When she came into the apartment sitting-room, she found Polly Harris in her shabby brown trappings and another member of the family whom Polly had dutifully brought to call.

“It’s Sam Sparling,” Polly announced in boyish fashion. “Have you seen by the papers he’s to open here Christmas afternoon? This is Bliss Hobart’s prize,” waving her hand in Thurley’s direction. “Now beware of Sam because even duchesses fall in love with him and he has trunks full of yellowed mash notes—”

Sam interrupted by frowning at Polly and saying, “Come over here, my dear, don’t be afraid. I’m too busy to get up a new affair before New Year’s.”

He had the cultured, pleasant voice of a well-bred Englishman and Thurley could picture his irresistible methods of love-making, although he was far older than she fancied and his mouth framed by ironical furrows. He had really white hair combed into a brisk pompadour, bright eyes like a young pointer’s and he dressed in noticeable fashion, with a fine black and white check suit with exaggerated flares, patent leather boots and silk shirt and tie matching the suit in pattern. Still, it was no wonder Sam Sparling could “get across” with Romeo one day and the next week be giving out an interview in which he was quoted as remembering the day Disraeli said to him—!

“What a dear she is!” he remarked to Polly. He had the habit of talking about a person in front of that person when he wished to be complimentary or to find fault. “A flapper in a thousand,” putting on gold pince-nez with the foreign straight-across nose-piece which Thurley had never seen. “By Jove, is Bliss sure she’s a singer? I could make an actress out of that girl.”

“You’ve not heard her sing,” Polly capered about. “When she sings, I am inspired to tear up all the opera scores I’ve fancied were any good and begin again. Because Thurley has promised me to sing the title rÔle in my opera—now haven’t you?” Polly’s little face was distressingly in earnest.

Sam shook his head and began talking to Thurley about Polly. “She is irrepressible, isn’t she? Fancies she can out-Wagner Wagner—when she is just bound to end up by writing songs for a ballad singer—one dressed in sheer muslin with velvet wrist bows—possessing a thin, carefully tutored soprano that will always trill certain words.”

Polly picked up a cushion and unceremoniously pitched it towards him. It fell between Thurley and Sam and Sam knelt gracefully upon it, adding, “Would that I could have one of these when I’m trying to look romantic in this position before a matinÉe of school girls—ugh, the old bones do make a howl if I use them carelessly! Thurley, don’t mind us! You see I’m one of those old-young boys that just stay old-young to the finish—always wearing a gardenia in their buttonhole and their hat tilted rakishly over the left eye. Some day I’ll just go to sleep and I’ll be toted to the Little Church Around the Corner with a last gardenia in my buttonhole and I hope some friend of mine will protest against that awful firebell embellished funeral march. At least I’m entitled to have the Faust waltz played—I always have my greatest luck with stage proposals when that is softly heard as coming from the supposed supper room of a hunt ball—and a bill poster without saying, ‘The End of an Old Beau!’ After it is all over, I hope they’ll say, ‘Well, Sam never grew old while he was among us—let’s hope he won’t start the habit now wherever he’s blown off to!’”

He jumped up as he finished, holding out his hand, and Thurley took it shyly.

“Don’t mind our nonsense—she’s quite timid, isn’t she? Reminds me of the way my leading ladies act when on the stage and when off they rage like a stable boy if some one happens to cross their notions.” He studied her a moment longer and remarked, “She is pretty—I can’t find a single flaw.”

Thurley was pretty that afternoon; perhaps the ooze had lent her the vivid coloring or it was her bright red coat with the great silver buttons and the ermine tam slanting down and showing her dark hair.

“I’m stupid,” she began, “because I’ve been working so hard.”

Sam settled himself on a sofa to take in the surroundings. Polly was watching something out of the window so Thurley took opportunity to remove her wraps and come to sit sedately beside the famous old man.

“But I’m not really timid,” she supplemented naÏvely, at which he turned about crying bravo, and threatening Hobart with losing his prima donna in order that she become Sam Sparling’s leading lady.

“She’s taking inventory of my wrinkles, Polly,” he complained, “and my white hair and the wretched old hump o’ years that has fastened itself on my back. Bring her to the Christmas matinÉe and let her see me in lavender-striped trousers and cutaway coat, the misunderstood young man turned from his father’s mansion, returning in the last act to his steam yacht and his second best Rolls Royce—let her have a go at me and come behind to have tea afterwards,” he put his hand down and covered Thurley’s—a thin, tired hand with prominent, blue veins and a handsome ring of sapphires on the little finger.

“Haven’t you a good sort of leading woman?” asked Polly.

“No, the only real bond between us is a mutual love of Roquefort salad dressing,” he sighed. “Her idea of art is to be undressed quite halfway down her back and to fall on my neck in limp giggles.”

“Why do you have her then?” Thurley asked seriously.

“Youth, my child—she is a lovely, young thing, pink and white, straight, slim, very good to gaze upon—and she knows it. She can wear a wrap consisting of four flounces of purple chiffon and a strip of rose satin and make the audience stare at her impudent, untalented little self while they listen to my lines! The combination lets my wrinkles, humped back and cantankerous joints slip by unheeded. That is a penalty we pay for growing old. Never mind, Thurley, you’ve years in which to revel in having both talent and youth—divine combination!” Sam’s bright eyes grew moody, he was remembering, as Thurley rightly guessed, the wonderful, golden years in London when he was Romeo in appearance as in voice and passion, when he was dark eyed, melancholy young Hamlet and the critics gently insinuated that as King Lear he was a trifle youngish although his makeup was superb! Those were the years when people loved his Shakespeare because his youth illumined it and he passed by with proper scorn the smart comedies requiring a morning garden backdrop, a duel in the library and leading ladies who were possessed of more dimples than brains.

“Why don’t you play old rÔles?” Thurley demanded innocently, Polly smothering a giggle.

“She doesn’t appreciate my romantic little heart and notions, does she? Let her see me a swashbuckling hero in hip boots and a green plumed bonnet while my black charger is led across the stage by bribes of sugar—then she’ll understand.”

“No, she can’t understand, Sam dear, until she has reached the matronly age and still wants to do Juliet and Senta and managers try to show her the error of her ways—and figure!”

Thurley looked up at her new friend to wonder what form the ooze took with him. But he good-naturedly patted her cheek, saying much to her relief:

“I see you are human and not going to ask me to recite ‘Gunga Din.’ I return the compliment by not demanding that you tear off Tosti’s ‘Good-by.’ I only ran in to welcome you to our circle and to tell you, as senior member, a few facts about the others. They will tell you about me fast enough—”

“Never happy unless he has a breach of promise suit waiting for him in the morning’s mail,” promptly supplemented Polly. “Always has it rumored he is to marry a prominent whiskey dealer’s widow—sells his mash notes per pound to Caleb, owns a hothouse of gardenias and has them shipped all over the map—at heart a flinty old bachelor warrior—a splendid, precious, cross pal—a jewel of an actor who makes you laugh and cry as easily as you breathe.”

“There is a young woman,” said Sam calmly, pointing an accusing finger, “who will never write grand opera—never! Watch how pale she grows. But she will do something heroic, has all the salamander qualities with none of their viciousness. Would snatch a funeral wreath right off a door to make a present to some one she loved, very whippy temperament, believes that bothering over one’s soul is an emotional luxury, must have had an antique little romance back somewhere. Where did you come from, Polly, anyhow? Sort of neighborhood, I fancy, where the prevailing fashion was to have your great-aunt’s deceased poodles stuffed and mounted to preside over dark, chilly parlors.... Of course, Polly jumped the stockade and landed among us—a forlorn child with squeaky shoes, as I remember her. She’s as proud as Punch and stubborn as a bull terrier, so we let her starve knowing that sometime or other she is going to bump smack into Fame and he’ll never let go of her. But not grand opera, Polly girl.”

“I shall stay in New York,” Polly announced, fastening her coat, “and I shall write a grand opera in which Thurley shall sing. You will all have to beg my pardon.” Her brown eyes showed the hurt in them and Sam Sparling began helping her with refractory buttons of her wrap.

“I’ll have my apology engraved on a gold scroll and you can use it for a dinner gong—on the gong handle will be a bas relief of myself—gardenia and all. So you can beat me up thrice a day.”

Thurley was laughing; she wondered if Miss Clergy had napped during the turmoil. “Don’t go,” she begged. “Please stay a long time.”

“We can’t, we’ve a raft of calls. I always take Polly because she can break away so neatly. I’m the sort that sits and sits, ending by halfway swallowing my cane handle and getting nowhere in particular.”

“Will we really go to the matinÉe?” she asked Polly.

“Of course. I’ll call for you—and tea in Sam’s dressing room. Oh, Thurley, you haven’t begun to realize New York as yet—not Bliss’s New York, but your New York and mine and Sam’s, too.”

“Why do you love it so?” asked Thurley.

Polly leaned her two by four self against a chair as she answered, “Oh, because—when I walk down the Avenue sunny mornings and see ragamuffins sharing an ice cream cone and visiting British peeresses with their fresh faces and dowdy clothes vying with our American heiresses with their smart creations and hunks of black pearls, when I come upon nice, happy boys and girls from up state or clever Middle West men here on important commissions and bronzed cowpunchers and trim naval officers, to say nothing of portly men of finance bowling along—I’m New York mad. Besides, when I have to watch the traffic cops and white baby prams becoming friendly, to gaze at a window of caramels, mountains of them, and right next to it to gaze at a window of paintings on silk guarded by the Pinkertons, when I have to stop to watch the man in Childs’ turn flapjacks and know that inside Sherry’s sit the prettiest, best dressed, quite the most decent men and women in the world nibbling at tomato surprise and whispering as to how many apartment houses the waiters own, when I see Pekinese spaniels airing their new jewelry and mongrels scrapping over a bone, when I can go to a ten-cent movie or sit in a box at the opera and wear Ernestine Christian’s adorable brown velvet dress, when I happen upon dainty brides buying chintz remnants at Wanamaker’s, spotting burglars chatting over their prospects at the Five Points a few moments later—and when I can ride home sardine fashion in a subway express or take a battered hansom what ’as seen better days, pin a bunch of florist’s seconds to my chest and drift down towards Washington Square or, once in a while, be picked up by Caleb or Collin or Ernestine and be glided home in a motor—well—I love New York,” she paused out of breath.

Sam bent and kissed her. “Marry me,” he demanded.

Thurley was noticeably embarrassed.

Polly burst out laughing. “That’s Sam’s remedy for all ills, Thurley. When Ernestine had to move out of her old apartment, Sam was engaged to her until she was satisfactorily settled in her new one. It bucked her up no end.”

Thurley shook her head. “I’m afraid I’ve not come on enough really to entertain you—do call a year from now.”

Sam laid his tired hand on her head in mock solemnity. “Don’t let Hobart cheat you of what you deserve—remember, every woman has the right to at least one trousseau!” After which they left, Polly calling back something as to the time of their meeting on Christmas afternoon.

Thurley stole to Miss Clergy’s door but the little ghost lady was fast asleep.

“Every woman has the right to at least one trousseau,”—she wished he had not said it. She did not want even deep-down, hidden regrets.... French exercises, Italian opera scores, singing lessons, English reading selections, dancing, fencing, horseback, social etiquette, makeup, costuming, stage directions—pretend, pretend, pretend things ... and they were trimming the church at the Corners—Dan and Lorraine this year, Lorraine with her ring.... What strange people, at odds with each other and their own selves—what queer, detached lives—what remarkable theories, fantastically expressed! where was the saneness of it, the rhythm—that was it—the rhythm? Would she experience it and be satisfied after she had made her bow to the public? Could the ooze always answer the requirements of her savage young heart?

After the Christmas matinÉe, when Thurley with eyes as large as saucers, so Polly reported, had watched Sam play a difficult rÔle in superb fashion and had taken tea with him in his dressing room, she returned alone to the hotel.

Polly was due at a Greenwich Village affair, Caleb was with Collin in the country, Ernestine in Chicago practising scales, as her letter to Thurley would intimate, and at Birge’s Corners ... ah, that was the ooze, it was no longer real! So Thurley came into the dingy sitting room—at least it now seemed dingy—to find that Miss Clergy had suffered an attack of neuralgia and had been ordered off to bed. The high tea in Sam’s dressing-room had robbed her of her appetite, so she did not go downstairs for dinner but changed her party frock for a schoolgirl blue serge and stoically settled herself at her books. She promised herself that after she had diligently studied she would go into the ooze and celebrate her real Christmas!

As she put her hand on the table the new bracelet Miss Clergy had given her that morning struck the wood with a metallic clink. It was a handsome thing set with diamonds, handsomer than anything Dan had afforded. But it had been given her with the generosity of a jailor in lieu of any one else’s daring to give her such an article!

Thurley began an irregular verb conjugation in sing-song fashion, fighting off a savage mood. The telephone interrupted her and half a second later she was saying in the gladdest voice she possessed:

“Tell Mr. Hobart to come right up,” hanging up the receiver and running to the mirror to see just how much of a fright she looked.

She had no time to think of a change of costume for in he came, a veritable domestic gentleman muffled in an ulster, holly in his buttonhole and something in white tissue paper and tied with red ribbon.

“Merry Christmas! I had five minutes’ extra time and I thought I’d drop in to take the chance of finding you. Had an idea you’d be in the doldrums, first Christmas out of the backyard, y’know.” Unasked, he slipped off the ulster and Thurley saw he was in evening dress. “Thing at the club,” he explained, noticing her expression. “Well, what have we been doing? Don’t tell me that rascal of a Sam had you behind for tea.”

“He did.” Thurley suddenly found her old wild-rose self as she told him of the matinÉe.

When she finished he said, those curious gray eyes of his narrowing, “A good singer should have a good—” holding out the white tissue paper parcel.

“Oh, what?” she demanded. “It’s the only present I’ve had that was done in white tissue paper. Nothing came from home and the others laugh at Christmas. Miss Clergy gave me this bracelet—but the bill was in the box,” she added resentfully. “But this—this is direct from Santa Claus.”

“It’s a good mascot,” he informed her gravely. “Always keep it to say little heathen prayers or curses to and tell it your troubles and your joys. In short, treat it like a regular fellow.”

Thurley scrambled the paper and ribbon away. “Why—I bought you almost the same,” she said unconsciously.

Hobart laughed. “You actually bought your stern maestro a present?”

Thurley was absorbed in looking at the little Buddha carved from lapis lazuli with gold for the features and diamonds for eyes. “This one is much lovelier,” she said.

“Tell me—did you really buy me a present?” he demanded.

She nodded.

“Why haven’t you handed it over?”

“Because—I bought presents for every one—the sort of things you people laugh at—but you seemed different from the others so I bought you a Buddha because I thought you needed some one to tell your real secrets to—and then, after I wrapped it up, I began to think you would not like it—”

“Will you get it or shall I send a court order for my property?”

Thurley vanished, reappearing with the teakwood case. “Isn’t it odd that we both bought the same thing?”

Hobart’s face was boyish as he took the gift. “Why, Thurley,” he told her, “I believe I’m training an angel unawares.”

“You mean me?” she asked humbly.

“What made you speak of telling real secrets?” he stroked the little idol as he spoke.

“I don’t know—only where do the real things go to when the unreal have to come first and take up all one’s time?”

Hobart started towards her; he seemed about to say something very secret. Thurley looked at him wistfully, every memory concerning the Corners, her dissatisfactions and rebellions vanished. She assumed a gay, star-like mood.

But he thought better of it and became the polite and baffling Bliss Hobart with whom no one took liberties, least of all a girl protÉgÉe. It would be wiser to tell the secrets to the little Buddha whose silence was of golden quality. Perhaps, if years ago, more years ago than Thurley knew, one’s secret things had not been used as public jokes....

“I’m afraid I cannot answer,” he said brusquely. “Leave my greetings for Miss Clergy and don’t try to wear your mascot as a watchguard—happy days, to-morrow as usual.” Patting her on the shoulder, he dismissed himself.

Thurley set the mascot before her books and returned to grubbing. Two hours later she glanced up and the diamond eyes gave her a jolly twinkle.

“I say,” she remarked out loud, “you are first aid to the agitated! Now tell me—didn’t he for just a moment treat me as if I were a real woman?”

So passed the first New York Christmas!

The next day, when Thurley went for her lesson, she had the pleasure of being snubbed and scolded. But passing out of the studio, she saw the little Buddha sitting on his desk very close to where his hand must reach each time he took up his pen or blotted a letter!