MRS. FABIAN'S SCHEME

Mrs. Fabian chanced to meet Edgar as he was leaving the house immediately after this interview. She had heard the closing of the library door, and the expression of her son's excited face, as he strode by her, was such that she let him go in silence.

She knew Kathleen was with her father, and she was only too willing to use the girl as a buffer when Edgar was the subject of conversation.

She moved about restlessly until she heard Kathleen leave the den and close the door softly behind her. Then she waylaid her daughter at the foot of the staircase. By the soft light of the electric lantern, she could see that the girl's eyes were red.

"Come right up to my room," she whispered, excitedly, as if the very walls had ears. "I just met Edgar."

They ascended in silence and Mrs. Fabian led the way into her boudoir, started an electric fan, and turned on the light.

"Has his father cut him off?" she asked, facing Kathleen, her gaze wide with dread.

"No, oh, no." The girl sank into a chair. "It was awful, but I hope it is the beginning of better things. Did you know that Edgar had begun to work with his voice?"

"No! I've noticed that he has been making the most awful noises in his room lately."

"Well, the talk grew out of that and the new debts he has contracted."

"Edgar can't turn around without getting into debt!" ejaculated his mother desperately.

Kathleen told her then what had occurred and she listened attentively.

"Do you suppose it will amount to anything?" she asked at last.

Kathleen shook her head vaguely. "I don't know enough about the opportunities," she replied, "and I know too much about Edgar. If he is only going to use an accomplishment to stand in a more brilliant limelight with those whose admiration he wants—" she shook her head again.

Mrs. Fabian looked thoughtful. "I never saw such a look in his face as he had just now."

"Father's words stung him, I know. He even said, 'I don't blame you.' Perhaps he will begin now to be a man."

"I thought he might be going forever. I didn't dare to speak to him."

Kathleen gave a disclaiming exclamation. "He couldn't do that. He is more helpless than a little new-fledged chicken."

"I don't know," returned Mrs. Fabian sapiently. "Take a weak, good-looking fellow like Edgar, with a lovely voice, and if he became reckless there are plenty of sporty cafÉs in this town where they would pay him as an attraction. He knows that."

"Mother!" exclaimed Kathleen, aghast.

"Why, certainly!" averred Mrs. Fabian dismally elated at the dismay she had evoked. "There are a few things I know more about than you do, Kathleen. Imagine a handsome young fellow in correct evening clothes, when the patrons are hilarious at midnight, rising in his place, and, wineglass in hand, suddenly singing a love-song or ragtime. Do you think he would get a few encores? Do you think he could get paid to come again?" Mrs. Fabian had heard a description of lurid New Year's Eve revels and she built a shrewd surmise upon it.

Kathleen was so worked upon by the picture that she rose restlessly, and moving to the window gazed into the summer gloom as if searching for a glimpse of her brother's well-carried, polished blond head.

Mrs. Fabian bridled with dignified importance as she watched her; but her complacency was short-lived.

Kathleen suddenly faced about. "Then how," she asked, "can you wish me to leave for the island at such a time?"

"Oh, are you going back to that again!"

"With father and Edgar in this sensitive state toward each other—to leave them to meet alone in this great house, with no one to soften the embarrassment. Would it be any wonder if Edgar fled to just such scenes as you describe? And wouldn't it be decidedly our fault?"

Mrs. Fabian leaned forward in her armchair.

"You couldn't do any permanent good," she said earnestly. "Edgar must really act alone, whether you are here or not. He hasn't done any of his practising here anyway, except those uncanny noises in his room."

"No. There is some piano house where he has been able to use a room at noon; but his teacher sails this week and he cannot get the room any more. He would naturally do a lot of work at home after you were gone, if he felt at ease; and if I were here, it would help a great deal."

Mrs. Fabian felt baffled. The truth of Kathleen's proposition was unanswerable; and to urge any claim above Edgar's good at this crucial time would be, she knew, inexcusable in his sister's eyes.

The girl, burdened with the double responsibility of her father's confidence, and Edgar's future, turned again to the window and gazed out into the darkness, while Mrs. Fabian, leaning back in the breeze from the electric fan, put on her thinking-cap. It seemed hard that her wayward boy, if he had started on a worthy road, should manage at his very first step to get in her way.

Her will was strong and shrewd. When later that night she was alone with her husband, she opened the subject.

"Kathleen tells me Edgar has taken up serious work with his voice."

"Kathleen is optimistic," was the laconic reply.

"I think, Henry, we ought to meet him half-way in any honourable undertaking."

Mr. Fabian made an inarticulate exclamation. He was thinking of the bill Kathleen had placed in his hands before she left him to-night.

"I can't think," proceeded Mrs. Fabian, "that anything but a high sense of duty would induce anybody to make the blood-curdling noises that I've heard lately from Edgar's room."

A short silence; then Mrs. Fabian spoke again. "It seems he cannot go any longer to the place where he has done his practising. I'm afraid if he should work evenings here, it might annoy you, Henry."

"I dare say it might," agreed the weary man, with an involuntary sigh.

"I was thinking that if he is not very busy at the office—"

"Very busy!" The father threw back his head.

"You might give him a longer vacation"—

"Edgar's whole life is a vacation," said Mr. Fabian.

"And let him go with us to the island. If he is really going to make music his lifework he could practise regularly there and be away from temptations, and—"

Mr. Fabian slowly faced his wife with such attention that she paused hopefully, then went on:—

"You know Philip Sidney is going with me, and his companionship would be so good for Edgar."

"It's a bright thought, my dear," said Mr. Fabian. "The office will be able to struggle along without Edgar, and then we can close the house and I can live at the club."

"Not too long," said his wife, so pleased at her sudden success that she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Not too long, Henry. You must take a long vacation this year."

He returned her caress. "One day at a time," he said briefly.

Mrs. Fabian sought her pillow, well-pleased; and contrary to her habit, she was up betimes next morning, and hastened to her son's room before he came down to breakfast.

"Can I come in?" she asked, knocking.

Edgar was in his shirt-sleeves adjusting his tie; and when he opened the door and saw his mother, he gave an exclamation.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Too hot to sleep?"

A cloudless sun was promising another day with a soaring thermometer.

Mrs. Fabian noted the hard questioning in her boy's eyes. She knew he considered her his father's aid in denying him the right to spend as a millionaire's son should—knew that his attitude toward her had long been defensive; and that her unusual visit to his room roused only his suspicion of something disagreeable.

"Do you mind if I come in, dear?" she asked, her soft silks trailing noiselessly as she moved across the room. "I am so interested in what I hear about your music."

Edgar was silent, continuing to busy himself with his tie. He knew his stepmother too well to believe that she had risen with the lark to felicitate him on his last venture. He took up the ivory military brushes she had given him and began to use them vigorously. He was still smarting from the scene of the night before and he braced himself for a homily on the subject of his music bill.

"I've never believed in thwarting a child's bent," said Mrs. Fabian, flicking the ashes from a chair to make it fit to sit upon. "I said to Philip Sidney's mother, 'let him paint.' I said to your father last night when I heard all this, 'let Edgar sing.'"

Mrs. Fabian paused to allow her breadth of view to sink in. Edgar glanced around at her sulkily, from his mirror, and then looked back again.

"Now, you have no taste for commercial life, dear, why waste more time in it at present until you see what the artistic line holds for you?"

Edgar glanced back at the speaker again quickly. What was the "nigger in the fence"? Her face looked innocently out at him from a becoming boudoir cap.

"And I suggested to your father that he let your vacation start earlier and that you come with us to the island next Wednesday. You are going to work for a time anyway without your teacher, and this hot atmosphere must be so relaxing to the throat. There it is pure and bracing and you can lay out your course of study and be undisturbed."

Edgar regarded the speaker with some interest now, but still questioning.

"Father thinks, then, we could close the house and he would live at the club."

Edgar tossed his head, raised his eyebrows, and proceeded to put on his coat.

"You want to close the house. That's it," he said.

"Don't you think it would be a good plan?" asked Mrs. Fabian ingratiatingly.

All Edgar's cynicism was not proof against allowing some satisfaction to appear in the prospect of leaving the office routine and pursuing the line of work which had genuinely captured his interest.

"Yes, I don't mind," he answered. "Kath going with you?"

"Yes, and Philip Sidney,—just for a short visit."

Edgar shrugged his shoulders.

"You can imagine the heat of that stable room," suggested Mrs. Fabian.

"Tophet, I suppose," agreed Edgar. "All right. I'll go." The even teeth had been set many times since last evening in the prospect of a tÊte-À-tÊte existence with his father.

"I wish we might go on all together, but, of course, not knowing, I didn't engage a berth for you."

"I'll go on the day train," responded Edgar; adding with his customary grace, "I never was keen for travelling in caravans anyway."

Mrs. Fabian was not critical of his rudeness. She was too pleased at having gained her end, and soon floated away to Kathleen's room, her next strategic point.

She found her daughter propped up in bed with coffee and toast on a table before her.

"Good morning, mother, you put me to shame," said the girl. "Didn't you sleep either? This is early for you."

"Poor child," said Mrs. Fabian, seating herself on the foot of the bed and observing the rings around the other's eyes. "Yes, I slept pretty well, but not until after your father and I had had a long talk."

Kathleen scrutinized her mother's complacent countenance and made up her mind that the talk could not have concerned business.

"I told him how sure I felt that Edgar was in earnest now, and we both concluded it was time wasted to try any longer to fit a square peg into a round hole, so your father is going to let the boy go to the island at once with us and work at his voice there, away from temptations."

"Oh, how fine!" breathed Kathleen. "Then," she added aloud, "he will entertain Mr. Sidney in my place, and I can stay with father."

"That's an absurd idea and you know it. Philip and Edgar would get along like two tigers. You can see that I need you more than ever to reconcile them."

Kathleen's face did not look encouraging. She longed to tell her mother of her father's straits, but her lips were sealed.

"Besides," added Mrs. Fabian, with the conscious power of one who plays the last trump, "one reason your father wishes to dispense with Edgar is that he wants to close the house and live at the club."

Kathleen's face fell and her eyes looked away.

"You see he'll come to us all the sooner, dear," said her mother. "Men talk about enjoying living at the club, but when they are happy family men they tire of it very soon."

The girl smiled faintly. "We have been something of a 'happy family' lately," she said; "but if Edgar really turns over a new leaf—"

"Oh, he has!" declared Mrs. Fabian. "I'm glad to remember that the outdoors is large at Brewster's. I suspect he will nearly drive us crazy, but one must exercise some self-sacrifice in this world." She rose. "Take another nap if you can, Kathleen. I'm thankful the island is so near for you. You're completely tired out."

But Kathleen did not take another nap. She dressed very soon, and, pleading a desire for fresh air, left the house. She did not ask for the machine lest her mother should offer to accompany her, but descended in all her dainty whiteness into the subway and started for Wall Street. Arrived at the labyrinth of offices where daily Mr. Fabian struggled and Edgar endured, she dreaded meeting her brother, but she saw nothing of him, and waited in an ante-room, looking about her with a swelling heart. How little part she and her mother had ever had in the heavy responsibilities of her father's life. She doubted if her mother came here twice a year, and when she did it was simply to obtain money.

She had not long to wait, for Mr. Fabian himself opened the door of his private office, and the clerk passing out saw him stoop and kiss the girl in the large hat strewn with lilacs.

"What brings you, my dear?" he asked, his brows knitting anxiously. She smiled and clung to his hand as they moved inside. "You're pale, Kathleen. Off to the island with you, child. Off to the island."

"That's just what I came about," she answered, taking the chair he set for her, and the electric fan whirring above her head carried the scent of orris to her father. "I would so much rather stay with you. I came to urge you to let me."

He regarded her with eyes full of affection and gave a short laugh.

"I frightened you last night," he said. "Perhaps I did wrong."

"No, no, you didn't. Mother told me the plan to let Edgar go. That is right. Edgar can't be a comfort to you; but I can, father. Don't shut up the house. Let me stay with you till you are ready to go."

Mr. Fabian nodded, his eyes fixed upon the sensitive face with its beseeching eyes.

"You're a good girl, Kathleen. You are a comfort to me, whether we're together or not; and just now it will be an advantage to me to live close to my associates at the club. Go without anxiety, child. I promise to keep you advised of everything important."

The troubled eyes did not leave his face.

"Don't exaggerate what I said last night. I am not going to make any spectacular failure, but I have my own ideas of equity and I'm not going to wriggle out on a technicality. My course may lose me friends as well as money; but I've got to live with myself, and there are some memories I don't propose to entertain. Your mother has always been moderate in her demands, she has never shared the insane ambitions of some of her acquaintances; but her toys are very dear to her and I hate to curtail them. It looks as if I might have to."

"It might be the making of Edgar," said Kathleen.

Her father regarded her in silent admiration. It was evident that her own part in the loss had not occurred to her.

"Your mother's unselfishness in keeping the island summer home, because I like its simplicity, makes this season's problem easy. By autumn I shall know the worst."

"How I would like to stay with you right along until everything is settled," said Kathleen fervently. "I want to be sure that you know how happy I should be in it. I keep so busy with my slides and microscope, and then—there's something else I do." Kathleen colored consciously. "I meant not to tell any one yet, but,—I write a little!"

"Stories, you mean?"

The girl nodded. "It is nothing, it may never amount to anything; but the microscope suggested it to me. There is such a great world that we never enter or think about. So you can see how happy I should be in our big, cool house, and not a bit lonely,—if you'll only have me."

"I believe you, Kathleen, but it wouldn't work, dear. I could be at home so little, and I'd like to cut off the expense of the house."

"Oh, oh! Is it so bad as that?"

"No, not nearly so bad; but in time of peace, prepare for war."

"Then mother had better not take her usual weeks at a resort."

Mr. Fabian raised his eyebrows. "How else is the dear lady to exhibit her summer toilets? The fish at the island are so unappreciative."

"Don't keep things from mother," pleaded Kathleen.

"I promise not to when there is anything to tell. I was weak enough to think out loud with you. Now, run along, my child."

"Oh, father, always be weak enough to think out loud with me. Will you?" He had risen and she did so reluctantly.

He crushed her trim whiteness in his arms, and kissed her. "Don't make me sorry, then. Don't cross any bridge until you come to it. Promise."

She smiled up at him bravely. "I promise," she said, and left the office with a wistful backward look at him standing there, his eyes following her.