C
arolinestopped abruptly at the edge of the little pine-encircled glade that edged the pond-lily pond and waved her hand in warning.
"Hist! there are human creatures there!" she whispered loudly.
It would be evident to anyone not absolutely stone blind that she was a fairy. A lace-edged, snowy nightgown was caught up by a sky blue ribbon about her hips, trailing gloriously behind her over the grass; two large wings artfully constructed of wrapping-paper flopped behind her surprisingly bare shoulders—the nightgown was decidedlydécolleté, and had been made for a person several sizes larger than Caroline.
"Hooma keecha da!" crooned the General. His conversation was evidently based on the theory that the English language is a dark mystery,insoluble by system, but likely to be blundered into fortuitously, at any moment, if the searcher gabble with sufficient steadiness and persistence. His costume, consisting merely of the ordinary blue denim overalls of commerce, would have been positively commonplace were it not for the wings of bright pink tissue paper, which he wore with a somewhat confusing obstinacy, pinned firmly to his chest. Miss Honey assisted his wavering footsteps rather sulkily; she longed for the white and lacy draperies in front of her and regarded her ballet skirts of stitched newspaper with bare tolerance. It is true she wore a crown of tinfoil and carried a wand made of half a brass curtain rod; but her laced tan boots, stubbed and stained, showed with disgusting plainness, and nobody would take the trouble to make her a newspaper bodice.
"If you don't stop tickling me with that arrow, Brother Washburn, I'll go back!" she declared, snappishly.
The fourth member of the crew, whose bathing trunks and jersey, fitted with surprisingly life-like muslin wings, pointed to Puck, though thequiver slung across his shoulder woke conflicting memories of Diana, chuckled guiltily and took a flying leap from the big boulder into the center of the glade. His wings stiffened realistically, and as he landed, poised on one classically sandalled foot with arms outspread, the picnic party before him started violently, and one of them clutched the other's sleeve with a little cry.
"What the—oh, it's all right! He's the real thing, isn't he, now?"
The young man patted the girl's shoulder reassuringly and chuckled as the rest of the crew emerged from the pines and peered over the boulder.
"They're only children," he said.
She dropped her eyes and tightened her fingers around the shining drinking cup.
"Why, yes, they're only children," she repeated carelessly.
Now, each of these picnic people had said the same words, but it was entirely obvious to their fascinated audience that the words meant very different things. For this reason they sidled around the young lady impersonally, avoidingwith care the edges of her pale-tinted billowy skirts, and lined up confidently beside the young gentleman.
Not that he controlled the picnic. It was spread out in front of her, bewitching, intimate, in its suggestion of you—and—I; two shiny plates, two knives, two forks, two fringed and glossy napkins. A dark red bottle was propped upright between two stones, a pile of thin, triangular sandwiches balanced daintily on some cool lettuce leaves, and a fascinating object that glistened mysteriously in the sun, held the platter of honor in the middle.
"The Honorable Mr. Puck," suggested the young man, in the tone of one continuing an interrupted conversation, "is figuring out how the chicken got into the jelly without busting it—am I not right?"
Brother grinned, and Caroline moved a little nearer. Miss Honey stared at the young lady's fluted skirts and glistening yellow waves of hair, at the sweeping plume in her hat, and her tiny high-heeled buckled slippers.
"I am obliged to admit," the young man wenton, slicing into the quivering aspic, "that I don't know myself. I never could find out. Perhaps the young person in the—the not-too-long skirts, waved her wand over the bird and he jumped in and the hole closed up?" He slipped a section of the bird in question upon the lady's plate and held the red bottle over her cup.
"There was hard-boiled eggs stuck on those jelly things at our wedding," Brother remarked, "on the outside, all around. But they were bigger than yours."
"I don't doubt it for a moment," the young man assured him politely. "Have you been married long, may I ask? And which of these ladies—"
"Brother doesn't mean thathewas married," Miss Honey explained, "it was his oldest sister. She married a lawyer. I was flower girl."
"Ima fow guh," murmured the General, thrusting out a fat and unexpected hand and snatching from a hitherto unperceived box a tiny cake encased in green frosting.
"Oh, dear, it's got the pistache!" said the yellow-haired lady disgustedly.
Miss Honey fled after the General, who, though he was obliged to wear whalebone braces in his shoes on account of youth and a waddling and undeveloped gait, scattered over the ground with the elusive clumsiness of a young duckling. Brother blushed, but scorned to desert his troop.
"He's awfully little, you know—he doesn't mean to steal," he explained.
"Twenty-two months," Caroline added, "and he does go so fast." She smiled doubtfully at the lady, who selected a cake covered with chocolate and looked at the young man.
"Don't forget that Mr. Walbridge wants to use the car at six," she said, "and you have to allow for that bad hill."
He looked a little uncomfortable. "Don't you want to speak to the children, Tina, dear?" he asked, dropping his voice; he sat very close to her.
"They have both spoken directly to you, you see, and children feel that so—not being noticed. They're trying to apologize to you for the cake."
She bit her lip and turned to Miss Honey,who arrived panting, with the General firmly secured by the band of his overalls. An oozy green paste dripped from his hand; one of the pink wings intermittently concealed his injured expression.
"That's all right," she said, "don't bother about the cake, little girl, the baby can have it."
Miss Honey sniffed.
"I guess you don't know much about babies if you think they can eat cake like that," she answered informingly.
"Hush, now, General, don't begin to hold your breath? Do you want a nice graham cracker! It'ssonice!"
"Sonice!" Caroline repeated mechanically, with a business-like smile at the General, helpfully champing her teeth.
The General wavered. He allowed one sticky paw to be cleaned with a handful of grass, but his expression was most undecided, and he was evidently in a position to hold his breath immediately if necessary.
Miss Honey nodded to Caroline. "You've got 'em, haven't you?" she asked.
Caroline fumbled at the interior of the nightgown and produced a somewhat defaced brown wafer.
"General want it?" she said invitingly. There was another moment of disheartening suspense. Brother assisted gallantly.
"They're fine, General!" he urged, "try one!" And he, too, nodded and chewed the empty air. Instinctively the strange young gentleman did the same.
The General looked around at them cautiously, noted the strained interest of the circle, smiled forgivingly, and reached out for the brown wafer. Peace was assured.
"If you could only see how ridiculous you looked," the young lady remarked, wiping her shining pink finger nails carefully, "you'd never do that again, Rob. Have a cake?"
He laughed, but blushed a little at her tone.
"I suppose so," he admitted. "No, thanks, I'll pass up the cake. Isn't there enough to go 'round, perhaps?"
He examined the box.
"By George, there are exactly three left!"he said delightedly. "Will the fairy queen hand one to her brother—the big brother—and one to—to the angel?"
Caroline moved firmly to the front. "I am the Queen," she explained, "but I let Miss Honey take the crown and the wand, or she wouldn't be anything. Brother isn't her brother—that's just his name. Brother Washburn. The General's her brother. I'll take that strawberry one. We're much obliged, thank you."
The cakes vanished unostentatiously and the young gentleman filled his cup and disposed of it before anyone spoke.
"We were such a big family, you see," he explained to the pursed red mouth beside him, "and I know just how it is. You never get enough cake, and never that dressy kind. It's molasses cake and cookies, mostly."
Brother moved nearer and nodded.
"Well, but you can have all the cake you want, now, thank goodness," said the lady, glancing contentedly at the tea basket, complete with its polished fittings, at the big box of bonbons beside her, and the handsome silk motor coatthat was spread as a carpet under her light dress.
"Oh, yes, but now I don't want it," he assured her, "I want—other things." He flashed a daring glance from two masterful brown eyes, and she smiled indulgently at him for a handsome, spoiled boy.
"Am I going to get them?" he persisted.
She laughed the light little laugh of the triumphant woman.
"My dear Bob," she said, "anybody who can buy all the cake he wants can usually get the—other things!"
His face clouded slightly.
"I hate to hear you talk like that, Christine," he began, "it's not fair to yourself—"
"How'd you know I was Puck?" Brother inquired genially. He made no pretense of including the lady in the conversation; for him she was simply not there.
"Oh, I'm not so ignorant as I look," the young man replied. "I don't believe you could stump me on anything you'd be likely to be—I've probably been 'em all myself. We were alwaysrigging up at home. Didn't you use to do that, Tina?"
The lady shook her head decidedly.
"If I'd ever got hold of a—well, if I'd had a chance of things as nice as that biggest one's dragging through the dirt there, I'd have been doing something very different with it, I can assure you, Mr. Armstrong! I'd have been saving it."
"But at that age—" he protested.
"Oh, I knew real lace from imitation at that age, all right," she insisted.
"But you don't think of those things—you go in for the fun," he urged.
"It wasn't exactly my idea of fun."
"No?" he queried, "why, I thought all children did this sort of thing. We had a regular property room in the attic. We used to be rigged out as something-or-other all day Saturday, usually."
"What were you?" Brother demanded eagerly. Unconsciously he dropped, hugging his knees, by the side of the young man, and Caroline, observing the motion, came over a little shylyand stood behind them. The young lady raised her eyebrows and shot a side glance at her host, but he smiled back at her brightly.
"Well, we did quite a little in the pirate line," he replied. "I had an old Mexican sword and Ridgeway—that was my cousin—owned a pair of handcuffs."
"Handcuffs!" Brother's jaw dropped.
"Yes, sir, handcuffs. It was rather unusual, of course, and he was awfully proud of them. An uncle of his was a sheriff out in Pennsylvania somewhere, and when he died he left 'em to Ridge in his will. That was pretty grand, too, having it left in a will."
Caroline nodded and sat down on an old log behind the young man. A long smear of brown, wet bark appeared on the nightgown, and one end of the blue ribbon dribbled into a tiny pool of last night's shower, caught in a hollow stone.
"It was a toss-up who'd be pirate king," the young man went on, smiling over his shoulder at Caroline, "because I was older than he was, handcuffs or not, and after all, a sword is something. This one was hacked on the edge andevery hack may have meant—probably did—a life."
He paused dramatically.
"I bet you they did!" Brother declared, clapping his hands on his knees.
"Weren't there any girls?"
Caroline slipped from the log and sprawled on the pine needles.
"Dear me, yes," said the young man, "I should say so. Four of them. Winifred and Ethel and Dorothea and the Babe—about as big as your General, there, and dreadfully greedy, the Babe was. Winifred had the brains and she made up most of the games; I tell you, that girl had a head!"
"Just like Caroline," Brother inserted eagerly.
"Probably," the young man agreed. "She was pretty certain to be Fairy Queen, too, I remember. But Thea sewed the clothes and begged the things we needed and looked after the Babe."
"And what did Ethel do?"
"Why, now you speak of it, I don't remember that Ethel did much of anything but look prettyand eat most of the luncheon," he said. "She used to be Pocahontas a good deal—she's very dark—and I usually was Captain John Smith. Ridge was Powhatan. And Ethel's married now. Good Lord! She has twins—of all things!—and they're named for Ridge and me."
"I'm glad General isn't twins," said Miss Honey thoughtfully, pulling her brother back from the fascinations of the tea basket and comforting him with the curtain-rod wand.
"Still, we could do the Princes in the Tower with him—them, I mean," Caroline reminded her, "and then, when they got bigger, the Corsican Brothers—don't you remember that play Uncle Joe told about?"
The young man laughed softly.
"If that's not Win all over!" he exclaimed. "She always planned for Ridge to be Mazeppa on one of the carriage horses, when he got the right size, but somehow, when youdoget that size, you don't pull it off."
"I did Mazeppa," said Brother modestly, "but of course it was only a donkey. It wasn't much."
"We never had one," the young man explained. "Nothing but Ridge's goat, and she was pretty old. But she could carry a lot of lunch."
He turned suddenly on his elbow and smiled whimsically at the lady.
"Come on, Tina, what didyouplay?" he asked.
"Is it possible you have remembered that I still exist?" she answered, half mockingly, half seriously vexed. "I'm afraid I'm out of this, really. I never pretended to be anything, that I remember."
"But whatdidyou do when you were a youngster?" he persisted, "you must have played something!"
She shook her head.
"We played jackstones," she said indulgently, after a moment of thought, "and then I went to school, of course, and—oh, I guess we cut out paper dolls."
Caroline looked aghast.
"Didn't you have any dog?" she demanded.
"I hope not, in a four-room flat," the ladyreturned with feeling. "One family kept one, though, and the nasty little thing jumped up on a lovely checked silk aunty had just given me, and ruined it. I tried to take it out with gasolene, but it made a dreadful spot, and I cried myself sick. Of course I didn't understand about rubbing the gasolene dry then; I was only eleven."
The children looked uncomfortably at the ground, conscious of a distinct lack of sympathy for the tragedy that even at this distance deepened the lovely rose of the lady's cheek and softened her dark blue eyes.
"But in the summer," the young man said, "surely it was different then! In the country—"
"Oh, mercy, we didn't get to the country very much," she interrupted. "You know July and August are bargain times in the stores and a dressmaker can't afford to leave. Aunty did all her buying then and I went with her. Dear me," as something in his face struck her, "you needn't look so horrified! It's not bad in New York a bit—there's something going on all the while; and then we went to Rockaway and ConeyIsland evenings, and had grand times. To tell you the truth, I never cared for the country—I don't sleep a bit well there. Of course, to come out this way, with everything nice, it's all very fine, but to stay in—no, thanks."
"I know what you mean, of course," he said, "but the city's no place for children. I'm mighty glad I didn't grow up there. And I've always had the idea the country would be the best place to settle down in, finally. You can potter around better there when you're old, don't you think so? I remember old Uncle Robert and his chrysanthemums—"
"Dear me, we all seem to be remembering a good deal this afternoon!" she broke in. "Since we're neither of us children and neither of us ready to settle down on account of old age, suppose we stick to town, Bob?"
There was a practical brightness in her voice, and her even white teeth, as she smiled persuasively at him, were very pretty. He smiled back at her.
"That seems a fair proposition," he agreed. He reached for her hand and for a moment hersoft, bright coloring, her dainty completeness, framed in the green of the little glade, were all he saw. Then, as his eyes lingered on the cool little pond and the waving pine boughs dark against the blue sky, he sighed.
"But I'm sorry you don't like the country, Tina, I am, truly," he said boyishly. "I've had such bully times in it. And I—I rather had the idea that we liked the same things."
"Gracious!" the young lady murmured, "after the arguments we've had over plays and actors!"
"Oh well, I suppose girls are all alike. But I mean other things—"
"Where did you do the Pirates?" Brother inquired, politely.
"What? Where did I—oh to be sure," he returned good-naturedly. "We had an enormous cellar, all full of pillars, to hold it up, and queer little rooms and compartments in it; a milk room and vegetable bins and a workshop. You could ride on a wheel all round, dodging the pillars. There were all kinds of places to lie in wait there, and spring out. Win told us an awful thing out ofPoe that happened in a cellar, and Thea would never go there after four in the afternoon.
"It was a jolly old place," he went on dreamily, "I can't keep my mind off it this afternoon, somehow, since I've seen you fellows rigged out the way we used to. And there was a pond back in the Christmas Tree Lot like this one. Ridge and I built a raft out there and stayed all day on it. It was something out of Clark Russell's books, and Win pushed a barrel out and rescued us. She was a wonder, that girl."
He chuckled softly to himself.
"We tried to stock that pond with oysters once, and Ridge and I printed invitations for a clambake on our handpress, on the strength of them, but it was a dreadful waste of money. When we found it wasn't working, Ridge nearly killed himself diving for 'em, so we could get some good out of 'em. There they lay at the bottom, showing just as plain as possible, but it was no use—Poor fellow, he'll never dive any more."
"Is he—did he—" Caroline had crawled along till her head lay almost on the young man's knee; her eyes were big with sympathy.
"Lost his leg," he told her briefly. "Philippines. Above the knee. He ran away from college to go. He had the fever badly, too, and he'll never be fit for much again, I'm afraid. But he's just as brave about it—"
"Oh, yes," Brother burst out eagerly, "I bet you he is!"
"We had such plans," he said softly, "all of us, you know, for coming back to the old place and ending up there. Win says her kids shall stay there if she can't."
"Where is she?"
"Oh, she's 'most anywhere. Her husband's in the Navy—Asiatic Squadron—and she hangs about where he's likely to strike the country next. She was in Honolulu the last I heard. So she's not likely to do much for the place, you see."
"Where's Thea?" Miss Honey inquired.
"Wha tee?" mimicked the General, with an astounding similarity of inflection.
The young man threw his light cap at the baby's head; it landed grotesquely cocked over one eye, and the General, promptly sitting upon it to protect himself from further attacks, fell intoconvulsions of laughter as the young man threatened him.
"Thea's out West, on a ranch just out of Denver. She was married first, and her boys have ponies now—broncos. Of course it's fine for them out there, but she says she won't be happy till they can get East for a year or two. She wants them to see the place and grow up a little in it. She wants 'em to see the attic and poke about the barn and the stable and climb over the rocks. You see they're on the ranch all summer and in school in Denver all winter, and Thea says they don't know the look of an old stone wall with an apple tree in the corner. She says the fruit's not nearly so nice out there."
"Where is the place? Near here?"
"No, not so very. It's in the Berkshires, just out of Great Barrington. Father's practice was there, and grandfather's, too. Grandfather built it."
"That's where Lenox is, the Berkshires, isn't it?" the lady inquired with a yawn.
"Heavens, its nothing like Lenox!" he assured her hastily.
"No?" she moved slightly and scowled.
"My foot's asleep! That comes of sitting here forever!"
She got up slowly and with little tentative gasps and cries stamped her prickled feet.
"Aunty has several customers who go to Lenox"—a vicious stamp—"it must be grand there, I think. One of them, a regular swell, too—she thinks nothing of a hundred and fifty for a dress"—a faint stamp and a squeal of anguish—"told her that property was going up like everything around there. You could probably"—a determined little jump—"sell your old place and buy a nice house right in Lenox."
The young man sat up suddenly. "Sell the place!" he repeated, "sell the place!"
He had been watching her pretty, vexed contortions with lazy pleasure, noticing through rings of cigarette smoke her dainty ankles, white through the mesh of the thin silk stockings, her straight, slim back, and the clear flush that deepened her eyes. But now his face changed, and he stared at her in frank irritation.
"Sell the place!" echoed Brother and MissHoney in horror, and Caroline's lower lip pushed out scornfully.
The lady stamped again, but not wholly as a therapeutic measure.
"Well, really!" she cried, "any one would think that these children were your friends, and I was the stranger, from the way you all talk. What is the matter with you, anyway? What are you quarreling about, Rob?"
He looked at her thoughtfully, appraisingly.
"I don't think we're quarreling, Tina," he said, "its only that we look at things differently. And—and looking at things in the same way rather makes people friends, you know."
He glanced down at the children, close about him now, and then over appealingly at her. But she had moved to a rock a little away from them and now sat on it, her face turned toward the road, leaning on her pale pink parasol: she did not catch the glance.
"What became of the Babe?" Caroline suggested suddenly.
"Babe? She's—her name's Margaret—at school now. She's growing awfully pretty."
"And is she going to live at the place, too?" queried the young lady sharply.
"Babe's going to capture a corporation or trust or something, and have oceans of money and build on a wing and a conservatory and make Italian gardens, I believe," he answered, pleasantly enough.
"But I'd just as soon she left the gardens alone," he went on, "the rest of us like 'em the way they are. There was one separate one on the west side, just for Uncle Robert's chrysanthemums. He used to work all the morning there and then read in the afternoon. He'd sit on the side porch with his pipe and Bismarck—he was an old collie—and he did tell the bulliest yarns. He helped us with lessons, too. I don't know what we'd have done without Uncle Rob. Father was so busy—he had a big country practice and he used to get terribly tired—and we went to Uncle Rob for everything. He got us out of more scrapes, Ridge and me—
"There were tiger lillies in the south garden and lots of clumps of peonies. Grandmother put those there. And fennel and mint. Mother used to like dahlias—it seems as if she must have had a quarterof a mile of dahlias, but of course she didn't—all colors. That garden ran right up against the house, and directly next to the bricks was a row of white geraniums. They looked awfully well against the red. It's a brick house and the date is in bricks over the door—1840. Of course it's been rented for ten years now, but we have our things stored in the attic and the people are careful and—well they love the old place, you know, and they keep up the gardens. They wanted to buy when father died and again after mother—
"But Ridge and I just hung on and leased it from year to year. We always hoped to get it back. And now to think that I should be the one to do it!"
"How are you the one?" Brother inquired practically.
"Why Uncle Wesley that ran away to sea—I used to have his room, just over the kitchen, and many a time I've climbed down the side porch just as he did, and run away fishing—Uncle Wesley died in England, last year, and left me considerably more than he'd ever have made if he'd minded grandmother and studied to be a parson. It seems Uncle Rob knew where he was all the time, and wrote him, before he was sick himself, to leave the money to the family, and by George, he did.
"Lots of the old stuff is there—the sideboard and the library table and grandfather's old desk mother kept the preserves in.
"I used to lie on an old sofa in the dining-room on hot afternoons, waiting for it to get cool, reading some travel book, eating summer apples, and listening to Win and Thea practicing duets in the parlor. Lord, I can hear 'em now! I'd look out at the brick walls, hot, you know, in the sun, and the pear tree, with the nurse rocking Babe under it, and old Annie shelling peas by the kitchen door, and it all seemed so comfortable—"
His eyes were half closed. The children listened dreamily, huddled against him; low red rays crept down from the west-bound sun and struck the little pond to copper, the nickel dishes to silver, the lady's skirt to a peach-colored glory; a little sudden breeze set the red bottle tinkling between the stones. But to the group entranced with memories so vivid that reality blurred before them, thepeach and copper glories were ripe fruit against an old brick wall, the tinkle echoed from an old piano in a dim, green-shuttered parlor, and the soft snoring of the General, asleep on the silk motor coat, was the drowsy breathing of a contented little fellow in knickerbockers dreaming in a window seat.
"Did you ever go to Atlantic City?"
The lady's voice woke them as a gong wakes a sleeper. "Now that's my idea of the country!"
He stared at her vaguely.
"But—but that's no place for children," he protested. He had hardly grown up at that moment, himself.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"It's not exactly necessary to have six children, you know," she said, "and then you needn't be worried over a place for them, and can afford to think a little about the place you'd like for yourself."
The sun was in her eyes and she missed the look in his as he jumped up from the astonished group and seized her wrist.
"Christine, you simply shan't talk that way!"he said. "I don't know what's the matter with you to-day—why are you so different? Are you trying to tease me? Because I might as well tell you right now that you're succeeding a little too well."
The pink parasol dropped between them. Her eyes met his squarely, though her voice shook a little.
"Let my wrist go, Mr. Armstrong," she said, "you hurt me. I assure you I'm not different at all. If you really want to know what the matter with me is, let me ask you if you saw anything out of the way before your friends there interfered?" she pointed to the little group he had left. "We seemed to be getting on very well then."
His face fell, and she went on more quickly and with less controlled tones.
"You are the one that is different! I have always been just the same—just exactly the same! Ask anybody if I've changed—ask aunty! 'Tina has the best temper of any girl I know,' aunty always says. But its just as she warned me. Aunty always knows—she's seen lots and lots of people and plenty of swells, too—it isn't as if you were the only one, Mr. Armstrong!"
He looked curiously at the flushed, lovely face; curiously, as though he had never really studied it before.
"Perhaps—perhaps itisI," he said slowly, "I—maybe you're right. And of course I know—" he smiled oddly at the pretty picture she made—"that I'm not the only one."
Something in his tone irritated her; she unfurled the rosy parasol angrily.
"Aunty said from the beginning you'd be hard to get on with," she flashed out. "She said the second time you came to the house with Mr. Walbridge for his sister's fitting and asked Kitty and I for a ride in the machine, 'I'm perfectly willing you girls should go, for they're both all right and I think the dark one's serious, but—"
"You discussed me with your aunt, then?"
She looked at him in amazement.
"Discussed you with aunty? Why certainly I did. Why shouldn't I? How do you suppose I'm to get anywhere, placed as I am, Mr. Armstrong, unless I'm pretty careful? I've nothing but my looks—I know that perfectly well—and I can't afford to make any mistakes. And aunty said, 'Ithink the dark one's serious, Tina, but I don't know, somehow, I'd keep in with Walbridge. He may not have so much money, but he'll be easier to manage. Armstrong seems like any other gay young fellow, and for all I know he is—he's certainly generous—but I'd rather have you Mrs. Walter Walbridge and lose the family custom, than have you tied up to an obstinate man."
"And—excuse me, but I'm really interested," he asked, "could you be Mrs. Walter Walbridge?"
"Yes, I could," she answered, "he asked me when he lent you the machine. I suppose he thought you might," she added simply.
He drew a long breath.
"And you answered—"
"I said I'd think it over," she said softly. "I—are you really angry with me, Rob? We're friends, aren't we? Friends—"
Her eyes lifted to his. "You see, Rob," she went on, still softly, "a girl like me has to be awfully straight and pretty careful. It's not easy to go to theaters and suppers and out with the machines and keep your head—you can't always tell about men. And I've cost auntyquite a lot, though of course, my clothes were the cheapest, really, all made in the house. I had two good offers to go on the stage, but she wouldn't have it. And even if Mr. Walbridge's mother did make a fuss, she can't help his getting the money. Of course I told him I'd think it over, but I always liked—"
"And now you've thought it over," he interrupted quickly, "and you've found out that your remarkably able aunt was right. You're a wise little girl, Tina, for if I know Walter, hewillbe easier to manage! He's a lucky fellow—always was. But he'll never get his car at six to-night."
He plucked out his watch and strapping up the tea basket began to push the things hastily into it.
She stared ahead of her, her chin shaking a little, her eyes a little dim and most beautiful.
"I—you don't—you're not angry, Rob?" She leaned over him.
"Tina, if you look like that I'll kiss you, and Walter will call me out!" he said lightly. "Of course I'm not angry—we're as chummy as you'll let me be. Come on and find the choo-choo car!"
He slipped his arm through the basket handle and made for his coat. The children scrambled off it apologetically; they were not quite certain where they stood in the present crisis. But he smiled at them reassuringly.
"We'll have to meet again," he called, already beyond them, "and have some more of those little cakes! Good-by till next time!"
"Good-by! Good-by!" they called, and Miss Honey, eyeing the pink parasol longingly, ventured, "Good-by, Miss Tina!"
The lady did not answer, but walked slowly after the young man, shaking out her billowy skirts. Soon he was behind the big boulder; soon she had followed him.
"Yady go!" the General announced.
"They had a quarrel, didn't they?" Miss Honey queried. "But they made up, so it was all right."
Caroline shook her head wisely.
"We—ell," she mused, "they made it up, but I don't believe he changed his mind, just the same."
Something puffed loudly in the road, whirred down to a steady growl, and grew fainter and fainter.
"There they go!" Brother cried.
He picked up a bit of bark and tossed it into the little pool.
"I bet you Ridge will be glad to get back to the Place," he said.
M
idsummerdust lay ankle-deep in the road, white and hot. The asphalt sidewalk baked in the noon sun, the leaves hung motionless from the full trees; only the breathless nasturtiums flickered like flames along the fences, for the other flowers wilted in the glare. Caroline, hatless and happy as a lizard in the relentless heat, spun along on her bicycle, the only bit of movement on all the long stretch of the road. The householders had all retired behind their green blinds; even New England yielded to August's imperioussiesta, and it might have been a deserted village, empty and mysterious, through which she glided.
By little and little she grew to feel this; her feet moved more and more slowly on the pedals, her brows knitted as the great idea grew. Her lips moved, inaudibly at first, but soon began thesing-song murmur so well known to those who crept upon her unawares.
"I am all alone; the rest have gone—where have they gone!—wherecouldthey go? Oh, they're dead. Murdered! No, the town was besieged, and we made ropes with our hair, and bowstrings.... And they all marched out, and they closed the city gates...." Slower and slower the pedals moved: Caroline was pushing uphill. "So then the Mayor said: 'No, this sacrifice is too great—I can not allow you to make it, my brave children. Death—and worse—await you beyond these walls. Let us die here together.'" Her chin quivered. At the summit of the hill she paused.
"'Thendie! Die like the dogs you are!' cried the Captain"—with feet perched high she swooped down the slope, her heart pounding with excitement, narrowly escaping collision at the bottom with an empty van, crawling through the heat, manned by a somnolent, huddled driver. Its hollow, cumbrous rattling pointed sharply the loneliness of the silent road, almost bare now of houses, for they were on the very outskirts of thevillage, and in a flash Caroline knew it for what it was, and shuddered.
"It's the Tumbrel!" she murmured softly, and to her awed fancy the graceful, slim-necked figures in flowered gowns drooped dreadfully or stiffened in a last pathetic defiance as they rolled by.
"Courage, my sister, courage!" whispered the brave gentleman, while the hoarse crowd shouted.... "And I am Marie Antoinette!" cried Caroline in a burst of inspiration.
Dismounting, she walked proudly beside her wheel; scornfully she held her head above that vulgar, cruel mob; the driver, poor in illusions, drowsed stupidly in front of the baleful wagon-load he knew not of, and clattered down the hill. To the ill-fated Queen, who followed the curving line of the twelve-foot iron fence that had sprung up at her side, ten minutes seemed but one. Lost in tragic musing, she wandered swiftly on; had you, meeting her suddenly, asked her where she was going, there is little doubt that she would have told you she was escaping to her palace. And all at once, as she halted a moment opposite a clear space in the shrubbery and thickly plantedtrees that followed the inside line Of the iron fence, she beheld the palace, high on a terraced knoll. It was of clean-cut gray stone, rising into a square tower at one corner, from which the flag drooped in bright folds of red and blue. The windows shone like mirrors; trim, striped awnings broke the severe angles of the long building; brilliant flower-beds gleamed from the smooth turf and bordered the neat walks of crushed gray stone. It stood massively above its terraces, a very castle of romance to Caroline, who had never before seen it so polished and beflagged. Wonderingly she tried the great wrought-iron gate, but it was securely locked, and a new sign was attached to it:
PRIVATE PROPERTY!All Trespassers are WarnedFrom the Premises!Visitors Please Ring at the Lodge.
PRIVATE PROPERTY!All Trespassers are WarnedFrom the Premises!Visitors Please Ring at the Lodge.
Caroline stared at it vaguely. So delicate are the oscillations of the imaginative imp, that it is hard to say just where he swings his slaves into determined self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline severely and demanded of her in the character ofan impatient adult the name of her castle, she would undoubtedly have informed you that it was Graystone Tower, a long deserted mansion, too expensive hitherto for any occupants but the children who roamed every inch of it for the first spring flowers and coasted down its terraces in winter. But no one was there to shake her, and so with parted lips and dreamy eyes she speculated as to whether they would fire the cannon on her arrival and whether she would scatter coins among her loyal servants or merely order an ox roasted whole in honor of her safe return.
Soon she reached the smaller gate, but before she tried the handle the sign warned her that it would be useless. She frowned: no one could keep up the spirit of a royal home-coming under these disadvantages. Suddenly her eyes brightened, she tossed her head, and following what was apparently a little blind alley of shrubbery, she plunged into a tangle of undergrowth and disappeared. Only her bicycle, resting against the fence, showed that some one had passed that way. Working herself through the screen of leaves, she emerged into a fairly cleared path that her accustomed feet followed to its logical climax—a deep depression scooped out under the sharp, down-pointed iron prongs, worn smooth by the frequent pressure of small bodies. The fence had lost its shiny blackness by now and the grass grew rank and untended around the mouth of the gap. Wriggling through, Caroline straightened herself and strolled unconcerned toward the castle, not so near her now. Soon she reached a newly rolled tennis court; farther on two saddled horses pawed beside a little summer-house, impatient for the start; an iridescent fountain tossed two gleaming balls high into the air. Caroline moved like one in a dream; her fancy, grown so overwhelmingly real, dazzled her, fairly. But it was like the court of the Sleeping Beauty—no one came or called.
At length, wandering on, she came upon a gardener in a neat gray livery, clipping with a large, distorted pair of scissors the velvet edge of a flower-bed. He resembled so undeniably the gardeners in that ageless chronicle of Alice that Caroline smiled approvingly upon him.
"You are one of my gardeners, I suppose," she said regally.
"Yes, Miss," he replied, respectfully, touching his banded cap, "I am that."
"You garden very well," said Marie Antoinette, dizzy with delight at his manner.
"Yes, Miss; thank you, Miss, I'm sure," and the cap came off.
She walked on superbly. At last it had happened, and she, Caroline in the flesh, had fought her way through the prickly hedge of every-day appearance and won into the garden of romance, where dreams were true and anything might happen.
At that moment there came to meet her from behind a great beech tree a slender little lady. She had gray hair puffed daintily and fancifully about her small, pale face, and knots of pale blue ribbon, woven in and out of her lacy, trailing gown, repeated the color of her mild, round eyes. Half consciously Caroline muttered: "Here is one of my ladies-in-waiting," when the little lady rushed at her, smiling delightedly.
"Are you a queen, then?" she cried in a high, sweet voice. "How very pleasant. Dear me, howverypleasant!"
Caroline smiled with equal delight. Very few persons of this little lady's age had such quick sense; mostly they had to be taught the game.
"Yes," she answered, "I am. I am Queen Marie Antoinette."
The little lady fell back a step. Her blue eyes clouded and she pouted like a big baby.
"Why—why, howcanyou be?" she demanded, fretfully, "when that is who I am, myself!"
For a moment Caroline scowled; such flexibility was almost disconcerting. Then her natural good-humor and the training resulting from many summers with Miss Honey, who claimed all the best roles at once and shifted often, prompted her generous reply:
"All right. I'll be Mary Queen of Scots, then—I like it about as well."
The little lady beamed again.
"That will be very pleasant," she said, "I trust your majesty is quite well?"
"Yes, indeed," Caroline assured her, adding airily; "How well the castle is looking this morning! I think I'll have the flag out every day, now that I'm back."
Marie Antoinette flushed angrily and pouted once more.
"You!You!" she mimicked. "What have you to do with my flag? That goes up by my orders, let me inform you! Here, gardener—" and she waved her little parasol at the man in gray, who was already walking rapidly towards them—"is that flag in my honor or not?"
"Yes, Miss," he said promptly. "Sure it is, Miss," and he nodded politely at them both. For a moment the rival queens confronted each other fiercely, then her Majesty of France smiled at Scottish Mary.
"You see," she said, in her high, bright voice; "you see, I was right. But then, I always am. I shall have to leave your Royal Highness now, for I see one of my subjects coming whom I don't care for at all—she is not very pleasant."
Sweeping a low courtesy, the little lady glided away with a graceful, dipping motion; the white hand that lifted her trailing skirts was covered with turquoises.
Caroline looked where her royal sister had pointed, and saw a tall, handsome young womanhurrying toward her. She was dressed plainly in black, but with a rich plainness that could not have escaped the youngest of womankind. Opposite Caroline she paused, her hand on her heart.
"John! Oh, John! This—this is a child!"
"Yes, Miss; sure it is," said the gardener politely.
"But how did she get here? Surely no children come here?" Her hands were trembling.
"Yes, Miss, many of 'em—sure they do," he said pleasantly, with a good Irish smile.
But it was plain that his good-nature did not please the handsome lady. She bit her lip angrily.
"You know very well, John, that you are not to talk to me in that idiotic way," she said decidedly. "You know that there is no necessity for it as well as I do."
"All right, Miss," he replied, soothingly.
"And you are lying when you say that children come here," she went on, controlling herself with a great effort, "for they do not."
The gardener scratched his head doubtfullyand walked away, muttering to himself. The girl turned to Caroline.
"Tell me," she demanded eagerly, her voice low and hurried, "how did you come here? Are you with friends? Where are they? What were you saying to that queen woman?"
"I—I—we were—I was Mary Queen of Scots," Caroline stammered, struggling, as the happy dreamer struggles, not to wake.
The girl started back from her, pale with an emotion that left her handsome face drawn and old.
"Good Heavens!—it can't be—a child! Achild!" she cried. Tears stood in her dark eyes.
"How pitiful!" she said, softly, to herself. Then, forcing a smile, she leaned coaxingly over Caroline.
"I am only too delighted to make your Majesty's acquaintance," she said, her voice a little husky, but very sweet. "I have read of you often. But surely your Majesty has not been here long? I do not recall having seen you before to-day."
"N—no, you haven't," Caroline answered, a little grudgingly, "I only just came."
"Ah!" said the girl, "and how did you come? Not through the house surely?"
"I came under the fence," said Caroline, "the gates were locked. I was Marie Antoinette then, but I changed after she said she was."
"Oh! Oh!" the girl groaned, covering her face with slender, ringless hands.
"But I'd just as soon," Caroline assured her—"honestly I would. Only you need a Bothwell for her. I only thought of Marie Antoinette after the tumbrel went by. I suppose she's used to Marie Antoinette, prob'ly, and so you can't get her to change."
She nodded in the direction of the little lady, now far from them, white against the shrubbery.
The girl drew in her breath in little gasps, as if she had been running.
"Y—yes," she assented, "she's used to being Marie Antoinette. Where is the hole you got through? Is it big enough for—for anybody?"
"Oh, yes," said Caroline indifferently, "but nobody knows about it but me and a few other k—prisoners, I mean; I've used it when I was escaping before. I think it was a rabbit-holefirst, and then we made it bigger. Isn't that funny—Alice got in by a rabbit-hole, too, didn't she? I thought of her as soon as I saw the gardener. He's very polite, isn't he?"
The girl pressed her lips together. "They are all polite here," she said briefly. "Do you mean that you go in and out of this hole as you like? Do they know of it? Is it far from here?"
"It's over there," Caroline waved, vaguely. "Why? Do you want to escape, too? Are you a queen?"
"No." The girl said it with a slight shudder. "No, I'm not. I'm—I'm—Oh, I'm Joan of Arc! You know about her, don't you, dear?"
Caroline nodded. "Are you trying to escape?" she repeated, interested at last.
"Yes," said the girl, "I am. But don't tell any one, will you? Don't tell that gardener, for instance."
"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I won't tell. Wouldn't he help you?"
The girl laughed, an excited, sobbing laugh.
"No, he wouldn't help me at all," she said. "Come on, walk a little. He is watching us.Don't tell him about the hole, will you? Promise me faithfully." She turned and seized the child's wrist. "Can you keep a promise?" she panted.
"Of course I can."
"And if any one should ask you, could you—oh,couldyou say you came in by the gate?"
Caroline wriggled free.
"Of course," she said scornfully. "Do you think I'm a baby?"
"Don't be angry—don't," the girl pleaded. "I don't mean to frighten you—your Majesty, I mean—but I am so excited, and—and I don't quite do what I intend to do or say just what I mean. I am quite all right now. You see, that gardener—he isn't really a gardener." She watched Caroline narrowly, quite unprepared for the sudden delight in her eyes.
"Oh,he'spretending, too!" cried Mary of Scots joyfully. "What is he, really?"
"He's—he's one of my jailers," said the girl somberly. "And the first thing he would do would be to stop up your hole under the fence."
"Oh!" Caroline stared respectfully at the gardener, not far from them now.
"Were you ever in chains?" she said, in an awed voice.
"No," said Joan of Arc, "I never was. I wouldn't be in this—this fortress if I had to be in chains. This is for well-behaved prisoners."
"Is Marie Antoinette a prisoner, too?"
"Yes," said the girl, wearily, "she is. And she has kept me one. I should not be here now but for her. She prevented my escape."
"The mean old thing!" Caroline cried, indignantly, "did she tell?"
"She called that gardener," said the girl, "just as I was walking out of the little gate. Of course I had to walk slowly. She is very malicious—poor thing," she added quickly.
They were close to a little arbor now, and not so far from the castle. Caroline could see figures here and there strolling on the upper terraces and sitting on the piazzas. The tinkle of a mandolin cut the soft air and the new-mown grass smelled sweet.
"I think this castle is lovely, though, don't you, Joan of Arc?" she burst out.
"It is an abominable castle," said the girl, in a muffled voice. "Abominable!"
"Well, then," said Caroline, practically, "if you feel that way, you'dbetterescape."
The girl stared at her.
"Tell me," she said, earnestly, "have you ever been in this place before? Where do you live?"
Caroline shrugged her shoulders impishly.
"I am Mary Queen of Scots," she replied, obstinately, "and I live in Scotland. Of course, I've been here before. Who are all those other people in the castle?"
The girl drew a long, worried breath. "I believe I should go mad if I stayed here much longer," she said, to herself. She drew Caroline down beside her behind the arbor.
"Listen to me, Mary Queen of Scots," she murmured, very low, with anxious glances all about her.
"I don't know who you are nor where you come from, but I believe you will help me—I believe you're sorry for me. You know how badly Joan of Arc's friends felt when she was in prison? I'm sure you do. Well I have a—a dear friend who would die for me, if it would help me. He has no idea where I am. He thinks I don't want tosee him. He thinks—he must think—I'm no longer his—his—his friend. If I could only get to him, I should be safe."
"Why don't you write to him?" Caroline suggested.
The girl laughed bitterly.
"Ifyouhad prisoners inyourfortress, and they wrote letters to their friends to come and get them out, wouldyoumail the letters?" she demanded.
"I s'pose not," said Caroline gravely. Joan of Arc gulped.
"My letters never went," she said. "Now listen: I must go up to my room and get some money—I can't do anything without money. Will you wait here till I come back and not let anyone see you if you can help it? And if they do, will you say that you slipped in at the gate with a party that came in an automobile? One was here lately. Ask if you mayn't stay and see the flowers. And then I will meet you."
She looked hard in Caroline's eyes. "You're only playing," she said, suddenly. "You aren't—you aren't—What is your real name, dear?"
Caroline scowled.
"You better hurry up," she said, "or that gardener'll catch us. You're just like Marie Antoinette," she added irritably. "You think nobody can be anything but only yourself!"
Without a word the girl turned and left her, half running. Caroline heard her sobs.
At the same moment she caught the crunch of footsteps on the stone path that led to the arbor and crouched low behind it. Two men, talking idly, entered the spot of shade and sank down on the rustic bench.
"Look here, Ferris," said one voice, "is she really dippy—that one?"
"What do you mean?" This was a deeper voice, attached evidently to blue serge legs, for the speaker leaned to Caroline's eye level to scratch a match on one of them.
"Oh, I mean what I say." A gray striped coat sleeve poked through the lattice work, as the first speaker leaned hard on it. "If she is, then I am, that's all. It looks queer to me."
The blue legs crossed themselves tightly under the seat.
"Look here yourself, Riggs," said the secondvoice. "If you're curious in this matter, I advise you to ask the doctor. He's boss here, not I—thank God! I obey orders and draw my forty per, as per contract. The same to you, only it's hardly forty, I suppose."
"No, it's not," grunted Graycoat. "Not by a good sight. I see myself asking the old man. I only asked your private opinion, Ferris,—you needn't get sore about it."
"My young friend," said Bluelegs, slowly, "there's only one thing you can ask me in this place that I won't tell you, and that's my private opinion!"
There was a little pause. Caroline, reveling in conspiracy, lay quiet, wondering who these people were and what they were talking about.
"You are perfectly welcome to anything I know about Miss Aitken," Bluelegs continued, puffing at a fresh cigarette and throwing the old one through the lattice at Caroline's feet.
"Her brother was a pronounced epileptic—died in a fit. I have seen the doctor's certificate. She was greatly worried over his death, and the manner of it, and showed signs of incipient melancholia."
"As how?" interrupted Graycoat.
"Don't know," said Bluelegs briefly. "Uncle said so. Wouldn't speak to anybody; cried all day; off her feed—that sort of thing. Very obstinate."
"Um," Graycoat muttered thoughtfully, "so am I. But I'd hate to be shut up on that account."
"So her uncle," proceeded Bluelegs, "wishing to save her, if possible, from her brother's fate, decided to—er—take steps in that direction and—and here she is."
"So I see," said Graycoat. "Was the brother's epilepsy hereditary?"
"I believe not," Bluelegs returned. "I believe the young gentlemen inherited a little too much a little too soon for his best good, and hit up a rather fast pace; his constitution wasn't the best."
"Did she know about all this?"
"I believe she did. Thought she might have saved him if she'd known sooner, her uncle said."
"Ah," said Graycoat. "Why didn't this kind uncle put his nephew with the doctor?"
"He wasn't his trustee," Bluelegs answered, quietly.
"Dear me," said Graycoat gently, "how fortunate for the nephew!"
"That's as you look at it," responded Bluelegs.
Caroline dozed in the warm shade; in dreams she chased the French Queen around the iridescent fountain.
"Uncle any business—besides trusteeship?" asked Graycoat.
"You can search me," said Bluelegs.
"Niece about twenty-one, I take it?" asked Graycoat.
"Search me again," said Bluelegs.
"Should you think," Graycoat demanded, after a pause, "that this incipient melancholia was likely to last long—speaking, of course, professionally?"
"Really, Dr. Riggs, I don't know." Bluelegs replied. "I am not at all in touch with the case. The doctor has entire charge of it. He mentioned to me last week that he was sorry to see both in her and young Dahl evidences of clearly formed delusions—"
"Young Dahl!" cried Graycoat, "why, the boy is an admitted paranoiac!"
"Really?" said Bluelegs, "you know I don'tdo much but cocaine and morphia, these days. Did you know the doctor was going to print my pamphlet?"
"He can afford it, I judge," growled Graycoat. "He gets a hundred a week from Miss Aitken."
Bluelegs got up and sent a second cigarette after the first.
"Riggs," he said gravely, "if you're aiming to succeed as a magazine writer, you're beginning well; if it's your ambition to succeed in this business, and succeed right here, you're beginning badly. You were keen enough to get this place. If you talk much this way, you won't keep it long—you can take it from me. Let's come in to lunch."
Their tread on the arbor floor roused the sleeping conspirator; she sat up, rubbing her eyes half afraid that the clipped terraces, the floating, flag, the inhabited castle, were only parts of her dream. But even as she peered around the arbor, Joan of Arc rushed toward her. She wore a black shade hat and carried a fluffy black parasol under her arm.
"Be careful!" she panted. "We can't go yet—I was stopped. I had to talk. You say yes to whatever I say, will you? Then you can escape with me—" she smiled sweetly at Caroline—"a real escape, as they do in story books! Won't that be fine?" Her hand was at her heart again; a red circle burned in either cheek.
Caroline nodded eagerly.
"That will be grand!" she said. She had forgotten till that moment that she wanted to escape.
"Ah, Miss Aitken! Late for lunch again!"
Caroline started guiltily, for it was the voice of Bluelegs.
Joan threw her arm over Caroline's shoulder carelessly.
"Yes, Dr. Ferris, I'm afraid I am," she said. "I was delayed by this little visitor."
He looked suspiciously at them. "Who is she?" he asked.
"I don't know." Joan led Caroline along quickly. "Shesaysshe is Mary Queen of Scots."
He stared blankly.
"I found her conversing with Marie Antoinette," she went on easily, "and she seems tohave slipped in with an automobile party—was there one? Children are so secretive, you know. She is trying to get out, but she says all the gates are locked."
"Oh, yes, that was the Dahls—they came to see Frederick," he explained.
"I see. You were left with the chauffeur, Mademoiselle, and it's easy to imagine the rest," he added with a smile. He had a very attractive smile, and Caroline slipped her hand into his offered one readily.
"You are fond of children?" said Joan, abruptly.
"Very," he answered simply. "Why not! And they are fond of me, as you see. My dear young lady, did you think we are all brutes because we must obey orders?"
She set her teeth and walked swiftly forward.
"I know you think us cruel," he went on frankly, "because we can not do for you the one thing that you want; but, except for that, have you anything to complain of?"
She smiled scornfully.
"'Except for that'?" she echoed, "no, Dr. Ferris, nothing in the world—but 'that'!"
"And you must remember," he continued, in his pleasant, soothing voice, "that it may not be for long, after all. If you continue to improve as you have—" She flung away impatiently. "Oh, yes, you have improved, you know; you eat better, you sleep better, your nerves are quieter. We get good reports of you. Many are ill longer than you. Do you like the new masseuse?"
She did not answer.
"Now, this little lady must have some lunch with us, and then, no doubt, we shall see that careless chauffeur again," he said easily. "Would you like to stay?" he asked Caroline.
"Yes, I would."
"Mary was always fickle, you know," he laughed, glancing at her clinging hand.
And, indeed, Caroline found him far more winning than the sulky, silent Joan, and leaned confidingly against him as they climbed the stone steps and passed through the rich, dark-paneled hall, hung with bright pictures, filled with bowls of flowers. Several men, uniformed like the gardener, stood about the steps and terraces;two stood by the door of a large, airy dining-room filled with hurrying waiters. About a long silver-laden table some twenty men and women, cool in lawn and lace and white flannel, were seated, eating and talking gaily. At the head was a large, tall man in a snowy vest; evidently the host, by his smiling, interested attention to everybody's wants. At his right was a vacant chair, and toward this Joan of Arc directed her steps. She had caught Caroline's hand in hers, and, as Bluelegs bent and whispered in the tall man's ear, she added:
"I think, doctor, if the little girl stays by me she will feel less shy, perhaps."
"Certainly, certainly—by all means. A good thought, Miss Aitken, a good thought," he answered in a rich, kind voice. He shook hands with Caroline warmly.
"So you find our grounds attractive?" he asked politely.
She nodded, a little shyly. All this company, so freshly dressed, so ceremoniously served, so utterly unconscious of her presence, embarrassed her a little. For not one of the ladies and gentlemen—there were no children—paid the slightest attention to her arrival, even when a place was made for her by Joan and a mug of milk procured. They talked, or, as she noticed now, sat, many of them, listless and silent, playing with their rings and bracelets, answering only with monosyllables the questions of the large, cordial doctor.
"Where is Marie Antoinette?" she whispered to her friend, who seemed nearer, suddenly, than these cold table-mates.
"She does not eat with us," said Joan, helping her to chicken and green peas, and beginning her own meal.
The doctor turned to them, having recommended some asparagus to the stolid lady at his left.