"Where? Why, anywhere! There's a whole world to travel in, isn't there? Well, take Mrs. MacGregor and travel around in it, then."

She shook her head.

"What's the use? Anywhere I went I'd have to go with _me_, wouldn't I? And I can't seem to like the idea of traveling around with Mrs.

MacGregor, either."

"What _do_ you want, then?"

"I don't know," said she, in a low voice. And she added: "So I think I might just as well stay right on here at home, if it's all the same to you."

"Well, if it pleases you, of course--" he began doubtfully.

"If I do stay, you needn't be afraid I'll fall in love with anybody else you hire," said she, with a faint flush. "I'm only a fool the same way once." Her bomb-sh.e.l.l directness all but stunned him. He stammered, confusedly:

"Why--very well then, very well then! Quite so! I see exactly what you mean! I--ah--am very glad we understand each other." But as the door closed behind her, he mumbled to himself:

"Now, that was a devil of an interview, wasn't it! What's come over the girl? And what's the matter with _me_?" After a while he telephoned Mr. Jason Vandervelde.

Everything went on as usual in the orderly, luxurious house, for some ten quiet months or so. And then one memorable morning at the breakfast-table Mr. Champneys suddenly gasped and slid down in his chair. Nancy and Hoichi carried him into the library and placed him on a lounge. He opened his eyes once, and stared into hers with something of his old imperiousness. She took his hand, pitifully, and bent down to him.

"Yes, Uncle Chadwick?"

But he didn't speak--to her. His eyes wandered past her. His lips trembled, into a whisper of "_Milly_!" With that he went out to the wife of his youth.

CHAPTER XIV

SWAN FEATHERS

While Mr. Chadwick Champneys was alive, Nancy had been able to feel that there was some one to whom she, in a way, belonged. Now that he was gone, she felt as if she had been detached from all human ties, for she couldn't consider Peter as belonging. Peter wasn't coming home, of course. He was content to leave his business interests in the safe hands of Mr. Jason Vandervelde, and the trust company that had the Champneys estate in charge. A last addition to Mr.

Champneys's will had made the lawyer the guardian of Mrs. Peter Champneys until she was twenty-five.

While he was putting certain of his late client's personal affairs in order, Mr. Vandervelde necessarily came in contact with young Mrs. Peter. The oftener he met her, the more interested the shrewd and kindly man became in Anne Champneys. When he first saw her in the black she had donned for her uncle, the unusual quality of her personal appearance struck him with some astonishment.

"Why, she's grown handsome!" he thought with surprise. "Or maybe she's going to be handsome. Or maybe she's not, either. Whatever she is, she certainly can catch the human eye!"

He remembered her as she had appeared on her wedding-day, and his respect for Chadwick Champneys's far-sighted perspicacity grew: the old man certainly had had an unerring sense of values. The girl had a mind of her own, too. At times her judgment surprised him with its elemental clarity, its penetrating soundness. The power of thinking for herself hadn't been educated out of her; she had not been stodged with other people's--mostly dead people's--thoughts, therefore she had room for her own. He reflected that a little wholesome neglect might be added to the modern curriculum with great advantage to the youthful mind.

Her isolation, the deadly monotony of her daily life, horrified him.

He realized that she should have other companionship than Mrs.

MacGregor's, shrewdly suspecting that as a teacher that lady had pa.s.sed the limit of usefulness some time since. Somehow, the impermeable perfection of Mrs. MacGregor exasperated Mr. Vandervelde almost to the point of throwing things at her. She made him understand why there is more joy in heaven over one sinner saved, than over ninety and nine just persons. He could understand just how welcome to a bored heaven that sinner must be! And think of that poor girl living with this human work of supererogation!

"Why, she might just as well be in heaven at once!" he thought, and shuddered. "I've got to do something about it."

"Marcia," he said to his wife, "I want you to help me out with Mrs.

Peter Champneys. Call on her. Talk to her. Then tell me what to do for her. She's changed--heaps--in three years. She's--well, I think she's an unusual person, Marcia."

A few days later Mrs. Jason Vandervelde called on Mrs. Peter Champneys, and at sight of Nancy in her black frock experienced something of the emotion that had moved her husband. She felt inclined to rub her eyes. And then she wished to smile, remembering how unnecessarily sorry she and Jason had been for young Peter Champneys.

Marcia Vandervelde was an immensely clever and capable woman; perhaps that partly explained her husband's great success. She looked at the girl before her, and realized her possibilities. Mrs.

Peter was for the time being virtually a young widow, she had no relatives, and she was co-heir to the Champneys millions. Properly trained, she should have a brilliant social career ahead of her. And here she was shut up--in a really beautiful house, of course--with n.o.body but an insufferable frump of an unimportant Mrs. MacGregor!

The situation stirred Mrs. Vandervelde's imagination and appealed to her executive ability.

Mrs. Vandervelde liked the way she wore her hair, in thick red plaits wound around the head and pinned flat. It had a medieval effect, which suited her coloring. Her black dress was soft and l.u.s.terless. She wore no jewelry, not even a ring. There were shadows under her grave, gray-green eyes. Altogether, she looked individual, astonishingly young, and pathetically alone. Mrs.

Vandervelde's interest was aroused. Skilfully she tried to draw the girl out, and was relieved to discover that she wasn't talkative; nor was she awkward. She sat with her hands on the arms of her chair, restfully; and while you spoke, you could see that she weighed what you were saying, and you.

"I am going to like this girl, I think," Marcia Vandervelde told herself. And she looked at Nancy with the affectionate eyes of the creative artist who sees his material to his hand.

"Jason," she said to her husband, some time later, "what would you think if I should tell you I wished to take Anne Champneys abroad with me?"

"I'd say it was the finest idea ever--if you meant it."

"I do mean it. My dear man, with proper handling one might make something that approaches a cla.s.sic out of that girl. There's something elemental in her: she's like a birch tree in spring, and like the earth it grows in, too, if you see what I mean. I want to try my hand on her. I hate to see her spoiled."

"It's mighty decent of you, Marcia!" said he, gratefully.

"Oh, you know how bored I get at times, Jason. I need something real to engage my energies. I fancy Anne Champneys will supply the needed stimulus. I shall love to watch her reactions: she's not a fool, and I shall be amused. If she managed to do so well with n.o.body but poor old Mr. Champneys and that dreary MacGregor woman, think what she'll be when _I_ get through with her!"

Vandervelde said respectfully: "You're a brick, Marcia! If she patterns herself on you--"

"If she patterns herself on anybody but herself, I'll wash my hands of her! It's because I think she won't that I'm willing to help her," said his wife, crisply.

Some six weeks later the Champneys house had been closed indefinitely, the premises put in charge of the efficient Hoichi, and Mrs. MacGregor bonused and another excellent position secured for her, and Mrs. Peter Champneys was making her home with her guardian and his wife.

She might have moved into another world, so different was everything,--as different, say, as was the acrid countenance of Mrs.

MacGregor from the fresh-skinned, clear-eyed, clever, handsome face of Marcia Vandervelde. Everything interested Nancy. Her senses were acutely alert. Just to watch Mrs. Vandervelde, so calm, so poised and efficient, gave her a sense of physical well-being. She had never really liked, or deeply admired, or trusted any other woman, and the real depths of her feeling for this one surprised her. Mrs.

Vandervelde possessed the supreme gift of putting others at their ease; she had tact, and was at the same time sincere and kind. Nancy found herself at home in this fine house in which life moved largely and colorfully.

A maid had been secured for her, whom Mrs. Vandervelde p.r.o.nounced a treasure. Then came skilful and polite persons who did things to her skin and hair, with astounding results. After that came the selection of her wardrobe, under Mrs. Vandervelde's critical supervision. Although the frocks were black, with only a white evening gown or two for relief, Nancy felt as if she were clothed in a rosy and delightful dream. She had never even imagined such things as these black frocks were. When she saw herself in them she was silent, though the super-saleswomen exclaimed, and Mrs. Vandervelde smiled a gratified smile.

"I am going to keep her strictly in the background for the time being, Jason," she explained to her husband. "As she's already married, she can afford to wait a year--or even two. I mean her to be perfect. I mean her to be absolutely _sure_. She's going to be a sensation. Jason, have you ever seen anything to equal her team-work? When I tell her what I want her to do, she looks at me for a moment--and then does it. One thing I must say for old Mr.

Champneys and that MacGregor woman: they certainly knew how to lay a firm foundation!"

Nancy was perfectly willing to remain in the background. She was interested in people only as an on-looker. She responded instantly to Mrs. Vandervelde's suggestions and instructions, and carried them out with an intelligent thoroughness that at times made her mentor gasp. It gave her a definite object to work for, and kept her from thinking too much about Glenn Mitch.e.l.l. And she didn't want to think about Glenn Mitch.e.l.l. It hurt. She watched with a quiet wonder--quite as if it had been a stranger to whom all this was happening--the change being wrought in herself; the immense difference intelligent care, perfectly selected clothes, and the background of a beautiful house can make not only in one's appearance but in one's thoughts. Sometimes she would stare at the perfectly appointed dinner-table, with its softly shaded lights; she would look, reflectively, from Marcia Vandervelde's smartly coiffured head to her husband's fine, aristocratic face; the reflective glance would trail around the beautiful room, rest appreciatively upon the impressive butler, come back to the food set before her, and a fugitive smile would touch her lips and linger in her eyes. There were times when she felt that she herself was the only real thing among shadows; as if all these pleasant things must vanish, and only her lonesome self remain. She watched with a certain wistfulness the few people she knew. Marcia, now--so admired, so sure, with so many interests, so many friends, and with Jason Vandervelde's quiet love always hers--did _she_ ever have that haunting sense of the impermanence of all possessions; of having, in the end, nothing but herself?

"What are you thinking, when you look at me like that?" Marcia asked her one evening, smilingly. She was as curious about Nancy as Nancy was about her.

"I was just--wondering."

"About what?"

"I was wondering if you were ever lonely?" said Nancy, truthfully.

"I mean, as if all this,"--they were in the drawing-room then, and she made a gesture that included everything in it,--"just _things_, you know, all the things you have--and--and the people you know--weren't _real_. They go. And nothing stays but just _you_.

_You_, all by yourself." She leaned forward, her eyes big and earnest.