of life which Carrington, with all his localized talent, lacked. One felt that she would not fail in any qualm, that she would not be daunted by any obstacle, that in crises she would think not of surrender or sacrifice, but of resource and expedient.
Mrs. Van Velt was concluding her story of a recent tea given for a famous woman novelist.
“Did she talk about her work?” she exclaimed. “She never got away from her books, and she drenched us with her successes until our ardor was more than dampened. It was soaked. She gave us to understand that she had Browning beaten on obscurity, Ibsen on subtlety, and Maeterlinck on imagination. And when she left there was a heavy silence for a minute, and then Alec Carter said: ‘Now let’s talk nursery rhymes for a while. We might begin on “Little bas bleu, come blow your horn.”’”
She made her adieux on the strength of that, collecting her purse, her feather boa and her daughter from different parts of the room, with surprising promptitude.
It was her practice to save her best rocket for the last, and disappear in the glory of its swish.
Bobbins accompanied the Van Velts to their carriage, and, to misquote long-suffering Omar, once departed, he returned no more.
Carrington turned to Hastings the moment they were out of the door.
“You’ll excuse me if I read dad’s letter, won’t you? My time is getting so short,” he said, apologetically; and went over to one of the long windows to get the benefit of its light.
Elenore turned to Hastings with the question that had been hovering on her lips for the last half-hour.
“Tell me why you are so serious,” she said. “Has anything gone wrong? It doesn’t mean that you are not coming to Brittany to see the Waldens and – me – this summer, does it?”
“It means a great deal more than that,” said Hastings, soberly. “Yesterday I thought I was on my way to being a rising architect. To-day I am simply cast into outer darkness. The shears of fate have clipped this piece of my life short, and I can’t see what the next is going to be like.”
“Tell me,” said Elenore, quietly.
“It’s grotesquely simple,” said Hastings, and there was an involuntary tinge of bitterness in the tone he tried to keep even. “My uncle, who has given me my start in life – the only relative I have – has written me to come back to New York at once. I’m to give up being an architect. When it’s the only thing I am fitted for! He has something else for me. He doesn’t explain what. He does vouchsafe the information that the place is quite impossible, but, he says, what are a few years out of a young man’s life?” His voice was a trifle unsteady. Years seemed eternity to him just then.
“I must go, of course, unquestioningly,” he went on, holding himself in check. “Considering that I owe him everything, it’s a military command. And I have no right to say anything but good-by to – to any woman. I’m out of things, that’s all.”
So much, at least, he vowed he would tell her; but he was determined that he would not be so weak as to ask her to wait for him.
The years of his uncle’s bounty fettered him hopelessly. When he knew where he stood, when he had something definite to offer her, then – but not till then. But it was bitter. He had supposed, of course, that he would go back in the autumn, open an office, be self-supporting, and then —
It was a few seconds before Elenore spoke. When she did her voice was cheerful and friendly.
“There is always something interesting in the most impossible places,” she said. “It may be rather fun. And we shall expect you to make it as picturesque as possible in your letters, if we tell you all the gossip here in exchange.”
He said to himself that she understood, at least. He thanked Heaven for that, as youth is prone to thank Heaven when Heaven lives up to its expectations. And if the place was not so very impossible —if– and perhaps—
So hope began to whisper. And then because If and Perhaps were all he could take with him, because she was so winsome and dear and so desirably human, because she was so daintily proud, and because the things he was not to tell her refused to be held back, he caught her hands in his, whispered: “God bless you! I shall write you everything – that I can,” and, wrapping his New England conscience round him, went without a backward glance.
Elenore stood quite still for a moment. The shadows were beginning to thicken in the long room, and she felt a certain restfulness in the half-light.
Then she turned resolutely toward her brother. Something in the dejection of his poise quickened her instantly.
“Ned! What is it?” she demanded.
“It’s the deluge – without an ark,” said Carrington, without stirring.
“Well?” said Elenore, tersely.
“I’m not going east with Velantour. I’m going home,” he said, mechanically.
“Not dad?” she said, breathlessly.
“No.” He answered the unfinished question. “But he’s broken his leg, poor old dad! And other things are wrong, and he wants me.”
“And me?” she questioned, quickly. “Doesn’t he want me?”
“No,” said Carrington, impatiently. “He wants his son, he says, and he shall have me. And he shan’t know I ever whimpered about coming. I’m not cad enough for that. But going east with Velantour is the chance of a lifetime, and it takes a minute or two to get heroic about giving it up, that’s all. All except that it’s bitter to think how little use I shall be to him when I get there, for it’s partly business, and I haven’t a particle of business ability. That will be his disappointment, which is bitterer still.”
“Do you mean to say that he doesn’t want me?” Elenore demanded. “Where is the letter?”
Carrington held it out to her without a word.
Dear Ned (it read), I’m sorry to call you home, but I must. I’m laid up with a broken leg – compound fracture. Don’t be alarmed. I’m in no danger of dying. But there are business complications I want to talk over with you – things it’s only fair to you to let you help decide. It may be only for a few weeks. Then you can go back. Let Elenore stay in Paris. It’s all man’s work to be done here. Just responsibilities to be met.
Ned Carrington was turning over the pages of the morning Herald.
“I can catch the train for London in an hour, and sail from Liverpool tomorrow, or – no, here it is – I can leave here in the morning and get a boat at Boulogne. That will be better,” he planned.
“And Velantour?” Elenore questioned.
He threw out his hands despairingly.
“I’ll drive to the station and tell him,” he said. “Then I’ll come back and unpack – and pack.”
“Why can’t I go to dad instead of you?” Elenore demanded.
“Because it’s man’s work to be done,” said Carrington, impatiently. “Don’t argue it. I wish I had your brains for it, though. But it’s me that dad wants,
