"I have called you here, my dear friends, to say that I have come to a definite decision as to the disposal of my fortune."-Page 11. friends, to say that I have come to a definite decision as to the disposal of my fortune." She paused between phrases, unembarrassed, as if, merely, she had found something that she loved to stare at in the distance, beyond their heterogeneous heads. "I have destroyed my will, under which many-perhaps mostof you were beneficiaries. Some of you have long known that I have no desire to co-operate with incorporated institutions or public trust funds. I am not in sympathy with the forms which religion takes among us"-there was something breathtaking in her tacit yoking of Walter Leaven's agnosticism and old Miss Bean's revivalistic tendencies; and one or two of her "friends" looked up at her, though they sat very still-"though I would not in any way criticise or interfere. What has become very clear to me is this" As if quite unconscious of the tense minds and bodies surrounding her, she stopped. No one quite dared to follow her glance, to see what she was looking at, there beyond them; but it could in any case have been nothing more remote, physically, than the lace curtains falling heavily the length of the drawing-room windows. Outlying fields of flesh shook slightly as she turned or moved, but there seemed to be no central disturbance. With rare absence of dramatic sense, she appeared not to know that the moment was cruelly psychologic for twoscore human beings. At last she came back to her speech with a sigh that agitated her vast bosom. "What has become very clear to me," she resumed, "is that any gift I can make to my friends will be of infinitely more use to them now than at the problematic future period of my death. If any one of you needs-or-or-desires-money that I have and do not either need or desire, I cannot see why I should withhold it any longer. The great and senseless burden of managing a property like mine though it is not so large at the present day as some have doubtless thoughtwould scarcely be a burden at all, if shared among so many. I have no natural heirs, and you who are gathered here represent what I should call the natural people for me to unload my responsibilities upon. I have used my best ability in choosing and in the distribution of my worldly goods. It is needless to say that I have reserved enough to pursue my own life in self-respect. I hope you will agree with me that self-respect does not need much. But I should not like to burden my friends with the vision of me as a beggar." She smiled softly. "I purpose now, to-day, to divide what has been called my wealth among you here pres- · ent. I hope no one will give me the pain"-her voice had a pleading note"of disagreeing with my judgment. It would be a real pain to me. So long as the money is mine, I have, perhaps, a right to judge. After it has ceased to be mine, my connection with it, for praise or blame, will of course utterly have ceased." Words of abstract import could not be less didactically spoken than were Miss Wheaton's; gentleness could not go farther compatibly with dignity. Yet even old Miss Bean, who was wont periodically to ask the prayers of singing, groaning, murmuring congregations, felt resentfully that she was being preached at. The women controlled their impatience according to their several codes of manners; the men, except Walter Leaven, squirmed on their seats. "I am going to ask you, each one, to give me a few moments in my library. My lawyer is there, and together we will inform you of the sum to be transferred immediately to your possession. Any one who wishes to consult my lawyer— Mr. Reid-more fully, can make an appointment with him to-day for a later time. His firm is prepared to execute the transfers, and to do all necessary business with the greatest possible despatch and the least inconvenience to you. Of course if you wish to consult your own lawyers, you are at perfect liberty to do so. But as Mr. Reid knows my affairs in detail, I recommend him to you. "I have made an alphabetical list, and shall ask you to meet me in the library in that order. As I desire now only to give you information, it will not, I think, take long. I purposely selected a holiday for these informal preliminaries. The formalities shall be put through in the next days, at your convenience. Before I call for the first one on the list, may I say one thing: that I should be deeply 14 disappointed if any one of you failed to understand my motives in doing this, or refused to receive my gift?" Her gaze seemed to hover round Walter Leaven's head for an instant, but so vaguely that only Walter Leaven himself could have known. She gave no other sign of singling him out. "I have called you together only for the sake of saving time. Each one of you, I hope, knows by this time my special feeling of friendliness for him or her knows that I do not in any way confound him with others. Many of you, of course, do not-never will know each other. But time is very precious in our time-ridden world. I am leaving the country before long. I do not wish to delay. Miss Bean, your name is first on the list. Will you please come up to the library with me and meet Mr. Reid?" Miss Wheaton made her way slowly, a little uncertainly, through a group dazed by much swift speculation. Bessie John's husband and the man who shared his Sheraton bench got up to let her through the door. Miss Bean followed, drawing her faded skirts meticulously above her boot-tops, as though she were in a muddy street. Walter Leaven's face twitched a little, as he glanced sideways at Jim Huntingdon, now frowning as he sprawled. Leaven was still suppressing the desire to bolt. Bessie John was crimson, but she never let her gaze wander from the ivory chessmen. She did not even look at her husband. Nearly all of them were trying desperately to recall how many of their virtuous desires they had, in times past, permitted Miss Wheaton to become aware of. Both the mannerly and the mannerless were worried: the former lest they should have played the game of decent reticence too well, the latter lest they should have played it disgustingly not at all. Little Julie Fort, whose fitch muff had rolled under Jim Huntingdon's chair, decided, after reflection, that it would look better for her to pick it up and cherish its cheapness. The young giant was too far gone in some revery of his own to help her. His lips were shaping, inaudibly, strange names, while his closed eyes were dizzily contemplating a chaos of expensive kit. So it went, while the room slowly emp tied itself. As each descended from the library, the shadowy butler led him to the front door and saw that its black-walnut panels swung noiselessly back behind him. But at last the blue November twilight had absorbed them all-all except Walter Leaven, whom the butler, with a murmured word, had led to the dining-room. Walter Leaven heard from the man that Miss Wheaton begged he would stay and presently dine with her; and while he waited in the ugly panelled room, he heard the shuffle of chairs in the drawing-room as the servants rearranged them after the singular festivity. He could have gone not wish to. back into the thinning crowd, but he did ton, the last, had gone up-stairs, he still Even after old Mrs. Willisclung to the official privacy of the diningroom. Only when he had heard Mr. lift his head and take possession of himReid himself go out of the house did he self. Then he came out into the hall and met his hostess. The hanging-lamp over the table made little heavier than usual as he sought his II Leaven's western windows, got a sketchy plenty; so, too, were window-sills that seemed to sag under the untidy weight of mattresses and bedclothes. It hurt him, all that unpicturesque squalor; hurt him chiefly by the sense of vicarious confinement. His was a roving temper. With little or no æsthetic sense, he disliked having, in spite of himself, to pronounce on either beauty or ugliness. The open precisely suited him. A picture-gallery was scarcely more to his taste than a slum. He liked personal activity: something that he could do, and do on his own. He hated having either to praise or blame the works of man. Fortunately for him, the planet was still able to provide him with a few unravished stretches. Yet the young giant had a conscience, and his conscience had brought him to Walter Leaven's door. Walter Leaven, obviously, cared as much for the careful hand of man as young Jim for the careless hand of God: not an object in his sitting-room but was wrinkled with history; and the vast gestures of Nature could have had nothing to do with the meticulous etching of his face. All the same, Walter Leaven was the only one of the company which, a week before, had gathered in Miss Wheaton's house, to whom Jim Huntingdon felt he could go. The two men had barely met before that day; but Jim Huntingdon, looking for some one he could talk to, had selected Leaven. "What is it?" asked the older man at last. Huntingdon turned from his staring. He couldn't for the life of him see what it was. Only, something had to be discussed, with somebody, before he could get off. "I don't know any of those people," he began. "I've never seen Miss Wheaton often. I don't even know what I was doing there with the rest of you, except that she knew my mother once. I used to see her a lot when I was a kid. But, Lord, that's long ago. Only-well, it amounts to this. I can't cut my stick without making sure. I've at least spoken to you before, and, by George, I don't believe I've even spoken to most of the others. Is it all right for me to go ahead?" idea of her staking us, anyhow? As man to man, have I got a right to this windfall? Or is she crazy, and is something going to happen? The lawyer says not, but I don't know anything about lawyers." "I think she explained herself sufficiently to us all that afternoon." There was a discernible bitterness in Leaven's tone. "I don't call that explaining. I never took anything from a woman before. I don't know if it's right. I've got to ask some one of the bunch, and the rest were no good. You've got to tell me." "I can tell you nothing whatever." "Well, I can't see her. I've tried. She's always out or engaged. Besides, it's awfully uncomfortable. I've taken the money, of course, but I can't start off without knowing. I'd be in a hell of a hole if I got ten thousand miles away and then had to refund. Besides—why should she give me anything?" "You will have to answer that your self." "Do you believe"-the young man twisted uncomfortably on his sofa-“ that any of those other people are in my queer position? Not knowing any more than a dumb animal why? If I thought that, I'd finish up my business and start." "I am quite in the dark-quite in the dark." Leaven fiddled with a bit of enamel. "But I honestly think you may take it from me, as an old friend of Cordelia Wheaton's, that you're safe. You may go and be happy in your own peculiar way, without worrying. That is, if-" He stopped. Miss Wheaton's beneficiaries were of many stripes and colors: they were to work their luck into a score of different patterns; some of them were to know each other well, others never to meet again. Only one decision would they all, as by a single gesture, make: not one of them would ever tell or ask another: "How much?" Imprisoned together in her charity, each would, to the end, have that little private cell to flee to. "Oh, I can be happy," Huntingdon hastened to say, "if it's all right." "I don't like to take any responsibility in the matter," the older man answered; "Yes. What is all this extraordinary "but I see no reason why you should hes "Go ahead?" itate. You are lucky, I think, to know what you want to do with your windfall." Jim Huntingdon grinned happily. "Don't you?" "No, I don't." There was, again, bitterness in Leaven's tone. But somehow all the bitterness seemed vicarious, as if he were complaining for a friend. "Oh, it's easy enough to spend money." "I dare say. But it has come rather late to me. I'm used to my life." "You can always buy this sort of thing." By way of indication, the young giant's fist nearly knocked over a piece of majolica. "Yes, I can always do that." Leaven seemed to be waiting for his guest to go. "Well, so long." Huntingdon crossed to the door. There he turned. "I suppose I'd feel better about it if I knew what she was going to do. Won't she be everlastingly sorry some day?" "You attribute to me a familiarity with Miss Wheaton's mind that I do not pos Jim Huntingdon never reacted to stiffness. He merely got away from it as quickly as possible. So he turned the knob of the door. "Impertinence is not my habit,” he assured Leaven gravely. "Only I wish to heaven somebody knew something. But as there doesn't seem to be anything I can do, I'll take my passage to-day. I'd have been a lot happier, though, if some one could have assured me that that poor old lady was happy." Walter Leaven smiled at his departing guest. "You may take it from me that she thinks she's happy. I give you my word on that. Good luck to you. I suppose you have an address?" "Oh, yes. It'll probably be some bank in Shanghai. Would you like it?” "Yes." "I'll send it to you. Good-bye." And his host heard him descend the stairs with a comfortable Brobdingnagian stride. Left to himself, Leaven sank back into a worn and rickety chair. The bitterness that young Huntingdon had excited in his breast now took control there, and his fine, hard, weary features showed his mood. For many reasons he had hated answering the young adventurer's questions, but he paid Huntingdon the com He He pliment of believing him a rare case. did not, in his mind's eye, see any of the others looking askance at their luck. Their palms would be greedy while their lips were scornful. He was rather glad that he had asked for Huntingdon's address. Shanghai, to his Europe-moulded mind, sounded fantastic. Still, undoubtedly, there was a bank there; and he could even fancy Huntingdon, fresh from all the places that made maps absurd, asking an impassive Chinaman for letters. respected Huntingdon for his scruples because they were akin to his own. He had lulled the other's scruples, while he let his own have full play-because he felt, with such passion as was left to him, that he alone had a right to them. It was late in the day for Walter Leaven to be jealous, and his jealousy was of an odd and faded kind. It consisted only in wishing to be alone in worrying about Cordelia Wheaton. He did not pretend, even in this twilight of age that might well make their two landscapes so similar, to understand her. But he liked to think that he alone of them all could see danger ahead of the woman he had loved. Other people, knowing what he did, might think her a fool; but none of them-save him— would regret her folly. Love was past; but he remembered it, as he remembered the Italy of his ardent wanderings. Rome was spoiled now, people told him; Cordelia Wheaton had certainly become a figure of little charm. Yet he wouldn't, for very pride, go back on his past. In self-respect he must maintain that the only emotions he had ever had had been justified. Italy had been a marvel; Cordelia had been slim and sweet and noble. Both had been reft from him, and now he had no resource but to believe that, in his day, he had loved all too wisely. Life had been a beast to him, but he would lie to life brazenly on his very death-bed, pretending that what he had had was something crude possession could hardly have bettered. He could see life go out of the door, a disappointed shrew. That would precisely suit him and the narrow range of his shrunk emotions. Walter Leaven had a sense of humor. He kept it by him like some very ugly, very convenient object. If you can |