"I am awfully sorry that you took the trouble of coming all the way up here," I told her. "I am afraid that the colored maid is little accustomed to social usages. There is a little parlor downstairs."

"Oh! It's all right, Mr. Cole. I asked for you and she just pointed up with her thumb and said 'Top floor,' so I climbed up."

She took a step towards Frances, extending her hand.

"I know I have seen you before," she said pleasantly, "but I can't for the moment remember where we met."

"I think, Miss Van Rossum, that you have only been acquainted with Mrs. Dupont through the medium of my friend Gordon's talent. You may remember a 'Mother and Child' in his studio."

"Of course. I remembered the face at once. Gordon is such a wonderful painter, so clever in obtaining the most marvelous likenesses. And—and he didn't flatter his models a great deal, either. I am very glad to meet you, Mrs. Dupont."

Frances smiled, in her graceful way, and expressed her own pleasure.

"You—you also know Gordon, of course, since you posed for him, Mrs. Dupont. I—I came here to speak with Mr. Cole about him."

"I can hardly offer you the hospitality of my room, Miss Van Rossum," I told her. "It is a rather disorderly bachelor's den. If you will allow me to lead you downstairs to the little parlor the landlady provides her guests with, I shall be delighted to——"

"No, if you don't mind, I shall remain here for a moment. Mr. Cole, you are Gordon's best friend; he used to say that you were the great exception, a man one could always trust in everything. I hope Mrs. Dupont will not mind, she—she is a woman and may be able to advise me. I have legions of friends—we know thousands of people, but it doesn't seem to me that there is another soul to whom I may come for—for a little——"

She interrupted her words. I had pushed a chair forward for her and she acknowledged the offer with a smile, but did not avail herself of it at once, for she went to the bed where Baby Paul was, for a wonder, lying awake and rolling his eyes about. On his face, however, there was something that Frances and I considered a polite little grin.

"Is this the dear baby of the picture?" she asked. "He has grown such a lot. What a dear lamb of a child it is! Oh! Mrs. Dupont, how proud and happy a woman must be to be the mother of such a darling!"

Decidedly Miss Sophia was revealing herself in a very fine light. For all of her riding astride after hounds, and her golfing and shooting and tennis, she was a very real woman and her heart was in the right place. Frances took up Baby Paul and sat down with him on her lap, where he promptly went to sleep again.

"I remember how Gordon spoke of you, several times, Mrs. Dupont," said Miss Van Rossum. "He said a queer thing, once, one of the strange little sentences he always used to bring out. I was looking at your picture and told him it represented a very beautiful woman, and he answered that she was one of those ideals the other fellow always gets hold of. But—but I don't see that there was anything very ideal about that painting. It was just you."

For a moment Frances looked away. The phrase reminded her of an unhappy circumstance, I have no doubt, but, to me, it represented cynicism carried to an unpermissible length.

"But I must come to the point," continued Miss Van Rossum, with a slight frown, which I deemed an indication that she had something rather difficult to say. "Of course you've been wondering at my coming here. I know it's a bit unconventional, but I didn't want to write and ask you to come and see me. We have only just returned from California and are off to Southampton in the morning. I—I simply felt that I must take my chance of finding you at home. I told you a minute ago that Gordon always said you were a man to be trusted to the utmost, and—and I want to find out something about him. Please, Mr. Cole, have you any news of him?"

"I have received but one very short letter," I replied. "I will go and get it for you."

I think I was glad to escape for a moment and leave her with Frances, for I foresaw a long cross-examination. She had looked very brave and strong at the moment of her amazing arrival, and I had wondered at such an unusual proceeding. But now I realized that she was very profoundly disturbed, that her show of pluck was but a veil to cover a heart which could suffer the same pains as gnaw at the breasts of so many of her sisters of humbler station. Gordon, old friend, I fear I shall never quite forgive you! You have done vivisection without the excuse of scientific need, without the slightest idea that it could profit any one but yourself!

I found the note, but did not return immediately. I asked myself how much she knew, seeing that there were many possibilities of inflicting further pain on a very fine young woman who was already undergoing unmerited punishment. Finally, I went back, slowly, to find her sitting in front of Frances, with their two heads quite near one another and their eyes directed to Baby Paul's little pink mouth.

"I have it here. Miss Van Rossum. You will see that it is quite short. He must be tremendously busy and surely snatched a precious moment for a word to an old friend."

I handed her the letter, in an envelope that had been opened by the censor and pasted over with a bit of thin paper. She took it with a very steady hand.

The girl was engaged in playing a game, I could plainly see. It was one in which her heart was involved and perhaps her pride somewhat aroused. She opened the thing and looked over the brief sentences.

"Dear old Dave:

"Found a lot of fellows I knew. Didn't have a bit of trouble getting in. I'm going to drive one of those cars I wouldn't have been found dead in, in old New York. They tell me they do very well as ambulances, though. I'm close to the front now and have seen a good deal of the crop being garnered there. It makes a fellow feel that he doesn't amount to much. There isn't any harrowing of one's own mind that can last very long in the presence of this real and awful suffering.

"Ever your old Gordon.

"P.S. Give my love to Frieda."

Miss Van Rossum read it over at least twice. Then her eyes slowly rose from the page and, perhaps, without seeing very clearly, swept over Frances and me. She folded it and replaced it in the envelope, very carefully, before handing it back.

"I—I have no doubt that it has greatly appealed to him," she said, now vaguely looking out of the window into yards chiefly adorned with fluttering raiment dependent from a very spider's web of intricate lines. "It—it was a sporting thing to do, you know, very manly and fine. But he also wrote to me and—I have never been able to understand. Of course I wouldn't have interfered with—with a plan like that. I have only wished I could have gone over and done something too—something that would count and make one feel that she could be of some use in the world. Yes—it's a big thing he's done—but why did he write me such a letter?"

She opened a small bag she had been carrying and pulled out a missive that bore my friend's monogram, a very plain G.M. cleverly interlaced.

"Won't you please look at it, Mr. Cole? I got it the day we left Florida. I—I was rather bunkered at first, you know."

I took it from her, doubtless displaying far more nervousness than she was showing, for she appeared to be quite calm. I saw that she had taken the blow as Frieda's pugilistic friend might have accepted what he calls a wallop, with a brave smile, after the first wince. I also read it over twice.

"My dear Sophia:

"It's rather hard on a fellow to be compelled to acknowledge he's anything but a decent sportsman. I'm afraid I shall have to. In your kindness you may, perhaps, forgive me. I have made a bad mess of things. I wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't hitting you also, because you're a good pal and a splendid girl who deserves a better chap. I'm off abroad to play chauffeur to the cripples, and, of course, there is no telling when I'll be back.

"I hope to God you will find some decent fellow who really deserves you and will make you happy.

"Affectionately,

"Gordon."

After I had finished this horrible and clumsy message, I looked at Miss Van Rossum. There was something very wistful and strong in the glance that rested upon me. I had no doubt that she had been studying my face, as I read, and watching the impression made on me. Of course, he had been greatly agitated when he wrote. I felt sure that he must have torn up one letter after another and finally sent the worst of all. It had dwindled into a few lines, which explained nothing, being merely brutal and final, like a knockout blow. He had made a mess of things, forsooth! Well, the reading of such a letter might have made one think that he had robbed a bank or cheated at cards!

"You see, Mr. Cole, it doesn't say much, does it? I just had to tell my mother that Gordon had felt called upon to go off and—and do a big thing, and that of course the—the whole thing was put off indefinitely. I—I don't think she was disappointed. Of course, they had allowed me to have my own way, and they liked Gordon very well, but they had a notion that in our own circle—But, of course, that's neither here nor there. Naturally, I knew at once that Gordon could never have done anything really wrong. He's a very true and genuine man, in his way, and incapable of—of a nasty action. So I just had to suppose that perhaps some other woman had come into his life and that he didn't love me any more. And he—he was never very demonstrative, you know; it wasn't his way. But he had always been such a good friend, and so wonderfully clever, and—But of course, you know all that. His letter to you, I think, gives me what they call a clue. He—he sends his love to—to somebody I don't know. Of course I'm not going to ask—I really only came to know whether there was anything I could do. I wondered whether there was, perhaps, some money trouble, or something like that, and I'd have been so glad to—to help out. You were his best friend and could have told me how to manage it, but now I see——"

She interrupted her words, rising from the chair I had offered her and looking very handsome and, I must say, dignified.

"I wouldn't have troubled you, you know, but I have been all at sea. It—it has been rather tough, because Gordon is a man whom a woman could love very deeply—at any rate I never realized how I felt towards him, until I had gone away and then received this letter."

I had been listening, looking into her fine, clear, blue eyes, which honestly and truly, with the frankness and candor of the child or the chaste woman, had expressed the love that had been in her heart and, perhaps, lingered there still. So intent had I been upon her words that I had failed to hear adventitious sounds. Frances, also, with her hand pressed to her bosom, showed eyes dimmed by gathering tears. She had risen with the impulse to go forward and press this suffering woman to her heart. I was about to explain the message of love in Gordon's postscript, when there was a wheezing at the door, which had been left open.

Fat and beaming, with her most terrible hat and a smudge of yellow ochre on her chin, Frieda came in.

"Beg your pardon," she panted. "It's getting real warm and the stairs are becoming steeper every day. How's the angel lamb?"

"Miss Van Rossum," I said, "let me introduce our excellent friend Miss Frieda Long. Every one who knows her loves her. She's the next best painter to Gordon in this burg, or any other, and a second mother to Baby Paul."

Miss Sophia stared at her for an instant. Then, came a little smile in which there was relief and comprehension. She advanced with arm outstretched, and Frieda went right up to her.

"My dear," said the latter, "our dear old Dave and Gordon have told us enough about you to make me feel glad indeed to know you. I saw that portrait of yours and it didn't flatter you a bit, in fact, it seems to me that it missed something of your expression. But it was mighty good, just the same, like everything he ever did."

She backed off as far as the bed, on which she sat down, fanning herself violently with a newspaper. An instant later she rushed to Frances, took up the baby with the usual robust delicacy she always shows in that process, and began to ask news relating to important developments in dentition.

Miss Sophia observed her. I saw that some ray of gladness had entered her heart since a terrible question appeared to be settled satisfactorily. To her tall and graceful womanhood the idea that our darling, pudgy Frieda, with her crow's feet, from much staring through her spectacles, with that fright of a hat, could for a second have been mistaken for a rival was nothing less than amusing.

"Well, Mr. Cole, I think I will have to be going now," she said. "I—I am glad—oh, I mean that I hope you will be so kind as to let me know whether you get any further news. I shall always have a deep interest in Gordon's welfare. Letters would reach me at Southampton, all summer. Good-by, Mrs. Dupont, I am delighted to have had the pleasure of meeting you. Mrs.—I mean Miss Frieda, I hope you will be so kind as to let me see your pictures, some day. I remember now that Gordon showed me one of them at the winter exhibition. I wanted to buy it, but somebody had already snapped it up, of course, because it was so lovely. No, Mr. Cole, please don't take the trouble."

She had shaken hands with my two friends and insisted on kissing the baby, who appreciated the attention by crowing at her.

I followed her out in spite of her request.

"You must permit me to see you to the door, Miss Van Rossum," I said, "it is the least I can do. I will surely let you know, if I hear anything."

She nodded, very pleasantly, and went down the distressing stair-carpet with the ease of her perfect physical training. At the door there was a big brute of a sixty horsepower runabout and a chauffeur, who swiftly cast aside a half-consumed cigarette and stood at attention. She stopped on the stoop and turned to me.

"I—I don't think I know any more than when I came," she said, rather haltingly. "There—there wasn't anything wrong, was there, Mr. Cole?"

"My dear young lady, I am proud to say that Gordon is incapable of doing anything that would infringe the laws. But he certainly has done an evil thing, for he has treated you very brutally, and I will never forgive him. He has failed to appreciate—to understand. If he has discovered that his heart—that he was incapable of giving you the strongest and most genuine love, it is his misfortune and—I am afraid, perhaps yours, and he did well to go away. But he should have been more considerate, he ought to have explained things in person instead of——"

"But you must remember that I was in Florida, Mr. Cole," she interrupted.

"Then he should have taken the first train and joined you there. A man has no business to shirk a duty," I said indignantly.

"Oh! Mr. Cole! You must remember that Gordon isn't—isn't a man quite like others. He has the quick and impulsive temperament of so many artistic people."

"He always pretends to be so cool and to act only after the most mature deliberation," I objected.

"True enough, but then, you know, that sort of thing is often rather a pose. I suppose that none of us is quite free from a little pretense, under which the true man or woman shows."

"I am glad indeed to hear you take his part," I told her, "and I hope he will do some fine manly things over there and return in his right mind, with his eyes open to—to what he has been so foolish as to——"

"I know that he will give the best of himself, Mr. Cole," she put in. "Gordon is a first rate sportsman, and that means a man who will play the game, strongly and honestly, without taking the slightest advantage. And perhaps——"

"My dear lady, I know a good woman who burns candles when she wants anything badly, and prays before the Virgin. I shall get her to exert her good offices in our behalf. I'd give anything to know that everything will turn out as I heartily wish it may, for both your sakes. In you, I know that he has found all that a man may wish and long for in the world, and yet has failed to appreciate his good fortune."

She put her gloved hand in mine.

"Thank you," she said simply. "I—I'll wait, a long time."

She went down the steps and entered the machine, sitting before the big wheel, strongly aslant and grooved to give a strong grip. The chauffeur jiggled something, whereat the great beast began to hum. She nodded again to me and started without the slightest jerk. Evidently she drove better than Gordon. She turned the nose of the thing around till the front wheels were an eighth of an inch from the sidewalk, backed again in circular fashion, and swept off towards the avenue. Sixty horses, I reflected, could lie obediently in the hollow of her hand, but just one man, who should have thanked Heaven upon his knees, had squirmed away like an arrant fool.

I went up the stairs, slowly, chewing upon the fact that I had given her no inkling of how matters really stood. But, in deference to the feelings of Frances, it had been impossible for me to do so, especially since she was no longer an element in the case. Gordon had given up all hope of her and run away, so that this closed one part of the incident. Then, if I had told Miss Van Rossum of Gordon's proposal to Frances, it would have made her very unhappy and she might possibly have blamed the model. Women, the very best and dearest of them, are sometimes not quite fair to their own sex.

Yes, it was a matter that belonged to Frances and Gordon, and I had no right to be a bearer of tales, so that Miss Van Rossum is unaware that Gordon went away for love of another woman. I hope she never hears of it. Should anything happen to him, while driving his ambulance at the front, she will be able to maintain a high regard for his memory. As the months pass on, her feelings may become easier to bear. I wish she could meet and become fond of some fine fellow, who would recognize what a splendid woman she is and adore her ever after. I feel that she deserves it.

When I returned upstairs, I found my two friends discussing Miss Van Rossum, together with her nose and complexion and other appurtenances, including her dress. Their criticisms were highly flattering, I remember. Our stout friend soon left, having merely come in for her daily inspection of Baby Paul.

"Now, David," said Frances, "I must say that I feel more unhappy than ever over Mr. McGrath's conduct. It was abominable of him to jilt that girl, let alone proposing to me. She's a perfectly lovely woman."

"I am disposed to agree with you, Frances. His conduct is inexcusable. At the same time, I cannot blame him for falling in love with you. Any properly constituted man would do that without the slightest difficulty. I myself——"

"Please be serious, David," she interrupted.

"I was never more serious in my life," I assured her, "but—but tell me how you are getting on with the singing."

"I really think I am doing very well," she told me. "Listen, I will sing you a little thing. Baby likes it ever so much."

She sat right down to the piano, beginning at once without the slightest hesitation. It was the lullaby from Mignon. I remember hearing PlanÇon sing it once; it is a beautiful thing. Frances didn't put all her force in it, the whole strength of her voice, of course, but so much tender sentiment and such sweet understanding that the melody held me in thrall and made me close my eyes. What a fool I have been ever to have thought that a woman holding such a treasure would perhaps bestow herself, some day, upon an insignificant writer!