"Come right in!" cried Papa Claude, flinging wide the door. "We are just discussing plans, and need you to cast the deciding vote."

"But I'm not dressed, Papa Claude!" expostulated Eleanor. "I still have on my kimono."

"A charming costume," said Papa Claude--"one in which a whole nation appears in public. I leave it to my distinguished collaborator: could any toilet, however elaborate, be more becoming?"

Harold gave a light laugh as his glance rested with undisguised approval on the slender figure in its clinging silk garment, the rosy hues of which were reflected in the girl's flaming cheeks.

"Just stopped for a second, C. M.," Harold said, avoiding her indignant eyes. "I wanted to tell you about the New York press notices. They are simply superb! _Tribune_ has a column. The _Times_ and _Herald_ give us a headliner. And even the old _Sun_ says there are pa.s.sages in 'Phantom Love' that might have been written by Moliere!"

"Where are the papers?" cried Papa Claude, prancing with excitement.

"I gave mine to Estelle. You can get them downstairs at the news-stand."

"I'll run down now--be back in a second." And Papa Claude rushed impetuously from the room.

Eleanor and Harold stood facing each other where he had left them, he with an air of apologetic amus.e.m.e.nt, and she with an angry dignity that rested incongruously on her childish prettiness.

"Will you please go down and tell Mr. Pfingst that I am not coming to his party?" she asked, with the obvious intention of getting rid of him.

"Why aren't you?"

"Because I don't like him."

"Neither do I. But what has that to do with it? Estelle Linton will take him off our hands."

"I don't care for Miss Linton, either. If I had known----"

"Oh, come! Haven't we got past that?" scoffed Harold, sitting astride a chair and looking at her quizzically. "n.o.body pays any attention to Estelle's numerous little affairs. I'd as soon think of criticizing a Watteau lady on an ivory fan!"

"You can probably catch Mr. Pfingst in the dining-room if you go down at once," suggested Eleanor pointedly.

"But I've no intention of going down at once. Eleanor, why do you play with me like this? Can't you see that this can't go on? I've been patient, G.o.d knows. For two months I've done nothing but advance your interests, put you forward in every conceivable way. And what have I got?

The merest civility! Do you suppose it's pleasant for me to know that everybody in the company is whispering about my infatuation for you and your indifference to me? The maddening part of it is that I know perfectly well you are _not_ indifferent. You are in love with me. You always have been. You'd have married me last fall if some busybody hadn't filled your ears with scandal. Confess, wouldn't you?"

"Yes; but----"

"I knew it! And you are going to marry me now. You can do anything you want, have anything you want. I'll put you at the head of your own company; I'll take you over to London. I'll do anything under heaven but give you up."

He rose suddenly and went toward her, catching her bare arm and trying to draw her toward him; but she struggled from his embrace.

"Let me go!" she cried furiously. "If you don't leave the room instantly, I will! There's Papa Claude now. Let me pa.s.s!"

It was not Papa Claude, however, to whom she opened the door. It was Estelle Linton, smartly attired for the day's expedition, and exhibiting all the compensating charms with which she sought to atone for her lack of brains and morals. With a glance of sophisticated comprehension she took in the disordered room, the perturbed young people, the unfinished breakfast-tray; then she burst into a gay little laugh.

"Ten thousand pardons!" she cried, backing away from the door in a.s.sumed confusion. "I shouldn't have called so early. I just ran in to bring you _Town Topics_. The most killing article about you, dear. By-by; I'll see you later!" And, kissing her hand to Eleanor, she flitted down the hall.

"Shall I go or will you?" Eleanor demanded of Harold.

She was standing in the open door, all the color fled from her face and her eyes blazing with anger.

"I'll go, of course," said Harold. "Only, you must not mind Estelle.

Everybody knows she's a fool----"

The door was slammed in his face and locked before he finished the sentence.

For a moment Eleanor stood immovable; then her eye fell on the paper that Estelle Linton had thrust into her hand, and she saw her stage name on the t.i.tle-page.

Pretty little romance back of the production of "Phantom Love" [she read]. It is rumored that a wealthy young Chicago playwright, having met with family opposition in winning a young Southern belle, took advantage of her histrionic ambition, and persuaded her to play a role in his new play, which he wrote especially for her. Those who saw the opening performance of "Phantom Love" at Atlantic City Wednesday night will have little trouble in recognizing the heroine of the story. Miss Nell Martel is one of the daintiest bits of femininity that have flitted behind the footlights in many moons.

She has youth and beauty and a certain elusive charm. But the fact remains that she can not act. For the continued success of the really brilliant play, let us hope that the young lady's lover may soon become her husband, and that, having won his prize, he will subst.i.tute a professional for the charming young amateur who is in no way up to the rest of the really excellent cast.

Eleanor crushed the paper in her hand, flung herself across the bed, and buried her hot face in the pillow. All her life she had walked unafraid and inviolate, protected by her social position, the over-zealous solicitude of the family, and her own purity. She had flown out of the family nest, confident of her power to take care of herself, to breast any storm. And here, at the beginning of her flight, she found herself in utter confusion of body and spirit, powerless to protect herself against such conduct as Harold's, such printed gossip as lay before her, or such unspeakable insinuations as Estelle Linton's.

When Papa Claude returned, her first impulse was to pour out her troubles to him; but second thought restrained her. He was too much a part of that casual, irresponsible world to take anything it did or said seriously.

She called through the door to him that she had gone to bed and was going to stay there.

But she did not stay there. She got up and knelt by the open window, looking across the seething ma.s.s of humanity on the boardwalk below to the calm stretches of blue sea beyond. For the first time, she faced her problem fairly and squarely. Up to now she had been trying to compromise, to be broad and tolerant and cosmopolitan. But she had to admit that the new life satisfied her no more than the old had. One was too circ.u.mscribed, the other too free. If it was true that she had no talent and was simply tolerated in the company because of Harold Phipps, she must know it at once. To be drawing a salary that she did not earn, and accepting favors for which a definite reward would be expected, was utterly intolerable to her.

A wild desire seized her to go back to New York and seek another engagement. In spite of what that odious article said, she believed that she could succeed on the stage. Papa Claude believed in her; the Kendall School people were enthusiastic about her work; they would help her to make another start.

But did she honestly want to make another start? A conscience that had overslept itself began to stir and waken. After all, what did the plaudits of hundreds of unknown people count for, when the approval and affection of those nearest and dearest was withdrawn? What would any success count for against the disgust she felt for herself.

A wave of terrific homesickness swept over her. But what was it she wanted, she asked herself, in place of this gay kaleidoscope of light and color and ceaseless confusion? Not the stagnation of the Bartlett household, certainly not the slipshod poverty of the Martels. She searched her heart for the answer.

And as she knelt there with her head on the window-sill, looking miserably out to sea, a strange thing happened to her. In a moment of swift, sure vision she saw Quinby Graham's homely, whimsical face, she felt his strong arms around her, and into her soul came a deep, still feeling of unutterable content.

"I am coming, Quin!" she whispered, with a little catch in her voice.

Then it was that Destiny played her second trump for Quin. It was in the form of a telegram that a bell-boy brought up from the office, and it announced that Madam Bartlett was not expected to live through the day.

Within twenty-four hours Eleanor was in Kentucky.

"Is she living?" she demanded of Hannah, who answered her ring at her grandmother's door.

"I don't know, honey," whispered Hannah, ashy with fright. "They's operatin' now. We thought she was going to die all day yesterday, but she never give in to be operated on till Mr. Quin come."

"Where are Aunt Isobel and Aunt Enid?"

"They's all in the library. Mr. Ranny's there, too. Ain't n.o.body upstairs with her but jest the doctors an' the nurse an' Mr. Quin."

Eleanor crept upstairs and sat down on the top step, outside that door before which she had halted in dread so many times before. Remorse and sympathy and acute apprehension struggled for mastery. All the old antagonism for her grandmother was swept away in the dread prospect of losing her. It was impossible to think of the family existing without her. She held it up, kept it together, maintained the proud old Bartlett tradition.

There was a sound behind the closed doors. Eleanor strained her ears to listen. It was someone coughing, at first gently, then violently. The next moment the door opened and a wild-eyed, unshaven figure staggered into the hall.

"d.a.m.n that ether!" some one muttered.

And then, before Eleanor could get to her feet, Quinby Graham came unsteadily toward her, stumbled twice, then pitched forward on his face, striking his head on the banister as he fell.