"I bet it hasn't been filled," said Ca.s.s; then, after the fashion of mankind, he lifted his voice in supplication to the nearest feminine ear:

"Oh! Ro--ose!"

His older sister, coming to the rescue, agreed with his diagnosis of the case, and with Quin's a.s.sistance bore the delinquent lamp to the kitchen.

"Hope you don't mind being made home-folks," she said, patting the puffs over her ears and looking at him sideways.

"Mind?" said Quin. "If you knew how good all this looks to me! It's the first touch of home I've had in years. Wish you'd let me set the table--I'm strong on K. P."

"Help yourself," said Rose; "the plates are in the pantry and the silver in the sideboard drawer. Wait a minute!"

She took a long ap.r.o.n from behind the door and handed it to him.

"How do these ends buckle up?" he asked, helplessly holding out the straps of the bib.

"They b.u.t.ton around your little neck," she told him, smiling. "Turn round; I'll fix it."

"Why turn round?" said Quin.

Their eyes met in frank challenge.

"You silly boy!" she said--but she put her arms around his neck and fastened the bib just the same.

How that supper ever got itself cooked and served is a marvel. Everybody took a turn at the stirring and toasting, everybody contributed a missing article to the table, and there was much rushing from kitchen to dining-room, with many collisions and some upsets.

Quin was in the highest of spirits. Even Ca.s.s had never seen him quite like this. With his white ap.r.o.n over his uniform, he pranced about, dancing attendance on Rose, and keeping Myrna and Edwin in gales of laughter over his antics. Every now and then, however, his knees got wabbly and his breath came short, and by the time supper was prepared he was quite ready to sit down.

"What a shame Nell's not here!" said Rose, breaking the eggs into the chafing-dish. "Then we could have charades. She's simply great when she gets started."

"Who is Nell?" asked Quin.

"Eleanor Bartlett, our cousin. She's like chicken and ice-cream--the rich Bartletts have her on weekdays and we poor Martels get her only on Sundays. Hasn't Ca.s.s ever told you about Nell?"

"Do you suppose I spend my time talking about my precious family?"

growled Ca.s.s.

"No, but Nell's different," said Rose; "she's a sort of Solomon's baby--I mean the baby that Solomon had to decide about. Only in this case neither old Madam Bartlett nor Papa Claude will give up their half; they'd see her dead first."

"You did tell me about her," said Quin to Ca.s.s, "one night when we were up in the Cantigny offensive. I remember the place exactly. Something about an orphan, and a lawsuit, and a little girl that was going to be an actress."

"That's the dope," said Ca.s.s. "Only she's not a kid any more. She grew up while I was in France. She's a great girl, Nell is, when you get her away from that Bartlett mess!"

"Does anybody know where Papa Claude is?" Rose demanded, dexterously ladling out steaming Welsh rabbit on to slices of crisp brown toast.

"He is here, _mes enfants_, he is here!" cried a joyous voice from the hall, followed by a presence at once so exuberant and so impressive that Quin stared in amazement.

"This is Quinby Graham, grandfather," said Ca.s.s, by way of introduction.

The dressy old gentleman with the flowing white locks and the white rose in his b.u.t.tonhole bore down upon Quin and enveloped his hand in both his own.

"I welcome you for Ca.s.sius' sake and for your own!" he declared with such effusion that Quin was visibly embarra.s.sed. "My grandson has told me of your long siege in the hospital, of your n.o.ble service to your country, of your gallant conduct at----"

"Sit down, Papa Claude, and finish your oration after supper," cried Rose; "the rabbit won't wait on anybody."

Thus cut short, Mr. Martel took his seat and, nothing daunted, helped himself bountifully to everything within reach.

"I am a gourmet, Sergeant Graham, but not a gourmand. Edwin Booth used to say----"

"Sir?" answered Edwin Booth's namesake from the kitchen, where he had been dispatched for more bread.

"No, no, my son, I was referring to----"

But Papa Claude, as usual, did not get to finish the sentence. The advent of the next-door neighbor, who had been invited and then forgotten, caused great amus.e.m.e.nt owing to the fact that there was no more supper left.

"Give her some bread and jam, Myrna," said Rose; "and if the jam is out, bring the brown sugar. You don't mind, do you, Fan?"

Fan, an amiable blonde person who was going to be fat at forty, declared that she didn't want a thing to eat, honestly she didn't, and that besides she adored bread and brown sugar.

"We won't stop to wash up," said Rose; "Myrna will have loads of time to do it in the morning, because she doesn't have to go to school. We'll just clear the table and let the dishes stand."

"We are incorrigible Bohemians, as you observe," said Mr. Martel to Quin, with a deprecating arching of his fine brows. "We lay too little stress, I fear, on the conventions. But the exigencies of the dramatic profession--of which, you doubtless know, I have been a member for the past forty years----"

"Take him in the sitting-room, Mr. Graham," urged Rose; "I'll bring your coffee in there."

Without apparently being conscious of the fact, Mr. Martel, still discoursing in rounded periods, was transferred to the big chair beside the lamp, while Quin took up his stand on the hearth-rug and looked about him.

Such a jumble of a room as it was! Odds and ends of furniture, the survival of various household wrecks; chipped bric-a-brac; a rug from which the pattern had long ago vanished; an old couch piled with shabby cushions; a piano with scattered music sheets. On the walls, from ceiling to foot-board, hung faded photographs of actors and actresses, most of them with bold inscriptions dashed across their corners in which the donors invariably expressed their friendship, affection, or if the chirography was feminine their devoted love, for "dear Claude Martel."

Over the mantel was a portrait of dear Claude himself, taken in the role of Mark Antony, and making rather a good job of it, on the whole, with his fine Roman profile and ma.s.sive brow.

It was all shabby and dusty and untidy; but to Quinby Graham, standing on the hearth-rug and trying to handle his small coffee-cup as if he were used to it, the room was completely satisfying. There was a cozy warmth and mellowness about it, a kindly atmosphere of fellowship, a sense of intimate human relations, that brought a lump into his throat. He had almost forgotten that things could be like this!

So absorbed was he in his surroundings, and in the imposing old actor encompa.s.sed by the galaxy of pictured notables, that he lost the thread of Mr. Martel's discourse until he heard him asking:

"What is the present? A clamor of the senses, a roar that deafens us to the music of life. I dwell in the past and in the future, Sergeant Graham--the dear reminiscent past and the glorious unborn future. And that reminds me that Ca.s.sius tells me that you are both about to receive your discharge from the army and are ready for the next great adventure.

May I ask what yours is to be? A return, perhaps, to your native city?"

"My native city happens to be a river," said Quin. "I was born on a house-boat going up the Yangtse-Kiang."

"Indeed!" cried Mr. Martel with interest. "What a romantic beginning! And your family?"

"Haven't got any. You see, sir," said Quin, expanding under the flattering attention of his host, "my people were all missionaries. Most of them died off before I was fourteen, and I was shipped back to America to go to school. I didn't hold out very long, though. After two years in high school I ran away and joined the navy."

"And since then you have been a soldier of fortune, eh? No cares, no responsibilities. Free to roam the wide world in search of adventure."

Quin studied the end of his cigarette.

"That ain't so good as it sounds," he said. "Sometimes I think I'd amounted to more if I had somebody that belonged to me."

"Isn't it rather early in the season for a young man's fancy to be lightly turning----"