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11 Population Distributions
12 Population Growth and Regulation
13 Population Dynamics Over Space and Time

Part IV: Species Interactions

14 Predation and Herbivory
15 Parasitism and Infectious Diseases
16 Competition
17 Mutualism

Part V: Communities and Ecosystems

18 Community Structure
19 Community Succession
20 Movement of Energy in Ecosystems
21 Movement of Elements in Ecosystems

Part VI: Global Ecology

22 Landscape Ecology and Global Biodiversity
23 Conservation of Global Biodiversity

Appendices
Reading Graphs
Statistical Tables
Answers to “Analyzing Ecology” and “Graphing the Data”

8
Glossary
Index

9
Contents
About the Authors
Preface

1 Introduction: Ecology, Evolution, and the

Scientific Method
Searching for Life at the Bottom of the Ocean
1.1 Ecological Systems Exist in a Hierarchy of
Organization
Individuals
Populations and Species
Communities
Ecosystems
The Biosphere
Studying Ecology at Different Levels of
Organization
1.2 Ecological Systems Are Governed by Physical
and Biological Principles
Conservation of Matter and Energy
Dynamic Steady States
Evolution
1.3 Different Organisms Play Diverse Roles in
Ecological Systems
Broad Evolutionary Patterns

10
 Categorizing Species Based on Sources of Energy
Types of Species Interactions
Habitat versus Niche
1.4 Scientists use several approaches to studying
ecology
Observations, Hypotheses, and Predictions
Testing Hypotheses with Manipulative Experiments
Alternative Approaches to Manipulative
Experiments
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Why Do We Calculate
Means and Variances?
1.5 Humans Influence Ecological Systems
The Role of Ecologists
ECOLOGY TODAY: CONNECTING THE
CONCEPTS
The California Sea Otter
Summary of Learning Objectives
Critical Thinking Questions

Part I: Life and the Physical Environment

2 Adaptations to Aquatic Environments

The Evolution of Whales
2.1 Water Has Many Properties Favorable to Life
Thermal Properties of Water
Density and Viscosity of Water
Dissolved Inorganic Nutrients
2.2 Aquatic Animals and Plants Face the Challenge

11
 of Water and Salt Balance
The Challenge of Salt and Water Balance
Adaptations for Osmoregulation in Freshwater
Animals
Adaptations for Osmoregulation in Saltwater
Animals
Adaptations for Osmoregulation in Aquatic Plants
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Standard Deviation and
Standard Error
2.3 The Uptake of Gases from Water Is Limited by
Diffusion
Carbon Dioxide
Oxygen
2.4 Temperature Limits the Occurrence of Aquatic
Life
Heat and Biological Molecules
Cold Temperatures and Freezing
Thermal Optima
ECOLOGY TODAY: CONNECTING THE
CONCEPTS
The Decline of Coral Reefs
Summary of Learning Objectives
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: Determining Q10 Values in
Salmon

3 Adaptations to Terrestrial Environments

The Evolution of Camels
3.1 Most Terrestrial Plants Obtain Nutrients and
Water from the Soil

12
 Soil Nutrients
Soil Structure and Water-Holding Capacity
Osmotic Pressure and Water Uptake
Transpiration and the Cohesion–Tension Theory
3.2 Sunlight Provides the Energy for Photosynthesis
Available and Absorbed Solar Energy
Photosynthesis
Structural Adaptations to Water Stress
3.3 Terrestrial Environments Pose a Challenge for
Animals to Balance Water, Salt, and Nitrogen
Water and Salt Balance in Animals
Water and Nitrogen Balance in Animals
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Understanding the
Different Types of Variables
3.4 Adaptations to Different Temperatures Allow
Terrestrial Life to Exist Around the Planet
Sources of Heat Gain and Loss
Body Size and Thermal Inertia
Thermoregulation
Ectotherms
Endotherms
Adaptations of the Circulatory System
ECOLOGY TODAY: CONNECTING THE
CONCEPTS
The Challenge of Growing Cotton
Summary of Learning Objectives
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: Relating Mass to Surface Area
and Volume

13
4 Adaptations to Variable Environments
The Fine-Tuned Phenotypes of Frogs
4.1 Environmental Variation Favors the Evolution
of Variable Phenotypes
Temporal Environmental Variation
Spatial Environmental Variation
Phenotypic Trade-Offs
Environmental Cues
Response Speed and Reversibility
4.2 Many Organisms Have Evolved Adaptations to
Variation in Enemies, Competitors, and Mates
Enemies
Competition for Scarce Resources
Mates
4.3 Many Organisms Have Evolved Adaptations to
Variable Abiotic Conditions
Temperature
Water Availability
Salinity
Oxygen
4.4 Migration, Storage, and Dormancy Are
Strategies to Survive Extreme Environmental
Variation
Migration
Storage
Dormancy
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Correlations
Adaptations to Prevent Freezing
4.5 Variation in Food Quality and Quantity Is the

14
 Basis of Optimal Foraging Theory
Central Place Foraging
Risk-Sensitive Foraging
Optimal Diet Composition
Diet Mixing
ECOLOGY TODAY: CONNECTING THE
CONCEPTS
Responding to Novel Environmental Variation
Summary of Chapter Concepts
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: The Foraging Behavior of
American Robins

5 Climates and Soils

Where Does Your Garden Grow?
5.1 Earth Is Warmed by the Greenhouse Effect
The Greenhouse Effect
Greenhouse Gases
5.2 There Is an Unequal Heating of Earth by the
Sun
The Path and Angle of the Sun
Seasonal Heating of Earth
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Regressions
5.3 The Unequal Heating of Earth Drives Air
Currents in the Atmosphere
Properties of Air
Formation of Atmospheric Convection Currents
Earth’s Rotation and the Coriolis Effect
5.4 Ocean Currents Also Affect the Distribution of

15
 Climates
Gyres
Upwelling
The El Niño–Southern Oscillation
Thermohaline Circulation
5.5 Smaller-Scale Geographic Features Can Affect
Regional and Local Climates
Continental Land Area
Proximity to Coasts
Rain Shadows
5.6 Climate and the Underlying Bedrock Interact to
Create a Diversity of Soils
Soil Formation
Weathering
ECOLOGY TODAY: CONNECTING THE
CONCEPTS
Global Climate Change
Summary of Learning Objectives
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: Precipitation in Mexico City,
Quito, and La Paz

6 Terrestrial and Aquatic Biomes

The World of Wine
6.1 Terrestrial Biomes Are Categorized by Their
Major Plant Growth Forms
Climate Diagrams
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Mean, Median, and
Mode

16
 6.2 There Are Nine Categories of Terrestrial
Biomes
Tundras
Boreal Forests
Temperate Rainforests
Temperate Seasonal Forests
Woodlands/Shrublands
Temperate Grasslands/Cold Deserts
Tropical Rainforests
Tropical Seasonal Forests/Savannas
Subtropical Deserts
6.3 Aquatic Biomes Are Categorized by Their Flow,
Depth, and Salinity
Streams and Rivers
Ponds and Lakes
Freshwater Wetlands
Salt Marshes/Estuaries
Mangrove Swamps
Intertidal Zones
Coral Reefs
The Open Ocean
ECOLOGY TODAY: CONNECTING THE
CONCEPTS
Changing Biome Boundaries
Summary of Learning Objectives
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: Creating a Climate Diagram

Part II: Organisms

17
7 Evolution and Adaptation
Favoring Flightless Birds
7.1 The Process of Evolution Depends on Genetic
Variation
The Structure of DNA
Genes and Alleles
Dominant and Recessive Alleles
Sources of Genetic Variation
7.2 Evolution Can Occur Through Random
Processes or Through Selection
Evolution Through Random Processes
Evolution Through Selection, a Nonrandom Process
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Strength of Selection,
Heritability, and Response to Selection
7.3 Microevolution Operates at the Population
Level
Artificial Selection
Natural Selection
7.4 Macroevolution Operates at the Species Level
and Higher Levels of Taxonomic Organization
Phylogenetic Trees
Allopatric Speciation
Sympatric Speciation
ECOLOGY TODAY: CONNECTING THE
CONCEPTS
Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
Summary of Chapter Concepts
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: Natural Selection of Finch

18
 Beaks

8 Life Histories
The Many Ways to Make a Frog
8.1 Life History Traits Represent the Schedule of
an Organism’s Life
The Slow-to-Fast Life History Continuum
Combinations of Life History Traits in Plants
8.2 Life History Traits Are Shaped by Trade-Offs
The Principle of Allocation
Offspring Number versus Offspring Size
Offspring Number versus Parental Care
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Coefficients of
Determination
Fecundity and Parental Care versus Parental
Survival
Growth versus Age of Sexual Maturity and Life
Span
8.3 Organisms Differ in the Number of Times That
They Reproduce, but They Eventually Become
Senescent
Semelparity and Iteroparity
Senescence
8.4 Life Histories Are Sensitive to Environmental
Conditions
Stimuli for Change
The Effects of Resources
The Effects of Predation
The Effects of Global Warming
ECOLOGY TODAY: CONNECTING THE

19
 CONCEPTS
Selecting on Life Histories with Commercial
Fishing
Summary of Chapter Concepts
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: Lizard Offspring Number
Versus Offspring Mass

9 Reproductive Strategies
The Sex Life of Honeybees
9.1 Reproduction Can Be Sexual or Asexual
Sexual Reproduction
Asexual Reproduction
Costs of Sexual Reproduction
Benefits of Sexual Reproduction
9.2 Organisms Can Evolve as Separate Sexes or as
Hermaphrodites
Comparing Strategies
Selfing versus Outcrossing of Hermaphrodites
Mixed Mating Strategies
9.3 Sex Ratios of Offspring Are Typically Balanced,
But They Can Be Modified by Natural Selection
Mechanisms of Sex Determination
Offspring Sex Ratio
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Frequency-Dependent
Selection
9.4 Mating Systems Describe the Pattern of Mating
Between Males and Females
Promiscuity

20
 Polygamy
Monogamy
9.5 Sexual Selection Favors Traits That Facilitate
Reproduction
Sexual Dimorphism
The Evolution of Female Choice
Runaway Sexual Selection
The Handicap Principle
Sexual Conflict
ECOLOGY TODAY: APPLYING THE
CONCEPTS
Male-Hating Microbes
Summary of Chapter Concepts
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: Frequency-Dependent
Selection

10 Social Behaviors
The Life of a Fungus Farmer
10.1 Living in Groups Has Costs and Benefits
Benefits of Living in Groups
Costs of Living in Groups
Territories
Dominance Hierarchies
10.2 There Are Many Types of Social Interactions
The Types of Social Interactions
Altruism and Kin Selection
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Calculating Inclusive
Fitness

21
 10.3 Eusocial Species Take Social Interactions to the
Extreme
Eusociality in Ants, Bees, and Wasps
Eusociality in Other Species
The Origins of Eusociality
ECOLOGY TODAY: APPLYING THE
CONCEPTS
Hen-Pecked Chickens
Summary of Learning Objectives
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: How Living In Groups Affects
Predation Risk

Part III: Populations

11 Population Distributions
Bringing Back the Mountain Boomer
11.1 The Distribution of Populations Is Limited to
Ecologically Suitable Habitats
Determining Suitable Habitats
Ecological Niche Modeling
Habitat Suitability and Global Warming
11.2 Population Distributions Have Five Important
Characteristics
Geographic Range
Abundance
Density
Dispersion
Dispersal

22
 11.3 The Distribution Properties of Populations Can
Be Estimated
Quantifying the Location and Number of
Individuals
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Mark-Recapture
Surveys
Quantifying the Dispersal of Individuals
11.4 Population Abundance and Density Are Related
to Geographic Range and Adult Body Size
Population Abundance and Geographic Range
Population Density and Adult Body Size
11.5 Dispersal Is Essential to Colonizing New Areas
Dispersal Limitation
Habitat Corridors
11.6 Many Populations Live in Distinct Patches of
Habitat
The Ideal Free Distribution Among Habitats
Conceptual Models of Spatial Structure
ECOLOGY TODAY: APPLYING THE
CONCEPTS
The Invasion of the Emerald Ash Borer
Summary of Learning Objectives
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: An Ideal Free Distribution

12 Population Growth and Regulation

Putting Nature on Birth Control
12.1 Populations Can Grow Rapidly Under Ideal
Conditions

23
 The Exponential Growth Model
The Geometric Growth Model
Comparing the Exponential and Geometric Growth
Models
Population Doubling Time
12.2 Populations Have Growth Limits
Density-Independent Factors
Density-Dependent Factors
Positive Density Dependence
The Logistic Growth Model
Predicting Human Population Growth with the
Logistic Equation
12.3 Population Growth Rate Is Influenced by the
Proportions of Individuals in Different Age,
Size, and Life History Classes
Age Structure
Survivorship Curves
Life Tables
Collecting Data For Life Tables
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Calculating Life Table
Values
ECOLOGY TODAY: APPLYING THE
CONCEPTS
Saving the Sea Turtles
Summary of Chapter Concepts
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: Survivorship Curves

13 Population Dynamics over Space and Time

Monitoring Moose in Michigan

24
13.1 Populations Fluctuate Naturally over Time
Fluctuations in Age Structure
Overshoots and Die-Offs
13.2 Density Dependence with Time Delays Can
Cause Population Size to Be Inherently Cyclic
The Cycling of Populations Around Their Carrying
Capacities
Delayed Density Dependence
Population Sizes Cycle in Laboratory Populations
ANALYZING ECOLOGY: Delayed Density
Dependence in the Flixweed
13.3 Chance Events Can Cause Small Populations to
Go Extinct
Extinction in Small Populations
Extinction Due to Variation in Population Growth
Rates
13.4 Metapopulations Are Composed of
Subpopulations That Can Experience
Independent Population Dynamics Across
Space
The Fragmented Nature of Habitats
The Basic Model of Metapopulation Dynamics
Observing Metapopulation Dynamics in Nature
The Importance of Patch Size and Patch Isolation
ECOLOGY TODAY: APPLYING THE
CONCEPTS
The Recovery of the Black-Footed Ferret
Summary of Chapter Concepts
Critical Thinking Questions
Graphing the Data: Exploring the Equilibrium of

25
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ideas from those of her parents, she said, emphatically, never!—
except in things where they had grown a little old-fashioned.
"I don't believe, when I was a girl, I ever crossed Mama in anything
more important than in little matters of dress or furnishings.... Oh,
do look at my puzzle before you go!"
But Arthur Weston, almost dizzy with the endless words, had fled.
Down-stairs, while he hunted for his hat and coat, he paused to
draw a long breath and throw out his arms, as if he would stretch
his cramped mind, as well as his muscles, stiffened by long relaxing
among the cushions of the big arm-chair.
"Is there anything in this world duller than the pronunciamento of a
dull woman!" he said to himself. On the street, for sheer relief of
feeling the cool air against his face, instead of the warm stillness of
Mrs. Payton's sitting-room, he did not hail the approaching car, but
strolled aimlessly along the pavement, sticky with fog.
"I wonder if she talks in her sleep?" he said. "I don't believe she
ever stops! How can Fred stand it?" He knew he couldn't stand it
himself. "I'd sell pop-corn on the street corner, to get away from it—
and from Andy's old stovepipe!" It occurred to him that the ideals
set forth in Mrs. Payton's ceaseless conversation were of the same
era as the hat. "But the hat would fit Fred best," he thought
—"Hello!" he broke off, as, straining back on the leash of an
exasperated Scotch terrier, a girl came swinging around the corner
of the street and caromed into him so violently that he nearly lost
his balance.
"Grab him, will you?" she gasped; and when Mr. Weston had
grabbed, and the terrier was sprawling abjectly under the discipline
of a friendly cuff on his nose, she got her breath, and said, panting,
"Where do you spring from?"
It was Frederica Payton, her short serge skirt splashed with mud,
and a lock of hair blown across her eyes. "He's a wretch, that pup!"
she said. "I'll give him to you for a present."
"I wouldn't deprive you of him for the world!" he protested, in alarm.
"Here, let me have the leash."
She relinquished it, and they walked back together toward Payton
Street, Zip shambling meekly at their heels.
"Well," she said, thrusting a confiding arm in his, "were you able to
move her? Or did she turn Aunt Bessie loose on you, too? I knew
Aunt Bessie was to be asked to the funeral. I suppose she talked
anti-suffrage, and quoted 'my William' every minute? Aunt Bessie
hasn't had an idea of her own since the year one! Isn't it queer what
stodgy minds middle-aged women have? I suppose you are about
dead?"
"I have felt more lively. Fred, why can't you see your mother's side
of it?"
"Why can't she see my side of it?"
"But she thinks—"
"But I think! What I object to in Mother is that she wants me to
think her thoughts. Apart from the question of hypocrisy, I prefer my
own." As she spoke, the light of a street lamp fell full on her face—a
wolfish, unhumorous young face, pathetic with its hunger for life; he
saw that her chin was twitching, and there was a wet gleam on one
flushed cheek. "Besides," she said, "I simply won't go on spending
my days as well as my nights in that house. You don't know what it
means to live in the same house with—with—"
"I wish you were married," he said, helplessly; "that's the best way
to get out of that house."
She laughed, and squeezed his arm. "You want to get off your job?"
she said, maliciously; "well, you can't. I'm the Old Man of the Sea,
and you'll have to carry me on your back for the rest of your life. No
marriage in mine, thank you!"
They were sauntering along now in the darkness, her arm still in his,
and her cheek, in her eagerness, almost touching his shoulder; her
voice was flippantly bitter:
"I don't want a man; I want an occupation!"
"But it isn't necessary, Fred. And besides, there are home duties."
"In our house? Name 'em! Shall I make the soap, or wait on the
table and put Flora out of a job? Where people have any money at
all, 'home duties,' so far as girls are concerned, are played out.
Machinery is the cuckoo that has pushed women out of the nest of
domesticity. I made that up," she added, with frank vanity. "I haven't
a blessed thing to do in my good home—I suppose you heard that I
had a 'good home'? which means a roof, and food, so far as I can
make out. But as there is something besides eating and sleeping in
this life, I am going to get busy outside of my 'good home'!"
He thought of the towels, but only murmured vaguely that there
were things a girl could do which were not quite so—so—
"'Unwomanly'? That's Mother's word. Grandmother's is 'unladylike.'
No, sir! I've done all the nice, 'womanly' things that girls who live at
home have to do to kill time. I've painted—can't paint any more than
Zip! And I've slummed. I hate poor people, they smell so. And I've
taken singing lessons; I have about as much voice as a crow. My
Suffrage League isn't work, it's fun. I might have tried nursing, but
Grandmother had a fit; that 'warm heart' she's always handing out
couldn't stand the idea of relieving male suffering. 'What!' she said,
'see a gentleman entirely undressed, in his bed!' I said, 'It would be
much more alarming to see him entirely dressed in his bed'!" She
paused, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully; "it's queer about
Grandmother—I don't really dislike her. She makes me mad, because
she's such an awful old liar; but she's no fool."
"That's a concession. I hope you'll make as much for me."
"They were poor when she was a girl, and she had to do things—
household things, I mean; really had to. So she has stuff in her;
and, in her way, she's a good sport. But she is narrow and coarse.
'See a gentleman in his bed!' And she thinks she's modest! But poor
dear Mother simply died on the spot when I mentioned nursing. So I
gave that up. Well, I have to admit I wasn't very keen for it; I don't
like sick people, dressed or undressed."
"They don't like themselves very much, Fred."
"I suppose they don't," she said, absently. "Well, nursing really
wasn't my bat, so I have nothing against Mother on that lay. But you
see, I've tried all the conventional things, and I've made up my mind
to cut 'em out. Business is the thing for me. Business!"
"But isn't there a question of duty?" he said.
"Do you mean to Mortimore? Poor wretch! That's what Mother harps
on from morning to night. What duty have I to Mortimore? I'm not
responsible for him. I didn't bring him here. Mother has a duty to
him, I grant you. She owes him—good Lord! how much she owes
him! Apologies, to begin with. What right had she and 'old Andy
Payton' to bring him into the world? I should think they would have
been ashamed of themselves. Father was old and dissipated; and
there was an uncle of his, you know, like Mortimore. His 'intellect
was there,' too, but it was very decidedly 'veiled'! I suppose Mother
worked the 'veiled intellect' off on you?"
They had reached the Payton house by this time, and Frederica, her
hand on the gate, paused in the rainy dusk and looked into Arthur
Weston's face, with angry, unabashed eyes. "Don't talk to me about
a duty to Mortimore!"
"I meant a duty to your mother. Think of what you owe your
mother."
"What do I owe her? Life! Did I ask for life? Was I consulted? Before
I am grateful for life, you've got to prove that I've liked living. So far,
I haven't. Who would, with Mortimore in the house? When I was a
child I couldn't have girls come and see me for fear he would come
shuffling about." He saw her shoulders twitch with the horror of that
shuffling. "It makes me tired, this rot about a child's gratitude and
duty to a parent! It's the other way round, as I look at it; the parent
owes the child a lot more than the child owes the parent. Did 'old
Andy' and Mama bring me into this world for my pleasure? You know
they didn't. 'Duty to parents'—that talk won't go down," she said,
harshly, and snapped the gate shut between them.
He looked at her helplessly. She was wrong, but much of what she
had said was right,—or, rather, accurate. But when, in all the history
of parenthood, had there been a time when children accused their
fathers and mothers of selfishness, and cited their own existence as
a proof of that selfishness! "Your mother will be very lonely," he said.
She shook her head. "Mother doesn't need me in the least. A puzzle
of a thousand pieces is a darned sight more interesting than I am."
"You are a puzzle in one piece," he said.
"I'm not as much use to Mother as Father's old silk hat down in the
hall; I never scared a burglar yet. I tell you what, Mother and I have
about as much in common as—as Zip and that awful iron dog!
Mother thinks she is terribly noble because she devotes herself to
Mortimore. Mr. Weston, she enjoys devoting herself! She says she's
doing her duty. I suppose she is, though I would call it instinct, not
duty. Anyhow, there's nothing noble about it. It's just nature. Mother
is like a cat or a cow; they adore their offspring. And they have a
perfect right to lick 'em all over, or anything else that expresses cat-
love. But you don't say they are 'noble' when they lick 'em! And
cows don't insist that other cows shall lick calves that are not theirs.
Mortimore isn't mine. Yes; that's where Mother isn't as sensible as a
cow. She can give herself up all she wants to, but she sha'n't give
me up. I won't lick Mortimore!" She was quivering, and her eyes
were tragic. "Why, Flora has more in common with me than Mother,
for Flora is at least dissatisfied—poor old Flora! Whereas Mother is
as satisfied as a vegetable. That's why she's an anti. No; she isn't
even a vegetable; vegetables grow! Mother's mind stopped growing
when her first baby was born. Mother and I don't speak the same
language. I don't suppose she means to be cruel," she ended, "but
she is."
"Did it ever occur to you that you are cruel?"
She winced at that; he saw her bite her lip, and for a moment she
did not speak. Then she burst out: "That's the worst of it. I am
cruel. I say things—and then, afterward, I could kick myself. Yet they
are true. What can I do? I tell the truth, and then I feel as if I had—
had kicked Zip in the stomach!"
"Stop kicking Zip anywhere," he admonished her; "it's bad taste."
"But if I don't speak out, I'll bust!"
"Well, bust," he said, dryly; "that's better than kicking Zip."
Her face broke into a grin, and she leaned over the gate to give his
arm a squeeze. "I don't know how I'd get along without you," she
told him. "Darn that pup!" she said, and dashed after Zip's trailing
leash.
Arthur Weston, looking after her, laughed, and waved his hand.
"How young she is! Well, I'll put the office business through for her."
 CHAPTER III
Somehow or other he did "put the office business through"; but the
persuading of Mrs. Payton was a job of many days. So far as
opinions went, he had to concede almost everything; of course
Freddy's project was "absurd"; of course "girls didn't do such things"
when Mrs. Payton was a young lady;—still, why not let Fred find out
by experience how foolish her scheme of self-support was?
"It mortifies me to death," Mrs. Payton moaned.
"I don't like it myself," he admitted.
"What does Mr. Maitland say to it?"
"She says he says it's 'corking,'" Arthur Weston quoted; "I wish they
would talk English! The smallness of their vocabulary is dreadfully
stupid. They think it is smart to be laconic, but it's only boring. Do
you think Fred cares about Maitland?"
"I wish she did, but she isn't—human! Rather different from my
girlhood days! Then, a girl liked to have beaux. One of my cousins
had a set of spoons—she bought one whenever she had a proposal.
I don't think Freddy has had a single offer. I tell her it's because she
cheapens herself by being so familiar with the young men. Not an
offer! But I don't believe she's at all mortified. Well, it's just part of
the 'newness' of things. I dislike everything that is new! I wish
Freddy would get married."...
"Why," Mr. Weston pondered, as, having wrung a reluctant consent
from Mrs. Payton, he closed the door of No. 15 behind him, "why do
we consider marriage the universal panacea?" But whether he knew
why or not, he believed it was a panacea, and even plotted
awkwardly to administer it to Frederica. Maitland was just the man
for her; a good fellow, straight and clean, and with money behind
him. The worst of it was that he could not be counted on to
discourage Fred's folly; indeed, he seemed immensely taken by all
her schemes; the more preposterous she was, the more, apparently,
he admired her. He was as full of half-baked ideas as Fred herself!
But there was this difference between them: Howard did not give
you the sense of being abnormal; he was only asinine. And every
first-rate boy has to be an ass before he amounts to anything as a
man.
But Fred was not normal.
A week later, "F. Payton" had been painted on the index of the
Sturtevant Building, and Arthur Weston, pausing as he got out of the
elevator, glanced at the gilt letters with ironical eyes. He was about
to let the panels of the revolving door push him into the street when
Mr. William Childs entered and hooked an umbrella on his arm.
"Hey! Weston! Most interesting thing: do you recall the twenty-third
Sonnet? You don't? Begins:

"'As an imperfect actor on the stage';

I've made a most interesting discovery!"

His prisoner, saying despairingly, "Really?" looked for a way of
escape—but the crook of the umbrella held him.
"In a hurry? Hey? What? Well, I'll tell you some other time." Then
the umbrella was reversed and pointed to the index. "Perfec'
nonsense! What?"
"Girls are very energetic nowadays," Mr. Weston murmured, rubbing
his arm.
"She'd better put her energy into housekeeping!"
"Then Mrs. Payton would have nothing to do."
"Well, then let her get married, and keep house for herself,—instead
of laying down the law to her elders! She instructed me who I
should vote for, if you please! Smith is her man, because he believes
in woman suffrage. What do you think of that?"
"I think she's a good deal like you or me, when we want a thing put
through."
"No such thing! Smith is the worst boss this state ever had. I told
her so, and—Hey, there! Stop—I'm going up!" he called, wildly; and
skipped into the elevator. "Tell her to get married!" he called down to
Arthur Weston, who watched his ascending spats, and then let the
revolving door urge him into the street. "There it is again," he
ruminated, "'get married.' But girls don't marry for homes nowadays,
my dear William. There are no more 'Clinging Vines.' Mrs. Payton is
one of the last of them, and, Lord! what a blasted oak she clung to!"
He had an unopened letter from Mrs. Payton in his pocket, and as he
sauntered along he wondered whether, if it remained unopened for
another hour or two, he could lie truthfully to her and say he had
not received it "in time" to come and talk over Freddy. "For that's
what she wants, of course," he thought, dolefully; "it's a nice point
of conscience. I'll go and sit in the park and think it out. By the time
I decide, it will be too late to go—and then I'll open the letter! Why
do women who have nothing to say, always write long letters?"—he
touched the envelope with an appraising thumb and finger—"eight
pages, all full of Freddy's sins!"
Rambling toward the park in the warm November afternoon Arthur
Weston wondered just what was the matter with Fred. When, ten
years before, he had gone abroad to represent the Payton interests
in France (and, incidentally, to cure a heart which had been very
roughly handled by a lady whose vocation was the collecting of
hearts), Frederica had been a plain, boring, long-legged youngster,
who disconcerted him by her silent and persistent stare. She was
then apparently like any other fourteen-year-old girl—gawky, dull,
and, to a blighted being of thirty-six, entirely uninteresting. When he
came home, nine years later (heart-whole), to render an account of
his Payton stewardship, it was to find with dismay that "old Andy,"
just deceased, had expressed his appreciation of services rendered
by naming him one of the executors of the Payton estate, and to
find, also, that the grubby, silent girl he had left when he went to
Europe had shot up into a tall, rather angular woman, no longer
silent, and most provokingly interesting. She was still plain, but she
had one of those primitive faces which, while sometimes actually
ugly, are, under the stress of certain emotions, extraordinarily
handsome. She was never pretty; there was too much thought in the
jutting lines of her brow and chin, and her cheeks, smudged
sometimes with red, sometimes rigidly pale, had no dimpling
suggestion of a smile. Her gray, unhumorous eyes still held one by
their nakedly direct gaze, even while a bludgeon-like truthfulness of
speech made her hearers wince away from her.
Now, except for her rather tiresome slang, she never bored Arthur
Weston; she merely bothered him—because he was so powerless to
help her. He found himself constantly wondering about her; but his
wonder was always good-natured; it had none of the bitterness
which marked the bewilderment of her elderly relatives, or the very
freely expressed contempt of her masculine cousins. Her man of
business felt only amusement, and a pity which made him, at
moments, ready to abet her maddest notions, just to give the wild
young creature a little comfort. Yet he never forgot Mrs. Payton's
pain; for, no matter whether she was reasonable or not, he knew
that Freddy's mother suffered.
"I'd like to shake Fred!" he said; "confound it, I run with the hare
and hunt with the hounds!"
In the park, in his discouragement at the whole situation, he sat
down on one of the concrete benches by the lake, and looked at the
children and nursery-maids, and at two swans, snow-white on the
dark water. He wished he could feel that Fred was all right or her
mother all wrong; but both were right, and both were wrong.
Nevertheless, he realized that Fred's suffering moved him more than
Mrs. Payton's. Think of having the "veiled intellect" in the ell,
"shuffling round" all the time! "But that's life," he reminded himself.
Duty handcuffs all of us to our relations. Look at the historic Aunt
Adelaide, who wouldn't take any of her beaux—there were more of
them every time Mrs. Payton talked of Fred's shortcomings! Aunt
Adelaide had turned her beaux down because of this thing called
Duty, a word which apparently conveyed nothing whatever to the
mind of her grandniece Miss Frederica Payton, who, however, had
her own word—Truth. A word which had once caused her to
describe Aunt Adelaide's self-immolation as "damned silly."
Mr. Weston, looking idly at the swans curving their necks and
thrusting their bills down into the black water, felt that though Fred's
taste was vile, her judgment was sound—it was silly for Aunt
Adelaide to sacrifice herself on the altar of a being absolutely useless
to society. Then he thought, uneasily, of the possible value to Aunt
Adelaide's character of self-sacrifice. "No," he decided, "self-sacrifice
which denies common sense isn't virtue; it's spiritual dissipation!"
Then his mind drifted to Laura Childs; Laura was not so hideously
truthful as Fred, and her conceit was not quite so obvious; yet she,
too, was of the present—full of preposterous theories for reforming
the universe! Her activities overflowed the narrow boundaries of
domesticity, just as Fred's did; she went to the School of Design, and
perpetrated smudgy charcoal-sketches; she had her committees,
and her clubs, every other darned, tiresome thing that a tired man,
coming home from business, shrinks from hearing discussed, as he
would shrink from the noises of his shop or factory. "'The new wine's
foaming flow'!—I should think Billy-boy would spank her," Weston
thought, sympathetically. Furthermore, Laura detected, with
affectionate contempt, the weak places in her elder's armor of
pompous authority. He had heard her take off her father's "perfec'
nonsense"! Her comments upon her mother's lazy plumpness were
as accurate as they were disrespectful. Imagine girls back in the
'70's, or even the '80's, doing such things! Yet Laura differed,
somehow, from Fred; she was—he couldn't formulate it. He looked
absently at the babies, and the nursery-maids, and then the dim
idea took shape: you could think of Laura and babies together, but a
baby in Frederica's arms was an anomaly. Why? After all, she was a
female thing; you ought to be able to picture her with a baby. But
you couldn't. "I wish," Arthur Weston began;—but before he could
decide exactly what he wished, out of the brown haze across the
park came young Maitland, swinging along, as attractive a chap as
you would see in a day's work. He hailed the older man joyously,
and, standing up before him with his hands in his pockets, began to
josh him unmercifully.
"Is She late? I bet She's jealous of all these dames with white caps
on! You should choose a more secluded spot."
"She is very late, Howard, and she will be later. She has got to have
little curls in the back of her neck, and be afraid of sitting here
without a chaperon. And she must have rubbers on, because there is
no surer way of taking cold than by having damp feet. And she must
do all that all her great-aunts have done. I won't accept her on any
other terms. So you see, I shall have to wait some time for her. In
fact, I have given her up. Sit down. I want to talk to you."
Maitland sat down, and said he thought one of those hoop-skirted,
ringleted damsels would be a good deal of a peach. "You see the
photographs of 'em in old albums, and they certainly were pretty
things."
"Howard, Freddy Payton's going into business. Did you know it?"
"Yes; she's a wonder!"
"She is," the other man agreed, dryly.
"I was talking to Laura Childs about her last night, and she told me
how tough it was for her at home,—you know?"
Mr. Weston nodded.
"And her mother is an anti!" Howard said, sympathetically. "I've only
seen Mrs. Payton once or twice, but it struck me she was the anti
type. Not very exciting to live with."
"She does show considerable cerebral quietude," Weston admitted,
chuckling.
"Did you ever make a call in the Payton house, and see old Andy
Payton's silk hat on the hat-rack?"
"I have. But I'm not afraid of it;—there are no brains in it now."
"Well, I told Laura I thought she was the finest woman I knew,"
Maitland said, earnestly.
"Who? Lolly?"
"Heavens, no! Fred. She's no Victorian miss, I tell you what!"
"The Victorians would send her to bed on bread and water."
"I heard her make a speech to those striking garment-women,"
Fred's defender said; "she told 'em to get the vote, and their wages
would go up. It was fine."
"Whether it was true is immaterial?"
Howard did not go into that. "And then, about morals; she talks to
you just like another man. There's none of this business of
pretending she doesn't know things. She knows as much about life
as you or I."
"Oh, I don't pretend to know as much as you," Arthur Weston
deprecated, lifting a humorously modest eyebrow.
"She talks well, too, doesn't she?" Howard rambled on; "I don't
know what she's talking about sometimes, she's so confoundedly
cultivated. The other day I said something about that nasty uplift
play that they tried to pull off at the Penn Street Theater; and then I
jerked myself up, and sort of apologized. And Freddy said, 'Go
ahead; what's eating you?' And I said, 'Oh, well, I didn't know
whether I ought to speak of that sort of thing.' And she said, 'Only
the truth shall make us free.' That's out of the Bible, I believe."
Mr. Weston nodded. "I know the book. I've even read it, which is
probably more than either you or Fred have done. I don't think it
says the truth shall make you free—and easy; does it?"
Howard laughed, and got on his feet. "I'm going to beat up business
for her. I took her round in my car to look up apartments for those
relations of yours. Why doesn't Mrs. Payton have a car? Haven't they
money enough?"
"Oh, yes. But that poor creature, the brother, has to go out in a
carriage. An auto would excite him, I suppose."
"I see. I told Fred she ought to have a little motor of her own, just
as a matter of business."
"Hold on!" Frederica's trustee remonstrated, in alarm. "Take her in
your car, if you want to, but please don't suggest one for her. She'd
have to put a mortgage on her office furniture to pay for a week's
gasoline! Look here, Howard—don't stand there like the Colossus of
Rhodes, looking down at me as if I only weighed as much as one of
your legs—tell me this: don't you see that this business of Fred's
earning her living is perfectly artificial? She has a little income, and
she can live on it; and when her mother dies, she'll have all the
Payton money. So it is entirely unnecessary for her to go to work, to
say nothing of the fact that she won't earn enough to buy her shoe-
strings."
"Oh, but," the young man burst out, "look at the principle involved!
If you live on inherited money, you're a parasite. I know I do it
myself," he confessed, frankly, "but I'm going to work as soon as I
can get a job. I'm going in for shells. And I believe in work for a
woman just as much as for a man. The trouble is that when a girl
has money, there isn't any real work for her, so she has to
manufacture an occupation—like this social-service stunt at the
hospitals they're so hot on nowadays. Joe Gould—he's an interne—
he told me the most of 'em were nuisances. But, oh, how they enjoy
it! They just lap it up. It makes me a little fatigued to hear 'em talk
about it," he said, yawning. "Laura Childs doesn't talk much, but
Gould says the patients like to have her come round, because she's
good to look at. But with most girls it isn't real. And if a girl doesn't
do real things, if she just amuses herself, she'll go stale, just like a
fellow. Fred put that up to me," he explained, modestly. "I wouldn't
have thought of it myself."
"I bet you wouldn't!" Arthur Weston said; "but don't you see? Fred's
own occupation isn't real."
"She's rather down on me because I'm not in politics," Howard said,
drolly; "did you ever notice that reformers don't take other people's
stunts very seriously? Fred has no use for shells. Laura thinks my
collection is great. But Fred says that it's only an amusement."
"You might do worse," the older man told him; "but never mind that.
What I want to know is, why don't some of you fellows brace up and
ask Freddy to marry you?"
"She wouldn't look at any of us. I don't know any man who could
keep up with her mentally! You ought to hear her talk."
Mr. Weston raised a protesting hand. "Please! I've heard her."
Maitland laughed and strode off into the dusk, leaving Arthur Weston
to sit and look at the swans. The nursery-maids and perambulators
had gone; the Chinese pagoda on the artificial island showed a
sudden spark of light, and the arc-lamps across the park sputtered
into the evening haze like lurching moons. The chill of the water and
the night made him shiver. That youngster was so big and up-
standing and satisfied with life! And certainly he was in love with
Fred.
"Then she'll be off my hands," Fred's man of business said; "what a
relief!"
And life looked as bleak and uninteresting as the cold dusk of the
deserted park.
 CHAPTER IV
"I never see her from morning till night," Mrs. Payton said. "Rather
different from my day! When I was a young lady, girls stayed indoors
with their mothers."
Mrs. Payton's mother, stroking her white gloves down over her
knuckly fingers, shrugged her shoulders: "You didn't like 'those days'
so very much yourself, my dear. But of course Freddy is shocking. It
isn't that she has bad taste—she has no taste! All I hope is that she
won't publicly disgrace us. Bessie Childs says that her husband says
this business idea is perfect nonsense."
The two ladies were in the double parlor on the left of the wide hall
of No 15. It was a gloomy place, even when the ailanthus-trees had
lost their leaves; the French windows were so smothered in plush
and lace that the gleam of narrow mirrors between them could not
lighten the costly ugliness. In its day the room had been very costly.
The carpet, with its scrolls and garlands, the ebony cabinets, picked
out in gilt—big and foolish and empty—the oil-paintings in vast,
tarnished frames, must all have been very expensive. There was an
ormolu clock on the black marble mantelpiece holding Time
stationary at 7.20 o'clock of some forgotten morning or evening; the
bronzes on either side of it—a fisher-maid with her string of fish, and
a hunter bearing an antelope on his shoulders—were dulled by the
smoky years. Opposite the fireplace, against the chocolate-brown
wall-paper, Andrew Payton, on a teakwood pedestal, glimmered in
white marble blindness. Beside him, the key-board of a grand piano
was yellowing in untouched silence. The room was so dim that Mrs.
Holmes, coming in out of the sunshine, stumbled over a rug.
"You have such a clutter of things, Ellen," she complained, sharply.
"It's lighter up-stairs," Mrs. Payton defended herself.
"What did you say? Do speak more distinctly!"
"I said it was lighter up-stairs. Come up, and I'll show you a puzzle
I've just worked out. Dreadfully difficult!"
But Mrs. Holmes never went up-stairs in the Payton house; to be
sure, the door between the sitting-room and the room beyond it was
always locked, but—you heard things. So she said she couldn't climb
the stairs. "I'm getting old, I'm afraid," she said, archly.
"I suppose you are very rheumatic?" her daughter sympathized;
"why don't you try—"
"Not at all!" the older lady interrupted; "just a little stiff. Mrs. Dale
said her cousin thought you were my sister," she added, maliciously.
As far as clothes went, the cousin might have supposed Mrs. Holmes
was Mrs. Payton's daughter—the skirt in the latest ugliness of style,
the high heels, the white veil over the elaborate hair, were all far
more youthful than the care-worn mother of Frederica (and
Mortimore) would have permitted herself.
"I've been so dreadfully busy," Mrs. Holmes declared; "I meant to
come in yesterday, but I had a thousand things to do! Bridge all
afternoon at Bessie Childs's. I played with young Mrs. Dale. She
ought to get another dressmaker."
"Did you know Mr. Dale's aunt was dying?" Mrs. Payton said.
Mrs. Holmes frowned. She was, as she often said, a very busy
woman; she kept house, made calls, had "fittings," shopped, and
read the newspapers. She did these things well and thoroughly, for,
as her granddaughter had once said, she "was no fool." She was
shrewd, capable, energetic, and entirely a woman of the world. Her
daughter's social seclusion and mental apathy amazed and irritated
her. But intelligent and busy as she was, she had leisure for one
thing: Fear. She never said of what. Nor would she, if she could help
it, allow the name of her Fear to be mentioned. "I always run away
if people talk of unpleasant things!" she used to say, sharply. The
mere reference to Mr. Dale's aunt made her pull her stole about her
shoulders, and clutch for bags and card-cases that were always
sliding off a steep and slippery lap.
"Why, Mama, you mustn't go," Mrs. Payton remonstrated, "you've
just—"
"I only stopped a minute to say that if you don't keep Freddy in
order, she will disgrace us all," Mrs. Holmes said, nervously; "but you
keep talking about unpleasant things! I am all heart, and I can't bear
to hear about other people's troubles."
Mrs. Payton understood; she gave her mother a pitiful look. ("I
believe she'd like to live to be a hundred!" she thought; "whereas, if
it wasn't for poor Mortimore I'd be glad to go; I'm so—tired. And
Freddy wouldn't miss me.") All the while she was talking in her kind
voice, of living, not dying; of her intention of starting in early this
year on her Christmas presents—"I get perfectly worn out with them
each Christmas!" Of her cook's impertinence—"servants are really
impossible!" Of Flora's low-spiritedness—"Miss Carter says she's
simply wild to get married, but I can't think so; Flora is so refined."
"Human nature isn't very refined," Mrs. Holmes said.
"Miss Carter says she wants to take music lessons."
"That's terribly refined," Mrs. Holmes said, satirically.
"It's absurd," her daughter declared, with annoyance; "music
lessons! Rather different from the time I went to housekeeping—
then, servants worked! I gave Flora a lovely embroidered collar the
other day; and yet, the next thing I knew, Anne told me she was
crying her eyes out down in the coal-cellar. I went right down to the
cellar, and said, 'You must tell me what's the matter.' But all I could
get out of her was that she was tired of living. Miss Carter says Anne
says that Flora's young man has married somebody else, and she—"
"Don't mumble! It's almost impossible to hear you," her mother
broke in; "as for servants, there are no such things nowadays. They
have men callers, a thing my mother never tolerated! And they don't
dream of being in at ten. My seventh cook in five months comes to-
morrow."
"Don't you think you are rather strict—I mean about hours, and
beaux, and all that sort of thing? My three all have beaux—only poor
Flora's don't seem very faithful. Mama, don't you think you ought to
see an aurist? You really are a little—"
"Not at all! I hear perfectly;—except when people mumble. And I
shall never change; my way of keeping house is the right way, so
why should I change?"
"I couldn't keep my girls a week if I were as strict as you," Mrs.
Payton ventured.
"It wouldn't be much loss, my dear!" the older woman said; she ran
a white-gloved finger along the top of the piano beside her, and held
it up, with a dry laugh. "You could eat off the floor in my house; but
you never were much of a housekeeper. However, I didn't come to
talk about servants; I came to tell you that I am going to call on
those cousins of Mr. Weston's, and explain that at any rate I don't
approve of my granddaughter's going into business!"
"I'm sure I don't, either!" poor Mrs. Payton protested. "I am
dreadfully distr—"
"Why don't you tell her it isn't done? Why do you allow it?" Mrs.
Holmes demanded.
Mrs. Payton raised protesting hands: "'Allow' Freddy?"
"If you'd stop her allowance, you'd stop her nonsense. That is what I
would do if a daughter of mine cut such didos!"
"I can't—she's of age. You can't control girls nowadays," Mrs. Payton
sighed.
"She ought to be married," said Mrs. Holmes, clutching at the back
of a gilt chair as she got on to her shaking old legs; "though I can't
imagine any nice man wanting to marry a girl who talks as she does.
Maria Spencer told me she heard that Fred said that men ought not
to be allowed to marry unless they had a health certificate."
Mrs. Payton gasped with horror. "Mama! are you sure? I can't believe
— What are we coming to?"
"It mortified me to death," said Mrs. Holmes. ("Oh, do pick up that
card-case for me!) I wish Arthur Weston would marry her, but I
suppose he never got over that Morrison girl's behavior? No; the real
trouble is, you insist on living in this out-of-the-way place! Oh, yes, I
know; poor Mortimore. Still, the men won't come after her here,
because it looks as if she had no money—that, and her queerness.
Really, you ought to try to get her settled. You ought to move over
to the Hill; but you love that poor, brainless creature up-stairs more
than you do Fred!"
Mrs. Payton stiffened. "I love both my children just the same; and I
can't discuss Mortimore, Mama, with anybody. As for being brainless,
Doctor Davis always said, 'The intellect is there; but it is veiled.'" The
tears brimmed over. "You don't understand a mother's feelings,
Mama."
Mrs. Holmes shrugged her shoulders and brushed a powdered cheek
against her daughter's worn face. "Good-by. Of course, you never
take any advice—I'm used to that! If I wasn't the warmest-hearted
creature in the world I should be very cross with you. I suppose you
are terribly lonely without Freddy?"
"Oh, terribly," said Mrs. Payton.
When Mrs. Holmes had gone, teetering uncertainly down the front
steps to her carriage, Freddy's mother, pausing a moment in the hall
to make sure that Mr. Andrew Payton's silk hat had been dusted,
went heavily up-stairs and sat down in her big cushioned chair. She
wished that she had something to do. Of course, there was that new
puzzle—but sometimes the thought of a puzzle gave her a qualm of
repulsion, the sort of repulsion one feels at the sight of the drug that
soothes and disgusts at the same moment. The household mending
was a more wholesome anodyne; but there was very little of that;
she had gone all through Freddy's stockings the day before, and
found only one thin place. To-day there seemed nothing to do but sit
in her soft chair and think of Freddy's shocking talk and how unkind
Mrs. Holmes was about Mortimore. She knew, in the bottom of her
heart, that her son's presence was painful to everybody except
herself; she knew that Freddy didn't like to have people call, for fear
they might see him, and that her reluctance dated back to her
childhood. "But suppose she doesn't like it, what has that got to do
with it?" Morty's mother thought, angrily; "it's a question of duty.
Mama doesn't seem to remember that Freddy ought to do her duty!"
It came over Mrs. Payton, with a thrill of pride, that she herself had
always done her duty. Here, alone, with everything silent on the
other side of the bolted door, she could allow herself to think how
well she had done it! To Mortimore, first and foremost—she paused
there, with a pang of annoyance at her mother's words: "I do not
love him best!" she declared. She did her duty to Freddy, just as
much as to Morty. When Fred had scarlet fever no mother could
have been more devoted. She hadn't taken her clothes off for four
days and nights! Her supreme dutifulness, however, a dutifulness of
which she had always been acutely conscious, was in enduring
Andrew's behavior. "Some women wouldn't have stood it," she
thought, proudly. But what a good wife she had been! She had let
him have his own way in everything. When he was cross, she had
been silent. When he was drunk, she had wept—silently, of course.
When he had done other things, of which anonymous letters had
informed her, she had still been silent;—but she had been too angry
to weep. She shivered involuntarily to think what would have
happened if she had not been silent—if she had dared to
remonstrate with him! For Andrew Payton's temper had been as
celebrated as the brains which had once filled the now empty hat.
"Some wives would have left him," she told herself; "but I always did
my duty! Nobody ever supposed that I—knew." When Andrew died,
and her friends were secretly rejoicing over her release, how careful
she had been to wear the very deepest crape! "I didn't go out of the
house, even to church, for three weeks, and I didn't use a plain
white handkerchief for two years," she thought—then flushed, for,
side by side with her satisfaction at her exemplary conduct was a
rankling memory—a memory which made her constantly tell herself,
and everybody else, that she "loved both her children just the
same." The remorse—for it amounted to that—began a few weeks
after Mr. Payton's death, when Freddy, listening to her mother's
pride in the black-bordered handkerchief, had flung out: "If you told
the truth, you'd use a flag for a handkerchief, and you'd go to church
to return thanks!"
There had been a dreadful scene between the mother and daughter
that day.
"As for 'mourning' him," Andrew Payton's daughter said, "you don't.
It's a lie to smother yourself in that horrid, sticky veil. You are
mighty glad to get rid of him! You were as afraid as death of him,
and you didn't love him at all. All this talk about 'mourning' is rot."
Mrs. Payton cowered as if her daughter had struck her: "Oh, how
can you be so wicked!"
"Is it wicked to tell the truth?"
Mrs. Payton clasped and unclasped her hands: "I did my duty! But
do you suppose I've been happy?" Her breath caught in a sob. "I've
lived in hell all these years, just to make a home for you! I did my
duty."
"I should have thought 'duty' would have made you leave him,"
Frederica said; "hell isn't a very good home for a child." She was
triumphantly aware that she had said something smart; her mother's
wincing face admitted it. "I suppose you were afraid to make a break
while he was alive," she said, "but why not tell the truth now?"
Already the consciousness of self-betrayal had swept over Andy
Payton's wife; her face flamed with anger. "You had no business to
make me say a thing like that! You only tell the truth to hurt my
feelings. You are just like Andrew!" She looked straight at her
daughter, her eyes fierce with candor. "I love Mortimore best," she
said, in a whisper.
For a single instant they stared at each other like two strangers. The
mother was the first to come to herself. "I—I didn't mean that,
Freddy. I love you both alike. But it was wicked to speak so of your
father."
"I was a beast to hurt your feelings!" Frederica said; "and I don't in
the least mind your loving Mortimore best. But what I said about
Father is true; his being my father doesn't alter the fact that he was
horrid. Mother, you know he was horrid! Don't let's pretend, at any
rate to each other."
Her face twitched with eagerness to be understood; she tried to put
her arm around her mother; but Mrs. Payton turned a rigid cheek to
her lips; and instantly Fred lapsed back into contempt of unreality.
The fact was, the deed was done. Each had told the other the truth.
Mother and daughter had both seen the flash of the blade of fact as
it cut pretense between them. Never again would Mrs. Payton's
vanity over duty done dare to raise its head in her daughter's
presence: Freddy knew that, so far as her married life went, duty
had been cowardly acquiescence. Never again would Frederica be
able to fling at her mother her superior morality: Mrs. Payton knew
she was cruel, knew she was "just like her father."... Like Andy
Payton! She ground her teeth with disgust, but she could not deny
it. She was so truthful that she saw the Truth; saw her father's
intelligence in her own clear mind; his ability in hers; his meanness
in her ruthless smartness in proving a point. She hated him for these
things—but she hated herself more.
Mrs. Payton told Arthur Weston of this revealing scene; but her
confession confined itself to her remorse for having said she loved
one child more than the other. "Of course I love them just exactly
the same, but Freddy was wicked to speak disrespectfully of her
father."
Then Frederica poured her contrition into his pitying ears.
"I was a beast, but I was not a liar."
"It isn't necessary to be a beast, to be truthful," he reminded her.
"I made her cry," she said. "Father used to do that. Do—do you think
I'm like him?"
"Like your father? Good Lord, no!" he said, in horrified haste; then
apologized. "I—I mean, Mr. Payton was a very able man, I had great
respect for his brains; but he was—severe."
"'Severe'? Well, I'm 'severe,' I suppose? No; the trouble with me is,
I'm hideously truthful—and I like to be."
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