IN WHICH LIZZIE DESCENDS FROM A GREAT HEIGHT

“Lizzie was on hand at the hour appointed.  We sat down here all by ourselves.

“‘Lizzie,’ I says, ’why in the world did you go to Europe for a husband?  It’s a slight to Pointview-a discouragement of home industry.’

“‘There was nobody here that seemed to want me,’ she says, blushin’ very sweet.

“She had dropped her princess manner an’ seemed to be ready for straight talk.

“‘If that’s so, Lizzie, it’s your fault,’ I says.

“‘I don’t understand you,’ says she.

“‘Why, my dear child, it’s this way,’ I says.  ‘Your mother an’ father have meant well, but they’ve been foolish.  They’ve educated you for a millionairess, an’ all that’s lackin’ is the millions.  You overawed the boys here in Pointview.  They thought that you felt above ’em, whether you did or not; an’ the boys on Fifth Avenue were glad to play with you, but they didn’t care to marry you.  I say it kindly, Lizzie, an’ I’m a friend o’ yer father’s, an’ you can afford to let me say what I mean.  Those young fellows wanted the millions as well as the millionairess.  One of our boys fell in love with ye an’ tried to keep up, but your pace was too hot for him.  His father got in trouble, an’ the boy had to drop out.  Every well-born girl in the village entered the race with ye.  An era of extravagance set in that threatened the solvency, the honor, o’ this sober old community.  Their fathers had to borrow money to keep agoin’.  They worked overtime, they importuned their creditors, they wallowed in low finance while their daughters revelled in the higher walks o’ life an’ sang in different languages.  Even your father-I tell you in confidence, for I suppose he wouldn’t have the courage to do it-is in financial difficulties.  Now, Lizzie, I want to be kind to you, for I believe you’re a good girl at heart, but you ought to know that all this is what your accomplishments have accomplished.’

“She rose an’ walked across the room, with trembling lips.  She had seized her parachute an’ jumped from her balloon and was slowly approachin’ the earth.  I kept her comin’, ‘These clothes an’ jewels that you wear, Lizzie-these silks an’ laces, these sunbursts an’ solitaires-don’t seem to harmonize with your father’s desire to borrow money.  Pardon me, but I can’t make ’em look honest.  They are not paid for-or if they are they are paid for with other men’s money.  They seem to accuse you.  They’d accuse me if I didn’t speak out plain to ye.’

“All of a sudden Lizzie dropped into a chair an’ began to cry.  She had lit safely on the ground.

“It made me feel like a murderer, but it had to be.  Poor girl!  I wanted to pick her up like a baby an’ kiss her.  It wasn’t that I loved Lizzie less but Rome more.  She wasn’t to blame.  Every spoilt woman stands for a fool-man.  Most o’ them need-not a master-but a frank counsellor.  I locked the door.  She grew calm an’ leaned on my table, her face covered with her hands.  My clock shouted the seconds in the silence.  Not a word was said for two or three minutes.

“‘I have been brutal,’ I says, by-an’-by.  ‘Forgive me.’

“‘Mr. Potter,’ she says, ’you’ve done me a great kindness.  I’ll never forget it.  What shall I do?’

“‘Well, for one thing,’ says I, ‘go back to your old simplicity an’ live within your means.’

“‘I’ll do it,’ she says; ’but-I-I supposed my father was rich.  Oh, I wish we could have had this talk before!’

“‘Did you know that Dan Pettigrew was in love with you?’ I put it straight from the shoulder.  ’He wouldn’t dare tell ye, but you ought to know it.  You are regarded as a kind of a queen here, an’ it’s customary for queens to be approached by ambassadors.’

“Her face lighted up.

“‘In love with me?’ she whispered.  ’Why, Mr. Potter, I never dreamed of such a thing.  Are you sure?  How do you know?  I thought he felt above me.’

“‘An’ he thought you felt above him,’ I says.

“‘How absurd! how unfortunate!’ she whispered.  ’I couldn’t marry him now if he asked me.  This thing has gone too far.  I wouldn’t treat any man that way.’

“‘You are engaged to Alexander, are you?’ I says.

“’Well, there is a sort of understanding, and I think we are to be married if-if-’

“She paused, and tears came to her eyes again.

“‘You are thinking o’ the money,’ says I.

“‘I am thinking o’ the money,’ says she.  ’It has been promised to him.  He will expect it.’

“‘Do you think he is an honest man?  Will he treat you well?’

“‘I suppose so.’

“’Then let me talk with him.  Perhaps he would take you without anything to boot.’

“‘Please don’t propose that,’ says she.  ’I think he’s getting the worst of it now.  Mr. Potter, would you lend me the money?  I ask it because I don’t want the family to be disgraced or Mr. Rolanoff to be badly treated.  He is to invest the money in my name in a very promising venture.  He says he can double it within three months.’

“It would have been easy for me to laugh, but I didn’t.  Lizzie’s attitude in the whole matter pleased me.  I saw that her heart was sound.  I promised to have a talk with her father and see her again.  I looked into his affairs carefully and put him on a new financial basis with a loan of fifteen thousand dollars.

“One day he came around to my office with Alexander an’ wanted me to draw up a contract between him an’ the young man.  It was a rather crude proposition, an’ I laughed, an’ Aleck sat with a bored smile on his face.

“‘Oh, if he’s good enough for your daughter,’ I said, ’his word ought to be good enough for you.’

“‘That’s all right,’ says Sam, ’but business is business.  I want it down in black an’ white that the income from this money is to be paid to my daughter, and that neither o’ them shall make any further demand on me.’

“Well, I drew that fool contract, an’, after it was signed, Sam delivered ten one-thousand-dollar bills to the young man, who was to become his son-in-law the following month with the assistance of a caterer and a florist and a string-band, all from New Haven.

“Within half an hour Dan Pettigrew came roarin’ up in front o’ my office in the big red automobile of his father’s.  In a minute he came in to see me.  He out with his business soon as he lit in a chair.

“‘I’ve learned that this man Rolanoff is a scoundrel,’ says he.

“‘A scoundrel!’ says I.

“‘Of purest ray serene,’ says he.

“I put a few questions, but he’d nothing in the way o’ proof to otter-it was only the statement of a newspaper.

“‘Is that all you know against him?’ I asked.

“‘He won’t fight,’ says Dan.  ’I’ve tried him-I’ve begged him to fight.’

“‘Well, I’ve got better evidence than you have,’ I says.  ’It came a few minutes before you did.’

“I showed him a cablegram from a London barrister that said: 

“‘Inquiry complete.  The man is a pure adventurer, character nil.’

“‘We must act immediately,’ says Dan.

“‘I have telephoned all over the village for Sam,’ I says.  ’They say he’s out in his car with Aleck an’ Lizzie.  I asked them to send him here as soon as he returns.’

“’They’re down on the Post Road I met ’em on my way here,’ says Dan.  ‘We can overtake that car easy.’

“Well, the wedding-day was approaching an’ Aleck had the money, an’ the thought occurred to me that he might give ’em the slip somewhere on the road an’ get away with it.  I left word in the store that if Sam got back before I saw him he was to wait with Aleck in my office until I returned, an’ off we started like a baseball on its way from the box to the catcher.

“An officer on his motor-cycle overhauled us on the Post Road.  He knew me.

“‘It’s a case o’ sickness,’ I says, ‘an’ we’re after Sam Henshaw.’

“‘He’s gone down the road an’ hasn’t come back yet,’ says the officer.

“I passed him a ten-dollar bill.

“‘Keep within sight of us,’ I says.  ‘We may need you any minute.’

“He nodded and smiled, an’ away we went.

“‘I’m wonderin’ how we’re agoin’ to get the money,’ I says, havin’ told Dan about it.

“‘I’ll take it away from him,’ says Dan.

“‘That wouldn’t do,’ says I.

“‘Why not?’

“‘Why not!’ says I.  ’You wouldn’t want to be arrested for highway robbery.  Then, too, we must think o’ Lizzie.  Poor girl!  It’s agoin’ to be hard on her, anyhow.  I’ll try a bluff.  It’s probable that he’s worked this game before.  If so, we can rob him without violence an’ let him go.’

“Dan grew joyful as we sped along.

“‘Lizzie is mine,’ he says.  ‘She wouldn’t marry him now.’

“He told me how fond they had been of each other until they got accomplishments an’ began to put up the price o’ themselves.  He said that in their own estimation they had riz in value like beef an’ ham, an’ he confessed how foolish he had been.  We were excited an’ movin’ fast.

“‘Something’ll happen soon,’ he says.

“An’ it did, within ten minutes from date.  We could see a blue car half a mile ahead.

“‘I’ll go by that ol’ freight-car o’ the Henshaws’,’ says Dan.  ’They’ll take after me, for Sam is vain of his car.  We can halt them in that narrow cut on the hill beyond the Byron River.’

“We had rounded the turn at Chesterville, when we saw the Henshaw car just ahead of us, with Aleck at the wheel an’ Lizzie beside him an’ Sam on the back seat.  I saw the peril in the situation.

“The long rivalry between the houses of Henshaw an’ Pettigrew, reinforced by that of the young men, was nearing its climax.

“‘See me go by that old soap-box o’ the Henshaws’,’ says Dan, as he pulled out to pass ’em.

“Then Dan an’ Aleck began a duel with automobiles.  Each had a forty-horse-power engine in his hands, with which he was resolved to humble the other.  Dan knew that he was goin’ to bring down the price o’ Alecks an’ Henshaws.  First we got ahead; then they scraped by us, crumpling our fender on the nigh side.  Lizzie an’ I lost our hats in the scrimmage.  We gathered speed an’ ripped off a section o’ their bulwarks, an’ roared along neck an’ neck with ’em.  The broken fenders rattled like drums in a battle.  A hen flew up an’ hit me in the face, an’ came nigh unhorsin’ me.  I hung on.  It seemed as if Fate was tryin’ to halt us, but our horse-power was too high.  A dog went under us.  It began to rain a little.  We were a length ahead at the turn by the Byron River.  We swung for the bridge an’ skidded an’ struck a telephone pole, an’ I went right on over the stone fence an’ the clay bank an’ lit on my head in the water.  Dan Pettigrew lit beside me.  Then came Lizzie an’ Sam-they fairly rained into the river.  I looked up to see if Aleck was comin’, but he wasn’t.  Sam, bein’ so heavy, had stopped quicker an’ hit in shallow water near the shore, but, as luck would have it, the bottom was soft an’ he had come down feet foremost, an’ a broken leg an’ some bad bruises were all he could boast of.  Lizzie was in hysterics, but seemed to be unhurt.  Dan an’ I got ‘em out on the shore, an’ left ’em cryin’ side by side, an’ scrambled up the bank to find Aleck.  He had aimed too low an’ hit the wall, an’ was stunned, an’ apparently, for the time, dead as a herrín’ on the farther side of it.  I removed the ten one-thousand-dollar bills from his person to prevent complications an’ tenderly laid him down.  Then he came to very sudden.

“‘Stop!’ he murmured.  ‘You’re robbin’ me.’

“‘Well, you begun it,’ I says.  ’Don’t judge me hastily.  I’m a philanthropist.  I’m goin’ to leave you yer liberty an’ a hundred dollars.  You take it an’ get.  If you ever return to Connecticut I’ll arrest you at sight.’

“I gave him the money an’ called the officer, who had just come up.  A traveller in a large tourin’-car had halted near us.

“‘Put him into that car an’ take him to Chesterville,’ I said.

“He limped to the car an’ left without a word.

“I returned to my friends an’ gently broke the news.

“Sam blubbered ‘Education done it,’ says he, as he mournfully shook his head.

“‘Yes,’ I says.  ’Education is responsible for a damned lot of ignorance.’

“‘An’ some foolishness,’ says Sam, as he scraped the mud out of his hair.  ‘Think of our goin’ like that.  We ought to have known better.’ “‘We knew better,’ I says, ’but we had to keep up with Lizzie.’

“Sam turned toward Lizzie an’ moaned in a broken voice, ’I wish it had killed me.’

“‘Why so?’ I asked.

“‘It costs so much to live,’ Sam sobbed, in a half-hysterical way.  ‘I’ve got an expensive family on my hands.’

“‘You needn’t be afraid o’ havin’ Lizzie on your hands,’ says Dan, who held the girl in his arms.

“’What do you mean?^ Sam inquired.

“‘She’s on my hands an’ she’s goin’ to stay there,’ says the young man.  ’I’m in love with Lizzie myself.  I’ve always been in love with Lizzie.’

“‘Your confession is ill-timed,’ says Lizzie, as she pulled away an’ tried to smooth her hair.  She began to cry again, an’ added, between sobs:  ’My heart is about broken, and I must go home and get help for my poor father.’

“‘I’ll attend to that,’ says Dan; ‘but I warn you that I’m goin’ to offer a Pettigrew for a Henshaw even.  If I had a million dollars I’d give it all to boot.’

“Sam turned toward me, his face red as a beet.

“‘The money!’ he shouted.  ‘Get it, quick!’

“‘Here it is!’ I said, as I put the roll o’ bills in his hand.

“‘Did you take it off him?’

“‘I took it off him.’

“‘Poor Aleck!’ he says, mournfully, as he counted the money.  ’It’s kind o’ hard on him.’

“Soon we halted a passin’ automobile an’ got Sam up the bank an’ over the wall.  It was like movin’ a piano with somebody playin’ on it, but we managed to seat him on the front floor o’ the car, which took us all home.

“So the affair ended without disgrace to any one, if not without violence, and no one knows of the cablegram save the few persons directly concerned.  But the price of Alecks took a big slump in Pointview.  No han’some foreign gent could marry any one in this village, unless it was a chambermaid in a hotel.

“That was the end of the first heat of the race with Lizzie in Pointview.  Aleck had folded up his bluff an’ silently sneaked away.  I heard no more of him save from a lady with blond, curly hair an’ a face done in water-colors, who called at my office one day to ask about him, an’ who proved to my satisfaction that she was his wife, an’ who remarked with real, patrician accent when I told her the truth about him:  ‘Ah, g’wan, yer kiddin’ me.’

“I began to explore the mind of Lizzie, an’ she acted as my guide in the matter.  For her troubles the girl was about equally indebted to her parents an’ the Smythe school.  Now the Smythe school had been founded by the Reverend Hopkins Smythe, an Englishman who for years had been pastor of the First Congregational Church-a soothin’ man an’ a favorite of the rich New-Yorkers.  People who hadn’t slept for weeks found repose in the First Congregational Church an’ Sanitarium of Pointview.  They slept an’ snored while the Reverend Hopkins wept an’ roared.  His rhetoric was better than bromide or sulphonal.  In grateful recollection of their slumbers, they set him up in business.

“Now I’m agoin’ to talk as mean as I feel.  Sometimes I get tired o’ bein’ a gentleman an’ knock off for a season o’ rest an’ refreshment.  Here goes!  The school has some good girls in it, but most of ’em are indolent candy-eaters.  Their life is one long, sweet dream broken by nightmares of indigestion.  Their study is mainly a bluff; their books a merry jest; their teachers a butt of ridicule.  They’re the veriest little pagans.  Their religion is, in fact, a kind of Smythology.  Its High Priest is the Reverend Hopkins.  Its Jupiter is self.  Its lesser gods are princes, dukes, earls, counts, an’ barons.  Its angels are actors an’ tenors.  Its baptism is flattery.  Poverty an’ work are its twin hells.  Matrimony is its heaven, an’ a slippery place it is.  They revel in the best sellers an’ the worst smellers.  They gossip of intrigue an’ scandal.  They get their lessons if they have time.  They cheat in their examinations.  If the teacher objects she is promptly an’ generally insulted.  She has to submit or go-for the girls stand together.  It’s a sort of school-girls’ union.  They’d quit in a body if their fun were seriously interrupted, an’ Mr. Smythe couldn’t afford that, you know.  He wouldn’t admit it, but they’ve got him buffaloed.

“Lizzie no sooner got through than she set out with her mother to find the prince.  She struck Aleck in Italy.”

Socrates leaned back and laughed.

“Now, if you please, I’ll climb back on my pedestal,” he said.

“Thank God!  Lizzie began to rise above her education.  She went to work in her father’s store, an’ the whole gang o’ Lizzie-chasers had to change their gait again.  She organized our prosperous young ladies’ club-a model of its kind-the purpose of which is the promotion of simple livin’ an’ a taste for useful work.  They have fairs in the churches, an’ I distribute a hundred dollars in cash prizes-five dollars each for the best exhibits o’ pumpkin-pie, chicken-pie, bread, rolls, coffee, roast turkey, plain an’ fancy sewin’, an’ so on.  One by one the girls are takin’ hold with us an’ lettin’ go o’ the grand life.  They’ve begun to take hold o’ the broom an’ the dish-cloth, an’ the boys seem to be takin’ hold o’ them with more vigor an’ determination.  The boys are concluding that it’s cheaper to buy a piano-player than to marry one, that canned prima-donnas are better than the home-grown article, that women are more to be desired than playthings.