Chapter II: Part 2

Francesca crossed the room, drew the young man's tall head down, and kissed him. "Well done, dear foster-child. Your adopted mother, once removed, is fully satisfied with you, and very much pleased with herself, being, vicariously, the parent of a great artist."

"I hope you don't consider me 'raised,'" replied Allison. "You're not going to stop 'mothering' me, are you?"

"I couldn't," was her smiling assurance. "I've got the habit."

He seemed very young as he looked down at her. Woman-like she loved him, through the man that he was, for the child that he had been.

"Come, lad," the Colonel suggested, "it's getting late and we want to be invited again."

Allison closed his violin case with a snap, said good-night to Aunt Francesca, then went over to Rose. "I don't feel like calling you 'Miss Bernard," he said. "Mayn't I say 'Cousin Rose,' as we rejoice in the possession of the same Aunt?"

"Surely," she answered, colouring faintly.

"Then good-night, Cousin Rose. I'll see you soon again, and we'll begin work. Your days of leisure are over now."

Isabel offered him a small, cool hand. Her eyes were brilliant, brought out by the sparkling silver of her gown. She glittered even in the low light of the room. "Good-night, Silver Girl," he said. "You haven't really grown up after all."

When the door closed, Rose gathered up the music he had forgotten, and put it away. Isabel came to her contritely. "Cousin Rose, I'm so sorry I said that! I didn't think!"

"Don't bother about it," Rose replied, kindly. "It was nothing at all, and, besides, it's true."

"'Tell the truth and shame the--family,'" misquoted Madame Bernard. "Age and false hair are not things to be flaunted, Isabel, remember that."

Isabel flushed at the rebuke, and her cheeks were still burning when she went to her room.

"I don't care," she said to herself, with a swift change of mood. "I'm glad I told him. They'd never have done it, and it's just as well for him to know."

Madame Bernard and Rose soon followed her example, but Rose could not sleep. Through the night the voice of the violin sounded through her consciousness, calling, calling, calling--heedless of the answer that thrilled her to the depths of her soul.

IV

THE CROSBY TWINS

The Crosby twins were making a formal call upon Isabel. They had been skating and still carried their skates, but Juliet wore white gloves and had pinned her unruly hair into some semblance of order while they waited at the door. She wore a red tam-o'-shanter on her brown curls and a white sweater under her dark green skating costume, which was short enough to show the heavy little boots, just now filling the room with the unpleasant odour of damp leather.

"Won't you take off your coat?" asked Isabel. "You'll catch cold when you go out, if you don't take it off."

"Thanks," responded Juliet, somewhat stiffly. Then she stretched out both hands to her hostess, laughing as she did so. "Look!" The sweater sleeves had crept up to her elbows, displaying several inches of bare, red arm between the sleeves and the short white gloves.

"That's just like us," remarked Romeo. "If we try to be elegant, something always happens."

The twins looked very much alike. They were quite tall and still retained the dear awkwardness of youth, in spite of the near approach of their twenty-first birthday. They had light brown curly hair, frank blue eyes that met the world with interest and delight, well-shaped mouths, not too small, and stubborn little chins. A high colour bloomed on their cheeks and they fairly radiated the joy of living.

"Can you skate?" inquired Romeo.

"No," smiled Isabel.

"Juliet can. She can skate as far as I can, and almost as fast."

"Romie taught me," observed Juliet, with becoming modesty.

"Do you play hockey? No, of course you don't, if you don't skate," he went on, answering his own question. "Can you swim?"

"No," responded Isabel, sweetly.

"Jule's a fine swimmer. She saved a man's life once, two Summers ago."

"Romie taught me," said Juliet, beaming at her brother.

"Can you row?" he asked, politely.

"No," replied Isabel, shortly. "I'm afraid of the water."

"Juliet can row. She won the women's canoe race in the regatta last Summer. The prize was twenty-five dollars in gold."

"Romie taught me," put in Juliet.

"We'll teach you this Summer," said Romeo, with a frank, boyish smile that showed his white teeth.

"Thank you," responded Isabel, inwardly vowing that they wouldn't.

"Juliet can do most everything I can," went on Romeo, with the teacher's pardonable pride in his pupil. "She can climb a tree in her knickers, and fish and skate and row and swim and fence, and play golf and tennis, and shoot, and dive from a spring board, and she can ride anything that has four legs."

"Romeo taught me," chanted Juliet, in a voice surprisingly like his own.

There was an awkward pause, then Romeo turned to his hostess. "What can you do?" he asked, meaning to be deferential. Isabel thought she detected a faint trace of sarcasm, so her answer was rather tart.

"I don't do many of the things that men do," she said, "but I speak French and German, I can sing and play a little, sew and embroider, and trim hats if I want to, and paint on china, and do two fancy dances. And when I go back home, I'm going to learn to run an automobile."

The twins looked at each other. "We never thought of it," said Juliet, much crestfallen.

"Wonder how much they cost," remarked Romeo, thoughtfully.

"Where can you buy 'em?" Juliet inquired. "Anywhere in town?"

"I suppose so," Isabel assented. "Why?"

"Why?" they repeated together. "We're going to buy one and learn to run it!"

"You must have lots of money," said Isabel, enviously.

"Loads," replied Romeo, with the air of a plutocrat. "More than we can spend."

"We get our income the first day of every month," explained Juliet, "and put it into the bank, but when the next check comes, there's always some left." They seemed to consider it a mild personal disgrace.

"Why don't you save it?" queried Isabel.

"What for?" Romeo demanded, curiously.

"Why, so you'll have it if you ever need it."

"It keeps right on coming," Juliet explained, pulling down her sweater. "Uncle died in Australia and left it to us. He died on the thirtieth of June, and we always celebrate."

"Why don't you celebrate his birthday?" suggested Isabel, "instead of the day he died?"

"His birthday was no good to us," replied Romeo, "but his death-day was."

"But if he hadn't been born, he couldn't have died," Isabel objected, more or less logically.

"And if he hadn't died, his being born wouldn't have helped us any," replied Juliet, with a dazzling smile.

There was another pause. "Will you have some tea?" asked Isabel.

"With rum in it?" queried Juliet.

"I don't think so," said Isabel, doubtfully. "Aunt Francesca never does."

"We don't, either," Romeo explained, "except when it's very cold, and then only a teaspoonful."

"The doctor said we didn't need stimulants. What was it he said we needed, Romie?"

"Sedatives."

"Yes, that was it--sedatives. I looked it up in the dictionary. It means to calm, or to moderate. I think he got the word wrong himself, for we don't need to be calmed, or moderated, do we, Romie?"

"I should say not!"

The twins sipped their tea in silence and nibbled daintily at wafers from the cracker jar. Then, feeling that their visit was over, they rose with one accord.

"We've had a dandy time," said Juliet, crushing Isabel's hand in hers.

"Bully," supplemented Romeo. "Come and see us."

"I will," Isabel responded, weakly. "How do you get there?"

"Just walk up the main road and turn to the left. It's about three miles."

"Three miles!" gasped Isabel. "I'll drive out."

"Just so you come," Romeo said, graciously. "It's an awful old place. You'll know it by the chimney being blown over and some of the bricks lying on the roof. Good-bye."

Juliet turned to wave her hand at Isabel as they banged the gate, and Romeo awkwardly doffed his cap. Their hostess went up-stairs with a sigh of relief. She had the sensation of having quickly closed a window upon a brisk March wind.

The twins set their faces toward home. The three-mile walk was nothing to them, even after a day of skating. The frosty air nipped Juliet's cheeks to crimson and she sniffed at it with keen delight.

"It's nice to be out," she said, "after being in that hot house. What do you think of her, Romie?"

"Oh, I don't know," he replied carelessly. "Say, how did she have her hair done up?"

"She had rats in it, and it was curled on a hot iron."

"Rats? What in thunder is--or are--that, or they?"

"Little wads of false hair made into cushiony rolls."

"Did she tell you?"

"No," laughed Juliet. "Don't you suppose I can see a rat?"

"I thought rats had to be smelled."

"Not this kind."

"She smelled of something kind of sweet and sticky. What was it?'

"Sachet powder, I guess, or some kind of perfume."

"I liked the smell. Can we get some?"

"I guess so--we've got the price."

"Next time you see her, ask her what it is, will you?"

"All right," answered Juliet, unperturbed by the request.

The rest of the way was enlivened by a discussion of automobiles. Romeo had a hockey match on for the following day, which was Saturday, so they were compelled to postpone their investigations until Monday. It seemed very long to wait.

"It's no good now, anyhow," said Romeo. "We can't run it until the roads melt and dry up."

"That's so," agreed his twin, despondently. "Why did she tell us now? Why couldn't she wait until we had some chance?"

"I guess we can learn something about it before we try to run it," he observed, cheerfully. "If we can get it into the barn, we can take it all apart and see how it's put together."

"Oh, Romie!" cried Juliet, with a little skip. "How perfectly fascinating! And we'll read all the automobile literature we can get hold of. I do so love to be posted!"

Upon the death of their father, several years ago, the twins had promptly ceased to go to school. The kindly old minister who had been appointed executor of their father's small estate and guardian of the tumultuous twins had been unable to present any arguments in favour of systematic education which appealed to them even slightly.

"What good is Latin?" asked Romeo, apparently athirst for information.

"Why--er--mental discipline, mostly," the harassed guardian had answered.

"Isn't there anything we'd like that would discipline our minds?" queried Juliet.

"I fear not," replied the old man, who lacked the diplomacy necessary to deal with the twins. Shortly after that he had died with so little warning that he had only time to make out a check in their favour for the balance entrusted to him. The twins had held high carnival until the money was almost gone. The bequest from the Australian uncle had reached them just in time, so, with thankful hearts, they celebrated and had done so annually ever since.

Untrammelled by convention and restraint, they thrived like weeds in their ancestral domicile, which was now sadly in need of repair. Occasionally some daring prank set the neighbourhood by the ears, but, for the most part, the twins behaved very well and attended strictly to their own affairs. They ate when they were hungry, slept when they were sleepy, and, if they desired to sit up until four in the morning, reading, they did so. A woman who had a key to the back door came in every morning, at an uncertain hour, to wash the dishes, sweep, dust, and to make the beds if they chanced to be unoccupied.

As Romeo had said, the chimney had blown down and several loose bricks lay upon the roof. They had a small vegetable garden, fenced in, and an itinerant gardener looked after it, in Summer, but they had no flowers, because they maintained a large herd of stray dogs, mostly mongrels, that would have had no home had it not been for the hospitable twins. Romeo bought the choicest cuts of beef for them and fed them himself. Occasionally they added another to their collection and, at the last census, had nineteen.

Their house would have delighted Madame Bernard--it was so eminently harmonious and suitable. The ragged carpets showed the floor in many places, and there were no curtains at any of the windows. Romeo cherished a masculine distaste for curtains and Juliet did not trouble herself to oppose him. The furniture was old and most of it was broken. The large easy chair in the sitting room was almost disembowelled, and springs showed through the sofa, except in the middle, where there was a cavernous depression. Several really fine paintings adorned the walls, and the dingy mantel was glorified by exquisite bits of Cloisonne and iridescent glass, for which Juliet had a pronounced fancy.

"Set the table, will you, Romie?" called Juliet, tying a large blue gingham apron over her sweater. "I'm almost starved."

"So'm I, but I've got to feed the dogs first."

"Let 'em wait," pleaded Juliet. "Please do!"

"Don't be so selfish! They're worse off than we are, for they haven't even had tea."

While the pack fought, outside, for rib bones and raw steak, Juliet opened a can of salmon, fried some potatoes, put a clean spoon into a jar of jam, and cut a loaf of bread into thick slices. When Romeo came in, he set the table, made coffee, and opened a can of condensed milk. They disdained to wash dishes, but cleared off the table, after supper, lighted the lamp, and talked automobile until almost midnight.

In less than an hour, Romeo had completed the plans for remodelling the barn. They had no horse, but as a few bits of harness remained from the last equine incumbent, they usually alluded to the barn as "the bridle chamber."

"We'll have to name the barn again," mused Juliet, "and we can name the automobile, too."

"Wait until we get it. What colour shall we have?"

"They're usually red or black, aren't they?" she asked, doubtfully.

"I guess so. We want ours different, don't we?"

"Sure. We want something that nobody ever had before--something bright and cheerful. Oh, Romie," she continued, jumping up and down in excitement, "let's have it bright yellow and call it 'The Yellow Peril'!"

Her twin offered her a friendly hand. "Jule," he said solemnly, "you're a genius!"

"We'll have brown leather inside, and get brown clothes to match. Brown hats with yellow bands on 'em--won't it be perfectly scrumptious?"

"Scrumptious is no word for it. Shall we have two seats or four?"

"Four, of course. A two-seated automobile looks terribly selfish."

"Stingy, too," murmured Romeo, "and we can afford the best."

"Do you know," Juliet suggested, after deep thought, "I think it would be nice of us if we waited to take our first ride until we celebrate for Uncle?"

"It would," admitted Romeo, gloomily, "but it's such a long time to wait."

"We can learn to run it here in the yard--there's plenty of room. And on the thirtieth of June, we'll take our first real ride in it. Be a sport, Romie," she urged, as he maintained an unhappy silence.

"All right--I will," he said, grudgingly. "But I hope Uncle appreciates what we're doing for him."

"That's settled, then," she responded, cheerfully. "Then, on our second ride, we'll take somebody with us. Who shall we invite?"

"Oughtn't she to go with us the first time?"

"She? Who's 'she'?"

"Miss Ross--Isabel. She suggested it, you know. We might not have thought of it for years."

Juliet pondered. "I don't believe she ought to go the first time, because the day that Uncle died doesn't mean anything to her, and it's everything to us. But we'll take her on the second trip. Shall I write to her now and invite her?"

"I don't believe," Romeo responded, dryly, "that I'd stop to write an invitation to somebody to go out four months from now in an automobile that isn't bought yet."

"But it's as good as bought," objected Juliet, "because our minds are made up. We may forget to ask her."

"Put it on the slate," suggested Romeo.

In the hall, near the door, was a large slate suspended by a wire. The pencil was tied to it. Here they put down vagrant memoranda and things they planned to acquire in the near future.

Juliet observed that there was only one entry on the slate: "Military hair brushes for R." Underneath she wrote: "Yellow automobile, four- seated. Name it 'The Yellow Peril.' Brown leather inside. Get brown clothes to match and trim with yellow. First ride, June thirtieth, for Uncle. Second ride, July first, for ourselves. Invite Isabel Ross."

"Anything else?" she asked, after reading it aloud.

"Dog biscuit," yawned Romeo. "They're eating too much meat."

It was very late when they went up-stairs. Their rooms were across the hall from each other and they slept with the doors open. The attic had been made into a gymnasium, where they exercised and hardened their muscles when the weather kept them indoors. A trapeze had been recently put up, and Juliet was learning to swing by her feet.

She lifted her face up to his and received a brotherly peck on the lips. "Good-night, Jule."

"Good-night, Romie. Pleasant dreams."

It was really morning, but there was no clock to tell them so, for the timepieces in the Crosby mansion were seldom wound.

"Say," called Romeo.

"What?"

"What do you think of her?"

"Who?"

"Miss--you know. Isabel."

"Oh, I don't know," responded Juliet, sleepily. "I guess she's kind of a sissy-girl."

V

AN AFTERNOON CALL

"Aunt Francesca," asked Isabel, "is Colonel Kent rich?"

"Very," responded Madame. She had a fine damask napkin stretched upon embroidery hoops and was darning it with the most exquisite of stitches.

"Then why don't they live in a better house and have more servants? That place is old and musty."

"Perhaps they like to live there, and, again, perhaps they haven't enough money to change. Besides, that has been Colonel Kent's home ever since he was married. Allison was born there."

Isabel fidgeted in her chair. "If they're very rich, I should think they'd have enough money to enable them to move into a better house."

"Oh," replied Madame, carefully cutting her thread on the underside, "I wasn't thinking of money when I spoke. I don't know anything about their private affairs. But Colonel Kent has courage, sincerity, an old- fashioned standard of honour, many friends, and a son who is a great artist."

The girl was silent, for intangible riches did not appeal to her strongly.

"Allison is like him in many ways," Madame was saying. "He is like his mother, too."

"When is he going away?"

"In September or October, I suppose--the beginning of the season."

"Is he going to play everywhere?"

"Everywhere of any importance."

"Perhaps," mused Isabel, "he will make a great deal of money himself."

"Perhaps," Madame responded, absently. "I do hope he will be successful." She had almost maternal pride in her foster son.

"Is Cousin Rose going, too?"

"Going where? What do you mean, dear?"

"Why, nothing. Only I heard him ask her if she would go with him on his concert tour and play his accompaniments, providing you or the Colonel went along for chaperone, and Cousin Rose laughed and said she didn't need a chaperone--that she was old enough to make it quite respectable."

"And---" suggested Madame.

"Allison laughed, too, and said: 'Nonsense!'"

"If they are going," said Madame, half to herself, "and decide to take me along, I hope they'll give me sufficient time to pack things decently."

"Would the Colonel go, if you went?"

"I hardly think so. It wouldn't be quite so proper."

"I don't understand," remarked Isabel, wrinkling her pretty brows.

"I don't either," Madame replied, confidentially. "However, I've lived long enough to learn that the conventions of society are all in the interests of morality. If you're conventional, you'll be good, in a negative sense, of course."

"How do you mean, Aunt Francesca?"

"Perfect manners are diametrically opposed to crime. For instance, it is very bad form for a man to shoot a lady, or even to write another man's name on a check and cash it. It saves trouble to be conventional, for you're not always explaining things. Most of the startling items we read in the newspapers are serious lapses from conventionality and good manners."

"The Crosbys aren't very conventional," Isabel suggested.

"No," smiled Madame, "they're not, but their manners proceed from the most kindly and friendly instincts, consequently they're seldom in error, essentially."

"They have lots of money, haven't they?"

"I have sometimes thought that the Crosbys had more than their age and social training fitted them to use wisely, but I've never known them to go far astray. They've done foolish things, but I've never known either to do a wrong or selfish thing. Money is a terrible test of character, but I think the twins will survive it."

"I suppose they've done lots of funny things with it."

Madame's eyes danced and little smiles wrinkled the corners of her mouth. "On the Fourth of July, last year, they presented every orphan in the Orphans' Home with two dollars' worth of fireworks, carefully chosen. Of course the inevitable happened and the orphans managed to set fire to the home, but, after two hours of hard work, the place was saved. Some of the children were slightly injured during the celebration, but that didn't matter, because as Juliet said, they'd had a good time, anyway, and it would give them something to talk about in years to come."

"It would have been better to spend the money on shoes, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know, my dear. The finest gift in the world is pleasure. Sometimes I think it's better to feed the soul and let the body fast. There is a time in life when one brief sky-rocket can produce more joy than ten pairs of shoes."

Isabel smiled and glanced at Madame Bernard's lavender satin slipper. The old lady laughed and the soft colour came into her pretty face.

"I frankly admit that I've passed it," she said. "Better one pair of shoes than ten sky-rockets, if the shoes are the sort I like."

"Do they come often?" queried Isabel, reverting to the subject of the twins.

"Not as often as I'd like to have them, but it doesn't do to urge them. I can only keep my windows open and let the wind from the clover field blow in as it will."

"Do they live near a clover field?" inquired Isabel, perplexed.

"No, but they remind me of it--they're so breezy and wholesome, so free and untrammelled, and, at heart, so sweet."

"I hope they'll come again soon."

"So do I, for I don't want you to be lonely, Isabel. It was good of your mother to let you come."

"Mamma doesn't care what I do," observed Isabel, placidly. "She's always busy."

Madame Bernard checked the sharp retort that rose to her lips. What Isabel had said was quite true. Mrs. Ross was so interested in what she called "The New Thought" and "The Higher World Service" that she had neither time nor inclination for the old thought and simple service that make--and keep--a home.

From the time she could dress herself and put up her own hair, Isabel had been left much to herself. Her mother supplied her liberally with money for clothes and considered that her duty to her daughter ended there. They lived in an apartment hotel and had their coffee served in their rooms in the morning. After that, Isabel was left to her own devices, for committees and directors' meetings without number claimed her mother.

More often than not, Isabel dined alone in the big dining-room downstairs, and spent a lonely evening with a novel and a box of chocolates. On pleasant days, she amused herself by going through the shops and to the matinee. She did not make friends easily and the splendid isolation common to hotels and desert islands left her stranded, socially. She had been very glad to accept Aunt Francesca's invitation, and the mother, looking back through her years of "world service" to the quiet old house and dream-haunted garden, had thought it would be a good place for Isabel for a time, and had hoped she might not find it too dull to endure.

Madame Bernard had no patience with Mrs. Ross. When she had come for a brief holiday, fifteen years before, bringing her child with her, she had just begun to be influenced by the modern feminine unrest. Later she had definitely allied herself with those whose mission it is to emancipate Woman--with a capital W--from her chains, forgetting that these are of her own forging, and anchor her to the eternal verities of earth and heaven.

A single swift stroke had freed Mrs. Ross from her own "bondage." Isabel's father had died, while her mother was out upon a lecturing tour--in a hotel, which is the most miserable place in the world to die in. The housekeeper and chambermaids had befriended Isabel until the tour came to its triumphant conclusion. Mrs. Ross had seemed to consider the whole affair a kindly and appropriate recognition of her abilities, on the part of Providence. She attempted to fit Isabel for the duties of a private secretary, but failed miserably, and, greatly to Isabel's relief, gave up the idea.

Madame Bernard had looked forward to Isabel's visit with a certain apprehension, remembering Mrs. Ross's unbecoming gowns and careless coiffures. But the girl's passion for clothes, amounting almost to a complete "reversion to type," had at once relieved and alarmed her. "If I can strike a balance for her," she had said to herself in a certain midnight musing, "I shall do very well."

As yet, however, Isabel had failed to "balance." She dressed for morning and luncheon and afternoon, and again for dinner, changing to street gowns when necessary and doing her hair in a different way for each gown. Still, as Rose had said, she "suited herself," for she was always immaculate, beautifully clad, and a joy to behold.

Madame Bernard greatly approved of the lovely white wool house gown Isabel was wearing. She had no fault to find with the girl's taste, but she wished to subordinate, as it were, the thing to the spirit; the temple to the purpose for which it was made.

Isabel smiled at her sweetly as she folded up her work--a little uncomprehending smile. "Are you going away now for your 'forty winks,' Aunt Francesca?"

"Yes, my dear. Can you amuse yourself for an hour or so without playing upon the piano?"

"Certainly. I didn't know that you and Cousin Rose were asleep yesterday, or I wouldn't have played."

"Of course not." Madame leaned over her and stroked the dark hair, waved and coiled in quite the latest fashion. "There are plenty of books and magazines in the library."

Madame went upstairs, followed at a respectful distance by Mr. Boffin, waving his plumed tail. He, too, took his afternoon nap, curled up cosily upon the silken quilt at the foot of his mistress's couch. In the room adjoining, Rose rested for an hour also, though she usually spent the time with a book.

Left to herself, Isabel walked back and forth idly, greatly allured by the forbidden piano. She looked over, carelessly, the pile of violin music Allison had left there. Some of the sheets were torn and had been pasted together, all were marked in pencil with hieroglyphics, and most of them were stamped, in purple, "Allison Kent," with a Berlin or Paris address written in below.

Isabel had met very few men, in the course of her twenty years. For this reason, possibly, she remembered every detail of the two weeks she had spent at Aunt Francesca's and the hours with Allison, on the veranda, when he chose to amuse himself with the pretty, credulous child. It seemed odd to have him coming to the house again, though, unless he came to dinner, he usually spent the time playing, to Rose's accompaniment. She had not seen him alone.

She surveyed herself in the long, gilt-framed mirror, and was well pleased with the image of youth and beauty the mirror gave back. The bell rang and she pinned up a stray lock carefully. It was probably someone to see Aunt Francesca, but there was a pleasing doubt. It might be the twins, though she had not returned their call.

Presently Allison came in, his cheeks glowing from his long walk in the cold. "Silver Girl," he smiled, "where are the spangles, and are you alone?"

"The spangles are upstairs waiting for candlelight," answered Isabel, as he took her small, cool hand, "and I'm very much alone--or was."

"Where are the others?"

"Taking naps."

"I hope I haven't tired Rose out," said Allison, offering Isabel a chair. He had unconsciously dropped the prefix of "Cousin." "We've been working hard lately."

"Is she going with you on your tour?"

"I don't know. I wish she could go, but I haven't the heart to drag father or Aunt Francesca along with us, and otherwise, it would be-- well, unconventional, you know. The conventions make me dead tired," he added, with evident sincerity.

"And yet," said Isabel, looking into the fire, "they are all in the interests of morality. If you're conventional, you'll be good, negatively. It isn't good manners for a man to shoot a lady or to sign a check with another man's name and get it cashed. If you're conventional, you're not always explaining things."

"Very true," laughed Allison, "but sometimes 'the greatest good for the greatest number' bears heavily upon the few."

"Of course," Isabel agreed, after a moment's pause. "Your friends, the Crosby twins, have called," she continued.

"Really?" Allison asked, with interest. "How do you like them?"

"I wish they'd come often," she smiled. "They remind me of a field of red clover, they're so breezy and so wholesome."

"I must hunt 'em up," he returned, absently. "They used to be regular little devils. It's a shame for them to have all that money."

"Why?"

"Because they'll waste it. They don't know how to use it."

"Perhaps they do, in a way. One Fourth of July they gave every orphan in the Orphans' Home two dollars' worth of fireworks. Anybody else would have wasted the money on shoes, or hats."

"I see you haven't grown up. Would you rather have fireworks than clothes?"

"There is a time in life when one sky-rocket can give more pleasure than a pair of shoes, and the gift of pleasure is the finest gift in the world."

Allison was agreeably surprised, for hitherto Isabel's conversation had consisted mainly of monosyllables and platitudes, or the hesitating echo of someone's else opinion. Now he perceived that it was shyness; that Isabel had a mind of her own, and an unusual mind, at that. He looked at her quickly and the colour bloomed upon her pale, cold face.

"Tell me, little playmate, what have the years done for you since you went out and pulled up the rose bushes to find the scent bottles?"

"Nothing," she answered, not knowing what else to say.

"Still looking for the unattainable?"

"Yes, if you like to put it that way."

"Where's your mother?"

"Out lecturing."

"What about?"

"The Bloodless Revolution, or the Gradual Emancipation of Woman," she repeated, parrot-like.

"Her work must keep her away from home a great deal," he ventured, after a pause.

"Yes. I seldom see her."

"You must be lonely."

She turned her dark eyes to his. "I live in a hotel," she said.

In the simple answer, Allison saw an unmeasured loneliness, coupled with a certain loyalty to her mother. He changed the subject.

"You like it here, don't you?"

"Yes, indeed. Aunt Francesca is lovely and so is Cousin Rose. I wish," she went on, with a little sigh as she glanced about the comfortable room, "that I could always stay here." The child-like appeal in her tone set Allison's heart to beating a little faster.

"I wish you could," he said. Remorsefully, he remembered the long hours he had spent with Rose at the piano, happily oblivious of Isabel.

"Are you fond of music?" he asked.

"Yes, indeed! I always sit outside and listen when you and Cousin Rose play."

"Come in whenever you want to," he responded, warmly.

"Won't I be in the way? Won't I be a bother?"

"I should say not. How could you be?"

"Then," Isabel smiled, "I'll come sometimes, if I may. It's the only pleasure I have."

"That's too bad. Sometime we'll go into town to the theatre, just you and I. Would you like to go?"

"I'd love to," she answered, eagerly.

The clock ticked industriously, the fire crackled merrily upon the hearth, and the wind howled outside. In the quiet room, Allison sat and studied Isabel, with the firelight shining upon her face and her white gown. She seemed much younger than her years.

"You're only a child," he said, aloud; "a little, helpless child."

"How long do you think it will be before I'm grown up?"

"I don't want you to grow up. I can remember now just how you looked the day I told you about the scent bottles. You had on a pink dress, with a sash to match, pink stockings, little white shoes with black buttons, and the most fetching white sunbonnet. Your hair was falling in curls all round your face and it was such a warm day that the curls clung to your neck and annoyed you. You toddled over to me and said: 'Allison, please fix my's turls.' Don't you remember?"

She smiled and said she had forgotten. "But," she added, truthfully, "I've often wondered how I looked when I was dressed up."

"Then," he continued, "I told you how the scent bottles grew on the roots of the rose bushes, and, after I went home, you went and pulled up as many as you could. Aunt Francesca was very angry with me."

"Yes, I remember that. I felt as though you were being punished for my sins. It was years afterward that I saw I'd been sufficiently punished myself. Look!"

She leaned toward him and showed him a narrow white line on the soft flesh between her forefinger and her thumb, extending back over her hand.

"A thorn," she said. "I shall carry the scar to my dying day."

With a little catch in his throat, Allison caught the little hand and pressed it to his lips. "Forgive me!" he said.

VI

THE LIGHT ON THE ALTAR

Colonel Kent had gone away on a short business trip and Allison was spending his evenings, which otherwise would have been lonely, at Madame Bernard's. After talking for a time with Aunt Francesca and Isabel, it seemed natural for him to take up his violin and suggest, if only by a half-humorous glance, that Rose should go to the piano.

Sometimes they played for their own pleasure and sometimes worked for their own benefit. Neither Madame nor Isabel minded hearing the same thing a dozen times or more in the course of an evening, for, as Madame said, with a twinkle in her blue eyes, it made "a pleasant noise," and Isabel did not trouble herself to listen.

Both Rose and Allison were among the fortunate ones who find joy in work. Rose was so keenly interested in her music that she took no count of the hours spent at the piano, and Allison fully appreciated her. It had been a most pleasant surprise for him to find a good accompanist so near home.

The discouraging emptiness of life had mysteriously vanished for Rose. Her restlessness disappeared as though by magic and her indefinite hunger had been, in some way, appeased. She had unconsciously emerged from one state into another, as the tiny dwellers of the sea cast off their shells. She had a sense of freedom and a large vision, as of dissonances resolved into harmony.

Clothes, also, which, as Madame had said, are "supposed to please and satisfy women," had taken to themselves a new significance. Rose had made herself take heed of her clothes, but she had never had much real interest. Now she was glad of the time she had spent in planning her gowns, merely with a view to pleasing Aunt Francesca.

To-night, she wore a clinging gown of deep green velvet, with a spray of green leaves in her hair. Her only ornament was a pin of jade, in an Oriental setting. Allison looked at her admiringly.

"There's something about you," he said, "that I don't know just how to express. I have no words for it, but, in some way, you seem to live up to your name."

"How so?" Rose asked, demurely.

"Well, I've never seen you wear anything that a rose might not wear. I've seen you in red and green and yellow and pink and white, but never in blue or purple, or any of those soft-coloured things that Aunt Francesca wears."

"That only means," answered Rose, flushing, "that blue and grey and tan and lavender aren't becoming to me."

"That isn't it," Allison insisted, "for you'd be lovely in anything. You're living up to your name."

"Go on," Rose suggested mischievously. "This is getting interesting." "You needn't laugh. I assure you that men know more about those things than they're usually given credit for. Your jewels fit in with the whole idea, too. That jade pin, for instance, and your tourmaline necklace, and your ruby ring, and the topazes you wear with yellow, and the faint scent of roses that always hangs about you."

"What else?" she smiled.

"Well, I had a note from you the other day. It was fragrant with rose petals and the conventionalised rose, in gold and white, that was stamped in place of a monogram, didn't escape me. Besides, here's this."

He took from his pocket a handkerchief of sheerest linen, delicately hemstitched. In one corner was embroidered a rose, in palest shades of pink and green. The delicate, elusive scent filled the room as he shook it out.

"There," he continued, with a laugh. "I found it in my violin case the other day. I don't know how it came there, but it was much the same as finding a rose twined about the strings."

Aunt Francesca was on the other side of the room, by the fire. Her face, in the firelight, was as delicate as a bit of carved ivory. Her thoughts were far away--one could see that. Isabel sat near her, apparently absorbed in a book, but, in reality, listening to every word.

"I wish," Allison was saying, "that people knew how to live up to themselves. That's an awkward phrase, but I don't know of anything better. Even their names don't fit 'em, and they get nicknames."

"'Father calls me William,'" murmured Rose.

"'And Mother calls me Will,'" Allison went on. "That's it, exactly. See how the 'Margarets' are adjusted to themselves by their friends. Some are 'Margie' and more of 'em are 'Peggy.' 'Margaret' who is allowed to wear her full name is very rare."

"I'm glad my name can't be changed, easily," she said, thoughtfully.

"It could be 'Rosie,' with an 'ie,' and if you were that sort, it would be. Take Aunt Francesca, for instance. She might be 'Frances' or 'Fanny' or even 'Fran,' but her name suits her, so she gets the full benefit of it, every time."

Madame turned away from the fire, with the air of one who has been away upon a long journey. "Did I hear my name? Did someone speak to me?"

"Only of you," Allison explained. "We were talking of names and nicknames and saying that yours suited you."

"If it didn't," observed Madame Bernard, "I'd change it. When we get civilised, I believe children will go by number until they get old enough to choose their own names. Fancy a squirming little imp with a terrible temper being saddled with the name of 'William,' by authority of Church and State. Except to his doting parents, he'll never be anything but 'Bill.'"

"Does my name fit me?" queried Isabel, much interested.

"It would," said Allison, "if you weren't quite so tall. Does my name fit me?"

He spoke to Madame Bernard but he looked at Rose. It was the older woman who answered him. "Yes, of course it does. How dare you ask me that when I named you myself?"

"I'd forgotten," Allison laughed. "I can't remember quite that far back."

They began to play once more and Isabel, pleading a headache, said good- night. She made her farewells very prettily and there was a moment's silence after the door closed.

"I'm afraid," said Madame, "that our little girl is lonely. Allison, can't you bestir yourself and find some young men to call upon her? I can't think of anybody but the Crosby twins."

"What's the matter with me?" inquired Allison, lightly. "Am I not calling? And behold, I give her a headache and she goes to bed."

"You're not exactly in her phase of youth," Madame objected. "She's my guest and she has to be entertained."

"I'm willing to do my share. I'll take her into town to the theatre some night, and to supper afterward, in the most brilliantly lighted place I can find."

"That's very nice of you," responded Rose, with a look of friendly appreciation. "I know she would enjoy the bright lights."

"We all do, in certain moods," he said. "Are you ready now?"

The voice of the violin rose to heights of ecstasy, sustained by full chords in the accompaniment. Mingled with the joy of it, like a breath of sadness and longing, was a theme in minor, full of question and heartbreak; of appeal that was almost prayer. And over it all, as always, hovering like some far light, was the call to which Rose answered. Dumbly, she knew that she must always answer it, though she were dead and the violin itself mingled with her dust.

Madame Bernard, still seated by the fire, stirred uneasily. Something had come into her house that vaguely troubled her, because she had no part in it. The air throbbed with something vital, keen, alive; the room trembled as from invisible wings imprisoned.

Old dreams and memories came back with a rush, and the little old lady sitting in the half light looked strangely broken and frail. The sound of marching and the steady beat of a drum vibrated through her consciousness and the singing violin was faint and far. She saw again the dusty street, where the blue column went forward with her Captain at the head, his face stern and cold, grimly set to some high Purpose that meant only anguish for her. The picture above the mantel, seen dimly through a mist, typified, to her, the ways of men and women since the world began--the young knight riding forward in his quest for the Grail, already forgetting what lay behind, while the woman knelt, waiting, waiting, waiting, as women always have and always must.

At last the music reached its end in a low chord that was at once a question and a call. Madame rose, about to say good-night, and go up- stairs where she might be alone. On the instant she paused. Her heart waited almost imperceptibly, then resumed its beat.

Still holding the violin, Allison was looking at Rose. Subconsciously, Madame noted his tall straight figure, his broad well-set shoulders, his boyish face, and his big brown eyes. But Rose had illumined as from some inward light; her lovely face was transfigured into a beauty beyond all words.

Francesca slipped out without speaking and went, unheard, to her own room. She felt guilty because she had discerned something of which Rose herself was as yet entirely unconscious. With the instinctive sex- loyalty that distinguishes fine women from the other sort, Madame hoped that Allison did not know.

"And so," she said to herself, "Love has come back to my house, after many years of absence. I wonder if he cares? He must, oh, he must!" Francesca had no selfish thought of her own loneliness, if her Rose should go away. Though her own heart was forever in the keeping of a distant grave, she could still be glad of another's joy.

Rose turned away from the piano and Allison put his violin into the case. "It's late," he said, regretfully, "and you must be tired."

"Perhaps I am, but I don't know it."

"You respond so fully to the music that it is a great pleasure to play with you. I wish I could always have you as my accompanist."

"I do, too," murmured Rose, turning her face away. The deep colour mounted to the roots of her hair and he studied her impersonally, as he would have studied any other lovely thing.

"Why?" he began, then laughed.

"Why what?" asked Rose, quickly.

"I was about to ask you a very foolish question."

"Don't hesitate," she said. "Most questions are foolish."

"This is worse--it's idiotic. I was going to ask you why you hadn't married."

With a sharp stab at the heart, Rose noted the past tense. "Why haven't you?" she queried, forcing a smile.

"There is only one answer to that question, and yet people keep on asking it. They might as well ask why you don't buy an automobile."

"Well?" continued Rose, inquiringly.

"Because 'the not impossible she,' or 'he,' hasn't come, that's all."

"Perhaps only one knows," she suggested.

"No," replied Allison, "in any true mating, they both know--they must."

There was a long pause. A smouldering log, in the fireplace, broke and fell into the embers. The dying flame took new life and the warm glow filled the room.

"Is that why people don't buy automobiles?" queried Rose, chiefly because she did not know what else to say.

"The answer to that is that they do."

"Sounds as if you might have taken it from Alice in Wonderland," she commented. "Maybe they've had to give each other up," she concluded, enigmatically.

"People who will give each other up should be obliged to do it," he returned. "May I leave my violin here? I'll be coming again so soon."

"Surely. I hope you will."

"Good-night." He took her hand for a moment, in his warm, steady clasp, and subtly, Rose answered to the man--not the violin. She was deathly white when the door closed, and she trembled all the way up-stairs.

When she saw herself in the mirror, she was startled, for, in her ghostly pallor, her deep eyes burned like stars. She knew, now. The woman who had so hungered for Life had suddenly come face to face with its utmost wonder; its highest gift of joy--or pain.

The heart of a man is divided into many compartments, mostly isolated. Sometimes there is a door between two of them, or even three may be joined, but usually, each one is complete in itself. Within the different chambers his soul sojourns as it will, since immeasurably beyond woman, he possesses the power of detachment, of intermittence.

Once in a lifetime, possibly, under the influence of some sweeping passion, all the doors are flung wide and the one beloved woman may enter in. Yet she is wise, with the wisdom of the Sphinx, if she refuses to go. Let her say to him: "Close all these doors, except that which bears my name. In that chamber and in that alone, we shall dwell together." For, with these words, the memories housed in the other chambers crumble to dust and ashes, blown only by vagrant winds of Fate.

In the heart of a woman there are few chambers and still fewer doors. Instead of business-like compartments, neatly labelled, there are long, labyrinthine passages, all opening into one another and inextricably bound together. To shut out one, or even part of one, requires the building of a wall, but it takes a long time and the barrier is never firm.

At a single strain of music, the scent of a flower, or even one glimpse of a path of moonlight lying fair upon a Summer sea, the barriers crumble and fall. Through the long corridors the ghosts of the past walk unforbidden, hindered only by broken promises, dead hopes, and dream- dust.

Even while the petals of long-dead roses rustle through the winding passages, where the windows are hung with cobwebs, greyed at last from iridescence to despairing shadows, a barrier may fall at the sound of a talismanic name, for the hands of women are small and slow to build and the hearts of women are tender beyond all words.

Hidden in the centre of the labyrinth is one small secret chamber, and the door may open only at the touch of one other hand. The woman herself may go into it for peace and sanctuary, when the world goes wrong, but always alone, until the great day comes when two may enter it together.

As Theseus carried the thread of Ariadne through the labyrinth of Crete, there are many who attempt to find the secret chamber, but vainly, for the thread will always break in the wrong heart.

When the door is opened, at last, by the one who has made his way through the devious passages, there is so little to be seen that sometimes even the man himself laughs the woman to scorn and despoils her of her few treasures.

The secret chamber is only a bare, white room, where is erected the high altar of her soul, served through life, by her own faith. Upon the altar burns steadfastly the one light, waiting for him who at last has come and consecrated in his name. The door of the sanctuary is rock-ribbed and heavy, and he who has not the key may beat and call in vain, while within, unheeding, the woman guards her light.

Pitifully often the man does not care. Sometimes he does not even suspect that he has been admitted into the inmost sanctuary of her heart, for there are men who may never know what sanctuary means, nor what the opening of the door has cost. But the man who is worthy will kneel at the altar for a moment, with the woman beside him, and thereafter, when the outside world has been cruel to him, he may go in sometimes, with her, to warm his hands at those divine fires and kindle his failing courage anew.

When the sanctuary is not profaned by him who has come hither, its blessedness is increased ten-fold; it takes on a certain divinity by being shared, and thereafter, they serve the light together.

And yet, through woman's eager trustfulness, the man who opens the door is not always the one divinely appointed to open it. Sometimes the light fails and the woman, weeping in the darkness, is left alone in her profaned temple, never to open its door again, or, after many years, to set another light high upon the altar, and, in the deepening shadows, pray.

So, because the door had never been opened, and because she knew the man had come at last who might enter the sanctuary with her, Rose lifted her ever-burning light that night to the high altar of her soul, and set herself to wait until he should find his way there.

VII

FATHER AND SON

The house seemed very quiet, though steadily, from a distant upper room, came the sound of a violin. For more than an hour, Allison had worked continuously at one difficult phrase. Colonel Kent smiled whimsically as he sat in the library, thinking that, by this time, he could almost play it himself.

Looking back over the thirty years, he could see where he had made mistakes in moulding the human clay entrusted to his care, yet, in the end, the mistakes had not mattered. Back in the beginning, he had formulated certain cherished ideals for his son, and had worked steadily toward them, unmindful of occasional difficulties and even failures.

Against his own judgment, he had yielded to Francesca in the choice of the boy's career. "Look at his hands," she had said. "You couldn't put hands like his at work in an office. If he isn't meant for music, we'll find it out soon enough."

But Allison had gone on, happily, along the chosen path, with never a question or doubt of his ultimate success. Just now, the Colonel was deeply grateful to Francesca, for the years abroad had been pleasant ones, and would have been wholly impossible had Allison been working in an office.

With a sigh, he began to pace back and forth through the hall, his hands in his pockets, and his grey head bowed. Before him was his own portrait, in uniform, his hand upon his sword. The sword itself, hanging in a corner of the hall, was dull and lifeless now. He had a curious sense that his work was done.