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Cook grinned sympathetically. It pleased him vastly to be told of Hart's engagement in this confidential way. After some further talk the matter of the new office was arranged between them then and there. Cook agreed to look into a new building that had just pushed its head among the skyscrapers near the Maramanoc, to see if there was anything left that would answer their purposes. As they were leaving the office, Hart stopped, exclaiming,—

"I've got to telephone! Don't wait." "That's always the way," the draughtsman replied. "You'll be telephoning most of the time, now, I expect!"

The architect did not telephone to Helen Spellman, however. He called up his cousin's office to tell Wheeler that he had concluded not to contest the will.

"And Everett," he said frankly, "I guess I have made rather an ass of myself, telling you I was going to kick up a row. I hope you won't say anything

about it."

The lawyer wondered what had brought about this change of heart in his cousin. Later, when the news of the engagement reached him, he understood. For he knew Helen, in a way better than her lover did, -knew her as one knows the desired and unattainable.

A few days later Wright reached the office, and Hart told him of his plan to start for himself, asking for an early release because important business was waiting for his entire attention.

Wright had arrived only that morning; he was seated before his broad desk, which was covered to the depth of several inches with blue prints, typewritten specifications, and unopened mail. He had been wrestling with contractors and clients every minute since he had entered the office, and it was now late in the afternoon.

"So you are going to try it for yourself," he commented, a new wrinkle

gathering on his clouded brow. It occurred to him that Hart might be merely hinting politely for an advance in salary, but he dismissed the thought. "Have you had enough experience?" he asked bluntly.

"I'll be likely to get some more!" Hart replied, irritated at the remark.

"I mean of the actual conditions under which we have to build,―the contractors, the labor market, and so on? Of course you can leave at once if you wish to. I should n't want to stand in your light. It is rather a bad time with Harmon home sick. But we can manage somehow. Cook is a pretty good man for almost everything. And we can draw on the St. Paul office."

Hart murmured his regret at the inconvenience of his departure, and Wright said nothing for a few minutes. He remembered now that some one had told him that Hart was drawing plans for Mrs. Phillips. That had probably made the young architect ambitious to start for

himself. He felt that Hart should have asked his consent before undertaking this outside work. At least it would have been more delicate to do so. But Wright was a kindly man, and bore no malice. In what he said next to the young architect he was moved by pure good will.

"I don't want to discourage you, Hart, but I know what sort of luck young fellows, the best of them, have these days when they start a new office. It's fierce work getting business, here especially."

"I suppose so," Hart admitted conventionally.

"The fine art side of the profession don't count much with client or contrac

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have no time to think of your sketches, except after dinner or on the train, maybe. And if you don't succeed, you have to grab at every little job to earn enough to pay office expenses."

Hart's blank face did not commit him to this wisdom.

"The only time I ever had any real fun was when I was working for the old firm, in New York. God! I did some pretty good things then. Old man Post used to trim me down when I got out of sight of the clients, but he let me have all the rope he could. And now, why, it's you who have the fun!"

"And you who trim me down!" Hart retorted, with a grim little smile.

"Well, perhaps. I have to keep an eye on all you Paris fellows. You come over here well trained, damned well trained, we can't do anything like it in this country, but it takes a few years for you to forget that you are n't in la belle France. And some never get over their habit of making everything French Renaissance. You are n't flexible. Some of you aren't creative mean," he said, getting warm on a favorite topic, "you don't feel the situation here. You copy. You try to express everything just as you were taught. You have got to feel things for yourself, by thunder!"

I

Hart kept his immobile face. It did not interest him to know what Wright thought of the Beaux Arts men. Yet he had no intention of falling out with Wright, who was one of the leading architects of the country, and whose connection might be valuable to him.

"I see you don't care to have me preach," the older man concluded humorously. "And you know your own

business best."

The Powers Jackson educational bequest meant that there would be a chance for some one to do a large public building. Probably the family interests had arranged to put this important piece of work into Hart's hands. Wright hoped

for the sake of his art that the trustees would put off building until the young architect had developed more independence and firmness of standard than he had yet shown.

"I think I understand a little better than I did two years ago what it takes to succeed here in Chicago," Hart remarked at last.

Wright shot a piercing glance at him out of his tired eyes.

"It means a good many different kinds of things," the older man said slowly. "Just as many in architecture as elsewhere. It is n't the firm that is putting up the most expensive buildings that is always making the biggest success, by a long shot."

"I suppose not," Hart admitted.

And there the conversation lapsed. The older man felt the real impossibility of piercing the young architect's manner, his imperturbability.

"He does n't like me," he said to himself reproachfully.

For he would have liked to say something to the younger man out of his twenty years of experience, something concerning the eternal conflict there is in all the professions between a man's ideals of his work and the practical possibilities in the world we have about us; something, too, concerning the necessity of yielding to the brute facts of life and yet not yielding everything. But he had learned the great truth that talk never saves a man from his fate, especially that kind of talk. A man lives up to what there is in him, and Jackson Hart would follow the rule.

So he dug his hands into the letters on his desk, and said by way of conclusion:

"Perhaps we can throw some things your way. There's a little job, now." He held up a letter he had just glanced at. "They want me to recommend some one to build a clubhouse at Oak Hills. There is n't much in it. They can't spend but seven thousand dollars. But

I had rather take that than do some other things!"

"Thank you," Hart replied with considerable animation. "Of course I want every chance I can get."

They walked slowly, very close together, neither one anxious to reach the misty horizon, where, in a bed of opalescent gray, lay the beautiful lake. The sunshine and the fruity odors of the

He took the letter from Wright's out- good earth, the tranquil vistas of bronze stretched hand.

IX.

After the few swift months of spring and summer they were to be married, late in the fall.

Above the lake at Forest Park, in a broad, open field, Mrs. Phillips's great house had already risen. It was judged It was judged variously by those who had seen it, but it altogether pleased the widow; and the architect regarded it- the first work of his manhood—with complacency and pride. Helen had not seen it since the walls had passed the first story. Then, one day late in September, the architect and she made the little journey from the city, and walked over to the house from the Shoreham station, up the lake road.

It was a still, soft fall day, with all the mild charm of late summer that comes only in this region. The leaves still clung in bronzed masses to the little oaks; a stray maple leaf dipped down, now and then, from a gaudy yellow tree, and sailed like a bird along their path. There was a benediction in the country, before the dissolution of winter. The girl's heart was filled with joy.

"If we could only live here, Francis!" "All the year?" he queried doubtfully.

"Yes, always. Even the worst days I should not feel lonely. I shall never feel lonely again, anyway.”

As he drew her hand close to his breast, he said contentedly, with a large view of their future:

"Perhaps we can before long. But land is very dear. Then you have to keep horses and servants, if you want to live in the country."

"Oh! I didn't think of all that."

oaks, set the woman brooding on her nesting time, which was so close at hand. And the man was thinking likewise, in his way, of this coming event, anxiously, yet with confidence. The plans for the Graveland, the contractor's big apartment house, were already nearly finished. New work must come to the office. There were the Rainbows, who had moved to Shoreham, having made a sudden fortune. And Raymond, the railroad man, on whose good will he counted, with Mrs. Phillips's assistance. Suddenly the house shot up before their eyes, big and new in all the rawness of fresh brick and stone. It towered blusteringly above the little oaks, a great red-brick château, with a row of little round windows in its massive, thick-tiled red roof.

Helen involuntarily stood still and caught her breath. So this was his! "Oh!" she murmured. "Is n't it big, Francis!"

"It's no three-room cottage," he answered, with a little asperity.

Then he led her to the front, where she could get the effect of the two wings, the southerly terrace toward the lake, the sweeping drive, and the classic en

trance.

"I know I shall grow to like it, Francis," the girl said loyally. "It must be very pretty inside, with those lovely French windows; and the brick court is attractive, too."

She felt that she was hurting her lover in his tenderest spot, and she tried anxiously to find better words, to show him that it was only her ignorance which limited her appreciation. They strolled about among the refuse heaps of the builders, viewing the place at every angle. Just as they were about to enter the

house, there came from the Shoreham road the puffing of an automobile, and presently Mrs. Phillips arrived in a large touring car, with some people who had been lunching with her at the Shoreham Club. They came up to the house, talking and joking in a flutter of good-natured comment. The architect recognized the burly form of Colonel Raymond. He was speaking:

"Well, Louise, you will have to take us all in next season. I didn't know you were putting up a hotel like this." "Hotel! It is a perfect palace!" exclaimed a short, plump woman who was following close behind. "I hope you

are going to have a pergola. They're so nice. Every country house has a pergola nowadays."

66

Why not an English garden and a yew hedge?" added a man who had on the red coat of the Hunt Club. "I hope you have got your stabling up to this, Mrs. Phillips."

Then they recognized the architect and Helen. Mrs. Phillips introduced them to her friends, and they all went inside to make a tour of the rooms. The painters, who were rubbing the woodwork, looked curiously at the invading party; then, with winks among themselves, turned indifferently to their tasks. The visitors burst into ripples of applause over the hall with its two lofty stone fireplaces, the long drawing-room that occupied the south wing of the house, the octagonal breakfast room and the dining-room in the other wing. The architect led them about, explaining the different effects he had tried to get. He did it modestly, touching lightly on architectural points with a well-bred assumption that the visitors knew all about such things. The plump little woman followed close at his heels, drinking in all that he said. Helen wondered who she might be, until, in an eddy of their progress, Hart found a chance to whisper to her, "It's Mrs. Rainbow; she's thinking of building."

He seemed very much excited about

this, and the general good luck of being able to show these people over the house he had made. After the first floor had been exhausted, the party drifted upstairs in detachments. Helen could hear her lover's pleasant voice as he led the way from suite to suite above. The voices finally centred in Mrs. Phillips's bathroom, where the sunken marble bath, the walls of colored marble, caused much joking and laughter.

"Can you tell me where Mrs. Phillips is?" a voice sounded from the door. Helen turned with a start. The young girl who asked the question was dressed in a riding habit. Outside on the drive a small party of people were standing with their horses. The girl spoke somewhat peremptorily, but before Helen had time to reply, she added:

"Are n't you Miss Spellman? I am Venetia Phillips."

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They sat down on the great staircase and were at once absorbed in each other. In the meantime the party of visitors had returned from the upper story by the rear stairs, and were penetrating the mysteries of the service quarters. Hart was showing them proudly all the little devices for which American architecture is famous, - the interior telephone service, the laundry shoots, the electric dumbwaiters, the electric driers. These devices aroused Colonel Raymond's admiration. When the others came back to the hall he took the architect aside and discussed driers earnestly. From that they got to the heating system, which necessitated a visit to the basement.

Mrs. Phillips took this occasion to say to Helen:

"You can be proud of your young man, Miss Spellman. He's done a very successful piece of work. Every one likes it. It's all his, too," she added generously.

Helen found nothing to say in reply. The widow was not an easy person for her to talk to. On that other occasion when they had met, in Mrs. Phillips's city house, the two women had looked into each other's eyes, and both had remained cold. The meeting had not been all that the architect had hoped for it.

So this time Mrs. Phillips examined the younger woman critically, saying to herself, "She's a cold piece. She won't hold him long!

At last the party gathered itself together and left. The big touring car puffed up to the door, and the visitors climbed in, making little final comments of a flattering nature, to please the architect, who had charmed them all. He was assiduous to the very end, laughing at Mrs. Rainbow's joke about the marble tub, which she repeated for the benefit of those who had not been upstairs.

After Hart had helped her to mount the steps of the car, she leaned over and gave him her hand.

"So glad to have met you, Mr. Hart," she said with plump impressiveness. "I am sure if we build, we'll have to come to you. It's just lovely, everything."

"I shall have to give that away to Rainbow," the colonel joked. "There's nothing so bad to eat up money as a good architect."

Then he shook hands cordially with Hart, lit a cigarette, and swung himself to the seat beside Mrs. Phillips. After the car had started, the riders mounted. Hart helped Venetia Phillips to her seat, and slipped in a word about the hunt. But the girl leaned over on the other side toward Helen, with a sudden enthusiasm.

"When you are married, can't I see a lot of you?"

Helen laughed, and the two held hands for a moment, while the man in the red coat talked with the architect.

When they had all gone, Jackson turned to Helen, a happy smile of triumph on his face.

"It seemed to take!"

There had not been one word of comment on the house itself, on the building as a home for generations of people. But Hart did not seem to notice that. He was flushed with the exhilaration of approval.

"Yes," Helen answered, throwing all the animation she could into the words; "I think they all liked it."

She was silent, with many vague impressions from the little incident of the afternoon. There had been revealed to her a new side of her lover, a worldly side, which accorded with his alert air, his well-trimmed mustache, and careful attention to dress. He had been very much at home with all these people; while she had felt more or less out of her element. He knew how to talk to them, how to please them, just as he knew how to build a house after their taste for luxury and display. He could talk hunters or motor cars or bridge whist, as the occasion demanded. He was one of them in instinct!

She cast a timid look at the great façade above them, over which the cold shadows of the autumn evening were fast stealing, leaving it still more hard and new and raw. She was glad it was not to be her fate to live there in all its grandeur and stiff luxury.

The architect had to speak to the superintendent of the building, and Helen sat down on the stone balustrade of the terrace to wait. The painters were leaving their job, putting on their coats as they hurried from the house. They scarcely cast a glance her way as they passed, disappearing into the road, fleeing from the luxurious abode and the silent woods, which were not theirs, to the village and the city. . . This great Amer

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