"I ought to be strong enough to leave you since you will not come; to leave this roof and earn my own living, some way, any way; but I'm too much of a coward."

"I should hope so," returned her mother briefly. "You'd soon become one if you weren't at starting. Girls bred to luxury, as you have been, must just contrive to live well somehow. They can't stand anything else."

"Nonsense, mother," quietly. "They can. They do."

"Yes, in books I know they do."

"No, truth is stranger than fiction. They do. I have been looking for that sort of stamina in myself for weeks, but I haven't found it. It is a cruel wrong to a girl not to teach her to support herself."

"My dear! You were going to college. You know you would have gone had it not been for your poor father's misfortunes."

Eloise's eyes filled again at the remembrance of the young, gay man who had been her boon companion since her babyhood, and at the memory of those last sad days, when she knew he had agonized over her future even more than over that of his volatile wife.

"My dear, as I've told you before, a girl as pretty as you are should know that fortune cannot be unkind, nor the sea of life too rough. In each of the near waves of it you can see a man's head swimming toward you. You don't know the trouble I have had already in silencing those who wished to speak before you were old enough. They could any of them be summoned now with a word. Let me see. There is Mr. Derwent--Mr.

Follansbee--Mr. Weeks--"

"Hush, mother!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the girl in disgust.

"Exactly. I knew you would say they were too old, or too bald, or too short, or too fat. I've been a girl myself. Of course there is Nat Bonnell, and a lot more little waves and ripples like him, but they always _were_ out of the question, and now they are ten times more so.

That is the reason, Eloise," the mother's voice became impressive to the verge of solemnity, "why I feel that Dr. Ballard is almost a providence."

The girl's clear eyes were reflective. "Nat Bonnell is a wave who wouldn't remember a girl who had slipped out of the swim."

"Very wise of him," returned Mrs. Evringham emphatically. "He can't afford to. Nat is--is--a--decorative creature, just as you are,--decorative. He must make it pay, poor boy."

Meanwhile Mrs. Forbes had sought her son in the barn. He and she had had their supper in time for her to be ready to wait at dinner.

"Something doing, something doing," murmured Zeke as he heard the impetuosity of her approaching step.

"That soup _was_ hot!" she exclaimed defiantly.

"Somebody scald you, ma? I can do him up, whoever he is," said Zeke, catching up a whip and executing a threatening dance around the dimly lighted barn.

His mother's snapping eyes looked beyond him. "He said it was cold; but it was only because he was distracted. What do you suppose those people are up to now? Trying to get Ess.e.x Maid for Mamzell to ride!"

Zeke stopped in his mad career and returned his mother's stare for a silent moment. "And not a dungeon on the place probably!" he exclaimed at last. "Just like some folks' shiftlessness."

"They _asked_ it. They asked Mr. Evringham if that girl couldn't ride Ess.e.x Maid while he was in the city!"

'Zekiel lifted his eyebrows politely. "Where are their remains to be interred?" he inquired with concern.

"Well, not in _this_ family vault, you may be sure. He gave it to them to-night for a fact." Mrs. Forbes smiled triumphantly. "'I didn't know Eloise remembered her father,'" she mimicked. "I'll bet that got under their skin!"

"Dear parent, you're excited," remarked Zeke.

She brought her reminiscent gaze back to rest upon her son. "Get your coat quick, 'Zekiel. Here's the telegram. Take the car that pa.s.ses the park gate, and stop at the station. That's the nearest place."

Ezekiel obediently struggled into the coat hanging conveniently near.

"What does the telegram say?--'Run away, little girl, the ogre isn't hungry'?"

"Not much! She's coming. He's sending for the brat."

"Poor brat! How did it happen?"

"Just some more of my lady's doings," answered Mrs. Forbes angrily. "Of course she had to put in her oar and exasperate Mr. Evringham until he did it to spite her."

"Cutting off his own nose to spite his face, eh?" asked Zeke, taking the slip of paper.

"Yes, and mine. It's going to come heavy on me. I could have shaken that woman with her airs and graces. Catch her or Mamzell lifting _their_ hands!"

"Yet they want her, do they?"

"No, Stupid! That's why she's coming. Can't you understand?"

"Blessed if I can," returned the boy as he left the barn; "but I know one thing, I pity the kid."

Mr. Evringham received a prompt answer to his message. His son appointed, as a place of meeting, the downtown hotel where he and his wife purposed spending the night before sailing.

Father and son had not met for years, and Mr. Evringham debated a few minutes whether to take the gastronomic and social risk of dining with Harry _en famille_ at the noisy hotel above mentioned, or to have dinner in a.s.sured comfort at his club--finally deciding on the latter course.

It was, therefore, nearly nine o'clock before his card was presented to Mr. and Mrs. Harry, to whom it brought considerable relief of mind, and they hastened down to the dingy parlor with alacrity.

"You see we thought you might accept our invitation to dinner," said Harry heartily, as he grasped his parent's pa.s.sive hand; "but your business hours are so short, I dare say you have been at home since the middle of the afternoon." As he spoke the hard lines of his father's impa.s.sive face smote him with a thousand a.s.sociations, many of them bringing remorse. He wondered how much his own conduct had had to do with graving them so deeply.

His wife's observant eyes were scanning this guardian of her child from the crown of his immaculate head to the toes of his correct patent leathers. His expressionless eyes turned to her. "This is your wife?" he asked, again offering the pa.s.sive hand.

"Yes, father, this is Julia," responded Harry proudly. "I'm sorry the time is so short. I do want you to know her."

The young man's face grew eloquent.

"That is a pleasure to come," responded Mr. Evringham mechanically. He turned stiffly and cast a glance about. "You brought your daughter, I presume?"

"Yes, indeed," answered Mrs. Evringham. "Harry was so glad to receive your permission. We had made arrangements for her provisionally with friends in Chicago, but we were desirous that she should have this opportunity to see her father's home and know you."

Mr. Evringham thought with regret of those friends in Chicago. Many times in the last two days he had deeply repented allowing himself to be exasperated into thus committing himself.

"Do sit down, father," said Harry, as his wife seated herself in the nearest chair.

Mr. Evringham hesitated before complying. "Well," he said perfunctorily, "you have gone into something that promises well, eh Harry?"

"It looks that way. I'm chiefly occupied these days in being thankful."

The young man smiled with an extraordinary sweetness of expression, which transfigured his face, and which his father remembered well as always promising much and performing nothing. "I might spend a lot of time crying over spilt milk, but Julia says I mustn't,"--he glanced across at his wife, whose dark eyes smiled back,--"and what Julia says goes. I intend to spend a year or two doing instead of talking."

"It will answer better," remarked his father.

"Yes, sir," Harry's voice grew still more earnest. "And by that time, perhaps, I can express my regret to you, for things done and things left undone, with more convincingness."