Kitabı oku: «The Inner Flame», sayfa 15

CHAPTER XXI
THE SINGER

The combination of at last having a definite aim in life, and the cutting rebuke received in his father's library, had caused Edgar Fabian to wake up.

On the hot morning when he took the train for Portland, he even looked a little pale from the unwonted vigil of the night before. As he tossed on his bed in the small hours, he had fretted at the heat, but it was not temperature that made him survey the causes for his father's drastic words; and he recalled the emotion which Kathleen had not been able to conceal with a sort of affectionate dismay. Kathleen was a good sort, after all. She had worked for him, he knew, and mitigated the situation so far as she could.

"Father wants to be shown, does he?" he thought, clenching his teeth. "Well, I'll show him. I will."

His soul was still smarting when he boarded the train in the breathless station and the porter carried his suitcase to his chair in the day coach.

A group of girls were standing about the neighboring seat, but he did not regard them. One of them observed him, and for her the thermometer suddenly went up ten degrees more.

"Hurry girls, you must go," she said, softly and peremptorily, moving with them to the end of the car. "How I wish you didn't have to!" Then, as they reached the door, the flushed one squeezed their arms. "That was Mr. Fabian, girls!" she added.

"Where? Where?" they ejaculated, looking wildly about.

"Back there in the very next chair to mine. Oh, get off, dears."

They regarded the rosy face.

"Slyboots!" exclaimed Roxana.

"Indeed, I knew nothing of it!" declared Violet.

"Very well." Regina spoke in hasty exhortation. "The sun shines hard enough for you to make all the hay there is. I've a great mind to throw a pump after you!"

The friends slipped off just in time, and Violet waved them a laughing adieu; then her face sobered while her eyes shone. She could not go back to her place at once. The combination was more than flesh and blood could endure nonchalantly: her work finished, she starting for the island earlier than she had hoped, with the joyful anticipation of surprising her aunt, and, instead of journeying alone, to find the man beside her.

Violet was extremely indignant with herself for calling Edgar the man. Never one thing had he done to deserve it. There was no one on earth to whom in reality she was more indifferent. She allowed conductors, porter, passengers, and luggage to stumble by and over her in the narrow passage while she reflected upon the utter uncongeniality of herself and Edgar Fabian; the gulf fixed between their lots, their habits, their tastes. A man who was so artificial that he couldn't like Brewster's Island. How could any girl with genuine feeling do more than politely endure him!

Violet finally, having been bumped and trodden on until she realized that she was being scowled at by all comers, stepped under the portière into the ladies' room and looked in the glass. The neatest and trimmest of visions regarded her.

"I don't care a snap how I look, but I am dreadfully warm," she thought, and taking a powder-puff from her mesh bag, she raised her veil and cooled her crimson cheeks and dabbed her nose; then she pinned the veil back closely; and gave her bright eyes a challenging and warning gaze.

"If you dare!" she murmured, then moved out into the aisle again and sought her place.

Edgar had hung up his hat, his back was to the car, and his gloomy eyes gazed out of the window. Violet sank into her chair, turning its back to him. "There!" she thought sternly, "we can ride this way all day. There's not the slightest necessity for recognition."

An hour passed and this seemed only too true. She took up the copy of "Life" which Roxana had left with her, and looked through it with more grim determination than is usually brought to bear upon that enlivening sheet.

Everything continued to be quiet behind her. She wondered if Edgar had gone to sleep; but what was it to her what he was doing? She became conscious that there were more strokes on the illustrations than the artists had intended.

"I must take off my veil!" she reflected.

Of course, no girl can take off her veil and hat without making some stir. She hoped she should not attract her neighbor's attention by these movements. She didn't.

At last all was comfortably arranged, and she picked up the periodical which had been Regina's offering and looked at her chatelaine watch, wondering how much time had been wasted already.

She never before heard of a man who stayed in his seat on the train unless he was an invalid. One would think he would at least walk up and down once in a while. She turned her chair a little away from the window and toward the aisle. A fat man who was her vis-à-vis glanced at her, and finding the glance most satisfactory, looked again, long enough to make her aware of him. She swung slowly back toward the window, but not so far that she could not command movements in the aisle.

Of course, Mr. Fabian was asleep. He had probably been turning night into day in the festivities which society events had recorded as preceding Mrs. Larrabee's departure for Europe.

The thought was a tonic. She loved to realize how insignificant and selfish was the life this young man led; making him not worth a second thought to a womanly woman who scorned to associate with any man to whom she could not look up, and he hadn't shaved off that blond pointed mustache, either; how she despised mustaches.

"Why – why, Miss Manning." The interested greeting broke forth directly above her, and she started and looked up straight into the scorned mustache. "How wonderful," said Edgar. "I was just wondering who liked the 'Century' better upside down than right-side up; then I noticed that whoever it was had pretty hair, so I looked again and saw it was you."

"I" – stammered Violet, blushing violently and dropping the magazine, – "I think I was so sleepy I didn't know – I – where did you spring from?"

"Just now from the smoking-room, but I'm here, right here in this chair next to you. Can you beat it? Are you for the island?"

"Yes."

"I, too. Great that we should meet. Let me turn your chair around. I was never so glad to see you."

"Why? Were you bored?" Violet's tone and manner of courteous indifference were so excellent that they deceived the fat man, who regarded the contretemps over the top of his paper and felt quite chivalrously impatient of the "fresh guy" who had interrupted the young traveller's meditations; and heartily commiserated the girl for the coincidence which had made her the prey of an acquaintance.

"No, not more bored than usual," replied Edgar, having arranged the chairs at the best angle for sociability, "but if you talk to me I may forget how I want to smoke."

Violet raised her eyebrows. "Oh, I'm to be useful and not ornamental," she said with an icily sweet smile.

"You can't help being ornamental," said Edgar, drumming nervously on the arm of his chair. "There, that's the last compliment I'm going to give you. I warn you. I'm a bear to-day. I'm sorry for you." The speaker was pale and Violet laid both pallor and nervousness to the door of the vivacious lady about to sail for foreign shores.

"Yes," she replied, looking at him blandly. "I saw that your charming friend Mrs. Larrabee is leaving."

Edgar looked around quickly. "Yes, she's leaving. I bade her good-bye last night."

"Is that why you wish to smoke all the time?" asked Violet, with cooing gentleness.

"All the time! Great Scott! I've had just one cigarette since I got up."

"You said you had just come from the smoking-room."

"Yes, but I hadn't been in. That's the trouble. I'm cutting it out."

"Why? Have you made a virtuous vow?"

"I'm afraid I'm in no mood for joking this morning." Edgar frowned and twisted his mustache.

Violet spoke with laughing sweetness.

"Nothing is more easy than to escape it," she said, and deftly turned her chair with its back to him.

He seized it by the arm and twisted it around again.

"No, you don't," he said. "Forgive me; you know the stereotyped advice to newly married couples about the two bears; 'bear and forbear,' don't you? Well, remember it, please."

"I don't see the parallel," said Violet coolly; "and anyway, is the advice directed entirely at the woman?"

"No, I'm bearing with you now for turning your back to me, you who are going to teach me to clog when we reach the island." He gave her the smile designed to melt the icy heart.

"In consideration," returned Violet, "for a continuous ripple of song."

Edgar suddenly looked important, and gazed out of the window. Then he turned back to the girl who was regarding him.

"What do you think of my voice – honestly?" he asked.

"I think it is one of the most beautiful I have ever heard," she answered promptly.

He nodded slowly. "I fished to some purpose, didn't I," he said gravely. "Well, since you really think that, and I've always admired your sincerity, you may be interested to know that I have given up business in order to cultivate it."

There being nobody present who was employed in Mr. Fabian's office, the dignity of this statement was not impaired by hilarity; and Violet, greatly impressed, clasped her hands.

"Oh, I'm so glad," she said. "All your friends will be so glad."

Had she known it, she might have added, "and all your business associates"; but neither word nor look minimized the enthusiasm of the moment.

Enough of Violet's faith and admiration shone in her speaking eyes to fall like balm on Edgar's wounded soul. He began to heal under it; began to mount into his wonted atmosphere of assurance.

"I've been studying ever since January with Mazzini. I've kept quiet about it because, after all," – the speaker spread his hands in a modest gesture, – "he might be mistaken in his extremely enthusiastic estimate."

"Oh, no, no!" said Violet earnestly. Edgar drank more healing from the fountain of her eyes. "What shall you do? Go into opera?"

"I don't know yet," replied the aspirant, with the air of one who was holding Mr. Hammerstein in the hollow of his hand, uncertain whether to throw him over or to be gracious. "I'm very much alone in this," he added, meeting the girl's gaze with an air of confidence. "Of course my father and mother and sister are willing; in fact, they are pleased that I have undertaken this."

"Think of giving up smoking!" exclaimed Violet. "What a sacrifice that means to a man! I should think your family would see by that how in earnest you are."

"Yes, they believe I am in earnest; but when one in a family is keenly temperamental and the others are not, there are only certain planes on which they can meet, you understand?"

"By all means!" Violet understood perfectly.

"I have certain ideas that I never divulge to them. They would only laugh. What would it mean to them if I were to say that I had purple moods – and red moods – "

"Probably nothing," returned Violet, quickly and with close attention. "Black and green and blue are the only common ones."

Edgar looked at her suspiciously. Had the fountain of healing admiration vanished, and was she laughing at him? Not at all. She was regarding him with a respect and awe which he could not doubt.

"Explain the others to me. Do you think you could?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not," he answered gently, "but, well, for instance, while in the purple mood I could never learn to clog. Does that mean anything to you?"

"Ah, yes," returned Violet fervently. "I see. You would be too intense."

"Exactly. In the red, I might. It would depend on which way it took me."

His listener nodded earnestly. "Yes, yes. A berserk rage is red. They always see red in books."

"But so is a glowing sunset red," said Edgar. "The red of joy. I see you understand. Oh, what rest it is to have people understand!"

Violet glowed. Some memory recurred to her. "Does Mr. Sidney know about this?" she asked.

Edgar shrugged his shoulders. "He is at the island with my people. They may have told him."

The girl's rosy lips set. "Now," she wondered, "would he chuckle over foolish sketches of conceited robins! At all events, he would very soon give it up."

The two travellers had a wonderful day together, undaunted by heat and cinders.

Edgar gave Violet as dainty a luncheon as circumstances permitted, and when they reached Portland too late for the last boat, he left her at her hotel with the promise to call for her in the morning.

The boat they took next day was the same one which bore Miss Jane Foster to her summer home; so when, after the cooling ride down the bay, they arrived at Brewster's Island and saw Philip Sidney and Eliza Brewster waiting with Kathleen, Edgar pointed Eliza out to Violet with amusement.

"I wonder how Sidney enjoys his shadow," he remarked, "I suppose she's trailing him all over the place."

As Mrs. Wright had no expectation of her niece's early arrival, Eliza looked out with indifference from under her closely tied shade hat at the fair girl in neat tailor gown who stood by Edgar as the boat pulled in; and the exclamation of her companions was her first intimation that it was Violet Manning.

Eliza stood quietly amid the greeting and laughing and explanations of the young people, and was introduced to Miss Manning; then she caught sight of Jane Foster, for whose eagerly expected face Phil had been gazing over the heads of everybody, notwithstanding that he had no idea what she looked like.

"Better go home with the Fabians and come to us later," she suggested, speaking low to him.

"Guess again, Eliza," he returned softly. Then he turned to Kathleen. "I'll not interrupt your first tête-à-tête with your brother. I'll walk up the hill with Miss Manning and see Mrs. Wright's face when we appear."

Kathleen nodded her agreement, and when they all reached the road, she opened her eyes at the manner in which her brother parted from Violet. Neither spoke. They clasped hands and exchanged a look, which was, to say the least, unusual.

"You and Miss Manning seemed to be giving each other the grip," she laughed when the two began their ascent slowly. "Do you belong to the same secret society?"

His reply was still more amazing. "We do," he answered impressively. "You guessed right the very first time. That girl has more sense in a minute than the general run have in years."

"I always liked her," returned Kathleen, wondering.

As for Philip, he carried Violet's suitcase and Miss Foster's bag and received the jubilant chatter of the young girl with appreciative assent, casting sheep's eyes all the way up the hill at the modest owner of the chicken-house, who little suspected that the big handsome young man who was carrying her bag cared more to get one monosyllable from her than for all the pleasant things this pretty girl might say to him.

Mrs. Wright, busy taking Eliza's place in the preparations for the early dinner, was not watching for the arrival, and the first warning she had of Violet's presence was two vigorous arms being thrown around her neck.

Her first impression was that Jane Foster had an attack of emotional insanity, but in a moment she was returning the embrace.

"My little girl, what does this mean?" she cried joyously. "Not a flower in your room. Nothing ready."

"Yes, dinner is. I can smell it. Oh, Aunt Amy, you and vacation, and no city and no heat, and the divine island smell, and twenty-four hours in the day, and seven days in the week. Oh, it's too much happiness!" And Violet danced back into the living-room straight into the arms of Mr. Wright, who had just been washing his hands for dinner.

"Right you are, Violet. No place like the island," he said heartily, while Eliza and Jane Foster regarded the newcomer with calm wonder. How could they know the glamour that was gilding all?

Phil was so preoccupied, he scarcely noticed the girl's antics. His eyes were fixed with the most lover-like eagerness on Jane Foster's serious countenance.

"Had you better ask her or I, Eliza?" he murmured, under cover of Violet's laughter.

"You'd better not trust me," replied Eliza darkly, upon which Phil interrupted Miss Foster as she was starting for the stairs.

"Might I speak to you one moment before you go up?" he asked.

Her calm eyes turned to him. "You want board?" she asked.

"No – not exactly. Would you mind coming outside a minute. I'd like to see you alone."

Jane Foster looked into the brilliant face, wondering; then she followed him outside the door. Perhaps he wanted to buy the farmhouse. She had made some calculation before she reached the rustic bench; but his first words dashed her expectations.

"Miss Foster, I'm an artist and like them all, at first, I haven't any money. I've been wondering if you'd let me camp down in your chicken-house and do some work. What rent would you want?"

Jane Foster regarded him calmly. "'T ain't habitable," she said.

"I'll make it so," he returned forcefully.

"I can't imagine – " she began slowly.

"You don't have to," he interrupted ardently. "Imagining is my business." He beamed upon her with a smile that warmed her through and through from the chill of the boat. "If you haven't any other use for it just now – "

"Oh, 'tain't any use," she said slowly.

"Then I may?" Phil embarrassed Miss Foster terribly by seizing her hand.

Violet observed them from a window. "Is Mr. Sidney proposing to Miss Foster?" she laughed, turning to Eliza.

"Yes, he is, exactly," returned the latter, hanging up her shade hat.

"Well, I can't imagine anyone refusing him," said Violet.

"I only hope she will," muttered Eliza; but the devout words were scarcely out of her lips when Phil came into the room like a cyclone and she was seized and swung up till her respectable head nearly grazed the ceiling.

"It's mine," he cried. "Hurray!" and went out of the house again and across the field toward the boulder cottage.

CHAPTER XXII
THE NEW STUDIO

In spite of the incense Edgar had been receiving, he was still a somewhat chastened being; and he had no disagreeable remarks to make about Phil when Mrs. Fabian wondered why he stayed so long at the Wright cottage. He objected to the fact somewhat on his own account. No doubt Violet was entertaining Philip. She had the artistic soul and Phil was horribly good-looking. It was a soothing thought that he was practically penniless and that he must soon return to his labors in New York.

"How long are you expecting Phil to stay here?" he asked his mother after a glance or two across the empty field.

"He says only a week," replied Mrs. Fabian, "but I hope to make it at least two. He's daft about the island."

"But he couldn't work here," said Edgar with conviction. "You've no place for oil and turpentine and splotches generally."

"That's what he says," sighed Mrs. Fabian. "I told him this morning we'd give up the summer-house to him."

Edgar faced her. "Where do I come in?" he asked. "I expect the summer-house to save your lives from me. I don't believe we can have two artists in the family."

Kathleen caught the last words as she came downstairs. "Don't worry," she said lightly. "Phil will have none of us. He wants either a ten-acre lot or a stable."

"Well, where is he?" asked Edgar, with some irritation. "I'm as hungry as a hunter."

"And we have Aunt Mary's pretty things. Eliza gave them to mother."

"You don't say so! Well, the Angel of Peace has moulted a feather on this island. There, I see Phil now, loping across the field. Do order dinner to be served, mother."

The music-box was playing when the guest entered.

"Oh, am I late?" he cried contritely, and took the stairs in three bounds.

"How burned he is already!" laughed Mrs. Fabian. "You will be looking like that in a few days, Edgar."

The latter was standing, high-chested and with repressed impatience, in an attitude his mother knew. He had not at all liked the radiance of Phil's countenance as the latter burst into the room.

"This dinner is especially ordered for you, dear," said Mrs. Fabian soothingly, "from the clam soup to the strawberry shortcake."

"When am I going to have any of it?" inquired Edgar. "Is it worth while to be formal here?"

"Oh, he'll be down in one minute," said Kathleen; and indeed Philip soon appeared and they all seated themselves.

"Last offence, really," said the guest gaily, "but one must be granted a little extra license when he's proposing."

The waitress had placed the filled soup-plates before the family sat down; and Edgar promptly choked on his first mouthful. Violet had told him of meeting Phil in Gramercy Park. Where else and how often had the perfidious girl been with him?

Kathleen swallowed her spoonful of soup, but it was not hot enough to account for the strange burning heat which suddenly travelled down her spine.

Mrs. Fabian alone looked up. "Don't take our breath away like that," she protested. "Who is the woman? Violet Manning or Eliza Brewster?"

"I dreamed of her all last night," returned Phil, eating hungrily. "I knew she was coming, and I could hardly wait to learn my fate. Didn't you notice that I merely played with my breakfast this morning?"

"You ate like a hunter. Didn't he, Kathleen?"

Phil laughed and raised his happy eyes to his hostess.

"Well, you'd save a whole lot of dinner this noon, only that she said 'Yes.'"

There was a miniature storm of hurt vanity in Edgar Fabian's breast. That was the way with these "lookers." Let them have scarce the price of a laundry bill, yet a girl couldn't resist them; and that gaze of almost awed admiration in Violet's eyes yesterday. It had meant nothing then but a tribute to genius. Phil should not have that look at his table daily! Edgar wouldn't stand it. He would match his singing against the other's painting, and time would show if Philip Sidney would have a walk-away. She couldn't be happy with a pauper like that, and she should be saved.

As for Kathleen, she could not stop to criticize Philip's blunt announcement. Whether he were jesting or in earnest his sudden words had flashed an awful light upon her own sentiments.

"There's no depth to it," she thought now in defence of her pain. "I know in time."

"Tell us more this minute," said Mrs. Fabian, "and stop eating, you unromantic creature! I didn't even suspect that you knew Violet Manning well. You sly-boots. I'm offended with you."

"The lovely Violet!" exclaimed Phil, "I left her having an attack of emotional insanity over there."

He looked up and met a gaze from Edgar, suggestive of locking horns; and remembered Gramercy Park, and Violet's sudden dignity.

"But not on my account," he went on easily. "My inamorata's name is Jane!" He cast his eyes adoringly ceilingward. "Dear little name! Quaint little name! Jane!"

The relaxation that travelled throughout Kathleen's limbs was as painful and as exasperating as the burn had been. Her eyes were fixed on her soup-plate, and she smiled.

Edgar's teeth shone with the utmost glee. Phil wasn't such a bad sort after all. He regarded him with interest, waiting for the sequel.

"Philip Sidney, don't be idiotic," said Mrs. Fabian. "My soup is getting cold waiting for you to explain yourself."

"Why, Jane Foster came this morning, mother," said Kathleen. "I'll help you out."

"And I can really only stay with you a week, Aunt Isabel," added Phil.

"She has taken you for a boarder? And all this fuss is about that?" asked Mrs. Fabian. "I should scarcely have thought you'd be so crazy to change my house for hers."

"I know how Phil feels," said Edgar benevolently. "He wants to feel free to make smudges."

"I do, Edgar, mind-reader that you are. Listen, then, all of you. I proposed to Jane that she let me use her chicken-house, and Jane, blessings on her, said the one little word to make me a happy man."

Phil's radiant gaze was bent now upon Kathleen, who met it and nodded. "Just the thing!" she said, and her mother and brother started in on a Babel of tongues. Mrs. Fabian had forgotten the chicken-house. She had not been in that field for years; but Edgar approved, and altogether they joined in Phil's jubilation, and Mrs. Fabian related how she had prepared Pat to pack for just such an exigency.

"The little house is awfully dilapidated," said Kathleen. "Its piazza has fallen off; and I'm sure it leaks. But perhaps you can make it fit to hold your paraphernalia."

"Aunt Isabel, I want you and Kathleen to keep away until I'm in order," said Phil impressively. "You'd try to discourage me and that would waste your time. Eliza is almost in tears, but I know what I want and what I can do."

"A chicken-house!" exclaimed Mrs. Fabian, with second thoughts of disgust.

"Yes, nobody can come near but Edgar; and if he does, he'll have to scrub."

"Thank you very much," and the young man raised his eyebrows: "I have my own work to do, you may remember." Scrubbing chicken-houses he thought might even eclipse the memory of lighting the oil-stove.

"Of course," returned Phil, all attention. "I'm extremely interested in this determination of yours. You certainly have the goods."

"So they tell me," said Edgar, and twisted his mustache.

"What are you going to do for furniture?" asked Mrs. Fabian. "You must at least have some chairs and a table."

"And a lounge!" cried Phil, – "and an oil-stove." He laughed toward Edgar. "I'm going to live there, best of aunts, and maybe take my dinners with Jane, the star of my existence!"

"Phil, you're crazy," said Mrs. Fabian, despairing. "You will continue to live here and work over there."

He shook his head gaily. "Don't worry. Just watch; and if you have any attic treasures in the way of furniture, let me store them for you."

When Mrs. Fabian really understood the enterprise Phil was embarking upon, she resigned herself, and finding an old suit of Mr. Fabian's which he had used for fishing, she bestowed it upon her guest.

Then the work commenced. Eliza tried with a lofty sense of devotion to lend a hand and even besought the privilege; but she was repulsed. Philip induced Captain James to take an interest in his scheme and render him assistance at certain epochs in the reconstruction period, but the Captain and Jane Foster were the only persons privileged to come near the scene of operations; and Miss Foster's heart so far went out to her strong, determined young tenant that she began hunting in her own garret for things to help him along.

With shovel and wheelbarrow, scrubbing-brushes, soapsuds, disinfectants, hammer and nails, Phil went to work.

Eliza stood on her boundary-line, her hands on her hips, and watched, her long nose lifted, while loads of refuse and debris were patiently wheeled down to the edge of the bank and given over to the cleansing tide.

Violet generously offered her window which gave upon the scene of operations, and the opera-glass with which she watched birds; but Eliza declined.

"I won't spy on him," she said, adding vindictively, "but I'll look – the obstinate boy!"

The first time Kathleen called, Violet took her up to her room and they sat in the open window.

"The opera-glass is scarcely any use," she explained, "for he hasn't washed the windows yet and you can't see in at all."

Kathleen laughed, but shrank back. "I don't want him to think we're watching," she replied.

"Oh, he knows we all are; but even after he has gone at night, we don't dare to go and look in. We can't pass that rock there – not even Eliza."

A charming tenor voice suddenly sounded on the air, singing an aria from "La Bohème." The girls looked and saw Edgar advancing toward the chicken-house, peering in curiously.

Suddenly, Phil, attired in a sweater and Mr. Fabian's trousers which scarcely reached his ankles, dashed out at the caller and pressed a scrubbing-brush on his acceptance. Edgar suddenly stopped his lay and ran, laughing, toward Mrs. Wright's, where he found the girls and took them out on the water.

"I should think you'd want to help him," said Kathleen wistfully.

"I do," replied Edgar, "but I restrain myself. Phil doesn't want me, really," he added; and he was certainly right. Phil had no time to stumble over Marcellines.

A week passed. Jane Foster had been smiling and important for the last few days, but not for kingdoms would Eliza have questioned her. She had acquired an air of calm indifference, which belied the burning curiosity within. When Phil stopped in passing to speak with her, she talked of the weather. Mrs. Wright, on the contrary, expressed her eagerness to see what was going on so near and yet so far from them.

"Pluto gets ahead of us," she said, "and you've trained him so well he never tells anything."

Edgar happened to be present and he shrugged his shoulders. "Better hurry up, Phil," he remarked, "and have your opening before interest wanes. You'll have an anti-climax the first thing you know."

Mrs. Wright turned the gentle radiance of her eyes on the speaker.

"We heard you last night, singing as you went home, Mr. Fabian," she said: "that lovely voice floating across the field will make us famous. People will hear it and wonder about the source, and begin to talk of the angel of Brewster's Island."

"Wonderfully level-headed people, those Wrights," soliloquized Edgar, as he sauntered home. "A distinct acquisition to the island." Some thought occurred to him. "I wish father could have heard that," he mused.

Phil lingered behind him. He had changed into his own clothes remarkably early this afternoon. There was an hour yet before supper-time.

"Where are the rest of your family this afternoon?" he asked.

"Violet went with Kathleen into the woods to get some specimens she wants for her microscope," replied Mrs. Wright.

"Where's Eliza?" Phil smiled as he asked it, and his companion smiled in answer.

"In her room, I think."

Phil raised his eyebrows interrogatively.

"Yes, I think so, a little," she replied softly, nodding. "You see Jane has been there every day."

"But that's all the rent I pay," protested Phil, all very quietly, for though they were standing outdoors, the windows were open.

"Yes, but – it's a good deal for flesh and blood to bear," said Mrs. Wright with a twinkling glance. "The green-eyed monster ramps at the best of us, you know."