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 Evans
Lindsay

Managing for Quality and

Performance Excellence
Managing
for
Quality
and
Performance
Excellence

11e

James R. Evans
William M. Lindsay

11e

SE/Evans/Lindsay, Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence 11e  ISBN-13: 9780357442036 ©2020 Designer: Chris Doughman
9780357442036_CVR.indd 1 19/08/19 5:13 PM
Printer:   Binding: Casebound  Trim: 8" x 10"  CMYK
 Managing for Quality
and
Performance Excellence
ELEVENTH EDITION

JAMES R. EVANS
Professor Emeritus of Operations, Business Analytics, and Information Systems
University of Cincinnati

WILLIAM M. LINDSAY
Professor Emeritus of Management
Northern Kentucky University

Australia ● Brazil ● Mexico ● Singapore ● United Kingdom ● United States

18269_FM_ptg01.indd 1 2/15/19 5:53 PM

 Managing for Quality and Performance © 2020, 2017 Cengage Learning, Inc.
Excellence, Eleventh Edition
James R. Evans and William M. Lindsay Unless otherwise noted, all content is © Cengage.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright

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Printed in the United States of America

Print Number: 01   Print Year: 2019

42036_FM_rev01.indd 2 8/22/19 3:05 PM

 Brief Contents

Preface xvii

PART 1 Principles of Quality 1

Chapter 1 Introduction to Quality 3
Chapter 2 Foundations of Quality Management 49
Chapter 3 Customer Focus 95
Chapter 4 Workforce Focus 149
Chapter 5 Process Focus 201

PART 2 Tools and Techniques for Quality 247

Chapter 6 Statistical Methods in Quality Management 249
Chapter 7 Design for Quality and Product Excellence 305
Chapter 8 Measuring and Controlling Quality 371
Chapter 9 Process Improvement and Six Sigma 457

PART 3 Beyond Quality Management: Managing for

Performance Excellence 517
Chapter 10 The Baldrige Framework for Performance
Excellence 519
Chapter 11 Strategy and Performance Excellence 557
Chapter 12 Measurement and Knowledge Management for
Performance Excellence 595
Chapter 13 Leadership for Performance Excellence 637
Chapter 14 Building and Sustaining Quality and Performance
Excellence 667

Appendices A-1
Index I-1

iii

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18207_FM_ptg01.indd 4 1/17/19 2:50 PM
 Contents

Preface xvii

PART 1 Principles of Quality 1

Chapter 1 Introduction to Quality 3
QUALITY PROFILES: Motorola, Inc. and Mid-America Transplant 5
Defining Quality 6
Transcendent (Judgmental) Perspective 6
Product Perspective 6
User Perspective 7
Value Perspective 7
Manufacturing Perspective 8
Customer Perspective 8
Integrating Quality Perspectives in the Value Chain 9
History of Quality Management 10
The Age of Craftsmanship 11
The Early Twentieth Century 12
Post–World War II 13
The U.S. “Quality Revolution” 13
Rapid Growth of Quality in Business 14
From Product Quality to Total Quality Management 15
Early Management Failures 16
Performance Excellence 16
Emergence of Six Sigma 17
Globalization of Quality 17
Current and Future Challenges 17
Quality in Manufacturing 19
Manufacturing Systems 19
Quality in Service Organizations 23
Contrasts with Manufacturing 23
Components of Service Quality 24
Quality in Business Support Functions 26
The Role of the Quality Function 27
Quality and Competitive Advantage 28
Quality and Business Results 29
Quality and Personal Values 31
Summary of Key Points and Terminology 31
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: The Evolution of Quality at Xerox 32
v

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 vi Contents

QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Quality Practices in Modern China 37

Review Questions 38
Discussion Questions 39
Projects, Etc. 41
CASES Skilled Care Pharmacy 42
Dinner On-the-Go 43
Who’s Responsible for the Quality? 43
Deere & Company 44
Notes 46

Chapter 2 Foundations of Quality Management 49

QUALITY PROFILES: Texas Nameplate Company, Inc. and MEDRAD  50
The Deming Philosophy 51
Deming’s 14 Points 52
Profound Knowledge 57
The Juran Philosophy 62
The Crosby Philosophy 65
Comparing Deming, Juran, and Crosby 66
Other Quality Philosophers 66
A. V. Feigenbaum 67
Kaoru Ishikawa 67
Principles, Practices, and Techniques of Quality Management 68
Quality Management Principles 68
Quality Management Practices 69
Quality Management Techniques 69
Variation and Statistical Thinking 71
Understanding Variation 72
Deming’s Red Bead and Funnel Experiments 73
Quality Management Systems 79
ISO 9000 Family of Standards 81
Building Effective Quality Management Systems 84
Summary of Key Points and Terminology 85
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Bringing Quality Principles to Life at KARLEE  85
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Using ISO 9000 to Improve Humanitarian Supply Chains 86
Review Questions 88
Discussion Questions 88
Projects, Etc. 90
CASES The Disciplinary Citation 90
Nashville Custom Guitars 90
Walker Auto Sales and Service 92
The Quarterly Sales Report 92
Notes 93

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 Contents vii

Chapter 3 Customer Focus 95

QUALITY PROFILES: City of Fort Collins and K&N Management 97
Customer Satisfaction and Engagement 98
The American Customer Satisfaction Index 99
Identifying Customers 100
Customer Segmentation 101
Understanding Customer Needs 102
Quality Dimensions of Goods and Services 103
The Kano Model of Customer Requirements 105
Gathering the Voice of the Customer 106
Analyzing Voice of the Customer Data 109
Linking Customer Needs to Design, Production, and Service Delivery 111
Building a Customer-Focused Organization 113
Customer Commitments 114
Customer Contact and Interaction 114
Selecting and Developing Customer Contact Employees 115
Service Recovery and Complaint Management 117
Managing Customer Relationships 119
Strategic Partnerships and Alliances 120
Customer-Focused Technology and Analytics 120
Measuring Customer Satisfaction and Engagement 121
Designing Satisfaction Surveys 122
Analyzing and Using Customer Feedback 124
Why Many Customer Satisfaction Efforts Fail 129
Measuring Customer Loyalty 130
Summary of Key Points and Terminology 132
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Harley-Davidson 132
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Unique Online Furniture, Inc. 134
Review Questions 137
Discussion Questions 138
Problems 140
Projects, Etc. 143
Cases  Rosie’s Pizzeria 144
Jessica’s Shopping Experience 145
Captain Mark’s Seafood 145
Newcraft Ale Microbrewery 146
Notes 146

Chapter 4 Workforce Focus 149

QUALITY PROFILES: Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program Clinical
Research Pharmacy Coordinating Center and Stellar Solutions 151
The Evolution of Workforce Management 152

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 viii Contents

High-Performance Work Culture 153

Principles of Workforce Engagement and Motivation 156
Workforce Engagement 156
Employee Involvement 158
Motivation 160
Designing High-Performance Work Systems 162
Work and Job Design 162
Empowerment 165
Teamwork 166
Workplace Environment 172
Workforce Learning and Development 173
Compensation and Recognition 175
Performance Management 178
Assessing Workforce Effectiveness, Satisfaction, and Engagement 181
Measuring Workforce Engagement 183
Sustaining High-Performance Work Systems 184
Workforce Capability and Capacity 184
Summary of Key Points and Terminology 186
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Training for Improving Service Quality at Honda 186
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Improving Employee Retention Through Six
Sigma 189
Review Questions 191
Discussion Questions 192
Projects, Etc. 194
Cases Carla’s Quick Service Restaurant Job 194
The Dysfunctional Manager 194
Golden Suites Hotel 195
The Night-Shift Pharmacist 196
Notes 196

Chapter 5 Process Focus 201

QUALITY PROFILES: The Charter School of San Diego and Boeing Aerospace
Support 203
Process Management 204
Identifying Processes and Requirements 205
Value-Creation Processes 205
Support Processes 206
Process Requirements 207
Process Design 209
Process Mapping 210
Process Design for Services 213
Design for Agility 214
Mistake-Proofing Processes 215

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 Contents ix

Process Control 217

Process Control in Manufacturing 219
Process Control in Services 220
Process Improvement 221
Continuous Improvement 225
Breakthrough Improvement 227
Managing Supply Chain Processes 229
Supplier Evaluation and Selection 229
Monitoring Supplier Performance 229
Supplier Partnerships 230
Supplier Certification 231
Summary of Key Points and Terminology 232
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: K&N Management, Inc. 232
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Building Japanese Quality in North America 234
Review Questions 236
Discussion Questions 236
Problems 238
Projects, Etc. 240
CASES Harbour Community College: Food Service Program 240
The State University Experience 241
Gold Star Chili: Process Management 242
Ibm’s Integrated Supply Chain 243
Notes 244

PART 2 Tools and Techniques for Quality 247

Chapter 6 Statistical Methods in Quality Management 249
QUALITY PROFILES: Graniterock Company and Sutter Davis Hospital 250
Basic Probability Concepts 251
Probability Distributions 255
Discrete Probability Distributions 255
Continuous Probability Distributions 258
Normal Distribution 259
Exponential Distribution 263
Statistical Methodology 264
Sampling 266
Descriptive Statistics 267
Statistical Analysis with Microsoft Excel 270
The Excel Descriptive Statistics Tool 270
The Excel Histogram Tool 271
Frequency Distribution and Histogram Spreadsheet Template 274

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 x Contents

Statistical Inference 274

Sampling Distributions 274
Confidence Intervals 276
Hypothesis Testing 279
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) 283
Regression and Correlation 284
Design of Experiments 286
Summary of Key Points and Terminology 292
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Modern Applications of Statistics in Quality 292
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Improving Quality of a Wave Soldering Process
Through Design of Experiments 294
Review Questions 296
Problems 297
Projects, Etc. 300
CASES Burrito Brothers 300
Maggie’s French Fry Study 301
Berton Card Company 301
The Battery Experiment 302
Notes 303

Chapter 7 Design for Quality and Product Excellence 305

QUALITY PROFILES: Momentum Group and Poudre Valley Health
System 306
Product Development 307
Concurrent Engineering 309
Design for Six Sigma 309
Concept Development and Innovation 311
Detailed Design 312
Quality Function Deployment 313
Target and Tolerance Design 321
The Taguchi Loss Function 324
Using the Taguchi Loss Function for Tolerance Design 329
Design for Reliability 331
Mathematics of Reliability 332
System Reliability 337
Design Optimization 342
Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis 343
Fault Tree Analysis 345
Design for Manufacturability 345
Design and Environmental Responsibility 349
Design for Excellence 351
Design Verification 351
Design Reviews 351
Reliability Testing 352

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 Contents xi

Summary of Key Points and Terminology 353

QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Testing Audio Components at Shure, Inc. 353
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Applying QFD in a Managed Care Organization 354
Review Questions 358
Problems 358
Projects, Etc. 362
CASES The Elevator Dilemma 363
Applying Quality Function Deployment to a University Support
Service 364
Black Elk Medical Center 366
Notes 368

Chapter 8 Measuring and Controlling Quality 371

QUALITY PROFILES: MESA Products, Inc. and Adventist Health Castle 372
Measurement for Quality Control 373
Common Quality Measurements 375
Cost of Quality Measures 380
Measurement System Evaluation 383
Metrology 384
Calibration 385
Repeatability and Reproducibility Analysis 387
Process Capability Measurement 391
Process Capability Indexes 395
Process Performance Indexes 399
Pre-Control 399
Statistical Process Control 401
Patterns in Control Charts 402
Control Charts for Variables Data 407
Constructing x- and R-Charts 407
Process Monitoring and Control 409
Estimating Process Capability 409
Case Study: La Ventana Window Company 409
x- and s-Charts 416
Charts for Individuals 416
Control Charts for Attributes Data 420
Fraction Nonconforming (p) Chart 420
p-Charts with Variable Sample Size 421
np-Charts for Number Nonconforming 425
Charts for Nonconformances 427
c-Charts 428
u-Charts 428
Summary of Control Chart Construction 431

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 xii Contents

Implementing Statistical Process Control 433

Basis for Sampling 433
Sample Size 433
Sampling Frequency 435
Location of Control Limits 435
Practical Guidelines 435
Summary of Key Points and Terminology 435
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Using a u-Chart in a Receiving Process 436
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Applying SPC to Pharmaceutical Product
Manufacturing 439
Review Questions 442
Problems 443
CASES Quality Control in Candy Manufacturing 449
Kirkland Hospital 451
Morelia Mortgage Company 452
The Nickel Experiment 453
Montvalley Short-Haul Lines, Inc. 454
Notes 455

Chapter 9 Process Improvement and Six Sigma 457

QUALITY PROFILES: Iredell-Statesville Schools and Bristol Tennessee Essential
Services 458
Process Improvement Methodologies 459
The Deming Cycle 459
Creative Problem Solving 463
Custom Improvement Methodologies 463
DMAIC 464
Six Sigma 465
Evolution of Six Sigma 466
Principles of Six Sigma 467
The Statistical Basis of 3.4 DPMO 468
Implementing Six Sigma 471
Project Management and Organization 472
Selecting Six Sigma Projects 473
Using the DMAIC Process 476
DMAIC Tools and Techniques 476
Define 479
Measure 482
Analyze 486
Improve 491
Control 492
Lean Tools for Process Improvement 492
Lean Six Sigma 495

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 Contents xiii

Summary of Key Points and Terminology 497

QUALITY IN PRACTICE: An Application of Six Sigma to Reduce Medical
Errors 497
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Applying Process Improvement Tools to an Order
Fulfillment Process 499
Review Questions 502
Discussion Questions 503
Problems 504
Projects, Etc. 507
CASES LT, Inc. 508
Rockstone Tires 512
Janson Medical Clinic 512
Freadilunch Restaurant 514
Notes 514

PART 3 Beyond Quality Management: Managing for

Performance Excellence 517
Chapter 10 The Baldrige Framework for Performance
Excellence 519
QUALITY PROFILES: Hill Country Memorial and the Bosch Bari Plant 523
The Baldrige Excellence Framework 524
Criteria Evolution 530
The Baldrige Award Process 531
Using the Baldrige Criteria 532
Impacts of the Baldrige Program 534
Baldrige and the Deming Philosophy 536
International Quality and Performance Excellence Programs 537
European Quality Award 537
Canadian Awards for Business Excellence 539
Australian Business Excellence Award 539
Quality Awards in China 540
Baldrige and National Culture 541
Baldrige, ISO 9000, and Six Sigma 542
Summary of Key Points and Terminology 547
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Leveraging Baldrige at AtlantiCare 547
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Branch-Smith Printing Division’s Baldrige
Journey 549
Review Questions 551
Discussion Questions 552
Projects, Etc. 553

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 xiv Contents

CASES Arroyo Fresco—Assessing Customer Focus 553

Arroyo Fresco—Assessing Workforce Focus 554
Arroyo Fresco—Assessing Operations Focus 554
Notes 554

Chapter 11 Strategy and Performance Excellence 557

QUALITY PROFILES: Freese and Nichols, Inc. and Don Chalmers Ford 559
The Scope of Strategic Planning 560
Strategy Development Processes 561
The Baldrige Organizational Profile 564
Developing Strategies 568
Strategy Deployment 568
Hoshin Kanri (Policy Deployment) 569
Linking Human Resource Plans and Business Strategy 572
The Seven Management and Planning Tools 573
Using the Seven Management and Planning Tools for Strategic Planning 574
Organizational Design for Performance Excellence 579
Core Competencies and Strategic Work System Design 582
Summary of Key Points and Terminology 584
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Integrating Six Sigma with Strategic Planning at Cigna 585
QUALITY IN PRACTICE: Strategic Planning at Branch-Smith Printing Division 586
Review Questions 589
Discussion Questions 590
Projects, Etc. 591
CASES The Morgan Company 591
A Strategic Bottleneck 592
Consolidated Metal Works 592
Arroyo Fresco—Assessing Strategic Focus 593
Notes 593

Chapter 12 Measurement and Knowledge Management for

Performance Excellence 595
QUALITY PROFILES: Concordia Publishing House and Charleston Area
Medical Center 596
The Value and Scope of Performance Measurement 597
The Balanced Scorecard 598
Performance Measurement in the Baldrige Criteria 601
Analytics and Big Data 604
Designing Effective Performance Measurement Systems 606
Selecting Performance Measures 606
Linking Measures to Strategy 608
Aligning Strategic and Process-Level Measurements 610
Auditing the Measurement System 611

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“I have fallen pretty low, n’est ce pas, Molly?”
“I didn’t say so.”
“But I have; I couldn’t go much lower, it seems to me at times.”
“Have you made yourself happy?” Molly inquired serenely.
Mrs. Wilbur did not care to answer. Molly’s incipient jealousy hardly
deserved attention. Her fears were groundless, for Jennings was
merely watching the play out, and assisting the action in obtrusive
ways. He had told Mrs. Wilbur that his cousin Mrs. Stevans had been
in Florence earlier in the winter and that she and Erard were quite
chummy. “Erard’s buying her a carload of stuff.” She inferred that
Mrs. Stevans was the present deity who made Erard’s course easy,
and that Erard was even better informed about her own affairs than
she herself. Yet Erard had never alluded to what he had learned
from Mrs. Stevans.
One day, moreover, Jennings related the incident of Peter Erard and
the old man on Halsted Street. “Peter was a stubborn beast,” he
explained. “He refused to be comforted. Yet he took his private’s
place in the line, like a man. And Peter had to join the dumb.”
“You are fond of the dumb,” Mrs. Wilbur said wistfully, neglecting to
follow out the implications of the Erard tale.
“They are not picturesque, but—” And after a silence he told her of
his own dilemma. He had received an offer of the headship of a
southern training school for negroes. He was trying now to settle the
question of accepting it. Mrs. Wilbur refrained from commenting. She
would like to say, “Go,” but that word might sound strangely in her
mouth.
In spite of all this influence which Jennings brought, the old life of
work with Erard went on. She had no excuse for breaking with him,
even though the hot June days sapped her strength, and his
demands grew burdensome. And she was afraid of him as well as
curious to know what humiliation he had in store for her. What new
corners in his nature had she to explore before the end came?
Somehow it was in the air that this thing was to be fought out
between them to an end. Each recognized the struggle and
hesitated.
The Tuscan summer crept on apace over the hills. The leafy woods
in the Cascine glowed in the sun; down the river a thin line of stately,
flower-like trees threw pictures of an afternoon in the pools of the
Arno. The nights on Bello Sguardo were like jewelled velvet. She
waited, apathetically, for some sign, some impulse of readjustment.
 CHAPTER VII
Late in June Mrs. Wilbur and Erard went again to Rome with several
other members of the Circle. There a gradual languor stupefied her
will. The year with its multiform passions had scorched her, and she
found herself feeble before the fierce heat, the parched season of
Italy. Over her drawing her arm would relax, and she would gaze
vacantly at the object before her, wondering where the beauty in it
lay. Beauty, which she had worshipped so passionately had escaped
her, was fleeing further every dead day, and behind the smile of
creation which had roused her pulses, she was now feeling the dull,
earthy matter. How could Erard find sensations in this pulverizing
atmosphere! Dust, dust,—the pictures and frescos were crumbling in
dust, and the hard white marble had died long ago: it was crumbling
now, and the fragments were disintegrating. Behind her in the forum
there was a mound of dead dust, and she and Erard were handling
mould of a later date. It would all crumble some day, and lie baking
in the hard sun, silent for centuries while the world trod it out for
vulgar uses.
Yet she did not complain. She was ashamed to whimper now. The
morning came when she could not drag herself out into the glare,
and she lay numb in the stuffy room of the little Albergo Nero where
Erard had placed the party. One day something like a miracle
occurred—a new infusion of will. Jennings appeared, and saying
merely, “Come! you are worn out,” brought her back to Florence like
a sick child. There had been a scene with Erard, who scoffed at her
indisposition, and scolded her for leaving him in the lurch. Jennings
had repeated his compelling “Come.” The two men had exchanged a
few innuendoes, Erard betraying his gutter-blood, and Jennings
preserving his ironical good-humour. She had not made a sign, until
Jennings remarked softly,—“So Freedom has come to this! In the
last resort you must act.”
The household on Bello Sguardo had received her as a prodigal,—
Luisa with loud exclamations of joy, Pina with roses, and Molly with a
kiss. Yet she knew that the end was not yet. Erard would not let her
slip so simply, and in a way that humiliating retreat from Rome had
left her more powerless than ever. While she waited Walter Anthon
came with real news: the divorce had been granted in chambers. Or,
in Walter’s solemn words,—
“Your husband has taken the measure which society allows him. You
are no longer Mrs. John Wilbur.”
His sister turned her weary eyes on him.
“The mail would have sufficed to tell me. Have you come all the way
from London to preach me a sermon?”
He had not been so simple. He had a plan as usual.
“You are free now. I suppose that will please you, even if your
husband that was, has made off with your money and is about to
marry again.”
The three ideas in this pungent little speech sank into her mind one
after the other. She was free. How she had agonized over that! And
how little it meant to be free, now that the courts had declared it to
society! The creases in her mind could not be ironed out by any
judge’s decree. When she realized the next step, she remarked
hastily, “He has taken only what I gave him.”
“Are you willing to give him your father’s money to enjoy with another
woman?”
She had had a vague idea that in giving up her original fortune to her
husband she was atoning in part for breaking the contract of
partnership. It seemed, however, that he had sought and obtained
his own satisfaction, and that her sacrifice was useless.
“He will do what is right,” she protested.
“Do you think this Mrs. Stevans will let him give up what he has got
his hands on?”
At the mention of this name her mind swept swiftly back to Chicago,
to the night of the reception when the new house was opened. She
had introduced Mrs. Stevans to Erard, and Erard had had a good
deal to do with her ever since. Singular freak of fate that Erard
should be connected with the two women in whom this man of
business had sought happiness! Perhaps something would come out
later, between these two, and a second scandal follow. She played
with her morbid fancy.
“Now, ma chère sœur,” Anthon resumed, attempting the difficult
passage with a light touch, “you have had your fling in the world like
the best of us, and have shown your heels rather freely. Don’t you
think it’s time to take in sail and make some port?” He could not hit
upon quite the right figure. “In other words, consolidate the present
position which you have chosen to create.” No phrase seemed
delicate enough for the business. But his sister helped him out.
“You mean you would like to have me induce Mr. Erard to marry
me?”
Her brother nodded. She laughed a long, low, relishing laugh. “So
this is the decision of the family. I am to marry the villainous Erard at
last!” She laughed again shrilly.
“Yes,” Anthon pursued, discomfited. “That’s the only thing to do now
for all parties, for Erard’s sake as well as your own. He is a very
clever fellow, and I have no doubt in time we can get him some
respectable place. He will make his niche in the world. I am told that
he is very strong in his line. But you probably know that as well as I.
“Of course,” he continued, as Mrs. Wilbur seemed occupied with her
own thoughts, “you would have to observe the convenances for a
time, live over here very quietly and not appear publicly in America
or London.”
“And suppose I have no wish to marry Mr. Simeon Erard?” his sister
asked at length.
“Not marry him!” Anthon gasped. “Good Lord, Adela, what do you
mean? You haven’t any objection to marriage in itself,—and when it’s
to save your reputation.”
Mrs. Wilbur reddened at the concluding phrase. “You didn’t think that
it would require any urging to make a woman who is compromised
accept the honourable position of wife?”
“Don’t speak so shockingly, pray.”
“But you are wrong, dear Walter,” she gave a sarcastic laugh. “There
is really no illegal relation between us—pray don’t squirm at words.
There was a time when the outcome might have been different. But
now that you have planned it all nicely, I am sorry that I cannot
please you. Marriage with Mr. Erard at present does not really seem
to me so possible.”
This attitude mystified the young man; he caught on the words “at
present.”
“Oh, take your own time, Adela. Satisfy your own prejudices. But
don’t let this opportunity escape,—of squaring yourself with the
world.”
He sat back in his chair, satisfied that he had put his case well and
had the logic of events on his side. He would teach this irrepressible
sister that he knew what he was about, after all. Mrs. Wilbur opened
her lips to retort; then lay back in her chair. At last she turned
towards him as if her mind had come back to an errand-boy who was
waiting for his message.
“Walter, you are young enough to learn a lesson and profit by it, if
you care to. Don’t meddle. Especially in what are courteously called
affairs of the heart. Good people think they are courageous when
they say unpleasant things, and try to run the universe their way. It is
a blunder, and mere vanity on their part. You have bustled about
over me ever since I came from America, and you haven’t the
excuse for your impertinence of any great affection. You are a vain
young man, and you are weak. You are pretty to look at, and you
have good manners—when you are properly subdued. No! listen, for
this is the last time you are likely to hear what is good for you. I am
willing to believe that you are clever, though a list of brilliant
acquaintances and a post in London journalism are really not great
heights to reach. You are a little man, Walter, an amiable little man,
and that is why the big world tolerates you. But you mustn’t become
didactic! Now run in and ask Pina to bring tea out on the terrace and
to call Miss Parker and Mr. Jennings, if they’re at home.”
A good deal of the romance of his mission was reft from Walter
Anthon by this incisive lecture. So far his diplomacy and tact had
ended in his being corrected like a small boy, and sent into the
house to order tea. He went, however, without further words,
resolving to bring up his plan at another time, when his beautiful
sister was more amenable to reason.
The sight of Miss Parker comforted him. She was so séduisante, he
confided to her, in a summer dress, pouring tea under the lemon
blossoms, while she inquired tenderly after all his little interests. She
had the feminine art his grand sister so brutally lacked, of keeping in
mind all your personal affairs. It was adroitly flattering to mention his
article in the April Book-Grower, and to discuss the éclatant cynicism
with which he had flourished into his peroration. Finally, perceiving
that Mrs. Wilbur was preoccupied, she had suggested taking him for
a walk in the cool of the evening. There was a view behind the hill
into a side valley that was especially fine in this light. Then she had
some errands for the household; he could exercise his Italian. It was
all so daintily, so coquettishly managed, Anthon thought with
complacency. No London girl could rub you just the right way like
that. It was delicious to feel yourself falling into such toils. But she
would have to make them strong! If folly were to be his lot, it must be
a long-drawn-out, sweet folly.
After they had left, Mrs. Wilbur lay quite still in her large wicker chair,
watching the pale silver plain at her feet shimmer in the blinding
flood of light from the western hills. The sea of heat seething in
myriad lanes above the trees hypnotized her flickering will. Why had
she rejected her brother’s plan for her salvation?
 CHAPTER VIII
She lay there motionless on the terrace into the still twilight. The little
mountain villages across the heated valley robed themselves in blue
mist. Beneath the wall the road up the hill from the Porta Fredano cut
the olive trees with its snaky coils. The silence was like the
emptiness of worlds.
Suddenly she rose, impulsively striking out for an escape. Erard
would come in a few days, hours, minutes. He might be in Florence
now. She must do something before she met him, find some
resolution. Unconsciously she began to follow the road, hastening
along its curves in an impetuous desire to flee. Gradually she
became conscious that she was seeking for Jennings. She might
find him below in the city, and he must save her,—he would know
how. So she ran on feverishly, dragging her weak limbs over the
great paving-stones, which were heated like an oven. Some instinct
led her to the Ponte Vecchio, where she happened on Jennings,
sauntering idly with the throng that had come out to breathe in the
evening air. Then she had nothing to say, but stood panting, her
white face flushing to the dark hair.
“What has happened?” he asked her gently, and taking her arm he
led her out of the sharp bustle on the bridge into a side street and
then to the entrance of the Boboli gardens. The great cypresses
threw an inviting shade, towards which they walked. Jennings waited
for her explanation.
“It has come, at last,” she stammered awkwardly. “I am free now.”
Jennings did not seem to understand her full meaning.
“But you have been ‘free’ for nearly a year. Have you at last found
peace in that potent word?”
“No,” she replied impatiently. “I did not mean that. Walter brought me
the news that—since the fifteenth—I have not been Mrs. Wilbur. I am
legally free—to make a mess of it.”
“Well?” He implied that this news was not unexpected, or of sufficient
importance to explain her tremor.
“It is dreadful,” she murmured incoherently. “What am I to do?”
“It hasn’t succeeded, has it?” His blunt words were spoken softly.
“There isn’t any real difference between these people, Erard’s Art
Endeavour Circle and Protestants in general, and the good people of
Chicago. They aren’t a great deal more interesting, Salters and
Vivian and the southern poet and the Jew critic and the chorus of
aspirants, than the Chicago lot with their simpler ambitions and
manners and cruder expression. On the whole they aren’t so good;
they are nearer dead: the others have a race to run, and these have
only their graves to dig. And if I were going merely to rot,” his voice
trembled, “I should rather rot with the Philistines and be a good
human animal than—”
“Well, there are others,” she protested. “You mention only the small
fry, like me.”
Jennings looked at her abstractedly. He was answering his own
heart rather than considering her.
“They are all much alike, these sighers after art and beauty. A poor
lot, take them as a whole, who decide to eat honey all their lives! I
have seen more of them than anything else in Europe,—dilettantes,
connoisseurs, little artists, lazy scholars. Chiefly Americans, who,
finding America too incomplete, come here and accomplish nothing.
In every centre in Europe you can find two or three of them in the
various stages of decay. The environment they run after atrophies
their faculties; the very habits of life which are best for these people
hurt them; they sink into laziness. Erard is the leader of the tribe,—
the grand high-priest of the mysteries of the higher senses!”
He ended his declamation with a laugh. His cold contempt shut her
heart and drove her back to defence.
“But he has made it worth while; you are not fair to him. He has lived
in the only way he could and reach his ends. And he has done
something; he knows.”
“Perhaps,” Jennings agreed dubiously, thinking his own thoughts
aloud with brutal disregard for her inferences. “What a bloodless,
toady existence, sucking in the joys of his paradise! And for what? A
few books to be replaced by a new set in another generation, a few
epigrams, and a little quivering of his ‘sensorium.’ Better a day in an
Indiana town, than a year of that!”
Mrs. Wilbur turned her face away. Even he was so pitiless! She had
come to him in her distress for comfort, and instead of soothing her,
of leading her out of her tangle, he heaped up this stern indictment
against all her past ideals.
“You didn’t know Peter Erard.” He began to tell that story again. “You
see, there was the mother. She died, saving her pennies to give
Simeon a new suit when he was tutoring Mr. Anthon’s daughter.
Then there were the father and Peter. The father was too old to
work, and Peter kept him comfortable and I believe sent Erard
money, first by a job in Jersey City, then by one in Chicago. Over a
year ago Peter met with an accident and lost his job—Miss Parker
knows these facts—and, finally a little while ago, died. When he was
ill, Erard, Simeon, that is to say, was in Chicago, giving lectures and
visiting. Peter saw him once. And the old man might die in the poor-
house now, if it weren’t for Miss Parker.”
Mrs. Wilbur listened with compressed lips. She had been fighting off
this disagreeable tale for a long time.
“That Peter Erard—he was a man!” Jennings continued, his face
lighting up. “He had it in him to do something, and he knew it, and he
never talked slush. He took his place in the ranks, like a man. And
now he is dumb, as he was in life!”
“Perhaps the other one showed his genius by defying all these
claims and making his way in spite of them,” Mrs. Wilbur stammered,
remembering the Napoleonic glory of Simeon’s first confessions to
her. Jennings looked at her pityingly.
“Do you think so? now that you know the story in all its sordid detail?
And can you still think that the result is worth while? Is it any better
than the grab, and the coarse perception about traction stocks, and
the rest of the unpleasant side of Chicago which annoys our nostrils?
Merely because you work in pictures or books, and not in pork and
dry-goods. Ah, Peter was the man, and he was a private!”
“You aren’t fair to Simeon—to me,” she retorted hotly.
“You make nothing of that hunger for something beautiful, that love—
I had it, you can believe me. Some people have it and die unless—”
“Did you get what you wanted?” Jennings exclaimed, pacing back
and forth across the strip of gravel.
“No!” she exclaimed in something like a sob. “The joy faded so fast!
And the more I grow to know, the less I am filled with the old rapture.
I have striven so to possess joy, and gone so low in my own sight. It
is bitter, bitter—”
“Europe tempts us Americans,” her companion interrupted
excusingly. “It holds so many treasures, and the life of the spirit is
organized here. I came near giving in, once, those days in Oxford
where everything seemed spread for enjoyment. I rather longed to
help myself to dainties until I was full. But—”
“But what?”
“It’s against nature, a sin against nature. Life is not fulfilled, we are
not quieted, in that way. To accept the world as it comes to our
hands, to shape it painfully without regard for self,—that brings the
soul to peace.”
He had made his decision, and evidently he had found some solace.
She could not take the same road easily; she had gone the other
way. She looked up into his face longingly, pleadingly, as if she were
wildly hoping that he would take her with him, that he would not
leave her in her wanderings.
“I am going back to the niggers,” Jennings continued after a pause in
a lighter tone. “Won’t that please Mrs. Stevans! I think my friends
expected me to become another kind of Erard.” He laughed good-
humouredly. “And likely enough they are right, to thrash about for the
sweets and what you call freedom. But it seems to me ridiculous and
undignified.”
With these careless words he seemed to close the topic which had
agitated her so profoundly. She felt that she ought to have enough
pride and self-reliance to accept her difficulties silently, but a certain
feminine dependence on leadership—strange to herself—left her
feeble before this crisis. She appealed to him audaciously, clinging to
his strength. “And I—what shall I do?”
“Is it all over—the joy and the venture?”
“I seem to have died, instead of gaining freedom.”
“That word! How it deceives us! You have chased a shadow.”
“You mean?”
“There is no freedom and every one is free. It is all a matter of
feeling. And that feeling you cannot command.”
“Like love.” She glanced up at him, her face thrilling with a strange
idea.
“Yes, like love,” he repeated in a low voice. “It takes us unawares
when we have given up the search.”
“Then I have never loved.” Her mind revolved in a new orbit “When I
married I was seeking, seeking. When I studied, when I tried to act, I
was always seeking. And the more I have struggled the farther I
have gone—away, astray. Even the first false light that shone those
September days when the pictures spoke, went, and I am left alone
with my little knowledge, and nothing else, nothing. It is like love,”
she repeated at last.
“Yes. It is a state of feeling, of the spirit, not a condition of person.”
“I was as free in Chicago as I am here?”
He nodded.
“And my money has not bought it, nor my body won it.”
“Nor your mind,” Jennings added softly. “Nor your will. Not any of
these things.”
“It could come over there in the prairie-town.”
“Or with the niggers,” suggested Jennings with a slight smile.
The new conception gained hold on her, while she sat staring out
above the palaces of the city into the evening gloom. At last she
uttered in a low moan,—“After all, to be bound, bound with no one to
cut the cords; to be bound in spirit and flesh—no escape possible. It
is ghastly!”
“You said once that you wished to burn, to feel. You remember that
last night at Lake Forest?”
“And you replied—‘to dust and ashes,’” she added fiercely. “Is that all
for me?”
She rose from the bench with a sweep, a touch of defiance that
brought back her old impressive self. She seemed to say, “You mock
me. Impossible that I, who am beautiful and keen in mind, that I who
have striven, am to become mere ashes.” And the movement which
challenged him, saying, “I am a woman,” said also, “I can love.
Teach me, you new master, and you will find me humble. Take me,
and make me over to fit your freedom.” But he made no sign of
acceptance, merely looked back at her dark head with its flaming
eyes, admiringly, with homage and with pity,—but with nothing more.
He knew her to the bottom of her heart and he was compassionate,
but he would not save her, could not save her.
“So you are going to take the commonplace,” she said at last,
irritably, closing her eyes and turning her face away.
“Yes, the very commonplace.”
“And nothing tempts you?” She shot a glance which searched him,
knocking to find a hollow sound in his protestations.
“No.”
She walked away to the farthest shade of the cypresses, thinking
with a pang: “He will marry Molly. I am—dust and ashes.” Then she
was haughty with herself for having craved relief through him. It was
foolish for her to believe that she might yet be taught to accept and
to feel again as children feel. What could he do for her? What had
she to do with love? She had never known the word until to-night.
In an instant she was at his side again. “You think me an impossible
creature to be shunned?”
“No. I was not thinking of you in particular,” he answered gravely.
And she felt doubly ashamed, as they descended the terraces of the
garden, silently, mournfully.
 CHAPTER IX
That evening Molly remarked to her friend abruptly, “Walter thinks he
wishes to marry me.”
“Well?” Mrs. Wilbur asked with quick curiosity.
“I’ll tell you all about it. He feels badly now, but, if it doesn’t get out he
will be all right in a few weeks. He asked me to do it—marry him—at
least for your sake. But I told him I couldn’t do it, even for you.”
“He means so very well, Molly!” Mrs. Wilbur exclaimed with some
compassion.
“Yes, too well by me! He’s been trying not to do this thing ever since I
have known you. He almost slipped twice, no, three times. This
afternoon he didn’t want to do it one bit, and even at the end he
made me feel that it was a condescension on his part.”
“Oh, Molly!”
“He began by thanking me profusely for all I had done for you. Told
me the family were very appreciative of my efforts to save you from
yourself, and to preserve the decencies of social life.”
Mrs. Wilbur winced.
“He said a great crisis was coming in your life now, and we two, Mr.
Anthon and I, could help you so much in case—”
“The little hypocrite! Was that all?”
“Yes, about you then. I think the next event was that he tried to kiss
me before he had really said anything—well, definite. He first took
my hand, then insinuated his arm about my waist—we were in a dark
corner under a wall—”
“Molly!”
“Well, we know him so well! and I wanted to see what it is like to
have love made in that way. I felt like,—as if I were a maid, a
servant. It was quite horrid! It might have been Pina. When he
reached a certain point, just beyond the proper pressure for a waltz
—I, I laughed.”
She laughed again at the memory.
“Then I lectured him soundly. I began ’way back with the beginning,
—his running around after people, his toadying, his literary
ambitions, his self-importance. I talked to him about his treatment of
you in Paris; he merely wanted to get rid of you decently. After that
we discussed love. I used some of Erard’s psychology. He was after
sensations merely, I told him—wanted to know how it would feel to
kiss me. He would be awfully lugubrious afterwards, if I had snapped
him up, and he had come to his senses to-morrow to find himself
engaged to a poor girl twenty-five years old with no social pulls. I
described to him how such a man ‘falls in love,’ and how he makes a
grumbling, fault-finding husband. Oh! I taught him a lot!”
She laughed again. Mrs. Wilbur wished to laugh also, but restrained
herself.
“I ended by giving him some good advice about himself. In the first
place he must get some kind of principles, just for convenience. Now
he doesn’t care about anything but the looks of things. And do you
know what he said—he was very angry by this time! ‘Why, Miss
Parker, you have a singular misconception of me. How could I have
all the friends who surround me and how could I make so many
influential connections in London, if I were the sort of man you
describe?’ Actually, he said that. Your brother, Adela, is quite
hopeless.”
“Was that all?”
“Yes, he was very, very angry, so mad he forgot to be hurt. It was the
kindest way to send him off. He will go back to London to-morrow,
pretty well cured of an infatuation, which, he assured me, had
extended over five years.”
Mrs. Wilbur laughed this time without scruple. But after a time she
said earnestly, “You might have done so much for him, Molly!”
Molly looked at her, with a trace of contempt in her smiling mouth.
“Do you think that’s the right place for missionary endeavour,
Adela?” An instant later she nestled up to her friend. “Forgive me,
dear. I am horrid and heartless.”
The two shed a few tears. “We women never escape our affections,”
Mrs. Wilbur remarked ruefully, thinking of the afternoon. “Men get
along so much more easily.”
“I don’t want to escape!” Molly replied promptly, and then blushed.
Walter Anthon departed the next morning at an early hour, leaving
behind him, in a fluent, spiteful little note, his last words to his sister.
He now made the final washing of his hands in her case, and having
pointed out the path of true wisdom and decency, he left her to profit
by the lesson. Mrs. Wilbur tossed Molly the note. “See what a
rupture you have made, Molly, between brother and sister!”
“The little beast! He wants you to marry Erard! I didn’t think he was
as bad as that, or I should have added a fifthly to my sermon.”
“Perhaps he is right,” Mrs. Wilbur asserted drearily.
She wondered where Erard was these days. He had not written her
from Rome, thus attempting to discipline her for her revolt by
neglect. She did not know that he had returned to Florence, that he
was quietly biding his time, nor that Walter Anthon had seen him
before he had come to her on his last diplomatic errand. Indeed, that
errand had been but a part of Walter’s scheme, the plan of which
had already been worked out in the rooms on the Piazza San Spirito.
The two men had come to an understanding, during an hour of
vague fencing: young Anthon was to strike first, and then after a
decent interval Erard was to conclude the matter.
In the meantime letters from the outside world penetrated Mrs.
Wilbur’s silence, like little voices talking over her divorce. Strangely,
the most moving one was from Mrs. Anthon. “That loud Mrs. Stevans
has the house your father’s money helped to build. They are to be
married in London, the papers say, and when they get back in the fall
they expect to do the house all over and put in all the pictures and
rubbish she’s collected. Her photograph was in the Sunday
Thunderer last week—as big and coarse looking as ever.... I feel old
now, Ada, and it seems as though, after all I have done for my
children, I weren’t wanted in the world. Your brother John’s wife
doesn’t like me, and now you are gone, there’s no place to go to
except a hotel, and that doesn’t seem quite respectable. But it won’t
be for long....”
As she read this letter, something like remorse came over Mrs.
Wilbur for her harsh and unsympathetic treatment of her mother.
Since the talk in the Boboli gardens with Jennings several
illuminating ideas had altered her conception of life. It could not be
denied that this mother was silly and vulgar. But to be foolish, to be
common, was not the most hideous crime for pitiable human beings
to commit, she had begun to realize. And what had she gained by
her struggle for escape? She was drifting now, uncertainly. Drifting,
her life must be, if she continued her effort; drifting on into a
declassé milieu, where she would amuse herself with the gossip and
fritter of art, where her sole object would be to enjoy and pass away
the years. She had learned well what that kind of European life was
like.
Thus a week, two weeks passed. Jennings was to leave for America
in another fortnight. Erard was yet to be heard from, and she was
sure that the day was not far off when he would show his hand. At
times the idea of the tie that bound her to him exhaled a strange kind
of corrupt fascination. How he had dominated her! What was there
inside of him? She felt a reckless curiosity to explore the dark,
private places of his soul, to touch his clammy self more closely, and
to know the worst.
At last Erard appeared late one evening. Molly and Jennings had
gone out in search of a cool breeze. As Mrs. Wilbur lay in the
moonlight on the terrace, she heard a soft step on the road below
the wall. It crept on around the corner, and the sound disappeared.
She knew it was Erard. Soon she heard his quiet, positive, yet catlike
tread on the terrace. She could feel his movement behind her; he
was gaining, coming closer at last, and she lay passive, wondering
what the outcome would be.
“You are quite alone?” Erard greeted her questioningly.
“Yes,” she murmured, without betraying either interest or surprise in
his presence. She took it for granted that he had just returned from
Rome.
“Such a heavenly night!” Erard dropped his glasses and leaned
against the parapet as if he had plenty of time for contemplation. He
had accepted the idea of marriage with its possible inconveniences,
yet he did not propose to be untactful, to place himself in the open by
asking her to become Mrs. Erard. He would first bid her love him, as
though he knew of no possible union for them. That was a finer
stroke, and if Anthon had had sense enough not to chatter about
their talk, all would go as he planned.
She was a fit possession to have, he reflected, as he watched her
white face. She was striving, unsatisfied, keen-minded, and
beautiful, with a reserve of feminine power, which even his
insinuating wits couldn’t penetrate. She was John Anthon’s daughter,
and had a hundred and fifty thousand from him, and a fool of a
brother. She was Sebastian Anthon’s niece, and had two hundred
thousand from him. Sebastian Anthon was the kind old fool who had
supplied him with money to live on, as you’d give a boy pocket
money; and then had turned him off to starve because he didn’t
make enough of a sensation. She had been John Wilbur’s wife, and
had deserted that pompous bourgeois at his suggestion because the
successful Wilbur was too much of a stupid. He, Simeon Erard, held
her in his hand as his ripe spoil.
“It is one great peace here,” he resumed. “I feel content, too. So
much that I have striven for all these years since you first began your
help to me has come about. I have been asked recently to contribute
a series of articles to the new International Review. There is talk, I
hear, of making me one of the sub-editors. That would necessitate
our living in Paris part of each winter. The publishers have begun to
print our book. I have the proofs of the first volume with me. We can
run them over together this summer.”
He paused, surprised that she seemed so languid. “Doesn’t that
interest you any more?” he asked suspiciously.
“Of course.” Mrs. Wilbur roused herself. “I am glad to know that your
efforts are meeting with their reward. You are getting some of the
prizes in your game.” A sudden whim made her add meaningly,
“Now you can afford to look outside; you can do something for your
father. Peter, you know, is gone. He died without getting the prizes.”
She could hear the gravel crunch under his feet as he turned swiftly
from his idle stand by the parapet, but he answered tranquilly.
“What have they to do with the matter? Have I ever mentioned them
to you? I will take care of them—him, in my own good time. You do
not understand, Adela.”
“Oh, no! you never mentioned them to me. It occurred to me that in
this new life of success, you might have time and means—to take
Peter’s place.”
He did not reply. Her remarks seemed to make little impression on
him. Instead, he drew near her, deliberately, watching her
steadfastly.
“What I wish is that this new life shall bring me you.” He pronounced
the words with slow emphasis. She remained numb, vaguely
repeating his words to herself. He continued slowly: “We are made
for each other.” Wilbur had said that. “You have the strong mind, and
you know what living means.” Too well, alas! and he had taught her
many a lesson. “We have lived this year as one person. You know
my thoughts; I know yours.”
He paused after every phrase. Then as he had planned, he
attempted passion. It was the right place for passion, and this silent,
white woman with her sombre face, who for once refused to meet
him, moved him to a sort of self-conscious passion. He trembled
slightly, and coming a step nearer, he bent over her chair and looked
into her face intently.
“You are mine, you are mine, my lady Adela!” He touched her arms
deftly, attempting to arouse her. “Adela! We have lived for one
another. My great woman!” He seemed to her nearer, yet nothing
moved her. She even looked at him calmly. His passion was clammy.
She must have more of it, however; it was like a triumph, a revenge
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