PHILIP ENTERTAINS

Philip still had Eliza on his mind, so when Kathleen had left him, he went back to the farmhouse and had the good fortune to meet Eliza returning home.

"I'm looking for you!" he called cheerfully.

She regarded him unsmiling. "Well," she remarked carelessly, "you look like a gentleman of leisure."

"Just what I am. You guessed right. My Villa is finished and I've been waiting for you because I'm going to let everybody in to-morrow and I wanted you to see it with me alone."

"My opinion ain't worth anything," said Eliza; "besides, it's pretty near time to get supper. Miss Foster went up to Portland to-day."

"I know she did. That's why I'm in a hurry to take you into the studio before the boat arrives. You know how discouraging you were, Eliza, and I wanted to surprise you. I'd have liked to surprise everybody, but, of course, I hadn't the nerve to keep Miss Foster out. The rent I pay didn't warrant it." The speaker twinkled down into Eliza's unresponsive eyes. "I'm going to give a tea to-morrow and I want to talk it over with you."

They had strolled near to the rustic bench where Mrs. Wright was still sitting with her work.

"Eliza is going with me to have a private view of the Villa," said Phil. "Your turn to-morrow. I'm going to give a tea. Will you come?"

"Most assuredly," answered Mrs. Wright. "As soon as you cleaned those windows, my curiosity began to effervesce."

"I can't go now," said Eliza. "I've waited this long, I guess I can wait till to-morrow. I've got to get supper."

Philip threw an arm around her and drew her forward.

"Boarders have come, Mr. Philip," she exclaimed. "They'll see you."

"I hope they will," he responded firmly. "If they don't know I love you, it's the best way to tell them."

Eliza walked along stiffly, perforce, toward the forbidden ground.

"Yes, I thought I'd make a grand splurge to-morrow, and give a tea," he continued. "I want you to preside."

"Do what?"

"Pour. I want you to pour for me."

"H'm. Ridiculous! Let one of the girls do it."

"Well, just as you say. Now, then," they were drawing near the little house, "prepare! Be a good sport now, and own yourself wrong if you think you are. See my shingle?"

Eliza's eyes followed his gesture and caught sight of the crowing cock.

"H'm," she said; then they went inside.

Eliza looked about in silence for a minute.

"It's clean," she said at last; and Phil knew she was moved to catch at a word of praise as one says of a neighbor's plain and uninteresting baby, "How healthy he looks!"

He began explaining his devices to Eliza and her heart was touched by his joy in all this cheap gloom.

By the time he opened the back door, she was ready to weep over him; and she said:—

"That's a real sightly piazza."

Then they moved into the little kitchen.

"I've been waiting for you to tell me what to do here," said the artist, and Eliza rose to the bait and began pulling things about and showing him where shelves must be placed.

"How are you goin' to give a tea," she asked, "with one broken mug?"

"Borrow cups and saucers from Aunt Isabel. That's easy; but," he looked down at Eliza, whose face had regained its usual alertness, "it occurred to me that perhaps I have some of my own—those that you packed for me and that ran away to the island."

"Mr. Philip, I'm a fool to forget those!" responded the other, after gazing at him in silence. "You shall have every one of 'em. They're all mixed in with the Foster things. I'll pick 'em out; and we'll lend you all you need beside."

"Would it interfere with supper proceedings if we were to do it right now?"

"Law! it ain't time to get supper yet," responded Eliza, so promptly that, as they hurried out of the door, Phil stooped to break a long blade of grass to bite.

A vigorous search was at once instituted for the china, and Phil and Eliza carried it down to the studio; and as they went, Mr. Wright came up from the water and joined his wife.

"We're to be let in to-morrow," she said. "He has finished."

"Well, it's been a job," remarked Mr. Wright, who had occasionally sat on a log and watched Phil at his roof-mending or some other strenuous part of the work.

"Yes, he ought to succeed," said Mrs. Wright. "He hasn't a lazy bone in his body."

"There aren't many of us that have at his age," remarked Mr. Wright. "Are there, Pluto?"

The cat had run to meet him like a dog. For him the scent of Mr. Wright's fishing trousers was as the perfume of Araby; and he followed him to the room in the shed where his friend changed them for habiliments more generally agreeable.

At last Phil returned to the boulder cottage where he found Mrs. Fabian and Kathleen in the wind-break. The latter was working at the table, sorting the moss specimens for her slides.

She looked up at him now with a new realization of his powers.

"Well, you said this morning to-day would finish the work," said Mrs. Fabian, closing her novel on her finger for a mark. "Are you through?"

"As nearly as I ever shall be," he replied, throwing himself into a chair near Kathleen's table and regarding her deft fingers at their work.

"Well, I'm glad," said Mrs. Fabian, "for we've seen nothing of you. I like the way you visit us."

He looked at her quickly to see if there were feeling behind the accusation.

"Now, you'll have to stay on a week when you are not so preoccupied."

"Not if he doesn't wish to, mother," said Kathleen, going on with her work. Her cheeks were still flushed from the warm tramp to the woods; the red glints in her hair shone lustrous.

"It does look like making use of you, doesn't it?" he said impetuously. "But you're so good to me, both of you. To-morrow you'll forgive me, Aunt Isabel, when you see I have a place to work and trouble no one. I do hope it won't rain."

"Oh, no," said Kathleen, handling a tiny bit of moss. "The moon holds the weather."

Mrs. Fabian laughed. "Kathleen, the astronomer," she said.

The girl nodded. "It may not be a scientific way to put it, but I've always noticed it here. It will be full to-morrow night. The weather won't change till the moon does."

"Delightfully consoling," said Phil, continuing to watch her averted face. It seemed to him this was the first time since Christmas night that his mind had been sufficiently at leisure from itself to concentrate upon her. He suddenly remembered that she used to like cigarettes. He had not yet seen her use one. Perhaps she was aiding Edgar in the stern limit which he was imposing upon himself.

"I wonder," he said, "if either of you would pour for me at my grand tea to-morrow."

Kathleen did not look up, but her cheeks grew warmer while she manipulated the moss.

"Oh, a tea in the chicken-house," laughed Mrs. Fabian.

The light jeering tone struck Kathleen as coming at a particularly unfortunate moment.

"I will. Be glad to," she said heartily.

"Whom are you going to invite? The fish?" laughed Mrs. Fabian.

Phil's naÏvetÉ was dashed by her tone. Kathleen felt it.

"Mother's jealous, Phil," she said, "because she has seen so little of you all the week. She is at fever heat of curiosity as to what you have been doing; and as for tea! Mother's an inebriate. She won't leave any for the fish. You'll see."

Phil looked at the speaker gratefully, and leaned toward her a little. "I have the right barrel at last," he said. "The one that ran away to the island. Do you remember?"

His eyes were so very speaking that Kathleen dropped hers to the moss. She nodded and smiled.

"It knew where it ought to go, didn't it?" she returned.

Mrs. Fabian's countenance had sobered. She knew the descendant of the Van Ruyslers so well that she understood that she had offended.

"Can't one make a bit of fun once in a while?" she asked in injured tones of Kathleen when next they were alone.

"Yes, once in a while," answered the girl, and kissed her.

"It'll be something funny for you to look back upon when you come out, Kathleen, that your first function after graduating took place in a chicken-house."

"I hope I shall not be homesick for it," thought the girl; but she only smiled.

"Kathleen is certainly touchy about Phil," mused Mrs. Fabian. "She glared up at me just the way she did last fall when I wanted to get Aunt Mary's silver. She is the queerest girl!"

The moon or something else did hold the weather and the artist could have had no better day on which to give his proof that where there's a will there's a way.

The company swarmed through the little house, laughing, admiring, questioning. At last they stood on the terrace.

"My dear boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Wright. "You could have no better view if you were a millionaire!"

"The only thing lacking," cried Violet, "is a white peacock. Where is the white peacock?"

"How about it, Edgar?" asked Phil. "Couldn't you stand out there for the lady?"

"The nightingale could never deceive us," said Mrs. Wright, bending her universally loving gaze on Edgar, whose chin was held rather higher than usual.

"That's so," cried Phil. "Sing us something, Edgar, right here and now."

"Certainly," responded the gifted one, regarding his host as he launched easily into song:—

Mrs. Fabian did not join in the laugh. She had moved inside, and her lorgnette was fixed on a closed door.

"I must see in there, Phil," she said.

"Of course, you must, Mrs. Bluebeard," he replied. "You may all go in this once, but it's the last time ever, I warn you, for that is my kitchen."

They swarmed through to the little room, where Edgar perceived with a groan an oil-stove burning cosily in the midst of canvas, paints, easel, et cetera.

"I'll never go in again, I promise you," he declared.

At the host's invitation, the company arranged themselves on the rejuvenated chairs and couch, and Kathleen made tea at the spindle-legged table.

Mrs. Fabian's lorgnette was bent upon the newel post.

"However did you make him stand up, dear?" she asked, regarding the Mercury which had winged his way from her garret. "We haven't been upstairs yet, remember."

"And you won't go till you're tired of life," returned the host. "It abounds in trapdoors and, aside from my affection for you, the furniture down here couldn't stand being fallen on."

Being turned ceilingward, Mrs. Fabian's lorgnette discovered that branches of bay had been woven through the rafters in some places. She shrugged her shoulders.

"You'll get rained on in this dilapidated old place," she said. "A few bay leaves can't deceive me."

"Madam! Are you aware that you are talking about the Villa Chantecler? That roof is as tight as a drum."

Mrs. Fabian stirred the lemon in her substantially thick cup; and looked admiringly at the energetic host.

"I only hope, Phil," she sighed, "that you aren't too practical to succeed in your profession. So few artists would know how to mend a roof or even remember the necessity for it. I hope it isn't a bad sign."

Edgar, sitting with Violet on the railing, drinking tea, heard his mother's comment.

"A good deal in that, I think," he remarked softly. "I've never seen any of Phil's things except that rough black-and-white stuff he has in there. He never seemed to me to have a particle of temperament."

Violet was inclined to agree. She had seen nothing amusing in Philip's chaff about the peacock. She thought it quite as silly as were the other comments on the robin.

"I wish you would sing something," she said. "Do, and surprise them."

"I can't. I haven't even a banjo."

"I've noticed you have everything over at the house: banjo, guitar, mandolin, everything. You must leave one of them over here. Music would sound perfectly charming in this place."

"Any music?" asked Edgar, smiling.

She returned his look from the tops of her eyes. "Bold fisherman," she replied.

Her companion scanned the horizon: "The moon is going to be great to-night. It looks as if it would rise clear out of the water. Want to go for a sail?"

"I don't believe I can," replied Violet. "I have an engagement."

"An engagement!" returned Edgar, sceptically. "Are you going to read aloud to your aunt?"

Violet smiled at him provokingly. "You're not the only man on this island," she remarked.

A quick flush mounted to Edgar's forehead.

"Phil?" he asked quickly.

She nodded, mutely, and took the last swallow of her tea.

Her companion looked as if he might be in the throes of the red mood.

"That's beastly," he said, dismayed to think that in all Phil's preoccupation he had had sufficient forethought to secure Violet for this perfect evening. "Since when?" he demanded fiercely.

"Since yesterday," she returned demurely, apparently unconscious that the arrangement caused annoyance.

"Very well, then, we'll take the yacht," he said, "and let the crowd go. Phil can help me sail her. I was intending to take the motor-boat and you alone."

"I don't know whether Mr. Sidney would care to," she returned coolly, "but it's very kind of you."

Edgar regarded her, baffled. "What—what had you planned to do?" he asked. He knew the question was inexcusable and braced himself for a snub; but the sweet Violet, exultant at his open disturbance, administered none.

"Nothing special," she replied. "Mr. Sidney is invited to dine with us, in celebration of the completion of the improvements he has been making on the estate. That's all."

"Oh, absurd!" declared Edgar. "As if you couldn't dine any foggy night. Well, you don't need to stay after dinner. He isn't your guest."

Violet regarded him with an ironical smile.

"I've been taught manners," she said. "Beside, perhaps I want to stay. Didn't that occur to you?"

Edgar scowled and looked off on the ocean and back again. "I don't want to take the whole family out in order to get you," he said, fuming.

"I wouldn't," she answered, laughing. "It isn't worth the trouble."

Her companion clenched his even teeth. He didn't want to risk Philip's meandering about the island alone with Violet on such an evening as this was going to be. He would be sure to talk of his work and his hopes, and her confoundedly soulful eyes would look back at him comprehendingly, and a precedent would be established and—

"You see, Mr. Sidney expects to take all his dinners with us after he begins working here," went on Violet sweetly. "It will be so convenient just to run across."

Edgar gave her a furious glance, but the simplicity of her regard was complete.

Mrs. Wright came to the open door. "We're going now, Violet," she said. "Will you come? Our host positively refuses to allow us to help him put things away, and he will follow a little later. I've been hoping," turning to Edgar, "that you might be moved to sing as you sat out here."

The young man had sprung to his feet and was trying to banish evidences of the red mood from his brow.

"I wanted to take Violet out on the water to-night," he said. "It seems there's an obstacle."

"Yes, a large one," returned Mrs. Wright pleasantly. "Lots of evenings coming, but I don't know about letting my little girl go on the water at night."

"I guarantee her safety. I've come here ever since I was a baby, Mrs. Wright, and I'm an amphibious animal; but if Sidney should ever suggest it, remember he's a landlubber. Half the time they don't know enough to be afraid."

"Very true," returned Mrs. Wright, with her natural graceful sweetness of manner, which at least succeeded in making Edgar feel rude. "Come, dear," turning to Violet, "I'd like to have you come with me."

So the girl rose and yielded her cup to Edgar, who took it with dignity. He, the ex-cavalier of Mrs. Larrabee, not to be able to mould circumstances among these poor and provincial people!

He took leave of Philip, and tendered his congratulations with an air fitted to grace marble halls. "I believe," he added, "you don't dine at home to-night."

"No," replied Phil, "Miss Foster is very kindly entertaining her tenant."

Edgar pricked up his ears; and instantly ran after Violet. "Phil says Jane Foster invited him," he said vehemently. "I shall call for you by eight o'clock. I'll take the best care of her, Mrs. Wright. I assure you I will, and bring her in early."

He was off before he could be gainsaid, and Mrs. Wright noticed that Violet's expression was such as might be worn by a well-grown kitten who had been hilariously entertained in a game with a mouse which was as yet unfinished and highly promising.

The events of the week had thrown light on the happiness Violet evinced the day of her arrival under Edgar Fabian's escort. Mrs. Wright's tenderness for her orphan niece was alertly watchful. She put an arm around her now and drew her away from the house, and they walked slowly across the grass.

"It really is perfectly safe to go on the water with Edgar," said the girl, half laughing.

"For me, it might be," returned Mrs. Wright quietly.

Violet blushed deeply, and dreaded what might be coming.

"The Fabians are nice people," went on her aunt, "very rich people and able to give you pleasures, and I like you to be friendly with them; but I'm a little afraid of this situation."

"You needn't be," burst forth the girl impulsively. "Edgar doesn't really care much about me."

"That's the trouble," said Mrs. Wright quietly.

The reply was so unexpected that Violet felt a sharp twinge of mortification and a spontaneous desire to show her aunt that she was wrong. There were lots of small proofs that she might give her—

"No," she returned, suddenly serious. "He cares very much for me in a certain way: my understanding of his gift—and his hopes—and his career. His family mean to be kind, but they're so unsympathetic. They're not temperamental like him and—"

Violet paused because Aunt Amy was smiling. It was unkind to smile at such a time. Very well! Her lips should be sealed from this time on. She would never again speak to her about Edgar!

"He is very attractive even with all his conceit," said Mrs. Wright, who was quite conscious that the girl's slender body had suddenly a resentful rigidity. "A beautiful tenor voice and conceit seem to be inseparable in this mundane sphere; and if my little girl has understood and responded to his outpourings about himself she is charming to him." Mrs. Wright paused and then went on: "Look around, Violet, and realize that you are the only girl here to whom he can show attention. Did he show you any in New York? Did he go out of his way for you? You fell right into his reach on the train and he took the gifts the gods provided; and they were very sweet gifts."

The speaker squeezed her unresponsive listener, whose heart was beating hotly. "As a rule men are marauders," she went on. "As a rule, women are single-hearted, faithful. There are exceptions. I want to give you one piece of advice and I can't put it too strongly. Take it in and act upon it, and it may save you a world of hurt vanity, and possibly a broken heart. No matter how a man behaves toward you,—no matter how he looks, or what he does,—or what he says,—don't believe or even imagine that he loves you until he tells you he does, in so many words."

There were tears in the baby-bachelor's blue eyes. Among the stormy emotions that filled her was the horrible suspicion that, instead of being a foreordained victor, the kitten might possibly in the end be the mouse's victim.

"Now, Mr. Sidney," went on Mrs. Wright's calm voice, "is a man who I believe has hold of life by the right end."

"He is always making fun of Edgar," burst forth Violet, her breath coming fast. "You heard what he said about the peacock."

At this, Mrs. Wright fell a peg lower in her niece's estimation, for she laughed.

"I knew what he meant," she answered, "but I couldn't let the lovely singer's feelings be hurt."

"Knew what he meant!" exclaimed Violet, indignantly, and suddenly breaking away from her aunt's embrace, she ran toward the house and disappeared.

Mrs. Wright followed the fleeing form with her eyes, and nodded gently.

"I thought so. Only just in time," she said to herself. The seed was dropped, and even though the ground did have to be harrowed to get the necessary depth, it was better so.

The evening was as beautiful as Edgar Fabian had foreseen. One of the many charms of Brewster's Island was the habit the wind had of lulling at sunset, often making the evening air milder than that of day.

To-night the sun had sunk in a clear sky behind the White Mountains. All the family at the Wright cottage had come out after supper to see the Presidential Range, ninety miles away, silhouetted black against the golden glory.

"One can breathe here," thought Philip. "One can breathe here." He wondered if Kathleen were watching the sunset.

"Oh, but turn around," cried Violet suddenly. "This is a three-ringed circus. One should live on a pivot here on a clear night."

Phil turned obediently, and saw the waters dashing against a huge disk of pale gold.

Kathleen, lying in her hammock, arm folded beneath her head, was also watching the moon.

Edgar sat near her on the steps, smoking his third cigarette that day. It was his rigid allowance. He saw dimly the figures come out from the Wright cottage and his first impulse was to stroll across and join them; but pride forbade. Supposing he were to get there just in time to see Violet walk off with Philip.

"What a perfect evening!" said Kathleen lazily. "Go in and get the guitar, Edgar, and sing me something."

Sing something! Edgar's teeth clenched at the thought.

"I've practised such a lot to-day, I'm no good," he replied.

"Why, I didn't hear you," she said.

"No. I took my trusty pitch-pipe down in the woods and scared the birds. I have some mercy on you and mother."

"What is your aim?" asked his sister. "What do you want to do? Concert work?"

"Yes, perhaps. Mazzini says I could teach right now if I wanted to."

"Teach?" repeated Kathleen, trying to speak respectfully, but smiling at the man in the moon, who grinned back as if he understood.

"Of course, there's no necessity for that, so I shall simply prepare myself for public work; recitals; possibly go abroad for the prestige of study over there. Not that I need it but the name goes a long way, and if I should go into opera it is best to begin there."

The man in the moon grew redder in the face. So did Kathleen; but she knew that sublime self-assurance is an asset not to be despised. She looked at her brother's trim shapely head, rising from the white silk collar of his negligÉe shirt.

"Does Mazzini really think you are already prepared to teach?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. I had very few errors in method to unlearn, and he says, given a good voice, a good presence, and good looks, tact, and an attractive studio, pupils will come fast enough," replied Edgar carelessly. "He said he'd send me his overflow; but of course all that was in joke. He knows that it is no question of money with me."

Kathleen ceased to smile at the moon, for her thoughts recurred to their father, meeting his problems in the heat of the great city. So far his letters had breathed no hint of trouble.

"That's a glorious feeling, Edgar," she said soberly, "to feel certain that you can be independent."

"Yes," he returned, speaking low, and holding the cigarette between his fingers. "I said I'd show father, and I will."

The remainder of his thoughts he did not voice; but there was some one else he meant to show. The vivacious Mrs. Larrabee who had dared to use him when it suited her and then discard him with raised eyebrows and a scornful word. She should see him win the plaudits of the multitude; then, when she endeavored to add her incense and claim to have been his inspiration, it should be his turn to show cold disdain. He ground the even teeth at some memory.

"I want to tell you, Edgar," went on Kathleen in the same serious tone, "that I am proud of your determination; proud of your regular work; proud of your cutting down on smoking; and it will overwhelm me with joy to see you succeed."

"Thanks, Kath," he returned. "I appreciate that."

"And I also want to ask you not to make love to Violet Manning," went on the low, serious voice.

Edgar was dumb, and now the man in the moon met him with a grin.

"You know it will be only an idle pastime with you, and because she is the only girl here. It might mean a lot to her, and—it's a hard world for girls."

Kathleen had not intended to end her appeal in that way, but the declaration broke from her.

"She doesn't care a picayune for me," returned Edgar. "Don't you worry." He hoped his sister would contradict him; but she did not.

"You might be able to make her," she said. "Be too manly to try, Edgar. Do, do be unselfish and honest."

The earnest deliberation of her tone caused her listener to reflect for a moment; and the man in the moon, by this time crimson in the face, met his frowning regard mirthfully.