HELEN OF TROY

And

ROSE

“I want you” said Miss Lestrange, “to let my boy go.”

HELEN OF TROY

And

ROSE

BY

PHYLLIS BOTTOME

Author of “The Dark Tower,” “The Second

Fiddle,” “The Derelict and

Other Stories,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY

NORMAN OSBORN

NEW YORK

THE CENTURY CO.

1918

Copyright, 1918, by

The Century Co.

Published, September, 1918

TO

MARJORIE AND GEORGE

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

HELEN OF TROY

I

Horace Lestrange was intent upon his occupation; he was throwing stones into the lake. He did it with skill and success; he made each stone jump four times, but he was using only his outer layer of attention; his inner self was turning over and over again a personal problem; he would have said he was thinking it out, but this was a mistake. The case was very plain and required no thought; he was only feeling it over, probing sensation to find how much weight it would bear, and at what point his heart would cry out to him to stop. Ten years ago he had lost his wife, after one year’s marriage. Perhaps, if she had lived, he would have grown tired of her; but she was very beautiful, and she had died when love was new and every golden day of her presence a thing divine and separate, intolerable to lose.

She had left him something; instead of her love and her ripened youth, she had given him a baby son; he had put the child in his sister’s care and gone abroad.

Annette used to go to church very devoutly, and Horace went to please her. He tried to suppose that Providence was in the right, but he said to his oldest friend (and this was the only comment he was heard to make upon his grief):

“It seems to me, Bambridge, love is rather a let in.”

Bambridge cleared his throat sympathetically.

“A deuced lot of things are,” he muttered.

Annette had always thought Bambridge rather cynical.

Time heals wounds, but it leaves scars. Ten years had done a great deal for Horace Lestrange. There was no mark of his great grief left; but although time works very well as a narcotic, it is not stimulating; it had not renewed Horace’s youth. He did not think of love now; he thought of marriage--comfortable, consoling marriage.

The girl who had suggested this idea to him was a thoroughly nice girl, pretty, well-educated, and kind-hearted. She had been very good to Horace; they had rowed on the lake together, and her ways were energetic without hardness, and swift with grace. They had climbed some of the surrounding peaks side by side, and she had shown admirable characteristics--quietness, pluck, instantaneous obedience, and endurance. She was a good companion (she challenged no comparison with Annette, who was helpless, clinging, and thoroughly silly, the kind of woman whom--if she dies soon enough--a man never forgets). Edith’s hair and eyes were dark; she had a full sweet mouth and a round chin. She was quite thirty and she wouldn’t expect romance. . . .

The last stone failed to jump four times; perhaps it didn’t agree with Horace that there is a time limit for romance.

“It would be an excellent thing for the boy,” said Lestrange, putting his hands in his pockets. “Etta of course is a good woman; clever, plenty of tact, but she is so managing. I never knew such a woman; she sponges one up. She has been everything to the little chap though for the last eight years. I hope he won’t make a fuss at leaving her. I don’t think he will; Edith is good with kids. Well, I’ll go and look her up.”

He went to look her up. She was usually easy to discover when Lestrange wanted her. She did not run after him, as a sillier woman would have done, neither did she run away from him, as young girls sometimes run from their lovers, but when he looked for her she was there. She sat under a big ilex tree on the terrace of the hotel garden. It was not easy to remember that it was an hotel, for once it had been an old Italian palace, and something of its ancient dignity remained. The lake lay at its foot, a vast and shimmering expanse of silver and azure. The mountains were half withdrawn into vague shadows; sometimes moonstone and sometimes purple, and when the wind blew aside their thin veil of mist, the sun shone over slopes vivid, luminous and green.

Around Edith Walton were huge bushes of camellias, red and white and very splendid. A mad riot of roses flung itself over a pergola. In the distance a magnolia tree slowly opened wonderful flowers to the sun--flowers that seemed like the birth of spiritual treasures, white cloistered buds filled with aromatic fragrance.

Edith sat quite still with her hands in her lap; there was something expectant in her appearance; it seemed part of the general hush. The wind had dropped suddenly and the tiny village lay embosomed on quivering water lines.

Edith knew who was coming towards her, as flowers know the quickening soft rain of spring, and as the ocean knows the dominance of the tides.

“You’ve got an awfully jolly corner,” said Lestrange rather awkwardly.

“There are so many awfully jolly corners here,” said Edith. Then she smiled at him, the tender smile of a woman who laughs in secret triumph at the man she loves; she lets him think he is concealing his purpose from her, but she smiles.

“I wish you weren’t going away to-morrow,” Lestrange began. He thought he was leading up to his goal with extraordinary skill and subtlety. “Must you really?”

Edith hesitated; he would have to put it better than that.

“I think my aunt has made all her arrangements,” she said. Then she looked away towards the lake over his shoulder. “I shall be sorry to leave--all this,” she murmured quietly.

“I don’t see why you can’t stay with me,” said Lestrange, sitting down on the seat beside her. “I mean always.”

He was certainly not putting it very well. Edith tried to believe that he was; she wanted to believe it. She looked at him, and her lips quivered. She was not an emotional woman; he had taken good care to find that out, but her dark eyes looked strange and stormy. She seemed as if she was feeling something strongly, almost more than she could bear.

“Do you want me very much?” she murmured.

Well, of course he wanted her. If you ask a woman to marry you, you must want her unless you are a young fool under the influence of glamour. There was no glamour. Horace had never pretended in his life, and he did not pretend now. He simply said:

“It would make me very happy if you would be my wife, Edith.”

“I should like so much to make you very happy,” said Edith. Then, suddenly, inconsequently, and very foolishly, she burst into tears.

“Don’t, my dear--don’t,” he exclaimed hurriedly. He tried to take her hands from her face, but she would not let him. He looked at her in bewilderment; she shook with these astonishing sobs; and she was a most sensible woman, and thirty. He could not understand her.

He kissed the clenched hands which covered her face, and almost as suddenly the sobs ceased. She drew in her breath with a quick sound. He walked to the balustrade and began to whistle. They were in a very secluded part of the gardens, but one never knew. No! fortunately there was no one in sight. What an extraordinary, lovely scene it was! Perhaps Edith would stop crying soon.

She did; she brushed the tears from her eyes and laughed.

“Oh, how silly you must think me!” she said. “And I’m thirty--you know I’m thirty?”

“I think this is the third time that you have told me you are,” cried Horace. He came and sat down beside her again. She did not make him feel uncomfortable any more.

“Do smoke,” said Edith quickly. “I know you’re dying to.”

“Thanks, if I may.” He lit; a cigarette. And she saw with a sudden sinking of her heart that his hands were steady.

“There is the little chap at home,” he said, turning his eyes to her with a restored friendliness. “You’re sure you won’t mind him?”

“Oh, I shall love him!” said Edith. “Do you know--you must not be jealous, but that is half the reason why I am so--why I am going to marry you, you know!”

Horace was not jealous. He was very pleased, and he said so.

“But what,” Edith asked anxiously, “will your sister say, Horace?”

“Oh, my sister!” stammered Lestrange. “Do you think she will mind very much?”

“You darling stupid!” cried Edith. “She’ll mind most horribly.”

Then she blushed; she hadn’t meant to call him “darling.” She looked at him anxiously, but he had not noticed it.

“By Jove, I believe she will; you’re right, Edith. I’m afraid she’ll cut up frightfully rough! I thought I had managed to think it all out--about you, you know, and the little chap and me--and Annette, my dead wife.”

He spoke these last words in a voice she had never heard him use before. But he spoke them bravely and honestly, with his eyes on hers. Her courage leapt to meet his.

“My dear,” she said quickly, “I want you to behave as if I had loved her too. I want you to talk to me of her, to let her share our life, or rather to let me share yours and hers. I want you never to be afraid that I do not understand. I come to you to give you all the help and comfort that I can, but I come to you knowing that she has your heart.”

Then Lestrange kissed her. The last hesitation fell away from this new purpose, the last cloud melted. His heart went out in friendship and gratitude to this woman who did not seek to rob him of his past. There was a moment’s splendid recognition between them, as strong as passion and as kind as love. Then the breathless hush of the air broke in a chill and sudden shower; they passed through the drenched garden quickly into the big hotel.

II

When Miss Lestrange received the announcement of her brother’s engagement she replied by return of post, congratulating him on his prospective happiness. She called it prospective, but she allowed that it was happiness. She offered to give up her residence at Mallows, Horace’s place in the country, and suggested that perhaps she could take a villa by the seaside.

“This,” she wrote, “would be very suitable for Leslie as well.” She took entirely for granted that she should keep the boy. Then she said to herself: “Edith Walton! What extraordinary people Horace picks up! One has never heard of her! There was a Lady Walton I remember meeting at Bournemouth; her husband probably got knighted for patent biscuits, or some vulgar charity; the Lindleys knew her. I will call on the Lindleys.”

When Horace returned to London he found his home, as usual, the perfection of order. He was not a rich man, and he did not desire luxury or extravagance. He had never needed to desire them, for his sister had that genius for management which results in other people’s comfort. She oiled the wheels of life for her brother, and as yet she had charged him nothing for the oil. She was dressed for going out, but on his arrival she laid her card-case and parasol on the table and gave him her cheek to kiss. Miss Lestrange had been a plain, angular girl, without charms; but she was a distinguished-looking middle-aged woman with a pleasant manner. Her pleasant manner entirely hid from the world that she had a will of iron and an absorbing passion for her little nephew. She was famous for her kind heart, and made an excellent confidante; people talked of her as “a dear, kind old thing.”

Her brother looked at her a little nervously.

“You have received my letter?” said Miss Lestrange, sitting down again, and drawing on her gloves. “But, of course, there is a great deal to be talked over, isn’t there? We needn’t begin now. Do you want a meal or anything? Or do they give it to you on the train? It is so long since I have been on the Continent, but I understand that in America you can be shaved and have your corns cut, probably simultaneously, as you travel.”

“I think I’ll ring for tea,” said Horace. “Where is the boy?”

“I am afraid he is out with Mr. Flinders. I should have kept him in, of course, to meet you; but Mr. Flinders said it was such a perfect afternoon it seemed a pity to keep him in, and I never like to interfere with the tutor’s arrangements. Leslie sent you his love.”

“Thanks,” said Horace, a little dryly. He fidgeted about the room; he hardly knew quite what he expected from Etta, but, by Jove! she needn’t go on smoothing her gloves--it made him feel cold between the shoulders.

“I hope the cake is not heavy,” said his sister, rising to pour out his tea. “Mrs. Devon can’t make cakes--it is her only weakness; but there are some rather nice pink things over there from the confectioner’s.”

Horace cleared his throat.

“I wish you would take off your things, Etta,” he said with sudden irritation, “or not look as if you were being kept in by force, and meant to go out the moment I had swallowed my tea; it makes me nervous.”

“Nervous, my dear boy? Lestranges are never nervous. What is the matter with you? I was going out calling, and I supposed you would want to go upstairs and tidy after your journey. But, of course, if you are nervous, and have anything on your mind⁠--”

Etta began unbuttoning her gloves. Her brother groaned.

“No, hang it all, Etta; I’d rather wait till after dinner!”

“Just as you like,” said Miss Lestrange. “I hope Miss--er--Walton, isn’t it?--is quite well?”

“Oh, yes, Edith is all right, thanks. You might tell them, Etta, to let the little chap come into my study when he gets in from his walk.”

“Oh, of course, Horace!”

It may have been intention, or it may have been one of those fortunate accidents which happen to well-trained fighters, but Miss Lestrange’s attention was suddenly caught by a crooked picture. She turned back to a portrait of Annette hanging over the mantelpiece.

“It is not hung quite straight,” she said in her pleasant, commonplace voice. “There, that’s better! Is there anything more you want, Horace?”

Her brother’s answer was made from his teacup; it sounded very like “Damn!”

Horace continued to be extremely nervous. He had meant to go and see Edith after dinner; she and her aunt, Lady Walton, had returned to town with him, but he couldn’t go to Edith, having arranged nothing whatever, and not even having mentioned that he intended to keep his boy.

All through dinner Etta held the conversation and guided it as she chose. Mr. Flinders, the tutor, responded admirably.

Miss Lestrange had a perfect tone with the tutor; she treated him with that deference which marks the difference in social value. Her delicate flattery was a restraint; it put him at once on the footing of an inferior position where she could afford to be delightful to him without his ever meeting her on her own level. It was too fine for condescension, too gracious for patronage; it was an “invulnerable nothing”; and yet you could no more have passed it than have walked through bayonets; and there was this added attraction, that the bayonets were garlanded with flowers.

“It was such a pity Leslie behaved so badly this afternoon,” Miss Lestrange began. “Mr. Flinders felt that such direct disobedience must be punished, especially when it led to such a decided risk as the boy’s playing with whooping-cough children in the Park. So instead of being allowed to come and see you, Horace, he had to be packed off, supperless, to bed; but you will go up after dinner, I suppose?”

“I should have gone up before,” interrupted Horace, “but they said⁠--”

“Yes, I think authority must be upheld,” said his sister. “You see, dear Horace, Mr. Flinders had already warned Leslie about the punishment.”

She looked across at her brother, as if to say that the punishment was an absurd blunder of Mr. Flinders, which they must overlook, because although he was a very clever fellow, of course, and a clergyman’s son, and really quite a gentleman, still⁠--

Horace understood the look, and dropped the subject. He was a man who took almost everything very easily; but not quite everything.

Mr. Flinders began to make some explanation, which Miss Lestrange promptly checked. She asked his advice about a book, and somehow or other Leslie’s punishment remained the tutor’s blunder, though this was the first time he had ever heard of it. He had probably misunderstood something Miss Lestrange had said to him; she had often observed that she was not a lucid talker; there were certain advantages which Mr. Flinders had had, and she had not, and this made it such a comfort to listen to him! Possibly this was one of the occasions in which the disadvantages had told.

After dinner Horace went upstairs to see his boy; there were traces of tears on the child’s face, and he looked pathetically like his dead mother. He flung his arms around his father’s neck and began to sob. Leslie had inherited Annette’s weak constitution; he was a highly-strung, delicate little boy.

“Oh, daddy, don’t--don’t--don’t!” he sobbed. “Oh, please, dear daddy, don’t! I will be good if you won’t marry her!”

His father’s face grew suddenly very stern; he had meant to be the first to tell his son about Edith.

“My dear old chap,” he said tenderly, sitting down on the bed beside the boy. “Edith is such a jolly girl; you will like her. Why, she’s pretty and kind, and awfully fond of boys! You have no idea what fun we’ll have. She has asked you to go with her to-morrow to the Zoo.”

“I have been to the Zoo,” said Leslie.

A firm little line came around his mouth. It used to come round his mother’s when she meant to get her way and she did not find it easy. Horace had not seen it often enough to remember it.

“Oh, daddy, don’t make me go with her; I want to go away with auntie--oh, I do want to go away with auntie!” The sobs began to shake him again. “I have always had auntie,” he cried. “You see, daddy, I’ve always had auntie!”

“But, boy, you don’t want to go away from me?” asked his father.

There was a moment’s constrained silence, and then the child dragged himself out of his father’s arms and threw himself face downwards on his pillow.

“Yes, I do,” he muttered petulantly. “I won’t stay with this new woman! I do want to go away!”

The lines of pain on Horace’s face deepened. His heart seemed to contract as he looked at the golden curls on the pillow, and remembered those long golden curls he had played with and kissed. For a moment he turned away, regretful, sick, and undesirous as the child himself of “this new woman.” Then his manhood reasserted itself, and he remembered that this was after all only a childish fit of ignorant tears.

He was not angry with the child; it did not occur to him to ask him who had given him this cruel fear of Edith. There were a good many things that never occurred to Horace Lestrange. They might have been convenient things to do; possibly they might have made life easy and happy for him, only he did not do them, that was all; he could not make the child tell tales.

There was some one to be very angry with; that was a simplification. It might be Etta, but Lestrange was slow to think so. Hadn’t she congratulated him at once? And besides, he couldn’t think that Etta could poison a child’s mind. Perhaps it was that fool Flinders; he seemed a perfectly incompetent chap, and he might possibly have some sentimental theories on step-mothers. Anyhow, he would go downstairs and talk to Etta; meanwhile he stooped over the child and shook his shoulder gently.

“Don’t cry, old man,” he said quietly. “I promise you, you will like this new friend. She doesn’t want to take your mother’s place, or anything; she is just a new friend. To-morrow you shall see her, and tell me what you feel. You needn’t go to the Zoo. Aunt Etta isn’t going away at present, and you shall see her whenever you like.”

“Mr. Flinders said there was going to be great changes,” sobbed the boy.

The father closed his lips suddenly; there was going to be one great change--and that would be Mr. Flinders. He recalled his sister’s glance at dinner; evidently Etta thought the man a fool too. He felt vaguely relieved to have found out that it was Flinders.

III

Etta was sitting in the library doing church embroidery on a frame; it was a thing she did extremely well; in fact, she was a woman who never did anything badly; if there were possibilities of ignorance in her, she avoided those fields in which they might be betrayed. Horace did not want to talk to her while she worked; he was never quite sure that he had her whole attention; she might be counting stitches or planning patterns, and so miss his points. He knew, however, that it does not do to start an important conversation with a woman by establishing a grievance, so he did not ask her to stop; he merely found refuge in a succession of cigarettes.

“Was it a surprise to you, Etta,” he began in an off-hand tone, “to hear of my engagement?”

Etta took up a thread of pink silk, and then decided for pale blue.

“I don’t know that engagements ever surprise me,” she replied. “If men can afford to marry, and there is no other impediment, they generally do; and if they are attractive to women, they always do.”

“You mean if women attract them?” he interjected.

“My dear boy,” said his sister, moving the frame slightly more under the electric light, “it never does to confuse cause and effect. If women want to marry a man, he marries. In your case, of course, there was some protection provided you remained at home; the rest was merely a question of time.”

Horace did not like this way of putting the matter at all; in the first place, it was an insult to Edith, and in the second place it was an insult to his own intelligence. He had thought the thing out so often, and had acted so entirely as a free agent; and yet the more emphasis he laid on this fact, the more plainly he saw the pleasant, unconvinced smile upon his sister’s face; besides, it wasn’t the point of the discussion; they seemed strangely incapable of reaching the point of the discussion.

“I am sure when you see Edith,” he said at last, “you will feel that I have made a most desirable choice.” He tried to put it as baldly as possible, for he did not wish Etta to think he had been swayed by glamour.

“Walton!” said his sister slowly: “who are the Waltons? Has the yellow silk skein fallen at your feet, Horace?”

“I don’t know that they are anybody in particular,” said Horace, vaguely uncomfortable; “she’s an orphan, you know, and Lady Walton, her aunt, is an extremely clever, amusing woman. Edith has not gone in for Society much, she’s so fond of travel, and her aunt’s rather an invalid, so I imagine they have always lived extremely quietly.”

“I can’t remember,” said Etta, “whether it was biscuits or soap the Lindleys told me; perhaps it was soap.”

“What was soap?” said Horace, now thoroughly irritated.

“What the man Walton, you know, was knighted for,” said his sister, calmly stitching at a wild rose. “Is she a lady by birth?”

“The question did not arise,” said Horace rather grimly, “and if such questions do not arise, the references are usually satisfactory.”

“Usually,” agreed his sister, “but not always, Horace.”

“You speak in a very mysterious way, my dear. May I ask if you have a secret up your sleeve--what do they call those things in the ‘Family Herald’?--‘an ugly secret.’ Have you discovered that Lady Walton’s name was Smith?”

“I don’t know what her name was,” said Miss Lestrange, and for a moment she pushed the screen away from her. “The whole family seem slightly obscure, but I supposed Miss Walton’s aunt could hardly be a person of much discrimination (I am sure I can be revealing no secret to you, my dear Horace, as you must know all about the thing already)--but how could any one who was a lady allow her niece to compromise herself quite as madly on the eve of her first London season? People of our sort don’t do that kind of thing.”

“Pray explain yourself, Etta,” said Horace, getting up and standing in front of the mantelpiece, where he could look down on his sister. “I know nothing of what you say. Perhaps you have heard some malicious or stupid gossip which it is your duty to tell me, and mine to contradict.”

“I hardly think you could do anything so foolish as to contradict gossip, my dear Horace, unless you wish to revive it; but I will certainly tell you what the Lindleys told me, and doubtless Edith will find it easy to explain. She was found staying on the Lake of Como--at the same place, I believe, where your engagement took place--with a disreputable woman--a woman about whose career there was no shadow of doubt. The Lindleys knew all about her, and this woman and Miss Walton were requested to leave the hotel. The peculiar part of the whole story is that the aunt and Miss Walton’s maid left previously, having apparently discovered the character of Miss Walton’s companion, and leaving the niece alone with her. I told the Lindleys, of course, that there must be some perfectly obvious explanation, but the fact remains the girl never did come out, and that she and her aunt have traveled about more or less ever since. I am, I must confess, a little disappointed that you have not got an explanation for me.”

“There will be no difficulty about that,” said Horace quietly.

“None, of course,” said his sister in courteous agreement. Then there was a pause.

Etta continued to embroider, but she felt flushed and uncomfortable. So far she had simply skirmished; the real battle lay ahead. She had counted on her brother opening the subject, but he opened nothing. He stood before the closed door of her future apparently with far more comfort and unconcern than she did. Even a clever woman is at a disadvantage with a silent man; she has no weapon to pierce his armor. Her final onslaught had not disconcerted him so much as she had hoped. Evidently she was going to have to deal with an intelligent woman; no mere fool could have won such entire confidence from her brother, and without any of the distortions of love. Miss Lestrange saw perfectly well that Horace was not in love with the girl; she had guessed this from his letter--but she knew it the moment she saw him. It gave her unconcealed satisfaction, but at the same time it was puzzling that he seemed unshaken after her little story; she was certain of all the facts. She knew the importance of the unembellished, and she never risked an exaggeration with her brother. Lestranges did not understand exaggeration--at least, the male branch never did; if they found you inaccurate they had a tiresome habit of never accepting what you said without proof. Horace had never found Etta inaccurate; he had only once or twice thought she was mistaken.

Miss Lestrange fidgeted for a few minutes, then she said:

“Do you think that a woman, however innocent, who is under such a cloud, is fit to be in the position of mother to Annette’s boy?”

“I will make every inquiry,” said Horace reflectively, “and, by the bye, Etta, Flinders must go. I don’t approve of Flinders.”

“I think myself,” said Etta, “that he has taken rather too much upon his shoulders lately. You see, you were so long abroad, and yet you were his master. Whereas I was hardly in a position to dictate to him.”

“I shall speak to him to-night,” said Horace.

Miss Lestrange put down her embroidery and faced her brother.

“Horace,” she said, “I hope you found Leslie reconciled to the idea of this great change? I did not like to speak to him about it myself. I am not an emotional woman, but my feelings for you and for your boy have been very strong. I did not trust myself to say much. I told Mr. Flinders that nothing must be said to prejudice him against his future step-mother, and then I left the subject to you to explain.”

“He does not seem to have carried out your orders, Etta.”

“Oh, my dear Horace,” she cried with a sudden note of anxiety in her voice, “how dreadful--how very dreadful!”

“It is exceedingly tiresome, of course, but I fancy the boy will soon take to Edith; she is clever with children.”

Miss Lestrange rose to her feet; she looked agitated, plain, and awkward; her hands trembled and she gathered her sewing materials together. (There was the making of an excellent actress about Miss Lestrange.)

“My dear boy,” she said solicitously, “I haven’t liked to bother you about it while you were away--these things are so intangible--but Dr. Bossage isn’t quite pleased with Leslie’s health, his constitution is so delicate; he takes after Annette. You know I have been almost excessively careful of him. I spoke to Bossage last week about the impending change, and he said it would be a very serious matter unless the boy really took to her. I blame myself, Horace, for not having conquered my feelings and spoken to Leslie strongly in her favor; but the Lestranges have always been sincere; there was this story against her. I was too cautious. I waited. I am afraid I may have done incalculable harm--” She stopped breathless. Horace eyed her gravely.

“Is that all?” he asked as she finished.

“You had better go and see Bossage yourself,” said Miss Lestrange; “he strongly advised my taking the boy to live in the country or by the sea for a year or two, till he becomes definitely strong. I daresay you remember my having mentioned it to you in my last letter? Of course, should you think it best, I will take him with pleasure. I have already told you that I will send to Mallows for all my little things.”

“You know you needn’t do that, Etta; Mallows is as much your home as mine. Edith and I will run down when we like, but I most certainly wish you to remain there,” interrupted her brother.

Miss Lestrange bowed her head.

“That is like your generosity, Horace,” she replied slowly. “I accept. Now I am sure you wish to go and see Edith before it is too late.” (“Edith” was a distinct concession, but Miss Lestrange knew the value of inconclusive concessions.) “By-and-by you will tell me what you two are going to do about the boy. I hope, even if you decide to disregard Bossage, you will let him come away with me after your marriage, till you get settled, and it is convenient for you to have him back.”

After all, she hadn’t put him in a corner--she hadn’t tied him down nor asked him for a promise, or made a scene. She had done none of the things he had feared; she had merely given him “rope enough to hang himself,” and then let him go to accomplish the performance.

Horace did not know what had happened; he felt, indeed, vaguely uncomfortable. There was the strange story about Edith--pure folly but still strange--and there was this news of his boy’s health and his evident frightened horror of the new relationship. He might go and see Bossage, but he had a horror of going to see doctors--a horror born of terrible useless hours, while hideous, unavailing efforts were being made to stop the feeble ebbing of Annette’s little life. No, he wasn’t going to see doctors! But Edith was so keen to have the little chap. It was hard on Edith. (He did not consider it was hard upon himself--he was not apt to take that view of misfortune.) They had talked about him for hours, and it had all been so natural and right and easy--their future life together had been built around Annette’s son; the picture seemed suddenly a piece of vacant canvas brushed out by ineffaceable hygienic whitewash.

There was only one thing to be done. He would dismiss Flinders.

Mr. Flinders had, perhaps, some right to consider himself in after years an ill-used man. He had been given notice with implacable and relentless abruptness; no explanation had been given or listened to. If Lestrange had not been so extremely quiet, Mr. Flinders would have thought he was dealing with a man who was in a dangerous rage; as it was, he merely clung to the idea (which was not originally perhaps his own) that Lestrange was a well-meaning fool, governed by a tyrannical and scheming adventuress.

Miss Lestrange, who was most sympathetic about it next morning, assured him of the fact.

“It is natural,” she said graciously, “for people like yourself, Mr. Flinders, with your high ideals and great independence of spirit, to be surprised at such strong and regrettable influence wielded over a man like my brother, but the Lestranges are well known to be, as a family, very susceptible to women. I regret your going extremely. I spoke to my brother for you, but I am sorry to say I found him quite intractable on that and many other subjects. You must write and let me know how you are getting on. Life is so difficult, isn’t it?”

Miss Lestrange was fond of speaking of Life or Destiny as being gigantic monsters with invincible powers, and yet there were times when she manipulated these great forces very easily. Mr. Flinders left her more struck than ever by her genuine qualities.

“I daresay she will miss me too,” he said to himself with pleasant regretfulness. “I may have been of some use to her,” and there was no doubt that in this particular deduction Mr. Flinders was right.

IV

Lady Walton was a woman who never did anything with her hands. She was content to sit for hours at a time thinking--“doing nothing,” her acquaintances called it. Certain hours in the day she read, but she never opened a modern book of any kind.

“I have a feeling,” she said to her niece, “that they would revive a very painful experience I once received of a kitchen-maid in hysterics. People used to accept life and make their appeal to the intellect; now they spend their time screaming at natural laws and living for the emotions. It is a mysterious modern compulsion which used to be called selfishness. When I hear you begin to talk of your temperament, my dear Edith, I shall cease to ask you to run my errands.”

Edith stroked her aunt’s hand and smiled at her; but she was preoccupied; she was expecting Horace.

“Sometimes, Edith, you disappoint me. I have an impression that all the wisdom of all the ages, including my own, would have less effect upon your intelligence than the sound (I suppose they have no creak) of an ordinary pair of Bond Street boots.”

“Well, he is rather late,” said Edith.

“He is talking with his sister,” suggested Lady Walton. “I must congratulate you, my dear, in having chosen a husband who has complete ignorance of women. It is a very valuable attribute nowadays, when women have no restraint and men no manners. Horace is doubtless explaining to Miss Lestrange what an excellent arrangement his marriage will be for everybody concerned; and Miss Lestrange is turning his attention to awkward details. I hope you are prepared for complications, Edith; the maternal instinct of maiden aunts is a very fierce thing to combat. Do you realize that she may refuse to let the boy go?”

The girl moved restlessly.

“Oh, she can’t!” she murmured. “After all, Horace is very strong; he’s not a weak man, auntie.”

“There is nothing so vulnerable as some kinds of strength,” said Lady Walton, with a sigh, “or so invulnerable as some kinds of weakness. What is tyranny but weakness playing on generosity, and how long do you suppose it can last? It can last as long as the generosity.”

Edith shivered a little.

“But he’ll think of me,” she said. “He knows how I want his child.”

“He’ll think of you,” said her aunt very slowly; “yes, he’ll think of you, Edith; but thought doesn’t compel--there is only one compulsion.”

It was surgery for the sake of healing, but the knife struck deep.

Lady Walton sat quite still; she did not attempt to touch or soothe the girl; she did not even look at her. After a while she said reflectively:

“If you had been ten years, or even five years younger, Edith, I should have forbidden this marriage; but you have learnt self-control; you know what you are marrying for--and you won’t fail to receive it, because you are not fool enough to spend your time crying for the moon. Crying for the moon is an injurious element in married life. It is not the kind of thing one gets.”

Edith lifted her eyes to her aunt’s.

“I have asked myself sometimes why I am doing it,” she said, and her voice sounded hard and strained. “I am not a fool of twenty, as you say--but Horace could have given me the moon, only he has given it already. And--and what is so much more, auntie, I could have given him back the moon’s equivalent. I could have filled his life with happiness, and he can’t take it!”

“Well,” said Lady Walton, “do you regret what you are going to do?”

Edith hesitated a moment. Then she said: “Yes, and I’m going to do it.”

“I think I hear the taxi which is the preliminary of the Bond Street boots,” said her aunt, “and if you will excuse me, my dear, I will go to bed. It is a quarter to ten; you will send him away at half-past, cry for half-an-hour, and then go to bed.”

“Oh, I sha’n’t cry!” said Edith, rising and resting her head on the mantelpiece. “I don’t cry.”

“Ah!” replied Lady Walton, “that’s a great pity, my dear, because in that case you won’t sleep. However, we each have our own method.”

It seemed a long time to Edith before the owner of the Bond Street boots came upstairs.

She was a woman with a strong sense of humor, and so she spent the time laughing because it seemed so extremely amusing to receive a man who is going to marry you with a little more than the kindness of a friend and a little less than the freedom of a lover. What made it seem so especially funny to Edith was that she loved him; and it did not occur to her any the less sad because it was funny, or any the less funny because it was sad.

Horace entered, looking glum; he was feeling--as he phrased it--“a bit of a fool.” An ecstatic or an anxious welcome would have annoyed him. Edith met his eyes smiling, but she did not rise from her chair nor did she burst into nervous questions; she merely said:

“My aunt told me to tell you, Horace, that she was suffering from an acute attack of discretion, so that she would be unable to see you this evening; it is usually followed by a relapse into curiosity, which she expects to take place to-morrow; and you may stay until half-past ten.”

Horace sat down beside her and smiled. It was really very peaceful and jolly; the place seemed full of flowers; it was almost like their being together at Como. Edith was dressed in pale soft green; he liked it extremely. He took her hand and held it.

“Well, I’m rather glad we’re alone,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m awfully late, but I couldn’t help it. Etta kept me such a confounded time--bush-beating--and then I had to send off the tutor, who’s a beast--and has frightened the little chap silly about you; and altogether it’s been rather a rough passage.”

“Poor Horace,” said Edith softly, “what a shame! But you mustn’t be worried; we’ll straighten it all out between us somehow.”

“But you won’t like it--you won’t like it, Edith!” he exclaimed, looking at her with helpless, appealing eyes.

It was a look which women who love know how to answer--when they are loved in return. Edith drew a sudden quick breath, then she said:

“My dear boy, I didn’t expect we’d get everything all at once; it wouldn’t be any fun if we did. Why, it’s a regular campaign, and this is the first skirmish.”

“No, it’s defeat, Edith,” he said, more quietly. “I’m afraid it’s defeat.”

“Then tell me,” she answered. “I can bear defeat, Horace.”

He looked into her honest, gallant eyes and blessed her; he blessed her for her courage; and he might have kissed her if he had thought about it. He told her about the boy’s delicacy and the doctor’s orders. She asked him one question:

“If you hadn’t met me, could you have lived with him in the country?”

“Oh, no!” said Horace. “I couldn’t get up to town and back from Mallows for my work--we should have had to be parted.”

They were both silent for a little, then she drew his hand up against her cheek.

“We’ll go down all your holidays to Mallows,” she said. “Every single one, Horace!”

“But don’t you--don’t you mind?” he stammered, puzzled.

Edith turned her eyes on his, still smiling.

“We’ve got to mind,” she murmured; “but may I just see him first?”

“Yes, of course, to-morrow,” said Horace quickly. “I think the whole thing’s rather devilish, you know, Edith. I can’t quite follow it. They never told me before about the little chap, and they seem to have turned him against the very idea of you and all that, you know; and he’s such a loving little fellow really, and he said he wanted to go away and leave me⁠--”

Horace’s voice broke and Edith winced. She looked away from him, and he recovered himself in a moment.

“And Etta has got hold of some wild tale about you,” he went on. “I don’t like to speak to you about it, dear--it’s all a stupid bottomless impertinence--but, of course, I had to tell her I’d ask you.”

“You may ask me anything you like, Horace.”

“Thank you, darling! Do you know I always thought you were awfully sensible, but I never knew how sensible you were before to-night.”

Edith gave a long, low laugh.

“Sensible? I’m so glad you think I’m sensible, Horace!” she murmured.

“Yes, I do,” he said with admiring emphasis. “I think you’re the most sensible woman I ever met.”

Edith stopped laughing.

“And the story, Horace?”

“Well, were you ever on the Lake of Como staying with rather an odd person--ten years ago?” he began. He had released her hands now and sat looking red and foolish and staring in front of him. Edith leaned back in her chair and regarded him with a twinkle in her eye.

“Yes,” she said, “I was. I stayed at Bellagio ten years ago with my aunt and her maid⁠--”

“And that’s all?” he asked, glaring at the carpet.

“No--that’s not all,” said Edith in a low voice. “It’s a long story, and I thought perhaps I wouldn’t tell you; my aunt wanted me to, but it was a very sad story, and it happened so long ago I hoped people had forgotten; although I might have known that people’s memory for the unfortunate lasts as long as their oblivion of the happier star. You have observed to-night that I am a sensible woman, Horace; what is your definition of a sensible woman?”

He hesitated.

“Well, hang it all, I don’t know how to define things, but I suppose I meant a woman who wasn’t foolish--never made a fuss, or scenes, or mistakes, or did--well, stupid things, you know.”

“Then,” said Edith, smiling demurely, “as a girl I think I must have answered to your description of a foolish woman, Horace. I don’t know that I made scenes, but I certainly did what people call foolish things, and I behaved, as my aunt would no doubt tell you, as an idiot; at the time you mention she called me a suicidal idiot!

“To begin with, I must tell you I am very susceptible to beauty. I probably shouldn’t have tolerated you nearly as well if it hadn’t been for your extremely handsome nose--you needn’t blush--it is handsome, and I know it is through no effort of your own that you have acquired this undoubted beauty. When I reached Bellagio I saw there the most beautiful human being I have ever seen in my life (you need not jog your foot, Horace); she was a woman, and she was exquisitely beautiful. If you ask my aunt, she will tell you that a girl as beautiful as that ought to be immured for life behind walls. However, she wasn’t immured, she was walking along on the shores of the lake with a loathsome man I hated, and she had a mouth that made your heart ache to look at, with the mere maddening beauty of it! She was very tall, and everything about her was slender that ought to be slender--and every curve that ought to be full was full--and her head was poised like a flower, and her skin was soft as the tenderest little petal of a new bud, and colored like light through a cloud, and her eyes were dark and stormy like a black lake in the mountains--and unutterably sad. I could go on describing her all night, but you’ve got to go at half-past ten. The absurd part of the whole story is that she was in love with the silly little scrap one might call a man, I suppose, if we had to label him as a specimen, and he--was tired (if you please) of her! Plainly, Helen of Troy, the Venus of Milo--or whatever you choose to consider within a thousand miles of her--no longer suited his convenience!

“At this moment he caught diphtheria, and I sincerely hope he suffered abominably; but, needless to say, he hadn’t the decency to die. No one in the hotel was any the wiser. It was too early in the season, and the man had money, so ‘Helen of Troy’ nursed him in their particular part of the hotel behind a carbolic sheet, and we were told he had bronchitis.

“My aunt is one of the most plucky and altogether delightful women I know, but she has a pronounced terror of infectious disease, and if she had guessed what lurked in that distant wing I might never be telling you this story. One morning as I was crossing the hotel lounge I saw the unpromising specimen of manhood in front of the bureau. He had quite recovered and was giving notice for his departure that day. He added that Madame could not accompany him; she had better be removed to the hospital, as he was unable to continue to offer her his protection. I heard him say this in the quick French, which he no doubt calculated could hardly reach the intelligence of an English miss. Then I went over to the bureau and told the manager that I would be responsible for Madame, and that I would nurse her and undertake her expenses. He seemed very unwilling to accept my offer, and finally under promise of secrecy he told me the nature of the trouble. There was no one in the hotel but ourselves. I told my aunt what I intended to do, and that as bronchitis was occasionally infectious I should not come out of my patient’s room for some weeks. (Did I ever tell you that I had worked previously in a London hospital for a year? I meant to be a nurse, but my throat wasn’t strong enough, so I never finished my training.) Well, my aunt appealed to my common sense, to my affection for her, and finally to her authority; and then I kissed her and reminded her that she had always told me to consider my life my personal property, and how long Helen of Troy’s eyelashes were, and what an ineffable brute the man must have been. She said I was a suicidal idiot, and that I could send her a daily message. But of course I never did, because you might be able to carry that kind of bronchitis in notes.

“Well, the end of the story was that my aunt met the doctor, and whether she had had her suspicions or not before, I don’t know, but the doctor couldn’t stand against her; she got the truth out of him, left the hotel in a panic, and wired to me to leave instantly, get quarantined somewhere, and then join her.

“I had been by this time a fortnight with Helen of Troy; she was recovering, but she had found out that I wasn’t the man, and her heart was broken. I don’t expect you know anything about women with broken hearts, Horace, but I think you would agree with me, you can’t leave them. So I didn’t leave Helen of Troy. We stayed on together long after she had actually recovered. I slept in a room leading out of hers, and I was glad I was a strong woman, because on three occasions she tried to commit suicide, and you need a good deal of muscle to stop a person who wants to commit suicide as much as she did. After her illness was over we used to wander up and down the garden by the lake-side. The season had begun there, and all kinds of people kept turning up. One day some strange men spoke to us in the garden. One of them was a friend of the ‘unpromising specimen,’ and before we had time to make ourselves perfectly plain to them the hotel gossip scuttled off like a rabbit from almost under our feet to the manager, and he told us the next morning very politely that unfortunately our rooms were wanted.

“We left, of course, and Helen of Troy went back to America (did I tell you she was half-Jewish and half-American?). She had a friend on the stage who had offered her a part. She never told me her real name. I always called her ‘Helen,’ and though she promised to write to me I have never heard from her since. I expect she thought I might try to trace her.

“That is the whole and entire story of Helen of Troy, and I’m afraid, my dear Horace, that you can no longer consider me the most sensible woman in the world.”

Horace took her hand in his and kissed it.

“I wish I had married you ten years ago,” he said gently. Then he remembered Annette. He let her hand drop suddenly, and walked quickly to the window.

“It’s half-past ten,” said Edith, and then she moved past him and ran hastily upstairs, because she did not wish him to say good-night to her while he was remembering Annette.

Miss Lestrange’s comment on the story was characteristic.

“Dear me, Horace!” she said. “What an extraordinary tale! How strange those kind of people are! I suppose it never occurred to either the aunt or the niece to hire a trained nurse for the creature?”

And Horace hung his head, because there are some explanations which the children of light are ashamed to put to the children of this world, who are so much wiser.

V

Miss Lestrange called the next day upon her future sister-in-law. She took a chair with the resigned manner of a woman who will try to be as comfortable as she can, and she talked to Edith with a detached but patient cordiality.

“Bayswater is such a charming part to live in,” she began. “I felt as I came away from stuffy little Curzon Street quite as if I were on a picnic or a summer excursion. It must be so nice to live here; I wonder why nobody does?”

Edith smiled pleasantly.

“Oh, ‘nobody’ does,” she replied, pouring out tea; “and it’s only the ‘somebodies’ who don’t! You see, Miss Lestrange, you must pay the penalty of greatness.”

“Dear me--witty!” thought Miss Lestrange, and she used the word with as much disapproval as if she meant “wild.” Aloud she merely murmured something irrelevant about Kensington Gardens. It was one of Miss Lestrange’s great social gifts that she could allow an awkward silence to take place without any of the awkwardness adhering to herself. She would sit staring through a tortoiseshell lorgnette with an air which plainly said:

“This silence is nothing to me; I can break it whenever I choose--only I don’t choose.”

Unfortunately, Edith had the tea-things, which did almost as well.

“I think the Lindleys knew your aunt,” said Miss Lestrange at last. “It is so pleasant, is it not, to discover a mutual acquaintance?”

“Very,” said Edith. “It’s almost as exciting as making a new relation. Do you take sugar?”

“One lump, please. I was delighted to hear of my brother’s impending marriage,” continued Miss Lestrange; “delighted. Of course, I had been expecting it for some time. I have but little faith in inveterate bachelors, and none at all in inveterate widowers. Besides, a sensible marriage for a man of my brother’s age is very desirable. He settles down, the phase of romance is over, and the phase of domesticity sets in; and, of course, it is always a relief when one knows for certain that one’s brother won’t marry a barmaid.”

“I can’t fancy Horace marrying a barmaid at any time,” said Edith, smiling.

“When you are my age, my dear, you will no doubt live to see, as I have seen, all the things you cannot imagine taking place,” said Miss Lestrange, putting down her tea, which she had not finished, as if she did not like it.

There had been things in their conversation which had not pleased her, but this last hit had told (if you go on hitting long enough, some hit generally does). She had expected to find Miss Walton good-looking and good-humored; she had not expected to find her unembarrassed and well-armed. However, Miss Lestrange always dealt with the unexpected as if it was perfectly ordinary, so that no one ever discovered her mistakes.

“I believe you are to be introduced shortly to your step-son!” Miss Lestrange began reflectively. “I hope you will take to the poor child.”

“I always love children,” said Edith gently.

“Ah!” said Miss Lestrange, “that is a refreshing change from the modern note. Annette’s child, however--I refer to my brother’s former wife--is peculiar. Annette was highly sensitive, like a spring blossom, and her son takes after her. I shall be delighted to help you in any way I can upon the subject.”

Edith said:

“He is coming at five o’clock; I hope very much he won’t dislike me.”

“My dear, why should he?” said Miss Lestrange, rising to her feet and holding out her hand. “He is not old enough to remember his mother, fortunately--I mean, of course, there will be no soreness of comparison as there might be with an older child. We will meet again soon, shall we not? Good-bye.”

Edith suddenly found that she could say nothing more; a slow paralysis of icy cold seemed to be numbing her limbs and brain. She could find no more words; this woman--pleasant, courteous, heartless--seemed to have pelted her to death with innumerable hailstones. She stood breathless and quivering in the doorway, and there Lady Walton found her.

“My dear!” she said quickly. “What is the matter?”

Edith began to laugh.

“Horace’s sister is a very clever woman, auntie,” she said. “Now, if I were a man I would swear loud and long, and then go and take a sherry cobbler or a gin sling, or whatever is the strongest American drink, to give me fresh courage to meet my small step-son, for I believe she came just now simply to unnerve me for the ordeal, for I have a feeling as if there were worse to follow. She spoke of Horace throughout as ‘my brother,’ in a tone which gave me fully to understand that he would always be far more extensively her brother than my husband.”

Lady Walton looked at her carefully.

“Go and take a cup of tea,” she said; “your nerves are shaken, but depend upon it, child, you didn’t collapse when she was there. I should have received her with you, only I did not like her to think that you needed to call up your reserves. Let us hope the men of the family are less alpine. I shall be out till dinner.”

Lady Walton kissed her niece; she was very fond of her, rather sorry for her, and extremely proud of her. On the whole she considered Edith over-sensitive; she would have dearly enjoyed a tussle with Miss Lestrange herself, but Edith was too tender-hearted for prolonged warfare. She could take the defensive, but she couldn’t hit back. Lady Walton knew this, and it annoyed her; in her heart of hearts she was rather cruel, and she despised people who could not be a little cruel too. Still, Edith was undeniably plucky, so she patted her cheek and went out cheerfully for a drive.

Half an hour later, with eager palpitating heart Edith gazed out of the window at a pair of figures coming up the steps. Horace was leading a small curly-headed boy, to whom he was talking nervously in that tone of eager and would-be cheerfulness in which parents seek to ingratiate themselves in order to overcome the inflexible judgment of a child. Leslie said nothing; he was using enormous self-control, but it did not reach to speech. That morning his beloved tutor had been spirited away--a whim of this new invisible monster. Who knew how soon his Aunt Etta, or even his father himself, would follow, and he (Leslie) would be left without protection or assistance, face to face with the unendurable? His father’s words fell upon his ears like the well-meaning patter of a nursery rhyme. Talking made no difference; it could not cover up the fact that they were going to see Her, and that she lived--this crushing monster of iniquity--in this very house whose stiff and odious steps they were now climbing. There were flower-boxes in the windows full of pink geraniums. Leslie was very fond of flower-boxes. He was an imaginative little boy, and he said fiercely to himself:

“They are not really flower-boxes, they are pretend boxes, put there like wicked witches pretend to put things in fairy tales to take you in.”

Horace cleared his throat.

“You will try to be nice to her, won’t you, my boy, for your old father’s sake?” he asked as he rang the bell. This was a mistake; he should have let Leslie ring the bell. Aunt Etta always did. Leslie said so in a tone of ruffled uneasiness. His father apologized but repeated his question.

“Oh, yes, I shall be polite!” said Leslie. “Aunt Etta said Lestranges are always polite.”

“Well, I hope you’ll be kind too,” said his father. Leslie said nothing; he had not been told that Lestranges are always kind--besides, he was examining the carpet. It was nice and thick, and he thought there were birds on it, but they were not going slowly enough to make sure. A door opened, and in a bower of late spring flowers stood a woman--a tall, dark woman with lips that laughed and eyes that swam in tears, and outstretched hands and a low, sweet voice like music--saying his name very quickly and paying no attention to his father at all.

Leslie stopped perfectly still and looked at her. There was no doubt about it, she was worse than a witch--she was an enchantress! He knew no spell to change her back into a snake or a pig. He could only stand and look at her with grave and disapproving eyes, and then hold out his little slender hand with the stately politeness of a well-mannered child--the severest rebuke in Nature.

“How do you do?” he said gravely; then he looked round for his father. His father was gone. For a moment he had a wild thought of darting after him, of screaming for help and flying down those soft, broad covered passages. Horror shook his quivering nerves, but pride restrained him. His father had deserted him. Perhaps she had the power to make his father invisible. At any rate, she should not make a Lestrange a coward, so he sat down politely and looked at her.

“I hope you will like these little cakes I have got for your tea,” said Edith, and her hand shook a little. “They are all in the shape of fishes. I have a very nice cook, and she made them for me, and we put eyes in--and everything.”

“It was very kind of you,” said Leslie, “but I would rather not eat them.”

“But you will have some tea, won’t you?” she pleaded; “and all these buns have got hundreds and thousands on them, and they are buttered.”

There was no doubt about it, she knew how to put things, this enchantress; the hundreds and thousands were a distinct point.

“Thank you, I had my tea before I came,” said Leslie. “I won’t take anything to eat--at least I’d rather not.”

“Oh, I don’t want you to do anything you’d rather not!” cried Edith quickly. “I want you to be happy; don’t you think--don’t you think, Leslie, we might be friends?”

Leslie eyed her fixedly. She had not laughed at him, nor asked how old he was, nor offered to kiss him; she had done nothing really wrong, and there was something quite friendly and shining in her eyes--probably magic--but certainly shining.

“I don’t think it’s possible,” said Leslie slowly. Then he added politely:

“Shall we talk of something else?”

Edith went to the window. Her eyes did not shine so much when she came back--perhaps his courage and self-command were overcoming the magic. It seemed like it, for her voice was not so gay. To begin with, it had sounded very gay, as if she would like to dance and play games. This was probably what she had done with father. She had bewitched him completely. Mr. Flinders had said so.

“Your father told me, Leslie,” said Edith when she returned from the window, “that you were very fond of soldiers. I, too, am very fond of soldiers, so I thought perhaps you would like to see some I bought this morning--they are two cavalry regiments; both the generals have cocked hats and swords.”

“Are there guns?” asked Leslie with forgetful rapture.

“Yes, there are guns and gun-carriages. Shall I clear this table? There, you know how to fasten them on perhaps! Will you show me how?”

Leslie regained his knowledge of the situation.

“They are very easy to put on,” he said. “You run them along like this. Are they imitation, or can they go off?”

“They can go off with peas,” said Edith kindly.

Leslie’s face flushed--real guns that could go off with peas were excellent and sane amusements even for an enchantress. By-and-by he forgot her profession, and began to order her about. They played contentedly for an hour, then the clock struck six. Leslie counted it. “Shortly after six, my poor dear boy, they will let you come home,” his Aunt Etta had said. He put down the general and pushed the table away; his lips quivered.