The Danger Mark | Page 4

were fast forgetting him. The town had long
since forgotten him. Only an old friend or two and his old servants
remembered what he had been, his virtues, his magnificence, his
kindness, and his weakness.
But if the Seagrave twins possessed neither father nor mother to
exercise tender temporal and spiritual suzerainty in the nursery, and if

no memory of their grandfather's adoring authority remained, the last
will and testament of Anthony Seagrave had provided a marvellous,
man-created substitute for the dead: a vast, shadowy thing which ruled
their lives with passionless precision; which ordered their waking hours
even to the minutest particulars; which assumed machine-like charge of
their persons, their personal expenses, their bringing-up, their schooling,
the items of their daily routine.
This colossal automaton, almost terrifyingly impersonal, loomed
always above them, throwing its powerful and gigantic shadow across
their lives. As they grew old enough to understand, it became to them
the embodiment of occult and unpleasant authority which controlled
their coming and going; which chose for them their personal but not
their legal guardian, Kathleen Severn; which fixed upon the number of
servants necessary for the house that Anthony Seagrave directed should
be maintained for his grandchildren; which decided what kind of
expenses, what sort of clothing, what recreations, what
accomplishments, what studies, what religion they should be provided
with.
And the name of this enormous man-contrived machine which took the
place of father and mother was the Half Moon Trust Company, acting
as trustee, guardian, and executor for two little children, who neither
understood why they were sometimes very unruly or that they would
one day be very, very rich.
As for their outbreaks, an intense sense of loneliness for which they
were unable to account was always followed by a period of restlessness
sure to culminate in violent misbehaviour.
Such an outbreak had been long impending. So when a telegram called
away their personal guardian, Kathleen Severn, the children broke
loose with the delicate fury of the April tempest outside, which all the
morning had been blotting the western windows with gusts of fragrant
rain.
The storm was passing now; light volleys of rain still arrived at
intervals, slackening as the spring sun broke out, gilding naked

branches and bare brown earth, touching swelling buds and the frail
points of tulips which pricked the soaked loam in close-set thickets.
From the library bay windows where they stood, the children noticed
dandelions in the grass and snowdrops under the trees and recognised
the green signals of daffodil and narcissus.
Already crocuses, mauve, white, and yellow, glimmered along a
dripping privet hedge which crowned the brick and granite wall
bounding the domain of Seagrave. East, through the trees, they could
see the roofs of electric cars speeding up and down Madison Avenue,
and the houses facing that avenue. North and south were quiet streets;
westward Fifth Avenue ran, a sheet of wet, golden asphalt glittering
under the spring sun, and beyond it, above the high retaining wall,
budding trees stood out against the sky, and the waters of the Park
reservoirs sparkled behind.
"I am glad it's spring, anyway," said Geraldine listlessly.
"What's the good of it?" asked Scott. "We'll have to take all our
exercise with Kathleen just the same, and watch other children having
good times. What's the use of spring?"
"Spring is tiresome," admitted Geraldine thoughtfully.
"So is winter. I think either would be all right if they'd only let me have
a few friends. There are plenty of boys I'd like to have some fun with if
they'd let me."
"I wonder," mused Geraldine, "if there is anything the matter with us,
Scott?"
"Why?"
"Oh--I don't know. People stare at us so--nurses always watch us and
begin to whisper as soon as we come along. Do you know what a boy
said to me once when I skated very far ahead of Kathleen?"

"What did he say?" inquired Scott, flattening his nose against the
window-pane to see whether it still hurt him.
"He asked me if I were too rich and proud to play with other children. I
was so surprised; and I said that we were not rich at all, and that I never
had had any money, and that I was not a bit proud, and would love to
stay and play with him if Kathleen permitted me."
"Did Kathleen let you? Of course she didn't."
"I told her what the boy said and I showed her the boy, but she wouldn't
let me stay and play."
"Kathleen's a pig."
"No, she isn't, poor dear. They make her act that way--Mr. Tappan
makes her. Our grandfather didn't want us to have friends."
"I'll tell you what," said Scott impatiently, "when I'm old enough, I'll
have other boys to play with whether Kathleen and--and that