With troubled brows the little one asked:

"Did G.o.d sit down when He made His feet?"

Came from the house Elinor. She moved lithely, swiftly, now. The old tan had come back to her cheek; she was no longer an invalid.

"More roses, Kate?" she asked, brightly.

Kathryn nodded.

"Yes," she said. "It seems almost brutal to cut them, doesn't it? But I love them in my room; and they won't grow there."

"Then sleep out here. It's quite the thing, nowadays."

Kathryn smiled a little.

"You're so frightfully lacking in sensibilities, Nell."

"And," returned her practical sister, "a lot more comfortable because I am." She seated herself. "Tom's back," she announced.

A quick little gleam of gladness sprang to the violet eyes.

"Is he?"

Elinor nodded, nonchalantly.

"Yes, that floating palace of his dropped anchor about ten minutes ago.

They were lowering a launch as I came downstairs."

"Oh!" cried Muriel, excitedly dropping the roses to the lawn. "There he is now! I can hear him winding up his boat!"

She rang at headlong speed through that arbor way. Another moment and Blake had entered, carrying her in his arms. Kathryn extended her hand to him; he took it in warm, firm, friendly clasp. Elinor nodded.

"'Lo, Tom," was her salutation.

"'Lo, Nell," he returned. "You're getting fat."

"The same to you, and many of 'em," she replied. "Have a good time?"

"Oh, the same old sea-saw." He shrugged broad shoulders. "This running a sailors' boarding house isn't what it's cracked up to be. We hit a three- day executive session of a northeast storm off the Banks that kept us exceedingly busy. Everyone on board was seasick--except the cook."

"Tom," interrupted Kathryn, "I wish you'd come into the library a moment.

My lawyers have sent me some papers to sign and return, and I can't make head nor tail of them."

"Of course you can't," he said, a.s.suringly. "I never know what my lawyers are doing. If I did, I'd fire them and do it myself. And they realize it.

A lawyer can order a fried egg, cooked on one side only, and make it sound like a royal proclamation announcing a total change of the currency system. They're like doctors and clairvoyants. Their graft lies in being mysterious. Why does a doctor call pink eye _muco puerpural conjunctivitis_? Because pink eye is not worth more than a dollar at the outside; but when he hands you _muco puerpural conjunctivitis_, he can get twenty-five at least before you wake up and say, 'Where am I?'"

His humor, perhaps, was forced; possibly there was nothing funny in what he said; but they laughed. There was always a tension at "Grey Rocks,"

now--always a strain. It needed little to relieve it; it needed that little badly. Blake gave to that little all that he could.

Even the child felt the tension, and the strain of it. She could not have told what it was; but she missed something beside her daddy, infinite was her longing for him, and her loneliness without him.

At times she used to beg the dignified Roberts to play buck-jump, and tag, with her, as "daddy used to do." And this she did while Blake and her mother and her Aunt Elinor were in the library, going over the troublesome papers with their imposing seals and undecipherable writing.

"I've been looking for you everyw'ere, Miss Muriel," the butler announced, impressively. Everything that Roberts did was impressive.

"Were you, Woberts?" she queried. "You didn't want to play hide-and-go seek, did you, Woberts? Because if you did, I'd like to heaps and heaps."

He opened his lips in protest; but she interrupted:

"I'll be it, Woberts, and you can run and hide. Oh! Will you?"

What could he say? It hurt his dignity--it was a distinct prost.i.tution of pride--and yet, what could he say? What could he do? For he, too, loved, pitied, and was sorry.

Thus it was that, returning from the library, Kathryn, Elinor and Blake came upon a red-faced and puffing butler engaged in giving a most realistic imitation of a bear, while a delighted little girl, clapping tiny hands in glee, adjured him to growl as bears growl, not as cows growl.

It was another welcome little break in the tension. And for that it was welcome; welcome, that is, to all but him of the outraged dignity. And even he, though he puffed and huffed below stairs, deep down in his heart was glad that he had sacrificed his most precious possession in such a cause.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.

TEMPTATION.

Elinor VanVorst swung around in her chair, and eyed her sister.

"Well, Kate?" she asked.

Kate raised violet eyes in protest.

"Please, Nell, don't insist," she begged. "I don't want to talk about it."

Her sister continued, firmly:

"It must be talked of.... You must divorce him, Kate."

"No!"

"But I say, 'Yes!' You should hear what people are saying about you."

"What do I care what people are saying about me? It's what I think of myself that counts."

"That may be true," her sister retorted; "but it's too idealistic for this world.... Moreover, you're not consistent."

Kathryn looked up, quickly.