Japonette

The failure of the old-time firm of Edgerton, Tennant & Co. was unusual only because it was an honest one—the bewildered creditors receiving a hundred cents on a dollar from property not legally involved.

Edgerton had been dead for several years; the failure of the firm presently killed old Tennant, who was not only old in years, but also old in fashion—so obsolete, in fact, were the fashions he clung to that he had used his last cent in a matter which he regarded as involving his personal honor.

The ethically laudable but materially ruinous integrity of old Henry Tennant had made matters rather awkward for his orphaned nieces. Similar traditions in the Edgerton family—of which there now remained only a single representative, James Edgerton 3d—devastated that young man's inheritance so completely that he came back to the United States, via Boston, on a cattle steamer and arrived in New York the following day with two dollars in loose silver and a confused determination to see the affair through without borrowing.

He walked from the station to the nearest of his clubs. It was very early, and the few club servants on duty gazed at him with friendly and respectful sympathy.

In the visitors' room he sat down, wrote out his resignation, drew up similar valedictories to seven other expensive and fashionable clubs, and then picked up his two suit cases again, declining with a smile the offered assistance from Read, the doorman who had been in service there as long as the club had existed.

"Mr. Edgerton," murmured the old man, "Mr. Inwood is in the Long Room, sir."

Edgerton thought a moment, then walked to the doorway of the Long Room and looked in. At the same time Inwood glanced up from his newspaper.

"Hello!" he exclaimed; "is that you, Edgerton?"

"Who the devil do you think it is?" replied Edgerton amiably.

They shook hands. Inwood said:

"What's the trouble—a grouch, a hangover, or a lady?"

Edgerton laughed, placed his suit cases on the floor, and seated himself in a corner of the club window for the first time in six months—and for the last time in many, many months to come.

"It's hot in town," he observed. "How are you, Billy?"

"Blooming. Accept from me a long, cold one with a permanent fizz to it. Yes? No? A Riding Club cocktail, then? What? Nix for the rose-wreathed bowl?"

Edgerton shook his head. "Nix for the bowl, thanks."

"Well, you won't mind if I ring for first-aid materials, will you?"

The other politely waved his gloved hand.

A servant arrived and departed with the emergency order. Inwood pushed an unpleasant and polychromatic mess of Sunday newspapers aside and reseated himself in the leather chair.

"I'm terribly sorry about what happened to you, Jim," he said. "So is everybody. We all thought it was to be another gay year of that dear Paris for you——"

"I thought so, too," nodded Edgerton; "but what a fellow thinks hasn't anything to do with anything. I've found out that."

Inwood emptied his glass and gazed at the frost on it, sentimentally.

"The main thing," he said, "is for your friends to stand by you——"

"No; the main thing is for them to stand aside—kindly, Billy—while I pass down and out for a while."

"My dear fellow——"

"While I pass out," repeated Edgerton. "I may return; but that will be up to me—and not up to them."

"Well, what good is friendship?"

"Good to believe in—no good otherwise. Let it alone and it's the finest thing in the world; use it, and you will have to find another name for it."

He smiled at Inwood.

"Friendship must remain always the happiest and most comforting of all—theories," he said. "Let it alone; it has a value inestimable in its own place—no value otherwise."

Inwood began to laugh.

"Your notion concerning friends and friendship isn't the popular one."

"But my friends will sleep the sounder for knowing what are my views concerning friendship."

"That's cynical and unfair," began the other, reddening.

"No, it's honest; and you notice that even my honesty puts a certain strain on our friendship," retorted Edgerton, still laughing.

"You're only partly in earnest, aren't you?"

"Oh, I'm never really in earnest about anything. That's why Fate extended an unerring and iron hand, grasped me by the slack of my pants, shook me until all my pockets turned inside out, and set me down hard on the trolley tracks of Destiny. Just now I'm crawling for the sidewalk and the skirts of Chance."

He laughed again without the slightest bitterness, and looked out of the window.

The view from the club window was soothing: Fifth Avenue lay silent and deserted in the sunshine of an early summer morning.

Inwood said: "The papers—everybody—spoke most glowingly of the way your firm settled with its creditors."

"Oh, hell! Why should ordinary honesty make such a stir in New York? Don't let's talk about it; I'm going home, anyway."

"Where?"

"To my place."

"It's been locked up for over a year, hasn't it?"

"Yes, but there's a janitor——"

"Come down to Oyster Bay with me," urged Inwood; "come on, Jim, and forget your troubles over Sunday."

"As for my troubles," returned the other, rising with a shrug and pulling on his gloves, "I've had leisure on the ocean to classify and pigeonhole the lot of them. I know exactly what I'm going to do, and I'm going home to begin it."

"Begin what?" inquired Inwood with a curiosity entirely friendly.

"I'm going to find out," said Edgerton, "whether any of what my friends have called my 'talents' are real enough to get me a job worth three meals a day, or whether they'll merely procure for me the hook."

"What are you thinking of trying?"

"I don't know exactly. I thought of turning some one of my parlor tricks into a future profession—if people will let me."

"Writing stories?"

"Well, that, or painting, or illustrating—music, perhaps. Perhaps I could write a play, or act in some other fellow's; or do some damn thing or other—" he ended vaguely. And for the first time Inwood saw that his friend's eyes were weary, and that his face seemed unusually worn. It was plain enough that James Edgerton 3d had already journeyed many a league with Black Care, and that he had not yet outridden that shadowy horseman.

"Jim," said Inwood seriously, "why won't you let me help you—" But Edgerton checked him in a perfectly friendly manner.

"You are helping me," he said; "that's why I'm going about my business. Success to yours, Billy. Good-by! I'll be back"—glancing around the familiar room—"sometime or other; back here and around town, everywhere, as usual," he added confidently; and the haunted look faded. He smiled and nodded with a slight gesture of adieu, picked up his suit cases, and, with another friendly shake of his head for the offers of servants' assistance, walked out into the sunshine of Fifth Avenue, and west toward his own abode in Fifty-sixth Street.

When he arrived there, he was hot and dusty, and he decided to let Kenna carry up his luggage. So he descended to the area.

Every time he pulled the basement bell he could hear it jingle inside the house somewhere, but nobody responded, and after a while he remounted the area steps to the street and glanced up at the brown-stone façade. Every window was shut, every curtain drawn. That block on Fifty-sixth Street on a Sunday morning in early summer is an unusually silent and deserted region. Edgerton looked up and down the sunny street. After Paris the city of his birth seemed very mean and treeless and shabby in the merciless American sunshine.

Fumbling for his keys he wondered to what meaner and shabbier street he might soon be destined, now that fortune had tripped him up; and how soon he would begin to regret the luxury of this dusty block and the comforts of the house which he was now about to enter. And he fitted his latch-key to the front door and let himself in.

It was a very clumsy and old-fashioned apartment house, stupidly built, five stories high; there was only one apartment to a floor, and no elevator. The dark and stuffy austerity of this out-of-date building depressed him anew as he entered. Its tenants, of course, were away from town for the summer—respectable, middle-aged people—stodgy, wealthy, dull as the carved banisters that guarded the dark, gas-lit well of the staircase. Each family owned its own apartment—had been owners for years. Edgerton inherited his floor from an uncle—widely known among earlier generations as a courtly and delightful old gentleman—an amateur of antiquities and the possessor of many very extraordinary things, including his own private character and disposition.

Carrying his suit cases, which were pasted all over with tricolored labels, the young man climbed the first two flights of stairs, and then, placing his luggage on the landing, halted to recover his breath and spirits.

The outlook for his future loomed as dark as the stair well. He sat down on the top step, lighted a cigarette, and gazed up at the sham stained glass in the skylight above. And now for the first time he began to realize something of the hideousness of his present position, his helplessness, unfitted as he was to cope with financial adversity or make an honest living at anything.

If people had only let him alone when he first emerged from college as mentally naked as anything newly fledged, his more sensible instincts probably would have led him to remain in the ancient firm of his forefathers, Edgerton, Tennant & Co., dealers in iron.

But fate and his friends had done the business for him, finally persuading him to go abroad. He happened, unfortunately, to possess a light, graceful, but not at all unusual, talent for several of the arts; he could tinkle catchy improvisations on a piano, sketch in oil and water colors, model in clay, and write the sort of amateur verse popular in college periodicals. Women often evinced an inclination to paw him and tell him their troubles; fool friends spoke vaguely of genius and "achieving something distinctly worth while"—which finally spoiled a perfectly good business man, especially after a third-rate periodical had printed one of his drawings, and a fourth-rate one had published a short story by him; and the orchestra at the Colonnade had played one of his waltzes, and Bernstein of the Frivolity Theater had offered to read any libretto he might send.

So he had been ass enough to take a vacation and offer himself two years' study abroad; and he had been away almost a year when the firm went to the wall, carrying with it everything he owned on earth except this apartment and its entailed contents, which he could neither cast into the melting pot for his creditors nor even sell for his own benefit. However, the creditors were paid dollar for dollar, and those finer and entirely obsolete points of the Edgerton honor remained silver bright; and the last of the Edgertons was back once more in New York with his apartment, his carvings, tapestries and pictures, which the will forbade him to sell, and two dollars change in his pockets.

Presently he cast his cigarette from him, picked up his suit cases, and started upward, jaw set. It was a good thing for him that he had a jaw like that. It was his only asset now. So far in life, however, he had never used it.

Except the echo of his tread on the uncarpeted staircase, not another sound stirred in the house. Every landing was deserted, every apartment appeared to be empty and locked up for the summer. Dust lay gray on banister and landing; the heated atmosphere reeked with the odor of moth balls and tar paper seeping from locked doors.

On the top floor a gas jet flickered as usual in the corridor which led to his apartment. By its uncertain flame he selected a key from the bunch he carried, and let himself into his own rooms; and the instant he set foot across the threshold he knew that something was wrong.

Whether it had been a slight sound which he fancied he heard in the private passage-way, or whether he imagined some stealthy movement in the golden dusk beyond, he could not determine; but a swift instinct halted and challenged him, and left him listening.

As he stood there, checked, slowly the idea began to possess him that there was somebody else in the apartment. When the slight but sudden chill had left him, and his hair no longer tingled on the verge of rising, he moved forward a step, then again halted. For a moment, still grasping both suit cases, he stood as though at bay, listening, glancing from alcove to corridor, from one dim spot of light to another where a door ajar here and there revealed corners of empty rooms.

Whether or not there was at that moment another living being except himself in the place he did not know, but he did know that otherwise matters were not as he had left them a year ago in his apartment.

For one thing, here, under his feet, was spread his beautiful, antique Daghestan runner, soft as deep velvet, which he had left carefully rolled up, sewed securely in burlap, and stuffed full of camphor balls. For another thing, his ear had caught a low, rhythmical sound from the mantel in his bedroom. It was his frivolous Sèvres clock ticking as indiscreetly as it had ever ticked in the boudoir of its gayly patched and powdered mistress a hundred and fifty years ago—which was disturbing to Edgerton, as he had been away for a year, and had left his apartment locked up with orders to Kenna, the janitor, to keep out until otherwise instructed by letter or cable.

Listening, eyes searching the dusk, he heard somewhere the rustle of a curtain blowing at an open window; and, stepping softly to his dining-room door, he turned the knob cautiously and peered in.

No window seemed to be open there; the place was dark, the furniture still in its linen coverings.

As he moved silently to the butler's pantry, where through loosely closed blinds the sunshine glimmered, making an amber-tinted mystery of the silence, it seemed for a moment to him as though he could still hear somewhere the stir of the curtain; and he turned and retraced his steps through the library.

In the twilight of the place, half revealed as he passed, he began now to catch glimpses of a state of things that puzzled him.

Coming presently to his dressing room, he opened the door, and, sure enough, there was a window open, and beside it a curtain fluttered gayly. But what completely monopolized his attention was a number of fashionable trunks—wardrobe trunks, steamer trunks, hat trunks, shoe trunks—some open, and the expensive-looking contents partly visible; some closed and covered. And on every piece of this undoubtedly feminine luggage were the letters D.T. or S.T.

And on top of the largest trunk sat a live cat.

CHAPTER II

CORPUS DELICTI

The cat was pure white and plumy, and Persian. Out of its wonderful sky-blue eyes it looked serenely at Edgerton; and the young man gazed back, astonished. Then, suddenly, he caught a glimpse of the bedroom beyond, and froze to a statue.

The object that appeared to petrify him lay flung across his bed—a trailing garment of cobweb lace touched here and there with rose-tinted ribbons.

For a moment he stared at it hypnotized; then his eyes shifted wildly to his dresser, which seemed to be covered with somebody else's toilet silver and crystal, and—what was that row of cunning little commercial curls!—that chair heaped with fluffy stuffs, lacy, intimate things, faintly fragrant!

"A dainty, unreal shape, exquisite as a tinted phantom stealing through a fairy tale of Old Japan."

With a violent shiver he turned his startled eyes toward the parted tapestry gently stirring in the unfelt summer wind.

From where he stood he could see into the great studio beyond. A small, flowered silk slipper lay near the threshold, high of heel, impertinent, fascinating; beyond, on the corner of a table stood a bowl full of peonies, ivory, pink, and salmon-tinted; and their perfume filled the place.

Somebody had rolled up the studio shades. Sunshine turned the great square window to a sheet of dazzling glory, and against it, picked out in delicate silhouette, a magic shadow was moving—a dainty, unreal shape, exquisite as a tinted phantom stealing through a fairy tale of Old Japan.

Suddenly the figure turned its head and saw him, and stood motionless against the flare of light—a young girl, very slim in her shimmering vestments of blossom-sprayed silk.

The next moment he walked straight into the studio.

Neither spoke. She examined him out of wide and prettily shaped eyes; he inspected her with amazed intentness. Everything about her seemed so unreal, so subtly fragrant—the pink peonies like fluffy powder-puffs above each little close-set ear, the rose-tinted silhouette of her, the flushed cheeks, soft bare arms, the silk-sheathed feet shod in tiny straw sandals tied with vermilion cords.

"Who are you?" she asked; and her voice seemed to him as charmingly unreal as the rest of the Japanese fairy tale that held him enthralled.

"Will you please go out again at once!" she said, and he woke up partly.

"This—this is perfectly incredible," he said slowly.

"It is, indeed," she said, placing a snowy finger upon an electric button and retaining it there.

He regarded her without comprehension, muttering:

"I—I simply cannot realize it—that cat—those g-garments—you——"

"There is another thing you don't realize," she said with heightened color, "that I am steadily ringing the janitor's bell—and the janitor is large and violent and Irish, and he is probably halfway upstairs by this time——"

"Do you take me for a malefactor?" he asked, astounded.

"I am not afraid of you in the least," she retorted, still keeping her finger on the bell.

"Afraid of me? Of course you are not."

"I am not! Although your two suit cases are probably packed with the silver from my dressing stand."

"What!"

"Then—then—what have you put into your suit cases? What are you doing in this apartment? And will you please leave your suit cases and escape immediately?"

Her voice betrayed a little unsteadiness now, and Edgerton said:

"Please don't be frightened if I seem to remain——"

"You are remaining!"

"Of course, I am." He forced an embarrassed smile. "I've got to; I haven't any other place to go. There are all kinds of complications here, and I think you had better listen to me and stop ringing. The janitor is out anyway."

"He is not!" she retorted, now really frightened; "I can hear him coming up the stairway—probably with a p-pistol——"

Edgerton turned red. "When I next set eyes on that janitor," he said, "I'll probably knock his head off.... Don't be frightened! I only meant it humorously. Really, you must listen to me, because you and I have some rather important matters to settle within the next few minutes."

In his growing perplexity and earnestness he placed his suit cases on the rug and advanced a step toward her, and she shrank away, her hands flat against the wall behind her, the beautiful, frightened eyes fixed on his—and he halted.

"I haven't the slightest notion who you are," he said, bewildered; "but I'm pretty sure that I'm James Edgerton, and that this is my apartment. But how you happen to be inhabiting it I can't guess, unless that rascally janitor sublet it to you supposing that I'd be away for another year and never know it."

"You!—James Edgerton!" she exclaimed.

"My steamer docked yesterday."

"You are James Edgerton?—of Edgerton, Tennant & Co.?"

He began to laugh.

"I was James Edgerton, of Edgerton, Tennant & Co.; I am now only a silent partner in Fate, Destiny & Co.... If you don't mind—if you please—who are you?"

"Why, I'm Diana Tennant!"

"Who?"

"Diana Tennant! Haven't you ever heard of my sister and me?"

"You mean you're those two San Francisco nieces?" he asked, astonished.

"I'm one of them. Silvette is sitting on the roof."

"On—the roof!"

"Yes; we have a roof garden—some geraniums and things, and a hammock. It's just a makeshift until we secure employment.... Is it possible that you are really James Edgerton? And didn't you know that we had rented your apartment by the month?"

He passed an uncertain hand over his eyes.

"Will you let me sit down a moment and talk to you?" he said.

"Please—of course. I do beg your pardon, Mr. Edgerton.... You must understand how startling it was to look up and see a man standing there with two suit cases."

He began to laugh; and after a moment she ventured to smile in an uncertain, bewildered way, and seated herself in a big velvet chair against the light.

They sat looking at each other, lost in thought: he evidently absorbed in the problem before him; she, unquiet, waiting, the reflex of unhappy little perplexities setting her sensitive lips aquiver at moments.

"You did rent this apartment from the janitor?" he said at length.

"My sister and I—yes. Didn't he have your permission?"

"No.... But don't worry.... I'll fix it up somehow; we'll arrange——"

"It is perfectly horrid!" she exclaimed. "What in the world can you think of us? ... But we were quite innocent—it was merely chance. Isn't it strange, Mr. Edgerton!—Silvette and I had walked and walked and walked, looking for some furnished apartment within our means which we might take by the month; and in Fifty-sixth Street we saw the sign, 'Apartment and Studio to let for the summer,' and we inquired, and he let us have it for almost nothing.... And we never even knew that it belonged to you!"

"To whom did you draw your checks for the rent?"

"We were to pay the janitor."

"Have you done so?" he asked sharply.

"N-no. We arranged—not to pay—until we could afford it——"

"I'm glad of that! Don't you pay that scoundrel one penny. As for me, of course I couldn't think of accepting——"

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" she said in pretty despair; "I've got to tell you everything now! Several humiliating things—circumstances—very tragic, Mr. Edgerton."

"No; you need not tell me a single thing that is likely to distress you."

"But I've got to! You don't understand. That wretched janitor has put us in a position from which there is absolutely no escape. Because I—we ought to go away instantly—b-but we—can't!"

"Not at all, Miss Tennant. I ought to leave you in possession, and I—I'm trying to think out how to—to do it."

"How can we ask you to do such a——"

"You don't ask; I've got to find some means—ways—expedients——"

"But we can't turn you out of your own place!"

"No; but I've got to turn myself out. If you'll just let me think——"

"I will—oh, I will, Mr. Edgerton; but please, please let me explain the dreadful and humiliating conditions first, so that you won't consider me absolutely shameless."

"I don't!"

"You will unless I tell you—unless I find courage to tell you how it is with my sister and me."

"I'd like to know, but you must not feel obliged to tell me."

"I do feel obliged! I must! We're poor. We've spent all our money, and we can't go anywhere else very well!"

Edgerton glanced at the luxury in the next room, astonished; then his gaze reverted to the silk-clad figure before him.

"You don't understand, of course," she said, flushing. "How could you suppose us to be almost penniless living here in such a beautiful place with all those new trunks and gowns and pretty things! But that is exactly why we are doing it!"

She leaned forward in her chair, the tint of excitement in her cheeks.

"After the failure, Silvette and I hadn't anything very much!—you know how everything of uncle's went—" She stopped abruptly. "Why—why, probably everything of yours went, too! Did it?"

He laughed: "Pretty nearly everything."

"Oh! oh!" she cried; "what a perfectly atrocious complication! Perhaps—perhaps you haven't money enough to—to go somewhere else for a while. Have you?"

"Well, I'll fix it somehow."

"Mr. Edgerton!" she said excitedly, "Silvette and I have got to go!"

"No," he said laughing, "you've only got to go on with your story, Miss Tennant. I am a very interested and sympathetic listener."

"Yes," she said desperately, "I must go on with that, too. Listen, Mr. Edgerton; we thought a long while and discussed everything, and we concluded to stake everything on an idea that came to Silvette. So we drew out all the money we had and we paid all our just debts, and we parted with our chaperone—who was a perfect d-darling—I'll tell you about her sometime—and we took Argent, our cat, and came straight to New York, and we hunted and hunted for an apartment until we found this! And then—do you know what we did?" she demanded excitedly.

"I couldn't guess!" said Edgerton, smiling.

"We bought clothes—beautiful clothes! And everything luxurious that we didn't have we bought—almost frightened to death while we were doing it—and then we advertised!"

"We had to spend all our money on clothes."

"Advertised!"

"From here! Can you ever forgive us?"

"Of course," he said, mystified; "but what did you advertise?"

"Ourselves!"

"What!"

"Certainly; and we've had replies, but we haven't liked the people so far. Indeed, we advertised in the most respectable daily, weekly and monthly papers—" She sprang to her feet, trotted over to the sofa, picked up an illustrated periodical devoted to country life, and searching hastily through the advertising pages, found and read aloud to him, still standing there, the following advertisement:

"Two ladies of gentle birth and breeding, cultivated linguists, musicians, thoroughly conversant with contemporary events, efficient at auction bridge, competent to arrange dinners and superintend decorations, desire employment in helping to entertain house parties, week-ends, or unwelcome but financially important relatives and other visitations, at country houses, camps, bungalows, or shooting boxes.

"For terms write to or call at Apartment Five——"

She turned her flushed face toward him.

"Your address in full follows," she said. "Can you ever bring yourself to forgive us?"

His astonished gaze met hers. "That doesn't worry me," he said.

"It is generous and—splendid of you to say so," she faltered. "You understand now, don't you? We had to spend all our money on clothes; and we thought ourselves so fortunate in this beautiful apartment because it was certain to impress people, and nobody could possibly suspect us of poverty with that great picture by Goya over the mantel and priceless tapestries and rugs and porcelains in every direction—and our cat to make it look as though we really belonged here." Her voice trembled a moment on the verge of breaking and her eyes grew brilliant as freshly washed stars, but she lifted her resolute little head and caught the tremulous lower lip in her teeth. Then, the crisis over, she dropped the illustrated paper, came slowly back to her chair and sank down, extending her arms along the velvet upholstery in silence.

Between them, on the floor, a sapphire rug stretched its ancient Persian folds. He looked at it gravely, thinking that its hue matched her eyes. Then he considered more important matters, plunging blindly into profound abstraction; and found nothing in the depths except that he had no money to go anywhere, but that he must go nevertheless.

He looked up after a moment.

"Would you and your sister think it inhospitable of me if I ask when you—I mean—if I——"

"I know what you mean, Mr. Edgerton. Silvette and I are going at once.

"You can't. Do you think I'd permit it? Please remember, too, that you've advertised from here, and you've simply got to remain here. All I meant to ask was whether you think it might be for a week or two yet, but, of course, you can't tell—and forgive me for asking—but I was merely trying to adjust several matters in my mind to conditions——"

"Mr. Edgerton, we cannot remain. There is not in my mind the slightest doubt concerning your financial condition. If you could let us stay until we secured employment, I'd ask it of you—because you are James Edgerton; but you can't"—she rose with decision—"and I'm going up to the roof to tell Silvette."

"If you stir I'll take those suit cases and depart for good."

"You are very generous—the Edgertons always were, I have heard, but we cannot accept——"

He interrupted, smiling: "I think the Tennants never needed instruction concerning the finer points of obligation." ... He stood a moment thoughtfully, turning over and over the two dollars in his pocket; then with a laugh he walked across the studio and picked up his suit cases.

"Don't do that!" she said in a grave voice.

"There is nothing else to do, Miss Tennant."

"There's another bedroom."

They stood, not regarding one another, considering there in the sunshine.

"Will you wait until I return?" she asked, looking up. "I want to talk to Silvette.... I'd like to have Silvette see you. Will you wait? Because I've come to one of my quick conclusions—I'm celebrated for them, Mr. Edgerton. Will you wait?"

"Yes," he said, smiling.

So she trotted away in her little straw sandals and flowery vestments and butterfly sash; and he began to pace the studio, hands clasped behind him, trying to think out matters and ways and means—trying to see a way clear which offered an exit from this complication without forcing him to do that one thing of which he had a steadfast horror—borrow money from a friend.

Mingled, too, with his worried cogitations was the thought of Henry Tennant's nieces—these young California girls of whom he had vaguely heard without any particular interest. New Yorkers are never interested in relatives they never saw; seldom in any relatives at all. And, long ago, there had been marriage between Tennant and Edgerton—in colonial days, if he remembered correctly; and, to his own slight surprise, he felt it now as an added obligation. It was not enough that he efface himself until they found employment; more than that was due them from an Edgerton. And, as he had nothing to do it with, he wondered how he was to do anything at all for these distant cousins.

Standing there in the sunshine he cast an ironical glance around him at the Beauvais tapestries, the old masters, the carved furniture of Charles II's time, rugs dyed with the ancient splendor of the East, made during the great epoch when carpets of Ispahan, Damascus—and those matchless hues woven with gold and silver which are called Polish—decorated the palaces of Emperor and Sultan.

Not one thing could he sell under the will of Peter Edgerton to save his body from starvation or his soul from anything else; and he jingled the two dollars in his pocket and thought of his talents, and wondered what market there might be for any of them in a city where bricklayers were paid higher wages than school teachers, and where the wealthy employed others to furnish their new and gorgeous houses with everything from pictures and books to the ancient plate from which they ate.

And, thinking of these things, his ears caught a slight rustle of silk; and he lifted his head as Diana Tennant and her sister Silvette came toward him through the farther room.

CHAPTER III

SUB JUDICE

"Isn't this a mess!" said Silvette in a clear, unembarrassed voice, giving him her hand. "Imagine my excitement up on the roof, Mr. Edgerton, when Diana appeared and told me what a perfectly delightful man had come to evict us!"

"I didn't say it that way," observed Diana, her ears as pink as the powder-puff peonies above them. "My sister," she explained, "is one of those girls whose apparent frankness is usually nonsense. I'm merely warning you, Mr. Edgerton."

Silvette—a tall, free-limbed, healthy, and plumper edition of her sister—laughed. "In the first place," she said, "suppose we have luncheon. There is a fruit salad which I prepared after breakfast. Our maid is out, but we know how to do such things, having been made to when schoolgirls."

"You'll stay, won't you?" asked Diana.

"Poor Mr. Edgerton—where else is he to go?" said Silvette calmly. "Diana, if you'll set places for three at that very beautiful and expensive antique table, I'll bring some agreeable things from the refrigerator."

"Could I be of any use?" inquired Edgerton, smiling.

"Indeed, you can be. Talk to Diana and explain to her how respectable we are and you are, and how everything is certain to be properly arranged to everybody's satisfaction. Diana has a very wonderful idea, and she's come to one of her celebrated snap-shot conclusions—a conclusion, Mr. Edgerton, most flattering to you. Ask her." And she went away toward the kitchenette not at all embarrassed by her pretty morning attire nor by the thick braid of golden hair which hung to her girdle.

Diana cast a swift glance at Edgerton, and, seeing him smile, smiled, too, and set about laying places for three with snowy linen, crystal, silver, and the lovely old Spode porcelain which had not its match in all the city.

"It's like a play or a novel," she said; "the hazard of our coming here the way we did, and of you coming back to America; but, of course, the same cause operated in both cases, so perhaps it isn't so remarkable after all! And"—she repressed a laugh—"to think that I should mistake you for a malefactor! Did it seem to you that I behaved in a silly manner?"

"On the contrary, you exhibited great dignity and courage and self-restraint."

"Do you really mean it? I was nearly scared blue, and I was perfectly certain you'd stuffed your suit cases full of our toilet silver. Wasn't it funny, Mr. Edgerton! And what did you think when you looked into your studio and saw a woman?"

"I was—somewhat prepared."

"Of course—after a glimpse into our bedroom! But that must have astonished you, didn't it?"

"Slightly. The first thing I saw was a white cat staring at me from the top of a trunk."

She laughed, arranging the covers with deft touch.

"And what next did you see?"

"Garments," he explained briefly.

"Oh! Yes, of course."

"Also a silk-flowered slipper with a very high heel on the threshold."

"Mine," she said. "You see, in the days of our affluence, I used to have a maid. I forget, and throw things about sometimes."

"You've a maid now, haven't you?"

"Oh, just a combination cook and waitress until we can find employment. She's horridly expensive, too, but it can't be helped, because it would create an unfavorable impression if Silvie or I answered the door bell."

"You're quite right," he said; "people have a curious aversion to employing those who really need it. Prosperity never lacks employment. It's odd, isn't it?"

"It's rather cruel," she said under her breath.

Silvette came in bringing a chilled fruit salad, bread and butter, cold chicken, and tea. "We'll have to put it all on at once. You don't mind, do you, Mr. Edgerton?"

He said smilingly but distinctly: "One's own family can do no wrong. That is my creed."

Diana looked up at him.

"I wondered whether you knew we were relations," she said, flushing deliriously.

"You see," added Silvette, "it was not for us to remind you."

"Of our kinship? Why not?"

"Because you might have considered it an added obligation toward us," said Diana, blushing.

"I do—a delightful one; and it is very gracious of you to acknowledge it."

"But we don't mean to presume on it," interrupted Silvette hastily. "Some day we really do mean to regulate our financial obligations toward you."

"There are no such obligations. Please remember what roof covers you——"

"Mr. Edgerton!"

"And whose salt——"

"It's our salt, anyway," said Diana; "I bought it myself!"

They seated themselves, laughing; then suddenly Edgerton remembered, and he went away with a hasty excuse, only to return again with a brace of decanters.

"My uncle's port and sherry," he said.

"'My uncle's port and sherry,' he said."

Silvette jumped up and found half-a-dozen old-time glasses; and the luncheon continued.

"Isn't it ridiculous!" observed the young fellow, glancing around the studio; "here am I surrounded by a fortune in idiotic antiquities, lunching from a table that the Metropolitan Museum inherits after my death, sipping a sherry which came from the cellars of a British monarch—with two dollars and several cents in my pockets, and not the slightest idea where to get more. Isn't it funny!"

Silvette forced a smile, then glanced significantly at her sister. Diana said, gravely:

"We have several hundred dollars. Would you be kind enough to let us offer you what you require for immediate use until——"

"Why, you blessed child!" he said, laughing, "that isn't what worries me now!"

"Then—what is it?" inquired Silvette.

"You and your sister."

"What do you mean, Mr. Edgerton?"

"I mean that I'm worried over your prospects!"

"Why, they are perfectly bright!" exclaimed Diana; "In a few days somebody will employ us to help entertain a number of stupid and wealthy people. We'll make a great deal of money, I expect; don't you, Silvie?"

"Certainly; but I'm wondering what Mr. Edgerton is going to do with two dollars in his pocket and us in his apartment."

"So am I," said Diana.

"It's perfectly charming of you to care."

"What an odd thing to say to us! Is it not very natural to care? Besides your being related, you have also been so considerate and so nice to us that we'd care anyway, I think. Don't you, Silvie?"

Silvette nodded her golden-crowned head.

"The thing to do for the present," she said, "is for you to take that farther room. It was Diane's idea, and I entirely agree with her—after seeing you."

"That was the sudden conclusion of which I spoke to you," explained Diana. "Such things come to me instinctively. I thought to myself, 'If he mentions the kinship between us, then we'll ask him to remain.' And you did. And we do ask you; don't we, Silvie?"

"Certainly. If two old maids wish to entertain their masculine cousin for a week or two, whose affair is it? Let Mrs. Grundy shriek; I don't care. Do you, Diane?"

"No, I don't. Besides," she added naïvely, "she's out of town."

They all laughed. The germ of a delightful understanding was beginning to take shape; it had already become nascent and was developing in every frank smile, every candid glance, every unembarrassed question and reply.

"We have no parents," said Diana gravely. "You have none, have you?"

"No," he said.

"Then it seems natural to me, our being here together; but"—and Diana glanced sideways at him—"in the East, I believe, people consider relationship of little or no importance."

He sipped his sherry, reflecting.

"As a rule," he said; "but"—and he laughed—"if any Easterner even suspected he had two such California cousins, he'd start for the Pacific coast without his breakfast!"

"Did you ever hear anything half as amiable?" asked Silvette, laughing.

"I never did," replied Diana; "especially as we're probably his twenty-second cousins."

"That distance may lend an enchantment to the obligations of kinship!" he said gayly.

Diana looked up, grave as a youthful Japanese goddess.

"You don't mean that, do you?"

"No, I don't," he said, reddening. "If I did, the janitor ought to throw me out."

Silvette nodded seriously.

"We know you said it in joke; but the only straw to float Diane's idea is our kinship, Mr. Edgerton. And we grasped at it—for your sake."

"Please cling to it for your own sakes," too, he said, also very serious now; "it may become a plank to float us all.... I realize the point you are straining out of kindness to me. If I accept shelter here for a day or two, I shall know very well what it costs you to offer it."

"It doesn't cost us anything," interrupted Diana hastily. "Silvette meant only that you should understand why our consciences and common sense sanction your remaining if we remain."

"You must remain anyway!" he said.

"So must you, cousin," said Silvette, laughing. "Anyway, you've probably sent your trunks here—haven't you?"

"By jinks! I forgot that!" he exclaimed. "I believe that racket on the stairs means that my trunks are arriving!"

It did mean exactly that. And when Edgerton went out to the landing he encountered two expressmen staggering under the luggage, and, behind them, the terrified janitor who had returned, and who, on the advent of the baggage, had hurried upstairs to summarily evict the illegal lodgers before Edgerton's arrival.

Now, at sight of Edgerton himself, the Irishman turned white with horror and clung to the banisters for support; but Edgerton only said pleasantly: "Hello, Mike! I hope you've made my cousins comfortable. I'll be here for a day or two. Bring up any mail there may be for me, and see that the landing is properly dusted after this."

He came back to the studio intensely amused.

"I thought that guilty Irishman would faint on the stairs when he saw me," he said. "I merely said that I hoped he'd looked out for my cousins' comfort.... You know," he added laughingly, "I'm anything except angry at him."

Silvette rose from the table and strolled over toward him.

"Are you really glad to know us?" she asked curiously. "We've heard that New Yorkers are not celebrated for their enthusiasm over poor relatives from the outer darkness."

"New Yorkers," he said, "are not different from any other creatures segregated in a self-imposed and comfortable captivity. People who have too much of anything are spoiled to that extent—ignorant to that degree—selfish and prejudiced according to the term of their imprisonment. All over the world it is the same; the placidity of self-approval and self-absorption is the result of local isolation. We're not stupid; we merely have so much to look at that we don't care what may take place outside our front gate. But if anybody opens our gate and comes in, he'll have no trouble, because he'll be as much of a New Yorker as anybody really is."

Silvette laid her head on one side and, drawing the heavy burnished braid of hair over her left shoulder, rebraided the end absently.

"Is it," she inquired, "because we are merely attractive that you mentioned the relationship?"

"'Is it because we are merely attractive that you mentioned the relationship?'"

"I'm afraid it's—partly that," he admitted, reddening and glancing askance at Diana.

"Stop tormenting him!" said Diana. "He's candid, anyhow. It's very fortunate all around, anyway," she added naïvely; though exactly why she considered it fortunate to meet a man with two dollars in his pocket and the legal right to evict her, she did not explain to herself.

Silvette, caressing her braid with deft fingers, mused aloud: "It's very noble of him to claim relationship with two poverty-stricken old maids from the Pacific coast. Don't you think so, Diane?" And she glanced up with a bewitching smile that had in it a glint of malice.

"Stop tormenting him!" repeated Diana. "We're pretty and young, and he knows it and we know it. What's the use in speculating about what he might have done if we were not attractive? He's perfectly satisfied with his western cousins—aren't you?" glancing up.

"Perfectly," he said.

Diana nodded emphatically.

"Do you hear, Silvie? He says he is perfectly satisfied with us, and he is a typical New Yorker. Therefore, we need not be at all disturbed about our capacity for entertaining anybody, if somebody will only offer us employment."

Silvette looked around at him. "I'd like to have you see us in our afternoon gowns; I believe you'd really be rather proud of the relationship."

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed, half laughing, half annoyed; "I'm proud of it anyway. What on earth do you think a New Yorker is?"

"We've seen some," said Diana meaningly. "Several came here in answer to our advertisement. But we knew, of course, that your type existed, too."

"Have you been—annoyed?"

Silvette laughed. "One man, of very red complexion, inquired if Diana would act as his housekeeper. He had several country places, he said."

"There was a woman came; we didn't care for her," added Diana thoughtfully. Then, lifting her head, she looked at Edgerton with a gaze so pure and sweet, so exquisitely candid, that he felt his heart stop for a moment. Then the blood mounted to his face—to the roots of his hair.

"Take me into your partnership," he said impulsively; "will you?"

"What!"

"Can you? Is it all right?"

"I don't know what you mean!" said Diana.

"Why couldn't I help entertain week-ends with you?"

The proposition seemed to astound them all, even the young fellow who had made it.

For a moment they all stood silent; then, pursuing his own impulsive idea toward a plausible conclusion, he said: "Why not, after all? It would make a better combination than two young girls alone. I've clothes—two trunks in there, two more at the customs—London made and duty paid! Why not? It's a good combination. The more I think of it the better I like it!"

He began to pace to and fro nervously.

"I know a lot of people—the right kind. I'm not ashamed to ask them to employ me. There is no reason why a Tennant or an Edgerton should not be in their houses——"

"But," said Silvette quietly, "the right sort of people, as you call them, have no need of asking anybody to aid them in entertaining. It is very generous of you, Mr. Edgerton, but don't you see that services of our kind will be accepted only by—by newcomers, newly wealthy people—those whose circle is small and not very select."

"Yes, that is so," he said so forlornly that Diana watched him curiously, and a delicate color came into her cheeks as he looked up again, eager, radiant.

"That's true," he repeated; "but if I can't do anything in that way for us among the right sort, at least the other kind will have a man to reckon with"—he glanced at Diana grimly now—"when they inquire about housekeepers, and when women whom you do not care for reply to your advertisements."

"That is rather a nice thing to say," observed Silvette, looking at him out of her dark eyes. "But we know—a number of things. We are not a bit afraid, and—you would not care to—endure the kind of people likely to employ us."

"I can endure what you can. I'd like to do it.... Would you rather not have me?"

"Why, I—it would be delightful—charming—but we had not even dreamed of such a thing."

He turned to Diana. "Will you let me try?"

She said, confused: "I hadn't thought of such a thing.... Could it be done?"

"Why not?" asked Silvette, immensely interested. "When people come, we can say, 'We and our cousin, Mr. Edgerton, are associated as social entertainers.'"

"Oh, if you put it that way they'll think he does Punch and Judy and we dance queer dances!" exclaimed Diana in consternation.

Edgerton threw back his head and laughed, utterly unable to control his merriment, and Silvette caught the infection, and her clear, delicious laughter filled the sunny studio. She showed her white teeth when she laughed.

"Oh, it is perfectly horrid of me to think of such a thing, but I can't help thinking of three trained acrobats," said Silvette, breathless. "Does it seem funny for three of us to be associated in entertaining guests? Does it, Mr. Edgerton? Or am I only frivolous?"

After their laughter had ceased, and their breath had returned, he said: "Wherever we go—whoever employs us—the other guests will suppose us to be guests, too. Only the guilty millionaire from outer darkness with a new house on Fifth Avenue and a newer one in the country will know."

Silvette said: "Do you realize that it is perfectly dear of you to propose such a thing?"

Diana said nothing.

Silvette went on: "I know perfectly well and you know, too—that your name would be worth almost anything to the wealthy snob who employs us."

Diana said nothing.

"To have an Edgerton as a guest would elevate our prospective employer to the seventh heaven of snobbery," said Silvette. "Diane and I would shine serenely in the reflected relationship——"

"Don't make fun of me," he said.

"Why, I'm not. I really mean it. My instincts have been so warped and materialized and commercialized that here I am seriously proposing to make family capital out of the name of one branch of the family. I really do mean it, Mr. Edgerton."

"No," said Diana quietly.

He turned toward her.

"Do you vote against me?"

"Yes."

"Don't, please," he said, looking at her.

She met his eye calmly for a moment, then looked at her sister.

"Do you think it a decent thing to do?" she asked; "our making plans to live on Mr. Edgerton?"

"Good heavens!" he said impatiently, "my being part of a family combination isn't going to alter your success in any way."

"Your name makes it sure."

"Your youth and beauty and good breeding make it sure. My name has nothing to do with it."

"Then why do you propose it?"

He laughed. "Because I've got to make a living, too."

"There are less humiliating ways of making a living—for you," said Diana steadily.

He looked first at Silvette, then at her, deliberately, and his face altered.

"I want to look out for you," he said, "and that's the plain truth."

"That," observed Silvette, "is the nicest thing he's said yet, Diane." She walked up to him and stood serenely inspecting him.

"I vote for you. Diane, let's admit him. We're a poverty-stricken family, and we ought to combine. Besides, I like him to feel the way he does about us—not that it's necessary, of course—but it's—pleasant."

"I haven't any cash," said Edgerton, "but I've this apartment, which nobody can take away even if I starve; and I've some very fine clothes.... Won't you vote for me, Diana?" he added so naturally that neither seemed to notice his use of her first name.

Silvette waited a moment, watching her sister; then she said briskly: "Let's dress. We'll inspect your beautiful British clothing, cousin, and you shall see our prettiest afternoon gowns. Then we can tell better how such a combination would look. Shall we?"

Edgerton said to Diana: "Don't you want me?"

She replied slowly: "I—don't—know," looked up at him, straight at him, thoughtfully.

"People may come at any time after two o'clock," said Silvette. "If they find you in flowered silk and a butterfly sash and me in a pigtail, they will certainly expect dances from us and probably Punch and Judy from our cousin."

She laughed, and extended her hand to Edgerton.

"I like you, cousin; Diane does, too. When you're dressed in your best, come back to the studio and we'll arrive at some kind of a conclusion."

Diana nodded to him as she passed with her sister. The questioning gravity of her expression reminded him of a child who has not yet made up its mind to like you. She wore the bluest eyes he had ever seen, and the most enchanting mouth—the unspoiled mouth of childhood.

When they entered their room he went out by the hallway to his.

Standing there, fumbling with tie and collar, his absent gaze followed the checkered sun spots moving on the wall as the curtain moved; and, gradually, there in the half light, the blue eyes seemed to take winsome shape and hue, and he said aloud to himself:

"Anyway, somebody ought to look after her.... She can't go roaming about like this."

CHAPTER IV

IN LOCO PARENTIS

Shaved, bathed, and his person adorned with his most fashionable lounging suit for a summer afternoon, Edgerton sauntered out of his room and met the maid in the hallway. She had returned in time to answer the door; evidently also she had already been enlightened as to his identity, so he passed her with a nod and a smile, and entered the studio just as the door bell rang.

Neither Silvette nor Diana had yet appeared, nor had he been instructed what to say to those who might call in answer to the advertisement. He looked up doubtfully as the maid announced a Mr. Rivett and a Colonel Curmew, and he stepped forward as these two gentlemen were ushered in.

"How d'you do?" he said pleasantly. "My cousins will be in directly. I am James Edgerton 3d."

Colonel Curmew, a jaunty gentleman of less than middle height and age, looked at him out of a pair of eyes slightly inclined to pop. He appeared to be rather a good-looking man at first glance, with a perceptible military cut which, however, seemed to threaten something akin to a strut. He didn't exactly strut when he stepped, but he held himself very erect—the more so perhaps because he seemed to lack something else—perhaps height.

He knew Edgerton perfectly well by sight and reputation; and when he sat down he was still looking at him out of his full, pale eyes.

Mr. Rivett also seated himself—a little man with a walrus mustache who somehow looked as though, under his loosely cut clothes, his slight physique was steel framed.

He put on his glasses and looked at Edgerton out of two little unwinking eyes which reminded the young fellow of holes burned in a blanket.

"I came," he said cautiously, "in answer to a somewhat unusual advertisement."

"Yes," said Edgerton pleasantly, "we advertised."

"If I recollect," continued Mr. Rivett, "you did not figure in the advertisement."

"No," replied Edgerton, smiling; "my cousins possess the family talents; I'm supernumerary—merely thrown in. My services are not worth very much; I ride and shoot, of course, and all that, but I don't talk very well and my dancing is the limit."

"I see."

Edgerton nodded serenely.

Colonel Curmew passed a carefully gloved hand over his trimly curled military mustache. Edgerton glanced at him and wondered just what was the matter with his face, which ought to have been good-looking. Perhaps the short, closely cropped side whiskers extending to the lobes of the ears slightly cheapened the mustache, and vulgarized the man a little.

Colonel Curmew said:

"I have never had the honor of knowing you, Mr. Edgerton, but your name and face are very familiar to me on Fifth Avenue."

"My people have lived on Fifth Avenue for—some time," replied the young fellow, smiling; and caught Mr. Rivett's burnt-brown gaze fixed steadily upon him.

"Everybody," said Colonel Curmew, sitting very erect, but not exactly swaggering, "everybody in town regretted to hear of your family's financial misfortune, Mr. Edgerton."

"It's very good of them to regret it. Naturally, also, that unexpected catastrophe explains my cousins' desire for employment as well as my own."

"I see," said Mr. Rivett, never taking his eyes off Edgerton.

There was a pause; Colonel Curmew stroked his mustache and stared around at the tapestries and pictures. He evidently realized what they might bring at auction.

"You are a lover of the antique, sir," he observed.

"Oh, I don't exactly love it. These things belonged to my uncle. The museum gets them ultimately."

"Ah! a case of the dead hand?"

"Mort main," nodded the young man indifferently.

"I see," said Mr. Rivett; and suddenly it occurred to Edgerton that this explanation was, perhaps, one of the unuttered questions with which Mr. Rivett's bony countenance seemed crowded. But the little man had not yet asked a single one; and it may have been in response to the steady, silent interrogation of those gimlet eyes that Edgerton was moved to further explanation.

"My cousins are Californians; I am a New Yorker, as you know. We have combined forces from economical and family motives. It is necessary that we find employment, so—" and he smiled at Mr. Rivett—"we have asked for it."

Mr. Rivett sat impassive behind his big, round spectacles. His walrus mustache prevented anybody from seeing his mouth; his eyes now resembled two little charred holes. It was utterly impossible to divine what he might be thinking about, or even whether he was doing anything at all except waiting. Somehow, it occurred to Edgerton that Mr. Rivett had done a great deal of waiting in his career.

Colonel Curmew had now risen, and was strolling about examining the antiquities when the folding doors slid back and Silvette and Diana came into the studio.

"'As far as I am concerned, the matter is settled.'"

Edgerton rose and presented Mr. Rivett and the colonel; the young girls spoke to them with quiet self-possession, and presently everybody was again seated. Except for the colonel, the attitude of everybody suggested a business gathering of people pleasantly receptive to any business proposition, but that jaunty warrior's pale eyes popped and his smile was of the sort termed "killing"; and he curled his mustache continually with caressing fingers, and presently shot his cuffs.

Mr. Rivett broke the silence somewhat abruptly:

"As far as I am concerned, the matter is settled."

There was another silence; then Silvette ventured: "I beg your pardon. I don't think we understood."

"I say, as far as I am concerned, the matter is settled," repeated Mr. Rivett. "I ask no further information regarding these young ladies "—turning slightly toward Edgerton—"nor about you, sir. I am satisfied, and Mrs. Rivett will be."

Diana and Silvette seemed surprised; Edgerton wore a preoccupied expression, his eyes narrowing on the big eyeglasses of Mr. Rivett which reflected the studio window on their convex surface.

"About myself," continued Mr. Rivett with more abruptness, "I have a house in New York, which is closed, and one or two others; one in particular where my family is living—my wife, son, and daughter. It's called Adriutha Lodge; I don't know why—my wife named it. It's comfortable and big enough to entertain in."

He looked at Silvette without a particle of expression in his face.

"I would like you—both of you young ladies—and your cousin, Mr. Edgerton, to help us entertain. If we knew how to entertain successfully we wouldn't ask anybody to show us how. It is better to be plain about it. We are plain folk from a small town in the West. We know very few people; we mean to know more. I've come to this city to remain; I want to make as few mistakes as possible socially. What I wish you to do is to help me out. Will you?"

After a moment Diana asked: "Where is Adriutha Lodge?"

"In the Berkshires. Will you come?"

She glanced at the colonel, but he was staring so fixedly at her that she looked away.

"We might consider it," said Silvette, turning toward Edgerton.

"Couldn't you consider it at once?" asked Mr. Rivett. Evidently this little man with his glasses and his protuberant mustache had his own methods of accelerating business.

"You have mentioned no terms," said Edgerton.

"Oh! Am I to mention them? I expected you had your own ideas on that subject. Very well, then." And the offer he made left them silent and a little shy. It seemed too much.

Edgerton said laughingly to Diana:

"Suppose we consult in your room—if Mr. Rivett doesn't mind our withdrawing for a moment."

"Go ahead," nodded Rivett energetically; "that's exactly what I want—quick action. I like quick results."

So Silvette and Diana and Edgerton rose and entered the room in single file, closing behind them the folding doors.

"Well!" breathed Diana, sitting down on the edge of the bed, "did you ever before see a man of that kind?"

Silvette turned to Edgerton. "What do you think of him, cousin?"

"Why, I rather like that dried-up little chip," he said. "He's about the grade of citizen we expected."

"We?" repeated Diana meaningly; "do you expect to go with us?"

"Are you going to force me out of this perfectly good combination, Diana?"

The girl sat silent on the bed's edge regarding him, but not answering.

"There's one thing which ought to be settled now," observed Silvette; "if our cousin, Mr. Edgerton, is to remain in this firm, we've got to call him Jim, if only for appearance' sake. Otherwise people would chatter."

"Jim?" repeated Diana; "very well, it doesn't embarrass me to call him Jim—or Tom or Bill, for that matter," she added indifferently.

"It doesn't worry me, either," said Edgerton; "call me anything but early."

"Such a poor joke!" said Silvette; "if we ever call you, cousin, it will be a very late affair—and with nothing under a full house."

"Poker!—and you! What an incredible combination!" he said.

Diana interrupted coolly: "If you please, Mr. Edgerton, what is your valuable and masculine opinion concerning this munificent offer for the summer?" And she let her glance rest slowly and sideways on her sister.

"Take it," he said; "it's a good offer."

"Is that your vote?" inquired Silvette.

"Have I a vote?" he asked of Diana; but she merely said: "I say we try the Rivetts of Adriutha. That is my vote."

"Then—so do I say so," nodded Silvette. "Is it settled?"

Diana looked up at Edgerton.

"Are you really expecting to come with us?"

"If you will let me."

She remained a moment in thought, then sprang lightly to her feet.

"Who is going to be our spokesman?" she asked; "you, sister?"

"Jim," said Silvette, tranquilly leading the way. "It looks better, I think."

So Edgerton politely informed Mr. Rivett of their unanimous decision, and that little man got briskly to his feet.

"I'm satisfied," he said. "Come to Adriutha as soon as you are ready. Bring all the luggage you want to bring; there's plenty of room. Don't bring any servants; there are more than enough there now. My wife and I receive you as guests; my son and daughter are about your ages; nobody can prophesy what you'll think of them or they of you.... Colonel—if you are ready.... Good-by, ma'am," to Silvette, offering a dry little hand; and he took his leave of Diana and of Edgerton, and pulled the colonel unceremoniously out of a most elegant attitude, ruining a jaunty bow which he had not intended to finish so abruptly.

"Well," exclaimed Silvette with a sigh and a laugh as the door closed, "it's settled! Let's forget it.... What do you think of our gowns, cousin James?"

"Corking," he replied; "but my cousin Diana was very fetching in her Japanese dress this morning."

"That's like a man!" observed Diana. "I was a mess, Silvie—with two ragged peonies over my ears and those old straw sandals of yours——"

"You were a vision of Japanese fairyland," he insisted. "I may be weak-minded, but I simply cannot get that vision of you out of my head."

"Try some tea," as the maid brought it; "weak tea and feeble intellects agree."

"Oh, I'll try tea or anything else, but if you think I'm likely to forget the first moment I ever saw you—a slender, Japanese shadow shape against the sun!—ethereal, vaguely tinted, exquisite——"

"You are a poet, Jim," said Silvette admiringly. "I read one of your rhymes in Life once, and didn't think so."

"Diana made me a poet. If you'd seen her as she came stealing across the window, which was all glittering like a Japanese sunburst, you'd have become a poet, too!" He began to laugh. "I even created a name for you, Diana; it came to me—was already on my lips——"

"What name?" she asked, looking composedly at him.

"Japonette! ... I never before heard such a name. I don't believe there ever was such a name before it suddenly twitched at my lips for utterance! Japonette!"

"Why didn't you utter it if you were so enchanted with your discovery?"

"Because you seemed to be sufficiently scared as it was."

She shrugged, and handed him his tea. "Japonette," she repeated reflectively; "I don't know whether or not I care for it. It sounds frivolous."

"Which you are not!"

She lifted her blue eyes to his.

"You think I am," she said.

"No, I don't."

"You know I am," she said, and presented herself with a small tea cake. Into it she bit once; then raised her eyes, watching her sister manipulating the alcohol lamp.

"Do you suppose," she said, "that we'll ever have the slightest personal interest in these Rivett people?"

"Probably not," said her sister. "What of it? I wonder whether that colonel is likely to figure as a guest."

Diana shrugged again. "Figure! He seems to be all figure. I thought him rather odious."

"Did you? He seemed anxious to be agreeable. Who is he, cousin Jim?"

"I don't know.... Perhaps I may have heard of him—a militia colonel of some kind, I don't remember. He's probably a decent sort; I rather like him."

"I wonder," said Diana reflectively, "whether you are anything of a snob?"

Edgerton reddened, then sat still looking at her.

"I was going to resent that," he said after a moment, "but I can't; because what you just said set me thinking."

"Are you unaccustomed to thinking?" she asked too innocently; and he reddened again.

"Stop tormenting him," said Silvette, pouring herself more tea. "You're a tease, Diane."

"You both seem a little in that way," he suggested; "you jeer at me and then look pained, and tell each other to stop."

"We're too intelligent," said Silvette calmly; "that's the trouble with us; and when, by degrees, we add a little more experience to our intelligence we'll be either exceedingly unpopular or—successfully married."

"Why those terrible alternatives?" he asked, laughing.

"Because the man who is able to endure us will probably be worth the bother of marrying—when we've finished dissecting him. We don't know just how to dissect men yet, but we're rapidly learning. It's only a matter of practice and experience."

He laughed again, and so did Silvette, but Diana scarcely smiled, lying back in her velvet armchair and watching Edgerton and her sister alternately with grave, incurious eyes.

"How old are you, anyway?" he said, looking straight at her.

"Twenty-seven," she answered calmly. "Don't jump, please."

"What!" he exclaimed incredulously.

"I look about nineteen, don't I?"

"Certainly you do—about eighteen!"

"Well, I am twenty-seven; Silvette is twenty-five. Don't bother with compliments."

"Good Lord! Are you the elder?"

"Tread lightly there," cautioned Silvette, amused, "or you'll presently involve yourself with two indignant spinsters. You've behaved very cleverly. Let well enough alone."

"If you hadn't told me," he began, astonished, "I'd have taken Silvette for nineteen and you for eighteen. I—well, I simply can't realize it."

"How old may you be, cousin?" inquired Silvette with a malicious sweetness impossible to describe.

"I'm thirty-two," he said.

"We thought you less," remarked Diana; then she ventured to glance at him, and the enchanting smile broke suddenly from her lips and eyes.

"Don't you know we do like you, cousin James, or we wouldn't torment you?" said Silvette, laughing.

"A woman at twenty-seven is centuries older than a man at thirty," added Diana, "except, of course, in some things. Theoretically, Silvie and I are highly instructed; practically, the man of thirty is more specifically intelligent, which is no compliment to the man of thirty."

Edgerton, still astonished, sat back in his chair, considering.

"Do you know," he said, "I never suspected I had two such relatives in the world, who wear the appearance of débutantes with an assurance that convinces until their wit and wisdom convict them. Where were you educated, anyway?"

"In a southern boarding school and in a western university. After that, Silvette studied law and was admitted to the bar. I am entitled to practice medicine," she added demurely. "Does that scare you?"

"Do you think it has spoiled us?" asked Silvette so naïvely that he made no attempt to control his laughter.

"Why on earth don't you do those two things?" he managed to ask at last. "If you're entitled to exercise professions, why don't you?"

"We only studied out of curiosity," explained Diana. "We never intended to follow it up. Of course, we expected to remain always in pleasant financial circumstances."

"Anyway," added Silvette, "it's too late now to sit in an office and wait for clients and patients. Besides, it's a stuffy life. We dance better, and we decorate a drawing-room to more advantage than an office building."

"You have thoroughly scared me," he said, looking at them admiringly.

Diana glanced up, then flushed.

"I was afraid for a moment that you meant it," she said.

"I do. What was it you asked me a few moments ago—whether or not I was something of a snob? And I was about to resent it—politely, of course—when it occurred to me that there was, after all, no more finished snob than the man who is so convinced of his own position that he can afford to like everybody; and I told you I liked that militia gentleman. I really didn't; I thought him the limit.... Diana, you seem to be a sort of truth compeller."

"I'm a liar, occasionally—to speak with accuracy instead of elegance," said Diana frankly. "I've managed to convey to you an idea that I am indifferent to your joining the firm of Tennant and Tennant. As a matter of fact, I'm flattered and happy. It's my conscience that protests."

"Your—what?"

"Conscience. Never mind—you won't understand, and I won't tell you.... After all, you are thirty-two, even if you happen to be an Edgerton."

"Are you jeering at me?"

"No, I am not. I'm flattered because you wear a distinguished name; I'm happy because I'm entirely inclined to like you. In fact, I'm a kind of a happy, little snob myself. There! we're all tarred with the same snobbish brush, cousin. Shall we take off our masks for a while and cool our faces?"

She rose with a gay little laugh and a bewitching gesture as though sweeping from her face an invisible vizard.

"Behold me as I am, cousin! Just what you have already divined me, with your eyes too humorous and too wise for a man of thirty—frivolous, feminine, not insensible to flattery, wise only in theory, a novice in practice——"

She hesitated, looking at him, the bright color in her cheeks.

"What silenced and incensed me was that you divined it. I would have liked to have played a part with you vis-à-vis——"

"You're playing it now," observed Silvette. "Jim doesn't know what you are now; even I have doubts."

Diana laughed deliciously.

"Do I puzzle you, cousin?"

"Are you trying to?"

"Of course."

"Well, you've succeeded. You're perfectly right, Silvette; I don't know anything about her now. Are there any more roles you can assume, Japonette?"

"Many, monsieur. One of them is Japonette, if I choose."

"Play it," he said, "if you ever want to tie me to your Obi."

"You behave," observed Silvette tranquilly, "like two rather ordinary young persons flirting."

"We are," nodded Diana, "but it won't last, Silvie. It's only my kimono and his thirty-odd years and the unconventionality that attracts him." She strolled about airily waving her fan. "Not that I mind being picked up——"

"Di! You'll give him a perfectly horrid impression of yourself!"

"Why, he knows I didn't mind it. It's past helping now."

"How can a man 'pick up,' as you so disgustingly put it, his own cousin?"

"That was a triumph, wasn't it, Jim?" she asked innocently. "It remained for an Edgerton to accomplish the weird and impossible; but an Edgerton can do anything in New York—n'est ce pas? Bien, sure! Sure, Mike!"

"Diana!"

"Dearest, I feel slangy; and cousin James is so thoroughly a man of the world that he doesn't care. He wouldn't care what I did. I could perform a pas seul or a flip-flap or a cart wheel, and he wouldn't care. It's done in the best circles here, isn't it, cousin?"

"Frequently," he said gravely, "varied occasionally by voloplaning down the banisters."

She looked about her wistfully.

"There are no banisters here. Perhaps there are at the Rivetts'. Do you think it would entertain his guests? You know we are employed for that purpose."

"You and I ought to practice some acrobatic turns," he suggested. "Do you think you could learn to throw a double somersault standing on my shoulders?"

"I can try——"

"Di! what on earth are you talking about!" said Silvette, turning from the piano to encounter their unrestrained laughter.

"Oh, dear," said Diana, "I didn't know I could ever be silly again. I thought that losing all our money a year ago had frightened it out of me; but it's there, cousin Jim—the same frivolity which you instantly discovered in me, and which the Rivetts will probably and properly quench.... Silvie, this studio floor is delightfully waxed.... Cousin, do you dance?"

"Rottenly."

"Never mind.... Silvie, dear—one little waltz, please? Please? Thank you. Pull away that rug, cousin. Are you ready?"

She laid her arm on his, her hand in his; Silvette, playing, turned her head to watch them.

"He is a rotten dancer," she said critically.

"I can't help that," said Diana; "it was the time and the hour. I needed it! ... Jim, don't step on my toe, please, and don't think of stopping. You do well enough, really, you do.... No man who counts dances like a Turveydrop.... We use dancing men for dancing purposes only.... Of course you are flattered; I meant to flatter you, so you wouldn't be horrid enough to stop.... Please finish glaring at me; you are really giving me a great deal of pleasure."

"I begin to wonder whether I was not created for that, Japonette."

"To amuse me? Unintentionally? perhaps."

"So that you notice me at all, it doesn't matter," he said under his breath.

"Goodness! what meekness! Only that you're a typical man and don't mean it, I'd hate you for it.... A meek man—from him, good Lord, deliver us! ... No, cousin, there is that in your eye which—and in your general make-up——"

"What?"

"Oh, I don't know—thirty-odd masculine years—very masculine!—or I'd not be dancing with you, or I'd not be in this house at this moment; or, rather, you wouldn't. Stop mincing along in a horrid sort of self-satisfied prance! ... And don't hop, either! Are you tiring?"

"No," he said bravely.

"I'll let you go in a moment, before you swoon and I have to drag you to a chair.... You dance well enough. I like it, really ... and—thank you very much indeed!"

They parted, breathless. She stood a moment waving her fan against her bright cheeks and touching her hair with cleft fingers. He extracted a handkerchief from his sleeve and used it frankly.

"It's hot in here," he said; "show me your roof garden."

"Silvette," she called over her shoulder, "will you come up to the roof?"

Silvette nodded and continued playing an air from "Armide"; and they waited for her a moment, then went out into the hallway and up to the roof.

"The garden of a thousand delights!" she said with a sweep of her hand and a curtsey. "The Japanese fairy, Japonette, welcomes the true prophet of her frivolity."

He looked around at the flowers in pots—geraniums, verbenas, fuchsias, heliotrope—homely, old-fashioned blossoms.

"I bought them from a peddler; I stopped his wagon in the street and made him carry them up here. They only cost two dollars; and I was economical at the market," she explained.

He glanced up at the awning gay with yellow and white stripes.

"Macy's," she admitted guiltily; "I'll starve you at dinner to-night to pay for it."

He looked at her rather queerly, she thought.

"There are things I'd starve for—and people."

"And awnings, cousin?"

"Yours."

"That's very nice and gallant and obvious," she said in such a tormenting tone that he broke out almost impatiently:

"Japonette, can't you ever take me seriously?"

"I hope not, cousin."

For an instant the smile remained stamped on their lips; then the slight strain became perceptible, a moment only, for she turned lightly away and seated herself on the edge of a big hanging seat.

"More Macy," she nodded ruefully. "We'll all have to fast to-morrow.... You may sit here, too, if you wish.'"

A family of starlings were nesting in the cornices of the roof across the way, and the two young people watched the old birds for a while flying to the park and returning with food for their invisible young.

"Horrid, isn't it?" observed Diana. "But that's the way of things. No sooner are you married and happy than—zip! the scene changes, and you turn into a wretched purveyor of nourishment for the next generation. Carpe diem!"

"Cede Deo! It's probably good fun," commented Edgerton.

"What? Slaving for others just when you are all ready for real happiness?"

"That's happiness, or nobody would do it—not even those birds."

"It's instinct!"

"Maybe with birds. Instincts are all right for birds, but we humans are usually arrested when we follow our instincts."

She laughed. "That is true; it's neither instinct nor happiness that makes us slaves to babies:—it's duty."

"If that were all it is," he said, "the state would be nourishing the majority of infants. No; it's probably fun, Diana. That's the only possible explanation."

She shrugged her dainty shoulders and looked at the westering sun above Staten Island; and in the gesture she seemed, in pantomime, to discard all feminine duties, cares, and responsibilities forever. Then as she rested there, cheek on hand, her blue eyes grew vaguer.

"I am glad you came into our lives," she said; "I mean it this time."

"I am glad, too," he said seriously.

"You are now; I can see that.... How soon will you be sorry?"

"Why?"

She turned toward him.

"How soon will the novelty tire you?"

"I have not considered you as a novelty."

"But I am; I'm a mechanical toy. My paint soon comes off, cousin."

"You're my own kin. There's no novelty, as you call it, in kinship, nothing evanescent."

She said: "Do you really and deliberately desire to stand by that extremely tenuous and attenuated tie? An attitude of that sort entails duties. You may have much to overlook in us—even much to forgive. Are you aware of your responsibilities?"

"I assumed them when I asked to be admitted to your partnership."

"Why did you ask to join?"

"The real reason?"

She hesitated, looking at him.

"Yes, the real one."

"You."

"What exactly do you mean by that answer?"

"I don't know, myself, Japonette," he said laughingly; "I've tried to analyze it, too. The instinct of relationship may have counted."

"I hope it did," said she.

"I hope so. God knows, and men are selfish.... And that counted, too."

"What?"

"Selfishness."

"I don't believe there is very much in you."

"That is where your heart is still a child's heart, Japonette."

"Oh, I'm no altruist, but there's selfishness and selfishness.... What were we talking about? Oh! why you desired to join——"

"No, we got past that."

"Oh, yes; well, then, you say it was because of me. Why?"

"I told you I didn't know exactly why; but the root of it all was you.... And when you told me about some people who had come here—that fellow who spoke about a housekeeper——"

"Jim Edgerton!"

"What!"

"I believe—but you can't be as nice as that! You simply can't!"

"Oh, I'm not nice," he protested, reddening; but she interrupted:

"You are! I certainly believe you thought that Silvie and I required somebody masculine in our vicinity—to throw the housekeeping man downstairs, for example. Did you?"

"No. I only——"

"Did you?"

"Of course not."

"Do you know," she said seriously, "you're a perfect dear in one way, and I don't know what you are in others. Now be flattered, for that makes you interesting. And you know it's all up with a woman who finds a man interesting."

She was laughing at him now, and he scarcely knew how to take what she said except to take it with a grin.

"You're a terrible torment, Diana," he said. "My value in my own estimation, since I've known you, has fluctuated between a dollar and a half and thirty cents."

"You said you had two dollars! I believe you're one of these wealthy men who are always singing poor!"

"How many other kinds of things do you think I am?" he asked resignedly.

"I don't know. I think I'll amuse myself by finding out."

"Meanwhile," he said, smiling, "remember I am always what I was when I first set eyes on you—no!—the next second after I had seen you."

"A lightning change, cousin?"

"Like lightning, Diana."

"The lightning of the gods?"

"Diana's own shaft.... 'The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night,' but I stand betwixt the rising sun of Japan and—you, Diana. Somebody's shot me, that's all."

"You are perfectly delightful, but do you realize that I'm dissecting you all the while?"

"You once said——"

"Never mind that," she interrupted hastily; and blushed until it infuriated her to calmness. And to heal the sting with the cause of it she said:

"You're perfectly right, cousin; any man who can endure our scalpel will be worth seizing and dragging to the parson. But—you are perfectly safe for a while. It takes a lifetime to properly dissect a man of your sort. I'll be eighty before I make up my mind about you."

"Eighty years is not beyond the statute of limitations."

"You'd marry me at eighty! Do you know you're beginning to trouble me? I told you I was thoroughly feminine, and susceptible to flattery. I am; it's too bad I'm so intelligent that I've really got to satisfy that intelligence by spending years and years in dissecting you. Otherwise, I'd run away with you now."

"In your Japanese silks and little straw sandals?"

"Oh, yes, if you were sentimental enough to insist."

"I would."

She shrugged. "I knew you were a dreamer—captivated by a vision. Suppose you had to see me pinning on store curls?"

"I'd help pin 'em."

"Well, there are plenty of other things to disillusion you. I adore onions."

"So do I," he said.

They laughed together.

She was near enough for him to be aware of the faint scent of her breath, or it may have been a fragrance from her gown which stirred slightly in the evening breeze, or the delicate fresh perfume of her hair and skin—something indefinable, some exquisite emanation of youth which had stolen subtly into his senses—something of her, and as distinctly and inviolably hers as the occult atmosphere of a virgin planet.

"Cousin," she said, "I thought we were to remove our masks in the family circle. They seem to be on as closely as ever."

He looked at her a moment.

"We never will remove them," he said.

"Never?"

"Never, Japonette."

"Why not?"

"Because, for example, in my case I want you to believe me everything I'd like to be. I know what I am. All people know what they are.... Does anybody ever really unmask? ... Could they if they wished to? There would be only another mask beneath.... We can't ever get rid of masks.... I don't care how hard we try, how honestly we try, how intimate two people become, how deeply they may love—there's always a mask, and it grows there; and our own eyes are the slits. Even a mother with her first born in her arms looks down into its eyes in vain—those blue and transparent veils of a secret soul which sits behind them, impenetrable, inviolable."

After a silence she said:

"Silvette was right; you are a poet, Jim.... How dusky it is growing over the river. Silvette is probably superintending dinner preparations. Shall we go down?"

CHAPTER V

DE MOTU PROPRIO

They arrived at Adriutha two days later in a roaring downpour of June rain. A maid conducted Silvette and Diana to their rooms, a valet piloted Edgerton to another wing of the house devoted to bachelors' quarters over the vast billiard room.

At the eastern end of the house Silvette stood beside the window while the maid assigned to them undressed her. Diana, already in her pajamas and sandals, lay flat on the bed, one knee crossed over, swinging her slim, bare foot and looking out at the rain.

It was a wet outlook across the meadows, over a low range of rocky and wooded hills, behind which the invisible sun had already set. In the drenched foreground, beyond the meadow's matted edge, the Deerfield River tossed and foamed, swollen a deeper amber by the rain—a wide, swift stream set with spray-dashed bowlders, and bordered alternately by ledges dripping with verdure and sandy stretches full of low rain-beaten willows. The world, through its limpid veil of rain, looked like a silvery aquarelle framed by a window.

Tea was presently served. Silvette in her silk lounging suit came over and seated herself on the edge of the bed; the maid finished drawing the bath, and retired until again summoned.

"Well," sighed Silvette, pouring the tea, "here we are, Di. How do you feel about it now?"

"Depressed," said Diana briefly.

"So do I, somehow.... I wish we were back in New York, with just enough to live on."

Diana swung her foot gently, but made no reply.

Presently she kicked off her sandal, lay thinking a moment, and then sat up and accepted the cup of tea offered by her sister. They sipped their tea in silence for a while, nibbled toast and cakes until sufficiently refreshed.

"After all," observed Silvette, "what we are doing for a living is purely a matter of personal taste. It ought not to depress us."

"We should have told him! That is the only thing that worries me," remarked Diana. "Still, it is really none of his business what we do for a living."

"After all," repeated Silvette, "what is there to tell him? Keno, Nevada, has nothing to learn from New York in frivolity, I fancy. There are several pretty women in every set who'd starve if they didn't play cards better than their neighbors."

"I rather wish we'd told him about our year there; yet, what is there to tell? Probably it resembled plenty of years with which he is perfectly familiar."

"Do we have to account to Jim Edgerton anyway?" asked Silvette impatiently.

"He wanted to come with us," mused Diana. "When he wants to go, he'll go fast enough, I fancy. It isn't what he might think, or his possible disapproval, that worries me; it's that he ought to have been told more about us in the beginning.... But how were we to tell him?"

"He didn't ask, did he?"

"No; but, somehow or other, we ought to have put him au courant, and then he could have had his choice about recognizing the relationship or ignoring it. That's what bothers me a little."

"How could we possibly have told him all about ourselves the first afternoon we ever set eyes on him?"

"There were two other afternoons; one is just ending.... I don't know; I might easily have created a situation in which it would have seemed natural enough to mention our programme to him."

"Why didn't you, Di?"

"Cowardice," said the girl frankly; and she stretched herself out flat on the bed again.

"Do you think as much of Jim Edgerton's opinion as that?"

"I seem to.... I didn't want to take the risk of his disapproval. I'm beginning to realize that we've been dishonest with him."

"That is an ugly word, little sister."

"I don't know any way to soften it. A girl is either honest or the contrary. I was not honest with Jim Edgerton."

"He might not disapprove, after all. He is no provincial."

"Yes—and he might disapprove. Men of his kind who stand for almost anything in outsiders are finicky about their own relatives. They really don't care what imprudence other people commit; they may even admire it—even do it themselves—but there's a difference as soon as it involves one of the family. I've an idea he is like that."

"Isn't it stretching a thin tie of kinship too far to speak of Jim Edgerton and ourselves in a family sense? Are you and I not rather inclined to abuse that word cousin, Diana?"

"He first used it to us," she said warmly; "it is his choice. He's a very impulsive and generous boy; do you know it?"

"Yes, I do.... Isn't it a thousand pities?"

"What about?"

"His losing everything—being so wretchedly poor.... And our being poor, too."

"Yes," said Diana simply.

"And he'll never, never recoup. He is full of talent, and nothing else. What a pity! He isn't the successful sort. It's a pity, isn't it, Di?"

"Yes."

"Because he is already quite mad about you, Di—he's a perfect boy about you... How can men of his age retain their niceness and charm and freshness, after what they usually pass through. With all his undesirable wisdom and his masculine worldly experiences, he's practically as innocent as we are."

Diana suddenly sat up cross-legged on the bed and gathered her ankles in her hands.

"'I wonder just how innocent we really are,' she said."

"I wonder just how innocent we really are," she said, "with all those things which we have been obliged to know about in our higher education? And—speaking of education—there was our last year in Keno. That year did some curious things to us. Do you realize our development, our worldly evolution since the beginning of last year—how familiar we became with that doubtful worldly wisdom which is supposed to be part of the make-up of a woman of the world? ... Do you realize that it was a year of laissez faire, of revelation, of laxity and acquiescence in relaxation, a year of paradox, of ceremony sans façon, of schooling oneself to overlook and accept, of an education in morals and their immoral variations? How aloof have we kept ourselves from what we have learned to tolerate?—and how much was due to fastidiousness, how much to expediency, how much to common sense, and how much to spiritual conviction?"

"Does your conscience really trouble you?" asked Silvette anxiously.

"No; only in regard to Jim Edgerton. I'd rather he knew how we regard life before he reclaims relationship in public; that's all."

Silvette said: "We are merely wiser; merely less provincial and more honest and tolerant of a world that isn't any too goody-goody. We've learned to distinguish between mock modesty, false shame, hypocrisy, and honest conviction. Take Keno, for instance; before we lived there we were inclined to look askance on what the world accepts with indifference and perfect good nature. I mean, on the rather lurid gayeties of a little world where attractive divorcées make up the bulk of society—where the eternal cry in the ballroom is 'Change partners! Ladies change!'—and where nobody plays cards except for stakes. After all, Keno is merely a section of New York temporarily transplanted. He'd probably feel at home there."

Diana turned, deliberately rolled across the bed, landing lightly on her feet.

"All right," she said; "only, some day somebody will tell Jim Edgerton that those two cousins of his are outpacing propriety. We're just a dash too pretty, Silvie, and we've simply got to be careful. There's one enemy you and I will always have to reckon with—our own sex."

She walked to the window, looked out, and stood watching the rain, her childish mouth troubled. And, presently, speaking again without turning around:

"Our programme, as we have arranged it, was to be a general one—to win out, go in for everything, play the game as hard as it can be played, meet the gayer world face to face squarely, and take from it honestly all it has to offer."

"Except love."

"Except—that."

"Love, per se, we can't afford," said Silvette gayly; "however, it may even be included. Who knows? Material masculine eligibility need not necessarily exclude that agreeable passion, need it? Many a worthy heart beats beneath the waistcoat of the plutocrat."

"The chances are against any deal in hearts, as far as we are concerned."

"You're not thinking of Jim Edgerton, are you, Di?"

Diana stood, hands clasped behind her back, staring at the rain. Suddenly she pivoted on her sandals.

"Yes, I am thinking of him. I'm thinking of him all the time."

"That is very unwise," said Silvette gently.

"I am thinking of him, but it's only thinking.... I like him. I never liked any man better, or as well, perhaps.... And I've known him three days. Give me a day or two grace, and I'll stop thinking about him."

"You were quite mad over young Inwood in Keno," mused Silvette.

"Yes.... I realize that I like men. I enjoy them; if I had my way, I'd carry on like the deuce with every man who took my fancy, before I come to the final decision and spoil life for myself."

"You carry on like the deuce now, sister," said Silvette, laughing.

"I don't do it enough," retorted Diana fiercely; "what have I got to look forward to, after all?—a homeless life of social employment, an old age of gossip and cards!—or, if I win out, a loveless middle age wearing some wealthy man's name and pearls, and all the rest dashed out—the brightness, the youth of things, the hope of things, children——"

"You don't want children!" exclaimed Silvette, horrified; "grubby little things! I thought you hated them!"

"Grubby little things," repeated the girl slowly; "so I do, in theory."

"You don't know anything about them practically."

"Except at the Maternity Hospital.... Oh, Silvie, it is ghastly.... It's horrid! horrid!—it's devilishly unfair! ... Young girls in the springtide of youth crept in and out of that dreadful place like the white ghosts of murdered souls! If maternity didn't slay them, it killed the better part of them. Then the world ended for them—youth, hope, freedom ended with the first thin cry of the tyrant that dooms all women.... Yes, I—hate children!" She stood a moment, slim hands on her hips, head lowered with the brown locks clustering against her cheeks; then, looking up:

"But I mean to have one of my own sometime. Life to the full, dregs and all, before I die. That is my programme."

Silvette laughed. "This is a new and recent development, isn't it?"

"I'm developing like lightning."

"Lightning develops quickly, but it doesn't last, dear."

Diana, lost in retrospection again, smiled vaguely. Then, lifting her pretty eyes:

"Did you ever see starlings feeding their young? A pair nested opposite the studio. I found their evolutions rather interesting."

"No doubt," said her sister. "Is that what has aroused the maternal instinct? Come, who is to bathe first. Pull down the shade and turn on the electricity, and ring for the maid, dear. She ought to lay out our gowns at once."

Diana did as she was bidden; then, on impulse, sat down at the little fly-away desk and scribbled a note:

"Take it to Mr. Edgerton," she said to the maid.

Edgerton, dressing leisurely, read the note where he stood under the electric cluster:

"DEAR JIM: The rain, the world, and things oppress me. So do you sometimes.... There's a long future ahead of me. I dread it—who was eager for the plunge a few days since. I seem to be standing on the threshold of things in general, waiting for my cue to enter, but with little heart for the stage now. Alas, I am already tired before the overture has ended.

"If we dance to-night, ask me. Probably I'm the only girl in the house who could stand a dance with you—and I'm not so certain about myself.... But if we play Bridge, continue not to sit at our table. I ask it of you for reasons which are none of your business. Indulge my whim, please.

"JAPONETTE."

He finished dressing, then scribbled a note to her, and sent it by the valet:

"Japonette, dear, I'm as rotten at cards as I am dancing. I won't permit indiscreet infatuation to interfere with your Bridge.... And, by the way, in this sort of a house the chances are they'll play for stakes—probably high stakes. My limit is a cent a point—or was in days of affluence—but our host will scarcely expect us to risk our salaries, I fancy. So even if you have no objection to playing for stakes—which probably, however, you have—you need not feel obliged to. Our duties here do not include losing money to Mr. Rivett's assorted guests, you know. Feel perfectly at liberty to let the table carry you and Silvette.

"Shall I wait and go down with you both?

"J.E."

She read the note; then handed it silently to Silvette, who read it also in silence.

"You see," said Diana, "it's exactly what I told you. He doesn't wish us to play for stakes."

"He says nothing here about his wishes.... Besides, it would be an impertinence for him to make any such suggestion to either you or me."

"His attitude is plain enough—if you think it impertinent."

"I don't think it is. He indicates that he supposes we do not play for stakes, and adds that, anyway, we need not if we don't wish to. That is all the note expresses. Anyway, it doesn't matter, does it?"

Diana shook her disheveled head, seated herself and wrote a hasty answer, sending it away by the valet, who was waiting outside the door.

"Don't wait for us; we're not hooked up yet. We're quite accustomed to play for stakes, you funny boy, so that need cause you no uneasiness.... And please don't forget to ask me, if they dance."

Edgerton stood thinking for a moment before his fireplace after reading the missive; then struck a match and lit the two notes, holding them together until almost consumed, and lingered still to watch the edge of yellow flame on the hearth licking up the remaining margins of the paper.

Then he went downstairs and into a green and gold drawing-room, where his hostess received him shyly, almost timidly—a small gray-haired woman all over jewels whose thin little hand trembled slightly in his.

It was a frail hand, fragile of bone, yet never the hand of generations of leisure, for the joints were hard and accented, and the fingers rather worn than thin—as though once not unaccustomed to household labor; and, without knowing just why, he retained the diamond-laden hand in his firm, warm clasp for a moment as though to reassure her.

"It is nice of you to ask us," he said gently. "You have made everything very easy and comfortable for us. My cousins will be down in a few moments; they asked me to come first."

The little gray woman looked up into his pleasant, well-cut face as though confused; he smiled down at her, still retaining her hand.

"My husband has told me who you are," she said. "I didn't expect you to be just like this.... You and your cousins are our very welcome and honored guests.... Our guests," she repeated almost tremulously, "and none more welcome under our roof."

"It is gracious and kind of you to say so," he said, touched by the simplicity and the mild, faded face upturned.

Then Mr. Rivett came forward, cautiously treading the velvet, his two burned-brown eyes fixed behind the big concave eyeglasses.

"It's wet weather," he said, shaking hands. "I hope your quarters are comfortable."

"Most luxurious, thank you—with a beautiful outlook."

Mrs. Rivett's gentle voice sounded at his elbow presenting him to her daughter and son, and after that to several others who, for the moment, he made no effort to distinguish one from another except that he recognized Colonel Curmew in superb form and obtrusive pearl studs decorating a fluted shirt front.

A moment later Silvette and Diana entered, slender and youthful, with all the softly flushed charm of eighteen and the winning composure of a wider experience than eighteen years can ever lend.

Colonel Curmew presently outflanked Silvette, forcing her skillfully into a momentary retreat toward the recess of a window, where he blockaded her and curled his mustache with satisfaction and shot his cuffs, and prepared to drive in her outer pickets.

Diana remained in quiet conversation with Mrs. Rivett, the latter shy, wistful, and ill at ease by turns; the former sweet and deferential, yet all the while composedly taking the measure of the others in the room, and of the room itself, vaguely aware in her apparently smiling preoccupation that she was winning a perplexed and timid heart.

Cocktails were served—unusual ones that had a scent like the original Ricky, that is, the aromatic odor of wild blossoms.

The little gray woman barely tasted hers, with that same inborn instinct, perhaps, that impelled those old-time hostesses in the days when viands and wines sometimes proved fatal.

Then Edgerton relieved her of her scarcely touched glass; took Diana's, too, which was still half full. Mrs. Rivett rose and gave him her arm, to his surprise; Mr. Rivett took in Diana, his son Silvette. The name of Edgerton had counted heavily.

"Mr. Rivett took in Diana, his son Silvette."

In the dining room everything was grossly overdone except the cookery—the sort of thing most calculated to annoy and bore the very man most accustomed to it in town; profusion akin to the plethora which offends; effort impossible to disguise which stirs even in the most good-natured and generous an unwilling contempt.

Edgerton let his eyes rest for a moment, outside the silver and crystal-set circle of light, on gold, heavy carving, gilded tapestry and picture, and withdrew his gaze gravely. Men servants swarmed, bothering him; the scent of greenhouse blossoms, forced before their time; the heavy magnificence out of place—all slightly disgusted him, though much of it was about what he had expected of such people.

Little Miss Rivett, on his left, dissected her terrapin with the healthy attention of youth and hunger; and presently he turned to look at her with amused but wholly amiable curiosity.

He saw a small, plump, dainty maid, with exceedingly clear and bright brown eyes, and a softly brilliant complexion, looking back at him with unconcealed interest.

There was a moment's silence, then they both smiled.

"Do you think you'll like us?" she asked saucily; "or do you hate us already?"

"Not the slightest doubt of my liking you, Miss Rivett; but how about your liking us?"

"Your cousins are most bewitching and bewildering.... You seem to be nice—are you?"

"Very," he said, laughing. "I'm glad you gave me an opportunity of saying so, because otherwise it might not have been perfectly clear to you."

"I am rather fastidious," she said. "How well do you dance?"

"My grace in that praiseworthy pastime is ursine."

"Really?"

"Unbearably."

"You are very British, aren't you?"

"Do you refer to my little play upon words?"

"No, generally; that was merely a touch of local color. Naturally, also, you fishshootridetohoundsandplaypolo; do you?"

"Also gawf, dear lady."

"Perfectly symmetrical and indistinguishable from others of your kind. I thought so. Crocky, too?"

"Certainly, crocky," he admitted; "also no bank account. You may call me m'lud with impunity."

"Perhaps you're not entirely qualified. How do you stand on the heiress question, Mr. Edgerton?"

"I can't qualify there."

"Then you're a sham. Besides, you're neither clever nor gallant. I am an heiress."

"Then I qualify at once as a fortune hunter," he said, laughing, "and I'll cable for my solicitors."

"What are you saying?" asked Mrs. Rivett in her gentle, uncertain voice.

"Mother, Mr. Edgerton and I are going to be friends. Perhaps he isn't sure of it, but I am. Tell him what happens when I am sure of anything."

"Dear, perhaps Mr. Edgerton doesn't quite understand your manner of saying things."

"That's just it; he does understand! He is going to turn out exceedingly nice, mother; watch him!"

"Christine! Please be a little less personal and abrupt."

They turned, smiling, toward the other end of the table where much laughter sounded. Evidently Diana and Silvette were becoming very popular, and, somehow, it occurred to Edgerton that perhaps this great room had not often resounded with mirth.

But the chatter and laughter were incessant now; so were the servants' ministrations, and Edgerton was glad enough to give his arm to the faded little woman beside him and take her to her great, gilded chair in the drawing-room, and follow the men to another room, where blue smoke from cigars presently floated to the ceiling.

Jack Rivett, rather too plump and smooth, moved into a chair beside Edgerton; and the latter, who had prejudged him from his appearance, was slightly surprised to find the youth widely read, widely traveled, with a mind and even a wit entirely his own, and an original but sometimes callow comment for any subject brought up.

In a desultory conversation it presently transpired that young Rivett was a candidate for the Patroon's Club.

"You're a member, I believe; are you not?" he asked Edgerton.

"I have resigned."

"Oh! I thought that was the one club from which nobody ever resigned. I beg your pardon, Edgerton!" he added, turning red; "don't think me a cad."

"No offense," smiled Edgerton; "I resigned because I couldn't afford it. It's a good club; hope you make it soon."

"I hope I do.... But we're rather recent additions—if we are additions—to New York. You never can tell what New Yorkers will do to people like us," he added laughingly.

"New York is practically composed of recent residents," said Edgerton, smiling.

"They're the most pitiless to newcomers. I wouldn't be very much afraid if we had only your sort to encounter. If you old residents like a man, he gets his hat check ultimately, and passes in; but it lies with the sidewalk speculators now. The seats of the mighty are in their hands."

Edgerton was much amused.

"Not entirely," he said; "even we older residents are asked about now and then."

"Into which of the three circles—Smart, Knickerbocker, or Old Testament?"

Edgerton was laughing so frankly that Rivett senior turned his convex glasses on him; and, deciding that the laughter was genuine and not included in services, went on with his business conversation with a Mr. Snaith—a large, soft-skinned gentleman deeply immersed in oil and cotton.

Colonel Curmew came over briskly, expelling smoke.

"What are you youngsters playing this evening? Auction or Chinese Kahn?"

"However, they choose to make up the tables," said Jack Rivett lazily. Then, as though on an after thought: "I doubt whether Mr. Edgerton bothers with cards; do you?"

"I don't mind, except that I've cut out playing for stakes," replied Edgerton, perfectly aware of Jack Rivett's kindly consideration in giving him a chance to escape gracefully, and a trifle amused, too, that the young man should suppose he cared what anybody in the place might think of him.

Servants were now arranging the old-fashioned colonial card tables in the noticeably old-fashioned colonial card room. A young girl or two appeared at the arched doorway, lingering on the threshold as several of the men came out to gossip.

Then the hostess appeared with the others; groups formed, shifted, and gradually subsided into seats; seals of fresh packs were broken, scores penciled, the first hands dealt at auction.

Diana, Colonel Curmew, a very pretty Mrs. Wemyss, and Mr. Rivett sat together; at another table Silvette, Mr. Snaith, Christine Rivett, and a Mr. Dineen—a gentleman weighing some two hundred pounds and wearing an attractive snub nose and a pair of merry gray-blue eyes.

And the awful hush of auction descended without a sound.

Edgerton and his hostess and a Judge Wicklow and a Mrs. Lorrimore—a fair, fat, blue-eyed thing with a cupid-bow mouth as sweet as the smile that abode there—settled themselves to Chinese Kahn, a game spelled in various ways and played in several more.

"Stakes?" inquired Mrs. Lorrimore with businesslike directness.

"Your pleasure," replied Judge Wicklow in the deep, thick voice celebrated and feared where judicial procedures are thickest and most unimportant.

"Neither Mr. Edgerton nor I care to gamble—I think," said Mrs. Rivett timidly.

The judge turned his bovine countenance on Edgerton. The only anomaly in it seemed to be his eyebrows. Cows have no eyebrows.

"I'm sorry," said Edgerton.

The judge seemed sorry, too, but he shuffled the two packs in his enormous and hairy hands, dealt, and deposited the surplus in a pile with a single card separate and face upward—the ace of hearts.

Mrs. Lorrimore promptly picked it up, laid down three aces, four fours, a small sequence interiorly made possible by a joker, and sat back triumphantly with her depleted suit in her gemmed fingers, which were pressed comfortably to an ample bosom.

"Discard," rumbled the judge.

"Oh, I beg pardon!" She laughed, and laid down a nine.

Nobody ever wants a nine, somehow. The judge snorted, helped himself, discarded, and turned his heavy countenance on his hostess.

"Dear me," she said in her humble little voice, "I—I'm afraid—afraid I'm going out!"

"What!" thundered his honor. "Nobody ever goes out first hand, madam!"

But she timidly did that very thing to the suppressed fury of his honor, who had cherished a long sequence, according to rule, and was further nursing the other joker and three kings.

"It's too bad," she ventured, looking around at Edgerton, whose entire hand was being minutely counted by Mrs. Lorrimore.

"I don't mind!" said the young fellow, laughing; and he leaned a trifle nearer and added under his breath: "But suppose I had played for stakes!"

Into her timid and faded eyes came the ghost of a glimmer—the momentary sparkle of fun, and went out very quickly.

But it had been there for a second; and thereafter Edgerton found a curious pleasure in making it come back at intervals. She even laughed—even ventured to provoke his laughter—rather scared at trying until his quick mirth set her at momentary ease again.

Luck bedeviled his honor; the fair Mrs. Lorrimore won steadily without the least respect for the law and no consideration at all for the sanctity of the bench; and the judge became peevish. He was a very rich man.

Presently he had enough of it—letters to write for the morning mail—and got himself out and upstairs with the dignity of a fly-pestered ox.

"Horrid old screw," observed Mrs. Lorrimore in Edgerton's ear, and laughed her peculiarly sweet and captivating laugh as a servant returned with his honor's check in an angrily scrawled envelope.

Mrs. Rivett had passed into a farther room, where the high gilded pipes of an organ glimmered in the subdued light. Edgerton saw her seated there—a thin, bejeweled little figure beneath the tall gothic majesty of the pipes.

After a while the low harmony of an old-time hymn stole into the card room.

Those at the bridge tables remained silent and absorbed, except Mr. Rivett, who cautiously turned his sphinxlike countenance toward the farther dusk where his wife was seated.

Edgerton stood behind Diana's chair, watching. Presently he went over to Silvette, lingered for a while, then came back to Diana again.

An hour later Mr. Rivett said abruptly: "Does anybody care to dance?"

The effect was like a pistol shot on lotus eaters. Slowly the players came out of their absorption; color returned faintly to white, tense faces.

"I suppose I may ask it?" added Mr. Rivett dryly. "I'm a heavy loser."

"Sure thing, dad," said Jack with a laugh. "I'm about even, and I venture to ask it, too. Does anybody here want to dance? You surely won't object," he added mischievously to Silvette.

"I have no right to say anything at all," she laughed.

"Every right—the right of the conqueror! Accept my bow and spear—and speak! ... How is it with your sister?"

"I'm afraid I haven't any voice in the matter, either," said Diana serenely. "It is for the losers to decide."

They decided to dance. Mrs. Rivett came from the dim music room and stood watching them with her little worn hands folded, while servants lighted and cleared the larger drawing-room, designed for a ballroom, with its little gilded balcony aloft and the great concert grand in its carved and gilded foliations sprawling like a bedizened elephant in the corner.

A servant was sent for "mademoiselle"—evidently somebody who lived somewhere in the house whose duties included dance music. Meanwhile Edgerton sat down at the piano, and began a fascinating Spanish waltz.

"Traitor," whispered a fresh, young voice at his elbow, and he looked up into the winning eyes of Diana.

"Hello," he said; "how went the battle?"

"The cards?"

"Yes."

"As usual, thank you."

"Oh! And how do they usually go with you, fair cousin?"

"Well enough," she said briefly.

She stood leaning on the piano.

"You play cleverly," she observed.

"Oh, yes—cleverly. There's nothing else to anything I do."

"Isn't that enough?"

"Is it, Diana?"

"Enough as far as music is concerned," she said impatiently. "Did you ever see a musical virtuoso whom a real man didn't want to kick? And as for you," she added, "you are a traitor. You said you would ask me to dance. Now, if you ask me, I won't!"

Still playing, he continued to look up at her smilingly.

"What do you really care about me anyway?" he said. "I wish you'd tell me, Diana."

"Honestly, or flippantly?"

"Honestly."

"Masks off, you mean?"

"Yes—as far off as they'll come."

"I care a lot about you."

"You say it too frankly," he laughed.

"What I say, I say.... Did you find Christine Rivett agreeable at dinner?"

"She's interesting."

"Is that all!" evidently disappointed.

"Well, she's very fetching."

"That is far more serious."

"Indeed, it is. I've qualified as an aspirant for her hand and fortune already."

"I don't doubt it," she returned calmly. "That's one reason her father decided to employ us."

She said it unsmiling, and after he had looked up at her once or twice he said: "Of course you are joking."

"Ob, yes; it's one kind of a jest. Meanwhile here comes a young person in black—doubtless mademoiselle.... I'm not going to dance with you; don't compose your features in that smug fashion. You're a traitor, and I won't."

She turned on her heel and advanced leisurely toward Colonel Curmew, who immediately began to twirl his mustache and shoot his cuffs, when, without warning, she sheered off into the receptive arms of Jack Rivett, and was presently drifting across the room in a Viennese waltz.

Others were dancing now; Edgerton went over and asked his hostess—an old New York custom now obsolete—who colored and smiled at him, explaining that she had renounced that art with the advent of rheumatism. So, after a while, he took out her daughter Christine—also an obsolete custom—who soon, however, had enough of him as a dancer, and took him into the conservatory.

The others danced until supper time; midnight found them separating on the stairs. Edgerton and Christine Rivett had rather a prolonged leave-taking, then shook hands cordially in plain view of everybody.

Diana, passing with Silvette, said a careless good night to him. Silvette, retaining her sister's arm, detained him for a moment in conversation; then they went away together, Diana dismissing him with an inattentive nod.

But, as he was prepared for his pillow, a servant brought an envelope to his door and tucked it under the sill.

Inside was a single line:

"Good night, Jim."

The handwriting was now familiar to him.

CHAPTER VI

PACTA CONVENTA

Guests arrived and guests departed from Adriutha, but the original gathering remained.

The people who came and went were about the kind that Edgerton had expected to encounter—people identified with nothing in particular except money, and not always with that.

For, into the social mess at Adriutha an author or two was occasionally stirred as seasoning; sometimes an artist became temporarily englutenized over a week-end, emerging on Monday well fed and satiated with hope of material results from cohabitation with wealth—which never materialized.

Edgerton was inclined to take them all as cheerfully as he found them—at their face value; and they were not always pretty.

Loyalty to obligation was inherent in his race, perhaps the strongest trait in him; and all his inclinations toward what was easiest, his content with the superficial, his tendency to drift, had not yet radically altered this trait, nor perhaps other qualities latent under the froth.

For a few days in the beginning, humorous curiosity, the novelty of his anomalous position, the very rawness of the experience, amused him; but the veneer of everything soon wore thin, revealing the duller surface underneath. Then came uneasiness and impatience; but loyalty to his bargain and to his kindred were matters of course, and he determined to find in these people something to interest him and render his sojourn among them at least endurable.

After that first stormy night in June, the splendor of a limpid, rain-washed morning had revealed to him the gross outward impossibility of this place of millions—the vast, new "villa," red-tiled and yellow-walled, hideous in its multiplicity of roofs, angles, terraces and bays, with outlying works of rubble, concrete, and railroad-station floral embellishment.

Scarring the green crypt of nature, staining the glass of the stream with painted reflections of its architectural deformities, Adriutha Lodge sprawled monsterlike and naked in the summer sunshine.

Garage, hothouses, stables, barns, a farm, a model dairy, like grewsome spawn of a common architectural dam, affronted the woods and meadows of this little valley set among the remote Berkshires.

There was no reticence left in that desecrated valley all vibrant with the scream of discordant color, texture, and design. Motor cars, too, were noisy along the road; all day the silver-mounted trappings of horses flashed in the sun. Staccato echoes from power boats on the artificial lake offended. The House of Rivett challenged the Eternal patience with a hundred lightning rods.

Edgerton, walking his horse beside Diana's, suddenly drew bridle with an uncontrollable gesture of disgust.

"Listen to me," he said; "where man's despoiling labor pollutes nature, sadness and resignation make heavy the hearts of her true lovers, but where man's abominable ignorance desecrates, reigns a more shocking desolation which no modest heart ever forgives!"

Diana, surprised by the sudden and unexpected outburst, drew bridle beside his standing horse.

A moment previous they had been amiably exchanging idle gossip from their saddles, gradually falling back behind the others—Silvette, Christine, Jack, and Colonel Curmew—who had cantered on forward; and now, suddenly out of a clear sky, not apropos of anything, Edgerton had flashed out the bolt of his contempt for the House of Rivett—for his ox, his ass, his servants, and all that was Rivett's.

"Jim," she remarked, "isn't it rather bad taste of you to say that?"

"Why? I am paid for being here." But he realized that she was right, and it made him sullen.

"His roof shelters you none the less," she said quietly.

"Yours is rather a fine-drawn sense of hospitality, it seems to me," he retorted.

"I can't snap at the hand that feeds me."

"Good Lord! May a man not have his own ideas?"

"Under lock and key, yes."

"All right," he said, reddening; "only I supposed I could be frank with you."

"Are we actually on any such footing?" she asked quietly.

"I thought so—even a footing on which I permit myself to accept such a rebuke from you."

She turned in her saddle.

"Permit yourself?" she repeated. "Do you mean condescend?"

"I mean what I say," he retorted sulkily, still smarting under her rebuke.

Her cheeks were bright with anger, her lips compressed as though silence had become an effort. Presently, however, she looked across at him with perfect sweetness and composure.

"No, you don't mean what you say, Jim. If you did, you would be at a disadvantage with me, and you don't want to be that; nor do I wish to be, ever."

He said obstinately: "I'm getting sick of this Adriutha business."

"I predicted you would."

"Well, I am.... It isn't false pride; I don't care what they think about me. If I chose to be a waiter in a Broadway café, their opinion wouldn't concern me.... I'm simply weary of the place, the majority of the people—what they think and do, their private life, their mere coming in and going out.... It isn't the pitiable absurdity of their offensive environment alone, the horror of the architecture, the gilded entrails of their abode—it's the whole bally combination! ... I'm sick—sick! And that's the truth, Diana."

"I think," she said, smiling, "that you are also a little bit bored with us."

He looked up at her, perplexed, already beginning to be very much ashamed of his outburst, already conscious of a painful reaction from his unrestraint.

"Diana," he said impulsively, "I'm just a plain brute, and rather a vulgar one; but, do you know, there isn't anybody else in the world I'd have permitted to hear that outburst—whether you take it as a compliment or not."

"You mean you don't care what I think of you?"

He thought for a moment. "I can't mean that, of course."

"You might, very easily."

"I couldn't; I do care what you think of me. Probably what I meant was that I—dare say things to you; that I've a sort of instinct that I can come to you in an emergency——"

"In other words, that I'll stand anything from you?" she said, smiling. "I don't know about that, my friend."

He looked at her curiously. "I believe you'll stand a good deal from me—and still like me. I, somehow, count on it."

She met his gaze directly, unsmiling now.

"A hair divides my sentiments concerning you," she said. "Extremes lie on either side."

"Extremes?"

"I think so. It would take very little to fix definitely my opinion of you."

Sobered, but still curious, he sat his saddle more firmly while the horses paced forward, shoulder against shoulder, along the forest road.

"I didn't suppose you had any very violent opinions concerning me one way or another," he said lightly.

"I haven't—yet."

"Or would ever develop them, either," he added, laughing.

"I probably never shall."

He said, after another silence: "What was it about a hair dividing your sentiments, and that extremes lay on either side?"

"I said that, Jim."

"Extremes of what?"

"Dislike—friendship—I suppose.... I'm a person addicted to extremes."

"Hatred is one extreme. Did you mean that, Japonette?"

"It is conceivable, fair sir."

"And—the other extreme?"

"Which?"

"The opposite extreme to hate.... Is that conceivable, too?"

"Do you mean love?" she asked coolly.

"Yes, love, for example."

"Well, for example, ask yourself how likely I am to entertain that sentimental extreme in your regard."

"Oh," he said; "then all you threaten me with is hatred!"

"Absolutely all, cousin James."

"Hobson's choice for mine. No matter how agreeable I may be, placid friendship is my only reward; and if I'm not agreeable, hatred. Is that it?"

"Are you not satisfied?" she asked, lifting her prettily shaped eyes.

He made no reply.

Yet, he had been satisfied, except at intervals during the first flush of their unconventional friendship, when she was still a fascinating novelty to him, when the charming memory of the surprise was still vivid.

But since then, recently in fact, other matters, somehow, had intervened—the dawning distaste for his own position, the apparent absence of any future prospect, the gradual conviction that he had no real capacity for decently earning a living, no ability—perhaps no character.

His silence seemed to be her answer now; she spurred forward, accepting it. He put his horse to a canter, to a gallop, and they raced away through the woods until they came in sight of the others. Colonel Curmew joined her; Edgerton rode forward with Christine Rivett.

That afternoon there was some tennis played; a number of commonplace and very rich people departed, leaving as residue the original house party which Edgerton and his cousins had found there on their arrival, and who now knew one another well enough to separate into sympathetic groups.

Thus, Judge Wicklow, Mrs. Rivett, and Mrs. Lorrimore played Chinese Kahn under the terrace awning; Colonel Follis Curmew, who had been rash enough to discard his coat and reveal an unlooked-for excess of abdomen, played tennis with Silvette against Jack Rivett and Mrs. Wemyss; Mr. Rivett and Mr. Snaith indulged in laborious clock golf and talked of oil; and Christine and Edgerton, down by the river's edge, continued a conversation begun the evening previous, and which was near enough to meaning something to stimulate their attention.

From his clock golf on the lawn above, Mr. Rivett turned his convex glasses on them occasionally; from one card table on the terrace, her mother, drawing the white wool shawl closer around her slight shoulders, watched her daughter from moment to moment.

Later, the game ended, Mrs. Lorrimore victorious, and his honor unusually peevish. Mrs. Rivett rose and, advancing to the terrace edge, gazed down at the river bank, where her daughter and Edgerton still sat in the floating canoe, holding it inshore by grasping willow branches overhead.

For a few moments the little old lady watched them, one hand gathering the fleece shawl over the magnificent sapphire at her breast; then she turned quietly away into the house, wandering through it from one gorgeous room to another, until at last she came to the high organ.

Here her husband found her in the semi-dusk, sitting motionless and silent under the tall pipes, hands folded in her lap.

"Well, mother?" he said in a voice which nobody else ever had the privilege of listening to.

She lifted her head, smiled, and laid one hand over his as he seated himself beside her in the demi-twilight.

"Are you happy?" he asked, patting the worn fingers.

"Yes, Jacob—when you and the children are."

"Does that damn Sims bother you?"

No, the housekeeper did not bother her; neither did Noonan, general superintendent.

"Are you sure you are feeling perfectly well?"

"Yes, dear."

"And you are enjoying the people?"

"Yes.... The Tennant girls are so kind to me."

"Why the devil shouldn't they be?" he said harshly. "They never met a better woman!"

"Jacob, dear, don't speak that way."

"Well, then—don't be so eternally surprised if people are nice to you, mother. They'd better be!"

She smiled. "I am a rather plain and unattractive old woman to young people—to most people. I have little to say, but Diana Tennant and her sister are very sweet to me. Poor, motherless girls! I wonder—it troubles me—sometimes—a great deal——"