PART TWO

THE CITY

I

"Mother took the car to Lord & Taylor's," said Belle, looking herself over in the long glass with a scrutiny that was eventually entirely favorable. "I guess it'll do us good to walk."

"I'd simply love to," said Betty. "But I must just run in and tell father I'm going to have dinner with you. I won't be a minute."

"All right, my dear. Time's cheap. Don't hurry on my account."

Belle went over to the dressing-table. She had only recently powdered her nose from the elaborate apparatus from which she rarely permitted herself to be separated, but a little more would do no harm. She burst into involuntary song as she performed a trick which she might so well have afforded to leave to those ladies of doubtful summers to whose Anno Domini complexions the thick disguise of powder may perhaps be useful. Tucked into her blouse there was a letter from Kenyon which had come a week ago. It was only a matter of days before she was to see him again.

And Betty ran out of her bedroom and along a passage which led to the studio. A stretch of cloudless sky could be seen through a recess window, and the far-below flat roofs of the old buildings on the corner of Gramercy Park. She knocked and waited. There was a grunt, and she went in.

Into the large lofty room--a cross between a barn and an attic--a hard north light was falling with cruel accuracy. It showed up stacks of unframed canvasses with their faces turned to the dark wall and the imperfections of several massive pieces of oak, the worn appearance of the stained floor, the age of the Persian rugs and of a florid woman who sat with studied grace and an anxious expression of pleasant thought on the dais, with one indecently beringed hand resting with strained nonchalance on the arm of her chair and the other about an ineffably bored Pekingese.

Ranken Townsend, the successful portrait painter, had backed away from his almost life-size canvas, and with his fine untidy head on one side and irritation in his red-grey beard was glaring at it with savage antagonism.

The lady on the dais had crow's-feet round her made-up eyes, and a chin that could not be made anything but double however high she held it. Also--as the north light seemed to take a hideous delight in proving--her figure was irreclaimably dumpy and plump. The lady on the canvas, however,--such is Art that runs an expensive studio, good wines and well-preserved Coronas,--was slight and lovely and patrician, and should she stand up, at least six feet tall. No wonder Townsend grunted and glared at the commercial fraud in front of him, at which, in his good, idealistic, hungry Paris days he would have slung wet brushes and the honest curses of the Place Pigalle. He was selling his gift once more for five thousand dollars. His wife dressed at Bendels.

Anger and irritation went out of the painter's eyes when he saw the sweet face that peeked in. "Hello, sweetheart!" he sang out. "Come in and bring a touch of sun. Mrs. Vandervelde, I'd like you to meet my little girl."

Without turning her head or breaking a pose that she considered to have become, after many serious attempts, extremely effective, the much-paragraphed lady, whose lizard-covered mansion in Fifth Avenue was always one of the objects touched upon by the megaphone men in rubber-neck wagons, murmured a few words. "How d'you do, child? How well you look."

Betty smothered a laugh. Mrs. Vandervelde had acquired the habit of looking through her ears. "I'm going home with Belle, father, and I shall stay to dinner. But I'll be back before ten."

"Will you? All right." He tilted up her face and kissed it. "I'm dining at the National Arts Club to-night, and I guess I shall be late." He pointed his brush at the canvas and made the grimace of a man who's obliged to swallow a big dose of evil-smelling physic. So Betty, who understood and was sorry, put his hand to her lips, bowed to the indifferent lady and slipped away. The room was perceptibly colder when she left. The picture was already four thousand two hundred dollars toward completion, and Betty was just as much relieved as her father, who returned angrily to work to paint in the diamonds. He was sick of that smile.

While waiting for the elevator, Belle gave a rather self-conscious laugh and lifted her tight skirt quickly. "Seen the latest, Betty?" She showed a tiny square watch edged with diamonds worn as a garter. "Cunning, isn't it?"

"Why, I should just think it was! Where did you buy it?"

"Buy it? My dear, can you see me paying three hundred dollars for something that doesn't show? Harry Spearman gave it to me last night, and put it on in his car on the way to the Pierrot Club."

"Put it on?"

Belle threw back her beautiful head and burst out laughing. "You said that just like the Quaker girl in the play at the Hudson. Why shouldn't he put it on? It amused him and didn't hurt me. He's a sculptor, and like the bus-conductor, 'legs is no treat to him,' anyway."

They entered the elevator, dropped nine floors to the wide foyer of the palatial apartment house, and went out into the street. It was a typical New York October afternoon--the sky blue and clear, the sun warm and the air alive with that pinch of ozone of which no other city in the world can boast. The girls instinctively made their way towards Fifth Avenue, warily dodging the amazing traffic, the struggling wagons and plunging horses going in and out of buildings in course of ear-splitting construction, and coal-chutes in the middle of the sidewalks.

"But you were not at the opening of the Pierrot Club last night," said Betty. "I heard you tell Mrs. Guthrie that you were dining with the Delanos and going to their theatre party."

"I know. But Harry Spearman sent round a note in the afternoon asking me to have dinner with him at Delmonico's and go on to the Club to dance. I had such a severe headache that I rang up Mrs. Delano and reluctantly begged to be excused. To quote Nicholas, theatre parties with elderly people bore me stiff. As it was, I had a perfectly corking time till one o'clock and danced every dance."

"Did you tell Mrs. Guthrie?"

"For Heaven's sake, Betty, what _do_ you take me for? Mother isn't my school-teacher and I don't have to ask her for permission to live. I have my latch-key and dear little mother is perfectly happy. As she never knows what I do she never has to worry about me; and, as she always says, I can only be young once." A curious little smile played round her very red lips. "It's true that Harry Spearman is rather unmanageable when he gets one alone in a car after several hours of champagne and ragtime, but--oh, well, I guess I can take care of myself. Do you know, I don't think the Pierrot Club's going to be as good this winter. It's a year old, you see. Everybody's going to the new room at the Plaza--that is, everybody back from the country. It's rather a pity, I think. I like the Club, but the motto of New York is 'Follow the Crowd' and so the Plaza's for me."

Betty's admiration for her school-fellow and closest friend was invincible and her loyalty very true. It made her therefore a little uneasy to notice about her a growing artificiality which was neither attractive nor characteristic. She knew better than anyone that Belle was a remarkable girl. She had a kind heart. She possessed that rarest of gifts, a sense of gratitude, and if her talent for writing had been properly developed she might eventually have made her mark. She had a quick perception--sympathy and imagination not often found in so young a girl--an uncanny ear for the right word--and if she chose to exercise it, quite an unusual power of concentration. It seemed to Betty to be such a pity that, just at the moment when Belle left school with her mind filled with ideals and the ambition to make something of herself and do things, the Doctor found himself a rich man. The incentive to work which the constant need for economy had awakened in her went out like a snuffed candle. From having before been in the habit of saying, with eager enthusiasm, "I'm _going_ to do such and such a thing, whatever the odds," she immediately began to say: "Oh, my dear, what's the use?" Everything for which she had intended to work became now hers for the asking. Her father gave her a free hand in the matter of entertaining her young friends. She could order what books she wished to read from Brentano's, and she had a generous allowance on which to dress. Like a chameleon she quickly changed the rather dull colors of her former surroundings for those bright ones which the sudden accession to wealth made it easy to acquire. Her outlook was no longer that of the daughter of an overworked general practitioner whose income had to be carefully managed in order to live not too far up-town and educate a family of four, but of a débutante whose parents entertained distinguished men and women in a fashionable street and whose friends were equally well off. Her inherited and cultivated energy was, of course, obliged to find vent in some direction, since it was not employed in the development of her talent; and it was now burnt up in a restless search of enjoyment, a constant series of engagements to lunch and dine, and do the theatre and dance,--especially dance. The ordinary healthy, high-spirited young man, who had not much to say for himself, quickly bored her. Her wits required to be kept sharp, her latent intelligence needed something on which to feed. It was therefore natural that she should throw her smiles at men much older and far more experienced than herself and who, from the fact that they did not intend to give anything for nothing, exercised her ingenuity and native wit to keep them in order. In a word, she found that playing with fire and avoiding being burned kept that side of her in good condition which, in her old circumstances, would have been devoted to work. And so with a sort of conscious superficiality she had allowed herself to flit from one unmeaning incident to another and entered into a series of artificial flirtations with men who had no scruples and one passion simply in order to kill time. Her carelessness led her into episodes, the merest hint of which would have thrown dear little Mrs. Guthrie into a panic, and her coolness permitted her to escape from them with perhaps more ingenuity than dignity. Even upon her return from England with her heart full of Nicholas Kenyon, and with a desire to see him again that kept her awake at night, she frittered away her superfluous energy with this Harry Spearman, whom no woman with any respect for her daughter would willingly allow within a mile of her, even if properly chaperoned.

Betty, being one of those girls who had never been suspected of any talent, but who nevertheless had it in her to perform a far more womanly and beautiful thing than to write books or plays--to be in fact a good wife to the man she loved and a good mother to his children--looked at Belle's way of living with growing anxiety. She was not a prude or a prig. She had not been allowed out in the world with eyes all curious to see the truth of things through a veil of false modesty. Her father, a wise and humane man, had seen to that. She delighted in enjoyment, went to the theatre whenever she had the opportunity and danced herself out of shoes. But, not being ambitious to shine, she was content to apply her energy to the ordinary work that came to her to do,--the practical, everyday, undramatic, domestic things that cropped up hourly in the strange house where the father was an artist and the mother suffered from individualism and was a leader of new movements. Leaving school to find a home in a constant state of chaos, her father rarely out of his studio, her mother always in the throes of committee meetings and speech-making,--she knuckled down to set it in order, to clear out an extravagant cook with an appetite for hysterics, and a sloppy Irish waitress whose hairpins fell everywhere and whose loose hand dropped things of value almost before it touched them. This done she found others and appointed herself housekeeper, and the duties of this position kept her both busy and happy,--the one being hyphenated to the other. But even if her father had been, like Dr. Guthrie, a rich man instead of one who lived up to every penny that he earned and generally several thousand dollars beyond, she had nothing in her character that, however little she was occupied, would have allowed her to look at life from the modern standpoint of Belle and her other friends. She was--and rejoiced in the fact--old-fashioned. Most of her ideas were what is now scoffingly called "early Victorian," because they were not loose and careless, and the many things that Belle and others found "fearfully amusing" were, to her, impossible. She didn't, for instance, leave her petticoat in the cloak-room when she went to dances, so that her partners might find her better fun. She didn't go to tea alone with mere acquaintances in bachelor apartments, or for taxi rides with her partner between dances. She never made herself cheap, and went out of her way to avoid men whose eyes ran calculatingly over her figure. These things and many others merely appealed to her as the perquisite of those girls who did not place a very high value upon self-respect.

The Guthries lived at 55 East Fifty-second Street. It was the house which the man whom Dr. Guthrie called his benefactor had built for himself and left to the doctor whom he was proud to endow. The architect who had been employed had been given a free hand. He had not been required to mix his styles or perform extraordinary architectural gymnastics of any kind. The result of his efforts was good. It was a house such as one sees in one of the numerous old London squares within sound of the mellow clock of St. James's Palace. Addison might have lived in it, or Walpole or Pepys. Its face was scrupulously plain and its doorway was modelled on those of the Adams period. Standing between two very florid examples of modern architecture it made one think of the portrait of a charming early Victorian gentle-woman between the photographs of two present-day chorus ladies in hoopskirts and a cloud of chiffon. The rooms were large and lofty and were all furnished with great simplicity and taste. There was nothing in them except old furniture which had been collected in England by its late owner, piece by piece, and its oak chests, armoires and secretaries, china closets, corner pieces and Chippendale chairs were very good to look at and live with. So also were the pictures,--Cattermoles, Bartalozzi engravings, colored prints and a half-dozen priceless oil paintings by old masters,--which made the small, cunning, unscrupulous, eager mouths of the numerous art collectors of New York water with desire. The library, too, out of which led the Doctor's laboratory, was almost unique, and contained first editions and specimens of rare and beautiful book-binding which filled the Doctor's heart with constant pleasure and delight. It was nearly a year before the man who had struggled so hard to lift himself out of his father's small farm could believe that he wasn't walking in his sleep when he passed through these beautiful rooms, and often he was obliged to pinch himself to make sure that he was not dreaming.

There was however one room in this house which would have given its late owner many shudders to enter. This was the little mother's own particular room, the windows of which looked out upon that row of small, red, bandbox-like houses opposite which had managed to remain standing in spite of the rapacious hands of reconstruction companies which are never so happy as when destroying old landmarks and tearing down old buildings. Into this room Mrs. Guthrie had placed all the furniture of her first sitting-room,--cheap, late Victorian stuff of which she had been so inordinately and properly proud when she started housekeeping with the young doctor. From these things Mrs. Guthrie could not be parted. They were all redolent with good and tender memories and were to her mind far more valuable and more beautiful than all the priceless old oak pieces put together.

Curiously enough--or perhaps not curiously at all--this was Peter's favorite room, too, and he never entered it without renewing his vows to climb to the top of his own tree, as his father had done. Belle, Graham and Ethel all laughed at the little mother for clinging to this "rubbish," as they called it, which was so out of keeping with the rest of the house. But Peter sympathized with her and never failed while sitting there in the evening, in close and intimate conversation with the dear little woman who meant so much to him, to get from it a new desire to emulate his father and make his own way in the same brave spirit.

When Belle and Betty arrived at East Fifty-second Street--a little tired after their walk--they found Graham in the hall. "Oh, hello!" said he. "Been shopping?"

"No," answered Belle, "nothing tempted us. We've walked all the way home from Gramercy Park,--some walk! Everything I've got on is sticking to me. Aren't you home early, Graham?"

Graham nodded. "Nothing doing," he said. "Besides, I'm dining early." He turned to Belle with a rather curious smile. "I thought you were to be with the Delanos last night."

Belle tilted her chin. "I was. I dined there, went to the Winter Garden and then danced at Bustanoby's."

"I caught sight of you in Spearman's car somewhere about one o'clock in the morning. Did he drive you home?"

"I guess he did, dear boy," said Belle, blandly, "and by the way, we saw you, going in to supper somewhere with a girl with a Vogue face and an open-air back!"

Graham laughed. "That's different," he said. "Spearman isn't the sort of man I care to see my sister going about with alone. I advise you to be a little more fastidious."

"Thank you, Graham darling," said Belle, quite un-moved, "but I'm old enough to choose my own friends without your butting in. Just for fun, would you tell me what _you_ know about the word fastidious?"

"That's different," said Graham again. And he went up-stairs to his own room with rather heavy feet.

Belle looked at Betty and a little smile curled up the corners of her beautiful red mouth. "I don't see anything wrong with Harry Spearman, and he's an old friend of the Delanos. My word, but isn't Graham a good sport?"

Presently when they went into the drawing-room they found little Mrs. Guthrie sitting in front of the table with a more than usually happy smile, and Ethel lying on the sofa looking the very epitome of an interesting invalid. With a slightly critical frown on her pretty face she was reading Wells's latest novel,--a full-blooded effort well calculated to improve the condition of a girl of fifteen who had not gone back to school on account of anæmia.

With quick intuition, and one glance at her mother's face, Belle knew she had heard from Peter. "Any news?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes, darling,--the very best of news. A Marconi from my boy," said Mrs. Guthrie.

"What does he say?"

"Oh, what does he say?" asked Betty. But the question was asked mentally, because little Mrs. Guthrie was happy and must not be made jealous.

Putting on her glasses with great deliberation, Mrs. Guthrie picked up a book, and with a smile of pride and excitement hunted through its pages and eventually produced the cable form, which she had used as a marker.

"_Do_ hurry, mother, _dear_!" cried Belle. News from Peter meant news from Nicholas.

"Now please don't fluster me, Belle. Of course I would unfold it the wrong side up, wouldn't I? Well, this is what he says: 'Expect to dock day after to-morrow, dearest Mum. All my love.'"

"Is that all he says? Is there nothing about his--his friend?"

Ethel gave a quiet chuckle, of which Belle coldly took no notice.

"There are a few more words," replied Mrs. Guthrie, "and I expect they were very expensive."

"Oh, mother, darling; _do_ go on!"

"Let me see, now. Oh, yes. 'And to Betty.'"

"Oh, thank you," said Betty. "Oh, Peter, my Peter!" she cried in her heart.

This time Ethel laughed. But no one noticed it. It was rather disappointing.

"At last I shall see Nicholas again," thought Belle,--"at last!"

And the little mother folded up the cable very carefully and slipped it back into the book. Peter had sent it to her,--to her.

And then Belle turned her attention to her little sister, who not only looked most interesting, but knew that she did. "I think you condescended to be amused, Grandmamma," she said, in the most good-natured spirit of chaff. Like everybody else in the family she was really rather proud of this very finished production of an ultra-modern and fashionable school.

"I seem to have missed a lot of fun by not going to Europe," replied Ethel. "It would have been very entertaining to watch you and Betty fall in love."

"I guess so," said Belle. "The only thing is that you would have been very much odd man out. They draw the line at little school-girls at Oxford."

"Now don't begin to quarrel, girls," said Mrs. Guthrie. "I'm very sorry Ethel wasn't with us. The trip would have widened her view and given her much to think about. But never mind. She shall go with us next time."

Ethel stifled a yawn. "Thank you, mamma, dear. But when I go to England I may elect to stay there. I think it's very probable that I shall marry an Englishman and settle down to country life, doing London in the season."

Belle's laugh rang out. "That's the sort of thing we have to put up with, Betty," she said. "You're going to marry a Duke, aren't you, Baby, and be a Lady in Waiting at Court, with a full-page photograph every week in the _Tatler_? When Peter comes home he'll find you a constant source of joy. My descriptions of the way in which you've come on while he's been away always made him laugh."

Ethel rose languidly from the sofa, at the side of which a little nourishment had been served. Mrs. Guthrie, who had been busily at work knitting a scarf for Graham--a thing that he would certainly never wear--went quickly to give her a hand. "Are you going to your room now, darling?" she asked.

Ethel caught Belle's rather sceptical eye and, with exquisite coolness, entirely ignored its suggestion that she was shamming. "Yes, mamma, dear. I shall go to bed almost at once. There's nothing like sleep for anæmia. Of course I shall have to read for a little while, because insomnia goes with my complaint, but I shall fall off as soon as I can. Please don't come in to-night, in case you disturb me. I'll tell Ellen to put my hot milk in a thermos."

Belle burst into another laugh. "You beat the band," she said. "Any one would think that your school was for the daughters of royalty. I know exactly what Nicholas Kenyon will call you."

Ethel turned towards her sister with raised eyebrows. With her rather retroussé nose, fine, wide-apart eyes and soft round chin she looked very pretty and amazingly self-composed. Her poise was that of a woman who had been a leader of society for years. "Yes? And what will that be?"

"The queen of the Flappers," said Belle.

Ethel picked up her book, carefully placing the marker. "Oxford slang leaves me cold," she said, loftily.

"I certainly hope that he'll call her nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Guthrie. "'Flapper.' What a terrible word! What does it mean?"

"It means girls under seventeen who have discovered all the secrets of life, the value of a pair of pretty ankles and exactly how to get everybody else to do things for them. It's the best word I heard in England."

"Nicholas Kenyon sounds to me rather a precocious boy," said Ethel.

"Boy! Nicholas Kenyon a boy--! Well!" Belle acknowledged herself beaten. She could find no other words.

The little mother put her arm, with great affection, around the shoulders of her youngest child, of whom she was extremely proud and a little frightened. "Never mind, darling," she said. "Belle doesn't mean anything. It's only her fun."

"Oh, that's all right, mamma. I make full allowance for Belle. She's a little crude yet, but she'll improve in time."

Belle gave a scream of joy. Her sense of the ridiculous, always extremely keen, made her delight in her little sister and the perfectly placid way in which she sailed through existence with the lofty superiority of her type--a type that is the peculiar result of supercivilization and the deferential treatment of fashionable schoolmistresses who bow to wealth as before a god.

"Run in and say good-night to father. He won't mind being disturbed for a moment by you."

"I don't think I will," said Ethel. "The sight of his laboratory may give me a nightmare. I really must be careful about myself just now. Good night, mamma dear. Don't sit up too late. Good night, Belle. I should advise you to go to bed at once. Your complexion is beginning to show the effects of late hours already."

"Oh, you funny little thing," said Belle. "You give me a pain. Trot off to bed; and instead of reading Wells, Ibsen and George Bernard Shaw, try a course of Louisa Alcott and a dose of Swiss Family Robinson. That'll do you much more good and make you a little more human."

But even this plain sisterly speaking had no apparent effect. Ethel gave Betty, who had been watching and listening to the little bout with the surprise of an only child, a small peck on the cheek. "Good night, dear Betty," she said. "I'm glad that you're going to be my sister-in-law. Unless Peter has changed very much since he's been away he'll make a good husband."

And then, with quiet grace, she left the room. No one, not even Belle, whose high spirits and love of life had led her into many perfectly harmless adventures when she was the same age, suspected that Ethel was up to anything. They were wrong. The self-constituted invalid had invented anæmia for two very good reasons. First, because she was not going to be deprived of welcoming her big brother when he returned home for good, school or no school, and second because she had struck up a surreptitious acquaintance with the good-looking boy next door. At present it had gone no further than the daily exchange of letters and telephone calls. The adventure was in the course, however, of speedy development. The boy was going to pay her a visit that evening, by way of the roof. No wonder Ethel didn't want to be disturbed.

With an unwonted burst of extravagance Betty took a taxi home as soon after dinner as she could get away. "Is there a letter for me? Is there a letter for me?" she asked the moon and all the stars in the clear sky as her rackety cab bowled swiftly downtown.

She let herself in and the first thing that caught her eyes was the welcome sight of a thick envelope addressed in Peter's big round, honest, unaffected hand.

"Peter, oh, my Peter!" she whispered, pressing the letter to her lips.

Within five minutes she was sitting on her bed, in the seclusion of her own room, and what Peter had to say for himself was this:

Carlton Hotel, London, September 28, 1913.

My dearest Betty: Gee! but I was mighty glad to find a letter from you this afternoon when I got in, so glad that I dashed out of this Hotel, went across the street to the White Star offices and asked them to exchange my bookings to a boat sailing a week earlier, because I just can't stand being away from you any longer. I don't know what Nick will say, and don't much care. He's at Newmarket staying with a man who trains horses. I've just sent him a telegram to say what I've done, and as he's very keen to see New York and is only killing time, I don't think he'll kick up a row. I would have sailed on the _Olympic_, which left the day after I said good-bye to Thrapstone-Wynyates, if I hadn't promised father to go up to Scotland and see the place where his ancestors lived. I couldn't back out of that, especially as goodness only knows when I shall come to Europe again,--perhaps not until I bring you over on a honeymoon, my baby, and we go back to Oxford together to see how the fairy ring is getting on. We must do that some day. You don't know how I love that little open space where the trees haven't grown so that the moon may spill itself in a big patch for all our friends to dance in on fine nights. I've read your letter a dozen times and know it by heart, like all the others you've written to me. You write the most wonderful letters, darling. I wish I knew how to send you something worth reading, though I'm quite sure you don't mind my clumsy way of putting things down, because you know how much I love you and because everything I say comes straight out of my heart.

My last letter was written in Scotland, Cupar Fife. I shall always remember that quiet little place where the red-headed Guthries,--they must have been red-headed from eating so much porridge,--tilled the earth and brought up sheep in the way they should go. The village seems as much cut off from the rest of the world as though it were surrounded by sea, and every small thing that happens excites it. The man who kept the Inn that I stayed in (feeling frightfully lonely, though really very much interested) had words with his good woman one night and the rights and wrongs of the perfectly private matter have since divided all the inhabitants. Best friends don't speak and the minister is going to preach about the affair next Sunday. I saw the house the old Guthries lived in and was taken all over it by a kind old soul to whom father gave more money than she thought existed when he was there. Gee! but my great-grandfather must have had precious little ambition to live his whole life in a little hole like that. In most of the rooms the beds were in small alcoves and needed climbing up to like bunks. Mrs. McAlister, who lives there now with her married daughter and her seven children, sleeps in one of these fug-holes in the kitchen. Think of it! And she said that the floor swarms with beetles--she can hear them crackling about in the night. All the same, by Jove! this primitive living makes men. I can see from whom father got his grit and determination.

I was glad to find myself in London. I've only been here for a night or two at various times and it's a wilderness to me. I lose myself every time I go out and have to ask Bobbies how to get back. Topping chaps, these Bobbies. They mostly look like gentlemen and are awfully glad to get a laugh. To hear them talk about the 'Aymarket, Piccadilly Surcuss, Wart'loo Plaice and Westminister Habbey first of all puzzles one and then fills one with joy. As to the Abbey,--oh, Gee! but isn't it away beyond words! I spent a whole day wandering about among the graves of its mighty dead, and finally when I got to the end of the cloister and came upon that small, square, open space where the grass grows so green and sparrows play about, I was glad there was nobody to see me except the maid-servant of one of the minor Canons who was taking in the milk for afternoon tea. There are one or two vacant niches among the shrines of men who have done things and moved things on, in which I should like to stand (not looking a bit like myself in stone) when I have done my job, and if I were an Englishman I should work for it. As it is, I shall work for you and all you mean to me, my baby, and that's even a higher privilege.

I went to a theatre last night,--Wyndham's. I thought the play was corking, but the leading actor--an ugly good-looking fellow--wasn't trying a yard, and let it away down every time he was on. Also he spent his time making jokes under his breath to the other people to dry them up. No wonder the theatres are in a bad way in London. There's no snap and ginger about the shows except the ones of the variety theatres, where they really do take off their coats for business. It's fine to hear rag-times at these places, although they're as stale on our side as if they had been played away back before the great wind. By the way, I'm a bit anxious about Graham. His letters have a queer undercurrent in them.

I'm going to the National Gallery, the British Museum and South Kensington to-morrow, and in the evening I'm dining at the Trocadero with eight men who were up at St. John's with me. They're all working in London and hate it, after Oxford. It seems odd to me not to be there myself and I miss it mighty badly sometimes. All the same it's great to feel that one's a man at last, with real work to do and that apartment waiting for us to win. This is the last mail that I can catch before sailing and so I just have to tell you once again, in case you forget it, that I adore you and that if I don't see you on the landing in little old New York among the crowd I shall sink away like an India-rubber balloon with a pin in it. So long, my dearest girl. All, all my love, now and forever. PETER.

P. S. Do you think your father can be brought to like me somehow or other?

Kiss this exact spot.

II

A good sport! Oh, yes, Graham answered admirably to that description,--according to its present-day use. Graham, like Belle, was suffering from the fact that everything was too easy. His father's so-called benefactor had taken all the sting of life for that boy. Fundamentally he had inherited a considerable amount of his father's grit. He needed the impetus of struggle to use up that sense of adventure which was deep-rooted in his nature. He was a throw-back. He had all the stuff in him that was in his ancestors,--those early pioneers who were momentarily up against the grim facts of life. He was not cut out for civilization. He needed action, the physical strain and stress of hunting for his food among primeval surroundings and the constant exercise of his strength in dangerous positions. He would have made a fine sailor, a reckless soldier or an excellent flying man. He was as much out of his element in Wall Street as a sporting dog which is doomed to pass away its life sitting beside a chauffeur in an elaborate motor-car. The daring recklessness which would have been an asset to him as a hunter of big game or a man who attached himself to dangerous expeditions, found vent, in the heart of civilization, in gambling and running wild. It was a pity to see such a lad so utterly misplaced and going to the devil with an alacrity that alarmed even some of his very loose friends. If his father had continued to be a hard-working doctor whose income was barely large enough to cover his yearly expenses, Graham could have used up his superabundant energies in climbing, rung by rung, any ladder at the bottom of which he had been placed. As it was, he found himself, through his father's sudden accession to wealth, beginning where most men leave off, with nothing to fight for--nothing to put his teeth into--nothing for which to take off his coat. It was all wrong. He made money and lost it with equal ease--although he lost more than he won. He was surrounded with luxuries when he should have been faced daily with the splendid difficulties which go to form character and mental strength. Somehow or other his innate desire for adventure had to be used up. With no one to exercise any discipline over him, with no steady hand to guide him and control, he flung himself headlong into the vortex of the night life of the great city and was an easy prey for its rastaquores. At the age of twenty-four he already knew what it was to be haunted by money-lenders. Already he was up to the innumerable dodges of the men who borrow from Peter to pay Paul. He was a well-known figure in gambling clubs and the houses in the red-light district, and he numbered among his friends men and women who made a specialty of dealing with boys of his type and who laid their nets with consummate knowledge of humanity and with the most dastardly callousness. He was indeed, in the usual inaccurate conception of the word, a good "sport," and stood every chance of paying for the privilege with his health, his self-respect and the whole of his future life.

To have seen the nervous way in which he dressed for dinner the next evening, throwing tie after tie away with irritable cursing, would have convinced the most casual observer of the fact that he stood in need of a strong hand. His very appearance,--the dark lines round his eyes, the unsteadiness of his hand,--denoted plainly enough the sort of life that he was leading, but the short-sighted eyes of the Doctor in whose house he lived missed all this, and there was no one except the little mother to cry "halt" to this poor lad and, in her experience, of what avail was she?

He drove--after having dined with three other Wall Street men at Sherry's--to an apartment house on West Fortieth Street, little imagining that fate had determined to put him to the test. Kenyon had recommended him to try it. He had heard of it from Captain Fountain's brother, who had called it "very hot stuff" in one of his letters,--the headquarters of a so-called "Bohemian" set in which Art and gambling were combined. It was run by a woman whose name was Russian, whose instincts were cosmopolitan, and who had been shifted out of most of the great European cities by the police. "The Papowsky," as she was called, spoke several languages equally fluently. She was something of a judge of art. She had an uncanny way of being able to predict success or failure to new plays. She knew musicians when she saw them and only had to smell a book to know whether it had excellence or not. Her short, thin body and yellow skin, her black hair cut in a fringe over her eyes and short all round like that of a Shakesperian page, her long, dark, Oriental eyes and her long artistic hands were in themselves far from attractive. It was her wit and sarcasm however and the brilliant way in which she summed up people and things which made her the leader of those odd people--to be found in every great city--who delight in being unconventional and find excitement in a game of chance.

The apartment in which she held her "receptions" and entertainments was unique. The principal room was a large and lofty studio, arranged like a grotto with rocks and curious lights and secluded places where there were divans. Here there was a dais, at the back of which there was an organ, and a grand piano stood upon it in a French frame all over cupids, and it was here that the most extraordinary exhibitions of dancing were given by the Papowsky hand-maidens and others.

The other people who lived in this apartment house had already begun to talk about it in whispers, and its reputation had gone out into the city. One or two feeble complaints had been made to the police, but without any avail. At the moment when Graham had first entered it, it was in its second year and was flourishing like the proverbial Bay Tree. The magnets which drew him to this house of Arabian Nights were the roulette table in a secluded room at the end of the passage, and one of the hand-maidens of the Papowsky, whose large, gazelle-like eyes and soft caressing hands drew him from other haunts, and followed him into his dreams.

III

Graham's hat and coat were taken by a Japanese servant, whose little eyes twinkled a welcome.

The long, brilliantly lighted passage which led to the studio was hung with nudes, some of them painted in oils with a sure touch, some highly finished in black-and-white, and the rest dashed off in chalks,--rough impressionist things which might have been drawn by art students under the influence of drink. Between them in narrow black frames there was a collection of diabolically clever caricatures of well-known singers, actors, authors, painters and politicians, each one bringing out the weaknesses of the victims with peculiar impishness and insight. The floor of the passage was covered with a thick black pile carpet, which smothered all noise.

As Graham entered the studio several strange minor chords were struck on the piano and a woman's deep contralto voice filled the large studio like winter wind moaning through an old chimney.

The Papowsky, who was giving an evening for young artists, and was half-covered in a more than usually grotesque garment, slid out of the shadow and gave Graham her left hand, murmuring a welcome. Exuding a curious pungent aroma, she placed a long finger on her red, thin lips and slipped away again. For some minutes Graham remained where she left him, trying to accustom his eyes to the dim--though far from religious--light. He made out men in dress clothes sitting here and there and the glint of nymph-like forms passing from place to place, springily. The scent of cigarette smoke mixed with that of some queer intoxicating perfume. The sound of water plashing from a fountain came to his ears.

On his way to find a seat, Graham's arm was suddenly seized, he was pulled into a corner and found himself, gladly enough, alone with the girl who called herself Ita Strabosck. There was one blue light in this alcove and by it he could see that the girl was dressed like an Apache in black suit with trousers which belled out over her little ankles and fitted her tightly everywhere else. She retained her close grip and began to whisper eagerly to him. Her foreign accent was more marked than usual, owing to the emotion under which she obviously labored. Her heart hammered against his arm.

"You have come to zee me?"

Graham whispered back. "Don't I always come to see you?"

"You like me?"

Graham bent forward and kissed her mouth.

"You love me?"

The boy laughed.

"S-s-s-h! Eef you love me, eef you really and truly love me, I vill to-night ask you to prove eet."

"I've been waiting," said Graham, with a sudden touch of passion.

"Zen take me avay from this 'ell. I 'ave a soul. Eet ees killing me. I 'ave a longing for God's air. Take me back to eet. The Papowsky ees a vile woman. She lure me 'ere and I am a prisoner. You do not know the 'orrors of zis place. I am young. I am almost a child. I was good and I can be good again. At once, when you come 'ere, I saw in you one who might rescue me from zis. I love you. You say you love me. I beseech you to take me away."

Graham was stirred by this emotional appeal whispered in his ear, by the young arms that were flung round his neck, and by the little body that was all soft against him. His sense of chivalry and his innate desire for adventure were instantly set ablaze. At the same time, what could he do with this strange little girl? Where could he put her?

He began to whisper back something of his inability to help, but a hand was quickly placed over his mouth.

"Eef you believe in God, take me away. I do not care what you do with me. I do not care eef you make me work for my bread. You are not like ze rest. You too are young and you are a man, and I love you. I will be your servant--your slave. I will kiss your feet. I will give you myself. I will wait on you 'and and foot. Give me a little room near ze sky and see me once a day, but take me out of this evil place--I am being poisoned. Vill you do zis? Vill you?" She slipped down on her knees and clasped her hands together.

In the faint blue light Graham could see the large eyes of the girl looking up at him through tears, as though to a saviour. Her whole attitude was one of great appeal. Her young, slim body trembled and the throbbing of her voice with its curious foreign accent moved him to an overwhelming pity. Here then was something that he could do--was a way in which he could exercise his bottled up sense of adventure which had hitherto only been kept in some sort of control by gambling and running risks.

"Do you mean that you're forced to remain here,--that you can't get out if you want to?"

"Yes, yes, yes! I tell you I was caught like a wild bird and zis ees my cage. Ze door ees guarded."

A great excitement seized the boy. He lifted Ita up and put his mouth to her ear. "You've come to the right man. I'll get you out of this. I always loathed to see you here,--but how's it to be done? She has eyes in the back of her head, and those damned Japanese servants are everywhere."

"Eeet ees for you to sink," said the girl. "You are a man."

"I see," said Graham. "Right. Leave it to me."

He liked being made responsible. He liked the utter trust which this girl placed in him. He liked the feeling of danger. The whole episode and its uncanny romance caught hold of him. It was not every day that in the middle of civilization the chance came to do something which smacked of mediævalism--which had in it something of the high adventure of Ivanhoe.

He said: "Get away quick and put your clothes on. Don't pack anything--just dress. There won't be any one in the roulette room until after twelve. Go in there and hide behind the curtains and wait for me. Quick, now!"

Once more the girl flung her arms about him and put her lips to his mouth.

For several minutes Graham remained alone in the alcove, with his blood running swiftly through his veins--his brain hard at work. The woman on the dais was still singing. In the vague, uncertain light he could see the Papowsky curled up on a divan near by, smoking a cigarette. Other people had come in and made groups among the foolish rockery. Then he got up quietly, went out into the passage and looked about. He had never before explored the place, he only knew the studio and the roulette room. It dawned upon him that this apartment was just beneath the roof of the building. Somewhere or other there was likely to be an outlet to the fire-escape. That was the idea. He had it. The girl had said that it would be impossible to take her away by the main door. Those Japanese servants were evidently watch-dogs. Even as he stood there, wondering, he saw that he was eyed by a small, square-shouldered Japanese whose head seemed to be too large for his body and whose oily deferential grin was not to be trusted. He lit a cigarette, and putting on what he considered to be an air of extreme nonchalance, strolled along until he came to the roulette room. No one was there. The candelabra were only partially alight. He darted quickly to the window and flung it up. The iron steps of the fire-escape ran past it to the roof. "Fine!" he said to himself. "Now I know what to do."

He shut the window quickly and turned round just as the man who had been watching him came in. "Say!" he said. "Just go and get me a high-ball. Bring it here." He followed the man to the door and into the passage and watched him waddle away. He had not been there more than a moment when the door opposite opened bit by bit, and the girl's face, with large frightened eyes, peeped round the corner. In a little black hat and a plain frock with a very tight skirt she looked younger and prettier and more in need of help than ever. Without a word, Graham caught hold of her hand, drew her into the passage, shut her door, ran her into the roulette room and placed her behind the curtains, making sure that her feet were hidden. Whistling softly to himself he sat down and waited. The man seemed to have been gone half an hour. It was really only a few minutes before he waddled back on his heels. Graham took the drink. "How soon do you think they'll begin to play to-night?" he asked, keeping his voice steady with a huge effort.

The Japanese shrugged his shoulders. "As usual, sir," he said, smiling from ear to ear and rubbing his hands together as though he were washing them. "Any time after twelve, sir--any time, sir."

"All right!" said Graham. "I shall wait here."

He kept up the air of boredom until he imagined that the small, black-haired, olive-tinted man had had time to get well away. Then he sprang to the door, saw that the passage was empty, darted back into the room and over to the window.

"Come on!" he said. "Quick's the word!" and climbed out, giving the girl his hand. For a moment they stood together on the ledge of the fire-escape, the stairs of which seemed to run endlessly down. With a chuckle of triumph Graham shut the window, as the girl gave a little cry of dismay.

She had called that place hell, but from the height on which they stood it seemed as though they were climbing down from the sky.

IV

"Uptown," said Graham to the taxi driver. "I'll tell you where when I know myself."

A knowing and sympathetic grin covered the big Irish face and a raucous yell came from the hard-used engine, and the taxi went forward with a huge jerk.

The little girl turned her large eyes on Graham. "You do not know vhere you take me?" she asked.

"No, by thunder, I don't. I can't drive you like this to a hotel, you've got no baggage. Most of my friends live in bachelor apartments, and the women I know,--well, I would like to see their faces if I turned up with you--and _this_ story."

The girl's foreign gesture was eloquent of despair. She heaved a deep sigh and drew into the corner of the cab. The passing lights shone intermittently on her little white face. How small and pitiful and helpless she looked.

The sight of her set Graham's brain working again. In getting her out of the Papowsky's poisonous place and leading her step by step down the winding fire-escape and, when it ceased abruptly in mid-air, into the window of a restaurant, he had been brought to the end of one line of thought,--that of getting the girl safely out of her prison. He now started on another, while the cab rocked along the trolley lines beneath the elevated railway, sometimes swerving dangerously out and round the iron supports.

Suddenly Graham was seized with an idea. He put his head out of the cab window and shouted to the driver: "Fifty-five East Fifty-second Street."

The girl turned to him hopefully. "What ees zat?" she asked.

"My home."

"Your 'ome? You take me to your 'ome?"

"Why no, not exactly. I'm going in to get a bag for you. It won't have much in it except a brush and comb and a pair of my pajamas, but with them we can drive to any quiet hotel and I'll get a room for you. In the morning I'll find a little furnished apartment and you can go out and buy some clothes and the other things that you need. How's that?"

Ita caught up his hand and held it against her heart. "But you are not going to leave me?"

"Yes, I must," said Graham. "I shall have to register you as my sister. You've just come off the train and I've met you at the station. Oh, don't cry! It's the best I can do. It's only just for one night. I'll fix things to-morrow and you'll be very happy in a little apartment of your own, won't you? I'll see you every day there."

With a sudden and almost painfully touching abandon of gratitude the girl flung herself on the floor of the cab and put her head on Graham's knees, calling on God to bless him. Something came into the boy's throat.

The taxi crossed Fifth Avenue behind a motor-car that was also going towards Madison Avenue. It looked very familiar to Graham. Supposing it was his father returning from one of his medical meetings! He put his head out again, sharply: "Stop at the first house on East Fifty-second Street!" he shouted. Almost before the cab had stopped he leaped out. "Wait for me here," he added.

"Sure an' I will." The driver threw a glance at his taxi-meter. Not for him to care how long he waited.

Graham darted along the street and up the steps of Number fifty-five, and just as he had the key in the door he heard his father's voice.

"No, no. Let my car take you home. Yes, a wonderful evening. Most inspiring. Good night! Let's meet again soon!"

Graham made up his mind what to do. He held the door open for the Doctor and stood waiting for him, with the bored look of one who has had a rather dull evening. "Oh, thank you, Graham," said Dr. Guthrie. "Have you just got back?"

"Yes; I thought I'd get to bed early to-night."

"You look as though you needed sleep," said the Doctor. "But--but don't go up at once. Please come and have a cigarette in my room. I've--I've been speaking at the Academy of Medicine,--explaining a new discovery. A great triumph, Graham, a great triumph. I would like to tell one of my sons about it. Won't you come?"

There was an unwonted look of excitement on his father's thin face and a ring in his voice which made it almost youthful. It was the first time that Graham had ever received such an invitation. He was surprised, and if he had not been so desperately anxious to slip up-stairs, lay quick hands on the bag and get away again he would have accepted it gladly. For a reason that he could not explain he felt at that instant an almost unbearable desire to find his father, to get in touch with him, to give something and receive something that he seemed to yearn for and need more urgently than at any other moment in his life. As it was, he was obliged to back out. "I'm frightfully tired to-night," he said, yawning.

"Oh, are you? I'm sorry," said the Doctor apologetically. "Some other night perhaps--some other night."

The two men stood facing each other uncomfortably. Exhilaration had for a moment broken down the Doctor's shyness. It all came back to him when he found his son's eyes upon him like those of a stranger. He took off his coat and hat, said "Good-night" nervously and went quickly across the hall and into his library.

He was deeply hurt. He stood among those priceless books with a curious pain running through his veins. "What's the matter with me?" he asked himself. "Why do I chill my children and make them draw back?"

Graham shut the door, and then as quickly as an eel ran up-stairs to his bedroom, turned on the light, opened the door of the closet and pulled out a large suit-case. Then he began to hunt among the drawers of his wardrobe for some pajamas. He threw these in. From his bathroom he caught up a brush and comb and some bedroom slippers. These followed the pajamas. Then he shut the case, picked it up, crept quietly down-stairs, across the hall and out into the street, shutting the door softly behind him. He gave the taxi-driver the name of a small hotel frequented by actors, and jumped into the cab.

Ita Strabosck welcomed him as though he had been gone a week. "'Ow good you are to me!" she cried. "Eef you never do anysing else een your life, zis that you 'ave done for me vill be written down by zee angels een your book."

Graham laughed. "The angels--I wonder."

All the same he was a little proud of himself. Not many men would have perfected the rescue of this little girl so neatly from a house in which her body and soul were in jeopardy. It had been an episode in his sophisticated life which was all to his credit. He felt that,--with pleasure liked the idea of being responsible for this poor little soul, of having some one dependent entirely upon his generosity and who presently would wait for his step with a fluttering heart and run to meet him when he came in tired. He liked also the thought that this girl would be a little secret of his own,--some one personal to himself, to whom he could take his worries--and he had many--and get sympathy and even advice.

The cab drew up. Graham released himself from the girl's arms and led her into the small and rather fuggy foyer of the hotel, which was a stone's throw from Broadway. A colored porter pounced upon the bag and an alert clerk looked up from the mail that he was sorting.

"I want a room for my sister," said Graham, "with bath. Got one?"

"Fifth floor," said the clerk, after gazing fixedly for a moment at something at the back of the screen. He then pushed the book towards Graham.

Without a moment's hesitation, Graham wrote "Miss Nancy Robertson, Buffalo," and took the key that was extended to him. "Come on, Nancy," he said, and led the way to the elevator, in which was waiting a tall, florid woman carrying a small bulldog in her arms. She had obviously not taken very great pains to remove the make-up from her face which had been necessary to her small part. Graham recognized her as an actress whom he had seen some nights before in an English play at the Thirty-ninth Street Theatre, and he thought how queer life was and what odd tricks it played. Not a foot away from each other stood two women, the one just back from a place in which she had been aping a human being in a piece utterly artificial and untrue, the other who had played a part in a tragedy of grim and horrible reality, out of which she had been carried before the inevitable climax.

The colored boy, with a hospitable grin on his face, led the way along a narrow, shabby passage whose wall-paper was much the worse for wear, and finally opened the door of a small bedroom, switching on the light.

"I'll undo the case," said Graham quickly.

The boy drew back. "Sure."

"And say! If you'll see that my sister gets what she rings for I'll give you five dollars."

"You bet your life, sah." There was a dazzling glint of white teeth.

"Thanks."

"You welcome."

The cry of joy and relief which made the whole room quiver, as soon as the porter had gone, went straight to Graham's heart. "I guess it's not much of a room," he said, a little huskily, "but we'll change all this to-morrow."

The girl ran her hand over the pillow and the bed-cover. "Oh, but eet ees zo sweet and clean," she said, between tears and laughter, "and no one can come. Eet ees mine. You are zo, _zo_ good to me."

Graham undid the case and spilt the meagre contents on the bed. Then he put his hands on Ita's shoulders and kissed her. "Good-night, you poor little thing," he said. "Sleep well, order anything that you want, and don't leave this room until I come and fetch you. Your troubles are over."

She clung to him. "But you vill stay a leetle--just a leetle?"

"No, I'm going now."

There was nowhere in Graham's mind the remotest desire to stay. A new and strange chivalry had taken the place of the passion that had swept over him earlier in the evening when the blue light had fallen on her slim body.

She looked into his face, nodded and put her lips to his cheek. "Good night, zen," she said. "You 'ave taken me out of hell. You are very good."

And as Graham walked home under the gleaming moon and the star-bespattered sky, there was a little queer song in his rather lonely heart.

Poor, simple, sophisticated lad! How easy it had been for that cunning little creature whose one ambition was to be the mistress of an apartment in business for herself, to take advantage of his unfed sense of adventure. She, and fate, had certainly played him a very impish trick.

V

The _Oceanic_ had been timed to dock at four-thirty, but the thick mist at the mouth of the Hudson had caused some delay and her mail had been heavy. The consequence was that she was edged in to her dock considerably more than an hour late, to be welcomed by an outburst of long-expectant handkerchiefs.

During the period of waiting--by no means unpleasant, because the sun fell warmly upon the wonderful river--several brief, emotional conversations took place between the people who had come to greet Peter. The Guthries were there in a body,--even Ethel had pulled herself together and had come to be among the first to greet her favorite brother. Graham wouldn't have missed the occasion for anything on earth. His love for Peter was deep and true. And it was good to see the excitement of them all and of the little mother, who was in a state of verging between tears and laughter all the time. Her big boy was coming home again and once more she would have the ineffable joy of tucking him up at night sometimes, and asking God to bless him before she drew the clothes about his ears as she had done so often. Even the Doctor found it necessary to take off his glasses several times and rub them clear of the moisture that prevented him from seeing the approaching vessel which seemed to have given herself up to the bullying of the small but energetic tugs whose blunt noses butted into her.

Betty brought her father; and these two, with a delicacy of feeling characteristic of them, placed themselves among the crowd away from the Guthrie family. Intuitively, Betty knew that much as Mrs. Guthrie liked her, she would rather resent her presence there at such a moment. Belle's quick eyes very soon discovered them, however, and presently they permitted themselves to be drawn into the family group.

It was a curious moment for Ranken Townsend and his feelings were not unlike those of little Mrs. Guthrie. "My God!" he said to himself as he stood looking out at the wide river, its marvellous and strenuous life and the amazing sky-line of the buildings on the opposite bank; "has the time arrived already for me to lose my little girl? Am I so old that I have a young thing ripe enough for marriage and to bring into the world young things of her own?"

The artist had only met the elder Guthries once before, although Belle was a particular friend of his, having been frequently brought to his studio by Betty. He knew Peter only from having seen him in the treasured snapshots which his little daughter brought home with her from Oxford. He had to confess to himself--although his natural jealousy made him unwilling to do so--that Peter looked just the sort of man whom he would like his daughter to marry when her time came. And so he singled out Mrs. Guthrie almost at once and drew her aside. The breeze blew through his Viking beard, and a fellow-feeling brought into his eyes an expression of sympathy which immediately warmed Mrs. Guthrie's heart towards him. "I didn't want to come this afternoon, Mrs. Guthrie," he said. "Shall I explain why?"

"No," said the little mother. "I quite understand."

"Your boy and my girl are following the inevitable laws of nature, and it's rather hard luck for us both, isn't it?"

Mrs. Guthrie put her handkerchief up to her mouth and nodded.

"Betty's a good girl and I've only to look at you to know that the man to whom she's given her heart is a fine fellow. Well, it brings us up to another milestone, doesn't it?--one that I wish was still some years ahead. However, let's face it with pluck and with unselfishness, and be friends. Shall we?"

"Please," said the little mother, giving him her hand.

Ranken Townsend bared his head.

And then Dr. Guthrie came up and peered at the man who was talking to his wife. He vaguely remembered the artist's picturesque appearance and fine open face, but he had forgotten his name.

Mrs. Guthrie hurried to the rescue. "You remember Mr. Townsend, of course, Hunter," she said. "Betty's father, you know."

"I beg your pardon," said the Doctor. "Of course I remember you, and I'm very delighted to see you again. You have friends coming on the _Oceanic_ too, then?"

Townsend laughed. "No, I don't know anybody on her--not a soul. All the same I've come to meet your son."

"Indeed! It's very kind of you, I'm sure." And then the Doctor suddenly remembered that sooner or later he'd be obliged to share Peter with the man who stood before him, and just for a moment he--like his wife and like the other father--felt the inevitable stab of jealousy. He covered it with a cordial smile. "What am I thinking about? Betty brought you, naturally. We must meet more often now, Mr. Townsend."

"I should like nothing better. I don't know your boy yet except through his photographs and my having met his mother, but I'm very proud to know that my little girl is to bear a name that will always be honoured in this country."

Dr. Guthrie blushed and bowed, and put his hand up to his tie nervously.

It was a curious little meeting, this. All three parents were self-conscious and uncomfortable. They would have been antagonistic but for the very true human note that each recognized. They were all reminded of the unpleasant fact that they were in sight of a new and wide cross-road in their lives, along which they were presently to see two of their young people walking away together hand in hand. Parenthood has in it everything that is beautiful, but much that is disappointing and inevitable--much that brings pain and a sudden sense of loneliness.

There was a very different ring in the conversation of Betty and Belle, who stood a few yards away surrounded by people of all the strange conglomerate nationalities which go to make up the population of the United States. Good-tempered, affectionate and excitable Hebrews were already shouting welcomes to their friends on the _Oceanic_, as the vessel drew slowly nearer. Temperamental Irish were alternately waving handkerchiefs and daubing their eyes with them, and others--of French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian and English extraction--were trying to discern the faces of those who were near and dear to them among the passengers who were leaning over the rails of the vessel. It was an animated and moving scene, very much more cheery than the ones which take place on the same spot when the great trans-Atlantic Liners slip out into the river.

"Look!" cried Belle. "There's Nicholas. Isn't he absolutely and wonderfully English?"

"And there's Peter!" said Betty, with a catch in her voice. "And isn't he splendidly American?"

"Oh, I'm so excited I can hardly stand still. I've dreamed of this every night ever since we came home."

"So have I. But this is better than dreams. Look! Peter has seen us. He's waving his hat. Even his hair seems to be sunburnt."

Belle laughed, though her eyes were full of tears. "I can almost smell the violet stuff that Nicholas puts on his."

Then there was the usual rush as the liner slid into her berth, and as Mrs. Guthrie was swept away with it, holding tight to Graham's arm, she said to herself: "He waved to Betty first. O God, make me brave!"

All the same, it was the little mother to whom Peter went first as he came ashore, and he held her very tight, so that she could hardly breathe, and said: "Darling mum! How good to see you!" and there was something in that.

The Doctor took his boy's big hand with less self-consciousness than usual. He wished that he might have had the pluck to kiss him on both cheeks and thus follow the excellent example of a little fat Frenchman who had nearly thrown him off his balance in his eagerness to welcome a thin, dark boy.

"Hello, Belle! Hello, Graham! Hello, Ethel!" And then Peter stood in front of Betty, to whom he said nothing, but the kiss that he gave her meant more than the whole of a dictionary. "Oh, my Peter!" she whispered.

Nicholas Kenyon followed with his most winning smile, and was cordially welcomed. He had charming things to say to everyone, especially to Belle. After close scrutiny, Ethel's inward criticism of him was that he had "escaped being Oxford."

And then Ranken Townsend held out his hand. "But for me, Peter Guthrie," he said, "you wouldn't have had a sweetheart. Shake!"

A wave of color spread all over Peter's brown face. He grasped the outstretched hand. "I'm awfully glad to see you," he said.

"And I'm awfully glad to see you." The artist measured the boy up. Yes, he was well satisfied. Here stood a man in whose clean eyes he recognized the spirit of a boy. Betty had chosen well. "Do you smoke a pipe?"

"Well, rather."

"I thought so. Bring it along to my studio as soon as your mother can spare you and we'll talk about life and love and the great hereafter. Is that a bet?"

"That's a bet," said Peter. And he added, putting his mouth close to Betty's ear: "Darling, he's a corker! He likes me. Gee, that's fine!" Then he turned to his mother, ran his arm round her shoulder, walked her over to the place in the great echoing, bustling shed over which a huge "G" hung, and sat down with her on somebody else's trunk which had just been flung there, to wait with unapproving patience for that blessed time when one of the officialdom's chewing gods, having forced a prying hand among his shirts and underclothing, should mark his baggage with a magic cross and so permit him to reconnect himself with life.

Nicholas Kenyon, as immaculate as though he had just emerged from a bandbox, slipped his hand surreptitiously into Belle's. "Are you glad to see me?" he asked, under his breath.

Belle said nothing in reply, but the look that she gave him instead set that expert's blood racing through his veins and gave him something to look forward to that alone made it worth crossing a waste of unnecessary water.

VI

"A very pleasant domestic evening," said Kenyon, standing with his back to the fireplace of the library. "The bosom of this family is certainly very warm. Peter, my dear old boy, I had no idea that you were going to bring me to a house in which a Prime Minister or the President of the Royal Academy might be very proud to dwell. Also, may I congratulate you upon your little sister? She's a humorist. I found myself furbishing up all my epigrams when I spoke to her. By Jove, she's like a Baliol blood with his hair in a braid."

A quiet chuckle came from Graham, who was sitting on the arm of a big deep chair, looking up at Kenyon with the sort of admiration that is paid by a student to his master. "I don't know anything about Baliol bloods," he said, "but Ethel takes a lot of beating. When she quoted Bernard Shaw, at dinner, father nearly swallowed his fork."

Peter was sitting on the table, swinging his legs.

"Oh, she'll be all right when she gets away from her school. She'll grow younger every day then. What awful places they are--these American girl schools. They seem to inject into their victims a sort of liquid artificiality. It takes a lot of living down. Upon my soul, I hardly knew the kid! Two years have made a most tremendous difference in her. I thought I should throw a fit when she looked at me just now in the drawing-room and said: 'The childish influence of Oxford has left you almost unspoiled, Peter, dear.'"

Kenyon laughed. "Excellent!" he said. "I know the English flapper pretty well. It'll give me extreme delight to play Columbus among the American variety of the species." He looked round the beautiful room with an approving eye. "That must have been a very civilized old gentleman who made this collection. I wonder if he bought some of the books from Thrapstone-Wynyates! My father was forced to sell some of them shortly after he succeeded to the title. As the long arm of coincidence frequently stretches across the Atlantic, I should like to think that some of the first editions in which my grandfather took so high a pride have found their way into an atmosphere so entirely pleasant as this. One of these fine days, Peter, they may raise a little necessary bullion for you."

"I hope not," said Peter.

Graham got up. "It's only eleven o'clock. Suppose we get out and see something. Everybody's gone to bed, we shan't be missed."

"A very brainy notion," said Kenyon, "but what's there to do?"

"Oodles of things," said Graham.

"Well, lead the way. I'm with you. The dull monotony of life aboard a liner has given me a thirst for twinkling ankles, the clash of cymbals and the glare of the lime-light. You with us, Peter?"

"Yes, unless--one second." He went over to the telephone that stood on a small table in a far corner of the room, looked up a number in the book, asked for it and hung on.

Kenyon shot a wink at Graham. "Get your hat, old boy," he said. "Peter would a-wooing go. He's the most desperately thorough person." And he added inwardly: "Hang that girl."

"Can I speak to Mr. Townsend? Oh, is that you, Mr. Townsend? Peter Guthrie, yes. May I come round and have a jaw--? Thanks, awfully! I'll get a taxi right away." He turned back to the other two men. "Great work," he said. "You two will have to go alone to-night. However, we've a thousand years in front of us. See you at breakfast. So long!"

"Wait a second," said Graham. "I'll ring up a taxi and we'll all ride down together."

"Right-o!" said Peter. "I'll rush up to my room and get a pipe."

When he came down again he found Kenyon and Graham waiting at the open door. A taxicab was chugging on the curbstone. Kenyon got in first, with his long cigarette holder between his teeth and a rakish-looking opera hat balanced over his left eye. He carried a thin black overcoat. All about him there was the very essence of Piccadilly. Peter sat beside him and Graham opposite. The cab turned round, crossed Madison into Fifth Avenue and went quickly downtown. The great wide street, as shiny as that of the Champs Élysée, was comparatively clear of traffic. Peter looked at the passing houses with the intense and affectionate interest of the man who comes home again. At the corner of West Forty-second Street Graham stopped the cab. "It's only a short walk to the best of the cabarets," he said; "we'll let Peter go straight on. Come on, Nicholas, bundle out."

"Where are we going?" asked Kenyon, making a graceful exit.

"Louis Martin's, old boy," said Graham.

"Pretty hot stuff, I hope. Au revoir, Peter. Do your best to make the bearded paint merchant like you. You'll have some difficulty." And with that parting shot, contradicted by one of the winning smiles which he had inherited from his delightful but unscrupulous father, Nicholas Kenyon took Graham's arm and these two walked away in high spirits.

When the cab stopped at the high building on the corner of Gramercy Park, its door was opened by Ranken Townsend. "I timed you to arrive about now, my lad," he said cordially. "I took the opportunity of getting some air. It's mighty good to-night. Come right up." He continued to talk in the elevator, which had a long way to go. "Betty has gone to a party. You may meet her mother, I'm not sure. She's out at one of her meetings--she spends her life at meetings--and if she comes in tired, as she generally does, she probably won't come into the studio. However, that need only be a pleasure deferred. Do you speak? If so, she'll nail you for one of her platforms."

"I,--speak?" said Peter, with a shudder. "I'd rather be shot."

Townsend laughed, led the way into his apartment and into the studio. In the dim light of one reading lamp which stood on a small table at the side of a low divan, the room looked larger than it was. It reeked with the good ripe smell of pipe tobacco and seemed to be pervaded with the personality of the man who spent most of his life in it. One of the top windows was open and through it came the refreshing air that blew up from the Hudson. Peter caught a glimpse of the sky, which was alive with stars. It was a good place. He liked it. Work was done there. It inspired him.

The artist took Peter's hat and coat and hung them in the alcove. Then he went across the room and turned up the light that hung over a canvas. "How d'you like it?" he asked.

Peter gave an involuntary cry. There sat Betty with her hands folded in her lap. To Peter she seemed to have been caught at the very moment when from his place at her feet he looked up at her just before he held her in his arms for the first time. Her face was alight and her eyes full of tenderness. It was an exquisite piece of work.

Townsend turned out the light. He was well pleased with its effect. Peter's face was far better than several columns of printed eulogy. "Now come and sit down," he said. "Try this mixture. It took me five years to discover it, but since then I've used no other." He threw himself on the settee and settled his untidy head among the cushions.

The light shone on Peter's strong profile, and when Townsend looked at it he saw there all that he hoped to see, and something else. There was a little smile round the boy's mouth and a look in his eyes that showed all the warmth of his heart.

"And so you love my little girl as much as that? Well, she deserves it, but please don't take her away from me yet. I can't spare her. She and my work are all I've got, and I'm not lying when I say that she comes first. Generally when a man reaches my age he has lived down his dependence on other people for happiness and his work has become his mistress, his wife and his children. In my case that isn't so, and my little girl is the best I have. She keeps me young, Peter. She renders my disappointments almost null and void, and she encourages me not wholly to sacrifice myself to the filthy dollar--an easy temptation I can assure you. So don't be in too great a hurry to take my little bird away and build a nest for her in another tree. Does that sound very selfish to you?"

"No," said Peter; "I understand. Besides--good Lord!--I've got to work before I can make a place good enough for her. I've come back to begin."

"I see! Fine! I thought perhaps that Oxford might have taken some of the good American grit out of you. It just occurred to me that you might be going to let your father keep you while you continue to remain an undergraduate out here in life. A good many of our young men with wealthy fathers play that game, believe me."

"Yes, I know," said Peter, "but there's something in my blood,--I think it's porridge,--that urges me to do things for myself. Besides, I believe that there's a feeling of gratitude somewhere about me that makes me want to pay back my father for all that he's done. I'm most awfully keen to do that, Mr. Townsend! His money has come by accident. I'm not going to take advantage of it. I'm going to start in just as if he were the same hard-working doctor that he used to be when he sent me to Harvard, skinning himself to do so. I think he'll like that. Anyway, that's my plan. And as to Oxford,--well, I should have to be a pretty rotten sort of a dog if I didn't gain something there--that wonderful place out of which men have gone, for centuries, all the better for having rushed over its quads and churned up the water of its little old river and stood humbly in its chapels. Don't you think so?"

"I do indeed, my dear lad; but somehow or other the younger generation doesn't seem to take advantage of those things, and the sight of the young men of the present day and their callous acceptance of their fathers' efforts make me thank God that I never had a boy. I should be afraid. Think of that! What are you going to do, Peter? What is your line of work?"

"The law."

"The law? Well, I guess that's a queer sort of maze to put yourself into. An honest man in the law is like a rabbit in a dog kennel. Is that your definite decision?"

"Absolutely," said Peter. "I chose the law for that reason. I think that honesty is badly needed in it. I've got a dream that one of these days I shall be a judge and make things a bit easier for all the poor devils who have made mistakes."

"God help you!"

"I shall ask him to," said Peter.

The artist looked up quickly. In his further keen and rather wistful scrutiny of the great big square-shouldered man with the strong, clean jaw-line and the firm mouth there was a little astonishment. "Do you mean to tell me that in the middle of these queer undisciplined, individualistic times you believe in God?"

The room remained in silence for a moment, until Peter leaned forward and knocked out his pipe. "If I didn't believe in God," he replied quietly, "would you be quite so ready to trust Betty to me?"

At that moment the door was swung open and a tall, stout, hard-bosomed woman with a mass of white hair and the carriage of a battleship sailed in. Her evening clothes glistened with sequins and many large beads rattled as she came forward. She wore a string of pearls and several diamond rings. Unable to fight any longer against advancing years and preserve what had evidently been quite remarkable good looks, she had cultivated a presence and developed distinction. In any meeting of women she was inevitably voted to the chair, and in the natural order of things became president of all the Societies to which she attached herself, except one. In this isolated case the woman who supplanted her, for the time being, was even taller, stouter and harder of bosom,--in fact, a born president.

The two men rose.

"Ah, Ranken, still up, then! I half-expected to find the studio in darkness. You'll be glad to hear that we passed a unanimous resolution to-night condemning this country as a republic and asking that it shall become a monarchy forthwith."

Townsend refrained from looking at Peter. "Indeed!" he said gravely. "An evening well spent. But I want you to know Peter Guthrie, Dr. Hunter Guthrie's eldest son, just home from Oxford."

Mrs. Townsend extended a large well-formed hand. "Let me see! What do I know about you? You're the young man who--Oh, now I remember. You're engaged to Betty. But before I forget it, and as you are just out of Oxford, I'll put you down to speak at the annual meeting next Tuesday at the Waldorf, of the Society for the Reconstruction of University Systems. Your subject will be 'Oxford as a Menace to the Younger Generation.' There will be no fee--I beg your pardon?"

Peter's face was a study in conflicting emotions. He looked like a lonely man being run away with in a car that he was wholly unable to drive. Townsend turned a burst of laughter into a rasping cough. "You're awfully kind," said Peter, almost stammering. "But I believe in Oxford."

"Ah! Then you shall say so to the Society for the Encouragement of Universities, on Thursday at eight sharp, at the St. Mary's Public School Building, Brooklyn."

"As a matter of fact, I don't speak," said Peter. "I--I never speak."

"Why, then, you shall be one of the chief thinkers at the bi-monthly meeting of the Californian Cogitators. I'm not going to let you off, so make up your mind to that. And now I'm going to bed. I'm as tired as a dog. Good-bye, Paul,--I mean Peter. Expect me to call you up one day soon. There's so much to do with this world chaos that we must all put our hands to the wheel." And with a wave of her hand, Mrs. Townsend sailed majestically away.

Peter gasped for breath and the artist subsided into the divan and gave way to an attack--a very spasm--of laughter, which left him limp and weak.

"Never allow Betty to get bitten by the meeting-bug, son," he said, when he had recovered. "It isn't any fun to be married to a bunch of pamphlets. What! Are you off now?"

"I'm afraid I've kept you up, as it is, Mr. Townsend. I--I want to thank you for your immense kindness to me. I shall always remember it. Good night!"

Rankin Townsend got up, stood in front of Peter for a moment and looked straight at him. He was serious again. "Good night, my dear lad," he said. "I feel that I can trust Betty to you and that takes a load off my mind. Come often and stay later."

Peter walked all the way home along Madison Avenue. That part, at any rate, of the great sleepless city was resting and quiet, and the boy's quick footsteps echoed through the empty street. He was glad to be back again in New York--glad and thankful. Somewhere, in one of her big buildings, was his love-girl--the woman who was to be his wife--the reason of his having been born into the world. No wonder he believed in God.

VII

The following afternoon Peter was to call at the apartment-house on Gramercy Park at half-past-four. He had arranged to take Betty for a walk,--a good long tramp. There were heaps of things that he wanted to tell her and hear, and several points on which he wanted to ask her advice. He was not merely punctual, as becomes a man who is head over heels in love--he was ten minutes before his time. All the same, he found Betty waiting for him in the hall, talking to a big burly Irishman who condescended to act as hall-porter and who looked not unlike a brigadier-general in his rather over-smart uniform. This man had known Betty for many years and watched her grow up; had received many kindnesses from her and had seen her bend by the hour over the cot of his own little girl when she was ill. His face was a study when he saw Peter bound into the place, catch sight of Betty and take her in his arms, and without a single touch of self-consciousness pour out a burst of incoherent joy at being with her once more.

Catching his expression, in which surprise, resentment and a sort of jealousy were all mixed, Betty said, when she got a chance: "Peter, this is a friend of mine, Mr. O'Grady."

Peter turned and held out his hand. "How are you? All Miss Townsend's friends have got to be my friends now."

The Irishman's vanity was greatly appealed to by the simple manliness of Peter's greeting, his cheery smile and his utter lack of side. He smiled back and, having given the hand a warm grip, drew himself up and saluted. At one time he had served in the British Army, and he wanted Peter to know it. He would have told him the story of his life then and there with, very likely, a few picturesque additions, but before he could arrange his opening sentence the two young people were out in the street. He watched them go off together, the one so broad and big, the other so slight and sweet, and said to himself, rolling a new quid of tobacco between his fingers: "Ah, thin; it's love's young dream once more! And it's a man he is. God bless both of them!"

"Are you feeling strong to-day, darling?" asked Peter.

"Strong as a lion," said Betty. "Why?"

"Because I'm going to walk you up the Avenue and into the Park and about six times round the reservoir. Can you stand it?"

Betty laughed. "Try me, and if I faint from exhaustion you can carry me into the street and call a taxicab. I'm not afraid of anything with you."

"That's fine! This is the first time we've been really alone since I came back. It'll take from now until the middle of next week to tell you even half the things I've got to say. First of all, I love you."

"_Darling_ Peter."

"I love you more than I ever did, much more--a hundred times more--and I don't care who hears me say so." That was true. He made this statement, not in a whisper, but in his natural voice, and it was overheard by several passers-by who turned their heads,--and being women, smiled sympathetically and went on their way with the deep thrill of the young giant's voice ringing in their ears like music.

They stood for a moment on the curbstone trying to find an opportunity to cross the street. Betty gave herself up to the masterly person at her side without a qualm. She adored being led by the arm through traffic which she wouldn't have dared to dodge had she been alone. It gave her a new and splendid sense of security and dependence.

The rain had begun to fall softly. It gathered strength as they turned into Fifth Avenue, and came down smartly. Betty didn't intend to say a word about the fact that she was wearing a new hat. It had escaped Peter's notice. Her face was all he saw. He wasn't even aware that it was raining until he took her arm and found her sleeve was wet.

"Good Lord!" he said. "This won't do. Dash this rain, it's going to spoil our walk. Where can we go? I know." A line of taxis was standing on a stand. He opened the door of the first one. "Pop in, baby," he said. "We'll drive to the Ritz and have tea. I can't have you getting wet."

Betty popped in, not really so profoundly sorry to escape that strenuous walk as Peter was.

Being a wise man he took full advantage of the taxicab, and for all the fact that it was broad daylight and that anybody who chose could watch him, he gave Betty a series of kisses which did something to make up for lost time and a long separation. The new hat suffered rather in the process, but what did that matter? This was love. Hats could be replaced--such a love as his, never.

"Your father is a great chap," said Peter. "We had a good yarn last night. By Jove! I wish my father had something of his friendly way. I felt that there was nothing I couldn't tell him--nothing that he wouldn't understand. Well, well; there it is. Graham and I will have to worry along as best we may. Everything'll come out all right, I hope."

"How did you like mother?" asked Betty.

"Well," said Peter, considering his answer with the greatest care, "she's undoubtedly a wonderful woman, but she scares me to death. The very first thing she did was to ask me to speak at one of her meetings."

Betty burst out laughing. "What--? Already? When are you speaking? What are you going to say?"

"Good Lord! What can I say? I can recite the Jabberwocky or the alphabet in English, French and American, but that finishes my repertory. Can you see me standing on a platform as white as a sheet trying to stammer out a few idiotic sentences to a room full of women? Look here! You've got to get it out of her head that I can be of the slightest use to her. Tell her I stutter, or that I've got no roof to my mouth--anything you like--but, for goodness sake, have my name taken off her list. Will you promise that? Already I wake up in the middle of the night in an absolute panic."

"Don't worry," said Betty, "Mother's a very strong-minded woman, but she's awfully easy to manage. And now I want you to promise me something."

"Anything in the world," said Peter.

"Well, then, don't mistake the Ritz for that dear little open place where the fairies dance, and suddenly kiss me in front of the band and all the people having tea."

"Hard luck," said Peter. "I'll do the best I can. But you're such an angel and you look so frightfully nice that I shall have all I can do to keep sane."

The cab drew up and they got out, went through the silly swinging doors which separate a man from his girl for a precious moment and into the Palm Court where the band was playing. Peter gave his hat and stick to a disgruntled waiter, who would have told him to check them outside but for his height and width.

The place was extraordinarily full for the time of year. Everywhere there were women, and every one of them was wearing some sort of erect feather in her hat. It gave the place the appearance of a large chicken run after a prolonged fracas. The band was playing the emotional music of _La Bohème_. It was in its best form. The waiter led them to a little table under a mimic window-sill which was crowded with plants. Many heads turned after them as they adventured between the chattering groups. It was so easy to see that their impending marriage had been arranged in Heaven.

"What sort of tea do you like?" asked Peter. "Anything hot and wet, or have you a choice? Really, I don't know the difference between one and another."

But Betty did. Hadn't she kept house for her father? "Orange Pekoe tea," she said, "and buttered toast."

Peter made it so, and in sitting down nearly knocked over the table. He was too big for such places and his legs got in the way of everything. At the other end of the room Kenyon was sitting with Belle. Betty had seen them at once, but she held her peace. For the first time in her life she appreciated the fact that two is company. Both men were too occupied to recognize anybody.

Peter was very happy and full of enthusiasm about everything, and Betty was an eager listener as he talked about her and himself and the future, while she poured out the tea. It was all very delightful and domestic and new and exhilarating, and it didn't require much imagination on the part of either of them to believe that they were sitting in their own house, far away from people, and that Peter had just come home after a long day's work, and that the band was their new Victrola performing in the corner. Only one thing made Betty aware of the fact that they were in the Ritz Hotel, and that was the pattern of the teacups. She never would have chosen such things, and if they had been given to her as a wedding present she would have packed them away in some far-off cupboard. She had already made up her mind that their first tea service was going to be blue-and-white, because it would go with her drawing-room,--the drawing-room which she had furnished in her dreams.

"I don't think you'd better do that, Peter," whispered Betty suddenly.

"Do what, darling?" Butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth.

"Why, hold my hand. Everybody can see."

"Not if you put it behind this end of the tablecloth. Besides, what if they can? I'm not ashamed of being in love. Are you?"

"No; I glory in it. But----"

"But what?" He held it tighter.

"I think you'd better give it back to me. There's an old lady frowning."

"Oh, she's only a poor benighted spinster. And anyhow she's not frowning. She put her eyebrows on in the dark."

"Very well, Peter. I suppose you know best." And Betty made no further attempts to rescue her hand.

She had two good reasons for leaving it there,--the first, that she liked it, and the second that she couldn't take it away. But she made sure that it was hidden by the tablecloth.

"Won't you smoke, Peter?"

"Oh, thanks. May I?"

"All the other men are."

Peter took out his case and his cigarette holder. It was very easy to take out a cigarette with one hand, but for the life of him he couldn't manoeuvre it into the tube. Was he so keen to smoke that he would let her hand go?

He gave it up and broke into a smile that almost made Betty bend forward and plant a resounding kiss on his square chin. "Well, I'm dashed," he said. "I believe you asked me to smoke on purpose to get free."

"I did," she said. "Peter, you're--you're just a darling."

And that was why he upset the glass of water.

Presently he said, when peace was restored: "What d'you think I've done to-day? I've fixed up a seat in the law office of two friends of mine. They were at Harvard with me--corkers both. I intend to start work next week. Isn't that fine? We're going to mop up all the work in the city. Darling, that apartment of ours is getting nearer and nearer. I shall be a tired business man soon and shall want a home to go to, with a little wife waiting for me."

And Betty said: "How soon do you think that'll be?"

Before Peter could answer, Belle's ringing voice broke in. She and Kenyon had come up unnoticed. "The turtle doves," she said. "Isn't it beautiful, Nick?"

"Well, rather!"

And the spell was broken. They little knew, these two who were so happy, that in the fertile brain of the man who stood smiling at them was the germ of a plan which would break their engagement and bring a black cloud over the scene.

VIII

The family dined early that evening. Graham had taken a box at the Maxine Elliott Theatre. He and Kenyon and Peter were to take Belle and Betty there to see a play by Edward Sheldon, about which everybody was talking. Little Mrs. Guthrie, who was to have been one of the party, had decided to stay at home, because the Doctor was not feeling very well, and so she was going to sit with him in the library and see that he went to bed early, and give him a dose of one of those old-fashioned cures in which she was a great believer.

Naturally enough, although he was not an ardent play-goer, Peter was looking forward with keen pleasure to the evening because he would be able to sit close to Betty and from time to time whisper in her ear. During dinner, however, which was a very merry meal, with Kenyon keeping everyone in fits of laughter, Peter caught something in his mother's eyes which made him revolutionize his plans. The little mother laughed as frequently as the rest of them,--to the casual observer she was merry and bright, with nothing on her mind except the slight indisposition of the Doctor. But Peter, who possessed an intuitive eye which had a knack of seeing underneath the surface of things and whose keen sympathy for those he loved was very easily stirred, became aware of the fact that his mother was only simulating light-heartedness and stood in need of something from him.

He threw his mind back quickly, and in a moment knew what was wrong. During the short time that he had been back in the city he had forgotten to give his little mother anything of himself. That was wrong and ungrateful and extremely selfish, and must be remedied at once.

Without a moment's hesitation he decided to cut two acts of the play and do everything that he could to prove to the little mother who meant so much to him that, although he was engaged to be married, she still retained her place in his heart.

Dinner over, he went quickly to the door and opened it, and as his mother passed out he put his arm round her shoulders and whispered, "Mummie, dear, slip up to your room and wait there for me. I want to talk to you." The look of gratitude that he received from the dear little woman was an immense reward for his unselfishness. Then he went up to Graham and said: "Look here, old boy, I find I shan't be able to go along with you now, but I'll join you for the last act."

"Oh, rot!" said Graham. "What's up? Betty'll be awfully upset."

"No, she won't," said Peter. "I'm going to send her a note." And while the others were getting ready, he dashed off a few lines to the girl who, like himself, understood the family feeling. It contained only a few lines, but they were characteristically Peterish and were calculated to make Betty add one more brick to the beautiful construction of her love for him, because they showed that he understood women and their sensitiveness and realized their urgent need of tenderness and appreciation.

As soon as the party had driven away, Peter collected a pipe and a tin of tobacco and went quickly up the wide staircase. He rushed into his mother's own particular room with all his old impetuosity and found her sitting at a table by the side of a great work-basket in which he saw a large collection of the socks that he had brought home with him and which stood badly in need of motherly attention. No man in this world made so many or such quick holes in the toes of his socks as Peter did, and he knew that she had ransacked the drawers to find them. He drew up a chair, thrust his long legs out in front of him and made himself completely comfortable.

This little room was unlike any other in the house. In it his mother had placed all the pet pieces of inexpensive furniture which had been in the sitting-room of the little house in which she and the Doctor had settled down when they were first married. It was unpretentious stuff, bought in a cheap store in a small town,--what is called "Mission" furniture,--curious, uncomfortable-looking chairs which creaked with every movement, odd little sideboards, which would have brought a grin either of pain or amusement to the face of the former owner of the beautifully furnished house which had been left to the Doctor. The walls were covered with photographs of the family in all stages,--Peter as a chubby baby with a great curl on top of his head--Belle in a perambulator smiling widely at a colored nurse--Graham in his first sailor-suit--Ethel bravely arrayed in a party frock, "Thinking of Mother"--and over the mantel-piece one--an enlargement--of the Doctor taken when he was a young man, with an unlined face and thick, straight hair, his jaws set with that grim determination which had carried him over so many obstacles. It was a room at which Graham, Belle and Ethel frequently laughed. But Peter liked it and respected it. He felt more at home there than anywhere else in the house. It reminded him of the early struggles of his father and mother and touched every responsive note in his nature.

"I'm sorry you're not going to the theatre, dear," said Mrs. Guthrie.

"No, you're not," said Peter.

"Oh, indeed I am. I like you to enjoy yourself with the others, and Betty'll be there. Only stay a few minutes; and, as the curtain always goes up late, you'll be in time to see the whole of the play."

"Blow the play!" said Peter. "I'm going to talk to you just as long as I like. I can go to the theatre any night of the week."

Mrs. Guthrie dropped her work, bent forward and put her cheek against Peter's. "You're a dear, dear boy," she said. "You're my very own Peter, and even if I were a poet I couldn't find words to tell you how happy you make me; but I did my best not to let you see that I was just a wee bit hurt because you haven't had time to spare me a few moments since you came home. After all, I'm only a little old mother now, and I must try to remember that."

"Oh, don't," said Peter. "I'm awfully sorry I've been such a thoughtless brute. But, no one--no, no one--can ever take your place, and you know it." He went down on his knees at her side and wrapped his strong arms round her and put his head upon her breast as he used to do when he was a little chap, and remained there for a while perfectly happy.

He couldn't see the Madonna look which came into the eyes of the little mother, whose pillow had frequently been wet with tears at the thought that she had lost her boy. Nor did he see the expression of extreme gratitude which spread rather pathetically over her face. But he felt these things and held her tightly just to show how well he understood, and to eliminate from her heart that feeling of pain which he knew had crept into it because he had found that other little mother who was to be his wife and have sons of her own.

Presently he returned to his chair and to his pipe, and began to talk. "By gad!" he said, "it's good to be home again. I find myself looking at everything differently now--quite time, too. I should have been at work years ago. Universities are great places and I shall never regret Oxford, but they take a long time to prepare a fellow to become a man." Then he laughed one of his great and big laughs, and his chair creaked and one or two of the old pieces of furniture seemed to rattle. "I hid those socks, but I knew you'd find them. What a mother you are, mother! I'll make a bet with you."

"I never bet," said Mrs. Guthrie, who was all smiles.

"I'll bet you a hundred dollars you never mend Graham's socks. Now then tell the truth."

"Well, no, I don't. He doesn't like socks that have been mended; and, anyway, he isn't my first-born. You see that makes a lot of difference."

"There you are," said Peter. "Pay up and smile. Oh, say; I'm sorry father's seedy. He sticks too closely to those microbes of his. I shall try to screw up courage and take him on a bust now and then. It'll do him good. Think he'll go?"

Mrs. Guthrie looked up eagerly. "Try," she said. "Please do try. Now that you've come home for good I want you to do everything you can to get closer to your father. He's a splendid man and he's always thinking about you and the others, but I know that he'll never make the first move. He doesn't seem to understand how to do it. But he deserves everything you can give him. If only you could break down his shyness and diffidence,--because that's what it is,--you'd make him very happy."

"Yes, that's what I think," said Peter. "I've been thinking it over, especially since I saw the way in which Kenyon's father treats him. I shall pluck up courage one of these nights, beard him in his den and have it out, and put things straight. I want him much more than he wants me; and, d'you know, I think that Graham wants him too."

"I'm sure he does," said Mrs. Guthrie. "Graham's a good boy, but he's very reckless and thinks that he's older than he is. He comes to me sometimes with his troubles, but how can I help him? I wish, Peter, I do wish that he'd go sometimes to his father!"

"Well, I'm going to try to alter all that," said Peter. "It's got to be done somehow. Father's always been afraid of us, and we've always been afraid of father. It's silly. What d'you think of Nicholas? Isn't he a corker?"

Mrs. Guthrie smiled. "He improves on acquaintance," she said. "He's certainly one of the most charming men I've ever met. Do you think"--she lowered her voice a little--"do you think there's anything between him and Belle?"

"Good Lord!" said Peter. "I never thought of that. Is there?"

"Well," said Mrs. Guthrie, "I've noticed one or two little things. He's been writing to her, you know."

"Has he? By Jove! Well, then, there must be something in it. He's a lazy beggar and I don't believe I've ever seen him write a letter in his life. Gee, I shall be awfully glad to have him for a brother-in-law! That topping place in Shropshire! Belle would make an absolutely perfect mistress of it, although there's plenty of life in the old man yet. By Jove, it was good to see the relationship between Nick and his father. It staggered me. Why, they were as good as friends. They go about arm in arm and tell each other everything. It used to make me feel quite sick sometimes. Think of my going about arm in arm with father!"

"Think of Belle becoming the Countess of Shropshire! I should like that. It would be another feather in your father's cap,--your father who used to carry siphons in a basket."

"More power to his elbow," said Peter. "It might have been better for me if I'd carried siphons in a basket. After all, I'm inclined to believe that there's no university in the world like the streets. Think of all the men who've graduated from windy corners and muddy gutters--It'd be a fine thing for Ethel, too, if Belle marries Nick. Isn't she an extraordinary kid? Upon my word, she takes my breath away. She's older at sixteen than most women are at thirty. By the way, what's the matter with her? What's anæmia, anyhow? She looks as fit as a fiddle."

"Oh, she'll soon get over that," said Mrs. Guthrie. "I think they bend too much over books at her school. You know the modern girl isn't like the girls of my generation. I didn't have to learn geometry or piano playing. I didn't think it was necessary to know Euclid or a smattering of the classics. We learned how to make bread and cook a good steak and iron clothes. You know husbands don't come home to hear Mozart on a Baby Grand and enter into discussions about writers with crack-jaw names."

"I know,--Ibsen, Schopenhauer, Hauptmann and Tolstoy. No; they don't fill a hungry tummie, do they?"

"No, indeed they don't," said Mrs. Guthrie. "And that reminds me that I must go and give your father his little dose. When a doctor isn't well he never knows how to look after himself." She got up and put down her work, and then bent over Peter. "Thank you for coming up to-night, my dearest boy. I've had a queer little pain in my heart for a long time, but you've taken it all away. Now run along and see your Betty, and don't worry about your little mother any longer."

Peter got up and put his hands on his mother's shoulders. "Listen!" he said. "I love you. I shall always love you. No woman shall ever come between me and you." And he caught her in his arms and kissed her.

And then she bustled down-stairs to the library, where the Doctor was taking it easy for once and dipping into one of the numerous books that surrounded him. There was a smile on Mrs. Guthrie's face which was like the sun on an autumn morning.

On the way to his bedroom Peter passed the door of Ethel's room, and drew up short. He had heard her say she was going to bed early. He hadn't had many words with her since he got back. So he decided to go in and wipe off that debt, too. When he tried to open the door he found that it was locked. He started a devil's tattoo with his knuckles. "Are you there, Kid?" he shouted out.

The answer was "Yes."

"Well, then, open the door. I want to come in."

After a moment the door was opened and Ethel stood there in a very becoming peignoir. She looked extremely disconcerted and did her best to block the way into the room.

But that wouldn't do for Peter. "What's all this?" he asked. "We lock our door now, do we?"

"Yes, sometimes," said Ethel. "Why aren't you at the theatre?" She shot a surreptitious glance towards the window, which was open.

"I've been having a talk with mother," said Peter. "Hello! I see you've been trigging up your room. Frightfully swagger now, isn't it. New art, eh? You're coming on, my dear, there's no mistake about that. I'm afraid you find us all appallingly provincial, don't you?"

The broad grin on Peter's face was no new thing to Ethel. He had always pulled her leg and treated her as though she were a sort of freak. All the same, she liked his coming in and was flattered to know that he thought it worth while to bother about her. But she began to edge him to the door. He had come at a most unpropitious moment.

"Oh ho!" said Peter. "So this's what higher education does for you? A nice mixture--cigarettes and candies--I must say. Now I know why you locked your door. With a marshmallow in one hand and an Egyptian Beauty in the other you lie on your sofa in the latest thing in peignoirs and see life through the pages of,--what?" He picked up a book from the table. "Good Lord!" he added; "you don't mean to say you stuff this piffle into you?" It was a collection of plays by Strindberg.

"Oh, go to the theatre!" said Ethel. "You're being horridly Oxford now and I hate it."

"You'll get a lot more of it before I've done with you," said Peter. "All the same, you look very nice, my dear. I'm very proud of you, and I hope you will do me the honour to be seen about with me sometimes. But how about taking some of that powder off your nose? If you begin trying to hide it at sixteen it'll be lost altogether at twenty." He made a sudden pounce at her and holding both her hands so that she could not scratch, rubbed all the powder away from her little proud nose and made for the door, just missing the cushion which came flying after him, and took himself and his big laugh along the passage.

Immensely relieved at being left alone, Ethel locked the door again and went over to her dressing-table, where she repaired damage with quick, deft fingers. With another glance at the window,--a glance in which there was some impatience,--she arranged herself on the settee to wait.

IX

No wonder Peter had made remarks about this room. It was deliciously characteristic of its owner. Large and airy; all its furniture was white and its hangings were of creamy cretonne covered with little rosebuds. The narrow bed was tucked away in a corner so that the writing-desk, the sofa and the revolving book-stand--on which stood a bowl of mammoth chrysanthemums--might dominate the room. Several mezzotints of Watts' pictures hung on the walls and a collection of framed illustrations of the Arabian Nights, by Dulac. The whole effect was one of naïve sophistication.

Through the open window the various sounds of the city's activity floated rather pleasantly. There was even a note of cheerfulness in the insistent bells of the trolley-cars on Madison Avenue and the chugging of a taxicab on the other side of the street. Before many minutes had gone by a rope ladder dangled outside the window, and this was followed immediately afterwards by the lithe and wiry figure of a boy. Wearing a rather sheepish expression he remained sitting on the sill, swinging his legs. "Hello!" said he. "How are you feeling?"

"There's some improvement to-night," said Ethel. "Won't you come in? Were you waiting for a signal?"

"You bet!"

He was a nice boy, with a frank, honest face, a blunt nose and a laughing mouth. His hair was dark and thick, and his shoulders square. He was eighteen and he looked every day of it. He lived next door and was the son of a man who owned a line of steamships and a French mother, who was not on speaking terms with Mrs. Guthrie, owing to the fact that the Doctor had been obliged to remonstrate about her parrot. This expensive prodigy gave the most lifelike and frequent imitations of cats, trolley-cars, newsboys, sirens and other superfluous and distressing disturbances on the window-sill of the room which was next to his laboratory. So this boy and girl--unconsciously playing all over again the story of the Montagues and Capulets--met surreptitiously night after night, the boy coming over the roof and using the rope ladder--which had played its part in all the great romances. Was there any harm in him? Well, he was eighteen.

"What'll you have first?" asked Ethel, in her best hostess manner--"candies or cigarettes?"

"Both," said the boy; and with a lump in his cheek and an expression of admiration in both eyes he started a cigarette. He was about to sit on the settee at Ethel's feet, but she pointed to a chair and into this he subsided, crossing one leg over the other and hitching his trousers rather high so that he might display to full advantage a pair of very smart socks, newly purchased.

"I hope you locked your bedroom door," said Ethel, "and please don't forget to whisper. There's no chance of our being caught, but we may as well be careful."

The boy nodded and made a little face. "If father found out about this," he said; "oh, Gee! What did you do with Ellen after she bounced in last night?"

"Oh, I gave her one of my hats. I told her that if she kept quiet there was a frock waiting for her. She's safe. Now, amuse me!"

For some minutes the boy remained silent, worrying his brain as to how to comply with the girl's rather difficult and peremptory request. He knew that she was not easy to amuse. He was a little frightened at the books she read and looked up to her with a certain amount of awe. He liked her best when she said nothing and was content to sit quite quiet and look pretty. After deep and steady thought he took a chance. "Do you know this one?" he asked, and started whistling a new ragtime through his teeth.

It was new to Ethel. She liked it. Its rhythm set her feet moving. "Oh, that's fine," she said. "What are the words?"

The boy was a gentleman. He shook his head, thereby stimulating her curiosity a hundred-fold.

"Oh don't be silly. I shall know them sooner or later, whatever they are--besides, I'm not a child."

The boy lied chivalrously. "Well, honestly, I don't know them,--something about 'Row, row, row'--I don't know the rest."

She knew that he did know. She liked him for not telling her the truth, but she made a mental note to order the song the following morning.

And so, for about an hour, these two young things who imagined that this was life carried on a desultory conversation, while the boy gradually filled the room with cigarette smoke, and remained reluctantly a whole yard away from the sofa. It was all very childish and simple, but to them it was romance with a very big R. They were making believe that they had thrown the world back about a hundred years or so. He was a knight and she a lady in an enemy's castle; and, although their mothers didn't speak, they liked to ignore the fact that Mrs. Guthrie would have had no objection to his coming to tea as often as he desired and taking Ethel for walks in broad daylight whenever he wished for a little mild exercise. But,--he was eighteen, and so presently, repulsed by her tongue but enticed by her eyes, he left his chair and found himself sitting on the settee at Ethel's feet, holding her hand, which thrilled him very much. She was kinder than usual that night, sweeter and more girlish. Her stockings were awfully pretty, too, and her hair went into more than usually delicious ripples round her face.

"You're a darling," he said suddenly. "I love to come here like this. I hope you'll be ill for a month." And he slid forward with gymnastic clumsiness and put his arm round her shoulder. He was just going to kiss her and so satisfy an overwhelming craving when there was a soft knock on the door and Dr. Guthrie's voice followed it. "Are you awake, Ethel?"

The boy sprang to his feet, stood for a moment with a look of peculiar shame on his face, turned on his heels, made for the window, went through it like a rabbit and up the troubadour ladder, which disappeared after him.

Ethel held her breath and remained transfixed. Again the knock came and the question was repeated. But she made no answer, and presently, when the sound of footsteps died away, she got up--a little peevish and more than a little irritable--kicked a small pile of cigarette ash which the boy had dropped upon her carpet, and said to herself: "_Just_ as he was going to kiss me! Goodness, how _annoying_ father is!"

X

The following morning Belle took Nicholas Kenyon for a walk. Dressed in a suit of blue flannel with white bone buttons, with a pair of white spats gleaming over patent leather shoes and a grey hat stuck at an angle of forty-five, Kenyon looked as fresh and as dapper as though he had been to bed the night before at ten o'clock. He had, as a matter of fact, come home with the milk; but he was one of those men who possess the enviable gift of looking healthy and untired after the sort of nights which make the ordinary man turn to chemistry and vibro-massage.

Belle had sported a new hat for the occasion.

This fact Kenyon realized with that queer touch of intuition which was characteristic of him. "By Jove!" he said. "That's something like a hat, Belle. Hearty congratulations. You suit it to perfection."

Belle beamed upon him. "But you would say that anyhow, wouldn't you?"

"Perfectly true; but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I shouldn't mean it."

They turned into Madison Avenue. It was an exquisite morning. The whole city was bathed in sun, but the refreshing tang of late autumn was in the air. Most of the large houses were still closed, their owners lingering in the country or abroad. All the same there was the inevitable amount of traffic in the streets and apparently the usual number of passers-by. The city can be--according to the strange little creatures who write society news--"utterly deserted" and yet contain all its teeming millions.

"And what may that be?" asked Kenyon, pointing to the heavy white buttresses of a church which backed on the street.

"Oh, that's the Roman Catholic Cathedral."

"Roman Catholic, eh? I noticed churches everywhere as we drove up from the docks,--more churches than pubs apparently, and yet I suppose it would be quite absurd to imagine that New Yorkers imbibe their alcohol entirely in the form of religion."

"Quite," said Belle, dryly. "Although we have a hundred religions and only five cocktails."

"I see you also go in for antique furniture."

Belle laughed. "You have a quick eye," she said. "There's so much genuine Old English stuff in this city that if it were sent to England there wouldn't be room for it on shore. Tell me; what are your plans?"

"Well," said Kenyon, "I'm going to accept your father's perfectly charming hospitality for a fortnight and then take rooms in a bachelor apartment-house, of which Graham has told me, for the winter."

"You're going to settle down here?" cried Belle.

"Rather,--for six months. I'm here to study the conditions, make myself familiar with the characteristics and draw from both what I hope will be the foundations of much usefulness." Kenyon considered that he had enveloped his true mission--which was to lighten the pockets of all unwary young men--with a satirical verbiage that did him credit.

"I thought that perhaps you'd come for some other reason," said Belle, whose whole face showed her disappointment.

Kenyon shot a quick glance at her. How naïve she was--how very much too easy--but, nevertheless, how very young and desirable. "That goes without saying, you delicious thing," he replied, closing his hand warmly round her arm for a moment and so bringing the light back to her eyes. "By the way," he continued, "what's the matter with Graham?"

"I don't know that anything's the matter with Graham."

"I think so. I notice a worried look about him that he didn't have at Oxford; that he seems to be always on the verge of telling me something, and drawing back at the last minute. I must make a point of finding out what his trouble is. Peter and I were discussing it this morning after breakfast. We're both a bit anxious about him. Do you know if your father has noticed it?"

"Father? Oh, he doesn't notice anything. He believes that Graham is working very hard and doing well. He knows less about what goes on in our house than the people who live next door."

"That's rather a pity. I'm all for complete confidence between father and son. However, I shall play father to Graham for a bit and see what can be done for him. He puzzles me. There's a mystery somewhere."

Something of this mystery was disclosed to Kenyon and Peter that night. After dining them both at the Harvard Club--a place which filled Kenyon with admiration and surprise--Graham suddenly suggested, with a queer touch of excitement, that they should go with him to his apartment.

"Your apartment?" said Peter. "What on earth do you mean?"

"Well, come and see," said Graham.

The two elder men looked at each other in amazement. Kenyon's quick mind ran ahead, but Peter, the unsophisticated, was quite unable to understand what in the world Graham wanted an apartment for when he lived at home. They all three left West Forty-fourth Street in silence and walked arm in arm down Fifth Avenue as far as Twenty-eighth Street. Here they turned westward and followed Graham, who was wearing an air of rather sheepish pride, up the steps of an old brown stone house with rather a shabby portico.

"Dismal looking hole," said Peter.

"Wait!" said Graham, and he put his finger on a bell. The door opened automatically and he led the way into a scantily furnished hall and up three flights of stairs, whose red carpet was in the autumn of its days. Drawing up in front of a door on the left of the passage he rang again, and after a lengthy pause was admitted to a small apartment by a colored maid, who gave a wide grin of recognition.

"Come right in," said Graham. "Lily, take our hats and coats. Don't leave them about in the hall. Hang them up and then go and get some drinks."

Kenyon looked about him curiously. He could see that the place was newly furnished and that everything had been chosen by a man. He glanced into the dining-room. The pictures were sporting and the furniture mission. He detected no sign of a woman's hand anywhere. He began to be puzzled. He had expected to find something quite different. But when Graham opened the door of the sitting-room and said: "Well, here we are, Ita!" and he saw a small, dark, olive-skinned girl rise up from a settee and run forward to Graham with a little cry of welcome, he knew that his deduction of the situation had been a right one. So this was the mystery.

Still with the same air of sheepish pride, Graham said: "Peter, this is Miss Ita Strabosck. My brother, Ita. And this is Nicholas Kenyon, who's a great friend of mine. They've just come over from England, and so of course I've brought them to see you."

The little girl held out a very shy hand, and said: "I am so glad. Eet ees very good of you to come."

In a curiously plain tight frock of some soft black material, cut square across her tiny breasts, and leaving her arms bare almost to the shoulders, she stood, with one knee bent, looking from one man to the other with a sort of wistful eagerness to be treated kindly. She held a tiny black Teddy bear with red eyes against her cheek, like a child.

Peter, for a reason which he was unable to explain to himself, felt a wave of sympathy go over him. He not only accepted the girl on her face value, but somehow or other believed her to be younger and more romantic than she looked. She seemed to him to have stepped out of the pages of some Arabian book--to be a little exotic whom Graham must have discovered far away from her native hot-house. He liked the way in which her thick hair was arranged round her face, and he would have sworn that she was without guile.

Not so Kenyon. "Great Scott!" he said to himself. "Here's a little devil for you. Our young friend Graham has had his leg pulled. I've seen mosquitoes before, but the poison of this one will take all the ingenuity of an expert to counteract."

He sat down and watched the girl, who threw one quick antagonistic glance at him and attached herself to Peter, to whom she talked in monosyllables. She might only very recently have left a Convent School, except that her dog-like worship of Graham seemed to prove that she owed him a deep debt of gratitude for some great service.

Graham watched her, too, and his expression showed Kenyon that even if he didn't love her he believed in her and was proud of himself.

XI

By a sort of mutual consent the three men left the apartment in Twenty-eighth Street early. They did not desire to finish the evening at any cabaret or club. They called the first passing taxicab and drove home. By mutual consent also they never once referred to Ita Strabosck, but discussed everything else under the sun. Kenyon had never been so useful. With consummate tact--but all the while with the picture in his mind of the cunning little actress whom they had just left--he led the conversation from dancing to baseball and from country clubs to women's clothes. Whenever the cab passed a strong light Graham made a quick, examining glance at Peter's face. He knew old Peter as well as Peter knew his piano, and he was quite well aware of the fact that although his brother laughed a good deal at Kenyon's quaint turn of phrase he was upset at what he had seen.

It was just after eleven o'clock when they went into the smoking-room of the house in Fifty-second Street. Mrs. Guthrie and Ethel had gone to bed. Belle had not returned from a theatre party. The Doctor was at work in his laboratory. He heard the boys come in. The sound of their voices made him raise his head eagerly. He even half-rose from his chair in a desire to join them and hear them talk, and laugh with them and get from them some of that sense of youth which they exuded so pleasantly, but his terrible shyness got the better of him once more and he returned to his experiments. How ironical it was that with complete unconsciousness he was leaving it to such a man as Nicholas Kenyon to play father to his second son, who had never in his short life needed a real father so badly.

For some little time--smoking a good cigar with complete appreciation--Kenyon continued to give forth his impressions of New York so far as he knew it. He was especially amusing in his description of the effect upon him of the first sight of the Great White Way. Then, all of a sudden, there came one of those strange pauses. It was Peter who broke the silence. "Graham, old boy," he said, "tell us about it. What does it all mean? Good Lord! you're only twenty-four. Are you married?"

Before Graham could reply, Kenyon sent out a scoffing laugh. "Married! Is he married?" he cried. "My good old grandfather's ghost, Peter! But how indescribably green you are. Hang me if you're not like a sort of Peter Pan! You've passed through Harvard and Oxford with a skin over your eyes. It's all very beautiful, very commendable--and what Belle would call 'very dear' of you--and all that sort of thing, but somehow you make me feel that I've got to go through life with you in the capacity of the sort of guide one hires in Paris--the human Baedeker."

"But if Graham hasn't married that poor girl," said Peter, bluntly, "what's he doing with her?"

Graham sprang to his feet and began to walk about the room. All about his tall, slight, well-built figure there was a curious nervousness and excitement. Even in the carefully subdued light of the room it was plain to see that his face was rather haggard and drawn. The boy looked years older than Peter. "I'll start off," he said, "by giving you fellows my word of honor that what I'm going to tell you is the truth. I have to begin like this because if either of you were to tell me this story I don't think I should be able to believe it. Some time ago I was taken--I forget by whom--to a pestilential but rather amusing place in Fortieth Street. It's a huge studio run by a woman who calls herself Papowsky. It's what you, Nick, would call the last word in supereffeteness. Ita Strabosck was one of the girls. I liked her at once. I didn't fall in love with her, but she appealed to me and it was simply to see her that I went there several times. I knew the place was pretty rotten and I didn't cotton on to the people who were there or the things they did. I even knew that the police had their eyes on it, but I liked it all the more because of that. It gave it a sort of zest, like absinthe in whiskey."

"Quite!" said Kenyon. "Fire away!"

"The last time I went there, Ita took me into a corner, told me that she was never allowed out of the place and was a sort of White Slave, and begged me to take her away. I don't think I shall ever forget the sight of that poor little wretch trembling and shaking. It was pretty bad. Well, I took her away. I got her out by a fire-escape when nobody was watching us. Dodged through a window of a restaurant on the first floor, and so out into the street. It was very tricky work. The day after I took the apartment that you came to to-night, furnished it, and there Ita has been ever since. I go there nearly every night until the small hours. She's happy now and safe and I don't regret it. She hated the place and the things she had been forced to do and nothing will make me believe that she was bad. She was just a victim--that's all. And if I have to go without things I don't care so long as she has all she needs. That's the story. What d'you think of it?"

Peter got up, went over to his brother and held out his hand silently. With a rather pathetic expression of gratitude in his eyes, Graham took it and held it tight. "That's like you, Peter," he said, a little huskily.

Kenyon made no movement. He looked with a pitying smile at the two boys as they stood eye to eye. The whole thing sounded to him like a fairy tale and for a moment he wondered whether Graham was not endeavoring to obtain their sympathy under false pretences. Then he made up his mind that Graham--like the man with whom he had lived at Oxford--was green also, for all that he had knocked about in New York for two years. Not from any kindness of heart, but simply because he wanted to use Graham as a means of introducing him to the young male wealthy set of the city, he determined to get him out somehow or other of this disastrous entanglement. He would however go to work tactfully without allowing Graham to think that he had made a complete fool of himself. He knew that if he wounded this boy's vanity and brought him down from his heroic pedestal he would set his teeth, put his back to the wall and refuse to be assisted. With keen insight he could see that this incident was likely to injure the usefulness of his visit to America.

"Um!" he said. "It's a pitiful story, Graham. You behaved devilish well, old boy. Not many men would have acted so quickly and so unselfishly. Now, sit down and tell me a few things."

Gladly enough Graham did so, heaving a great sigh. He was glad that he had made a clear breast of all this. He was too young to keep it a secret. He wanted sympathy urgently and a little human help. Peter loaded and lit a pipe and drew his chair into the group.

"This girl Ita What's-her-name loves you, of course?"

Graham nodded.

"Anyone could see that," said Peter.

"But she'd been in that studio some time before you came along, I take it,--I mean she'd been anybody's property for the asking?"

Graham shuddered. "I hate to think so," he said.

Peter kicked the leg of the nearest chair.

"How d'you feel?" asked Kenyon.

"Awfully sorry for her," said Graham.

"Yes, of course. What I mean is, are you all right?"

Graham looked puzzled. "I find it rather difficult to pay for everything," he said, "especially as I've been damned unlucky lately."

The man of the world involuntarily raised his eyebrows. "Good Lord!" he said to himself. "And this boy is the son of a specialist. Blind--blind!" Then he spoke aloud, passing on to another point. "How long do you think it is incumbent upon you to make yourself the guardian of this girl?"

Graham shrugged his shoulders. "She comes from Poland. Her father and mother are dead and she has no one to look after her."

"I'll help you," said Peter.

That was exactly what Kenyon didn't want. He got up, went over to the table and mixed a drink. "Potter off to bed, Graham, old boy," he said. "Get a good night's rest. You need it. We'll go further into the matter in a day or two. It requires serious consideration. Anyway, I congratulate you. You're a bit of a knight, and you've my complete admiration." He led the boy to the door, patted him on the shoulder and got rid of him. Then he returned to Peter, whose face showed that he was laboring under many conflicting emotions.

"Nick," he said, "he's only twenty-four--just making a beginning. He did the only thing he could do under the circumstances, but,--but what would father say?"

"I don't think it's a question as to what your father would say," said Kenyon. "If I know anything, the way to put it is what can your father do? Of all men in the city he's the one who could be most useful in this peculiar mess-up--Peter, you and I have got to get that boy out of this, otherwise----"

"Otherwise what?"

"Otherwise--quite shortly--the police are likely to fish out of the river the dead body of a promising lad of twenty-four, and there'll be great grief in this house."

"What d'you mean?"

"Exactly what I say. That girl's a liar, a cheat and a fraud."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care whether you believe me or not. She's rotten from head to foot. She's as easy to read as an advertisement. She's taking advantage of a fellow who's as unsuspicious as you are. You're both green,--green, I tell you,--as green as grass."

"I'd rather be green," cried Peter, hotly, "than go through life with your rotten skepticism."

"Would you? You talk like an infant. Graham will want to marry some day,--and then what? Good Heavens! Hasn't anybody taken the trouble to tell you two any of the facts of life? You are neither of you fit to be allowed out in the streets without a nurse. It's appalling. Skeptical, you call me. You're blind, I tell you. Blind! So's the old man in the next room. There's an ugly shadow over this house, Peter, as sure as you're alive. Don't stand there glaring at me. I'm talking facts. If you've got any regard for your brother and his health and his future; if you want to save your mother from unutterable suffering and your father from a hideous awakening, don't talk any further drivel to me, but make up your mind that the girl, Ita Strasbosck, has it in her power to turn Graham into a suicide. She's a liar--a liar and a trickster and a menace--and I'll make it my business to prove it to you and Graham."

"You can't."

"Can't I? We'll see about that. And you've got to help me. We've got to make Graham see that he must shake her off at once,--at once, I tell you. The alternative you know."

Peter got up and strode about the room. He was worried and anxious. He didn't, unfortunately, fully appreciate the gravity of this affair, because, as Kenyon had said so tauntingly, he was a child in such matters. But what he did appreciate was that his only brother had done something, however sympathetic the motive, which might have far-reaching consequences and which did away with the possibility of his going, as it was Peter's determination to go, clean and straight to a good girl.

He turned to Kenyon, who had made himself comfortable. "I'll help you for all I'm worth, Nick," he said.

"Right," said Kenyon. "I'll think out a line of action and let you know to-morrow. There's no time to be lost."

XII

Kenyon got rid of Peter, too.

Apart from the fact that he was going to wait up for Belle, he wanted to be alone. He was angry. It was just like his bad luck to come all the way to America and find that the two men who had it in their power to be of substantial use to him were both fully occupied,--one being hopelessly in love, the other in money trouble and in what he recognized as a difficult and even dangerous position. With characteristic selfishness he resented these things. They made it necessary for him to exercise his brain,--not for himself--which was his idea of the whole art of living--but for others. There were other things that he resented also. One was the fact that Peter was what he called a damned child. He had no admiration whatever for his friend's absolute determination to look only at the clean things of life. A thousand times since they had shared the same rooms he had cursed Peter because of his sweeping refusal to discuss a question which he knew to be of vital and far-reaching importance. At these times Peter had always said something like this: "My dear Nick, I'm not going to be a doctor, a woman-hunter, or a sloppy man about town. I don't want to know any details whatever of the things which stir up other men's curiosity. I've no room in my brain for them. They don't amuse me or interest me. I'm jolly well going to remain a damned child, whether you like it or not, so you may chuck trying to drag me into these midnight discussions of yours with the men who hang nudes all over their walls and gloat over filthy little French books."

And then there was Graham. He, like untold hundreds of his type, had a certain amount of precocity, but no knowledge. He had merely peeked at the truth of things through a chink. He had looked at life with the salacious eyes of a Peeping Tom. And what was the result? Worse than total ignorance. Deep down in whatever soul he had, Nicholas Kenyon honestly and truly believed in friendship between father and son. He knew--none better--because it was his business to observe, that a young man was frightfully and terribly handicapped who went out into the world unwarned, unadvised and uninitiated. He had often come across men like Peter and Graham whose lives had been absolutely ruined at the very outset for the reason that their fathers had either been too cowardly or too indifferent to give them the benefit of their own experience and early troubles. In fact, most of the men he knew--and he knew a great many--had been left to discover the essential truths and facts for themselves. The inevitable end of it was that they made their discoveries too late.

Fate certainly must have had a very grim amusement in watching Nicholas Kenyon as he walked up and down the library of Dr. Hunter Guthrie's house that night, blazing at the delinquencies of fathers. Nevertheless, Kenyon had the right to be indignant, whether his reasons for being so sprang out of his selfishness or not. His own father was an unscrupulous, unserious man, that was true, but at any rate he had given his son a human chance. He could take it or leave it as he liked. And when Kenyon, piecing together all that he had heard of Dr. Guthrie from Peter, from Graham and from Belle, added all that to the very obvious fact that these two boys were out in the world with blind eyes, he burst into a scoffing laugh. In his mind's eye he could see the excellent and distinguished Doctor rounding his back over experiments for the benefit of humanity, while he utterly neglected to give two of the human beings for whom he was responsible the few words of advice which would render it unnecessary for them to become his patients.

If Kenyon had been a more generous man--if in his nature there had been one small grain of unselfishness--he would have gone at that very moment, then and there, to the door of the Doctor's laboratory--into that wonderful room--sat down opposite the man who spent his life in it with such noble concentration and begged him to desert his microbes and turn his attention to his sons. As it was he neglected to take an opportunity which would have enabled the recording angel to make one very good entry on the blank credit side of his account, and concentrated upon a way in which he could use Peter and Graham for his own material ends. He was immediately faced therefore with two "jobs," as he called them,--one to queer Peter's engagement with Betty, in order that he might achieve his friend's whole attention, the other to lift Graham out of his ghastly entanglement, for the same purpose. Bringing himself up to that point and relying upon his ingenuity with complete confidence, Kenyon mixed himself another high-ball and listened with a certain amount of eagerness for Belle's light step.

He hadn't long to wait. He had just gone into the dimly lighted hall with the intention of getting some air on the front doorstep, when the door opened and Belle let herself in.

"You keep nice hours," he said.

Belle had been dancing. Her cheeks were glowing and her eyes bright. She had never looked so all-conqueringly youthful or so imbued with the joy of life. She came across to him like a young goddess of the forest, with the wild beauty and that suggestion of unrestraint which always made Kenyon's blood run quickly.

"Have you waited for me?" she asked. "How perfectly adorable of you."

"What have you been doing?"

"Oh, the usual things--dinner, theatre, dancing."

Kenyon went nearer and put his hands on her arms, hotly. "Curse those men!" he said.

"What men?"

"The men who've been holding you to-night. Why have I come over? Can't you scratch these engagements and wait for me? I'm not going to share you with every Tom, Dick and Harry in this place."

A feeling of triumph came to Belle--a new feeling--because hitherto this man's attitude had been that of master. "You're jealous!" she cried.

Kenyon turned away sharply. For once he was not playing with this girl for the sport of the thing, just to see what she would say and do in order to pass away the time. The whole evening had tended to upset his calculations and plans. He had found himself thrown suddenly into a position of responsibility,--a state that he avoided with rare and consummate agility. And now came Belle, radiant and high-spirited, from an evening spent with other men,--more beautiful and desirable than he had ever seen her look.

Belle turned him back. "You _are_ jealous, you _are_."

"Oh, good Lord, no," said Kenyon, with his most bored drawl. "Why should I be? After all it isn't for me to care what you do, is it? It's a large world and there's plenty of room for both of us--what?"

He walked away.

Triumph blazed in Belle's heart. She saw in Kenyon's eyes that he was saying the very opposite of the thoughts that were in his mind. She almost shouted with joy. She had longed to see into the heart of this man who was under such complete and aggravating self-control,--even to hurt him to obtain a big, spontaneous outburst of emotion from him. She loved him desperately, indiscreetly--far too well for her peace of mind--and she urgently needed some answering sparks of fire.

She didn't move. She stood with her cloak thrown back, her chin held high and the light falling on her dark hair and white flesh. This was her moment. She would seize it.

"Yes, there _is_ plenty of room for us both," she said, "and the fact that I shall go on dancing with other men needn't inconvenience you in the least. I don't suppose that we shall even see each other in the crowd. There are many men who'll give their ears to dance with me,--I mean men who can dance, not bored Englishmen."

She drew blood. Kenyon went across to her quickly. "How dare you talk to me like that! Curse these men and their ears. Who's brought me to this country? You know I came for you,--you know it. I _am_ jealous--as jealous as the devil. And if ever you let another man put his arms round you I'll smash his face." He put out his hot hands to catch her.

But, with a little teasing laugh, Belle dodged and flitted into the library. The spirit of coquettishness was awake in her. _She_ had the upper hand now and a small account to render for missed mails, and an appearance of being too sure. She threw off her cloak and stood with her back to the fireplace, looking like one of Romney's pictures of Lady Hamilton come to life.

Kenyon strode in after her, all stirred by her beauty. "In future," he said, "you dance with me. You understand?"

Belle raised her eyebrows and then bowed profoundly. "As you say, O my master!" And then she held out her arms with a sudden delicious abandon. "Take me, then. Let's dance all the way through life."

Kenyon caught her, and all about the room these two went, moving together in perfect unison, cheek to cheek, until almost breathless Belle broke into a little laugh, stopped singing, and said: "The band's tired." But Kenyon held her tighter and closer and kissed her lips again and again and again.

With a little touch of warning in its tone the clock on the mantel-piece presently struck two, and Belle freed herself and straightened her hair with a rather uncertain hand. "I must go now," she said breathlessly. "Father may be working late. Supposing he came through this room?"

"Serve him right," said Kenyon.

They went upstairs together on tip-toe, and halted for a moment on the threshold of Belle's bed-room. Through the half-open door Kenyon saw the glow of yellow light on the dressing-table, and the corner of a virginal bed. Once more he kissed her and then, breathing hard, went to his own room, stood in the darkness for a moment, and thanked his lucky star for the gift of Belle.

XIII

The following afternoon, Peter, Kenyon and Belle went to see Ranken Townsend's pictures and to have tea with Betty. The little party was a great success. Peter and the artist got on splendidly together, which filled Betty with joy and gladness, and Kenyon had added to the general smoothness and pleasantness by offering extremely intelligent and enthusiastic criticism of the canvasses that were shown to him, drawing subtle comparisons between them and those of Reynolds and Gainsborough. Like all true artists, Townsend was a humble man and unsuspicious. He believed, in the manner of all good workers, that he had yet to find himself, although he had met with uncommon success. He was, therefore, much heartened and warmed by the remarks of one who, although young, evidently knew of what he was talking and proved himself to be something of a judge. When Kenyon received a cordial invitation to come again to the studio he solidified the good impression that he had made by saying that he would be honoured and delighted.

There had been a sharp shower during tea, but the sky had cleared when they left Gramercy Park, taking Betty with them, and so they started out to walk home.

Belle and Betty went on in front, arm in arm, and the two friends followed. This suited Kenyon exactly. He had laid his plan and had something to say to Peter.

Belle was very happy, and she showed it. She looked round at Betty with her eyes dancing. "I can see that you're dying to ask me something," she said. "But don't. You and I don't have to ask each other questions. We've always told each other everything, and we always will."

"Belle, you're en-ga----"

"S-s-s-h! Don't mention the word."

"Why?"

"Well, we've been talking this afternoon and Nicholas says, and I think he's right--though I wish he weren't--that he doesn't want to go to father until he's been here longer and has made up his mind what he's going to do. You see, he's not well off. He's got to work,--although I can't fancy Nicholas working,--and so we're not going to be really engaged for a few months. Meantime, he's going to look round and find something to do. That'll be easy. You don't know how clever he is,--not merely clever--a monkey can be clever, or a conjurer--the word I meant to use was 'able.' Aren't you glad? Isn't it splendid?"

"Oh, my dear," said Betty, "wouldn't it be perfectly wonderful if we could be married on the same day? Of course I've seen it coming----"

Belle laughed. "I knew you'd say that. Personally I didn't see it coming. After we'd left Oxford I began to think that Nicholas had only been flirting with me. He wrote such curious, aloof little letters and very few of them. They might have been written by an epigramist to his maiden aunt; but last night,--well, last night made everything different, and this afternoon we've had a long talk. Of course I wish we were going to be openly and properly engaged, but I'm very happy and so I don't grumble."

"As the future Countess of Shropshire, I wonder whether you will ever give a little back room in your beautiful English place to the young American lawyer and his wife!"

"Betty, I swear to you that I don't care a dime about all that now,--I mean the title and the place. It's just Nicholas that I want--Nicholas, and no one else. I wouldn't care if he were what he calls a 'bounder' or a 'townee.' My dear, I'm mad about him--just mad."

"Isn't everything as right as Truth?" said Betty. "The more I see Peter the more I love him. He's,--well, he's a man, and he's mine. He's mine for another reason, and that's because he's always going to be a boy, and I'm here to look after him. He'll need me. And I must have him need me, too, because I need to be needed. Do you understand?"

Belle nodded. "You're the born mother, my dear," she said, "whereas, I'm,--well, not. I want love--just love. I'll give everything I've got in the world for that--everything. Love and excitement and movement,--to go from place to place meeting new people, hearing new languages, seeing new types, living bigly and broadly, being consulted by a man who's brilliant and far-seeing,--_that's_ what I need. That's _my_ idea of life. Ah-h!" She shot out a deep breath and threw her chin up as though to challenge argument.

Betty watched her with admiration. She had never looked so unusual, so exhilarated, so fine. All about her there was the very essence of youth and courage and health. There was a glow in her white skin that was the mere reflection of the fire that was alight in her heart. Given happiness this girl would burst into the most fragrant blossoming and gleam among her sisters like a rose in a pansy bed. Given pain and disillusion she had it in her to fling rules, observances, caution, common sense and even self-respect to the four winds and go with all possible speed to the devil.

"What would have happened to us both if we hadn't gone to Oxford?" asked Betty, with an almost comical touch of gravity. "Think! I should be doomed to be a little old maid, with nothing but an even smaller dog to keep in order, and as for you----"

"I? Don't let's talk about it. I should have gone top-pace through several years and then, with thirty looming ahead, married a nice safe man with oodles of money who would spend his life following me round. Thank Heaven, I shall never be the centre of that ghastly picture!"

And so they went on, these two young things, opening up their hearts to each other as they walked home and flying off at all manner of feminine tangents.

Kenyon, perfectly satisfied with his talk to Belle, whom he had secured without binding himself to anything definite, was wearing white spats, and so he picked his way across the wet streets like a cat on hot bricks. For several blocks he permitted Peter to talk about Betty. His affectation of interest and sympathy was not so well done as usual. He had determined, with a sort of professional jealousy, not to allow Ita Strabosck to trade on Graham's credulity any longer. All his thoughts were concentrated on his plan to smash up that burlesque arrangement, as he inwardly called it. If anyone were to make use of Graham he intended to be that one. The girl, at present a humble member of the great army of parasites in which he held a commission, must be cleared out. She was inconveniently in the way.

When Peter was obliged to stop for breath, Kenyon jumped in. "Look here!" he said. "You're coming with me to the shrine of the pernicious Papowsky to-night."

"You mean on Graham's business?" asked Peter. "Is it absolutely necessary to go to that place?"

"Absolutely. You'll see why, if everything works as I think it will, when we get there."

"Right. And how about Graham?"

"You and Graham are going to have dinner with me at Sherry's. I shall have to see that he has half a bottle too much champagne. That'll make him careless and put a bit of devil into him, and when I suggest that he shall take us to Papowsky's, he will jump at the notion, He's awful keen to show us what a blood he is. Once he gets us inside the rest will follow."

"I see. By Jove, I shall be thundering glad when Graham's plucked out of this wretched mess. The only thing is I'm booked to dine with Mr. Townsend at his club to-night."

"It can't be done," said Kenyon. "Directly you get home you must telephone. Say that an urgent matter has just cropped up and beg to be excused. Call it business--call it anything you like--but get out of it."

"All right!" said Peter. "I'm heart and soul with you, old boy. I'm very grateful for all the trouble you're taking. You always were a good chap."

"My dear Peter, add to my possession of the ordinary number of senses one that is almost as rare as the Dodo,--the sense of gratitude. Hello! Here's some of the family in the car!"

They had halted on the steps of the Doctor's house as Mrs. Guthrie and Ethel were driven up. Kenyon sprang forward, opened the door and handed the ladies out with an air that Raleigh himself would have found commendable.

"Blood tells," said Belle, who watched from the top step, with a proud smile.

"Yes," said Betty, "but I prefer muscle. Look!"

The pavement was uneven in front of the house and the rain had made a little pool. So Peter picked his mother up, as though she were as light as a bunch of feathers, and carried her into the house.

"My dearest big boy!" she said.

"Darling little Mum!" said Peter.

XIV

Kenyon, turned out as excellently as usual, led the way into the dining-room at Sherry's. It was a quarter to eight. Every other table was occupied. The large room was too warm and was filled with the conglomerate aromas of food. Peter sat on the right of his host and Graham on the left. Both men were quiet and distrait,--Peter because he was anxious, Graham for the reason that he had not been able to leave behind him the carking worries that now fell daily to his lot. Kenyon, on the contrary, was in his best form, and even a little excited. Apart from the fact that he rather liked having something to do that would prove his knowledge of life and the accuracy of his powers of psychology, he was looking forward to be amused with what went on in the studio-apartment of the Papowsky.

"By Jove!" he said, looking around and arranging his tie over the points of his collar with expert fingers,--a thing which Graham immediately proceeded to do also,--"this place has a quite distinct atmosphere. Don't you think so, Peter?"

"Has it?"

"One would, I see, choose it for a trying and dull-bright dinner with a prospective mother-in-law or with some dear thing, safely married, with whom one had once rashly imagined one's self to be in love. Waiter, the wine list!"

Graham laughed.

Kenyon, scoring his first point, continued airily. "For my part, I shall make a point of dining here one night with an alluring young thing fresh from the romantic quietude of a Convent School. I feel that these discreet lights and reserved colours will give a certain amount of weight and even solemnity to my careful flattery--A large bottle of Perrier Jouet '02, and be sparing with the ice. Peter, I think you'll find that this caviare gives many points to the tired stuff that used to be palmed off on us at Buol's and other undergraduate places of puerile riotousness."

The dinner, which Kenyon had ordered with becoming care, would have satisfied the epicureanism of a Russian aristocrat. During all its courses the host kept up a running fire of anecdote which quickly made the table a merry one. He also saw to it that Graham's glass was never empty. They sat laughing, smoking and drinking Crême Yvette until they were the last people in the room except for an old bloated man and a very young Hebrew girl. The band, which had mixed ragtime indiscriminately with Italian opera and Austrian waltzes, and played them all equally well, went off to acquire the second wind and the relaxed muscles necessary for a later performance, and the waiters had long since rearranged the table for supper before Kenyon suggested adjourning to a club for a game of billiards which would amuse them until it was time to begin the business of the evening. So they walked round to the Harvard Club, and here Peter--the only one of the party who was completely his own master--became host.

They played until a little short of twelve o'clock. By this time, having been additionally primed up with one or two Scotch whiskeys, Graham was ready for anything, and it was then that Kenyon suggested that he should take them to the famous studio. Graham jumped at the idea, falling, as Kenyon knew that he would, into the little trap set for him. "We're children in your hands, Graham," he said, with a subtle touch of flattery. "Lead us into the vortex of art with the lid off. I'm most frightfully keen to see this place and it'll be great fun for you, duly protected, to find out whether the Papowsky has discovered whether you were the Knight Errant who rescued one of her victims. Romance, old boy--romance with a big R." And so Graham, more than a little unsteady and with uproarious laughter, led the way.

When they arrived at the studio-apartment in Fortieth Street they found the hall filled with people. It happened that Papowsky was giving an Egyptian night and nearly all of the habitués were in appropriate costumes. With the cunning of her species this woman knew very well that few things appeal so strongly to a certain type of men and women as dressing up,--which generally means undressing. The Japanese servant who took their hats and coats welcomed Graham with oily and deferential cordiality. "We are having a big night, sir," he said, with the peculiar sibilation of his kind and with his broad, flat hands clasped together. "It is Madame's birthday, sir. Yes, sir. You and the gentlemen will enjoy it very much."

Peter and Kenyon followed Graham into the studio. Their curiosity, already stirred by the sight of the men and women in the hall, was added to by the Rembrandt effect of the high, wide room, whose darkness was only touched here and there by curious faint lights. The buzz of voices everywhere and little bursts of laughter proved that there were many people present. As they went in, a powerful lime-light was suddenly focused on the centre of the room and into this slid a string of young, small-breasted, round-limbed girls. Led by one who contorted herself in what was supposedly the Egyptian manner, they moved to and fro with bent knees and angular gestures, and rigid profiles. Music came out of the darkness,--the music of a string band with cymbals.

"Good Lord!" said Kenyon. "What an amazing mixture of exotic stinks!"

"Look out for your money," said Peter, with a touch of blunt materialism.

Graham made for an unoccupied alcove, in which there was a flabby divan. On this they all three sat down and began to peer about. A few yards away from them they presently made out an astonishing group of young men dressed as Egyptians. They were sitting in affectionate closeness, simpering and tittering together. On the other side they gradually discerned an overwhelmingly fat, elderly woman holding a kind of Court. She was almost enveloped in pearls. Otherwise she was scantily hidden. Her feet were in sandals. Several mere boys had arranged themselves in picturesque attitudes about her and half a dozen maidens were grouped round her chair. One was fanning her with a large yellow leaf. The blue light under which Graham had sat listening to the whispered appeal of Ita Strabosck fell softly and erotically upon them.

"Circe come to life," said Kenyon.

"Ugh! I don't quite know how I'm going to prevent myself from being sick," said Peter.

"Ah! but wait a bit," said Graham. "The show hasn't begun yet."

It made a fairly good beginning as he spoke. The girls in the circle of light brought their attitudinizing to an end and their places were instantly taken by two painted men in coloured loin-cloths. To a screaming outburst of wild and incoherent music they gave what seemed to Kenyon to be a perfect imitation of civet-cats at play. They crawled along on all-fours, sprang high into the air, crouched, bounded, whirled round each other and finally, amid a roar of applause, rolled out of view wrapped in each other's arms.

"Um!" said Kenyon. "After just such an exhibition as that Rome burst into flames."

There was insistent demand for an encore. The performance was repeated with the same gusto and relish. The three men saw nothing of it. Just as the band burst forth again, Kenyon made a long arm, caught the skimpy covering of a girl who was passing and drew her into the alcove.

"Come and cheer us up, Minutia," he said. "We feel like lost souls here."

The girl was willing enough. It was her business to cheer. She stood in front of them for a moment so that the blue light should show her charms. She looked very young and tiny. Fair hair was twisted round her head. She wore nothing but a thin, loose Egyptian smock, but her small snub nose and impudent mouth placed her, whatever might be her costume, on Broadway. "Say! Why are you muts dressed like men?" she asked with eager interest.

"Oh, well," said Kenyon, "we happen to be men; but I swear that we won't advertise the fact."

The girl greatly enjoyed the remark, but her scream of laughter was drowned by the band. Then she caught sight of Graham. "Oh, hello, Kid! So you've come back."

Graham made room for her. He rather liked being recognized. Kenyon would see that he knew his way about. "Yes, here I am again. It's difficult to get the Papowsky dope out of the system."

"Don't see why you should try. It's pretty good dope, I guess." She snuggled herself in between Graham and Kenyon, putting an arm round each. She bent across Kenyon to examine Peter and gave an exaggeratedly dramatic cry of surprise and admiration. "My God! It's a giant! Say, dearie, you'd be the King of all the pussies, in a skin. All them dinky little love-birds would hop round your feet and chirp. Oh, gosh, you'd make some hit among the artists, sure!"

"Think so?" said Peter. He would have given a great deal for a pipe at that moment, so that he could puff out great clouds of smoke as a disinfectant.

"A gala night," said Graham.

"Sure. If the police were to make a raid to-night,--gee, there'd be a fine list of names in to-morrer's papers!"

"Think they will?" asked Kenyon. "By Jove! I wish they would. Think of seeing these people scuffling like frightened rabbits. It would be epoch-making."

The girl turned a keenly interested eye on Kenyon and looked him over with unabashable deliberation. "You've got a funny kind of accent," she said. "What is it? English?"

It was the first time that Kenyon had ever been accused of speaking with an accent. He was delighted. It appealed to his alert sense of humour. He laughed and nodded.

"The giant ain't English, is he? Are you, dearie?"

"No," said Peter.

"That's fine. I guess I don't like the English much. They always strike me as being like Americans, trying hard to be different."

"You don't dislike me, I hope? That would be a very bitter blow," said Kenyon, tweeking her ear.

"Oh, you're a comic," she said. "You're all right. Is this your first visit?"

"Yes. Have you been here long?" Kenyon asked the question carelessly, as though to keep the ball moving. It was, as a matter of fact, the beginning of his plan to disillusion Graham.

"Oh, I've been in the business ever since it started. Ask the kid, he knows. Don't you, kid?"

"Rather," said Graham.

"I used to be in the chorus, but this is ther life."

"I suppose so," said Kenyon. "Variety, gaiety, art,--what more can any girl desire?"

"Dollars," she said dryly. "And I make more here, by a long way."

"That's good. But,--but don't you get a little fed up? I mean it must be hopelessly monotonous to be shut up in one place all the time."

"Don't know whatcher mean. Translate that, won't you?"

"He means never getting out," said Graham.

"Never getting out! I don't get you, Steve. Me and my sister get away after the show, same as any other."

"What!" Graham was incredulous. It struck him that the girl was lying for reasons of loyalty to her employer. He knew better.

"Oh, I see!" said Kenyon, leading her on carefully. "You don't live here, then?"

"Live here? Of course I don't. I come about ten o'clock every night and leave anywhere between three and four in the morning. Earlier if there's nothing doing."

"Oh, I thought that the girls here are,--well, held up, kept here all the time,--prisoners, so to speak."

A shrill amused laugh rang out. "Oh, cut it out! What's all this dope? Say! you've been reading White Slave books. You're bug-house--dippy. Why, this is a respectable place, this is. This is the house of Art. We're models, that's what we are. We're only here for local colour. If we choose to make a bit extra on our own, we can." She laughed again. It was a good joke. The best that she had heard for years.

Kenyon threw a quick glance at Graham's face. He could just see it in the dim light. The boy was listening intently--incredulously. So also was Peter, who had drawn himself into a corner and was hunched up uncomfortably.

Kenyon began to feel excited. Everything was going almost unbelievably well. The girl was so frank, so open and obviously spontaneous. It was excellent. "Of course you tell us these things," he said, voicing what he knew was going silently through Graham's mind. "But we know better. We know that you, like that poor little girl, Ita Strabosck, are watched and not allowed to get away under any circumstances. Now, why not tell us the truth? We may be able to help you escape, too."

Again she laughed. "Oh, say!" she said. "What are you anyway? Reporters on the trail of a story? I'm telling you the truth. Why not? As for Ita,--Oh, ho! She put it all over a boob, she did. She's ambitious, she is. She was out to find a mut who'd keep her, that was her game. She told us so from the first. We used to watch her trying one after another of the soft ones. But they were wise, they were. But at last some little feller fell for her foreign accent and little sobs. She had a fine tale all ready. Oh, she's clever. She ought to be on the stage playing parts. Most of us go round to her place in the daytime and have a good time with some of her men friends. I've not been yet. But from what my sister says, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she gets her man to marry her. From what she says, he's a sentimental Alick, and, O Gosh! won't she lead him some dance!"

At last Graham broke forth, his face white, his eyes blazing and his whole body shaking as though he had ague. "You're lying!" he shouted. "Every word you've said's a lie!"

The girl, entirely unoffended at this involuntary outburst, bent forward and looked at Graham with a new gleam of intelligence, amusement and curiosity. "My word, I believe you're Mr. Strabosck. I believe you're the boob. Oh, say! come into the light. I guess I must have a look at you."

Graham got up, stood swaying for a moment as though he had received a blow between the eyes, and staggered across the room and out into the passage.

"Now he knows," said Kenyon. "Come on, Peter. We shall have our work cut to hold him in. There was blood in his eyes." Utterly ignoring the girl, Kenyon made for the door, forced his way through new arrivals and found Graham utterly sober, but with his mouth set dangerously, standing in front of the Japanese. "My hat and coat, quick!" he was saying, "or I'll break the place up."

"Steady, steady," said Kenyon. "We don't want a scene here."

"Scene be damned. I tell you something's got to break."

The Japanese ducked into the coat-room.

"Where's Peter?" Graham looked back expecting to see his brother's head and shoulders above the crowd. There was no sign of him.

By accident the lime-light which had been suddenly turned on for a new performance fell on Peter as he was marching towards the door of the studio. Instantly he found himself surrounded by half a dozen good-natured men who had all taken a little too much to drink. They, like the other people present, were in Egyptian clothes and obviously glad to see in Peter a healthy normal specimen of humanity.

"Oh, hello, brother, where are you off to?" asked one.

"Out!" said Peter shortly.

"I'll be darned if you are. Come and have a drink!"

"No, thanks, I've other things to do."

"Oh, rot! Be a sport and stay and help us to stir things up. Come on, now!"

Peter tried to push his way through. "Please get out of the way," he said.

But a jovial red-headed fellow got into it. "You're staying, if I have to make you."

Something snapped in Peter's brain. Before he could control himself he bent down and picked up the man by the scruff of his neck and the cloth that was wound round his middle and heaved him over the heads of the crowd into a divan, and then hitting out right and left cleared a path to the door, leaving chaos and bleeding noses behind him. Without waiting to get his hat and coat he made a dash for the elevator, caught it just as it was about to descend and went down to the main floor dishevelled and panting.

Out in the street he saw Kenyon trying to put Graham into a taxicab. Kenyon saw him and called out. "Come on, or Papowsky will make it hot for us."

On his way home from a late evening at one of his clubs, Ranken Townsend caught the name Papowsky, whose evil reputation had come to his ears. He threw a quick glance at the men who were leaving her place and saw that one of them was Peter. He drew up and stood in front of the man in whom he thought he had recognized cleanness and excellence and told himself that he was utterly mistaken.

"So this was your precious business engagement," he said, with icy contempt. "Well, I don't give my daughter to a man who shares her with women like Papowsky, so you may consider yourself free. Good night."

And the smile that turned up the corners of Kenyon's mouth had in it the epitome of triumph. All along the line he had won. All along the line.

Peter watched the tall disappearing figure. He felt as though he had been kicked in the mouth.