_BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON_ THE HOPE OF HAPPINESS BEST LAID SCHEMES THE MAN IN THE STREET BLACKSHEEP! BLACKSHEEP! LADY LARKSPUR THE MADNESS OF MAY THE VALLEY OF DEMOCRACY _CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS_ THE HOPE OF HAPPINESS THE HOPE OF HAPPINESS BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1923 COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO. Printed in the United States of America Published October, 1923 [Illustration] TO FRANK SCOTT COREY WICKS “Only themselves understand themselves, and the like of themselves, As Souls only understand Souls.” THE HOPE OF HAPPINESS THE HOPE OF HAPPINESS CHAPTER ONE I Bruce Storrs stood up tall and straight on a prostrate sycamore, the sunlight gleaming upon his lithe, vigorous body, and with a quick, assured lifting of the arms plunged into the cool depths of the river. He rose and swam with long, confident strokes the length of a pool formed by the curving banks and returned to the log, climbing up with the same ease and grace that marked his swimming. He dashed the water from his eyes and pressed his deeply-tanned hands over his shapely head. It was evident that he was the fortunate inheritor of clean blood in a perfectly fashioned body; that he had used himself well in his twenty-eight years and that he found satisfaction and pride in his health and strength. He surveyed the narrow valley through which the river idled and eddied before rushing into the broader channel beyond--surveyed it with something of the air of a discoverer who has found and appropriated to his own uses a new corner of the world. It was a good place to be at the end of a day that was typical of late August in the corn belt, a day of intense dry heat with faint intimations on the horizon of the approach of autumn. With a contented sigh he sat down on the log, his feet drawn up, his shoulders bent, and aimlessly tore bits of bark from the log and tossed them into the water. Lulled by the lazy ripple, he yielded himself to reverie and his eyes filled with dreams as he stared unseeingly across the stream. Suddenly he raised his head resolutely as if his thoughts had returned to the world of the actual and he had reached a conclusion of high importance. He plunged again and now his short, rapid strokes threshed the water into foam. One might have thought that in the assertion of his physical strength he was testing and reassuring himself of his complete self-mastery.