Ailsa Paige

She dropped the paper and looked up, startled; and he looked back at her, defiant, without a flicker in those characteristic family eyes of his, clear as azure, steady to punishment given or taken—good eyes for a boy to inherit. And he inherited them from his rebel mother.

"Father can't keep me home if other people go," he said.

"Wait until other people go." She reached out and laid a hand on his arm.

"Things are happening too fast, Steve, too fast for everybody to quite understand just yet. Everybody will do what is the thing to do; the family will do what it ought to. . . . Has your mother seen this?"

"Yes. Neither she nor father have dared speak about it before us—" He made a gesture of quick despair, walked to the window and back.

"It's a terrible thing, Ailsa, to have mother feel as she does."

"How could she feel otherwise?"

"I've done my best to explain to her–"

"O Steve! You!—when it's a matter between her soul and God!"

He said, reddening: "It's a matter of common-sense—I don't mean to insult mother—but—good Lord, a nation is a nation, but a state is only a state! I—hang it all—what's the use of trying to explain what is born in one–"

"The contrary was born in your mother, Steve. Don't ever talk to her this way. And—go out, please, I wish to dress."

He went away, saying over his shoulders: "I only wanted to tell you that I'm not inclined to sit sucking my thumb if other men go, and you can say so to father, who has forbidden me to mention the subject to him again until I have his permission."

But he went away to business that morning with his father, as usual; and when evening came the two men returned, anxious, dead tired, having passed most of the day standing in the dense throngs that choked every street around the bulletin boards of the newspaper offices.

Ailsa had not been out during the day, nor had Mrs. Craig, except for an hour's drive in the family coupe around the district where preliminary surveys for the new Prospect Park were being pushed.

They had driven for almost an hour in utter silence. Her sister-in-law's hand lay clasped in hers, but both looked from the carriage windows without speaking, and the return from the drive found them strangely weary and inclined for the quiet of their own rooms. But Celia Craig could not close her eyes even to feign sleep to herself.

When husband and son returned at evening, she asked nothing of the news from them, but her upturned face lingered a second or two longer as her husband kissed her, and she clung a little to Stephen, who was inclined to be brief with her.

Dinner was a miserable failure in that family, which usually had much to compare, much to impart, much badinage and laughter to distribute. But the men were weary and uncommunicative; Estcourt Craig went to his club after dinner; Stephen, now possessing a latch-key, disappeared shortly afterward.

Paige and Marye did embroidery and gossipped together under the big crystal chandelier while their mother read aloud to them from "Great Expectations," which was running serially in Harper's Weekly. Later she read in her prayer-book; later still, fully dressed, she lay across the bed in the alcove staring at the darkness and listening for the sound of her husband's latch-key in the front door,

When it sounded, she sprang up and hastily dried her eyes.

"The children and Ailsa are all abed, Curt. How late you are! It was not very wise of you to go out—being so tired—" She was hovering near him as though to help his weariness with her small offices; she took his hat, stood looking at him, then stepped nearer, laying both hands on his shoulders, and her face against his.

"I am—already tired of the—war," she sighed. "Is it ended yet, Curt?"

"There is no more news from Sumter."

"You will—love me—best—anyway. Curt—won't you?"

"Do you doubt it?"

She only drew a deep, frightened breath. For within her heart she felt the weight of the new apprehension—the clairvoyant premonition of a rival that she must prepare to encounter—a rival that menaced her peace of mind—a shape, shadowy as yet, but terrible, slowly becoming frightfully denned—a Thing that might one day wean this man from her—husband, and son, too—both perhaps–.

"Curt," she faltered, "it will all come right in the end. Say it. I am afraid."

"It will come out all right," he said gently. They kissed, and she turned to the mirror and silently began preparing for the night.

With the calm notes of church bells floating out across the city, and an April breeze blowing her lace curtains, Ailsa awoke. Overhead she heard the trample of Stephen's feet as he moved leisurely about his bedroom. Outside her windows in the backyard, early sunshine slanted across shrub and grass and white-washed fence; the Sunday quiet was absolute, save for the church bells.

She lay there listening and thinking; the church bells ceased; and after a while, lying there, she began to realise that the silence was unnatural—became conscious of something ominous in the intense quiet outside—a far-spread stillness which was more than the hush of Sabbath.

Whether or not the household was still abed she did not know; no sound came from Celia's room; nor were Marye and Paige stirring on the floor above when she rose and stole out barefooted to the landing, holding a thin silk chamber robe around her. She paused, listening; the tic-toc of the hall clock accented the silence; the door that led from Celia's chamber into the hall stood wide open, and there was nobody in sight. Something drew her to the alcove window, which was raised; through the lace curtains she saw the staff of the family flag set in its iron socket at right angles to the facade—saw the silken folds stirring lazily in the sunshine, tiptoed to the window and peered out.

As far as her eyes could see, east and west, the street was one rustling mass of flags.

For a second her heart almost hurt her with its thrilling leap; she caught her breath; the hard tension in her throat was choking her; she dropped to her knees by the sill, drew a corner of the flag to her, and laid her cheek against it.

Her eyes unclosed and she gazed out upon the world of flags; then, upright, she opened her fingers, and the crinkled edges of the flag, released, floated leisurely out once more into the April sunshine.

When she had dressed she found the family in the dining-room—her sister-in-law, serene but pale, seated behind the coffee urn, Mr. Craig and Stephen reading the Sunday newspapers, Paige and Marye whispering together over their oatmeal and cream.

She kissed Celia, dropped the old-fashioned, half-forgotten curtsey to the others, and stood hesitating a moment, one hand resting on Celia's shoulder.

"Is the fort holding out?" she asked.

Stephen looked up angrily, made as though to speak, but a deep flush settled to the roots of his hair and he remained silent.

"Fort Sumter has surrendered," said her brother-in-law quietly.

Celia whispered: "Take your seat now, Honey-bell; your breakfast is getting cold."

At church that Sunday the Northern clergy prayed in a dazed sort of way for the Union and for the President; some addressed the Most High as "The God of Battles." The sun shone brightly; new leaves were startling on every tree in every Northern city; acres of starry banners drooped above thousands of departing congregations, and formed whispering canopies overhead.

Vespers were solemn; April dusk fell over a million roofs and spires; twinkling gas jets were lighted in street lamps; city, town, and hamlet drew their curtains and bowed their heads in darkness. A dreadful silence fell over the North—a stillness that breeds epochs and the makers of them.

But the first gray pallor of the dawn awoke a nation for the first time certain of its entity, roaring its comprehension of it from the Lakes to the Potomac, from sea to sea; and the red sun rose over twenty States in solid battle line thundering their loyalty to a Union undivided,

And on that day rang out the first loud call to arms; and the first battalion of the Northland, seventy-five thousand strong, formed ranks, cheering their insulted flag.

Then, southward, another flag shot up above the horizon. The world already knew it as The Stars and Bars. And, beside it, from its pointed lance, whipped and snapped and fretted another flag—square, red, crossed by a blue saltier edged with white on which glittered thirteen stars.

It was the battle flag of the Confederacy flashing the answer to the Northern cheer.

CHAPTER V

"Burgess!"

"Sir?"

Berkley sat up in bed and viewed his environment with disgust.

"These new lodgings would make a fair kennel, wouldn't they, Burgess?—if a man isn't too particular about his dog."