A Man's Hearth Read online

  Produced by Suzanne Shell, Susan Skinner and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

  A MAN'S HEARTH

  * * * * *

  ELSIE FELT THE GLANCE PASS ACROSS HER AND REST ON ANTHONY

  _Page 223_]

  * * * * *

  A MAN'S HEARTH

  BY

  ELEANOR M. INGRAM

  AUTHOR OF"FROM THE CAB BEHIND," "THE UNAFRAID," ETC.

  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BYEDMUND FREDERICK

  PHILADELPHIA & LONDONJ. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY1915

  COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

  PUBLISHED OCTOBER 1915

  PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANYAT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESSPHILADELPHIA, U. S. A.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I. TONY ADRIANCE----"MILLIONS, YOU KNOW!" 9

  II. HIS NEIGHBOR'S WIFE 27

  III. THE GIRL OUTSIDE 45

  IV. THE WOMAN WHO GRASPED 55

  V. THE LITTLE RED HOUSE 77

  VI. THE WOMAN WHO GAVE 96

  VII. THE DARING ADVENTURE 109

  VIII. ANDY OF THE MOTOR-TRUCKS 110

  IX. THE LUCK IN THE HOUSE 144

  X. MRS. MASTERSON TAKES TEA 155

  XI. THE GLOWING HEARTH 173

  XII. THE UPPER TRAIL 184

  XIII. WHAT TONY BUILT 203

  XIV. THE CABARET DANCER 215

  XV. THE OTHER MAN'S ROAD 229

  XVI. THE GUITAR OF ALENYA OF THE SEA 243

  XVII. RUSSIAN MIKE AND MAITRE RAOUL GALVEZ 261

  XVIII. THE CHALLENGE 271

  XIX. THE ADRIANCES 283

  XX. THE CORNERSTONE 308

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  PAGE

  Elsie felt the Glance pass across Her and Rest on Anthony _Frontispiece_

  There Would Have Been no more Bedtime Romps for Masterson and His Son 71

  The Winter was Hard and Long, but Never Dull to Them 173

  A MAN'S HEARTH

  CHAPTER I

  TONY ADRIANCE--"MILLIONS, YOU KNOW!"

  The man who had taken shelter in the stone pavilion hesitated beforetaking a place on the curved bench before him. He had the air ofawaiting some sign of welcome or dismissal from the seat's occupant;receiving none, he sat down and turned his gaze toward the broad Drive,where people were scattering before the sudden flurry of rain. Itsuggested spring rather than autumn, this shower that had swept out of awind-blown cloud and was already passing.

  After a moment he drew a cigar-case from his pocket, then paused.Obviously, he was not familiar with the etiquette of the public parks,with their freedom and lack of formalities. He was beside a woman--agirl. He had no wish to be inconsiderate, yet, to speak--in suspicious,sardonic New York--that was to invite misconstruction, or a flirtation.Still----

  "May I smoke?" he suddenly and brusquely shot his question.

  The girl turned towards him. Her eyes were as gray as the rain; heavilyshadowed by their lashes, their expression had a misted aloofnesssuggesting thoughts hastily recalled from remote distances. He realizedthat he might have come, smoked, and gone without drawing her notice anymore than a blowing leaf. She was not a beauty, but he liked theclearing frankness of the glance with which she judged him, and judgedaright. He liked it, too, that she did not smile, and that her steadfastregard showed neither invitation nor hostility.

  "Thank you," she answered. "Please do."

  The form of her reply seemed to him peculiarly gracious and unexpected,as if she gave with both hands instead of doling out the merelynecessary. He never had known a woman who gave; they always took, in hisexperience. Unconsciously he lifted his hat in acknowledgment of thetone rather than the permission. That was all, of course. She returnedto her study of river and sky, while he drew out his cigar. Butafterward he looked at her, unobtrusively.

  She was dressed altogether in black, but not the black of mourning, hejudged. The costume, plain but not shabby, conventional without beingup-to-date, touched him with a vague sense of familiarity, yet escapedrecognition. It should have told him something of her, but it did not,except that she had not much money for frocks. He was only slightlyinterested; he might not have glanced her way again if he had not beenstruck by her rapt absorption in the sunset panorama before them. Shehad gone back to that place of thought from which his speech had calledher; withdrawn from all around her as one who goes into a secret roomand closes a door against the world. And she looked happy, or at leastserenely at peace with her dreams. The man sighed with enviousimpatience, striving to follow her gaze and share the enchantment.

  The enchantment was not for him. The brief storm had left tumbled massesof purple cloud hanging in the deep-rose tinted sky, in airy mockery andimitation of the purplish wall of the Palisades standing knee-deep inthe rosy waters of the Hudson. Along the crest of the great rock wallslights blossomed like flowers through the violet mist, at the walls'base half-seen buildings flashed with lighted windows. He saw that itwas all very pretty, but he had seen it so a hundred times withoutespecial emotion.

  His cigar was finished, yet the girl had not once moved. Abruptly, asbefore, he spoke to her, as he moved to leave.

  "What are you looking at?" he demanded. "Oh, I'm not trying to beimpertinent--I would like to know what you see worth while? You have notmoved for half an hour. I wish you could show me something worth that."

  Again she turned and considered him with grave attention. His tiredyoung face bore the scrutiny; she answered him.

  "I am seeing all the things I have not got."

  "Over there?"

  She yielded his lack of imagination.

  "Well, yes; over there. Don't you know it is always Faeryland--the placeover there?"

  "It is only Jersey--?"

  She corrected him.

  "The place out of reach. The place between which and ourselves flows ariver, or rises a cliff. One can imagine anything to be there. See thatgrim, unreal castle, there in the shadows, its windows all gleaming withlight from within. Well, it is a factory where they make soap-powder,but from here I can see Fair Rosamond leaning from its arched windows,if I choose, or armored and plumed knights riding into its gates."

  "Oh!" Disappointment made the exclamation listless. "Story-making, youwere? I am afraid I can't see that way, thank you; I haven't the headfor it."

  For the first time she smiled, with a warm lighting of her rain-grayeyes and a Madonna-like protectiveness of expression. He felt asdistinct an impression as if she had laid her hand on his arm with anactual touch of sympathy.

  "But I do not see that way, either," she explained. "That was anillustration. I mean that one can make pictures there of all the _real_things that are not real for one's self; at least,
not yet real. It is agame to play, I suppose, while one waits."

  "I do not understand."

  She made a gesture of resignation, and was mute. He comprehended thatconfidence would go no farther.

  "Thank you," he accepted the rebuke. "It was good of you to put up withmy curiosity and--not to misunderstand my speaking."

  "Oh, no! I hate to misunderstand, ever; it is so stupid."

  Although he had risen, he did not go at once. The evening colors faded,first from river, then from sky. With autumn's suddenness, dusk sweptdown. Playing children, groups of young people and promenaders passed bythe little pavilion in a gay current; automobiles multiplied with thehoming hour of the city. New York thought of dining, simply or superbly,as might be.

  The silent tete-a-tete in the pavilion was broken by the softest soundin the world--a baby's drowsy, gurgling chuckle of awakening. Instantlythe girl in black started from revery, and then the man first noticedthat a white-and-gold baby carriage stood at her end of the curved seat.Astonished, incredulous, he saw her throw back miniature coverlets offrost-white eiderdown and bend over the little face, pink as ahollyhock, nestled there. For the first time in his life he witnessedthe pretty byplay of the nursery--dropped kisses, the answering pats ofchubby, useless hands, love-words and replying baby speech,inarticulate, adorable.

  The scene struck deeply into inner places of thought he had never knownlay at the back of consciousness. He never had thought very profoundly,until the last few weeks. And even yet he was struggling, turning in amental circle of doubt, rather than thinking. The girl and the childflung open a door through which he glimpsed strange vistas, startling intheir forbidden possibilities. He stood watching, dumb, until she turnedto him. Her face was kindled and laughing; she looked infinitely candidand good. But--she looked maid, not mother. Somehow he felt that.

  "You are married?" he questioned, almost roughly. "I did not suppose----You are married, then?"

  Into her expression swept scorn for his dulness, compassion for hisignorance, fused by the flaring fire of some intense feeling far beyondhis ken.

  "Married? No. Or I would not be here!"

  "Why? Where would you be?"

  The baby was standing upright in its coach. The girl passed an arm aboutthe tottering form to steady the fat little feet, and retorted on herquestioner.

  "Where? Home, of course, making ready for my man! If I livedthere,"--with a gesture toward the tall, luxurious apartment houses onthe Drive, behind them, "I would be choosing my prettiest frock andcoiling my hair the way he liked best. If I lived there, across theriver in one of those little houses, I would be making the house brightwith lamps; wearing my whitest apron and making the supper hot--veryhot, for there is frost in the air and he would be cold and tired andhungry. And I would have his chair ready and draw the curtains becausehe was inside and no one else mattered." She paused, drawing a deepbreath. "That is where I would be," she concluded, as one patientlylessoning a dull pupil, and reseated the baby in its coach in obviouspreparation for departure.

  The man had stood quite still, dazed. But when she turned away, with abend of her dark little head by way of farewell, he roused himself andovertook her in a stride.

  "Thank you," he said, "I mean for letting me know anyone could feel likethat. I suppose a great many people do, only I have not met that kind?No, never mind answering; how should you know? But, thank you. May I--ifI see you again--may I speak to you?"

  She surveyed him gravely, as if with clairvoyant ability to read ahistory from his face, a face open-browed and planned for strength, byits square outlines, but that somehow only succeeded in being pleasantand passively agreeable. It was the face of a man who never had beenbrought against conflict or any need for stern decision, whose truecharacter was a sword never yet drawn from the sheath. And now, he wasin trouble; so much lay plain to see. He was in bitter trouble and, sheguessed, alone with the trouble.

  He stood in mute acceptance of her scrutiny, recognizing her right,since he had asked so much. Before she spoke, he knew her answer, seeingit foreshadowed in the gray eyes.

  "If you wish to very much. But--not too soon again."

  She stepped from the curb, allowing no reply, but without apparenthaste, pushing the carriage in which the baby chuckled and twisted topeep back at her. He watched her thread her way through the rushinglines of pleasure traffic; saw her reach the other side and disappearbehind a knoll clothed with turf and evergreens that rose between them.The woman from whose presence he had come to this chance encounter oncehad told him that any human being looked absurd propelling a baby-coach.He recalled that statement now, and did not find it true. It was such asane thing to do, so natural and good. At least, it seemed so when thisgirl did it. He envied the man, whoever he might be, who did, or wouldlove her; envied him the clean simplicity she would make of life and theabsence of hateful complications.

  People were glancing curiously at his motionless figure; he arousedhimself and walked on. He had chosen his own way of living, he angrilytold himself; there was no excuse for whining if he did not like theplace where free-will had led him. Yet--had he? Or had he, instead,been trapped? The doubt was ugly. He walked faster to escape it, but itran at his heels like one of those sinister demon-animals of medievallegend.

  Across the blackening river electric signs were flashing into view;gigantic affairs insolently shouldering themselves into the unwillingattention, as indeed they were designed to do by Jersey's desire for thegreater city's patronage. Looking toward one of these, the man read itwith a sullen distaste: "Adriance's Paper." That simple announcementmarked an industry, even a monopoly, great enough to have been subjectedmore than once to the futile investigations of an uneasy government.

  The family name was sufficiently unusual, the family fortunesufficiently well known to have been bracketted together for himwherever he had gone. In school, in college, and later, always he hadfound a courier whisper running officiously before him, "YoungAdriance--paper, you know. Millions!" And always it had led him intotrouble; at twenty-six he was just commencing to realize that fact. Thetrouble never had been very serious until now. He never had committedanything his mother's church would have called a mortal sin. Even yet hestood only on the verge of commission. But he could not draw back; hewas like a man being inexorably pushed into a dark place.

  The house toward which he turned did not arrest the eye by anyostentatious display. In fact, it was remarkable only for being one ofthe very few houses on lower Riverside Drive which possessed lawns andverandas. Set in a small town, or a suburb, the gray stone villa wouldhave been merely "very handsome." Here, it gained the value of anexotic. To Anthony Adriance, junior, as he climbed the steps that night,it seemed to stare arrogantly from its score of blinking windows at theglittering sign on the opposite shore. Cause and effect, they dulyacknowledge each other. The man paused to glance at them both, then lethis gaze fall to the avenue below the terraced lawn. That way theblack-gowned girl had gone. Probably she had turned across into thecity; her dress was hardly that of a resident of the neighborhood.

  The man who took his hat and coat deferentially breathed a message. Mr.Adriance was in the library and desired to know if his son was dining athome.

  "Yes," was the prompt, even eager reply. "Certainly, if he wishes it.Or--never mind; I will go in, myself."

  The inquiry was unusual. It was not Mr. Adriance's habit to question hisson's movements. One might have said they did not interest him. He and"Tony" were very good acquaintances and lived quite without friction. Hewas too busy, too self-centred and ultra-modern to desire any warmerrelation. Affection was a sentimentality never mentioned in thathousehold; a mutilated household, for Mrs. Adriance had died twentyyears before Tony's majority.

  But it was not curiosity, rather an odd, faintly flickering hope thatlighted the younger man's eyes as he entered the room and returned hisfather's nod of greeting. The two were not unlike, at a first glance;definitely good features: eyes so dark that they were frequentlym
istaken for black instead of blue, upright figures that made the mostof their moderate height,--these they had in common. The greatdifference between them was in expression; the difference betweenuntempered and tempered metal. No one would ever have nicknamed theelder Anthony "Tony."

  "I shall be glad to dine with you," the younger Anthony opened, at once."I'll go change, and be back. Were you going to try the new Trottonight--I think you said so?"

  "No. I had an hour this afternoon," Mr. Adriance stated, picking up apen from the table and turning it in his fingers. He had a habit ofplaying with small articles at times--to distract his listener'sattention rather than his own, said those who knew him well. Neither tohis son nor to himself did it occur as incongruous that he shoulddiscuss a lesson in dancing with the matter-of-fact decision that madehis speech cold and sharp as the crackle of a step on a frost-boundroad. "It is not so difficult as the tango, though more fatiguing. Wherehad you intended to dine, tonight? At the Mastersons'?"

  Tony Adriance colored a slow, painful red that burned over face and necklike a flame scar.

  "Fred asked me," he made difficult work of the reply. "I couldn't getout of it very well, but I am glad of an excuse to stay away. It isearly enough to 'phone."

  Mr. Adriance turned the pen around.

  "If Masterson was to be there, you might safely have gone," hepronounced.

  "If----"

  "Exactly. Dining with Mrs. Masterson will no longer do. Am I speaking toa full-grown man or a boy? If Mrs. Masterson chooses to get a divorce,and you afterward marry her, very good. It is done; divorce is acceptedamong us. But there must be no gossip concerning the lady."

  "There is no cause for any," retorted the other, but the defense lackedfire. He looked suddenly haggard, and the shamed red scorched stilldeeper. "She--isn't that kind."

  "No. She is very clever." He laid down the pen and took up a book. "Iwas cautioning you. Will you hurry your dressing a little? I have anearly engagement down-town this evening."

  The dry retort was not resented. The younger man did not retreat,although way was shown to him. Since the subject had been dragged intothe open ground of speech, he had more to say, with whatever reluctance.

  "You don't seem to consider Fred," he finally said.

  "Why should I?" Mr. Adriance looked up perfunctorily. "Masterson isnothing to me. You have not considered him."

  "I have! At least, I tried to stop this--after I understood. I nevermeant----"

  There was a pause, during which Mr. Adriance turned a page. The sentencewas not completed, but Tony Adriance lingered as if in expectation ofsome reply to it; an expectation half eager, half defiant. No reply wasmade; finally it became evident there was to be none.

  "I thought you might object." He forced a laugh with the avowal, but hiseyes denied the lightness. "Parents do in books and plays, you know. Ithought you might tell me---- Oh, well, to pull out of this and bringhome a woman of my own instead of some other man's woman. It isn't verypretty!"

  Mr. Adriance looked up with a certain curiosity.

  "You have a sentimental streak, Tony? I never suspected it. Why should Iobject to an affair so suitable? You have been following Mrs. Mastersonabout for a year; she is altogether charming and will make a goodhostess here--a great lack in our household. I admire her myself, morethan any debutante I ever saw. I am very well satisfied. Suppose you hadbrought home some milkmaid romance, a wife to stumble over the rugs anddefer to the servants? No, no; manage this properly, that is all myadvice. Meanwhile, do you know it is after seven o'clock? Unless youhurry----"

  "Oh, I'll hurry," was the dry promise. "And I am much obliged for theadvice. But I fancy a good many of us may defer to the milkmaids, afterwe are dead."

  He swung the door shut with unnecessary force, as he went out. While heclimbed the broad, darkly-lustrous stairs, he was aware that his fatherwas turning another page of the book; and as a pendant to that picturehad a mental glimpse of Lucille Masterson, lovely, perfect in every lineof costume and tint of color, waiting for a man who was not her husband.What would the girl in black think of that, he wondered? Yet Lucillewas altogether beyond reproach. She had every right to contemplate adivorce, in view of Fred Masterson's undoubted wildness andextravagance. If only she had not discussed it with him, Tony Adriance,he thought impatiently. If only she had announced her intention to herhusband and the world, instead of broaching it secretly to the admirershe had chosen for her second husband! It was horrible to meet Mastersonwith this knowledge thrust like a stone blocking the way of intercourse.Certainly she lacked delicacy.

  Of course he must go on gracefully. It was very like climbing thesestairs; one step taken implied taking the next. But he wished that hehad not met the girl in the pavilion.