Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diana said nothing.

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

Diana said nothing.

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

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

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

"No," said Diana quietly.

He turned toward her.

"Do you vote against me?"

"Yes."

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

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

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

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

"Your name makes it sure."

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

"Then why do you propose it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She laughed, and extended her hand to Edgerton.

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

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

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

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

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

*CHAPTER IV*

*IN LOCO PARENTIS*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I see."

Edgerton nodded serenely.

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

Colonel Curmew said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ah! a case of the dead hand?"

"Mort main," nodded the young man indifferently.

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Rivett broke the silence somewhat abruptly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In the Berkshires. Will you come?"

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

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

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

"You have mentioned no terms," said Edgerton.

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

Edgerton said laughingly to Diana:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Poker!--and _you_! What an incredible combination!" he said.

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

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

"Is that your vote?" inquired Silvette.

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

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

Diana looked up at Edgerton.

"Are you really expecting to come with us?"

"If you will let me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Which you are not!"

She lifted her blue eyes to his.

"_You_ think I am," she said.

"No, I don't."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edgerton reddened, then sat still looking at her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What!" he exclaimed incredulously.

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

"Certainly you do--about eighteen!"

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

"Good Lord! Are _you_ the elder?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diana glanced up, then flushed.

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

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

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

"Your--what?"

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

"Are you jeering at me?"

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

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