Java Head............................................................................................................................................................1

VERY LATE indeed in May, but early in the morning, Laurel Ammidon lay in bed considering two widely

different aspects of chairs. The day before she had been eleven, and the comparative maturity of that age had

filled her with a moving disdain for certain fanciful thoughts which had given her extreme youth a decidedly

novel if not an actually adventurous setting. Until yesterday, almost, she had regarded the various chairs of

the house as beings endowed with life and character; she had held conversations with some, and, with a

careless exterior not warranted by an inner dread, avoided others in gloomy dusks. All this, now, she

contemptuously discarded. Chairs werechairs, things to sit on, wood and stuffed cushions.

Yet she was slightly melancholy at losing such a satisfactory lot of reliable familiars: unlike older people,

victims of the most disconcerting moods and mysterious changes, chairs could always be counted on to

She could see by her fireplace the elaborately carved teakwood chair that her grandfather had brought home

from China, which had never varied from the state of a brown and rather benevolent dragon; its claws were

always claws, the grinning fretted mouth was perpetually fixed for a cloud of smoke and a mild rumble of

complaint. The severe waxed hickory beyond with the broad arm for writing, a source of special pride, had

been an accommodating and precise old gentleman. The spindling gold chairs in the drawingroom were

supercilious creatures at a king's ball; the graceful impressive formality of the Heppelwhites in the dining

room belonged to the loveliest of Boston ladies. Those with difficult haircloth seats in the parlor were

deacons; others in the breakfast room talkative and unpretentious; while the deep easychair before the

library fire was a ship. There were mahogany stools, dwarfs of dark tricks; angry highbacked things in the

hall below; and a terrifying shape of gleaming red that, without question, stirred hatefully and reached out

Anyhow, such they had all seemed. But lately she had felt a growing secrecy about it, an increasing dread of

being laughed at; and now, definitely eleven, she recognized the necessity of dropping such pretense even

The tall clock with the brass face outside her door, after a premonitory whirring, loudly and firmly struck

seven, and Laurel wondered whether her sisters, in the room open from hers, were awake. She listened

attentively but there was no sound of movement. She made a noise in her throat, that might at once have

appeared accidental and been successful in its purpose of arousing them; but there was no response. She

would have gone in and frankly waked Janet, who was not yet thirteen and reasonable; but experience had

shown her that Camilla, reposing in the eminence and security of two years more, would permit no such light

Sidsall, who had been given a big room for herself on the other side of their parents, would greet anyone

cheerfully no matter how tightly she might have been asleep. And Sidsall, the oldest of them all, was nearly

sixteen and had stayed for part of their cousin Lucy Saltonstone's dance, where no less a person than Roger

Laurel's thoughts grew so active that she was unable to remain any longer in bed; she freed herself from the

enveloping linen and crossed the room to a window through which the sun was pouring in a sharp bright

angle. She had never know the world to smell so delightfulit was one of the notable Mays in which the

lilacs blossomedand she stood responding with a sparkling life to the brilliant scented morning, the

honeysweet perfume of the lilacs mingled with the faintly pungent odor of box wet with dew.

She could see, looking back across a smooth green corner of the Wibirds' lawn next door, the enclosure of

their own back yard, divided from the garden by a white lattice fence and row of grim grayish poplars. At the

farther wall her grandfather, in a wide palm leaf hat, was stirring about his pear trees, tapping the ground and

Laurel exuberantly performed her morning toilet, half careless, in her soaring spirits, of the possible effect of

numerous small ringings of pitcher on basin, the clatter of drawers, upon Camilla. Yesterday she had worn a

dress of light wool delaine; but this morning, she decided largely, summer had practically come; and, on her

own authority, she got an affair of thin pineapple cloth out of the yellow camphorwood chest. She hurriedly

finished weaving her heavy chestnut hair into two gleaming plaits, fastened a muslin guimpe at the back, and

slipped into her dress. Here, however, she twisted her face into an expression of annoyanceher years were

affronted by the length of pantalets that hung below her skirt. Such a show of their narrow ruffles might do

for a very small girl, but not for one of eleven; and she caught them up until only the merest fulled edge was

visible. Then she made a buoyant descent to the lower hall, left the house by a side door to the bricked walk

"Six bells in the morning watch," he announced, consulting a thick gold timepiece. "Head pump rigged and

deck swabbed down?" Secure in her knowledge of the correct answers for these sudden interrogations Laurel

This last she recognized as a sally of humor, and contrived a fleeting perfunctory smile. Her grandfather

turned once more to the pears. "See the buds on those Ashton Towns," he commented. Laurel gazed

critically: the varnished red buds were bursting with white blossom, the new leaves unrolling, tender green

and sticky. "But the jargonelles" he drew in his lips doubtfully. She studied him with the profound interest

his sheer being always invoked: she was absorbed in his surprising roundness of body, like an enormous

pudding; in the deliberate care with which he moved and planted his feet; but most of all by the fact that

when he was angry his face got quite purple, the color of her mother's paletot or a Hamburg grape.

They crossed the yard to where the vines of the latter, and of white ChasselasLaurel was familiar with

these names from frequent horticultural questioningshad been laid down in cold frames for later

transplanting; and from them the old man, her palm tightly held in his, trod ponderously to the currant bushes

massed against the closed arcade of the stables, the wood and coal and store houses, across the rear of the

At last, with frequent disconcerting mutterings and explosive breaths, he finished his inspection and turned

toward the house. Laurel, conscious of her own superiority of apparel, surveyed her companion in a frowning

attitude exactly caught from her mother. He had on that mussy suit of yellow Chinese silk, and there was a

spot on the waistcoat straining at its pearl buttons. She wondered, maintaining the silent mimicry of elder

remonstrance, why he would wear those untidy old things when his chests were heaped with snowy white

linen and English broadcloths. It was very improper in an Ammidon, particularly in one who had been

captain of so many ships, in court dress with a cocked hat met the Emperor of Russia.

They did not retrace Laurel's steps, but passed through a narrow wicket to the garden that lay directly behind

the house. The enclosure was full of robinsong and pouring sunlight; the lilac trees on either side of the

summerhouse against the gallery of the stable were blurred with their new lavender flowering; the thorned

glossy foliage of the hedge of June roses on Briggs Street glittered with diamonds of water; and the rockery

in the far corner showed a quiver of arbutus among its strange and lacy ferns and mosses.

Laurel sniffed the fragrant air, filled with a tumult of energy; every instinct longed to skip; she thought of

jouncing as high as the poplars, right over the house and into Washington Square beyond. "Miss Fidget!" her

grandfather exclaimed, exasperated, releasing her hand. "You're like holding on to a stormy petrel."

"God bless me," he said, turning upon her his steady blue gaze; "what have we got here, all dressed up to go

ashore?" She sharply elevated a shoulder and retorted, "Well, I'm eleven." His look, which had seemed quite

fierce, grew kindly again. "Eleven," he echoed with a satisfactory amazement; "that will need some

cumshaws and kisses." The first, she knew, was a word of pleasant import, brought from the East, and meant

gifts; and, realizing that the second was unavoidably connected with it, she philosophically held up her face.

Lifting her over his expanse of stomach he kissed her loudly. She didn't object, really, or rather she wouldn't

at all but for a strong odor of Manilla cheroots and the Medford rum he took at stated periods.

After this they moved on, through the bay window of the drawingroom that opened on the garden, where a

woman was brushing with a nodding feather duster, under the white arch that framed the main stairway, and

turned aside to where breakfast was being laid. Laurel saw that her father was already seated at the table,

intent upon the tall, thickly printed sheet of the Salem Register. He paused to meet her dutiful lips; then with

a "Good morning, father," returned to his reading. Camilla entered at Laurel's heels; and the latter, in a

delight slightly tempered by doubt, saw that she had been before her sister in a suitable dress for such a warm

day. Camilla still wore her dark merino; and she gazed with mingled surprise and annoyance at Laurel's airy

"Did mother say you might put that on?" she demanded. "Because if she didn't I expect you will have to go

right up from breakfast and change. It isn't a dress at all for so early in the morning. Why, I believe it's one of

your very best." The look of critical disapproval suddenly became doubly accusing.

"I'm too big to have pantalets hanging down over my shoetops," she replied defiantly, "and so I just hitched

them up. You can still see the frill." Janet had come into the room, and stood behind her. "Don't you notice

Camilla," she advised; "she's not really grown up." They turned at the appearance of their mother. "Dear me,

Camilla," the latter observed, "you are getting too particular for my comfort. What has upset you now?"

"Look at Laurel," Camilla replied; "that's all you need to do. You'd think she went to dances instead of

Laurel painfully avoided her mother's comprehensive glance. "Very beautiful," the elder said in a tone of

palpable pleasure. Laurel advanced her lower lip ever so slightly in the direction of Camilla. "but you have

taken a great deal into your own hands." She shifted apparently to another topic. "There will be no lessons

today for I have to sent Miss Gomes into Boston." At this announcement Laurel was flooded with a joy that

obviously belonged to her former, less dignified state. "However," her mother continued addressing her,

"since you have dressed yourself like a lady I shall expect you to behave appropriately; no soiled or torn

Laurel's anticipation of pleasure ebbed as quickly as it had comeshe would have to move with the greatest

caution all day, and spend a whole hour at the piano. It was the room to which she objected rather than the

practicing; a depressing sort of place where she was careful not to move anything out of the stiff and

threatening order in which it belonged. The chairdeacons in particular were severely watchful; but that,

She turned to johnnycakes, honey and milk, only half hearing, in her preoccupation with the injustice that had

overtaken her, the conversation about the table. Her gaze strayed over the walls of the breakfast room, where

water color drawings of vessels, half models of ships on teakwood or Spanish mahogany boards, filled every

possible space. Some her grandfather had sailed in as second and then first mate, of others he had been

master, and the rest, she knew, were owned by Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone, her grandfather, father

Just opposite her was the Two Capes at anchor in Table Bay, the sails all furled except the foretopsail which

hung in the gear. A gig manned by six sailors in tarpaulin hats with an officer in the stern sheets swung with

dripping oars across the dark water of the foreground; on the left an inky ship was standing in close hauled on

the port tack with all her canvas set. It was lighter about the Two Capes, and at the back a mountain with a

flat topshowing at once why it was called Table Bayrose against an overcast sky. Laurel knew a great

deal about the Two Capesfor instance that she had been a barque of two hundred and nine tonsbecause

it had been her grandfather's first command, and he never tired of narrating every detail of that memorable

Laurel could repeat most of these particulars: They sailed on the tenth of April in 'ninetythree, and were four

and a half months to the Cape of Good Hope; twenty days later, on the rocky island of St. Paul, grandfather

had a fight with a monster seal; a sailor took the scurvy, and, dosed with niter and vinegar, was stowed in the

longboat, but he died and was buried at sea in the Doldrums. Then, with a cargo of Sumatra pepper, they

made Corregidor Island and Manilla Bay where the old Spanish fort stood at the mouth of the Pasig. The

barque, the final cargo of hemp and indigo and sugar in the hold, set sail again for the Cape of Good Hope,

The other drawings were hardly less familiar; ships, barques, brigs and topsail schooners, the skillful work of

Salmon, Anton Roux and Chinnery. There was the Celestina becalmed off Marseilles, her sails hanging idly

from the yards and stays, her hull with painted ports and carved bow and stern mirrored in the level sea.

There was the Albacore running through the northeast trades with royals and all her weather studding sails

set. Farther along the Pallas Athena, in heavy weather off the Cape of Good Hope, was being driven hard

across the Agulhas Bank under doublereefed topsails, reefed course, the foretopmast staysail and spanker,

with the westerly current breaking in an ugly cross sea, but, as her grandfather always explained, setting the

ship thirty or forty miles to windward in a day. She lingered, finally, over the Metacom, running her easting

down far to the southward with square yards under a closereefed maintopsail, doublereefed foresail and

forestaysail, dead before a gale and gigantic long seas hurling the ship on in the bleak watery desolation.

Laurel was closely concerned in all these. One cause for this was the fact that her grandfather so often

selected her as the audience for his memories and stories, during which his manner was completely that of

one navigator to another; and a second flourished in the knowledge that Camilla affected to disdain the sea

Sidsall appeared and took her place with a collective greeting; while Laurel, coming out of her abstraction,

realized that they were discussing the subject in which nearly every conversation now began or endedthe

solemn speculation of why her Uncle Gerrit Ammidon, master of the ship Nautilus, was so long overdue from

China. Laurel heard this from two angles, or, otherwise, when her grandfather was or was not present, the

tone of the first far more encouraging than that of the latter. Her father was speaking:

"My opinion is that he was unexpectedly held up at Shanghai. It's a new port for us, and, Captain Verney tells

me, very difficult to make: after Woosung you have to get hold of two bamboo poles stuck up on the bank a

hundred feet apart as a leading mark, and, with these in range, steer for the bay. The channel is very narrow,

and he says the Nautilus would have to wait for high water, perhaps for the spring tide. She may have got

ashore, strained and sprung a leak, and had to discharge her cargo for repairs."

"That's never Gerrit," the elder replied positively. "There isn't a better master afloat. He can smell shoal

water. I was certain we'd hear from him when the Sorsogon was back from Calcutta. Do you suppose,

William, that he took the Nautilus about the Horn and?" Laurel wondered at the unmannerly way in

which he gulped his coffee. "He might have driven into the Antarctic winter," he proceeded. "My deck was

"Gerrit's got a ship," the other asserted, "not a hermaphrodite brig built like a butter box. You'll find that I am

"I made eight hundred per cent on a first cargo for my owners," the elder retorted. "Then there was trading,

yes, and sailing, too. No chronometers with confounded rates of variation and other fancy parlor instruments

to read your position from. When I first navigated it was with an astrolabe and the moon. A master knew his

"Eight hundred barrels of flour and pine boards to Rio and back with coffee and hides for Salem," he

continued; "then out to Gibraltar and Brazil with wine and on in ballast for Calcutta. Tahiti and Morea, the

Sandwich Islands and the Feejees. Sandalwood and tortoise shell and b�che de mer; sea horses' teeth, and

saltpeter for the Chinese Government. I don't want to hear about your bills of exchange and kegs of Spanish

dollars and sold cargoes of tea run back direct. Why, with your Canton and India agents and sight drafts of

Laurel saw that her father was assuming the expression of restrained annoyance habitual when the elder

contrasted old shipping ways with new. "Unfortunately," he said, "the patient Chinaman will no longer

exchange silks and lacquer and teas for boiled sea slugs. He has learned to demand something of value."

"Why, damn it, William," the other exploded, "nothing's more valuable to a Chinese than his belly. They'll

give eighteen hundred dollars a pecul for birds' nests any day. As for your insinuation that we used to diddle

themI never ran opium up from India to rot their souls. And when the Chinese Government tried to stop it

there's the British commercial interests forcing it on them with cannon in 'fortytwo.

"Look at the pepper we brought into Salem" he was, Laurel realized with intense interest, growing

beautifully empurpled; "lay right off the beach at Mukka and did business with the Dato himself. We

forded the bags on the crew's backs across a river with muskets served in case the bloody heathen drew their

creeses. When we made sail everything was running over with pepperthe boats and forecastle and cabins

"Well, father, the heroic times are done, of course; I can't say that I'm sorry. I shouldn't like to finance a

voyage that reached out to three years and depended on the captain's picking up six or seven cargoes."

The old man rose; and, muttering a plainly uncomplimentary period about the resemblance of modern ship

Laurel regarded her with a passionate admiration for the shining hair turning smoothly about her brow and

drawn over her ears to the low coil in the back, for the brown bar�ge dress with velvet leaves and blue

forgetmenots and tightest of long sleeves and high collar, and because generally she was a mother to be

owned and viewed with pride. She met Laurel's gaze with a little friendly nod and said:

"Don't forget about your clothes, and I think you ought to finish the practicing before dinner, so you'll be free

Soon after, Laurel stood in the hall viewing with disfavor the light dress she had put on so gayly at rising. In

spite of her sense of increasing age she had a strong desire to play in the yard and climb about in the

woodhouse. Already the business of being grown up began to pall upon her, the outlook dreary that included

nothing but a whole hour a the piano, an endless care of her skirts, and the slowest kind of walk through

Washington Square and down to Derby Wharf, whereno matter in which direction and for what purpose

Janet joined her, and they stood irresolutely balancing on alternate slippers. "Did you notice," the former

volunteered, "mother is letting Camilla have lots of starch in her petticoats, so that they stand right out like

crinoline? Wasn't she hateful this morning!" Laurel heard a slight sound at her back, and, wheeling, saw her

grandfather looking out from the library door. A swift premonition of possible additional misfortune seized

her. Moving toward the side entrance she said to Janet, "We'd better be going right away."

It was, however, too late. "Well, little girls," he remarked benevolently, "since Miss Gomes has left for the

"I don't think mother intended for us to study today," Laurel replied, making a face of appeal for Janet's

"What, what," the elder mildly exploded; "mutiny in the forecastle! Get right up here in the break of the

quarterdeck or I'll harry you." He stood aside while Laurel and Janet filed into the library. Geography was

the only subject their grandfather proposed for his instruction, and the lesson, she knew, might take any one

of several directions. He sometimes heard it with the precision of Miss Gomes herself; he might substitute for

the regular questions such queries, drawn from his wide voyages, as he thought to be of infinitely greater use

and interest; or, better still, he frequently gave them the benefit of long reminiscences, through which they sat

blinking in a mechanical attention or slightly wriggling with minds far away from the old man's periods, full

He turned the easychairthe one which Laurel had thought of as a shipaway from the fireplace, now

covered with a green slatted blind for the summer; and they drew forward two of the heavy chairs with

shining claw feet that stood against the wall. Smiley's Geography, a book no larger than the shipmaster's

hand, was found and opened to Hindoostan, or India within the Ganges. There was a dark surprising picture

of Hindoos doing Penance under the Banyan tree, and a confusing view of the Himaleh Mountains.

"Stuff," he proceeded, gazing with disfavor at the illustrations. "This ought to be written by men who have

seen the world and know its tides and landmarks. Do you suppose," he demanded heatedly of Janet, "that the

fellow who put this together ever took a ship through the Formosa Channel against the northeast monsoon?"

"Here are Climate and Face of the country and Religion," he located these items with a blunt finger, "but I

can't find exports. I'll lay he won't know a Bengal chintz from a bundle handkerchief."

"I don't think it says anything about exports," Laurel volunteered. "We have the boundaries and"

"Bilge," he interrupted sharply. "I didn't fetch boundaries back in the Two Capes, did I?" He thrust the

offending volume into a crevice of his chair. "Laurel," he added, "what is the outport of St. Petersburg?"

"I don't believe we've had that," she said firmly. His gaze fastened on her so intently that she blushed into her

lap. "Don't believe we've had it," he echoed. "Why, confound it" he paused and regarded her with a new

She had a distinct feeling of justifiable injury. A recognized part of the present system of examination was its

strict limitation to questions made familiar by constant repetition; and this last was entirely new. She was sure

of several kinds of portsone they had after dinner, another indicated a certain side of a vessel, and still a

third was Salem. But an outportCronstadt, Cavite, what it really meant, what they were, had escaped her.

"An outport," she said slowly, "is aa part of a ship," that much seemed safe"I expect it's the place where

"You suppose what!" he cried, breathing quite hard. "A place where they" he broke off. "And you're

Jeremy Ammidon's granddaughter! By heaven, it would make a coolie laugh. It's like William, who never

would go to sea, to have four daughters in place of a son. I'm done with you; go tinker on the piano." They

got down from their chairs and departed with an only half concealed eagerness. "Do you think he means it?"

"No, I don't," Laurel told her shortly. She was inwardly ruffled, and further annoyed at Janet's placid

acceptance of whatever the day brought along. Janet was a stick! She turned away and found herself facing

the parlor and the memory fo the impending hour of practice. Well, it had to be done before dinner, and she

Within the formal shaded space of the chamber she stopped to speculate on the varied and colorful pictures of

the wall paper reaching from the white paneling above her waist to the deep white carving at the ceiling. The

scene which absorbed her most showed, elevated above a smooth stream, a marble pavilion with sweeping

steps and a polite company about a reclining gentleman with bare arms and a wreath on his head and a lady in

flowing robes playing pipes. To the right, in deep green shadow, a charmer was swinging from ropes of

flowers, lovers hid behind a brown mossy trunk; while on the left, against a weeping willow and frowning

Still on her reluctant progress to the piano she stopped to examine the East India money on the lowest shelf of

a locked corner cupboard. There was a tiresome string of cash with a rattan twisted through their square

holes; silver customs taels, and mace and candareen; Chinese gold leaf and Fukien dollars; coins from Cochin

China in the shape of India ink, with raised edges and characters; old Carolus hooked dollars, Sycee silver

ingots, smooth and flat above, but roughly oval on the lower surface, not unlike shoes; Japanese obangs, their

gold stamped and beaten out almost as broad as a hand's palm; mohurs and pieces from Singapore; Dutch

She arrived finally at the harplike stool of the piano; but there she had to wait until the clock in the hall above

struck some division of the hour for her guidance, and she rattled the brass rings that formed the handles of

drawers on either side of the keyboard. Later, her fingers picking a precarious way through bass and treble,

she heard Sidsall's voice at the door; the latter was joined by their mother, and they went out to the clatter of

hoofs, the thin jingle of harness chains, where the barouche waited for them in the street. Once Camilla

obtruded into the room. "I wonder you don't give yourself a headache," she remarked; "I never heard more

Laurel gathered that Camilla was proud of this expression, which she must have newly caught from some

grown person. She considered a reply, but, nothing sufficiently crushing occurring, she ignored the other in a

difficult transposition of her hands. Camilla left; the clock above struck a second quarter; the third, while she

"Thank God that's over," she said in the liberal manner of a shipmaster. Now only the walk with her

grandfather remained of the actively tiresome duties of the day. After dinner the sun blazed down with almost

the heat of midsummer, and Laurel felt unexpectedly indifferent, content to linger in the house. Only too soon

she heard inquiries for her; and in her gaiter boots, a silk bonnet with a blue scarf tied under her chin and

flowing over a shoulder and palm leaf cashmere shawl, she accompanied the old man across Pleasant Street

and over the wide green Square to the arched west gate with its gilt eagle and Essex Street.

"No reason for turning down there," he replied, forgetful of the gingerbread shop with the shaky little bell

inside the door, the buttered gingerbread on the upper shelf for three cents and that without on the lower for

two. She gathered her hopes now about Webb's Drugstore, where her grandfather sometimes stopped for a

talk, and bought her rock candy, Gibraltars or blackjacks. It was too hot for blackjacks, she decided, and, with

The elms on Essex Street were far enough in leaf to cast a flickering shade in the faintly salt air drifting from

the sea; and they progressed so slowly that Laurel was able to study the contents of most of the store

windows they passed. Some held crewels and crimped white cakes of wax, gayly colored reticule beads with

a wooden spoon for penny measure, and "strawberry" emery balls. There was a West India store and a place

where they sold oil and candles, another had charts for mariners; while across the way stood the East India

Here her grandfather hesitated, and for a moment it seemed as if he would go over and join the masters

always to be found about the Museum. But in the end he continued beyond the Essex House with its iron bow

and lamp over the entrance, past Cheapside to Webb's Drugstore, where he purchased a bag of Peristaltic

lozenges, andafter pretending to start away as if nothing more were to be secured therethe Gibraltars.

They were returning, in the general direction of Derby Wharf, when Jeremy Ammidon met a companion of

past days at sea, and stopped for the inevitable conversational exchange. The latter, who had such a great

spreading beard that Laurel couldn't determine whether or not he wore a neck scarf, said:

"Ha!" the other exclaimed. Laurel wondered at the indelicacy in speaking about old Captain Dunsack to her

grandfather, when everyone in Salem knew they had quarreled years ago and not spoken to each other since.

"He was bad off," he persisted; "a cold grappled in his chest and went into lung fever. Barzil's looking

wasted, what with sickness and the trouble about Edward." At a nod, half encouraging, he added, "It appears

Edward left Heard and Company in Canton and took ship back to Boston. He's there now for what I know.

Never sent any word to Salem or his father. Looks a little as if he had been turned out of he berth. Then one

of Barzil's schooners caught the edge of the last hurricane off the Great Bank and went ashore on Green

Laurel saw that her grandfather was frowning heavily and silently moving his lips. The other left them

standing and her companion brought his cane down sharply. "Boy and boy," he said. "Barzil was a good man

. . . looking old. So am I, so am I. Feet almost useless. Laurel," he addressed her, "I want you to go right on

home. I've got to stop around and see an old friend who has been sick." She left obediently, but paused once

to gaze back incredulously at the bulky shape of her grandfather moving toward Barzil Dunsack's. That

quarrel was part of their family history, she had been aware of it as long as she had of the solemn clock in the

second hall; and not very far back, perhaps when she was eight, it had taken a fresh activity of discussion

around the person of her Uncle Gerrit, who, it was feared, might now be drowned at sea. What it had all been

about neither she nor her sisters knew, for not only was the subject dropped at the approach of any of them

At home she was unable to communicate her surprising news at once because of the flood of talk that met her

from the drawingroom. Olive Wibird and Lacy, her cousin, were engaged with Sidsall in a conversation

often a duet and sometimes a trio. Laurel took a seat at the edge of the chatter and followed it

comprehensively. She didn't like Olive Wibird who would greet her in a sugary voice; but elsewhere Olive

was tremendously admired, there were always men about her, serenades rising from the lawn beneath her

window, and Laurel herself had seen Olive's dressing table laden with bouquets in frilly lace paper. She had

one now, in a holder of motherofpearl, with a gilt chain and ring. Her wide skirt was a mass of

overdrapery, knots of moss roses and green gauze ribbons; while a silver cord ending in a tassel fell forward

Lacy Saltonstone, almost as plainly dressed as Sidsall, was as usual sitting straighter than anyone else Laurel

ever saw; she had a brown face with a finely curved nose and brown eyes, and her voice was cool and

Olive Wibird made a swift face of dissent. "He's too stiff and there is gray in his hair. I like my men more like

"He hasn't asked me for centuries," the other admitted. "He did Sidsall, though, as we all remember; didn't he,

Sidsall's cheeks turned bright pink. Laurel dispassionately wished that her sister wouldn't make such a show

of herself. It was too bad that Sidsall was soso broad and well looking; she was not in the least pale or

interesting, and had neither Lacy Saltonstone's thin gracefulness nor Olive's popular manner.

"But he was extremely engaged," Lacy assured her with her wide slow stare. "He told me that you were like

That might please Sidsall, thought Laurel, but she personally held apple blossoms to be a very common sort

of flower. Evidently something of the kind had occurred to Olive, too, for she said: "Heaven only knows what

men will admire. It's clear they don't like a prude. I intend to have a good time until I get married"

"There isn't any need for that," Olive told her. "When I see a man I want I'm going to get him. It's easy if you

"Laurel," her sister turned, "I'm certain your supper is ready. Go along like a nice child."

In her room a woman with a flat worn face and a dusty wisp of hair across her neck was spreading

underlinen, ironed into beautiful narrow wisps of pleating, in a drawer. It was Hodic, a Methodist, the only

one Laurel knew, and the latter was always entranced by the servant's religious exclamations, doubts and

audible prayers. She was saying something now about pits, gauds and vanities; and she ended a short

profession of faith with an amen so loud and sudden that Laurel, although she was waiting for it, jumped.

It was past seven, the air was so sweet with lilacs that they seemed to be blooming in her room, and the

sunlight died slowly from still space. By leaning out of her window she could see over the Square. The

lamplighter was moving along its wooden fence, leaving faint twinkling yellow lights, and there were little

The gayety of her morning mood was replaced by a dim kind of wondering, her thoughts became uncertain

like the objects in the quivering light outside. The palest possible star shone in the yellow sky; she had to

look hard or it was lost. Janet, stirring in the next room, seemed so far away that she might not hear her,

Laurel, no matter how loudly she called. "Janet!" she cried, prompted by unreasoning dread. "You needn't to

yell," Janet complained, at the door. But already Laurel was oblivious of her: she had seen a familiar figure

slowly crossing Washington Squareher grandfather coming home from Captain Dunsack's.

Gracious, how poky he was; she was glad that she wasn't dragging along at his side. He seemed bigger and

rounder than usual. She heard the tap of his cane as he left the Common for Pleasant Street; then his feet

She was sorry now that she hadn't known what an outport was, and determined to ask him tomorrow. She

liked his stories, that Camilla disdained, about crews and Hong Kong and the stormy Cape. The thought of

Cape Horn brought back the memory of her Uncle Gerrit, absent in the ship Nautilus. Her mental pictures of

him were not clearhe was almost always at seabut she remembered his eyes, which were very confusing

to encounter, and his hair parted and carelessly brushing the bottoms of his ears.

Laurel recalled hearing that Gerrit was his father's favorite, and she suddenly understood something of the

unhappiness that weighted upon the old man. She hoped desperately that Janet or Camilla wouldn't come in

and laugh at her for crying. In bed she saw that the room was rapidly filling with dusk. Only yesterday she

would have told herself that the dragon in the teakwood chair was stirring; but now Laurel could see that it

never moved. She rocked like the little boats that crossed the harbor or came in from the ships anchored

beyond the wharves, and settled into a sleep like a great placid sea flooding the world of her home and the

WHER JEREMY AMMIDON sent his granddaughter home alone, and turned toward Captain Dunsack's, on

Hardy Street, he stopped for a moment to approve the diminishing sturdy figure. All William's children,

though they were girls, were remarkably handsome, with glowing red cheeks and clear eyes, tumbling masses

of hair and a generous vigor of body. He sighed at Laurel's superabundant youth, and moved carefully

forward; he was very heavy, and his progress was uncertain. His thoughts were divided between the present

and the pastBarzil Dunsack, aged and ill and unfortunate, and the happening long ago that had resulted in a

It had occurred while Barzil was master of the brig Luna, owned by Billy Gray, and he, Jeremy, was first

mate. In the exactness with which he recalled every detail of his life in ships he remembered that at the time

they were off Bourbon Island, about a hundred and ten miles southwest of the �le de France. The Luna was

close hauled, and, while Barzil was giving an order at the wheel, she fetched a bad lee lurch and sent him in a

heap across the deck, striking his head against the bumkin bitts. He had got up dazed but not appearing

seriously injured; and after his head had been swabbed and bound by the steward he returned to the poop.

There, however, his conduct had been so peculiaramong other things sending down the watch to put on

Sunday rig against a possible hail by the Lordthat, after a long consultation with Mr. Patterson, the second

mate and the boatswain, and a brief announcement to the crew, he, Jeremy Ammidon, had taken command in

Barzil had made difficulties: Mr. Patterson struck up a leveled pistol in the master's hand just as it exploded.

They had confined him, in charge of the unhappy steward, to his cabin; where, after he had completely

recovered from the effects of the blow, and Jeremy had been upheld by the authorities at Table Bay, he

From the moment of their landing they had not exchanged a word. Jeremy was surprised to find himself at

present bound toward the other's house. He was not certain that Barzil would even see him; but, he muttered,

the thing had lasted long enough, they were too old for such foolishness; and the other had come into adverse

He had never paid serious attention to the threatened complication two or three years before, when Gerrit had

been seen repeatedly with Kate Dunsack's irregularly born daughter. He was sorry for the two women. It was

his opinion that the man had been shipped drunk by some boarding house runner; anyhow, only the second

day out Vollar had been lost overboard from the mainroyal yard, and Kate's child born outside the law. It

was hard, he told himself again, walking down Orange Street, past the Custom House to Derby.

The girl, Nettie Vollarthey had adopted the father's namewas attractive in a decided French way, with

crisp black hair, a pert nose and dimple, and, why, good heavens, twentyone or two years old if she was a

week! How time did run. It was nothing extraordinary if Gerrit had been seen a time or two with her on the

street, or even if he had called at the Dunsacks'. Barzil's and his quarrel didn't extend to all the members of

their families; and as for the Dunsacks being commonthat was nonsense. Barzil was as good as he any day;

only where he had prospered, and moved up into a showy place on the Common, the other had had the head

winds. Through no fault of his own the reputation had fastened on him of being unlucky in his cargoes: if he

carried tea and colonial exports to, say, Antwerp, they would have been declared contraband while he was at

sea, and seized on the docks; he had been blown, in an impenetrable fog, ashore on Tierra del Fuego, and,

barely making Cape Pembroke, had been obliged to beach his ship, a total loss. Then there was Kate's

trouble. Barzil was a rigorously moral and religious man and his pain at that last must have been heavy.

Jeremy Ammidon's mind turned to Gerrit, his son; this interest in Nettie Vollar, if it had existed, was

characteristic of the boy, who had a quick heart and an honest disdain for the muddling narrow ways of the

land. He would have sought her out simply from the instinct to protest against the smugness of Salem

opinion. A fine sailor, and a master at twentytwo. A great one to carry sail; yet in the sixteen years of his

commands he had had no more serious accident than the loss of a foretopgallant mast or splitting a couple

of courses. It was Gerrit's ability, the splendid qualities of his ship, that made Jeremy hope he would still

He was now on Derby Street, in a region of rigging and sail lofts, block and pump makers, ships' stores, spar

yards, gilders, carvers and workers in metal. There was a strong smell of tar and new canvas and the flat odor

that rose at low water. Sailors passed, yellow powerful Scandinavians and dark men with earrings from

southern latitudes, in red or checked shirts, blue dungarees and glazed black hats with trailing ribbons, or in

cheap and clumsy shore clothes. There was a scraping of fiddle from an upper window, the sound of heavy

On Hardy Street he continued to the last house at the right, the farther side of which gave across a yard of

uneven bricks, straggling bushes and aged splitting apple trees and an expanse of lush grass ending abruptly

in a wooden embankment and water. A short fence turned in from the sidewalk to the front door, where

Jeremy knocked. A long pause followed, in which he became first impatient and then irritable; and he was

lifting his hand for a second summons when the door suddenly opened and he was facing Kate Vollar. There

was only a faint trace of surprise on her apatheticJeremy Ammidon called it moonlikecountenance; as

if her overwhelming mischance had robbed her features of all further expressions of interest or concern.

"I heard," Jeremy said in a voice pitched loud enough to conceal any inward uncertainty, "that your father had

been sick. Met Captain Rendell on Essex Street and he said Barzil had lung fever. Thought I'd see if there

"He just managed to stay alive," Kate Vollar replied, gazing at him with her stilled gray eyes. "But he's better

"Yes. Just say Jeremy Ammidon's below, and would like to pass a greeting with him."

He followed the woman in, and entered a large gloomy chamber while she mounted the stair leading directly

from the front. The blackened fireplace gaping uncovered for the summer, the woodwork, painted yellow

with an artificial graining, and a stiff set of ebonized chairs, their dingy crimson plush backs protected by

elaborate threat antimacassars, seemed to hold and reflect the misfortunes of their owner. Jeremy picked up

an ostrich egg, painted with a clump of viciously green coconut palms and a cottony surf; he put it down with

an absent smile and impatiently fingered a volume of "The Life of Harriet Atwood Newell." She was one of

the missionaries who had gone out on the Caravan, with Augustine Heard, to India, but forbidden to land

"Houqua was a damned good heathen," he said aloud: "and so was Nasservanjee." He left the table and

proceeded to a window opening upon the harbor, here fretted with wharves. A barque was fast in a small

stonebound dock, newly in, his practiced glance saw, from a blue water voyage, Africa probably. Her

standing gear was in a perfection and beauty of order that spoke of long tranquil days in the trades, and that

no mere harbor riggers could hope to accomplish. The deck was burdened with the ugly confusion of

unloading. Jeremy studied the jibs stowed in harbor covers, the raking masts and tapering royal poles over the

stolid roofs. Ordinarily seeing no more he could not only name a vessel trading out of Salem, but from her rig

recognize anyone of a score of masters who, otherwise unheralded, might be in command.

However, here he was at a loss, and he thought again of the change, the decline, that had overtaken Salem

shipping, the celebrated merchants; the pennants of William Gray, he reflected, had flown from the main

truck of fifteen ships, seven barques, thirteen brigs and schooners. Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone, in

spite of his vehement protests, the counsel of the oldest member of the firm, were moving shipment by

shipment all their business to Boston, listening to the promptings of State Street and Central Wharf.

To the right was the sagging landing from which Barzil's schooners sailed trading with the West Indies, and

back of it, and of his house, stood the small office. His mind had turned to this inconsiderable commerce

Barzil Dunsack was propped up in bed in a room above that in which Jeremy had been waiting. He, totally

different from the other, showed his age in sunken dry cheeks, a forehead like an arch of bone, and a thick

short gray beard. A long faded lock of hair had been hastily brushed forward and an incongruously bright

Jeremy Ammidon concealed his dismay not only at Barzil's wrecked being but at the dismal aspect of the

interior, the worn rugs with their pieces of once bright material frayed and loose, the splitting veneer of an old

chest of drawers and blistered mirror above a dusty iron grate. :You have got in among the rocks!" he

exclaimed. "Still they tell me you've weathered the worst. Copper bound and oak ribs. Don't build them like

Barzil Dunsack's eyes were bright and searching behind steelrimmed spectacles, and he studied Jeremy

without replying. "Well, isn't there a salute in you?" the latter demanded, incensed. "I'm not a Malay proa."

The grim shadow of a smile dawned on Barzil's countenance. "I mind one hanging on our quarter by

Formosa," he returned; "I trained a cannon aft and fired a shot, when she sheered off. That was in the Flora in

A long silence enveloped them. Jeremy's mind was thronged with memories of ports and storms, mates and

ships and logged days. "Remember Oahu like it was when we first made it," he queried, "and the Kanaka

girls swimming out to the ship with hybiscus flowers in their hair? Yes, and the anchorage at Tahiti with the

swells pounding on the coral reef and Papeete under the mountain? It was nice there in the afternoon, lying

off the beach with the white cottages among the palms and orange trees and the band playing in the grove by

Captain Dunsack frowned at the trivial character of these memories. He muttered something about the weight

of the Lord, and the carnal hearts of the men in ships. Jeremy declared, "Stuff! He'll wink at a sailor man with

hardly a free day on shore. It wasn't bad at Calcutta, either, with an awning on the quarterdeck, watching the

carriages and syces in the Maidan and maybe a corpse or two floating about the gangway from the burning

"A mean entrance," Barzil Dunsack asserted. "I don't know a worse with the southwest monsoon in the Bay

of Bengal and the pilot brigs gone from the Sand Heads. That's where Heard got pounded with the Emerald

drawing nineteen feet, and eighteen on the bar. Shook the reefs out of his topsails, laid her on her beam ends,

Jeremy, with a glint in his eye, asked, "Wasn't your last consignment of West India molasses marked

Barzil's lips tightened. "I haven't seen her for a little," he replied. "She's been visiting at Ipswich." Jeremy

added, "A good girl," but the man in bed made no further comment. His undimmed gaze was fastened upon a

wall, his mouth folded in a hard line on a harsh and deeply seamed countenance. An able man pursued by bad

"Nothing's been heard from Gerrit," Jeremy said after a little. Still the other kept silent. His face darkened: by

God, if Barzil hadn't a decent word for the fact that Gerrit was seven months overdue, perhaps lost, this was

not a house for him. "I say that we've had nothing from my son since he lay in the LyeeeMoon Pass off

A spasm of suffering, instantly controlled, passed over Barzil's face. "Gerrit called once and again before he

last sailed for Montevideo," he finally pronounced. "I stopped it and he left in a temper. II won't have

"Do you mean that Gerrit's loose?" Jeremy hotly demanded, rising. "A more honorable boy never breathed."

Barzil was cold. "I told him not to come back," he repeated; "it would only lead toto shamefulness."

Jeremy shook his cane toward the bed. "I may be a scoffer," he cried, "but I wouldn't hold a judgment over a

child of mine! I'm not so damned holy that I can look down on a misfortunate girl. If Gerrit did come to see

Nettie and the boy had a liking for her, why you drove away a cursed good husband. And if you think for a

minute I wouldn't welcome her because that Vollar fell off a yard before he could find a preacher you're an

"Well, I'd rather be a drunken pierhead jumper on the Waterloo Road than any such pious blue nose. I'll tell

you this, tooI'd hate to ship afore the mast under you for all you'd have the ensign on the booby hatch with

prayers read every Sunday morning. I don't wonder you got into weather; I'd have no word for a Creator who

"And I'll speak my mind, Captain Dunsack; it's thisyour girls are a long sight too good for you or for any

other judgmatical, psalmsinging devil dodger." He stood fuming at the door. "Good afternoon to you."

Barzil Dunsack reclined with his gaunt bearded head sunk forward on his thin chest swathed in the gay

worsted wrap, his wasted hands, the tendons corded with pale violet veins, clenched outside the checkered

Outside, in the soft glow of beginning dusk, Jeremy blamed himself bitterly for his anger at the sick man. He

had gone to see him in a spirit friendly with old memories, forgetful of their long quarrel in the stirred

emotions of the past days of youth and first manhood; and he had shouted at Barzil as if he were a lubber at

He realized that in order to be in time for supper he must turn toward the Common and home; but his gaze

caught the spars of the strange barque; and, mechanically, he made his way over a narrow grassy passage to

the wharf. She was the Cora Sellers of Marblehead, and he recognized from a glance at the cargo that she had

been out to the East Coast of AfricaMozambique and Zanzibar, Aden and Muscat. A matted frail of dates

swung ponderously in air, there were baled goatskins and sacks of Mocha coffee, sagging baskets of reddish

unwashed gum copal carried in bulk, and a sunblackened mate smoking a rattail Dutch cigar was

There was a vague murmur of the rising tide, beyond the wharves and warehouses the water was faintly

rippled in silver and rose, and a ship was standing into the harbor with all her canvas spread to the light wind.

He turned away with a sigh and walked slowly up toward the elms of Pleasant Street. At his front door he

stopped to regard the polished brass plate where in place of his name he had caused to be engraved the words

Java Head. They held for him, coming into this pleasant dwelling after so many tumultuous years at sea, the

symbol of the safe and happy end of an arduous voyage; just as the high black rock of Java Head thrusting up

over the horizon promised the placidity and accomplishment of the Sunda Strait. Whenever he noticed the

He saw the mate forward with the crew passing the chains through the hawse pipes and shackling them to the

anchors. The island rose from level groves of shore palms to lofty blue peaks terraced with rice and

redmassed kina plantations, with shining streams and green kananga flowers and tamarinds. The land

breeze, fragrant with clove buds and cinnamon, came off to the ship in the vaporous dusk; and, in the blazing

sunlight of morning, the Anjer sampans swarmed out with a shrill chatter of brilliant birds, monkeys and

naked brown humanity, piled with dark green oranges and limes and purple mangosteen.

In the last few years, particularly with Gerrit away, he had turned more and more from the surroundings of

his houserather it had become William's houseto an inner life of memories. His own active life seemed

to him to have been infinitely fuller, more purposeful and various, than that of the present existence at Java

Head. All Salem had been different: he had a certain contempt for the existence of his son William and the

latter's associates and friends. He had said that the trading now done in ships was like dealing at a Boston

store, and the merchants reminded him of storekeepers. The old days, when a voyage was a public affair, and

a ship's manifest posted in the Custom House on which any one might write himself down for a varying part

of the responsibility and profit, had given place to closed capital; the passages from port to port with the

captain, as often as not, his own supercargo and a figure of importance, had become scheduled affairs in

which a master was subjected to any countinghouse clerk with an order from the firm; the ships themselves

He was in his room, after supper, seated momentarily on a day bed with a covering of white Siberian fox

skins, and he pronounced aloud, in a tone of satirical contempt, the single word, "Clipper." Nearly everyone

in the shipping business seemed to have been touched by this madness for the ridiculous ideas of an

experimental Griffiths and his model of a ship with the bows turned inside out, the greatest beam aft and a

dead rise like an inverted roof. That the Rainbow, the initial result of this insanity, hadn't capsized at her

launching had been due to some freak of chance; just as her miraculous preservation through a voyage or so

Even if the Rainbow had been fasther run was called ninetytwo days out to Canton and home in

eightyeightit was absurd to suppose that there had been the usual monsoon. And if she did come in a little

ahead of the vessels built on a solid fullbodied model, why her hold had no cargo capacity worth the name.

Things on the seas were going to the devil! He moved down to the library, where he lighted a cheroot and

addressed himself to the Gazette; but his restlessness increased: the paper drooped and his thoughts turned to

Gerrit as a small boy. He saw him leaving home, for the first time, to go to the school at Andover, in a cloth

cap with a glazed peak, striped long pantaloons and blue coat and waistcoat; later at the high desk in the

countingrooms of Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone; then sailing as supercargo on one of the

Company's ships to Russia and Liverpool. He had soon dropped such clerking for seamen's duties, and his

Rhoda, William's wife, entered and stood before him accusingly. "You are worrying again," she declared; "in

here all by yourself. It really seems as if you didn't believe in our interest or affection. I have a feeling, and

you know they are always right, that Gerrit will sail into the harbor any day now."

He had always liked Rhoda, a large handsome woman with rich coloringher countenance somehow

reminded him of an apricotand fine clothes. She paused, studied him for a moment, and then asked, "Was

"It ought to have been," he confided, "but I got mad and talked like a Dutch uncle, and Barzil went off on a

Jeremy nodded. "Look here, Rhoda," he demanded, "did Gerrit ever say anything to you about her?"

"I couldn't make that out. But if there hadn't been, wellsomething unusual in her circumstances I think he

would never have noticed her. Gerrit is a curious mixture, a very impressionable heart and a contrary

stubborn will. He was sorry for Nettie, and, at the way a great many people treated her, threw himself into

opposition. Nettie's father made him very mad, and Gerrit pretty well damned all Salem before he left in the

Nautilus. He was excruciatingly funny: you know Gerrit can be, particularly when he imitates anybody. I

think being away at sea a great deal, and having absolute command of everything, give men a different view

of things from ours. What is terribly important to Salem hardly touches Gerrit; it's all silly pretense, or worse,

"I wouldn't mind that if it weren't for the sense of humor that leads him into the wildest extravagances, and

the fact that he'll act on his feelings. You know I'm devoted to him but I give a sigh of relief whenever he gets

"More than William," she agreed. "William is never impetuous, and he's often impatient with his brother.

He's a splendid husband, but Gerrit would make a wonderful lover. I'm thankful I never fell into his affections

"You've been a great comfort and pleasure, Rhoda," he told her. "I only wish Gerrit could marry someone

"It's just as you say about him, and I've always been uneasy. God knows what he won't doon land,

William's a great deal happier, for all his brother's humor. I joke William, but he's very satisfactory and solid.

He'll make port if he doesn't get tied up with newfangled notions. Why it stands to reason that a ship built like

"McKay is a good man unsettled. The May Broughton is a fine barque, and his packet ships are as seaworthy

as any, but" his indignation increased so that he sputtered, and Rhoda laughed. "Now your girls," he

"That's very complimentary," she assured him, rising. "You mustn't worry about Gerrit. Remember, my

When she had gone his mind returned to storms he had safely weatheredthe gray gales of Cape Horn,

black hurricanes and the explosive tempests in eastern straits and seas. He took from the drawer of a

bookcase with glass doors set in geometrical pattern a thin volume bound in black boards. A paper label was

inscribed in a small, carefully formed script, "Journal of my intended voyage from Salem to the East Indies in

"Comes in with strong wind from SSE with rain squalls. Very ugly sea on. Double reefed the Topsails, reefed

the courses and furled the mainsail. At six p.m. shipped a very heavy sea that carried away the bulwarks on

the larboard quarter and stove those on the starboard quarter and amidships . . . upper cabin filled with water.

The memory of this night, six days out from Manilla to Hong Kong, was clearer than the actuality of the

room in which he sat, an old man with his activity, his strength, his manhood, far behind him, a hulk.

"At ten split the mainsail in pieces. Close reefed the fore and double reefed the maintopsails. Rising gales

and heavy head sea. Shipping a great quantity of water and leaking considerable. Bent a new mainsail and set

"October seventh, Sunday. Comes in with strong gales and a heavy head sea. Both officers crippled and man

laid up. Through the night the same. Leaking badly. A great number of junks in sight . . . and so at five p.m.

He had been a good man then, sixteen days on the quarterdeck without going below; insensible to ice or

fever or weariness. He had been autocratic, too; and had his boy servant carrying areca nuts, chunam and

tobacco in two silk bags, another with a fan and a third holding an umbrella. Such things were all over now,

His mind continually returned to Gerrit, to dwell on the vast number of perils held in store by the sea; there

was always the possibility of scurvy, an entire crew rotting alive in the forecastle and the ship broached to,

dismasted; of mutiny; the sheer smothering finality of volcanic waves. He had never realized until now, in the

misery of uncertainty, the hellish loneliness of a shipmaster at sea; the pride of duty, the necessity of

discipline, that put him beyond all counsel, all assistance and human interdependence. Jeremy, who had

arrogantly accepted this responsibility without a question, through so many long years and voyages, now

William couldn't be expected to appreciate the difficulties of his brother's position: all the former's experience

had been got when, with James Saltonstone and a party of Salem merchants, he ventured to the lighthouse at

the entrance of the harbor, had a cold collation, and returned with the pilot or in the Custom House sloop.

These occasions of huzzas and salutes and speeches were supplemented with a hasty inspection, now and

then, of a vessel lying still at the wharf with sails harbor furled. William guessed little of the long effort

through which a ship won from the first of those moments to the last. He was solely concerned with the

However, Rhoda was right, and this mooning wouldn't bring Gerrit into port. He turned to the bookcase,

where a squat bottle of Medford rum rested beside a tumbler; after a drink he lighted a cheroot and smoking

vigorously, with hands clasped behind him, paced back and forth in an undeviating line between the door to

While he was walking Camilla came into the room and sedately took a seat on one of the formal chairs

against the wall. "I guess you think that's the deck of a ship," she said conversationally. He regarded her with

a faint threatening glint of humor. Camilla's dignity was stupendous; particularly now, when, he observed her

skirts stood out in a thoroughly grown manner. He liked Laurel best of William's children; she had, in spite of

her confusion in regard to outports, a surprising grasp upon many of the details of life on shipboard, and a

largeness of manner and expression entertaining in a little girl. Sidsall was the most ingratiatingshe had

Gerrit's direct kindling gaze; Janet showed no individuality yet beyond an entire willingness to conform to

outward circumstance while pursuing deeply secret speculations within. But Camilla impressed the entire

family by the rigidity of her correctness in personal and social niceties. At times, he felt, she would be a

nuisance but for the firm hand of her mother and his own contribution to their wellbeing by an occasional

"It might be that," he admitted; "if it weren't for the facts that it's a house and library, and I'm an old man, and

"I should hope not," she replied decidedly. "A second mate isn't anything, and I'm aa young lady anyhow."

"I go to parties now; that is, mother let me stay at the Coggswells' on Thursday until the men came at nine for

He made a gesture of pretended surprise and admiration. "I don't suppose they ever have a good chantey with

the stuff they play?" he queried. "Dear me, no. Mr. Dempster sings The Indian's Lament, and The May

Jeremy began to hum, and in a moment was intoning in a loud monotonous voice, sweeping a hand up and

"What do you meannot very nice?" he demanded, incensed. "There's nothing finer with a rousing

chanteyman leading it and the watch hauling on the braces. You'd never hear the like at any Ballad Soir�e.

For a little, indignant at her disparagement of such noble fragments, he tramped silently back and forth,

followed by a cloud of smoke from the cheroot. No one on land could understand the absorbing significance

of every detail of a ship's life. . . . Only Gerrit, of all his family, knew the chanteys and watches, the anxiety

and beauty of landfallsthe blue Falklands or Teneriffe rising above the clouds, the hurried making and

"In India," he told her, stopping in his measured course, "female children are given to the crocodiles."

Her mouth parted at this, her eyes became dilated, and she slipped from the chair. "That's perfectly awfully

appalling," she breathed. "The little brown girl babies. Oh, father," she cried, as William Ammidon came into

the library, "what do you suppose grandfather says, that in India female children are . . . crocodiles." Words

"What's the sense in frightening the child, father?" William remonstrated. "I wish you would keep those

Jeremy had a lively sense of guilt; he had been betrayed by Camilla's confounded airs and pretensions. He

ought to be ashamed of himself, telling the girl such things. "The British Government is putting a stop to

"Never mind, Camilla," her father interposed; "go up with your mother and sisters.

"I suppose it's no good speaking to you," William continued; "but my family is not a crew and this house isn't

"I know I'm on land, William; tell that any day from a sight of you. You can afford to listen a little now and

then about the sea. That's where all you have came from; it's the same with near everybody in Salem. Vessels

brought them and vessels kept them going; and, with the wharves as empty as they were this afternoon, soon

"The tide's turned from here," the other replied; "with the increase in tonnage and the importance of time we

"It's running oiut fast enough," Jeremy agreed; "and there's a lot going out with it you'll never see againlike

"You are always sounding the same strings; we're at peace with the world now, and a good thing for

"Peace!" the elder declared hotly; "you and the Democrats may call it that, but it's a damned swindle, with the

British to windward of you and hardly a sail now drawing in your ropes. What did Edmund Burke tell

Parliament in 'seventyfive aboiut our whalers, hey! Why, that from Davis Strait to the Antipodes, from the

Falklands to Africa, we outdrove Holland, France and England. After the laws and bounties Congress passed

in 'eightynine what could you seesomething like a half million tonnage gained in three years or so. In the

war of 'twelve your land soldiers were a pretty show with the Capitol burning; but when it was finished the

privateers had sunk over ine million silver dollars of British shipping to their sixty thousand. The Chesapeake

luggers have gone out with the tide, too. And then, by God, by God, what then: the treaty of Ghent, with

England impressing our seamen and tying our ships up in ports she chose under a right of search! On top of

this your commissioners repeal the ship laws and the British allow you to carry only native cargoes to the

"But in spite of Congress and political sharks we went out to India and China direct, with The George home

from Calcutta in ninetyfive days, and the East Indiament six or seven months on the shorter run to England.

I can show you what the London Times said about that, it's in my desk: 'Twelve years of peace, and . . . the

shipping interest . . . is half ruined . . . thousands of our manufacturers are seeking redemption in foreign

lands.' It goes on to tell that American seamen already controlled an important part of the British carrying

trade to the East Indies. Yet your precious lawmakers open our West India trade to Great Britain, but they

wouldn't ask the privilege to carry a cargo from British India to Liverpool or Canada."

"Now, father," William put in, "you are getting excited again. It isn't good for you. We are not all such fools

"Look at the masters themselves," Jeremy continued explosively; "gentlemen like Gerrit, from Harvard

University, and not limejuicers beating their way aft with a belaying pin. They could sail a ship with

twothirds the crew of a Britisher with her clumsy yellow hemp sails and belly you could lose a dinghy in.

Mind, I don't say the English aren't handy in a ship and that they wouldn't clew up a topsail clean at the edge

of hell. What we are on the seas came over from them. But we bettered it, William, and they knew it; and,

naturally enough, laid out to sail around us. I don't blame England, but I do our God damn"

"Father," the other firmly interrupted, "you are shouting as if you were on the quarterdeck in a gale. I must

"Maybe I am," Jeremy muttered; "and it wouldn't matter much if I did. When I see a nation with shipmasters

who would set their royals when others hove too, and get there, all snarled up with shore lines and political

"Rhoda said that you were at the Dunsacks' this afternoon; I saw Edward in Boston yesterday."

"I don't care if you saw the Flying Dutchman," the other asserted, breathing stormily.

"It's curious about the China service," William went on; "anyone out there for a number of years gets to look

Chinese. Edward is as yellow as a lemon, but nothing like as pleasant a color. Thin, too, and nervous; hands

crawling all over themselves, never still for a moment. He didn't say why he had left Heard and Company,

and I didn't quite like to ask. Edward came on from England in the Queen of the West, the Swallow Tail Line.

I did ask him if he were going to settle in Salem, but he couldn't say; there was something about a Boston

house. It seems that Gerrit carried his chest and things from Canton in the Nautilus as an accommodation."

Suddenly Jeremy felt very insecure, his body heavy and knees weak, failing. He stumbled back into the chair

by the fireplace, William at his side. "You must pay some attention to what you're told, father," the latter said

"I'm all right," he declared testily, trying to brush away the dimness floating before his eyes.

"I'll go to bed when I've a mind to," Jeremy retorted. "I am not under cover yet by a long reach." To establish

his wellbeing he rose and moved to the secretary, where he got a fresh cheroot, and lighted it with slightly

trembling fingers. He grumbled inarticulately, remembering his own exploits in the carrying of sail and

record runs under the bluff bows of the Honorable John Company itself. The ebb tide, he thought, returning

to William's figure and its amplification by himself. So much that had been good sweeping out to sea never to

Once more he shook himself free of numbing dread; automatically he had fallen back into the passage from

the secretary to the hall door. He saw that he had worn threadbare a narrow strip where his feet had so often

pressed. It would be necessary for him to see about a fresh case of cheroots soon, primes, too; they needn't try

to put him off with the second quality. He was put off a great deal lately; people pretended to be listening to

him, and all the time their thoughts were somewhere else, either that or they were merely politely concealing

His family were always providing against his fatigue or excitement; at the countinghouse the gravest

problems, he was certain, were withheld from him. At the occurrence of this possibility a fresh indignation

poured through his brain. Fuming and tramping up and down he determined that tomorrow he would show

any of the clerks who didn't attend to his wishes or counsel that he was still senior partner of Ammidon,

THE EVENING was surprisingly warm and still, with an intermittent falling of rain, and the windows were

open in the room where Rhoda Ammidon sat regarding half dismayed her reflection in the mirror of a

dressing table. A few minutes before she had discovered her first gray hair. It was not only the mere assault

upon her vanity, but, too, a realization far deeperhere was the stamp of time, the mark of a considerable

progress toward the end itself. Her emotions were various; but, curiously enough, almost the first had been a

wave of passionate tenderness for William and her little girls. The shock of finding that arresting sign was

now giving place to a purely feminine reaction. She considered for a moment the purchase of a bottle of hair

coloring, then with a disdainful gesture dismissed such a temporary and troublesome measure.

She kept an undiminishing pride in her appearance and a relentless care and choice in the details of her dress,

pleased by the knowledge that the attention men paid her showed no indication yet of growing perfunctory.

She had been much admired both in Boston and London through her youth, and she recalled her early doubts

at the prospect of life in Salem; but she realized now that, as her years and children multiplied, she was by

She was glad, however, that William's wide connections lifted him above a purely local view; William was

really a splendid husband. Rhoda was conscious of this together with a clear recognition of his faults, and

quite aside from both existed her unreasoning affection. The latter vividly dominated her, shut out, on any

occasion of stress, all else; but for the most part she held him in an attitude of mildly amused comprehension.

Gerrit Ammidon she hadn't seen until after her engagement to William, and she sometimes thought of the

former in connection with marriage. Gerrit, she admitted to herself, was a far more romantic figure than

William; not handsomerWilliam Ammidon was very good lookingbut more arresting, with his hair

swinging about his ears and intense blue gaze. An exciting man, she decided again, for whom one would

eternally put on the loveliest clothes possible; a man to make you almost as ravishingly happy as miserable,

At this her mind returned to her gray hair and the fact that the metal backlog of the kitchen fire, which

supplied the house with hot water, had been leaking over the hearth. A feeling of melancholy possessed her at

the turning of younger visions into commonplace necessities, but she dismissed it with the shadow of a

smileit was absurd for a woman of her age to dwell on such frivolous things. Yet she still lingered to

wonder if men too kept intact among their memories the radiant image of their youth, if they ever thought of

it with tenderness and extenuation. She decided in the negative, convinced that men, even at the end of many

years, never definitely lost connection with their early selves, there was always a trace of hopefulness, of

jaunty vanitysometimes winning and sometimes merely ridiculousattached to their decline.

Rhoda stirred and moved to a window, gazing vaguely out into the moist blue obscurity. Sidsall, she realized,

was maturing with a disconcerting rapidity. Depths were opening in the girl's being at which she, her mother,

could only guess. It was exactly as if a crystal through and through which she had gazed had suddenly been

veiled by rosy clouds. Sidsall had a charming nature, direct and unsuspicious and generously courageous.

There was a sound at the door, and William entered, patently ruffled. It was clear that he had had another

disagreement with his father. "It's shameful how you disturb him," she declared.

"Look here, Rhoda," he replied vigorously. "I won't continually be put in the wrong. It seems as if I had no

affection for the old gentleman. I always have the difficult thing to do, and he has been slightly contemptuous

ever since I was a boy because I didn't go to sea. The truth iswhile I wouldn't think of letting him

knowhe's a tremendous nuisance pottering about the countingrooms with his stories of antediluvian trading

voyages. And worse is to comethese new clipper ships and passages have knocked the wind out of the old

slow fullbottomed vessels. We have about determined to reorganize our fleet entirely, and are in treaty with

"Of course, he's my parent; but I wonder at Saltonstone's patience. Father won't hear of the opium trade and

it's turning over thousand per cent profits. We are privately operating two fast topsail schooners in India now,

but it's both inconvenient and a risk. They ought to be put right under our house flag for credit alone. It's all

"Couldn't you wait till he's dead, William?" she asked. "It won't be a great while now. I can see that he has

"Five years will make all the difference. We are losing tea cargoes every month to these ships making

sensational runs. I don't talk much, Rhoda, about, wellmy family; but I am as upset over Gerrit as anyone

else. Except for a tendency to carry too much sail there's not a better shipmaster out of New England. Not

only that . . . he's my brother. It's easy to like Gerrit; his opinions are a little wild, and an exaggerated sense of

justice gets him into absurd situations; yet his motives are the purest possible. Perhaps that word pure

describes him better than any other, however people who didn't know might smile. As a man, Rhoda, I can

"That's a wonderful quality," she agreed; "why anyone should smile is beyond me. William, would you know

He studied her complacently. "You've hardly changed since I married you," he asserted; "a great deal prettier

than these young cramped figgers I see about. The girls, too, are just like yougood armfuls all of them."

The next day was flawlessly sunny, the slightly stirring air reminiscent of the sea, and the lilacs everywhere

were masses of purple and white bloom. Stepping down from her carriage on the morning round of shopping

"Why, Nettie," she exclaimed kindly, "it's been the longest time since I've seen you. It is just no use asking

you to the house, and it seems, with nothing to do, I never have a minute for the visits I'd like to make."

Nettie, she thought, was a striking girl, nowoman, with her stack of black hair, dark sparkling eyes and red

spot on either cheek. More fetching in profile than full face, her nose had a pert angle and her cleft chin was

enticingly rounded. Later she would be too fat but now her body was ripely perfect.

"I don't go anywhere much," she responded, in a voice faintly and instinctively antagonistic. "I don't like

kindness in people; but I suppose I ought to be contentedthat's all I'll probably ever get from anybody who

is a thing in the world. Mrs. Ammidon," she hesitated, then continued more rapidly, her gaze lowered, "have

you had any word about Captain Ammidon yet? Have they given up hope of the Nautilus?"

"We've had no news," Rhoda told her, and then she added her conviction that Gerrit would return safely.

"He was better than kind," Nettie Vollar said. "I'm sure he liked me, Mrs. Ammidon, or he would have if

everything hadn't been spoiled by grandfather. He thinks I'm a dreadful sin, you know, a punishment on

mother. But inside of me I don't feel different from others. Sometimes II wonder that I don't actually go

"You are naturally a good girl, Nettie," Rhoda answered simply; "but you must be braver than ordinary. If we

think differently from Salem still it is in Salem we must live; I keep many of my beliefs secret just as you

The other responded with a hard little laugh. "Thank you, though. You are more like Gerrit, Captain

Ammidon, than Mrs. Saltonstone, his own sister. I hate her," she declared. "I hate all the Salem women, so

superior and condescending and Christian. They always have a silly look of wonder at their charity in

speaking to me . . . when they do. They act as if it's just a privilege for me to be in their church. I'd rather go

"Of course you would," Rhoda agreed. There seemed to be so little for her to offer or say that she was

relieved when they parted. The afternoon grew really sultry, but, when the shadows had lengthened, she

encountered Jeremy Ammidon wandering aimlessly about the hall and, his fine palmetto hat and wanghee in

her hand, urged him out to the East India Marine Society. "It's much too beautiful a day for the house," she

"There's nothing remarkable about it," he returned; "wind's too light and variable, hardly enough to hold way

on a ship." There were the stirring strains of a quickstep without; at the door they saw the Salem Cadets,

preceded by Flag's Band, marching in columns of fours into Washington Square. The white breeches with

scarlet coats and brass buttons made a gay showing on the green Common, the sunlight glittered on silver

The old man's face grew dark at the brilliant line drawn up for inspection, and he muttered a period about

cursed young Whigs. "Wouldn't have one of the scoundrels in my house if I could help it. Don't understand

"Why, it's only reasonable that a country's got to be run like a ship, from the quarterdeck. How far do you

suppose a vessel would get if the crew hung about aft and chose representatives from the port and starboard

"Please, father," she protested, laughing. "Do go along into the sun." She gently pushed him toward the door.

Rhoda realized the fact that William was more than half Whig already. That threatened still another point of

difference, of departure, from all that his father held to be sacred necessities. Jeremy, like most of the older

shipmasters, was a bitter Federalist, an upholder of a strongly centralized autocratic government. He left,

grumbling, and the staccato commands of the military evolutions of the Common rang through the

"Can't I get nearer," she begged; "there's nothing to see from here." Her mother replied, "Ask Camilla to take

you over to the Square." Camilla appeared indifferently. "I don't know why anyone should be flustered," she

As they were going, Sidsall came out in a white tarlatan dress worked with sprays of yellow barley, her face

glowing with color, and sat on the steps. "Positively," her mother said, looking down on the mass of bright

"I wish I might," she responded. "And Hodie is too sillyI can't get her to lace me tightly enough. She says

"It's still a little soon for that" Rhoda broke off as a slight erect man at the verge of middle age turned in

from Pleasant Street upon them. "Roger," she said cordially as he came quickly up the steps. He greeted her

Rhoda wondered what nonsense Roger Brevard was repeating; Sidsall's face was hidden from view. But then

Roger was always like that, his manner was never at a loss for the appropriate gesture. He had a great many

points in common with her, she thought; neither had been born in Salem, and his rightful setting was in the

best metropolitan drawingrooms. He had been here for a dozen years, now, in charge of the local affairs of

the Mongolian Marine Insurance Company; and she often wondered why, a member of a family socially

notable in New York, he continued in a city, a position, of comparative unimportance.

She was, she said, going back to the lawn, the glare of Pleasant Street was fatiguing; and she proceeded

through the house with the surety of his following. But on the closecut emerald sod there was no sign of

him, and she found a seat in a basket chair by the willow tree beyond. She waited for Roger with a small but

growing impatience; he must be done immediately with whatever he might say to Sidsall, and she wished to

discuss the possibilities of a rumor that President Polk intended to visit Salem. There would be a collation,

perhaps a military ball, to arrange; Franklin Hall would be the better place for the latter. She heard a faint

silvery echo of laughterSidsall. It was extremely nice, of course, in Roger Brevard to entertain her

daughter, though she didn't care to have the child give the effect of receiving men yet.

It was, finally, Sidsall who appeared, unaccompanied, in the drawingroom window. She came forward to

where Rhoda sat, her face still stirred with amusement. "Mr. Brevard went on," she said in response to her

mother's look of inquiry. "That's rather odd," the latter commented almost sharply. "He had only a few

minutes," the girl explained. She sank into a seat and mood of abstraction. Rhoda studied her with a veiled

glance. Hers were exceptional children, they had given her scarcely an hour's concern; and she must see that

Perhaps Laurel entertained her more than the others. She was a very normal little girl, not thoughtful like

Janet, and without Camilla's exaggerated poise; but she had a picturesque imagination; and her

companionship with her grandfather was delightful. The latter addressed her quite as if she were a fellow

shipmaster; and she had acquired some remarkable sea expressions, some deplorable and others enigmatic;

only today, questioned about the order of her room, she had said that it was "all square by the lifts and

There was, she knew, an excellent school for older girls at Lausanne; and, revolving the possibility of

obtaining for Sidsall some of the European advantages she, Rhoda, had enjoyed, the following afternoon she

drove to the Cliffords' on Marlboro Street for a consultation with Madra, who had spent a number of seasons

on Lake Leman. In a cool parlor with yellow Tibet rugs and maroon hangings she had tea while Madra

Clifford, thin and imperious, with a settled ill health like a white powder and a priceless Risajii shawl,

"Caroline has been in bed for a week. That vulgar Dr. Fisk, with his elbow in her bosom, tried five times to

extract her tooth, and then broke it to the roots. I hear there is a galvanic ring for rheumatism. The pain in my

joints is excruciating; I have an idea my bones are changing into chalk; the right knee will hardly bend." The

darkly colored shawl with its border of cypress intensified her sunken bluetraced temples and the pallid lips.

She developed the subject of her indisposition, sparing no detail; while Rhoda Ammidon, from her

superabundance of wellbeing, half pitied the other and was half revolted at the mind touched, too, by bodily

ill. The fortune accumulated by the hardy Clifford men, flogged out of crews and stained by the blood of their

primitive and dull savagesthe Cliffords were notorious for their brutal drivingnow served only to

support Madra's debility and a horde of unscrupulous panderers to her obsession.

"Edward Dunsack is in Salem," she continued; "and I've heard he has the most peculiar appearance. Very

probably the result of the unmentionable practices of the Orient. Father liked the Chinese though; so many of

our shipmasters have, and not always the merchants. . . . What was I saying? Oh, yes, Edward Dunsack. I

understand you had a distinct alarm in that quarter, about the girl and Gerrit Ammidon. But I forgot to say

"Why, haven't you heard! The Nautilus was sighted. News came from Boston. She ought to be in today, I

Rhoda Ammidon rose immediately, surprised at the force of the emotion that blurred her eyes with tears.

Gerrit was safe! Possibly they had been told at Java Head now, but she must be there with Jeremy Ammidon;

surprises, even as joyful as this, were a great strain on him. Neglecting the object of her visit she returned at

once to Pleasant Street, urging the coachman to an undignified haste, and keeping the carriage at the door.

Her fatherinlaw was at his secretary in the library, and it was evident that he had heard nothing of his son's

return. "Well, Rhoda," he said, swinging about; "what a bright cheek you havelike Laurel's."

"I feel bright, father," she replied with a nod and smile. "After this none of you will be able to laugh at my

predictions. You see, a woman's feeling is often more correct than masculine judgment." His momentary

bewilderment gave place to a painfully strained interrogation. "Yes," she told him, "but we are none of us

surprisedGerrit is almost in Salem harbor." She moved near him and, with a veiled anxiety, laid her hand

"A splendid sailor," he muttered. It seemed as if Rhoda could really hear the dull rising pounding of his

shaken heart. But his excitement subsided, gave way to a normal concern, a flood of vain questions and

preparation to go down to the wharf. In the midst of this a message came from the countinghouse of

A small crowd had already gathered on Derby Wharf when Rhoda and her companion made their way past

the warehouses built at intervals along the wharf to the place where the Nautilus would be warped in. The

wharfinger saluted them, William Ammidon joined his wife, and beyond she could see James Saltonstone

The afternoon was serene, a faint air drew in from the sea; and with it, sweeping slowly inside Peach's Point,

was the tall ship with her canvas towering gold in the western sun against the distance of sea and sky. As

Rhoda watched she saw their house flaga white field checkered in bluefluttering from the main royal

"The royals are coming in!" Jeremy Ammidon exclaimed, gripping Rhoda's arm. "He is lowering his

topgallant yards and hauling up the courses! My dear, there's nothing on God's earth finer than a ship."

The Nautilus slipped along surprisingly fast. Rhoda could now see the crew moving about and coiling the

The shipmaster, shorter than common, with broad assertive shoulders in formal black, was easily

recognizable. A woman with a worn flushed face pressed by Jeremy. "Andrew's there, too," she told them,

The ship moved more slowly under her topsails and jibs, in a soundless progress with the ripples falling away

in water like dark green glass, liquid and still. She was now but a short distance from the end of the wharf.

Mr. Broadrick was forward between the knightheads with the crew ranged to the starboard and at the braces,

while Gerrit Ammidon stood with one hand on the quarterdeck railing and the other holding a brass

"Let go your port fore and after braces, Mr. Broadrick; brace the fore and mizzen yards sharp up, leave the

main braces fast, and lay the main topsail to the mast. As she comes to the wind let the jibs run down." He

The ship answered quickly and rounded to while her weather fore and mizzen yards flew forward until they

touched the starboard backstays and the men hauled in the slack of the braces. With the main yard square to

check her way the jibs drooped down along the stays. "Mr. Broadrick, you may let go the starboard anchor

and furl sails." The mate grasped a top maul and struck the trigger of the ring stopper a clean blow, the

anchor splashed into the water with a rumbling cable, and the Nautilus was home.

Gerrit Ammidon walked hurriedly to the companionway and went below, while the mate continued, "Stand

by to let go your topsail halliards and man the gear. Sharper with the mizzen sheets and unbend those clew

lines and garnets . . . stow the clews in a harbor furl." At a rhythmic shout the bunts of the three topsails came

The wind had died away and the flags hung listlessly from the main truck and spanker gaff. The water of the

harbor was unstirred except for the swirls at the oar blades of an incoming quarter boat and the warp paying

out at her stern. The voice of the mate, the chantey of the crew heaving at the capstan bars, came to Rhoda

Rhoda Ammidon discovered herself leaning forward tensely, her hands shut in excitement and emotion; and

she relaxed with a happy laugh as the Nautilus, with her yards exactly square and rigging taut, her sides and

It seemed to her that Gerrit, descending a short stage from the deck, looked markedly older than when he had

last sailed. Yet he had a surprisingly youthful air still; partly, she thought, from the manner in which he wore

his hair, falling in a waving thick line about his cheeks. His mouth was at once fresh and severe, his face

"I'll take the ship's manifest to the Collector," he said, greeting them and impatiently waving aside the

vendors after the cook's slush, the excited women and runners and human miscellany crowding forward.

"Then Java Head." He paused, speaking over his shoulder: "I'd be thankful if you would send the barouche

Driving back, her hand on Jeremy Ammidon's knee, Rhoda wondered at Gerrit's request. It was entirely

unlike him to ride in the barouche; rather he had always derided it in the terms of his calling. However,

unable to find a solution for her surprise, she listened to the other's comments and speculations:

"I suppose William's first question will be about the cargo, and, of course, I hope the ship has done well. But

"We all are," she assured him, "and William as happy as any. You mustn't be misled by his manner, father. I

"Gerrit will be satisfied with anything," he chuckled. "Probably he's been out of beans even for a month. Did

you notice that foreroyal mast and yard? They were rigged at sea: Gerrit carried them away. It hurts him to

take in a sail. Some day I tell him he'll drag the spars out of his ship. His confounded pride will founder him."

He made these charges lightly, with a palpable underlying pride; and, Rhoda knew, would permit no one else

She found her daughters in a state of gala excitement on the front steps. "Uncle Gerrit in the Nautilus," Laurel

chanted; and it was evident that Camilla herself was thrilled. They all went up to put on holiday dress. Rhoda

turned to the coachman, "Have the barouche at the head of Derby Wharf in an hour."

Gerrit's unusual demand again puzzled her. A fantastic possibility lodged in her brainperhaps he was not

alone. She pulled the bell rope for her maid, changed into black moir� with cut steel bretelles, and selected

the peacock coloring of a Peritaus shawl. She found her husband with his father in the library. "I understand

it's a splendid cargo," William remarked. Jeremy nodded triumphantly at her, and she expressed a half

humorous resentment at this mercenary display. "He ought to be here," the younger man declared, consulting

his watch. As he spoke Rhoda saw the barouche draw up before the house. She had a glimpse of a figure at

Gerrit Ammidon's side in extravagantly brilliant satins; there was a sibilant whisper of rich materials in the

Rhoda Ammidon gave an uncontrollable gasp as the Chinese woman sank in a fluttering prostration of color

at Jeremy's feet. He ejaculated, "God bless me," and started back. William's face was inscrutable, unguessed

lines appeared about his severe mouth. Her own sensation was one of incredulity touched with mounting

anger and feeling of outrage. The woman rose, but only to sink again before William: she was on her knees

and, supported by her hands, bent forward and touched her forehead to the floor three times. Gerrit laughed

shortly. "She was to shake your hands; we went over and over it on shipboard. But anything less than the K�

She was now erect with a freer murmur of greeting to Rhoda. The latter was instantly aware of one

certaintyChinese she might be, she was, but no less absolutely aristocratic. Her face, oval and slightly flat,

was plastered with paint on paint, b her gesture, the calm scrutiny of enigmatic black eyes under delicately

arched brows, exquisite quiet hands, were all under the most admirable instinctive command. Rhoda said:

"I see that I am to welcome you to Gerrit's family." The other, in slow lisping English replied:

"You will want to go to your room," Rhoda continued mechanically. "It was only prepared for one, but I'll

send a servant up at once." She was enraged at the silent stupidity of the three men and flashed a silent

"This is a decided surprise," the latter at last addressed his brother; "nor can I pretend that it is pleasant."

Jeremy Ammidon's gaze wandered blankly from Gerrit to the woman, then back to his son.

Never before had Rhoda seen such lovely clothes: A long gown with wide sleeves of blueblack satin,

embroidered in peachcolored flower petals and innumerable minute sapphire and orange butterflies, a short

sleeveless jacket of sage green caught with looped red jade buttons and threaded with silver and indigo

highsoled slippers crusted and tasseled with pearls. Her hair rose from the back in a smooth burnished loop.

There were long pins of pink jade carved into blossoms, a quivering decoration of paperthin gold leaves

with moonstones in glistening drops, and a band of coral lotus buds. Pierced stone bracelets hung about her

delicate wrists, fretted crystal balls swung from the lobes of her ears; and clasped on the ends of several

"Taou Yuen," Gerrit repeated shortly, with his challenging bright gaze. "That means Peach Garden. My wife

is a Manchu," he asserted in a more biting tone; "a Manchu and the daughter of a noble. Thank you, Rhoda,

particularly. But I have always counted on you. Will you go up with her? That is ifif my father has a room,

"This will always be your home, Gerrit," Jeremy said slowly, with the long breath of a diver in deep waters.

IN THE ROOM that had been his since early maturity Gerrit Ammidon gave an involuntary sigh of relief.

Taou Yuen, his wife, was standing in the middle of the door, gazing about with a faint and polite smile. Her

eyes rested on a yellow camphor chestone of the set brought home by his fatheron a severe high range

of drawers made of sycamore with six legs, on her brilliant reflection in the eaglecrowned mirror above the

The situation below, however brief and, on the whole, reasonably conducted, had been surprisingly difficult.

At the same time that he had felt no necessity to apologize for his marriage he had known that Taou Yuen

must surprise, yesshock, his family. She was Chinese, to them a heather: they would be unable to

comprehend any mitigating dignity of rank. Where they'd actually suffer, he realized, would be in the attitude

Personally he regarded these with the contempt he felt for so many of the qualities that on shore bound the

interests of everyone into a single common concern. It gave him pleasure to assault the authority and

importance of such public prejudice and selfopinion; but, unavoidably implicating his family, at once a part

of himself and Salem, he was conscious of the fact that he had laid them all open to disagreeable moments.

He was sorry for this, and his regret, principally materialized by his father's hurt confusion, had unexpectedly

cast a shadow on a scene to which he had looked forward with a distinct sense of comedy. Where the realities

were concerned he had no fear of Taou Yuen's ability to justify herself completely. He possessed a

He watched her now with the mingled understanding and mystification that gave his life with her such a

decided charm. Her gaze had fastened on the mirrorstand above the drawers: she must be wondering if she

would have to paint and prepare herself for him here, openly. He knew that she considered it a great

impropriety for her face to be seen bare; all the elaborate processes of her morning toilet must be privately

conducted. He recognized this, but had no idea what she actually thought of the room, of his family, of the

One and then another early hope he saw at once were vain. It had seemed to him that in America, in Salem,

she might become less evidently Chinese; not in the incongruous horror of Western clothes, but in her

attitude, in a surrender to superficial customs; he had pictured her as merging distinctively into the local

scene. In China he had hoped that in the vicinity of Washington Square and Pleasant Street she would appear

less Eastern; but, beyond all doubt, here she was enormously more so. The strange repressed surrounding

accentuated every detail of her Manchu pomp and color. The frank splendor of her satins and carved jades

and embroidery, her immobile striking face loaded with carmine and glinting headdress, the flawless

loveliness of hands with the pointed nail protectors, were, in his room, infinitely dramatized.

The other, less secure possibility that she might essentially change perished silently. In a way his wish had

been a presumptionthat a member of the oldest and most subtle civilization existing would, if she were

She moved slowly up to the bed, examining it curiously; and again he understood her look of doubtin

China beds were called kang, or stoves, from the fact that they were more often than not a platform of brick

with an opening beneath for hot coals. She fingered the ball fringe of the coverlet, and then turned with

amazement to the soft pillow. A hand with the stone bracelet falling back from her smooth wrist rose to the

"Your pillow is coming along from the ship," he told her; "the women here do up their hair every morning."

She considered this with geranium lips slightly parted on flawless teeth, and nodded slowly. The westering

sun striking through the window overlooking the Common illuminated her with a flat gold unreality.

"I'll have a day bed brought for you," he continued, realizing that, as the result of fortunate chance, she

understood most of what he said without an actual command of the individual words. In reply she sank before

him in the deep Manchu gesture with one knee sweeping the floor, the humility of her posture dignified by

grace. He touched the crystal globe of an earring, pinched her chin, in the half light manner by which he

instinctively expressed his affection for her. She was calm and pleased. "Taou Yuen," he continued, "you

miss Shanghai, with the wall of ten gates and the river Woosung stuck full of masts. You'll never think Salem

"This is your city," she replied, slowly choosing the words. "Your ancestors are here." There was not a shade

of regret in her voice or manner. He tried once more, and as vainly as ever, to penetrate the veil of her perfect

serenity. She never, it became apparent, descended from the most inflexible selfcontrol; small

emotionssurface gayety of mood, curiosity, the faintest possible indication of contempt, he had learned to

distinguish; the fact that she cared enough for him to desert every familiar circumstance was evident; but

His own emotions were hardly less obscured: the dominating feeling was his admiration for her exquisite

worldly wisdom, the perfection of her bodily beauty, and the philosophy which bore her above the countless

trivialities that destroyed the dignity of western minds. He realized that her paint and embroidery covered a

spirit as cold and tempered as fine metal. She was totally without the social sentiment of his own world; but

she was equally innocent of its nauseous hypocrisy, the pretensions of a piety covering commercial

dishonesty, obscenity of thought and spreading scandal. The injustice he saw practiced on shore had always

turned him with a sense of relief to the cleansing challenge of the sea; always, brought in contact with

cunning and selfseeking men and heartless schemes, with women cheapened by a conviction of the

indecency of life, he was in a state of hot indignation. From all this Taou Yuen offered a complete escape.

On the purely feminine side she was a constant delight, the last possible refinement, he told himself, of

instinct and effect. She was incapable of the least vulgarity; never for an instant did she flag from the

necessity of beauty, never had he seen her too weary for an adornment laborious in a hundred difficult

conventions. She was, too, a continuous source of entertainment, even as his wife she never ceased to be a

"I must go down and see where our things are," he said, rising. In the hall he stopped before the tall clock

whose striking was a part of his early memories. Below, the house seemed empty; and, instead of turning to

The long glass doors to the garden were open, and the interior was filled with the scent of lilacs. The room

itself had always reminded him of themit was pale in color, cool gilt and lavender brocade and white

panels. Nothing had been moved or changed: the inlaid cylinder fall desk with its garlands of painted flowers

on the light waxed wood stood at the left, the pole screen with the embroidered bouquet was before the fire

blind, the girandoles, scrolled in ormolu and hung with crystal lusters, held the shimmer of golden reflections

He had remembered the drawingroom at Java Head as a place of enchanted perfection; in his childhood its

still serenity had seemed a presentment of what might be hoped for in heaven. The thought of the room as it

was now, open but a little dim to the lilacs and warm afternoon, had haunted him as the measure of all peace

and serenity in moments of extreme danger, his ship laboring in elemental catastrophes and in remote seas. Its

fragrance had touched him through the miasma of Whampoa Reach, waiting for the lighters of tea to float

down from Canton; standing off in the thunder squalls of the night for the morning sea breeze to take him

into Rio; over a cognac in the coffee halls of the French market at New Orleans, the chanteys ringing from

As he left the room he saw Laurel, William's youngest child, and he imprisoned her in an arm. "You haven't

asked what I've got for you in my sea chest," he said. Gerrit was very fond of all four of the rosycheeked

vigorous girls, and a sense of injury touched him at Laurel's reserved manner. She studied him with a

wondering uneasy concern. This he realized was the result of bringing home Taou Yuen; and an aggravated

impatience, a growing rebellion, seized him. He wouldn't stay with his wife at Java Head a day longer than

necessary; and if anyone, in his family or outside, showed the slightest disdain he could retaliate with his

God knew he didn't want trouble, all he asked was a reasonable liberty, the semblance, anyhow, of a courtesy

toward his wife. Whatever might be said would be of no moment to herexcept in the attitude of his

fatherand Taou Yuen's indifference furnished a splendid example for himself. He wondered why the devil

he was continually putting his fingers in affairs that couldn't concern him. No one thanked him for his

trouble, they considered him something of a foola good sailor but peculiar. The damned unexpected twists

His father was standing outside the principal entrance; and, as he joined him on the steps, he saw two men

from the Nautilus carrying his ship's desk by the beckets let in the ends. The wind was blowing gently up

Pleasant Street; the men, at his gesture, lifted their burden up the steps, between the direction of the wind and

"What do you mean, you damned packetratscoming up a companionway to the windward of me! I'll have

no whalers' habits here." He repeated discontentedly that everything on sea and land had fallen into a decline.

Others followed with a number of Korean boxes, strapped and locked with copper, and wicker baskets. A

"The chest was left for Mr. Dunsack at the foot of Hardy Street, sir, as you ordered. The inspector sent it off

complimentary with your personal things." Gerrit asked, "He didn't stop to get a whiff of it then?" The other

shook his head. "Edward Dunsack asked me to ship it here and explained that it was only junk he was

bringing home, but what it amounts to is about a case of Patna opium. He's lucky."

They turned inside, William was in the library, and Gerrit instinctively followed his father into the room.

William surveyed him with a moody discontent. "What I can't understand," he proceeded; "is why you call it

"It's simple enough," Gerrit replied; "Taou Yuen is my wife, we are married exactly as Rhoda and you are.

"How can it matter what you will or will not allow when everyone'll think the other? Shipmasters have had

Chinese mistresses before, yes, and smuggled them into Salem; but this conduct of yours is beyond speech."

"Don't carry this too far," Anger like a hot cloud oppressed gun, "I am married legally and, if anything, by a

ceremony less preposterous than your own. Taou Yuen is not open to any man or woman's suspicions. I am

"But she's not your race," William Ammidon muttered; "she is a Confucian or Taoist, or some such thing."

"You're Unitarian one day a week, and father is Congregational, Hodie's a Methodist, and no one knows what

I am," Gerrit cried. "Good God, what does all that matter? Isn't a religion a religion? Do you suppose a Lord

worth the name would be anything but entertained by such spiteful little dogmas. A sincere greased nigger

"That is too strong, Gerrit," Jeremy objected. "You'll get nowhere crying down Christianity."

"If I could find it," the younger declared bitterly, "I'd feel differently. It's right enough in the Bible. . . . Well,

"This is your home," his father repeated. "Naturally William, all of us have been disturbed; but nothing

beyond that. I trust we are a loyal family. What you've done can't be mended with hard words."

"She may become very fashionable," Gerrit mockingly told his brother. "It'll be a blow to Camilla," Jeremy

"Manchus don't live on rice," Gerrit replied. "They don't bind the feet either nor wear the common Chinese

Again in his room he found his wife bending over a gorgeous heap of satins, bright mazarines and ornaments.

"We'll go down to supper soon," he told her. Already there were signs of her presence about the room: the

chest of drawers was covered with gold and jade and green amber, painted paper fans set on ivory and

tortoise shell, and lacquer fan boxes; coral hairpins, sandalwood combs, silver rouge pots and rose quartz

perfume bottles with canary silk cords and tassels. On a familiar table was her pipe, wound in gilt wire, and

the flowered satin tobacco case. An old coin was hanging at the head of the bed, a charm against evil spirits;

Taou Yuen sank on the floor with a little embarrassed laugh at the confusion in which he had surprised her.

"Let your attitude be grave," he quoted from the Book of Rites with a pretended severity. Her amusement

rose in a ripple of mirth. He opened his desk, rearranging the disorder brought about by its transportation;

and, when he turned, she was prostrate in the last rays of the sun. "OmetoFuh," she breathed;

"OmetoFuh," the invocation to Buddha. This at an end she announced, "Now I am grave and respectful

Supper, Gerrit admitted to himself, promised to be a painful occasion; conversation rose sporadically and

quickly died in glances of irrepressible curiosity directed at his wife. She, on the contrary, showed no pointed

interest in her surroundings; and, in her hesitating slurred English, answered Rhoda's few questions without

putting any in return. Camilla preserved a frozen silence; Sidsall was pleasantly conciliating in her attitude

toward the novel situation; Janet, her lips moving noiselessly, was rapt in amazement; and Laurel smiled,

The recounting of his delayed return offered Gerrit a welcome relief from the pervading strain: "There's no

tea to speak of at Shanghai, and I took on a mixed cargopongees and porcelain and matting. I got camphor

and cassia and seven hundred peculs of ginger; then I decided to lay a course to Manilla for some of the

cheroots father likes. The weather was fine, I had a good cargo, and, wellwe pleasured out to Honolulu. I

was riding the island horses and shipping oil when the schooner Kahemameha arrived from the coast with the

news of the gold discovery in California. Every boat in the harbor was loaded to the trucks, crowded with

passengers at their weight in ginseng, and laid for San Francisco. . . . Well, I was caught with the rest.

"Five thousand dollars was offered me to carry a gentleman and his attendant. Two others would pay three

for the same purpose. Stowage was worth what you asked. . . . The Nautilus made a good run; then, about a

day from land, Mr. Broadrick told me that there wouldn't be a seaman on the ship an hour after we anchored.

They were all crazy with gold fever, he said. I could see, too, that they were excited; the watch hung under

the weather rail jabbering like parrots; an uglier crew of sea lawyers never developed.

"There was one thing to do and I did itcalled them aft and gave them some hot scouse. They'd shipped for

Salem and there they must go. I didn't anchor, but stood offthe harbor was crowded with deserted vessels

like some hell for shipsand sent the jolly boat in with the passengers and a couple of men. They didn't

come back, you may be sure. The consignment for San Francisco I carried out that evening, for I made sail at

"I did," Gerrit acknowledged shortly. "The second mate's ear was taken loose by a belaying pin that flew out

of the dark like a gull. Mr. Broadrick had a bad minute in the port forecastle after he had ordered all hands on

deck a third time. The fine weather left us, though, and that kept the crew busy; we carried away the

foreroyal mast and yard before we were within a thousand miles of the latitude of the Horn. That hit us like

a cannon ball of ice. You know what it is at its worst," he told his father; "weeks of snow and hail and fog

and gales; and not for anything can you keep an easting. God knows how a ship lives through the seas; but

Gerrit was relieved, however, when supper ended and his wife formally departed for her room. Immediately

slipping a hand inside Rhoda's arm he conducted her to the drawingroom. "I'd like you to know more about

"It was very extraordinary. A L� Kikw�ng was a high official of the Canton Customs, and when Shanghai

was declared an open port in fortytwo they made him hoppo there. I remembered him at Canton, a dignified

old duck with eighty or a hundred servents to keep anyone from possibly speaking to him of business, but

there had been some trouble about foreign vessels selling saltpeter illegally andhe knew some

Englishwe had quite a friendly little consultation. Yet it hadn't prepared me for his coming off to the

Nautilus at Shanghai with a linguist and an air of the greatest mystery. His manner was beautiful, of course,

absolutely tranquil and that made what they said, what he hoped, seem even wilder than it was.

"His son, it appeared, had married and was accidentally drowned in the Great Canal hardly a month after the

ceremony. His widow belonged, then, to the husband's family, and from that moment her fatherinlaw had

had nothing but bad luck. He had been robbed, his best stallion died, there had been a flood in his tea which

not only spoiled the crop but filled the ground with siltit was impossible to relate the calamities. He

consulted a necromancer at last and learned that it was all caused by the presence of Taou Yuen.

"This, you see, made the difficulty, as it's a frightful disgrace to return a married daughter to her own father's

home, and L� had grown very fond of her. She was extremely clever and virtuous, he said. The other thing

was to kill her or force her to commit suicide. He told me very calmly that he would like to avoid this.

"Then, in the linguist's most flowery manner, they went on with what L� Kikw�ng proposed. He had

recognized that I was a man of 'superior propriety' and he wondered if I would take Taou Yuen away to

America with me. Very secretly thoughthere would be an uproar if it were known that a Manchu woman

had been married to a foreigner. I could see her first in his garden without her knowing anything about it.

"It's needless to tell you that I went with them that afternoon. A meeting was arranged for the next day"

he broke off, sitting forward with elbows on knees, gazing fixedly at his clasped hands.

"You make that very clear, Gerrit," his sisterinlaw replied; "I now understand the past almost as well as

yourself; but it's the future I'm in doubt about. I saw immediately that your wife was not an ordinary woman;

it would be much easier if she were. Certainly you don't intend to stay here, at Java Head; but that is

immaterial. Wherever you go in America it will not be suitable for her. She'll be no more at home with your

friends than you with hers. I feel terribly sad about it, Gerrit; you were as selfish as only a man can be."

"You are unjust, Rhoda," he protested. "Taou Yuen was willing to come. She had read about other countries

and saw a great deal of the English wife of a rich Dutch factor at Shanghai; as L� Kikw�ng said, she's

"Rubbish! Of course she loves you; I am not talking about that. How will she get along while you are away

on your long voyages? She couldn't possibly live in the cabin of a ship, and do you suppose she'd be

"We have as many chances of success as any other marriage," he asserted. "The whole business is foolish

"That opinion might do for a single shipmaster, with only a month or two out of the year on land. When you

were free, Gerrit, your impatience with convention was refreshing and possible. But can't you see that you

have given up your liberty! You have tied your hands. However loudly you may cry out against society now

you are a part of us, foolish or not. You'll find that your wife has anchored you in Salem, Boston or

"She is gorgeous and placid, superior on the surface; but the heart, Gerritthat isn't made of jade and ivory

"I'll bring down your presents tomorrow," he told her, avoiding any further present discussion of his

"He seems baggier about the eyes and throat. He is just as quick, but it exhausts him more. Things would be

much better if he were only content to let William manage at the countinghouse. Times are shifting so

quickly with these new clipper ships and direct passages and political changes."

"There's no longer any doubt about the clippers," Gerrit declared; "the California gold rush will attend to

In his room he found Taou Yuen, in soft white silk worked with bamboo leaves, on the day bed, smoking.

She rose immediately as he entered; and, coming close to him, ran her cool fingers through his hair. He stood

gazing out at the dim oil flares that marked the confines of Washington Square, considering all that Rhoda

had said. Strangely enough it led his thoughts away from his wife; they reverted to Nettie Vollar.

He had been, he realized, very nearly in love with her: what he meant by that inaccurate term was that if the

affair had continued a little longer he would have insisted on marrying her. Nettie was not indifferent to him.

An impersonal feeling had attached him to hera resentment of her treatment by the larger part of Salem,

particularly the oblique admiration of the men. His supersensitiveness to any form of injustice had driven him

into the protest of calling and accompanying her, with an exaggerated politeness, about the streets. It had not

been difficult; she was warmblooded, luxurious, a very vivid woman. Gerrit, however, had made a point of

repressing any response to that aspect of their intercoursethe sheerest necessity for the preservation of his

She had cried on his shoulder, in his arms, practically; he had acted in the purely fraternal manner. But the

thing was reaching a natural conclusion when her grandfather, Barzil Dunsack, had interfered with his

unsupportably frank accusations and command. The Nautilus had been ready for sea, and his, Gerrit's

imperious resentment had carried him out of the Dunsacks' houseto Shanghai and Taou Yuenwithout

How strangely life progressed, without chart or intelligent observations or papers! He heard the tap of his

wife's pipe; there was a faint sweetish odor of drugged tobacco and the scent of cloves in which she saturated

herself. Outside was Salem, dim and without perceptible movement; the clock in the hall struck ten. Taou

Yuen didn't approach him again nor speak; her perceptions were wonderfully acute.

The sense of loneliness that sometimes overtook him on shore deepened, a feeling of impotence, as if he had

suddenly waked, lost and helpless, in an unfamiliar planet. There was the soft whisper of his wife's passage

across the room. In the lamplight the paint on her cheeks made startling unnatural patches ofpaint. The

reflections slid over the liquid black mass of her hair, died in the lustrous creamy folds of her garment. She

was at once grotesque and impressive, like a figure in a Chinese pantomime watched from the western

auditorium of his inheritance. His fondness for her, his admiration, had not lessened. He surveyed his

position, the presence here, in his room at Java Head, of Taou Yuen, with amazement; all the small

culminating episodes lost, the result was beyond credence. His thoughts returned to Rhoda's accusation of

selfishness, the disaster implied in her pity for his wife. He tried again to analyze his marriage, discover

whatever justification, security, it possessed. Was his admiration for Taou Yuen sufficient provision for his

part of their future together? It was founded largely on her superiority to the world he had known; and here it

was necessary for him to convince himself that his wedding had not been merely the result of romantic

accident. He knew that the sensual had had almost no part in it, it had been mental; an act of pity crystallizing

his revolt against what he felt to be the impotence of "Christian" ethics. Yet this was not sufficient; for he,

No, it wasn't enough; but more existed, he was certain of that. No one could expect him, now, to experience

the thrill of idealized passion that was the sole property of youth. What feeling he had had for Nettiehe was

obliged to return to her from the fact that it was the only possible comparisonhad come from very much

The danger, Rhoda pointed out, had been admitted when his marriage made impossible the continuation of

that aloof position. He doubted that it could change him so utterly. The though of the entertainment his wife

would afford him in Salem expanded. He regretted that the best, the calling and comments of the women, was

necessarily lost to him, but Taou Yuen would repeat a great deal; she, too, had a sly sense of the ridiculous.

He hoped that his sisterinlaw didn't suppose her helpless; the impenetrable Manchu control gave her a

pitiless advantage over any less absolute civilization. In the darkness before sleep the heavy exotic scents in

He rose early, and quietly dressing went out into the garden; buds on the June roses against the high blank

fence on the street were swelling into visible crimson; there were the stamping of horses' feet on the cobbles

of the stable inclosure, the heavy breathing and admonitions of the coachman wielding a currycomb. The

sunlight streamed down through pale green willow and tall lilac bushes, through the octagonal latticed

summerhouse and across the vivid sod to the drawingroom door. Gerrit turned, and entered the farther yard,

"The Nautilus will need new copper sheathing," Gerrit said; "she's pretty well stripped forward."

"Take her around to the Salem Marine Railway at the foot of English Street. A fine ship, Gerrit, with a proper

"She won't go into the wind with a clipper," he admitted; "but I'll sail her on a fair breeze with anything

"If you come to that," his father asserted; "nothing handsomer will ever bee seen than an East Indiaman in the

northeast trades with the captain on the quarterdeck in a cocked hat and sword, the shoals of flying fish and

albacore skittering about a transom as high and carved and gilded as a church, the royal pennant at the

mainmast head. Maybe it would be the Earl of Balcarras with her cannons shining and the midshipmen

"Yes," the younger man returned, "and taking in her light sails at sunset, dropping astern like an island. The

Jeremy Ammidon muttered one of his favorite pessimistic complaints. "What did you say her name was?" he

"Taou Yuen Ammidon," the elder pronounced experimentally. "It doesn't sound right, the two won't go

"But they have," Gerrit declared. He though impatiently that he must listen to a repetition of Rhoda's

"I don't know much about 'em," Jeremy proceeded. "All I saw, when I was younger, was the little

singinggirls playing mora and wailing over their infernal threestringed fiddles something about the moon

Taou Yuen did not come down to breakfast, and Gerrit stayed away from their room until her toilet must be

finished. It was Sunday; and with the customary preparation for church under way William said:

The hidden question, the purpose of the inquiry, at once stirred into being all Gerrit's perversity. "No," he

"That's unheard of," William exclaimed heatedly; "a woman in all her paint and perfume and outrageous

clothes in North Church, withwith my family! I won't have it, do you understand."

"No worse than what you see there every week," Gerrit retorted calmly; "corsets and feathers and female

gimcracks. Plenty of rouge and cologne too. It will give them something new to stare at and whisper about."

William Ammidon choked on his anger, and his wife laid a gloved hand on his arm. "You must make up your

mind to it," she told him. "It can't hurt anyone. She is Gerrit's wife, you see."

Above, the shipmaster said to Taou Yuen: "We are going to church with the family." He surveyed her clothes

with a faint glimmer of amusement. She had, he saw, made herself especially resplendent as a Manchu. The

long gown was strawcolored satin with black batsa symbol of happinesswhirling on thickly

embroidered silver clouds, over which she wore a sleeve coat fastened with white jade and glittering with

spangles of beaten copper. Her slippers were pale rose, and fresh apple blossoms, which she had had brought

She smiled obediently at his announcement, and, with a fan of peacock silks and betel nuts in a pouch like a

tea rose hanging by a cord from a jade button, she signified her readiness to proceed.

William had gone on foot with his girls, Jeremy was seldom in church, and Rhoda, Taou Yuen beside her

with Gerrit facing them, followed in the barouche. It seemed to the latter that they were almost immediately

at the door of North Church. The leisurely congregation filling the walk stiffened in incredulous amazement

as Gerrit handed his wife to the pavement. Rhoda went promptly forward, nodding in response to countless

Prepared, he restrained the latter from a prostration in the hall of the church. Nothing had changed; the

umbrella trough still bore the numbers of the pews, the stair wound gloomily up to the organ loft. He again

found the subdued interior, the maroon upholstery, the flat Gothic squares of the ceiling and dark red stone

walls, a place of reposeful charm. The Ammidons had two of the box pews against the right wall: his brother

and children were in the second, and, inside the other small inclosure, he shut the gate and took his place on a

contracted corner bench. Taou Yuen sat with Rhoda against the back of the pew. The former, blazing like a

He could hear the hum of subdued comment running like ignited powder through the church, familiar faces

turned blankly toward him or nodded in patent confusion. The men, he noted, expressed a single rigid

condemnation. The women, in crisp light dresses and ribboned bonnets, were franker in their curiosity. Taou

Yuen was a loadstone for their glances. As the service progressed her face grew expressionless. Fretted

sandalwood bracelets drooped over her folded hands, and miniature dragon flies quivered on the gold wires

of her earrings; the sharp perfumes of the East drifted out and mingled with the Western scents of extracts

and powders. HE only saw that she was politely chewing betel nut. It wasn't, he told himself, reverting to his

critical attitude toward Salem, that he was lacking in charity toward his neighbors, or that he felt any

superiority; but the quality that signally roused his antagonism was precisely the men's present aspect of

heavy censure and boundless propriety, their stolid attitude of justifying the spiritual consummation promised

The long night watches, the anxiety of the sea, the profound mysteries of the wheeling stars and the silence of

the ocean at dawns, had given him, he dimly realized, an inarticulate reverence for the supreme mystery of

creation. He was unable to put it into words or facile prayer but it was the guarded foundation of most that he

was, and it bred in him a contempt for lesser signs. The religion of his birth, the faith of Taou Yuen, the

fetishism of the Zanzibar Coast, he had regarded as equally important, or futilethe mere wash of the

immensity of beauty, the inexorable destiny, that had seemed to breathe on him alone at the stern of his ship.

He lost himself now in the keenness of his remembered emotion: the church faded into a far horizon, he felt

the slight heave of the ship and heard the creaking of the wheel as the steersman shifted his hands; from aloft

came the faint slapping of the bunt lines on rigid canvas, the loose hemp slippers of the crew sounded across

the deck, the water whispered alongside, the ship's bell was struck and repeated in a diminished note on the

topgallant forecastle. The morning rose from below the edge of the sea and the pure air freshened. . . . His

thoughts were recalled to the present by the dogmatic insistence of the clergyman's voice, promising heaven,

The service over, the aisle past the Ammidon pews was filled with a slowmoving inquisitive throng. Rhoda

chose to wait until the greater part was past, and then she followed with the unmoved Taou Yuen and Gerrit.

"This is my brother's wife," he heard the former say. "Mrs. Saltonstone, Gerrit's sister, Mrs. Clifford and Miss

Vermeil. Yes . . . from Shanghai. Overdue. We were worried, of course." Taou Yuen smiled vigorously and

flapped the vivid fan. Against her brilliant colors, the carved jade and embroideries, silver and apple

blossoms, the other women looked colorless in wide book muslin and bar�ge, with short veils of tulle illusion

hanging from the bonnets of rice straw and glazed cr�pe. Palpably shocked by her Oriental face masked in

paint, her Chinese "heathen" origin, yet they fingered the amazing needlework and wondered over the weight

The men he knew gave him, for the most part, a curt greeting. They glanced more covertly at his wife; he

understood exactly what thoughts brought out this condemnation soiled by private speculation; and his

disdain mounted at their sleek backs and glossy tile hats supported on stiffly bent arms.

After dinner he walked through the warm sunny emptiness of the afternoon to Derby Wharf and the Nautilus.

Standing on the wharf, smoking a cheroot, he leaned back upon his cane, studying the ship with a gaze that

missed no detail. There was not a sound from the water; across the harbor Peach's Point seemed about to

dissolve in a faint green haze; a strong scent of mingled spices came from the warehouses. There was the

At the sound of footfalls behind him he turned and saw Nettie Vollar and her uncle, Edward Dunsack. A dark

color rose in the girl's cheek, and her hand pulled involuntarily at Dunsack's arm, as if she wished to retreat.

Gerrit thought that she had aged since he had latest met her: Nettie's mouth, with its full, slightly drooping

lower lip, had lost something of its fresh arch; her eyes, though they still preserved their black sparkle, were

plainly resentful. Edward had a riven sallow face with closecut silvery hair and agatebrown eyes with

"Well, Nettie," Gerrit said, moving forward promptly, "it's pleasant to see you again." Her hand was cold and

"I am obliged to you for my chest," the latter told him, unmoved by Gerrit's quizzical gaze.

"Glad to do it for you," the other replied; "it came ashore with my personal things, and so, perhaps, saved you

Looking down at the cob filling of the wharf, Nettie Vollar said, "You came home married, I hear, and to a

Gerrit assented. "You'll certainly know her, and like her, too. Taou Yuen is very wise and without the

prejudices" he stopped, conscious of the stupidity of his attempted kindness. Nettie looked up defiantly,

"You will find that the Chinese have none of your little sympathetic tricks. No foreigner could ever grasp the

depth of their indifference to what you might call humanity. They are born wise, as you say, but weary. I

Gerrit Ammidon studied him with somber eyes and a gathering temper: it was, however, impossible to decide

whether the implication was deliberately insulting. He wouldn't have any Canton clerk, probably saturated

with opium, insinuate that his affair was on the place of that of a drunken sailor! "My wife," he said

deliberately, "is a Manchu lady. You may know that they don't learn dialect songs nor ornament tea houses."

"Very remarkable," Dunsack returned imperturbably. "We never see them. How did you manage a

gobetween, and did you send the hour of your birth to the Calculator of Destinies? Then there is so much to

remember in a Chinese weddingthe catties of tea and four silver ingots, the earrings and red and green silk

and Tao priest to consult the Gods." Gerrit heard this with a frowning countenance. If Nettie were not there

he would put Dunsack forward with the hypothetical crew to which he belonged. He felt as sorry for Nettie,

he discovered, as ever. It moved him to see her vivacity of life, her appealing warm color, slowly dulled by

Salem and the adventitious circumstance of her birth. What a dreary existence she had in the harsh

atmosphere of her grandfather and the solemn house on Hardy Street! At one time he had fancied that he

might change it . . . when now here was Taou Yuen, detached and superior, waiting in his room at Java Head.

"I stopped for a moment to look at the ship," he said, with the grace of an ungracious bow, "and must get

back." The sunlight flung a warm moted veil over Nettie Vollar. She gave him a startled uncalculated glance

of almost desperate appeal and his heart responded with a quickened thud. Edward Dunsack was sallow and

"THE STUPID BRUISER," Edward Dunsack declared in a thin bitterness that startled the girl at his side.

"The low sea bully!" He was gazing at the resolute back of Captain Ammidon. A surprising hatred filled him

at the memory of the other's intolerant gaze, the careless contempt of his words. He thought, oddly enough, of

the delicate and ingenious tortures practiced on offenders in China; the pleasant mental picture followed of

Ammidon bowed in a wooden collar, of Gerrit Ammidon bambooed, sliced, slowly choking. . . . With an

intense sense of horror he caught himself dwelling on these dripping visions. His hands clasped rigidly, a

sweat stood out on his brow, in a realization that was at once dread and a selfloathing.

About him lay the tranquil Salem water, the still wharves, the familiar roofs and green tree tops. This wasn't

Canton, he told himself, but America: there was Nettie; only a few streets away was his father's house, his

own home, all solid and safe and reassuring. China was a thing of the past, its insidious secret hold broken. It

was now only a dream of evil fascination from which he had waked to the reality, the saving substance, of

Derby Wharf. "It's his domineering manner," he explained the outburst to Nettie; "all shipmasters have itas

if the world were a vessel they damned form a quarterdeck in the sky. I never could put up with them."

"He is very kind, really," she replied, looking away over the harbor. "It is so queermarrying a Chinese

"He won't," Edward Dunsack asserted. "Leave that to time." He studied her attentively. "Was it anything to

"It might have been," she acknowledged listlessly, her gaze still on the horizon. "He came to see me two or

three times, quite differently from other nice men, and took me to a concert at the Philharmonic Society. He

"Whatever it was he was past bearing. No one could blame Gerrit for getting into a fury. The next day I stood

almost in this spot, it was late afternoon too, and watched the Nautilus sail away. All the canvas was set and I

could see her for a long time. When the last trace had gone it seemed to me that my life had sunk too . . . out

"The old man's a fool," he said bluntly of his father. "How do you suppose he got hold of a Manchu?" he

shifted his thought, addressing the stillness about them rather than his companion. "Don't imagine for a

minute that you are superior to her," he told Nettie more directly. "There is nothing more remarkable. They

must be gorgeous," a faint color stained his long cheeks. "What incredible luck," he murmured.

He was thinking avidly of the women of Chinathe little gay girls like toys, the momentary glimpses of

enameled faces in hurrying redflowered sedan chairs, faces of ivory stained with carmine, in goldcrested

headdresses. A sudden impatience at Nettie Vollar's obvious person and clothes expanded to a detestation of

an atmosphere he had but a minute or so before welcomed as an escape from something infinitely worse than

death. Now it seemed impossible to spend a life in Salem. It would have been better, when he had been

released by Heard and Company, to have taken the position open in the Dutch Hong.

HE was in a continual state of such vacillation, as if he were the seat of two separate and antagonistic

personalities; rather, he changed the figure, in him the East struggled with the West. It was necessary for the

latter to triumph. The difficulty lay in the fact that the first was represented by an actual circumstance while

the other was only a dim apprehension, a weakened allegiance to ties never strong.

He cursed the extraordinary chance that, against every probability, had brought the chest of opium safely to

him here. Its purchase had been the result of habit evading his will, he had despatched itin that seesawing

contestby a precarious route, half hoping that it would be lost or seized; and, when he had seen the chest

carried down Hardy Street to his door, a species of terror had fastened upon him, an premonition of an evil

spirit flickering above him in a turning of oily smoke. Why hadn't he pitched the thing into the water at the

foot of their yard! There was time still: he would take the balls of opium and dispose of them secretly. A

sudden energy, a renewed sense of strength, flooded him. This distaste for Nettie changed into a pity at the ill

luck that had followed her: she didn't deserve it. Generous emotions expanded his heart. HE dreamed of

taking hold of his father's small commerce in rum and sugar with the West Indies and turning it into a

They, too, would have a big white house on Washington Square or Chestnut Street, with servantsChinese

servantsand horses and great ships sailing in, laden with the East. Why not indeed! He, Edward Dunsack,

had more brains than Jeremy Ammidon, that stiff old man with a face the color of a damask plum. His niece

would go to all the balls at Franklin and Hamilton Halls, the injustice of her position overcome by an

impressively increasing fortune. Abstractly he patted her shoulder with a hand as long and gaunt and yellow

as his face. All this would come as a result of throwing the opium into the harbor. It was as good as

In the face of his prospective wellbeing he felt already the equal of anyone in Salem. If Gerrit Ammidon had

married a Manchu lady it was his privilege, no, duty, to call and put his experience in things Chinese at their

command. She would speak only a little if any English; no one here understood the preparation of her

foodher delicate necessity for dishes not the property of an entire household; a hundred such details of

which the infinitely cruder West must be ignorant. He thought complacently that he would understand her

better than anyone else in Salem, in Boston, in America; far better than her husband. She would without

doubt learn to depend on him: they would laugh together at the manners and people about them. Ammidon

His dreams broke off with a sardonic laugh, a repetition of the tone in which he had objurgated the

shipmaster. Such visions were the property of youth, and he was fortytwo, fortytwo and nothing more than

a discredited clerk who had fled across the world from a shadow. But he was righthe had seen white men

who had caught the breath of China accepting just such opportunities as the one offered to him after his

dismissal by Augustine Heard. At the Dutch Hoing he'd be expected to talk about his late employer. Such

situations, he had realized in a rarely illuminating flash, were only temporary, a descending flight.

These men resembled the fate of, say, a brig sailing into the China Sea in all the perfection of order of the

British Marine; at, perhaps, Hong Kong, sold to a native firm, she would be refitted under an extravagant

flag, and slowly the order would depart until, in a slovenly tangle of rigging and defilement, she'd be seen

A homely chime of bells was repeated from the town; a ship's fast strained resinously with the changing tide.

"It will be getting on toward supper," Nettie told him. They walked slowly from the wharf, turned silently

into Derby Street and Hardy on their way home. Beyond the inner fence of the garden the thick uneven sod

reaching to the water was dark and cool against the luminous flush of evening. A sound of frying and heavy

odor came from the kitchen, and Kate Vollar's voice informed them that the meal was ready.

Barzil Dunsack bowed his head over the table and pronounced a grace in startlingly resonant tones, the

reverent humility of his words oddly emphasized by a sort of angry impatience. It seemed as if he at once

subjected himself to his God and expressed a certain dissatisfaction with His forbearance. Edward Dunsack

was plunged in the thought of the resolution he intended to fulfill that evening.

The throwing away of the opium had lost a part of its symbolic meaning. It now seemed even a little rash

when he could find an immediately highly profitable marketthe opium had cost him seven hundred dollars

in China. But he must, he realized, be firm. Afterwards, in his room facing away from the street over

darkening yards and gables and foliage, he stood gazing at the chest of mango wood that held the drug.

Edward Dunsack unlocked and lifted the lid. On the tray before him were twenty balls, each the size of his

two fists, wrapped in a hard skin of poppy leaves, and there was a similar number beneath. It was obvious

that he couldn't carry a tray through the house, and he took out two balls, after which he secured the

He walked quickly down the stair and through the close turning of the lower hall that led through a side door

to the yard. A pale rectangle of lamplight fell from the sitting room window over a brick path and ground

tramped bare of grass; a clinking of dishes sounded in the kitchen. The sod was damp, and perhaps eight feet

Safely there he passed a tense hand over a brow suddenly wet; he was shaking as if in the grip of a chill. His

condition needed drastic measures. The cold heavy opium gave out its tantalizing odor. In a minute it would

be disposed of and he would go for more. He calculated that this necessitated twenty trips at the present

ratea bag might serve his purpose better. He raised an arm with an opium ball, but his hand remained

suspended in air. An inarticulate protest seized him, a suffocating sense of impending loss. He would never

be able to get Patna opium here; it was a valuable medical property. His nerves shook at the thought of its

delights. Then as if without his volition and against every intention, his arm described a short arc and his

hand was empty. There was the impact of a solid object striking the water, a faint ripple on the motionless

He was aghast at his wanton act, the irreparable waste of a precious substance, and cursed in a low audible

Cantonese. Whose concern was it if he did, very occasionally, smoke a "pistol"? How could it possibly

matter! The dreams about a great foreign commerce, a white house like the Ammidons', were futile; it was

too late. He could expect nothing from life but the unspeakable monotony of his father's dwelling, the bare

office. He had worked hard, been as full of splendid early resolutions as anyone, and he wasn't blamable if

chance balked his ambition. A soul was nothing more than a twisting leaf in the wind of fate. There remained

only to take what escape was offeredgolden visions, luxury, beauty beyond all earth.

His contrary determination seemed of less actuality than the imagined echoing of the splash that still hung in

his brain. It was a thing far away, belonging to another time, another man; like the memory of a period of

charming ignorance. The thought of it wove a strand of melancholy into his present mature realization like

the delicate scent of blossoming trees borne to him on the evening air, barely perceptible and then lost in the

pungency of the opium. The latter became, mystically, all China, the irresistible fascination that had gradually

possessed his imagination, dulling the associations of his heredity and birth, calling him further and further

He returned to his room, where he put back the second ball in the tray of its chest. An extraordinary

weariness hung over him, there was a sense of leaden weight in his arms and feet. Flashes of a different

perception pierced his apathy; a voice, seemingly outside his being, whispered of danger, evil and danger. . . .

The memory of Gerrit Ammidon's crisp blue gaze, his vigorous gestures and speech, became an intolerable

affront, representing the far lost point of his own departure. His contrary feelings met and grappled in his

mind; but in the end the past, Salem, was always defeated, weaker, more faintly perceived. In a great many

The lamp threw a smooth gleam over the mango wood chest, and he bent, turning the key in the ornamental

brass lock. He could reconsider the disposal of the opium tomorrow; there was no hurry; he had no intention

of becoming a victim to the drug. That would be an inconceivable stupidity, the negation of all the

His thoughts swung to the surprising fact of Ammidon's Chinese wife: if, as he had first suspected, she were a

common woman of the port who had made a fool of the dull sailor he perceived the making of a very

entertaining comedy. There would be the keenest irony in exposing her to himself before the complacent

ignorance of her husband. He knew such women: convicted in Chinese, perhaps before the entire Ammidon

family, not a muscle of her face would betray surprise or concern. She might try to murder him, very

ingeniously, but never descend to the intrigue, the lies, of a Western woman placed in the same position.

She'd stoically accept the situation. These visions ran rapidly, vividly, through his brain; he was accustomed

to them; a greater part of his waking life was filled with such pictures, infinitely more alluring, persuasive,

than the disappointing actuality. He got out of his clothes, and, in a loose gown of black silk, sat at his open

The next morning, at the breakfast table, he listened with a fleering mouth to his father's long dogmatic grace

before meat. His sister sat opposite their parent, her gaze lowered in a perpetual amazement, her entire person

stamped with a stupid humility. There was nothing humble, however, in Nettie; the crisp French coloring

positively crackled with an electric energy; her mouth was set in a rebellious red blot. Studying her, Edward

Dunsack saw that she was prettier than he had first realized on his return to Salem. He speculated over the

story she had told him yesterday about Gerrit Ammidon's attachment. What an incredible idiot their father

had been: Edward would have relished Gerrit as a brotherinlaw; good would have come to them all from

If he had been in America at the time no such error would have been permitted. With his counsel Nettie

would have caught Ammidon beyond any escape. He wondered if the girl had actually cared for the

shipmaster or if the affair had been nothing more than a sop to her wounded pride and isolation. In a way

beyond his present understanding this seemed to be considerably important. If she had loved him no one

could predict what her attitude might be in any future development of their contact; but if her pride only had

been involved, injured, she might readily be an instrument for his own obscure purposes.

The office where Barzil Dunsack conducted the limited affairs of his West India trading was a small

oneroom building back of the dwelling. There was a high desk at which a clerk stood, or balanced on a

longlegged stool, a more formal secretary against the length of the wall, with a careful model of a full ship,

the spars and standing rigging slack and the whole gray with dust, a builtin cupboard opposite, a dilapidated

chair or so and a tenplate iron stove for wood. A window looked out across the grass to the harbor and

There Edward Dunsack made a column of entries in a script fine and regular but occasionally showing an

uncontrollably tremulous line. He was conscious of this tendency, growing through the past year; and he

surveyed his writing with a feeling of angry dismay. Try as he might, with a frowning concentration, to pen

the words and numerals firmly, presently his attention would slip, his hand waver ever so slightly, and a

sudden stricken appearance of old age fasten on the characters. . . . By heaven, tonight he'd throw all that

Outside the day was immaculate, the expanse of the water was like celestial silk, such sails as he saw

resembled white clouds. The early morning bird song had subsided, but a persistent robin was whistling from

the grass by the open door. The curdlike petals of a magnolia were slowly shifting obliquely to the ground,

he could hear the stir of Derby Street. He was inexpressibly weary of the struggle always racking his being: it

seemed to him that in the midst of a serene world he was tormented by some inimicable and fatal power.

He fastened his thoughts on commonplace happier objects, on the page under his hand, the entries of Medford

rum and sugar cane and molasses, and the infinitely larger affairs of Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone.

There was no reason why he shouldn't call on Jeremy Ammidon's family. The latter had signified by his visit

the desire to end the misunderstanding between them. He was as well born as Gerrit Ammidon; only ill

chance had made them seem differently situated. Anyhow, unlike Canton, mere exterior position had

comparatively little weight in Salem. The shipmasters, the more important merchants, arrogated a certain

superiority to themselves: but it broke down before the inborn democracy of the local spirit.

That afternoon, he decided, he'd be in Pleasant Street; and later he dressed with the most meticulous care. A

growing doubt seized him as he mounted the outside steps of the Ammidons' impressive house; but he

The family, a servant told him, was in the garden; and he followed through a large whitepaneled hall into a

formal drawingroom and green space beyond. He was again uncertain before the number of people grouped

about a summerhouse and apparently watching his approach with cold surprise. But Gerrit Ammidon stepped

"You know my father," he said, and Jeremy Ammidon, his heavy body in linen above which his face was

dusky, put out an abrupt hand. There was a Mr. Brevard, a slender unconcerned person in very fashionable

but restrained clothes; William Ammidon's wife, a large woman in India muslin, handsome enough, Edward

Dunsack conceded, in the obvious American sense; a daugher of William's a girl blooming into womanhood,

The latter had been hidden from him at first, and he saw her suddenly, completely: his surprise caused him to

stand in an awkward suspensenever had he imagined that a woman, even a Manchu, could be so beautiful!

He recognized, in a score of unmistakable details, that she was of irreproachably high birth; her satins were

embroidered with the symbols of nobility and matrimonial felicity; the gold fingernail guards, the jade and

flowering pearls, her earrings and tasseled tobacco pouch and ivory fan, were all in the most superlative

A deep pleasurable excitement filled him as he made his greeting in correct Chinese. The long delicate oval

of her face showed no emotion at the sound of her native speech and she returned his periods in a slowly

chosen mechanical English. Edward Dunsack thought that as he spoke an expression of distaste stamped

Gerrit's features. However, he was left in no doubt: "My wife," the other instructed him, "prefers to speak

A contempt filled Dunsack which he was barely able to keep from his voice and manner. He nodded shortly,

and subsided into a study of Taou Yuen so open that she must have become aware of his interest. Seated on

the bench that circled the interior of the latticed summerhouse she moved so that he could no longer see her

face. Brevard was beside her, talking in a low amused voice: there was a ringing peal of laughter from Sidsall

Ammidon and a faint infinitely well[bred ripple from Taou Yuen. The brilliant patch of her gown made an

extraordinary effect in the Salem garden. Edward Dunsack recognized the scents that stirred from her, more

Eastern and disturbing even than opium: there was a subtle natural odor of musk, the perfumes of henna and

A curious double feeling possessed him in the split consciousness of which he was capablehe had the

sensation of having come, in the suave afternoon garden, on overwhelming disaster, and at the same time he

was enraged by the play of Fate that had given such a woman to Gerrit Ammidon and denied him, with his

special appreciation of Oriental charm, the slightest satisfaction. A more general hatred of Gerrit tightened to

One thing was unmistakably borne upon himin spite of the courtesy he was meeting it was clear that he

could not hope to become a customary visitor at the Ammidons' He was put definitely outside the community

of interests in which Brevard easily entered. William Ammidon joined them, and something like

He remained, however, in a stubborn resistance to small adverse signs in the hope of gaining some additional

facts about Taou Yuen. She had been, he learned, a widow and Gerrit had married her with her

fatherinlaw's consent although the latter was a rich official. He wanted to ask a thousand questions, but he

knew that even if the Ammidons were too dense to grasp his curiosity, Taou Yuen herself would comprehend

his impoliteness. Nowhere else could be found the wisdom and poise of a Manchu lady.

Jeremy Ammidon, in a lawn chair, a smoking cheroot in his fingers, asked him about affairs of Chinese

government and commerce. As the old man talked he flushed darkly with quick indignation. "The English

have made our political diplomats look like stuffed gulls!" he declared. "Look at their Orders in Council and

the British Prize Coiurts," he proceeded, waving his cheroot; "stop an American vessel anywhere and pretend

to find a deserting English sailor. With the Treaty of Ghent and codheaded commissioners and a Congress

that wouldn't know a ship from a bread barge the country's going to hell on greased ways! I've said it a

thousand times and any man not a complete ass knows that you can't run a government without a strong head.

Edward Dunsack listened to this tirade with an air of polite attention which hid completely the fact that he

heard or comprehended scarcely a word. His thoughts were filled by the fragrant vision of Taou Yuen;

already he was deep in the problem of how to see her again, tomorrow. It would be excessively difficult,

Eastern women never, if they could avoid it, walked; and they were, he knew, entirely without the necessity

that drove the women of Salem into a ceaseless round of calling and gossip. It was probable that, except to

ride, she wouldn't leave the house and grounds. He cursed the chance quarrel that had set a customary void

between the houses of Dunsack and Ammidon, the unfortunate affair of his sister and Vollar inescapably

adding to the permanency of the breach; he particularly cursed Nettie. There, however, his mind took up the

twisted thread of the vague possibility that the latter might be useful to him: he was amazed at the way in

which his premonitions fitted into the patter of situations yet to be materialized.

Edward Dunsack turned from his contemplation of Taou Yuen to a careful consideration of Gerrit Ammidon.

The latter had a countenance which showed strong, easily summoned emotions. It was an intolerant face,

Dunsack judged, and yet sentimental; and it was surprisingly young, guileless. At the same time it was

unusually determinedan affair of uncomplicated surfaces, direct gazes, marked bone.

He questioned sharply, irritably, the length to which his projections had reached. What were they all about?

The answer was presented by the glittering figure of the Manchu; she had risen and was standing in the

entrance of the summerhouse. He thought, with a jerking pulse, of Oriental similes; she was a lotuswoman,

a green slip of willow, an ambrosial moon, a mustard flower. Her teeth were white buds, her breasts blanched

His entire life in China had been a preparation for the realization of the present moment. The sense of danger,

of anger at Gerrit Ammidon, perished before the supreme emotion called up by Taou Yuen. He wanted to

embrace her satinshod feet, to cling to her odorous hands, such hands as were never formed out of China,

like petals of coral. Not only her bodily charm intoxicated him, but the thought of her subtle mind added its

attraction, its shadows never to be pierced by the blunted Western instinct, the knowledge of pleasures like

perfumes, the calm blend of the eight diagrams of Confucius, the stoicism of the Buddhistic soul revolving

Brevard left with an easy familiarity, already planning a return, that filled Edward Dunsack with resentful

envy. The sun had disappeared behind the house; long cool shadows swept down the garden; it was past time

for him to go. A reluctance to move from the magic of Taou Yuen possessed him: he was unable to think

how, when, he would next see her. He raged at the prohibition against speaking Chinese; that ability should

give him an overwhelming advantage of Gerrit Ammidon. This was, of course, the reason that he had been

virtually commanded to limit himself to English. Many of the forms of extreme Chinese courtesy were

Finally he rose; in departing he emphasized the importance of Jeremy AmmidonTaou Yuen should

recognize and applaud that. He saw that she was watching him obliquely, her lips in repose, her hands till

among the satin draperies. An American would have betrayed something of her reaction to him, he could

have discovered a trace, an indication, of her thoughts; but the Manchu's face was as inscrutable as porcelain.

William Ammidon nodded, the old man responded to his leavetaking with a degree of warmness, Gerrit at

least smiled in a not unfriendly manner. Edward Dunsack bowed to Taou Yuen, and she gravely inclined her

head. He had a last glimpse of her glowing in the green light of the inclosure of rosebushes and poplars,

At the supper table his sister's appearance in somber untidy black bar�ge, Nettie's unrestrained gestures and

speech, the coarse red cloth and plain boiled fare, all added to a discontent that he could scarcely restrain.

With the utmost discrimination in delicate shades of beauty and luxury he was yet condemned to spend his

days in surroundings hardly raised above povertystricken squalor. Incongruous as it was he could yet

imagine Taou Yuen moving with a certain appropriateness about the Ammidons' spacious grounds and house;

All the vivid scenes that continually formed and shifted in his mind gathered about Gerrit Ammidon's wife.

He used this phrase in a contemptuously satirical manner: it was impossible for Ammidon actually to marry a

Manchu. Such racial mating, he told himself, could not be consummated; there were too many deep

antipathies of flesh and spirit; the man was tootoo stupidly normal. Sooner or later he would swing back to

his own. With him, Edward Dunsack, it was different; he always had an inner kinship with China; at first

The realization of this, when his place with Heard and Company collapsed, had sent him back to America, in

a strange dread. He remembered how the vague fear had followed him to Derby Wharf. Now he laughed at it,

welcoming every Chinese instinct he had. They seemed to throw a bridge across enormous difficulties,

He lingered at the table after supper, his head sunk on his chest, revolving the various aspects of his position.

One thing was definitehe must have Taou Yuen; it was unthinkable that she should continue with Gerrit

Ammidon. It needed skillful planning, tortuous execution, but in the end he'd get his desire. He had no doubt

of that. It was necessary. If she opposed him she would discover that he, too, could be subtle, Oriental,

yesdangerous. None of the stupid inhibitions that, for example, bound his father interfered with he free

"Goodness, Uncle Edward," Nettie exclaimed, "you scared me, you looked so like a Chinee."

"There are no such people," he retorted sharply, exasperated by the vulgar error. She was undismayed; and

when, in reply to the question, she learned that he had been at the Ammidons' her surprise increased his

irritation. He saw from her manner that his calling there had been at least unexpected. Nettie interrupted the

preparation of the table for breakfast, and dropped into a chair beyond him, her handsthe sleeves were

"You must tell me everything," she declared eagerly. "What is she like? Do they seem happy? Did he hold

"I can't remember a question out of your rattle," he interrupted her. He was about to give expression to his

admiration for Taou Yuen, when he stopped, with tight lips. Here, perhaps, was the lever by which so much

"She's Chinese," he said indifferently, "and that means yellow." Nettie made a gesture of distaste. "They seem

to get along well enough. Of course, it's ridiculous to call it a marriage, and it seems to me very questionable

to impose it on the Ammidons as that. The thing ishow long will it last, how soon will he get tired of her

Nettie Vollar closed her eyes, her hands were rigid. The lamplight, streaming up over her face, showed him

that it was tense and pale and answered a question. Her feeling for Gerrit Ammidon had been more than a

mere hurt pride. In addition to that he saw beyond any doubt the proof of its existence still. This complicated

his problem: inspired only b a resentment that he might fan into hatred she would be far more pliable than in

the grip of a genuine affection for Gerrit Ammidon. He understood the processes of the former, a flexible and

useful steel; but no one could predict the vagaries, the absurd selfsacrifices, of love. Well, he'd have to work

with what offered. That, he realized, was the strength of his philosophyhe accepted promptly, without vain

"Ammidon seems worn," he said generally; "they were in the garden, and I had a few words privately with

him." Nettie glanced swiftly across the table; her lips moved; but she repressed the obvious question

trembling on them. "He showed, I think," he continued carefully, "a very improper interest in you."

"He asked if you were well and happy. I most certainly told him, for any number of reasons, for pride alone,

"Of course," he went on smoothly, "I know that you are not, almost all your circumstances prohibit that. But I

don't intend to circulate it in Salem. Opinion here may have forced you into a long loneliness, but I shan't

give anyone the satisfaction of knowing it. And, after all, you have you rgrandfather mostly to blame. You

would have been married to Gerrit Ammidon now if he hadn't interfered; you would have been walking about

the Ammidons' garden with your hand on his arm in place of that Chinese prostitute."

"I don't see why you should make me so miserable," she declared. "I don't care anything about the garden, it

"Pique," he told her; "he couldn't care for her in the way he might for, wellyou. As I said, he'll drop her on

his next voyage to the East; he will leave her and probably never come back to Salem again. I hear that

Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone are planning a new policybigger ships, clippers in the China and

California trade; and that means removal to Boston. Their facilities here are no longer suitable."

She moved, her chin fell upon her hands, propped up with her elbows on the table. Apparently Edward

Dunsack was gazing at the wall beyond her. Her breast gave a single sharp heave. When Nettie looked up her

face was flushed. "I wish that I were really a bad woman," she spoke in a low vibrant voice.

"What is bad and what is good?" He still seemed to ignore her, considering a question that had no personal

bearing. "In one country a thing is thought wrong and in another it is the highest virtue. In one age this or that

is condemned, when, turn the calendar, and everyone is praising it." He became confidential, the image of

kindness. "I'll tell you what I think is wicked," he pronounced, leaning toward her, "and that is the way you

"How do you know?" he demanded. "I cannot agree with you. I don't find a great deal in him to admire, he is

too simple and transparent; but there's no doubt of this, he is faithful. One idea, one affection, is all his head

"It's greatly admired," he agreed; "although not by me. I believe in taking what is yours, what you need, from

life. I suppose that I have been away from proprieties so long that they have lost their importance. They seem

to me of no greater weight than barriers of straw. But, of course, that mightn't suit you; probably, living in

"Salem!" she exclaimed bitterly. "What has it ever been to me but an unfair judgment? I owe Salem no

"I don't want to insist on that," he proceeded deliberately. "The tragedy of your position is that married to

Ammidon everything in the past would have been overlooked, forgotten. Even now" he stopped with a

God, what a vacillating fool the girl was! He could say no more at present, and he rose, leaving the room with

Nettie staring dully across the table. He went outside, to the grass fronting the harbor. Here, last night, he had

thrown the opium into the water. It seemed to him that he had lived through a complete existence since then:

the presence of Taou Yuen had created a new world. He thought she walked to him through the gloom; he

saw her slender body grow brighter as she approached; he heard her speak in a low native murmur; their

He put aside, momentarily, the problem of the difficulties of going again to the Ammidons' for an easier

onethe bringing of Gerrit Ammidon here. He was confident that, thrown together on the still rim of the

water, at evening, the emotion born between his niece and the shipmaster and prematurely choked would

revive. He had no means of knowing Ammidon's present exact feeling for Nettie; he was counting only on a

general theory of men and nature at large. He was already convinced, from very wide knowledge, experience,

that the other could not form a permanent attachment to the Manchu; and Nettie's great difference, together

with the romance of her unhappy position, must have a potent effect on the fellow's evident sentimentality. A

dank air rose from the water, like the smell of death; and, with an uncontrollable shiver, he turned back

In his room Edward Dunsack recalled that he had promised himself to throw away the remainder of the

opium on this and succeeding nights. In view of that his movements were inexplicable: he got out from a

locked chest the yen tsiang, a heavy tube of dark wood inlaid with silver ideograms and diminutive earthen

cup at one end. Then he produced a small brass lamp, brushes, long needles, and a metal rod. Taking off his

clothes, and in the somber black folds of the silk robe, he made various minutely careful preparations.

Finally, extended on his bed, he dipped the end of the rod into opium the color of tar, kept it for a bubbling

moment near the blaze of the lamp, and then crowded the drug into the pipe. He held the bowl to the flame

and drew in a long deep inhalation. A second followed and the pipe was empty. He repeated this until he had

A vivacious and brilliant state of being flooded him; he felt capable of profoundly witty conversation, and

laughed at the solemn absurdities of the Ammidons, at his father attempting to call down a blessing out of the

empty sky upon their food, at his sister's lugubrious countenance, the childish emotions of Nettie. What a

The confines of his room were lost in an amber radiance that filled all space; it was at once a light and a

perfume and charged with a sense of impending rapture. A sparkling crimson shape floated down from

infinite skiesTaou Yuen. She wore a bridal costume, cunningly embroidered with the phoenix, a hood of

thin gold plate, and a band of red silk about her brow bore the eight copper figures of the beings who are

immortal. Her hair was ornamented by the pure green jade pins of summer, her hanging wrists were heavy

with virgin silver, while her face was like the desirous August moon flushed in low vapors.

He raised his bony armsthe wide silk sleeves falling backhis emaciated yellow hands. From under his

dark eyelids there was a glitter of vision like the sheen on mica . . . Taou Yuen floated nearer.

Edward Dunsack woke suddenly, at the darkest ebb of night, and started hurriedly to his feet. A sickening

vertigo, a whirling head, sent him lurching across the room. He came in contact with a chest of drawers, and

clung to it with the feeling that his legs were shriveling beneath him. His consciousness slowly returned, and

with it a pain like ruthless tearing fingers searched his body. The rectangle of the open window, only less

dark than the room, promised a relief from the strangled effort of his breathing, and he fell across the ledge,

lifting his face to a starless and unstirring heat. Waves of complete physical exhaustion passed over him. An

"Oh, God," he said, with numb lips, "we thank Thee for this, Thy daily blessing" He broke off with an

effort. That was his father pronouncing a grace. "Oh God" he said again, when it seemed to him that in

the darkness he saw the blank placidity of a Buddha carved from gray stone. Tears ran over his sunken

THE NIGHT was so oppressive, continuing such an unusually sultry period for the season, that Sidsall,

ordinarily impervious to the effects of weather, was unable to sleep. Although the door between her room and

her parents' was shut, she heard her fatherhis step, at once quick and firm, was easily

recognizablemoving about beyond. Her restlessness increased and she got up, crossing the floor to the

window open on the garden, where she knelt, the thick plait of her hair across her cheek and shoulder, with

her arms propped on the ledge. The depths of sky were hidden in a darkness like night made visible; and, in

place of moving air, there were slow waves of perfume, now from the lilacs and now from the opening hedge

Her brain was filled by a multitude of minor mages and speculations, but fixed at their back was the presence

of Roger Brevard. She approved of him absolutely. He had exactly the formal manner that gave her a pleasant

sense of delicate importance, and his clothes were beautiful, a sprig of rose geranium in a buttonhole and his

gloves and boots immaculate. She liked rather slight graceful men, she thought, with the quiet voices of a

polite ancestry. Naturally Olive Wibird preferred less restrained companions, although Heaven knew that

Olive appeared to make all kinds welcome. Olive's opinion of Roger Brevard would have been very different

Sidsall recalled the quadrille he had led her through at Lacy's party; he had been a perfect partner, at once

light and firm. He had been a habitual caller at Java Head before that occasion, and had come in the same

manner since. That is, casually viewed, his visits seemed the same; but in reality there were some small yet

significant differences. They were all held in his attitude of the afternoon when he had stayed talking

She couldn't say just what the change was; when she attempted to examine it her thoughts became confused

and turned to a hundred absurd considerations, such asat presentthe loveliness of the night. The scents

of the flowers were overwhelming. He got on, too, better than almost anyone else with her Uncle Gerrit's

Manchu wife. She had watched them together until it had dawned on her that the two had some important

qualities in commonthey both appeared to stand a little aside from the world, as if they were against the

wall at a cotillion. She thought this in spite of the fact that it was precisely what Roger Brevard never did; it

was true in the mysterious way of so much now that came from ideas over which she had no control.

The subject of Uncle Gerrit's wifeshe had not yet been told or decided for herself what to call herwas

inexhaustibly enthralling. But, before she was again fairly launched in it, she paused to wonder at the

presence of the dreadful Dunsack man on their lawn. His hollow yellow cheeks and staring brown eyes which

somehow made her think of pain, his restless hands and speech, all repelled her violently. TaouTaou Yuen

hadn't liked him either: when, after the longest time, he had gone, she replied to a short comment from her,

Some one had mentioned opium. She had intended to ask more particularly about this, but it slipped from her

mind. She remembered that her grandfather made one of his familiar exclamations peppered with an

appalling word. He was really very embarrassing, and she was glad that Roger Brevard had left. It was a bad

example for Laurel, too, who copied him, and only that morning said "My God" to Miss Gomes. Her mind

The latter was the fact upon which Camilla was so insistent, that in this case a Manchu was a noble, almost a

princess. Camilla suffered dreadfully from the endless questions put to her outside their house about Uncle

Gerrit's wife. She had more than once wept at the public blot laid on them. Laurel was frankly inquisitive and

The clothes of course were enchanting, the richness of the materials and hand embroidery marvellous; her

jewelry was never ending. It didn't seem quite like clothing, in the sense of her own tarlatan and crinoline, her

waist which Hodie wouldn't properly lace and tulle draping; there was a certain resemblance to the dressing

in Van Amburgh's circus; butin spite of Camilla's private lamentsevery inch of it was distinguished. The

layers of paint upset them, but Uncle Gerrit had explained, a little impatiently, that it was a Manchu custom,

Sidsall liked her rather than not, she decided; and determined to make an effort to know her better. She

wanted especially to discover the nature of the bond that held one to the other, and explore, in safety, the

depths of love. She could not help feeling that her uncle's affair, extraordinary as it was, must throw light on

the whole complicated business of marriage. . . . The clock in the hall struck an indeterminate half hour, it

appeared to grow lighter outside, and there was a twittering of martins from the stables. From above came the

vigorous harsh cawing of crows. Suddenly sleepy she returned to bed and almost immediately the room was

It was an accepted fact now that Taou Yuen, the Garden of Peaches, stayed in her room until long after

breakfast; and when Sidsall, rising from the table, found a servant taking up a pot of hot water for tea, she

secured it and knocked carefully on the door above. The slurring hesitating voice said "Come in," and she

entgered with a diffidence covered by a cheerfully polite morning greeting. She found the other in cr�pe de

Chine pantaloons wrapped tightly about her ankles and bound over quilted muslin socks with gay brocaded

ribbons and a short floating gown of gray silk worked with willow leaves. Her hair was an undisturbed

complication of lustrous black, gold bodkins and flowers massed on either side; and her face, without paint or

Sidsall saw that she was at her toilet, and she put down the pot of steaming water, moving toward the door;

but Taou Yuen, with a charmingly shy gesture, begged her to stay. She swiftly drew a cup of tea from silvery

leaves, filled and lighted the minute bowl of her tobacco pipe, deeply inhaled the smoke; then returned to a

Taou Yuen polished her face sharply with a hot damp cloth and then dipped her fingers in a jar that held a

stick amber substance. "Honey," she said briefly, rubbing it into her cheeks and palms. Next she attacked her

eyebrows, and skillfully wielding a thin silk cord left arches like pencil markings. At times she interrupted

her preparations to turn to Sidsall with a little smile so engaging that the girl smiled sympathetically in

answer. There were a gilt paper box of rice powder, with which she drenched her countenance, leaves of

carmine transferred to her cheeks with a wet finger, and a silver pot of rouge from which she coated her lips.

Her eyes, drawn up toward her temples, shone gayly; and, close to Sidsall, she touched the latter

affectionately on the cheek. The cold sharp contact of the long curving finger guard gave the girl an

unpleasant shock. It seemed lifeless, or like the scratching of a beetle. Suddenly the woman's glittering gaze,

her expressionless face stiff with paint, the blaze of her barbaric colors, filled Sidsall with a shrinking that

She was even more oppressed by an instinctive feeling of what she could express to herself only as cruelty

hidden under the other's scented embroidery. At the same time her curiosity persisted, conquered. She was

unable, however, to think of any possible manner of introducing the new subject of her interest, love, and was

"We were all quite surprised when Mr. Dunsack called yesterday," she said. "He isn't in the least a friend of

the family. Grandfather went to sea with his father, but even they didn't speak for years in Salem. The

"I know," Taou Yuen replied. "Mr. Dunsacka long time in Canton, at the American agents. China is bad

"He never saw a Manchu lady before. In China the dog would not have passed by the first gate. Here it is

nothing to be a Manchu or an honorable wife; it is all like the tea houses and rice villages. Men walk up to

you with bold eyes. I tell Gerrit and he laughs. I stay in the room and he brings me shamefully down. This

Mr. Dunsack comes and the wise old man talks to him like a son. He touches your mother's hand. He sees the

"We wouldn't let him really bother us," Sidsall explained; "probably if he comes again we'll all be out."

Taou Yuen made a comment in Chinese. "A bad thought is a secret knife," she continued; "it is more

dangerous than the anger of the Emperor, a sickness that kills with the stink of bodies already dead."

This seemed rather absurd to Sidsall. She considered once more the introduction of the subject of her new

concern; but, in spite of Taou Yuen's extgravagant appearance, there was a quality of being which made

impossible any blunt interrogation. She had a decidedly aloof manner. Her mother, Sidsall recognized, and

the older women they knew, had a trace of this; but in the Manchu it was carried infinitely further, a most

autocratic disdain. Her feeling for the other shifted rapidly from attitude to attitude.

She watched, she was certain, these same sensations come over her Aunt Caroline Saltonstone, Mrs. Clifford

and Mrs. Wibird, who called on Gerrit Ammidon's wife that afternoon. They were sitting with their crinoline

widspread against their chairs, gazing with a concerted battery of curiosity at Taou Yuen's shimmering figure

in the drawingroom screened against the sun. Mrs. Wibird, Sidsall thoughta woman of fat and faded

prettiness, with wine red splotches beneath her eyes, and a voice that went on and on in the relating of various

petty emotional disturbancesmust have resembled Olive as a girl. It was probable, then, that Olive would

look like her mother when in turn she was middleaged. Mrs. Clifford, unseasonably huddled in her

perpetual shawl, more than ever suggested a haggard marble in somberly rich clothes. Aunt Caroline sat with

complacent hands and loud inattentive speech. Taou Yuen smiled at them placidly.

"Our men," said Mrs. Clifford, "went out to China for years. It never occurred to them however to marry a

"Most of the captains like China," Taou Yuen said. "They are so far away from their families" she made

a brief philosophical gesture, and Madra Clifford studied her with a narrowed gaze. "It would be the same,"

she continued, "if Chinamen came to America." Mrs. Wibird shuddered. "A yellow skin," she cried

"I'm sure we'd be tremendously interested," Mrs. Saltonstone hurriedly put in, "if you'd tell us about your

"My marriage with Captain Ammidon was not beautifulI was a widow and he foreign. The Manchu

wedding is very nice. First there is the engagement ceremony. I sit like this," she sank gracefully to the floor,

crosslegged, "on the bed with my eyes shut, and, if I am noble, two princesses come and put the ju yi, it's

jade and means all joy, on my lap. Two little silk bags hang from the buttons of my gown with gold coins,

and two gold rings on my fingers must be marked with Ta hsi, that's great happiness."

"I'm told polygamy is an active practice," Mrs. Wibird remarked with a rising interest.

"The Emperor has a great many and some Manchus take a second and a third. You think that is wrong here.

Who knows! The Chinese women are very good, very modest. The Four Books For Girls teach perfect

submission; the five virtues are benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, sincerity. Confucius says,

"Very admirable," Mrs. Wibird nodded, agitating the small dyed ostrich plumes tipped with marabou of her

bonnet; but it was clear to Sidsall that this was not the revelation for which she had hoped. A momentary

Mrs. Wibird, growing resentful, said that a cousin of her aunt's had been a missionary to China, "and did a

Taou Yuen smoothly agreed that it was quite possible. "Our poor have a great many wrong and lustful ideas,"

she acknowledge; "they tell lies and beat their wives and gamble. The higher classes too, the mandarins and

princes, use the people for their own security and rob them. Sometimes the law is not honest, and a man with

"I remember," the Manchu went on, "this will amuse you. My fatherinlaw, who was in the Canton

Customs, told me that some boxes of Bibles came out from America, with other objects, and when they were

There was not, however, any marked appreciation of this on the part of the Salem women. They rose to leave

and Taou Yuen sank on her knee. She gazed without a trace of emotion at the three flooding the door with

their belled skirts. "They are the same everywhere," she told the girl. The latter moved out into the garden.

There she subconsciously picked a rose and fastened it in her hair; her thoughts turned to Roger Brevard. In

his place her Uncle Gerrit came out through the drawingroom window. The usual shadow of the house,

lengthening with afternoon, was pleasantly enveloping, and they walked slowly over the grass.

"A flower in your hair," he said, "and by yourself. You have been thinking about true love." She blushed

vividly at this unexpected angle on her mind and found it impossible to meet his keen blue eyes. "Love must

be a remarkable thing." She raised a swift glance to his face and discovered that he had not spoken to her at

"I mean the unreasonable silly divine kind," he specified, now gazing at her quizzically, as if lost in a mood

over which he had no control; "the sort that is as long as life and stronger. It is entirely different and ages

older than the reasonable logical love, all proper and suitable and civilized; or the love that is the result of a

determination, the result of a determination," he repeated, frowning darkly at their feet. Sidsall held her

breath, fearful of diverting what might be yet revealed. But he moved away abruptly, in a manner that

Her brain rang with the splendid phrase, "Love as long as life and stronger." It seemed to clarify and state so

much of her lately confused being. Hodie, artfully drawn into the consideration of earthly affection, was far

less satisfactory than Gerrit Ammidon. She dwelt on the treasure beyond moth or rust, lost in an ecstasy of

contemplation expressed in her customary explosive amens. At the same time she admitted that lower unions

were blessed of God, and recommended Sidsall to think on "a man who has seen the light and by no means a

sea captain." Sidsall replied cuttingly, "I think you must forget where you are."

"I forget nothing," Hodie stoutly maintained; "I'll witness before anyone." She settled the flounces of Sidsall's

Walking toward the Saltonstones' for tea, with a mulberry silk parasol casting a shifting glow on her expanse

of clear madras, Sidsall wondered at the sudden change of almost all her interests and preoccupations. It was

very disturbingshe fell into daydreams that carried her fancy away on a search that was a longing, a soft

confusion of opening her arms to mystery. This varied with a restless melancholy; the old securities of her

life were hidden in a mist of uncertainty in which her consciousness was troubled by nameless pressures;

something within her held almost desperately back from further adventuring. But all the time a latent

The Saltonstones' dwelling on Chestnut Street was one of a paira large solid square of brickwith two

identical oval white porticoes and rows of windows keyed in white stone. Within the staircase swept up to a

slender pillared opening, through which Lacy, calmly dressing, waved a deliberate hand. Mrs. Saltonstone

was seated by the tall gilt framed mirror on a low marble stand between the long front windows. "As usual,"

she said, in connection with her daughter, "Lacy's as cool as a water monkey; gets it from James; they

wouldn't hurry if" She searched in vain for an expression of her family's composure. "Now I am an

impetuous woman." She promptly exhibited this quality in the vigor with which she met the wrong canister of

tea brought by a servant. She didn't intend to serve Padre Souchoung to a lot of people who apparently

In the small press which followed Sidsall stopped in the dining room with Lacy and Olive Wibird. Olive was

still discussing men. "He sat holding my hand right on that bench by your hedge, Sidsall, and said that

nothing could keep him from coming back for me, but he died of yellow fever in Batavia." She left in the

company of a beau of fifty anyhow, with a glistening bald head, a silly smirking bow and flood of

"That looks remarkably like a garden," he said, waving toward an open door. The sun had become obscured

in a veil of cloud, drooping until it almost seemed to rest on the bright green foliage; her companion's mood,

too, was shadowed. "I thought you'd be here," he added outside, "and looked for you at once."

"My dear child," he replied, "can't you guess how absolutely refreshing you are? No, I have nothing special.

She studied this seriously; and, as its complimentary intent emerged, a corresponding color stained her

cheeks. Her gaze rested on him for the fleetest moment possible and, to her surprise, she saw that he was

"I came here just to see you. No," he corrected his period, "only to see you." His manner was surprisingly

abrupt and disconcerting. "I can quite realize," he went on, "that I shouldn't say any of this. Yet, on the other

hand, it is the most natural thing in the world. I have been listening to the conventional babble of teas and

cotillions for so long that you are like a breath of lost youth. Certainly that is appropriate. I think," he told

her, "that you are the youngest thing alive." Then he laughed, "So young that I have annoyed you."

"That is a tragedy." She felt that if he were still amused at her she was furious, but he was even graver than

before. "To tell you helps hurry the charm to an end. That is what might be complained against me. Yet

"Why, it means, Sidsall, that I am offering you an experienced hand, that I'm certain I can do you more good

"That's silly," she interrupted. "If you mean that we might be friends, really confidential friends, it would help

"You'll have to overlook that," he answered; "probably all that I can give you, experience, isn't worth the

smallest of your feelings. Probably you won't need me for an instant. Certainly the pleasure will be mine."

"You didn't understand," she told him, with dignity; "it's the other way round. I am not a particle interesting

and everyone agrees that I'm too healthy. But I can't help it if my cheeks are red and mother won't let me have

"I like it," he insisted. "I'll admit that I am unfashionable there. I think we'll hit on a great deal to share

privately." There was a faint patter among the leaves, and a cold drop of rain fell on Sidsall's arm. Others

struck Roger Brevard but he continued without apparently noticing them. "You must understand that I am

entirely at your service. Sometimes, although they won't come yet, there are things aa friend can do better

"Yes," she said solemnly. More rain struck her; she could see it now plainly, falling between them. Roger

Brevard's face was dark, the frown still scarred his forehead. Personally she was happier than she

remembered ever being before and she wondered at his severity of bearing. "But you must go in at once," he

cried, suddenly energetic, his familiar self; "you are getting wetter every minute."

The clouds dissolved into a late sunlight that streamed in long bars through the canopies of elms on the

streets. From her windows Sidsall saw a world of flashing greenery and limpid sky. Usually when she was

happy she sang unimportant bits of light song, but her present state was serious and inarticulate. The

indeterminate questions, the disturbing vague moods, of the past days somehow combined and took on the

tangible shape of Roger Brevard. Her curiosity about love was resolved into a sudden inner shrinking from its

She was lost in her aloofness from mundane affairs: Taou Yuen in whispering silk, her grandfather's rotund

tones, Laurel and Camilla and her mother, were distant, immaterial. In the evening she sat on the front steps,

a web of white, dreamily intent on the shimmering sweep of Washington Square. After a little she was joined

by Gerrit Ammidon. He wore linen trousers and a short blue sea jacket; and the wavering delicately lavender

"The land doesn't do for a sailor," he continued. "They are always into trouble on shore. I can't say why it

should be so but it is. If there's not one kind there is another; rum and such varnish for the able seaman,

andand complications for a master. I suppose that's because there are so confounded many unexpected

currents and slants of wind, as you might say. On shipboard everything pretty much is charted; a thing will be

followed more or less by a fixed consequence. The waves break so and so on coral or rocks or sand; there is

usually the sun for an observation; a good man knows his ship, how many points she'll hold on the wind, how

a cargo must be stowed, when to take in the light canvas. You can give the man at the wheel a course and turn

in or stay on deck and beat your way through hell. It's exact, you know, but on shore" he made a

"There are no regulations," he observed moodily; "or else nobody follows them: collisions all the time,

sinkings and derelicts drifting around, awash and dismasted. But they are everywhere. That fellow, Edward

Dunsack" he stopped, lost in speculation. Then, "He seems harmless enough," he resumed, "even

pitiful; but he sticks in your head. I wish I'd never brought his damned chest to Salem. A fool would have

known better. I'm worsea childish fool. A derelict," he said again. "You are smashing over a swell at

twelve knots or more, everything spread, when, in a hollow, there it is squarely across you bow. No time to

shift the wheel, and a ship's missing, perhaps in a hundred fathom. It might be the best ship afloat, the best

He laughed uneasily at the vividness of his fancy. "If it's hard for us what must it be for Taou Yuen?" he

demanded. "Married to me! Here! That's courage for you." He tramped down the steps, across Pleasant

Street, with his bare head sunk, and vanished into the obscurity of the Square. She caught a last glimmer of

white trousers, a faint rapid gleam where his lighted cheroot described the arc of a passionate gesture on the

The spring, like the full buds of the hedge roses in the Ammidons' garden, passed swiftly into early summer.

The flowers against the house showed gay perennial colors, the stocks and larkspur and snapdragons

succeeded the retreating flood of the lilacs. The days were still yellow pools of heat, or else cooled by the

faintly salt sea wind drawing down the elms and chestnuts, followed by purplegreen nights of moonlight.

They seemed to Sidsall to hold everything in a pause. She saw less and less of Taou Yuen who now scarcely

came out of her room except for an occasional ride in the barouche with Mrs. Ammidon or a contemplative

hour in the garden, usually at dusk. Apparently content with the elaborate rearrangement of her headdress,

she sat for long periods, gazing out over Washington Square, idle except for the regular tap of her pipe

Yet Sidsall's first interest in her had almost completely shifted to Gerrit Ammidon. He evidently preferred her

company to that of the other members of his family, and they often took short largely silent walks, usually

down to the Salem Marine Railway where the Nautilus was undergoing repairs. His protracted silences were

broken by the sudden vehement protests against the generally muddled aspect of affairs or longer monologues

of inner questioning and search. He almost never referred to her or made her part of a conversation; she was

free to dwell on her own emotions while he, with a corrugated brow, went on in his tortuous and solitary

On an afternoon when they had walked to the foot of Briggs Street, and were gazing out over the tranquil

Sidsall was unable to remember exactly when that had been. She rather thought she had caught a glimpse of

her in Lawrence Place with books under her arm which she was probably taking from the Athen�um for her

grandfather. Anyone, she told herself privately, could see that Nettie Vollar wouldn't care for books.

Something had occurred, or threatened to occur, between her uncle and Nettie; what it was she had never

been told; but she realized that only one thing could really happen between a man and a girlthey must have

been in love. In the interest of this she recalled Nettie Vollar's appearance, but was unable to discover any

marked attractions. The elder had a good figure, rather full for her age, and totally different from her own

square solidity. Her hair was coarse and carelessly arranged, her clothes noticeable for a love of brightness

He was standing immobile, looking across the Cove as if he were on a quarterdeck searching for a hidden

land. His legs were slightly spread, firmly planted in a manner to defeat any sudden lurching. She grew a

little impatient at him staring like a block at nothing at all; she felt older than he, superior in the knowledge of

life; he seemed hardly more than an absurd boy. Sidsall had a desire to shake him. He was soso

impracticable. "Don't you think we'd better be going?" she asked finally. Gerrit Ammidon turned and

There were lights in the rope walk on Briggs Street; through a window she could see a man pacing down the

long narrow interior laying a strand of hemp from the burden on his shoulders. It made her shudder to think

of the monotonous passage forward and back, an eternity of slowtwisting rope. Yet life was something like

thatshe took the happenings of each day and wove them into a strand dark and bright: a strand, she

realized, that grew stronger as it lengthened. . . . That would be true of everyoneof her companion and

They reached the house as the family were gathering in the dining room, when Sidsall found Roger Brevard

unexpectedly staying for supper. She met his direct greeting and smile with a warm stir of pleasure and sat in

a happy silence listening to the voices about the table. Her uncle had brought his wife down and the candles

glittering among the lusters on the walls spread their light over the Manchu's strange vivid figure. Everything

about life was so confusing, Sidsall thought. The night flowed in at the open windows drenched with magic:

here were candles but outside were stars. The port in its engrave glass decanter seemed to burn with a ruby

flame. "Bah!" her grandfather was exclaiming. "I'll put a thousand dollars on Gerrit and the Nautilus against

"Voyage by voyage," William Ammidon insisted, "he would be left in the harbor. The California gold

Later a crowd, slowly collecting, recalled the fact that the Salem Band was to play that night in the Square.

"Oh, mother, look," Laurel cried; "they've got lamps in their hats." Small wavering flames were being lighted

on the musicians' hats; there were melancholy disconnected hoots from bassoons and the silver clear scale of

a bugle. "Can't I get nearer, mother?" Laurel implored as usual. "Can't I go and see the little lamps on their

"Sidsall and I will look after her," Roger Brevard put in, and almost immediately the three were entering

Washington Square. The throng was thickest directly behind the band, radiating in thinning numbers to the

wooden boundary fence. Laurel led them to an advantageous position, where they could watch the curious

effects of the ring of lights above intent faces drawn hollowcheeked by the vigorous blowing of instruments.

The leader, in the center of the flickering smoky illumination, now beat with his arms in one direction, now in

A second selection followed, and a third, during which, in surprising pauses, the band shouted a concerted

"Hurrah!" Sidsall was infinitely contented. How splendidly erect and calm and distinguished Roger Brevard

was! She hated younger men, they were only boys, who kept up a senseless talk about college humor. He saw

instantly that the people were crushing her skirts, and firmly conducted them out of the crowd. It was nicer

here beyond the wavering dark mass: a waltz flowed about her so tender and gracious that her eyes filled with

But Laurel had to be taken home; and, clasping Mr. Brevard's hand, the little girl talked volubly as they

Only Gerrit Ammidon was on the steps, the other men were in the library; her mother had gone up with Janet.

Laurel left them, and, without speech, they walked through the house to the lawn. The stars had apparently

retreated to new infinities of distance and night, there was a throb of music so faint that it might be only an

"No," she returned seriously, lifting her look to his. He was very close to her and her heart beat unsteadily.

She had a choking premonition of what was about to occur, but she stood without the slightest attempt to

prevent his kiss. It affected him even more than herself, for he stepped back sharply with his hands clenched.

"Thank you," he replied almost harshly. "There's no need for you to regret it. No need, no need. But if it were

"So we do, Sidsall, and we change. But you should stay exactly as you are now, white and young and

fragrant. Never the fruit but always the blossom, and always a night in early summer. The afterwards is an

"Sidsall, for a moment. Don't moveopening petals, shy pure heart . . . loveliness . . ."

"I don't understand," she repeated, but the trouble had vanished. She even smiled at him: she was filled with

an absolute security in her vision of Roger Brevard. Why, she had no need of question; it was an instinct

beyond search and above knowledge; perhaps, she thought as they turned toward the house, its name was

THE DAYS, to Nettie Vollar, seemed to be both unutterably dull and colored by a possibility of excitement

like an undercurrent of hardly perceptible fever. Her mother, it was true, took on herself most of the duties of

Barzil Dunsack's house; but there were still a large number of little things that returned unvaried with every

morning, noon and night for the girl's attention. The cause of any impending excitementexcept the mere

presence of Gerrit Ammidon in Salem, now surely of no moment to hershe was unable to place. The

feeling that pervaded her most was the heavy conviction that her life was a complete waste, she had the

sensation of being condemned to stay in surroundings, in a service, that never for a moment represented her

true desires or true capabilities. Her family, as she had grown into maturity, seemed strange, her place there

At her brightest periods she pictured being suddenly, arbitrarily, removed into happier appropriate regions.

For a time that vision had assumed the tangible shape of Gerrit Ammidon; then this comfortable figure had

abruptly left her to an infinitely more seldom return of her faint indefinite hope.

Through the inordinate number of hours when she was potentially alone she had developed a strain of almost

painful thought out of keeping with the whole of her naturally unreflective being. In moments such as the

presentshe was sitting in her room overlooking Hardy Street on its landward reachshe followed the slow

turnings of her mind in the manner of a child spelling out a sentence. Two things seemed to her of the first

importancethe existence into which she had been forced by the circumstance of her birth, and her unknown

father himself" unknown, that is, except for vague promptings and desires which, for need of a better reason,

she traced to his personality. That he was superior, in that he had had a distinct measure of gentle blood, she

was assured by her mother on one of the rare occasions when the subject was touched between them. To that

she credited the greater part of her obscure dissatisfaction with conditions which she described as mean.

The latter evidently didn't disturb her mother or grandfather; she realized that the longdrawn silent severity

of the old man had crushed what spirit her mother may have had. It was clear that the elder woman had been

very pretty, with wide fluttering eyes which made you think of gray moths, and delicately colored cheeks; but

all that had been crushed, too. She was meek in a way that filled her daughter with determined resentment

and fear. The resentment sprang from the silent assertion that she wouldn't be worn down like that; the fear

followed the realization of the rigid power of the old man and the weight of all that held her powerless to

escape. Naturally she was rather cheerful than somber, an involuntary gayety rose from her in the drabbest

The prospect from her window offered no relief from the interior; it was true that in the other direction she

could catch glimpses of the harbor, by leaning out she could get the comparatively full sweep at the bottom of

the street; but there were usually things ugly and restraining between her and the freedom of the horizon. Her

favorite place had been at the edge of the grass above the tide; but, since his return, Edward Dunsack had hit

upon it too, and his proximity made her increasingly uneasy. For one thing he talked to himself out loud,

principally in Chinese, and the sliding unintelligible tongue, accompanied by the sight of his gaunt yellow

face, his inattentive fixed eyes, gave her an icy shiver. It was almost worse when he conversed with her in a

She rose and wandered finally to the embankment of the garden. The water shimmered under the full flood of

afternoon; she was gazing at the distance in an aimless manner that had lately fastened on her when she heard

a stirring of the grass behind her and Edward Dunsack approached. He was livid in the pitiless light, and

seemed terribly fragile, a thing that a mere clap of thunder might crumble to nothing; she felt that she could

sweep him away with a broom; yet at the same time there were startling gleams of inner violence, a bitter

"If you should ask me," he declared, "if my opinion is of any value, I'd say that Ammidon owed you

considerable. He led you to expect something better than his running away without a word; I'd have an

explanation out of him. Of course, if he had come back marriedthis affair with a Chinese woman isn't

thatit would be all over. But, somehow, with things as they are, I can't believe that it is."

He turned such a malicious face on her that instinctively she moved back. For a moment he was silent, his

meager leaden lips drawn tight over dark teeth in a dry grin, his fingers like curved wires; then, relaxing, he

cursed the entire house of Ammidon. "The truth is," he ended, "that you were a little fool; you had

everything, everything, in your hand and threw it away." His gaze strayed from her to the surface of the

water, a short distance from the land. "Threw it away," he repeated; "it can't be got in this country either."

He was, she thought, crazy. However, all that he said about Gerrit lingered in her mind; it fanned to new life

the embers of her rebellion. If a chance should come she would let Gerrit Ammidon know something of the

wrong he had done her. As her uncle had pointed out, the Chinese woman was different from an American, a

white woman. Their entire position, Gerrit's and her own, was peculiar, outside ordinary judgments.

She saw him occasionally from a distance, as she must continue to do while he was in Salem, since no

opportunity had been made for them to exchange words. That must come from Gerrit.

Her mother called her, and she went in, finding the elder in the kitchen. "I can't get enough heat to bake," she

worried; "you can bear your hand right in the oven. Your grandfather won't have his sponge biscuit for

supper." Nettie declared, "I certainly wouldn't let it bother me. Just tell him and let him say what he likes."

"I know exactly what you're going to say," Nettie cut in, "he has it every night and he'll expect it. How much,

I'd like to ask, have you been expecting all your life and getting nothing? And now I am the same. I don't

believe we're as wicked as grandfather lets on, and I'm certain he's not so good as he thinks. I don't admit we

are going to hell, either; if I did I can tell you I'd b different. I'd have a good time like some other girls I see. I

guess it would be good, anyhow, with silk flounces four yards around. I'm what I am because I don't listen to

him; I don't pay any attention to the pious old women who make long faces at us."

"You mustn't talk like that, Nettie," her mother protested anxiously. "It has a right hard sound. Your

grandfather is a very upright religious man. It's proper for those who sin to suffer in this world that they may

"I don't want to be humble," Nettie told her. "The Ammidons aren't humble. Mrs. Saltonstone isn't." A pain

deepened visibly on the elder's pale countenance. "You mustn't think it doesn't hurt me, Nettie, toto see

you away from all the pleasure. It tears at my heart dreadful. That is part of the punishment." The girl made a

vivid gesture, "But you sit back and take it!" she cried. "You talk of it as punishment. I won't! I won't! I'm

"I don't know," Nettie admitted. "But if I had it to do over I'd kiss Gerrit Ammidon as soon as he looked for

"Yes," she answered shortly. "He's like that. Whatever you might say against him he's honest."

Her mother began to cry, large slow tears that rolled out of her eyes without a sound. She sat with lax

hopeless hands in her lap of cheap worn dress stuff. Nettie Vollar felt no impulse toward crying; she was

bright with angeranger at what Barzil Dunsack had done with her mother, at the harm he had worked in

her. "You are a saint compared to Uncle Edward," she asserted. "I don't know what's wrong with him, but

"I've noticed it too: times his eyes are glazed like, and then his staring at you like a cat. It's a fact he doesn't

eat right, and he forgets what's said as soon as a body speaks. Might he have some Chinese disease, do you

The evening in the dreary sitting room with only the reddish illumination of one lamp was almost

unendurable. Her grandfather sat with broad wasted hands gripping his shrunken knees, his eyes gazing

stonily out above a nose netted with fine blue veins and harsh mouth almost concealed by the curtain of

beard. Edward rose uneasily and returned, casting a swelling and diminishing shadowobscurely unnatural

like himselfover the faded and weatherstained wall paper. Her mother was bowed, speechless. Nettie

wanted to scream, to horrify them all with some outrageous remark. She would have liked to knock the lamp

from the table, send it crashing over the floor, and see the flames spread out, consume the house, consume . . .

She didn't want things like that in her mind, she continued, but the echo of dancing, of music, of the Salem

Band marching up Essex Street with Mr. Morse playing his celebrated silvery fanfare on the bugle. She

wanted to laugh, to talk, yesto love. Why, she was young, barely twentyone; and here she was in a house

like the old cemetery on Charter Street. Before they went to bed her grandfather would read out fro the Bible,

but always the Old Testament. Finally he rose and secured the volume, bound in dusty calf, its pages brown

"'Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the Lord, they God, when he led thee by

"'And now what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Sihor? Or what hast thou to do in

"'Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know therefore and see

that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou has forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith

"'For of old I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bonds; and thou saidst, I will not transgress; when upon

"'Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant

Nettie was impressed, intimidated, in spite of the contrary resolution in the kitchen: the words seemed to burn

into her mother, herself, like boiling fat from a pan; and a great relief flooded her when she could escape

again to the temporary relief of her room. It was hot, the windows were up, and she made no light that might

attract mosquitoes or force her to draw the close shades. She stood undressed luxuriating in the sense of

freedom of body. She was richly white in the gloom: her full young beauty gave her a feeling of contentment

and strength, and, equally, a great loneliness. It wasn't corrupt, a "degenerate plant," she thought with a

She determined to say no prayer to such a ruthless Being; yet, soon after, in her coarse nightgown, she found

herself kneeling by the bed with hardclasped hands. It was a prayer for which Barzil Dunsack would have

had nothing but condemnation: she implored the dark, the mystery of Augustness, for carnal and light things,

yesfor waltzes and quadrilles and songs and pleasure, young pleasure, all the aching desires of her health

and spirit and nature and years; but most for love. She said the last blindly, in an instinct without definition,

with the feeling that it was the key, the door, to everything else; and in her mind rose the image of Gerrit

Ammidon. She saw his firm direct countenance, the frosty blue eyes and human warmth. He needn't have

come at all, she added, if it had been only to double the dreariness of her existence.

She wondered a little, her emotion subsiding, at the interest her uncle showed in her affairs. It wasn't like

what else she had gathered of him; and she searched, but without success, for any hidden reason he might

have. He actively blackened the name of Ammidon while he was lost in too great an indifference to b e

moved by any but extraordinary pressures. Everything left his mind, as her mother had said, almost

A wind moved in from the sea, fluttering the light curtains, and brought her a sense of coolness and release. It

came from the immense free sweep of ocean to which her sinking consciousness turned in peaceful

Altogether in the days that followed, she realized a greater degree of mental freedom than before her revolt.

She had removed herself, it appeared, a little outside the family, almost as if she were studying them calmly

through a window: a large part of the terror her grandfather had possessed for her had disappeared, leaving

for her recognition a very old and worn man; she was sorry for her mother with a deep affection mixed with

impatience. At first she had tried to put something of her own revived spirit in the older woman but it was

like pouring water into a cracked glass: her mother was too utterly broken to hold any resolution whatever.

Nettie's feeling for Edward Dunsack became an instinctive deep distrust. It was almost impossible for her to

remain whenas he so often did nowhe approached her to talk about the injustice of her mode of life and

the debt Gerrit Ammidon owed her. He would stand with his fingers twitching, talking in a rapid sharp voice,

blinking continuously against any light brighter than that of a shaded room or dusk. He seldom left the office

or went out through the day; his place at the dinner table was far more often empty than not. But after their

early supper, in the long late June twilights, he had an inexhaustible desire for her to stroll with him. She

occasionally agreed for the reason that they invariably passed in the vicinity of Washington Square and

Pleasant Street, and saw the impressive block of the Ammidon mansion. However, they never met any of its

inmates. Once they had walked directly by the entrance; some girls, perhaps a woman, certainly two men,

were grouped in the doorway: it was growing dark and Nettie couldn't be certain.

Edward Dunsack clearly hesitated before the bricks leading in between the high white fence posts topped

with carved twisting flames; and, in a sudden agony at the possibility of his stopping, Nettie hurried on, her

Her uncle followed her. There was a trail of intimate merriment from the portico, a man's voice mingling

gayly with those of the girls. "That was the Brevard who's in the Mongolian Marine Insurance Company,"

Edward Dunsack informed her. "I hear he's a great hand for leading cotillions and ballsthe balls you ought

to take part in." On and on he went with the familiar recital of her wrongs. It carried them all the way over

Pleasant and Essex and Derby Streets home. The next day, however, he was forced to go about the town, and

He ate without attention whatever was before him, and extravagantly pleasant, related how he had conversed

with Mrs. Gerrit Ammidon in the family carriage in front of the countinghouse of Ammidon, Ammidon and

Saltonstone on Liberty Street. Nettie was surprised that his concern was caused by such a commonplace

event. "The women of China," Words failing him, he waved a dry hand. His father frowned heavily.

Then, abruptly, as if he had been snatched out of his chair by an invisible powerful clutch, he started up and

The afternoon passed the full and Nettie, bound in preparation for supper for Redmond's, the Virginia

Oysterman at Derby Wharf, stood waiting for some money. "I can't think where I left my reticule," her

mother called, "unless it's in Edward's room where I cleaned this morning. Just run up and see. . . . He'll be at

Above, Nettie found the door closed, but it opened readily as she turned the knob: she went in without

hesitation. The interior she naturally thought was empty; and then, with an unreasoning cold fear, she saw

that Edward Dunsack was lying on the bed. Some of his clothes were tumbled on the floor, and he wore his

black Chinese gown. The room was permeated with a heavy smooth odor; on a stand at her uncle's hand was

a curious collection of strange objectsa little brass lamp with a flickering bluish flame, a black and silver

object like a swollen unnatural pipe, stained bodkins, a lump of what she took to be tar

Her attention was caught by Edward Dunsack's face: it had fallen back with his pinched chin pointing toward

the ceiling, it was the color of yellow clay, and through his halfopened eyelids was an empty glimmer of

graywhite. She shrank away involuntarily, and the word "Dead" formed just audibly on her trembling lips.

In an instant she was in the hall, calling in a panicstricken voice, her icy hands at her throat; and her

grandfather mounted the stair with surprising agility, followed by his daughter Kate.

"Uncle Edward," Nettie articulated, waving toward the room from which she had fled. The two women

followed the rigid advance of Barzil Dunsack. As he saw the figure of his son there was a stabbing gasp of

his breath. He halted for a moment, and it seemed to Nettie Vollar that suddenly his determined carriage

crumbled, his shoulders sagged; then he went forward. The bed had high slender posts that at one time

supported a canopy, but now they were bare, and an old hand held to one as he bent over.

Barzil Dunsack made no immediate reply; his gaze turned from his son to the stand, the fluttering lamp and

its accessories. His head moved slowly in the act of sniffing the pungent haze swimming in the interior.

Nettie could see his face, and she was appalled by an expression grimmer than any she remembered; it was

both harsh, implacable, and stricken, as empty of blood as the countenance on the bed. The hand on the post

tightened until it, too, was linen white. She drew close to her mother's side, putting a supporting arm about

"No," said Barzil Dunsack, in a booming voice, "not dead, and yet dead forever. Go downstairs," he

commanded. They backed confused to the door. "If Edward is sick" Kate Vollar began. The old man's

face blazed with intolerable pain and anger. "Woman," he demanded, "can you cure what God has smitten?"

His eyes alone, hard and bright in the seamed and hairy face, drove them out into the hall. Below in the

"Whatever it is," her mother returned, "it's dreadful bad. I've felt that all along about Edward; he's never been

himself this last time." Mechanically she found her reticule beside the painted ostrich egg from Africa.

"You'll have to get the oysters anyhow," she told her daughter, maintaining the inevitable pressure of small

Nettie escaped with an enormous relief into the sunny normal tranquility of the afternoon. The house had

become too horrible to bear; and even on the thronged length of Derby Wharf, like a street robbed of its

supports and thrust out into the harbor, she was followed by the vision of Edward Dunsack's peaked clayey

She got the oysters, and in an overwhelming reluctance to return walked out to the end of the wharf, where a

ship was discharging her cargoheavy plaited mats of cassia with a delicate scent, red and blue slabs of

marble, baskets of granular cakes of gray camphor, rough brown logs of teak, smooth dull yellow rolls of

gamboge, bags with sharp conflicting odors, baled silks and half chests of tea wrapped in bamboos and

There Nettie found herself beside a little girl clasping the hand of a bulky old gentleman in pongee and a

palm leaf hat and following every operation with a grave critical regard. "I guess," she said to her companion,

"it's only the cheap sort of tea, a late picking, or it would be in canisters." She was, Nettie realized, the

youngest Ammidon child with her grandfather. The latter looked round and recognized Nettie Vollar. "How's

She was at a loss for an answer, since she could not describe the subject of the inquiry as all right nor explain

their unhappy condition. "Intend to stop in," Jeremy Ammidon continued; "last time I was there I went up

like a rocket." Laurelthat was the child's name, she rememberedgazed at her intently. "I was saying to

grandfather," she repeated precisely, "that this wasn't really much of a cargo. Nothing like the one Uncle

Gerrit brought back in the Nautilus. We were having an argument about Salem too. But, of course, all the big

"You're William all over again," he asserted, almost annoyed. Both their expressions grew stubborn in a

manner than, in view of their great difference in age and experience, Nettie thought quite absurd. What a

beautiful dress the child had onPorto Rico drawn work, with pale yellow ribbons to her bonnet. "I wish

you'd stay here a minute with Nettie Vollar," Jeremy told her, "while I see the wharfinger." He went

"She's not much of a ship either," Laurel said, indicating the Rose and Rosalie. "She's built likelike

grandfather. They're different now. I went to New York to see the Sea Witch launched, and she's the tallest

vessel afloat, with three standing skysail yards and ringtail and water sails. She's black and has a gilded

dragon for a figurehead; and, although she went out in a gale, got to Rio in dtwentyfive days. I talked to

How the child ran on! "You've studied a lot on ships," Nettie commented. "I know the main truck from a

jewel block," Laurel replied complacently. "But Camilla's a frightful lubber. I should think she'd make Uncle

Gerrit sick. She does me." Nettie Vollar was seized by the temptation to question Laurel about Gerrit

Ammidon, about his wifeanything that touched or concerned him. A wave of emotion swept over her, a

loneliness and a desire the cause of which she would not face. She wanted to take Laurel's hand in hers, and

with the old ponderous comfortable gentleman go up to the serenity of their gardens and wide happy house.

She wanted Gerrit Ammidon to smile at her with his eyes blue like a fair sea. . . . His father was returning.

Laurel again grasped the large hand and they turned to leave. Jeremy Ammidon nodded to Nettie. Nothing

remained for her but the place on Hardy Street; then she saw that the others had stopped and were signaling

for her. "Captain Dunsack . . . old friend," the elder said abruptly. "Stubborn as the devil. No worse than me,

though, no worse than me. Confounded proud, too. You let me know if there is anything, that is, if you

need" he paused, breathing stormily, glaring at her in an assumed angry impatience.

What most shocked her on the return home was the manner in which their life callously continued when she

felt it should have been shattered by their suffering in Edward Dunsack's room; yet not so much theirs as her

grandfather's. He took his place at the head of the table, the grace went up as loudly as ever above their

heads; but in spite of that she was that the old man suddenly looked infinitely spent. His knife slipped

insecurely and scraped against the plate in fumbling and palsied hands. All at once she had a feeling of

gazing straight into his heart, and findinglike a burning ruby hidden in earthsuch agony beneath his

Nettie wondered what he would do if she put an affectionate arm about his neck and told him of their

sympathy. She knew now that her Uncle Edward had been smoking opium, and that it was a worse vice, more

hopeless and destructive, than drink. But she was certain that he'd repel her; he looked on them all, Edward

Dunsack, her mother and herself, as sinful, "degenerate plants." Even now, she realized, there was no

weakening of his spiritual fibers such as had plainly overtaken his physical being. He had a blasting contempt

When they had risen from the table, Edward Dunsack appeared and sinking weakly into a chair demanded a

cup of tea. He knew nothing of their discovery, of the fact that they had stood above his revolting

insensibility. After the tea he seemed to revive; he lighted a cheroot and said something about going out. It

wasn't possible, however; his knees sagged walking the length of the floor; in the sitting room he fell into a

leaden apathy. Nettie Vollar's gaze rested on the volume f the life of the missionary who had died at such an

early age on the �le de France. The lamplight spread over the depressing mustard yellow paint of the

woodwork with its obviously false graining and deepened the blackness of the fireplace. Throughout the

reading of the Scripture Edward Dunsack never shifted his lumped position; his face, with smudged closed

eyes, seemed fixed in a skeptical smile. The hollows of his temples were green. The reading finished, old

The latter straightened up. "Eh?" he exclaimed. "What?" He resettled his stock and crossed a knee with a

show of ease. Nettie followed her mother from the room. Her last impression was that of a startling

resemblance between the young man and oldher uncle's face was as ruined as the other'sbetween father

and son. "I wish he'd go away," her mother surprisingly asserted; "I won't sleep for thinking of him lying

"He'll not," Nettie replied, musing; "something is holding him we still don't know of."

She had lately begun to realize a great many things of which only a month before she had not been

awarethat sudden illuminating grasp of old Barzil's inner pain, of her mother's wasted spirit, and the sense

that some unguessed potent motive was at the back of her Uncle Edward's apparently erratic strolling and

reiterations. Nettie stopped to wonder a little at the change in herself: she was more alive, more included.

There were no reasons that she could see why this should be so; never had the present, the entire future, been

darker. With her deeper consciousness, too, came an increased shrinking from life, a greater capacity for

injury; and there could be no doubt that it was an older Nettie Vollar who, in her mirror, returned the

No further mention was made of the opium, no hint escaped from the two men of what Barzil Dunsack had

said to his son after the evening reading of the Bible. An evidence of the miserable episode was visible for a

while in the difficulty of any attempted general conversation; then that died away and everything was

seemingly as it had been before. But the rising gayety and widespread public preparations at the approach of

the Fourth of July made her existence drabber than before. There was, too, unusual planning, for later in the

The various military organizations drilled incessantly: the Salem Light Infantry, the Mechanic Light Infantry,

the Salem Cadets and Independents and a squad of the Salem Artillery might be seen at any hour of the

morning or early evening smartly marching and countermarching, led by Flag's or the Salem Band. Strange

constructions of light wood climbed in Washington Squarethe set pieces of the celebrated pyrotechnist

secured at a "staggering expense." Preliminary strings of firecrackers were exploded by impatient boys and

All this was communicated to Nettie in the form of a determination to forget the dreariness of home and for

once anyhow be a part of the careless holiday town. Edward Dunsack opened the day be deprecating what

fireworks Salem could show and recalling the extravagant art of China in that particular. No one, he said, of

the least moment would be abroad in the rabble; and he intended to spend the day over the invoice of a

schooner returned from Cura�ao. She was glad of this, for it left her free to get an uninterrupted pleasure from

the morning parade, the floats and fantasies, the afternoon drilling in Washington Square, and see the last

colored disk of the fireworks. Maybe, she told herself, tying the becoming ribbon of her bonnet beneath a

round chin with a lurking dimple, maybe she wouldn't come back home once during the entire day! She

ignored, in the rush of her spirits, even her mother's lonely labors: for once they'd have to do without her.

Nettie took a scarlet merino shawl for the cooler evening, shook forward the little black curls about her face,

She was swept along in the crowd on Essex Street until, before the office of the Salem Register, she found a

place that commanded the parade. There Nettie lost all memory of the dreariness that pressed upon her; she

became one of the throng, applauding the members of the East India Marine Society carrying the palanquin

from the Museum in native dress, or stood with sentimental tears blurring her vision. The parade ended, and

currents of people swept toward dinner; but she stopped at a baker's and got a paper of seed cakes, made in

The thought of Gerrit Ammidon, with all the other deeper aspects of her life, was thrust into the back of her

consciousness; she was existing as she breathedwithout will; the instinctive lighter qualities had her in full

possession. She felt that her cheeks were glowing and hummed the refrains of the music she had heard. One

by one the military companies marched into the Square. She was fascinated by the tall leather helmets and

silver straps under severe young lips. The Newburyport men were in a new scarlet uniform, that was the

Boston Brass Bandit was painted on the bass drumwith the Independents; there were the Beverly Taylor

The drilling and countermarching proceeded and the afternoon waned. At the disposal of the spectacle, when

for an hour or two Washington Square was comparatively deserted, when the sun sank lower and lower over

the roofs of Brown Street and the gold haze thickened, turning to blue, Nettie became quieter but no less

happy. The time sped; never was she conscious of being lonely, by herself in a multitude composed of

grouped families and friends. It was all such a beautiful relief to the other constant dwelling on somber and

hopeless facts! Already people were streaming in under the wooden arched gates for the evening display;

The fireworks, the papers said, were to be in two parts, ending with a bombardment of Vera Cruz, five

hundred feet long, and a series of triumphant arches with fulllength portraits in colored lights of celebrated

Americans. There was a sudden salute of artillery, and a flight of rockets soared upward in long flaming

curves, dissolving in showers of liquid emerald and ruby and silver against the night. Bengola lights casting a

blue glare over the standing mob and farther house fronts were followed by a great Peruvian Cross, a silvery

With this the first came all too soon to an end, and Nettie was folding the shawl about her shoulders when

almost the entire Ammidon family were upon her. . . . In an instinctive confusion she saw William Ammidon

They stopped before her in an assured, not unkindly inquisitiveness, the girls fresh and brightfaced, with

crisp lovely clothes; their mother, in a smart mantle and little bonnet with knots of French flowers, greeted

her with a direct question tempered by a smile. William Ammidon, smoking, was unconcerned; while Gerrit

stayed obscured outside the group. "Whom are you with, Nettie?" Rhoda Ammidon asked; and when she

"That won't do at all in this rough assembly. I must see that you are taken care of." She hesitated with a slight

frown on her handsome brow. "But you will want to see the rest of the fireworks. Yes, what you must do is to

come over to our steps, the view from there is fairly good, and then some one can walk home with you."

They moved resolutely forward, giving Nettie Vollar no opportunity for protest, the expression of what she

might prefer; and, with so many determined minds, she dropped silently into their progress. She was beside

Rhoda Ammidon, the girls trooped on before, and the menGerrit Ammidonfollowed. Her peace of mind

had been broken into a hundred halfformed doubts and acute questions. She wished that she had declined to

go with them: the invitation, no, command, had been a criticism, really. Now, after so long, it wasn't

The happiness of the day sank a little, thoughts of her mother and grandfather and Uncle Edward returned.

But, at the same time, she realized that she was near Gerrit once more. This made a confusion of her emotions

that hid what she most felt about him. It wasn't a proximity that meant anything, however; it had been utterly

different when he came to see her before his marriage. Yet, just the fact of his being close behind her, and

that she would be on the steps at the Ammidons' with him, undoubtedly had a power to stir her heart.

It brought, like her carefree excursion, a certain momentary glow, a warmth, without relation to what had

gone before or might follow; there was the same quality of momentary rest, refreshment, complete and

isolated as a jewel in a ring. She didn't analyze it further; but drifted with the vigorous chattering tide of the

They arrived at the impressive entrance open on a high dim interior. Jeremy and William Ammidon went in,

Rhoda lingered while a chair was brought for her, and Sidsall and Camilla, Laurel and Janet ranged

"Perhaps Taou Yuen will come down," Rhoda Ammidon suggested, and Nettie's throat was pinched at the

possibility of seeing Gerrit's Chinese wife. But he answered shortly in the negative. Taou Yuen preferred to

stay in her room; the view from her window was better than this. The latter was easily possible, for here the

set pieces were almost unintelligible: an impressive beehive could be seen surrounded by swarming golden

bees, a pyramid of Roman candles discharged their rushes of colored balls and streamers; but the

The fireworks had ceased to have the slightest significance for Nettie; she was luxuriating in the suavity of

the Ammidon steps and company. It seemed to her that an actual air of ease rolled out over her from within.

Seen from her place of vantage the great throng in the Square was without feature, the passersby on Pleasant

Streetas Edward Dunsack and herself had beenwere unimportant. The massive portico and dignified

fence, the sense of spaciousness and gardens and lofty formal ceilings, the feeling of fine silks and round

clear direct voices, of servants for everything, everyone, transcended in force all her speculations. She was

familiarwho wasn't in Salem?with the meaning of the house's name, Java Head. It was more, quite

Thoughts of Gerrit winged in and out of her mind like wayward birds. She turned with studied caution and

glanced swiftly but intently at as much of his countenance as she could see. Her memory vividly supplied the

rest. There wasn't another like itone so clear and compelling to readin the world.

The past in which he had had a part seemed like an impossibly happy dream. She was hardly able to believe

that he had been in their sitting room, walked with her in the evening to the grassy edge of the harbor, or held

her fingers in his hard cool grasp. Now she wondered if he were contented. She couldn't quite decide from

glimpses of his face; but something that had nothing to do with vision disturbed her with the certainty that he

"Now there go the arches!" a young voice exclaimed, "and I just can't see anything. You'd never know at all it

was a temple of eight columns. Oh, lookthere's a number coming out, 'July fourth, seventeen

seventysix.'" A tide of hand clapping swept over the dark masses. "No," Laurel continued, "that's Salem. . . .

The amazing day, Nettie realized, was over, the people flowed back through the gates like a lake breaking in

streams from its bank; there was a stir on the steps. Looking up she saw that the stars were obscured, and a

low rumble of thunder sounded from a distance, a flash lit the horizon. Now she must go back, return to

Hardy Street, to her bitter grandfather like an iron statue eaten by rust and storms, to Edward Dunsack

following her with his dragging feet and thin insinuating voice, to her hopeless mother.

"It's the powder," she heard, about what she had no conception. Rhoda Ammidon turned decidedly to her. "It

was nice to have you, Nettie," she declared; "but we must see about getting you safely home. The carriage

would be best since it's threatening rain." She didn't, she replied, want to give them so much bother, she often

"Nonsense," Mrs. Ammidon interrupted impatiently. The Gerrit advanced from the doorway. "I'll walk down

with her," he said almost roughly. "No need to take the horses out so late." Nettie Vollar thought that his

sisterinlaw's mouth tightened in protest, but he gave them no chance for further argument. He descended

the steps with a quick grinding tread, and she was forced to hurry through her acknowledgments in order to

The air, charged with the fumes of gunpowder and rumbling with low intermittent thunder, was oppressive

and disturbing. Gerrit's head was exactly opposite her own, and she could see his profile, pale and still,

moving on a changing dark background. He walked with the short firm stride men acquire on the unsteady

decks of vessels, swinging his arms but slightly. Neither spoke. The rain, Nettie saw, was hanging off;

probably it would not reach Salem, Washington Square was already empty except for a small obscure stir by

the scaffolding for the fireworks. A murmur of young voices came from a door on Bath Street. Such minute

observations filled her mind; beneath their surface she was conscious of a deep, a fathomless, turmoil. It was

a curious sensation, curious because she couldn't tell whether it was happiness or misery. One now exactly

She grasped, however, one differenceit was happiness now, the misery belonged to tomorrow. But

suddenly that last unrealized factat once immaterial and the most leaden reality of alllost its weight. The

greater freedom she had lately grown into became an absolute indifference, a half willful and half automatic

shutting of her eyes to everything but the present, the actuality of Gerrit Ammidon walking by her side. She

wanted him to speak, so that she could discover his thoughts, feelings; yet she was reluctant to have their

companionship of silence broken: words, almost all the possible terms she could imagine, would only

She was thinking of one nowa word he had never pronounced, but which she felt had been, however

obscurely, at the back of the attention he had paid her: love. It was a queer thing. It seemed to beeveryone

agreed that it wasof the greatest, perhaps the first, importance; and yet all sorts of other considerations,

some insignificant and others mean and more, yescowardly, held it in check, drove it back out of sight, as

you might hurriedly shut some shabby object into a closet at the arrival of visitors.

"How have you been?" he demanded in the abrupt voice of the expression of his determination to see her

home. Well enough, she assured him, if he meant her health. He glanced at her with somber eyes. "Not

"They are as bad as possible," she told him. She admitted this frankly, a part of her entire surrender to the

moment, careless of how it might affect him. "They would be," he muttered savagely. "It's a habit . . . here."

The "here," she knew, referred to life on shore; his gloomy attitude toward the management and affairs of the

land had caused her a great deal of precious laughter. He had revealed a most astonishing ignorance of

necessities that she had understood instinctively when hardly more than a child; and this simplicity had, as

much as anything, brought her affection for him to life. At the same time she in particular had felt the justice

of a great many of his charges. But no one could reasonably hope for the sort of worlda world as orderly

and trim as that of a narrow shiphe thought should be brought about by a mere command. Nettie wished

"Then it's no better than before?" he asked, adding, with a descriptive gesture: "the town and people?"

"I hardly speak to ten in a year, outside the stores and like that. Of course they nod going into church, or a

lady, I mean really, your sisterinlaw, will say something nice, even do what you saw tonight. Though it's

"I suppose I'll get used to it," she continued. "No, I won't," she added differently; "never, never, never."

She wondered angrily if he'd rather have her a man; thee had been a time, Nettie reflected, when such a

possibility would have stirred him to violent protest. And this brought out the reflection that, while at one

time he might have cared for her, now perhaps he was merely sorry for her unhappiness. Yes, that must be it.

She had a momentary fatal impulse to throw back at him scornfully any such small kindness. She didn't, she

told herself, want condescending sympathy. What silenced her was the sudden knowledge that she did; she

wanted anything whatsoever from Gerrit Ammidon. The fact that he had a Chinese wife was powerless to

alter her feeling in the smallest degree. On the contrary, she was shocked to find that it had increased

She wondered drearily if her stubborn lovethe term took its place without remark in the procession of her

thoughtsfor Gerrit didn't, in spite of her protest to the contrary, stamp her as quite bad. Perhaps her

grandfather was right about them allher mother and Uncle Edward and herself, and they were wicked, lost!

The energy with which she had combated this charge now faced by the circumstance of her realized affection

for a man married to some one else, even Chinese, wavered. All the cheerful influences of the day, rising to

the supreme tranquil hour on the Ammidon porch, sank to dejection; it was like the flight of the rockets.

She walked listlessly, her brain was numb; she was terribly tired. Gerrit Ammidon's head was bent and she

was unable to see his expression. He might even have forgotten, by the token of his selfabsorbed progress,

"There's going to be a stir in Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone," he said presently, "when my father hears

of the new program. Everything is turning to the fastest California runs possible. William and James

Saltonstone want me to take command of a clipper. But I find I'm like my father, Nettie; all my experience

has been in the East and the China service. I'm used to it. I'd never get on navigating a passenger boat, a

packet ship, from Boston to San Francisco and San Francisco to Boston. The other's in my blood,

toorunning the northeast trades to Brazil and coming up into the southwest passage winds for the Cape of

Good Hope. A long reach nearly to Australia and then north again to the Indian Ocean and southeast trades.

"I'm fit for that, for long voyages, a bluewater sailor and all it means; but battering back and forward round

the Horn with my deck cluttered up by prospectors and shore crews the mates would have to slam into the

rigging!" His exclamation refused every face of such a possibility. She understood his necessity

completely; and the brief account of such far happy journeys, safe from everything that Salem had come to

"I'm beginning to see," he took up again the selfexamination, "that I am to blame for a good deal that I've

found fault with in others. I mean that I'm a different variety of animal, and, naturally, no judge of the kinds

He turned to her, obviously startled, and she held for a long breath his unguarded intense gaze. "Not very

useful, I am afraid," he replied at last; "not today, anyhow. I belong to a life that is dying, Nettie; mark my

words, dying if not already dead. And I'm newfangled to my father. It goes as quickly as that."

This was a fresh mood to all her knowledge of his impatient arrogance, and one that sent her to him in a

passionate unperceived emotion. They had arrived at her home and were waiting aimless and silent. Beyond,

the gate to the yard was standing open, and Nettie saw that his discovery of the fact had occurred at the

identical moment of her own. She made an involuntary movement forward and he followed her through to the

blurred tangle of bushes and bare trodden earth. Mutely they turned to the sod spread at the harbor.

The thunder had died away, but pale sheets of reflected lightning hovered at short intervals low in the sky.

Directly above them stars shone again. The window of the sitting room still bore the illumination of the lamp

within; and Nettie could picture her mother, with stained and rough hands loose on their wrists, opposite

In a level voice she told him about her discovery of Edward Dunsack unconscious in his black wrap on the

bed. "I thought he had died," she repeated almost monotonously; "he had such a yellow gone look."

"But that can't be allowed!" he cried. "You mustn't see it. Indecent, worse. The bast will have to be removed.

No one will hear of his staying about with two women and a fanatical old man." She was afraid that he would

go into the house at once and appear with her uncle, very much in the manner of a dog with a rat. Her sense

of a worldly knowledge, a philosophy of realization, far deeper than his own returned. Things couldn't be

disposed of in that easy manner; it was probable that they couldn't be disposed of, righted, at all. Her mother,

with her help, must continue to keep Barzil home: there was no other place for Edward Dunsack to go. "He

won't hurt us," she said vaguely. "It's principally bad for him. Then, at first, I didn't know. You get used to so

He, Gerrit Ammidon, wouldn't have it, he asserted in a heated return of his familiar dictatorial manner. The

She smiled softly and laid a momentary hand on his sleeve. "That's nothing, Gerrit; nothing compared to the

He again cursed Salem and the world with which he had proclaimed himself out of date and sympathy. This,

while it communicated to her a certain warm comfort, resolved nothing, made no reply to her question.

Tomorrow offered precisely the same hopeless outlook of yesterday. No answer from Gerrit, Gerrit married,

"I'm not fit to go around on land blubbering and setting tongues to clapping," he declared. "I ought to be

locked in my cabin when the ship's in port, and let out only after sail's made again."

She heard a slight movement in the grass; and turning sharply caught the vague outline of a man, the thin

unsubstantial shape of Edward Dunsack. He vanished immediately; Gerrit, absorbed in bitter thought, had

missed him. Strangely her uncle only filled her mind with the image of CHina, the China that had ruined him,

and which, too, in the form of a woman, a Manchu, had destroyed the hope of any acceptable existence of her

"Great pretensions and idiotic results," he went on; "no ballast. Take what your grandfather said to

menothing in that unexpected or to drive a man off. Yet off I go and" he halted oddly, just as her

breath was suspended at the admittance which she was certain must follow. But he fell into another glooming

After all, she couldn't expect him to continue that development. A different man might; and Nettie wasn't sure

of her refusal to listen . . . to the end. But she was familiar with Gerrit's unbending conception of the

necessity of truth alone. If he married a woman, yellow, black, anything, he would perform the obligatin to

the entire boundary of his promise. Good and bad seemed equally united against her. Little flashes of

But, Nettie realized, there was only one way in which he could help her; only one thing she wantedcould

takefrom him. She was terrified at the completeness with which love had possessed her, making every

other fact and consideration of little interest or importance. Suddenly it seemed as if she were being swept by

an overwhelming current farther and farther out from safety into a bottomless immensity that would claim her

"Yet," he cried, "if I lift a hand, here, in Salem, if I as much as cross the street to speak to youthe clapping

"I don't want your Rhoda!" she interrupted passionately. "I've managed without them all up to now." He

raised his arms in a hopeless gesture. "Nothing's to be done," she concluded. "I saw that all along; that is, this

"It's late," he muttered absently; "you have had a day." He turned mechanically and moved away from the

indefinite black rim of the harbor. The lamp in the sitting room had been extinguished, the house was dark. A

brief embarrassment seized her as he stood trying vainly to find something confident, even adequate, to say

for farewell. And as the stir of his footfalls died away up Hardy Street the memory of his last futile words

She turned and faced Edward Dunsack, advancing from an obscurity deeper than the rest. He murmured

something approvingly, she caught words of commendation and unspeakable reassurance. She hurried away

blindly, sick to the inmost depths of her being. The morning, when she had tied her gay bonnet ribbons and

started out with the scarlet merino shawl on her arm, seemed to belong to a long, long time ago, to a girl. . . .

THE DEJECTION, the sense of a difference that held from him any comprehension of the vast maze of shore

life, persisted as Gerrit Ammidon walked toward home. It was such an unusual feeling that he was conscious

of it; he examined and speculated upon his despondency as if it had been something actually before him. The

result of this was a still increased disturbance. He didn't like such strange qualities arbitrarily forcing their

way into his beinghe had the navigator's necessity for a clear understanding of the combined elements

within and without which resulted in a harmonious, or at least predictable, movement. He distrusted all fogs.

In a manner the course before him was plainmarried to Taou Yuen, shipmaster in his family's firm, he had

simple duties to perform, no part of which included sailing in strange or dangerous waters; yet though this

was beyond argument he was still troubled by a great number of unpleasant conditions of mind and obscure

Gradually, however, his normal indignation returned, the contempt for a society without perceptible justice,

centered principally in what Nettie Vollar had had frm life. This, he assured himself, wasn't because he was

in any way involved with her; but because it was such a flagrant case. She was a very nice girl. It was entirely

allowable that he should admit that. As a fact, he warmly felt that he was her friend; the past justified, no,

insisted on, that at least. He wondered exactly how fond he had been of herin other words, how near he

had come to marrying her. It had been an obvious possibility, decidedly; but the desire had never become

actual. No, his feeling for her had never broken the bounds of a natural liking and a desire to secure decent

If his mental searching had ended there it would have presented no difficulties, created no fog; but,

unfortunately, there was another element which he admitted with great reluctance, an inborn discomfort.

Although he had been clear about what had actually happened with Nettie there was reasonable doubt that the

same limitations had operated with her. Briefly she had missed him more than he had realized. He explained

this to his sense of innate masculinen diffidence by the loneliness of her days. She had missed him . . .

something within whispered that she still did. Women, he remembered hearing, were like that.

In the light, the possibility, of this he saw that he had done her a great wrong.

It had been his damned headlong ignorance of the dangerous quality of life, the irresponsibility of a child

with gunpowder. With all this in mind it seemed doubly imperative that he should do something for her; he

owed her, he was forced to admit, more than a mere impersonal consideration. His thoughts returned

unbidden to the fact that sheshe had liked him. He insisted almost angrily on the past tense, but it surprised

him and gave him a perceptible warm glow. Nettie was very pleasing: he inferred that she was a creature of

At this he shook himself abruptlysuch things were not permissible. Gerrit felt a swift sense of shame; they

injured Nettie. His mind shifted to Taou Yuen. He found her asleep on the day bed she preferred, her

elaborate headdress resting above the narrow pillow of black wicker. He could distinguish her face, pallid in

the blue gloom, and a delicate, halfshut hand. He was flooded with the intense admiration which

increasingly formed his chief thought of her; this, with the obvious racial difference, put her, as it were, on an

elevationa beautifully lacquered vase above his own blundering person. She was calm, serious and good,

in the absolute Western definitions of those terms; she had her emotions under faultless control. Taou Yuen

should be an ideal wife for any man; she was, he corrected the form sharply. All that he knew of her was

admirable; the part which constantly baffled him didn't touch their relationship.

It was reasonable to expect small differences between her and Salem: at times her calm chilled him by a swift

glimpse of utter coldness, at times he would have liked her gravity to melt into something less than ivory

perfection; even her goodness had oppressed him. The last hadn't the human quality of, for example, Nettie

If he only understood the three religions of China, if he were an intellectual man, Gerrit realized, he could

have grasped his wife more fully. He was completely ignorant of Chinese history, of all the forces that had

united to form Taou Yuen. For instance: he was unable to reconcile her elevated spirit with the "absurd

superstitions" that influenced almost her every actthe enormous number of lucky and unlucky days, the

coin hung on his bed, the yellow charm against sickness and red against evil spirits; only yesterday she had

burnt a paper form representing thunder and drunk its ashes in a cup of tea. She was tremendously in earnest

about the evil spiritsthey were, she maintained, lurking everywhere, in all shapes and degrees of harm.

Edward Dunsack was possessed, she declared; but he had pointed out that opium was a sufficient explanation

of anything evil in him, and that it was unnecessary to look for a more fantastic reason.

He lay awake for a comparatively long while, as he had several times lately, divided between his

consciousness and the regular breathing of his wife. If the past had brought Nettie Vollar to depend on him in

some slight degree Taou Yuen did so absolutely: except for him she was lost in a strange world. Yet Taou

Yuen didn't seem helpless in the manner of Nettie. He had once before thought of the former as finely

tempered metal. Her transcendent resignation, with its consequent lack of sympathetic contact with the

imperfect humanity ofwell, Nettie, gave Taou Yuen a dangerous freedom from all that bound Salem in

He dressed first, as usual, in the morning, while she stirred only enough to get her pipe and tobacco, on the

floor at her side. Outside, the elms were losing their fresh greenness in the dusty film of midsummer; the

Square held an ugly litter from the fireworks of last evening. William, too, was about, but he was

uncommunicative, his brow scored in a frown. Their father, always down before the others, had returned

from the inspection of his trees, and was tramping back and forth in the library. The elder seemed unrested by

"Now that the Nautilus is afloat again," Jeremy Ammidon said, "you'll want to be at sea." Examining this

natural conclusion, Gerrit was surprised, startled, to find that it was no longer true. For the first time in his

memory he was not anxious to be under sail. This of course was caused by a natural perplexity about Taou

"I don't know what the firm's plans are for me," he answered cautiously. "There is some talk of taking me out

Jeremy was turning at his secretary, and he stopped to pound his fist on its narrow ledge. "It's that damned

Griffiths again and his cursed jackknife hull!" he exclaimed. The dark tide suffused his countenance. Gerrit

studied him thoughtfully: he didn't know just how much William had yet told their father about the sweeping

changes taking place in Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone. He did see, however, that it was unwise to

"I was saying only yesterday," he put in pacifically, "that you and myself are getting to be old models"

he broke off as William entered the library. The latter evidently grasped at once the subject of their

discussion, for he went on in a firm voice somewhat contradicted by a restrained but palpable anxiety:

"Now, father, this was bound to come up and you must sit down and listen quietly." The elder, on the verge

of a tempestuous reply, constrained himself to a painful attention. "It's useless to point out to you the

beneficial changes in sea carrying, for you are certain to deny their good and drag out the past. So I am

simply forced to tell you that after careful consideration we have decided to line the firm with the events of

the day and hold our place in the growing pressure of competition. This may sound brutal, but it was forced

on us by the attitude you have adopted. Shortely, this is what we intend, in fact are doing:

"Orders have been placed with George Raynes at Portsmouth and Jackson up in Boston for clippers of a

thousand and twelve hundred tons and another is almost ready to be launched from Curtis' Chelsea shipyard.

It oughtn't to be necessary to call your attention again to the fact that the Sea Witch has brought the passage

from Hong Kong to something like three months. The profits of the California trade will be enormous and

"I'll admit that this is a big thing, it will cut sharply into our fundssomething like a quarter of a million

dollars. But, if you will be patient for a little only, I can promise that you'll see astonishing returns. At the

same time we have no intention of giving up China and India, but we'll limit ourselves more closely in the

nature of the cargoes, practically nothing but tea unbroken from Canton to Boston. I'll be glad to go into all

this in detail at the countinghouse, where we have the statistics and specifications."

To Gerrit's surprise, Jeremy Ammidon sat quietly at the end of William's speech; he wasn't even looking at

them, but had his gaze bent upon the floor. There was a commanding, even impressive, quality in his silence

that forced the respect of both his sons. Moreit made Gerrit overwhelmingly conscious of his affection, his

deep admiration, for his father. He recalled the latter's memorable voyage in the little Two Capesthe

barque of two hundred and nine tonsinto the dangers, so imminent to a master, of uncomprehended waters

and thousands of miles with, for the most part, only the sheerest dead reckoning. Jeremy Ammidon said

"If it's done it's done. I used to think there were two Ammidons in the firm, not to mention Gerrit; but it

seems there's only one. A man who has never been to sea." He rose and marched, slower and more ponderous

than ever before, to the cupboard where he kept the square bottle of Medford rum; there, with trembling

hands, he poured himself out a measure. He shut the glass door, but stood for an oppressive space with his

"I suppose I've been a damned nuisance about the countinghouse for a long time," he pronounced, turning.

William rose. "You made it," he said; "it's you. God forgive me if I have been impatient or forgetful of all we

owe you." There was a stir of skirts in the doorway, and Rhoda entered. "Breakfast" she stopped, and

with a quick glance at her husband and Gerrit went at once to Jeremy Ammidon. "They've been bothering

you again," she declared, and turned an expression of bright anger on the younger men. "Ah, how hard and

William, with a hopeless gesture, walked from the room. Gerrit moved to a window facing the Square; but he

saw nothing of its sultry yellowgreen expansehe was remembering how as a child, his mother already

dead, a nurse had held him up on Derby Wharf to see his father sweep into port from the long voyage to the

East. He caught again the resonant voice, as if sounding from a hold of ribbed oak, the tremendous vigor of

the arm that swept him up to a bearded face. He couldn't bring himself to move now and see an old haggard

man clinging with tremulous emotion and tears to the sympathy, the strength, of a woman.

Later in the morning, to his immense relief, Jeremy Ammidon regained a surprising amount of composure. At

first determined never to return to Liberty Street, toward noon Gerrit found him in the hall with his broad hat

and wanghee. "I'll just have a slant at those specifications," he remarked. "Like as not they've left off the

hatch coamings." Gerrit suggested, "Since it's so hot why don't you have the carriage round?" The other

voiced his customary disparagement of that vehicle. "If I see that I'm going to be late for dinner," he added,

"I'll get one of the young men to fetch me something. I don't want to give Rhoda any trouble."

Still, on the steps, he lingered, gazing pridefully up at the bulk of the house he had built; his eyes rested on

the brass plate, engraved with the words Java Head, on the dignified white door. "A lot of talk when I had

that done," he commented; "people said they'd never heard of it, ought to have my name there for

convenience if nothing else. They didn't know. It would take a sailor for that. Don't forget to tell Rhoda not to

wait if I'm late. All those girls of hers get hungry. I expect William consulted Laurel about this new move,"

he ended with a gleam of humor. "She's a great hand for a clipper since she talked to Captain Waterman." He

was down the steps, starting deliberately across the street. There was a last mutter of doubt. The bulky slow

figure in yellow Chinese silk moved away and Gerrit returned to the shadowed tranquillity of the library.

More than any other place in the house it bore the impression of his father. He wandered about the room, lost

in its associations, stopped in front of the tall narrow walnut bookcase and took out one of the small company

"Tuesday, December 24. 132 days out. All this day gentle breezes and cloudy. Saw kelp, birds, etc. "Tacked

ship to the eastward under short sail. At daylight made all said to SW. Gentle breezes and clear pleasant

weather. Saw huge shoals of flying fish." "May 19, 11 days out. Hainan in sight, bearing from W by N to

NNW. At sunset the breeze died away and hauled off the land. All night light breezes. Made all possible sail

to the SSW. At the same time set the extremity of Hainan which bore NW by N to N. Past three Chinese

vessels steering NNE. Saw much scum on the water and at 11 A.M. lost sight of land." "November 14, 65

days out. These twentyfour hours commences with variable breezes at west and smooth sea. Saw brig

steering to the Eastward. The land of Sumatra bearing SW by W to SE by S. Tied rips."

He returned the log to its resting place with a quiet smile at the last period. It was all incredibly simplea

lost simplicity of navigation and a lost innocent wonder at the Mare Atlanticum of old fable.

Neither William nor Jeremy Ammidon was present for dinner. They were, Gerrit concluded, submerged in

the effort to bring the changing activities of the firm into the latter's comprehension. His foot was on the stair

leading up to his wife, when there was a violent knocking on the front door. It sounded with a startling

abruptness in the shut hall, and Gerrit instinctively answered without waiting for a servant. The flushed and

breathless young man before him was evidently perturbed by his appearance. He stammered:

His thoughts, directed upon his father, gathered into a chilling certainty. "Captain Jeremy is sick?" he

demanded instantly. The hesitation of the other seemed to confirm an infinitely greater calamity. "Dead?" he

"In a second, like," he continued. "All we know they were talking in Mr. William Ammidon's roomone of

the boys was out that minute getting the old gentleman some lunchwhen we heard a fall, it was quite plain,

"That will do," Gerrit cut him short. He turned into the house rapidly considering what must follow. He'd go,

certainly; but first he must warn Rhoda, she would have the girls to prepare. . . . Rhoda had always been

exceptionally considerate and fond of Jeremy Ammidon. He found her at the entrance to her room, and said,

Hurrying over Bath Street to Liberty his grief was held in check by the pressing actualities of the moment. He

had time, however, to feel glad that he had spent the morning largely in warm thoughts of the dead man.

He passed rapidly into the entrance of the establishment of Ammidon, Ammidon and Saltonstone.

Immediately on the right there was an open railed enclosure of desks in the center of which a group of clerks

watched him with mingled respect and curiosity as he continued to the inner shut space. It was a large light

room with windows on Charter Street. William's expansive flattopped desk with its inked green baize was

on the left, and, under a number of framed sere ships' letters and privateersmen's Bonds of the War of 1812,

Gerrit saw the heavy body extended on a broad wooden bench, a familiar orange Bombay handkerchief

Never in all the memory of his brother had William Ammidon been so stricken. As he entered James

Saltonstone left studying a list hastily scribbled on a half sheet of the firm's writing paper. He nodded silently

to Gerrit, who advanced to the covered face and lifted the handkerchief. There were still traces of congestion,

but a marblelike pallor had taken the place of the familiar ruddy color. Something of the heaviness of his old

age, the blurring thickness of long inactivity, had vanished, giving his still countenance an expression of

vigor, resolution, contradicted by an arm trailing like the loose end of a heavy rope on the floor. William,

"You must know this, Gerrit; and then I'll ask you never to allude to it again. It might be argued thatthat

James and I killed him, but absolutely without intention, by accident. Gerrit, I loved him more than I took

time to know. Well, you may or may not have heard that we own two topsail schooners in the opium trade,

between India, Ningpo and Amoy, but you do know how father detested anything to do with the drug. We

said nothing to him about this; it seemed necessary, nopermissible. But today when we were coming to a

peaceable understanding about the new contracts he stumbled over one of the schooner's manifests. Mislaid,

you seea clerk! It swept him to his feet in a rage, he couldn't speak, andand he had walked, it was hot. . .

Gerrit Ammidon made no answer; there was nothing to be said. He was shaken by a burning anger at the

cupidity, the ugly commercial grasping, to which his father had been sacrificed. A gulf opened between him

and his brother and James Saltonstone; he was as different from them as the sea was from the land, as the

windswept deck of the Nautilus was from this dry building with its stifling papers and greed. He might be in

the service of the firmGerrit was not incorporated in the partnershiphe might carry their cargoes for the

multiplication of the profit, but his essential service and responsibility, his life, were addressed to another and

infinitely higher and more difficult consummation than the stowed kegs of Spanish dollars, the bills of sale.

This was composed of the struggle with the immeasurable elements of the seas and winds, the safety of lives,

"Now," he spoke with a perceptible bitterness, "you can have you way without interference, without his

"I am under no obligation to your judgment or opinion," William replied stiffly. "There are always

complications you will never penetrate nor carry. At present your assistance is more necessary than any

The funeral gathered and ebbed in a long procession of carriages through a sultry noon, the services at the

grave concluded by the symbolic dropping of the earth on Jeremy Ammidon's coffin lowered into the deep

narrow clay pit. The large varied throng lingered for a breath, as if unable to take their attention from the raw

opening that had absorbed the shipmaster, and then there was a determined and reassuring commonplace

The evening was the loveliest summer and the garden of Java Head could afford: a slow moon disentangled

itself from the indigo foliage at the back of the stable and soared with an increasing brilliancy, bathing the

sod and summerhouse and poplars, the metallic box borders and spiked flower beds, in a crystal clearness.

The Ammidons sat about the willow, Rhoda with a hand affectionately on her husband's arm, the

childrenLaurel and Janet staying without remark long past their accustomed hours for bedstill and white

under the blanching moon. Gerrit intently studied his wife, Taou Yuen, in a concentrated manner. She, too,

Suddenly in the face of his suffering and memories she had appeared startlingly remote, as if, from standing

close beside him, she were moving farther and farther away. The image was made profoundly disconcerting

by the fact that they acted without their own accord; it took the aspect of a purely arbitrary phenomenon over

which they had no control. At the same time Nettie Vollar was surprisingly near, actualhe could see every

line and shading of her vivid face; he felt the warm impact of her instant sympathy. He had caught a glimpse

of Barzil Dunsack at the funeral; but the other was immediately hidden by the crowd, and Gerrit had been

His thoughts turned in a score of associations and questions to Nettie; but when he found himself trying to

picture her exact employment at the present moment he was angrily aroused. He had, he realized, considered

nothing else for the past hour, and his preoccupation was growing more intense, personal. He stirred abruptly,

and fixed his mind on the imminent changes from his father's death. First the possibility would develop of his

becoming a member of the firm; but to this, he silently declared, he would not agree. His gaze rested with a

faint underlying animosity on William, seated upright in a somber absorption, and a disparagement of the

latter's activities and scale of values. Gerrit saw that there must be a pacific legal knot to untangle; the

division of Jeremy's estate would require timehe had somewhere heard that such affairs often dragged on

for a year; and now he was again in a fever of impatience to be away, safe, at sea. He added the more

portentous word with the vague selfassurance that it was only the customary expression of his notable

ignorance of land; but it echoed with an ominous special insistence in his mind.

The Nautilus, he recalled, was once more afloat, repaired; and a plan occurred to him that seemed to dispose

of all his difficulties, even of the distasteful possibility of the California clipper service. He could take the

ship as part of his inheritance; and, though ostensibly sailing her in the interest of the firm, make such

voyages and ports, carry such cargoes, as his independence dictated. The Nautilus, with a cargo out of tin and

dyes and cotton manufactures, and forty or fifty thousand trade dollars, would represent a sum of nearly two

hundred thousand; but as a family they were very rich; he'd have more than that; and bank the remainder

There were many practical aspects of his marriage that he had not stopped to weigh in its precipitant

consummation. The problem, pointed out by Rhoda, of his absence from Taou Yuen on cruise could not be

solved with the facility he had taken for granted. It was as impossible to leave her happily herehe was

aware of her growing impatience with Western habitas it would be for him to become a contented part of

Chinese home life; and not only was she uncomfortably cramped and sick on shipboard, but he doubted

whether he could persuade his crews to sail with her. Superstitious able seamen balked at the presence of

even a normal wife aft; and a Chinese would be regarded as a sign of certain disaster.

He would have to establish her somewhere in the East Indies. And he viewed with a new dislike all such

tropical settings. His entire life threatened to become an affair of damnable palm trees and Oriental stenches.

Gerrit Ammidon broke into a cold sweat at the realization of the far more direct implication that had taken

substance in his mind. The thing was going entirely too far! He wondered irritably at the obscure cause for

Rhoda Ammidon with a dim smile rose, gathering her daughters about her, and departed in a pale cloud of

muslin. Taou Yuen, with her murmuring formal politeness, moved away too, leaving the brothers together.

Whatever sympathetic intercourse they might otherwise have had, whatever shared memories of their

boyhood and their father, were made impossible by William's admission of the immediate cause of the elder's

"The Saltonstones are going into Boston this fall," William said abruptly. "It is necessary for one of us to live

there; and Caroline has always had a hankering for wider society. Rhoda, I was surprised to learn, wishes to

remain here at Java Head for a year or so anyway. She has a very real affection for the place. But I tell her

when the girls are older Boston, or perhaps New York, will give them far greater opportunities. Sidsall,

stranger still, was in tears at the whole thing; she seemed ridiculously upset about leaving."

The vision of Nettie Vollar persisted, bright and disturbing. Once he was at sea, Gerrit told himself, on the

circumscribed freedom of his quarterdeck, he would lose the unsettling fever burning at that instant in his

veins. But the memory of long solitary passages with nothing to distract his mind through week upon week

after the ship took the trades, when hour upon hour his thoughts turned inward on themselves and reviewed

every past act and feeling, made doubtful even that old release. The trouble was that he instinctively avoided

any square facing of the difficulty that had multiplied with such amazing rapiditylike a banyan

treeabout the present and the shadowed future. This he was forced to admit, but grimly added that there

could be only one answer to whatever he might lay barethe adherence to th single fundamental duty of

which he never lost sight. No port was gained by changing blindly from course to course, that way lay the

reefs; a man could but keep steadily by the compass. That, at least, was all he could see, propose, for himself,

being rather limited and lacking the resources which others of greater knowledge so confidently explored.

After breakfast on the following morning he mounted the dignified staircase, with the sweeping railing of red

narra wood and high Palladian window at the turn, to his wife. In their room he was bathed in a cold sweat of

dismay at a sudden detached view of Taou Yuen in her complete Manchu mourning for his father. An

unhemmed garment of coarse white hemp hung in ravelings about slippers of sackcloth; what had been an

elaborate headdress was hidden under a binding of the bleached hemp; she wore no paint nor flowers; her

pins and earrings were pasted with dough, and her expression was drugged with the contemplative fervor of

"For the wise old man, for your father," she said. She was exhausted and sank onto the day bed; but almost

immediately her hand reached out in the direction of her pipe, and she smiled faintly at him. He clenched his

sinewy hands, the muscles of his jaw knotted, as he gazed steadily at the woman, the Manchu woman, he had

of his own free accord married. It sickened him that, for the drawing of a breath, he had regarded Taou Yuen

with such appalling injusticeinjustice, the evil he hated and condemned more than any other. What, in the

"We'll leave here soon," he declared abruptly; "the Nautilus will be ready for sea almost any time."

He could recognize, from his slight knowledge of her, that Taou Yuen welcomed the news. "Shanghai?" she

asked. He nodded. It came over him that he was no longer young. His father had retired from the sea within a

few years of his own present age and built Java Head, the house that was to be a final harbor of unalloyed

happiness. No such prospect awaited him; he had one of the premonitions that were more certain than the

most solid realitiesas long as he lived he must sail in ships, struggling with winds and calms, with currents

and cockling and placid seas. Well, that was natural, inevitable, what he would have chosen. At the same time

he dwelt, with a sensation of loneliness, on the green garden and drawingroom filled in June with the scent

When the question of the division of Jeremy Ammidon's estate came up, he was, as he had foreseen, urged to

become a partner of the firm; and, when that failed, told that it was his vested duty to continue in his present

capacity as a shipmaster in all their interests. He was seated with Saltonstone and William in the

countinghouse and he could tell from his brother's illrestrained impatience that the other considered him

hardly more than a clumsywitted, stubborn fool before the mast of the facts of actual life.

His gaze, above their heads, rested on the framed pass of the ship Mocha, one of his father's last commands,

over the bench where he had lain dead. It was given by the President, James Monroe, in 1818, its white paper

seal embossed on the stained parchment. It had an engraving of a lighthouse and spired town on the dark

water's edge, and above, a picture of a ship with everything drawing in a fair wind, the upper sails torn off on

"No," he told them quietly, "I'll go my own way as I said; with the Nautilus, if that can be arranged." He rose

with a nod of finality, and James Saltonstone remarked, "Jeremy to the life." Gerrit replied, "I'd not ask

Through the evening he heard little but the discussion of Mr. Polk's approaching visit to Salem. The President

was to leave the train at the Beverly Depot at three P.M. and be fetched with Secretary Buchanan and

Marshal Barnes in a barouche with six horses and met at the outskirts of Salem by the city authorities.

There would be a Beverly cavalcade, the city guard was ordered to muster at the armory; while an evening

But when the day and occasion actually arrived it was spoiled by a succession of unforeseen mishaps. The

train was late and the presidential party in a fever of hastethe procession, hurrying through the massed

publicschool children and throngs of Chestnut Street, gave a perfunctory attention to the salutes and short

address of the mayor. The President's reply, hardly more than a few introductory phrases, cut short, the

barouche was sent plunging over the route with the Secretary crying, "Drive on! Drive on!" and Marshal

Some of the crowd, the Ammidons heard, had been knocked down and injured in the pellmell of the rush.

Gerrit's countenance showed his contempt of what he held to be a characteristically ludicrous farce. After all,

his wishes in regard to the Nautilus had been easy of execution, the ship was now his; he was already

contracting for a cargo. He had been to see Mr. Broadrick, his first mate, and the latter was assembling the

chief members of the crew. As always at the prospect of sailing he was unsettled, concerned with countless

Seated in the library with Taou Yuenhe had called her aside from her fixed passage to their room from the

gardenhe was recounting his main plans for the near future, when he became aware of an arrival on the

steps outside. He heard a servant's voice, and, immediately after, the woman appeared in the doorway; but

she was forced aside by Edward Dunsack. Gerrit's quick resentment flared at such an unmannered intrusion,

and he moved ungraciously forward. The servant explained impotently, "I told him I would see"

Dunsack bowed ceremoniously to Taou Yuen, then he faced the other. On the verge of speech he hesitated, as

if an unexpected development made inadequate whatever he had been prepared to say; then, with a sudden

decision, he hurried into an emotional jumble of words. "I can tell you in a breathNettie was badly hurt in

that cursed rabble yesterday. It looks as if she was actually struck by one of the horses. She was unconscious,

and then delirious; now she is in her right mind but very weak; and, since she wished to see you, I

An instant numbing pain compressed Gerrit's heart; he felt that, in an involuntary exclamation he had clearly

shown the depth of his dismay. Damn the fellow, why had he burst out in this public indecent manner! The

situation he had plausibly created, the thing he managed to insinuate, was an insult to them allto his wife,

Taou Yuen, coldly composed beyond, himself and to Nettie. He stood with his level gaze fixed in an enraged

perplexity on Edward Dunsack's sallow countenance, deep sunk on its bony structure, conscious that there

"Something was said about this afternoon," the other added. That period, Gerrit realized, was nearly over. But

above every other consideration rose the knowledge that he would have to see Nettie Vollar, badly injured, as

He turned to Taou Yuen with a brief formal explanation. A friend, their families had been associated for

years, had been hurt and sent for him. . . . Return immediately. He paused, in the act of leaving, at the door of

the library, waiting for Edward Dunsack to join him; but the other had resolutely turned his back upon Gerrit.

He showed no indication of departure. Gerrit Ammidon was at the point of an exapserated direction; but that,

in the light of Dunsack's purpose there, appeared ridiculously abrupt; and confident of his wife's supreme

ability to control any situation he continued without further hesitation to the street, hurrying in a mounting

Dwelling on his conduct in the library, at the sudden announcement of Nettie's accident, he felt that he had

acted in a precipitant if not actually confused way. As a fact, it had all been largely mechanical; his

oppression, his dread for Nettie, had made everything else dim to see and faint to hear. Dunsack's grimacing

face, the immobile figure of his wife, the familiar sweep of the room, had been things of no more substance

than a cloud between him and the only other reality existing. He had no memory, for instance, of having

stopped to secure his hat, but he found it swinging characteristically in a hand. And now even the semblance

of reasonable speech and conduct he had managed to command vanished before a panic that all but forced

The main door of Barzil Dunsack's house was open on the narrow somber region within; he knocked sharply

against the wood at the side and was immediately answered by the appearance of Kate Vollar.

"This is a great kindness, Captain Ammidon," she told him in her negative voice; "come in here, please." He

looked hastily about the formal space into which she led him, expecting to see Nettie prostrate, but she was

"Nettie?" her mother turned as if surprised by an unexpected twist of the situation. "Oh, why she'll mend all

right, the doctor says; but it will be slow. Her arm had an ugly slithering break, and she suffers with it all the

time." A pause followed, in which she met his interrogation with a growing mystification. "I suppose Edward

told you," she ventured finally. The sense of being at a loss was swiftly communicated to him.

"Now, however could Edward do a thing like that?" she cried in deep distress. "Why, there's no truth to it. I

asked him myself to see if you'd kindly stop and give me some advice. What put it in my head was that once

your father offeredhe told Nettie to let him know if there was anything to be done. Edward Dunsack isn't

Gerrit was filled with a mingling sense of disappointment, relief that Nettie was no worse, and the

uncomfortable conviction that he had behaved like an hysterical fool. He, too, but angrily, wondered why

Dunsack had invented such an apparently pointless lie. Probably Kate Vollar was right, and her brother's

wits, soaked in opium, had wandered into a realm of insane fabrications. He composed himselfthe first

feeling blotting out his other emotionsto meet the deprecating interrogation before him.

"In a way," she continued, "it's about Edward. When he came back from China and decided to stay in Salem

his father turned all the books over to him; he was to tend to everything in the way of accounts and

shipments; and, he said, he would make us all rich in a year or so. But, instead, he had neglected the clerking

until we can't tell what's going or coming. Edward hasn'thasn't quite been himself lately," she paused and

Gerrit nodded shortly. "Now we're not wealthy, Captain Ammidon, we never got more than just enough from

our West India trade; but in the last couple of months, with Edward like he is and father too old for columns

of figuringhe's dreadful forgetful nownot a dollar was made. The schooners are slow, behind the times I

guess, we've had to scrape; yet it's been something. . . . They're both awful hard to do with," she stopped

"You must get a reliable man in charge. Some one who knows the West India shipping should go over your

entire property, decide what is necessary, then borrow the money. We can find that without trouble. I'll make

only one condition: That is the complete restraint of your brother. It is known that he has the opium habit, he

He stopped at the echo of a thin persistent tapping from above. "That's Nettie," Kate Vollar said; "the way she

calls me. I'll ask you to excuse me for a minute." When she returned her face bore an unaccustomed flush.

"Nettie heard you in the hall or through the stovepipe." She spoke doubtfully: "She'd like to see you, but I

don't know if it would be right with her in bed. Still, I promised I'd tell you."

He rose promptly. The woman stood aside at the upper door and he at once saw Nettie lying with her

vigorous black hair sprawling in a thick twist across the pillow. Her face was pinched, it seemed thin, and the

brilliancy and size of her eyes were exaggerated. One arm, clumsy and inanimate in splints, was extended

over the cotton spread; but with the other hand she was feverishly busy with her appearance. She smiled, a

wan tremulous movement that again shut the pain like a leaden casket about his heart.

"Do go away, mother!" Nettie directed Kate Vollar hovering behind them. "Your fidgeting will make me

scream." With an incoherent murmur she vanished from the room. The girl motioned toward a chair, and

Gerrit drew it forward to a table that bore water and a small glass bowl partly covered by a sheet of paper,

holding a number of symmetrical reddishblack pills. "Opium," Nettie told him, following his gaze; "I cried

dreadfully with the hurt at first. It's dear, and Edward made those from some he had. You know, I watched

him roll them right here; it was wonderful how quickly he did it, each exactly alike, two grains." She told him

the circumstances of her accident while he sat with his eyes steadily on her face, his hands folded.

He was quiet, without visible emotion or speech; but there was an utter tumult, a tumult like the spiral of a

hurricane, within him. Rebellious feelings, tyrannical desires and thoughts, swept through him in waves of

heat and cold. Nettie's voice grew weak, the shadows deepened under her eyes, for a little they closed; and

but for the faint stir of the coverlet over her heart she was so pallid, so still, that she might have been dead.

Moved by an uncontrollable fear he bent toward her and touched her hand. Her gaze slowly widened, and,

turning over her palm, she weakly grasped his fingers. A great sigh of contentment fluttered from her dry lips.

"Gerrit," she whispered, barely audible. He leaned forward, blinded by his passion for her.

He admitted this in an honest selfknowledge that he had refused recognition until now. Tender and

reassuring words, wild declarations and plans for the future, crowded for expression; nothing else before the

immensity of desire that possessed him was of the slightest concern; but not a syllable was spoken. A sharp

line was ploughed between his brows; his breath came in short choked gusts, he was utterly the vessel of his

longing, and yet an ultimate basic consideration, lost in the pounding of his veins, still restrained him.

"I love you, Gerrit," Nettie said; "I'll never stop till I die." Her face and voice were almost tranquil; she

seemed to speak from a plane above the ordinary necessities of common existence, as if her pain, burning out

her color and vigor and emotions, had given her the privilege of truth. Curiously enough when it seemed to

him that she had expressed what should have sent him into a single consuming flame he grew at once

completely calm. He, too, for the moment, reached her state of freedom from earth and flesh.

However, he speedily dropped back into the sphere of actual responsibilities. He saw all the difficulties and

hovering insidious shadows in which they might be lost. This, in turn, was pushed aside by the incredulous

realization that Nettie's life and his had been spoiled by a thing no more important than a momentary flare of

temper. If, as might have happened, he had overlooked Barzil Dunsack's ridiculous tirade, if he had turned

into the yard where Nettie was standing instead of tramping away up Hardy Street, everything would have

It was unjust, he cried inwardly, for such infinite consequences to proceed from unthinking anger! A great or

tragic result should spring from great or tragic causes, the suffering and price measured by the error. He could

see that Nettie was patiently waiting for him to solve the whole miserable problem of their future; she had an

expression of relief which seemed to take a happy issue for granted. None was possible. A baffled rage cut

"I love you," he repeated, "yes. But what can that do for us now? I had my chance and I let it go. Today I'm

married, I'll be married tomorrow, probably till I die. Perhaps that wouldn't stop a man more intelligentit

might be just thatthan I am; perhaps he'd go right after his love or happiness wherever or however it

offered. There are men, too, who have the habit of a number of women. That is understood to be a custom

"What in the name of all the heavens would I do with Taou Yuen?" he demanded. "I can't desert her here, in

America, leave her with William. I brought her thousands of miles away from her home, from all she knows

An expression of unalloyed dreariness overspread Nettie's features. "I wish I had been killed right out," she

said. The starkness of the words, of the reality they spoke, flowed over him like icy water; he felt that he was

sinking, strangling, in a sea grimmer than any about Cape Horn. He was continually appalled by the

realization that there was no escape, no smallest glimmer, leading from the pit into which they had stumbled.

He had the sensation of wanting enormously to go with Nettie but was fast in chains that were locked on him

"I don't believe I'll see you again," Nettie articulated; "now the Nautilus is near ready to sail. I can't stand it,"

she sobbed; "that last time you went out the harbor just about ended me, but this is worse, worse, worse.

"No, you won't," he asserted, standing, confident that her spirit was too normal, too vitally healthy, for that.

His gaze wandered about the room: her clothes were neatly piled and covered by a skirt on a chair; the mirror

on her chest of drawers was broken, a corner missing; there was a total absence of the delicate toilet adjuncts

of Rhoda and Taou Yuenonly a small paper of powder, comb and brush, and the washstand with a couple

of coarse towels. What dresses she had were hung behind a ridiculously inadequate drapery. She had so little

His emotion had retreated, leaving him dulleyed, heavy of movement. The moment had come for his

departure. Gerrit stood by the bed. Nettie turned away from him, her face was buried in the pillow, the

uppermost free shoulder shook. "Goodby," he said. There was no answer and he patiently repeated the short

magic phrase. Still there was no sound from Nettie. There would be none. Even the impulse to touch her had

dieddied, he thought, with a great many feelings and hopes he once had. A fleet surprise invaded him at

the absence of any impulse now to protest or indulge in wild passionate terms; he was surprised, too, at the

fact that he was about to leave Nettie. The whole termination of the affair was bathed in an atmosphere of

Gerrit Ammidon gazed steadily at her averted head, at the generous line of her body under the coverlet; then,

neither hasty nor hesitating in his walk, he left the room. Kate Vollar met him at the foot of the stair. "You

understood," she said, "that I only bothered you because your father . . . because I was so put on?"

"You were quite right," he replied in a measured voice; "it will all be attended to. With the agreement I

"In some positions," he told her, "certain persons are without any choice. The facts are too great for them. I

said nothing to Nettie of Edward Dunsack's reason for my coming," he added significantly. Out in the street

he stopped, facing toward Java Head and evening; but, with a quiver of his lips, the vertical bitter line

between his drawn brows, he turned and marched slowly, his head sunk to where the Nautilus was berthed.

SEATED IN THE library, placidly waiting for Edward Dunsack to go, Taou Yuen studied him briefly. A

long or thoughtful survey was unnecessary: the opium was rapidly mastering him. That fact absorbed all the

rest. She had an immeasurable contempt for such physical and moral weakness; all the three religions fused

in her overwhelmingly condemned selfindulgence; her philosophy, the practical side of Laotze's teaching,

emphasized the utter futility of surrender to the five senses. At the same time he was the subject of some

interest: he was an American who had lived in China, and not only on the fringe of the treaty portshe had

penetrated to some extent into the spirit, the life, of things Chinese; while she, Taou Yuen, was amazingly

Absolutely immobile, her hands folded in her lap, she considered these facts, each in relation to the other:

there was wisdom hidden in them for her. If Mr. Dunsack had retained the ordinary blustering Western

commercial mind, his knowledge of China confined to the tea houses and streets, he would probably be

prosperous and strong today. The wisdom lay in thisthat here she must remain Manchu, Chinese; any

attempt to become a part of this incomprehensible country, any effort to involve herself in its mysterious acts

or thought, would be disastrous. She must remain calm, unassertive, let the eternal Tao take its way.

Edward Dunsack looked actually comic: he was staring rudely, with a foolish air of flattery, and breathing in

labored gaspslike a coolie who had run miles with a heavy palanquin. Then her mind, hardly reacting from

immediate objects, returned to the contemplation of the deeper significance of her presence here. Bent in on

itself her thought twisted like a moonflower vine about the solid fact of Gerrit. She realized, of course, that he

must have had the past of any healthy honorable man his age, and that it would have included at least one

woman. However, when even the present was an almost complete puzzle his past had been so lost to her that

"You must overlook my unceremonious speech," Edward Dunsack proceeded in creditable Chinese. "It was

clumsy, but I was deeply affected. It is my niece, you see, who was hurt, and who has a very sad history.

Then there are some special circumstances. I'd have to explain a great deal before you could understand why

"There is nothing you need tell me," Taou Yuen replied in her slow careful English. "Manchu eyes can see as

"A thousand times better." He, too, returned to his native speech. "It is delightful to talk to a truly civilized

being. All that would have to be shouted at the women of Salem is unnecessary now. You seeyou

"I wonder if you do," he speculated. "You ought to see whathow muchI think of you. My brain holds

She had a momentary, purely feminine shrinking from his emaciated shaking frame, the burning eyes in a

face dead like a citron; then her placidity returned, the assurance that it was all ordained, that his gestures, the

pumping of his diseased heart, had no more individual significance than the movements of a mechanical

figure operated by strings, here the strings of supreme Fate. She even smiled slightly, a smile not the mark of

approval or humor, but an expression of absolute composure. It drove him at once into febrile excitement.

"At least I understand you," he cried; "far more than you suppose! You can't impress me with your air of a

Gautama. I know the freedom of your country. It doesn't shock you to realize that your poor husband has

gone to see a woman he loved, perhaps loves still, and you are not disturbed at my speaking like this."

Here, she knew, regarding him no more than a shrilling locust, was the center about which for a moment

blindly her thoughts of Gerrit and herself had revolved. His past"a woman he loved." But it didn't in the

least upset her present peace of mind, her confidence in Gerrit. There was a sharp distinction between the

eternal, the divine, Tao, that which is and must prevail, and the personal Tao, subject to rebellion and all the

evil of Yin; and she felt that her husband's Tao was good. Out of this she remarked negligently:

"After all, you are more ignorant of China than I thought. But, of course, you saw only the common and low

side. You have not heard of the books girls are taught from'The Sacred Edict' and 'Mirror of the Heart.'

You don't even know the first rule of 'The Book of Rites,' 'Let your face and attitude be grave and thoughtful,'

and the second, 'Let your steps be deliberate and regular.'" She paused, conveying by her manner that he was

"That would do well enough if you were a scholar, or a bonze," he retorted; "but such innocence in a

fashionable woman is a pretense. If you are so pure how can you explain your gold and bracelets and pins, all

the marks of your worldly rank? Laotze taught, 'Rich and high but proud brings about its own misfortune.'"

He was so close to her now that she caught a faint sickly reek from his body. It seemed to her that she could

"Your own tobacco is drugged," he asserted. "But that's not important. I tell you I worship you, the most

beautiful person in the world. These fools in Salem, even your husband, can't realize onetenth of your

perfection; they can't venerate you as I do. And now that Ammidon has gone back to the first, we are free

A darker color stained his dry cheeks. "You saw him," he replied. "Did he get pale or didn't he? And did he or

not rush from the room like a man in a fever? I tell you it's no use pretending with me; say what you please I

know how delicate your senses are. I'll tell you this too: It's written in our progression that we should meet

here, yes, and be a great deal to each other. It was written in the beginning, and we had been drawing together

Taou Yuen was surprised by a sudden conviction that a part of this, at least, was so. No living thing, however

minute, escaped from the weariness of movement, either ending in final and blessed suspension or

condemned to struggle on and on through countless lives of tormenting passion. All had this dignity of hope

or despair; all she encountered were humble, impressive or debased in the working of the mighty law. She

had been guilty, as this American had pointed out, of dangerous and wrong pride, and she accepted her lesson

willingly. There was, however, an annoying conflict between Edward Dunsack, the example, the impersonal,

and Edward Dunsack making violent profession of his unspeakable desire for her. Even the word seemed to

soil her; but there was no other. He went recklessly on, trying to increase his advantage:

"If we are it is because of some great wickedness of mine. If we are, then perhaps I am lost. But it is always

allowed to resist evil, at least, as far as staying out of its touch is resistance."

"Nothing can keep you from me," he declared. Another short step and his knees would be brushing her gown.

A stronger wave of dislike, shrinking, anger, drowned her logical and higher resignation. "It is time for you to

It seemed to her that she could feel his hot quivering touch and, all her philosophy dropping from her, she

rose quickly. "If this were China," she told him, in a cold fury, "you'd be cut up with knives, in the courtyard

where I could look on. But even here I can ring for a servant; and when Captain Ammidon comes back he'll

She could see that this last affected him; he hesitated, drew back, his hanging fingers clasping and

unclasping. That, she thought, relieved, would dispose of him. Then it was clear that his insanity persisted

even in the face of the considerable threat of Gerrit's to pride and violent tempers.

"It's our destiny," he repeated firmly in his borrowed faith, at once a little terrifying and a little ridiculous in

the alien bold. His lips twitched and his bony forehead glistened in a fine sweat. Now, thoroughly roused, she

"Diseased," she cried, "take your sores away! Dog licked by dogs. Bowl of filth," she was speaking in

Chinese, in words of one syllable like the biting of a hair whip. Edward Dunsack gasped, as if actual blows

cut him; he stood with one hand half raised, appalled at the sudden vicious rush of her anger. A leaden pallor

took the place of his normal sallow coloring, and it was evident that he had difficulty in withstanding the

pressure of his laboring heart. He stood between her and the door and she had a premonition that it would be

useless to attempt to avoid him or escape. She could, however, call, and some one, there were a score of

people about the house, must certainly appear. At that moment she saw a deep change sweep over his

countenance, taking place in his every fiber. There was an inner wrenching of Edward Dunsack's being, a

blurring and infusion of blood in his eyes, a breath longer and more agonized than any before, and she was

For a moment, she realized, he had even considered killing her with his flickering hands. Then that impulse

subsided before a sidelong expression of cunning. "With all your Manchu attitudes," he mocked her, "yes,

your aristocratic pretense of mourning and marks of rank, you are not different from the little pleasure girls.

Your vocabulary and mind are the same. I was a fool for a while; I saw nothing but your satins and painted

face. I forgot that you were yellow, I had forgotten that all China's yellow. It's yellow, yellow, yellow and can

never be white. I shut my eyes to it and it dragged me down into its slime." His voice was hysterical with an

agony of rending spiritual torment and hopeless grief. "It poisoned me little by little, with the smell of its

rivers and the cursed smell of its pleasures. Then the opium. A year after I had lost my position, everything;

and when I came over here it followed me . . . in my own blood. Even then I might have broken away, I

almost had, when Gerrit Ammidon brought you to Salem. You came at a time when I was fighting hardest to

throw it all off. You seeyou fascinated me. You were all that was most alluring of China, and I wanted you

"Perhaps," he muttered. "Who knows? I'm finished for this life anyhow. You did that. I can't even keep the

His hands crept rigidly toward her. If they touched her she would be degraded for ever. Yet she was incapable

of flight, her throat refused the cry which she had been debating; alternate waves of revulsion and stoical

resignation passed over her with chills of acute terror. Yet she managed to preserve an unstirred exterior; and

that, she observed, began to influence him. His loathing was as great as ever; but his vision, that had been

fixed in a blaze of fury, broke, avoiding her direct scrutiny, her appearance of statuelike unconcern.

There was a sound of quick light feet in the hall, the bright voice of one of Gerrit's nieces. Edward Dunsack

fell into a profound abstraction: he turned and walked away from her, standing with his back to the room at a

window that opened upon the broad green park. He was so weak that he was forced to support himself with a

Taou Yuen was motionless for a perceptible space, and then moved toward the door in a dignified

composure. All this had come from the utter impropriety of the life in America. Dunsack glanced at her as

she withdrew, and for a moment she saw his fine profile sharp and dark against the lightflooded window.

His lips stirred but she heard no sound. Then she was on the stair mounting to her room.

Thee mechanically she filled her pipe; but doing this she noticed that her hands were trembling. How

lamentably she had failed in the preservation, the assertion, of her superiority, not as a Manchu, but in the

She spoke Laotze's admonition aloud and, in the customary devious channel of her mental processes, her

thoughts returned to her early life, her girlhood, so marred by sickness that the Emperor had surrendered his

Surrounding the fact of her early suffering, which had kept her out of the active gayety of brothers and sisters,

she remembered in the clearest detail her father's house in the north; the later residences in Canton and

Shanghai, even the delightful river gardens of the summer place at Soochow, were less vivid. Inside the

massive tiled stone wall the roomsthere were a hundred at leastfaced in squares on the inner courtyard,

and were connected by glass enclosed verandas. The reception houses of the front court, the deeply carved

wooden platform with its scarlet covering, were of the greatest elegance; they were always astir with the

numerous secretaries, the Chinese writers and messengers, the mafoos and chair coolies, the servants and

blind musicians with the old songs, The Millet's in Flower and Kuan Kuan Go to the Ospreys. The side door

to the women's apartments, however, opened into a retreat, where her father's concubine, he had but one,

trailed like a bird of paradise, and there was the constant musical drip of a fountain in an old granite basin.

She had been dropped from a palanquin in her sixth year; sharp pains soon after burned in her hip, and the

corresponding leg had perceptibly shortened. A great many remedies were tried in vainburning with

charcoal, the application of black plasters, sweating, acupuncturesticking long needles into the affected

part. The doctors declared that the five elements of her bodythe metal, wood, water, fire and earth, were

hopelessly out of equilibrium. Her mother had then called necromancers and devil charmers; lucky and

unlucky days were explored; strange rites were conducted before her terrified eyes screwed into the

A year, perhaps, after they had become resigned to her injury, her father, always a man of the most liberal

ideas, had suddenly brought into the garden to see her an English doctor passing through China. Against the

wailing protests of the women the Englishman had been given authority to treat her; and he had caused to be

made a thin steel brace, clasping Taou Yuen's waist and extending in a rigid band down the length of her

injured leg. After putting a high shoe on her other foot he had commanded them to keep the brace on her for

It was through that period of comparative inactivity that she acquired a habit of reading and thought, a certain

grasp of the philosophical attitude, common to the higher masculine Chinese mind but rare among their

women. She had, for instance, later, read Laotze's Taotehking, and been impressed by his tranquil

elevation above the petty ills and concerns of life and the flesh. Her father, like all the ruling class, regarded

Taoismwhich had, indeed, degenerated into a mass of nonsense about the transmutation of base metals into

gold and the elixir of lifewith contempt. But this seemed to her no depreciation of the Greatly Eminent

The household, or at least the family, worshipped in the form of Confucius; his precepts and admonitions, the

sacred hiao or filial submission, the tablets and ancestral piety, were a part of her blood; as was the infinitely

fainter infusion of Buddhism; yet in her intellectual brooding it was to the Taotehking that she returned.

She paused to recall that, the brace at last removed, she was practically completely recovered; but the bent,

The colorful pageant of her first marriage, the smaller but splendidly appointed house of her husbandhe

was extremely intelligent and had honorably passed the examination for the licentiate, one of only two

hundred successful bachelors out of twenty thousandand the period following his accidental drowning

She loved him, Taou Yuen realized, for a quality entirely independent of race: he had more than anyone else

she knew the virtues of simplicity and purity announced by ChwangTze as the marks of the True Man. "we

must become like little children," the Old Master had written. She had seen this at once in the amazing

interview sanctioned by her fatherinlaw. Most women of her class, even widows, would have perished

with shame at being exposed to a foreigner. But L� Kikw�ng had expressed her difference from them in the

terms of his proposal. His words had been "finely better" although the truth was that her curiosity had always

mastered the other and more prudent instincts. Yet that alone would not have prostrated her before Gerrit

Ammidondeath was not unthinkablenor carried her into his strange terrifying ship and stranger life. The

love had been born almost simultaneously with her first recognition of his character. Now her passion for him

was close and jealous. A constant shifting between such humanity and the calm detachment which prefigured

All this took body at the announcement of Edward Dunsack about Gerrit and his hiece. Certainly he might

have had an affair; that she dismissed; but the insinuated permanence of this other affection was serious. She

would not have believed Mr. Dunsack for an instant, but, as he had pointed out, Gerrit had undoubtedly been

upset; he had turned pale and hurried away impolitely. It was by such apparently slight indications that the

great inner currents of life were discovered. The fact that Chinese officials had more than one wife, or, to

speak correctly, concubines in addition, had no bearing with Gerrit; such was not the custom with American

She laboriously recalled his every attitude since they had landed in America, and was obliged to admit that he

had changedhe was less gay and though his manner was always considerate she recognized a growing

impatience beneath his darker calm. Her philosophy was again torn in shreds by sharp feminine emotions.

She was filled with jealousy and hatred and hurt pride. The clearest expression of his possible discontent had

marked his face when he had suddenly come into their room and saw her rising from a prayer for his father.

Gerrit's lips had been compressed, almost disdainful; at that moment, she knew unerringly, he found her ugly.

She must wear the unhemmed sackcloth and dull slippers, bind her headdress and cover her pins with paste,

for a hundred days; and then a second mourning of black or dark blue, and no flowers, for three years. It

might well be that by then Gerrit, blind to these proprieties, would find her unendurable. Suddenly, in the

tremendous difficulty of holding him against an entire world, his own and of which she was supremely

ignorant, it seemed to her that she needed every possible means, every coral blossom and gold filament and

finger of paint, the cunning intoxication of subtle dress and color and perfume. With a leaden sense of guilt,

but in a fever of impatience, of haste, she stripped off the coarse hemp for her most elaborate satins, her

When Gerrit came in it had grown dark with night, and he explained that he had been busy inspecting the

Nautilus' spars. She lighted a lamp, then another, all she could find, and studied him unobtrusively. She was

shocked at the worn expression of his face; it seemed as if he had aged in the few hours since he had left the

library. He was uneasy, silent; and, secretly dismayed, she saw that he was indifferent to her changed

appearance, too. Taou Yuen debated the wisdom of telling him about the painful scene with Edward

Dunsack; against her original intent she decided in the negative. She informed herself that the reason for this

was a wish to preserve him, now that they were practically at the day of departure, from an unpleasant duty.

But there was an underlying dimly apprehended and far different motive: she was afraid that it would blow

into flame a situation that might otherwise be avoided, bring to life a past naturally dying or dead.

She saw that he was scarcely aware of her presence in the room, perhaps in his life. A period of resentment

followed. "You are dull," she declared, "and I am going down to the garden for entertainment." Gerrit

nodded. He would, he told her, be along shortly. Below she found Roger Brevard, with the oldest Ammidon

Roger Brevard, she had discovered, was in love with Sidsall. The latter, it developed was to leave shortly for

a party; Mr. Brevard was not going; and, when Gerrit's sisterinlaw walked across the grass with her

daughter the man dropped into an easy conversation with Taou Yuen. She had a feeling, which she had tried

in vain to lose, of the vulgarity, the impropriety of this. Yet she recognized that there was none of the former

in Roger Brevard; he resembled quite a little her dead husband, Si�Ngankw�n; and for that reason she was

more at ease with himin spite of such unaccustomed famiiaritythan with anyone else in Salem but

He was, she admitted condescendingly, almost as cultivated as the ordinary Chinese gentleman. Many of his

thoughts, where she could understand their expression, might have come from a study of the sacred kings. At

the same time her feminine perception realized that he had a genuine liking for her.

"You'll be delighted to leave Salem," he said, leaning forward and studying her.

"That would not be polite," she answered formally. "You have been so good. But it will give me pleasure to

"And prefers," he added. "Indeed, I'd choose some of your manners rather than ours. You see, you have been

"Our history begins two thousand years before your Christ," she told him; "our language has been spoken

without change for thirtythree centuries, as you call them. But such facts are nothing. I would rather hear

"Perhaps," she replied. "Devotion to the old and dead is greatly necessary yet you smile at it. I didn't mean

that, but moons and lovers and music." He cried in protest, "We're terribly serious about those!"

"We keep the other under our hats," he instructed her. She was completely mystified, and he explained.

"In China," she remarked tentatively, "it is possible for a man to love two women at once, maybe one a little

different than the other, but he can be kind and just and affectionate to them both. Tell me, isis that

"No!" he spoke emphatically. "We can love, in the say you mean, only one, perhaps only once. I wouldn't

swear to that, but there are simply no exceptions to the first. Men are unfaithful, yes; but at a cost to

themselves, or because they are incapable of restraint. To be unfaithful in anything is to fail, isn't it? You can

She fixed a painful attention upon him, but lost at least a half of his meaning. However, one fact was clearer

than everthat Edward Dunsack had said an evil thing about her husband. "It seems," he went on, "that even

spiritual concerns can be the result of long custom." If he was trying to find an excuse for Chinese habit she

immediately disposed of it. "No," she said, "you are upside down. The spirit is first, the eternal Tao,

A sudden dejection seized hernow the difference seemed vaster than anything she had in common with

Gerrit. A wave of oppressive nostalgia, of confusion and dread, submerged her in a faintly thunderous

darkness. She felt everywhere about her the presence of evil and threatening shades. The approach of her

husband, his heavy settling into a chair, did nothing to lighten her apprehension.

"In two weeks, with nothing unexpected," he responded without interest or pleasure. It flashed through her

mind that he was depressed at leaving Salem, that other woman. His present indifference was very far from

the manner in which he had first discussed their leaving. Yet, even that, she recalled in the light of her present

sensitiveness, had been unnaturally abrupt and clothed in a great many loudsounding words. She told herself

arbitrarily that Edward Dunsack had liedfor the purpose which his conduct afterward made clearbut her

She was a victim of an uneasy curiosity to see . . . she made a violent mental effort and recaptured the

nameNettie Vollar. Of course the latter had been the deliberate cause of whatever wickedness had

threatened at the return of Gerrit with her, Taou Yuen. She had however no doubt of the extent of this: Gerrit

was upright, faithful to the necessity Roger Brevard had explained; all that assaulted her happiness was on an

incorporate plane, or, anyhow, in a procession of consequences extending far back and forward of their

But, she recognized, she had no excuse nor opportunity to see Nettie Vollar. Mrs. Ammidon, when she heard

of the accident, had at once declared her intention of going to the Dunsack's house; still that promise had no

chance of satisfying her own desire. The least politeness in the world prohibited her from going baldly in and

demanding to see the woman. She couldn't, all at once, make convincing a sympathy or impersonal interest

entirely contradictory to her insistent indifference. The best she could hope was for them to sail away as

quickly as possible; when on the other side of the seas Gerrit would probably return to the simplicity of being

Then a trivial and yet serious fear occurred to herperhaps here, among all these deadwhite women, he no

longer held her beautiful. The word was his own, or it had been his; he had not repeated it, she realized, twice

since they had been in Salem. Personally, she found the American women entirely undistinguished and

dressed in grotesquely ugly and cheap clothesnot unlike paper lanterns bobbing along the ground. Their

faces were shamelessly bare of paint and their manners would have disgraced the lowest servant in a Chinese

courtyard. This was natural, from any consideration of the hideous or inappropriate things that surrounded

them, and from the complete lack of what she could distinguish as either discipline or reverence. Yet Gerrit, a

part of this, would be unable to share her attitude; she had heard him praise the appearance of women so

Roger Brevard rose and made his bow, the only satisfactory approach to a courteous gesture she had met

outside Gerrit's occasional halfhumorous effort since leaving Shanghai. He stirred, muttered a perfunctory

Little quirks of unfamiliar disturbing feeling ran through Taou Yuen; her mind, it seemed, had become a

thing of no importance; all that at one time had so largely ordered her life was superseded by these illogical

emotions spreading apparently from her heart. The truth was, she told herself, thatwith all her reading and

philosophyshe had had little or no experience of actuality: the injury to her hip and quiet life in the gray

garden at Canton, her protected existence in the women's apartments, whatever she might have learned form

them neglected because of the general silliness of their chatter, the formal early marriage, had all combined

She regarded herself now with distrust; nothing could have been more unpleasant than the failure of her will,

this swamping of her equanimity. She never lost for a moment the image of superiority that should be her

perfect example, the nonassertion that was the way of heaven; but her comprehension was like a figure

ruthlessly dragged about by an overpowering unreflective force. A sharp hatred of Nettie Vollar seared her

Against the dark, charged with a confusion of the ten thousand things, she stared wearily and wakeful. She

reminded herself again that Gerrit would soon be gone from Salem, alone with her on the long voyage to

China; but he'd return to America, come back to Salem; and she knew that he would never bring her

westward again. A period of depression followed which seemed to have no immediate connection with

Gerrit; she had an indefinable feeling of struggling in vain against adversity, of opposition to an implacable

For a short while after she rose in the morning it appeared that she had regained her selfcontrol, her reason;

and a consequent happy relief irradiated her. But when Gerrit came up after she had finished her toilet and

she saw, from his haggard face, that he too must have been awake, tormented, through the night, a passion of

bitterness enveloped her at which all that had gone before turned pale. She could scarcely restrain herself

from a noisy wailing accusation, and stood regarding him with a tense unnatural grimace, the result of her

effort ot preserve propriety. She told herself, at the tempest of vulgar phrases storming through her

consciousness, that what Edward Dunsack had said about her being no better than the tea house girls was

true, and she was aghast at the inner treachery capable of such selfbetrayal. Not a quivering word, however,

escaped; she managed a commonplace phrase and turned aside in a trivial pretext of occupation.

"I am going into Boston with Captain Dunsack on business connected with his schooners." The girl's

grandfather! "Very well." She spoke placidly, and with a tempestuous heart watched him stride quickly about

She settled herself in a long motionless contemplation, fastening her mind upon the most elevated and

revered ideas conceivable. She saw the eternal Tao flowing like a great green river of souls, smooth and

mighty and resistless; and she willed that she too might become part of that desirable selfeffacement, safe in

surrender. Men striving to create a Tao for personal ends beat out their lives in vain. It was the figure of the

river developing, like floating on a deliberate, allpowerful tide or struggling impotently against it.

Later a message came up from Mrs. Ammidonshe hoped that Taou Yuen would drive with her that

afternoon. She dressed with the most particular care, in blue and dark greens, her shoulders thick with

embroidered garlands and silver shou, her piled hair ornamented in glittering silver leaves and garnets.

She went down when she heard the horses on the street below but the barouche was empty except for the

coachman. "Mrs. Ammidon left a half hour ago," a servant told her; "and sent the carriage back for you." hey

moved forward, going, she saw, into a part of the town where they seldom drovethe narrow crowded way

by the wharvesand, turning shortly into a street that ended abruptly at the water, drew up before a dingy

The door was open, and they waited, confident that Mrs. Ammidon would hear the clatter of hoofs and come

out; but a far different appeared. She gazed for a silent space at Taou Yuen seated above her, as if confused

by the glittering magnificence. It was probable that Gerrit's brother's wife had come there on an errand of

charity for the woman was poor, dingy like the house, with a face drawn by suffering and material struggle.

"Of course you're Captain Ammidon's wife," she said; "and you are here after Mrs. William Ammidon. Well,

she's gone; but she left a message for you. She will be at Henry Whipple's, the bookseller. After she saw

Nettie she went right off to send her some things; wouldn't wait for the carriage. A kindhearted determined

Taou Yuen leaned out to command the coachman to drive on; but the other plainly bent on making the most

of a rare opportunity for such a conversation, continued talking in her low resigned way.

"I was glad to have her too; Nettie gets pretty fretful up there with nobody but me, really. She hasn't been so

well, either, since" here she stopped abruptly, recommenced. "I like to see a person myself of Mrs.

Ammidon's kind. I've been alone all day; father's gone to Boston and Edward away I don't know where."

Taou Yuen's curiosity to see Nettie Vollar returned infinitely multiplied; here, miraculously, was an

opportunity for her to study the woman who was beyond any doubt an important part of Gerrit's past,

presentit might be, his future. The men were gone. . . . She got resolutely down from the barouche. "Take

"Why, that's very kind, but I don't knowYes, certainly. Mind these stairs with your satin skirt; I don't

Taou Yuen saw at once that Nettie Vollar was far sicker than she had realized: her head lay on the pillow

absolutely spent, her brow damply plastered with hair and her eyes enlarged and dull. Taou Yuen drew a

chair forward and sat beside a table with a glass bowl of small dark pills which from a just perceptible odor

she recognized as opium. She looked intently, coldly, at the prostrate figure. A flush like match flames

burned in Nettie Vollar's cheeks, and she said in a voice at once weak and sharp:

"Oh, how could he?" the other exclaimed in what sounded like the thin echo of a passionate cry. "I knew you

As Gerrit Ammidon's wife had feared she was totally unable to judge a single quality or feature of the girl

before her. She looked exactly like all the others she had seen in Salem: in order to realize her she needed

Gerrit's eyes, Gerrit's birth. The one fact crept insidiously into her consciousnesshere, in a way, was

another being who had Gerrit Ammidon's childlike simplicity. That was the most terrifying discover she

could have made. Taou Yuen felt the return of the hateful irresistible emotions which had destroyed her

selfcontrol. She wanted to hurt Nettie Vollar in every possible way, to mock her with the fact that she had

lost Gerrit perhaps never to see him again; she wanted to tell her that she, Taou Yuen, entirely understood her

An utter selfloathing possessed her at the same time, a feeling of imminent danger as if she were walking

with willfully shut eyes on the edge of a precipice above a black fatal void. Not a trace of this appeared on

her schooled countenance; and once more she completely restrained any defiling speech. She deliberately

shifted her point of view to another possible aspect of all that confronted herit might be that this woman

was a specter, a kwei, bent on Gerrit's destruction. Such a thing often happened. How much better if Nettie

Vollar had been killed! She studied her with a renewed interesta fresh question. Perhaps the other would

die as it was. She was extremely weak; her spirit, Taou Yuen saw, lay listlessly in a listless body. Nettie

Vollar slightly moved her injured arm, and that little effort exhausted her for a moment; her eyes closed, her

A further, almost philosophical, consideration engaged Taou Yuen's mindthis extraordinary occasion, her

being with the other alone, Nettie Vollar's fragility, were, it might be, all a part of the working of the

righteous Yang. In the light of this, then, she had been brought here for a purpose . . . the ending of a menace

to her husband. She hesitated for a breathif it were the opposite malignant Yin there was no bottom to the

The actual execution of this practical suggestion, from either source, was extremely easy; she had but to lean

forward, draw her heavy sleeve across the strained face, hold it there for a little, and Nettie Vollar would have

died ofof any one of a number of reasonable causes. She, Taou Yuen, would call, politely distressed, to the

She had no shrinking from the act itself, nothing that might have been called pity, a few more or less years in

a single life were beneath serious consideration; it was the lives to come, the lingering doubt of which power

led her on, which restrained and filled her mind. A flicker of rage darted through her calm questioning; her

mental processes again faded. With her right arm across the supine body and enveloping the face in her left

sleeve a single twist and Nettie Vollar would choke in a cloud of thick satin made gay with unfading flowers

and the embroidered symbol of long life. She felt her body grow rigid with purpose when the sound of a

It was not heavy, yet she was certain that it was not the woman's. A blur of voices drifted up to her, the

dejected feminine tone and a thin querulous demand, surprise. Taou Yuen turned cold as stone: the sensation

of oppressive danger increased until it seemed as if she, and not Nettie Vollar, were strangling. There was a

profound stillness, then a shuffling tread on the stair, and Edward Dunsack entered, entered but stood without

Even since yesterday he had noticeably wasted, there were muscles of his face that twitched continuously; his

hands, it seemed to her, writhed like worms. He said nothing, but stared at her with a fixed glittering vision;

all his one time worshipit had been so muchwas devoured in the hatred born in the Ammidon library.

Frozen with apprehension she sat without movement; her face, she felt, as still as a lacquered mask.

To her astonishmentshe had forgotten Nettie Vollar's existencea shaken voice from the bed demanded:

"Uncle Edward, what's come over you! Don't you see Mrs. Ammidon? Oh" her speech rose in a choked

exclamation. Edward Dunsack had turned the key and was crossing the room with a dark twisted face, his

eyes stark and demented. Taou Yuen, swung round toward the advancing figure, heard a long fluttering

breath behind her. Perhaps Nettie Vollar had died of fright. The terror in her own brain dried up before an

overwhelming realizationshe had betrayed herself to the principle of evil. She was lost. Her thoughts were

at once incredibly rapid and entirely vivid, logical: Edward Dunsack, ruined, in China; herself blinded,

confused, destroyed in America. Yesterday she had held him powerless with the mere potency of her

There was a loathsome murmur from his dusty lips. He intended to kill her, to mar and spoil her throat, a

degradation forbidden by Confucius, an eternal disfigurement. This filled her with a renewed energy of

horror. . . . Here there was none but a feeble woman to hear her if she called. She rose mechanically, a hand

on the table; Taou Yuen saw Nettie Vollar's deathly pallid face rolled awkwardly from the pillow, and the

bowl of opium. There were twenty or more pills. Without hesitation, even with a sense of relief, she swept the

contents of the bowl into her palm. The effort of swallowing so many hard particles was almost convulsive

Exhausted by the mental effort she sank into a chair and a dullness like smoke settled over her. The figure of

Edward Dunsack retreated to an infinite distance. The smoke moved in a great steady volumethe eternal

and changeless Tao, without labor or desires, without. . . . Hatred requited with virtue . . . attracting all

honormounting higher and higher from the consuming passions, the seething black lives of her

ALTHOUGH THE LATE afternoon was at an hour when Derby Street should have been filled by a halfidle

throng in the slackening of the day's waterside employments Roger Brevard found it noticeably empty. In this

he suddenly recognized that the street was like the countingroom of the Mongolian Marine Insurance

Company, the heart of Salem's greatnessthey were weaker, stilled in a decline that yet was not evident in

When he had first taken charge of this branch both Salem and it had been of sufficient moment to attract him

from New York; the company was insuring Boston and New York vessels; the captains had thronged its

broad window commanding St. Peters and Essex Streets. Now only an occasional shipmaster, holding the old

traditions and habits or else retired, sat in the comfortable armchairs with leather cushions drawn up at the

His mind shifted to a consideration of these facts in relation to himselfwhether the same thing overtaking

the place and marine insurance had not settled upon him tooas he made his way from Central Wharf,

where he had vainly gone for prospective business. His inquiry was reaching a depressing certainty when,

passing and gazing down Hardy Street, he saw the Ammidon Barouche standing in front of the Dunsacks'.

Roger Brevard stopped: the Ammidon men, he knew, seldom drove about Salem. He had heard of Nettie

Vollar's accident and came to the conclusion that Rhoda was within. If this were so, her visit, limited to a

charitable impulse, would be short; and thinking of the pleasure of driving with her he turned into the side

"No, sir," he replied to Brevard's inquiry. "But we were to get Mrs. Ammidon at the bookstore. Mrs. Captain

Gerrit called here for her, but she went inside unexpected. All of an hour ago. I don't like to ask for the lady,

He had scarcely finished speaking when a woman whom Brevard recognized as Kate Vollar appeared at the

door. "Oh, Mr. Brevard!" she exclaimed with an unnaturally pallid and apprehensive face. "I'm glad to find

you. Please come upstairs with me. Why I don't know but I'm all in a trouble. Mrs. Ammidon went to see

Nettie, then Edward came in, and when he heard who was there he acted as if he were struck dumb and went

up like a person afflicted. I waited the longest while and then followed them and knocked. Why the door was

shut I'd never tell you. But they didn't answer, any of them," she declared with clasped straining hands.

"Three in the room and not a sound. Please" her voice was suddenly suffocated by dread.

"Certainly. Quarles," he addressed the coachman, "I'll get you to come along. If there is a lock to break it will

Mounting the narrow somber stair, followed by the man and Kate Vollar, he wondered vainly what might

have happened. Obscurely some of the woman's fear was communicated to him. Brevard knocked abruptly

on the door indicated but there was no answering voice or movement. He tried the latch: as Nettie's mother

The coachman stepped forward, braced himself for the shove he directed against the wooden barrier, and the

door swept splintering inward. Roger advanced first and a grim confusion touched him with cold horror.

Taou Yuen was half seated and half lying across a table beside the bed; he couldn't see her face, but her body

was utterly lax. Nettie Vollar, too, was in a dreadful waxen similitude of death, with lead colored lips and

fixed sightless eyes. A slight extraordinary sound rose behind him, and whirling, Brevard discovered that it

was Edward Dunsack giggling. He was silent immediately under the other's scrutiny, and an expression of

Brevard turned to the greater necessity of the women, and moved Taou Yuen so that he could see her

features. It was evident that she was not, as he had first thought, dead; her breathing was slow and deep and

harsh, her pulse deliberate and full; she was warm, too, but her face was suffused by an unnatural blueness

and the pupils of her inert eyes were barely discernible. He shook her with an unceremonious vigor, but there

was no answering energy; she fell across his arm in a sheer weight of satincovered body. He moved back in

a momentary uncontrollable repulsion when Kate Vollar threw herself past him onto the bed. "Nettie!" she

cried, "Nettie! Nettie!" Brevard was chilled by the possibility of an unutterable tragedy, when with a faint

suffusion of color the girl gave a gasping sigh. Her voice stirred in a terrorshaken whisper:

"Uncle Edward, don't! Whydon't. Oh!" She pressed her face with a long shudder into the pillow.

"Whatever was it?" her mother began wildly. Brevard caught her shoulder. "Not now," he directed;

"you'll come downstairs with me. We must have help at once and your daughter quiet."

However he was in a quandaryhe couldn't trust the woman here, he would have to go immediately for

assistance, and yet it was impossible to leave Nettie Vollar and Gerrit's wife alone. "You will have to wait in

Edward Dunsack was wavering against a wall; Brevard went swiftly up to him. "We'll need you," he said

shortly. Dunsack maintained his silence and air of stubborn cunning; but, when the other man clasped his

incredibly thin arm, he went willingly followed by Kate Vollar below. There he sat obediently, his judicious

"You must be responsible for your brother," Roger Brevard told the quivering woman. "I'll be back

immediately. Now that you know Nettie's safe you must control yourself. No one should go upkeep

What an inexplicable accident or crime, he thought, hurriedly approaching the countinghouse of Ammidon,

Ammidon and Saltonstone, the first and nearest of the places to which he must go. He could remember no

mark of what had overcome Taou Yuen. How was Dunsack, who was now clearly demented, implicated?

In the subsequent exclamatory rush, even on the following morning when Roger Brevard learned

thatpoisoned by opium undoubtedly taken by herselfGerrit Ammidon's wife had died without regaining

consciousness, the greater part of the tragedy became little clearer. No statement could be had from Edward

Dunsack other than a meaningless array of precautionary phrases; and returning in a sliding gait toward

Nettie Vollar, Brevard heard, had relapsed from her injury into a second critical collapse. Yet, he told

himself, entering the room that was his home in Mrs. Cane's large square house on Chestnut Street, that the

It was a pleasant room and a pleasant house with a dignified portico; and his tall windows, back on the right

of the second floor, opened on the length of the Napiers' garden. Brevard sat looking out over a dim leafiness

of evening and tried to discipline his thoughts into order and coherence. Any dignity of death had been soiled

He had liked her extremely well, agreeing with Rhoda Ammidon that, probably, they had never been

permitted to know a more aristocratic breeding or greater degrees of purely worldly and mental and personal

His mind grew more philosophical and a perception, yet without base in facts, convinced him that Taou Yuen

had been killed by America. It was a fantastic thought, and he attempted to dismiss it, waiting for more

secure knowledge, but it persisted. She had been killed by unfamiliar circumstances, tradition, emotions. In

some manner, but how he was unable to disentangle from the pressures of mere curiosity and conjecture,

Nettie Vollaror rather Gerrit's old passing affair with Nettiehad entered into the unhappy occurrence.

After an hour's vain search he gave up all effort to pierce the darkness until he had actual knowledgeif he

ever had, he was forced to add silently. It was possible that the secret might be entirely guarded from the

public, even from the closer part he had played and his familiarity with the Ammidon family.

He was an inmate of their inner garden with its lilac trees and hedged roses in season, the pungent beds of

flowers and box, the moonshade of the poplars. Roger Brevard turned from the consideration of Taou Yuen

to the even more insistent claim of his increasing affection for Sidsall. He stopped again both to lament and

delight in her youthanother year and he would have unhesitatingly announced his feeling as love to them

all. It was that, he admitted to himself almost shyly. The obvious thing was for him to wait through the year

or more until the Ammidon's would hear of a proposal and then urge his desire. . . . He could see her quite

Yes, that was the sensible course, even in the face of his own multiplying years. They were twentyfive more

than Sidsall's; yet, he added in selfextenuation, he was not definitely snared in middle age; he was still

elastic in body and youthful, but for graying hair, in appearance. His birth was eligible from every social

consideration; and, though he was not rich, he had enough independently to assure the safety of his wife's

future. This did not come entirely, or now even in the larger part, from the Mongolian Marine Insurance

He paused to wonder if it had not been that latter fact which had prevented his being successfulsuccessful,

that was, in William Ammidon's meaning of the word. He had not made money nor a position of importance

among men of affairs. Such safety, he decided, was a dangerous possession judged by the standards he was

now considering. A few thousand a year for life struck at the root of activity. It induced a critical detached

attitude toward life, overemphasized the importance of the cut of a trouser and the validity of pedigree. It was

Drifting, together with almost everyone else, he had reached his present position, past forty, by imperceptible

degrees, obscurely influenced by the play of what he intrinsically was on circumstances or accident or fate.

Although he had never done so before, he compared himself with Gerrit Ammidon. The other's refusal to

accept a partnership in the family firm or command a California clipper was known. Gerrit and himself were

alike in that they apprehended the values of life more clearly than did the ordinary mind or heart. But, in

retaliation, the world they differed from curtly brushed them aside. Roger Brevard could not see that they had

made the least mark on the callous normal cruelty or the �sthetic and spiritual blindness of the existence they

shared. But it was always possible that something bigger than their grasp of justice or beauty was afoot.

He turned from the darkened prospect of the window and his thoughts to the room. Without a light he

removed his formal street clothes, hanging the coat and waistcoat, folding the trousers in a drawer, with exact

care; changing his light boots for fiber slippers he set the former in the row of footgear drawn up like a

military review against the wall. Though it was quite obscure now, and no one would see him, he paused to

brush his slightly disarranged hair, beforetying the cord of his chamber robehe resumed his seat.

This year, he reverted to Sidsall, would pass; but, try as he might, he had no feeling of security in the future,

however near. It was the present, this Sidsall, that filled him with a tyrannical and bitter longing. She was

unbelievably beautiful now. Against the faintness of his hope, his patience, he saw the whole slow process of

the disintegration of marine insurance, and with it his own fatuous insensibility to the decline: that decline

with its exact counterpart in himself. Salem and he were getting dusty together.

He straightened up vigorously in his chairthis would never do. He must wind up his affairs here and return

to New York. The tranquil backwater had overpowered him for a time; but, again awake, he would strike out

strongly . . . with Sidsall. Endless doubt and hope fluctuated within him. Voices rose from the Napier garden,

and from a tree sounded the whirring of the first locust he had noticed that summer.

On a noon following he saw the passage of the three or four carriages that constituted the funeral cort�ge of

Taou Yuen's entirely private interment. She would be buried of course by Christian service: here were none

of the elaborate Confucian rites and ceremonial; yetfrom what Taou Yuen had occasionally

indicatedConfucius, Laotze, the Buddha, were all more alike than different; they all vainly preached

humility, purity, the subjugation of the flesh. He stopped later in the Charter Street cemetery and found her

He saw, naturally, but little of the Ammidonsa glimpse of Rhoda in the carriage and William on Charter

Street; the Nautilus, ready for sea, continued in her berth at Phillips' Wharf. Fragments of news came to him

quoted and requoted, grotesquely exaggerated and even malicious reports of the tragedy at the Dunsacks'.

Standing at his high desk in the countingroom of the Mongolian Marine Insurance Company, Taou Yuen's

glittering passage through Salem already seemed to him a fable, a dream. Even Sidsall, robustly near by, had

an aspect of unreality in the tender fabric of his visions. Captain Rendell, his spade beard at the verge of

filmed old eyes, who was seated at the window, rose with difficulty. For a moment he swayed on insecure

Later, when Roger Brevard was turning the key on the insurance company for the day, Lady Saltonstone

stopped to speak in her charming slow manner: "Mother of course is in a whirl, with Captain Ammidon about

to marry that Nettie Vollar, since she is recovering after all, and our moving to Boston. . . . You see I'm there

so often it will make really very little difference to me. Sidsall is the lucky one, though you'd never know it

from seeing her. . . . I thought you'd have heardwhy, to Lausanne, a tremendously impressive school for a

year. They have promised her London afterward. I would call that a promise, but actually, Sidsall"

"Doesn't she want to go?" he asked mechanically, all the emotions that had chimed through his being

suddenly clashing in a discordant misery. He bowed sbsently, and hastening to his room softly closed the

door and sat without supper, late into the evening, lost in a bitterness that continually poisoned the resolutions

formed out of his overwhelming need. He was aghast at the inner violence that destroyed the long tranquility

of his existence, the clenched hands and spoken words lost in shadows over the Napiers' garden. He wanted

Sidsall with a breathless tyranny infinitely sharper than any pang of youth: she was life itself.

She didn't want to go, Lacy had made that clear; and he told himself that her reluctance could only, must

proceed from one causethat she cared for him. As he dwelt on this, the one alleviating possibility, he

became certain of its truth. He would find her at once and in spite of Rhoda and William Ammidon explain

that his whole hope lay in marrying her. With an utter contempt at all the small orderly habits which, he now

saw, were the expression of a confirmed dry preciseness, he left his clothes in a disorderly heap. Such a

feeling as Sidsall's and his, he repeated frm the oppressive expanse of his black walnut bed, was above

ordinary precautions and observance. Then, unable to dismiss the thought of how crumpled his trousers

would be in the morning, oppressed by the picture of the tumbled garments, he finally rose and, in the dark,

In the morning his disturbance resolved into what seemed a very decided and reasonable attitude: He would

see Rhoda that day and explain his feeling and establish what rights and agreement he could. He was willing

to admit that Sidsall was, perhaps, too young for an immediate decision so wide in results. The ache, the

hunger for happiness sharpened by vague premonitions of mischance, began again to pound in his heart.

At the Ammidons' it was clear immediately that Rhoda's manner toward him had changed: it had become

more social, even voluble, and restrained. She conversed brightly about trivial happenings, while he sat

listening, gravely silent. But it was evident that she soon became aware of his difference, and her voice grew

sharper, almost antagonistic. They were in the formal parlor, a significant detail in itself, and Roger Brevard

saw William pass the door. Well, he would soon have to go, he must speak about Sidsall now. It promised to

be unexpectedly difficult; but the words were forming when she came into the room.

There were faint shadows under her eyes, the unmistakable marks of tears. An overwhelming passion for her

choked at his throat. She came directly up to him, ignoring her mother. "Did you hear that they want me to go

"They know I don't want to," she continued; "I've explained it to them very carefully."

"My dear Sidsall," Rhoda Ammidon cut in; "we can't have this. What Roger has to say must be for me and

your father." The girl smiled at her and turned again to Roger Brevard. "Do you want me to go?"

William entered and stood at his wife's shoulder. "You won't insist," Sidsall faced them quietly. "Ridiculous,"

her father replied. Brevard realized that he must support the girl's bravery of spirit. How adorable she was!

But, before the overwhelming superior position of the elder Ammidons, their weight of propriety and

"To be quite frank," the other man proceeded, "since it has been forced on us, Sidsall imagines herself in love

with you, Brevard. I don't need to remind you how unsuitable and preposterous that is. She's too young to

know the meaning of love. Besides, my dear fellow, you're a quarter century her elder. We want Sidsall to go

to London like her mother, have her cotillions, before she settles into marriage."

"They can't understand, Roger," Sidsall touched his hand. "We're sorry to disappoint them"

"That isn't necessary," Rhoda told him. "I am sure Roger understands perfectly how impossible it is. You

mustn't be hurt," she turned to him, "if I admit that we have very different plans . . . at least a man nearer

The girl lifted a confident face to him. "You want to marry me, don't you?" she asked. More than any other

conceivable joy. But he said this silently. His courage slowly ebbed before the parental displeasure viewing

him coldly. "Then" Sidsall paused expectantly, a touch of impatience even invaded her manner. "Please

"Why I have to put up with this is beyond me," William Ammidon expostulated with his wife. "It's

Roger Brevard winced. He tried to say something about hope and the future, but it was so weak, a palpable

retreat, leaving Sidsall alone and unsupported, that the words perished unfinished. The girl studied him,

suddenly startled, and her confidence ebbed. He turned away, crushed by convention, filled with shame and a

A stillness followed of unendurable length, in whch he found his attention resting on the diversified shapes of

the East India money in a corner cabinet. It was Sidsall who finally spoke, slowly and clearly:

He recognized that she was addressing her mother and father. From a whisper of skirts he realized that she

was leaving the room. Without the will necessary for a last glimpse he stood with his head bowed by an

In a flash of selfcomprehension, Roger Brevard knew that he would never, as he had hoped, leave Salem.

He was an abstemious man, one of a family of long lives, and he would linger here, increasingly unimportant,

for a great while, an old man in new epochs, isolated among strange people and prejudices. Whatever the

causethe small safety or an inward flawhe had never been part of the corporate sweating humanity

where, in the war of spirit and flesh, the vital rewards and accomplishments were found.

Soon after he passed Gerrit and Nettie Vollar driving in the direction of the harbor; she was lying back wanly

in the Ammidon barouche, but her companion's face was set directly ahead, his expression of general disdain

strongly marked. A vigorous hand, Roger noted, was clasped about Nettie's supine palm. She saw him

standing on the sidewalk and bowed slightly, but the shipmaster plainly overlooked him together with the rest

The end of summer was imminent in a whirl of yellow leaves and chill gray wind. There was a ringing of

bugles through the morning, the strains of military quicksteps, rhythmic tramping feet and the irregular

fulmination of salutes. That it was already the day of the annual Fall Review seemed incredible to Roger

Brevard. He was indifferent to the activities of the Common; but when he heard that the Nautilus was sailing

in the middle of the afternoon he left his inconsequential affairs for Phillips' Wharf.

A small number were waiting on the solid rockfilled reach, the wharfinger's office at its head and a stone

warehouse blocking the end, where the Nautilus lay with her highsteeved bowsprit pointing outward. The

harbor was slaty, cold, and there was a continuous slapping of small waves on the shore. Darkening clouds

hung low in the west, out of which the wind cut in flaws across the open. The town, so lately folded in lush

greenery, showed a dun lift of roofs and stripping branches tossing against an ashy sky.

Close beside Roger stood Barzil Dunsack, his beard blowing, with Kate Vollar in a bright red shawl, her

skirts whipping uneasily against her father's legs. Beyond were the AmmidonsWilliam, and Rhoda in a

deep furred wrap, and their daughters. Rhoda waved for him to join them, but he declined with a gesture of

The deck of the Nautilus was above his vision but he could see most of the stir of departure. The peremptory

voice of the mate rose from the bow, minor directions were issued by the second mate aft, a seaman was aloft

on the mainroyal yard and another stood at the stage rising sharply from the wharf. Gerrit and his wife had

not yet arrived, and the pilot, making a leisurely appearance, stopped to exchange remarks with the

Ammidons. He climbed on board the ship and Roger could see his head and shoulders moving toward the

The wind grew higher, shriller, every moment; it was thrashing among the stays and braces; the man aloft, a

small movement against the clouds, swayed in its force. There was a faint clatter of hoofs from Derby Street,

Brevard had a fleeting glimpse of an arriving carriage, and Gerrit, supporting Nettie Ammidon, advanced

over the wharf. The shipmaster walked slowly, the woman clinging, almost dragging, at his erect strength.

They went close by Roger: Nettie's pale face, her large shining dark eyes, were filled with placid surrender.

Her companion spoke in a low grave tone, and she looked up at him in a tired and happy acquiescence.

The two families joined, and there was a confused determined gayety of farewell and good wishes. Out of it

finally emerged the captain of the Nautilus and the slight figure upon his arm. He wore a beaver hat, and, as

they mounted the stage, he was forced to hold it on with his free hand. When the quarterdeck was reached

"Mr. Broadrick," the pilot called, "you can get in those bow fasts. Send a hawser to the end of the wharf; I'm

going to warp out." There was a harsh answering clatter as the mooring chain that held the bow of the

Nautilus was secured, and a group of sailors went smartly forward with a hemp cable to the end of the wharf's

seaward thrust. The Nautilus lay on the eastern side, with the wind beating over the starboard quarter, and

there was little difficulty in getting under way. Strain was kept on the stern and breast fasts while the mate

The intimate spectators on Phillips' Wharf moved out with the ship. Gerrit Ammidon was now visible on the

quarterdeck with the pilot. He walked to the port railing aft and stood gazing somberly back at Salem. The

stovepipe hat was not yet discarded, and the hand firmly holding its brim resembled a final gesture of

contempt. The pilot approached him, there was a brief exchange of words, and the former sharply ordered:

"Stand by to run up your jib and foretopmast staysail, Mr. Broadrick. Put two good men at the sheets and

"On the wharf theretake that stern fast out to the last ringbolt. Mr. Second Mate . . . get your fenders

aboard." The wind increased in a violence tipped with stinging rain. "Give her the jib and staysail." She

heeled slightly and gathered steerage way. Roger Brevard involuntarily waved a parting salutation. An

extraordinary emotion swept over him: a ship bound to the East always stirred his imagination and sense of

beauty, but the departure of the Nautilus had a special significance. It was the beginning, yes, and the end, of

almost the whole sweep of human suffering and despair, of longing and hope and passion, and a reward.

A mere gust of song was distinguishable against the blast of storm. Under the lee of the stone warehouse, on

the solidity of the wharf, the land, Roger Brevard watched the Nautilus while one by one the topsails were

sheeted home and the yards mastheaded. "A gale by night," somebody said. The ship, driving with surprising

speed toward the open sea, was now apparently no more than a fragile shell on the immensity of the stark

The light faded: the days were growing shorter. Alone Brevard followed the others moving away. Kate

Vollar's red shawl suddenly streamed out and was secured by a wasted hand. Just that way, he thought, the