Contrary Mary

Up-stairs among his books Roger Poole heard Mary come in. With the

curtains drawn behind him to shut out the light, he looked down into

the streaming night, and saw Porter drive away alone.

Then Mary's footstep on the stairs; her raised voice as she greeted

Aunt Isabelle, who had waited up for her. A door was shut, and again

the house sank into silence.

Roger turned to his books, but not to read. The old depression was

upon him. In the glow of his arrival, he had been warmed by the hope

that things could be different; here in this hospitable house he had,

perchance, found a home. So he had gone down to find that he was an

outsider--an alien--old where they were young, separated from Barry and

Porter and Mary by years of dark experience.

To him, at this moment, Mary Ballard stood for a symbol of the things

which he had lost. Her youth and light-heartedness, her high courage,

and now, perhaps, her romance. He knew the look that was in Porter

Bigelow's eyes when they had rested upon her. The look of a man who

claims--his own. And behind Bigelow's pleasant and perfunctory

greeting Roger had felt a subtle antagonism. He smiled bitterly. No

man need fear him. He was out of the running. He was done with love,

with romance, with women, forever. A woman had spoiled his life.

Yet, if before the other, he had met Mary Ballard? The possibilities

swept over him. His life to-day would have been different. He would

be facing the world, not turning his back to it.

Brooding over the dying fire, his eyes were stern. If it had been his

fault, he would have taken his punishment without flinching. But to be

overthrown by an act of chivalry--to be denied the expression of that

which surged within him. Daily he bent over a desk, doing the work

that any man might do, he who had been carried on the shoulders of his

fellow students, he whose voice had rung with a clarion call!

In the lower hall, a door was again opened, and now there were

footsteps ascending. Then he heard a little laugh. "I've found

her--Aunt Isabelle, she insists upon going up."

He clicked off his light and very carefully opened his door. Mary was

in the lower hall, the heavy gray cat hugged up in her arms. She wore

a lace boudoir cap, and a pale blue dressing-gown trailed after her.

Seen thus, she was exquisitely feminine. Faintly through his

consciousness flitted Porter Bigelow's name for her--Contrary Mary.

Why Contrary? Was there another side which he had not seen? He had

heard her flaming words to Barry, "If I were a man--I'd make the world

move----" and he had been for the moment repelled. He had no sympathy

with modern feminine rebellions. Women were women. Men were men. The

things which they had in common were love, and that which followed, the

home, the family. Beyond these things their lives were divided,

necessarily, properly.