When a master painter, crowned with international renown, had unsuccessfully attempted a portrait of Devota Lindsay, he turned the canvas head down with face to the wall, and vented his irrepressible chagrin.

"Miss Lindsay will pardon me for declining to waste any longer her patience, and my time in finishing a picture that can be merely a pretty mask. Despite its classic lines and exquisite coloring the locked face you show me, no more reflects your individual mentality and emotional potentialities than some flawless alabaster mask. If you will permit a frank analysis, I should say your habitual expression is that of complete, well-trained repose, impervious to shocks; and even your eyes—if windows of your soul—are deftly curtained with a radiant mist defying scrutiny. If you will excuse the argot of your own countrymen, should the day ever arrive when you 'let yourself go,' may I be there to paint the real woman! I shall destroy this baffling work, retaining only the hand and arm, which you must grant me as some solace for defeat. The day is not distant when you will recognize your wrist and fingers in my 'Egeria' signalling Numa."

Mature womanhood very rarely preserves the fresh and dainty tints peculiar to girlish youth, and to-night as Miss Lindsay walked slowly down the stairs, one might well have doubted the number of years that had rolled so tenderly, leaving no credentials to line their passage.

Her dinner dress of heliotrope chiffon was cut square at the neck, garnished with filmy Mechlin, and around her throat she wore a broad collar composed of three rows of large fire opals, set in delicate Venetian network of gold wire, from the center of which hung a Maltese cross of diamonds. In her silk girdle was fastened a bunch of long-stemmed double white violets. The slender handle of her circular fan was studded with opals, and the disk glowed with its iridescent border of peacock feathers.

Avoiding the main door of the long parlor whence came the hum and chatter of many voices, she paused in an adjoining music-room, where a lace-curtained arch-way permitted a view of the assembled guests. Above the arch an electric light glared over her face and figure, enhancing the golden shimmer of her hair, and the starry brilliance of the long-lashed velvety hazel eyes. Cautiously lifting the outside edge of the drapery, she looked at the various groups, and her gaze fastened on one where the hostess, the Bishop's wife, and Mrs. Van Allen—a gay young widow—clustered around the tall, athletic form of Governor Royal Armitage.

At forty-three years of age he looked older; his massive, finely modelled head and very regular features justified the generally conceded epithet "handsome"; yet in repose his face was cold, and the sombre, dark grey eyes rarely changed their brooding, en garde expression, even when the well-cut lips parted in a smile that disclosed a superb set of teeth.

Devota studied the countenance for a moment, and crushed back a half-uttered moan, while a tremor shook her; then lifted the lace curtain and entered the drawing-room.

"Ah, Miss Lindsay, how welcome you are after we had abandoned all hope of this pleasure! Following my example, our entire household wept over your failure to come sooner. My wife tells me you know everybody here except the Governor, and since you are strangers, I am glad it is my privilege to make you both my debtor by an introduction."

Mr. Churchill drew her hand to his arm, and she bowed to right and left to guests, as the host led her forward. The Governor was bending over an engraving in Mrs. Roscoe's hand, but suddenly drew himself erect and threw his head back proudly.

"Gov' Armitage, I am exceedingly glad to present you to Miss Lindsay, our family mascot."

Both bowed impressively, and a deep, well-trained, manly voice answered:

"I assure you it is a pleasant surprise to find myself numbered among those so fortunate as to claim Miss Lindsay's acquaintance."

The cold grey eyes looked steadily at Devota, but his face evinced no more pleasure than the granite gargoyle on the roof.

"It is my privilege to remember that a great many years ago, when quite young, I met your Excellency, but certainly I have no right to expect that after the long lapse of time any recognition could occur."

"You are very gracious to recall a casual incident of 'auld lang syne' that I dared not flatter myself you cared to remember; but that you have not entirely forgotten it is as unexpected as it is complimentary."

The eyes of each probed deep, but neither flinched, and as Mrs. Churchill arched her brows and pinched her husband's arm, Devota smiled, and turning away held out her hand to Bishop Roscoe.

"My dear Miss Lindsay, I am glad to have an opportunity to wish you Godspeed on the long tour you contemplate. When do you sail?"

"At dawn, day after to-morrow."

Mrs. Churchill's fan tapped the Bishop's wrist.

"It is your duty to lecture her soundly on her descent into the Bohemian ranks of roaming 'bachelor girls,' who, running after tinsel kites they call 'careers,' turn their backs on all home duties, forsake every form of genuine feminine domesticity, cast family ties to the winds and herd in tenements, boat-houses and mountain camps. Professional female tramps!"

"I am very sure he will agree with me in thinking that Mrs. Churchill is cruel in smothering her innocent friend under an avalanche of opprobrious epithets. My sole 'family tie' happens to be Uncle Hollis, and I hold fast to him, though to do so necessitates surrender of 'home duties' in order to keep under his protecting wing. Not at all a 'bachelor girl' if you please; but having recently bidden a reluctant and tearful adieu to my thirty-first birthday, I have deliberately selected a very different and more subdued type of serene old-maidhood—the effete and much-derided spinster of less degenerate days, a hundred years ago-who studied Mrs. Chapone and Mrs. Opie, spent all tender affections on pugs, canaries and knitting needles, sternly confined hilarity within the prim boundary of the minuet, and revered chaperons almost as devoutly as the 'Apostles' Creed.'"

The announcement of dinner rearranged the groups, and escorted by Captain Winstead, Devota was seated at an unusually large circular table where sixteen persons found ample room. There were no candelabra so suggestive of childish "peek-a-boo" or the tinsel frippery of Christmas trees, and the colored tapers of juvenile birthday fÊtes; but from the ceiling a flood of light fell from clustered electric globes upon glass, silver and the snowy damask cloth, wherein woven wreathes of orchids seemed to stand out as though embroidered in satin tissues. Neither tall vase nor bonbonniÈre impeded view of the entire table, and in the center a long, low silver shell was filled with stephanotis and amber-edged Farleyense fronds, while in front of each guest lay a slender spray of daphne starred with bloom.

Mrs, Churchill sat between the Governor, assigned to Mrs. Roscoe, and the Bishop, whose next neighbor was the vivacious young widow Mrs. Van Allen, a recent donor to his favorite church of an old and very costly silver sacrament service that Cellini was said to have embossed and engraved.

Gradually the overture of general chatter diminished, and as conversation became dialogues between individual couples, Devota found it difficult to fix her attention upon Captain Winstead's remarks, to which her replies were brief and perfunctory. Notwithstanding her efforts to resist the impulse, her eyes turned often to the smiling face of the man immediately opposite her, and she was aware that he studiously avoided looking at her.

He was an amused listener during the progress of a spirited skirmish between the hostess and Mrs. Roscoe on the subject of "bridge," which the latter denounced as "social gambling leprosy," that was swiftly bringing the morals of Monte Carlo into family circles, and all phases of club life. Apparently claiming victory in the argument, the Bishop's aggressive wife next opened fire on the Governor, because of his failure to approve a bill framed to secure a large appropriation for establishment of an additional State reformatory.

"It is hard to believe that you, sir, could turn a deaf ear to the cry for help that calls to you from the criminal outcast children, whose salvation should be your dearest aim. An enemy of reformatories at the head of our State government is surely a mournful and disheartening spectacle."

"Really, my dear madam, your indictment is so severe, you force me to plead 'not guilty.' For a thorough, efficacious reformatory system I am an earnest advocate, but my convictions relative to desirable methods and conditions may not meet your entire approval. When I was vested with necessary authority I made an exhaustive inspection of all State penal and reform institutions, and found an ample reformatory centrally located and well equipped along educational and industrial lines. Regarding it as a vital question, I have very carefully studied reports of various farms, schools, etc., from the days of PourtalÈs' tragic failure, and I trust you will pardon me if I frankly confess that statistics of juvenile criminology do not encourage me to increase the number of State reformatories. The urgent need of reform is too appalling to be ignored, but the facts at my command do not warrant a belief that herding youthful offenders at State compounds or similar institutions accomplishes the desired result. A profound and noble student of mankind admonishes us: 'Children have more need of models than of critics.' Of course incurable moral degenerates must be denied opportunity to prey upon their fellow-creatures, and for this sad class, provision for seclusion is sufficient; but the 'cry of the children' now ringing through our land is for parental guardianship—for the return of domestic control. Madam, the best, the divinely appointed reformatories are preventive as well as corrective, and God commissioned one in every parent to whom He intrusted an immortal soul for mental and moral training. No outflow rises higher than its source; as are the family standards, usage and influence, such inevitably must be the trend of the nation—the vast aggregation of those practically orphaned as regards parental authority and guardianship. We are all glad to remember distinguished exceptions to prevailing conditions, but how little genuine home life remains to leaven the social masses? Do fathers and mothers fully realize that they have abdicated their throne on the hearthstone, now usurped by servants and tutors, and that some day the souls of their neglected sons and daughters will be lost through their failure to exert proper care, and watchful guardianship? As I walk the streets of our cities the terrible truth becomes evident that parents have gone out after strange club-gods, and the pavements are the real nurseries of our boys and girls. America's most urgent national need is the revival of home life."

"In order to promote the system of reform you advocate in opposition to Mrs. Roscoe's darling scheme, has it never occurred to you that it might be wise to establish in the Executive Mansion a model household, for the imitation of our State where other experimental stations of various character seem to be educational?" asked Mrs. Van Allen.

The Governor bowed and laughed as he replied:

"Your rosy suggestion is so alluring that my utter inability to adopt it fills me with poignant regret. Instead of spending the past ten or twelve years in trying to hypnotize some sweet woman into the belief that I was worthy of her trust, I have unwisely devoted my entire energies to other and far less charming pursuits, until confirmed old bachelorship now absolutely bars the possibility of any change. Rest assured no sour grapes mar my vineyard, and the hopelessly unattainable is always invested with additional value. Knowing my defrauded bachelorhood seems inevitably unalterable—are you not needlessly cruel in dangling so tempting a pink sugar-plum beyond my grasp?"

"My dear child, don't soil your pretty fingers by stoning the prophets!" said the Bishop, patting the bare, plump arm of his near neighbor. "Armitage is right. He has diagnosed the social sarcoma that threatens our national vitals. Instead of purifying and exalting the moral code, the press, the politicians, even some of the clergy are ranting and howling Jeremiads over 'cannibal trusts,' and corrupt corporate and individual fortunes, and lashing Congress, State legislatures and even the Judiciary to institute a crusade of covetousness, to rob the rich in order that labor may hold its hands in idleness and batten on plunder. An American twentieth-century recrudescence of Jacquerie freebooters! Our youth must be trained in early years by parental precept and example to understand and to hold sacred the legal line of boundary between meum et tuum—and to obey God's law, 'Thou shalt not covet—anything that is thy neighbor's'; but will fathers and mothers perform a duty that may save this country from vicious wholesale spoliation?"

"Good heavens—my Right Reverend friend!" exclaimed Mrs. Churchill, "Have you no pity for fathers who must fly kites in stock exchange, and play poker at clubs, and bet on ball games? And where, oh, where, shall mothers find time for 'bridge' and golf, vaudeville and bargain counters?"

Bishop Roscoe shook a sprig of daphne at her smiling face, and looked gravely into her twinkling eyes.

"If, as a privileged guest, I have dared to violate conventional canons that govern 'table talk,' by obtruding ethics which certainly do not contribute curry, horse-radish and Tabasco to the conversational menu, I claim in extenuation of prandial heresy, the obvious fact that such charming people as surround me to-day are not always in their pews, to receive and assimilate the homiletic dose distributed once a week at the ecclesiastical dispensary. Please do not vote me a bore if——"

"Just one moment of parenthesis, Bishop," interrupted Mr. Churchill. "Possess your soul in patience. This wild craze of greedy, omnivorous, grudging 'Have Nots' is no new phase of that variety of original sin that claims something for nothing. Don't forget how long it has been since Thurlow's snarl: 'Corporations have neither a soul to lose, nor a body to kick.' Demagogues are persuading the disgruntled of all classes that they are now kicking the vile, corrupt body of corporations, but an inevitable reaction will be forced when it becomes evident that the kicks are aimed at the cornerstone of civic equity—the universal and inalienable right of every human being to the fruit of his labor, mental or manual—whether that fruit be dividends of the capitalists, or daily wages of miners, blacksmiths and ploughmen. This popular creed of wholesale confiscation which teaches 'Love thy neighbor's goods more than thy soul,' has reached its ultimatum in arranging even pre-natal conditions whereby all children shall be born equal—not mentally, not morally; oh, no! simply financially, in consequence of abolishing the right of unlimited inheritance. Don't worry. The wave is nearing its crest, and when it ebbs it will suck out as wreckage the political charlatans that hope to float into office."

Captain Winstead's handsome black eyes sparkled mischievously.

"Party politics are as unsuitable on this occasion as would be a shooting jacket worn at a Court function; but, Mrs. Churchill, I am sure you will forgive me if I dare ask one question: Is not your husband a Democrat?"

"Captain, your state of serene single blessedness is evidently the result of fright engendered by cartoon fables depicting the abject subjugation of husbands, by emancipated wives. Dismiss that termagant scarecrow, for behold! my undaunted, conjugal Czar speaks for himself."

"Am I a Democrat? You very well know I have always been one, and I am still clinging with grim, dogged fealty to the few precious fragments of genuinely orthodox democracy, that survive the blows of disloyal demagogic platform carpenters who raided recent national conventions. Americans of all parties need to remember that their first duty as citizens is allegiance to individual convictions of the morality of public policies, instead of the existing mischievous custom of servile submission to the ukase of committee and convention dictators. The time-honored party name, Democracy, is disgraced by the effort to make it mother a mongrel brood of socialists, whose wild antics and schemes of universal confiscation would cause Thomas Jefferson to gasp. If he could only leave his grave long enough to make one speech, he would stamp out the clubs profaning his revered name, and scourge the 'populistic' leaders—now strutting under the standard of his stolen mantle—as Christ emptied the polluted temple. The spectacle of the so-called 'Democracy' of to-day would so sicken his wise, honest, sturdy soul that, I verily believe, a spiritual somersault would land him close to Metternich's axiom: 'All for, not through, the people.' The constitutional basic, and virile principles of my dear old Party will weather this dusty whirlwind of popular delusion, stirred up by ravening socialist wolves, cloaked in Jeffersonian fleeces; and primitive, genuine, untainted democracy must come to its own once more."

"Yours is a rosy view, Mr. Churchill, but who will undo the mischief accomplished by American demagogues who are spurring the people into the pitch and sulphur pit of rank, Godless communism? What remedy will avail? Not schools, not colleges, not universities where athletics, 'higher criticism' and 'phonetic spelling' absorb attention to the exclusion of Christian ethics—now thrown aside as obsolete as the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. The decadent tendency of our people to habitually seek excitement and diversion at public places of amusement, has reduced the once attractive home to a mere economic residential combination of refectory, dormitory and station for laundry delivery. Interest in the outside world usurps domestic attachments, loosens family ties and that interdependence of the members of the hearthstone circle, that once made genuine, old-fashioned home life so potent a factor in developing well-balanced, wholesome character, both individual and national. It seems to me the dear old 'Home, Sweet Home' of other days is now sadly transformed into the nest of ennui and hysterical unrest, whence all must flee who determine to 'have a good time'——"

The Bishop's homily was cut short by a sharp cry in the hall, the patter of running steps,—and into the dining-room darted a red-haired child of six years, followed by a panting nurse, flushed and trembling, who held in one hand a discarded small slipper and silk sock.

Tiptoeing on his bare foot, the boy glanced swiftly around the circle, and sped to the chair where Miss Lindsay sat. With a gurgling laugh he threw himself against her, and pushing her chair slightly away from the table, she put one arm around and drew him close to her.

"Rex, go back with Bertha," said his mother, beckoning to the discomfited nurse who approached the table. Two little arms clung desperately, and the large blue eyes brimmed with tears, while a sweet, childish voice pleaded quaveringly:

"Oh, mamma, Miss 'Vota runs away before breakfast, and I must stay with her! I'm so afraid of that awful sea—and Jonah's whale and the Devil's fish—and slimy, pollywog, wriggling things that may catch her—and please, mamma darling, you know she's just my very onliest sweetheart!"

Devota leaned forward, and with the assistance of Captain Winstead lifted the boy to her lap.

"Mrs. Churchill, please let me keep him. He comes in with the other sweets, and I beg for him as my one special bonbon. Be gracious to me, will you not? I stand sponsor for his being 'seen and not heard.'"

Mrs. Churchill flushed, but instantly the Bishop raised his hand.

"Governor, veto that maternal sentence of banishment."

Governor Armitage smiled.

"This is the first time I have ever regretted the limitations of my veto prerogative, but in recognition of Rex's indubitable taste in selection of his 'onliest sweetheart,' I ask the privilege of signing Miss Lindsay's petition for retention of her loyal lover."

A tender light shone in his eloquent grey eyes, but they were fixed on the pretty boy's ruddy locks, rather than the golden head bending against his long curls.

Mrs. Churchill motioned to the nurse to withdraw, and her lips twitched as she replied:

"Can your Excellency, and your Reverence, magnanimously ignore the vivid object lesson, so unexpectedly illustrative of your lectures on neglected parental discipline? My young rebel would certainly prefer your inconsistent leniency to my exacting domestic code. In honor of your pet theory—that, like other distinguished doctrinaires, you both decline to practise—I must ask you all to drink a toast once offered by a cynical wit when dining at a table, which was similarly invaded by marauders from the host's nursery. I propose to drink to 'King Herod.'"

She lifted her wine glass, but each guest laid a hand over theirs, and in the midst of a chorus of protests the butler approached the Governor and held out a salver on which lay two telegrams.

"If you please, sir, Mr. Walton says he thinks, sir, you must see these at once."

Pushing aside his untasted pink ice, Governor Armitage took the yellow envelopes, rose, bowed to his hostess, and said:

"Pardon my unceremonious desertion."

As he walked away, Mr. Churchill called to him:

"Come back to us for coffee and cigars. We shall wait for you."

He shook his head.

"Thank you; no. I will join you later."

As the ladies withdrew to the drawing-room, Mrs. Churchill paused at the foot of the stairway, where the sullen nurse lingered.

"Go on, Bertha, and get Rex's bath ready. Miss Lindsay will take him with her, as she wishes to see Grace and Otto."

Turning to Devota, whose arm encircled the boy's shoulder, she looked steadily at both.

"Mrs. Churchill, you must do me the favor to set my fears at rest about Rex. Promise me he shall have no reason to regret that he proved himself my brave and loyal lover. Recollect I encouraged his rebellion."

The mother twined over one finger a red silk curl, and shook her free hand warningly.

"You both deserve a sound, old-fashioned, hearty spanking, and I make no rash promises; but as the pair of you seem equally culpable, I might be embarrassed in administering justice. Good night, Rex. No, naughty boys cannot kiss their mothers. Don't forget your prayers, you need them. Now, Miss Devota, do not let my pretty imps, my tawny cub triad keep you too long. Perhaps Providence is aiding your mission by calling the Governor to the library. Better watch his door from the side hall. Good luck to you, dear, when you beard the lion!"