THE ALTERNATIVE By GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON Author of "The Husbands of Edith," "The Purple Parasol," "The Flyers," "The Butterfly Man," Etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS By HARRISON FISHER A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright, 1909, by DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Published, April, 1909 [Illustration: "'Agrippa! Come here, sir!'"] Contents CHAPTER I THE VAN PYCKES 1 CHAPTER II A YOUNG LADY ENTERS 26 CHAPTER III THE AMAZING MARRIAGE 53 CHAPTER IV THE SECRETARY GOES HOME 78 CHAPTER V HIS FIRST HOLIDAY 97 Illustrations "'Agrippa! Come here, sir!'" (_Frontispiece_) "'I am Mrs. De Foe's secretary,' she said quietly" "He was there. In fact he opened the door and assisted her to alight" "Her eyes were closed. He kissed the lids" THE ALTERNATIVE CHAPTER I THE VAN PYCKES A shrieking wind, thick with the sleety snow that knows no mercy nor feels remorse, beat vainly and with savage insolence against the staid windows in the lounging room of one of New York's most desirable clubs--one of those characteristic homes for college men who were up for membership on the day they were born, if one may speak so broadly of the virtue that links the early eighteenth-century graduate with his great-grandson of the class of 1908. Not to say, of course, that the eighteenth-century graduate was so carefully preserved from the biting snowstorm as the fellow of to-day, but that he got his learning in the ancient halls that now grind out his descendants by the hundred, one way or another. It is going much too far to assert that every member of this autocratic club had a colonial ancestor in college, but you'd think so if you didn't pin him down to an actual confession to the contrary. It is likely to be the way with college men who do not owe their degrees to certain mushroom institutions in the West, where electricity and mechanics are considered to be quite as necessary to a young man's equipment as the acquaintance, by tradition, with somebody's great-grandaddy, no matter how eminent he may have been in his primogenial day. All of which is neither here nor there. Ancestors for the future are in the club this night, enjoying the luxury, the coziness, the warmth, and the present good cheer of a great and glorious achievement: they are inside of solid walls on this bitter night, eating or tippling, smoking or toasting, reading or chatting with small regard for the ancient gentlemen who gave their _Alma Mater_ its name, but who, if suddenly come to life, would pass away again in a jiffy, not so much through the shock of opulence as at the sight of the wicked high-ball.