THE INTERNET WIRETAP ELECTRONIC EDITION OF

                        The Pit
                   A Story of Chicago

                           By
                      Frank Norris



                          1903



     Prepared by John Hamm <John_Hamm@MindLink.bc.ca>

             This text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN,
                   released December 1993

     Scanned with OmniPage Professional OCR software
               donated by Caere Corporation.





                Dedicated to My Brother

                 Charles Tolman Norris

      In memory of certain lamentable tales of the
    bound (dining-room) table heroes; of the epic of
     the pewter platoons, and the romance-cycle of
    "Gaston Le Fox," which we invented, maintained,
      and found marvellous at a time when we both
                       were boys.




The PlT



I


At eight o'clock in the inner vestibule of the
Auditorium Theatre by the window of the box office,
Laura Dearborn, her younger sister Page, and their
aunt--Aunt Wess'--were still waiting for the rest of
the theatre-party to appear.  A great, slow-moving
press of men and women in evening dress filled the
vestibule from one wall to another.  A confused murmur
of talk and the shuffling of many feet arose on all
sides, while from time to time, when the outside and
inside doors of the entrance chanced to be open
simultaneously, a sudden draught of air gushed in,
damp, glacial, and edged with the penetrating keenness
of a Chicago evening at the end of February.

The Italian Grand Opera Company gave one of the most
popular pieces of its repertoire on that particular
night, and the Cresslers had invited the two sisters
and their aunt to share their box with them.  It had
been arranged that the party should assemble in the
Auditorium vestibule at a quarter of eight; but by now
the quarter was gone and the Cresslers still failed to
arrive.

"I don't see," murmured Laura anxiously for the last
time, "what can be keeping them.  Are you sure Page
that Mrs. Cressler meant here--inside?"

She was a tall young girl of about twenty-two or three,
holding herself erect and with fine dignity.  Even
beneath the opera cloak it was easy to infer that her
neck and shoulders were beautiful.  Her almost extreme
slenderness was, however, her characteristic; the
curves of her figure, the contour of her shoulders, the
swell of hip and breast were all low; from head to foot
one could discover no pronounced salience.  Yet there
was no trace, no suggestion of angularity.  She was
slender as a willow shoot is slender--and equally
graceful, equally erect.

Next to this charming tenuity, perhaps her paleness was
her most noticeable trait.  But it was not a paleness
of lack of colour.  Laura Dearborn's pallour was in
itself a colour.  It was a tint rather than a shade,
like ivory; a warm white, blending into an exquisite,
delicate brownness towards the throat.  Set in the
middle of this paleness of brow and cheek, her deep
brown eyes glowed lambent and intense.  They were not
large, but in some indefinable way they were important.
It was very natural to speak of her eyes, and in
speaking to her, her friends always found that they
must look squarely into their pupils.  And all this
beauty of pallid face and brown eyes was crowned by,
and sharply contrasted with, the intense blackness of
her hair, abundant, thick, extremely heavy, continually
coruscating with sombre, murky reflections, tragic, in
a sense vaguely portentous,--the coiffure of a heroine
of romance, doomed to dark crises.

On this occasion at the side of the topmost coil, a
white aigrette scintillated and trembled with her every
movement.  She was unquestionably beautiful.  Her mouth
was a little large, the lips firm set, and one would
not have expected that she would smile easily; in fact,
the general expression of her face was rather serious.

"Perhaps," continued Laura, "they would look for us
outside."  But Page shook her head.  She was five years
younger than Laura, just turned seventeen.  Her hair,
dressed high for the first time this night, was brown.
But Page's beauty was no less marked than her sister's.
The seriousness of her expression, however, was more
noticeable.  At times it amounted to undeniable
gravity.  She was straight, and her figure, all
immature as yet, exhibited hardly any softer outlines
than that of a boy.

"No, no," she said, in answer to Laura's question.
"They would come in here; they wouldn't wait outside--
not on such a cold night as this.  Don't you think so,
Aunt Wess'?"

But Mrs. Wessels, a lean, middle-aged little lady, with
a flat, pointed nose, had no suggestions to offer.  She
disengaged herself from any responsibility in the
situation and, while waiting, found a vague amusement
in counting the number of people who filtered in single
file through the wicket where the tickets were
presented.  A great, stout gentleman in evening dress,
perspiring, his cravatte limp, stood here, tearing the
checks from the tickets, and without ceasing,
maintaining a continuous outcry that dominated the
murmur of the throng:

"Have your tickets ready, please! Have your tickets
ready."

"Such a crowd," murmured Page.  "Did you ever see--
and every one you ever knew or heard of.  And such
toilettes!"

With every instant the number of people increased;
progress became impossible, except an inch at a time.
The women were, almost without exception, in light-
coloured gowns, white, pale blue, Nile green, and pink,
while over these costumes were thrown opera cloaks and
capes of astonishing complexity and elaborateness.
Nearly all were bare-headed, and nearly all wore
aigrettes; a score of these, a hundred of them, nodded
and vibrated with an incessant agitation over the heads
of the crowd and flashed like mica flakes as the
wearers moved.  Everywhere the eye was arrested by the
luxury of stuffs, the brilliance and delicacy of
fabrics, laces as white and soft as froth, crisp,
shining silks, suave satins, heavy gleaming velvets,
and brocades and plushes, nearly all of them white--
violently so--dazzling and splendid under the blaze of
the electrics.  The gentlemen, in long, black
overcoats, and satin mufflers, and opera hats; their
hands under the elbows of their women-folk, urged or
guided them forward, distressed, pre-occupied, adjuring
their parties to keep together; in their white-gloved
fingers they held their tickets ready.  For all the icy
blasts that burst occasionally through the storm doors,
the vestibule was uncomfortably warm, and into this
steam-heated atmosphere a multitude of heavy odours
exhaled--the scent of crushed flowers, of perfume, of
sachet, and even--occasionally--the strong smell of
damp seal-skin.

Outside it was bitterly cold.  All day a freezing wind
had blown from off the Lake, and since five in the
afternoon a fine powder of snow had been falling.  The
coachmen on the boxes of the carriages that succeeded
one another in an interminable line before the entrance
of the theatre, were swathed to the eyes in furs.  The
spume and froth froze on the bits of the horses, and
the carriage wheels crunching through the dry, frozen
snow gave off a shrill staccato whine.  Yet for all
this, a crowd had collected about the awning on the
sidewalk, and even upon the opposite side of the
street, peeping and peering from behind the broad
shoulders of policemen--a crowd of miserables,
shivering in rags and tattered comforters, who found,
nevertheless, an unexplainable satisfaction in watching
this prolonged defile of millionaires.

So great was the concourse of teams, that two blocks
distant from the theatre they were obliged to fall into
line, advancing only at intervals, and from door to
door of the carriages thus immobilised ran a score of
young men, their arms encumbered with pamphlets,
shouting: "Score books, score books and librettos;
score books with photographs of all the artists."

However, in the vestibule the press was thinning out.
It was understood that the overture had begun.  Other
people who were waiting like Laura and her sister had
been joined by their friends and had gone inside.
Laura, for whom this opera night had been an event, a
thing desired and anticipated with all the eagerness of
a girl who had lived for twenty-two years in a second-
class town of central Massachusetts, was in great
distress.  She had never seen Grand Opera, she would
not have missed a note, and now she was in a fair way
to lose the whole overture.

"Oh, dear," she cried.  "Isn't it too bad.  I can't
imagine why they don't come."

Page, more metropolitan, her keenness of appreciation a
little lost by two years of city life and fashionable
schooling, tried to reassure her.

"You won't lose much," she said.  "The air of the
overture is repeated in the first act--I've heard it
once before."

"If we even see the first act," mourned Laura.
She scanned the faces of the late comers anxiously.
Nobody seemed to mind being late.  Even some of the
other people who were waiting, chatted calmly among
themselves.  Directly behind them two men, their faces
close together, elaborated an interminable
conversation, of which from time to time they could
overhear a phrase or two.

"--and I guess he'll do well if he settles for thirty
cents on the dollar.  I tell you, dear boy, it was a
_smash!"_

"Never should have tried to swing a corner.  The short
interest was too small and the visible supply was too
great."

Page nudged her sister and whispered: "That's the
Helmick failure they're talking about, those men.
Landry Court told me all about it.  Mr. Helmick had a
corner in corn, and he failed to-day, or will fail
soon, or something."

But Laura, preoccupied with looking for the Cresslers,
hardly listened.  Aunt Wess', whose count was confused
by all these figures murmured just behind her, began
over again, her lips silently forming the words,
"sixty-one, sixty-two, and two is sixty-four."  Behind
them the voice continued:

"They say Porteous will peg the market at twenty-six."

"Well he ought to.  Corn is worth that."

"Never saw such a call for margins in my life.  Some of
the houses called eight cents."

Page turned to Mrs. Wessels: "By the way, Aunt Wess';
look at that man there by the box office window, the
one with his back towards us, the one with his hands in
his overcoat pockets.  Isn't that Mr. Jadwin?  The
gentleman we are going to meet to-night.  See who I mean?"

"Who?  Mr. Jadwin?  I don't know.  I don't know, child.
I never saw him, you know."

"Well I think it is he," continued Page.  "He was to be
with our party to-night.  I heard Mrs. Cressler say she
would ask him.  That's Mr. Jadwin, I'm sure.  He's
waiting for them, too."

"Oh, then ask him about it, Page," exclaimed Laura.
"We're missing everything."

But Page shook her head:

"I only met him once, ages ago; he wouldn't know me.
It was at the Cresslers, and we just said 'How do you
do.' And then maybe it isn't Mr. Jadwin."

"Oh, I wouldn't bother, girls," said Mrs. Wessels.
"It's all right.  They'll be here in a minute.  I don't
believe the curtain has gone up yet."

But the man of whom they spoke turned around at the
moment and cast a glance about the vestibule.  They saw
a gentleman of an indeterminate age--judged by his face
he might as well have been forty as thirty-five.  A
heavy mustache touched with grey covered his lips.  The
eyes were twinkling and good-tempered.  Between his
teeth he held an unlighted cigar.

"It is Mr. Jadwin," murmured Page, looking quickly
away.  "But he don't recognise me."

Laura also averted her eyes.

"Well, why not go right up to him and introduce
ourself, or recall yourself to him?" she hazarded.

"Oh, Laura, I _couldn't,_" gasped Page.  "I wouldn't
for worlds."

"Couldn't she, Aunt Wess'?" appealed Laura.  "Wouldn't
it be all right?"

But Mrs. Wessels, ignoring forms and customs, was
helpless.  Again she withdrew from any responsibility
in the matter.

"I don't know anything about it," she answered.
"But Page oughtn't to be bold."

"Oh, bother; it isn't that," protested Page.  "But it's
just because--I don't know, I don't want to--Laura,
I should just _die,_" she exclaimed with abrupt
irrelevance, "and besides, how would that help any?"
she added.

"Well, we're just going to miss it _all,_" declared
Laura decisively.  There were actual tears in her eyes.
"And I had looked forward to it so."

"Well," hazarded Aunt Wess', "you girls can do just as
you please.  Only I wouldn't be bold."

"Well, would it be bold if Page, or if--if I were to
speak to him?  We're going to meet him anyways in just a
few minutes."

"Better wait, hadn't you, Laura," said Aunt Wess', "and
see.  Maybe he'll come up and speak to us."

"Oh, as if!" contradicted Laura.  "He don't know us,--
just as Page says.  And if he did, he wouldn't.  He
wouldn't think it polite."

"Then I guess, girlie, it wouldn't be polite for you."

"I think it would," she answered.  "I think it would be
a woman's place.  If he's a gentleman, he would feel
that he just _couldn't_ speak first.  I'm going to do
it," she announced suddenly.

"Just as you think best, Laura," said her aunt.

But nevertheless Laura did not move, and another five
minutes went by.

Page took advantage of the interval to tell Laura about
Jadwin.  He was very rich, but a bachelor, and had made
his money in Chicago real estate.  Some of his holdings
in the business quarter of the city were enormous;
Landry Court had told her about him.  Jadwin, unlike
Mr. Cressler, was not opposed to speculation.  Though
not a member of the Board of Trade, he nevertheless at
very long intervals took part in a "deal" in wheat, or
corn, or provisions.  He believed that all corners were
doomed to failure, however, and had predicted Helmick's
collapse six months ago.  He had influence, was well
known to all Chicago people, what he said carried
weight, financiers consulted him, promoters sought his
friendship, his name on the board of directors of a
company was an all-sufficing endorsement; in a word, a
"strong" man.

"I can't understand," exclaimed Laura distrait,
referring to the delay on the part of the Cresslers.
"This was the night, and this was the place, and it is
long past the time.  We could telephone to the house,
you know," she said, struck with an idea, "and see if
they've started, or what has happened."

"I don't know--I don't know," murmured Mrs. Wessels
vaguely.  No one seemed ready to act upon Laura's
suggestion, and again the minutes passed.

"I'm going," declared Laura again, looking at the other
two, as if to demand what they had to say against the idea.

"I just couldn't," declared Page flatly.

"Well," continued Laura, "I'll wait just three minutes
more, and then if the Cresslers are not here I will
speak to him.  It seems to me to be perfectly natural,
and not at all bold."

She waited three minutes, and the Cresslers still
failing to appear, temporised yet further, for the
twentieth time repeating:

"I don't see--I can't understand."

Then, abruptly drawing her cape about her, she crossed
the vestibule and came up to Jadwin.

As she approached she saw him catch her eye.  Then, as
he appeared to understand that this young woman was
about to speak to him, she noticed an expression of
suspicion, almost of distrust, come into his face.  No
doubt he knew nothing of this other party who were to
join the Cresslers in the vestibule.  Why should this
girl speak to him?  Something had gone wrong, and the
instinct of the man, no longer very young, to keep out
of strange young women's troubles betrayed itself in
the uneasy glance that he shot at her from under his
heavy eyebrows.  But the look faded as quickly as it
had come.  Laura guessed that he had decided that in
such a place as this he need have no suspicions.  He
took the cigar from his mouth, and she, immensely
relieved, realised that she had to do with a man who
was a gentleman.  Full of trepidation as she had been
in crossing the vestibule, she was quite mistress of
herself when the instant came for her to speak, and it
was in a steady voice and without embarrassment that
she said:

"I beg your pardon, but I believe this is Mr. Jadwin."

He took off his hat, evidently a little nonplussed that
she should know his name, and by now she was ready even
to browbeat him a little should it be necessary.

"Yes, yes," he answered, now much more confused than
she, "my name is Jadwin."

"I believe," continued Laura steadily, "we were all to
be in the same party to-night with the Cresslers.  But
they don't seem to come, and we--my sister and my aunt
and I--don't know what to do."

She saw that he was embarrassed, convinced, and the
knowledge that she controlled the little situation,
that she could command him, restored her all her
equanimity.

"My name is Miss Dearborn," she continued.  "I believe
you know my sister Page."

By some trick of manner she managed to convey to him
the impression that if he did not know her sister Page,
that if for one instant he should deem her to be bold,
he would offer a mortal affront.  She had not yet
forgiven him that stare of suspicion when first their
eyes had met; he should pay her for that yet.

"Miss Page,--your sister,--Miss Page Dearborn?
Certainly I know her," he answered.  "And you have been
waiting, too?  What a pity!" And he permitted himself
the awkwardness of adding: "I did not know that you
were to be of our party."

"No," returned Laura upon the instant, "I did not know
you were to be one of us to-night--until Page told me."
She accented the pronouns a little, but it was enough
for him to know that he had been rebuked.  How, he
could not just say; and for what it was impossible for
him at the moment to determine; and she could see that
he began to experience a certain distress, was beating
a retreat, was ceding place to her.  Who was she, then,
this tall and pretty young woman, with the serious,
unsmiling face, who was so perfectly at ease, and who
hustled him about and made him feel as though he were
to blame for the Cresslers' non-appearance; as though
it was his fault that she must wait in the draughty
vestibule.  She had a great air with her; how had he
offended her?  If he had introduced himself to her, had
forced himself upon her, she could not be more lofty,
more reserved.

"I thought perhaps you might telephone," she observed.

"They haven't a telephone, unfortunately," he answered.

"Oh!"

This was quite the last slight, the Cresslers had not a
telephone! He was to blame for that, too, it seemed.
At his wits' end, he entertained for an instant the
notion of dashing out into the street in a search for a
messenger boy, who would take a note to Cressler and
set him right again; and his agitation was not allayed
when Laura, in frigid tones, declared:

"It seems to me that something might be done."

"I don't know," he replied helplessly.  "I guess
there's nothing to be done but just wait.  They are
sure to be along."

In the background, Page and Mrs. Wessels had watched
the interview, and had guessed that Laura was none too
gracious.  Always anxious that her sister should make a
good impression, the little girl was now in great
distress.

"Laura is putting on her 'grand manner,'" she lamented.
"I just know how she's talking.  The man will hate the
very sound of her name all the rest of his life."  Then
all at once she uttered a joyful exclamation: "At last,
at last," she cried, "and about time, too!"

The Cresslers and the rest of the party--two young men--
had appeared, and Page and her aunt came up just in
time to hear Mrs. Cressler--a fine old lady, in a
wonderful ermine-trimmed cape, whose hair was powdered--
exclaim at the top of her voice, as if the mere
declaration of fact was final, absolutely the last word
upon the subject, "The bridge was turned!"

The Cresslers lived on the North Side.  The incident
seemed to be closed with the abruptness of a slammed
door.

Page and Aunt Wess' were introduced to Jadwin, who was
particular to announce that he remembered the young
girl perfectly.  The two young men were already
acquainted with the Dearborn sisters and Mrs. Wessels.
Page and Laura knew one of them well enough to address
him familiarly by his Christian name.

This was Landry Court, a young fellow just turned
twenty-three, who was "connected with" the staff of the
great brokerage firm of Gretry, Converse and Co.  He
was astonishingly good-looking, small-made, wiry,
alert, nervous, debonair, with blond hair and dark eyes
that snapped like a terrier's.  He made friends almost
at first sight, and was one of those fortunate few who
were favoured equally of men and women.  The
healthiness of his eye and skin persuaded to a belief
in the healthiness of his mind; and, in fact, Landry
was as clean without as within.  He was frank, open-
hearted, full of fine sentiments and exaltations and
enthusiasms.  Until he was eighteen he had cherished an
ambition to become the President of the United States.

"Yes, yes," he said to Laura, "the bridge was turned.
It was an imposition.  We had to wait while they let
three tows through.  I think two at a time is as much
as is legal.  And we had to wait for three.  Yes, sir;
three, think of that! I shall look into that to-morrow.
Yes, sir; don't you be afraid of that.  I'll look into
it."  He nodded his head with profound seriousness.

"Well," announced Mr. Cressler, marshalling the party,
"shall we go in?  I'm afraid, Laura, we've missed the
overture."

Smiling, she shrugged her shoulders, while they moved
to the wicket, as if to say that it could not be helped
now.

Cressler, tall, lean, bearded, and stoop-shouldered,
belonging to the same physical type that includes
Lincoln--the type of the Middle West--was almost a
second father to the parentless Dearborn girls.  In
Massachusetts, thirty years before this time, he had
been a farmer, and the miller Dearborn used to grind
his grain regularly.  The two had been boys together,
and had always remained fast friends, almost brothers.
Then, in the years just before the War, had come the
great movement westward, and Cressler had been one of
those to leave an "abandoned" New England farm behind
him, and with his family emigrate toward the
Mississippi.  He had come to Sangamon County in
Illinois.  For a time he tried wheat-raising, until the
War, which skied the prices of all food-stuffs, had
made him--for those days--a rich man.  Giving up
farming, he came to live in Chicago, bought a seat on
the Board of Trade, and in a few years was a
millionaire.  At the time of the Turco-Russian War he
and two Milwaukee men had succeeded in cornering all
the visible supply of spring wheat.  At the end of the
thirtieth day of the corner the clique figured out its
profits at close upon a million; a week later it looked
like a million and a half.  Then the three lost their
heads; they held the corner just a fraction of a month
too long, and when the time came that the three were
forced to take profits, they found that they were
unable to close out their immense holdings without
breaking the price.  In two days wheat that they had
held at a dollar and ten cents collapsed to sixty.
The two Milwaukee men were ruined, and two-thirds of
Cressler's immense fortune vanished like a whiff of
smoke.

But he had learned his lesson.  Never since then had he
speculated.  Though keeping his seat on the Board, he
had confined himself to commission trading,
uninfluenced by fluctuations in the market.  And he was
never wearied of protesting against the evil and the
danger of trading in margins.  Speculation he abhorred
as the small-pox, believing it to be impossible to
corner grain by any means or under any circumstances.
He was accustomed to say: "It can't be done; first, for
the reason that there is a great harvest of wheat
somewhere in the world for every month in the year;
and, second, because the smart man who runs the corner
has every other smart man in the world against him.
And, besides, it's wrong; the world's food should not
be at the mercy of the Chicago wheat pit."

As the party filed in through the wicket, the other
young man who had come with Landry Court managed to
place himself next to Laura.  Meeting her eyes, he
murmured:

"Ah, you did not wear them after all.  My poor little
flowers."

But she showed him a single American Beauty, pinned to
the shoulder of her gown beneath her cape.

"Yes, Mr. Corthell," she answered, "one.  I tried to
select the prettiest, and I think I succeeded--don't
you?  It was hard to choose."

"Since you have worn it, it _is_ the prettiest,"
he answered.

He was a slightly built man of about twenty-eight or
thirty; dark, wearing a small, pointed beard, and a
mustache that he brushed away from his lips like a
Frenchman.  By profession he was an artist, devoting
himself more especially to the designing of stained
windows.  In this, his talent was indisputable.  But he
was by no means dependent upon his profession for a
living, his parents--long since dead--having left him
to the enjoyment of a very considerable fortune.  He
had a beautiful studio in the Fine Arts Building, where
he held receptions once every two months, or whenever
he had a fine piece of glass to expose.  He had
travelled, read, studied, occasionally written, and in
matters pertaining to the colouring and fusing of glass
was cited as an authority.  He was one of the directors
of the new Art Gallery that had taken the place of the
old Exposition Building on the Lake Front.

Laura had known him for some little time.  On the
occasion of her two previous visits to Page he had
found means to see her two or three times each week.
Once, even, he had asked her to marry him, but she,
deep in her studies at the time, consumed with vague
ambitions to be a great actress of Shakespearian roles,
had told him she could care for nothing but her art.
He had smiled and said that he could wait, and,
strangely enough, their relations had resumed again
upon the former footing.  Even after she had gone away
they had corresponded regularly, and he had made and
sent her a tiny window--a veritable jewel--illustrative
of a scene from "Twelfth Night."

In the foyer, as the gentlemen were checking their
coats, Laura overheard Jadwin say to Mr. Cressler:

"Well, how about Helmick?"

The other made an impatient movement of his shoulders.

"Ask me, what was the fool thinking of--a corner!
Pshaw!"

There were one or two other men about, making their
overcoats and opera hats into neat bundles preparatory
to checking them; and instantly there was a flash of a
half-dozen eyes in the direction of the two men.
Evidently the collapse of the Helmick deal was in the
air.  All the city seemed interested.

But from behind the heavy curtains that draped the
entrance to the theatre proper, came a muffled burst of
music, followed by a long salvo of applause.  Laura's
cheeks flamed with impatience, she hurried after Mrs.
Cressler; Corthell drew the curtains for her to pass,
and she entered.

Inside it was dark, and a prolonged puff of hot air,
thick with the mingled odours of flowers, perfume,
upholstery, and gas, enveloped her upon the instant.
It was the unmistakable, unforgetable, entrancing aroma
of the theatre, that she had known only too seldom, but
that in a second set her heart galloping.

Every available space seemed to be occupied.  Men, even
women, were standing up, compacted into a suffocating
pressure, and for the moment everybody was applauding
vigorously.  On all sides Laura heard:

"Bravo!"

"Good, good!"

"Very well done!"

"Encore! Encore!"

Between the peoples' heads and below the low dip of the
overhanging balcony--a brilliant glare in the
surrounding darkness--she caught a glimpse of the
stage.  It was set for a garden; at the back and in the
distance a chateau; on the left a bower, and on the
right a pavilion.  Before the footlights, a famous
contralto, dressed as a boy, was bowing to the
audience, her arms full of flowers.

"Too bad," whispered Corthell to Laura, as they
followed the others down the side-aisle to the box.
"Too bad, this is the second act already; you've missed
the whole first act--and this song.  She'll sing it
over again, though, just for you, if I have to lead the
applause myself.  I particularly wanted you to hear
that."

Once in the box, the party found itself a little
crowded, and Jadwin and Cressler were obliged to stand,
in order to see the stage.  Although they all spoke in
whispers, their arrival was the signal for certain
murmurs of "Sh! Sh!" Mrs. Cressler made Laura occupy
the front seat.  Jadwin took her cloak from her, and
she settled herself in her chair and looked about her.
She could see but little of the house or audience.
All the lights were lowered; only through the gloom the
swaying of a multitude of fans, pale coloured, like
night-moths balancing in the twilight, defined itself.

But soon she turned towards the stage.  The applause
died away, and the contralto once more sang the aria.
The melody was simple, the tempo easily followed; it
was not a very high order of music.  But to Laura it
was nothing short of a revelation.

She sat spell-bound, her hands clasped tight, her every
faculty of attention at its highest pitch.  It was
wonderful, such music as that; wonderful, such a voice;
wonderful, such orchestration; wonderful, such
exaltation inspired by mere beauty of sound.  Never,
never was this night to be forgotten, this her first
night of Grand Opera.  All this excitement, this world
of perfume, of flowers, of exquisite costumes, of
beautiful women, of fine, brave men.  She looked back
with immense pity to the narrow little life of her
native town she had just left forever, the restricted
horizon, the petty round of petty duties, the rare and
barren pleasures--the library, the festival, the few
concerts, the trivial plays.  How easy it was to be
good and noble when music such as this had become a
part of one's life; how desirable was wealth when it
could make possible such exquisite happiness as hers of
the moment.  Nobility, purity, courage, sacrifice
seemed much more worth while now than a few moments
ago.  All things not positively unworthy became heroic,
all things and all men.  Landry Court was a young
chevalier, pure as Galahad.  Corthell was a beautiful
artist-priest of the early Renaissance.  Even Jadwin
was a merchant prince, a great financial captain.  And
she herself--ah, she did not know; she dreamed of
another Laura, a better, gentler, more beautiful Laura,
whom everybody, everybody loved dearly and tenderly,
and who loved everybody, and who should die
beautifully, gently, in some garden far away--die
because of a great love--beautifully, gently in the
midst of flowers, die of a broken heart, and all the
world should be sorry for her, and would weep over her
when they found her dead and beautiful in her garden,
amid the flowers and the birds, in some far-off place,
where it was always early morning and where there was
soft music.  And she was so sorry for herself, and so
hurt with the sheer strength of her longing to be good
and true, and noble and womanly, that as she sat in the
front of the Cresslers' box on that marvellous evening,
the tears ran down her cheeks again and again, and
dropped upon her tight-shut, white-gloved fingers.

But the contralto had disappeared, and in her place the
tenor held the stage--a stout, short young man in red
plush doublet and grey silk tights.  His chin advanced,
an arm extended, one hand pressed to his breast, he
apostrophised the pavilion, that now and then swayed a
little in the draught from the wings.

The aria was received with furor; thrice he was obliged
to repeat it.  Even Corthell, who was critical to
extremes, approved, nodding his head.  Laura and Page
clapped their hands till the very last.  But Landry
Court, to create an impression, assumed a certain
disaffection.

"He's not in voice to-night.  Too bad.  You should have
heard him Friday in 'Aida.'"

The opera continued.  The great soprano, the prima
donna, appeared and delivered herself of a song for
which she was famous with astonishing eclat.  Then in a
little while the stage grew dark, the orchestration
lapsed to a murmur, and the tenor and the soprano
reentered.  He clasped her in his arms and sang a half-
dozen bars, then holding her hand, one arm still about
her waist, withdrew from her gradually, till she
occupied the front-centre of the stage.  He assumed an
attitude of adoration and wonderment, his eyes uplifted
as if entranced, and she, very softly, to the
accompaniment of the sustained, dreamy chords of the
orchestra, began her solo.

Laura shut her eyes.  Never had she felt so soothed, so
cradled and lulled and languid.  Ah, to love like that!
To love and be loved.  There was no such love as that
to-day.  She wished that she could loose her clasp upon
the sordid, material modern life that, perforce, she
must hold to, she knew not why, and drift, drift off
into the past, far away, through rose-coloured mists
and diaphanous veils, or resign herself, reclining in a
silver skiff drawn by swans, to the gentle current of
some smooth-flowing river that ran on forever and
forever.

But a discordant element developed.  Close by--the
lights were so low she could not tell where--a
conversation, kept up in low whispers, began by degrees
to intrude itself upon her attention.  Try as she
would, she could not shut it out, and now, as the music
died away fainter and fainter, till voice and orchestra
blended together in a single, barely audible murmur,
vibrating with emotion, with romance, and with
sentiment, she heard, in a hoarse, masculine whisper,
the words:

"The shortage is a million bushels at the very least.
Two hundred carloads were to arrive from Milwaukee last
night"

She made a little gesture of despair, turning her head
for an instant, searching the gloom about her.  But she
could see no one not interested in the stage.  Why
could not men leave their business outside, why must
the jar of commerce spoil all the harmony of this
moment.

However, all sounds were drowned suddenly in a long
burst of applause.  The tenor and soprano bowed and
smiled across the footlights.  The soprano vanished,
only to reappear on the balcony of the pavilion, and
while she declared that the stars and the night-bird
together sang "He loves thee," the voices close at hand
continued:

"----one hundred and six carloads----"

"----paralysed the bulls----"

"----fifty thousand dollars----"

Then all at once the lights went up.  The act was over.

Laura seemed only to come to herself some five minutes
later.  She and Corthell were out in the foyer behind
the boxes.  Everybody was promenading.  The air was
filled with the staccato chatter of a multitude of
women.  But she herself seemed far away--she and
Sheldon Corthell.  His face, dark, romantic, with the
silky beard and eloquent eyes, appeared to be all she
cared to see, while his low voice, that spoke close to
her ear, was in a way a mere continuation of the melody
of the duet just finished.

Instinctively she knew what he was about to say, for
what he was trying to prepare her.  She felt, too, that
he had not expected to talk thus to her to-night.  She
knew that he loved her, that inevitably, sooner or
later, they must return to a subject that for long had
been excluded from their conversations, but it was to
have been when they were alone, remote, secluded, not
in the midst of a crowd, brilliant electrics dazzling
their eyes, the humming of the talk of hundreds
assaulting their ears.  But it seemed as if these
important things came of themselves, independent of
time and place, like birth and death.  There was
nothing to do but to accept the situation, and it was
without surprise that at last, from out the murmur of
Corthell's talk, she was suddenly conscious of the
words:

"So that it is hardly necessary, is it, to tell you
once more that I love you?"

She drew a long breath.

"I know.  I know you love me."

They had sat down on a divan, at one end of the
promenade; and Corthell, skilful enough in the little
arts of the drawing-room, made it appear as though they
talked of commonplaces; as for Laura, exalted, all but
hypnotised with this marvellous evening, she hardly
cared; she would not even stoop to maintain
appearances.

"Yes, yes," she said; "I know you love me."

"And is that all you can say?" he urged.  "Does it mean
nothing to you that you are everything to me?"

She was coming a little to herself again.  Love was,
after all, sweeter in the actual--even in this crowded
foyer, in this atmosphere of silk and jewels, in this
show-place of a great city's society--than in a mystic
garden of some romantic dreamland.  She felt herself a
woman again, modern, vital, and no longer a maiden of a
legend of chivalry.

"Nothing to me?" she answered.  "I don't know.
I should rather have you love me than--not."

"Let me love you then for always," he went on.  "You
know what I mean.  We have understood each other from
the very first.  Plainly, and very simply, I love you
with all my heart.  You know now that I speak the
truth, you know that you can trust me.  I shall not ask
you to share your life with mine.  I ask you for the
great happiness"--he raised his head sharply, suddenly
proud--"the great honour of the opportunity of giving
you all that I have of good.  God give me humility, but
that is much since I have known you.  If I were a
better man because of myself, I would not presume to
speak of it, but if I am in anything less selfish, if I
am more loyal, if I am stronger, or braver, it is only
something of you that has become a part of me, and made
me to be born again.  So when I offer myself to you, I
am only bringing back to you the gift you gave me for a
little while.  I have tried to keep it for you, to keep
it bright and sacred and un-spotted.  It is yours again
now if you will have it."

There was a long pause; a group of men in opera hats
and white gloves came up the stairway close at hand.
The tide of promenaders set towards the entrances of
the theatre.  A little electric bell shrilled a note of
warning.

Laura looked up at length, and as their glances met, he
saw that there were tears in her eyes.  This
declaration of his love for her was the last touch to
the greatest exhilaration of happiness she had ever
known.  Ah yes, she was loved, just as that young girl
of the opera had been loved.  For this one evening, at
least, the beauty of life was unmarred, and no cruel
word of hers should spoil it.  The world was beautiful.
All people were good and noble and true.  To-morrow,
with the material round of duties and petty
responsibilities and cold, calm reason, was far, far
away.

Suddenly she turned to him, surrendering to the
impulse, forgetful of consequences.

"Oh, I am glad, glad," she cried, "glad that you love
me!"

But before Corthell could say anything more Landry
Court and Page came up.

"We've been looking for you," said the young girl
quietly.  Page was displeased.  She took herself and
her sister--in fact, the whole scheme of existence--
with extraordinary seriousness.  She had no sense of
humour.  She was not tolerant; her ideas of propriety
and the amenities were as immutable as the fixed stars.
A fine way for Laura to act, getting off into corners
with Sheldon Corthell.  It would take less than that to
make talk.  If she had no sense of her obligations to
Mrs. Cressler, at least she ought to think of the looks
of things.

"They're beginning again," she said solemnly.
"I should think you'd feel as though you had missed
about enough of this opera."

They returned to the box.  The rest of the party were
reassembling.

"Well, Laura," said Mrs. Cressler, when they had sat
down, "do you like it?"

"I don't want to leave it--ever," she answered.
"I could stay here always."

"I like the young man best," observed Aunt Wess'.  "The
one who seems to be the friend of the tall fellow with
a cloak.  But why does he seem so sorry?  Why don't he
marry the young lady?  Let's see, I don't remember his
name."

"Beastly voice," declared Landry Court.  "He almost
broke there once.  Too bad.  He's not what he used to
be.  It seems he's terribly dissipated--drinks.  Yes,
sir, like a fish.  He had delirium tremens once behind
the scenes in Philadelphia, and stabbed a scene shifter
with his stage dagger.  A bad lot, to say the least."

"Now, Landry," protested Mrs. Cressler, "you're making
it up as you go along."  And in the laugh that followed
Landry himself joined.

"After all," said Corthell, "this music seems to be
just the right medium between the naive melody of the
Italian school and the elaborate complexity of Wagner.
I can't help but be carried away with it at times--in
spite of my better judgment."

Jadwin, who had been smoking a cigar in the vestibule
during the _entr'acte,_ rubbed his chin reflectively.

"Well," he said, "it's all very fine.  I've no doubt of
that, but I give you my word I would rather hear my old
governor take his guitar and sing 'Father, oh father,
come home with me now,' than all the fiddle-faddle,
tweedle-deedle opera business in the whole world."

But the orchestra was returning, the musicians crawling
out one by one from a little door beneath the stage
hardly bigger than the entrance of a rabbit hutch.
They settled themselves in front of their racks,
adjusting their coat-tails, fingering their sheet
music.  Soon they began to tune up, and a vague bourdon
of many sounds--the subdued snarl of the cornets, the
dull mutter of the bass viols, the liquid gurgling of
the flageolets and wood-wind instruments, now and then
pierced by the strident chirps and cries of the
violins, rose into the air dominating the incessant
clamour of conversation that came from all parts of the
theatre.

Then suddenly the house lights sank and the foot-lights
rose.  From all over the theatre came energetic
whispers of "Sh! Sh!" Three strokes, as of a great
mallet, sepulchral, grave, came from behind the wings;
the leader of the orchestra raised his baton, then
brought it slowly down, and while from all the
instruments at once issued a prolonged minor chord,
emphasised by a muffled roll of the kettle-drum, the
curtain rose upon a mediaeval public square.  The
soprano was seated languidly upon a bench.  Her _grande
scene_ occurred in this act.  Her hair was un-bound;
she wore a loose robe of cream white, with flowing
sleeves, which left the arms bare to the shoulder.
At the waist it was caught in by a girdle of silk rope.

"This is the great act," whispered Mrs. Cressler,
leaning over Laura's shoulder.  "She is superb later
on.  Superb."

"I wish those _men_ would stop talking," murmured
Laura, searching the darkness distressfully, for
between the strains of the music she had heard the
words:

"----Clearing House balance of three thousand dollars."

Meanwhile the prima donna, rising to her feet,
delivered herself of a lengthy recitative, her chin
upon her breast, her eyes looking out from under her
brows, an arm stretched out over the footlights.  The
baritone entered, striding to the left of the
footlights, apostrophising the prima donna in a rage.
She clasped her hands imploringly, supplicating him to
leave her, exclaiming from time to time:


     "Ya via, va via--
     Vel chieco per pieta."


Then all at once, while the orchestra blared, they fell
into each other's arms.

"Why do they do that?" murmured Aunt Wess' perplexed.
"I thought the gentleman with the beard didn't like her
at all."

"Why, that's the duke, don't you see, Aunt Wess'?" said
Laura trying to explain.  "And he forgives her.  I
don't know exactly.  Look at your libretto."

"----a conspiracy of the Bears ...  seventy cents ...
and naturally he busted."

The mezzo-soprano, the confidante of the prima donna,
entered, and a trio developed that had but a mediocre
success.  At the end the baritone abruptly drew his
sword, and the prima donna fell to her knees, chanting:


     "Io tremo, ahime!"


"And now he's mad again," whispered Aunt Wess',
consulting her libretto, all at sea once more.  "I
can't understand.  She says--the opera book _says_ she
says, 'I tremble.' I don't see why."

"Look now," said Page, "here comes the tenor.  Now
they're going to have it out."

The tenor, hatless, debouched suddenly upon the scene,
and furious, addressed himself to the baritone, leaning
forward, his hands upon his chest.  Though the others
sang in Italian, the tenor, a Parisian, used the French
book continually, and now villified the baritone,
crying out:


     "O traitre infame
      O lache et coupable"


"I don't see why he don't marry the young lady and be
done with it," commented Aunt Wess'.

The act drew to its close.  The prima donna went
through her "great scene," wherein her voice climbed to
C in alt, holding the note so long that Aunt Wess'
became uneasy.  As she finished, the house rocked with
applause, and the soprano, who had gone out supported
by her confidante, was recalled three times.  A duel
followed between the baritone and tenor, and the
latter, mortally wounded, fell into the arms of his
friends uttering broken, vehement notes.  The chorus--
made up of the city watch and town's people--crowded in
upon the back of the stage.  The soprano and her
confidante returned.  The basso, a black-bearded, bull
necked man, sombre, mysterious, parted the chorus to
right and left, and advanced to the footlights.  The
contralto, dressed as a boy, appeared.  The soprano
took stage, and abruptly the closing scene of the act
developed.

The violins raged and wailed in unison, all the bows
moving together like parts of a well-regulated machine.
The kettle-drums, marking the cadences, rolled at exact
intervals.  The director beat time furiously, as though
dragging up the notes and chords with the end of his
baton, while the horns and cornets blared, the bass
viols growled, and the flageolets and piccolos lost
themselves in an amazing complication of liquid gurgles
and modulated roulades.

On the stage every one was singing.  The soprano in the
centre, vocalised in her highest register, bringing out
the notes with vigorous twists of her entire body, and
tossing them off into the air with sharp flirts of her
head.  On the right, the basso, scowling, could be
heard in the intervals of the music repeating


     "Il perfido, l'ingrato"


while to the left of the soprano, the baritone intoned
indistinguishable, sonorous phrases, striking his
breast and pointing to the fallen tenor with his sword.
At the extreme left of the stage the contralto, in
tights and plush doublet, turned to the audience,
extending her hands, or flinging back her arms.  She
raised her eyebrows with each high note, and sunk her
chin into her ruff when her voice descended.  At
certain intervals her notes blended with those of the
soprano's while she sang:


     "Addio, felicita del ciel!"


The tenor, raised upon one hand, his shoulders
supported by his friends, sustained the theme which the
soprano led with the words:


     "Je me meurs
      Ah malheur
      Ah je souffre
      Mon ame s'envole."


The chorus formed a semi-circle just behind him.  The
women on one side, the men on the other.  They left
much to be desired; apparently scraped hastily together
from heaven knew what sources, after the manner of a
management suddenly become economical.  The women were
fat, elderly, and painfully homely; the men lean,
osseous, and distressed, in misfitting hose.  But they
had been conscientiously drilled.  They made all their
gestures together, moved in masses simultaneously, and,
without ceasing, chanted over and over again:


     "O terror, O blasfema."


The _finale_ commenced.  Everybody on the stage took a
step forward, beginning all over again upon a higher
key.  The soprano's voice thrilled to the very
chandelier.  The orchestra redoubled its efforts, the
director beating time with hands, head, and body.


     "Il perfido, l'ingrato"


thundered the basso.


     "Ineffabil mistero,"


answered the baritone, striking his breast and pointing
with his sword; while all at once the soprano's voice,
thrilling out again, ran up an astonishing crescendo
that evoked veritable gasps from all parts of the
audience, then jumped once more to her famous C in alt,
and held it long enough for the chorus to repeat


     "O terror, O blasfema"


four times.

Then the director's baton descended with the violence
of a blow.  There was a prolonged crash of harmony, a
final enormous chord, to which every voice and every
instrument contributed.  The singers struck tableau
attitudes, the tenor fell back with a last wail:


     "Je me meurs,"


and the soprano fainted into the arms of her
confidante.  The curtain fell.

The house roared with applause.  The scene was recalled
again and again.  The tenor, scrambling to his feet,
joined hands with the baritone, soprano, and other
artists, and all bowed repeatedly.  Then the curtain
fell for the last time, the lights of the great
chandelier clicked and blazed up, and from every
quarter of the house came the cries of the programme
sellers:

"Opera books.  Books of the opera.  Words and music of
the opera."

During this, the last _entr'acte,_ Laura remained in
the box with Mrs. Cressler, Corthell, and Jadwin.  The
others went out to look down upon the foyer from a
certain balcony.

In the box the conversation turned upon stage
management, and Corthell told how, in "L'Africaine," at
the Opera, in Paris, the entire superstructure of the
stage--wings, drops, and backs--turned when Vasco da
Gama put the ship about.  Jadwin having criticised the
effect because none of the actors turned with it, was
voted a Philistine by Mrs. Cressler and Corthell.  But
as he was about to answer, Mrs. Cressler turned to the
artist, passing him her opera glasses, and asking:

"Who are those people down there in the third row of
the parquet--see, on the middle aisle--the woman is in
red.  Aren't those the Gretrys?"

This left Jadwin and Laura out of the conversation, and
the capitalist was quick to seize the chance of talking
to her.  Soon she was surprised to notice that he was
trying hard to be agreeable, and before they had
exchanged a dozen sentences, he had turned an awkward
compliment.  She guessed by his manner that paying
attention to young girls was for him a thing altogether
unusual.  Intuitively she divined that she, on this,
the very first night of their acquaintance, had
suddenly interested him.

She had had neither opportunity nor inclination to
observe him closely during their interview in the
vestibule, but now, as she sat and listened to him
talk, she could not help being a little attracted.  He
was a heavy-built man, would have made two of Corthell,
and his hands were large and broad, the hands of a man
of affairs, who knew how to grip, and, above all, how
to hang on.  Those broad, strong hands, and keen, calm
eyes would enfold and envelop a Purpose with tremendous
strength, and they would persist and persist and
persist, unswerving, unwavering, untiring, till the
Purpose was driven home.  And the two long, lean,
fibrous arms of him; what a reach they could attain,
and how wide and huge and even formidable would be
their embrace of affairs.  One of those great
manoeuvres of a fellow money-captain had that very day
been concluded, the Helmick failure, and between the
chords and bars of a famous opera men talked in excited
whispers, and one great leader lay at that very moment,
broken and spent, fighting with his last breath for
bare existence.  Jadwin had seen it all.  Uninvolved in
the crash, he had none the less been close to it,
watching it, in touch with it, foreseeing each
successive collapse by which it reeled fatally to the
final catastrophe.  The voices of the two men that had
so annoyed her in the early part of the evening were
suddenly raised again:

"----It was terrific, there on the floor of the Board
this morning.  By the Lord! they fought each other when
the Bears began throwing the grain at 'em--in carload
lots."

And abruptly, midway between two phases of that music-
drama, of passion and romance, there came to Laura the
swift and vivid impression of that other drama that
simultaneously--even at that very moment--was working
itself out close at hand, equally picturesque, equally
romantic, equally passionate; but more than that, real,
actual, modern, a thing in the very heart of the very
life in which she moved.  And here he sat, this Jadwin,
quiet, in evening dress, listening good-naturedly to
this beautiful music, for which he did not care, to
this rant and fustian, watching quietly all this posing
and attitudinising.  How small and petty it must all
seem to him!

Laura found time to be astonished.  What! She had first
met this man haughtily, in all the panoply of her
"grand manner," and had promised herself that she would
humble him, and pay him for that first mistrustful
stare at her.  And now, behold, she was studying him,
and finding the study interesting.  Out of harmony
though she knew him to be with those fine emotions of
hers of the early part of the evening, she nevertheless
found much in him to admire.  It was always just like
that.  She told herself that she was forever doing the
unexpected thing, the inconsistent thing.  Women were
queer creatures, mysterious even to themselves.

"I am so pleased that you are enjoying it all," said
Corthell's voice at her shoulder.  "I knew you would.
There is nothing like music such as this to appeal to
the emotions, the heart--and with your temperament"

Straightway he made her feel her sex.  Now she was just
a woman again, with all a woman's limitations, and her
relations with Corthell could never be--so she
realised--any other than sex-relations.  With Jadwin
somehow it had been different.  She had felt his
manhood more than her womanhood, her sex side.  And
between them it was more a give-and-take affair, more
equality, more companionship.  Corthell spoke only of
her heart and to her heart.  But Jadwin made her feel--
or rather she made herself feel when he talked to her--
that she had a head as well as a heart.

And the last act of the opera did not wholly absorb her
attention.  The artists came and went, the orchestra
wailed and boomed, the audience applauded, and in the
end the tenor, fired by a sudden sense of duty and of
stern obligation, tore himself from the arms of the
soprano, and calling out upon remorseless fate and upon
heaven, and declaiming about the vanity of glory, and
his heart that broke yet disdained tears, allowed
himself to be dragged off the scene by his friend the
basso.  For the fifth time during the piece the soprano
fainted into the arms of her long-suffering confidante.
The audience, suddenly remembering hats and wraps,
bestirred itself, and many parties were already upon
their feet and filing out at the time the curtain fell.

The Cresslers and their friends were among the last to
regain the vestibule.  But as they came out from the
foyer, where the first draughts of outside air began to
make themselves felt, there were exclamations:

"It's raining."

"Why, it's raining right down."

It was true.  Abruptly the weather had moderated, and
the fine, dry snow that had been falling since early
evening had changed to a lugubrious drizzle.  A wave of
consternation invaded the vestibule for those who had
not come in carriages, or whose carriages had not
arrived.  Tempers were lost; women, cloaked to the
ears, their heads protected only by fichus or
mantillas, quarrelled with husbands or cousins or
brothers over the question of umbrellas.  The
vestibules were crowded to suffocation, and the
aigrettes nodded and swayed again in alternate gusts,
now of moist, chill atmosphere from without, and now of
stale, hot air that exhaled in long puffs from the
inside doors of the theatre itself.  Here and there in
the press, footmen, their top hats in rubber cases,
their hands full of umbrellas, searched anxiously for
their masters.

Outside upon the sidewalks and by the curbs, an
apparently inextricable confusion prevailed; policemen
with drawn clubs laboured and objurgated: anxious,
preoccupied young men, their opera hats and gloves
beaded with rain, hurried to and fro, searching for
their carriages.  At the edge of the awning, the
caller, a gigantic fellow in gold-faced uniform,
shouted the numbers in a roaring, sing-song that
dominated every other sound.  Coachmen, their wet
rubber coats reflecting the lamplight, called back and
forth, furious quarrels broke out between hansom
drivers and the police officers, steaming horses with
jingling bits, their backs covered with dark green
cloths, plunged and pranced, carriage doors banged,
and the roll of wheels upon the pavement was as the
reverberation of artillery caissons.

"Get your carriage, sir?" cried a ragged, half-grown
arab at Cressler's elbow.

"Hurry up, then," said Cressler.  Then, raising his
voice, for the clamour was increasing with every
second: "What's your number, Laura?  You girls first.
Ninety-three?  Get that, boy?  Ninety-three.  Quick now."

The carriage appeared.  Hastily they said good-by;
hastily Laura expressed to Mrs. Cressler her
appreciation and enjoyment.  Corthell saw them to the
carriage, and getting in after them shut the door
behind him.  They departed.

Laura sank back in the cool gloom of the carriage's
interior redolent of damp leather and upholstery.

"What an evening! What an evening!" she murmured.

On the way home both she and Page appealed to the
artist, who knew the opera well, to hum or whistle for
them the arias that had pleased them most. Each time
they were enthusiastic.  Yes, yes, that was the air.
Wasn't it pretty, wasn't it beautiful?

But Aunt Wess' was still unsatisfied.

"I don't see yet," she complained, "why the young man,
the one with the pointed beard, didn't marry that lady
and be done with it.  Just as soon as they'd seem to
have it all settled, he'd begin to take on again, and
strike his breast and go away.  I declare, I think it
was all kind of foolish."

"Why, the duke--don't you see.  The one who sang bass----"
Page laboured to explain.

"Oh, I didn't like him at all," said Aunt Wess'.
"He stamped around so."  But the audience itself had
interested her, and the decollete gowns had been
particularly impressing.

"I never saw such dressing in all my life," she
declared.  "And that woman in the box next ours.  Well!
did you notice _that!_" She raised her eye-brows and
set her lips together.  "Well, I don't want to say
anything."

The carriage rolled on through the darkened downtown
streets, towards the North Side, where the Dearborns
lived.  They could hear the horses plashing through the
layer of slush--mud, half-melted snow and rain--that
encumbered the pavement.  In the gloom the girls' wraps
glowed pallid and diaphanous.  The rain left long,
slanting parallels on the carriage windows.  They
passed on down Wabash Avenue, and crossed over to State
Street and Clarke Street, dark, deserted.

Laura, after a while, lost in thought, spoke but
little.  It had been a great evening--because of other
things than mere music.  Corthell had again asked her
to marry him, and she, carried away by the excitement
of the moment, had answered him encouragingly.  On the
heels of this she had had that little talk with the
capitalist Jadwin, and somehow since then she had been
steadied, calmed.  The cold air and the rain in her
face had cooled her flaming cheeks and hot temples.
She asked herself now if she did really, honestly love
the artist.  No, she did not; really and honestly she
did not; and now as the carriage rolled on through the
deserted streets of the business districts, she knew
very well that she did not want to marry him.  She had
done him an injustice; but in the matter of righting
herself with him, correcting his false impression, she
was willing to procrastinate.  She wanted him to love
her, to pay her all those innumerable little attentions
which he managed with such faultless delicacy.  To say:
"No, Mr. Corthell, I do not love you, I will never be
your wife," would--this time--be final.  He would go
away, and she had no intention of allowing him to do
that.

But abruptly her reflections were interrupted.  While
she thought it all over she had been looking out of the
carriage window through a little space where she had
rubbed the steam from the pane.  Now, all at once, the
strange appearance of the neighbourhood as the carriage
turned north from out Jackson Street into La Salle,
forced itself upon her attention.  She uttered an
exclamation.

The office buildings on both sides of the street were
lighted from basement to roof.  Through the windows she
could get glimpses of clerks and book-keepers in shirt-
sleeves bending over desks.  Every office was open, and
every one of them full of a feverish activity.  The
sidewalks were almost as crowded as though at noontime.
Messenger boys ran to and fro, and groups of men stood
on the corners in earnest conversation. The whole
neighbourhood was alive, and this, though it was close
upon one o'clock in the morning!

"Why, what is it all?" she murmured.

Corthell could not explain, but all at once Page cried:

"Oh, oh, I know.  See this is Jackson and La Salle
streets.  Landry was telling me.  The 'commission
district,' he called it.  And these are the brokers'
offices working overtime--that Helmick deal, you know."

Laura looked, suddenly stupefied.  Here it was, then,
that other drama, that other tragedy, working on there
furiously, fiercely through the night, while she and
all those others had sat there in that atmosphere of
flowers and perfume, listening to music.  Suddenly it
loomed portentous in the eye of her mind, terrible,
tremendous.  Ah, this drama of the "Provision Pits,"
where the rush of millions of bushels of grain, and the
clatter of millions of dollars, and the tramping and
the wild shouting of thousands of men filled all the
air with the noise of battle! Yes, here was drama in
deadly earnest--drama and tragedy and death, and the
jar of mortal fighting.  And the echoes of it invaded
the very sanctuary of art, and cut athwart the music of
Italy and the cadence of polite conversation, and the
shock of it endured when all the world should have
slept, and galvanised into vivid life all these sombre
piles of office buildings.  It was dreadful, this
labour through the night.  It had all the significance
of field hospitals after the battle--hospitals and the
tents of commanding generals.  The wounds of the day
were being bound up, the dead were being counted,
while, shut in their headquarters, the captains and the
commanders drew the plans for the grapple of armies
that was to recommence with daylight.

"Yes, yes, that's just what it is," continued Page.
"See, there's the Rookery, and there's the Constable
Building, where Mr. Helmick has his offices.  Landry
showed me it all one day.  And, look back."  She raised
the flap that covered the little window at the back of
the carriage.  "See, down there, at the end of the
street.  There's the Board of Trade Building, where the
grain speculating is done,--where the wheat pits and
corn pits are."

Laura turned and looked back.  On either side of the
vista in converging lines stretched the blazing office
buildings.  But over the end of the street the lead-
coloured sky was rifted a little.  A long, faint bar of
light stretched across the prospect, and silhouetted
against this rose a sombre mass, unbroken by any
lights, rearing a black and formidable facade against
the blur of light behind it.

And this was her last impression of the evening.  The
lighted office buildings, the murk of rain, the haze of
light in the heavens, and raised against it the pile of
the Board of Trade Building, black, grave, monolithic,
crouching on its foundations, like a monstrous sphinx
with blind eyes, silent, grave,--crouching there
without a sound, without sign of life under the night
and the drifting veil of rain.



II


Laura Dearborn's native town was Barrington, in
Worcester County, Massachusetts.  Both she and Page had
been born there, and there had lived until the death of
their father, at a time when Page was ready for the
High School.  The mother, a North Carolina girl, had
died long before.

Laura's education had been unusual.  After leaving the
High School her father had for four years allowed her a
private tutor (an impecunious graduate from the Harvard
Theological School).  She was ambitious, a devoted
student, and her instructor's task was rather to guide
than to enforce her application.  She soon acquired a
reading knowledge of French, and knew her Racine in the
original almost as well as her Shakespeare.  Literature
became for her an actual passion.  She delved into
Tennyson and the Victorian poets, and soon was on terms
of intimacy with the poets and essayists of New
England.  The novelists of the day she ignored almost
completely, and voluntarily.  Only occasionally, and
then as a concession, she permitted herself a reading
of Mr. Howells.

Moderately prosperous while he himself was conducting
his little mill, Dearborn had not been able to put by
any money to speak of, and when Laura and the local
lawyer had come to close up the business, to dispose of
the mill, and to settle the claims against what the
lawyer grandiloquently termed "the estate," there was
just enough money left to pay for Page's tickets to
Chicago and a course of tuition for her at a semi