Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net FROM THE HOUSETOPS BY GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON Author of "Ghaustark," "The Hollow of Her Hand," "The Prince of Graustark," etc. With Illustrations by F. GRAHAM COOTES Copyright, 1916 By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. _All rights reserved_ Made in U.S.A. [Illustration: "Stop!" he cried eagerly. "Would you give up everythingâeverything, mind you,âif I were to ask you to do so?"] Contents ======== CHAPTER I 1 CHAPTER II 9 CHAPTER III 16 CHAPTER IV 27 CHAPTER V 39 CHAPTER VI 57 CHAPTER VII 76 CHAPTER VIII 90 CHAPTER IX 101 CHAPTER X 120 CHAPTER XI 137 CHAPTER XII 155 CHAPTER XIII 169 CHAPTER XIV 185 CHAPTER XV 197 CHAPTER XVI 213 CHAPTER XVII 230 CHAPTER XVIII 247 CHAPTER XIX 260 CHAPTER XX 273 CHAPTER XXI 292 CHAPTER XXII 310 CHAPTER XXIII 329 CHAPTER XXIV 345 CHAPTER XXV 359 CHAPTER XXVI 376 CHAPTER XXVII 391 CHAPTER XXVIII 405 CHAPTER XXIX 421 CHAPTER XXX 431 FROM THE HOUSETOPS CHAPTER I Mr. Templeton Thorpe was soon to be married for the second time. Back in 1860 he married a girl of twenty-two, and now in the year 1912 he was taking unto himself another girl of twenty-two. In the interim he had achieved a grandson whose years were twenty-nine. In his seventy-seventh year he was worth a great many millions of dollars, and for that and no other reason perhaps, one of the newspapers, in commenting on the approaching nuptials, declared that nobody could now deny that he was a philanthropist. * * * * * "I daresay you are right, Mrs. Tresslyn," said old Templeton Thorpe's grandson, bitterly. "He hasn't many more years to live." The woman in the chair started, her eyes narrowing. The flush deepened in her cheeks. It had been faint before and steady, but now it was ominous. "I fear you are again putting words into my mouth," she said coldly. "Have I made any such statement?" "I did not say that you had, Mrs. Tresslyn," said the young man. "I merely observed that you were right. It isn't necessary to put the perfectly obvious into words. He is a very old man, so you are right in believing that he hasn't many years left to live. Nearly four times the age of Anne,âthat's how old he is,âand time flies very swiftly for him." "I must again remind you that you are in danger of becoming offensive, Braden. Be good enough to remember that this interview is not of my choosing. I consented to receive you inâ" "You knew it was inevitableâthis interview, as you call it. You knew I would come here to denounce this damnable transaction. I have nothing to apologise for, Mrs. Tresslyn. This is not the time for apologies. You may order me to leave your house, but I don't believe you will find any satisfaction in doing so. You would still know that I have a right to protest against this unspeakable marriage, even though it should mean nothing more to me than the desire to protect a senile old man against theâ" "Your grandfather is the last man in the world to be described as senile," she broke in, with a thin smile. "I could have agreed with you a month ago, but not now," said he savagely. "Perhaps you would better go now, Braden," said she, arising. She was a tall, handsome woman, well under fifty. As she faced her visitor, her cold, unfriendly eyes were almost on a level with his own. The look she gave him would have caused a less determined man to quail. It was her way of closing an argument, no matter whether it was with her butcher, her grocer, of the bishop himself. Such a look is best described as imperious, although one less reserved than I but perhaps more potently metaphorical would say that she simply looked a hole through you, seeing beyond you as if you were not there at all. She had found it especially efficacious in dealing with the butcher and even the bishop, to say nothing of the effect it always had upon the commonplace nobodies who go to the butcher and the bishop for the luxuries of both the present and the future life, and it had seldom failed to wither and blight the most hardy of masculine opponents. It was not always so effective in crushing the members of her own sex, for there were women in New York society who could look straight through Mrs. Tresslyn without even appearing to suspect that she was in the range of vision. She had been known, however, to stare an English duke out of countenance, and it was a long time before she forgave herself for doing so. It would appear that it is not the proper thing to do. Crushing the possessor of a title is permissible only among taxi-drivers and gentlemen whose daughters are already married. Her stony look did not go far toward intimidating young Mr. Thorpe. He was a rather sturdy, athletic looking fellow with a firm chin and a well-set jaw, and a pair of grey eyes that were not in the habit of wavering. "I came here to see Anne," he said, a stubborn expression settling in his face. "Is she afraid to see me, or is she obeying orders from you, Mrs. Tresslyn?" "She doesn't care to see you," said Mrs. Tresslyn. "That's all there is to be said about it, Braden." "So far as I am concerned, she is still engaged to me. She hasn't broken it off by word or letter. If you don't mind, I'd like to have it broken off in the regular way. It doesn't seem quite proper for her to remain engaged to me right up to the instant she marries my grandfather. Or is it possible that she intends to remain bound to me during the lifetime of my grandparent, with the idea of holding me to my bargain when he is gone?" "Don't be ridiculous," was all that Mrs. Tresslyn said in response to this sarcasm, but she said it scathingly. For a full minute they stood looking into each other's eyes, each appraising the other, one offensively, the other defensively. She had the advantage of him, for she was prepared to defend herself while he was in the position of one who attacks without strategy and leaps from one exposed spot to another. It was to her advantage that she knew that he despised her; it was to his disadvantage that he knew she had always liked him after a manner of her own, and doubtless liked him now despite the things he had said to her. She had liked him from his boyhood days when report had it that he was to be the sole heir to his grandfather's millions, and she had liked him, no doubt, quite as sincerely, after the old man had declared that he did not intend to ruin a brilliant career by leaving a lot of uninspiring money to his ambitious grandson. In so many words, old Templeton Thorpe had said, not two months before, that he intended to leave practically all of his money to charity! All except the two millions he stood ready to settle upon his bride the day she married him! Possibly Mrs. Tresslyn liked the grandson all the more for the treasures that he had lost, or was about to lose. It is easy to like a man who will not be pitied. At any rate, she did not consider it worth while to despise him, now that he had only a profession to offer in exchange for her daughter's hand. "Of course, Mrs. Tresslyn, I know that Anne loves me," he said, with forced calmness. "She doesn't love my grandfather. That isn't even debatable. I fear that I am the only person in the world who does love him. I suspect, too, that if he loves any one, I am that one. If you think that he is fool enough to believe that Anne loves him, you are vastly mistaken. He knows perfectly well that she doesn't, and, by gad, he doesn't blame her. He understands. That's why he sits there at home and chuckles. I hope you will not mind my saying to you that he considers me a very lucky person." "Lucky?" said she, momentarily off her guard. "If you care to hear exactly how he puts it, he says I'm _damned_ lucky, Mrs. Tresslyn. Of course, you are not to assume that I agree with him. If I thought all this was Anne's doing and not yours, I should say that I am lucky, but I can't believeâgood heavens, I will not believe that she could do such a thing! A young, beautiful, happy girl voluntarilyâoh, it is unspeakable! She is being driven into it, she is being sacrificed toâ" "Just one moment, Braden," interrupted Mrs. Tresslyn, curtly. "I may as well set you quite straight in the matter. It will save time and put an end to recriminations. My daughter does not care the snap of her fingers for Mr. Thorpe. I think she loves you quite as dearly now as she ever did. At any rate, she says she does. But that is neither here nor there. She is going to marry Mr. Thorpe, and of her own volition. I have advised her to do so, I will admit, but I have not driven her to it, as you say. No one but a fool would expect her to love that old man. He doesn't ask it of her. He simply asks her to marry him. Nowadays people do not always marry for love. In fact, they frequently marry to avoid itâat least for the time being. Your grandfather has told you of the marriage settlement. It is to be two million dollars, set apart for her, to be hers in full right on the day that he dies. We are far from rich, Anne and I. My husband was a failureâbut you know our circumstances quite well enough without my going into them. My daughter is her own mistress. She is twenty-three. She is able to choose for herself. It pleases her to choose the grandfather instead of the grandson. Is that perfectly plain to you? If it is, my boy, then I submit that there is nothing further to be said. The situation is surely clear enough for even you to see. We do not pretend to be doing anything noble. Mr. Thorpe is seventy-seven. That is the long and short of it." "In plain English, it's the money you are after," said he, with a sneer. "Obviously," said she, with the utmost candour. "Young women of twenty- three do not marry old men of seventy-seven for love. You may imagine a young girl marrying a penniless youth for love, but can you picture her marrying a penniless octogenarian for the same reason? I fancy not. I speak quite frankly to you, Braden, and without reserve. We have always been friends. It would be folly to attempt to delude you into believing that a sentimental motive is back of ourâshall we say enterprise?" "Yes, that is what I would call it," said he levelly. "It is a more refined word than scheme." "The world will be grateful for the opportunity to bear me out in all that I have said to you," she went on. "It will cheerfully, even gleefully supply any of the little details I may have considered unnecessary or superfluous in describing the situation. You are at liberty, then, to go forth and assist in the castigation. You have my permission,âand Anne's, I may add,âto say to the world that I have told you plainly why this marriage is to take place. It is no secret. It isn't improbable that your grandfather will consent to back you up in your denunciation. He is that kind of a man. He has no illusions. Permit me to remind you, therefore, that neither you nor the world is to take it for granted that we are hoodwinking Mr. Thorpe. Have I made myself quite clear to you, Braden?" The young man drew a deep breath. His tense figure relaxed. "I did not know there were such women in the world as you, Mrs. Tresslyn. There were heartless, soulless women among the Borgias and the Medicis, but they lived in an age of intrigue. Their acts were mildly innocuous when compared withâ" "I must ask you to remember that you are in my home, Braden," she interrupted, her eyes ablaze. "Oh, I remember where I am, perfectly," he cried. "It was in this very room that Anne promised to become my wife. It was here that you gave your consent, less than a year ago." He had been pacing the floor, back and forth across the space in front of the fireplace, in which logs were blazing on this raw February afternoon. Now he stopped once more to face her resolutely. "I insist that it is my right to see Anne," he said. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheek pallid. "I must hear from her own lips that she no longer considers herself bound to me by the promise made a year ago. I demand that much of her. She owes it to me, if not to herself, to put an end to the farce before she turns to tragedy. I don't believe she appreciates the wickedness of the thing she is about to do. I insist that it is my right to speak with her, to urge her to reconsider, to point out to her the horrors ofâ" "She will not see you, Braden," broke in the mother, finality in her voice. "She _must_ see me," he shouted. "If not to-day, to-morrow; if not then, some other day, for, by the Eternal, Mrs. Tresslyn, I intend to speak with her if I have to wait until the accursed day you have selected,âat the very altar, if necessary. She shall not go into this thing until she has had the final word with me, and I with her. She does not know what she is doing. She is carried away by the thought of all that moneyâMoney! Good God, Mrs. Tresslyn, she has told me a hundred times that she would marry me if I were as poor as the raggedest beggar in the streets. She loves me, she cannot play this vile trick on me. Her heart is pure. You cannot make me believe that she isn't honest and fair and loyal. I tell you now, once and for all, that I will not stand idly by and see this vile sacrifice made in order toâ" "Rawson," interrupted Mrs. Tresslyn, looking beyond him in the direction of the door, "Doctor Thorpe is going. Will you give him his hat and coat?" She had pressed a button beside the mantelpiece, and in response to the call, the butler stood in the doorway. "Good day, Braden. I am sorry that Anne is unable to see you to-day. Sheâ" "Good day, Mrs. Tresslyn," he choked out, controlling himself with an effort. "Will you tell her that I shall call to-morrow?" She smiled. "When do you expect to return to London? I had hoped to have you stay until after the wedding." His smile was more of an effort than hers. "Thanks. My grandfather has expressed the same hope. He says the affair will not be complete without my presence at the feast. To-morrow, at this hour, I shall come to see Anne. Thank you, Rawson." CHAPTER II His gaze swept the long, luxurious drawing-room, now filled with the shadows of late afternoon. A sigh that ended in an unvoiced imprecation escaped him. There was not an object in the room that did not possess for him a peculiar claim of intimacy. Here he had dreamed of paradise with Anne, and here he had built upon his hopes,âa staunch future that demanded little of the imagination. He could never forget this room and all that it had held for him. But now, in that brief, swift glance, he found himself estimating the cost of all the treasures that it contained, and the price that was to be paid in order that they might not be threatened. These things represented greed. They had always represented greed. They had been saved out of the wreck that befell the Tresslyn fortunes when Anne was a young girl entering her teens, the wreck that destroyed Arthur Tresslyn and left his widow with barely enough to sustain herself and children through the years that intervened between the then and the now. He recalled that after the wreck had been cleared up, Mrs. Tresslyn had a paltry twenty-five thousand a year on which to maintain the house that, fortuitously, had been in her name at the time of the smash. A paltry sum indeed! Barely enough to feed and clothe one hundred less exacting families for a year; families, however, with wheelbarrows instead of automobiles, and with children instead of servants. Ten years had elapsed since the death of Arthur Tresslyn, and still the house in the east Seventies held itself above water by means of that meagre two thousand a month! These rare, almost priceless objects upon which he now gazed had weathered the storm, proof against the temptations that beset an owner embarrassed by their richness; they had maintained a smug relationship to harmony in spite of the jangling of discordant instruments, such as writs and attachments and the wails of insufferable creditors who made the usual mistake of thinking that a man's home is his castle and therefore an object of reprisal. The splendid porcelains, the incomparable tapestries and the small but exquisite paintings remained where they had been placed by the amiable but futile Arthur, and all the king's men and all the king's horses could not have removed them without Mrs. Tresslyn's sanction. The mistress of the house subsisted as best she could on the pitiful income from a sequestered half-million, and lived in splendour among objects that deluded even the richest and most arrogant of her friends into believing that nothing was more remote from her understanding than the word poverty, or the equally disgusting word thrift. Here he had come to children's parties in days when he was a lad and Anne a child of twelve, and here he had always been a welcome visitor and playmate, even to the end of his college years. The motherless, fatherless grandson of old Templeton Thorpe was cherished among heirlooms that never had had a price put upon them. Of all the boys who came to the Tresslyn house, young Braden Thorpe was the heir with the most potent possibility. He did not know it then, but now he knew that on the occasion of his smashing a magnificent porcelain vase the forgiving kiss that Mrs. Tresslyn bestowed upon his flaming cheek was not due to pity but to farsightedness. Somehow he now felt that he could smash every fragile and inanimate thing in sight, and still escape the kiss. Not the least regal and imposing object in the room was the woman who stood beside the fireplace, smiling as she always smiled when a situation was at its worst and she at her best. Her high-bred, aristocratic face was as insensitive to an inward softness as a chiseled block of marble is to the eye that gazes upon it in rapt admiration. She had trained herself to smile in the face of the disagreeable; she had acquired the _art_ of tranquillity. This long anticipated interview with her daughter's cast- off, bewildered lover was inevitable. They had known that he would come, insistent. She had not kept him waiting. When he came to the house the day after his arrival from England, following close upon a cablegram sent the day after the news of Anne's defection had struck him like a thunderbolt, she was ready to receive him. And now, quite as calmly and indifferently, she was ready to say good-bye to him forever,âto this man who until a fortnight before had considered himself, and rightly too, to be the affianced husband of her daughter. He meant nothing to her. Her world was complete without him. He possessed her daughter's love,âand all the love she would ever know perhaps,âbut even that did not produce within her the slightest qualm. Doubtless Anne would go on loving him to the end of her days. It is the prerogative of women who do not marry for love; it is their right to love the men they do not marry provided they honour the men they do, and keep their skirts clear besides. Mrs. Tresslyn felt, and honestly too, that her own assurances that Anne loved him would be quite as satisfactory as if Anne were to utter them herself. It all came to the same thing, and she had an idea that she could manage the situation more ably than her daughter. And Mrs. Tresslyn was quite sure that it would come out all right in the end. She hadn't the remotest doubt that Anne could marry Braden later on, if she cared to do so, and if nothing better offered; so what was there to worry about? Things always shape themselves after the easiest possible fashion. It wasn't as if she was marrying a young man with money. Mrs. Tresslyn had seen things shape themselves before. Moreover, she rather hated the thought of being a grandmother before she was fifty. And so it was really a pleasure to turn this possible son-in-law out of her house just at this time. It would be a very simple matter to open the door to him later on and invite him in. She stood beside her hearth and watched him go with a calm and far from uneasy eye. He would come again to-morrow, perhaps,âbut even at his worst he could not be a dangerous visitor. He was a gentleman. He was a bit distressed. Gentlemen are often put to the test, and they invariably remain gentlemen. He stopped at the door. "Will you tell Anne that I'll be here to-morrow, Mrs. Tresslyn?" "I shall tell her, of course," said Mrs. Tresslyn, and lifted her lorgnon. He went out, filled to the throat with rage and resentment. His strong body was bent as if against a gale, and his hands were tightly clenched in his overcoat pockets. In his haste to get away from the house, he had fairly flung himself into the ulster that Rawson held for him, and the collar of his coat showed high above the collar of the greatcoat,âa most unusual lapse from orderliness on the part of this always careful dresser. He was returning to his grandfather's house. Old Templeton Thorpe would be waiting there for him, and Mr. Thorpe's man would be standing outside the library door as was his practice when his master was within, and there would be a sly, patient smile on the servant's lips but not in his sombre eyes. He was returning to his grandfather's house because he had promised to come back and tell the old man how he had fared at the home of his betrothed. The old man had said to him earlier in the afternoon that he would know more about women than he'd ever known before by the time his interview was over, and had drily added that the world was full to overflowing of good women who had not married the men they loved,âprincipally, he was just enough to explain, because the men they loved preferred to marry other women. Braden had left him seated in the library after a stormy half-hour; and as he rushed from the room, he found Mr. Thorpe's man standing in the hall outside the door, just as he always stood, waiting for orders with the sly, patient smile on his lips. For sixty years Templeton Thorpe had lived in the house near Washington Square, and for thirty-two of them Wade had been within sound of his voice, no matter how softly he called. The master never rang a bell, night or day. He did not employ Wade to answer bells. The butler could do that, or the parlour-maid, if the former happened to be tipsier than usual. Wade always kept his head cocked a little to one side, in the attitude of one listening, and so long had he been at it that it is doubtful if he could have cocked it the other way without snapping something in his neck. That right ear of his was open for business twenty-four hours out of the day. The rest of his body may have slept as soundly as any man's, but his ear was always awake, on land or sea. It was his boast that he had never had a vacation. Braden, after his long ride down Fifth Avenue on the stage, found Wade in the hall. "Is my grandfather in the library, Wade?" he asked, surprised to find the man at the foot of the stairs, quite a distance from his accustomed post. "He is, sir," said Wade. "He asked me to wait here until you arrived and then to go upstairs for a little while, sir. I fancy he has something to say to you in private." Which was a naÃ¯ve way of explaining that Mr. Thorpe did not want him to have his ear cocked in the hall during the conversation that was to be resumed after an advisable interval. Observing the strange pallor in the young man's usually ruddy face, he solicitously added: "Shall I get you a glass ofâahem!âspirits, sir? A snack of brandy is a handy thing toâ" "No, thank you, Wade. You forget that I am a doctor. I never take medicine," said Braden, forcing a smile. "A very good idea, sir," said Wade. Meanwhile, Mrs. Tresslyn had reported to Anne, in the cosy little boudoir at the top of the house in the Seventies. "It is just as well that you insisted on me seeing him, dear," she said on entering the room. "He would have said things to you that you could not have forgiven. As it is, you have nothing to forgive, and you have saved yourself a good many tears. Heâbut, my dear, what's this? Have you been crying?" Anne, tall and slender, stood with her back to the window, her exquisite face in the shadows. Even in the dim, colourless light of the waning day, she was lovelyâlovely even with the wet cheeks and the drooped, whimpering lips. "What did he say, mother?" she asked, her voice hushed and broken. "How did he look?" Her head was bent and she looked at her mother from beneath pain-contracted brows. "Was he angry? Was he desperate? Didâdid he say that heâthat he loved me?" "He looked very well, he was angry, he was desperate and he said that he loved you," replied Mrs. Tresslyn, with the utmost composure. "So dry your eyes. He did just what was to have been expected of him, and just what you counted upon. Heâ" "He honestly, truly said that he loved me?" cried the girl, lifting her head and drawing a deep breath. "Yes,âtruly." Anne dried her eyes with a fresh bit of lace. "Sit down, mother, and tell me all about it," she said, jerking a small chair around so that it faced the couch. Then she threw herself upon the latter and, reaching out with a slender foot, drew the chair closer. "Sit up close, and let's hear what my future grandson had to say." CHAPTER III Braden Thorpe had spent two years in the New York hospitals, after graduation from Johns Hopkins, and had been sent to Germany and Austria by his grandfather when he was twenty-seven, to work under the advanced scientists of Vienna and Berlin. At twenty-nine he came back to New York, a serious-minded, purposeful man, wrapped up in his profession and heterodoxically humane, to use the words of his grandfather. The first day after his return he confided to his grim old relative the somewhat unprofessional opinion that hopelessly afflicted members of the human race should be put out of their misery by attending physicians, operating under the direction of a commission appointed to consider such cases, and that the act should be authorised by law! His grandfather, being seventy-six and apparently as healthy as any one could hope to be at that age, said that he thought it would be just as well to kill 'em legally as any other way, having no good opinion of doctors, and admitted that his grandson had an exceptionally soft heart in him even though his head was a trifle harder and thicker than was necessary in one so young. "It's worth thinking about, anyhow, isn't it, granddaddy?" Braden had said, with great earnestness. "It is, my boy," said Templeton Thorpe; "especially when you haven't got anything serious the matter with you." "But if you were hopelessly ill and suffering beyond all endurance you'd welcome death, wouldn't you?" "No, I wouldn't," said Mr. Thorpe promptly. "The only time I ever wanted to shuffle off was when your grandmother first refused to marry me. The second time she refused me I decided to do something almost but not quite so terrible, so I went West. The third time I proposed, she accepted me, and out of sheer joy I very stupidly got drunk. So, you see, there is always something to live for," he concluded, with his driest smile. "I am quite serious about it, grandfather," said Braden stiffly. "So I perceive. Well, you are planning to hang out your sign here in New York pretty soon, and you are going to become a licensed physician, the confrÃ¨re and companion of a lot of distinguished gentlemen who believe just as you do about putting sufferers out of their misery but who wouldn't think of doing it, so I'd advise you to keep your opinions to yourself. What do you suppose I sent you abroad for, and gave you an education that few young men have received? Just to see you kicked out of your profession before you've fairly well put a foot into it, or a knife into a plutocrat, or a pill into a pauper? No, sirree, my boy. You sit tight and let the hangman do all the legal killing that has to be done." "Oh, I know perfectly well that if I advanced this theory,âor scheme,âat present, I'd be kicked out of the profession, notwithstanding the fact that it has all been discussed a million times by doctors in every part of the world. I can't help having the feeling that it would be a great and humane thingâ" "Quite so," broke in the old man, "but let us talk of something else." A month later Braden came to him and announced that he and Anne Tresslyn were betrothed. They had known each other for years, and from the time that Anne was seventeen Braden had loved her. He had been a quiet, rather shy boy, and she a gay, self-possessed creature whose outlook upon life was so far advanced beyond his, even in those days of adolescence, that he looked upon her as the eighth wonder of the world. She had poise, manner, worldly wisdom of a pleasantly superficial character that stood for sophistication in his blissful estimate of her advantages over him, and she was so adroit in the art of putting her finger upon the right spot at precisely the right moment that he found himself wondering if he could ever bring himself up to her insuperable level. And when he came home after the two years in Europe, filled with great thoughts and vast pretentions of a singularly unromantic nature, he found her so much lovelier than before that where once he had shyly coveted he now desired with a fervour that swept him headlong into a panic of dread lest he had waited too long and that he had irretrievably lost her while engaged in the wretchedly mundane and commonplace pursuit of trifles. He was intensely amazed, therefore, to discover that she had loved him ever since she was a child in short frocks. He expected her to believe him when he said to her that she was the loveliest of all God's creatures, but it was more than he could believe when she declared that he was as handsome as a Greek god. That, of course, to him was a ludicrous thing to say, a delusion, a fancy that could not be explained, and yet he had seen himself in a mirror a dozen times a day, perhaps, without even suspecting, in his simplicity, that he was an extremely good-looking chap and well worth a second glance from any one except himself. The announcement did not come as a surprise to old Mr. Thorpe. He had been expecting it. He realised that Braden's dilatory tactics alone were accountable for the delay in bringing the issue to a head. "And when do you expect to be married?" he had inquired, squinting at his grandson in a somewhat dubious manner. "Within the year, I hope," said Braden. "Of course, I shall have to get a bit of a start before we can think of getting married." "A bit of a start, eh? Expect to get enough of a practice in a year to keep Anne going, do you?" "We shall live very economically." "Is that your idea or hers?" "She knows that I have but little more than two thousand a year, but, of course, it won't take much of a practice to add something to that, you know." "Besides, you can always depend upon me to help you out, Braden,âthat is, within reason," said the other, watching him narrowly out of his shrewd old eyes. Braden flushed. "You have done more than enough for me already, grandfather. I can't take anything more, you see. I'm going to fight my own way now, sir." "I see," said Mr. Thorpe. "That's the way to talk, my boy. And what does Anne say to that?" "She thinks just as I do about it. Oh, she's the right sort, granddaddy, so you needn't worry about us, once we are married." "Perhaps I should have asked what her mother has to say about it." "Well, she gave us her blessing," said his grandson, with a happy grin. "After she had heard about your plan to live on the results of your practice?" "She said she wasn't going to worry about that, sir. If Anne was willing to wait, so was she." "Wait for what?" "My practice to pick up, of course. What do you mean?" "Just that, of course," said the old man quickly. "Well, my boy, while I daresay it isn't really necessary, I give my consent. I am sure you and Anne will be very happy in your cosy little five-room flat, and that she will be a great help to you. You may even attain to quite a fashionable practice,âor clientele, which is it?âthrough the Tresslyn position in the city. Thousand dollar appendicitis operations ought to be quite common with you from the outset, with Anne to talk you up a bit among the people who belong to her set and who are always looking for something to keep them from being bored to death. I understand that anybody who has an appendix nowadays is looked upon as exceedingly vulgar and is not even tolerated in good society. As for a man having a sound liver,âwell, that kind of a liver is absolutely inexcusable. Nobody has one to-day if he can afford to have the other kind. Good livers always have livers,âand so do bad livers, for that matter. But, now, let us return to the heart. You are quite sure that Anne loves you better than she loves herself? That's quite important, you know. I have found that people who say that they love some one better than anybody else in the world, usually forget themselves,âthat is to say, they overlook themselves. How about Anne?" "Rather epigrammatic, aren't you, granddaddy? I have Anne's word for it, that's all. She wouldn't marry me if she loved any one more than she does me,ânot even herself, as you put it. I am sure if I were Anne I should love myself better than all the rest of the world." "A very pretty speech, my boy. You should make an exceptionally fashionable doctor. You will pardon me for appearing to be cynical, but you see I am a very old man and somewhat warped,âbent, you might say, in my attitude toward the tender passion as it is practised to-day. Still, I shall take your word for it. Anne loves you devotedly, and you love her. The only thing necessary, therefore, is a professional practice, or, in other words, a practical profession. I am sure you will achieve both. You have my best wishes. I love you, my boy. You are the only thing left in life for me to love. Your father was my only son. He would have been a great man, I am sure, if he had not been my son. I spoiled him. I think that is the reason why he died so young. Now, my dear grandson, I am not going to make the mistake with his son that I made with my own. I intend that you shall fight your own battles. Among other things, you will have to fight pretty hard for Anne. That is a mere detail, of course. You are a resolute, determined, sincere fellow, Braden, and you have in you the making of a splendid character. You will succeed in anything you undertake. I like your eye, my boy, and I like the set of your jaw. You have principle and you have a sense of reverence that is quite uncommon in these days of ours. I daresay you have been wicked in an essential sort of way, and I fancy you have been just as necessarily honourable. I don't like a mollycoddle. I don't like anything invertebrate. I despise a Christian who doesn't understand Christ. Christ despised sin but he didn't despise sinners. And that brings us back to Mrs. Tresslyn,âConstance Blair that was. You will have to be exceedingly well fortified, my boy, if you expect to withstand the clever Constance. She is the refinement of maternal ambition. She will not be satisfied to have her daughter married to a mere practice. She didn't bring her up for that. She will ask me to come and see her within the next few days. What am I to say to her when she asks me if I expect you and Anne to live on what you can earn out of your ridiculous profession?" "I think that's all pretty well understood," said Braden easily. "You do Mrs. Tresslyn an injustice, granddaddy. She says it will be a splendid thing for Anne to struggle along as we shall have to do for a while. Character building, is the way she puts it." "Just the same, I shall expect a message from her before the engagement is announced," said the old man drily. A hard glitter had come into his eyes. He loved this good-looking, earnest grandson of his, and he was troubled. He lay awake half the night thinking over this piece of not unexpected news. The next morning at breakfast he said to Braden: "See here, my boy, you spoke to me recently about your desire to spend a year in and about the London hospitals before settling down to the real business of life. I've been thinking it over. You can't very well afford to pay for these finishing touches after you've begun struggling along on your own hook, and trying to make both ends meet on a slender income, so I'd suggest that you take this next year as a gift from me and spend it on the other side, working with my good friend, Sir George Bascombe, the greatest of all the English surgeons. I don't believe you will ever regret it." Braden was overjoyed. "I should like nothing better, grandfather. By jove, you are good to me. Youâ" "It is only right and just that I should give to the last of my race the chance to be a credit to it." There was something cryptic in the remark, but naturally it escaped Braden's notice. "You are the only one of the Thorpes left, my boy. I was an only son and, strange as it may appear, I was singularly without avuncular relatives. It is not surprising, therefore, that I should desire to make a great man out of you. You shall not be handicapped by any failure on my part to do the right thing by you. If it is in my power to safeguard you, it is my duty to exercise that power. Nothing must be allowed to stand in the way or to obstruct your progress. Nothing must be allowed to check your ambition or destroy your courage. So, if you please, I think you ought to have this chance to work with Bascombe. A year is a short time to a chap of your age and experience, and it may be the most valuable one in a long and successful life." "If I can ever grow to be half as wise and half as successful as you, grandfather, I shall have achieved more thanâ" "My boy, I inherited my success and I've been more of a fool than you suspect. My father left me with two or three millions of dollars, and the little wisdom that I have acquired I would pass on to you instead of money if it were possible to do so. A man cannot bequeath his wisdom. He may inherit it, but he can't give it away, for the simple reason that no one will take it as a gift. It is like advice to the young: something to disregard. My father left me a great deal of money, and I was too much of a coward to become a failure. Only the brave men are failures. They are the ones who take the risks. If you are going to be a surgeon, be a great one. Now, when do you think you can go to London?" Braden, his face aglow, was not long in answering. "I'll speak to Anne about it to-night. If she is willing to marry me at once, we'll start immediately. By Jove, sir, it is wonderful! It is the greatest thing that ever happened to a fellow. Iâ" "Ah, but I'm afraid that doesn't fit in with my plan," interrupted the old man, knitting his brows. "It is my idea that you should devote yourself to observation and not to experimentation,âto study instead of honeymooning. A bride is out of the question, Braden. This is to be my year and not Anne's." They were a week thrashing it out, and in the end it was Mrs. Tresslyn who settled the matter. She had had her talk with Mr. Templeton Thorpe, and, after hearing all that he had to say, expressed herself in no uncertain terms on the advisability of postponing the wedding for a year if not longer. Something she said in private to Anne appeared to have altered that charming young person's notions in regard to an early wedding, so Braden found himself without an ally. He went to London early in the fall, with Anne's promises safely stowed away in his heart, and he came back in the middle of his year with Sir George, dazed and bewildered by her faithlessness and his grandfather's perfidy. Out of a clear sky had come the thunderbolt. And then, while he was still dazed and furious, his grandfather had tried to convince him that he had done him a deuce of a good turn in showing up Anne Tresslyn! In patience the old man had listened to his grandson's tirade, his ravings, his anathemas. He had heard himself called a traitor. He had smiled grimly on being described as a satyr! When words and breath at last failed the stalwart Braden, the old gentleman, looking keenly out from beneath his shaggy brows, and without the slightest trace of resentment in his manner, suggested that they leave the matter to Anne. "If she really wants you, my boy, she'll chuck me and my two-million- dollar purse out of the window, so to speak, and she'll marry you in spite of your poverty. If she does that, I'll be satisfied. I'll step down and out and I'll praise God for his latest miracle. If she looks at it from the other point of view,âthe perfectly safe and secure way, you understand,âand confirms her allegiance to me, I'll still be exceedingly happy in the consciousness that I've done you a good turn. I will enter my extreme old age in the race against your healthy youth. I will proffer my three or four remaining years to her as against the fifty you may be able to give her. Go and see her at once. Then come back here to me and tell me what she says." And so it was that Braden Thorpe returned, as he had agreed to do, to the home of the man who had robbed him of his greatest possession,âfaith in woman. He found his grandfather seated in the library, in front of a half- dead fire. A word, in passing, to describe this remarkable old man. He was tall and thin, and strangely erect for one of his years. His gaunt, seamed face was beardless and almost repellent in its severity. In his deep-set, piercing eyes lurked all the pains of a lifetime. He had been a strong, robust man; the framework was all that remained of the staunch house in which his being had dwelt for so long. His hand shook and his knee rebelled against exertion, but his eye was unwavering, his chin unflinching. White and sparse was the thatch of hair upon his shrunken skull, and harsh was the thin voice that came from his straight, colourless lips. He walked with a cane, and seldom without the patient, much-berated Wade at his elbow, a prop against the dreaded day when his legs would go back on him and the brink would appear abruptly out of nowhere at his very feet. And there were times when he put his hand to his side and held it there till the look of pain softened about his mouth and eyes, though never quite disappeared. CHAPTER IV It was Templeton Thorpe's contention that Braden was a family investment, and that a good investment will take care of itself if properly handled. He considered himself quite capable of making a man of Braden, but he did not allow the boy to think that the job was a one-sided undertaking. Braden worked for all that he received. There was no silver platter, no golden spoon in Mr. Thorpe's cupboard. They understood each other perfectly and Templeton Thorpe was satisfied with his investment. That is why his eyes twinkled when Braden burst into the library after his fruitless appeal to Mrs. Tresslyn. He smiled as one smiles with relief when a craft he is watching glides safely but narrowly past a projecting abutment. "Calm yourself," he remarked after Braden's somewhat wild and incoherent beginning. "And sit down. You will not get anywhere pacing this twenty by thirty room, and you are liable to run into something immovable if you don't stop glaring at me and watch out where you are going instead." "Sit down?" shouted Braden, stopping before the old man in the chair, his hands clinched and his teeth showing. "I'll never sit down in your house again! What do you think I am? A snivelling, cringing dog that has to lick your hand forâ" "Now, now!" admonished the old man, without anger. "If you will not sit down, at least be kind enough to stand still. I can't understand half you say while you are stamping around like that. This isn't a china shop. Control yourself. Now, let's have it in so many words and not so many gesticulations. So Anne declined to see you, eh?" "I don't believe Anne had a voice in the matter. Mrs. Tresslyn is at the back of all this. She is the one who has roped you in,âduped you, or whatever you choose to call it without resorting to profanity. She's forcing Anne into this damnable marriage, and she is making a perfect fool of you. Can't you see it? Can't you seeâbut, my God, how can I ask that question of you? When a man gets to be as old
{'title': 'From the Housetops by George Barr McCutcheon', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}