Ernestine Christian did not return to town until February, having been induced to play engagements on the Pacific coast. It was the mid-winter thaw when she arrived. She telephoned Thurley almost immediately and, to Thurley’s delight, asked her to come and have coffee that afternoon as it was a Sunday and lessons were not a consideration.

“Sure you won’t come along?” Thurley asked Miss Clergy, dutifully, as she made ready.

“Quite sure, my dear. This wind would start every bone aching to perdition,” Miss Clergy told her, “and do put on a prettier dress—there may be guests.”

Thurley looked at her proverbial blue serge with hesitation. “Oh, I can’t bother to be done up in a real creation—we’ve such loads to talk over and Ernestine’s clothes are the sort one never really notices and yet, describing them as detached things, they are quite wonderful. Do you think I ought to change?” for it suggested itself to her that Bliss Hobart might drop in for greetings.

“I should. You can’t be too particular, Thurley. The time is coming when the world will want to know what sort of frocks you wear every clock stroke of the day.” Here Miss Clergy yawned and settled back among innumerable cushions and Thurley spied the cover of a popular novel—one of Caleb’s, to make it the more amusing—peeping forth.

“Well, if I must—I must,” she said, darting into her room and donning a tea-green velour with wee fur buttons up to the arctic verge of her pink ears. She wrapped a mantle of green around herself in careless, becoming fashion, kissed Miss Clergy somewhere between the chin and forehead and left her to revel in Caleb’s self-starting romance in which a homely hero was quite the mode.

She found Ernestine walking about her salon with Silver Heels perched cordially on her shoulder, purring for joy at his mistress’ return. Ernestine was busy telling the maid wherein she had neglected to carry out orders and why the decorators would be recalled to make amends. There was a pettish air about her criticisms, Thurley thought, for when Thurley came in with wide opened arms, Ernestine merely gave her a shoulder pat, saying,

“Don’t try to visit until I’ve finished my anvil chorus. On Caleb’s recommendation I had a firm do things for me—gaze at the fiasco. It is terribly disquieting to leave one’s place as one likes it and return to find it the back parlor of a flourishing merchant!”

“Oh, but it doesn’t look so!” Thurley defended. “That fire screen is a joy.”

“It may as well be put away,” Ernestine told the maid. “There’ll be a charity kettle-drum soon enough and I’ll have to donate something for the raffle. That will do nicely. Every one wants things one has worn or used—I’ve a notion the next time to send my last quarter’s telephone directory—I don’t doubt but what it would actually be bid for ... there, Agnes, get hold of the firm early in the morning and don’t call me. You know what is wrong and I cannot personally stand a battle with interior decorators. Come inside, Thurley; take off your green riding-hood cloak and let me see you. Ah, lovely, lovely!” she caressed the gown as Thurley would have wished to be caressed herself. “Why, you have promoted yourself famously—the hair is charming, not a hint of Birge’s Corners left! Nice child, how proud we shall all be—go ’way, Silver Heels, I’ve a new playmate—shall we stay in my room and pray heaven no one interrupts us? I ordered black coffee and crullers so we can be extra wild. Tell me all you have seen and done.”

Ernestine threw herself on a chaise longue gracefully—she had a perfect way of doing everything. Caleb had declared her to be the only woman who could really look fetching while done up in curl papers! As she lay there in her negligee of skillfully blended blue and gray chiffon without a hint of lace to relieve the sulky loveliness of the colors, Thurley experienced the same shyness she had that first day in Bliss Hobart’s studio.

“Did your concerts go well?” she asked.

“Do you want these cushions piled on top of you and myself acting as paperweight on top of them?” Ernestine raised herself on one thin arm. “Continuez! Why not ask if unknown admirers sent me red, red roses or if I played Chaminade for the Benevolent Newsboys’ Association when I was their honor guest—ask if I climbed Mt. McKinley or was lost in Death Valley—you disappointing midge, your looks belie you utterly.”

“What is the popular topic?” Thurley was capable of teasing, too. “Caleb Patmore?”

Ernestine’s sallow cheeks flushed. She made a clucking noise which brought Silver Heels from under the lounge. “I hope you eat so many frosted crullers you’ll take on weight, bringing Bliss’s wrath on your impudent shoulders. I want to know about you—whom have you met?—how is the ghost-lady?—the voice of gold—what do you think of us now? Sorry you came?” She laughed over at Thurley in friendly fashion and the fagged artist vanished.

So Thurley, while February slush-rain beat in vain at windows and raw winds mercilessly blew, told Ernestine all that had happened from the time they said good-by in December.

“I did hate you when you wrote so about Christmas. That wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t you have let me have that last bromidic holiday?”

“My child, I cannot endure Christmas and birthday things. I can stand Valentine’s Day much easier. I don’t know—but I’m so weary playing holiday matinÉes and having the audience one glitter of new watches, bracelets and other trifling remembrances, of having their minds groggy from too much dinner and demanding me to play carols with tumity-tum tunes while my piano must be holly decorated. Rather prejudiced me. And birthdays are devil days since they remind me I never wanted to be born, yet some unknown law of rhythm would have it so. Here I am, earthbound in a sallow, fleshy envelope when I’d love to be cloud free to drift here, there, without restraint, creed, convention—or the greed for crullers,” helping herself to a second. “Perhaps it was rough on a new little beggar, smashing up her bandbox ideas. Never mind, I thought of you—run open the second drawer of that white chest and find the jeweller’s box—it is for you. See if you like it.”

Thurley obeyed, coming back to her chair to examine the box. “How good you are!” she said, as she came upon a little blue leather and gold faced clock not much bigger than a revenue stamp.

“A practice clock when you go on deadly tours. Tuck it in your bag as a memento and years hence you can say, ‘Ernestine Christian—rest her bones for they seldom rested when I knew her—gave it to me in my salad days.’ One can always use such trifles. That reminds me, I have a beaver jacket Polly may be induced to accept; write ‘Polly—jacket’ on that pad so I’ll remember. I’ll hunt her up to-morrow. Caleb says she has been doing supe work in the movies; tough luck for any one but Polly. But I’ve no doubt she fancies it gains inspiration for her for the America opera.

“So! Bliss says a nice word occasionally and you like Sam Sparling—one of God’s own, Thurley—now he believes in Santa Claus. And you think Collin Patmore’s pictures superb? Wait until you see his house—Parva Sed Apta he has named it—and his garden! There is a fierce rivalry between Collin’s garden and Caleb’s and likewise their houses. Collin dubs his a chÂteau and I think Caleb claims his is a really true lodge! Funny boys! We’ll go up there in the summer and see for ourselves. Oh, yes, Thurley, tell me about Miss Clergy! I want to ask her if I may take you abroad this summer; three months across would do wonders for you. Bliss mentioned it before I went away. I want to see your eyes the first time you gaze at the Alhambra in the moonlight. We’ll give Italy half our time, a few weeks in Paris and six days in London. You’ll return not knowing yourself.”

“But the money? When, oh, when can I earn?” Thurley asked in distress.

“Don’t bother about money; just let me tell you what to pack and what to leave behind. Collin goes to sketch near Barcelona and we may take the same steamer over—wouldn’t that be a lark? Collin is the nicest courier I know, besides being the greatest portrait painter. I suppose he will give his next season’s subjects Spanish coloring and a red rose just tumbling off their left ear À la Carmen. One year he did Russia and I vow every western society woman he painted had the mysterious air of stilettos concealed in fans and poisoned cigarettes that Moscow alone can impart. He’ll run out of countries by and by, as France, Italy and England are old stories.”

“Can’t he paint people just as they are?”

“That’s the trouble. He would if he was not careful to have a supply of ‘atmosphere’ to shoot into muddy complexions and wriggling noses and to blur softly over deep-seated moles and other excess facial baggage. I am the only woman he ever painted without thought for future commissions.”

“Did he ever paint Mr. Hobart?” she wondered if she betrayed a blush.

“Haven’t you seen? But, then, you’ve never been at Parva Sed Apta. It was Bliss’s portrait that gave Collin his sudden rise. When you look at it, you will understand.” Ernestine fell to telling of Sam Sparling’s early stage days and her own dÉbut when she actually had worn white net with pearls, following by a dissertation on Polly’s angelic stubbornness and hopelessness and on how she planned to snub Caleb if he wrote a sequel to “Victorious Victoria” and advice about the attitude Thurley had best take towards her future associates at the opera house.

“Won’t we be terribly intimate?” she asked in surprise.

“Dear, no! Oh, you’ll have pictures taken together in loving attitudes, go to parties and all that—send each other flowers at proper times. But you’ll never be like the ‘family’ towards each other and, when you are older, you will realize the singular honor it has been to become one of the family so readily. You may loathe the tenor who sings Romeo to your Juliet and the woman who is leading contralto may be a deadly enemy—but that matters nothing. You sing your rÔle and leave it and your art personality behind in your dressing-room. You will find that the others also have their own affairs, interests and opinions. They are not keen for the advent of a new, charming diva of whom they are certain to be jealous and angry of success so swiftly, easily achieved. You are a musical phenomenon, Thurley, and, as there are not many in any one generation, you must be guided accordingly.”

“Please tell me how the ‘family’ started.” Thurley had not yet reached the stage where talking of herself and her accomplishments was of keen interest.

“It was Bliss’s idea,” Ernestine paused as if undecided how much to tell. “He is a rare soul—the jewel in the toad’s head, we call him. But he wears an armor of worldly practicability and cynicism; he must be very sure of one before he lets one know the real man.... Some years ago, when his opinions were just beginning to find favor, he met Sam Sparling and they had a fearful row—terrific—Sam said Bliss Hobart was all sorts of a fool and, after they had it out, they found that each meant the same thing when you sifted it down to the makings. So they were comrades. They were together quite a lot because Sam had him put on plays and then Sam went to London and Bliss into the opera and music field.” Here she paused again. “Anyway, they had really started the family—and when Bliss had a letter from Sam about Collin Hedley, an American starving in London, whom Sam was sending back to New York to paint Bliss’s portrait, he prepared to welcome this Collin as a brother, and so he did. The great picture was painted and Collin was made. Now Collin and Caleb came from the same little Middle West town and, lo and behold, up turns Caleb fresh from a fifteen-dollar-a-week newspaper job and keen as mustard for writing ‘big stuff.’ Inspired by Bliss’s picture and by Bliss and the whole outlay of atmosphere into which they led him, Caleb wrote his first best seller—it had heart in it, too—and although Bliss and Collin wanted to duck him in the rain barrel for degrading his talent, they loved him for himself and he joined them. Then, enter Ernestine Christian! Now this was funny—I was playing London concerts then and I met Sam: he recited at a royal benefit at which I played. We sat out between the numbers talking about ‘what I like to eat’ and ‘what you like to eat’ and ‘what color you like best’ and ‘what color I like best’ and so on, you know, the usual procedure. And when I sailed for America I had a letter of introduction to the trio—”

Thurley finished the confession. “Then they all met and loved you in different ways.”

“Tell me how?”

“Bliss as a comrade and Collin as a big sister and Caleb as a real man loves a real woman.”

“You’ve grown up, Thurley,” was Ernestine’s comment. “But I must tell you that little Polly was added quite unexpectedly. She was posing as a sprite for Collin; you know Collin does children’s portraits with pastel backgrounds of favorite fairy tales, half indistinct—very good idea and quite the rage. Polly is an ideal sprite, brownie or gnome model and Collin had run across her by accident. The first morning she posed she fainted dead away—slam bang—on the floor, and it was a real faint because she hadn’t had a square meal in two days, just samples of cereals and Hudson River elixir. They discovered her fierce pride and her tragic ambition and her adorable self, so she has been our Polly ever since—”

“Loving Collin—”

“Loving Collin, woman of the world,” repeated Ernestine. “Then Polly blew in one night in her audacious fashion accompanied by Mark Wirth. Now we had seen Mark dance and enjoyed him but knew him to be a will o’ the wisp person and Lissa Dagmar, who I hope stays in Paris for all time, had bewitched him and we really don’t approve of that kind of thing. Mark, however, was like the foundling in a basket, crying feebly during the stormy night, and we just could not turn him away although Lissa tried her best to make inroads into our ‘family.’ She cried and bribed and writhed because she still remained aloof from the charmed circle. And we kept Mark and made him one of us, scolding him roundly every chance we had.”

“And now I am the infant,” said Thurley slowly, “but why don’t you like Madame Dagmar?” recalling the purring voice she had once heard.

“She is impossible—a large person dressed fantastically in sort of medieval patterns; she has Titian hair and serpent green eyes, those heavy, white lids in which purplish veins spread in profusion, and a wretched voice with the unexplained phenomenon of being able to reach a tiptop note far above the range of any other soprano in the world. This one note is as soft and clear as if it were heaven-sent. It has made her a name and a fortune, the one divine sound coming as a reward for poor technique and wobbly trills. She tried opera, failed miserably, and does concert tours where people crowd to see her gowns and wait for that tree-top call. The rest of the time she gives singing lessons. We call her the ‘Voice Assassin,’ and Bliss Hobart threatens to appeal to the authorities if she does not take down her shingle. Ten dollars for twenty minutes and nothing of value to the pupil save seeing and hearing what is wisest to avoid! However, like many impossible persons, she has a following, a personality—a—a—way with her. She will pet and coo over you, if Mark does not, and you had best be outwardly polite; it is wisest thus, paying no heed to her since Lissa proceeds on the principle of ‘what he thought he might require, he went and took the same as me.’ To Lissa playfulness always means experience, although the other fellow may not know it! And then—”

“Madame Dagmar, Mr. Mark Wirth,” the maid announced.

Ernestine sank back among the cushions, groaning. “I cannot be a low order of animal life and refuse to see her—she has just returned from Paris, I presume ... oh, Thurley, help me up! Say we’ll be in,” she told the maid, staggering to her feet with an exaggerated gesture.

Surpressing a very genuine giggle, Thurley followed Ernestine into the drawing room where they met an effusive person wearing a hat which expressed all the best ideas of the Wright brothers and a gown of shimmering mauve with gaudy peacock embroideries.

“My sweet children,” Lissa began in her cloying voice, “to think I find you both here ... and this is Thurley? What a dear! I know all about you, because Mr. Hobart speaks of no one else with the same enthusiasm. Of course I never hope to be called in as a consulting teacher—dear no,” here she gave a snarly little laugh, “I’m considered a real villainness by certain persons. But I shall be fairy godmother anyway—there always is an unasked fairy at the christening, you remember! This is Mark Wirth—” a sweep of her white, jewelled hand intimated the handsome chap with burnished gold hair and eyes as blue as Thurley’s. Two things about Mark saved him from being merely an Adonis—his long forehead, the forehead of a man who often complains of being persecuted because of his tenacity to prove his point, and the astute expression of his eyes.

“Sit down, every one. I am just back from tour myself—well, what are your hopes and fears?”

Ernestine let Lissa take the center of the stage.

“Mark isn’t going on tour, I can’t spare him,” here another snarly laugh. Thurley fancied Mark Wirth flushed with annoyance.

“Oh, Mark, when you have such bully chances!” Ernestine protested.

“I can stay in town as well—do let’s talk of some one else,” he said.

“I want Mark to stop Grecian dancing, there is no definite future in it now dÉbutantes have taken it up”—her artificially shaped eyebrows lifting as a danger signal—“and make a specialty of ballroom dancing—”

Ernestine held up her hand. “God forbid,” she said reverently. “I saw Mark dance in the Harvard Stadium—please let him continue to use his brains as well as his feet.”

“There’s room for a difference of opinion. For myself, my classes promise to be large this season—and I’ve wonderful frocks. I’ve reopened the Hotel Particular and tried to get Collin or Caleb on the ’phone but their men say they are not about. I only saw Bliss by accident,” she gave a side glance at Thurley, “it was then I learned about you!”

“Is the Hotel Particular as smart as ever?” Ernestine hastened to ask.

“I’ve had no end of things done to it. Come and see. Which you never do. Isn’t it strange, Miss Precore, I pay five calls to this person’s begrudged one?” and Lissa smiled in her most disagreeable fashion.

Ernestine tried to smooth over the accusation by praising Lissa’s frock.

“Mark played rouge-et-noir at Monte Carlo and I won a winter’s wardrobe,” Lissa boasted.

Ernestine rose and ordered fresh coffee. She was embarrassed that Thurley must meet the first real scandal in her house, not but what she would and must meet many such and not that it shocked Ernestine for she had always been indifferent to such situations. But latent motherhood pricked through the armor of indifference. She began in an extremely spirited manner to talk of things to which the answers could be anything but personal. She directly engaged Lissa in conversation, leaving Mark free to drift over towards Thurley. Within a few moments they began laughing over some nonsense, to Lissa’s annoyance, in the same spirit with which Thurley and Dan had one time laughed—at least two lifetimes ago!

Mark sat on a straddle chair before her to admire her wild-rose coloring, contrasting it with Lissa’s well rouged cheek. He liked Thurley’s green frock which brought out the whiteness of her skin and the glorious, deep sea eyes, purple in the winter’s afternoon light. Presently this embryo prima donna and the famous dancer, who for the time being mistook shadow for substance, found themselves discussing juvenile sports which both really had rebelled at leaving behind.

“You skate? So do I—let’s go incog—I’ll wear a mustache—there is certain to be a crowd if we’re known,” Lissa heard Mark saying.

“ ... and in summer I can play five sets of tennis—and dance half the night,” Thurley made answer.

“Splendid—Collin has a wonderful court, I want to take you up there—”

Lissa’s pink lips were thin and shrewd. “Come, dear,” she said to Mark in her softest voice, “the little girl will be hoarse to-morrow if you keep her chattering like a magpie.”

And Thurley, as Ernestine told Hobart afterwards, sank in her first feminine harpoon! She rose as obediently as if she were but half her age, saying,

“We can plan about it later, your aunt is calling you!”

After which Lissa, snarls and purrs all in one, and Mark more confused and brief in his farewells than Ernestine had ever seen him, made an inharmonious exit. And Ernestine kissed Thurley and twirled her about, saying, “Oh beautiful—beautiful—beautiful!”