" You had better stay out here," said Van Bib-
ber, " and come and tell me if she wakes."

Mr. Caruthers was standing by the mantel over
the empty fireplace, wrapped in a long, loose
dressing-gown which he was tying around him as
Van Bibber entered. He was partly undressed,
and had been just on the point of getting into
bed. Mr. Caruthers was a tall, handsome man,
with dark reddish hair, turning below the temples
into gray; his moustache was quite white, and his
eyes and face showed the signs of either dissipa-
tion or of great trouble, or of both. But even in
the formless dressing-gown he had the look and
the confident bearing of a gentleman, or, at least,
of the man of the world. The room was very rich-
looking, and was filled with the medley of a man's
choice of good paintings and fine china, and pa-
pered with irregular rows of original drawings
and signed etchings. The windows were open,



20 HER FIRST APPEARANCE

and the lights were turned very low, so that Van
Bibber could see the many gas lamps and the dark
roofs of Broadway and the Avenue where they
crossed a few blocks off, and the bunches of light
on the Madison Square Garden, and to the lights
on the boats of the East River. From below in
the streets came the rattle of hurrying omnibuses
and the rush of the hansom cabs. If Mr. Caruth-
ers was surprised at this late visit, he hid it, and
came forward to receive his caller as if his pres-
ence were expected.

" Excuse my costume, will you ?" he said. " I
turned in rather early to-night, it was so hot." He
pointed to a decanter and some soda bottles on
the table and a bowl of ice, and asked, " Will you
have some of this ?" And while he opened one
of the bottles, he watched Van Bibber's face as
though he w T ere curious to have him explain the
object of his visit.

" No, I think not, thank you," said the younger
man. He touched his forehead with his handker-
chief nervously. " Yes, it is hot," he said.

Mr. Caruthers filled a glass with ice and brandy
and soda, and walked back to his place by the
mantel, on which he rested his arm, while he
clinked the ice in the glass and looked down into
it.

"I was at the first night of 'The Sultana' this
evening," said Van Bibber, slowly and uncer-
tainly.

" Oh, yes," assented the elder man, politely, and



HER FIRST APPEARANCE 21

tasting his drink. "Lester's new piece. Was it
any good ?"

"I don't know," said Van Bibber. "Yes, I
think it was. I didn't see it from the front.
There were a lot of children in itlittle ones;
they danced and sang, and made a great hit. One
of them had never been on the stage before. It
was her first appearance."

He was turning one of the glasses around be-
tween his fingers as he spoke. He stopped, and
poured out some of the soda, and drank it down
in a gulp, and then continued turning the empty
glass between the tips of his fingers.

" It seems to me," he said, " that it is a great
pity." He looked up interrogatively at the other
man, but Mr. Caruthers met his glance without
any returning show of interest. " I say," repeat-
ed Van Bibber "I say it seems a pity that a
child like that should be allowed to go on in that
business. A grown woman can go into it with
her eyes open, or a girl who has had decent train-
ing can too. But it's different with a child. She
has no choice in the matter ; they don't ask her
permission ; and she isn't old enough to know
what it means ; and she gets used to it and fond
of it before she grows to know what the danger
is. And then it's too late. It seemed to me that
if there was any one who had a right to stop it, it
would be a very good thing to let that person
know about her about this child, I mean ; the
one who made the hit before it was too late. It



22 HER FIRST APPEARANCE

seems to me a responsibility I wouldn't care to
take myself. I wouldn't care to think that I had
the chance to stop it, and had let the chance go
by. You know what the life is, and what the
temptation a woman " Van Bibber stopped with
a gasp of concern, and added, hurriedly, " I mean
we all know every man knows."

Mr. Caruthers was looking at him with his lips
pressed closely together, and his eyebrows drawn
into the shape of the letter V. He leaned for-
ward, and looked at Van Bibber intently.

"What is all this about?" he asked. "Did
you come here, Mr. Van Bibber, simply to tell
me this? What have you to do with it ? What
have I to do with it ? Why did you come ?"

" Because of the child."

"What child?"

"Your child." said Van Bibber.

Young Van Bibber was quite prepared for an
outbreak of some sort, and mentally braced him-
self to receive it. He rapidly assured himself
that this man had every reason to be angry, and
that he, if he meant to accomplish anything, had
every reason to be considerate and patient. So
he faced Mr. Caruthers with shoulders squared,
as though it were a physical shock he had to stand
against, and in consequence he was quite unpre-
pared for what followed. For Mr. Caruthers
raised his face without a trace of feeling in it,
and, with his eyes still fixed on the glass in his
hand, set it carefully down on the mantel beside



HER FIRST APPEARANCE 23

him, and girded himself about with the rope of
his robe. When he spoke, it was in a tone of
quiet politeness.

"Mr. Van Bibber," he began, "you are a very
brave young man. You have dared to say to ine
what those who are my best friends what even
my own family would not care to say. They are
afraid it might hurt me, I suppose. They have
some absurd regard for my feelings ; they hesi-
tate to touch upon a subject which in no way
concerns them, and which they know must be
very painful to me. But you have the courage
of your convictions ; you have no compunctions
about tearing open old wounds ; and you come
here, unasked and uninvited, to let me know what
you think of my conduct, to let me understand
that it does not agree with your own ideas of
what I ought to do, and to tell me how I, who
am old enough to be your father, should behave.
You have rushed in where angels fear to tread,
Mr. Van Bibber, to show me the error of my
ways. I suppose I ought to thank you for it;
but I have always said that it is not the wicked
people who are to be feared in this world, or who
do the most harm. We know them ; we can pre-
pare for them, and checkmate them. It is the
well-meaning fool who makes all the trouble. For
no one knows him until he discloses himself, and
the mischief is done before he can be stopped. I
think, if you will allow me to say so, that you
have demonstrated my theory pretty thoroughly,



24 HER FIEST APPEARANCE

and have done about as much needless harm for
one evening as you can possibly wish. And so,
if you will excuse me," he continued, sternly, and
moving from his place, "I will ask to say good-
night, and will request of you that you grow older
and wiser and much more considerate before you
come to see me again."

Van Bibber had flushed at Mr. Cam there's first
words, and had then grown somewhat pale, and
straightened himself visibly. He did not move
when the elder man had finished, but cleared his
throat, and then spoke with some little difficulty.
" It is very easy to call a man a fool," he said,
slowly, " but it is much harder to be called a fool
and not to throw the other man out of the win-
dow. But that, you see, would not do any good,
and I have something to say to you first. I am
quite clear in my own mind as to my position, and
I am not going to allow anything you have said
or can say to annoy me much until I am through.
There will be time enough to resent it then. I
am quite well aware that I did an unconventional
thing in coming here a bold thing or a foolish
thing, as you choose but the situation is pretty
bad, and I did as I would have wished to be done
by if I had had a child going to the devil and
didn't know it. I should have been glad to learn
of it even from a stranger. However," he said,
smiling grimly, and pulling his cape about him,
"there are other kindly disposed people in the
world besides fathers. There is an aunt, perhaps,



HER FIRST APPEARANCE 25

or an uncle or two; and sometimes, even to-day,
there is the chance Samaritan."

Van Bibber picked up his high hat from the
table, looked into it critically, and settled it on
his head. " Good - night," he said, and walked
slowly towards the door. He had his hand on
the knob, when Mr. Caruthers raised his head.

"Wait just one minute, please, Mr. Van Bib-
ber ?" asked Mr. Caruthers.

Van Bibber stopped with a prompt obedience
which would have led one to conclude that he
might have put on his hat only to precipitate
matters.

"Before you go," said Mr. Caruthers, grudg-
ingly, "I want to say I want you to understand
my position."

" Oh, that's all right," said Van Bibber, lightly,
opening the door.

"No, it is not all right. One moment, please.
I do not intend that you shall go away from here
with the idea that you have tried to do me a ser-
vice, and that I have been unable to appreciate it,
and that you are a much-abused and much-misun-
derstood young man. Since you have done me
the honor to make my affairs your business, I
would prefer that you should understand them
fully. I do not care to have you discuss my con-
duct at clubs and afternoon teas with young wom-
en until you "

Van Bibber drew in his breath sharply, with a
peculiar whistling sound, and opened and shut his



26 HER FIRST APPEARANCE

hands. "Oh, I wouldn't say that if I were you,"
he said, simply.

" I beg your pardon," the older man said, quick-
ly. " That was a mistake. I was wrong. I beg
your pardon. But you have tried me very sorely.
You have intruded upon a private trouble that
you ought to know must be very painful to me.
But I believe you meant well. I know you to be
a gentleman, and I am willing to think you acted
on impulse, and that yon will see to-morrow what
a mistake you have made. It is not a thing I talk
about ; I do not speak of it to my friends, and
they are far too considerate to speak of it to me.
But you have put me on the defensive. You have
made me out more or less of a brute, and I don't
intend to*be so far misunderstood. There are two
sides to every story, and there is something to be
said about this, even for me."

He walked back to his place beside the mantel,
and put his shoulders against it, and faced Van
Bibber, with his fingers twisted in the cord around
his waist.

" When I married," said Mr. Caruthers, " I did
so against the wishes of my people and the advice
of all my friends. You know all about that. God
help us ! who doesn't?" he added, bitterly. "It
was very rich, rare reading for you and for every
one else who saw the daily papers, and we gave
them all they wanted of it. I took her out of that
life and married her because I believed she was as
good a woman as any of those who had never had




EVEN TO-DAY, THERE IS THE CHANCE SAMA.BTTAN.



HER FIEST APPEARANCE 27

to work for their living, and I was bound that
ray friends and your friends should recognize her
and respect her as my wife had a right to be re-
spected ; and I took her abroad that I might
give all you sensitive, fine people a chance to
get used to the idea of being polite to a woman
who had once been a burlesque actress. It began
over there in Paris. What I went through then
no one knows ; but when I came back and I
would never have come back if she had not made
me it was my friends I had to consider, and
not her. It was in the blood ; it was in the life
she had led, and in the life men like you and
me had taught her to live. And it had to come
out."

The muscles of Mr. Caruthers's face w r ere mov-
ing, and beyond his control ; but Van Bibber did
not see this, for he was looking intently out of
the window, over the roofs of the city.

" She had every chance when she married me
that a woman ever had," continued the older man.
"It only depended on herself. I didn't try to
make a housewife of her or a drudge. She had
all the healthy excitement and all the money she
wanted, and she had a home here ready for her
whenever she was tired of travelling about and
wished to settle down. And I was and a hus-
band that loved her as she had everything. Ev-
erything that a man's whole thought and love and
money could bring to her. And you know what
she did."



28 HER FIRST APPEARANCE

He looked at Van Bibber, but Van Bibber's
eyes were still turned towards the open window
and the night.

" And after the divorce and she was free to go
where she pleased, and to live as she pleased and
with whom she pleased, without bringing disgrace
on a husband who honestly loved her I swore to
my God that I would never see her nor her child
again. And I never saw her again, not even when
she died. I loved the mother, and she deceived
me and disgraced me and broke my heart, and I
only wish she had killed me ; and I was beginning
to love her child, and I vowed she should not live
to trick me too. I had suffered as no man I know
had suffered ; in a way a boy like you cannot un-
derstand, and that no one can understand who has
not gone to hell and been forced to live after it.
And was I to go through that again ? Was I to
love and care for and worship this child, and have
her grow up with all her mother's vanity and an-
imal nature, and have her turn on me some day
and show me that what is bred in the bone must tell,
and that I was a fool again a pitiful fond fool ?
I could not trust her. I can never trust any wom-
an or child again, and least of all that woman's
child. She is as dead to me as though she were
buried with her mother, and it is nothing to me
what she is or what her life is. I know in time
what it will be. She has begun earlier than I had
supposed, that is all ; but she is nothing to me."
The man stopped and turned his back to Van Bib-



HER FIRST APPEARANCE 29

ber, and hid his head in his hands, with his elbows
on the mantel-piece. " I care too much," he said.
" I cannot let it mean anything to me ; when I do
care, it means so much more to me than to other
men. They may pretend to laugh and to forget
and to outgrow it, but it is not so \vith me. It
means too much." He took a quick stride tow-
ards one of the arm-chairs, and threw himself into
it. " Why, man," he cried, " I loved that child's
mother to the day of her death. I loved that
woman then, and, .God help me ! I love that wom-
an still."

He covered his face with his hands, and sat
leaning forward and breathing heavily as he
rocked himself to and fro. Van Bibber still
stood looking gravely out at the lights that pick-
eted the black surface of the city. He was to
all appearances as unmoved by the outburst of
feeling into which the older man had been sur-
prised as though it had been something in a play.
There was an unbroken silence for a moment,
and then it was Van Bibber who was the first to
speak.

"I came here, as you say, on impulse," he said;
" but I am glad I came, for I have your decisive
answer now about the little girl. I have been
thinking," he continued, slowly, " since you have
been speaking, and before, when I first saw her
dancing in front of the footlights, when I did not
know who she was, that I could give up a horse
or two, if necessary, and support this child instead.



30 HER FIRST APPEARANCE

Children are worth more than horses, and a man
who saves a soul, as it says " he flushed slightly,
and looked up with a hesitating, deprecatory smile
"somewhere, wipes out a multitude of sins.
And it may be I'd like to try and get rid of some
of mine. I know just where to send her ; I know
the very place. It's down in Evergreen Bay, on
Long Island. They are tenants of mine there, and
very nice farm sort of people, who will be very
good to her. They wouldn't know anything about
her, and she'd forget what little she knows of this
present life very soon, and grow up with the other
children to be one of them ; and then, when she
gets older and becomes a young lady, she could
go to some school but that's a bit too far ahead
to plan for the present ; but that's what I am go-
ing to do, though," said the young man, confi-
dently, and as though speaking to himself. " That
theatrical boarding-house person could be bought
off easily enough," he went on, quickly, "and
Lester won't mind letting her go if I ask it,
and and that's what I'll do. As you say, it's a
good deal of an experiment, but I think I'll run
the risk."

He walked quickly to the door and disappeared
in the hall, and then came back, kicking the door
open as he returned, and holding the child in his
arms.

"This is she," he said, quietly. He did not
look at or notice the father, but stood, with the
child asleep in the bend of his left arm, gazing



HER FIKST APPEAEANCE 31

down at her. " This is she," he repeated ; " this
is your child."

There was something cold and satisfied in Van
Bibber's tone and manner, as though he were con-
gratulating himself upon the engaging of a new
groom ; something that placed the father entirely
outside of it. He might have been a disinterest-
ed looker-on.

" She will need to be fed a bit," Van Bibber
ran on, cheerfully. " They did not treat her very
well, I fancy. She is thin and peaked and tired-
looking." He drew up the loose sleeve of her
jacket, and showed the bare forearm to the light.
He put his thumb and little finger about it, and
closed them on it gently. " It is very thin," he
said. "And under her eyes, if it were not for the
paint," he went on, mercilessly, "you could see
how deep the lines are. This red spot on her
cheek," he said, gravely, "is where Mary Vane
kissed her to-night, and this is where Alma Stant-
ley kissed her, and that Lee girl. You have heard
of them, perhaps. They will never kiss her again.
She is going to grow up a sweet, fine, beautiful
woman are you not?" he said, gently drawing
the child higher up on his shoulder, until her face
touched his, and still keeping his eyes from the
face of the older man. " She does not look like
her mother," he said ; "she has her father's auburn
hair and straight nose and finer-cut lips and chin.
She looks very much like her father. It seems a
pity," he added, abruptly. "She will grow up,"



32 HER FIRST APPEARANCE

he went on, "without knowing him, or who he
is or was, if he should die. She will never
speak with him, or see him, or take his hand.
She may pass him some day on the street and
will not know him, and he will not know her, but
she will grow to be very fond and to be very
grateful to the simple, kind-hearted old people
who will have cared for her when she was a
little girl."

The child in his arms stirred, shivered slightly,
and awoke. The two men watched her breathless-
ly, with silent intentness. She raised her head
and stared around the unfamiliar room doubtfully,
then turned to where her father stood, looking at
him a moment, and passed him by; and then,
looking up into Van Bibber's face, recognized
him, and gave a gentle, sleepy smile, and, with a
sigh of content and confidence, drew her arm up
closer around his neck, and let her head fall back
upon his breast.

The father sprang to his feet with a quick, jeal-
ous gasp of pain. "Give her to me!" he said,
fiercely, under his breath, snatching her out of
Van Bibber's arms. " She is mine ; give her
to me !"

Van Bibber closed the door gently behind him,
and went jumping down the winding stairs of the
Berkeley three steps at a time.

And an hour later, when the English servant
came to his master's door, he found him still awake
and sitting in the dark by the open window, hold-



HER FIRST APPEARANCE 33

ing something in his arms and looking out over
the sleeping city.

" James," he said, " you can make up a place
for me here on the lounge. Miss Caruthers, my
daughter, will sleep in my room to-night."
3



VAN BIBBER'S MAN-SERVANT



VAN BIBBER'S MAN- SERVANT



VAN BIBBER'S man Walters was the envy
and admiration of his friends. He was Eng-
lish, of course, and he had been trained in the
household of the Marquis Bendinot, and had
travelled, in his younger days, as the valet of
young Lord Upton. He was now rather well on
in years, although it would have been impossible
to say just how old he was. Walters had a dig-
nified and repellent air about him, and he brushed
his hair in such a way as to conceal his baldness.

And when a smirking, slavish youth with red
cheeks and awkward gestures turned up in Van
Bibber's livery, his friends were naturally surprised,
and asked how he had come to lose Walters. Van
Bibber could not say exactly, at least he could not
rightly tell whether he had dismissed Walters or
Walters had dismissed himself. The facts of the
unfortunate separation were like this :

Van Bibber gave a great many dinners during
the course of the season at Delmonico's, dinners
hardly formal enough to require a private room,
and yet too important to allow of his running the
risk of keeping his guests standing in the hall



38

waiting for a vacant table. So he conceived the
idea of sending Walters over about half-past six
to keep a table for him. As everybody knows,
you can hold a table yourself at Delmonico's for
any length of time until the other guests arrive,
but the rule is very strict about servants. Because,
as the head waiter will tell you, if servants were
allowed to reserve a table during the big rush at
seven o'clock, why not messenger boys ? And it
would certainly never do to have half a dozen
large tables securely held by minute messengers
while the hungry and impatient waited their turn
at the door.

But Walters looked as much like a gentleman as
did many of the diners ; and when he seated him-
self at the largest table and told the waiter to
serve for a party of eight or ten ; he did it with
such an air that the head waiter came over him-
self and took the orders. Walters knew quite as
much about ordering a dinner as did his master ;
and when Van Bibber was too tired to make out
the menu, Walters would look over the card him-
self and order the proper wines and side dishes ;
and with such a carelessly severe air and in such
a masterly manner did he discharge this high
function that the waiters looked upon him with
much respect.

But respect even from your equals and the sat-
isfaction of having your fellow-servants mistake
you for a member of the Few Hundred are not
enough. Walters wanted more. He wanted the



39

further satisfaction of enjoying the delicious
dishes he had ordered; of sitting as a coequal with
the people for whom he had kept a place; of com-
pleting the deception he practised only up to the
point where it became most interesting.

It certainly was trying to have to rise with a
subservient and unobtrusive bow and glide out
unnoticed by the real guests when they arrived ;
to have to relinquish the feast just when the feast
should begin. It would not be pleasant, certain-
ly, to sit for an hour at a big empty table, ordering
dishes fit only for epicures, and then, just as the
waiters bore down with the Little Neck clams, so
nicely iced and so cool and bitter-looking, to have
to rise and go out into the street to a table d'hote
around the corner.

This was Walters's state of mind when Mr. Van
Bibber told him for the hundredth time to keep a
table for him for three at Delmonico's. Walters
wrapped his severe figure in a frock-coat and
brushed his hair, and allowed himself the dignity
of a walking-stick. He would have liked to act
as a substitute in an evening dress-suit, but Van
Bibber would not have allowed it. So Walters
walked over to Delmonico's and took a table near
a window, and said that the other gentlemen would
arrive later. Then he looked at his watch and or-
dered the dinner. It was just the sort of dinner
he would have ordered had he ordered it fof him-
self at some one else's expense. He suggested
Little Neck clams first, with chablis, and pea- soup,



40

and caviare on toast, before the oyster crabs, with
Johannisberger Cabinet ; then an entree of calves*
brains and rice ; then no roast, but a bird, cold as-
paragus with French dressing, Camembert cheese,
and Turkish coffee. As there were to be no wom-
en, he omitted the sweets and added three other
wines to follow the white wine. It struck him as
a particularly well-chosen dinner, and the longer
he sat and thought about it the more he wished
he were to test its excellence. And then the peo-
ple all around him were so bright and happy, and
seemed to be enjoying what they had ordered
with such a refinement of zest that he felt he