Margaret in mauve velvet and violets, and Gertrude in a frock of smart black and white were in the act of meeting by appointment at Sherry’s one December afternoon, with a comfortable cup of tea in mind. Gertrude emerged from the recess of the revolving door and Margaret, sitting eagerly by the entrance, almost upset the attendant in her rush to her friend’s side.

“Oh! Gertrude,” she cried, “I’m so glad to see you. My family is trying to cut me up in neat little quarters and send me north, south, east and west, for the Christmas holidays, and I want to stay home and have Eleanor. How did I ever come to be born into a family of giants, tell me that, Gertrude?”

“The choice of parents is thrust upon us at an unfortunately immature period, I’ll admit,” Gertrude laughed. “My parents are dears, but they’ve never forgiven me for being an artist instead of 168 a dubby bud. Shall we have tea right away or shall we sit down and discuss life?”

“Both,” Margaret said. “I don’t know which is the hungrier—flesh or spirit.”

But as they turned toward the dining-room a familiar figure blocked their progress.

“I thought that was Gertrude’s insatiable hat,” David exclaimed delightedly. “I’ve phoned for you both until your families have given instructions that I’m not to be indulged any more. I’ve got a surprise for you.—Taxi,” he said to the man at the door.

“Not till we’ve had our tea,” Margaret wailed. “You couldn’t be so cruel, David.”

“You shall have your tea, my dear, and one of the happiest surprises of your life into the bargain,” David assured her as he led the way to the waiting cab.

“I wouldn’t leave this place unfed for anybody but you, David, not if it were ever so, and then some, as Jimmie says.”

“What’s the matter with Jimmie, anyhow?” David inquired as the taxi turned down the Avenue and immediately entangled itself in a hopeless mesh of traffic. 169

“I don’t know; why?” Gertrude answered, though she had not been the one addressed at the moment. “What’s the matter with this hat?” she rattled on without waiting for an answer. “I thought it was good-looking myself, and Madam Paran robbed me for it.”

“It is good-looking,” David allowed. “It seems to be a kind of retrieving hat, that’s all. Keeps you in a rather constant state of looking after the game.”

“What about my hat, David?” Margaret inquired anxiously. “Do you like that?”

“I do,” David admitted. “I’m crazy about it. It’s a lovely cross between the style affected by the late Emperor Napoleon and my august grandmother, with some frills added.”

The chauffeur turned into a cross street and stopped abruptly before an imposing but apparently unguarded entrance.

“Why, I thought this was a studio building,” Gertrude said. “David, if you’re springing a tea party on us, and we in the wild ungovernable state we are at present, I’ll shoot the way my hat is pointing.”

“Straight through my left eye-glass,” David 170 finished. “You wait till you see the injustice you have done me.”

But Margaret, who often understood what was happening a few moments before the revelation of it, clutched at his elbow.

“Oh! David, David,” she whispered, “how wonderful!”

“Wait till you see,” David said, and herded them into the elevator.

Their destination was the top floor but one. David hurried them around the bend in the sleekly carpeted corridor and touched the bell on the right of the first door they came to. It opened almost instantly and David’s man, who was French, stood bowing and smiling on the threshold.

“Mr. Styvvisont has arrive’,” he said; “he waits you.”

“Welcome to our city,” Peter cried, appearing in the doorway of the room Alphonse was indicating with that high gesture of delight with which only a Frenchman can lead the way. “Jimmie’s coming up from the office and Beulah’s due any minute. What do you think of the place, girls?”

“Is it really yours, David?” 171

“Surest thing you know.” He grinned like a schoolboy. “It’s really ours, that’s what it is. I’ve broken away from the mater at last,” he added a little sheepishly. “I’m going to work seriously. I’ve got an all-day desk job in my uncle’s office and I’m going to dig in and see what I can make of myself. Also, this is going to be our headquarters, and Eleanor’s permanent home if we’re all agreed upon it,—but look around, ladies. Don’t spare my blushes. If you think I can interior decorate, just tell me so frankly. This is the living-room.”

“It’s like that old conundrum—black and white and red all over,” Gertrude said. “I never saw anything so stunning in all my life.”

“Gosh! I admire your nerve,” Peter cried, “papering this place in white, and then getting in all this heavy carved black stuff, and the red in the tapestries and screens and pillows.”

“I wanted it to look studioish a little,” David explained, “I wanted to get away from Louis Quartorze.”

“And drawing-rooms like mother used to make,” Gertrude suggested. “I like your Oriental touches. Do you see, Margaret, everything is Indian or 172 Chinese? The ubiquitous Japanese print is conspicuous by its absence.”

“I’ve got two portfolios full of ’em,” David said, “and I always have one or two up in the bedrooms. I change ’em around, you know, the way the Japs do themselves, a different scene every few days and the rest decently out of sight till you’re ready for ’em.”

“It’s like a fairy story,” Margaret said.

“I thought you’d appreciate what little Arabian Nights I was able to introduce. I bought that screen,” he indicated a sweep of Chinese line and color, “with my eye on you, and that Aladdin’s lamp is yours, of course. You’re to come in here and rub it whenever you like, and your heart’s desire will instantly be vouchsafed to you.”

“What will Eleanor say?” Peter suggested, as David led the way through the corridor and up the tiny stairs which led to the more intricate part of the establishment. “This is her room, didn’t you say, David?” He paused on the threshold of a bedroom done in ivory white and yellow, with all its hangings of a soft golden silk.

“She once said that she wanted a yellow room,” David said, “a daffy-down-dilly room, and I’ve 173 tried to get her one. I know last year that Maggie Lou child refused to have yellow curtains in that flatiron shaped sitting-room of theirs, and Eleanor refused to be comforted.”

A wild whoop in the below stairs announced Jimmie; and Beulah arrived simultaneously with the tea tray. Jimmie was ecstatic when the actual function of the place was explained to him.

“Headquarters is the one thing we’ve lacked,” he said; “a place of our own, hully gee! It makes me feel almost human again.”

“You haven’t been feeling altogether human lately, have you, Jimmie?” Margaret asked over her tea cup.

“No, dear, I haven’t.” Jimmie flashed her a grateful smile. “I’m a bad egg,” he explained to her darkly, “and the only thing you can do with me is to scramble me.”

“Scrambled is just about the way I should have described your behavior of late,—but that’s Gertrude’s line,” David said. “Only she doesn’t seem to be taking an active part in the conversation. Aren’t you Jimmie’s keeper any more, Gertrude?”

“Not since she’s come back from abroad,” Jimmie muttered without looking at her. 174

“Eleanor’s taken the job over now,” Peter said. “She’s made him swear off red ink and red neckties.”

“Any color so long’s it’s red is the color that suits me best,” Jimmie quoted. “Lord, isn’t this room a pippin?” He swam in among the bright pillows of the divan and so hid his face for a moment. It had been a good many weeks since he had seen Gertrude.

“I want to give a suffrage tea here,” Beulah broke in suddenly. “It’s so central, but I don’t suppose David would hear of it.”

“Angels and Ministers of Grace defend us—” Peter began.

“My mother would hear of it,” David said, “and then there wouldn’t be any little studio any more. She doesn’t believe in votes for women.”

“How any woman in this day and age—” Beulah began, and thought better of it, since she was discussing Mrs. Bolling.

“Makes your blood boil, doesn’t it—Beulahland?” Gertrude suggested helpfully, reaching for the tea cakes. “Never mind, I’ll vote for women. I’ll march in your old peerade.”

“The Lord helps those that help themselves,” 175 Peter said, “that’s why Gertrude is a suffragist. She believes in helping herself, in every sense, don’t you, ’Trude?”

“Not quite in every sense,” Gertrude said gravely. “Sometimes I feel like that girl that Margaret describes as caught in a horrid way between two generations. I’m neither old-fashioned nor modern.”

“I’d rather be that way than early Victorian,” Margaret sighed.

“Speaking of the latest generation, has anybody any objection to having our child here for the holidays?” David asked. “My idea is to have one grand Christmas dinner. I suppose we’ll all have to eat one meal with our respective families, but can’t we manage to get together here for dinner at night? Don’t you think that we could?”

“We can’t, but we will,” Margaret murmured. “Of course, have Eleanor here. I wanted her with me but the family thought otherwise. They’ve been trying to send me away for my health, David.”

“Well, they shan’t. You’ll stay in New York for your health and come to my party.”

“Margaret’s health is merely a matter of Margaret’s 176 happiness anyhow. Her soul and her body are all one,” Gertrude said.

“Then cursed be he who brings anything but happiness to Margaret,” Peter said, to which sentiment David added a solemn “Amen.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Margaret said, shivering a little, “I feel as if some one were—were—”

“Trampling the violets on your grave,” Gertrude finished for her.

Christmas that year fell on a Monday, and Eleanor did not leave school till the Friday before the great day. Owing to the exigencies of the holiday season none of her guardians came to see her before the dinner party itself. Even David was busy with his mother—installed now for a few weeks in the hotel suite that would be her home until the opening of the season at Palm Beach—and had only a few hurried words with her. Mademoiselle, whom he had imported for the occasion, met her at the station and helped her to do her modest shopping which consisted chiefly of gifts for her beloved aunts and uncles. She had arranged these things lovingly at their plates, and fled to dress when they began to assemble for 177 the celebration. The girls were the first arrivals. Then Peter.

“How’s our child, David?” Gertrude asked. “I had a few minutes’ talk with her over the telephone and she seemed to be flourishing.”

“She is,” David answered. “She’s grown several feet since we last saw her. They’ve been giving scenes from Shakespeare at school and she’s been playing Juliet, it appears. She has had a fight with another girl about suffrage—I don’t know which side she was on, Beulah, I am merely giving you the facts as they came to me—and the other girl was so unpleasant about it that she has been visited by just retribution in the form of the mumps, and had to be sent home and quarantined.”

“Sounds a bit priggish,” Peter suggested.

“Not really,” David said, “she’s as sound as a nut. She’s only going through the different stages.”

“To pass deliberately through one’s ages,” Beulah quoted, “is to get the heart out of a liberal education.”

“Bravo, Beulah,” Gertrude cried, “you’re quite in your old form to-night.” 178

“Is she just the same little girl, David?” Margaret asked.

“Just the same. She really seems younger than ever. I don’t know why she doesn’t come down. There she is, I guess. No, it’s only Alphonse letting in Jimmie.”

Jimmie, whose spirits seemed to have revived under the holiday influence, was staggering under the weight of his parcels. The Christmas presents had already accumulated to a considerable mound on the couch. Margaret was brooding over them and trying not to look greedy. She was still very much of a child herself in relation to Santa Claus.

“Merry Christmas!” Jimmie cried. “Where’s my child?”

“Coming,” David said.

“Look at the candy kids. My eyes—but you’re a slick trio, girls. Pale lavender, pale blue, and pale pink, and all quite sophisticatedly dÉcolletÉ. You go with the decorations, too. I don’t know quite why you do, but you do.”

“Give honor where honor is due, dearie. That’s owing to the cleverness of the decorator,” David said. 179

“No man calls me dearie and lives to tell the tale,” Jimmie remarked almost dreamily as he squared off. “How’ll you have it, Dave?”

But at that instant there was an unexpected interruption. Alphonse threw open the big entrance door at the farther end of the long room with a flourish.

“Mademoiselle Juliet Capulet,” he proclaimed with the grand air, and then retired behind his hand, smiling broadly.

Framed in the high doorway, complete, cap and curls, softly rounding bodice, and the long, straight lines of the Renaissance, stood Juliet—Juliet, immemorial, immortal, young—austerely innocent and delicately shy, already beautiful, and yet potential of all the beauty and the wisdom of the world.

“I’ve never worn these clothes before anybody but the girls before,” Eleanor said, “but I thought”—she looked about her appealingly—“you might like it—for a surprise.”

“Great jumping Jehoshaphat,” Jimmie exclaimed, “I thought you said she was the same little girl, David.”

“She was half an hour ago,” David answered, 180 “I never saw such a metamorphosis. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw Juliet before.”

“She is the thing itself,” Gertrude answered, the artist in her sobered by the vision.

But Peter passed a dazed hand over his eyes and stared at the delicate figure advancing to him.

“My God! she’s a woman,” he said, and drew the hard breath of a man just awakened from sleep.