_ CHAPTER XIII. ALLIANCE WITH ABBOTT
       For the most part, that was a silent walk to Hamilton Gregory's. Abbott Ashton pushed the wheel-chair, and it was only Mrs. Jefferson, ignorant of what had taken place, who commented on the bright moon, and the relief of rose-scented breezes after the musty auditorium of Walnut Street church.
       "They were bent and determined on Fran going to choir practice," the old lady told Abbott, "so Lucy and I went along to encourage her, for they say she has a fine voice, and they want all the good singing they can have at Uncle Tobe Fuller's funeral. Uncle Tobe, he didn't know one tune from another, but now that he's dead, he knows 'em all--for he was a good man. I despise big doings at funerals, but I expect to go, and as I can't hear the solos, nor the preacher working up feelings, all I'll have to do will be to sit and look at the coffin."
       "Mother," said Mrs. Gregory, "you are not cheerful to-night."
       "No," the other responded, "I think it's from sitting so long by the Whited Sepulcher."
       Mrs. Gregory spoke into the trumpet, with real distress--"Mother, mother! Abbott won't understand you; he doesn't know you are using a figure of speech."
       "Yes," said the old lady, "Number Thirteen, if there's anything unlucky in figures."
       Abbott effected diversion. "Mrs. Gregory, I'm glad Miss Noir agreed to say nothing about her discoveries, for the only harm in them is what people might imagine. I was pretty uneasy, at first; of course I knew that if she felt she ought to tell it, she would. I never knew anybody so conscientious."
       There was a pause, then Mrs. Gregory responded, "She will not tell."
       Abbott had seen them safely into the house, and had reached the gate on his departure, when Fran came running up. In pleased surprise he opened the gate for her, but she stopped in the outside shadow, and he paused within the yard.
       "Fran!" he exclaimed with pleasure. "Is the practice ended?"
       She made no response.
       "Fran, what's the matter?"
       Silence.
       Abbott was both perplexed and hurt. "Remember what we said on the new bridge," he urged; "we're friends 'while we're together and after we part!'"
       "Somebody ought to burn that new bridge," said Fran, in a muffled tone; "it's no good making wishes come true."
       "Why do you say that? Aren't we the best of friends?"
       Fran collected herself, and spoke with cool distinctness: "I have a pretty hard battle to fight, Mr. Ashton, and it's necessary to know who's on my side, and who isn't. I may not come out ahead; but I'm not going to lose out from taking a foe for a friend."
       "Which you will kindly explain?"
       "You are Grace Noir's friend--that explains it."
       "I am your friend, too, Fran."
       "My friend, too!" she echoed bitterly. "Oh, thanks--also!"
       Abbott came through the gate, and tried to read her face. "Does the fact that I am her friend condemn me?"
       "No--just classifies you. You couldn't be her friend if you were not a mirror in which she sees herself; her conscience is so sure, that she hasn't use for anything but a faithful reflector of her opinions. She empties her friends of all personality, and leaves them filled with their imagination of her character."
       "Her friends are mere puppets, it appears," Abbott said, smiling. "But that's rather to her credit, isn't it? Would you mind to explain your imagination of her character?"
       His jesting tone made her impatient. "I don't think her character has ever had a chance to develop; she's too fixed on thinking herself what she isn't. Her opinion of what she ought to be is so sure, that she has never discovered what she really is. And you can't possibly hold a secret from her, if you're her friend; she takes it from you as one snatches a toy from a little child."
       Abbott was still amused. "Has she emptied me of all she wants?"
       "Yes. You have given her strong weapons against me, and you may be sure she'll use them to her advantage."
       "Fran, step back into the light--let me see your face; are you in earnest? Your eyes are smoldering--Oh, Fran, those eyes! What weapons have I given her?"
       Fran set her back against the fence, and looked at him darkly. Now and then some one passed, with a curious look, and constrained greeting-- for in Littleburg every one was known. "The secret of my age, and the secret of my past."
       "I told her neither."
       "As soon as you and Mrs. Gregory wheeled away Mrs. Jefferson," said Fran, "I went right down from the choir loft, and straight over to her. I looked her in the eye, and I asked what you had been telling about me. Why, you told her everything, even that I was trying to find out whether you and I would ever--would ever get married! I might aswell say it, it came pat enough from her--and you told! Nobody else knew. And you dropped your King of Hearts over the fence--you told her that! And when we were standing there at the gate, you even tried--but no, I'll leave you and Miss Grace to discuss such subjects. Here we are at the same gate, but I guess there's not much danger, now!"
       "Fran!" cried Abbott, with burning cheeks, "I didn't tell her, upon my honor I didn't. I had to admit dropping the card, to keep her from thinking you out here at midnight with a stranger. She saw us in the shadow, and guessed--that other. I didn't tell her anything about your age. I didn't mention the carnival company."
       Fran's concentrated tones grew milder: "But Mrs. Gregory has known about the show all this time. She would die before she'd tell on me."
       "I never told, Fran. I'm not going to say that again; but you shall believe me."
       "Of course, Abbott. But it just proves what I said, about her emptying her friends, about taking their secrets from them even without their knowing she's doing it. I said to her, sharp and quick, 'What have you been saying about me, Miss Noir?' She said--'I understand from Professor Ashton that you are not a young girl at all, but a masquerader of at least eighteen years.' I answered--'Being a masquerader of at least thirty-five, you should have found that out, yourself.' I hardly think she's thirty-five; it wasn't a fair blow, but you have to fight Indians in the brush. Then your friend said, 'Professor Ashton informs me that you are a circus-girl. Don't you think you've strayed too far from the tent?' she asked. I said--'Oh, I brought the show with me; Professor Ashton is my advance advertising agent.' Then she said that if I'd leave, Mr. Gregory need never know that I'm an impostor. But I told her no tickets are going to be returned. I said--'This show absolutely takes place, rain or shine.'"
       "Fran," said Abbott in distress, "I want to talk this over--come here in the yard where you're not so conspicuous."
       "Show-girls ought to be conspicuous. No, sir, I stay right here in the glaring moonlight. It doesn't call for darkness to tell me anything that is on your mind, Professor."
       "Fran, you can't hold me responsible for what Miss Grace guessed. I tell you, she guessed everything. I was trying to defend you-- suddenly she saw through it all. I don't know how it was--maybe Mrs. Gregory can explain, as she's a woman. You shall not deem me capable of adding an atom to your difficulties. You shall feel that I'm your friend 'while we're together and after we part.' You must believe me when I tell you that I need your smile." His voice trembled with sudden tenderness. "You must accept what I say as the greatest fact in my life--that I can't be happy, if you are angry with me."
       She looked at him searchingly, then her face relaxed to the eve of revolution. "Who have you been trying to get a glimpse of, all the times you parade the street in front of our house?"
       Abbott declared, "You!" In mute appeal he held out his hand.
       "You're a weak brother, but here--" And she slipped her hand into his. "If she'd been in conversation with me, I wouldn't have let her have any presentiments. It takes talent to keep from telling what you know, but genius to keep the other fellow from guessing. What I hate about it is, that the very next time you fall into her hands, you'll be at her mercy. If I told you a scheme I've been devising, she'd take it from you in broad daylight. She can always prove she's right, because she has the verse for it,--and to deny her is to deny Inspiration. And if she had her way,--she thinks I'm a sort of dissipation--there'd be a national prohibition of Fran."
       "If there were a national prohibition of Fran, I'd be the first to smuggle you in somehow, little Nonpareil. I do believe that Miss Grace is the most conscientious person I ever knew, except Mr. Gregory. Just the same, I'm your friend. Isn't it something for me to have taken you on trust as I have, from the very beginning?"
       His brown eyes were so earnest that Fran stepped into the shadow. "It's more than something, Abbott. Your trust is about all I have. It's just like me to be wanting more than I have. I'm going to confide in you my scheme. Let's talk it over in whispers." They put their heads together. "Tomorrow, Grace Noir is going to the city with Bob Clinton to select music for the choir--he doesn't know any more about music than poor Uncle Tobe Fuller, but you see, he's still alive. It will be the first day she's been off the place since I came. While she's away, I mean to make my grand effort."
       "At what, Little Wonder?"
       "At driving her away for good. I'm going to offer myself as secretary, and with her out of sight, I'm hoping to win the day."
       "But she's been his secretary for five years--is it reasonable he'd give her up? And would it be honorable for you to work against her in that way? Besides, Fran, she is really necessary to Mr. Gregory's great charity enterprises--"
       "The more reason for getting rid of her."
       "I don't understand how you mean that. I know Mr. Gregory's work would be seriously crippled. And it would be a great blow to Walnut Street church--she's always there."
       "Still, you see she can't stay."
       "No, I don't see. You and Miss Grace must be reconciled."
       "Oh, Abbott, can't you understand, or is it that you just won't? It isn't on my account that Miss Noir must leave this house. She's going to bring trouble--she's already done it. I've had lots of experience, and when I see people hurrying down hill, I expect to find them at the bottom, not because it's in the people, but because it's in the direction. I don't care how no-account folks are, if they keep doggedly climbing up out of the valley, just give 'em time, and they'll reach the mountain-top. I believe some mighty good-intentioned men are stumbling down hill, carrying their religion right into hell."
       "Hush, little friend! You don't understand what religion is."
       "If I can't find out from its fruits, I don't want to know."
       "Of course. But consider how Miss Grace's labors are blessing the helpless."
       "Abbott, unless the fruits of religion are flavored by love, they're no more account than apples taken with bitter-rot--not worth fifty cents a barrel. The trouble with a good deal of the church-fruit to- day is bitter-rot."
       Abbott asked slyly, "What about your fruit, out there in the world?"
       "Oh," Fran confessed, with a gleam, "we're not in the orchard-business at all, out here."
       Abbott laid his hand earnestly upon her arm. "Fran! Come in and help us spray."
       "You dear old prosy, preachy professor!" she exclaimed affectionately, "I have been thinking of it. I've half a mind to try, really. Wouldn't Grace Noir just die?...O Lord, there she comes, now!"
       Fran left the disconsolate young man in wild precipitation, and flew into the house. He wondered if she had been seen standing there, and he realized that, if so, the purest motives could not outweigh appearances. He turned off in another direction, and Gregory and Grace came slowly toward the house, having, without much difficulty, eliminated Simon Jefferson from their company.
       In truth, Simon, rather than be improved by their conversation, had dived down a back alley, and found entrance through the side door. When Hamilton Gregory and his secretary came into the reception hall, the old bachelor lay upon a divan thinking of his weak heart--Fran's flight from the choir loft had reminded him of it--and Mrs. Jefferson was fanning him, as if he were never to be a grown man. Mrs. Gregory sat near the group, silently embroidering in white silk. Fran had hastily thrown herself upon the stairway, and, with half-closed eyes, looked as if she had been there a long time.
       "Fran," said Mr. Gregory coldly, "you left the choir practice before we were two-thirds done. Of course I could hardly expect you--" he looked at his wife--"to stay, although your presence would certainly have kept Fran there; and it does look as if we should be willing to resort to any expedient to keep her there!"
       "How would a lock and chain do?" Fran inquired meekly.
       "I don't think she came straight home, either," remarked Grace Noir significantly. "Did you, Fran?"
       "Miss Noir," said Fran, smiling at her through the banister-slats, "you are so satisfactory; you always say just about what I expect. Yes, I came straight home. I'm glad it's your business, so you could ask."
       Hamilton Gregory turned to his wife again, with restraint more marked. "Next Sunday is roll-call day, Mrs. Gregory. The board has decided to revise the lists. We've been carrying so many names that it's a burden to the church. The world reproaches us, saying, 'Isn't So-and-so a member? He never attends, does he?' I do hope you will go next Sunday!" Mrs. Gregory looked down at her work thoughtfully, then said, "Mother would be left--"
       "It's just this way," her husband interposed abruptly: "If no excuses, such as sickness, are sent, and if the people haven't been coming for months, and don't intend coming, we are simply determined to drop the names--strike 'em out. We believe church members should show where they stand. And--and if you--"
       Mrs. Gregory looked up quietly. Her voice seemed woven of the silk threads she was stitching in the white pattern. "If I am not a member of the church, sitting an hour in the building couldn't make me one."
       Simon Jefferson cried out, "Is that my sister Lucy? Blessed if I thought she had so much spirit!"
       "Do you call that spirit?" returned Gregory, with displeasure.
       "Well!" snorted Simon, "what do you call it, then?"
       "Perhaps," responded Gregory, with marked disapprobation, "perhaps it was spirit."
       Grace, still attired for the street, looked down upon Mrs. Gregory as if turned to stone. Her beautiful face expressed something like horror at the other's irreverence.
       Fran shook back her hair, and watched with gleaming eyes from behind the slats, not unlike a small wild creature peering from its cage.
       "Oh," cried Fran, "Miss Noir feels so bad!"
       Grace swept from the hall, her rounded figure instinct with the sufferings of a martyr.
       Fran murmured, "That killed her!"
       "And you!" cried Gregory, turning suddenly in blind anger upon the other--"you don't care whose heart you break."
       "I haven't any power over hearts," retorted Fran, gripping her fingers till her hands were little white balls. "Oh, if I only had! I'd get at 'em, if I could--like this..."
       She leaped to her feet.
       "Am I always to be defied by you?" he exclaimed; "is there to be no end to it? But suppose I put an end to it, myself--tell you that this is no place for you--"
       "You shall never say that!" Mrs. Gregory spoke up, distinctly, but not in his loud tones. She dropped her work in some agitation, and drew Fran to her heart. "I have a friend here, Hamilton--one friend--and she must stay."
       "Don't you be uneasy, dear one," Fran looked up lovingly into the frightened face. "He won't tell me to go. He won't put an end to it. He won't tell me anything!"
       "Listen to me, Lucy," said Gregory, his tone altering, "yes, she must stay--that's settled--she must stay. Of course. But you--why will you refuse what I ask, when for years you were one of the most faithful attendants at the Walnut Street church? I am asking you to go next Sunday because--well, you know how people judge by appearances. I'm not asking it for my sake--of course I know your real character--but go for Miss Grace's sake--go to show her where you stand. Lucy, I told her on the way from choir practice--I promised her that you should be there."
       "How is it about church attendance, anyway?" asked Fran, with the air of one who seeks after knowledge. "I thought you went to church for the Lord's sake, and not for Miss Noir's."
       "I have given you my answer, Mr. Gregory," said his wife faintly, "but I am sorry that it should make me seem obstinate--"
       He uttered a groan, and left the hall in despair. His gesture said that he must give it up.
       Mrs. Gregory folded her work, her face pale and drawn, her lips tremulous. She looked at Fran, and tried to smile. "We must go to rest, now," she said--"if we can." _