



Produced by Al Haines.





[Illustration: A flower shot down amid the crowd.  Page 19.]




                        *Latter-Day Sweethearts*


                                   By

                         *MRS. BURTON HARRISON*

                               Author of

                           "A Bachelor Maid,"
               "The Carlyles," "The Circle of a Century,"
                        "The Anglomaniacs," Etc.


          "La Duchesse.--'L'amour est le fleau du monde.  Tous
                    nos maux nous viennent de lui.'

            "Le Docteur.--'C'est le seul qui les guerisse,"
                        --"_Le Duel_," _Henri Lavedan_.


            Illustrated in Water-Colors by FRANK T. MERRILL


                           A. S. & T. HUNTER
                            SPECIAL EDITION,
                              UTICA, N. Y.


                          NEW YORK AND LONDON
                 THE AUTHORS AND NEWSPAPERS ASSOCIATION
                                  1907




                          COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY
                       CONSTANCE BURTON HARRISON.

                     _Entered at Stationers' Hall._
                         _All Rights Reserved._



                    Composition and Electrotyping by
                           J. J. Little & Co.
                        Printed and bound by the
                     Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass.




[Illustration: (Facsimile Page of Manuscript from LATTER-DAY
SWEETHEARTS)]




                              *LATTER-DAY
                              SWEETHEARTS*



                              *CHAPTER I*


In going aboard the "Baltic" that exceptionally fine October morning,
Miss Carstairs convinced herself that, of the people assembled to see
her off, no one could reasonably discern in her movement the suggestion
of a retreat. The commonplace of a sailing for the other side would not,
indeed, have met with the recognition of any attendance at the pier
among her set, save for her hint that she might remain abroad a year.
There had been a small rally on the part of a few friends who had
chanced to meet at a dinner overnight, to go down to the White Star
docks and say good-by to Helen Carstairs.  Helen sincerely wished they
had not come, both because the ceremony proved a little flat, and
because, when she had time to think them over, she was not so sure they
were her friends.

But the main thing was that she had been able to withdraw, easily and
naturally, from a doubly trying situation.  She had not wanted to go
abroad.  All the novelty and sparkle had gone out of that business long
ago.  She knew foreign travel from A to Z, and she loathed tables
d'hote, even more than the grim prospect of private meals with Miss
Bleecker in sitting-rooms redolent of departed food, insufficiently
atoned for by an encircling wilderness of gilding and red plush.  The
very thought of a concierge with brass buttons lifting his cap to her
every time she crossed the hall, of hotel corridors decked with strange
foot gear upon which unmade bedrooms yawned, of cabs and galleries and
harpy dressmakers, of sights and fellow tourists, gave her a mental
qualm.  But it was better than staying at home this winter in the big
house in Fifth Avenue where Mr. Carstairs had just brought a stepmother
for her, in the person of "that Mrs. Coxe."

There was apparently no valid reason for Helen's shuddering antipathy to
the lady, who had been the widow of a junior partner of her father, a
man whom Mr. Carstairs had "made," like many another beginning in his
employ.

Mr. Coxe had died two years before, of nervous overstrain, leaving this
flamboyantly handsome, youngish woman to profit by his gains.  Helen had
always disliked having to ask the Coxes to dinner when her father's fiat
compelled her to preside over the dull banquets of certain
smartly-dressed women and weary, driven men, whom he assembled at
intervals around his board.  She could not say what she objected to in
Mrs. Coxe; she thought it might be her giggle and her double chin.  It
had been always a relief when one of these "business" dinners was over,
and she knew she would not have to do it soon again.  When Mr. Carstairs
dined in return with the Coxes, they had him at some fashionable
restaurant, taking him afterward to the play.  Mrs. Coxe had shown sense
enough for that!  During the interregnum of Mrs. Coxe's mourning
following the demise of her exhausted lord, Mr. Carstairs had had the
yacht meet Helen and himself at Gibraltar, and cruised all that winter
in the Mediterranean.

That had been life abroad, Helen thought, with a throb of yearning!  She
was very fond of her father, rather a stony image to most people, and
immensely proud of the way people looked up to his achievements in the
Street, the resistless rush of his business combinations, his massive
wealth, and his perfect imperturbability to newspaper cavil and attacks
by enemies.  She had loved to be at the head of his establishment, and
to receive the clever and distinguished and notable people, foreign and
domestic, who accepted Mr. Carstairs' invitation to meet one another,
because they were clever and distinguished and notable, not because they
wanted to talk all the evening what they had talked all day.

When they had come home from their cruise, Helen spent the summer in
Newport, where her father rarely went.  The yacht was his summer home,
he was wont to say; and Helen did not suspect how often that season the
noble "Sans Peur" had been anchored off the shores of a settlement in
Long Island where Mrs. Coxe was enjoying the seclusion of a shingled
villa with broad verandas set in a pocket handkerchief of lawn.  Back
and forth flew the owner's steam launch between the "Sans Peur" and the
landing, and yet nobody told Helen.  That autumn she had affairs of her
own to absorb her time and give her a sobering view of humanity.  For
the first time in her life her father had vacated his throne as
masculine ruler of her thoughts.  She had passed into the grip of a
strong, real passion for a man "nobody" knew.

That is to say, John Glynn was too hard at work to let himself be found
out.  Helen had indulged in her affair with him almost unknown to her
acquaintances, most of whom regarded the foot of the ladder of wealth,
where he distinctly stood, as the one spot where dalliance in sentiment
was to be shunned.  Her movements were hampered by the fact that,
although the daughter of a plutocrat, she had only a trifle of her own;
Mr. Carstairs having announced, with the insolent eccentricity of some
men of his stripe, that she should go dowerless to her husband, hoping
thus to protect her from fortune-seekers, foreign and native.  So long
as she remained unmarried under his roof she was to enjoy great wealth
and the importance it confers. Until now Helen had not cared.  Her brain
was clear, her head was cool, she had tastes and occupations that filled
every hour, and plenty of people who flocked around her, paying court to
the dispenser of liberal hospitalities.

Her love passage had ended in disaster, but exactly what had passed
between her and the unknown Glynn, no one was sufficiently intimate with
Helen to ascertain.

The marriage of her father with Mrs. Coxe had taken place in June, after
which Mr. Carstairs had withdrawn his apparent objections to Newport,
and blossomed out there as a villa resident of supreme importance. The
months of this but partially successful experiment on the part of the
new Mrs. Carstairs had been passed by Helen in suppressed misery.  She
had gone into camp in the Adirondacks, had visited friends at Dark
Harbor, and welcomed with thankfulness the invitation to spend September
with a young couple of her acquaintance who had a house at Lenox,
filled, with the exception of one spare room, with assorted dogs.

Early in October her father, visibly inspired by the lady who no longer
giggled in Helen's presence, but had not lost her double chin, gave his
recalcitrant daughter "a good talking to."  If she persisted in her
rebellious demeanor towards her stepmother, the more reprehensible
because reserved, she was at liberty to do one of two things, viz., take
a furnished house in town and engage Miss Bleecker, or somebody, to be
her chaperon; or else go where she liked, abroad.

Choosing the latter alternative, Helen had been considered fortunate in
securing for her companion the lady in question, who was certified by
her believers to be rarely disengaged. Miss Bleecker, in earlier days,
had given readings in New York drawing-rooms and elsewhere about the
country, until the gradual fading away of audiences had turned her
thoughts into the present more lucrative and less fatiguing channel of
genteelest occupation.

Nature had gifted her with an ephemerally imposing presence, large,
cold, projecting eyes, an authoritative voice and an excellent knowledge
of the art of dress.  It was familiarly said that to see her come into a
room was a lesson to any girl; and her acquaintance with the ins and
outs of New York society and fond pride in the display of it, put the
dull lady beyond criticism as a general conversationalist.

The two travellers were attended by a French maid, closely modelled in
exterior upon previous employers of rank abroad, whose service she had
relinquished for the higher wage resulting from her American decadence
in social standing.  Her large wad of suspiciously golden hair, frizzed
over the eyebrows, was a souvenir of a "Lady Reggie"; while the flat
waist, girdled low upon the hips of a portly person, was her best
tribute to the slim young Princess Bartolozzi who had had her two years
in Rome.  This composite rendering of great ladies did not rob
Mademoiselle Eulalie of the coarse modelling of her features; but, on
the other hand, as Miss Bleecker said, she was safe from couriers, and
her packing was a dream.

When Helen went to the cabin de luxe secured by her father's secretary,
into which Miss Bleecker's room opened, she felt impatient with the
girls who followed her, exclaiming approvingly over its comforts; with
the maid who stood sentinel by her gold-fitted dressing-case; with Miss
Bleecker, who, in colloquy with a white-capped stewardess, was already
laying down the law as to their requirements on the voyage.  She hurried
out again, encompassed by her friends, to gain the upper deck, where the
men of the visiting party, looking unanimously bored, awaited anxiously
the ringing of the last gong that should drive them from the ship.  All
had been said that could be said on either side. Vague repetitions had
set in.  Helen's eyes roved eagerly over the crowds on the pier below,
over the congested gangway.  She was hoping to see her father,
and--perhaps, but improbably--one other.  Late in the fray a brougham
rattled along the pier and drew up below.  Helen recognized her father's
big brown horse and his steady coachman in sober livery, the down-town
outfit of the financier, who, below Fourteenth Street, was simplicity
itself.  Mr. Carstairs, with a preoccupied air, got out and ascended the
gangway.  The official in charge at the top of it, who would have barred
the way to a lesser man, smiled and waved the magnate into his
daughter's embraces.  Everything insensibly yielded to the subtle power
of this ruler of the destinies of men.  Helen, as she drew out of the
lax clasp of the paternal arm, felt a thrill of her old pride in him; a
sense of despair that she was nevermore to be his chosen companion for a
voyage; a sharp pang of resentment at the image of the absent interloper
of their peace.

"It was too good of you to find time to come, papa!" she exclaimed,
turning to nod to the secretary who accompanied him. "Who knows when we
shall be together again!"

"Yes, there is a board of directors waiting for me now," said Mr.
Carstairs abstractedly. "Of course, you will be all right, my dear.
Foster has seen to everything, and Miss Bleecker will--ah.  Miss
Bleecker, here you are; glad to see you looking so fit for the voyage.
Nothing to speak of, though, a crossing in this monster.  Wish I were
getting away myself.  I'm off now, Helen, my dear. Wish you good luck
and a good time generally!"

"It won't be with you and the 'Sans Peur,' father," exclaimed the girl,
with filling eyes.

"Well, well, we did get along pretty well last cruise, didn't we?  I was
to tell you," he added, lowering his tone, "that if you are in the humor
for it, in the Spring--in the humor, mind you, we'll be out, probably in
March, and take you and Miss Bleecker on at Villefranche, or anywhere
you like."

"Thank you, sir," said Helen, rigid in a moment, her eyes dried of
moisture.

"Think it over, my dear!  You'll find it better worth while."

He kissed her again on the side of the cheek, missing her lips somehow,
and was gone. Helen hardly saw his spare figure in the topcoat that
seemed too large for it, so quickly the crowd closed behind him.  She
was conscious of impatience with Foster, who stood there bowing in his
sleek importance as the millionaire's confidential man, extending his
dampish fingers for good-by.  The party who had come to see her off
sprinkled their final farewells with a few banal last remarks and
disappeared.  Miss Bleecker, serenely proud, took her station by the
taffrail in a place where no acquaintance or reporter could fail to note
her among the "well-known people sailing this morning."  Helen was at
last alone.

Alone as she had never felt before, in her five-and-twenty years of
active, independent life.  A gap in the double row of passengers
crowding to the rail forward gave her an opportunity.  Slipping in, she
looked down upon upturned, ivory-tinted faces massed together like those
on a Chinese screen; at the windows of the company's rooms, also crowded
with gazers, but saw nobody she knew.

Already the mighty ship began to stir in her water-bed.  When she ceased
motion again, Helen would be over three thousand miles from home, and
the memories of this last trying year.  It seemed to her there was not
one soul ashore to care whether she went or stayed.  Was this worth
living for, even as she had lived?

A voice smote upon her ear.  It issued from a girl jammed in next to
her--a girl younger than herself, extremely pretty, flashily attired,
recklessly unconventional.  Hers was what Helen recognized to be a
Southern voice, low of pitch and soft of cadence, but just now strained
to the utmost to make itself audible to a young man in the act of
forcing his way through the resistant crowd, to reach the edge of the
outer pier from which the ship was now swinging off.  To further
accentuate her presence among the departing, the young lady was waving a
small American flag.

"Jo-oh-n!  Oh!  Mr. Glynn!  Look up! Here I am!  Up here!"

Helen started electrically, for it was _her_ John Glynn, and none other,
whom this unknown person was thus shamelessly appropriating!  He, whom
she had been yearning to catch a glimpse of, who she was convinced must
know from the papers that she was sailing by this steamer.  He, who she
had felt sure was in some hidden corner looking after her, although, by
her behest, they might not again hold speech one with the other!

"Got here only this minute.  Best I could do!" shouted John Glynn back
to the stranger, a smile lighting his handsome, manly face.

"Never mind!  I understand!  Good-by!"

A flower shot down amid the crowd.  Several men affected to jump for it,
but John Glynn caught it and put it in his coat.  His gaze never left
Helen's neighbor; to her his eyes were upturned, his hat was waved.  In
a flash, Miss Carstairs had drawn out of sight and fled within.

She found Miss Bleecker already extended upon the couch in her own
stateroom, taking tea, the door opened between, whilst Eulalie, kneeling
before steamer trunks and bags, was littering everything near-by with
luxurious belongings.

Helen accepted a cup of tea, changed her street costume for a long,
close-fitting brown ulster with a sable toque and boa, in which Eulalie
told her she was _parfaitement bien mise_; and, escaping again to the
deck, walked up and down a comparatively clear space until the "Baltic"
was well down the bay. Then, fairly tired, but unwilling to face Miss
Bleecker's chatter, she found a chair forward, where it was not likely
she would sit again during the voyage, and with a wisp of brown chiffon
drawn close over her face, abandoned herself to melancholy thought.

So this was the end of John Glynn's lamenting for her loss!  She, not
he, had been faithful to the love they had shared so fondly for a little
while, in which she had no longer dared indulge with him.  This was the
way he had accepted her decision that they must try to forget each
other, finally.

During the one week of their secret engagement she had felt immeasurable
happiness.  But every moment of closer, contact with her young love, a
boy in world's knowledge beside herself, though of her own age in actual
years, convinced her of the fatal mistake she had made in believing she
could give up her present life for him, and clog his career by an early
marriage.  So she had broken the bond ruthlessly, and her father had
never known of its existence.  And his consolation so quickly found!
Helen's lip curled disdainfully.  Some girl he had met in his
boarding-house; the kind of thing he had been accustomed to before Miss
Carstairs treated her jaded taste to his virile freshness and charming
looks, his masterful reliance upon himself, his willingness to take her,
poor or rich!  The type of girl she had seen in the tumultuous moment
beside the rail was puzzling.  Not a lady, according to her
artificialized standard, but having the frank assurance and belief in
herself that had attracted Helen to John Glynn, with a something of good
breeding underneath.  Cheaply dressed, cheap mannered, perhaps, ignorant
of what Miss Carstairs considered elemental necessities of training, but
never vulgar.

But whatever the rival, the hurt was that Glynn cared for Helen no more,
while she cared just the same.  What a fool she had been to believe that
masculine fidelity survives the blows of fate!

Masked in her brown veil, Helen sat in her corner, turning this bitter
morsel upon her tongue, her eyes vaguely resting upon the passing show
of passengers as they came straying up on deck to make the best of a
fine afternoon while getting out to sea. Impatiently casting aside her
unwelcome thoughts, she tried to interest herself in these people, to
speculate upon their identity, purpose, and personality, with the usual
rather poor returns, since a ship's company assembled at first view has
always the most depressing influence upon the looker-on. Beside her,
upon one of the rare seats of a liner that belong to nobody, she espied
a shabby little man, in an overcoat like a faded leaf, drop down
furtively, then seeing no one inclined to disturb him, relax his muscles
and, taking off an ancient, wide-brimmed felt hat, look about him with a
beaming smile, prepared for full enjoyment of the hour and scene.

Something in the artless buoyancy of his manner, his meek acceptance of
a modest place in life, his indifference to the considerations that
oftenest vex