"I can't."

"You really owe it to yourself," he insisted. "You are showing symptoms of a strange excitement to-day. You look as if you were talking to keep from doing something more annoying--if such a thing were possible."

"I'm not going to weep--either from excitement or the effects of your rudeness," I returned, then wheeling around and facing my desk again I let my dual personality take up its song.

"I can and I can't; I will and I won't; I'll be d.a.m.ned if I do-- I'll be d.a.m.ned if I don't!"

The story goes that a queen of Sweden composed this cla.s.sic many years ago, but it's certainly the national song of every one who has two people living in his skin that are not on speaking terms with each other.

Then, partly to keep from annoying the poet again, partly because it's the thing a woman always does, I took out the letter and read it over once more.

"Coburn-Colt--Philadelphia!"

The paper was a creamy satin, the embossing severely correct, the typing so neat and businesslike that I could scarcely believe the letter was meant for me when I looked at the outside only.

"Wonder what 'Julien J. Dutweiler' would call a small fortune?" I muttered. "Five thousand dollars? Ten thousand dollars!--Good heavens, then mother could have all the crepe meteor gowns she wanted without my ever--_ever_ having to marry Guilford Blake for her sake!"

But as I sat there thinking, grandfather took up the cudgels bravely--even though the people most concerned were Christies and not Moores.

"Think well, Grace! That 'best-selling' clause means not only Maine to California, but England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Berwick-on-the-Tweed!" he warned. "Everybody who had ever heard of either of these two unfortunate people will buy a copy of the book and read it to find out what really happened!"

"But the letters are hers!" Uncle Lancelot reminded him. "If people don't want posterity to know the truth about them they ought to confine themselves to wireless communications."

"And--what would your Aunt Patricia say?" grandfather kept on. "What would James Christie say? What would Lady Frances Webb say?"

Thinking is certainly a bad habit--especially when your time belongs to somebody else and you are not being paid to think! Nevertheless, I sat there all the afternoon, puzzling my brain, when my brain was not supposed to wake up and rub its eyes at all inside the _Herald_ office. I was being paid to come there and write airy little nothings for the _Herald's_ airy little readers, yet I added to my sin of indecision by absorbing time which wasn't mine.

"Of course the possession of these letters in a way connects you with greatness," grandfather would say once in a while, in a lenient, musing sort of way. "But I trust that you are not going to let this fly to your head. Anyway, as the family has always known, your Uncle James Christie didn't leave his letters and papers to his great-niece; he merely _left_ them! True, she was very close to him in his last days and he had always loved and trusted her--"

"But there's a difference between trusting a woman and trusting her _with your desk keys_!" Uncle Lancelot interrupted. "Uncle James ought to have known a thing or two about women by that time!"

"Yet we must realize that the value of the possession was considerable, even in those days," grandfather argued gently. "We must not blame his great-niece for what she did. James Mackenzie Christie had caught the whole fashionable world on the tip of his camel's-hair brush and pinioned it to canvases which were destined to get double-starred notices in guide-books for many a year to come, and the correspondence of kings and queens, lords and ladies made a mighty appeal to the young girl's mind."

"Then, that's a sure sign they'd be popular once again," said Uncle Lancelot. "Of course there's a degree of family pride to be considered, but that shouldn't make much difference. The Christies have always had pride to spare--now's the time to let some of it slide!"

Thus, after hours of time and miles of circling tentatively around the battlements of Colmere Abbey--the beautiful old place which had been the home of Lady Frances Webb--I was called back with a stern suddenness to my place in the _Herald_ office.

"Can _you_ think of anything else?" the poet's voice begged humbly.

"I'm trying to match up just plain 'Ty' this time--but I'm dry."

I turned to him forgivingly. I welcomed any diversion.

"Rye, lie, die, sky,--why, what's the matter with your think tank?" I asked him. "They swarm!"

But before he could thank me, or apologize, the voice of the city editor was in the doorway. He himself followed his rasping tones, and as he came in he looked backward over his shoulder at a forlorn dejected face outside. He looked at his watch viciously, then snapped the case as if it were responsible for his spleen.

"Get to work then on something else," he growled. "There's no use spending car fare again to Loomis to-day that I can see! He's an Englishman--and of course he kisses a teacup at this time of the afternoon."

CHAPTER III

NIP AND TUCK

When I reached home late that afternoon I was in that state of spring-time restlessness which clamors for immediate activity--when the home-keeping instinct tries to make you believe that you'll be content if you spend a little money for garden seeds--but a reckless demon of extravagance notifies you that nothing short of salary sacrificed for railroad fare is going to avail.

Grandfather and Uncle Lancelot, of course, came in with their gratuitous advice, the one suggesting nasturtium beds with geraniums along the borders--the other slyly whispering that a boat trip from Savannah to Boston was no more than I deserved.

Then, reaching home in this frame of mind, I was confronted with two very perplexing and unusual conditions. _Mignon_ was being played with great violence in the front parlor--and all over the house was the scent of burnt yarn.

"What's up?" I demanded of mother, as she met me at the door--dressed in blue. "Everything seems mysterious and topsyturvy to-day! I believe if I were to go out to the cemetery I'd find the tombstones nodding and whispering to one another."

"Come in here!" she begged in a Santa Claus voice.

I went into the parlor, then gave a little shriek.

"Mother!"

I have neglected to state, earlier in the narrative, that the one desire of my heart which doesn't begin with H was a player-piano! It was there in the parlor, at that moment, shining, and singing its wordless song about the citron-flower land.

"It's the very one we've been _watching_ through the windows up-town,"

she said in a delighted whisper.

"But did you get it as a prize?" I inquired, walking into the dusky room and shaking hands with my betrothed, who rose from the instrument and made way for me to take possession. "How came it here?"

"I had it sent out--on--on approval," she elucidated. That is, her words took the form of an explanation, but her voice was as appealing as a Salvation Army dinner-bell, just before Christmas.

"On approval? But why, please?"

"Because I want you to get used to having the things you want, darling!"

Then, to keep from laughing--or crying--I ran toward the door.

"What _is_ that burning?" I asked, sniffing suspiciously.

It was a vaguely familiar scent--scorching dress-goods--and suggestive of the awful feeling which comes to you when you've stood too close to the fire in your best coat-suit--or the comfortable sensation on a cold night, when you're preparing to wrap up your feet in a red-hot flannel petticoat.

"What is it? Tell the truth, mother!"

But she wouldn't.

"It's your brown tweed skirt, Grace," Guilford finally explained, as my eyes begged the secret of them both. They frequently had secrets from me.

"My brown tweed skirt?"

"It was as baggy at the knees as if you'd done nothing all winter but _pray_ in it!" mother whimpered in a frightened voice. "I've--I've burned it up!"