At first fame was good to have, there was no mistaking it. For Thurley achieved delightful freedom by the magic of her success. She began to do all she had planned during her novice period, to try this or that sort of costume, to give “affairs,” if you please; she cultivated a hobby and a “phobia” and acquired a smart wire-haired terrier called “Taffy” whose picture was featured in all the leading newspapers and musical journals.

It did not take her long to readjust herself to this new life. Older, tired persons who had played godmother and godfather to her during her apprenticeship watched her in amusement. Not that Thurley ceased to apply herself to work; she was untiring in her efforts, for she felt she would never want to stop learning new and more difficult things. Nor did she stop knowing any one save those who could be of use to her. Instead there was exhibited a refreshing democracy of spirit which governed her likes and dislikes.

Bliss told Caleb, “She’s a pleasant little Trojan and one can see at a glance, save for amusing whims, she is as reliable as a grandfather’s clock.” And he told Thurley, who hovered about hoping for some personal understanding or praise,

“Just be sincere and everything else trues up—and don’t grow plump like Lissa, because banting is an awful bugbear.”

At which Thurley tossed her newly laurel-crowned head and determined to try artifice to make him pay her attention. After all, these fads and fashions were merely antidotes to make her forget the thing she craved foremost—Bliss Hobart’s real friendship. So she ordered lavishly of whatsoever she chose, moving without delay into an apartment, with Miss Clergy tottering contentedly after. It was a personal triumph for Miss Clergy; with Thurley it was only the natural result of having been born a singer.

“I have my own ideas for my apartment,” she told Ernestine with patronage, even waving aside Lissa’s suggestions for a “love of a boudoir—just the place for proposals” and returning Mark’s offering of a gilt mirror because it did not harmonize with her color scheme!

“Let her play away, she’ll tire of it,” Sam Sparling said indulgently, when Polly dropped in at the theater to recount Thurley’s latest exploit, the purchase of antique Egyptian jewelry which she was to wear in “AÏda.”

“Have you seen her apartments?” asked Polly. “Not like Thurley at all. I associate her with real mahogany and open fireplaces—rose-garden things.”

“I’ll blow up that way to-morrow afternoon,” Sam promised.

Which he did—only to be amazed himself at the effect Thurley had managed to create. Her living room had a blue floor, a blue arch and lapis lazuli colored pedestals. There was a turquoise satin fire screen, a globe of blue Bristol glass and the walls and ceilings were done in rich, silver leaf paper with impossible gilt furniture set at futurist angles throughout the apartment. Apricot linen curtains threw a strange, mellow glow on the black dining-room, the walls being brocaded black velvet with red alabaster bowls on tripods and a riotous futurist frieze running about the room. There were side tables of audacious rose-red marble and the dining table and chairs were polished ebony while an onyx-like mantel boasted of silver bowls heaped with glass colored fruits.

Sam, who knew no restraint, came rapping boldly at the door of Thurley’s own room, after an astonished stroll through the apartment.

A chic maid opened the door with the properly startled expression always registered in Caleb’s novels.

“I say, Thurley, you’ve done yourself proud,” Sam lounged in the doorway to view the white Empire furniture with elaborate gold scroll, the blue velvet hangings, the cabinet of slippers and hair ornaments arranged, no one knew why, not even Thurley herself, as if for display.

Thurley, who was preparing to take dinner at the Hotel Particular with half a dozen new and decidedly unconventional creatures, tried to look indignant.

“You’re a monster,” she said as she shook her finger at him in imitation of Lissa. At which Sam burst out laughing and vowed he would have her for his leading lady no matter if he had to send Bliss flying off yon cliff.

“You ridiculous child,” spoiling her dignity completely, “who in the world started you to shake fingers in old beaux’ faces? And dressing like the adventuress in ‘Lights o’ London’? Do put on your rumpled blue serge and let’s go for a drive!”

Thurley swept by him in indignation, Sam following and side-stepping her train. She wore a band of black jet in her carefully dressed hair and a gown of black to match, over which was a long cape of unspotted ermine.

She stood beside the piano to draw on her gloves. “It isn’t fair to scold in front of a new maid,” she said, “and contradict me or not, Sam, I am grown up. I can’t go about like a flapper or keep on living in a hotel.”

“What does Miss Clergy say?” Sam balanced himself first on his toes and then sank back on his heels.

“She smiles, nods, agrees and never wants me to repay her. But, joy of joys, I can. For I’m going to be rich—really rich and I’m young; I have years in which to dash about without a thought as to rest or digestion. Don’t you approve?” She finished buttoning her gloves and proceeded to open a florist’s box critically to take notice of a corsage of yellow tea roses.

“Mark does send such ultra things,” she complained languidly. At which Sam Sparling nearly upset himself by overbalancing and then came up to take hold of her shoulders as if she were a small boy in need of a trouncing.

“Young lady, let an old beau give a word of advice. They say a word to the wise is sufficient and you were, formerly, wise and apple-cheeked and delicious. We all adored you. To-day I feel I ought to call you Lady Vere de Vere and tuck intriguing notes in that corsage, all that sort of thing ... my dear, play away, for it’s not to be wondered at, but don’t, oh, don’t, Thurley, let it supersede the real you. I remember Ernestine Christian had a whirl at it when she first came into prominence. Dear yes, jewels and furs that every woman envied—flirtations—a bit psychological were her flirtations as I remember; she particularly went in for Hindu poets and consuls. But flirtations, nevertheless! Then she used to give all manner of absurd parties—there was one in London that laid me up a fortnight. It began with ice cream and cordials and ended with the Lord Mayor of London’s own turtle soup—had it sent over by gold braided beadles and so on. You had to eat each course in a different spot. You were kept on the move, so to speak. I remember munching my alligator pear somewhere near the Tower of London, only to be whisked off to Whitechapel to be set up directly with the neatest sort of a game plate! Well, she tired of playing that way and one day she appeared at my dressing room in a rough tweed suit and a felt hat saying,

“‘Sam, I’ve buttered buns in this hamper and pale, schoolboy sherry. Let’s walk until we’re so hungry that we’ll sit down and eat like beggars—and I can make a proper confession of what a fool I’ve been!’”

Thurley tried not to laugh and succeeded in commanding an unbecoming frown. “Well, you didn’t try to restrain her,” she insisted.

“Ernestine is a different type. I’m afraid you wouldn’t look at mere Hindu poets or consuls.”

“What of yourself?”

“Hands up, I confess. I had a passion for coaching tours and those horrible alderman-like banquets. I seemed to be tremendously popular with the buds—I was cad enough to keep all their letters for a long time. When they began to have grandchildren send me notes saying, ‘Granny says to ask if you remember the time you played Romeo and so and so’—I stopped being such a great house, ordered health-last shoes and got a line on the really reliable sanitariums. But you, Thurley,”—The old-beau aspect of himself seemed dimmed; he appeared a fatherly old gentleman rich in experience and therefore wise in judgment. She felt like a naughty child who has been discovered while parading in her mother’s finery. She could not have told why, but she felt artificial, as if she should be on the stage of the opera house singing her heart away in some lavish rÔle—as Violetta in “Traviata” for instance—but not as Thurley Precore!

“You’d even make me believe there was no Santa Claus,” she protested, the actress in her rallying to her support. “Don’t tell me to don a pinafore and become interested in botany! It’s such fun to play—and so new; none of you seem to realize that.” Here she trailed off into silence, busy with her own thoughts, Mark’s corsage slipping from her fingers.

She was remembering Dan and Lorraine and the day the child Thurley and Philena pledged to be missionaries, the advent into the Clergy mansion as a madcap mischief, the singing in Betsey’s parlor that momentous June day, the quarrel with Dan, the wonderful journey to the city with the ghost-lady, then Bliss ... here the thoughts ended and she found herself thanking Sam for returning her corsage.

“As for this sort of thing,” the old actor finished, pointing at the corsage, “you’ll have many of them—but choose wisely and for all time. Don’t waste time on worthless phantoms; remember ‘To-morrow feeds on yesterday.’ Even if you fancy you are merely playing at being a ‘grand lady,’ and that you yourself are unspoiled and truly great, think of the bon mot: ‘Imitation is sincerest flattery,’ and do not ape Lissa any more than you can help.”

“None of you understand,” she cried, rebelliously. “I shall do as I wish and live as I choose—as you have all done.”

“Look at us and take warning,” ended Sam promptly. “Well, if you get crowded to the wall, call on me. I’ll be about.” After this he went on his way undecided whether or not merely to admire Thurley as another dear charmer on whom his heart had undeniably been frittered away or to take her seriously as if she were a hope-to-die ward given into his guardianship.

Meanwhile, Thurley went on to the dinner party remembering Sam’s audacity with annoyance intermingled with delight. There was and always will be to every woman, if she is honest, a rare charm in being treated as a little girl. White-haired matrons delight in being named “girl” and being told by some one a trifle whiter of hair and more numerous of birthdays: “My child, what in the world are you dreaming of?” It is a harmless notion with which every woman is endowed.

Thurley was born more or less of a woman, so that Sam’s attitude appealed to her. But the peacock which is also in all women and the love of domination, remnant of glorious idol worship, made her reject his halfway offered protectorship.

It was wonderful to dress in rich fashion, to have Mark take her to some bohemian table d’hÔte—like that of the Petispas Sisters—to know she would be the handsomest and best-dressed person there and that Lissa was helplessly furious at Mark’s new object of adoration, yet obliged to smile instead of snarl in Thurley’s presence. It was fun to read letters from unknown admirers, to have schoolgirls with vast ambitions and opinions of their abilities appeal to her, as well as embryo tenors from small towns who only needed a gracious, sisterly hand to guide them, and press agents out of a job who were capable of the greatest scheme for procuring public interest that ever alarm-clocked! Thurley was just realizing the parasites, so-called artistic, who beg, steal or demand their living from those who really work and earn one. She was beginning to classify the large army of restless rebel women who really delude themselves into believing they have a mission in life, badgering all those who simply do the work they were intended for. These women interested Thurley. She regarded them as one views a new member of the zoo, poking sticks at them through the bars when the guard is not alert.

She had listened to these creatures tell their woes with childish audacity; she liked their superlative mode of expression rendering their case hopelessly weak and insincere, she was amused by the comic opera fashion in which they dressed or the masculine over-emphasis in costume details. There were women of the pale, willowy type—“misunderstood” was their slogan. There were the bold, aggressive women who despised sentiment and who longed to prove to men that they were truly a non-essential race, who grew so enthusiastic over what they could do for one Thurley Precore as her advance agent, companion, secretary and so on that Thurley fully expected them to bark or walk up the wall, as she told Ernestine. There were women of the dreamy, neurotic type who never mentioned mother back in Oshkosh still cooking “three squares a day” for her houseful of boarders in order that Myrtle or Poincianna might have a winter in New York in which to study design! Design was right—but not as mother fancied it was!

Oftentimes Thurley felt she must stop playing a part—mischievous young person!—and say to these misguided rebel-dolls that they were fortunate in having just plain folks, to have any one really belonging to them—a vista of forbidden joys would open before her blue eyes as these “hysterical hikers,” as Bliss Hobart had named them, told her of how they had come away from the sordid, uninteresting atmosphere which strangled their inner selves and they were willing to go hungry—all the great ones had gone hungry—to deny the fleshpots if they might only achieve—might win the laurel! After the large flow of language when called upon to demonstrate their abilities, they would warble in a reedy soprano:

Or else they would use a coal-bin contralto to inform Thurley all about the Lost Chord and ask if they did not remind her of Clara Butts!

It was a merry life, because Thurley had not reached the stage of acknowledging that she had nerves. She revelled in this court of appeals from which the others fled.

Caleb had reached the neurasthenic stage where he wanted a periscope attached to his porch so he could spot approaching authors laden with a manuscript. Every time a young author did brave the portcullis and obtain an audience, only to ask Caleb if there really was not everything in a name—editors were so mean, anyhow, and every one said so, and if Caleb would permit his novel, which every one said was the American novel, too, to be printed under Caleb’s name and thus play a roaring joke on these haughty and unfair editors, why, he would go fifty-fifty on the royalties—every time this happened to Caleb, he promptly disappeared on a champagne debauch and refused to express any penitence whatsoever concerning it!

Or if Collin was held up by a young woman with a badly powdered nose and a thatch of flaxen hair hiding all her features save the nose and was asked if she could not be his inspiration, Collin lost no time in rewarding himself for the ordeal. His bags were packed, and his motor was at the gate, even if the president of a steel trust was due for a portrait sitting. Away he flew over hill and dale like a startled rabbit, reaching some rural inn where art consisted of framed lithographs, and here he lay in hiding until his disposition had sufficiently recovered to allow his return as a smiling, bow-tie-waving artist, brush poised for action!

Therefore the family regarded Thurley’s liking for the onslaught of hysterical hikers as a sort of puppy soap-chewing-and-distemper stage.

“Let it run its course, they all do,” Hobart said when it was reported to him. “She’ll grow weary of autographing photographs and of having every would-be genius from the wilds of Oregon try to crowd into a basket and land on her doorstep—a songbird foundling cuckooing its misunderstood little life!”

There was something about these women which faintly roused the reformer in Thurley. They were simply out of step, she insisted, her own little feet always marching to the bandwagon without question. They needed to be shown the inspiration which can be gained from mediocrity. Although they were humorous and a trifle pathetic, they were dangerous, to Thurley’s mind.

“What havoc they could raise!” she said to Hobart one afternoon. “They would be capable of playing gnome at sane and settled doorways and calling, ‘Leave your tasks—come out—come out,’ and a great many would follow them. They are seething with discontent and they have the determination which keeps them going, yet they do not tell themselves the truth; they magnify home wrongs and future glories and their own possibilities. And I think,” she added with a frank smile, “they have either never been loved by any one or else loved some one who did not love them. It’s a form of romantic insanity which causes them to denounce love when all the while they crave it—insane persons always turn on the ones who love them best. So these dear, queer girls and women, trying to avoid routine work and home folks, just need to have Cupid take their telephone number and he could accomplish the miracle of miracles.”

Chuckling, Hobart had taken his leave. The next afternoon he surprised Thurley with a call, handing her a bouquet of charming wine-colored, white-specked blossoms surrounded by cool fern.

She did not thank him; instead she flushed and the blue eyes grew two shades deeper blue.

“I thought you’d be terribly set up over an old-fashioned ‘bow pot.’” Hobart was rather mystified.

“I am; you chose cleverly.” Thurley hated herself for betraying displeasure.

“Why don’t you like Early Morning Brides? They used to be my mother’s favorite; she sent to America for seed and we had one walk lined with them.” Hobart looked like the small boy who had blundered into delivering the love note to the green grocer and the green grocer’s order to the loved one!

Thurley’s face had cleared magically. “Oh, is that the name you know them by?” dimples twinkling in her cheeks. “I—I thought it something else.”

“What?” determined to solve the mystery.

“A silly name, very likely I’m wrong—anyway, you’re a dear and here they go into my best vase and on to my best table!”

Later in the day Hobart took time to retrace his steps to the old florist. He asked if Early Morning Brides had ever been known by another name.

“Well, some do call ’em Old Maids’ Pincushion,” the man told him, “but I’m one as has no liking for the name!”