The handsome man and woman that drove up to the great door of the Bogarts' home got out with a leisureliness that seemed the result of good nerve structure rather than deliberate intention. Whatever the anxiety in their hearts they did not show it in gestures or voices. Mrs. Gerould, however, kept rather intent eyes upon the electric bell; her gloved finger pushed; she pulled the scarf around her shoulders with a little nervous twitch. Her husband flicked some dust from his shoes. The two talked in low voices until the Bogarts' cook opened the door; as they realized the absence of pretty Dora, their grave faces grew more apprehensive.

Cook was expansive; she smoothed the sleeve of Mrs. Gerould's silk motor coat. "Ye ain't been worried about Minga, Mrs. Gerould? There's nothing the matter with her, Praise be God!—only the fright, and they've given her somethin' to sleep on. But him! Oh, it seems that I can hear him callin' me now—Mr. Dunstan—our bye—it was me he was always teasin' and raisin' the divil wit." The cook trembled; she burst out again:

"Gawd love him, the poor child wanted to save our Terry, poor bye—now that wasn't no way to help, was it? Now, Mr. Dunstan's gone and got the law onto himself, he's under arrest! But them two," the cook wiped her streaming eyes, "their little hearts was broke over Terry bein' in the jug, and now look at it—Terry's dead! Yes'm," cook's motherly heart broke over it, her head went down into her red hands. "The guards was after them when they got him in the car, and fired. Yes'm, the poor boy's gorn. Well, he's better aff, that's what I tell Dora, he's better aff! I keep tellin' her that," blubbered cook.

The Mede and Persian looked increasingly grave. The telegram had been telephoned to them and they had stepped into a car and driven out at once without much sense of tragedy—before this the two had been hurried to scenes of Minga's dÉnouements, expecting some result of physical rashness, of too much dancing, or a bad sore throat and fever, some predicament of finance easy of rescue, but here was a prank with more serious development and one tragic result. Minga and Dunce had played for high stakes this time; perhaps their playing was forever over!

"Where's her room?" the two parents were at the door before cook could get the directions out of her mouth. On the way they encountered Miss Aurelia carrying a hot-water bottle in her hand, a flask of aromatic spirits of ammonia in the other. The lady had been wandering about with these for hours; now like a fountain of tears with fireworks of explanations round it, she began sending up hysterical rockets.

"Oh, Mrs. Gerould, Minga will be glad—I don't suppose I—you should talk to her now ... and Mr. Gerould, how do you do? Sard will know; she is with Minga—but our Dunstan, did you know? Had you heard the—er particulars?—he—they, under arrest!" Sobbing, Miss Aurelia, with that superb power of tears that some people possess, talked through a steady sliding of drops that ran down sluices of pale cheeks until the two Geroulds in spite of anxiety looked on admiringly—"the poor—er—criminal, Terry—is dead—one can—er"—sniff,—"hardly grieve—but our boy, our Dunstan"—sob—"is gravely injured—the shoulders and head—fractures—they fear for his life——" To the gentle soothing of the Mede and Persian, Miss Aurelia leaned like a wind-blown branch, but the gusts of weeping came anew and the branch merely swayed; the two newcomers after a while detached themselves; with a sense of relief they stepped into Minga's room.

Sard rose swiftly out of the dark; Mrs. Gerould caught her two hands. "Minga's all right," the girl whispered. "They gave her something quieting because she was so horrified—Terry, you see—Terry is dead." The young form straightened; Sard spoke with grave calmness.

"Terry's troubles are over."

The Geroulds took her hands—together they spoke encouragingly to her. "Dear, you've been such a brick, we're proud of you; Eleanor Ledyard has told us how you worked to save Terry, and you've done our little Minga so much good." The big-hearted man and woman longed to take the strained look of tragedy from this young face. There were other things they knew that had turned Sard grave and old in this one summer. They scanned her anxiously, wishing she were not so set and stern. "When Dunstan gets out of the woods,"—they patted her hands—"you come to us for a while and—and—well, we want to help."

This kind man and woman, understanding her, standing by her, shook the girl to her depths. Sard's lips trembled.

"I'd like to," she said, her eyes thrilled—"I'd like," Sard said simply, "to earn my own living; maybe you would help me do that." Her eyes deepened and thrilled, and in them the Geroulds read the old story, Youth at bay, yet they heard her words, "But I mustn't leave my father now—not now." Sard, with a curious little gesture, motioned in the direction of Dunstan's room.

"Of course not." Mrs. Gerould looked at her understandingly; the tall, graceful woman went softly over to the little bed and turned the night-light to see her daughter's sleeping face. The little bobbed head was deep in the pillows. Minga opened her eyes slightly and drowsily closed them. "Sard," she spoke with the curious distinctness of a person speaking under a drug, "I thought the Mede and the Persian were here—they are so dear—if they were here, you know"—Minga spoke drowsily, "Dunstan would get all right and Terry would come alive, the Mede and the Persian would fix it. They—they are hummers."

The man and the woman looked long and lovingly at her; then they looked at each other, shaking their heads, the little figure on the bed was so dear to them, yet they, absorbed in their love for each other, seemed to have so little power, so little direction over her. This was their only child; she had had all the care and love they could lavish on her, yet she seemed as remote as an alien to all they believed and felt. They, the Mede and Persian, were deliberate, slow-thinking people of the agricultural age; Minga, the one child of their union, was the strange electric vivacious spirit of a machine age. It was this simple fact that the couple hardly realized that made it impossible for them to train their little daughter in the way they thought she should go. Minga must train herself in the way she would go. Somehow, they believed, she would train herself right.

Sard, at last, remembered her duties as daughter of the house. "Your room is all ready," she whispered; "there's a nurse coming in here at about four and then I shall go to bed." She led them down the hall, halting ever so slightly outside Dunstan's door, half pausing to hear the footsteps of the nurse on guard there, explaining:

"The fracture isn't fatal, but it's a horrid splintered one, and they must torture him some more to-morrow, the car upset; it threw Minga free, but it fell on him—and Terry's body——" Sard drew a long shuddering sigh.

Somewhat bewildered the two parents waited to hear more. "But Terry," asked Mr. Gerould rather desperately, "how was it he was with Dunstan and Minga?"

"They had stolen him from a prison gang working on the highway." It was curious that these three desperately anxious people half smiled with appreciation of Dunstan's and Minga's method, while they realized its deadly solemnity. The two Geroulds looked aghast.

"The prison guard shot him like a rabbit." The girl turned a look of intense bitterness on the kindly man and woman standing there. "You see," said Sard, and her face and eyes were a mask of hardness, "Terry was sentenced to twenty years in prison at hard labor; it was thought to be a kind sentence; he was under the law, and the law must not be cheated." The girl's face was bitter in a way not good to see. The Mede and the Persian did not, however, meet it with cold logic. This was not a time for that.

When they were alone in their room the Geroulds locked the door and commenced talking to each other. As the Persian slipped into a frilly dressing-robe and groped in her bag for a flashlight, she cautioned the Mede, "You turn in and sleep a lot, dear; the long drive tired you. I'll come back in a few hours. I want to relieve Sard and watch Minga and see how she comes out of this."

The Mede acquiesced. Taking off his collar, he sought for his tooth paste. "Apparently your daughter is a body-snatcher," he remarked. "I'm glad I sold that stock last week and that call money is improving. I expect we'll have a lot of legal stuff on our hands. It will be Minga's Christmas present keeping her out of jail. I'll try to see Shipman to-morrow and find out what he thinks. Under arrest! your daughter, Madam, is—ahem—exceptional."

"Your daughter when she is in trouble," remarked the Persian blandly,—"I'm glad I have a permanent wave; your daughter's activities make it necessary for me to look my best at all times."

"Your daughter when she's discreditable, you know," returned the Mede with decision. They laughed. The Persian went over and rested her head against the Mede's arm. "No wonder I want Minga to be happy always," she said; "no wonder I've spoiled her so. I've always been so ridiculously happy and spoiled by you."

"You've been ridiculous, all right," said the Mede with conviction. "I've been the happy one—well," he kissed her, then bit off the end of a cigar, "we've got to pull Minga out of this scrape and read her the riot act and make her sit up and face her iniquities, by Jove!"

"You," the Persian looked back at him from the door, "must scold her terribly, cut half her allowance and forbid her to accept any more invitations for a year. You remember, I always wanted you to punish her when she was little."

"Oh, you did?" The Mede rummaged in the bathroom for his safety razor; he now fitted this instrument together, standing in dressing-gown surveying a blue chin. "I am to put on the thumbscrews, am I? Madam, I do not interfere with your peculiar offspring——" The Mede, looking in the glass, drew a ruminative thumb over his chin. "I am for helping that poor child, Sard; she's a tigress in a crate here—I'm going to help uncrate her."

The Persian, lingering by the door, laughed a little helplessly. "Sard," she said in a low voice, "gives me the shivers; that fearful kind of girl who wants to reform the whole world before six o'clock, get life laundered before dinner, you know."

"I do know," said the thoughtful Mede, "and it's the kind I like; the kind that gets busy and doesn't wait for George to do it. I was like that myself. I mean, at Sard's age I wanted to reform the world. I began by marrying you."

"You didn't let George do that! Do you want to be pinched?" asked the Persian viciously.

"Come—come," said the Mede, "where are the matches? After I have a smoke—Patty," he looked toward the pretty rose-frilled figure at the door—"you can't suppose our little duck is hurt anyway, do you? They're not fooling us?" Mr. Gerould paused, turning a rather worried face on his wife. He waved the safety razor solemnly. That lady, to allay his fears, came close up to him.

"Minga Gerould is my child," she said emphatically; "she is made of rubber, the rest of her is steel, her mind is a duck's back. Her will is a kite, her imagination is fireproof, her humor is Charlie Chaplin and her heart is sound."

"I believe you." The Mede tinkered with his razor and looked about the room. "Rather comfy here," he remarked. "Who took the car to the garage, anybody? I didn't lock it. Well, I guess there's no need to worry; that fellow Colter is here yet, isn't he? Eleanor Ledyard heard a lot about him from Watts; thinks he may be her husband's brother. What rot you women invent and you call it intuition. I keep worrying about Sard's face. I'd like to get a look at the fellow. Did you say you wanted to kiss me again?"

"I did not," said the Persian, her soft eyes challenging him. "But I could give Minga another kiss for you when she wakes up. I am willing to do that," said the Persian with an air of benevolence.

"You will do what I tell you," said the Mede belligerently. He pulled the tall rosy lady toward him and lifted her face to his. "My life," said the Mede, "is a wreck between the two demons, wife and daughter." He pressed a second kiss on a face that seemed the rosier by something in that second kiss.

The two looked at each other with a sudden deep look of laughing devotion. Such things do sometimes happen!