Transcriber's Note:
A Table of Contents has been added.

FLAMING YOUTH

Flaming Youth

WARNER FABIAN

BONI AND LIVERIGHT
Publishers New York

Copyright 1922-1923,
By BONI & LIVERIGHT, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, January, 1923
Second Printing, February, 1923
Third Printing, February, 1923
Fourth Printing, March, 1923
Fifth Printing, March, 1923

A WORD FROM THE WRITER TO THE READER:

"Those who know will not tell; those who tell do not know."

The old saying applies to woman in to-day's literature. Women writers when they write of women, evade and conceal and palliate. Ancestral reticences, sex loyalties, dissuade the pen.

Men writers when they write of women, do so without comprehension. Men understand women only as women choose to have them, with one exception, the family physician. He knows. He sees through the body to the soul. But he may not tell what he sees. Professional honour binds him. Only through the unaccustomed medium of fiction and out of the vatic incense-cloud of pseudonymity may he speak the truth. Being a physician, I must conceal my identity, and, not less securely, the identity of those whom I picture.

There is no such suburb as Dorrisdale ... and there are a score of Dorrisdales. There is no such family as the Fentrisses ... and there are a thousand Fentriss families. For the delineation which I have striven to present, honestly and unreservedly, of the twentieth century woman of the luxury-class I beg only the indulgence permissible to a neophyte's pen. I have no other apologia to offer.

To the woman of the period thus set forth, restless, seductive, greedy, discontented, craving sensation, unrestrained, a little morbid, more than a little selfish, intelligent, uneducated, sybaritic, following blind instincts and perverse fancies, slack of mind as she is trim of body, neurotic and vigorous, a worshipper of tinsel gods at perfumed altars, fit mate for the hurried, reckless and cynical man of the age, predestined mother of—what manner of being?: To Her I dedicate this study of herself.

W. F.

CONTENTS

FLAMING YOUTH

PART I

CHAPTER I

The room was vital with air and fresh with the scent of many flowers. It was a happy room, a loved room, even a petted room. There was about it a sense of stir, of life, of habitual holiday. Some rooms retain these echoes. People say of them that they have character or express individuality. But this one's character was composite, possessing attributes of the many who had come and gone and laughed and played and perhaps loved there, at the behest of its mistress. A captious critic might have complained that it was over-crowded. The same critic might have said the same of Mona Fentriss's life.

Though a chiefly contributory part of the room's atmosphere, Mona Fentriss's personality was not fully reflected in her immediate environment. The room was not a married room. It suggested none of the staidness, the habitude, the even acceptances of conjugal life. The bed stood outside, on the sleeping porch. It was a single bed. Unfriendly commentators upon the Fentriss ménage had been known to express the conviction that marriage was not a specially important element in Mrs. Fentriss's joyous existence. Nevertheless there were the three children, all girls. There was also Fentriss.

The mistress of the room lolled on a cushioned chaise longue near the side window. She was a golden-brown, strong, delicately rounded woman, glowing with an effect of triumphant and imperishable youth. Not one of her features but was faulty by strict artistic tenets; even the lustrous eyes were set at slightly different levels. Yet the total effect was that of loveliness; yes, more, of compelling charm. One would have guessed her to be still short of thirty.

"This is final, is it?" she asked evenly of a man who was standing near the door.

"It's final enough," he answered.

He shambled across the room to her side, moving like a bear. Like a bear's his exterior was rough, shaggy, and seemed not to fit him well. His face was irregularly square, homely, thoughtful, and humorous. "Want to cry?" he asked.

"No. I want to swear."

"Go ahead."

Downstairs a door opened and closed. There followed the rhythmic crepitation of ice against metal.

"There's Ralph home," interpreted the wife. "Call down and tell him to shake up one for me."

"Better not."

"Oh, you be damned!" she retorted, twinkling at him. "You've finished your day's job as a physician. I need one."

As he obediently went out she mused, with the instinct of the competent housekeeper:

"Gin's gone to twenty-five dollars a gallon. That'll rasp poor old Ralph. I wonder how much this will jar him." By "this" she meant the news which she had just forced from the reluctant lips of Dr. Robert Osterhout. She pursued her line of thought. "Who'll take over the house? The girls know nothing about running it. Perhaps he'll marry again. He's very young for fifty."

The two men entered, Fentriss carrying the shaker. He set it down, crossed the room and kissed his wife. There was an effect of habitual and well-bred gallantry in the act. He was a slender, alert, companionable looking man with a quizzical expression. Dr. Osterhout poured out a cocktail which he offered to Mrs. Fentriss. She regarded it contemptuously.

"Bob, you devil! That's only half a drink."

"It's more than you ought to have."

"Pour me a real one. At once! Ralph; you do it. Come on."

With a shrug and a deprecatory smile at the physician, Ralph Fentriss filled the glass to the brim. The Fentriss cocktails were famous far beyond the suburban limits of Dorrisdale for length as well as flavour.

"Here's to Prohibition," said their concoctor in his suave voice, before drinking; "and to your better health, my dear."

"A toi," she responded carelessly. "Leave the shaker, will you, Ralph? Bob and I are talking."

Fentriss nodded and went. A moment later the concert grand in the big living room below stairs responded to a touch at once delicate, strong and distinctive.

"How I used to love his music!" said Mona Fentriss half to herself; "and still do," she added. "Bob." She turned upon her physician with laughing reproach in her eyes. "Don't you know better, after all these years, than to try to keep me from doing anything I want to do? I always get what I want."

"If you don't, it's not for lack of trying."

"I don't even have to try very hard. Life has been a generous godfather to me. But I've always wanted more. Like Oliver Twist, wasn't it? Or Jephthah's daughter?"

Dr. Osterhout grinned. "It was the horse leech's daughters that were always crying 'Give! Give!'"

"Why cry for it? Reach out and help yourself," she said gaily. "Them's my principles. And now the fairy godfather is going to cut me off with a shilling. Or a year. Or less."

"Unless you obey orders it'll be considerably less."

"Let it! I'd rather do as I please while it lasts.

"'I've taken my fun where I found it,

I've rogued and I've ranged in my time,'"

sang Ralph Fentriss at the piano below to music of his own composing.

"So have I," murmured his wife. Her eyes grew brilliant, craving, excited as they wandered to the flower-decked mantel upon which stood half a dozen photographs. All were of men. Though they varied in age and indications of character, they presented a typical similarity in being well-groomed and attractive. They might all have belonged to the same club. "Bob, do many women confess to their doctors?"

"Lots."

"To you?"

"No. I don't let 'em."

"Why not? I should think it would be interesting."

"It's only a trick to gratify the senses through recollection," said the blunt physician. "Reflected lechery."

"You know too much, Bob. Then you won't be my father confessor?"

"I doubt if you could tell me much," he said slowly.

A smile, unabashed and mischievous, played upon her lips. "That's an ambiguous sort of answer. Sometimes I suspect that very little gets past you."

"I'm trained to observation," he remarked.

"And to silence. So you're safe. I think it would do me good to confess to you." She grew still and pensive. "Bob, if I'd been a Roman Catholic do you suppose I'd have been—different?"

"Doubted. Would you want to be?"

"I don't really know that I would. Anyway I'm what I had to be. We all are."

"Fatalism is a convenient excuse."

"No; but I am," she insisted. "It's temperament. Temperament is fate. For a woman, anyway," she added with a flash of insight. "You don't blame me, do you? I couldn't help it, could I?"

He smiled down at her, tolerant but uncompromising.

"Oh, don't stand there looking like God," she fretted. "Do you know what I'd resolved to do? Will you laugh at me if I tell you?"

"Probably. Therefore tell me."

"I was going to be a pattern of all the proprieties after I turned forty."

"Too early," he pronounced judicially.

"Why? What do you mean?"

"Make it fifty."

She knit her smooth forehead. "Because I wouldn't be pretty then?"

"Oh, you'd charm and attract men at seventy. But you wouldn't have such a—well, such an urgent temperament. That passes, usually."

"Bob! You beast!" But she laughed. "You're very much the medical man, aren't you?"

"It's my business in life."

"Well, the whole discussion is what you call an academic question, anyhow. If you and your hateful medical science are right, I'll never see thirty-eight, let alone forty. I don't feel thirty-seven. There's so much life in me. Too much, I suppose."

"No. Not too much."

"No more flutters for pretty Mona," she mused. "At least she's had her share. Do you think Ralph cares?"

"You're the one to know that."

"If he does, he's never given any sign. But then, it's years since he's been true to me."

Her companion made a slight, uninterpretable gesture.

"Shall I tell him? Your verdict, I mean."

"Great Judas, no! Why stir him up? It's going to be hard enough on him anyway."

"Is it?" she said wistfully. "He'll miss me in a way, won't he? I am fond of him, too, you know."

"Yes. I understand that."

"But you don't understand why I've gone trouble-hunting, out of bounds."

"Yes. I understand that, too."

"Perhaps you do. You understand lots more than one would think from your dear, old, stupid face." She paused. "Tell me something, honestly, Bob. Has there been much talk about me?"

"Oh, there's always talk and always will be about anyone as brilliant and vivid as you."

"Don't evade. Some of the older crowd look at me as if they thought I was the Scarlet Woman come back to life. I'm not the Scarlet Woman, Bob. Only a dash of pink."

He smiled indulgently.

"It's strange," she mused, "how the tradition of behaviour clings in the blood, in that set. Your set, Bob. Ah, well! Discretion is the better part of virtue, as someone said. And I haven't been discreet, even if I have been virtuous. You believe I've been, don't you, Bob?"

"What, discreet?"

Again she laughed, showing little, even, animal-like teeth.

"No; the other thing."

"I believe whatever you want me to."

"Meaning that you reserve your own opinion. But you're a staunch friend, anyway.... The trouble with me is that I was born too soon. I really belong with this wild young age that's coming on the stage just as I'm going off; with the girls. Listen!"

Below stairs Fentriss, still at the piano, had swung into the rhythms of the Second Rhapsody, wild and broken as white water seething through a rock-beset gorge.

"That's the measure they dance to, the new generation. Doesn't it get into your torpid blood, Bob? Don't you wish you were young again? To be a desperado of twenty! They're all desperadoes, these kids, all of them with any life in their veins; the girls as well as the boys; maybe more than the boys. Even Connie with her eyes of a vestal. Ah!"

A new note had merged with the music, a hoarse, childish croon, following the mad measure with an interwoven recitative.

"That's Patricia. She's dancing to it."

"How can you tell?" asked the physician.

"By the way she's singing. Little devil! I wonder what it'll be like by the time she's grown up," mused the mother.

"Which won't be so long, now."

"So it won't. I keep forgetting that. She seems such a baby. What a queer little creature it is, Bob!"

"She's a terror. But there's something lovable about her, too. A touch of you in her, Mona."

"Of me? She's no more like me than I'm like my namesake of the well-known Lisa family. Nor like the older girls, either. Well, why shouldn't she be different from them? Coming five years after I'd supposed all that sort of thing was over. She was pure accident. How I tried to get out of having her! Perhaps that's why she's such a strange little elf. But Ralph's crazy about her—as much as he can be crazy about anything. I thought for a time she'd bring us together again."

"But you found variety more amusing than pure domesticity," suggested the physician.

"I? It wasn't I that began it; it was Ralph. You know I never went in for even the mildest flirtation until long after Pat was born; until I began to get bored with the sameness of life."

"Boredom leads more women astray than passion," pronounced the other oracularly; "in our set, anyway."

"Oh, astray," she fretted. "Don't use mid-Victorian pulpit language."

"I was only philosophising about our lot in general."

"We're a pretty rotten lot, aren't we! Though I suppose the people you don't know, the people that nobody knows, are just as rotten. Ah, well, so long as one preserves appearances! And Ralph has no kick coming. He'd gone on the loose before I ever looked sidewise at any other man. They say he's got a Floozie now, tucked away in a cozy corner somewhere."

"Do they?"

"Has he?"

"Ask him."

"Too good a sport," she retorted. "I shouldn't be asking you if I thought you'd tell me. Very likely you don't know. He hasn't been boring you with confessions, I'll bet! Men don't, do they?"

"Only of their symptoms."

"But they confess to women."

"The more fools they!"

"Can't I wring a confession out of you?" she teased. "Why haven't you ever made love to me, Bob?"

"Too much afraid of losing what little I've got of you," he returned sombrely.

"How do you know you wouldn't have got more? How do you know that I wouldn't have given you—everything?"

"Everything you could give wouldn't be enough."

"Pig! You don't want much, do you!"

"Have you ever really cared for any of your partners in flirtation?"

"You speak as if I'd had dozens," she pouted.

"It isn't a question of the quantity but of the quality of your attachments. If I'd ever asked anything of you it would have been—well, romance." He laughed quietly at himself. "Something you haven't got to give. You see, I'm a romantic and you're not. You've sought excitement, admiration, change. But not 'the light that never was on land or sea.' You're adventurous and passionate, but not romantic. It's quite a different order of thing."

"And you're brutal. Besides, you're wrong; quite wrong."

"Am I?" His glance ranged the faces on the mantel. "Which one?"

She gave him a swift smile. "He isn't there. You never saw him. His name was Cary Scott."

"Was? Is he dead?"

"He's out of my life; or almost. He's married. He was hardly more than a boy when I knew him. Nine years ago in Paris. He was studying at the Polytechnique, doing his post-graduate work and doing it brilliantly, I believe. He went mad over me. My fault; I meant him to; it amused me. I was attracted, too. There was a vividness of youth about him. I didn't realise how much I was going to miss him out of my life, though, until we came back. I did miss him. Like hell!"

"He was the one to whom you really gave?"

"Hardly so much as a kiss. I wanted to keep it that way, and he was slave to me. He was an innocent sort of soul, I think. Every year he sends me a card on my birthday—that was the date of our first meeting—to remind me that sometime we are to take up our friendship again. I never answer but I never quite forget."

"Ah, that's the sort of thing that I'd have asked but never expected of you."

"No; you never could have had it. That's the sort of thing that one gives but once." Suddenly she shot out her white, strong hand and gripped his wrist. "If you'd ever been really in love with me," she said fiercely, "you wouldn't let me die. You'd find some way to save me."

His rugged face softened with pain. "My dear," he said, "don't you know that if there were any way in the world, any sacrifice——"

"Yes; I know; I know! I'm sorry. That was a rotten thing to say."

"You've taken it all like such a good sport."

"I'm trying. Let's not talk of it any more. Let's talk of the girls. Bob, how much is there to heredity?"

"Oh, Lord! Ask me to square the circle. Or make the fifth hole in one. Or something easy."

"I was just thinking. Who's going to look after them? Ralph won't be of much use. He's too detached."

"Well, the family physician can be of service in some ways," he said slowly. "Particularly if he chances to be a family friend, too."

"Would you?" she cried eagerly. "They'll be a handful. Any modern girl is. But I'd rest easier, knowing you were on the job. Speaking of resting, I had rather a rotten night last night."

"What were you doing in the evening?"

"We had a little poker party here in the room."

He shrugged his heavy shoulders. "If you won't pay any heed to your doctor's orders——"

"You know I won't."

"Then you've got to pay the piper."

"Haven't you got anything that will make me sleep?"

"Were the pains bad?"

"Pretty stiff. Will they get worse?"

"I'm afraid so, my dear."

"More dope, then, please."

"Dangerous."

"Well?" She smiled up into his face, pleadingly, temptingly. "Well, Bob?" Her voice dropped. "What's the difference? Since it's a hopeless case. Don't be an inquisitor and sentence me to torture in the name of your god, Science," she whispered.

He yielded. "All right. But you'll stand it as long as you can?"

"Good old Bob!" she murmured. She reached for his hand, twined her fingers around it, nestled it into her firm and rounded neck. Then she laughed.

"Well?" he queried.

"Association of ideas," she answered. "I was thinking of Cary Scott."

He winced and drew his hand away. "What of Cary Scott?"

"If he doesn't come back pretty soon, what a joke it will be on him!"

CHAPTER II

The Fentriss house stood high on a knoll overlooking the Country Club which constituted Dorrisdale's chief attraction as a suburb. Mona Fentriss had built it with a legacy of $25,000 left to her just before Patricia's birth, and Ralph had put in the $15,000 necessary to complete the work after the architect's original estimate had been exhausted, leaving the place still unfinished by one wing, all the decorations, and most of the plumbing. The extra cost was due largely to the constantly altering schemes of Mona. She wished her house "just so," and just so she finally had it from the little conservatory off the side hallway to the comfortable servants' suite on the third floor. If the result was, architecturally, a plate of hash, as Ralph called it, nevertheless the house was particularly easy to live in.

To Mona Fentriss belonged the credit for this. What she had of conscience was enlisted in her domestic economy. As Ralph Fentriss's wife she might be casually unfaithful. As mistress of his household she was impeccable. The effortless seductiveness of her personality established its special atmosphere throughout the place. It made the servants her devoted and unwearying aids, and broadly speaking, a household is much what the servants make it. People gravitate naturally to a well-run place. Life seems so suave and easy there. Guests of all ages came and went at Holiday Knoll, mostly men. Mona cared little for women, and her own strong magnetism for men had been inherited by her two grown daughters. There was no special selectiveness about the company. All that was required of them was that they should be superficially presentable and contribute something of amusement or entertainment to the composite life of the ménage. At least nine-tenths of them were making love to Constance or Mary Delia or Mona herself, openly or surreptitiously as the case might be.

It made a pleasantly restless and stimulating atmosphere. In the city itself there would have been criticism of the easy standards; indeed there was more or less which drifted out to the Knoll. But judgments in the suburbs are kindlier. And Dorrisdale is quite fashionable enough to establish its own standards.

Any week-end would find half a dozen or more cars bunched on the driveway, having brought their quota of pleasure-seeking youth out from New York or from Philadelphia or Baltimore or Princeton. The girls had carte blanche, within reasonable limits, for invitations, which they were careful not to abuse. A few errors in judgment had reacted unpleasantly not only upon themselves but upon their undesirable guests. Mona Fentriss could act with decision and dignity within her own walls. Her social discrimination was keen if not rigid, and she possessed a blighting gift of sarcasm, mainly imitative, the most deadly kind used against the young. Neither of the girls was likely ever to forget her imitation of Connie's friend from Minneapolis whose method of handling a fork, according to Mrs. Fentriss's theory, had been derived from bayonet practice in camp; nor her presentation of a steamship acquaintance of Dee's who had too pathetically bewailed his losses at bridge.

Partly from theory, partly as a trouble-saving device, the mother seldom attempted any exercise of direct authority upon the children. A system of self-government was established, or, rather, encouraged to grow into being. It was ordained that each of the girls should have her own room to hold like a castle, into which not even the parents might intrude unbidden, and for which the occupant was held responsible. Constance's room was luxurious, lazy, filled with photographs mainly of groups in which her charming face was always central. The special mark of Mary Delia's was its white and airy kemptness. Patricia's was a mess of clothing and odds and ends, tossed hither and thither and left to lie as they fell until a temporary access of orderliness inspired the child to clean up. It suggested a room in which no window was opened at night. Fentriss called it the hurrah's nest.

Through this feminine environment he moved like a tolerant but semi-detached presiding genius. His profession as consulting engineer took him early to the city and that, or something else, often kept him late. Being a considerate though rather selfish person, he invariably telephoned when detained over dinner time, which made the less difference in that there were always two or three men dropping in after golf, hopeful of an invitation to stay: Harry Mercer or the Grant twins, or Sam Gracie, or one of the Selfridges, father or son. Envious mothers whispered that Mrs. Fentriss was trying to catch Emslie Selfridge for Constance, and that it might not be as good a match as she supposed; things weren't going any too well at the Selfridge factory since the strike. They also wondered acidly that Ralph Fentriss was so easy as to let his pretty wife go about so much with Steve Selfridge, who was almost old enough to be her father, it was true, but whose reputation was that of a decidedly unwithered age. It would no more have occurred to Fentriss to raise objections over Mona's going where she pleased, with whom she pleased than it would have occurred to her to ask his permission. All that was past long ago.

The outside member of the family was Robert Osterhout. He lived near by in a small studio-bungalow where he conducted delicate and obscure experiments in the therapy of the ductless glands. Thrice a week he lectured at the University, for he had already won a reputation in his own specialty. Having inherited a sufficient fortune, he was letting his private practice dwindle to a point where presently the Fentriss family would be about all there was left of it. Into and out of the house on the knoll he wandered, casual, unobtrusive, never in the way, always welcome, contributing a quiet, solid background to the kaleidoscopic pattern of its existence. In the most innocent of senses he was l'ami du maison. If he was and had for years been in love with Mona, the fact never made a ripple in the affectionate friendliness of their relations nor in the outward placidity of his life. It was accepted as part of the natural scheme of things. Fentriss recognized it, quite without resentment. Mona wondered at times whether Constance and Mary Delia were not aware of it—not that it would have made any difference. She herself made little account of it, yet she would sorely have missed the stable, enduring, inexpressive devotion had it lapsed. Bob was the intellectual outlet for her restless, fervent, exigent nature, too complex to be satisfied with physical and emotional gratifications alone. One could talk to Bob; God knows, there were few enough others in her set with any understanding beyond the current chatter of the day! After her sentence was pronounced she talked to him even more frankly than theretofore.

"If Ralph had died, Bob, I'd probably have married you."

"Would you?"

"What do you mean by that? That you wouldn't have married me?"

"I'd probably have done as you wished. I always do."

"So you do, old dear! That's the reason I'd have married you. That, and to keep you in the family, where you belong."

"I'll keep myself in the family, Mona, if you want me there."

"But Ralph didn't die," she pursued. "I'm going to, instead. You can't marry Ralph."

"Not very well."

"But you might marry the girls."

"All of 'em?"

"Connie, I think. She's most like me."

"She isn't nearly as pretty as you."

Mona blew him a kiss. "She's much, much prettier. Don't be so prejudiced. And she's very intelligent, for twenty-two."

"About half my age."

"Oh, she'd catch up fast enough. She's quite mature."

"Much too attractive for an old husband, thank you. That way trouble lies—as you know!"

"Thanks, yourself!" She thrust out her tongue at him in an impudent, childish grimace. "Perhaps you'd prefer Mary Delia."

"I understand Dee better than I do Connie."

"Do you? It's more than I do. She's devilish frank about other people but she never gives herself away."

"That's what I like about her."

"You really are quite chummy with her, aren't you?" said the mother, looking at him curiously. "But that's because you're so much older. She doesn't care much about men really."

"She's unawakened. There's hot blood under that cool skin."

"I wonder what makes you think that?"

"Oh, a medically trained man notices little things."

"So does a woman. But I haven't seen—— Has Dee begun to awake?"

"Oh, no! She's quite unaware of herself in that way. Very likely she won't until after she's married."

"After? Won't that be a little late?"

"It's the first awakening a lot of women have. And a harsh one for some."

"What a lot of unpleasant things doctors know about life!"

"Life's got its unpleasant phases."

"Particularly for women.... Yet I'm glad I've been a woman." A little, sensuous quiver passed over her tenderly modelled lips. She smiled, sighed, and reverted to her other thought. "But you're going to have your hands full with the Fentrisses. Really, you'd do better if you married one."

"Perhaps I shouldn't do as well. I might be too taken up with the one."

She darted a glance at him, full of shrewd questioning with a touch of suspicion. "You could care for Dee," she interpreted. "I'd be more flattered if it were Connie." She pressed an electric button. To the trim maid who appeared she said, "Send Miss Dee here, please, Mollie."

"What are you going to do, Mona?" demanded Osterhout in some alarm, for he knew the devastating frankness with which she was wont to deal with those nearest her.

"Wait and see."

There was a rhythmic, swift footfall on the stairs, the door was thrown open, and Mary Delia Fentriss swung in upon them.

"Hello, mother!" she said. "Hail, Lord Roberts! What's the summons?"

Her bearing attested poise, careless self-confidence, and a brusque and ready good humour. She was tall, rounded, supple, browned, redolent of physical expression. At first sight one knew that here was a girl whose body would exhale freshness, whose lips would be cool, whose breath would be sweet, whose voice would be even, whose senses and nerves would be controlled. A student of humankind might have appreciated in her the unafraid honesty and directness which so often go with the consciousness of physical strength, in women as well as men. Her nickname in the family was Candida. She was not beautiful; not even pretty, by strict standards. But there was about her a sort of careless splendour.

"Been playing golf?" asked her mother.

"Yes. Cantered in with a forty-seven."

"Nice going! How would you like to marry Bob?"

Neither the expression nor the attitude of the girl altered, but her cool and thoughtful eyes turned upon Osterhout. "Has his lordship been making proposals for me?"

"No; I haven't!" barked the gentleman in the case.

"Watson, the strait-jacket! He's growing violent."

"It was wholly my idea," proffered Mona.

"I thought Bobs was your special property. Why mark him down? It isn't bargain day."

"He's a fairly good bargain, though," pointed out her mother.

"Don't mind me if you want to discuss my good points," said Osterhout, lighting a cigarette and seating himself upon the window sill.

"I don't," said Mary Delia. "Let's consider him as a market proposition. His age is against him. You're forty, aren't you, Bobs?... He doesn't squirm, mother. That's a bad sign; shows he's reached the age where he doesn't care. Or is it a good sign, showing his self-control?"

"Dee, I'd beat you if I married you."

Her eyes lightened. "Would you? I believe you'd try." With a bound she was upon him. One arm crooked under his shoulder, the heel of the other fist was thrust under his chin. "Improved jit," she panted. "You'd have your work cut out."

There was a quick shift, a blending of the two figures, and the slighter was bent backward almost to the floor. "Give up?" demanded Osterhout, his face close above the laughing lips.

"Yes. Lord, you're quick! Thought I had you. Take your penalty and let me up."

Ignoring the invitation he set her in a chair and restored his deranged necktie. "I'll apologise for the forty," said Dee. "You're not so old and feeble! To resume, as we say when serious; you're homely as a scalded pup——"

"Thank you!"

"—but it's a nice homely. You've got a lamb of a disposition. And money enough. Haven't you?"

"Enough for me."

"How passionately he pleads his cause! You play a nasty round of golf, too; I mustn't forget that. But—no. I don't think I would. Not even if you asked me."

"What's the obstacle, Dee?"

"Well, for one thing, there's Jimmy James."

"What!"

"Quite so," said the girl sedately.

"You're engaged to James?"

"We haven't got that far yet. But I've got him on the run."

"Dee!" expostulated her mother, laughing.

"Does he know of your honourable intentions?" queried Osterhout.

"He hasn't expressed his own yet. But he will."

"When?"

"Next time I kiss him."

"Next time, eh? How many times will that make?"

"Haven't counted, Grandpa," mocked the girl. "We haven't pulled many petting parties, though."

"Well, I'm good-and-be-damned," muttered Osterhout.

"Modern stuff, Bob," remarked Mona.

"Being an ancient fossil, I'd say dangerous stuff with a fellow like Jameson James."

"Not with a girl like me," returned Dee with superb assurance. "Bee-lieve muh, I've got a hand on the emergency brake every minute."

Osterhout, who had returned to his window seat, gave a sharp exclamation.

"What's the matter now?"

He rubbed his cheek, growling. A hoarse, childish voice from below, which had in it some echo of Mona Fentriss's lyric and alluring tones, served to answer the question:

"Where did I hit you, old Bobs?"

"It's the Scrub," said Dee.

"Don't you call me 'Bobs,' you young devil."

"Oh, all right! Doctor Bobs. Come down. I've got a fer-rightful gash in my knee."

"Well, don't show it to the world. I'll be there immediately."

"If you want to be the family benefactor," said Mary Delia as he was leaving, "marry Pat. Nobody else ever will."

"You're a liar!" came the hoarse voice from outside. There was a pause as for consideration. "A stinkin' liar," it concluded with conviction.

"Pat!" called her mother.

"Oh, very well! But I bet I'm married before I'm Dee's age. And to a better man than Jimmy James. He's a chaser."

"We've got to send that child away to school," said Mona Fentriss in amused dismay as the door closed behind Osterhout. "She's growing up any old way, and she seems to know everything that's going on.... Dee, are you really going to marry Jimmy James?"

"I think so. Any objections?"

"Well, Ada Clare, you know."

"He's through with her."

"She's the kind that men don't get through with so readily. It's gone pretty far."

"It's gone the limit probably. Well, I never thought Jimmy was President of the Purity League, Mother."

"Do you really care for him, Dee?"

"Of course I do. I don't mean that he gives me an awful thrill. Nobody does."

"Perhaps the right man would."

"Then I haven't seen him yet. Mother," she turned her cool regard upon Mona, "tell me about it."

"About what?"

"The thrill. The real thrill. You know."

Mona's colour deepened. "You're a queer child, Dee. There are some things a woman has to find out for herself."

"Or get some man to teach her," supplied the girl thoughtfully. "The whole thing's mostly bluff, I think. Men are queer things. I could laugh my head off at Jimmy sometimes."

"That's a good safeguard."

"Yes; but I don't need it.... Mother, aren't we going to pull a big party this spring?"

"Of course. And we ought to do it pretty soon, too."

"What makes you say that so queerly?"

"Nothing," answered Mona hastily. "I was just thinking."

For though she was up and about again, she knew that she was weakening under the heart attacks which she endured with silent fortitude, due partly to natural pride, partly to her belief that a complaining woman lost all charm for those about her, winning only the poor substitute of pity instead of admiration. Upon Dr. Osterhout she had imposed silence; she was determined that her household should know nothing so long as concealment was possible. In her way she was an unselfish woman.

She was quite aware that this would be the last of her parties in the house on the knoll.

Pat's voice floated upward in tones of lamentation. "Oh, damn it, Bobs! Go easy, can't you? That stuff's like fire."

"Patricia's fifteen," reflected the mother. "I'll enter her at the Sisterhood School next fall."

CHAPTER III

The party was a Bingo. Before midnight that had been settled to the satisfaction of everyone. The music, good at the outset, soon become irresistible. (A drink all around every seven numbers was the Fentriss prescription for the musicians; expensive but worth it.) The punch was very special. Several of its masculine devotees had already faded, and one girl had been quietly spirited to an upper room, there to be disrobed and de-spirited. There was much drifting in and out of the French windows to the darkness of the lawn, and plaintive inquiries for missing partners were prevalent. Lovely, flushed, youthful, regnant in her own special queendom, Mona Fentriss sat in the midst of a circle of the older men, bandying stories with them in voices which were discreetly lowered when any of the youngsters drew near. It was the top of the time.

Upstairs in her remote bed Patricia sat with her pillows banked behind her, her knees propping her chin, her angry eyes staring into the dark. The strong rhythms of the music, barbaric, excitant, harshly sensuous, throbbed upward, stirring her to dim and uninterpretable hungers.

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" she whispered in shivering wrath.

She had been banished from even the earliest part of the festivities. It was mean. It was rotten. It was stinkin' rotten. Why should she be treated so? She wasn't a baby. She wouldn't stand it!

Leaping from bed she ran to her tumbled clothes, began feverishly to put them on. In undergarments and stockings she crept across to Dee's room, listened and entered. This was gross violation of the law of the household. But Pat was desperate. Selecting a pink dinner dress rather high-cut for Dee, she held it against her half-developed body, decided that it would do, ran back with her booty to her own den. Putting it on before the glass she became unpleasantly conscious of several pimples on her face. She was always having pimples! The others never had them. She wondered why, resentfully. Should she pick the one at the side of her nose? Or would that only make it the more unsightly? She decided for the heroic method, performed a clumsy operation with a pin, and perceived at once that she must have some powder. This time it was Connie's room that she invaded, and while she was about it she found and added a touch of colour. It was by no means the height of artistry, but Pat approved it as eminently satisfactory. She did not wholly approve Dee's dress. There was too much of it in important spots. She meditated padding, but did not know how it was done. Or—dared she go back and get a scantier frock? Contemplating her boyish contours she realised that it would not do.

"Flat like a board," she muttered disparagingly. "I'm bunched all in the wrong places."

That the gown which fitted Dee's slender strength to perfection should oppress Pat across her round little stomach, struck her as an unjust infliction of fate, instead of the proper penalty of gluttony, which it was. The maltreated pimple—another sign and symbol of her unrestrained appetite—still bled a little and was obviously angry. She staunched it impatiently. The others, she decided, would do as they were. Not unskillfully she touched the area around them with little dabs of Mme. Lablanche's Rose-skin.

"I'm going to have one dance," she decided, "if they send me to jail."

The back stairs and a side window gave her unobserved exit to the odorous shelter of a syringa.

"I'll wait until I can catch Bobs," she ruminated. "He'll dance with me—old bear! But first I'll do a little scouting."

She peeked into the big living room where most of the dancing was in progress. As was invariably the rule at Holiday Knoll, men held the superiority of numbers, and therefore, girls that of position. Every girl had a partner. To the ungrown waif outside of fairyland the dancers seemed ethereal beings, moving in a radiant and unattainable world. How beautifully the girls were dressed! How attractive the men looked!

"I wish I was pretty," mourned Pat. She thought forlornly of her blotchy skin. "I never will be, though." Then she recalled the deep, eager lustre of her eyes as seen in the glass, and how one of the boys at school had once made awkward and admiring phrases about them. She had not liked that particular boy, but she was grateful for the phrases. Maybe if she paid more attention to herself she might come to be attractive like her lovely mother. No; that was too much to hope; never like her mother, nor like Constance, who was just then whirled by in the arms of one of the New York guests, all aglow with languorous triumph, easily the beauty of the party. Perhaps like Dee. Lots of men were crazy about Dee. Would any man ever be crazy about her, wondered Pat.... Wouldn't she look a smear if she did venture on the floor among all those human flowers? She left her window to prowl further.

The glass door of the breakfast room gave her a view of the proceedings within. Sprawled upon the tiles five of the youthful local element were intent upon the dice which one of them had just rolled toward a central heap of silver and bills.

"Seven! I lose again," said the thrower cheerily. "Who'll stand for hiking the limit to a dollar?"

Opposite Pat's vantage point sprawled Selden Thorpe, son of the local rector. Pat knew they had not much means and, marking the pale, strained face of the boy, wished with misgivings that he wouldn't. The misgivings vanished when she heard him say:

"I'm an easy hundred ahead so I can't kick. Let 'er go."

She stepped back into the darkness to round the conservatory wing and brushed the mudguard of a lightless limousine. A girl's voice strained, tremulous, and laughing lent caution to her retreating steps; but she stopped within listening distance.

"Don't, Freddie! I'll have to go in if you——"

"Oh, come, Ada! Be a sport."

"Do behave yourself. Get me another drink."

"All right."

As the man stepped out, Pat shrank behind the car. She had recognized the girl's voice as that of Ada Clare, who had the reputation of being an indiscriminate "necker." Pat passed on. But that whisper from within the limousine, with its defensive, nervous, eager, stimulated effect, troubled the eavesdropper with strange, disturbing surmises. She wanted, yet feared to return and wait until Fred Browning, a man of thirty, well-liked in the neighbourhood, not the less perhaps because of his reputation as a "goer," came back with the desired drink. What would be the next step in the unseen drama? A little stir of fear drove Pat onward. She stopped abruptly at the end of the conservatory as she heard her mother's voice within.

"Oh, Sid, dear! I almost wish I hadn't told you."

Sid! That was Sidney Rathbone, a Baltimorean, much given to running over for week-ends. To Pat's mind he was stricken in years, being nearly forty, but the most distinguished looking (thus her mentally italicised characterisation) person she had ever seen and distantly adored. Furthermore there was a quietly knightly devotion in his attitude toward the beautiful Mrs. Fentriss which enlisted the submerged romanticism of the child's mind. Now she hardly recognised the usually smooth and gentle tones characteristic of him as he replied:

"My God, Mona! I can't believe it. I won't believe it."

"Poor boy! It's true, though."

"What does Osterhout know about it! He's no diagnostician. You must come to Baltimore and see Finney or Earle——"

"It's no use."

What Rathbone next said the listener could not make out, but Mona answered very gently:

"No, Sid, dear. Not again. That's all over. I couldn't now. You understand." And then the man's broken voice:

"Yes; I understand, dearest. But——"

"Oh, Sid! Please don't cry. I can't bear it."

Pat blundered on into the darkness, rather appalled. What in the name of bewilderment did that mean? Mr. Rathbone crying! And her mother's voice was so sad. Though she did not care much for her mother beyond a lively admiration of her charm and beauty, Pat experienced a distinct chill. It was followed by a surge of exultation; she was certainly seeing life to-night! And then came the climax. A blithe voice at her elbow said:

"Hello! Who are you?"

"Sh—sh-sh-sh!" she warned in startled sibilance.

"Shush goes if you say so. Not dancing?"

"No. They wouldn't let me," said Pat mournfully.

"Who wouldn't?"

"The family."

"Snoutrage," declared the stranger economically. "You're one of the family, are you?"

"Yes. I'm the kid. I hate it."

"Cinderella; yes? The lovely but wicked sisters—they're peaches, too." He spoke clearly but a little disjointedly. "But you're not rigged for the part. You've got your regal rags on."

"They're not mine. They're my sister's. I sneaked 'em."

"Snappy child!" he laughed. "Let's have a look."

He moved closer to her. A wale of light fell across his face. He was short and fair with a winsome, laughing mouth, and candid eyes. Drooping her chin Pat studied him covertly and decided that he was a winner. She herself was in the shadow; he could see little but contour. But the rich hoarseness of the voice pleased him.

"I'm glad I found you," he murmured.

Thrilling to his tone, all that she could find to say was:

"Don't speak so loud."

Naturally he took this as an invitation, and, moving still closer, felt for her hand in the darkness. Her fingers twined willingly within his. Instead of alarming her, his touch gave her confidence.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked.

"Cooling off. The family brew's got quite a kick in it."

"Has it? Get me some."

"You're too young."

"Don't be hateful."

"What'll you give me for it?" he teased.

It was the first spur that her instinct of conscious seductiveness had ever known. She replied instantly:

"Anything."

"You're on. Wait for me right there."

While he was gone, a long time as it seemed to her, she stood surging with an exultant inner turmoil. A man and a girl passed close to her, unseeing in the bar of light. The girl's eyes wore a strange, sleepy expression as if the lids were almost too heavy to hold open. The man's shoulder was pressed close upon her. They disappeared. Strange scents of the night crept into Pat's brain; made her remember things she had never known. The music, softened through intervening walls, was pleading sensuously, urging upon her something mysterious and desirable. She felt her nerves like strung wires already tingling with electric forces but awaiting the supreme shock.

"Drink, pretty creature!" The gay, insinuating, mirthful voice was close to her.

"You've only half filled it," she complained, taking the glass.

"Must have spilled some. In such a hurry to get back to you," he explained. "There's plenty more where it came from if you like it."

"I don't," she gasped. The liquid, of which she had taken a generous swallow, stung in her throat. She poured the rest out upon the ground. "Here," she said holding out the glass to him.

His fingers met hers again. The glass fell and crunched beneath his foot as he stepped to her. She was hardly cognisant of his arm drawing her. Rather what she felt was some irresistible power compelling her to itself. The face of the youth, still gay with laughter, drew down upon hers, closer, closer, changed, seemed to become dimly luminous. Her arms, without volition, crept upward to his shoulders. She was incongruously and painfully conscious of something pressing into her bosom, one of his pearl shirt-studs, and drew away from it slightly. He bent his head after her. And then, as their lips met and merged—the shock!

She went limp under it.

After a long, long minute in which were blended the pulsations of the music, the undermining odours of the night, the look of the passing girl's eyes (how heavy were her own now!), the memory of that broken whisper overheard in the limousine, and the surge of the blood in her veins, she heard him say:

"Let's go."

"Where?"

"I've got my car here."

She was silent, deeply, passively acquiescent to his will. Misconstruing her speechlessness, he urged:

"Come on, sweetie! We'll take a fifty-mile-an-hour dip into the landscape. The little boat can go some."

"I'll have to get a wrap."

"Take my coat."

His arm tightened, guiding her. She lifted a hungry face. He bent again when a door opened shedding a broad ray of light upon them. Against the glaring background moved Constance, a vision of witchery in her filmy gown, followed by Emslie Selfridge.

"Pat!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

Before the confused girl could reply, her escort came briskly to her rescue. "I caught it peeking behind a bush," he explained, "and it wasn't a bur-gu-lar after all. So I'm taking it in to see what it is and whether it can dance."

"It's my kid sister," said Constance. "Mother will be pleased!"

"Are you going to tell her?" demanded Pat.

"I certainly am."

"Then I may as well have my dance before you find her," declared the culprit calmly.

"The fourteenth, a foxy little trot; with Mr. Warren Graves," put in her escort cheerily. He drew her arm through his own where it nestled gratefully.

Armoured though he was in the careless self-confidence of youth, young Mr. Graves winced as his partner stood revealed under the full glare of the lights. She looked so awfully and awkwardly young! Her hair was so awry, her gown so ill-fitted, her skin so splotchy. But there was magic in the long, slanted, shy, trustful eyes looking into his own, and the tingling excitation of her kiss was still in his blood. Moreover he had had a steady succession of drinks.

"How old are you?" he asked in her ear as her cheek pressed close to his.

"Seventeen," she lied glibly.

"Sub-deb stuff," he laughed. "I love 'em young. You can dance, too. Can I have the next?"

"There won't be any next," said Pat tragically. "Here's Mother."

"Oh, Lord!" said Warren Graves. "Let me do the talking."

But no talking was called for. Mona Fentriss swept down upon her truant daughter, caught her in a laughing embrace, slapped one hot cheek, kissed the other, and delivered her verdict!

"Back to bed with you! Quick! How did you ever get out?"

"Can't I have just one more turn," pleaded Pat.

"Not a step. Where did this roost-robber"—she indicated Graves—"find you?"

"I was looking on and wanting in," replied the dismal and thwarted Pat.

"Wait three years, until you're seventeen. Away!"

"Let me escort you to your—er—baby-carriage," said the youth with an elaborate bow.

The feeble witticism, meant only to cover his own sense of being at a loss, stabbed Pat. She averted her angry and tearful eyes as they crossed the floor together.

"I hate you," she muttered.

"I'm crazy about you," he retorted close to her ear.

Instantly she was radiant again. "Good-night," she said softly and ran up the stairs.

The turn of the landing hid her from view. But, after a moment's struggle with herself against doubt, she stopped and leaned out over the rail. There he stood with the blithe expectancy of his face upturned. Queer looking, unkempt, ill-dressed she might be, and hardly more than a child at that, but the glamour of her youth and her passion held him.

"Don't forget me," he pleaded under his breath.

She nodded. Forget him! With the fervent assurance of the neophyte she was sure that she never would, never could forget him and the moment which he had deified for her. And herein her inexperience was a true mentor. For, whatever else may pass from her crowded memories, a girl does not forget her first kiss.

Pat had been mulcted of that dance which she had rebelliously promised herself. But there was compensation in overflowing measure.

She had had her taste of life.

CHAPTER IV

Vagrant airs from the window of the small library playfully stirred the bright tendrils on Constance Fentriss's neck. The girl was a picture of unconscious grace and delight as she sat, with her great, heavy-lashed eyes fixed in speculation, her curving lips a little drawn down, her gracious, girlish figure relaxed in the deep chair. Across the room Mary Delia was skimming hopefully the pages of Town Topics for scandals about people she knew. She lifted her head and asked carelessly:

"What doing, Con?"

"Figuring out a letter."

"Who to?" (Mary Delia's higher education, inclusive of "correct" English, had cost something more than ten thousand dollars.)

"A certain party." This was formula, current in their set and deemed to possess a mildly satiric flavour.

"Oh, verra well!" (Meaning "Don't tell if you don't want to.")

"It's to Warren Graves, if you want to know."

"Your Princeton paragon? Have you got something going there?"

"I'm going to give him hell."

"What for? I thought he was one of your best bets."

"For acting like a Mick Saturday night."

"What did he pull? A pickle?"

"A petting party with Pat."

"No! Did he?" Dee cast aside the professional organ of scandal in favour of a more immediate interest. "How do you know?"

"Trapped 'em. He put up a good front. Acted like he expected to get away with it." (Constance's school, also highly expensive, had specialised in "finish of speech and manner.")

Dee laughed. "That bratling! He must have been lit."

"Emslie said so. He was with me when we walked into 'em."

"As per usual. What was his view?"

"He said the Scrub ought to be spanked and sent to bed."

"Some job!" opined her sister. "She's starting in early. When did you have your first real flutter, Con?"

"Not at that age," returned the elder. "And not with that kind of a face."

Dee reflected shrewdly that Connie was a little sore over the young man's defection. "It must have been dark for Graves to take her on," she agreed.

"It was, till we opened the door on 'em. They were clinched all right. Dam' little fool!"

"Better go easy with the letter," advised Dee carelessly. "He'll think it's green-eyed stuff."

"Not from what I'm going to give him. He tried the half-nelson on me earlier in the evening and got turned down."

"Well, I had to tell him the strangle hold was barred, myself," remarked Dee. "He must have had a busy evening."

"Thinks he's a boa-constrictor, does he?" commented the beauty viciously. "He'll think he's an apple-worm when he reads my few well-chosen words."

"Cordially invited not to come back?"

"Something of that sort."

"That was a pretty husky punch, though," mused Dee. "Con, you don't suppose he fed the Scrub any of it?"

"Yes, he did."

"Dirty work!" Lighting a cigarette Dee took a few puffs, but without inhaling. "Going to tell Mona?" The two older girls habitually spoke of their mother and sometimes to her by her given name.

"I don't know. What do you think?"

"I think she'd laugh."

"Dad wouldn't."

"Dad's old. Mona's one of our kind. She's as modern as jazz."

"Dad may be old but it hasn't slowed him up so much, yet. He was the life of the party."

"Oh, Dad's all right. I'm for him, myself. But he's all for Pat. There might be fireworks if he knew she was starting in this early."

"There were never any about Mona."

"Meaning?"

"Well, Sid Rathbone. And Tom Merrill. And a few others."

"She doesn't interfere with his little amusements, either, if you come to that. Have you noticed anything about her lately?"

"Yes. She looks like a ghost in the mornings."

"Bobs has been trying to get her to put on the brakes."

"Funny old Bobs! He's pippy on you, isn't he, Dee?"

"Me! I should say not. It's Mona."

"Can you blame him? With her war paint on she's got us both faded."

"Sometimes when I catch him looking at her with that poodle dog expression of his, I wonder whether there's something really wrong with her."

"Probably it's just the pace. What'll we be like at her age, if we last that long?" Constance's soft mouth hardened as she seated herself at the desk and scratched off the letter which she had been meditating. "There!" she observed at the close. "That will tell Mr. Warren Graves where he gets off."

"What about Pat? Someone ought to tell her where she gets off."

"I don't know why they keep her around anyway," said Constance discontentedly. "She ought to have been sent away to school last year."

"God help the school! She'll give it an education."

"Going to the club to-night?" asked the elder after a pause.

"No."

"I thought you had a date with Jimmy James for all the Saturday dances."

"So did he," replied Dee calmly. "He was getting too proprietary. So I turned him down."

"War is hell," observed her sister with apparent irrelevance.

"Besides, de Severin is coming over from Washington for an early round of golf."

"So that's it. Paul de Severin could give me quite a thrill if he went at it right."

"Not me. I've never seen the man that could, either. Something must have been left out of my make-up when I was built."

"Sometimes I wish it had been left out of mine," said the beauty. "And other times," she added gaily, "I don't. By the way, I'm likely to be in pretty late. So don't let Dad lock me out, will you?"

"I thought they still pulled the midnight rule for the Saturday night dances."

"So they do. But the Grants are having a small-and-early afterward. Somebody slipped Will Grant a case of Bacardi." She sealed her letter with a thump and tossed it into a silver-wicker basket.

"Keep your rum," said Dee with an effect of disdainful connoisseurship. "It gets me nothing but perspiration and a bum eye next day! Not even the right kind of kick.... So your Princeton laddie fed Pat some of the party fluid. Did it make her sick?"

"No; it didn't make her sick," answered a resentful voice, all on one level tone. Pat entered by the rear door.

"Been listening in?" inquired Constance amiably.

"I have not. Wouldn't waste my time," declared the infant of the family. She cast an eye upon the journal which her sister had laid aside. "What's in T.T. this week? Anything rich?"

"Rapidly growing to womanhood," observed Constance to Dee in a tone of mock admiration.

"Talk-party, I suppose," said the intruder. "Don't let me interrupt."

She strolled purposelessly over to the desk, glanced in the letter box and picked up the letter.

"What are you writing to Warren Graves about?" she demanded.

"Put that letter back," said Constance.

"I'm going to look," declared Pat uncertainly. Her statement was followed by a yell of pain. The letter fell, inviolate, to the floor as Dee, who had leapt upon her with the swiftness and precision of a young panther, tortured her arms backward.

"If you try to kick I'll break you in two," muttered the athlete.

"Let go! I won't," wailed Pat, who knew and dreaded the other's strength.

Released, she massaged her aching elbows. "Dirty you, though!" she said, scowling at Constance. "Sneaking a letter off to him that way."

"I suppose you'd like to censor it," taunted the writer. "Well, if you want to know what's in it, I told him just how old you are and what kind of a silly little ass. I don't think he'll come back for any more baby-kisses."

At this Pat grinned inwardly. Whatever else it may have been, that was no baby-kiss that had passed between them. With her equanimity quite restored she remarked:

"You lie."

"Tasty manners!" commented Dee.

"I don't know what you've got to say about it," said Pat venomously. "I noticed a sedan with all the curtains pulled down just after you disappeared from the house with Jimmy James." This was a random shot. It went wide of the target.

"Cut it, Scrubby! Cut it!" admonished her sister calmly. "I don't put on any snuggling sketches where everybody can see me."

"Don't call me Scrubby!" choked the girl.

"Look at yourself," suggested Constance, "and see what else you can expect to be called. Did you brush your teeth this morning?"

"Oh, mind your business."

"Then go and brush them now," said Mona's voice from the stairway in its clear and singing cadence. Whatever Mona said took on the sound and form of music. Pat's hoarse and unformed speech had an echo of the same seductive sweetness. The mother entered, adjusting her hat. "I'm lunching in town, kiddies. What's the row?"

Pat cast a sullenly appealing glance at Constance. In vain.

"The Scrub's been doing a hug with Warren Graves," announced the elder sister.

"I have not."

Mona regarded the flaming face with amused pity. She did not take the news seriously. "Did you like him, Bambina?" she asked with careless sympathy.

A quick, half-suppressed sob answered and surprised her.

"He fed her up on the punch," began Constance. "And then——"

"A very enterprising young man," broke in Mrs. Fentriss. "I don't think we'll urge him to repeat his visit, Connie."

"Exactly what I'm writing to tell him."

"Because I pinched him from you," declared Pat in a vicious undertone.

Constance laughed, but not without annoyance. "It's likely, isn't it!"

"I made him give me the punch," continued the accused one. "I hated it. I only took one swallow. It wasn't his fault. He told me to go easy on it."

The defence of her possession by the girl moved Mona; it was so naïvely, primitively feminine. At the same time the look in the childish eyes, dreamy, remembering, unconsciously sensuous, stirred misgivings in the mother's mind. Conscious womanhood was perhaps going to burst upon the child explosively; was already in process of realisation, very likely. Mona recalled certain developments of her own roused and startled emotions twenty years before. Could it be as long ago as that? How vivid to her memory it still was!

"Never mind," she said in her equable tones. "I dare say the punch was too strong. And the Graves boy had more than one swallow. He didn't hate it."

"I wrote to him," said Pat suddenly.

"You did?" The three incredulous voices blended.

"Yes, I did. He wrote to me. He asked me to answer. He was terribly sorry."

"Sorry for what?" asked Dee.

"For—for acting that way. He seemed to think he'd hurt my feelings or something. I told him it was just as much my fault as his."

"Did you, little Pat?" Her mother leaned forward to look into the queer, defiant, chivalrous little face. "Perhaps you're older than I thought. But I shouldn't write any more, if I were you."

"I won't."

Mona went out, followed by her youngest. In the hallway, Pat gave her mother a light, familiar, shy pat on the shoulder. "Thanks for standing by me," she said awkwardly.

"Did I stand by you?" returned Mona. "I wonder if I stand by you enough."

Inside the room, Dee mused with a thoughtful, frowning face.

"Think of the Scrub!" she muttered.

"What of her?" asked Constance.

"Feeling that way. Already." There was a hint of unconscious envy in her manner. "About a man!" She sighed and shook her head incredulously. "It gets me," she confessed.

"Don't you like to have a man you like kiss you?" inquired Constance curiously.

Dee meditated. "I don't mind it," she answered. "But I'd rather run down a long putt, any day."

To Dr. Robert Osterhout, whom she sought out after her return from luncheon (with Stevens Selfridge) Mona detailed the conversation with and about Pat.

"Yes; I know," said he.

"How could you know?"

"Pat told me about young Graves."

"What! The whole thing?"

"So far as I could judge, she didn't leave out much."

"Why did she tell you? Confession? Remorse?"

"Not in the least. She enjoyed the telling. She's very feminine, that child. And very curious about herself."

"I hope to God she isn't developing my temperament," reflected the downright Mona after a pause. "It would be a dismal joke if the ugly duckling of the flock had that wished on her. Poor, pimply little gnome."

"Ugly? I wouldn't be too sure. The fairy prince from Princeton seems to have been quite captivated with her."

"And she with him."

"That, of course. It was a very awakening kiss for her."

"Does she realise——"

"She said, 'Bobs, it made me go weak all over. Is chloroform like that?'"

"Diverting notion! What did you tell her?"

"I told her that it wasn't, precisely. Then she said, 'What does it mean?' And I said that it might mean danger."

"She wouldn't understand that. I've never talked to her." Mona, like many women of broad and easy attitude toward sex relations in so far as went her own life, had a reticence in discussing them with other women.

"Yes; she would. Pat's over twelve, you know."

"Yes; I know. But does she?"

"Perfectly."

"Why? She didn't say anything——"

"No; she didn't go into the physico-psycho-analysis of her emotions, if that's what you mean, Mona. I shouldn't have let her. There's a touch of the morbid in her, anyway. That's the Irish strain from her father. But there's a lot of your saving grace, too—your most saving grace."

"And what may that be?"

"The habit of facing facts squarely; even facts about oneself."

"Is that a gift or a detriment, Bob?"

"It's a saving grace, I tell you. Little Pat is going to look right clean through the petty illusions of life, clear-eyed."

"But illusions are the bloom and happiness of life," said Mona wistfully.

"To play with; not to trust in. Oh, she'll have her illusions about others; she's begun already. She's a romantic, as you are not. But her dreams about herself will all be subject to her own detached scrutiny. If ever she comes to dream about a man——"

"Well? You're being very subtle and analytical, Doctor."

"—she'll make heaven or hell for him."

"Bob! Men aren't going to waste time over her with pretty Dee and lovely Connie around."

"Aren't they! Ask young Graves. She'll make 'em dream. Wait and see."

"Just what I can't do," said Mona quietly. "Ah, I didn't mean to say that, Bob," she added quickly, catching the contraction of pain that altered his face. "Well," she mused, brushing her hair back from her broad brow, "I can't quite see it in Pat myself. But perhaps you're right. You ought to know. You're a man."

CHAPTER V

Dawn was tinting the high clouds when Mary Delia awoke. She had the gift of coming forth from sleep in full and instant possession of her faculties. Now she felt that something was amiss; something insistent and troublesome going on below her window. She jumped from bed, crossed the room, and looked out upon the shrubbery-encircled driveway. Voices came up to her, restrained and cautious, a man's and a woman's. She recognised the latter.

"Hush, you two!" she called, low but imperiously.

The man stepped into view. To her surprise it was not Emslie Selfridge but Fred Browning. He was in evening dress, a little wilted, and his eyes looked hot and anxious; but he retained evident command of himself.

"That you, Dee?" he whispered loudly, peering up.

"Yes. What's the matter? Anything wrong?"

"No. Connie can't get in."

Dee smothered an exclamation. With dismay she recalled her sister's request that she leave the door unlocked. But she had not dreamed that the party at the Grants' would last as late as this.

"I'll be right down," she promised.

Turning the dim corner from the stairway she stumbled upon a smoking-stand and overturned it with a din which made her heart stand still. Expectant and fearful she halted, poised and listening. No sound or stir came from above. Cautiously she felt her way forward and unlocked the door. Constance was standing at the corner of the porch. Her hair was dishevelled and luminous, her eyes softly heavy. There was a stain across the bodice of her evening dress. As the door opened she was releasing her lips from the man's kiss.

"Take care of her, Dee," said Browning, and was gone.

"And what do you think of that?" challenged Constance as she paused by the threshold.

Dee's answer might have seemed inconsecutive. "You are a beautiful thing, Con."

"Am I? Perhaps it's just as well that I am." There was a grimness in the sweet voice.

"Why that?"

"I'd be out of luck if I weren't."

"The Grants' party must have been a hurrah."

"Not so much. It got too slow for me before two o'clock."

"Did it? Where have you been all night?"

"Motoring."

"You don't look very dusty," observed the shrewd Dee.

"Perhaps you think I'm not telling you the truth."

"It's no affair of mine," returned Dee easily.

"Well, I'm not," continued the elder sister. "Come into the conservatory." She led the way across the living room, dragging her feet a little as she walked. "Now, if you want to know," she continued defiantly, "I'll tell you. I've been in Fred Browning's rooms."

"That's nice!" observed Dee. "What's the idea?"

"I had to go somewhere. I couldn't come home."

"Drunk?" Dee shot out the monosyllable with a sharpness which made the other wince. But she answered promptly:

"I was that. And I wasn't the only one. That Bacardi rum is hell."

"Who was with you?"

"Nobody."

"You and Fred? Alone?"

"Yes."

"Con!"

"I know. But I was so sick."

"At the party?"

"No. I wasn't any worse than the rest. Everyone was going strong. Emslie had a wonder!"

"What will he think?"

"He's done his thinking," returned the beauty obstinately. "He pulled a rotten grouch because I danced too much with Freddie at the club, and after we got to the Grants' he wouldn't pay any attention to anything but the punch. Not that I cared. I was enjoying life with Freddie. So we decided to pull out at two o'clock."

"Yes; but if you were all right then——"

"I was until we got into his car. Then the punch hit me. It was the change into the air, I suppose. I went all to pieces, just as we were passing his apartment. So he took me in there. It wasn't his fault. I was terribly sick and then awfully sleepy, and when I woke up——"

"Woke up?"

"Yes. Fred was bathing my face and telling me that I had to pull myself together and go home.... What are you looking at me that way for, Dee?" she concluded plaintively.

"Con, did anything happen?"

"Anything happen?" repeated the other in a dreamy voice. "I—I—don't know."

"You don't know! You must know."

"Yes; I would, wouldn't I? Though I was completely sunk. Anything might have happened," said she, slowly nodding her lovely hair-beclouded head.

"Con! Think!" urged Dee with impatient anxiety.

"I wouldn't care," declared the beauty recklessly. "I'm crazy about Freddie.... But it didn't; no, I'm sure of that now. Freddie's an awfully decent sort, Dee."

"He hasn't too pious a reputation. And when did you take on this sudden hunch for him? I thought it was Emslie."

"So did I. Until—Dee, did you ever have a man that you've always known suddenly look different to you?"

"No. Not enough different, anyway, to make any difference."

"It's hard to explain. Something in the way he affects you changes and all the world changes with it. That's how it was with Fred, and, I suppose the same way about me with him. Though he claims he's been mad about me for months."

"That's a blessing, considering," remarked Dee grimly. "Suppose you were seen going into his place?"

"We weren't."

"So far as you know."

"If we should have been, it's a sweet little scandal for the cats, isn't it!"

"In that case it's up to Freddie. It's up to Freddie anyway."

"Freddie's all right," declared Connie with conviction. "If he hadn't been—Dee, when I came to, I told him I didn't want to go home."

"You wanted to stay?" said the sister slowly.

Constance nodded. "I wasn't quite sobered up. But anyway I did want to stay. You can't understand that, can you?"

"No; I can't."

"Because you're a cold-blooded little fish. I'm still feeling that dam' Bacardi or I wouldn't be talking to you this way."

"Was Fred feeling it, too?"

"If he was, he had a grip on himself all right. He's a lot squarer man than people give him credit for, Dee."

"Lucky for you he is."

"Oh, I don't know. What's the difference!" retorted Connie perversely. "I guess those sort of things happen a lot more often than any of us know about."

"What sort of things?" interpolated a voice new to the parley.

The two sisters whirled about. Just outside the door stood Patricia in her tousled nightgown, hot-eyed with curiosity. "What sort of things?" she repeated.

"How long have you been there?" demanded Mary Delia.

"Long enough to hear a lot," answered the unperturbed Patricia. "Since before you asked Con did anything happen, and she said first she didn't know and afterward that it didn't. What did you mean? What didn't happen?"

With a sudden pounce the lithe Dee was upon her and held her, half-choked against the wall. "If you breathe a word of this, Scrubs, I'll half kill you."

"Leh—heh-heh—me alone!" whimpered Pat. "I'm not going to tell anybody."

"See that you don't, then."

"You told on me about Warren Graves."

"That was different."

"How, different?"

"You're only a child. You've no business playing silly tricks like that."

"Wasn't it a silly trick of Con to——"

"Go back to bed," ordered Dee with a powerful shake which seemed to the unfortunate victim to loosen her eyes in their sockets.

She crept away but paused at the door to say wistfully and sullenly:

"Just the same, I think you might tell me what didn't happen."

Late the next afternoon Fred Browning came to the house, having called up Constance at noon. Dee came down to him.

"Is everything all right, Dee?" he asked anxiously.

The girl nodded.

"Yes. The family didn't wake up. I'll send Con down right away."

But before Constance arrived, little Pat entered the side room where he was nervously waiting. She looked at him solemnly, entreatingly, hesitatingly, then burst out:

"Mr. Browning, will you tell me something?"

Her earnestness amused him. "Why, of course," he said, quite unsuspecting. "I always like to help the young to knowledge. But don't make it too hard."

"What was it that might have happened to Con last night, that the girls wouldn't tell me about?"

He stared at her, completely aghast. "You young devil!" he breathed.

Constance's quick footsteps sounded on the stairs, and the inquirer was fain to flee, unsated of her curiosity. But she peered back, and her breath came quicker as she saw her pretty sister walk straight, eager, and unashamed into the man's waiting arms. Pat deemed it the part of prudence to keep herself aloof the rest of the day.

Later Fred Browning had a cocktail with Mr. Fentriss and a brief talk on the subject of Constance.

And so they were married.

CHAPTER VI

Moth-like, Patricia hovered around the mystic radiance of Constance's wedding festivities. They had let her come home from school for the occasion. Reckoned too young for a bridesmaid and too old for a flower-girl she occupied an anomalous and unofficial position in the party. Dee, who, as maid of honour, had opportunity to exercise her executive faculties in managing the details, found her irritatingly in the way.

"Under your feet all the time," said she to the bride. "The kid is crazy with curiosity. I never heard so many questions."

"Yes," assented Constance fretfully. "She keeps asking me how I feel and staring at me as if I were going to die or have an operation or something."

Dee laughed. "She got hold of Fred yesterday and put him through a catechism while he was waiting for you to come down. He actually looked rattled."

"She's a pest, that child! School doesn't seem to have toned her down a bit."

"At least it's taken the slump out of her shoulders. She's got a kind of boyish swagger that isn't bad. For her kind of style, I mean."

"Oh, style!" repeated the elder sister contemptuously. "She'll never have any more style than a kitten. I wish you'd keep her out of my way."

To accomplish this, however, would have entailed an almost continuous vigilance. The elaborate ceremonial of marriage and giving in marriage with its trappings and appurtenances, its vestigial suggestions of sexual-sacrificial import, its underlying and provocative symbolism had stirred in the youngest member of the family an imagination as inflammable as it was unself-comprehending. Constance's matter-of-fact mind could not interpret the eager and searching scrutiny of her sister, though it made her restless and uneasy and vaguely shamed her. The afternoon before the wedding, Pat tiptoed in upon her as she was resting on Mona's sleeping-porch.

"Connie," she half whispered.

"Well?" returned the bride crossly.

"Where are you going?"

"Going? I'm trying to rest."

"Where are you going after you're married? To a hotel?"

"What do you want to know for?" demanded the elder sister, raising herself on her elbow to look at the younger.

"Nothing. I just wanted to know."

"Well, you won't. Not from me."

"Oh, verra-well! You needn't get all fussed up about it."

"Oh, don't be hateful, Pat. I want to rest."

"I'll go in just a minute. But—— Con?"

The bride sighed, a martyrized sigh.

"What is it?"

"When you get back—when I get back from school, will you tell me?"

"What is the child getting at! Tell you what?"

"Everything."

"I don't know what you mean," fended Constance.

"Yes, you do. You know."

The older girl flushed a slow pink, then laughed. "You're a funny little monkey! Why should you want to know?"

"Well, I've got to go through it sometime, myself, haven't I?" reasoned the girl.

"Oh, have you! Well, you can find out then."

"I think you're mean. You'd tell Dee if she asked you."

"I wouldn't tell anyone. It's disgusting to be so—so prying. Where do you get such ideas?"

Pat reflected before answering. "Don't all girls have 'em?"

"If they do, they don't talk about them."

"Oh, that's all bunk," declared the cheerful Pat. "If you've got the idea inside you, you might as well spit it out.... I'll bet men tell."

The bride looked at the clever, eager, childish face with sudden panic. "If I thought they did," she began, but immediately broke off, taking a plaintive, invalidish tone. "Do go away, Scrubs! You're making my head ache. And for heaven's sake, don't stare at me to-morrow like you have to-day. It gives me the creeps."

"It gives me the thrills," returned the alarmingly outspoken ingénue, as she danced out.

Throughout the ceremony of the following day, Pat's interest was divided between the bride and an equally absorbing prepossession. She had, so she told herself, fallen desperately in love with one of the ushers, a Boston man named Vincent. To her infatuated eyes he was adorably handsome, and so romantic looking, though quite old. Probably thirty! On the previous evening he had chatted casually with her for five minutes, finding the odd, eager child with the sombre eyes and the effortful affectation of grown-up-ness mildly amusing. Going up the aisle he had made her heart leap by giving her a little friendly nod. During the ceremony she brooded on him, building up the airiest of vague and roseate sentimentalities for the far future, and for the near, nursing the belief that he would surely seek her out as soon as possible at the reception. When she saw him, later, quite forgetful of her in his interest in Virginia Platt, a slight, flashing brunette of the wedding party, she was both chilled and infuriated. He did not even ask her to dance, though once he crossed the floor toward her, only to turn aside at the last, hopeful moment. It was terrible to be young and queer looking, though she had done her careful best for her elfish little face and immature figure.

Others came for dances, however; Selden Thorpe, the rector's son, the most often. Him she deemed "interesting looking," with his pale face, bristly hair, and hard, grey eyes, typical of the unconscious egotist. Though he danced well, here Pat could overmatch him, for she had the passion of rhythmic movement in her blood.

"You've got the fairy foot all right, little one," said he, investing the epithet with his conscious sophomoric superiority.

Pat felt offended. She wanted so much to be grown-up that evening. But she feared to alienate her escort's budding interest if she showed any resentment.

"Anyone can dance with as good a dancer as you are," she replied sweetly.

He gave her an appreciative glance. "Can they? I guess we could enter for a prize all right."

"We could make some of 'em hustle to beat us," she declared gaily.

"Could you make a getaway some evening, and we'd slip over and try it out at one of the big places?"

"Would you take me?" she cried, delighted. But her face fell. "There won't be time. I'm going back to school."

The talk languished after this disappointment. The number was over and they were seated in a remote corner of the little conservatory. Thorpe wondered what he could find to talk to this kid about.

"Engine completely stalled," he thought ruefully.

On her part, Patricia experienced a sense of dismal vacancy. What was there in her mental repertoire to interest this worldly collegian? The memory of the party at which she had seen him gambling came to mind as a hopeful bridge over the widening conversational chasm.

"Been winning much lately?" she asked brightly.

"Winning?" He looked puzzled. "At what?"

"Craps. I heard you stung the crowd for a hundred dollars at our party."

He was flattered and lofty. "Oh, I did pretty well. Where'd you hear about it? You weren't at the party."

"Not for long," confessed Pat. "But I was among those present for a little while."

Connection of ideas recalled to her Warren Graves and his light-hearted allure. She wished he were beside her on the settee instead of Selden. She could almost hear his voice, bantering and tender, "Sweetie," and feel the warm pressure of his arm. With him there would have been no anxious necessity of searching for topics of conversation, whereas with Selden—— Why not experiment a little, she thought, daringly. She let her hand slip carelessly from her lap to her side. It came into touch with his. The contact gave her a shock as unexpected as it was painful. She had failed to notice that he held a lighted cigarette.

"Ouch!" said Pat, and licked the wounded knuckle with a sharp, pink tongue like a young animal's.

"Let's see," said the youth.

He took her hand, glanced at it, and set his lips to the reddened skin cavalierly enough. "That better?" he asked.

Pat nodded. She stared intently at the solaced spot wondering what the progress of the game would be. In Thorpe's inured mind there was no room for surmise. To him this was all formula, the parliamentary procedure of casual love-making. He drew the yielding fingers into his left hand and slipped his right arm across the slim, girlish shoulders. She leaned back a little from his embrace.

"Well?" he questioned, an easy laugh on his lips.

"Well, what?" she whispered.

He bent and kissed her. It was a quick kiss, adventurous and playful. Not so had Warren Graves's eager and searching lips closed down upon hers. Pat was both disappointed of her expected thrill, and unaccountably relieved and reassured. A queer, inward fluttering which had unbalanced her thoughts for the moment when the appropriative arm encircled her, was stilled. Suddenly she felt quite mistress of herself and the situation. She proceeded now according to a formula which she was improvising, and which millions of girls had improvised before her.

"What did you do that for?" she murmured.

"Didn't you want me to?"

Pat abandoned her formula before it was fairly under way. "I suppose I did," she admitted.

Expectant of the usual "No," he was startled, amused, and a little roused. "Did you?" he said.

He drew her closer, bent his mouth to hers again, felt a swift stir at the sweet, soft pressure, followed by a sensible chilling as she turned away to say thoughtfully:

"I wonder why I did."

"You're a queer kid," he observed genuinely. "But there's something mighty sweet about you."

"Is there?" she cried, charmed with the direct flattery.

"I suppose you wanted me to because you like me," he pursued. "Wasn't that it?"

"I don't know. I like being petted."

"Oh! Do you? By any-old-body?"

"I don't know," she repeated. "I've never been but once before."

"Did you like that better than this?"

"It was different."

"Different?" His interest and curiosity were piqued; his vanity, too. "Well, I can make it different, too."

"No," choked Pat in sudden panic as she felt his lean, sinewy arms encircle her crushingly. "Don't, Sel!"

She twitched her face away from his. Immediately her alarm gave place to a stimulus of sheer delight. She had distinctly felt him tremble. An epochal discovery! For she was, herself, quite cool. She possessed then the mysterious power to arouse men out of themselves, while remaining self-possessed, to affect them in this strange manner more than she herself was moved.

"Pat, dear!" whispered the youth, avid and insistent.

He had ceased to seem formidably old to her now; she was his superior. She kissed him again, but lightly and pushed him back.

"Bad bunny!" she mocked. "We ought not to, Sel."

"Oh, what's the harm?"

"Someone might come in."

"Come outside, then."

"Oh, let's go back and dance. I'm afraid of you." She gave him a sidelong glance with this gratuitous lie. "Come, I love this trot."

They danced it out, he holding her closer than before, she letting her cheek press his from time to time. She yearned to the feeling of his young strength, yet was quite content for the time, with the experience of the evening as far as it had gone. When they returned to the conservatory again, she made him sit in a chair opposite to her. His sophomoric assurance was quite tempered down; the unformed child whom he had danced with condescendingly and as a kindness earlier in the evening, was become imperatively desirable now. He chafed at her aloof attitude.

"I'm coming to see you," he said with an attempt at masterfulness in his tone. "I'll come to-morrow. Keep the evening open."

She shook her head. "I'm going back to school."

"Are you?" He looked dispirited. "Will you write to me, Pat?"

"Can't."

"Well—you'll be home for vacation, won't you?"

"Of course."

"So'll I. I was going to a house party on Staten Island. But if you'll be here I'm coming back."

"Will you?" Her tone was almost indifferent, though she was aflame with triumph, inwardly. "That's nice of you."

"I will if you'll be glad to see me."

"Of course I will."

"Awfully glad?" he pressed.

"Oh, I don't know about all that," replied Pat, the coquette.

"You're going to kiss me good-bye?" he pleaded.

"Perhaps. Just a little one."

When she had slipped from his embrace, her gaze was far away.

"What are you thinking of now?" he asked jealously.

"Of Connie."

"What of her?"

"I wonder where they are now. I was thinking," she continued as if speaking to herself, "that I'd like to see her to-morrow morning."

"Why to-morrow morning?" asked Thorpe. He was a youth of slow imagination, but he was not stupid. Suddenly he laughed. "Oh!" he cried. "So that's the idea! You little devil!"

"No; it isn't," denied Pat, her cheeks flaming, and ran back to the ballroom.

At the entrance she collided with Scott Vincent, who was looking for a vanished partner.

"Pardon!" he said, cleverly saving her from a recoil against the door! "Oh; it's the infanta!" He looked into her vivid face with appreciative amusement. "Don't you want to give me this dance?" he asked.

Her hot cheeks cooled. She considered him appraisingly though her heart beat quicker. He was so very good to look at!

"No; I don't," she replied.

"No?" he laughed. "You're frank, at least. Perhaps you'll be franker and tell me why."

"Because you didn't ask me earlier."

"Indeed! But I hadn't seen you," he protested, surprised at himself at being put upon the defensive by this child.

"I don't like not being seen," retorted Pat, with a calmness worthy of an experienced flirt.

"Well, I'm damned!" said Vincent softly, under his breath. He began to be interested in this quaint specimen. "Oh! come! Give me a chance to make amends. How about a little supper?"

"No," answered Pat with perverse satisfaction. "I'm going to bed. Good-night, Mr. Too-late."

She darted away from him, triumphantly satisfied of having left a barb behind her. He wouldn't forget her soon, she'd bet! At the turn of the stairs she peeped down expectantly. Sure enough! there he stood staring after her, his comely face clouded with perplexity and disappointment. It gave Pat a sudden heating of the blood; but this was the thrill of satisfaction, of something achieved, quite different from the unsated yet delicious longing experienced when she had looked down before from that same vantage point upon Warren Graves.

Even more than before she was aware of a power within herself, perhaps greater than herself, to allure men. And subtly, profoundly, she felt that the touchstone of that power was denial.

Scott Vincent would remember her, Selden Thorpe would think of her with longing, because she had denied them both. Pat slept happily that night, the sleep of a little Venus Victrix.

CHAPTER VII

It was to her second daughter that Mona Fentriss made, after due thought, disclosure of her condition. Dee was shocked and incredulous. She had no profound affection for her mother. None of the girls had. But Mona had always been bonne camarade with them in her casual and light-hearted way. And she had made, as few women make, the atmosphere of her home. Without her the house was almost unthinkable; it would not be the same place; not only sadder and duller, but essentially different. In this way chiefly would she be missed.

"You'll have to be the one to carry on the housekeeping job, Dee."

"I?" said Mary Delia. "Mother, I don't know the first thing about it."

"You'll learn. You're clever."

"Besides, I can't believe that you're going to—that you're right about yourself."

"Ask Dr. Bob."

"He's been hinting at something. But he seemed afraid to come out with it when I tried to follow up. Is that the reason why you wanted me to marry Bobs?"

"Partly."

"I can't seem to think of him in that way. But then, I can't seem to think of any man in that way."

"Not even Jimmy James?"

"Not even Jimmy, much as I like him."

"When we talked about this before you said——"

"Yes; I know. Probably I'll marry him one of these days. But when he tries to make love to me, I curl up a little. Am I abnormal, Mona?"

"I don't know," answered Mona reflectively. "We women are queer machines, Dee. Perhaps it's just that Jimmy isn't the right man."

"Then I haven't met the right man yet. It would be pretty weird if he came along afterward, wouldn't it? So perhaps I'd better wait."

"No; I think perhaps you'd better not, if you really like Jimmy. There might not be any right man for you, in that sense. Some of us are made that way."

"Yes; I suppose so. But why choose me to run the house? Con would do it better, wouldn't she?"

"Possibly. But if she's to do it, I'd have to tell her what I've just told you. And I don't want to break in on her happiness."

"Oh, happiness," murmured Dee in a curious tone.

"You don't think she's happy?" queried the mother. "Or perhaps you don't believe in that kind of happiness. Cynicism at your age is a pose."

"It isn't that. But I don't believe Con and Freddie are going too well together."

"Why not?"

"Freddie's hitting the booze quite a bit. Besides, he hasn't as much money as Con thought. Not nearly. And she's a high-speed little spender, you know."

"Yes; she's certainly that," agreed Mona, bethinking herself of the monthly bills which came in after the eldest sister's allowance had been expended in a variety of manners for which the spender was cheerfully unable to account.

"Doing fifty thousand dollar things on a fifteen thousand dollar income won't speed 'em up the Road to Happiness," opined the shrewd Dee. "She'll make a hash of it, if she doesn't pull up."

"Doesn't she care for Fred, do you think?"

"In one way she's crazy about him." Dee's curled lip suggested the way; also that she neither comprehended nor sympathised with it. But Mona laughed, relieved.

"Well; that's rather essential, you know, in marriage. I'll talk to Connie about extravagance when I come back."

"As a preacher on that text," began Dee wickedly; then bent over to give her mother's hand an awkward and remorseful pat. "I'll do the best I can, of course. And don't think I'm not—not feeling pretty rotten over this," she continued, huskily and a little shamefully, like a boy caught in a display of emotion.... "You say, when you come back. Going away?"

"Oh, just a run over to Philadelphia to spend a couple of days with the Barhams," replied Mona carelessly. "You and I will have to do a little figuring about the housekeeping, too, on my return. And you can pass it on to Pat when you get married."

"Pat! She'll be a grand little housekeeper when her turn comes. I pity poor Dad."

"She and your father understand each other, though, in a way," mused Mona.

Having meditated over this conversation with dubious feelings, Dee, who had a sane instinct for facts, went to call on Dr. Osterhout at the little laboratory attached to his bungalow. This was on a Tuesday. Her mother had left the previous noon. Osterhout emerged from rapt contemplation of a test tube to find the girl standing over him.

"Hullo," he said. "What are you invading a bachelor's quarters at this hour for?"

"Afraid of being compromised, Bobs?" she retorted.

"Hadn't thought of it. Why put such alarming ideas into my head? But my reputation will stand it if yours will. Besides, a physician is immune. One of the perquisites of the profession."

"It's as a physician that I want to talk to you."

His face changed; became grave and solicitous. "What's wrong?"

"I want to know about Mona."

"Has she told you anything?"

"Yes."

"I've wanted her to for some time."

"Then it's true."

"Yes; it's true."

"How long, Bobs?"

"Uncertain. It isn't progressing as fast as I feared. But—not very long, Dee." He spoke with effort.

"A year?"

"Perhaps. If she's careful."

"But she isn't careful. You know Mona."

"No. She isn't. It isn't in her to be."

"Ought she to be running off on trips?"

"Of course not. But I can't stop her." A note of weariness, of defeat had come into his brusque voice.

"Poor old Bobs!" The girl went to him and set a hand on his shoulder, brushing his cheek with her fingers as she did so. There was nothing repellent to her sensitiveness in contact with him, nothing of the revulsion which she experienced under the eager touch of men, tentatively love-making. Bobs wasn't like a man to her so much as like a faithful and noble-spirited dog. "It's hard on you, isn't it?" she murmured.

His eyes thanked her for her understanding and sympathy.

"It isn't easy," he confessed.

"I won't hurt you any more. But just one question; is it quite hopeless?"

"I can't see any chance of cure."

"Poor old Bobs!" she said again, this time in a whisper. "If I were a man I'm sure I should be wild about Mona. I can see that even if she is my mother. She's so lovely; and she's so young; and she's"—Dee smiled—"she's such a bad child."

"No; she's not," he defended doggedly. "She's just a little spoiled because life has always petted her. And now the petting is almost over."

"Yes. That's hard to believe, isn't it? Of Mona! She's always had her own way with everyone and everything. But she's got courage. She won't flinch. Bobs, do you remember a talk we three had, months ago?"

"Yes."

"I'd like to do something for her before—something that she wanted. And for you, too. It wouldn't do any good, would it," she asked wistfully, "if I were to marry you?"

"Not a bit."

She smiled, awry, but withal, relieved. "What a bear you are! Isn't that your phone ringing?"

"Let it ring. This isn't office hours."

"A hint for me? Having proposed and been rejected, I'm off." She brushed his cheek again. "Old boy," she said, "it is going to be tough going for you. Worse than for any of us. Good-bye."

Concentration upon his work being dissipated by this disturbing visit, Osterhout threw himself on the settee and dropped out of the world into a chasm of dark musings. If Mona had ever really cared for him, he mused—if he had been her lover—might he have been her lover, as she had hinted?—had she lovers? Or were the other men merely playthings of her wayward moods, of her craving for excitement, for adulation, for the sunlit warmth of being loved? At least he had not been a plaything; her regard for and trust in him were true and sincere. Better these, perhaps, than the turmoil and uncertainty of—— Yet, that temptation that she had held out to him; was it just an instance of her wickeder bent of coquetry?... Or could he have made her care?... Damn that telephone!

He roused himself with a wrench and went into the next room where the intrusive mechanism was thrilling. Long-distance had been trying to get him.... Wait a moment.... A man's voice, low, eager and strained came to his ear over the wire.

"Dr. Osterhout?"

"Yes."

"Can you come to Trenton immediately? By the next train?"

"Who is speaking?"

"It's very important," went on the nervous and insistent voice. "It's a—a very important case. Critical."

"Who are you?"

"Is that necessary?" queried the voice, after a pause.

"Certainly. Do you suppose that I am going out on any wild-goose, anonymous call?"

"Then I was to say," said the voice, "that Mona needs you."

"Mona! Is she ill?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Here, in Trenton."

"Where in Trenton?"

"At the Marcus Groot Hotel. You'll be met at the train. For God's sake say you'll come."

"I can get the one o'clock," said Osterhout. "Good-bye."

Going over on the train he had time for scalding meditations. Mona in Trenton! At the Marcus Groot Hotel. When she was supposedly visiting the Barhams at their Philadelphia apartment. And all this atmosphere of secrecy thrown about it by the unknown man. But was he unknown? The voice had seemed dimly familiar to Osterhout. Surely, he had heard it before. Feverishly he mustered in his mind Mona's admirers, canvassed them over, vacillated between this and that one, and shook with a jealous and amazed rage which horrified while it tore at him, as Sidney Rathbone hurried up the platform to meet him. But in a moment he had mastered himself.

"Thank God, you're here!"

"How is she?"

"A good deal easier. She's been terribly ill."

"Heart?"

"Yes. She wouldn't let me call any local physician."

"When was she taken?" inquired Osterhout as he stepped into the waiting taxi.

"This morning. About eight o'clock."

In his anxiety Rathbone was beyond any considerations of concealment; the revelation was absolute when, at the hotel, he took Osterhout directly to the suite of rooms, as one having the right. Mona greeted the newcomer with a smile, grateful, pleading, pitiful. Mutely it said: "Don't be too harsh in your judgment of me."

Hardening himself to his professional state of mind, Osterhout made his swift, assured, detailed examination.

"What's the verdict?" whispered Mona.

He nodded encouragingly. "You'll be all right," he said reassuringly. From his case he produced some pellets.

"Not an opiate?" she asked rebelliously. "I want to talk to you."

"No. It's a stimulant. But I think you'd better not try to talk for a while."

"I must ... Sid, dear, go into the other room, won't you?"

Rathbone nodded, speechless for the moment. His hollowed eyes were full of the slow tears of relief. He bent over the sick woman's face for a moment and was gone, obediently.

"I want to tell you," said Mona, as soon as the door had closed, "about this."

"There isn't any need," returned Osterhout.

"No. There isn't," agreed Mona. "The situation explains itself, doesn't it?" She smiled at him, equably but without hardihood.

"It does."

"Are you being my wise doctor or my reproachful friend? Are you thinking to yourself: 'Mona, I wouldn't have thought it of you!' Because, if you are——"

"I'm not."

"You mean that you would have thought it of me. How dare you, Bobs!" she demanded elfishly.

He did not respond to her raillery, which he recognised for the expression of tortured nerves. "I wish you wouldn't talk," he said.

"I will," she retorted mutinously. "It won't hurt me. At worst, it won't hurt me nearly as much as to hold in what I want to say. Bobs, was this attack brought on by—by my foolishness?"

"Very possibly. It certainly didn't help any," he replied grimly.

"Suppose I'd died here," she mused. "I very nearly did."

"So I should judge."

"What a scandal there'd have been! And what a text for the pious! 'The wages of sin is death.' D'you believe that, Bobs?"

"It's a useful bogey to scare people who are more timid than they are wicked."

"I'm not timid," she proclaimed. "And I don't feel particularly wicked. Only anxious over how this is going to turn out."

"What did you do it for, Mona?" he burst out painfully.

She gave him a sidelong glance. "Oh, I don't know. Boredom. And he begged me so. Poor Sid! He does love me."

"The dirty scoundrel! If he loved you, would he——"

"Of course he would!" she broke in, with impatient contempt. "Don't indulge in cheap melodrama. It's because people are in love that they take risks like this."

"Then you love him," said Osterhout dolorously.

"I don't know. He sways me. But—I don't think I'm in love with him, as you mean it."

"Yet you——"

"Yet I came here with him. Does that seem so terrible to you?" She spoke in a tone of half-tender mockery.

"I can't understand it, except on the ground that you love him."

"Because you don't understand me. And there are twenty-one different definitions of love."

"Do you understand yourself?"

"Yes; I do," she asserted thoughtfully and boldly. "And I'm not afraid to accept myself as I am. I don't shut my eyes to the picture just because it's my own. I'm not a sneak."

"No. You're not that."

"And if I take the chances I'm ready to face the consequences," she said without defiance, but as one who enunciates a principle of life.

"The consequences? Of this?"

"If necessary. It isn't the first time." He winced and shrank. "Ah, I'm sorry if that hurt you!" she cried contritely.

"Never mind. There are others than me to be thought of."

"You do the thinking, Bobs. I'm not up to it."

"I will."

"That's like you," she murmured gratefully.

"Where are you supposed to be staying?"

"At the Barhams', on Walnut Street. Only Sue is at home."

"Can you arrange it with her?"

"To back up my lies? Yes; Sue will stand by." It was characteristic of Mona Fentriss that she should use the short, ugly, and veracious word.

"Then I shall take you to a Philadelphia hospital."

"Am I as bad as that?"

"It's the simplest way to cover the trail. You were taken ill at the Barhams'; you wired for me to avoid alarming the family, and I had you transferred to the hospital. But there's a risk."

"Of being trapped?"

"Not that so much. Of bringing on another attack."

"You'll be with me, won't you?"

"Yes. We'll get a car and take you over."

"Then I'm not afraid," she said trustfully. "But—'we'; do you mean that Sid is going along?"

"I supposed you'd want him."

"I don't."

Wise though he was in human nature, Mona was always surprising Osterhout. He made no comment, but went into the front room. Rathbone, his finely cut face mottled and livid, lurched heavily out of his chair.

"Is she going to die?" he asked, looking pitifully unlike the traditional villain of such a drama.

"Perhaps," returned the physician shortly.

"Because of—was it this that brought on the attack?"

Osterhout eyed him with grim distaste. "It didn't help any," he answered, as he had answered Mona.

"Good God! If she dies through my fault——"

"You should have thought of that before."

"I love her so!" groaned the man. His face changed. "I'll know what to do," he muttered in quiet, self-centred determination.

"And what's that?" demanded the physician.

"Nothing," replied the other, startled and sullen.

Osterhout reached him in three steps. "Suicide, perhaps," he said.

"That's my business."

"It is. If you're a low, dirty coward."

Rathbone straightened. "I won't take that from any man."

"Lower your voice, you fool! And listen to me. If she dies and you kill yourself, do you realize what that would mean? It would be advertising this situation to the world. Scandal and shame for the family. Oh, it's an easy way out for you. But can't you be man enough to think of others a little?"

"Isn't it scandal and shame anyway?"

"No. It isn't," returned the doctor energetically. "I'm going to get her out of it. All you have to do is to obey orders."

"I'll do that," said Rathbone eagerly and brokenly. "I'll do anything you say. And if ever I can repay you——"

"If you try to thank me I'll kill you!" retorted Osterhout, snarling and livid, suddenly losing control of himself in his jealous anguish of soul.

The other stared in his face, amazed but unalarmed by the outbreak. "Ah!" he breathed. "So that's the way it is with you. Well—God help you! I'm sorry. But I know now you'll do your best for her. That's all I care about."

He turned toward the door of the room. For the moment Osterhout started forward to intercept him, then drew back with a face in which shone the bitterness of yielding to a superior right.

When Rathbone returned, both men had recovered their self-command.

"Get your things together; send for a maid to pack hers; settle your bill, and get the easiest riding car you can find to go to Philadelphia," were the physician's brief directions.

"Where are you going to take her?"

"To a hospital."

"When can I see her?"

"That is for her to say."

"Then you don't think she's going to—that there is any immediate danger?" said the lover hopefully.

"I think she'll pull through this time, though there is still danger."

"I'm glad you're with her," said Rathbone simply, and went.

Quite as much time was devoted by Dr. Osterhout in the days immediately following to covering the devious trail of his patient as to treating her medically. After a consultation with Mrs. Barham, in which each solemnly pretended that the other entertained no suspicion of Mona's slip, he wrote a heedfully worded letter of misinformation and assurance to Ralph Fentriss, explaining that his wife had been taken to the hospital after a mild attack, more for rest than anything else; that no member of the family was to come over, and that she would be in condition to return home in a few days. This latter was true, for Mona's recuperative powers were great. None of the family came. But to Osterhout's surprise, he ran upon Patricia while walking down Broad Street on Sunday. She was with a pretty and smartly dressed girl a little older than herself.

"What are you doing here, Pat?" he demanded.

"Week-ending with Cissie Parmenter." With an aplomb amusing in one so young she indicated her companion. "She's my b.f. at school. Cissie, this is Dr. Bobs. You know about him."

"Yes, indeed. How d'you do, Dr. Osterhout."

"And what manner of creature is a b.f.?" asked he quizzically, taking the extended hand which was ornamented with a valuable ruby.

"Best friend, of course, stupid Bobs," returned Pat. "What kind of a bat are you on down here?"

"Your mother's been ill. She's in hospital here," he answered and immediately wondered whether he had not spoken unwisely.

"Hospital?" Pat opened wide eyes. "Is it dangerous?"

"No. She's coming along very well."

"Take me to see her." She turned to Cissie. "I'm plunged, Ciss, but the luncheon's off for me. Tell the boys. You may have my c.t. See you this afternoon."