The Judge had come in to dinner in a bad temper. For one thing he had been badly beaten at golf by a man who could not speak good English. This thing seemed to the Judge insufferable, a thing that should not be allowed. Fancy being beaten by the long drives and careful calculation of a hooked-nose oaf who shambled in his walk and said "acrost" and "bee-hind" and "I was to New York."

The Judge was beginning to feel his age in many ways. His complete absorption in his calling made him sometimes aghast at how differently life went from what he stipulated. A nightmarish sense of suddenly awaking in an unfamiliar milieu, in surroundings peopled with beings he did not understand, who did nothing he had willed, oppressed him.

The very weather was more progressive than the Judge wanted it to be. The late June, lush and rich with vegetation, seemed to impinge on his conception of a world neatly outlined in flower borders and garden paths. The weeds around his rose gardens had accumulated! Colter had not yet removed them. The man was clearly a shirker, endeavoring to impress people with his superiority to work. Where was he at this moment? The Judge had not been able to locate him on the place. Then the whole attitude of the immediate world toward the Terence O'Brien affair affected the Judge. "In the good old days," thought that gentleman, "men committed crime and we hung 'em and that was the end of it. Nowadays a man does wrong, and what happens? First, the women all over the country begin howling; then the newspapers run amuck because some smart politician sees capital in it; then the fool letter writers, E Pluribus Unum, Veritas, and Uncle Felix, begin gassing; then some lawyer sees a chance for notoriety and takes the defense, first thing you know"—the Judge was almost awed at it,—"the Bench itself, the Bench itself, is put into the wrong!"

Miss Aurelia, amid accustomed twitters about hot water, the instability of cooking gas, the fact that the cream wasn't good and her other daily anguishes, yet found time for soft demurring.

"But Mr. Shipman, brother, surely he couldn't need notoriety. Why he—they—I remember the Ledyard affair. Mr. Shipman got George Ledyard completely exonerated, at least it was said so, though he did commit suicide afterward. The thing ran through the country like wild-fire. Mr. Shipman must be very well known. Not that I quite understand, but there was a famous scientist, brother to Mr. Ledyard, I believe, whom they scoured the country for——"

The Judge moved prohibitively and Miss Aurelia ran down. "Women's clack," came the judicial sentence on her remarks. "Women's clack, Shipman's game is to take some mucker and put him on top; it gets him well known and keeps the people for him. He'll run for something some day. Don't like the man, never did." The Judge, having passed sentence on Shipman, looked around in a manner of swelled grandeur. Then his hard-boiled eyes becoming suddenly conscious of the two empty seats at the table, he asked abruptly, "Where are the girls? Hey? What? What did you say? Where are they?"

Miss Aurelia, when cornered this sudden way by the bushy brows of concentrated inquiry, invariably straightened things on the table while her remarks became more tangled and confused. The setting to rights movement invariably gave her away. When she accurately replaced a salt-cellar the Judge, perfectly aware what uneasiness this connoted, followed her up as a dog would a scared rabbit. He stopped chewing to corner her.

"Hey? What! Why don't you want to tell? Hey? Where are the girls? Can you answer a straight question? Yes or no?" The Judge was sarcastic.

Miss Aurelia, taking up a tumbler, looked at it reproachfully, then put it down with an air of gentle resignation. "Why, brother, of course I can. Do I ever do anything else?" The smoky, soft eyes had an air of surprise and inquiry. "When you think of all the questions that are asked me in the house and the pains that I am put to in order to answer them fully and plainly—that is"—Miss Aurelia caught her brother's eye—"if I understand, or they, you—I—er—why do you ask?"

The magistrate, now being sure of deceit and evasion in the stammering lady opposite, played what was usually a very strong card with her. In fact, the Judge almost loved Miss Aurelia because she was the only person of his household who regarded this as a strong card. With an air of majesty, a thing that in his young days he had practised until he believed in it, a thing that would have made him a marvelous model for a moving-picture photographer, he brought down his fist until the lunch table rattled. Miss Aurelia, well trained in her part, jumped. It was the thing to do. Dora, bringing in the custards, looked nervous, quite proper of Dora. The hard-boiled eyes seeing all this took on a curious top film of complacency. The Judge leaned forward.

"Now, if you can speak the truth," the Judge shook impressively that thick forefinger which had so long been unwittingly the little coffin nail of dead oratory, "if you are capable of speaking the truth, where are the girls? Did they ask your permission to go? Did they take the depot car without my permission? Did they ask that sneak Colter to go with them, also without my permission?"

The curious something that sleeps in the frailest and feeblest woman now rose in Miss Aurelia. She seized a pepper-pot and violently shook it. "Stopped up again," said she with a sepulchral voice. The lady faced her magistrate brother. "I'm sure you have no right to address me as if I were a shoplifter, for I presume that is the way you do address shoplifters, though it is true that I might be, that is, that you, anyone, might be a shoplifter." Suddenly the poor lady paused, for the hard-boiled gooseberry eyes, steadily fixed upon her, at last had their wonted effect. Miss Aurelia felt guilty, and that was what the Judge wanted. It was his great pride that he could make anyone feel guilty; he exulted.

"They've gone off somewhere," burst out Miss Aurelia defiantly. "Why didn't you ask me before? I'm sure you can't see anything wrong in that. Dunstan had gone with—with some other girls. I presume Sard and Minga have joined them. Dora and Maggie say that Colter drove them in the depot car."

The lady made as if to rise and leave the table. Her knees trembled, her stiffly starched white skirts rustled, she was the old-time picture of femininity swimming on the seas of its own emotions and expecting to be rescued by the very man who had stirred up the storm. But Miss Aurelia, with her flutter of defiance and tears, had to pass the inexorable judicial eyes.

"You are sure the man Colter accompanied them?" asked the Judge in the low tones he reserved for hardened offenders.

But now that screeching, protesting thing that is intrenched in the soul and body of every woman burst forth. Miss Aurelia was no longer early Victorian. She was late—Margot-Tennant, the pent-up protester, the savage that sleeps under the threshold. She rose and shrieked defiance.

"Sure?" demanded Miss Aurelia, ruffling, "sure? That's what you wanted to know all along! Well then, why didn't you forbid it, if you were afraid? You know how Sard does things. How could I help it? Have you ever told Sard not to be seen with this man? I have worried about it all day. Not that I fear for Sard," poor Miss Aurelia saw too late the curious gleam in the Judge's eyes, "only she doesn't realize that people will talk. The men in the Morris bank—and all—why, only yesterday——" but the reminiscence trailed off like a whiff of smoke in the blue haze of Miss Aurelia's mind. "Why should you ask me such a thing?" she said. Her inflection was enough to damn the entire expedition.

Judge Bogart sat back in his chair. He raised his eyes to the ceiling with the air of registering an important bit of evidence. "Umph," he said slowly, "just what I thought." He pulled down his lower lip, and looked at his sister. "Precisely what I thought. It seems that I," repeated the Judge, staring, "must take my own daughter in hand."

"Now, now," said Miss Aurelia, with a frightened attempt to palliate; "nobody needs to take Sard in hand. Why, she, they——" But her brother waved her to some strange dungeon existing in his own mind.

"You are acting in the capacity of Sard's mother," he said grandiloquently; "you have failed. It was for you to have watched over her and to have kept her from entangling matters, the sort of thing a hot-headed girl gets into. You ought to know——" The Judge grimly paused.

But Miss Reely felt that it was not entirely discreet to understand this inference that she "ought to know."

"How should I know?" She tossed her head. "I never thought about such things, but," suddenly her old manner returned, "you are mistaken about Sard. It is only the under-dog she is interested in. Look at her about Terence O'Brien, and she has never even seen him. She's been interested in under-dogs ever since she came home from college. I never realized it," confessed Miss Aurelia with a nervous cough, "until Dunstan gave her that box at Christmas labeled 'Under-dog Biscuits,' and it had twenty-five dollars in it for Sard to give to tramps." Miss Aurelia, in spite of her perturbation, could not help the slight tremor of a smile, but she sought to propitiate her brother. "Of course," she confessed, "Sard isn't exactly my idea of a lady, not a bit like her mother. But she may grow more like her."

The man and woman in the Bogart dining-room instinctively conjured up this possible resemblance to Sard's mother, to the little curls and rows of buttons, the little rings and chains and bracelets, the tiny web of handkerchief and the sweet smell of scented lace over a tightly corseted little bosom. Poor Miss Aurelia, standing timidly back of her brother's chair, tried faithfully to see her niece formed on this pattern and utterly failed.

"The girls seem different nowadays. I don't know what it is," she complained, "they take long steps. They are—um—healthier. Don't you know how they shake hands with you as if they said, 'Well, what are you good for?'" Miss Aurelia pondered. "I was so different in my own youth," she sighed; "you remember, brother, I spent much of my time in bed taking medicine."

"Well, it kept you a lady, and a fool," snapped Judge Bogart. Now he rose from his luncheon chair with the effect of charging the jury.

"You can tell Sard if you don't want me to; my time—my time," emphasized Judge Bogart impressively, "may come later, that she is to drop all association with this Gentleman-John tramp of hers. Make her ashamed. Make her see the vulgarity of the thing. If she rebels, why then——" said Judge Bogart darkly, as he stood there pulling down his lip, looking at his sister. "There's just one thing I won't have," he said emphatically, "a taste for low company. Sard has that." He turned, surveying his relative narrowly. "Even that little poll-parrot Minga has more pride. The girl will have to learn that she's my daughter, not the friend of Tom, Dick and Harry, but my daughter. Tell her that, do you understand, my daughter!" The Judge stood staring; he finished in the voice he used so successfully in the court-room. "If she can't take your advice, she'll take my orders." At some thoughts of the girl, clear, steady, the Judge's lower lip snarled. His legs seemed not to hold him up well. He became a curious, insecure mass of anger.

Somehow after that the whole house looked different to Miss Aurelia. She suddenly saw things through the eyes of youth, youth trying to lift itself up and away on broad paths of sympathy and justice. She saw a common condition of things where the parent forgets to grow but stands stiffly like a mile-post, pointing proudly to a road that has long been choked with weeds.

The tall, thin lady went slowly up the stairs feeling somehow curiously young and chastened, like one sent to bed on bread and water, as if she herself were found guilty before this narrow tribunal.

"Oh!" she panted. "Oh, how did he ever grow to be like this, so terrible? He was such a good young man—such a good young man." Then the thought that had once come to Dunstan came to his aunt. Perhaps no one human being ought to have power of life and death over other human beings; for this was what happened to them. This hardness and cold self-sufficiency, this was what happened to men who condemned other men to everlasting dooms. So when the hours waxed late and the young people had not returned the good lady wandered from room to room like a banshee. At last she went rather desperately to the kitchen.

"Maggie, it seems late for the girls, doesn't it? You saw them go. Were they—er—warmly dressed?"

"Yes," grinned Maggie. She turned from bread mixing, a dab of flour on her red, kind face. "I seen 'em in their pants and all."

"Their camp costumes," observed Miss Aurelia, with dignity.

"Camp or no camp," observed Maggie, with the privilege of a good cook who knows her value, "them pants is something terrible. That Minga! such things will bring one doom or another onto her."

Maggie turned to Dora. "Look at them actresses," she observed, "and where do they end? It ain't no way for a lady to dress, them pants."

But the waitress, with some sense of her mistress' anxiety, tried to soothe. "It ain't so late, Miss Bogart, and they had their steamer rugs. The girls is always careful; at least, Miss Sard is, drivin' the car and all. And then, too, they've took that there Colter with them."

Both women were evidently curious, and Cook paused, anxious to see how Miss Aurelia would receive this bit of news. Birth and breeding, however, still accomplish certain reserves with the observing ones of the kitchen. There was no further inquiry on Miss Aurelia's part.

"It must be tire trouble," concluded that lady worriedly. "I—they—that little depot car is rather uncertain. I have often heard Miss Sard speak of it. I wish——" But what she wished Miss Aurelia forbore to say. She started to go out of the kitchen, hesitated and turned back again. "Have plenty of hot water for chocolate, and the electric toaster and jam. They might be hungry."

As the lady of the house departed, the two serving-women looked significantly at each other.

"So, she's begun to worry already?" said Maggie, her own red face troubled. "She's seen what we seen. Oh, my! Wouldn't it be awful if Miss Sard was to take up with such a one, poor, motherless child? Wouldn't it be terrible, the Judge and all?"

But Dora shook her head. The girl, deepened by her own worries, read things more clearly in the great Human Book of which she was part. Mechanically she drifted around the kitchen in her absent-minded way of the last month. "It ain't that, it ain't that," she said doggedly. "It's that she's the New Kind of girl. Look how she's treated me. Look how she's cared about my Terry. It's the New Way, and now if that Colter feller is anything to her, it's that she's all caught up with pity for him. Down on his luck and all. She ain't thinking of nothing. It's the New Kind of girl! They don't keep thinkin' of fellers for marriage and all."

At a sound on the driveway, Dora went to the window.

"Automobiles," she announced. "That's them! My! but I'm glad." Both women breathed dramatic sighs of relief, and opened the kitchen door gladly to see Sard's hatless flying figure.

"Maggie—Dora," Sard was breathless, "don't fuss or make any noise, but run up and turn down Miss Minga's bed and get hot-water bottles and hot drinks. You see, she got into a bog and fainted. She may still be a little chilled. Anyway, she might have drowned, but for Colter. Here, this way, Colter."

Down the garden path from the garage came the little group: Colter, the man on the place, bearing the small figure, eyes languidly fluttering, drenched in clammy camping things. Dunstan, stony and snappish, was carrying the picnic impedimenta. Shipman, an amused look in his eyes, stood about wondering whether he hadn't better get out, yet taking curious pleasure in watching Sard's selfless efficiency. On encountering Miss Aurelia in the dim hall, he pulled himself together.

"Oh!" gasped the rabbity mouth, "you will tell me, perhaps. There is no danger. You are a doctor?" Sard had brushed by her aunt, refusing to answer the torrents of questions. Miss Aurelia was now almost in tears.

"No danger." Shipman's voice, full of his controlled human tenderness, always influenced people at once. It surrounded Miss Aurelia like a wall against which the shaky lady leaned like a slender wandering vine of femininity. She now leaned some more, and inquired, "I thought they—you see, we know very little about the man Colter—was it—did he attack her?" Miss Aurelia, with sick tremulousness, put the question and Shipman's eyes half gleamed with amusement. The lawyer knew what a curious charnel house the mind of a good country woman could be. He knew the horrors this poor lady had visualized and tried to relieve her anxiety. His polished concern soothed her enormously.

"Your man Colter was very clever," he observed quietly, "and resourceful. Quite a superior person, I should say. He got to Miss Gerould first. The rest of us had not heard her screams. She had floundered into a deep bog and then fainted from fear, so that the thing might have been pretty nasty. Then Colter got stuck himself and we had to pry them both out. Rather muddy work." Shipman held out his hands, on which the swamp muck still left traces. His clothes were stained with boggy ooze.

"You—you are telling me the truth?" gasped Miss Aurelia excitedly. "The Judge will demand the exact truth, and you—you are a stranger. I can't be sure." She was shaking quite pitifully.

Shipman looked soberly down on her. "H'm!" he breathed. "H'm, hysteria, and not all from the anxiety, either." What had gotten this flabby little soul with the pretty complexion and hair into this state? Surely not five hours' absence on the part of two strong, independent girls. Had the Judge been fulminating? Suddenly the lawyer grasped something, something that he thought might become serious trouble for Sard. Shipman stood silent for a moment thinking. He asked, "By the way, is Judge Bogart in? Would this be a stupidly inconvenient time to see him? He is to try the case, I believe, in the O'Brien matter. I am counsel for the boy. I wonder——"

Miss Aurelia, enjoying her vine-like repose on the strength of the personality of the "strange man," quivered a little. "I could find out," she said. She faltered. "I assume that you are telling me the truth, that you have no—no dreadful news to give my brother?"

Shipman's tenderness was a natural and beautiful thing. It went out instinctively to troubled men and women. He took the thin, fluttering hands in his.

"Miss Bogart, it has been jolly to meet you in this informal way. I want to know you better. Please don't be troubled, please! Let me find Judge Bogart myself. You go to bed and rest."

"But—I—you—he—they," began Miss Aurelia, her color glowing, her hysteria vanishing. She was fairly thrilled with flutters.

He stood over her, and shook a warning finger.

"You go to bed," he commanded sternly, "you go to bed."

With a sigh of relief, Miss Aurelia obeyed him. She led him first to the door of the Judge's study and Shipman stood watching her slender figure mount the stairs. Then he knocked. The "Come in" was snapped in the voice the Judge kept for his family, and Watts Shipman, with a shrug, entered.

Dunstan was standing on the hearth rug. The boy had rings under his eyes; his mouth was eager and breathless, as he had evidently felt the failure of some protest to his father.

"All I say is," concluded the Judge drily, "is that I want no more of this Colter rot. When your sister wants to go on expeditions similar to to-day, you accompany her!"

The lad stood there silent. The Judge recognized the famous lawyer with a curt gesture. "Sit down, sit down. I'm trying to make this young man understand that he is responsible for his sister's character and behavior; that they both live under one law, the law of a good name."

Dunstan's face was afire. He stood facing his father. "You call it a good name to suggest that my sister needs my protection?" asked the lad ironically. "Ah, a good name," the boy choked. "A name that means finicking and fussing and being afraid and continually thinking of evil. Well, I don't believe either Sard or I want that kind of good name."

He finished with a curious gesture of despair, a gesture that Shipman, standing soberly by, understood at once. He loved the young fellow for it, for it was Sard's own gesture. "Give us realities, realities of sympathy and help and cleanness and good will. Do not ask us to bow our heads under your standards of what appears well." That was what the gesture said.

"Leave the room," commanded the Judge, "leave the room." Dunstan, with a strange little look at the lawyer, went out. Judge Bogart turned; in his hand was a box of cigars. "I don't know what's come over the young people of to-day." His voice was brassy with anger.

Shipman took a cigar, held it lightly, then with a gleam of eyes, half closed, to watch the match. "Young people," he said, "must often wonder what has come over us." The two men deliberately measured each other. Then the talk turned to the O'Brien case. What they said was purely superficial, but the lawyer, raising interesting questions of technicality, wondered if he was not perhaps the means of saving Sard a lecture. A Winged Victory must have gotten to bed by this time. Watts smiled. When at last he rose to go he gestured toward the disheveled condition of his walking things.

"I ought to have apologized. We got caught in a bog looking for pink pearls." He was mirthful at his own share in the escapade. "Quite a youthful time," he laughed.

"Humph!" Judge Bogart eyed the other man curiously. "You found some fine pearls?"

"Your man Colter picked up one. Seemed to know how to look; he seems rather well informed." The lawyer paused. Perhaps this was an opening.

Judge Bogart reached up to snap out the light. "If you're going to walk up the mountain," he remarked curtly, "the back door is your best exit."