance, and—I have no money. I’d like to have her go, if it would give her pleasure.”

“I know you would, you dear boy,” said Mrs. Blair, laying her hand on his shoulder in her affectionate way.

Mrs. Blair urged Lavinia to go, and so did Marley, and when he saw that she was determined not to go, he urged her all the more strongly, because, now that he was sure of her position, he could so much more enjoy his own disinterestedness and magnanimity. They desisted when Lavinia complained that they were making her life miserable.

Though Marley could deny Lavinia the dance, he found, after all, that he could not deny himself the distinction of giving her a Christmas present. His heroic attitude gradually broke under the temptation of Hoffman’s jewelry store, glittering with its holiday display. Marley already owed Hoffman for Lavinia’s ring, but like most of the merchants in Macochee, Hoffman had to do business on an elastic credit, if he wished to do any business at all, and Marley, after many pains of selection, did not have much difficulty in inducing Hoffman to let him have the pearl opera-glasses he finally chose in the despair of thinking of anything better.

The opera-glasses might have atoned for the deprivation of the ball, had Marley been able to think of them with any comfort. The delight Lavinia expressed in a gift she could never use in Macochee, and the enthusiasm with which Connie admired them, made him nervous and guilty. Connie had temporarily foregone her claims to young-ladyhood, and was a child again for a little while. Her excitement and that of Chad should have made any Christmas Eve merry, but it was not a merry Christmas Eve for Marley.

As Lavinia and he sat in the parlor they caught now and then, or imagined they caught, the strains of the orchestra that was playing for the dancers in the Odd Fellows’ Hall, and they were both conscious that life would be tolerable for them only when the music should cease and the ball take its place among the things of the past, incapable of further trouble in the earth.

“It’s very trying,” said Judge Blair to his wife that night. “I wish there was something we could do.”

“So do I,” his wife acquiesced.

“I don’t like to see Lavinia cut off this way from every enjoyment. The strain must be very wearing.”

“I suppose it is very wearing with most lovers,” said Mrs. Blair. “I don’t see how they ever endure it; but they all do.”

“Have you talked with her about it?” The judge put his question with a guarded look, and was not surprised when his wife quickly replied:

“Gracious, no. I’d never dare.”

“No, I presume not. I don’t know who would, unless it might be Connie.”

Mrs. Blair was silent for a while in the trouble that was all the more serious because they dared not recognize its seriousness, and then she asked:

“Couldn’t you help him to something?”

“I don’t know what,” the judge replied. “There’s really no opening in a little town.”

“If you were off the bench and back in the practice—”

“Great heavens!” he interrupted her. “Don’t mention such a thing!”

“I meant that you might take him in with you.”

“I’d be looking around for some one to take me in,” the judge said. “I’m glad I haven’t the problem to face.” He enjoyed for a moment the snug sense he had in his own position and then he sighed.

“He’s young, he has that, anyway. He’ll work it out somehow, I suppose, though I don’t know how. As for us, all we can do is to have patience, and wait.”

“Yes, that’s all,” said Mrs. Blair. “I don’t believe in long engagements.”

“How long has it been?” he asked.

“Nearly a year now.”

“I thought it had been ten.”

Mrs. Blair laughed as she said: “Connie was wishing this morning that he’d marry her and get it over with.”