Classic Audiobook Collection - A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Browne ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Browne audiobook. Genre: drama Two friends were asked by their respective fathers on their death beds to promise to marry a special girl, who lived across the street and who they had been very fond of since childhood. Once they reached young manhood, one of these fulfilled his father's wish. The story takes off from there, and, while all three continued to be very close to one another as they grew older, the married man was sent abroad on business, allowing his friend to take care of his wife and child while he was away. While overseas, the married man fell into temptation. Many twists and turns, as well as surprises were to follow, rendering the reader curious as to how it would all turn out For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:21:20) Chapter 02 (00:35:41) Chapter 03 (00:53:10) Chapter 04 (01:07:24) Chapter 05 (01:13:55) Chapter 06 (01:37:40) Chapter 07 (02:01:04) Chapter 08 (02:26:55) Chapter 09 (02:33:29) Chapter 10 (02:51:56) Chapter 11 (03:07:30) Chapter 12 (03:18:07) Chapter 13 (03:32:57) Chapter 14 (03:54:13) Chapter 15 (04:15:22) Chapter 16 (04:26:53) Chapter 17 (04:45:49) Chapter 18 (05:08:29) Chapter 19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

a fool there was by porter emerson brown a fool there was and he made his prayer even as you and i to a rag and a bone and a hank of hair we called her the woman who did not care but the fool he called her his lady fair even as you and i chapter one of certain people to begin a story of this kind at the beginning is hard for when the beginning may have been no man knows perhaps it was a hundred years ago perhaps a thousand perhaps ten thousand and it may well be yet longer ago even than that yet it can be told that john skyler came from a long line of clean-bodied clean-souled clear-eyed clear-headed ancestors and from these he had inherited cleanness of body and from these he had inherited cleanness of body and and of soul clearness of eye and of head they had given him all that lay in their power to give had these honest impassive dutchmen and women these broad-shouldered narrow-hipped english they had amalgamated for him their virtues and they had eradicated for him their vices they had cultivated for him those things of theirs that it were well to cultivate and they had plucked ruthlessly from the garden of heredity the weeds and tears that might have grown to check his growth and doing this they had died one after another knowing not what they had done knowing not why they had done it knowing not what the result would be doing that which they did because it was in them to do it and for no other reason save that for so it is of this world

first then it is for you to know these things that i have told secondly it is for you to realize that there are things in this world of which we know but little that there are other things of which we may sometime learn that there are infinitely more than that there are infinitely more than we may sometimes learn that there are infinitely more things that not even the wisest of us may ever begin to understand god chooses to tell us nothing of that which comes after and of that which comes therein he lets us learn just enough that we may know how much more there is and knowing and realizing these things we may but go back as far toward the beginning as it is in our power to see before the restless never ebbing of the tides of business had overwhelmed it with a seething flood of watered stocks and liquid dollars there stood on a corner of fifth avenue and one of its lower tributaries a stern heavy portled mansion of brownstone it was a house not forbidding but dignified its broad plate-glass window gazed out in silent impassive tolerance upon the streams of social life that passed it of pleasant afternoons in spring and fall on sleep-swept nights of winter when bus and broham brought from theatre and opera their little groups and pairs of fur-clad women and high-hatted men it was a big house big in size big in atmosphere big in manner at its left was another big house much like the one that i have already described it was possibly a bit more home-like a bit less dignified for possibly its windows were a trifle more narrow and its portal a little less imposing

and across from that there lay a smaller house a house of brick and this was much more inviting than either of the others for one might step from the very sidewalk within the broad hall hung with two very very old portraits and lighted warmly with shades of dull yellow and of pink in the first of the big houses there lived a boy and in the second there lived another boy and across in the little house of brick there lived a girl of course in these houses there dwelt as well other people of these was john stuyvesant skyler who with his wife gretchen lived in the big house on the corner was a man silent serious he lived intent honest upright he seldom laughed though when he did there came at the corners of his mouth and eye tiny tell-tale lines which showed that beneath seriousness and silence lay a fund of humor unharmed by continual drain he was a tall man broad-shouldered straight-backed and to that which had been left him he added in health in mind and in money and he added wisely and well and never at unjust expense to any one his wife was much as he in trait and habit she too was silent serious intent of her time of her effort of herself she gave freely wherein it were well to give in her youth she had been a beautiful girl as a woman she was still beautiful and her husband and her son were very proud of her, though the one was 55 and the other but 12.

In the big house next door there lived Thomas Cathcart Blake. He too had a wife and one child, a boy, and of John Stuyvesant Schuyler, he was very fond, even as Mrs. Thomas Cathcart Blake was fond of Mrs. John Stuyvesant Schuyler, and even as Tom Blake, the son of the one, was fond of Jack Schuyler, the son of the other. Blake, the elder, was a man rotund of figure, ruddy of complexion, great of heart. He laughed much, for he enjoyed much. He gave away much more than he could make, and he laughed about it. His wife laughed with him, and really it made no difference, for they had had to be a way. more for themselves than they could ever use. Of course, you know it is true that many people

have more than they can ever use, but few ever think so. In the little warm house of red brick across the street lived Catherine Blair, and with her another Catherine Blair, who was as much like the other as it is possible for six to be like thirty. They both had wide violet eyes, sensitive red lips, and very white teeth and lithe, slender bodies. And they were both loved very much by everyone, and everyone said, what a shame it was that he or she hadn't put his or her foot down hard and made Jimmy Blair stay at home, instead of letting him go down into that unpronounceable Central American place and get killed in an opera Booth revolution,

with which he had absolutely nothing to do, except that he couldn't stand idly by and see women and little children shot. Still, it was such a blessing to Kate that she had little Kate to help her bear it all. And she had enough money, too. No one seemed to know how, for Jimmy Blair was a reckless giver and a poor business man.

But John Stive isn't Skyler and Thomas Cathcartes. Blake had been executors. And that explained much to those who knew. For once every two or three months, these two men, so different and yet so alike, would stock solemnly, side by side, across the street, and still solemnly, still side by side, would inform the violet-eyed widow of Jimmy Blair that the investments that her husband had made for her had been very fortunate, and that there was in the bank for her the sum of many more hundreds of dollars than poor jimmy himself could have made in as many years and she defying the man who had been her husband endowing him with the abilities of a morgan a root and a rothschild would believe all that they said and she would tell the neighbors and they being good neighbors would nod seriously unsmilingly

jimmy blair was a wonderful wonderful man they would say and the violet eyes would grow soft and dim and the sensitive lips tremble a little and the prettily poised head would sink forward upon the rounded breast and she was less unhappy for when others love the one you love even though that one be gone it makes the pain far far less also it is a great blessing to have about one those who know enough not to know too much so it was of these three houses and of those who lived there in chapter two of certain other people in the littleness of things it so happened that at a time when john stuyvesant schuyler and thomas kathcart blake serious solemn side by side were telling the witt of Jimmy Blair that the Tidewater Southern Railroad, in which her husband had largely interested himself before his death, had declared an extra dividend that had enabled them that day to deposit to her credit in the bank the sum of $4,281.773. In a little hut on the Black Breton coast, a woman lay dying. It was a bare hut and noisome. In it,

were perhaps better to die than to live, and yet that one might not say. From before it one might gaze upon league upon league of sullen sea, stretching to where, far in the dim distance, lay the curve of the horizon up bearing the gray dome of the sky. Inside the hovel there was a smoke-stained fireplace, beside which was strewn an armful of faggots. There was a little of faggots. There was was before it a number of broken and greasy dishes filled with fragments of food and all about on the floor lay the litter of the sick-room the dying woman was stretched inert moveless upon a rough bed of rope and rush perhaps she had been pretty once in an animal way she was not now lips that had doubtless been red were white and drawn in pain and there was blood upon them where white even teeth had bitten in the way that those who suffer have of trying to hide a greater suffering beneath a lesser the eyes deep and dark were dull and half hidden by their blue transparent lids and the cheeks were sunken and ghastly touched by the hand of death

a heavy coarse-featured woman thin hair streaked with gray flat-backed flat-breasted sat beside the rude bed silent motionless awaiting an end that she had so often watched in the sullen ferocity that is of beast rather than of man and on her lap lay a little pink pealing thing that whimpered and twisted weakly a little naked thing half covered by roughly cast sacking the tiny twisting thing whimpered the woman beside the bed held it waiting the woman on the bed moaned a little and the glaze upon the eyes grew more thick and that was all there came to the ears that were not too new come or too far gone to hear the sound of hoofbeats upon the turf they came nearer they stopped came the sound of spurred heel striking upon the trodden dirt without the door there stood in the opening the figure of a man he was tall and well proportioned though if anything a bit too slender a bit too graceful. And he was, if anything, a bit too well groomed. He had light hair and mustache. He had cold eyes that smiled, cold lips that smiled. He stood in the doorway, trying to accustom his eyes to the gloom within, the while playing a deft tattoo upon his booted calf with light crop that he

carried in his right hand. Well, he said at length in the French that is of Paris. Well, what is all this? The tiny thing whimpered. The woman upon the bed moaned a little, weakly. She who sat beside it looked up, eyes aflame. She said no word. The man in the doorway took a step forward, entering.

He was still. smiling. He looked about him, and then he continued, "'Sick, eh, dying? And that thing that you have in your—' My foie, a baby, eh?' He laughed aloud. The broken peals came back to him from the sodden, smoke-stained rafters. "'Strange that I should have come today! A baby!' He laughed again modulatedly. and then with an air of sympathetic commiseration he said to the gray-haired old woman with the eyes of fire too bad that your daughter is not married since she i presume is the mother and the happy father he is

he stopped waiting smilingly the fierce blazing eyes were set full upon his own she said in the patois that was of her her and hers. You ask that? You? He answered evenly. Yes, I ask that. Even I. Quickly, with the agility of the brute,

she thrust toward him the little peuling thing that lay upon her lap. Look then, she said in deep grating tones. He leaned forward, crossing his hands behind him, and looked. the crop held in his right hand tapped lightly against his booted left leg the woman waited at length he stood erect he shook his head and smiled babies are all alike he remarked easily red dirty unformed no hair this is a little redder a little more dirty a little more unformed it has a little more unformed it has a little bit a little less hair beyond that qua the shrunken lips of the old woman set tightly the eyes flared

you dare she began and then it is your mouth your chin the nose is yours the eyes shall be hers she nodded her head in the direction of the dying mother upon the bed and perhaps Someday, she did not finish. She settled the baby back again upon her knees and sat, waiting. The man, still smiling, gazed up the woman on the bed. Dead? he queried with a lift of the brows. She did not answer. He bent over the prostrate form, then again stood erect. He shrugged his shoulders.

He turned to his shoulders. again to the shrivelled woman on the chair. You have named it, he asked. You have named our child? Still she did not answer. It were not improper, he continued, smilingly, half musingly, for a father to venture a suggestion and end the name. Eh bien, then, I should wish that the baby be known as...

He stopped for him. moment thinking, the while lightly tapping booted leg with the tip of his crop. I should suggest, he repeated, calling her Riein. It is an appropriate name, Riein. It is not a bad name. In fact, it is a rather pretty name. Riein, Riein, Riein, Riein, Riein, he repeated it several times. Yes, it seems to me that that's a little name.

is an excellent name. We will then consider her name Rien." He laughed once more. "'Because of certain reasons,' he went on, "'I'm afraid that my paternal duties must cease with the naming of our child.' He turned to the dying woman upon the bed. "'Bon voyage, mademoiselle—' "'Pardon, madame,' he said. He lifted his hat, bowing. To the old woman he turned.

To you, he began. She interrupted. Her eyes, they will be her mother's, she mumbled sullenly. Which will be well, he smiled. Her mother had beautiful eyes, wonderful eyes. More wonderful than you knew, muttered the old. old woman. Had you come a day sooner? Still he smiled. But I didn't, he replied, and then, nodding toward the whimpering thing that the woman held,

you should guard it well. There is, of the best blood of France in its veins. His lips curled whimsically. Tis strange that, nest, in that small piece of carrion which you hold there upon your knees runs the blood of three kings again he laughed musically he turned he had not seen her stoop the long-bladed knife struck him in the arm piercing flesh and vein and sinew sticking there slowly he plucked it forth and turned to her still smiling you are old madame do not apologize it was not your fault he took the knife delicately by the tip and with a little flip sent it spinning through the air and over the edge of the cliff and he was gone the woman shrivelled gray-haired sinking back in her chair sat silent the pueling thing upon her knees whimpered the dying woman shriveled gray-haired sinking back in her chair sat silent the pueling thing upon her knees whimpered The dying woman upon the rude bed of rope and rush moaned. And that was all.

End of chapters one and two. Chapters three and four of A Fool there was by Porter Emerson Brown. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3. Two boys and a girl. To the budding mind of young Jack Schuyler, life was a very pleasant affair. it began each morning at six-thirty and from then on until eight at night there was something to fill each moment he didn't care for school particularly still it wasn't difficult enough to cause much discomfort the natal pains of study were not by any means unbearable inasmuch as he was quick to see and to understand and furthermore he was possessed of a retentive memory

in his classes he assumed a position of about eighth from the four and he maintained it with but little fluctuation in the out-of-door sports of small boys he was usually first that is when tom blake wasn't when tom blake was jack skyler was second he was a sturdy boy active quick strong of limb and of body he had earnest serious eyes of gray blue and of body he had earnest serious eyes of gray blue like those of his father his mouth and chin were delicate like his mother's and he was thoughtful rather than impulsive tom blake on the other hand was impulsive rather than thoughtful he had dark eyes and ruddy cheeks and at the age of nine he had learned to walk on his hands in a manner that caused acute envy to wrinkle in the bosom of every boy in the neighborhood also as is unusual among boys of whatever station, color, or instinct, he was self-sacrificing, and more than generous, and loyal to a fault. Catherine Blair was all that might have been expected of a daughter of her father and mother. Had you known them, it were difficult to describe further. You have been told that she was lithe and dainty and very pretty, and she was feminine, very, and yet not

for she played much with Jack Schuyler and Tom Blake. She was natural and unaffected and whole-souled and buoyant, quick to laughter, quick to tears, with an inexhaustible fund of merriment and of sympathy. Of an afternoon in early December, they lay these three young animals, sprawling upon the great room in Blake's house, the room that had been made for play. The gentle reins of the early setting sun streamed in through the broad windows upon a tumbling heap of discarded playthings, and upon a floor strewn with that which might have appeared to be drifting snow, but which in reality was feathers, for there had been a fierce pillow fight, and one of the pillows, under the pressure of rolling little bodies, had burst. Its shrunken shape lay in a far corner of the room, rumpled.

empty a husk of the plump thing that it had been but a short time before katherine blair with slender stockinged legs thrust out before her was picking from the tangled masses of her gold-brown hair little clinging bits of down tom blake beside her lay flat upon his back and by him was jack skyler his head resting upon the heaving diaphragm of the other at length jack skyler sat up looking about him whew he whistled it looks like a snow slide we'll catch it now tom blake rolled over on his stomach he shook his head don't worry about that he said dad won't care nor mother besides you're my guest you know what shall we do now katherine blair said I want to get these feathers off first. They stick terribly. Every time I think I've got hold of one, I find it's a hair. She shifted so that her back was toward Tom Blake.

Help me, Tom, she commanded. Obediently, he rose to his knees. Resting his left hand upon her shoulder, he plucked, with clumsy masculine fingers at the bits of white hair that nestled in her hair. She gave a little cry. Ouch, that hurts, Tom. I guess I'd better wait until I get home and have Harris do it. Harris isn't pretty, but she's awfully good, and she does fuss a bit.

She turned around suddenly, violet eyes wide with excitement. Oh, I forgot to tell you, she cried. Dr. Delancey said that maybe he'd bring me a baby brother today. tom blake and jack skyler both turned to her he did they cried almost together she nodded profoundly yes she said that's why they sent me over here to get all musted up with feathers you know baby brothers are bashful dr delancey told me all about it they like to be all alone in the house with their mothers so that they can get acquainted Jack Schuyler rose up on his elbows. I know a boy, he said, that was promised a baby brother, and all he got was a sister. I don't think that was square, do you?

Tom Blake looked out the window, thoughtfully. I don't know, he remarked at length judiciously. It might not have been the doctor's fault. Sometimes they get them mixed, I guess, and, and, and, and, and, you know, and, and, and, Anyhow, sisters aren't so bad. I wish I had one right now, one like you, Catherine. He turned on her eyes in which were the frank liking and admiration of boyhood. She tossed the tumble braids of her hair back over her shoulders.

I'd rather be a boy myself, she said. They don't have to wear dresses and things, and people don't give them dolls when they'd rather have rocy. Hocking horses. I wish they'd hurry and bring that brother. I'm just wild to see it. Jack Schuyler sat up. Well, he assured her,

they'll send over for you when it comes. What shall we do now? He waited patiently for suggestions. Tom Blake and Catherine Blair sat, foreheads grooved in thought. At length, Jack Schuyler cried suddenly, I know. Let's play leopard shooting. I saw a picture of one in the geography. It looked just like Fiddles. Fiddles was the plethoric Maltese member of the Blake family.

We've got those tin guns, and we can stock it. What do you say? That which they said was later evidenced, for when Thomas Cathcart Blake entered the front door of his residence that night and started up the stairs, he was met by an excited feline, followed by three equally excited children. And the cat, on seeing him, its cosmogony disrupted to such an extent that it felt itself no longer able to distinguish friend from foe, tried to turn back, with the result that its first pursuer fell over it. There was the added result that the next two pursuers tripped upon the sprawling form of the first, and Thomas Cathcart Blake had great difficulty in preventing himself

from joining the sprawling parade that tumbled past him to the foot of the stairs, and lay at the bottom, a heap of tossing legs and arms and ribbons and fur. Chapter 4 The Child and the Stranger It is of necessity that a story such as this should be episodical, lapsical, disconnected. Its inception lies in two countries, and of different people.

And it is, in its beginnings, a story of contrasts. So one may be permitted again to say, At a time when pompous, ponderous, white-whiskered, black-suited old Dr. Delancey was engaged in bringing to the daughter of Catherine Blair, a posthumous baby brother, that, in the mystery of things, turned out after all to be a sister, a stranger chanced to be riding at dusk through the deep shades of the Bois de Noor in Brittany.

The path was overhung with spreading boughs. It was tumbled with the wood litter of a decade. His horse went slowly, lifting each forefoot daintily and placing it carefully, and the stranger permitted the animal to take its own time. at length he came to a turning the huge bowl of a great oak was at his left he rounded it his horse raised its head nostrils distended eyes alert and stopped the stranger looked up it was a strange picture that met his eyes at first he did not believe that that which he saw was human it seemed like some nymph of the wood for there was a strange picture that met his eyes at first he did not believe that that which he saw was human it seemed like some nymph of the wood for there are nymphs in the bois d'nor you know many of them anyone who lives there will tell you that but his eyes fell upon a tumbled heap of clothing and he knew that it was not a nymph after all for nymphs do not wear clothing

there was a little woodland pool before him the sun straining through the great heavy-leafed boughs specked it with blots and blotches of gold beside it there sat the figure of a girl naked she sat there her slender legs beneath her her slender body leaning upon one rounded white arm great masses of dead black hair fell about her glowing shoulders half covering the arm which supported her her other hand clasped her knee her dark eyes were gazing before her toward the trunk of the oak the stranger felt that she knew that he was there and yet she had not looked at him on the bowl of the oak was a squirrel it was motionless as though carved out of the trunk itself beneath it lay coiled a snake its eyes were fastened upon those of the squirrel and its flat ugly head was moving gently to and fro to and fro the while its forked tongue playing back and forth between its fangs they waited there the stranger and the naked girl they waited for a long long time by and by the squirrel moved a little one forefoot crept slowly down the bark of the oak and then the other the one hind foot and then its mate and the squirrel was nearer to the snake again they waited the stranger and the naked girl the squirrel crept yet further down the trunk toward the slow shifting venomous head the horse snorted the squirrel raised its head and darted up the tree trunk it was gone

and the snake slid noiselessly off into the underbrush the naked girl turned dark deep eyes upon the stranger she seemed not to mind her nakedness and to him it seemed not to him it seemed not strange that she should not. The horror of it all was deep within him. He murmured, beneath his breath, Good God! Then he spoke to her, a muttered word, a meaningless word.

She swung her body over, sinuously, so that she faced him, slender legs half-stretched. The dead black hair rippled over budding breasts. She did not answer. She merely looked at him. The stranger sat there.

His eyes blinked a little. He brushed his hand across them, weakly. Then he looked at her again. Came a sudden rustling in the brush beside him. His horse leaped forward, almost unseating him. He had gone far down the trail before he rained it in. Then he crossed himself. His eyes showed that he was frightened.

there was a turning in the path a turning that led to the main road the stranger swung his horse into this turning he knew that it added to the length of his journey by a good league and a half and yet he took that turning and later as he turned into the travelled road he breathed a deep deep sigh and again he crossed himself end of chapters three and four chapters five and six of a fool there was by porter emerson brown this libervox recording is in the public domain chapter five as time passes time passed on over the heads of young jack skiler and young tom blake and the daughter of jimmy blair they grew in stature and in intellect they grew through the grades of school that were lie between nine and 15, and then they separated to go to boarding school. Jack Schuyler and Tom Blake went to one, the daughter of Jimmy Blair and Catherine Blair, to another, and the baby brother that had turned out to be a sister, and who had been named Eleanor, stayed at home with the widow of Jimmy Blair, and the widow of Jimmy Blair, was now

hardly as lonely as were the parents of Jack Schuyler and Tom Blake. John Stuyvesant Schuyler had built for himself a place at Larchmont, on the sound. Gray rocks, he called it. It was a long, low-rambling house, built of stone and of darkened wood. It sat ensconced in a deep phalanx of great green trees at the head of a great green lawn. It was not a big house of a big house of a large, pretension of arrogant wealth of many servants of closely shaven shrubbery and woodeny landscape gardening it was rather a house that was a home and there is a distinction a vast distinction for there is many a house that is not a home even as there is many a home that is not a house thomas kathcart blake built for himself another house next to it that also was a a rambling home-like place, with broad halls and deep windows and wide doors. And the doors,

he kept open most of the time, for he liked good people, and good people liked him. His big yacht lay during most of the summer a quarter of a mile from the end of his pier. He lived on it part of the time with Mrs. Thomas Cathcart Blake and their guests. Part of the time he lived on the shore in the house that he had built. Dr. Delancey once asked him if he ever moved the yacht from its moorings and wanted to bet that the sail covers were stuffed with hay. Thomas Cathcart Blake grinned and said that, as for taking the yacht out to sea, he was afraid of getting it wet, and he wouldn't want to bet as to what the sail covers

were stuffed with, because it might be excelsior, or cotton, or, any one of a number of things. They always had much company at the lawns, which was the name of the house, and on the idyllis, which was the name of the yacht that seldom sailed, although Dr. Delancey begged them to rechristen it the dock or the stake boat or something of the sort, which he thought would be much more appropriate. And among this company was a great deal the widow of Jimmy Blair and her daughter. young jack skyler and young tom blake got home from college that year about the middle of june katherine blair was a few days later owing to certain non-academic festivities which she didn't want to miss

you can know how popular and attractive and altogether charming she was when i tell you that she was like her mother at her age and all new york knows how hard it was even for jimmy blue and there have been very few jimmy blairs you know to make any perceptible progress amid the choking masses of his competing fellows jack skyler and tom blake went down to the train in a trap to meet her they hardly recognized the girl whom they had pillow fought and leopard stocked in the dainty figure that descended from the dusty train a year with a girl of eighteen means vast change and when that year has been spent at boarding school it means changes yet more vast infinitely thus it was that jack skyler and tom blake stood jaws agate eyes wide open and stared frankly unequivocally stared then they went to meet her and both tried to shake hands at once then both tried to pick up her travelling case at once and they bumped her bump her their heads. For the first half-mile of the drive to the shore, they sat dumb, thinking with sore straining of mind for things to say, and rejecting each because it didn't seem to be good enough. Finally, Tom Blake ventured a remark and at the weather. No harm came to him, so Jack

Schuyler ventured one about the wind. He also went scatheless. At length, Tom Blake, looking at the fresh clean beauty of the girl on the other seat forgot himself and voiced in the moment of his temporary aberration that which was in the two adolescent male minds doggone but you've grown pretty kate and then blushed she blushed too and looked at jack skiler at which he blushed and almost carroned the trap against a telegraph pole whereat they all laughed and from then on they were themselves they were met by her mother at the lawns and by dr delancey dr delancy was not bashful he pinched her glowing cheek and looked her over critically a positive symposium of pulcritude he declared i wish i were fifty or seventy-five years younger by jove if you two boys let any rank outsider take her out of the family you'll have me to reckon with yes by jove you will and you'll find that while i may be a poor fencer and a worse boxer i'm still a good spanker end of chapter five chapter six an accident dr delancey sitting under the awning of the after-deck of the after-deck of the idyllis, and gazing out upon the sound where Jack Schuyler, Tom Blake, and Catherine Blair

were defying the laws of nature in a thirty-foot knockabout, much to the unspoken anxiety of two fathers, and the spoken fear of three mothers, again voiced this thought on the following evening. "'The prettiest, sweetest, finest, loveliest child I ever knew by Jove,' he declared. then bowing. Present company, of course, accepted. Yes, sir. If you two old ninnies don't force your sons to marry her,

I'll take it into my own hands. Damn if I don't, by Joe. But they can't both marry her, protested the widow of Jimmy Blair, placing her arm about the baby brother that had turned out to be a sister. The doctor waved his hand loftily. a mere detail he asserted as long as one of em marries her that fixes it doesn't it and it doesn't make any difference which one they're equally fine boys both of em look at em did you ever see better shoulders better shaped heads better carriages mighty dashed handsome boys too they are get it from their mothers he bowed elaborately to mrs john stuyvesant skiler and to mrs thomas kathcart blake then added a look of contempt for and at their husbands yes sir he went on they're fine boys two of em no denyin that and she she's the right sort no frills or airs

or bluffs. Sensible, natural. If I'd have had a few more patients like them, I'd have starved to death long ago. Why, they didn't have even a single measle. Not one whooping cough out of the lot. Disgraceful. In the meanwhile, far out on the sound,

the little knockabout was healing far over in the playful breath of the summer breeze. Tom Blake, bare-headed. bare-armed, was at the tiller. Jack Schuyler, also bare-headed and bare-armed, sat on the after overhang, tending the sheet, and bracing muscular legs against the swirling seas

that, leaping over the low freeboard, tried to swirl him off among them. Catherine Blair, leaning lively against the weather rail, little, white, canvas-shod feet braced, skirts whipping about her slender body rounded arms gripping the wet edge of the cockpit rail the gold-brown hair in loosened strands whipped across her tanned cheek her gown open at the throat revealed a glimpse of straight perfectly poised throat her lips were parted and her breath came fast in the excitement of it blake held the knockabout to its course with the confidence of youth and his prowess against them the little boat leaped forward from crest to crest stopping between to shake the water from its deck above was the blue sky all about them the blue water white-crested the girl bracing herself against a particularly hard pitch of the boat balancing herself lightly as the craft

recovered and again leaped forward, cried, "'Isn't this fine?' Blake nodded. Schuyler, waist deep in a swooping sea, did not hear. The Long Island shore was close at hand now. Suddenly Blake shouted, "'Hardily!' and jammed the tiller over. Schuyler, on the after overhang, scrambled fast to take in the slack of the

sheet. Catherine Blair bent to avoid the swinging boom. The little boat swung about as though on a pivot. The wind filled the sail. She sped forward like a hawk unhuded. Then something happened. A stay parted. There was a great grinding crack, followed by the snapping and whipping of canvas, and the mast fell. Skyler was knocked over into the water by the boom. It struck him fair upon the brow. Catherine, springing to catch him, was hit by the flapping canvas.

She went overboard, too, and under the sail. Blake, on the weather side, was free from the wreck. Without even stopping to turn, he dove backward from the cockpit. Under the cold green water, he went. He struck out, blindly, frenzedly. His hand felt something that was not canvas, and yet was claw, struck and gripped. Then, holding his breath still until he thought his lungs would burst, he felt his way out from under the sail. The rail of the boat was at hand. He gripped it, and he dragged Catherine to it.

"'Hold on!' he cried in her ear. "'Jack's gone!' though but half conscious she understood her firm white fingers gripped the cutting edge of the cockpit rail she nodded blake struck out again he had tried to remember where he had seen schuyler disappear four strokes brought him to the spot and then he dove again his hand struck something again he pulled and tugged and fought at length he was at the surface it was skyler his eyes were closed the tide setting down the sound was carrying the boat from him he said his teeth he caught skyler by the neck of his jersey over his own shoulder bringing his head out of water and he struck out with his free arm desperately it seemed as though he would never make progress a dead weight in the water is hard to drag every ounce of strength that was in his strong young body he threw into those long quivering strokes he must get to the boat he must the shore was too far away he stopped for a minute treading water there was no sail in sight he flattened out in the water breasting it with all his power

stroke after stroke he took stroke after stroke reaching with strong right arm thrusting with strong legs the boat was no nearer he kept on doggedly he could feel that his strokes were getting weaker his mouth was under water more than half the time he had to raise up to breathe but he fought on he began to grow dizzy there was a ringing in his ears there was a ringing in his ears suddenly he thought he saw right before him the face of katherine blair he knew that he did not he thought he did that was all then suddenly his fingers caught a rope the face was still there and the rope that he held led to where it was caught between white even teeth a great wave hit him a buffet full in the face it cleared his senses for a moment he had been caught between white even teeth a great wave hit him a buffet full in the face it cleared his senses for a moment. Yet perhaps it was more due to the feel of the rope in his fingers. Then he knew that it was she, that the face was real, and the rope went surging through his mind that she, taking the end of the sheet in her teeth, had swum to him and a skyler, and that to her they both owed their lives. She was beside him now, swimming strongly.

She gripped an arm at the unconscious skin. Schuyler. Together, she and Blake, dividing the weight, slowly, inch by inch, fought their way along the rope. At length they reached the side of the swamped knockabout. Blake crawled upon its slippery deck. He lay for a moment, helpless. She supported Schuyler. Then he essayed to aid her again, and together they began to lift him out of the water and safety. Dr. Delancey, from the after-deck of the Idle-S, had seen the accident. A minute later, he, John Stuyvesant Schuyler, Thomas Cathcart Blake, the captain of the Ida-Less, and two sailors were in the launch. They reached the side of the knockabout as Blake and

Catherine were dragging Jack Schuyler from the water, and they took him into the other boat. Blake, in his father's clutch, followed. At the same time, Dr. Delancey leaned over to grasp Catherine. But she shook her head and smiled weakly. No, she said, I had to take off part of my clothes. I... Dr. Delancey was an old man. Some assert that he fell overboard.

However, be that as it may, when he came to the surface, he had his arm around Catherine Blair, and she had his long coat draped around her slender figure. And as they lifted her to the deck, she fainted. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 and 8 of A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Brown. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 7 An Incident

Destiny had a sense of humor A sense of humor Sardonic, it is true, cruel, sometimes gruesome, and yet it is a sense of humor. Otherwise, there had been in France a man of the nobility, a man in whose veins flowed the blood of three kings, a man handsome of face, graceful of figure, debonair a man who had sinned much and who had paid for that sinning only in the sufferings of others and they had been many that man had many estates many servants many horses much money he had been to brittany twice and only twice yet he went a third time and after five years he went alone he rode his horse through the narrow brush-grown

path by which had gone the stranger who had seen the naked girl at the edge of the woodland pool five years before. And he came at length to the edge of the wood and to the clearing where it lay the little hut, smoky, dirty, littered. He dismounted from his horse there, why he did not know. He went forward to the hut. An old woman, bent, white-haired, sat on a rude chair in the sun beside the door. She looked up as he approached. She, in no way, heeded the elaborate bow that he made, a graceful bow, low and sweeping, and yet a salutation sarcastic. "'Bonjour, madame,' he began. "'Madame looks well, but death is never far from the evening.'

aged it should be a consolation looking about him casually for one who lives as madame the shrivelled old woman made no answer the man went on evenly the while tapping with the end of his slender crop a booted leg eh bien i have come as you see the paternal passion will not down in the breast of a man domestically inclined he laughed i have been going about seeing my families he smiled it has been interesting droly interesting ma foi yet again he laughed musically there have been pleadings and revelings tears and curses bended knees and unbended arms he indicated with a graceful gesture a deep cut upon the back of his life left hand. It was a woman, a very pretty woman, he explained. At least she had been pretty, and she was again pretty when she did that. Her eyes, it was like lighting a fire in a cave. Did you ever light a fire in a cave, madame? he queried gently, graciously, and then, but of course not women kindle their fires in stoves or fireplaces it is for men to light the fires of caves yet once more he laughed softly

the old woman with the white wispy hair still was silent motionless though her eyes spoke and that which they spoke his eyes heard and once more he laughed i had a daughter here he continued did i not or was it a son ma foi it were difficult ah yes i remember now a daughter a little red hairless dirty thing she was i have a great curiosity the blood of three kings you know surely that would overcome the blood of the good god knows how many peasant swine she is not red and hairless and dirty now in faith she is clean-limbed and straight and white a thousand louis to a sue that she is his brow was creased in the travail of retrospection i gave her a name did i not he asked it seems to me ah yes ryein it was a very pretty name yes an excellent name meaning much and little everything and yet nothing he laughed at his own conceit softly tell me where is she now it might be that she is dead eh he eyed the old woman closely then he shook his head no he went on she is not dead she he had seen nothing that is certain yet suddenly he ceased in his speech the smile left his lips and slowly very slowly he turned she was standing there behind him her eyes upon him she was straight and slender and perfectly formed a single garment covered her running across wood

a single garment covered her running across one shoulder reaching to her knees it left one breast exposed and the white slender legs and perfect feet she stood in a posture of infinite grace of infinite poise she looked at him then it was that the shrivelled old woman spoke she said to the girl vautre pere and that was all the child looked at the man the man looked at the child and so for a long long time they stood eye upon eye at length she began to smile a little with her lips but he did not smile after a long long time she took a slow sinuous step toward him then another he stepped back still looking at her his eyes still on hers he was back to the great cliff the sheer cliff at the base of which the huge seas ever beat in sullen unceasing impotence yet another step she took toward him his breath came chokingly gaspingly yet another step he took away from her yet another and then it was an accident perhaps yes of course it must have been an accident he had not noticed for as again she advanced her eyes on his his eyes on hers again he retreated and suddenly in utter silence save for the rending of crumbling earth and uprooted grass he he slid over the edge of the great rock before the eyes of the girl lay only the restless heaving sea and beyond the dull gray of the horizon and the cupped sky

she turned slowly smiling a little the shrivelled shrunken old woman bent her head forward upon her flat breast thrice bien she muttered and that was all chapter eight of certain goings it so happened that on the winter after jack skyler and tom blake graduated from college death came to the big house on the avenue mrs john stuyvesant skyler went first mrs thomas kathcart blake went almost with her for she had been by the bedside of her friend during all her illness and her friend going had bestowed upon her its horrible heritage and so she went too their going left in the two great houses monstrous voids that might never be filled john stuyvesant skiler and thomas kathcart blake loved their wives and when a man has loved a woman and that woman his wife as these two had loved it seems in a way to disrupt the cosmogony of things it takes ambition away from the brain and the stamina from the spine and the days are very very long while the nights are yet infinitely longer thomas kathcart blake in the vastness of all that now was not forgot to care for himself he who had been jovial became silent sometimes of nights he would walk alone for hours the weather made no difference in fact he seldom noticed what the weather was he was an old man now close to sixty

dr delancey on a night visit met him one thick sodden night at the corner of thirty-third street and the avenue coming from the club the good doctor bumbled out of his broham seized him by the arm and drew him wet and dripping into its protected interior you fossiliferous headed old chump he howled exasperatedly you pin-headed old amphibian if your soul and utter ambition is to get pneumonia and die i don't know any way in which you can better achieve your purpose sit down in the corner there and drink this he extracted from his case a little flask of brandy or i'll ask the horse to come in and bite you turn around there moz he yelled and drive to mr blake's house mose did so and once there the doctor abusing and bullying his patient got him upstairs and into the bed and then applied to the protesting man who seldom had known what it was even to have a cold all manner of exposorial antidotes but the patient that you were going to see protested thomas kathcart blake no friend of mine returned dr delancey only a patient patients are plenty but friends are few let him get someone else or die as he chooses it's none of my business here drink this and he poured between the protesting lips of thomas kathcart blake a nauseating draught of something that was most malodorous for dr delancey was an alopath and a good one

but good as he was he was too late pneumonia had been before him and two weeks later in spite of all that good doctor and several other equally good doctors could do thomas kathcart blake died and he didn't seem sorry at going before he went he called to him his son and to that son he said many things most of the things that he said are neither your business nor mine but of the things that he said we may know one he wanted his son to marry the daughter of the widow of jimmy blair young tom blake between the sob that are becoming a man, answered, I want to, Dad. I've always wanted to, and I will, if I can. His father counseled weakly. Get her honestly, boy, or not at all.

If you get her, cherish her. Give her everything that there is in you to give, for there is nothing that a man can give that a good woman doesn't deserve. Now, God bless you, son. and go. Tom Blake clung to the sheets. It was hard to lose such a father and such a mother, and all within a six-month. He cried, as you would cry, or I, and be glad that crying might be. Dr. Delancey, at length, managed to loosen his clenching fingers. Dr. Delancey was crying, too.

The tears ran down his vain cheeks To lose themselves in the hair of his cheeks He tried to fume and fuss and splutter As was his want But he couldn't He could just put his hand around Tom Blake's heaving young shoulders Listen to his choking, broken sobs And say over and over and over again

There there my boy There there there there it's pretty hard you know to lose a father and a mother like that and all within six months end of chapters seven and eight chapters nine and ten of a fool there was by porter emerson brown this libravox recording is in the public domain chapter nine of certain other goings john stuyvesant skylers end was different he was a man reserved a man who thought much and told little his illness baffled dr delancey at first but then he knew what the disease was although to it he could give no polysyllabic name of latin and for it he could prescribe no remedies for the cure had gone from the hands of man into the hands of god and to the hands of god john stuyvesant skiler went at length to find it and who shall say that his quest was unsuccessful he too on his dying bed called his son to him and to this son he said many things and among these things was that it had never been the dearest wish of her that had gone as well as of him that was about to go that their son should wed the daughter of the will

of Jimmy Blair and Jack Schuyler sobbing by the side of the great mahogany bed in the great dark room even as he had sobbed beside the same bed in the same room so short a time before promised as Tom Blake had promised that all he might do to bring to wife the girl his parents desired for him as wife he would do and not from any obeisance to filial reasons but because he would wanted to, because he loved her, had always loved her. It was good old Dr. Delancey who repeated his offices in this case, as in the other, and he repeated them in the same way, patting the broad, throbbing young shoulders, reiterating with twitching lips his, "'There, there, boy, there, there, reiterating it uselessly, and knowing that it was uselessly that he reiterated, and yet helpless in the vast profundity of helplessness that was his.

And that same year did Dr. Delancey lose yet another friend that was a patient, a patient that was a friend. It was the violet-eyed widow of Jimmy Blair. And all night long, from gray dusk until crimson dawn, Dr. Delancey had sat in the darkened parlor of the warm little house of red brick. He had sat in a rocking chair, and on either old knee he had held a sob-wracked, grief-torn, motherless girl, the one herself almost old enough to be a mother. And again he had cried. Some doctors may lose, through oft-recurrence, visualized their susceptibility to suffering,

but Dr. Delancey was not of them, and when he stumbled on stage, different legs out of the darkened parlor and into the incongruous mellow radiance of the spring sunshine his eyes were still wet and he didn't care who knew it chapter ten two boys and a doctor young jack skyler and young blake a week later went to see the doctor in his office he looked up from his paper well he said tom blake cleared his throat we wanted to ask you doctor he began if uh assisted jack skyler that is we wanted to know you see that is i yes we thought you know mrs blair the doctor rose he stood between the two broad-shouldered erect young men placing a hand on the arm of each it's all right he assured them don't you worry but protested tom blake we've got so much money and they isn't there some way that you can fix it doctor you know how to do these things and we're so helpless and elaborated jack skiler they'd never suspect you you know i tell you it's all fixed returned the doctor with testiness that from him was cordiality rampant

jimmy blair left a very comfortable estate in trust they'll have all they want as long as they live he didn't tell them that is not then though later he did he did that one of the last acts of john stuyvesant skiler and thomas kathcart blake had been to walk solemnly side by side across the street and tell the widow of jimmy blair that in accordance with the anti-mortem desires of her late husband they had devoted a certain portion of the fortune that he had left to the establishment of a trust fund that would yield her an annual income of twelve thousand dollars he didn't tell them then later he did he couldn't help it but at the time he slapped them both on the back and sent them from the room he stood on the top step of the flight that led from sidewalk to front door and watch them swing broad-shouldered supple erect down the bright avenue now why in thunder he asked to himself slowly didn't i ever get married and then shut up you old fool he soliloquized and he turned and re-entering the house slammed the door behind him end of chapters nine and ten chapters eleven and twelve of a fool there was by porter emerson brown this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter eleven a proposal blake waited in the embrasure of the window gazing down upon the avenue below with its confusion of moving vehicles and pedestrians the june sun was overhead warming the earth with gentle kindly glow

the breath of summer was in the air it came to him brushing the curtains against him cooling his brow it was grateful to his nostrils and to his lungs and he took of it a great deep breath his broad shoulders squared his deep full chest heaved an omnibus stopped on the corner he watched the horses throw themselves against their collars he watched the bulky vehicle gather headway and move on with ever-increasing momentum through the maze of broham and cab and coach and landau as the coach was lost to view there came steps light and quick upon the stairs the door opened and there stood before him the daughter of jimmy blair she had been abroad under chaperonage for a year he did not know that she could be so beautiful He did not know that anyone could ever hope to be as beautiful as was she who stood before him. Violet eyes were no deeper, lips no more red, teeth no wider, nor was the perfect oval of her sun-kissed cheek any the more perfect. Yet there was something, the indefinable something that marks the transition of a beautiful girl from beautiful girlhood to glorious womanhood. He felt a strange emptiness within him.

It was almost as though he were appalled by so much beauty, so much glory. There was a gladness, a natural, unaffected, real gladness in her violet eyes that glowed in greeting. She thrust forth a tiny white hand. He had been wont to kiss her on meeting and on parting. Now it never occurred to him. tom she cried i'm so so glad to see you again it's been terribly lonely as fast as i'd begin to learn one language they'd move me somewhere else and i'd have to start all over again and now i hardly know whether or not i know any language at all where's jack i expected that of course he would come with you he'll be here by and by kate blake replied she seated herself crossing one knee above the other interlocking about it slender white fingers you must have so much to tell me tom she bubbled all animation gladness eagerness

begin please begin and then i'll tell you everything oh isn't it exciting to go away and come back again i have a lot to tell you he said slowly slowly. Why, you speak so seriously, Tom. Aren't you glad to see me? I'm afraid nobody but myself knows how glad. Kate, I hardly know how to begin what I want to say. I... It's hard. Not having seen you so long makes it harder. I... She cried in pretty amazement. But what in the world is it, Tom? You almost frightened. me i haven't done anything wrong have i shall i be put to bed without my supper do speak tom tell me what all this mystery is still slowly hands folding and unfolding dark eyes upon hers of violet he continued kate jack skyler loves you and i loo he had intended to say more and what that more was when

One would but have to look into his eyes to tell, but he had been looking into hers. He had seen the gleam that had leaked there at his words, and that is why he did not finish. Tom, she exclaimed softly, and then, Did Jack tell you that, himself? He nodded. He was afraid to tell me himself? Again, he nodded. It was not so, but he lied, as would you or I, had we been as good a man as he.

He had come there knowing that a woman loves but one man. He had come there knowing that if Schuyler were not the man she loved, thereby he would be saved, and she would be saved, much unpleasantness. He had hoped that it was he himself that she loved, yet he had feared that it was not, and he had known that whether it were he who asked or skyler or any man it would make no difference for when a woman like that loves a man it is that man alone she loves and the rest means nothing no thought of an unfair advantage was in his mind in such a case there could be no such thing as that it was only whether or not she loved one of them and if so which one and beyond that there was nothing nothing except that he wished to take from skyler any unhappiness that might lie there for him for he was a friend such as few men may ever have and having may pray to keep and now he knew the answer it was in the depths of the violet eyes in the eagerness of lips and lithe and lithe supple body it was of her about her

blake's lips became thin his jaws set his eyes half shut to have lost a father and a mother and such a girl as was she and all within an eighteen month was bitter indeed he heard her say as from a great distance it was fine of you to come like this tom i do love jack i thought once that i loved you tom that was strange wasn't it it's strange to sit here now with you telling you of it though of course you don't care he will come soon won't he you don't know how i've missed him tom it would be a strange situation wouldn't it if we hadn't known one another so well and cared for one another so deeply in such a friendly brotherly and sisterly sort of way i think in some ways i ought to be angry with jack for not coming himself but it's as though you were my big brother tom you know how jack feels toward me and so you are anxious to act as sort of a buffer in case everything isn't as it should be it was fine of you tom and you know how i appreciate it what else she said he did not know it seemed a thousand thousand years ere he rose to his feet he was suffering when a woman loves her intuition is dead at length he found himself on the street but the sunshine was gone and the air was dead he found skyler and told him he watched him leap through the door forgetting his hat heard him pounding down the hall heard the street door as it slammed

behind him, and then— It's pretty hard, you know, to lose a father and a mother and such a girl as the daughter of Jimmy Blair, and all within an eighteen month. Chapter 12 A Foreign Mission In the next few years, God was indeed good to John Schuyler. Health he kept, honors came to him, and the respect of men and women. There were those who loved him. many and of those who hated him there were a few which is well inasmuch as the hatred of some men may be the highest praise the highest favor that they have to bestow

a child came to them at length to him and to the daughter of jimmy blair and that child was as like to the daughter of jimmy blair as the daughter had been like her mother a part of the time they lived in the city but most of their days were spent out at the larchmont place on the sound that john stuyves and skiler had built so long ago and there they were very very happy the quiet peaceful beauty of gray rocks more than ever appealed to the soul of tom blake as he stood upon the bridge of his yacht the vagrant and watched the ever enlarging lawn apparently rushed toward him him. He closed his eyes a little. The sun was very bright. He turned toward the Long Island shore, hazy and unreal in the mists of the morning. When he turned back again, the huge seagoing craft, a thing of glistening white and shining brass, was making a wide, graceful sweep in the churning water, and the house had ceased to rush down upon him. It now stood inviting, as close at hand as it were safe to be.

A launch was lowered, and the owner's gangway dropped, and in another moment Blake stood balancing himself nicely against the rolling of the little craft as it rushed through the blue-gray water toward the landing pier at the front of the velvet lawn. Like one who, in haste, yet longs to loiter, Blake made his way across the sward to where, jutting out for the river,

from a corner of the house, a tiny bay window thrust itself forth among a confusion of tangled nasturtiums, copper-colored, yellow, crimson. With a privileged assurance of one long known and long-loved, he thrust open the left-hand window, which extended to the ground, and entered the room. There came a little, delighted cry of surprise, a rather uncertain, oh, Mr. Tom! and in another instant he was enveloped in a tiny cloud of lace and ribbons and primly starched linen while two bare brown little legs waved wildly about his breast a pair of very sticky lips were set against his own and his neck found itself in the clasp of tiny fingers that had known orange juice and oatmeal and sugar and possibly jam since they had had intimate association of water at length he set her down upon the floor gently well well little partner he said gritting sociably that most surely was a succulent salute i perceive from the remainder of your repast his eyes had fallen upon the little breakfast-table and the overturned high-chair which with infinite dignity unbent the bent the

butler was rescuing from prostration, that you like a little oatmeal on your sugar. I do, confessed the child friendly, but Wobberts doesn't. Do you, Wobberts? Without waiting for the corroboration of the somewhat perturbed Roberts, she turned again to Blake. I like heaps and heaps of sugar. Wobberts gives it to me when there isn't anyone looking, don't you, Wobberts. And then very seriously, she added, I like Wobberts. Blake laughed, a low, rumbling, ringing laugh.

I don't blame you, he said. I used to have sugar once. I liked those who gave it to me. He picked her up and set her again in the high chair, moving it close to the table, with its dainty china and centerpiece of pink carnations. the child looked up at him half wondering she was pretty very pretty with serious round violet eyes sun-kissed cheeks and hair of the soft brown that is of kin to gold don't you get any sugar now she asked very seriously he shook his head not any she persisted never not any he replied

gravely. Never. Swiftly she picked up the little silver sugar jar. She cast an investigative eye up at the solemn visage of the butler. Mr. Tom can have some of ours, can't he, Wobberts? she inquired, gravely tending the bowl to Blake, who accepted it just as gravely. I thank you, he said very seriously. It is kind of you, but do you know, but do you know, I was speaking rather a figurative sugar. The child shook her head perplexedly.

I don't think we have that kind, she ventured. We have powdered sugar and loaf sugar and granulated. She syllabolized it, calling it granulated. And we have pulverized sugar, too. But I don't believe we have fig, the kind you. You said, I'm sorry. He smiled a little, a smile of the lips. It doesn't matter, he said slowly.

Really, it doesn't. You know, I haven't had any for so long that I've quite forgotten the taste of it. Where's Daddy this morning? Daddy and Mother, dear, are saying goodbye to Auntie, the child replied, making in the oatmeal before her a miniature Panama Canal. now and watching the thick cream trickles slowly from the atlantic to the pacific blake turned to the butler how is mrs van vors this morning roberts he asked still very ill sir returned the butler very ill indeed not dangerously we hopes not sir but she's still very low sir Blake turned one fist in the palm of the other hand.

Why, I thought from the wireless that Mr. Schuyler sent me, that she was getting along splendidly. I... He stopped abruptly. There had entered the breakfast room the wife of John Schuyler. She saw Blake and came forward, hand outstretched, welcome in her eyes. She had come to be very like her child, her child and Skyler. had the daughter of jimmy blair she was like her child grown up glorified into womanhood her hair was the same gold-brown a little unruly clinging against her temples nestling at neckneep

her eyes were the same deep violet perhaps a little darker a little softer a little less wondering for years bring knowledge and when one begins to know then one must cease somewhat to wonder. She had the soft brown sun-kissed cheeks of her child, too, rounded and smooth, with the red blood tinting them to a delicate pink. She had the finely-modelled, cleanly cut nose and the expressive, sensitive mouth with its red lips and white teeth, and her chin was both beautiful and firm. She moved lively across the room to where Blake stood.

He took her hand. Tom, she began cordially. Her voice was low and deep and very soft. We're so glad to see you. You got Jack's message then? We were afraid you wouldn't. Blake nodded. Caught it off Point Judith, he replied.

You should have seen us about ship. and come spattering down the sound those blockade running persons could have gained points from us we burned the bulwarks the cargo and most of the cigars it looks as though we did so wisely too for we haven't much time to spare have we we leave in half an hour she returned sit down tom jack will be here soon but what's it all about he asked he sank into a chair elbows on knees fingers clasped jack's trip abroad he nodded it's something at the court of st james i don't know exactly but it's very imposing and important and epoch making jack spent all day yesterday with the president and secretary of state well well well that certainly is immense she was standing beside the table slowly her fingers plucked a carnation from the cluster before her violet eyes were upon it is it she asked slowly isn't it he queried surprised she paused she paused a moment and then swiftly oh i don't know i blake waited but she did not go on at length he spoke how long will he be gone maybe two months she returned it will be the first time that we've been apart for more than a time we've been apart for more than a

a day or two since we were married. I suppose that's silly, isn't it? If that's silly, it's too bad anyone ever gets sensible, was his assuring reply. She had risen. Slowly she went around behind the little high chair. Leaning lively over, she laid her cheek against that of her child,

soft, rounded arms, pressing her close. and then she looked at Blake, eyes to eyes. I don't like it, Tom, she said very slowly. But, he protested, It's a big honor, a great honor, an appointment like this from the president. Yes, she answered thoughtfully. It is a big honor,

and I suppose that I should be very, very happy. Of course, in a way I am. Then some. suddenly but i'm not i don't like it tom i try to like it i tell myself that i ought to like it and yet i can't happiness is more than honors and we are happy here as happy as it is possible for two people her eyes laden of another love fell upon the child that was hers for three people she corrected to be we have everything we need everything we ought to want i'd rather have just peace and quiet and contentment than all the honors there are and yet i mustn't stand in the way of his advancement you mean i know that and i haven't you know he left it all to me and i said go it hurt too tom i didn't want that he should go i don't want that he should go i don't want that he should go i don't know he'd know why. I... She stopped. The child had finished her oatmeal. Lively, the mother, stooping,

lifted her from the chair, held her close for a tiny minute, and then, kissing her, set her down upon the floor. Run along, dearie, she directed. Tell Mockens to get you dressed. She watched their graceful pretty child until she vanished through the door. slowly she walked to the window hands clasped behind her she stood gazing across the sunlit lawn across the dancing flashing waters of the sound a big black schooner a mountain of belling whiteness superimposed upon a tiny streak of hull was standing off for the long island shore her eyes followed it blake lids half closed as a man who seeks within the denseness of masculine brain for something that lieth not therein considered for a long moment eyes upon the perfect figure of perfect womanhood before him at length he spoke it doesn't seem to me he began that it means either very much or very little he went on more lightly two months isn't such a long time you know after all he'll soon be back laden with honors and then because he was raised on the sea coast and doesn't know the difference between a lima bean and a bull weevil they'll probably make him secretary of agriculture

she was still gazing at the vanishing sail she had not heard his words he leaned back in his chair a little watching her at length he sighed and murmured to himself to him that hath shall be given all they can take away from him that hathen end of chapters eleven and twelve chapters thirteen and fourteen of a fool there was by porter emerson brown This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 13. The Going John Schuyler had come to be a big man and a broad one, big in the great things of life that sometimes are so small, big in the small things of life that sometimes are so great. Broad of mind, as well as broad of shoulders he was.

Forty years of age now, his hair, by the habit of thought, was tinged with gray at the temples, yet skin and complexion were as those of a boy. Quick in movement, agile, alert, thrilling with vitality and virility, his pleasures were, as they had always been, the pleasures of the great out-of-doors. A yachtsman, his big yawl, the manana, was known in every club port from gravesend to bar harbor. he motored he rode he played tennis and golf and squash and rackets he was an expert swimmer a skilful fencer a clever boxer and more wonderful than the combination of these things was the fact that he found time away from his work to do them all and to enjoy them with the youthful contagious effervescent enthusiasm of a man of half his age it showed in his well-set-up well-poised body it showed in the expression of his clear-cut bronzed features it showed in every little shift of pose every little turn of his well-shaped head

as he stood leaning gracefully against the ledge of the bay window talking with blake for mrs schuyler and muriel had gone to make ready for the trip to the city and to the dock i don't like to leave it tom he said slowly his eyes roaming over the bright little room i don't like to leave it even to hobnob with crowned heads and to take tea with dukes earls princes and kings to say nothing of mere lords my world is right here and it's all the world i want tom it's bounded on the south by the sound on the north by the property of the property of the world-aunt tom it's bounded on the south by the sound on the north by the property of the municipality, on the east and west by somebody else's worlds, and above by eternity. Blake lighted a cigar. Then what are you going for? he asked practically. Schuyler shrugged his shoulders. I wonder, he replied.

Want me to tell you? queried the other. I should be obliged, he said with a smile. well began blake placing finger-ends to finger-ends judiciously in the first place you're ambitious you like the plaudits of the populace you see here a chance to get about a million per cent on your investment whereby you stick two months time and a little effort into the proposition and draw down a position that means sitting beside the chief executive and trying to look as though you knew what he was talking about also a chance to live in washington and cut figure eights in the diplomatic circles all of which is perfectly natural nothing at all to your discredit and furthermore shows whence come the few good men who, sticking their heels in, are trying to keep the country from going to the demnition bow-wows. Am I right? Skyler watched a little ring of blue smoke rising to the ceiling. No, he answered slowly. You're wrong. I care nothing for the plaudits of the populace.

I'm ambitious, in a way, but when that way requires me to leave the people, the things that I love, then ambition chameleonizes and i become ambitious authentically furthermore i loathe the climate of washington and all the society i want i can find right in my home with the exception of yourself which is not so much of an exception after all commented blake because when it comes to sticking around i'm the original young mr you know tom went on skyler i don't like to take any chances with the happiness such as mine i wonder sometimes if i really know how happy i am one can get used to happiness you know just as to other things except unhappiness huh snorted blake i've got used to that even dad burn it all nothing ever goes right with me except money and that's no good without the rest money is merely an agreeable accessory to have money and nothing with it is like having an olive and no cocktail to put it in if i eat what i like i get sick i'm always either forty pounds too heavy or twenty pounds too light i'm continually dieting or training and wondering why in sam hill i'm doing either i have to live alone to spend my evening at theatres or clubs i am a man who would willingly give up all his clubs for one large pair of pink carpet slippers and the theatres for a corpulent aristocratic maltese cat with a baritone

purr. Skyler, immersed in his own thoughts, had not been listening. Blake eyed him whimsically. Ain't I the Gabby thing, though, he remarked at length, and then, A couple of million dollars for your thoughts, sweet Chuck. I was thinking how near I came to turning all this down, and how I'm sort of sorry that I didn't. Nell's better, isn't she? queried blake suddenly better yes but not out of danger why why returned blake it just occurred to me see here old man i've nothing much to do can't i stick around here and then you can take kate and muriel with you

that's good of you tom said skyler smiling a little but a bachelor around a sick-room is of about as much use as an elephant at a pink tea no kate and i have talked it all over and under the conditions she has decided to stay at home it'll be mighty hard though mighty hard it must be nearly time to leave blake looked at his watch nine fifty he said what time does the train go skyler did not answer for just then there entered the room a tall clean-cut young fellow of thirty dressed with quiet immaculacy it was parks john schuyler's secretary to him skyler turned is everything ready parks he asked everything was the reply And the car is waiting. Mrs. Skyler? Is in the hall. You have the documents that we selected?

Here, sir. Parks touched with the fingers of his right hand, the little satchel of black seal that he carried beneath his left arm. How much time have we? We should leave within a very few minutes now. Very well. We'll be. right there. As Parks left the room, Blake turned to his friend.

Jack, he exclaimed, it makes me sore every time I look at you. Why in thunder can't I get in once in a while? Nothing would suit me better than to go over and buy the king a glass of half and half, and mix around with the diplomats and settle the affairs of nations. But they wouldn't let me send cucumber seeds to the mattress-faced constituency of Schenadalus County, if I should offer to pay for the job. I've got everything I don't want, except the measles, and everything I do want I can't get. I want a home. What have I? A box stall with nobody in it but a man to curry me, and he's curried me so often that he's lost all respect for me. I want to stop being merely ornamental and become useful. But when I say so, everyone hands me the jocose and

jibing jeer and proceeds to lock up anything that seems to have any relation whatsoever to industry, commerce, or utility of any kind. And the best I can get is the festive roof garden, the broad speedway, and the bounding wave. I wish I were running this universe. i ain't mentioning no names but there's a certain sveld party on my left whose initials are j s who wouldn't have a monopoly in all the good things in this world schuyler filling his cigar case from a silver humidor on the sideboard laughed there's nothing the matter with you tom he said assuringly except that you have too much time and too much money stop your kicking blake grinned let me rave if i want to he requested let me have a good time you know as well as i do that i don't mean it and you know that i'm more glad for your success and happiness and prosperity than i would be for my own and that's being some glad he crossed to where schuyler stood and placed his arm about his shoulder and continued good old jack bull for you. You deserve everything that you have ever won. I'd say I loved you like a brother,

if it weren't for the fact that I never had a brother yet that I could sit through a meal without wanting to hit him under the ear with the sideboard. The room had become suddenly dark. Came almost without the warning of preliminary rumble, almost without the precursor of sullen flashing, a great peal of heavy thunder. Skyler took him. turned. Blake sprang to his feet. Through the bow window, the lawn lay dumb and dark. Beyond, the sound, flat and heavy, seemed as gray oil. The Long Island shore had been swallowed in the gloom. Above all was a great black cloud, rimmed of silver and of gold, a low cloud, thick and threatening. And yet to one side and the other, in fact,

save right in its ominous path one could see the sunlight on water and on land then came the rain and the wind and with them incessant flashings incessant bellowings wild protest of the outraged god of storms trees bent and groaned flowers torn from their tender stalks lay prostrate in pealing puddles and quick-born waves last They passed themselves spitefully against the pier and breakwater down beyond the lawn, unseen in the swirling, screaming wildness of it all. Upon one another, Schuyler and Blake turned, wondering, amazed eyes. In its suddenness, the storm was unbelievable. They stood side by side, gazing out into the storm. Suddenly, into the hand of Schuyler stole tiny, frightened fingers. It was Muriel.

I'm frightened, Daddy, dear, she cried. Schuyler gathered her into his arms. Don't be frightened, a little sweetheart, he said soothingly. It's just a summer storm. Where's mother? Here, Jack, her voice came from at his very side. Isn't it terrible? We can't go in this. Holding his child close against a child, close against a little, his breast, her cheeks against his, her gold-brown hair mixing with the gray of his temples,

he said, "'Not you and Muriel, of course, but I must. It won't last long. You and Tom can come on a later train. Parks can come with you. There'll be plenty of time. It's only that I have urgent business that I must attend to before sailing.' in a swirl of wind and rain park stepped into the room and addressing schuyler said we should be starting sir skyler nodded the butler was holding his coat in readiness he thrust his arms within the sleeves and with a shrug of broad shoulders stood prepared for departure lifting the little girl that was his own and of the woman he loved he held her for a brief moment tight to his breast in her little ear he whispered by little sweetheart

she clung to him little hands about his neck he set her down again upon the floor she ran to blake waiting the deep lids of katherine were veiling the violet eyes eyes moist and very soft. There was a little tremor of the sensitive lips. Schuyler drew her to him so that she faced him and whispered, "'Orevoir, big sweetheart. Don't you dare cry. I know how it hurts, but be a brave little woman. I'll make my stay just as short as possible.' "'You'll cable,' she asked tremulously. "'Cable?' he repeated. i'll keep that wireless snapping all the way across now let me see you smile she tried it was a wan sad little smile a smile that was close of kin to a tear she clung to him for a moment then her fingers loosened their hold she stepped back white teeth holding nether lip it was bitterly hard

he looked and with more understanding than many a man might have turned swiftly parks stepped forward shan't i go with you he asked skyler shook his head no he returned come with mrs skyler meet me at the boat i'm going alone he thrust open the door came a wail of wind a swirl of rain and then as he crossed the threshold, the very heaven itself seemed to be reft apart with a great wild flash of lightning. The roar of the thunder was appalling. Schuyler started back. He forced to laugh. Were I a superstitious man, he remarked,

I might take that for an omen. And then he was gone. Chapter 14. Young Parmally and the Woman He came slinking down the deck of the liner, Fertive of eye, uneven of tread. A young man he was, and yet old, For while his body told of youth,

His face bespoke age, The unnatural forced age, The hothed growth of they who live in the froth of life, And the froth that it is hard to tell from the scum. He was tall and well set up. his clothes hung well about his body they were of fine texture and make yet unpressed uncared for he had been handsome but he was no longer for the eyes looked forth from hollows in his face his cheeks were sunken his lips were leaden he was unshaven ungroomed unkempt looking nervously this way and that he made his way among the jostling throngs to one of the passages.

Searching with sunken eyes for a numbered door, he knocked upon it with the knuckles of his left hand. His right rested at his side, covered with the handkerchief of white silk. He knocked and stepped back quickly. There was no answer. The door remained shut. He stepped forward again, thrusting the door wide open.

The stateroom was a state room, empty. He turned. Out upon the deck he strode. Then, starting back, he concealed himself in the passageway that he had just left. Coming down the deck was a woman, a woman darkly beautiful, tall, lithe, sinuous. Great masses of dead black hair were coiled about her head. Her cheeks were white, her lips very red. Eyes heavy-lidded, looked out in cold, inscrutableuteur upon the confusion about her. She wore a gown that clung to her perfectly modeled figure that seemed almost a part of her being.

She carried in her left arm a great cluster of crimson roses. Down the deck she came slowly as a queen going to her throne. She turned. The man hiding in the passageway confronted her. His eyes were burning as of a fever. His whole body shook. She remained calm, cold, unmoved. At length, the woman spoke, half smiling.

You? I thought that we were through. His voice was tense, strained, unnaturally pitched. The words came between clenched teeth. You did, eh? You thought you'd throw me. over as you did Rogers and Van Dam and the rest of them but it won't work you vampire swiftly he tore from his right hand the handkerchief that covered it there was in it a revolver the bright mouth of the weapon sprang to the white forehead of the woman yet she did not start she made no sound no movement the smile still dwelt upon his her lips. It was only in the eyes that a difference came, in the black, inscrutable eyes.

They gleamed now, heavy-litted as before. Their gaze was fixed straight into the sunken, hate-lit eyes of the man before her, a man who, but for her, might still have been a boy. She bent forward a little. Her forehead, between the eyes, was now touching the bright muzzle of the weapon. The finger on the trigger trembled. Trembled, but did not pull. Came slowly, sibilantly, from between the smiling red lips, "'Kiss me, my fool!' Her eyes still fixed him. The hand holding the revolver trembled more violently. Slowly the mouth of the weapon sank to lips, to chin, to breast. It hovered there a moment just over the heart. The finger twitched a little, twitched but did not pull.

It was a finger governed by a vanished will in a shriveled brain. Then suddenly the revolver leaped, the finger pulled. With a shrill screech of hopeless, hideous imprecation, a shriek that died stillborn, the bullet pierced flesh and bone and brain, and that which had been a man that should have been a boy lurched drunkenly and lay a crumpled nothing upon the deck there was blood upon the deck beside the hem of the crimson ground nearer to the crimson heel of her shoe and the gown was caught beneath the body of the boy that was she looked down upon him the smile not even yet had left her lips with a live movement infinitely graceful she drew away disengaging the hem of her crimson garment a crimson petal from the great cluster in her arms fell upon it to lie upon the hollow whiteness of the upturned cheek and that was all a man a man that should have been a boy was gone hurrying horror-ridden passengers found him there alone the doctor came and stewards and the captain they lifted him and bore him away of those who live in the froth of things the froth that is often the scum there were several one of these knew him

it's young parmilly he informed them and that was all he knew that and possibly some other things that are little but of the great things he knew nothing for of these great things god has told us but little. End of chapters 13 and 14. Chapters 15 and 16 of A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Brown. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 15. A Warning The storm that had come hissing across the sound did not last long. Its very fierceness, it seemed, was its own undoing.

its frenzy soon passed and anon the sun shone the drooping flowers raised to it pitiful bedragged little faces and from the fields rose the burden of incense moist fragrant giving wet thanks of its coming and of its going schuyler's farewells had been but tentative it had been understood that should the storm abate mrs schuyler muriel and blake would follow on the next train for he himself was forced by the exigency of his mission to reach the city at least two hours before sailing time the car returning from the trip to the depot was again called into service parks as well had waited and went with them reaching the city blake's machine for which he had telephoned from larchmont was waiting and in this they made the journey through the traffic thronged new york streets to the dock a route that leads one from wealth to poverty from respectability to license from well-doing to ill-doing and through all that lies between the dock beside which lay tugging at her cables the huge liner was confusion thrice confused jolting cabs rattling taxis smooth-running private cars drays and vans added to the tumult caused by the hundred the thousands of hurrying scurrying humanity came the calls of excited passengers the rumbling of trucks the babble-like voices the babble-like voices of emigrants and beyond the noises of the great river a lighting from the car at the gangway they boarded the ship with its crowded decks schuyler's stateroom was aft in the center of the ship

it lay the first door to the right as one enters the narrow passageway to it the little party made its way the door of the room opposite was ajar blake noticed that there lay therein a great mass of crimson roses scattered amid the toilet articles and accessories of a woman passing through the crowds of the deck he had heard also the man who knew telling another man who did not know of young parmally it had been but a word but it had been a word that had found fructification and meaning in the sight of a deck steward with a bucket mopping up something from the deck-stuart with a bucket mopping up something from the dead deck just outside the little passageway. Catherine and Muriel, seen safely to the room that Schuyler was to occupy, Blake returned and made his way out upon the deck. He stood for a moment by the steward, watching him. Then very quietly inquired, "'Where did it happen, Stuart?' The steward, wringing out the mop into the dark water of his bucket, looked up. There were were beads of sweat upon his bronzed wrinkled brow yet the day was not warm what sir he queried where did it happen what happened sir young parmally suicide blake spoke quietly calmly

the steward's eye shifted suicide sir he said don't know nothing about it governor blake pointed to the spot upon the deck what's that then he demanded the steward moved uneasily a spot i'd just been a clean enough governor blake pointed to the bucket and that he persisted water sir and the steward slowly drew the back of his hand across dry lips and then in a swift rush of strangled words blood governor blood only a boy he was sir and she looked down on him laying there with his brain spattered on the deck and she laughed sir god sir she laughed he struggled to his feet and pulled his forelock he said in altered tones beg pardon sir but a man can't be a blind machine all the time sir there came a call from the stateroom get that bucket away from here quick and blake turned to meet the wife and child of his friend as they came from the stateroom oh i do hope jack won't be late katherine remarked scanning the decks blake standing between her and the steward returned with forced lightness oh he has plenty of time half an hour at least why once i lost fifty thousand in the market broke my steering gear running over a fat policeman was arrested taken to court and bailed out and all within twenty minutes jack's got time to squander

there was sadness in the violet eyes it will be very lonely when he's gone very lonely she mused slowly well it will be as lonely for him as it will for you blake returned which is a doubtful consolation but one that most women don't have muriel had wandered to the rail oh i see him she cried suddenly there he is daddy daddy dear he's right there on the gangway right behind that fat lady the one with a red nose i'm going to meet him sturdy little legs started to follow the summons of impulsive little brain but her mother detained her no dearie she objected you'll get lost he'll be lost he'll be lost he'll be here in a moment now not unless he can get by that lady protested the child he's he's pocketed is the word you want muriel assisted blake he was looking in the direction which the child had indicated suddenly he exclaimed i see him now he doesn't see us though possibly he doesn't know where his stateroom is these boats are very confused I'll go fetch him. Blake disappeared in the throngs upon the deck.

Muriel turned to her mother. Mother, she implored. Yes, dear. Why can't we go too, mother dear? We must stay to care for Aunt Eleanor. But she has a doctor and two nurses now, protested the child. But, returned her mother, smiling,

"'That isn't like one's own family.' The child was, for a moment, sunk deep in thought most serious. "'But why must both of us stay?' she asked at length. Then suddenly, "'Mother dear!' "'Yes, little sweetheart. "'I'll match you to see which one of us goes.'

Mrs. Schuyler, surprised, smiled. Why, daughter, wherever did you learn that? I heard Mr. Tom and Daddy the other night. They were sitting in the library, and Mr. Tom said, I'll match you to see who gets the cigars. So, mother dear, I thought that you and I might match one another to see which of us could go with Daddy. Catherine placed an arm about her, drawing her to her.

Do you want to go with Dad? Daddy and leave mother, she asked. The child shook her head doubtfully. No, she said. Not exactly. I want to go with Daddy. I love Daddy. But I want to stay with you too, Mother dear.

Mother dear, she added suddenly. Yes, sweetheart? Wouldn't it be nice if we were both twins? Then half of us could go with Daddy, and the other half of us stay at us. home with aunt eleanor chapter sixteen the beginning skylor came hurrying down the deck blake and parks close behind there was on his face the smile of great gladness he placed one strong arm about his wife the other about his child i've some bully news for you kate dear the president has so arranged that i can complete my work and get back to you in less than a month. Isn't that splendid? Just one little month and I'll be back again

with you and baby." The child raised her head in protest. "'But I'm not a baby now. I'm six years old. Mother has to pay full fare for me on the cars, don't you mother?' Skyler picked her up from the deck, tossing her in the air. no matter what you may be to conductors you'll always be baby to daddy you little darling he said brightly then turning to blake with lightness born of great earnestness take good care of them while i'm gone won't you old man by jove i'd like to chuck it all even at the last minute as it is and stay at home facing his wife child and friend his eyes were up the broad deck. Came toward him the woman, the woman known as the man who knew,

and of young Parmally. Schuyler's voice died in its throat. Her eyes were upon him. His eyes were upon her. She made no movement. She paused not in her indolent, sinuous walk. Her eyes were upon him, and that was all. Dark eyes, glowing, inscrutable.

beautiful with the beauty that was hers and his eyes were on hers she turned up the narrow passageway in which lay schuyler's stateroom blake saw too he was not of those who live in the froth of things that froth of things that is the scum but he was of the world and they who are of the world have knowledge of all that that world contains of all that is that is that it is for such that they know. Catherine looked up at length anxiously. Schuyler was never abstracted. She prompted, You were saying, Jack, dear? Schuyler drew his hand, palm out, across his forehead.

Why, oh, yes, he floundered, trying to marshal his scattered thoughts. I was saying, he appealed to Blake, half helplessly, half-whimsically. By Joe, that's strange. What was I saying, Tom? Blake replied shortly. You were asking me to take good care of them. Schuyler nodded.

Oh, yes, he assented. And then, I don't understand. I... But you will take good care of them, won't you, old man? They're all I have, and more, they're all I want. guard them tom for me as though they were your own waiting to take farewell of those one loves is indeed a sweetness tinged with bitterness and if one loves very very much it is sometimes a bitterness tinged with sweetness katherine lower lip clenched between white teeth herself unhappy would have kept that unhappiness as far as possible hers alone there were those on board that she knew to them she went for there was still since time was short too much of it muriel she took with her

schuyler in his eyes all the virile love that such as he feels for theirs watched her vanish amid the throngs then sauntering to the rail leaned against it there came into his eyes a look of abstraction of aberration of aberration of puzzlement. Blake stood watching him, stood for a long time, silent, unmoving. At length he moved to Schuyler's side. Old man, he said very slowly, very quietly, very earnestly. Old man, what's up? Schuyler turned quickly. What's up? he repeated.

What do you mean? blake said still slowly there's something happened to you happened cried schuyler something happened he laughed what could have happened damned if i know but something has i've got a hunch skyler answered lightly well you better take it to a doctor and have it diagnosed he half turned it's only my natural nervousness at leaving Catherine and Muriel, and the importance of my mission. By the way, he asked abruptly, what was that crowd doing on the dock as I came up? Blake, selecting a cigarette, lighted it. Suicide, he said curtly.

Skyler started. You say it mighty cold-bloodedly, he asserted. Where did it happen? here i believe almost where we are standing good god who was it young chap named parmally what the boy who's been in the papers so much lately who disgraced himself and his people for a woman blake nodded and continued did you happen to notice the woman who passed a moment ago the one carrying the red roses skyler bent his head i noticed her he replied slowly whatever the woman you don't mean parmilee yes i do because his love was not returned because replied blake smiling mirthlessly it was returned did you ever read did you ever read that thing of kipling's the vampire why yes of course returned schuyler almost every one's read that

do you remember how it goes persisted blake skyler thought a moment then slowly he recited a fool there was and he made his prayer even as you and i to a rag and a bone and a hank of hair we called her the woman who did not care but the fool he called her his lady fair he broke off abruptly a weird thing he said as though to himself i never thought much about what it meant before he turned abruptly why did you ask me if i'd read it he demanded well said blake flicking the ashes from a cigarette there's the fool he nodded toward the drying spot upon the deck and there he indicated with a backward toss of his well-shaped head the corridor down which had passed the woman is his lady fair i've even heard he went on that she used to call him her fool quoting the poem pretty little conceit eh his jaw firm square set tight then with a touch of deeper feeling she murdered that boy just as surely as if she had cut his throat and the worst of it is that she can't be held legally guilty morally yes guilty is sin but legally he shook his head the laws that man makes for mankind are a joke as sometimes seen added schuyler slowly the laws that god makes for mankind

if what you say about that woman be true she ought to be taken by the hair of the head and dragged through the hell she is built for others his brows were knitted he was gazing with unseeing eyes upon the bustle and confusion of the deck below blake eyeing him remarked quietly but in tones more light however that's not your job nor mine thank god it would be an eminently suitable recreation for a debonair young man with a shattered reputation a cast-iron stomach several millions of dollars and no objection to staying up by the year he turned a little toward schuyler what are you thinking about he queried only the fool the generic fool of kipling or young parmally i was thinking of young parmally then and the woman skylar quoted slowly a fool there was oh but blake protested i wouldn't call him a fool why not demanded skyler he was a fool yes returned blake but-but he's dead now bosh retorted schuyler impatiently i've no sympathy with that false sentiment that forbids one to speak the unpleasant truth of a dead person if a man were a fool while alive his dying doesn't absolve him of his folly young parmally's death was a mitigating circumstance however he killed himself which shows that he had some manhood left but he should have had had had had had had had had had had had

had the decency to choose another place for his self-destruction. He was silent for a moment. At length he went on, A man is what he is, and he was what he was. His dying can change nothing of his living. He looked up. His wife and child were coming toward him. Say nothing to them about all this, Tom, he urged. Certainly not, acquiesced Blanche. lake. A steward came down the deck, calling raucously. All ashore that's going ashore.

Catherine turned to Schuyler. And now that the time has really come to say goodbye, she said brokenly, here's something I brought you, Jack. She handed him a little box of glazed cardboard. Wonderingly, he took it. For me? He cried with simmel. formulated gaiety that sweet of you dear heart sweeter even than are these for he had opened it and taken forth the tiny bouquet of forget-me-nots that had nestled in the depths of the moist cotton

and these are the sweetest itself but why forget-me-nots as though i could ever forget you even for one little minute there came again the strident call all assured that's going ashore. Violet eyes suffused. Catherine was clinging to him. Jack, she whispered. Jack, I'm afraid I'm going to cry. With infinite tenderness, he held her to him. There, there, sweetheart mine, he said soothingly. Don't be a silly. Now, we'll all go down to the gangway, where the big hugs are. Then I'll rush back here, and we can wait. one another goodbye and try to imagine I'm going only over to Staten Island for the afternoon. Came farewells at the gangway, farewells of tears, of heartaches, of quivering lips and moist lids,

of laughter quavering and smiles unreal, of the good hand-clasp that good men know, the touch of wet, clinging lips. Schuyler came rushing down the deck, keeping to that part of the ship that lay nearest to the dock. From the bouquet that had been given him, he plucked tiny, fragrant blossoms, casting them to those that had given, and with them, sending cheery words of hope, tender words of parting. He could see them there, far below, straining against the ropes, waving to him.

he could see the violet eyes tear-laden the lithe slender figure of his wife in the glory of her perfect womanhood the sturdy little body of his child bare-legged browned hair tumbled waving frantically a tiny little square of muslin and shouting farewells at the highest pitch of childish tremble he could see his friend the friend such as few men may have ever have and waving may pray to hold broad shoulders protecting wife and child from the pressing throngs he could hear his voice booming through all the heterogeneous medley of sound his voice choked words that he was crying words lost in all the confusion of sound and movement stuck in his throat moisture came to his eyes he turned a little came into range of his vision a tiny streak of shifting crimson he looked she was sitting there on the deck she the woman she lay back in her chair long lithe limbs covered with a rug of crimson and black and dull dull green she was dangling gently sensuously the great cluster of scarlet roses that she held now and again bringing them to where their fragrance would reach her delicately chiselled nose imperious haughty they looked startlingly red against her cheek like blood upon the snow she was looking at him there was no movement save the even languorous swing of the crimson blossoms lips livid red were motionless half parted in a little inscrutable smile

She was looking at him. He forgot. The whistle had been blowing, sounding departure. He had not heard. There was a lull. From a far, shrill, childish voice brought adrifting, Bye, bye, Daddy, dear! He did not hear.

Her eyes were on his. His eyes were on hers, and seemed to be nothing else. be nothing else. End of chapters 15 and 16. Chapter 17 of A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Brown. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 17.

In the night. He had told Parks to come to him as soon as they were underway. There were certain letters that he wished to get off in time to send them back on the pilot boat. Parks found him by the rail, gazing at a tall, darkly beautiful woman reclining in a steamer chair, eyes only visible above a great cluster of crimson blossoms. Parks had spoken to him three times before there was forthcoming a reply. Then, slowly, as a man awakening from a heavy sleep,

Skyler had gone with him to his room. He had tried to dictate his correspondence, had tried and failed. There were many mistakes. His thoughts would not seem to coalesce. His mind was not upon what he was doing, nor could he place it there. And Schuyler's was a brain that had always been to him an admirably trained servant, coming when he willed it, doing what he willed and in the way he willed.

But today it was a servant sullen, rebellious, recalcitizens. the letters remained unwritten nothing was sent back with the pilot and parks wondering puzzled and perhaps a bit perturbed watched the pilot swing down the jacob's ladder and make across the water toward his craft with wonderment puzzlement perturbation no bit abated skiler paced the deck all that day lunch he did not touch dinner found him undesirous of food he was walking walking striding up and down up and down deep in thought it seemed and yet he had not been able to dictate his letters parks wondered yet more at length he went to his employer and asked him if he were not needed the answer was curt it was no and never before had parks been answered without a cordial nod or perhaps the good smile of good fellowship he could not understand and schuyler his brain was in a tumult like us all there were many things that he did not know there were many things that he did not even know there were to know some of these he was beginning to know some of these he was beginning to to learn. It had shaken him, it was shaking him, to his soul. He did not see the woman again that day. Her room was across the corridor from his. He heard her voice, directing the steward to bring to her

her dinner. It was dark that night, dark as night seldom gets in the northern latitudes in June. The lights of the deck looked like vigorous glowworms. The start of the start of the start of the stars seemed very far away. Far below, as he paced, he could see a dimly great blackness that was the sea, and against it the white of the waves, as they broke sullenly against the huge hull.

Later it became yet more black. The stars vanished. The ship seemed a world of its own, hurling through an eternity of utter, deadly space. A wind sprang up, wind from the east wet and vicious a wind that spat upon one that chilled one that slapped one with clammy fingers skiler paced the deck coming out of the dim half-light of the promenade into the corner of the rail by the bow he thought he saw her he was not sure at first then though his eyes pierced no more clearly he was sure he went closer she stood there white hands clasping the bare rail lithe sinewy lazy body tilted a bit backward as though in the grasp of the spitting wind

her throat was bare to it and her breast her lips were parted her eyes were deep-lidded her head was poised like a tiger lily upon its stock he stood there and velloped in the blackness. For a long time, she stood motionless. Then she stretched her white arm above her head, stretched the long muscles of her body as a panther stretches. She was very, very beautiful. He stood watching. The ship lurched. It reeled against a huge wave, shivering it into roaring spume. The wet fingers of the wind had wrapped her garments about it. her every fold tight against her rounded body she stood arms above her head lips parted silhouetted against the foam the ship reeled again and there came darkness utter when again there was light so that one might see skyler stood alone six bells had struck ere he went to his room then scourged of body scourged of soul racked harassed torn he sought his birth but he did not sleep he thought of parmally the boy who was a man

he thought of the woman he thought of himself he thought of the wife that he loved he thought of the child that he loved the child that had come to him through that wife he thought of all these things and of many more and he did not understand He did not know, for God has shown even the wisest of us, but little of this world in which we live. End of Chapter 17. Chapters 18 and 19 of A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Brown. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 18, White Roses It was two months later. garden that lay on the side of the big rambling house at larchmont where the sun best loved to dwell roses were in bloom and roses even as the sun seemed to love that garden

they clustered great masses of glowing white against the latticed arbor they caught playfully at one's hat as one would walk through the gate that led to the broad green lawn and to the sound beyond they snapped at one's clothing as one would walk past the largest bush the one that stretched its branches across the french window it was a real garden an out-of-door home a garden in which one might live and in which one might be glad that one was alive at one side of a tiny writing-table set upon the thick carpet-like sward sat the mother pen in hand before her a half-finished letter across from her the child pressed strong white teeth into the yielding wood of her pencil and before her too was a half-written letter a sprawling uncertain letter of childhood at length the child looked up she could see that her mother was not writing so if she spoke she would not be interrupting mother dear yes honey how do you spell love don't you know dearie the child shook her head l prompted the mother muriel ventured dubiously l a her mother shook her head the child ventured again l i no honey the child kicked her little brown legs tell me mother dear she besought please tell me l o ve e spelled the mother oh yes i remember now mother dear yes little sweetheart

when is daddy coming home it's awfully hard to write letters he's been gone a long time now hasn't he mother dear yes dearie a long long time the violet eyes were sad almost a year persisted the little one her mother smiled a little wanly it seems like it doesn't it she said but it's only two months not only two months she corrected but two months came a little pause it was broken again by muriel mother dear yes can't i make the rest just kisses with a smile a smile of infinite love and tenderness the mother leaned across and kissed the child that was hers of course you may dearie she assented softly why don't you write kisses too mother dear queried the little one it's lots easier oh mother dear i'll tell you what i wrote if you'll tell me what you wrote will you violet eyes gave loving assent oh goody we won't tell anyone else will we no dearie then declared muriel i'll read mine she picked up the wrinkled little sheet of sadly irregular choreography dear father daddy she read it rained yesterday mother and i are well we hope you are well and you are well and you are well and you are well and and God gave our new cat four kittens.

She looked up into the face of her mother. God is awfully good to cats, isn't he, Mother dear? She asked. She went on, then, with the assurance of childhood. Please come home. We miss you. I fell in the lake yesterday, but didn't take cold. I love you, and the rest is just kisses. She eyed her mother anxiously.

Do you think Daddy will like that letter? she asked. Her mother's voice was a bit uneven as she answered. I'm sure he will, little sweetheart. I'm sure he will. Now, requested the child, you read yours. Catherine, drawing the child to her, bent forward. There was much in her heart, much that she might not tell to anyone of all the world, save two, and one of these was far away, and even though the other could not understand, still, she read,

My John, you know how we love you, but you don't know how we miss you. Please, please come back to us. If it weren't for Muriel, I don't know what I'd do, John, dear. I don't want to make you unhappy. I want you to have all the honors, all the promise. her presence, everything that a man's heart holds dear. But I can't help being jealous a little of the things that are keeping you from us. She ceased, turning her head away.

A robin in the roses, lifting its head, broke into song. The child waited patiently. At length, she inquired, "'Is that all, Mother dear?' Catherine nodded. "'Yes, honey.' haven't you made any kisses no dearie but protested the child daddy'll be so disappointed will he honey that wouldn't do would it very well then mother'll make some kisses with muriel looking on the mother made several large and heavy crosses at the foot of that which she had written there were other marks on that were not kids

kisses marks that had been made by moisture and that had smeared the ink as they had been quickly wiped away these the child did not notice she was looking toward the house here comes aunt eleanor mother dear she said chapter nineteen shadows mrs van vorsd had been very ill a fever contracted in south africa where she had been with her husband a fever gained in a futile effort to save the life of that husband had sadly fagged a naturally vigorous constitution there had been a recurrence soon after her return to america now she was in that condition of indolent convalescence that is in women so interesting in men so uninteresting she was an out-of-door woman tall lithe willowy in the rugged health that was normally hers she seemed muscled almost like one of the opposite sex yet she lost by it none of the charm of frank femininity that was hers she was long-limbed clean-limbed quick of mind and of body the forced inaction of illness was irksome to her it was hard for her to walk slowly it was hard for her to sit in silent inaction to lie in indolent unrest. Two, she felt more than anyone save herself

might ever know the loss of the man that had been to her, not only husband, but as well, friend, companion, and comrade. She had been of the world, though anything but worldly. She knew, perhaps, more than many another, of the hidden things. She strolled forward through the sun-flect garden. A magazine, its leaves still uncut, was in her hand. She sank into a chair, in a spot from which she might see the sound and its burden of sales.

Tom come yet? she asked. Catherine shook her head. Not yet. Heard from Jack today? Again Catherine made negation. The foreign mail hasn't come yet, she said. i told pierre to stop at the office for it eleanor selecting a paper knife ran it slowly between the pages of her magazine that business of his seems to be keeping him a long time was her comment what did he say in his last letter why there are several matters of great importance that still remain unsettled it's not a little thing his mission you know i'm a little thing his mission you know i'm a little thing his mission you know i'm a little thing

i don't know much about such things but diplomatic questions it always seemed to me take years and years of all manner of serious discussion and weighty argument katherine tried to speak lightly yet the heaviness of her heart was pitifully apparent eleanor was scanning a colored front piece a thing of vivid yellows and brilliant blues you're feeling almost like yourself again aren't you nell eleanor nodded yes she replied thanks to you you were very ill one more doctor would have finished me of a sudden there came from the drive the quick honking of an automobile horn together with the soft purring of an engine muriel leaped to her feet brown little legs flashed as she made her way across the garden. Catherine and Eleanor watched her going. They heard her cry, Oh, Mr. Tom! Another moment, and Blake, carrying the child in his arms, thrust aside the bending heads of the white roses and made his way into the garden. Hello, folks, was his greeting. Is God in? Who? demanded Eleanor.

God, he returned. This is heaven, isn't it? It certainly does seem like it to anyone who has just come from the fireless cooker that sometimes rejoices under the name of Manhattan. My old Aunt Maria. But it is hot there, though. We're very glad to see you, Tom,

Catherine began, although we do owe you a scolding. What for, he demanded? setting the child to the sward and taking off his hat. You haven't been near us for a fortnight. He seated himself, mopping his forehead. Business, Kate, business, he declared importantly. Eleanor laughed in pleasant irony. Business, she repeated.

I said, business, he retorted. Yes, she rejoined. but you can't prove it can't eh he inquired well you go back to the wicked metropolis and you'll find that my rent is paid and that a coupon's been cut from one of my bonds and who did it i'd like to know oh your secretary or the janitor or somebody returned eleanor easily not you tom laughed i must have a very negligible reputation for industry in this manage how do you think i spend all my time eleanor arms akimbo half faced him well mr bones she asked how do you spend all your time he grinned at her friendly feeling better aren't you i feel so well she returned that if this doctor of mine weren't such a simon legris i could play you eighteen holes of golf for a box of gloves against a box of cigars gambler he scoffed and if i should win my son suppose i'd have to smoke the cigars certainly she countered easily if i should have to wear the gloves he sank back in the big chair well he asserted it were useless to speculate on that which may never be

i am at present in that interesting state of a man's career where golf doesn't belong a man who is beyond the first flush of adolescence and not yet in the last last pallor of senility has no business dallying with gall. He's liable to get sunstruck. Muriel, who had been listening with round, wondering eyes, ran to her mother. What does he mean, mother dear? she asked. Eleanor replied instead, laughing. Nobody knows, Muriel, not even he. Now that's unkind, Nell, protested Blake, Unkind, though true. The child, eyeing them for a minute in serious non-understanding,

recurred with the facility of the very young to other things. Oh, mother dear, she cried. We forgot to stick up our letters to Daddy. Taking her mother's hand, she led her to the little table. Eleanor, left alone with Blake, turned to him and queried, "'Heard from Jack lately?' he shook his head not lately not since i've seen you not enjoying himself much i suppose she commented he always stuck to this place in summer like a barnacle was crazy about it blake sitting with left fist in right palm eyes upon the velvety green of the lawn shook his head slowly he shouldn't have left a home like this if they had offered to make him queen of sheba was his comment

katherine had turned to him there was in her eyes a frank gladness a sincere welcome she was glad to see him how glad she herself scarcely knew she had few friends for there were but few people for whom she really cared she had known blake for many many years known him and liked him and liking had respected he was of the few men whom money and bachelorhood have no power to spoil and they are few indeed the one has power to spoil you know even as the other and both together unusual indeed is the one has power to spoil you know even as the other and both together unusual indeed is a the man who can resist. It's good to see you again, Tom, she declared. It's been lonely here, and I never thought that would happen. It's good to be here, he returned, looking steadily upon her. It's good to be here, Kate.

It's a perfect place, this, perfect. Eleanor had risen, plucking a bending blossom, inhaling of its delicate fragrance, She had wandered through the broad archway of the arbor toward the sound. There was a moment of silence. There came from between Blake's lips a deep sigh. Catherine looked up quickly. What's the matter, Tom? He shook his head again.

I don't know. Sometimes things go all wrong, dead wrong, and no one can tell you why, or how, or what to do. why tom she cried what do you mean has anything mean he interrupted oh nothing nothing of course i-i guess it's loneliness there are a lot of people who think because i have a motor to smell a yacht to make my friend seasick and a club window to decorate that i'm contented with my lot but at heart i'm the most domestic individual that ever desecrated a dinner coat and sometimes the natural tendencies of the gregarious male animal will not down there's too much of the concentrated quintessence of unadulterated happiness lying around here maybe that's it we have been happy here tom very very happy then quickly i'm sorry tom i understand and i'm sorry he smiled it's nothing kate he declared nothing at all you've got to expect a bachelor to kick every once in a while you know they're a peevish lot of old guys

end of chapters eighteen and nineteen chapters twenty and twenty one of a fool there was by porter emerson brown this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter twenty a fairy story toward the child of his friend and of his friend's wife blake felt not as men in his place would have felt the love that he had for the dainty little thing of gold-brown hair and gold-brown cheeks and straight sturdy little legs was the love of a man for his own it seemed to him almost that she was flesh of his flesh blood of his blood bone of his bone it was the almost that hurt for she was the child of the woman he loved and of another man to love the wife of another man is a bitter thing a bitter thing to love with dishonor is not hard but to love with honor were hard indeed to go away so loving were to render more easy to bear the thing that must be born to stay to see day by day the happiness that lieth beyond hope were to stand in hell and gaze at heaven and this were most bitter most hard of all yet this was what blake had done this was what blake would do and it was what he expected to keep on doing until there was no such thing as time and the souls of all men were dead he did it because all that lay for him in life lay there even though not the tiniest bit of it could he claim for his own and he was a man of heart as well as of head and honor perhaps it was because he had loved the woman who was the wife of his friend since the day when she was as her daughter was now that his love for the little one that was of her transcended all else in his being

all else save the one thing that he never mentioned not even to himself she had been like that a dainty pretty loving simple naive sturdy rugged little thing with wind-blown hair and some tanned cheeks and legs soft gentle infinitely appealing generous loving in the little one that was of her he saw her again violet-eyed glowing with the glorious abundance of vigor building wondrous castles of blue beach clay counting the soaring gulls against the soft blue of summer skies wandering laughingly through daisy fields rolling a whirling little tumult of lace and ribbons and wildly waving bare legs down the stacks of fragrant hay she had been like that small wonder that on her child he lavished all the choked tenderness that cried sometimes so so piteously for outlet and as for the child weighed down deep in her little heart she had builded of the infinity of her love three sky-reaching heaps, each one bigger and more wonderful than the other. One of these she gave to her mother, one to her daddy, and one to Mr. Tom. And she deemed herself not undutiful nor lacking in filial amity for so doing.

Catherine had followed her sister into the house. Left alone with Blake, Muriel ran swiftly to him, bounding to his knee, and he and clasping around his neck strong little arms mr tom she cried you haven't told me a story for most a year he held her to him haven't i little partner he inquired with infinite tenderness well that's a grave omission isn't it i'll tell you one now as she sank down contentedly in his lap and settled her outspreading lilly little little skirt primly about her. What shall it be about? A fairy story, she suggested. A fairy story about a little girl. He sat for a moment in thought. At length he began. Well, once upon a time there was a little girl, a fairy princess.

Was she pretty? Beautiful. Beautiful as she was good, good as she was beautiful. she was a wonderful wonderful princess there was a fairy prince too he went on a handsome dashing a prince that everyone loved and admired and honored she nodded seriously yes she said go on now in the part of the country it was called the land of the great unrest there lived a gnome who was a friend of the prince and princess do you know what a gnome is little brows were bent deep in mental flagellation then at length very eruditely she ventured know em is when you say no to a lady isn't it he laughed a little then seriously that's a different kind of gnome the kind of gnome i mean is a fat man with long thin legs and a big round body and a funny face oh now i know she cried there is a picture of one in the book that you gave me for my birthday only this one had whiskers and a funny cap like a cornucopia he nodded that's the fellow he agreed that's the kind i mean only all of them don't have whiskers and some of them wear yachting caps or panama's or most anything well the prince and the princess loved one another and they got married that was nice yes he added for them but it wasn't for the gnome you see the gnome loved the princess too

did she know it he shook his head no one knew but the gnome he returned and the prince and princess were very happy then a little princess came to live with them and they were happier yet a little princess like me she queried interestedly very much like you he assented and what did the gnome do why he replied the gnome just went away and lived in a hole in the ground all alone didn't he ever come out yes he used to come out sometimes to tell fairy stories to little girls, but he had to go back again, all alone. She sighed most dismally and said, Poor old gnome! Poor old gnome, he repeated. And then? That's all. Isn't there any more? No, she gazed up at him, disappointedly. I don't think that's a very nice story, she declared. don't you he said i'm sorry little partner i didn't mean to tell you that story i-he ceased speaking eleanor was beside him he rose to his feet hastily confused it was no little thing that he had told it was a thing that he had never meant to tell it had come to his lips as a parable because of the way he felt toward the child that was not his

because to her it would never have meant anything and because of the things inside that had struggled for outlet so long he wondered if she had heard and hearing had understood he could not tell she spoke to muriel run into mochins dear she instructed then as a child obedient scampered from the room she turned to blake thrusting toward him a little letter and concluded, Read that. Chapter 21. A letter. Blake took the letter. With its taking, there came to him a premonition that the things that he had suspected,

the things that he had heard, the things that to him were as unbelievable, as utterly absurd and ridiculous and impossible, as might be the vainest imaginings of the vainest had been proven true over the first of the letter he skipped cursorily at length he found john schuyler's name the passage relative to the name was brief he read it slowly word by word then he handed back the letter to eleanor she had seated herself waiting one knee was crossed over the other and over the upper her hands were clasped she was eyeing she was eyeing him keenly, closely, eyes half-closed, brows contracted. To her, Blake turned. Well, he interrogated. I've known Martha Dale for sixteen years. She, Catherine, and I were children together. I think you knew her too. She's not the woman to make a charge like that, unless it's true. Blake shrugged his shoulders. A great pain

shot through his heart. A great numbness clamped his brain. He had heard things himself. He had seen people who themselves had seen, or thought that they had seen. One man he had knocked down. With two more, his good friends, he had quarreled irrevocably, and in his own soul something had told him that it was he who was wrong. He said to Eleanor, even as over and over and over he had said to himself, "'There's some mistake. There must be some mistake. It's impossible.'

She eyed him shrewdly. "'There's no mistake,' she returned. She talked with him. She saw him with this woman. They were at the same hotel where Martha stayed. And the morning after she came, they left. There's no mistake. But Jack wouldn't do a thing like that,

he protested. You're a bad liar, Tom. You knew. No, he cried. You did. You know you did. How long have you known this thing and kept it from those who should be told?

Who should be told? Catherine. No. But I say yes, she went on, almost fiercely. Do you think I'll have my sister the sister whom i love better than anyone in the whole world fooled and shamed and disgraced and dishonored by a man like that he raised his hand protestingly you wouldn't tell her he cried she nodded jaw set i would she declared it would kill her it would kill her nearly but not quite she has too much of her father in her for that that and she must know it is her right and take away her every chance of happiness and his of redemption her every chance of happiness is gone as is his for redemption she said bitterly and then

he should have thought of these things before he did what he did there's one thing to be done and only one i shall tell her he remarked slowly the woman's way to bring suffering where suffering might be spared she rounded on him swiftly the man's way to stick to the husband and deceive the wife you men have two codes of ethics a loose convenient one for yourselves a tight uncompromising one for us there are no two codes of ethics right right is right and wrong is wrong and there can be no compromise when a man marries a woman he owes to that woman every bit as much as she owes to him suppose she went on tensely that it were catherine who had done this thing who had lied and deceived where she had promised to love and honor what then would you tell the husband or wouldn't you he considered and said slowly positively i'd lie like the devil she whirled about you would i would well i won't and she declared lips tight pressed jaw tight set i shall tell her then from the house came katherine happily gaily in her hand there was a letter a letter with a foreign postmark a letter that from its jagged end had been torn open with eager hands a note from jack she cried

what does he say demanded eleanor tensely her lithe fingers interwoven oh terribly lonely returned her sister trying so hard to finish his work and get back to us i'm adding a postscript she seated herself before the writing-table do you two want to send any messages for a moment for a long long moment did mrs van vorsd stand silent motionless all that the thing meant that she was about to do no one knew better than she she stood silent eyes half closed hands clenched blake watched her shrewdly after a long long time she took a short step forward kate she began kate dear i have something to tell you end of chapters twenty and twenty one chapters twenty two and twenty three of a fool there was by porter emerson brown this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter twenty two again the fairy story katherine busy at her postscript did not hear blake stepped swiftly forward no he whispered no eleanor put him aside kate she said again blake stood for a moment hesitant muriel had come from the house to her he called come here little partner obediently she came running to him he seated himself and took her upon his lab do you remember the story that i told you a little while ago he asked she nodded

well there's more to that story would you like to hear it he did not wait for her answer he spoke swiftly surely eleanor across the table eyed him curiously Catherine, still writing, was oblivious quite to all that was going on around her. Blake continued, Well, there came a time when the prince had to go a long, long way off. The princess was very sorry to see him go, and so was the little princess, and they cried. But they were brave princesses, so they didn't cry much. They stayed at home and wrote him letters with kids. kisses in them. And then, well, the fairy prince met a witch, a wicked, wicked witch,

and she charmed him and took him away with her. Now the fairy princess had a sister. She was a good woman, and like all good women, she was hard-headed. The sister heard about the witch, and she wanted to run right home as fast as she could and tell all about it. And that would have made the princess cry. and the prince go away and die all alone the lids over the violet eyes were blinking the lips quivered i want to cry mr tom she complained that's worse than the other story ah but went on blake hurriedly the sister didn't tell she wasn't hard-headed she listened to the voice of reason rather than that of intuition what's that word you just said mr tom intuition she nodded ah ah he hesitated them why intuition is a thing that women use for a brain and he continued by and by the fairy prince managed to get away from the wicked witch that had charmed him and he came back again to the fairy princess and the little fairy princess and though of course he had been very very bad very wicked he was forgiven and they were almost as happy as they had been before he went away do you like that story any better little partner

she was all smiles now she nodded brightly heaps and heaps and heaps she cried that's good he said as he set her down katherine had raised her head from her writing fairy story tom she queried in the half attention of preoccupation yes he replied does it end happily ere he could have replied her thoughts were again of her letter blake walked slowly to where stood eleanor she was toying with a hanging blossom of white fragrant spreading her eyes were moist her hand trembled he asked very softly does it end happily now she turned to him her lips quivered i hope so she whispered she whispered only god himself knows how i hope so and then she added slowly if women were only as loyal to women as men are to men chapter twenty three aid blake had suspected but he had refused to believe now he knew and half an hour later the vagrant under full head of steam was surging down the sound with a great white bone in her teeth and a great fan-like wake spreading huge rollers from her trim stern she anchored off thirty-fourth street the launch was ready almost as the chain rattled blake's big french car was waiting for him at the pier and with scant regard for the speed ordinances it bore him swiftly through the traffic thronged streets to lower fifth avenue and to the house of dr de lancie

the passing of the years had made but little change in either the good doctor or his abode his office looked the same dry and musty he looked the same shrewd and kindly come in he said with the testiness that in him was cordiality concentrated come in don't stand there like a gump stretching my bell wire all out of shape come in come in blake entered well said the doctor leading the way into his office what's the matter now sick you don't look it if all my patients were like you and the skylers i'd starve to you'd starve to death. He fumbled with an old-fashioned cedar cigar chest. Smoke? Blake took the cigar and lighted it. Well, said the doctor again, for heaven's sake, what's the matter? Have you become suddenly dumb? You have a tongue, haven't you? If you have, for goodness sake, use it. Blake answered slowly, Doctor, it's about Jack Schuyler.

The sudden little look of anxiety that sprang to the good old man's eyes showed how much the statement meant to him. About Jack Schuyler, he exclaimed. What about Jack Schuyler? No harm. He's not ill. Very, very ill, I fear, Blake responded. I don't understand it at all.

I can't comprehend. the doctor brought his old fist down upon the scratched top of his old desk will you stop hemming and hawing and shilly-shallying around and come to the point he fairly howled it's about jack skyler repeated blake slowly and a woman dr delancey started he sat erect what he cried jack skyler and a woman you're a fool it's ridiculous impossible absurd that's what i've been telling myself for the past month rejoined blake but it's not ridiculous it's not impossible it's not absurd would to god it were but jack skiler protested the doctor incredulously why i've known him since he was born and i knew his father and his mother and his grandfather and his grandmother before him. Damn, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. Neither did I, returned Blake.

Neither would I, until... He told the doctor of the letter that had come, and of that which it contained. In silence, the doctor listened and to the end. There was a pause. Blake continued, I don't believe I could do anything. I'd lose my head.

I want you to go to him, to see if there isn't something that you can do. I'll pay... The doctor leaped from his chair, wagging an old finger in Blake's face. Pay, he yelled. Pay me for going to Jack Schuyler? You keep your dashed money, my boy.

When I want any, I'll ask you for it. Do you hear me? me, I'll ask you for it. When does the first boat sail? It sails tonight, in half an hour, returned Blake. It's the vagrant. I'm going to. I want to be near at hand. Good God, he cried suddenly. It was almost a wail. To think of Jack Schuyler, our Jack Schuyler, like that? The doctor came in from the hall, whence he had rushed. One arm was in the sleeve of his coat. His hat was over his ear. He was vainly trying to put his left glove on his right hand. Well, he blurted, what are you standing there for like a bump

on a log? Why don't you get started? What's the matter with you, anyhow? Come on. He turned and shouted up the stairs. Mary, Mary, Mary, I say. i'm going away don't know when i'll be back ask young dr houghton across the street to take care of my patients until i get home he'll probably kill a lot of em but i can't help that and still shouting still fussing with glove and sleeve he bumbled out the door and down the steps to the waiting car end of chapters twenty two and twenty three chapters twenty four and twenty five of A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Brown. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 24. Rescue. Blake waited on the yacht in the harbor of Liverpool.

It was hard for him to sit idly by at such a time, but he felt that it was best. There was in his soul a great pity, to be sure, a great grief, a great horror. yet there was also too great deep anger and a wild resentment for he loved the daughter of jimmy blair you know and it was not alone that jack skyler was his friend it was as well that he was her husband and the father of her child so he did not trust himself to go then for he knew that all that he might do dr delancey could do and more dr de lancy went then alone in london he found john schuyler he did not announce himself he bullied and stormed and finally persuaded those who stood between him and his quarry to let him go unannounced he did not knock instead he thrust open the door and entered skyler was standing before the grate with its burden of glowing coals he looked up he started rubbing his eyes as one who sees but doesn't believe that which his gaze tells him to be so it's you he cried dr delancey nodded "'Yes,' he said simply.

"'Jack, I've come to take you home. The yacht's waiting at Liverpool. Tom's boat, you know, steams up, so get your hat.' Scylla raised his hand, protestingly. "'But,' he began, I—' The doctor cried explosively, "'Don't you try to argue with me, young man. I've neglected my practice and let it

everything go to the devil to come over here, and I don't want any of your dashed butts thrown at me. You get your hat and coat, and you come with me. Do you hear me? I can't go, said Schuyler. The doctor brought his flat fist down upon the center table. Can't go, he howled. In about a split second, I'll show you whether you can't or not. You get your hat and coat, or, he went on, come without him. It's all the same to me. Parks can pack up your things and come on the Transitania tomorrow. You're coming now. Do you hear me? You're coming now, this dashed instant. He advanced upon Schuyler, gripping him by the arm. Schuyler stood for a brief moment, doggedly. Then suddenly his head dropped forward.

upon his breast. Very well, he acquiesced slowly. Suddenly his voice broke. He almost whispered, I'm glad you've come, doctor. I was helpless, utterly helpless. They took the train within the hour, and the following morning found the vagrant at sea

with John Schuyler on board. Yet it was a different John Schuyler from the one they had known. he had refused to shake hands with either blake or the doctor he did not mention the woman nor did they they tried to be toward him as they had always been as though all that had happened alone in imagination he did not sleep he ate but little and he drank some blake was heart-sick soul-sick to see the man that he had known and he loved as that man was but dr delancy assured him it'll take a year or two but he'll be all right in the end and yet even dr delancy did not feel certain that it was the truth that he spoke in crossing schuyler spent much time on a long long letter a letter that required much rewriting on landing he mailed that letter to the daughter of jimmy blair as on the pier he separated from blake and dr delancey in spite of the insistent pleas of the one and the testy commands of the other that he come to live with them he said only

i shall go to a hotel i shall stay there a fortnight don't come to see me don't let any one come to see me don't even try to find out where i am there's one thing and only one for me to do i'm going to try to do it some time i hope that i may shake hands with you tom some time i want to shake hands with dr delancey i want to tell you both all that is in my heart to tell you but that time is not yet god bless you for all that you've done for me and white-lipped moist-eyed he left them chapter twenty five the return of John Schuyler's townhouse was a large room, done in dull browns and deep greens. All that good taste and a sufficient purse could do to beautify it, to render it alike pleasing and restful to the eye, comforting and satisfying to the soul, had been done. Carpeting was deep and rich.

The walls were paneled of mahogany, and the bookshelves sunk into their dull depths. on either side of the door leading to the hall hung a painting the one a turner the other a correggio there was a fireplace a huge fireplace wherein might lie a four-foot log above it a mirrored mantle before it the skin of a jaguar across from this a narrow flight of stairs led to the private apartments of the owner it was early fall now the roses in the garden of the larchmont place had withered and fallen it had been a dun morning a morning of dull gray schuyler sat at the big mahogany desk in the center of his library papers lay spread upon the table before him a decanter of cut glass and silver lay there also the schuyler that had come was different very from the schuyler that had gone he was still quick agile alert but there was gone from his clean-cut face the expression of cheerful optimism of confident happiness of all spreading good fellowship little wrinkles had gathered at eye corners deeper were the lines that ran from nostrils to the end of his mouth

but these changes one might not have noticed were it not for the eyes for from these the light had gone they were as lamps unlit yet there was one other change apparent for while before he had concentrated easily upon that which he had to do now it was with difficulty almost even with impossibility he paused often to pour from the decanter a little brandy into a small glass and to drink that which he had poured he rose from his chair to stride nervously up and down up and down he seated himself only to drink again he drank again only to rise again he rose again only to sit again he rapped at length upon the little bell that larked at length upon the little bell that lay upon the table, waited, then wrapped again, and his brows creased in petulance. Now where the devil is Parks? he muttered nervously. He waited and drank while waiting, then rang again the bell. Even as its mellow note pierced the silence of the room, the door opened and Parks entered. He crossed to the desk and laid upon the door. He crossed to the desk

and laid upon it a bundle of documents that he had brought. At his clear-cut face, Skyler looked. Well, here you are at last, eh? Anyone would think that I had sent you to Singapore for those papers instead of merely upstairs? I'm very sorry, sir, was Parks' quiet response. Schuyler took the papers, drawing them to him. that's all he said curtly you may go but i said you might go park still hesitated skyler looked at him angrily

i merely wished to say park spoke deferentially even soothingly and possibly a bit reluctantly that there is a lady skyler interrupted quick Parkes nodded. Yes, sir, the lady. Skylar said, eyes closing a little. A lady? Well, send her. Then, as Park started to go, no, tell her I'm not here. Very well, sir. Again, Park started to leave the room. Again, Skylar stopped him. Wait, I've changed my mind. I'll see her. He reached for the decanter of brandy and poured into one of the glasses an even inch of the amber liquor. He raised the glass to his lips, but set it down again, untasted, for parts had started to speak again. Also, there's a van here for your wife's, pardon me, for Mrs. Schuyler's furniture and trunks. Schuyler's brows contracks.

Skyler's brows contracted. There was the slightest suggestion of a quiver at lip-ends. Then, after a long, long pause, he replied, Well, let them take all that she selected, and Parks... Yes, sir? I won't see the lady after all. Parks nodded and quietly withdrew. Left alone,

schuyler for some moments sat silent and motionless before his desk but nowadays he could not sit motionless for long there was that inside his brain inside his soul which would not let him it kept him moving moving moving without rest without cessation even as he had paced the deck of the liner on that other morning almost until the day had come to claim again from the night that which was his own of a sudden he rose from his chair swift strides took him across the room quickly nervously he drew back the curtain from the window he could see beneath him on the street the van that had come for the belongings of his wife of the woman who had borne him his child the child which he had not seen since upon the dog she had waved him farewell john schuyler had wandered into the unknown unwillingly knowing full well what he was doing but powerless to help powerless to prevent he had gone sometimes it had not seemed real to him it was a nightmare a horrid horrible awful gruesome rotten dream a dream that brought to his nostrils a dream that brought to his nostrils a a stench to his soul a coldness unutterable a coldness beside which that of death might seem a grateful warmth he would wake sometimes from his dreams a cold sweat enveloping him like a pall a scream upon his lips and then again he did not understand he could not understand it was hopeless utterly utterly hopeless

why should such things be how could such things be there was a god presumably presumably that god was good there was no logic in it no reason in it what did it all mean why he asked himself again and again and yet again why there had been no answer he watched the van load he watched the heavy horses throw themselves into the traces as the whip fell across their flanks he watched the van slowly gather momentum he watched it rumble heavily down the sodden asphalt at length it turned the corner john schuyler swung on his heel and then he laughed it was a laugh that god grant you You may never laugh, nor I. End of chapters 24 and 25. Chapters 26 and 27 of A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Brown. This Libravox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 26. The Red Rose He did not see her enter. He did not hear her enter. Yet he knew that she was there, although he had left her. her across an ocean another sense it seemed there was within him he knew that she had crossed the room that she was leaning rounded arms all bare across the back of the great chair by the window he did not know he had not looked yet he could see her beautiful gloriously beautiful in her strange weird dark beauty head poised like a tiger lily upon its stock great masses of dead black hair coiled in the disorder that of her was order above the low white forehead.

Vivid lips parted to reveal the gleam of shining teeth, long lithe limbs in the easy relaxation that is of the panther or the leopard. At length he turned. She was there. She was as he, unseeing, had seen, as he had known that he should see. He had seen. He had ceased to wonder. The unknown had taught him so much that of the things it had not taught, he had ceased to wonder. He looked and looked away. She laughed a little lightly. She turned a little, listenly. He could see the muscles of her straight, slender shape ripple beneath a shimmering black gown. At length he spoke roughly, gruffly. Well? Almost caressingly, she answered.

Well? So you've come to gaze upon the ruin you have rot, eh? Again, she laughed. Upon the ruin we have rot, my fool, she corrected. Don't call me that, he muttered. It hurts. It hurts because it's true. Most truths hurt, she remarked smilingly.

Now, he is. mumbled. Yes. And then, you're satisfied, I hope. She's gone. Gone? It was a pretty inflection, the rising inflection of great surprise. Her eyes, glowing of merriment, belied her lips. Gone, he repeated doggedly. Gone, and taken the child, my child, our child, with her. She glided across to where he sat. She leaned over him. And you're sorry, I suppose? She asked mockingly.

Heartbroken? Yes, by God, I am, he cried, from the soul. There came from her lips a peal of merry musical laughter. The man of it. Every man wants two women, one to love and one to respect. one to caress the other to honor one to please himself the other to please his friends and you're no different from the rest that i have known he looked up at her eye laden of hate and scorn the rest that you have known he retorted with bitterness with meaning the rest that i have known she returned evenly lightly young parmilly and rogers and seward van dam and god knows how many more she laughed jealous eh that is as it should be my fool

she laid her hand lightly on his shoulder roughly he took it casting it from him damn you he cried let me alone she drew up stiffly but speaking softly said said. So? I didn't mean it that way, he apologized. I wonder if you ever spoke that way to her, the other. You didn't, came from her slowly. He shook his head. No, he replied.

The woman seated herself upon the arm of his chair, lithely. And do you know why? again he shook his head because you never loved her as you love me a man is as rough sometimes to the woman he loves as at other times as at other times he is sweet she plucked a scarlet rose from the great cluster that she wore at her breast dangling it in one white hand lazily sensuously you know well of men don't you skylah remarked bitterly well enough she replied lightly and that is why when you said damn you let me alone that i didn't say damn you she struck him lightly across the face with the scarlet blossom and go then with abrupt transition that and because i love you he laughed mirthlessly because you love me he cried because you love me he cried his voice all scorn. Because you love me?

Does love then bring disgrace and ruin and dishonor upon the object of its lavishment? Does it? Does it? She had sunk upon the floor at his feet. Her legs were drawn beneath her. She poised herself upon her supple white arms, looking up at him.

Sometimes, she returned evenly, even as it brings joy and ecstasy and happiness untold and it does bring that she purred sibilantly doesn't it my fool he leaned forward drawing her to him you know it he cried you know it she saw beginning to glow in the leaden eyes the light that she alone knew how to kindle it pleased her it pleased her also to blouse to blest her also to blen eyes the light that she alone knew how to kindle it pleased her it pleased her also to blight it at her will she laughed she knew as well how to blight as how to kindle she knew also how to twist a soul in torment and how to swirl it to the false heaven of unreal joys for she of the unknown knew much more perhaps than of the known she said laughing janglingly but you never think my fool that there are different loves he sunk back into his chair the eyes again were leaden his head bent she leaned forward taking from a vase on the table a nodding white blossom one love she went on is like the white rose pallid pale wistful weak a lifeless thing that lies dead against the hand that holds it that wearies the eye and chills the soul the other love is like the red rose rich rare glowing glorious that thrills the heart with the joy of living and quickens the blood in the veins

until the very soul cries out in the frenzy of its fragrance a pulsing throbbing love of body and soul and heart and head that rushes upon one like a storm at sea dashing one hither and thither impotent in its tearing tossing grip that is our love the red love and it is sweet is it not my fool she bent over him watching the light again leap to the head heavy eyes as he answered. Sweet? Sweet as paradise. A false paradise, perhaps, but still paradise. Those days on the Mediterranean, the sea no bluer than the sky that held it in its sunlit hand, and Venice, Venice with the great round moon overhead, and the mysterious semi-darkness all about, the splashing of soft waters there beside us and the silent whisper of the lazy oar and just you and i alone amid all the glories side by side heart in heart soul in soul with a great choking sob it was sweet lady fair sweet the woman continued and there are two roads through life even as there are two roses the one is a rough road and weary and on it happiness seldom treads it is a plodding road flat and long and there you walk with stale and barren people through a stale and barren land

until you come to an ending yet more stale and more barren than our road or people that is the road of the white rose but the road of the red rose that's different on the road of the red rose there is laughter and light and happiness and joy flowers bloom birds sing there come the soft wash of the sea the silent whisper of the breeze the call of love she rose lithely to her feet in one hand she held the bending white blossom in the other the crimson suddenly she thrust them toward him body bent lips parted and cried sibilantly which rose do you choose my fool which road roughly he struck from her hand the drooping flower of white that of red was crushed between them as he seized her in his arms and drew her to him the red rose he cried and the red rode and will travel to the end and beyond chapter twenty seven the red road from across the table she was laughing at him brightly merrily laughing to see the havoc that she had wrought in the soul of a man he turned to her almost savagely you do love me lady fair don't you he almost pleaded you must love me knowing as you do all that i have given up for you he pointed to a heap of carelessly tossed letters upon desk-top do you see those he demanded the first from washington the president demanding my resignation

following that curt requests that i withdraw from positions of trust that i held my wife crushed my child disgraced my friends gone god in heaven what haven't i given you lady fair i thank you she responded most graciously bending low and i have given you myself is that less than a fairer exchange not if i may keep that self-mine and mine alone for all time but may i can you doubt it she queried with the lifting of arched brows there was parmally a silly boy i never cared for him and rogers interesting only interesting and only at first then tire and seward van dam next to you a man she cried but like you insanely jealous and unreasonable and in the end perhaps he said slowly very slowly i shall be like him he sat for a moment silent at length he continued but if it were to be i i alone for all time could it last this red love of ours could it could it she leaned forward why not she asked lightly why not leaden eyes were gazing out into nothingness age comes he said his voice was low and deep and dead

the body withers the brain grows dull the blood becomes thin the soul gets weary and the power to live as once we lived is taken from us we sit white-haired blue-veined drinking in the sun through shrivelled pores to drive the chill from our shrunken frames it will come to you to me to all of us and neither man nor god may stop it there had come to her face an expression as of great fear this man who knew so little was teaching of that little to her who knew so much at length she swept that fear from her as one might brush aside the ugly web of a sullen spider again she was the woman who did not know the known but only the unknown She asked lightly, Why worry over the years to come When the days that are are ours? There is happiness in the days that are?

Her voice was very soft Again dull eyes gleaned He exclaimed Happiness I did not dream that there could be a happiness like this Her slender arm was about his neck He could feel the glow of its warmth. Her voice was soothing, infinitely soothing, and musical beyond the telling.

Then keep a dreaming, my fool, she purred softly. It was almost a whisper. Keep a dreaming. Would to God I could, he cried earnestly. Would to God I could forever. The memories of a thousand joys are with me always. love what is this love a golden leaf of happiness floating on the summer seas of life a silver star of utter joy set in the soft heavens of eternity a dream that is a reality a reality that is a dream but the storm comes upon the sea black clouds blot out the stars and there can be no dream from which there is no awakening yet she cajoled while the sea smiles while the star shines while we dream there is happiness to pay for all to pay for all and more again he turned upon her swiftly yet in the golden aura of that happiness there always stand three sodden souls pointing stark fingers at me in ghoulish glee parmally rogers van dam if i thought if i for one moment thought that i should be as they i'd she stopped him quickly you'd what my fool

i'd kill you where you stand he replied savagely she laughed gaily clapping soft palms that's the way i love you best my fool it shows spirit and manhood and good red blood red like our roses she plucked from her breast a handful of scarlet petals casting them above her head they fell about them both a glowing shower she went on how for a moment you could have imagined that you love the woman you call wife a soft silly namby pamby he was on his feet now fierce primal brutal all the manhood that was left of him straight and rigid stop he commanded don't you dare say one word against her or by god i'll she interrupted rising haughtily before him and said coldly incisively you forget yourself you humiliate yourself you insult me i'll say what i please of whom i please you'll keep your tongue off her and off the little one i'll nod if i choose not you will she laughed he stood for a moment poised in anger then the momentary flash of righteous wrath was gone he turned slowly from her she remarked lightly scornfully the man of it and again the fool of it you would protect her who has scorned and flouted and humiliated you the fault was mine he flashed and you know it and i know it

then why did you do it he shook his head eyes again leaden god knows he whispered she stood for a moment then again again again laughter rippled from the red lips. But why should we quarrel? She asked gently. There are things in life more sweet. She went to him, leaning toward him, beautiful arms extended, Lissom body bent.

A kiss, my fool, she whispered. He turned from her. No, he cried. She smiled. I said, a kiss, my fool, she repeated. I heard. Her eyes were on him.

Slowly he turned. The set jaw relaxed. The straight-limbed lips weakened. He looked at her. Her lips now were almost upon his own. Her eyes were very close to his. Again she whispered, softly, sibilantly, caressingly, a kiss my fool he thrust her from him you devil he cried i love you and i hate you you are beautiful and you are ugly

you are sweeter than the last of life and more bitter than the sodden shame of a secret sin she replied lightly arranging the masses of her hair with deft slender fingers all of which is quite as it should be my fool for the hate makes the love but the more poignant the ugliness is but a fair setting for the beauty the sweetness and bitterness is far more sweet than sweetness alone her mood was different now he had sunk into the great chair she seated herself upon its arm her head sunk to his her cheek against his her cheek against his his, and again he kissed her on the lips. End of chapters 26 and 27. Chapters 28 and 29 of A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Brown. This Liber Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 28. The Battle

The car stopped before the Port Coucher. Blake alighted. He knew well the way. he did not ring for the door was unlocked ajar jaw close set lips but a thin straight line he made his way down the great dark silent hall he had come to do that which it were hard to do when one has been the friend of such a man as john skyler was when one has felt toward a man as such a man as john skyler must be felt toward when one has known that man to do the things that he has done that man to do the things that he has done when one has seen the misery the suffering unutterable that he has caused the shame beyond depth the grief beyond measurement and when she upon whom has been heaped this shame and grief and misery and suffering unutterable is the woman one loves then it becomes not a little thing to go to that man without murder in one's heart and vengeance in one's soul blake knew where he was most likely to find the man that had been his friend there he went thrusting open the broad door he paused upon the threshold

the woman lifted her head she moved away from skyler arranging the dead black masses of her hair she laughed a little skyler turned eyes again leaden saw blake you he cried blake said no word skyler laughed raucously so you of all have not decided to flee from the leper blake looking at him said slowly no i stay behind and stand the stench for the sake of him who is my friend is the stench then so great that it precludes the common courtesy of announcing your presence Blake made no answer to this. I wish to see you alone, he said simply. Schuyler half swung from him. You may see me as I am, he returned doggedly. And a most damnably unpleasant sight it is.

Skyler wheeled. You go too far, he said threateningly. Too far, repeated. said Blake. Impossible. I wish to see you alone. If you and this woman dare. She, smiling, bowed graciously. By all means, she agreed easily. No, cried Schuyler. Stay where you are. She shook her head. Pray, pardon me, I'll wait in the morning room. Alone, Blake turned and looked at. at Schuyler. Could it be that this was the man that had been his friend?

It must be, and yet how could it be? There was in his heart a great bitterness he could not understand. Schuyler had turned to him. "'Look here, Tom,' he began doggedly. "'Before you begin, I wish to tell you that it is useless. Nothing that you can say will change me in the slightest. I've made a little bit of you. I've made a little bit of you. I've made a little bit of my mind and my decision is unalterable irrevocable is the word as you will i'm sorry if the course i choose doesn't seem right to you to the world sometimes even to myself and i'll confess to you that it doesn't but right or wrong it's the only one for me and i must take it must whether i will or not so if you've come

for a cigar and a chat, well and good. But if for anything else, go and avoid trouble. I'm looking for trouble, returned Blake quietly. He advanced to the table and leaned against it. Jack, he exclaimed, you're a damned fool. There was some excuse for the others. Parmally was a kid. Rogers an old fool. Van Dam. Well, absent and assinity account for him, and they fell to their fooldom without warning to guard them or precedent to shield them. But you, open-eyed, knowing everything, forewarned and forearmed, walk fatuously to your doom as one sheet follows another over a precipice. I swear I can't even yet believe that it isn't all a dream. I keep pinching myself and saying to myself that in the

morning, I'll wake up and go around and tell old Jack all about it as being a good joke. It's an uncanny, filthy sort of a nightmare as it stands, however. He turned to the other. Schuyler was striding up and down the room. Old man, he pleaded quietly. What's the answer? Schuyler stopped in his walk. Looking at Blake, he remarked,

you've never loved you couldn't know never loved cried blake scornfully couldn't know hell you make me tired what do you mean by debaushing and degrading a good pure word like love by applying it to this snaky bestial fascination of yours you're a fool skyler advanced upon him threateningly don't you call me that too he said tensely blake paid no heed love he cried disgustedly this sordid sodden passion of yours love love lies only where there is sympathy and respect and mutual understanding do you mean to tell me that you have any respect for this woman you know well you haven't a bit more respect for her than she has for you and that's none do you mean to tell me there's any sympathy between you no more than there is between a snake and a bird and you aren't capable of understanding her any more than she is of understanding you love it's lust and you know it skyler had dropped into a chair blake finished he swung toward him go on he almost hissed through clenched teeth go on if you can tell me anything that i haven't told myself i'd like to hear it tell me what you think tell me what every one thinks put into words of the scorn and contempt that i see in every eye that looks into mine in every mirror that you think-in-one that i see in every mirror that

I look into. Go on. Tell me something else. But let me tell you one thing. When destiny can't get a man any other way, she sends a woman for him, and the woman gets him. Blake looked at him. A fool there was, he quoted. Skyler interrupted. Stop, he commanded. Don't you suppose I know that thing by heart? every syllable, every letter of it? Don't you suppose I know what it means, all that it means, better than you can ever know? He struck his forehead with clenched fist. Tell me the things that lie here.

His voice was almost a scream. The things that lie here and burn and burn and burn. Tell me the things that lie here. He struck his forehead again. i'll tell you this said blake voice cold and ringing it was written for you by a man who knew you and you'll listen no protested skiler he started to rise from his chair but blake catching him by the shoulders thrust him back holding him pinioned you fool he remarked bitterly you poor pitiful pitiful Puelling fool. Honor and faith and a sure intent.

A wife, a child, a reputation, a character. Stripped to his foolish hide, the poem reads. But you're stripped to your naked sodden skeleton. If I weren't so sorry for you, I could cut your throat. When I think of the little girl calling you daddy, honoring you, loving you, and of what you've done for her. when I think of your wife, of the woman who went through the pains of childbirth for you, who held you sacred in that great loving, glorious heart of hers,

who gave and gave and gave, asking only that there might be the more to give, you say that maybe I don't know what love is? Well, maybe I don't, and maybe I do. There are some things that a man may not tell his best friend, There are some things that a man may not even tell himself. But I'm different from you, thank God, and I love differently. He moved back. Schuyler remained seated.

Leiden eyes had in them now a new light, the light of suffering refined. Blake commanded, Stand up, look me in the eye as man to man, if you can. swiftly Skyler rose to his feet. The two men stood face to face, eye to eye. Now, cried Blake, hope in his heart, hope ringing in his voice. Will you be a man, or a thing that earth nor heaven nor even hell has room for? Chapter 29. Defeat Came from the door of the morning room a light ringing music.

laugh. The woman stood there, white arms extended above her head, hands resting on door sides. Schuyler fell back a step. Blake turned. Again she laughed, lightly, rippingly. And then, What a splendid revivalist was lost to the world when your friend became a mere broker. And to Blake, why once or twice i myself became almost enthusiastic really sir you are a most convincing speaker though if you will pardon a well-meant criticism your low tones are a bit harsh there was in blake's heart a great bitterness when first he had come to see the man that had been his friend there had been in his breast but little hope later however he had understood better and there had awakened within him an idea that perhaps after all it was not too late and then had come confidence and the desire to fight and he had fought he had almost won but now he knew that he had lost for in schuyler's eyes he saw dull hopeless docility

and in the woman's conscious power and strength beyond measure he turned he looked at this woman who is his foe his victor slowly he said there is supposed to be honor among thieves apparently there is none among libertines he took his hat from where it lay amid the confusion of the table he bowed first to the woman then to skyler he was a proud man a strong man it hurt him to lose and the more because the stake had been so great he passed across the room and through the door closing it behind him upon the woman still laughing in the delight of her success skyler rounded there was in his heart too a great bitterness a great hurt for he too realized how near he had been to salvation and that realization made the present distance seem yet greater than ever before and god alone knew how great that was i hope you're satisfied he remarked dully now even he has gone you've broken the last link that bound me to the life that was again she laughed ringingly merrily then the greatness of his wrath obsessed him laugh he cried wildly laugh at your fool the helpless spineless soulless fool who does your bowels bidding even to the depths of hell.

Laugh! Laugh! Suddenly his body seemed to wither. He leaned weakly against the back of the great chair. His head sunk slowly upon his arms. There suddenly came from the stairway a little delighted cry in childish treble. Daddy! Daddy, dear! Skyler, head buried,

thought at first that it was but within himself that he heard, that it was that other sense, that unknown sense that had called him. The cry came again. Slowly he raised his head and looked. A great cold clutch tore his heart. His vein stiffened. His head reeled. He staggered back, clutching for support at the chair.

Even this had come to, him it was she his daughter the child of his wife and of himself the child that had been his to love when still he had been man the little one was scampering down the stairs tiny feet pattering upon thick carpet her eyes were dancing her lips smiling there was in her the great unequivocating unquestioning gladness of the young daddy she cried again all delight daddy dear he hesitated then swiftly he ran to her seizing her in eager thrilling arms hiding her face against his breast that she might not see yet it was too late oh what a beautiful lady daddy cried the little one who is she he gasped he choked he could not answer The woman stood looking on, smiling, still smiling. At length he found words. How did you come here, little sweetheart? he asked.

I runned away, she returned. I was in the park with mockins. I left her while she was talking to a policeman. Oh, daddy, dear, when are we coming home? I miss you so much. The woman moved forward. eyes upon the kneeling soul-torn man and upon the little child that was his another advocate she said it has been skilfully planned what does she mean daddy queried the child he answered quickly nothing dearie the woman stepped forward he hurriedly he hurriedly drew the child again she smiled a little

there were some things that she understood that were of the known the child was speaking and daddy she said mother dear isn't a bit well mochins and i are dreadfully worried about her what's the matter with mother he asked quickly tell me the child shook her head she cries most all the time she replied and when i ask her wight and when i ask her what the matter is she just shakes her head and says nothing dearie mother's tired but people don't cry because they're tired do they daddy he did not answer head sunk in hands the bitterness of it all the awful ghastly horror of the things that he had done was obsessing him body and soul and brain and heart the fires of the uttermost hell were flaring through his very being then it was that the woman beckoned to the child of the man that belonged to her come here dear she said voice modulated the man might not hear yet the child hesitated i'd rather not she replied i'd rather not she replied the woman bent forward swiftly undulatingly as a snake strikes she seized the child clasping her to her and once twice thrice she kissed her on the lips the man awoke he staggered to his feet through the door came blake he too saw and while he did not understand all he understood enough across the room he sprang he tore the child from the now yielding arms of the child from the now yielding arms of the child from the now yielding arms of the child from the now yielding arms of the yielding arms of the woman. Holding tight against him the little one that he loved as his own,

he turned savagely upon the man who had once been his friend. To think that any human being could sink so low, he almost hissed, and he was gone, taking with him the child he loved. It is safe to play with a soul just so far. Sometimes it is safe to play even farther, when one really knows one's strength. The woman had possibly overestimated her prowess, and yet possibly she had not. It were hard to tell of one who knows the things that we do not, who does not know the things that we do. There was manhood and honor and decency in Schuyler yet, a little of a sort. He struck her in the face, full upon the vivid crimson lips, and a little of their their crimson seemed to leave its lair. It trickled down upon the dead whiteness of her skin.

But she still smiled. Her white arms went forth languorously. Her lithe, slender, beautiful body undulated. Her eyes were on his. She still smiled. Again he struck her. Still she smiled. Her eyes looked into his. He raised his hand to strike again. The hand did not fall. Her eyes were on his, and she still smiled. She gauged her power well. Perhaps at times she flattered it a little, but never much.

She still smiled. Perhaps it was that what she desired. It were hard to tell, for, after all, end of chapters twenty-eight and twenty-nine chapters thirty and thirty-one of a fool there was by porter emerson brown this libervox recording is in the public domain chapter thirty and its consequences blake leaving the house lifted muriel into the big french car and got in beside her her little mind was in great puzzlement and of Blake she began to ask the countless questions that flew to her lips. Why was Daddy living there when Mother Deere and she were with Aunt Eleanor? Who was the lady that she had seen, and did he know her? Was Daddy living there all alone, and when was he coming to live with them as he used?

And many, many more. Some of them Blake answered as best he could, others he evaded. his heart ached within him sorely almost he wished that he were a woman the relief of tears would have meant much with childish wondering question stinging deeper and yet more deep he watched the stream of traffic swirl past car and cab broham and bus they were on the avenue fifth avenue like which there is no other street in our land on they went past great club past rows of magnificent residences past towering church and stayed old dwelling they came at length to the plaza with its hotels and glistening statue the park lay to the left a thing of green with its arching trees uniformed nurses were wheeling little perambulators others were watching active tussle-hettled little little charges. Anon there flashed past a group of galloping riders. At length they turned into a side street. The car stopped before a house of brick and stone with wrought iron lattices.

Blake got out, lifting the child. The butler admitted them. Mrs. Van Vorst was in, he said, in response to Blake's query. Mrs. Schuyler was out. it had been some time since blake had seen katherine she had been very ill very ill ill almost unto death this had followed the receipt of a letter from john schuyler a letter which made futile all their efforts to spare her suffering a letter in which he had been condemned of his own hand dr delancey had labored hard and well in the end she was saved but dr delancey was an old man a very old man and when he had seen that she was saved he himself had passed away possibly it was as well for he was a lonely old man you know and those few whom he loved had brought him much suffering it was a strange letter that letter that had wrought so much a letter utterly unlike the man who wrote it it was in part god himself only knows how i feel i can scarce believe that it is i who write and yet it must be i there is no such thing as redemption no such thing as hope no such thing as palliation or excuse it is simply an end of me that is not death would to god it were death would be welcome even a death of torture refined

there is nothing that i could say that you would understand for nothing that i could say would i myself understand it is simply the end i hope i am insane yet i fear that i am not i am a ship without a rudder my will is gone from me i have no volition of my own no soul nothing all that is left of me is a body and the power still to suffer and for the rest only a great emptiness and a greater pain katherine had fainted when she received that letter then fever had come and with it delirium which was merciful for weeks she lay closer to death than to life now she was better and yet far from well violet eyes were sad dull brown gold flesh was pallid she moved with languor for weeks no word of all that meant so much was spoken it was a topic carefully avoided one day katherine had said that she must go to sea skyler they had tried to dissuade her without success this was to have been the day so blake himself had gone eager to bear for her the shock should there be a shock to be born and if not to render easy her going eleanor met him as he entered the drawing-room he set the child down bidding her go find her nurse then he turned to mrs van vorsd i have seen him he said simply she looked the query that there was no need for lips to speak he shook his head it is impossible he declared quite impossible she was there

we must dissuade katherine from going then said eleanor he smiled grimly sadly it will not be hard i fear muriel was there too and that was why katherine skyler did not go then to john skyler chapter thirty one that which men said a winter had come and gone it had been a bitter winter and a cold for katherine skiler had it been a bitter winter indeed sick of heart sick of body she had stayed in the city going out not at all seeing of all her friends only blake trying with all her pride with all her strength to adjust herself to the new order of things it had been a weary winter a winter that dragged along on laggard feet loitering waiting the love of muriel the sympathy of eleanor the devotion of blake was a winter that dragged along on laggard feet loitering waiting the love of muriel the sympathy of eleanor the devotion of blake was were in it the only bits of brightness. She felt strange, lost, astray. By day she was dull, listless.

At night sometimes she slept a little. At others she would bury her face in her tumbled pillow, and her lithe body would heave with the racking of her sobs, for the entire structure of her life had been ruthlessly torn down by the hand of one man. it seemed to her that from its ruin nothing might ever be erected she told this to blake one day side by side they had been sitting by the window gazing out into a sleet-swept street where horses slipped and slid and hurrying foot-passengers passed with heads buried in collars or furs he had said but little in reply merely that there are things in this world that we do not know and that happiness sometimes come whence we least expect it he did not say these things with any great degree of confidence in his own life there had been but little save longing unsatisfied prayers ungranted but she took from it comfort even though there seemed in it so pitifully little from which comfort might be derived perhaps it was the way in which he said it or perhaps it was because it was he who said it

however winter at length dragged out its weary life to its weary end spring came and with it the soft green of the new-born grass and the lighter shoots of crocus and lily and the butteres and the butter of the trees spring grew and the stolid phalanx of city homes began to don their summer armor of boards and blinds and shaded windows and then the larchmont place was opened john schuyler had sent to katherine the deed of it the one request that he had made was that she continued to live there that she take muriel there during all this time no word of him had come to her. Blake had heard, but no word had he said to Catherine because of the things that he had heard. A man of the breadth of acquaintance, of the breadth of interests, that was John Schuyler's, may not fall to the deswititude unwatchful. And Blake heard at clubs, at theatres, wherever men congregate, of Schuyler and of the life that was his. And he, as little as they could explain.

Schuyler was drinking, they told him, drinking hard. The woman? Was she still in New York? Yes. She had been seen at the opera. She had been seen driving in the mall. A damnable strange case, the whole thing. Grusome. And, save Blake, they would wash the taste of it all from their mouths with liquor. devishly good fellow, Schuyler. Brainy, too. He would have been one of the big men of the country

if it hadn't been for this. A chance to save him? They shook their heads and smiled grimly. You know how it is yourself. When a man gets into the hands of a woman like that, what can you do? Say anything against her, and you have to fight him. Tell him he's a fool.

and he tells you to mind your own business. Try to reason with him, then if the man had any reason left in him, there would be no occasion to reason. It's hard, true, but your hands are tied. It's just goodbye and a prayer for the next man. So they reasoned. And could Blake say that they were wrong? Could you?

End of chapters 30 and 31. Chapters 32 and 33 of A Fool There Was by Porter Emerson Brown. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 32. In the Garden Catherine stood beside the blossom-laden arbor, culling fragrant, tender blossoms from the wealth before her. Beside her, Muriel, Little Skirt Upheld, received them. mother dear said the child at length yes honey does god make roses yes dearie who made god her mother smiled he made himself god makes everything dearie with troubled brows the little one asked did god sit down when he made his feet

came from the house eleanor she moved lithely swiftly now the old tan had come back to her cheek she was no longer an invalid more roses kate she asked brightly katherine nodded yes she said it seems almost brutal to cut them doesn't it but i love them in my room and they won't grow there then sleep out here it's quite the thing nowadays katherine smiled a little you're so frightfully lacking in sensibilities nell and returned her practical sister a lot more comfortable because i am she seated herself tom's back she announced a quick little gleam of gladness sprang to the violet eyes is he eleanor nodded nonchalantly yes that floating palace of his dropped anchor about ten minutes ago they were lowering a launch as i came downstairs oh cried muriel excitedly dropping the roses to the lawn there he is now i can hear him winding up his boat she ran at headlong speed through that arbor way another moment and blake had entered carrying her in his arms katherine extended her hand to him he took it in warm fern friendly clasp eleanor nodded lo tom was her salutation lo nell he returned you're getting fat the same to you and many of em she replied have a good time

oh the same old sea saw he shrugged broad shoulders this running a sailor's boarding-house isn't what it's cracked up to be we hit a three-day executive session of a north-east storm off the banks that kept us exceedingly busy everyone on board was seasick except the cook tom interrupted katherine i wish you'd come into the library a moment my lawyers have sent me some papers to sign and return and i can't make head nor tail of them of course you can't he said assuringly i never know what my lawyers are doing if i did i'd fire them and do it myself and they realize it a lawyer can order a fried egg cooked on one side only and make it sound like a royal proclamation announcing a total change of the currency system They're like doctors and clairvoyance. Their graft lies in being mysterious. Why does a doctor call pink eye Muko-Puerre-Purl conjunctivitis?

Because Pink-Eye is not worth more than a dollar at the outside. But when he hands you Muko-Puerl conjunctivitis, he can get 25, at least, before you wake up and say, Where am I? his humor perhaps was forced possibly there was nothing funny in what he said but they laughed there was always a tension at gray rocks now always a strain it needed little to relieve it it needed that little badly blake gave to that little all that he could even the child felt the tension and the strain of it she could not have told what it was but she missed something beside her daddy. Infinite was her longing for him and her loneliness without him. At times, she used to beg the dignified Roberts to play buck jump and tag with her, as Daddy used to do. And this she did while

Blake and her mother and her aunt Eleanor were in the library, going over the troublesome papers with their imposing seals and undecipherable writing. I've been looking for you everywhere, Miss Muriel, the butler announced impressively. Everything that Roberts did was impressive. Were you, Roberts? she queried. You didn't want to play hide and go seek, did you, Roberts? Because if you did, I'd like to heaps and heaps. He opened his lips in protest, but she interrupted,

I'll be it, Wobberts, and you can run in half. hide. Oh, will you? What could he say? It hurt his dignity. It was a distinct prostitution of pride, and yet what could he say? What could he do? For he, too, loved, pitied, and was sorry. Thus it was that, returning from the library, Catherine, Eleanor, and Blake came upon a red-faced and puffing butler engaged in giving a most realistic imitation of a bear. while a delighted little girl clapping tiny hands in glee adjured him to growl as bears growl not as cows growl it was another welcome little break in the tension and for that it was welcome welcome that is to all but him of the outraged dignity and even he though he puffed and huffed below stairs deep down in his heart was glad that he had sacrificed his most precious possession in such a cause chapter twenty three temptation eleanor van vorsed swung around in her chair and eyed her sister

well kate she asked kate raised violet eyes in protest please nell don't insist she begged i don't want to talk about it her sister continued firmly it must be talked of you must divorce him kate no but i say yes you should hear what people are saying about you what do i care what people are saying about me it's what i think of myself that counts that may be true her sister retorted but it's too idealistic for this world moreover you're not consistent katherine looked up quickly what do you mean she demanded eleanor shrugged her shoulders a little and answered you're compromising you're hedging if he isn't good enough to live with he isn't good enough to be married to but katherine protested i can't live with him nell you know as well as i how impossible that is then returned eleanor rising divorce him katherine shook her head wearily i can't do that either the other turned then what are you going to do she demanded are you going on forever being honest neither with him nor with yourself compromising on the one hand with your womanhood on the other with your selfishness how long has it been since you made the slightest effort to see him or to send any one to him katherine answered slowly

not since the time i tried to go and tom went before me i-i have thought often of going but somehow i've been afraid in almost a whisper she repeated yes afraid eleanor van vorses raised her shoulders in an expressive gesture it conveyed more plainly than could words that her end of the argument was done her case was rested katherine considered long earnestly in silence divorce him divorced john schuyler it had occurred to her it had occurred to her in the long silences of the night in the thousands of eons that that had lain oft-times between the setting of the sun and the rising thereof divorce him it was a thought that stung he had been to her all that any man could have been he had been a man of whom her head was proud and her heart fond with the great love that lies in the heart of a good woman he it was and god who had given her the little child that she could see from where she sat rolling a tumbled little heap of white lace and whirling brown legs on the broad expanse of the green lawn he it was who had taken the first of her life who had shown her what it was to live and then this thing had come this awful hideous thing that had stretched even her very life to the breaking point and drained from it the wealth of sweetness to the uttermost drop she felt resentment yes and horror and disgust yet there were other things she knew though she could not have told how she knew there was something that was hidden something unknown and unknowable

long she thought and earnestly as she had thought so many many times before times without end at length she rose firm little chin was set violet eyes were firm she said slowly i think i see your point nell you're right and you'll divorce him katherine shook her head no she replied softly i'll go to him eleanor started what she cried untrustful of her own ears i have failed in my duty you have shown me wherein i have failed i have failed i've failed i've failed i'll have failed i'll go to him." Eleanor caught her hand. Kate, she pleaded. Kate, dear, listen to me. I haven't shown you your duty,

if that's what you consider your duty. I'll tell you something that you haven't thought of. Muriel! In almost a gasp, her sister cried, Muriel, Muriel! Can you take her with you? demanded Eleanor. Catherine shook her head.

No, she replied. Of course not. I shall leave her here with you. Her sister shook her head. Do you see, she queried. Can you go to him and live with him as wife? Catherine made no answer. Again, Eleanor shook her head gently.

Don't you understand? she asked. It's compromise on common. compromise. Hedging on hedging. Can't you see how impossible it all is? How utterly impossible? Torn of anguish of inability to solve the problems that God had laid before her, Catherine turned beseeching eyes to her sister. But what shall I do, Nell? she asked, beseechingly. What can I do? Wasn't it hard enough even that way? "'Eleaner replied gently. "'Too hard. I want to make it easier. "'I want you to leave him irrevocably.

"'Then you can forget him, but not until then.' Catherine was silent. "'What does Tom say?' she asked at length. "'She had learned to depend much upon the big-bodied, big-hearted, big-minded friend of late. "'I haven't asked him. returned her sister but i will now she rose quickly and went to the rose-strewn arbor way she could see blake out upon the broad lawn playing with the child that he loved boyish natural whole-souled with all the enthusiasm unspoiled that god gives not to many who are grown tom she called yes he answered will you come here to us for a moment let muriel stay with mochins right-oh he called cheerily in another moment he stood in the opening of the arbor hair rumpled clothing awry well he asked inquiringly eleanor began slowly

tom kate and i have been talking seriously i want her to leave john schuyler legally leave him leave him for all time it's the only fair the only right thing to do i'm not going to argue it is all sufficiently plain she can't live with him and yet as long as she is his wife she has no right to be away from him and she can never go to him she wants your opinion tom she went on she's always respected your judgment more than mine more than that of any one save the man upon whom she may never depend again katherine had wandered to where the white blooms clustered thickest she was thinking thinking deeply bitterly eleanor drew closer to blake i like you tom she said softly you're a good man a decent man a clean man and they're mighty scarce these days all that kate may have owned to john skyler she long since paid to the last sad penny all your life you have been paying things that you did not owe there is happiness somewhere a happiness that can be found she thrust out her hand tell her what to do she said tell her the right thing to do the thing that should be done and she turned on her heel and went away for a long long time blake stood motionless of that which was going on within his soul no one might know the expression of his face remained the same and of his body

only his hands clenched and unclenched and clenched again it was a difficult position in which he found himself how difficult only he might know there lay before him a vast spreading vista of golden possibility a possibility of which he had never dared to think even to dream possibly it were but a possibility and yet surely it was that a word from him would so make it that he knew on the other hand for yet a longer time he stood hands clenching unclenching clenching clenching clenching slowly he went to where the woman he loved stood slender white fingers plucking nervously at bending blossoms of fragrant whiteness she turned a little violet eyes slowly lifted he looked into their depths his hands clenched and unclenched more swiftly kate he said at length slowly very slowly do you want me to tell you what to do she answered with infinite weariness i-i don't know tom i'm tired so so tired and then abruptly tell me yes tell me what shall i do she waited deep eyes lifted little head poised wearily upon white-rounded throat he answered very slowly with effort that even he could not conceal kate do you remember that day in june eight years ago when you walked down the isle of old trinity do you remember how the sun shone in at the windows flecking the darkness of the old pews with golden moats

john schuyler met you at the altar and to him you said for better or for worse in sickness and in health till death do us part gently he laid his hand upon her shoulder with great tenderness stick kate he advised softly stick and that was all end of chapters thirty two and thirty three chapters thirty four and thirty five of a fool there was by porter emerson brown this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter thirty four the shroud of a soul there was by porter emerson browne this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter thirty four the shroud of a soul it had been arranged that blake again was to go to him first little had been heard of john schuyler of late a drop of desuetude may of its last half be far more silent than of its first one gathers momentum as one descends whether the descent be physical or moral at the inception comes the gradual slipping the vast frantic effort to stay that slipping the exertion the hysteria the fright the remorse the stretching out of hands to aid and of souls to help then things become different there comes a vast silence the hands draw back the souls are hidden and when hope itself lifts its pinions and soars away then there be little left indeed john schuyler deserted of friends deprived of all usefulness in the life that he had loved found it to be so and finding tried to think no more

if only the great god would take from him his brain but he did not all were gone from him now save she the woman the doctor came occasionally when summoned by parks parks who had known and loved in other days and the coming of the doctor and of her were the only things that marked the beginning of the days and the ending thereof he lived in the study a part of the time a part of the time in his rooms the rest of the house knew him not and the great out-of-doors even in its warinated streets of the city but seldom and from the study at least all save she were excluded he had been worse that day much worse parks had stayed indoors all day listening as night came on he had become frightened the telephone in the hall had been out of order and he had taken upon himself the liberty of entering the forbidden domain for the doctor must be called the door of the library's study creaked as he opened it he opened upon the threshold aghast this could not be the same room that he had seen so short a time before he looked about him in horrified disbelief before him there lay the very essence of dirt and disorder furniture was broken overturned rugs were askew wrinkled the desk upbearing broken bottles and a cluttered mess of paper letters and debris of all descriptions was scratched and dented. Pictures sagged drunkenly upon the walls. Hangings were torn and draggled,

and over all lay a pall of dust, dank choking. Slowly, dreadingly, horror gripped his heart. Parks crossed the room to the desk. He picked up the telephone from where it rested amid the litter and placed the receiver to his ear. The voice of the operator came to the door. The voice of the operator to him across the wire. Hello, he called. Give me 2290 Plaza, please. At length there came to him an answer. He inquired,

Is this Dr. Grinnell's office? It was the doctor himself. This is Parks, Mr. Schuyler's secretary. He is worse, much worse. You had better send someone to take care of him. I am going away. Yes, that's all. Goodbye.

Hanging up the receiver, Park sought amid the confusion of the desk for a sheet of paper and envelope. At length he found them, but the pens on the desk were beyond use and the inkstands dried and dusty. It had taken Parks a long time to come to the decision that he should leave this house.

Long and faithfully, and well he had served John Schuyler. He had served him gladly and given of his best. And until it had come, had he received besides generous pecuniary rewards, the more grateful compensation of pleasant treatment, consideration, good fellowship, friendliness. He could not have cared more for John Schuyler

had he been of kin to him, but the disintegration of a man's soul and brain and body is not a pleasant thing to watch. It had come to a place where Parks, in his heart, felt that he could do no more. For the rest, there was nothing to detain him longer. At first, Parks, as most, had come to think that the man was innately a libertine, awaiting but the right one to strike the hidden flint and set the tinder aglow, the tinder that would burn, and consume and destroy. He had known of men like that,

of men who went the even pathway of their lives, until they're crossed at another who tore them from it, and that one they followed, leaving soul and morals and decency and cleanliness forever behind them. This, at first, he had thought to be John Schuyler. For the woman was beautiful, beautiful as an animal is beautiful,

but then he had not been so sure. His confidence had been shaken, for she had looked into his eyes too, playfully, and he had felt his very being rock upon its foundation, and he had slunk away, chilled, helpless, horror-ridden. After that he had avoided her. She had paid no attention to him. So the anger, the disgust, the resentment that it,

first he had felt at length been altered to sorrow and grief and pity beyond utterance. Yet there had been nothing that he could do, nothing. He could not sleep of nights. It was killing him, too. Upon the soiled, rumpled sheet he wrote. Came a noise behind him. He looked up quickly, frightenedly. It was Blake, and quick relief sprang to the clean-cut face. but the horror of it was in blakes even as had parxes his eyes wandered dreadingly about the room the horror of it all was in his soul too for a long time he said no word he only looked he thrust the curtains aside the dust impalpable strangling fell about him

good god he muttered good god in heaven he saw parks has it been like this for long he asked park shook his head i don't know he answered and then it must have been the servants are all gone servants gone yes there has been no one below stairs for a fortnight they irritated him and he discharged them one and all his valet went last night i go to-morrow to have known him as he was and then to see him as he is i couldn't stand it any longer there was a pause blake looked about him at length he spoke does she come here now seldom no one ever comes it's a lonely place sir frighteningly lonely and he drink if you will pardon me and remorse he seems bent only upon forgetting everything try as i will i can't keep the brandy from him all day all night he drinks and drinks and tries to forget blake nodded i see parks continued at first it made him drunk and he slept but now it seems only to numb his senses i hear him all through the night muttering muttering i hear him cursing himself cursing everything everybody cursing her that woman then calling to her calling calling calling it's horrible

blake again nodded i had heard he said but i didn't dream it was as bad as this it is too late then you think too late to do anything i had thought that if we should wait until she was tired as such things as she must tire sooner or later too late repeated part it has always been too late it was too late from the first i was with him you know yes abroad i had forgotten parks exclaimed almost fiercely i wish to god i could he was a man sir a man then in quick transition i beg your pardon but i was very fond of him he placed the resignation that he had written fair in the centre of the desk he turned to go Blake called after him. Are you leaving? Parks nodded. Don't you think you'd better stay a little longer?

You can help him. Park shook his head. There was in his voice a great sadness. No one can help him now. It is too late. Too late. Chapter 35. The Thing That Was a Man.

Skyler came down the stairs slowly, leaning heavily against the broken balustrade. He laughed a little, wildly, with the mirthless chill that is of a maniac. His knees bent, he staggered, and he laughed again. At first, Blake did not know him, then knowing he could not believe that his eyes brought to his brain the truth. This was not John Schuyler. It could not be John. Schuyler. It was not possible. John Schuyler was at least a man, not a palsied,

pallid, shrunken, shriveled caricature of something that had once been human. John Schuyler had hands, not nerveless shaking talons. This sunken-eyed, sunken-cheeked, wrinkled thing was not John Schuyler. This thing that crawled quiveringly from the loose pendulous lips of which came mirth that was more bitter to hear than the sobs of a soul condemned. Blake's soul was curdled. His senses were numbed, but still his eyes could look. The ghastly figure stopped in the moonlight at the landing of the stairs. White claw-like hand clutched at the drunken curtain and ripped it from its fastenings. the pale light of the moon fell harsh upon it blake shut his eyes when again he looked the figure was at the desk fumbling with a key a drawer screeched in protest

came from it a rattling as a cadaverous hand drew forth a bottle and the thing that had been john skyler guzzled it laughed again then in hollow mad glee it stopped again then in hollow mad glee it still staggered forward its hollow eyes fell upon the letter that parks had left clutching fingers unsteadily tore end from envelope drew letter from covering and hollow leaden eyes gazed came another wild burst of laughter gone mad a voice thick weak muffled weird said another enveloped insult from parks the good and faithful parks dull eyes read your employment has become impossible the letter fell to the floor the voice cried the rats desert the sinking ship it chuckled wise rats sensible rats and then dead eyes saw the man who stood before him you they peered like those of a fish good i'm glad to see you even though you have come to scorn and abuse and hate it's a lonely hell this lonely blake answered bitterness in his soul i did not come because i wanted to it was to prevent her coming the wife who loved you and who god helper loves you still she would make one last effort to save you schuyler laughed again there's nothing left to save he chuckled i know but i'll try for her sake skyler lurched into a chair

in ghastly playfulness he looked upon the other try then he cackled you did so well last time that you've come to try again eh well you've come too late do you remember parmally the boy who killed himself the boy that i called a fool he laughed sardonically he's got me now he and van dam and rogers three damned fools scorching in a hole in hell a fool there was he quoted then stopping suddenly he half rose weakly to his feet listen he cried there came utter silence did you hear he queried triumphantly did you hear her calling it was more than blake could bear jack he cried he cried cried tensely. Jack! Skiler rounded on him. Don't call me that, he said petulantly. Call me the fool. Blake shook his head in the gripping horror of it all.

It makes me sick, he murmured to himself. Sick at heart. Schuyler had heard. It makes me sick, too, he cackled. He pointed to the shattered. mirror above the mantle. Do you see that? He demanded.

There isn't a whole one in the house. I don't dare to look at myself. Came to Blake's mind now, stricken and racked as it has been, by that which he had seen a glimmer of hope. He had heard of men like this who had come back to life, to reason. It might be fever, fever and drink.

And it might be, that the fever could be stayed the drink conquered john schuyler had been a strong man surely it could not be that in so short a time he had been dragged to the grave's very edge lack of attention lack of care lack of medicine and nursing and discipline were probably largely responsible the man might be awakened brought to himself it might be possible. Speculatively, not realizing that he spoke aloud, he asked of himself, is there a chance left? Is there one little chance left to save him? Again, Schuyler had heard. What would be the use, he queried Dully? The liquor was passing. What is there left of me to save? i'm a husk squeezed dry i'm a memory a nightmare they are calling me young parmally rogers seward van dam i drink to them now even as they drink to me scorching in their hole in hell he rose weakly to his feet raising a dirty glass in which splashed a little amber liquor came to blake the thought that even though scyler could not be redeemed to manhood he might at least be saved from death or worse

he might at least be made again into the semblance of that which he had been he started forward hands gripping the edge of the desk face close to schuyler's own jack he cried commandingly look here i want to talk to you skyler slumped again into the depths of his chair he looked up dully yes listen blake demanded listen closely there's a chance for you yet we'll take you away somewhere for a year five years ten years you can change your name make a new start build yourself a new character a new honor there's still happiness for you jack we'll go and find it come shall we schuyler answered dully with the petulance of the mentally unfit it's too late i tell you too late it's not too late you'll try come it's too late i say insisted skiler thickly She's torn from me everything that makes life worth living. She's taken honor and manhood and self-respect, wife and child and friends, everything, everything but this.

He patted the bare bottle before him. And then, let's drink, he muttered. Blake sprang forward, desperation overwhelming him. My God, this is awful, he exclaimed. haven't you a spark of manhood left no brains no bowels nothing a man can appeal to skylah repeated dully give me that bottle it was then that blake came to that which he had mentally intended to be a last resort deliberately not in anger but in the desperation of a strong man who plays his last card for his ultimate state he leaned a the table and deliberately struck skyler in the face it was a hard thing to do but there are things that so demand blake knew that if this time he failed to arouse whatever of latent atrophied manhood there might be in the breast of the other that never again probably would the shrivelling brain come within call so he struck

and following the staggering form struck again flat on the face with open hand hard stinging blows and with these blows he cried tensely if there's any spirit left in you i'll arouse it you pitiful thing that was once a man you made in god's image why there isn't a swine that wouldn't be ashamed to roll on the same gutter with you with stinging words and stinging blows he pursued the stumbling figure across the room skyler fell blake kicked him sending foot against body heavily get up you beast he ordered and then in the horror of it all in the awful of horror of the hurt of the thing that he was doing great god will nothing awaken you skyler was scrambling weakly to his feet in dulled eyes there was a little gleam the little gleam that blake had tried so hard so horribly to bring the slobbering lip had said a little and the loose lax jaw there was there the shadow of the john skyler that was blake stepped back gladness in his heart he had called him back so far he would call him back the rest end of chapters thirty four and thirty five chapters thirty six and thirty seven of a fool there was by porter emerson brown this librivox recording is in the public domain chapter thirty six again the battle skyler staggered stumbled to his feet thin hands

clutching for support at chair arm. You struck me, he mumbled savagely. You struck me. You'll fight me, fight me! He lifted weakly, balancing himself upon unsteady, weakened legs. Blake, stepping back, found his hand against a glass of water. He seized it, advanced a step, and cast the contents of the glass,

full into Schuyler's contorting face. Schuyler slowly came to himself. The shock of the blows, of the words, and finally of the water against his head, sent the blood to his brain, banished the liquor and the dementia from it. A weakened, miserable, pitiful imitation he was of the John Schuyler that had been.

Yet it was John Schuyler that sat slumped into the chair, gazing up at the friend who had proven his friendship so often and so well. Schuyler sat for a moment, eyes blinking. At length his hand went forth slowly. Hello, Tom, he said. I'm glad to see you. Puzzled eyes went about the room, eyes expanding, contracting, like those of a man who, having been long asleep, awakened, to find himself in a place unfamiliar. Blake went to him, leaning over him. You can understand me now? he asked tensely.

Schuyler looked up. Why, yes, he replied. Of course, Tom. Of course I can understand you. Eyes again sought to solve the mystery of the room, for from the mind cleared had fled all memories of the mind Uncleared. Blake cried. You are coming away with us, Jack.

Away from this hell-snake of yours. You're coming today. Now, do you understand? Schuyler nodded. Yes, he said, I understand. In his mind, the real and the unreal were clarifying into an accurate hole. He nodded again. There's still a chance for you, Jack, Blake continued earnestly, all his force in his words.

There's still a chance for you. You're going to be strong and become a man again. Tell me that you will. It's too late, Tom, he replied. There was in the words sadness, despair, hopelessness, unutterable. It's too late. body mind soul are wasted gone there's no chance tom it's too late no cried blake there is happiness for you real happiness the right happiness your wife your child don't speak of them skyler moaned don't don't you must think of them jack it's there that salvation lies Think of the true woman, the wife who loves you. Think of the little one who used to put baby hands around your neck and try to tell you all the beautiful things that only children know.

That is what will save you now, Jack, and only that. Think, think. It's too late, Tom. It's not too late. You're sure? Quite, quite sure? I'm sure, Jack. There was a pause.

Schuyler rose. He thrust forth his hand. Blake took it, gripping it in his own. I'll go, Tom, I'll go. Came to him a touch of that from which he had been able to withdraw so pitifully little. We'll fool her yet, won't we?

He asked breathlessly. we'll fool her and young parmilly and rogers and van dam and the rest of them let's go now tom take me away for the love of god who has forsaken me whom i have forsaken take me away save me from her from myself my blood has turned to water and my bones to chalk my brain has withered good god what has come over me to think that i who could once look in the eye all men all women all little children should have come to this look at me a fool in his drunken palace of folly dust dirt grime filth all about me in my home in my soul i thought it was too late tom i thought from the beginning it was too late the shame the disgrace the loss of honor of everything were new to me i couldn't understand then i cursed myself i swore to god that i wouldn't become the thing that i am but he didn't understand then i cursed myself i swore to god that i wouldn't become the thing that i am but he didn't help me and i couldn't help myself i tried ah how i tried but there was something her eyes it was eyes that burnt and seared i tried to kill myself as parmali did i couldn't and the only forgetfulness lay in drink drink that sapped my strength and drained my veins and shriveled my brain

tell me it's a dream tom that it's all but a vile horrible gruesome dream tell me that i'm the kind of man you are the kind of a man i once was and don't hate me tom don't loathe and despise me but pity me a little just a little he had sunk in a huddled heap to the floor weak hysterical a half-crazed soul in the white-hot crucible of suffering blake leaned over him gently and lifting him helped him to the great chair there was a great unselfish gladness in his heart but that gladness had changed swiftly to horror he stood back aghast for there had entered the room catherine and muriel the horror of it all did not show in the eye of the wife she would not let it the child all gladness ran to her father she did not notice daddy oh daddy she called skyler a huddled heap by the desk straightened weakly you he cried brokenly tears welled to his eyes he seized the little form in his arms clutching it to him blake turned to katherine you should not have come he said he was sorry for the hurt he knew she suffered my place is here she went to skyler stooping over him jack dear she spoke very quietly. He lifted his eyes, dim, moist. His lips worked.

Oh, Daddy, exclaimed the child. You've been ill. You look awful. He bent his head. Yes, little sweetheart, he answered in shaking tone. Very ill. God grant you may never know how ill. But your most well-yellow. now, aren't you, Daddy? she asked brightly. I hope so, he replied. Oh, how I hope so. Lips and voice both quivered now. And we can play horsey? she asked. Yes, he assented. He assayed to lift her, but even the tiny weight of the little form was too

much for his shattered strength. His head. sunk upon the table arm buried his body shook the child did not see which was well she was looking at her mother mother dear she said reproachfully you forgot to kiss daddy did i i'm sorry willingly katherine went to him he raised thin white hand in protest not now he he murmured brokenly it's not fair not right the situation was hard hard for all no less hard for her than for him no less hard for blake than for either he stepped forward forcing a lightness of tone and of word that lay farthest from his thought he laid his hand lightly on skylour's shoulder come jack he said crisply it's quite all right there's no cause for anything but gladness i'll see them to the hotel and come back for you schuyler clutched at his strong fingers don't be long tom he begged whispering only a moment returned blake so low that only he might hear blake knew that he needed time to regain his self-command he took muriel by the hand come kate he suggested katherine shook her head

leave us for a moment she urged do you think it's best she bent her head taking the child blake left the room and slowly katherine again went to skylers side john dear she said softly his head fell again to his hands i can bear no more katherine he whispered weakly oh god how great is thy goodness the shame of it all the shame the utter utter shame and you katherine can forgive i can forgive john dear i do forgive it was not your fault it is the fault of the bird that he goes to his death when the eyes of the snake are upon him it was not that you were weak even it was that she was strong strong in the one way in which she leads i do forgive forgive and understand you are good beyond all goodness he murmured voice low vibrant no she said she smiled a smile that was no smile and then it's been a dream john a bitter bitter dream but we are awake now awake at last and we'll never dream again never she rose violet eyes were moist she turned away a little that he might not see her voice was lighter as she asked john dear don't you want me to stay and help you he shook his head go katherine he requested go with tom it will be more merciful to both of us and i want to be alone to try to realize that the first you-you'll be to realize that the

chance is mine to redeem myself i want to ask god to try to forgive me and in his infinite mercy to help me atone for all the wrong i've done you she bent her head it was bitterly hard for her as for him she knew as he said it would be more merciful to them both that she should go gently she bent her lips touched his bowed head. Slowly she turned. Slowly she walked across the dirty, disordered room. She looked back once. He was still sitting there, head buried deep in hands. She was glad, glad unselfishly. She could give him happiness. Would there ever be happiness for her? She was afraid, yet she was glad, glad as Blake was glad. Still there was in her a great, great emptiness. Chapter 37 The pity of it all. Left alone, John Schuyler sat for long, never-ending moments. He was weak, weak unto the weakness of death. His soul was torn and tossed and twitched within him.

At length he rose, slowly. to his feet. A dizziness, a nausea, overmastered him. He reached for the bottle on the tabletop. As he did so, his foot touched some object upon the floor. He looked down. It was a bit of broken mirror. He stooped and picked it up. The light upon the table was on. He turned it so that it might illuminate with its merciless rays the last cruel line upon his face slowly holding the mirror so that eyes might see he looked he fell to his knees this thing that he saw was he he john skyler came to him at length strength to rise came to his heart great resolves he would make atonement to the woman whom he had forsaken the woman who had not forsaken him he would make atonement in as far as it lay within possibility and to the child that was of him and of her he would make atonement he was but a young man many years of life should love lie before him and of these years he would give give all and ask nothing it was the sad wreck of a life that lay before him a stinking noisome wreck

yet there must be something in it that was neither foul nor unsightly that thing he would find he set his jaw leaden eyes became bright then he was not near to being a man. He had started toward the door, to leave forever the scene of his moral, mental, spiritual death. He was almost to the portal. Another step would carry him through, and beyond. She stood there. Red lips were parted in a little inscrutable smile. White shoulders shimmered. Live muscles rippled beneath her gown with every movement of her delicate body. She was beautiful, beautiful as an animal is beautiful, and her eyes were upon his. He staggered back, clutching at the door jam for support. She laughed a little lightly. Just in time, you're going away.

Bien! i trust you may have a very pleasant journey she swung into the room lithely eyes upon him vivid lips smiling rounded arms were clasped behind lissom back and if i hadn't gone he inquired you were about to go she nodded to another fool she shook her head merrily oh no she replied red lips pursed to a man this time he shrunk a little the madness was not far behind well squeeze him dry he muttered squeeze the honor and the manhood and the life and the soul out of him won't you and then parmilly and rogers and van dam will laugh at him from their hole in hell and i'll laugh at all of you for i'll be safe from you all to squeeze him dry won't you you vampire again she laughed gaily he was very amusing at times this thing that had been a man she slid to the desk seating herself upon it swinging small perfectly shod feet with slender silk-clad ankles so it's all over she remarked musingly yet it was sweet while it lasted wasn't it my fool sometimes

she tossed at him contemptuously a glowing crimson blossom which she ripped from the great mass at her rounded breast she went on those days on the mediterranean under the blue skies and venice with the dim silence all about and the soft night night breezes whispering their strange secrets to us as we lay side by side under the rustling canopy very romantic for dreamers and we did dream didn't we my fool or at least you did she laughed again again she cast at him a crimson blossom maliciously tantalizingly and paris that was good too different the gay crowds on the bois and the races at longchon and the little place in the rue notre dame de chan and st antoine in the norman hills and the fuss they made over the newly wedded couple it was while we were there if you will remember fool she went on in voice caressing but words that stung on the morning that we first had breakfast under the great arbor with its young green leaves and nodding promises of luscious yield that there came the letter from your wife she laughed long and merrily he cried hoarsely stop damn you stop you've tortured me enough amadee served us that morning she continued unmindful or was it francois no amadee served us that morning she continued unmindful or was it francois no amadee he spelt the coffee upon the table-cloth twice in his anxiety lest he embarrass us and when you kissed me with a little ripple of mirth he looked the other way covering his lips with his hand

oh admirable amadee the breeze was stirring that morning fool do you remember and the dead leaves of yesteryear fell about us so she plucked a great handful of crimson petals from her breast and cast them above her head they fell about him and about her and i dipped sugar in my coffee and fed it to you and you let me read your wife's letter again she laughed through his clenched teeth came a muttered curse it was interesting droly interesting that letter she continued she couldn't understand why your mission detained you so long yet again she laughed merrily ringingly suddenly she shifted lively the poise of her body bah i weary of this and of you but before i go she leaned far forward her forehead eyes on his his vivid lips curved bare breast shimmering a kiss my fool why do you come here he cried piteously have you not done enough is there no pity in your heart no sympathy no human feeling of any kind i've heard you say so in other days she smiled let me go he begged haven't you done enough there is no misery that i have not suffered no degradation that i have not reached no depths to which i have not sunk no dishonor that i have not felt great god what more do you want of me

he was a pitiful object sunken shrivelled abject she looked on him with eyes that revealed amusement amusement and power. She asked lightly, What more could I want of you? What more have you to give, my fool? There's a chance for me, he pleaded hysterically, a little pitiful chance. Can't you find in that dead thing you call a heart, just one shred of pity that I may have that chance that is held out to me? I don't ask much in return for all that I have given, just to be let alone. Ah, go, go, please, please, go. He was on his knees now, thin hands raised in beseeching.

She looked down on him from where she sat, upon the desk, little feet swinging. She raised delicate arched brows. anyone would think, she declared, that I had done wrong by you. He struggled erect. By God, I'll have my chance, he cried. I'll have it in spite of you. Do you hear? Go. In good time, my fool, she returned easily,

when you shall have ceased to amuse me. You'll go now. he insisted frenzedly now he stumbled forward to grasp the white rounded arms she caught his wrists holding him easily you're not so strong as you were you know she said lightly suddenly she thrust him from her reeling her eyes flashed her lips curved and scorned you sicken me and then you asked me if i had had all i wanted of you i have and more and now i'll go and leave you to your chance but not until she had risen and gone to the great chair into it she sank he was before her she leaned forward eyes heavily litted white arms extended white teeth glowed glowing, white shoulders shimmering. She hissed sibilantly.

A kiss, my fool. He turned from her, turned half back again. No, he gasped weakly. No! She hissed again. Kiss me, my fool! The scarlet roses at her breast moved a little. Her lips were parted.

Her eyes were on his. He cried thickly, agonizedly. I'm free of you. Free, I tell you. I'm going back to wife, to child, to home, to honor. I'm free. Her lips curved. Her breast heaved.

Her arms glowed, and her eyes were on his. He came a step nearer, another step. yet another he was nearer now she leaned back a little in the great chair he was not a man now he was a thing and that thing was of her hands hung slack loose at his sides jaw drooped lips were pendulous only in his eyes was that light that she and she alone knew how to kindle he was hers soul and body and brain then suddenly came of the things that are unknown perhaps came to his ears a voice to his heart and aid unknown his hand stiffened a little and then he leaped upon her she saw she had half risen back they went over the great chair his body on hers his feet on hers his feet fingers clutching at her rounded throat. For a moment they writhed.

She screamed once, then suddenly his twisted fingers relaxed. His head fell back. His body inert rolled from herds, turned again as it struck the chair, and fell a thing crushed and dead at her feet. She rose, breathing hoarsely from between red parted lips. there were marks upon her throat perhaps again she had overestimated her power and yet it were not to be sure of this

her skirt hem lay beneath his body she stooped lively disengaging it his fingers clutched torn petals of crimson roses she looked then vivid lips parted and she laughed a little of that which is known she knew but little of that which is unknown she knew much perhaps it is a small thing after all to wreck a life when they came back they found him there alone he lay prone on the rug before the great chair the moonlight was upon his face which was not well crimson petals like drops of blood were upon it and the redness was crushed between his clutching fingers muriel did not see for the friend such as few men may ever hope to have and having may pray to keep had thrust the child behind him for a long long time they stood there then slowly the woman that had been wife turned her head sunk forward she had suffered she had suffered much and yet there was in her still the power to suffer but it was now the suffering of pity of utter utter pity head sunk forward she reeled a little the man standing beside her caught her in strong arm that she might not fall for a tiny moment she rested there the only rest that she had known since it had come into her life and who shall say that she was wrong or he side by side they stood and gazed upon their dead they held the little child that she might not see then slowly they turned and left

and in the end perhaps came to them of god the happiness that they deserved from him perhaps even it was a happiness refined of the suffering through which they had both passed for to no great happiness one must have known great sorrow upon the altar of things are made oftimes strange sacrifices sacrifices that we cannot understand made in a way that we cannot understand made in a way that we can't understand made in a way that we do not comprehend for god has shown us even the wisest of us but little of the world in which we live the end end of a fool there was by porter emerson brown