Chapter II: Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I see."

Edgerton nodded serenely.

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

Colonel Curmew said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ah! a case of the dead hand?"

"Mort main," nodded the young man indifferently.

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Rivett broke the silence somewhat abruptly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In the Berkshires. Will you come?"

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

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

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

"You have mentioned no terms," said Edgerton.

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

Edgerton said laughingly to Diana:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is that your vote?" inquired Silvette.

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

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

Diana looked up at Edgerton.

"Are you really expecting to come with us?"

"If you will let me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Which you are not!"

She lifted her blue eyes to his.

"_You_ think I am," she said.

"No, I don't."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Edgerton reddened, then sat still looking at her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What!" he exclaimed incredulously.

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

"Certainly you do--about eighteen!"

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

"Good Lord! Are _you_ the elder?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diana glanced up, then flushed.

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

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

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

"Your--what?"

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

"Are you jeering at me?"

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

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

"Behold me as I am, cousin! Just what you have already divined me, with your eyes too humorous and too wise for a man of thirty--frivolous, feminine, not insensible to flattery, wise only in theory, a novice in practice----"

She hesitated, looking at him, the bright color in her cheeks.

"What silenced and incensed me was that you divined it. I would have liked to have played a part with you vis-a-vis----"

"You're playing it now," observed Silvette. "Jim doesn't know what you are now; even I have doubts."

Diana laughed deliciously.

"_Do_ I puzzle you, cousin?"

"Are you trying to?"

"Of course."

"Well, you've succeeded. You're perfectly right, Silvette; I don't know anything about her now. Are there any more roles you can assume, Japonette?"

"Many, monsieur. One of them _is_ Japonette, if I choose."

"Play it," he said, "if you ever want to tie me to your Obi."

"You behave," observed Silvette tranquilly, "like two rather ordinary young persons flirting."

"We are," nodded Diana, "but it won't last, Silvie. It's only my kimono and his thirty-odd years and the unconventionality that attracts him." She strolled about airily waving her fan. "Not that I mind being picked up----"

"Di! You'll give him a perfectly horrid impression of yourself!"

"Why, he knows I didn't mind it. It's past helping now."

"_How_ can a man 'pick up,' as you so disgustingly put it, his own cousin?"

"That _was_ a triumph, wasn't it, Jim?" she asked innocently. "It remained for an Edgerton to accomplish the weird and impossible; but an Edgerton can do anything in New York--n'est ce pas? Bien, sure! Sure, Mike!"

"Diana!"

"Dearest, I _feel_ slangy; and cousin James is so thoroughly a man of the world that he doesn't care. He wouldn't care what I did. I could perform a pas seul or a flip-flap or a cart wheel, and _he_ wouldn't care. It's done in the best circles here, isn't it, cousin?"

"Frequently," he said gravely, "varied occasionally by voloplaning down the banisters."

She looked about her wistfully.

"There are no banisters here. Perhaps there are at the Rivetts'. Do you think it would entertain his guests? You know we are employed for that purpose."

"You and I ought to practice some acrobatic turns," he suggested. "Do you think you could learn to throw a double somersault standing on my shoulders?"

"I can try----"

"Di! what on earth are you talking about!" said Silvette, turning from the piano to encounter their unrestrained laughter.

"Oh, dear," said Diana, "I didn't know I could ever be silly again. I thought that losing all our money a year ago had frightened it out of me; but it's there, cousin Jim--the same frivolity which _you_ instantly discovered in me, and which the Rivetts will probably and properly quench.... Silvie, this studio floor is delightfully waxed.... Cousin, do you dance?"

"Rottenly."

"Never mind.... Silvie, dear--one little waltz, please? _Please_? Thank you. Pull away that rug, cousin. Are you ready?"

She laid her arm on his, her hand in his; Silvette, playing, turned her head to watch them.

"He _is_ a rotten dancer," she said critically.

"I can't help that," said Diana; "it was the time and the hour. I needed it! ... Jim, don't step on my toe, please, and don't _think_ of stopping. You do well enough, really, you do.... No man who counts dances like a Turveydrop.... We use dancing men for dancing purposes only.... Of course you are flattered; I meant to flatter you, so you wouldn't be horrid enough to stop.... Please finish glaring at me; you are really giving me a great deal of pleasure."

"I begin to wonder whether I was not created for that, Japonette."

"To amuse me? Unintentionally? perhaps."

"So that you notice me at all, it doesn't matter," he said under his breath.

"Goodness! what meekness! Only that you're a typical man and don't mean it, I'd hate you for it.... A meek man--from him, good Lord, deliver us! ... No, cousin, there is that in your eye which--and in your general make-up----"

"What?"

"Oh, I don't know--thirty-odd masculine years--_very_ masculine!--or I'd not be dancing with you, or I'd not be in this house at this moment; or, rather, _you_ wouldn't. Stop mincing along in a horrid sort of self-satisfied prance! ... And don't hop, either! Are you tiring?"

"No," he said bravely.

"I'll let you go in a moment, before you swoon and I have to drag you to a chair.... You dance well enough. I like it, really ... and--thank you very much indeed!"

They parted, breathless. She stood a moment waving her fan against her bright cheeks and touching her hair with cleft fingers. He extracted a handkerchief from his sleeve and used it frankly.

"It's hot in here," he said; "show me your roof garden."

"Silvette," she called over her shoulder, "will you come up to the roof?"

Silvette nodded and continued playing an air from "Armide"; and they waited for her a moment, then went out into the hallway and up to the roof.

"The garden of a thousand delights!" she said with a sweep of her hand and a curtsey. "The Japanese fairy, Japonette, welcomes the true prophet of her frivolity."

He looked around at the flowers in pots--geraniums, verbenas, fuchsias, heliotrope--homely, old-fashioned blossoms.

"I bought them from a peddler; I stopped his wagon in the street and made him carry them up here. They only cost two dollars; and I was economical at the market," she explained.

He glanced up at the awning gay with yellow and white stripes.

"Macy's," she admitted guiltily; "I'll starve you at dinner to-night to pay for it."

He looked at her rather queerly, she thought.

"There are things I'd starve for--and people."

"And awnings, cousin?"

"Yours."

"That's very nice and gallant and obvious," she said in such a tormenting tone that he broke out almost impatiently:

"Japonette, can't you ever take me seriously?"

"I hope not, cousin."

For an instant the smile remained stamped on their lips; then the slight strain became perceptible, a moment only, for she turned lightly away and seated herself on the edge of a big hanging seat.

"More Macy," she nodded ruefully. "We'll all have to fast to-morrow.... You may sit here, too, if you wish.'"

A family of starlings were nesting in the cornices of the roof across the way, and the two young people watched the old birds for a while flying to the park and returning with food for their invisible young.

"Horrid, isn't it?" observed Diana. "But that's the way of things. No sooner are you married and happy than--zip! the scene changes, and you turn into a wretched purveyor of nourishment for the next generation. Carpe diem!"

"Cede Deo! It's probably good fun," commented Edgerton.

"What? Slaving for others just when you are all ready for real happiness?"

"_That's_ happiness, or nobody would do it--not even those birds."

"It's instinct!"

"Maybe with birds. Instincts are all right for birds, but we humans are usually arrested when we follow our instincts."

She laughed. "That _is_ true; it's neither instinct nor happiness that makes us slaves to babies:--it's duty."

"If that were all it is," he said, "the state would be nourishing the majority of infants. No; it's probably fun, Diana. That's the only possible explanation."

She shrugged her dainty shoulders and looked at the westering sun above Staten Island; and in the gesture she seemed, in pantomime, to discard all feminine duties, cares, and responsibilities forever. Then as she rested there, cheek on hand, her blue eyes grew vaguer.

"I am glad you came into our lives," she said; "I mean it this time."

"I am glad, too," he said seriously.

"You are now; I can see that.... How soon will you be sorry?"

"Why?"

She turned toward him.

"How soon will the novelty tire you?"

"I have not considered you as a novelty."

"But I am; I'm a mechanical toy. My paint soon comes off, cousin."

"You're my own kin. There's no novelty, as you call it, in kinship, nothing evanescent."

She said: "Do you really and deliberately desire to stand by that extremely tenuous and attenuated tie? An attitude of that sort entails duties. You may have much to overlook in us--even much to forgive. Are you aware of your responsibilities?"

"I assumed them when I asked to be admitted to your partnership."

"Why _did_ you ask to join?"

"The real reason?"

She hesitated, looking at him.

"Yes, the real one."

"You."

"What exactly do you mean by that answer?"

"I don't know, myself, Japonette," he said laughingly; "I've tried to analyze it, too. The instinct of relationship may have counted."

"I hope it did," said she.

"I hope so. God knows, and men are selfish.... And _that_ counted, too."

"What?"

"Selfishness."

"I don't believe there is very much in you."

"That is where your heart is still a child's heart, Japonette."

"Oh, I'm no altruist, but there's selfishness _and_ selfishness.... What were we talking about? Oh! why you desired to join----"

"No, we got past that."

"Oh, yes; well, then, you say it was because of me. Why?"

"I told you I didn't know exactly why; but the root of it all was you.... And when you told me about some people who had come here--that fellow who spoke about a housekeeper----"

"Jim Edgerton!"

"What!"

"I believe--but you _can't_ be as nice as that! You simply can't!"

"Oh, I'm not nice," he protested, reddening; but she interrupted:

"You _are_! I certainly believe you thought that Silvie and I required somebody masculine in our vicinity--to throw the housekeeping man downstairs, for example. Did you?"

"No. I only----"

"_Did_ you?"

"Of course not."

"Do you know," she said seriously, "you're a perfect dear in one way, and I don't know what you are in others. _Now_ be flattered, for _that_ makes you interesting. And you know it's all up with a woman who finds a man interesting."

She was laughing at him now, and he scarcely knew how to take what she said except to take it with a grin.

"You're a terrible torment, Diana," he said. "My value in my own estimation, since I've known you, has fluctuated between a dollar and a half and thirty cents."

"You _said_ you had two dollars! I believe you're one of these wealthy men who are always singing poor!"

"How many other kinds of things do you think I am?" he asked resignedly.

"I don't know. I think I'll amuse myself by finding out."

"Meanwhile," he said, smiling, "remember I am always what I was when I first set eyes on you--no!--the next second _after_ I had seen you."

"A lightning change, cousin?"

"Like lightning, Diana."

"The lightning of the gods?"

"Diana's own shaft.... 'The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night,' but I stand betwixt the rising sun of Japan and--you, Diana. _Somebody's_ shot me, that's all."

"You are perfectly delightful, but do you realize that I'm dissecting you all the while?"

"You once said----"

"Never mind that," she interrupted hastily; and blushed until it infuriated her to calmness. And to heal the sting with the cause of it she said:

"You're perfectly right, cousin; any man who can endure our scalpel will be worth seizing and dragging to the parson. But--you are perfectly safe for a while. It takes a lifetime to properly dissect a man of your sort. I'll be eighty before I make up my mind about you."

"Eighty years is not beyond the statute of limitations."

"You'd marry me at eighty! Do you know you're beginning to trouble me? I told you I was thoroughly feminine, and susceptible to flattery. I am; it's too bad I'm so intelligent that I've really got to satisfy that intelligence by spending years and years in dissecting you. Otherwise, I'd run away with you now."

"In your Japanese silks and little straw sandals?"

"Oh, yes, if you were sentimental enough to insist."

"I would."

She shrugged. "I knew you were a dreamer--captivated by a vision. Suppose you had to see me pinning on store curls?"

"I'd help pin 'em."

"Well, there are plenty of other things to disillusion you. I adore onions."

"So do I," he said.

They laughed together.

She was near enough for him to be aware of the faint scent of her breath, or it may have been a fragrance from her gown which stirred slightly in the evening breeze, or the delicate fresh perfume of her hair and skin--something indefinable, some exquisite emanation of youth which had stolen subtly into his senses--something of her, and as distinctly and inviolably hers as the occult atmosphere of a virgin planet.

"Cousin," she said, "I thought we were to remove our masks in the family circle. They seem to be on as closely as ever."

He looked at her a moment.

"We never will remove them," he said.

"Never?"

"Never, Japonette."

"Why not?"

"Because, for example, in my case I want you to believe me everything I'd like to be. I know what I am. All people know what they are.... Does anybody ever really unmask? ... Could they if they wished to? There would be only another mask beneath.... We can't ever get rid of masks.... I don't care how hard we try, how honestly we try, how intimate two people become, how deeply they may love--there's always a mask, and it grows there; and our own eyes are the slits. Even a mother with her first born in her arms looks down into its eyes in vain--those blue and transparent veils of a secret soul which sits behind them, impenetrable, inviolable."

After a silence she said:

"Silvette was right; you are a poet, Jim.... How dusky it is growing over the river. Silvette is probably superintending dinner preparations. Shall we go down?"

*CHAPTER V*

*DE MOTU PROPRIO*

They arrived at Adriutha two days later in a roaring downpour of June rain. A maid conducted Silvette and Diana to their rooms, a valet piloted Edgerton to another wing of the house devoted to bachelors' quarters over the vast billiard room.

At the eastern end of the house Silvette stood beside the window while the maid assigned to them undressed her. Diana, already in her pajamas and sandals, lay flat on the bed, one knee crossed over, swinging her slim, bare foot and looking out at the rain.

It was a wet outlook across the meadows, over a low range of rocky and wooded hills, behind which the invisible sun had already set. In the drenched foreground, beyond the meadow's matted edge, the Deerfield River tossed and foamed, swollen a deeper amber by the rain--a wide, swift stream set with spray-dashed bowlders, and bordered alternately by ledges dripping with verdure and sandy stretches full of low rain-beaten willows. The world, through its limpid veil of rain, looked like a silvery aquarelle framed by a window.

Tea was presently served. Silvette in her silk lounging suit came over and seated herself on the edge of the bed; the maid finished drawing the bath, and retired until again summoned.

"Well," sighed Silvette, pouring the tea, "here we are, Di. How do you feel about it now?"

"Depressed," said Diana briefly.

"So do I, somehow.... I wish we were back in New York, with just enough to live on."

Diana swung her foot gently, but made no reply.

Presently she kicked off her sandal, lay thinking a moment, and then sat up and accepted the cup of tea offered by her sister. They sipped their tea in silence for a while, nibbled toast and cakes until sufficiently refreshed.

"After all," observed Silvette, "what we are doing for a living is purely a matter of personal taste. It ought not to depress us."

"We should have told him! That is the only thing that worries me," remarked Diana. "Still, it is really none of his business what we do for a living."

"After all," repeated Silvette, "what is there to tell him? Keno, Nevada, has nothing to learn from New York in frivolity, I fancy. There are several pretty women in every set who'd starve if they didn't play cards better than their neighbors."

"I rather wish we'd told him about our year there; yet, what is there to tell? Probably it resembled plenty of years with which he is perfectly familiar."

"Do we have to account to Jim Edgerton anyway?" asked Silvette impatiently.

"He wanted to come with us," mused Diana. "When he wants to go, he'll go fast enough, I fancy. It isn't what he might think, or his possible disapproval, that worries me; it's that he ought to have been told more about us in the beginning.... But how were we to tell him?"

"He didn't ask, did he?"

"No; but, somehow or other, we ought to have put him au courant, and then he could have had his choice about recognizing the relationship or ignoring it. That's what bothers me a little."

"How could we possibly have told him all about ourselves the first afternoon we ever set eyes on him?"

"There were two other afternoons; one is just ending.... I don't know; I might easily have created a situation in which it would have seemed natural enough to mention our programme to him."

"Why didn't you, Di?"

"Cowardice," said the girl frankly; and she stretched herself out flat on the bed again.

"Do you think as much of Jim Edgerton's opinion as that?"

"I seem to.... I didn't want to take the risk of his disapproval. I'm beginning to realize that we've been dishonest with him."

"That is an ugly word, little sister."

"I don't know any way to soften it. A girl is either honest or the contrary. I was not honest with Jim Edgerton."

"He might not disapprove, after all. He is no provincial."

"Yes--and he might disapprove. Men of his kind who stand for almost anything in outsiders are finicky about their own relatives. They really don't care what imprudence other people commit; they may even admire it--even do it themselves--but there's a difference as soon as it involves one of the family. I've an idea he is like that."

"Isn't it stretching a thin tie of kinship too far to speak of Jim Edgerton and ourselves in a family sense? Are you and I not rather inclined to abuse that word cousin, Diana?"

"He first used it to us," she said warmly; "it is his choice. He's a very impulsive and generous boy; do you know it?"

"Yes, I do.... Isn't it a thousand pities?"

"What about?"

"His losing everything--being so wretchedly poor.... And our being poor, too."

"Yes," said Diana simply.

"And he'll never, never recoup. He is full of talent, and nothing else. What a pity! He isn't the successful sort. It's a pity, isn't it, Di?"

"Yes."

"Because he is already quite mad about you, Di--he's a perfect boy about you... How can men of his age retain their niceness and charm and freshness, after what they usually pass through. With all his undesirable wisdom and his masculine worldly experiences, he's practically as innocent as we are."

Diana suddenly sat up cross-legged on the bed and gathered her ankles in her hands.

"I wonder just how innocent we really are," she said, "with all those things which we have been obliged to know about in our higher education? And--speaking of education--there was our last year in Keno. That year did some curious things to us. Do you realize our development, our worldly evolution since the beginning of last year--how familiar we became with that doubtful worldly wisdom which is supposed to be part of the make-up of a woman of the world? ... Do you realize that it was a year of laissez faire, of revelation, of laxity and acquiescence in relaxation, a year of paradox, of ceremony sans facon, of schooling oneself to overlook and accept, of an education in morals and their immoral variations? How aloof have we kept ourselves from what we have learned to tolerate?--and how much was due to fastidiousness, how much to expediency, how much to common sense, and how much to spiritual conviction?"

"Does your conscience really trouble you?" asked Silvette anxiously.

"No; only in regard to Jim Edgerton. I'd rather he knew how we regard life before he reclaims relationship in public; that's all."

Silvette said: "We are merely wiser; merely less provincial and more honest and tolerant of a world that isn't any too goody-goody. We've learned to distinguish between mock modesty, false shame, hypocrisy, and honest conviction. Take Keno, for instance; before we lived there we were inclined to look askance on what the world accepts with indifference and perfect good nature. I mean, on the rather lurid gayeties of a little world where attractive divorcees make up the bulk of society--where the eternal cry in the ballroom is 'Change partners! Ladies change!'--and where nobody plays cards except for stakes. After all, Keno is merely a section of New York temporarily transplanted. He'd probably feel at home there."

Diana turned, deliberately rolled across the bed, landing lightly on her feet.

"All right," she said; "only, some day somebody will tell Jim Edgerton that those two cousins of his are outpacing propriety. We're just a dash too pretty, Silvie, and we've simply got to be careful. There's one enemy you and I will always have to reckon with--our own sex."

She walked to the window, looked out, and stood watching the rain, her childish mouth troubled. And, presently, speaking again without turning around:

"Our programme, as we have arranged it, was to be a general one--to win out, go in for everything, play the game as hard as it can be played, meet the gayer world face to face squarely, and take from it honestly all it has to offer."

"Except love."

"Except--that."

"Love, per se, we can't afford," said Silvette gayly; "however, it may even be included. Who knows? Material masculine eligibility need not necessarily exclude that agreeable passion, need it? Many a worthy heart beats beneath the waistcoat of the plutocrat."

"The chances are against any deal in hearts, as far as we are concerned."

"You're not thinking of Jim Edgerton, are you, Di?"

Diana stood, hands clasped behind her back, staring at the rain. Suddenly she pivoted on her sandals.

"Yes, I am thinking of him. I'm thinking of him all the time."

"That is very unwise," said Silvette gently.

"I am thinking of him, but it's only thinking.... I like him. I never liked any man better, or as well, perhaps.... And I've known him three days. Give me a day or two grace, and I'll stop thinking about him."

"You were quite mad over young Inwood in Keno," mused Silvette.

"Yes.... I realize that I like men. I enjoy them; if I had my way, I'd carry on like the deuce with every man who took my fancy, before I come to the final decision and spoil life for myself."

"You carry on like the deuce _now_, sister," said Silvette, laughing.

"I don't do it enough," retorted Diana fiercely; "what have I got to look forward to, after all?--a homeless life of social employment, an old age of gossip and cards!--or, if I win out, a loveless middle age wearing some wealthy man's name and pearls, and all the rest dashed out--the brightness, the youth of things, the hope of things, children----"

"_You_ don't want children!" exclaimed Silvette, horrified; "grubby little things! I thought you hated them!"

"Grubby little things," repeated the girl slowly; "so I do, in theory."

"You don't know anything about them practically."

"Except at the Maternity Hospital.... Oh, Silvie, it _is_ ghastly.... It's horrid! horrid!--it's devilishly unfair! ... Young girls in the springtide of youth crept in and out of that dreadful place like the white ghosts of murdered souls! If maternity didn't slay them, it killed the better part of them. Then the world ended for them--youth, hope, freedom ended with the first thin cry of the tyrant that dooms all women.... Yes, I--hate children!" She stood a moment, slim hands on her hips, head lowered with the brown locks clustering against her cheeks; then, looking up:

"But I mean to have one of my own sometime. Life to the full, dregs and all, before I die. That is my programme."

Silvette laughed. "This is a new and recent development, isn't it?"

"I'm developing like lightning."

"Lightning develops quickly, but it doesn't last, dear."

Diana, lost in retrospection again, smiled vaguely. Then, lifting her pretty eyes:

"Did you ever see starlings feeding their young? A pair nested opposite the studio. I found their evolutions rather interesting."

"No doubt," said her sister. "Is that what has aroused the maternal instinct? Come, who is to bathe first. Pull down the shade and turn on the electricity, and ring for the maid, dear. She ought to lay out our gowns at once."

Diana did as she was bidden; then, on impulse, sat down at the little fly-away desk and scribbled a note:

"Take it to Mr. Edgerton," she said to the maid.

Edgerton, dressing leisurely, read the note where he stood under the electric cluster:

"DEAR JIM: The rain, the world, and things oppress me. So do you sometimes.... There's a long future ahead of me. I dread it--who was eager for the plunge a few days since. I seem to be standing on the threshold of things in general, waiting for my cue to enter, but with little heart for the stage now. Alas, I am already tired before the overture has ended.

"If we dance to-night, ask me. Probably I'm the only girl in the house who could stand a dance with you--and I'm not so certain about myself.... But if we play Bridge, continue not to sit at our table. I ask it of you for reasons which are none of your business. Indulge my whim, please.

"JAPONETTE."

He finished dressing, then scribbled a note to her, and sent it by the valet:

"Japonette, dear, I'm as rotten at cards as I am dancing. I won't permit indiscreet infatuation to interfere with your Bridge.... And, by the way, in this sort of a house the chances are they'll play for stakes--probably high stakes. My limit is a cent a point--or was in days of affluence--but our host will scarcely expect us to risk our salaries, I fancy. So even if you have no objection to playing for stakes--which probably, however, you have--you need not feel obliged to. Our duties here do not include losing money to Mr. Rivett's assorted guests, you know. Feel perfectly at liberty to let the table carry you and Silvette.

"Shall I wait and go down with you both?

"J.E."

She read the note; then handed it silently to Silvette, who read it also in silence.

"You see," said Diana, "it's exactly what I told you. He doesn't wish us to play for stakes."

"He says nothing here about his wishes.... Besides, it would be an impertinence for him to make any such suggestion to either you or me."

"His attitude is plain enough--if you think it impertinent."

"I don't think it is. He indicates that he supposes we do not play for stakes, and adds that, anyway, we need not if we don't wish to. That is all the note expresses. Anyway, it doesn't matter, does it?"

Diana shook her disheveled head, seated herself and wrote a hasty answer, sending it away by the valet, who was waiting outside the door.

"Don't wait for us; we're not hooked up yet. We're quite accustomed to play for stakes, you funny boy, so that need cause you no uneasiness.... And please don't forget to ask me, if they dance."

Edgerton stood thinking for a moment before his fireplace after reading the missive; then struck a match and lit the two notes, holding them together until almost consumed, and lingered still to watch the edge of yellow flame on the hearth licking up the remaining margins of the paper.

Then he went downstairs and into a green and gold drawing-room, where his hostess received him shyly, almost timidly--a small gray-haired woman all over jewels whose thin little hand trembled slightly in his.

It was a frail hand, fragile of bone, yet never the hand of generations of leisure, for the joints were hard and accented, and the fingers rather worn than thin--as though once not unaccustomed to household labor; and, without knowing just why, he retained the diamond-laden hand in his firm, warm clasp for a moment as though to reassure her.

"It is nice of you to ask us," he said gently. "You have made everything very easy and comfortable for us. My cousins will be down in a few moments; they asked me to come first."

The little gray woman looked up into his pleasant, well-cut face as though confused; he smiled down at her, still retaining her hand.

"My husband has told me who you are," she said. "I didn't expect you to be just like this.... You and your cousins are our very welcome and honored guests.... Our _guests_," she repeated almost tremulously, "and none more welcome under our roof."

"It is gracious and kind of you to say so," he said, touched by the simplicity and the mild, faded face upturned.

Then Mr. Rivett came forward, cautiously treading the velvet, his two burned-brown eyes fixed behind the big concave eyeglasses.

"It's wet weather," he said, shaking hands. "I hope your quarters are comfortable."

"Most luxurious, thank you--with a beautiful outlook."

Mrs. Rivett's gentle voice sounded at his elbow presenting him to her daughter and son, and after that to several others who, for the moment, he made no effort to distinguish one from another except that he recognized Colonel Curmew in superb form and obtrusive pearl studs decorating a fluted shirt front.

A moment later Silvette and Diana entered, slender and youthful, with all the softly flushed charm of eighteen and the winning composure of a wider experience than eighteen years can ever lend.

Colonel Curmew presently outflanked Silvette, forcing her skillfully into a momentary retreat toward the recess of a window, where he blockaded her and curled his mustache with satisfaction and shot his cuffs, and prepared to drive in her outer pickets.

Diana remained in quiet conversation with Mrs. Rivett, the latter shy, wistful, and ill at ease by turns; the former sweet and deferential, yet all the while composedly taking the measure of the others in the room, and of the room itself, vaguely aware in her apparently smiling preoccupation that she was winning a perplexed and timid heart.

Cocktails were served--unusual ones that had a scent like the original Ricky, that is, the aromatic odor of wild blossoms.

The little gray woman barely tasted hers, with that same inborn instinct, perhaps, that impelled those old-time hostesses in the days when viands and wines sometimes proved fatal.

Then Edgerton relieved her of her scarcely touched glass; took Diana's, too, which was still half full. Mrs. Rivett rose and gave him her arm, to his surprise; Mr. Rivett took in Diana, his son Silvette. The name of Edgerton had counted heavily.

In the dining room everything was grossly overdone except the cookery--the sort of thing most calculated to annoy and bore the very man most accustomed to it in town; profusion akin to the plethora which offends; effort impossible to disguise which stirs even in the most good-natured and generous an unwilling contempt.

Edgerton let his eyes rest for a moment, outside the silver and crystal-set circle of light, on gold, heavy carving, gilded tapestry and picture, and withdrew his gaze gravely. Men servants swarmed, bothering him; the scent of greenhouse blossoms, forced before their time; the heavy magnificence out of place--all slightly disgusted him, though much of it was about what he had expected of such people.

Little Miss Rivett, on his left, dissected her terrapin with the healthy attention of youth and hunger; and presently he turned to look at her with amused but wholly amiable curiosity.

He saw a small, plump, dainty maid, with exceedingly clear and bright brown eyes, and a softly brilliant complexion, looking back at him with unconcealed interest.

There was a moment's silence, then they both smiled.

"Do you think you'll like us?" she asked saucily; "or do you hate us already?"

"Not the slightest doubt of my liking you, Miss Rivett; but how about your liking us?"

"Your cousins are most bewitching and bewildering.... You seem to be nice--are you?"

"Very," he said, laughing. "I'm glad you gave me an opportunity of saying so, because otherwise it might not have been perfectly clear to you."

"I _am_ rather fastidious," she said. "How well do you dance?"

"My grace in that praiseworthy pastime is ursine."

"Really?"

"Unbearably."

"You are very British, aren't you?"

"Do you refer to my little play upon words?"

"No, generally; that was merely a touch of local color. Naturally, also, you fishshootridetohoundsandplaypolo; do you?"

"Also gawf, dear lady."

"Perfectly symmetrical and indistinguishable from others of your kind. I thought so. Crocky, too?"

"Certainly, crocky," he admitted; "also no bank account. You may call me m'lud with impunity."

"Perhaps you're not entirely qualified. How do you stand on the heiress question, Mr. Edgerton?"

"I can't qualify there."

"Then you're a sham. Besides, you're neither clever nor gallant. _I_ am an heiress."

"Then I qualify at once as a fortune hunter," he said, laughing, "and I'll cable for my solicitors."

"What _are_ you saying?" asked Mrs. Rivett in her gentle, uncertain voice.

"Mother, Mr. Edgerton and I are going to be friends. Perhaps he isn't sure of it, but I am. Tell him what happens when I am sure of anything."

"Dear, perhaps Mr. Edgerton doesn't quite understand your manner of saying things."

"That's just it; he _does_ understand! He is going to turn out exceedingly nice, mother; watch him!"

"Christine! Please be a little less personal and abrupt."

They turned, smiling, toward the other end of the table where much laughter sounded. Evidently Diana and Silvette were becoming very popular, and, somehow, it occurred to Edgerton that perhaps this great room had not often resounded with mirth.

But the chatter and laughter were incessant now; so were the servants' ministrations, and Edgerton was glad enough to give his arm to the faded little woman beside him and take her to her great, gilded chair in the drawing-room, and follow the men to another room, where blue smoke from cigars presently floated to the ceiling.

Jack Rivett, rather too plump and smooth, moved into a chair beside Edgerton; and the latter, who had prejudged him from his appearance, was slightly surprised to find the youth widely read, widely traveled, with a mind and even a wit entirely his own, and an original but sometimes callow comment for any subject brought up.

In a desultory conversation it presently transpired that young Rivett was a candidate for the Patroon's Club.

"You're a member, I believe; are you not?" he asked Edgerton.

"I have resigned."

"Oh! I thought that was the one club from which nobody ever resigned. I beg your pardon, Edgerton!" he added, turning red; "don't think me a cad."

"No offense," smiled Edgerton; "I resigned because I couldn't afford it. It's a good club; hope you make it soon."